The Home Service Expert Podcast - Connecting With Your Customers At An Emotional Level

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

Brigham is the founder and president of Power Selling Pros, a leading coaching and training firm dedicated to making your call center better. Power Selling Pros started training six call handlers in 2009. Today, they’ve successfully trained 450 call handlers and have worked with over 120 companies from around the globe. In this episode, we talked about customer service, booking rates, customer experience...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Good afternoon and thank you for tuning in to the Home Service Expert. My name's Tommy Mello,

and today I'm going to be interviewing Brigham Dickinson. He's the founder and the president of Power Selling Pros. They're a leading coach and training firm dedicated to making your call center better. And more excitingly, I work with him personally on my company, A1 Garage Door Service. His goal is to make every CSR book over 85% of the calls that come in and also leave your technicians with a good opportunity to make some money when they're at the call. It's all about attitude and setting up the phone call for success. In 2009, they only trained six call handlers and now they're over 450 with over 130 companies around the globe. Power Selling Pros is an amazing company and you're going to learn so much here about the right attitude and how to hire top performers. I'm so excited to introduce Brigham Dickinson. I'm glad you tuned in today. Brigham, you're out of Utah.

We've got to know each other pretty well over the last six months to a year. You're a professional at booking phone calls. I don't think most people and most of our listeners here understand just how important it is to book phone calls. Tell us a little bit about Power Selling Pros and exactly what got you into that niche and why you're so passionate about it. Well, I appreciate that. It was an accident. It was an accident about eight and a half years ago. I was working with a company called Nearing's Pooling and Heating in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And I was doing pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, making his phone ring over the internet. And eight years ago, it was kind of a big deal. And so we go ahead and have a meeting, and he says, you know what, your leads are no good. And I said, what do you mean by leads are no good? He says, well, yeah, they just want a ballpark price. They just want to know what you charge to come out. And I said, well, wait a minute, those are opportunities.

Those are guys that actually want to work with you. They just need to know what the price is or that's something that's important to them. And he said, well, we don't know how to book them. We're used to just taking orders. You know, somebody calls in and says they're ready to go. And we book them. And I said, well, wait a minute.

It's just a matter of connecting with that customer over the phone. And he says, well, tell you what. If you can train my team to do it, I'll let you continue to work with me and we'll do some advertising together. I said, sounds great. Within a month, his team was booking 20% more of his phone calls. So what did that mean to him? Well, it meant a lot because you could take an average ticket in the plumbing industry,

say it's 500 bucks, you take 20 phone calls a day, and if you're able to book one more phone call a day over 250 days, you're making an extra 125,000 a year. And so when you learn this, and you're booking 20% of your phone calls, 20% more, my gosh, what does that look like? Well, it's not just one more book call, it's two more book calls, it's three more book calls, it's four more book calls. We're looking at an extra million dollars in revenue because they're actually taking those calls. They're difficult to book and they're booking them. Colorado, Precision Plumbing and Heating, we start training in their CSRs. And then they refer me to a guy named Micah Guglielmo in New Jersey, East Brunswick, New Jersey.

And then we started training in CSRs. And then, of course, you refer us to others. Next thing I know, I'm in the call handling and training business. That's how we came to be at PowerSelling Pros. Okay, so I really want the listeners to understand there. We've got a lot of home service experts, air conditioning. We've got plumbing. We've got gutters.

We've got aluminum siding, you name it. And for my company, we're going to do some serious dollars. But I want to just take a really even number. We use you, by the way, and you guys are doing amazing with our top CSRs. They literally explain the process because I want to tell these guys how the math works out. But since we're talking about my company, A1 Garage Door Service, you know, we met you guys. We got referred over to you guys. Great recommendation. Great referral. You came in here yourself. You actually did this one on your own. You've got an amazing team,

by the way. I've worked with several people over there. But tell us a little bit about how you come in and what your goals are and what your guarantees are and what you found with our company. Absolutely. So when you do a training, and a lot of this has been trial and error, I had the good fortune of growing up with coaching. My mom, she had a coaching company. She coached in real estate. She coached in developing a website and selling products on there. And she had a team of coaches that would coach entrepreneurs on how to do that. And so I experienced coaching. But what was interesting is when I got into the services industry, there's a lot of trainers out there.

And they provide training. and that's great. But what's interesting is that you go and you do a training and you may be engaged, you may love the information, you may love the content. The minute you go home, how much of that training are you doing? Well, according to results when it comes to surveys surveys it's like 10 you only retain you might spend five grand on a training and only retain 10 of what you learn during that training over time that's terrible terrible especially if you invest that kind of money in it so what works well what works is is ongoing accountability because you might say you provide or that you that you uh provide an

excellent service but you may only do it for a fraction you provide or that you provide an excellent service, but you may only do it for a fraction of the customers that you work with. The others don't get the same type of service or the same quality of service. And so what we do is we provide ongoing coaching one-on-one over the phone twice a month using a certification program. There's testing involved. There's video training as well as one-on-one coaching to provide the accountability and help you learn what you need to learn so that when that call comes in, you give them the same excellent service over and over and over and over again. So that's how power certification works is ongoing one-on-one coaching over time as opposed

to a one-time training. So tell me a little bit about the guarantee. And typically, here's a story I like to tell because I've been using CallCap for many years, probably I'd say since 2012. And CallCap is just a tool we use to record the phone calls and then they grade the phone calls. It's called Call Assurance. And when I started, I talked to Susie over there, a great woman. We worked out a great program with them as well. But long story short, you know, she said, Tom, I know you think your people are doing excellent. You know, you got your mother

working for you. You got your stepdad working for you. You got pretty much the whole family. And then you've got your five main CSRs, you know, five years ago. And I said, yeah, I said, I'm in the office. I hear the calls are booking the calls. And she said, Tom, you're going to be alarmed. She goes, I don't know your results. Maybe you're right. She goes, but I can't wait to see where you're at because you're very confident you're at 80, 90%. Well, what I found out is I asked Susie, I said, Susie, you work with the biggest call centers in the world for everything from home service to doctors to dentists to everything. What's a good booking rate? She said, Tom, the most unobtainable, best I've ever seen is 90%.

