Stop Pricing Yourself Out of Business

Jon Bryant: Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Price Sell Paint. I am Jon with Michael Murray, who you guys may or may not know. He's been here before, but Chris Moore has not been here. Welcome Chris to the podcast. Chris is the founder and managing advisor of Elite Business Advisors, and Chris, we're just happy you're here. Thanks for being here.

Chris Moore: Thanks for having me. I love doing this. I've always enjoyed chatting with you guys and I'm honored to be a guest on the podcast.

Jon Bryant: Well, we always find that it's best for our guests to just tell everyone who's listening who they are, what they do, why this is going to be an awesome podcast. So Chris, I'm going to send it over to you.

Chris Moore: I appreciate it. So like you mentioned, founder of Elite Business Advisors. Our company works exclusively with painting contractors all over the country, all over North America, to help them more on the business side of their business. We help people in all areas whether it's finances, marketing, estimating, sales, HR, operations, day-to-day systems, strategies to grow - kind of everything.

My background, I spent over a decade in the painting industry myself. I had my own business here in the St. Louis area where I'm at. Our whole team of advisors all have ran and managed painting companies before too. It's kind of become a non-negotiable to work for us. And that's because we found a lot of value in literally being in the shoes of our clients that we're helping through stuff. We've all been there, we've done it. We've walked through those problems. And so we find that there's a lot of value in that and kind of how we coach and advise our clients.

Jon Bryant: Beautiful.

Michael Murray: I mean, it's obviously different for somebody who's never done this before. The painting industry is similar to other industries, but in many ways, it's just unique. And some of the day to day struggles and just crazy stuff that happens - Jon and I share privately with each other all the crazy things that we go through. And I appreciate Jon's counsel. And I think it's important that everybody in the industry has somebody that they're doing that with, whether it's a coach or just friends that you meet at the PCA or all of the above. So I think what you guys are doing is pretty awesome. I like that approach.

Chris Moore: I appreciate it.

Jon Bryant: So yeah, Price Sell Paint, obviously we like to talk about sales, pricing, the painting industry. And one of the things that Michael and I really believe in, kind of the foundation of what we do, is that we think pricing and selling a job is almost - well, we like to say 90% of the battle because that's where the money is. And without money, you can't run a business. And without a sale, you can't hire and do your thing. So would you agree with that, Chris? Or is there more to it? Are we missing something?

Chris Moore: Yeah, so I would agree to it, but I would also throw marketing in there as well. I think your head's on the right track and I think if you break the painting industry down to a very simplistic functional level, you will never make money if you don't have jobs to produce. The only way you make money with any type of service business, but we'll just talk painting specific, is when you literally produce work and can bill a customer for it.

To back that up, before you can even talk about production and operations and financials, you have to have work to produce to make money. So I would 100% agree with you on that. I would just also add in the step right before pricing a job and say the marketing and lead generation side is equally important. You guys are pretty important, don't get me wrong. But I would put those two hand in hand because without either, the business fails.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, that's totally valid. I think one thing we hear a lot in the painting industry is that it's feast or famine with marketing for most people. And most people don't figure out how to do it consistently and just learn what actually works and test. We just had a chat with Garrett Martel a couple of weeks ago and his business and it's really interesting to learn what moves the needle in terms of getting leads, but also there's marketing after the estimate and after they close or don't close and there's all these different channels to it. So yeah, totally agree. The communication piece matters.

Chris Moore: For sure.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I think too, just to go back to it - I mean, I don't think I disagree. There's so many parts of running any successful business, but it's just like, if we price the job accurately and we can sell it at a higher price - let's just say a fair price - but oftentimes when somebody gets into this industry, the sales skill is if I price it low enough, somebody will buy. And that's the beginning of the end. This might take decades, but we believe that it's just like if you price it correctly, where you can actually make the right gross margin, you now can have a marketing budget and then we get to go have some fun. And now there's something - you don't have to have a whole lot of sophisticated marketing budget to go find some people that want something painted. You can go walk around your neighborhood. I think you have a student painting background like I did. So I'm guessing you've maybe knocked on some doors like I did back in the day.

Chris Moore: Yep, just a couple of times.

Michael Murray: Yeah. And so you can do that, not be all that sophisticated with it. And then it's like, you know, hey, I got somebody who said they want to get a painting quote and now what?

Chris Moore: Well, you know, it's funny. I'm glad you say that Michael. If you think back to the student painting days, whatever company you were with, whether it was College Pro, College Works, I was a Student Painters guy - at the end of the day, we would have college students that would run an 80 to 100 to $120,000 business in the three months of summertime. So you extrapolate that out, you're looking at a 300 to 500K business, sometimes even greater than that. I know the record my last year there, I think was at like 220 for the summer, which was just insane. And we didn't do Google ads. We didn't have local service ads. We didn't have meta ads. We had lawn signs, door hangers, what we call their hello neighbor flyers, and grit.

