Ep 7 - How to Sell 1M Plus Without a CRM

Transcript

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Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician podcast where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.

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I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeier, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service van.

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Now it's time for sales, it's time for scale, it's time to become a million dollar electrician.

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Hello, hello, hello.

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Welcome back, man.

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I am excited to go into this today.

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Joe, how are you doing today, brother?

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It's been an amazing day so far.

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I feel like it's one of those that's been back to back, but at the same time, I'm full of life, full of energy, I'm feeling blessed and I'm ready to take on the day.

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What about you, brother?

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Yeah, same man Feeling good, feeling pumped up, and I'm excited to talk about this topic because we've attacked this from a couple different angles over the years.

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Now I think I can say that multiple years of this podcast how to sell a million plus without a CRM Now this one is particularly controversial.

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That's probably the right word for it.

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There is a lot of people out there, and especially with the rise of social media and the Reddit channels and everywhere, that electricians come together and have these discussions about what really is the best toolkit for business.

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How do you best manage well, crm, standing for Client Relationship Management, right.

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How do you best manage those relationships?

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How do you best manage that data and the KPI that are required to really build your business?

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But there's another way to look at this and, like you said, we've gone through this a few different ways.

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So I want to introduce another acronym, if I can, for a moment, by all means, brother and this was our approach too, by the way and the acronym is MVP Minimum Viable Product and that's something they teach in business, and it's actually about having the least amount of forward investment of time and energy to just focus on things that are really core and central to this new vision, this new brand of whatever it is that you're building, and it focuses on.

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It prioritizes your offer, it prioritizes the value you bring to your market and it prioritizes how you communicate that stuff and see if the market accepts it in the first place.

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Now can I go on a limb and really open this up?

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Dare I say that you?

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don't need a fancy CRM.

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You don't need the fancy price book, you don't need these things to knock that MVP out of the park and to get the kind of proof that you've seen, that we've seen and that many of our clients are seeing, by staying simple in the beginning and trying to just focus on scaling the things that got you that first success 100%.

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I couldn't agree with you more.

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All right, open it up with me, man.

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What are your thoughts on this particular subject and why is it so important to focus more on that service and the sale and the offer and the relationships than the letterheads and the logo and everything else that kind of gets in the way?

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So I remember when I first started off, we really didn't know much about business, right, it was like we're electricians, we're getting in a van, we're going off, and we learned it as we went.

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So some of it may say that we learned from an experience, but that inexperience actually really lets us step into something pretty nice.

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Now, when we first started off, we didn't have a CRM, and the reason being was that we didn't know that there was something that would help businesses.

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So, as a result, we worked in ways to say what can we do to get the end result without one, and really what that looked like was, instead of focusing on the management, we simply focused on the client aspect.

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So I'm happy to get into any particular of those topics of like how we did what we did.

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Is there a particular area you want me to focus on?

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Yeah, for sure, and I actually want to call attention to what you just said, because I picked up on a little bit of an expression you just used there.

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So client relationship management CRM, that's our focus and you said you tended to focus on the client and the relationship instead of the management.

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Correct, and that's a huge distinguishment that I'd like to dive into first.

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Sure.

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So, like a good example, I remember if someone were to bring up and say, like how did you know when to reach out to people or how would you know what your conversions were Like if you weren't inputting them into a CRM, what would you do and how would you do it?

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Right, well, something that I had become very adept at doing was actually I'll even be more, more transparent with it, because I struggle um be due to facial blindness and being on the spectrum and remembering names and all that stuff I realized that the best way that I could succeed was taking very strong notes after the call.

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So what I would do is I became very emotionally connected to each client that I worked with because after I finished going to their home and figuring what it was, I was in the driveway or two blocks away writing up about the interaction and remembering it and really putting detail and focus on that presentation and solving an emotional concern.

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So I was already very invested in every customer we sold to After we sold it or if we didn't sell it.

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It would just go into two different parallels.

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If we didn't sell it, it made the unsold follow-up list.

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Didn't matter what it was.

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It made the unsold follow-up list.

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If it was sold, it made our customer file, which we were just using QuickBooks, that's all it was.

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So the customer would be logged into QuickBooks as an existing client and all their information would be related to it.

