A contractor's journey to self-mastery requires discipline, integrity, and respect. Welcome to Hammer and Grind. And welcome to the Hammer and Grind podcast, the podcast built for contractors to help maximize profits and get you off the tools before burnout or bankruptcy happens. I'm your host, Brad Hebner. And I'm here to help you on your journey to self-mastery. Make sure you check us out on our social media platforms, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Just search for Hammer and Grind Podcast and you'll be able to find me there. Consider joining my free Facebook group called the Contract Your Profit Blueprint. I created this free group to give you as much information as possible to help you in your business. I go live in there once a week, tons of content to help you in your business. If you want to accelerate the success, consider joining my paid coaching group called The Profit Club. In there is a great community of contractors all willing to share information and help each other succeed, as well as hundreds of hours of training, coaching calls, everything you need to accelerate your business. If you want to learn more about that, you can find out more information on hammerandgrind. com forward slash The Profit Club. Or just send me a message and I'll be happy to share that with you. Now, let's get on to the show. And welcome back to another episode of the Hammer and Grind podcast. I want to take a second and tell you that I appreciate that you're listening. I know there's lots of other podcasts that you can listen to. And I really appreciate that you're here listening to this. I feel blessed. And just thank you. Thank you for listening. Before we get going on this, I want to share with you my brand new offering that I have, my coaching course that I just launched last week. It's called the Sales Accelerator. And what this is, is I've taken my very proven and effective profit sales system that I have inside the Profit Club, and I've done a lobotomy on that. I've extracted the sales process out of the Profit Club and have created a new standalone. program called the Sales Accelerator. So if you're a contractor who's looking to just take your sales game to the top level and accelerate their sales, you're going to want to check out my Sales Accelerator. You can go find out more information about that at Contractorsalesaccelerator. com or just click on the link in the show notes and it will take you there to get more information. I've made it. Very affordable for as many contractors as possible because I want to help out as many contractors as I possibly can. So go take a look at that if you need help with your sales. Now, in this episode, the title is, Are You in the Right Business? A lot of you are probably thinking about something totally different than what I'm going to talk about. And so the question is, are you in the right business? Now, a lot of us believe... that we're in the carpentry business, we're in the remodeling business, the roofing business, we're an electrician or whatever it is, like our trade. That's the business that we're in. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Now, I've said before on the podcast that you're in the customer service business. And that's true. You are in the customer service business. But what I'm talking about is, are you in the... problem-solving business because that is the business that you should be in, the problem-solving business. A lot of you are in the money-making business. You started a business because you want to make money, and that is a short-sighted way of looking at how to run a business. You need to become a problem solver. And so this is going to be super crucial when you're talking to your clients on the phone, you're doing your sales calls or in person, it doesn't matter. When you're talking to new clients, are you trying to make a sale so that you can make money? Or are you trying to solve their problems? And as a result of solving their problems, you make money on the end of that deal. It's a very subtle difference, but it's a huge difference because people who are in the money-making business, they don't care what's best for the client. They simply want to sell them something. They want to sell them a new roof that they maybe don't need. They want to sell them an upgrade to their landscaping. They want to build a pond and, hey, can I upgrade you with some LED lights that you maybe don't want or don't need because I want to make the upgrade sale. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with upgrading sales. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with selling upgrades and all that stuff if it's in the best interest of your clients. So your client may have never even thought about adding lights to their pond. But you know from experience that at nighttime when you have lights, it just makes the experience 10 times better. And so if you can show them why that's going to give them a better experience, and that's something that they want to achieve, then that is a good upsell. But if the reason why they want a pawn has nothing to do with having lights at night, then you trying to sell a light upgrade kit is simply for your benefit and not for theirs. And a lot of contractors also get trapped in the money making belief because they still have an employee mindset. So when you have an employee mindset, you believe that you work for the customer. And as a result, more times than not, you end up becoming the customer's bitch. That's right. You become their personal bitch. They're going to use and abuse you as much as they possibly can. And here's the part that's going to sting the most. It's 100% your fault. Now, you've heard me say