Episode 10 - Tactics Every Electrician Should Know: Overcoming Logical & Neutral Buyers

@2:56 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

We're here to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver consistent premium level service.

Joseph, how are you doing today? 

@3:11 - Joseph Lucanie

I am feeling amazing today.

@3:16 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

We had a great RSS and I'm just letting that energy carry me throughout the rest of the day. Yeah, man.

RSS, you guys, for those that don't know is our Q&A. We run daily with our clients just before this.

And you might be wondering how are these guys always full of ideas to talk about? That's one of our dirty little secrets.

Is we're already warmed up. We've already been talking it out live with our clients. They get to phone in with anything that's been troubling them.

And today we had some great, great activity in there, excuse me, and great topics. You want to introduce Roy's topic today?

@3:47 - Joseph Lucanie

Yeah, I would absolutely love that. Roy came to us today and he was explaining a scenario that he's like, I don't know what happened on this call.

He's like, I just don't know what happened. And he was describing it as. The wife was approaching him as if she had all these YouTube ideas and she'd watched theory videos and she had watched installation clips and the husband is giving him nothing, no emotional engagement, not even like, like not negative, completely neutral.

And he's finding that like he just could not get them out of this loop and was trying to figure out why it was happening.

And as he was describing it though, I recognize that this is something known as competitive selling where what they're actually doing is they're specifically blocking an objection before it even happens.

They're designing it in a way so they can force to not make a decision. Ever been in that situation before, Clay?

@4:43 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah, man, it's crazy. And it's crazy to even think about, and it was amazing to see Roy come in and really be puzzled by it because it's all, it's how we all feel when we encounter it unexpectedly.

We're just like, it's like being hit by a truck. You get up and you're just like, where did that come from?

come from, what just happened? Mm-hmm, why does this happen?

@5:05 - Joseph Lucanie

So the thing is, is that everyone, we've already established people by two ways. They either by logically or they by emotion.

And obviously the goal is to get someone out of logic brain into emotion brain. The problem is, is that there are people who have been burned before.

And, or there are other demographics, like, you know, your engineer types or those who feel that they want to stay in logic.

But when someone has been burned before, they will do every possible effort to protect themselves from ever feeling like they felt before.

I mean, wouldn't that make sense, Clay? Like if you got put your hand on a stove, you wouldn't do the same thing twice.

@5:42 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I always, I always reference this because a lot of people crap on like anxiety and some of the feelings we really feel hypersensitive about these days.

But I think it's really because there is a lack of threats and our fight or flight is so organic.

It's so innate and being. human, right? If we thought back thousands of years ago, Bob goes in the cave, gets eaten by a saber tooth.

I'm not going in that fricking cave.

@6:08 - Joseph Lucanie

That saved my life. That's the reason we're here, right? Exactly. One of your ancestors, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago, was in a situation where they were the smart one who didn't get eaten.

And all those instinctual biological programmings, they're still present today, but the threat isn't the same. So in the customer's mind, your sales pitch is the threat and their fight, flight or freeze response is being triggered super hard.

So in that particular call, there was a lot that was going on. The first thing I want to call to attention of is the wife who was constantly trying to approach saying that she had seen YouTube videos and installation videos, and had even gone so far as to ask him what kind of shovel he was going to use when he was digging a trench.

@6:57 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Sounds crazy, right?

@6:58 - Joseph Lucanie

Put that much thought into a shovel? It's crazy, right? But it's also not. What she's doing is she's trying to communicate, hey, I'm an informed buyer.

I know what I'm talking about. So don't try to pull nothing. That's the subconscious of what's being communicated. She's trying to say, I know what we need to do.

So don't think that I don't know.

@7:23 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Don't you try to pull nothing. Don't think that I don't know what kind of shovel digs a trench.

@7:27 - Joseph Lucanie

It's like, ooh, all right, cool. But you know what? The husband was doing something completely different. He was being what's known as a neutral buyer.

A neutral buyer is one of the hardest things that you can overcome. Because if you're negative, I'll deal with negativity and we can convert that.

Take the negativity and transition it into the why they're being negative. Or if they're positive, we like that too.

Why do you like these choices? What do you like about this? Why did you call us? You can get them to keep being positive.

But neutral is very hard because neutral. gives you nothing, nothing you get from a neutral person.

@8:04 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Blue steel.

@8:06 - Joseph Lucanie

Yeah, it was very intentional. Now, it went even further because he was saying that they were intentionally positioning themselves to his left and his right, but in opposition of him so that he wasn't facing, he wasn't side by side, he was facing them.

And every time he would try to reposition himself, they would reposition themselves as well. Now, Clay, can I ask, and this is probably something you know, but if I were to say that being seated at the kitchen table had a particular benefit, would you believe that?

@8:38 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Oh yeah, definitely. That's where friends and family sit, right?

