The big three

 

BY JOHN BARBA

guest writer

 

For a plumbing and heating contractor to be truly successful — and we define success as sustainable profitability and a high quality of life for the contractor and the employees — he or she needs to possess three equally important attributes.

First, the contractor and his team must have rock solid technical skills. At a bare minimum it’s basic technical competence. This includes understanding piping principles, heating and cooling technology, sizing, pumping, electronics, controls, codes, etc. This competence needs to be firm, stone cold.
Many contractors have moved beyond basic competence into the upper echelons of know-how. This is even better.

Technical competence alone, however, isn’t enough simply because it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your competition also has technical competence. Yeah, sure, I know, there are idiots our there, often in abundance. But every single one of your competitors isn’t a chucklehead. If you look at it honestly, you’ll find that a good many of them are pretty good. And if you’re really honest, you might find some of them may even be better than you.

So to achieve the level of success we desire, we need the other two attributes.

The next attribute is rock solid business skills. You need to know how to run your business like a business — not a hobby. You need to have a basic understanding of double entry accounting and you need to be able to read financial statements and understand what they mean. Then you have to be able to make decisions based on what those statements tell you.

But that’s not all. You also need to know how to lead and manage people. Unless you’re a one-man show (and that’s not a bad thing), you’re going to have to deal with employees — fellow tradesmen to go out and do the work, office help, bookkeepers, etc. You need to manage them properly, motivate them effectively, train them adequately and compensate them fairly so you won’t have to replace them frequently. As Ellen Rohr says, you gotta be able to keep score.

The final necessary attribute is the one no one likes to talk about — but is equal in importance to technical skills and business skills — and that is selling skills.

Why selling skills?

Quite simply, your customers need a reason to hire you. There are lots of other folks out there doing what you do. If someone wants to get three or four quotes on a radiant heating system, it’s really not that hard to do.

Are all of the quotes equal? Are all of the competing contractors competent? Are all the products used of similar quality? Are the designs adequate? The customer really has no way of knowing any of this. Someone has to help him.

First off, understand that in the eyes of your customer, you and your competitors are of equal quality until proven otherwise. In their context, if you put a shingle out in front that says you’re a heating contractor, the prospective customer will assume you have a basic, minimum level of competence. If one of the competitors you’re bidding against is scary bad and happens to get the job, the customer won’t find this out until it’s too late.

Your job isn’t to act as a quality cop. No customer wants to hear anyone say, “Oh my God, don’t hire that guy — he’s a flippin’ butcher. What a hack!”

What each competitor needs to do is to show this customer what his or her company brings to the dance. What each competitor needs to do is show the customer why he or she should hire their company. Note I didn’t say why the customer should hire their company and not the competition, just why the customer should hire their company. Let the other guys talk for themselves, and then let the best man win.

Your object is, quite obviously, to do the best job of showing your customer why you’re the best person for the job. That, boys and girls, is selling.

Selling — the definition

There are lots of definitions out there for selling. Here’s Webster’s:

1: to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain: Betray — often used with “out” <sell out their country>

Well that doesn’t sound very nice. How about this one:

2 a (1): to give up (property) to another for something of value (as money) (2): to offer for sale b: to give up in return for something else especially foolishly or dishonorably <sold his birthright for a mess of pottage> c: to exact a price for <sold their lives dearly>

Yeesh. No wonder no one likes sales people.

Wait, it gets worse…

3 a: to deliver into slavery for money b: to give into the power of another <sold his soul to the devil> c: to deliver the personal services of for money

4: to dispose of or manage for profit instead of in accordance with conscience, justice, or duty <sold their votes>

Nothing to give you the warm, fuzzies, is there? Seems that old man Webster might have been on the losing end of a couple of business deals, don’t you think?

Here, on the other hand, is a kinder, gentler definition of selling:

“Selling is defined as helping a customer identify a problem or problems, and then offering solutions to those problems using your own unique experience and skill sets.”

Isn’t that nice? Helping. What a great word. Who doesn’t want to be helper? Offering. Even better. Sounds like something you do at church. Solutions to problems. Man, this is making me tingle all over. Your own unique experience and skill sets. Way, WAY better than “delivering into slavery for money.”
What kind of person are you? What are your values, your ethics, and personal code of conduct? The kind of person you are will dictate what kind of sales person you are.

If you’re the kind of person who would “deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain,” well, that’s the kind of salesperson you’ll be. And you won’t sell me anything.

But if you’re an honorable person who likes to help and who can offer solutions to problems using your own unique experience and skill set, then that’s the kind of sales person you’ll be. And you’ll no doubt be a successful one, too.

John Barba is Contractor Training and Trade Program manager for Taco, Inc, and has been in the trades since he could walk, carrying wrenches for his dad in the family’s plumbing and heating business outside of Boston. John’s practical experience includes everything from ditch digging and drain cleaning to boiler piping and PEX installing, as well as business management and contractor sales. Since 1995, John has trained more than 12,000 contractors in hydronic heating design and installation.