A contractor's journey to self-mastery requires discipline, integrity, and respect. Welcome to Hammer and Grind. Welcome to Hammer and Grind, the podcast built for contractors. Real contractors, true stories, real solutions. My name is Brad Hebner, and I will guide you on your journey to mastery of your construction business. You can find Hammer and Grind on all the social media platforms. Just search for Hammer and Grind Podcast. Now, if you're looking for more help, you can check out our free Facebook group called The Contractor Profit Group. I do free trainings in there and it's a great community to be a part of. Now, if you're serious about making more money, saving more time, and creating a business that supports your lifestyle, check out my paid coaching group called The Profit Club. I've put together a proven system for creating a winning business. Now listen, I'm so confident that you will succeed in my program. I'm now offering a 10x ROI guarantee. That means if you don't make at least a 10x return on your investment within a 12-month period, I will refund you the full amount. You can find out more information about The Profit Club at hammerandgrind. com forward slash The Profit Club. All right, on this podcast, I am going to give the farm away. I'm going to give you the eight questions that I ask every single client to pre-qualify them whenever I'm on the phone. If you do these eight questions and you do them correctly, that's the key word, correctly, you will see a significant uptick in the amount of sales that you make, again, if you do it correctly. So let's dive in. Number one, is now a bad time to talk? As soon as I get on the call, I say, this is Brad with XYZ Company. Can I speak with Tim, please? And Tim's going to say, yeah, Brad, this is Tim. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Tim. Thanks. Is now a bad time to talk? Right off the bat, why do I do that? It's a no question. I want to get the first no out of the way. If you get the first no out of the way, it makes it easier for them to say yes. People naturally want to say no. And so if you get the no out of the way, it actually eases them a little bit. It's psychology. Don't ask me how it works. It just works. So use it. Is this a bad time to talk? Is now a bad time to talk? No. Don't say, is now a good time to talk? Is now a bad time to talk? And also because if they say, you know, actually something came up, I need to reschedule. Now you can reschedule and that shows value to them. Always ask, is now a bad time to talk? First thing out of your mouth. Next question. How are you hoping that I can help you? How are you hoping I can help? This is an open question because I can get all kinds of responses. I may get a simple, well, we're hoping to have someone come out and give us an estimate on doing our project. Okay, well, that gives me some insight into maybe they're just collecting numbers right now. Or they may say, well, We went online and we looked at all your stuff and we really like what you did and we want to have a bathroom remodel done and it looks like you're the guy that we want to have do the work. Well, right off the bat, they've already established that they're giving me priority over that. And that may change the course of the conversation because I've simply asked a simple question, how are you hoping I can help? It may also shortcut the phone call because if they say, well, We're trying to find someone that can come out and do a landscape project for us. And if I don't do landscaping, then the call's over, right? So it's a great way to open it up and then just let them spill the beans if they want. Now, some people may say, well, we want to have a bathroom remodel. That's why we're calling you. Okay, well, that may give me some insight into maybe I'm dealing with a D personality who's going to be very direct. not give me all the clues and it may be a tougher phone call. Now I got to dig in and find out what's going on. So I always ask, how are you hoping I can help? And I also say hope. How are you hoping that I can help? Because it's not a guarantee that I can help you. It's not a guarantee that I'll be able to do your project or the timeframe that you want it in or that I'll even work with you. So it's how are you hoping I can help you? That's number two. Number three. Tell me where you're at in the process. Now, there's variations of this question, and this is one that I like to use to really open the door. And this is how I typically word it. You know, Jim, tell me where you're at in this process. Are you just getting started? Have you done any research? Have you talked to other contractors yet? Kind of give me an idea of where you're at in this process. Now, that's very strategic. And by the way, all of these questions... or what we call calibrated questions. These are questions that are very calibrated to specific reasons that we're asking. Just like the how are you hoping I can help, the hoping part is a calibrated part, right? Is now a bad time. That's a calibrated question. So tell me where you're at in the process. Now, there's multiple parts to this. And it is, one, where are you at? Are you in the, what we call, I have, there's four different zones. There's four, three, two, one. If you imagine a golf, if you've ever played golf before and you tee up on a real long par five course, you're going to tee off with a driver. You're just starting that hole, the journey on that hole. That's zone four. You're the furthest away from the hole, right? So you're just starting the journey. So if they tell me that they've just started, like we're just collecting information