131. A Sales Focus Matters Again

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Leadership in a nutshell for home service professional. Super pumped to have you with me today. I think you're going to like where we go today because it's something that I won't say it's been overlooked, but I'll say it's been undervalued for the last couple of years. And we have this phenomenal opportunity to really focus on sales against today's episode 131 A Sales Focus Matters again, my friend. So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that everybody lost sight of sales, but consumers have made it exceptionally easy for us over the last few years. And I'm not minimizing any challenges that anybody's had. But by and large, overall, what we've seen at the blue collar success group from all of our clients and really just the overall industry as a whole, there's hasn't been a whole lot of pushback, we'll call it in the sales world. And I teach sales, I train sales, I coach sales. I'm involved in sales. You're involved in sales. I'll say it again, if you're married or in any kind of a relationship whatsoever, you are in sales. And you're either the buyer or the seller and you either made a sale or perhaps you got sold, depending on the situation that you're in. But the reality is we are all in sales, regardless of your position in the organization as you listen in here today and I just want to remind everybody that what clients are thinking about, what they're saying, what they're doing now, where they're feeling in their levels of confidence and those types of things that, that are showing up in a, in a different way. Confidence, confidence, cash. We talked about that recently on the show. And buyers and your clients are having different levels of conversations in their own mind again. And the point of quality sales is to help people make quality decisions for things that will benefit their lives. And that's the reality of what we do in our companies. When we're in the home, when we're standing face to face, when we're offering the goods and services and products that we have, we're looking at client benefit, understanding that most people have a hard time making decisions. And actually I'm going to talk about that next week's episode. I'm excited. We'll talk about some decision fatigue because what you and I both know is if we get together outside of the business environment or perhaps I stop by and visit your company. Maybe one of my coaches is doing an on site there and we stop by, hey, let's go to lunch. Well, where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? Oh, I don't care. I'm pretty open. Okay. What kind of food do you like? Oh, I like all kinds of different food. Well, what did you have for dinner last night? Right. And we started going down this track because we just, we get tired of making decisions. Now clients, God forbid they have the news on, which they probably do. God forbid they're just glued to their screens and social media negativity and all the different things going on. By and large, I'm put that in a frame. But overall, there's a lot of negativity going on in consumerism right now. So what that means for us in the sales world is we've got to focus on it again more than ever. So remember in the subconscious brain which the subconscious and the conscious have to marry themselves in order to make a sale for you to make a sale for them to make themselves a sale, meaning you make the offer, you put together the options, you go through all the benefits, you share all, you know, everything that's positive for them. But ultimately they're selling themselves. You're just the assistant buyer. You're there to help them as a buyer make the best decision. And until recently, we've been very, I'll call it spoiled, for lack of a better word, that there just hasn't been any assistant buying going on. I mean, my gosh, when you look at what, you know, what people did in the real estate market, I mean, you couldn't even stop people from making bad investments because it was just this buying frenzy. And oh, they're going this amount over ask and they're going this amount over asking there. And don't get me wrong, I bought a condo during, during this craze and I paid 10 grand over ask as well for it. So I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying that there wasn't some things to be done or had. I'm just saying that people were just feeding off this frenzy. So that's what buying behavior does. And so back to the conscious and the subconscious mind. There's two folders in, in the subconscious and one is a familiar folder. So that's where I file the stuff that I'm used to that makes sense that I know how it feels. It may just, I have familiarity with it, so I file it there. And so when things have been let's say good for a while might put that in air quotes. But if things are pretty good overall, then that becomes familiar. I have confidence buying. I have confidence in income, I have confidence in, call it interest rates, the stock market, my investment portfolio, my retirement plans. I've got some confidence there that's familiar. Well, then we shift to times of uncertainty. The other folder in the subconscious mind is foreign. So I've got a familiar folder and I've got a foreign folder. And so I file the things that feel odd. And so for me, going back to my own self care and development over the last several years, well, many years now, but I've worked on myself in different levels, but I've gone deeper and deeper the older I get into more of that foreign folder in my subconscious brain, which is where I've found ultimate freedom like, like I never even knew existed or well, what happens with the buyer is that when I move, when I'm moved as a buyer from the realm of familiarity into the realm of foreign now I don't know what to do. I get, I might freeze, I might not make a decision. I get confused. In buying 101, we know that a confused mind does not buy. Remember that. Write that down