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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 24 - Dorian Hayes’ Road to Become a Million Dollar Electrician
Dorian Hayes shares his transformative journey from earning 40K part-time to nearing one million dollars in sales within 17 months. He emphasizes the importance of learning, customer service, and maintaining a positive mindset for achieving success in the home service industry.
• Dorian's leap from industrial work to residential services
• The impact of mentorship and structured learning
• Emphasizing the fundamentals of sales for effective results
• Turning diagnostic calls into high-value sales
• Differentiating between concerns and objections in the sales process
• The significance of customer relationships and trust
• Gratitude and a positive attitude as core business values
• Focus on leads, sales, and team culture for business growth
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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. All right, and welcome back to another episode. Today we've got another two-year anniversary, following Dan Totten's big second year anniversary. We got to learn so much about his growth. Following Dan Totten's big second year anniversary, we got to learn so much about his growth. Today we get to dive back in with Dorian Dorian Hayes. Welcome back, brother. Nice to have you.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, man. It's always a pleasure being with you guys Very cool.
Speaker 2:And how are you doing today, Joe? I'm doing awesome, man. I got a strong cup of coffee. I'm surrounded by friends. I love living my passion.
Speaker 1:How can you ask for more? Here's how you ask for more by joining us today in this one, because what we're about to unveil is how Dorian's really blown up from going from what was at 40K part-time before August of 2023 to then jumping full in full trust with us, jumping into our silver, our flagship program, going that first year with us and now beyond. Uh, you've recently maybe seen a value piece. We've been talking about dorian stuff. We're going to go deeper on that full history of dorian's journey here today and pick up where we left off about a year ago. No, a little over a year ago.
Speaker 1:We did the first episode with you after your first quarter. But, man, there's been a ton of lessons, challenges, growth, great moments, high fives, moments where I know you guys, you know maybe you wanted to even throw in the towel and I'd love to jump in a lot of that today and expose it so others can learn from that too. What do you say, brother? Absolutely, let's do it all right. We were talking about some numbers before this since you started. Uh, you just broke 900K in. About what are we at? 17 months of business?
Speaker 2:here 17, 18 months, something like that.
Speaker 1:yeah, you hit the seven-figure mark in about 18, 19 months of business. At your current sales rate that's exceptional. We're talking about right around 330 calls sold, 550 calls ran, 874 leads. Right around 330 calls sold, 550 calls ran, 874 leads. An average ticket since you started of 2684 and a 60% close rate. Man, those are great numbers for an electrician. How in the HE I'm bringing the Canadian out how in the HE double hockey sticks did you manage to take on the sales and get a liking for residential service so quick, even with very little experience?
Speaker 3:So, honestly, you know, whenever I was working in the plants, before I jumped ship and decided to go full time with the business, I had no idea that, you know, residential service was you know a thing that I could build my business around? Residential service was you know a thing that I could build my business around? And, honestly, I think I started seeing you guys' content, probably around June or July, before I quit, and just after consuming all of the podcasts and all the videos and the value pieces you guys were giving out, and also a few calls with Clay, it just, you know, it spoke more, I guess, spoke more to who I am and what I love to do, which is, you know, honestly, just help people, be around people and after, you know, realizing that, hey, the only thing I have to do is take action on the things that you guys provide to us. Um, after kind of diving to the numbers and hypotheticals, if you know, we just do X, y, z, we would be able to do this.
Speaker 3:And I think um, that was kind of what led me to just, you know, taking that jump, that leap of faith and just believing in, um, you know, taking the action on the right things man.
Speaker 2:And here we are. If I could jump into that for a moment, because I don't feel like we've given it the proper context. And the thing is, Dorian, you got to give yourself a little more credit here. Like, you started off as an industrial guy, you were not in business, you didn't have any experience. Just making any jump from the familiar to the unfamiliar is already a huge bridge to overcome. Then getting into a whole new niche trade, completely blind into it and saying we're going to go right off and we're going to follow a process that I've been seeing is working and you put your whole heart into that, that's another bridge you've crossed. But then to not only go further and have the full 17, 18 months where you were consistently devoted to the process you're a promoter, you're devoted to pressing over perfect You've crossed three bridges that most people don't cross in their entire life in 18 months. That's what I feel you need to deserve credit for. So can you give yourself a little bit of love?
Speaker 3:Give a little pat on the back or something. Man, I appreciate that man for sure.