And that's where I thought we were. Well, it turns out we were less than 50%. And real quick, you know, bring them. I've done the math. If you're doing $10,000 in revenue potential a day, that's your potential. And you book 55% of the calls and you just raise it 25% and you get to 80%. Now you take that $2,500 and you times it by 365 days in a year, you get $912,500. That's almost a million dollars back in your pocket.

And listen, I spend just an ungodly amount of money on advertising. I mean, I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And what's the point if we can't book the phone calls? I think the lowest hanging fruit by far is booking the calls that you have coming in, converting those into dollars. And why spend more money in marketing if you can't convert a lead? You know, I sell lead generation. That's one of the main things I do. And the biggest thing I ask is, what's my lead quality? When they asked me, I said, well, how good are you at booking calls?

I had a conversation earlier this morning. And I said, ma'am, you know, my quality is amazing. It just depends on how good you are at converting it. And I've seen the best. I've seen nine out of 10 calls get booked by my leads. I've also seen four out of 10. And, you know, Brigham, we and you were talking and you were, you know, don't mention any names, but you were dealing with a handyman earlier. Tell me a little bit about that conversation, because that's really, I think, amazing that you're working with this guy now. And tell me about where he's at and where you want to take him.

Yeah, definitely. So the home services industry, there's such a range. You know, you've got those that are progressive and you've got those that aren't as progressive. And if you try to tell somebody who's booking 20% of their phone calls, that by the time they're done, they're going to book 85% to 90% of their phone calls, by the time they're done, they're going to book 85% to 90% of their phone calls, guaranteed they're not going to believe you.

There's not going to be any trust there at all. So I had to take baby steps with him, baby steps. And I said, look, you've got to believe the numbers, so let's just say it's 50%. We didn't even talk about 85% because he was only booking 20% of his phone calls. And I'll tell you why. It's because he's giving a price right out of the gate.

Before the customer knows how great he is, how he's better, before there's any connection from an emotional standpoint, they give a price. That's a transaction. That's not a relationship at all. And he's shooting himself in the foot every time he picks up the phone. And so it's a process. It's a journey. And the difficulty is he's got to begin to realize that it's not about the price at all. Funny thing that when people work with you because they believe you, they trust you, they find the money. They find the money.

They say in the beginning they can't afford it. They say in the beginning they're on a budget. They say in the beginning that there's no way that they can they can pay for this right now but funny thing when they believe in you and they want to work with you they find the money they borrow from their from their parents they they borrow from a neighbor they they they sell their car they they take out a loan. They find the money. Are we about getting as much money as we can? No. Money is a byproduct

of taking great care of customers. And so our goal is to take great care of the customer. How do we do that? We connect with them on an emotional level. That customer gets on the phone. They don't know a lot of things. They don't know that you can help. They don't know if they've called the right place. They don't know a lot of things. They don't know that you can help. They don't know if they've called the right place.

They don't know if they can do it themselves. They don't know. They don't know. Your job is to reassure them and connect with them. Show them that you understand their situation. Show them that you care. Reassure them that you can help because they're not sure. Hopefully you are.

And then simply ask, when would you like us out? And you'd be amazed from an emotional standpoint how you're able to connect with them on an emotional level. Let me give you just one example of this. If you don't mind, I'm just going to play a quick clip of a phone call. Is that all right? Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to hear it.

Okay, so I was in Columbus, Ohio. I was training nine CSRs, and I was teaching them how to sell service agreements over the phone. Now, this is one more thing in the home services industry. It's still an anomaly. It's like, oh, my gosh, what do you mean you're selling service agreements over the phone? Yeah, we want to go out to their home twice a year and help them and service their whatever their appliances and so on and so forth. And so it's really simple

the csrs i was working with were having a little bit of difficulty a little bit of pushback they're like i'm not sure we can do this over the phone i said tell you what i'm going to rearrange my schedule my flight plan i'm going to spend a few extra hours with you tomorrow morning and so i spent three hours over the phone, sold service agreements. This is the first 10 seconds of one of them, and you'll see what I'm talking about. This is Brigham. How can I help? Hey, Brigham. This is Kate Grinenko calling.

Listen, my AC unit is not working in Columbus there, and I need someone to come out and take a look at it and give me the damages. Okay. Did you say it was Kate? Yes. Kate, this is Brigham. Brigham, you are awesome. Am I now? I've done very little so far. I appreciate the compliment. That's okay. No, I like your attitude already. This is making me feel better. All right, cool. Now let me make sure I understand. You've got, are you not there in Columbus right? Are you not here in Columbus right now? It sounds like. I am not here in Columbus right now, no I am not, because this is my house that I own in Columbus,

and my best friend in the whole world, who is like my baby sister, lives at my house. Oh my goodness. And she keeps an eye on it. I see. All right, so she had an issue with her air conditioner, and somehow, magically, I was helping her feel better already. She was feeling better already without us doing anything with her system. Why is that? Well, it's not logical.

It's not logical at all. It's emotional. I was able to connect with her on an emotional level. And when they're able to connect, you know, we use, I introduced myself. I used her name. I was jovial. We connected and it only took 10 seconds. You think she cared about my dispatch fee? No way.

Of course she sold a service agreement. Of course she bought one. Of course. Why? Because of the connection that I made in the beginning. So it's a process. It's a process of learning. Once you've learned it, phone rings, you're booking that phone call. It doesn't matter who's on the other line. Does that answer your question? nailed it. And when I used to do this and I used to sit down with my general manager and my call center manager, and I used to say, there's no way we cannot give people prices over the phone, because a lot of the guys that are listening to this, especially the smaller companies go, people want prices. They're going to call another company. They're going to get a price from them.

