Your sales skills are straight up garbage and you're the reason that you can't close your way out of a wet paper bag.

You need to have a sales process and sales mindset and core value set in your brand that's so high level and so good that nobody else can beat what you have to offer.

I'm here to be of service instead of selling you a service.

If you build your brand and your sales messaging with that first, I don't think you're ever going to have a problem with people converting.

Why do leads keep saying you're the first shop that I've talked to?

I still need to call around the Talk and Pain podcast is brought to you by Detailing growth.

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Hey everybody, this is Gabe from the Talking Paint podcast over at Detailing growth and detaileros IO.

Welcome to the first podcast episode of 2025.

You're gonna definitely be seeing more content from us here through our podcast and our YouTube getting out on Instagram.

We're looking to really drive forward with big community engagement this year and I'm personally excited to be a part of it because I get to work with the next up and comers who are going to change the way the industry works.

I had my time and I changed a lot about how we do sales and do video content.

And what I'm here to do now is to just provide value and help people grow to whatever the next thing and portion and level is in their journey as they continue into ppf, coatings, tint and high end detail.

On today's episode of talking paint first of 2025 I want to talk and just get right into sales.

Now sales is something we all talk about and sales is something that you either get it or you don't.

And truthfully, sales is a very, very high level psychological take on addressing people's needs.

It's not about convincing people to buy your thing.

That's not what sales is.

Although many younger people and like bro sales guys and like Tick Tock Bros will have you think otherwise.

That's not really how that works.

So I want to dive down this rabbit hole and just rip this Apart and hopefully try and address this in this high level of a manner as possible because I can pretty well guarantee you that your sales skills are straight up garbage and you're the reason that you can't close your way out of a wet paper bag.

So.

And I say that with love because I want you to understand why.

So I'm just going to kind of run through some things that people have said to me recently and, and I've seen in online discussions that stood out to me as, as points to address.

Now, me, myself, I consider myself very, very sales enabled.

I'm very in tune and enthused by high level sales concepts.

And that's because, number one, my wife has a bachelor's in psychology, so I'm always protecting myself from her and her bs.

Two is that I learned early on that if you want to understand people, you want to understand sales, and if you want to understand sales, you want to understand sales psychology.

Now that's what we call messaging.

How you speak, how the words you say are perceived and understood at both a conscious and subconscious level.

So the first thing is that sales is a living and eating, breathing entity that is very real, of course, is sales that.

No, of course not.

But you have to treat it like it is because it requires being given the respect as if it is a living entity because it's smart enough to know when you need it.

And if you show up to sell and to talk to leads and, and you're automatically looking for the sale, sales knows that.

And it knows when you want it.

And the second it sniffs that out, it will kill it.

It'll kill it dead.

Now how does it kill it?

It kills it because it tells the person on the other end of the phone or on the other end of the conversation that, hey, this person's trying to sell us something.

Oh, sales resistance.

Push the button, Boop.

And then up goes the wall.

And you can't break through sales resistance.

Very rarely will you be able to do that if you've triggered it.

So the second that you approach sales from a position of man, I really need this, work in the shop, or man, I really, really need this, it knows and you're never going to get it.

So I want to encourage you to take a moment and approach sales instead of having a I need to convince this person to buy from me, it's I need to convince this person that they can trust me.

Because trust is one of the most important factors in sales.

And you've heard me say this before.

It ties in with this Concept know, like trust.

If you don't have those three things, selling will be a massive problem for you.

And that often means not asking for the close, not asking for the sale.

That means that you need to be patient and you need to wait.

It means that you just need to be persistent in follow up and you need to be persistent in how you communicate because sales also ties in with your brand.

And that's going to be the next podcast that we get into is branding.

But just for the sake of right now, sales and sales related messaging is directly tied to, to your brand and how trustworthy that is.

Now how do you have a trustworthy brand?

I'll be completely honest with you, and that's hard to distill down into like five seconds other than to say, is your brand experience repeatable?

Meaning that is it repeatable enough to be consistent that somebody would call you three years apart and know that they were going to have the same experience?

Would you feel confident in saying that?

Because if not, then there's a really solid chance that your brand might not be as solid as you think it is.

And that shows in sales because if you have a brand that's built on trust, then the sales come, they don't need to be fought for.

And maybe that's the little takeaway for you on the beginning end of this episode is that if you build a brand with trust and advisement and I'm here to be of service, instead of selling you a service, if you build your brand and, and your sales messaging with that first, I don't think you're ever going to have a problem with people converting.

