sales process
Summary:
In this episode, Ari Greenbaum interviews Chris Michel, author of “The Red Chair Experience,” to talk about what a sales process is, why it’s important, and how to use one to close more deals.
Stream it here:
Transcript:
Ari: Welcome to The X Factor, A Home Pros Sales Podcast. This podcast is about all things sales to help home improvement pros generate high-quality leads and close more deals.
I’m your host, Ari Greenbaum. And in this podcast, we’re going to talk about different tactics, tips, and resources to help you grow your business while interviewing experts in the industry.
But before that, let’s just take care of little housekeeping. You could rate us on Apple podcasts, you know, little purple icon, give us a five-star rating, show some love, leave a review, and let us know you’re enjoying the podcast, it is appreciated.
And for today, I am super excited. Let me just tell you a little background as well. But we’re gonna be talking about how developing and applying a process directly and positively impacts results when it comes to cultivating inquiry and leads and customers bringing them to fruition of deals. But I am super excited and pumped to have the guests that I am honored to have today.
Chris Michel, he’s the founder of Coach Chris Consulting. Beyond that, I know personally that he is a true expert in home service sales and management. I personally learned quite a bit as a mentor to me when I first got into sales, especially in the HVAC world. And he’s also the author of a fantastic new book called The Red Share Experience.
So we’ll introduce Chris to you. And let him tell you a little about himself, his background, you know where he’s coming from because he does have a wealth of knowledge and understanding of what it takes to really make the Sales Machine go. So again, Chris, without further ado, man, introduce yourself, let guys know who you are.
I mean, I know I gave you a nice build-up there. But obviously, I love you quite a bit.
Chris: Well, thank you. All right. And it’s, it’s good to reconnect. I mean, we just reconnected probably a week or two ago. Yeah. And what’s interesting about him, obviously we’ll get into this, but the sales process, that was the thing that that you and I worked on, right, you’ve never been in, in HVAC sales, and sales. And so the process that I took you through right was one that I developed over the years. And I continue to use something like that right when I coach other teams and things like that.
So as you said, I’m a sales and business coach, I specifically work mostly with the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical kind of the home services industry. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t work outside of that just means that that’s kind of my focus. I do work with other companies, I’ve worked with SAS companies and construction companies, things of that nature too.
So I get the opportunity to work with these teams to help them because they don’t have typically a sales process. They don’t have metrics or KPIs key performance indicators that they can utilize to understand what’s going on with their business and their sales. You know, a lot of people when they have these smaller businesses, they kind of go by the fly by the seat of their pants, right?
Because that’s just what they know. And they say, Hey, money’s coming in. We’re good, right? We don’t have to worry about a close rate of 60 years, or 40%, or even 20%, right? Hey, if we’re burning leads, we’re burning leads, who cares?
We’re making money, right? It’s not a big deal. But the thing is, you know, and we talk in business a lot about how do we work smarter, not harder, right. And so we get to learn all those different things. But super excited to be here and have a conversation with you about these things. Because obviously, it’s something I am passionate about.
Ari: Yeah, that I know. And that’s what attracted me, obviously, to join you, you know, back to those days when I first met you. And to give you a background, I’ve been in sales a long time, about 20 years at that point, but I’ve never in my life, had been involved in people’s homes, everything was over the phone and made plenty of big deals.
But it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re stepping into someone’s castle, and their most prized possession and you’re in their living room or kitchen table and having to try to consummate a deal. So the things that I know I learned from you are invaluable. I mean, they’re things that I’ve relayed over to our clients here as we try to coach them to be successful in closing leads and converting jobs.
So again, I owe you a whole lot of gratitude for what you taught me. So if I’m not mistaken, I was pretty good at it. But it was all that you showed me taking natural talent. But as you just said, applying is a process. And that’s really the thing is the process in sales, as far as I understand it.
And I know we’ve talked about this, it’s really a plug-and-play thing. But, you know, again, if we can keep the focus here for our audience, which is your home improvement, you know, Home Services, getting inside people’s homes, selling them, you know, service and products. That’s fantastic because I mean, again, that’s the name of the game, I’m process-driven and everything I do.
So this is a topic that is near and dear to the heart. I know how much has been done for my life and my success personally. So just when we talk about process, what does that mean? I think it’s a very general term, you know, process okay, so we can have a process to be called by lead or inquiry that’s coming in. Let me go ahead and give them an estimate. But I mean, that’s so vague and there are so many more details to come into when you talk process. What that means so can you take through more of a general to me, we get narrowed down to like some of the little pieces of the puzzle and attack those individually.
