Full transcript9 chapters · 9,786 words
00:00Writing eight principles broke in his sister’s basement
Brigham Dickinson: I was sitting in my sister’s basement, broke and desperate, when I wrote down eight principles that changed my life and eventually changed the trades.
Tyler Martin: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue-collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line with lessons and grit that pay off big.
Tyler Martin: Here’s your host, the Blue Collar CFO, Tyler Martin. Today’s guest is Brigham Dickinson, founder of Power Selling Pros. His story starts in a basement when he was at rock bottom. During that time, he wrote down eight principles that became the foundation for one of the
Tyler Martin: most influential customer service coaching programs in the trades. We’re going to dig into how those principles grew into a movement, why creating wow experiences matter more than polite service, and how to measure what really drives profit in your call center. If you run an HVAC plumbing or other home service business, this conversation will give
Tyler Martin: you the tools to book more calls, keep more customers, and build a culture that lasts. Let’s get going. Hey, Brigham, welcome to the Profit and Grit Show. How are you doing?
Brigham Dickinson: I’m well. How are you? Good to see you, Tyler.
Tyler Martin: Good. Nice to have you. I’m doing great. I’m super excited to have you here. I’d love to just learn a little bit more about you before we dive in. Could you share with me what you do professionally if people in the audience don’t know?
01:39Coaching CSRs twice a month on their own recorded calls
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah. So I own a company called PowerSelling Pros. And what we do is we train CSRs and technicians and we monitor their calls to ensure that they’re actually doing what we train them on. So we monitor their calls and we train them one-on-one
Brigham Dickinson: using their own phone calls twice a month. So it’s about a half hour per session. And it’s great. We get on the phone with them, see how the last couple of weeks went, talk about what their goals were. Obviously, if they remember those goals
Brigham Dickinson: and that they’ve proactively worked on those goals, we talk about those goals and where they’re at in the process of achieving those goals. And then we have them listen to a few of their own phone calls. And it’s really awesome. Have them listen to their own call.
Brigham Dickinson: And we usually just say things such as, well, what did you hear? And that’s where they kind of jump in and they go, man, I didn’t build value. Or I didn’t help the customer feel comfortable inside their own home with me there. Or I didn’t ask for the sell.
Brigham Dickinson: And we agree. And then we just practice together. We practice back and forth, get on the same page. the goal is to create a connection with the technician or the CSR to the point where they may look forward to these calls twice a month some call it cheap counseling but it’s absolutely
Brigham Dickinson: necessary in this world of anxiety and depression and loneliness that we tend to feel it’s a really good thing and we’re always focused in on great customer service and reminding the technician or the CSR that the objective is, is to not just do a good job, but do the kind of job that, uh,
Brigham Dickinson: will help you feel really, really good at night when you go home. And so it’s a lot of fun, super rewarding for everybody involved. And it’s something that we’ve been doing for the last 16 years. Uh, we started with about six people answering the, uh, answering, uh, our coaching
Brigham Dickinson: sessions or working with us on our coaching sessions. And now we have 1400 trainees in our
Tyler Martin: program. Wow. So I was going to say 900 was the last day that I saw. So you’re up to 1400 now.
Brigham Dickinson: That’s right. That’s right. It’s crazy. Yeah. A lot of people you’re helping. Yeah. It’s a lot
Tyler Martin: of fun. Very cool. Hey, okay. That’s great. So that’s good. Good starting point. How about
03:45His son’s autism diagnosis and the $3,500 a month therapy
Tyler Martin: something personal? Anything you want to share that maybe people don’t know about you commonly?
Brigham Dickinson: Well, I’ve got four kids. I don’t know if everybody knows that two boys, two girls. We, totally planned it that way. If you’d like to know how, just leave the question in the text box. Just kidding. Yeah. So my youngest son has autism. In fact, when he was diagnosed with autism,
Brigham Dickinson: he was 18 months old and we went to this place called Autism Journeys and they said, hey, you’ve got a chance at creating a normal life for your son, all for the low price of $3,500 a month. And what they didn’t know is that I had a business that just went under at the time.
Brigham Dickinson: And of course, I know that we’re probably going to be getting into this a little bit later. If that’s on your list of things, then maybe we’ll get there sooner than you’ve anticipated. But I had a business that just went under and it was a very difficult time.
Brigham Dickinson: And so when they told me the only way I could give my son a chance in normal life was to pay that $3,500 a month for ABA therapy and speech therapy, man, I was like, okay, so I guess I should go to a bank and rob it to give my son a chance at a normal life.
Brigham Dickinson: It was a super difficult time. But that was also the time where I thought to myself, there isn’t a job that’s going to pay me enough to put food on the table and take care of this family and take care of my youngest son’s needs.
Brigham Dickinson: And so I determined to start a customer service training company.
Tyler Martin: So you talk a lot about what we’ve talked a lot about the wow service and it’s more than just being polite. It actually is part of your eight principles that you put. Could you like define what is the like give some examples of what is wow experience in the trades?
Tyler Martin: How does that separate from a typical call?
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah. So when a customer gets on the phone, most of the time they’re feeling some sort of stress, right? They’re either frustrated, they’re concerned about budget. They are unhappy because it was a surprise. They’re feeling a certain level of stress. Now, there are going to be other calls that come in where it’s like a routine maintenance.
Brigham Dickinson: Certainly, hopefully, they’re not feeling any stress there. But many times when they call in, it’s demand service. And when it comes to demand service, you’ve got to be emotionally prepared and ready for that onslaught of emotions. And so what we like to do is we like to approach it with a super positive attitude, right?
