December 27, 2024 • 49 mins
What if a simple shift in mindset could revolutionize your contracting business? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Tom Reber, the influential mind behind the Contractor Fight, as he shares his groundbreaking approach to overcoming self-limiting beliefs and harnessing the power of T-BAR—thoughts, beliefs, actions, and results— to drive your business forward. Drawing from his personal journey, Tom reveals how adopting a success-oriented mindset can not only elevate your business but also transform your personal life, offering actionable strategies to boost confidence and productivity.
Discover the remarkable story of a painting company that thrived during the 2008 recession by defying conventional wisdom. Instead of slashing prices, they confidently raised them, focusing on profitability rather than volume—a bold move that paid off. Tom and I dissect the crucial lessons in leadership, marketing, and financial clarity that emerged from this experience, underscoring the importance of understanding that math is not emotional. With a focus on strategic pricing and the role of content marketing, we provide insights into navigating economic challenges with a steady hand and clear vision.
Explore the art and science of estimating job costs with precision, as Tom explains effective pricing and production rates crucial for healthy cash flow. We delve into strategies for pre-qualifying clients, understanding their true motivations, and tailoring services to stand out in a competitive market. By sharing real-world examples and innovative sales techniques, we arm contractors with the tools to maximize sales efficiency and optimize their sales process. Whether you’re dealing with a client's unique needs or striving for higher sales rates, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge to refine your approach and achieve profitable project outcomes.
Free tools from Tom Reber here:
https://thecontractorfight.com/cheap/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Daniel, the founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters, and today I'm herewith Tom Reber.
Tom Reber is the visionaryfounder of the Contractor Fight,
a powerful movement andtraining platform that has
empowered hundreds of thousandsof home improvement contractors
to elevate every aspect of theirlives and businesses.
Through transformative coaching, tom helps contractors crush
(00:21):
mediocrity and build thriving,high-impact businesses.
The Contractor Fight communityprovides contractors with
essential education, camaraderieand encouragement as they
tackle their next level ofsuccess.
With a journey as unique as hisapproach, tom has worn many
hats he's been an HGTV host,campus minister, successful
contractor painting and ProudUnited States Marine.
(00:45):
Tom's podcasts the ContractorFight and Contractor Fight TV on
YouTube deliver hard-hittingadvice, actionable strategies
and inspiration to helpcontractors take their business
to the top.
The Contractor Fight has becomethe premier coaching program
for serious contractorscommitted to achieving their
highest potential.
Welcome to the podcast, tom.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks so much for having me Appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm super excited about today's podcast.
I was just telling youbeforehand, I've seen you around
for years and I've learned alot from what you've put out
into the world and so I'mexcited about this conversation
today.
This conversation today divinginto sales, marketing mindset,
all that good stuff.
So thanks again for coming andjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Awesome.
It's always good to get arounda bunch of painters and, uh,
since I I come from that worldand uh, grew up in a with an
uncle who was a paintingcontractor, grew up working for
him and stuff, and and I'mexcited to see I'm assuming
you'll be at the expo this yearwith PCA that's.
That's in my backyard here inColorado Springs, so that'll.
(01:54):
That'll be good as well.
I don't have to travel thisyear.
It'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, that's.
It's going to be great.
I'm excited to head over toColorado this year.
This past year was in Orlando,so I'm in Orlando.
I didn't have to travel, so nowI have to pay my dues and
travel across the country, butit's a good place to travel.
I'm excited to do some skiingover there.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Absolutely Yep, and we're going next week up to
Breckenridge for a few days Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, man Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Absolutely.
I'd like to dive into mindset.
I think this is a topic that alot of people think is like
voodoo or like mindset.
What do I got to you know whichI can?
To be honest, I thought thattoo.
You know, starting out in myentrepreneurial journey, I was
like, what are people talkingabout here with mindset?
But I've learned over the yearsthat it's you know.
You got some self-limitingbeliefs and that really
(02:51):
determines on what actuallyhappens in your business.
What's your approach to mindset?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh boy, yeah.
Well, you know we're all wireda certain way.
We all have influences growingup and, and you know these
influences around us and thatwe're around they, they feed
stories into us and pretty soonthose stories become, you know,
(03:19):
we just show up each day andthey're on autopilot, right, you
know.
So, for instance, I grew upwhere I heard like making money
was for other people, not forReavers, like that was just a
phrase in the house.
Or you know, rich people, youknow were, um, they, they
probably ripped somebody off,stepped on somebody's back to
get there, and stuff.
These were just the things.
(03:39):
And so you know what we youknow.
You know, you know all thesayings, you know what you focus
on improves and stuff.
Well, if that's what you'refocused on, if that's your
mindset all the time, thenyou're putting a roadblock in
your way of being moresuccessful, at least in the
financial area.
(04:08):
In the contractor fight we'veadopted a little phrase we call
T-BAR, t-b-a-r, that I kind ofstumbled upon through the years,
just in my own experience.
That, you know, your thoughtsbecome your beliefs and your
beliefs, you know, produceactions and those actions get
you results.
And most of our thoughts, youknow, depending on what magazine
you read or scientist youfollow or whatever.
You know, we have 60 to 90,000thoughts a day.
(04:29):
They say that about 90% of themare on autopilot from the day
before.
Many of them are are, uh,subconscious, and a lot of them
are negative and so, cause it,we're, we're just on autopilot
and so, um, you know, one of theplaces that we start all the
time is you got to wake up everyday and tell yourself the right
(04:49):
stories about success.
You know, like, okay, fine, Igrew up in a, in a family that
never made money, but doesn'tmean that I can't make money,
right, I'm.
You know, one of the things I Itell myself.
I've been telling myself thisevery day for years.
I write it down, I say it outloud.
I've been telling myself thisevery day for years.
(05:19):
I write it down, I say it outloud.
It's kind of hokey, but Iliterally just tell myself over
and over that I'm a magnet formoney and success.
And the more you take control,I'll just.
You know, painting contractors,like a lot of guys, are like, oh
, I can't find anyone to work,right, nobody wants to work.
Well, if that's the story thatyou're telling yourself, you're
conditioning yourself to seeevidence for that all around you
.
And so you have to.
You have to.
You want to change your life.
You want to change your bankaccount, have more success.
(05:41):
You have to start with changingthe stories that you tell
yourself.
And I'm not a woo-woo guy, I'mnot, you know, into meditation
and stuff like that.
But I can tell you, man, whenI'm focused on things like
gratitude, when I'm focused onopportunity, when I'm focused on
(06:01):
, you know, like hey, nobodywants to work, we'll reframe
that into all right, I'm inColorado Springs.
There's a half a million peoplehere.
I know there's at least threepeople that would love to work
for my company and have a greatcareer.
Like it's a different reframe.
It doesn't mean it won't bedifficult, it doesn't mean
you're not going to go throughsome people.
But you know if the more youtell yourself something, the
(06:22):
more you believe it and thenyour actions reflect that.
You know another big thing youknow you're bookkeeping for
painters, you know.
So.
You're talking money withpeople all the time.
You know if you tell yourselfover and over that people are
cheap or you can't raise yourprices, you believe it.
Then you don't take the actionthat you need to take to save
your business, you know, andthen you end up being on this
hamster wheel your whole career,busting your tail, serving
(06:45):
hundreds of clients a year andwondering why you're the one
standing there with nothing leftin the wallet.
You know, and it's because youfundamentally don't believe
you're worth it.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You don't believe it's out there and you're not
taking the actions to raise yourprices.
Get more efficient, take theactions that you need to get the
results that you want.
It makes a lot of sense thatwe're basically telling
ourselves stories and we have totake control of those stories
and help have them work for us,instead of just whatever we were
kind of programmed when we werea kid, you know, and our
parents told us we're this orwe're that, or other people are
telling us what we are.
Basically, we need to takecontrol of our own stories, our
(07:23):
own thoughts, and craft them toaccomplish our goals and it I've
been reading a lot ofbiographies this year and that
is like a common theme with alllike Napoleon, jeff Bezos, all
these guys.
They always have thisself-belief early on, I mean not
(07:44):
not when they're already rich,but like from a kid.
They always have thisself-belief early on, I mean not
when they're already rich, butfrom a kid.
They always have this crazyself-belief in themselves on
what they can accomplish andpeople see that in them and it's
basically it sounds like you'resaying that's kind of what we
need to do for ourselves is kindof take control of those
stories and control what we'rethinking about and how we're
thinking about it, so that wecan improve our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, the foundation of all this it's really about
controlling the things we havecontrol over and not being a
victim to the circumstances.
So, you know, back in therecession in 08, you know our
painting company outside ofChicago in 08, you know our
painting company outside ofChicago, we you know it was like
we're doing you know 300something jobs a year and it was
(08:34):
.
It felt like it was overnightthat the phone stopped ringing.
It totally dried up.
You know I know a lot of yourlisteners were probably in
business then and can relate tothis Like it was humming along
and then all of a sudden it waslike wham and it was really
tough and the knee jerk reactionof a lot of our competitors,
and even ours to some degree,was, oh, we got to cut our
prices to get work and all thisother stuff.
And um, and I remember um andthis is probably right around
(09:00):
the time that I really startedto get into some of this mindset
stuff and really those things Ishared about earlier where, how
much they matter, I made achoice.
I just said you know there'sups and downs in the economy all
the time and people are alwayswinning, no matter what's going
on in the economy and so let'sfind a way to win.
(09:21):
You know it's just new fieldconditions.
You know I was a high schoolfootball coach for 17 years and
you know if it rains and there'ssix inches of mud on the field,
you both got to play in it andfind a way to execute and win.
You know and I think it's nodifferent in business that field
conditions will change and so Ireframed everything and I asked
(09:44):
a question my business partner.
I just said, hey, how can wemake this the best thing that's
ever happened to our company?
Like, literally, that's how Ireframed it and there were two
big things that came from thatand we ended up, long story
short, we were actually on lesswork.
We were more profitable throughthe recession, some of the
(10:05):
moves that we made withcompensation and taking care of
our guys and the way we marketed, the way we priced.
But the two biggest lessons Ilearned how to be a better
leader and I learned how tomarket when things were tough
and I didn't have the budgetthat I used to have, and that's
where I got introduced into likecontent and inbound marketing
(10:25):
and those types of things andwriting blogs and creating the
content which has, you know,been the foundation for pretty
much everything I've done eversince, and it all came because
of that necessity, in thatmoment of having to figure it
out and refusing to be a victim,and while everyone was cutting
their prices I'll never forgetthis my business partner, we had
(10:47):
our weekly meeting, him and Iwere hanging out and we had I
want to say, it was like thelast week in November, maybe
right in the first week ofDecember we had like zero.