Chris: Yeah. So a lot of people, to your point, don’t understand what a process is or why they need a process. And yet we do processes every single day. Every day you get up, there’s a process, right?
You take the covers off, you step out of bed, and you maybe do a daily assessment. Years ago, I used to assess myself when I woke up, I’d sit up on the edge of my bed, and then I’d go okay, what hurts today. Now, thankfully, I’ve worked through that. And I don’t do that anymore. But that was a process that I did. Right? It was a step-by-step way of doing things.
Now, it doesn’t mean that you don’t deviate from that, it doesn’t mean that you can’t come off topic and, and steps to the left instead of stepping to the right. But what it means is, that this is a proven and repeatable step-by-step way of doing things that will basically guarantee you success. Now, if you’re doing it robotically, it’s not gonna work, right. And many of us, maybe in our morning routine, our process is we wake up, we go, we brush our teeth, we go get coffee, right?
Yeah. And it may be that you’re not a morning person. And so we go through that kind of process without thinking about it. And the idea in sales is that there must be a process that you follow because we say, Oh, well, I’ve got to be, you know, I’ve got to be fluid, I’ve got to go with this customer, that customer, I can tell you without hesitation, if you follow a process the same way every single time, with very little kind of left or right movement.
If you’ve proven it, and you can repeat it, that will bring you so much more successful than this, this well, I got to do it this way for this guy, I got to do it this way for this guy, I got to do it this way for this woman or this way for this lady.
If you would stick with your process, you’d be amazed at how much success that will bring you. And when we deviate from that in sales is where we really get off course. So as salespeople, we get so caught up, right, we and people that maybe aren’t salespeople that are business owners, and they’re going through this process that they think is working right?
Well, if I just say this, or I just if I know how to answer this, I know how to overcome this objection. If you follow a process, you’d be amazed at the success that that brings in. So the step-by-step understanding of what works of how you word things could be scripted, and again, a lot of salespeople are resistant to this, right.
But what I’ve learned is, if you script things, and you understand the wording of it, you remove the buyers, resistance, you remove the opportunity for them to reject you, you remove the opportunity for objection, or this, you know, instant know that we have kind of built into our system. If you do those things, and you do it with fluidity, you can be very successful. And I think that’s where people kind of miss the boat.
Ari: So if I can ask, you mentioned something there as far as, you know,
projectable to a degree metrics and things like that a lot of people think processes only for the situation in hand, let me get from point A to point B, get the result gets success, a deal, whatever that is.
But from what you shared, there’s a lot more to and it really ties to a different topic as well. That is not today’s time today consistency. Because again, I’ve been in sales a long time and yourself. Consistency is at the core of everything and processes are at the core of consistency. Because how can you rinse repeat if you don’t have something to rinse, repeat. But that’s where like you’re sure, as a small business, to be able to project metrics, when you’re making projections for the year, you can plug and play if you know, your process will result in out of every 10 appointments for closed deals.
Well, that’s projectable metrics. And then the rinse repeat, that’s the numbers game of it. So it’s again, it’s to me, I’m here, and it’s a lot more than just the impact that’s gonna have on the situation, but it’s on the bigger picture as well. Applying process and like the rinse repeat style.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. And you know, already a lot of times what happens is, we think that we have to be this, gosh, almost this fluid person, right? So we’ve got the high D, the high, the highest, the high C right?
What if you want to use the DISC profile, you’ve got these different people right that we have to work with. And so I have to be this way with this person in this way with it. Listen, if you come up with a proven and repeatable sales process, you eliminate the factors of the high D, the high the highest and the high seat don’t get me wrong.
Ari: You mentioned before the elimination of the objections or elimination of concerns. How does the process impact that? Does that help you know the people that are listening to understand is a really important point?
Chris: Sure. So how that eliminates it is number one you learn that process if you learn how to build value on the front end value to the customer, not to yourself to the customer, right? Because value is in the eye of the beholder as they, as I’m joined, kind of toyed with.
I’m like, yeah, this makes sense. But it really does. The value is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not about what I think is valuable, because no offense, what I think is valuable already doesn’t, you may not like it, you’d be like, No, that’s not valuable to me that who cares, right? That’s not important to me.
