1:29

Eric. You know, two years ago, I probably never thought about this, about the emotions behind the buying decision. You know, I just always assumed that people bought because they needed something done, right? They needed a, they wanted a new bathroom. So they just hired somebody to build a new bathroom. And, you know, I always thought maybe that was always a price situation or a scheduling situation or whatever it might be. Or maybe I just, whoever had the most reviews, you know, whoever had the most credibility. About two years ago, when I first started understanding this whole concept of emotions behind the buying, when did you first realize this whole concept?

2:12

For me, this is weird. I mean, it's not weird. It's weird. I'm an I personality, so I'm a pretty emotional dude as it is already. I'm excitable, that kind of stuff, so that's just in my DNA. And I'll tell you, I did that Anthony Robbins book I told you about. Early on in one of our early podcasts, Awaken the Giant Within, he talked about pain and pleasure. Everything comes from pain and pleasure. Whether it's like you make a decision on pain and pleasure, like if you procrastinate, the thing that gets you to move is, shoot, I'm going to get in trouble if I don't get this done. I got to do it now. It was more pleasurable to put it off. And then so you put it off, put it off. And then all of a sudden it's more painful, like paying your taxes. That's why everyone's like April 15th. Oh, my God. You know, I'm going to get penalized and everyone waits the last minute. So that's a real testimony behind what everybody does on everything in their life is about pain and pleasure. And it's about emotions. Would you agree with that?

3:11

Yeah, absolutely. But here's what's funny about this is that we all tend to whenever we're buying things. we look at it differently than how we're trying to sell stuff. You know what I mean? So it's like when we sell it, we don't even just think about how we actually buy stuff on our own. It's like when we're selling something, it's a totally different way of, of the experience. And we don't even pay attention to that.

3:36

Well, I mean, let's face it. When we first got, went from a craftsman to a businessman, like we've talked about. You know, we didn't go to school on sales. We didn't get training on that kind of stuff. We were just like, people were like, hey, we like what you do. You did it for my neighbor. I want you to do it for me too. And like, oh, okay, well, talk money. And all of a sudden you're working for him. But as you scale and you start to hire employees and you have to get out in the real world and market and do the sales and stuff, you know, we're, I mean, we're ignorant. We didn't know any better. So we just go through the whole process and stuff. So I think. Once you start to study a little bit and you get in the masterminds and you start to talk to people about sales and so forth, then all of a sudden the light switch clicks and, you know, you get better at that kind of stuff and you realize all the emotion and building rapport. I wanted to talk about building rapport because I think by my natural personality, I kind of just build rapport with people and make friends. But when I really understood building rapport and did it thoughtfully, I think I connected more emotionally with my clients and became a better contractor, better salesman, a better producer of my craft, if that makes sense.

4:50

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I used to do that, too. We've always been taught, you know, when you go there, find something in their house that you can connect with and bring it up and make sure you talk about it. So you walk in there and you see a picture on the wall. For me, it might be a picture of their son and their dress blues. And I'm like, oh, you know, who's the Marine? and then make that connection, right? And so that was always how I was taught was like, or what I read in a book or learned or whatever, it was like build rapport with them, which is important. It's not saying you shouldn't do that, but it was more like you were purposely trying to do that just for the sake of building up the rapport so that you can close the sale.

5:29

Yeah, I mean, you can take a superpower and do bad things with it. I mean, you know, what's funny is when you mentioned that, one of the things I read in the sales training, I'm sure it was a book. It was love their property. That was a tactic. It was a tactical way to like communicate and connect with your clients, love their property. And they would use the thing like, hey, you see, you know, that they like baseball for whatever reason. They're kids on a baseball team. You see a picture or you see some memorabilia on the thing or you walk in and the baseball game's on. You're doing a consultation. You start talking about baseball, like loving their property or loving their, hey, your home's beautiful. Oh my gosh, your yard's amazing. Look at the plants. I think you can take that magic power when you really understand how powerful it is because you're tying emotionally to the client. You know, people can see through that. I mean, people know when you're being authentic. So I think I can see through that, but I think people try and use it terribly, you know?

6:26

Yeah, I can remember a time recently, just here in the past couple of months, we were doing a job for a customer and I was out on the job site helping. And this was a pretty well-off customer, you know, really nice home. really nice things in the home. And when we walked in over in the corner on a little, just a little end table was this really, really old typewriter. And I'm kind of like into getting into or having a new fond admiration of like old equipment. I have an old Singer sewing machine, you know, built in like the fifties or whatever. And, uh, And I like that. And the next thing I wanted to get was a typewriter. And she had this really, really nice, looked like it had been restored. Or if not, it was like a pristine condition typewriter sitting on the table. And I was like, oh, man, I am really jealous right now. And she's like, what? And I point over at the typewriter and we go. And so we walk over there and we're like having this 15 minute conversation around the typewriter. She said her brother bought it for her up in New England at some thrift shop and paid a lot of money for her and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was a genuine, like I was interested in the typewriter. Like I'm looking for that, you know, an old typewriter that I could buy and use. And so that was kind of a genuine connection that we made. But certainly I could also do that in kind of a fake way, if you will.