that it's always your fault. But if you are being used by a customer, that is your fault because you allow that to happen. And a reason why that happens a lot is because you are in the money-making business and you still have an employee mindset. I've talked about the employee mindset before. But basically... When you start your own business and you have no business acumen whatsoever, you just believe, hey, I'm a remodeler. So I'm going to start a remodeling business and I'm going to go work for the customer and I need to make money so I can pay my bills. And the customer says, hey, I want to have a bathroom remodel done. I want to provide all of the materials. I want to do this. I want to do the demo so I can save some money. I'll do the waterproofing. And you're like, hey, I just need some money. I need to sell some jobs. I'm new. The phone's not ringing that much. Okay. Yeah. I need to make money. So I'm going to take this job on because I need to make money. Do you understand what I'm saying here? You're taking the job solely because you need to make money, not because you're going to provide the best product or solve the best problem or provide the solution to the problem. You're doing it because you need to make money. And those are the contractors that I see day in and day out on the free Facebook groups saying, hey, I just did a job for a customer and they're refusing to pay me the last payment. What can I do? Do I need to hire an attorney or do I file a lien? What can I do? And it's sad that that happens a lot. But more times than not, it is your fault as the contractor that you've gotten yourself into that situation. Because you've entered that situation from a purely money-making position. You are in the business of trying to make money. I'm going to say this like a thousand more times so I can drive this home. You should be in the problem-solving business. The more problems that you solve, the more money you will make. But if you're focused on making money and not solving problems, you will end up actually making less money. Problem solving. When you approach a lead, a new customer, a new prospect, and you approach that as how can I best solve your problem? I have the customer or the prospect's best interest at heart. And I've said this before, I don't do sales ever. When I'm talking to contractors about joining the profit club or joining the sales accelerator, I'm trying to find out what your problem is. I'm trying to see, is it something that I can help you with? Does my product, my coaching courses, do they help you solve your problem? And if they don't, then I don't even try to sell you. There's been lots of contractors that have come on that have saw me on TikTok and they thought, oh man, I got to see what this guy's got, what he's all about. And I talked to him and I'm like, you know what? You really don't need my service. You don't need my... my coaching. You've got most of it figured out. Sure, there may be a couple little things that I could help you solve, but it's probably not worth the investment for you to do that. And they're grateful for me telling them that because I'm not just trying to make their money. I'm not trying to take money from them trying to solve their problem. So when you make this distinction, and some of us, it comes naturally. Some of us, we are natural. We want to help people. A lot of this depends on your personality profile. A lot of us that are more driven, we want to succeed. Those people tend to be more moneymakers. Not always, but they tend to be more moneymakers. If you're more of a S personality where you want everybody to be happy, an I or an S personality, and you want people to be happy and like you and keep everything kosher and the way it's supposed to be. You tend to be more in the problem-solving business, but those people tend to become more of a customer's bitch because they tend to go above and beyond to make the customer happy. So you're not in the customer happy, making customers happy business either, by the way. If you solve their problem, the byproduct of you solving their problem is they will be happy. But if you're simply trying to make them happy... you will never be able to make them happy. So problem solving. There's one little saying that I've heard before, and I like this, and that is millionaires, people who become millionaires, self-made millionaires, they do so because they solve a lot of problems. Billionaires, self-made billionaires become billionaires because they solve really big problems. And so the bigger the problem that you solve, the more money you're going to make as a byproduct. And so I really want to drive this home in your head that you have to get into the problem-solving business and not the money-making business. The money-making business is a short-sighted business. Again, you need money. You got to put food on the table. I'm going to take this job that I know I really shouldn't take just because I need money. That's a money-making, short-sighted way of thinking. Long-term thinkers are the ones that are looking for how to solve problems. And so there are people, I have a client, a one-on-one coaching client. I just had a meeting this morning with him and he's out in California. He does shower doors, glass, windows, stuff like that, mainly anything related to glass. And he's in a unique situation where there's not very much competition in his area. He does a very, very high quality product. And so because he's positioned himself as a problem solver in the glass window and door and shower glass industry, he can demand premium prices. He can get paid better because he's solving a problem that not very many people are solving or they're not solving very well. And so after meeting with him a couple of times, I was like, Man, you just need to raise your prices. And he's able to actually add between $400 and $500 more per shower door. And some of you may be like, wow, that's a lot. You're ripping people off. No, he's not. How could he be ripping somebody off? He's solving a problem that no one else is solving very good. There's a gap in his area, in his industry. The problem is not being solved. And because of that, he is in high demand. And because of that, he can charge premium prices. He's still delivering high quality products. He just wasn't taking advantage of the fact that he was solving a problem. So some of you are in areas where you're the only one that's doing that product. And so because of that, you could be in high demand. And because of that, you can demand premium prices. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying if you're the only one that does it, you can demand premium prices and deliver a crappy product. You still need to deliver a good product. But most of you listening are not the ones that are delivering crappy products. My listeners are usually the contractors who really want to deliver an exceptional product and they're just trying to figure out how to have a business that supports the lifestyle that they want. And so most of you listening don't fall in that category of delivering crappy products. But when you're in a situation where you're the only one doing it, that's prime time. You're in the prime time problem solving business. Conversely, if you're in an area like say you're a drywall finisher and you're in a big city and there's hundreds, hundreds of drywall finishers and you're saying, there's no way I can charge more. Well, Part of that is because you believe that you can't, so therefore you never will. But you may not be providing enough value in the transaction of the problem. Your job as a contractor on a sales call is to identify all of the problems that your prospects have and how those problems affect their life. And if you're the one that can... provide the best solution to their problem, whether that's in a period of time, whether that's in the type of work, whether that's in a certain price range, it doesn't matter. If you're the one that's going to provide the best solution to their problem, then you're going to get the work. It's that simple. But if you're in the money making business, you will maybe cut your own throat because you need to make money. And then you put yourself into the customer bitch. Here's a... I want to read this from... It's a book called Gap, Gap Selling. It's a great book. Highly recommend reading this book. It's called Gap Selling by Kenan. I don't even know his full name. Anyways, here's what it says. A great salesperson is a skilled consultant and a valuable asset. And you need to behave like one. I've said before, all I do is consult with people. I'm not trying to sell them anything. But here's a test so you know. Here's a test. If your customer says jump and you ask how high, if the customer asks for a quote and you deliver it without asking why, if the customer asks for a free trial but won't share their results, if you meet all of your customers' requests but they won't meet yours, If the customer expects you to change your business model to meet their needs, and you do. If the customer only likes you if you give them the pricing they want. If the customer continually asks for things, but won't give anything in return, congratulations. You are the customer's bitch. Let that sink in for a second. Because I know some of you, myself included. have done two or three of those things. And you may still be doing that. If the customer asks for a quote and you deliver it without asking why, hey, I want to get a quote on swapping out my handrail in my house. Oh, interesting. What makes you want to do that? Well, the home inspector told me that it didn't meet code, so I have to get a new handrail. You look at it and you realize all you have to do is just add in a baluster, one more baluster between each gap, and it solves the problem. Do you make less money doing that job? Absolutely. Is it the best problem to solve, the best solution to their problem that you can solve? Yeah. Now, all of a sudden, you got the job. Even though you're making less money on that one job, you found out what the question is or why they want to have it done. You realize that that's way overkill. You don't need to do that. So you deliver the best solution to the problem. That's how you serve your clients the best. Yeah, but Brad, I could have sold a whole new handrail and made $3,000 more this time. But what happens if they hire you and then somebody else comes along and says, well, you didn't have to do all that. All you had to do was add one more ballister in there. That would have probably saved you $3,000. And now the customer's like, why didn't Brett? Tell me that we could do that. I didn't even know that was an option. But you needed that money. You wanted that money. So you made the money. You don't realize you're shooting yourself in the foot in the future because that person is never going to recommend you again or hire you again for that matter. How about this one? Customer says, jump and you ask how high. I remember one time, this is a funny story. I was doing work. She was my best client. She was my first client I ever had when I started my business. I was working for my friend and my wife's cousin. It's how I met my wife, actually. It was through my old boss. And I was working for him. And we were working on this. We were doing a remodel for this couple. And it was a situation where I was the only employee that my old boss