So when you understand your process, if you understand what you’re doing, number one, you learn to eliminate objections or resistance on the front end. And you do it by not creating a commodity or not creating a situation where basically you’re putting up a brick wall. But you’re, you’re actually knocking down the brick wall, you’re giving people the opportunity to buy a good sales process helps people buy not be sold. And that’s probably the thing that we miss out on the most right. And that’s the thing that we lose or eliminate is we think that we have to kind of maneuver this thing around. And what we’re doing is we’re building objections as we go along by doing that.
Ari: So it’s just a word I’m putting out of control. I mean, you really control things through a process, control their thought, control what you want to be where it’s headed.
Chris: Sure, you want to be careful about that. Because it’s not about I’m not trying to control what people think or do. However, I’m trying to eliminate or block out those potential things that could come up, right? Because, again, how do I eliminate objections by bringing certain things up and addressing them in the beginning, right? So yeah, I’m controlling the scenario here.
But I’m not trying to control what they think all I’m trying to do is eliminate all these other objections or all these other things that are kind of sitting on the forefront of what could be their mind. And let’s be honest, when people call for a second opinion, why are they calling you? Is it just to verify?
Maybe it is maybe it’s just to verify that, hey, the price is the price? But the reality is that person that was in their home before you didn’t answer their questions, didn’t listen to what they said, did not feel like they were heard. And quite frankly, the value didn’t exceed the price. And so because of that, now you’re in the home, now you’ve got an opportunity to not allow that person to come back or to not let anybody come behind you. Right?
Ari, you and I’ve been in situations where we’re in a home, where the second person and or the first person in, and we’ve done our job, we’ve done our due diligence, and the customer says I want to work with you. And they say, Well, I had two other people come in. And then I would jokingly say, and I meant this sometimes, but I’d be like, Hey, do want me to call them and let them know that they’re not welcome to come in.
As they say, it’s fun to have those conversations, but the reality is this, right? We’re providing a service. And if we can answer their questions, we can do business with them. They choose to buy from us. And that’s what really it’s all about, right?
Sales is not about forcing your ideas and understanding on people. It’s helping people understand your perspective, the value that you bring to the table, and your product or service, right. And so if you can do all those things, and again, you do this due process, once you figure it out, once you figure out how to say things, wouldn’t you want to repeat that? I mean, over and over and over again.
Ari: You know, the old saying, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, you know, if it’s working, keep it. Absolutely. But the key is developing a process that is going to work.
So I mean, that’s the thing. And obviously, we get attacked all the little pieces and components of the lifecycle of a potential customer becoming a customer but I mean, this conversation sounds like maybe steers more towards the interactions with the customer the process there but that’s really the meat of it. You know, getting an appointment set and then getting the deal is important, but this is really at the heart of the matter.
So can you take people through like what if someone’s developing a process from scratch? Or are there certain processes from others that they should just emulate and then plug and play their own you know, tweaks and personality into what do you recommend to people that are starting out that don’t have a process or have one that needs to be completely reinvented? You know?
Chris: Yeah, well, obviously, Ari, the cheesy answer is to get a sales coach, but the reality is this right, you can hire a professional you can talk to somebody who knows and understands processes and bring them in.
The other thing. I mean, everything is readily available at your fingertips, right? So you can always search. You can always look this stuff up and say, what’s a good sales process? Well, it’s gonna depend on your business. It’s gonna depend on your industry, right? I have a sales process for HVAC. I have a general sales process.
Now to your point. If I come to Ari with Ari’s Heating and Air, Are you know, you’re gonna have a conversation about what his principles what his?
Oh gosh, what is culture, right? What’s important to him and what he wants to communicate, communicate to his customers through his people. And we’re going to tweak that if you will, the general HVAC process that I have so that it fits within your people and your culture. Now, I’m not going to set it up for the road guy, right? Or the road woman that’s out there kind of wild west in it, and hey there my top person, but you know, I mean, but here’s the thing, or in you know this, right?
When, if you’re in a company, and you’ve got this top salesperson what’s really interesting is to ask them this question, what’s your top, go to your top salesperson, anybody listening?
Go to your top salesperson and say, What is your sales process? Ask him to write it down. And I guarantee you, most of them, like 70, or 80% of them will not be able to tell you what the sales process that they have is now they’ll be able to say, oh, you know, I do this or I do this or I Oh, shucks, this and I’ll shucks, that right. And that works absolutely works. But they’re not doing it consistently.
So it’s not really a process. It’s their quote, unquote, shucking, and jiving right there. They’re going back and forth, right? They’re kind of in the boxing ring. And they’re trying to figure out who are they fighting? Is it a sock is a southpaw, who they’re writing? What are they doing? Right?
