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, an eager apprentice, or just someone who
wants to dive deep into the world of electrical work,
you've come to the right place.
Speaker 2: Join your host, Paul.
Speaker 1: Abernavi, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind
within 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 gar up, plug in,
and get ready to supercharge your knowledge because with the
Master of the Neez podcast, the power is in your hands.
Speaker 2: Now get ready.
Speaker 1: Here is your host, Paul Abernavis.
Speaker 2: What up, everybody?
Speaker 3: Welcome to another episode a Master the nec podcast. My
name is Paul Abernathy and on today's episode, we're gonna
go a little bit beyond electrical codes. We're gonna start
talking a little bit more about uh the business on
a lot of these upcoming episodes because I think that,
you know, we spend a lot of time here at
Electrical Code Academy, you know, working with people on how
to get their license and taking an exam and using
our courses, which are again designed to help you learn
the NEEC, not just pass an exam.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what sets us apart.
Speaker 3: What it's kind of what always has set us apart
over others is that we just don't teach you these
things that you'll forget when you pass an exam. We
kind of teach you the mentality approach to understanding the
National Electrical Code. So that's why our courses are so intense.
That's why we took a normal course and turned it
into an exam prep rather than the other way around.
Ound So the course originally wasn't designed to be exam prep,
but we've tailored it to be exam prep. Redid a
lot of it to be very specific to exam prep,
and added a bunch of questions and competencies and all that.
Speaker 2: But that's a stage where you're.
Speaker 3: Trying to become an electrician and you're trying to pass
your exams. Well, we're going to be talking a little
bit more today about something that typically stops more electricians
from succeeding than competition ever could, and that is the
fear of pricing. And whether you're a journeyman and you're
going to be pricing jobs for an owner, or you're
the owner and you're training your employees to price jobs,
one of the biggest things that you always think about
is did I charge too much?
Speaker 2: Or did I not charge enough?
Speaker 3: Did I need leave money on the table, and things
like that, And then of course you'll get into the
inferiority complex type of thing where you don't think you're
worthy of a certain price versus somebody else, So you
start chasing that, well, this guy's price is this and that,
and you start worrying about what the other guy charges.
Speaker 2: Look, you've heard it before.
Speaker 3: They're cheaper than you, or I can get my brother
in law to do it for half of that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've all heard that as electricians.
Speaker 3: And again, and you're out here as a profession, you're
trying to make a living, and people are sitting there
wanting to either lowball you or you know, say that
they know somebody will do it cheaper than you, and
all this kind of stuff, and you're really at that point.
Speaker 2: The problem really isn't your price.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you at that point, because people
will say these things regardless of whether or not they
have a brother in law that can do the work,
because they would have contacted them already. Okay, they're reaching
out to you because they need the work done. And
if they say that so and so is cheaper than you,
then why didn't they already go with those people?
Speaker 2: You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So the real problem really isn't your pricing, it's more
your confidence. So today I want to show you how
to charge what you're really worth, and how to sell
your value instead of defending your rate, and how to
walk into every quote knowing you're the professional, not that
discount store. And that is big when it comes to
being able to see your business grow, or to see
you move from somebody that may be a follower into
what's called a leader role at your company. Maybe you're
a pricing person, maybe the ones that give quotes. Maybe
you have to train your staff to be able to
have these these tough conversations. And I encourage you to
listen to a previous podcast that we did about negotiating
skills and overcoming conflict, because that is something that you're
going to want to train your staff. But assuming you've
trained your staff, now you as a company, you start
worrying about price and whether I'm getting the jobs or
whether or not you're going to hear people say that
you're overpriced.
Speaker 2: All that we have to work on that confidence. It's important.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna break this up into some segments, and
you can of course pause these at any time and
come back to them as you need it. But we're
gonna talk in different segments. So segment one, we're gonna
talk about the mindset shift. Now, when I say mindset shift,
let's start to think about this for a second. This
starts with the toughest truth in business. If you don't
believe it in your worth, no customer will believe in
your worth either. So you've heard me say this all
the time. People say this, and I love this. Back
in the day, I had people remember if some of
you may be around or been with me long enough
through the years, when I used to promote the company
as the electrical Guru, and I had the people on
my cult forums and all these others that were just
ragging me saying, oh, he thinks he's everything. That was marketing,
it was confidence, but their inferiority complex caused them to
get defensive. One because they never run a business, they
never owned a business. They've all always work for somebody else.
