Romance and contracting, they go together like spaghetti and meatballs. If this leaves you scratching your head then pay attention. Is consulting a prospect really that different than meeting a new person that you are trying to woo? They don’t want some jerk to come in and know everything right up front. Much like a new relationship, you need to slow down and ask questions, this way they will feel understood and you can earn their trust. What you really want is to find out their motivation. Once you have that, you have set yourself up for a more successful budget talk. Keep your ears open and learn how to romance your prospect!

In this episode, we talk about…

• The romance of the Shinfu to build bond and rapport
• Asking question after questing to find the motivation
• Peeling back the proverbial onion
• Making sure to ask the right questions as to not jump the gun
• Importance of foreplay in the conversation
• How this whole process becomes easy
• Setting up your price brackets without rushing through
• Adding to your arsenal every time you role play

Links to resources:

CSA YouTube

CSA Facebook

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Knowing what you are worth, sounds simple enough right? Tell me if this sounds familiar, it’s time to tell the customer what your price is and you are suddenly struck with the fear of charging what you are worth. You’re already talking yourself down in your own head before you’ve even told them the price. Well, guess what, your customer is having the same conversation in their head. That’s why money is always the last thing that you discuss with your customer. To find the root of this deep-seated fear of money and self-worth, you need to delve back into your childhood and how your family regarded money when you were growing up. Don’t read minds or make assumptions!

In this episode, we talk about…

• The roots of most money problems
• Reverse engineering your notions of money to realize your worth
• Negotiating with yourself about money
• Making assumptions and reading the customers’ minds
• Importance of knowing your numbers in the psychology of money
• Transitioning out of the “payday” mindset
• Standing your ground instead of saying yes all the time
• Getting a little more uncomfortable everyday

Links to resources:

CSA YouTube

CSA Facebook

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Ask yourself, “do I have more proposals on the street than I do deposits in the bank.” Dong the work that you’ve already mastered, those things that steal your time and productivity, are there to test you. Your whole business will change when you start prioritizing those activities that make you uncomfortable, those things that you aren’t good at yet. Embracing the hard part of success, the discomfort, is really when you start to receive the benefits. Get out of your comfort zone so you can realize how much time you are really wasting.

In this episode, we talk about…

• Attacking all the leads that have built up to stay ahead of the 8 ball
• Being fantastic at looking really busy
• Embracing the discomfort
• Why we do all this shit to avoid looking someone in the eye
• Living on hope island with those proposals on the street
• Having the balls to ask the hard questions
• What happens when you actually train for this stuff
• Knowing how to say no to the right stuff
• Staying true to those top 20 important things

Links to resources:

CSA YouTube

CSA Facebook

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

In today’s episode, Derek and Steve are going to quickly go over accountability and what it has to do with sales. It seems that when we promise other people things, we follow through, yet when we promise ourselves things, we can get away with not following through. Why do we lie to ourselves? It’s way easier to lie to ourselves because we can’t cut ourselves off like we could with another individual. You need someone else to hold you accountable because at the end of the day we all lack some amount of personal integrity. Remember, you are who you are when nobody is looking.

In this episode, we talk about…

• What accountability has to do with sales
• Why we lie to ourselves
• The point that you are not friends with yourself anymore
• Negative effects of consistently lying to yourself
• Importance of having an accountability buddy
• Making sure what you are doing, saying, or thinking is correct
• The worst thing you can do on the last rung of life

Links to resources:

CSA YouTube

CSA Facebook

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Today in the booth, the fellas are here to tell you as a contractor how to deal with customer objections. Too many contractors have trained themselves to approach customers in a tactical manner, which is starting off on the wrong foot. It’s not just about selling them over the phone and closing the deal. There is nothing more important than having the appropriate spirit in the upfront conversation, which is asking the tough open-ended questions. You need to protect your time and their time and you can do that by asking those questions and keeping that spirit. It is important to remember that you are not in a war of words with the customer, you are in a relationship of conversation.

In this episode, we talk about…

• Customer objection story
• Importance of the spirit of the upfront conversation
• Protecting their time and your time
• How to handle the “too expensive” objection
• Having the backbone to ask the bold questions
• Staying away from the lecture mode response
• Communication as a relationship of conversation
• Keeping the spirit positive to avoid the snowball effect of negativity
• Staying away from the emotional triggers
• Taking a second to consider what the customer might be going through
• Making yourself like-able

Links to resources:

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Tom is back in the studio today with the guys to talk about how to make it easy for people to buy from you. Contractors tend to make their customers jump through a bunch of hoops which makes the purchasing process more difficult. When you start to make it more complicated, the chances of the customer pulling out increase exponentially. What people really want is to hire a person, and what they need to see you as a person is trust. If you can establish that trust, you will be able to skip past many unnecessary steps. Stay tuned to learn how to make your process as pain-free as possible and in turn, send your sales through the roof.

