Guest Interview: Jason Phillips of Phillips Home Improvements “People Make Dream Businesses” Series: Episode 7

Published On: April 17, 2023

Categories: Podcast

Jason Phillips

In this series titled “People Make Dream Businesses”, Jason Phillips of Phillips Home Improvements will be discussing how to escape contractor prison and build the painting company of your dreams. It is a 6-part series.

In episode 7, Jason Phillips walks us through the dynamite sales process that his team at Phillips Home Improvements uses to consistently close residential repaint projects at high-profit margins. There is a tremendous amount to learn from his company’s value-oriented, consultative sales approach that effectively “decommoditizes” Phillips Home Improvements from other painting companies in their service area.

If you want to ask Jason questions related to anything in this podcast series, you can do so in our exclusive Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast Forum on Facebook. Just search for “Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast Forum” on Facebook and request to join the group, or type in the URL facebook.com/groups/paintermarketingmastermind.

There you can ask Jason questions directly by tagging him with your question, so you can see how anything discussed here applies to your particular painting company.

Jason is a return guest from Season 2 of the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast.

Jason Phillips Live Podcasts:

Video of Interview

Podcast Audio

Topics Discussed:

Episode 7
– Killer Sales Process

Audio Transcript

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Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast. The show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over one million and annual revenue. I’m your host, Brandon Pierpont, founder of Painter Marketing Pros and creator of the popular Pc, a educational series, Learn, Do, Grow Marketing for Painters. In each episode, I’ll be sharing proven tips, strategies and processes from leading experts in the industry on how they found success in their painting business. We will be interviewing owners of the most successful painting companies in north America and learning from their experiences in this series titled People make dream businesses.

