Speaker 1: Welcome to the Master of the NEZ podcast, the ultimate
destination for anyone passionate about the electrical trade. Whether you're
a season electrician and eager apprentice, or just someone who
wants to dive deep into the world of electrical work,
You've come to the right place. Join your host, Paul Abernavi,
a true authority in the industry with over thirty eight
years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind with
in depth discussions, expertips, and valuable insights.
Speaker 2: That will keep you ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: Each episode, Paul will illuminate the complexities of the trade
de code, the National Electrical Code and share the latest
industry trends, all while empowering you to take your electrical
career to the next level. So hear up, plug in,
and get ready to supercharge your knowledge because with the
Master of the NEZ podcast, the power is in your hands.
Now get ready. Here is your host, Paul Abernavis. What up, everybody?
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Master the NEC podcast where
I talk to you about the electrical code career business
side of things being electrician and electric contractor. As always,
thank you for taking the time out of your day
to join me here on the podcast. Now you can
listen to this podcast from all of your favorite listening platforms,
but we've also started adding these podcasts for free over
on fasttracks Tube. So if you like our fasttracks program
and you love the layout of our Fasttracks Tube, which
is our exclusive delivery system for podcasts and videos, it's
unlike any other system, it's not like YouTube, it's totally proprietary.
Check it out over on fasttrackstube dot com or fasttrackstv
dot com as well. So check it out. We think
you'll like it, and it's easy to stream it and
listen to it straight from the phone, and it's mobile
adaptive means it changes to mobile view. Of course, you
could still always listen to our podcast from your mobile
device using our app. If you want to get our
apps available over on fasttracksystem dot com, you'll see it
in the navigation chain under info the info tab, you'll
see it talk about the mobile app. You can listen
from there if you want as well. But anyway, we're
glad that you hear. You're listening to the podcast from
whatever platform it is. And today we're going to be
talking about marketing a little bit and which you should
be doing as an electrical contractor. Now I get it.
Some of you are early in your career. You just
started into business and you're thinking, Okay, how do I
maximize my return on investment? And you've heard me talk
about cheap ways or low cost ways. I shouldn't say cheap.
There are low cost ways, very powerful ways to market
yourself by canvassing neighborhoods, flyers, using Vista print to create
certain things, and it's really targeting certain areas where you
have a higher potential return, especially if you're doing service work.
But today I want to talk a little bit about
some marketing, right you know, we're going to talk about
something that every electrical contractor should be doing in twenty
twenty five and a most certainly if you haven't been
doing it, you need to make sure that you do
this and create a marketing machine in twenty twenty six.
So you've got time when I'm recording this podcast. She
got about two months before the end of the year.
Got perfect time to set up a plan. Should always
go in the plan of attack, what you're going to
do for the next year. How are you going to
market your business? Promote your business? Be very frugal about it,
but again, know where your strength and weaknesses are. And
that's what we're going to talk about today is I'm
going to give you a pretty easy way to make
sure that when you do get that call, and you
retain that customer and you potentially use that customer's val
valuable feedback to help you grow your business. So you've
heard me talk in other episodes about the marketing approach
and how you would do that, flyers and whatnot, So
now we're going to do this one a little different.
This one or this episode is you've already captured the customer,
You're already doing the work you need to take it
and multiply the effectiveness of that ROI from each customer,
no matter how large or small you think they are.
You may be the grandmama who you think is not
going to tell anybody, but there is a positive way
to get a very impactful outcome to every visit, every
service call, every service change, every receptacle replacement. Sweet, there's
a way to do it, and I'm going to talk
about that in today's episode. So now we're not talking
about ads and billboards. We're talking about using simple QR codes.
Customer views and smart timing to bring a real local
business boost to your company. Well, you know while you're
already there, Well you're already on the job, and it's
so simple that we can obviously you can teach your
technicians to do this. You can do this, and you
really do need to work this into your profile for
your business. I'm just saying, it's a dog eat dog
world and you have got to be cutting edge and
sometimes the simplest approach can give you the biggest yields
or reward. Okay, so let's grab your coffee, get your
conduit vendor. Although we're not going to be bending any
condo it today. Get it. Let's get ready to dive in. Now,
as always, we're gonna do this in segments, and so
today's episode, we're gonna break it down into six segments
and then we'll have a closing. But we're gonna break
it down and I'll elaborate on each one and kind
of give you some tips and ideas on how you
can build your plan for the next year. Now, we're
not gonna be talking about how you do your neighborhood marking,
your canvassing and that type of thing. We're gonna focus
more now on the acquisition. You've already got the customer,
you're going out, you're doing the work. How you can
take that customer that you worked hard for, all that
effort you did, and now magnify it. Okay, we're going
to show you how to do that today. And it's simple,
simple approaches, very low cost approach to do this. Now.