In this episode, we talk about…

• Building trust with people by letting them behind the curtain a little bit
• Pushing people to your website to make things easier
• Resistance to credit cards as a payment method
• Giving fewer choices to cut to the chase
• Different ways to make it easy on the customer
• How to treat your customer to make sure your process is as simple as possible
• Making every step of the process EASY to earn trust
• Operating how the big boys do it to keep the process familiar
• Marking things off of your check list
• Knowing what is a pain in the ass from what is not a pain in the ass

Links to resources:

Amazon

Contractor Sales Academy

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Today Reber is out of the studio so Steve and Derrick get to talk about whatever they want. What they want to talk about is seemingly the hardest part of the Shinfu process, getting the prospect to agree with you over the phone that they will not lie to you when you come out for a consultation. The last thing that a contractor wants to hear is, “I’m going to think about it.” This statement is a lie, the slow no that is going to take you to Hope Island. People appreciate nothing more than someone shooting straight with them, so stop being a woosey and avoid wasting your time. Shoot straight with your customer!

In this episode, we talk about…

• The last thing any contractor wants to hear at the end of the tap dance
• Heading to Hope Island with all the other ignorant salespeople
• The point in the conversation to take this step
• Sliding into the next step when you are stopped dead
• An artful conversational way to guide the customer through the process
• Why the customer feels compelled to give you their honesty
• Where all contractors start
• The 2 pains that you can go through

Links to resources:

Contractor Sales Academy

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Today in the studio, the fellas are making it in spite of themselves. They are taking you behind the scenes to show you how they keep it all together. You as a business owner, have so many different factors contributing to your daily routine. Sometimes it can be hard for that glue to hold everything together. These guys are here to tell you that even though sometimes it’s a circus, there are different ways to juggle everything. Listen for some tips to stay above the water!

In this episode, we talk about…

• Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)
• Separating what matters from what doesn’t matter
• Staying organized so you don’t screw yourself
• Deciding what you should get done first thing in the morning
• How to stay effective and more productive
• Enable the 80/20 rule
• What is your number 1 priority?
• Don’t be afraid to change

Links to resources:

Warren Buffet

Contractor Sales Academy

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

Today, the fellas are talking about controlling the environment in your company. What you allow is what will continue. If you tolerate these things that you do not want to continue in your business, then you will constantly live in the red. It’s time to get serious about not allowing that shit anymore. You have the power to have control over the direction of your business. So how about you grow a pair and make a change. It can happen over the phone just as easily as it can happen in their back yard. The only difference is you can save yourself that wasted time.

In this episode, we talk about…

• Customers have been trained their whole lives
• Assumptions that contractors have about the sales process
• Are you right for the job?
• Making unnecessary accomodations
• Learning to say the truth while being respectful
• What it all really comes down to
• Getting uncomfortable in order to be successful
• Changing your mindset on how to properly think

Links to resources:

Contractor Sales Academy

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process! CSA is a game changer for your business.

In today’s episode the guys talk about SHIN-FU, a five step way of finding out if a client is a good fit for your business. Hear about how you can use SHIN-FU to build a better system for generating sales in any business. Lean about finding motives, asking about money, establishing trust, speaking to the right people, and incorporating consultation fees into your sales conversations.  

In this episode we go in depth into:

• Digging into why someone called you, and what their motives are
• Making potential clients feel good when talking about money and budgets
• Setting expectations of honesty
• Questions you can ask to find out if someone is going to be honest
• Who is involved, and who is actually going to make a project happen?
• Separating the liars from the buyers
• Dealing with corporations and larger projects
• Committing to using a process, and making no exceptions
• The allure and ego boost a big job might provide
• Finding the courage to not bow down to a big job, and not changing your process

Are you incorporating every step of the SHIN-FU process in your sales pitches?   

Links to resources:

Contractor Sales Academy

CSA YouTube

The Bridge

Want to stop sucking the life out of your contracting business? Join the Contractor Sales Academy and take command of your entire sales process!

CSA is a game changer for your business.