Replay - For Electricians By Electricians

0:01 Welcome to Entrepreneur Secrets, the Electrician Podcast. I'm your host, clay Neumeier. With me, as always, my esteemed partner and co-host, joseph, the sales bot LeCanny. We're here with you five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level service. If I didn't say it, I do not say it enough. That is electricians only. Question for you, joseph. Do you say electricians or electricians? Electricians is how I'd say it. Sometimes, when I really go after it, it's like electricians, like an eel in the ocean. There you go. Yeah, how are you doing? Today? I'm having a great day. I was going to say I've been really pumped about this topic because I feel like we've had a lot of questions and a lot of people reach out asking for service and they're very confused as to why we say no.

0:50 So I wanted to explain why. Is it okay if we kind of just jump into it, Jump right in man? Why, All right, Awesome. So Clay and I started off as electricians and being both master electricians we've seen our share of all different kinds of industries. And if you haven't sorry, jumping in, just if you haven't heard our interviews of the past, please go back and listen to Joseph's especially. Just an incredible story. And electrical chose us both in different ways. So here we are right. Please continue Exactly. No, no worries, the thing is is that we chose electric and it has been probably the best decision we've ever made. Being an electrician has helped us really transform our lives, our careers and all different things, so I'm very grateful for the industry.

1:35 But the one thing that I really, really remember when I was coming up into it was how left out we felt Like. If you guys listen to my interview, you remember that the reason I got so good was because I thought that an electrician was supposed to sell at the same rate, level and capacity as an HVAC technician. I was trained by HVAC technicians and plumbers and all the related coaches regarding the multi-train providers, and the thing was is that it almost always sounded like, well, this will apply to electric too, and I ended up chasing numbers that weren't realistic and I was holding myself to a very, very difficult standard that really wasn't likely achievable.

2:17 The thing was, is that we realized in that that's the biggest gap? How can we expect to thrive and grow in a specialized industry when the people training us have never had to do the things we're doing and, at the same time, really don't understand what it's like running these kinds of service calls? Does that make sense, clay? Oh, a hundred percent. And it shines through when you're working with one of our clients on the inside alan, going through generator and spending a dedicated 45 minutes with this individual and on a couple occasions and being able to talk through every aspect of that installation, just like we aim to do in the class that's coming up.

2:58 Guys, if you're not with us in the facebook entrepreneur group, you need this access. You got to get there and get engaging with us, especially if you want to get into this generator class. I'm telling you this is an absolute clinic Joseph's putting on. So having that level of detail is impossible with someone that hasn't done it first a few hundred thousand, maybe 2000 times. Yeah, it takes a lot of effort in order to get these kind of reps in, and I feel like that's why it's so important. So what Clay and I did was we designed a process. Now we took conglomerations from every trainer that we've ever seen, every book, every inspiration, like it's built on psychology, but it's broken down step by step in the call of an electrical call, like it's literally part of our process.

3:48 You will go to the panel and here's what you do with the panel. Then it's saying we're going to go look at the fault of diagnosis and we're going to ask questions that are electrically focused to gain certain answers. You could not take this play and give it to another trade and expect it to translate, but that's what we were expected to do when we were learning from everyone else. So the hypocrisy gets to stop. Now we get to say we are for electricians, by electricians. We no longer want you guys and us to feel like we're the neglected trade. We no longer want you guys and us to feel like we're the neglected trait. We don't want to be the most educated and yet often the last person that gets served.

4:30 It doesn't make sense and it's not fair and it's not right, and the thing about things being fair is sometimes you have to be the one to make that change yourself. Does that make sense, clay? 100%, 100%. I didn't want to interrupt you before, but one of my favorite parts of the whole sales process that you began to touch on is some of the little little syncracies that are in between, like the moment we're walking with the client for the first time and how important that conversation, that dialogue, is because finally we're moving towards a solution together. Finally, and people don't recognize that, they don't recognize that, hey, face to face, we're looking at each other as the problem.