Brigham Dickinson: You want to be super upbeat, positive. Why? Because positivity attracts people. So you want to have the mindset where you can handle it, right? You can handle whatever comes in. So what are you doing to work on your attitude? So we work proactively on ways to improve your attitude, whether it’s physical fitness,
Brigham Dickinson: whether it’s affirmations, whether it’s some lifestyle changes, those types of things. And then we get into confidence. When you come across as confidence, even if you mess up the script, it’s okay. That confidence will carry through, whether you make multiple mistakes or not.
Brigham Dickinson: So that confidence comes with practice. Lots and lots of practice before the phone rings. So we do a lot of practice in our coaching calls. And then of course, the third one is listening. We want to show the customer that we’re listening. Why? Because understanding invites connection.
Brigham Dickinson: We want to make sure that customer feels like they are being understood. We do that sometimes by restating, by rephrasing what they’re saying. They’re explaining that situation. You wanna make sure that you show them that you understand what they’re explaining. So showing them that you’re listening,
Brigham Dickinson: showing them that you care, right? Showing them that you care, reassuring them that they’ve called the right place. Asking the right questions. The customer has several human emotional needs when they call in. They want to feel understood. They want to feel cared about.
Brigham Dickinson: They wanna feel reassured that they’ve called the right place. They need those things from an emotional standpoint. And if you can take care of those things in the beginning of the phone call, you’re going to be very, very effective. And the same thing’s true inside the customer’s home.
Brigham Dickinson: Inside that customer’s home, if in the beginning you can create an environment of safety, of comfort, of fun. Of course, the best way to do this for technicians and comfort advisors is simply ask them, guys, how do you get kissed on a date?
Brigham Dickinson: Man, oh man, even if they’re married, you and I both know they haven’t been kissed in weeks, right? So when they hear that question, they’re attentive, they’re listening, right? They don’t need coffee anymore. Sure. And so I simply tell them, look, if your date feels safe and they feel comfortable and they’re having just a little bit of fun, chances are you’ve got a very good chance of getting kissed on that date. And of course, a smart alecate technician pipes up and says, wait a minute, you want us to kiss our customers? No, but I do want you to create an environment of safety, comfort and fun. And how do you do that? We’ve got to take care of their emotional needs at the beginning of that call. You’ve got to show them that you’re listening. You’ve got to show them that you care. You’ve got to reassure them they’ve called the right place. You do those things.
Brigham Dickinson: You’re going to take care of those emotional needs first, and they’re going to be very open to what you have to say. So our goal here is to create a buying environment inside the customer’s home as well as over the phone. And you do that by mastering the pattern for excellence.
Brigham Dickinson: Once you’ve created that environment, that buying environment, if it’s over the phone, they’re going to be willing to listen to whatever you have to say, right? And this is where you begin to build value. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to send out a technician.
Brigham Dickinson: He’s trained. He’s certified. He’s backed by our company.
09:07Earning the tour inside the customer’s home
Brigham Dickinson: He’s been around for the last three years now, so you’re in great hands. He’s going to come out. He’s going to look at the scope of the work. He’s going to determine exactly what you need, and he’s going to give you a price before he starts now.
Brigham Dickinson: It’s $99 for us to come out and do that. Of course, once you prove the work, we’ll waive that $99. Of course, that’s one way to do it. But that’s one way to build value over the phone. Now, the same is true in the customer’s home.
Brigham Dickinson: You want to go about it. Now, the goal is to earn the tour. What do I mean by earning the tour? Once I’ve created an environment of safety, comfort, and fun, hopefully the customer feels comfortable enough where they just say hey i want to show you
Brigham Dickinson: something follow me right now you’re working together and you’re doing all of your tests whether it’s a smart probe diagnostic whether it’s an electrical inspection whether it’s a venting an airflow inspection whether it’s refrigerant level check air filter inspection thermostat collaboration drain line inspection heat exchanger evaluation system optimization
Brigham Dickinson: regardless of the type of test you’re doing, as you’re going through, you’re educating the customer, the homeowner, why you’re doing that specific test. This is why we want them to be with us. Now, if for whatever reason, the homeowner says, you know what?
Brigham Dickinson: I got a couple of things I got to do. I got to be on a Zoom call with Tyler. You know, I got to go and do this other thing. You simply say, that’s fine. I’m going to do some tests. If there’s anything that I find
Brigham Dickinson: outside of manufacturer specifications, is it okay if I bring it to your attention? Of course, of course, bring it to my attention. So now you have permission to come back and talk about the results of all those tests that you do. And at that time, you can go through
Brigham Dickinson: each of those results that you find from the test. And you can still have the same effect with that relationship of safety, comfort, and fun. So you build the value there.
10:50Why he bans sorry, I understand, and at least
Brigham Dickinson: And of course, you’re grateful. And that’s how you create a wow experience, whether it’s over the phone or in the home.
Tyler Martin: So I want to peel this back a little bit because a couple of things caught me off guard as I was researching about you. So you’re feeling, and maybe this is dated, so feel free to correct me, but three things that you wouldn’t want a CSR to say.
Tyler Martin: One is you wouldn’t necessarily want them to say, I’m sorry. You wouldn’t want them to say, I understand, which oftentimes we’re taught to go, yeah, make sure you say, I understand what you’re saying, like to diffuse it almost immediately in a complaint setting in particular.
Tyler Martin: And then the other one is don’t say at least. Can we talk about that a little bit? Because I’m sure these are things that I bet you an untrained, I shouldn’t say untrained, but maybe someone that hasn’t gone through their program. This is like their standard language.
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, let’s start. Let’s start with I understand. What if the customer disagrees that you understand? So there are some times where the CSR and the homeowner have two different levels of income. And as a result, they have two different lifestyles. Sure. And so when a homeowner calls in and they have two furnaces and two air conditioners or what have you, and one isn’t working, sometimes that CSR may have a tendency to be like, well, why are you calling in so frantic? You still have another one. Just go hang out on the other side of the house. Right. They don’t say that, but their tone and their intent says that. Right.