Jason Phillips of Phillips Home Improvements will be discussing how to escape contractor prison and build the painting company of your Dreams. It is a six but now seven part series. In episode one, Jason discussed key one to escaping contractor prison, true leadership in your painting company. In episode two, Jason covered key two to escaping contractor prison building a highly effective team. In episode three, Jason deep dove into key three to escaping contractor prison, creating and implementing efficient systems. In episode four, Jason discussed how your painting company needs to market itself for long term and big time growth.
In episode five, Jason elaborated on the disc personality assessment and how to use it to ensure you have the right people in the right seats. In episode six, Jason took a deep dive into motivators how to get everyone excited and motivated to help your painting company grow and succeed. And in episode seven, this episode, a bonus episode which I got Jace to agree to do with me, we are deep diving into his sales process, which is extremely interesting, unique and I’m very excited to learn more about it.
If you want to ask Jason questions related to anything in this podcast series, you can do so in our exclusive painter marketing mastermind podcast on Facebook, just search for Pain and Marketing mastermind podcast forum on Facebook and request to join the group or type in the URL facebook dot com forward slash groups forward slash painter, marketing mastermind. Again that URL is facebook dot com forward slash groups forward slash pain marketing mastermind. There you can ask Jason questions directly by tagging him with your question. So you can see how anything discussed here applies to your particular painting company.
And with that, I think we’re about 30 minutes through our our uh podcast episode. What’s up, Jason Brandon? Thank you for having me back. You know, it’s, it’s not hard to twist my arm to talk about things I I really am passionate about. So, thank you. Thank you. Well, the, the uh the sales I’ve taken on some detours of, uh I think you’ve gotten very used to my interviewing style by now. But uh it seems like most of the detours we’ve gone on have been because you’ve mentioned something really interesting, you know, about your sales process and then I want to learn more a lot about it.
So I’m very happy we’re diving into this. Yeah, me too. You know, in, in the painting industry, there’s not a lot of emphasis on, on real selling and on a sales process. And pretty much every, I don’t wanna say every but the vast majority of painting contractors. Again, we’re talking, uh, residential client’s here. Um The vast majority really don’t have any training or background in sales and they, uh end up competing on things like price, uh or, well, we’re the best. We’re the best. Hey, we are the best.
We’re the best painter in town. Yeah. And that’s, that’s so convincing too, you know, no one says that no one says like we’re the best painter. You know, sometimes it, sometimes it does work, sometimes it can, it can work. And if you’re, you know, if you’re a very influential person, uh and, and it can, you know, it can work hit and miss depending on the type of uh, prospect or homeowner that you’re meeting with. You know, if, if, uh, if you’re uh talking to a person who loves detail.
Uh, and you’re a painter who loves to drown them in details. You are gonna have a great connection. Yeah, you’re gonna have a great connection. Yeah. But you know, one of the things I, I’m gonna tell you a quick story, uh, back about eight years ago. Uh I had, I think, at the time I think I had 18 sales reps but they did more than sell, uh, they, uh, they actually uh managed the project so a crew would get assigned, they would meet the crew out there uh and get the crew started, you know, talk to the hus customer.
Make sure we’re on the same track. They’d come back and check on the job and finalize everything and make sure the customer’s happy and, and pick up the check right and pick up the yard sign. And when I discovered uh personality styles a bit before that, you hear me talk a lot about personality styles because it matters in your business. It matters who you have doing what in your business. And uh I, I, I had like 0003 employees and I gave everybody gave everybody a disk profile and I started just looking at them if you’ve ever seen uh the, the disc uh assessment reports, basically a little bar chart with four bars for one for D, one for I, one for S one for C and I just started looking at the shape of the, of the charts and I would, I began to put the pieces of paper in piles based on the shape of the chart.
What looked fairly similar like, you know, these are high DS, these are high CS, these are, you know, D D CS and, and I just started organizing them and then I went back through the stacks and I started, uh, looking at the names of the people on them. And I noticed in this stack over here, well, these were, these were all my sales people that were really good at closing the sale. They had a high closing rate, but they weren’t good on satisfying the customer and getting all the details right, delivering the, delivering the promises.
And I discovered, ok, over here, wow, this set over here and these guys, their jobs are already in but always in budget, the production crews love them and um uh their, their jobs are or their, their notes on their scope of work is always wonderful. And then I’m like, oh, but these are also the same guys that have a horribly low closing rate. And so, you know, the the the production would be, oh, we, you know, we love to get jobs from so and so so and so’s, you know, salesman a he is the best salesperson because his scopes are so detailed, we know exactly what to do and the price is always great and the customer is always so happy.
He’s the best one they had no clue that he had the worst closing rate he or them. So I had these two. But the the the problem is I had these one stack. I had people that were really good at selling and not delivering the details and the promises and the other that wasn’t good at selling, but they were really good at serving the customer and delivering and they were all doing the same job sales and project management. And that, that hit home with me so hard that day I made a decision to split sales and project management into two different roles within my company.
And, and uh some of the people I, I lost some people over it and some were like, heck yeah, I would love to do just sales and some were like, yes, I would love, I don’t like the selling. I love working with the customers though. And so we split the teams up and uh it, it was, it was the beginning of something very wonderful at my company. You know, you hear about get the right people in the right seats. Well, you got to get the right people, the right people in your company are those those who, who line up with your values and will, will work to champion your vision in your company.
OK. Those are the, those the right people and getting them in the right seat is about matching their, their, their skills. But even more so than just their skills because you can learn skills uh, in most positions fairly easily, fairly quickly, but matching up their, their inner drive or the way they’re built according to their personality style. And so in, uh, in one year, uh, I raised, in doing that, I raised prices 20% and I raised closing rates 20% because I had the right people doing the right thing, raise prices 20%.
And my closing rates went up. It’s a big price price in one year in one year. And so, uh but now at the same time, I’m charging more and I’m paying two people to serve that customer, one in sales and one in production. Ok. And now I’ve got more, my, my customers were not only getting the right people delivering the promises to them, but in addition to that, those people had more time to spend on uh delivering and working with that customer. And if you are, if you in your company, if you have have sales and project management mingled together, you may have to be, you may have to do that for now.
But I’m telling you as you grow, you need to split those off and let those do be two specialist positions and uh you can deliver and make happier customers and when your customers are happier, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna come back and bring their friends and when they come back, they’re going to be uh super happy and not as price sensitive as they were the first time around because they know you, they trust you and you’ve taken care of them. So having the right, the first thing we talk about sales is having the right person or the right people doing the sales.
It has to be someone that I has the right mindset for sales people who like to win people who like to hunt. And these are typically going to be typically going to be, uh, in, in, in home sales short cycle selling. These are going to be your high D people, high D plus something else. And, uh, you know, if, if you in, in addition to that, no matter who you have selling, if they don’t believe deep down that your company is a company of integrity and is the absolute best option for that prospect.
If they don’t believe that they’re still not gonna perform very well, they’ll just be in it for the money. But when we listen to this sales really at the end of the day is a transfer of enthusiasm from you to your prospect. That’s what sales is. It is a transfer of enthusiasm and you, you not that you need to be. Oh, hey. Oh my gosh. Hey, we’re gonna come do this. It’s gonna look so amazing. You do need to have an element of that. Ok? But you’re not there to win a popularity contest.
