You Broke My Heart

You Broke My Heart

Rodney Koop
Contributing Writer
The New Flat Rate

You broke my heart ’cause I couldn’t dance,

You didn’t even want me around.

And now I’m back to let you know I can really shake ’em down.

“The Contours” 1962 Top 40 Hit

A song we all know well, maybe our industry could rewrite it like this:

You broke my heart ‘cause I couldn’t sell,

You even sent me to sales school,

But I still can’t sell, I don’t want to sell, Why would I want to sell?

Not much of a song, right?  But it sure has a familiar ring to it.  Is it really selling that service men and women don’t like or is it rejection?

After all, if you go to someone’s home or business with the intention of really helping them, by solving a problem they have, it’s only natural to expect them to be happy you are helping them.

But yet, there were many times I’d be out working in the field and I would get a machine or motor or air conditioner up and running again, and I wanted to sing to my customer, “Do you love me, do you love me?” The customer had been desperate for my problem solving ability and skilled expertise, yet when they saw the bill they treated me like I couldn’t dance, like they didn’t even want me around.

Something was wrong with that picture.

So where did we go wrong?  Maybe in high school there should be a class for everyone in, “What to expect when the service man comes to your door.” Or, “How to smile when you pay your service company!”

Why is selling so difficult?  Well, let’s look at what we call selling.

Selling 101:

1.   Greeting the customer
2.   Establishing rapport with the customer
3.   Educating the customer
4.   Presenting options to the customer
5.   Overcoming objections with the customer
6.   Closing the sale
7.   Collecting the money
8.   Getting the referral
9.   Going to the next customer and doing it all over again

Seems simple enough but do you realize that most of what is called sales training today comes directly from the great sales trainers of our time?  Men like Zig Ziglar, W. Clement Stone, and women like Mary Kay Ash, Erica Feidner and my all-time favorite car salesman Joe Girard.  (I actually was a car salesman for one whole year in 1980 and I kept a personally autographed 8X10 glossy of Joe Girard on my desk.)

I should also mention that most of what is taught by today’s sales trainers was learned in the trenches, not selling hvac and plumbing but selling waterless cookware,  yes pots and pans in the home with live cooking demonstrations.

Zig Ziglar the master himself explained that he could hardly sell a dinner fork without the benefit of cooking a full meal for a group of prospects in someone’s lovely home.

But did you know how long it took him to learn that method, did you know he was practically living out of his car, wanting to quit every day? The heartache day after day of people closing the door on him when he was desperate for a sale, any sale.   Did you know that so many sales people who finally became successful at this difficult occupation were heartbroken, down trodden and emotionally beat up long before they achieved success? So, why should we think that we can make service men and women successful at this tough game when they did not ever want a career in selling?

By the way, how many of you business owners have felt just a little heartache at your own attempts to sell in the home?   Or when your technicians come back to the shop and say they can’t do it?

And who says your business has to depend on front line sales people?  After all, if they can do that maybe you should invest in a life insurance business or how about a waterless cookware business! Ok enough of the hard sell, (no pun intended) let’s get to the meat.   The meat is this:  Give training in skilled trades, help your team to become true experts in their core areas and this will give confidence.

Confidence comes from being competent at my game, my core value whatever that is.  And when I am confident I can overcome fear.  And why not take the fear out of the game for your employees, why not change over to a retail method of selling?  Retail is where the customer wants something (like they do when they call for service) and when the customer simply chooses off of a shelf or a menu of services.  Let the customer choose and your techs won’t have to sell.  And when techs don’t have to sell everybody wins.