Brigham Dickinson: And so that’s one reason. Let me give you another reason. Even though you may have felt it before, no heat, no AC, water coming up from multiple pipes, whole house electrical failure, even though you may have felt it before, you’re not feeling it now.
Brigham Dickinson: In addition to that, you may not have five kids screaming or your mother-in-law living in the house and complaining about the fact that there’s no power in the house. And so you don’t fully understand. And to a certain extent, we get into sympathy games.
Brigham Dickinson: In general, these three things come down to sympathy versus empathy. Well, what’s the difference between sympathy and empathy? Well, with sympathy, you feel sorry for that person. Sorry being one of the things we should not say over the phone. Because look, sorry is used way too much in our society.
Brigham Dickinson: And I tell people all the time, you bump into each other, you both say sorry. Why? You can both say, excuse me, but why are you saying sorry? You say sorry too much and it becomes a state of being. It’s a sympathy statement.
Brigham Dickinson: It’s like, oh, sorry about that. You’re not really sorry. And sometimes you’re like, no, seriously, genuinely, I’m sorry. Okay, cool. Find a more creative way to apologize. Right? Find a more creative way to feel with them in general. All right? So if they have a whole house failure,
Brigham Dickinson: you can simply say, oh, Gosh, that’s terrible. And guess what? They’ll agree with you. They’re going to say, yes, it’s terrible. And finally, somebody understands where I’m coming from because this is terrible, right? Now, some may argue, wait a minute, Brigham, but that’s negative.
Brigham Dickinson: Do you want to be negative over the phone? Time out, time out. Take a look at the emotion the customer is feeling. And their objective in sharing that emotion, describing that emotion, uttering the words to try and describe that emotion is to simply say, do you know how I feel? Do you know how I feel?
Brigham Dickinson: And all we need to do is recognize and validate how they’re feeling and simply say, I’m with you, right? I’m with you. I’m down in this hole with you, right? I’m carrying this load with you. And sometimes when somebody is really down and they got, you know, they’ve got, you know,
Brigham Dickinson: something that sounds like Job’s life that, you know, going on in their lives, you know, sometimes the only thing you can say is, you know what? I don’t know what to say. I’m just glad you told me. I’m glad you told me and you’re there with them, right? That’s empathy.
Brigham Dickinson: So the minute you get to the point where you start things like saying like, I understand, or at least, you know, silver lining the whole thing, or sorry about that. And even if you’re sincere, I wouldn’t say it. Get more creative in the way that you express sympathy. Things like,
Brigham Dickinson: that’s terrible. That’s horrible. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. Those types of things will help show that you’re there with them and it helps you validate what they’re feeling without coming across as insincere by being sympathetic.
Tyler Martin: So two big takeaways I get from here and listening to you and reading about you is one,
15:32The technician who fixes it before the customer feels heard
Tyler Martin: we’re trying to teach our CSRs to be more emotionally intelligent, be more aware of the people they’re talking with and how they’re saying things. And then the bigger one, or equally as big, is that attention to detail, which I think is missing so often in small businesses,
Tyler Martin: is we just gloss over and say, well, just answer the phone, you’ll do fine, just take the order, whatever. But there’s that attention to detail in terms of how you handle that call, oftentimes is glossed over. Do you agree with my two assessments there?
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, I would say in addition to that, the same thing holds true with the technician when he gets inside the customer’s home. He doesn’t say, I understand, at least, sorry, or anything like that. He just goes in and fixes it. Okay? Imagine you’re in a relationship and the spouse in your relationship begins to describe how she’s feeling.
Brigham Dickinson: And then you say, well, why don’t you do this? Trying to solve it. Well, why don’t you do that? Again, trying to solve it. What’s wrong with that?
Tyler Martin: I mean, it’s just getting too quick. You’re not really connecting with them. You’re not getting deep into what, you know, what they’re experiencing, what’s going on with them. You’re trying to get, I think this is what we deal with a lot in our personal lives,
Tyler Martin: is people want to instantly give you solutions. And sometimes that’s not necessarily what we want out the gate. We want to be understood first.
Brigham Dickinson: Exactly. Yeah. So when we’re telling the technician, hey, it’s doing this, it’s doing that, it’s doing this. Okay, well, I’ll fix it. No, no, no. Slow down. That’s not good. You’re right. That’s not, remember, the customer has an emotional need. They want to feel understood.
Brigham Dickinson: They want to feel cared about. They want to feel reassured, which means the technician needs to take time to feel with them. No, they don’t want it fixed. Now, the minute you say that to a technician, they’re going to say to themselves, what do you mean they don’t want it fixed?
Brigham Dickinson: No, bro. They want to be fixed first. In other words, they want validation. They have an emotional need. You need to attend to that emotional need. And this right here, Tyler, is one thing most sales trainers miss. They simply say to the technician,
Brigham Dickinson: bro, follow the script, follow the script, follow the script. But they don’t talk about the emotional need the customer has inside the home. And if you take the first 15 minutes where you are listening, you are caring and you are reassuring with that customer. 10, 15 minutes tops. You’re going to be amazed at how many times they say,
Brigham Dickinson: hey, I want to show you something. Follow me. That’s them saying, okay, emotionally, I’m ready. I’m ready. I feel understood. I feel cared about. I feel reassured that I’ve called the right place. Thank you. Let me show you something. I’m ready.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Yeah. I had a guy come over to my house last week. Our refrigerator is making a very loud noise and he just comes in, comes in. I obviously observe home service professionals, their behavior. And he just comes flying in a little bit late, no big deal. Stuff comes up, but he just
Tyler Martin: literally within like 30 seconds, he tells me what he thinks is wrong with the refrigerator. And I’m like, how do you know? And I just felt like, to your point, I just felt like he wasn’t really understanding the problem. It was just too quick. He may even be right. I don’t know.