5:15 These little, tiny micro moments that our process is able to leverage and make the most of is quite often some of the things that we hear back from in our testimonies, saying that those were the little silver bullets, those were the little things that made the difference. I haven't touched on that, sorry. No, it's fine. That's why I asked, right? So the ultimate thing is this Some people will say well, if you love electricians so much, shouldn't it be the other way around? How many times have you heard a multi-trade company go well, we do HVAC, plumbing. Oh and this applies to electricians too when really it's general sales training that you have to hyper translate to your own industry, we said that's not going to fly anymore.

6:02 The fundamentals are like in some cases, but the specifics just aren't there. So what happens is, when you have a specific question and you're in one of those training programs, what kind of answers do you get? You get general, vague, broad stroke brushes and sometimes we need specific, actionable assignments like OK, I'm going to a Tesla call and I've got the customer that's in a high-end facility and they need to know how the different ways we can get this set up for them. Now you could talk about all the sales tricks in the world, but if you don't understand the installation that they're at, you won't be able to understand why the customer is emotionally requesting these things.

6:46 So you have to both blend the technical understanding, which we provide, as well as the customer service understanding, and then packaging it with the bow of good customer service. So our goal is to deliver the full package to you so you don't have to do what we did. I struggled for seven years trying to piece together a system from different programs. I've learned to make this work and, granted, it worked great. I was selling $1.3 million out of my van, but you shouldn't have to take that long. It's unreasonable. Most businesses fail within three years. Why should I wait for you to get through that struggle, scrimp and save, only at the end to say, hey, you know what You've made it.

7:30 Now let's work together. Joseph, I've never said this before on here, but what I love most about your journey and your story and how you came to this sales process design, is the fact that you didn't give up the tenacity and the intestinal fortitude that you displayed in just being resilient and sticking with it. Because the reality is that I know, without being there with you, that what that took was trying something. In fact, let's back it up. I'm going to go full scientific process on you. Full science method, right, identifying the gap. Go full scientific process on you, full science method, right, identifying the gap, doing some research, taking some advice in that research from other trade coaches, right.

8:12 Then creating a hypothesis. Well, maybe, if I do this, this will happen. Then running the play, running the play, running the play, collecting the data and making a decision is step six of the scientific method of whether to accept or reject those results. But over seven years you did that over and over. You did it with how you stood at the door. You did it with what you said on the way to the panel. You did it with what you said when you opened the panel. You did it with options, design, placement of every ounce of this process. You must've ran that play over and over and over to arrive at this optimal result. Thank, you.

8:52 I appreciate the kind words and once again, I mean, if you guys listen to my story, I like to say that it was like, oh, I'm really proud of what I did. I was just trying to survive. I knew that if I didn't get this figured out, there was going to be a nine millimeter in my head and I did not want to have that in pace. So the question comes down to saying I had no choice, and I'm glad that I had no choice, because it allowed me to suffer in a way that now I have a product that I get to share with you and through my suffering I can actually remove the sufferings of others, and that's why I feel like this is such an important mission to stay on. So the thing about we originally talked about why we turn away other trades right, and it's not because we believe that we're better than anyone.

9:40 Right. If you put me next to an HVAC technician or a plumber, I'll be the best electrician out of them. But I'm not what I'm not. So I'm not going to say that their jobs are easy. If I asked them to run my play, or they asked me to run their play, it would be almost like going through something that doesn't necessarily apply to your situation or reality. So we've actually considered doing this on a two-way street. We will only only work with electricians or those that are actively and persistently pursuing growing electrical divisions in their company.

10:23 If you want to work as an electrician and you want a step-by-step guide that is proven to work, we're your team, but we don't believe in working with people that we can't guarantee wins for. So, as a result, we respect the other trades enough to say there are plenty of other coaches. There's no one else for us, but you can go anywhere, so let us stay with those that we know we can serve at the highest level, and they can go wherever they feel is best for them. There's no ill intention. I want to help you too, but I need to help my people first, and when every one of our electricians are good, then perhaps one day we'll expand our borders, but until we're behind the windshield of every electrician in North America, I'm not changing that stance.

11:13 I love that. I love that. And just to add to your compliments here that are stacking up, joseph, I've never met anyone else like you in my life. You're really remarkable and that's the secret that these people know, anyone that's on the other side and any of the other trades. We love you guys too and we want you to be, you know, prosperous and find good fulfillment in your venture. Absolutely. But it's the people that have worked with you already that are just drawn to come back and they see the difference. I see the difference. I've never had the kind of training that you provide. It is remarkable to work with you, remarkably detailed. Like I said, it just shines through how much thought has gone into this program and I just can't say that enough.