Our guys were working on acouple of projects and those
were the only jobs that we hadand we had like nothing in front
of it.
And I came back in the nextweek, literally in one week, I
(11:12):
booked six weeks of work for allof our teams.
And he's like, what the heckdid you do?
And I said I said I raised ourprices, prices, and he just
looked at me and I said, cause Iwas doing the math.
I was like you know, I'm sureyou you educate your, your
people on this all the time, butlike guys, if you're you have
(11:32):
your overhead right and you'recutting your prices and your
gross profits lower, youactually have to do more work to
recover your overhead.
So I went the opposite.
I was like I damn near doubledour hourly rates during the
recession, sold a lot less work,but we recovered overhead and
made money with less leads andless sales because I trusted the
(11:54):
math, and that's a big thing.
I've learned Kind of a mindsetthing is that math is not
emotional.
Math doesn't care what you feelabout it, it's the facts, and
that's one of the things I loveabout the numbers of a business
they don't lie.
And so that was the move that Ihad to make and I think knowing
that and having confidence inmy numbers created a confidence
(12:17):
in me when I was selling thatthis is what the price has to be
and I believe that energy thatwe put out, the frequency we
operate, the confidence we haveor the insecurity, whatever it
might be, those things arecontagious and people feel that
stuff and so really learned alot about just the power of
(12:38):
knowing your numbers and what ittakes to not even make a profit
but damn near break even inyour business and um, and that
that was a huge lesson, thatthat, um, you know I'll I'll
never forget.
But yeah, we, I booked likethat, like the next six weeks or
something within one week'speriod, just, uh, I was calling
past customers.
I was kicking up you know we'veall done it beating the bushes,
(13:02):
new leads that came in, like Iwas Johnny on the spot with them
and and super confident in theway I approach things, and so we
actually damn near double ourprices and and um.
So I, I, I share all thatbecause that was the story I
chose to tell myself, instead ofthe story of, hey, we better
just hunker down and get throughthis recession and all that
other garbage that a lot ofpeople were doing.
(13:23):
So, yeah, change your story andtake the actions necessary,
trust the process and you'regoing to win on the other end.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up pricing, because when
I do an initial financialreview with someone just comes
on board and we're looking attheir numbers to see give them
clarity on their situation,because a lot of times they
don't have clarity on theirnumbers.
So we try to make sure we givethat to them when they first
come on board.
And eight or nine times out of10, it's a gross profit issue
(13:55):
and is usually tied to pricing,like they're just not pricing
enough, they're not pricing highenough.
Sometimes it's they'recompensating too much, but often
it's, you know you're, they'rejust undervaluing what they're,
you know they're, they're tryingto be the lowest cost or
they're, you know, just notpricing.
They don't know their, theirmargins, what they need to hit.
(14:32):
Folks are coming to us andthey're hitting only 35 because
they're not marking up materialsor labor sufficiently to hit
like a 45% or 50% gross profitmargin.
And oftentimes we'll give themthe numbers like, hey, here's
what's happening, and we'll walkthem through there, ask them
how are they pricing?
How are they arriving at theprice that they're charging
their customer?
And then we'll say, okay, well,this is the reason you're not
charging enough, because you'renot marking up your materials
enough, or your labor enough, orwhatever it is.
But oftentimes it seems likeit's almost like an emotional
(14:58):
change that they need to make,because when they're faced with
okay, this is black and white,the numbers and these numbers
don't work and unless you changethis, you're going to keep
struggling with profitability.
But there's like a mental thingthat they have to overcome in
order to get over that hump.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, most painting contractors who are selling are
selling in the manner in whichthey buy.
So, for instance, if you plugin your numbers into your little
handy dandy app that you use toprice your work and it spits
out 15,000 bucks, all right.
Most people, if they're notaware of this, they think to
themselves oh my God, that's alot of money, I wouldn't spend
(15:47):
that money.
And that's the story they tellthemselves.
And so what you're doing isyou're projecting your own
mindset crap onto your prospects.
You don't know what theirsituation is, you don't know
what a lot of money is to them,right?
And so you know I that's one ofthe first things that we fix
(16:09):
when we work with people is justthat mindset around pricing and
money and value.
And I mean, if I, if I'm in aroom of 100 painters and I have
them all write down, how much isa lot of money, there's going
to be 100 different answers, andso you can't do.
You can't do the mind readingthing.
You know it's.
Somebody said to me years agoit's not my job to find their
money, it's my job to providevalue, fix their problem, solve
(16:31):
their issue, add value to them,and it's up to them to decide if
they want to spend the money onit.
It's not about twistingpeople's arms to buy or anything
like that, and a lot of thiscomes down to targeting and the
right ideal clients and allthose things as well.
Sometimes it is just if apainter's listening to this I
(16:55):
guarantee they've heard throughthe years we would go with you
in a heartbeat.
It's literally we don't havethe money to pay for you.
We trust you, think you do agreat job, you got great reviews
, great reputation.
We literally truly don't havethe budget for it.
And I get that and I respectthat and that's fine.
But I think a lot of paintersshoot themselves in the foot
because they're selling in themanner in which they buy and
(17:18):
that's.
That's usually never a goodthing for a salesperson.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, so basically, they are not their ideal
customer Right.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They should, yeah, unless unless they're rolling in
dough and they're making half amillion a year themselves in
their pocket and stuff.
And it's funny cause I um umwhen I started making more money
through the years every levelI've gotten to I've actually
(17:48):
gotten better at sales because Idon't have that story rolling
around in my mind.
You know, and one of the thingswe teach in the fight all the
time is you have to market likeyour next meal depends on it.
You have to sell like you'reindependently wealthy and you
don't need the money and thatenergy that that creates.
And it's not an arrogance, it'sjust like you're not reeking of
desperation to get the salebecause you know you, you make
(18:11):
enough money.
You know in our world, you knowour.
Our starting point for peopleis you know if it costs you a
buck, charge at least two sothat you're selling at at least
a 50% gross profit, and you knowif you can produce it at 50,
that's great.
We all know things happen onthe site and you know whatever
it is.
But you know if you're sellingat a 35 and then shit goes wrong
(18:33):
on the job, now you're, you'renot making anything, and so you
know.
Number one it gives a buffer.
Number two.
You know it allows you todeliver a better experience to
your clients.
You've heard all the complaintsthrough the years with
contractors like oh, theystarted the job, they got a
deposit, they were here a coupleof days and then they
disappeared.
Well, they disappeared becausethey have cash flow issues and
(18:56):
they had to start another job toget a deposit.
And then they get on thatroller coaster and that's
generally speaking becausethey're not charging enough to
begin with.
Um, and and I, I don't thinkit's just about what they're
charging, like per hour.
You know, if somebody is like,oh, I charge 75 a man hour, a
hundred man hour, I don't care,whatever it is, um, sometimes
(19:18):
you're inappropriately pricedbecause you don't have your
production rates dialed in.
You're inappropriately pricedbecause you don't have your
production rates dialed in.
So you know, when I, when Istarted, uh, when I partnered
with my partner many years ago,we went out and bid a job
together and uh, I want to sayour prices were within, uh, call
(19:42):
it, 500 bucks, right it was.
It was pretty close.
He had twice the man hours Ihad, you know.
So it's like we had to get onthe same page, you know, and and
this was, before we evenlearned what production rates
were and all that.
We were just kind of lickingour finger up to the wind and
going which way is the windblowing?
This is how long I think theroom's going to take by the time
(20:03):
we dialed it in.
You know, like if we're justpainting, you know, smooth
drywall, couple coats.
There's no excessive patching,it's just remove the switch
plates, spackle a couple holes,you know to coat the walls.
We were a hundred square feetan hour for two coats, under
normal conditions, and then wewould add from there.
You know so, 12 by 12 room,eight foot high ceilings, 384
(20:25):
square feet.
That was a four hour room.
You walk in at eight.
You're done with the room at atat noon, and so so I think
pricing is not just about whatyou're charging, but it's also
your production rates as well.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, yes, I definitely agree, and I find
that a lot of folks have heardthat phrase before production
rates but they often don't knowwhat it means or how to
implement it.
Could you just give the basicsof production rates?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So estimating is, I believe, part art and part
science.
So the science is you know, ifI have one wall in front of me,
let's just.
Every painter can do this intheir head.
You have a 12 by 12 room room,so one of the walls is 12 feet
wide, eight feet high.
Okay, what?
(21:17):
I always screw up mymultiplication with 12.
Uh, what is it?
96 square feet, I thinksomething like that.
Call it 100, right, so that onewall, I think it's 96 12 by 12,
by 8, 96 yeah 96.
All right, I got it right yeah,all right.
So if I go, 96 divided by 100,that's 0.96 hours to paint the
(21:42):
wall two times, so it's one hourto paint the wall.
That that's the science of it.
Okay, now, depending on the theskill of team, you know, and
those types of things, yours maybe higher or lower, but for us
we, just you know that's what wearrived at doing.
You know thousands of projectsthrough the years, and so we
(22:05):
would go in and so our software,or however we calculated stuff,
would be set at 100 square feetan hour, you know.
So we'd shoot the dimensionsinto it and it would spit out
the man hours, and then the artof it comes in, where maybe
there's a drywall seam that'spopped Right, and that's where,
(22:27):
literally, you're like, yeah, Ithink it's an hour, right, uh,
or maybe there's a um, a, youhave to do extra protection on
the flooring or whatever itmight be.
Just, you know, you're, you'regoing to add more time.
Like I'm in Colorado I movedfrom the Chicago area to
Colorado a decade ago and outhere we have texture everywhere
(22:49):
on the walls.
We didn't have that in theMidwest and so, um, when we have
a white ceiling and a color onthe walls, they actually, we
actually caulk the gap so thatyou get a sharp line.
Well, you have to add a littletime for that, you know.
And so that's the art ofestimating.
Or, if you're just going off oflike square footage, if I'm
(23:09):
going, um, maybe you got atwo-story foyer and there's a
medallion thing on, or a recesstray in the middle of the
ceiling, 20 feet in the air,that's only 50 square feet.
Well, I'm not going to charge20 minutes to paint the thing,
cause this is going to take metwo hours to get up and down.
You know what I mean.
So that's where the the, thebeginning, just assign times
(23:36):
that you think it's going totake and then do an after action
report, do a debrief, do a jobcosting analysis on the end of
the job going okay, how long dothese things take?