But that's not the case. Listen, I went through this huge. It was a paradigm shift in my mind to know that you do not have to give prices. The first thing is first, how am I going to know exactly what's going on out there? Because 99 percent of the people that give prices change it when they get out there anyway. So that's a fallacy among the home service industry is you got to give a price on the phone. But if I say, first of all, it's the voice, it's the demeanor. You teach people, you call it the pattern for excellence. And this is what you teach over the first year is the positive, confident, you listen, active listening versus hearing. You care. You say yes. You ask. You're valuable. You're grateful. And then you create that wow experience tell me a little bit about

some of the wrong things to do like no problem and tell me what your thoughts are on that of the mistakes that we make, we don't even realize we're making them when we're on the phone because they hear no, no, no sure, you know the issue with

no problem is twofold, it's no and problem, the double negatives. Nobody wants to hear the word no, and nobody wants to hear the word problem. So we don't want to say no problem. So, all right, well, what do we say as opposed to no problem? We say, absolutely, we can help you with that. We say, my pleasure. We say, thank you.

I mean, even when you look at welcome, your welcome says, I just did you a favor. My pleasure says, you did me a favor because it was my pleasure to serve you. It was my pleasure. Thank you is me thanking you. You did me a favor. We want them to feel like they've done us a favor. Why do we want people to feel like they've done us a failure? Because it makes them feel important.

And when people feel important, they become loyal. You know, if they've made a difference in your life, they become loyal to that because of the way it makes them feel. It's fulfillment that we're talking about here. Now, that's one aspect. What else? Well, you've got the word sorry. People say it all the time.

Oh, sorry to hear that. We say sorry way too much, and it's become trivial, fake, contrived. You know, my mother-in-law, she says sorry. She recognizes she says sorry. She says, I'm so sorry I'm saying

sorry. Really? My daughter's 16. She's sorry sometimes. She follows it up with my dad. Is she sorry? She's gotta be sorry, right? Okay, look, we shouldn't say sorry. Because sorry is fake.

Not real. It's lost its meaning. Even in Canada. Okay, especially in Canada. Sorry. Oh, sorry. They're not sorry. Okay, so we say other things. Wow, that's terrible. That's awful. I can't imagine what you're going through right now. I hate to hear

that. Things like that, you know, that, that, that, that conveys sincerity that we do care, that we do understand. You know what? I can give you one example and it's, it's probably too long for this, for this podcast, but let me just describe it to you. Let me see if I can't describe it. There is a gentleman that comes in over the phone with special needs, and he's asking about a ju on this call because they don't have time for it. But not this CSR. The young man with special needs said, I don't have the money for a jukebox. And she says, well, I don't either. I don't have the money for a jukebox. And he says, oh, well, I don't either. He says, well, what are we going to do now? And he says, well, I don't know. And then the CSR says, well, then I guess we're going to have to listen to the radio. And then the young man with special needs says, yeah, I guess we're going to have to listen to the radio. Well, the CSR says,

I'm going to go listen to the radio now. Are you? And then of course the young man with special needs says, yeah, yeah, I'm going to go listen to the radio. And she says, all right, you have a wonderful day. And he says, all right, you too, you too. And they get off the phone. Now, in the back of your head, you're going, geez, is that a waste of time? No, it's not. No, it's not. Because we're not working.

We're not working to just make a buck. We're working to serve people and create wow experiences. That's what we're working to do. That CSR did the right thing. They were trained to be positive. They were trained to listen. They were trained to care. They were trained to ask the right questions.

They were trained to create value for every customer that gets on the phone. And they were trained to ask the right questions. They were trained to create value for every customer that gets on the phone. And they were trained to be grateful. That's what we're supposed to do. And when we do that, magically, the money comes in because it's a byproduct. To look at it any other way is wrong. And that's why we're not booking calls and that's why we're not allowing customers.

You know, it's interesting because we've done our own case studies internally, and we've done them as micro as CSRs and as macro as a national call center versus our own call center. And one of the things we found is average tickets increased for certain CSRs. And what that means is they left the technician or the owner or the manager, whoever's running the calls, in a better spot to make money. They didn't kind of put them into a corner. And it's amazing because I get technicians on a daily basis that say, please don't let this person book my calls or please let this person book my calls.

I mean, when I used to be out in the field, Brigham, I used to get, I used to walk up to the door and I have a certain way of doing it. I got an eight-step sales process. And the first thing is to contact the customer before. The second thing is to walk a professional, tucked in shirt, good smelling breath, a hand them a business card and a huge smile when they answer the door. And they walk up and they say, you must be Tommy. I've heard so much about you. You're one of the lead technicians or you're the owner or whatever. And and they say, you must be Tommy. I've heard so much about you. You're one of the lead technicians or you're the owner or whatever. And then they say, whoever that gal or that guy was at your call center, I'll tell you what, I believe in your company. It seems like they're happy to be there.

This, you know, I call four other companies and that person sincerely cares about this business. They should get a raise. And then they're literally putting in my hands, whatever I wanna say or do, they're gonna do it. And it's amazing how much difference a training that you guys provide could mean. And it's not only about booking calls, but it's about leaving the technicians

in a good position to maximize that opportunity, whether you call that sales or selling a home warranty or selling an extended warranty or selling financing or whatever it might be, setting the stage up is half the battle. Booking the call, yeah, that's important. But setting it up, tell me a little bit about what a good setup is and what, and here's another quick question, because to follow that up, so how do you set it up? And then secondly, how much time should I be taking on these calls? Should it be four minutes? Should it be 10 minutes?

That's a really interesting question that I think the audience is going to want to know. Great question. Let's tackle the first part of that, which is how do you set it up so that the person who goes out there, the technician, the comfort advisor, the sales guy, whatever it is that you call him or her, how do you set it up and just pave the way for you to go out and do what you do, right? Well, most of the time, the salesperson's going to want to be the last bid, right? Make sure I'm the last one that goes out there so that I can take a look at all the other bids.