12:00 So it's no surprise to me that people want to keep coming back. People want to have you in their influence. I've even heard you say people wanted to fly you out and have you drop everything and just come on board and run their company for them. That actually happened and if I could touch on that, there was a situation where, when I was transitioning my career from being a multi-trade trainer to an intellectual specific trainer, I actually had other companies and people that I'd worked with actually more than one were like listen, my intellectual division is rough. I'll make you an offer Drop everything you're doing, let's fly out to the Midwest. You will run my electrical division, we'll give you a fat salary and you can just grow our teams.

12:42 And it was a great offer, don't get me wrong, and I'm super grateful that people can believe in me like that. But I believe my purpose is aligning with you, clay. I purposely believe that I am here to better the electricians of every person that we come in contact with. And you know what? I'm certain that if I took over that electrical division, they'd be the best electrical division in the area. But I know if I stay here and I continually put out the knowledge, I know we can be making every electrical division that listens to be the best that they've ever seen, and I feel like that's worth turning away a slightly more lucrative salary for the sake of saying you know what.

13:23 I'm doing things for the right reasons. This is a divinely inspired mission that I will not turn from. I love that. And Brian, Mr Easy peasy on the inside says you are the difference from anybody else in your industry Talking to us. The personal touch and experience separate you from any competition. Cheers to brian. Thank you for that. Oh, you can't see my cup. There it is yeah, you know a mystery cup, all right where'd it go? Ah, all right cheers anyways. No, I, I agree and I appreciate that. Uh, brian, and that's, that's what we aim to do. And there's something else. Uh, we, we often say you know, don't listen what we say, watch what we do as well. There's something else. We often say you know, don't listen to what we say, watch what we do as well.

14:04 There's something unique about the way that I run our business and you can see it right now. I attracted an Apex player right across from me and, of course, joseph has a seat at the table a big one he's. You know everything to this business. So there are partners worth having. Guys, if you're someone that's embraced that philosophy that the fastest sinking ship is a partnership, you really need to check the logic on that one in your framework for business and relationships and communication and prosperity and balance. There are so many advantages to partnerships when done correctly right right now. The other piece there that I just want to do from display, from leading, from example, as you'll hear me say, we can't push a string across the table, but we can pull one.

14:50 What you're seeing is me empowering my partner, empowering this person across from me, and allowing them to be better at me, better than me at many things. So one of the strengths we have here is that I didn't hire someone who is me. Had I done that, I would end up with a team of strengths that are just like mine. How easy is it to delegate when you hire people that are just like yourself? It's ridiculous and it's almost impossible because it's like the expression of how many cooks are in the kitchen, or another fun one is too many egos, not enough mad scientists. Exactly so.

15:30 I've heard this before and you know what it might even be. In Tommy Mello's book little plug for Tommy, I think I saw this in a little excerpt. Not that I've read the whole book yet, but sometimes you hire people you don't like A little tangent, but sometimes you just recognize that, hey, they're everything, I'm not and they care. You don't necessarily have to get along or be friends with these people, not saying that's our case. We get along quite well and are really having a great time because our vision is so aligned. Anyway, I wanted to tie in those apex attraction moments there and how you can begin to challenge your framework and lead your business different too.

16:11 It's going to take some different ideas to push a business in this market in this time, isn't it All right? So I got some action in all stars if you're down. Yeah, yeah, I mean we don't have a ton more time, but I did want to touch on a bit about what happens on the inside, because that question comes out a lot. We do get people reaching out and saying this question hey, do you guys coach? Hey, do you, can you guys help me? Is there a paid inside track to this thing or is it all just the podcast? So I want to be very clear and direct and just shout out how, how this system works once again. If that's all right, that means all right.