And these are conversations youcould be having with your crew
leaders we always used to havewhen we were getting into this.
We would have, we'd have fun,we'd put a picture on our, up on
the wall, on the screen and ourcrew leader meetings, and and I
(24:00):
would just guard, I would gettheir pen and paper out.
And the first time I did it, itwas just an.
It was an exterior, it was likethe right side of a house and I
said how many hours, how manygallons?
And at the time I think we hadfive or six crew leaders there
and we had five or six differenthours.
We had everything from fromhalf a day to 16 man hours to
(24:24):
all over the board because wehadn't coached them and trained
them how to think on thesethings.
And then by the time I leftthat company, we uh, we had it
dialed in where we were allwithin a couple hours or an hour
or two, because we're all onthe same page of how we got our
production rates dialed in.
We would have conversations.
(24:46):
I want to say this because I seea lot of contractors have an
adversarial approach with theirteams.
The team always points at theestimator, says you never give
us enough hours.
The estimator is a sales guy,owner whatever is always looking
at the crew going.
You guys are dragging ass andyou're not moving fast enough
and it's like you're bumpingheads all the time.
(25:07):
I like to think of it like anairplane.
You got sales and you got theoperations and you know there's
always little slight adjustmentswhen you're in the air flying
an airplane.
You got sales and you got theoperations, and there's always
little slight adjustments.
When you're in the air flyingan airplane, the wings are
always moving a little and thereshould be some conversation and
some give and take.
And I want to credit my partner,bruce, for this, because he ran
our operations.
(25:28):
He did a great job of creatingan environment and a culture
where it wasn't an us versusthem, and so he'd sit down, you
know, a few times a year withthe team and we'd go over all
the production rights, like, hey, where are we heavy, where are
we light?
And uh, I'll never forget I hadone of my crew leaders.
His name's Jose.
He's got his own business now.
(25:49):
Great guy pulls me aside one dayand he says, hey, um, I've
noticed on the last few jobs,you're not giving us enough time
for baseboards.
And I said, okay, um, and thisis where his maturity really
kicked in.
He says but what I've noticedis you're giving us about 15
more minutes than we need perdoor.
And I said, cool, I opened upmy software, I removed 15
(26:14):
minutes from the doors, Iadjusted it through it towards
the baseboards.
Problem solved, because we hada great relationship with that,
because and that that's theleadership.
Part of this, too, being abusiness owner, is you got to
create an environment whereeverybody feels like they're
winning, you know, and and likeour crews are out there busting
their tails, they're workinghard, they're in the sun,
they're, you know, climbing uphigh and you know sand and all
(26:38):
these other things.
You know we got to do our partto make it a place that they
want to come to work and theycould feel like they're winning
every day too.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and building that
culture around the productionright seems to be the key
because, you know, as businessowners, we probably tend to okay
this is what we got to do,let's just implement it.
And changing things in abusiness can be difficult and if
we're not doing thatcollaborative approach and
getting buy-in from your team,you might hit a wall and it
(27:08):
might not work out.
So I love how you brought yourteam in, got feedback from all
of them on the production ratesand adjusted things as you go to
kind of dial those things in.
So that makes a lot of sense.
Some folks that have alsoworked with you and um,
(27:37):
sometimes I would bring upShinfu uh or the, the approach
Uh.
could you, could you dive intoyour approach for for sales, um
to give people a sense of ofwhat your approach is for that?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, so the um.
I had an old mentor friend whoused to say customers don't go
to customer school.
They don't know how to be acustomer for us and we have to
educate them.
We have to put them on ourprocess, otherwise we're going
to be on their process and theclient process is jacked up and
(28:19):
you know they're they're doingwhat you know all the you know
the tv shows are telling them,and the you know other lead gen
sites, and so you should go get17 bids for the project and all
this other garbage and and sothey just they think it's a
cattle call and they just invitecontractors out.
Everyone goes through the houseand they write up their bids
and you submit them and then youtake your little hat off and
you look up to the sky and youhope they'll pick you and oh,
(28:40):
please pick me, the littlepeasant painter.
You know and this and thatthat's not selling, that's just
order taking and you knowthrowing things out.
We are not in the proposalwriting business.
I want to say that again forthe people in the back that
didn't hear it.
You are not in the proposalwriting business.
Okay, you were in the checkcashing business.
(29:05):
You were in business to makemoney, and lots of it, so that
you can provide a great life foryou and your family, your
employees and your clients and agreat experience and all these
different things.
And so the greatest thing thatwe have, the most important
thing we have, is our time.
We can't work on our business,we can't train our people, we
(29:25):
can't invest in the marketing ornetwork and do all the things
that we have to do as a businessowner if we're running around
meeting with all these people.
That will never be our client,no matter what.
So a decade or so ago, wecreated a pre-qualification
process called the ShinFu.
It's named after one of my oldbusiness partners, steve
Schenholzer, and it's basicallya short conversation before you
(29:50):
get in your truck and you runout there.
You know we get you to sendsome pictures over or we'll pull
them up on Zillow.
It's a five-step process.
Step one is all about themotive, like what's important to
you here.
You know, if you could wave amagic wand over this experience,
what would it look like?
And most of the time it'sthings that are outside of the
paint job.
I mean, I don't know.
I love talking to a group ofpainters here because you guys
(30:12):
get my analogies.
I had a woman many years agothat I asked her.
I said, hey, what's the worstthing that can happen on this
project?
And she looked at me she's likenobody's ever asked me that
before.
And I said, well, I'm justcurious, I just want to make
sure we get this right for youbecause I know it's important.
And she's like well, myfather-in-law lives with us and
(30:35):
he has emphysema and we had alot of drywall repair to do and
sanding and skim coating andstuff, and so we were able to
work that into the bid where youknow, we put up a bunch of zip
walls and we had ventilation andyou know all those different
things.
And none of the othercontractors asked her anything
that was the most importantthing was don't kill my
father-in-law, okay.
So, um, I had another woman, I,I asked her a similar question.
I said what would make this thebest experience for you?
(30:58):
And she kind of looked at meand I rephrase I said what I, I,
I, usually we all have ourgo-to questions.
One of mine for getting motiveis really their reasons for
buying and not ours.
That's what motive is, is, um,she I said, I said what, uh,
what's the worst thing thatcould happen?
And she said if you wake mybabies up, I'll kill you all.
And uh, and she wasn't laughing.
(31:19):
And I said, tell me more.
And basically they were.
They were a few months old,they were twins.
They never slept at night, theyonly slept from like one to two
, 30 every day, like clockwork.
And we were doing an exteriorand I said, hey, that that's
good to know.
Um, I mean this, this woman,bloodshot eyes, tired mom, you
(31:44):
know, we've all seen her, right,that woman.
Maybe you're married to herright now and you're going
through it, but whatever it's.
And so I just said, you know.
I said, hey, would would itmake sense if we just adjusted
our start time back an hour anda half?
We'd take lunch an hour and ahalf later, or whenever the kids
go down for the nap, we'll takeour lunch and we'll actually go
(32:05):
off site, we'll go down thestreet to the park, we'll have
lunch.
You text the crew leader whenthe kids wake up and we'll come
back.
She's like you would do that.
And I said, of course, and Isold the job for like three
times more than everybody elsebidded at because I understood
her motive Okay, so that's,that's motive crash course.
The next step is is the money?
Like, let's get on the samepage with the money.
(32:27):
Once you get somebody's motive,then it's time to transition,
and I usually do this by askingpermission.
I'll be like hey, daniel, youknow, I think I'm, I, I'll, I'll
recite back to them the thingsthey told me that were important
to them, like don't kill myfather-in-law, don't wake up my
babies, or it has to be done bythis certain time, because
there's this party or whateverit might be, um, or our movers
are coming and we need itpainted before our furniture
(32:49):
gets here.
Like, hey, just so I get thisright, this is important, this
is more blah, blah, blah.
They're going to say, yeah,that's right.
And I'm going to say, hey,would it be okay if I talked
about what this might look likefinancially for you?
You always want to askpermission and they're going to
say yes, or sometimes they go oh, I didn't know you, you could
do that.
I thought you had to come outand look at it.
(33:09):
I said well, you know, based onwhat you told me or the
pictures you sent, or whatever,I can get you a range.
And then I'm going to paint twodifferent pictures and it's
called bracketing.
And just for time's sake, I'lljust be like you know, if we're
going to paint the exterior, I'mgoing to say, hey, listen, we
can come in here, we can wash it, we can use the highest grade
(33:30):
materials.
We can go to town like there'saverage prep, and then there's
like turbo prep, right when it'sreplacing wood.
You know, whatever it might be,I'm painting a massive picture.
That's going to be, and I'mgoing to say you know something
like that, all in you might belooking at you know 30 grand,
maybe 25,000 for that.
Or we could come out just painteverything with one color, a
(33:53):
solid product, two-year warranty, blah, blah, blah.
And that maybe you're looking.
You know 20 grand, maybe downto 17 grand somewhere in there.
And then I ask which of thoseconversations does it make sense
for us to have?
You will get their budget 100%of the time if you bracket like
that.
Okay, do not bracket, do nottalk money unless you have
(34:14):
motive, because it'll backfireon you, it's.
We don't have time to go intothat today.
But then once I get you know,and sometimes they're going to
be like oh well, you know, bothof those ranges aren't going to
work because we got four otherbids and they're half your price
.
And I'm like, yeah, I hear thatfrom time to time, what would
you like to do next?
And and I'm like, yeah, I hearthat from time to time what
would you like to do next?
(34:34):
And sometimes they say you knowyou can leave, or you know, get
off the phone and go pound.
By the way, this is all done ina 10 to 15 minute phone call.
Um, and now I've just savedmyself the windshield time, the
yard time, the house time,typing crap up, following up for
three weeks while they're goinginto witness protection after
they got your price, you know,and all this other garbage.
(34:55):
And so you want to talk money.
Just make sure you're on thesame page.
Step three we call the truth.
That's basically to protecteverybody.
Like, hey, if I get out thereand I see everything, anything
on a site visit, you know that'snot going to allow me to do it
within the budget that wediscussed.
I'm just going to call atimeout Because if you go out
there, if you don't do stepthree, if I go out and they
(35:15):
think it's a $10,000 project,you go out and see a site
condition or a level of prep oraccess or something.
And now it's 15, now you're atypical sleazy salesperson
that's baiting and switchingthem right, so you want to cover
that.
Step four is influencers, likemaking sure everyone's on board
so that you don't get the old.
