Episode 155 - How do Generators Stand Out From Other Niches

Hello, hello and welcome back Wednesday to another episode, episode 155, if you can believe that, joe of Electric Pernur Secrets the Electricians podcast, where, of course, we help you to master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. You've got me Clay Neumeier and my esteemed co-host, joseph the Salesbot Lucani. As you can see, they also call me the Pleasant Peasant I almost can't say it without laughing, it's a tongue twister because I'm so, so helpful, so Canadian, so polite, that I'll open the door and thank you for walking through, joe. How you doing today, brother.

I'm doing. I'm actually in an interesting place right now. I'm sure if any of you guys are visual, you see that I'm wearing a pair of glasses. It's gotten to the point where, staring at screens for so long and whatnot, my eyes started to go and I just had one of those days where I'm like you know what, screw it. I'm putting them on because I like being able to see what I'm talking about. New pairs should be coming in a few days and I can't wait for it.

Nice man. It's funny you mentioned that we got some generator stuff to get into today again how they stand out from other niches. You don't want to miss this. There's some really good value if you're still deciding an inch of specialty et cetera, how to go deeper with clients and get more trust from the get-go. But since you mentioned that the other day, I was thinking like what would happen Could we still do this if we went blind, like what would happen then You're consulting if we were blind?

Yeah, yeah. And then, how do we get help?

You'd have to like get help. Bring me the microphone, bring it to my face and just tell me what to speak about and I'll go.

Well, realistically, it'd be no different than having a seeing eye assistant. All I need is a nudge and be like hey, joe, can you talk about? Can I hear you? Is my brain still sharp? That's really the only two faculties we need. You can be a complete invalid, but if your brain is sharp and you're able to still communicate with people, you can have an immensely profound quality of life. So, granted, we were gifted two eyes and I consider myself blessed to have them, but were they to be taken away by a power beyond ourselves, I'd still be here, able to serve.

Might be a slight tangent, but I'm also reminded of and it always seems like a good business topic to discuss a franchise quickly, go for it. And, speaking of this, and having abilities and the confidence to do this, once you've done it before and you can look back at the standard operating procedures and notice like, hey, this could be cookie cutter, done again and again, as in some of the big ones, of course, like Tommy and A1. Not an electrician, but as a reference. So, speaking of Tommy, do you have Tommy Guns barbershops down there?

No, is that an American one? No, I don't personally go to many barbershops. Usually I do all my shaving myself, but I have yet to see a Tommy Guns anywhere in our area.

All right. Well, let me tell you what their franchise says Right on the app. When you go to book an appointment, it says, hey, not a barber, not a problem. I own a Tommy Guns today and it just reminds me that you know what in this to, if we really get our processes down, even if you were blind, you could step back and still run a company, knowing what's on the page, knowing what you did before, knowing how to lead a team through this. Now would be wrong of us to want that for you, not to go blind part, but to have it dialed in, and that's why I'm so excited, man, we've been given so much value away, but this week specifically, we finally relaunched our program on the inside track and our entire roadmap is dialed in and linked piece to piece, just like we would hope all of your so please would be in your business so that even on on your, your csr schedule, they know what to do between this hour and the next and they have the link to the process and how to do it, so that it's trainable and someone can fill in for them if they get sick. Anyways, man, incredibly pumped and a pump because it's action Wednesday that means we're given value away. So if you're not with us in the facebook group or on our website, service loop electrical dot com, requesting the actual notes first time, release the notes from our generator specialist workshop that we did on may thirty first. If you haven't got that yet, then jump in there with us again. The facebook page is called electric planar secrets, named after the podcast. Without further ado, what do you say? We jump into this topic of the day.

I'm so pumped man, I mean literally generators are my jam. So if you want to just keep pumping generator episodes out like, set me up, I'm ready to crack it.

We're gonna finish the week off strong man. One of the biggest questions frequently ask questions we get Our premium providers out there. To our premium providers on the inside track is like a clay. I get it. You got me buying into the niche thing. I want to reduce marketing costs, I want to niche down, I want to do more and be more of a specialist with enhanced trust and authority in a marketplace. But does it gotta be generators? I mean, you guys talk about generators a lot. Could it be? Could it be electric vehicle chargers? Go ahead, joe, wayne, brother, sorry.

