Episode 21 - Navigating Tricky Customers: A Guide to Free Estimate Objections

@0:01 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Looks like it's being recorded. Let me hide my non-video. Hit the big record button. We got multiple recordings happening.

@0:12 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Simultaneous recordings. In the control lab of Clay Neumeier.

@0:16 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah, you got it. Travis said your mic should be two fingers. Is that right? Does that sound better? Am I clearer now?

Or now?

@0:26 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Would you rather me be like this? Like I can keep the mic next to my face.

@0:29 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Does that sound better? I feel like mine squeaks too much and I need to fix that.

@0:35 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Yeah.

@0:36 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

The squeak and the twang. The twang was a mistake yesterday. You can hear that.

@0:40 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Yeah, I know you're gonna bump something. I literally, I have a custom arm that I get a rig to work and it's perfect.

@0:46 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I love it. Yeah. And I'm always trying to be cognizant of where my service loop logo is. I don't wanna cover it with the mic.

I mean, we need this continuous advertisement right here. Guys, if you're watching, welcome, welcome. Apparently we've got a sexy topic today talking about what to do when they won't let go of free estimates when they insist that you go and give them time, energy and evaluation for nothing in return.

Big criminal exchange right there.

@1:15 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Joseph, how are you doing today? I'm doing awesome. And we had an awesome, awesome, awesome RSS session where we started touching on some of these things.

@1:22 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

So I'm fired up and pumped to make this happen. Woo. Yeah, it's a good day. I'm feeling the energy.

I don't know if it's hump day, garbage day is always nice.

@1:31 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

You take the garbage out, you feel that cleanse happening, which is both funny.

@1:36 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I'm sure some people are laughing right now, but also actually a bit of a strategy to living a more fulfilled life.

A whole other topic, but I read this book on self-hypnosis and the guy talks about how as you're taking actions is the best time to improve the inner world.

And so when you're having a shower, recognizing that, hey, I'm washing away all of the pains, I'm washing away all of the cramps,

from yesterday or whatever it is, right? You're taking the garbage out, hey, we're starting new, we're feeling lighter. Anyway, there's a whole bunch of this.

I would love to talk about that next time you get a chance, because that sounds like something I would definitely need more in my life.

Well, just quick, the reality is who has time, right? This is the challenge. Who has time to sit down and meditate?

@2:21 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Not me.

@2:22 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

We're barely making time to exercise, right? The stuff that we know we need to do that would help us significantly, you don't have time for it.

So in this concept, it's like, hey, this is kind of meditation for those without time. It's like put more mindfulness and intention into the stuff you're already doing.

@2:41 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I'm with it. I think it's a great addition, I appreciate that.

@2:43 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Unless it's not garbage day. If you didn't take the garbage out today, then you don't have to feel light today, I guess.

@2:48 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

That's just me. It's also funny that you and I both have garbage day on the same day and we are like in different countries.

It's literally garbage day here. Got your wavelength.

@2:55 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

If you guys didn't know this, Joseph's in New York. I'm over in BC, Canada. That's why I say pro.

process. Just so you know, yesterday, I don't know why, but subconsciously I've been trying to fix the process thing, even though it's just a Canadian way to say it.

Yesterday I was like, process. I would say process, but then I would say program. Like what am I doing?

@3:19 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Just be you. Sometimes the process works.

@3:23 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah. All right. Little small chat there. Ron, what's up, brother? It was good to chat with you yesterday. So glad you could make it.

Guys, if you're experiencing us live in the Electrical Contractor Success, the Electropreneurs Club, which that name's going to change, just a little heads up.

That was just kind of a semi-shifted name to get things going for the reboot. That will match the podcast name here in the coming week.

So welcome to Electropreneurs Secrets, the electric podcast. And you guys watching this live, you're part of our Facebook community, and that means you've got preference.

HIGHLIGHT: What do you do when the customer says "Free quote" or im getting more estimates today?  - WATCH

Q&A all day. You can comment on this, watch this, like it's live, even if you're watching the replay. If you're watching the replay, let us know.

Hit replay in the comments right now. If you're watching live, go ahead, do the same. Say hello, we're happy to have you.

