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5. Can You Trust Salespeople? Breaking Down the Tactics
43 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of the Exposeco podcast, Brian Tarpy and Paul Tarpy tackle the age-old question: Can you trust salespeople? They dive into common sales tactics, the psychology behind them, and why so many consumers feel uneasy when dealing with sales professionals. Learn how to identify trustworthy sales practices, spot red flags, and discover how Exposeco provides the advocacy you need to make confident purchasing decisions in the home services industry.
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Transcript
Introduction to Trust in Sales
00:00:15
Speaker
Good evening, it's Exposeco here and I'm Brian Tarpey. I'm here with my co-host Paul Tarpey. Paul, how's it going? Good, how are you? Doing good, doing good. Tonight's topic is one that we've been wanting to do for a while and so I'm really excited.
Salespeople's Reputation: Fact or Fiction?
00:00:30
Speaker
Can you trust salespeople? Wow, I think that everybody kind of wonders about that. Let's begin.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, there's, that's a, I would say, to say the least, it's a juicy topic because this topic doesn't just talk about contractors and this talks about salespeople over many different industries and they get a bad rap. Is it really, is it really valid to have that rap? Is it valid to have
Types of Salespeople: Stereotypes vs. Reality
00:01:02
Speaker
that?
00:01:02
Speaker
That label being a used car salesman or being just salesman in general people are scared of them there they have generally a. Kind of a weird vibe when it comes to thinking of a sales person they think they're out to get them and i think today we're gonna shed some light on.
00:01:22
Speaker
salespeople because there is a lot of different salespeople out there and they're in tons of different industries and are all salespeople alike.
Building Trust in Sales: Brian's Insights
00:01:31
Speaker
So this is going to obviously be based on my experience being in sales for 15 plus years and operating at a high level, producing a lot of sales to a lot of different clients and mainly doing it in one or two industries.
00:01:48
Speaker
So what I'd like to do is touch on obviously the home services spaces where I'm most familiar with my sales and peers in that industry as well and just finding that there's different types of sales people.
00:02:05
Speaker
across the industry. So you've got the used car salesman all the way up to ah your best friend that will talk to you for the next 20 years, types of sales guy that will build a relationship inside the house. So what a sales guy really does if they're good, if they want to build a lasting relationship, they come in and They start by getting to know you. If they're in your home, they're looking at pictures on the wall. They're being really observant. They're looking at whether you have golf clubs. Where are the common interests inside your house? And they're trying to get to know who you are as a person to get a connection and to break down barriers because so us as consumers, we
00:02:49
Speaker
are scared of salespeople when they're in our house.
Sales Relationships: Friendship or Strategy?
00:02:52
Speaker
They can be intimidating ah having a salesperson show up at your door. You don't know what to think. Honestly, all those thoughts are extremely valid because there's a fair share of that going on every single day with tons of different people, tons of different sales tactics and so forth. But the generalized sales, the most common sales tactics that happen and that are commonly the most successful as well is building a relationship, breaking down barriers, getting people comfortable with them. So a sales guy is there to be your friend. When you have an overly super friendly sales guy there, he's ah probably a pretty good sales guy.
00:03:33
Speaker
And now, should we trust that? In the end, a sales guy gets paid on you purchasing whatever they have to sell. That's the majority of salespeople. And if they don't get paid based on you purchasing something, they're probably not that great of a salesperson. A good salesperson will only work at a job that pays them for what they produce and they're confident in their ability.
Trustworthiness in Sales: Genuine or Facade?
00:04:06
Speaker
They have a lot of skills in per being able to persuade people or being able to break down barriers, which means become your friend, build a relationship, and sometimes it's
00:04:20
Speaker
somewhat genuine but most of the time it's really the end goal is to to make the sale. I think the first part of this is a salesperson trustworthy. I would say more often than not I would go on the side of not trustworthy.
00:04:35
Speaker
I think that most sales people have their pocketbook and an interest over what the consumer's interests or and or needs are. So I think that is first and foremost, I would say the majority. Now, we used to have a saying in my company is provide good service and the money will come.
00:04:57
Speaker
So basically provide honest good service and they will buy from you. And that was our motto. And that's probably one of the most honest type of sales tactics you can have is just providing good service. And the byproduct of that is making money. We were successful at it. But You still had to break down the barriers. You still had to be a friendly person. And at times it's putting on a ah show, basically acting as if you've known this person for a long time and just creating a.