16:54 So we've been on on record here saying that we created a bank service loop, electricals, a bank. We have you guys here. We give away free value every day. We show up for you. We want to guide you to the teller, open an account and make a deposit. Lastly, we want to help you realize that deposit. That's why, when you became part of our Facebook group, the first thing we did is offer you our front door value piece. It'll help you and your CSR. Take the calls and deploy a club membership program if you don't have one already, and begin selling that club membership before you ever put people on the calendar. Why would we want to do that, joseph? Because, realistically, the best, and there are so many benefits to a first-class membership.

17:38 But the best benefit is allows you to not only qualify who you're working with. But imagine this On one hand you've got a customer who's willing to pay $150 diagnostic and you've got another customer who's like you know what I like your company so much. I'm going to pay you $400 up front. You can lock me in for a continuous annual safety inspection, but I expect the absolute best service and as long as you give me that service, I'll. Who do you want? That's a guaranteed customer that you will not only sell to once but twice and then continuously throughout their lifetime retention value to the company. Yeah, and just to highlight, I mean imagine removing all that discomfort where it comes to presenting your price and presenting your options and wondering if they're going to buy, and having that edge of knowing we already have an established relationship here from the moment we began talking.

18:31 I know the kind of person this is and they know the kind of provider we are Superpower, superpower. So we give that as soon as you join our Facebook group, and I know Facebook's inconvenient for some. So if you're listening to this and going, ah, facebook, tell you what, I get it, I get it. But you can actually access our public group without even having a Facebook account by going to your browser typing in wwwfacebookcom forward slash groups, forward slash electricpreneur secrets secrets. Hit enter. You're going to come to our group and guess what? Right from there you can message us, you can comment, you can engage and you can get that front door piece and open an account with us so we can help you realize that value and start winning.

19:17 Today. What happens after you win? You share the wins with us. You go on our win wall. We've got a running post, a running thread on this group page called the wind wall and the link to it. It's a Canva link, it's a big whiteboard. Now it looks a lot prettier. We doctored it up last week, so it looks like you're in our house. There's a poster on the wall and all the wins that are adding up and collecting every week are on this wind wall. This piece is so important because what we've done is just like Alan said when he first got our follow-up script. I'm playing on house money. We want everyone to see the development that they desire, and money shouldn't be the reason why not.

20:00 Professional development is one of the best levers in a small business, and we got a whole episode coming on that where we talk about the advantages of being a contractor. Am I ripping through this too quick or are we good? Dude, you're slaying it. Okay, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going then. So if you recognize that professional development is a line item on your fixed expenses and a tax deductible expense, then you also recognize that your personal growth depends on your business. All your business needs to do is make a healthy amount of money so that you're profitable enough to run that line item, that professional development and training, right down there.

20:41 And it should be a big fat number If you're in our business. That number represents about $30,000 a year in growth Because, no matter what happens to this business, I want to be 30K richer in what I call C money. That's personal development. How about you, joseph? Amen. The thing is I have a funny expression that always tends to apply, which is nothing takes away the knowledge of your brain other than a concussion. Really, anything you have, anything that gets stored, anything you learn, makes you a better, more functional person, and no one can take that from you. It's not on a resume, it's not on someone else's dime.

21:22 You paid for it, you earned it, you retain it, yeah. So imagine this. Imagine you get into business. You didn't get help with your pricing, right. You're kind of stuck in the bottom. You don't have a sales process, right. We don't know that we're profitable. How long should we go like this? We can't afford professional development or training. We can't even really figure out where that bottom line is. Like many of the contractors, we get on the call with no offense. Guys, if you're feeling that way, currently there's an 80 failure rate. We weren't taught business. We were not taught electrical specific business. Like, finally, service loop electrical has brought to our industry.

22:03 Like, finally, there's someone to help you with this. So imagine your pricing was right. Imagine that professional development line item and training line item in your fixed expenses said $30,000. And imagine now a group like us helped you get those wins ahead of ever having to invest it with stuff like our follow-up script and our front door script and all the value we give on this podcast five days a week. All you have to do is take action, realize the value and come back and tell the bank that deposit's realized. So what? So you can play on house money and on the inside we have a chat with you and all of our clients set up so that we're in constant engagement five days a week.

