Ep 188 - What’s Holding Electricpreneurs Back Today

Hello, hello and welcome back. It's another fantastic Monday on Electricpreneur Secrets podcast For electricians. Only Joe did you know that.

Yeah, for electricians, by electricians. It's written on the business card.

I'm your host, clay Newmeyer. With me, as always, my esteemed co-host Joseph the Salesbot, luke Anney, we're showing up with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. Did I mention? It's electricians only?

I think we should double down on that again. This is for electricians. You can skip if you're not.

For electricians by electricians. That was the big movement, although I do get the impression that there's some others listening. Joe, you ever get that impression. Is there any HVC plumbers with us today?

And if they are, they're welcome to join.

They are, but this is strategic advice for electricians only. So do not be surprised if we don't talk about swapping capacitors, because I just don't think it's that important today.

You're completely accurate in that situation, my friend. If we could just speak on the why it's that we're welcome to be here, whether you're an electrician or not. After spending so many years feeling like we're the red-headed stepchild of the trade where, yeah, it works for HVC and plumbing, oh, and you can, electricians can do this too. We wanted to create something that electricians could say no, this is meant for us, oh, but you could use it too. Just feels nice to be able to finally be able to turn it around.

You know what? I can't wait to dig deeper on that, and I feel that way every week. It's like we just keep digging a little bit deeper on strategies specific for electricians and how they can make the best of themselves and their business. I mean, last week we literally made a 75-hard challenge essential 75 essential hard challenge for electricians. But anyone could do it and just strategically using the things we noticed, that really helped launch both you and I in our careers. How's that going? Are you resetting on that one, joe?

I love it. Yeah, I made today my start day. I had a wedding to go to this weekend and was pretty much in survival not in the I want to dig into it but today was the first day I started the challenge and I am so glad that I did it. Can I give you a quick sneak peek into what it was like? Absolutely All right. I set my alarm earlier. I woke up this morning at 4.45. And for those of you that are like wow, that's impossible, it was like no. I set my shock watch to 100% so I was getting up. Whether I wanted to or not, I ended up getting up, had my moment, had spent the morning in gratitude, spent the morning in prayer. I was really grateful for what I had in my life. I felt like I started the day right, went downstairs, had a good workout, threw on the weighted vest, really got a bunch of sets in, found out because I woke up so early and I was already ready and focused. I actually started logging in and getting work done before the girls even woke up, so I made my evening that much freer. So by the time the girls actually did come down, I had done work that I would have had to do in the evening. I had worked out which would have had either not been done or done in the evening. My day was in gratitude and starting. It was just the best start of the day, even though I know it started earlier. I'm going to be more likely to fall asleep earlier too, because I started up early, which means that tomorrow is set up for success as well.

Totally, man, I can dig it. In fact, I myself was preparing last night for my day today, laying out my clothes. I can honestly say I find more joy in choosing what I'm wearing today, even though it looks like we wear the same thing every day. There's a different colored shirt, underneath there's different pants, perhaps a different belt each day. I do find more joy in it the night before than I do in the morning, when I'm groggy, tired and feeling like I'm already against the clock.

Oh, yeah, and the decision-making is no joke. Honestly, have you ever tried picking out a lunch at 5.30 in the morning and you're like I just throw in whatever I have compared to the night before, saying what am I actually going to eat? Yeah, I'm not going to get something. That's quick and easy. What do I want to make? Oh, I want to make this good. So then, when you get the next morning and noon comes and you've got a foot-long sub that you made compared to a PB and J, you're like, yeah, this is getting me through the day 100%, man.

In fact I was going to say the quick and easy so many times took over for me, where it's like decision fatigue at the fridge, just like you know what, I'm not even getting breakfast here. I'm going to Subway, I'm going to get my egg bacon wrap and then I'm also going to grab a foot-long meatball sub for the day. Choke through that by noon, right, and then go home with nothing prepared again, and it just kind of was a bit of a doom cycle that I would just keep repeating over and over and over in my field working life for sure.

Yeah, I'm really excited to have the opportunity to that and, if nothing else, I just feel like the day was better today. Like I always say, it's a great day, I have a great day and I do believe that. But I felt that we put our money where our mouth was and said you know what, let's get up and get it this morning, and I'm glad that I did.

