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The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Transforming Your Pricing Strategy: Insights from John Ray on Boosting Business Value
Ready to transform your business pricing game? You'll gain the confidence to set the right prices and avoid common pitfalls with insights from our guest, John Ray, author of "The Generosity Mindset." We explore the complexities of pricing for small businesses, especially in home services and blue-collar industries, sharing strategies to navigate price-sensitive customers and boost your value proposition.
Discover how a mindset shift in your marketing strategy can elevate your business. We discuss the transition from showcasing experience to emphasizing the transformative value you offer clients. Additionally, we delve into the power of intangible skills like communication and punctuality, and their pivotal role in enhancing customer satisfaction, securing referrals, and achieving overall business success.
We also tackle the challenges of handling price shoppers and the benefits of regular price evaluations. Whether you're dealing with the intricacies of professional services or the nuances of emergency services, understanding how to convey value can be a game-changer. With personal anecdotes and examples from the handyman and commercial real estate fields, we aim to equip you with the tools to thrive. Join us for an insightful conversation that promises to reshape your approach to pricing and client engagement.
No, you have this mindset that hey, I'm new and therefore I've got to charge less. The thing is nobody knows you're new Right. The customers don't know you're new.
Speaker 2:He's right. I mean exactly right. They only knew you were new. When you told them you were new, that's right. And what do we usually do, especially in sales in the beginning? Barf up too much information. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Puking all over myself.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is my first rodeo. Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Alan, here we go again. We're going to get it ready to rock and roll. Rock and roll, have a little fun in person again. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, it has been a weekly going. You guys have been listening. I'll tell you. The listenership's been up and, as usual, I got two more contacts last week. I held on. We were getting all set up and I didn't tell Alan about this. I got on a phone call with two different people for 30 minutes just talking about what they're trying to do. One guy had an idea about coming up with a home maintenance program, like we have. Another one said you know, I want to figure out how I can scale my business like you have. And I told him don't go into handyman, you've got another way to do that, brother. But we've got a great episode teed up today and this is where I'm pretty excited. We've got a local celebrity. He won't say that, he's not going to say that he is.
Speaker 3:He is kind of a big deal. He is kind of a big deal. He's the Kevin Bacon of Atlanta, I think.
Speaker 2:I would argue that I bet you we could go to a networking event and within five minutes we would find somebody who actually knows John Easy.
Speaker 1:And then three minutes three minutes.
Speaker 2:You know what the over under is? Probably three. But we have John Ray and uh, who has a new book out called the generosity mindset the journey to business success by raising your confidence, value and prices. And I know John has done a lot of work with people on the on the pricing side of things and we both have known him for quite a while. And what John doesn't know is I'm a LinkedIn stalker so I've seen a lot of his posts and this is one that, while you're trying to grow a business, this is huge. This is the one.
Speaker 3:Well, the little line that he dropped earlier. I'm like oh, please do tell. How do you know your pricing is right? What a great conversation.
Speaker 2:How do you know your pricing is right and the seven red flags? Do I have the number right?
Speaker 1:Yep seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's seven red flags. So, John, welcome to the studio.
Speaker 1:Cheers John, we usually get into it, but we've got to jump because we've got to get everybody.
Speaker 2:You've got to get your pricing right. Man, with other handymen, home service providers, blue collar millionaire, a number of these Facebook groups out there that I'm a member of, and I can say that at least once a week somebody's like hey, how should I price this? And? And you get the whole gamut right. Uh well, you should shoot for the moon and you should not shoot for the moon, and it's always in between, but that is, I think. When I got into the business, I everybody said, hey, you got to get your pricing right. Well, how do you do it when nobody's going to tell you? Especially when I started, man? I mean, I found out now that you can meet people and they would talk to you about it, but I was afraid to talk to them about this business specifically, but there was no online presence to go out and find out and get your numbers right.
Speaker 3:And everybody was like, well, it's really easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, charge more than you spent well, thank you, but that doesn't help me, right? No, I wish the audience could see john's face with that. Yeah, that that is. Uh. Well, here's the problem and we've got to give grace to all business owners out there is that 9% the last stat I saw 9% N-I-N-E. 9, not 90, not 19. Even 9% of business schools have even a course, a course on pricing. So that means if you went ahead to business school which I didn't, by the way, I was done after BA, okay, I was done after BA, okay, I was done. But if, even if you went to business school and got an MBA, less than 10% chance that you even had a course in pricing. So what happens is we business owners that come out of corporate, like I did, um, we open up our business and we've got a lot of resources around marketing business and we've got a lot of resources around marketing, around operations, processes, networking, whatnot All those aspects of building a business and even accounting but not around pricing.
Speaker 3:Wouldn't you say that just the average person who starts a business? When it comes to pricing, they do a couple of competitor shops, see what the going rate is and then they charge a couple bucks underneath that. I mean, that's kind of just the way it goes right, bingo, bango, bongo.
Speaker 2:That's what I did. Yeah, yeah, I went. Well, I can't charge as much as them because I'm new.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to undercut them to get into the biz, and even though there really was no quote unquote competition, but I did a secret shop to them.
Speaker 3:That's my number, that's what I went with, but it had nothing to do with your cost structure or anything, right?
Speaker 2:Zero to do with my cost structure, because at the time I you know again corporate guy had a business plan and that's what I've told everybody you can double your expenses and have your revenue. Then you get yourself a business plan. But I had double the revenue and half the expenses and didn't even come close. Yeah, yeah, because of the expenses and half the revenue. I had double the expenses and half the right I just wanted to make sure we got that. Oh, we were very clear on that and my pricing was sincerely off. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, so I'm glad you brought that up, because you said you had a key phrase there and that is I felt like I was new and so I had to charge a little bit lower. Well, that mindset, that gets. Mindsets are a big part of my book. Oh a book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm with two authors and, yes, I have not written one, so should I just tune out while you guys talk about, you know, authoring things?