right now because we're not going to, we're planning on doing this project in the fall. Okay, that's fine. I'm more than happy to help them with the information because if I can get in early on in the process, I can control them through the process and take them by hand through the funnel until ultimately closing them. So I'm not always looking for sales today. I'm cultivating sales for 3,6,9,12 months from now so that I can keep my pipeline full. So I don't care where they're at in the process. I just need to know how to handle their... their call, their inquiry in the process, right? So if they tell me that we just started, you know, we just bought this house and we're looking to do a bunch of work, you know, to it over the next few years and we're just trying to get some ideas on where to start, which projects we want to do first and blah, blah, blah. That's great. I love that because now I can, now, like I said, I can control where they're at in the process. They told me they're going to do several projects over the year if I can get in early. I could potentially do all of their work. I could be their contractor of choice. So I ask the question, where are you at in the process? The second part of that is, have you talked to other contractors yet? Now, here's the thing about sales, guys. Anytime that there is a taboo topic, there's several taboo topics. There are, don't bring up other contractors. There are, don't give your price. Don't talk budget. And there may be some other things about, politics and things like that, which we're not going to get into. The two main things are price and other contractors. And so anytime that we put the topic on the table, it's now open for discussion. So if I never brought up other contractors and they've talked to one, two, three other contractors, they may want to keep that from me. And sometimes it's not for... maliciously, they just don't want to hurt my feelings. Sometimes people don't want you to feel like you're the third or fourth person they've called. So if I throw it on the table and I say early on in the process, have you talked to other contractors? I've now given them permission to talk to other contractors and they're much more likely to open up about it and give me more information. One thing I do in sales calls is I collect as much information as I can. And I approach it as a consultation. I'm not trying to sell them anything. I'm just collecting information. So have you talked to other contractors? They can now say, well, I mean, we've started this about three months ago. We've talked to a couple of other contractors and we're just trying to get a few more estimates so we can make a decision. There's so much gold in that response that I'm going to be writing down and talking about. I could say things like, oh, what are you hoping to hear from me that you haven't heard from the other contractors? That's a bonus question because they've now brought it up and now we can talk about it. I may not talk about it right that second, but if I write it down, I can talk about it later on. So I have that. It's open discussion. It's now up in the air. That's why I like to ask where you're at in the process. If they just woke up this morning and they thought, well, We thought it might be a good idea to get a bathroom remodel. Either they have very wild expectations of what they can do. Maybe they watched a home HGTV show last night and now they got wild hair up their butt. But in reality, a week from now, that's going to cool off and they're not going to care anymore. All that stuff's important to the amount of effort that I put into the call. The amount of information I give them. So I'm trying to find out everything I can about them. So the next question I ask is, how long have you been thinking about doing this project? Now, this is important to give me insight into pain and pleasure cues, also money, budget cues, because if they've been planning this for two years, if they say, well, we've actually been wanting to get this done for two years, I may respond with two years. That's a long time. And they can say, yeah, yeah, we've... We were going to do it a couple of years ago and we got a quote and it was much higher than what we thought it was going to be. And so we've been saving up some money since then. And so now we think we're ready to get going. Well, that gives me a clue that they don't have a ton of money potentially and that they've been saving up to do this project. So it's going to mean a lot more to them. They want their dollar to go a lot further than someone who might be very well off financially. And they've just decided that now is the time because their wife's been begging them for two years to get a new kitchen. All of this is critical to the entire sales process. Not one question does everything. It's all questions collectively. Put together the entire image, if you will. If you see the sales call as an entire image or a project that you're trying to accomplish, it's giving you all of the pieces. So how long have you been thinking about doing this project? It gives me insight into pain and pleasure. Well, actually, we just kind of fell in our lap. We actually weren't planning on doing a project at all. But my mother-in-law fell and broke her hip. She's been in rehab and she's coming out of rehab in three months. And we need to get this bathroom converted for her because she's going to move in with us to turn into a handicap accessible bathroom because she's going to be in a wheelchair now. That is very, very critical information. Their whole world has changed because of the mother-in-law mother. And now