EP: 223 Brigham Dickinson w/ Power Selling Pros - How To Book More Jobs In The HVAC Industry

Dive into our latest HVAC Revealed episode, where Thaddeus had an enlightening conversation with Brigham Dickinson, the founder of Power Selling Pros. This episode is jam-packed with key insights and actionable strategies for HVAC professionals and business leaders alike.

Key Takeaways

• Creating a Buying Environment: Brigham Dickinson emphasizes understanding customer needs and providing options. It's all about guiding them to make a decision without pushing a hard sell. Establish an atmosphere of safety, comfort, and fun to gain their trust and make your offer compelling.

• Principles for Excellence: Mastering the principles behind sales scripts and systems can drastically improve your call conversions and customer interactions. Brigham walks through the importance of a positive attitude, gratitude, empathy, and reassurance, especially in those crucial first seconds of a customer call.

• Maximizing Call Conversions: By improving call booking rates from 60% to 85%, businesses can see a significant rise in revenue. Brigham shares practical advice to enhance your customer service representative's skills and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

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Find Brigham :

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigham-dickinson/
On The Web: https://powersellingpros.com/
Via Email: Brigham@powersellingpros.com

Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662



Sponsored By:

Chiirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: https://elitecall.net
On Purpose Media: https://onpurposemedia.ca

Transcript

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:01

Right now, if you increase that by 20%, now you're at 40. Well, you've just doubled your business just by getting better at answering the phone and booking them into jobs and looking at the pattern for excellence and there's all eight of them and I want to unpack them because I think they're super impactful and important to be able to dive in. So let's start with number one. Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where we have good conversations with good people, and a good conversation worth having is worth having drunk or sober or underwater. It doesn't really matter but we're gonna have Brigham on a little bit later, and I've got the water going, but you notice it's just me today, because Evan is on a plane, so he's not able tune in, although he probably could have done it from the airport. So let's give him shit next time he's on the show. But today we have on Brigham Dickinson. I'm pretty excited. Second time on the show been having great conversations with Brigham over the last year and a half, two years of seeing him at all the different events in the trade shows. I'm super glad that we're able to get him back on to have a deeper conversation. So a little bit about them. So he is the president and founder of Power Selling Pro is their leading coaching and training firm that's dedicated to teaching businesses how to wow more customers. So he actually started it when he saw that call handlers need assistance consisting converting calls into bookings. Now, he started in 2009. Now, fast forward 15 years later, they have over a thousand trainees currently in their program. They help over 400 contractors on a regular basis. He is also a three time best selling author. He has a new company that has about 70 clients that he works with right now that is an after hours phone answering services called Booked and his focus really has been on CSRs generating revenue and not just booking calls. I'm excited to dive into the eight patterns, principles for excellence, rather the eight principles for excellent. It's going to be a good time, good conversation, but of course, today's show would not be possible without our sponsors. We have Service World Expo, we have Chiirp, we have League Call, we have On Purpose Meeting, no particular order. Let's start off with the newest of the new Service World Expo. So join us for the most magical contractor experience at Service World Expo in Orlando, Florida from October 15th to 17th this year, enjoy keynotes, breakout sessions for our workshop, social mixers and exhibit hall with industry leading products and podcasts like this one are yours truly will be there. 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Visit onpurposemedia.ca. Today to start your transformation in the digital world. Welcome to the show, Brigham. Thank you for coming back on. Let's start with the first one. Yeah, no worries. The journey into 2009. You 2008, 2009, looking at Power Selling Pros, looking at a gap in the marketplace in, in walking into starting that business. What was the thought process? Like, how did you identify that gap in start power selling? Walk us through how you found the niche that you guys are in and the journey to starting the business.

Brigham Dickinson: 4:21

So Thaddeus, that was a total accident. I didn't mean to do this at all. Training CSRs? Who would pay to do that? I was doing SEO and pay per click for a company. It was a media company. I can't remember the name of it. Oozle. It was Oozle Media, and I don't even know if they're around anymore, but was a broker for them back in 2008, they couldn't even hire me. Why? Because it was 2008 and I was trying to make ends meet. I had a client, his name was Troy Neerings Plumbing and Heating. He gave me a call and we started helping him with some advertising. When I say we, I'm referring to me. It was just me back then and the calls that were coming in were pretty rough. So the SEL leads were calls such as, I just want a ball part price. I just want an ocean charge to come out. I just want to talk to a technician calls like that.

Thaddeus Tondu: 5:04

Right.

