The High Performance Edge Podcast
00:15:57 · Peter Troast, Larry Waters
[00:15:57] S1: It's asked a lot of questions. Right? By the standards of a marketing guy who said to ask as few questions as possible so we can get as many leads as we want, This one requires some work, and your numbers are quite remarkable in terms of completion rates. So, how'd you how'd you do... How'd you accomplish what you're not supposed to be able to do? [00:16:14] S2: I I think because we frame it as this is what it takes to understand and do things the right way. Nobody else is doing it this way because they're not doing it the right way. Yeah. How can anybody look at everything that you have in your house and not take these into consideration? Yeah. And then it opens their eyes to things that are going on in their house too. That they filled out that form. They know, oh, I do have asbestos and iron pipes and knob and tube wiring and single pane windows. Yeah. It brings all of them up. So I'm not upselling them. They just realized it through the process. Yeah. And they're looking, what can I do about all this? I I think it helps. It it does knock out part of the part of the population that just doesn't have the patience to go through it. Those people aren't gonna buy from me anyway. So if I have speed to lead and go talk to a bunch of people that don't wanna do business with me anyway, is... Doesn't make more sense to get... To just not have to deal with them? Yeah. And just deal with the people that really want our services. [00:17:08] S1: So [00:17:08] S2: Yeah. It's it's it's been beneficial. It's worked well.
00:17:08 · Larry Waters, Peter Troast
[00:17:08] S2: Yeah. It's it's it's been beneficial. It's worked well. [00:17:11] S1: Yeah. As long as you have enough leads. Right? That's the, you know, then Yeah. That that process works really well. And it and it also sounds just, again, back to, you know, applicability to the rest of the country. People... You know, you're just... You're proving that people are willing to participate in that process. [00:17:28] S2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what the industry's gone through is this thing. You go to their website, you put in your house information, it gives you a price right away. [00:17:36] S1: Yeah. [00:17:36] S2: It's never that price when you go out. There's always an upsell. It's like, okay, well that was the equipment price. This is what it's gonna cost to put it in. Yeah. It's now this number. Yeah. So we we don't do that. We go through and take a little bit of time. We give you what's gonna be the top end number usually. Say 98% is top end number. Once in a while we run into a problem out there and people are like, no problem. You found this. It's a little bit more expensive. Don't have a problem. But most of the time... Because we're we're giving them a solid, pretty high price going in. Yeah. But we're selling the value during the virtual assessment, and and and and we're able to teach people. It's more of a education during the virtual assessment than it is anything else because we've got a
00:17:36 · Larry Waters, Peter Troast
[00:17:36] S2: It's never that price when you go out. There's always an upsell. It's like, okay, well that was the equipment price. This is what it's gonna cost to put it in. Yeah. It's now this number. Yeah. So we we don't do that. We go through and take a little bit of time. We give you what's gonna be the top end number usually. Say 98% is top end number. Once in a while we run into a problem out there and people are like, no problem. You found this. It's a little bit more expensive. Don't have a problem. But most of the time... Because we're we're giving them a solid, pretty high price going in. Yeah. But we're selling the value during the virtual assessment, and and and and we're able to teach people. It's more of a education during the virtual assessment than it is anything else because we've got a [00:18:12] S1: PowerPoint in front of them. Yeah. Well, this is a good... This is a really good point on the the way that these tech companies work is that a lot of them are standing for this, like, you know, instant quote. Right? We'll get you a quote really fast. And as you said, it's very often a bait and switch kind of situation. But but just so I understand clearly, your process is you do the virtual audit with the information gained in the virtual audit. You have enough information to give what is... What do you call that? A ballpark quote? [00:18:37] S2: We we call it the we call it the budget numbers. [00:18:41] S1: Okay. [00:18:41] S2: And then we have them sign the budget numbers as a handshake agreement. [00:18:46] S1: Okay.
00:18:46 · Peter Troast, Larry Waters
[00:18:46] S1: Okay. [00:18:47] S2: And the idea is we're gonna come out and do all the energy auditing. We're gonna do all this. It's included in this price, but we can't do it for everybody. Right. So you have to be serious enough to say with what we've showed you so far and what we've... And and our reputation, all these things, you're willing to move forward with this if I can keep it at this price. [00:19:03] S1: Got it. [00:19:03] S2: And then that that gets the pre signature, and then we move from there. [00:19:06] S1: And that's a sufficient sufficient... That signature is a sufficient contract for you to move forward and go. [00:19:12] S2: Yeah, and we'll invest the time. And we have like a one, maybe 2% certain months of drop rate, like people that we go out to their house and they don't actually do the work. [00:19:22] S1: Got it. Really interesting. Okay. And then just to be clear, because this is the High Performance Edge and we are all about the diagnostic piece, upon the signing of that contract, then the diagnostic processes begin. [00:19:35] S2: Right. And they're intensive. Like, we do full... We do fellow manual j, manual s, all the load calculations. We do pre testing of their existing equipment. We do post testing out on the other end, and we do a very, very deep inspection of the home and make recommendations.
00:19:35 · Larry Waters, Peter Troast
[00:19:35] S2: Right. And they're intensive. Like, we do full... We do fellow manual j, manual s, all the load calculations. We do pre testing of their existing equipment. We do post testing out on the other end, and we do a very, very deep inspection of the home and make recommendations. [00:19:51] S1: Yeah. Okay. Well, that's fantastic. Do you compete directly with some of them? You're in the, you know, you're in the heart of the beast with the... Of, you know, the general Bay Area where a lot of these startups start their, you know, their... Some of their first markets are often in in your territory. Do you go head to head with them? I don't know. [00:20:10] S2: You don't know? I I don't pay attention to who my competition is. I pay attention to who my customers are and serving them. I know who they are out there, but if I lose a job, I don't care who I lost it to. I lost it to somebody that was gonna do less and be less expensive. I know that for a fact. [00:20:25] S1: Okay. [00:20:26] S2: So I know that of my last 11 virtual assessments I've done, I've sold 10 of them and the other lady's trying to figure out how she's gonna pay for it. So it's it's a... I don't worry about that. If they come through our funnel, I know we've got a high chance of getting them.
00:20:26 · Larry Waters, Peter Troast
[00:20:26] S2: So I know that of my last 11 virtual assessments I've done, I've sold 10 of them and the other lady's trying to figure out how she's gonna pay for it. So it's it's a... I don't worry about that. If they come through our funnel, I know we've got a high chance of getting them. [00:20:40] S1: Yeah. And Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, to me, you know, we as contractors, you know, are up against these guys. Right? And a lot of them are not contractors at all. Right? They're Right. They're MBAs. And so I'm curious, you know, to me, part of your story is so compelling. Right? Well, I've been doing this for forty years. And I guess, you know, if you were if you were to come up against those guys in a, you know, absolute competitive situation, how would you diff... How would you explain how you're different versus them? [00:21:11] S2: Well, I mean, there's always gonna be a market for somebody that's gonna take care of you and not be that I got a price online and I don't have any any human touch. Right? [00:21:22] S1: Yeah.