How to Close a $20,000 Deal - Live Sales training

Today we're going to close a $20,000 project over the phone without even going to do a site visit. I'm going to walk you through the process on a live phone call. I want you to pick up how we do it so that you can see you can not only pre-qualify your customers, but then you can save time and go out to sites where you know they're ready to sign on the dotted line. So, check out this phone call. See how it goes. See if I can paint a picture here for you real quick. We have 100 linear feet of retaining wall and it's roughly 5 ft tall and um it's surrounding three sides of your garage. And there's other conditions that apply. But before I come out to your site, at least let's establish a baseline number so that we both know we're on the same page with this. Okay. Um so you have we're going to break this down into how many square feet you have. Now, in this case, it's a really easy job to calculate. We're just going to call it for what it is. It's 500 square ft. Okay. Our average price to remove a timber retaining wall and then to install a new either boulder or modular block retaining wall is $38 a square foot. Okay. So, we just take the quantity you have of 500 square ft and multiply it by 38. And that gives you your baseline price of $19,000. Yep. Now, if we know that we're going to be re rebuilding a patio or moving extra dirt or doing things on top of that, that's going to modify that baseline number. But at least we have something to start with that we're both on the same page before I even come out. We know, hey, this is going to have a boulder or a Verselock standard unit. That's the choice, that's the block choice that we prefer for a number of reasons. Um, but it could be Keystone or Anchor, but um, you know, our go-to block choice will always be the Verselock standard unit, and that's what's included in that price. Okay? And so, if you're okay with that, then what I do is I come out to your site, we measure it together, I show you a brochure, I show you some of our work, we look at all the surrounding conditions, and then we finalize those numbers, and then we get you on the schedule. Okay. All right. Um, so and then, uh, did that first did that first, you know, come out and measure everything? Is that a like a free estimate, that sort of thing? Yes. In this case, we'll do a free estimate where I'll meet with you. We'll measure everything up. We'll get everything nailed down. But you do understand that your proposal is probably not going to vary much up or down from that $19,000 as long as we're the conditions as you've described them apply. Yeah. Um, one thing to be aware of, um, my neighbors, the the neighbor that shares the largest amount of the fence, largest amount of that retaining wall rather, is, um, they had some large trees there, so it might have made it more of a manual process, but they're apparently in the process of cutting all those trees down, which makes this a little bit easier. Um, but I have no backyard on that side, so we would be in their in their property, so that's just something to be aware of. Okay. And have you talked to the neighbor about this process? Yeah, they're aware that you know we're in the process of getting bids whatnot to take a look at getting this replaced. They're aware of it. It's just a matter of like removing the existing wall sort of stuff. I wasn't sure how that would impact that amount. That's why I thought they'd bring it up now. Okay. And that's something that I can't see the the site. I've never been to it yet. And so that's why I do the site visit to verify all those conditions, do an accurate measurement at that time, and then write up uh your proposal for you, which will be good for this year. But just be aware, it's right now, what is it? Uh June 16th, 2015. In another 2, 3 weeks, we'll be booked out till after September and into October. I signed contracts every single day. I signed one just earlier this morning. So that's my job is to go out and sign contracts and to get us booked up for the year. So if this is something that you want to do yet this year, we should probably look at it pretty quick. And then it's just $100 down. So literally I take $100 from you and it's staple it to your proposal and the date on your check you get put into the order the job list. Okay? And then when we show up on site, we want a hund we want half down at that point. So, as soon as we show up, we arrive, we start tearing out the old wall and we're getting things taken care of. We want half down. And then before we leave and before we move on to the next job site, we want to be paid in full for the balance of the work. And at that point, what we do is we reme-measure the retaining wall, make sure that our quantities are on. And if we've used a modular block retaining wall, we actually provide a spreadsheet right from the supplier and show you every block that was delivered to your site, what time, who delivered it, and we use that to do a block count for you. All right, sounds good. Um Um, cool. Um, and your what are your office hours? When you when can I get a hold of you? Because I'm I'm run this by these numbers with my wife tonight, then we'll we'll call you back in the morning. Okay. All right, sounds good. Thank you very much. And I will um I will uh probably call you back tomorrow morning um and we can maybe schedule something done if uh if she's okay with it. Perfect. All right. Sounds good. All right. Thank you. Bye. That's pre-qualifying a $20,000 project. I'm not going to go out to their site. I got the measurements from the customer. We used simple formula that we use for all of our retaining walls. In this case, it was removing a timber retaining wall, replacing it with boulders or Verselock standard units. Our price is about $38 a square foot. Our price really doesn't change much unless the customer changes the conditions. So, in this case, I'm not going to go out to their site and do all the measuring and try to sell them on a project because guess what? I have 14 phone calls, 14 messages on my machine just from the last few days that I have to go through. I don't have time to visit each and every