Transcript:
Well. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Service Legends Podcast. And today is a very, very special episode because it’s a double whammy. We’re also running an amazing webinar with Joe’s office and we have Michelle with us here today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and the webinar.
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much.
Ryan Yes, absolutely. Just out of the bag. I love Joe’s office and we use Joe’s office at Cardinal Concrete Coatings and I really love Heather. She just calls me. She’s like, Hey, Ryan, how are you doing? Just like the support is amazing. The service is amazing. So love, love what you guys are doing. And if you have not heard about Joe’s office just yet or Michelle, Michelle is the director of business development at Joe’s office, and Joe’s office is a virtual receptionist firm that books over $2 million worth of work on the phone every month for their clients. And Michelle specifically has an MBA and has just really been obsessed with helping small businesses systemize and grow their businesses since her first lemonade stand at five years old. And I’d love to get into that. Hopefully maybe at some point in this. That’s really interesting. I love I love vendors for the service legend clients and our group and things like that where a lot of the executives or the higher ups or the directors have really hands on experience in home service or running a business or kind of have that entrepreneur in mind. I think that’s what really makes those businesses really help the, you know, the actual home service company. So that’s really cool. And Joseph has been around about eight years, is that right?
That’s right. Yeah.
It’s incredible. And primarily home services. And I mean, if you guys could just or Michelle, if you could just give a quick overview of all the services that you guys offer for for home service companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re all about communication. We know how vital communication is to businesses, but we also know how hard it is to wear all the hats when you’re running a business and with your phone ringing and everything else going on, it’s hard to get to it all. So we’re just your backup support to be able to help with inbound calls, outbound calls, everything related to your phone. And we’re actually just getting into some other communications as well. We’re about to launch some Web chat and got some other exciting things coming down the road. So just helping to help small businesses capture their customers and turn them into our callers and turn them into customers.
Yeah, I love that. We always talk about service legend. You get the leads. Turning into appointments, appointments and the customers and customers into repeat and referral. And, you know, obviously being good on the phone and being, you know, great at customer service and efficient and following through and all those things, it’s massive. I mean, it’s mission critical here. So I love this. And before we start with the slides and getting into the webinar, you know. Who would you say? Like your ideal customer is like in terms of revenue and things like that? Like, is it just anyone at home? Services like you just start now. Like, even if you’re doing 5 million a year, like, you know, is it specific or.
That’s a great question. Really. We help a wide variety. It’s just it changes a little and how we help them based off how big they are. So if you’re just starting out, usually we’re really just your back up. You’re usually the one answering most of your calls and you’re doing a great selling your business and getting it out there. We just are great to be that back up. And when you’re on another call and you might miss it, or if it’s a weekend and you’re trying to spend some time with your family. So at the beginning it’s really just that back up. As you start to grow, you find you really need someone dedicated to answer your phone. So a lot of times when they’re in that 1 to $2 million range, oftentimes they’ll hire us just to be there, be their phone support, and in that instance, you still can answer it if you want, or you can have us take all your calls and so you don’t have to worry about it. We make sure everyone’s captured. And then a lot of times people grow to a point where they want an in-house admin. And so at that point we kind of go back to the backup again where you have someone maybe in office answering most of your calls, but you want to make sure you cover those lunches and again, the before and after hours and all that. So then we can kind of just be that backup again. And then as you continue to grow, you kind of find that point of you need help, help, help. And then, okay, let’s hire another full time. And then so it’s just kind of filling in the gaps for a great gap filler. So, I mean, some of our clients, we literally take like over like 4000 calls every week for them. And some of our clients, we take four calls a month. So it’s really just as big or little as you need. What’s nice is we can scale with you. And so that’s what a lot of people love about using us is just the flexibility.
Love that. That’s awesome. Okay, well, let’s let’s get into the slides and I’m ready if you are. Before we do, quickly, if you are listening live, if you could put in comments, hashtag live. I love seeing who’s actually here live and also if you’re on the replay. So if you catch this later on today or this weekend or what have you post in the comments, hashtag replay. Let us know because we’d love to follow back up with you and see how you enjoyed the webinar. Also, if you could share this podcast with whoever you think would need it. Anyone in the home service space, concrete coding, niche painting, power washing, garage doors, etc. And we’d love to make sure that this message and this value gets gets as many people as possible. Okay, let’s do it. I’m ready if you are.
Awesome, Let’s go. I’m excited.
Okay.
All right. So we’re going to talk today, obviously, about your phone. You know, the thing about the phone is someone said this to me the other day and I’m like, that is so true that the most valuable real estate in America is actually right here, right on your phone. That’s where people are paying attention. That’s that’s where money is made Every single day is on that phone, whether it be calls the Internet, whatever it is, that real estate of the phone. But nobody really talks that much about how to really make your phone a profit puppy for you, you know. You know, I like I say, I got my MBA in business, never took had one class where they actually taught you how to talk on the phone or how to make money on the phone. It’s the most basic thing yet. There is a science to it. There’s a science and art to it, and it’s important to know it and understand it and implement it in your business because your phone really can be an ATM machine for you if you know how to use it, Right? So love talking about it. But before we dive in to the phone, I actually want to ask a question that might seem totally unrelated. So wherever you are listening or watching, think for a moment. What is one of the most painful experiences you’ve ever had in your life? One of the most painful things that has ever happened to you won’t make you dwell on it too long, but think for just a moment of one of the most painful things that has ever happened to you.