Speaker 2:Well, Alan, we actually have slowed it down for you. We're going to have a teleprompter too, so that you can stay up with us. Well written um Uridite yes.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm, I'm. I'm from the South, I can talk slower, so thank you. I'll hang on, yeah, but um no it. You have this mindset that, hey, I'm new and therefore I've got to charge less. The thing is nobody knows you're new, right, the customers don't know you're new.
Speaker 2:He's right. I mean, uh, exactly right, they're all. They only knew you were new. When you told them you were new, that's right. And what do we usually do, especially in sales, in the beginning? Hey, too much information, oh my gosh puking all over myself.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is my first rodeo yeah, that's right, that's right. Or my grand opening sale yeah, well, who wants to hire a neophyte? Nobody wants to. But if you good word, if you telegraph the fact that you're brand new, then they think, well, hey, this person may not be the person I need to hire, even though you know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you hit on something that a lot of us have, and it's we're in our own way, we're looking at it from our lens and the way we do things. And people have no idea your background, what've done and how you're doing things. And but if you presented yourself out there, uh, to earn that fee that you're going to talk to us about and tell us exactly how to price everything in our life? No, that's just it. You can't, but you'll tell. You'll tell us the methodology. I know that, but you're right, we get in our own.
Speaker 3:Now you have to buy the book to learn the methodology he's going to just drop a couple of generous mindset yeah, that make us want to buy the book.
Speaker 2:Well, you should. You know what Support your authors, guys. You know Brian Gottlieb has come on. His book has just been published out. It's doing great. You know I've got a book from the zoo. Hey, help us out.
Speaker 3:I don't have a book, everybody but CT Emerson. You know if you're into young adult, fantasy on the Hispanic world right. Harry Potter meets Indiana Jones with the Hispanic protagonist.
Speaker 2:I have to say he's pretty cool and this kid great, had him on the podcast, great, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, he is an accountant by day and an author by night CT Emerson, his soon-to-be trilogy. He has two of his books out and I just spaced on the entire trilogy name that he's got. Oh.
Speaker 3:God, me too, because he didn't leave a book with me. Iguana Scroll.
Speaker 1:This is why you have a great editor, right? No, you just edited in later. Well, you know, what's funny is is in many of our podcasts. You're looking at him, john.
Speaker 2:I lost my intern buddy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm shopping for one soon, okay, john, if you listen to a number of our episodes, you'll get one in the middle of. You're driving down the road and we're having a great time and all of a sudden, chris, go, michael, okay, stop here. And then, and he'll give these directions that never were followed, and so they're just out there.
Speaker 2:You know, intergalactically yeah, that's right, oh yeah. So what you're getting is raw and authentic. That's why people love listening to this john. They're riding around in their trucks. They're walking their dog and listen, we're getting raw and flipping authentic. Let's go back to pricing, shall we flipping? Let's do it.
Speaker 3:I did say flipping, wow yeah, that means you show a certain level of respect for our guests that you're not already just blue I know I could have, I could have, I could.
Speaker 2:I worked blue really fast well I worked blue most of the day today.
Speaker 1:He just knows that that podcasts aren't regulated by the fcc. So yeah right, we've been explicit, you can lean into that, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I can tell you some stories, okay all right, so let's let's go through a little bit of the book. You talked about these seven red flags we already hit on probably not one of the seven, but that is, hey, when you're new, the only person who knows you're new is you Right? So get out of your own way.
Speaker 3:Fake it till, you make it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what else do we do wrong?
Speaker 1:Well, in that vein, when your marketing is all about you and it's not about the transformation you bring, in other words, what the client cares about. So if you're talking about, let's say, building a deck, okay. If you're talking about your experience about building a deck, versus all the ways that you think about making a deck, great, all the options that a client has, the decks that you've done and what they look like, that's transformation, that's what you lean into and that's the value that clients are looking for. So, if your marketing is about you and your experience and your, who cares? I mean they assume your experience that they wouldn't have hired you or called you right.
Speaker 2:And they don't want to hear about it.
Speaker 3:If you come in there, we argued about this a couple of podcasts ago. Yeah, I want to know about experience, but apparently I am the outlier.
Speaker 2:So, john, tell him why he's wrong. Tell me.
Speaker 1:Well it's. It's not that experience is that important. It is important, but but by the time that handyman let's say that contractor gets to the front door, the client's already vetted the experience part. That's done. You don't have to worry about that. Worry about the transformation you bring to the table. That's what the client cares about at that point.
Speaker 3:You wouldn't be there if they didn't think you had the experience. Precisely, got it, it doesn't matter then. So you wouldn't be there if they didn't think you had the experience.
Speaker 2:Precisely Got it and you know what. It doesn't matter then, like you would vet somebody before they came to the house to make sure that you knew who you knew was coming in.
Speaker 3:But at that point you don't need to go on about it. Right, Don't come in there.
Speaker 2:Okay, I can get on board with that Puking your bona fides going. Oh well, I'm at 900 Google reviews. I'm the biggest handyman in Atlanta. I have over $6 million. Was that puking?
Speaker 3:Well, so apparently that's all been wasted, Chris.
Speaker 2:Not at all. That's very important on the front end.
Speaker 1:That's really important on the front end.
Speaker 2:But you've got to get that client in the hero position right. What's in it for them?