Okay, look, the reason why people get three bids is because they don't trust you. Do you really think people want to spend their entire day getting bids? No, they feel like they have to because the trust isn't there. Your job is not to be the last one that goes out. job is not to be the last one that goes out. Your job is to be the only one that goes out. And the way that you are the only one that goes out is you create a connection with that customer. And you show them that you've called the right place. And it comes down to following these eight principles.

Now, I will demonstrate in a minute how to do that. In fact, there's one call that we have where the CSR gets on the phone and is able to use these principles in such a way that she's able to book a wrong phone number. But I'll play that in a minute. But before I do, I want to answer the second half of that question. What was the second half of that question? The time. The time, yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. If time was the only concern you had about your CSRs,

in other words, if you said to yourself, man, my CSRs, they're super nice and they're super kind and they're super wonderful, but they spend 10 minutes over the phone and it's ridiculous. Look, you guys, if that was the only issue that they had, you know what? Fantastic. Wonderful. Hire another CSR because they're all building relationships with your customers. Awesome. Great. That's not the main issue. The main issue is when a customer gets on the phone and they want a ballpark price, we lose it.

The main issue is when a customer gets on the phone and they're angry because you've been out to their home twice and it's still not fixed, and the CSR doesn't know how to handle it, so they transfer it to you. And that's the thing that keeps you from golfing. The main issue is when a customer gets on the phone and they want to talk to a technician on the phone, the CSR doesn't know how to handle that. That's what we're losing. And that's why we're not able to book 85% of our phone calls.

So those are the issues that we deal with. Now look, if we can teach them to be positive, confident, listen, care, say yes, ask the right questions, create value, and be grateful. If we can teach them to do it in the right way, you're going to find that they'll be on the phone on average anywhere between three and four minutes. Okay. So the back end is going, how is that possible? Well, let me give you an example. I did say that I had a phone call here where the customer gets on the phone and it's the wrong phone number.

What happens when you call the wrong phone number? Well, first of all, if you're the person who called the wrong phone number, you feel a little foolish, right? You want to get off as quickly as possible. You know, there's a lot of emotional things going on here, and you usually hang up. Logically, you hang up. That's what people do when they call the wrong phone number.

Not when you call a CSR that's been trained to book calls. It is as follows. We're calling Corley. This is Vicki. How may I help you? Who am I speaking to? This is Vicki with Corley Plumbing, Vicki. How may I help you? Who am I speaking to? This is Vicki with Corley Plumbing, Air, and Electric. I'm sorry. I have the wrong number.

Are you sure you don't need us for anything? Plumbing, electrical? Well, I could probably use you for a plumbing issue. Well, talk to me about it. Tell me what's going on. I've got a five-year-old house on a slab, one story with a bonus room. And we've got a loud banging inside the walls when we turn off a faucet. Is it just one faucet that does that? No, it does it on all of them, I think, just maybe to a lesser degree. But is that something you guys could?

Sure, we can definitely help you with that. Now, is it the hot water side, cold water side? Either. Either? Yeah. Okay. Well, we can definitely help you with that. When were you looking at having someone out there?

So, in the back of your head, you're going, okay. We're able to connect with them on an emotional level book a call that was a wrong phone number but like the thing i want you to ask yourself is how long did it take her to get to the point where she was actually booking the call i mean that that was a quick call i mean that that's what's amazing and her demeanor i mean the biggest thing is smiling on the phone and actually showing you care for that customer. And that's what you guys teach. And, you know, I've talked to you a lot of times about this, Brigham, but there's really no such thing as a bad CSR.

A lot of times us as owners got to look back at ourselves and say we might have not built the culture right. We might have not gave them the training they need to succeed and i think that you know you told me a story a while ago about you were sitting in a room saying well will you fire and rehire all csrs tell me a little bit about your thought process on that because sometimes we just got to look in the mirror well that's just it every time i i present this program this power certification program, and how we guarantee 85% closing ratio and that they're going to be able to answer that call, connect with that customer in three to four minutes,

it just all sounds hard to believe. And the first thing you think is, it's not my team. My team cannot handle this type of training. It's too much for them. It's just too much. Well, that's the issue that we have all the time.

Everybody wants to fire their CSRs the minute they see this training because they don't believe that they are capable of doing it. What you've got to know is that the people that you're listening to right now are people that are just like your CSRs. And all they need is a little training.

That's all they need. And so yeah, you get fire happy. And jeez, we all know how expensive it is to hire people, and it's even more expensive to fire them, especially if you don't fire them right. And you know what I'm talking about. So train them. Train them and don't judge them.

You haven't trained them at all. And that's why they act that way. That's why they sound that way. That's why you don't think they're capable of achieving that level. Well, they all can. They just need training and practice. Practice and training. Yeah. A lot of it.

It's really knowing the rebuttals. It's practice, it's role playing, and it's also the demeanor. You know, I've never been mad at somebody, even if I'm pissed at the American Express person for going through a huge IVR or whatever it might be. I never get mad when that person on the phone and they're just so happy and they're happy to talk to me. And they're like, they're not necessarily apologetic to where they're saying, sorry, sorry, sorry. But they're going, you know, I'm here to make it better. And I realize that you're having a rough day or whatever it might be. But the point is they're able to get me past that hump and get me back on page to solve the problem. And, you know, you talk a lot about creating an emotional connection. And there was a TED Talk I heard about the limbic brain

and how you make an emotional connection and then you kind of back it up with the logic behind it. And I don't think our listeners really understand how that works, but the fact is people buy with emotion. You fall in love with the person you're dealing with and maybe the product you're buying, and you're dealing with and maybe the product you're buying. And you're buying with emotion. And then you're backing it up with logic.

