The Peanut Butter Kid

Occasionally on Saturdays when I am home during the summer my wife and I go to an outdoor European Market. It really is a place where their are booths that sell produce, meat, cheese and other unique items… I don’t think anything is from Europe except maybe the concept!

This past Saturday, Sandy and I made a decision that we would drop by the market but focus on the few vendors that we frequent and obtain a short list of items.

As we are walking for vegetables, we hear a young boy recruiting us to come to his booth and learn about the best peanut butter in the world. As we approach he is exclaiming a dozen different flavors. Candidly I didn’t know peanut butter came in different flavors.
Wow! His fifteen second pitch was captivating and convincing. The maker of the peanut butter allows this young person to sell her product at her booth and donates two bucks a jar to his soccer club.

The peanut butter tastes like nonother I have tasted. It’s eight dollars a jar, two for fifteen. And the jars are small. I really didn’t care about the cost of peanut butter and neither would you.

This boy is personable, knows his product and had confidence! The next time I go I’ll videotape his pitch. You’ll be amazed like I was. Now go out and sell your peanut butter off!

If They Can Do It So Can You1

A few years ago, I bought some really nice diamond earing for my wife while we are on a cruise. I had heard of the jewelry store before and they had a decent reputation so I was not uncomfortable buying the earing out of the US. Besides they were duty free, right!

I admit that I haggled pretty hard and in my opinion made a phenomenal purchase. This was confirmed during an embarrassing moment at our local jeweler who noticed Sandy’s new ear sparkles. He is a super honest man and confirmed we made a great buy that he could not match.

But the story isn’t about the purchase of the earrings. It is about what happened afterwards. Inadvertently I must of filled out a form that listed our birthdays and anniversary. And yesterday was my birthday and the store owner called to wish me a happy birthday. Just like he does for Sandy on her birthday and our anniversary.

This is a high-volume jewelry store on the island of St. Kit so the call was probably a little pricier than your USA unlimited plan. The call was a sincere, happy birthday. Not trying to sell us anything or even an innuendo of a solicitation. But it was thoughtful! And we would definitely consider another purchase from them. I am even going to write a “trip advisor” post because I am so impressed with the customer service follow-up.

In the world of sales this was a luxury purchase not a necessity. We differentiate this by the term Gold Medals verse German Sheppard’s. I have to ask when is the last time you called a customer just to say happy birthday or happy anniversary. Do you even know when their special day is?

If not, find out and start building more sincere relationships. It will pay off with long term loyalty.

You’ve just gotta love those insurance companies. A few years ago a hail storm blew through my neighborhood. Most of the houses received new roofs. My insurance company told me mine was fine. Well, not really fine. It wasn’t damaged enough to qualify for much repair. However, bless their sweet hearts, they did decide I would need to replace it by the beginning of this year or they were going to drop my coverage.

That set off a round of meeting roofers, checking them out, selecting one, and working with him to arrive at the right choice of shingles. The company did an amazing job. Sent out two large crews and knocked out my house in a touch over one day.

The crew was very well organized, took the roof off in a manner that avoided any damage to our gutters and landscaping. And that brings me to my point. The owner who sold the job, was great at explaining all the roof’s features, etc. What he didn’t mention, or at least stress, were the items my wife and I were most concerned about such as the yard,  landscaping, and speed of installation.  Frankly, we wouldn’t let any contractor work on the house if we weren’t convinced they knew how to install the roof properly to avoid water damage over the long haul.

Guy and I see this sales behavior frequently. Salesmen not being in touch with their client’s true concerns and priorities. If you want to close more sales at higher margins, figure out what fears rattle your customers the most and explain how you are going to prevent those issues from arising. It is a sure fire formula for sales success.

It’s not to late to attend Pavement Live. This new concept for asphalt maintenance and paving contractors includes 10 live demonstrations, conferences and an exhibit hall with the latest equipment. I am proud to be delivering five presentations starting on Wednesday thru Saturday. Their will be an array of industry experts conducting many different classes.

I will be teaching the following classes at this year’s event:

Wednesday, November 30  9:00am – Noon

W4 Developing a Hands-on Strategic Plan for Pavement Maintenance Contractors

Wednesday, November 30  3:00pm – 4:30pm

A5 Repeat Sales: The Secret to Long-term Success

Thursday, December 1   8:00am – 9:30am

B10 Increasing Efficiency in the Field

Thursday, December 1  10:00am – 11:30am

B14 Profitable Pavement Maintenance Job Costing

Saturday, December 3   8:00am – 9:30am

D25 Gotcha! Attitude is Everything in Sales

Complete details are available at www.PavementLIVE.com or by calling 800-827-8009. I’m looking forward to seeing you!

I look forward to seeing you there!

Guy

I just could not wait any longer. Ignore the stitches in my nose. (you can hardly see them)

I have been coaching clients who seem desperate and want to go back to chasing every lead that comes in. It is obvious that this is a huge mistake for most of you. So in conjunction with our recent Time Management Blog we strongly encourage you to listen to our latest video blog Stop Chasing Your Tail.

