Ep 196 - How to Win Long-term in Sales

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the Electricians podcast, where me and my partner, joseph the sales bot, luke Canney, are going live with you five days a week to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Would it be wrong of us, joe, to want to talk to them today about episode 196, how to win long term in sales One?

no, it's not wrong. Two, you are short. Two hello is in that front, entrance. Three I'm going to double down and say it is the best day to have a great day because I think this is one of the most important lessons we're going to be teaching.

Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with you, man, and Joe's obviously upset about the lack of hellos, but I meant that one hello very emphatically, In fact. Let me tell you what I actually meant Hello, hello, hello and welcome. Is that better Did?

I fix it.

Yeah, you're good, you're good.

You're adopt.

Very cool. You know what this topic's really important and it ties into so many different things and so many different ways. Of course, we're going to be talking about some mindset stuff. Where would we be without it? Unfortunately, guys, if you're tired of hearing about mindset, you're in the wrong industry, because sales is a battle, and the battle is mostly in here for the things you can control, and so we've got some of that. But we also have some very tactical advice for you today to make long-term, successful run of your sales streak. Instead of this well, great month, bad month, great month, bad month, great week, bad week, great day, bad day getting out of that ebb and flow mindset to improve your again that long-term streak. Joe, where do we begin, brother?

It begins well. Honestly, there's two directions one can take. The first thought is people say, well, oh, you have to have process in order to be effective, and the answer is yes, you need process. The second, though, is if I pulled someone off the street just some anyone and I took them and I gave them a process and said I need you to run this play, I have to put all my faith that that person is mentally sound, emotionally sound, spiritually sound, physically sound enough to run the process, so that they show up looking like a 10 every time. Personally, if I had the choice between one or the other, I would rather have someone who knew that they can control themselves and control the environment in which they're mentally and emotionally live, so that when they use the process, it's not a hammer, it's a scalpel.

Okay, so you're actually talking about maybe two processes then personal and professional. There we go, and this might be exactly where we're talking about Austin with us. Hello, peter, austin, talking about really Values is almost where personal process begins. For example, we've been doing the 75e hard. If you haven't seen it yet, if you don't know about it, throw your hand up. Go in our Electripreneur Secrets Facebook group, in the podcast group there. Ask for it. There are posts about it, but you could also just type it in there and we'll send it to you. Here's the thing. This morning I attended class from the gym.

And it was wonderful.

I can't help but tell you right here, right now how good it feels to physically grow while speaking to you guys and helping other people and growing in my mental capacity as well. Like there's no argument here, joe, I admitted this earlier in the week I was having trouble getting started again, but after this morning I'm totally back in like the right mindset of just knowing how big of an impact that has.

And you know, first off, I love you for that. I think it's really, really great that you've made that step, because consistency is the hardest part and it's the number one enemy of an exercise routine, because, especially when you get up early, the first thought is you know what I could sleep in? I could do this, I could do that, but the fact that the challenge pushes you to say I gain more by getting up than I'd gain going back to sleep and I did it myself. I went to bed last night around 11, 30, 12 o'clock. I was up at 440 this morning and I was working out four hours of sleep. But the benefit was is I feel better. I feel like I would have gotten less energy sleeping in for that extra hour than I would have putting it into the gym.

Wake up right, wake up and go at it. There's so many analogies for this, but taking this back to and staying on topic with what you said in the first place, which is, you know, yes, you need a process professionally, but this person also has to have some self-discipline, some will, some desire to want to continue to be consistent, and we know that the biggest challenge in life is consistent activity. It's literally what makes 75 hard. Hard is we're trying to do it 75 days straight. Doing anything for 75 days straight, apart from brushing your teeth, which even that, at one point, was a pain in the ass when you were a kid. Am I wrong?

I was literally. The funny thing is, when you said brushing your teeth, I was like guys even brushing your teeth 75 days straight. I mean, anyone who's got kids knows that sometimes you don't even get the chance to take a shower, let alone know when you use the bathroom for the past five hours. So if you missed brushing your teeth and you got young kids, I don't blame you.