So you got that in your head. Now, when I’m asking this where I’ve got an audience in front of me, I’ll ask them afterwards, How many of you thought of something physically painful, maybe some injury, maybe some sickness, And about half the room will raise your hand. So wherever you are, how many of you thought of something physically painful? And then I’ll ask how many thought of something like an emotional pain, maybe a loss, maybe a death, maybe just something that was just very emotionally painful for you. And usually about the other half of the room, raise your hand. So if I could see everyone here today, I’m guessing about half of you thought of something physically painful and about half of you thought about something emotionally painful. Well, the interesting thing about the brain is the brain doesn’t really notice the difference in the brain itself. It processes physical pain and emotional pain the same way the same parts of the brain get activated when you have a toothache as when your daughter’s boyfriend just broke up with her. It’s like the same part of her brain that is activated. So when you tell it, you’re telling her, just get over it. It’s like telling her walking in with a broken leg. Just get over it. I mean, it’s it’s literally activates that same part of the brain that that says something is wrong, something hurts.
So what’s interesting about this is, you know, we are wired as humans for connection. And just as badly as a broken arm hurts just as badly. Just a broken relationship hurt us as humans because we’re wired for connection. It’s what has made us the most advanced species is this this need for connection. But it adds an interesting element into the way we process and make decisions that’s different than any other life form on the planet. Is this just this very complicated, complex system of us making connections with other with other humans and animals? We all love our dogs or cats, right? But it’s this connection. And so since we’re wired for connection, you know, everything that we think, everything that we feel and everything that we do is based off these connections. We like to think that we are very logical creatures, which we are, but we are primarily emotional creatures, and we all have about 50 to 70 thoughts a day and we make 35,000 decisions a day, which is an insane number. I mean, think about it. Like how many decisions do you think you already made this morning? It’s like the alarm goes off, right? And you’re like, Do I go on that run? Do I not? You know, what do I have for breakfast? Do I have the eggs or the bagel? Right. It’s like, I mean, if I could just consciously think of the number of decisions, what would you say? Maybe like, 100 a day?
Yeah, I feel like. I feel like there’s at least, like, five critical ones, you know? But like, now that I mentioned the eggs, that is critical in the morning, you know.
Do I go to the bathroom now or do we wait for I guess we are constantly making decisions, but it’s insane to think that we actually make 35,000 decisions a day. That’s insane. And of those decisions, they’re primarily based off emotion. We’re not thinking creatures who feel we are feeling, creatures who think that is how we are wired is just as humans. So when it comes and again, it’s our feelings that decide for us 95% of the time. Again, I have I mean, I’ve got some family members that are just like super, super logical, right? So like if I want to convince them to go, we’re on a family trip together and I want to convince them that we need to go do this one thing. I’ve got to give all the logical reasons, right? But still, at the end of the day. They’re still making that decision based off emotion. You know, a car salesman, they’re going to play to your emotions first and then then they’re going to justify it by logic, Right? That’s just that’s just how we work. There’s actually a Dr. Dr. Damasio, if I’m saying his name right, he did some studies on people who had brain damage. And if the logical part of their brain was totally functioning and working and they could logically think through any problem to come to a decision, if the emotional part of their brain had been damaged, even though they can logically think through everything, they could not make a decision. Because as humans, we cannot make a decision without emotion, which is just fascinating. I mean, you think for smarter than that.
But I guess I mean, it just shows you how important emotions are and your connections are to to do what you do every day. So connecting with your customers is one of the most important skills you need to learn to succeed in business because it’s all about the connections. Logic is super important, giving them all the reasons and the why. That’s part. I mean, that draws emotion. But at the end of the day, it’s the connections that you’re making with your customers that are going to determine whether they do business with you, whether they refer their friends to you, whether they keep doing business with you, it’s that connection. So when it comes to your phone, it’s learning how to make those very important connections from the first time that they call in. That’s vital to your success and being able to close the deal and also get them to keep coming back. So as you mentioned, we take over two well, we take two over 2 million calls every year for our clients book millions of dollars worth of jobs about I think we book about $25 million worth of jobs every year in a variety of different industries. And we are obsessed with how to talk on the phone and how to make those connections because we understand how important that is in in actually converting those callers into customers. So I’m excited to dive into that today. We’re going to actually be talking about four things you’re doing, maybe doing wrong on the phone, and then we can tell you how to kind of correct that. So the first one is.
Also, guys, I’m just going to stop real quick. If you are excited about this, like if you’re excited to learn how to like what you’re doing wrong on the phone, if you could just type in and comments, just type in maybe Jill’s office, like type in something like number one, Jo’s office and let us know that you’re excited because Michelle is getting ready to bring the heat. Like I’ve reviewed these these slides. Let me just tell you guys, she’s bringing the heat. And so let’s give her like a virtual round of applause here. And if you’re excited about this, just post in comments for us and let us know who’s interested. And yeah.
Awesome. Thanks, everyone. All right. So the first thing is on the side here is not having a phone system. And I’m not talking here about your Comcast or dial pad, your RingCentral. Maybe it’s just your cell phone, whatever it is. I’m not talking about that phone system, obviously. Obviously, that’s important. You need to have a phone. If you have a business, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you have at some time or other, there’s going to be someone that wants to talk to you. So you’ve got to have a phone. But I’m talking about not having a system in making sure no call goes unanswered that is super vital to businesses. We actually. Oh, yeah. You know, when you call a business, nobody wants to get a voicemail. I mean, just last week I was trying to get some one of my neighbors or I needed my sprinklers fixed and I called five different sprinkler companies. Not a single one. Answer the phone and not a single one back is. And I mean, you’re throwing money away. I’m wanting to pay you money. Come out here, come to my house, and you want answers, I will pay you. So make sure you have a system in place that you’re not missing calls.
