EP41: Do You Have The Right Sales Mindset?

That's the beginning mindset of, do you have the right mindset? So the next question is, how do you prepare yourself to get into the correct mindset? Because this is super important as well. And I think that many, many, many, many contractors do this wrong. And so we're going to spend some time here in this section talking about how to prepare yourself for the sales call. Now, a lot of contractors are one-man shows and the phone's ringing when they're out on the job site working and they believe that they have to answer the phone. They believe that if they don't answer the phone, they won't get the job and they need those leads. And there is some validity to that. I'm not going to say that that's not true. There are some customers that whoever the first person answers, they will give you the business. And, you know, if you don't answer it, you're going to miss out on it. That is true, you know, to a certain extent. That's more so true with service type businesses like plumbers, electricians, those types of industries. But it's not as true with larger type projects like remodelers, roofers, things like that. The easiest way to get around this, if you are a one-man show and you cannot answer the phone, the easiest way to get around this is to leave a message that basically says, thank you for calling XYZ company. I'm super bummed that I can't answer the call. I return phone calls at these three times, at lunch, at five o 'clock at the end of the day, whatever your time is, or in the morning for an hour. And then you designate what works for you. Maybe you only do it at lunchtime. Maybe you do it at the end of the day, whatever. It doesn't matter. But you just put that on your voicemail that says, you know, leave me a message and I will call you back. Leave you a message with your information and I will call you back at this time. Now, when I was by myself or not answering the calls or whatever, what I did is I actually told people that you need to go to my website and you need to fill out a form. I try to push everyone to my website because I can use my website to pre-qualify people and I can use my website to find out information and get them further along in the sales process before I actually talk to them. So it's super helpful for me because I ask a lot of pre-qualifying questions. How long have you been thinking about doing this? I can't even remember what I have on my website. It's been a minute since I looked at it. But basically, when are you hoping to have this done? How long have you been thinking about this? All their information, their phone number, their email. And I require it. I require all that information on my forms. And some people will say, well, don't make it easy for or don't make it hard for your customers to do business with you. And I agree with that to an extent. However, I'm trying to pre-qualify people. If they take the time to fill out the form, which is like six or seven questions, and I do ask on my form to submit pictures because that's part of my sales process. And there's a way that they can upload pictures. If they go through that trouble and put all their information in there and they upload pictures, they are a qualified lead. This is a bonus tip for you guys listening. If someone goes through the hoops to do business with you, They are a qualified lead. They've done their social proofing. You are probably at the top of their list. So if you do these things and people reach out to you, those are good leads. You don't want to blow those off or pass up on them. Don't use that information though, again, to make assumptions when you go into the call. So the thing you need to do to prepare for the sales call is if you're going to call these people back, say you're a one-man show, you leave a voicemail, you direct them to your website, or you call them back at lunch, whatever it is, you need to have a dedicated space for doing your sales calls. This is super important. I can't, I mean, it blows my mind how some people, some contractors literally like be driving down the road and answer the phone and try to have a sales call while they're driving down the road. For one, it's not safe, even if it's hands-free. Two, you can't possibly pay attention to what they're saying. It's just, it makes no sense whatsoever to answer the phone while you're driving. So you need to have a space designated for doing the sales call. If you work in the office, maybe you're a full-time salesman in your business. Maybe you have, you know, you don't work out in the field. You have guys doing that. And, you know, so you do all the sales calls at your office. It doesn't matter where it's at. It can be in your vehicle if you do it at lunch. You just need to have a dedicated space for taking the sales call. There's lots of reasons why you do this. One is that you can have all of the information that you need or typically would need for your sales call. Say you're a gutter contractor and you have specific questions and forms that you use in the sales process. You could have those forms with you in the truck, right? If you're out driving around doing those types of things. You can have those forms in your truck and now you have it with you. You don't want to leave your forms at the office and then try to do a call in the truck at lunch break and not have the information you need. So you need to have a space dedicated for that. If you have all the information there, it makes it so much easier so that you don't have to necessarily prepare as much before the call. If you have your... Maybe you have an iPad. I use a Remarkable 2 for note-taking. And I have PDFs that I have for my sales, my discovery calls. As we call them discovery calls, because that's what we're doing, trying to discover what they want done. So I have all that information. Maybe you have an iPad. Maybe you use a laptop. Maybe you have a pen and notepad. It doesn't matter what it is. You have that information there so that when you're on the call, you can be on it. I mean, you can be at the top of your game. You're not in there on the call. Hold on. I'm sorry, Mr. Custer. Yeah, let me grab my paper here. Yeah, I just got to hold on one second. I need to find a pen to just give me one second. Does that sound professional at all?