I'm gonna amp this conversation up and everyone who's hearing this really take note of what's about to come out of my mouth. This is the absolute truth. Gay, the pleasant peasant, is behind door number one for a moment. I'm gonna get real with you. It is easy. It is easy to take our free value, to take our advice and to take a one-time action and see great results, because this shit fucking works. It is hard Again. It is hard to come back day after day and consistently take the same action, even though you know that shit fucking works. And what happens next is the absolute craziest part of being a human. Even though it worked for you, even though you went out and ran the play and saw a big week, a big month, a big year. Following that, if you had a few bad days, your precious little mind would start to trick you into believing that that was all a coincidence, that it was all fucking luck. Joe, have you ever faced this?

Unfortunately. Yeah, when I first started off, I really believed in seasonal luck and seasonal curses, in a way where it was like, oh, you know what, winter's coming and no, it's not a Game of Thrones reference. It's like, okay, after Thanksgiving no one's going to want to buy, and then there's going to be Christmas, and then there's going to be New Year's and there's going to be taxes, so it's just, it's going to be dead from November to February. But that doesn't have to be the case. It doesn't have to be because the thought that you go behind it is saying why do you believe that things won't work, even though you have in your hand within 24 hours that it did work? Why does the mental lever shift so quickly? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I believe, when we first talked about how you need to have your emotional strength, it's also knowing that, having the mental reserve to say I'm not going to throw that lever, I'm not going to break glass in case of emergency, I am going to run the fucking play. One way or the other. I'm going to run this play and either going to run my business into the sky or into the ground, but I am going to do it and I promise you, if you do it, it will not go into the ground 100%.

Austin says comfort zones, and that's a big part of this too, and I want to speak to that. We've said this on the podcast before. I can't remember who said it originally, but resting in the comfort of our own coffin, that's what humans are good at. Resting in the comfort of our own coffins Really a deep phrase to say right, and what it means by that is we'd rather Netflix and chill, then get up and do something purposeful in our life, and right to the deathbed. And so, as they say, there's more dreams that are dead in the cemetery than there are people, because we sat there passively and watched the world go by.

I got one already. Yeah, man, right then. And there I heard a quote that lines up with that perfectly, which is when you're trying to make it, people will root for you because they see themselves in you.

Definitely. I love that, because we can't simplify this enough. I want to make sure, if you're listening, you know that we're speaking to you. If you're working for an electrical company and you are in any way shape or form, taking care of a customer and having an impact on that sale or the quality exchange and potentially a review, we're speaking to you. If you are in any way shape or form selling jobs directly for an electrical contractor, we're speaking to you. If you yourself are an electricpreneur running calls, still we're speaking to you. If you yourself are an electricpreneur running a team who are running calls, still then we're speaking to you to speak to your team on some pretty important shit. This applies to all of us. We're all in this boat together. I want to give this an analogy, and it's from one of my favorite podcasts that I mentioned in my post today, because I see all of the subtle similarities between baseball and life. Baseball is actually like team golf. Joe, you've got that favorite golf quote that I'm going to ask you to bring up again because it fits so well.

It's by Arnold Palmer. If you didn't bring it with you, you won't find it here.

Exactly. If you didn't bring it with you, you won't find it here. Here's what happens in baseball. This actual story comes from an interview with a guy named Sean the mayor Casey. They called him that because he was one of the most loved baseball team members of all time. Everyone just loved to work with this guy. He's just an awesome guy. He's having laughs with the competitors out in the field, though, and he's on base running the play. Sean has a renowned perfect swing. Think he was born with that, joe.

No, no one who has a perfect swing in the major leagues? Yeah, high school swing talent, college swing prodigy, major league swing process.

