Brandon (00:00):
We don’t do ballparks. 

Adam (00:01):
Interesting. 

Brandon (00:02):
Okay. We give a quote and if our quote sucks, that’s not on the customer. That’s on me. I’m going to eat it, not the customer. Also, some of our competitors will be like, Hey customer, will you send me four pictures of your house? And then I’ll send you a quote. 

Adam (00:15):
That’s friction. 

Brandon (00:16):
That’s friction. And I just made the customer work for me. 

Adam (00:22):
When you look at your booking process, how easy is it for your customers to actually give you money? If it’s hard, if you make it hard for them to actually give you money, then you’re missing the whole thing. Your sales process should be so easy. In fact, it should be frictionless according to our guest today. Brandon Downer is the founder of Pink’s Cleaning Service and we’re going to talk about sales, which is my favorite topic ever, Brandon. So thanks for being here. Appreciate it. 

Brandon (00:46):
Thanks for having me on. Same. This is awesome. 

Adam (00:48):
Okay. So a lot of our listeners are just making… It’s just too hard for their customers to give them money. Here, I want you to clean out windows and you’re making it too hard. What are we missing? 

Brandon (00:57):
It’s frustrating. When you’re a customer and you need something done or you want food from a restaurant and the process is clunky, you get absolutely frustrated. And so what are you missing? I don’t know exactly what people are missing, but what I would challenge everybody to do is if you were a customer, how would you want to be treated? It’s a golden rule. And I think that’s so much a business is understanding people, understanding what their wants are, what they don’t want, and guiding the customer and leading them to a purchasing decision. What we’ve learned in the business is most people don’t even know what they want. Most customers don’t know what they want quite yet. They’re interested, they saw an ad, they’re like, okay, window cleaning, maybe I want that, maybe I don’t. 

Adam (01:40):
How much is it? How much is it? 

Brandon (01:41):
Maybe I want it in three months. Why do I need it now? I don’t know. There’s so many questions. And so the easier you can make it for them to get to the point to get those windows cleaned and an invoice in their inbox and them paying the invoice, the better it is for everyone. But I just challenge everyone to think, okay, when it comes to my flow, my website, my phone, whatever it is, how hard is it for someone to contact me? How easy is it for them to fill out the form? Does the form ask for a hundred things? Does it ask for five things? 

Adam (02:15):
Or unnecessary things. 

Brandon (02:16):
Unnecessary. Yeah. 

Adam (02:17):
Give me example of something that Pinks used to do that you guys don’t do anymore. 

Brandon (02:20):
Well, when we first started the business, we didn’t even have an online form. 

Adam (02:23):
Okay. So it was just a phone call. 

Brandon (02:26):
All we were was a phone number. We had a website and you could email and that was it. And then we evolved and we’re like, wait a second, we can ask every question that we ask on the phone on a form? Oh my gosh, this is crazy. And then when we first had our form, it wasn’t five pages worth of content, but it was five clicks. It was first name, last name, address, next. What services do I want done? 

Adam (02:52):
How many windows do you have? 

Brandon (02:53):
How many windows I have next? And it was five clicks and we weren’t seeing a good conversion rate. People weren’t filling all… They weren’t getting through the whole form because when it says page one of five. You’re like, dude, okay, well what does page four have to say? Is it going to ask me for my social security and all my kids’ names and full references? So what we did was we revised it and we said, okay, what are the absolutely necessary items that we need? We really need five things in order to give you a quote. We need your name, your email, your phone number, your address and what services you want. Instead of making that five clicks on our website or I got to scroll down the whole thing, we made it so when you’re on your desktop, you can see the whole form from start to finish in one view. And then so the customer knows, oh, this isn’t going to take me six minutes. This is going to take me 45 seconds to fill out. 

Adam (03:47):
This is quick. 

Brandon (03:48):
It’s quick. 

Adam (03:48):
Make sure you grab Jobber’s frictionless selling system so you can actually put Brandon’s tips into practice, scan the QR code, click the link in the show notes, and then you can put all this stuff into practice today. 

Brandon (04:00):
And the other question we ask is how many times do you want your windows cleaned a year? 

Adam (04:03):
And why do you ask that? Just get them thinking? 

Brandon (04:06):
Get them thinking about recurring. Our business as window cleaners is we are a recurring business. If you get your windows cleaned today, well, in three months, they’re probably going to be dirty again. Maybe in a month they’re going to be dirty again. 

Adam (04:17):
And you want to plant that seed now. 

