Ep 248 - Replay - Fail-Safe Electrical biz

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back. It is Wednesday, it's a powerful Wednesday, it's Action Wednesday, joe, and it is another episode of Electric Pernursecrets, the Electricians podcast, where a couple of no-name dudes, one from north of the border, one from south, try to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. I said no names as a bit of a joke, but really I'm the pleasant peasant and you, sir, are the sales bot, also known as Gratitude, mr Joseph Lucani. How are you doing today, brother?

Man, it's been a great day. It really has. It's one of those things where, like you ever started, a day where you wake up and you have two directions is either I can go back to bed or I can just get up and get it. I chose the latter and it has just been great. It's been great. I ended up hitting the 75E Challenge. I did legs today, so my legs are like trembling. Throughout. The majority of the day had my moments of prayer. I had all this good stuff in the right direction and I feel like I was set to take on the day before 7AM.

I chose the former. I was mad even when you said that. Why? Because I'm on the negative side. I'm trying to drag you down with me. Homie, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that to you, but I did wake up, sir, on the wrong side of the bed. Here's what happened. I forgot. I booked a meeting early for our team this morning and then, I stayed in bed a little bit longer, two dogs cuddling me right, and I'm like, ah, I could chill for another 10 or 15 and just do my grace a little bit longer. And next thing you know, it's like okay, it's 6.30. I'm going to go to the gym and they're like oh shit, I got a meeting at 7. Damn it. So, totally gapped out, Totally gapped out. I got to tell you something about this little chat, though. Sure, Go for it. Yesterday was the first time I got on a call with someone might have been Monday, actually where they said I asked them if they listened to the podcast often and they're like you know what. I tried once I got a few minutes in, but you guys were just shooting the shit so I left. That's the first time that's happened. So if you're with us engaging live right now, I need you to help me with a quick vote. If you're live in the Electroponers Secrets Facebook group, then tell us do you want more bullshitting or less bullshitting, and just more straight to the facts. We'll adjust, we can adjust.

At the end of the day, we're here to serve. Obviously, we enjoy our time together. I get to talk to my best friend and a partner on a regular basis. I'm a happy man anytime I have the opportunity to be asked with you, man.

Likewise. Hey, man living a passion here, definitely a bit of a passion project mixed with really really helping people. As per one of our listeners who I mentioned yesterday and I didn't have the number down it was $14,300 sale and that was his mid or high tier take. But either way, it was this full, beautiful message from our friend Bailey who said hey, you guys truly give away too much. I don't know how you do this, but thank you so much, and I got to have a little meeting with Bailey yesterday. I'm super appreciative of everyone who just takes action on this stuff and starts seeing the wins, because you're the heroes. We're just offering a little bit of guidance, helping any way we can. Yeah, no one ever thinks the GPS.

You know what I mean. Like, at the end of the day, when you say I'm getting in the corner, I'm going somewhere, you don't say the GPS got you there. But it made it a hell of a lot easier to do so than going blind and going back in the 90s and taking map quest. You know what I mean. So, like I get it, I understand we're coming from it, bailey. I respect you, brother. I'm really glad you had some success, as well as everyone else in the background that's listening, took something away and was able to make some wins out of it.

Yeah, man, totally All right. So throw up a comment. Do you want us to bullshit more or less about our personal things? We try to have a little bit of a laugh and a smile or two before we get going. Joe, today I named the episode and I called it fail safe electrical biz. Do you know why?

Well, I'm open to learning about it, but I do believe that what we do and what we teach creates a fail safe business when properly implemented.

That's. That's a good take on it. Man, I'm going to lead right into that from the project, from the industrial background. And in a lot of industrial facilities you have what we call an ESD loop, a fail safe emergency shutdown loop, so that, hey, in the case of an emergency, we hit a button that's going to break contact in that loop and ultimately shut down every process to make this place immediately safe in case of a gas leak, in case of, you know, any situation, a human personnel emergency. Here's how I want to relate that into your business. Shouldn't we have that in your business? Shouldn't we know that we've got a string that serves us and making sure that this is a fail safe operation? And if we're speaking specifically to a residential service company, then I believe this ties in perfectly with the code anxiety, with answering to value, price objections, with knowing how to answer your phone and create that before value, so that you know for sure you can get to at least you know the 80, 90% of the doors that call you and be able to finish up and present your value and be able to have that reasonable, even a 70 to 80% conversion, so long as you can keep calls coming in. Make sure you can get to the door, make sure that you can present as that service provider they want to hire, make sure that you can present options that would actually serve the client and then make sure that you know how to do the exchange and take care of the fulfillment. Can we try to fit that all in one podcast episode? It'd be tight, but I'm willing to crack at it. Okay, here's what inspired me, I think just this morning when I dropped in on class, this topic came up and it comes up time to time. We've talked about it before. Let's hit it again. If someone's phoning my electrical business service call but they're tire kicking on the phone, you mentioned a really important story that I liked this morning about a time where you were tire kicking on the phone trying to investigate the competition. Would you please share that to start us off?

