E219: The 3 Mistakes Trade Leaders Make That Make Sales Way Too Hard to Close (And How to Fix Them): Sales, Leadership, Trade

Today is all about the 3 mistakes trade leaders make that make sales way too hard for them to close, and we'll show you how to fix them. Welcome to Sales Growth Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry sales and business leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years, I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses, and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. We're mid-roll into our special week with George Bryant, the man who is— for those who don't know, he's 100 pounds lighter than not all that long ago. And so proud is he of how he now looks that, as we found out on Monday, pinksy's go. It was a pink hoodie, it was a pink drink bottle, It was pink shoes. I'm hoping he doesn't tell me and show me that today he's got pink underwear on because I don't need to see it, George. Right. But Monday we had a really nice start to our very special week around bringing together two minds who have huge experience in sales and presenting in slightly different ways some of the really important things that you need to get right as a trade, an industry, a construction style of business, those things you really need to get right. And Monday was all about understanding your identity. The things that you need to know around clarity, around compliance, around culture, so that you can very clearly articulate your message to your customers to create value, to drive emotional buy-in and close more sales, right? That's what it all comes down to. Today, and I'm going to hand over to George straight away because we're going to get into this because this for me is the key episode of the week, right? Is all about mistakes. So we're going to talk about the mistakes. That he sees particularly trade-related businesses making that are so easy to fix. So George, I hope you've done your hike this morning. I hope you're ready to go. You're in pink again. You're on theme. You're on point. But let's have a chat about the mistakes that you really see trade businesses making.

I love this, brother, and I'm stoked, and thank you for having me back. And if you're watching this, you can call me out. I do do my laundry, but I own 4 of the same hoodie because I like to eliminate decision fatigue in my life. And so But this one's like near and dear to my heart. Right. And so for you and who I respect, cause our podcast was so good, is like what we have to understand what selling is. Selling to some degree is a transference of energy and confidence until somebody has enough of their own. Right. And underneath every sale, underneath every conversion, whether that's, I give you my email, I give you my phone number, I give you my credit card. There's one thing that every human being needs in order to complete that, and that's trust and safety, right? And so in the next episode, we're gonna talk about communication, but in this one it's about safety. And what we forget is communication is the most important aspect when it comes to relationships. But what you do when you lead those relationships and the experience the user's having and what's happening on the other side is really what dictates the success. It's not what happens when they're on the phone with you. Or when they're at the meeting with you, it's what happens in between those sessions that either moves them one step closer or pushes them one step away. And so in simplicity, I like to make models because I'm not the most educated person and I can always remember 3. And so I call this the triangle of death, because if you make any one of these 3 mistakes, you're basically just killing your business. My son calls it the triangle of poop. It's a whole different story, but That's the other way I teach it. And so there's 3 core mistakes that happen. The first one we call the black hole. The second one we call the ego journey. And the third one we call the fire hose. So the black hole, because I worked really hard on this definition a decade ago, I'm going to share it and then I'm going to give you the, the easy answer. The black hole is the gap between the exchange of information where the dopamine is wearing off. The longer that zone exists, the faster the undercurrent of the customer's anxieties, doubts, and fears take over, deteriorating both of your chances of success. So basically buyer's remorse before they buy. We call it commitment remorse. So what does this look like in a trades business? I know Ben talks about this, but if somebody calls you and you don't call them back for 7 days, they lived in the black hole. If you bump into somebody and you're like, oh my God, as soon as I get back to the office, I'll shoot you an email, and you write a contract and then you don't email them till 2 days later, black hole. If somebody requests information and you're like, oh my God, yeah, I'll send it right over, and a day passes and 2 days passes, black hole. And what happens in the black hole is when we are in safety building or trust building, We're speaking a lot of unspoken contracts or expectations that people have against us. And when we break those, it creates what's called broken window syndrome. Oh, the first thing broke. So now I'm going to look for everything else that was wrong to justify that I'm right in this position. So that's the black hole. The second one is called the ego journey. This one notorious in trades. Yeah, this is where when we're communicating with a prospect, with a customer, with a potential customer, we default to talking about I, I, I instead of you, you, you. Well, we did this and we built this roof and we made this and we're the best here and we're the best ever, and they're completely checked out because they're not emotionally resonating with it. And so what I remind people of is that if you're in a conversation They already had enough evidence to be in the conversation about you. So make the rest of it about them. So I could be like, yeah, I build the best roofs in the valley. And I'm like, you are going to have the best roof in the valley. You are going to feel, you are going to think, you are going to see, you are going to be able to. So what I'm doing is I'm future pacing, but I'm also speaking directly to what they want. And the way that I remind myself of this is that my customer or prospect's results will tell them everything that they need to know about me. I don't need to love bomb them on the first date. I need to make it about them and then speak into them that way. So that's the second mistake. And then the third mistake is what we call the fire hose. And this is when we forget how far removed our customer is from where we actually sit. And so because I've used roofing as an example, if you call me and you're like, I'd love for you to do an inspection and share my options. What do most default tradespeople do? They send them every option at once. They'll send them an email with a video, a 14-page document of what's inside of it. And they're like, here you go, Ben, these are all your options. And Ben has a, oh my God, my whole nervous system is so overwhelmed because you drowned me. Or, you know, for everybody listening to this or watching this, you've experienced this before. Maybe you've ever bought a program on the internet. And you're like really excited, you buy the program, and then the first email you get is like 2,000 words long and requires like 75 minutes of work. And you're like, didn't I just spend money to make this easy? Why are you overwhelming me? So what we have to be aware of is we have to be aware with empathy of what the other person's nervous system is doing, right? Sometimes we do roof repairs for people that had hail damage and their insurance is paying for it and they don't even know what to do. And so if I call Susan and I'm like, Susan, here's everything you need to do. I sent it all to you in an email with 6 attachments and 3 documents with a contract to sign. I can't be upset that Susan doesn't sign the contract because she doesn't even use the computer cuz she's 71 years old and lives in Montana. And so what I have to remember is that effective selling is actually building an effective customer journey, which means it's my responsibility to know how much dose I should give. And how to guide them through that process. And so those are the 3 core mistakes that we see the most.