Speaker 1:Yep, I mean. All that stuff's important to get found and most of the business that contractors get is referral right. Hey, do you know a great contractor that can build my deck? I'm thinking about screened-in decks, because we've got one that's about a year old and we went through this when do you find a great contractor that can build a great screened-in porch? That's how we found that person. Then what is that referral source looking for? They're looking for you to have enough street cred out there.
Speaker 1:So all those Google reviews, all the testimonials, what have you, are important, because what am I going to do before I go call that person? Check them out online, but by the time they get to the door, that's done. I've assumed the expertise. You don't have to sell me your expertise at that point. That's the time to start talking about the great deck you're going to do for me. And what then? The transformation that you're going to bring to my house? So then the website is really where you need to talk website. And then all the social proof whether that's google reviews or it might be for services providers linkedin it. You know that, what have you right?
Speaker 2:well, let's talk about that because, uh, obviously I'm a home service contractor and I don't get many leads off LinkedIn necessarily, but I know you do a lot of work with professionals and LinkedIn is let's face it is a it's a lead marketplace. How do they go out, how do people on LinkedIn go out and vet people before they decide, hey, I'm going to start working with them Endorsements.
Speaker 1:So LinkedIn's got the same same principle as Google it's endorsements. So, um, it's a little more complicated to do, but it's worth it, because what happens is, uh, you get folks that will write the endorsement, you get to see it before it gets posted and then, if you like it, you can post it. But it's the same idea as Google or, um, you know, uh, any of the other home service apps. It's all about the, the uh reviews.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I agree with you. It's definitely not that cold email or that message you get on LinkedIn, right.
Speaker 2:You know, what's wild is the guy who built my home back in Charlotte in 1998, I got a cold email or a message from him, clearly coming from him, and I was like well, that's kind of weird. So I'm like, hey, brent, this is Chris. You built my house years ago. I don't know what this email is about, necessarily, but good to hear from you, I'd love to catch up with you and I was like so, but but I'm not buying your service because of that, but but only because I knew him because I want to connect back Exactly, and here's the problem.
Speaker 1:You hire these folks and there are some good ones out there, but there are a lot of one folks that they don't care about your brand out there. But there are a lot of folks that they don't care about your brand. All they care about is getting you phone calls and then getting those calls set up, and they may be barely warm bodies, right, they may really not be buyers for your service, and they may be sending out emails, private messages on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever that say high comma, you know, and have no warmth whatsoever, no personality whatsoever, no personalization whatsoever. And guess who suffers? It's you, it's your brand. So you've got to watch these lead gen folks that claim that they're going to transform your business and, when the fact is, they really are dragging down your brand.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to understand where business comes from. It's like, if you're and, as you say, chris, I work with mostly professional services folks like a bookkeeper, for example bookkeepers are almost 100% referral. Nobody goes to the online to say, let me find a good bookkeeper near me. Yeah, they don't do that. They ask their banker, they ask their business advisor, their attorney. So if you're a bookkeeper, where do you go market? You go market to the referral sources. That's where you go market your services. And then you make sure that your Google, linkedin, whatever, wherever your social cred is your website, you make sure that looks good so that the referral source is proud to refer you.
Speaker 2:That's a great point, because you don't. Of course we get a million solicitations through email and now text messages, but on the email you're not signing up for the bookkeeper from San Diego, california, you'd never even heard of when you're in Atlanta, georgia, going. Oh well, funny enough, I'm going to go ahead and go with you. No, you're not going. Oh well, funny enough, I'm going to go ahead and go with you. No, you're not. I mean, it's just maybe top of mind, maybe you stay with them, but you're not doing that, especially with the professional service, like that, right.
Speaker 1:Or the one that's in Islamabad that says I can do it for three and a half dollars an hour. I mean, what does that say? Right, that all I can get a good deal, yeah, but but the good deal may not be such a good deal once you get the books back, right, or if you ever get them back.
Speaker 3:So so we started talking about, uh, pricing, right, but your book is called the generosity mindset. I'm assuming it's not about pricing, necessarily.
Speaker 1:No, it is about pricing, but what, what it, what the? But the point is kind of like along the lines of what we've been talking about is the generosity piece of it is to get yourself out of your own head and into the mind of those that you serve and your network, your broader network, so those that would refer you as well, your broader network, so those that would refer you as well. And if you do that, you're going to have a much better understanding of where clients see value, for example. And clients see value in both the tangible ways you do business and the intangible ways. So, chris, you're a great example. I mean, you know, somebody comes in Sucking up to the host.
Speaker 2:I'm a host I know, how that works. He knows how it works.
Speaker 3:You say something like that, John. Let me get my barfy bucket out here.
Speaker 2:Please stop, Okay, a little more.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about me, but explain it. It's important. Why is Chris good?
Speaker 1:go ahead, please yeah, well, so chris is going to come in and and do my handyman work, right, but when one of his folks shows up, he's got a nice red shirt on logoed, talks to me in plain english, doesn't talk down to me. Those are intangibles, right, I feel. It shows up on time, returns my phone calls, texts me when they're going to be late because of traffic, which I understand if I get a text right. I mean all those little things. That's intangible value. That gives me confidence that I'm with the right handyman service.
Speaker 2:I think I appreciate that to my guys all the time and I use this example, two stark examples over the 16 years I've been doing it. One of my guys was not a very good handyman. It just wasn't as skilled as many of them, but he always communicated and always showed up early. One of my other guys probably our best handyman was going through some personal issues, was showing up late, decided not to call people, just got there and said, hey, just let me do my job. And had that let me do my job mindset. And the other guy's like, hey, how are you doing today? Yeah, what can I do to help you? And again, who got the bigger tips? Who made more money? Who had more fun in their life?