That should go without saying that. We've done other podcasts
that talk about negotiating skills, how to work with a customer,
how to overcome problematic calls, how to be confident in
your pricing, how to stay firm, be professional, and all
this stuff. Assuming you listened to all those and you
understand these concepts and your company is kind of training
yourself to be more soft skills approached, to be the
smile and do be very tactful in how you address
things rather than being escalated into a very unprofessional situation
where you're arguing with your customer or you're coming across
as more arrogant than you need to be. We would
talk about that another episode, so I encourage you to
go to our podcast and listen to those other episodes.
But today let's let's let's talk a little bit about
the empowerment of truth in market share and return on
investment and all this kind of stuff. So let's start
out with segment one, and this is the power of review.
So let's start with the truth. It's undeniable that word
of mouth has gone digital. It used to be that
your neighbor would tell a neighbor, a neighbor would tell
somebody else, you know, and the word of mouth was golden.
Now it could also be a double edged sword. You know,
you you you don't understand how to deal with a customer.
You come across wrong. You're not professional. You breach this
this thing with this you know, people say you can
only make one first impression. Well that's true, but you
can actually recover from a bad impression if you understand
how to do it, and we teach you that in
soft skills courses that we offer. But at the end
of the day, you have to understand, if I start
out with a good impression, I do everything professional, then
word of mouth is amazing, whether it's digitally or it's physically. Okay,
somebody tells a neighbor, somebody tells a cousin, a friend,
a brother, a sister, a mom, a dad, whatever word
of mouth is still king. But at the end of
the day, when someone you're in town types electrician near
me in Google, they're not just comparing prices. Okay, I
don't know if you're aware of this, and people think
that all price always wins, No, sir, that is not true.
A professional looking website, a professional looking Google, Yelp, or
being site with relevant information, references, referrals, all that type
of stuff is sending a bigger picture. These days, it's trust.
And trust is built with reviews. Okay. Now I have
people out there that say I don't need any reviews.
I'm doing fine. You may be doing fine, But if
you're somebody out there that wants to take your business
to the next level, you want to you know so
many multiply x values and really grow your business in
a local community and be that go to person for
anything that's relevant to what you do. Then you need
to build the community trust, okay, and building reviews. I
use reviews. I go to restaurants now, I give restaurants
a second chance. Okay. I might go somewhere and get
a bad experience, but I get great service. Maybe I
have bad food, but the service is great. I'll give
them another chance. Okay, that's just how I am. So
and I could have a good server take a bad
experience with the food and turn that in from a
five star into a three star with a caveat that
maybe I'll give the food to try next time. But
it's all about the experience, right, and reviews are taken
that way. Every five star review pushes you hiring Google
being in yell results, Folks, I don't know whether you
knew this or not, And it only takes one bad
review to tank you, okay, And so it also builds
credibility when someone checks your page before calling. And more
and more people today are just going to search engines,
Google being all of those and just typing electrician near me.
And again, those reviews matter, especially if you're somebody just
starting out or you're trying to grow your business. You
can be focused on this upfront. And if you don't
have a plan of attack and you haven't listened to
my other podcast to talk about how to avoid confrontation
and then turn that frown upside down and actually get
a repeat customer out of it, you need to listen
to it. You need to go back and check it out.
Because there's some powerful stuff in those episodes. Because what
we want you to do is that not every call
may work out perfect, but there is always an opportunity
to leave that project, or leave that job, or leave
that home, or leave that customer feeling like they're compelled
to give you a five star review. Whether you ask
them specifically for a five star review, don't be afraid
to ask, but make it worthy of their experience. You've
gone there, You've given them a good experience. You look
the part you explain to them. I always tell people,
give us summary of what you've done before you take
money out of their hand. Let them know what you've
done for them and that you appreciate them. Don't be
afraid to say that your local business and that the
reviews mean a lot, because it's how you grow your business.
And again you're a small business, that type of thing,
it's important that you go out of your way. People say, well,
people don't want to hear all that. They do want
to hear it, and I only want to interject this
into their life for a short amount of time to
get what I need to help my business grow and
then have them have that lingering taste in their mouth
of a good experience. Okay, so again, don't lose sight
that every five star review pushes you hiring, Google, being
and Yelp results. It also again builds credibility because people
do check those. Okay, but here's the problem. Here's a problem.
Most contractors wait for reviews that never come. The customers
love your work for forget to leave a feedback, You
leave the job, life moves on. Guess what, You never
get the review. And it's almost one of those things
like we talk about the zig zigular approach to sales.
You've heard it. You're never gonna get the sale if
you don't ask for the sale. You're never gonna get
the review if you don't ask for the review. I'm serious, folks.