7:51

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. And that's what I'm saying. You know, it's always fun to be authentic. I mean, I might be fascinated by something. I wouldn't say fascinating. Maybe that's an over. over the top, but like, I can be curious about something in someone's home. I was like, Oh, I have no, I, wow. Look at all these, you know, these antique coffee grinders you have on this wall. These are kind of crazy. Tell me about it. What tell me, you know, and like just out of curiosity, but a little fun fact about the typewriter. And did you know that there's a 10 letter word in the top row of your keys? Don't look at your keys. I see you looking down at your keys. There's a 10 letter word in the top. QWERTY?

8:27

What? 10-letter word.

8:29

There's a 10-letter word. If you're playing Scrabble and you had all those, those, don't look. I see you looking. I guess you could look. Go for it. There's a 10-letter word up there.

8:38

What is it?

8:40

Typewriter.

8:40

Oh, the actual word typewriter.

8:42

The actual word typewriter. Like if you took those keys.

8:44

That's crazy. I never knew. Come on. I never knew that. That's

8:46

cool. You learn something new every day. That's crazy. If you're fascinated by typewriting, let's talk about another fun fact about this. I think this is going to tie to business and stuff and about efficiencies and so forth and that's other podcasts, but. I haven't done the research on it, but it's my understanding that there is a faster way to put the orientation of the letters that are on the keyboards that we use today. Okay?

9:08

Yes, there is.

9:09

There's a faster way to do it.

9:10

I've seen this. Okay. I've seen this before.

9:12

And do you know why that we haven't implemented it? I

9:15

don't remember. I saw it once, but I don't remember what it is.

9:18

Okay. It was not implemented because they figured it out. before computers and the keyboards worked out. It was still the old-fashioned type where you'd click the T and the thing would pop up and you'd tip the Y and the thing would come across. Well, they changed the orientation of letters and it was so efficient and so fast that they would cross over and get jammed up. And so you had to slow down. to actually do it. So that's why the keys are on the board like they are today. But by the time everyone had the typewriters and were learning and turned into word processing, it was too late to change it and go backwards to learn it faster. Isn't that terrible?

9:57

But amazing. That's crazy. It's crazy. That's crazy. I never knew that.

10:01

You think, like, how come we can't learn that now? Why can't they just go, hey, this is the new way we're doing this?

10:06

Hey, they tried it like in the 90s or was it the 80s when they tried to go to metric. And the metric system, I wish they would have, honestly. But remember, it was like, so now, today, if you try to go to metric, it would be too painful.

10:19

Right. Well, that's the reason why they never changed the keys on the keyboard that we use today.

10:24

Yeah. So as far as the emotion, so everything we've talked about to this point is in person, right? You have to be in their house. You have to see things and you have to visually learn this and talk about it. So how do you do that on the phone? Right. Because when you're when you're doing the sales call, you get a lead, you call them back or whatever, however your process is. And you're talking to them on the phone and you're trying to. And for those of you don't know, in the profit sales system, we actually teach on how to sell over the phone. So we're not going out to their house to sell a job. We're doing it over the phone. So this is why this podcast is important, because you need to understand how people buy. and the reasons why they buy. And so when you're trying to talk about emotion over the phone, how do they do that, Eric? Like how do people, well, maybe we should take a step back too and talk about the emotions of buying. Like what's the reasoning behind buying?

11:23

Well, that's why I brought up the pain and pleasure principle from Awaken the Giant Within. I mean, all those years ago, I learned that. And it really struck a chord with me. I remember it all the time. And so for me, in my business and my specialty, With ponds and people, they either have a pond that's in bad shape and it's painful for them to look at or their coir are getting too big and it's painful to even consider the fact that it's not going to be healthy for their fish anymore and they really want to get this new thing. So there's a pain and pleasure thing right there. Sometimes people are just like, hey, I've been fascinated with aquariums forever. I've always wanted a pond. I've been saving my money. I just really want to get... this pond going and like you could feel the pleasure, like they're excited about it. Right. So for my industry, pain and pleasure is usually pretty easy to pick out right there for you. You know, it's a bathroom and you're like, Hey, they needed a new shitter. So like, Hey, well, let's remodel the bathroom. Like it's not that painful or there's not that much pleasure in it. Right. So for you to tap into it, I can see how it's a little bit more challenging for me. I think I can, I can tap into it pretty fast.