You’re not there to make a friend. Are you, are you there to be friendly? Absolutely. Ok. Um But let’s talk about the mindset. Are you, are your people? Are you estimators? Are you sales people or even better? Are you a con a consultant for the client? For the potential client? Yeah, because my company, we’re not the best for every, for everyone. But when we are, when we, we, we truly want to help that client make a decision, we truly want to help that client make a decision that’s in their best interest.
And if we don’t feel like we’re the best company for them to do business with, and we’re not a and, and we push through with trying to make a sale. We’re not operating in integrity and that’s gonna eat away at our conscience, conscience, it’s gonna eat away at our culture. So you’re not right for everybody. I’m not right for everybody. Sometimes we want to be right for everybody, but we’re just not. So knowing a deep belief that we are the best option for this client. You know, brand, it’s like a third of, of all money spent on home improvements is spent to redo something that wasn’t done right the first time.
So let’s just use, let’s just use some basic high level numbers, let’s say out of 100% of the people that I meet with that we meet with that, we give proposals to say we sell a third of them and then we know a third of them are spending their money to redo something that wasn’t done right the first time. So that means of the people that don’t buy from me, half of them are likely to be wasting their money. One third, one third and one third. Ok, when you end up with two thirds and then that half of that is one third.
Our job is to save homeowners. My, my project consultants, their job is to save homeowners, rescue them even from doing business with unscrupulous contractors. And they know that they know the statistics. We hear it all the time. How so and so, um, took our money, didn’t come back, made a mess. Every, every homeowner that’s ever owned a home for a period of time has visited Homeowner Hill, Home Home Improvement Hill sometime dealing with, uh, a nightmare story, dealing with a contractor and they hear it in the news, it happens all the time and in my state in my state, there’s no licensing.
Hey, there’s nobody policing out there saying, hey, you can’t do business as a painter anymore. You didn’t take care of your customers. Nope, if you get a bad name, people just go and open up under a new name happens all the time. And not now again, your market may be different, but all to say, the, the mindset of your salespeople needs to be. We are a company of integrity and I’m gonna fight to, to to help you see why it’s important that you go with a company of integrity and not just on, buy, on price.
I don’t, I mean, the, the issue that painting contractors have is very similar to the issue that marketing agencies have. Right? Like painter, marketing process, everyone’s been screwed by a contractor. And even if it hasn’t necessarily been a painter and the homeowner, they’re, they’re kind of lumping them all together. You know, if the plumber screwed them, electrician roofer, uh, a painter. Well, it’s just another guy who’s gonna come screw me. Right. So that, that’s kind of the, the perception. So then you have your project consultants, your sales people, um, now you call them project consultants, they have to go out and they have to now overcome this, right?
So there’s already a bias against this is, it’s a similar thing with, with marketing agency. They’re both honestly kind of shady industries. You get a lot of shady characters in both and you have to, you have to operate with integrity and then demonstrate that to your team and to your customers that you are not like that. Absolutely. And it’s, and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s not necessarily easy and, you know, you can, you can look at the reviews, you, you can buy Google Reviews. But we were just, we were just recently, I was at the watch shop with, uh, uh, with my daughter and she had a, had a nice new watch and wanted some links removed and, and wanted to go to the watch shop and, and he, you know, doesn’t talk about money at all.
But we go and we sit there for a while and he takes care of her, removes the links and says, ok, we normally charge $25 to adjust the uh to adjust the wrist bands. But, but uh but this week if you’ll give us a Google review, um, we will, we, we’re waving that $25 you know, you know, that is against Google’s T OS 100%. Ok. And that there’s, there’s way worse ways to do it than that. But, yeah, bribery is definitely, I guess in terms of service contractors do it all the time.
I got a, uh, a, uh, a letter about, uh, I could have gotten up to three. I think it was three. I think it was only $10 but I could have got three of them. So it could have been $30 of chick-fil-a gift cards from the, the company that stole my fence. If I left a review on Google, if I left one on Facebook and I, maybe that one was. Yelp. I’m not sure what the third one was, but if I left all three, I get a $90003 gift card for each one, just take a picture and send it in.
I tell you what. They have a lot of reviews. They have a lot of exactly what I like to do is, and what we do is we incentivize our people to, to um wow, the client and then ask for the review. We don’t incentivize the client. We, we just want to incentivize them by wowing them with great service. OK. So we, we talked about the, you know, the people, the, the, the sales person again, if they’re just like, hey, my job is to give estimates. That’s what I do.
I give estimates and if they buy, they buy, you know, that’s so so dominant, not gonna be, that’s not gonna be very um very effective. Let’s talk about the next thing, you know, you hear, you hear guys talk about all the time. Our closing rate is, you know, 80% 90% 60% whatever it is. Ok? The if your pricing structure is super cheap, it’s gonna be easy to give work away and guess what? There’s always gonna be, give people giving work away. So I really, you know, bragging about about what your closing rate is really means nothing to me.
And honestly, it really means nothing because there’s, there’s no comparison of what uh of, of what the other guys were charging or what you’re charging or the real value you’re adding into your sales process. So, you know, some companies will consider a 10% closing rate uh great if their, if their margins are high enough, if their margins are high enough. Sure. And how much are, how many, how much are you paying for the leads? It all goes into a big formula. How much does the lead cost, you know, how much to get a con, you know, to convert it and all the way down to your customer acquisition cost.
So most most painters severely underprice projects. Here’s what, here’s what you hear, constantly going around. This is what I was told in early days, take your labor materials and double double it. That’ll cover your overhead, your advertising, just double it and you’re ok. And that, you know, there’s really no science, you know what? That’s easy. That’s just an easy way to do it for the owner to go. Well, I’m gonna walk around this place and I think it’s gonna take me about eight gallons of paint case of cow, you know, blah, blah, blah.
You know, I’m in this $500 of materials and it’s gonna take the guys, the three man crew about a day and a half, you know, and that, and they’re doing mental math. Ok? So now we’re up to, you know, we’re, now we’re up to, you know, $2000 ok? We’re gonna double it. We’re gonna, if we can sell this job for $4000 we’re doing good and you’re not, you’re not gonna scale your company with that type of pricing because you’re not gonna be able to put the right people in the right spots to really scale it.
You’re gonna have to charge more and how are you going to charge more? If you just raise your prices without a, without a sales process that delivers value, then, uh, you’re not gonna close any sales. So, you know, a lot of guys, one of the big things is, hey, I can’t raise my prices because I’m gonna, I’m not gonna close any deals. Well, that’s why you have to improve your sales process. Then you can raise your prices and continue to close deals and have the right people doing it.
One of the things you focus a lot on which I think is phenomenal is you’re not. So it’s not the widget, that’s not your business. You know, the, the painting is the widget. What you are is, is, you know, sales and marketing company, ultimately a people company. But you have to be really good at selling. You have to, I, I call it dec commoditize your business. If you go out and you’re selling a painting company, well, then you’re, you’re just a commodity. If you’re a commodity, it is only logical, it is only rational to pay the lowest price because there’s no reason to pay more.
You have to give people a reason to pay you more money 100% 100%. You will be a commodity. And, and therefore the only thing left to buy on is price. So now let’s back up for a moment before, uh, before the sales appointment. Let’s, let’s talk about setting the appointment for just a moment because really that’s, that’s part of the process. You know, how many times have you, um, shown up to a, uh, a client’s house or a potential client’s house? You start doing your measuring and they’re like, oh, hey, I gotta run to get the kids.