Speaker 2:who got more referrals and who got more referral and who said I want him to come back. And that's You're right. The intangibles, because that sets you up for success to go out there and do what you were asked to do. Absolutely and bring that real value that you're talking about the tangible value.
Speaker 1:Well, now I've got to suck up to Alan, so let's talk about commercial real estate. Okay, Stop.
Speaker 3:Look at the look on Chris's face. You know what, chris? You can just tune out for a little bit. Go powder your nose, get some bourbon. I'm listening, go ahead. He's taking his headphones off, so take your time, john, as Chris walks away literally.
Speaker 1:So Commercial real estate is a great example, alan, because, as you well know, leases are what three, four, five years, even more, sometimes right Yep, when it comes to-.
Speaker 3:Yeah, industrial could be 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right. So if you contact me and we have a nice conversation and I tell you that, hey, alan, I got a five-year lease, see me in five years, and I don't ever hear from you again. What's happened, right? You haven't shown me any value, no, well that's the opportunity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but, but if you're in touch with me giving me some updates on the, on the what's going on in my particular area? Uh, hey, john, are you aware that you know your retail store? There's a competitor that's opening up across town. Here's what the data I'm able to get on that. See, you're showing an interest in me. Again, that gets back to the generosity piece and that's because you've got such a long sales cycle, as opposed to Chris over here um, chris is in the right business.
Speaker 3:Human hummingbird yeah, what was that again? But yeah, but you're right.
Speaker 2:I mean longer line uh sales cycle. But he stays top of mind with you. He keeps adding value. He's not just coming over and sucking up and saying, hey, let's go to the uh golf course, let's go out and do this.
Speaker 3:He's like I'm actually going to add real tangible value or intangible, whatever you want to look at, yeah, and what's shocking in my industry is you truly just only eat what you kill, and Chad and I were just talking about it today. We have put out phone calls to people who are trying to sell buildings according to the listing and they're not calling us back. It's just shocking. I mean, you don't have to do much to differentiate yourself from your competition.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. And because so many people do not have a system for doing that, particularly in a business where there's a long sales cycle, right, that's very difficult. So you got to have a process for staying in touch with people, and it's more than just the emails, the email newsletters that never get opened, right, or they might get opened but they're not personal to me in my particular circumstances.
Speaker 3:Or it's personalized to me, but they use my last name hey.
Speaker 2:Wyatt, I really enjoyed meeting you.
Speaker 1:Wyatt, or they don't use your name at all, hi comma.
Speaker 3:I have gotten one of those.
Speaker 2:I actually got one that said hi, insert first name, last name here in those italics. I'm like nice form letter and I knew this person, so I fired back with that. You might want to clean this up, yeah, so all right. So back to the generosity mindset. Long leads, uh, lead cycle, uh. What are some of the other flags? And again, generosity and pricing.
Speaker 1:So, uh, if you feel like you're working too hard for too little money, you got a pricing problem. And a lot of people don't think that's a pricing problem. You know, they think that's maybe a process problem or maybe if I just do a little extra marketing and get some higher average fee clients, that might help. But that doesn't help. All that does is, if you don't change your pricing models, all that does is make a big problem even bigger if you're working too hard for too little money. And this is why I say a lot of people have a pricing problem and they don't even realize it.
Speaker 2:I think that's again. That's very hard to be self-aware on when you're in the middle of it right, right. I mean I think, as you consulted with many people over the years, you're sitting there telling them you're not pricing right and they're like no, I, I. I mean it's hard, because it's been hard for me to raise my rates over the years and do what I've done and you know what's happened every time we've done it nothing, nothing.
Speaker 3:You just made more money.
Speaker 2:I made more money and it was easier. Um, and to your point, I felt like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. A lot of time, yeah, and now so tough.
Speaker 3:So how important is pricing versus just finding the right client?
Speaker 1:Well, a couple of ways to answer that question. One is what you just said, chris. When you raise that price and nothing happens, here's the nothing. Everything falls to the bottom line. So that's the fastest way to change the trajectory of your businesses through pricing. This is an accounting fact. I don't have to argue whether that's the case or not. You can, from cutting your cost to changing your materials cost structure, to to getting more customers at the same price. Those options pale relative to just increasing your price. So what I would encourage listeners to do, if you're going to do one thing out of this, well, I'm going to give you two things, but we'll get to the second one in a little bit. One thing is go, raise your price 5%, 10%, whatever that number is, go, do that today. Don't. Do not pass, go and but go. You're going to collect more than $200 when you do that, because what will happen is nobody cares, nobody will even notice.
Speaker 2:I look back on the things that's happened over the years. So in the beginning I did not charge a first hour service fee.
Speaker 2:I said, no, I can't do that and I just had flat rate handyman service show up, but then we'd have jobs that wouldn't go because they didn't value. And then I said, all right, so now we have $180 minimum for the first hour. That's just for us to show up and again to get to 180, I had to go from nothing to 50 to 100 to 180 over 16 years because I did it slowly, because I kept going, because you're afraid I was. I was totally afraid I was going to lose everybody in every opportunity as I'm trying to grow this biz. And you know what's happened.
Speaker 2:We went and analyzed it and it didn't. It just brought more of the bottom line and it still increased our repeat customers because people opted out. Because are you going to not have me come out for $180? Are you not going to have me come out for $100? Or are you not going to have me come out for $50? At the end of the day, if you know who we are and the intangible value had been set and you knew you were going to work with us, you're not worried about $50 or $180. You're worried that you're going to get the job done right. And if we didn't set that up, then well, zero, I mean, I wouldn't pay you a dime to come out.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the other thing. So what people forget is that pricing is a marketing signal. So if I'm comparing your service at 180 to somebody that's at 50, what's my thought going to be? It's not going to be. Why necessarily it's not going to be? Why is that guy so expensive at 180? It's going to be that guy 50 must not know what he's doing yeah, I think right.