Speaker 2:All right sweet.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, I mean, you know, it's just one of those things where I guess, you know, even now it's like we just we have our blinders on and you know we're just we try to be so focused on, you know, I guess those next steps, you know I guess those next steps and I appreciate you guys, cause that's that is one thing I've learned is, um, you know how important gratitude is and you know, taking that daily, every single day, taking that moment to just, you know, truly step back and appreciate where you're at the things you've overcome, so appreciate that Proud of you, bro.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's like both of you guys said a lot of this comes down to fundamentals, to just doing the basics. Well, I mean or Mosey said this really well actually there's no advanced without a hundred percent basics. What does that mean to you, joe, when you hear something like that?
Speaker 2:So really, what I'm hearing in that is that if you understand the core fundamentals of something like and the best, the best example I do is if we were to say, compare it to Marshall training something. And the best example I do is if we were to say compare it to martial training, right, if you yourself are going to be in a situation where you don't know what you're doing, it's not going to really work. But understanding the basics and the core concepts allows you to be able to implement proper techniques which actually get real results. So many people think and they'll come to us and say like, show me how to handle objections, show me how to do this, this one's stumping me. But they're not realizing that prior to all of this, there's a fundamental step of let's just be someone they trust, like and respect and let's just serve them. And once that core basic is done, those options and over objections you were getting don't really work anymore. So you're ready to just overcome it through. Master of the basics.
Speaker 1:Speaking of objections, I've got a couple of things I wanted to say on that. And, dorian, I'm curious what your opinion is at this point, now that you've been training with us for a while and training in sales in general, doing electrical, do you guys feel like for the most part, people just answer to objections too fast? You know what I mean. And, joe, I think you even train on this and you may have to correct my language because joe's a sales bot. If you guys don't realize that joe's training sales about six to eight classes a week at this point. But ultimately there's a difference between a concern and objection. Would you agree with that? What do you guys?
Speaker 1:think is the difference there?
Speaker 2:So really it's something that we teach when we get into it is that someone may say that is a lot of money, and that's not an objection. That's a statement, it's a reaction, it's a natural thing that progresses. The problem is, some person might say, oh, they're objecting to it by saying it's too much, when really it's okay. Well, I completely acknowledge that. So, with that being said, with us being an investment because we're not cutting corner on quality, reliability or customer service, how would you like to proceed? Yeah, let's do that one, whereas an objection is you're out of your mind, I'm not paying this. Or they say anything along the lines of no, I'm not doing this, that's an objection.
Speaker 1:Okay, dorian, I'm tagging you in. Has anyone told you you're out of your mind yet?
Speaker 3:I've gotten that a few times, man.
Speaker 3:But, honestly, and something I'm thankful for is, you know, whenever you have a sales process that's truly designed to serve the customer at the highest level, you know we're able to go into with complete confidence.
Speaker 3:That you know we're not doing anything unethical. Even when it comes to the price, although we may be more of an investment to work with the, the services that we do provide we do believe is true, like you know, unlike anything that our industry has to offer, especially in our area. So when it comes to that just complete confidence that what we're offering is truly in their best interest and you know, at the end of the day, they have the ability to choose whether or not they want to move forward with it, and we're perfectly fine both ways. And even when we do get that, you know, at the end of the day, we're able to part ways as friends and we even help them out additionally by referring them to some of our referral partners in our area. So, at the end of the day, the customer always wins and we're just putting our best foot forward to help and serve them at the highest level.
Speaker 2:I love when you get into it and you said really, because you've mentioned so far the word service so many times in just that one statement, and I like that. That's a core value that we both represent and that we both emulate, Because if you're not serving, the sale will never follow. So many people go in the wrong direction and I feel like this is a major industry issue People will chase the number, thinking that will lead to the success. But when you shift your mind to, instead of acquisition, to serving I mean it's a common law in giving we receive right. When you serve and you pour it out with your full heart and customers start to see that it stops being apples to apples and, like we say, it's like apples to Corvettes. It's a completely different example. So I love that you're focused on the service man. That shows you're really on that right path.
Speaker 3:For sure, and I mean I feel like the price objection is probably one of the most common things we face. But at the same time there's been so many situations where you know we may come in and they may have multiple quotes already and there's been times where we've even been double or maybe triple the other quotes but they still choose us. Double or maybe triple the other quotes but they still choose us. And then, whenever you pair situations like that with the fact that you know I think we're at 95 or 96 five-star reviews, you know we get, you know so much feedback from our customers and you know Juliet doing happy calls after a project is finished, that kind of just gives me all the proof, in addition to the data, that you know the services we provide truly are exceptional. And you know, with that, you know we're, I mean I'm always happy to offer it, you know so.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I don't mean to jump into one of them, but just the last thing I'm thinking here is your slogan, like the thing you've always said is we're here to help. That's it, and I really feel like that is the circle that comes back to it. You really put out the image that you're here to help. You show up when it's time to do the service, and then you do the before, after before, during and then after levels of care.