Tyler Martin: But I didn’t leave feeling like, when he left, I didn’t feel like this guy really understood what was going on. I felt like it was more about just getting paid really quickly and maybe getting it right, hopefully. So I have another person coming out tomorrow to give me a second opinion because
Tyler Martin: I wasn’t really comfortable with the first guy. And I think had he followed like a process, like you said, where we had a little bit deeper conversation, it probably would have taken him an extra 10 minutes, but I think it would have made me feel a lot more confident and I probably
Tyler Martin: would have just moved forward. I really hope those who are listening to this podcast take that to
Brigham Dickinson: heart. You are exactly it. You’ve nailed it. This is what we do inside the customer’s home. I had the same situation. I have a fridge outside of my garage. And the first time I had an appliance guy come out, he looked at it and he said, oh, it’s just tilted forward. That’s why the fridge door
Brigham Dickinson: keeps opening every time you try to shut it. And so he readjusted it. He probably spent 10 minutes and left. Of course, I paid my dispatch fee. Fine. Whatever. I had a little bad taste in my mouth, but I was just like, hell, you know, it didn’t work before
Brigham Dickinson: and now it works and I got over it, right? Well, about a month later, something was wrong with the freezer. So I called in and I said, hey, I had you guys out to my house about a month ago and my fridge isn’t working again.
Brigham Dickinson: And she said, tell me specifically what’s not working. Is it the door that we fixed? You know, I felt like I was being interrogated and I said, yeah, it was the door. And now tell me exactly what’s not working now. and I’m just like, you know, she’s fishing for a dispatch fee. Who cares?
Brigham Dickinson: And so finally I jumped into her sentence and I said, listen, I don’t care about the dispatch fee. And she’s like, okay, good. I just want to make sure it’s clear that you will be paying another dispatch fee when we come out. I’m like, holy cow, this is the worst service ever.
Brigham Dickinson: Take care of my need. And my need is for you to help me feel understood, cared about, reassured, whether it’s over the phone or in the customer’s home, you’ve got to do that first. And you do that with the pattern for excellence.
Tyler Martin: That’s good stuff. Hey, I want to switch gears. So love the emotional intelligence part. I think that’s really key. I do want to talk about the number side. That’s what the show is about a lot. What are some numbers that we should be tracking
Tyler Martin: as it relates to CSRs? And the other part of this is like, what’s some back of the napkin type math that maybe you could help us with in terms of small changes can really have big impacts to the business.
21:09Getting call conversion from 42 percent to 70 percent
Brigham Dickinson: So let’s say that you got incredibly adept at showing the customer that you’re listening and that you care and that they’ve called the right place at the beginning of that phone call, whether it’s over the phone or in the home. If you get good at that, and let’s say,
Brigham Dickinson: according to Service Titan, the industry average is 42% calls versus set appointments. That’s horrendous. We can usually get them up into 70% just by showing the customer that you’re listening, caring and reassuring them to begin that call. So let me give you an example of how that might
Brigham Dickinson: sound. Customer gets on the phone, they say, hey, I’m looking for a ballpark price. Our goal, listen, care, reassure. So our response to that, I’m looking for a ballpark price. Great. Tell me more about your situation. What’s going on? This is me listening, right? Well,
Brigham Dickinson: I’ve got this air conditioner and it’s blowing hot air. My gosh, that’s terrible. That’s be caring. That’s terrible. How long has it been doing that? Last couple of days. Wait a minute. You’ve been dealing with this for the last two days. Yeah. My wife, she’s really upset.
Brigham Dickinson: I got to get this thing fixed. Well, look, we can’t have that. You’ve called the right place. This is me reassuring. You’ve called the right place. We can absolutely help you with that. When would you like us to come out? Oh, this afternoon would be good.
Brigham Dickinson: Now, Tyler, in the back of your head, you’re going, wow, it cannot possibly be that simple. It is because it’s emotional. It’s emotional. It’s not logical. Right. Okay. Same thing inside the customer’s home. If in the beginning of that phone call, you can create an environment of safety, of comfort,
Brigham Dickinson: of fun by doing the same exact thing. I’m looking at the notes here and the CSR said that you’ve got some questions about getting a new system. Can you tell me more about the system you’ve got? What’s going on? Well, it’s just blowing hot air. My gosh, that’s terrible. How long has it been doing that?
Brigham Dickinson: Last couple of days. Well, yeah, I’m looking at the notes here that you’ve had issues with it over the last couple of days. Something about some relationship issues that that’s causing. Is that just what I have here in my notes? Yeah. I told the CSR that my wife was really upset and
Brigham Dickinson: And it’s the truth. She’s really upset, man. I’ve got to get this thing fixed. Well, look, we can’t have that. Is she here now? I want to make sure that I’m able to answer her questions directly as well. Now, if they say no and they do, in fact, want to replace the system, I would want to reschedule it at that point.
Brigham Dickinson: Reschedule it. And if I’m a technician, I’d want to send out the comfort advisor to come out at that time so they can both look at upgrading their system and so on and so forth. But again, it starts with listening, caring, reassuring in the beginning of that call, whether it’s over the phone or in the home.
Brigham Dickinson: It is the same process and the same principles that you’ve got to follow.
Tyler Martin: So I do want to get into the numbers, but it’s something you brought up several times. I’m curious, that handshake between the CSR to the technician. So you give that same experience. How do you make sure, like, because I feel like that falls apart a lot,
Tyler Martin: where maybe you got one side that’s real dialed in and the other side isn’t. How do you ensure that handshake really happens so it’s smooth like that? Is there any words of wisdom there?