Brigham Dickinson: 5:05

And they couldn't book them. So he said, Hey I need to put these, this SEO on hold until we have the opportunity to to book these calls. And I was like what you need is training. And he's yeah, I'm pretty sure I do. And I said well, I used to answer the phones myself at another heating, cooling company. Why don't you let me go ahead and jump in and train them on how to book these calls and a lot of these customers. And he said, all right, I'll give you a month to see what you can do. Within about that period of time, I was able to increase his call conversions by 20 percent calls with appointments. That's pretty significant. About a month later, I got a call from his buddy, Tom Robichaud in Boulder, Colorado, and he said, Hey, I hear you're working with Troy. And I said, yep, I'm with Troy. I'm also doing his advertising. He said, that's great. My advertising is taken care of, but I'll pay you to train my CSRs. And then the light bulb came on for me. I was like, holy cow. I could actually start a business training CSRs to book calls and walk customers. And so I told it was all thanks, but no, thanks. I've got this new business idea and went for it. Tom and Troy got together after about two months and they said, man, we really need to help bring them out. And they referred me to a guy by the name of Mike Guglielmo in Brunswick, New Jersey. Owner of gold medal before he sold it. And then he has since built up SEO or CEO warrior and sold that. And he and I worked together for about three months and he said, Brigham, you're doing an awesome job. Prepare yourself. I'm going to start referring you to everybody. And sure enough, he was referring us to everyone. And then it really became us. Like legitimately, that is. I started hiring all my friends. I don't have a lot of friends, you know that. And It's been a journey ever since. We went from training 6 ESRs to well over a thousand now. And we hold them accountable one on one, twice a month, using their own phone calls. So it's ongoing. Coaching accountability for over a thousand CSRs all in the home service industry. I'd say 90 percent of them are heating and cooling but there's some plumbing and some electrical and roofing and pest control and stuff like that, but all in the home services industry.

Thaddeus Tondu: 7:03

And like that, that 20 percent increase is a massive stat. When you think about that in, look the toughest part about being a marketing agency is not having a very good booking ratio because we can send a hundred calls your way, but if you're only booking 20 of them. Oh no kidding. You're not going to have success right now. If you increase that by 20%, now you're at 40. You've just doubled your business just by getting better at answering the phone and booking them into jobs which is phenomenal. And so now you're here, now it's 2024. You've done a lot of work to be able to do that and help train those, the CSRs. And I want to get into the principles patterns, principles.

Brigham Dickinson: 7:38

Yeah. It's called the Pattern For Excellence.

Thaddeus Tondu: 7:40

Pattern For Excellence. That's what it was. In looking at the pattern for excellence and there's eight, you have that, you can hold that up. And there's all eight of them. And I want to unpack them because I think they're super impactful and important to be able to dive in. So let's start with number one.

Brigham Dickinson: 7:53

Yeah. So the first one is a positive attitude okay. Positive, positivity attracts people. And when we sit down with CSRs and we begin to talk to them about being positive, You've got to be very careful about the way you go about it, the way you teach it, because everybody knows they should be positive, right? It's one of those common knowledge, but not common practice types of things. So the question that I, post to them is, what do you do to constantly maintain a positive attitude? You're sitting in a chair in a cubicle eight to ten hours a day. What do you do to get rid of the monotony and have some excitement? What and what you're doing and they have a lot of great answers most of the time, the answers that I like to hear are, I love my job. I love talking to customers. I love taking care of their needs that sort of thing and I simply ask them, that's phenomenal. What do you do when a customer calls in and says, Hey you've been out to my home twice in the last two days. And my system still isn't working. What do you do then, Mr. Positivity, right? And at that point they say yeah. And we begin to talk about it because funny thing, as soon as I bring that up, every CSR that I'm talking to thinks about that one customer and they usually have a name for that customer. That is, they usually have a name, right? That they bring up. It's even better when they all say the same name. Almost in unison. It's Sally Roberts. Everybody knows who Sally Roberts is.

Thaddeus Tondu: 9:06

I thought you were going to say Karen.

Brigham Dickinson: 9:08

Oh, it could totally be Karen, right? And Sally is a Karen, right? Or whatever. And yeah. So as soon as we pinpoint who that individual is, the next question is, okay, what do you do to maintain a positive attitude? And we do a lot of exercises. For example, we write down and maybe you can try this out. Thaddeus, you ready? And everybody who's on, who's listening in can do the same thing. I want you to take just 20 seconds. And write down everything you're grateful for. No joke. You've got a pen. Guess what? I've got a pen and a pencil. I've got a piece of paper. I'm going to do it right now for 20 seconds. Ready to go. Everything you agree Guys, if you've only got two things written down, you need to do this more often. Five more seconds. Get two more down to there. Okay. Time's up.

Thaddeus Tondu: 9:47

All right.

Brigham Dickinson: 9:47

Thaddeus, what do you, how many you have, by the way, Thaddeus?

Thaddeus Tondu: 9:49

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You were talking a little bit through it, so I was actually doing the exercise.

Brigham Dickinson: 9:56

Yeah, there you go. Six. Good job. Good job. And what are you grateful for?

Thaddeus Tondu: 10:00

I got my kids, wife, roof over my head, our dog, a business, my business partner, my health, and overall happiness.

Brigham Dickinson: 10:07

And crazy thing, when you talk about what you're grateful for, how does it make you feel?

Thaddeus Tondu: 10:11

It feels pretty damn fucking good.

Brigham Dickinson: 10:13

That's right. It's a reboot. It's a reboot. You get a bad call, comes in, just take a moment, pause for a second, write down everything you're grateful for, get yourself out of that mindset, reboot, be ready for the next call that comes in.

Thaddeus Tondu: 10:25

I like that tip. That is a huge one because everybody deals with an ordinary customer at some point in their life or some point in their day. Some people multiple times in a day, but taking that pause and here's, I would actually add in an additional challenge. Don't repeat the gratifying things. Every single day. So if you have to do this exercise two, three, four times a day, try to find new things. Not the same thing every single time. Yeah. Let's talk about what'd you write down though? I'm curious. What were your six?

Brigham Dickinson: 10:49

Family home? I wrote down kids, which is also family. I like them twice as much twice as usual. I am grateful, and then health freedom, my car. I've got a really, I've got a car that I enjoy. Yeah. So here's the other thing I like focusing in on health hydration. How much water should you have a day?

