How to change your sales process that’ll allow you to 10x your prices with half the effort.
On today’s episode Russell talks about getting quotes on construction projects and the frustration that comes with waiting. He shares how those contractors could do things better and how that relates to his business.
Here are some interesting things to listen for in this episode:
So listen below to hear how to take control in your business and make your own rules.
---Transcript---
Good morning everybody. This is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing in Your Car.
Hey everyone, I just finished a near flawless morning routine, it was exciting. I woke up on time, I studied my scriptures, which, for me, is a big thing. Then, I did my supplements. I’m trying to process how to stack them to make me feel the best. When I just down a million supplements at once, I don’t feel like I’m taking over the world. I tried something where first thing in the morning, I get apple cider vinegar lemon shot, which is horrible, it’s really painful. Then, do my keto OS right then, along with my On It supplements. Then, do my study, then doing my morning workout. It was super dark this morning, it’s crazy. A week ago, when I was running, it was light. Now, it’s dark, so I did this stuff inside my wrestling room, which was fun.
Did a killer workout for an hour, did cardio really hard for 20 minutes or so, then switched over to weights, body weight stuff and heavyweight stuff, which was really fun. Then, came back in and did bone broth, this green drink thing, and my bulletproof hot chocolate stuff, along with the rest of my vitamins. Anyway, feeling good like that, breaking them up like that and then doing the stack that way. Anyway, feeling really, really good. Liking that, so I’m going to keep tweaking and testing that and try to keep perfecting this thing, which will be fun. Now, I am heading into the office. I had a thought today, as I was looking at vendors and how people have been working with me on different project in the home and things like that. I wanted to hopefully save some of you guys from yourself, that’s my goal for today’s message.
This is what’s been happening. I call a contractor or whatever, have them come out here. I’m like, “This is what I want to have happen.” I’m all excited, I have all this energy, and I’m showing them everything. They’re like, “Oh, cool, cool, cool. All right, we’re going to go home and build out a quote for you, and we’ll get back to you.” My excitement level drops a little bit, like, “Okay.” Then, they go home. Honestly, like a week, two weeks, three weeks later, they come back with a quote for me. They email me the quote in a state where I’m not longer pumped up, excited, and fired up. They email it to me, and it sits in my inbox. I look at it just really devoid of emotion, it’s got a whole bunch of things that mean a lot to them, but means zero to me. I’m looking over these things, and it’s so uninspiring.
So far, three or four people that have sent me these quotes back, I haven’t even responded back to them. What’s funny is that when I don’t respond back to them, none of them ever follow up again. They just don’t, that’s the end of it, and they lose my business. It’s crazy to me because some of these projects are really big projects that could make or break a company sometimes, I would think. A couple things I want to do is first off, I want to walk you guys through the process of if you are doing quotes, how do them right. Then, I’m going to walk through the process of how to actually do them better. Here’s how to do them right. When I am in the peak excitement level and I am going crazy, that’s the time you want to get me to commit. You don’t want to get me to commit three weeks later when I’m out of state, right? The biggest thing about sales is 90 percent of it’s creating the emotions so that when you ask them for money, they say yes. When someone has you over to their home, they’re excited, and they’re going crazy, that’s the time you want them to commit. That’s step number one.
Again, most times, you’re not going to know what it is right now, but man I would lock them in right now. I’d say, “Look, this project’s going to be pretty big, it’s going to be 20, 30,000 or whatever, could be potentially. I’m going to go find those things out for you, but I want to lock this in today. I know you’re excited, I’m excited. How soon would you like us to come out?” For me, I kept telling the guy, the most recent guy, I kept telling him, “My biggest concern in life is urgency, I want this done yesterday. I don’t really care how much it costs, I just want it done.” With that, it took him three weeks to get me a quote back, which is ridiculous.
