Contractor Selling

Building Your Vision

Recently I watched the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, in which they tell one of my favorite stories. Here it is…

“Between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps where it is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains.  They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice.  They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip.  They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.”

When I first heard this story, I thought it was part of Hollywood fiction. After a little “googling” and a lot of reading, I came to find out how this amazing achievement was accomplished.

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A Hard Business Indeed

HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical service contracting companies are like no other small business out there today.  Most small businesses are made up of only 1 person and consist of selling their old lamp shades and shoe laces on Ebay.  All they need is a camera and computer.

A contracting business on the other hand, well, they need a brick and mortar building, trucks, inventory, and a whole lot of other things on top of that camera and computer.  Not to mention dealing with government regulations, licensing, permits, tech training, software training, driving records, unfathomable workmans comp insurance costs, not to mention all the other insurance costs…should I keep going?  You’d probably never even get to see your family if it weren’t that they all work for you.  Who has the time to work “on” your business.

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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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“Where’s Jimmy?”

Ralph who is one of the senior techs working at an hvac, plumbing and electrical service business suddenly blurted out a question to his boss, “Hey Bill, where’s Jimmy? I haven’t seen him for a couple weeks now.”

Ralph was referring to one of the newer techs who joined the company about a year ago. “I think he’s on vacation, right Bill?” said Karen who is one of the CSR’s at the firm. Bill, who has owned the company for 29 years set the record straight, “No, we had to lay him off two months ago when it got real slow.”

Bill of course was just being nice.  What he didn’t say was that Jimmy was a dispensable employee. He failed to add enough value to the team, his customers and the bottom line to even keep himself employed, much less to be considered a star player.

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Callbacks Are Costly

Callbacks are costly. Each time we go to a customer homes it can cost as much as $250 or more.  In a recent discussion on Linkedin,  John Whitney Jr. said, “Field service techs want the right tools and a minimum of distractions. Managers want constant contact, on-the-fly updates, and solid record-keeping. IT/ tech guys want cool new toys and the latest apps. The company wants to get the job done with one visit.  And, of course, the customer wants the work done correctly and in a timely fashion.  Sometimes, these goals all work together. But sometimes they don’t.  What can we do to improve this situation?”

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Is There a “Silver Bullet?”

Whenever I work with sales managers who are failing, I notice that they all talk about the immediate issues going on with their salespeople and are looking for the “quick fix” or “silver bullet” answer from me.

Most of them have given up and think they have already thought of everything. The one thing they haven’t thought of is to zoom out and look at the big picture, which includes their own behavior and how it contributes or even causes an issue to occur.

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Using Fear as a Barometer

Fear can disable the best of us.  Many times the fear we face in service and sales situations start to make us create assumptions that lead us to dysfunctional behaviors.  Sometimes the fear begins with finding a huge problem that the customer didn’t expect on a typical call.  The problem is viewed as small or routine by the client but after you diagnose the whole system you find the problem is bigger than anyone anticipated.  The fear that the client may think you are trying to sell them something they don’t need  may paralyze some into covering up the problem instead of solving it.

Indeed service or sales people who fear things like the economy, high prices, their ability to sell, close or handle objections usually blame the fear itself which stops them in their tracks, instead of trying to sculpt an effective response to it.

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Got Your Attention?

One of the more fun parts of my job is talking to sales and service managers who refuse to admit that the results that their people get on their opportunities do indeed, suck. What do I mean by this statement?

First of all let’s face it, I use that word to get your attention and now that I have it, let me explain. When any frontline service or sales professional in your company does not produce the results needed to pay for all the overhead, benefits, pay, education and everything else needed to cover their fair share of these expenses, then they are “sucking” these valuable resources at the expense of other employees who ARE pulling their own weight.

There is an imbalance at many companies that is created by some of the sales team performing at a high level while others do not. Many perceive this as just a fact of life and refuse to believe that EVERYBODY could achieve profitable numbers and reach their goals.

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You Don’t Have To Be An Einstein

“The problems of today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created those problems.”

Albert Einstein

How many times in the service contracting business have you ever had a challenge that just went away by waiting?  One of the secrets to being successful in the contracting industry no matter what job you do is to muster the courage to take action.

For instance, think about an installation crew walking around in circles thinking about the job instead of just doing some of the basics that need to be done regardless of the difficulty.  Things like protecting the home with floor mats or drop clothes, unloading materials or even removing the old materials and equipment.  Sometimes we think too much or try to be an “Einstein” and those thoughts can impair our ability to act.

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