And tell me a little bit of how that equates to phone calls. Okay, so in sales today, you know, the pressure selling that we were all taught 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it worked for a while. It doesn't work today. People are smarter than that. And so now it's completely switched it's turned on its head today in cells the best self-training that's out there they teach you to lead with stories you lead with story and then you support it with facts that's what you do now the reason why that's so important is because, and you're right, yes, Simon Sinek has a TED Talk that's very popular, and he talks about your different parts of your brain. You've got your limbic brain, and then you've got another part of your brain

as well, which is called the neocortex. Neocortex is your rational analytical thinking and your language. All of that is in your ne your cortex, the bigger part of your brain. The limbic brain is all about feelings like trust, loyalty, that sort of thing. Here's the other part of your limbic brain. All human behavior and decision-making comes from that part of the brain. So even with the decision-making, it's the emotional side of your brain. And so, yes, of course, the minute you start giving out statistics without stories, what it does is it puts people in an offensive mode and they begin to question whether or not it's true. But when you tell stories, you keep them in a buying mode. In fact, Jeff Gittermer, he said it best himself. He said, the sell is made emotionally and then justified logically.

Stop selling logically. It's not how people buy. So give me a good example. I want to hear this emotion because what I always try to do is I try to give a great example. Because garage doors are difficult for people to understand. But one of the things I always say is, have you ever driven on the highway? And people say, well, absolutely, every day. And then I say, have you ever driven on the highway? And people say, well, absolutely, every day. And then I say, have you ever driven on the highway with your emergency brake on?

And they say, no, that would ruin the car and that would not be good. And I say, well, basically what you're doing with your torsion system is you're driving down. Your rollers are not rolling. They're called rollers for a reason. And they're skidding along. And that's causing your springs, your bearing plates, your drums, your cables, all of the system to do more work. And that's exactly what it's like. And when I give that analogy, people go, wow, that makes a lot more sense. And I see what you're talking about now, because they're not rolling. And it's not as much of a story, but maybe an anecdote or an analogy. But tell me a

little bit about a story that you might like to tell or you might have trained. Let's do this. Let's do an HVAC because I know you work with a lot of people in the HVAC industry. Is there a good story that maybe a call center rep would be able to tell or like Mr. Jones last week called the same problem when we were able to get it fixed for just a tune-up or what kind of stories would we want to relate to when we think about CSRs telling stories? It's a great question. I would like to play a phone call to demonstrate. Here we go. Tiffany, how can I take all good care of you today? Hey, Tiffany, I need to get a plumber out to our house. We're in Lawrenceville. Yes, sir. Do you have a service, Lawrence? We certainly do. What's going on?

Okay, so our garbage disposal stopped working, and I'm not sure if we need a new one or if we need to get a service. Okay. So if we need to get a check out, come take a look at it. And if we need a new one, we can get it and have them call it. Certainly. We can do that. Definitely. Yeah, those garbage disposals, once they go out, you never know how much you need it until they go out, right?

There you go. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We're right about that. When would you like somebody to come out? So, the point where she connected with that customer on an emotional level was where? Well, she was laughing and she said, well, you never know how much you need until they go out. And he said, yeah. And that's when I felt like he was putty in her hands after that. That's it.

Why? Because there's the story. She painted the picture and she related with them all at the same time. You never know you need a garbage disposal until they go out you're absolutely right they were best friends and she could have sold them a service agreement for sure and who cares about the dispatch fee at the end because they're connected they're connected you see if i like you i'm more amiable i'm more flexible i'm easier to deal with let's say i made a let's say a stranger made a mess in your kitchen

you're probably going to kick that stranger out there might be a gun involved right especially in the south yeah however but if I have

let's say my son my four year old son makes a mess in the kitchen I'm not going to kick him out okay I'm not I'm going to say buddy

next time you pour the milk let me help with that. And of course, we clean it up together, right? A little lesson, but we move on. Why? Relationship, connection. It is about story. Here we go. My name is Autumn. How can I make you smile? Hi, Autumn. It's Mary Person. I've got an electrical outlet outside that's not working. I want to see. Oh, well, Mary, I have fantastic news. We do offer electrical services. Yeah, I know. I got a notice in the mail. That's why I called.

Oh, sweet. Okay, so same thing there. Oh, Mary, I've got great news for you. And she's like, yeah, I know. I got a notice in the mail. And they're talking like two old friends, even though they've never met each other before. It's relationship. Not about facts. Facts support the story, not vice versa.

I love that. You know, that's something that I think anybody that's listening today could take, and I definitely made a note of it. You know, I hear these employees that you're playing and I just, they're so charismatic. Tell me a little bit about when hiring a new employee, what's the advice to find people who really care about the customers? I mean, what's the best way to find someone that's just in the interview process? Is there any any recommendations i know you could train

anybody but i don't want someone that has a one-year learning curve i want someone that could come in and know it within 15 days what what's some things i can do to pre-qualify because a lot of the people out here that are listening are trying to hire all-stars and they really want to figure out how they can do that happy upbeat and can make me laugh. And what I would do right now is I would have every one of the CSRs during their breaks jump on Pandora and listen to clean comedians.

Just do it. Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan, listen to clean comedians on their breaks during lunch. It's free. It's all breaks during lunch. It's free. It's all on Pandora. It's there.

It's an app that you put on your smartphone. And you just have them listen to it. The reason why this is important is they learn when to pause. They learn to be quick in certain situations. They learn how to tell jokes. I listen to it all the time. All the time. This is a skill. It's a skill. Now I'm back here going, wait a minute. Why do we want to why do we want to train our CSOs to be comedians? Listen to what I'm trying to tell you. We want them to connect with the customer. One of the best ways to connect with a customer is to use humor.

Now look, in this call right here, what was funny about this? Why were they both laughing? Well, because they took a situation that's frustrating. It didn't cost the customer money. And they turned it around and said, hey, we've got great news for you. And they're like, okay. You know what I'm saying? We can help with that.

I know. I sound like you're in the mail. Why are they laughing? Well, that's the point. It doesn't make sense. It's emotional, not logical. 100%. Yeah, I agree.