Uh, hey, just leave it under the mat or email me. How frustrating is that whoever sets your appointments, your appointment setters need to be following a process as well to ensure that the, that, that the salesperson is set up for success. Not necessarily, I’m not trying to say make their job easy, but put them in an environment that is conducive to uh having a good conversation with someone that I that is interested in what you sell. And so again, we’ve talked about this on, on previous episodes, but, you know, we want to meet with both homeowners whenever possible and we want their full attention for 103 to 90 minutes while we’re there.
You know, we don’t just do drive by estimates. I used to in the day. Oh yeah, we’re gonna do a drive by, we’re gonna do a drive by, you know, and to some extent, you know, if the sales guy was busy, he, he loved throwing in an extra driveby because he might get, he might get something for very little work or effort. And, you know, clients these days are homeowners. The public in general is, is, you know, educated to be wary of sales people and just get a bunch, you know, get three quotes, right, get three quotes and they don’t really want to meet with you because they fear a high pressure, high pressure sales tactics and you should never be pressuring people.
You should never be pressuring people. If they feel pressured into buying, regardless of what you mean, then they’re, then they’re pressured. Now, granted, they may feel some pressure because of their urgent need, which is a different, which is, which is uh a justifiable pressure that maybe they should feel. But, but you know, we don’t do these drive bys, we, we want, we meet with the owners of the property. I, I wanna, I, I wanna, I wanna kind of walk through your process here, right? So, so a lead comes in, right?
Do you like, I, I want you to walk me through this thing? Like what happens if, if it, if it varies by source? So let’s say if someone calls versus maybe their, their website lead, however you do it, let’s go through like step by step. What happens to that prospect? Ok. So for instance, um let’s say someone arrives at my website and submits a submits a, a form says, hey, I want an estimate for, you know, exterior painting. Um That form is immediately going to push that data into my CRM.
They’re going to um uh immediately get a, a text message. Prospective customer will get a text message. Yes, they’ll get a text message and, and then uh uh they go into our um outbound call queue and within a few minutes, um we’re going to be calling them as well. So we want, we want to uh treat these leads like they are gold and they’re, they’re very perishable, especially if they came through Angie’s List or something like that. The speed to lead is, is vital. And so we’re gonna reach out to them.
We’re gonna, we’re going to text them if we don’t hear back and a few minutes later, an automated, an automated email goes out. Uh, but we’re also trying to call them and this is a call center, an in house call center you have. Yes. So, uh, once, once we, you know, once we get them on the phone, we’re, we’re gonna ask them to tell us about what they, what they need, you know, to, uh, exterior painting and we’re gonna ask them some questions. Oh, tell me what’s going on with your exterior painting and you have a script for this.
Yeah, we have a script for all that to ask some basic questions. Of course, we’re gonna make sure they’re in our service area. We’re gonna ask them if they’re, if they’re a homeowner or just a resident and, and, or actually if they’re homeowner resident rather than an owner not resident like a rental property. We wanna find out what type of property and what’s the situation here. And, uh, so we’ll go through and, uh, so we, we set the appointment basically and, and will you guys disqualify on that call?
If, if there’s something that shows they’re not gonna be a fit. Will you D Q them? Yeah, like sometimes, you know, uh, there may just be flat out some services that we don’t do that they are called about and we will. Yeah. So we may, we’ll just, we’ll disqualify some and so we’ll set the appointment. Of course, you know, they get a, they get a confirmation message that the appointment was set and then, uh, the, the day before the message, they’ll get a, a confirmation. We actually wanna, we wanna call back and confirm with them.
Sometimes it happens by text, but we really prefer to speak with them on the phone and continue to build more value. What I don’t want is for some other company to get there before my guy gets there and they sign up with that guy. Hm. So you’ll try to get him on the phone again prior to setting the estimate when you actually conduct the estimate between the, between the initial scheduling of the appointment and the uh, confirmation I want the thought I want in the back of their mind is I ain’t making a decision until I talk to Phillip some improvements.
I love it. I love that. I want them to anticipate meeting with us points too. My actual phone conversations. So, uh, you know, then, then we, uh, we, we, we show, you know, we show up at the, uh, we show up at the door and knock on the door and then that’s, that’s when the, that’s when the appointment starts. So, uh, but, you know, if you talk about the sales process itself, it really, you know, it starts with, it starts with, um, you know, 22 pieces. Well, the first one is preparation work and the prep work is, hey, is my vehicle clean.
Do I? Am? I, am I my uniforms, my uniform clean. Let’s go a bit further. Do I have all the forms and paperwork and samples and color charts that I need with me? What a terrible way to not get a, to lose a sale or to not get the sale because you weren’t prepared. So, so preparing, whatever that looks like in your company is important, make sure that you or your people are prepared. It needs to be part of the process. And then, uh, uh, the, the second step really is one of the things that I always did.
Brandon when I was, when I was, uh, pulling up to an appointment a lot of times it’d be a six PM appointment. We have had day, you know, appointments all day, long day, ready to be home. Wife’s calling when you gonna be home and I wanna be home too. But that last homeowner that I’m there to meet with. Did they deserve my second best? Did they deserve my company’s second best leftovers. End of the day, Jason’s worn out. No, they deserve my best. So literally, I would do, I would, I would pull up in front of the home for just a moment and I’d get my mind right.
And I would actually say a prayer and I just, I’d just say God, help me to really listen and hear what this homeowner needs, help me to make an emotion, uh, an emotional connection and present the, the solution to what they really want and need. And, and I would put on, I would put on, hey, it’s game face. I’ve got a, I’m on and it’s just like a trigger, get out of my car, go knock on the door. Ok? The switch. Yeah, you’ve got, you’ve got to flip the switch.
They deserve your best. They deserve your best time. So, uh, so from there, you know, we, we, we knock on the door and when we knock on the door, we have a group, we follow and, uh, we want to confirm what, what our paperwork says, her paperwork says, whatever the appointment said or the appointment set are put in the system. Um, you know, and it would be, uh, you know, something, uh, uh, like this who, uh, hi Mr Smith. Hey, Mr Smith, I’m Jason with Phillips Home Improvements.
I wanna thank you so much for inviting me out to your home today. Uh, my paperwork here and I point at my clipboard and look at my clipboard says that I’m supposed to be meeting, uh, with you and Mrs Smith. Uh, is she available? Oh, great. Why don’t you grab her real quick? Hi, Miss Smith, I’m Jason. Uh, again, thank you guys for inviting me out. Which, which one of you two spoke with the office? Oh, Mr Smith, you did? Great. Did he tell you what we’d be doing here today?
That’s right. We’re gonna take a look at what you wanna have done what you need to have done. Sometimes those are a little bit different and if you, uh, if you like what you, uh, if, if we can do what you want and need, um, I’d be happy to, uh, sit down with you and provide you with an accurate written proposal of exactly what your, uh, investment would be. And if, and if you like what you see and you have a serious interest in doing business with Phillips, um, uh, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll take it from there and I’m kind of hacking it up.
I don’t run that. I don’t, I don’t run that scripting every day, but it’s, it’s really just about setting the tone for the appointment. I want their attention and we confirm now, hey, we’re still good for the 90 minutes. Great, make sure they say, oh, yeah, yeah, we’re here because I don’t want them making dinner while we’re needing to talk and do business. I want them with me. And so that’s really the, you know, the, the, the next step is just that, that whole greeting and taking care of what’s, you know, prepping, what’s gonna happen, setting that expectation again, here’s how we’re gonna conduct this appointment.