We actually called just on our own. We Googled like 100 random service companies in the US just to see how they were doing. And we knew not everyone would answer, but we were actually shocked how bad it was. Only 27% of the businesses we call answered the phone, 73% didn’t. They are literally throwing money away. I mean, just by not picking up the phone. It’s one of the most basic things, but so many people are not doing it. And so the good news there is if you do have a system in place, make sure every call is answered. You’re beating 73% of your competition. I mean, this is not even hard. This is not even about how well you do sound on the phone, which we’ll get to later. It’s just picking up the phone itself. You’re already soaring ahead. Your competition. So super important. We’re talking about connection here, right? So when you don’t answer the phone, what message are you sending? I’m too busy for you. You’re sending a message. I’m not properly staffed. I’m not responsive. So if there’s a problem, you might never get a hold of me to fix it. I mean, this happened to me even a couple of weeks ago.
I was trying to get something fixed on my cell phone and was calling a repair shop, and they answered the first time, which is good. But then when I called back the second time to actually book the appointment, they didn’t answer. I called back again. They didn’t answer. And I was like, you know what? If they’re not answering when I’m not even a legit customer yet, are they going to answer when there’s a problem? And so it makes you nervous. You want to be available. You want to make sure you’re forming that connection of being actually present and available. That’s super important. So make sure you’re answering that phone. I actually have something to play here. It blows my mind how often we can close deals just by making sure the phone is answered, even when you’re not the most cost cost of what’s the word I’m going for the most cost effective. Fast. Effective. Yes. Cost effective service. Maybe you’re more expensive than your competition by simply answering the phone. A lot of times we’ll close the deals just by being available. So I’m going to play some real calls here. What these are actual responses.
Of, Oh, we’re getting real calls.
Today. These are real recordings of just snippets of it.
You guys are the fourth place I’ve called. And the only people that picked up the phone. Oh, really? I want you know, So if you get back to me quick, I’d rather pay you because you pick up the phone right away. I mean, that sounds like a silly reason to pay. No, but I want when I want something done, I want it done now. Right. I’m not going to call now because I want it done later. Leaving a voicemail, waiting a day or two. It’s just another day of wasted, you know? So I’m glad you picked up the phone. I appreciate you guys answering and being able to help. I call another company three times and they never call back. And I called them again and they’re like, Yeah, we don’t have anything till next day. I’m like, Well, maybe you could have called me back a week ago. Good. You guys are already all off the charts. But you actually answered the phone. Oh, thank you. I’m so glad. Where did I. I don’t know where I got your number from. I just want to make sure. I’m so sorry. I don’t mean that to be insulting, because I’ve just been kind of going down the line. But you’re the first person who’s actually answered the phone. Oh, that’s. Well, we’re happy to help.
So, I mean, we have we have like, hundreds and hundreds of these calls. But it’s just amazing to me what a difference and what a competitive edge it is just by answering the phone. So I want you all, wherever you are, to pull out your phone for a minute, but I’m going to have you pull out your calculator on your phone. So pull that up your calculator. And then I want you to think for a minute, what does the average prices of one of your jobs, if you don’t know that it’s a good number to know. But but roughly guesstimate it just on average what is the average price of one job mine.
I’ll just I’ll just play along with your mine the main one from from from September. We just were doing a sales meeting earlier. 30 $900 was our was our average ticket mainly.
30 $900. So that the the truth is, is that every time you miss a call, you are potentially throwing that money away. Because as these callers, if you are not picking up that phone and they don’t want to leave a voicemail or even if they do and then call somebody else after and they’re able to capture that call, you’re potentially throwing that money away every time you miss a call. And the average business owner misses about two and a half calls a day. Again, that’s the average. That’s how you miss have to call. So if we go conservatively and say. You missed two calls a day. That’s just, you know, you’re on the other line. You’re wherever you are. For some reason, you miss it. Maybe you’re out of service for a minute. You miss a couple of calls a day. You’re potentially throwing that amount, right? Every day. So whatever number you put in your calculator is your average price for job. Multiply that by two.
Are you missing that per day, which we mean? Hey, I have an amazing office manager. Her name is Angelica. She is a rock star. I will bet on her over anyone else. But I mean, sometimes you might be having lunch. You might? Who knows? Right?
Right.
So 97, 50. I don’t even like looking at this number. I’m going to zero this out, by the way. I can’t look at it anymore. Well, we’re.
Not done with it yet. Okay, I get it off. I do. Really conservative here, off 500. But keep your calculator going. Okay. So whatever number you got, multiply that by two because we’re being conservative here. If you missed just two calls a day, that’s what you’re missing a day. But we’re not done. Now, let’s multiply that by five. That’s how much you’re potentially missing a week. So, I mean, you’re looking at almost 50 grand now. That’s insane. And again, that’s that’s just the average. You might be missing more. You might be less and less. But that’s that’s average. If you multiply that over and that’s if people aren’t calling on the weekend or just assuming they actually call five days a week, which we know they don’t, they call them the weekends, too. And I’m amazed that we’ll get calls at two in the morning for people getting there. I’m like, really? I guess that was important to you then, but we want to be there. We’re going to connect with you when you call in and then now multiply that over four. So that’s how much you’re potentially missing a month just by a couple of calls a day and then get really sick. Multiply that by 12 and that’s potentially a year. So what number do you got now?