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, training and incentives. Okay. So you’ve got to train them. In other words, set the expectation for what we want to hear. And what I mean by what we want to hear is, is you better be recording the call. Yeah. Whether it’s over the phone, whether it’s in the home, we have technology now that will record both.
Brigham Dickinson: No excuses. Yeah. Everything is recorded. All right. So we provide the training. We make sure it’s all recorded and we provide the incentive for the, for the, uh, the performance. Right. the best practice. Once they demonstrate best practice, we provide the incentive. What’s the
Brigham Dickinson: incentive? Well, not just booking calls. And I would absolutely have some sort of bonus in place for a certain call booking percentage. We very often get our clients into the 90s. Wow. Calls versus set appointments. And the same thing with technicians. I would say
Brigham Dickinson: the opportunity for technicians, Tyler, is tremendous. And what I mean by opportunities, if we in every call that we go to at least bring up the fact that it might make sense to upgrade your system and with the advent of mini splits it doesn’t matter if your system’s five years old
Brigham Dickinson: what if i want to control the air i breathe in this specific room what if in this specific room i want to be able to control the temperature this is a mini split market in fact every market is a mini split market now that we have the ability to control the air in one specific
Brigham Dickinson: room. And so to bring it up and to talk about it in every phone call, in every home visit is appropriate. It’s absolutely appropriate. Boy, we keep getting off on tangents, but they’re good and they’re healthy tangents. These are important tangents. So let’s talk about the numbers real
Brigham Dickinson: quick, unless you have any other questions about what we do inside the customer’s home.
Tyler Martin: No, that was beautiful. But it sounds like you’re saying some level of paper for performance type
Brigham Dickinson: model you’re a big fan of? Yes. Okay, got it. Pay them for results, pay them to demonstrate best practices. And if you do that, if you compensate them that way, you’re going to be
Tyler Martin: very, very happy with the results. Yeah. So throw some numbers at me, some metrics, key numbers that you think are important that we should be tracking in this area.
Brigham Dickinson: Let’s start with the simplest one. Okay. So if we can increase call conversion, industry average is 42%. If we get it up to 70, and if you do those three things I just talked about. Yep. Show the customer that you’re listening, show them that you care and reassure
Brigham Dickinson: them they call the right place. If you do that, begin the call, whether it’s over the phone or in the home, man, you’re going to be very successful. So let’s say that we get it up to 70%. Let’s say that you start out at 60%. Let’s say that you’re better than average calls versus set appointments
Brigham Dickinson: in your industry. Congratulations, you’re at 60%. We get you up to 70% using those three principles alone, listening, caring, and reassuring. Okay. So this is how Tommy Mello likes to do it. What he does is he takes a company’s top line revenue. Okay. He takes top line revenue and he says,
Brigham Dickinson: okay, cool. What’s times it by 0.01. So let’s say that your top line revenue, let’s just go with the average size of heating and cooling company today. Let’s just say it’s 5 million and that might be a little bit better than average, but this is like my average type of customer. Okay.
Brigham Dickinson: Some are a whole lot bigger, some are smaller, but this is my average customer. Okay. So I take 5 million, I times it by 0.01 and I get $50,000. Now what we do is we go, okay, so if I’m at 60% calls versus set appointments and I want to be at 70, I just take that 50,000 and I times it by 10.
Brigham Dickinson: It’s an extra $5,000 a year. Okay. So essentially a 10% increase in call conversion to a company that’s a $5 million shop is worth half a million dollars. Wow. Yeah. That’s big dollars. It is big
Tyler Martin: You don’t have to make the phone ring one more time. Everything can stay the same. Your marketing can stay the same. The operations can stay the same. If you just increase call conversion by 10%, a $5 million shop can make an extra half a million dollars.
Brigham Dickinson: Okay, so I know I’m getting off on the tangent here, but this is going to be a short one. You brought up recording calls. I’m a big fan of that. Used to do it in another company that I sold. You can learn so much.
Brigham Dickinson: I’m curious, when you hear those calls, for the first time, someone that hasn’t been trained through your system yet. How often do you cringe?
Tyler Martin: More than I’d like to admit. Yeah. Because listen, let’s just start over the phone. Usually when the customer starts over the phone, they’re explaining their situation and their CSR responds with, all right, let me get an address. Time out. I have this air conditioner.
Tyler Martin: It’s blowing out of air. My daughter, she’s four months old. She can’t go without AC. I’ve got people coming over this weekend. We were planning on going into Disneyland, but I can’t afford it now. I’m probably going to have to get a second mortgage to pay for this new air condition. I hope I don’t have to have a new
Tyler Martin: air condition. I’m really concerned about what’s going to happen. Those are all the things that they say, right? And more over the phone. And we respond with what’s your address or even worse, where are you located? Wow. Wow. Here’s what you said there. Where are you located says,
Tyler Martin: hey, I may not be able to work with you because you might be in the wrong service area or outside our service area. So now in the beginning of the phone call, right out of the gate, You’re casting doubt on whether or not I can help you.
Tyler Martin: Remember, I have an emotional need to feel like you can help me. And you’re going completely against it, right? I need to feel understood. I need to feel cared about. And you’re asking, what’s your address? Why? You want to send me direct mail?
Tyler Martin: What’s going on? You know what I mean? So same thing inside the customer’s home. I’m going to spend some time out here at the condenser. And then we’ll take it from there. What are you doing? Two thirds of the system is inside the home.
Tyler Martin: Get in the house. Start there. Start at the thermostat. But even before you start at the thermostat, you want to start with the customer. All right, I’m looking at your notes. I noticed that you’re concerned about some indoor air quality. You’ve got a son with asthma.
