electrical business
“It’s always about money — until you make it about something else.”
That’s my number one rule when selling anything to a customer. And it’s this rule that I apply when I teach techs to sell products and services to all our customers.
So, how can electrical business owners get their technicians to sell services to their customers? By selling safety instead of just selling services? Safety is the most important part of any electrical product or service. Manufacturers of electrical products are highly regulated for safety, but electrical professionals are the ones who have the responsibility to make sure that those products are installed in the safest manner possible.
Our expertise is in our ability to look at; diagnose; and assess situations and circumstances from the perspectives of efficiency, reliability, functionality, and most of all, from a deep concern for the safety of all who utilize our services. Electrical contractors provide the highest level of safety training and awareness possible. Let everyone know your company is on a mission to provide the safest environments possible for its customers and their families.
Beyond safety, we need to sell value. I was frustrated in the past when my customers did not value my services and did not want to pay professional level prices for my expertise. What I found after years of research, study, and testing, was that my services are very valuable in the eyes of the customers when I offer them products and services according to their buying patterns.
By spending literally hundreds of hours watching people buy products and services at big box retail stores, fast food restaurants, and auto service centers, I became aware of the buying habits of almost everyone I do business with:
- People buy a lot of stuff
- People seldom, if ever, buy the cheapest stuff
- People make decisions fast when there are several choices
- People have very little price objection and almost no buyer’s remorse when there are several options to choose from.
The key to selling is to recognize these buying habits. Retailers have successfully done that for years by offering clear choices instead of trying to bundle and discount.
To model this in your own business, build choices for your customer to choose from based on your level of experience and expertise. You can replace a receptacle, but could you offer more services if the customer is aware of how much experience you actually have? Could you replace the receptacle safely and do proper testing, offering higher value? Maybe you can offer a higher value of service by replacing all the receptacles in the area? After all, they are all about the same age. Plus, most people want a color upgrade, so why not do them all at the same time? But wait, what about safety, how far does safety go?
Offer a higher value service to check all the wiring and terminations in the area, along with a complete service of the panel, including grounding and bonding and maybe also whole house surge protection. Give your customers different service-level options to choose from to follow their natural buying pattern. electrical business
The secret to selling is making it about something other than money and to give several options to customers to choose from. By looking at the situation through the customer’s eyes you can think, “How is this like shopping in a retail store? What options can I offer them?”
It’s not about you, it’s about how they like to buy. And, boy, do they like to buy. We created our menu pricing system with consumer testing and input so that we could consistently present our services from their perspective.
Remember: “It’s always about money — until you make it about something else.”
-Rodney Koop
electrical business