Brandon (04:18):
We want to plant the seed now. And so what we have on there, it’s a dropdown and it says annually, biannually, quarterly, monthly, biweekly, weekly, or not sure. Let’s chat about it. We’re never going to oversell you at Pink’s and we’re never going to shove something down your throat that you don’t want or you don’t need. I’m not going to sell a maintenance plan to a realtor who’s selling a house. 

Adam (04:39):
One time. 

Brandon (04:40):
It’s a one-time thing and then it’s like, we’re not going to push it. So it’s being thoughtful and trying to catch every single customer on there. That’s step one and that’s one thing we ask. And then it tees up whoever’s managing the business to have a meaningful conversation about recurring. And a lot of times folks may not want to sign up for recurring until they see the work done. 

Adam (04:59):
Totally. 

Brandon (04:59):
And we respect that. And we get that like, test us, use us, see how it goes, and then let’s talk about a plan after the service. 

Adam (05:05):
Fair enough. Yeah. I am still shocked at how many different buyers there are. There are some people who want to call us. Some people want to text us. Some will fill out the very long form on our website. Others will only do the seven-second form that we have. Some people will text us through Google GMB. Some people will email us and dig up an email from three years ago, a marketing email, all these different things, referrals. In a way, you have to be able to catch all those different buyer profiles or else you’re going to alienate some. And here’s the kicker. A lot of those people will only buy their way. 

Brandon (05:39):
That’s right. 

Adam (05:39):
So if there isn’t a form on your website and they’re form people, they’ll go somewhere else that has a form. 

Brandon (05:43):
That’s right. 

Adam (05:44):
And that’s not easy. You have to think through your entire company to see, are we collecting all those people’s different buyer profiles? How do you guys handle your sales process? I guess over the phone and in person. What are you doing there? Are you making hard sells? Are you doing easy sell? What are you doing? 

Brandon (05:59):
Yeah. I think what’s cool about Pink’s is we teach you multiple methods. We teach you the hard sell. We teach you how to close on the spot. We teach you the soft sell. We teach you the sell over an email or a text. And then you have to understand and know yourself and have the awareness about yourself to know which way you fit. Again, we’re going to teach you all of them and hopefully give you the tools for everything, but then you got to make that decision for yourself of, Hey, I’m not like a close on the spot kind of guy. Okay, then we have a great process to close over an email or over a text. And you want the process? Here’s the process for that. And this is how we started it by the way, because Carter and I, when we first got into Pinks, we wouldn’t call ourselves sales guys. We had no experience in sales. All we knew is we just wanted to take care of the customer, make it easy for them. We always try to get our customers in person when we can. And sometimes they’re too busy. It’s a busy mom, it’s a busy dad. 

Adam (06:58):
Ideally, they’re at home when you get there. Yeah. 

Brandon (06:59):
For sure. Ideally. Or ideally it’s the manager of the restaurants and we’re talking about what time they open and okay, what time can we be here at? What time do we need to be out of here at? And yada, yada. So we always try to get it in person because it increases your chances of closing the job if you’re in person. We tell the customer, we guide them and we say, Hey, you know what? Adam, I’m going to send you a quote in your email inbox by the end of the day today. What we’re doing is we’re giving ourselves an opportunity for you to trust me. I told you I was going to do something. 

Adam (07:28):
Make a promise and then deliver on the rest. 

Brandon (07:30):
And then I’m going to do it. And then when you get that email at 3:00 PM with your quote line itemed out, you got the pictures on the line items, it looks really pretty and good and you know exactly what you’re getting as a customer, you go, Oh my gosh, he actually fulfilled this promise. He told me he was going to do it and then he did it. Now I want to say yes to them.” An estimate is not a. 

Adam (07:49):
Like a ballpark. 

Brandon (07:49):
It’s a ballpark. We don’t do ballparks. 

Adam (07:52):
Interesting. 

Brandon (07:53):
We give a quote and if our quote sucks, that’s not on the customer. That’s on me. I’m going to eat it, not the customer. Also, some of our competitors will be like, Hey customer, will you send me four pictures of your house? And then I’ll send you a quote.” 

Adam (08:06):
That’s friction. 

Brandon (08:07):
That’s friction. And I just made the customer work for me. But then if you’re going to send the email to close, this is where I think maybe this is the nugget. 

Adam (08:15):
Give us the good stuff right here. Yeah. 

Brandon (08:17):
Put your available days on there. 

Adam (08:19):
So important. Yeah, come on. 

