How to avoid time wasters
or how to deal awful leech customers?
This is for woman called Sarah Jack.
I've made this Toolbox Tip for Sarah in response to a question she posted
on my YouTube channel.
And it took me and my girls four months before we noticed it, so Sarah, I'm sorry.
We check Facebook, we check LinkedIn, we check our website and didn't check YouTube. We do now.
And I did promise you a video in response, and here it is.
You asked the major question about how to deal with a specific kind of frustrating, prospective customer.
He kinda who asks you to quote, then picks your brain and uses what you tell them
to garner enough information so they could do the job themselves,
or break it down and give you bits and pieces of sh*tty, unprofitable work by sourcing the materials themselves.
It makes the job as cheap as possible for them and makes it not fun for you to do.
And you've given your knowledge away for free.
You (Sarah) told a story about someone who did this and then, once they f*cked it up themselves,
they called you up and asked to help them fix it, also for free.
They slyly suggested
they'd be giving you more work but you didn't believe it.
You thought they’ll pick your brains and then go back and try to fix up their mistakes themselves.
You asked also how to handle these people including those who ask for a breakdown of a quote
so that they can go and source other quotes and materials
separately. This is a broad question. It's a series of questions
about how to deal with a**holes and I'm going to try and answer it quite fully.
Response 1-
These people are quite rare.
Most people (customers, consumers)
are decent and honorable and understand that you've got to make a living.
Don’t put too much energy into these negative, time-wasters, and leeches.
Make a simple system to deal with them (which I'll explain in a minute)
and move on and work with the good people.
I'm going to refer you to a recent video I made called, ‘The Life-changing magic of doing enough marketing’.
If you're doing enough marketing, then, you've got lots of leads.
And when you come across an idiot and time-waster, you feel much more confident
in saying, “No, I don't want to”.
Response 2
Remember, they’ll probably cock it up anyway.
It took you a lot of years for you and your trades people to get this good.
They're not going to do as good of a job.
They’ll always either cock it up or it will be not very good, and a bit ugly.
And they'll always know that.
If they are DIY’ers and they feel happy with that then fine, who cares?
Let them go.
Your market
is the people who appreciate the value and quality you bring to your work.
Response 3
Take preventative measures.
If you've been watching my stuff for a while you know I'm a fan of what's called qualifying out,
which basically means you ask questions and use the responses to the questions
to decide if you want to invest more time in this opportunity or person.
If you qualify and you decide it's not a good use of your time then you shouldn't do it.
If you qualify and you think “I'm not going to win this job” then stop working on it. Do not invest any more time
in a job you're not going to win.
You could qualify when they enquire on the phone - “Do I want to drive out there?”
And you can qualify when you're on site - “Do I want to go home and write up a quote?”
If you don't believe they'd buy from you, don't waste any more time.
I teach this in my coaching.
As you build your sales process, you put your qualification steps in it and you plan your questions
with a checklist so you don't forget to ask them.
They might not buy from you for many reasons.
They don't have the money,
Don't have the authority to make a decision on their own,
aren't ready yet,
haven’t got the finance sorted out yet, haven’t got approval from counsel.
All sorts of things could be getting in their way.
From your side, you might not like them and they might not like you too.
Your d*ckhead filter might be going off. It might be going no, “They are just picking your brains.
They're going to do it themselves.” All those reasons could be the case.
Your questions should be drawing out
that knowledge or
helping you form an opinion as to whether those things are the case.
If you believe any of these things the case, you don't have to give them a quote.
Let's be clear.
Just because you said “Free quotes” on your website doesn't mean you have to give
a full detailed quote to every time-waster who picks up the phone. You do not.
This is your professional time, it's worth the money, you don't have to give it away for free to everybody.
Those are not the rules.
That's your preventative action - qualify out. If you think it's a waste of time, don't quote.
If you think it's a bit waste of your time, don't do it.