@8:42 - Joseph Lucanie

You don't invite strangers to that table. And would you believe if I told me that this particular client also wouldn't let him come in the house, but instead, when they did the presentation, they had to entirely be outside by the service?

@8:56 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

It's crazy, what is that saying?

@8:58 - Joseph Lucanie

Without saying anything, what does that say? That's saying, this is where you stay. Here's the equipment that you're gonna work on.

You take care of that. But inside the home, this is her trusted family and friends. Now, the funny thing was, is he actually got the job.

He pushed through all these individual things. He was able to follow the process and understand what needed to be done to overcome it.

And I give him amazing credit for pulling it off. Do you mind if I sprinkle some little value to tell people how they could do the same?

Awesome. So a couple of different things you can do. When you take that first call and the customer is saying something like, I know this, I know that, I've watched this, I've written all the product research.

You can simply ask and say, first, thank you. Clay, thank you for taking the time to make my job easier.

I'm sure you being so informed was for a particular reason. If you don't mind me asking, are you looking to be physically involved in the installation of this?

@10:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah.

@10:01 - Joseph Lucanie

So would you blame me if I were able to take full control over this so I can give you a better solution as well as being able to give you a full and rock solid warranty throughout the entire thing since we're responsible for it?

@10:13 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

And just to break out of character for a second you guys, I fully feel like I want to add resistance right now and be a dick, but it's really unnatural and it makes you come off like a dick with the way that Joseph just presented that.

I would have to be some sort of, excuse my language, stone cold bitch to be like, yeah, or no, I actually want control, but I want you to do what I say.

@10:38 - Joseph Lucanie

And they'll be there. They exist. I'm not saying that they don't, but the thing is, is that when you can position yourself as I'm here to serve you at the highest level, I want to thank you for taking the time of doing research.

I'm sure you did research to make sure you have a better solution, but would you blame me for wanting to take full control over this so that you don't have to stress about that?

wrong to offer you and your family that level of service?

@11:02 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

No.

@11:04 - Joseph Lucanie

It becomes really hard to be like, now I want it my way.

@11:08 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

There's also an unspoken conflict there because we called you to come here and offer at least your professional opinion.

@11:15 - Joseph Lucanie

At the very least, you know my knowledge is worth something.

@11:19 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

If I say that I want control, it defeats that very action, which breaks down my integrity, which is a personal conflict, and people will have trouble going with that.

It won't make much sense.

@11:32 - Joseph Lucanie

The second thing is when someone is being neutral, they'll often position themselves away from you. So what Roy was finding was that the customer was on his left in front of him and on his right in front of him, and they were facing each other.

So the thing is that whenever you guys walk to the kitchen table, you've always been told to have the husband and wife or partners, whoever it is, sit side by side.

look at the problem together. The reason this is so important is I'm gonna use a visual example if you don't mind.

Imagine you're standing and you draw a line directly in front of you. And the customer is on the other end of that line.

Now you become the problem that they are working together to overcome because you're the representation of what they're trying to solve.

Your goal has to always be to be physically side by side with them, looking in the same direction with them.

That way, when you give them a problem, you together are a unit, you're a team looking to solve the problem together.

So what the issue with this scenario was, is the husband and the wife were facing each other. They weren't even focused on the problem together.

They were in opposition of it. So Roy was struggling to bring that connection and ended up constantly having to circle with them until eventually he could be on their same side and look at the problem together.

But eventually once they stayed there, they.

@13:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

stayed there. Yeah. To me, I'm no certified counsellor, psychologist, therapist, but we tend to understand people at a fairly high level, I would like to say.

And when I see that, I'm seeing a classic example of fear, where someone got their hand bit. We talked about this a little bit before, but full circle back, this is classic mailman gets bit, except there's two of them, and they each have a different recollection of that experience.

And so they're not even agreed. All they know is that this contractor coming to their house made them super uncomfortable and exposed some division between them, even on those feelings around it.

That's my bet. And I wouldn't put a thousand dollars on that.

@13:43 - Joseph Lucanie

I'd match your thousand dollar bet right there. I really would because you're right. And that's why our process is so effective because what it does is during there, we actually have a competitor investigation part where we go through when we're opening the panel and we can ask.

So have you ever had to use a professional intrusion before? Have you ever used a friend or family member?

Have you ever used a handyman? You wanna learn what their previous experience was. Because if you've had someone that you like and you trust or that you've consistently worked with, why am I here?

What's happened to make that relationship not happen anymore? You know, if you have someone you like, trust and respect, do you really need to bid it out to see if he's being honest with you?

If you trust him, he's being honest with you. So that's my statement there. We always have to make sure that we're looping back together to say, you're right.

They're having different experiences. And if you can't break down and understand what's causing them to have that reaction, you yourself won't be able to overcome it.

