CSR Sales Training To Book More Jobs With Brigham Dickinson & Power Selling Pros
Brigham Dickinson of Power Selling Pros explains how to book more jobs by training customer service reps on his Pattern for Excellence: empathy, listening, and reassurance. He covers his four-level certification program, technician ride-alongs, and metrics like closing ratio and average ticket size that actually move the needle.
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Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're going to be discussing how to book more jobs and grow your business. Brigham Dickinson. Brigham, thanks so much for joining us, man.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, for sure. So you're the president, founder of Power Selling Pros, and I think you have a unique background. From what I gathered through some of my research, you were doing marketing and you almost got fired for bad leads or something. Is that right?
Yeah, yeah. Well, they thought it was. They thought it was bad leads. It was just leads they weren't used to. So, yeah, I, I, I didn't really have a job. I was, I was a broker in 2008. It was hard to get a job, and I had a business that just went under, which is so much fun. And what kind of broker?
What kind of broker stuff?
Well, SEO and pay per click.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah. And. And they basically, if I were to generate the lead, take care of the customer, they'd pay me a commission. So I had three clients. I had a roofing company and a couple of heating cooling companies. I even had a company called Sergeant Steam, basically steam cleaners. You'd basically buy the steamer and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple, Couple ladies that still own that place. And they, they weren't easy to, to please. I haven't thought of that in years. As a matter of fact. It's kind of a tangent, but, man, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Yeah, they, They've got a great product. In fact, I. About a year ago, I purchased it because it was the only way to get the, the dirt out of the grout in between my tiles and my, in my shower.
Yeah.
So anyway, yeah, I was surprised that they were both still there. Both still owning that same shop. Wow. And I was just glad that I wasn't handling their marketing because they hadn't changed much. But those are, those are my few clients that I had back then. And one of them, Troy Nearings of Nearings Plumbing and Heating, called me in and he said, brigham, these leads, they're not great. And I'm like, well, what are you talking about? They're not great? Well, they were just. They just, I don't know, finished up 2007. And 2007 was amazing. Right? Everybody was loving 2007, and governor's trying to get a hold of me. Phil, can you believe that?
Jeez, Governor.
I know. And so, and so I was, I. He brought me in and he said, hey, we're not used to these leads. And I said, what do you mean? Well, in 2007, it was easy. It was like order taking.
Yeah.
You know, we could. We could answer the phone and act like we're doing them a favor just by breathing on the other end of the phone. Like.
Like 22. Like 20.
20. Exactly. Exactly. You know exactly what I'm getting at. And so 2008 hits, and everybody calling in wants a ballpark price. They want to know what your charges come out. They want to talk to a technician. And it was, you know, it was culture shock. They're like, what the freak is going on? Everybody's a shopper now. And it's funny, too, because we have a tendency to think to ourselves, oh, if they're. If they're asking for a price, they can't afford us anyway, and so we shouldn't book with them. That is a mistake. Yeah, that's a mistake. We are judging people, and we really shouldn't. I mean, I'll give you an example. I was just in Kentucky yesterday doing some ride alongs with technicians, and they were talking about the same sorts of thing. Hey, we want to take great care of the customer. And they're all on a budget, and things are tight right now. So I go out to these homes, and you would not believe, Phil, how many incredibly nice homes there were. Incredibly nice. And many of them had already downsized a little bit because their kids are already out. So technicians. Don't you realize that when they downsize, there's a little nest egg that they accumulate? You see, they sell a bigger home, they get all the equity from that home, and then they sit on that equity in a smaller home. Trust me, they can afford it.
They're not on a budget.
No, no. Now they're smart with their money. Right. They're like the millionaire next door who's. Who wants to be really, really wise with their income. And you can learn something from that. But at the same time, chances are they don't want to be super cold in extreme weather, and they don't want to be super hot. They'd like it to be regulated, of course. So it's okay to talk to them about their options. You can fix it, you can replace it, so on and so forth. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And so. And so you just got to book that call. Customer gets on the phone, they want a ballpark price. I told Troy, I said, troy, look, I can train these people on how to book these calls. I used to answer the phones myself at a company called Articare. In Chico, California, Royal Hockley gave me a job. He now owns Royal Air, and they're crushing it. And now they're like a $30 million company doing really well. And in Chico, it's. I mean, it's a very small area, so to be able to do 30 million in that. In that rural area is pretty remarkable. So he does really well. And. And he g. My first opportunity to answer phones and do marketing. And then, of course, Kevin Comerford got involved and he taught me how to answer phones as well. And. And so I knew what to do. I knew how to handle the call. And so I started training Troy and his team, and next thing you know, his call conversions are up by 20%. And I get a call from Tom Robichad. Go ahead.
How were y' all tracking calls back then?
Calls are all recorded. Okay, so you were an advertiser. Yeah. So as soon as SEO and pay per click came out, all the yellow Pages wanted to prove their existence. Right. Why it's still important to do Yellow Pages. And so they started recording all their calls and tracking them just to stay in the game. Right. SEO and pay per click really scared everybody.