Uh, you know, I got to checkwith my CPA and make sure it's
(35:36):
okay that we paint my house andmy spouse and all this stuff.
You're going to cover thatbefore you ever set foot on
their property.
And then step five is you know,uh, I don't personally use it a
whole lot, but it's called theBS meter.
It's a consultation fee, um,where if I think somebody's full
of crap and they're just usingme and shopping me around, or if
it's really far away orsomething, I'm going to charge.
(35:59):
You know, sometimes a $500consultation fee that's credited
towards the job, or 150 bucksor something just to really, you
know.
You know that's why it's calledthe BS meter.
Like, I want to know that when Igo out to the property, I'm
going out there to pick up adeposit check, and so when you
(36:19):
work this and we have a wholebelt system like martial arts
green belts all the way up toseveral degree black belts based
on the number of role plays youdo, and the more of these sales
role plays you do, the betteryou get at Shinfu, the more
money you make and what you'llsee.
A lot of guys don't like this,but bear with me.
A lot of people actually seethat their closing rate will go
(36:39):
down, but their average job sizegoes up, their gross profit
goes up and they make a lot moremoney and they're saving about
50% on average of their timeestimating.
Okay, so now you have your timefreed up to train your people,
to go to that networking thing,to hang out with your family at
(37:00):
night, instead of typing a bitup until 11 at night and then
negotiating with yourself forthree hours before you hit send
Okay.
So, um, and and for us this isall about we got to stop
stealing time, money andmemories from our families and
you got to get what you're worth.
And it does us no good to goout and meet with somebody that
is never going to be your client.
(37:21):
And there's people all the timethat you know.
We get DMs and stuff all thetime that, um, you know.
You know you gotta.
I always make fun of um.
I'm a painter, we're allpainters here.
I love you guys.
I'm just going to preface thiswith that that I love you, I'm
in your corner, but you people,we let me just say we have a
(37:46):
tendency to complicateeverything.
Painter I work with GCs andlandscape and every industry in
the contractor fight.
Painters are the biggest pain inthe ass when it comes to this
sales process, because you thinkyou got to go rub your nipples
on a wall to give a price, okay,and it's like I got to go rub
the wall and look at it.
No, you can look at a damnpicture.
(38:06):
You can get a rough budget.
You could go out, firm it up.
If, as long as you're in therange you both agreed to on the
phone, they're going to sign thecontract, okay.
So quit being your biggest ownbiggest enemy here and trust the
process.
All right, because back to theconfidence piece in selling,
when you take control of thesales process and you're not
(38:27):
doing it like everyone else, youdifferentiate yourself, okay,
and that builds confidence withthe right clients that you want,
not the people that you don'twant, not the.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Awesome.
Now I appreciate you runningthrough that qualification
process.
I'll definitely take that tradeof a lower close rate for more
money, more time.
I'll take that trade every timestory Someone tell you his name
.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
He's on the East coast.
He does about 2 million a year.
Um, he personally sells everyproject himself.
He's got a great team.
He has over 1200 leads a year,5% of them from his desk on 15
(39:19):
minute phone calls.
Now you firm it up with a sitevisit because you got to go out
and put eyes on it and make sureeverything's cool.
Now you firm it up with a sitevisit because you got to go out
and put eyes on it and make sureeverything's cool.
But you tee it up properly.
So, um, so in real quick.
I'm a numbers guy.
We've surveyed our, ourbattleground group.
It's our big coaching groupthat we have in the fight.
And uh, the last survey acrossall industries, the average
(39:43):
contractor spends about fourhours on a bid.
Okay, now, obviously it dependswhere you live, if you're in
like a metro area and traffic'sworse.
But I'm just saying on averagedrive time, you know, field the
lead drive time, walk around andtap dance for them and tell
them how great you are and allthat crap, and the typical sales
(40:03):
process rarely works.
Then you type everything up,then you send it, then you got
to drive back to where you were,then you're following up.
And again.
I know some of you guys areclosing on the spot and that's
great.
I'm just saying, on averagehere it's a four-hour process,
so let's just be generous andsay it's three hours, all right.
If so, let's just be generousand say it's three hours All
(40:39):
right.
If you have 50 hours or 50leads a month coming in at three
hours a pop, that's 150 hours.
Okay, 150 hours that you'respending in a by 40 hours a week
, that's 45 weeks a year.
You're spending in theestimating process and we have a
metric that we track.
We call it your effective salesrate.
So it's what did you sellcontracts this week divided by
(41:02):
how much time you spent in thesales process?
So if you go out and you have a$20,000 a week and it took you
30 hours, that's $660, $666.
Well, you cut that in half byusing this process and
(41:26):
pre-qualifying properly, andthere's a lot on the front end
with your marketing that teesthis up that we don't.
We can, we can go in if you wantto, but to make it easier,
selling 20,000 bucks in a week,and they're they're doing it in
an hour and a half.
You know they're taking 10sales calls, getting on the
(41:51):
phone for 10 to 15 minutes ofcrack.
They're closing two deals andthey're only driving.
So you're saving the gas,you're saving your time.
Okay, your effective sales rateis higher.
Okay, so I I like to know, forevery hour I spend in the sales
process, what am I making?
Okay, um, and, and, like I said, we're not in the proposal
writing business, um, and, and Ithink, when painters can get
(42:14):
that through their heads, um,they're, they're going to enjoy
life and everything else alittle more amazing, awesome, uh
, what?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
how can folks learn more about the contractor fight,
what you do, what you and yourteam do, and uh, where should
folks go and learn more.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, well, anywhere online contractor fight, you
know podcasts, youtube, all thatstuff.
But um, I gotta, if you guyswant a tool on how to get
started with this sales prequalstuff, and go to the contractor
fightcom forward slash cheap C,h, e, a, p.
And the whole idea is gettingrid of the cheap tire kicking
prospects, weeding them out sothat you can spend your time on
(42:58):
the people that are going to payyou.
So we have a.
We have a cool resource thereat the contractor fightcom
forward slash, cheap.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Awesome, we'll put that link in the show notes.
Any last thoughts or ask forthe audience before I let you go
, tom.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Well, if you're working with Daniel, listen to
him.
He knows, he knows the numbers.
You know number one.
You're listening to this showfor a reason you want to make
more money.
I told you before we hit recordthat I love how you went with
the niche of just paintingcompanies, cause you know you're
it's kind of like if you have aknee problem you'd rather go to
a knee specialist than ageneral practitioner, right?
(43:40):
And so you're that knee surgeonfor painters, and so you're
that knee surgeon for painters,and so I would definitely make
sure that you got your booksdialed in and your job costing
and stuff.
And then I guess on the otherend is, don't forget to have fun
.
You know, I, I I've beenreminded recently just about the
power of enthusiasm in thesales process.
And, and you know you're notout there to beg for work,
(44:03):
you're out there to solve aproblem.
And when you go out know you'renot out there to beg for work,
you're out there to solve aproblem.
And when you go out there andyou're excited to meet
somebody's needs, solve theirproblem, and you're creating an
alliance with them and you'reenthusiastic, that is contagious
.
People want to work withconfident, enthusiastic people,
and you know.
And then I think, the lastthing.
Obviously you know I said wedidn't have time to get into it,
(44:25):
but you got to invest inbuilding your brand.
If you're not creating content,you're not educating people,
you're not buildingrelationships, you're really
missing out.
I've, in my early days of mycareer, I cost myself so much
money because I didn't takemarketing seriously.
And I have a tip for everyonethat'll make you money if you do
(44:45):
this.
All right, I'll end with this.
I know you asked for one closingthought, but I have a bunch
here, because this shit works.
We call it an unexpectedintentional touch.
So what I want you guys to do,if you're listening to this, is
open up your cell phone whenthis is done.
And I want you to pull up apast client and this is not a
(45:06):
bulk message, this is anindividualized message.
It's great if you could do itin video.
At the very least do it in text.
But if, daniel, if I paintedyour exterior last year or
something, I'm going to pull itup.
I'm going to go hey, daniel,it's Tom with Simplify Painting
and we did the exterior lastyear.
I was just thinking about you.
(45:27):
When you get a minute, hit meback and let me know how it's
looking.
Okay, takes a few seconds.
Do three of those a day.
Maybe you text one.
Hey, joe, it's Sam with ABCPainting, just thinking about
(45:49):
the deck we did for you a fewmonths ago.
I just want to make sure it'sholding up well.
When you get a minute, hit meback and we track this stuff in
our group.
We do three of those a day,every working day of the year.
Every salesperson of yoursshould be doing this, by the way
, but let's say you're the onlysalesperson.
That's about 800 of thesetouches a year.
We found that about on average,5% of them turn into work
annually.
(46:10):
So that's 40 more jobs a year,times your average job size.
Maybe they moved, maybe theirneighbor was just talking about
something.
I will tell you this Most dayspeople will not reply.
If they do, it'll be like athumbs up, hey, looks great,
thanks for checking in, andthat's it.
This isn't a pitch, it'sliterally I care about you,
how's the project looking?
(46:30):
Or hey, I know we, we goteverything ready for the party a
couple months ago.
I just, you know, wanted tocheck in How's the paint job
looking and, by the way, how wasthe party?
Okay, you're just being a humanbeing and that I've got people
in the group that that sell amillion dollars a year
additional just by doing that.
Okay, so, and it's free, it'sit's marketing.
(46:53):
Okay, your, your past clientlist, your database is a
freaking gold mine.
If you care for it and you takeand you nurture it and you stay
in touch, if you care for itand you take and you nurture it
and you stay in touch.
And if you notice earlier Isaid this is not a mass email,
it's not a mass text, it'sindividual.
I'm using their name.
If I'm doing it via video, I'mlooking into the lens of the
(47:13):
camera so that our eyes areconnected, and I'm not pitching.
I'm not.
Hey, I wanted to check in andsee if you had any projects for
us.
It's literally just hey, howare things looking?
I was doing a workshop for alarge painting company in the
East coast last year.
I had all their salespeople inthe room do it while I was in
the middle of the workshop and,um, within um, about an hour,
(47:38):
the owner of the company wassitting in the back of the room
and he started chuckling and Isaid what's going on back there?
And he goes.
You know that thing you had usdo.
He says I've been texting backand forth with this past
customer.
I just sold a $50,000 project,like literally over over text,
while we were doing this andthen, before I got on my plane
the next day to leave, he textedme again and he's like you're
(47:59):
not going to believe this,remember so-and-so in the room.
I said yeah, he says he justsold a $30,000 project from the
message Because I had him sendthree while we were sitting
there that day.
