Ep 243 - 1M Launch Series 2024 - Why You Need Office Leverage Now

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to yet another episode of Electric Pinner Secrets, the Electricians podcast, and this is episode 243, and it's you know so many into our million dollar launch series by now. We're making some serious traction here. This one is no exception. Why you need office leverage now. Don't wait, do it now. I'm your host, clay Neumeyer, with me, as always, my esteemed co-host, joseph Lucani. We are the Electric Pinner's, a couple of master electricians with business addictions who are insane, insanely consistent about showing up here five days a week to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level service. Welcome to our daily freemium coach call, where you get to sit back, relax, take the knowledge, take everything we give. In fact, just promise to take action and report your wins back to us so we know how it's working for you. Joe, how are you doing today, my brother?

I gotta admit I don't even know to bring it up or not, but it's so funny because when you started and you're like you know, do it, do it now. Is there anyone else in the audience that was like this could be a great Schwarzenegger quote and we're not doing it, like, come on, do it, do it now.

Get in the chopper. We don't have a chopper yet, but I am definitely committed to doing it now. Present, not perfect. I'm not allowed to laugh about it actually because despite it being 243 episodes, I still am committed to this tongue twister of an introduction that we just like to do custom. We could record it. I don't know why we don't just hit a button and make it automatic, but there's something raw and real about just showing up, being your best today and trying to lead that movement in that way. So I don't know, man, we just show up, we got rid of the fancy shit and we just show up, we just do it.

I know and I love it because, at the same time, I enjoy that people can see that we're doing this completely raw and it's not something that's scripted or planned or anything. I like being our most authentic selves of people and I'm so honored that I get to do it with you every single day.

I appreciate that man. I feel the same way. Nice heartfelt moment to get us started, because we're going to hurt some feelings today. This one always does the topic of the CSR, how important that position is and why you, mr Master Electrician, need to put the fucking roll away, build some processes around it and delegate this thing. In fact, if you were following our law of open cycles, you would know that these things that are left undone are the vampires of your livelihood. There's really only three things we can do with this open cycle list of all the things that aren't getting done in your world. One, you're going to prioritize them. Two, you're going to delegate them. And three, you're going to cut them out. Most of this office and basic organic marketing and follow-up and answering the phones most of this stuff can't be cut, joe. It shouldn't be done by you either.

That's the hard part that I think people are going to have at hard times swallowing because I mean, I've been there, I get it. When you're so used to bootstrapping everything, it just seems to make logical sense that, oh, I'll just do that as well. What people don't realize is that if you were to hire an office admin, the amount of mental equity you get to repurchase for yourself is exponentially more than any other position you hire, so much so that you'll notice an immediate improvement to the service you provide to your customers, just to not have any answer to the phone, Not even talking about oh, this person won't get the permits for me. This person will ensure the customer is followed up with. This person will handle rescheduling. It's like no, not all of that. Just knowing that all these things are in place, you're going to know that you'll be able to communicate a better level of service to your client.

Love it, man. Great start. We're coming in with passion, with some fire. Let's do something unique on this one. All right, go for it what you got. Let's actually present the top three problems that we hear around why they can't hire a CSR slash office manager, and then let's logic through it sequentially and like flowchart fashion to absolutely obliterate all objections to it. I'm totally down with that. Let's make it happen. Okay, top three Number one I don't have an office or I work from home office. That's great. Let's start with that one. Let's do it.

So when you think about this, it assumes that you need to do an all or nothing approach right, like if I don't have an office, I can't possibly have an office staff. Incorrect. Just because they don't have a physical place to rest doesn't mean that they can't serve your customers on a remote position. Even more so, I bet if you went to your teams right now and said, hey, who would want to work from home? You have every hand going up. So when we first started off and we were right in front of an ice cream shop for our shop, we had remote workers and the benefit was is that they were able to take their time, work in the comfort of their homes and we were able. All the money that we were able to invest into them didn't have to be distributed to multiple revenue sources like this goes to the shop, this goes to the vans. It's like, hey, anything that would have gone, I can overpay this person and, as a result, they'll do better work for me with less overhead cost. Can I break a bottle here?

Sorry to interrupt. I just have to break a bottle because I'm hearing this question. I've heard it so many times. Well, don't you worry about efficiency and it's like no, no, I don't. This is the broken bone, like I worry about you doing the things you shouldn't be doing. That's what I worry about. So let's solve the efficiency problem later, right? That's like getting ahead of ourselves and missing the next shot is not worthwhile. Let's try to get some tasks delegated so that we can start focusing on the things that need us to move the ball.