Yes, I would love to. So when we were first starting my business, I was 22 years old, like you know. I knew electric, but I didn't know anything really about running a business. So, like you always say, with the race to the bottom, I'm just gonna try and do it a little bit cheaper than someone else. So what we did was I remember sitting in my house trying to look up on the computer, all the people in our area and I was making calls and saying, hey, I'm getting a quote for a generator and I'm just trying to get like a ballpark estimate of what you guys might be at. So I know how to proceed. And a lot of times people would just be like, yeah, we're about this, and they would just give me a range with no name. Nowhere are you located? No, what are you looking to do? Nothing, that's about this much. You're looking for an automatic go.

It's just a brief timeout to say, obviously that's not the way to proceed. If you're running your company running your phones, Please do not get them a price over the phone. Continue, my brother 100%.

So what I found was that when I was asked certain questions, it caused me to pause, and the questions weren't actually ones that you'd think would cause you to stumble, and what it was was what's your name, what's your number, where are you located? And I remember, if I gave more than one bit of information, I felt like I was really under the microscope and that someone would actually continue to call me or knock on my door, and I didn't want to do that because I had my service van in the driveway.

And I didn't want that.

I didn't want it. I could see that.

Just trying to investigate price here. Leave me alone.

I don't want to tell you what's up? So the thing was is I actually had a situation like that happen where, eventually, I gave the guy my number and he just kept calling and calling and calling Until I eventually was like hey, man, I went with someone else, I got a cheaper price, sorry. The thing that really threw me, though, was that when you actually do the research into why it's that, when you give your name, your number and your address, you are putting your hand up saying I am a real person. This is the I'm not a robot button. I'm actually trying to get information, and once you give it, the momentum starts to swing to well, I've already given you all my information. Yeah, you want to come out? Fine, just come out. Compared to I haven't given you the information. I want a ballpark. If you don't give it to me, I've got the control. I can hang up the phone right now. So such a slight tweak not only helps you do better service, but actually starts actually qualifying your content or qualifying your customer, before they even realize it. A tire quicker will not give you this information, or, if nothing else, even an autistic individual who doesn't pick up on social cues will realize that people are starting to judge you or ask and be like, ah, something's not smelling right in this call.

All right, awesome man, huge value right there. So already in this single podcast, we've been able to answer to the first potential stumbling block in your service electrical biz, where people call and they're tire kicking and want to price over the phone. What's going to happen next? There's no price low enough that you could say, oh boy. Where they would actually say to you, oh boy, you better get over here now and do this. I got to catch this price. That will never happen. You know it, I know it, joe knows it. So we got to overcome that and those simple questions that are in your CRM anyways. If you'll just get back to the script, if you'll just get back to how do or what information do I need to collect from this person, you'll begin to weed out those tire kickers already. Everyone on board here, I, I, okay. So the next challenge is, honestly, I mean, let's go through the process just at a high level and find that challenge. Are we going to have trouble getting to the door? Well, probably not. They're expecting us now, right yeah, we're going to have trouble getting an invite into the house? Well, probably not they're expecting us to come in and look. Now, right, let's avoid even talking about going to the panel first. Let's just focus on the real stumbling blocks here that could absolutely destroy your conversions and or ability to have a fail safe electrical biz. Okay, I'm all ears. If calls can come in and I can get into the house, then I'm up. Process one check, developing options. And what we're answering to here really is can I create a situation where this client chooses me 80% of the time, assuming I've qualified them? Do you see it that way? This is almost like bumpers. We've described it like that before. It's like going with bumpers up. We know what we're trying to do. We know what we're trying to accomplish. I don't know how many pins I'm going to knock down, but with the bumpers up, I'm not going to get through there and knock some down. Go ahead, brother, yeah.

No, I actually love that example and I think what we're doing is pretty much reverse engineering it at this point. Yeah, because we've realized and granted, when you said, like let's even forget about going to the panel at the front door, that like cause a cringe moment because I feel like that's a huge value add right there. But, for the sake of the exercise, understand where you're coming from. Now, when it comes to the option design, I feel like that's adding such a level of value and distinction because the average contractor doesn't even present in person. Then, in addition to that, they usually only offer one bottom option. Maybe the best of them are offering good, better best, but they're presenting it from the bottom up. When we can learn how to design options that not only focus on the immediate thing they called me for. It connects to say what else is directly related to what you called me for, acknowledging what's already good in the home and then being able to directly tie the what else we found. Now we're creating a situation to where we're able to emotionally engage with the customer on a relevant finding that improves their quality of life, their convenience or their safety. At that point, very few people will say, no, I don't value quality. No, I don't value reliability. No, I don't value safety. If nothing else, you've earned the right to them to turn their ear to you. If you have someone willing to listen and you've already been someone they like, trust and respect this is your job to lose at this point, isn't it?

