Ep 315 - Oh, I Though It Would Be More Than That!

0:02 Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to yet another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the Electrician's Podcast. I am your host, clay Neumeier. With me, as always, my esteemed co-host, joe Lucchini. We are the Electricpreneurs a couple of master electricians with business addictions, here and ready to serve, serve, who Serve you. If you're an electricpreneur looking to master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service, welcome to our freemium weekly coaching. Call the admission cost for you, the fee for this very low, as low as we could make it. All you've got to do is lend us some of your time, sit back in the hot seat, take everything we give here today, just promise to take action and gosh.

0:50 Someone I want to talk to you guys about, we want to talk to you guys about today, is an action taker. A little shout out to Saul and some of the great wins he's seeing, including our topic of today. When you set up so much value that your customers actually say, oh, I thought it was gonna be way more than that, isn't that a great place to be, joe? oh my god. It's the best feeling in the world and it's really the best thing about it is when it happens that when the customer gave you another kind of vibe like I've had situations where I actually can I go into one because one particularly came in mind, I think would be pretty interesting. Jump right into it. Let's do this I remember I had a call once that I went to where the customer wanted like a bunch of different things.

1:30 But I remember it was like this super involved ceiling fan that she wanted with a whole new circuit run and like whole nine yards, and we designed six options for her and I remember sitting down and going through different options and explaining it and the whole time she's like well, how much does that cost? How much does that cost, how much does that like? Really just trying to find that bottom line. And eventually I came with the top number and I was like listen, take a wild guess, what do you think it's going to be? She's like I don't want to guess, just tell me what it is. I'm like, all right, and I actually like 9,000,. But it was like so, if it was 12,000, what would you say? She's like, oh, that sounds fair. And I'm like, oh, all right, well, luckily it's only 9,000. I wish, I wish I could do it for 12.

2:12 Best I could do is for nine. It's like, oh, okay, let's just do that. And ever since that moment, I remember saying I'm never going to be influenced by the customer before I've given them the number, because you have no idea what particular lever it's going to take to suddenly make them go. Oh yeah, no, I get that. That makes sense now 100%, and there's so much packed into this, because it's not just that we successfully set a value like A you know what. If you guys are watching this live on the Facebook group, let us know. Have you experienced this before? Have you had someone say, gosh, that's actually less than I thought? Or wow, wow, I actually thought it was going to be more than that. Let us know if that's happened to you, because this is important.

2:54 Again. It's telling us some things. We've set up value and if it's happening by accident, I feel so, so bad for you guys. You can do this on purpose. There's real strategies. Joe spent three quarters of a decade developing ours to create this impact on people. Does it work every time? No, but if you have a process and you follow that play, could it happen half the time where people actually anticipate a price higher than what you laid out in front of them? Yeah, absolutely. But it comes with another piece here and I gotta break this open to. I gotta throw it in. Go for it, man, to assume the sale.

3:35 You can't assume the yes and you can't assume how much money this person has in their pocket. It's a big kind of red herring here today that ties into this because you know better than anyone. You've been to some wealthy places and faced some terrible, terrible low economical decisions and like off-putting insults even and we've seen you and we've seen many of our clients go into the ghettos where you don't expect anything and you almost regret pulling up there and come out with multiple five figures, you know, in the 30, 40, $50,000 sales.

4:15 So there's so much to unpack here. Sorry for going on a complete tangent with it. No, it's fine. I've got no issue at all. And you know, the one thing that I've learned when it comes to working with the wealthy is that the amount of things that you see doesn't equate to wealth. It often just equates to debt. So, like the thing is, if I go into a large home and I see lots of very fine cars, I don't look at them like oh, they've got money. I first like I'm like I wonder how much they're leveraged, Like how would it be to afford that? What do they got to be in for this point? It's almost like a, not a look of pity, but it's like a look of concern. I'd rather work in a home. Like if I go to a trailer park, no judgments whatsoever, Cause some of the wealthiest people I know live in double wives and have a million dollars in the bank, Cause they just don't want to be met.