Yeah, there's actually one particular thing on that and I'm glad you brought it up. If I've worked and seen multiple organizations of multiple sizes and some were literally multimillion dollar organizations that still could have been fully remote but forced everyone to come in because they were so worried about losing the, appeared efficiency. When you look at the results-based approach, which is are all my customers satisfied, or all calls currently answered, or all paperwork and machinery is already taken care of. Is my team on board with the vision we're doing, and who cares what they're doing in that timeframe? If every box of their role is checked off, you don't need to watch them for eight hours of the day. You need to trust that their adults can get their job done.

God, you nailed that and I love how you say every box of their list is checked off.

You're lying.

hey, a checklist to get this done, Just like you know what. We shouldn't be shadowing people anyway. Right, Like for a bit of training, sure, but after this is properly delegated, I don't want you guys to be worrying about this anymore. We want it off our plate, and that checklist idea is a great way to be able to recognize that jobs got done, things were accomplished, without needing to breathe down someone's neck all day about it. Problem two Go for it. I'm not sure I can afford this person full time.

I love it. Are you sure that you can afford not to? No, because the thought process comes down to I don't know if I can apply work or have enough work to have this person be paid. Okay, but you do have enough work for you to do it. And if you're doing it, it's keeping you from actually doing the thing that's making you money. So, technically, this is the biggest roadblock to you serving your client, because I know for a fact that if I hired you and I'm hiring they knew my art to come into my home DBA and then, every time you're trying to change my panel and the power is off, I hear you having to answer the phone every 15 minutes and you stop working, and you stop working and you stop working. And a six hour job now takes 12 hours, because it's hard to just stop and go when on machines you can click pause and immediately resume. We got to be like all right, what was I doing? Okay, landing neutrals. All right, let's go. Phone rings. What was I doing this time? Did I tie in all the art? Fault neutrals, let me check. Okay, good, oh, phone rings again. You see how that would break your efficiency and keep you from are you being efficient now?

I love that this question you brought up right away was like the egg or the chicken which came first. Yeah, george Michaels just called. He said you got to have a little faith. Give yourself that leverage to manipulate your skills to be out there customer facing to bring in more income, because so many people are waiting for this like, oh, once the schedule is full enough or once I get enough calls, once I have enough money, once I have enough nest egg. Do you realize how much harder that is to climb that hill before having this role employed, working for you, helping you with this stuff. Gosh, joe, I gotta say I'm reflecting back to Dan's interview. He literally said something to this effect. I actually feel my, my employment at my company is simpler now than it ever was, with six people, including that CSR which he hired immediately when he got back involved with us because of the demand, because of the phones, because of all these office things that just been dragging them down. Otherwise, I'd argue if you done that sooner, could be further along, might have been bigger than just a one point. Oh, three million dollar first year.

Yeah, you know, when you have the right infrastructure in place, things really start to thrive. But the thing is is that if you don't recognize when something is going, you won't know when to stop it. And what I mean by that is, if you don't take the leap and hire the CSR, you'll never be able to look at all the efficiency you've gained, because you'll still be in the mindset of all the efficiency I'm losing. So focus on the right goal and everything will work out.

Number three, haming. Here's the big one we hear. I don't know that I have enough for them to do full time.

That's really the easiest one to handle. I didn't mean to laugh, I'm sorry.

No, I know, but it's a real objection that we hear all the time. Right, humans are notorious for coming up with like how, not you know what I need to do. It seems to be working for other people. Yet here I am with all these reasons why it won't work for me.

So the argument I would come up with in that person to say, ok, if you had an apprentice, could you find things for them to do? Oh yeah, I'd have them clean the vans and sweep the shop and do it. Ok, cool, but what about all the things that you'd have to do when you get home quote, unquote. When you get home and you're not on the tools, wouldn't it be nice if your apprentice could be able to balance your books? Wouldn't it be nice if your apprentice were able to help manage your work orders or make sure they're pulling parts if necessary, or calling the town and getting your work orders? You're going to have to do that anyway. But the problem is that as a business owner, we just assume those are gimmicks, like, of course, I've got to go and pull the permit, who else can do it other than me? And I got to go get it notarized. Well, I can't have any more for me, do it. Oh, I got to make sure I pull the material for this. Well, I mean, naturally I got to be the one to go to the shop and get it. If you truly had no work for this phone person and you had no calls coming in, they still could have eight hours of work a day. We just have to start being creative in how we're applying the reference and I assure you that, for all of you who are the same, I don't think I have enough work to have them do or not really thinking of the full picture, clearly, because I know there's enough work for you to hire this person because you were already doing it.

