Ep 312 - Electrician Photo Secrets Pt II

0:02 Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to yet another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the electrician's podcast. We're just a couple of master electricians with business addictions here ready to serve. I'm Clay Neumeier, With me, as always, my esteemed co-host, Joe Lucchini. Welcome to our freemium daily coach call. Daily, kind of weekly, but we're live, brother, we are here and the investment for this call nothing. Sit back in the hot seat. You know what? Take everything we give, just promise to take action, Joe, despite the technical difficulties happening live in the Facebook group right now. How are you doing, brother? I can put it in perspective so I can hear me over there. I knocked over a cup of coffee while trying to set it up, so there's currently a coffee on the floor, but I'm with someone I care about, talking about something.

0:50 I care about two people I care about, so screw it all, I'm here and that's what matters. Well then, I'm sorry about that, brother, you know what? Present not perfect. We keep showing up and Facebook did this thing where they took api out of the group, so we're trying to find our ways around the back door of this to make it happen. Anyway, make sure we could still come and do this live with you guys. Gosh, I don't want to lose that. It feels like that was our promise to begin with. So we keep showing up, we keep doing the thing, even when it's not perfect. But hey, we've got a great episode today, number two, of electrical photography secrets. The reason we're coming back again, as you know, joe, is we didn't quite get everything out last time.

1:36 That's right, all right. So where we kind of finished off was me. I kind of ended up taking some stuff on about, you know, grabbing a selfie stick, getting some good lighting and letting that help you elevate your game, correct, but really we talked about, kind of the panel, the three feet either side. I know there's a bunch more that we want to get into this episode, into this series of photography secrets. What are some things that you feel are still left out there to deal with here? so the thing that comes to mind and I'm going to do everything I can to not listen to my own voice in the background is that we need to take an understanding that when we take a picture of something, you're not taking a picture for another electrician, you're taking a picture for someone who has no idea what you do like.

2:21 Think about the typical electrical contractor pages that people follow. It's always here's a picture of the meter or the panel open and you can see everything properly terminated and people are still grilling them because maybe one wire was slightly bent. You take that same picture and put it in front of a homeowner. It doesn't mean anything, but you put the cover on it now and now. Suddenly it means something to them and they can understand what it is. But this is where a lot of electricians go south. They focus on the work that they're doing but not how the work is perceived by the untrained eye. Can I go into that a little bit?

3:01 Yeah, please do. Okay. So I mentioned earlier how everyone's looking for the nicely knitted, everything tied out, perfect, all bent in 90s, Great, Awesome. You put the cover on and you go to take a picture of it. I have seen electricians take pictures slightly crooked and then post it. Or they'll end up going to something, they'll put it right up in front of someone, or they go to take a picture of the panel and it's not properly sealed around the outside, Like you look at it and you're like oh wait a second. I had to cut a little bit of the sheetrock in order to get it to come in. What does that communicate to the homeowner when they see your finished? product and see they still need sheetrocking. Not good things, man. They're not focused on the things that electricians focus on exactly they're focused on the shit they understand yeah.

3:48 Additionally, how many times do you see that people post about exterior services like I just upgraded 100 to 200 amp service and made this customer so happy, like it's good, you did the post. But look at what happened. It's usually well, it was old vinyl and they boxed it out and they moved the meter and they put it right next to it. Oh, and the sidings to be done by others. So what you did was you moved it. It's 100 to code, maybe put some azac board over the front of it, but now just looks like a sore thumb to the customer. They're not going to want to buy that. They're going to say what happened to the sheetrock there? What happened to the siding? I used to kind of keep this rule in mind of, like, if you can't take a picture of something after you've finished with it and it actually be done, then you shouldn't be done.

4:36 But the reality is what you just said actually strikes very true. I think a lot of electricians miss that that's not actually done. That's the big problem here, isn't it? What the homeowner sees is done and what the electrician has done is not the same. So the expectations are different and the photos are shit because of that. Yeah, because we're trying to appeal to the wrong person. The image that we're trying to convey isn't I do great electric work because technically, any electrician can't. I do great electric work Because technically any electrician can say I do great electric work. But when you can convey the experience and the finished product they receive as a result, oh, that's a real goal. So like, let's talk about lighting as an example, right to chandeliers of sorts.

5:22 Did I lose you? Oh, there, it is there with me. Awesome. So you think about putting in a chandelier? Now what about the room that should be illuminated? Personally, whenever I wanted to take a picture of a chandelier, I would stand outside at night and I would take a picture looking in through the beautiful glass in the front, because it communicates what the customer is really receiving, rather than you just standing beneath it and going yep, that's a chandelier. 25 feet up Looks good from the bottom, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Or hit the 0.5, right. 0.5 is a great tool, but not for this kind of after effect that we're looking for. In that case, it would do you some actual damage better than it would help you.