Thaddeus Tondu: 11:11

Oh, I don't know. I have a Nalgene here. It's green. I don't put it on the air, but it's a one liter bottle. I probably drink four of those in a day.

Brigham Dickinson: 11:18

There you go. So it's about a gallon a day. That's what you should have. Yep. Funny how it stops your energy and your positivity. When you're dehydrated, weird, right? You get headache and stuff like that. You're like, man, I've got a headache. I need some towel. No, you probably water, probably need to drink water. Physical fitness. There are usually three things we talk about when it comes to physical fitness. You've got exercise, you've got nutrition and sleep. Which of those three is the most important?

Thaddeus Tondu: 11:40

All three of them. Actually, I probably say sleep's the biggest one.

Brigham Dickinson: 11:43

Yes, you're absolutely right. Sleep is the most important. It's actually where you lose most of your weight. Okay. So you should get about seven, 78 hours of sleep a day. Okay. The second most important exercise or nutrition, which one that is?

Thaddeus Tondu: 11:54

Nutrition.

Brigham Dickinson: 11:55

Yeah. You got nutrition. If you were to sacrifice one of those, it would be physical fitness. So I realized that every listener on this podcast or what have you, it's going to be like, Holy cow. I can't wait to go home to my spouse. I need to stop exercising. I need to go to bed. That's more important, right?

Thaddeus Tondu: 12:11

But it actually, but that sleep thing, that was a real thing because a lot of people are chronically underslept.

Brigham Dickinson: 12:15

Yes.

Thaddeus Tondu: 12:16

Yes. Although I was reading something the other days, that's, that used to be a badge of honor when people say, I only slept four hours last night. Now it's actually transitioning to the badge of honor. When you have the or rings and the watches and all that stuff of your sleep scores and optimizing it for efficiencies, which is crazy because it's sure it's transitioning now.

Brigham Dickinson: 12:34

It really is transitioning. There's a lot of things that are transitioning. It's funny how that is, but yeah. Positive attitude is one of those things, and I simply ask you guys Is a negative attitude contagious? And of course they say, yes, it totally is. Is a positive attitude contagious? Yes, it is. Okay? So it's important for you to constantly be acting or working on your attitude. Making sure that it stays in check and it's positive. And that that's your, that's what you're transmitting over the phone. They'll sense it. The customer will notice it and they'll they'll respond to that energy. They may call somebody else until they get that, those good vibes that they're looking to get. So that's the first one. Positive attitude, you constantly work on it. Number two preparation. So we do a lot of listening to calls. CSRs don't like listening to their own phone calls. In fact, I'm not sure that there's anyone in their right mind that likes to listen to phone calls. At least their own voice over the phone. And so what we like to do is to provide a lot of practice before that phone rings. And the best way for us to provide practice is to pinpoint those areas where they need to practice it. Best way to do that is for them to listen to their phone calls. And we'll do it together. We'll listen to those calls, we'll pause them at certain times in certain areas, and we'll listen to them again, and we'll say, Okay, did you notice what happened there? Yeah, I wasn't doing this or I wasn't doing that. Okay, cool. Let's work on it. And they're usually going to have some sort of something that they remember that went on that day. Their significant other was giving them a hard time, or their kids were keeping them up the night before, or whatever, right? Whatever the case may be they weren't ready for the calls that day. And so getting them to the point where they are present and being held accountable on a regular basis. And preparation comes down to practice, and that's how we build their confidence. Once they're super confident, what they're doing, the next principle is about listening. Now, in fact, I would say the next three are the most important part of your. Of your call. First 30 to 50 seconds of that phone call, you need to show the customer that you're listening, that you care and reassure them that they've called the right place. Once you've done that, the call is going to be easy. All right? Everything you, everything else that goes on in the call will take care of itself. If you listen, if you care, if you reassure, if you don't do that, At very least, that call is going to take a whole lot longer than it needs to take. It may take six minutes, it may take seven, eight. Why? Because the customer is going to continue to ask questions until they feel understood. Until they feel like you care about their situation, until they know in their heart of hearts that they have called the right place, they're going to keep asking questions. So if you can take care of those emotional needs in the beginning of the call, then the call takes three minutes instead of six.

Thaddeus Tondu: 14:57

Great. So how do you take care of them? Like, why do you, what are some things to obviously listening is easy to just check your trap but the care and the assurance part that's the part that that it's okay let's unpack that a little bit. How can somebody, when the call comes in, do the listen, care and reassure that they made the right choice by calling this business.

Brigham Dickinson: 15:13

Tell you what, Thaddeus, I'm going to give you. Three specific ways to answer the phone, okay? Right now. Ways to show that you're listening, that you care, and reassure. I'm gonna give you some three word phrases, okay? For listening, first three word phrase. You ever watch the movie Grease? There's a song in there starts with tell me more. How's it go?

Thaddeus Tondu: 15:32

Oh, I wouldn't be able to sing it You don't want me to sing either. I got booed off the stage once a karaoke. No, it's that bad. It was that bad I got booed off the stage I was thinking about the song that I got boot off the stage for, but yeah, press that memory. It came back. Thank you.