So the answer is yes. Of course, there are so many niches that you can get into, but there's a specific reason why we talk about generators. So when we originally my company was trying to find our niche, we already knew generators were specialty we had because we've been so formally trained on them. But with the rise of EV chargers and with the new solar everything that was coming out at the time and you know, back in like the early 2015, people were saying like oh, the Tesla shingles are gonna come out, so you want to get involved in roofing and the icing cables. So there are a lot of things. There was actually one niche that we tried getting into and testing it. We actually got into EV chargers. We became Tesla dealers, and we came very familiar with the product and services. The reason why we chose generators, though, was because generators always come with an assumed additional service, so, whereas an EV charger, you could go and you can install it and, as a result, you could have additional years of coming back, there's less and less of a justifiable reason in the customer's mind.

And can I just call a quick time out here? I don't want to take you off track, so don't lose that spot, but I got to say I love the way you said hey, we actually tried and tested this. I mean we got some feedback to see if this was something that was going to fit for us. I had to insert that, Joe. It excited me immediately. Data sucks, but, man, the database is powerful. Please continue, brother.

That's not by all means, and thank you for that. So we really tried being more involved in the EV charging market and one of the things that we realized we needed to do was it needs to have additional touch points. It's not enough to say I'm going to put in a NEMA 50 outlet directly underneath your panel and like that's it and I'm going to walk away from it. There had to be something more. So anytime a customer would provide an actual charging system like I have, either the wall pack or have all these different systems we would say, okay, within the first two years we will come back and we will reopen and retighten all the connections. The logic being is that if you're pulling anywhere at the time they had 80 amp chargers, so it's if you're pulling 50 to 80 amps on a consistent load it's possible, especially in a garage with colder temperatures, that there could be connections that could become loose. It's just, it's a possibility, it's something that could happen. And if you're in a circumstance where you have 50 amps of load being pulled on a loose connection, what's the next most logical thing that happens? Yeah, something burns, like you get an arc hazard. So we created different maintenance plans and almost they'd be similar to the first class paths, but they were specifically tailored to just EV chargers, saying that we will contact Tesla's warranty for you. We will go and take pictures and make sure the manufacturer has it. We'll be on file with everything needs to be done. We'll come back and retighten our connections. We're going to test the car's internal components. We're going to make sure that it's charging and timing is correctly, and it was a good idea. Don't get me wrong.

It sounds valuable, yeah, it does.

But the big but is here. The but was is that it really topped off after one to two years? Because the argument of saying, okay, if I've tightened the connection once and I torqued it and it's to spec, yes, I could see one year of fresh connections and their high capacity and cold temperatures separating those connections, but it stopped being a truly justifiable inspection from both a professional standpoint and in the customer's mind. So after year two there was very few reasons to come back. In addition to that, we were finding that with there was a lot of other bigger companies like Solar City, and certain companies were being specifically purchased by Tesla and they were being individually promoted through them. So it was, I was competing, even though as a Tesla dealer, I was losing that continued interest beyond year two. So we decided to pull out of that particular market. We also looked into solar. I remember American Standard made a really, really good battery backup system that connected off solar grids and they're great. But at the time they were upwards of $50,000. And with all the additional solar marketing that's been cornered. At this point. There's a lot of loans and incentives for certain providers to provide, which made it very hard for a non-provider to get into that same market on a competitive level.

Which can I just ask at this point? I think recently this year, you had a solar provider come to your house and was able to offer you a complete home turnkey solar setup for essentially no cost. Is that right?

