Charge More With The Power of Pure Motive Service

0:00If the client has to ask you for a solution, it's too late. You should have thought about a solution before you did that. Great service providers don't just solve a problem. 15 % of what they do solves today's problem. About 85 % of what they do solves the problems in the future. When you express those things, quality, reliability, safety, health, these are the reasons when somebody says, can you lower the price? And I would say, well, you know what? I wouldn't be doing a good service if I were to cut corners on that app. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

0:31This is John Jantz. My guest today is Joe Crisera. Once a struggling home service contractor transformed his failing business through a pivotal aha moment that I think we're going to get into today. And now he helps thousands of contractors increase their revenue by three to five times with his pure motive service system. He's also the author of a book we're going to talk about today. what should we do? How to win clients, double profit, and grow your home service sales. So Joe, welcome to the show. Well, John, thank you. First, let me start by saying though, I want everybody to know this, that, you know, John Jantz, I'm talking to the OG here, this dude, he changed my life.

1:13He didn't even realize it, but the duct tape marketing book. And, you know, I did have a small mention in that book when I was first starting, we had our website that had the content we delivered. And I was mentioned in the book, what an honor. I almost melted when I saw my name in print. But definitely, John, it's been the service you provided. It's an honor to be here, an honor to help the home service professionals and any other service professional, doctors and anybody else who needs to create higher value when they communicate their solution to the clients. Well, I appreciate that, Joe. So I can't decide if when people call me the OG of marketing if that really just stands for old, but I'll take it.

1:50I'll take it. So, so I mentioned in your intro, the idea of the pivotal aha moment, you talk about it in the book, but, and I know you've shared this millions of times, but why don't you share that kind of what set you on this path? You know, it's actually right in the very beginning of the book, which is that, you know, I used to think, John, that as a home service professional, I grew up from, you know, a blue collar background. My dad was a plumber and stuff like that. And so So we were always kind of doing everything ourselves. We never hired a service, even though my dad was in the service business, right?

2:24And so I was always trying to save people money on things was my paradigm. But I looked at the world like, as a service provider, how can I do things a little bit for less money to help the consumer out, right? In a way, because I witnessed my father doing that. He'd go through our church and he would help fix all their plumbing problems in their homes and they'd offer him money. He'd be like, no, don't worry about it. And, you know, so I grew up with that kind of give service and don't worry about it kind of mentality. It almost drove me into bankruptcy. And there was an aha moment I had where it was, I was trying to save a client money and I lowered my price because I wanted to keep them as loyal clients.

2:58I figured the best way to do that, to show my love is to lower the price for them. And I realized that they didn't go with me. They went with another company. And I was like, huh, what happened? And then I went to a contractor meeting and it turns out one of my best friends in the company had a competitive company. but we were good friends from going to trade school. He said he got the job. And I said, well, what did you sell it for? Like, did you get, how could your price be lower than mine? I already dropped the price by like 700 bucks. And he said, no, Joe, I charged like, because I dropped my price from 2 ,500 down to 1 ,800.

3:28He said, no, Joe, I charged$9 ,857. I'm like, holy crap, let me see. And so he had it in his briefcase. He showed me that the customer didn't go with me. And the reason they didn't go with me is I simply did not offer enough service. I tried to lower the price and cut corners on the service, figuring how could I find a way to do it for less money to help the consumer. And it turns out I wasn't helping the consumer. And then since that moment in 1991 and 1992 it was, I learned that people are motivated by a better service and they will pay more money voluntarily without trying to suggest that they do.

4:04So as you can tell by that first story, I'm not a really great salesperson, but what I am good at doing is providing an environment where the customer can buy without selling them. Does that make sense there, John? Yeah, 100%. And I know you talk about offering multiple options to customers, that there might be the, here's the basic package, but here's what's going to make your water heater perform for years if we do these kind of add-ons. And a lot of times letting people choose really helps. It's a great way to more profitability, isn't it? Well, you know, it's like great customer service to, you know, in the trust funnel that you have so wisely helped us develop and articulate very simply.

4:45And, you know, simplicity is one of my greatest values. And I feel like by looking at what you created in that, you know, we fit right into that trust funnel perfectly. Because if you think about it, it's not just a water heater. It's the things that go around the water heater. You know, you can say, well, the doctor does surgery on me. The surgery doesn't cost hardly anything. It's the hospital, the surroundings, the environment, everything else that they, you know, the serene room where it's completely sterilized from top to bottom. That costs more money than the doctor, truthfully. And so I think that we don't realize that when you get Starbucks, you're paying for a cup and you're paying for everything, the real estate to find the Starbucks.