they're in a time crunch as well. So they're going to be very motivated to get this done. So that gives me a ton of information into motivation. It also allows me to know what the pain and pleasure is. And by the way, everything that I ask on the call that we teach and I teach all my clients is to find out what the pain and pleasure is of the project they're doing. What's the pain or the pleasure? And sometimes pleasure is pain avoidance. Okay? So this is all what we call the motive. This whole part here is the discovery part. It's the first pillar of the profit sales system. And this is motive. This is where we find out why they're doing this. So how long have you been thinking about this project? The next one is, what has made you decide to want to do it now? What's changed? You know, why now? Basically, one little extra bonus. I don't ever ask why. Because why is a defensive question. People will go on the defense when you ask why. So even though I may say it like in the course of the podcast, I don't ever ask why on a call. So, you know, it's basically the question I'm asking is why now? But the way I ask it is, you know, what has made you decide to do this now? So it's to find out what's happened. If you've been thinking about this for two years, why now? What's changed? Well, you've got enough money or you got a bonus at work or you got an inheritance or you got a new job and you're moving out of town and now you need to sell your house and the bathroom has been destroyed since you lived there and you knew you had to fix it. So now it's a priority that you get it fixed because you're moving. Why now? What's changed as to why you need to have it done now? Again, these are clues to what's going on in the bigger picture. Okay? These questions are strategic because I want to find out what they're doing. Could you imagine if someone called and I said, Hey, Susan, tell me why you're wanting to do this project and why it's so important to you. Right? If I asked the questions like that, I would get very standoffish, very defensive answers. Why is that important to you? I just need you to do the work. So these are questions that effectively ask that. Why are you doing this? How much money do you have? What are your expectations of getting it done? When are you wanting to get it done? What's the most important thing to you? That's the goal. I'm just not going to ask them that way. All right. So what has made you decide to do it now? And they can tell me what's changed. Now, sometimes you ask these questions and they don't give you a direct answer. And you have to probe a little bit more to find out. Right. If I say, how long have you been thinking about getting this done? And they say two years. I don't say, oh, OK. But why now? It doesn't work like that. I'm going to dive deep into that question. Two years, I'm going to come back with a mirror. Two years with an inflection. That's a tool that we teach. Two years? Yeah, ever since we moved in, we've been wanting to redo this bathroom. We just didn't have enough money. Oh, okay. So it sounds like maybe you've been saving up or come across a little bit of money now. Right? Now, some people may not like the way that's said. That's just an example of how you can respond to that. And you don't have to use these questions verbatim, guys. It doesn't have to be verbatim. But the closer you use them, the better off you'll be, the better experience you'll have and results. So we talked about what has made you decide to do it now. The next one is, when are you hoping to have it done? This is a very important question. Obviously, for timeframes, if they need it done next week and we're six months out, that's pretty much going to be the end of the road. Now. Another important thing here, just because someone tells you they want it done right away does not mean they need it done right away. We have different expectations of, yes, I would love to have this done in two weeks because I'm having a party at my house. However, that doesn't mean I have to have it done in two weeks. I could potentially wait three months. So don't get hung up on when they say, well, we really need to have it done. Even if they use the word need, we really need to have it done in two weeks. I'm going to respond with, oh, no, you're going to be really disappointed. I mean, we're actually three months out right now. Is that going to be a deal breaker? And then we can have that conversation about, well, I mean, we really wanted to have it done in two weeks because we're having a party, but it's not the end of the world. If you're booked out, I know everyone's busy right now. It's hard just to find a contractor. to even call us back. Now, inadvertently, I just got a gold nugget there. They've called other contractors, right? They've had bad experiences with other contractors, meaning they've called them and they didn't call them back. I now have the opportunity to shine. I'm in a position of where I can provide value through my questioning and my professionalism and potentially get the job, even though their expectation is in two weeks, it's going to be three months. So don't just throw things away because they give you an answer and it's not the answer that you want. You have to find out the true meaning of what they're saying. And people speak in code, not on purpose. That's just how people speak. So you have to understand that just because someone tells you something that may be viewed as an objection, that doesn't mean that it's a true objection. It's a true deal killer, as we say. So when are you hoping to have it done? It's going to be timeframe, obviously. And