Introduction to Sales Call Dynamics
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey there, I'm Brian Tarpy and I'm with XposedCo and I'm with my partner and co-host this evening, Paul Tarpy. And we're delighted to bring our third episode to you tonight. Paul, how are you doing tonight? Doing well. How are you doing?
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm doing good, feeling good, ready to tackle and excited to to tackle any topic. So what's on the plate? What's on the menu tonight? Yeah. So tonight I want to talk a little bit about taking the power out of the call, further explain a little bit more of what that actually means because most of you guys are going power and what, what's a call.
00:00:54
Speaker
So I'll unpack it all and we'll get to the bottom of understanding what all this means and why it matters to you as a consumer. And even, even if you're not a consumer, maybe sometimes there's contractors are going to be listening. Who knows? So a call obviously is a.
00:01:12
Speaker
an appointment that's been scheduled for a company to come out and do a proposal on a new heating and air conditioning system. Or it could be like a service call where they're coming to fix something or a tune up. So we just call a call. Is it an appointment?
00:01:30
Speaker
And what I'll be referencing tonight is going to be basically more along the lines of proposals where they're looking to purchase a new system because that's mainly what I've done over the past six, seven, eight years. Taking power out of the call, what does that mean exactly? You the consumer have power.
00:01:54
Speaker
as a decision maker. If there was not a decision maker present in the home that could make the decision on doing the installation, then there's no power
Empowering Consumers in Sales Calls
00:02:08
Speaker
in that call. So the power has been taken away from that call. So you can take the power out of a call by having a pre built out strategy prior to having a contractor show up to your house. This is something that ex exposed Co will layout for you prior to you guys getting your proposals and getting people to come in. And we'll give you all the ammunition in order to have a good strategy on making sure that nobody's going to pressure you into a decision that you don't want to make. Last time we talked about how there's really strong salespeople out there that
00:02:48
Speaker
are training on a day-to-day basis on how to walk away with signature from an appointment just like you. They only make money on signatures, so they're really good at it. And what I want to discuss with you guys is I want to talk a little bit about how you can make yourself power list and in turn it makes it so the contractor feels like there's no way to be able to
00:03:21
Speaker
close your deal on the spot, close close the job, get a signature, that there's always going to be something that they're going to need.
Using Consultants to Shift Power
00:03:30
Speaker
Usually you don't hear people say, we're going to give you the opportunity to be powerless. You're saying it like it's a good thing, but usually you think of it as a bad thing. But in our case, this is an awesome thing. and why you would even hire Exposed Code or even help you to be powerless so that you can rely on somebody to be the power for you. Exactly. So it's a great statement there that you're saying is is why would you want to be powerless, right? If we can take the power away from you and make it and you have a crutch, say you have somebody else that you have to answer to,
00:04:12
Speaker
an excuse, even though you don't have to answer to us. but we're there to consult you and help to make sure you're making a good decision. So we're like the big brother for you. And you can fall back and say, thank you for your offering. It was, I really love what you have to say without offending anybody or saying no. You can just say, I need to talk to my consultant on making sure that this is the right system for me. This is why I hired them. And it takes the power.
00:04:45
Speaker
away from them from you making the decision. And so the contractor at that point doesn't have the power to really just push you into something that you're not ready to be involved in.
Protecting Against Sales Tactics
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, so ah sometimes how I do this, I'm a married man, and I'll do this with people in my own life where somebody asks me if I want to go do something with them. And I'm not either not ready to make the decision or I'm looking for an excuse to get out of it. And so I'll take the power out of the decision by deferring, I need to speak with my wife on this. I'm not allowed to make that decision by myself.
00:05:22
Speaker
And I think that's just, that's just like a normal human behavior in general. There's nothing shady about it and it's useful. One of the things that make, you're making me think about this and why this is so good. What you had said before was that the salespeople are trained to sniff out your bad reasons to not do something. So your bad excuses. So you'll act like you, you aren't the decision maker. Let's just say we just pretend that we're not the decision maker. We have to talk to somebody on it. And then afterward.
