Profitable Painter Podcast
Profitable Painter Podcast is a rich resource for anyone interested in starting, running, and scaling a professional painting business, offering valuable insights, strategies, and interviews with industry leaders. Through case studies and in-depth discussions, we deliver a vivid picture of the painting industry, with a disclaimer that any financial or tax information is general and not a substitute for professional advice.
Profitable Painter Podcast
Mastering Sales Success: Building Genuine Client Relationships with Allan Langer
Unlock the secrets of successful sales with insights from Allan Langer, a master in the field with over 27 years of experience. Discover how to harness the power of emotional engagement to close deals right at the first meeting, without resorting to pushy tactics. Allan shares his proven methods to transform a simple quote into a comprehensive offer that stands out, helping you build genuine rapport and enhance your sales success in the painting industry.
Get ready to rethink pricing strategies with Allan's advice on "price preparation" and using anchor pricing effectively. Learn how to present your prices in a way that eases client anxiety and boosts your closing rates. With Allan's strategies, turning a yes-or-no decision into a choice between options becomes an art form, ensuring your clients feel more comfortable and willing to invest in your services.
Authenticity is the cornerstone of Allan's sales philosophy, and he emphasizes the importance of being genuine and helpful rather than just closing a deal. By asking open-ended questions and truly listening, you can establish trust and long-term relationships. This episode is your guide to standing out as an "anti-salesman" and achieving success by prioritizing meaningful client interactions over traditional sales tactics.
For more help from Allan, go to:
the7secretssalesacademy.com
This is Daniel, the founder of Bookkeeping for Painters, and today I'm here with Alan Langer. Alan is a professional speaker, bestselling author and an award-winning sales professional with over 27 years of experience in sales and marketing, having sold over $95 million of his product in his career. He has trained over a thousand sales consultants in close to a hundred companies and offers his expertise in the form of motivational talks, training seminars, keynote speeches, breakout sessions and one-on-one sales coaching and training programs. His book, the Seven Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less, is a national award-winning bestseller on Amazon and he has been featured and interviewed on over a hundred podcasts and radio shows. He has given keynotes at numerous national conferences, to include the PCA, and currently travels the US conducting sales workshops for companies and teams of all sizes. His seven secret sales philosophy teaches how to implement a people-focused sales system backed by science and understanding human behavior. Welcome to the podcast, alan.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Daniel. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. I'm sorry for writing such a long bio. I'll shorten it up next time.
Speaker 1:No, I think it's great, it's awesome, and it obviously speaks very well to what your expertise is. And is there anything else about your background that you think would be important for the listeners here?
Speaker 2:important for people to know. As far as credibility is, I spent at the last when I finally did the numbers on this, I ended up in over 10,000 homes selling and what I was selling was Anderson windows, the most expensive window on the market so led the country in sales for Anderson for many, many years. So I do have. I'm not like a software salesman who all of a sudden is telling painters how to sell. I've got the street credibility in the home for sure.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah, and I know a lot of painting businesses that I've spoke to. One of the things that they struggle with is that in-home sales piece we're presenting on the spot. A lot of folks they'll go to the home, do the estimate, get the bid and then maybe they'll go back to their house or their home office and then send it via email and not even present their sales, not do any kind of sales presentation at the home and just kind of send it via email and cross our fingers and hope that the prospect ends up signing. So do you have any recommendations on how to get over that fear of not wanting to do an in-home consultation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get over it by winning more deals. You have to in home sales unless you're doing gigantic $100,000, $200,000 additions or bath and kitchen remodels. If you're in painting and you're in windows or siding or roofing, the best time to sell a customer is when you're in the house the first time and you can do that. The pushback I get from that is oh my God, it's too much pressure, I'm going to be a high pressure salesman, it's. Nothing is further from the truth. You can sell on the first visit if you know how to do it properly without pressure. The reason I say that is the most excited time for a customer is when they have all the information in front of them, when they sit down with whoever it is again, whether it's the roofing guy, the siding guy, the painting guy and they're picking colors and that painting guy is getting them excited about their new exterior job or what the baby's room is going to look like and what the kitchen is going to look like. That's the emotion part of sales and people buy with emotion, not with logic. They try to justify it with logic, but they buy with emotion. And when you're able to present that price and everything on that same visit and you establish rapport and comfortability with the customer. That's when they are more apt to say yes.
