Episode 24 - The Biggest Mistake You Can Make: Chicken Out

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

Okay. Welcome to Electropreneur Secrets, the electric podcast. I'm your host, Clay Neumeier, as always with my esteemed co-host, Joseph, the sales bot, Luke Canny.

I love throwing in the sales bot part. We didn't interview on Joseph not too long ago, almost two weeks ago now, I guess.

Yeah. If you guys haven't caught that, it's a great story. Mine will be coming up here soon. We do wanna...

bring you some interviews at intervals, maybe biweekly. Couple times a month, we'll squeeze these in. But for now we're here five days a week, every weekday to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service.

@9:14 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

How are we helping them today, Joe? Today, what we're doing is rather than teaching sales technique, we're going to be focusing on something that every single one of them could coach themselves on, which is how to not chicken out when you realize that you know you should do something.

Doesn't matter what that something is, but you know you should do it and you have every reason to do it, but you also manage to come up with every reason not to do it.

@9:39 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

And let's go through a couple of examples. I know this came up earlier with one of our mates. We're not going to say who, we're not here to embarrass anyone or any of that.

We're here to encourage. And just like we did in our Q&A or RSS call with our clients this morning, want to share some of that good knowledge with you guys and help you take yourself to that pinnacle, to that limit, to the top of the line.

this mountain that you're climbing. Jay says, good afternoon. Hello, Jay. Thanks for joining. So what are some of the scenarios that we might find ourselves feeling that chicken out mode?

@10:11 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Oh God, there's more than a count, but I can tell you what I've experienced from personal experience. And that is anytime you're trying something new, doesn't matter what that new is, but something new, there are so many people, even people like myself that are like, I don't like this new, I'm gonna go back to familiar.

Familiar, yeah, it was bumping, uncomfortable and unpleasant, but I know that devil. And I'd rather deal with the devil I know than the one I don't.

Even if that one is clearly better and more productive, I'm gonna stick to what I knew.

@10:46 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Valid. And I wanna add to that a little bit, cause you said, even if I know it's clearly more productive to do the other thing.

A lot of times the new thing, we haven't personally experienced that as being more productive though either. So it's kind of this challenge of..

taking that grain of salt, taking someone else's experience and trying to make it our own and then proceed with it.

But something that we've talked about before that really has to happen before it ever goes great, is it has to go poorly.

@11:14 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Mm-hmm. You gotta show up.

@11:16 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

It's gotta suck first. It's hard. But what happens if we don't show up? What happens if we don't start?

@11:24 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

So the thing when if you don't show up at all, if you don't even start, how to describe it?

It's you can't get something new from the same material that you've already been trying. Right? Like you can't, you just, it's not possible.

The thing that definitely insanity, isn't the definition of insanity that thought of, I'm gonna try the exact same thing, expecting a different result.

@11:46 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

And I know you were listening to Jim Rohn earlier. So I'm gonna insert a Jim Rohn quote because the guy saved my life.

I love him to death. If you will change, everything will change for you. If you will do different, you will see different results.

If you will do the same. you'll see the same. It's inputs and outputs, something electricians can understand.

@12:06 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

It's a great way of explaining it. You're right. You know, it's like, you got to show up. You literally just have to show up to do it for yourself.

Not only for yourself, but for your customers as well. Like a lot of us say that we know how to market, right?

Like we all know you need to be on social media. You need to do door hangers. You need to knock on doors.

You need to do follow-ups. But I'm sure if you're listening to this, it's probably going to be uncomfortable, right?

I mean, I know I didn't enjoy it. I mean, I've told you guys my story and I really struggle with a lot of social anxiety.

And the thought on going and knocking on a stranger's door, they make your needs shake. But the thing is, is that you have to say, if I did nothing, right?

If I did not do this new thing, would I be better off? And the answer is almost never. Because literally, even if I show up and I whiff, you can either learn or win.

