Ep 251 - 1M Launch Series 2024 - Presentation Success During Peak Anxiety

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to yet another episode of Electric Pinner Secrets, episode 251, presentation success during peak anxiety. And this is yet another episode in this million dollar launch series where we keep showing up to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level service. Even if you're just starting out, even if you might want to call a restart, maybe a refresher, go back to some basics, rebuild these foundations because, as you know, we can't be building the house on the sands of summer. I'm your host, clay Newmire, with me, as always, my esteemed co-host, joseph Lucani, and we are the Electric Pinner Just a couple of master electricians with business addictions, here and ready to serve. Your admission for this freemium daily coach call is to sit back in the hot seat, promise to take action, take everything we give and again report your wins back to us. Let us know how it's serving you out there, joe. How are you doing today, brother?

I'm doing good man. You know I was gonna say. I know we talked last. I was in my feels for a little bit and I just want to speak to everyone who's out there and just say you know what, day by day, literally just day by day, that's all we can do, that's all I can do, it's all any of us can do, and luckily, I've got a great family, I've got a really great faith support system, I've got a great partner and I can't ask for anything more than that, because that's far above what most people have in my situation.

A hundred percent, man, I appreciate that and I appreciate your vulnerability. Yesterday on the podcast we went live and you talked a little bit about the booze topic. We've touched on that one before. I'll get vulnerable for you guys today, just to even it out, we just lost like four viewers. I'm sure they're like, okay, fuck this Again. Vulnerable again Because today's topic presentation success during peak anxiety. There's a reason. Anxiety happens in large. In part, believe it or not, it's actually the child within us At least that's my belief is that there's a lot of childhood shit that gets attached to this and it really comes down to a couple of states Either we're being loved adequately, with no fear of that loss of love, or the opposite of that, the inverse of that, which is a fear of rejection, neglect, no love. That's all tied to a place that we experienced, whether it was in our household or with a bully or with new friend groups that we try We've all experienced this in some way, otherwise there would be no anxiety around this connection point, when all you're going to do is represent your whole truth, nothing but the truth, and try to help someone right. Amen to that. So I've been working on something personally, and it's the Hawaiian art of forgiveness, oh you tell them. Yes, yes, yes. And so, honestly, I'm doing some weird stuff every day. Right now, when I go to the bathroom don't worry, I'm not getting too graphic but when I see myself in the mirror, I have to greet myself and say aloha with a smile, and the reason being aloha actually means love, and so what I'm doing is putting conscious efforts into loving my child self, my inner child, to make sure that I don't have those anxiety moments holding me back day to day. Because, as you know, we're not superhuman. We're real people doing a podcast because we're passionate about this, and our passion just happens to exceed the anxiety feelings that we have when we start each one of these, and we're always representing our truth and just trying to serve. So would it be wrong of us to deal with some of that anxiety, some of those root causes, and try to be more and more strong in that representation of this passion to help electricians every day?

It wouldn't be wrong. And you know what? Now I have one extra thing to add to my list Self-reading in the mirror.

There we go, man, there we go. There's more to it, but I won't bore you with that. Yesterday we kind of ripped some people off.

That's an interesting way of saying it.

You didn't expect that. Some people wanted help with converting at a premium level and what we told them was all the stuff that's kind of prequel and it was amazing stuff, so don't take my words too personally. It was really important stuff. I'm glad we shared that, Joe. I'm glad we helped people with that and that understanding of prioritizing the personal bits first and how much that's actually going to help with this conversion problem, or at least potential, rather. So today we're going to get a little more on the nuts and bolts and address a couple of serious issues, including that anxiety, as you said pre-call, like it was three, four seconds before you knock on the door you just feel your chest sink. Help me describe that moment. Man, no worries.

So, in context, we've already called, we've made sure that this is a good time for both people. We made sure that we re-established that hey, we're going to come back to meet with everyone, make sure they're all aware. Customers are like, yes, that's great. So in your mind you're like great, everyone's there. But we've all been to the situation to where we knock on the door and one spouse opens it and they say something like oh yeah, john wasn't available to be here, but it's okay, I'm here and I'll just. We'll just tell them everything we hear and it's just immediate anxiety for about good four to five seconds that comes in. The reason being is because, unfortunately, people have learned that you need both decision makers present in order to properly close a sale. But what they haven't done properly or been educated is how to properly position the people who are trying to make a decision. It's not enough to just have them in the same building. It's important to get them emotionally engaged in the questions so that when you finally give the solutions, they're seeing those solutions as problems they need to solve rather than things they should sleep on.

Sounds really valuable, man, Sounds really really valuable. I'm looking forward to unpacking this a bit. Do you, before we actually knock and let anyone open the door? Do you have any tricks? Is there a breathing exercise you do at that door, at that anxiety point? How do you prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for what's about to happen?