12:28

It depends. You know, we're doing a job waiting on materials to come in right now for a bathroom remodel. And when they bought the house like a year and a half ago, it might even been two years ago, whoever had the house bought a kit to refinish their bathtub. They had like a cast iron bathtub and the finish was chipped and off and you can buy these aftermarket kits, right? Well, it wasn't done right. So the paint in the bathtub is failing. Okay. This is their hall bathroom and they have little kids, the paints failing. So they haven't been able to use their bathtub for like over six months, six to eight months. So they have a bathroom. I mean, they use the, you know, obviously use the rest of the bathroom, but they can't use the bathtub. They can't, their kids can't take baths in there. It's the only house, the, it's the only tub in the house. So the pain there is they can't even use it. Right. Then they've, it's been like that for like eight months. So there is pain sometimes in that type of stuff.

13:28

For sure. For sure. It's just a little bit, probably a little harder to tap into. I mean, that's what I'm just saying.

13:34

But I want to talk about the like the buying process, though, of emotion. And I think this is the most important part of selling in general, whether you do it in person or on the phone. But the reason why people buy.

13:48

OK, I got I got one for you. So I was doing some role plays in a profit club with some other members and we were kind of going through some stuff. And, you know, doing the whole thing. And this translates to real life, too. I mean, I ran into this in a real sales call. Like they might use the word embarrassed. You know, hey, my waterfall is really embarrassing. You know, I'll send you a picture, but I don't want you to judge me. I don't want you to laugh at me. You know, so there's an emotion there. They're embarrassed. They're like. They don't want people to see it. They feel insecure about it and they want to fix that. That's an emotional decision right there. And so you can pick up a lot on just the words that they're using into describing their feelings and what they want and the scope of work they're looking for. They're going to give you clues. And if you're actually paying attention, if you're actively listening to the client when you're on the phone call, they're going to give you all these emotional cues. You just have to be listening.

14:44

Yeah, that's a great example. I mean, of listening for the emotion in the call. But what I want to specifically talk about is what criteria they use to make the decision. Why are they deciding to do this? And more importantly, why are they deciding it to do with you? Why are they hiring you versus someone else? And this is super critical because people don't buy because of your price, right? You don't go buy a new car. a brand new car because you need a new car. You see what I'm saying? I mean, sure, there may be a situation where you need a new car, but you can go buy an old car. You can go buy a 10-year-old car and it gets you around and do everything you need to do, right? So people go buy a brand new car because they want the latest technology in that car, right? They want the way it looks, the lines of it, the colors, the, you know, the branding and the image and all that stuff, right? All that stuff goes into that. But for most people, that's an emotional decision. They're making the decision to buy that based on an emotion and not logic. And that's what I really want to dig into.

15:56

The logic behind stuff, for sure. So, you know, when people buy a vehicle, they might be like. Hey, my vehicle's getting old. It doesn't make sense to drive it anymore. It's been in the shop too much. It's actually costing me more to have it than, you know, so it's, there's a point where pain and pleasure comes in for money wise or whatever. Right. But then it's like, okay, I'm going to get a new vehicle. Then, then all the, the extras kind of come in. So that's when, you know, I think you can throw a logic out the window. Some people will do that and they're like, Hey, I want the sunroof. It really makes me feel special when I do it. I get the sun on my face and I'll get the vitamin D and it's going to make me feel good. And, you know, like whether you're thinking about what people think about you, like people buy shit all the time that they can't afford to make other people like them. Right. So it's like, yeah, there's that's all emotional. That's all emotional. Yeah.

16:46

But you don't you don't buy a convertible because it gets good gas mileage. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, because you buy a convertible because you want the wind blowing in your hair and you want people to see you from outside, whether it's, you know, an image thing or whatever. Like, that's what I mean by the emotion of it. Like, what's going to be the benefit to the person that's making the purchase? Right. So people make decisions based on their emotions and then they use logic to justify their purchase. You see what I'm saying? Oh, I had to buy a brand new car. Because the last time I bought an old car, I just had all kinds of mechanical problems. And so every time you buy a used car, you're just going to end up spending a bunch of money on, you know, mechanics and repairs. And so I have to get a brand new 2021. And I had to get a convertible because I like this. I could tan while I drive and I don't have to go to get a subscription to the tanning place because now I can just get tan. Well, I mean, there's all kinds of justifications that go in. They try to use logic. How about this one?