Yeah.
And so I was able to use those calls for tracking purposes, and we just tracked them ourselves by hand.
Yeah, that's.
So Tom. Tom Robashaud and bowled a car router. Precision plumbing, heating, heat. He gave me a call and he said, hey, I hear you're working with Troy. I said, as a matter of fact, I am. I'm doing his advertising. And he says, well, I've got that covered, but I'll pay you to train my CSRs. And I was like, oh, you'll pay me to train my. And next thing I know, I get into the advertising or the CSR training business and got out of the advertising business. Wow. And the rest is history now we have over a thousand CSRs in our program. It's a bit of a university. Takes about a year and a half to complete. There's four levels of certification. We coach them one on one twice a month using their own calls. And that's how powersling pros came to be.
Yeah. That's amazing. And you guys work with, like, Lennox and not. Not just home services, too. You work with other.
Yeah, so we work with the. We work with manufacturers, especially Linux. Lennox is. Troy Nearings was a Lennox dealer. Is a Lennox dealer. Tom Robich's a Linux dealer. Micah Guglielro is a Linux dealer. Of course. Yeah. It's amazing how this is a small industry. If you do A good job. Everybody knows about it.
Yeah. And it's funny, like, you start with one. It's very similar how I started consulting. I was working with one guy, and then he told his friend and told his friend and told his friends, like, if you do a good job, you take care of the customer and you provide actual real results. Yeah, to your point. It's great. So. So now you have your. Your eight principles. Pattern for excellence. How did you come up with those? What's, like, the most important one? Tell me a little bit about those.
Yeah. So the pattern for excellence is our. Is our foundation. It's how we go about teaching people to book calls and wow customers.
Okay.
What's cool about it is, is it's not just a bunch of scripts. It's not just a system. It's actually a set of principles, when applied, will create the right outcome. Okay.
Yeah.
I guess the best way to explain it is to focus in on what a principle is. A principle is a truth, okay? It's an irrefutable truth, for example. And truth is. The word truth has kind of been hijacked for whatever reason today. In other words, you might hear people say, well, this is my truth, and that's your truth. And our truths may differ, but that's okay. Well, the word they should be using there is belief. I may have a different belief than you, and your belief may differ from mine, but that's okay. You're entitled to your belief, and I have the right to have my own belief. However, truth, that's different. See, for example, let's say I were to come to you and say, I, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna plant myself some trees. I want some peach trees, okay? And I'm gonna plant some apple seeds in order to get my peach trees. Now, you can't mess with my truth, okay? Because my truth is, is when I put an apple seed in the ground and I give it plenty of water and soil and sun, that one day I'm gonna have a beautiful peach tree. And you can't say anything about that, Phil. Well, yes, we can. Okay? We can. Because the truth is, is when you plant an apple seed and you nourish it and take care of it and give it plenty of water and sun, it's going to be an apple tree. It's just the way it goes. It's an irrefutable truth. And so a principle is a set of truths that work inside the office. They work outside the office. Now, the reason why I'm talking about this Phil is well, because if you can understand the truths and apply them in the right manner, you're going to get the happy result, the happy consequence. And so there's a ton of books out there written on behavior. Here's how you should behave. Here's how you should behave. Here's how you should behave. The funny thing about it is that you may read a lot about correct behavior, but it doesn't help you in behaving correctly. However, when focusing in on truths, their connected consequences, it becomes incredibly effective in changing behavior. You see, this is the one thing that sets our training company apart from any other training company out there. Because while other training companies focus in on application and systems, we focus in on truths. Truths that are irrefutable. And when they recognize that it is a truth, they begin to apply it not just in the office and outside the office, and it becomes a new part of them. Right. It changes their behavior. So the by mastering truths, a set of principles, we can actually positively affect behavior.
Yeah. And I think exactly what you're saying. I fell into this trap. I was director of business development. We had six CSRs and they weren't booking. So I'm like, hey, here's a script. You know, just read off the script. You know, basically that you. That someone does a business owner is like, well, just give them a script if they, if just. Just say this stuff. But what you're saying is, no, you have to take the truths and the principles and build it up. It's not a script. You can't recite this stuff. You have to actually live this stuff. Mm. And like, like one of the principles is just care. Empathy.
Yeah.
Can you talk about one or two or that one or which one you find is the hardest one that people fall into or don't do?
Well, you bring up a good one. Empathy is one that's difficult because we get really focused on what we're going in to do. Right. When we get call after call after call, it becomes. Or it can become monotonous. You know, if we hear the same thing over and over again, we can become numb to that.
Yes.
But when a homeowner says, hey, my air conditioner is not working, my mother in law is living with us. She cannot go without ac. How often do we share that type of information with a complete stranger?
Yes.