So what I would do is, at the time, I was always listening to sales material in my van. So the entire time I was going from my shop to this call I was listening to either our own process or other trainers or other programs whatever at the time I was going through, it was always in my ear. So, emotionally, I had it good when I was still a man of faith. I was having my prayers on the way over and getting myself focused. And then, once I pulled over and did my pre-rival checklist, I made sure my uniform was clean, my beard was clean, my hair was good, everything physical was accounted for at that point. Right, those are the things that are going to trip you up in the middle of the call. You don't think about it, but, like you, showing up in your iPad not being fully charged throws you pretty hard in your presentation because now you're literally scrambling at the last second, right. Or you finding out that you know what there was still some dirt. Or you stepped in something, something, some dog crap on the way over and you need to figure out how to clean it up before you go to the customer's home. Things like that. When you address them in advance. It makes a physical presentation interaction way less stressful. So when I got to the door, I would actually pace my steps and anyone who actually watches the training video that I made you'll know that it's the exact same counted steps from my van to the front door. It was a consistent pace. I didn't change my stride and I controlled each what I was controlling. I then went to the door. Before ringing the bell, I would have a deep diaphragm breath through the nose into the center, just, and I would make it fill my smile. That's what it was literally almost like you're filling up your energy to smile, so what do you do?

I can't help but try it with you. I can't help but try it.

Yeah, I was like imagine this. It's like you want to try and breathe and sometimes people would be like not enough. Literally, the smile comes with it. Let's do this, go for the bell hands to the corner, one step back, smile. And I knew at that moment, provided I followed every individual step, I have done everything that I can to have been perceived as a 10. And when you feel that you're perceived as a 10, your whole conversation shifts, like the concept of look good, feel good.

Yeah.

Look good, feel good, sell good. When you know you look good and you feel confident in your presentation, that will translate over into your confidence, into your tone, into your authenticity. So, Brandon, we're still talking about the pre-stuff right now, but does it make sense that it's so important while we're there?

100%, 100%. So we can fast forward a little bit. Yesterday we talked about, let's say, we brought in a pizza, we're able to have a slice. We talked about that transition we're able to close up the food and start the actual presentation. I also believe what we jumped into there and maybe we missed this pre-door breath, but that pizza is going to help relieve some of this anxiety and that icebreaker stuff too. So it's not just for them, it's for you, which serves the relationship too.

Correct yeah, Because too often people try to jump right into it. Yeah, right, and I hate to say it in a wrong way, but it's almost like Salesforce play needs to happen. You've got to be in a situation where we're like you know what, I'm not just going to jump right into what you want me to do. We're going to make sure we're all warmed up and ready and happy and confident before we do this. So the pizza you can have any conversation you want. You're saying down, you're doing your thing, you're smiling, you're engaging, you're asking about their day, you're lowering their walls. Yeah, that's the ultimate goal. Now the meat potatoes if you don't mind.

Yeah, man jump right in, let's hit it Okay.

The main thing that I've seen that's done wrong is that every salesperson agree is that you need both decision makers. Where they struggle is getting both decision makers engaged Right. How many times have you experienced it where you say I'm going to meet with both people and then one spouse is in the room but is doing dishes?

Yeah, 100%.

Or we'll walk away and say, well, hey, you know, I got to go to soccer practice. But John, here he's going to get the information and we'll just review it when we come home.

Now I'm going to challenge that even, because you're giving examples of where they get it wrong and where you're not reeling them in. But there's also the side like for those that are anxious or didn't get the pizza take or didn't get the coffee, or maybe you didn't set that up in that way, then you're prone to right now ramble off and speed through things without acknowledging the second person as much as you should.

Yeah, the second person needs to feel included. If they don't feel equally included or valuable, they start to zone off and drift, and you'll notice that the second person is often the first one who says that they need to email over. The reason being is that when they're not emotionally and mentally engaged, they're not processing the information properly. And by not processing the information properly, the confused mind says no. So you have two spouses one who believes is a good fit and the other who loves his spouse more than he loves us, who's clearly not comfortable, and some relationships are. I'm not going to talk about this here. We're going to talk about this later. Talk about it together when we're alone. What's going on, babe? Let's figure this out.

Yeah, the path of least resistance and comfort, in this case being a no. During this time that you've spent with these people trying to warm them up and help them make the right choice, to then defaulting to the comfortable choice later, which is likely going to be cheap and probably the wrong choice, exactly.