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We had a SkyDrive where we just load files and pictures of their each customer file, so I knew their information via invoice.

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I had all my notes from what we needed in my notes section and if they had any specific things that needed to be consolidated I would upload it to the SkyDrive.

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So I'm hearing three tools and I'm just going to give this kind of parallel language.

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Then quickbooks online.

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Of course you got to take payment somewhere, so you're using that to invoice and collect correct, and of course that's where their names, address, uh, email, phone number, all that stuff goes in there, so you do have their info and you have the ability to collect.

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Yep, uh, you say sky drive.

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I equivalent that to like Google Google Drive.

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Like a cloud yeah, google Drive yeah.

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Okay, so you're keeping folders for each job on there, essentially, or each customer maybe.

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So it was each customer by last name, then first, and then we'll end up because some people had similar last names.

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And then what we do is we'd have the particular project by date, and then what we do is we'd have the particular project by date and then, after we had the project by date, we'd have each option, each sold option, pictures of the job, the work order, like all that we stored onto their file.

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So if you called me about a customer five years ago, we would know about it because I'd be like, oh, what was their last name?

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Just pull it up on the drive, let's see what it is.

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And because I was the primary one who was forward selling in my company, I was the one who took the pictures, I was the one who wrote the notes.

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So a lot of times I'd see it and be like, oh, I remember that person.

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And then the emotional would come back out because I would have built that relationship with someone 100%.

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I love this, and then I would imagine that those really you talked about taking structured notes after, after we now call that post-call facts, yep, following the same structure every time, recording the same things, so that you yourself can adjust your sales process and improve with every interaction.

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And I went even further with it and that I actually used to carry a recorder in my pocket as I got more advanced and what I would do is I would write down certain things to listen to in my pocket as I got more advanced.

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And what I would do is I would write down certain things to listen to.

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So, like, if I thought the presentation didn't go well, I would write in the notes review presentation.

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Or I would go through and say review, objection, question mark around a particular one, and I would know to go back and look at that file and if it really was worth digging into, I could look at it from a third party perspective.

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So it was really strong notes, as well as really strong recordings.

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Love it, so add a recording in there as well.

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You keep all of this stuff and the breadcrumbs of it in this sky drive, yep.

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And then you use QuickBooks online for your office CSRs to be able to also take, take new calls, log new clients and set you up to then fill in that sky drive.

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Is that right?

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That's correct.

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Okay, and this was your process.

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And how much sales were you doing annually with that process?

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So this got us to the first million.

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So literally we were able to get in that process.

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So I'd say this was by like year seven to year nine.

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at that point I'd say this was by like year seven to year nine.

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At that point, year seven to year nine.

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You guys Somewhere around there?

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Yeah, I'd say at the earliest it was year seven.

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At the latest it was year nine.

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Can I just call a time out there for a second?

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Because when you say that it almost seems unreal Like who's got seven to nine years in the tank to get to your first million, I know there's people out there maybe listening who are in a similar journey.

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Yet we're seeing people in their first and second years hit their first million.

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I know this isn't the topic but, joe, but like what's the difference, brother?

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So the difference is this I had to figure it out and I was learning from HVAC coaches.

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So the concept was is that I was trying to figure it out, I was trying to learn the trade, I was trying to learn business, I was trying to build the business and I was trying to establish and learn the process and build the process.

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So the first seven years was all development, all growth, all investment.

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And then, once the process was like, oh shit, we've got something here, this is working.

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Then it became let's scale this until eventually I was able to exit.

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So literally the reason why it's working for people now so much faster is because they are taking the first seven years of my development.

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If you don't have to figure it out on your own and you have a guide that's already done it and already handled the objections, already gone through the shit, you don't have to make the mistakes in such a multitude.

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I did a lot of trial and a lot of error, but now when we work with our clients, they don't have to have those same trial and errors, because they can say, hey, what do you do in this situation?

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Hey, avoid that.

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I went down here and this is what happened.

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Or hey, definitely do that.

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I did this and this is what happened.

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Yeah, so people can avoid pitfalls.

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And that's where, honestly, I think we even have this on our list of episodes to come we got to do one on how to build a sales process.