Is it fair for me to ask did I see you in a kilt this weekend? Oh God.

Yes, yes, you did. I was a groomsman in my sister's wedding and their requirement was full Scottish garb, down to everything. So, yeah, I was fantastic.

We don't need to go right into it, man, but you look good. I saw the picture of the family Love that you sent that over. That was incredible. I thought you looked great. So, without further ado though, let's jump into this topic. What's holding electric panniers back today? And really we could go on all week about the various things that are in the way, but I wanted to start today with something that I personally battled and I know that you had your own battles with this too and it's this idea of just putting ourselves out there. Even that first step can just feel like a knife, or like you've got to jump over the impossible gap in a raging river with a waterfall just 10 feet to your left. If that makes sense, Please jump in.

I have a good analogy that might make sense for this Perfect. I specifically remember how I felt when I wanted the thought of going to the door and knock on it. So guys picture yourselves getting ready to go to a cold knock on the door. Personally, that feeling for me was as if I was carrying a backpack full of cinder blocks. I knew it was heavy, so heavy to the point to where I could feel it in the pit of my stomach and the bottoms of my feet, and the thought of just taking one step forward was like I had a 300 to 400 pound weight on my back and I was frozen and indecision and the fear of what would have happened in all the conversations and all the nuances from when they opened that door, that I literally would be frozen to the point of not taking the step.

Unreal and all attached to the fear of the outcome of rejection yeah.

Just a simple one, oh yeah 100%.

I honestly can tell you I've faced this maybe as one of the worst. I don't know how it could get worse than how I felt about it Like I used to shake, and if you've ever done cold calling or phone sales training at all, then there's an expression for that too. The phone becomes the heaviest thing in the world. Just like you said, it's like trying to bring a cinder block up to your ear and you're just wondering what to say. And even when we start the podcast, every time still, even though we're 188 episodes in of giving free value away, tons of people giving tons of feedback, there's still a deep breath moment every time and I wonder, ok, am I going to do this right? Am I going to say the intro right? Am I going to mess it up? Today it still happens, joe Amen. There was a period of time, though, where it was debilitating, and it's really interesting to look into this because, as we've heard many mentors professionals say that fear and the excitement to do things can kind of have some similar traits. Your heart races, maybe, your hands are sweating, you're excited, but you also may be terrified of this moment.

You know what yeah?

Go ahead, Speak to it if you want buddy, I didn't mean to interrupt.

I was going to say I started tricking myself into thinking that fear was a good thing, and I really feel like that was the turning point for me, because, you're right, fear and excitement feel the same in a lot of ways. So what I started trying to do is say all right, you've recognized that all these previous situations where you felt this feeling and you did the thing always made you feel better, like as a kid. The feeling I had was going to the high dive, climbing the 10 foot ladder, and I specifically remember walking across, and that heavy feeling walking across was the same feeling I would get walking to the door yes, that scared little kid who doesn't want to be rejected and doesn't want to get hurt. But I tricked myself, or convinced myself, into believing that that feeling of the jump was the same feeling of you actually knocking and the customer opening the door and being friendly. It was once you just do the thing, that feels heaviest. Everything after that feels lighter 100%.

You know what. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I love to lead with value so much. It helps alleviate that a little bit. I can tell you from my experience. Here's what happened to me In my first business, which we know was a wreck. We were going door to door doing concrete sales like flat work, walkways, driveways, floating slabs for shops, whatever you needed on there, with a pamphlet handing it out. You've never met me before and the next thing you know, maybe 5% of the doors we knocked on were actually buying something. Back then we weren't tracking tight or anything, but I had a partner in this, just like I do today here, and my partner was actually a little more headstrong with this stuff and a little more confident. So he actually led this effort and because I could look across the road and see him doing it, everything was OK. I would do it too and I became more confident from that. But I was also 18, 19, 20 years old doing this. As I got older, it's almost like my fear of heights that grew as well. Climbing a grain elevator to check a motor now is not an easy task, not like it was 15 years ago when I first started the trade. Right. So the same thing kind of corresponds here. And, by the way, if you're listening and you're thinking, well, I overcame this a long time ago, that's fine. But can I ask, what about your team, what about the people working under you? Because I can tell you now in my third business well, we're in the fourth now but in my third business, when I first got into coaching, I had a business coach who I hope will join us on here one day, master Dan Zaleski, who's an eighth degree Taekwondo black belt.