Yeah, and so they’re, they’re, they’re meeting good thinkers on their feet. And that’s fine. And I operated that way for a number of years. And then I learned Wait a minute, we’ve got to have a process. And the consistency that that process brings really, is the bread and butter of it, right?
It’s, that’s where you see, the numbers go up, instead of being 40%, close rate, you become 50 or 55, or even 60%, right, you see a significant increase. studies were done. And I’ve done webinars on this, but studies were done, that those who follow a process are 70% more effective. 70%
Think about that.
Ari: Just by having a process
Chris: Just by having a process right now.
Ari: Well, we preach that just in terms of outreach, you know, to leads, etc, you know, if you don’t have a process of outreach, and you know, touchpoints, then you’re fighting a losing battle. These people are gonna go elsewhere. So, I mean, it’s everywhere.
Chris: It becomes more of a challenge, right? If you don’t have a process becomes more of a challenge. But yeah, that having that stuff in place, really kind of brings it
in a little bit tighter. To us to your point, it becomes a little bit more predictable, right? I can look at this, and I can go hey, we did 1.2 million last year, we want to increase our revenue.
So if I bring in one more, or two more salespeople, and I bring in the support staff. If I do these things, the metrics tell me I should double my business right?
Now. It becomes the outreach, it becomes the marketing, and becomes the right. Is it fun? Yeah. How do you do all these big-picture things, right? But you have to set certain things in place. And once you get these proven and repeatable processes, and oh, by the way, it’s not just sales. It could be your process for delivery. It could be your process for implementation. It could be your process for training, right?
Ari: Process is everything, at the end of the day. Right? but you know, it’s at the end of the day process over everything else.
Chris: Absolutely. Right. It’s figuring out how you put a standard through all of these things. And then it becomes plug and play. Now I can take somebody off the street, who doesn’t know my business and doesn’t know my industry.
Ari: That’s the key right there. And that’s where, you know, I want to just to really dive into a little bit deeper, because I’m sure that in people’s minds, you know, at the end of the day, as a small business owner, the guy just getting started, you know, mom and pop shop or something of that nature, and they want to start growing. I mean, can’t just do it on his own.
So he’s gonna have to scale and have to bring people in salespeople, etc. So when you’re plugging people in, you know, I would imagine that a lot of people have that concern. Well, I’m just going to give someone a script of some sort of a process and try to fit you know, maybe a square peg into a round hole so to speak.
Do you find a lot of resistance once you’ve been on the management side coaching new people coming in? You find a lot of resistance especially in sales people come a lot with a, an ego, you know, a biased thinking they got hit whatever baggage?
You can say leave it at the door all you want. But at the end of the day, they’re seasoned people, they think they know what’s best. So when you’re coming into an environment,
how successful are people to plug into it?
And what can people that are in a managerial or a leadership role, do to encourage that a positive way to really get people bought into it and embracing a process? And that’s what you know, when I was with you, back in the day,
I embrace the process you taught me and applied it and took my own talent, and then it was great, but you got me motivated to do that. And that’s what you do as a small business owner or leader of a sales team that’s growing. Those are challenges.
Chris: Yeah, you’re right. So in our, you know, this, there were two people hired about the same time you and this one other person, you were processed, driven, the other person was not. And the other person kind of went more with their feelings. And, and well, maybe this works, maybe it won’t. And they were not as successful as you. Because they weren’t process-driven.
They didn’t understand this whole idea of working your process, right. And we tried to teach them this process, and they just weren’t picking it up. And so they left our company and went to work for somebody else. And they were marginally successful with somebody else because of the culture and what they did.
And, you know, I saw him months later, at another meeting, so we had a little bit of a conversation. So what I find is that, yes, plug-and-play is a great way to do it. So right now, the labor field, if you will, is really, really short. And it’s hard to find good people that number one, and people need to know this, you hire for culture, you can train all the other pieces. And this is one of those things, right?
So I came from outside of the HVAC industry back in 2004. I was looked at as an anomaly, right? Oh, there’s somebody outside of the industry, I don’t know if they’re gonna work.
The second year I was with the company, I became the top salesperson. Why? Because I understood about taking a process and working through it and right in driving those things that worked.
And so I continue to work. Now I worked harder. I worked later I worked weekends, right? I did different things to to to also cultivate that.