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Yeah, Because I know some people want to and I know some people don't have the full picture of what's involved and it's a significant process.

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I mean, obviously it took you a long time, but anyway, that's a bit off course.

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I wanted to stick to this so you're able to hit your first million.

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Can I ask quick, what's the difference between even the year before you broke through a million and the year that you did break through?

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Was there a large margin and was there a huge leverage change, like a lever that kind of clicked?

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What was that for you?

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Yeah, so the year before a million we were at 850,000, I believe, and the year after our first million we got 1.3.

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So in both you're looking between two to $300,000.

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Right.

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Okay, two to $200,000 under, $300,000 over.

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Was that just like more leads coming in, or was there?

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Maybe a change in the CRM non-CRM process, or was there any significant difference?

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Or was it just adding up collective experience?

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It's going to sound really weird, but I do remember a specific life event that happened that made me really level up the game, and it wasn't the CRM, it was actually the birth of my daughter and I could specifically say that specifically, like I will underline and bold that, that was the thing that highlighted it for me and this is why, up to the million dollar part, it was all process and no heart, because, as the person that I am, I wear my disability on my sleeves.

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I really genuinely struggle relating with other people.

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It's not that I don't care, I want to care, I care with all my heart.

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It's just, it's not a natural language to me.

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But when I had my daughter, I could finally understand and see the same lens as the people I was primarily serving.

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I started to understand parents different.

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I started to understand priorities different.

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I started understanding life and its real purpose differently and, as a result, I had a process.

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But then I was also relatable and that's why it became such a substantial increase, because I was actually working less and selling more.

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Because I had to.

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I had to be present with my kids, I wanted to get home on time, I wanted to be there.

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I wasn't sleeping through the night.

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So I was selling from process, but also now also from relatability.

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That was the huge pivot.

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Nice, I like that man.

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Great share.

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And again, I know you've been a dad for a while now, but congratulations on that and your success with this, thank you.

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Can I go tactical here for a minute because I just?

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There's some questions that I know people have.

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We've gone over this many times before.

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But okay, one of the benefits people love about a crm is the additional automated communications that happen.

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So, like before you went to a site, wouldn't you talk to clients or would that be a manual thing that you would do?

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Then Would you let them know you were on their, on your way?

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Oh yeah.

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So a lot of what we did was actual, like phone conversation and not text.

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What we would do is we would tell our team don't email anything, don't text anything, call always.

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It's going to be more, it's going to be inefficient, but it's going to build a better relationship.

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So what would end up happening is I would get ready to go to a call, right, let's say it was my first call of the day.

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We would have already confirmed 24 hours prior with a phone call.

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They would have talked to them and then we would have also called.

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When I was on my way, I would text my CSR and I'd be like, hey, guess what?

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Or CSR, sorry, I text my CSR and I'd be like, hey, this is what we're doing.

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I'm on my way over to the call.

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I should be there at this time, great.

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They would then call the customer and say Joe's on his way, here's the situation, and they would follow the process.

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And then I would finish my call and I would check in with my CSR.

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And I loved her.

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Her name was Lauren.

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She was amazing because what she would do was she would actually grill me harder than any other coach would.

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She would actually help enforce the post, call facts with me and it'd be like, okay, did you make your options?

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Did you do this?

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Did you do this?

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Did you close out?

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Were there all the pictures taken care of?

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And she wouldn't actually tell me my next stop until I filled it out.

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So the thing was is that she kept me accountable and because of that, all the information was always updated.

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I never missed anything from the jobs and because she was controlling, the next stop.

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I had to do the thing, so you were doing call by call dispatch.

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Yeah, so we would do call my call from there and then literally I would go to the next one and then I would.

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She would call and let them know I was on my way and then I would let her know when I'm on site and I let her know when I'm done, and it was just like I would text her.

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She would call the customer and it was just a consistent.

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It was a consistent routine.

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And that brings up another question then.

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So what calendar would you use?

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How would you schedule your team without the CRM?

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All Google calendar, like literally all it was.

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It didn't have to be anything complicated.

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Now, granted, quickbooks does sync with Calendar, but we didn't find that out until years later, like you know.

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Like, I wish I would I honestly wish that I had someone in my life at the time that was technologically more advanced, because I really was not advanced at the time.

