What’s V.A.K? The Secret Sauce to Converting More Customers

Andy
Hell yeah! Wow, wow, and just wow. The weeks roll around so fast and I can’t believe it. We’re on the downhill run to Christmas. It’s absolutely crazy. 

Ange
Oh my gosh, absolutely. What is crazy though, Andy, is the pressure that many trade business owners put themselves in at the back end of the year just to finish on a strong note. Just for this inevitable slowdown over this holiday season. 

Andy
Yeah, does that sound like you? Well, Listen along as we teach you the secret sauce to converting more prospects into paying customers. I’m going to state the obvious here, Ange, you can’t run a profitable trade business without good paying customers.

Ange
Yeah, you’re so right, Andy. So while what you’re saying seems obvious, here’s the problem. Many of us get caught up in the day to day and we miss obvious opportunities to convert customers or maybe you and your team may not be using your upsell strategies in the best possible way. 

Andy
Yeah. Are any of these situations ringing true for you out there listening? I mean, the ultimate goal is a big yes to work, right? 

Ange
Yeah. 

Andy
But in your trade business right now, if you’re getting in front of many potential customers out in the field, I’d like to ask you, how many of these are you actually converting? 

Ange
Hmm. Such a good question. And if you can honestly say that, yes, you are converting all of your prospects to paying customers, then you know what?

Andy
Go you. 

Ange
That’s absolutely amazing. But if you’re wondering how you can be better in converting more prospects to paying customers, then this episode is going to change your life. 

Andy
Whoa. Change your life. That’s a pretty big call there, Ange.

Ange
I know. But listen up because I reckon it’s true. It’s often the little things, these overlooked things that make all the difference. And when you get to the end of this podcast for all the listeners, I swear they’re going to go, Oh my God, they’re so right. That makes complete sense. 

Andy
Of course we are. But okay, okay, it’s time to spill the beans. So Ange, I know you love a concept and teaching how to apply it. So what are VAK principles exactly? And why should our listeners feel excited about what VAK can do for them? 

Ange
Well, who doesn’t love a good principle, Andy? So like all principles, the beauty of VAK or V.A.K is in the way that these principles actually underpin consistent decision making from your customer. 

Andy
Okay. You’ve got me interested. Keep going. But let’s start with what does VAK actually mean? And then why do listeners really even care about VAK? And finally, can you give us some examples of VAK in action? 

Ange
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds like a great plan. So the power of VAK principles is that when you’re dealing with prospects, they have complete clarity about why you’re recommending a particular solution and hence influence them to make a buying decision. VAK or V.A.K is actually an acronym. 

Andy
Okay. Okay. What does VAK actually mean? 

Ange
All right. So V is for visuals, like things that you see or you read, like diagrams, charts, presentations, maybe videos. A stands for auditory, meaning your listening skills, speaking, such as sound, question and answer and discussion with your customers. And K is kinesthetic, meaning touch or doing things involving your customers, like maybe samples, trips and visits, or maybe touching a booklet, for example, or even a site walkthrough through a property. 

Andy
Well, that is definitely interesting. So you’ve got some statistics that further support the VAK idea for trade business owners who want to convert more prospects into paying customers.

Ange
Yes. And here they are. So a massive 65 percent of people learn through visual representation. 30 percent is through auditory and 5 percent is through kinesthetic. 

Andy
Wow, that is actually huge when you think about that 65 percent of people learn through visual representation. What you’re saying is these statistics make it clear that we should be using some form of visual and auditory communication to empower a customer to make a decision and ultimately say yes to go ahead with the job. 

Ange
Absolutely. You’ve got it in one. That’s exactly what these statistics are telling us. So maybe think of it this way. Imagine you’re on holiday in a really unfamiliar place and you want to get from A to B, but you’re lost. So think about what you do when you need to take in information from someone when you’ve asked for help to find your way. 

Andy
Okay, go on. 