if they say, I need it done, there's no, you know, I can't deviate from that. I have to have it done. Then obviously the conversation's pretty much over. No pointing going on. I saved 20,30 minutes of my time. More importantly, I saved hours of my time because I didn't go out and do a free estimate. So when are you hoping to have it done? The next one is, this goes back to the original question I had earlier about, you know, tell me you're out in this process. So this can be worded a couple of different ways. It's have you ever worked with other contractors or have you ever done similar projects like this? Or have you ever hired a contractor for a project in your house before? These are super important because it's going to allow me to find out. If they've ever had experiences with contractors, and if they have, has it been a good experience or a bad experience? So let's break this in half. If it is a new experience, meaning they've never hired a contractor for anything, like not even a handyman to come and clean out gutters or whatever, they've never hired a contractor for anything. They have probably made up expectations in their head, but they have no real world experiences to back any of that up. They've probably talked to their colleagues at work or friends or family who say, you got to be careful. Always get three estimates. Make sure you watch them. Don't leave them at your house by themselves. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They've heard all these things probably from other people, but they have no experience with that. Most of us, if we hear contractors only care about themselves, they're going to overcharge you. And then I hire a contractor and I have a really good experience. I'm naturally going to throw away that initial information that was given to me that they're bad and they only want money because my experience tells otherwise. My experience tells I had a good experience. Contractors are good. So it depends on what they've had. If it's a new experience for them, I now have the privilege of showing them what a real contractor can do for them. What a professional, honest contractor with integrity. can do for them and how they can make the experience great. I'm still going to ask what their expectations are without asking what their expectations are. And so, and I'll get to those in a minute. The other flip side is if they've done work before with another contractor, I'm going to find out how that experience went. So if I say, have you ever worked with other contractors before? Have you ever had another project done? Blah, blah, blah. And they say, yes, we've had. you know, we've had one other project, we've had several projects, whatever. I'll say, oh, great. How was that experience? How did that experience go? Right? And then they're going to tell me, it was great. It was a great experience. Or it wasn't the best experience, to be honest with you. Oh, wasn't the best experience? Yeah, that's kind of why we're calling you, actually. The last contractor that we hired took our money and ran and we never even got the project started. And I'm going to use some tactical empathy here and be like, oh my, are you serious? They took your money? Is it for this project that you're wanting to have done? You had another contractor? Yeah. Oh my gosh. So you probably don't think very highly of contractors then. I'm addressing those concerns openly. I'm not hiding from them. I'm attacking them head on openly. If they say we had a bad experience one time. We had a contractor that we hired and he did good work. He was a nice guy. We met him through church and we wanted him to give a shot. But he just, I mean, he eventually got the project done, but he didn't show up when he said he was going to. He didn't do everything that he said he was going to that we paid him for. I came home early one day from work and he was smoking in the house and wasn't too happy about that. I mean, he was nice and apologized. it wasn't a very good experience. And we're hoping that we can find a contractor that's, you know, that's going to deliver a little bit better quality experience. That is gold. That right there is pure gold into what's going on in this prospect's mind. And now I can tap into that. Because here's the thing, guys, whatever they tell you, whatever they tell you, good or bad, if they say we hated these things, or we say, they say we love these things. That is what's important to them. They will only tell you what's important to them. So in that example, they told me that, you know, obviously we don't want to smoke in their house. That's a big deal. It's a big deal that we communicate well. We show up when we say we're going to. And it's a big deal that the scope of work that we talk about and agree to is actually completed. And we deliver that. Those are the three things that are big deals to that client. And now I can address those and reassure those. I can go to those. I could say, you know, whoever it is, Mary, that sounds like a really bad experience. And I just want to tell you, I hate hearing, you know, stories like this because it really just makes all of the rest of us contractors look bad. It sounds like in what you told me, it's going to be really important that you find a contractor that communicates well. that delivers what they say they're going to. And of course, which would never happen, you don't want anybody that's going to smoke in your house or really just disrespect your space. And if you say that just like that, you're going to blow them away because you've just reaffirmed what's important to them. Okay, that's the name of this game. The