17:51

How about this one? How about this one? Well, I really negotiated really well with the car salesman. I got such a good rebate. It's like I got the sunroof for free. Right. Right. So they want to sound like they really were tough on the salesman and they really got a good deal. So they got such a good deal. They could get that. They just like might as well just get it. So, yeah.

18:12

But that's what people do when they buy it, when they remodel their bathroom, when they're getting the pawn. Like, yeah, you don't. You don't have to have lights in your pond to enjoy the pond.

18:23

Brad, Brad, don't ever say that again. You have to have lights in a pond.

18:32

But that's my point. Like it's, it's an upsell. I know it's like an upsell. You got it.

18:36

Yeah, I know.

18:37

There's definitely, I'm just saying like people want those things because of the emotional reaction they get out of it. The dopamine rush. Right. That's why a lot of people have buyer's remorse is because they make a decision based on the emotion. It may be something they didn't even need. And then after they get the bill, they're like, why in the crap did I buy that?

18:58

Right. Yeah.

19:01

So, but being able to tap into that is what I'm trying to, that's what I wanted to convey is that you're not selling the logical reasoning behind it. You're not selling, oh, well, you should really get a. handicap height toilet because it's, you don't have to sit down as far. Well, that's true. That's a logical reason, but the emotional part of it may be because as you get older, you know, you can't, it's too hard to sit down. You know, it hurts your knees and you have problems with it and all this other stuff. So that's tapping more into the emotion, the pain. Right. There can be pain associated with having to squat down on a shorter toilet versus a taller toilet. I mean, we have a customer this week we're working on and that's there. We're doing a handicap high toilet, an ADA high toilet. And we're doing an aftermarket bidet on top of it because the customer's wife has had some medical procedures and it's it's a quality of life thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that's an emotional purchase.

20:07

Well, I mean, sometimes these emotional purchases are logical and sometimes they're not. I mean, let's face it. Absolutely. Yeah. So that was an emotional purchase with logic behind it, medical procedures and age and all that stuff. That was completely logical and probably super necessary. But emotion was driving it. So that's going to come down to the personality as well. So that the people that are pretty logical on all the things in their life, they're still going to buy with emotion. And sometimes that emotion is in the need and the necessity of having, and that's why they're acting to call the contractor to get moving on it. But then the fun part for me is when you emotionally build rapport and make the connection and that helps make the, you know, the whole project go better. I mean, it's not always just about the money. I mean, of course we need money. We need jobs. We need to keep our crews going and stuff, but. Gosh, it's so much nicer when you actually like the people that you're working with. You've built some rapport and you're building and it's just it's just such a better experience for everyone.

21:11

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess the point I want to make is that usually money is like number three on the list of why they buy why they hire someone. It's the first is, is this person going to be able to deliver what I want? Right. And then the two is usually, can I trust this person? Like, are they going to be the one that's going to be professional enough to do it? Yeah. It's not a money thing. And that's where a lot of contractors go wrong. They automatically assume it's money. You know, that's why we always bid against ourself, which is another podcast. But when you're talking to someone on the phone and you're trying to find out the reasoning why they're wanting to do it, don't try to look for the logical reason behind it. Look for the emotional reason behind it. And that's what we're trying to convey here is that there's pain and or pleasure behind every buying decision. And sometimes people will say, you know, there's not always pleasure. Like sometimes it is pain, right? But sometimes it's pain avoidance that can be pleasure. Pain avoidance is a form of pleasure. So there's always one or the other. And you have to try and tap into that and figure out what that is.

22:20

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's the pain and pleasure principle I was talking about, pain avoidance. It's like you want to avoid the pain of... counting all your receipts and doing all the math and going to the accountant and paint, that's, that's painful. It's more pleasurable just to, you know, go do one of your hobbies and trim on a bonsai tree and work on an aquarium. You know, then, then the pain avoidance changes. That's, that ties exactly what I'm talking about. And that, that thing's moved me a long time, long, many, many years.

22:46

I'll share some pleasure with you this morning. Oh, please. I, uh, dude. Totally uncalled for. Come on, Eric. I mean, it's not PG, but come on. No, I went by the job site to check on the guys, and then I got done, and I looked at the time. I was like, what time is it? And it was 9 o 'clock, and I said, oh, Academy Sports, they get their bullet shipments in every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and they open. I said, I don't know if they open at 9 or 10. Anyways, I Googled. They go, oh, it opens in two minutes. So I'm like literally driving right by it to go back to my shop. I stop in there. I get out. I literally see a dude running across the parking lot to the door. I'm like, surely he's not going to buy ammo. Because what they do is they line up. I'm not joking. Like every morning, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, people will line up outside the door. They'll open at 9. And then you go in there and you're allowed to buy two boxes of ammo. And so I walk up there and there's like 10 people in line. And this guy that ran up there was, he's like, I just found out that they have ammo and I ran right over here. I get up there and I buy two boxes of ammo, not because I necessarily need it, but because everyone needs it.

