Replay - Why Electrical Service Pricing Is at a Premium

Transcript

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Here we go.

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Roger, roger All right.

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Welcome to Electropreneur Secrets, the Electrician's Podcast.

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I'm your host, clay Neumeier, and with me, as always, my esteemed co-host and business partner, joseph the sales bot Lecani.

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If you thought his nickname was great, wait till you hear mine, or maybe you've heard it already.

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I am also known as the pleasant peasant Neumeier because I'm so Canadian.

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There's got to be a better Canadian nickname.

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I just haven't come up with it yet, or you haven't come up with it yet.

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So if you guys have an idea, feel free to send them to us in the DMs right there in our Facebook group, where you could be live with us engaging five days a week as we're on this mission to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service.

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Joe, how did I do on the intro today?

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Please let me know.

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Pretty, damn awesome I also like that you're stitching in saying, hey, help us with your nickname.

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And the thing was is you were like well, we call me the Pleasant Peasant because I'm so Canadian.

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Expand on that a little bit more.

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Are Canadians always that nice Like?

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In my opinion they are, but you actually get to deal with them.

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So exactly, it's a stigma.

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There's a cross-border stigma that you're actually quite rude and I'm actually quite pleasant.

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So I'm sorry.

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I don't know why it's there, but I did tell you before and I'll say it again I'll hold the door open for people and then thank them for walking through.

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Only in Canada.

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I don't think you'll see that south of the line.

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No, if you people are, you know, honestly, south of the line, the majority of what you see is someone holds a door and the other person pulls a gun.

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That's America in a nutshell.

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Yeah, fair enough.

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Fair enough, man.

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Anyways, how are you doing today, and please tell us how your day is going so far, because I know there's a little story in there.

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So personally, I'm doing great.

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I've experienced more peace and more calm in my life than I've ever come to know, and I'm grateful for it day to day.

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But with that level of calmness, I get to bitch about some things that are often fun, that happen.

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So I love hiring service companies because it gives me the opportunity to see how the industry is actually growing and improving and whether or not service is being delivered at the highest level.

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And so often I'm getting just cut away at the knees because service is not there, no matter where I'm looking.

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But I want to talk about an experience I had today which I think may make some people laugh.

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Is that?

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okay, All right.

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What happened?

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Okay.

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So we had an air conditioning issue the other day where, luckily, we found out it was just a bad capacitor.

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Awesome, you know what?

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I should have taken out my meter and checked for the farads and I didn't.

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Didn't do it.

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But I called a professional who could.

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Great guy Sent me the text that he's on his way Clean, cut, uniformed, did the whole sales presentation, didn't do six options, only gave me two.

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But I thought he did a good job.

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I bought the best package he could and he said okay, I don't have the material for this right now, I'll do the fix, we'll lock you into our membership and we'll come back to do this in the next one to two days.

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Great, no harm, no foul.

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I get a text this morning at seven o'clock in the morning that a tech is on his way.

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So I'm like, okay, great, I'm already up since five.

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No issues.

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Going down.

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I put a sticker on the door.

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Hey, just so you know, I'm going to be in meetings all day.

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Here's my number.

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I turned off the breaker.

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Here's a picture of the breaker off.

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I disconnected the fan.

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The fan is off as well.

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You can work on the unit if I'm not there.

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Here's my number to text me.

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I got a text four minutes later saying that let us know how we did so.

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I'm like oh, came on site physically, called the office and they're like yeah, no, no one's supposed to be at your house today.

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Like I got a message saying someone was on site and someone left.

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They're like well, we're going to have to call a supervisor and see what happened, because no one's supposed to be at your home today.

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We don't even have record that you've been purchased uh, purchased that additional thing.

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Don't even have record.

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Don't even have record of it oh wow, you're off the map now.

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This is uncharted territory and these guys are shooting from the hip, we gotta call a supervisor.

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Something is wrong here yeah, I was gonna say.

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I literally was like, please, I want to do this.

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You guys are a great company.

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I was like, just please, let's just get get the thing I paid for installed.

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That's really all that matters.

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Bygones, I won't even name drop you.

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Please just get it done.

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So these things you know what, my little brother sometimes we joke about like just a magnet for oddities in life you ever meet a person like that?