Speaker 2:So yeah, when you, when you translate that into the professional services world and and somebody comes in and says you know, like you said, you know the bookkeeper at three dollars and 50 cents, or how about a bookkeeper at $40 versus a bookkeeper at $80? I remember my bookkeeper at the time said this years ago she goes, I'm done, I'm out, I'm going to start doing other stuff. And she goes I just can't make money at $40 an hour. She goes, well, I'm raising my rates to $80. I said, ok, I'll pay. I said don't believe, said don't leave. She goes oh well, I really want to go flip houses, I'm done doing bookkeeping and I was like, okay, so you really didn't want to have me right, but I was willing to pay.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean, again back to her own. I didn't even know 40 was low, uh. And then when she went to 80 I went well, that's a lot, but she's so good, I gotta have her. And I found out the 80s are going right. They're like oh well, there you go well, and and there's, there you go.
Speaker 1:You didn't even know what the scales were, right and see, that's the whole point. Clients don't know. They don't know particularly for a bookkeeper, a handyman, I mean somebody that they don't necessarily are buying their services regularly they don't know what the price is, they don't know what it's supposed to be. They may know exactly what a gallon of milk is supposed to cost or a gallon of gasoline. They know that because they're buying it all the time and they see the price. But they don't know that for services.
Speaker 3:There has to be a cap to this, though, and I mean Chris, so I think so. You go on thousands of bids a year, yeah. What percentage of those are getting multiple bids?
Speaker 2:uh, most of them. I well on the bigger stuff. It's all about scale. So we also do remodeling. You know, bathroom, kitchens, decks. We could have taken care of johnson, oh sorry about that.
Speaker 3:That's right, we'll get you on the next one. Okay, we're really good at bathrooms. Yeah, because when it falls apart in two years, is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:right, but but no, um. So here's here's. What I have found is that there are people when they call, but we've been at this for so long. Well, we'll ask the question have you had anybody else ought to look at it? Well, I would like not to share that. But some people say, yes, I've had three others. Well, why didn't you like the other three? And if my sales guy's in front of me and we find this out, we're going to ask that question. Well, why am I out here? Why, why didn't they hit the mark?
Speaker 3:you should ask that more assumptively. I'm assuming you've had other people come out yeah, oh, you got a good point.
Speaker 2:That's a good, that's actually a great point. You're right, because, um, because I don't want to introduce other people, but, um, I don't have the long story, uh, obviously, as I can't land the plane, um, I don't know how many people do. And I will tell you though, especially in our business, what's really easy to do is I went with somebody cheaper, right, because they know that you're not going to bother them when you find out later that they just ended up not doing the job. That's what really happened, because the value hadn't been established in their own minds, because we're not an emergency service. I mean, mean, this is the other thing, too is, if you're in the hvac, the plumbing, the electric world, if you don't have hot water, that's an emergency yeah if you can't get your garage door open, which literally, uh, we just had a hurricane event here in atlanta and I know a prominent garage store guy.
Speaker 2:He said I can't tell you how many calls we got saying I can't get out of my own garage because the power's out. He's like, yeah, you can, you just pull the hand, but but, that's, that's what you're up. It's an emergency? Sure, in my world it's not an emergency and I think in professional services, um, what I always said when I was in consulting is you had to build that burning bridge. Uh, when I back in my now back to my corporate days, is that when you're sitting in front of a client saying, hey, let's do a $2 million engagement with us for consulting services, you had to have that burning bridge. You had to get them to understand that it's such a deep depth of despair that you have to get out of it, or you're at such a high that you can actually take it to the next level, but you can't stay in the middle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that, but here's the deal. So in that scenario later on, when the client is going to brag about the results they got from you, the consultant, are they going to say, hey, look at me, I got the cheapest consultant. Or are they going to say, look at the results this consultant got for me? See, their clients are concerned about transformation. Yeah, I love that phrase.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the key. You said one and we're going to come to number two, so number one was.
Speaker 1:Raise your price today. Right now 5% Right now, 5%, 8%, 10%. If you haven't done it in several years, don't go crazy, but raise your price. And I like what you said. You're hitting yourself over the head about not having done it, but you said you did it regularly over the years.
Speaker 2:Do it regularly, I love that idea and that's uh, that's a great annual thing. You know, people ask you know and, uh, we've done this over the podcast and I've been doing it for three years. Uh, again, small business safari. If you're listening, make sure you're out there, hit us, follow us, do all that stuff, help us out. Is that every year we always look at. I always take a pause and look at how the year went and how the next year is going to go. We lay out our marketing budget, our operational plan and what we're going to do. That's a great time to go, time to look at pricing, and I did not do that as much as it sounds like I did, and I'm going to again this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you guys are just totally contributing to inflation.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:You can blame me for whatever economics you want to call it.
Speaker 1:Hey, I mean, in an inflationary environment you better be raising your prices because your costs are going to change.
Speaker 2:Oh, they already have. I mean. So what's the latest thing we always keep talking about? So we've had COVID and then shipping expenses, stuff coming in from overseas, you know, a good example is cabinet doors. I don't know if people know this, but a lot of our cabinet doors that are in your homes today, the wood that's sitting there probably came from the US.