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I really was not.

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Yeah.

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But I didn't know what I didn't know.

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But I made the best of what I had because I knew the customer relationship had to be prioritized and the sale had to keep coming in and in order to do that, the relationship had to consistently stay high.

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Okay, you broke through the first million.

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Would any part of you start to say, okay, we should upgrade this stuff.

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Let's, let's make this easier.

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Let's upgrade technology.

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Like, did you have that voice in the?

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Back of your head at all.

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No, it's still a bad story at the same time.

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Um so I'm going to say this very politely because I never want to bad mouth anyone my partner former partner at the time um had that idea and said we need to have a CRM.

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We need to have a CRM.

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That's what everyone's saying we need to do.

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So we need to do it.

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And he decided that he wanted to learn coding and was like I'm going to build an app and we're going to build an app and that's going to be our CRM.

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Rather than spend the $80,000 for the app, we're going to develop our own app and we're going to use that.

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And it was so bad it did not work out very well.

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Eventually it did and ended up costing us almost as much as a full app.

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But really, honestly, I think the best suggestion instead of building it yourself.

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If I could have gone back, we should have leveled up with an actual CRM when the time came for it, when we realized that it would have helped.

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We should have just paid the money and done it, rather than say let's play cowboys and do it ourselves.

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Yeah, that's what I learned from that interaction.

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And beyond this.

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Then you were able to continue kind of mess around with this other app idea, but ultimately stuck to the same process for a couple more years then and continually break through a million dollars, selling without a CRM, essentially.

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Pretty much the closest I could say is like imagine me with a carbon copy form, like everyone else was showing up with iPads and stuff like that, and, granted, I had an iPad, there wasn't an argument.

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But the style of business that we were doing was just an older school style.

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The person that trained me when I first started was in his eighties, when I was 14.

00:17:50.579 --> 00:18:01.882
So I just learned a very old school way of doing business and I knew, as long as I focus on the customer and keep them happy, I don't need the fancy stuff to finish that and continue the relationship forward.

00:18:01.882 --> 00:18:09.940
Maybe I made a mistake, but the results spoke for themselves and I was able to scale and grow and eventually exit without it.

00:18:09.940 --> 00:18:10.701
So it worked out.

00:18:11.345 --> 00:18:18.375
Yeah, for sure, and that's why this question comes up all the time and I love the interview format of this one because this is your experience, brother.

00:18:18.375 --> 00:18:30.859
I'm the technology guy Like I love me some CRMs and whatnot, but I also fully, obviously, embrace our program and what you did and what makes us unique and what we're doing here is helping people.

00:18:30.859 --> 00:18:35.675
And the common question is well, does this work in service titan?

00:18:35.675 --> 00:18:37.220
Does this work in jobber?

00:18:37.220 --> 00:18:38.623
Does your sales process?

00:18:38.623 --> 00:18:39.625
Do the six options?

00:18:39.625 --> 00:18:42.564
Does that work in house call pro service fusion?

00:18:42.604 --> 00:18:51.926
You know the list goes on with all the different crms that people have tried to just tailor to be specifically better in different ways, and we'll get more into that here shortly.

00:18:51.926 --> 00:18:56.359
But ultimately it's my favorite answer in the world and it's well.

00:18:56.359 --> 00:19:12.064
This works with anything, because it's not even that it predates anything, but it prioritized ahead of anything so that you could just do it, you learn the basics and technology would never be in your way, as it were, with you.

00:19:12.064 --> 00:19:23.801
And that's really what I think personally, from my outside perspective, was a big key to this is you never had to anticipate any curve balls outside of just dealing with that customer engagement.

00:19:24.443 --> 00:19:28.087
Yeah, really, I stuck in my lane and you're 100% right, but I want to add another layer to it.

00:19:28.087 --> 00:19:29.359
Sure, my lane and you're a hundred percent right, but I want to add another layer to it.

00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:30.643
Sure, and that was.

00:19:30.643 --> 00:19:36.404
We recognize a very clear problem, which was New York slow season was a real fear, like at least in our area.

00:19:36.404 --> 00:19:47.124
We recognize that after November it'd be like November, december, january and February would start to pick up, but those four months were consistently in like statistically very slow in our area.

