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Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Rewiring Our Mission: (Electricpreneur Secrets)
Helping Electricians Achieve the $1M Service Van so they can experience ultimate control over their futures.
Join Clay Neumeyer & Joseph Lucanie for a new electrifying episode & High-amperage action item each week to spark up your service van sales to $50K, $70K, $100K, $150K months, and beyond!
Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Ep 1 - Electricians Think This Broke Habit Is Saving Them
Welcome to Season 2, "The Million Dollar Electrician: From Sale to Scale" podcast! We're kicking off this season by diving into the one habit that’s keeping more electricians broke than anything else. In this episode, we tackle why emailing quotes is the fastest way to lose a sale and how it’s causing electricians to miss out on doubling their conversion rates. We discuss how presenting quotes in person can transform your business, and we share actionable strategies to help you close more deals, increase your average ticket, and run a more profitable operation.
Join us as we explore the mindset shifts and practical techniques that can elevate your sales game. Plus, we role-play a common objection and show you how to handle it like a pro. If you're still emailing quotes, this episode is your wake-up call.
Don’t miss out—listen now and take your first step towards becoming a Million Dollar Electrician!
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician podcast where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.
Speaker 2:I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeier, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service van.
Speaker 1:Now it's time for sales, it's time for scale, it's time to become a million dollar electrician. Hello, hello, welcome. Season two, episode one of the new million dollar electrician here with more value, more power than ever before, and today's no exception. Joe, I'm excited to dive right into this with you and everyone who's listening, because this one habit leads to more broke electricians than anything else and, worse, they think it's saving them money. The average email electrician sells between 30% and 40% of the jobs they quote, and our goal is 80%. Man, this is no bueno, if you don't mind me saying, how do you feel about emailing prices over, joe?
Speaker 2:I have a belief that email is where you send presentations that go and die. That's literally the one place that they have and it's such a shame because people still believe that emailing is the way to get the sales closed. But really and I hate to call you guys out on it it's the coward's way out.
Speaker 1:It is, so why does it keep happening? Then, If we know this and I know there's people listening right now they're like no, no, no, no Email is saving me time, it's saving me money and this actually helps us, doesn't hurt us. Why is this happening?
Speaker 2:So the reason why is it's actually the path of least resistance. We often don't like to accept that we're the reason why is it's actually the path of least resistance. We often don't like to accept that we're the reason why the call isn't going forward. And oftentimes we, as electricians, are very logic-minded people, meaning that when we talk about the specs and we talk about the material, we talk about the voltage and amps. That's where we think the value is when really the value is in the connection.
Speaker 2:When you remove the connection, all they're left with is when really the value is in the connection. When you remove the connection, all they're left with is the numbers and the parts and the materials and everything goes into it. So that's where they start getting out of the emotion brain, where they should be, and instead solely focusing on the logic brain. And once you have a customer in full logic brain, that's when they email it over. It comes back or the. Can you break this down for me? Or hey, I'm not understanding this. Why are you charging so much? Because they're trying to compare you to some other number rather than comparing your service to someone else's service.
Speaker 1:I think there is an emotional part here too, though, and it's when you're originally in the home of the customer and maybe you're not quite comfortable, or maybe you didn't quite hit it off as well as you did, or maybe you did hit it off, and now you've got this little self-objection, thinking like I'm imposing on their time, I need to get out of here. Did you ever feel that, brother?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, the thing is is when I remember, when I first started, there was always this fear that I needed to sell. And that was the problem, right? Because when you go out and you're like I need to sell, that becomes the number one focus. And yeah, when you're in that place, it sometimes tends on being more pushy, and that's where you can start feeling you're taking advantage of people's time.