I need to be in control of this appointment. So, uh, so then the next thing is we just diagnose and we’ll start by saying, uh, you know, hey, great. Well, why don’t you, why don’t you uh show me the area you’re most excited about or the one that’s giving you the most pain and they’ll, then they’ll start walking us around and this is our diagnosis and, uh, we just want to ask a lot of questions and if they point things out, we’re gonna, you know, ask them, wow, how, how, how long has it been like that?
You know, the peeling paint, the rotten wood? Ok, great. Um Wow, it must be a good reason. You haven’t done anything about it till now. You maybe they, maybe they just noticed or maybe they’re going, yeah, we’ve just been super busy or, oh yeah, we’ve gotten a couple of quotes already or there could be a number of reasons. Hey, we’re waiting on tax return. It could be whatever it is, but you’re asking questions, we’re diagnosing. You know, a doctor doesn’t come into your house or come into your house.
You don’t go to the doctor’s office and they don’t just walk in and look at you and make a and prescribe what, what needs to happen to you. They’re gonna ask you questions and a lot of those questions may seem irrelevant at first, but they need to know the basics and then they’re gonna start asking deeper questions and digging and that’s what the diagnostic walk around is. And we’re interviewing, we’re asking questions, but the tendency is to start saying, oh yeah, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna mask this, we’re gonna scrape and this and that.
We’re gonna wash it this way and we’re gonna paint this way and to start selling everything and that’s not the proper time to do that. This is about finding out what is really going on with, with their property. So, you know, Brian Tracy is this stuck with me years and years ago, Brian Tracy said, telling is not selling, selling is asking questions. I’m going to say that again, telling is not selling, selling is asking questions. And if, if you were doing, you know more, you know, if you’re doing 70 80% of the talking on your, on your appointments, your presentations, you’re doing it wrong.
You need to get the client, you need to get the client uh doing more of the talking by asking probing questions, asking then you show you, you have the solution. This is, this is a fit. But the, the mistake people make is they come in and just say, yeah, like you said, we’re gonna do this, this and this. But what you do is you make the, the homeowner feel not hurt. And, and what you’ve now created is you’ve, you’ve made yourself a commodity because, well, you, you came in, you said you’re gonna do X Y and Z. Well, the other guy said he’s gonna do that too, but he charges $1000 less.
So let me ask, let me give you an example of why it’s not a good thing to be selling while you’re walking around doing your diagnostic. They might say, you know, you’re talking about some rotten wood or some rotten trim around the window and they’re like, hey, uh do you, can you replace the, do you replace these with Hardy? What do you guys use? Oh, yeah, we use Hardy. It’s the best, you know. Well, what if for some reason they hate Hardy or, or what if they were, what if they uh uh uh what if they work for one of the competitors or any number of reasons?
So instead of saying, yeah, we’re gonna do that. You, you should answer with a question. Oh, that’s, that’s, that’s an interesting question. What, what makes you ask that, find out why they asked that question? Maybe the guy before them recommend maybe the guy before recommended it or maybe the guy before said he didn’t, but they really want that. Is that valuable? That’s valuable information. So ask questions like you’re a doctor diagnosing what’s going on. And if they have a question, get clarity by asking another question and you’re writing this stuff on the clipboard as they’re asking questions telling you things, we’ve got correct. Correct.
We’re jotting down little notes and I know one of the things you had mentioned on another episode, which I found very interesting was you, you prefer the clipboard? You think it conveys, hey, I’m present, I’m with you. Whereas a lot of people if they’re using, they think, oh, they’ll, they’ll just use a tablet or something like that. Uh an ipad. But we, we’re so used to, if somebody’s doing it means they’re not really in touch with you or if they’re using their phone, you know, they might be texting.
So you might be entering notes, think it’s fine. But the, even if it’s just a subconscious impression that you’re now conveying is that you’re not truly engaged, you don’t truly care. Whereas the pen and paper is very clear, you’re not texting your friend. Yeah. And, and I don’t even know that it’s necessarily that they think you’re texting that I do think that’s an element of it, but there’s just something about a paper form that shows you’re taking notes and it, it speaks volumes, especially to older generations.
I don’t mean old generations. I’m just saying, older generations and, and definitely don’t have your, don’t be using your phone for this. And that’s, that’s a, that’s the kind of thought out thing that, that goes into this preparation. I just, I just want to point that out because you, you mentioned it and it would be easy to just not think about that. Obviously, you wanna make sure you’re wearing your, you know, your uniform, you wanna make sure that, that you have uh the color spots and whatever else you need, but you should be having this thought going into all your entire process, every little detail should be Prethought.
Well, we also use that form as a point of review later when we’re sitting at the kitchen table. So there’s another reason why we want that to be a paper form. So, um we’re talking about the uh the, so once we’re, you know, once we’re done with the diagnostic, you know, the customer, the prospect should be thinking they should be thinking three things. This is more work than I thought it’s going to cost more than I thought. And I better not wait much longer to get this done.
And the reason I say that is, is I, I, I don’t want to make a blanket say that’s universally true what they need to be thinking. But generally speaking out of 100 people that call you to paint the exterior of their home, how many of them should have done it a year or more before because the damage is worse. Probably 90% of them. Maybe more. Yeah. Peop people, people don’t generally pay to keep it in great shape. They, they pay to repair it because they’ve got other things on their mind and we know that we know that if they wait, you know, over winter or they wait longer, labor’s gonna increase, materials are in increase, gonna increase, the peeling is going to uh increase.
So the, the quantity of labor is going to go up, maybe there’s more rot that needs to uh be replaced. The, the costs are gonna go up exponentially if they wait. So 90% of the time, it’s, it’s better uh for them to make a move sooner rather than later. And, you know, again, let’s take 133 people if, if they think that, you know, if, if, if you go out and you think that the project is gonna need, you know, um, 100 units of effort, how many clients think the project is that big?
They generally think it’s a much smaller project because they don’t understand what it really takes to get it done the right way, the way that you’re going to do it. So that’s, again, they need to see through the walk around how much work it is and point out things and hey, what’s going on there? Tell me about what’s going on there and ask them questions about peeling paint, rotten wood. Maybe there’s paint on the brick. Oh, how did that get there? The, uh, the last time we had the house paint?
Oh, wow. I’m so sorry. How did you find that guy? Oh, he was referred by Suzie down the street? Oh, ok. So now you’re starting to separate yourself right there and you’re not saying? Oh, wow. Look, he did a terrible job. She’s telling you that he did a terrible job. Does that make sense? You’re leading, you’re leading this conversation through questions and you’re kind of allowing her or him in this instance to figure out, hey, this, there’s actually a lot here and, and all the questions that they’re asking me, show me they really know what they’re doing.
Um And you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re letting them build the case for you. Absolutely. I want, ok, I want to expose the real need, the real need of what they have done. I want them to see how much that is and sometimes sometimes it’s a great amount. Sometimes it’s not that much greater than what they think it is. But generally speaking, the need is more than they think it is and the urgency is higher than they think it is. Generally speaking again, not always, but generally speaking. So a sales process needs to, it, it needs to build trust, needs to build credibility.
It also needs to build value and it needs to build urgency. Those are four things and you know, and, and so many times we just wanna, we just wanna overload people with, with facts. We wanna drown them in facts and try to convince them there’s a difference between convincing and persuading. There’s a big difference between convincing and, and persuading. Let’s not get bogged down in all the technical Mumbo jumbo. And let’s, let’s take a consultive, a consultative approach to, to helping the homeowner. And we’re really there.
