Show Customers All the Ways They Can Buy
Making something comfortable and affordable is the first step to appealing to your customer. But if it doesn’t make sense to them in their everyday life, they just won’t want to buy.
In this episode of Cracking the Code, contracting business sales expert Drew Cameron explains a simple framework to help customers by making what’s valuable to them affordable to them – and it starts with educating them on four different ways that they can buy from you.
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Audio Transcription (in beta, please be wary of typos)
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:10:28
On today’s show, you’re going to learn how to show your customers all the many different ways they can buy from.
00:00:11:00 – 00:00:31:22
All right, let’s get going with today’s show starring Mr. Drew Cameron. He’s going to talk about all the ways customers can buy from you. And that’s kind of important. Take it away, drew. Hi. Welcome back to another episode of Cracking the Code. I am your host, Drew Cameron, with Flow Odyssey and Energy Design Systems representing contractor University, powered by SGI.
00:00:31:24 – 00:00:56:11
And on today’s episode of Cracking the Code, we’re going to talk about showing customers all the ways that they can buy. You know, when you come to my sales training on sales execution, which is the process or the elevated consumer buying experience in which we talk about the skills that you layer on top of the process. You always hear me talk about, payment options, if you will, financing, or what I like to call leverage, you know, the term financing.
00:00:56:11 – 00:01:12:18
So we use it because it’s familiar to you. But I like to call it leverage, and I like to show customers all the ways that they can pay. It’s one of the things that’s made me the most successful, as well as made my clients the most successful that they can possibly be. It’s what allows us to take our connection ratios, or what you call closing ratios, to the next level.
00:01:12:23 – 00:01:30:29
It’s allows us to shift the mix of product from entry level to mid-level to upper level. It allows us to broaden the scope of the solutions that customers are investing in, meaning they can buy more things. They can maybe add air cleaners and, air purifiers and humidifiers and generator and other things, tankless water heaters to our solution.
00:01:30:29 – 00:01:55:11
Because again, we are real good, I think as contractors. Well, we should be. And if you come to my sales training, you’ll get real good at this, but real good at making things valuable in a customer’s mind. But we’re not real good. And most contractors are not real good at making things affordable, because what you make valuable, you have to make affordable in order for customers to be able to get it, you have to show customers what they want most, okay?
00:01:55:18 – 00:02:15:09
And show them why they shouldn’t be without, without it, how they can get it and afford it, and how they can afford it and buy it through you and they will buy it from you. And that’s what financing or leverage does. And so, I teach this concept at a much greater, level, you know, when you come to the sales training.
00:02:15:15 – 00:02:34:17
But I wanted to, in this episode of Cracking the Code, I wanted to basically do a, a highlight of a technique that I trademarked. If you will, in the industry that no one else teaches. But I’ve had a lot of success with so much so that some of our manufacturer partners here at Daikin are basically applying it to the tools that they’re using with their contractor, base as well.
00:02:34:17 – 00:02:54:28
And so some of this may look familiar with, May old familiar to you, but I am the inventor of this technique. And I say that to you so that you understand this is based off of years of trial and error and tying it into the sales process that we teach in previous episodes of Cracking the Code, you, learn about price conditioning.
00:02:55:00 – 00:03:16:15
You also learned about buyer types and money and payment conditioning. And so this is the last part of that series. It is show customers all the ways that they can buy, and more often than not, they will buy from you. So let’s dive into the, the framework again. As I said, I’m going to help, help customers make what’s valuable, affordable.
00:03:16:18 – 00:03:37:08
Only they can decide if it’s affordable. I know it will be, because at the end of the day, you’ll see how affordable this can be, right? And so I’m going to show customers all the ways that they can buy. Now, I may have already talked about this loosely, as you heard in a previous episode, when I talked about to customers, I asked them the question, how were they planning on paying for this?
00:03:37:08 – 00:04:00:00
And before you can answer, before you answer, let me tell you all the ways that you can buy or the all the ways that you can pay. I and a previous episode of Cracking the Code, you learned that I’m going to reiterate that here, because now what has happened is I’ve gone through the entire house, okay, I’ve surveyed the customer, I surveyed the living space, I’ve looked at the, the infrastructure, the building envelope of the house.