name of the game is find out what's important to them and then restate it to them that you understand that. Because what contractors do wrong... is they want to tell them why they should hire them. I am explaining, I'm not even explaining, I am listening that the experience is what's going to sell them, not what I tell them is going to sell them. I can't really say show them because I'm not really showing them. It's through the phone, but I can't even put it into words on how to explain what's happening is that you're listening and people want to be heard. They want to know that hiring you is going to guarantee them a certainty of achievement. Write that down. Certainty of achievement. When people hire someone for something, they want a certainty of achievement. If you go to buy a new car, you expect that the certainty of achievement is if I pay $50,000 for a car, I'm going to get a brand new car with no defects. That's a certainty of achievement. If I go buy a used car, an old used car, it's beat up. I don't have as high of a certainty of achievement, meaning even though I may not pay as much, there's a possibility it may break down, may not run right, whatever. So my certainty of achievement is much lower. Okay. So customers buy based on certainty of achievement. And this is where you can get price discrepancies between clients and what they're willing to pay. I may be willing to pay more. for a professional to work on my house. However, if I have an investment property, I'm not willing to pay a professional to do that. I'm willing to pay a meth head to come in and do it for $10 an hour because it's saving me money and I don't care about the quality. One of my clients is a realtor. He's also a friend of mine and they flip homes. Him and his business partner flip homes. A lot of them, like a lot of homes. I don't do any of his flip homes because I'm too expensive. Yet, anytime he needs work on his private house, I'm the guy he calls and he won't ever call any of the crews that do his flip homes because he doesn't trust them. That's what I mean by like certainty of achievement. And your clients are going to be in that situation too. So when you asked about working with other contractors, and you tell me that you had a bad experience, I now know what's important to you and that I need to deliver on those. And whatever those things are, I'm going to over-deliver. If you're telling me that they don't communicate well, I'm going to make sure I over-communicate. I'm not just going to be average communicate or be like everyone else. I'm going to make sure I over-communicate. Because again, those are the three things that are important to them. The same goes for good experiences. And you may ask them both, like, what are the bad experiences? What kind of, was there anything good that came out of it? Sounds like you had a really bad experience, but was there anything that they did right that you really liked? And they may say, well, yeah, I mean, you know, they were very good with the colors. They helped us with the design. And that was really helpful because we didn't know what to pick out. And so they picked out some really nice colors and design elements. So they did a good job with that or this or that or whatever it is. It doesn't matter. Now I know they're telling me other things that are important. They're telling me that if this guy did this right, they may have the expectation that whoever they hire is also going to be able to help them with design. It also gives me insight in that they're not good with design and that they may actually need help with this. So if I don't do design, I may need to structure the deal so that I can bring in a designer and help them with that. If you've been listening to this point, you should understand that these questions, are designed to get all of the information I need. So they're super important. And the last question that we ask, and this doesn't have to be, and none of these questions really have to be in this order, by the way, except for the first one, which is, is now a bad time to talk. That has to be done first. And the second one really should be, how are you hoping I can help? Those two questions really need to be one and two. The other ones really don't matter. And a lot of times, I'll ask the question of, how are you hoping I can help? And they may take the conversation in a totally different way. And we go right into scope of work stuff. And I'm okay with letting them go to a certain point, but I'm still going to circle back around and ask these questions. Right? I don't care if the conversation goes, you know, from A to D to C to B to E. Like, I don't care what order it goes in as long as I hit all of the parts. So that's important to understand. Don't force your customers, your clients, your prospects to fit into your interrogation style questioning. Be flexible. Be open. Be like water, right? If they change the direction, let the water flow. But you still want to make sure you control the water. So the last question is, who else is excited about this project? Now, there's lots of ways to ask this. If you're a very bubbly personality and the conversation is going great, you could say, Tammy, besides you and I, who else is excited about this project? Or if they say something in the call, if they say we a lot, we, we, we, we want to do this, we want to do that, I may ask the same question in a different way and I may say, You know, Tammy, you've mentioned we a bunch of times. I'm just curious who else is excited about this project. And then they may say, oh, my husband, John. Oh, or they say my husband. Oh, your husband. I'm