I present to you evidence A. How many of you read every single line of your cell phone contract when you signed up? 0% of you did. How many of you read your contract? Evidence B. How many of you read the contract or read the contract word for word of every single thing that you sign up for? 0% of you do that. So why in the heck do you expect your clients to read every single word of your contract? Because they're not going to. You see how this stuff works? Communication is actually over-communicating. Effective communication is over-communicating. It's not assuming that people know. Well, I don't want to insult their intelligence. I mean, they probably know. They probably read it. No, you're not insulting their intelligence. And guess what? You can vanguard it. Hey, John, I don't want to insult your intelligence. I know you're an attorney. You're a smart guy. I just wanted to point out, just so you know, this does not include caulking the trim and filling the nail holes on the inside. Oh, no, I'm glad you pointed it out. Actually, I did not see that. You're like, how is that possible? You're an attorney. Your job is to read contracts because they don't even do that either. They read contracts in a professional setting when they're doing work for their clients, but they don't read the contracts whenever they're in everyday activity. You see how the stuff... You cannot make assumptions. You cannot hide behind your contracts and your estimates. You have to effectively communicate all this stuff. Whenever people join the profit club, I have a code of conduct that they have to... read. There's 11 things. And I go through and I read every one of those, or I at least paraphrase each one of them because they're important. And then I have a membership agreement, which is like a legal document that has all the clauses that nobody reads in there because I do have to at least protect myself legally. But I'm like, hey, feel free to read all that if you want. There's no rush. If it takes you 30 minutes, I don't care. Read that. Or I can paraphrase anything that you want in there. or I can point out things that you really need to know about. I'm still going over it with them to make sure that they understand. I'm not just sending them those documents and saying, hey, sign these documents and then pay with your credit card and you're in. I'm actually going through it with them. And you should be doing that with your clients, even through the sales process. Now, we went way left. Right. I'm moving my hand to the right. saying left. Apparently, I don't know my own left from right. We went way right on this topic, but I see this every freaking day and it drives me nuts because it's 100% your fault and it can be 100% prevented,100% prevented by simply communicating with people, learning how to communicate. So let's dive into the how, what, when, where, why. Nowhere. Take the where out. How, what, when, and why. Okay, we're going to dive into it right now. How? How is how you speak? How do you actually speak to them? In other words, your actual tonality, the cadence, the speed of which you speak. Are you talking really fast? I'm like, hey man, that's what we're going to do. We're going to go over here. We're going to take this out. We're going to put it on the truck. We're going to take it over here. We're going to put it down. We're going to nail it up. We're going to cut it and put it over here. It's hard for me to even talk that fast. Or do you talk really slow and drag it out and have just a really slow thought process? If you guys have listened to those, either one of those, one or the other or both drove you nuts. Like trying to either keep up with me or painfully wait for me to speak. It drives you nuts. Okay, well, that's what your clients think about you. If you're one of those people. And so you need to have a, you don't need to be fake and you don't need to try and speak outside of your comfort zone, if you will. But you can change your speed a little bit, right? If you're natural, I don't know what, like, I don't know how fast people naturally speak. But if I were to put it in, let's say, miles per hour, just as an illustration, if you naturally speak at... say,5 miles per hour, if that's even possible to measure that way, and your client is speaking at 8 miles per hour, then you can go from 5 to maybe 6. You're not going to speak at 8, but you can speak a little bit faster versus if you speak at 5 normal and your client's speaking at 3, you can slow down. You can go down to 4. So you can use these different techniques to match. their speaking pattern. Because if it's someone who, maybe they have a, what do they call that? A TBI, traumatic brain injury. Maybe you're talking to a veteran who's got a TBI and he has to think. It's a little bit slower for him. He has to kind of think about what he wants to say. Well, I'm not going to go in there and be like, yeah, man, let's get this done. We can get, what's up, man? Let's go, let's take care of this. We get this all set. No, he's like, it's going to fry his brain. So I'm going to slow it down a little bit. If I'm normally talking like this and he's a little bit slower, I'm like, okay, so John, I know that you guys, it's really