24:04

Everyone needs it.

24:06

Well, I have ammo, Eric, but I could always use more.

24:11

So that was an emotional decision.

24:13

That was a completely emotional decision. I mean, I technically don't need ammo. I have ammo, but I don't want to run out because I do shoot it. do competitions and stuff and I have some coming up. So I have to practice. So I'm, I don't want to run out of completely and I reload ammo. So I'm, this is buying ammo, but it was a hundred percent emotional decision. And that's my point is that I didn't care how much it costs. I mean, I, to within reason, I'm not going to go spend a hundred dollars for 50 rounds of nine mil, but as long as it was within a reasonable amount of money to me, which was, you know, up to like $20 a box, maybe $25 a box of 50. I was buying it. So the money wasn't important. Yeah. The emotional reaction of there's an ammo shortage right now. It's hard to find. And now here's ammo in front of me that I've been looking for, trying to get for several weeks. It was a completely emotional decision.

25:08

Well, here's the challenge for everyone is to just consider the last 10 major purchases you've done and just think about the emotion tied to it. Did you buy because of pleasure? Did you buy because of pain avoidance? I mean, why did you buy those things? I mean, think about it. It's just the writings on the wall. Just you'll see it. I'm curious if everyone ties into this, into that challenge and like really think about that. You know, I recently bought a horse for my wife. That was emotional. I bought another vehicle for my construction team, which I, you know, that was so they'd stop driving my truck. to avoid the pain of them needing my truck to go into the field. You know, the horse purchase was to make my wife happy and then allow us to have the two perfect horses to go trail riding whenever we wanted to, wherever we wanted to go under any good circumstances that like it helped complete that thing. It's terribly emotional or incredibly emotional. I don't want to say terribly emotional, but everything we do is like that.

26:09

Yeah. But for some reason, whenever we go to our contracting business and we start talking to customers that all that logic and Our own experiences goes out the window. Right. And they don't, it's like we forget how we buy.

26:22

Right. I mean, I did that for 18 years. You know. Yeah. Trust me, I'm a much better contractor. I think I deliver products to people more completely because I understand their emotions. You know, I mean, I've always pushed to deliver a beautiful product. And I think, you know, I've made a lot of emotional connections with a lot of my customers over the years. But I feel like. I just, there's so much more, there's so much more power in it. There's so much more reward. Well,

26:51

yeah. And even whenever you're, whenever you understand the true emotions, right? Now you can deliver that. You can cater that product around that emotion, right? Now you're making decisions or offering up suggestions to the customer based on what's going to fulfill that emotional desire. And not so much based on, you know, what it costs or what may make sense logical. Because sometimes there's things that logically you may do this one particular, you may put a certain type of waterfall in a pond for a logical reason, but that may not be the emotional reason as to what is best for them. You know what I'm saying? Like there may be another way to do the waterfall or a different type of waterfall that makes more sense. to tap into their emotion, even though logically it doesn't make the most sense.

27:44

Right. Early when we were talking about that, I was thinking about, you know, the person that's just like, we have the waterfall for the circulation and the aeration and the, you know, the flow of everything and, you know, the audio, the sound, everything's perfect, right? And then they're like, well, what if I put a waterfall on this side of the pond too? I was like, well, you don't really need it, but if that's what you want, that's... It's not logical, but let's do it. Does it make you happy? Are you buying on emotions? Let's go for it. You know, but there's an example. Like, let's put another waterfall because my neighbor has one waterfall. I want more than he does. Let me get two waterfalls. Like, okay, let's do two waterfalls.

28:22

I mean, why not do three or four? Yeah. We see this all the time, right? I mean, it is a mindset shift for a lot of people. They have to understand this completely. You and I have heard a lot of contractors talking about, I couldn't sell this customer. I tried everything I could do to sell them,

28:43

but

28:45

they never tapped into the emotion. They never figured out why they were wanting to do that.

28:51

They just weren't my customer. No, they just weren't my customer, man.

28:55

Yeah. Yeah, they just weren't my customer. It's like, no, dude, you just totally screwed up. You literally lost that sale because you didn't know. how to tap into their emotion and find out why they're wanting it done. And the other thing is that a lot of us try and we ask them some, you know, tactical questions and we, uh, some calibrated questions and we find out a couple of things and we think, Oh, that's it. But that's just the surface level, right? There's always like three levels below that as what the true reasoning is and the emotion behind it. And that's, that's a little bit more advanced and it requires practicing and role playing to get there, but you can do it. I mean, you can sell jobs over the phone using emotion and it has it almost never comes down to money. Almost never.