So with that said, let's just kind of jump over into the various things that people deal with.

I just have a list of questions that I'm going to read back here that I've collected over maybe the last three years.

And this one just came up in a Facebook group post.

And this particular individual I've I've engaged with before, he ended up coming through my sales pipeline and he did not like the feedback that I gave him on his website.

I don't know who built it, whether it was him or somebody else, but he was not happy with that and ultimately messaged me back the next day and said, and he was just like, your opinion's the only one that matters.

It was very combative.

Something along those lines, when I told him it looked like he had every bit of a 500 to $800 website.

But, you know, that's how it goes.

I'd look at so Many in a day.

The first question I have here is why do leads keep saying, you're the first shop that I've talked to, I still need to call around.

Well, that's typically sign.

You have somebody who's very top of funnel and you immediately want to stop that.

Right?

You're only going to have statements like that when you've pushed for the close and for the sale too soon.

And you should expect everybody that calls you to have at least made two or three other phone calls.

And the reality is, is that if you are the first person that they have called, then that's probably the truth.

And if you've done a good job of setting the bar and setting the expectation for what a good business should be doing and should have, and I mean that explicitly, like if somebody says to me, hey, I still need to call around, you know, your job is to enable them to be an informed consumer.

Your job is not to say, okay, well we're here if you need us.

No, that's, that's where sales go to die and they die a horrible death.

You're their first consultant.

They want to look around and suddenly we're offended by that.

That doesn't make any sense.

That's not how people buy.

People buy especially with high ticket services like coatings and paint protection film.

They buy from the place that they feel like they can trust the most.

And if you're their first call, you need to set the bar pretty fricking high.

If you can't set the bar, then any other shop that tries harder than you is going to set the bar harder than you.

So that means you need to have a sales process and sales mindset and core value set in your brand that's so high level and so good that nobody else can beat what you have to offer.

Now how do you do that?

You invest the time and energy in building your core values, your brand statement and making sure that you understand these concepts.

Your job is to help them be educated.

So if they're going to talk to you and you know that they're going to talk to other people, your job is to be helpful at that point because you automatically know in your mind that you're not going to convert this person right now.

You need to meet them where they are.

If somebody says that they still need to call around, your job is not to be upset by that.

Your job is to then help them say, okay, totally get that.

I'm glad that you called me first because I'll probably be one of the few shops that Takes the time to give you what I'm going to give you next.

And this is where you set the bar.

This is where you get to add all the things that you think your shop does better and that's important to you.

You get to state and say and educate them on what to look for.

If you're going to say Gabe, what are those things?

You're going to have to come and find me inside of detailers OS for that.

So that's one thing.

And you say what about all the money I'm spending on Google Ads?

What about all the money I'm spending on ads to get these people and they're not closing.

Listen, this the one touch close for high ticket stuff, high ticket sales, especially for secondary necessity type type things that we offer are not a one touch close, not a one touch close.

So you need to follow up.

That means you need to get them a quote asap, a very detailed one.

So hopefully you're using a CRM hashtag, you're able hashtag gritsuite, something along those lines.

That's a one, two combo.

Boop boop.

Knock them down.

And you say well I've spent money on Google Ads.

Shouldn't that bring in better leads?

Of course there's always going to be higher intent on the Google Ads side versus meta.

That's always the way it's going to be until something else changes.

I think that it's super important to remember that just because somebody found you there and they searched for you doesn't mean that they're ready to purchase on the first go around.

I think that that means that you need to be prepared to just give them the time and energy and space and be a professional and be the right choice.

And that comes by design.

It's not forced because the second that you force sales says no sales is a living, eating, breathing thing.

Even if you are paying for that lead and that you are getting them from Google and they don't convert or they don't buy right away.

Your job is to make sure that you have a good nurturing system.

You've got a drip campaign, you've got educational sales videos, you've got educational brochures to send them.

Like you've got all those backup things that help set the bar.

And you say okay, well speaking of follow ups, what should shops be doing?

And maybe this is usually lost in the sauce.

The money's in the system, not the sale.

And I think that's what a lot of people miss.

Are you sending a proposal within 24 hours.

You should be sending it within like 10 minutes of getting off the phone.

Do you have a way to track every single lead, meaning every single one that comes through your pipeline?

And no.

Google Calendar and email is not a system to track leads.

Your notepad is not a system way or way to track leads.

Sticky notes.

I'm calling you out, Jose, if I ever hear you talk about sticky notes ever again.

Jose is my boy from Cali and that'll be a lifelong friend as long as I am breathing.