Brigham Dickinson: 15:47

So tell me more is a very powerful question. Okay. Customer gets on the phone. Let's say, Hey, I want to, they say, I want a ballpark price. Great. Tell me more about your situation. What's going on. Oh, I've got this air conditioner that's blowing hot air. Now we're, now they're talking about the situation itself as opposed to their perceived solution to the problem. Okay, let me give you another one. Hey, I just want to talk to a technician. Great, we have a ton of technicians. Let me make sure I'm setting up the right one. Can you tell me more about your situation? What's going on? Oh, I've got this air conditioner that's blowing hot air. Funny thing they also, Have an air conditioner that's blowing out air, right? Hey, what are you charged to come out? It really depends on your situation. Can you tell me more about it? What's going on? So tell me more is a very powerful question. Now, sometimes you don't want the customer to tell you more if they're going on and on already about how the air conditioner is not working and how their daughter's about to get married in their backyard and it's so exciting. And man, they cannot wait for this wedding and by the way, they take this pill for this and that pill for that. And you're going to holy last thing you're going to want to ask. There is tell me right now, the 25 minutes. Tell me more. No, really? Because it's on my script. No, they're going to be sometimes when you say, so it's just this. Yes. It's just your air conditioner getting out and get to the point, right? But either way, what you're doing there is just showing them that you are listening. Now, when we're face to face, you sure, you may not have to say anything to show that you're listening. Eye contact, nodding our heads up and down. Maybe we've got a pen and we're leaning forward and we're engaged. You don't have to say anything to show that we're listening. But when you're over the phone, you don't have that luxury. So you need to use your words to show that you're listening. By asking questions. Oh, is it doing this? Is it doing that to more regardless of what it is they call and get on the phone for your objective is to find out what is going on with their system as opposed to their solution to the problem. Okay, so once you get them talking about the situation, you then can express empathy. You're basically have the ability to say. Oh my gosh. So you've got an air conditioner that's not blowing hot air. How long has it been doing that? Oh, the last couple days. And by the way, Thaddeus, they promised you a three word phrase for care. You ready? That's. Not. Good. Simple. That's not good. You've got an air conditioner that's blowing hot air? That's not good. And they'll say, holy cow. You're totally right. It's not good. Look, you've called the right place. We can help you. What did I just do there? I said, yes, I can help you. They're not sure. Hopefully you are right. I can totally help you with that. And then we ask a question of our own, simply, won't you like us out which is the has to do with the ask principle. But before I get too far into this, listening, caring, reassuring, you do that in the first 30 to 50 seconds of the phone call, the rest is going to be easy. It's going to be K. The reason why is because the customer has a human emotional need. Once you take care of that human emotional need by showing them that you're listening, that you're caring, reassuring them, everything else, boy. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your fee is. Why? Because they like you. Let me ask you something. Let's say, we say you have a neighbor that you do not like, and that neighbor borrows a rake. You don't even want to give the rake to them. You know what I mean? You want to say, oh shoot, I don't have a rake. I don't, what is a rake? You know what I mean? You might pretend that you know what a rake is. And if you do let them borrow that rake. How soon are you at their house asking for that rape back? As soon as you see them being done. Exactly. You see that thing leaning on the side of the house, you're walking over there, you're grabbing the rake. Because you don't like and trust them. You don't believe you're going to see that rake even if you don't go and get it. Now, let's say you got a neighbor that their kids come to your house on a regular basis. Your kids go to their house on a regular basis. You guys have barbecues on the weekends. You hang out all the time, laugh and giggle. And this neighbor borrows a rake. What do you care how long they have it?

Thaddeus Tondu: 19:07

Until I need it again.

Brigham Dickinson: 19:08

Exactly. Yep. Exactly. We tend to be more amiable, more flexible, more reasonable with those that we, so if the CSR would just take a little bit more time showing the customer that they are listening, that they care, reassuring'em that they've call the right place. It's going to be a whole lot easier for them in the long run. Do that first. So those are those three principles. Oh, tell me more. That's not good. I can help. Three word phrases, each one of them. It doesn't get any easier than that.

Thaddeus Tondu: 19:35

That's phenomenal and if you're an owner listening to this, don't answer the phone saying hello, because that's not going to be very good for you either, because you're never going to be able to do less than care and assure if that's how you answer the phone. That happens. Pattern number four.

Brigham Dickinson: 19:45

So we went through listen, we went through care, caring, and that is number four. Let me talk about that for just a moment. Sometimes we use words like Oh, sorry to hear that. I know this never happens in Canada when you guys say sorry, right?

Thaddeus Tondu: 20:00

No doubt about it. We never say sorry, eh?

Brigham Dickinson: 20:02

Exactly. And the other word is unfortunately. When you say the word unfortunately, what you're saying is that you are not fortunate. You're telling the customer that they're not lucky. You're essentially saying, and not to go to Vegas anytime soon, because you're not a lucky person. So you've got to be very careful about the words that you use. Sorry comes across as fake. It comes across as contrived. I'm not going to blame it on Canada, I'm just saying it. I'm just saying

Thaddeus Tondu: 20:27

Hey, we say sorry when we forget to hold the door for somebody.