I know that sounds a bit scary because you’ll feel some pressure from them,
but you're in charge of your time and they aren't.
Response 4
If your preventative measures let you down, what do you do or say?
You probably don't say, “F*ck off you time-wasting a**hole”.
Your response will vary depending on why
they don't qualify as worth any more of your time.
Let me throw you ideas to illustrate.
If I’m your coach, my program will help you prepare your own responses and you'll go into these situations
prepared.
If it's the money, you might say something like...
“It doesn't sound like you have the money to do this project.
A formal quote is not the right thing for me to do. They take a lot of time and energy
and you won't be able to buy anyways because you don't have the money.
It’s far better for me to give you a quick estimate now which will be close
and you can use that to go and get your ideas together or finance sorted out.
When you've got those things sorted out and you’re in a position to buy, then it's time for me to do a formal quote.
How does that sound?”
If they’re time-wasters or you don't think they're going to buy from you for whatever reason,
they just take someone else, that's not your responsibility.
They want to do it themselves or want to be instructed, it's not your responsibility.
You might say...“Look, I'm getting the feeling that you're not likely to go ahead with me.
I'm not going to invest any more time into this project. It's probably best if we leave it here.
You can go in today and I'll give you a quick estimate of the cost.
A formal quote is a lot of effort and time for me. Time is money.
I'm not going to invest my time and money in a project I don't believe I'm going to win”.
If your preventative measures have failed, and you gave them your expertise
and they come back later for help like Sarah's customer did,
I would say, “NO”.
They've been dishonest already.
I don't believe it would be a good engagement for you.
Don't go, it would be sh*t. You will regret it.
“Look, I gave you all my help the last time, you've made a mistake. I don't believe I want to be involved any further”.
You don't need to say much.
You've qualified somebody
and they've got the money. They're doing it soon enough. The decision makers are all involved.
They've said you're the kind of trade they want. Everything's looking good,
your d*ckhead filter isn't going off.
You think you like each other
and yet, when you present your quote they ask for a breakdown.
You could ask why they need a breakdown.
What's the purpose?
And you could say No.
If they don't need a breakdown in order to decide whether your quote is reasonable or not,
there's no need for you to give one.
You could say: “I work out my quote and I allow for labour and materials.
How I do that is my intellectual property and my risk.
You don't need to see the detail of how I figured that out in order to decide whether to extend my quote.”
You certainly don't need to be going down to Bunnings and comparing prices on timber and things like that.
You shouldn’t need to go down to any level of detail where they can go and start price-shopping.
The real answer is here: “No, I've done your quote.
I'm not your servant, you don't get to boss me around and make me do all the free unpaid work for you“.
The real answer I think here is, of course, you didn't qualify properly
because your d*ckhead filter should have been going off.
They’re clearly being a bit funny now and it's time to get yourself out of there.
Nobody gets this right all the time. These preventative measures
only work so well --
a pushy, aggressive or clever customer will get past them sometimes.
But, if you take these steps and put these structures and systems in place in your business,
you will reduce the amount of time you waste on the time-wasters
and you’ll spend more of your time with nice, decent people.
Remember the marketing stuff? If you attract the right kind of people and you attract enough of them,
it’s easier to say NO to the idiots earlier and waste less time.
Of course, if you would like me to help,
I can help. I will help you set these systems and structures up. I’ll help you plan what to say,
plan the questions and help you write the checklist.
It's called business coaching to figure out whether it's the right thing for you to do or not.
You need to book a 10-minute chat with me or spend a few minutes talking to each other.
I'll qualify you, you can qualify me
and we decide whether we invest more time in a full sales process.
I'll ask you if you're coachable. I'll ask you questions about your business
and think whether I can help.
I'll tell you about my framework briefly and think about whether that makes sense to you.
And if we like each other from there and we qualify, we'll do a strategy session.
If that's too much, consider the Next Tools Down Workshop.
There are buttons below this video
somewhere for you to choose either of those.
See you later.
you