20, 2020
EPISODE 12 – The Best Way To Establish Trust In A Business
Welcome to another episode of BUILDERS BUSINESS SUCCESS PODCAST!
This podcast is specifically designed for builders to help them overcome the costly and common challenges that I hear about daily when I’m talking to builders, and we experience it in the building industry.
It’s just those building industry norms, if we can smash those norms and start to do things that are different, you’ll find that many of those problems will go away.
The Agenda
- So on this week’s episode, I’m talking to podcast guru, James Whitaker, and you might be wondering why are we talking to a guy about podcasting on a podcast for builders? Well, all will be revealed in the fullness of time, but I’ll guarantee you, it will make sense to you.
- We’re going to be doing a tech review, so no book review this week, we’ll be doing a tech review. Although it is a little bit of tech about podcasting, it is something that’s really going to help you, if you are implementing the quality client pathway. This is a tool that’s going to help with that, plus a whole bunch of other things.
- Of course we’ve got the, what did I say? Just in case I said something worthwhile, we had the camera’s rolling, we’re gonna get a small bit of that to you in this episode.
- We have another Q and A that’s our new segment. So there’s questions being asked and I’m going to be going around doing my best to answer that question. It’s a great question, you wanna hang around for that.
Links
- James’ Podcast / Website https://jameswhitt.com/
- RODEcaster PRO https://www.rode.com/interfaces/rodecasterpro
*Transcription of the show*
Hear my conversation with James Whittaker!
It’s time to talk to James Whitaker. He is an absolute legend in the podcast space, and you might be thinking, why are we talking about podcasting for builders?
And that was one of the questions that I started off the conversation with James, asking why would a builder, of all people, consider doing a podcast? This is what he said.
– I would ask them, what is the number one thing people consider? If you had to really narrow it down and hold a gun to someone’s head, what is the number one thing people consider before they basically get that person to, you know, whether it’s a builder or whatever it might be, it’s not necessarily industry specific here as you and I were talking about before the show.
What do they consider when it comes to consumer behavior and purchasing processes? And I believe it comes down to trust. When we think about it, like my wife and I, we bought a house here in LA in September.
We had to get it fumigated because termites are rampant in California, we had to get a new roof put on it. we had to get the plumbers, we had to do so many different things.
So that’s really what got me figuring out, you know, I was going through all these things firsthand around, like what am I going to do to make sure I can make the right decision for where my family sleeps.
We’ve got a 14 month old daughter, it’s really, really important that these are the right decisions, and we don’t want to be wasting, you know, a bunch of money.
So what can we do to find someone that we trust? And most people would agree with that. And then you can say, all right, if you agree with that, what are your current ways of someone who doesn’t know you, what is the way that you establish and demonstrate that trust for someone who doesn’t know you?
Now for most people, it’s probably a really outdated or a crappy website. And when people go to a website that won’t even load or a phone number that doesn’t work, or a contact form that’s broken, that not only doesn’t create trust, it gives the opposite impression.
Now, if you go to someone else’s website where, I mean with Squarespace or Wix, you can create a professional website for about $50 in about two hours. If you’ve got a mobile responsive professional website that talks about the services that you offer and the team that you are, and basically testimonials or case studies from people you’ve been able to help.
That’s sort of the first step in establishing that trust.
Now there’s something else along there, there’s Yelp, which is very, very big in America. Where, that’s where you can go and use social proof. So you can go and get reviews from a whole bunch of different people.
Yelp also allows people to be verified on there that have got the certain, what’s it called? I forget. The certain authorization to say that they are a registered, you know, either a member of an association or that verified that person’s, or that company is licensed.
So if you’ve got a website, if you’ve got Yelp, you’ve got all these different reviews. These are the things that you can do to start to establish trust with someone. Now, if you take that one step further and you think about, wow, if you can actually listen to this builder, who’s going to be doing this work for you.
And, my brother had a situation with a builder where basically the builder went bankrupt through the process.
My brother lost a whole bunch of money and was in and out of rental homes for three years as a result of this situation.
This is so important to have someone that you trust, but if he had found a builder who had a great website who was very, very clear that he was able to help that person and had helped other families like his, had a bunch of different reviews, and because building it’s a very, very expensive process, you’re able to then establish trust through listening to that person, or, as you mentioned earlier, if this is someone who’s showing you behind the scenes of things that maybe you don’t know about the building industry.