First of all, your mother in law is living with you. That sucks.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I can't, I can't imagine. I can't imagine a more difficult situation than that. Right. Or they say, hey, my Son, he's four months old. He cannot go without academic. Okay. When they share things like that, it's important for us to show them, number one, that we understand them, that we truly care about the situation and that they've called the right place. We can help. If you take care of those emotional human needs first, the rest of the call is easy. And I would say, Phil, that, yeah, empathy is somewhat difficult because sometimes when we're talking to customers, we assume that they have five air conditioners and one of them is not working. Oh, you poor baby. You know what I mean? And it just comes out. And the reason why is because that csr, for whatever reason, say that they're a single mom and they don't even have an air conditioner. They have a swamp cooler in their apartment. And so when they're talking to these people, they're like, oh my gosh, you're such a brat. Like, just go in the different part of the house. You know, I hear this stuff all the time and I'm going, look, this is not how we get customers. You see, that's the boss. That's who pays our bills. So if they're really sad about their one air conditioner, even if that's true. Right. You want to be empathetic with them, okay, put yourself in their shoes just for a moment. Put your own lot aside for a moment and just put yourself in their shoes. And if you can do that, I promise you the call is going to be a whole lot easier. And on top of that, at the end of the phone call, you're going to have such a great relationship that you're going to be able to say things like, hey, Mr. Jones, I'm looking at your notes and I noticed you don't have a membership with us and I'm wondering why not? And now I'm affecting my own income because I'm moving more memberships. Right. We talk all the time with CSRs that if they can connect with the customer on an emotional level in the beginning of the call by listening, by caring, by reassuring, at the end of that phone call, it's going to be a whole lot easier to talk about building a long term relationship through club membership.
Yeah, I completely agree. Like when they say, hey, I have a four year old. Oh, is it a boy or a girl? Right after that. Yeah, oh, yeah, I have a kid, you know, five years old, whatever. And then, and then when you go in for, why don't you have a membership with us?
Yeah.
So much more natural.
Yeah, exactly. You know, I, I sometimes talk to, to. For example, I was talking to Technique, a group of technicians the other day, and I, and I said, guys, let me ask you something. How do you get kissed on the first date? And it doesn't matter how early it is. This type of question to a set of technicians, oh, my gosh, they don't need cough anymore. They're, they're sitting up in their chair. I've got full eye contact, they're leaning forward. They're like, holy crap, I'm about to learn something cool. And even if they're married, you and I know they both haven't been. They haven't, they haven't been kissed in weeks, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they're listening. I say, guys, you gotta have three things. Number one, you gotta, gotta make sure you create an environment of safety, because guess what? If they don't feel safe, you're not getting kissed. And number two, they've gotta feel comfortable. Because if they're not feeling comfortable, they're not getting kissed, okay? You're just not. And if they're not having just a little bit of fun, you're not going to get kissed, okay? So you've got to have those three things. And most of the time, a smart la t technician pipes up and says, so you want us to kiss our customers? Well, no, no, I don't. But I do want you to create an environment of safety, comfort, and fun. Because in that environment, you have the opportunity to be curious about what's going on inside the customer's home. And with that curiosity, you can provide options, and then you can get to yes or no based on those options. Now, some technicians are like, man, I just want to be left alone to do my work. And I would encourage you to keep the customer with you for as long as possible. The reason why that is is because as you're looking through and doing the inspection and they're with you and they're talking about whatever it is they're talking about, things are going to come up while you're checking it. And so together you recognize the thing that's going on that needs to be fixed. Whether it's dirty ducks, whether it's, Whether it's. The air itself is not clean. And it's very simple to say, hey, look at this, look at that. And then together you're coming up with a solution and deciding what makes sense. Now, it's not sales at all. It's just phenomenal customer service. You're curious, you provide options. You get to yes or no. That's it. It's funny because technicians are like, wait a minute, you didn't want to say selling in your little presentation there? And I was like, did I say selling? Nope. Did you say selling? Nope. All we're doing is just creating an environment of safety, comfort and fun. And in that environment we get curious, provide options, get to yes or no. Funny thing. The best way to create an environment of safety, comfort and fun is the pattern for excellence. It's listening, it's caring, it's reassuring. It's those same foundational principles that We've been teaching CSRS for the last 15 years.
Yeah. That's amazing. And that, that's so true. I think there's. There was a. An analogy that, like, the sales process is like dating. It's like the back and forth relationship and building trust, building safety. And so you're. Yeah, I totally see it. And on the phone it's even harder. It's like speed dating or something. Like, you got.