Yeah, and the thing was is that I actually ended up saying I was going to book with him, get the appointment, everything was supposed to be ready and I ended up pulling out at the last minute. And I can explain why I did. Yeah, please. And the logic was he said I'm going to knock on your door. Your home is south facing. You have no trees around you or that would block this solar system. I'm canvassing every new neighborhood in this area. This would be a benefit to you and you have to put absolutely nothing down and the government will literally pay you for it, meaning that every single thing is completely covered, unless you're involved in those programs. How could anyone compete with free? Yeah, it didn't really make sense. So I realized that, no matter how quality I was, no matter, like because, granted, you take the typical solar installer, they're running their three quarter inch EMT, they're using the grounding bushing, they're using the conduit as the ground in some circumstances, but really just bare minimum installation, whereas someone like us would be like let's run it in one inch, let's run the spare conductor, let's paint it to match the house. I would always lose because I'm not free. Like, literally, like, not free. Can't argue with that, I wouldn't blame my customers Absolutely. So, with all this being said, we tried, niche after niche, at holiday lighting. The icing system, solar, all of them, generators. Year after year after year became such a solid investment because once you have knowledge and you understand how motors work and you understand how the system is supposed to operate its power, you can work on almost any generator system with a minimum level of proficiency. So just by understanding one system, you have a strong grasp on most generating systems. These systems also are very easy to get into a maintenance agreement on, because if a customer just dropped $16,000 on it, are you going to tell them like hey, you put 16 grand into a system. Are you cool just letting it rot out for two years and you'll just call us for an oil change when it times out after its 36 runtime? It's like no, you won't, of course not.

And that's the thing, and I think you began to answer sort of my next question for it, which was why do you think that clients seem to show more resistance for an EV maintenance package versus a generator maintenance package?

So the thing was that I found from my experience was that people were not expecting maintenance with Tesla or EV chargers. It wasn't something to be expected from the dealer that they purchased the car from. There was nothing from Tesla's manufacturer saying this needs to be brought into service, unless you took it to a dealership for the physical car itself to be serviced. Very rarely was their equipment required to be serviced. We were doing it because we said it just made logical sense. 50 amps to 80 amps of connection with one loose connection. You now have an R-CaZard that you may not recognize and could, as a result, damage your $80,000 car. But after year one or two people are like you already tightened the connections. It's safe. It's gone through a winter, it's gone through two winters. What more are you looking for? All right, and I refuse to be the person who's just going to push something for the sake of currency. I will only offer a product if I believe that it enhances the lives of my customers. The moment it stops enhancing their life, I need to pull back from it, because now I've just become a salesperson rather than a premium service provider, and I don't want to be a salesperson. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I love that and I think we've agreed on that even in. Sometimes we get into a sales call situation or a strategy call with a potential client and when they tend to align on value instead of revenue, I got to say we always tend to get excited about that and share that with them in that moment, because you recognize that they're truly thinking about the bigger picture. Really thinking about revenue is shallow. Revenue doesn't last. It's what you hang on to that counts. As we talk about that second level of the business hierarchy of needs, I want to add another disclaimer here quick, because you're sharing some really valuable knowledge and insights on both generators and both other niches. It doesn't mean that that won't necessarily work for you in your market. If you're listening or watching now and I just want to again go back and emphasize double underline, bold, italicized, double exclamation and a highlight on try and test Use this knowledge for what you will. Let that help you guide your decision. But again, obviously with this level of maintenance we've got more opportunities. We certainly have a high degree of value, especially when the power goes out. There is nothing like a client's first time when the blocks dead black and their lights are on and they're able to flip on the TV and yawn no problem, right, so definitely a huge improvement to the quality of life. Here's my question for you now. Why do we need to get moving on this? Why is it important for someone to take action now, joe, and start seeing some results? And what are the really? What opportunities are we missing by not taking action now? Okay, even, what steps can we just take now? Which might be the action to finish this off?

Sure, I'd be happy to. So let's almost like a three part question, which is why are we doing it, why are we doing it now and what could we do immediately? Am I missing anything there?

No man, I buried you in it, so please, that's all right.