Wow.

Very Tony Robbins-esque kind of guy. The martial arts as you know, joe comes with a ton of self-discipline.

Correct.

They just do what they say they will do and they do it fast. Master of action. And talking with this guy, having hired him as my first business coach, he was the first person to believe in me. Look at me, across the table and say, clay, why are you waiting till you're 40? That's an arbitrary number. You could help people right now. So he helped me make this first leap. Here's the important part where it fell out. He had a grand plan to have a team of coaches, but it was kind of pretentious and here's why, you know, I start wearing a suit, I start acting apart. How did he go Get more clients, net more profit, have more time off? We used to say that was our little tag, similar to the Master Sales, simplify Pricing, deliver premium level service. If you don't have a little catch line, you should. By the way, it describes what you do, who you serve and how. But we would do this, but it came time to generate leads and it was a freaking nightmare, joe and he didn't have support systems to help me with it. So you remember this analogy we've used You're putting people in the crosswalk on a red light, hoping that they have the skills to stop traffic and get some attention and they won't. That's a dangerous place to put people Now. Just like in our program, one of the first things we address is the pipeline. When people come in in their first week, they find themselves in our marketing training just to make sure everything's good. If it is, you move through it really quickly. But there's a piece there and it's our Service Leads Now list, which is an action list on the pipeline. You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, people get frozen on this list. It's kind of scary even following up people you've already served. It's kind of scary going onto social media and putting yourself out there every day. It's kind of scary going to a social media Facebook group and letting them know that you could serve them in a certain way. You ever face any of those fears, joe?

I do, and it'd be almost inhuman to say that we don't experience fear just like anyone else. But the thing that really kind of stood out to me, that it really surprised me in a way, was people are willing to do the things that require them to not put themselves out there. It's like they'd be willing to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to prevent walking 20 feet in their own. And the best way of finding out whether they're going to do it or not is to say you wanted this, this is your way to get the results you want to get. All it requires is you to do this, this and this. Here's the golden plan. What are you going to do with it? And it always makes me so happy to see someone say, well, I'm just going to follow the plan they walk, compared to someone who sits and says, well, I have to read it first. Well, I have to sleep on it first, I need to think about it first. Then I got to discuss it with my partner. Then we're going to have a meeting about it. Oh wait, it's Friday, I will get to it on Monday. 100%.

Long story short. For me, what holds us back at first in our business and many times along the way, is the fear of discomfort, that fear of rejection, and I heard this said once. I would butcher the quote and I can't even remember the guy's name who said it, but ultimately it was that we get so comfortable in our lives these days and we can literally get stuck resting in that comfort until we reach the comfort of our coffins.

Oh, oh boy, yeah, no, you're right about that.

That's a heavy one, that's deep, like six foot deep, but important. Another way I've heard this said is more dreams are found in the cemetery than they are active in life.

That I will believe. You know I say speaking of which I don't know if you were the one who said this or if I heard this from somewhere else, but it was the thought of. People will resent. People will cheer you on for chasing your dreams, because they see themselves in you, but when you actually achieve your dream, they'll despise you for it because they'll see their dreams that they gave up on in you 100%.

Yeah, no, that's really valuable. All of this ties into a common theme. There's so much on the other side of discomfort and it's easy for anyone these days with social media to even look at us and say, oh, these guys got it figured out. These guys are great at public speaking. Joe reflects on the neurodivergence, but really, I mean he shows up every day, he's putting himself out there every day. We keep doing that because it's a muscle that we've built, just like the sales process, just like creating options, which people at first tend to feel like is an impossible mission to create six options every time, but after some practice they can achieve six options in 12 to 15 minutes, just like you do. Practice makes perfect. But unfortunately, if we're unwilling to go there in the first place to just suck, to just go and face the fear that is actually inevitable, which is discomfort and rejection. They're both coming for all of us. At some days we're not the most pumped up about this podcast. Even In other days, it's absolute fucking fire and what I can tell you is, without the shit days, there are no fire days. Joe, I saw your fingers up, man. Go ahead, brother.