if you're taking notes at all. If you're anywhere, just make yourself a reminder, put that anywhere. And look. If you're not informal, I'll call it formal sales. If you're not answering the phone and booking calls. If you're not face to face with clients selling leads. If you're not in outbound sales and closing on unsold work. If you're not in the field selling service agreements, whatever different sales that you have in your own organization, perhaps you're in leadership. So you're selling vision, you're selling implementation plans, you're selling buy in, you're selling direction, right? So everything is about selling everything. And so what we forget is when more people than not are in this foreign folder of their subconscious brain going, I don't know what this means. Well, now I've got a confused mind. And we know that a confused mind does not buy. So when I said write that down, keep that top of mind, keep that in front of you. And if you're in leadership, remember that if you're creating confusion, maybe rolled out a new compensation plan and it's confusing, you don't understand why people aren't doing it. You rolled out a new product, a new process, new financing, whatever it is, man, they're just not implementing it the way I thought. Maybe It's a confused situation. Just because you understand it doesn't mean everybody understands. I've talked about this on the show before, so let's just remember these things. Where now a sales focus matters more than ever again. And what a great opportunity. This is where the rubber meets the road as they say. This is where the cream rises to the top. This is where great companies get to show up when it's been easy for everybody. If you could fog a mirror, you're making sales, right? And now it's we get back to technique, we get back to the plan, we get back to what works, we get back to some skills again and what an incredible opportunity. So because sales matter so much, again, a sales focus, I'm going to give you four things to pay attention to here today. So number one, revisit the sales plan. That might be a budget, that might be a goal board, that might be, you know, what, what am I trying to accomplish? Depending on your own scenario, your own situation, revisit the plan, get familiar again, get clarity about what you're attempting to do, what you're looking to accomplish, why you're looking to do it right. So we've got the what, we've got the why before the how. And obviously there's a who in there. So we want to go, okay, what am I trying to accomplish? Let's remember that type of thing like okay, I'm trying to hit this budget, hit this sales goal, hit the sales number, grow the company at this level, whatever it is from a leadership perspective. And then I go why, why again am I doing this? Am I just doing it to keep up with the competition? Am I doing this to improve my team members lives? Am I doing this to improve my family life? What am, why am I doing these things? Then we start looking at who can I get to help me accomplish these things. So from a leadership role it's always who before how. Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy wrote a great book called who before how. That, that I believe it's who before how but after why. That's why I throw the why in there. But there are some who's that can help you and that can be on whether it's particular consulting or coaching or training. It could be team members on your own staff that, that have unique genius and unique skill abilities that others don't have. Whatever, whatever that looks like. But number one, revisit the plan, get clarity again, again. Because people are starting to make more discerning buying decisions. You've got to have clarity. Once again, number two, Commit to the one thing theory. So when I'm coaching my high level leadership advisory clients and I only keep a handful of clients that allow me to work in unique ability to change their game forever. And one of the things that we work on is the one thing theory. So I, when I talk about this, it's something I learned from one of my coaches a long time ago by the name of David Essel around. It's you focus on one thing at a time. And so you have a zillion things you want to change a zillion with a Z. That's right. And so but what happens is, oh, I want to, you know, I want to sell more agreements, I want to sell more systems, I want to sell more tune ups, I want to sell more drain lines, I want to sell more camera jobs, I want to sell more panel changes, I want to sell more generators, I want, oh my gosh. Like let's get focused on one thing at a time. Now you might be a multi department company, so each department might have their one thing. You might have. Even depending on the size of your organization, you might drill it down even farther there. So okay, well the, the maintenance division has their one thing. The install team has their one thing there, whatever that is. But it's a one thing at a time and you've got to commit to that. And so right now it might be I got to commit to an overall sales focus again throughout the entire organization. It's not that we're missing budget, but we're having to work harder again. And maybe we are missing budget. I know I've heard recently of some budgets getting missed because we were kind of just throwing things out there. People are looking at again tying to the, the real estate market, like, oh my gosh, everything's crashing. Is everything crashing or is it getting back to where it needed to be? Are buyers just holding onto their wallets again or are they just really realizing, yeah, I need to understand why I need to invest in this product good or service again that like we're getting back to reality. So commit to one thing at a time in sales focus. Decide what that's going to be. And perhaps you are like many right now where you need to just really refocus on the overall sales matters theme in the organization. Nothing happens until a sale is made. There's no fulfillment, there's