00:04:00:00 – 00:04:21:19
I’ve then looked at the equipment, the ductwork, the fuel sources, the electrical panel, anything else that I’ve got to touch in order to do the job? I know what the scope of work is, and I basically present, I’m basically presenting a solution, what I call sharing findings and options payments, as well as, peace of mind protections with customers warranties and guarantees.
00:04:21:21 – 00:04:38:24
So I, I’m basically at that place where my price book is out, and I’m now at a place where, you know, where do you where do you feel most comfortable? Where are you leaning towards Bill and Susan? Because I’ve shown them seven levels, as you seen in previous episodes. And actually you will learn when you come to the training.
00:04:38:27 – 00:05:00:12
But I now need to focus in on the one that they’re kind of leaning towards, and then show them how that breaks down for them. And so what you’re going to see in this framework is all the ways the customer can buy and is based off the solution that they told me that they wanted, which let’s say for argument’s sake and time purposes, it rounded out to $10,000 total scope of work, whatever that may be.
00:05:00:15 – 00:05:20:08
Again, I know that might be conservatively low. In some cases it might be conservatively high in others, but you’ll understand once I get into this. So the things you take into consideration with this are the benefits to the customer and the flexibility and the control, because that’s what leverage does. That’s what financing does. That’s why people take out mortgages.
00:05:20:14 – 00:05:40:12
It gives you money, flexibility and control. And that’s what people want when they buy expensive things. And obviously what it is that we do is expensive. It’s not cheap to own a house or maintain it or upgrade it. All right. So what you will see is when I do this is I just take out a blank piece of paper and I write down on this cash or check.
00:05:40:14 – 00:05:57:21
And then I put in the total investment and I put, you know, when it’s due, upon completion, all the other notes around that, that you see on the right side and the left side and on the bottom are not there. Those are the things that I talk about. And so I’m, I’m giving this to you. I would never type this up for a customer.
00:05:57:21 – 00:06:13:20
I just do it on the fly and again, and the way I’m able to do it is because I also know my multipliers for my payment options available to me. Right? So again, I write down on a on a piece of paper this little T-bar square here, and I’ll say, don’t Susan, with this investment, you can put it, you can pay upon completion.
00:06:13:20 – 00:06:29:11
We don’t need your money upfront. I don’t need any deposit. We are solvent as a company. We don’t need your money to finance the job pay upon completion. When you’re happy with the job and you can pay the installers, you know, upon completion with a cash or check. About 10% of our customers do that. And the money, like I say, do upon completion.
00:06:29:17 – 00:06:49:18
Now, that being said, that does use up some cash reserves. There’s no added benefit for doing so. Meaning again, what am I saying there? There’s no cash discount. I’m not going to tell them that because the alternative to that is that you’re basically penalizing everybody who needs to take advantage of a payment plan. You don’t do it with credit cards, but you tend to do when you when it comes to financing.
00:06:49:18 – 00:07:04:26
And that’s just lunacy. To me. That makes no sense. Same price, cash or credit for anybody. If somebody wants to do business with me and they need a payment plan to take advantage of doing business with me, why am I going to penalize them? And you’re saying, well, rewarding those who are basically, you know, not costing me that dealer fee?
00:07:04:26 – 00:07:21:11
Well, again, that’s because that’s the way you’ve applied to dealer fee. See, I get everybody who basically does business with me to cover the cost of the dealer fee. It’s no different than any other expense I have in the cost of doing business. Financing is a cost of doing business, as is credit cards. So that’s just the way that I look at so that’s one way to look at it.
00:07:21:13 – 00:07:40:20
The next way to look at this is what we call credit card. You can put this on your credit card. Some customers like that because they get their points or miles or their cash back about 15% of our customers do that. Now that may tie up your credit source if you need it, and it results in a little bit of a larger payment because of obviously, the rate that, you know, the fee to borrow the money or the rate to carry, you know, your credit card carries.
00:07:40:25 – 00:07:56:08
But some people like that for that reason because they get those points, those miles, that cash back again. Remember, those notes are not on the handwritten piece of paper that I’m doing this on. Okay? About 20% of our customers like to take advantage of, you know, you know, they have the money, but they don’t want to put out all the money upfront.
