Soften your senses.
Ways to become a better speaker, listener, and follower.
This episode brought to you by Power Selling Pros.
Bringing customer service training and coaching to you.
Learn more at PowerSellingPros.com.
Alright everyone, thank you for joining us once again on Did You Know?
The ESCO HVAC Podcast.
So we're spending some time with Brigham Dickinson, the president and founder of Power Selling
Pros.
How are you doing today?
I'm great, Cliff.
Thanks for having me.
You know, before the show we were having some conversations about like soft skills and
training and we want everyone to know that we're really here to help you understand
ways of communication.
That's really what it comes down to.
So many people will say that with COVID, relationships have died and customer service has died.
And that's not really so.
I think so many people have set it on the shelf and not picked it back up.
And so you're very much leading an effort to help people understand those communication
skills and what it takes to be able to become a good communicator with our customers.
Because we all really are servants to our customers.
Right.
You know, no matter what capacity or whether you're an educator and your customer is your
students and your local contractors, whether you're a distributor and your customer is
your contractors, whether you're a contractor and your customer is your customers and your
employees, we all have communications that we don't always focus on in our industry.
Right.
Sadly enough.
You know, it's interesting about what you initially said that, you know, the idea that
customer service has died after COVID.
Well, if that's true, that's great news for us.
The reason why is because the consumer expectation is low.
And if you can knock their socks off, it's from the very first phone call.
My gosh, that's going to change everything for you.
The dynamic is massive.
The opportunity is massive.
Yeah.
So we both know that the customer experience is alive and well.
There's just less people do it.
Now, it didn't help us that during COVID, we were bombarded by phone calls.
Right.
We were actually doing them a favor by picking up the phone.
Right.
And we got, you know, let's be honest, we got lazy.
Right.
It was easy.
Right.
Comfort advisors, man, they got all the attention.
You know, we kind of, all the technicians were like, oh, they're calling them money man.
There goes the money man.
Well, the truth is, they were killing it.
Yes.
The truth is, is that it was easy.
It was easy because everybody needed it.
Yeah.
Everybody needed it and they needed it right now.
They're spending more time at home.
Their systems were breaking down sooner than they were supposed to.
And guess what?
When people were uncomfortable, they pull out their checkbook.
Absolutely.
And IAQ was at the forefront of things, which we didn't talk about a ton before.
I mean, we might have rushed on IAQ, but we didn't get into the whole comfort advisor
and the environmental impact that we can do as HVAC contractors.
And now man, that's mainstream.
People are hunting for those options.
Exactly.
Because they're spending more time at home.
That's it.
I mean, you said yourself before the podcast that you're working on your own house that
you want to be at.
Yeah, absolutely.
You want to make sure it has all the bells and whistles, all the latest technology.
I want it.
I see what it can do.
And I hear about it all the time.
I'm like, if we can do this, well, let's talk about this.
Okay.
So we could admit that it's been easy.
Okay.
It's been easy.
And then towards the end of last year, things started going south, right?
For whatever reason, call volumes are down.
They're down about 20% nationwide and everybody's kind of concerned about it.
And it reminds me of the time, oh, I don't know, way back when in 2008, the last time
things hit the proverbial fan.
Yeah.
And so customers were calling in and they were saying, hey, I just want a ballpark price.
And nobody knew what to do with those calls.
And they call and they say, hey, I just want to talk to a technician.
What is this?
Is this like, it never happens, right?
You want it free?
Yeah, exactly.
What are you charged to come out?
You know, 10 bucks, that's outrageous.
Right?
Whereas before they're like, it's $5,000 to come out.
Great.
Fantastic.
Can you come out today?
We can get here.
It didn't matter.
Can we finance that by the way?
Right, right, right.
And we're rolling.
What's in the streets these days?
Yeah, exactly.
So those calls always came in.
We just didn't spend any time on them because we knew that the call right after that was
going to be a much easier call to take.
And so we just kind of, you know, we just got lazy.
And you know what?
It's just kind of the nature of the beast.
So now these types of calls are calls that we absolutely need to book because guess what?
Those are the only calls you're getting.
Right.
People are tighter with their money.
And so right out of the gate, why don't I show you a quick way to book those types of
calls just so that everybody listening can get some value.
Does that sound all right, Cliff?
Yeah, man, let's do it.
Okay.
So the customer gets on the phone, they want a ballpark price.
What they're really saying is because you're thinking, okay, this is a price shopper.
Whenever a price shopper gets on the phone, they're not necessarily shopping for price.
They believe that price is the only thing that sets you apart from everybody else.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So that's why they're asking about price.
Yeah.