And we're gonna launch live for the podcast here in just a moment. So what are we gonna talk about today, Joseph?

@4:14 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

There is a certain thing that is the thorn in almost every electrician's side. In fact, I'm not even gonna say it's a side.

We are prickled with this problem. And it happened today where someone came by and said, what do you do when you get to the door and the customer says, just so you know, I'm getting three estimates today.

Or they go by and they say, so just to confirm, this is a free quote, right? Like this is a free quote, right?

What does that make you feel? Like as an electrician, I'm sure you had to experience this.

@4:47 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

What's going through your head when you hear that? Hey, hey, hey, everyone's commenting today. Love it, Rebecca's here. We got Jason with us again.

Thanks for joining again, Jason. Brian here again, super fans in the house. We guys love you for showing up and that question is yours to answer.

So please let us know. Have you experienced this recently? Has anyone said to you, the quote's free, right? And maybe they said it multiple times or as Joseph said, just so you know, I'm shopping around.

@5:15 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Yeah, it's like a dagger to the chest. I always hated that until you learned certain, not tricks, because it's not a trick.

It's more of a mindset. The concept is called active listening and it's something that not, go ahead.

@5:29 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I'm gonna hold you. We're gonna introduce it.

@5:32 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Let's jump right into it.

@5:33 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Welcome to Electropreneur Secrets. I'm Clay Neumeier. This is my esteemed co-host, Joseph Lucani.

Listen, we're two master electricians with business addictions. We get stuck on this thing and that's why we keep showing up five days a week to help you guys take forward action and see big results in your company as we help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service.

@5:58 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Joseph, how you doing today, brother? I'm doing amazing. I love doing these podcasts with you. They feel like they almost energize me.

Who would have thought the electric podcast gives you a charge, right?

@6:07 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah, and we were just saying before on the pre-show, maybe because it's garbage day, maybe it's blue skies, pink clouds this morning.

Oh man, fantastic start.

@6:15 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I'm feeling the energy. Can you hear it? I love it. I was gonna say, I love the vibe that we're putting out.

@6:20 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I mean, you could definitely hear when your energy's up.

@6:22 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

So please keep bringing it.

@6:23 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Keep bringing it. Perfect, perfect. Okay, what are we talking about today?

@6:26 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

This is an important one. All right, what we're talking about is when the customer says something that immediately knee jerks a feeling like, hey, just so you know, I'm gonna be getting other quotes today.

Or just so you know, you're the first, I'm getting three other quotes. Or, hey, this is a free quote, right?

You do free estimates, right?

@6:49 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Love that.

@6:52 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I mean, love, it's a great question, but literally just saying it is like making me almost boil because I can remember all the times I would show up to homes and hear those things.

@7:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yeah. Why, I mean, let's drill down a little bit. Why is this nails on the chalkboard?

@7:06 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Why is it so bad? So from the uninformed perspective, what it is is we're hearing, you're not selling anything today.

This is a waste of time. They just want to get my numbers. They're just going to give my estimate to someone who's going to do it cheaper.

And you start replaying that in your head and start imagining all these horrible scenarios of, yeah, they're scheming against me.

They want me and they want to get someone else. Some tank top Terry is going to show up and take my job.

@7:38 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Tank top Terry, that bastard.

@7:39 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

I know, right?

@7:40 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

He's everywhere. Every part of the company is a tank top Terry. Yep. Handyman license, right?

@7:47 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

No permits, let's go. Rock and roll. The thing is though, that's what we're imagining is happening. That's not necessarily what the customer is saying.

What we're thinking and what they're saying are. two separate things. So let's break that down a little bit. When you get to the door, you haven't even really introduced yourself yet.

And the customer says, well, Joe, it's nice to meet you, but I just wanna let you know we're getting three estimates.

The best thing to ask is, well, Clay, I really appreciate you sharing that with me, but can I call a quick time out here?

I haven't even stepped in. What are you hoping to communicate by telling me that? Do you know how many times people just stare at me like, I guess I just want you to know that I don't want you charging me a lot?

And like they're happy to like realize it themselves. And they're like, oh, I'm like, well, have I implied that we're going to charge you more than is necessary?

Which I was just gonna bring it back and just back to this knee jerk concept of where people are really at and how much of this is happening.