Speaker 2:Now where was it processed? Probably ukraine or in an asian market, and then it brought back. Is that not just crazy? Well, when you understand, because I had a guy explain the whole thing to me and then what happened was, after covid, the sea tainter prices, by the way, they went up three times and they have not come back. So these waters have not receded. Um has raised all these prices, and so I I do the same thing. Sometimes I go look at a you know a stick of lumber or a cabinet door and go, man, I remember when I started that thing was 25 bucks. Now it's 55 or it's 62 or you know whatever it is, and I gotta pass this along to the customer. So, uh, to john's point yeah, I mean, I think are we raising it? Yeah, but can we if we provide the right value? Right, I mean if?
Speaker 1:you're doing all that absolutely.
Speaker 3:How do you encourage people to be transformative when they're so? Let's take that bookkeeper example yeah I mean, a bookkeeper is a bookkeeper, right. I mean, how can you be transformative? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:You do keep score here.
Speaker 1:John.
Speaker 2:Right now I don't like where I'm at 0-2.
Speaker 1:That's exactly where you're at. You know how. I know how to suck up the hoax right. That's a great question that's 2.
Speaker 3:This is your 3-0 now.
Speaker 1:So here's the deal when you have a client that's looking at you, they're looking at two different things. They're looking at tangible value and they're looking at intangible value. They don't know that in their heads, but that's what it amounts to. The tangible value for that bookkeeper is getting the books done. It's the basics of all the things a bookkeeper does reconciling the accounts, preparing the financials, giving me insight into the financials, whatever that bookkeeper offers, right, that's like the table stakes. That's what's on the bookkeeper's website. That's what they focus on. And they, like I'm a QuickBooks Pro Advisor. Well, big deal, everybody's a QuickBooks Pro Advisor. Right, that's like table stakes.
Speaker 1:But what about other things? Like, boy, my bookkeeper's actually got a personality, right, I can actually talk to them. Right, that's worth a lot. Well, see, there you go. That's an intangible. That's an intangible value. That means something to a lot of clients, because what they're used to with bookkeepers and bookkeepers don't get upset with me, but you know, this is true they speak Klingon, they speak Klingon and often they don't want to speak at all. Right, they want to just like, do their thing, and but that's what's what? What makes them great at what they do? But if they have great communication skills and they are on time with their work. They go out of their way to get that work done without a lot of fuss and muss on the part of the business owner. Those are intangibles that have tremendous value to a busy business owner intangibles that have tremendous value to a busy business owner.
Speaker 2:I think there I have a bookkeeper who I have, to your guys' point, never met in person and she literally is only 30 minutes away from me. We've only done Zoom calls, and now for two and a half years. But why am I with her? Because she got me out of the deep depths of an unreconciled account and a lot of problems, and we monthly reconcile on the 15th of every month for the month prior. I close my books up on the 15th through the 21st of the month prior and when we get together and we do the reconcilement, she doesn't go. Well, here's the numbers.
Speaker 1:Well, she goes here's the numbers.
Speaker 2:And, chris, I have a question on a couple of things. If you don't have a minute, why is this number so high all of a sudden? I'm like, yeah, beth, as a matter of fact, we know that Right team Darn it, but she's provided that. I know that she's looking at my books, just like as much as I do.
Speaker 3:She's not just doing the job, she's actually kind of like engaging her brain and helping your business.
Speaker 1:Yep, exactly. And so what does that mean to you? Let's take that example. So what does that mean to you when she says, hey, why is this number a little higher? What that means is that you may be spending some money that you shouldn't be spending, right, correct, and so you're able to go make that adjustment. That's additional value that she's giving Correct, right. And what are you able to do? Because you're making more money on the bottom line, you're able to buy a couple more bottles of bourbon or whatever right I mean.
Speaker 2:the point is when you start, or other trucks. I did buy trucks. I bought used trucks this year, though, and because I wanted to get better bourbon, but we'll keep going.
Speaker 1:Okay, but you see, this has a. This transformation is not just about the transformation in the business, it's the transformation for you as the business owner. So it's kind of like I was talking to a business owner one time, several years ago.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Say that one more time. It's not just about the transformation in the business, it's about what that transformation of the business does for the owner of the business.
Speaker 2:So you're saying it's a personal thing, that a bookkeeper who won't come see you in person, but you're being transformed personally, as well as in your business, from somebody that is your bookkeeper.
Speaker 1:Let me give you an example. You'll love this.
Speaker 3:In other words, that wasn't a good question.
Speaker 1:No, it was a great question. I just gave you one. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. This is where we're glad podcasts aren't regulated by the FCC. So I was talking to a business owner some time ago and I was like, who does your books? Well, I do my own books. I'm like it's interesting um retail business. So I was like, when do you do your books? Oh, I do them about nine, ten o'clock at night, like your husband must really love that it's. It's. It's really quiet at night. At nine or 10 o'clock at night. It's really quiet, right, yeah, because I'm doing the books. Oh, that makes for a happy marriage, doesn't it? I mean, come on right. I mean, see, this is what I mean by transformation. It changes your personal life as well, and that's a big big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a big thing that we always we talk about this so much on the biz, but we, especially on this podcast is that people have said this you know, you, the business doesn't run you, you run the business. I'm like no brother, not especially in the beginning, no way. But to get out of your own way it's hard and to be transformative it was hard and to get there it didn't happen overnight, it's happened over many years. Where I do have fun now I mean, alan loves talking about all the things I'm doing, like this week Wait, wait, wait, wait I went Falcons Braves doubleheader, falcons, nfl again, and then I'm going to go to the UGA dog game, but let's not go there.
Speaker 2:Let's not go there. That's like where's Chris every? Night at 9 o'clock, he's out going woo, woo, but I did skip the charity event, charity golf event today, just so I could make sure I was here on the podcast.
Speaker 3:So you don't care about the kids.
Speaker 2:No, I did. I cared about the kids. This one was about the Neary Remodeling Association.