Ange
Well, would you prefer to see where you need to go on a map and so you’ll visually understand where you’re going or do you prefer to listen carefully to instructions like someone explaining it to you or maybe you’re the kind of person who actually is okay just to wander aimlessly and willing to figure it out on your own or maybe actually you’re a combination of them all.

Andy
Yeah. I mean, I see what you’re saying now and your customers out there are no different. You know, some might communicate with you by drawing what they want. So people like landscape architects, for example, might experience this and they could be quite descriptive through words or even walk you through their garden and point a few things out along the way.

Ange
Yeah, of course. So, in the best case scenario, you’d actually use a combination of all three as a tradesperson when you’re communicating with a prospect. However, here’s the challenge. The message gets lost in translation. It could be that your prospect is completely distracted when you’re with them and it makes it really hard to get their complete attention.

Andy
Yeah, I’d say that all tradies out there have been in a position where it feels impossible to really be heard by a prospect. You know, it could be that their work slack is channeling their phones, pinging widely in the background, or they’ve got little kids swinging off their legs and causing a ruckus and, or they may be switching between listening to you and also listening and telling their kids to be quiet. You know, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? That is for sure. 

Ange
Yeah. There’s also the situation where you and your team members actually don’t quite nail the communication for whatever reason and it leads to confusion from the customer. 

Andy
Yeah. And let’s face it, not all trades people in your team communicate the same way, right? And if you do confuse the customer, there’s a real good chance they’re not going to say yes. Worse still, it chips away at your team’s confidence because they’re wondering, Why am I not winning these jobs? 

Ange
Yes. Ouch. Right? So here we are. You’re experiencing missed opportunities and you can’t put your finger on the problem.

Andy
If the penny is starting to drop for you and you recognize this is happening in your trade business, how can you turn this on its head?

Ange
Well, the answer is by using VAK principles. And this is why it’s so important. It’s the reason why we’re talking about this today. You can actually influence the buying decision of a prospect when you communicate with clarity on the solution that you’re recommending. Remember, distractions and confusion leads to no sale. 

Andy
That is so true. And it really just comes back to the flow of a job and putting the VAK principles into practice throughout this whole flow to maximize your conversions. 

Ange
Yeah. Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

Andy
I know. I know. 

Ange
So if you know that I’ve quoted some statistics to you, right? 65 percent of people learn through visual representation. So what are you doing to incorporate this technique into your communication with the customer at each stage of the flow of a job? 

Andy
You’d probably be shocked to know that it takes just seven seconds for a customer to make a judgment about you as a member of your team. Think about it. Seven seconds, and that’s how long it takes for a customer to decide if they like you or not when you show up at their front door. 

Ange
Yes, seven seconds. And in that time, they’re judging you on things like, is your tradie looking clean and presentable? Are they wearing an identifiable uniform? And importantly, does the tradie create a friendly interaction by doing something so simple like smiling? These are actually all visual representations. 

Andy
No one wants a tradie rocking up. Looking like a sad sack, a dodgy looking character that hasn’t shaved for weeks, much less hand over their hard earned money to them.

Ange
Ouch. Exactly. So I know this sounds so obvious, but I’m super surprised at the number of trade business owners that actually don’t care about their appearance and hence they don’t actually pull up their team members when they’re representing their brand out in the marketplace. It actually matters to people. It matters.

Andy
Righto, Ange. Righto. I know it matters. 

Ange
So a specific idea of how you can bring a visual tool into the workflow to convert a prospect to a paying customer is an information booklet. 

Andy
Yeah. It’s a way to anchor your customer into a conversation about the problem. You are on site to help them solve.

Ange
Yeah, exactly. So the information booklet provides the written word on the reason why the thing is important. So maybe it’s images and words to explain the reasons say safety switches on a switchboard are important. And weirdly, if it’s written down, human logic tells you it must be true. 