00:05:58
Speaker
Like they'll sniff it out and make you become the decision maker and make it so that you're ready to make a decision. So it's funny that you bring that up because a trained salesperson, like I said, these guys, they train on a daily basis and a weekly basis with other salespeople. Every job or every call we say, every time we go to a proposal.
00:06:20
Speaker
yeah They're training. they're Even if the the proposal is is not a good one where they don't think they're gonna actually close it, there're it's a good salesperson. They're just gonna sit there and they're gonna train themselves on that call to continue to sharpen their skills. Now, a good trained salesperson will, they will probe you. The wife excuse or the husband excuse, spouse excuse, a lot of times will be weeded out at the beginning of the call. For example, there's there's a full strategy around getting the spouse on the phone to help make a decision on the spot. Just simply asking, can we get your spouse on the phone? This is an important decision for both of you guys to make. I don't want you to get in trouble. This is this is a big deal. Can we give them a call right now? A lot of people would be like, oh yeah, let me try.
00:07:14
Speaker
And people know that having that excuse that open excuses is a way they can get out of the hot seat of making a decision. And they use that same excuse all the time, but they don't actually expect that the salesman is going to call them on it and say, Hey, let's give them a call right now. Let's talk to him since you like everything. And they'll come up with excuses like, Oh, he's really busy. He's at work.
00:07:40
Speaker
You won't be able to answer by using meetings all day. Those are excuses, right? And the salespeople fight through that anyways. It's crazy. They'll get you to call them and more often than not, your spouse will answer and.
00:07:56
Speaker
And then now you're really cornered because your spouse is talking on the phone with the sales guy and you look like an idiot because you said, oh, there's no way that can be answered. The sales guys don't, they don't believe anything you're saying and their job.
00:08:15
Speaker
is to weed through your objections. That's what they are. It's called objection handling. So they handle the objections until you get they get the right answer. And handling the objections is just having a way to come back at you in a respectful way that's not going to offend you but keep pushing through.
00:08:36
Speaker
to get to the next objection until you finally say yes. So they say I forget the exact amount, but they say if you break down five objections, you usually get a yes. It's either five or seven. I forget from the coaching that I used to be involved in. But it's pretty interesting how true that is from a communication standpoint, and that when whenever somebody feels like they're inconsistent, like if they're caught in a lie, even if even if what they're saying they believe to be true like my husband's busy or my wife is busy and I can't get a hold of them and then the salesman does the absurd thing the rude thing and demands that they call that person now anyway just to see who would do that but salesmen are trained to to present that in such a ah way that you would receive that
00:09:27
Speaker
And then from a communication standpoint, when you're caught there, you feel what's called cognitive dissonance. You've been revealed and so you have, you feel like obligated to move forward because there's this pressure that's been put on you and now what do you do? The only thing that you can do is save face. And it's a cognitive pain if you don't save face. but It's just interesting from a calm theory perspective, just how that psychology works and how salesmen have been trained to push through those kinds of things.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, so people remember, we're talking about air conditioning sales guys here. We're not talking about like, high level, some type of real estate sales guy that's, you know, you're doing these huge trends. We're talking about guys that come into your house and sell you an air conditioner. And this is the level of training that a lot of these guys, especially in the larger companies, there's going to be some difference between companies that provide have sales tactics.
00:10:27
Speaker
But don't be fooled. Even the small guys, a lot of those small guys are people that worked for big companies and they went and started their own business. So they're well-trained. And then they just implemented that into their own business. ah A well-trained sales guy will work their way through each and every single objection of you taking the power out of the call. Now having an exposed co as your objection is a bulletproof objection.
00:10:56
Speaker
because you're not gonna be able to just call us and we're not gonna answer and we will not let you make a decision on the
The Value of Multiple Estimates
00:11:03
Speaker
spot. We would not ever allow you to make a decision on the spot because what we're gonna do is we analyze to make sure that the decision you're making is is it good, quality, accurate, quote, and the promises that they're making are gonna be able to be kept and that they're the right right fit for you and your family and your needs. The decision maker is taken away when we tell you, you can't make a decision until we look things over because you that's what you paid for us to do. We're here to protect you. And we're here to make sure that, look, you don't get screwed at the end. We want to take those variables and make them as
00:11:53
Speaker
least likely as possible to ever happen to you. So when you have somebody like us that will help you make that decision, obviously in the end, you're going to make that decision. But we need to have all the information to make sure that your a decision is an accurate good decision and we can't do that. We will not do that on the spot over a phone call. So just know that when you have exposed go by your side, the power of the call gets taken out of there. They are going to be forced to send over their offering and we're going to be able to compare them and make sure that what they're providing you is what you need. They're not overselling you underselling you. They're actually giving you what you need.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a little bit, but a high level about taking the power out of the call. Those sales guys, like I said, they're really well trained and they will find ways to get whoever needs to be there.