Our heart is there. We are there to help them. They called us because they need someone that they can trust and what we’re really selling is peace of mind. That’s what we’re selling. We’re, I’m not selling home improvement projects. I’m selling peace of mind. They’re looking for a company that they, that they can trust. I love it, man. If you go and you just kind of throw a bunch of technical specs at them, you tell them, hey, here’s what you need, here’s what you need, here’s what we’re gonna do and you just kind of ram it down their throat, then they’re not really gonna trust you.
They might think you maybe you’re good at painting, but there’s no relationship being driven. There’s no value being driven. When you’re asking all this stuff, you’re building credibility, trust, you’re building all this stuff along the way because you’re also showing you really know what you’re doing. You’re showing, hey, you’re super uh detail oriented because you’re asking probing questions that maybe they hadn’t even thought about. Um And you’re conveying the value because as you go through it, they’re gonna be like, man, you know, this, this company, they’re not gonna miss a beat.
They’re gonna go through and they’re gonna, I, I really feel that they’re gonna do the job right the first time and we’re not gonna get screwed by another contractor here. You know, they may ask you, hey, hey, do you guys, uh, can you guys do this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we can do that, you know, tell them a story by, by the way, facts, tell stories, sell like that. And, you know, you know, uh, Mrs Jones, um, last year had the very same problem, uh, that you’re having right here and let me tell you, uh, how he fixed it for her.
We did ABC and D and it’s in great shape. Matter of fact, I’ve, I’ve got some, uh, here in my phone, I’ve got some pictures of the Pros and afters for her. She can show some of that as well. Tell some stories. It’s ok to tell some stories and that’s why it’s better to, you know, they called you out to, to look at their problem or their dream. They didn’t call you out to make a friend and it’s, you know, we think tend to think, oh, I need to make a connection with them.
Oh, I see baseball caps or trophies. Oh, my kids play baseball too. You know, we think we want to make a friend that that’s it, it’s ok to maybe notice something but stay focused on conversations. That, that’s right. People know what they know what you’re doing. Stay focused on things that are adding value to, to them, to the appointment, add value to the client, the potential client. So, um, don’t forget before we’re done, Brandon, let’s talk, we’ll talk about some common errors that are made. But, but so now we’re gonna do the walk around and uh at the end of it, they’re gonna be thinking it’s more work than I thought.
It’s going to cost more than I thought. And gosh, I better get this done sooner rather than later. Uh So at that point, you know, we say, hey, great. It looks like I’ve got everything I need here. Um Why don’t we head on inside and uh I’ll punch these, uh, you know, I’ll punch these numbers in the system, so we’ll head inside. We’ll sit down hopefully at the kitchen table and uh we’ll start going through our, taking our notes and taking our measurements that we got while we were outside and plugging them into our system, which either, you know, for instance, runs on an ipad and they can look over our shoulder.
We don’t have anything to hide. Our pricing is clear and transparent, maybe having a conversation with them along the way or they may be doing dishes or making a phone call or whatever they need to do while we’re doing this might take 10, 15 minutes, whatever to punch our, to punch our numbers in the system. It was, you know, we’ll, we’ll confirm with them once again the scope. Um, but I’m actually, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, uh, before we even start, before we even punch in the numbers.
We wanna, we wanna see if you know where they’re at with trust and we want to tell them a little, a little bit about the industry. Give them a very, very short uh presentation on who we are as a company and, and ask him, you know, is, is, is Phillips the company you could trust your home to for this project. We need them to say yes. If they can’t say yes to that, then we don’t even need to waste anybody’s more time. Any else, anybody else’s time, it’s gonna be a fit.
But we need them to say yes, Phillips is the company I can trust or I want to trust this project to and, and you know, we’ll say, uh uh you know, well, hey, great. Thank you for sharing that. So, you know, other than other than simple afford affordability that being, you know, price or pay price or payment, is there any reason you wouldn’t trust Phillips to do this project for you? No. Ok, great. Well, let me punch these numbers in the system. And let’s see what the price comes out to be.
So we’ll punch the numbers in the system and then we’ll sit down and say, ok, I think I’ve got everything added in right here and we’ll show them right there on the screen. It, it, you know, and we’ll point at it, it looks like it’s gonna be uh, 213, 2000 210 or as little as, uh, 2000 29000 a month. And then we want to see, are they, are they interested in the interest rate or are they wanting to, you know, pay cash for the project? So we’re gonna talk about the payment, you know?
Sure. I like how you got ahead of, of other objections, you know how it wasn’t, ok? You show the price. It’s like if there is anything else bothering them, it’s better to try to get ahead. Obviously, people are potentially gonna become emotional at price that’s then gonna become very much the central point at that point. So you’re, you’re removing, you’re covering all your bases and then it’s like, hey, you know, maybe if, if it’s too high, then maybe honestly, maybe they couldn’t afford it. Maybe you kind of shouldn’t have been there in the first place or maybe you just didn’t build the value in such a way that the close happened. Right.
And there’s a, there’s a number of things that they could say. Well, I’ve got this and this and that blocking it, you know, and so that gives us, you know, a, a decision on which way we should take it. They may say, oh, I need to consult with my spouse and we’re like, ok, well, we didn’t think there was another decision maker. We’re thinking that in our mind. So we need to decide. Am I, am I gonna go ahead and you know, present my, finish my presentation here with this person?
Am I gonna try to get the other person on a phone call with us? Am I going to try to set a second appointment to deliver my price later? So we need to find those things out before we punch the price in the system. Yeah. And if there’s a second decision maker, what are they going to hear? Oh, yeah, Phillips the Home Improvement. They came. Yeah, they, they quote over $210,503 like 250 grand. What they quoted 2100 grand, Joe Schmo? He quoted 2100 7500. Why are they quoting 10.2 grand because they didn’t go on that, walk through, through with you.
They have no idea what you’re actually talking about and homeowners don’t in this situation again, this is not a commodity and what you include and what the other company includes is likely not going to be the same. They may make quote the same materials that doesn’t mean they’re going to use as many or apply them the same or would deliver the same experience, right? So, so you need to be there for this part of the conversation if at all possible. Yeah. And, uh, so, so the, um, you know, some of these, some of these steps I’m getting, I’m getting them out of order Brandon, but we also talk about, you know, we pre present with them.
You know, here’s how you can get your project done when it, when it, you know, comes to taking care of your project, you can do it. You know, uh, the first way which is you could hire, you know, um, a, uh, X Y Z company and, you know, we, we talk about X Y Z company has no insurance and they have no processes, all of those things. Let me ask him flat out, you know, is, is, is, is that a viable option for you? Oh, no, no, no.
Well, hold on. What if it could save you a lot of money? No, no, no, no, no. I, we, we’re not, we’re not risking that. Ok, great. Well, the next way is you could hire, you know what we call standard company. This is a company you’re probably gonna see in your mailbox quite often. They’ve got, you know, a lot of reviews on, on, on Google, a lot of stars there. Um, but again, they’re gonna, uh, do this and that we start talking about some of the general things the industry does, uh, that are not going to be advantageous that the cus, let’s just say that the customer should be concerned about.
And, um, they’re, no, no, no, we, we don’t want that. Ok, great. Well, the, the third and final way that you could take care of your project is, well, it’s what we call the Phillips way and, and we walk them through exactly how we’re going to do it. And what we recommend this is where we’re giving them the prescription. Yeah, we’re telling the first, we’re giving them options and then we’re giving them as the last option, our prescription, if they’ve already said no to the previous options and, and when we’re done with this, they need to be thinking, I don’t want this done any other way than how Phillips does it when you’re, when you’re walking them through that second option and you’re kind of going through the run of the mill painting company, you know, not, not chucking the truck something somewhat professional, but, but another company, what are the things that you’re pointing out that are, are pretty normal in the industry that they’re, they’re not going to want done?