You've got to stop being shy, stop being assuming that
you're gonna get a review. You got to be very direct,
but do it in a humble way that approaches the
fact that you're trying to grow your business and they matter,
the customer matters. And I'm not gonna tell you what,
but you may think that you're getting a service call,
let's say, and you're getting one set price that you
think that that actually, I mean, this is a mental approach.
This is a mindset, folks. You think that that one
money that you just made is the gold mine to
the end result, it's not. It's that rating. The money's great,
it pays the bills. The rating helps bolster that return
on investment. Other people see this okay, and how you
do it, how you approach it, and will talk about it,
how you to direct the customer to do it while
you're there. It's going to also put that knowledge in
their head that you needed. You're a business that needs them.
They made their value to you. They're not just another customer.
They're going to go out of their way to tell people.
They're going to go out of the way to share
a good experience with somebody else. And during that discussion,
there's ways that you can do it to overcome any
reservations they may have. So maybe you had a bad impression,
You've worked your way back. You're getting it good impression.
Everything seems happy. There are certain things that you can
do at the end before you take that money that
can take a four star and turn it into a five,
all based on how you interact with the customer. There
is a way to do it, folks. So look here's
the problem. Again, if you don't ask for it, you're
not going to get it. So we're going to talk
a little bit about method that I use and I
teach with other people. I teach with my brother. Is
a QR code method, the simplest method to do it,
and it's a way to do it while you're there.
So here's my first tip for you. Never ever leave
a job site without planting a trail of digital bread
crumbs that lead back to your business. Folks. I'm serious.
Every panel you do service work, you put a business
card in there with a QR code on there so
they can scan it so that they can if they
have an issue, they open it up and they know
exactly what electrician to call. Leave your fingerprint digitally bread
crumbs on everything every opportunity you can. I'm serious, folks.
That's the first key. Okay, Now we're going to talk
about QR because we came up with a unique way
of doing this that's pretty cool. And we do laser
hat or it doesn't have to be a hat, by
the way, but they're designed for hat. We do these
metal hat clips. They're availed on all different kinds of colors.
You can get them. If you engrave. You have an
engraving service, you can do that, if you do your own.
If you have a laser engraver, we sell them on
our website fastracksystem dot com and we will engrave your website.
We will engrave a link tree page that you may
have your being, your Google or whatever that they can
click on while you're there, or if you just do Google,
then you can have a QR code that goes right
to your Google page review page, just like I did
for my brother. Okay, so we engrave these on these
little clips that go on their hat, and every technician
should have one right and that code will directly link
you to the Google business profile, being pro file, YELP profile,
or you could have it go to what's called a
link tree for free. You can get link tree for
free and there you have all three of them. And
what you can do also is if you want to
offer a discount, you can offer five dollars off for
everyone that they give you a five star review while
you're there. That way they're going to get an instant discount.
They could get fifteen dollars off their bill, five dollars
off each who doesn't turn away free money. And if
you make it so easy for them for them just
to scan his QR and click and tap it and
it goes right to where they can give a five
star review. We don't care if they want to put
in any comment or not. I just want the five stars.
If they want to give comments, that's great, But you
want the five stars, okay. So anyway, there's a way
to do it. Makes it simple, that type of thing.
But we use, we believe in a QR code. Now.
My brother just goes to his Google profile because that's
all he uses, even though he won't listen to me
when I say, you need to make sure you have
your Yelp, a being and a Google on there. But
Google's the predominant at once, so that's who he chooses.
I use Yelp a lot, so you make sure they're
in Yelp. That type of thing. But anyway, this is
easy stuff. Now. I don't want it where they have
to type it in. That's your first tip. I do
not want it to them to have to rely on
them to tip something in because people go, I don't
want to do that, and those you oils are usually
pretty long. Make it as easy as possible Okay, now
use it like a pro I do not want if
you're gonna be going after the glistenings in the five
star ratings. First of all, if you have a website,
do me a favor. Don't link it for this approach.
Do not link them to your homepage or your website
because it gets too confusing. Do that on something else.
Do that on a business card, Do that on something
that you you know, whatever, you know, you can have
a business card with with with that on there. If
you want to put that on there because you don't
need a review, you already got it. You put that
on their their panel, tape it on their panel. Whatever. Okay, stickers,
get stickers made up, whatever. Don't have them go to
your homepage because it gets too confusing. So don't send
the customers to your web page. They'll get distracted and
they won't take the time to search for where they
would leave a review screen. It's just too much. Keep
the process what I call friction free. If you use
like link service, you know whether again whether like I
said with mine, I use link tree, that type of thing,
but have it go to a simple URL that is
immediately where they're going to be able to put in
a review, whether it's Google, being Yelp, whatever. Okay, Now,
if you use a service like link Tree, then you
can have it where all three of them are there,
and so you can say, dude, you got an opportunity.