There's really only two things. I'm either going to. get something out of this, which is going to move the needle forward, or I'm going to learn what not to do.

And I can apply that lesson to the next time. So then even if I get incrementally better, it's still better than nothing.

@13:12 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Absolutely. And I'm going to insert what I relearned when my daughter was five mistakes are how we learn. It's it's trial and error a little bit, right?

We can take from other people's experience and that can give us the right strategy to move ahead. But guys, I've done this exercise before, right?

If you're looking for the next strategy, they're not hard to find. Go into Google right now. Here's, here's an action for you.

Go into Google right now and search how to increase sales in my small business. You'll get around four and a half billion results in half a second.

And they all work. They all work to a degree, if you'll work them. So a lot of people focus on that strategy, that silver bullet, hoping that when they put that silver bullet in the gun, it also costs.

@14:00 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

and shoots for them. There are so many people who think that money solves the problem. They're like, I paid for training.

I paid for scripts. I paid for this. Shouldn't that do it for me? It's like, you could have the library of Alexandria in your lap, but if you're not willing to open it up and say, I have the material, I'm going to use it.

Like, let's say take Process, for example. I love the way you said it. And I don't know if this is one that you coined directly, or if it's one you learn, but you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

The same applies to our sales process. Yeah, it's broken down to different steps. You may think, you know what?

I don't know if I can say this. I don't know if I can try it. I don't know if I can do this.

But if you tried it, you can only get better from there. It can only be awkward for so long before it's suddenly, oh, I think I know what we're trying to do here.

So by those attempts of not doing, you're actually robbing yourself of a much

@15:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

bigger prize in your future. And that's the focus. And I believe it's Brian Tracy, by the way, who said that, who was also a sales genius, much like yourself, from way back, from way back.

But it is that starting. And it's not robbing yourself of this moment. In other words, robbing your future self of all of the collection of these, the collective of these moments.

And that's really what we hit home in our class today, was this question, guys, and join us in this.

If I asked you to make a $10,000 sale, and we were gonna say, how many doors would we have to go knock on?

Good neighbor program, let's say. Every time we serve someone, we're gonna knock on the four doors around, directly across, directly to the sides, and one more.

Three or four doors. Okay? So how many times would we have to run that good neighbor program before we landed a $10,000 sale?

@15:54 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

It's simply just a matter of numbers.

@15:56 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

And I know lots of people are going, well, I don't know, how do you know that? We don't know that.

But it's this guessing that leads us to the answer we're looking for here. Is it 50? Is it 100?

And just so you know, a mentor did this with me once upon a time. And he said, if your program was $100,000, how many people would you have to see before you could sell it?

And to me, it was over 100. It was like, well, I guess 150 people I'd have to talk to, 200 maybe.

The point is we can all agree eventually you'll find that person, you'll find that sale. You'll find that $10,000 sale.

The question is how many doors? How many times? Now, if you're saying or thinking, well, maybe it's 150 or 200.

Then I ask you this. After the first 20, do you improve?

@16:48 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Of course you do.

@16:50 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Do you get better at qualifying? At speaking? At being more confident? Connecting with the homeowner? Doesn't that mean the next

20 are actually going to be a greater chance?

@17:01 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

You would think it's going to compound the interest and grow because the overall thought is that what are the odds you're going to be as bad as your first time every time?

It's just, it's not possible unless you're truly someone who cannot and will not learn. And you're going to say, you know what, run it back, run in the same play.

You're going to say the exact same words and nothing ever improves. That's the kind of person that doesn't grow.

I would rather have that person still because if they're willing to pick it up and swing, they're still better than the person who says, yeah, I don't want to strike out.

I'll take the guy that's already striking out because at least he's showing up at that.

@17:43 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Absolutely. And James says, ask my wife. Okay. So the important thing there guys is if we can agree that, hey, this is going to compound.

If I keep getting 1% better every time I run the play, right? And I've seen this on charts before, 1% better every day equals 36 times better at the end of the year.