00:19:47.124 --> 00:19:50.018
A lot of people were moving out and it was seasonal.

00:19:50.077 --> 00:19:54.827
So the thing was we recognized we needed to find a way to gap that.

00:19:54.827 --> 00:20:03.599
In order to gap that, all the customers from January through November were logged in QuickBooks but they were given certain tags.

00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:13.588
We knew who were our maintenance customers, who were our first-class customers, who had inspections, who had unsold calls, because they were all given specific line items that we could further search.

00:20:13.588 --> 00:20:31.622
So when it came time for us to say we need work, we had had a very fat pile of leads to go through, as well as already pre-scheduled first class inspections that were already scheduled November through February, first-class inspections that were already scheduled November through February.

00:20:31.622 --> 00:20:37.684
So we were preparing in advance and because we had that focus, we didn't let the customer slip through the cracks, because we knew we needed those crumbs when the time came.

00:20:39.336 --> 00:20:40.118
Yep, oh, that's powerful.

00:20:40.118 --> 00:20:42.605
That's powerful and that was one of my questions too.

00:20:42.605 --> 00:20:52.029
So you were a huge advocate of simplifying the memberships and making sure that we had that value on the back end for people and to identify who our best customers were.

00:20:52.029 --> 00:21:03.069
So if you know, jane Doe calls and she's on that first class list, how would you or your CSRs identify that then, without the CRM?

00:21:03.835 --> 00:21:05.722
So we literally it's the same process we teach.

00:21:05.722 --> 00:21:11.018
So, as we're going through in the brighter day process, it would be the concept of who have the pleasure of speaking to.

00:21:11.018 --> 00:21:17.701
Hey, before I look you up on our system, so the first thing was I'll even simplify it the first thing was who would I have the pleasure of speaking to?

00:21:17.701 --> 00:21:19.566
While they're doing that?

00:21:19.566 --> 00:21:21.557
Once they have the name, I could type that name in.

00:21:21.557 --> 00:21:31.287
But I'm also saying, before I do that, before I look at you in this system, which I'm actually typing them in in the system in advance, I'm asking are you a first-class past member?

00:21:31.287 --> 00:21:33.848
And it's only going to be one of two responses.

00:21:33.848 --> 00:21:38.579
It's usually not yes or no, it's yes or what's that.

00:21:38.579 --> 00:21:42.023
It was never yes or no, it was always yes or what's that.

00:21:42.023 --> 00:21:54.902
So, as a result, if it said yes, well great, I already know, because I and if you weren't a first class member, it was totally fine.

00:21:55.222 --> 00:22:12.636
So I had two different levels nice, nice, yeah, and we, like you said, we still teach that today because now they've at least heard of it, and it's not a complete shock later on when it's attached to an option or offered to you and you've never heard of the thing before yeah, first class pass honestly was, I think, one of the best ideas we had.

00:22:13.159 --> 00:22:20.944
It was just such a consistent process and it really saved us a lot of time, energy and hassle and really got us through some solo seasons that would have been really rough.

00:22:21.875 --> 00:22:23.999
So do you mind me asking then go a bit deeper there.

00:22:23.999 --> 00:22:27.566
So it's January 8th.

00:22:27.566 --> 00:22:29.935
Okay, things are a little slow.

00:22:29.935 --> 00:22:30.858
You've seen it coming.

00:22:30.858 --> 00:22:32.022
Hey, we're after Christmas.

00:22:32.022 --> 00:22:35.682
We've got to reboot the team here and pound the pavement a bit and get some work.

00:22:35.682 --> 00:22:37.406
What would you do then?

00:22:37.474 --> 00:22:42.487
You'd go to QuickBooks and search for so it would depend on what we need more of, right?

00:22:42.487 --> 00:22:52.974
So you're saying January, which usually would make me believe that we've already taken November and December to do our first class inspections, right, so it's likely at that point we've already hit them.

00:22:52.974 --> 00:23:05.449
If we hadn't, I would continue to be scheduling inspections, and the way I'd look that up is I'd go to QuickBooks and I'd do the search function and I would have a line item of first-class membership, so all the first-class members would come up.

