Contractor Selling

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.”

Ray could have decided not to build that baseball diamond.  He could have chosen to continue on the same path that he had been on for years growing corn, making a little money to support his family, just barely surviving.

Listen To That Little Voice

Instead he decided to listen to that little voice inside his head because he began to understand the meaning. It’s not about the overpaid ball players or fancy ball parks with trains and waterslides. It’s about the experience and connections that we tie to those memories of the game.

For anyone who has ever thrown a ball in their backyard with their dad the experience is what recalls the strong emotional connection.

Your memories of this year’s Service Super Summit should be as if you were out there playing a game of catch.  A place you will go to hear great speakers, learn new information, and make new connections with people you will hold dear throughout your life.

We Need Your Help

That is why we need your help.  Although we have a good group of people signed up to attend this event, we could still use more and are asking your help to bring those connections together.

If you know of anyone who could use help with their business or is good at helping others, please send them our way.  We would like them to attend so we can make this year’s event the one you remember.

This year’s Service Super Summit will focus not only improving your sales, marketing and profit, but also an emphasis on a “Turn-Key” approach that will sustain your success month-after-month.

Join us in Long Beach, CA, March 13-15, 2013 to learn how to…

• Automate Marketing To Work Every Time
• Convert Callers Into Buyers
• Recruit, Compensate & Manage Premium Technicians
• Create An In-House Performance Coach
• Rocket Your Sales
• Manage Rapid Growth
• And many more speakers and subjects that will inspire you and your employees to lay down the ground work to create a business that will achieve your vision.

Here is what you’ll get at the Service Super Summit 2013:

• Early check in and Social Meet and Greet on Wednesday evening
• Breakfast and Lunch on Thursday and Friday
• Access to video replays of all speakers after the event included
• MP3 downloads of all session included
• A 30-60-90 day action plan from each speaker
• Follow up access to all speakers included
• Investment to Attend $497 – Buy Tickets Now!
• Contractorselling.com Members – $397 Bonus Price Click Here

It is important to call and make reservations as early as you can. Ask for Julie or Colette to help with your arrangements 9 a.m.-5p.m. PST.

With warm regards,

Joe Crisara

Contractorselling.com

877-764-6304

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Should We Get Paid To Refer?

I recently wrote an article that was very popular about the 7 Things That Customers Never Want To Hear. In the article it stressed that clients never want to hear, “We don’t do that kind of work.” My suggestion was that we refer someone or find someone to do work for our client that we ourselves are not qualified to do.  Recently a client asked a question about whether we should get paid for referrals or just provide them at no cost to our clients.

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A Sad State Indeed

With the economy seemingly in an endless loop of futility and so many people in the contracting trades struggling, it is inevitable that we reached this point in time.  That, is when a consumer has a problem with their HVAC, plumbing or electrical system but they are shocked at the prices at first glance and decide to tell the proud tradesman they want to either find someone who is cheaper or put the decision to move forward on hold.

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Uncommon Thoughts

I want you as a service professional to think about some of the situations where you said things to clients when you really weren’t thinking.  Thinking before talking is one of the most uncommon skills that people possess in this new era of tweets, likes and post.  Unfortunately, chances are pretty good that if you actually put thought into what you said you would regret it. You may have even unknowingly driven customers into frustration to the point where they silently decided to not do business with you again.

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Self Destruction

If you were told that the “jargon” or language that your industry uses was hurting your sales, would you believe it? Well, not only is it destroying your closing rate and average sale but it is also making it harder for you to communicate with your customer. In many cases, it is alienating them beyond the point where they can barely understand you.

Using industry jargon is just plain bad service. Why would a customer call you if they really wanted to learn the “inside language” of your trade?

Think of the time that is wasted explaining what this jargon means. Why not just start by explaining what the problem is causing and then by explaining your solutions by saying what you will do?  But this time use the “customers” language and explain what the problems are doing to harm the system. Then explain what your solution will DO, not what they are.

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Do I Have To Be Perfect?

One of the things I like bet about baseball is the possibility of a pitcher throwing a perfect game.  No other sport offers such a finite example of doing the job right.  Is it possible is sales to be perfect?  Selling your services to possible clients is another matter. Although one can draw parallels between sports and sales there are some differences.  Do you have to be perfect to be able to execute a sale? Thank goodness that you in fact don’t have to be perfect to get someone to purchase from you.  With that in mind, let’s go over what it takes to perform at the highest level in a quest to attain perfection.

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Did I Make a Good Presentation?

This is the question that many in the service contracting trades ask themselves after each opportunity.  There are many who don’t even make a presentaion a particular event in the service business.  Most simply mumble out all the facts during the course of their diagnosis and drizzle out the features and benefits early in the call as they “talk out loud” to their potential customers and then stick a price at the end of this segment.

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The Turn-Around

One of my favorite techniques is called the “Turn-Around.” In short, this is a term that I use that means to get your prospect to reveal the logical and emotional reason they are wanting to buy your solution. In effect “turning around” the sales situation so that the buyer sells YOU on wanting to get the work done instead of you selling THEM. Many times buyers provide a false reason so they don’t reveal too much about their situation thinking that you may use it against them to close the deal.

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Do You Have a Policy Too?

How many times have you heard your prospect tell you that they have a “rule” or “policy” when they purchase? You know something like, “We have a rule, we never make a purchase on the first visit from a sales person.” Sometimes the rules that buyers have are dysfunctional and make little sense for you or them.

Also, the rules are often broken when they meet the right sales person with the right solution. So then the rules are only often enforced when they either don’t like the sales person or their solution.

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Opposite George

The above video clip always makes me burst out in laughter. Do you remember when the TV show “Seinfeld” was a huge hit on NBC’s “Must-See TV” every Thursday? I have probably watched every episode at least 2 or 3 times. The one episode that really stands out for me more than all the others is the episode where George Costanza decides he’s going to do the opposite of what he would normally do. The episode was called “Opposite George.”

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