had. And he was trying to grow his business and look at jobs and stuff. So he was gone a lot. And I was pretty much the only one working on the job. all day, eight hours a day for weeks on end. My old boss would come in and help whenever he could, but I was doing 80% of the work. And so whenever I decided to go out on my own, we had just finished working on their project and she wanted to do another project. And so when she found out I was going on my own, she's like, oh, I want you to come and bid on this. I was like, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to take business from my old boss and stuff. And she said, well, You're the one doing all the work. So if it's not going to be you, I'm going to hire another contractor. I'm not going to hire your old boss. So anyways, I took the job. But I just totally lost where I was going with that story. Oh, now I remember. So I was doing this job. It was a basement remodel. It was a full basement remodel. It was the biggest job I'd ever done, like took on. I was thankful to have it, but it was overwhelming. And she wanted to do some work on the stairs. She wanted to do something on the stairs. I don't remember exactly what it was. But her neighbor was over there. And I was talking to the customer and the neighbor was there listening. And my customer wanted to say, said, I want to do this. I want to do this. And I just said, no, her name. I said, no, no, we're not going to do that. Like, just matter of fact, I was like, no, we're not going to do that. And she goes, why not? I said, because of this, this, this, and this. And she goes, okay, that actually makes sense. And later on, I found out, because my customer told me, that the neighbor, after I had left, says, you let your contractor talk to you like that? Now, think about that for a second. My customer, now I had built a good relationship with her. I wouldn't normally talk like that to just any client. I had a good relationship with her. And she said, yeah, I trust him completely. And if he tells me that that's not a good idea, then that's not a good idea. And so the point I'm trying to make is that I didn't just say, I could have just said, okay, great. It's going to cost $5,000 or whatever it is. I'll do it for you. Right? I could have just done that. And I would have made money. But that wasn't the best solution to her problem that she really had. What she thought she wanted. was really not what she wanted at all. It's just what she thought she wanted. So your job is to actually dig deep and to figure out what the real problem is, extrapolate that out, and then provide the correct solution to that problem. Here's one other story. I was doing a staircase redo. They had carpeted staircases, a carpeted staircase, and they wanted to convert it to hardwood treads and risers, stained treads. Painted risers. It's a very pretty look. Now, me knowing that solid stained treads with no runners or whatever on them are very dangerous. It's more people die and break bones falling downstairs than just about anything else in your house. And this was an elderly couple, probably in the late 70s or so. And I told her, she goes, I don't want a handrail. down this one side. They had one wall that went from the second floor down to the first floor, one solid wall all the way up and down. And then they had it on the other side. They had a half wall that opened up into the lower section. And she just wanted a handrail on that half wall down and then the actual handrail that was like a typical handrail with baluster type situation. And that's all she wanted. She didn't want a handrail. all the way down the full length of the wall because she thought that looked tacky. And this was a nice house. And I convinced her. I said, you really need to have a handrail over there. And the stairs were a little bit wider than normal. They were over 48 inches. So by code, technically, you had to have handrails on both sides anyways. But sometimes that stuff kind of squeaks through. And I said, no, you really, really need a handrail. It's going to be safer for you. And she's like, okay, fine. Put the handrail in. A week later, after I was done, she told me she slipped on the stairs and started to fall and grabbed the handrail that I told her she needed to put up on that wall. And it saved her from falling down the steps. And she's an elderly lady,70,80-year-old lady. And she started to fall down the steps. Had I not put the handrail on, she would have fell down the steps. could have been severely hurt or injured. Now, some of you would say, well, yeah, that's just code. You're supposed to do that. Yeah, I get that. But my point is, I convinced her. I told her, you really need to do this because it's going to be the safest option. And she listened because she trusted my opinion and I was providing the best solution to her problem and it potentially saved her life. I didn't just not do it. or do something because that's what the customer wanted. The customer is not always right. But if you want to make money and you're like, sure, I'll do that. Sure, I'll add this. Sure, I'll do that. Sure, I'll put slick treads on. Sure, I'll put slick tile in your shower, even though the viscosity rating is not rated for a wet area. I just want to say viscosity. It's a fun word. But yeah, I mean, if you do that stuff because you just want to make money, you're setting your customers up to fail, to get hurt, to be disappointed. But that comes from the position of wanting to make money, not because that's the best solution to the problem. I'm going to read the second part of this. This is if you know if you're not just trying to sell somebody they don't need. If you make it clear that you know