[YouTube Ep] Why Your Getting Cheap, Tight, Frugal Leads | 140

If your quotes keep getting knocked back and your clients are tight as, there's one person to blame, and it's not them! I break down why lead generation websites are attracting the worst clients to your business, why showing up unbranded is killing your pricing, and a Chinese restaurant analogy that'll change how you think about your electrical business forever.

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Transcript

Warm up your thumbs and play a fastest finger with the lead generation websites and hope that you can get that shitty job in the door.

Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing.

Another YouTube video has gone live. Again, links will be linked underneath and I hope you enjoy.

If your quotes as an electrician are getting declined, if your clients as an electrician are shit, if your clients as an electrician are frugal and do not want to spend the money with you — you've got one person to blame and that's you.

This is going to be hard to take, but what I want to instil in this video is the belief that you're doing things wrong and you need to change them quickly. Otherwise, you're going to build a consistent, tight arse, cheap, shitty client base. And this is where most businesses start incorrectly. They build up that tight, shitty client base trying to get their name out there. And what ends up happening is you end up extremely frustrated and extremely broke.

The first place where electricians go wrong is they rely on lead generation websites. Your HiPages, Airtasker, Service Seeking, OneFlare. These kind of websites are built to be price driven. They hook the client in.

Now, I want to rewind things right back to messaging and where their leads come from. This is where it's going to make sense to you.

I'm going to insert a snippet here, which I screenshotted. If you Google "cheap electrician Sydney", you can probably see this ad as well. And what it says — electricians from $50 to $80 per hour. That's fucking mind blowing stuff. And if you think about it — Googling "cheap electrician", they will then go to that ad. They will then go to Service Seeking. They will fill out the form. They will contact you. That is why you get cheap, shitty clients coming through your door. It all stems from the top.

So you've got your lead generation websites like your HiPages, OneFlare, Service Seeking, and Airtasker. When people Google when they need electrical services done, they basically pitch it like — HiPages has blatantly got it — "get three to five quotes from electricians within minutes."

That's why when you sign up to the likes of HiPages, it's a game of fastest finger. A lead comes in, you've got to get there quickly, got to get to that, and that could cost you $40, $60 a click. And what have you got to show for the end of it? It might not even be a real job. It might not even go ahead.

And look, these platforms serve a purpose. They're absolutely there to serve a purpose. They're a good gap filler. You have to be strategic. And look, do I like them? No, I fucking despise those platforms, and I don't condone them at all. But if you're starting a business, I wouldn't be reliant on those platforms. I'd be using that as a backup. If anything, if there's a few quiet weeks or whatnot, that's when you would start looking at these platforms. Other than that, I would stay the hell away from them. But again, that's entirely up to you. If you want to continue chasing your tail being broke, stick to those. Or else you can change things around.

I noticed this very strategic placement as well from one of those platforms. There is a DIY show on Channel Nine or Channel Ten. What I noticed is they kept plugging that brand and essentially it would go to an ad break and then their advert would be on the TV. So what somebody is doing is watching a DIY show. They're getting into it. DIY equals cheap. They watch that TV show and then they mention this electrician has come in and we got all this fully rewired for $200 or something like that. Then boom — sponsor. Then boom — up pops the advert of that said platform, which I mentioned earlier. And that's why people are ingrained that these are associated with price. These are very price conscious people that want a good deal. They're not necessarily people who want a good job. It's just get it in, get it done. I am expecting a fair job done for a fair price. They are not my kind of clients and I sure as shit hope they're not your kind of clients.

To top this off as well with bad clients is bad strategic marketing. As well as aligning with bad companies, aligning with bad sources. Working for mates that are paying you peanuts. Working for bad builders. Working for real estate. But again, if you don't have the look and image, you are going to be seen as a commodity. You are going to be judged on price. You are going to be compared on price. And unfortunately it's going to come down to price — your quote and somebody else's, or five other electricians' quotes.

Now the second part of the problem is indeed you. The other 50% of the issue is you. And this is where you have to take an inward look at yourself and think, could I make things better? And if you are at a stage where things are going very bad for you, this is indeed where you can make things better. There's always room for improvement.

What generally happens when people start their electrical business, or maybe they're six months in, a year in, and they're just kind of spinning wheels — they get busy. They get busy doing fuck all, really. So what I mean by fuck all is they're doing repetitive, monotonous work. They're probably doing lead generation website jobs like I spoke about. They're working for one or two shitty builders that are screwing them down, working for real estate. And you're going to work day in, day out. You're putting the graft in and then you're coming home and you do it all again the next day and you think you're doing okay.

It's like some people expect this, and it breaks my heart. I've spoken to some electricians and they expect that the first year or two they have to run a shit business to learn. Mark my words — you don't have to do the struggle. You don't have to start your electrical business that way. You can start on the right foot. And I'm walking proof. The guys that I work with inside the mentorship — I've worked with guys that are just rookies. Leaving their employment and starting their electrical business and they look like they've been in business for 10 years. And their pricing looks like they've been in business 10 years as well. They're extremely confident with their pricing because they know what they have to charge. And that's what absolutely fucking breaks my heart — a lot of electrical business owners struggle and they just think that's the norm. It's not the fucking norm. You can change this shit.

Now what happens when you get into this busy bubble or a busy rut? You're very busy with your electrical work. You don't get your branding done. You don't get your Google Business Profile done. You don't get your website done. You don't get your uniforms done, your sign writing, your website — all these things you just let slip by the side because you're just spinning wheels. You're just chasing your tail. And I get it. It's time consuming to start with. And that's why I stress this should be done at the start when you start your business. But it's never too late to get this up and running.