Speaker 3:You don't care about them.
Speaker 2:I don't care about them, even though I'm on their board. No, I just told them I couldn't make it happen. We did care about the kids big that day we did so, al and I were in a charity event for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
Speaker 3:I can't golf at Chris's course with him, but I can golf somewhere else with him.
Speaker 2:Especially when he's giving the kids the money because it's all for the kids.
Speaker 2:Check this out. Just a quick aside, and then we're going to get back to John. But Children's Healthcare of Atlanta one of the best nonprofit donning percentages going around. They do an incredible job, unbelievable. Do you know what they just pulled off? And you don't know this one. Guys, go look this one up if you have a chance. Just go Google Eggleston to Children's Healthcare. Arthur Blank patient transition. They moved everybody from one hospital to another in one day. They brought in all the ambulances around the metro Atlanta area and they transported people, all the hospital staff from those steps.
Speaker 3:State-of-the-art, gleaming tower it is. It's an unbelievable place. It is.
Speaker 2:And I had a chance to talk to one of the doctors who works in it and he said it is amazing what we're moving to from where we came from. And they came from the Emory health care program, right, I mean, which is again nationally known as one of the better ones out there absolutely, if not one of the best. Yeah, but they did it all in one day. Talk about a logistics and how they did this stuff, but what makes us and that I wish we would have heard a little bit more about this in the charity event when they kicked it off? Yeah, but our money actually helped do that, that's a good thing about all those mulligans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what? We came in a solid 25th place Out of how many teams?
Speaker 3:30. We're not last, we weren't last, we were definitely not first, all right 22.
Speaker 2:22 under won this thing.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, I was walking out going well, I could say that's bullshit. I was like, come on, man, are you kidding me? We came in at like nine under. We're good, which nine under in a shamble was a pretty solid score. So everybody else is cheating, but I don't know. I had a great time, all right.
Speaker 2:I had a great can we go back to because we we have. We have like 10 minutes we have so much more to do. Tell john what you said about my swing. His swing looks like stewart's sink. It's pretty smooth. Thank you very much. Can we get back?
Speaker 1:there now, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3:What else? Still haven't been invited to his club, which is right over there. That's a dead air.
Speaker 2:Michael cut that out. Michael cut that out, Don't.
Speaker 3:He's not invited Go.
Speaker 1:Michael.
Speaker 2:Get the word the editor. Buddy, all right, come on, we gotta close this thing up with a bang. Yeah, all right. So what else? Give us a couple big gold nuggets. Let's drop this crap and let's get this going okay, real quick.
Speaker 1:You've got to connect your pricing to transformation, both for both the companies and personal. So what would it mean to you if, hey, hey, you're able to spend more time with your family? Well, that's priceless, right? So I mean, the point is you've got to connect your pricing to, and that means you've got to have conversations with clients. You've actually got to, and what I say to people is your pricing depends on the extent to which you're willing to have an in-depth value conversation with a client. And why do you want that deck on the back of your house? What do you want to do with that? Well, hey, I want to put a TV out out there and watch football. What would that mean to you? Well, man, that would be great in the fall, when the weather's nice and I can sit out there and enjoy the breeze. And I can sit out there, enjoy the breeze and, wow, you know, suddenly, right, it gets away from how much of the materials to. I'm feeling the breeze.
Speaker 2:So I agree with you and that's what we do. We talk a lot about that in sales is getting that person to see where they're going to be, to see the transformation. But what about that person that's just like nah, I mean, just give me your number, or or no, just give me your number or no, just do your thing and then tell me how much it's going to cost.
Speaker 1:Great question and what you have to understand I said it again Three, two. What you have to understand is that for every good or service there are a certain number of clients. It's probably 25% to a third roughly Our price what I call misers.
Speaker 2:All they care about is the price. What do you call them, Chris? Not that. Well, let's just go with that. I'm going to regulate myself on that one.
Speaker 1:You don't have to to freaking bother with me on that one. But what that means is if you have somebody that calls up, for example, and says, how much does it cost to, uh, put on a deck on my house? Well, if that's their first question, they've revealed themselves as a price shopper, right I? I say we may not be a good fit there. That's a great one.
Speaker 2:We know what we might not be a good fit, that's a great one. You know what we may not be a good fit for you. It's not you, it's me. I think that's a great question. When somebody calls up, I've never seen your house and we've got people listening in all seven universes and eight continents and Australia, definitely Australia. But when you call up and say, hey, how much would it cost? And I actually just had a guy work with the sun trust feedback would call them hey, chris, how much should I expect to pay for my bathroom? I'm like you know, I've never been to your house, right I? So how can I tell you what I don't know?
Speaker 2:stupid question yeah, well, but that's the questions you get and you're like it's like, well, how much should I spend? Well, I don't know. I've done this to one person once. They, uh, they called in, I was in a bad mood and they're like well, I just want to know how much it's going to be to redo my laundry room. I said, uh, 18,002, a one 12.
Speaker 1:Well one way to 11, seven one way to answer that is to say you know what I think Elon Musk paid $3 million to redo his bathroom, I mean, but I don't think it's going to cost that much for you but that's why we've got to have a conversation Right.
Speaker 3:We don't know what you want, genius, yeah, I love that one too. I'm going to use that light too. So, john, people can get this info out of your book.
Speaker 1:Uh, the generosity mindset, but you also speak. Do you train as well? Yes, and I work with people individually. I train, um, I help, uh, companies that have have salespeople that need to understand how to sell value as opposed to lead with price. I help with that. There's a number of different ways I can help, just in Georgia. Or do you travel? I travel, but work on Zoom too. It depends on the engagement.