22:46 At our silver level guys can be with us for an hour a day, five days a week, on top of this podcast, if they so desired. Reality is that's a lot of time, do you have to? Absolutely not. People see massive benefits in an hour to two hours a week, but it takes an investment. So that's what it looks like really on the inside. That's what this inside track looks like. It's an ascension ladder to help you from no investment to great investment to lifetime customer growing with us and doubling your profitability Maybe doubling your revenue. Right For some guys. Like I gave a shout out for our friends on the inside.

23:28 Rapid Electrical earlier doubled their price and in yesterday's strategy class you know what Chris said to me. Since we doubled our price, we haven't even seen a price objection because the silver bullets you guys have helped us with in the sales process, building this into the service rate. People see it as an advantage Incredible testimony, and you guys can hear that one for yourself. I posted it on the wind wall this morning. That's my rant for the inside track, joseph. I know that that just influenced the action items today, but that's why it's for electrical, for electricians, by electricians. Please help me out, bail me out with an action item here, because we got to go. No worries. So the action item that I would say like, if we like to go by bare minimum actions and all-star actions, the bare minimum action that I would say in this circumstance is are you an electrician or are you someone who just happens to do electric?

24:23 The reason being why I feel like that's an important thing to know is because we are here to help every electrician. If you're an HVAC or in your industry, in plumbing, you're welcome to listen, just like we were welcome to listen to all of your trainings. But the thing is is that now I want you to interpret and say is this for me, as long as you're an electrician, I guarantee you'll get value. So the action item is simply just log in tune in, listen to it. Even if you just put in 30 minutes a day, I'm certain you're going to find things that are going to improve your bottom line as well as your conversions. And I'm adding to that one, because it's not enough for you to hoard it for yourself.

25:07 Everyone's going to get a whiff of this and it really helps if you'll spread that message and help others too. It's counterintuitive. We all feel like we should hoard the secrets, entrepreneur's secrets. The reality is there is no secrets. We're giving it all away. Guys, make sure to share this with other electricians so they can grow and prosper and get the balance they desire as well. All-star. That actually was going to be the all-star action. In my opinion, I poached it Sorry. The reason being is that you taught me something that I feel has been absolutely crucial in my personal development, which is learn, do teach.

25:49 So let's say you're the kind of person that takes action on these things. You show up, you're either in class or you're on our Facebook, or you're listening to the podcast. You're learning right. Then I want you to take action on the lessons that we're doing. I want you to put into practice, run the play, achieve success from it. But the most important part is then teach what you've learned to someone else. The reason being is it has twofold effects. One when you teach, you become better, Because you'll find that all the simple questions that people ask are often the basics that you've neglected for a long period of time. Stick to simple, stick to basics and the play will always run smoother.

26:34 The second benefit of teaching other people is not only does it benefit you, but imagine if all electricians stopped racing to the bottom. Imagine a scenario to where every electrician you met was comfortable and capable of charging their worth. What kind of industry change would that look like? What would that do to the customers that you meet no longer? Are you going to be saying well, okay, it's a $99 diagnostic how many hours is he going to be here for that? Instead, they'll be like oh, it's $99 for him to come out and evaluate the situation, and then there's going to be additionals after Okay, that makes sense. For him to come out and evaluate the situation, and then there's going to be additionals after Okay, that makes sense. So your bare minimum is show up, but your all-star is not only show up, put it into play, but actively try to teach others.

27:18 Sound fair. Yeah, absolutely, and you know what? Once again, I'm just going to add a little tidbit to this, because today we also talked about this inside track, guys, and if you're interested in learning more about that, just know that there is a no pressure, no commitment process. But you can reach out to us directly on facebook, dm us, join the group, talk to us. In fact, when you join the group, one of us will reach out to you personally to offer that front door piece at this point right. So there's a ton of one-to-one engagement that happens in our process. But also, if you're interested in just getting a business health check, we've got a little test that can be done on your own accord, where you just log in, answer a few questions and it's going to let you know how you're doing and where to improve really in your business.

28:06 So invaluable stuff, guys. Cannot wait to get that to you. Thank you again. We must go because we've got a class to teach, a sales class, right after this. So this has been another episode of Letrepreneur Secrets, the electrician's podcast Electricians. Double underline, circle it. Exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. If you're an electrician, please pass this thing on, guys. Let us know how we're doing. Leave us some reviews as we help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service. Take care to your success bye.