They don't know that it's between you and the next guy.
So for your price.
So whose job is it to show them that there's much more to this than just the price?
Everyone at that company.
Yeah.
But initially it's going to be the first call.
Yeah.
That first person they encounter.
Exactly.
That person picks up the phone.
By the time they get off the phone, the homeowner needs to see a huge difference between the
company that they're talking to and everybody else they've already talked to.
So what we need to do is we need to take care of that customer's emotional need.
Okay.
So we both know that emotion drives the selling process.
Logic justifies, but emotion drives it.
And so what we want to do is take care of that customer's emotional needs.
Now what are their emotional needs?
Well, they want to feel understood.
They want to feel cared about and they want to feel reassured that they've called the
right place.
So you've got to take care of those three emotional needs first.
Now if you can take care of those three emotional needs first, the rest of the call, it's easy.
It's fantastic.
Okay.
So let me give you one way to apply showing that you're listening, showing that you care,
reassuring that you've called the right place.
You do it in the first 30 seconds.
Okay.
Customer gets on the call and they say, Hey, I'm just looking for a ballpark price.
Great.
Hey, Brigham.
Yeah.
So I'm just checking to see what kind of prices that you guys have on equipment.
What's the going rate today?
It's a great question.
Who am I speaking with?
My name's Clifton.
Hey Clifton, I'm Brigham.
Glad you called in.
Is there a system that you've got that's not working?
What motivated your call today?
Yeah.
You know, I think our system's about 15 years old or so.
Oh, so you've gotten some good life out of it.
Yeah.
It just doesn't keep up as the way that it used to.
And, and, and, you know, things are getting tighter.
I've heard that equipment prices are going up and that refrigerants are going away.
And I'm just, I'm just needing to get a ballpark of, you know, where you guys are on prices.
So I, I just, I know what I can do.
Gotcha.
So you've got no faith in your system right now.
It's done.
It's complete.
There's nothing you can do for it.
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
I really hate to buy window air conditioners, but
Well, look, we can totally help you.
When would you like us out to take a look at your system or to determine right system
size?
I'm, I'm working from home these days.
So I'm, I'm, I'm pretty available.
It'd be nice to get something going, you know, at least have an idea soon.
Okay.
Well, let me get your contact information and let's look at the schedule together.
Okay.
Yeah, that's fair.
So now we're rolling Clifton.
Man, that didn't take you right.
About 30 seconds.
Yeah.
So look, our goal is to listen.
And one of the best ways to teach a CSR how to listen is to talk to them about the movie
Grease.
You ever watched the movie Grease?
Oh yeah, sure.
Great musical.
Everybody loves it.
There's a song there.
It starts with, tell me more, tell me more.
Yeah.
And funny thing, whenever I bring that up, every CSR I talk to starts singing.
See you're out of your home.
And exactly tell me more, tell me more.
So I have them write it down, right?
I have them write it down and next time a customer gets on the phone and says, Hey,
what do you guys charge to come out?
Well, tell me more about your situation.
What's going on?
Right.
Because it really depends on the situation.
Now if they want to replace their system, there's no charge.
If they want to fix their system, there might be something associated there with us coming
out.
But either way, I need more information.
Truthfully.
It's not me putting you off or throwing things to the side.
It's more about me learning more about your situation.
So I've got to understand first, if I sincerely show you that I want to understand, whether
it's through, tell me more, what's it doing or how long has it been doing that?
Doesn't matter.
If they feel sincerely that you understand that changes things for them emotionally.
And then after that, I simply go, okay, so as soon as you explain to me what it's doing,
it's been around for 15 years, you're like, oh yeah, it's just not working, man.
It's brutal.
I get you talking about the situation itself and you're using words like unfortunately
and so on and so forth.
And I know I need to get it replaced and I really don't want to do it.
But you see, I'm getting you to that point where you're a little bit vulnerable.
And that's what I want.
I want to show you that I care.
Right?
Did you feel that I cared?
Yes, absolutely.
And then I just simply reassured you that you've called the right place.
Validation.
Yeah.
You've called the right place.
Yeah.
Okay.
Essentially what I'm saying is, is you belong here.
Yeah.
You belong.
You're in the right place.
Okay.
It's safe.
It's comfortable.
All right.
And as long as I can create that environment in the beginning of that phone call, I simply
ask, well, when would you like us out?
Why?
Because you feel understood, you feel cared about and you feel reassured that you're called
the right place.
You're good.
So emotion drives, logic justifies.
Okay.
So that's what we want to do with those types of calls.
Hey, I just want to talk to a technician.
Great.
We've got a lot of those.