5:25And the same thing is true for plumbers or landscapers or anybody who does roofing and things like that. They don't realize that the part that they do is only about 15 % of it. But there's other things like if you're doing a water heater, well, how is the main shutoff valve? If it's not working properly, let's replace that. So give options. Now, of course, you did mention start at the bottom, work your way up. Now, here's the truth. Here's the science of pricing, which is in the book. So I definitely recommend that if you wanted to read the book, it's going to go over the science of pricing. And it goes over giving one price and what's the statistics behind that.

5:55If you only give one price, you're going to have the lowest conversion rate and the lowest revenue and cutting corners on the work. You have low quality work because you're only giving because which price are we going to choose? We're going to choose the cheapest one. And then we're going to say the next one is good, better, best, which is starting at the bottom and then trying to upsell people. The best way to do it, though, is found out because that will give you 40 percent people upgrading. If I start at the bottom and say, here's a better water here, here's a tankless or whatever. And here's the one that has more protection and warranties and stuff like that.

6:24So that would be the 40 % upgrade, but you would have an 80 % upgrade if you started with the premium option first and then tiered yourself down to the next one and then finished with the economy one. So if I was doing a plumber, I would say the top option would be endless hot water purification. You'd have a Wi-Fi connected shutout valve to shut the water off in this house if there was ever a flood when you're on vacation. Things that go with it, a 12-year warranty. And the bottom option would be go to Home Depot and buy a tank and I'll put it in for $1 ,200 or whatever. So the top option, and then also I believe in the monthly payment aspect, the teaching service professionals that not only should you make it the premium mid-range economy like I talk about, but also let's make those prices affordable by anticipating that nobody's got.

7:10Like if I did that thing with the endless hot water and the whole thing I mentioned there, it's probably going to be$15 ,000 and sometimes it could be$20 ,000. So I can't expect people to be pulling$20 ,000 out of their wallet when they just have no hot water. But I can ask them to do like$197 a month for 10 years. Does that make sense? So definitely, that's everything. That's all the things that we, all those 47 years of the crashing. I think, we're just waiting, John. They have about 24 years of crashing burns. And I got about 24 years of figuring out the right way of doing it. But, you know, the crashing burns are very impactful.

7:45And they leave scars. and those are reminders of what to do the right way as opposed to the wrong way. Make sense, Sean? Yeah, absolutely. If you don't learn anything, it was just a mistake. That was it. That's it, yeah. It's a fail. And it's interesting, too, because I think we make a lot of assumptions like, oh, I don't want to charge them$30 ,000 or whatever it is because they'll never pay that. Well, we don't know that. And it's not even that they won't pay that. It's that they want the level of what that will bring them. When you gave that initial example, they may have actually not gone with you because they thought, well, how good could it be, right?

8:19You know, for that cheaper price. That's right. It's like, you know, he's lowering the price on me. He's giving me a discount deal. I don't want to, when it comes to hating my family, I don't want the comfort of my family. I don't want a discount. I want it done right. And I think that's something about it. I think we all innately, like I always make a thing, like if I went to Paris, France or whatever, and I couldn't even speak French, but I saw how many euros. If I saw a menu in front of the restaurant, that says 75 euros for this one and five euros for the one at the bottom, I would probably say, well, I'm hungry.

8:48I want to get the one that's 50 to 75. I can't even read French, but I do know I'm probably going to get more food and it's going to be better if I spend more, right? So I think innately, we don't give consumers enough credit for doing that. But one thing I will, and I have some golden nuggets reserved to everybody to not only do that, but make it successful. There's a couple I call small bigs that I can share on this podcast. I'm going to give you some golden nuggets that if you do want to do a premium mid-range economy choice, that there's some key things that are going to make that pop even better, which I definitely can't wait to share with you guys.

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11:31I've witnessed it. So I know what I know what it is and I can define it very clearly. What it is, this is basically how can I provide a service that is gives people a range of the quality and reliability that I can give them? There's the highest quality and then there's lowest quality. A lot of people have a choice at all that. So here's the best way to do it and here's the cheapest way to do it. And here's a way in the middle, more professional. And then I have one that's a higher safety and health that has not just a water heater, but water purification, maybe flood protection. So we don't have any safety issues in the home.

12:05Then we have, you know, the best service. The top option will have a 12-year warranty on it with no, can't write a check for anything. The bottom option will have no warranty because you got it at Home Depot. I can't warranty something like that. And then the ones in the middle will be five, seven years. So you see the warranty is expressed by how many years I'm going to back it up. By the way, the warranty and service is a profit center that will be 38 % to 42 % revenue at an 80 % gross profit for any service professional that's out there. I mean, landscapers definitely would need a service membership to keep track of what's going on in the property, right?