You got it, you got it. And you've got to be. And you've got to be on your toes too. I mean, the other day I. There was a lady that, her house burnt down three years ago. She finally got it rebuilt. I mean, it was. It. It still had this, the new smell inside of it. When we went in and I commented on her nice chandeliers, I said, oh, those are beautiful chandeliers. And she said, thank you. And she kind of looked at me weird and she said, and she's from Kentucky. And I quote, she said, are you gay? And I looked and I chuckled a little bit. I said, well, no, I like girls. And I stared her in the eyeballs until she stopped looking at me. You know what I mean? I wanted to make it very clear. Yeah. Since she brought it up, I wanted to make it very clear. And she's like, oh, okay. And then we both started laughing. That's perfect. We said. Later, we started talking about air scrubbers, so on and so forth. It was fantastic. Is that not a date? Of course it is. Of course it is. You're not. Your goal is not to get kissed, though. Your goal is to create a relationship of safety, comfort and fun so you can be curious about what's going on inside the customer's home and provide options based on what you find due to that curiosity and simply get to yes or no. And that's it. No sells required.
Yeah. So let's say someone has a team. It's a business owner. They have like three or four CSRs. How do they. How do they benchmark performance. Like, is it. Do they need to be on the call a certain amount of time, Obviously, like a booking rate. But are there other things that they should be looking at to analyze if it's good or not?
Yeah. So closing ratio is the obvious one. Right. We got to make sure that we increase closing ratio. We also want to track average ticket per call. That's the cool thing about Service Titan is we can track that phone call all the way to the ticket. Yes, that's, that's. That's number two. Number three, we wanted. We want to be able to track service agreement sales. Okay? So rule of thumb for me is, is that you should be able to move two memberships over the phone a day. Now, here's how you do that. Let's say that you get 30 phone calls in a day, and you're connecting with that customer at a high level, using the pattern for excellence on every call. And if that's happening at the end of the phone call, it's going to be very easy for you to say, hey, Mr. Mr. Jones, before you, before you head on out, I'm looking at your notes. I've noticed we've been out to your home a few times. You still don't have a membership. I'm wondering, why not just commit to yourself that on every call. Let's say it is 30 calls that you're going to ask that question on every call. Now, let's say 20 out of 30 say, I'm good, thank you. We're not going to push it. We're going to say, okay, cool. Don't worry about it. If you recon, if you, if you just. If you reconsider after this phone call, just talk to the technician about it. I'm sure he'll tell you all about it. Okay? Let's say that the other 10, however, respond with a, hmm, what is it? Sweet. Now you've got 10 people to talk about the membership about. Now, let's say that two out of the ten say, all right, let's do it. Let's move forward. Now you've got two a day. Now, most of the time when I work with a company, they. They pay $10amembership. That's 20 bucks a day, five days a week. What is that? It's 100 bucks a week. Okay, now, I know that there's 52 weeks in a year. Let's just go with 50. 50 times 10 is what. It's 5,000 bucks. Any CSR listening to this phone call has just found out how they make an extra $5000 a year. Now, the cool thing about teaching a CSR how to make an extra $5000 a year is they stay in that seat longer. Why? Because you're creating self reliance. You're creating independence. And if you can create a career out of a job for this csr, they're going to stay there a whole lot longer because you've given them control over their own income. Congratulations. So those, those three. Let's talk about average ticket for just a minute, okay? If a CSR gets to the point where they kind of see blood in the water once they start seeing the money that they can make, right? Using the pattern for excellence, connecting with the customer on an emotional level, they have become a phenomenal sales tool for technicians and comfort advisors. All right, let me give you an example. I go into a home with a technician, and it's this nice old Irish lady. Now, I know she's Irish because she told me. It was one of the first things she told me. She had pictures on the wall of her grandparents who were from Ireland. Really proud of her history. It was very cool. She also said, and I'm not buying nothing today. Okay, you're not buying nothing, that's fine. She said, I want you to. She had a club membership. She wanted to. She wanted us to put a new filter in. No problem whatsoever. So. And she even bought the filter. How's that for independent? Yeah, like, cool. We got. We got the filter. We'll go down there, we'll put it in. So we go down there and I watch the technician trying to put this new filter in, and it doesn't fit. Clearly it's not the right size. And I said, well, where's the one that you. Where's the filter that you pulled out? And sure enough, that thing was also too big for the size. So, you know, this filter is kind of like an accordion, right? If you collapse it halfway, you're going to blow air through only half of it. All right? And that's exactly what's going on there. Well, funny thing, as we were going downstairs, she said, and try and figure out why I'm so cold. Now, most technicians, they would do two things. One, they would do exactly what they were told. She told me to switch out the filters. I switched out the filters and I left. Okay, no big deal. Did my job. No, no, you did not. Okay? We're the professionals. We should tell them the truth. And the truth is, is that filter is too big for the size of the space there. And so I said, okay, Mr. Technician, give me that filter. Let's go up and tell her the truth. And he's like, okay, this lady doesn't want to be sold anything, but okay, Brigham, your funeral. Okay? So I go