Ryan Well, mine would be literally like seven figures.
It’s insane.
I could be missing some figures. This is and I’m putting on a lead conversion training on Wednesday, October 12th here for for everyone that’s coming for vertical track. And I might have to incorporate some of this in there because holy moly.
That’s painful. It’s painful. The good news is it doesn’t have to be painful. It can actually just be a celebration by adding that much to your bottom line, just by having a phone system in place. And so, again, if you’re a single, single guy running a business, single guy or gal in your shop or your business right now, you know, just having somebody be backup support when you answer the phone, if you’ve got someone dedicated to answer your phone it, make sure you have coverage for when they call in sick for those holidays for before after hours. It’s really hard to find an admin that will work for you all night and all weekend. So just making sure that you have some system in place. Obviously we provide one of those solutions. We love doing that. Just to give kind of a cost comparison of what you’re looking at, because sometimes you have to be cost conscious of all the expenses in your business. So on average, some of our clients will pay like about 300 bucks a week for us to cover their phones. 24 seven Again, that can go up or down just depending on how much you use us.
So if you look at that over a month, maybe roughly around 1200, again, that can be different. But on average and then over a year, you know, 14,000. But if you are going to gain that quarter of a million or in your instance, you know, potentially six, seven, seven figures or more, I mean, it’s a no brainer. If I was going to go tell you to go fly this plot of land for 14,000 and in one year, you can go round and sell it for 240. I mean wouldn’t you do it. I’d go, I say give me ten of them. Right. Like, I mean it’s just it’s a no brainer to have some sort of system in place, whether it’s Jill’s office or any other system that you use just to make sure that every time someone calls in, you’re making sure they get a live, friendly, warm answer. I mean, you heard the call. It’s like people are just so relieved that someone’s picking it up and you’re going to be better than 73% of your competition. So just do it. Get some phone system in place is huge.
Yeah. And, you know, I’ll add to that just really quick is we get that here at Cardinal too. I mean, all the time people are like, Hey, thank you so much for answering. We’re like. Okay. I thought that was like, given, you know, like, basic business so you can win over your customers their entire perception of of what’s happening by that little tweak. I mean, just it’s just amazing. Love it.
Yeah. And I mean, we live in a very automated world, which is amazing. I love all the automated robot chat things and all the things to get answers, but there is something about humans. We want that connection that there are. Sometimes we just want to connect with a real person. And if that person is warm and friendly and can even laugh with you or cry with you, whatever it may be, then that just it’s so vital to making that long term relationship with that customer of just having that live connection. When someone calls in, they want someone to answer. So make sure that you’re there and make sure you’re answering. It’s huge. So the second thing is multitasking with your on your phone. Now, I know I think that I am an amazing multitasker. Are you, Ryan, like you got this down.
You know what? Like I mean, I don’t know if that’s amazing, but I can multitask, but I don’t know if the result is amazing.
Right?
Yeah, I think I mean, if you’re an entrepreneur, then you by nature are a right. You have to be. But the problem is, is that when you’re trying to multitask on the phone, it doesn’t quite work. In fact, I tell you, I think I’m a good multitasker, but multitasking is actually a myth. You actually you can’t really multitask. The true what we call multitasking is performing several tasks at the same time. But what we’re really doing is we’re actually shifting from one task to another. The term multitasking actually was originally a programming. It was a computer term. And what it was is that a computer was shifting from one task to another so quick, so quickly going back and forth. So you can you can do two things at once if you don’t have to concentrate on two things, but you can’t perform two things at once and focus both of on all of them. So like I can, I can read a book while I’m eating or maybe I can talk with someone walking because I don’t have to focus. But if you have to actually give your attention to two things, you can’t. So I’m going to prove it to everyone who thinks that they can’t. Wherever you are right now, I want you to pick up your right foot. This might not work if you’re driving, but everyone else who isn’t driving pick up your right foot for a minute and turn it in a clockwise fashion. So just turn it circular clockwise. Now, keep doing that. And as you’re doing that, I want you to take your right hand, your right finger, and do it in a clockwise or circle. Figure eight in the air. But keep doing your foot in a in a clockwise fashion as you draw a circle in there. Can you do it?
I’m actually doing.
It. Are you doing it? Yeah. Have one of those bird brains that can actually multitask. The majority of people can not do both is scary.
I’m actually doing it really good.
Brian, You just have one of those weird brains. I mean, that’s amazing.
I am.
A general. I have.
Issues.
I’m not. Do it. No, I mean, maybe you are that you are the oddity that can actually maybe multitask a little bit. But in general, it’s very difficult to do both things at once. It requires a lot of a lot of focus there. Our brains really aren’t set to do two things at once. It’s with our mouth, our focus. But even even those oddities like Ryan that actually can when as you said at the beginning, when you are doing it, you know, your your quality goes down significantly if you’re trying to focus on two things at once. So what’s true when you’re on the phone and people can tell when you’re not 100% focused and it sends a message, you are important enough to focus on 100%, they can hear the background noise you’re too busy to give you. I’m too busy to give you undivided attention. It sends a message that, you know, are you going to give undivided attention when you’re coming to do my job or is it going to be detail oriented enough? You don’t want to send those messages. You want to make sure you form that nice connection. People don’t like that. A lot of background noise, again, that’s distracting. They just want to know what they call in. You are going to focus 100% and make that genuine connection. So it’s important that when you’re answering the phone or anyone in your office or any other services answering your phone, that they are giving 100% undivided attention to make sure that there is that good focus on on that call.