Michael Murray: Knocking on doors.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Chris Moore: And that's what we did. So I agree with you on that. You don't have to have a crazy sophisticated budget for it. You just have to be consistent and actually have a plan in place to do that. And I think to your point earlier, you mentioned about pricing being the beginning of the end. Whenever I get to go speak and do sessions with Sherwin Williams all over the country, I always share that the average painting contractor's business lasts 18 months, 18 to 20 months.

I always ask why do you think that is? And then the first joke is they run out of friends and family to paint for, which is part of it. The other joke that people always say is taxes finally catch up with them, which is unfortunately also true. But really the third part of it, which I think is the true answer, is what I always call out of business pricing. And you said that spot-on. Hey, I made $25 an hour at this painting company. I'm going to leave and start my own and I'm going to charge $32 an hour.

Michael Murray: Let's go.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Chris Moore: Yeah, now you have taxes, you have insurance, you have marketing costs, you're driving all over the city doing bids - there's so much that goes into it. And yeah, after 18 months, they just go, I was making more money at my old job actually. So I think the fundamental of that, if you can use that 18 months of friends and family and network and some grunt marketing to build momentum, price it right, sell it right, have that margin - like you said, that's where the fun begins because you're building momentum in the right direction.

Jon Bryant: So when you go speak - sorry, go ahead Michael.

Michael Murray: Well, I was going to ask a follow up on that real quick. How would you teach somebody on a very back of the napkin way to figure out how much they should charge?

Chris Moore: The simplest way is figure out what your hourly labor rate should be. So kind of rule of thumb - if you have in-house employees, take the average of all their wages, add your insurance burden and employer taxes, which is 20% give or take.

Jon Bryant: Lost me, lost me already. I'm just joking.

Michael Murray: This doesn't apply to O Canada. O Canada, you guys are just weird up there. Don't worry about it. Keep going, Chris. I follow you.

Chris Moore: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that Michael. And usually take that and then either double it, two and a half times it, or three X it, depending on how much your overhead is and stuff. So that's a real easy general rule - figure out how long the job is going to take, figure out what that hourly charge rate is. You should be having most things here in the US $55 to $75 an hour depending on specific markets - again talking US dollars Jon, so bear with us. And then from there, it's a matter of how long is the job going to take, how many hours, and then how much paint do we need and price it together. So I try to keep it really simple. Everything that we talk about in our company with our clients, I want to beat it with a simple stick. I want to make it easy. I want to make it simple to understand and break down how to figure this stuff out. So that's been the easiest way we've been able to find that.

Michael Murray: Yep. I like it. That's what we've maybe a long time ago talked about something like that on the podcast. I think it's really good for people to be able to heat check themselves. I would lean towards that - personally just two and a half to three times whatever your labor cost is plus the burden. Most people aren't charging enough, even the larger more sophisticated companies who are very intentional about their pricing. Especially lately, right? Inflation has been a very hot topic over the last three years or so. And I don't know that painting contractors are always keeping up with their pricing and things like that.

Chris Moore: They're definitely not.

Jon Bryant: Chris, if you do that whole process, and I think we have talked about this before and I've always been on the side of three X-ing that number - how many of the people that come to talk to you are charging enough or is that the first thing you guys look at?

Chris Moore: If I had to give you some real quick stats off that on the fly here, I would say 40% of people that come to us are charging enough, whether it's really where they should be at or not, but it's at least enough to make money. 40% are in really good shape and then the other 20% are way off the mark.

Jon Bryant: High or low? I'm assuming low.

Chris Moore: Low, not always low. Always low. I've yet to have anybody ever come in and say you're actually charging too much. And it's one of our best case studies - a client up in Michigan. That was the situation. He was working 80 hours a week, not making any money. Come to find out his charge rate was like $30 to $35 dollars an hour.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Chris Moore: So yes, it's an easy fix. But how do you take somebody - of course, he was booked out nine months. That was the giveaway like you're probably too cheap. But the easy thing is like, okay, we'll go start charging $60. Well, how do you take somebody who has confidence in sales that was charging $35 to now be at $60? He's finally up to $65 as of last springtime, but it was $10 increments, $5 increments over time.

It's like we got him stable. We got him off life support. We got him stable. And then it was slowly just creeping that up as that demand stayed there. And as he built the confidence and also saw I can still sell work at these prices. So I think that that's a big battle. Everyone's like, it's just super easy. Like just go from $35 to $60 an hour. And it's like, yeah, psychologically that's hard for a lot of business owners to do. So you have to kind of figure out a good game plan of how do we get to that point as quickly as we can.

Jon Bryant: It's interesting you say that because we've talked a lot about this idea of money mindset - that people, where you came from, how you were raised, all these background founding stories of your life. And so someone charges $35 an hour, to them that feels expensive for some reason. That feels like the most they could ever charge. And then you tell them $60 and now they feel these feelings. They're an imposter or they don't deserve it. Or there's all these things you have to kind of tackle.