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I feel you are that person for service that I feel you are that person for service and there's a reason for it.

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There's a real reason for it and my wife Melanie teases me for it all the time.

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I love her to death.

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She's probably one of the most brilliant people I know, but she unfortunately points out things that I recognize.

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I'm like, damn it, I wish you didn't recognize it, because I'm so process-oriented, because I'm so process oriented, I look at every step of customer service as equally essential.

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You leaving the van with a smile, you walking to the door and having your hands in front of you, you having your shirts pressed, the follow-ups, the everything, the pricing, the presentation it's all so meticulous.

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So when I don't see it done, I start checking away negative marks on the experience.

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And even if I buy from them, I look back and say, would I buy from them again?

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Could they improve?

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And so many times I just don't want to listen to improvement, I just want to get in and get out.

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It's a problem in our industry and in almost every industry.

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Really important piece, because service in itself is a niche, and I don't just mean like okay, service, electrical, like home residential service.

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Sure, that's a bit of a niche.

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We can go a little deeper, though.

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Even home residential electrical service, we're still not speaking to a problem or an exact solution, and thus, if that's what was on our business card or advertisement, would it get?

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people to call and the answer is, for the most part, no right.

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People don't just buy a home or acquire a home or walk into a home and decide, hey, I need a residential service electrician.

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Never, we're the least likely to go into someone's home right.

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Right, but just like our generator class, we've got coming up at the end of the month.

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Now we're talking and I know this is a bit of a niche tangent, but I'm going to full circle, tie this right back in If you're speaking to generator needs now, are we addressing a problem?

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Yeah, because people don't really understand it.

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Yeah, you got power outages.

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Is this happening a lot in your area?

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And in fact you can even get that information, as we've disclosed, usually pretty easily from a utility, local utility company, right?

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yeah, I mean a lot of them in our area.

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They even have apps where you can check in and be like where are the power outages?

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Yeah, it's literally just report a power outage, okay, these are the power outages.

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It's literally just report a power outage.

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Okay, these are the power outages that are out.

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Which one are you?

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It's like I don't know, but I'm going to write down all these power outages and save them and I'm going to market generators to these neighborhoods.

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And so I've quoted this before.

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I'm going to tie this back to the services and niche.

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I believe it's King George IV, princess Diane's father, actually said this the highest form of distinction is service to others.

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The highest form of distinction is service to others.

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If you master that service, that becomes your niche as well.

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It's not something that is as easy to market, but as an experience it is going to create apples to oranges, meaning you're not even comparable in your market.

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All people need to do is experience that level of service that we preach and teach both on this podcast and behind the scenes, and you'll start having clients for life.

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Can I add to that?

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Please go ahead Speaking as someone who hires other professionals.

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If you I mean you guys have heard the story so far of all the people that I've tried hiring and all the problems that have come afterwards All I'm looking for is someone who can check three out of four boxes.

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That's it.

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I'm looking for someone to do three out of four.

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If we ever had someone who did four out of four, I would never leave them, ever.

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I would be a customer, for I literally have to move out of their jurisdiction before I left them, and that is something I don't think enough people are talking about because we worry about price, right, like you would come up with.

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I mean, that's the whole topic.

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Why is service at a?

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premium.

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I personally think the reason why service is at a premium is because it's so rare to find people who operate at the highest level that there's really a value to that, a tangible value.

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I know for a fact that if I had the opportunity to say I get to work with a better flooring company or a better security company or a better air conditioning company, I didn't have to experience those problems.

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What about a professional photographer not charging us $550 for a show up fee?

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I'd pay more for it right.

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Yeah, no, it's everywhere we look, it's everywhere we go and it's interesting because you know, speaking to us specifically in the service providers that we hire and have to seek out and then build a relationship with, I mean, we're really bad in a low percentage here.

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We're not getting a ton of great service, even though we're trying.

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There's not like we're aiming for cheap, we're just taking recommendations, referrals, anyone who can help us, please help us, and service at the highest level.

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But what they don't realize is oh, there are a couple of uh, electrical, uh business coaches.

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They don't realize, even through our name, service loop, the implications of how much service training goes on here and how much focus goes into this niche, this exact thing, and so it's comes full circle back to this podcast of like.

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Should we be teaching these people?

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And I've seen you do it over and over at your house.