Brandon (08:20):
So many people will just say, Here’s your quote. And the customer’s like, Okay, I’m ready. They respond, I’m ready to proceed. How do I do that? But in your quote in the body of the email, you say, If you want to accept this quote, here’s four dates that work for us. Our next four available dates, Wednesday, June 5th, Thursday, June 7th, whatever it is, at 9:00 am. And so all the customer has to do is respond, looks good, Wednesday at 9:00 sounds great. And then it’s done. You’re closed. There’s no more communication. There’s no more questions. There’s no more nothing. Wednesday at 9:00 looks good. They send it back to us and it’s booked. 

Adam (09:00):
What that tells me, Brandon, is that you and like everyone else, they had 500 clients ask them after you got the quote, Well, when can you start? If they’re going to ask you every time, you might as well just give them the answer to the test before they ask it. 

Brandon (09:12):
Ask them to the answer 100%. 

Adam (09:14):
Yeah, I’m a big fan of that. Okay. Speed to lead matters. We touched on it earlier. I want to come back to it. 

Brandon (09:19):
So much. 

Adam (09:19):
Because you mentioned it. But what’s the bigger answer there? How do we make sure that we’re getting it to our clients fast? Because speed that matters so much. Especially the lower the average ticket, the more important it is. Window cleaning, lawn mowing, house cleaning, pest control, all those things, low average ticket, really important. Home remodeling, not as important. 

Brandon (09:39):
Vitally important. Speed to lead. All over the country, our owners, we get to see all the Google reviews and all the reviews all over and people will be like, I submitted a form and my phone rang a minute later and I thought it was fake. And I thought it was like a spam. I don’t know what I said. 

Adam (09:58):
A local call or something. 

Brandon (09:59):
And so we’re trying to surprise our customers with how good our customer service is. As soon as that lead form comes in, call the customer. But also understand your market. So I live in Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas is a fast-paced city. People are busy. They’re working their tech jobs, they’re working their whatever, their businesses. 

Adam (10:17):
They’re riding their skateboards around town, moving fast. 

Brandon (10:20):
Exactly. A lot of folks in Austin don’t want to be called. And in today’s world, most folks don’t answer a phone call from an unknown number. It’s just how it goes. And so one, you have to make sure your phone number’s registered. 

Adam (10:32):
That’s right. 

Brandon (10:32):
That’s a big deal because otherwise it’ll say spam and that’s no good. Two, you got to make sure your little caller ID is set up so it says Pinks Windows or whatever your business is. But three, maybe start with a text first. If people aren’t answering your phone calls, maybe you’re in a fast-paced city, it’s hustle and bustle and people are in meetings and busy and they’re busy moms, busy dads. Maybe say, This is Brandon with Pinks Windows. We just received your form that you filled out. Thanks for filling it out. I’m going to stop by your house at some point. Would love to meet you. Here’s some times that work. Or whatever your spiel is. But you have to have a system. Whether it’s an auto hotkey. Whether it’s an email, whether it’s a Jobber text message that’s pre-keyed or whatever it is, you got to have that. So you want to stay organized because you’d probably get a lot of leads. 

Adam (11:14):
We get a ton of leads every single day. 

Brandon (11:15):
Yeah, tons of leads. All over the country. And so you have to be dialed and organized and know where everyone’s at in the process. But yeah, responding quickly. 

Adam (11:23):
What about after hours weekend stuff? You just get to them as soon as we open again? 

Brandon (11:28):
Yeah. So we always, every single person’s voicemail and automatic text messages are set up for after hours. 

Adam (11:34):
Thanks for calling Pinks. We’re closed. 

Brandon (11:37):
Yeah. And then we’ll give you a text back as well. We’ll say, Thank you for calling Pinks. We’re outside of our current business hours, but if you fill out this web form… So we say, If you’re looking for a quote, fill out this web form. Here’s the link. We’ll get back to you within one business day. So it’s no customer left behind. That’s kind of what we call it. 

Adam (11:57):
Brandon, this is great. I want to pause for a minute. Talk about why we like Jobber so much. How has Jobber really turbocharged your sales process? 
Brandon (12:05):
Yeah. Well, one, without Jobber, I couldn’t keep up with everything. It would just all be floating into my head and customers would get bad services. So just to have where every customer is at in the process, have they made a request? Has there been an appointment, an assessment scheduled? Have they approved the quote? Where are they at? I know exactly where everyone’s at at all times and I can see it at a high level, not just for my location, but across the country, across all locations. 

Adam (12:31):
That’s critical. 