up there, ma', am, you've got a filter that is too big for the space. What are you talking about? I've had that filter for the last two years. You guys have never said a word. And I said, you know what? I feel bad about that. I really do. Here's what I'm thinking. Why don't we get you the right filter size? We can have it out to your home tomorrow. We can fix this, and you can take. And you can send that filter back and get your money back, okay? So win, win. She says, well, I don't want to have to pay for another dispatch fee. And I said, well, this one is covered in your club membership, the one that we did today and tomorrow. I'll tell you what, you still don't have to pay anything, because what I'm thinking is, is that we can send somebody out for free. And she's like, well, how would you do that? And I said, well, I noticed that you've got a water heater downstairs. There's about 12 years old. She's like, oh, no, I don't want a water heater. I said, it's okay. You don't have to have a water heater. But I could have a plumber come out, give you a price on a new water heater, and you don't have to say yes, but while he's here, he can switch out those filters. Would you at least consider that? And she's like, okay, as long as he knows I'm not buying. Whether he gives me an estimate or not, I'm not buying. Totally understand. He knows that you're not buying. I'll make it clear to him. Let's get our CSR on the phone. Okay, we get the CSR on the phone. I put her on speaker. Phil, it's an amazing thing when you have a nice, sweet voice come in on the phone, how it changes everything. She gets on with her nice, sweet voice. And how are you, Mrs. So and so. Oh, it's so great to hear your voice. And they're laughing and giggling back and forth, and I say, hey, we want to be able to send out a plumber to give an estimate on a water heater. Now, I want to make it clear to you that she does not want a water heater. She's just doing it so that we can get the filter out here, the right system, the right filter size at no charge. So this is how we're doing it. And at the end of that conversation, the customer says, and be sure to let the plumber know that I'm interested in a tankless water heater.
There you go. Oh, my God.
What the heck happened there? Well, it's a date. It's a date. And in an environment where you create safety, comfort, and fun, and sometimes when you bring the CSR in and they come in with that sweet and kind voice, it does help create an environment of safety, comfort, and fun. And if they're part of the selling process, not just answering phones anymore, Phil. But part of the selling process. And if. Imagine this for a moment before the technician gets out there, the CSR calls the homeowner and says, all right, your technician's a half hour out. Be sure to ask about X, Y, and Z when he comes, because I remember your son was suffering from allergies, or I remember that you were talking about your allergies when we were on the phone. So be sure to talk to your technician about that. Technician comes out, talks about it. Crazy thing. They move forward with it. Say, for example, after the call's over, ma', am, how was your technician? Did he take great care of you? Oh, he took phenomenal care of me. I'm so glad. Now I'm looking at your notes. I know. Noticed that you didn't end up getting a membership. No, I didn't get it. There's a bunch of other things he wanted me to get. Well, ma', am, are you sure you don't want that membership? Because it helps prevent things like this, the thing that you've been dealing with today from happening. If you wanted, I could get you going, and it would be really easy. Oh, all right. And now she's rolling. Now she's rolling. We want to get to the point where that csr, like I said before, sees blood in the water. Okay? And I realize that to some, they're going to be like, oh, I don't want to be salesy like that. Timeout, timeout. Okay. Do you believe in your membership? If you don't believe in it, sit down with your team and rework it till you believe in it. Yeah, do. If the homeowner is not saving money with your membership, that's on you. You've got to fix that. Okay? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to get our team behind our products, so do whatever you got to do with your product. Or service. So they can behind it now when they can get behind it. Give them the opportunity to be part of that selling process, and I promise you, your CSRS will positively affect every ticket that goes through your CRM.
Yeah, that's a great. That's a great story. I was curious about the average ticket, and from what I'm hearing from you, it's like, okay, well, yeah, on the call, you kind of got to be listening and then set up your text, but then also open opportunities for sales. But if you set up your text, you're basically just teeing them up for all these opportunities, like the allergies, the iaq, the tankless, that kind of stuff.
You got it.
Yeah, you got it.
And let's say that it's. Let's say that it's a $2,500 job instead of a thousand dollar job, and it's all specific things that the customer needs. I want to make that very clear. Okay? CSRs and technicians do not want to sell. They do want to do a good job. So our objective is to paint the picture for what a good job looks like. Now, I realize there's some companies out there in our industry that are, that are unethical, perhaps even immoral. That is not what I'm advocating here. What I am saying is that everyone has something in their home that isn't going right that we can fix. Okay. For example, in my master bedroom, there is. Oh, what's that, what's that light thing? You got to go into the room and. Well, actually, it's. It. The only way it turns on the light is if you walk past it. It's a what?
Motion sensor.
It's a motion sensor light. Now, somebody who was, who thought they were smart put a motion sensor light in my closet. Okay. But when you put clothes on hangers, it covers up the motion. So what do I got to do every time I go into my master. Yeah, I got to move the clothes every time. And I've lived here almost a year and I've put up with it for this long.
Yeah.
