Windshield Time

This week on the show, Chris and Chris resume their talk about the second P in PRESS PLAY, Prescriptions. Any time you ask a customer to buy from you there is the possibility of objections. Here is the process for understanding and handling objections.

This week, Chris Elmore and Brandy Loudermilk discuss Out-Bound Calling. This podcast has elements for managers, CSRs, and technicians.

This week on the show, Chris and Chris talk about the second P in PRESS PLAY, Prescriptions. Presenting your findings and offering the right solutions is critical. Here are the critical points about Prescriptions discussed on this week’s podcast. 

You must acknowledge that your customer is in a forced buy. 

You are not forcing them to buy from you or your company, but they are forced to buy from someone. They can’t do it themselves. This causes a lot of negative emotions – fear, anger, frustration, and anxiety. We have to be ready to deal with these emotions and present in a way to help minimize them.  

In this week's podcast, Jack Arnold of Arnold Electric Services joins Chris Loudermilk to discuss his company and his experience with Service Excellence Training. 

This week on the podcast, Chris Elmore talks to Vicki Suiter, founder of Suiter Business Systems and author of The Profit Bleed: How Managing Margin Can Save Your Contracting Business. Vicki has been helping businesses stop the bleeding for over 30 years. They discuss how you can create a culture that attracts and retains great people. In today’s ever-shrinking labor pool for the trades its more important than ever to build a culture that attracts the stars and helps you retain them. 

This week on the podcast, Terry Barrett Joins Chris Elmore to discuss Performance Pay. This remains a controversial topic for most everyone in the trades mainly due to the uncertain nature of it. Many companies implement performance pay for any number of reasons, but mostly because of an issue they are having. Terry and Chris go through some of those and give you the guidelines they’ve seen work the best when it comes to performance pay. 

This week on the podcast Chris & Chris finish the PRESS Before You Play series with System Diagnostic or Design. During your system Diagnostic or Design, you have a chance to build great value with your customers by inviting them to participate, being thorough, and letting them see that you know what you’re doing. 

Being Thorough and Exceeding Expectations 

Now is your time to exceed the customer’s expectations. You told the customer you were going to go through your safety and diagnostic checklist, so now is the time to do it. Be sure to check and rate everything on the customers system and note it on your checklist. Remember that this is your voice after you leave. It’s also the tool you will use to educate the customer on issues and stimulate those issues. Be more thorough than any other company. Let it show through your checklist. 

 Invite the Customer to Stay 

If appropriate, invite the customer to stay with you during your diagnosis and inspection. Most customers assume you want to be left alone to do your work. While some technicians may think the customer may slow them down or be a distraction, this can actually be a great time to build trust and value. The customer will be able to see that you know what you’re doing. You can ask more questions of the customer and learn more about their value points. Be sure to take pictures and videos so there is a good visual record of your work and to use when doing your presentation later. 

This week on the podcast, Chris & Chris continue the PRESS Before You Can PLAY series with the first S – Settle Anxieties.

Clients have unspoken questions about you, your company, what you will do, and the pricing. These unspoken questions create anxiety for the customer. An anxious customer is guarded and less trustful. You must be proactive and answer these unspoken questions to reduce the anxiety for the customer. Once you reduce the anxiety the customer is feeling about the situation, they will trust you more and see you as the expert who can help them.

To reduce anxiety, you must share your credibility, explain the procedure for the service call, and explain your pricing process. Do this by using your Credibility, Agenda, and Pricing Statement or CAP statement.

This week on the podcast, Todd Liles joins Chris Elmore to discuss New Year’s Resolutions.

The word resolution is defined as “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” All of us have made those firm decisions to do something or not do something, especially at the beginning of a new year. But do we stick to those resolutions? Today, the guys discuss the reasons why we don’t stick with them and the differences between resolutions and goals.

Most resolutions are made in response to emotions like fear or anger and can be very shortsighted. Other resolutions are made to do things before we “kick the bucket,” also known as the “bucket list.” But these resolutions rarely stick. The emotion that fueled the resolution fades or changes, and so does our “firm decision to do something or not do something."

Bucket list items aren’t really a firm decision to do something or not do something. They’re more opportunistic. We’ll do those if the opportunity just comes up.

The difference between an emotional or bucket list resolution and a goal is that a goal is fueled more by a desire for results. A goal is usually based on incremental achievements through actual work. Todd relates his goals in weightlifting to reach his desired level. He explains how he tracked his progress and ultimately fell short of his goal. But through tracking, he was able to see the improvement his hard work brought about. He kept going and did hit his goal a little later than he wanted. The work he put in and the tracking he did kept him on track.

Usually with a resolution, we fail to put in the work or track the improvement. This leads to the emotion fading or changing or keeping it on our ever-growing bucket list.

This year, set goals instead of resolutions. Plan the work and your expected results, then track your progress. Doing these things will help you actually get to your goal.

This week on the show, Chris & Chris continue the series PRESS Before You Can PLAY with the E – Evaluate with Questions. Asking the right questions up front is one of the best tools you have for finding the customer’s value points. It’s also one of the most overlooked. You should take plenty of time to talk to the customer and ask great questions. These questions should help you discover the value points, establish priority, and help you build a great presentation Here’s the questions you need to ask during the Evaluate with Questions step of PRESS PLAY:

The “What’s going on?” Question - This question makes the customer give you information that isn’t prescribed or known. The customer must think about it and choose the relevant information. They will do this in the way they prefer to communicate. This will indicate their profile.

The “Ages” Questions – These questions are about age and time. You should ask the customer the age of their home and the age of the system/device/ thing you are working on. This will help bring it into your conversation and allow you to refer back later. Also, the customer may not realize the age of their home. Ask how long they’ve been in the home and how long they plan to stay. This will give you an idea of priority, as most people won’t spend a lot of money on a home they won’t be in much longer.

The Maintenance Question – If the customer does not have a maintenance membership with your company, ask “What was the date of your last maintenance and safety inspection on your system?” This will cause the customer to try to remember a date if they’ve had anything done to the system/device. Along with the age of the home and system/device, this will cause them to realize that it may have been quite a while since they’ve had anything done. This will set the stage when you come back with items that need to be done.

The “Anything Else” Question – Ask this question to get the customer thinking about issues they have that they don’t know you can fix. These could be noises, odors, flickering lights, hot or cold spots, slow drains, etc. An example for electrical might be, “Have you noticed anything else with your electrical system lick flickering lights, mystery switches, plugs that fall out of outlets?”. These kinds of questions will make the customer notice these things that they’ve always just lived with before now.

Asking great questions is a skill that needs to be practiced. Use the questions listed above and those we share on the podcast so you can ask great questions. The Evaluation step of PRESS PLAY is critical to building value with the customer. Make sure to spend the time to do it.

https://youtu.be/Y4aBKfQJ9cI