Tyler Martin: How long has this been going on? What’s it been doing? How long has it been doing? Wow, how long have you been doing that? Oh my gosh, wow, I can’t imagine. Oh, that’s brutal. Well, look, you’ve called the right place. This is something we do day in and day out.
Tyler Martin: I can absolutely help you with this. I’ve been in the business for this long. Da, da, da, da, da, right? You got to do this first.
Brigham Dickinson: That part where you go, so it’s the listen, care, reassure that you’ve called the right place. It sounds so like not a big deal, but when you’re on that other end and you hear that, and you’re already getting a warm feeling from the person that’s caring and listening,
Brigham Dickinson: it’s like, ah, it’s just like the whole, your whole tension starts to drop because you want that confidence of you’re talking to the right person. And if it’s followed up with the listening and the caring, it’s just as powerful. I know I’ve had it both.
Brigham Dickinson: I’ve done it and I’ve had it happen to me. And it just, it changes the whole course of that conversation.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. If you want to just be a plumber, you keep doing what you’re doing. If you want to be the customer’s plumber, you’ll do exactly what we’re talking about.
30:49Selling service agreements at $20 flat commission per sale
Tyler Martin: Yeah.
Brigham Dickinson: Good stuff. Okay. Just want to wrap up on this metrics. What would you say? I have service agreements sold would probably be in those metrics. Would you say that’s the next one you look at? Or what would be the maybe just time for one more that you’d want to talk about?
Tyler Martin: Yeah, let’s talk about service agreements. Okay. So the best time to sell a service agreement is when the customer is feeling the most emotional angst. And what do I mean by emotional angst? Well, when they find out their air conditioner isn’t working and they’re feeling it,
Tyler Martin: that’s when they’re feeling the most emotional angst, right? That angst, that anxiety, that frustration, that, right? You know, those deeper emotions that throw things out of whack. You’ve got to take time off work and, you know, you’re not sure what it’s going to cost.
Tyler Martin: And all those feelings, all those emotions, and they call with all those emotions. That right there is the best time to sell preventative maintenance. Why? Because it prevents things like this, the thing that you’re dealing with right now from happening. So it’s very simple.
Tyler Martin: You follow the pattern for excellence. You book that call. You wow that customer. at the end of that call, you simply say, hey, Mr. Jones, I’m looking at your notes. I noticed you don’t have a membership with us. I’m wondering why not. And you just get them talking about it.
Tyler Martin: Now, it’s a numbers game. If you do this on every phone call, let’s say that you take 30 phone calls a day as we play with metrics here, right? Let’s say you take 30 calls a day and 20 out of the 30 say, oh, I’m good. I don’t need preventative maintenance. And you’re not going to push it
Tyler Martin: too much over the phone. You’re simply going to say, that’s all right. If you change your mind, talk to your technician about it. That means that 10 out of the 30 every day say, well, what is it? What is preventative maintenance? I’m so glad you asked.
Tyler Martin: It prevents things like this from happening. Come out in the spring, come out in the fall. Make sure your system is running at peak efficiency. It’s a really good deal. It’s $25 a month. I can get you going on it right now. Let’s say that two out of the 10 decide to move forward
Tyler Martin: right there over the phone. Simple enough. You get the credit card information. Let’s decide that we’re going to pay our CSRs $20 per service agreement that they sell. Now, some people are going to go, oh, that’s too low that are listening to this.
Tyler Martin: And others are going to say, oh, that’s too high. Guys, pay them whatever you’re going to pay them, but don’t pay them a percentage because they can’t calculate that. They can’t add that. I don’t want to guess what I’m going to get on my paycheck every month.
Tyler Martin: I want to know exactly what I’m getting on my paycheck. I want to be able to expect it. I want to be able to count it. So a flat fee, like a $10 commission, a $20 commission, a $30 commission, something easy and specific that I can keep track of myself.
Tyler Martin: That’s what you want to do there. So let’s say that it is $20 and I get two a day, which makes I make an extra how much a day?
Brigham Dickinson: I didn’t hear all your numbers. I apologize.
Tyler Martin: So we’re going to sell twice. Sorry about that.
Brigham Dickinson: That’s good. You caught me. Sorry. I was doing this fatal error thinking of my next question. Two service agreements. That’s okay. Two service agreements. I sell two a day out of the 30 calls that I take. Yep. And I make an extra $40 a day.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that’s easy. And you’re doing that five days a week if you’re working or whatever.
Brigham Dickinson: And what does that make me a week? 40 times five?
Tyler Martin: Yeah, if you’re 200 bucks, yeah.
Brigham Dickinson: There we go. Easy money.
Tyler Martin: And then let’s say 50 weeks out of the year. It’s usually 52, but let’s just say for the sake of simple math, it’s 50.
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, so we’re talking about $10,000 a year.
Tyler Martin: There you go. Extra $10,000 a year.
Brigham Dickinson: For doing the same job you were doing anyway.
Tyler Martin: Well, that you should be doing. Yeah. But you don’t do it because you’re not incentivized because you’re not being trained on it. You’re not being held accountable to it. Whose fault is that? The person that’s listening to this podcast. Yeah.
Brigham Dickinson: That’s good. I like it. It makes a lot of sense. Hey, I want to, I know we’re right up here on time. I do want to finish with two things.
34:25Letting AI take the first pass and moving CSRs to dispatch
Brigham Dickinson: One, I want to briefly talk about AI. You know, if I look at AI six months ago and I was talking into my client base, most of them were saying to me, oh my God, I’d never have AI answer the phone. It’s just never going to happen in my business.