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Every person who goes door to door gets it and they should get that training.

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Everyone should get this training.

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Honestly, I think businesses and here's me going out on a limb business would be more successful if people train in customer service before accounting 100, because there's nothing to freaking count if you don't learn how to serve, there's nothing to count, joe go

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ahead say it louder for the people in the back, man, because people are not getting this.

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We need to serve and through that service they'll hire you again.

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Like literally.

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Imagine this, even just you want to talk about pricing.

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Each lead is worth $250 to $500 per call, right?

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If they call you, that is the money that's on the table you had to put out.

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You anteed up and said to get this phone to ring, this is what I had to pay.

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And if I'm listening to this and saying there's no way, that's right, that's too much.

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You got sort of the soft list for us of considerations why it gets to that point.

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Sure, A hundred percent.

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Fuck.

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I'll dig into it right now.

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If we're in a situation where we want to get the phone to ring, you had to do a couple of things in the most basic capacity that you need to do.

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So let's take the minute.

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Like a small office, you have one CSR, you have one phone, you have one computer, right.

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First off, how did that company know to reach you?

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They had to have paid it in some way.

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Whether it's your online marketing campaign or whether you're doing direct mailing or whether you're doing door hanging, whatever it was, your marketing required you to pay money for those leads.

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But in addition to that, it had to go somewhere.

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They didn't just set up a smoke signal and you saw them.

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They had to reach an operating number, so you had to have a business line.

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That costs money as well.

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You also have to pay for the phones.

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Now, phone service is different than the actual number, the cellular number.

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You need to make sure you have a quality phone that can have forwarding and all those additional associated costs.

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Have a quality phone that can have forwarding and all those additional associated costs.

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Your computer needs to be able to run on some sort of search engine optimization or some sort of CRM, something that says I'm going to take the customer's information and I'm going to put it in and record it.

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Then you've got someone who had to be trained on how to do the process.

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You have to pay for that training as well as their hourlies.

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So if you take all those costs, just those minimum costs, you're not talking about their benefits.

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You're not talking about their packages, the office requirements, the overhead of the shop.

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We're just talking just these basic things.

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All of it adds up.

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So the lead may cost you only $20 per click, but manning someone behind the desk, having the desk, having the phone, having the computer, having the training, having the software, having the shop now it starts to add up Does that make sense?

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Yeah, there's a ton of burdens behind it.

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Absolutely, it makes perfect sense, not to mention a lot of people are either going to say, well, I'm mostly referrals and or will I just do a lot of legwork to come up with my leads but your time is valuable too right and the efforts you're putting forth into clients and getting those referrals.

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I mean there is a process there, or at least there should be.

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If you're relying on referrals, then you really should have a process that delivers consistent referrals.

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If you don't, then it's kind of chance, isn't it?

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Yeah, and the thing is, you actually touched on something I thought was really cool, where you're like, well, the devil's advocate is, maybe they're doing door to door, maybe they're doing referrals, right right.

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Well, if that is the case, you're paying for it regardless, but you're paying for it with time currency rather than financial currency.

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I can either buy leads or I can attract leads, but I'm either going to go door to door and knock on things, or I'm going to work on my own optimization myself, or I'm going to manage reviews, but you're punching in the clock, so you are paying for it.

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What's your time worth?

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Yeah, it's big.

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It's big, right.

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When you really start doing the math, it adds up.

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So now we have that cost per acquisition.

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I can get on board with you we're what $250 to $500, depending on the establishment.

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I mean it's just not free.

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It takes an investment.

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And this really does bring us into this full topic today, because there's so many misunderstandings about service pricing how to establish that rate?

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Why?

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Why is the big one?

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Guys, I've seen some of the gurus in this industry not know why 50% efficiency?

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And when we say 50% efficiency, all I'm saying is hey, you got a full-time year.

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How many hours go in a full-time year for work?

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I mean, I'd have to look at the exact number myself, but I know that there's so many factors that come off of it where we're going to be saying one.

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There's weekends that come off, there's holidays that are going to come off, there's inefficiencies with logisticals.

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You're not going to get your full work week.

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Let's use the generalized formula, though, which is 50 weeks times 40 hours a week.

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Can you agree that 40 hours a week is full-time?

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Yeah, I would say.