Brigham Dickinson: 20:30

Exactly. It's ruined. The meaning of the word is ruined. And so stop saying it. People don't believe you. Unfortunately, don't say that. Don't tell people they're not lucky. Who are you to tell them that they're not lucky? It's not okay. They don't want to hear it. Essentially what you're saying is no. They don't want to hear it, so don't say no. So again, some people are going to be like, geez, then what do I do say? How do I say no? You don't say no. What you do is you focus in on what you can do as opposed to what you cannot do. Okay? But this right here, empathy, is huge. Not, basically what you're doing is you're carrying the weight with them. You're carrying the emotional angst with them. Oh no, that's not good. Maybe a simple expression of concern, a simple or oh, wow, or geez, or something of that nature. That way they feel like, okay, this person really cares about me, cares about my situation. And then you follow that right up with the next principle, right? Principle, next principle in the pattern for excellence, number five, yes. Okay, yes, I can help you with that. They need to know that you can help. So you're reassuring them. Why? Because assurance builds trust, right? They need to know that you can help if you feel certain and confident that you can help. It helps me feel confident that you can help as well. So that's where that principle comes in. Sixth principle is ask, asking the right questions. And the cool thing about asking is asking encourages action. And this is asking in general, the specific application we like to use in call handling is when would you like us out? Now for CSRs, this is a really scary question to ask, because if you ask when it's going to come out, and they say this afternoon, you feel like you've painted yourself in a corner. But if you were to follow it up with, great, let me get your contact information, and we'll look at the schedule together. Did I say it could come out right now? Nope. Let me get your contact information, and we'll look at the schedule together.

Thaddeus Tondu: 22:04

And most people say, sorry, unfortunately we're all booked.

Brigham Dickinson: 22:07

Yeah. No.

Thaddeus Tondu: 22:07

Bad thing to say. Do not say that.

Brigham Dickinson: 22:09

Yeah. Let me get your contact information. We'll look at the schedule again. Now that we've got your contact information, we're going to get all that information. Now, if we can book it and we can meet their expectation of when they'd like for us to come out, what are we going to do?

Thaddeus Tondu: 22:19

Book a new win for them. We're going to book it.

Brigham Dickinson: 22:21

Exactly. Now, if we can't meet their expectation, I'll give you, I'll give you a tool right here, right now, that you can book the call anyway. How does that sound, Thaddeus? So there's this tool I like to call the urgency list. You don't call it a waiting list. Nobody wants to wait. And you don't call it a standby list, because if you've ever flown standby, it's not fun, okay? Nobody likes standby flights, and so don't use the word. Remember, words have meaning. So if it's an urgency list, what you do is, as soon as you get their contact information, you go right into this amazing list of yours that you like to call the urgency list. You say, Mr. Jones, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put you on today's urgency list. What it does is it gives you faster service. Okay. He's liking where this is going right now, right? Soon as a customer calls into his schedule, technician gets done earthing your area. Side note, those are the only ways that we're going to be able to get out today, right? I'm not going to say that to the customer, but I'm simply saying there's two ways for us to get out, even though we're booked solid. Customer calls into his schedule, or a technician gets done earthing your area. Those are the two ways. That's me telling you the two ways for you to, for us to get out. They want to know if we're coming out. Yes. Here are the two ways. Okay. Somebody calls in reschedule, technician gets done in an earlier area. Okay? Let me rewind real quick here. I'm going to get you on today's urgency list. It gives you faster service. Soon as a customer calls in to reschedule, technician gets done in your area, I'm going to move in that slot. Now, in order to get you on today's urgency list, I do need to get you in the schedule. I have an opening on Tuesday between two and four. Can I book that appointment in order to get you on today's urgency list and we'll call you as soon as the technician is on his way. So now let's say we've got, isn't this cool? That is, let's say we've got 10 people on the urgency list and five we call throughout the day. Why? Because everybody knows, it's listening to this podcast. they're going to get people rescheduling. Technicians are going to call in all the time saying, Hey, I'm done. I'm done a little bit early. So those five that we call, how do you think they're feeling about our services right now when we call them?

Thaddeus Tondu: 24:08

Pretty dang good. They're like, oh man,

Brigham Dickinson: 24:09

I was coming Tuesday, you're coming today, amazing! Yes! And they go online and they say, these guys are amazing, nobody would come out to my home. I called a bunch of people and crazy thing, these guys are able to come out. They made it happen. What about those other five that we don't get to? We call them at the end of the day and we say, Mr. Jones, we've had you on today's urgency list. We've got 20 technicians in the field, some of which work, and when you, when it's really busy, that is, you've got technicians working all hours of the night. We have technicians working all hours of the night, and we're getting to as many families. It's not customers anymore. We're getting to as many families as we possibly can. I'm going to put you on tomorrow's urgency list. As soon as the customer calls in reschedule, technician gets done earning your area, I'm gonna move into that slot. Now we do have a guaranteed appointment for you on Tuesday between 2 and 4. We will call you as soon as the technician is on his way. So here's the thing. Here's what happens right now Thaddeus. You're right. Contractor right now or CSR is going to say, without the urgency of this, they're going to say, yeah, we're booked solid. There's no way. They might even say, there's no freaking way we're getting out today, No way. We're just so busy. That person is never going to call you again.

Thaddeus Tondu: 25:12

Nope. Never. They gone.