These are the things people wanna know because it’s potentially a $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 differential in price. If you can go and save yourself $20,000 or $30,000 from listening to a podcast, I think that’s great.
The people that are giving you those tips, you’re naturally going to have that trust with. For example, they might be giving you questions that you should ask a builder before you hire them.
Now I would trust the person who’s giving me the questions over someone else who’s just not doing that. So to give you an example, the people that we went with for our HVAC, so our heating and air conditioning over here.
We had two companies that came out after all the different companies that I went and looked at through Yelp and websites and a whole other different systems.
The person that I went with was the owner of the business, who had a great website, had great reviews, who was punctual, who was very, very good at communicating. These are all the other elements of trust.
Now, if you throw a podcast into the mix, no one is going to get close to that because podcasting is about the only way that you consume content while you’re doing other things.
Think about it, if you’re watching TV, like people can be consuming podcasting while they’re walking and doing different things, and it’s a really great way of building trust with your audience, but also establishing yourself as an authority in your industry.
As much as it’s growing, it is still such a young industry relative to other media, you know, other elements of the media world, from a maturity perspective. So the time is right, and there are so many different ways that you can slice and dice that, all with the number one consideration that you need to build trust, and that is the best way to do it.
– Podcasting is one of the fastest growing platforms to get messages across. And you’ve probably listened or watched a heap of podcasts, you’re watching one right now.
And in this podcast, we’ve got all of the different angles, we’ve got three different camera angles and all of this sort of flash harry technology to put this podcast together to make it interesting, but is it necessary, and is it necessary for you?
So I asked James, what sort of equipment do you need to put a relevant podcast together, that would be really valuable for the people that you’re trying to attract into your building business?
– You’ve got to start where you are with what you’ve got. Every single person started with zero followers, every single person started with zero listeners. You have to start, and as you do that, you can naturally evolve.
And if you’ve got the right team behind you, there are so many free online resources that you can go and download that will help give you a great guide on how to do that. Like I’m literally using a blue Yeti mic, don’t tell Ronsley that, he knows anyway, but I’m using the blue Yeti mic, that was the mic I bought before that very first podcast interview so many years ago.
I just haven’t had the need to go and get an amazing, super high quality set up because I don’t really… It’s not like I’m in a soundproof room here, so it’s not going to do , you know, a massively exponentially increased benefit anyway.
I think definitely people at the start, there’s a lot of equipment that you can buy that turns your phone into a great recording device. If you want to step it up, there’s a few different things that you can do.
And especially now during the quarantine, when, not necessarily in Australia, although some places in Australia, but definitely a lot of other places around the world where people are very much in quarantine.
In America, where I am, there are a lot of workplaces, the majority of them that actually aren’t going back to the office this year.
– Yeah.
– That means a lot of the guests that you want to have on your show, you can just do online using Zoom. And that makes it so much easier to record things just like you and I are doing now.
You don’t need to worry about, you know, the in person details of what you need to set up.
So start where you are with what you’ve got, and once you’ve proven to yourself through consistency, that you’re going to stick with it, that’s where you can, as your audience grows, and you’ve got that consistency, you can start to invest in products that are going to create a better experience for the audience.
– Yeah. I’ve spoken to heaps of business owners over the years and talked to them about the content that they put out for their marketing. And many of them feel that they haven’t got anything important to say, and it’s just not the truth. So I asked James, what would you need to put in your podcast to make it interesting and have it attract the right type of people to your business?
– What are the problems that you are going to solve for your audience? And hopefully you’ve got an idea of what your audience looks like. I mean, anyone who’s in business should have an idea of what your audience looks like.
I would be trying to think about what I can do to save them two things; Time and money. If you can figure out through your show, how you can save your audience time and money, you are going to grow your show very, very quickly.
The way to do that is to first have a look at the shows that are out there. Find out, well, what do you like about them, what do you not like about them, what’s maybe missing. And you might be in a completely blue ocean in the niche that you were looking at. So that can be great.
– That would be the case with builders. I mean, you’d be struggling to find a podcast by a builder other than the one that I mentioned earlier.
– Absolutely, and then once you’ve done that, you’ve got an idea of what you like and what you don’t like based on what’s out there, and those ideas are starting to come to you.