Chris Moore: Yep. Taking advantage of people or yeah, exactly.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. And then Michael comes in and is like, boom, I charge over $100 an hour. And they're like, this guy's a jerk. He's taking advantage. I appreciate you saying that because ultimately it's the engine that runs the business - the pricing. And yeah, like you said, marketing is super important, but we got to get that engine in. If you put bad fuel into your engine, it's just going to wreck the car. Let's understand it. So the process - so someone comes in, they've got, that's right, go ahead, Michael.

Michael Murray: And I think too, I was going to say real quick - I mean, I think too though, like you said, we're taking advantage. And it's just like, if you're charging too low, you're being taken advantage of. But you're also maybe - and maybe you're okay with that - but you're also taking advantage of your team. You're not providing them with full benefits. You're not paying them what they're worth. They don't get PTO. They don't have disability insurance or whatever types of things. They don't get to drive around in a nice vehicle they're proud of, having the best equipment that they could to do the best work that they can. And so it's just like, why don't we try to start with that? How much does it cost to have that? And then let's create the whole business and charging model around having that business. Who doesn't want to be a part of that? I think that all starts to attract everything that we want in this industry.

Chris Moore: Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I think again, it's helping them psychologically think about it differently. There's a lot more to it than just what are they paying themselves. And honestly, this is where I love PaintScout software because it provides industry benchmarks and production rates. And yeah, tweak it to their business and certain things, but for the most part, you guys help implement a standard that people need to become aware of. And I think that that is - so if anybody's listening to this and you're listening, you're like, man, okay, I really resonate with that - how do I go from here to there? How do I get past those limiting beliefs? I think it's understanding that there is a standard price in this industry. Now granted you're going to have people that come in low that have to undercut because they're not professionalized, they're not systematized, they're all over the board, they're not organized. And that's the only way they get work. But if that's not you, understand there is a standard in this industry of roughly what a bedroom costs in each market and we should be pricing at those benchmarks. Not just undercutting things or doing it because we feel like a bedroom shouldn't be more than $250. No, it actually should be. So yeah, I think that would be something to understand - why there's benchmarks in place and what those are and price accordingly to that, not what you feel it should be.

Michael Murray: There's a price point for everybody in the industry, right? Somebody in your market is willing to spend $200 an hour. There's probably not a lot of customers in that price point, but maybe that's okay, especially if you're a sole entrepreneur running, doing your thing. And there's people that are willing to spend $35 an hour and there's everything in between. So going back to that marketing point, it's just like, if everybody you're talking to isn't willing to spend the $60 or $75 or $100, whatever it is an hour, then maybe we're just talking to the wrong people. But there are people in your market that are willing to spend more than whatever you're currently charging.

Chris Moore: Yep, nailed it.

Michael Murray: Anyway, sorry, Jon, I think I cut you off. Go ahead.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I can't remember what I was going to say. Yeah, in any case, so when you guys, with the stuff that you do, Chris, we've got the pricing kind of figured out now and three-axing your average hourly wage should get you close to where you gotta be. What comes next? Obviously we gotta sell it. And is that stuff that you guys work with clients on? Let's talk about that process because it sounds like that guy at $35 an hour - I'm just going to guess probably didn't have a very good sales process.

Chris Moore: No, not a lot of repeatable action happened in there. I think he was good at sales because he's a great human being and he connects with people and people like him and trust him and they did great quality work. Hence why he was booked out for nine months. But yeah, that's actually one of my favorite things to talk about is that sales process. We talk a lot about it in the sense of for starters, if you're going to go from $35 an hour to $60 an hour, we need to probably change the sales process to justify the $60 an hour. We need to have it branded, we need to have it professional, we need to have it in a place where people understand why your bids are going to be more than somebody else's. If they get an interior repaint bid and your bid's $2,500 more, we want it to have such a good process that it made it obvious why your bid was $2,500 more compared to the guy that is undercutting stuff. So yeah, that's a big thing that we talk a lot about - how do we insert sales aids, touch points, different things throughout that customer journey? I always tell people look at your customer journey from the second a lead reaches out requesting an estimate all the way through you showing up or your estimator showing up for the bid all the way through when they make a decision. What are all the touch points, leave behind things that we can send them that are branded, professional and educational to help them make that decision? So yeah, I love chatting about that. I think that was a big thing we talked about on PaintScout X last year, was like a six step sales process and stuff.

Jon Bryant: That's right. So let's go through a couple of those steps. One thing is that we've talked about so many different styles of a system here. Michael and I, we're both educated on a Sandler system, and that maybe ties into some of the stuff you're talking about. But tell us a bit more about the process and where that comes from.

Chris Moore: Yeah, so I mean step one, have a process. Have something that's repeatable because then you can easily tweak it, adjust it, make it better. And so I think that's honestly where a lot of people kind of stumble - there's not a proven repeatable process. For me, it starts with the estimate scheduling phone call. It's an SOP of questions, right? And whether they book online and schedule on a Calendly link, in my opinion, there still needs to be a personal human connection point after that to just call them and say, hey, we saw the estimate request for Tuesday at 9 a.m. We look forward to meeting you. Tell us a little bit more about your project. There still needs to be a human component. I had somebody one time say, man, this is great. Customers just reach out on my website. They schedule a quote and I don't even have to talk to a single person before I show up. And I'm like, I think you're missing the point.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Chris Moore: Like I love the tech and automation, not good for human connection. So that's where we start with it - what is that phone call, the qualifying questions. What are you looking to have done? What does your timeline look like for it? Those are a couple of the big things that we like to just qualify and kind of get a good feel for it. I'm not the person that gets deep in like, are both homeowners going to be present? Do you have a budget in mind for the project? I want to have some good qualifying questions. I don't like to go too far with that. I don't know how you guys feel about that.