00:07:56:08 – 00:08:17:22
And so what we can do for you is we can offer you 0% payments, or you might offer, a no payment for six months or up to 12 months. If you will defer the payment, you could do anything you want at that 0% level in this particular quadrant, if you will. But I like the 0%. I only do 12 to 36 months, not 60, but we’re showing 60 here.
00:08:17:24 – 00:08:40:27
But again, you might like that you’re going to end up with a little bit of a larger payment. It gives you a little bit of money, flexibility and control. There’s no fee to borrow the money, but you have to make sure that you’re going to pay it off by the end of the term. Because if you don’t, what happens is the manufacturer basically looks back to day one on the total investment and applies obviously interest at that point.
00:08:40:29 – 00:08:57:29
You know, and that it’s going to be probably comparable with a credit card. I don’t want you saying to a customer, they whack you with the interest all the way back to day one. And it’s like, you know, like it’s ripping you off like a credit card. No, you don’t say that. That is not you don’t get to put your value beliefs on this.
00:08:57:29 – 00:09:19:14
And you might be a Dave Ramsey or a Suzy Orman person who was told never to finance anything. Okay? That’s what they call being money responsible. But those that are money smart realize the way to go ahead and, you know, take advantage of leveraging money, if you will, is to use other people’s money to get the things that you want and allow.
00:09:19:19 – 00:09:40:14
Obviously savings or, in any kind of incentives to offset that. How the rich get richer using other people’s money. So again, that’s up to you as to how you embrace this. Don’t spend the customer’s money with your value of money and your bank account in your wallet. You might not do 0% financing. You might not do, you know, you know, low payment.
00:09:40:17 – 00:09:55:25
It should be low payment, low interest, long term. That may not be you. And that’s okay. You might be that person, but you don’t get to talk about that. This is not your home. This is not your bank account. So don’t go ahead and weigh way and accordingly. All right. So 0% options up to 36 months depending on the level of solution.
00:09:55:25 – 00:10:13:04
As you saw in a previous episode of Cracking the Code. About 20% of our customers do this. Where are you going to be? Like most of our customers who take advantage of the lowest payment possible, it makes getting what you want today easy and affordable. It gives you the maximum amount of money, flexibility and control. Because you’re in control, you can pay it off at any time.
00:10:13:10 – 00:10:36:07
There’s no prepayment penalty. And in fact, what you save in energy repair cost basically will get applied to the monthly payment and therefore effectively lower your rate. This happens to be based on, a fee to borrow the money of 6.99 for 144 months, but most people pay that off in usually 4 to 5 years or 48 to 60 months, most people.
00:10:36:09 – 00:10:54:06
And again, you’re saving money all along the way. And if utility rates go up like we think that they will, this is like a fine wine. It gets better with age. And so most people, about 55% of our customer base does that. What’s what seems to be the most favorable, to you. And it’s going to fit what you want to accomplish and see.
00:10:54:06 – 00:11:19:03
So letting the customer see it this way and hear it in that specific order is very important. Why? Because I started with the most, in my mind, the most unfavorable program, right where they have to come up with the largest chunk of money, which gives them the least amount of flexibility upfront and imposes. If you think about the most amount of risk in their mind, right, because they have to put out all this cash and hope that it’s going to do what they want it to do.
00:11:19:05 – 00:11:33:14
The cool thing about this is, is they get a warranty and guarantee, and the guarantee is a two year money back guarantee. And so hey, guess what? You can go ahead and finance this thing, put and make a few payments. And if you’re not happy with it and we can’t fix it, we’ll pull it out. We’ll give you all your money back.
00:11:33:14 – 00:11:49:07
In fact, will reimburse the monthly payments that you made. That way, you don’t have to come up with all that money at once. Most people basically realize they finance the existing system, that they had when they bought the house with the mortgage, so it makes sense to finance the replacement system. You don’t you don’t basically earn all your money at once.
00:11:49:07 – 00:12:05:18
It doesn’t make sense to spend all your money at once on the things that you’re going to consume over time, and you don’t pay for the utilities to power this all at once, either. So nobody typically goes and pays for this upfront anymore because they understand it’s expensive to own a house, it’s expensive to maintain and upgrade a house.