They don't understand how to build marketing and how to
build your worth in a community. That's what you do,
and we create that. But the real thing is that
if you don't believe in what your worth is, what
your training is, what your skills are, then your customer will.
Speaker 2: Not either, and they don't even know you.
Speaker 3: And if you know yourself and you already have self doubt,
then you're already behind the eight ball. Okay, So electricians
will often undercharge because they see money through the lens
of labor hours. Now, let me explain, I make forty
dollars an hour, so I'll charge fifty dollars. But that
ten dollars spread doesn't pay the insurance, the gas, the
bookkeeping keeping, the downtime, the profit, the overheads.
Speaker 2: Doesn't do it.
Speaker 3: But so many electricians look at it and say, Okay,
I'm charging it by labor hour, and you should not
be thinking of it by labor and this is where
we have a lot of conflict with people online who
post prices and somebody will go, well, god, that's too
much money. You're trying to gouge the customer. No, that
is usually an inexperienced person. It's only worked for labor
for somebody. They've never had to worry about overcome burden, insurances, taxes, payroll.
They never had to worry about any of that. But
they're eager to say things online and that's okay. You
have to learn to turn the other cheek and say, look,
I get it. Those people that make those comments never
had to run the business, because if you run a business,
there's more, Okay, there's way.
Speaker 2: More than that.
Speaker 3: So the first mindset shift that you should be thinking,
or you should be programming in your mind is you're
not selling your time, folks. You're selling knowledge, risk and responsibility. Okay,
so when you wire a service panel, for example, you're
taking on liability, you're taking on safety, you're taking on
code compliance. It's not just a forty hour job. That's
a professional service that you're getting paid for. You do
not break that cost down by the hour. You break
it down by the value. What you're giving and that's
how you explain it.
Speaker 2: It's not just a per hour charge.
Speaker 3: So let me give you a tip. Stop competing with
the handyman. They don't carry your license, your insurance, or
your responsibility. If somebody wants to hire a handyman and
they want to low ball you, don't let it get
you because your price is your price because you're offering
a professional service. You're not basing it on simple hour values.
It's a tough one to get shifted because if you
go on every social media platform and you see somebody
post a price that working to ask because it's too high.
Somebody will come in, well, I do it for this
or I do it for that. That's because their burdens
are different, responsibilities are different. You're always gonna have a
potential job where this company. Let me give you a
great example. My brother has very low overhead. It's just him.
He's a very efficient electrician. His price is going to
be different than another contractor's price, and he's happy with
his price because he understands the burdens that he has
to meet. He understands what his overhead is and he's
happy with it. So he doesn't care whether or not
somebody came in cheaper or more. He's happy with it,
whereas the other company's going to look at it and say,
what that guy's gonna do it for that that's half
of what I charge. He's got to make a decision
at that point to go yes. But you know what
my price is my price? This is my price. Are
you gonna get every job? No?
Speaker 2: But that's just the fact of life.
Speaker 3: But you have to start now, and we'll talk about more,
and I'm gonna get into what's called the science of pricing. Okay,
this is some little stuff that I'm going to share
with you, but in your mind, you got to I'm
not competing against the handyman. I'm not competing against the
brother in law. I'm not competing against the Johnny Doall
who probably doesn't have a license. I can't compete with
them from that level. But what I can offer, and
I make is very clear to a customer. I offer security.
I offer protection. I have liability insurance, I have code compliance.
I make sure that it's done right because I have
the licenses in the training. That's what you're paying for.