Speaker 2:What happens when you leave the house is all that excitement, all that ether that is built up dissipates and you literally just become a commodity. Because what's happening is now you email them the quote, and I don't care how nice your quote looks, they're just looking at the three other quotes that they got and they're scrolling to the bottom of the email and they're looking at the number. They're not reading anything else. It's human nature. So now what's happening is they see three painters and they go wait, what did this guy say? Is this the guy that has a 10-year warranty? Now they got to try to read stuff. You know what? Let's just pick the guy in the middle or let's just pick the cheapest guy, and you become a commodity. So you have to try to get them excited and ask them for the sale, ask them for the order on the first visit. You'll make more money, you'll close more sales and your customers will be more excited about it.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense trying to close on the spot to capture that excitement. If someone that is already trying to do in-home sales presentations and close on the spot that is already trying to do in-home sales presentations and close on the spot, do you have any recommendation on what their close rate should be in-home or some guidelines? Are they doing okay? Should they expect to close 20% on the spot and then the other 20% in a follow-up, or do you have any kind of rough guidelines or indications that they should improve their sales process?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's let's back up and look at the qualifications first. If you're just what they call spraying and praying like just passing a wide, gigantic marketing net and seeing everyone under the sun, then your closing percentage is going to be low. Because if you you need to know the first thing you need to know it's marketing one-on-one is who is your customer? Now, if your customer is someone that just lives in a house, no matter what the house is, you're going to have a tough time closing higher numbers because you're visiting a hundred thousand dollar house and a million dollar house. Those are completely two different customers. So what I implore painters or anyone that owns a company is who is your customer? Who are you going after? Is it the million dollar houses? Is it the 250 to $500,000 house? Is it ranches? Is it split level colonials? Who's your customer first, and then gear your marketing toward that customer. So the more you get in front of the customer that is your customer, that you, that you can qualify, the higher your closing percentage should be. So let's say you do that. Let's say you market to just houses that are $300,000 to a million dollars. Let's say that's your market. Now you're seeing just those types of customers and you're trying to close on the first visit.
Speaker 2:If you're doing your job correctly, if you're asking the right questions and the customer gets comfortable with you, you should be at 35% or higher. A really good sales rep is going to be about 45% to 50%. If you have a sales rep, if you're the owner, you're walking in as the owner of the company, you should be around 40%, because people like buying from owners. There's this like oh wow, I've got the owner in my house. If you're under that 35% range, you're probably seeing the wrong. Two things are happening You're seeing the wrong customers or you're not. You don't have a good sales process to present to them and you're probably if I had to guess, as you're listening to this right now you probably are getting a lot of sticker shock. Your customers are probably like oh my God, I didn't expect that. And if you're getting sticker shock, then there's ways to avoid that as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. So if you have your avatar dialed in, if you know who you're reaching out to, you're getting the same type of prospect. You should be getting a 35% close rate or better. If not, then you might need to look at either dialing in your prospect better with your marketing or you need to improve your sales. Your sales process Sounds like Correct. Yep, Okay, Nailed it. All right, Awesome. And then you mentioned sticker shock in some ways that you might might be able to avoid it. What are some ways that we can avoid that? Doing in-home consultations.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, I do a whole training on this. It's, it's a, it's a. You know I can do a two-day training on pricing. But to wrap it up in a nutshell, pricing is. I want everyone to understand that pricing is 100% psychological. Pricing has nothing to do with numbers. Pricing has to do with the comfort level of the brain when they see the numbers.