5:03 Problem with anything yeah so never judge the place by what you think they're gonna have you know what, joe? you can take me out of the trailer park. You can't take the trailer park out of me. Myself and several of our clients have done incredibly well, just you know, really putting a focus on a single trailer park. There's so many opportunities in there, so I appreciate that you said that we can't knock that either. Jumping back to this, though oh, I thought platinum would be way more than that. What's in between the lines here? What are we missing? What is the customer really saying? So what's going on here is that you've done something very, very well that usually isn't spoken of, and you can either speak to the problem or you can speak to the solution.

5:52 When the customer said, wow, I thought it would be more than that, it means you've done both of those very well, because you can have the best solution that money could possibly buy. But if there's problems not big enough to address, why would they swipe? And if you have a problem and you're really good at speaking to that, but your solution sounds terrible, they're not going to swipe either. So there's got to be the understanding. So when someone says I thought it would be more, it means that not only did you were able to communicate the severity of the problem, only did you were able to communicate the severity of the problem, but you were able to communicate the level of service that comes with your service or comes with working with you. I think that's really something to be commended.

6:34 You know, it's really, really intriguing here for me, and my marketing and strategy brain as well, is when that problem awareness and that communication and the authority around that problem begins isn't always at the home. It can belong in the marketing prior to that visit as well, and that's why we see so much success with our clients in our organic marketing efforts also. You know what? Anyone can place an ad. You can be in the newspaper, you can be on TV, you can be in the radio, you can pay for your Google PPC, but the moment you stop paying, what happens to that ad? Disappears. It's gone. As far as we can tell, social media efforts last forever, infinite amount of time.

7:17 It's indefinite, we don't know, but it's there and people come into our awareness or our sphere of influence and in other electricpreneurs sphere of influence, and they mass consume. At the moment, they realize you're someone they're interested in, they mass consume your content as far as they care to go back on your walls instagram, facebook I mean we see the most on Facebook but also, perfectly tying into this the authority, the relationship and the value even begins before you even knock on the door. Incredibly powerful. Of course, we could tie in so many steps here, even how you knock on the door. All of that is obviously in our.

7:58 Our program wouldn't be a great episode without that little plug, joe. But let me ask you this sure, I'm gonna put you on spot here, don't worry. If there was, let's say, three big things like big things that could really help someone listening to this begin to achieve this kind of feedback, wow, I thought it would be more. Do you have a few things that come to mind? Or even one big thing, man, I don't mean to put you totally on spot, but let's see what you come up with here. Sure. So it would come down to how we describe the observations would be the first thing right, because if you cannot speak to the problem, no matter how good your solution is, you're not going anywhere.

8:39 So what I would want to do is, if you want to communicate value, you have to be communicating to the right person, saying the right things. Now, I know that's a very blanket statement, but let me explain more in detail what I mean by that. Let's say you're in front of this customer and they have an issue with whatever the thing is. I need to be able to look at them and say, whatever the thing is, I need to be able to look at them and say I understand what's going on and I know that I'm capable of fixing this. And I want to do this for you because of X Y Z, and I feel that you'll be benefited by it, by X Y Z. Now I've created this range from the finest you could possibly have to the most bare bones you could possibly get.

9:20 All I ask is you choose what's best for you. If you can set that up, you've allowed them to understand that this is a table where they're valued, at that you want to be engaged in the relationship and that you have the professionalism to actually serve and solve this problem. I would say that's step one in order to really communicating that value Sound good so far. Yeah, man, really good, I love that. Second level of what I would say is how you've structured your options. People offer options, people have been offering options for years, but how they structure options is often wrong. You'll never get wow.

10:02 I thought the platinum was more than that if you start with the bottom option first. Some people they make options but they start with the cheapest thing and then they present up Well, this is better. Well, this is better, well, this is better. But if you do that way, you're very limited because the customer is not going to assume that you started with a garbage solution. They're going to assume that's the solution that they need and everything on is just an add-on. So I always recommend presenting from the best first and setting that expectation of what the best would be. The last thing is not showing the customer any prices prior to you doing your description. The reason why we suggest that is how could they possibly say I thought it would have been more if they didn't see the number right, like there's no possible way that someone can make that judgment if they saw the number in advance.