29:43

So let's give a few more examples. I mean, do you have anything that off the top of your mind for like when you're just communicating with someone about a bathroom? I mean, like what are some other clues that they can think about? Like, you know, we got contractors listening to this podcast. They're going to make a couple more sales calls before the end of the day. And like. the word embarrassed, right there. We're going to tap into some emotion right there. And you have to, you have to learn how to peel the onion, open that layer up and start to communicate with them. You just go like, Oh, you're embarrassed. Wow. That sucks. Yeah. That must be shitty. We can make that. We can make that go away if you want. I mean, we'll get you something really beautiful and amazing. I've been doing this a long time, you know, instead of just like mirroring it and like, you just say embarrassed and get them to open up.

30:27

Yeah. We just, you know, Yeah, every time we have family comes over here, my dad always like, when are you ever going to fix your bathroom? I mean, every time I go in there and take a crap, the toilet's rocking back and forth. And I just, how long is it going to take you to fix that? That's emotion. Right. Right? Right. I mean, who wants to have their dad come and yell at them every time they come over to their house?

30:51

Man, Brad, that sounds awful. When's the next holiday party you got coming up? You don't have the 4th of July at your house this year, do you?

30:59

Oh, yeah, we do. Actually, the whole family is going to be here.

31:02

So, I mean, there's just there's a way to tap into it, man. You just have to kind of get used to challenging it. So can you think of any other emotional key words that we can share with people?

31:12

Oh, you're putting me on the spot now. I want to completely change the subject just for one second.

31:17

Easy. Yeah.

31:19

I'm trying to see how many podcasts we can do consecutively where we talk about toilets and crap. I know it's your favorite. Every one of your favorite so far.

31:28

You get so emotional when you have to take a shit. It's like a little tear in your eye. I got to go to the bathroom.

31:35

I got to use my bidet.

31:39

So here's one. If someone's talking about, if they say, well, I just remember back, you know, when I was a little boy, I remember, you know, I used to go to the park and there was this cool pond there. Now you're tapping into some deep emotion right there. And that could be in a bathroom. You know, it could be like, hey, you know, my grandma used to have this. I just want to make this go like that. Now you got to tap into their grandma. There's some emotion there somehow. They brought that up. There would be another way to tap into that.

32:07

Yeah. Yeah. Eric, how are you planning on using the space?

32:10

So many good questions. What are the keywords that we can talk about?

32:15

Keywords?

32:16

Well, I mean, emotional things that we can tap into like childhood, family, embarrassment. They say they're excited a couple of times.

32:26

Yeah, loss, memory, you know, family loss, like some type of in-memory-of type thing.

32:34

So it could be collectibles, like, hey, I have this really interesting collection. I want to make room for it in, you know, in the space that we're remodeling. I want to make sure, you know, sometimes I'll be talking to someone and they were like, hey, I've been traveling for years. I collect a rock everywhere I go. I kind of want to tap this into the pond. Now they have this, like, collection. Like, you know, you want to tap into it. You've been collecting rocks for how long? This is crazy. Tell me about some of these special rocks that you have.

33:01

And then they're like, oh. Yeah, what about if we took those rocks and we was able to put them in epoxy on the whole floor of the bathroom? You got like 400 rocks. We could just pour them on the floor. No, you build

33:12

a pond out of the rocks. Do not take rocks and put them in the floor in epoxy. We're going to put them in a pond. What do you mean? No, Brad. This is for a pond. Oh, my gosh.

33:21

We're talking about bathrooms.

33:23

I was talking about ponds. You talk about bathrooms.

33:25

I'm talking about bathrooms. Yeah, well, the

33:26

special rocks go around the pond.

33:28

Trust me on this one. So if you want an epoxy rock floor in your bathroom, we can do that for you.

33:34

But that's the thing. They're talking about collections and traveling. Like all of a sudden the traveling is like, okay, traveling. What's the most amazing place you've been to? You know, that's a pretty interesting question. I'm genuinely curious about it. Now they're talking about this and all of a sudden they've collected rocks from, you know, the other side of the world and they just have these little mementos they want to put around their pond or in their floor of their bathroom. Yeah.

33:59

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it could be maybe a blanket that their grandma quilted. You know what I mean? And they want to somehow incorporate that into their new kitchen or whatever. I mean, we're just making stuff up here.

34:12

Into the floor of their pond? They want to put the quilt?