00:05:33
Speaker
conversation that they leave feeling warm and fuzzy about your relationship with them. So that whole ploy is greasy. It's a kind of a greasy feeling if you know that it's being intentionally done at the end of the day. Now,
00:05:51
Speaker
If you are getting quotes and you have people coming in your house and they're buttering you up and making you feel really good and you say, I really like that guy. I want to buy from that guy because I really like him. He's probably just a really good salesperson with a really good personality that doesn't necessarily reflect the company that's actually going to perform the work. Cause most of the time the salesperson doesn't do the work. And a lot of times those guys that are.
00:06:20
Speaker
extremely friendly, extremely good at what they do. They sell the job, they turn it over to the management to perform the work, and you don't even talk to them again.
Ensuring Accountability: Consumer Tips
00:06:34
Speaker
There's some occasions that some salespeople that will do a follow-up after the job's complete, and I think I have huge respect for those guys. I think that they are full of integrity because they are not just saying, see you later, I got my check signed and I'm out. But the industry is full of both of those. There's guys that will follow up. So I think a piece of advice I could give anybody based on even that conversation is if you do have something that you really like,
00:07:06
Speaker
make sure that they put it in writing that they're going to be there when the job is complete. And they're going to walk up and they're going to walk through the job after it's complete. And make sure that you're 100% satisfied with what their company did. Because basically, the promises that they're giving you in the home before you make the purchase, you're going to hold them account to those promises on the finished day on the end of the project. So
00:07:37
Speaker
You can really dictate if your salesperson is has integrity by instilling some terms and conditions on your project. And I highly suggest that be one of them. Making sure that sales guy doesn't just get a signature and leave and never talk to you again.
00:07:59
Speaker
that he puts it in writing that he will show up at the end of the job to do a final walkthrough before you end up paying for the job. It makes sure that the promises that he's given you are gonna be fulfilled and that he's not just blowing smoke. Because you know what, good salespeople sometimes say things, embellish things, they make things sound better than they are, they will push a narrative and it's not 100% true, but it's,
00:08:29
Speaker
it's enough truth that they feel like they're not lying to you. So a lot of that stuff, it it can be confusing, but salespeople can justify a lot in their head on how they push the value of their company and everything without being accountable to it. And the key is is that they, in the end, have a sense of, I'm going to see this person again, I'm going to be talking to this person, and if we don't do a great job,
00:08:58
Speaker
I'm gonna be embarrassed about how much I sold our company's value to these people. And it turned out like crap, I'm gonna be the one that's gonna have to hear about it. It really will help to make sure your job is a quality job at the end of the day, that they get it done right. Because that salesperson will be shouting from the rooftops in their organization saying, do a good job, I have to meet with So and so at the end to collect a check and I don't want to be getting an earful of Complaints about you guys do a good job, please so Sales guys are known to be primadontas. So they're known to always be the loudest in the crowd You know and the most animated so companies are used to those guys, you know Raising a ruckus in their organization, but that's of the personality that you get out of them
00:09:54
Speaker
in.
Sales Tactics: Fair or Exploitative?
00:09:56
Speaker
In closing with that, I would say most salespeople have good intentions, but the money aspects can get in the way of that. And people can be compromised pretty quickly. um They can embellish things. And they can also be very, they can be optimistic. They can be thinking, oh yeah, this job is going to be so easy. It's going to go so great.
00:10:24
Speaker
but And the fact is their operations behind them may not be as great as they they think. Yeah, there's ways to keep that accountable. But and I would say overall, people have good intentions, but money can sway that a little bit.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that too because I think what you're noting is salespeople are people who want to seem like they are in your corner without any biases, without any reservations, they're there for you. They're the liaison between you and getting the product or the service you need.
00:10:59
Speaker
That's what they want to personify and and if they can communicate that to you, they will. But the reality is you have to have two ah two eyes wide open and know that they're there putting on a face and a front. They fully represent the company that they come.
00:11:15
Speaker
and are hired by, employed by, paid by in order to get you to purchase something from them, ideally something that cost of the highest value so that they make the most money. Most sales pop people you've said before are paid on commission, so there is there is that and that adds to the murkiness of it.
00:11:37
Speaker
I'd like to look at something really quick and it's just by way of a story. Someone responded to one of our articles on our website. We have a continuing education page. We're trying to keep people informed about what we do and who we are. And anyway, we have an article called exposing the tactics common sales strategies contractors use and how to avoid them. And we had a person read that article and then ask us the question, are salespeople bad?