Okay. Why haven't I called an electrician? I don't know, Phil. I don't know. But it's this sort of thing that we just put up with. And is it sales for an electrician to come in and say, hey, what else can I do for you? Let's take a look at the rest of the house. Let's see what's going on. By the way, in my gym right next door, I've been wanting to put glass up on this one wall. Problem. There are two outlets on that wall, and I got to move those outlets before I can put glass up. Right. So guess, guess what I've done with that little task. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Okay. But when an electrician comes, I promise you I'm going to have him walk throughout the entire house and even notice the things that I don't notice, and I'm going to fix them all. And he's going to save 5,000 bucks. And I'm not going to care. Yeah, I'm not going to care because I'm more about ease and. And peace of mind and so on and so forth. And we just have a tendency to treat people like we want to be treated, and that's just wrong. We want to treat people the way they want to be treated.
Yeah, I agree. I think a lot of technicians, they can get so narrow, focused that they don't look at the house as a whole. And just while I'm here, let me check this and this. And have that whole step checklist of things.
Exactly.
Yeah. Because it just opens up so much opportunity. And throughout everything, you go into a new room and there's a picture of someone's grandmother and you go to another room, that opens another conversation window. When I was talking with Sebastian, he was saying, from Rilla, he was saying, like, yeah, most of these top sales people are in here for like, two, three hours because they're building rapport. Walking through the house, doing all this stuff. You're not just going in to sell a hot water heater and get out in 30 minutes or something like that.
No, you're building the relationship.
Yeah.
You're building a relationship. And this is what a good job looks like. You think that when you go in and you fix the thing you were called out to do and you leave that, that's a good job. It's not. If there's five other things that still need to be done and they happen to call somebody else to get that done, that's on you. That's not a good job.
Yep.
And so we just need to tell them, guys, this is what a good job looks like. And then we get to the point where they realize, holy cow, by doing a job, it actually positively affects my income. Ding, ding, ding. And then we talk to the CSR about giving them just a low base, and then we give them a piece of every ticket and they work as a team in tandem with the technicians.
Yeah. One question that I have for you that you mentioned before was about price. Should a CSR Be giving prices over the phone or fight through objections on that stuff? Or is it more like dispatch or. How. What. What are your thoughts about that?
Yeah. So the minute you give a price over the phone, the chances of closing it go way down.
Okay.
Not only that, the. What are the chances? The price being accurate? Like, not at all.
Yeah.
Okay. It's irresponsible. For a new system, you've got to do a heat load calculation. You've got to figure out what. The right size system's only as good as the way it's installed. We all know that. We all know that. So when a customer gets on the phone, they say, hey, I'm just looking for a ballpark price. Great. Tell me more about your situation. What's going on? That's me listening. Right. Remember, listen, care, reassure. Tell me more about your situation. What's going on? Well, I've got this air conditioner and it's blowing hot air. My gosh, that's terrible. That's me caring, Phil. Oh, my gosh, that's terrible. That's not good. How long has it been doing? Oh, last couple of days. So wait a minute. You've been in this ace, You've been dealing with this for the last two days? Yes. Not good. Yeah, I know. My wife is going to kill me if I don't get this thing fixed. Well, let's save your marriage, my friend. Let's get somebody out there. We can help you with that. You called the right place. That's me reassuring them they called the right place. When would you like us out? Oh, this afternoon. Be good. Done. How is that even possible? Well, because it's emotional. It's emotional. You know, I. Every time I get in front of a group of people that I train, whether it's technicians, whether it's CSRs, I say, you guys, what is the most sensible car to buy? And guess what they say most of the time?
Toyota.
Yeah, either Toyota or a Honda Civic.
Yeah.
And then I asked them, how many of you have a Honda Civic? And no one raises their hands. I could be in a room full of 50 people and no one raises their hands. It's crazy. It's crazy. So what I'm saying is, is look at all you logical, sensible people.
Yeah.
No one. No one's sensible. No one's like, no. Well, here's what happens. We get. We get. We are driven by our emotions. And then we take our logic and we justify the emotion with logic. Okay? I have three Audis in my garage. Justify that.
Yeah.
You don't you don't.
Yeah.
You don't, you don't justify it. It's dumb.
Yeah.
You just. You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
It's emotional. It's not logical. And it's the same for every one of us.
Yeah. Quick question about the average ticket. Do you, do you see people incentivizing CSRs on the average ticket? Like, hey, if you, if your average ticket on the closest over whatever, or is it just like a ranking?
No, you want to get to the point where they're so involved in the selling process, helping the technician that you can pay them similar to the way that you pay a technician.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. We talked about Tommy Mello. He said if you, if you want to put a cap on your people's performance, put a cap on their pay. And basically the other way is like, if you want them to make. If you want them to have ultimate high levels of performance, don't cap their pay. Yeah, And I think that, I think that's very true. What are some common CSR issues? Like that someone would be feeling that they would contact power selling pros. Like, what are some of those big ones that people fall into?
You want to rephrase the question, Phil?
Yeah. Like a business owner, how would they know? Like, hey, I need to contact power selling pros because my CSRs are good.
They need to get a hold of us basically.
Or like, who's a good person to contact you? Like, what are some of the problems that they're facing with.