I’d be thinking about in terms of your audience, what does your audience want to know? What are the problems they face? I’d write a whole list. What problems does my audience face?
And then I would prioritize the most urgent problems that that audience faces or the ones that are the most valuable. And that goes back to those two things that I mentioned earlier, around time and money.
If you can do that consistently, that’s an easy way. You don’t need to try and have your target of getting 100,000 followers or listeners. Your target should be to get your first 10 listeners and then get your first 100 listeners.
And as you do that, you’re naturally going to be able to get more, or hopefully you set up an avenue of being able to learn more and more about the pain points that audience faces.
The more you understand your audience and the problems that they face, the better you can introduce solutions to solve those pain points and those problems. And the way that you do that, I mean, that really is what opens up the door to referral business.
So maybe that audience has no use for a builder anymore, but I bet you, when they get together at a barbecue, they’re gonna meet two or three people who are going to, you know, you naturally start talking about… When we moved into this house in September, I mean, nonstop, we’re talking about what we need to, you know, you can’t really turn that off.
We’re constantly talking to people around the different ideas that we have for the place. It’s just what happens.
When you find yourself in an environment like that, where someone can say, hey, I was listening to this podcast the other day, have you heard about that? It’s just a great way to really increase referral business, which I believe is by far the number one and best source for business, because it’s the warmest lead.
– One of the things that we talk about all of the time with our builders business, blackbelt members, is your input determines your output. And we talk about what is input, well, it’s the sort of stuff you listen to, the podcast you listen to, the videos you watch, the books you read. But it’s also the people that you hang around, and the people that you get influenced by.
James is one of those people that really has a great talent and a skill of being able to communicate powerful messages. And so I asked James, if we wanna start following his information, if we wanna start getting into the content that he’s putting out so we can start to learn from it. What’s the best place to track him down. Where do we find him?
– The best place, go to, “Win The Day”, if you go and look up Apple podcasts, or just Google it, “Win The Day” with James Whitaker, that’s my main podcast at the moment. And you can connect with me on Instagram @jameswhitt.
There are links in both of those channels, where on Instagram and through the podcast, where you can send me an email, let me know you’re a friend of Mick’s and if there’s anything that I can do to help, then I will.
And just one thing to add, to finish with Mick, as well, is the power of relationships that have come from having my own podcast. If for nothing else, the network that you are able to build from starting your own podcast, that is worth the price of admission any day of the week.
I mean, just what has happened for me in the last four weeks of just being able to not only have this massive amount of connections that have just, you know, and obviously you can be resourceful and think smarter around how you’re going to add value to these guests once you’ve had them.
But it means that when you expand your network and then you are in front of other high level people, you can connect them with other high level people that they didn’t know previously, with you in the middle.
So you’re offering value to all these different people, and you’re basically the guiding star for these people, and that is where so many amazing things happen.
And one of the biggest turning points in my life was when I had that realization, that I was at a stage from everything that I had been doing for many, many years, that opportunities found their way to me rather than me needing to chase them. But that only happens if you do things, like start your own podcast and follow a process of adding value consistently.
– Yeah. Can’t thank you enough for being so generous with your time and your knowledge, being on the show. Hopefully we can get you back, but really I encourage everyone to go track down James, listen to the podcast, you’ll be so glad you did. It’s just full of gold nuggets all over the place. Thanks James, for being on the show.
– Anytime Mick, thank you for all you do.
What’d I Say?
One of the things in my coaching group, when I say my coaching group, I belong to a group just like this, and I get coached by a coach who coaches, business coaches.
And one of the things that was going around in the conversation this week, is always schedule in the next move.
So always make the next meeting from the last meeting, whether that’s on the phone or Zoom or face to face or whatever it is, but we’ve got to completely eliminate that, get back to me when you, get back to me Monday, I’ll call you Monday, none of that shit. Time, date locked in, before we finish this meeting, every time, you know?
And you’ll still have people not showing up and rescheduling and all of that sort of stuff, but it will eliminate a whole lot of chase and all of that sort of thing.
And it really enhances your level of professionalism, that you have a process, that you’re taking charge.
Like you do need to be the alpha dog in this process. You need to show leadership, you need to show massive certainty and confidence, because, particularly in times of uncertainty.
