(upbeat music)
-: Hello and welcome back to "The Sharpest Tool".
My name is Josh and this is the place
where we take the sting out of marketing
with everything that we bring to the table.
So great to have Kenny Chapman back in the booth,
owner and founder of The Blue Collar Success Group.
Kenny, welcome back.
-: Thanks Josh, super pumped to be back again.
-: This is part two of our conversation with Kenny.
We had part one where we talked about sales
and a little bit about The Blue Collar Success Group,
if you haven't checked that out,
go ahead and look back for last week's episode
to get a headstart on what we're talking about here.
But, really, what we wanna focus on
is how do we get organizations
to have a better sales process
so sales can increase and businesses can grow?
And I think this is a good jumping off point
for us to dive into the relationship
between sales and marketing, what's your take on that Kenny?
-: So sales and marketing is like a union of marriage
and the challenges, if marriages don't communicate well,
if they don't help each other through blind spots,
if they don't grow in the same capacity,
it might be yin and yang,
so one spouse might be growing faster than the other,
personally, professionally, relationship,
whatever, finance and the other one.
As long as you're growing together
within a certain space, you're gonna remain healthy.
The other thing, what happens in a good marriage,
really good communication, really open communication,
very objective communication and so the sales team
and the marketing team can have a really good marriage
where everything's communication and really well
and reporting is going back and forth.
Or sales and marketing can end up over 50%, 60% now
of the United States that ends up in a divorce
or a turmoil-based relationship
because sales is going, "Marketing's giving us BS leads,
"we need better leads, we're not getting
"the right target avatar, we're not getting this,
"we're not getting that."
And marketing's going, "What are you talking about?
"I over-fed your lead budget last month,
"this and that, you're not qualified to get the sales,
"you're not closing."
And they can go back and forth, head to head,
rather than going what does a good marriage do?
"Hey, I got a little trouble, get here,
"we gotta talk about Johnny's behavior."
They pull together and they go,
"Hey, cool, what can you bring to value to Johnny
"and what can you bring to value?"
If we have lead flow or sales flow,
sales and marketing can solve that together.
-: Absolutely.
What should you be doing
before the sales process even starts?
What would you say?
-: I would say 90% of contractors in the United States,
Canada and Australia are incorrectly priced to go to market.
Meaning that nobody hands you exactly
what it's supposed to be,
we're not selling razors in a convenience store,
you come up with your own pricing,
meaning that you've got to figure out cost of goods
and labor estimates and all these things.
And if you don't do it effectively,
which most don't, then you go to market under-priced
and under-priced selling kills everything.
So don't make a sale until,
and what we all do, and I did it myself,
I started as a dead broke drying cleaner on April first,
April fool's day in 1994 and I called two competitors
and one was, I think one was $52 an hour
and one was $48 dollars an hour.
I said, cool, I'm not quite as good as them,
I'm a little better than them, I'll be $50 an hour.
And it was the worst pricing strategy anywhere on the planet
and it still exists today.
And it might work in certain verticals and industries,
in does not work in the home service space, period.
-: So the prospect decides they wanna work with you,
what should you be doing during that part of the process?
-: We teach a 12-step ultimate client experience,
where that begins with the relationship.
So first, you've got to begin, helping the client understand
that you're their hero.
Right, everybody wants a hero.
So as a home service company,
when you get in the home, if you're listening to this,
train your team to uncover the relationship first.
People, we talk about no like and trust,
the old adage, "Oh, what do buy no like and trust."
That's not true, you can buy from people you don't like,
you do it from your cable provider every month,
so let's get that one off the table, right?
-: Yeah.
-: So it can happen.
Now, in the home service, face to face,
it definitely comes on.
So if I need to be liked, so I need to be known
in order to be trusted, there's no sale
that ever happens anywhere without a certain level of trust.
I trust that my cable provider will provide the service,
so if I need to get to trust, then I better have
in my sales process, Josh, a way to open up and get known.
'Cause you can't like me, if you don't know me.
I need to know something about you,
you need to know something about me
and we slowly build this relationship
as I uncover your needs.
I give you options that you asked for,
even though you might not have asked straight away for it,
I understand it, I'm gonna give you,
because you asked for this, I'm gonna give you that
and we're gonna tie back to the trust factor
and really good things are gonna happen
because you're offering everything
and letting them make an empowered decision.
Most sales are killed because they're never offered
in home service.