Speaker 2:So you're here to help is really something you should tattoo to your sleeve at this point.
Speaker 3:Man, I, I, yeah, yeah. I put it at the end of my on all my facebook posts quite often, so that's sticking around dorian, can you tell us about a recent job that you did?
Speaker 1:I've got one in mind and I want to get right into it, if that's right yeah, go ahead there was a job where you recently I think it was your top option was chosen and it was for a landscape lighting package yeah, I remember that one, but the call out was actually a demand call, I believe, where really the fix could have been. What was your lowest option on this one in the hundreds?
Speaker 3:um, so my lowest option in that case? Um well, it was actually 149, because that is also an option for them to say, hey, we're not going to do any of your solutions, we're just going to pay for the diagnostic and at the very least, they know what's wrong already. So you know, they're still paying for that information and that service that they can take to another electrician if they wanted to.
Speaker 1:Good point, yeah yeah, yeah, love that. So you get a call out. What you found was hey, there's a diagnostic here. But what you then did, I mean, could you walk us through the process? I mean, don't worry about giving too much away, tell us what happens there. What do you do? How do you come out with a 24,000 sale from a potential just a 149 diagnostics?
Speaker 3:yeah, man. So, um, you know, initially you get calls like that and you're like, okay, you know, in the back of your mind, as electricians you're already thinking like, okay, probably there's connections somewhere. Some of the lights are working, some of them not. That means that power's still getting there. So landscape lighting pretty sure there's just wire nuts underneath the ground, maybe taped something like that, and probably just don't have a good connection. After finding that and just having the conversation with the homeowner and saying you know what is this like, you know what is the experience with not having your landscape lights, you know, just having really the conversation about why they wanted this, the conversation about why they wanted this, why they reached out to us, and honestly what I ended up doing is we initially sold it at a lower option on that first visit. So it was, I think initially it was around like 2,300 or something like that. We were just going to basically rerun all the wires for all new connections and we were even going to pay to have the landscape remotes for her, because she just got it done the week before of that. So you know, make it more convenient for her. She actually chose that option.
Speaker 3:But then we had another phone call the day after and she was discussing, like you know, since you guys are already going to be, you know, running all new wires, do you think it would make sense to just get brand new lights? And then she started asking about, you know, all kinds of questions and talking about just outside lighting in general. And I said, well, you know what, why don't we do this? Let's just get you back on the schedule. We have some availability tomorrow We'll come out and we can just talk about everything that you guys wanted to do. So that way, before you decide to make this investment on this option, we can make sure that we have absolutely all the possibilities. So that way you can make the best decision.
Speaker 3:And so we go back the next day and we, honestly, we sit down on her couch for, like honestly, about two and a half hours just talking, like just having regular conversations, and you know she's showing me things around the house that she doesn't like, things that she wants to do, and, um, by the end of it, I I had a good understanding of exactly what she was wanting and, honestly, man, I just, you know, following you guys's process, I just offered um six options, ranging from the absolute best possible service that we can provide, all the way down to the bare minimum, and she loved the top option so much that she was like, okay, yes, I want that.
Speaker 1:So there's a few things here to unpack. Okay, I love this. I love a real good case study, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So did you fix the initial problem on the original call yes, so I did a temporary connection, um, that still allowed her lights to work, um, but I just basically told her that, hey, and until we're able to, there's a few of them that that weren't working but I was able to fix fix like the main lights that were shining up. So I fixed that and I just explained to her you know why how important good electrical connections are in your electrical system. So we left it that. You know, she was fine that everything was working at that time. So I would say, yes, I did provide a temporary solution, but it wasn't a permanent fix.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what I want to hear. Great language, Great language. So we've called this anchoring in the past. So you get a demand call. You've learned more about their experience. You've earned trust by listening well and just having great conversation, asking great questions, because real sales leadership happens through questions, not not through statements. Right 100%? Am I getting this right so far, Dorian?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. You actually made a post about that that I shared with my team. I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it was he who asked the questions. I think Controls the call. Yes, yes, yes, and he who talks the most loses, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, statistically right, we had Ciro AI on here recently, the CEO there, joseph number two, who also happened to start a knife company like Joseph, our Joseph number one, which is crazy To us.