In times of uncertainty, like the whole COVID thing happened, massive uncertainty, but there’s massive uncertainty when people are building as well. They don’t know what’s going on, that’s why they have a builder, otherwise they’d do it themselves.
So they are, believe it or not, even the ones that are full of bluff, they are at some level feeling uncertain.
From a psychology point of view, when people feel uncertain they look around and try to find the person with the most certainty and they’ll attach themselves to that person’s certainty.
They get their certainty from the most certain person in the room, right? The thing is with that, the most certain person in the room might be a complete idiot. But if they’re certain about what they’re talking about, people will be attracted to that certainty.
Throughout the build process, particularly in the early days, you need to have massive certainty and be the alpha dog and say, so this is what we do next, this is what we do next, now we do this, now we do this.
We need to lock in this time, I’ve got these two times. What do most people say? When would suit you? No, we’re never ever saying that any more, we go, I have this space or I have this space, which one would you choose?
The Review
Okay, it’s tech the review time. Now at the moment, we’re talking to James about podcasting, and I wanna talk to you about this little bit of kit here, and it’s called the RODECaster Pro.
I know if you’re not all of that techie, this might look a little bit intimidating with all of these sliders and buttons and so forth, but it is the most simple and most cool little bit of kit that I have seen in a long, long time.
Now, why would I be talking to you about it? Well, one reason is that in our conversation with James, I think we’re covering a lot of really powerful ways to convince you, if you want to step up your marketing, this is a great way of creating fantastic content, very, very simply at a very, very high level.
There’s all sorts of ways you can do it, and I’ve been in audio engineering, I owned a recording studio many, many moons ago, and to set up the equipment that does exactly the same as this, just sort of five to eight years ago, would have cost in the vicinity of $8000 to $10,000. This is a sub $1,000 bit of kit.
And if you get that and you also get yourself, I’ve got one of these, one I prepared earlier. This is just a simple little pod mic, have I turned it up the right way? It’s like AU$150, AU$149, for this mic, it’s a really, really high quality mic. And you can plug it into your RODECaster, and you get really, really great sound.
You press one red button and you’re recording, you can get another mic and sit across the table from somebody, or you can hook it up to your computer and talk to them on zoom, if you wanna chat with them.
Or you can simply get a cable and plug your mobile phone into it. And this is something that I wanted to suggest to you, that if you are genuine about improving your skills with the quality client pathway, if you don’t know what that is, reach out to us, we’ll give you a guide about the quality client pathway, because this is a game changer for a building business.
It gets rid of time-wasters, tire-kickers, price-checkers, all of that sort of stuff, turns average quality leads into great quality clients. And it gets you paid for your quotes, if you implement the quality client pathway.
But it’s a series of steps, but the important thing is that you develop the skills to implement those steps effectively. And this little bit of kit, even if you weren’t podcasting, is a great way to record your conversations with people.
Now, it’s, you know, you need to make sure that you’re not doing something illegal by recording a telephone conversation, that’s entirely up to you. But if you record the conversation, you can hear back what was said, how it was said, I encourage this to be able to hear your performance.
So you can constantly be able to refine how you’re dealing with various parts of the quality client pathway. But, apart from anything, it’s a great way to create content it puts you above, makes you stand above other builders with the quality of content that you’re putting out.
It can get you a following and it can certainly make lead generation significantly easier, if you are putting out regular content, valuable content, and this is a super simple way to put that content out.
Particularly for those people who don’t like talking to a camera.
If you don’t like talking to a camera, you can just talk into a mic, if you wanna get a bit sexy, you can edit it a bit later on or get somebody else to edit it. But it’s a great bit of kit to capture that information and practice your skills.
So that is the RODECaster Pro, from RODE Mic, I think you just got to rodemic.com. I think that’s it, but you better check it.
Q & A
I got a great question this week. And the question I think is an issue for most builders, particularly if you feel like you’re getting your time wasted and somebody just wants a price.
What do you say if, I just want a price, they don’t wanna go through the quality client pathway and answer questionnaires and all that sort of stuff, they just want a price.
So my suggestion is this, is at the very least explained to them, I can give you a price and I’m more than happy to give you a price, you need to understand it is an estimate. There is a big difference between an estimate and a quote.