Let's make sure that we're sending out the right one.
Tell me more about your situation.
Yeah.
Tell me more about your situation.
Yeah.
What's going on?
Well, it's, it's doing this.
It's doing that.
Oh my gosh.
How long has been doing that?
Last couple of days.
Okay.
Well, we can help.
We can help with that.
When would you like us out?
Oh, this afternoon would be good.
And you'd be surprised how many times, even in a role play, I'm sitting down at the CSR.
I, in the beginning, I said, I want you to be as mean as you possibly can.
And I get into it and they go, Oh, I can't do this.
Why'd you stop the role play?
She's like, well, because I'm not this kind of person.
Well, what kind of person?
Oh, well, I'm not mean.
Why do you care that I'm, why do you care what I think?
Well, I, I'm not, I'm not a mean person.
Exactly.
You like me, you like me.
And it makes it very hard, even in a role play to be angry, disgruntled or mean.
That's pretty basic fundamental.
I mean, but impactful.
Yeah.
So if you can take care of their human emotional needs and beginning the phone call, you're
going to have a much better chance of booking that call while in that customer, but they've
got to love it, right?
They've got to own their process.
And so what am I teaching?
I'm teaching the pattern for excellence.
Right, right, right.
Okay.
So the end goal is create a wow experience for the customer.
And the way that you create that wow experience for the customer is you follow eight principles.
You teach, I teach, I teach positivity because you got to have it.
Yep.
You got to have a positive attitude from the, from the get-go.
It's contagious.
So as a negative attitude, so be very careful.
Always check your attitude at the door before you pick up that phone metaphorically speaking.
Right.
And so after that, you've got to have a willingness to listen to your own phone calls.
Cause we don't just teach people how to answer the phones.
We're monitoring their calls on a regular basis.
We're coaching them one-on-one twice a month using their own phone calls.
Oh wow.
A lot of training companies out there that will tell you what to do and then leave you
to your own devices.
We don't do that.
We teach you what to do.
We teach your team what to do.
And then we go in and provide the accountability over time.
So we do it for you.
All right.
We provide the accountability over time for you.
It's four levels of certification.
Takes about a year and a half to complete.
But by the time we're done, they're booking calls, they're wowing customers.
We're making sure that when the CSR books that call, that they're the only one.
The company is the only one going out to the customer's home.
Exactly.
We're teaching them how to sell service agreements.
Here's what's so important about this, Cliff, is that if I can help a CSR realize that if
they spend the extra time in the beginning of that phone call, listening, caring, reassuring,
if they do that first, you'll find that the call takes half as long.
The reason why is because usually when we get on the phone, we're saying things like,
well, where are you located?
And have we worked with you before?
And let me get your address.
You see, I'm taking.
Take, take, take, take, take.
You're actually feeling isolated.
Exactly.
And you're also creating concern.
Like, well, if I say, yes, I've worked with you before, do I get better service?
If I say no, does that mean you're not going to help me?
You're only working with existing customers?
You know what you're curating?
If you ask for my address or you already look, if I'm not in your service area, am I wasting
my time?
You're creating concern right out of the gate.
You're taking as opposed to giving.
So before you take information, you've got to give your attention, give your attention,
do it for 30 seconds.
Trust me, even if you book the call at the end of that call, the customer is going to
say, so about my system, it's not working.
And I'm not sure that, you know, they explain the situation because they're not sure they're
feeling understood.
Feeling is the key word there.
They don't feel cared about.
They don't feel like they've called the right place.
They don't feel like they belong.
Their emotional needs aren't being met.
And that's why that call takes six minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes, nine minutes,
as opposed to three.
Give your attention first.
You see with people, fast is actually slow.
Yeah, I've actually heard that quite often.
And it takes a while to understand what that actually means.
Yeah.
So that's our goal there.
I love that.
I love the approach.
You know, one of the things that you had mentioned was, you know, that you're, you're actually
going back and you're spending time one-on-one with people, replaying their conversations.
And I get this question quite often.
How are you so comfortable speaking?
I'm like, because at some point I got tired of hearing myself because I was, I was recording
and listening to myself and to the point where I got comfortable hearing what I was saying.
And so that's what you're, that's what you're doing.
You're, you're helping someone learn a skillset of communication by listening to themselves,
making corrections, and then hearing those changes along the way.
I mean, you're doing a mentorship for CSRs.
Yes.
Yeah, look, and usually a CSR doesn't get a lot of attention.
Usually the only time they get training is if their business owner walks by them and
hears something he or she doesn't like.
And now it's a punishment.
Yeah.
Right.
You hire us and we're already behind the eight ball.