Speaker 2:It's like in cutlery man. What are you going to do?
Speaker 1:But we know also from we've had Fathom AI for Zoom meetings et cetera but Ciro AI and what they're able to do and what they measure. There's literally a statistical balance where the most proven sales leaders speak about 35 to 45% of the time. When you start to break through the 50 and become that 65% speaker, it usually means you're falling forward into some traps or you're presenting too much and not allowing them to ask. So yeah, absolutely, there's some real, real gravity around that. Thanks for calling attention to that. So if sales leaderships by questions, you've done that to understand their experience, maybe I sped through that too quick. Did anyone listening or watching this just have?
Speaker 2:an epiphany moment like we should have actually continually on this. But I dig into it, man. We should have.
Speaker 1:We should have right. Well, just by, if you think about the pivot to a question and we've actually done an episode on this, so I'll give the exact example when you're at the panel and there's some expression, some size, something that you're doing in your physical body language, your tonality, and it creates a question mark, it's like a visual for them. For a lot of people they're just like they can't see anything else but this red question mark in this dark hole and all these wires everywhere in the mess. They have to know and if they ask at that point and you start falling forward into describing and answering their question, the sale is lost 100 right there, yeah, and the correct thing to do is actually to pivot there to acknowledge their concern and to pivot and ask another question to take control again. You guys agree with that absolutely agree.
Speaker 2:And the cool thing is is like even what you're saying is even more subtle. It could be as much as just a noise, like, and that's it. And then it's like what wait, well, hold on. What's, what's, what's, what do you? What's, what's on?
Speaker 3:what do?
Speaker 1:we see like don, what's hot, what do we see?
Speaker 2:Don't worry, we can always get to that later. I'm just noticing some things. We can always discuss it when the time comes, if you don't mind me asking, and then shift yeah.
Speaker 1:So you anchor this call by doing that? But the questions you asked allowed you the trust to be able to have the moments where you're able to then communicate the value of good electrical connections. So she's not done with you, but trust is up enough that she calls back. She's now having ideas and considers you a partner in her ideation, a trustworthy, dependable partner. Yeah, like another pause moment here. That's value.
Speaker 3:And, if I can add to that, one of the things that she did mention on the phone to both me and Juliet was she's not from here, so she moves here and she doesn't really know anybody.
Speaker 3:So whenever you know she, one of the things she said was how appreciative that our service was, just by from calling the office. And basically she, you know, she told me, you know, she's a very loyal customer. Once you find someone that you trust, you know she, just you know she'll stick with them for life, basically, especially not being from here. You know, in addition to electrical services, she was needing other things around the home that we were able to provide referrals for. Addition to electrical services, she was needing other things around the home that we were able to provide referrals for. So I think, just honestly, that was like the I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it's like that is the perfect scenario that we're looking for, and the perfect customer that we're looking for is someone who just wants to be taken care of and that's, you know, what we do best.
Speaker 1:Where's our drum roll button? We need you know, we used to say no fancy shit.
Speaker 2:But like I want some fancy shit a little bit sometimes remember I brought a pair of drums on once and you literally couldn't hear it because zoom was case like full bongos and everything couldn't even hear it, zoom was cutting it out.
Speaker 1:I I just I want to snapshot that moment and just like put it on the wall, dorian, because, because, man, the advanced lesson here is and like you said, no advanced without 100% basics. So those 100% basics, following a consistent process, lead you to an advanced insight which is, hey guys, this is our perfect customer that well that I'm willing to go back there and sit on the couch for two and a half hours to work with this person on what they desire, to create a list of solutions based on what they desire. I don't know if you guys heard that enough, but he said, basically, he was able to collect enough information to create a list of solutions based on what they wanted and and what's possible, yep, absolutely combination of the two. If, if you're striking out on present presentations, dare I say, joe, correct me if I'm wrong here, but if you're striking out on presentations, is it possible that you're just too focused on you and the technical shit instead of what they want?