It took him five minutes tosend three messages and they
sold 80 grand within 24 hours.
Okay, so, guys, this haseverything to do with being the
mindset of a hunter, not awaiter.
(48:19):
Don't be a little baby bird,you know, waiting for the Google
gods to give you a worm, youknow, and all this other stuff.
You got to go out and hunt andbe proactive and assertive, care
for people and I promise youyou will blow your business up.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Amazing last thought that takes the award, I think.
But yeah, if you're looking toturbocharge your marketing, your
sales process, get your mindsetright.
Definitely reach out to theContractor Fight.
I'll put the link forthecontractorfightcom slash
cheap in the notes.
I really appreciate your timetoday, tom, and for the folks
(48:57):
listening.
We will see you next week.
This is Daniel, the founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters, and today I'm herewith Tom Reber.
Tom Reber is the visionaryfounder of the Contractor Fight,
a powerful movement andtraining platform that has
empowered hundreds of thousandsof home improvement contractors
to elevate every aspect of theirlives and businesses.
Through transformative coaching, tom helps contractors crush
(00:21):
mediocrity and build thriving,high-impact businesses.
The Contractor Fight communityprovides contractors with
essential education, camaraderieand encouragement as they
tackle their next level ofsuccess.
With a journey as unique as hisapproach, tom has worn many
hats he's been an HGTV host,campus minister, successful
contractor painting and ProudUnited States Marine.
(00:45):
Tom's podcasts the ContractorFight and Contractor Fight TV on
YouTube deliver hard-hittingadvice, actionable strategies
and inspiration to helpcontractors take their business
to the top.
The Contractor Fight has becomethe premier coaching program
for serious contractorscommitted to achieving their
highest potential.
Welcome to the podcast, tom.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks so much for having me Appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm super excited about today's podcast.
I was just telling youbeforehand, I've seen you around
for years and I've learned alot from what you've put out
into the world and so I'mexcited about this conversation
today.
This conversation today divinginto sales, marketing mindset,
all that good stuff.
So thanks again for coming andjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Awesome.
It's always good to get arounda bunch of painters and, uh,
since I I come from that worldand uh, grew up in a with an
uncle who was a paintingcontractor, grew up working for
him and stuff, and and I'mexcited to see I'm assuming
you'll be at the expo this yearwith PCA that's.
That's in my backyard here inColorado Springs, so that'll.
(01:54):
That'll be good as well.
I don't have to travel thisyear.
It'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, that's.
It's going to be great.
I'm excited to head over toColorado this year.
This past year was in Orlando,so I'm in Orlando.
I didn't have to travel, so nowI have to pay my dues and
travel across the country, butit's a good place to travel.
I'm excited to do some skiingover there.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Absolutely Yep, and we're going next week up to
Breckenridge for a few days Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, man Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Absolutely.
I'd like to dive into mindset.
I think this is a topic that alot of people think is like
voodoo or like mindset.
What do I got to you know whichI can?
To be honest, I thought thattoo.
You know, starting out in myentrepreneurial journey, I was
like, what are people talkingabout here with mindset?
But I've learned over the yearsthat it's you know.
You got some self-limitingbeliefs and that really
(02:51):
determines on what actuallyhappens in your business.
What's your approach to mindset?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh boy, yeah.
Well, you know we're all wireda certain way.
We all have influences growingup and, and you know these
influences around us and thatwe're around they, they feed
stories into us and pretty soonthose stories become, you know,
(03:19):
we just show up each day andthey're on autopilot, right, you
know.
So, for instance, I grew upwhere I heard like making money
was for other people, not forReavers, like that was just a
phrase in the house.
Or you know, rich people, youknow were, um, they, they
probably ripped somebody off,stepped on somebody's back to
get there, and stuff.
These were just the things.
(03:39):
And so you know what we youknow.
You know, you know all thesayings, you know what you focus
on improves and stuff.
Well, if that's what you'refocused on, if that's your
mindset all the time, thenyou're putting a roadblock in
your way of being moresuccessful, at least in the
financial area.
(04:08):
In the contractor fight we'veadopted a little phrase we call
T-BAR, t-b-a-r, that I kind ofstumbled upon through the years,
just in my own experience.
That, you know, your thoughtsbecome your beliefs and your
beliefs, you know, produceactions and those actions get
you results.
And most of our thoughts, youknow, depending on what magazine
you read or scientist youfollow or whatever.
You know, we have 60 to 90,000thoughts a day.
(04:29):
They say that about 90% of themare on autopilot from the day
before.
Many of them are are, uh,subconscious, and a lot of them
are negative and so, cause it,we're, we're just on autopilot
and so, um, you know, one of theplaces that we start all the
time is you got to wake up everyday and tell yourself the right
(04:49):
stories about success.
You know, like, okay, fine, Igrew up in a, in a family that
never made money, but doesn'tmean that I can't make money,
right, I'm.
You know, one of the things I Itell myself.
I've been telling myself thisevery day for years.
I write it down, I say it outloud.
I've been telling myself thisevery day for years.
(05:19):
I write it down, I say it outloud.
It's kind of hokey, but Iliterally just tell myself over
and over that I'm a magnet formoney and success.
And the more you take control,I'll just.
You know, painting contractors,like a lot of guys, are like, oh
, I can't find anyone to work,right, nobody wants to work.
Well, if that's the story thatyou're telling yourself, you're
conditioning yourself to seeevidence for that all around you
.
And so you have to.
You have to.
You want to change your life.
You want to change your bankaccount, have more success.
(05:41):
You have to start with changingthe stories that you tell
yourself.
And I'm not a woo-woo guy, I'mnot, you know, into meditation
and stuff like that.
But I can tell you, man, whenI'm focused on things like
gratitude, when I'm focused onopportunity, when I'm focused on
(06:01):
, you know, like hey, nobodywants to work, we'll reframe
that into all right, I'm inColorado Springs.
There's a half a million peoplehere.
I know there's at least threepeople that would love to work
for my company and have a greatcareer.
Like it's a different reframe.
It doesn't mean it won't bedifficult, it doesn't mean
you're not going to go throughsome people.
But you know if the more youtell yourself something, the
(06:22):
more you believe it and thenyour actions reflect that.
You know another big thing youknow you're bookkeeping for
painters, you know.
So.
You're talking money withpeople all the time.
You know if you tell yourselfover and over that people are
cheap or you can't raise yourprices, you believe it.
Then you don't take the actionthat you need to take to save
your business, you know, andthen you end up being on this
hamster wheel your whole career,busting your tail, serving
(06:45):
hundreds of clients a year andwondering why you're the one
standing there with nothing leftin the wallet.
You know, and it's because youfundamentally don't believe
you're worth it.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You don't believe it's out there and you're not
taking the actions to raise yourprices.
Get more efficient, take theactions that you need to get the
results that you want.
It makes a lot of sense thatwe're basically telling
ourselves stories and we have totake control of those stories
and help have them work for us,instead of just whatever we were
kind of programmed when we werea kid, you know, and our
parents told us we're this orwe're that, or other people are
telling us what we are.
Basically, we need to takecontrol of our own stories, our
(07:23):
own thoughts, and craft them toaccomplish our goals and it I've
been reading a lot ofbiographies this year and that
is like a common theme with alllike Napoleon, jeff Bezos, all
these guys.
They always have thisself-belief early on, I mean not
(07:44):
not when they're already rich,but like from a kid.
They always have thisself-belief early on, I mean not
when they're already rich, butfrom a kid.
They always have this crazyself-belief in themselves on
what they can accomplish andpeople see that in them and it's
basically it sounds like you'resaying that's kind of what we
need to do for ourselves is kindof take control of those
stories and control what we'rethinking about and how we're
thinking about it, so that wecan improve our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, the foundation of all this it's really about
controlling the things we havecontrol over and not being a
victim to the circumstances.
So, you know, back in therecession in 08, you know our
painting company outside ofChicago in 08, you know our
painting company outside ofChicago, we you know it was like
we're doing you know 300something jobs a year and it was
(08:34):
.
It felt like it was overnightthat the phone stopped ringing.
It totally dried up.
You know I know a lot of yourlisteners were probably in
business then and can relate tothis Like it was humming along
and then all of a sudden it waslike wham and it was really
tough and the knee jerk reactionof a lot of our competitors,
and even ours to some degree,was, oh, we got to cut our
prices to get work and all thisother stuff.
And um, and I remember um andthis is probably right around
(09:00):
the time that I really startedto get into some of this mindset
stuff and really those things Ishared about earlier where, how
much they matter, I made achoice.
I just said you know there'sups and downs in the economy all
the time and people are alwayswinning, no matter what's going
on in the economy and so let'sfind a way to win.
(09:21):
You know it's just new fieldconditions.
You know I was a high schoolfootball coach for 17 years and
you know if it rains and there'ssix inches of mud on the field,
you both got to play in it andfind a way to execute and win.
You know and I think it's nodifferent in business that field
conditions will change and so Ireframed everything and I asked
(09:44):
a question my business partner.
I just said, hey, how can wemake this the best thing that's
ever happened to our company?
Like, literally, that's how Ireframed it and there were two
big things that came from thatand we ended up, long story
short, we were actually on lesswork.
We were more profitable throughthe recession, some of the
(10:05):
moves that we made withcompensation and taking care of
our guys and the way we marketed, the way we priced.
But the two biggest lessons Ilearned how to be a better
leader and I learned how tomarket when things were tough
and I didn't have the budgetthat I used to have, and that's
where I got introduced into likecontent and inbound marketing
(10:25):
and those types of things andwriting blogs and creating the
content which has, you know,been the foundation for pretty
much everything I've done eversince, and it all came because
of that necessity, in thatmoment of having to figure it
out and refusing to be a victim,and while everyone was cutting
their prices I'll never forgetthis my business partner, we had
(10:47):
our weekly meeting, him and Iwere hanging out and we had I
want to say, it was like thelast week in November, maybe
right in the first week ofDecember we had like zero.
Our guys were working on acouple of projects and those
were the only jobs that we hadand we had like nothing in front
of it.
And I came back in the nextweek, literally in one week, I
(11:12):
booked six weeks of work for allof our teams.
And he's like, what the heckdid you do?
And I said I said I raised ourprices, prices, and he just
looked at me and I said, cause Iwas doing the math.
I was like you know, I'm sureyou you educate your, your
people on this all the time, butlike guys, if you're you have
(11:32):
your overhead right and you'recutting your prices and your
gross profits lower, youactually have to do more work to
recover your overhead.
So I went the opposite.