as much or more than the customer about the industry trends, in other words, you don't want to be completely dumb. Well, I've never done that before, but I'm sure I could figure it out. I've never actually put a roof on before, but I'm sure I could figure it out because I need money. So you have to at least know what you're doing, at least know more than the customer. If you understand that you can explain the nuances of solving key problems associated with the product or service. So you know the nuances, you know the pros and cons of what you can or can't do or what your services can or can't do. If you're aware of or even more aware than your customer of what the competition is doing, now this is not worrying about the competition, but it's simply being aware of if they say, well, I want to go with the other competitor because they offer X and you know that X... is not the best solution to that particular problem, then you could speak to that. If you continually provide relevant customer insights, if the client can rely on you for direction and advice, remember the story I told you, they can rely on you, they trust you. If you don't push products, services, or features and benefits, trying to be a closer, right? Because you need to make money. If you have a strong social following because of your shared content, There's a little tip there for you. If you are a relied upon resource, and this is what the book says, in LinkedIn groups or Quora, basically means that you're a contributor to resource, a contributed resource in these different groups. If customers know you have the answers they need to solve complex business challenges. Now this, I will tell you, this book is written as a B2B sales guide for B2B. But a lot of this does apply strictly over to a B2C. Basically, if you are an asset and a critical element to your client's success, then you are not their bitch. You are being a problem solver and you are consulting them on the best solution to their problem. So really, just to kind of recap what we're talking about here. Are you a problem solver? Or are you just... in the business of making money. I would highly encourage you to become a problem solver. I would encourage you to look for ways to solve unique problems and challenges in your industry. This is where new business ideas are created. This is where new industries are created because someone has recognized a problem and they provided the solution. i. e. there are people that get paid to go out and pick up dog poop. Never in a million years would I think that someone would pay somebody to come to their house and just simply pick up the dog poop in their yard. Yet here is a business with franchises and the like of picking up dog poop because it's a problem that people don't want to deal with. We got two new puppies a few months ago. And I call them poopies because that's all I do is poop all the time. So I'm forever out there cleaning up dog poop in my yard, my wife and I. And I'm seriously considering hiring somebody to come and clean up the dog poop in my yard. Not because I'm pretentious and can't do that, but it's just a task that I don't need to do. Now, will I do that? Probably not. Has the thought crossed my head? Absolutely. There's people out there that make money cleaning garbage cans. They go around and they spray clean their garbage cans out because they stink. Again, they're solving a unique problem. When you figure out how to solve more problems, when you figure out how to solve problems better than everyone else, when you figure out how to solve big problems, you will then become very... successful. And the byproduct of that is money. But if you simply want to make money, you're shortcutting yourself in that process. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you will start to look at your business as what you need to be in, which is the problem-solving business. And you apply what I've talked about today. And it helps you. Let me know. Give me some feedback, guys, on the... information and the stuff that I tell you to do. I'm always curious. Sometimes I get people say, Hey, I heard this one podcast and I applied it in my business and it worked. And they let me know that. And I really appreciate it because it just lets me know if what I'm telling you works. I mean, I know it works, but I want to hear it from you if it works. And I want to know what topics you want me to talk about. If I haven't covered something that you want me to talk about, let me know. Drop me a line somewhere. on any of my social media platforms and let me know so that I can produce content on that. I'm very open to what I talk about. If there's any specific guest that you want me to have on the show, Nathan France, who was on last week, he was a recommendation from a listener. He reached out to me and said, Hey, Brad, I heard you say, ask for people. You really need to interview this Nathan France guy. He's pretty... pretty dope. And I did. And Nathan is. Nathan's a great guy. So if you have any recommendations for me, who to interview, drop me a line, let me know. Any topics you want me to talk about, drop a line, let me know. I'm more than welcome to do or more than happy to do that. And I appreciate you guys. And for that, you can find me on all the social media platforms, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, search for Hammer and Grind Podcast. If you want help with sales, consider checking out my brand new sales accelerator program, go to Contractorsales. com. I'm sorry, Contractorsalesaccelerator. com or just click the links in the show notes and you can find out more information about that. Until next time, guys, you know what to do. Be the best version of you.