So the first thing is why now? Why do we have to do this now? Well, I'm going to speak to two things. One any niche you get into. I'm not saying that I know every single niche, but what I will say about niching is that the best kind is the one that encourages frequent and ongoing touch points. You don't want to just install something once and then leave it there for the next 30 years and then hope that they call you and you send one of your kids out to do the service 30 years from now, like that's not what we want. It should be something that says I'm going to get involved in it and either A there is a limited amount of providers. B I am significantly better than most of my providers because of enhanced training or customer service or quality. Or C it requires an ongoing maintenance in order to ensure its operation. As long as that particular niche fits those additional categories, you'll be successful in it. Now, why generators? And why now? Well, it's September. Right now, we are on the cusp of what slow season could be. I believe September, october are still strong months. November is when things start to dip down a little bit and then it goes until about Thanksgiving. But we actually know that between August, september and October, statistically proven more generators are sold in these three months than they are throughout the entire year. So if you were going to get into it, you have two more months to capitalize on that big uptick. The second thing, why now? Is because as it gets colder, the threat of storms come. It used to be hurricanes in August, now it's no longer hurricanes in the end of September, early October, but now it starts to become fall. As it gets colder, as it gets more brisk, people are like oh, winter is coming on. What do we should do? Yeah, remember last year we talked about wanting to get a generator and we lost power. Yeah, we didn't get around to doing that Shit. We better get that done before it snows again. So you have a particular market that is already putting their hands up with previous commitment that they wanted to move forward. So, lastly, why now is because now is the best time to maintain these systems. So if you can maintain a generator in fall meaning September, october, november you are statistically more likely to prevent it failing during an outage. So let's say you install the system and you maintained it in January, right, you could have had some outages which would have led to more than 36 hours of runtime. You're supposed to change the oil on a residential grade system after 36 hours of runtime. If you don't maintain it now and you have a freak October storm and it fails, you think this customer is going to resign with you.

No.

No. So if you maintain it before they need it, you're always going to be the person who's showing you're proactive in their family desire. I have a need and what do you know? Service of Bucs School is here. I didn't even have to call them, they just showed up. It was on the calendar. It's already prepaid. They brought me a margarita, like what else can I do? Like I did everything you do, everything I have to do nothing. All I got to do is write you a check and it's done. Yeah, all right, go ahead, get it done, see you.

Yeah, I love that Great answer and I'm also thinking about this, um, the generator workshop notes that are also beside me, that we're giving away free today and where we got even deeper with these answers. Of course, this is just surface level, scratching that surface, but things like, hey, if you're already at home doing work, especially on the service, on the panel, et cetera, there's option enhancements that you could be putting forward that lead to the one day sale of a generator, oh my God, yeah, etc. I mean we can keep going and going about this, but, joe, we are running out of time. So my big why now is because, literally today, we're releasing these workshop notes that you could have for free, put them in your back pocket as a little guide to help you with this and make the most of this specific niche, while you've got the sales bot, the Jen specialist himself here, who's literally made over a million dollars in his own business off of generator sales from the few years of over 1.3 million in sales, consistently right. So you've got this resource and right now we're giving you an additional one. So why not grab that I'm going to call that the base action item and steal one of yours, joe, let's play out an all star and say goodbye to our friends for the day.

Okay. So I'm going to go base. I'm going to start thinking this through because I know my previous all star actions were get involved in service, get involved in maintenance. The all star action now is a little bit beyond that, because I'm going to assume you've already done those two previous things. They're either contacted your dealer and you're trying to involve in training. You're already trying to learn how to maintain them. That's great. The all star action now is where do you apply it? Almost every utility company has a resource on their website that notifies you or at least will show you previous outages. So what you can do is you can actually see projected outages by past, current data. So what I'm suggesting you do is, if you want to get into generators and maybe you don't have a ton of clients right now you can specifically canvas those areas and say, all right, these particular people have lost more power than all the other areas. This is where I'm running the Good Neighbor program, this is where I'm sending my EDDMs, this is where I'm going to go in canvas, because at least now the effort you make is statistically proven to have a higher yield, because clearly they need it and year by year the infrastructure is not going to improve. So why not make this year the year they have satisfaction and peace of mind? And if they're going to have it, why don't they get it from you?

Love it, man. Ton of value, another big takeaway. We've got so much value it's overflowing here. Value volcano in the group. I want to thank you again for your support in this one. Joe, as we finish out this Wednesday, this big action, but Wednesday where you can go on our Facebook page. Grab that value piece, guys. Get these Generator Workshop notes. There's a number of posts out there to comment on and rate on the page or reach out to us on our website, serviceloopelectricalcom. Just a couple of master electricians here with business addictions trying to help push you to the next level. Guys. Oh man, another day of helping you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service, and we'll be back tomorrow to do it again. Thanks everyone. See you soon, until then,