Jon Bryant: We go back and forth, but ultimately it's like, there's just some critical points of timeline, scope, some expectations. We lean pretty far into color. So we like to start bringing that up pretty early - what's your, how do you feel about color? Are you going to need help with that? We start positioning ourselves a little bit in that first call. But yeah, we don't want to make it too intimidating or else it starts to feel like a bad first date. So let's just have some simple, easy to answer questions. What do you do, Michael?

Michael Murray: Yeah, I think it comes down to what are we solving for? I don't think I'm going to say anything that anybody in this podcast disagrees with, but it's like, we got to know our numbers. Do we have lead conversion number issues? Do we have sales conversion number issues? Are we selling jobs that we shouldn't be going on, small quotes, things like that? Are we wasting sales rep time or we have so many leads we can't even get to them all? Or maybe it's December and we just don't even have enough leads. It's just like, I think we're going to flex or vary a little bit how much of what we're looking for, but the pre-call, pre-qualifying kind of stuff that we're doing is going to change slightly based on where's the business at this moment that can be seasonal. It can just be based on growth points and different things like that. But generally, I think it's just like, I think we all have to be aware of this stuff matters. It does affect what's going to happen later. There is a side effect of everything that we do, whether we ask any questions or whether we don't even call the customer or things like that does matter. And I think too often we do what's convenient for us as the business or the business owner or the sales rep or whatever. And while that can - I hear it, and I've certainly made that mistake - the unintended consequence can be fewer customers who, or customers that maybe aren't the right fit and things like that. And then we got to go back and reevaluate, are we doing the right things here?

Chris Moore: I think one thing - we're a big fan of doing estimates on the spot, presenting on the spot. And I was clarifying this every time I speak - it's not to try to hard sell them and close them right there. There isn't a $4,000 discount to sign today. I kicked a fencing company out of my house one time because they tried to pull that and I was like, yeah, we're just not going to get along. You can probably just go ahead and leave.

That's not the goal behind it. But the goal is for me, it's to complete that kind of customer experience up to that point, to walk through it with them, to answer questions, to make sure they understand how the bid was put together, especially if there's a few options they're trying to figure out and explore with their budget. And so I'm a huge fan of that. And so I think one thing on that call - I always tell people, if you're struggling with something or you notice a sticking point, back up one step and change your process. And so some people try to do bids on the spot and the homeowner's like, oh, I only have 15 minutes. Okay. You didn't set the expectation on the phone what to expect at the quote. So change your SOP to say, hey, just so you know, an estimate, project your size, probably going to take about 30, 45 minutes. So just so you know how much time to block out, we'll run through the quote with you while we're there, answer any questions you have, email you a copy over before we leave your property. Just kind of give you a heads up what to expect.

And so I think that would be something to think about again, when you have a repeatable process, if there's a sticking point or a tripping point you keep finding yourself bumping up against, go back one step and change whatever the process is to set the expectation, communicate, whatever that needs to be.

Jon Bryant: Survey question here for the three of us. Who likes to be hard sold? I don't. Michael, do you enjoy that?

Chris Moore: Not I.

Michael Murray: So I think based on the way that you word your question, I think leading the witness would be my thing, I would say, if I was an attorney. I think the problem, and this is what I teach our sales reps, that - so I don't want to be, in air quotes, hard sold either. I've had the same sleazy sales experience where it's just like, you don't need to take the time to get to know what I want. You're just here to sell me whatever package widget thing you have. You're going to start with a high price and you think I'm buying because of price.

And so it's like, if that's what we're describing as hard selling, then yes, I agree. But I also don't want to be weak sold either. And I've talked to our sales team about this where it's like, I have a problem. Chris, you had a problem. You called the fencing company for a reason. Whatever it is, the dog's running out, we probably need a fence. I don't know. Whatever your reason is, and a good sales rep is going to figure that out. And if they leave there, you still have that same problem.

And so if they do their job well, their job is to help you solve that problem. Because I'm guessing Chris is a busy guy and Chris isn't - you like getting fencing quotes because you can go talk about it on the Price Sell Paint podcast someday, but as much fun as that is, you got other shit to do. And it's like, I think too often our sales reps go out and they're just like, well, I'm not going to, I'm not even going to ask for the sale. They'll get back to me when they're good and ready. And the problem is that your job is to take away that homeowner's or that customer's problem. And you didn't do that because you were too weak and you were too worried about how somebody's going to perceive you or don't want to come across as salesy or whatever that might be. And this goes back to the head trash point that you brought up, Jon. And it's like, when I have - I've had these experiences where I needed some window work done and have got people come out and I get the super salesy guy and it's just, this is such a turnoff.