00:12:05:20 – 00:12:23:09
And so we’ve tried to find ways to make it easy and affordable for you to get what it is that you want, not just what you can afford. And so that’s what this payment plan shows you, right? And so the last thing that they see and the last thing that they heard, and the first thing that they see on the paper when they’re looking at the paper, is the most attractive thing.
00:12:23:12 – 00:12:48:06
And of course, the masses are also doing it. Here’s the interesting thing. When you look at that, that $102 a month, let’s assume for argument’s sake, I’m going to save them $60 a month in energy costs. That knocks that down to about $42 a month. That’s just about a dollar a day to get the best thing that they know that they want, the thing that they said that they want with a peace of mind protection is ten years, parts of labor, two years of maintenance to your money back guarantee all baked into that.
00:12:48:13 – 00:13:04:22
They’re going to basically be at $42 a month, you know, out of pocket again, even at $102 a month, that’s less than a cable and internet bill for their house. And it’s less than her cell phone bill for two cell phone bills for that, you know? Yeah. You know, the two people, the heads of household that happen to live in that particular house, right?
00:13:04:25 – 00:13:21:26
If you break it down to the ridiculous, it’s less than a cup of coffee for the day, or it’s less than the Happy Meal for the kids, or less than what they’re spending when they go out to lunch at work. Easy, affordable, digestible on a monthly basis comparable to the bills that they spend. Yeah, they know what they earn on a month to month basis or a week to week basis.
00:13:21:29 – 00:13:51:13
They know what their other bills are. They’re comfortable with these ranges. The things that they’re not comfortable with is a $10,000 bill, a $20,000 bill. And yet most contractors are not good at talking about things in low, digestible chunks of money, which is what we want. I mean, some of you will have a bar bill like that, or go out to dinner all weekend and have, you know, you, you and your significant other, and you’ll spend that on a meal and we can basically take care of their entire house and make everything right, solve all the problems that they’ve got.
00:13:51:15 – 00:14:13:12
So with that being said, the things you have to take into consideration is what you make valuable. You must make affordable. And that make and therefore make it make sense in everyday life. Realize that the payment is less than is going to be payment less cost of, repairs and utilities being saved. Right? The payment is before those energy repair cost savings.
00:14:13:14 – 00:14:29:13
And then break it down to the net ridiculous number as I did. Right. So again, I broke it down to a daily number that was that was digestible. You could break that down to a monthly number as well as I did. Right. And I tied that to their cable internet bill, their cell phone bill, or a cup of coffee or a meal.
00:14:29:15 – 00:14:55:05
Right. They’re already spending that kind of money upfront. They’re comfortable with spending that kind of money. It’s digestible. I’m connecting it to their story. I’m personalizing. You get the things that you want. You’re going to be able to solve Billy’s allergies and asthma. The back family room is finally going to be enjoyable. I can tie specifically to what their story is, and then I wrap it up in a cocoon of safety and security with my warranties and guarantees, those ironclad protections that not only remove the risk from the customer.
00:14:55:07 – 00:15:14:05
Okay, that’s the warranties, but the guarantees reverse the risk and put them squarely on my shoulder where it belongs. If they’re not happy and I can’t make things right, they grab 100% recourse to pull that thing out. And me reimbursed the 100%. That being said, if there’s any questions about this topic or any other topic, you’ve got my contact information here.
00:15:14:09 – 00:15:30:29
As a member, you are the mission. Feel free to reach out and ask any questions, but I would also encourage you to get yourself and your people to the Sales execution class, which we do virtually, as well as the elevated consumer buying experience. We do a deeper dive on this topic and any others, and then we tie them all together as well.
00:15:31:02 – 00:15:46:29
Until next time. Now that’s some awesome content right there from drew. As always, be sure to share this on Facebook, by the way, and if you’re not a member, click on the button below to get a free 30 day trial. Absolutely free, which will give you access to all of our amazing content. Well, that’s it for today, folks.
00:15:46:29 – 00:16:00:27
Will see you next time. Until then, bye bye for now.