I like that idea, too. I mean, I love, there's nothing better in my life than to go to a comedy show. I mean, literally, when you're there in person, too, I mean, I laugh so hard, my stomach hurts. There's just, there's not a better event in my, that I could think of than going to a comedy show. So, you know, I want to move on because I got a few more questions here and I know we got about 10 more minutes left. So, you know, we get a lot of people in the home service industry that just want a price. And I hate this subject because it's a sensitive subject, because no matter what, you know, I have a stat and I'm going to pull it up real quick here. But and they did a study on it in the garage industry. But tell

me about those customers that just they're really not going to book. And listen, I've worked with huge call centers. I mean, Direct Energy has 1400 call center reps and they will not give a price. They don't have a level two that gives price. They just don't do it. They say, if we can't come out there and give you a fair estimate at no charge and could be a hundred percent clear with you. One of the things that we say here at a one is if you're not happy, listen, you can kick them out of the garage, but it's never been done before, you know, because we honor or will be any other competitors bid if you're not happy, listen, you can kick him out of the garage, but it's never been done before, you know, because we honor or will be any other competitors bid if you have it there. But, you know, if you're not happy, just send him on his merry way. But that's never happened yet.

But tell me a little bit about your experience, because a lot of the people listening and I guarantee you, it's a lot of people are going, you got to give a price in this industry because they know exactly what they want. They're telling me they've got a chimney two by two by this, by this, this tall. They want a price. They've done their research. What is your answer to that? Well, the first thing I want to do is connect with them. So I'm going to listen. I'm going to care. I'm going to say, yes, I'm going to ask when the reason why that is so important. Everything that we just heard so far is that connecting piece. If that connecting piece isn't there, meaning if you don't like me, if you don't trust me, it's going to be very difficult to not just give him what he wants.

Okay? But when they like me, they also become more amiable. They also become more flexible, reasonable, easy to deal with. Now that's proven. We know it. Okay? So if they like me, let's just assume they like me and let's just assume they know that we're the right company. Because those two things have to be established first before I can say what I'm about to teach you. Okay? Absolutely. So connection is there, trust is there. You've done that because you've connected, and you've built value, and so on and so forth.

So now let's say they push back again. They say, you know what, Brigham? I like you. I trust you. I really need a price. That's where we're at. We have a new page? Yep.

Okay. At this point, I'm going to say, Mr. Jones, if I give you a price over the phone, and then we come out and we give you a different price, are you going to be happy with that? Now, most of the time the customer is going to say, well, no, I'm not going to be happy with that. And I said, look, the last thing I want to do is put you in that situation. It is irresponsible for me to give you a price over the phone and then come out. Notice that the situation is different because this is what I do. All right. So I do for a living. I'm going to take great care of you. You know that. And having gone out to so many homes, the situation is always different. And either I give you the bad news or you give me the bad news. And I don't want there to be any bad news. I want to save you time. I want to save you money. And the way I do that is I go out. What would you like us out? Yeah, no, that's powerful stuff. And to add to that, and I don't know if you agree with this, Brigham, but I like people to know, I kind of like it to

sound like very passive. I say, listen, what part of town are you in? And you might say Gilbert, Arizona. And I would say the next question is, what are your cross streets? Gilbert and Southern. Oh, wow. Okay, listen, I'm looking at my dispatch board right now. I got Craig. He's actually in that area today. I know it's 10 o'clock right now. He's going to be in that area between 12 and two. What do you say? I have him stop by, take a look at it. If you're happy with what he's got to say, he'll have the parts on the truck. If not, at least you'll know what you're looking at. You can send them on his way. People are like, wow. So you could just have him stop by? Yeah, because I'm going away from the price. And so many times we mentioned a service call or we mentioned the fees and that gets people right back on that. Well, how much does it cost

anyway? And I think that's the biggest mistake. And it's not avoidance of the price. It's objection. It's getting over the objection and then it's getting their mind off of it. And that's powerful stuff. I love that. I'm glad we got to talk about that because I think that's something that was illuminating in a lot of people's brains that are listening to this. Listen, I pulled up this case study they did. They did a sample size, a double blind study of a thousand people. And what they found is in an order from one to nine, and this is real, this isn't something I'm making up.

Number one thing that people cared about in a garage door was reliability of the garage door components. Number two was the installation, meaning labor was warrantied as well as the product. Number three was the level to attention to detail, including cleanup and removal of the old door. Number four was the company stuck to the agreed installation schedule. Timing is huge for people. Number five is aesthetics or curb appeal. Number six is it was easy to clean and maintain. Number seven was the quiet operation. Number eight was the length of warranty. Number nine was actually the price. So a lot of people, everybody thinks you buy on price, but that's 100% wrong. I mean, literally, I watched this guy stand up. He was doing a huge show at one of the garage or conventions.

And he goes, man, he goes, listen, I went to go buy this Ferrari. And he goes, it was an amazing Ferrari. He goes, it had all the bells and whistles. And it's funny because the guy did exactly what you said. The salesman told him a story. He goes, listen, the last guy sold this to, he goes, it had all the bells and whistles. And it's funny because the guy did exactly what you said. The salesman told him a story. He goes, listen, the last guy sold this to, he goes, you got to be really careful with this particular Ferrari. He goes, what do you mean you got to be careful?

He goes, well, listen, at every stop sign, you're going to have to go ahead and lock all the doors. And he said, it's just part of the rules when you own one of these. And he goes, what do you mean? Why would I have to do that? It's a Ferrari. I mean, why would I lock of the rules when you own one of these. And he goes, what do you mean? Why would I have to do that? It's a Ferrari. I mean, why would I lock all the doors at a stop sign? He goes, because if you don't, all the ladies jump in the passenger seat.