6:05 Exactly or technically. Even when you talk about cutting and recess lights into a customer's living room, every one of us had put between four and six in. But were they absolutely laser leveled? If there's one, that's slightly and I'm not calling you guys out because I know we're all perfect electricians but for the some of us that didn't use the laser, if it's slightly off, you know your electricians are going to catch it. But what about the homeowner? You know there's a homeowner there who's going to notice that the paint wasn't perfectly blended. They're going to know that one of them is a little off center. So when you're showcasing the work, it needs to be like. This is what you could expect in your home. When I'm done with it, and that's what they're buying, you know what I love about this.

6:48 We're talking about, really, how photography becomes your accountability partner in this endeavor. That's huge because we could all use that accountability partner, especially our delegated install teams, the people doing work on our behalf, where we're trying to lay up this nice, consistent customer experience and quality of work. I agree with you completely. At the end of the day, we want to make sure our clients have the understanding that this is the finished product, but giving us the accountability also helps our technicians too. So like, let's say, sake of argument, you have the perfect install. Like this is something that we would do when we did what we considered the perfect install.

7:31 Like not saying that you would, but if you were the kind of electrician that braids your neutrals into a French braid, that clearly shows like oh my God, that's a huge level of dedication, can you imagine taking a picture of something like that and being like you know you're hiring the best when we put enough attention into doing it this way? Or even then, if you're not appealing to your customer when you speak to your technician and you have that perfect picture, you can use that as the benchmark that they then go off of. This was the Johnson's at 12345 Main Street and we installed the generator as you see here, the three foot clearance on the back. We made sure they got the elevated flood ready base. You see how level it is and how close it is to the home. That's what we're going to be trying to do every time yeah, I love that it.

8:15 Basically, if you have to explain to them why it's important the way you did it, then that's not something you should show them as kind of eye candy for photos. Like you said earlier, right, they recognize different things. Lighting makes perfect sense. Who doesn't know where the light is in this world, like by the age of three? we kind of have it figured out, right I mean there are still some customers that are like oh, I got my own gas fixture, but no, they're. They're very few and far between at this point right. Awesome man, and I love that touch you mentioned earlier about being outside the home with that nice lighting and capturing it at night. Really good stuff. What else would you recommend here? Where can we go with this next?

8:56 So let's talk about different situations in the home. Now I mentioned exterior lighting for chandeliers, but there's also another kind of exterior light that you can create for your customer as well, which is landscape lighting. Now, a lot of times some people call them uplight, some people call them accent light, but they're not served for just illumination purposes. It's not so, I know. To go from the front door through the walkway there, it's to bring a warmth and comfort into the home, to make it seem inviting. So when you're standing at the front of the driveway looking at the angle full picture you can choose the filter, the lighting that best capitalizes off of it. If so, in other words, if you're on 3500 light, you'd want to probably go for a softer filter.

9:38 Now I doubt anyone would be at 5,000 Kelvin, but if you did, you could go for a brighter, more light-absorbing filter. So, simply understanding what is my goal If I'm going soft light, it's meant to be inviting. If I'm going bright light, it's meant to be illuminating and the picture should match the finished product. That's really good man. I love that filter concept and adjusting using those filters I mean, they're preset in your phone anyway makes it really easy. I mean, phones take great pictures. Why not use those extra tools? Why not check your zoom in a few angles? Why not add a couple of different filters? Why not try and get the best picture possible so that you can show someone and have them actually want crave that kind of installation at their house?

10:24 Go ahead, my brother. There's another thing that actually comes up in mind that I actually really enjoyed doing, which is you can use your pictures to create a very strong differentiation in the mind of your customer. So let's say, digging a trench right the average electrician. Let's say you're digging it by hand, you dig, you, dump left, you dig, you, dump left and you continue doing it the whole way over. Then eventually you drop your wire, you backfill, you scoop in, scoop in, tamp right. That's bare minimum standard. What we would do was we would actually get ram board and cardboard and we had laid alongside the trench. But what we would do first is we would cut the grass and toupee it. So I would pull the top layer of graft with a knife and with a flat spade and we'd physically fold over the grass and put the grass on the right-hand side of the trench.

11:13 Because we were right-handed and we could dump to the left. The cardboard was on the left-hand side of the trench. So what we would do is we would put all the fresh dirt on the cardboard and all the grass on the top. Now, if you took a picture of this to the customer, they would see a very organized process. Yes, but then you can even video the finished product. I would take the edges of the RAM board, the cardboard, and I could physically lift it up with two or three techs and we would dump all the dirt back in, then tamp it, then you could add your grass seed on top it. Then you could add your grass seed on top and then you could add your grass right on top of it. You literally sodded the lawn and provided a complete rock-free installation onto the thing, and no one else would have had that level of comfort.