00:12:07
Speaker
What would you respond to that person after having us unveil the cloak and dagger of sales the sales industry and then having that question asked because you have an idea where that's coming from? Absolutely. i i it's Are salespeople bad? that's That can be a loaded question. i don't think People are inherently bad, intention-wise, when they walk through that front door. But I think salespeople in general, competitive in nature, or just in the fact that they want to take a paycheck home, often will resort to making sure that the customer feels warm and fuzzy at the end of the day, no matter what that takes.
00:12:52
Speaker
to close that deal. But I've met quite a bit of salespeople that at least, hey, they could have been selling me too in that conversation about how their ethics ethics and morals are in the utmost. But at the end of the day, salespeople can often look out for their best interests before the client's best interest. I think it's a rarity to find salespeople and Not even necessarily in the fact of people being dishonest just the fact of salespeople not having the tools to be able to or the understanding or the knowledge to be able to understand what the consumer actually needs.
00:13:34
Speaker
and meeting those needs instead of looking for what has worked for that salesperson in the past, their pitch, people get in a a rhythm of selling a certain item because they're super comfortable with that item and they can talk about that item. They can talk about the benefits of that item. They know it really well and not there. There's not really.
00:13:57
Speaker
For some people, there's not really a reason to purchase that item because it doesn't benefit them in the ways it would somebody else. so for ah Let me explain. If you bought an air conditioner that uses next to zero electricity, but it costs three times more for that air conditioner up front,
00:14:19
Speaker
And somebody in in this salesperson knows a lot about that air conditioner the person that is in a climate that isn't going to run their air but maybe one month a year buying that one that yeah uses way less electricity for three times the amount.
00:14:37
Speaker
is never going to pay for itself. It's never going to be a benefit financially for that person and that person probably, or if, you know, asking the question won't necessarily care about the benefits that come from that system. But that sales guy really likes that system. He sold it to Susie and April and Mary down the street and they all love the systems. He was so happy with them. And also he,
00:15:07
Speaker
is extremely comfortable with selling that system. That has some bias there because he's telling you that you need that system even though you don't necessarily need that system. Instead of using logic or actually facts, he's using what his experience has been.
00:15:25
Speaker
So that's ah that's also a really common thing in the home services industry is you'll get people that will come at you and give you a price. And a lot of times they'll give you one price. They'll say, hey, here's here's the air conditioning for your house. And basically, it's really doing a disservice to homeowners and consumers. is they're and You're not giving them a choice to really look at all the options and be able to figure out what's best for them and their needs. And that's a disservice. So that's, I don't know if I'm going on a tangent there, but I think that salespeople do you think about their pocketbooks primarily, whether they're good intentioned and I think that they're honest.
00:16:10
Speaker
most of the time, but in the end, they're going to say what they need to say in order to close the deal and walk out of there with but a sale. And a lot of times that can be stretching the truth or making things sound better than they are.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, so every salesperson is going to be a mixed bag. There's going to be a good and bad. They're going to be justifying things in their head. They're going to fall into routines that make sense and have worked for them in the past and held them to make money and put food on the table for their families. Like all those things we can't really fault people for. It's just a human nature. But.
00:16:46
Speaker
This is where we come in, isn't it? This is where we find our value for our customers, our clients, because if they're not going to be able to trust a salesperson and they don't know heating and air conditioning inside and out, how can they be protected? Who will represent them or at least be able to be a second set of eyes for them? How does this work with Exposco? Yeah, and also you got to think, too, on top of it,
00:17:15
Speaker
This industry is an extremely underserved industry. So what what that means is the industry is bigger than the workforce has been able to grow into.
Industry Experience: Analyzing Salespeople's Background
00:17:27
Speaker
So it's lacking of experience. There's a lot of sales people that have come from other industries and just migrated into heating and air conditioning or even home services. They went from the auto industry or they went from appliance sales or they went from different industries and they just crossed over. They've co-mingled and they've maybe this is just a ah you know a temporary stay. They might be going into another industry after this. Salespeople can get bored with industries as well.
00:17:59
Speaker
But so they don't have necessarily some ah more, a lot of them don't have the knowledge that people that have been in the industry for 17, 18, 20 years and that have installed, have serviced, have repaired.
00:18:16
Speaker
all that experience or dealt with thousands of installations and the aftermaths of ah the installations, making sure people are happy and making sure that people are actually getting the experience that they hoped for out of the system that they purchased. So most of the sales guys don't necessarily have experience in all that stuff. That's what exposed co brings is that we have the wealth of knowledge of that broad spectrum of experience across the whole business. And now we have no ties to the contracting side of things. but Now all we do is help consumers. When we're helping consumers, we have your back because there's no nobody's paying us other
Exposco's Advocacy: Protecting Consumers
00:18:58
Speaker
than you. And when we can see all the tactics that they're pushing, we can see the types of
00:19:04
Speaker
equipment that they're giving you or the features that they're giving you in the system and really going through it and making sure that you're actually getting what you need, not necessarily what the salesman thinks you should get because his experience has been something has been pretty good with that product. It may not fit your needs. You can be overspending a lot because of them.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, so somebody could, if they wanted to, hire us to be that person for them. We would work for, we're essentially working for the person who hired us to represent them to a contractor, to a salesman.