I had a thought come to my mind that really, I think, defines what the muscle memory is, because you're like we built this muscle as the muscle can really stretch, and I think this might help people who are in that same place it's that I would rather face my fear than face my failure. Right now, I know, if I look at fear, fear is telling me that the thing that you're going to do is a gate. That fear is a gate that other people won't walk through. I have to be comfortable lifting the velvet rope, putting it over and walking through it, Because if I don't, the slide changes and now I'm looking at the missed action and the failure because of it. So I'd rather look at my fear than look at my failure 100%.

I love that. I'd rather look at my fear than look at my failure.

And that was top of the dome. Yeah, totally.

Blow that up, throw it on Instagram, post. That thing's going viral. Joe, that's a good one. Here's the other piece. It's not just overcoming the fear, it's also rerouting our activity to make sure that we're onto the fear Because, as Jim Rohn said, we got to be careful not to confuse busyness with achievement, and what happens is we kind of secretly mask, even to ourselves, our progress on that success trajectory by doing the shit that actually doesn't need to be done right now, or stuff that you don't need to do in the first place. Right, there's three outcomes with any activity on your list you need to do it yourself, you need to delegate and probably train someone to do it. Or you need to eat crow? Right, cut it. It doesn't need to be done by you. A lot of us are doing stuff that could be delegated or doesn't need to be done at all, just to avoid the stuff that makes us uncomfortable and we don't even know I mean, secretly, you do if you explored it, but in the day to day, the hours going by and I mean, let's keep in mind these hours aren't guaranteed. You get hit by a bus tomorrow? How many?

hours a day do you have? I can tell you how many hours I've had. I can't tell you how many hours I have.

I can 24. In that context is what I mean. Right, jeff Bezos has 24. Mandy's with us. She's saying so good, mandy's got 24 hours, I've got 24 hours, my partners, my dogs, everyone's got just 24 hours today, and if I spent them doing the wrong shit, if all we did is sit on this podcast for the whole 10 hours this day, would we get half as much done.

We can get nearly as much done. We'd influence a lot of people, but the end of the day it's not going to accomplish our goals 100%.

So the question becomes like what are you doing with your 24 hours? Are you working on the stuff that's next? And if you need to know what's next, we can answer that too. It's exactly what we work on, and until it's refined and working like a well oiled machine, it's got to be the bottom end of this pyramid. The first hierarchy in your business is sales Nailing down the marketing, nailing down your offer, nailing down your sales and the supporting operations to make that again a well oiled machine that runs with you or without you. Why work on anything else until then? You remember some of the common ones. I'm going to sit back and populate my price book today because there's nothing going on out there.

I'm going to clean my van out, because I got to do this. I'm going to order some material. I'm going to go drive around. It's like no.

Order some hats. We'll get some mugs and pens. That'll get customers calling right.

Actually, it's the only thing I could think of, right.

Oh my God, this is a heavy mirror, joe, and I'm sorry to talk about this. If you're someone that's listening or watching or engaging with us right now Mark Candles, thanks for joining us, brother Appreciate that If you're with us on this. If you're holding this mirror and feeling like shit, I'm dropping the ball a bit. Listen, it doesn't have to be that way. You can change. You've got the power to do this. It takes a little self-discipline and it takes a little discomfort. Joe, what do you say? We crank out a couple action items and call this a good Monday.

I'm down with that, and there's actually one thing I want to add before that, of course, hit it Okay. So, tying back to the 75E Challenge, it's one of the reasons why we put all of our hard personal assignments first, the first reason being is that if your goal you said you had 24 hours in the day and you're only going to use a certain amount of those hours Once you go to work, it makes sense that if something happens, you're going to stay a little bit later to bang it out, which means that you yourself are going to be put on the back burner. By doing our challenge, you start by going health, then family, then business. So you're in a position that, even if the day gets away from you by time you come home late, you can say, yeah, but I already did my reading, I already had my gratitude, I already did my 45 minutes of workout. Now that I'm done, I can relax because I sharpened my own edge today.