34:14

Into the floor of the pond. You could put the quilt in the bottom of their pond. You can make little bitty baby quilts for the fish.

34:24

Listen, people are going to give you the clues if you ask the right questions and you listen. It happens all the time. And I think people just overlook it. I think most contractors aren't aware. They're just, they're unaware. And or they get complacent. They don't care.

34:40

Well. And or they don't care about that. I mean, they don't care enough to learn how to better themselves.

34:46

Listen, I was, I was ignorant over it for, you know,18 years at least. I just didn't know any better. And luckily my personality just naturally tapped into some of it. And I don't, I really view it as a superpower, you know, like, but I use it in a super way. I don't use it in a bad way. I think, you know, I never ask someone curiously about something that I'm not interested in or curious about. I don't do it just to get, you know, I want to tap into their emotion and get this deal.

35:14

Yeah. What about, uh, you know, like, uh, a man cave where they want to have all their boys come over and hang out. Like that's an emotion, right? They want a place where they can hang out together because they enjoy the memories and the time spent. Or it applies to females too. But I'm just, you know, once you understand that the buying decision is made based on emotions, now you need to start looking at how you sell your jobs. And you may start to see patterns of, well, I never thought about this. I never thought about the emotion. And so I always talk logical. I always talk about, you know, why they should use this tile and this and this and this and the money. And it's all just black and white, you know, facts. Detailed. And I've never once. If you go back to your last 10 jobs that you sold and you don't know, like, why they bought the stuff they bought, you failed. It's that simple.

36:18

Well, what if they got the job and they made a good profit margin? Is it a failure still?

36:23

It's a failure in a sense that you didn't understand the emotion behind it. I mean, you can still get lucky. You may be the only guy in town that does that thing. And so you're, you know, just by proximity, you're going to get to work. Sure. Everyone else may have been totally booked up for six months, but because maybe you're not very good or you're too cheap, you're only booked out for two weeks. And so you got the job based on, you know, timeframe. There's lots of reasons why. But the other thing is that once you tap into the emotions, now you can apply a higher price tag to emotions. So now you can, not only do you understand why you can get a little bit higher closing rate, you can actually even sell your jobs at a higher profit margin.

37:05

Well, that's the fun thing. And I wrote down that podcast idea that you mentioned earlier about stop negotiating with yourself. But I mean, there's one of the things, I mean, if you've tapped into the emotion, if you've built the rapport, if you're having the conversation over the phone and. You're like, oh, man, they're never going to pay $10,000 for this, right? You start to talk to yourself about that. Like, I'm trying to get a feel for them. I really want to get this job on the board. I'll just tell them, you know, I'll tell them $9,200. I'll just, you know, and you never even talk to them about the $10,000. And you at least have the conversation. You start to pull the numbers away already. And there's one of the reasons why you said like. You can sell at the higher profit margin. You can sell at the margin that you really want without taking a discount off before you even give them a number, which is ridiculous. But then you can also stand your ground a little bit more. If you've tapped into the emotions, this is really important for me because I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. I'm just trying to figure out what they want and I'm going to give them a price of what it's going to cost for my company to deliver what they're desiring, right? If I've done everything and I've built rapport and I feel like I've made this emotional connection and I say, hey, listen, Brad, this is a $10,000 conversation. And then they're like, wow, you know, I thought this, you know, I thought I could get something for $7,000. Can you do it for $7,000 if I pay you cash? I can kind of just stand my ground like, hey, I connected. I know what this person needs. You know, this is what I need. This is the number, right? And even if I have to hang up the phone knowing that they're going to call three, four, five,10 other contractors, I feel like, hey, I did my job. I've connected with the person emotionally. I built rapport. And now I have to leave it up to hopefully the other contractors that they shit the bed and they don't get it and they don't make the connection. They don't build a rapport. And then the person is like, I got to call this guy back and I got to come up with an extra three grand because. I want him to do it because these guys are jackasses, right? So that's how I stand on something like that. It's powerful for me.

39:07

Yeah, and I don't know how much horses cost, but just one last example here. Let's just say most horses are $7,000, and I have this really nice horse for $10,000. And you want to buy it because it's really good with trails. And it would be a good pair to your other horse that you have to be able to do trails with your wife, right? So you could buy a horse for $7,000 all day long, but this horse is already ready to go on the trails and it's a good companion horse to your one you have now. So now I'm going to tap into those emotions and say, you know, yeah, I get it, Eric. I know there's cheaper horses out there, but you mentioned earlier that you wanted a horse, a good trail horse that you and your, and your wife, Leslie could ride together and not really have to like train it and spend all this extra time. And it would just be really nice for you guys to have that. time together and you know this horse is ready to go what do you think we should do next dude