That's a big piece. We can't miss that. What happens if we miss a day then? What happens if we miss two?

And the way the human psyche works, when you miss one, there's a little bit of shame and guilt that comes in.

And somehow we start to justify missing two and then three. And next thing you know, it's been three weeks and we haven't run the play.

And next thing you know, the end of the year comes and you're only 10 times better, not 36 or worse.

You know, the reality is just to add this nugget, if there's other people taking action and you consider that those other people are in your market, you really can't afford not to take today's action.

You'll get left in the dust. You'll end up worse than you are.

@18:59 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I agree completely.

@19:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Because. It's also everything you didn't do plus the guilt and shame of not having done it. I want to touch on that.

@19:09 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Wait. That's okay. You're right.

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

Yeah, please go.

@19:12 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

No, I was gonna say, speaking of that shame, I need to speak to that because there are some people that need it in a different perspective.

So imagine that you need to get up in the morning and you've decided to yourself, I'm out of shape.

I got to get up and I got to get back into shape. So I'm going to get up early and I'm going to get ready to work out.

Right? You may not. That 1% better doesn't mean you get out of bed. 1% better means you know what?

The alarm will come me up. I sat up and I said, okay, tomorrow. And I sat back down. 1% better than that is I sat up.

I turned my feet towards the floor. I said, nope. I went back. Another 1% is I got up and my foot actually touched the ground.

You keep getting a little bit. better and better and better, it doesn't have to immediately look like a win right off the gate.

But little incremental growth like that, if you think about it, now you're someone who was previously unable or unwilling to get out of bed.

And now, several weeks later, not only you out of bed, but it's now your subconscious routine to do so.

You can program yourselves to win through changing the inputs that come into your brain. Why are we not focusing more on saying let's get those inputs right and the inputs over time will compound to a better output?

@20:36 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I love that. I love that. And I want to share something I heard from, I can't recall the author or the name of the book, so this is an unfortunate reference, but it comes from a military stance.

And I believe what it is in the military is the recognition that if we'll just do something for 30 seconds, we can continue for moments after.

And if we can just... start a task and stay with it for five minutes, then most of us, electricpreneurs, electricians, we're heavy set on perfectionism, aren't we?

We get stuck in it. So if we can just give ourselves five minutes in that task, chances are you'll do it right, do it all and you'll do it now.

But you know that feeling we're trying to combat, like I do not wanna do this. If you don't start, it'll never add up for you.

So just give it the 30 seconds to get to the five minutes to complete the task. Just get it done.

Don't chicken out.

@21:38 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Go. I was like, another thing that we can focus on as well, as far as this is talking just about five minutes.

Every one of us has done a kitchen renovation where the tile guy wasn't your friend, right? Where you know that it's just not quite perfectly flush, but at the end of the day, you have a choice.

Am I gonna go and get the caterpillars from the van? and physically make the spacer so it comes out and now it's flush.

There's a little, little effort is going to now drastically improve the lifespan of this particular device you've installed. Someone may not notice it, someone may not even think about it, but that little piece of plastic is equivalent to the same amount of effort you're gonna put in.

Are you willing to go to your own van in your own life? Are you willing to take those small little background actions that no one thinks about and use those to continually make stepping stones to a better and more successful you?

Why can't we not take this amazing trade that has helped so many of us and allowed us to put perfectionism in a very tangible sense?

Why can't we lean more into that and apply it into our own personal lives?

@22:51 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Absolutely, love that. Love, love, love that. A great metaphor, by the way. So powerful.

@22:58 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I think we gotta jump right into the action items here.

@23:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

So we're getting closer to the hour. Guys, this is such a powerful topic. I feel like the action, if I may today, you got an all-star one in mind?

@23:10 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Maybe it'll build off this. I always got some, I don't mean stick it.

@23:13 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

All right. I think the action really here is awareness. And since we're talking about really not chickening out, we have to be aware, we have to identify and call out those chicken moments.