Brigham Dickinson: 25:13

So they hang up with you. They call the next company. What are the chances of them being busy? If they're legitimate and they're a worthwhile company, if you're busy, chances are they're going to be very busy too. Now if they, for whatever reason, in extreme weather, are able to find somebody that is twiddling their thumbs, we don't want them working with those guys anyway. So chances are, if you're busy, they're going to wait. And if they're going to wait Thaddeus, then they might as well wait for our contractors, for us, right? They might as well wait for us. So you really think it's great customer service just to say, that's not great customer service. It's horrific. It's terrible and side note, you've paid a bunch of money to make that phone ring. Once it's wrong, once it's once Thaddeus makes the phone ring for you, you mute the eyes. Once he has done his job, if they can fog him here, it's a lead. Period.

Thaddeus Tondu: 26:01

I like that. I'm going to steal that one.

Brigham Dickinson: 26:03

Once the phone rings, it is on you to wow that customer to become the 9 1 1. What is it in Canada? 6 1 1? What's the 9 1 1. Still 9 1 1. See, no excuses for you guys.

Thaddeus Tondu: 26:17

Sorry. It's actually, it's actually 9 9 9 1 1 A.

Brigham Dickinson: 26:21

Oh, that makes perfect sense. Okay. Yes. You are 9 1 1. There's no 9 1 2 period. It is up to you from here on out. Okay. So whether you are booked or not, you now have zero excuse. To book every call that comes in. Okay. So let's talk about the last two principles real quick before we get too off track.

Thaddeus Tondu: 26:40

Before we get off, I am going to get off track. I'm going to put our random question generator into the show. You did not get to experience this when we were down in Austin when we had you on the podcast. Cause we don't do them there. So the random question generator is literally just that. It is a random question. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about. You don't get to know what they are. I'm going to list off. You get to choose question one, two, or three, and I'm going to read off question one, two, or three, depending on which one you choose. Sound good. Okay. All right. Do you want question one? Do you want question two? You want question three? Let's go with number one.

Brigham Dickinson: 27:13

That is number one.

Thaddeus Tondu: 27:14

Okay. If you could have any real or fictional animal as a pet and you can't choose an animal that you have, if you could have any. Real or fictional animal as a pet, what would you choose? I like eagles. I was thinking an eagle too, for whatever reason. But why an eagle?

Brigham Dickinson: 27:31

I've been to Alaska twice, and those things just seem so majestic. I'd like to have it right on my arm. Boom. And if it were to catch me a rabbit, every once in a while, I'd have to learn how to skin a rabbit, but I would eat that sucker.

Thaddeus Tondu: 27:45

Make some rabbit stew? Heck

Brigham Dickinson: 27:46

yeah. Heck yeah. Then send me a recipe, would you Thaddeus?

Thaddeus Tondu: 27:50

I have actually never cooked rabbit stew but I have cooked a lot of wild game, so maybe I'll send you a wild game recipe and you can use it for rabbit. I'm sure it works just the same. All right. Principle 7. Principle 7, Principle 8.

Brigham Dickinson: 28:02

Principle 7. And 8, yes. Value, okay? Value creates commitment. The reason why this is important, as far as a CSR is concerned, is I want you to build value before you present a dispatch sheet. Customer gets on the phone, they say, hey, what do you charge this amount? We charge X. Okay, thanks, bye. You ding dong, right? You want to be able to build value first. So how do we go about doing that? We've got to listen, care, reassure before we even do that. Okay. What do you trust to come out? It really depends on your situation. Can you tell me more about it? What's going on? I've got this air conditioner and it's blowing out air. Wow. How long has it been doing that? Oh, last couple of days. Wait a minute. So you've been dealing with this for the last couple of days. Yeah. It's pretty brutal. Look, we can totally help you with that. Would you like us out this afternoon? It'd be good. Fantastic. Let me get your contact information. We'll look at the schedule together. All right. So I've got your contact information and I've got an appointment this afternoon between two and four. Does that work for you? Yep. That works great for me. Awesome. So here's what we're going to do. This is where I build value. That is what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna send out a technician. He's trained, he's certified, he's backbar comes around for the last three years. Now you're in great hands. He's going to come out with a fully stocked truck. He's going to look at the scope of the work. He's going to determine exactly what you need to fix and he'll give you a price before he starts. Now there is a fee of X for him to come out and do that. So you're all set there. And that's me building value before I present the price. Okay. If you ever watch an infomercial, they give the price out in the beginning. Okay.

Thaddeus Tondu: 29:16

Never.

Brigham Dickinson: 29:17

Yeah, never. And this is the reason why they work so well. This is the reason why people still do them all the time. Because you've got to put the appeals in first. You got to put the value in first. They don't care what your price is. Okay. What they care about is that they've called the right place is going to take care of them. If they like you, it doesn't matter what your fee is if they like you, it doesn't matter how long they're going to wait for you to come out. They want to work with you because they like you. So you've got to do this first. I also work with technicians and the question I often like to ask them, especially early in the morning because they're usually drinking their coffee. They're trying to wake up. So I asked him a question that it never fails to wake them up. It's awesome. I simply see you guys, how do you get kissed on the first date? Holy cow. They're like, I have full attention immediately. As soon as I asked that question, And the reason for that is even if they're married, chances are they haven't been kissed in weeks.

Thaddeus Tondu: 30:05

That's true. my wife and I have kissed three times already today.

Brigham Dickinson: 30:08

Hey, bragger, there you go brad again great hair and you did kiss. That's wonderful.

Thaddeus Tondu: 30:13

Hey, but we both have great beards. I will say that.