But those of us that adhere to the process, we were taught a process, and when we adhere to it, and the sales with it were there, we were successful, we had close rates of 60 plus percent, right? We were increasing our average ticket, right? We were doing the things that needed and should have been done in this plug-and-play type of atmosphere. So can you bring in somebody from the outside?
Number one, yes. Number two, you should be able to bring somebody to plug him into your system, show him the ropes, show him the process, and give them this understanding. And if they meet your criteria for culture, right, because you don’t want to bring in this wild, wild west person, you want to bring in someone that worked with your company, if they don’t work with your company, they’re not going to work doesn’t matter what you give them.
They may be successful for a time or here or there. But the reality is, they’re not going to be a success with you and your company. And that’s the struggle.
Ari: Do you find that it’s super important to do the old like leadership by example, style, especially if you’re like a sole proprietor and you’re starting to build a team, or as a manager if you have some top guys using them, as the leadership and pointing to their example, is that more of the way to get people bought in?
You know, as far as the new person coming into this process, the proofs in the pudding, so to speak, you know, take a look at what he’s doing. Go sit with him on a set right now. And I guarantee you’re gonna see a difference. And then all of a sudden is like an epiphany moment of this works. Is that proof in the pudding? Is that really what it takes sometimes with someone coming from the outside to really buy in 100% to this process? is rock solid, it’s going to get me to the promised land, so to speak.
Chris: Sure. And I don’t know if you remember, we were going through a transition shortly after you and I met, there was a transition in our company, and the new ownership came in and they had a process, right, a very different process, a very different process.
Right.
Ari: And I know a lot of people left as a result of that process because they didn’t feel they could fit into it. Compared to their styles.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. And so what happened was there was a culture shift, right.
And so the culture that shifted, they brought in people that fit their culture. And they quickly, easily adapted to the process that was there. And so you and I made adjustments, and we did the best that we could with what we had, but it really didn’t fit into the culture that we wanted to be a part of, or that we were attracted to, that we wanted to be a part of. Right.
And so that’s what changed. And to your point, right? A number of those people did change. And they moved on. And that was okay because they wanted to fit in with a certain level of comfort and culture that they were used to and that they want to be a part of.
So yeah. Can you bring in people from the outside? Can you bring people from some other place and show them your process and say, here’s what our process is. And then back to your point. Yes, you should absolutely have somebody I was that person.
That’s why I do the things I do now. And I learned that I really enjoyed and loved coaching people because I love to see them succeed. I love to watch them grow and change and to be successful and quite frankly, to be more successful than me. I mean, I was successful. I had a good time, I made a good living. But I want people to be more successful than me why? It has no reflection on me.
Ari: It has a true real manager’s goal. You know, not everyone feels that way. But they should if they have the right mentality.
Chris: That’s the difference between a leader and a manager, right? A leader wants to want you to succeed. They’re looking for their replacement, they’re looking.
They say, hey, Ari, I want to bring you on to the company. And oh, by the way, I think you could be the next leader of the team, right? So I’m grooming and changing in, in helping you to understand, right? What does this look like going forward, I want you to step into my position, and I work my way out of my position, maybe I move up, maybe I move on to something different, right?
But that should be the goal of every leader is that you as a business owner? Yes, it’d be great. If you could bring people on and say here, watch me do my process. But let’s be honest, a lot of business owners today, they’re self-managing sales, and they shouldn’t be in I know, this minute, kind of like, their background. That’s the reality. Exactly. It’s not their background. And so I get the opportunity. And there are other people like me, by the way, that do this fractional sales management type of thing, right?
So we get the opportunity to give you the expertise, the 20-plus years of sales experience, and we’re going to show you processes, and we’re going to show you, you know, ways of bringing these people on, and we can help you with that for.
Ari: What it sounds like is also to identify what is the culture so you could bring people in to meet that culture and their curiosity?
I know we both had the same experience, back in the day, with the mentioned together.. Set of curiosity, I know you were in touch with people a lot more than I was, and you tuned in a lot more than I am to that world.
How long after did they completely change over and then get back to being successful in terms of sales? Because I mean, they had a turnover the team for the most part, because of the culture. So just to give people an idea, I mean, that was a big team. And we weren’t talking just two or three guys.
I mean, there were a dozen guys there, at least, if not more, and a significant size company doing 10s of millions of revenue, not just you know, a new company here. So how quickly did they turn that around? And taking the same concept, they put a process in maybe didn’t speak to everybody, but to get the people in that to have the culture that fit that kind of a process and that style?