While I'm here, while I'm working out your invoice, you
can get five dollars off if you give me a
five star on Google, being in Yelp, we'll give you.
And they say, well, I want to give you a
five star. That's okay. I mean that's their progative. But
if you've worked it right, they shouldn't have any problem
because who doesn't want money off? You really want the review, folks,
You really want the review. And it is worth it
for me to get three five star reviews. Okay, it
trusts me. It's well worth the discount you're going to
be given the customer. Okay, but you have to make
it as painless as possible. They won't do it. Okay. Now,
also physically hand them the QR code, which in our
case it's on our hats. It's a little cue. You
I've seen me in some of my videos. You'll seen
the little QR code that's stuck on my hat. So
while you're finalizing the invoice and you're working and explaining
how things work. Are you doing the summer? You can say, hey,
if you were happy with the service today and you
don't mind scanning this real quick, leave us a short review.
We'd love a five star review. It really helps out
our business. Okay, it really helps our small business grow.
Don't be afraid to say I'd love a five star. Okay,
don't leave it up to because people have a tendency
to not want to give people five of anything. You know.
I had one guy say one time he was doing
a safety re and it was for work at Encore,
and I was doing it and I was talking to
one of the vps about this and I was giving
an employee that worked for me, and I had given
him five stars for safety and because he's every time
i'm with him, he's safety protocols are great. He wears
the herd steeltoe shoes and work you know, doesn't use
open knives and he's great. And one of the supervisors said,
or the VP said, we never give five stars for
safety because there's always room for improvement. That may be true,
but that's bullshit when it comes to this, I want
a five star freaking review buddy, and I want to
make sure that I go out of my way to
give them the service to give them that. I want
to be open with them. I want to be explained
the summary. Hopefully you listen to my other podcast, I'm
explained what I did today, why my price is. And
even if they have a negotiation or you have a conflict,
you can turn that frown upside down. You still ask
for a five star review and if they'll do it
right here, it's so easy. You can scan it, boom,
they can give the review right there, easy, pasy, simple.
And then you say, look, if you do this, I
will give you know, this discount all or whatnot? Now
how you work that? If you don't want to give
a discount, you still want to ask for review and
take the chance and get that's fine, but at least
try it. Okay, just try it, because at that moment,
right after the work is done, they're the happiest they're
going to be. It's golden buyer's remorse doesn't set in
until they go Jesus, I just paid four hundred and
fifty bucks to have my breaker changed or a surge
protected device put in. God no, get it now. Don't
wait for the review faery to come along and sprinkle
fairy dust on your review section of your listing. Okay,
ask while the satisfaction is still hot. To my friends,
there's a way to do it. It may take a
few extra minutes while you're there, it's going to reap
the fits for you because you want to grow your business. Now. Look,
if you've got twenty thirty forty electricians and you're the owner,
and you're like, I don't need to do that. I
make enough money. That's you. Maybe maybe I can't benefit you,
I can't help you, but I can tell you right now,
if I had thirty forty fifty employees, I'd be training
all of my employees to do this because you know
what I want hundreds and hundreds one hundreds and hundreds
of five star reviews, baby, because that's going to quickly
push my company up the ladder. And the more money
they make for me, the more money I make, and
the more money I make I can give more back
to my employees. I can share the wealth. And reviews
are a key to winning that field worth gold mine.
I'm just saying it is. You can sit there and
try to convince yourself it's not. That's fine, but I'm
telling you it is. Now, let's think about field strategy. Now,
when I say field strategy, this is something that we
have to train our technicians. We have to train the
people to getting five star reviews while you're there. Okay,
so here's the playbook. Okay, I'm gonna walk you through
the plub I make this as easy as possible for you, folks.
Step one, earn the review before you ask. Be punctual,
wear clean gear, Communicate clearly, finish strong, give a summary
of what if you did. Ask the customer questions and
use pauses and silences, and again get their responses that
they're happy. If the customer smiling when you're packing up,
you're halfway there, buddy. If they're offering you drinks, something
to drink, or something like that that they've already bought into,
you just learn how to work that customer. Hey, it
cost you nothing to be nice, prompt, courteous professional. That's
your job. You're getting paid. You get it now. Step
two ask personally look them in, keep it short and humble.
Say hey, if you were satisfied. A quick five star
review goes a long way. I really helps us electricians
here at the company who rely on local customers. It
helps our business grow, and we're here to serve your community. Right,
you're asking them for it now. In their mind they're
always they're alway thinking, yeah, yeah, i'll do it later. Whatever.