You know what separates the super productive sales professional from the run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen sales professional?

DRIVE

Pure, unadulterated drive.

An unquenchable thirst for more.

More money. More success. More fame.

Sales drive is every bit as important as sales skill. Maybe more so.

If you are responsible for generating business, you need to fabricate an unquenchable thirst for meeting new people, exploring networking opportunities, and staying connected to your solid gold prospects.

If you are looking for someone to generate business for you, pay heed to your candidates’ greed. When it comes to selling, greed is good. It reflects drive. And selling drive is rarer than selling skill.

I was sorting through my pile of notes this evening and came across one that was an idea for a blog post. You would have more to read if I did a better job of organizing my blog notes.

People that interact with me daily (including Guy) often hear me say “That’d make a great post!” Then we get back to the business at hand and I forget all about the idea. Does this happen to you also?

Okay, onto the post.

While lunching with my old college roommate awhile back, he mentioned he was in the process of remodeling the upstairs of his home. Knowing Mark, I figured he had run several contractors through the mill and was quite demanding of the winner’s performance.  Turns out not so mcuh.

He mentioned his remodeler was referred to him by several people. I asked him what the referrers said he replied “They said  (1) he admits to errors and mistakes and (2) answers phone calls promptly.”

“What about the guy’s quality and speed?”

“All fine, of course. But the real selling points were that he was easy to work with, humble, and responsive.”

“Has he lived up to his reputation?”

“Oh yeah. Great to work with.”

There’s a lesson for us all.

Some customers are easy to please.

Keep them in the loop and treat them with respect.

Word of mouth may take care of the rest.

We hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend.

Ron & Guy

I am not referring to your stock portfolio or retirement account!

I am asking if you have CHECKED your investment in your clients, prospects, networking alliances and employees. In an upcoming newsletter we will be giving you a systematic process for GROWING these investments.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletter and complete the verification process.

Don’t Miss It!

Guy and Ron

Just got back from a client’s office last night. My partner and I have been working with the owners for a little while and had been struggling to get financial information on their business.  Our clients have been trying to get us their data but it just wasn’t showing up.

Now, maybe you can run your construction company without proper financial management but few can. Fortunately for our client, they’ve been able to get away with it. They’re in pretty good shape. How good of shape they’re in is still up in the air, but they’re not hurting.

Their struggle with their accounting service is common. In my mind, a professional accountant should ensure:

1. Their client understands the story told by the financial statements.

2. Their client is looking at the proper interim reports to ensure income is out running expenses.

3. Their client receives timely information.

Our client’s outsourced accounting team had not achieved any of these three objectives. To be honest, client was helping the situation any because they hadn’t set clear expectations for their accountant. We are correctly that quickly.

The owners have been focusing on work schedule, work quality, and customer satisfaction. And they have been keeping their customers exceedingly happy in doing so.

Luckily, their gross profits were big enough to keep their financial house in order.

All we have to do is set their expectations higher.  Their actually quite lucky in that their accountant can meet their needs. Often, contractors discover their accountant is just not cut out for construction accounting.

Can’t tell you how many times I recommended that my clients change CPAs. They just weren’t performing the role my clients needed.

Is yours?

Is your CPA providing the coaching and reports you need to KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT your firm stands on solid ground?

If not, go hunt down one who understands construction, contractors, and their role in helping you become a financial management ace. If you can’t find one, get in touch with me. One or more of my contacts may be able to help you.

Until we next chat…

Ron

So sad but true.

“I paid for new. It should be perfect.”

Bet you’ve heard that one more than once.

The expectation of perfect quality is a plague that’s been thrust upon commercial contractors by design teams. They got away with it for years but lo, the boomerang came back to knock them senseless. And boy are they paying for it financially.

Home owners came to their expectation of perfection all by themselves. They are paying hard earned cash for work around the house and they want to make every dime go as far as it can. They don’t understand how darn near impossible perfection is and few contractors have the backbone to tell them.

I saw this coming back in the early 90s when I was working as a design engineer at an MEP consulting firm. Unfortunately, it has come to pass.

When designers (primarily architects) pitch their services to developers and owners, they try to convince them that if the owner hires their design team, they will create comprehensive construction drawings and specifications that will force the contractor to build the building properly (i.e. perfectly). The ids have been doing this in their never-ending fight against the design-build model.

All that it has achieved is to convince owners that they DESERVE and are paying for perfection.

Naturally, the boomerang that came back to knock design teams out was when the owners starting charging them for the cost of errors and omissions (that’s the exact trend I saw developing and ran away from like someone yelled “FIRE”).

Here’s the message contractors should learn: competing on quality is almost a waste of breath. Perfection is EXPECTED. In this day and age, nobody would hire you if they thought you would deliver anything less.