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I mean, how many of us full-time people wish we only had 40 hours right.

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Right 50 weeks, would be granted two weeks of vacation, which most of us aren't taking, but add up all the days off, sick time etc.

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You're going to be minimum 50 and more likely 46 to 48 weeks.

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But just ballparking and saying, okay, 2 000 hours, okay, that's what you would expect at a, let's say, a residential construction electrician job.

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These guys are going to keep getting houses or they're going to keep getting commercial work, they're going to keep getting projects, industrial work, and they're going to keep me busy a minimum 2000 hours.

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That's why they hired me and I accepted.

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They made an offer.

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I accepted because that gives me safety and security at home.

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As an electrician, I can raise my family and pay the bills.

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Does that situation make sense?

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Yeah, I would never knock anyone for being there.

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You have your needs.

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You found a safe bet.

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It requires physical work, but you took that risk and that bet for your family.

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No judgments.

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So that company, these project-based construction-based companies, get to take all of their burdens and use that number, that 100% or roughly close to that, as an efficiency to establish their rate and depending on the company and the number of staff they have which are billable crews, usually that math works out to somewhere between $90 and $180 an hour and $180 is really quite high In most cases.

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We see that $100, that 100 to 150.

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That's a shame, it's such a shame.

00:17:12.142 --> 00:17:13.305
It's crazy, right?

00:17:13.305 --> 00:17:22.438
So here comes the challenge homeowner in this market prior to service electricians really even existing, right?

00:17:22.438 --> 00:17:27.376
Maybe there's the odd one, the odd person handles this, but for the most part us electricians are going well.

00:17:27.376 --> 00:17:33.776
Is there really enough service work out there for me to run a full-time establishment off?

00:17:35.519 --> 00:18:01.895
so this poor homeowner starts dialing numbers, let's say in 1990 opens the yellow book right trying to find an electrician that does service work, but what they keep finding is project-based electricians, and these people all have that 2000 hour based rate, and so what's the likelihood that they get served at the level that we're talking about earlier in this episode?

00:18:02.877 --> 00:18:10.460
it's slim to none at best, because it's like almost trying to turn a Phillips head screw with a flathead.

00:18:10.460 --> 00:18:13.847
With enough effort you can make it work, but it's not meant to do it.

00:18:13.847 --> 00:18:18.023
They're operating on the get in, get out efficiency model.

00:18:18.023 --> 00:18:19.287
They're doing their job great.

00:18:19.934 --> 00:18:20.035
Yeah.

00:18:20.035 --> 00:18:31.519
And if you're one of the established electric printers that are listening to us today and you've already got construction and service work, Well let me ask you this question How's the blend working for you?

00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:33.526
How are your rates?

00:18:33.526 --> 00:18:44.760
Because one of the first pieces of advice that we give to people who want to break out in service work is to go to bigger companies and ask them if they even want their service work.

00:18:44.760 --> 00:19:01.820
Because what tends to happen if you're not divided in that company and you've got one blended rate for everyone, is when they try to serve service A they're not trained for customer service, dealing with a homeowner at the level that we train, and B the rate's not right.

00:19:01.820 --> 00:19:02.497
So they go.

00:19:02.596 --> 00:19:05.365
They're not established well enough to make any profitability.

00:19:05.365 --> 00:19:07.436
So what happens next?

00:19:07.436 --> 00:19:08.819
They don't prioritize that, that work.

00:19:08.819 --> 00:19:10.262
They don't even want those calls.

00:19:10.262 --> 00:19:17.748
Those calls are annoying and it takes too much effort to deal with debbie homeowner, who has her needs and needs them.

00:19:17.748 --> 00:19:25.564
Today you're going to send someone out that doesn't know how to service that person and they don't make any money for your company and they don't want to do it.

00:19:25.584 --> 00:19:29.575
They don't make any money for your company and they don't want to do it.

00:19:31.795 --> 00:19:34.003
They don't even want to do it Because the thing is, people don't like doing things that make them uncomfortable.

00:19:34.003 --> 00:19:39.461
We've talked about it before right, where the reason why this process is so effective is because it gives you the guidelines and the path to walk.

00:19:39.461 --> 00:19:55.028
But now you're going to get a new construction electrician who doesn't ever do any interior finished homework, and now you're going to send them on a call to interact with a customer who's clearly unhappy because her fridge isn't working and it's smelling.