And I get the other thing and what I'm left with is a window problem. And then nobody's following up with me. And I'm like, I need to give my money to somebody so I can not have a window problem or my wife doesn't remind me that we have a window problem, kind of a problem. And it's exactly the windows are fine. But again, it's just that's where it's like, we have to be careful when we talk about things internally, especially how we talk to ourselves as salespeople. I don't want to be salesy. I don't want to charge too much, etc. etc. And it's just like, there's an opposite thought of that. And the more we keep reinforcing those things, there's a negative outcome. And some customers want you to be a little pushy and they want you to ask for the sale and they want to get this thing over with. And I think you can do that. I don't think anybody disagrees. I'm not arguing with you. I just want to make a point.

But it's just that I think you can do that in a good way and you can do that in a bad way like you described it.

Jon Bryant: I'll make a quick comment. I don't want to hear your thoughts on that, Chris, but it's so much of it is about your internal discussion that you have with yourself. I remember the moment when I feel like I was selling things to people and I kind of hated myself a little bit. I was like, I don't like this. I feel like every guy that's ever done this sleazy sales tactic and I'm just doing it because that's what I feel like I should do. And then one day I had this moment where I realized like, oh, I don't need to sell people stuff. I just have to help them buy.

I know it's a little bit cliche, but it actually changed the way I thought about the entire process where now I was helping them solve a problem. And if they chose me, great. If they chose someone else, that was also great because I was there to help them solve a problem. As long as they got it solved, that's great. And it really - it's interesting how when you make that adjustment, my win rates went up 25%. It was like overnight.

All of a sudden people can feel it, they understand it. You can make some types of comments that make them understand what the heart of what you want to do is. And ultimately you have to ask for that sale and help them solve a problem. But it comes down to - I think in my case, at least I think a lot of people's case - is just how we talk to ourselves.

Chris Moore: That's a great point. And I think I mean to that case, one thing I always tell our clients or again anywhere I get to go speak is people are calling you. There is a much different dichotomy of sales when people are calling you to get an estimate on something that they want or need compared to you being a door-to-door window salesman, roof salesman, solar panel company - insert whatever. There's a big difference in that.

You're not going to try to convince them. Hey, you need solar panels for your house. And here's why. That is hardcore sales. And so I think being mindful of that and I know even back in the student painter days, that was a big thing when I said ask for the sale. And I got to the point to where my ask for the sale was like, did you want to go ahead and get scheduled? It doesn't come across salesy. Hey, do you want to go ahead and sign on the dotted line? Hey, do you want to go ahead and send us a deposit? No, just, hey, do you want to go ahead and get scheduled in? I'm asking for the sale. I'm at least acknowledging that they may want to move forward. And if they don't, they'll tell me and then we'll go from there.

Jon Bryant: I used to always blame it on my manager.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I think it's having that abundance mindset that it's just like, it's okay if you don't sell every customer. And I think that's a big important thing.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, Chris, I used to blame it on my manager but I was a guy with two crews. I was like, oh my manager would kill me if I didn't ask if you wanted to go ahead today. And they were like - so I created this alternate person that was pressuring me. And now it was like, let's work together here and help. My manager's going to kill me.

Chris Moore: I love it. I love that. Yeah, and that's when they find out that you own your own company, there is no manager and they're like, I thought you owned the business. Well, I do but there's this manager guy.

Jon Bryant: This is my mom. She checks in on me once in a while.

Michael Murray: Yeah, alter ego.

Chris Moore: Yeah, she's my business manager. I think Michael, I want to piggyback on something real quick too that you mentioned about kind of knowing who to pivot to and maybe push a little bit harder with. And I think it goes back to understanding the personality profiles of people. DISC is my favorite. It's a little bit, I think, the simplest. And obviously there's a ton of different ones out there. But understanding that different personalities are going to want to handle that interaction differently. You get a very high D, direct, dominant personality. They care about one thing and it's results. So tell them what you're going to do. Tell them how you're going to solve their problem. Tell them how much it's going to cost to do it. Ask for the sale, because they might be ready to just be done. Okay, on to the next thing, because they don't probably have hours to deal with multiple bids. So I think really getting in tune with understanding those personality temperaments, tendencies and stuff will be super helpful to navigate when to maybe push a little bit harder with somebody and then when to be also a little bit more passive with others.

Michael Murray: Talk more about that. What would you say - there's somebody listening to this podcast, we use DISC in our company, our sales reps learn that same methodology, but let's talk to somebody who's listening to this podcast who isn't familiar. Maybe they've heard of DISC, maybe they've even taken a DISC profile, but it's never come across their brain that that is a sales tool. And so like, how might they get started with that? How might they think about that? How might they identify DISC profile without saying to the homeowner like, hey, what's your DISC? How might they go about getting started there?

Jon Bryant: Those are the initial questions, Michael. When someone gets a quote, you ask them all the personality questions and then they fill that out and then you know.