Speaker 2:Ok, so if they're not, the first thing to understand is if you don't prepare that customer for that price that you're going to put on the table, I don't care how good you think that price is, I don't care how good you think your company is. They are going to be. They are going to think it's too much money. Ok, because that couple that you see or that person that you're seeing has a number in their head. Ok, my house I want my house painted. It's going to cost me $10,000. That's in their head. Okay, if you pull up to that house and know that's a $25,000 paint job, I don't care how much value you build, I don't care how great your painters are, how many awards you've won. You put $25,000 down and they're expecting 10,. You're not selling that job. You have to get them off of that number in their head. And you have to prepare them. They call it price conditioning, I call it price preparation. Prepare them for these numbers. Once you get the shock out of the way in the beginning, then they can start to digest it psychologically. And then, when you get to the end, that number of 25,000 will not be nearly as surprising as it would normally be if you don't prepare them for it.
Speaker 2:So that's number one, the preparation of the price. And a lot of reps get that wrong. A lot of reps are afraid to do it. A lot of reps are. They avoid it. They try to build all this value. And again, you're building value to the number in their head, not to the number that it's going to be.
Speaker 2:And then the second way is how do you present the price? And this is one piece that I tell everyone. I coach I don't care what you sell, you have to present three prices. If you're presenting one price, all you're activating in the brain is a yes or no response, and a yes or no is a decision. It's a knee-jerk reaction.
Speaker 2:So if you put down here it is 25 000 for the, for the, for the paint job, and then you sit there and stare at them. Literally they're going to say, okay, great, I got to think about it or I got to get two more quotes. What they're doing is they're relieving the anxiety of making the purchase in front of you and there's no other choice. That's, that's my choice, yes or no. But let's say you put down $25,000 for the premium paint, $22,000 for the medium paint and $18,000 for the rental property paint.
Speaker 2:Now they're looking at three choices and their brain, instead of going to yes or no, their brain is now in a choice mode which one am I going to pick? And when you start to think of which one I'm going to pick, it gets them closer to working with you because they're picking something. So always, if you can and again I can train you on this if anyone wants to contact me, you have to drop three prices on the table and then give them a chance to sit and talk about it, and that's when I normally would go outside. But those are the two things prepare them for the price and present it in a way where they have a choice rather than a yes or no, and you'll sell more, guaranteed.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes sense. Preparing them for the price and then giving them a good, better, best option when you actually present the proposal option when you, when you actually present, present the proposal. So for price preparation is that's interesting. So like, do you kind of ask about, uh, what their, their budget is and and kind of see what their what's on their mind, or how do you go about preparing?
Speaker 2:there's a question, you can use it. You can do it a few ways. You can use third party information. So if you have an idea of what a full house painting job costs in Cincinnati, ohio, and you get that through the cost versus value remodel magazine issue that they do or any other research that's out there and you can show third-party information, just so you know, mr and Mrs Smith, this is the average cost of painting in Cincinnati. So let them be surprised at that.
Speaker 2:The question I like to ask at the beginning, before I even show any third-party information, is by the way, dan, I just want to see your heads out. What research have you done? Do you think a job like yours is going to cost more than $35,000 or less than $35,000? Now that's why I know, because I've qualified the customer before I got there. I know he wants his entire house done. So I know, as a professional painter, this house is going to cost $28,000 or so. I kind of have an idea of what it's going to cost. So I'm going to introduce a price that's higher than that in a very conversational, question-like way. So hey, dan, just checking any idea. You know, have you done any research? Do you think your house is going to cost more than $35,000 or less than $35,000?
Speaker 2:And you say that number twice. What you answer, or however the customer answers, doesn't matter, because you anchored, you dropped $35,000 in the middle of their brain like a seed. Now normally you will hear oh my God, I hope it's less, or I have no idea. I haven't looked, great, no problem. And then you say but you know what. It's going to be up to you. You're picking the paint, you're telling us what you want, you're going to talk about trim and everything. The price is going to be up to you. So let's get, let's get going on that. And then you just move away, move off of it. But now you planted 35,000 in their brain, so the number of 10 is gone. So then you start building value to the, to the number that you just anchored. And then when you show 28 and he's expecting 35, all of a sudden you'll say oh wow, that's what I was expecting. Pretty good price right there.