Brigham Dickinson: 30:15

I appreciate that. Thank you. So yeah, three things you need to get kissed on the first date. Number one. Your date's got to feel super comfortable. If they don't feel comfortable, guess what? Not happening. You're not getting kissed. If they don't feel safe, you're not getting kissed. If they're not just having a little bit of fun, just a little bit, guess what? You're not getting kissed. Those three things need to be present in order to get kissed and how do you do that crazy thing? It's by listening, caring, and reassuring. Same set of principles that CSRs on a regular basis is the same set of principles that you would use to create a fantastic environment inside of a date in order to get kissed. Okay. Now this is where a really smart LEP technician pipes up and says, wait a minute. So you want us to kiss our customers? No, of course not. But I do want you to create an environment of safety, comfort and fun inside the customer's home. Because what you've done is you've created a buying environment. And inside that buying environment, you have the freedom to be curious about what's going on inside the customer's home. Not just what you were called out to do, but everything that's going on inside the customer's home, at which point you'll be able to notice things that you couldn't notice at the front door, such as a smoke detector hanging from the wire, such as an inhaler sitting on the coffee table. Such as a room in the back of the house. It's a bit colder than the rest of the rooms, a room that they tend to never go in ever. All that stuff is there to build to you. You just need to earn the tour and you don't earn the tour. If they don't like you, you don't earn the tour. If they don't feel comfortable and if they don't feel safe, you're not going to earn it. You've got to earn that tour. The way you do it is through safety, comfort, fun, a little bit of curiosity, get the tour, provide options based on what you find. All your options. Don't assume what they want. Give them all the options and then simply get them to yes or no. At which point a technician asks, wait a minute, you don't want us to sell? Did I say anything about selling? Did you say anything about selling? No. This is what a great job looks like. You create an environment of safety, comfort, and fun. In that environment, that buying environment, You get them, you get curious about what's going on inside the customer. So you find everything that's going on. You provide options based on that curiosity, based on what you find, and you simply get them to yes or no. Ta da. That's it. Now, all of that is how. You go about building value. Value creates commitment and creating value is part of your job. And that's the seventh principle. Questions on that status. You want me to jump into the last one?

Thaddeus Tondu: 32:40

No, I think let's jump in the last one. I just, I really liked it. The part about like in the value thing that I wanted to add in there is value. Oh, he gone. He just exited out of the show just like that, but he back. Those that are listening later will be like, what happened? And so those that are listening to this. I would do the video of it knows that I think everybody knows. I'm about to transition segue and team up for his eighth one. And he just leaves the stream and he's just gone and just leaves the room, just me on the screen. But the thing about, about an hour for it, where it's going to go with that, the value building in, so the seventh principle, by the way, doesn't just apply to the technicians in the home. It doesn't just apply to the CRS on the phone. It applies to. Every aspect of your business from the very first time they see your brand. Does your brand have a good value to it when they see your vehicle driving down the road? Does your website speak to this value that you can create when they're on it? Now you transition to what Brigham's talking about when they answer the phone. Is there that value continuity that they have between the vehicle that they might see down the road to your website? What they're talking about, the experience, the on the way messages too, by the way, utilizing text messaging into there to be able to notify your customer when they're there. Now, when the technician's in the home, you've already helped create those three things for them. You've made it safe. You made it comfortable. You've made it fun, but you've also added in the other three parts that you had that you'd said early, the listening, the care, and the insure, the assuring it's already baked into that when they're there, it makes the job so much easier for the technician. When you've done all these things up to that point,

Brigham Dickinson: 34:06

When I do ride alongs with techs, they get really antsy if I'm sitting there talking to the customer and they are drawn to the box. They almost want to walk away from our conversation. There have been times where I've literally had to hold on to the shirt of my technician so it doesn't walk away to the box while I'm talking to the customer. Just a little tap or a little nudge and I pull his shirt this way and he walks back and is yeah. Trying to stay involved in the conversation. I like to be there 15 minutes, just talking to them right inside the door and usually what happens is they say come follow me. That's what you want. That's the tour come follow me where you they're with you the entire time and you're discovering things together. Things that they've been putting up with for years. This back room here. What do you usually do in this room? Oh, not much. Why don't you do anything in the room? I don't know. It's usually colder than the rest of the house. Huh. Do you like it like that? No. Do you know that we can fix that? Crazy. We might go into their TV room and they've got some sort of air purifier in there. You know the ones you buy at Costco? The room air purifiers? Crazy thing. We have the ability to purify the air in time in inside your entire home. Oh my gosh, is that for real? Yeah, it's for real. Let me show you all about it. The technician's sitting there what the freak is going on? It is about earning the tour. And then after they see it once they're like, okay, so about 15, 20 minutes, just talking to them at the front door and then let them beckon you into the rest of the home with them invite into the rest of the home. And as long as they stay with you, you're discovering things together. Now you're not selling at all. It's not about selling. It's about finally helping the customer. Embrace the technology that is available to them inside these days. So that, and this is the fun part, right? So the eighth principle in the pattern for excellence is gratitude reinforcing reinforces unity. When you say thank you, what you're saying is you made a difference. You made a difference. Gratitude is according to some people, joy doubled by wonder, joy doubled by wonder. So when somebody says thank you, yes, they feel important. And when they feel important, they become loyal to you as a company, right? Them as your customer, that loyalty is imperative. So find ways to say thank you. Even if they beat you to it and they say thank you, I'm Chick fil A does it best my pleasure. I wouldn't even say you're welcome. What a wasted opportunity. It was my pleasure. It was actually my pleasure. The pleasure was all mine. Okay. You do that. It makes them feel super special, super important. Thank you. Sincere gratitude in general is extremely powerful. Just remember the joy doubled by wonder. You'll, it'll help you remember how important it is to see. Yeah.