I've already set the tone what I want now. Some
people say that's not right. Don't ask for a five
star review. Bullshit, bull pooky. You ask for what you want. Folks.
How many of you been in an Uber car? And
then Uber driver turns around and says, I appreciate a
five star review. Why would I not give it? If
he gave me a good ride, good conversation, point A
to point B, got me there safely. I know it
helps their business. Why would I go out of the
way to give something negative unless you're just a negative person.
I'm giving them the best, baby. They got me from
point A to point be safely. Maybe I didn't like
the car. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't a luxury car.
I was in a you know, a Prius. It doesn't matter.
It's not like I'm married to the damn thing. I'm
just trying to get from point A to point B.
Why would I give a bad review. Same here, you
did a service, you explained it. They're happy ask for it.
As zig Ziggler always says, you're not gonna get what
you don't ask for. Okay, now step three, don't expect
them to do it later. Don't wait for the ferry
dust to gather on your review page. You need to
do it now. Most people don't understand these these electronics.
They don't know how to do it. That's why we
use that QR code and it goes right where they
need to go. So they just don't know how, and
that means they won't hand them your hat clip, show
them your hat clip for your card. Let them scan
that QR code into their phone. Wait for that phone
to buzz done. You want to use your own phone,
you can scan and say here, I use my phone
because you may not want to put something in your
phone or I don't have my phone, It's okay. You
scan it with yours. They'll fill out their information, put
in their email address, whatever it is. Say Look, it's
not for me, it's just for the review. You're gonna
have to practice how you do this, Okay. You know
you got to be able to overcome things. But again,
you don't have anything. There's no losses here. You're not
losing anything. Now, maybe they don't do it, and you're like, okay, okay,
you missed an opportunity. Okay, but you know what, you
at least scan it into their phone or scan it
or have a backup like your QR code on a
card that says thank you, your business means everything to us,
and have the QR code right in the middle. That's
the second approach is you pull that card out and
leave them with it and say at the bottom, we
hope you enjoyed the service. We enjoyed your time we
spent with you today. We would love a five star review.
It helps us immensely. And that's a simple card. That's
a courtesy card that you leave with them. Now, I
like to do the QR coding, get it right. Then.
I don't like to leave things in their hand. But
I had cards specially made up that were thank you
cards and I would give them when I left. That
would kind of prompt them to scan this. Just make
sure that when they scan it it goes and makes
it as easy as possible to give you this review.
And then you have a one hundred percent chance when
you're there, and if they don't get it, then your
odds drop. But at least if you leave this card,
just thank you card, this how much I appreciate you. YadA, YadA, YadA.
We're here to serve the community. We're a growing small business.
People will work, and they will They might put that
card down and they'll scan it later. If they don't
know how to do it, they'll ast their significant other
or their kid or somebody. Okay, now the card says
five star review. You don't just give them a car
with the Q and ask for a review and then
they go look at it later and they gave you
a three or four. Ask it now if they turn
around and give you a two star review later, it
is what it is. But you set the groundwork and
you least have to go there. Okay, you at least
have to go there. Okay, now say thank you right there,
Thank you very much. That review helps me keep good
pricing and serve the community and serve more people. And
again it allows our business to grow. That way, we
can spread our pricing amongst everybody and we can keep
the prices down. Okay, here's a tip. Make you human right. Reviews.
They don't come from apps, they come from appreciation, and
so you need to explain your appreciation for it. Seriously,
you do now segment four today we're talking about optimizing
your Google and Being business profiles. Okay, look all said
and done, if you don't have a nice looking Google
and benpro and these are so easy to fill these out.
I have so many people I talk to who say, yeah,
I do Google like Being, and it looks like garbage.
They don't have the information there that's really to the people.
They're hours of work. Okay, some information that helps the
customer choose them. It's terrible. It's just like a website.
You have to take the time to make it and
fill out the information to look right now. I do
a consulting business for contractors and they will ask me
to give them advice on their Google listing, their Being listings,
their Yelp listings, and I will look at it and
I will do a basically a one page summary of
what I think they should change, how they should approach it.
There's so many features in there that they should have that.
And there's also what's called intermixing means it cross linking,
so that on your Google page. There's a link over
to your Yelp. There's from your Yelp, there's a link
to your Google back back and forth. Okay, you need
to make sure that these things are linked together. Okay,
that the links will go on a click. I'm just
telling you. It also gives you SEO awareness. Okay, there's
a lot of different little tactics. Now, let's take this
up a notch for those profiles. Your profiles themselves have
to be ready for the traffic. So you update your hours,
your photos, your service areas, any sample shots you want
to give, your company, photos, your vehicles, all those type
of things. Google rewards active profiles. What does that mean
If you post a photo every few weeks, maybe your crew,
your tools, maybe a finished job. It does affect the ranking.
