I’m not a salesperson; I’m a tradie!

Ange
Yeah, but the issue is with tradies, a lot of them will say, but that’s just not me. I’m just not a salesman. What would you say about that?

Andy
Yeah, and that’s true and we hear that constantly, but sales is a part of life these days. You know, you can’t walk into McDonald’s and not get upsold, you know, you can’t go into a coffee shop and order a coffee with like, would you like a muffin with that? Or a bacon egg roll with that. You know, sales is a part of life and I think when you realize that, Then you realize it’s just a part of your job. You know, if you wanna pick up your girlfriend or your wife, think about it. What did you do back then? Right? You know, you, you dress up for success. You walk with a bit of swagger, you get to the bar, and you have to sell yourself.

Ange
That’s true.

Andy
And if you’re not selling yourself in that first 30 seconds, the likelihood that you’re gonna be staying talking to that person is quite slim. Right?

Ange
Yeah, I suppose you’re right about that. And when you put this back in tradie terms, I guess if I see myself as your customer mm-hmm. The whole reason why I’ve called you is because I’m calling you cuz you have an immense amount of knowledge in your head. Like you’ve gone to TAFE for what, four, six years. And you’ve come out and you’ve, you actually seem to forget about how knowledgeable you are, and that’s what I’m tapping into as a customer. And what I really wanna do is just get your advice. So I kind of think of sales, as just you being a professional, trying to help me make a decision, just empowering me to make a decision. Would that be fair?

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. That’s all you need to do. But sales is such a big thing now. Sales starts from the very, very beginning. It starts with your marketing, it starts with the way the phone call comes in. It then is the way you present yourself. Like if you’re rocking up to the front door with your shirt hanging out, looking like a scruff, with a bunger hanging outside of your mouth, you know, the customer’s like, oh my God, what have I got here? So sales is such an important part. I think when you talk about sales to a lot of tradies out there, they’re just thinking hard about selling in front of a customer, ramming it down their throat, but it’s not. The best part of sales is the whole process of how you run your business.

Ange
Yeah, what we often will talk about, isn’t it, that people buy from people they like and trust. So you know, in my mind, as you said, it starts from the very beginning with the website about how the connection is. But we’re humans. So when you actually answer that phone, that person who answers that phone will literally make or break that sale. That moment they say hi, because I can hear it in your voice if you’re not really listening to me. Right? So I just need you to be my friend. I want you to help cuz that’s the reason why I called you.

Andy
Yeah, I was talking to a tradie actually just yesterday, one of our LIfestyle Tradie new members, and what they actually said was they’re doing 10 to 12 jobs a day. And I said, why is that? He said, because I’m an old school tradie, and my boss said, don’t sell anything the customer doesn’t want. Just do the job and get out the door. And I said, well, what happened? If the customer wants more work, and he goes, I actually get the shits right. And I said, what do you mean get the shits? He said, they want more work done. He goes, yeah, but we haven’t allowed it in the day. So then the customer gets droopy with me and I’m like, well if you just told me from the very start. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. customer service wise mate. You are definitely lacking.

Ange
Yeah, definitely lacking. Oh my goodness. He needs to learn from the beginning that you can’t do 10 jobs in a day. We’ve got to slow down.

Andy
Listen, an incredible business, a great guy, and I know they’re gonna be a huge success, quite a big business as well, and I’m just like, if you just slow down, you could double your business overnight. So the sales process, as we said, it’s not the hard sell, greasy car salesman, it’s the process from the moment. It starts at the very beginning, the moment you get to the front door. The way you talk to the customer, the way you communicate with the customer, the way you check and see if there’s anything else happening in their house as well. And then giving them an option that if they would like to do some extra work and saying, in my professional opinion, these are the things that need to be done. Now, if the customer turns and goes, well, listen, I didn’t wanna spend that much money. We’re like, yet. No problems. You let us know what you’d like to spend today and you have a bit of a chat about it. And at the end of the day, if the customer doesn’t want that, that is fine. There’s no hard pressure sales. We definitely don’t do that. And the customer makes the informed decision. And when you think of our business running it, 77% repeat business. Customers are happy to do it that way.