Speaker 1:See how that works. Yeah, that's awesome. That's some Jedi mind trick right there.
Speaker 2:It's just, and I don't want people to think that this is, like you know, underhanded or trickery. It's not. It's just how the brain works and you want to get them away from what they're thinking and just drop another number in there from a conversational way and it just gets them.
Speaker 1:You'll, you'll get a lot less sticker shock that way than if you just present a price at the end of the conversation, right Cause they might not have even thought of what it could be and they're just completely blind going into it so whatever number you put on there is going to be shocking.
Speaker 2:Exactly right.
Speaker 1:All right. One thing that I was looking through some of your material was what? What makes a great sales conversation. What are the components of a great sales conversation?
Speaker 2:The, the, the components of a great converse, great sales conversation, come down to really the granddaddy of all of the components, which is asking open-ended questions. And I know that sounds very simplistic and not rocket science type, but it's amazing how many sales reps or business owners, when they're in front of a customer, do not ask open-ended questions. The brain itself defaults to closed-ended questions. A closed-ended question is a question that's a yes or no answer, and when you ask a closed-ended question it's a conversation killer because they will say yes or no and quite often they'll shut up and they won't say anything else. Now, some people talk a lot. We'll continue to talk, but you have to ask an open-ended question to get people to tell you more about why you're there.
Speaker 2:The most popular, overused, open-ended question to get people to tell you more about why you're there, the most popular overused, open-ended, closed-ended question that every salesperson uses every day is so do you have any questions, dan? I say to you do you have any questions? What's your normal response? Nope, nope, I'm all set. Even if you have a question, your brain will automatically need jerk to know I don't have any questions. It's like when you walk into a department store and someone walks up to you and says can I help you? What do we automatically say, even if we need help, nope, just looking, cause you don't, you don't like you, you have this. The sales resistance is up and our brain automatically says that. So when you say, do you have any questions, the person is going to say no, I don't have any questions. A very simple way to switch that is hey, dan, what questions do you have? Now the brain is forced to think wait, do I have any questions? And you'll see an actual person's face pause for a minute and say actually, no, I don't have any questions. Or you know what? I'm glad you asked I do have a question, and it gives them permission to ask the question. But things like that's number one open-ended questions.
Speaker 2:And this is going to tie into the second component that so many people do wrong is most sales reps or business owners sell too fast, and what I mean by that is, let's say, I go to your house, dan, and you tell me I want the outside of my house painted. I immediately go great, well, I use Sherman Williams, I use Benjamin Moore and I use the Home Depot brand, and these are the 15 colors that you can choose and I just start selling right. Instead of when you say I want my entire house painted, I should ask an open ended question. I would say well, tell me more about why you want to do that. Well, the house has been this color for 15 years and we're getting tired of it. Well, describe for me how it feels when you pull up. When you pull up to a house and it's a color that you don't like anymore yeah, it kind of kind of sucked. It's been shitty for five years. We don't like it.
Speaker 2:And you just get all this valuable information from the customer and this is doing two things You're getting good information, but the customer is now feeling heard and understood and listened to. And you're asking questions that no one else asks and you're not selling yet. And then at the end, when you ask two or three open-ended questions and you separate yourself from the other people who didn't ask the questions, now you can actually start to sell the product because they're going to ask you to like all right, show me what you got. So those are the two main components open-ended questions and don't sell too fast. Stop selling too fast and ask more questions to get more information, to get them more comfortable with you.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Asking those open-ended questions, get them talking and then use the information that they tell you in your sales presentation so that they feel heard and you're not just trying to sell them, you're trying to help them. Basically, exactly right, 100%, awesome. That makes a lot of sense. So the way to have a great sales conversation is basically to ask those open-ended questions and not get sucked into trying to sell too fast. Are there any other components that we should consider when trying to have that great sales conversation?