Okay, most of the time they've listened to their phone call or their phone calls on the weekend and it's destroyed their weekend and they're looking for. And they go on to some contractor social media, you know, and they say, you guys, my CSRs are awful. And then they reach out to us. But there are others that are a little bit more proactive. They know in their heart of hearts that are not giving CSRs, dispatchers and coordinators enough attention. And they may do a really good job with their techs and their comfort advisors. They're in their element there. Right. That's what they used to do. They can relate. But with csrs, they just know they're not giving them the same attention. And so they have us come in and provide the accountability for them because, I mean, we're all about building a long term relationship with the contractor. If they have people who answer the phones, we want to listen to their calls on a regular basis, provide coaching twice a month using those calls. It's about a half hour per coaching session. It's one on one and we take them through four levels of certification. It's a bit of a university, like I mentioned before, takes about a year and a half to complete. But by the time we're done, they are booking calls, they're allowing customers. You are 91 1. There's no 91 2. Help is on the way. Right. You're the only one going out to the customer's home. And we're getting them more and more involved in the selling process as opposed to just answering phones. They're actually helping with your, with your membership sales and, and so on and so forth. So it's most of the time it's either when a, a business owner recognizes that things aren't going well in that office or they admit that they're not giving the CSRs the, the attention they deserve. Everyone in an organization needs to feel like they belong. And if you're not listening to them, caring and reassuring them that they belong, notice those same principles. Okay. If the business owner isn't following the same Principles, we teach CSRs by listening, caring, reassuring on a regular basis, reassuring them that they belong, that they're in the right place, they tend to leave a whole lot sooner.
Yeah, I agree. We had a carpet cleaning new flooring company that we work with. They use service Titan. They're a decent sized company. They use power selling pros. They came in, did the presentation, literally the week later they're going to booking rate jumped 18%.
Oh wow, that's great.
So I definitely know firsthand that it works. And also the ongoing coaching is great because a lot of times business owners, there's, they, like you said, they're on the weekends or listen to their calls or something like that, then they blow their whole weekend. And it's like you need a proactive person to be listening to your calls and coaching your team. So tell me about the Rilla partnership that y' all have.
Yeah, so Rilla is great technology to record a technician call. Okay. So I've, I've been laying the groundwork to do for technicians what we've been doing for CSRs for the last 15 years. We've got over a thousand CSRs in our program. We have a team of call monitors that monitor their calls and save certain calls for coaching purposes. And we have clients that say, you know what, what you're doing for our csrs is amazing. The soft skills that you teach, nobody teaches like that. Would you please teach our technicians? And every time we wanted to, we thought to ourselves we could teach them and it will last for two weeks. Yeah, we need to be able to hold them accountable to what we've taught just like we do with CSRs over time. And so lucky for us, we found Rilla and Rilla records the technicians calls and we have a team of co owners already in place to monitor those calls and save certain parts of the call for coaching purposes. And what we do is we have, we have a couple of master technicians that work with power selling pros and they comb through that data and they comb through those calls and what they do is they create a short video. It's five to seven minute video that includes feedback to the technician based on the job that they did, based on their performance. And we have an online platform called Tech Talks. So you go to techtalks.com and you go to your. If I'm a technician in the program, I'm going to go to my own profile and pull my own videos from my coach. So in between homes, when I'm going from one customer home to another customer's home, I can pull up that seven minute video and get the feedback.
That's great.
On my own time. Yeah. So that was one of the hold ups with technician coaching is you can never get a hold of them over the phone. But now that we, we've been able to use technology to create those short videos, they can, they can download them and in fact we even send them text messages where we say, hey, new videos down uploaded on Tech Talks. And there's a link right on their, on their, on their, on their text. Yeah, on their phone. So they click on that link and it'll show us when they've clicked on it. So if we do a video and they haven't clicked on it yet, we hey, Mr. Bossman, he's not watching his videos. And then the boss texts him and says, hey, watch your parasoling bros Videos.
Yeah, very cool. What do you see with AI like csr AI. And that AI CSR is like, is that going to change things or.
Yeah. So here it's kind of like saying Chick Fil A is going away. You guys, AI's taken over. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Chick Fil a is going away. But you have to be Chick Fil A if you continue to provide a McDonald's service. And no offense to McDonald's, but Chick Fil A is light years ahead of McDonald's if you continue to provide the same old service that you've always provided. In other words, if you believe in your heart of hearts that all you do is answer phones, your job is going to die because a robot can do better. But if you get involved in the selling process and you're reaching out to that customer on the regular before and after that technician goes out and you're being compensated based on the average ticket, I promise you, not only are they saving their own job, they're doubling their own income if not tripling it.
Yep.
So it's forcing them to work like.
Chick Fil A. Yeah, I agree. I think maybe there's a role with AI rollover or after hours. But it's so hard that, that empathy side of things.
Yeah.
So hard to get that. That personal connection.