Ange
Yeah, a hundred percent agree. Sales definitely comes across in the entire flow of a job, literally from the beginning, right to the end, and it does come down to just pure communication about building trust with this customer throughout the process. So what actions are you taking to ensure that you have the best chance of upselling and winning every single quote. What I wanna do is take you through a model that we teach to our Lifestyle Tradie members called the trust escalator, and it follows the five buying decisions that everyone makes every single time. The five steps are business, you, product and service, price and time. So let me slow down and share with you what I mean by this. So the very first step of the trust escalator is business. What we need to remember is your customers, when they’re seeking out your service, whether you’re an electrician or a plumber, or a pest control, whatever, they’ll actually start doing research about you and you won’t even know it because guess what? When your customer decides to actually do work, especially when you think about a residential client, how do they find a client? Mostly, they’ll either ask a friend, they might post it on Facebook to their local mates, or they’ll start Googling and your company name will come up and will end up on your website. And I will either make a decision immediately based on how fast your website’s loaded, what beautiful photos you have, or whatever it is about that website. There’s a really important way to structure your website because I’m gonna make a quick decision. But if you are a high average dollar seller like a builder, for instance, or landscaper, I’m going to read every single one. I’m gonna judge you based on what I’ve seen, and all that’s gonna do is make me make contact with you and literally that’s me making a phone call more often than not. But give me a couple of options about how to reach out to you. Guess what? We get to the you part.

Andy
Yes, that’s right. The next step is you, and that’s the phone call. They’re judging you specifically on how you answer the phone. That’s if you’re in an office or if you are out in the field, you know the person who answers the phone. Will make or break the sale the moment they say hello, you know, we’ve actually got a nine step core converter that will take you through the exact scripting to help you nail that phone call. You can grab it from our show notes, so, How do you answer the phone? You know, most tradies answer a phone up a ladder under a sink, under the floor, and most small business owners, when you answer the phone, what are you actually thinking? Oh my God, this phone is killing me, and that’s not the way you should be answering the phone. If your customer can hear that, you aren’t really listening to them because you are clearly on site or distracted by doing something else. They’ve already switched off. Mm-hmm. , you really need to be conscious of how you sound on the phone, otherwise you are potentially already losing their customer.

Ange
So this phone call is connected now literally to making one decision, which is agreeing for us as a tradie to come on site. And guess what? I, as your customer, are judging you, meaning the person who shows up. And that might not be you as the owner of the business. This could be actually one of your tradies. So this is where your team needs to understand the importance of keeping the truck clean, the way you present yourself at my front door, how you speak to me, the way you hold yourself about your confidence levels. There’s actually lots that needs to be understood about body language. Imagine that I’ve opened my front door and I’ve looked past you and seen a revolting truck with terrible sign riding and you are all scruffy. And I’ve literally made a judgment call within a couple of seconds about the fact that you look terrible and I connect to it. I know his work is gonna be terrible and that’s not good. I’m gonna be really nice and let you in. But guess what I’m gonna say, thanks so much for coming today, but I actually need to talk to my husband to make a decision. And that is so not true. She’s such a decision maker. So what I want you to understand is the importance of that person showing up in this trust escalator. This step of the buying decision, I’m literally making a judgment on what I see in front of me. That person, you know, we talk about having clean boots and treating the house with respect, cuz that’s what’s really important to her, the customer that you’re dealing with. But it’s only then that you start talking about product and service, and this is the third step of the trust escalator.

Andy
Yeah. When you’re in front of that customer, you’re getting judged by your knowledge, really. And when you’re talking about products, what are the benefits of those products? So I’m just gonna use a hot water service as an example here. You know, you go to Mr. And Mrs. Jones’ house, they’ve got a 315 liter hot water service outside, and there’s water all over the floor and the tank has burst. Now at this stage, you’ve really got two options. You could replace that hot water service, and I’m just picking a price, but charges may be a $2,000 of a rounded off price and change that hot water service. Or maybe you could show the customer your knowledge and say, listen, Mrs. Jones, this 315 hot water service has been here for the last 15 years, but in this day and age we’re actually installing more and more of these instantaneous gas hot water services. They’re a smaller unit. You don’t see them, they don’t use as much gas and they’re more economical and friendly for you as a householder. Now the thing is maybe you need to run gas, you’ve gotta run a different size piping, and potentially that job may be 3000 or maybe even $4,000. But what you are doing is arming the customer. With the products and the service and giving them the benefits of either, and then it’s up to the customer to make the choice of which one they think is right for them.