00:19:55.028 --> 00:20:00.170
And now you got to go through the house and troubleshoot, while also maintaining good customer service practice.

00:20:00.170 --> 00:20:02.116
Oh, and you got five other jobs today.

00:20:02.958 --> 00:20:04.941
And let's talk about the characteristics again.

00:20:04.941 --> 00:20:07.525
Right, Construction electrician versus service electrician.

00:20:07.525 --> 00:20:10.869
We got a stereo in tow for construction.

00:20:12.056 --> 00:20:12.557
Makes sense.

00:20:12.977 --> 00:20:19.229
Probably dirty work gear, no spare uniform, no charge device, no etiquette.

00:20:19.229 --> 00:20:22.641
Maybe a hat on backwards, not clean shaven.

00:20:23.382 --> 00:20:24.785
Are we in uniform at all like?

00:20:24.785 --> 00:20:28.839
Would they look like a clean shaven, clean cut uniform, pressed with a steam collar?

00:20:29.442 --> 00:20:41.819
no, I think so they're lucky they've shown up in a company t-shirt maybe just bid his subway sandwich if he's on the jared diet and got a nice green leaf between the teeth going for a smile.

00:20:41.819 --> 00:20:42.480
How you doing today?

00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:45.924
Doing today, sir, put the smoke out right, blow it in his face.

00:20:45.924 --> 00:20:48.888
Yeah, I'm here to see about that dryer circuit.

00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:57.394
Remember the time when I told you the ADT guy threw his cigarette right into the van, and this is one of those moments where I'm like that stuff really happens.

00:20:57.394 --> 00:21:01.415
I know, when you're making that reference, that some people are like oh, they're not that actually bad.

00:21:01.415 --> 00:21:10.124
I'm telling you all I've seen it for a fact Takes a drag, throws it in the van and then coughs and walks to the door.

00:21:10.124 --> 00:21:12.746
Great quality establishment.

00:21:12.905 --> 00:21:13.205
Love it.

00:21:13.205 --> 00:21:19.392
Come on in, Not to mention booties or sorry floor guards.

00:21:26.816 --> 00:21:29.902
Floor protectors Little golden nugget here why are they floor protectors and why are they shoe covers?

00:21:29.902 --> 00:21:31.445
Shoe covers protect your shoes against their floor.

00:21:31.445 --> 00:21:34.857
Floor protectors protect their floor against your shoes.

00:21:34.857 --> 00:21:39.147
So by describing what they do, it creates the value of what it is.

00:21:39.795 --> 00:21:39.934
Right.

00:21:39.934 --> 00:21:58.728
So as we go deeper and deeper, with everyone listening here, you get to realize this is a niche, this is a specialized, individual little nook in the electrical world that requires specialized training, specialized presentation and really good etiquette.

00:21:58.728 --> 00:22:00.881
That's what it takes.

00:22:00.881 --> 00:22:02.961
So let's back this up.

00:22:02.961 --> 00:22:10.108
Is it any wonder why those construction rates and those construction companies would not be able to prioritize this kind of work?

00:22:11.375 --> 00:22:11.776
Makes sense.

00:22:11.776 --> 00:22:15.960
Now that we've seen the numbers, it literally makes complete logical sense.

00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.063
They're not established for it.

00:22:18.063 --> 00:22:21.246
Because they're not established for it, they're not going to be profitable while doing it.

00:22:21.246 --> 00:22:23.288
They're not going to be profitable while they're doing it.

00:22:23.288 --> 00:22:24.589
They're not going to take the time.

00:22:24.589 --> 00:22:32.661
In addition to it being difficult, because you're dealing with customers in a very heightened emotional state- yeah, 100%.

00:22:32.922 --> 00:22:34.304
So back to the rate then.

00:22:34.304 --> 00:22:36.126
So what do we do about this?

00:22:36.126 --> 00:22:43.317
Because some people I've even heard the word ethical floating around right, what's a sustainable rate for service then?

00:22:43.317 --> 00:22:51.295
How do we build a rate that can allow me to be a sustainable business, and a growing sustainable business?

00:22:51.295 --> 00:22:52.440
Because it's growth or death.