Speaker 2:I have a different belief, where I say sales isn't something you're doing to someone, it's rather you're doing something for someone. But when you email it over, you're simply giving them a job. Now, it's their job to not only go and find this information, it's their job to sit and translate the information, which likely isn't going to be done without that help, and then it's up to them to determine whether your value stacks against someone else. So if you recognize that's what's happening, it would make complete logical sense that they would need other estimates to compare to, or they would need an outside consultant, like the handy cousin or the general contractor or the neighbor, to come and review your proposal. Doesn't that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does, man, it does, and I can't help but think and just kind of empathize with everyone who's out there. Maybe running too many calls a day seems to be where one of the roots of this problem is. Maybe you're trying to run five or six calls a day. If you're lucky to get that many leads and I mean even quick math, right Six calls If you're only closing, you know, 30% of those, you're going to get what Roughly two, two sold out of those. That's to get what roughly two, two sold out of those. That's a lot of work to do for just a couple of calls sold and based on that level of connection.
Speaker 1:There's huge missed opportunities here because you're not, like you said, building advanced rapport by coming back and presenting, or even presenting while you're still there. If you could and for that reason you know, not only could you double your conversion rate here and maybe be getting four out of six jobs and quickly realize, oh wait, I can't do six jobs a day, not service calls, that's a lot but also what would happen to your average ticket. And let's even look at what's happening with your average ticket. If you're only selling two jobs at the average 500, that seems to be prominent in the industry five, 600 bucks. You're talking about a thousand dollar day. And that's exactly why, even in our podcast group right now, million Dollar Electrician, where people are conversing about our playbook that you can get to help you launch this million dollar service and it's exactly why people are saying come on, you can't average $2,500 days.
Speaker 2:You know what I really think it's amazing when you break it down that way, because I almost want to isolate a little bit further People take on more calls because they're emailing it over, and I want to explain what I mean by that.
Speaker 2:So if you email your quotes over, you have a far lower chance of closing, meaning that you need to up the volume. So you up the volume and take on more calls, but in order to complete those calls in a timely manner, you do less time per call, thus increasing or decreasing the value you're providing to that client. That client receives less value and then needs to compare you to someone else because you've already operated at a lower price point now. So the problem is is just by emailing it, it starts to compound the problem more and more. Instead, if you recognize and said I'm going to present in person, you allot for more time per call, meaning you can take less calls per day, but those calls have higher impact and the higher chance of a continued repeat business, of a continued repeat business. So, by the thing that you think is actually saving you time, it's actually hamstringing you and making you work way harder for far less money.
Speaker 1:Can I add to the personal pain side of this?
Speaker 2:By all means.
Speaker 1:There's something that all of us do that's hiding beneath the surface of what you just said too, and it's a recency bias problem. See what happens when you leave that residence and you think, okay, later on I'm gonna build the quote for this project. Do people usually do it right away?
Speaker 2:no, do they?
Speaker 2:usually get it done that day even I mean, we've seen people come in like the day of the presentation being like hey, I haven't built the presentation. At this point, what do I do? And for those individuals it's I pray at that point, what do I do? And for those individuals, it's really pray at that point, because you really don't have a lot of options. I personally feel that you should do your presentation within 48 hours of you meeting the customer the first time, so that when you mentally review and walk through their home and you review the conversations and those moments that you had that really connected with those clients, you're speaking to those things rather than what was I doing on that call? It was three weeks ago. I'm going to have to reschedule and ask them to have a little more time to view it one more time.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's evil there. There's evil there, brother, rescheduling now. So here's what happens. Let's go into the shoes of this for a moment. You're at the customer's house. You're feeling the pressure to leave. That's your process, anyway. We're just going to email a quote over. What your customer doesn't know is you've already got your three quotes behind, you've already rescheduled someone else. Does that sound familiar so far? And so you're, almost without integrity, offering a commitment to this customer by telling them oh, I'll have this quote to you in 48 hours, when really you know that just added a force to the list that you have to do. And are you gonna do theirs first before the other three, or last after the other three? And then, how accurate is this quote gonna be? Not to mention, how short would your messaging be? Are you really gonna be able to explain your solution well in text in the first place, let alone when it's at the bottom of the stack now late getting there. And then you, you depend on the likelihood of whether or not they see the light at the end of the tunnel with you and choose to work with you.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, you feel the stress of what family wants more time. You've spent more time at night now, because you're well behind. You've made commitments beyond your availability and you've got payroll to meet and you don't even know when the next job's coming. It's crazy, and it adds up that much. Next thing you know you're rolling around in the bed, can't sleep. Oh, did I overbid it? Maybe that's why they're not calling back. Should I call them? Oh, wait, worse, did I underbid it? I had a bunch of crazy quotes going through my head that day. If I underbid it and got it now, we're really in trouble. I wonder if they'll pay me on time. Wait, do they even hire me? That sound familiar, joe.