Did you know how long it took them to do that because that’ll be really enlightening to people, it’s just gonna happen fast.
Chris: It’s not long term, think long. Yeah, it didn’t take long to turn the Titanic. I mean, it really didn’t. And so to your point, they were there were, I was leaving the team when you came on. And I think we had eight to 12 people.
And so it was somewhere in that eight to 12 range. And they, I want to say nearly doubled it within probably a year or a year and a half. So it didn’t take long for them to I was one of the last people of the quote-unquote, originals that were there to end up leaving.
Ari: And that was a year, you witnessed the whole shift and change the growth of the team as well, by doing exactly what you’re saying, whether, again, the same process that speaks to you speaks to me speaks to others aside, they put a process in place hired based on culture, fitting the process, and then projectable and kept on scaling based on that.
And that’s the model that we’re really talking about here. And that’s for a large company, but easily from what we’re talking about, can be done at the small business level, owner operator level, it wants to scale a little bit, not even just go berserk.
But you know, add three guys and increase his business slightly. And these are very, very applicable to the kind of audience especially that, absolutely. Tuning into these. So outside of just obviously, the general concept of process, you know, and I know, we don’t have all, you know, we can maybe do other episodes in the future together, and talk about the little nuances of each piece of it.
But you know, if there was a piece of that process, or maybe an outline if you could say what you do without giving the secret sauce and the magic formula, but is there a basic outline of a process that people can take away from the start developing based on that structure?
Chris: Sure. I mean, obviously, it starts with receiving the phone call.
What do you do with that phone call? What do you tell the customer? What’s the scripting that you’re having with that client? What questions are you asking? What’s your understanding of why they’re coming into you? And why are they calling you why? Where did they come from? Was it a billboard? Was it an ad that they saw? Was it a Google Click right? Where, where are you getting this person from?
Number two, then the process is the questions you’re asking, and then how do you filter them through your system? Who needs to be the person going there? Well, that becomes a Do you understand your people, right? Do you understand the I work welder? I work better with older individuals, their personalities. So I work right I work better with a 40-plus crowd, right?
So put me in front of that kind of a homeowner whereas there were others that work better with the 20-30 somethings.
And that’s okay too, right? So, so you match up that if you can match up that person to the individual that would work best with them. And then as you work through that process, it then becomes, depending on what you’re presenting, right, understanding, asking questions, when you go out, you do the presentation, you have to understand what they’re looking for. What are they?
Ari: What are their needs. Assessment, discovery, absolutely, understanding their needs.
Chris: Yep, understanding all of that stuff. And then gather yourself grab, gather your information, know exactly what you’re going to present. And then when you make your presentation, it becomes. To your point, there are so many things to talk about here. The presentation itself. Yeah, thanks. making me look like the crazy one.
No, but the reality is, there’s psychology that says you need to give a number of options, right? And the number of options is seven plus or minus two. So you get somewhere between five and nine options. And those options are progressive, right? They’re not?
Well, you can have a, but this is a one, and this is a two and this is a three, it’s got to be a, b, C, D, right? There’s the good, better, best kind of mentality that you have to walk people through and say, Hey, we can do this, but we can do this, or we can add this. And a lot of times people leave those pieces out. But anyway, so walking through the process continues, so you give them that option you allow them to buy.
And then when they purchase, what’s your process look like from there? So now that says delivery process? You were talking about the posts? Whose hands does it go into? And am I delivering a product? Or am I delivering a service? And who needs to be involved with that? Is an email to one person or six people, right? And do I need to take pictures? Do I need to take measurements? Do I need to you know, understand the scope of work, right?
What else is involved, and all of those things come into play. And then, and this is where people kind of miss out. After we do a cooldown period before we leave, do a cooldown period to make sure that our emotions, because when you’re making purchases of these, you know these elevated 10s of 1000s of dollars, there needs to be an emotional cooldown period. So we take our time. Hey, Ari, tell me why did you choose this particular thing? Why did you choose this system? Why did you choose this choice? Right? Tell me
Ari: I’d be willing to bet you 99 out of 100 people maybe even 999 out of 1000 Do not do an exit interview know, when you’re talking to cool down?
Chris: Yeah. And they don’t understand why that, you know, they’re going back to the office with this wonderful sale, and they can’t figure out why in the world, the customer called before they got back to the office buyer’s remorse.