I was like I damn near doubledour hourly rates during the
recession, sold a lot less work,but we recovered overhead and
made money with less leads andless sales because I trusted the
(11:54):
math, and that's a big thing.
I've learned Kind of a mindsetthing is that math is not
emotional.
Math doesn't care what you feelabout it, it's the facts, and
that's one of the things I loveabout the numbers of a business
they don't lie.
And so that was the move that Ihad to make and I think knowing
that and having confidence inmy numbers created a confidence
(12:17):
in me when I was selling thatthis is what the price has to be
and I believe that energy thatwe put out, the frequency we
operate, the confidence we haveor the insecurity, whatever it
might be, those things arecontagious and people feel that
stuff and so really learned alot about just the power of
(12:38):
knowing your numbers and what ittakes to not even make a profit
but damn near break even inyour business and um, and that
that was a huge lesson, thatthat, um, you know I'll I'll
never forget.
But yeah, we, I booked likethat, like the next six weeks or
something within one week'speriod, just, uh, I was calling
past customers.
I was kicking up you know we'veall done it beating the bushes,
(13:02):
new leads that came in, like Iwas Johnny on the spot with them
and and super confident in theway I approach things, and so we
actually damn near double ourprices and and um.
So I, I, I share all thatbecause that was the story I
chose to tell myself, instead ofthe story of, hey, we better
just hunker down and get throughthis recession and all that
other garbage that a lot ofpeople were doing.
(13:23):
So, yeah, change your story andtake the actions necessary,
trust the process and you'regoing to win on the other end.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up pricing, because when
I do an initial financialreview with someone just comes
on board and we're looking attheir numbers to see give them
clarity on their situation,because a lot of times they
don't have clarity on theirnumbers.
So we try to make sure we givethat to them when they first
come on board.
And eight or nine times out of10, it's a gross profit issue
(13:55):
and is usually tied to pricing,like they're just not pricing
enough, they're not pricing highenough.
Sometimes it's they'recompensating too much, but often
it's, you know you're, they'rejust undervaluing what they're,
you know they're, they're tryingto be the lowest cost or
they're, you know, just notpricing.
They don't know their, theirmargins, what they need to hit.
(14:32):
Folks are coming to us andthey're hitting only 35 because
they're not marking up materialsor labor sufficiently to hit
like a 45% or 50% gross profitmargin.
And oftentimes we'll give themthe numbers like, hey, here's
what's happening, and we'll walkthem through there, ask them
how are they pricing?
How are they arriving at theprice that they're charging
their customer?
And then we'll say, okay, well,this is the reason you're not
charging enough, because you'renot marking up your materials
enough, or your labor enough, orwhatever it is.
But oftentimes it seems likeit's almost like an emotional
(14:58):
change that they need to make,because when they're faced with
okay, this is black and white,the numbers and these numbers
don't work and unless you changethis, you're going to keep
struggling with profitability.
But there's like a mental thingthat they have to overcome in
order to get over that hump.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, most painting contractors who are selling are
selling in the manner in whichthey buy.
So, for instance, if you plugin your numbers into your little
handy dandy app that you use toprice your work and it spits
out 15,000 bucks, all right.
Most people, if they're notaware of this, they think to
themselves oh my God, that's alot of money, I wouldn't spend
(15:47):
that money.
And that's the story they tellthemselves.
And so what you're doing isyou're projecting your own
mindset crap onto your prospects.
You don't know what theirsituation is, you don't know
what a lot of money is to them,right?
And so you know I that's one ofthe first things that we fix
(16:09):
when we work with people is justthat mindset around pricing and
money and value.
And I mean, if I, if I'm in aroom of 100 painters and I have
them all write down, how much isa lot of money, there's going
to be 100 different answers, andso you can't do.
You can't do the mind readingthing.
You know it's.
Somebody said to me years agoit's not my job to find their
money, it's my job to providevalue, fix their problem, solve
(16:31):
their issue, add value to them,and it's up to them to decide if
they want to spend the money onit.
It's not about twistingpeople's arms to buy or anything
like that, and a lot of thiscomes down to targeting and the
right ideal clients and allthose things as well.
Sometimes it is just if apainter's listening to this I
(16:55):
guarantee they've heard throughthe years we would go with you
in a heartbeat.
It's literally we don't havethe money to pay for you.
We trust you, think you do agreat job, you got great reviews
, great reputation.
We literally truly don't havethe budget for it.
And I get that and I respectthat and that's fine.
But I think a lot of paintersshoot themselves in the foot
because they're selling in themanner in which they buy and
(17:18):
that's.
That's usually never a goodthing for a salesperson.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, so basically, they are not their ideal
customer Right.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They should, yeah, unless unless they're rolling in
dough and they're making half amillion a year themselves in
their pocket and stuff.
And it's funny cause I um umwhen I started making more money
through the years every levelI've gotten to I've actually
(17:48):
gotten better at sales because Idon't have that story rolling
around in my mind.
You know, and one of the thingswe teach in the fight all the
time is you have to market likeyour next meal depends on it.
You have to sell like you'reindependently wealthy and you
don't need the money and thatenergy that that creates.
And it's not an arrogance, it'sjust like you're not reeking of
desperation to get the salebecause you know you, you make
(18:11):
enough money.
You know in our world, you knowour.
Our starting point for peopleis you know if it costs you a
buck, charge at least two sothat you're selling at at least
a 50% gross profit, and you knowif you can produce it at 50,
that's great.
We all know things happen onthe site and you know whatever
it is.
But you know if you're sellingat a 35 and then shit goes wrong
(18:33):
on the job, now you're, you'renot making anything, and so you
know.
Number one it gives a buffer.
Number two.
You know it allows you todeliver a better experience to
your clients.
You've heard all the complaintsthrough the years with
contractors like oh, theystarted the job, they got a
deposit, they were here a coupleof days and then they
disappeared.
Well, they disappeared becausethey have cash flow issues and
(18:56):
they had to start another job toget a deposit.
And then they get on thatroller coaster and that's
generally speaking becausethey're not charging enough to
begin with.
Um, and and I, I don't thinkit's just about what they're
charging, like per hour.
You know, if somebody is like,oh, I charge 75 a man hour, a
hundred man hour, I don't care,whatever it is, um, sometimes
(19:18):
you're inappropriately pricedbecause you don't have your
production rates dialed in.
You're inappropriately pricedbecause you don't have your
production rates dialed in.
So you know, when I, when Istarted, uh, when I partnered
with my partner many years ago,we went out and bid a job
together and uh, I want to sayour prices were within, uh, call
(19:42):
it, 500 bucks, right it was.
It was pretty close.
He had twice the man hours Ihad, you know.
So it's like we had to get onthe same page, you know, and and
this was, before we evenlearned what production rates
were and all that.
We were just kind of lickingour finger up to the wind and
going which way is the windblowing?
This is how long I think theroom's going to take by the time
(20:03):
we dialed it in.
You know, like if we're justpainting, you know, smooth
drywall, couple coats.
There's no excessive patching,it's just remove the switch
plates, spackle a couple holes,you know to coat the walls.
We were a hundred square feetan hour for two coats, under
normal conditions, and then wewould add from there.
You know so, 12 by 12 room,eight foot high ceilings, 384
(20:25):
square feet.
That was a four hour room.
You walk in at eight.
You're done with the room at atat noon, and so so I think
pricing is not just about whatyou're charging, but it's also
your production rates as well.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, yes, I definitely agree, and I find
that a lot of folks have heardthat phrase before production
rates but they often don't knowwhat it means or how to
implement it.
Could you just give the basicsof production rates?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So estimating is, I believe, part art and part
science.
So the science is you know, ifI have one wall in front of me,
let's just.
Every painter can do this intheir head.
You have a 12 by 12 room room,so one of the walls is 12 feet
wide, eight feet high.
Okay, what?
(21:17):
I always screw up mymultiplication with 12.
Uh, what is it?
96 square feet, I thinksomething like that.
Call it 100, right, so that onewall, I think it's 96 12 by 12,
by 8, 96 yeah 96.
All right, I got it right yeah,all right.
So if I go, 96 divided by 100,that's 0.96 hours to paint the
(21:42):
wall two times, so it's one hourto paint the wall.
That that's the science of it.
Okay, now, depending on the theskill of team, you know, and
those types of things, yours maybe higher or lower, but for us
we, just you know that's what wearrived at doing.
You know thousands of projectsthrough the years, and so we
(22:05):
would go in and so our software,or however we calculated stuff,
would be set at 100 square feetan hour, you know.
So we'd shoot the dimensionsinto it and it would spit out
the man hours, and then the artof it comes in, where maybe
there's a drywall seam that'spopped Right, and that's where,
(22:27):
literally, you're like, yeah, Ithink it's an hour, right, uh,
or maybe there's a um, a, youhave to do extra protection on
the flooring or whatever itmight be.
Just, you know, you're, you'regoing to add more time.
Like I'm in Colorado I movedfrom the Chicago area to
Colorado a decade ago and outhere we have texture everywhere
(22:49):
on the walls.
We didn't have that in theMidwest and so, um, when we have
a white ceiling and a color onthe walls, they actually, we
actually caulk the gap so thatyou get a sharp line.
Well, you have to add a littletime for that, you know.
And so that's the art ofestimating.
Or, if you're just going off oflike square footage, if I'm
(23:09):
going, um, maybe you got atwo-story foyer and there's a
medallion thing on, or a recesstray in the middle of the
ceiling, 20 feet in the air,that's only 50 square feet.
Well, I'm not going to charge20 minutes to paint the thing,
cause this is going to take metwo hours to get up and down.
You know what I mean.
So that's where the the, thebeginning, just assign times
(23:36):
that you think it's going totake and then do an after action
report, do a debrief, do a jobcosting analysis on the end of
the job going okay, how long dothese things take?
And these are conversations youcould be having with your crew
leaders we always used to havewhen we were getting into this.
We would have, we'd have fun,we'd put a picture on our, up on
the wall, on the screen and ourcrew leader meetings, and and I
(24:00):
would just guard, I would gettheir pen and paper out.
And the first time I did it, itwas just an.
It was an exterior, it was likethe right side of a house and I
said how many hours, how manygallons?
And at the time I think we hadfive or six crew leaders there
and we had five or six differenthours.
We had everything from fromhalf a day to 16 man hours to
(24:24):
all over the board because wehadn't coached them and trained
them how to think on thesethings.
And then by the time I leftthat company, we uh, we had it
dialed in where we were allwithin a couple hours or an hour
or two, because we're all onthe same page of how we got our
production rates dialed in.