By not doing this, you are essentially, again, putting yourself into the commodity zone. And you may be one of those people that wonder why you didn't get that electrical work. Why are you consistently sending quotes out and you're either not getting replies or they're coming back to you saying, "Hey, we've chosen another provider." And you might think, fuck, who's undercutting me? I thought I was pretty cheap. I'm losing these jobs.

Unless they state they've gone for a cheaper quote, it doesn't necessarily mean they went for a cheaper quote. I know for a fact that I've gone in twice the price of some people, particularly with EV chargers, and they've gone with me. They've even told me. They said, "You're twice the price, but the way you came across, the credibility, everything to do with your business — we chose you because that other person didn't have a stitch. Didn't have a review. They didn't have a website. They just texted them a price."

And that's the reality. That's what you need to look at — the bigger picture. It's your brand.

To drive home the point of the look, feel, and image of your branding for your electrical business and how important it is, I'm going to compare your business with a Chinese restaurant.

Let's say for instance, you and your friends go for a succulent Chinese meal. You've got two choices. You've got Restaurant A, Restaurant B. Exact same suburb. They're side by side.

Restaurant A has got queues of people going out the door. It's got really good looking food because you can look in through the window and you're seeing them eating their food. There's somebody at the door escorting you to the table. He's pulling out your chairs, seating you down, putting a napkin on your lap.

Now it's the exact same price as the restaurant next door. But because you want to support all local businesses, you give the other restaurant a look. You walk over to it. The chef happens to be outside. He's filthy, dirty, greasy, smoking a cigarette, coughing, spitting — all that kind of stuff. You look in the window. There's nobody inside the restaurant. Not one person. You look at the signage, you look inside — it looks dingy, it looks dated. But you're like, fuck it. You know what? Let's go to both websites. We'll check them both out. We'll just see which has a better menu. And then after that we'll check reviews.

So you go to the website. You Google the first restaurant — the pristine one. Immediately it pops up. Pristine looking website. You flick through it. You can see exact menus, the dishes, examples, and all that.

Restaurant B, the dingy place — no website. It doesn't have a website. So we don't know what we're getting. It just has those really dingy looking pictures on the window that shitty restaurants have.

And then you're like, okay, let's check the reviews of both. So off we go to Google Maps. Check the reviews. 4,861 reviews with a 4.9 rating — Restaurant A gets. Now reviews on the other place — it doesn't have reviews. Zero reviews. Zero presence.

The shittier restaurant is your business if you do not have any of these things in place. The reviews, the website, the look, the feel of how you treat people, how people come into your business. You indeed have the shittier Chinese restaurant. And that is an analogy I just wanted to give you of the comparison.

Same thing with me when I go to get coffee. I've got a rule of thumb. I love coffee, but if I am somewhere — it always happens when I'm out Western Sydney. It's hard to find good cafes that are in these blocks of little buildings. And what you'll generally get is there'll be a standalone coffee shop, but then there'll be a coffee shop that's also a fried chicken shop. My rule of thumb is if someone's cooking fried chicken, I'm not getting coffee in there. Because you specialise in one thing. It's either fried chicken or coffee. And I don't want my coffee tasting of fried chicken.

It's the look, image, and feel. I'd rather go into a clean looking coffee shop that looks like it's busy. And that's the same thing. That's exactly how clients think as well. They compare what they're going to get — who's coming into their home. They want a good look, feel, and just to be comfortable with that person coming in. If they don't know you from a bar of soap coming into their house, they don't know what the hell is going on.

And it's usually the shittier clients that are the most highly demanding clients. They want to pay you the least and they expect the most. And it's just these little one percenters you need to improve in your business. Just get your reviews, get all your branding, get all that set. And it sets you as a point of difference to your clients.

Right. Enough with the Chinese restaurants. Let's speak about how we course correct your van, turn it around, and get on the right road.

So there's a few things that you need to change here. And what I want to do is get you thinking — am I going down those paths in the wrong direction?

And it all starts from the start. It starts with your ideal client, your target market. Realistically, you don't have an ideal client or a target market if you're just falling into work. If you're just like, there's work, I'll do it — you're not actually clear on who you need to work for, the target you need to aim for, and the messaging that's going to attract them.

The messaging is so fucking important. It's crazy. And messaging is basically the message you put across from your electrical business to the end user — which is going to be your client — that they put up their hand and they say, "Hey, that electrical company is for me. I want to use them. That's exactly the problem I have. They've got the solution for me."

Whereas if you're relying on lead generation websites, they don't know you from anybody. And they're just going off price. They don't really care. They don't check you out. Once they see the price they're happy with, that's when they engage your services. That isn't a proper electrical business. That's a fucking nightmare.

And look, I've been there. I've been there. At the start, it was horrible. And I feel you if you're in that position right now. I was there. Don't get me wrong, I fucking went through a shitty, shitty time in my electrical business. And it was predominantly because of all the stuff I listed at the very start — the builders, real estate, lead generation websites. I was there until I course corrected all that stuff.

Secondly is your branding, as I spoke about heavily. Your branding, your look, your image, your website. And I don't mean your missus or your second cousin's nephew that they build your website. That isn't a good website. That is just purely something that's slapped together for cheap.

Now what I do with my members is I get their branding on point from the get-go. So there's a little gap in between. There's your employment and then they're starting the Simplified Sparky modules. And in between there's a transition period where you're leaving your employment and you're starting the electrical business. And in that stage, that's where I get the guys set up correctly with all their branding, all the software, all the stuff that you need to get sorted.

And if you need help with any of this, there's links in the description below. Don't be a shitty Chinese restaurant. Sort your stuff out. Become the nicer restaurant. If you need any help from me, just check out the links and description below.