And then the whole crowd laughed. And, you know, he ended up buying the Ferrari. But he made a fun pun out of it. And he built this image to the guy, you know. And he told us that story. And this guy was a master salesman as well. And he told all kinds of stories and it was just, it's exactly what you're talking about. You know, we got a really special offer for the listeners and I want to do that. I just want to ask you one question before we finish here. So a lot of people say outbound sales is a thing of

the past. You know, they say that you can't make money anymore without balanced sales. What's your take on that? And is there an ideal approach that you have for that? Yeah, there's this thing about the word impossible. And I don't understand why we even use the word because we create our own limitations. We really do. And I have many CSRs, people who answer the phones, throughout the country, that when the board is not full, the dispatch board isn't full,

they call out and they make outbound phone calls. They call out and they schedule appointments and they keep their teams busy. So it works, and it works extremely well. It's very simple. If the dispatch board is not full and the calls aren't coming in, then you train your CSRs to call out, and we keep the dispatch board full. I can't put it any simpler than that. Okay, well, that's something that's great to know.

I work with some of the biggest air conditioning companies in a lot of the states, and they say the same thing. If the board is not looking good, the night shift is calling out. They're booking up the next morning. And that's 100% invigorating for me. I mean, it's really exciting because this is the kind of stuff you teach. And I want to go into one more thing. You know, the reason I do marketing, the reason I got a master's degree in marketing was because I wanted to make the phone call. I wanted to make the phone ring. That's it. I just, my goal was to make the phone ring. Now you don't do as much on

the marketing side, but if you can't book that phone call, there's no point of doing marketing. There's no point of hiring great sales guys in the field, great technicians with a lot of experience. There's no point to even be in business. So you just, you're the first person, the CSRs are the first image of the company. And I just, there's a Benjamin Franklin said it, and I just looked up the quote, don't put off until tomorrow what you could do today. And I think there's so many people listening going, you know, I'm going to write that name down and I'm going to call them in two months when I get some time. And my problem, Brigham, with that is that's not the case. You need to jump in now. When you came out here, I jumped on, you know, head first. And I said, this has got to happen. And trust me,

even looking back today, we've got so much work to do in my business. You got to get those phone calls. You got to book what's coming in. You got to earn those customers business because that relates to the technician goes out there and money in the bank. And why do more marketing? Stop thinking you need more calls. Start booking the ones you get. Start looking at the metrics. Start keeping historical data and realize how you're improving and reward your CSR. So, you know, Brigham and I, we got together and we worked out an amazing offer for you guys here. It's for our listeners only. We're going to have a landing page that we're going to tell you all about. But Brigham, tell us about

what you're willing to do for the people over here that are the home service experts. Okay, so power certification is a very unique program in that we want to coach your team one-on-one over the phone and provide accountability in their learning. If you give us the opportunity to do that through power certification, we're going to get them to an 85% closing ratio. That is a guarantee, all right? When they're done with the power certification program,

they will book at least 85% of their phone calls, according to the authority. Now, in order to do that, we've got to get you in the kickoff program. Now, that kickoff program is a live video training. It takes about an hour, and we can fit about five companies in there. We're thinking that every company is going to have anywhere between one and five CSRs on average.

And so we're thinking five companies tops to get into that kickoff. Those who do that, we're going to be able to get them going in power certification. So tell me, I went to the program and I seen everything. And basically what you did is you go through each and every process and what the call centers are going to learn and why they need to do it.

And you actually get the call centers on the phone call and, you know, the webinar and they're involved. And it's something where you can see the feedback. Literally, I watched it turn the whole the mood around when you were in there talking to them. And the webinar is amazing because you work with the live CSRs. You get them you get them thinking outside of the box and you figure out what makes them tick and literally bring them can tell you right away. And it's very rare that this happens. But if there's somebody that's not going to make it, I mean, you told me there was one person that you weren't sure if they were going to work. But you said, listen, I had a team of what, 16, 17 people. You had to do it in two

classes. So, you know, my question is from this training, I mean, how important is it? Because you do this for a living and you've you've probably taken ready to go into bankrupt companies and turn them into moneymakers again. Tell me a little bit about some of the success stories and let's finish up here. But I just think it's so important. Like if anybody can listen to any of my podcasts, this one is so important. Book the calls that are coming in, period. And like you said, do some outbound calls to past customers, sell them some service agreements, sell them some service from a year ago, and make more money. I mean, more money. I'm not even kidding. Millions of dollars a year. So tell me your take

on that. We'll wrap this up. Definitely. So that kickoff that we're doing, we usually charge $52.50 to do it, but we're going to do it free for your customers only. So the kickoff is free when you sign up for the power certification program. That's the part that's really important. It's something that we never do. But let me give you one example. A gentleman by the name of Buddy Smith with Russell's Heating and Cooling. They had a winter that was warm. Now for a heating and cooling company, warm winters, not good. Not a good time. And so he met us at an event. We did a training for him and we start coaching his team one-on-one over the phone using their own phone calls and taking them through the power certification

process. When they first started with us, they were a $3 million company. In two years, they were at a $12 million revenue, gross revenue. So how do you do that? Well, they started booking every call that came in. Now, during that really, really tough winter, it was a necessity because phone calls weren't coming in as much. So they had to take advantage of every phone call that came in. They had to book every one. And so out of that pain that they were, that suffering of not getting as many phone calls as usual, they learned to book more phone calls. And by doing that, when it got really good,

when the weather began to cooperate, their company surged. Yeah, well, that's it. I mean, it's 100%. This stuff is tried and true. There's no doubt about it. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, if I want to do this podcast, if I'm out here to help people,

they got to book the phone calls. I mean, this is the lowest hanging fruit. So do what Benjamin Franklin said, you know, go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash power. That's where you're going to find the signup sheet. Just homeserviceexpert.com forward slash power. We're going to have all the information you need to get a hold of Brigham and to get this 100% free. You can sit down, you can ask questions, you can find out what's working and what's not in this program.

And I mean, everything works in the program, but what's gonna work for you? What's not gonna work for you? I mean, he trains people. You might not have a service agreement. I don't know what your business is because there's so many different listeners out there from HVAC to plumbing to electrical

to garage doors to gutters. So service plans are so important. And listen, I'm sure there's someone out there that'sVAC to plumbing to electrical to garage doors to gutters. So service plans are so important. And listen, I'm sure there's someone out there that's done this before, but we even got a service plan for garage doors. And let me just tell you something. We sold 12 of them yesterday. Okay. We teach people now, thanks to bring them on how to sell these and get our CSRs trained to get the technicians ready to sell them. So I can't stress it enough. I honestly 100% believe in this stuff or I wouldn't be preaching it. I mean, this is so important.