It’s super important to making that connection. And oh, yeah, even the other part of this that I like to think of is when it comes to your family. Because when you’re on a vacation with your family, you’re spending time with your family and you’re on the phone. What is that message? Is it sending to them that my work is more important than you in this moment? And again, that’s not forming those vital connections that you want with your loved ones as well. So we would joke at Jill’s office that we’re really in the business of saving marriages, because it’s amazing to me how many of our clients are like, I did not realize the strain that my phone was having on my relationship with my kids and my wife or my husband or whatever it may be, because, you know, every time they get distracted. Nights, on the weekends, even during the day, or they’re at the game, but they’re distracted, or you’re trying to take a vacation and you keep sneaking off to the bathroom in the restaurant to get your phone or whatever it may be. It is like your family can feel that. And so making sure that you’ve got that, where it comes back to phone systems to make sure you’ve got something in place that when you are trying to spend quality time either with your customers, you’re not being rude to them and trying to talk to them and do your job while at the same time your phone rings.
And which customer do I pay attention to? Have a system in place that you can pay attention to the customer you’re with, and then same with your family or whatever other important relationship in your life that when you are with them, that you are with them and not getting distracted because multitasking can be very detrimental to relationships. So that’s our second thing you might be doing wrong. Our third thing is not choosing the right words on the phone. So word choice is super, super important when it comes to communicating with your customers. There’s if you have a child who’s hanging from a tree and looking like they might fall off the tree, you can yell at them, Don’t fall down, don’t fall down. Obviously, that’s going to be our go to Don’t fall down, Don’t fall down. But what different effect would it have if you instead said, hold on tightly instead of don’t fall down versus hold on tightly? You know, our brains again, go back to how our brains function. They think in pictorial form. So for it to process, don’t fall down. The brain has to first imagine falling down and then tell itself not to do that. Whereas if you say hold on tightly, the brain is going to picture holding on tightly and then do that. And so you’re going to have much better effect saying, hold on tightly, then don’t fall down. Word choice is huge. So the same thing happens with your customers using positive phrasing.
It’s the word you choose. It’s also the voice inflections. It’s your tone of voice. All those things have huge effects in making connections. There was actually IKEA, which is they sell furniture, but they actually wanted to do a study on the effect of positive rephrasing versus negative phrasing. And so they got two identical plants and they actually put them in a school because they wanted to to do a study with these students on on phrasing words. And so they got the two exact same plants. They put them in the exact same container, They gave them the exact same amount of light, same amount of water, same amount, everything. The only thing that was different is in one of the plants they had well, they had a recorder in each of them. And in one of the plants it would play positive words all day long. And in the other plant it played negative words all day long. But everything else was the same as far as the care of the plant, everything. And after a few weeks, the one plant that had negative words all day, it was drooping, it was starting to die. It was not doing very well. Whereas the plant that had the positive phrasing was thriving. So if that’s true with plants, how is that with humans that are literally wired for connection? What is happening inside of your customers by the words that you are saying to them? So it goes off as we put our receptionists through three weeks of boot camp when they first start with us, just like teaching them.
Here’s how you talk on the phone. Here’s the positive words. You want to say it like this, not like this. So one important thing is whoever is answering your phones, whether it’s you or whether you have someone else hire to make sure that you’re doing training on positive word choice and how to say even hard things in a positive way that’s going to form that connection and positive things in the most positive way. We have just lists in our office of here’s instead of saying it like this, you say it like this. And just the way you say things does make a difference in the way people will connect with you. So pay close attention to that. I’ll give you a few examples here. So say you’ve got some sort of membership program with your with your business. You a great I mean, you want to talk about it on the phone. So a great thing to say is would you like to sign up for a membership, which you know, you should be asking something like that. However, there is a way to make this more powerful. So instead of saying, would you like to sign up for a membership, what if instead you say, Can we enroll you in our membership plan so we can save you some money today? Now we’ve got a few things going on here. The first thing is the word signup can have a negative connotation on it.
So if I sign up for an email list, I might get spammed. There’s there’s often can be a negative connotation with signing up. It’s like, what am I getting myself into? Whereas the word enroll you enroll in a university to get a degree. It’s a very usually it’s a thing with benefits that I’m doing. I’m not getting something negative. I’m like, Can you get something in positive by enrolling in it? So enroll is a powerful word. The other thing is when you say when you like to sign up for a membership, there’s no. Really what’s in it for me in that it’s just, hey, you know, join my club, join my club. It’s cool, you know, Made me more money. I’m doing this for you as a company. Whereas if you stayed in, can I enroll in a membership so we can save you some money today? You’re doing this for yourself. Like I’m giving you a gift. You want to save some money today, then get in this cool club. I’m giving you an invitation to join this cool club to save money. So it’s a total different tone. I’m not doing something for. I’m as a customer not doing something for you as a company. You as a company are doing something for me as a customer. I’m going to save you money. So same message, but different word choice can have a different result in how many you close on a membership. Here’s another example.