Because well, they didn’t do the emotional cooldown. Right? When and again, psychologically speaking, when we make a major purchase like this, most of us go through this dopamine shot, right, that says, ooh, this is really cool. I want to make you know, that I’m spending a lot of money. And as we get this, this rush of adrenaline and dopamine that happens, and as a result, if we don’t bring them down, if we don’t inject some serotonin, if we don’t inject some, and I’m not talking about physically injecting people.
Ari: But all listeners do not walk around with a syringe.
Chris: Please do not do this right.No, but when we inject things that are more serotonin, like, when we help people to understand, man, you made a great choice. That’s good, a good decision you made tell me more about it. What did you like about it? Right? And reaffirming in their mind that they made a good choice, and helping them see what the choice was that they made. And again, when they sell it back to you.
Ari: You’re giving gems right now, Chris, you know, the these are, like, you know, details that, you know, people should be salivating for right now, as I said, I don’t know too many people that do this. And I know how important it is. I know, that was something that, you know, you taught me to do as well on the exit of the cooldown and bring them back to a place you know, not in the ether anymore.
Chris: It’s super important. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’re both on this emotional high, right? The salesperson, and, and the customer, right. And so we’re all on this emotional high, and we’re going, oh, man, this is really cool.
If we don’t come down if they don’t come down, what happens? Literally, as soon as you leave, they’re calling six other companies and they’re calling your company to say, I’m gonna wait, I need to get six more, you know, whatever.
Again, you didn’t, you didn’t meet all their needs. You didn’t talk them down off the ledge, right? And that’s so important, especially when you’re talking about major purchases. Think about this.
Okay, anybody who’s listening, think about this. When was the last time you went and bought a car, or let’s make it even simpler a television? Now a television nowadays, you can spend 500 bucks, it’s not a big deal. But emotionally it’s a big deal.
Because that 50-inch or that 60-inch or that 80-inch television that you’re trying to purchase, right? That’s going to be sitting there for a number of years. You want to make sure that you made the right choice that you made the right decision.
Does it meet all your needs? Does it do what you want it to do? How many times have you gone to the store? thinking, hey, I’m gonna buy this size TV for this amount of money, and you walked out of there with a bigger size television for a little bit more money, right? Every time? And did you regret it? Right? But are you? Are you emotionally walking home going? Oh crap, what did I do? Right? The wife’s gonna kill me the husband’s gonna kill me right there.
There’s, there’s this decision oh my gosh that the chairman of the board is going to have a fit right? I just spent a million dollars on the software.
So again, do we bring people through that cooldown process, and then reduce that second-guessing and the buyer’s source whatever term you want to put on it significantly?
Ari: How you do the concrete or the glue of the deal, so to speak.
Chris: Here’s the job you want to do you want a piece of gold, here’s a piece of gold for you. How do you do a cooldown period? And this is super, super important. Give them the next steps.
Tell them what the next steps are, hey, I’m going to take this television off this, you know, I’m going to pull this box out and we’re going to carry it out to your car for you, we’re going to gently put it in your car, and then you know, whatever, or we’re going to deliver this and they’re going to mount it on the wall for you.
They’re going to do this, they’re going to do that they’re going to they’re gonna take pictures, make sure we did everything right, we’re going to show you how to work it, right. We walk them through the next steps. What does that do that solidifies in your mind, hey, this wasn’t a good purchase, and look what they’re doing for that’s a wow factor, right?
Chris: Correct. And so now we take them through the next couple of steps and we show them what we’re going to do. And we say, hey, the next steps are, I’m going to put you in touch with Ari, I’m going to put you in touch with Lorraine and she’s going to walk you through the steps, she’s going to ask for this information, I’m going to give her most of the information already.
But she’s being asked for a few other things that I didn’t know or didn’t get. And so we’re going to need to you know, have that information in that call. And I’m going to set that Zoom meeting up, I’m going to set that face-to-face, whatever that is right. And then as we do that, again, this calmness kind of settles in. Right, and that cooldown period, that emotional.
Okay, I did make a good, a good choice, a good decision. And then after we do that, and this is, again, this is kind of one of those things that we leave out is write him a thank you note, a handwritten thank you note
Ari: I’ll tell you, we’ve taken the personalized message thing, as I know you did to impart that. I mean, I’ve seen it from others as well.
And we’ve brought that here. I mean, as an example, and we have a little bit different of a business here, obviously from in home sales. But going the extra mile with handwritten holiday cards every year to our clients, which speaks volumes, it separates you from the rest, and it just solidifies the relationship.
And the feedback I’ve gotten from them. It’s astounding, and just from a simple card with a simple message. Yeah, it’s amazing to us.