@9:00 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

subconsciously. In yesterday's podcast, I asked you, you know, how many times have you blinked during this episode? How many times have you breathed in and out during the episode?

So, so much. 90% of what we're doing, maybe 95% is subconscious. And I just wanted to point out that what's happening there is subconscious too.

And I don't feel like that is enough to say, I don't want to work for this person.

@9:23 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Correct. You're a hundred percent right. The thing is, is that we, for some reason, we believe that this customer has a malicious intent.

And that's not the case. Nine times out of 10, I'm not going to lie. There are some people that are just there to waste your time.

They're looking for the bottom barrel. Those people exist, but they're not the majority. They're the minute minority, if anything else.

So what is this customer trying to imply? What are they asking for? You don't know. The only way you can know is by asking.

So I appreciate you sharing that with me, but if... You don't mind me asking, what are you trying to tell me?

Or what are you trying to communicate with me by saying that?

@10:06 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I haven't even stepped in the house. I love that. And I love that for a couple of reasons. One big one though I want to point out is people are notoriously bad at communicating.

It is the one thing. If we were all better at communicating, you would have so much more success, right?

Because the reality is most of us are leaving jobs with this problem in the wake that is, I don't actually know what happened.

I don't actually know what they were really thinking or what they actually did. End up in ghost mode or whatever.

Not to take us on too much of a tangent, but that communication piece. If we could just be the leader of communication in this and get to the core, the root cause of those communications as you're saying, we'll be so much better off whether we get the job or not.

@10:54 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Correct, because then once we've asked that question, what we're doing was we're almost like.. jarring the customer in a way.

Because if they're answering in a subconscious state and we allow them to just gloss over it, when do they break out of the subconscious?

Unfortunately, there is actually a known time. If you don't break them out of subconscious, the only time they will is when they see your number at the end.

And you don't want someone waking up then where they're just like, everything's like, oh, la-di-da, it's all fine. And then suddenly, well, it's $6,000.

No, that's outrageous. I've got a neighbor who'll do it for less. And now they wake up and they're behemoth.

They're like, no, we're not doing this.

@11:38 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Yep, and Ron actually confirmed this in the group. He said, hey, this scenario tends to play out towards the end of the visit for me.

@11:45 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Mm-hmm, yep. The reason why I love the process so much is because it's meant to eliminate objections before they come up.

And this is no different. Like if a customer says, so you give free estimates, right? What are we thinking?

Usually it's, oh, I know they don't want to buy. They're not moving forward today. That's not true. In fact, there was just something that came up in RSS today, which was, well, the customer called me on Friday and said, hey, it's a free estimate, right?

It's a free estimate. It's a free estimate. He eventually moved it to Monday. When he followed up on Monday, it was, oh, we already got it taken care of.

And the thought was, well, they must've gone with someone cheaper. I disagree. I personally think that we could have asked, well, I, yeah, I do understand what you're asking and I want to help, hoping to get this accomplished.

@12:42 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Love that question.

@12:44 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Because it made me figure out, I'm sorry, by all means, I was just going to ask a question.

@12:49 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

What does that cause them to do?

@12:51 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

So the thing that happens here is when we say, what are we hoping to get this accomplished? And suddenly if the customer had said, I don't have a story.

right now. I can't cook this weekend and we don't want to order out the entire time. We got to get this fixed.

Now it's gone from a, this person is wasting my time to this person needs my help and doesn't want to pay to cycle through contractors.

They know they need it, but they're not looking to pay for services that they're not going to receive. And can you really blame them for that?

No. So by humanizing the customer and saying they're not the villain of the story, they're just the character. In fact, they're the most important character.

You're the unimportant character in the story. If anything, you're the narrator who's just guiding along, but it's their story.

@13:44 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

You get to play a major role if you're up for the challenge.

@13:48 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Hey men to that, because I don't think there's nearly enough people who can take active effort and say, you know what?

I have control over this call. know what I'm doing and I'm willing to be honest, forthright and intentional in the things that I'm saying.

@14:07 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

And let's deal with the root cause here, really. I mean, it's fight or flight, right? And that's bred into us, we're human.

And the reason that's important is because thousands of years ago, Bob went in the cave and a saber tooth ate his leg.