Yeah, tell me about it, Phil. We have a night answering service called Booked. You can go to Booked by psp. It's the only night answering service and we also answer the weekends. It's the only night answering service that has a 90% closing ratio. Okay. Most of them are 20, maybe 30%. Why do you think people are looking at AI? Because they. Because right now their solutions are terrible. Yeah, they're awful. The people who answer the phones are not great. But our people are held accountable. Just like your CSRs are held accountable. We coach them one on one twice a month using their own phone calls. We use the same process, the same principles.
Yeah.
On a regular basis. And crazy thing, they're booking 90% of the phone calls. And I'll tell you what's happening, Phil. We have a line and a waiting list of contractors wanting to work with us at booked by PSP.com.
Yeah, I can imagine. Because that is a huge issue. Google local service ads. You don't answer the phones, you're not going to be shown for those you're paying all this money for marketing. You don't answer the phones. I mean, come on, it's that it keeps going. Well, this has been great. Brigham, thanks so much, man. How should people learn about power selling pros? How do they go about signing up? Should they do like a, like a full on site demonstration or do they just sign up for your coaching program or what does that look like?
Yeah, so we like to set the expectation for what we're looking to hear over the phones with CSRs. So we can do that either via webinar or we can do that in person.
Okay.
And we also like working with technicians. We do technician ride alongs. So in fact, this week I was in Kentucky working with Prudential Phenomenal company.
Yeah.
A Lennox. A Lennox contractor.
Yeah.
And what we did There is. We did an hour group training with the techs and did ride alongs throughout the day. We did five ride alongs just to kind of show them how easy it is to use these soft skills that we're talking about. Safety, comfort, fun, curious options. Get to yes or no. That's what I did on day one. And then on day two, we set the expectation for the CSRs so that they know exactly what we're looking for when the coaching program starts. So we do it in person, or we can do it via webinar, whichever you prefer. But then after that, we begin the coaching program process. Now, the way to get started is just go to powersellingpros.com p o w e R S E L L I N G p r o s.com and you'll see a link there for a demo. Let's do a demo together. Let's find out if there's a fit here. Okay? Now, if you are interested in our night answering services, you go to booked b o o k e d by PSP. So by PSP.com and you can get a demo there as well. We can. We can help you with night answering in weekends.
Nice. Awesome. Well, this has been great. Thanks so much, man. It's really great getting to know you.
Yeah, you as well, Phil. Thank you for the opportunity.
Yeah. Talk to you later.
Promise you. Not only are they saving their own job, they're doubling their own income if not tripling it.
Yep.
So it's forcing them to work like.
Chick fil A. Yeah, I agree. I think maybe there's a role with AI rollover or after hours. But it's so hard that. That empathy side of things.
Yeah.
So hard to get that personal connection.
Yeah, tell me about it, Phil. We have a night answering service called Booked. You can go to Booked by psp, the only night answering service that. And we also answer the weekends. It's the only night answering service that has a 90% closing ratio. Okay. Most of them are 20, maybe 30%. Why do you think people are looking at AI? Because they. Because right now their solutions are terrible. Yeah, they're awful. The people who answer the phones are not great. But our people are held accountable. Just like your CSRs are held accountable. We coach them one on one twice a month using their own phone calls. We use the same process, the same principles.
Yeah.
On a regular basis. And crazy thing, they're booking 90% of the phone calls. And I'll tell you what's happening, Phil. We have a line and a waiting list of Contractors wanting to work with us at booked by PSP.com.
Yeah, I can imagine. Because that is a huge issue. Google local service ads. You don't answer the phones, you're not going to be shown for those. You're paying all this money for marketing, you don't answer the phones. I mean come on. It's that it keeps going. Well, this has been great. Brigham, thanks so much man. How should people learn about power selling pros? How do they go about signing up? Should they do like a, like a full on site demonstration or do they just sign up for your coaching program or what does that look like?
Yeah, so we like to set the expectation for what we're looking to hear over the phones with CSRs. So we can do that either via webinar or we can do that in person.
Okay.
And we also like working with technicians. We do technician ride alongs. So in fact this week I was in Kentucky working with Prudential Phenomenal company, a Lennox contractor.
Yeah.
And what we did there is we did an hour group training with the techs and did ride along throughout the day. We did five ride alongs just to kind of show them how easy it is to use these soft skills that we're talking about. Safety, comfort, fun, curious options. Get to yes or no. That's what I did on day one. And then on day two we set the expectation for the CSRs so that they know exactly what we're looking for when the coaching program starts. So we do it in person or we can do it via webinar, whichever you prefer. But then after that we begin the coaching program process. Now the way to get started is just go to powersellingpros.com p o w E R S E L L I N G p r o s.com and you'll see a link there for a demo. Let's do a demo together. Let's find out if there's a fit here. Okay. Now if you are interested in our night answering services, you go to booked B o o K e D by PSP so by p s p dot com and you can get.