00:23:05.449 --> 00:23:14.479
If that wasn't the thing, the next would be people who wanted additional inspections because inspections were secondary service people purchased.

00:23:14.479 --> 00:23:17.065
So then okay, I look at all my inspection customers.

00:23:17.065 --> 00:23:20.914
Inspections were secondary service people purchased, right, so then okay, I look at all my inspection customers.

00:23:20.914 --> 00:23:21.537
Then this is the real.

00:23:21.596 --> 00:23:24.885
The real lever was generator maintenances, because generator maintenance is ideally should be done twice a year.

00:23:25.326 --> 00:23:36.208
Yeah, one in our area because in the spring horrible, horrible rainstorms, and two in the fall because we often have hurricane season and then also having a situation just really bad weather.

00:23:37.015 --> 00:23:46.508
So if it was January, I would often tie it to weather storms, be like, hey, I know you've been running, you know you've had a situation where it's possibly ran in November and December.

00:23:46.508 --> 00:23:50.246
I know you were running previously for a few days because we can see on the mobile monitoring.

00:23:50.246 --> 00:23:57.986
I'd want to let you know that in order to ensure you're protected throughout the next stem until spring comes, it'd probably be good to have an inspection or a service taken care of.

00:23:57.986 --> 00:24:00.657
When do you want to take care of that, or would you rather us wait until spring?

00:24:00.657 --> 00:24:06.005
And most people were like, yeah, you're right, we should get it done and then we just offer maintenances.

00:24:06.005 --> 00:24:19.500
So first-class upgrades, whole home inspection upgrades, generator maintenance upgrades, and then after that there was a whole continued list of things we could have gone into People to follow up with specific lists, and I can go in as much detail as you want.

00:24:20.035 --> 00:24:22.242
Well, I've got a deeper question again for you now.

00:24:22.242 --> 00:24:29.990
Sure, Would you turn those generator maintenances into options and greater offers?

00:24:29.990 --> 00:24:30.853
Oh my God.

00:24:30.853 --> 00:24:32.642
And just on the generator?

00:24:32.642 --> 00:24:35.339
Or would you link it back to the home as well and the entire system?

00:24:35.861 --> 00:24:40.689
The whole system and I'm really going to try and cut my words here because I know we're short on time.

00:24:40.689 --> 00:24:49.320
But with generators you're not solving a mechanical issue, you're servicing an emotional solution.

00:24:49.320 --> 00:24:49.682
That's the thing.

00:24:49.682 --> 00:24:51.969
The generator serves to solve an emotional problem.

00:24:51.969 --> 00:24:59.321
It's my responsibility to find out what that emotional problem was and to make sure that that solution is rock solid for them.

00:25:00.056 --> 00:25:14.119
So if they're telling me that they have a home office, wouldn't it make sense that I say, hey, while I'm doing a power transfer and I'm going to make sure that I'm testing the unit under load, wouldn't it make sense that I go into that office to make sure that the things actually have power?

00:25:14.119 --> 00:25:20.482
So now I'm in your home office, I'm checking out your circuits, I'm going to see if you need upgrades and things.

00:25:20.482 --> 00:25:22.501
I'm also going to check your main panel.

00:25:22.501 --> 00:25:24.320
So I'm seeing if you need anything there.

00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:27.464
And everywhere I walk I've got eyes on something.

00:25:27.464 --> 00:25:41.699
But at the same time we're bonding, we're connecting, we're talking, which means that it's likely you're going to bring additional things up and once I hear something, I'm going to grab onto it.

00:25:41.699 --> 00:25:42.501
We're going to keep talking about that.

00:25:42.501 --> 00:25:42.804
I love that.

00:25:42.804 --> 00:25:46.698
So it may be that they call you for a generator maintenance, but the thing that becomes sold is an emotional concern that's completely unrelated.

00:25:46.698 --> 00:25:50.817
So generator maintenance is you get your foot in the door, you got the right process, you're making a sale.

00:25:51.417 --> 00:25:53.803
You just got to go Good share, good share.

00:25:53.803 --> 00:25:55.806
Okay, back on track with the crm stuff.

00:25:55.806 --> 00:25:58.397
I know there's a bunch of more detailed questions.

00:25:58.397 --> 00:25:59.380
You did mention time.