An estimate is, as the word says, we’re estimating, we’re guessing. But this is what you need to be telling your prospect, is that if you get a builder to give you an estimate, they’ll give you one of two types of estimates.
One type of estimate is one where they’ll just go, what’s worst case scenario, what are all of the problems that could happen? Let me sort of guess how much it would cost to deal with all of those, and they’ll give you a price, and that price is a big price.
So what will the customer do with that? They’ll go, well, that’s too expensive, out. They’ll chuck that out and they’ll go and find the estimate from the builder that fits in their idea of the budget.
The trouble is, that builder has done an estimate of what it would be if there were no problems, if everything went swimmingly, if they didn’t find any problems behind the walls or under the floor or whatever the case may be.
The customer then picks that price, and that’s when it all turns to custard. Because the builder will be saying, well, we didn’t expect that, we didn’t know that was there, and the price goes up and up and up.
Whereas what we do, Mr. Prospect, or Mr and Mrs. Prospect, is we create a quality, professional proposal that takes care of everything, we consider everything.
And obviously there is a fee for that, because we go to great lengths to make sure we think of everything, cover everything, and at the end of it, you end up with something that is completely reliable, something you can rely upon and be very confident in knowing what you’re going to get for the investment that you’re making.
That’s the way we do it, because we don’t wanna be involved in any disappointment or negativity in your experience throughout this project.
That’s how I would be talking to a prospect that just wants a price. And if they go, yep, just want a price, all we do is recommend them to other builders, you know, who are happy to do free quotes, but I personally wouldn’t recommend that you get involved with it.
And that would be the way that I would explain it.
So I hope that’s helpful, and I hope that answers that question.
Takeaway & Summary
So what’s the takeaway from this episode. I think there’s one very powerful idea that came from this episode, and that is get very clear on what you want. I have multiple conversations with builders every day, and one of the questions I ask is, you know, in the next one to three years, what do you want your business to look like?
What do you want the turnover to be?
What do you want the profitability to be?
That’s the bit that you get to keep after all of this money goes in one hand and out the other. Hours worked, hours away from work, you know, on holiday and things like that. And it’s amazing how many builders struggle to answer that question with any specificity whatsoever, and that’s the problem.
We have an amazing goal seeking mechanism between our ears, it is incredible. And if you put the right information in, it helps you find the opportunity to be able to achieve that outcome.
But what most people do, is they put really vague and gray information in, I wanna be more profitable, I want to have more time off, I want to increase our turnover, whatever the case may be.
That’s what they’re putting in. It’s very vague, and so you can’t set this goal seeking mechanism in trying to try and get that outcome if you don’t give it the specific.
So what I’d be suggesting to you as the takeaway from this episode is, think about what it is exactly you want. Put a figure on it, put a date on it, start to work backwards from that outcome to today and figure out what the specific actions are that you need to take to get there and make sure that they go in your plan every day, those actions and activities go in your plan every day.
And they get given a high priority, and they need to get given high priority because you know exactly what these activities are directly connected to. And that is a goal that has a high level of meaning and value to you.
That stops you being distracted by all the bright, shiny objects and interruptions throughout the day. So that’s my takeaway, is absolutely get clear on what you want for your business.
Okay, so that’s the show. And as always, there are probably been a whole bunch of questions thrown up, I’d love to help you with those questions. If you would like me to help you answer those questions and give you a hand with anything, in relation to improving your building business, all you need to do is reach out and schedule a call. We’ll be on the phone before you know it.
So how do you do that?
There’s a button underneath this video, hit it, it’ll take you to a small form to explain a little bit about your business.
Once you’ve submitted that, you’ll see my calendar, you pick a time, you pick a day that’s going to suit you, we’ll be on the phone before you know it, and talking about the solutions and the direction that you need to go to help your building business.
Now, if you’re listening to the audio only version of this, all you need to do is navigate to buildersbusinessblackbelt.com.au, you’ll see a big orange button in the middle of the web page there, hit that, follow that same process. If you’ve got questions you’d like me to answer via email, all you need to do is send your questions into [email protected], and we’ll either answer them on the show or I’ll reply to you via email.
So that is it for this show, another episode of Builders Business Success Podcast, done and dusted. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you got some value out of it, and I hope I’ll get to talk to you in person real soon.
I’m Mick Hawes, Builders Business Blackbelt, that is it. Bye for now.