Speaker 2:Shut up and listen as well. A lot of reps will ask a question. Let's say they remember to ask an open-ended question, but that they don't listen to the answer because they're thinking about the next question to ask Literally listen to their answer and then ask another follow-up question based on what they just said. So if you start telling me that we've been in the house for 15 years and my wife doesn't like the color anymore and then I say something like great, how's the weather been? Or something completely unrelated to what you said, you're going to feel like I'm not listening to you. I'm a typical salesperson. But if I say, wow, what color did your wife like prior to this house? Oh well, we used to live in a greenhouse and she really liked that color. Well, tell me more about that. What shades of green did she like? And now you're like really getting into the conversation rather than just saying, okay, great, let me show you the greens. Now you're selling too fast and the more you keep asking those questions, the more comfortable they'll be with you.
Speaker 2:And people only buy from people they're comfortable with. They're not going to buy from someone they feel is not there to help them or is selfish or just another typical contractor. Because here's the thing to really understand People when they want a job done they want a painting job done they still don't want to meet with you. You are a necessary evil. People don't like to meet with salespeople or business owners or contractors. They just they're the.
Speaker 2:The top five hated professions in the country is is contractors and salespeople. And when you're, when you're both, people don't want to meet with you, even though they want their house painted. So it's like, oh my God, we got to meet with the painting guy. Okay, so they're expecting the typical sales process or they're expecting the typical contractor with the ripped pants and the beat up pickup truck and the muddy boots and asks questions and looks professional and has nice marked up logo clothes and everything. They're going to do business with you much more than they're going to do business with someone who doesn't do those things. So be the anti-salesperson, be the anti-contractor and you'll just sell more.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. How much emphasis, because the sales training that I've taken there's a lot of sense. Um, do you how much emphasis? Because the sales training that I've taken there's a lot of emphasis on handling objections like this is this is fast forwarding to, I guess, the close or whatever you might call it, but trying to get them to sign up on the spot. How much, how, how important do you think that part of the sales process is? You know, when they say, when you close, say like you sign here to, you know, sign up for so we can get you on the schedule, and you do that close, and then they might say, well, that's great, I'm, I'm, I'm getting a couple of other bids, but I'll definitely let you know next week. Have you already lost at that point? If that's where the conversation is going or Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think, the numbers. I'm not sure what it is in the painting world, but in the window and the roofing world if they don't buy on the spot.
Speaker 2:I think the people who get back in the house and get that job is only about 6%. It's very, very low. So that's why that goes back to what I said at the beginning when they're excited is the time when that's the time to sell them. But let me go back to the objection thing, because the objections and closing are really the two biggest words in sales, that the buzzwords that all salespeople look on Google. How do I handle objections? What's a good closing strategy? It's all crap. To be honest with you, dan, because here's how you handle objections. You don't get them in the first place If you get objections at the end. If you get, I got to think about it, or it's too much money, I wasn't expecting it. I got to get out of the bids. You messed up somewhere in the conversation. What you want to happen? The only two answers that I, if I, did a good job on my presentation and my average window sale was probably $35,000. So it wasn't chump change. These were people were making these decisions within two hours. But if I gave them their three options, I walked outside and let them think about it. I came back in the house and if I didn't hear we're going to go with option three. That's the one thing I wanted to hear. Or the only other thing I wanted to hear is I'm sorry, we just can't afford this. We love your windows, we love everything about you. We just can't afford 35,000. If I heard one of those two things, I know I did my job and I was okay with them not being able to afford it. But if I heard all right, great, thanks for everything. We're going to think about it.
Speaker 2:I knew I screwed up somewhere. I knew I went too fast, I didn't ask enough questions, they were not comfortable enough with me to make that purchase. So, as a painting, in a painting situation, if they're saying to you I need to get more quotes, that's simply telling you that they're not comfortable with you. You're just another typical guy that they just got in. But if they're, if you ask those those good questions and you look professional, and even if you're a thousand dollars more than the next two guys, they're going to feel comfortable with you.