Brandon (12:32):
I’m not necessarily a very naturally organized person, but Jobber, I’m just like, okay, if it lives in Jobber, it exists. 

Adam (12:39):
It’s safe. It’s there. It’s intuitive. 

Brandon (12:40):
It’s safe. It makes sense. And the customer’s going to get taken care of. So just having it all there in front of my face, in my pocket, on my laptop, wherever I’m at at all times, so helpful. 

Adam (12:51):
Yeah. I’m a big fan of the online booking, especially for gutter cleaning, lawn mowing. They can check out and they can literally just buy what they want on site. And then eventually one day Google will say, Hey, Alexa, give me some gutter cleaning tomorrow. Charlotte Gutter Pros is coming tomorrow. I want to be set up for that. If you’re not using Jobber, you need to, especially for your sales process because it keeps everything organized, online booking, all that stuff. Go to jobber.com/podcastsdeal. Get the exclusive discount and start using Jobber for your sales process today. 

(13:19)
Your GM is the main salesperson. 

Brandon (13:21):
That’s right. 

Adam (13:21):
And most locations don’t even have a person answering the phone besides him. That’s good to know. And you’re doing 1.5 with just the GM. With just the GM. Well, that’s fantastic. A lot of our listeners have three people answering the phone. They’re doing one million. 

Brandon (13:33):
80% of our leads come in through, 

Adam (13:35):
The web form. 

Brandon (13:36):
Through web form. Some come in through text, some come in just through email or GMB or whatever it is. And so it’s less than you’d think. 

Adam (13:44):
Okay. But he’s out of return all though. All those are outbound phone calls. 

Brandon (13:47):
No. When a web form comes in, it can be an outbound phone call. It also can be a text. So our process in Austin, it’s a text. Some people… 

Adam (13:57):
Yeah. So he’s sending out text messages all day. 

Brandon (13:59):
Text. 

Adam (14:00):
Got it. He’s not calling back. 

Brandon (14:01):
But then we have tools. So overnight you get six leads that come in. You can use a routing software that we have and then text messages that go out to each person. So it’s not just copy and pasting the same thing and deleting out. It’s you’re using this routing software and then the routing software takes your schedule and then texts each customer saying, Hey, Adam, I’ll be at your house at 9:15. Next house on the list, I’ll be at your house at 9:45. 

Adam (14:25):
And then Brandon, hold on a sec. That sounds awesome. So what is that? 

Brandon (14:31):
It’s actually something one of our franchisees built because this dude was doing, gosh, like 15 to 20 quotes a day when he launched. It was crazy. 

Adam (14:41):
And he just couldn’t handle the volume. 

Brandon (14:42):
With technology and with the right person, you’re capable of doing a lot more than you think. 

Adam (14:48):
Brandon, this is great. I want to do our lightning round and ask you just a few questions or you just give me the first thing that comes to your mind, first response. Okay, you ready for this? Let’s go. 

Brandon (14:56):
Okay.

Adam (14:56):
What is the number one mistake that contractors make when they’re trying to automate their sales process? 

Brandon (15:03):
They don’t understand their sales process. And so they just take whatever the automation company they’re using. They just take that and just plug it in and think it’s going to work. 

Adam (15:12):
What time does your alarm go off in the morning and what’s the first thing you do? 

Brandon (15:15):
No alarm. 

Adam (15:17):
Wow. 

Brandon (15:17):
First thing I do, I roll over and I look at my wife and say, Good morning, baby. 

Adam (15:22):
Bingo. And what is your best close? 

Brandon (15:26):
I have 9 AM tomorrow available. How does that sound for you? 

Adam (15:28):
I love it. Brandon, thanks for being here. How do people find out more about Pinks, you, your brand, all that stuff.

Brandon (15:34):
Pinkswindows.com. Hit us up on that. Pinks Windows on Instagram. Kind of fun maybe. So hit us up on there and all the socials, Pinks Windows. See you there. 

Adam (15:44):
Think you know what it costs to get a new customer? Next week we’re uncovering the hidden expenses most owners never calculate and why those blind spots could be costing you thousands. Sweet. Well, thanks for being here. You’re crushing it. Thanks for giving us sales tips. It was fun. And keep rocking out. Your franchisees and all the people in your business are better for you, so keep it up. 

Brandon (16:04):
Cool. Appreciate it. 

Adam (16:05):
And thank you for listening. I hope that you heard something that will make your sales process better and make it easier for your clients to give you that money. I’m your host, Adam Sylvester. You can find me at adamsylvester.com. Your clients, your team, and your family deserve your very best. So go give it to them.