-: I love that.
And then now you've created the job for the customer,
you've done it, you've completed the work, now what?
Well, what do you do
after that entire process has taken place?
-: So you better have, I mean, a massive, massive focus
of your closing process had better be around online reviews.
So the first part is, number one, online reviews,
so there's three units, right?
Well, let's call it marketing, before,
during and after units of marketing.
And we market originally, Scorpion crushes it
at the before unit marketing.
So we get the lead.
Now we're during, really, the sales process
is during unit, so now that goes on.
Now, most contractors drop the ball with after unit,
meaning what's the review, what's the follow up,
what's the happy call, what's the touch?
See, the thing is, 90% of happy calls never get answered,
but it still makes an impact, it still makes a touch,
there's a reason that Facebook checks our,
or reports statistics of engagement
and interactions and things like that.
Guess what?
If that matters, then as contractors you better be engaging,
and what happens is you leave the home
and you have a handshake, "Yoh, thanks John.
"Oh, by the way, if I did good,
"it'd be great if you went on Google."
"Oh, go on Google, I'm gonna do that,
"sure, of course, see you next time."
And I drive away in my truck
and you forgot by the time I get to the corner
what the name of my company was,
all that different type of stuff.
So now in two years, when you might need me,
I've got to start to process all over again,
rather than monthly staying in touch with you,
doing some after unit marketing,
thanking you for your sale, reminding that that water heater
was eight years old when we were there
and it's been another two years, just wanted to keep it on,
we don't budget for the.
Just communicate, communicate, communicate
in a safe and valuable way in the after unit of marketing
then when that client comes back around,
we have to have repeat clients in order to survive.
-: Yeah, there's no question, reputation is so powerful,
I'm so glad you touched on that because that is
a major differentiator, you wanna talk about value,
people love working with people
their friends have worked with, right?
And then there's a referral basis that comes out of that,
it's just, it's insanely powerful,
so I'm so happy you touched on that.
How do you determine where you're starting,
when it comes to making more sales,
to determine if you're on track,
in terms of your improvement,
how do you create those baselines?
-: So the first thing that you wanna do
is get a beginning slate.
So what are my current revenue numbers,
how many calls have I run?
We used to this on,
you can do it on a note page,
how many calls, how many have you run,
how many have you closed?
Get some key performance indicators
regarding your conversion rate.
How often do you go in a home
and how many of those do you close?
Out of those that you close,
what's the average dollar amount?
And then on average, how many of those do you run?
And you start looking at that
and now I start, as my data gets better,
as my software gets better, I start segmenting that data
and going, okay cool.
Now, from that average, I might go,
I've got a 800-dollar average overall,
now I start chunking that down by offer,
by line item and start going,
okay, here's where I'm at.
So I'd know that next month if my average sale
was 600, cool, I'm up, I know what's going down.
Now, the other thing is with tracking data,
now what happened?
I got a 600-dollar average sale
but my conversion rate went from 85% to 78%
so now I need to think about that, Josh.
And go, okay, I lost more opportunities
but I made more money on the opportunities that I ran,
so now we find that balancing algorithm
and that's why it's so important to engage
with a coach or find that clarity
so you know what you're doing and why,
no different, and here's the funny thing,
no different than millennials wanna know
why they're doing something tying back to them,
you clients wanna know why you're offering
what you're offering and why it's priced the way it is.
And guess what?
You wanna know why millennials ask for certain,
all of us wanna know why, just answer the question.
-: Yeah, let's talk about belief and confidence
and the importance of those when it comes to selling deals,
instilling trust and using the relationship aspect
when it comes to sales.
What's your take on that?
-: Belief and confidence, it's massive.
My first book, "The Six Dimensions of Change"
was not written about any industry,
it's about changing your mind.
So in sales, confidence and belief
is pivotal and paramount
because many people in home services
grew up a lot like I did.
I grew up wearing second hand clothes and different things.
And we were the people that went to Taco Bell for a treat,
it's us and them mentality, they drove nice cars,
we didn't, all those types of things.
And I'm not whining, I'm just stating a fact
and that fact carried with me when I got into sales
and offering things that I'm offering.
We sell, think about this,
we sell products now that cost twice as much
as I made my first month
as a United States Military soldier.
-: Wow.
-: So there's a mindset, that you go,
okay, this air conditioner cost twice as what it did
for me to go to war for a year, but.
And so you start going price and value.