00:25:59.380 --> 00:26:03.359
We do have to be cognizant of that today as a class is coming up here now.

00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:32.263
Something that we do recommend often is there's always questions about which crm, and it's usually there's three that come up for electricians, jobber, house call pro and service titan, and I feel like this is the right episode to just kind of insert our opinions and help people understand that we're not recommending you go without a CRM, recommending that you do prioritize your process ahead of that CRM and that's something I've held true to for many, many years is I think people get this backwards.

00:26:32.263 --> 00:26:49.749
I think people sign up for a CRM based on what someone else told them or their perception of it, maybe, and then their process becomes that CRM's function rather than having a process to serve and then utilizing a CRM to support the service.

00:26:49.749 --> 00:26:50.550
Does that make sense?

00:26:51.474 --> 00:26:52.236
It really does.

00:26:52.236 --> 00:27:05.892
It's almost like people will look at the van and recognize that it needs to be racked and wrapped and stocked, but they won't look about getting the customer on the calendar that actually needs the van to get there.

00:27:05.892 --> 00:27:10.263
Wouldn't it make sense to get a job that actually requires all this stuff?

00:27:10.263 --> 00:27:15.682
Before you put the money into it, we would just simply say we need customers to be happy.

00:27:15.682 --> 00:27:19.509
So our number one focus is going to be creating a great relationship.

00:27:19.509 --> 00:27:22.275
Everything after is just managing that relationship.

00:27:22.275 --> 00:27:24.804
But it doesn't matter if you're managing something that doesn't exist.

00:27:25.096 --> 00:27:26.820
So make it exist first and then manage it.

00:27:27.604 --> 00:27:30.039
Absolutely, and I want to give an example of this.

00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:31.724
That's kind of maybe a halfway step.

00:27:31.724 --> 00:27:34.300
Keep it simple.

00:27:34.300 --> 00:27:35.519
You remember the acronym KISS?

00:27:36.461 --> 00:27:37.125
Keep it simple stupid.

00:27:37.595 --> 00:27:39.701
That's the one man I've heard that in different ways.

00:27:39.701 --> 00:27:43.779
Keep it simple, supervisor, you know, try to be more polite but ultimately keep it simple.

00:27:43.779 --> 00:27:46.547
Stupid Jobber is that for me.

00:27:46.547 --> 00:27:50.404
I've been into companies with five, six staff.

00:27:50.404 --> 00:28:12.118
You know just a nice humble little small operation, small business that could sign up for something like Jobber, going from complete paper to Jobber, sign up on Monday and have the entire team on it, schedule, customers logging in, invoicing, things happening by Wednesday, like literally like a 24 to 48 hour implementation.

00:28:12.118 --> 00:28:17.942
Everyone's moving forward with this thing and that's what I love about Jobber it's actually the simplest thing.

00:28:18.756 --> 00:28:19.499
I would agree with you there.

00:28:19.499 --> 00:28:20.462
That makes a lot of sense.

00:28:20.796 --> 00:28:22.994
By the way, this is not a paid advertisement.

00:28:22.994 --> 00:28:25.042
This is just our personal opinions.

00:28:25.674 --> 00:28:27.480
But if you want to sponsor us, you can.

00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:28.664
Yeah, exactly.

00:28:29.655 --> 00:28:31.824
Yeah, maybe we'll get on the Jobber podcast here soon.

00:28:31.824 --> 00:28:33.759
They have a pretty good service podcast.

00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:38.327
But Housecall Pro then becomes to me the next level up.

00:28:38.327 --> 00:28:42.546
There's more integrations, more you can do with this app.

00:28:42.546 --> 00:28:46.223
For that reason people have wider visions with it.

00:28:46.223 --> 00:28:51.965
But it adds complexities and I don't find it just not quite as user friendly.

00:28:51.965 --> 00:29:00.910
And then when you try to boil in like Profit Rhino as a price book, I just haven't heard many good things or good experiences, nor have I had them that were kind of worth it.

00:29:00.910 --> 00:29:08.601
So again, it's this concept of, is this distracting us from our process of just serving people at the highest level?

00:29:08.601 --> 00:29:11.221
And I dare say that it does too often.