Speaker 2:I can even simplify it even further and say there's a specific part that if you're lacking, the entire presentation falls apart. As technicians and Dorian back me up here, because I'm sure you've experienced it as well we as technicians often describe the problem in our understanding of what the problem is electrically, and we'll say, like you have faulted connections, you've got a faulted electrical system, like whatever it is. We describe the problem but we don't go into how it affects the customer. It's just this is the problem and here's the solution. When you create a third bridge, which is here's currently the problem of the four, what's here's what you called me for, here's what's exactly connected to that, here's what's good and here's what's more. But this is also how it affects you emotionally and physically. That now is a solution that'll sell itself because the customer's invested understands it and relates to it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I confuse my never buys and that you know, especially to your point earlier. You know, sometimes over educating at the wrong times um can lead to that confusion because you're not at the. If you're not ready to give the answers or the solutions to the things that you're trying to educate them on, then they become afraid, they start thinking about price and and at that point you know you go to present and they're not in a position to actually make a decision. But when you save all of that, like we often say, you know the best position for us to be in is with our tablet at the kitchen table with the presentation ready to go part and making sure that everything is in a language that they understand, based on the words that they use. Then you can actually speak to the problem that they're having and the solution that you offer will actually make sense. You know customer doesn't need to know that. You know you're going to pull a number six wire to their new you know oven circuit, uh, to the new electrical oven.
Speaker 3:You know that part doesn't matter, but they want to know, that hey you know, is my oven going to be working or not?
Speaker 2:This is a turnkey installation of dedicated circuitry. We guarantee you won't do a single thing, including the spackling, the painting and the turnkey inspections. Yep.
Speaker 1:What do you do personally, dorian, to listen for and recycle their words? Do you have a trick? Is it something that comes natural to you? Is there something? Are you listening for keywords? Have you ever taken notice, taken stock of what you're doing to utilize that?
Speaker 3:Honestly, I would say it would probably be just a part of the sales process that we have with you guys. Just what was that like? What made you guys decide to do XYZ, or who found this? And even down to just so we're on the same page are you guys looking into this today, not plan on doing this anytime soon.
Speaker 3:So just asking little questions like that, especially if they're like me, when you ask them a question, they're going to want to not only answer the question but then give you all the information after that as well. So in asking those questions sometimes it just leads to like all of this information that they're giving me and I'm just looking for you know, I guess specific words and how they describe the problem that they're experiencing that they call us for. I love that.
Speaker 1:Their feelings about something or what they saw or heard or smelt. Yep yeah, really good stuff. Man, I'm going to dig in here a bit. Okay, sharp shirt, good looking guy, right, everyone can agree with that. Do you think you're special? Do you think sales is a gift you were born with?
Speaker 3:Oh, dude, no, Honestly, when I heard the word sales, before I met you guys, I used to immediately just think of car salesmen trying to get me on something. There's something hidden that I'm not seeing. But after these last 17, 18 months, I've just come to realize that sales truly is just about you know, communicating your ability to solve their problem. And personally, I've never I never had any sales training. I always, honestly, small talk, like even doing podcasts and being on video, was something extremely uncomfortable for me. I was, you know, pretty good in one-on-one situations, talking with people, but to be in a situation where it's like I'm the expert, I'm the one people are looking for for answers and then trying to navigate through their emotions, the things they're saying, and trying to position them to where they can actually make a great decision, that's something that was definitely not in my wheelhouse and something that, honestly, I never saw myself doing.
Speaker 1:To be honest, Do you get nervous when you write a number like 24,000 on a presentation and present it?
Speaker 3:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:Do you have a memory of, like your biggest sold transaction to date? What's do you do you have?
Speaker 3:a memory of like your biggest sold transaction today. Biggest sold would probably be. I think it was like a 48 K platinum, I mean. So it started off as a 32 K and then there were some additions, um, but overall it was a 30. Yeah, I think a 32 K platinum, um, that ended up being like a $48,000 job.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm talking about, man, that's no joke. So you don't get nervous when you write 40, $50,000 on the page.
Speaker 3:No, absolutely not. Um. You know, whenever you know we've done the math, we are, our pricing, our service rate is based on um, all of our expenses throughout the year. So when I look at the numbers and I truly believe, like hey, this is truly how much it costs for us to provide this level of service.
Speaker 3:And something I'm not willing to do is, you know, cut corners on our service, our customer service, all the quality of our work, and I know that you know this is what it takes for us to do that. So whenever we're pricing things out, you know writing the top number, the highest, you know, pack the platinum offer, you know it just is what it is. You know we're doing our part by at the very least giving them every single possible solution that you know we get, that we have. And then the fact that we also give them a range down to the bottom really just leaves it in their wheelhouse. So, although the platinum might be more of an investment, we've also created the range down to the bottom, so you have the ability to choose and control your budget.