Michael Murray: That is a good thing, I like that.

Chris Moore: There you go. Can you fill out this 50 question survey while I'm getting my numbers? That'll really help.

Michael Murray: We're going to think about that.

Chris Moore: No, I mean, I think the first thing, Michael, is get educated on DISC. Get educated on the four different temperaments. I mean, obviously ChatGPT will put together a fantastic summary for that. And you could even ask like, how do we tailor this to the painting industry? I know plenty of books, plenty of resources, plenty of podcasts that exist out there on that. So I would say just step one is get educated on what the four different personalities are and those tendencies and the traits they have with it. And then I think from there, keep it very top of mind until it becomes very natural in your day-to-day interactions. For the most part, when you understand it and you are, I'll just say good at it, whatever that means to everybody listening to this, within 30 seconds of meeting someone you kind of can at least start putting them into one of the four quadrants for the most part. You're not going to tell them like you're an I, you're an I over here. But you kind of start to understand they're a very social person. They don't care about the details. They're probably more here. So I need to tailor this presentation that way. So I would say start with education. Practice it just in your day-to-day interactions with anybody you come across because when you can get good at that, then step three would be figuring out how do I tweak my sales process, my interactions, my conversation with them to suit that personality.

Michael Murray: So let's take this the next step if it's okay. I think this could be really impactful for people. It's also something we've never talked about on the podcast that I can remember. And I love that you brought this up. So let's just first talk about it. I'm just going to ask you some basic questions. Again, I'm going to pretend I've never heard of this before. What are the four - give me a quick synopsis. What are the four profiles?

Chris Moore: Yes, so D stands for dominant, direct. This is somebody - so everything runs off of are you task oriented or people oriented and are you introvert or extrovert. So a D, dominant, direct person is going to be task oriented and extrovert. They're typically good leaders. They're hard charging. They care about results. Sometimes they forget that people exist in the process, although they are extroverted in that sense. But a lot of times it's focused on the task, the results that they're going to get from it. The I, I believe stands for interpersonal if I remember correctly. I'm a super high D on that so I always forget what all the other ones stand for. But I is somebody that is people oriented and an extrovert. So they are somebody that is social, they love social settings, they love conversation, they want everybody to be their best friend.

And they forget that sometimes we have a job to do or we actually have to accomplish something. If you ever go to lunch with an I personality, plan on it being a two hour long lunch with 15 minutes of productivity thrown in there, probably forced by you. The C, I cannot remember what that one stands for, but C is somebody that is going to be task oriented and introverted. So this is somebody that is analytical. They are very meticulous and strategic in their decisions. They like to take time and think about it. They like to do a lot of research. They like to understand what exactly am I getting for what I'm going to pay, whether that's buying a new iPhone or buying a paint job. They're very analytical. They're detailed. These are your spreadsheet nerds. So I'm a DC on my personality profile. And then the last one is S which I know stands for steady.

And the S is somebody that is people oriented and introverted. So they do actually like people, they are just more introverted by nature. And so these are people a little bit more calm, go with the flow. They don't like to ruffle feathers. They don't like chaos, they don't like confrontation. They just exist and they come across - this is a big thing I had to understand, especially being on the complete opposite spectrum of the quadrants. I was like, these people are weird. These people are rude. They don't want to talk. No, that's just how they are. They are people-people, but they are actually just kind of introverted. They just want to keep to themselves and they kind of analyze and take stuff in as well. So being somebody that was very high on the D side of it, I had to really learn and if you look at my adaptive profile, my D is very tampered down because I'm aware of weaknesses and how to adapt. But I really had to slow down and just understand that them not wanting to have a lot of small talk wasn't a bad thing. I just had to figure out how to connect with them in those key little moments where they wanted to have a conversation.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I'll jump in and add a little bit of context and I want to give you another question. I think the way I like to think of that SI difference is the I will use like an upcoming PCA Expo here in a few weeks or whatever. So at the PCA Expo, your I's are going to be the life of the party. They're going to have 75 friends. They're going to be talking to everybody and your S's maybe have like five really deep meaningful relationships. They are often known in like loyalty is often something that's talked about and somebody that's a very high S. They're very routine based and things like that. You mentioned that C, that accounting spreadsheet, engineer type mentality of just like they need to know every detail. So when we go to a sales appointment, now let's just talk specifically we're at the home.

What might be something that somebody could do or not do that might be a quick cue for the sales rep that this person has given me some hints that there are D and I and S or a C.

Chris Moore: Ooh, that's really good. I feel like you already have an answer to this up here. Off the top of my head, I think one thing would be, hey, how important would it be for me to explain the process in which we're going to go through and complete this project? And just straight up ask it. They could kind of be like, I don't know. Well, some people really want to know every single step and what to expect. And some people don't really care. They just care about the price and are we going to do a good job and use high quality products. So again, flying off the seat of my pants here, I think that would be one that you could ask that kind of gives you that inclination of what direction they are.