00:29:12.724 --> 00:29:15.261
I would agree with you there and I would say even on the next level.

00:29:15.261 --> 00:29:31.844
So, like, the most clear example of this is like when people talk about service Titan and I have no issues with service Titan as a whole, I've never used them but at the same time I have worked with a lot of companies that do and people ask well, is it worth it?

00:29:31.844 --> 00:29:42.009
And from my experience and what I've seen, it is for the right kind of company because you need to be at a certain scale to really justify the investment that goes into it.

00:29:42.009 --> 00:29:56.031
But also, once you're at that scale, because there are so many integrations, if you can move a 0.5% lever but you're moving it across 100 people, it can be a very substantial operation improvement.

00:29:56.031 --> 00:30:01.742
So having that level of nitty gritty detail is very helpful for the right size organization.

00:30:02.364 --> 00:30:18.243
A hundred percent and for us and the people in our program I always say hey, if you're really reaching past the million dollar mark five, six staff and you're looking to have multiple sales tax and really grow and scale in this industry, then service Titan is great, Does a few really key things.

00:30:18.243 --> 00:30:27.288
I'm going to mind the time here and just say it'll help you manage your sales and follow sales by tech and all the KPI involved with that.

00:30:27.288 --> 00:30:29.159
It helps manage material, et cetera.

00:30:29.159 --> 00:30:39.979
It takes things to a higher level with better integrations, better reputation management, all that, but at a big cost, a big price point, and that's why we really don't recommend that.

00:30:39.979 --> 00:30:49.067
It's way too much for a small business to take on and, that said honestly, they help you with the upgrade when you do get to that point.

00:30:49.067 --> 00:30:55.618
So our whole stance and everything that we want you to leave with from this episode is you don't need that.

00:30:55.618 --> 00:31:00.960
You don't need to set your aim so high at the beginning and think about oh, what about?

00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:05.334
You know, maybe you've made $200,000 this year and you're thinking about the $2 million to $3 million mark.

00:31:05.334 --> 00:31:09.726
It's a great vision to have, but the basics will get you there.

00:31:09.726 --> 00:31:25.082
You don't need service tight, not yet Hang tight and we see that proof in-house with Dan Totten, who needs to come back on and maybe we do a job or specific episode, because the guy interviewed with us at about 1.1 million after his first full year in January.

00:31:25.604 --> 00:31:28.315
Now he's on track to about two and a half to 3 million.

00:31:28.315 --> 00:31:29.678
We'll see where he lands folks.

00:31:29.678 --> 00:31:49.007
But ultimately that's all through jobber and that's all service relative stuff, with the odd sprinkled project when people pay our service rates, and you can do all of that and overcome those pains and still have massive years and massive success, Like his couple leading techs that sold just last month.

00:31:49.007 --> 00:31:56.913
I want to say 100k a piece and that's all through something as simple as Jobber, through something as simple as Jobber.

00:31:56.913 --> 00:32:02.844
So let's all make a deal here just in the closing moments of this one, Joe, to not be fooled by the flashy stuff.

00:32:02.844 --> 00:32:08.085
Let's not be ravens, let's be electricians, let's be electricians that prioritize premium service.

00:32:08.085 --> 00:32:10.242
If you need help with that, we're right here.

00:32:10.242 --> 00:32:17.419
Ask any questions, leave us a review where you found us first and, of course, share this episode with someone else you know who needs to hear it.

00:32:17.419 --> 00:32:21.107
By the way, you want to tell us about your experience with your CRM.

00:32:21.107 --> 00:32:22.258
We'd love to hear that too.

00:32:22.258 --> 00:32:24.022
Until next time, guys.

00:32:24.022 --> 00:32:24.945
We'll see you soon.

00:32:25.835 --> 00:32:26.356
Namaskaram.

00:32:26.356 --> 00:32:27.101
May you be blessed.

00:32:27.894 --> 00:32:32.095
And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast.

00:32:32.434 --> 00:32:36.919
We hope you're buzzing with new ideas that charge up to take your business to the next level.

00:32:36.939 --> 00:32:40.801
So don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with fellow electricians.

00:32:40.801 --> 00:32:44.194
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Ep 7 - How to Sell 1M Plus Without a CRM

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