I wanted it done in three weeks, so right then, he should’ve said, “Hey, how about this? Let’s lock this in, and say it’s going to be a lot. Let’s just say the first $10,000, because you know it’s going to be more than that, right?” I’m like, “Yeah.” “Okay, let’s lock this in while you’re excited and I’m excited. First $10,000, that means my guys will come out next Wednesday, and we’re going to start this process. It’s going to take me a while to figure out exactly what it’s going to cost, but it’s at least 10 grand. Let’s lock down 10 grand, you pay ten grand right now. We’ll get started, and I’ll have the rest of the quote for you later on. I guarantee it won’t go over 50,000, or 40,000.”
Or, ask me what’s my max budget, and I can say, “I’m looking probably 40, 50 grand.” “Okay, cool. We’ll make sure we don’t go over that. Let’s lock in 10 grand right now and let’s get started.” Now, you’ve got me as a client. Now, you sold me and got my credit card at the peak of emotional impact. I’m pumped up, I’m excited, I’m fired up, right? Not three weeks later after I’m annoyed that I still haven’t heard back from you. That’s step number one, step number two is getting money now, it’s way better than getting money later. Lock in, get some money now, and figure out the rest of it later. You don’t have to have 100 percent perfect quote, you just find out what their max budget is and tell them you guarantee it’ll come in underneath that.
Then, go back to work and spent your week, two weeks, or three weeks, whatever it takes, figuring that out, but get the process started. The biggest things that can cause people to cancel, refund, or whatever is that the process never gets started. They’re sitting around waiting forever. We had someone come in and do blinds, it took them eight weeks to get the blinds installed, just ridiculous. We didn’t hear back from the once. During that eight week period of time when I’m nervous, I’m waiting, I’m excited, I’m losing this, I’m getting frustrated, you should be calling telling me the status. That gap is when you go to be really treating them right. Those are some things if you’re doing quotes that I would really think about.
Now, I want to shift it around and tell you guys a better way to do it. The better way to do it is don’t do quotes. When doing quotes, suddenly, you are in a business now of comparison shopping. In fact, the guy that sent me the most recent quote, on the top of it, it had this big disclaimer, like, “If you send this quote to other people, we will bill you $250” or something stupid like that. You know what happens is you get a bill, I forward it to three other people, and they try to beat it. As soon as you give them a quote, they’re going to go comparison shop. It’s the dumbest thing in the world, you don’t want people comparison shopping, you want to flip it around and you want to position and posture the right way.
The way we do it is we position ourselves as the best, the most expensive, the hands-down best alternative on earth. One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy, said, “If you can’t be the cheapest option, there’s no strategic advantage in being the second cheapest.” Which is a huge, important thing. I’m dropping a piece of gold for you guys right now when you understand this. If you can’t be the cheapest option, there’s no strategic advantage in being the second cheapest. If you can’t be the cheapest, you need to be the most expensive. Position yourself as the most expensive, like we are the most expensive shop in town, but we do it the best. Go after the premium market, because again, either go after the cheapest, or the premium, but don’t be in the middle.
Pick the premium, then strategically position yourself in a spot where you are not easy to work with. It’s hard to get to you, they have to apply, and you change the whole process. That’s why my coaching program is application only. We don’t go out there and beg people to buy from us, we make them apply, we put them through a process to position and posture ourselves at the top of it. The top of the market, not the low price leader, or the second-to-low-price leader. If you can’t be the lowest, then you got to be the most expensive. We position ourselves that way, we make people apply. When they apply, now it changes the whole thing. No longer am I coming out and giving you a quote, you got the control in your hands, they’re applying and asking to work with you.
Now, that control is magically in your hands. You can increase prices, you can demand things, you change how the playing field is. A funny example, we had someone apply to join my Inner Circle program. They were talking to one of my sales guys, and they asked the sales guy, “Hey, can you send me a proposal for what this is going to look like?” My sales guy started laughing out loud, and that guy’s like, “What?” He said, “We don’t do proposals here, Russell doesn’t wear shoes at the office. If you’re looking for a proposal, you’re not the right fit for this program.” The guy apologized, “Oh, I’m so sorry. No, no, no, here’s my credit card number.” Completely just changed the thing. You have to understand that if you position yourself right and you posture the sell right, it puts all the power back in your hands, not in their hands, which is the the key.