That's the first thought. Now that's a mindset. So you
have to get yourself in that mindset. I could tell
you years ago I was in this mindset and when
I sold something or I did something, I was like, well,
that would equate to a stake. So gosh, how many
courses do this or how many of this do I
have to sell in order to be able to go
out and eat that nice steak dinner. I stopped that
years ago because it was it was terrible for me
to keep looking at things that way. Now, when I
was a contractor and I was doing a lot of
contract work, I was very confident in my price, and
I kept my price.
Speaker 2: My price was my price.
Speaker 3: Now is there occasions where I probably came in low
after bidding some projects, and I used bidding estimating software,
so I knew where I had to be. I knew
what my burdens were. I had my safe value. Did
I lose some bigger jobs?
Speaker 2: Probably? Did I get some jobs?
Speaker 3: Probably because I was way under price and I had
there was more meat on the on the bone that
I could have gotten. Maybe, but I got what I
was happy with. And you just have to go with
that mentality. But that's the mindset. You have to start thinking.
It's not a forty hour forty dollars an hour job.
It's a professional service that you're providing, and that goes
a long way with professionalism. Carrying yourself, looking the part,
investing in your equipment, looking the part, which we covered
another podcast. But dude, I just do not like the
sloppy I just don't. I just think we need to
treat this as a profession and take pride in it.
You've earned it, You've done the testing. Okay, you go
to a doctor's office and they wear a doctor's lab
coat and their name on it. Doctor, they've earned it.
You're an electrician. If you're a master electrician, you freaking
earned it. Wear it proud. Okay, you earned it. Now
think of your price like voltage. It's too low and
nothing works too high and things get dangerous. The key
is setting the correct operating potential for your business.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 3: You know what you have to charge, you know what
your burdens are, you know what your overheads. Once you
do that, focus on that and be confident in it.
Somebody may be lower, that's fine. Somebody may be higher,
that's fine. You know what you're worth. Stay solid. Now
let's talk a little bit about the UH. The next
step which I like to go into is basically the
science of pricing. Now let's break this down into some math. Okay,
I just want to now this is a science of
how you come up with your pricing. Okay, and this
is very elementary level, so it's very high level. You
may have other ways that you do this, but we'll
break it down. So let's start with the math. Because
we're electricians in the numbers don't lie, right.
Speaker 2: Numbers are numbers.
Speaker 3: So add every business cost that you can think of
that you have in running your business, your vehicle and
fuel costs. All it takes is to look at a
summary of a month, look at what your costs are
in fuel.
Speaker 2: Hopefully in business.
Speaker 3: You've listened to my other podcast that say you need
to be getting a business credit card, you need to
get points, you need to be using that to buy
your gas anything, so that it's easily trackable. See what
your vehicle costs and your fuel costs a month. Let's
say it's one thousand dollars a month tools equipment and
maybe you keep a category for that, and it's about
four hundred dollars a month your insurance. You may pay
annually for your insurance it breaks down monthly. Let's say
it's three hundred dollars a month. That's what it breaks
down to. Your premium advertising and administrative costs. Let's say
advertising social media things like Yelp, if you want to
do ads, all this kind of stuff, Let's say that's
five hundred dollars. You know these costs because you're putting
them on a business credit card. Now, I have people
out there that say, don't get a credit card. Okay.
You know Dave Ramsey, for example, gives great advice, but
he says don't get a credit card. Personally, I think
that app that's the aspect of it, is full of crap.
Every business needs to have a credit card as soon
as you can get it for the business, especially when
it gives you points. Okay, use their money. You're gonna
pay it off at the end of every month. But
use their money, okay, to make these purchases and get
your points, get your rewards money things like.
Speaker 2: That's free money. Okay. So advertising, say five hundred dollars
a month. Your labor. Let's just say if you pay yourself.
Speaker 3: Thirty five an hour and you work a forty hour week,
you know this is for you so you say it's
basically six thousand dollars a month. Okay, So let's just
say six thousand a month as your labor, and then
you're overhead. Let's say a total of eight two hundred
dollars a month. I'm just throwing ball spitball numbers out there,
but it's may your labor colls a kid whatever. The
size of your company can change, but you'll have these
values that you pay, okay, and you want to recalculate
this so that your your rates will change a little bit.