12:41Really, any kind of a service business needs to continue the service and anticipate what's next, and that's the service there. But here's the big, here's the thing I was talking about, the golden nugget. But when you express those things, quality, reliability, safety, health, these are the reasons when somebody says, can you lower the price? And I would say, well, you know what? I wouldn't be doing a good service if I were to cut corners on that option. Now, we do have other options that are lower if you want to choose that. So it's kind of anticipating that people are going to negotiate. And so we're kind of already built the negotiation into our options.

13:11So they look at the top one and they go, Joe, that's a lot you're asking me for, for water purification, everything like that. Can we do anything less than that? So yeah, we could just go without the water purification. That would bring the price down to this. Oh, okay. But I like the water purification. So do I. See, Americans and everybody in the world, when you introduce a solution to them that's right for them. Now, here's the key word. I'm going to give you the golden nugget. Here it is. You arrived here. Your question was perfectly designed to do this. I didn't know if you knew that or not.

13:43But here it is. It's the word because. because so if you can't articulate the reason why you included water purification by using the word because you can say joe i just added the water purification in because of your daughter amy when you told me she had eczema i just felt like that would be the better way to go with the solution and joe i also did the 12-year warranty because you told me you work as an accountant and a bookkeeper i don't want to be sure you could focus on your job let me focus on the water heater for 12 years and you focus on your family and focus on your job. So you have to have the reason why.

14:17And that's where our training comes in is that how do we teach people to articulate the peer motives in a way that is really the quality, reliability, safety, health, customer service defined by your actions, by putting it in your solutions. And not just lip service, I call it, John, where people talk like, oh yeah, we're a high quality company. Really Prove it by putting it in your prices and make it relevant to the customer. That's the word because that's one of the pure motives is to say, not only do you got to do all that, but all that has to be customized and relevant. So it doesn't look like the plumbers just are the some of the service guy, the HVAC guy or electrician or whoever it is, even the accountant or a divorce attorney.

14:58It could be anybody. So you're not just throwing stuff in to fluff it up. You're putting stuff in there because you can draw a line to anticipating what's going to happen and preventing that before we run into a problem. Because I would say this, great service providers don't just solve a problem. About 15 % of what they do solves today's problem. About 85 % of what they do solves the problems in the future. Does that make sense there? Yeah, absolutely. And that's not going to be for everybody. But the percentage of the market that wants you to anticipate and appreciates you anticipating the problem, they are more than willing to pay a premium, right?

15:35Well, it's close to 100 % of the people will see the benefit. But here's the thing about it. Now, they may not be able to afford the benefit. That's the thing about it. So what we're trying to do is get our consumer to say something like this. So instead of saying, like, this is a ripoff, get out of my house. We don't want that to happen. And so what we're trying to get 100 % of the people to say, if they don't want it, if they want it, we want to say, pick an option. And there's the words, what should we do? Which one do you like? Right. What should we do? And so here's the options. What should we do?

16:03And then the customer is like, man, I just didn't know it would cost this much. And I'm like, I understand it's a high investment, but it's an investment in your family. So what should we do? And they're like, Joe, is it okay if I don't buy this from you? See, now that's a little different tone rather than get out of my house. This is a ripoff. So it's much better if they say something like, Joe, I think I'm going to have to go with my brother-in-law who's less money. And number one, I appreciate your effort. And nobody ever presented anything. I feel amazed that you did all this for me. Because they see the effort that you're putting into the thoughtfulness behind the solution.

16:37And nobody is going to insult you when they see that you made a customized, relevant solutions for them. They may say, you know what, I already signed a contract with my brother-in-law or something like that. So the ones we usually lose are people who already had plan B firmly in place and there was nothing we could have done, really. But, you know, they're calling to see if they can find a cheaper price than their brother-in-law so they can go back and tell the brother-in-law there's a guy cheaper. But what they aren't expecting is somebody who's way better than their brother-in-law. And they're kind of conflicted.

17:08And so what we're trying to achieve is happy customers who not only use the solution, but refer it because they say nobody's going to take care of. If I had my mother, I would give her a peer motive service provider because I know I won't have to keep dealing with this. And my mother wants to keep calling me. This guy's going to take care of the thing today and also make sure she has grab assist bars because she's got a knee replacement. So he's going to think about those things, not just wait for the client to ask us for it. Because here's the key thing I believe, John. If the client has to ask you for a solution, it's too late.

17:41You should have thought about a solution before you did that. Like if you're teaching marketing, I would say, well, here's how we do it. Here's, I thought about, you're probably going to ask me like, who's going to do these funnels or whatever. Well, here are some providers I have chosen that would be a great person for you. So you anticipate the next step because if you're lost, like, I don't know who's going to do the marketing funnel. And it's like, thanks, John, for creating another problem for me in a way. It makes sense, sir. So I think every service needs to think, if I am successful with my service, then there's going to be something else they're going to need that goes with it.