And we say chicken and it can feel offensive, but in this time, in this exercise, I feel that it's also important to embrace that and take that energy with it and call yourself a bit of a chicken and be okay with that so that you can actually be a little bit unhappy with it, to demand more from yourself because what these take, these little moments is self-discipline.

That's important. So be aware, make a list, make a list today. The next time you're sitting, you pull up to the client house, whatever it is, if you've got.

@25:00 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Nothing in the world, whether it's you taking care of your home or you running a business or you taking care of your clients, you need to know that it's through that fear that's probably the right decision.

So I want you to think to yourselves and say, what am I afraid of? And instead say, that is the thing I need to run towards.

Because if I'm running towards the things I'm afraid of my entire life, people are gonna look at you and be like, God damn, that guy is brave.

Nothing jars him. When really on the inside you may be shaking in your boots, but your pursuit of perfection is relentless.

And as long as you know I'm running towards the thing that makes me afraid, eventually your fear will shift and your fight or flight will stop being flight.

It'll start being, how can I take this? How can I overcome this? How can I tackle through it?

@25:53 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Love that. Love, love, love that. Again, so powerful. Keeping in mind guys from the 30,000. in foot view, if you're feeling down about that action, if you're feeling fearful about that action, whatever it may be, if you're feeling anxiety about it, likely they are too.

Who are they? The other people in your market. Not that we want you focused on them all the time, but you do need to be focused on the opportunities to stand outside of that market, to have what we call a blue ocean, meaning not shark infested water, not the red ocean where everyone else is already doing what you're doing.

That's the stuff that we tend to accept and live up to, but in the blue ocean is where we live up to bigger action, the greater things that other people won't do.

In other words, that barrier to entry is higher. If you're feeling anxious about it, they are too, and that's another reason why you need to do it.

Take action on this stuff. Do not chicken out. Your future self. Well, thank you for it. And as we said to our compadre earlier there, really to get through this, act as if, of course, we want to hear your guys' wins, we want to put them on our wind wall, which is collecting, we're gonna start sharing that here weekly, but this wind wall is growing and it all starts with your action, your activity.

So imagine you doing this action and reporting back to us with the wind that you're gonna have from doing that action.

Imagine that moment, imagine that smile on your face, imagine coming home excited to a wind like that because you overcame something you didn't want to do and it proved positive to be that wind.

Because that's an energy that, man, I love that. And it's only in winning that we can accomplish that, isn't it?

@27:55 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I would agree with that 100%. It's one of those things where you need to know your target, but at the same time, you need to know your target.

even willing to run towards it. Just seeing if there isn't enough. Even if you're crawling towards it, I'll take it.

You gotta show up and you gotta swing.

@28:09 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Awesome. So guys, if you didn't get from that, we've got this win wall running. We want your wins. We want you to go and take action and win from this podcast.

Influence, information, helping you master sales, simplify pricing, and deliver premium level service so that you'll bring those wins back.

Put them on the group right in the wall. We're going to add them to that win wall and have your name up on that win wall with our names.

So anything else, Joseph?

@28:38 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

No, I was going to say it depends. We can sit here for another hour and cover all the thoughts of how fear needs to be mastered.

But at the end of the day, all I ask is if you're listening to this, I implore you, take the action step.

The bare minimum, remember what you need to do and remember why you're doing it. If you can focus on your why, the what becomes much smaller.

@29:01 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

All right. Cheers to your success, guys. We'll see you again next time. Five days a week, here we are ready to help you guys behind the windshield of the van in the office, at the gym, wherever you are.

We're here with you guys. If you have any questions that you want answers to, any concerns you'd like to reach out and have us speak to on the podcast, please do that.

Of course, you can accomplish all of that in our VIP Facebook group, Electra Entrepreneur Success, looking forward to seeing you there and Brian says cheers back.

Next time, guys.