100%, 100%, men, the. I have to agree with that. We come up with a list of about a dozen things every time, right From answering the phones, training, right, even doing the little things like your time management, working with your CRM, making sure things are filled out, making sure the schedule's tight, doing the rescheduling, doing the follow up, doing the happy calls, doing warranty calls, answering the club members, reaching out to club members, sending freaking holiday cards and gifts and shit, like they could be getting the presents for your kids and wife if that's what you need. But it sounds to me, it seems to me like most of us could use a friend in this department to do all this stuff, everything you said, plus what I said, plus organic marketing. Think of all the opportunities that are slipping away because we're having trouble being consistent, and then think of paying someone full time to be consistent for you and what that could do for your business.

It's so wild, it's such an insane lever. The closest thing I can compare it to is like you didn't realize you were in first gear and now suddenly you're able to do a downshift and your whole thing goes back. It's like now I'm able to move.

There was actually a fourth problem that I came up with while we were going through this, though Lay it on me, man, give me a curveball. Every once in a while, people just seem to get stuck with this. Well, it would be nice if I knew someone. It is the first place we look. Of course, it's great to know who's bubbly in your network or have someone that's already close to you that you trust. I agree with that, but this is not the same as hiring a ticketed electrician. There are a lot of people a lot of young to middle-aged women even, to be more specific that are looking for that level of income from a potentially remote scenario or a flexible, even office job A ton, I think. Dorian, who we interviewed on here, I saw when he put up his CSR ad the first time. He got like 36 applicants in the first 36 hours. Yeah, there is a plethora of people who would love to represent your company and, if you're asking me, it's just most important in this position to put attitude ahead of skill.

I would agree with that. It's like you wanna hire for the behavior you wanna see and I can teach skills, but it's hard to teach character. It's hire the right vessel to fill your knowledge with. Don't find a vessel that has knowledge and you have to put your characteristics into it.

You know what they say there's no impression like a first impression. That means I don't ever wanna miss a call. If we can help it. I want to catch every call while it's ringing. If we miss it, then I want to be calling back in the next 90 seconds Like why are we missing these opportunities? Because that call could be the $300,000 lifetime value. And if you really tracked it down you might even find, okay, your average lifetime value is maybe $10,000 per client, but if you close it 80% right, then that means every call is potentially 80%. Every call could be worth $8,000. Then Don't just look at the cost for acquisition, look at the cost of missed opportunity here. How do you know that's not your next Rockstar client? Go ahead.

Additionally, we also have to understand the mindset of the customer when they're dialing, because it's either they have an immediate problem or they have an immediate desire, and if they can't hit your number, you know that they're going to look for the next number. So, hey, I called service electrical. They didn't answer. Okay, well, who's next on Google? And they're already calling the next person. So I would say, call them back before 90 seconds, because I guarantee within two minutes they're running the phone with someone else.

Totally.

So why not make it you? Why not you be the person they hired?

Yeah, I feel like honestly as a concept if our marketing is rocking, if everything's working the way it should even just organic, no paid ads at all then people recognize what we do and how we do it, meaning in a premium way, that we're not a company that lets people down. They know when they call us we've got the solution. And when we answer the phone, I want to confirm all of their expectations and when we show up, I want to show up on time with notifications so they know when to expect us and when we arrive at the door and follow the loop method and everything that we've been talking about bleeding into the sales process now I want them to feel the difference the whole way through, including that happy call at the end. One person just can't do all that, joe.

That's not possible. Well, scratch that. Backing up it is doable by one person, but not to the caliber that your customers deserve. I've heard the expression don't half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing, and what that means is really I'm going to commit to serving at the highest level, and if there are things that are happening that are reducing my ability of doing that one job, I am going to hire a position so that I can focus back on 100% delivery.

Definitely, man. That's why that problem. Three again well, I'm not sure I have enough for them to do. What else would they do? A lot of times it's the things you're not able to do yourself. Yeah, how's the follow-up game going? What follow-up Right? How's the organic marketing going? Well, I did a post last week. Okay, so that whole dog won't hunt, right. So tons of reasons for this. What other reasons are there against? I explore that with you guys. Anyone following Joe? Go ahead, man, if you got something.

I got one that some people like to throw, which is well, I don't think I can afford it. Yet Like I physically, like I like I don't, not that I don't have the money, don't have the tasks of them to do. Some people say, well, I don't know how to afford it. You know, I'm just a bootstrapped organization. Does that ever come up in your plate before?

Yeah, and that was kind of problem one. But I see a slight different angle. I'm saying like literally and I think we're leading to is like a pricing problem here.