just curious. You mind if I get his name? Oh, his name is John. Great. Thank you. I'm writing this stuff down, guys. I'm taking notes. Why do I do all this stuff? Because it shows that I'm listening. It shows that I'm listening. I'm actively listening. I'm not watching TV while they're talking. I'm not driving down the road, which by the way, you should never do sales calls driving down the road. Why? Because it shows that you don't care enough about them. You should only do sales calls in two places, in your office or in your truck if it's parked and you have your notepad and all your information out. That's really the only two places you should be doing sales calls. So who else is excited about this project is going to tell me who the decision makers are. And here's the thing. It's not always the husband and wife or the partners or whoever. Sometimes it can be kids. Sometimes it can be in-laws. It can be other people, cousins, nephews, neighbors. It doesn't matter. You know, doctors, attorneys, whoever. It can be multiple people that are decision makers. So it's important to find out who they are. And ideally, you would find this out before the call so that you can get them on the call. So depending on your sales process and how you got to this point, if they just called you randomly and you answer the phone and you have time to go through it right then, that's fine. You would ask. But I try to prep these people, the prospects, before the call, meaning I get pictures first. which by the way, this is a very important part to the discovery process, the profit sales system is you got to get pictures first. But even though you may or may not have pictures, these are still the questions that we ask on the actual call. Okay. So who else is excited about this project? Oh, that would be, I don't know if he's excited or not, but my husband, John, he's more of the decision maker. I'm more of the get the information. I'm the information collector. Oh, okay. I totally understand. It's very similar to how my wife and I work. Does John happen to be there? Is he available to get on the call so we can discuss this? No, he's not, unfortunately. Oh, okay. No worries. And I may ask, would it be better to reschedule the call when he can be available so I can answer any questions that he may have? No. I mean, he wanted me to call and get this set up and find out. Okay. No worries. I just didn't want to leave him out of any of it. If that's the case, I'm still doing my call. I'm already prepping for at the end when I hear that I got to talk to my husband response. But nonetheless, I can still provide value for the wife while we're on the call or whoever it is, the spouse, the partner. And she gave me a clue in there in that he's not really excited about it, but he's the decision maker. Well, that means that she's the gatekeeper. So I have to impress her enough. And I don't mean like in a... in a fictitious way, like impress her. I'm just saying that my sales process has to be so impressive that she's going to go and convince her husband to hire us. He may be the decision maker, but she's the influencer. And let's be honest, that's how it is most of the time for most married type situations. So these are all the questions that we ask. I don't always have to ask. Every single one of these, I do try to hit them as much as possible. You can combine the have you worked with other contractors with tell me where you are in the process. Those can kind of be combined. You can shorten some of these. You can put your spin on them. But the main thing is that they're all who, what, when, where, and not why. Who, what, when, where, not why, and how. Those are five words that we use when we ask questions. Who is excited? When are you wanting to get it done? What made you decide to do it now? How can I help you? Where are you in the process? Those are how we ask the questions. That is the farm right there, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. I just gave you the entire farm of the questions that we ask in the sales process, in the profit sales system. This is the most important part of the profit sales system. This is the most important part of the phone call. It's because we want to find out the motive. And if you can find out what the true motive is and you can restate that back to the client, you are 80% done. You've 80% sold them. The only thing remaining is the price. And that is for another podcast. So that's the end of this podcast. Thanks so much for listening. I hope this was helpful. This is gold right here. I'm giving you guys. I've kept it locked away in the vault for a long time. It's time to let it out so that you guys can try it. I want you to try these questions and then report back to me. Come back to me on my social media platforms and let me know how they work for you. And if they don't work for you, let me know that too so we can try and figure out what's going on. Maybe you did something wrong. Maybe it was tonality. Who knows? But we want to help you get through this. I want to help you succeed in your business. So report back to me how this works for you. And you can always find me on all the social media platforms. I'm excited to announce we just added Discord to the collection of platforms. And it's going to be a great community because we're going to be able to basically consolidate everything from all the platforms into that community and share it with you. So if you want to find out more about that, go search on Discord at Hammer and Grind. You should be able to find it. And I hope to see you soon. Guys, you know what to do until next time. Be the best you.