site. This saves me a ton of time and and makes sure that I have a very serious customer before I bother to go out to their site. This guy, if I hear back from him in the morning, I know that he's prepared to spend $ 19 to $20,000 on a project. So, automatically, I know that the size and scope of the work. I know the intentions of my customer, and I know whether it's worth my time to go out there or not. I want you guys to learn from this. I want you guys to not be afraid to do the exact same thing. Stop being shy. Stop visiting each and every site. Make sure that you grab the bull by the horns and you make sure that your time is valuable. If you're giving away free estimates, in this case, this was a free estimate I'm willing to do because I'm very serious about this job. It's a goodiz project. It's right in our wheelhouse. It's what we do day in and day out. So, this is what one that I'll do for free. In some of my other videos, I teach you how to charge for an estimate. Now, if this wasn't in my wheelhouse, if this wasn't a job that I was particularly interested in, I would probably ask them for a $200 fee to go out to do all their measuring, to get everything figured out, to give them a pretty thorough proposal, and then sub be willing to subtract that if they signed on the dotted line. So, that's it. I've taken you through a phone call. I will let you know tomorrow how this comes out. Take care. God bless. Love you guys. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. So, we talked yesterday on the retaining wall that's surrounding your garage. 100 ft long and it's 4t tall. You went out and measured it. Is that great? Yeah, it's in that like three and a half to four and a half range cuz like it's different. Like there's some sections are a little bit taller than others. So like we'll call it four. Okay. Okay. So, you know, either way, we've got we've got our base numbers established so that when I come out there, all we got to do is really finalize the measurements, look at the site, make sure that we can get in, make sure that the materials we're proposing to use are what you need and something you like, and then we can get you set up into the system. Okay, perfect. Um, yeah. So, what are what's your like for take a look at it? Uh, I could swing out tomorrow. Uh, let's see. I've got I've got my morning is filled up. Early morning is filled up, but then later morning I could come out or later afternoon I could come out. Um, what about Friday morning? Friday morning works. All right, that's perfect. What time? What time? Uh, you want to do around 9:30 Friday morning? Sure. Okay, so we're going to go I'm just taking some notes. It's wall 100 ft long, 4t tall. Mhm. 53. Okay, got it. Okay, Chad, I appreciate the fact you called back. Um, I will see you. We We're set up for Friday, 9:30 a.m. I'll see you there. We'll finalize the numbers and get everything lined up for you. 9:30 Friday. All right, sounds good, Chad. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Bye. So, that was the call from yesterday. He called back. Now, we know where his level of interest is. We talked about the numbers before. I'm going to go out in a few days, look at his job site, and there's no guessing at this point. The customer knows where the the budget numbers are going to be at. I know where the customer's expectations are at. Win-win. I save time. The customer is serious. I know that. And so, I'm going out to look at a job that will probably be signed and signed, sealed, and delivered. And that's how you pre-qualify a $20,000 customer. All right. We are at this project uh for Chad in Golden Valley. This is the retaining wall. We're going to have to crawl over a fence if we don't get bit by the nest of hornets that's down here. I'm not going to do a whole lot of Okay, I am going to hopcotch over. Okay, that's railroad tie retaining wall. limited access, but we can build the entire thing from the top side. Build a road coming in. We're going to remove this wall all the way down and then we're going to rebuild it with uh standard units versus lock standard units, my preferred unit, solid blocks, and get her put back together. We have we have changed the design a little bit. Instead of building what was here, we're going to build something that's better. We're going to li We're going to change the design enough that we can optimize his backyard and carry it instead of stopping it. Instead of stopping his yard here, we're going to carry this yard and flatten out this entire thing for the same price that we quoted on the phone. We can actually literally change what we're doing and flatten out this entire area. Give him way more usable space. We're going to bring this grade up and grade add fill soil to level this out. Then what happens is his privacy fence, you can see the two changes in elevation. This privacy fence here can get raised up, giving him more privacy, giving him more usable space, giving him a spot where his dogs can run, giving him continuity off from his existing patio all the way through his yard. A way better design than what was here. We're going to do it for the same price. So, at the end of this meeting, what you going to notice is that I changed up the design on this guy's job. The feeling that I got, and I want you to understand this concept. It was a gut feeling. The gut feeling I got was this customer was not excited about spending $20,000 just to get what he already had, but knew. But when I was able to modify the design, I was able to bring that emotional element into it, which helped him go, not only do I know I have to do this, but now I want to do this. And by creating a better design and stick sticking within our budget, it became a no-brainer. So that's how this job rolls. Sometimes you have to go out and read the customer. And when you get a see them sitting on the fence, sometimes you got to push them push them over the fence. Get them do get them to do what you want them to do. And sometimes you got to appeal to that emotional aspect to make sure that when you walk away from that job, you have a project signed, sealed, and delivered. That's today's lesson. Go get them. Love you guys.