10:49 So the thing is is that if I were to hide that number or not have it visible, the customer, in order to receive that information has to pay attention to me, meaning that they're fully engaged in this communication and, as a result, I have a stronger and more likely chance of communicating value. Because they're fully engaged in listening, rather than just looking at a number and listening to me in the background trying to gauge the value of it. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, man, you know what my mind's actually blown right now and I don't know if people could tell that. Everything in my head is like screaming. My head and my heart's just like, yes, that was a huge value drop. I love what you said about people doing options wrong, because that's quite often what we see and we feel the intuitive pull, even in our client base, where people come in and they learn the options are like great, now, how do I template this?

11:39 Now, how do I make this something that anyone can just push a button and make it happen? Well, that's been happening and it's been really mediocrity at best, because how do you connect that to the human being? Oh my God, I'm trying not to like completely blow up. James says it's huge engaging with us in the chats. I agree, james. This is massive, because what you have to realize is the first thing Joe just said about the observations most companies are leaving that to the individual to figure that part out instead of training. It really freaking well, but that's where all the action and all the value lives. How good can you associate problem XYZ with person ABC?

12:24 The intention is there in the alphabet, abc comes before XYZ and so many people miss that and they miss that in their options and what they end up with is somewhere at the bottom to the middle and they're almost never hitting those high-end sales and they're almost never hearing something like Saul did. Oh, I thought a platinum would be way more than that and it's all in the personal touches of communication there and I just gosh, like I said, I'm screaming inside. It's so valuable for people to know and recognize and it was just given away for free on the podcast. I'm out of breath, joe. I really have to.

13:05 I'll have you out here, brother. I got one more. I got one more value that I can throw in right. The last thing that I would recommend for this immediate response is when you're describing your solution at the top, because let's walk you through the process. You've described your observations, you've spoken to the problem. The customer understands what's wrong. You're then going into your presentation, talking about the top option and explaining each individual thing that you're doing. If you want to now inject steroids into this and give it like to that next level, it would be for each line item that you're really going through. You can explain I'm doing this for you because and really tying it to the emotional reason they started with.

13:46 So, like, let me put this in a real camp, right, let's talk about situations that happened in my area during Hurricane Sandy. Everyone was destroyed, systems were gone, people were out of power for six weeks, so everyone knew that you needed a generator and for the next three months afterwards it was a no brainer. It was we're going to buy it because we're still cleaning up the residue, but two, three years later it was very hard to communicate to people because it stopped being real for them. So when I was designing solutions like, we're going to make you a first-class member. The reason why I'm making you a first-class member is do you remember a few years ago when everyone in our tri-state area was trying to get gasoline and was crowding and couldn't get the pumps and there were lines down the blocks?

14:26 I never want you to have to experience that ever. So we made it a point to prioritize all of our customers at this level and at this option. You would become that VIP member so that you never have to experience that again. Option. You would become that VIP member so that you never have to experience that again. We took a very real emotional situation of I can't get gas and I'm waiting on blocks of lines and I hope that the pump still has power by the time I get to it. And it was just removed that emotional fear by our solution. So we've not only created the problem or spoke to the problem, but also have become the solution in the same breath and when you can tie it into that. I did this for you because not only are you doing those things, but you're also letting the customer know I hear you and I understand you.

15:14 And who would you rather work with? Someone who listens to you and understands you, or someone who's going to spit a pre-regulated quote at you powerful men, really powerful stuff. Again, we can't say enough about this, joe, I'm compelled to do something I haven't done in a long time, uh-oh. What does that mean? I know, I know man. I know, hey, a long time ago, back in the Rebs days, when we all started this thing and we're just doing these lives every Wednesday and we were having such a great time, I would just give value pieces away at random right live from the show. And sometimes I was so inspired by the context of the show that I would just decide to give a value piece away.

15:55 I kind of want to do that right now but this has never been done before. What would you say to us giving away as a value piece our observation section? lesson on the four what's I mean, that's a heavy lesson. I was gonna say it ties into what we just spoke about so heavily though you're not wrong. I was gonna say I mean, that would be an absolute like. That would be an absolute heavy value. If you feel inspired to do so, I'll follow you to hell and back man. So if you think it's a good move, I'm for it. Okay, okay, so here's the problem when I do this is I'm making work for myself, because we haven't given access to this. So this is going to cost me, this is going to cost me some time and even Austin's going to be like whoa.