Well, I knew you were gonna ask that you, you’d know that we’ve done a lot of podcast episodes together. That one for the low price of 99 95. No, there’s, but, but think about it. Ok, one of them is a percentage share contract. Ok? They’re going to say, um, they’re, they’re going to say OK, Mr Painter, we’re gonna give you, you know, we sold this for $10,000. We’re gonna give you $1003 and you’re gonna provide the materials. Now, when you’re the painter and those materials are coming out of your bottom line and you go to the paint store and we ask them, you know, hey, knowing that that’s gonna come right out of your bottom line.
If you’re the, if you’re the painter and, and you go to the paint store, which materials do you think they’re gonna buy the best one? Do you think they’re, you know, or, yeah, nobody ever says that. Nobody ever says that. And do you think they’re going to, you know, put them on thoroughly and liberally the way they should know? No, they’re, they’re, they’re not and stretch that material. Yeah. And so in our company, I buy all the materials. It doesn’t come out of the crew, the crew’s money.
I don’t want, I don’t want the crew feeling like they need to skimp on materials to save money. I don’t want that. And so I’ve always paid for the materials again. You may be, you may do it differently, but I want them to see the risks of, of doing business with those other companies. And a lot of times, you know, those other companies don’t have any real processes or standards by which they, by which they uh produce the projects. And uh you know, in our area really, you know, no other company has the same awards that we have.
And again, I know that’s about us, us, us but pointing out certain things that we, that, you know, that we do uh in the Phillips way of doing things, the way we mask, the way we wash, the way we talk, you know, the, the, the way we apply full strength paint, the way we ensure with a final walkthrough that they’re happy all of these little things and then they’re like, yes, that’s the way I want it done. Ok, great. So that’s when we, that, that’s actually when we, you know, punch the numbers in the system after that.
Yeah, what a what a pre so we don’t and if and if and if, yeah, so we, we just follow a method and every person is trained to do it the same exact way. Time after time I see on Facebook, you guys, you guys have your sales trainings, right? Which is, I, I don’t really see a lot of painting companies do that. You guys will put on Facebook like, hey, I had a, a sales training today. What are you, what are you covering? What does that training entail with your team?
Well, it, it depends, ok, like the new guy, he’s gonna get one on one training in the classroom and in the field uh regarding how to, um, how to scope what to scope. So the whole scoping part of it, how to work our systems. And then, uh and then our sales methodology, he’s gonna get all that. He’s not just gonna get uh information he’s going to get training, which means he’s gonna role play until he can say each thing correctly with the right inflection and the right pauses.
Ok. These guys have to earn their first lead, they have to earn their first lead. So, and again, you know, we want them to earn their lead but hm, but we need them to win. So we’re not just trying to be tough on them to be hard. We want them. We, here’s what we say. Look, we don’t, if, if, if this, if this was, if this was martial arts or whatever, we want you to die in here where it’s safe and not die out there where you’re losing money and burning through company leads that we pay good money for.
We’re gonna practice right here in the classroom in the great room where greatness grows. We call it the great room where greatness grows. We’re gonna practice right here in the great room. We’re gonna develop your greatness right here so that you can win more out there. The great room. Greatness gross. So now the meetings that you see, generally speaking, the meetings that you see are uh that I post online are, are group meetings and um some of those are gonna be, there’s gonna be a little bit of information and a little bit of training and sometimes, uh, some, uh, we’re gonna I DS or identify, discuss and solve some issues that they’re having with, uh, a certain way to price something or maybe overcoming an objection that they’re having and then they’ll, you know, role play or, or whatever it takes to do that.
So there’s all types of different training that happens there. Yeah. Yeah, you guys have a lot going on, man. I, I am very, very impressed by your sales process. It is, I know it’s taken you a long time to get there. I also know you have a, a background and a passion for sales and marketing. So this is something you’re particularly adept at. Um, well, you, we, we’ve studied a lot of, I mean, I hired, I hired a coach for a couple of years and I’ve studied all types of sales methodologies and trainers and uh we’ve just, you know, we, we’ve made our own thing and it, it works very, it works very well for us.
It’s very predictable. That’s, that’s great. Do you have any, any, uh as we’re kind of talking about your, you know, uh background learning this stuff and, and hiring coaches and whatnot. Do you have any books if people are listening? Like man, I would really love to get better at, at selling or just understand it more any books or, or podcasts or anything you would recommend, um, in particular, I mean, you, you can get, you know, the books and such, you can get a lot of theory, I mean, which is great and you can get some tips here and there.
But really this stuff is best learned in a workshop. Hm. It’s, or, or, or one on one. Um, we’re gonna, when we have our later this year when we have our Contractor Freedom Summit, um, we’re gonna, we’re gonna delve into this just a little bit, but now you’re, you know, your, your average, your typical painting company is gonna have, you know, your, your probably uh one estimator and, and the owner is what most of them are gonna have. Um So let, let’s, let’s talk about some things.
I, I didn’t even finish going through the process. There’s more to the process, but you can’t fix it all at once. But you know what you can do, you can start by setting up better appointments. Um You can make it easy for your people to, to get the price right? Make sure. Do you want, do you want your uh I’m gonna give you an example. I had this, I had this guy back in the day that um production didn’t really like have because they had to figure out some of his details, you know, we do roofing as well and this guy, he could, he could sell anything to anybody you raise the price, 20% doesn’t matter.
He keeps selling. Ok. And, and uh a good salesperson. Don’t clog, don’t bog them down getting the details. You need to make it easy for them to price easy. So they spend more time building rapport trust, credibility, urgency with the, with the potential client. And I’d rather, I’d rather have more sales that have um some details that we need to figure out on the back end than less sales that were perfect. Yeah, you’ve got to be selling something and there’s a lot of reasons businesses can fail, you know, cash flow.
Why do you not have cash flow? Probably because you don’t have sales. Ok. You’ve got to keep the sales machine going. You gotta feed the sales machine with leads, you gotta keep the sales machine going. Keep the money flowing and you can solve the rest of the problems. Yep. Yeah, you’re, you’re always gonna have problems as a business owner and you can have problems and no money or problems and money. I’d rather have problems with. Exactly. Exactly. It becomes easier to solve your problems then too. You can hire coaches, you can bring out, you know, increase your team and stuff like that.
Reward people all of that, you know, and at the end of the day, you know, people here’s, here’s where the logic comes in. Ok? They’re never gonna say yes until their perceived level of value is more than you’re charging. If you’re charging 10,000 and you think it’s maybe you think it’s worth 13,000, but you’re willing to do it for 10,000 for whatever reason. And they only think it’s worth 9000. You’re not gonna get the sale. You’ve got to help them see that it’s worth the 10 or the 13 through a good sales process that exposes need, that builds value.
And it’s not just, it’s not just the value of, of the work you’re being done. Look, if you hire the wrong guy or they do it wrong, it’s gonna cost them more than it cost to hire you in the first place. Sometimes it will cost more to not hire us than it does to hire us because it’s risky. It’s risky not hiring us. Because again, statistically speaking, you have a one out of two chance of wasting your money if you hire someone else and it’s, and it’s never gonna be cheaper than it is right now.
That’s just the truth. Prices are gonna continue to go up and your house is going to continue to deteriorate. Jason. I don’t, I don’t, uh, I don’t live near you and I don’t really have a need for a paint project, but you’re selling me. I feel like I, I need to get, need to get something painted, creating this sense of urgency. It, oh, go ahead. I was gonna say those you were probably about to remind me of those common errors. I’m about to, I’m about to. Yeah, I was about to say that.