Speaker 2:Love it. The thing that stood out so much that I just immediately wanted to jump on because I love what you're saying, dorian. It's something I frequently say is seek clarity and confidence follows, and that's really what happened here. You know your number because, based on our pricing techniques together and our pricing process, it's I know my expenses and I freaking know them. They're all in front of me. I know what I'm paying my people, I know what the expenses are going to be, I know my growth, I know where I'm trying to go, I know how I'm going to get there. And if I take away from this number out of my lack of confidence, it's like I'm cutting myself so that I don't make you upset. That doesn't make any sense. You already know what the numbers are. So because you have clarity of your process, the confidence naturally follows it, because you're like this is what I need to do.
Speaker 1:It says it right here Yep, Do you feel? Now I'm going to start digging in, man, I'm going to dig in here. I hope you don't mind, but I want people to understand what this is like. I mean, in the beginning you wanted sales. Did you get sales? Yeah, we got them. You got your pricing right, you got sales. I mean, you basically fast forwarded. What would you say? Three to five years of business in this first year and a half year and a half, yeah, man, um, for definitely, for sure.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's people that I've talked with, um, even some of you know my other mentors, uh, locally to us, that you know some, sometimes the numbers that we do is just, you know, it's crazy to them, um, and you know there's people, some of my peers, that have even said man, dude, it took us, you know, three years to get to. You know the $500,000 mark, um, I mean, I, you know, I still remember to this day our first month. I think it was like 63, 65 K Um, and you know that was just one of those moments where it just was like, oh, wow, you know this is, you know this is something that we can, you know we can do.
Speaker 1:Do you think and now I'm going to dig in on on our process a little bit here Do you think if you offered fewer options, you'd be as far down the road as you are?
Speaker 3:Uh, no, not, not whatsoever. Um, I mean so I remember early on there were times where, you know, I was still a little bit iffy, didn't really feel super comfortable offering, you know, six options, but the times I didn't want to and I made myself do it anyway. I remember clearly, like some of those times that I did, that actually resulted in some of my highest sales. And I remember thinking after the fact, like you know, if I wouldn't have offered that this would have resulted in just another, you know, $300 call out. But because I decided to push forward and do the thing, that was uncomfortable, you know, it resulted in a win and honestly, not just a win for us, but it resulted in a win for the customer because they're getting even more of an exceptional service rather than just a temporary basic fix that might, you know, not hold up for the next year or two, you know.
Speaker 1:So you're telling me if I'm hearing you correct, you're telling us rather everyone listening that there were literally moments where you didn't want to run the play. You stuck to your offer and afterwards it paid out in a way that you recognized what you wanted to do intuitively was not going to get you to this great result that you saw from doing it, especially when you didn't want to 100 man, just um, you know it's.
Speaker 3:uh, I use those examples. I'm often, you know, whenever I I'm talking to our techs and just telling them, like you know, because for them sometimes it is still uncomfortable for them sometimes, but I just always give them these examples. You know, everyone has that I'm losing the word. But you know, imagine, you know, imagine showing up to a trailer park. Electricians talk about that. Often no one wants to go to the trailer parks and dude, I've sold, I mean, in trailer parks. I've had actually some of my highest tickets in trailer parks and if I were to get out the truck and judge just by the appearance of the surroundings and I didn't make the offer, I mean we definitely wouldn't be where we're at right now.
Speaker 1:Really good stuff. Really good stuff. You've already fast forwarded a few years, at least by your comparison. Do you think that you're facing challenges now that are kind of third year business challenges, or tell us about some of the harder stuff that you're up against now?
Speaker 3:So I would say the harder things that we're being challenged with is really lead generation to support you know, I guess, our targets. So you know we know our average ticket, we know how many leads we're averaging per month and in order for us to truly get to the position to where we can just continue to scale, we kind of hit a bottleneck as far as leads go. So I would say that would be one of the struggles.
Speaker 1:By the way, I can hear your phone ringing. I think 30 marketers are calling you right now.
Speaker 2:Don't worry, we can solve your problems. Please give me our money.
Speaker 1:They're all going to be in a race to the bottom to help you, yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, man, that, and also for me I would say definitely managing, you know, because we did grow pretty fast I've never made five hundred thousand dollars in the year before but also learning how to manage and see the cash flow make projections based on the data. Those are some learning curves that we went through that I think you know. Now, looking back, now that we've gone through that experience, I think I guess we're definitely more equipped to, you know, handle things like that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. When you look at 2684 as an average ticket, overall 60% close rate is a average close rate overall. Do you see yourself improving that as you continue down this path?