We would have conversations.
(24:46):
I want to say this because I seea lot of contractors have an
adversarial approach with theirteams.
The team always points at theestimator, says you never give
us enough hours.
The estimator is a sales guy,owner whatever is always looking
at the crew going.
You guys are dragging ass andyou're not moving fast enough
and it's like you're bumpingheads all the time.
(25:07):
I like to think of it like anairplane.
You got sales and you got theoperations and you know there's
always little slight adjustmentswhen you're in the air flying
an airplane.
You got sales and you got theoperations, and there's always
little slight adjustments.
When you're in the air flyingan airplane, the wings are
always moving a little and thereshould be some conversation and
some give and take.
And I want to credit my partner,bruce, for this, because he ran
our operations.
(25:28):
He did a great job of creatingan environment and a culture
where it wasn't an us versusthem, and so he'd sit down, you
know, a few times a year withthe team and we'd go over all
the production rights, like, hey, where are we heavy, where are
we light?
And uh, I'll never forget I hadone of my crew leaders.
His name's Jose.
He's got his own business now.
(25:49):
Great guy pulls me aside one dayand he says, hey, um, I've
noticed on the last few jobs,you're not giving us enough time
for baseboards.
And I said, okay, um, and thisis where his maturity really
kicked in.
He says but what I've noticedis you're giving us about 15
more minutes than we need perdoor.
And I said, cool, I opened upmy software, I removed 15
(26:14):
minutes from the doors, Iadjusted it through it towards
the baseboards.
Problem solved, because we hada great relationship with that,
because and that that's theleadership.
Part of this, too, being abusiness owner, is you got to
create an environment whereeverybody feels like they're
winning, you know, and and likeour crews are out there busting
their tails, they're workinghard, they're in the sun,
they're, you know, climbing uphigh and you know sand and all
(26:38):
these other things.
You know we got to do our partto make it a place that they
want to come to work and theycould feel like they're winning
every day too.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and building that
culture around the productionright seems to be the key
because, you know, as businessowners, we probably tend to okay
this is what we got to do,let's just implement it.
And changing things in abusiness can be difficult and if
we're not doing thatcollaborative approach and
getting buy-in from your team,you might hit a wall and it
(27:08):
might not work out.
So I love how you brought yourteam in, got feedback from all
of them on the production ratesand adjusted things as you go to
kind of dial those things in.
So that makes a lot of sense.
Some folks that have alsoworked with you and um,
(27:37):
sometimes I would bring upShinfu uh or the, the approach
Uh.
could you, could you dive intoyour approach for for sales, um
to give people a sense of ofwhat your approach is for that?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, so the um.
I had an old mentor friend whoused to say customers don't go
to customer school.
They don't know how to be acustomer for us and we have to
educate them.
We have to put them on ourprocess, otherwise we're going
to be on their process and theclient process is jacked up and
(28:19):
you know they're they're doingwhat you know all the you know
the tv shows are telling them,and the you know other lead gen
sites, and so you should go get17 bids for the project and all
this other garbage and and sothey just they think it's a
cattle call and they just invitecontractors out.
Everyone goes through the houseand they write up their bids
and you submit them and then youtake your little hat off and
you look up to the sky and youhope they'll pick you and oh,
(28:40):
please pick me, the littlepeasant painter.
You know and this and thatthat's not selling, that's just
order taking and you knowthrowing things out.
We are not in the proposalwriting business.
I want to say that again forthe people in the back that
didn't hear it.
You are not in the proposalwriting business.
Okay, you were in the checkcashing business.
(29:05):
You were in business to makemoney, and lots of it, so that
you can provide a great life foryou and your family, your
employees and your clients and agreat experience and all these
different things.
And so the greatest thing thatwe have, the most important
thing we have, is our time.
We can't work on our business,we can't train our people, we
(29:25):
can't invest in the marketing ornetwork and do all the things
that we have to do as a businessowner if we're running around
meeting with all these people.
That will never be our client,no matter what.
So a decade or so ago, wecreated a pre-qualification
process called the ShinFu.
It's named after one of my oldbusiness partners, steve
Schenholzer, and it's basicallya short conversation before you
(29:50):
get in your truck and you runout there.
You know we get you to sendsome pictures over or we'll pull
them up on Zillow.
It's a five-step process.
Step one is all about themotive, like what's important to
you here.
You know, if you could wave amagic wand over this experience,
what would it look like?
And most of the time it'sthings that are outside of the
paint job.
I mean, I don't know.
I love talking to a group ofpainters here because you guys
(30:12):
get my analogies.
I had a woman many years agothat I asked her.
I said, hey, what's the worstthing that can happen on this
project?
And she looked at me she's likenobody's ever asked me that
before.
And I said, well, I'm justcurious, I just want to make
sure we get this right for youbecause I know it's important.
And she's like well, myfather-in-law lives with us and
(30:35):
he has emphysema and we had alot of drywall repair to do and
sanding and skim coating andstuff, and so we were able to
work that into the bid where youknow, we put up a bunch of zip
walls and we had ventilation andyou know all those different
things.
And none of the othercontractors asked her anything
that was the most importantthing was don't kill my
father-in-law, okay.
So, um, I had another woman, I,I asked her a similar question.
I said what would make this thebest experience for you?
(30:58):
And she kind of looked at meand I rephrase I said what I, I,
I, usually we all have ourgo-to questions.
One of mine for getting motiveis really their reasons for
buying and not ours.
That's what motive is, is, um,she I said, I said what, uh,
what's the worst thing thatcould happen?
And she said if you wake mybabies up, I'll kill you all.
And uh, and she wasn't laughing.
(31:19):
And I said, tell me more.
And basically they were.
They were a few months old,they were twins.
They never slept at night, theyonly slept from like one to two
, 30 every day, like clockwork.
And we were doing an exteriorand I said, hey, that that's
good to know.
Um, I mean this, this woman,bloodshot eyes, tired mom, you
(31:44):
know, we've all seen her, right,that woman.
Maybe you're married to herright now and you're going
through it, but whatever it's.
And so I just said, you know.
I said, hey, would would itmake sense if we just adjusted
our start time back an hour anda half?
We'd take lunch an hour and ahalf later, or whenever the kids
go down for the nap, we'll takeour lunch and we'll actually go
(32:05):
off site, we'll go down thestreet to the park, we'll have
lunch.
You text the crew leader whenthe kids wake up and we'll come
back.
She's like you would do that.
And I said, of course, and Isold the job for like three
times more than everybody elsebidded at because I understood
her motive Okay, so that's,that's motive crash course.
The next step is is the money?
Like, let's get on the samepage with the money.
(32:27):
Once you get somebody's motive,then it's time to transition,
and I usually do this by askingpermission.
I'll be like hey, daniel, youknow, I think I'm, I, I'll, I'll
recite back to them the thingsthey told me that were important
to them, like don't kill myfather-in-law, don't wake up my
babies, or it has to be done bythis certain time, because
there's this party or whateverit might be, um, or our movers
are coming and we need itpainted before our furniture
(32:49):
gets here.
Like, hey, just so I get thisright, this is important, this
is more blah, blah, blah.
They're going to say, yeah,that's right.
And I'm going to say, hey,would it be okay if I talked
about what this might look likefinancially for you?
You always want to askpermission and they're going to
say yes, or sometimes they go oh, I didn't know you, you could
do that.
I thought you had to come outand look at it.
(33:09):
I said well, you know, based onwhat you told me or the
pictures you sent, or whatever,I can get you a range.
And then I'm going to paint twodifferent pictures and it's
called bracketing.
And just for time's sake, I'lljust be like you know, if we're
going to paint the exterior, I'mgoing to say, hey, listen, we
can come in here, we can wash it, we can use the highest grade
(33:30):
materials.
We can go to town like there'saverage prep, and then there's
like turbo prep, right when it'sreplacing wood.
You know, whatever it might be,I'm painting a massive picture.
That's going to be, and I'mgoing to say you know something
like that, all in you might belooking at you know 30 grand,
maybe 25,000 for that.
Or we could come out just painteverything with one color, a
(33:53):
solid product, two-year warranty, blah, blah, blah.
And that maybe you're looking.
You know 20 grand, maybe downto 17 grand somewhere in there.
And then I ask which of thoseconversations does it make sense
for us to have?
You will get their budget 100%of the time if you bracket like
that.
Okay, do not bracket, do nottalk money unless you have
(34:14):
motive, because it'll backfireon you, it's.
We don't have time to go intothat today.
But then once I get you know,and sometimes they're going to
be like oh well, you know, bothof those ranges aren't going to
work because we got four otherbids and they're half your price
.
And I'm like, yeah, I hear thatfrom time to time, what would
you like to do next?
And and I'm like, yeah, I hearthat from time to time what
would you like to do next?
(34:34):
And sometimes they say you knowyou can leave, or you know, get
off the phone and go pound.
By the way, this is all done ina 10 to 15 minute phone call.
Um, and now I've just savedmyself the windshield time, the
yard time, the house time,typing crap up, following up for
three weeks while they're goinginto witness protection after
they got your price, you know,and all this other garbage.
(34:55):
And so you want to talk money.
Just make sure you're on thesame page.
Step three we call the truth.
That's basically to protecteverybody.
Like, hey, if I get out thereand I see everything, anything
on a site visit, you know that'snot going to allow me to do it
within the budget that wediscussed.
I'm just going to call atimeout Because if you go out
there, if you don't do stepthree, if I go out and they
(35:15):
think it's a $10,000 project,you go out and see a site
condition or a level of prep oraccess or something.
And now it's 15, now you're atypical sleazy salesperson
that's baiting and switchingthem right, so you want to cover
that.
Step four is influencers, likemaking sure everyone's on board
so that you don't get the old.
Uh, you know, I got to checkwith my CPA and make sure it's
(35:36):
okay that we paint my house andmy spouse and all this stuff.
You're going to cover thatbefore you ever set foot on
their property.
And then step five is you know,uh, I don't personally use it a
whole lot, but it's called theBS meter.
It's a consultation fee, um,where if I think somebody's full
of crap and they're just usingme and shopping me around, or if
it's really far away orsomething, I'm going to charge.
(35:59):
You know, sometimes a $500consultation fee that's credited
towards the job, or 150 bucksor something just to really, you
know.
You know that's why it's calledthe BS meter.
Like, I want to know that when Igo out to the property, I'm
going out there to pick up adeposit check, and so when you
(36:19):
work this and we have a wholebelt system like martial arts
green belts all the way up toseveral degree black belts based
on the number of role plays youdo, and the more of these sales
role plays you do, the betteryou get at Shinfu, the more
money you make and what you'llsee.