Chris: And I have a company that I work with that I send a gift, I’m not going to give it away. But if you if you work with me, there’s a gift that I like to send to my customers, I just a little simple thank you to say, thank you for doing business with me. And, and it’s amazing the response that I get from just that simple act, right. And I don’t do it for that. I truly am thankful for them.
And I get to support this other business too, by the way, and you know, I bring that in, but 100% so much of that stuff is the little things that we don’t do, right, and we don’t do that we miss out in and we don’t provide the extra value.
We don’t provide that. It’s called a wow factor. Right. Some people term it as a wow factor. But we don’t provide that extra. Wow. Okay, that’s amazing. You did that. You know. And yeah, people talking.
Ari: That’s, as I said to Jim, that’s the goods, as we say.
I’m gonna summarize here. I mean, we’ve covered a lot of stuff. But to summarize here, you know, people are obviously as we said, process, everything, that’s the most important thing is have a process for everything, every piece of it, even what you said, how you qualify them.
And you know, the questions you ask even on the appointment set, not just when you’re in person in their home, but everything leading up to it having processes for the presentation, the sales process itself, of course, and then the gym, we just talked about incorporating a cool down into that process can’t leave that out, because that is awesome.
But then the wholesale process, it’s all process driven. And one of the critical takeaways that really spoke to me, at least from what you’re sharing, and hopefully in others as well, is this key piece of information that it’s not just plugged and play anyone into it? Because that might be the thought,
Okay, well, I could take this quarterback and plug him into a West Coast system, if he’s not a West Coast quarterback, teach him how to play. He has talent, he could throw the ball, but it’s not the same thing. It’s the culture that is the key, and it’s not the playbook.
And that’s really what I’m gathering and that’s again another gem here to help people to understand when they are scaling when they are looking for people to plug into something to make sure they are the most likely to succeed and thrive in that environment.
And you can’t guarantee it as we know, it’s never a, you know, sure thing in sales. That’s the reality of it. But you’re setting yourself up for much more likely success. And then the other piece of it, as we said, what this does for a business for the mindset when you can project out numbers, and it’s just that confidence and comfortability that it creates, I’m going into a year and I know this is what I’m going to do.
And if I increase x, I will do Y more. And it’s, it becomes a formula at that point. So again, this has been invaluable, I hinted at it that we might need to have you come back to be a guest again, was I mean, there’s so much more we could dive into here. And again, there’s obviously only a limited amount of time for this episode.
But I did want to make sure you did let people know about the book as well because it’s I know it’s brand new and just getting out there. And it’s a bit of a different thing. It’s not sales, this is from what I’m understanding, much more geared toward daily motivation, just feeling good and positive. And, you know, the things that are, I know are critical to people’s success.
Are you gonna give a quick shameless plug? Absolutely. You know, it’s not so shameless, as I told you.
Chris: I appreciate that. So it’s called the Red Chair Experience. And this is the book it’s, you can find it on. If you like digital, go get it on Amazon or on Barnes and Noble. I mean, you can buy it anywhere, literally, you can buy it at Walmart if you really want to.
But if you want a signed copy, or here in the United States, do you want a signed copy, go to theredchairexperience.com. It is a daily inspiration. It’s there are some sales things in there. There are some sales morsels in there if you will.
But there’s, it’s a daily inspiration for success in life and business. And it really is designed to help people kind of get that the tears two points, it could be motivation for the morning, it could be the inspiration that you’re looking for that I read this and three other books almost every single morning. Just mindset, right?
Just to get the head in the right space. And you know, I spend time meditating or praying and really focusing on my day ahead of time, so that I can have a successful day, doesn’t always work. And it doesn’t always, you know, it’s not always capable of doing it, right. I’ve got seven o’clock meetings. And so it’s hard, right?
Ari: We could plan all we want but yeah, and they’ll work that way. But it does help when you have.
The reality is this is we all need something that we can go to every single day and the Red Chair Experience is a place for you to go every single day to spend time for you to focus and we all need that every single one of us without it.
That’s a process in itself. So this could be a kind of a part of someone’s process to give them inspiration. Focus on the mentality to be successful in the day and do it every day. rinse repeat on that as well.
I really do appreciate you joining us and sharing such awesome insights and valuable nuggets of knowledge. And want to thank our listeners for listening to the X Factor: A Home Pro Sales podcast. I hope that it brings you value. I’m confident that this episode absolutely will help you take your sales game to the next level.
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