"Cracking" Hard Shell Customers (the arms crossed, one-word answer type) in Roofing Sales

In this video, I'm going to be teaching you how to crack hard shell customers. You know the ones just like this, the ones that keep their chin up, their arms crossed, their chest puffed out, they look down upon you, they're demeaning, they're distrusting, they don't want to open up and they don't want to talk with you. But for some reason, their curiosity has peaked just enough that they've let you on the roof. And maybe they're standing at the base of the ladder staring up at you like this. And then you get down and they continue this and they give you the uh huh, uh huh, yep, one word answers. It's like they're playing their cards close and they just don't trust you. These customers can be the hardest to crack. And the funny thing is, when you learn how to do it, it becomes a fun psychological game. And in this video, I'm going to be teaching you how to crack these hard shell customers. And I have to say a big thank you to two specific people for inspiring this video. First is John. John is a client and friend who I was talking with the other day and he was sharing with me about these hard customers and kind of how they're hard to crack. And we were exchanging some banter about it. And funny enough, immediately after that conversation, I go and I go home, I have lunch with my wife and she goes, I had a video idea, I was going to tell you last night, but you were asleep. True story. And she says she should do a video on those hard to crack customers. She called them those stonewall customers. And I said, you know what, John brought it up, my wife brought it up, we got to do it. So here we are. So thanks for joining me and welcome back. By the way, my name is Adam Bensman, the roof strategist. Everything I do here in the videos, the podcast, and in all the programs and services on my training dashboard, which make up what I call the roofing sales success formula, are designed for one simple reason, and that is to help you or your team smash your income goals. Because that, my friends, is why we are in roofing sales. So let's begin. How do we crack these hard shell customers? The cross arm folks who don't trust us. I'm going to reach up to the camera and grab my handy dandy notepad so you can visualize exactly what I am laying down for you. Now, there's two methods to this madness and I'm going to really throw in a third one here because I just decided to do it. It was originally going to be two, but you know how this goes. I make things happen on the fly. So here are three ways, alright? These three methods I'm going to teach you. We're going to start with number one. And this is the one that most of you are going to say. I know that. And what is it? It's mirroring. For anyone who doesn't know what mirroring is, I'll teach you. For those of you that do, stick around because you're still going to maybe learn a thing or two. Now mirroring is this. This is basically shining back to that customer the same type of body language that they're giving you. So when you have this guy with the arms crossed and the head tilted back, match their language. Now it's, it's a subtle craft to learn where you're not going to just like observe and try to replicate. You're simply going to adjust your body to reflect how he or she holds her body. When they cross their arms, so do you. When they speak slowly in a firm cadence, so do you. If they choose one word answers, you choose shorter answers. If they put their hands on their hips, you put your hands on their hips. They lean on the truck. You lean on the truck. All of a sudden, without even realizing it, they view you like them and people like themselves. That's why. Who said it? Ah, it's on the tip of my tongue. Was it Andrew Carnegie? The sweetest sound in the human language is the sound of your own name. Fix me. Drop a comment if I butchered the quote. But that's the big idea. So my point is, through mirroring, people begin to view you as non threatening because you're like them. Now one thing that I made the mistake of doing because I grew up in a household where my role was the peacekeeper and often as a peacekeeper, we do the opposite. So they do this and we're like, oh, hey buddy. We try to like warm them up, try to break them, you know, like, hey pal, loosen up a little bit. But that doesn't work. So we need a mirror. Alright, so step one is to mirror. Think of this as the icebreaker and this is the fun psychology game. Because what we're trying to do, you're not going to do this instantly. It's going to take a few minutes. So first we're going to mirror. Two is we're going to. Oh, there we go. Number two is we are going to search for common ground. Now what do I mean by common ground? Okay, what I mean by common ground is something that you can connect to with this person on anything. You don't have to be a subject matter expert at all. But what I mean by this common ground. I want to give you an example, but I'm going to leave number three on here right now and then I'm going to break this down and show you how I actually use this in a sales appointment not long ago. And then we're going to have small talk. All right? So we're going to search for common ground and have small talk. So big takeaway is this when we find this common ground. What I'm searching for on the property are signs of what's important to him or her. It could be a perfectly manicured garden. It could be a beautiful backyard or back deck area for entertaining. Maybe it's a smoker in the backyard and they love grilling out meat. Maybe it's a collector car in the garage. Maybe it's a gorgeous boat. Find the thing. Sometimes it's hard. I'm going to share that story now. Then we're going to break the conversation about sales for a minute and completely change topic. Search for