He had a real world Kanban board where he would write sticky notes and move them into columns from left to right.

And I was, I just, I couldn't help but chuckle when he told me that.

But can you tell me how many leads that you talked to last week?

Where are they at along the pipeline and in your process?

If you don't have that nurturing system, then how do you know what kind of follow up you need to be doing?

There's no way you can remember every single lead.

No way.

You need a sales enablement CRM to do that.

And if you don't have one, you need one.

That's why we put together detailer os so you could have one and it'd be the same price as if you went and go and bought it from the people who actually make it.

We have our own custom white label version.

You get it from us and you get to stay inside of a great ecosystem and people that know how the software works and we're going to show you how to use it.

But beside that, like, if you don't have the system to help you, then how can you leverage it to make more money for you?

Because you are not a CRM.

A human is not a CRM.

What about when customers say you're too expensive?

I found someone cheaper.

So this is not a customer problem.

This is a you problem.

And I'm gonna upset a lot of people when I say this.

This is a I suck at sales problem.

Now I'm gonna tell you why.

And I'm gonna quote ryan Hare from Tint360, because I've seen him mention this several times.

He usually does a really good job of explaining it.

And truthfully, Ryan's a solid individual.

And if you want help from somebody, Ryan knows what he's doing.

Price objection.

Happens only when the gap between your value and that lead's perceived value of your service is too far apart.

Now why does that happen?

That's because you didn't do a good enough job at helping them to understand what it is the value that you bring to them and why the service you offer is of value to them.

Now, plenty of people will still say that you're too expensive.

And that's okay.

That's going to happen.

Still, the only time that you can say, I know that I gave 110% to this lead and to this person and I know that they're not a good fit, is when you know that you've got a process that's that dialed in that communicates that value.

Well, Gabe, how do I do that?

We'll get there.

Actually, some of my other podcasts go over that.

But ultimately your job when you speak to these leads is to tell them why they should go with you in a manner that best serves them.

And that's different for everybody.

What that means is you're going to help them understand your value as it pertains to their circumstance or need.

That's not a solid, strict line that you follow.

That's not a straight line.

It's very fluid because everybody's needs and perception of their needs are different.

And it's your job to connect with them and understand what those needs are.

And you do that by being a good person, number one, not being a slimy salesman, number two, by genuinely making sure that they're a good fit and by providing them a genuine recommendation.

What's the biggest mistake you see shops making in their sales process?

That they're trying to close instead of help.

And that kind of goes back and leans on are you pushing for the sale or are you just guiding them towards the sale?

And like I said before, sales can smell it and it can sense the desperation because if you're leaning too hard on the clothes, it's too early.

And that's also a very delicate balance, right?

Is the push for close and also making sure it's the right time.

And that comes with understanding of higher level sales psychology.

And the best way to help close that gap is to get connected.

You got to get connected on a personal level.

You got to find a way to understand them.

And that means small talk.

And that means just being a charismatic individual and just being willing to give them your time genuinely and not rush them.

You know, great example is I connected with, he had an Audi and it was, I think it was an S5 or RS5 hatch.

And he was like in love with this thing.

And he quoted, he called for the quote and like we sent him one and it took about a week and a half of follow up.

You know, he did his due diligence and asked around.

But ultimately I was the last one to get a hold of him.

And ultimately when I spoke to him after we did the work, he revealed to me just in.

He was also in sales, this person.

So we were like kind of similar wavelengths.

This guy said to me, he said, you know why I went with you, Gabe, why I picked you guys, even though you're about fifteen hundred dollars more expensive than everybody else?

To be fair, he immediately followed that with seeing your shop and your facility.

Like, it clearly shows why.

What he said was, is that because I took the time to talk to him and talk shop about the car and just connect with him.

I was like, okay, so we're getting the.

The Audi that's on order.

How long you been waiting for it?

Waiting for a few months.

Okay, did the dealership give you any problems about delivery?

Did they try and rug pull you into another model on the lot?

Because he was dealing with Audi of Devon.

Audi of Devon is honestly a really solid shop.

That's a solid operation.

I like those guys a lot.

You know, we kind of went back and forth on that.

And then we got down to the nitty gritty of he was actually planning on tracking the car.

And we got to talking about that because guess who liked to track their car?

Me.

And we got to talking about different tracks and where they had been and where he wanted to go with it.

And he had Summit on his list.

And I have a racing simulator at home, and I have run Summit, Maine so many times I've lost track.

And it's one of my favorites.

I had told him about that and I showed him some pictures of it.