00:12:56
Speaker
Whoever needs to be present, whether it's ah via phone, whether it's via video chat, whether they'll reschedule a time to come back out. That's another tactic that they use is they withhold their information from you and they reschedule another time for you and your husband or you and your wife.
00:13:17
Speaker
to be there so we can all go through it together to make sure everybody's on the same page. That's a common tactic. And once they get you guys all in the same room. then they can start working through objections to both of you guys and and get a signature. That's a kind of a high level. but Is this a good time to to talk about the other side of that? Because I could assume that someone would say, I can find a bulletproof objection to closing a deal on the spot. I could do that part. I could come up with something, a plan, like maybe it would even be a challenge for somebody to do. And maybe they could.
00:13:54
Speaker
But that's not even that's not even the main point of it. The whole point of it is that you get multiple estimates.
Sales Tactics Across Company Sizes
00:14:01
Speaker
It's so crucial to the whole process. And I think many people think, I got one good estimate. I'm ready to roll. And that is just so not the case. It seems like with what we're talking about here, the point isn't just that you can say no so that we can evaluate it for you. It's also so that you can get someone else in there and you don't feel like you have to close right now.
00:14:23
Speaker
Can you talk about like the importance of not just getting one estimate? Yeah, no, that's completely true. It's it's extremely important because.
00:14:34
Speaker
You get a good person out there the first time. They're gonna dangle all these carrots in front of your face that seems super awesome. They're making everything sound like it's the stars are aligning for you right now. And it's time to act because the stars don't align very often if ever. That's the the mentality that will be brought to you to get you to not explore those other options.
00:15:01
Speaker
And oftentimes you'll see price differences on systems. You'll see some for $20,000. You'll see another one for $12,000. And the one for $12,000 might actually be better than the one that's $20,000. That's a real fact.
00:15:20
Speaker
and the HPAC industry and the guy that is doing it for $12,000 is a smaller time guy and he's actually probably going to put it it in himself and do a better job than somebody that has 30 different guys that have mediocre training to do the job and don't take as much pride in their work because they're just living paycheck to paycheck and working to just have a job. So they're not there. They're not passionate about what they're doing. And they're not passionate about their reputation. They just got hired from this company. And then there's $20,000 companies that provide a ton of value for what they're doing. There's a reason why they're $8,000 more than the other guy.
00:16:05
Speaker
as well, but that's why you have exposed code to be able to reveal the hidden truths and The smoke and mirrors as well is so we can really decipher What's actual not what somebody told you what a sales guy told you because we're not gonna rely on that we're gonna we're gonna rely on facts and So it's really important because there's a whole different spectrum of pricing out there There's a whole different spectrum of quality of work. There's a lot of different factors when it comes to added protections, guarantees, licenses, permits, insurance, reputation, the list could go on and on. And you really need to see what the market has to offer. Every market's a little bit different. But in the end, air conditioning and heating is relatively the same. Definitely want to get a good sampling of your market
00:17:04
Speaker
And getting pricing from a large, medium and small company is suggested. You want to have a little bit of all. Usually the larger companies are going to be a lot more expensive than the smaller companies, but sometimes they also ah provide you with a little bit more support. So there's there's some benefits in addition drawbacks. And that's not a matter of fact. That's just from experience.
00:17:29
Speaker
But every market's different and some markets have large companies that aren't
Vetting Contractors with ExposedCo
00:17:33
Speaker
so good. And some markets have small companies that aren't so good too. It seems like the opposite is the case when it comes to retail. When we think about the size of the seller, oftentimes they have the cheaper products because they can buy them in bulk, et cetera, and they get a better price. But it's actually not the case when it comes to heating and air conditioning contractors from what they mark up.
