“The sales people in our company tend to use much more company highlights that they keep in a “brag” book – Things like comments from Angies List, manufacturer awards, pictures of jobs and licenses, things of that nature in their presentation in an attempt to build company value. They said they do this because this is what Home Depot does on their calls.
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On our service side we use very little, as our understanding is that you don’t believe in hyping up the company as competitors do, but by building value by being different and making more of a personal connection with clients. By the way, our service team outsell the sales people by 3-to-1. Is there a good mix? Is one of us wrong or right? What are your thoughts?”
There may be some of you who remember, as I do, that there was a time during the 1950’s thru the 1980’s that wars were literally started to prevent the spread of communism throughout the world. Although we are far removed from the era of “the communists are coming” I see a lot of what defines communism in the mediocre performers in many service businesses in our country.
At the heart of communism is that nobody should have something more outstanding or better than the average person. Whatever one person gets, so should everyone.
That brings me to a question I must ask all of you in the service contracting industry. Are you aware of the spread of communism that may be spreading throughout your company starting with your mediocre performers?
Although we try hard to not listen to the news we realize that the world around us as we know it is changing rapidly and for independent businesses in the contracting industry, mostly not for the better. Many of you that started out as a family enterprise are now struggling with the many challenges that face us going into the new millennium.
This is especially true when it comes to our industry. It only takes a moment of listening to the news to hear about the difficult economy. People are working more hours for minimum wage and small businesses are devastated by the lost jobs and the demolition of the local economy.
Does Your Life Ever Feel Like The Main Plot of a Movie?
In the 1989 film classic Field of Dreams, an Iowa farmer by the name of Ray Kinsella, hears a ghostly voice that whispers, “If you build it, he will come,” and sees a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. Although his wife is skeptical and his family thinks he’s a bit off-centered, he plows under his corn to build a baseball diamond, only to find himself on the verge of bankruptcy and having to sell the family farm.
We All Identify With Taking Chances
I suppose most of us reading this can identify with this movie. We all hear that little voice inside of us at one time or another telling us to take a chance. Take a chance in starting a business or starting a family. Take a chance in purchasing our first home. Take chances with our future. And we do it because something deep down inside tells us we “have to.”
This is a video of an interview with Rick Picard who is a $6 million dollar per year HVAC salesperson and his experience with learning how to sell big numbers with high conversion.
Rick will be hosting the Sales CSI: Who Killed the Sale webinar series starting on January 31st. You are invited to attend this exciting event to help your team breakout this year.
The following is an excerpt from article which features an interview the the good folks at Plumbinginfo.com did with me (America’s Sales Coach Joe Crisara) in the fall of 2012. Author Sean Kavanaugh was researching sales systems for plumbers in attempt to help those struggling in this economy. He was searching for a true “customer focused” system that would benefit clients and contractors when he came across our material.
I invited Sean to audit the training and he actually attended the 6-day training program with 4 weeks of follow up coaching so he could see first hand how it worked in the field. Sean called me back several times to convey how the results were beyond his expectations.
After seeing these results and how it increased his revenue and also how clients were pleased with the process, he requested this interview and I decided to post it here so those who have visited us but needed more info about our services could understand the motives and science behind our program.
Whenever I have a task that I don’t want to do, I find anything other than doing that task simply irresistible. Basically I put my head in the sand by doing the things I enjoy like talking to a client on the phone about how to turnaround their sales results or working on a new script to help a company convert more callers into buyers. The time I spend avoiding the work I need to do can be very productive. However, at the end of the week or month or quarter, I am still left with the task I HAVE to do. What’s worse and more dangerous is that now the task seems more daunting because it is so far overdue.
I want to start by saying that I am against government interference in the contracting industry as much as anyone. It is certainly hard enough to profitably operate an hvac service contracting business without another partner who is guaranteed their profit before the contractor owner has to pay all of the bills associated with each job to reveal if there even IS a profit.
However, one of the places where local government and some dishonest people in the trades makes a mockery of the statutes and laws, is in the area of licensing and permits. The reason for licensing and permits is to protect the public against unsafe work being performed. There is also an element of consumer protection. Local government has registered and tested licensed professionals to protect against unsavory characters that are posing as legitimate service contractors.
Should unlicensed contractors be arrested? Watch the above video if you are a legitimate contractor and tell me that you get get the feeling of pure joy from watching these characters get arrested.
Creating Trust