doesn't. It doesn't sound professional at all. So have your stuff together, okay? Also about sounding professional on the call. When you're driving down the road or if you take a sales call, if you're not ready for it and someone calls you and you're like, yeah, XYZ construction. Yeah, I'd like to get someone to give us an estimate on a bathroom model. Okay. Yeah, we can do that. I was going to walk out the door. I got about five minutes. Yeah. How can we help you? Are you going to want to do business with someone like that? If you were calling a contractor or anything for that matter, and that's how they answered the phone and greeted you, is that somebody that you would want to do business with? I mean, I don't want to do business with that. I'm going to tell you everything I want in my bathroom in five minutes. That's what you're expecting me to do. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen at all. So if you're... If you're doing that on the fly, that's how you come across to your customers, to your prospects. The other thing is about when you set up your sales call area, where are you going to do your sales calls? You only take your sales calls and set up your sales calls for specific times. You don't just take them randomly throughout the day. If you're working on doing payroll and your office manager's like, hey, Brad, there's a sales call online too. I have to now switch from payroll mode into sales mode, right? I'm having to make that mental shift in my brain to be able to take that sales call. Now, again, this is a little bit different for different industries. If it's something like heating and air and all you do is service calls. it's not technically like a full sales call, right? Really, all you're doing is taking an order at that point. I'm not really talking about taking orders, which is a whole other podcast about being an order taker. I'm talking about sales calls where you got to get information from them in order to be able to even provide them with an estimate. So you need to have like a designated sales time that you do sales calls. I have a Calendly link and I have it set up for certain days and times. You know, like Monday mornings are pretty busy for me. We have employee meetings first thing in the morning and the guys are cleaning out their vehicles, getting ready for the week and everything's going on the weekend. And Monday, my phone's always ringing off the hook or people calling from the weekend. It's my busiest day for leads coming in. So I don't schedule sales calls on Mondays. I have them designated for certain days. My lowest volume. time of the week in terms of like, when people are trying to get a hold of me and I have the most responsibilities going on, I don't schedule them then. I schedule them at my lulls of the week. Is it perfect every week? No, absolutely not. But if I can do it as best I can, then that helps me out. So figure out what works for you. And here's the other thing. If you're one of those guys that has to be, or gals, if you're one of those contractors that you have to get like, four cups of coffee in you before anyone can talk to you. And that's, you know, it takes about 10 o 'clock before you finally like come out of your cave and you're cordial with everyone. Don't schedule sales calls before 10 o 'clock. I know that sounds like a no brainer, but don't do it. I mean, I'm, again, I'm guilty of doing all of these things, guys. I'm not saying that I am like the perfect person. I'm saying that I've done all these things wrong and I learned that it doesn't work. And so I'm just here trying to share with you what I've learned and the tricks and techniques that I've come about and learned over the last several years whenever I went on this journey to self-mastery. So find a dedicated spot. Find a dedicated time that works for you when you're at your best. When you're at your best, maybe the busiest time of the day. And maybe that doesn't work out. But sales are pretty important. And so it might be worth... scheduling some other stuff around and focusing straight on sales calls because that's when you're at your best. Maybe you're at your peak performance from 12 to 2. That's when you're in the zone. Schedule your sales calls during that time. You want to be at your best. So there's another... This is a little bit different. Some of you at this point may even check out the podcast because you're going to think that Brad's lost it and he's into fairy tales and all this stuff. But There is a book by a gentleman named Todd Herman,