Brigham Dickinson: now six months later, maybe this might be a year, but roughly people are saying, oh yeah, definitely after hours, maybe as overflow. My mind is thinking, gosh, if we’re progressing that fast, a year from now, people are going to be, oh yeah, I’m going to have them replaced. They’re just
Brigham Dickinson: going to be my CSRs. What’s your thought around that? And what I’d love to just know your opinion.
Tyler Martin: What’s your thoughts around that? Yeah, two things. Number one, I was listening to a podcast the other day and I heard somebody say something like this. I wish I could contribute it to them. But essentially it says, and if I brutalize this, don’t be mad at me, but it’s very simple. It’s,
Tyler Martin: if we don’t keep the human element in a customer-centric business, we won’t stay customer-centric for very long. The whole reason why PE groups got excited about this industry is because we were so customer-centric. We’re a very customer-centric business. And so what does that mean? Well, it’s like Chick-fil-A. You see, when you go to Chick-fil-A,
Tyler Martin: the handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast. And so the main problem they have at Chick-fil-A is getting people through the line. And so what they’ve done is they’ve doubled down on the amount of human personnel they have in that line, ushering you through it. So even if
Tyler Martin: you’re a mile out in that waiting line and there’s somebody there to take your order and you pay for it, guess what? You’ve now committed yourself to that line. And so that’s the objective is to get everybody in the line, no matter how many people are in it, to get through it. And they’re quick
Tyler Martin: witted, they’re trained, they’re super contented, or at least they seem that way. When you get to the window, you can say things like, wait a minute, do you really freshly squeeze that lemonade? And they don’t miss a beat, right? They simply say, oh yeah, have you ever tried it? As if we’ve never
Tyler Martin: tried it before. Next thing you know, we get this little cup where you can try the lemonade and You’re like, oh, wow, that’s very tasty. Give me an extra large like I had last week, right? And so you’re rolling and it’s, and it’s, again, it’s that handshake of the host that
Tyler Martin: affects the taste of the roast. It’s that, it’s that human element that makes customer centricity what it is, right? We’ve got to make sure that that customer centric fill is always there, regardless of what AI does. And so then the question becomes, all right, great.
Tyler Martin: AI is coming. It constantly gets better. What do we do? You know, how do we go about it? Well, let me just tell you some of the conversations that I’m having with my friends, even at the highest levels of service type, right? So we’re talking about PowerSlam Pros, what we continue to do and what our business model, our business plan is moving forward.
Tyler Martin: We continue to coach CSRs during the AI transition. We keep coaching those CSRs to create wow experiences over the phone, while at the same time, we help owners slowly but surely move over to AI as that first pass. Now, this will exclude the types of calls that are very difficult to book.
Tyler Martin: Say, for example, I just want to notice your charge to come out. I just want to talk to a technician and I just want to ballpark price. I won’t name an AI company, but they were saying at an event that they could book their AI could
Tyler Martin: book every call. So I said, cool, give me the number. And so they give me the number and I say, Hey, what do you charge to come out? Oh, we charge X. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Customer’s going to hang out. Okay. Hey, I just want a ballpark price. Oh, we don’t give prices on the phone. Okay. Thanks.
Tyler Martin: Bye. That’s two that they’ve lost. Right. And then I just want to talk to a technician. Oh, all of our technicians are in the field. Okay, thanks. So instead, the AI needs to be programmed to say, you know what, let me put you in touch with a live agent.
Tyler Martin: And you want to make sure that live agent is ready to book that call. So when the customer calls in and says, hey, I just want to talk to a technician. Great, we have a ton of technicians. Let me make sure I’m setting out the right one.
Tyler Martin: Can you tell me more about your situation? What’s going on? You see, I am trained and I am incentivized to handle that type of call. Whereas AI, it’s going to take a very long time for them to handle that type of call because it’s not just about what you say.
Tyler Martin: It’s tone, it’s intent. You’re going to modify what you say based on what the customer is saying and how they’re saying it. And so you need to know the principle behind the script, right? Principles such as positive attitude and confidence and listening skills
Tyler Martin: and caring and empathizing, those types of things. And so that’s number one, is make sure the AI is your first pass to the point that it makes sense, all right? The other thing is, is you want to make sure that the AI is stipulating that they are a robot.
Tyler Martin: Nobody wants to be tricked. Nobody wants to be deceived. So at the beginning of that phone call, and you guys, if it’s not in the laws yet, trust me, it will be. Nobody wants to get tricked into thinking that they were talking to a human when they were not.
Tyler Martin: So don’t you dare do that. In addition to that, it’s a great question. I want to make sure that I answer it thoroughly. So in addition to that, those CSRs, it’s okay to start transitioning some of them into more of a dispatch role, all right?
Tyler Martin: Shifting CSRs toward dispatch roles, monitoring reschedules. And here’s what I mean by that. The AI may see the schedule today as booked. Well, five minutes later, you’re going to have a customer call in and reschedule. It happens all the time. You’re going to have technicians call in and say,
Tyler Martin: hey, I’m done early in a specific area. Well, the AI just booked all of our calls for tomorrow. So what are you going to do? You’re going to look at tomorrow’s schedule. You’re going to keep today full using tomorrow’s schedule. It’s the way it works.
Tyler Martin: So we have a few more dispatchers. And trust me, with AI booking all these calls, there’s going to be double bookings. There’s going to be bookings at a terrible time where the customer is probably going to start calling other companies to see if somebody will
Tyler Martin: come out sooner. And we want to keep today’s board full. And so in order to do that, we’ve got to keep a very close eye on today’s schedule. And again, that’s how we play more of a dispatcher job as opposed to a CSR job. And so what’s happening, the CSR’s job is just kind of
Tyler Martin: transitioning into more of a dispatcher role. And so outbounding, we’ll likely have time to do more outbounding, which is great for us because we can sell more service agreements. We can sell additional services. If we have customers that are calling in for heating and cooling,
Tyler Martin: we have more time to call them back and say, hey, how was your experience with the AI? Number one, it’s a happy call. And number two, hey, I’m looking at your notes. I noticed that you’ve called us for plumbing a couple of times, but never once for heating and cooling.