Andy
That’s right. If it’s written down, it must be true, baby. But the thing is your team just might struggle to explain why it’s important when using their own words, but if you arm them with something to talk to, it just might give them that extra confidence they need to explain the solution better. 

Ange
Yeah. If you think about some of your tradies, maybe they actually talk too much, right? Because they’re trying to explain an issue, maybe they’re using your technical professional terms instead of layman’s talk, and therefore, I, as your customer, are super confused. So this takes us back to using this booklet as a tangible tool to bring focus to the decision that needs to be made by the customer. 

Andy
Yeah, exactly. And the other big one we used to use in our business, Dr. Drip, was our credibility pack. And we’d mainly use that when we’re competing for bigger jobs, but instead of just sending them through a boring quote, for work with the pricing, we’d include a credibility pack, which would explain the value of our business, even if we were perhaps more expensive.

Ange
Absolutely. This thing is actually an important reference tool for the decision maker. 

Andy
A hundred percent it is. 

Ange
And the kinesthetic piece comes into play here too, because you’ve actually been able to hand over this credibility pack and that person can touch and feel this good quality printed paper and subconsciously, they make connections around the fact that your business, your trade business is professional and high quality and therefore provides the exact same quality of work. And this gives your customer more reason to say yes. 

Andy
I just laughed and you sort of had the quality of paper because I can remember for so many years you were saying it was a what? Is it GRM or what? What are you? 

Ange
The GSM. 

Andy
GSM and what? What level do you always like? 

Ange
It’s very specific. 

Andy
Oh God. Oh God. 

Ange
250 versus 150, 350, but yes.

Andy
Back in the old days. Okay listeners, that’s a lot to take in. But let me ask you this. What are you thinking right now? Like, could you be better with your visual representation and you know, does your team have the visual tools to strategically convert prospects to paying customers? 

Ange
Yes. All great questions to think about. So now that we’ve given you a couple of examples about visual in the VAK principle, let’s move on to auditory because 30 percent of people learn this way. And the most important thing you can do here is listen. 

Andy
Yeah. When you say important, it is so important that the prospect feels heard. That is number one thing, and even if the prospect at times is saying things you don’t agree with, that’s okay, but you need to listen. Because if they don’t feel heard, they don’t really feel like they’re getting the outcome and they don’t actually feel like you actually really care and you’re going to solve their problem.

Ange
Yes. A simple and effective way to make sure your customer knows you’ve listened is to repeat what they say and hence talk through possible solutions. Inside Lifestyle Tradie Membership, we go so much deeper on this, like connecting dots between scripts from your team that go hand in hand with these tangible tools that we’re talking about.

Andy
Yeah. These scripts give you and the team the confidence they need to build trust with the customer. We share the actual sentences to use to make it super simple to implement. 

Ange
Yeah, look. The right language, the right words do make a difference in communicating with clarity versus confusing your customer. And in this instance, arming your tradies with confidence to upsell if it’s right for the customer is super important. 

Andy
Yeah, and one of the most important parts here is teaching your team how to ask for the sale. 

Ange
Yes.

Andy
And you know, when they do that, what is the sentence or sentences your team can use and they can look that customer in the eye and they can say them and they can make the sale on the spot.

Ange
Yes. If you’ve delivered the visual and the auditory principles with confidence, it’s far more likely that they’re going to say yes to the job at hand. 

Andy
Exactly. And this gets us to the third principle and that is kinesthetic, you know, it’s touch or doing. I’m going to let you talk about this one Ange.

Ange
Okay. So kinesthetic, depending on your trade, this could mean having like color charts to pass to a customer to view if maybe you’re a painter, which is a good example. 

Andy
Yeah. Or for an example, with Dr. Drip in our plumbing business, we would have some spare parts in our tool bag and we’d use that as a prop in the discussion with the customer. So for instance, a flexible connection hose that is underneath, say a vanity, they get a lot of rust spots on them. And when they get rust spots on them, they’re really getting close to blowing out and potentially flooding bathrooms and flooding houses. So we use this rusted flexi hose to show them this is what a hose looks like that’s got rust marks and this is a hose that’s actually burst and we talk to the customer about the damage that had caused that property.