Oh, powersling process coming in to fix us.
Apparently we're not good enough.
Right.
And we've got to, we've got to wade through that instead training your CSRs, coaching
your CSRs on a regular basis should be a part of your culture.
I think so.
So if you know in your heart of hearts that you're not going to do it, then hire somebody
outside, hire a third party, somebody who's competent, somebody who knows what they're
doing and, and, and provide that accountability and that attention to them.
If nothing else, it's cheap therapy.
I'm just sitting here thinking, you're providing a lot of service.
Yeah.
To, to people.
Yeah.
Really?
And they just need that.
Look, there's a reason why people exercise more than once.
There's a reason why they go to church more than once.
They go regularly.
They exercise regularly because they need it regularly.
Well, that's, that's also true with them having a chance to sharpen the saw, listen
to their own phone calls on a regular basis and get feedback and coaching and be able
to practice during that period of time.
And if they've got a great connection with their coach, man, you'd be surprised at what
they can do.
So here's what I teach the CSR.
I say, look, as soon as you begin to do these things, right, you're going to have the opportunity
at the end of that phone call to say, Hey, Mr. Jones, I'm looking at your notes and I
noticed you don't have a membership with us.
I'm wondering why not.
Now let's say you get 30 phone calls a day and 20 of those calls are like, I'm good.
We're good there.
And that's fine.
All right.
Nope.
We're not going to push it, but let's say that 10 were to say, Oh my gosh, well, what's
that all about?
What is that?
Exactly.
What are the benefits?
Yeah.
And then let's say that out of the 10 to actually do sign up right there over the phone.
And let's say that a CSR gets $10 per membership and they sell two a day.
So now we're at 20 bucks a day, $20 five days a week is a hundred bucks.
Now it's there's 52 weeks in a year.
Let's say that they're working 50 out of those 52 weeks, 50 times 10 add two zeros.
You've got $5,000 a year.
Okay.
So you've just changed everything for that CSR.
Now that CSR has control over their own income.
They become more self-reliant and they sit in that seat longer and you don't have as
much turnover because you've given them a way to make their own money.
You're training and incentivizing them to perform at extremely high level.
Look, your technicians shouldn't be selling memberships anyway.
They should be selling zoning.
They should be selling indoor air quality, all the other things that we were talking
about before this podcast started.
That's what they should be doing.
So the CSR's job is to provide the technicians with opportunity.
That's their job.
Their job is to keep the board full.
If calls are coming in, great.
Book the call while the customer makes sure you're the only one coming out.
If calls aren't coming in, they want to have, you want to create the culture for them to
be motivated to call out.
So if they're being taught and compensated for selling service agreements on the inbound
phone calls, what do you think they're going to do if the call stops ringing, if the call
stops coming in?
They're going to call out, talk to some customers and say, hey, why don't you have a membership
with us?
Why?
Because they've realized how easy it is on the inbound calls.
So you've got to create that culture inside the office.
Now once the expectation is set, well then your goal is to do the same thing with technicians.
I don't know if we've got time to talk about it, but if we do, let's dive into it.
This is great.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
So with the technician, you'll notice by the way that I don't use the word sales.
The reason why is because CSRs and technicians don't want to be in sales.
They don't want to feel like car salesmen.
However, they do want to do a good job.
Yeah, they want to provide solutions.
Yes.
And so all you want to do is create a picture for what a great job looks like.
So whenever I'm in front of technicians and Cliff, I probably fly out this time of year
twice a week with business owners.
And on day one, I'm training the CSRs to set the expectation for what we're looking to
hear over the phones before we begin the coaching process for them.
And then the next day I get in a technician uniform and I'm going out on ride-alongs with
techs.
I do an hour training in the morning and then I begin to teach technicians throughout the
day.
Now in that hour training, it's very simple.
And it doesn't matter how early it is, Clifton, it doesn't matter if they've had coffee or
not.
I ask one question to wake everybody up.
And this question is only for technicians, it's not for CSRs.
You've got to know your audience.
But for technicians, I simply ask guys, how do you get kissed on the first date?
And you'd be amazed at how often a technician begins to sit up in his chair, I get eye contact,
I get people pulling out their pencils.
They're ready to write down something really important.
Even if they're married, you and I know they haven't been kissed in weeks.
So there are three things you need to have a very good chance of getting kissed on the
first date.
Okay.
The first is to create an environment of comfort, right?
If your date does not feel comfortable, you're not getting kissed.
Number two is, is they've got to feel safe.
If they don't feel safe, guess what?
You're not getting kissed.
Lastly, they need to have just a little bit of fun.