If you have some sort of fee to come out there and so you avoid those tire kickers and and that kind of thing, you know, you can tell them what the assessment fee is on the call. We joke here at Jill’s office that the word fee is the F word. So you want to avoid using the word fee as much as possible. Nobody wants to pay a fee. So focus instead on the benefit, not on. Here’s what you have to pay. Focus on, here’s the benefit, and then this is the cost for the benefit. But it’s a benefit. So instead of saying that the assessment fee is if you say something like to come out and diagnose the problem, it’s whatever it is, it’s blank. We’ll send one of our skilled techs so we can make sure we get an accurate and clear plan of options for your dream setup. Give the benefit always when you’re giving price so that they don’t feel like they’re just paying a fee for no good reason. You know, I went to I recently took my kids to a one Republic concert and, you know, when I’m checking out, the fee from the ticket place was like literally more than the ticket itself. And there was no if they had given me an explanation, what’s included me, they feel okay about it. And I still bought it because of course I’m going to buy it. We want to go to one republic, but like, I’m not going to. Oh, just it’s such a bad connotation.
So give the benefit whenever you’re giving any kind of pricing. And if you can’t avoid the fee as much as possible. Another one is can I get an email address? Yeah, you should be asking for emails on the phone. That’s super important. So points for asking for the email. But the problem with this is you’re giving an opportunity for them to say no. You want to just assume a yes. In that situation, people can hold their email address sometimes tighter than their Social Security number. You don’t want to get spammed, so instead just assume a yes and then again give a benefit. So instead of saying, Can I please get an email address? If you say What’s the best email address to send this quote to? So a few things here. Number one, I’m trying to get not their spam one, because I’m saying what’s the best email address? And then I’m also giving a benefit. I’m going to send you a quote which you want. And so I’m going to give you a good, valid email address because I hear the benefit so much more powerful than just saying, Can I get an email address and letting them say no. They still might say no, but you’re way lowering your nose by just like assuming the yes and then giving a benefit. So those are those are some examples. There’s lots more, but it’s important to focus on your wording. Another part of it is to smile. Whenever you’re on the phone, it you really can hear a smile in a phone.
So I’m going to do this in the exact same tone, like I’m not changing my voice. This is actually might be more powerful for anyone who’s listened to this on podcast and not webinar. But I’m going to answer for Ryan here for a minute. So if I just say hello, thank you for calling Cardinal Coatings. How can I help you today? Hello, Thank you for calling. Cardinal Coatings. How can I help you today? Do you hear that difference? Yeah, I said it way. It’s like, how can I help you? How can I help you? You literally can hear the smile. It’s a it puts your your voice at that higher, higher level that is just more warm and friendly. So for a receptionist will literally put a mirror at each of their desks just to remind them to smile while you’re calling. That’s going to form that stronger connection. When you smile, you can hear it and it does in their brain. It gives them the dopamine, it gives them endorphins, it gives them serotonin, all those positive things that makes them want to be in emotional state to say yes to doing business with you. So it’s when I was a kid, one of my favorite shows was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and I love that scene where they sent the the big chocolate bar through the TV. I thought that was so cool. Well, what they found is that smiling stimulates brain your brain reward mechanism in the same way that chocolate brings you pleasure.
So when you smile on the phone, it’s like you are sending a chocolate bar Willy Wonka style through to your customer. So and we you’re in a more likely state. Likely state to say yes and make that decision where we make our decisions based off emotion when you’re sending those positive, positive endorphins through the phone. So make sure you’re smiling or make sure whoever is answering your phone is smiling. And the other important thing with the words to say is to make sure you use their name. It’s such a basic thing. But as Dale Carnegie said, that to each person, their name is the sweetest and most important sound in any language. It instantly creates that connection in that bond with people when you use their name and not just once, but throughout the call, consciously use their name. And that will create that stronger bond and stronger connection. You know, what blows my mind is again, when we did the survey and of the 27% that actually answered the phone, only 3% asked for a name, which I still like don’t even believe this, but that literally is the results we got. So obviously it’s important to get their name as soon as in the call as possible so that you can use that name throughout the call. It’s super important. And again, you’re going to be better than your competition if you do that. And we always joke at Jill’s office to never answer a phone hangry.
So we do. We are always feeding our Jill’s to make sure that they’re staying positive on the phone because when you’re having a bad day, you’ve got to put your best you know, you’ve got to put on your costume. It’s just like at Disney World. They call all of their employees no matter if they’re a janitor or if they are Cinderella, a cast member. When you were on the phone, you are on stage and you just want to make sure that you put your bad day or whatever is behind you and you’re being just super positive and happy to to your customer. And that is that is you can be felt by your tone and your word choice. So super important. And then the last thing I want to cover today is follow up. You know, we started this conversation by asking one of the most painful moments of your life to think about. I kind of want to change that a little bit. And I want you to think for a moment of one of the people in your life that you just can’t help but smile when you think about them. You have a really strong bond with them. You know, they’re really meaningful to you. You have you always feel positively positive when you leave them. So think for a moment who that person is. Now, I want to ask you, whoever you thought of, whether it’s a family member or a friend, whoever it may be.
Can it be.
Yourself?
Yeah, I guess it is. I mean, for some people, you know, it’s actually good. I mean, you got good positive self talk yourself. That’s. That’s great.
I was thinking about the mirror, you know, with the girls, you know?
Oh, there you go. Yeah, right. But what I’m wondering there is, is whether I guess whether it’s your self this could work or anybody else. Have they ever followed up with you on something like, say, you went through something? They knew you had a really difficult situation going on in your business and maybe it was something financially and they asked you about it the next time they saw you. How is that going? Or maybe it was something exciting. They know you went on this really epic vacation and they asked you to tell you about it. Show me the pictures. Did that strengthen your connection or weaken your connection when they followed up with you about it? I’m guessing it strengthened it. Right? You want to you want to the people who really care about you, they care enough to follow up and ask about how things are going. Well, when it comes to business, we I guess I think by nature, a lot of us almost feel like we’re being a pest when we think about doing follow up. But I want to change do a paradigm shift on your thinking of that, that actually following up is one of the most important ways to build connection with your customers. It’s the way you do it. There’s a skill in doing it, but when you’re doing it to generally check in on them and to generally follow up about how it’s going with this project or how their their shopping is going or whatever questions and concerns they may had, it actually helps form a strong connection because in relationships when people follow up, it just naturally you feel you feel loved, right? When someone cared enough to follow up on you.