If you put it in their hands, where you’re sending them a quote and then you’re waiting to hear back from them, you lost everything. You lost all your strategic advantage; you lost your ability to price things the way that makes sense. You lost everything, and it just changes everything. I hope that gives you guys some ideas, and this is going for any kind of business. I see way too often people that are sending out quotes, they’re putting out bid sheets and all sorts of stuff like that. I think it’s the dumbest way on earth to do business, all you’re doing is asking yourself … You’re doing all the work, putting in all the effort, then have someone go and price shop you.
Unless you do it correctly, which is really hard to do the right way, and most of you guys won’t do it the right way, I kind of mentioned earlier, then don’t do it. Flip it around, make it where you are the high end leader. You’re the most expensive, you’re so busy that you cannot and will not take on everyone. They have to apply and jump through hoops and they have to prove to you why they should work with you. When you do it that way, everything else changes. Now, you’re in the driver’s seat, and now you can run your business the way that you want to do it, as opposed to doing the way your customers want to, which is a big key that I want to instill upon you.
Obviously, we love our customers. We want to serve them at the highest way possible, but we also do it on our terms, not on their terms, which is key. As soon as you do it on their terms, your customers will eat you alive if you allow them to. It’s funny because some of the support guys on our team, what they always wanted to do is, “Hey, let’s go ask our customers what they want in a software program.” There’s a, I think it’s a Henry Ford or someone, quote, he said, “I didn’t ask my customers what they wanted because they would’ve told me they wanted a faster horse. We went out and built a car.” Same thing with us, we always say, “No. If we asked our customers what they wanted, they would’ve told us they wanted a cheaper version of lead pages.” That’s not what we’re doing, we’re trying to change the world here. We are the innovators, we’re the thinkers, we’re the ones that are thinking outside the box.
We love feedback, and we appreciate it, but at the same time, we’re building what we know is right. We’ve got the foresight, and we know where we want to go. It’s the same thing for you. Love, respect, and treat your customers the best you can, but you’ve got the set the policies, you’ve got to set the ground rules for how someone works with you. If you don’t set those rules, they will set them, and I promise it won’t be favorable for you, in the long run. It won’t make for a business relationship for you or for them, honestly. You’re going to resent them, and you’re not going to be able to serve them at the level that they need to be served at. Whereas, if you do it the right way, it’ll change everything.
Hopefully, this helps some of you guys. I remember when I first got started in this business, one of the first guys I got turned on to is a guy named Dan Kennedy, who I’ve mentioned a couple times. I went through all his training, which has probably skewed my thoughts a lot. I went through his time management courses, everything. He’s way worse than me, but he was very strict about those kind of things. If you want to message Dan Kennedy, you can’t call him, you can’t email him, you fax him. Actually, you don’t even fax him, you fax his assistant.
Once a week, his assistant collects his faxes, puts them in a FedEx box, FedEx’s them to him. He then gets those FedEx’s, once a week opens them up and hand writes the responses to them. Then, puts them back in a FedEx box and then back to his assistant, who then gets them, then faxes them back to you. It’s two to three week long process to get a response from Dan Kennedy. Some of you guys are like, “That’s ridiculous! Why should I do that? It’s so annoying!” Then, you’re like, “Man, Dan Kennedy’s the man. Look how are it is to get to him, I got to pay a lot more.” It’s just interesting. I don’t go as far as Dan, but I definitely do set my own rules, as should you guys as well.
Anyway, hope that helps a little bit. Thanks for letting me vent, share, and hopefully inspire you guys and give you some ideas on how you can run your business and how you can protect your own time as well. I’m going to be doing Periscope later on today on time management, some of the things I do. If you are on my Periscope, then come check it out. If you’re not, come follow me on Periscope. If you just go to blog.dotcomsecrets.com, you’ll get all the info there on all the past Periscopes, plus all the old Marketing in Your Cars, we archive them as well. All the Marketing in Your Cars, all the Periscopes, all the cool stuff’s being archived at blog.dotcomsecrets.com. Thanks everybody, have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you soon!