00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:53.497
Guys, there is no.

00:22:53.497 --> 00:22:56.042
The reality is maintenance doesn't exist.

00:22:56.042 --> 00:23:04.461
Yep, there is no live and maintain, there's only you're going forward or you're going backwards, Staying still.

00:23:04.461 --> 00:23:06.434
I mean, my post today was kind of on this balance.

00:23:06.434 --> 00:23:08.239
It's not real.

00:23:08.239 --> 00:23:14.219
Balance isn't a place, it's an effort, it's an activity that's always happening, just like growing.

00:23:14.219 --> 00:23:16.365
We're always moving ahead.

00:23:16.365 --> 00:23:32.763
So to have that an established service company that can deal with the inherent risk of volume and the pain in the ass that it is to constantly be in balance of your lead generation, sales and fulfillment.

00:23:33.826 --> 00:23:34.248
Damn right.

00:23:34.795 --> 00:23:37.223
I know electricians are dealing with these problems, right?

00:23:37.223 --> 00:23:39.843
Maybe your schedule is over full right now.

00:23:39.843 --> 00:23:46.082
Maybe there's not enough on it right now, right, maybe leads are drying up.

00:23:46.082 --> 00:23:49.022
Maybe sales are great, but no new leads.

00:23:49.022 --> 00:23:51.383
Maybe fulfillment's great, but no new sales.

00:23:51.383 --> 00:23:53.340
It doesn't take long.

00:23:53.340 --> 00:23:54.699
Where are we going to go in the service world?

00:23:54.699 --> 00:24:00.885
A week, two weeks All of a sudden it's like starting from ground zero again.

00:24:00.885 --> 00:24:04.546
We got to push real heavy and try and get this thing going again.

00:24:04.546 --> 00:24:05.700
I'm scratching for leads.

00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:06.859
I'm calling people back.

00:24:06.859 --> 00:24:08.799
Have you ever felt these pains, joe?

00:24:09.461 --> 00:24:10.003
Oh my God.

00:24:10.003 --> 00:24:17.325
Yeah, the closest comparison I can come up with is this it's you know how we advise people to always be hiring.

00:24:18.435 --> 00:24:20.364
It's the same thing with always be marketing.

00:24:20.364 --> 00:24:27.208
Even if you have two weeks of work, you need to make sure that you're working on the next two weeks of work.

00:24:27.208 --> 00:24:35.742
I don't want you having more than two weeks of work at a time, because then you have people who are going to be risking cancellations and there is psychological and scientific proof behind that.

00:24:35.742 --> 00:24:47.925
We can get into, but we need to know for a fact that we are always looking for the next job and if you keep that mentality, you'll start prioritizing things like referrals.

00:24:47.925 --> 00:24:53.605
You'll start prioritizing things like recommendations and new leads that come in from good, organic sources.

00:24:54.835 --> 00:24:56.221
Yeah, really important stuff.

00:24:56.221 --> 00:24:58.782
So now to deal with this ethics question.

00:24:58.782 --> 00:25:07.288
Right, we take the same 2000 hour work year and we take the industry average of 50% efficiency and we cut that 2000 and a half.

00:25:07.288 --> 00:25:07.968
And we take the industry average of 50 efficiency and we cut it.

00:25:07.968 --> 00:25:08.273
Cut that two thousand and a half.

00:25:08.273 --> 00:25:14.070
We're left with a thousand hours, a thousand hours to pay your bills.

00:25:14.070 --> 00:25:16.819
This is still an assumption, guys.

00:25:16.819 --> 00:25:18.748
That's what people don't understand.

00:25:18.748 --> 00:25:20.997
It's a rule of thumb, but it's still an assumption.

00:25:20.997 --> 00:25:25.351
The best actual number is going to come from historical data.

00:25:25.351 --> 00:25:31.423
If you don't have historical data, then go with that average, go with that 50 until you know better.

00:25:31.423 --> 00:25:34.996
But here's a reality that happens.

00:25:34.996 --> 00:25:37.019
What about when you get the weak job?

00:25:39.085 --> 00:25:40.828
that's actually dangerous happens to your rate.

00:25:40.828 --> 00:25:45.345
That's where it can begin to feel like, okay, okay, am I billing too much?