So following up is not a negative thing. It’s actually a very positive thing. Just I mean, when you’re at a restaurant and your waiter stops by to see how you’re liking the food, you don’t take that offensively. If there is something wrong, gives you an opportunity to say, I’m not really a big fan of the sauce. Can we do something about that? You know, you want to make sure you’re doing that. Your customers are just checking in to see how things are going, so make sure that you’re following up and make sure that you have a system in place for it. Again, when we did this survey to 100 random customer or 100 random service companies, not one single one that answered followed up with us. Well, even the ones we left a voicemail with, not all that which is ridiculous is ridiculous. So again, you are literally going to be eons ahead of your competition if you’re actually following up. The problem with follow up is, number one, we kind of have this negative connotation of it often, so we feel like we’re being a pest so we don’t do it.
Number two, if we do feel motivated to do it, it’s usually the last thing we get to on our to do list because you’re putting out all the fires first and then it’s like, you know, you need to follow up on all those estimates or call those customers from six months ago or whatever it may be, but you never have the time to get to it and you never will. That’s the reality is it’s just not going to happen. So unless you have a system in place that you have a set time of day that’s non-negotiable, that you do it or you have a designated person or you hire service like ours that can do something like that for you, it’s probably not going to happen. So have a system in place to do that follow up. I mean, we do these all day long and we book insane amount of extra income for companies that they would leave on the table if they didn’t. And again, informing that connection that we’ve been talking about, when you do the fault calls, it builds trust. It shows them you care about their satisfaction and your happiness, and it encourages referrals. The more you communicate with people, the more you keep that conversation going, the more you’re going to be present in their mind, which is super important.
Yeah, it keeps you fresh in your minds. So your number one priority is not your product or service. Your number one priority is your relationship with your customers. That’s what’s going to determine if they do business with you and keep doing business with you. And following up is a huge vital part of that, as all these principles are. We had one one of our clients, we were doing follow up calls for them, and I think it was for like a year for a power washing company. And we called this one lady just to check up. She had requested an estimate, but she hadn’t actually moved forward with the job yet. And so we called out to her and when she answered the phone, we told her who we were and we’re following up to see if she had any more questions, if she still wanted to move forward with the job. And she literally started crying. And it took us back because, I mean, we take some calls. We have some clients that do, you know, deal with when your animal passes away and dealing with the cleanup of that. And we take some calls where people can be emotional, but not usually with power washing, that kind of thing.
People don’t get a house. Must have been ugly.
Right. So the Jill was like trying to figure out we’re trying to match the caller with our tone and everything and see what was going on. And she’s like, you know, my my husband, he he got deployed and she’s like, I have been so overwhelmed with taking care of my house and I knew I need to get this done. I didn’t know who to call. He usually does this kind of thing. I know I called like five different companies and I couldn’t remember everyone. I called her, I wrote down, I wrote down the notes, and she’s like, I can’t tell you how much it means that you actually call me back to follow up on this. I need this done. And so, yes, let’s get this schedule and which is literally crying because she felt like someone was helping her and she just was so overwhelmed. And so, again, it goes to that thing that like when you just are present and following up and it doesn’t have to be in a pushy sales way. It’s just like following up to make sure everything’s going well. Maybe they already book with someone else. Perfect. You ask them, How did that go? You know, did were you happy with everything that went well? And if they weren’t, they will, you know, next time, we’re happy to help you out. This is what we do a little bit different. If they were happy, it’s just like, hey, you know, if you were here, if you do ever need us and just keeping them fresh on their minds, you never know.
Even if they did go with someone else, what kind of impression that can make for the next time they need business by following up. So it’s huge. Or I could actually give a whole other webinar on just up calls and the ones you should be making and the words you should be saying. But we don’t have time for that today. But I will give you guys something. I do have a guide that gives like we do thousands of these calls every single month of five powerful outbound call scripts to close more deals and create more loyal customers. It goes through five stages in the home service business of service business. And when you should really be making outbound calls to follow up and we go through what those five stages are and an actual script like here’s the word you can say on those calls. So if you email me at Michelle Agile, Zappos.com, I’d be happy to send that over to you. And it’s just something you can plug and play to your own business to to start doing those calls. It’s totally worth the time. You’re not going to close everyone, but you’re going to close way more deals and get more, way more repeat customers, end referrals just by doing followup calls. It’s really powerful. So yeah, the big thing today is just make sure you’re connecting with your customers. Pay attention to the science of the phone and the signs that are the phone and everything you need to be doing on there.
I don’t know if Right. Do you mind if I speak for just one minute about what we can do for anyone that is looking? I know we’re all about connecting with customers. We’d love to help you. I’m just like we help Brian with his business. We do have a special. And if you go to Zappos.com and slash service legend and use the coupon code legend, we’ll give you $250 off again, starting with us. But we’re we’re very much just as much as little as you need us, as I mentioned, or either your backup or your full support, just inbound calls or just outbound calls or a little bit of everything. So, yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to check us out. But we’re just happy to help a little much as you need a lot of our clients love it to for the seasonality because we know there’s busy seasons and slower seasons. So it’s nice to have that back up when you are busier to make sure maybe you don’t want to hire a whole other admin, but just because you’re all the phones are covered. So we got your back either way, but we’re just happy to help as much as you need and just love. Talking or if anything, just love to talk to you more about how to help with your phone, however we can help you. We’re definitely there for that.