Funny. You said that because now I've got to extract two things from this. He wanted to play college ball. His dad was a chemical salesperson way back in the day. They didn't have a lot of money. But Sean expressed that I love baseball, I want to do this professionally, I want to go to college and play. And his dad said look, son, no one's coming for you. No one's fucking coming for you, sean. Look around, there's no one calling, there's no one here. There's no one asking you to play. If you want to play college baseball, you've got to go on offense, son. You've got to reach out and start showing them who you are and why you deserve it. That alone gives me shivers for one Dad with that kind of intellect and that kind of installed behavior in his son at that age, so, so foundational to the rest of the success of this story. So what happens is he says, son, I'm going to buy you. There's a new batting cage up 20 minutes away. I'll buy you a permanent membership there. As long as you swing the bat every day, I'll keep paying. They didn't have the money for that. So he really took this and said okay, my dad can't afford this, he's paying for it. I'm going to swing the bat every day. That's the perfect swing that we come to know. It's swinging the bat every day, running the play every day. As he saw a greater and greater legends of baseball mentorship, he eventually he actually had to go on offense and write a letter to I think it was College of Richmond, I want to say Not a prestigious place. They checked, you know, tried all the different scouts couldn't get in. He actually wrote a letter to the College of Richmond and said, please consider me, it was his 40th sales letter that he had written to all these schools. Again, no one was coming. They took him. It almost didn't happen. Remember the Jim Rohn quote what's easy to do is easy not to do. It would have been so much easier to rest in the comfort of his cough. Somebody said you know what, dad, you're right, I'm going to write them a letter. He wrote the milletter and he got in and from there he was scouted and and faced one of the, you know, worst odds on the planet is to actually play Major League Baseball. Not a lot of people actually accomplished this, and so here's the last part of this, the second piece that's so important to what we're talking about. Sean Casey definitely proved himself, but at some point he's having a hit list streak. He's old for 12, I think he said the story went and he's got this renowned, legendary baseball coach and he knows that this guy's a hard ass and he knows that if he calls him he's going to get some hard advice not a lot of time. And he's got to be ready with a pen and pad to like take this and go. And you're also kind of cautious around people like that. This is a tough lover, right? So you don't want to get slammed. So he calls the guy up and he says look, man, I'm in some hot water. I need some advice. You got a minute. He goes. Yeah, sean, what's up man? He goes, man, the last 12 things, 12 times I've stepped to the plate. You know I've singled out, I've doubled out. I had this hit. There was a triple and then I was thrown out and then a few strikeouts and I'm just like I don't get it. I'm old for 12. What's going on here? And his coach actually asked him Sean, it sounds like you're stepping to the plate and doing what you're supposed to do. Sounds like you're right in your head. Sounds like you're running the play. Sounds like you know what you're capable of. Sounds like you're doing the right fucking thing. Man, do you have any other questions? And then he hung up on them. Why I tell that story is he was running the fucking play. There's an extra cursing in this one, guys, but it's so important he still went down as one of the most famed hitters of our time. Even the best have a hitless streak of 12 in a row, and even the best get in their heads and go. What the fuck's going on here? And had a phone, a friend who had to remind him that you're doing everything. You fucking can. Just keep showing up and running the play. Stop doubting yourself. It sounded like you're doing everything you need to be fucking doing. Is there anything else I could do for you? Isn't that great advice? It really really is.

And it kind of hits me close to home because you think about it and you're like how many of us have a process or a belief that we follow? And yet when we're in the face of the customer and they tell you no, even though you think you did your best, I know it hits the ego, it really does and you're like what am I doing wrong? The danger is starting to dismantle the process, thinking that you yourself know best and that somehow the play is wrong. And then I know I'll remove this from the process and that'll be better, I'll remove this from the process and that'll be better. And then, before you know it, you're holding a bunch of rags and you're like now I'm in a slump and I've got a gutted process and I'm already off pace. I would rather someone say you know what? I'm going to stick to the play, I'm going to perfect where I think I'm fiddling, I'm going to do my post, call facts, we're going to figure out where it's wrong, but because I have a process, I can troubleshoot it.

That's why I think it's so important. Hi Grimman, that's massive. In fact, as we're getting later into this episode, I'm already going to start leaning into action items, Joe, because I think we'll draw them out a bit and this probably bleeds into tomorrow's episode too. The pre-call and post-call are as important as running the play. They're part of the play. They should not even be treated as different. If you're not showing up with your mind ready to change a life, then what do you think is going to happen?

I mean realistically Cool. I mean I would say you've got two people. You've got someone who is emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally sound and you have someone else who's not but has a play to run. Neither one of them will operate at their best ability, but I would have more faith in the person who's good with themselves than someone who's not.

Yeah, it's really interesting concept, man, and it's almost difficult to articulate. But why go out there any less than your best? And isn't it crazy, in that same thought, that that's actually the hard part. As Juliet said, it's all a mental game. For sure, this is all a mental game. I would, as a rule of thumb here, I would prioritize conversion rate over sales.