Most sales are killed in sales peoples' heads
because I started thinking I'm placing my buying decisions
or habits that I've had to work through,
as an educated adult, I start going, wait a minute,
maybe this person doesn't need this product or this service.
Let me ask everybody on the line a question.
How many of you listening right now,
just nod your heads for us in space,
have a smart phone of some sort?
You think you need it now, but there is a time
they didn't even exist.
And so here's the reality, is now if you lost your iPhone,
I saw a comedian say that once, he's like,
"I don't have kids but I lost my iPhone once,
"and I swear that's like losing a kid in a super market."
(laughs)
So point is now it was a want that has become a need.
And it didn't become a need
until we go to experience it and we understood
all the value it can add to our life.
Sales people job is to make that experience
and to show 'em what's going on, that's the reality.
-: I love that.
And yeah, there's more people that have a cellphone
than that have a toothbrush, that's an interesting stat.
(laughs)
-: Oh man.
-: Just to put it in perspective.
You know it takes the average person
that loses his cellphone 60 minutes
to actually start looking for it and report it lost.
Versus the average person who loses a wallet,
it takes 24 hours for them to report that lost.
It's insane, we're so connected to it
and I'm glad you brought that up, that is so powerful.
When it comes to selling, having confidence
in the value that you're providing
with the products and services
that you're providing a customer helps close deals,
it just does.
And if you have technicians, sales people
who are lacking that confidence, case in point,
first thing that you work on with them, drill that,
so they really see, really see, the value
and really buy in to the value.
If they're not bought into themselves,
how are they gonna make someone else buy into it?
-: And that's it.
And from my coaches hat, I can't not say this,
that them buying into it doesn't mean that they would buy
the product or service, the deal is,
I don't have to drive a Lamborghini to be able
to be able to be a good Lamborghini salesperson,
it would help to ride in it,
it would help to know all the horse power
and all the cool, crazy things it will do
but I don't have to own one of those
or be in an income category to buy one
in order to offer somebody that is in that place
the value of that vehicle.
-: I learned this long ago, I asked the question
of an associate of mine for one of the side hustles
I've run in the past.
And I posed the question, and it was
around the pricing thing, and it just dawned on me
at one point five years ago, where it was,
why do I have such a problem charging something
that I wouldn't personally pay?
Just because I wouldn't personally pay for that
or the pay that I'm asking for it,
doesn't mean someone else doesn't value that
more than I value it, in terms of the price game.
So we can automatically disqualify and discredit people,
in terms of their ability to buy into something
just because we don't personally value.
We have to take our personal bias out of the equation
and really focus on the value it has the potential to bring
a customer who does need it and does have the value
there already to pay for it.
-: You are not your own customer, period.
-: Period. -: Get that through your head.
-: Love that.
-: I know a lot of home service providers listening
are probably really, really overwhelmed
with a lot, a lot of data here.
Where's the most valuable place you think
a business owner should be spending their time?
-: Business owners need to think more.
-: I agree.
-: The reality is, in the home service space,
we're not geared toward having boards of directors
and people that really hold us accountable,
that's one of the reasons we run mastermind groups,
we have board groups where we act
as your board of these companies.
Why?
It helps what Keith Cunningham calls the dumb tax,
it helps us avoid the dumb tax as owners.
When we take a moment, step back,
yes, I'm a fan of yoga and meditation
and all of those things.
And everybody went, "Oh, I'm not doing that."
Here's the deal, you don't have to do that,
but you do have to carve out some time to think
because what we just said,
why do you find that cellphone so quick?
Because you're glued to it, go out of the country,
you start realizing.
So the fact is, you can always be doing things,
successful business owners create the gap
in order to truly think about what's going on.
When you think about it, Josh,
all of your biggest problems today in business
came from your greatest thinking at the time.
And so everybody think about that, right now.
Now, what if you could go back and challenge that thinking
at the time, and maybe have avoided
one of those challenging things,
and I don't call 'em mistakes, I believe we learn from 'em,
but I know that there's some that if I can avoid
that lesson or learn it prior to
or learn it from somebody else
or somebody that's been there, I would definitely do that.
Just do yourself a favor and take a step back
and think really quickly.
Edison one time, or Henry Ford had Thomas Edison
in tour in the Ford planet way back in the day
and they're walking around doing a tour,
I get to do a tour of Scorpion.