Speaker 2:It sounds like the kind of thoughts that we have when we were first starting in business and just really not knowing where we're going. The closest expression I can think of is imagine that you're blind and you're put into a hallway and you know at the end is the solution? You can do nothing but just stumble and feel around and be like I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Am I even going in the right direction? I don't know, but by the end of it you're covered in bumps, scrapes and bruises and you eventually figure out how to get the door.
Speaker 2:Now the thing is is that's why, when we've designed our program and how we do our presentations, it's going to look so different than the kind of presentation that would be emailed over specifically because the email over presentations need to sell for you. That's the problem with them. If you send an email presentation, you need to describe your warranties, you need to describe your values, you need to describe all the things that are going to go into this project, because they're going to be understood and read by a lay person. What we do is we make it like a presentation, where they're meant to be spoken points and, as a result, you can have a much more concise, more professional looking presentation that looks less like a contract but also is far more impactful and easier to get through. So if it's easier to get through, looks less threatening and has a higher yield, why aren't people doing it?
Speaker 1:It's a great question, man. It's a great question. So let's play a game of what if with the math. Since I introduced the negative math, let's introduce the positive math. Is it fair to say that just presenting ignore all the other factors that presenting in person could make use of other sales levers like the ones that we teach? A quick one, we're not going to go into it here. But what about the law of contrast that says, hey, if I lift a heavy bucket first and then a light one, that the lighter bucket feels even lighter. You can only have that work for you if you've got multiple solutions and you start by offering the top first. Correct.
Speaker 1:That alone improves conversion rate, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does, because I literally have had situations where the customer and even further you can be amazed what the customer might want because you'll have some economy buyer who's like I'm not spending more than $900. But then you would present and you build the value and you describe your top option. I've had customers tell me no, you know, that actually sounds more than what I think it was, and you end up taking a higher option and it's like this is insane, but I never would have gotten it if I didn't do the presentation in that format. They need to see what's best first and then what comes after only seems like you're the hero because you're presenting five more solutions that cost less.
Speaker 1:And if you did that, couldn't you see how you could go from a 30, 33% conversion rate to a 66%?
Speaker 1:and all of a sudden, just run four calls a day and close maybe three of those on average and get your average ticket up double that. I mean, can we really hit a thousand dollar average ticket? Now, all of a sudden, we're actually closing 2,500 to three grand on average a day, and all we did was stop emailing it over guys. So what is stopping you? Why are you an email electrician? If you're still doing this, we're trying to call an audible here for you. What is holding you back from ending this brutal habit? Admitting that it's not saving you? And we didn't even talk about the cost of the leads that you're burning in the process. Joe, is there anything else you want to add to that pile, brother?
Speaker 2:I mean other than us getting into the cost of the leads, which we can always cover in another episode. But really, at the end of the day, I want to say, if you're listening to this and you're still with us as a point, emailing it over is like drinking poison. What it means is that it may go down easy, it may taste sweet, because you don't have to come back and deal with it. You say it's off my calendar and it's in the air, but all the time up to this that you've poured into the customer it's like pouring water into a sieve. You pour it in only to watch it drip out. All that effort is wasted and lost and all you're left with is the dregs that stuck to the bottom and no one wants to drink that.
Speaker 1:I agree, man. What do you say? We end this with a quick objection handle to give maximum value, and then we'll see everyone again next week. After that. Let's do it All right, joe. Hey, I appreciate you coming by and designing some solutions. I really just want to talk this over with my wife tonight. We don't buy anything same day. Is there any way that you could just email these solutions over to us?
Speaker 2:I'd be happy I'd help you with that. So, just for starters, I know we presented a range of options, which of these we look and have emailed over.