But we're just talking about the science of pricing, okay, okay,
So these are these numbers. So if you only bill
one hundred and twenty paid hours per month, because the
rest is estimating travel and errands that you may run,
your hourly breakdown break even is sixty eight dollars and
thirty three an hour. Right now, anything under that you're
literally paying to work. You get me, you're literally paying
to work. So if you break all of this down
and you got one hundred and twenty hours and it
breaks down, you add all this money up and you
divide it over one hundred and twenty hours, it basically
breaks down to sixty eight dollars and thirty three. Anything
under that's the break even. Anything under that you're actually
losing money. You're paying to work, and you're supposed to
be wanting to get paid.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me stop right there.
Speaker 3: That right there tells you that in business, if your
rates at you're setting are not going to allow you
to make money, then you're not going to be in
business very long. So this is taking all of my
expenses and breaking it down what might need to have
an hour. Now, anything under that, again, you're actually paying
to work. Now, let's add profit. Twenty percent net profit
targets great margin to be at, so you want to
set that. So your break even is sixty eight thirty three,
which is basically all those numbers we told divided by
the total billable hours of one twenty.
Speaker 2: Then that gives me basically sixty eight point three to
three times one point two.
Speaker 3: That's gonna be eighty two dollars an hour minimum, and
that is adding in my twenty percent profit margin. So
if someone says that's too high, remember you're not too high.
Speaker 2: They're too uninformed.
Speaker 3: Profit isn't greed, it's how the business survives to honor
any future warranties to be.
Speaker 2: Around to service your customers.
Speaker 3: If you if you're not making any money, then you're
not going to be around, and so it it ensures
value to the customer that you're going to be here.
Nobody wants to work your ass off and then you
end up not making any money, and a lot of
people do that. I'll tell you another misconception that people have,
and this is a business one. A lot of people say,
and a lot of CPAs and all that say, in business,
make sure you pay yourself first.
Speaker 2: That is that is not true.
Speaker 3: Now, when you get established and you're making good money
and you have the ability to pay yourself, you should
be paying yourself. But if you're early on into this,
you know you may not have the money, but you
have other expenses.
Speaker 2: I still have to pay all those burdens off. Every month.
I have to pay my burdens.
Speaker 3: You pay them, you pay yourself last, and you say, well,
I've got to feed my family.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: That's why you have to sit back and say what
is my time worth? Because you should not sacrifice your
burdens so that your business grows and pays its bills
and keeps your creditors off your back and you don't
incur debt because you don't pay off this debt because
you know that's important about a credit card is you
need to be paying it off every month. You do
not need the revolving debt. You need to get that
discipline that you're just using their money and you'll pay
it off.
Speaker 2: At the end.
Speaker 3: That way you can get the rewards, and that's the
reward money.
Speaker 2: You follow me.
Speaker 3: Not everybody's going to have that kind of discipline, I
get it, but you need to work towards that discipline. Right,
But just remember profit isn't greed. It's how your business
survives to honor its warranty and its commitments. Now three
is something that's very important to remember. This is the
customer's psychology.
Speaker 2: What do we mean?
Speaker 3: You know, well, let's talk about a customer's psychology because
this is where confidence lives or it dies. And you've
heard me talk about this in previous episodes where I
want to have a win win outcome with a customer.
Even if I have a customer that appears to be
a little resistive or confrontational, and you haven't done everything
that you need to do in your soft skills to
kind of mitigate that. You have to remember that it's
the confidence lies. It lives and dies with your customer. Okay,
so the cust listener don't actually know what electrical work
should cost.
Speaker 2: They have no idea. They only know what they feel
something is worth.
Speaker 3: Your job is to make them feel that your professionalism,
your safety, your knowledge, your guarantee justifies your cost. Now,
I can tell you right now that the vast majority
of the people that probably get in price conflicts or
have issues look like scrubs on the job. They don't
have a nice shirt uniform, they don't put taivex pseudo
on if they're going in the attic, they don't dress up,
they don't look the part. They don't have, they don't
carry themselves as a professional. Folks, I'm going to tell
you right now, people pick up on that. If you're
just a scrub that's working out the back of your car, okay,
then you know, then make it the cleanest car you got,
put lettering on it, put signs on it.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to tell you how to run your business,
but at least you should be investing in your look.