important for you guys to have a curbless shower, obviously for your condition to be able to get in there. So yeah, that's something that we can definitely provide you with. I'm slowing it down just a little bit, right? Vice versa. So how you speak includes confidence and clarity. Don't get me wrong. Regions, you got different regions in the country, so people are going to talk different. If you're down south, they're going to be, good boy, have a little bit of a slur. I'm not trying to stereotype anybody because I know my impersonations aren't always on point. But they're going to be thinking like Louisiana in the bayou. They're going to have a little bit of a slur, a little bit of a slowdown, backwoods talking. You may not understand every word they say. But that's how everyone in that area communicates. If you live in that area and somebody from New York moves into town and you're talking like that, they may not even understand what the heck you're saying. And so you may need to, if you are in that, if you have a little bit of a heavy accent, you may need to work on cleaning up your accent a little bit. Again, I'm not saying it's got to be perfect, but just cleaning it up a little bit. right? Just to make it a little bit better. So it's clarity. The professional side is it's what you say, like exactly the words you're saying, right? So like, you don't want to use words like probably or usually, even though I've even used them on this podcast. But if someone's like, hey, Brad, when can you get this project done? And you say, well, probably can get it done by the end of September. Now, does that sound confident to you? Probably? If I have a party coming up in the first week of November or October, rather, and you're telling me you can probably get it done by the end of September, do I feel super confident about your ability to get this done before my party? The answer is no. So how you communicate is by using words that are confident. You're speaking with confidence and clarity. Hey, Brad, can you get this project done? by October 1st. I have five projects in front of you. The week before is actually available. But in order for us to be able to have this done by the 1st, we would have to get you onboarded and collect a deposit and order materials within the next week. Because those materials take six weeks to get in. And if we wait an extra two days or an extra week, and it's on the following week, there's no way we can get it done. Now, that's like speaking with confidence. Like, I know my schedule. I know what needs to happen. I'm a professional. Yeah, I think we should be able to get you in by then. We should be able to get it done by October, the end of October. Yeah, I think so. You want to sign up? Does that sound confident at all? No. No. Don't use usually. Probably and usually. Hey, we have a consultation charge for coming out there and meeting with you and giving you your estimate. And we usually charge $250. Well, if you say I usually charge $250, that means you don't always charge $250. So I'm going to be the exception. Okay, well, I mean, is there any way you could do that for $100? Well, I mean, it's $250 what we charge. Oh, you said usually. I just didn't know if there was any other way around that. Right? So like what you say and how you say it rather, not what, what's next, how you say it is what's causing you a lot of headache in your communications. Does that make sense? How you talk. How confident are you? Are you like, I don't know, man. I think we can do it. I've never done this project before, but I think we can do it. Yeah, I'm pretty, I'm about 76% confident we can do it. Right? That's not very confident. Versus, you know, I've never done this exact project before. We've done some that are very similar. And I know that there's a lot of similarities. We'll just have to make sure that we do a lot of research beforehand so that we do this right. But I'm confident that we can get this done for you. That's somebody who's confident. They admitted they've never done it. And they're going to have to do some extra research. But they said it with confidence. So that's the how you speak part of it, the what you say part of it. When you're talking to people, you should be using open-ended questions. Already 40 minutes in. It's crazy. When you talk to people, you should be using open-ended questions. What's an open-ended question? It's a question that requires more than a yes or no response or a maybe or a one-word response. So an open-ended question can be things like we ask. And if you guys don't have my... Pre-qualification guide, the no BS guide for contractors to eliminate tire kickers. If you guys don't have that guide, there'll be a link in the show notes. Make sure you get it or shoot me a message. I'll get it to you. You can also go to the website and it's on there as well. If you go to hammerandgrind. com, scroll all the way to the bottom or go to the top under resources. There's a link in there to download it. You definitely want to get it because we have our nine questions that we ask every client in there and they're all open-ended questions. And so an open-ended question can be like, how long have you been thinking about getting this project