18:12Am I going to provide it or am I going to provide a sister company or somebody to help with that? Because when that funnel gets stopped, it doesn't usually get stopped by the consumer. It's stopped by the service provider who failed to keep doing the next step, the referral step or the step in that funnel. So I think we are the ones, Service MVP in the book is the thing that drives consumers through that funnel. That doesn't just matriculate on accident or by gravity. It does it because a great service provider is moving people on a conveyor belt that moves them through that funnel and keeps moving it through the funnel on the referral step and the action step.

18:52And that's why I think what we do fits so perfectly together because, you know, it's like people like you are some of the guiding lights behind. It's just up to the standards of guys like David Fry. You might remember him. Sure. Oh, yeah. And guys like you. I have to live up to that standard. If it doesn't hit that standard, I'm like, it's not going to be – it can't be in the pure motives, right? So there's six pure motives. And definitely it's defined very clearly in the book. And, you know, I think it's something you can give – you can be – the cool part about it, you can be transparent with the client.

19:22and say, I did this for you. I made these options. And the reason I made them is this higher quality on the top option. And I give you a range of other quality. And you can be transparent with the consumer. And there's people right now who advertise, ask us about our peer motive service in the marketing. So they actually use that as a marketing tag. I have some companies that say, where we always give you premium mid-range economy options, or the call is free if we don't do that. So they actually promise that in the marketing now. So it does kind of feather into that. We're not a marketing company, but definitely the actions that the experience that we provide people in the field or in their home is definitely facilitated and amplified by the actions of people like you who help broadcast that.

20:05Well, any any time I've always said this, any time your business is coming into contact with a customer in any way, shape or form, there is a marketing function being performed. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's where marketing comes to life. You're promising before the doorbell rings and we're executing that promise after the doorbell rings. Because if your marketing is promising something, I think that's where a lot of people when they do marketing fall short. They can't think of the USP or something that we're going to do. The reason is their company doesn't operate better and differently. So the key to getting that, you know, that selling position where it is unique is by doing service that's unique.

20:46We call magic, do magic moments, which is praise the effort of the people in the home to get through victories and challenges, diagnose the people, diagnose the system, make premium mid-range economy options, and then manage the opportunity to get the job done or reschedule it. because if you leave an opportunity behind, it's not the customer's fault that you forgot about it. You just emailed it and that's it. Guys, that's what 100 % of people are doing. 90 % of them are just emailing the quote and leaving. I don't do that. I'm like, dude, let's email the quote, but let's also make an appointment to follow through and make a choice on this thing.

21:22If you don't want to make a choice, let me withdraw the bid. I always tell people because I'm not here to sell you. I'm just here to make sure I manage this opportunity to help you. I always say that if the service provider can't manage that opportunity, opportunity when they're selecting solutions, how are they supposed to manage the entire job they're doing or whatever they're kind of trying to do? So I would say this is a demonstration of the work you're going to do by managing the opportunity in the home. And I think that's why I really feel like it was so honored to be on this podcast because I was like, you know, duck marketing is a cloak that fits around everything.

21:53We're in the middle of that thing. And, you know, it's like a cloak of comfort I feel right now being on the show with you, Well, Joe, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. And where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about what should we do? Because I really, I know you work with a lot of home services, but this really applies to services. This just applies to businesses, a lot of what you're talking about. So I'd love it if people would connect with you. Anybody who, really every business is a service business, right? I always look at it, even if you're creating stuff, you're creating a service to provide stuff to people.

22:27So we have our website called serviceMVP.com. If you go to that or if you wanted to email me at Joe at serviceMVP.com, we actually have a link. The book is on Amazon. It's$25.95. Or if you get an Audible, I think it's$19.95. But if you want to, I can't do anything about the Audible, but I can do something. We have a book funnel that if you email me, I'd be happy to send you the link to the funnel where all you got to do is pay for shipping for$8. And we've sold over 10 ,000 books right now at this point. So we're really, it's off to a good start. We released it in March and this is our trust funnel.

23:03You know, use the material for such a very little amount of money. That's ridiculous. And make more money first. And then if you want to examine what we can do for you to help your team and yourself succeed. And, you know, whether you're a startup, there's no better way to start than to make sure you create trust with you as the first prototype employee. or if you're a big company, which we have a lot of people right there. Remember, you used to be living in Kansas City, I think, right? Back in the old days. I did, I did, yeah. You know, AB May was one of our clients over there. So we had like one of our big clients here.