And one day I'm going to get this racing rig moved to the shop.

We'll have a ton of fun.

I told him, I said, when I get it over there, I'd bring it there.

Basically we just got to talking and just shooting this shit and just like BSing together.

That's really what it came down to.

And I close more deals doing that and just like being genuinely a car guy and like a good conversation.

That's what a lot of people want to feel.

They want to feel connected and they want to feel relatable to the person that they're giving their money to because they want to make sure that that person also serves them and understands what they value.

And this person very clearly valued somebody who knew what this car was capable of.

It's a quick, zippy little hatchback.

They wanted somebody who was going to level with them.

And that's what it is to create that unique connection experience.

And if you can work on that and find that common ground that isn't forced and it feels natural, that's where sales resistance falls apart and it just becomes a matter of, yep, this is what we charge and this is the price and this is why it's the price.

That's just something that comes with time.

And I also feel like it takes a minute to really get that at a core level because you have to have the stance and idea of I'm just here to offer you the service.

You're offering the service and you're not selling a service.

And you're approaching from how can I be of service to you?

When we approach sales with that mindset, all of those objections disappear.

There are no more problems.

So the next one is lead quality, and this is the biggest one in the book and this is the truth that every single person needs to hear today.

Lead quality is the biggest marketing lie that you have been told ever.

I'm going to tell you why now.

I've touched on this before, but this is just really important and why it's worth iterating again.

Quality and qualified leads worth a thing.

Before Apple iOS security patches, that was back when all the social platforms had tons of metrics for us as marketers to be able to leverage and track by.

We have less now.

So much so that the biggest thing that you're working with a marketer for is for the things that we do know work in the targeting sphere, which are very, very, very detailed.

At this point, the next thing I hear about is Gabe, these leads are just shopping.

They don't care about quality.

Stop.

Nobody wakes up and just decides, I want the cheapest option to protect my $80,000 car today.

That's not the first thing that they think of when they pick up the phone and they start calling around.

They haven't been given the mindset that the money that they're going to spend makes a difference.

And that's because you need to help them understand that these services shouldn't be shopped for commodity sake, because that's the number one way you end up paying to have it done twice.

So picking the right shop is extremely important.

Even if they don't go with you, your job should be to guide them.

Now I'm going to show you.

This is how I do that.

I'd say it's 85% of the time this, this works.

I say, I get that you want to call around, you want to check around.

Totally understand that.

I would too to be fair, these services aren't cheap.

Let me give you some things to ask when you talk to them.

Let me help you.

So that way you can at least make an informed decision.

And you know, I run down things like do they have temperature control, do they have in house PPF installers?

And if they don't in their outsourcing, that's okay.

All you need to ask is if they're insured.

That's very common.

The biggest thing then after that is you want to make sure that they have reputation for doing that work and they're not just starting it.

And the brand matters less as long as they're getting it from one of the big five.

And then I'll list whatever the five films, five, six films are.

As long as you're getting a brand of something from one of those brands, you know, you don't need to worry about that.

It's more about the installer quality and the mindset that they follow when it comes to installing films or installing coatings.

And in addition from that, the one of the things I like to lead them on is are they taking the time to talk to you like I have?

Because truthfully, if they're not and they just want to quote you a price and get you off the phone, you should avoid that.

Like with a ten foot or more pole, you should stay away from that.

Because if they treat you like that on the first interaction, you can pretty well guarantee that they're going to treat you like that on every other interaction.

And what really matters when it comes to these things is that the follow up and after the fact.

Because sometimes there are things that happen with film.

You might find a lifted edge or you might find a bubble, you know, whatever it may be.

All those things are small issues and they're not a big deal and they can be fixed.

But if that shop doesn't stand behind their work and they're known for not doing good work, then you can pretty well guarantee that the second that you find something, they're probably not going to stand by you.

Right.

So these are just some of the things that you can say to a customer that help differentiate and put you in a position of advisement versus a position of high pressure.

Closing another one is like helping them understand the differences between hand cut and computer cut.

You don't need to go down the rabbit hole, just helping them to understand the difference between them.

Also helping them to understand that you stand behind your work and that the shop that they choose should be willing to do the same.

And Pushing on those things.

Those are the types of things that you want to help people understand.

And those are the things that you want to excel at and be so good at that nobody else is willing.

Here's a cool one.

This one helps win jobs all the time.

You can just say, listen, when you drop it off, we can either like, we can take you back home ourselves.

That's not a problem.

We can call an Uber and send you home in an Uber or we can even come and pick up the vehicle at your home.