Tyler Martin: Did you know that we offer heating and cooling services? As well as, hey, Mr. Jones, I’m looking at your notes. I noticed that we’ve worked with you several times and you don’t have a service agreement with us. I’m wondering why not? Do you see how this opens up kinds of doors for CSRs
Tyler Martin: right now. So it’s a blessing. AI is a blessing. We shouldn’t be afraid of it. We should embrace it where it makes sense. In-office job matching. So ensuring that the right technician is going to the right job. Even dispatchers pros not perfected this. And they won’t be for a long time. And so
Tyler Martin: you knowing your technicians better than the AI does, you can see one technician going to one job and another technician going to the other, and they should be flipped. You should have this technician going to that job and this other technician going to that job. And now you’re
Tyler Martin: booking for profits, right? You’re putting the right technician, matching the technician with the right job. And so those are all things that CSRs can be doing moving forward as the AI comes into play. In addition to that, now that we have the technology to record technicians and comfort
Tyler Martin: advisors, don’t just get the technology and definitely do not just rely on your manager to handle that technology by themselves. If I’m a manager, if I’m a service manager and I have 20 texts. That’s four jobs a day. Okay. A day, four times 20 is what? 80. 80 calls a day. You’re going
Tyler Martin: to look at all that data by yourself. No, you’re not. Right. Okay. You need help. You need help. And it’s okay to get outside help and to monitor those calls and provide coaching to those technicians and those corporate advisors on a regular basis. So embrace the AI. Don’t be afraid
Brigham Dickinson: of it. Good stuff. So I think my takeaway on that is this, the CSR’s role is definitely going to evolve. And just like a lot of times technology does, it allows us to actually get deeper in other areas and be more efficient in other areas and allow us to be more progressive in terms of that
Tyler Martin: role and what we can do for our business. Yeah. The worst thing we could do is for a CSR to sit
Brigham Dickinson: there, hear the phone ring and go, oh, the AI will capture that. Yeah. That’s how you lose your job.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Yeah. That’s good feedback. So I think I passed the math test for the most part today. I think there was only one I screwed up on. But other than that, I’m feeling pretty good coming into the end of this. So your website, actually, before I wrap up, do you have a mantra or anything you want to share that kind of keeps you grounded either as an entrepreneur or as a person?
Brigham Dickinson: Well, we talked about this a little bit before the podcast. I believe in God. Yep. And I believe that we are all sons and daughters of God. And I certainly believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Redeemer. and when things get rough for me
Brigham Dickinson: or things get, if I get a little fearful or even angry, centering back on what I believe is really important. A lot of people in our industry focus in on physical fitness and that’s certainly helpful. You can release a lot of different types of drugs
Brigham Dickinson: inside your body by, you know, whether it’s endorphins or dopamine or what have you to kind of regulate some of those emotions that’s smart, that’s wise. Also learning, you know, exercising that mind is going to be super helpful. But the one thing I think very few influencers
Brigham Dickinson: in the industry talk about is the spiritual aspect, right? We all have a spirit and it’s important to exercise and feed that spirit on a regular basis, just like you would your body as well as your mind. So that’s where I stay grounded is the spiritual aspect.
Tyler Martin: I love it. Hey, in terms of your website, so we’ve got powersellingprose.com. If people want to learn more about what your company does, what other websites would you like to mention over the podcast?
Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, so we coach CSRs and technicians. We also coach comfort advisors using their own phone calls. You can go to Power Selling Pros, P-O-W-E-R-S-E-L-L-I-N-G, pros, P-R-O-S.com. So PowerSellingPros.com. And there’s a demo link on there. Click on that demo link and you can schedule a demo with us
Brigham Dickinson: and learn more about how we coach CSRs and technicians. And as for the books, yeah, just go to BrighamDickinson.com and you can take a look at any one of the three books that I’ve published. Yes, three books, Pattern for Excellence, Pattern After Excellence, and Something to Give.
Tyler Martin: I’m about halfway into Pattern for Excellence. You write very well, easy to understand, love it so far. And I’m sure the other two are the same way. I think that’s it. I think we’ve covered everything. Can’t thank you enough for being on the show.
Tyler Martin: Just so many different, I could spend another half an hour with all the takeaways. So I really appreciate it.
Brigham Dickinson: Thank you, my pleasure.
Tyler Martin: here’s my takeaway from this conversation with Brigham success in the trades isn’t about adding more trucks or pouring more into ads it often comes down to the basics booking the calls you already have training your team to connect with customers as people and measuring what really
Tyler Martin: matters Brigham’s story shows that even at rock bottom focusing on principles and people can create a turnaround that lasts. Now, if you’re running a business and you want to know where you stand, whether it’s your booking rates, your cash flow, or preparing for growth, the best place to start
Tyler Martin: is with a clear financial picture. That’s exactly what I help trades owners do. Book an intro call at cfointrocall.com or cfomadeeasy.com. And thank you so much for listening. Have a great one.
Related Episodes
- Why You’re Losing Jobs After the Call Is Booked – Brigham Dickinson
- The Pay System Top Home Service Companies Use to Double Revenue – Ryan Shank
- Most Contractors Price Themselves Broke Without Realizing It – Danielle Putnam
- The Hidden Revenue in Your Pipeline You’re Not Capturing – Ryan Fenn
Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: Profit & Grit CFOs.