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:45

I love it. Sorry, I'm just writing the droid doubled by wonder is yeah. I like writing those down too because I think it's actually funny at the 28 minute mark of the show, I wrote down CSS as we have client success specialists and that's a good part for them to even listen to as well. So no matter what type of business you're in, these principles can be applied anywhere, not just in the CSR role itself. And CSS is for us with client success specialists. Those are our client facing staff inside of our agency. But the joy doubled by wonder and the gratitude and that goes full circle to what we did earlier is writing down those gratitude things because when you can have that gratitude and really mean the thank yous and the pleasures all mine, that's powerful. That's powerful stuff.

Brigham Dickinson: 37:25

Yes. Yes. So this is why we teach principles and not just applications. Everybody's going to have a script. Everybody's going to have a cell system and the minute that script or cell system doesn't work for one customer, they throw it out. It held the whole thing out and so We start with scripts, but in the end, our goal is for you to master the principles behind the script. Because once you get to the point where you're mastering principles, it really doesn't matter what you say, because you're following principles.

Thaddeus Tondu: 37:51

And once you have the principles, you can almost ad lib the script a little bit because you're really deeply ingrained into those. And now you can create wonderful mastery based off of situations that, that arise because you have the principles that are there, which is super powerful and important. So look. Thank you for coming on and sharing those eight principles of patterns for excellence. For those that want to find out more, powersellingpros.com is the way to do that. They've got all their information on their book call. In fact we had one John Gonzalez, we've seen great results with making his comment there. I know that they're in their new business there, blue Ribbon. So love John Gonzalez and what he does, and I've heard phenomenal things from others that have used you as well. But before we do wrap up Brigham, I have one final question here for you. Okay. And you ready? So ready. All right. What is one question that you wish people would ask you more but don't? As far as our services? It could be personally, it could be services, it could be any way you want to take it. What is one question that you wish to people would ask you more?

Brigham Dickinson: 38:51

When can we start? It's funny in the beginning of this show, you talked about the ROI and calls coming into your office. They're the ones that you're already getting, meaning this is your lowest hanging fruit right now. You Lowest hanging fruit. Now, the industry average, according to ServiceTitan of all things, the industry average is 42 percent calls versus set appointments. Now, everybody that's listening now is going, there's no way we're as low as 42%. So let's say that together you're at 60 percent instead of 42%. And let's say that for the sake of simple math, let's say that you take 30 calls a day. Now I know that anybody that's listening on this phone call, they're like, dude, I take way more interview calls a day. Let's just say it's 30. Let's say that your average ticket's 500 bucks. Okay. So if you booked 60 percent of 30 calls, that's 18 calls. So when you do the math off of a off of your average ticket, right? Your average revenue, which is 500 bucks now on a replacement call, it's going to be a whole lot higher than 500 bucks on a service call. It's likely going to be higher than 500 bucks likely. So I'm saying 500, 500 bucks, just as to be as conservative as it could possibly be. So your daily revenue based on those numbers, okay. 18 calls, 500 bucks, It's 9, 000 a day a year. That's 2. 3 million. Now 2. 3 million dollar shop. You're good, right? Hey, I'm a 2. 3 million dollar shop. It's fine. A lot of contractors out there that make great money, even when their call conversions are bad. But if you book 85 percent of your phone calls, now you're booking 25. 5 calls out of 30. You're making 12, 000 a day off of a 500 ticket. As opposed to just nine and now you're making 3. 3 million. So what are we talking about here? Conservatively, when you go from booking 60 percent of your calls to 85 percent of your calls, legitimately booking 85 percent of your phone calls, you're making an extra million dollars a year. Conservatively, this is absolutely your lowest hanging fruit, bar none. It's the calls that are already coming to your office. Remember, if they can fog them near their lead, and even if they say, Hey, I want to book Park Price, you now know how to book them. Even if even if they say, I want to know if she charged him, I don't want to talk to a technician. I have given you the tools to book that call and while that customer, make sure you're the only one going out. And if you believe in your heart of hearts that you can't do it on your own then it is sincerely. Time for us to be talking.

Thaddeus Tondu: 41:02

No. And yeah, even if you go from 60 to 85 percent in those are the numbers. And again, conservative numbers, right? That's added a million dollars in revenue. What's it cost? That's a good ROI right there by going to powersellingpros.com and getting in touch with them because they are absolutely wonderful in what they do. Thank you. You're very welcome. So thank you again Brigham for taking the time to come on and chat, sharing the eight principles and the pattern for excellence. I think I got it right that time. Only took me 55 minutes but and go check out his book, guys. The something to give a journey to becoming a leader worth following. He unpacks some of those inside of it as well. It has eight ones that are up there eight principles that are part of the book as well. So go check that out. I'm sure that you can get it on anywhere you can buy your books. Thank you again, Brigham, for taking the time. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the next event in the fall series of our travels. Cause I'm sure that you and I will both be at a lot of events come the fall time.

Brigham Dickinson: 41:53

Looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

Thaddeus Tondu: 41:54

Thank you. And until next time, cheers. Well, That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, All we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all. One person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.