Speaker 2:Man, we're coming to the end. Generosity mindset guys, you got a taste of it. There are some great gold nuggets we dropped here, but there's a couple things. We started out the program talking about how we all know john, and one of the things that john does is he actually has a podcast studio in alpharetta and a radio station called business radio x in alpharetta, where many people that I know that alan knows have been there. Uh, we just appreciate you doing what you do on that. I know it's you. We talked about this before we got started. This is me giving back but also creating that value.
Speaker 3:Don's one of those guys that you meet at a networking event who doesn't even come close to trying to pitch you anything. He's always like how can I help you? And, by the way, come do something in my studio and you can have content on your website. I mean, you're giving before people even know what you do and I really admire that.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you what. He didn't even say hey, can I come on your podcast? I said would you want to come on our podcast? I asked him All these years we've known each other. He didn't say hey, let me come pitch my book, let me know. I said, hey, would you come on? And he goes um, yeah, I'd love to. So you did it. You're doing it the right way, and that's the kind of people that that.
Speaker 2:That shows you that giving gets and you're, you're gonna get a deal in australia I love it uh, not for nothing, but uh, I do know somebody who's on our podcast who actually did a deal in California and so I don't want to share it with everybody Wrong side of the pond.
Speaker 3:but you know, yeah, well but, but, but.
Speaker 2:Because they came on and we talked and these people listened, they actually ended up doing some marketing work together.
Speaker 2:So there you go but that's not why you're here, and we all know that. And what you're here to do is just share your knowledge, share your information, and obviously there's a ton in the generosity mindset With doing that. You do the Business Radio X. We love that. We love seeing you around in the community and it is I will tell you. Every time you see him out at a networking event I'm like trying to find a way to work my way over just to say hi to John for a minute.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, thank you, appreciate that. I appreciate what y'all are trying to do educating small businesses. This show is great. We're trying well and you have fun?
Speaker 2:oh, we do, yeah, we do because you know what business is hard? Business is hard. I just uh, actually uh talked, uh, so I said two. Now I'm gonna bring up the other one. I was gonna save this for the next podcast, but actually just talked to somebody who got out, just yep and bailed.
Speaker 1:Uh didn't fail, got bought out got enough to bailed, but he bailed.
Speaker 2:Okay, he bailed um, he got bought out. Uh uh, business partner said time to you know he. He said, chris, I didn't realize as a man that I should ask for help. I mean, it was some deep, dark conversations that we've had with and I said you know we should. You're right about that. Sometimes business is hard and asking for help, yeah, it's hard, but hopefully this podcast gives you a little bit of ray of sunshine, a little, and I said you're right, man, we should talk about that sometime. Business is hard and asking for help is hard, but hopefully this podcast gives you a little bit of ray of sunshine, a little fun while you listen to it, because we're trying to edutain you. Man, you're out there walking the dog, you're maybe driving to work, maybe you're driving to a client site. You know, get your head right, one of the things I would hey, turn off the radio and he's. Can I ask you one more question? I'm like no, we're four minutes away. I said it's time to get your mind right.
Speaker 3:I said sandwich closed, baby Raccoon closed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I said. I said let's go, you and me, and I'm going to keep you in the truck. That's an inside joke. Later, guys, go look it up. Paul Burleson, that's the 10 men. Tell no tales that we did. But going back to it, I was like you've got to get your head right, because the most important person in that world in these next 10 minutes as we start this sales cycle, is that customer sitting in front of you Absolutely Not your kids, not your wife, not your grandbabies. And I said I know that hurts. And I said but that's the way you got to approach this thing. And he was like I'm on it, man, let's go. And West Virginia, ron, he rode and we got that.
Speaker 2:West Virginia Ron he did man, we did great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just cannot walk into that client with the need to have a sale. Even if you've got to have one, you cannot walk in with that need because clients can sniff it a mile away.
Speaker 2:That's right, they can sense the desperation. John, this has been amazing. How can everybody reach you? Let's get this stuff in the show notes. We've already talked about the generosity mindset, but I know that if anybody reached out to you J O H N R A Ycoco, Uh, you can go to my website of course, john Rayco.
Speaker 1:Find out about my book at the generosity mindsetcom and you can buy it on Amazon and at all the major retailers as well your favorite independent bookstore, so they'll have. They'll have it as well, you can love order, the independence bring it on man, bringing the independent guys.
Speaker 2:If you didn't learn something today, that's on you, because go out there, raise your prices. What you learn, go out and raise your prices five percent. I guarantee you nobody will balk. I know it because I watched it happen to me and I didn't believe it in the beginning and and it happened and I would tell you, I resisted it for two years. That's the big nugget on the drop.
Speaker 3:Can I throw something at that Go? When I was back in my corporate world and whenever we raised rates, it was the existing employees who just really struggled with it. The new employees didn't know anything different and they would just go nuts with it.
Speaker 2:So thank you, Alan, uh contributing to the inflation earlier well you know, you guys were so inflationary pro-inflation.
Speaker 3:I just decided to just jump on the bandwagon hey, everybody, go out there, tell everybody about us.
Speaker 2:Man, we'd love to get more listeners. And don't forget, you can always drop me, chris lalamia, go find me out there online. I'd love to talk to you guys. I'll give you guys 30 minutes. You want to email me?
Speaker 3:I'd love to talk to you more and I'll make you do it between all this crap that you got going on. I know, but don't, don't. I got, I got bulldogs I got.
Speaker 2:I mean, I love my sports and I'll tell you this fall is gonna get dirty because I'm gonna do a lot more. All right, we're out here. Go make it a great day, get going. Get up that mountaintop and make it successful.
Speaker 1:Cheers everybody.
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