I haven't been here since we opened here,
you guys opened here, so I'm gonna cruise around.
And they were doing that,
so Henry Ford's showing Edison around
and they get back and they go,
"What do you think of the day today?"
And Edison's like, "It was great,
"except I would fire that guy."
And he points at one guy just sitting in a chair.
And Ford's like, "What, what do you mean?"
He's like, "Oh, I'd fire that guy."
He's like, "Why?"
He said, "All he's done is just sit
"in that chair all day today."
And Ford said, "Oh, yeah, that's someone,
"so I pay him to think."
And so we look at people in companies like Ford,
companies that were created greatly,
and yeah, we wanna model them,
until it comes to some of the stuff that really gets hard.
And your business isn't hard, finding people isn't hard,
thinking differently and taking action,
that's what's hard.
-: Absolutely.
What to-dos, from your perspective,
yield the most bang for your buck
when it comes to investing in your sales process.
-: Getting clarity of being margined correctly,
get your margins correct with your pricing,
first and foremost.
Then get clarity of what you truly want to accomplish
in that sales process and build the system
for the person having the communication.
Get them involved, if it's a new process,
if you're not adopting our process
or anybody that already has something built,
you wanna build your own that's great.
I think it's important that you have a step by step,
here's the deal.
We think actors, actors and actresses
scripting is like, oh, hey, cool,
you think about the highest paid actor
in Hollywood last year, I don't know who it is
off the top of my head, but I will tell you this,
they're not paid near as much for their acting,
as they are for their ability to run with the script.
What do I mean by that?
Great sales people all have scripts, Josh,
we just don't know it,
because they make it a part of their fabric.
So when you're building a sales process of any kind,
you have got to have scripting in it,
and then you've gotta train it effectively,
people don't wanna be robots,
millennials certainly wanna have their freedom in capacity,
however, they will follow that guided map,
that road map, if you will,
and allow them to be themselves.
You cannot create repeatable success in a process
without some form of scripting and reporting involved.
-: I love that, very actionable,
very specific, very direct, I think that's great advice
for everybody listening.
I wanna close this with a little bit of a plug
for just personal development and learning,
'cause I think it's so power,
we can never stop that aspect,
especially as business owners.
-: So true. -: Why are podcasts
like "The Sharpest Tool" and other podcasts
really important for home service business owners
to digest and take in?
What value can they get from a podcast that's focused
on home service business success.
-: We have chosen an industry
that, at least on most direct calls,
people aren't looking for or want,
it's not the new iPhone,
I might have to part with a grand for it
but I'm still excited for the new iPhone.
So the challenge is our frontline
is kicked in the teeth all day.
Or we're questioned, how can you charge that much,
why were you late, what was traffic here?
We have challenge day after day, call after call,
upset client after upset client, in challenge,
all of those things.
So Josh, as owners and leaders of these organizations,
we have got to get some good information,
we have got to listen to other people
that are going through the same thing,
that are finding ways to keep your sanity.
I recently heard from a Navy Seal that said,
"All stress is self-induced."
Now, listening to information, like what we're doing today,
getting that information helps us take a step back
and go I'm stressed but is that the market
or is that me allowing the market to self-induce my stress?
-: 100%, we have to own our success a lot more.
And lack of ownership, I've seen it time and time again,
I know you have too.
You're in a business, you're diving in to figure out
how we're gonna move the needle with the business
and you look into it, and it's self sabotage
from a personal level all around.
And the business starts to go under
and it's such a sad thing because it's so controllable.
You can control how you're allowing
outside influences to affect you,
how you're allowing outside influences to affect your team.
And you can have the ability to control that.
And so investing in yourself,
pulling ideas from different sources is just, it's powerful.
-: Yes. -: It's powerful.
Well, this has been awesome Kenny, thank you so much
for the taking the time.
I know we have two episodes here of just beefy value
for our listeners and I really, really appreciate you
coming to the booth to share your knowledge with us.
Where can people find more about yourself
and The Blue Collar Success Group?
-: You better reach out to thebluecollarsuccessgroup.com,
hit up our website, see a little about what we do,
most importantly, reach out to us,
we'd love to have one of our coaches have a chat with you,
see where you're at and see
if we can help you get to that next level.
-: Awesome.
For everybody listening,
definitely hit that subscribe button,
wherever you might be listening at
so you can get more of this awesome content here
at "The Sharpest Tool".
And from all of us, we'll catch you next time.
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