00:19:42
Speaker
And to make sure that they get the best value for what they need, actually what they need, not what the salesman says they need. They don't need a Ferrari, if they don't need a Ferrari, if they want an SUV, that's what they want and that's what they need. And so we don't make more money based on how much you the customer would spend. So this is why it seems like such a no-brainer.
00:20:05
Speaker
to us and why we envisioned this entire ah company is because, yeah, um we want to be in people's corner, not in any contractor's corner. We're not going to sell information. We're not going to sell people heating and air conditioning systems. We're just going to help people buy because this is an underserved industry.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. And also, look, the main goal of a salesperson is to make you make a emotional purchase. And our goal is to take emotions out of your purchase.
00:20:36
Speaker
An emotional person that makes emotional decisions financially a lot of times is not necessarily making the most wise decisions financially. So what we do is we take the emotions out of it. We do the we run the data. We make sure that what you're getting is actually worth what you're paying for it and also that it fits what you actually need. And basically we can pull the wool off of your eyes or however you say that and make it so you can see. The industry is a confusing industry. All the home services industries can be confusing to somebody that isn't in them, doesn't do them every day.
00:21:20
Speaker
Just the financing industry or the loan industry, all that stuff can be pretty confusing to somebody that doesn't do that every day. Everybody has their skills. How much time do you want to spend to become an expert on air conditioning during this purchase? Or do you just want to find somebody that already knows and spend a little bit of money and make sure you get a great deal? So that's really the pitch on our end is, Hey.
00:21:45
Speaker
Make it a worry free purchase. It's a big purchase. Make it worry free. Make sure that you have somebody in your corner that has been there, done that and dealt with these people and to have your back.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, and maybe you can wrap this up in a second with a final thought, but let me just add that ah the premise of this too is that our service will pay for itself actually, and it can pay for itself clearly with the the negotiation package. If people want us to negotiate on their behalf, they're goingnna they're going to save ah money and there's no chance that they won't save money um or it doesn't cost them anything.
00:22:24
Speaker
But on the other side, there's even more to that in the value of having us in their corner, that this service really does end up paying for itself when you're not buying things that you don't need. And that's there's so much value in that people are overpaying for things and they don't even know it.
00:22:42
Speaker
Exactly. there there's And there's so many different things in air conditioning that people can project value about. They can talk about and have a key talking point that they're comfortable with. For example, somebody can talk about Hospital grade filtration, a really good filtration. Don't you want to breathe right? Don't you want to breathe healthy? Some of those things, there's a lot of fluff and in that language and people vote price tags of thousands of dollars on that language.
00:23:13
Speaker
And we can read right through and we can know exactly what they're giving you. And then we can decipher whether you have allergies or you have a health condition that needs that or your house is, you know, has mold problems or or anything like that. We can have that conversation with you and actually ask the questions that they're not asking. They're just packaging it in a really good.
00:23:36
Speaker
type of slogan and pitching it to you and making you feel warm and fuzzy and making that emotional hit to where you go, man, I really what they're telling me. Our goal is to make sure that you walk away with a list of items that they're providing you and we can make sure that we can check the boxes on which parts of those lists actually need to happen and the stuff that you can just tell them to take off.
00:24:00
Speaker
and lower the price to bring it to where you, what you actually need and, and get you something that's going to be reliable. It's going to last you a long time, but yet not cause you the aches and pains of overpaying, paying for
Conclusion: Trust in Salespeople?
00:24:14
Speaker
it. Paul send us home, answer our question. I know you did in long form, but real quick, can you trust salespeople? I would say no. No, we can't trust salespeople. As you said in long form, it's that they have conflicts of interest at every level. You need somebody in your corner to advocate for you, or at least you have to educate yourself to a high level in the industry in order to be able to fully represent yourself, or you can expect to be taken advantage of. Even the nicest of sales guys, you're still going to watch out for, all right?
00:24:46
Speaker
The nice ones is ultimately why they're in that position, right? Because they make you feel warm and fuzzy and make you want to trust them as human nature. Paul, thanks for this conversation. This has been helpful for me and I hope it's helpful for our listeners.