So what we've designed is something known as pulse check questions, and the reason why I called them pulse checks is because I have a warm body in front of me with the first person I talk to, but I have no idea, not a clue, where the second person stands emotionally on getting this thing solved. So the first thing that you'd like to ask is well, hey, clay, I know it's been a little bit since last we've been here and I haven't really got a chance to talk to your spouse, but you know, has anything changed since last we've been here? Just opening up and being like, has anything changed since we were last year? That reason we want to ask that open is I want to just set the stage that if something has changed, please let me know. That way I can make accommodations accordingly. If you decided suddenly that you wanted to go for an automatic instead of a portable, that's going to be good to know, yeah, and I can make adjustments accordingly. Then, before we get started, do you have any questions on anything we're going to be talking about today? Facing Mariel, did Clay talk to you about what we were planning on doing today? Were you brought up to speed at all, or was more. Just hey, we're having a meeting, please come sit down, build that relationship. Mm-hmm, allowing the other person to say like, yes, well, here's what I was told of, why we're here. Sometimes you'll hear. Well, I mean, clay just brought me over here because he was told that we're supposed to do something with a generator that he wants to do. Compared to yeah, no, I heard about this. He told me about that. There was water in the system. We got to get the state in care of. Okay, now I really have a gauge of where they're at as well. We're going to keep stretching the coin a little bit and figure out where it is. So the next one then come down to. It's okay. Now, mariel, just so you and I are on the same page. When I met with Clay the first time, he had mentioned that he you guys hardly ever lose power, like maybe once a year for like two hours a piece. Is that? Do you feel like that's an accurate representation of what's going on? Yeah, why do you think we're doing that?

Good question.

The main thing we're trying to do in that situation is we're trying to get either a yes or a no. Most likely one spouse is willing to downplay their need. They're willing to downplay the need because they're afraid of getting sold. But by confirming with the other spouse, we either get a yes or a no. If they say, well, no, we actually lose power a lot more than Clay. We lose lost power two months ago, remember? Oh yeah, I forgot, right. Well, how often do you feel like we lose power? Okay, and then what is it you're looking to accomplish then? Like, why not just leave things the way they are? So the first is opening up and getting a no. On the second point, if they give you a yes, it encourages that you're a good listener. I'm glad to hear that's the case, because I designed solutions specifically around that amount of outage and I wanted to make sure that I was giving you exactly what you needed and nothing beyond that. So you've already gotten that understanding that I hear you. I'm being an active listener. We're now confirming the things that you're going to try and ask us to do and, regardless of the answer you give, I have a positive answer to it.

Love it, man, I can't help while you're speaking through this but thinking of also. There's these relationship types and we all know someone who's in this when the person you think or thought was the decision maker is actually a little bit on the puppet side, because in reality, in the workplace even, we've seen this lots where there could be an overbearing boss who knows he needs to delegate but is still actually a bit controlling, still looking over the shoulder all the time, still waiting for you to make a mistake and jump in, and I've seen that dynamic in a lot of relationships too, and quite often it's maybe even unexpected where the female partner is that person or, as they would say, might be wearing the pants, and that's okay. It's not to us to decide their relationship dynamic, but it is for us to honor that dynamic, no matter what it is, so that we're able to present them with the best choice and have them feel comfortable choosing it. Just wanted to squeeze that in there.

That was a good advice. I appreciate that. So, continuing on, we're now going to talk about the actual faults that were reported to us so we can gauge what their stance on it is. So that might sound like is hey, mariel, when I was talking to Clay the first time, he had mentioned that the main reason guys called us out was because the back fan is so loud. It's waking you guys up in the morning. Now, was he just exaggerating with that? Like, is it really that loud? Once again, yes or no? The answer of yes is okay, great. So we're hearing that. What are your thoughts about getting that address compared to no, he's just exaggerating that man. Honestly, I could barely even hear in the morning. Okay, well, clay, let's discuss this, because I want to make sure. I want to make sure that, if only I'm offering something, it's something you both want. So what's your stance on this? Is it something that we should just leave be and not address, or is it something you feel it's worth tackling and discussing? Yeah, so I'm getting the gauge right off the bat of this is what we were told. The next is going in order of priority, and it could be like well, mariel, when I was working with Clay. He was walking through the house. He had mentioned that he wanted to take care of the outside aesthetic choices and then focus on the safety concerns that are inside. What are your thoughts on that? Because you know what I mean. I've seen a lot of homeowners I'm sure you have as well where it's like yeah, I've got a federal Pacific, but I didn't call you for that. What I did call you for is I wanted this circuit over here taking care of it. It's like, okay, so just so we're on the same page. We do know we have a fire hazard here, but that's a lower priority than making sure the outsourced sconces get taken care of. Is that correct? Oh, yeah, now we're planning on selling in the next two years. Anyway, we just want to make this pretty before we sell it. Okay, and you keep that in mind. Granted, we have answers for someone who wants to keep a federal Pacific in case they're selling. But regardless, it's along the lines of now. We know we're on code If we don't ask this question. We as electricians are biased. We're going to lead with what we think is the highest safety concern and build all our top options based on what we think they want, but without understanding what they want, we're appealing to the wrong person. Maybe they want the sconces before they want the panel, but if the sconces are only in the platinum option and every option beneath it is addressing the main system, we've given them an ultimatum when they have to spend the $15,000 to get their $400 where the sconces put up Doesn't sound like a fun deal if you think about it.