100%, 100%. By creating those options obviously just to summarize that you're creating a greater potential for anyone who you've qualified to work with you. The challenge just is at this point, can I create options? Three to six, even? Let's back it up again. I'm going to violate our own concerns here and saying, yeah, we want you to do six, but even three to six options. I'm going to commit to options and I'm going to commit to presenting in person. Are we a more feel safe operation at this point.

The thing you just said. There was huge. Okay, guys, I'm going to put up if there was a way I can hold up a neon sign and I'm flashing. I'm the wacky wavling arms guy. Picture me like this right now, present in person. It has to be that way and if I could just touch on the why, if that's okay, jump in. So anytime you guys send an emailed quote over what you're saying to the customer subconsciously is either a this conversation isn't worth my time. You either take it or you don't. B it assumes that the customer has just as much knowledge Electrically as you do and that they should know everything that's in this breakdown. You just sent them over and In three. It shows how little you actually care about getting this job. An expression that came to my attention when I was learning this was If I'm not even willing to show up to get the money, would I be willing to show up when it's a warranty call and I need to give you the money? Deep thought. And the odds are what do you tell into the customer at this point? If I won't even do this, I'm just gonna send you an email and wait. You won't be able to handle objections. You won't be able to pick up on their articulations, you won't be able to pick up on their body language, their tonality, the in person effects.

There's so much being missed by not being in person to go back to the ESD loop in this fail safe industrial operation. That's the equivalent of going back to your office off location and running a remote shutdown switch with no Understanding of what's actually happening on site. Mm-hmm, you have no information. How can we collect or make any decisions at that point? And, from as far as I can tell, and building this fail safe operation, every business has the same single standard that has to be met. Hmm, the person running the business has to be a professional that believes in their business and they need to be able to go and articulate that to a customer or a prospect Right like think about networking, think about marketing, think about your offer. If you don't believe in it, why would they? If you see someone who believes in their offer, truly believes, I mean, you've spoken to someone. Think about today's age. We don't go political very often, but have you ever talked to someone with a strong belief in a principle that you disagreed with? How frustrating is that conversation.

It is, and it takes a lot to get under my skin. I mean, you've seen me in some very unusual conversations, but the goal is is that it doesn't matter what the other person says, as long as you're willing to not be tied to the outcome. What I mean by. What I mean by that is when someone has an opposition, it's not you verse them, it's you and them verse the problem. And if you can always get on the right side of the line with the client, you'll find that a lot of these arguments Can start to dissipate very quickly, simply by you saying I understand, I'm gonna acknowledge what you're saying. Hmm, I'm going to reframe what I'm saying, so it's lying parallel to what you're talking about. And then I'm going to make my case again.

Nailed it and you just tied us right into the next piece, which I believe is that value, price objection, the articulation of that objection. Handle In understanding your value and being confident and being able to speak to it with the level of conviction that we just described, like when someone truly believes something right. I'm talking about like try and talk a Christian out of Christianity here. That's how much you need to believe in your cause. That's how much your why needs to be the forefront of your operation If you don't believe in it that much and you start losing debates about whether you're valuable or not. Isn't that a massive red flag? So we've assumed you can take a lead, know how to get to their house. We've now had the ability to create options and create a presentation where you can speak to what the needs are and that you can articulate the value as the owner and or representative of this company to the ceiling, to the absolute ceiling of what you believe it is. If you could do all of that and we missed something so far, but it's important and this really is before or after, wherever you want to put it you got to be able to believe in that price If you ran the pricing exercise and then you went to the door and built your options out of anything less than your service rate. I'm sorry, my friend, but that reflects your confidence in your value and it reflects your fail safe electrical biz operation. Does that make sense, joe?

It really does, and I feel like a lot of times we will face price objections. No matter what you do, if you're a premium service provider you're obviously going to come in. I mean one and a half times, two times, three times. I mean there have been times I've been as much as five times more than my competition. It's not fun being in that circumstance, but at the same time there was never a moment where I didn't believe I was worth it, and the moment that you're willing to lower the price even prior to getting the objection, that shows I didn't believe that I'm worth this. Or the fear of rejection is so great that, preemptively, I'm going to lower it, just on the chance that I can avoid this confrontation 100%.