the common ground, then have small talk immediately shift the conversation away from sales. When you're facing this in these hard to crack people. Number one tip to break them, stop talking about work, period. Do not talk about the roof, the process, nothing. Let it be and focus on something different for a minute. It is the easiest way to break it. Alright, so here's a real world example. A few months ago I run a sales appointment with a gentleman. Alright? We get there, the wife had set the appointment up, husband answers the door, they're retired immediately. Yeah. Who you with again? Distrust. We tell him, alright, hop up there, let me know what you see. Okay. Do you think he went back in the house? Oh no, no, no, no he didn't. My friend, he stood out there at that ladder like this looking up. And after we went there, I purposely went to the back of the roof so we could chit chat and he couldn't hear. And then he just walks around the house. He's doing this thing. So we get off the roof and he's doing the classic arms crossed, one word answer, don't trust you. Uh huh, uh huh. Yep, whole thing. And I'm sitting there because I'm with this sales rep and I'm watching him and he keeps going into the presentation and I'm just scanning the property. I'm like, how can I break the ice? And it was a kind of a cookie Cutter house, vinyl siding, nothing that stood out. No cars in the driveway. I couldn't find anything. So I look over and I see a mount, a deer mount on a shed. And I'm like, bingo. So I interrupt the rep real quick. I said, hey, not to interrupt upland game or just big game. And I point to the mount. That's it. That is all I did. Now, I didn't. Here's the subtlety when we talk psychology. I didn't say to him, do you deer hunt? Like, come on, dummy, there's a mount right there. Of course. So I said, upland game or just big game? I implied that there was a conversation to be had, and I'm implying that I relate to him. Doesn't matter if you do or you don't. All of a sudden, I'm not kidding. Instantly, arms go down, just big game. That deer was a trip, actually, a couple years ago, out to Kansas, my buddy's property out there. And then he starts telling me about it. And I was telling him, I said, oh, you know what? That's funny. I just actually do turkey hunt by chance. He goes, no. I said, oh, I just got my first turkey tag and I'm going out. It was the following week or something, and all I did was find the common ground. How can I get him? How can I find the thing that's important to him? And then shift the conversation with small talk away from work. Now, story evolved that all of a sudden he's smiling, he's buddying up, he's asking for the card. The entire dynamic was a 180 like that. Now, taking this on to a story outside of my own experience, this gentleman, John, who I spoke with out on the east coast, told me that all it took was finding the common ground. And he found out that this gentleman was a firefighter and he happened to know three guys who are also firefighters and in the same town. That was it. Common ground broken, shift away from work. Talk about firefighting. There it was. Bingo. Off to the races. It is incredible what happens with this likability factor. I had guys reach out to me recently that say, hey, when you're in Salt Lake, let's go mountain biking. Another one from Indiana. Hey, if I ever come out to Colorado, I'd love to go mountain biking. I'm like, mountain biking? Let's go ditch work. Let's do it right. Like, that's my end. If you start talking bikes with me like you, you're instantly my best pal. We're going to get wrapped up in mountain biking and Geeking out and all that stuff. Everyone's got their thing. Another guys I talk with out there, it was the cars, their muscle cars and drifting. And everyone's got their thing that they're passionate and excited about. So when you can break through this, you can take these customers who are otherwise hard to crack. And remember, step one, mirror. Okay, Remember, we're easing into it like a little psychology game to just start to build that likability. Hold your body like them. Have a delay, 2, 3 second delay. Just slowly shift between the movements. Match their tone of voice. People tell me, by the way, that I talk a million miles an hour. I know this. I'm passionate, I'm excited. But then I have to match people's tonality sometimes because I know that they speak slower and they probably hate the fact that I talk 100 miles an hour. And if you hate it, I'm sorry. But I'm really glad you're here and I'm working on it. All right, then I'm going to search for common ground on a property and tag those things like, okay, that's important to them. Then I'm going to ask a question. I'm not going to do it overt like you're trying to connect with a 6 year old. Do you like toy cars? Do you like Barbies? No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to just do it subtly. Like, that pergola over your hot tub is beautiful. Did you guys build that? Right? Like, is that a Traeger? Which Traeger did you guys get for smoking meats? Just start the conversation authentically and pull yourself out of the sale and into the small talk. And this, my friend, is how you break through hard to crack customers. So listen, just because this video is about to wrap up doesn't mean our time together must end. If you want more videos on sales psychology and body language, I got a playlist for you right here. And if you want freebies and all of my videos sent to your inbox, organized by category for easy reference for newbies and sales teams and owners looking to train guys up, click here for a free copy of my pitch Like a Pro Roofing sales training video library. I appreciate you being here and I hope you learned something that's going to help you crack that hard to crack customer on your very next sale. See you soon.