Speaker 2:And then it literally closing is just an extension of the conversation. It's literally like okay, you want, you want option three. Awesome, I can get you on the schedule for three weeks from now. You want to do a check or a credit card for deposit? That's your. That's it. That's your, close. You don't have to do any techniques. You don't have to do the sales manager. Close the sign on the front lawn, close all these other stupid things that are out there. If you do a good job, you shouldn't get objections and you should literally just okay, let's get going. When do you want to get on the schedule? That should be your close, awesome.
Speaker 1:So basically you got to make sure you're doing that price preparation, you know, so that they're not, they're not shocked. You've asked those open-ended questions so they they feel listened to and heard and you have a deep understanding of what they're looking for so you can get those good, better, best options for them. And then just trying to handle all those objections on the front end. So by the time you get to the close, you know it's they don't have anywhere to go. It's either we can't afford you or let's, let's do option three.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And and here's the key and many people don't do this and I and I've gotten pushback, but I did it 100% of the time and it works. It works all the time. To get one of those two answers is when you leave the price on the table, especially if you have both people there, you go outside and let them think about it. The old days of put the price on the table and shut up and stare at them, those are gone. People do not. They especially partners. They want to talk about financing and they don't want to talk about it in front of the sales guy or in front of the contractor. So what I would do is I would put the numbers on the table, the options, and I'd say okay, mr and Mrs Smith, I've got an install going on right now. I'm going to go outside and give them a call just to check on it. So now I sound like a good salesperson as well. I'll be back in a few minutes. You guys, let me know what you want to do when I get back.
Speaker 2:Basically, I'm assuming the close, I'm assuming the sale, and then I would walk back in and say which one did you choose? And they would, then I would get well, can you answer this question? As soon as they started asking me questions, I knew it was a sale Between two and three. What is the difference here? Okay, great, let's go with number three, or they would go. It would almost feel like they would just felt bad, like, oh, I really want these windows, I really want this painting job. I just can't afford 30,000. I just can't do it. And then you're okay, they can't afford it. They can't afford it. You talk about financing. At that point, you talk about monthly payments. And here's a quick. I'll give you another quick little tip on on financing. And hopefully every painting person listening here offers financing to their, to their, to their homeowners.
Speaker 2:But let's say someone, they were expecting 10,000 and it came in at 20,000. And you get to the end and they like, yeah, from what you said, I expect the 20,000, but we weren't really expecting to spend that kind of money. Okay, well, what kind of money did you expect? We were expecting the job to be 10,000. All right, why don't we do this? Why don't you put $10,000 as a down payment and finance the balance? It'll be about $89 a month and you can get the paint job that you want. Now they spent the 10 that they were expecting to spend and for another whatever it is a hundred bucks a month they get the painting job, because now they're realizing they're not going to get a good painting job for 10 grand.
Speaker 2:And then you introduce financing, and it's a combo and it's, and then you get your deal rather than walking away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I love it All right. Well, I hope everyone listening loves it too.
Speaker 2:Well, where can folks learn more about how in depth? You know two to three hour trainings? I can come to your office, I can. I can do them online if you'd like. In person is always better, but just visit me at the seven secret sales academycom and it's the number seven, so the the number seven, seven secret sales academycom, and fill out a form and I'll be in touch with you and we can. We can set something up and you get my book there as well.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so I will put the link to the website, the seven secret sales academycom and the uh in the show notes. So if you want to learn more from from Alan, definitely visit uh. He has some amazing sales knowledge here and I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, alan, and sharing some of that knowledge with us. I definitely learned a lot, so I'm sure the listeners did as well. Well, I appreciate the invitation, daniel. I appreciate it Absolutely. Any last thoughts for the audience before we let you go.
Speaker 2:Any last thoughts. Just be yourself. Don't be a salesman, be the anti-salesman, be the anti-contractor. Be the person that the customer is going to be comfortable with. Don't just be going in there trying to sell a job. Go in there to help the customer and you'll do just fine.
Speaker 1:All right, great stuff. Thanks, alan, take care Daniel.