All that's left here, guys really crushing all of this value into a single episode is the after value, and if you don't realize yet, we're hinting back to a value piece that we gave away with this value, price objection handle, and it's the before, during and after value. And we've just touched on that when, before, you spoke to a real person trained in getting to the root cause and helping you get solutions to your problem, getting a real master electrician to the door to help you with that during value and provide everything that has gone into the value offer that we have and that we articulate. And now the after value, meaning after you choose one of our options, when you fall into the 80% as a new client to service loop electrical, we're also going to take care of you after by communicating further at different touch points To also address other things we found in your home that you did not correct yet, to also offer you club memberships with advanced VIP level service, to also talk to you when we're in your neighborhood, to also service your neighbors and make sure that everyone around you has that same level of service. What that implies, then, is that we're not just looking at new leads all the time we're also serving the old leads over and over and over. And that, my friends, in 20 minutes flat, with three minutes of us bullshitting as some people can't tolerate, is how you create a failsafe electrical biz. The question is are you doing it? Do you have those simple processes in order? Cut through all the shit, all the fat, and just answer that? Is that a mic drop moment?

I'm sitting here just for those who can't see me right now, I am just beaming, beaming with pride for my partner, because everything you just said was literally hot mic.

Thank you, man. I'm a 30,000 foot view guide and today, this morning, it just kind of hit me in that way. And what we're talking about this week is perfectly relevant because it fits right in the middle. Why do I have anxiety over my pricing and my offer? Why am I having trouble overcoming that? Why don't I believe in my pricing? Why won't I deliver in person? Why do I email it over? These are all questions. Why do I keep giving a price over the phone? Why, when people ask for a price over the phone, can't I get to them? Why, when I found my price and my discounting it at all? And why, when we're done serving someone who's proven to be our customer, is that the last time that we talk to them? Those are all valuable and heavy questions, aren't they? And if you just solved those five, six, wise, what would be your problem then? Keeping up with the work, yeah, keeping up with the work, getting more staff to do the work, keeping up with all the happy customers that you have, prioritizing club members and intent behind the sale. Henry's with us. Thank you, henry, for the vulnerability he says. Ask for the sales when I struggle with. Definitely, brother, there's work to do. You can do it, though. We believe in you. We've got tons of value for you, henry and anyone who's willing to get vulnerable. Hold that mirror up and just ask themselves those questions when are we stuck and why, and if you know what? If you didn't quite figure it out yet, then put this episode on repeat, listen to it again and I bet you that'll help. Joe has a base action today. I want you guys to consider that. Listen to this one again. I'm going to save it as one of our favorites that I'm going to be sharing going forward, because we just simplified service electrical and it's very, very valuable. I do feel that if you know what, we've actually got a few value pieces. So if you felt like you wanted help at any one of these steps, all you have to do is comment on this podcast at the service that you're listening to it, or on our Facebook group or on any of our posts today. At what point did you need help? Was it in your brighter day call process and getting through those price objections? Is it the value price objection handle and getting your pricing across? Is it the pricing tool? I'll give you anything you want that we talked about today, you just have to put your hand up and let us know.

Do you have an all-star mind, Joe I?

feel like I'm steamrolling this thing.

No, no, no. First of all, I love the fact that those are those three value pieces, because normally you give away one and now we're given three times of value. I'm down with that. Give it away Now. I do have an all-star action, all right, okay, the all-star action is more of a beatdown of one particular point that I mean very seriously, okay, and that is I feel that people are hiding from being in person because we're so afraid of the rejection. There's actually a concept of Bushido that I want to apply to this. Okay, there's a concept that in Bushido, you believe that you're already dead. Therefore the enemy has no power over you, because someone who's afraid of death will rush in and will surely die, whereas someone walks in accepting they're already dead and they'll surely win. What I'm trying to say in how I'm packing this apparel out is, if you go into the call and you assume that you have to do in person one way or the other and that they're already going to give you a price objection, but you're choosing to face it anyway, you will find that that confidence and that fearlessness prevents the objection in the first place.

I like that a lot. It immediately makes me think I'm going to assume the price objection on every single job, Instead of waiting for it to sneak up on me. What does that mean about your training? What does that mean about your process? What does that mean about how you prepare for that situation, as you always say with your favorite Arnold Palmer quote?

Yep.

If you didn't bring it with you.

You won't find it here.

Man, absolute fire. Guys, if you love this episode, let us know. Leave us a review where you heard it first. We cannot wait to join you again for tomorrow's episode, thursday, as we continue this chat, fail-safing your electrical biz, hooking you up with the value pieces you need to make a good go at it and seeing you succeed at the highest level as you serve your clients at that level as well. This has been episode 200, joe, you didn't even celebrate that.

That's a 2WO. I love that.

Electricpreneurs Secrets, the Electricians podcast, where we keep showing up to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. Well, let's keep rocking it. You guys got this. We believe in you. Let's go, Y'all have a wonderful day.

Okay, thank you.