00:17:55
Speaker
They have a higher overhead in terms of advertising, a higher overhead on a lot of different metrics that their prices as are often just higher to end up covering some of those things. Has that this had been your experience as a business owner?
00:18:11
Speaker
There's different levels of companies, like a company that has four or five employees, a company that has 20 employees and a company that has 3000 employees. So there's kind of levels of that truth and the fact of there's a level of sophistication as they grow. So there's a company that if they have four or five employees, a lot of times that company is not necessarily sophisticated when it comes to sales tactics, being able to organize their their services to maximize their potential for their sales guys to be in good positions to be able to sell upsell stuff like new newer equipment or other things. So the larger companies are usually going to be especially like the two 3000 employee type of companies are going to be very organized in what they do and thought out. And then
00:19:08
Speaker
The medium-sized companies can be a lot like them, but just on a smaller scale. And the smaller companies, a lot of times they're just out there just providing good service and they're making a paycheck. They're providing for their families. And sometimes the owner is actually doing a lot of the work or they have a right-hand man who's doing a lot of the work and they're doing the estimating and so forth.
00:19:34
Speaker
With what I just said, it probably sounds, oh yeah, the small guy is the best option. Then you also get the small guys that they don't pay their bills. They're really bad about that. And they end up going out of business. And in turn you have your warranty that they promised you no longer exists because they aren't around anymore. So there is benefits and drawbacks to each one of those things, but that's where we come in. We do the vetting to know.
00:20:01
Speaker
Whether somebody's going to stick around by their reputation and how they've conducted themselves in their business. And we're able to check and see if, if their insurance is paid up, the licenses are active. There's a lot of different things. If they're pulling permits, like they should be. There's a lot of different things that we're able to check that. Frankly, you're going to have to do a ton of research just to figure it out. And it's not really worth your time.
Ethical Approaches to Estimates
00:20:27
Speaker
the end of the day when we know exactly where to look and vet those things. Yeah, there's a ton of power in having. a couple different companies out. And even if you give four or five, even six, the three's not, like I would suggest getting four or five. Air conditioning companies are gonna hate me for saying this, but getting four or five estimates gives you a really good sampling of what's going on. And a lot of times you can take the three that that you like the most, the people that you like dealing with the most, and then we can see which one's actually giving you what they promised.
00:21:03
Speaker
Because a lot of times people are that you like a lot are usually the best salesman. I don't want you guys to walk away from this episode and go, Oh man, these salesmen, I'm going to, I'm going to see them and they're going to look all grease. They're going to have their hair greased back and they're going to come in there with shiny shoes and they're going to be wearing, they're going to be wearing a suit and tie. No, these guys are going to come in it with vans on and they're going to having to take measure on the side of their, on their side of their tool belt. And.
00:21:34
Speaker
They're going to, or they're going to be coming in with work boots on and look like a service professional. And those guys are just as skilled as the guy with the greasy hair. and And that's probably the hardest part because you get in front of somebody and you may mentally prepared for this moment. But then you see a real person and they're really genuine and sincere. And I believe that most of those people are. And so it's really hard to just s slow it down to even.
00:22:03
Speaker
want to and I know when you said go and get four or five estimates, like part of me like a little indigestion at the idea of having to meet with that many salespeople. But that's maybe where the where we come in terms of having.
00:22:19
Speaker
We provide a guide to getting estimates and providing like before, before you meet the contractor guides and to prepare you to prepare the contractor or the salesperson with huge, hugely important information. Excuse me. I'm not going to give you more than this amount of time. I'm going to be getting multiple estimates. I'm working with somebody who's going to review these estimates just.
00:22:44
Speaker
By laying that kind of a groundwork it doesn't have to be such a monumental task and it really doesn't have to be about the salesman's personality because at the end of the day that person's not even going to install it. Yeah exactly. Also when we're giving them the guide to.
00:23:03
Speaker
know exactly what they need to be quoting. There's no reason why they they need to be there for a very long time because we're actually doing the legwork for them to make sure that they know exactly what they should be providing you a quote for. There's not there's no so dog and pony show going on. They're not gonna be there spending hours on end in your home. Good salesman.