Ange
And what’s cool with this is we actually then refer it to the information booklet to educate them why. So we’re actually now using a few of these different VAK principles together. 

Andy
Yeah. Everything that we did when we’d go through that process, we’d have in the book. So we would obviously talk about it, but then we’d say to Mrs. Jones, Hey, go to page 10 or go to page 12. And then they’re actually reading it at the same time as you’re telling them. 

Ange
Exactly. So you’re explaining in words, you suggested a solution, which is the auditory part. Plus you’re showing the customer the information booklet to explain, you know, the situation at hand. That’s the visual part. And you’re even handing that booklet to the customer so that they can touch and feel, that’s the kinesthetic part and you’re talking through it all and this actually anchors their attention to actually making this buying decision. 

Andy
Yeah. Or where possible, as I mentioned earlier, having those spare parts in your tool bag like that flexi hose, I mean, that’s kinesthetic to a tee. That shows them exactly what happens if they don’t replace it. 

Ange
Yeah. Bringing all the back principles together, it helps focus your customer on this buying decision. 

Andy
Definitely. 

Ange
So, Andy, when it comes to this buying decision, there is one really important tip, which is the location. And I want to talk about this for a second. If you think about it, the good old kitchen table is where every single decision is made in most households. So, it makes a lot of sense that you should casually Move your customer using this kinesthetic process, you’re walking your customer back to this area before you actually start talking about and asking them for the sale when you can.

Andy
Yeah, it definitely comes down to the price of the sale, but I couldn’t agree more, Ange, when it’s a big decision, then at the kitchen table is definitely the place to be doing it. 

Ange
Yeah, look, as I mentioned earlier, the power is in blending actually all three of these VAK principles to turn your prospects into a paying customer. This is the secret sauce, however, you’ve got to be mindful of just a couple of things. 

Andy
And the first one is definitely overload. You know, don’t bombard your customers with the industry jargon that they just don’t understand. You know, you’ve got to stick to layman’s terms when you’re on site with a customer. And in your visual material as well, keep it simple, Sam. 

Ange
Yeah, absolutely. And the next one is you absolutely need to train your team. They need to understand the principle behind VAK, because this is why you’re asking them to implement these new strategies in the flow of a job. They need to be able to deliver VAK principles with confidence. if they want to improve conversion. 

Andy
And the thing is, the more naturally your team communicates, the stronger the chance of converting prospects into paying customers. 

Ange
You’ve got it in one. I don’t want our listeners to feel like implementing these VAK principles will actually happen overnight. So let’s be really grounded about that. We just want to encourage you to implement one at a time and bring your team along on the journey with each of those stages. It’s far less intimidating to go about it this way. And you know what? Ultimately more effective because you’ll be able to test and learn in much smaller steps. 

Andy
Yeah, that’s right, Ange. You just want to pick one to get started. And this is about working with your team to implement these changes slowly without the team feeling overwhelmed in the process. If the team is feeling overwhelmed, they’re not going to go about it the right way when they’re standing there in front of the customer.

Ange
Exactly. So before we go, I actually have one last thing and this is for you, listeners. Take a hard look at what you’re doing right now inside your trade business. You’ll actually already know what you need to work on first, I reckon. 

Andy
Yeah, I agree, Ange, and I know there’s a lot of people listening today who are thinking to themselves, yes, I can do this a hell of a lot better.

Ange
Sure. 

Andy
Or maybe you’re not even doing it at all. But in these changing economic times, the key to your business’s profitability will be your ability to connect with your prospects, to help them make buying decisions in as short a time frame as possible. And as you’ve heard today, these VAK principles are the secret sauce.

Ange
Yes, the secret sauce, but now it’s up to you to make it happen.

Andy
As always, thanks for listening. You’ve got this team. 

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