Ange
Yeah. Empowering them to make a decision. That’s really all I want as a customer, is I just want your knowledge. I just gotta tap a hundred percent into your head. Mm-hmm. So that’s what we ask you to do is, Please share your knowledge. And it’s really important to actually deliver that confidently because again, as your customer, I’m gonna make a call about you. Even though I might like you, I might go, oh God, this guy really has no idea what he’s talking about. And straight away I’ll say no, just because that guy might be young or whatever and just can’t work out how to communicate to me. So that ‘s really important. And then we get to the fourth level of the trust escalator, which is all around, price. Where I see a lot of tradies go wrong here is they’ve actually talked about price on the phone, and normally that’s been kind of controlled by the customer, cuz the question they ask isn’t it is, well how much does it cost to put that hot water tank in? Or, so the question they’re asking is about price, and you deliver the answer over the phone. Bad, bad decision.

Andy
All you’re really doing now is getting price shoppers and they, it’s gonna ring around four or five different people. It’s definitely not the way we recommend you should run your business.

Ange
Yeah. This is the only time that you start talking about price, because by then I’ve built trust with you. You’ve started to understand that I know more. And on reflection of the trust escalator as a customer, I’ve ticked the box on business. I really liked what I saw on the website, and I think you’re really professional. You’ve been around for a long time, like I’ve read. Fabulous information. I’ve made a quick decision, and then I’ve judged the person on the phone, the you, whether that’s you or someone else. And then I’ve judged the person that’s come to my front door. I’ve judged the next level, the third level of product and service. I’ve ticked a box going, yep. He’s super knowledgeable. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s helped me make a decision. I feel really good about this. And it’s only now that I start talking about price, and therefore the price now becomes something that’s not really an option to me. And what I mean by that is you’ve built in so much value that I go, I really want this guy to do this job. So only ever start talking about price at this point. And only then do we start moving on to the fifth level of the trust escalator, which is all around time.

Andy
Yeah, I’m a real strong believer when it comes to time, there’s no better time to start a job than when you are there. Now, potentially a lot of smaller maintenance jobs you can do then and there on the spot. Mm. But it does depend on the size of the job you’re dealing with. So for instance, if you can’t do it then, and then on the spot, then you need to book in a time for them in a week or two weeks or whatever that suits you. What we like to do is we like to give the customer two options. Mrs. Jones, would you like next Tuesday at 7:00 AM or next Thursday at 7:00 AM So you are asking them a yes and yes question. You’re not giving them the option you are actually dictating when you can do it. And they go, oh, well I think I want, uh, Thursday’s a better day for me. Understanding time, understanding how to talk to the customers, understanding how to book them in is really important as well, because you don’t want them to second guess and go, oh, I don’t know, and I’ll have to talk to my husband because when things start getting a little bit confusing, confusion leads to no sale.

Ange
Yes. This all comes back to building trust. Like we said, if that word sales or being a salesperson absolutely freaks you out, then just change the language in your head. Just say to yourself, I’m not a salesperson. Ignore that. Start saying to yourself, I’m just sharing my knowledge. That’s it. I’m a professional friend. I’m giving advice like I’m talking to my mom and dad. What would you do to ensure that they are empowered to make a decision that is the right decision for them? You are there just to guide them. So people only buy from people they like and trust. So make sure you really think about what you’re doing inside your business. Think about the language you use, the way you hold yourself, and it’s not just you, it’s your entire team. They’ve got to understand this and implement this every single time.

Andy
Yeah. As you can tell, like everything we do isn’t about doing a hard sell. It’s about communicating. It’s about connecting with your customers and making sure they trust you. If they trust you, they will definitely buy from you. You know what Ange, I really enjoyed that episode today.

Ange
Yeah, me too.

Andy
I hope a lot of our trade business owners out there really get a lot out of that. Implement the trust escalator and start thinking of themselves as salesmen and tradies, not just tradies.

Ange
That’s a wrap. Tune in to our next episode where we’ve got the amazing Kate Tune, who is a marketing and copywriting wiz. She’s gonna answer the question we often are asked, which is, what exactly is SEO and Google Ads and how to get the most out of your digital marketing.

Andy
Catch you then.