Michael Murray: Yeah, yeah. I think it's like, you know, some of the examples that we use in our sales training is you show up and we've all seen this - you show up and the homeowner has a list printed off and it's just like, they already know what Sherwin-Williams they want. They already know what primers they want. They're going to show you like, here's the type of siding I have and here's the manufacturer specs from it and things like that. And it's just like, that's a C, that's a very high C.

Chris Moore: Yeah, yes.

Michael Murray: And so what you need to do though is meet them where they're at. That might not be where you are. You might not - it's like, my gosh. And it's just like, but if you don't have good answers to their very detailed questions, they're not going with you. Where it's just like, we can't just say to that person like, yeah, we use premium quality paints. It's like, which one, what sheen, what - and some sales reps are lost there, right? Where it's just like, I actually don't really know that level of detail.

Chris Moore: Yeah, now that's a great point.

Michael Murray: Where that D to your point earlier, it's just like, yeah. So how much is it? I don't read me a quote. I don't care. I assume you guys are going to do a good job. I like you. We're jiving right now. What's the price? When can you get started?

Chris Moore: Yeah, no, I think that's great. And I think, again, knowing those tendencies and then again, how do you tailor that presentation to them to be detailed to the C oriented person, to be not overbearing to the S's that are very reserved and whatnot. And then the I's to me sometimes are the painful ones because it's like, I actually need to give you this quote, but all you want to do is talk about how bad the Blues are doing this year. That's fantastic. But can we...

Michael Murray: I think what I see with your S is typically the person who really wants to get to know you. And it's just like, can I get you some coffee? Let's talk for a half hour. Tell me your whole life story. And I want to know about your family. And when you leave there, they want to do business with their best friend. And if you're not going to take the time for them to become your new best friend, it's going to be hard to connect. Where that I, it might seem similar, but it's just like, we became best friends in three minutes. And it's just like, wait, you went to the same college as me? My gosh, this is great. All right, let's figure this thing out. With that S, they're going to be a little bit harder to crack. But once you get that, you're going to do work for that person maybe forever. And they're going to refer you and all of that kind of fun stuff. Anyway, so that's just - I thought that was really kind of interesting. It's something I like to nerd on a little bit too. And again, I really appreciate you brought it up.

I think you brought up a good point too, is there's a lot to learn here and AI, ChatGPT could be a really good next step for somebody listening.

Chris Moore: 100%.

Jon Bryant: The other thing here to mention too though is if you're somebody who's listening and this is not something you've dug into yet and it feels overwhelming, you're like, here's this code of life that you're not seeing and you need to learn all about it. There are some hacks I'm sure Chris can offer you that are available that might just help you ask some questions that kind of hit those different personality types. And we don't all have to be personality sleuths here. We can facilitate a process that works and...

Chris Moore: Right.

Jon Bryant: I remember talking to a friend of mine who did car sales and they had the four types and they'd ask these questions and immediately stereotype their buyer to some type of alley and then just go hard at it and whatever that was. And I was like, what's your success rate? And he's like, well, I don't know, 20%. I'm like, maybe it's not working so good. So there's a - it goes deep, but I don't think you have to get there right away. There's ways to implement small steps.

Chris Moore: Yeah.

Michael Murray: That's fair.

Chris Moore: No, I think that's a good point Jon and I know I'm 99% sure if you are coming to PCA expo, Justin Cordry from Harpeth Painting is doing a talk on this as well. I believe it's the same talk he did at Residential this last year. It was amazing. But I think along that note Jon, have your hard skills in place first, your processes, your bidding system. Have everything else laid out first and then learn more about these soft skills that we talk about. I wouldn't go down - if you have nothing in place listening to this today, don't go down a rabbit hole for the next four months and learn all about the personalities, but not have a repeatable sales process. Get the hard system in place first, figure out how you can integrate some sales aids and leave behind some things that you send out in the meantime to increase that professionalism and then dive deeper into the soft skills once all that is running pretty smoothly. And again, it's just every little thing at that point is going to slowly creep up that close rate.

Michael Murray: I 1000% agree that. I mean, when we originally talked about what are we going to call this thing, it was very intentional. We believe if you price it accurately, then we learn how to sell it accurately. Then let's go and paint it and make some money. And I think too often it's the opposite. And it's just like, we know how to paint stuff and now I'm going to go sell stuff and maybe I never figured out how to price it. And so if we're not even giving an accurate price on the spot, we don't need to worry about personality profiles or anything like that. There's some foundational building blocks. I'm glad that was said for sure.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. One thing maybe we can just leave everybody with for this podcast is if you're someone who's listening and there's this mountain of information that you need to take in and you're sitting there kind of panicked now because you're like, there's a lot to do. What's maybe the first place you would start Chris, Michael? Let's go in that order of how to just get yourself moving so the anxiety goes away.

Chris Moore: Yeah, honestly, I think the first step I briefly alluded to it earlier is just sit down and write out what is your sales process. And if you don't love whatever it is that you write down, write out what you would like to see that be. As I mentioned earlier, a great one is just that estimate schedule phone call, SOP, maybe something to send them before you show up for the quote, doing a walkthrough, doing the presentation there on the spot, following up - even just something simple and routine like that. Get there, do the walkthrough, get your numbers together, write it up, present it to them. So I think just honestly, that's a great place to start. It kind of gives you that big picture roadmap and then you can kind of figure out from there, what do we need to do better at? And it'll give you an order to work in.