Look the part, be professional, Talk professional, don't cuss on
a job. Don't smoke on a job. I don't care
how bad of a chain smoker you are. You better learned,
don't do it. Stay professional, Talk professional, Talk as little
as possible, but talk direct and explain things clearly. Okay,
your job is to make them feel that you are professional,
that you have this enhanced knowledge. This is why I
always promote the CBCP program because it takes master electricians
and it takes their game to the next level, and
it just builds and exudes confidence, and it gives you
a marketability that's beyond Compare.
Speaker 2: You have this confidence. Don't explain pricing, explain protection, what
does that mean?
Speaker 3: Or give summaries of what you've done. I've talked about
that in other episodes. Give a summary of the work
that you performed and how it benefits them. But look,
instead of saying the panel replacement is twenty eight hundred.
Speaker 2: Bucks, why don'd you not know? That's cold? Yeah? I
get it.
Speaker 3: Not everybody's something are better than others how they say things,
and I get it's like the panel replacements twenty one
hundred dollars, that's it.
Speaker 2: How about you.
Speaker 3: Say this, this will bring your service up to today's
anyc code standards. It's going to eliminate any potential fire
risks and ensure that your home is safe for decades
and for resale. And it's you know, in case you
have a home inspection down the road and you try
to sell it, or something unforeseen happens, we know that
you're protected now with the latest technology.
Speaker 2: However it is for whatever situation you're doing.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's that old example I give about going out
and you have a GFCI that just tripped, and there's
another one upstream, and you have to locate it, and
you're you know, you feel uncomfortable because you're only there
twenty minutes and you starge by the hour, and the
customers like you wonly you're a twenty minute. But when
I give them the summary, I must say, you know what,
let me give you summer what we did today. This
is my price, and so here here's the summary. We
were able to track down that GFCI that was basically hidden,
and so now you don't have to worry about this
in the future. You know where to go and you
can reset it. And so you know that you do
have two GFCIs, and so that gives you a little
bit more knowledge of what's going on in your house.
But good news is you do have GFCI, you do
have that element of protection. So that's a great thing.
That's a great thing that you have it that type
of scenario. And then you know and if maybe you
were there for twenty and maybe you if you listen
to my other podcasts, you may say, look, I'm gonna
offer them a free thermal inspection. For those that know,
we have thermal cameras on our website. We teach you
thermal imaging the basics that you need. It's common sense.
It's a way to do an add on service, and
it's a way to eat some time. If you're there
and you handle something in twenty minutes or ten minutes,
but you're being paid by the hour, offer some additional
services that may cause you to get some more work. Okay,
get all the reternal investment, get all the work you can. Now,
they can choose to want to do something or not.
That's up to them. But you offer it, we can
decline it. That's fine. That's why we offer thermal imaging,
and that's why we picked the one camera that I
think is the best for any electrician out there, and
that's the only one that we offer.
Speaker 2: Okay, we don't.
Speaker 3: Offer this fancy four thousand and five thousand dues, these
things like one hundred and seventy nine bucks, and it
is all you need.
Speaker 2: Trust me, it's all you need.
Speaker 3: But the point is I explained it to them why
that money was well spent. Okay, you're not selling a breaker,
You're not selling a GFCI. Look at You're selling them
peace of mind. You're not selling snake oil. You're not,
you know, misleading the customer. This is true facts stuff.
But you become better at it. And again, the whole
goal here is to educate them. And guess what, They're
gonna go out of their way to tell somebody else.
They're gonna go out of the way to do their ratings.
And I'm gonna tell you, I have a podcast out
about how to ensure five star Google ratings okay reviews.
Check out that podcast because there's a methodology for how
you do it and ensure that you're gonna get that
referral and you can even set up a referral business
with them, create way to do it, and we talk
about that in that episode. But the point is, you're
selling peace of mind. You're a professional here. Okay, you
ever heard them say about doctor's bedside manners. Some people
will be the best doctors in the world, where people
will end up not going back to them because they
just have terrible bedside man It's.