Speaker 3:oh, 100 percent. Um, so I know that. You know it's just like a muscle the more reps you get, the stronger it'll be. Um, but what's crazy is like when you make projections just based on where we're at right now. Um, we know we've done this exercise multiple times. But if you know if we can increase our leads, obviously there's a direct correlation to increasing our, our sales numbers, Um, but whenever you pair that with increasing the average ticket and, uh, increasing the conversion rate, I mean it's just astronomical. You know, completely day and night, and it doesn't even have to be like a huge 30, 50% jump, Like even a 5% or 10% jump could be 100%. You know difference in our results.
Speaker 1:Really big, really big stuff. Yeah, I think when we broke it down you were right around two average calls a day on average overall, and so even from you know, even overall, like two average calls a day since you started and be at over 900 K what would happen if we just got one more call a day on average average? You'd be at 1.35 without changing anything else, without any of the reps or the growth that you talked about. What else are you guys doing currently? Do you mind asking about me, asking about where are you also trying to grow your offer? What else are you focusing on to get bigger tickets and and more market saturation right now?
Speaker 3:yeah. So, um, right now, our big thing is generators. Um, you know, we live, we live in, uh, southwest louisiana hurricane alley. There's hurricanes every single year. Power outages um are quite common, um, there's a few.
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Generator Superstore or GoGen or anything like that, but they have a location out here. But the feedback that I get from some of our customers is like, you know, we don't, basically they don't, I guess, really like their service. So I don't, I don't really see the market. I don't see there, I don't see them posting anything. Really I don't see them anywhere.
Speaker 3:So, in my opinion, I feel like it's a huge opportunity for us to come in and just be the go-to for everything generators. It's been a pretty you know in 2024, we became dealers with Generac. We just recently became service dealers, so now we can also perform the service work and the warranty repairs, and we've also gotten on with Kohler to do the same thing as well, and we're also the champion, gotten on with Kohler to do the same thing as well, and we're also with Champion. So, basically, our goal is to just you know if whether it's portable generator or a whole home standby if you need the installation, if you need you know repairs, if you need maintenance, we can absolutely cover that and provide even an even better service than you know, I guess, in addition to the actual work, giving you that additional guarantee of our service, especially since power outages are so common, the cool thing here and obviously you know I love generators.
Speaker 2:But you said one word that stood out more than anything else, and that's portable systems. And the reason being is because when people think generator, they think the big automatic system that you plug in, that's 16,000 up, but really no one's focusing on the portables. So what kind of demand have you seen in that particular department?
Speaker 3:So we get generator inlet calls all year and, honestly, one of my favorite things to do when someone calls for a whole home standby is to give them the option of you know, especially if you have natural gas. And a lot of people say, you know, man, I just want to be able to keep my lights on my outlets. You know, they're not. A lot of people aren't really worried about you know cooking and they, you know, if they have natural gas, they probably have gas stove.
Speaker 2:And light for the furnace, things like that, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:So I love being able to show them the alternate route, because in their minds, you know, they're already preparing for such a large investment that when I come in I'm like, hey, you know, this also could get you guys. You know pretty much the same thing with additional, I guess with less of a convenience factor, you know it just. I mean, people really love that and I think it just gives us, where we might not have made a sale, it still gives us that extra option for us to secure it and give the customer what they were looking for. And give the customer what they were looking for. As far as demand, honestly, we definitely get. I want to say in last hurricane season we probably got about, I would say, about 45 generator inlet calls. Nice yeah.
Speaker 2:You know the cool thing about that and forgive me for digging into this, it's just. You also mentioned something there that is a huge win. So automatic generators are a hyper-competitive field, right, Like everyone's trying to get into it, Everyone's trying to offer. So when you think your typical standby installation like you've got someone who's going to put 12 KW in, there's someone out there who's going to hack it in for $1,000. Someone is going to do it. So you're competing in a very saturated market. But with portables, no one's doing them, no one's offering the enhancements, no one's maintaining them. So the customer thinks they're in for about $16,000. And the profit margin of that $16,000 is like this. But then you offer a platinum portable which does everything they want, has all the communices, has all the enhancements. It's substantially less money than what they were going to plan on paying anyway and the profit margin is huge in that standard.