I love that. And I think that’s Heather right there.
Oh, you know what? It’s not. But I should have. Heather is not in this picture.
Okay?
And I love that you could talk about there. That is one thing that makes us a little bit different is when you sign up for us, you don’t when you call in, you’re not in this, like, long queue to, like, try to get someone to help you with your account and then they don’t know anything. And then you’re going from scratch explaining what we do for you on the phone. You do have a designated account manager that knows your account like you have Heather. She’s going to check in with you. We do fault calls and make sure everything’s going well. And if you have any questions or concerns or someone you can talk to to make sure we get that taken care of for you.
Hey, well, let’s open up for a little Q&A. And we’ve got we have one question in here. If you guys are on this live post in the comments, if you have a specific question for Michelle. Brad says, Can you guys also help with other administrative tasks like tracking, tracking paint costs and adding them to invoices, for example?
So we we also have we call it our sidekick service because every business owner needs a sidekick. So we do have a service where you can do we can do any kind of off the phone tasks of just kind of more that admin type of thing of working, whether in your CRM or what other other systems that you have to help on your business. So we can definitely do that as well. Feel free to reach out. You can send me an email or go to our website and we can give you a little more details on that. But we do have a way to help out with admin stuff as well.
Love that. Hopefully that answers that for you, Brad. This has been fantastic. Guys, again. I love Joe’s office. We use them for Cardinal Concrete Coatings and it’s been great. We just use Joe’s right now for the after hours, which is. Which is, which is, which is really cool. But I’m thinking about using you guys for the follow up side to like following up with unsold estimates. And that would be really cool because I think we’re leaving money on the table without a doubt. So I’ll be maybe talking to someone about that, whoever. But Brad says, Are the Vas located in the US or out?
That’s a great question. So we are all US based. We’re actually based out of Salt Lake City. We’re very adamant that when it comes to your phones, you want someone. There’s a lot of things admin wise you can do overseas, but at least I personally believe that if it’s something with your phones, we really want USB. I think that helps make that connection a little stronger. A lot of times make you feel like we often get mistaken for the wife or the spouse or the in-house assistant. And that’s I mean, we want to come across that way. We want to sound like we actually work for you. So that’s why we like to be primarily us and where we are 100% us.
Yeah, that’s the really cool thing is like, you know, I have I have assistants that are overseas. I love overseas. Philippines, Pakistan. There’s, there’s, there’s, there’s others. But I believe like the client facing side 100% should be not that that they’re not good enough or whatever but it’s just literally the specific the the the accent that’s what it is. And so that’s one really cool thing about you guys is I know when when our customers answer here in Phoenix, you guys answer. And it’s just great. I mean, it’s there’s not there’s not a be missed at all. Another question, do you make outbound calls? So in the event that we receive a web request, would you call and set an appointment for an in-home sales consultant?
Absolutely. Yeah, we do that all the time. A lot of people just have those leads automatically come into us, whether it’s from your website, from Facebook, home advisor leads, whatever it may be. You can send them right over to us and then we can call. Yeah, and do that in home sales console. We love doing those. Absolutely.
It’s so perfect because there’s so many clients that we have that maybe are doing a little less than $1,000,000 a year. And you know, you’re right. Like it’s a lot of the smaller companies are, you know, husband and wife or could be just husband and wife does some things on the back end. But there’s an office staff or whatever. And, you know, it’s so challenging to do everything when you’re starting out. So if you’re doing 500 K or 608 hundred, it’s amazing service. But even if like Cardinal will do 2.2, 2.5 this year and and it’s it’s a great asset for after hours because there’s there’s people calling hours, there’s customers calling after hours. There’s people calling on the weekend to reschedule something that’s on Monday. And that efficiency is just it’s world class guys.
So and it’s huge to to be the list on Google. We’re open 24/7 and you don’t have to be anymore. There’s someone there that will answer will answer is your company and now you are 24 seven. So it’s.
That’s how you multitask for reals.
Right? There you go.
Do it.
You’re like the multitasking.
Delegation, right?
So delegation. That’s the secret to multitasking.
Yeah. Well, hey, guys, if there’s no more questions. Michelle, are you in the Facebook group like.
I believe I am? I’m pretty sure I am. I will double check that after this call. But yeah, if anyone ever has any questions about anything, feel free to reach out or we’re happy to help out where we can.
Yeah, guys, if you have a question, you can come to this, this, this post in the Facebook group and you can just ask questions in the comment. So if you’re watching this on replay and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I wish I could have asked for this. Just posting the comments and Michelle will probably see it. If not, I’ll tag her or something like that. And so we can keep the communication going. If you do have questions. And also reach out to Michelle. It’s Michelle at Joe Zappos.com.
Yep. Yep. Anytime.
Love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. This was amazing. And if this was of value to you at all and and and you want to thank Michelle. Just spoke to comments and just. Just, you know, just thank her. And Brad says, Can I call Michelle right after this call? And I’m not sure.
So back to you.
If you guys have anything questions DMAE post in the comments and I’ll tell you that guys have an amazing weekend and we’ll see you guys soon. See you guys.
Thank you.