Speaker 2: Not that they're not a great doctor. They're probably wonderful doctor,
but they don't feel comfortable.
Speaker 3: And I think all doctors should learn to develop put
their egos and personalities aside if they don't have good
bedside managers, and realize you're dealing with somebody's lives. Well,
I feel the same way as an electrician. I'm in
their home, I'm making it safer. I'm doing these things
that are legit. I'm not making this stuff up. This
is a legit stuff. I'm not selling snake oil. So
at the end of the day, you explain it. So
you're not selling a product, you're selling a piece of mind. Now,
confidence is in your value removes the need to defend
your price. If you're very confident in your approach and
how you tell them and how you explain it, how
you summarize something, and you practice it as every electrician should,
as every owner should, make sure that at least once
a month, they get with all of their employees and
have a maybe a pizza party. You know, I think
it's a big morale thing. Get together and do some
role playing.
Speaker 2: You really really is going to come.
Speaker 3: Out and pay dividends. I tell you, I wish more
contractors would do these type of things. Anyway, when you
focus on the outcomes, the price becomes secondary and at
the end of the day, they don't bitch about the price,
and everything becomes good and you really meet what you
need to meet in order to be successful. Now, the
next thing I'll talk about is what I talked about
is handling pushback real world scripting. And I'm a big
believer and I do this when I consult with contractors
and they call me in and I maybe do maybe
an hour or two of code updates or code training.
And then they asked me if I would do a
you know, kind of an hour of role play or
situational things to overcome sales and objective things. And then
one of the things is role play, and it's handling pushbacks.
For example, let's do it. Let's do a little example
of this, because you know what, you will always get
some form of pushback in some way. So what about
a customer that you give them their price up front?
And I encourage you to watch that. Listen to that
episode where I talk about overcoming objections and things like
that or negotiating and it says you get a customer
to say, wow, that's more than I expected. Right then
you say, you know, I understand. So we're showing that
empathy here. I understand I may not be the cheapest.
I am one who's going to make sure that it
is done right, inspected right, and safe for your home.
That's my focus. Okay, it's like you know, so that's
the real goal here. Where pricing of products, pricing of
components is really nominal.
Speaker 2: We're all the same. It's my approaches.
Speaker 3: I think that's what you're paying for, and that's how
you explain it, and that diffuses it right away.
Speaker 2: And there's a way you can do it.
Speaker 3: And there's a way you can use appausing technique, silence techniques,
the five deep swallow technique that I talk about in
negotiating skills. It helps slow the tone, your delivery, your demeanor.
It's all stuff that can be trained, it really can.
They're all part of soft skills and any employee can
be trained to do this. They just got to be
willing to do that. Now, what about a customer that says,
I got another quote for four hundred dollars less? Guess
how I handle this. Here's how I handle this. I go,
that's great, and I'm sure they'll do good work. Just
make sure they're licensed, ensured, and pull the proper permits
where necessary. If they are, we're probably not that far apart.
And and then you pause, folks, you use the power
of silence, right, why is that important? And why is
this tactic away? I said that at the end, I'm
sure they are. And if they are all those things,
then we're probably not that far apart. So when they
say four hundred dollars less, they now either have to
go back to that original one and say, hey, are
you insured?
Speaker 1: To you this?
Speaker 3: Are you gonna pull a permit you They're going to
get something that may say to you that wait a minute.
Speaker 2: The customer will go, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: This guy explained it clearly to me, he's license insured,
He's going to pull proper permits if necessary. Everything that's necessary.
And again, this is not written in stone. I mean,
you can change your approach depending on what the situation
is then the customer you pause, and why this response
disarms the cheaper quote instantly. Why because you position you
as the professional and you did not down them, You
did not talk dirty about him, you did not say
anything negative a bottomy. So that's great, and they'll probably
do a good job for you, but just make sure
their license ensured, they pull the proper permits when necessary.