I would agree with that and I really, I really do believe that's the way to go, because any sale you make is the good choice for your customer. I don't care if you showed up and you did nothing but basic options. On every single call you paid for a lead. The lead likes you, they convert, and now you have someone in your corner that wants to work with you and sees the level of your service. I would rather that than someone who goes strike out, strike out, strike out, strike out, home run, strike out, strike out, home run, strike out, strike out. It's like no consistency builds momentum. The more momentum you get in your sales, the higher your ratio goes, because eventually you start believing it, and the more you believe it, the more you act as if. The more you act as if, the better your results become. So you need to have the foundation of I am this person and then then be given the tools. You need to go to medical school before you handle the scalpel Good way to look at it.

I feel like what a conversion rate tells us and if you're listening and maybe you're not familiar with the term, I mean we'll just explain it. So, like calls ran versus calls sold, how many of the people did I meet today that became customers at some level, some capacity? If I knew I could turn 70 to 80% consistent people I meet to people I work with, then I know I can connect with people, I know I'm adept at creating a relationship with someone. That's got to be first and foremost in your head in this game and in all cases I would be prioritizing that. Just to say this again throw it in the air. If you're in any way, shape or form in a drought or experiencing or have experienced and maybe not known what to do, oh, I'm not selling big enough tickets. I'm not selling big enough tickets. Time out. My base action for today would be to say what's the percentage of turning new meetings into new friends? Can I say it like that? Is that fair Joe? I think it's a good idea. Can I say it like that? Is that fair Joe?

I think it's a good way of going about it. You know it's not. I mean the word friend can be dangerous because at the end of the day we want to create healthy relationships and obviously you want to have that good, friendly relationship with your people. But when you say I'm only going to go in and make a friend, you also have to take in consideration I'm here to serve. I am here to serve them at such a level that they say wow at the end of it.

I agree. I agree. Relationship I'm here to create a working relationship. Bingo, that's all I trust, which means I built sufficient trust for this person to want to swipe a card with us today and work together again.

Yes, that's a better break out. Yep, you and I are in full agreement on that.

Okay, okay. We touched on a number of things today. Do you have an all star action in mind on winning long term in sales and fixing some of these problems?

Yes, so it's going to sound silly, but you know how we're talking about the 75E Challenge and the reason why we're doing it. That challenge was designed on the behaviors and the strategies that I used when I was in my van. I believe that if you want to be an all star, you need to start doing the 75E Challenge. I like to explain why. There are two main things that come. Actually three things. So many things about it.

Be honest, I'll go around it Right.

So the thing is is that, let's say, you have the best sales presentation in the world. You yourself made a presentation and you know this is fire. You're going to go there and you're going to work with someone, but the night before you had a late night. Doesn't matter what you're doing, I'm not judging what you're doing, but you had a late night. You wake up the next morning. You're not on your A game, you sleep in a little bit. You run a little late to your call. Do you feel that you're going to deliver the best presentation in that mindset? Not at all. It's not possible, right? You can still sell. You could still deliver. I'm not going to doubt that that's happening. But the fact is is that our process is meant so that when you show up, you're showing up as a 10. Because there are going to be things you do that lower your percentage, that lower your standing, your value in the customer's mind. The 75E Challenge was I'm going to get up the night before and I'm going to lay everything out. I'm going to make sure that I get up and start the day with gratitude. I'm going to work out the first thing I'm going to do when I'm driving to the shop, I'm listening to sales material. When I'm driving to the call, I'm listening to sales material. I am practicing and routine it. Now, take that same presentation you're going to crush it. I would actually say that the person who ran that exact play would be more effective with a worse presentation than someone with a better presentation and less preparation. I could agree with that. So the all star action I'm going to give you guys today is this Is that consistency doesn't look like success, but consistency is success, and when you can understand in your mind that I can achieve anything that I want, provided I'm willing to go in and swing the bat every day, I'm going to win. So why aren't you guys putting in the quarters and picking up your bats?

A little bit better every day. Man. I love that great finish. James says fax bingo. We got some great feedback today. Thank you for everyone that joined us. We'll be back tomorrow for a big happy Friday and another launch, another crack at the bat with Electric Pinner Secrets, the Electricians podcast. We're going to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service so you can start cashing bigger checks and having better relationships with your clients. Guys, I can't wait. We'll see you again tomorrow. I can forward to it.