Okay, just a little bit of fun.
In this environment, you have a very good chance of getting kissed.
Now, at this point, a smart, I'm counting on a smart alecky technician asking me saying,
so you want us to kiss our customers?
No, no, I do not.
I do not want you kissing your customers.
However, I'm glad you brought it up because I do want you to create an environment of
safety and environment of comfort and make sure they're having just a little bit of fun.
In that environment, don't you think?
In that, yeah, in that environment, you're not just going out to do the thing you've
been called out to do.
You're taking a look at the entire home.
Why?
Because they feel safe.
They feel comfortable.
They're having fun.
You're a homeowner.
In that environment, you have the opportunity, the freedom to get curious about what's going
on inside the customer's home.
And you're going to notice things.
You're going to notice things like smoke to take your hanging from the wire.
And you're going to see water heaters that are a little bit older than they than they
should be.
And they're probably going to break down any moment.
You're going to see leaky faucets.
You're going to see toilets that don't flush.
You're going to see it right.
You're going to see bathtubs.
The water goes up a little bit and they wade through water every time they take a shower.
They're going to you're going to see these things.
And as you see these things, because they like you, they feel safe.
And they're having just a little bit of fun, right?
They feel comfortable.
They're going to say, oh, will you please fix that while you're here?
Oh, will you please fix this while you're here?
And don't you think that is great customer service.
You see, when we are curious about what's going on inside the customer's home and we
provide options based on that curiosity, and then we simply get to yes or no, just get
to yes or no.
You provide the option.
They say no fine.
They say yes, great.
Either way, you're going through and you're providing a phenomenal customer experience.
And at some point during this, they go, wait a minute, you don't want me to sell.
Did I say anything about selling?
No.
Did you say about who said anything about nobody said anything about selling?
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to create an environment of safety, comfort, and fun happens to be a buying environment
in that environment.
You have the freedom to be curious about what's going on inside the customer's home.
You provide options based on that curiosity and you simply get to yes or no.
That's all I want you to do.
I'm sold.
I love it.
It's such a wonderful conversation.
Yeah.
And so they ask, okay, we'll bring them.
How do we create safety comfort in front?
I'm so glad you asked.
We have this really cool tool called the pattern for excellence.
And I go through and teach them that pattern for excellence.
And I do it in an hour.
So when I am done, when I go through customers homes, I mean, we're crushing it.
There's always something in everybody's home.
There's probably something in your home where, you know, a plumber or heating and cooling
tech can come in and find it, fix it, upgrade it.
The right person is getting the work.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so if you are there in the customer's home on a date, metaphorically speaking, where
it's okay that they're still around, it's okay that you guys are talking all along the
way and you're pointing things out and you're saying, hey, you see what this does?
Let me show you something real quick.
And then let me open this.
You see what's going on there.
You see what's happening there.
And as you are, things come up.
You know, geez, my son, he does suffer from allergies.
He does.
Well, there's so much that we can provide here.
Let me show you.
Yeah, the static's horrible in here.
The wood's cracking.
Yeah.
Here's where we'd put that UV light.
You see right above here and we'd put it right there.
And I'm not even a technician.
Okay.
When a homeowner says to me, I'm right there with the technician, it's been there for the
last 20 years.
And the homeowner says to me, man, you're a great technician.
And of course we walk outside and he's like, dude, you're not a technician.
So, so yeah, yeah.
It's, it's, uh, it's a lot of fun when you just make it as simple as possible.
Every technician I know wants to do a good job.
True.
They want to do a good job.
And even though they don't want to sell, okay.
If we, if we're just hitting them, sell, sell, sell, you know what?
You might as well be talking to a wall.
Yeah.
You're going to lose a technician.
Yeah.
They don't want to do that.
They want to do a good job.
They want to go home at night, feel good about what they're doing.
All you need to do is show them how to do that.
Wonderful.
Brigham Dickinson, power selling pros.
How do people connect with power selling pros?
Yeah.
So just go to power selling pros.com.
P O W E R S E L L I N G P R O S.com.
There is a link right on the front page of that website where you can click on a demo,
basically schedule a demo.
You'll get it right on our calendar and we'll talk about your needs, your CSRs and your
technicians.
And our goal is to build a long-term relationship.
And the last thing we want to do is give you one more thing to do.
We actually want to take something off your plate.
So if you know your CSRs need ongoing coaching accountability, let's do it.
If you know your technicians need ongoing coaching accountability, let's do it.
We look forward to working with you.
Awesome.
I appreciate your time and I look forward to some deeper conversations on this.
Let's do it.
Thanks.
Thank you.