It's important that we don't go back to that cave. It's important that we get our heart rate up, get our blood flowing and are ready for a cardiovascular activity to survive to this level of life.

But this point in the sales process is, like you mentioned, it's a type of objection and it's subconscious at this level.

They don't even know they're really objecting or what to until you call it to attention. So the point I want to drive home is this is not a threat.

You have to train yourself to understand this is not a threat. It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to show them that they're at risk.

acting out of a framework that's broken. Basically, right? And you leave that with questions. And if you can keep yourself from fight or flight, then you'll keep yourself from that skip of a heartbeat and recognizing, oh, finally, finally I'm prepared for this.

@15:18 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Can I offer something that might help people get out of that fight or flight?

@15:21 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

Love it.

@15:22 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Action time, my favorite. All right. So the bare minimum action, if you were going to say like, what is the bare minimum that someone can do in these circumstances?

It's simply just saying, I'm going to roll up to this call and this customer is not the enemy. I'm here to serve them at the highest level and I don't know them.

Simply just saying, I don't know this person. And I want to help them because they want my help. When you can think of a scenario, when you walk to the door and instead of thinking this person's cheap because their grass is three feet and their driveway is all torn to shreds and there's tarps.

on the roof, instead of thinking that this customer is the enemy, think, man, this customer really might need my help.

That's the bare minimum action because it's simply just a mindset change.

@16:12 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

But mindset change changes are one of the most powerful things you'll ever do, right? If you look at this as a filter for all outputs that you have in your life, then how much impact can changing this filter have on your life?

@16:27 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

So I don't mean to downplay it by saying it's not impactful, but the all-star action is something that you can actively do that will break you out of that subconscious state that I found immense success with.

Have you ever heard of diaphragm breathing? Yeah. So there is actually a concept where if someone asks you a question, we have this knee-jerk reaction to want to immediately respond to it.

The problem is that if you don't have a pre-framed response, you stumble and your heart rate goes up because it recognizes stress.

What you can do is when you get a question that is little too much for you to really like, almost like, what was that?

What I found worked was smile. Just like a little smile or, and then I take a deep breath through my nose through the diaphragm, just.

So let's look at that. Or let's talk about that together. But the reason why it's the all-star action is the more pause you can introduce between answering a question, you're also initiating an emotional response in your customer.

Because let's say someone comes to you and says, I'm just getting three estimates today. And you go, they want to give you something.

They want a reaction, don't they? They want you to say something in return. But by just getting one to two seconds pause before responding, you'll find they'll actually fill that gap.

And they'll start to give you a reason why they're getting estimates. And the fact that you're doing a diaphragm breath slows your heart rate.

So now instead of it being the customer in control, you're bringing it to an even playing field where now your heart rate's okay.

And they're now lowering to say, all right, let me explain why, cause I don't want to upset this person.

So the all star action is just introduce a little pause, just a little bit into your statement and calm yourself.

When you're calm, you're truly calm, you can respond rather than react.

@18:34 - Clay Neumeyer (serviceloopelectrical.com)

I love that. It's a proactive approach. I love that. And for those of you listening that can't see us live in the Facebook group right now, I'll just tell you, I'll describe what I just witnessed on Joseph's face was nothing short of a friendly face, taking a second before happily answering a question.

It didn't look like a nervous Twitch. It didn't look like, oh, we got to hit the reset button here.

Right, that smile, breathe through the nose, and taking a second just looks like, hey, I'm happy to answer this.

And so I'm gonna take my time and slow it down and make sure I do so thoroughly. Love that.

Well done, well done. Okay, thank you guys for joining us. That's all we have today. That was a nice, brief little one, but very impactful, guys.

Remember, you could take action on this stuff today. Do not delay. You will see results. We're seeing those results come in every week on our Facebook group.

This is the Electrepreneur's Success, the electric podcast. I'm Clay Neumeier. This is my cohost, Joseph Lucani. As always, we're here five days a week, and we cannot wait to be here with you again for tomorrow's episode to help you master sales, simplify pricing, and deliver premium level service.

Cheers to your success. Talk again soon.

@19:55 - Joseph Lucanie (Fathom)

Take care.