00:23:32
Speaker
If you didn't have those tools, the good salesman will be parking at your house, sitting there having a conversation with you for two plus hours and going through a ah big process in order to provide you with accurate quotes. And when we provide you with the list of what you need to get quoted,
00:23:55
Speaker
now you're getting quotes from every single contractor for the same thing and we're not you're not having it to deal with the air plus guys or the whatever HVAC masters or whoever they are quoting two separate things that are totally different and you can't really tell who's actually better because one quoted something way cheaper than what the other guy quoted, but the other guy is providing better warranty and so forth. So we take the confusion out of all that and we'll create an actual sheet, a specifications sheet to allow the contractors to know exactly what your desire is.
00:24:45
Speaker
to get out of the job. That is one of the things that we do provide with some of our options. And I think that that is like monumental for getting what you want actually installed in your home and getting the best price for it and also getting the best service because we're going to take the all the garbage and filter it out of what you're having to have to deal with when you're getting those proposals. It should significantly help time and also accuracy on getting your job done and hopefully allow you to stay within a pretty good budget. From your perspective, like as a salesperson, when you were a salesperson, I'm sure you wanted to close every call that you went to when somebody was
00:25:38
Speaker
doing their due diligence and taking the time to get multiple estimates. Did you ever feel like that was unethical or that was like not right that anytime they call a company that they should have to pay something to have someone's time covered?
00:25:53
Speaker
Because I think some people will feel guilty in some regard. Again, talking about calm theory, like the principle of reciprocity, this person comes to their house. They spend time going over things with them and then they're essentially not giving them anything back. So people feel a sense of guilt or like obligation to give something back.
Pressure-Free Decision-Making Strategies
00:26:14
Speaker
How do we help appease our customers, our clients conscience on that? Yes. I never felt like.
00:26:23
Speaker
When somebody was getting multiple estimates, I was never like, Oh man, these people are like a waste of my time or that this totally disrespectful what they're doing. It's really an industry standard. Yeah. I think as a salesperson, of course you don't want them to get other. That's something that every salesman doesn't necessarily want to hear, but It's good practice. It's called being responsible. It's called having wisdom. It's called shopping around. It's smart to shop around. If you say yes to the first guy, you're usually overpaying. And even if you're okay with overpaying a little bit, at least overpay on somebody that you really want to do work with. And a lot of times the first guy is not that guy. Or maybe he is that guy, but at least you can go back to him.
00:27:18
Speaker
And you don't necessarily need to shop around for money either. It's not, it shouldn't always be about money because there's people out there that are extremely cheap that just aren't going to do a very good job. And that's another reason why, you know, we, we'd go through that and and help identify that. But no, I wouldn't say that is something that I'd be offended by or super bummed about.
00:27:42
Speaker
But it does go a long way when a customer says, Hey, I know your time's really important and I know that I appreciate the time that you're spending out here. I don't want to waste too much of your time at all. This is, and in getting down to business and giving them the facts.
00:28:01
Speaker
here's like Here's a sheet that I've hired a consulting company to help me to make this decision because this is a really big decision and I know it's going to be expensive.
00:28:13
Speaker
And I want to make sure it's right. I've hired this company to help me do that. So they've given me a specification sheet. I'd like to share that with you. It would help you to understand what scope of work we're looking at and what to provide an accurate quote for. I am getting a couple estimates.
00:28:32
Speaker
per their request, we will consider everything. So just make sure that you are very detailed on what you put together. And do you have any questions for me? Just be very respectful and people that are respectful and that they are appreciative, that they appreciate my time is goes way above than anything else. It's the people that go like have an attitude and say,
00:28:59
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to be 30 minutes late. Don't respect like, but the, the appointment time don't respect, or they want to reschedule on a dime. Like really quickly. Yeah. Just those types of things are.
00:29:13
Speaker
Those things will really make a a salesman or a contractor upset because yeah you're not valuing their time. And a lot of these guys, they're doing this for their career. It's important to know that they're they're sacrificing their time a lot of times to try to provide a service for you. And.