When you post in something about electricians near me, it's active,
it's not dormant. That's important. Google likes it now when
people do reviews, it makes it active. When you post pictures, Hey,
maybe on a job site, you ask the customer when
you're having that conversation, you say, hey, can I get
a picture with you? Maybe they're not comfortable with that,
but if they are comfortable with it, that's a great testimonial.
And Neil, they feel obligated to give you a five
star because they have a picture. And you know, again,
you gotta you gotta warm that up. You got to
know who feels comfortable with it. But be very personal
with somebody. I'm just saying it goes a long way.
If you do anything with your company. You have a picnic,
you have an outing, you promote somebody, you want to
do a weekly shout out to one of your technicians
or whatever it is. Post it, post it, post it,
put it on your review. Stay active. Somebody in your
company does it for you if you do it. Okay,
I do all of mine, My brother does all of his. Okay,
next reply for every review, even bad reviews, because you
know what, even a bad review can basically win over
future customers. Let me give an example. Some people want
to be just just shitty. I'm just saying it. Some
people are They live within the the disgusts. That is
what is their life. And so you leave a card
you did great, everything seems like a five star. You
asked for a five star, they end up giving you
a three. Well, that's going to drag you down. Three
is not all bad neutral, but it's still drag your
five star down right. So the more five stars you
have it balances out right. But anyway how you approach
that review is critical. This is where people screw up.
They get reviews and they don't comment back to their reviews.
I don't care if it's a five star. I want
to respond back. I want to say thank you for
your feedback. We're glad you're safe and powered up. I
want to respond back and say thank you for your
service today. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you today.
It means a lot for us to serve our local community.
We're a growing business in this community. We appreciate the
five stars. What if I get a three star, you
say thank you for your feedback. It was a pleasure
serving you today. I'm sorry you found our service was
only a three star. Our goal is to always have
five stars, so your feedback is very important to us.
Feel free to call me personally at and give your
number because it's your business. Okay. In fact that you're like, well,
I don't want to give my number. That bullshit. You
don't I want my number because somebody seeing that may say, dude,
I'm just gonna go and call this guy. This is
this guy, this is a stand up guy. Say, here's
my number. I want to learn how I could do
things better for you to get that three to a
five next time. I appreciate you. You folks have no
idea what that does. Now you may say, well, that
wouldn't work for me. You know what, there is hundreds
of thousands of people out there, so don't think that
the way it's like me doing SEO. I think everybody
out there searching for exam prep by searching Electrician exam prep.
When I put it in the software that I have,
freaking nobody's searching for it. But that's what I'm thinking
I would search for. But nobody's doing that. So don't
assume what other people will do. Don't assume that they
think just like you. You need to think that not
everybody thinks like you, and I want to cover all
of my bases. Okay, that's the way you need to
be thinking. Okay, so bad review, good review, stay humble,
stay supportive, give them an opportunity to tell how you
can improve, and you know what, work on your listening skills,
because not everybody's going to be happy. You could have
somebody call up and says, well, I thought the guy
that came out here was arrogant, he was an asshole,
blah blah blah. You can respond back to that and
say I am so sorry. We will work harder within
our company to make sure that we're more customer centric
and that your response is going to be used in
upcoming training so that we can make sure that we
focus on five star service to everybody, including you. In
the future. I hope that you give us an opportunity
to turn that three into a five in the future.
I'm going to tell you right now, I have seen
people that have done this and that three. All of
a sudden, mysteriously later, they go and update their review
and they change it to a five. It happens. It happens, folks,
It happens. I'm just saying it does so again and
and and then they may some other customer sees that
and goes, wow, dude, this is helpful. This is helpful.
This is these people are you know what? That's integrity, dude,
it's it does. It works, folks. But you got you know,
you're in business. You need to think like a business person.
Stop thinking like well, I'm the best in the world,
and it doesn't matter whether they like me or not.