no ordering of equipment. There's no warehouse, there's no trucks to roll. There's nothing happens until a sale is made. And yes, a sale is made by the marketing team. To get a call generated into the office. A sale is made by a call taker or a customer service specialist in order to book that opportunity. A sale is made by a dispatcher to find the right technician or salesperson to run that lead at the right time. Stack the odds in the favor the best if it's a higher ticket item to get both decision makers home. All those different types are sales are made then when we're face to face boots on the ground now we get an opportunity there all these areas where the sale is made. So two Commit to the one thing theory number three Embrace accountability. That's law number six in blue collar success. Law is the book I recently wrote and remember if you don't have your copy yet blue collar laws.com make sure you go there and get a free copy. Just cover the shipping and my team will send you a book and get you on to the seven laws of success. The way I see it in the blue collar space, regardless of trade, regardless of your role. I've been told multiple times that the book could be written for any industry. I just focused on our industry. I'm a blue collar guy. It's why I named our company that when I founded the Blue Collar Success group. So that's what it's about. But embrace accountability. Aligned accountability is law number six in the success laws. Because I want alignment with my own myself and my soul. I need alignment for to be held accountable effectively and then I need alignment throughout the organization with my team for them to hold themselves accountable. If you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that I I believe in in for me when I found am the CEO of companies. I like what some of the world calls self managing businesses and I've t around how to do this and different areas. But I also realize at this stage in my career there's no such thing as a self managing company. There's only self managing people. There's no such thing as a self managing salesperson. There's only self managing people that manage their sales process. So understand these things. So when you embrace accountability now when I looked at the plan again I looked at what my goals are. I'm committing to what we're going to do and change as the implementation in the one thing theory. Now I've got to embrace the accountability. I got to make sure that I'm showing up doing what I said I was going to do. Making the changes, making the adjustments, making the mistakes. I don't believe in mistakes but the world uses the word. I will piggyback it here. To make a point, you got to make mistakes. You got to be told no. You've got to have things, quote, blow up in your face, whatever that looks like. You gotta embrace accountability and go, damn, that's not what I planned on. That didn't exactly turn out how I wanted, now did it? Oh, man. Okay, well, let's get back to the drawing board. Let's skill practice some more. Let's work on scripting some more. Let's. Let's get a roundtable going. Let's embrace what this looks like to hold ourselves accountable to a result that we desire. As consumer behavior slows and softens from a just say yes kind of a buying mentality that we've been flooded with for the last several years, we must embrace accountability once again at the highest level. Make sure you are doing it first. This is a first. You not looking for perfection. Don't forget. It's not about perfection. It's always about progress. I'm just looking to get better. More often than not, I'm holding myself accountable. Oh, I slipped. Oh, I didn't do this. Oh, I've dropped the ball on that. That's okay. It's more often than not, never perfection, always progress. And then last and certainly not least today, my friend, number four, get outside help. You've got to have people outside of your perspective looking at what you have going on. Every top performer of every industry, sport, anything in the world has outside perspective. Whether it's consulting, whether it's coaching, whether it's advising, whether it's whatever that looks like training, because you are in it. You're on the battlefield every day, you're doing what you're doing and you're doing a damn good job of it, I'm sure of it, or you wouldn't be listening to this show to up level your own unique genius. Like, that's the whole point you're looking to get better is why you spend 15, 20, 30 minutes a week with me of just a chance to check in with yourself, to check in with your heart, to check in with your soul, to check in with your mind, your body, your spirit, your leadership and ability, your influence. What am I doing here? Make sure you have other people looking at that, regardless of what that is, how that shows up, just get some outside help. Sometimes it's specific training, sometimes it's specific coaching, sometimes it's just a peer, sometimes it's a competitor coming in and having lunch, whatever that is. Make sure you go outside of your four walls and get a look from a different perspective, my friend. Episode 131 A Sales Focus Matters again and my guess is it's going to matter for a while. It's going to matter for a while. Make sure you revisit the plan. Make sure you commit to the one thing theory when it comes to implementation. Make sure you embrace accountability again and get some outside help. Get somebody looking at what you're doing and helping you. My friend, if you enjoy this show, please please please just take two seconds and shoot a quick email text somebody. Share this show as we grow this community. I love it. I'm honored. And if you have 37 seconds, jump to your favorite platform or right here wherever you're listening and write us a quick review. I would much much appreciate it. Again, my new books available@blue collarlaws.com until we talk my friend, make it a better than fantastic week. I know you will and I will see you very soon. Thank you.