Correct where we're going into and saying, like for the person, that's like I don't know how I can physically afford to bring on more people. That's where, once again, the first thing we did we talked about managing your price and you have to assume for a certain level of growth rate, because if you've already had the growth built into the rate, then you're already charging what you need to charge to provide that position, which means that should already be in an account ready for you to access. So even if it just means that you're prepared to charge a larger amount before you have to, that in of itself Prepares you to do the thing you actually need to do. So you're gonna have the role, you're gonna have the reason, you're gonna have the delegation, but now, knowing that you also have the means of physically funding it, there's no reason now not to hire this position.

You got it, man, and that's why you need office leverage now. Do not delay. So what actions can someone take today, joe, to get a move on this? We need a basic end in all star. What do?

you want, I can handle both, but I'm cool with whatever one you want.

All right, well, see you up the first one and let's see where that goes, and I'll decide if I want to give you both.

So, when it comes down to the basic action, the first thing is who is in your network? Right, that's the there's a lowest hanging fruit, right? So the first evaluation that I would have is Either you couldn't one do an immediate social media post or two kind of like how you know you brought me on, or Two, having the situation where you're going to say I'm going to directly contact people that are top of mind, I want you to go through all the contacts on your phone and Literally just write down names of anyone who could potentially do the job not who's perfect for the job, who could potentially do the job. And if you've exhausted your immediate contacts, then you can expand into the all star action. But basic, bare minimum something you could do right now, something I could probably even do on this call, is I could pull up contacts and Then I can start putting down names.

Mm-hmm, I Like it. That's good, man, I want to steal the all star then Go for it, because I want you guys to plan for it. This is what's so important, just like we mentioned at the end there. Like, get this into your pricing. Someone might be thinking right now what is this position cost? Okay, well, let's just go with somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars an hour, even as a starting place. You need to factor this into your price, right? So even in the middle, we're gonna add $50,000 to your pricing for office staff. The reality is they might not work full-time, or you might have to, or decide to pay someone a salary. No matter what they work, so long as they get that checklist done, it's gonna be worth the $50,000. Here's how I'll justify it. What if you make in in as a result of this position? You're able to spend an extra, even you know what. 10 hours a month in the field, and let's say that's five additional calls that you can run. One a week and this is like we're playing conservative ball here, right? One a week, and 10% of those not only buy, but they buy at the top couple of tiers. Maybe they're platinum buyers, and let's say that average ticket does work out to $10,000. Didn't we just cover that salary already?

In one month. In one month you covered their yearly salary. It's insane.

That's a lot of speculation, but now think about the cost of your time and your energy and your thought, and think about this law of open cycles, because that's where we're going back to. We said planning, not just pricing, so add the 50k to your price and make it work. For this first year It'll be charged. You've got some growth, it'll be okay. The second piece, though, is law of open cycles. Right now, in all these things that are over and above your sales process and your install process, that aren't serving customers directly, that are marketing, that are organization, that are office, that are permits, that are anything we talked about in this episode, make that open cycle list and decide Right. First, you're going to see it, but decide what could I delegate to someone on this list? Because if you don't delegate it and you do not do it, then what's going to happen to your service?

It's just going to go down, because the thing is you have to do the things and anything you leave open, either you yourself has to fill up or your customer has to pick up the pieces of the negligence.

Yeah, you're going to cut it out, and overwhelm is a place of inaction. It's likely that you're in overwhelm right now, if you think about it. Let's zoom out 30,000 feet and look at our situation. Why aren't we taking action yet? Am I in overwhelm? Am I in inaction, stuck in the quicksand, in the mud, so to speak? Ponder that, take these action items and just do the thing right. Get some help with this If you haven't done it yet. Listen to all these interviews. Have something in common They've all got a CSR that's rocking their business, helping them make the most of it and make the most of their time as the master electrician, who should not be on the phones or in the office in the first place? Gosh Joe, that's a mouthful. We're clearly very passionate about this. Do you have any last words for electric burners everywhere on why they need this office leverage?

Other than just get off your butt and just do it now, Like there is no reason that we can't have it and it's such a key piece that it just makes no sense not to have. So take the actions. Listen to the episode and I'll repeat it if you have to, but do the thing it promise you, it's worth the effort.

Nice. We just made jobs in America, north America. I love it. This has been another episode of Electric Printer Secrets, the electricians podcast, where we go nuts five days a week helping you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. If you want to know more about us or the loop method or the things that are going on, engage with us on Facebook, shoot us a message or go to our website, servicedlupeletricalcom, where you can contact us there and learn a ton more about the movement. We'll talk to you guys soon. Stay with us soon.