And this is something that Todd has studied and perfected over the last, I don't know, decade or so that he's been doing it. I mean, he's kind of a coach for high-performing individuals. They hire him as a consultant, and he helps them create an alter ego. Most of us would think an alter ego, like that's a negative thing. Oh, is that your alter ego coming out? That's not what we're talking about here. An alter ego is simply, if you don't know what this is, I'll briefly talk about it, but you guys need to read the book. It's called Alter Ego by Todd Herman. And it's a great book. I use this technique. I'm actually using it right now as we speak. And I'll get to that here in a second. But basically you create a fake persona. that has all of the attributes that you want to have. And they, the alter ego, is the one doing the work. So if you're terrible at sales, if you're scared to death of sales, you're scared to death of communicating with people, create an alter ego. And your alter ego can be the best salesman. in your business. They can be the top salesman of the year. They can be whatever you need it to be. If you're a pushover type contractor and customers take advantage of you a lot, your alter ego may not be a pushover. They may be a respectful person and that's what's important to you and what you need to be able to do that. But if you create an alter ego, now, if something bad happens or something doesn't go right, You basically are blaming the alter ego. Well, that wasn't me that did that sales call. That was my alter ego, Chris, or whatever. You got to read the book. It's a really, really, really, really good book. I use it in my business. I use it in my shooting. And I'll get to that here in a second too. But you basically create the alter ego and then the alter ego is the one doing, performing the act. And it talks about in that book that there's a trigger. So for me, when I record a podcast like I'm doing right now, I wear my hammer and grind hat. And you can't see me. But when I put this hat on, I go into podcast mode. That's how I know it's time to start recording podcasts. Whenever I was in the Marines, the Marines do a really good job. I didn't even realize I was doing this. But 25 years ago or however long it's been since I was out or in, you know, they... pre-program you, they program into your brain that when you put on the uniform, you are representing all Marines that served before you and, you know, those that died as well. And it's a great honor. And it's something that you don't take lightly. And depending on which uniform you put on, if you put on your camis, your BDUs, then you turn, if, you know, like for me, I was in the infantry. If you turn, if you put on your BDUs, then you turn into the ultimate killing machine or whatever you want to call it. Insert whatever definition you want. So when you put on that uniform, it's now time for business. You turn into the machine, right? When you take off the uniform, it's just me, Brad, who likes to hang out and play games or whatever. That's an alter ego. Didn't even know it existed. It just happened naturally. But as I read this book, and I just read it last year, It really put everything into perspective for me and how powerful that is. One of the other things that I do, and I'll tell you this story real quick. So in shooting, I create an alter ego for shooting. And my alter ego is a high performer. There's certain attributes that I want in that alter ego. And so there is a very well-known... professional shooter, multi-time national champion, world champion. Some of you listening may know who it is. Robert Vogel is his name. I actually went and got training from him one time. Spent a day at his home range. And so a lot of things that he teaches, I use in my shooting techniques. And he was part of my alter ego. The thing about alter egos is that it can be whatever you want. It's literally your imagination. So you can take pieces from this person, pieces from that person, celebrities, athletes, politicians, whatever it might be. You know, if you want to be the king of sales, maybe you like Grant Cardone. Maybe you can't stand the dude. You know, maybe you like the Wolf of Wall Street, whatever. You just find different things and you put them together. It's literally like creating your own person. So one time I was at a match. And a lot of people from my local area will go and travel to these tournaments that we go to. And there's like six or seven, eight guys that kind of all travel. And we see each other and we're shooting buddies. We were shooting a match. I think it was down in Tennessee. And when the next person comes up to shoot, they'll say, they'll announce, okay, the next shooter is. And they said, Bob Huebner. Now, my last name is Hebner and no one can ever pronounce it. Hebner is a pretty typical mispronounce, misway of saying it. But they said Bob Hebner. And obviously I heard Hebner. I was like, who?

One of the other people were like, who? And they go, oh, no, I mean Brad. Sorry, Brad Hebner. Well, from that point on, all of my shooting buddies now called me Bob Hebner. That was my new name. even though that wasn't one that I picked, my new name was now Bob Huebner. So every time, you know, after that match, I see him at the local matches. I see him at other matches. Hey, what's going on, Bob? You know, what's up, Bob? All six, seven guys. What's up, Bob? Well, what do you think the name of my alter ego is? My alter ego's name is Bob Huebner. So every time that these guys see me on the range and they're like, what's up, Bob? All they're doing is reconfirming or confirming in my head that my alter ego is the person doing the shooting. And so I have a routine that I go through to get into my alter ego. And it usually involves around a trigger, which is like when they say, okay, then the shooter on deck is Brad or whatever they say my name. That's the trigger for me to. let my alter ego take over, if you will. And I know this may sound super foo-foo and all that. And like I said, fairy tales, it does work. There are professional athletes that do this. Beyonce has come out and talked about her alter ego. I can't remember the name of who she said, but when she's on stage, her alter ego is doing all of the things for her. It's not really her doing it. So that's a trick you can use. If you're really struggling with sales and you don't know how to get around that, or if you just want to take the sales game to the next level, you can still create an alter ego. I don't really have an alter ego for selling, but as the two examples I just gave you, I do use them at different parts of my life. So definitely check that book out, Todd Herman, Alter Ego. I did break one of the rules. You're not supposed to tell anybody what the name of your alter ego is. So hopefully none of my shooting buddies are listening. So we got past that and we've talked about how to prepare for the sales call. So this is the last thing I want to talk about. This is also super important. This is actually probably the most important thing of the whole call. So if you're listening this far, stick around and I'm going to share this with you. So the last thing about the sales mindset is... The sales call is all about your prospects. It's not about you. Your job on the sales call is to help them, not sell them. Nobody likes to be sold to. If I asked you, do you like to be sold to? 100% of you would say no. Yeah, that's exactly what we do when we get on the call is we try to sell our prospects. We try to sell them on... I've been in the Better Business Bureau for 25 years. I'm an A++ certified top of the rank, you know, ranked contractor, blah, blah, blah. I'm on Howe's best, you know, best of Howe's for three years in a row. And then, and I'm on Angie's list, whatever they use, top picks, blah, blah, blah. Like that's what we do. We get on there and start puking our credentials. Like it's awards and medals that we've won in the military or something. Nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about your business. I'm not, I mean, besides your mom, nobody is out there thinking, wow, I really want to hire this particular contractor here because they have a really nice website and they seem like really nice people. And I just want to give them my money so they can be successful in their business. That's not what happens. Customers care about themselves. So your sales call, and this even applies to your marketing as well. All of your marketing and your website and everything should all be about your customer. Should all be outward focused. Should really have nothing to do with you, about how great you are. So when you're talking to your customers on the phone, everything on the call should be about what's beneficial to them.