Great. I really like that. Very, very similar to the type of things I talk about it, and I far prefer the triangle of poop. Out of all those names you just gave, they were my favorite. But let's have a look at the first one. So in fact, what I'm going to do is quickly summarize these 3, and then what I'm going to ask for, George, is one thing from you to fix each mistake, and then I'll go one thing from me at the same time. Amazing. So from a black hole point of view, we are talking about time between communication. So not having those consistent communications with your customers or waiting too long. Great. Ego is all about I, not you. So it's making it about us, not them. And then the fire hose is you think about that fire hose turned on full ball, just blowing way too much information to people. I like it. Okay. So black hole. One thing from you and then one thing from me. We'll go bang, bang. One thing you'd do to fix black hole.

Yeah, well, this is what the whole third episode is going to be. The model solves all three of them, but I'll even lead the horse a little bit and give you one. So when it comes to the black hole, honest communication, it's better that I tell somebody, hey Ben, thanks for emailing me. It's going to take me two days to get back to you. And so I'll be shooting it over at this time rather than leaving them in the black hole.

Great, I like it. I'm gonna go really practical, another layer of practicality on that. So you're gonna measure expectations, yes, absolutely. I'm gonna say start a day and end a day, you bookend with customer activities, even if it's only 15 minutes, and that gets it done. All right, I like it. Next one. So we're gonna go ego. So this is where it's about I, not you. One thing for you to fix ego.

Before you send any text message, before you send any email, audit it. And anywhere where it has the terms I, change it and replace them to you and the outcome that they're going to achieve.

Great. I like that. Nice and simple. Spell check. I becomes you. Easy. I'm going to go slightly different perspective. When you're on site with any customer, you walk around the site with them and you talk about the outcomes because then in fact you're actually removing the words I and you right? And you're putting yourself in a system where you will talk about all the cool things that are going to happen from what you do. So love that. We've got an admin style and we've got, I guess, a selling method style. Great. All right. Fire hose. Fire hose on full ball. How do we turn that fire hose down to a garden hose?

That's a great, great question. So you have to be aware of all the information that you're going to share with somebody, and then it's your responsibility to ask how much they can take in a dose. So, for example, If I'm on the job site with somebody and they ask me for options, I'm gonna ask them a couple of questions to narrow it down, and then I'm gonna show them 2 cars instead of 17 cars. And so curiosity will help you clarify. And anywhere where you are having to send copious amounts of information, you actually help guide them through that information. So tangible example. When I send a big invoice, we just sent one for an $800,000 roof. I called him on the phone and I said, I need you to open your email, Tracy, I'm sending something over. And then I screen shared on FaceTime and I explained to him what I sent, why I sent it, and only what he needed to go through. And then I asked him if he had any questions. So think of yourself as the guide managing them on the path of that information.

Excellent. I really like that. So that's about curiosity. What are the areas that you're funneling in what you think they're going to be interested in? Great. I'm going to funnel that in one more step and make sure that at the end of any sales engagement, you're clear on the one most important thing. Because if you know what that single most important thing is, you're going to be able to communicate around it. So I think we were same, same there. We just took step one and then step two into that. Okay. So excellent. So today we've spoken all about the key mistakes that particularly trade businesses make. Right? We've put them into a triangle of death, right? Where we talk about those key mistakes all being about a black hole, right? About being ego and about being the fire hose. So if you're listening, the key things I want you to be thinking about as we round out today is one thing from each of those three. One thing for the black hole, George and I went through both of them. One thing from ego, you know, you not I. And one thing from the fire hose, turning that down to a garden hose. One of each that you can go and apply immediately. Into how you are running or selling in your business. Now, if that's something that you're finding really painful, i.e., you're just not closing enough deals, you're quoting, quoting, quoting, right? And the same thing's happening consistently where you're just not getting enough yeses, right? Then the easiest thing you can do is in our show notes, there's a link. You can have a review with us. It's 20 minutes. I'm on the call. We will find something in that 20 minutes that will help you move your business 20 to 25% in the right direction. 20 to 25% more revenue. It's easy, it's quick, you just book in through the show notes. Otherwise, please keep jumping on. We want to be 1% better each and every day. On Friday, our last episode for this week, we're going to take those mistakes and dive in deeper as to how you can fix those. All right, that's it from me. That's it from the man in pink. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Bye for now.