00:25:45.345 --> 00:25:49.602
But in reality, your other 49 weeks are not guaranteed.

00:25:50.904 --> 00:25:51.586
Can I touch on that?

00:25:51.875 --> 00:25:52.395
Please do.

00:25:53.238 --> 00:25:59.729
So I want to speak to the thought of how it actually is more ethical than it being less.

00:25:59.729 --> 00:26:00.576
All right.

00:26:00.576 --> 00:26:06.689
The reason being is this when you set your rate like, let's say, sake of argument, we're talking round numbers.

00:26:06.689 --> 00:26:10.866
I've agreed to do a job several days and it's $10,000.

00:26:10.866 --> 00:26:14.925
Granted, it'd probably be more than that, but I'm just using round numbers for now.

00:26:16.316 --> 00:26:23.842
If you're in a situation and you go to the, you quote the job would your customer ever be happy with you telling them that it's more at the end?

00:26:23.842 --> 00:26:28.237
No, never, right.

00:26:28.237 --> 00:26:32.471
There's no way the customer would ever say I've agreed to this amount, I'm okay with more.

00:26:32.471 --> 00:26:35.282
So we've already known for a fact that it's ethical.

00:26:35.282 --> 00:26:38.817
You're going to honor your word by saying this is the number that I'm honoring.

00:26:38.817 --> 00:26:41.041
I swear it will never be more than that.

00:26:41.041 --> 00:26:44.196
So you've already met the first half of your ethic.

00:26:44.196 --> 00:26:46.304
I've agreed to an amount.

00:26:46.304 --> 00:26:48.261
I swear I'll never do more than that.

00:26:48.261 --> 00:27:01.743
But the question I have for you all is this If the customer were to come by and say I know you're not time and material, I know I've agreed to one rate for the job, but if you do it faster, will I get less charge?

00:27:01.743 --> 00:27:07.665
What would you say to that For the most part we'd be like no, this is our rate.

00:27:07.665 --> 00:27:14.508
That's the ethics behind it, if you can say I've approached you with options.

00:27:14.508 --> 00:27:16.699
You knew the finest money could buy.

00:27:16.699 --> 00:27:21.817
You knew the worst, most economical bare bones frankenfix we could come up with.

00:27:21.817 --> 00:27:27.058
And you had the choice and you made a choice and you said this is my set number that I'm going to go with.

00:27:27.058 --> 00:27:32.137
I'll promise that it's never going to go up, but I'm also going to promise it's never going to go down.

00:27:32.137 --> 00:27:34.483
That's how I justify it.

00:27:35.605 --> 00:27:44.099
But the thing that we need to understand here, in addition to that, is this Clay mentioned earlier that your months, your years, your weeks aren't guaranteed.

00:27:44.099 --> 00:27:49.196
So you actually taking on a bigger project is actually a risk.

00:27:49.196 --> 00:28:20.977
The reason why is because if you took on one week project and you said, well, I'll do it at a better rate because it's more days $2,000 a day or $2,500 a day you could actually be turning away four more repeat customers and more profit and more satisfied customers than you would be working with one.

00:28:20.977 --> 00:28:34.843
In addition, if that one customer finally decided that they didn't want to work with you again, you've lost your primary revenue source and you have to work that much harder to get that many more leads.

00:28:34.843 --> 00:28:37.048
But if you add service rate you can have five customers.

00:28:37.048 --> 00:28:40.740
It's potential that you have a higher rate of getting repeat work.

00:28:40.740 --> 00:28:46.182
So I'm sorry if I went a little too deep into that, but it's so interconnected I didn't want to leave it.

00:28:46.784 --> 00:28:47.244
No for sure.

00:28:47.244 --> 00:28:50.736
No, I can appreciate that Definitely and I agree with you a hundred percent.

00:28:50.736 --> 00:28:52.740
You take on more of the bigger stuff.

00:28:52.740 --> 00:28:54.203
You're losing opportunities.

00:28:55.425 --> 00:28:57.416
Now sometimes, you know.

00:28:57.416 --> 00:29:03.979
When our platinum sale, though, takes us three or four day installation, right, what then?

00:29:03.979 --> 00:29:05.743
And the reality comes into.

00:29:05.743 --> 00:29:10.102
I think there's even a question at times of well, is there just a day rate?