Yeah, it gives you a secret for flipping that switch, without drugs and alcohol too, before you walk in the door and greet your family again. Mandy, I'm sorry to laugh but she says crap. I just ordered mugs and pens for the dealerships. Oh God, here's what makes that exceptional, mandy. The exception to the rule is, you said, for the dealerships. Most people start a business and they'll spend time just making swag For no direct reason other than to give it to friends and family mostly people who are proud to wear your brand that never buy from you and if they do, usually not at full price because you don't have a process to sell to those people. We do anyways the fact that it's for the dealerships that you're actively pursuing I know, mandy, as an example you were with us last week on the podcast week before. I'm losing track of the weeks, but you had said you literally are going to dealerships and talking to people who are looking at EVs and doing that cold outreach, and that's the real test, that's that discomfort. Give that person a pen, a mug, a hat all day long, because you're doing the hard thing with it and giving them something memorable. That's why they call it memorabilia. Oh, action or all, star Joe.

I feel like I have one that I'm not quite sure if it's an action, if it's a basic or if it's an all-star. Can I just take a swing in it and see where it ends?

Yes.

Okay, so I've made a statement before, which is put your faith in front of your fears, and pretty much what that means Is that the thing that you believe in most should lead before the fear. But I want to have a second part to that. You cannot face the fear if you can at least understand the recognizing warning signs of it. So my basic action is before you can take action on the fear, can you at least recognize what it feels like when it's happening, so you know how to pull the stops as quickly as possible? So if you have fear of public speaking, if you have fear of heights, if you have whatever, it is spider, I don't care. Whatever the thing is, I Want you to visualize what that feeling is to you. That way, when it comes up in your business, you recognize this is not panic, this is not a red light. This is my own internal fear and I'm recognizing it and I'm gonna press the silence button on it. If you can't recognize what it feels like, any advice we give you to action on it we won't apply, because you won't know when you need that lesson. So lesson one is if you experience fear and it affects you in a deep way, understand the warning signs of that fear that we can get ahead of it.

That's really good, joe. I'm torn about my action item here for today, so I'm just gonna start and hopefully it doesn't get too big. This is a beautiful moment here. I'm in discomfort now.

We'll work through it together.

Okay, here's the thing is you got to believe in yourself. I Mentioned the word pretentious earlier, and part of it was well, all of a sudden, now I'm wearing suits to work, all of a sudden, I'm doing this. Being this, thinking forward, and that faith that we need, also creates a gap from where we are today to where we're trying to be, and that gap is where this fear lives, because you're afraid that you might not be living up to that for this client, and what that can cause is almost a paralysis and our ability to articulate the value that we aim to bring. Told you it was big right, it's a mouthful and I'm following you though. You've got to believe in yourself. Maybe one of the best ways to do that that I could possibly add here is by making sure that you're Surrounded by the kinds of people that believe in themselves, and the dual factor here is likely that's in a little network of people who are up and presenting themselves. So if you find it uncomfortable to go to like a BNI, if you find it uncomfortable to go join the, the local, what's the word I'm thinking of here? Better business or better business?

Business practice things again.

That's where I would start. And the reason why is you're gonna meet great people. You're gonna see examples of people getting up every time doing their intro, facing their fears and even holding little when you get your day of the month or whatever it is where you present what your company does and why it's better. That's addressing that fear. Even going to a toastmasters near you. I mean, they're international. Start breaking this wall down, because one thing is for absolute certain If you don't speak your value from the top of a mountain with a megaphone and be able to say that Confidently that I believe I am the right fit for you because I'm the only person I know that will do everything I have planned to take it to the highest level of service. If you're not willing to do that, who is? No one else is gonna say it for you. No one else is gonna go on that hill with a megaphone and say it for you, not without you doing it first. There's no way lead by example. All right, this has been another episode of electricpreneur secrets. What's holding electricpreneurs back today? We started hey, floor level here with anyone who's really trying to dial up that lead generation, dial up that premium service and believe in yourself. Tomorrow will continue this trend. But hey, we're here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical Service. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again. Can't wait to see you soon.