Here some of the comments from the people who attended our Total Immersion Service Contractor Sales Summit training in Boston in August, 2011. I love how hvac, plumbing and electrical service techs and sales people can feel so good about themselves after the event. That is what we at ContractorSelling.com live for is to unleash the potential of these powerful people.
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.
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.
In this interview, ContractorSelling.com CEO, Joe Crisara shares his thoughts about the state of the service contracting industry and their importance to society. He also talks about his commitment to helping those who need help.
There is a lot of controversy that has been stirred up over the years as to whether a company should allow a service tech to sell larger jobs or if they should be turned over to a sales person. Watch this video as Joe Crisara, Rick Picard and others share their thoughts.
I received a desperate sounding phone call last week from a sales manager at a service company in the mid-west. He informed me that he thought our material was great and that he wanted to send several techs to one of our upcoming Total Immersion Summits and 5-Week after coaching experience.
There Was One Problem
When he tried to raise the prospect of investing in sales training for the techs, sales people and himself the CFO of the company gave a host of reasons why they could NOT possibly invest in such a program at this time.
He called me to ask if their was a “business case” for sales training that he could present to the owner of the company to convince him that the “Bean Counter” was a bit off in his thinking. I then thought about it for a few hours and came up with this e-book below. Enjoy it and use it by all means to sell your company’s bean counter on this important message.
What can you do to bust your personal recession? One thing for sure is that the economy always improves whenever a good service or sales person shows up at the door. The same is true of your personal economy. It always gets better when we create better results. Yes there are stories of carnage in the contracting industry with record numbers of businesses failing. But there is one thing to remember. This truth is undeniable. That truth is that a sale is never lost. It just goes to your competitor.
Because of this truth, ironically there are a few contractors who have grown enormously when they grab this seemingly “lost” sale. That’s right. When you lose an opportunity to capture a customer, you not only lose the customer and the money but your competitor is fueled by getting the immediate dollar and the long term relationship. A relationship that if managed correctly can result in between $30,000 to $50,000 in opportunity over the next 5 to 7 years.
After seeing for myself firsthand the financial success of our Virtual Coaching Students, I have been thinking about how some embrace success so easily like it is their old friend and others DARE to leave opportunity in the dust. The one thing that success and failure have in common is that they both leave a path for all of us to follow.
Why some decide to follow the path to failure is beyond me when the path to increasing revenue and profit while making customers happier is so well illuminated.