You know, no, when you're out there trying to beat
a dog eat dog world and you're trying to compete
with the competition, you want to have a leg up. Courtesy, professionalism, empathy,
all those things understanding. Desire to make the best effort
for your customer doesn't mean you're kissing ass. That means
you're a business person. That's what it means. Okay, So
your digital triangle builds SEO authority in your area by
doing what the next step is cross linking everything. So
your QR code should lead you to the Google Business page,
which links to your website, which links to your Yelp,
which also links to your Being profile. There's a way
to do this in all of them, and it should
be vice versa. When you're on your business profile, it
should be prominent. If you're in the local market and
you're trying to gain review, put it up front. If
you're on your Yelp, make sure your website, make sure
your Google profile, make sure your Being profile link is there,
and vice versa. Do this on all of them. So
that creates this digital triangulation and it builds what's called
SEO authority for local search optimization. Okay, that's a fancy
word and it sounds complicated to many people, but it
is not. It is how these search engines rank things,
and with the reviews, with the optimization, with the information
that you put in there. I mean, think about it,
SEO when Google is the largest search engine out there
and a lot of people that function on SEO, and
I'm the guilty of that. I function to get my websites,
and my websites don't show up very well because we
have poor SEO. And it's really hard to get poor
s to get good SEO because there's so many factors
that it's looking for. And if and if Google chain
changes an algorithm, you either drop in listenings or you
increase in listings. Now, local SEO is less frivolous, Okay,
or I shouldn't say frivoless, it's less frugal, if that's
the best way to say that. It's it's less frugal
because what it does is that it's looking for the
parameters of a good listing, good reviews, number of reviews,
and seos that have a good between all of them.
A good Triangle authority, and that's why you're focusing on
the big three, Google, Bing, and Yelp. Okay, So your
online presence is your new service truck. If you will,
make sure it's clean, make sure it's branded, and it's
easy to find. And people using a QR code, make
sure you get them where they need to be so
they don't have to go through four or five steps
because they're not gonna do it, okay. Now, Segment number five,
Tools of the trade, Making your own QR system. Now,
if you're ready to do this yourself, here's how you
would do it. Just go get to some site that
creates it, like a qrcode, Monkey dot com or whatever.
Create your QR code. A lot of the softwares and
things you have today that does laser engraving does QR codes.
We do this in house. Go to your link review,
your Google link review link or Yelp and bing link okay,
and make sure that you get the actual URL that
takes you straight to the Google review for your company,
same with being, same with Yelp. Find that link or
create something like a link tree or tap link where
you can have where they go to a URL that
doesn't change. So you can put that on your QR code.
They go there and there's three buttons on there. One
says Google, one says being, one says YELP. And when
they click those, that goes directly to the review page.
So instead there's one step in here. But they have
the opportunity to do all three. Now, I use a
tactic where I'm gonna say, look, I give you five
dollars off for each one of these, and so while
you're there, you get them to do it. While you're there,
you don't mind waiting, Okay, I don't mind waiting saying
you're not being charged for this. We're done, but this
really helps my business, and I'm going to give you
some money off. However you want to do it. Maybe
you feel better at doing five percent off of the
bill if they do all three. However, you want to
work it, but you need to develop a pattern in
how you work it and train your people to use this.
You want these reviews, folks, and you want to make
it as easy as possible. Right now, in our case,
we create these clips. They're really inexpensive. We'll do all
the work for you. We'll send you the clip. You know,
it's really cheap. It's like fourteen dollars, dude, all that
type stuff. You just send us the links you want
on it or how you want it. We'll even help
you create a link tree page if you want, with
all of them on it. We'll help you out. Okay.
So in that scenario, that's what's going to help you.
And you work with your customer that way. Okay, So
you'll be amazed how the customers actually will scan it,
they're interested in it, and they'll get involved in it.
They want the discount. Okay, who doesn't want discounts? Right? So,
if you can label a panel, you can label your brand.
And I say this to people all the time. If
you ever doing service work, by the way, this is
kind of a little extra segment. If you're ever doing
service work and you're doing and whether you fix a receptacle,
if you're not going down and putting a business card
with your cure our code to your website or to
your link tree with your company website and you're being
Google and Yelp, if you're not doing that, you're missing
one hell of an opportunity. Because I'm going to come
and tell the customers say, if you ever need me
there's a card in your panel and it's right there,
so it has all the information you need to reach
out to me. Now, I'll tell you one other tip.
This is a bonus that I, you know, wasn't going
to include this in here, but if you for those
that do the link tree thing, it's just really easy
and free to do. I also will put referrals on
there to other contractors, other plumbing mechanical things like that
that I trust. Now, I formed a relationship when I
was in contracting. I knew a plumber that I liked
and I agreed with him, and he followed the same
plan and basically he would refer me as the electrician.
I would refer him as the plumber. Had the same
thing for an HVA, had the same thing for a realtor,
had the same thing for a handyman that you know
this time, so you can develop your own network and
share it back and forth through this link tree, and
it all can start with a simple QR code and
you get the opportunity to explain to say, Hey, I'm
going to do you a favor. Since you trusted me,
I'm going to tell you that I have people I trust. Okay,
in this industry. I know them, I know their work.