Tragic, tragic to get that wrong for sure, right, exactly your chances of being. As this part of the series was about helping us convert more and having presentation success really means that, hey, we're going to be able to land, hopefully, 80% of these. So, yeah, that order sounds pretty critical to that result.

Now, additionally. Now I'm not sure how far we can go with it, because then there's objection handling skills and there's narrowing down skills. I'm not sure how far we want to go into this.

We're about out of time on this one, joe, so let's summarize what we've covered today. Come up with a couple action items and we can dive into it a little bit more on the next one. Sounds great to me.

Okay. So in this concept, do you want basic or do you want all star? You take basic, please. Okay, not a problem. So in the basic action, this is going to sound a little silly, but you're meeting with two people, which means how many people should you actively be engaged with in conversation? Two those, instead of doing it the way we've previously been doing it, where we have all of the relationship with them. I mean hell. I'll meet the guy and then be friends with the dog and have no idea who the wife is, and yet we don't try to get closer to the wife because we're not sure if that takes us away from the sale. But it's not about the sale, it's about the service. And how can you serve if you don't know everyone you're serving? So know who you're serving and your presentations become more on point just as a result.

Valid man, valid, you know what. I want you to take the all star too, if you're comfortable with that, because I don't want to set anyone up short on this one, and I feel like this was really well complimented by your contributions today. So please, my pleasure, I'll start to.

So an all star in this situation is not only focusing on talking to both people, but being willing to say, if I don't get this right, that I'm willing to redesign the presentation right here. And that's scary for a lot of people, but can I explain the pro and con of it? Yeah, okay. So let's say I were to come to your home, I mean with you and Marielle, and I think, based on what you're telling me, that you want to get a generate Right, that's what I'm understanding. You're telling me you want to get it permanent, you want to get automatic, you want to do the whole nine yards.

Yeah.

Right. So me, I'm coming into your home and I get ready to discuss an automatic with you, but during the questioning, when it with Marielle, she's telling me Clay, we haven't lost power in three years, and the last time we lost it was for two hours. I mean, we're talking about buying a new car and you want to put $20,000 into a generator system plus maintenance. I don't. I mean, do what you want, you don't do what you want, yeah, and then she walks out the room. The concern here now is so many electricians will be like, all right, I'm going to present my solutions and then we'll get back to me when you're ready Instead is calling a timeout and saying, marielle, I love that you're here and that's exactly why I wanted you here, because this is your home too, and I want to want to put something into it that's not in line with what you want. So what I can do is there's other hybrid options we can come up with that can give you the power backups that plays looking for, while also being reasonable economically and something you can take with you if you plan on moving. I could do that. What would happen then? And now I can have a presentation, even if I take 10 minutes to redesign it, but I didn't lose them. She wasn't just doing dishes, she wasn't disappearing, she wasn't scrolling, she wasn't listening with one ear. We're doing things for the right reason now. So moral of the story you're working with two people, serve two people and the sale will come from those two.

I love that man. I feel like there was something writing on the wall there and just like letting go of expectations too, and again holding true to that service which, when we said converting at the highest level yesterday, I mean at the premium level. That's what that means at the highest level, and that's always going to mean being grounded and taking care of the person in front of you. I can only see that going wrong. I know I've been there too where you just steamroll the presentation and all of that has to do with nerves and the fear of that flexibility in the moment.

Because otherwise why?

would you, If you knew it wasn't going to serve them? Would you really present that?

No, and, to be honest, it's one of the reasons why I learned to slow my speech so much, because if you look like you're being more intentional in the things you're saying, people will listen to you more. And we fear fifth, two customers who are probably going back and forth each other the entire time, but you're not changing your tone, you're not letting their enthusiasm bleed into your enthusiasm. Who still has control over this call? We do so. As a result, make sure that you control yourself before you focus on controlling others.

Nice touch. Okay, we can't mic drop this one anymore. You heard it here. First, folks, take care of your customers, put service up. That's going to help you convert at a higher level. We've got some more great stuff coming on. The next episode of Electricpreneurs Secrets, that's going to be episode 252. I can't believe it. We keep showing up. We've never been so consistent in anything before. Well, joe has, I haven't. Here we go on her journey to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Guys, thanks for joining us. We'll see you again tomorrow. Truly an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here.