Easy as PIE – Mixing the Ingredients

When we talk about the sales process in the Consistency Selling method, we break it down into four sections, R, I, S, C.

The R is for Relationship building, which is obviously critically important to the sales process.

The I is for Investigation, which we’ll refer to in this conversation as inspection. But it really is the same thing in the sales world. And the better the inspection, the more deals we’re going to close and the higher the average ticket. Those are direct results from the depth and the detail that we go into during the inspection, for obvious reasons.

Number one, when we’re going through the inspection, the more problems that we find, the more emotional discomfort the homeowner experiences, which leads to a desire, an emotional desire to solve those problems.

Show Me Where It Hurts

Back in the old days, we used to talk about the pain pyramid; find the pain, irritate the pain, and then offer to solve the pain. We don’t really use those terms anymore, but that’s kind of what it is. It’s about finding the pain with the problems. The reality is that you can make a living solving plumbing and mechanical problems, right?

You can make a living fixing a leaky toilet, unclogging a drain, fixing a leaky seat, whatever it is, right?

But you can make a fortune solving emotional problems.

And so there’s a little technique I’m going to talk about this month called Easy As Pie, or PIE for short (Problem, Impact, Emotion). It’s designed to get underneath the plumbing problem, to get underneath the mechanical problem, and to get to the emotional pain caused by that problem.

We all think that when we make purchasing decisions, they’re based on logic, but science begs to differ. Study after study has shown that we base our purchasing decisions on emotion, and THEN we try to find the rational explanation.

The Homemade Stud

A classic example of this deals with a guy aging. Let’s say he’s my age, for example, he’s 60 years old. Maybe he’s divorced, maybe he has a few extra pounds on him, and he’s lost all his hair. So he goes out and he buys, we’ll just say he buys a Ferrari F8 convertible, because that’s what I drive.

That old guy will go out and get that car in the hopes he can find himself a young wife or a young girlfriend. There’s no real logic in the decision. He was previously driving a normal truck that fit him perfectly.

But what’s really driving him is his insecurity, and the notion that people might now see him as cool and desirable. He’s going to attract a younger woman to him, right? But he can’t go tell people that. He can’t go and say, “Yeah, I just feel really insecure, I’m fat and I’m bald, and I’m old. I’ve already peaked in life and it’s time for me to head to the horizon. And so I need a cool car to get a young girlfriend to make me feel better.”

He can’t tell people that. Why? It’s freaking embarrassing, that’s why. So what does he say? “Oh, it’s the engine, that Ferrari engine was engine of the year the last four years running and has the double clutch and I love the way it shifts.” So he comes up with all these so-called rational justifications to make the purchase.

Because the real emotional reason is uncomfortable.

Well the reality is that it doesn’t just apply to Ferraris and old men, it applies to mechanical problems and plumbing problems.

The Doctor Is In

So what I’m saying is when we discover and deal with the underlying pain of a problem, it can lead to a happier customer and the diagnosis can be made and the issue resolved. It’s the very reason a therapist may ask, “And how does that make you feel?” The therapist is there to listen, take notes about the events and get to the root of the feelings felt and the pain suffered.

Remember, it’s been proven that your thoughts control your emotions, your emotions control your actions, your actions control your results, and your results control your thoughts. So those emotions brought up during therapy or during a home inspection will have a direct impact on the actions taken by the homeowner. And the homeowner’s usual desire is to “fix” the heartache or discomfort being felt by moving forward with your suggested solution. In our case, it’s repairing the HVAC or purchasing a new system.

There’s a lot more to cover on this in the upcoming weeks. Have a great month!