I'm going to give you a quick link to them
here in this this link tree that you can get
by just scanning this QR code. I'm going to give
you the best plumber, the best mechanical, the best builder,
the best whatever in your network. And basically, this is
a giver's gain approach. You're only going to do those
that are willing to do the same for you. If
they're not willing to do the same for you, then
you remove them from the link tree. You don't have
to change the QR code, you just remove them from
the link tree. It's beautiful thing, folks. I'm going to
do a video one day and show people exactly how
to do it. It's beautiful and if you work it right,
it's really powerful. Okay, but you should be branding yourself.
You should be putting your your name on the panel,
your your card with your link tree QR you should
be doing. Don't don't expect people to type in a URL, folks.
They're not going to do it. They're not gonna do it. Now.
If you're high tech like me, I have NFC nearfield
communication cards, which is basically they just hold their phone
near it and it'll send them right there. So it's
without having to scan it with their camera. It just
hold their phone near it. The only problem with that
is they have to turn on NFC in their phone.
Some of them it's on by default. But again the
card will say turn on your NFC in your in
your settings. Or you just have a QR code and
it says open your camera and all the cameras today
will do it and the link will come up. So
that's the easiest approach. So QR codes are powerful. The
problem is you can't change a QR code once it's done.
So that's why I say send them to link tree
so that there you can customize the links that they
click on. Very powerful. Now, if you only care about
Google listenings in your area, then instead of doing all that,
just and have it. Just go straight to the Google
list thing where you can give a review. That's it.
It's up to you, but do it. Do it? So
why all this matters? Listen big companies spend thousands of
dollars on marketing, some of them millions. But you, as
an independent electrical contractor or what other trade that may
be listening to this, already have the best marketing tool
in the world. You're satisfied customer. Every five star review
becomes a twenty four to seven salesman that never takes
a lunch break. Folks, it's always working for you. People
are now looking at reviews. Why do you think there's
being in Google and yell? Why do you think all
these reviews are out there? Because people use it? I
use it. Every QR code that you hand out that
you get a customer to scan is a digital handshake
that says thanks for trusting us. Build this habit into
your daily routine, Train your staff on how they approach it.
Use it as a closing when you're doing a summary.
If you've already factored a price into your pricing, that
already covers that five dollars off each one like fifteen bucks,
so maybe you're already fifteen dollars higher than you know.
But again, work it into your price so you understand
that it's not a loss for you, but it's a
benefit to them. Work it in however you do that,
Work it into that sales approach. Because the contractor who
builds their online credibility today will own their local market
share tomorrow. Folks, you will you will. So here's a takeaway.
Here you go. Here's my challenge to you folks out
there that's listening. Create your QR code system, whether you
use ours, and we'll help you out and we show
you how to do it. Will be your mentor engrave
or print it on something physical, hat clips, business cards, whatever,
and business cards have it printed on there, have it.
Go to the link tree. Unless you're just trying to
focus on one thing like Google, I prefer you to
do my approach to link tree or something like that.
That's fine. Ask for one review per day. If you're
not gonna do it on every call, at least force
yourself to do it on one so you can gauge
your response, so you can gauge your success. I would
say jump all in right, jump in the deep end
and make sure you work it into your plan. And
for you owners who have technicians, this takes some training approach.
You can train your employees to be much more approached
when it comes to customers, a much more softer approach,
a gentler approach, soft skills, increase your ROI Okay, it
can happen, and that's what you want. You're in business.
So in thirty days, you'll have thirty new reasons for
customers to trust you. And that, my friends, is how
you write the Business for Success manual is to keep
your customer happy, give them away, to share their positive
review and they'll go out of their way to tell
other people. And of course they're listening online. Will be
there twenty four to seven working for you. All right,
All right, folks, stay sharp, stay into it. We appreciate you.
Hopefully you got something out of this episode. And again,
all these tips and techniques have taken me nearly forty
years to come up with the approach. You have the
opportunity to put them in play right now. Till next time, folks,
make sure you listen to all of our podcasts. You
can listen on any of your favorite platforms or now
you can listen to our podcasts over on fast tracks
Tube for free. But there's many places you can listen,
even in our mobile app from fastracksystem dot com. Till
next time, Stay saved, God bless.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of the Master
THENDP podcast. We hope you're feeling more powered up and
ready to tackle the electrical world with the knowledge and
confidence you need to succeed. Remember, in the electrical grade,
knowledge is power, and we're here to make sure you
stay flooded into the latest insights, tips and code updates.
If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
us a review, and share the podcast with your fellow
electricians and industry pros. Until next time, keep your tools sharp,
your circuits clear, and you're my focused because here at
the Master of the ANEC podcast, we're all about sparking
your success. Stay safe, stay smart, and keep mastering the trade.
Speaker 2: From all of us.
Speaker 1: Here at Electrical Code Academy, thank you for all your
support and we will see you on the next amazing
Master of the NEC podcast episode.