done? Right? That's an open-ended question. How long have you been thinking about getting this done? We've been thinking about getting it done for probably about six months now. Now you may say, well, that's not much more advice than or much more information than saying yes or no. But it's not just a yes or no answer. It opens it up. Sometimes they may give you... A three-sentence response. Well, we bought this house five years ago. Yeah, five years ago. And ever since we bought it, we knew that we were going to do this kitchen remodel. But we had to take care of some other projects first. And so now this project's up. This is the next one. And we're ready to get this done. Now, that response gave me a ton of information. It told me they've done other projects. Oh, what kind of other projects have you done? See, that is an entryway into more information, collecting data. So what you say helps with collecting data to be able to pre-qualify them. And so part of this and a way to look at this is really kind of an if-then statement or if-then logic. If you guys know what if-then, if the answer is this, then do this. If they say yes, then do this. If they say no, then do this. So it's kind of like an if-then logic. If they say we've only been thinking about it for two weeks, then I'm going to respond this way. If they say we've been thinking about it for 10 years, then I'm going to respond this way. So it's like a primer to see which way you need to go in the conversation. Now, sometimes you do need to ask closed-ended questions. in order to set up the next question, which is an open-ended question. So one of those is like, have you ever done a project like this before? And that could be a yes or no. Yes. Or no, we haven't. That could be a yes or no. But that's going to prime me for the next question, the follow-up question. Have you ever done a project like this before? Yes. Oh, how were those experiences? That's an open-ended question. How were those experiences? Or how was that experience? It was okay. We had this and that and blah, blah, blah. Oh, it sounds like it didn't have a great experience then. You could say that. If you don't mind me asking, what was one thing that they didn't do right? Or what was one thing that you wish they could have done better? Well, they just didn't communicate very well, which is what you should be doing. And what most contractors don't do, they would tell us they would show up, they would be here at eight o 'clock in the morning and they wouldn't show up till 10 o 'clock. Hmm. So it sounds like it's really important that, you know, if they tell you a certain time that they honor that time. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, we, it's, it's not a big deal. Like if they need to move it, it's just that we were waiting that day, you know, we got to go to work and we're telling our work like, Hey, I'm going to be 10 minutes late or I'm going to be an hour late. And then they don't show up for an hour and a half. Then it just puts us two hours late. Now it makes us look like a liar and I'm behind blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? So you get all of this data from them by simply asking the right questions. What you say, by what you ask them, you can get tons of data. So yeah, with what you say, you're going to use open-ended questions. That's the main thing there. That's the main takeaway. Sometimes you got to use closed-ended to set up, to tee up the next question. But don't just ask closed questions with no plan on another follow-up question. Okay? The next one is when you speak. This is pretty quick. When you should speak. You should speak as little as possible. You should speak as very little as possible. We say that it's one of the principles of selling that I've come up with called the grandma's rule or the 70-30 rule. You should be speaking 30% of the time. They should be speaking 70% of the time. The grandma's rule is you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. It's so that you can listen twice as much as you talk. And so that's basically what it is. And this blows people's mind, a contractor's mind, because you've been programmed that when you're talking, you're trying to sell yourself. I've been doing this for 57 years. I am a... Better Business Bureau, A++ certified. I have 6,000 reviews and we've been awarded all of these awards and blah, blah, blah. Look how great we are. Look at us. That's what you've been programmed is that you have to sell yourself. That's not how you sell jobs. You actually sell jobs by making the other person feel important and to connect with them on an emotional level. And the way you do that is by getting them to talk about themselves, to talk about their situation, and to feel comfortable enough for them to share things with you that they may have not planned on sharing with you because they didn't think that you were going to be such a warm and welcoming person. That's how you sell jobs. That truly is the secret. Is that when you make someone on the other end of the phone or standing across from you the client... When you make them feel like, wow, this person gets me. This person truly understands what's important to me. This contractor gets why we