And you know, in my case, you know, I am
a certified Master Electrical Code professional, so I am going
to make sure that everything is up to code, to
the highest standards.
Speaker 2: That that's just part of my.
Speaker 3: Integrity clause and so and then you go, look, if
if they are all those things, then we're probably not
that far apart.
Speaker 2: So that's going to diffuse it.
Speaker 3: And that's going to take that cheaper quote, and nine
times out of ten they're going to go, well, okay, we'll.
Speaker 2: Go with you. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So the tip here is professionalism is quiet confidence. It's
not defensive noise. It's not defensive rhetoric. It's not saying,
well they don't have this, they don't have that. It's
being very confident in what you put forward. And that
is one of the biggest selling points with the CMBCP
is that you know that your competition probably.
Speaker 2: Is not that there are not.
Speaker 3: So anyway, so I should probably make an announcement too
for the cmecps out there. We will be having a
CMECP engraved metal card that is going to be available
in twenty twenty six. So if you're a CMECP and
you listen to this and you want to get your card,
it will have your license number on it, you your
your information on it and all this kind of stuff
and it will be sent. It will be generated and
sent to you. But I'll have a podcast or probably
even a video on that for all u cmmecps out there. So,
if you're a electrical contractor out there, electrician, you're a
master electrician and you want to become a CMCP, check
out our website CNMECP dot org and you can see
what it takes to be a CMECP and use that
as your one of your selling quivers in your your arsenal.
Remember you're the electrician, you're the professional. You spent years
learning safety code and your craft. You're not begging for
the work, you're offering expertise.
Speaker 2: Remember that.
Speaker 3: All right, Next one we'll talk about is marketing that
justifies your price, and that's going to be again probably
tailoring in that c a ECP. What stands out amongst
the crowd those type of things. How do you stick
out amongst everybody else?
Speaker 2: How do you do that? How do you market that properly?
That can be a very big.
Speaker 3: Benefit when it comes to Google and Yelp and bing
and how you do your website or how you do things,
how do you present yourself? There's an element of content. Now,
cockiness is confidence, but it's how you deliver it. Because
you can come across as overly cocky and arrogant, and
it doesn't matter how skilled you are. You could piss
somebody off. But there's a way to do it and
still talk face to face, not look down on them,
not be arrogant, be a very open conversation. Humiliate, you know,
not not humiliation wrong word. I don't want to say
humiliate them. Humble yourself while staying humble within them. I
love it and be able to do it a certain way.
Speaker 2: Okay. Opinion of people out there say, Paul, you humiliate
yourself every day. That's probably true. That's probably true. That's okay.
All right now, okay, so let's see here.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about marketing your price believable before you
even say it. For example, brand presentation. Keep your truck
clean and labeled. Appearance is equal to trust.
Speaker 2: Quotes.
Speaker 3: If you're going to offer quotes, use clear digital professional estimates.
Don't scribble your quotes on a note pad or on
a little post it note. No have professional stuff done, okay,
No handwritten napkins okay, it's not professional. Doesn't give the
messages professional communication. Respond fast and polite, speed and courtesy
creates confidence. I'm going to tell you, I don't know
how many times people buy our courses and I noticed something,
or we notice something that they may have done wrong.
I've had people purchase courses accidentally two of them, and
they might not even catch it, but we catch it,
and there's no reason they need two courses. So we
contact them ahead of time and we go, hey, we
noticed that you might have accidentally. You know, those people
are so impressed with the speed that we interact with them.
And that's one thing about us over other people or
other companies is we react very quickly. We answer code questions,
we do a lot of stuff very quickly, and that
builds that trust. Same in the electrical when I was
a contractor, I did not let things. My brother's bad
about this because he doesn't need the work. He's busy
all the time already, but he's out there, so he
gets the calls and he doesn't respond to them right away.
But that's okay because half the time he doesn't.
Speaker 2: Even want the business. You are not like that. You
and me are not like I want the business. That's
the reason I'm out there. Okay, you're hungry. He's not hungry.
You're hungry.