Speaker 1:Hopefully all of them, man and just want to, like I said, we like to go over everything on the table and just talk privately about it.
Speaker 2:Okay and I can understand where you're coming from, but do you mind if I ask you a question? Yeah, please. Now we designed a full spread, like obviously we've got from the finest money can buy full renovations all the way to the most bare minimum where we're just cobbling it back together. Is it safe to say that all of these are being equally considered? Is that what I'm understanding?
Speaker 1:Well, no, if I'm being honest, there you're right, it's quite a range, and I appreciate that you did that. The top one's definitely too much and the bottom one doesn't seem like enough.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations. We already got it down to four, so that's awesome. So what are these options do you usually like when it comes to you and your wife doing things? Do you find that you're doing things more on like the premium level, more in the mid range, or more with the economy?
Speaker 1:You know that's a great question. I think that we're trying to save money on this, but I also noticed how the silver option included some work done by you that we're not interested in doing, if I'm being honest.
Speaker 2:Okay. So why don't we get rid of the silver one too? Okay, yeah, I mean, if that's one thing you're not interested in, then that's totally fine. I never want to feel like I'm pushing to do something you don't want. So congratulations. We got it down to three. So, realistically, we're stuck here with the bronze, the economy and the base. Oh sorry, we're delivering it. So what are we down to? Silver, bronze and economy, yes, so then we're're gonna have gold, bronze and economy. At this point had to mentally get myself into the presentation Okay.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of different ways we can help you with this. Obviously, we have some of the more premium range and we have some more on the economy range. Now, when it's something that you'd be describing to your wife, do you mind if I hear? How would you be describing it?
Speaker 1:I think we would say basically you know, joe came by, gave us a range of solutions. Um, there was a couple different options. I personally felt that, you know, we were trying to keep costs low, but we also didn't want to do certain portions of this work. But he also included a couple of things here that were kind of exciting and along what we were talking about in the past. So I wanted you to have, uh, all three of those as an option to help me choose.
Speaker 2:I I love that and I got to say you've done a really good job thinking about how we're going to do it and by you doing it that way, it would actually save us a ton of time.
Speaker 2:But that's not the goal. The goal is not to make you save us time, it's for us to save you time. So this is what I suggest. What I can do for you is not only can I take these options and get them ready to send over, but what I'll also do is I'm going to break them down to another extent so you can understand more of what's really going into them. I'll come back when you and your wife are available, and what I'll do is we'll show you all the different choices that are available so that you have complete understanding. At that point, there'll be no pressure to move forward if it's not something you feel is the perfect fit at that time. And if I'm not the right fit and you feel that it's obviously not me, then I'll even stay here, crumble my presentation, throw it against the wall and I'll help you go through any other options you have, even if they're not with us, to make sure that you had the best choice for your dollar. If I said, I could do that. What would happen then?
Speaker 1:It sounds really good You'd take that extra time with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it'd be an. Honestly, it's an honor to work with you. At the end of the day, I want to ensure that you have a complete understanding of what you're paying for, because anything less than that is less than the best kind of service I can provide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds good, joe. Thanks for joining me in that, brother. I'm going to let that go there and not be a complete pain in the ass. But what I love about the way you handle objections is you're just going back to your process, falling back on your truth, falling on the sword. There's nothing wrong with anything you're saying there. It's not pressure. It's absolutely helping us narrow our thoughts, our decisions and clearly, clearly, clearly, far, far ahead of any email that I'd have to decipher myself and decide on a solution there. So thank you, brother.
Speaker 2:Truly my pleasure. Occasionally it's fun being put on the spot because you know, okay, sometimes I hear, I hear in class where people be like, oh well, you were on the podcast and possible, you just rehearsed it, and then they see it done live and it's the same as we do it on the podcast. So I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to get pushed every now and then. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:You got it, man, and that's a wrap for today's episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast.
Speaker 2:We hope you're buzzing with new ideas that charge up to take your business to the next level.
Speaker 1:So don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with fellow electricians. Together, we'll keep the current flowing.