Speaker 2:So, they win, you win, and there's no competition in it. Absolutely, that's huge. We we gotta speak to that there.
Speaker 3:that's a huge win for you, oh for sure, man and um, you know, especially whenever you can add things like, um, emergency lighting, um, you know, with the battery backup.
Speaker 3:So that way you know, as they're trying to plug into the home, you know they don't have to worry about you know, getting a flashlight or a headlamp, just, you know, the portable system with all the convenience factors, um, I guess, a convenience options at the very least. Um, I mean, it just gives us so much room to still secure the cell. And um, honestly, like you said, in that case, because automatic generators are a higher ticket but less of a profit margin because it's such a high ticket but the materials are the bulk of it, we get to come in, provide a great service and, like you said, everybody wins.
Speaker 2:I'm so proud of you, I am so freaking proud of you, dorian.
Speaker 1:Really good stuff. Dorian, as we wind down we've got just a few minutes left on this one what message or what would you express for I know you've had lots of people reaching out looking to talk to you and maybe get your feedback on where they're at and that kind of thing. What would you say is generally one piece of advice that you're giving to people or helping them with.
Speaker 3:Honestly, my favorite thing to start with is well, there's a few things, but I would say, you know, staying true to present over perfect, present over perfect. Taking action and looking at, I guess, your business from like we always look at it from, you know, leads, sales, the deliverables and then team culture. So obviously, there are no sales without leads, there's nothing to deliver if you don't have any sales. And then, as far as your team culture, because to provide a service that truly serves customers at the highest level, before, during and after, everyone has to play a part in that, everyone has to be on the same page. And if you break it down to those simple things, it's sometimes it can be.
Speaker 3:I guess, if you're trying to troubleshoot your business or you're trying to figure out, you know how do we grow this thing. Most of the time, you know leads and sales is something that you can directly look at, directly look at and, as we looked at earlier, you know, sometimes it's not necessarily the big, the big jumps that you need to make, but sometimes those small efforts, those small increases, can make, you know, an insane amount of difference in your overall top line. So I would say, yeah, I mean that's, I guess. Yeah, that would be my message.
Speaker 1:You know what your superpower is, dorian? What's that? You weren't a born sales guy, but you were born a student, yep, and you clearly have been absorbing and learning, and not just from us, from others in the group. I want to put you on spot with another question that we don't usually ask. The last podcast we had, as mentioned, was with dan. I know you've spoken to dan. You guys have been in the same room a few times. What have you learned from dan that's helped you on your journey?
Speaker 3:so, honestly, um, one of the things that um, especially with their business that I look at, is really how successful they've been with lead generation. I think that comes from a long list of things that they're doing and really just you know, being out in the community, having more conversation with as many people as they can, building those relationships and honestly just being willing to share I guess, share the pie with you know their partners and everything like that. So I just see you know how those guys are getting. What is it like? Is it 50 leads per week or something like that?
Speaker 1:Organically.
Speaker 3:Yes, no paid ads yet. Yet, like I mean there, when I see that, I just you know, it just brings to mind for me that, man, if we can just get to a position to where we're maximizing our potential for lead generation, I mean we have, you know, based on our reviews and the feedback we get from our customers, I mean, the service is there, customers are pleased with what we provide. I have the data for you know my sales performance. So it's like, just looking at what Dan and them are doing, man, it's just that's one thing that I look up to whenever it comes to their businesses. You know just how well they're able to hit on that lead generation aspect.
Speaker 1:Scale what works. It's really good. We're down to the wire here. Dorian, I want to thank you so much. I want to congratulate you on uh congratulate you ahead of time publicly on reaching your first seven figures in business, because we know you're going to do that very soon. We know you're about to hit 100 reviews in just over a year, being a business full-time, so that's also awesome. Congrats on that. And I want to thank you so much for a second year. It's been awesome to serve you and guys. If you want to learn more about Dorian from Dorian, what's the best way for people to reach out to you, dor?
Speaker 3:Man, if you just want to send me a message on Facebook, my page is public, so reach out anytime. Obviously, you guys can always call the office, but it won't be me answering, so for me personally, best way is going to be Facebook. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Really good stuff. And of course in fact I shouldn't say of course, but just like we announced it then Dorian is also one of our client coach ambassadors at this point. So people in our program learning from Dorian as well and you could too guys Can't wait to see you next week. And, dorian, we can't wait to see you next year for a third year anniversary. Thanks so much, brother. We got to go. Guys, have a great one. Take care, man, take care. 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.