beneficial to them. Now, I'm going to take a time out here. I'm not saying that you're not pre-qualifying your customers because you are. There is a purpose to the sales call. It's to pre-qualify them and see if they're going to be good customers or not. Yes, you are doing that. However, everything that you do on the call is for the benefit of them. It's benefiting them. Okay?

This is what active listening comes in. We've talked about this before on a podcast. You got to be actively listening to what they're saying so you can pick up on buzzwords and things that's important to them so that you can actually put together the information you need and present them with your proposal. Here is the most important part. If you don't have it down, turn the volume up, stop the car, whatever. This is the most important part. And this will literally change. If you fully understand this concept, it will change the way you sell forever. Okay? This is the most important part. You need to learn how to sell outcomes, not products. Say it again. You need to learn how to sell outcomes, not products. A lot of you believe that they're calling you because you're the best carpenter in town. And you may be the best carpenter in town, but they're not calling you because they want to have the best carpenter do their work. They're calling you because they want to have a specific shelf built and they want that shelf built so that they can put pictures of all their grandkids on there. and display all of their 15 grandkids so they can see them each day when they're sitting in the living room.

The outcome is their experience of seeing their grandkids' pictures on the shelving. It's not the shelving itself. That's the part you guys need to wrap your head around. When someone calls you to have a bathroom remodel done, You're not selling a walk-in shower with a mosaic and vanity heights, cabinets and marble tops. That's not what you're selling. You're selling a place for the wife to escape. You're selling an experience they had when they went on a vacation three years ago and they had this, their most amazing time. And they had this hotel they stayed at, had this very specific shower with a rain head and body jets and all this stuff. And they loved it when they were there. And now they want to recreate that shower in their bathroom. But they're not recreating the shower. They're recreating the experience, the memories that they had when they were on that vacation. And so when you guys can start wrapping your head around. outcomes, not products, then you can be unstoppable in sales. One more time. You need to learn how to sell outcomes, not products. All right? It's not about the tile. It's not about the shingle, the color of the shingle. And don't get me wrong. There are some things that are very basic. You're not going to sell a huge outcome if you're putting gutters on. But there are some outcomes because if your gutters leak and they leak in the basement, cause water damage and all kinds of thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. The outcome you're selling with gutters is peace of mind that you're not going to get water in your basement, blah, blah, blah, blah, so on and so on. So there are some outcomes to these things. It's just some are going to be more elaborate. And it's typically with your higher dollar type projects, big backyard landscaping. ponds, pools, decks, bathrooms, kitchens, stuff like that. But when you learn how to sell outcomes and not products, you will take your game to the next level. So I'm going to end the podcast right here. My last thing is audit your mindset. Go back and listen again to the very beginning. Listen to the three questions that I asked you. If you said yes to any of those, you need to audit it and you need to change that. Okay? Guys, I appreciate you listening today. That's all I got this time. Check us out on all of our social platforms, including TikTok. That's pretty much where we're active right now. It's super hot. But on all the other platforms, it's Hammer and Grind Podcast. You can find us there. Until next time, guys, be your best you.