A lot of guys don't like this,but bear with me.
A lot of people actually seethat their closing rate will go
(36:39):
down, but their average job sizegoes up, their gross profit
goes up and they make a lot moremoney and they're saving about
50% on average of their timeestimating.
Okay, so now you have your timefreed up to train your people,
to go to that networking thing,to hang out with your family at
(37:00):
night, instead of typing a bitup until 11 at night and then
negotiating with yourself forthree hours before you hit send
Okay.
So, um, and and for us this isall about we got to stop
stealing time, money andmemories from our families and
you got to get what you're worth.
And it does us no good to goout and meet with somebody that
is never going to be your client.
(37:21):
And there's people all the timethat you know.
We get DMs and stuff all thetime that, um, you know.
You know you gotta.
I always make fun of um.
I'm a painter, we're allpainters here.
I love you guys.
I'm just going to preface thiswith that that I love you, I'm
in your corner, but you people,we let me just say we have a
(37:46):
tendency to complicateeverything.
Painter I work with GCs andlandscape and every industry in
the contractor fight.
Painters are the biggest pain inthe ass when it comes to this
sales process, because you thinkyou got to go rub your nipples
on a wall to give a price, okay,and it's like I got to go rub
the wall and look at it.
No, you can look at a damnpicture.
(38:06):
You can get a rough budget.
You could go out, firm it up.
If, as long as you're in therange you both agreed to on the
phone, they're going to sign thecontract, okay.
So quit being your biggest ownbiggest enemy here and trust the
process.
All right, because back to theconfidence piece in selling,
when you take control of thesales process and you're not
(38:27):
doing it like everyone else, youdifferentiate yourself, okay,
and that builds confidence withthe right clients that you want,
not the people that you don'twant, not the.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Awesome.
Now I appreciate you runningthrough that qualification
process.
I'll definitely take that tradeof a lower close rate for more
money, more time.
I'll take that trade every timestory Someone tell you his name
.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
He's on the East coast.
He does about 2 million a year.
Um, he personally sells everyproject himself.
He's got a great team.
He has over 1200 leads a year,5% of them from his desk on 15
(39:19):
minute phone calls.
Now you firm it up with a sitevisit because you got to go out
and put eyes on it and make sureeverything's cool.
Now you firm it up with a sitevisit because you got to go out
and put eyes on it and make sureeverything's cool.
But you tee it up properly.
So, um, so in real quick.
I'm a numbers guy.
We've surveyed our, ourbattleground group.
It's our big coaching groupthat we have in the fight.
And uh, the last survey acrossall industries, the average
(39:43):
contractor spends about fourhours on a bid.
Okay, now, obviously it dependswhere you live, if you're in
like a metro area and traffic'sworse.
But I'm just saying on averagedrive time, you know, field the
lead drive time, walk around andtap dance for them and tell
them how great you are and allthat crap, and the typical sales
(40:03):
process rarely works.
Then you type everything up,then you send it, then you got
to drive back to where you were,then you're following up.
And again.
I know some of you guys areclosing on the spot and that's
great.
I'm just saying, on averagehere it's a four-hour process,
so let's just be generous andsay it's three hours, all right.
If so, let's just be generousand say it's three hours All
(40:39):
right.
If you have 50 hours or 50leads a month coming in at three
hours a pop, that's 150 hours.
Okay, 150 hours that you'respending in a by 40 hours a week
, that's 45 weeks a year.
You're spending in theestimating process and we have a
metric that we track.
We call it your effective salesrate.
So it's what did you sellcontracts this week divided by
(41:02):
how much time you spent in thesales process?
So if you go out and you have a$20,000 a week and it took you
30 hours, that's $660, $666.
Well, you cut that in half byusing this process and
(41:26):
pre-qualifying properly, andthere's a lot on the front end
with your marketing that teesthis up that we don't.
We can, we can go in if you wantto, but to make it easier,
selling 20,000 bucks in a week,and they're they're doing it in
an hour and a half.
You know they're taking 10sales calls, getting on the
(41:51):
phone for 10 to 15 minutes ofcrack.
They're closing two deals andthey're only driving.
So you're saving the gas,you're saving your time.
Okay, your effective sales rateis higher.
Okay, so I I like to know, forevery hour I spend in the sales
process, what am I making?
Okay, um, and, and, like I said, we're not in the proposal
writing business, um, and, and Ithink, when painters can get
(42:14):
that through their heads, um,they're, they're going to enjoy
life and everything else alittle more amazing, awesome, uh
, what?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
how can folks learn more about the contractor fight,
what you do, what you and yourteam do, and uh, where should
folks go and learn more.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, well, anywhere online contractor fight, you
know podcasts, youtube, all thatstuff.
But um, I gotta, if you guyswant a tool on how to get
started with this sales prequalstuff, and go to the contractor
fightcom forward slash cheap C,h, e, a, p.
And the whole idea is gettingrid of the cheap tire kicking
prospects, weeding them out sothat you can spend your time on
(42:58):
the people that are going to payyou.
So we have a.
We have a cool resource thereat the contractor fightcom
forward slash, cheap.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Awesome, we'll put that link in the show notes.
Any last thoughts or ask forthe audience before I let you go
, tom.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Well, if you're working with Daniel, listen to
him.
He knows, he knows the numbers.
You know number one.
You're listening to this showfor a reason you want to make
more money.
I told you before we hit recordthat I love how you went with
the niche of just paintingcompanies, cause you know you're
it's kind of like if you have aknee problem you'd rather go to
a knee specialist than ageneral practitioner, right?
(43:40):
And so you're that knee surgeonfor painters, and so you're
that knee surgeon for painters,and so I would definitely make
sure that you got your booksdialed in and your job costing
and stuff.
And then I guess on the otherend is, don't forget to have fun
.
You know, I, I I've beenreminded recently just about the
power of enthusiasm in thesales process.
And, and you know you're notout there to beg for work,
(44:03):
you're out there to solve aproblem.
And when you go out know you'renot out there to beg for work,
you're out there to solve aproblem.
And when you go out there andyou're excited to meet
somebody's needs, solve theirproblem, and you're creating an
alliance with them and you'reenthusiastic, that is contagious
.
People want to work withconfident, enthusiastic people,
and you know.
And then I think, the lastthing.
Obviously you know I said wedidn't have time to get into it,
(44:25):
but you got to invest inbuilding your brand.
If you're not creating content,you're not educating people,
you're not buildingrelationships, you're really
missing out.
I've, in my early days of mycareer, I cost myself so much
money because I didn't takemarketing seriously.
And I have a tip for everyonethat'll make you money if you do
(44:45):
this.
All right, I'll end with this.
I know you asked for one closingthought, but I have a bunch
here, because this shit works.
We call it an unexpectedintentional touch.
So what I want you guys to do,if you're listening to this, is
open up your cell phone whenthis is done.
And I want you to pull up apast client and this is not a
(45:06):
bulk message, this is anindividualized message.
It's great if you could do itin video.
At the very least do it in text.
But if, daniel, if I paintedyour exterior last year or
something, I'm going to pull itup.
I'm going to go hey, daniel,it's Tom with Simplify Painting
and we did the exterior lastyear.
I was just thinking about you.
(45:27):
When you get a minute, hit meback and let me know how it's
looking.
Okay, takes a few seconds.
Do three of those a day.
Maybe you text one.
Hey, joe, it's Sam with ABCPainting, just thinking about
(45:49):
the deck we did for you a fewmonths ago.
I just want to make sure it'sholding up well.
When you get a minute, hit meback and we track this stuff in
our group.
We do three of those a day,every working day of the year.
Every salesperson of yoursshould be doing this, by the way
, but let's say you're the onlysalesperson.
That's about 800 of thesetouches a year.
We found that about on average,5% of them turn into work
annually.
(46:10):
So that's 40 more jobs a year,times your average job size.
Maybe they moved, maybe theirneighbor was just talking about
something.
I will tell you this Most dayspeople will not reply.
If they do, it'll be like athumbs up, hey, looks great,
thanks for checking in, andthat's it.
This isn't a pitch, it'sliterally I care about you,
how's the project looking?
(46:30):
Or hey, I know we, we goteverything ready for the party a
couple months ago.
I just, you know, wanted tocheck in How's the paint job
looking and, by the way, how wasthe party?
Okay, you're just being a humanbeing and that I've got people
in the group that that sell amillion dollars a year
additional just by doing that.
Okay, so, and it's free, it'sit's marketing.
(46:53):
Okay, your, your past clientlist, your database is a
freaking gold mine.
If you care for it and you takeand you nurture it and you stay
in touch, if you care for itand you take and you nurture it
and you stay in touch.
And if you notice earlier Isaid this is not a mass email,
it's not a mass text, it'sindividual.
I'm using their name.
If I'm doing it via video, I'mlooking into the lens of the
(47:13):
camera so that our eyes areconnected, and I'm not pitching.
I'm not.
Hey, I wanted to check in andsee if you had any projects for
us.
It's literally just hey, howare things looking?
I was doing a workshop for alarge painting company in the
East coast last year.
I had all their salespeople inthe room do it while I was in
the middle of the workshop and,um, within um, about an hour,
(47:38):
the owner of the company wassitting in the back of the room
and he started chuckling and Isaid what's going on back there?
And he goes.
You know that thing you had usdo.
He says I've been texting backand forth with this past
customer.
I just sold a $50,000 project,like literally over over text,
while we were doing this andthen, before I got on my plane
the next day to leave, he textedme again and he's like you're
(47:59):
not going to believe this,remember so-and-so in the room.
I said yeah, he says he justsold a $30,000 project from the
message Because I had him sendthree while we were sitting
there that day.
It took him five minutes tosend three messages and they
sold 80 grand within 24 hours.
Okay, so, guys, this haseverything to do with being the
mindset of a hunter, not awaiter.
(48:19):
Don't be a little baby bird,you know, waiting for the Google
gods to give you a worm, youknow, and all this other stuff.
You got to go out and hunt andbe proactive and assertive, care
for people and I promise youyou will blow your business up.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Amazing last thought that takes the award, I think.
But yeah, if you're looking toturbocharge your marketing, your
sales process, get your mindsetright.
Definitely reach out to theContractor Fight.
I'll put the link forthecontractorfightcom slash
cheap in the notes.
I really appreciate your timetoday, tom, and for the folks
(48:57):
listening.
We will see you next week.
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