want to do this. The other guys were nice and they had good bids and prices. But this guy here, I feel like I could have him come over and watch my kids. That's how much I trust him right now. because he just opened that up and made me feel so good about myself. And that's the true secret. And that is not... I'm not saying you should be fake, but you use tactical empathy. You sympathize with them. You use specific wording. You say it in specific tones. You ask specific questions. All of this is sales training techniques, sales techniques. And all of these can be taught if you actually go learn how to do it. This is exactly why my programs exist is to teach contractors these techniques that work. They absolutely work. And half of the stuff I didn't create, other people have created. It's scientific. It's been proven. You can go read books that will teach you the exact same thing that I'm telling you. It's just I've just put it into a package that's easy to digest and implement. That's really all I did. I didn't create all of these techniques. Most of the stuff in the world is not created, by the way. It's taken from somewhere else, just repackaged. So when you speak to them, you're not trying to solve their problems. So when you speak, it's really just to get more information out of them. And that ties into why you speak. So the reason why you should be speaking is really for one of two reasons. You're trying to gain more information from them, or you are answering specific questions that they have. Besides those two reasons, you should not be talking at all. And this is where contractors like to puke all over their clients. Someone says, hey, Brad, what's the difference in... a frameless shower door and a framed shower door. I've seen those two different ones. I don't really understand what the difference is. Oh, here I go. Let me show you how awesome I am and how knowledgeable I am and why you should hire me. So back in 1982, the framed shower door was invented by so-and-so, right? You guys think that's your opportunity to pounce on them and literally word vomit all over them with your... superior knowledge of your craft. And because you know so much information, therefore they have to hire you. Now I'm being overdramatic here on purpose, but it's not that far from the truth. Some of you literally believe that you have to impress them with your knowledge in order for them to hire you. And that is the biggest lie you've been sold. Every time I have clients that come in, contractors that come into the profit club, and they start learning this stuff, inevitably, you're going to make mistakes. It's something new. You're learning how to ride a bicycle for the first time. You're learning how to install crown molding for the first time ever. You're not going to get it right. You're going to screw up. And this always happens. And one of the beautiful things that we have in there is some of these guys will record their conversations and then they'll put it in there and we can listen to it. And I can give feedback. But almost always when we're doing this, especially when we're doing our live training, because we have a live training call each week where we usually will role play. And you get the chance to role play in front of lots of other contractors, which is very nerve wracking, creates a lot of anxiety. And it's very, very beneficial for you in learning, by the way. Being vulnerable is the... is the quickest way to learn. But what ends up happening is when they're doing it for the first time or for the first few times, they're so nervous that they're going to get it wrong. As soon as somebody who's role-playing or even a real customer asks them a technical question, they instantly latch onto it. Oh, technical. I know technical. I know all of the schematics about heated tile floors. I can talk to you about heated tile floors for two hours. So... Let me dive deep into a dissertation about tile floors because I do know this topic and I want to talk about it. But everything else that I'm learning, very insecure about. And so what ends up happening is you go way, way, way down into the technical hole because you're familiar with that information. And really, all the client was asking you was like, is it worth it? Does it really heat the floor or is it just lukewarm? Is it actually going to make my feet warm or does it just keep it from being cold? Their question that they ask you requires a 30-second response, maybe even a 5-second response. But you turned it into a 10-15 minute lecture on the benefits versus the cons of owning a tile floor. because you know that topic. And that's not what matters. The technical aspect and the reason why this doesn't matter is because the people that are calling you, they don't care to know how you do this stuff. All they care to know is that you actually know what you're doing. They don't want you to explain to them how you install tile. They just want to know that you actually know how to install tile. It would be easier if they just said, hey, Brad, do you know how to install tile? Yeah, sure do. Perfect. But they're not going to ask you that. Hey, have you ever had experience? How many tile showers have you done before? Well, we've done 25.