11:57 So you can have a before and after picture. We dug a trench 150 feet within 24 hours and this is the finished product. Wow, I don't even see any dirt. You're right, cause we even made sure to had sod included afterwards. Can I just call a time out here? Sure, that was one of those magic moments on this podcast where, like, we got to stop for a second and realize how much value we just gave, because it goes beyond the sod on a single lawn. I swear to you, if you're listening to this and you're an electrician and you've got a trench in mind and you do this thing while recording either videos and or a time lapse to tie into that and literally display this on your organic social media, you will get other people calling you, asking for that level of service 110%.

12:46 That will be your truth, money in your pocket. Do not delay. Take advantage of this secret today. I'm grateful to be of service. Is that like clear enough, Joe? Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. Like, at the end of the day, there's a countless amount of things that you can do and it's also different things that you shouldn't do, and sometimes it comes from experience Like this actually came up in class the other day where people were arguing what color of silicone should we apply after our fixtures and why that would affect it with pictures. I personally love clear silicone, but if you apply it barehanded, what you'll find is the oils from your fingers get absorbed into it and over time it has an aging process where it actually discolors it black.

13:32 So if you're going to do it and you want to take pictures of it, take something that'd be good photo ready. Meaning apply it with a white glove. Imagine showing someone finished product saying we always ensure that we take care of things to the nth detail. Meaning that you get white glove service inside and outside the house and you see someone with a white glove literally trimming out. Like what would that do? That's almost practically a marketing episode. Definitely man. Yeah, that attention to detail, not only spoken but demonstrated, that's massive. To literally say, hey, white glove experience and then see it and actually have that experience. Can I call a quick timeout again? Sure it, I get the frame.

14:25 You know what I mean. But like, have I ever seen someone come and serve me with a white glove on latex or not? If you say white glove experience, why not deliver? I appreciate that you threw that in there there's a reason why a lot of people don't, and I can speak to why we should. Yeah, so true, white glove usually doesn't mean latex white, it usually means felt white. The reason why is because you don't want fingerprints to stick to specialized glass. So when we did have it like you know how we have our tactical tool rival, where every pocket has a purpose, yep, what we would do is our felt gloves would go in the front. The only time I ever used my pocket front pocket would be where the felt gloves were, and you would always wash your hands before you put them on so that the oil doesn't absorb through the glove.

15:06 If your customer could see that, that's an amazing experience. But to truly do white glove the right way, those are the kind of steps you need to have in advance, which is why so few people are doing it when it's not absolutely required to do so. Massive, massive stuff. Joe, we kind of got to get back to the photos here and finish up. Was there another point you wanted to attach, or were we able to hit all the photo points today? Well, we kind of went off a bit of a tangent on it. But I would say the last thing that I would recommend with pictures is that you can use pictures not only for training, in that you're taking also take them from your bad examples.

15:46 Now, the reason why I say that is you can see other work from both yourself and your competitors and not use it to bad mouth anyone, but you can have a standard of this is good, but then also take pictures and say this is what we train for. So, in other words, if you were to see that there is oh, I'm in this room and I recognize that there's a recess, trim light that's slightly sagging you can be like okay, guys, I saw this. What do you think we? So what would we? What would we do for this room? We're in this room for Mrs Jones. What kind of solutions would you present so you can put them in the minds of a bad situation, have them recognize what the bad situations look for? So now they're consistently looking for those downsides. And then it's also now a training experience for their options and their design.

16:30 Love it, man. Really, really good stuff. We're going to wrap this one up. If you had to choose a couple of action items for what we've talked about today, Joe, what would you suggest as a basic? The basic. It's going to sound simple, but the basic really is just make sure that you have your phone with you and that you're comfortable and familiar enough with taking pictures. Now, the reason why I even brought this up as a basic is I have seen people in the field not age living anyone but I've seen people still break out their flip phones and look at them and be like, oh, I can't quite get it adjusted. If you're going to show up for a picture, do it in a way that's going to have a good result.

17:10 So either have a specialized phone just for that, or even bring a camera. If you don't feel like you have that. Make sure you have the right equipment, because you're not going to be able to take quality pictures with your kid's backup camera. Really good, really good stuff. All-star. All-star level is pretty much what we're saying, is the whole scope, in that you're taking a picture not to really do something for you. You're doing this picture so you can convey to all your future customers what working with you is like. What is the difference? I? I understand you. When the customer can feel that you can be in their shoes and that they want that result in their own home, the differentiation is already done and therefore it's your call to lose.

18:00 Awesome, I've got one more. We've got a third action item today. I'm going to close with it, if that's right. It's not something we spoke to but prioritize your personal relationships in your brand development and your business development and how this ties into photos is please make sure your website contains photos of you and your actual team so people can connect with you as people, because people do business with other people they know, like and trust. Joe, I think we've slammed another one out of the park here on our mission to help you guys master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service.

18:41 Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time, joe. Looking forward to it. Y'all be well.