@14:42 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah. And to add a nugget of that from our program, specifically in our commitment design, there is a moment where we're breaking through that line that Joseph mentioned earlier and walking towards the panel together.

And there's a specific line of questions that we insert there and moving towards. towards that panel where he just described, where we're now on a team looking at the problem together.

100%. That's the effort. But again, in this story, it kept him outside at bay. They definitely drew that line in the sand and said, look, we're not interested in being heard again.

Isn't it weird how that's what's really communicated? Really has very little to do with the words we say. But in the moment, totally disarming as the electrician, very difficult situation.

So proud of Roy for getting through that one and making such a tough sale.

@15:35 - Joseph Lucanie

Yeah, it was a really big and pretty impressive accomplishment at the end of the day. Because as nothing else, that shows a lot of personal perseverance as well.

Like so many of us are so ego-based in our presentation because we put our hearts right there. We're gonna put it on the platter and say, I'm gonna give you my best service.

I'm gonna do this because I love doing this. I mean, you're gonna put yourself out there. But when a client like this.

It shits on you and says, no, I don't want this. It hurts. It really, really hurts. And that's what ends up happening when your technicians are in the field and they're getting emotionally hurt.

That's why they're not giving presentations. That's why they're not giving multiple options because they don't want to be hurt either.

So your customer is no different than you emotionally or mentally. We just have to start seeing them as the same.

And once they see them as the same, it becomes us and not they. And selling from a place of us and we is almost always better than selling from a place of they or you.

@16:38 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Make sense? Totally, yeah. All right, we've got to come up with some all-star action here. Actually, regular action and an all-star action.

How can people begin to put some of this stuff to work for them today and make sure they don't get sucked into the logical trap and get stuck there?

@16:52 - Joseph Lucanie

So I would like to say the first thing you can possibly do, right? No, I'm speaking to everyone. Something every single human being who's in this trade or industry can do.

I want you to stop doing verbal quotes. Just stop it immediately. The reason being is that if you don't have, if you have a verbal quote, you never get to step out of the line of the problem because you become the embodiment of the problem.

You need to have something physical to hand or show the customer that says, this is the problem. And you and I will look at this problem together shoulder to shoulder.

So the first action just completely cut out any verbal quote.

@17:37 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

It has to stop and it has to stop today.

@17:40 - Joseph Lucanie

Love it. The all star action is a little different. The all star action is not only that, but I want to teach you something that you can learn that will tell you whether the client is really interested in your presentation or not.

@17:52 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Would you be cool if I touched on that?

@17:54 - Joseph Lucanie

Oh yeah, hit it. All right, the all star action is this. Now that you've made a physical presentation, it's in your.

your hand, whether it's an iPad or a paper, or even on your phone for all I care. As long as it's a physical embodiment of something, you're going to hand it to your client after you've presented it.

How your client grabs it is also a way of showing their level of interest. This is what I want you to do as an all-star.

When you hand your presentation to the client, I want you to notice if they've grabbed it with two hands, whether they grabbed it with one hand, or whether they grabbed it and put it back down on the table.

The reason being is if someone grabs a presentation with two hands, it means they are emotionally engaged in it and they are looking to solve it.

If someone grabs it with one hand, they're interested. They want to solve the problem, but there is an objection that is top of mind.

If they take it and they put it down, it means that they are emotionally disconnected from it and strictly in logical brain.

So the all-star action is to take those steps and recognize what is happening in your client. psyche that way you can approach and solve it in a way that's actual and it's going to work long term.

Nick, oh yeah, man.

@19:09 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Love it. I want to add something here, guys, just quick before we finish up, as you know, and as we keep saying, what gets measured gets managed, and that doesn't just go for saying, okay, this is how it went and leaving it alone.

That stuff needs to be recorded in our program. We're going to literally give away a post diagnostic that you can use, you should use, even if it's just a notepad, guys, everyone should have a sales journal to go through and just highlight, okay, how did the process go?

Did I follow all my steps? Did I follow all of Service Loop Electrical steps? Whoever's process you're using, that makes no difference to us.

What matters is that you measure that thing so you can manage it and make adjustments where it counts, and this is one of those places where we would have made those notes or Roy would have made those notes and said, wow, I really encountered some logical things today and take

Take a step back, have a thinking time on that, reflect on the data you have and make the necessary adjustments so that you can overcome that every time in the future or at least as often as possible.

Hopefully 80% conversion, right? So guys, take these actions, please. You taking action is what drives this success. Success is just good math where you show the work.

The action is the work, guys. We have to do it. Join us in our community live. If you're watching this now in the community live, hello, hello.

Feel free to let us know what you thought, whether you're watching live or the replay or catch the podcast for Electropreneur Secrets.

We're here to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service. We'll see you again tomorrow.