00:29:10.102 --> 00:29:16.499
Do I cap out my earnings or do I continue to factor in my service rate every hour for the four days?

00:29:16.499 --> 00:29:36.048
Yes, I think that was a recent question, but ultimately, the latter is our preference because, again, the inherent risk, the inherent risk that we don't fill all the weeks this year, everything is resting on assumptions all the time, except for one thing.

00:29:36.915 --> 00:29:47.636
Here's one truth Either way you're paying the bills, either way that overhead is coming out of your account, this year, you actually you know how much the overhead is, or you should.

00:29:47.636 --> 00:29:49.800
If you don't know yet, guys, please figure this out.

00:29:49.800 --> 00:29:51.401
Get ahold of our pricing tool.

00:29:51.401 --> 00:29:56.722
It's going to explain a lot of this and take you to a fun little calculator that can be done with sliders to help you with that.

00:29:56.722 --> 00:30:03.759
Okay, you can engage with us on Facebook and request that hashtag price tool in our entrepreneur group.

00:30:05.076 --> 00:30:12.659
Having done that, knowing your overhead, in fact, if you look at it from the let's go budgetary standpoint beginning of the fiscal year, here we go.

00:30:12.659 --> 00:30:18.244
I know I've got 200K of overhead coming out this year and I'm booked for two weeks.

00:30:18.244 --> 00:30:21.603
That's the ideal service situation.

00:30:21.603 --> 00:30:24.402
There's another 46, 48 weeks.

00:30:24.402 --> 00:30:25.424
You don't even know yet.

00:30:25.424 --> 00:30:30.787
You're operating on faith to pay those bills, knowing that your good service will perpetuate this market.

00:30:30.787 --> 00:30:34.922
So let's speak to the other side of this ethical equation.

00:30:34.922 --> 00:30:38.249
What if we took that away?

00:30:38.249 --> 00:30:43.638
What if we didn't have the service companies to service the homeowners?

00:30:43.638 --> 00:30:44.901
I'm going to go back a bit here.

00:30:44.901 --> 00:30:47.443
Are the homeowners winning now?

00:30:49.205 --> 00:30:49.385
No.

00:30:49.385 --> 00:31:16.665
The reason why they're not winning is imagine you take this new construction technician or installer at that point and you say I'm going to put you in a scenario that one you're not comfortable with, two, don't want to be involved with, three haven't been trained on, and you're only going to make sure that you win when the customer is able to say I was served at the highest level, otherwise you're going to get a bad review.

00:31:16.665 --> 00:31:22.647
It seems like it's stacked against you, which means that people aren't going to accept those calls.

00:31:24.174 --> 00:31:25.917
It's crazy, but the world's shorthanded.

00:31:25.917 --> 00:31:28.780
So if you think about it, this is actually a win-win.

00:31:28.780 --> 00:31:32.546
Yes, the pricing is higher, and by higher.

00:31:32.546 --> 00:31:36.770
I know there's people itching to hear a price If you haven't established yours yet.

00:31:36.770 --> 00:31:43.813
Typically they're $250 to all the way up to $600 an hour for a service rate.

00:31:43.833 --> 00:31:44.035
I've heard.

00:31:45.236 --> 00:31:47.704
Within our program we've seen as high as 500.

00:31:47.704 --> 00:31:52.624
That can feel this price shock, something we address in our price tool.

00:31:52.624 --> 00:31:59.538
It's written in there and it's there to help you with that, that self-objection, that red team, the voice you'll hear about your pricing.

00:31:59.538 --> 00:32:32.867
But I'm telling you, if you look at your expenses for the year and factor that in I don't yet know where all this money comes from, then you begin to feel a lot better about it and realize that although the rates are high, although the pricing may feel high for an installation or demand call such as this, the homeowner is the one who's benefiting by having someone to serve them at that level and they're the ones that get to make the choice about what they can afford and what they really want.

00:32:34.655 --> 00:32:36.142
Can I touch on one other thing, if that's okay?

00:32:36.142 --> 00:32:53.801
Yeah, you said something that really inspired me there, where, if we're trying to figure out how we can justify a service rate, I guess the logic that I would want to follow with that would be asking the customer a question and saying okay, I understand that you want us to warranty this installation.

00:32:53.801 --> 00:33:00.816

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