I know I just keep repeating myself, but I just believe in this so much, Brigham. And thank you so much for jumping on this call. I really think we'll probably reconvene again in six months. I talked to you a lot more than that, but there's so much to deliver here. I just, I'm passionate about it. I believe in it. I just, I'm so thankful that we found you guys because it really bugs me, Brigham. It bugs me to death when I find out our booking rate is 60 or 70%. That means if it's 70%, which is really good for some people,

we're missing out on 20% of revenue. Do you realize that most companies in the home service business only make an 18% profit? And if we're losing out on 20%, how are we gonna make money? How are we gonna last with Amazon and all these different companies coming out in the home service industry?

I mean, this is so important. Do it today. I'm going to leave you with some closing thoughts and tell all of our listeners, you know, whatever you want to. Maybe something I left out, but I'll let you close it up. Okay, Brigham? You mentioned something very interesting when you said Amazon. Why should we be concerned about Amazon?

It's a very good question. They are a juggernaut. They are making amazing things happen in our country right now. They just opened up another retail supermarket in New York, and it's incredible. You walk in, you've got an app on your phone, you pick products up off the shelf, put it on your basket, and there's no teller there's no cashier you walk out and it charges the app processes your card and that's how you pay for it now in the back here you're going wow that's a very interesting experience well what amazon has learned is that people buy experience and the best way to create consistency in the experience is to have

no experience. You guys, according to Consumer Reports, Amazon is the best in customer service. In fact, even better than Chick-fil-A. How is that possible without a customer interface? Because there is no experience. There's no experience. Now, how do you compete against that? How do you beat that? Well,

take a look at what Chick-fil-A is doing. How do they demand the price? How do you beat that? Well, take a look at what Chick-fil-A is doing. How do they demand the price they charge? What is it, an extra $1.50 more than what you get at McDonald's? How do they do that? Well, it's because of the experience they create. They created an experience for their customer. Now, that takes training.

That takes time. It takes people who are so engaged with what they do. They do it with purpose. They're driven. They're driven. Now, what that means is they don't care how long it takes to do what they do. They don't care how hard it is. They don't care how much they're being paid to do it. They don't match the level of service they provide to the amount they get paid.

They don't worry about that at all. They just do everything they can to take care of the customer. Now, if you've got a team that does that, you're going to beat whatever no experience that Amazon creates. The way you beat it is with a phenomenal customer experience. Let me give you one more example.

Buc-ee's. Buc-ee's is a gas station in Texas. It's not your normal gas station. This is a very big gas station. They've got like 80 pumps. How do you keep 80 pumps full? Well, every time you pass the Buc-ee's, it's like two-thirds of the way full. And on a regular gas station, the bathrooms are awful. You might have a few assortments of nuts, maybe some bags of beef jerky. No, not at Buc-ee's. You go into their bathrooms and they are they are amazing they are they look like a a fancy

hotel all right fancy hotel and say for example miami it is immaculate it is amazing they have a person in there that helps everything stay clean and he she they give you uh some some mouthwash and some nice uh hand towels and they've got sanitizers in between every stall. It's immaculate. It's amazing. Now, the nuts, do you like almonds? Well, they've got 20 assortments of almonds. Say you like beef jerky.

Well, they've got free samples of all the jerky you could possibly think of. Buffalo jerky, elk jerky, of course, different types of beef jerky. They've got big slabs of it, and they give you free samples. This place even has samurai swords, I bid you not. And they stay incredibly busy, incredibly busy. Why are they successful? Because of the experience they create. People buy experience.

In fact, we were talking statistics earlier. 86% of the time, people will buy experience over brand or price. People want an experience today. They'll pay more for it. And our objective, our job, is to create that experience. And that's how we win. And that's what we're competing against. No experience versus phenomenal experience.

We're not going to beat them on price. If you're the lowest priced, you're going out of business. It's only we're competing against. No experience versus phenomenal experience. We're not going to beat them on price. If you're the lowest priced, you're going out of business. It's only a matter of time. Your price should be demanded, not talked down. You demand the price you charge. You demand it by the experience you create. You have no choice. Amazon's got low price.

They win. You have to go after quality. You have to go after amazing customer experience. And that starts over the phone. I agree. Listen, this is Brigham Dickinson. He's with Power Selling Pros. He's the founder, the president, the owner of the business.

You got to go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash power. That's homeserviceexpert.com forward slash power. That's homeserviceexpert.com forward slash power. And you can find out all about this. It's an amazing opportunity. It's free. You got to learn more about them. Brigham, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I'm a huge fan. I'm so glad we're doing business together and appreciate everything. Hey guys, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to the podcast. And I wanted to talk real quick about the new book I have coming out in November. It's called The Home Service Millionaire. And I discuss everything it takes

to hire the right people, train your salespeople, how to get tax breaks. It talks about how to sell your company for the most amount of money. We've got a lot of great contributorships coming on. Everybody from Paul Akers about how to go lean to how you do sales from enterprise, how to get the best write-offs in the industry and save a ton on taxes and actually make your company look more professional. I got the CEO of Service Titan. I got the CEO of Valpak. We've got great people on here that know everything there is to know about marketing and Google. And there's basically no secrets we left out of this book. Literally, there's people that have read it so far say, I cannot believe you're giving all this information away. And the reason I did that is I just feel like you guys could just take each one of these gold nuggets and run with them. I mean, the ultimate goal of the book is to make sure that everybody is successful and makes

money. If I could contribute to your lives, then that would be amazing. And I feel like it's the least I can do. And I really appreciate listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoy the book. Go to Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com and pre-order your book today. Thank you.