16:39 I thought we were doing the trip charges, and we are, guys, if you've seen our posts, if you want the 21 minute video about how to set up your trip charges, so when you're doing estimates, should you charge? Why, why not? How much? When you get a service call, should you have a trip charge? Why, why not? How much? Those are all answered and really backed by all the success that we see in our client group, as well as what Joe's seen. But then, of course, here we go, self-promoting. This is it, but it ties so perfectly in with this, guys, we've never given away a full piece of the sales process before, and there's nothing more important than giving away this observation section in creating options, observations in the four, what?

17:21 So? If you guys want that, so that you can master this, like saul clearly is, in just months of working together, seeing so much value for his clients that they thought platinum would be way more than that, if you wanna know how to connect with people like that, this is the lesson for you. All you've gotta do if you're watching this live is comment a one in the chat. If you've seen it before, if you've never seen it before, throw a one in the chat. We're gonna send that out to you guys. And then, if you're listening to this on the recording, you're not live with us on Facebook. I've really got two actions for you. Then I'm going to pass it to Joe to finish this off with some in the field actionable items. The two actions Greg's got a one up. Greg wants it for sure, brother, it's coming for you. A couple actions are very, very simple.

18:05 Join us on the Facebook Live group. As you can see, I'm looking down sometimes because I'm literally engaging with you guys. I'm pumped up for this. You can join us here and get this premium access to everything and join us before the show. There's pre-show, there's post-show, stuff we're doing outside of the recordings, but if you're hearing it on the recording, then you could also go to servicesloopelectricalcom or servicebyelectricianscom. Fill out the contact form there and let us know. You want the observations value piece. We're going to send that out to you, joe. I'm done with my ramble. Again, I feel like I've hijacked us. I've hijacked us twice. It's okay, bro, because honestly, I'm really just excited to help people and it doesn't matter who's talking, as long as value is coming out, the end goal is served.

18:49 So I'm happy, bro, awesome. But I got some action items. If you want to hit the action items. I'm just going to text a group here. No worries. So I want to do both the basic and the all star for the situation, because I feel like they tie really well together. Now, in the basic, I had it in the basic hold on, I had it in the top of my mind. Give me one second, what was it? Basic action, yes, okay. So in the basic there's, there's two levels that we can take right. The first is you, when you're in the beginning of the call and the customer says what do they want to do, your minimum action is to ask why. Why do they want to do the thing that they're doing? It seems almost like counterintuitive, like you're almost talking them away from doing it.

19:34 Yeah. But that's not. You're actually talking them into it by talking them out of it. What I mean by that is one. You're not going to be pushy. You're simply asking like, hey, I want to help, don't get me wrong, but why do you feel like this is something we have to do? So, asking like, hey, I want to help, don't get me wrong, but why do you feel like this is something we have to do? So, at the very bare minimum level, what that's going to be giving you is you being able to now really address and speak to it in a very real sense. So you can now design your options because you know why they're doing it. But the all-star action now takes that why and brings it into two places the because frame I did this for you because and you could speak to that why and brings it into two places the because frame I did this for you because and you could speak to that why but also in the objection handling. I understand this is more of an investment than you were thinking, but when you mentioned X, y, z, I felt that this would help you prevent that.

20:20 Was it wrong of me to want to do that? So the basic is get the why the all-star is inserted into because and into an objection handling man. I love that. Gosh, we're solving some problems today. Guys, if you're seeing price objections, if you're seeing the opposite of customers, seeing so much value that they thought it would be more, and you're having trouble with that premium pricing and you feel like there's more meat left on the bone, then this might be important to you. Guys. You throw a one down below in the chat. We're going to send you our observations and the for what's. That's never been done before. Joe, I'm pumped up, though. We're going to send that out. Also. Guys, again, trip charges there.

21:00 They're out in the post on Facebook. All you've got to do is comment. If you just listened to us, you're not on Facebook, then send us a message again on servicebyelectricianscom on our contact form that just says trip charges or the observations or both. I'll send them both to you. We're going to help you guys out. Thank you for joining us in another effort to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Thank you, joe. See you guys next week. Okay, we'll see you soon.