Ok. So uh hopping on Zillow to see how much the house is worth and then determining how much effort you’re gonna give it. We, we don’t permit that. Some, some of the, some of the opportunities that would appear to be lesser r maybe people that have lived in their home a long time and they put their kids through school and put their kids through college and paid off their mortgage and now they’ve been saving their money and they’re gonna totally make over their house with cash. We see it all the time.
But your salesperson, they might think, oh, this is a terrible opportunity. You can’t let them, you can’t let them value. Judge. Another one is selling rather than diagnosing during the inspection. It’s easy to do. It’s easy to fall into. You have to remind yourself it’s, yep. Um, trying to make a friend instead of just being friendly. You’re not there to make a friend. They don’t want you to become a friend. They want, they, they’re looking for someone they can trust. That’s reputable. That’s credible. Ok. That’s professional.
That has expertise. Um, another one which we didn’t really talk about is not presenting a price on the first appointment. I’ll email it to you. If you’re emailing your quotes, then you’re, you’re commoditized. And Jason, when you, when you guys present that price, are you trying to close it right there? Well, we’re not trying to close it. We’re trying to give them a reason to buy. So, but, but your uh let me rephrase that. So when you present the price, is it more common that they are going to buy then, or is it more common that they will buy at a later time?
50% of the sales we get are sold on the initial visit? Ok, because it’s just interesting because you said, you know, it is a comment like I agree with you, but by far the majority of people are emailing that quote over later. Oh, I know I talked to them, I talked to them. So it’s, it’s just interesting how, how adamantly opposed you are to what is essentially an industry standard. Yeah. And even most of the software platforms take you down that route. But that’s, that’s not the way to do it.
I mean, it’s ok to follow up later. I mean, we, even though we present in person, we do send it to them because we don’t carry printers, we show it to them on our, on our screen and then uh uh either way, whether they sign it or don’t sign it, they do get it in email, but it’s presented, it’s company policy. We present in our, our, we present our proposals face to face. Is there a reason you guys don’t carry printers? We don’t need them. Everything’s digital signatures, the way our, our system works.
We used to, we used to carry printers and I have nothing against them. Ok. I didn’t know if there was a psychological reason. No, no, no. It’s just that mobile printers are terrible. Got it. Ok. That’s, that’s mainly it. Yeah. Um, another one is, you know, con confusing the prospect. You’ve got to nail down. What’s the scope of work they really want done? Where should they start? You know, a confused prospect will never buy. They don’t need to be confused about what they’re doing about the best way to do it about when they should do it, about what products they should use.
They don’t need to be confused about how to pay for. It. Gotta make it easy, make it easy. There’s so much anxiety and emotion attached to the home and the home improvement project. Uh and the amount of money that it costs, make it easy for people, make it easy to do business with, with your company. And a another, here’s an, here’s an, another one that I see even among my own people that we just have to constantly remind everybody of is that uh a huge, it’s a huge mistake to think that every buyer buys like you.
If you’re a data driven person, you’re going to, you’re going to default to thinking that every prospect wants to think it over and it’s just not true. They didn’t have a reason, they weren’t given a reason to buy and you’ve got to give them a reason to buy them. And some people do need to think it over and that’s ok if they want to think it over. But let’s give them something, let’s, you know, give them the price in person. You’ll sit at that kitchen table with them for as long as they need to think it over. Absolutely.
No, I mean, no, literally some sometimes sometimes they’ll say, oh, well, we just, we just need to talk about it. We need, we need to, we need to talk about it. Oh, great. Tell you what I need to run out and call my boss real quick. I’ll go ahead and load my stuff up and take it to the car and I’ll make a call. Why don’t you just step outside and flip the front porch light on and off real quick when you’re ready for me to come back in?
Ok. We talked about it. We’re ready to go if you don’t ask you don’t get. Yeah, man. So, and, and that and so of, I mean, that’s so that’s so smooth, you know, but it’s not pushy, it’s not aggressive. So, and very few people would, would think to do that, but I’m sure that’s scripted. You guys have planned for that. Hey, pretty much everyone. We need to think about it. Ok, great. Like let me know or we’ll follow up that’s gonna be the natural reaction. But you guys have, have a more refined sales process than that.
Well, that’s the problem. Most people don’t plan. They don’t, they don’t sit back and say, hey, what are the, what are the reasons why, uh, a homeowner wouldn’t buy from us? Well, a we didn’t give them a price. Uh, B they need to, they have other estimates. C they need to think it over. B they need to, you know, talk to their spouse. Why don’t we discover how to overcome those objections or delays or how to at least deal with them in a productive way? Because then what happens is we end up calling them back and using the F word.
Hey, this is Jason with, you know, ABC painting. I’m just following up with you here to see if you ever made a decision. Oh, you did. You already hired someone? Ok. Well, thank you so much. Would you keep us in mind next time? Is that what you do? Is that what you know? So I, I hate, I hate the, the, the, the follow up word. Yeah. So, but again, half of our sales come through following up. Ok? But, but the, the way you handle it, you know, is, is you, you need to have a method by which you handle it.
It’s not just the way you handle it. How are you gonna train your first salesperson to do it? How are you gonna train your second one and your third one and your fourth one? How are you gonna do that? You need to have everybody trained and doing it exactly the same way. And you need to make it easy and efficient to train people, needs to be written down so that you don’t skip steps. And again, it’s not rocket science. It is a lot of work. But if you are looking to scale your company dialing in your sales process is a huge key to, to scaling your company 100%. Man.
You have Jason, anything else that you wanna add as we not only wrap up this episode, but we actually wrap up your seven episode series. Well, I’ll say this, Brandon, I’ve had a blast talking business with you, you know, sales marketing, you know, personality styles, you know, people hiring all of that stuff. I’ve, I’ve had a blast. So thank you for thank you for inviting me to, to be a part of this. Uh Thanks for contributing so much time, but you know, I would just say uh make that room in your schedule as an owner to start slowly implementing these things.
Hey, if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re already gonna be a growth minded person. So you’re on the right track. I wanna give you some encouragement and uh identify, you know, what, what’s, what’s your biggest hold up right now in your company, whether it’s sales or marketing or whatever it is, uh and just start working one piece at a time and getting the right people on your team systemized it as you go and, and you’ll be on the right track. How nice is that? How nice is that, that we’ve, we’ve, we’ve built this, this podcast, this series that we know already essentially the kind of person who’s listening to this.
I love that. I love that we’re talking to growth oriented painting company owners who are ahead of the curve in the industry. And absolutely. And they care and they’re, and they’re actually interested 100%. A lot of guys don’t even believe in marketing now. Yeah, the the industry, it’s insane how many I love that. We’re just talking to the creme de la creme here of the painting industry. That’s right. That’s right. So Jason, I cannot express enough gratitude for you brother. This was an absolutely amazing seven episode series People make Dream Businesses. I, I super appreciate my time with you, man. Thank you so much for this, this series. Yeah, me too. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon.

 

If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed in this podcast and how you can use them to grow your painting business, visit painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast for free training, as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company. Again that URL is paintermarketingpros.com/podcast.

Hey there, painting company owners. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button, give us your feedback, let us know how we did. And also, if you’re interested in taking your painting business to the next level, make sure you visit the Painter Marketing Pros website at Painter Marketing Pros dot com to learn more about our services. You can also reach out to me directly by emailing me at Brandon at Painter Marketing Pros.com and I can give you personalized advice on growing your painting business until next time.

Keep growing

Brandon Pierpont

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