Jon Bryant: Beautiful. Mike, what do you think?

Michael Murray: Yeah, I agree with everything Chris said. I'm not going to add much to it. I think it's just anything - I mean if you have a plan it doesn't necessarily have to be a great plan, but at least now we can have something to go from and if it's not working we can go figure out what step of the plan isn't working. If we just do something different every single time, we're waiting for luck, hoping for chance if you will. And I think Chris is spot-on. It's like if you're not - if you don't already have this, you can go do some of this stuff on your own. And the AI tools can be very helpful here. But having somebody like Chris and their team to help you to implement these things, but then also more importantly is to review the game tape, if you will, and say, are the plays working? Is this the right thing? Let's look at our numbers and the culture and feedback that we're getting from customers and employees.

And to be able to do that with somebody like Chris and their team can be super valuable as opposed to as a business owner, you're trying to do that all on your own because it can be overwhelming.

Jon Bryant: Okay guys, that was a great effort, but the answer was actually get PaintScout. So that's, I'm sorry. I don't know. I couldn't tell you, but that sounded really nice, but yeah, crank it up. Let's go. No, I mean, Chris, I mean, I love this kind of conversation. It's great. I think, Michael, I think you have one more thought and then probably wrap it up. Yeah.

Michael Murray: That's a shame. Who doesn't have PaintScout? There's people that don't have PaintScout? What are we doing? You gotta, let's crank up the marketing over there.

Michael Murray: I just want to hear from Chris as to if somebody's listening and they want to learn more about Elite Business Advisors, talk about maybe who is a good client. If there's such thing as maybe somebody that's not a great client, if they're not ready yet or whatever, but who listening - how would they know if they should be talking to you at least to learn more and then what might it look like to work with you guys?

Chris Moore: Yeah. No, I appreciate that opportunity. So I mean, I will say this, we work with pretty much all size businesses. So if you are at $250K a year doing all the work yourself, maybe you have one employee or something, we have options there. We've really redesigned the last couple of years, our packages and how we support our clients at the different stages of business from infancy, all the way up through multimillion dollar companies. And so as far as size of company or where you're at or how many systems do you have in place - it really doesn't matter. We have kind of services tailored to what each of those different stages need. I think really for us, the biggest thing that we look for is, is somebody coachable? And are you ready to make changes? Again, whether you're new and just realize you don't know everything.

Or you've been in business for a long time and you're ready to say, you know what? I'm actually ready to make some changes because what I'm doing has got me here, but it may not get me there. And so I think that's a big thing. We see a lot of people want to come to work with us because they know they want to get from here to there, whatever there is, whether it's a $750K a year lifestyle business or a three million dollar company with multiple PMs and estimators. They know where they want to go. Usually they just don't know what it looks like to go from here to there.

And so we can kind of lay out that roadmap and customize our coaching and advising to them along that journey. As far as how we kind of structure things, most of our clients we meet with twice a month. We have some clients that like to do weekly calls and so we can tailor our packages to that. So everything we do is pretty custom to each individual client. And again, we've got those different service offerings at all different levels.

We've tried to have our entry level pointed at $395 a month for those smaller contractors and a group coach. And then it can range up from there. And then as far as just how to start that process, you can visit our website, elitebusinessadvisors.com. You can click the schedule a free analysis meeting with us and I'll reach out and schedule that. I handle all those myself to just get to know our businesses more, get to see if it seems like it would be a good fit and then who on our team is best served to help them take that next step. I'm happy to do those calls, chat with anybody. I always try to leave people with value for whatever they decide, but we try to make it simple for them.

Michael Murray: Doesn't sound like they're going to get a hard sell on that call.

Chris Moore: You know me, I think you just heard that. So if you haven't figured that out by now, I tell everybody that I'm not going to hard close you today. If you're ready to make a decision to move forward, we'll get your first meeting scheduled, we'll hit the ground running. If you need some time to think about it, I'll follow up with you next week.

Jon Bryant: Everyone who's ever hard sold me on something starts with I'm not going to hard sell you on something. So let's just keep that in mind. That's good.

Chris Moore: But see, then I follow through on it. So I give them that credibility that I follow through on. I'm a man of my word.

Michael Murray: You need to fill out the intake form and let us know how it goes.

Chris Moore: Yeah, there we go.

Jon Bryant: That's great. I'm going to buy 16 different things and I won't know why. He took my credit card. Well Chris, thanks for being on the podcast. We appreciate you and hopefully if you're listening you enjoyed this. Give it a like, subscribe, we appreciate the feedback and Chris, thanks for your time. It's great to have you.

Chris Moore: I appreciate you guys. It's been fun. I'm always happy to do this.

Michael Murray: Thanks Chris, appreciate it.

Jon Bryant: Okay, talk to you guys later. See ya.

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