We carry all the insurance that we need to do that.

We take pictures at the time of pickup.

It's not a big deal.

And you can weigh the risk for that for your own business.

But it's just doing things like that helps set the bar so high that by the time that they talk to these other people, they have no shot.

And something else that I have, this is a weapon is that I have a list of things that I send to them with our logo on it and I have a list that says this is what you should be expecting to hear from them or something similar.

If it's not, avoid them.

I have that list built that me and my sales rep use in our shop that we give to people.

Just that list sells jobs just by itself.

This is the next one.

I don't have the time to do this follow up and education.

I'm too busy working on cars.

I hear that and that's valid because I get that like business is hard.

I think that that translates into I'd rather spend $500 a week on ads to get new leads than I would spending maybe two and a half, three hours setting up a lead nurturing system.

Not even that.

If you worked with detailer OS to then avoid that problem, you know, are you trying to make money?

Do you want to make money as a business?

That's great.

This is a requirement.

It is not optional.

It is a requirement of success and performance.

Follow up is one of the most important pieces of the game.

And I don't think you're going to be able to get around that.

Some people say the market is just slow right now.

Nobody's spending money.

That's I know shops in just about every market.

Everybody that's executed and like has these things down stays busy.

And sometimes this is the truth is you're going to say, gabe, I follow up with people.

I'm hitting all the things that you're talking about.

I'm willing to bet that you've probably got something broken or something is heavy handed.

Or not where it should be.

And sometimes you got to take a second look at it.

That's what having a really great community and core group of people is about, is that you can ask somebody for a genuine look into your business and get it detailer os.

That's why we're building that.

So that way you can literally have somebody to say, hey, this is how I'm doing this.

Am I doing this right or am I doing this wrong?

And you have somebody you can trust.

And then some people will say to me, I send them all the information.

Why don't they just make a choice?

And that's because sending them information without context is just noise.

Just, it's kind of unfiltered and there's no real like how do I tie this to my need?

Right.

So making sure that what you do send them helps them to understand why them having what they have and what you're suggesting is important.

That's extremely important.

So if you're gonna send somebody documentation and information, make sure that it's addressing those pain points.

How do I do that?

Well, you're gonna spend some time to make educational brochures, you're gonna make videos and you're gonna make that content that's gonna help you close the gap in them understanding what is important about this process and the way that you do it.

So ultimately it comes down to this.

The people you talk to, the leads that you get, they don't know you jack, they don't owe you shit, none of them do.

And if you approach this with I'm getting BS excuses or I'm getting this or that from leads, this is a you problem.

It's 100% a you problem.

If you have negative things to say about the things that people are saying to you, it's like 90% you, 10% marketing, most of it is you.

I can pretty well guarantee that.

Go back and listen to this, put some of this in place, join Detailer OS where you can go over to detailing business coach.com and grab the course that's online.

That's a 10 part, one hour long session, each module course.

So there's 10 plus hours of high level sales content that'll teach you to have the right mindset on how to sell.

It's the one that Joe Torbati and I put on together.

So all in all to say, all of this, if you're not converting leads, this is not a lead problem, this is a you problem.

This is a follow up problem.

This is a value proposition problem.

This is A customer doesn't understand me, what I offer and how what I offer is important.

These are not lead problems.

They're not marketing problems.

They are you problems.

And this is what most people don't want to hear.

There's always ways to do better marketing.

But if you don't understand the high enough level systems to approach sales, then you will continue to have issues like this again and again.

So hopefully this was useful for you.

Thanks for listening this far.

I appreciate the fact that you were listening for the whole episode.

This is what I want to say in closing.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for being an awesome supporter of Detailing Growth and Talking Paint.

If you want to jump on an episode with me, send me a message.

Let's talk about it.

We can rip apart the business and put it back together and we can do it all on an episode and you walk away with massive value.

Because this year, 2025 talking paint, detailing Growth is all about helping as many people as we can.

That's what our job is this year.

Make sure you sign up for the Detail Shift newsletter.

You can grab a link to that down in the show notes or in the description on YouTube.

Sign up for that.

That's completely free and that's where we deliver some of our best advice for shops.

And if you're tired of working with the agency that you are and you want a real partner, Detailing Growth is the anti agency where the antidote to everybody's horrible bs.

So if you want a team that's going to stand behind you and you want a team that's going to really help you, that's what we're here for.

That's what we do.

And if you can't afford it, that's fine.

You can still get support from the team that truly cares over@detaileros.IO.

thanks for listening.

See you in the next one.

Sa sa.