Speaker 3: You want every biiness. Your reternal investment is high. Okay,
I want to get it. So I think that you
need to respond very quickly to calls, to requests. Be
very polite, be very professional. Don't be afraid. If you're
not a people person. You're thinking, I don't I don't
like talking to people. Well, you're gonna have a tough
time being an owner because you're gonna have to communicate. Now,
you might succeed and make enough, but you're never going
to excel to the to the level that you want
to be at, or you'd like to be at. Maybe
you just are happy with one or two and you
know this and that and barely making another happy. I
don't need to say nothing to nobody. Right, Well, you're
gonna have to change. I remember when Dustin Stelzer called
me about Electrician you when he was first starting out,
and he wanted to partner with work with me and
help create training. And I was like, Dustin, I really can't.
I'm doing my own thing. I encourage you to do
your own thing. And he started doing his own thing
and doing very well. And I but I remember telling them,
you know it, at some point, you're gonna have to
stop dropping the f bombs in the middle of your training,
because the more you get people to use your products
and your training and your services, they're gonna not be
able to use it to a select group of people
and they're gonna You're gonna have to tone it down
a little bit. He says, I'll never change. I'll never change. Well,
he changed because it's inevitable. You have to tailor to
the certain market that you're going for. And the politeness
wins every day of the week. Every day of the
week when you're working with customers, clients, every day of
the week, the politeness wins. Okay, doesn't mean they're always right. Okay,
but you got to remember your image is your silent salesman.
Keep him dressed for success, Folks. Let the customer feel
your professionalism way before they see the price. That way,
they'll assume that you meet the justification for why you
get what you get, rather than the rag tag guy
that comes out there with the holes in this and that. Okay,
not saying y'all can't get some work in some certain areas,
but if it's a competitive if I'm in the area
and I'm an electric contractor, I'm gonna beat you every
day of the week, especially if I'm in service work.
My vehicles are gonna look sharp. I'm gonna spend the
money it takes to wear the shirts. You know you
can get the niche. I don't care if they're t
shirts with your logo on. That's fine. Look, the part
look professional goes a long way. Next, let's do a
wrap up here. So here's the bottom line, folks, if
you're under price yourself, you teach your customer to undervalue
your craft. You're not in business to win every job.
You're in business to win the right jobs. So the
next time someone says that's too expensive. Remember this first,
you're not too expensive, they're just not your customer yet.
Number Two, you don't need to lower your prices. You
need to raise your present time. You need to raise
your delivery because you're worth it well, because you've gone
through the steps to understand what your pricing needs to be.
Speaker 2: You're worth it.
Speaker 3: And three, you don't need everyone to say yes. You
just need enough of the right people to say yes.
You understand, confidence isn't arrogance, it's knowledge, your worth and
standing firm on it. That's what separates the hobbyist from
a professional. Folks, I'm just saying that is the key.
So you're already skilled, you have the knowledge. Listen to
my podcasts, Listen to our episodes on negotiating skills, how
to get them, you know, get through a real conflict issue,
Understand that soft skills need to be taught to your
employees as.
Speaker 2: Well as yourself.
Speaker 3: All these type of things, and you know what, some
of these things are a lot easier said than done.
But you have to take a step back and look
at your processes and say, I need to make a change.
It's for the business, it's for the growth. Those type
of things, but those are different things to think about.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 3: Hopefully got something out of this episode. If anything, thanks
for listening to the podcast. Hopefully share it with other people.
If you're at a job site, let them know there's
a podcast out there dedicated to electricians and electrical contractors
and all that kind of stuff. If you have any
questions you want to send to me, all you gotta
do is go to our website, fasttracksystem dot com. You'll
see a link on the page that says let's ask Paul.
Or you can go to Paul Abernathy dot com and
you can also submit it there as well. And I'm
more than happy to answer any questions you have and
it may be featured on an upcoming podcast.
Speaker 2: Till next time, folks, Stay safe, God bless.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of the Master
THENEP 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 trade,
knowledge is power, and we're here to make sure you
stay well to 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 NEC Podcast, we're all about sparking
your success. Stay safe, stay smart, and keep mastering the trade.
From all of us 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.