00:29:35
Speaker
If you're not, if you're not respecting that, it's pretty disheartening. ah It can be frustrating at times, but just a simple, Hey, thanks a lot for coming out. I know your time is important and it's valuable. Thanks for spending the time with me today, stuff like that. We can get into other customer ed, consumer etiquette. That's for another day. We can go, we can spend a whole S.
00:29:59
Speaker
episode on consumer etiquette. I can go through a lot of war stories of getting bit by dogs and and man I can't wait to hear those. um Just great crazy things. We'll save that for another day. But yeah, I know. there's it's important It's important to be able to take the power out of the call though, because it takes the pressure off every the whole situation, going back to the power of the call. we get If we can make sure the decision maker gets eliminated from the situation, you don't even have to you don't have to sit there and feel like you're pressured into anything because you can't make that
Negotiation Tactics in High-Pressure Scenarios
00:30:35
Speaker
decision. You've already committed not to. That goes away.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, that is such a powerful tool, what you're saying. And I can concede that the whole process will go so much smoother if somebody has already some of those things outlined for them up front so that they know it's almost like a script they've been given. They know what to say. Hey, I'm going to get multiple estimates, like you said, and some of these other lines that kind of help cut to the chase.
00:31:02
Speaker
The salesman will be served well because they'll also be more competitive with the price that they give. They'll probably give up front their best offer, their best service, because they know that's going to be compared to other offers. No, it's not like they're going to swing for the fence in terms of just, I don't know, the treasury collecting all the gold in one place. They'll know that this is going to be competitive. So we're going to have to do our best.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. They don't want they're not going to try to hit a home run on your job when they know there's three or four other companies going to come out and give a price. So if a salesman thinks he's going to close you on the spot and you haven't had anyone out there, he's a lot of times it's trying to hit a home run. And what we mean by home run is that the charge on the job is going to be higher. And let me tell you guys.
00:31:52
Speaker
There is not standardized pricing in most applications when these guys come out. So when you're thinking like, Hey, Mr. Salesman that came to my house, he had a price book in front of him and that was the price. That's what we had to pay. And that's how he came up with the price. A lot of times that price changes based on.
00:32:14
Speaker
what feelings that if he's going to if you're going to shop him or not, and if you're going to shop him with other contractors, he's going to he's going to bring his price to be as competitive as possible because he doesn't want to lose the job because he doesn't win unless he gets the job.
00:32:31
Speaker
but he also gets more of a commission if he gets the job at a higher price. Now, contractors may argue that, but in my experience, and I've seen a lot of different companies out there, and I know a lot of different companies have been through a lot of coaching and everything like that.
00:32:51
Speaker
They all do the same thing. I have yet to see one that says, hey, this is the price and that's it. And they is non-negotiable. Everything's negotiable. These salesmen have flexibility in what they're doing. And if they see an avenue to be able to get somebody to buy without having a second opinion, you best believe that the product's probably going to cost you more.
Conclusion: Rethinking Sales Calls
00:33:16
Speaker
I believe it. Yeah. You see sometimes in car sales, oh people will say hassle-free pricing. and what that's not That's actually should be viewed as a negative, I think, because they've actually just priced it exactly what they want to get out of it. And they've taken the legs out from under you to say that you can't ask for anything lower by saying it's the lowest, best price. Even that you can negotiate that. That's funny. A lot of times they say hassle-free pricing and then you start walking off the lot and then all of a sudden that hassle-free pricing becomes a little bit a little bit cheaper. I found this a little bit of a hassle. Oh yeah, I know. You're talking to somebody that negotiates, like I've negotiated for a living for a long time. And it's funny how tunes change as we start walking off the lot. People, yeah they, cause like we talked about and it passes.
00:34:05
Speaker
Once you leave that lot, there is a high likelihood that you never come back. Awesome. Taking the power out of the call. Paul, thank you so much for shedding those insights tonight and you just really transforming the way that I think about it. I think the way our listeners will think about it. Looking forward to more conversations like this in the future. So thanks for tuning in tonight and just wish everyone well and hope you have a good night.
00:34:32
Speaker
Have a good day, good night, good, good week. all right thanks