I used to get so frustrated many times when I would go on estimates and the customer would say, “we have another company coming to give us an estimate.”
And many times they would even name them and I’m thinking in my head, oh my goodness, these guys they don’t do great work.
And I know that we provide a better experience. I know our team will take care of their home, their property.
And I know that nobody cares about them more than we do. And it used to frustrate me because we would miss out on projects.
The guys that work $2000 or $3000 and $4000 cheaper than us were not going to provide the level of service that we were.
…and that’s just a really polite way to put it!
I really got to thinking about this. I wanted to prove it. So I know that testimonials help.
Jeffrey Gitomer said,
“if you say it, it’s bragging, but if others say it, it’s a proof.”
I used to carry a binder around full of written testimonials, but I noticed that nobody would really read them.
April and I came up with this idea to start recording video testimonials. And in fact, she got the very first one.
I remember it was on a Blackberry Peral. A pink one even.
The audio was bad, the video was bad, but we did it and most importantly, we got started!
Once we captured a few video testimonials, I would get to the estimate and would meet with the prospect, and listen to the full scope of work needed to be done.
We go through the whole DYB Sales Process, and we’d get to the point where we were ready to ask for the job,
(which is very important. I trust that you are all asking for the job.)
And maybe they would say somebody else was coming to also provide an estimate, I would say,
“If I could prove to you that our crews provide a better experience, would you be interested?”
They always said yes, because how can you prove that?
The second question I would ask was,
“would you agree that most people are not comfortable speaking on video?”
They would say, “Oh yeah.”
I would have this ready to go on my iPad Mini, and I’d say,
“Given that we still have all these video testimonials thanks to the experience out crews provide.”
And then I would scroll through those. I said here, please take a look. You may see somebody that you know and please watch as many as you would like.
And so they would look at it and then right there, boom visual social proof.
So these weren’t made up letters, written testimonial, these are real people telling real stories about their experience with our painters.
After that, I would turn and I would pull up my Basecamp2 production calendar. And I would show them our schedule and I would say,
“I heard you say you would like to get this done in the next few weeks.”
I show them the scarcity of the calendar because there is not much room.
Then typically the wife would look at the husband and give him the nod.
And they would break out the check book and ask how much the deposit was to get on the calendar.
To recap you need to ask them these 2 questions:
“If I could prove to you that our team provides the better experience, would you be interested?”
They always say yes.
Then I follow up with the second question:
“Would you agree most people are not comfortable speaking on camera?”
So you ask those two questions, that’s going to set you up to prove that you provide a better experience.
Now just show them visual proof of your production calendar, and boom, you too are closing estimates on the spot, even if another company is scheduled to come out.
You’ve got this!