40:06

i'm so pissed right now that you even mentioned this the last horse we bought that i just mentioned i bought it for my wife we went on a trail ride it was out of town we went to the beach we had a bunch of family and friends with us so we couldn't take our other horses so we're like we'll just rent and so anyways they served me up this amazing horse right and i'm like oh my god this horse is amazing well I didn't realize my wife was already falling in love with this horse. She's like, oh my God, I want this horse, right? We're just going on the horse ride. I'm like, she's got plenty of horses. We don't need any more horses. When I finished the trail, I was telling the guide, I was like, this horse is amazing. I really enjoyed my time with this horse today. And I'm like hugging it and touching it and telling what a good deal it was. And so she's like, hey, this horse could be yours for only this much money. And I was like, hmm, that's a pretty good ticket. You know, like, well, we got plenty of horses. And she's like, okay, I just thought I'd say so. I'm like, yeah, I appreciate it. Boom. Hug the horse. I leave. When I get home, my wife for like three days, she's like, that horse was amazing. I just love that horse. And then she's like, I think we should buy that horse. And I'm like, you don't even know if it's for sale, woman. And she's like, all horses at trail places are for sale. And I'm like, they do want to sell it. I know the number. And she's like, should we get it? And I'm like, ah. I'm trying to talk her out of it. All this emotions coming up, right? So I'm finally like, okay, all right, I'll make a phone call. I call up, I call down there. And I'm like, hey, yo, it's me. I was on the horse the other day. I want the horse. And so she's like, hey, I got to let you talk to someone else. And I'm like, okay. I get the guy on the phone. The horse is 30% higher than what the lady had quoted me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, bro. Like I already got a quote from someone else. And he was like, no, dude, that's the price she quoted wrong. It's just, it is what it is. If you want the horses, this is the money. And I was totally effed. I'm like, oh my God. So I told my wife, I'm like, well, we can't get it. It's a lot of money. It's more than we thought. Two days later, I was hauling the horse home.

42:08

The perfect example. Like, I don't even know how else you could possibly talk about it.

42:14

So every time we ride the horse, I do the math. I'm like, you know how much this horse ride is right now? So the very first time we rode the horse together, I'm like, this is an expensive horseback ride. And then the second time, I'm like, hey, that number just got cut in half. And then the third time, hey, it's true. So I had this standing game with my wife on how much each horse ride costs us. I want to get to the point where it only costs us a dollar. Like, hey, this is a $1 horseback ride.

42:44

I mean, I can't think of a better example of buying something on Emotion. Right. I mean, are there other horses that could do the same thing out there? Yeah, there's hundreds and thousands of them. But you had a great experience on that horse with your wife. And so now and, you know, maybe they raised the price 30 percent because they knew you wanted it. It's very possible.

43:07

I'm so pissed right now. No, but you know, so many emotional triggers right here because we have a blue roan horse. that I ride all the time here. This is a red roan horse, which is not common apparently. And so my wife was just in love with the color and he has the same disposition and he holds his head the same way. Like just all these emotional, emotional, emotional triggers. And so, you know, I had to pay extra for it.

43:33

Well, I think that's a, that's a perfect way to end this podcast. Guys, when you're, when you're selling either in person or on the phone, you have to find out what the emotion is. People make decisions, buying decisions based on emotion. They use logic to justify that decision. So the next time you're talking to someone, start asking some better questions around, you know, why are they wanting to get this done? And don't use the word why, but try to ask some better questions and figure out what their motivation is, what the pain or pleasure is.

44:04

Yeah. And if you want to learn more about that, you can jump on over to the Profit Club. We'll help you with that. That's what we love to do every day. day in day out that's where we're practicing and preaching and absolutely you know studying so

44:15

and and using in our own businesses so eric i think that's it call it a wraps take us out of here hey

44:22

people i am emotionally emotionally overwhelmed with gratitude that you spent some time with us today thank you so much for listening to the show it means a lot to us and you know what i mean the world to us if you just hit that subscribe button and more importantly give us a rating and a review Make sure you press that five-star button. It totally helps us in the podcast ratings in the biggest way. And sometimes Brad even smiles when he reads the reviews because, you know, he's that D personality. But we'll learn more about that in the Profit Club. If you want to know more about that, jump on over to hammerandgrind. com and click on the menu up at the top. You can find out more about our private mentorship kind of mastermind group. And in the meantime, you can also check us out on Instagram at hammerandgrindpodcast. Again, that's it for today. We'll catch you on the next hour.

EP10: Emotions Behind The Buying Decision

Transcript

EP10: Emotions Behind The Buying Decision

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