623 – Essential to keep you growing: Tom talks Business Communications

Episode 623 – Business Communications
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with Episode 623 of Screw the Commute podcast? Today, we're going to talk about business communication. Now, doesn't sound like that fun of a topic. I get it. I get that. But here's the thing. Regardless of the quality of your work, how you communicate with customers can make people thrilled with you and refer you or make them feel reluctant to do business with you again. Why am I telling you this now? Well, because two separate small businesses that I'm dealing with right now are dealing poorly with me as I record this. And I want you to know about the consequences to those businesses so you don't make the same mistakes. All right. Hope you didn't miss Episode 622. That was how you get better known. So you one of my quotes is the only way to exceed the average fees in your industry is to become better known. I got that comment all the time. Tom, we googled you and you showed up everywhere and then they hired me or had me speak or whatever say. So that's episode 622. Make sure if you want to go to a back episode, you go to screw the CNNMoney.com slash and then the episode number that was 620 to get better known.

[00:01:44] All right. Pick up a copy of our automation book. You will thank me if you bother to do this stuff in the book because it's going to save you hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of work into the future for taking a couple of days to implement some of these free and cheap techniques that I tell you about in the book. So grab your copy at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of my podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app and put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:02:19] All right. Let's get to the main event. Let me start this out by saying that the two companies I'm dealing with both do great work, really great work. I know firsthand about the one business because I've worked with them a couple of times. The other had good Google reviews that appeared extremely legitimate. So let's start here. You do great work. That should go without saying you do great work. My question to you is, do you consider how your customers feeling while you're doing your great work? You may be diligently working on their project, but if they don't know that, and if you don't keep them advised of your progress and or or any problems you've run into, you may be setting yourself up for bad reviews and unhappy customers.

[00:03:16] Now, if that's the case, doing something now about it will save you enormous amounts of time and business later. Trying to explain to potential new customers why you got a bad review even when you're doing excellent work. And I guess you could be like the eccentric artist that doesn't care what you think. They will take their good old time doing your painting and screw you if you don't like how long it takes. Now, those kinds of situations are rare, and you trying to emulate that attitude when you don't have a massive reputation already is a recipe for disaster. All right. So here's what's going on. This one guy is doing a side hustle, working on vehicles. He's invested a fortune in diagnostic equipment. And he his work is meticulous. I know what good work is, and I'm watching him work and it's meticulous. The problem is he doesn't communicate well with regard to when he can do your work. He let you go a week or more without a response? The last time I saw him, he finished some work for me and I. And I said face to face, when can we get to this other work? As he was leaving, he said, well, we'll have to get to it this week or soon because I'm on vacation this week.

[00:04:45] So I got time. So, you know, he works a regular job, right? He says, I'll text you. And by the way, this is an air conditioning job and it's hot as hell right now. So three days go by and no text. I text him. Four days have gone by, actually. Now that I'm recording this, five days have gone by with no reply to my text. Now I tip this guy well and above what he asks for when he does a job for me. So you would think he would get back to me, right? Nothing. Silence. Crickets chirping. And now I have to sweat for a week waiting for him. And I wrote in my notes here. Not cool. All right, that's it. Says a double meaning there. No, I'm sweating my ass off. Now. Early on, I referred him to someone based on his meticulous work. He made an appointment and he didn't show up. All this really sucks because he's a very likable guy who really cares about his work and he's planning on going full time when he retires from his current job. But poor communication would seriously hamper his chances for success once that regular paycheck stops. All he had to do was say, Tom, I can't get to it. So I got jobs backed up. So for this problem, you know, you probably have to find somebody else.

[00:06:20] And yeah, I would be disappointed because I wanted him to do the work, but he wouldn't have put me in a bad way. And my air conditioning, not working with my air conditioning, not working with the big trip coming up. So don't be afraid to say no, I can't do something. And you can be nice about it. You can say, Tom, look, I just can't get to it. I got six cars backed up and I got to get back to work next week. It would probably be three weeks before I could get to it. I want to help you, but I just can't get to it. That would have been totally fine, right? Disappointing, but totally fine. But silence. No, that's terrible. That's terrible. All right, let's get to this other guy. And now he had about 15 good Google reviews and one bad review. And actually, there's something you need to know when soliciting reviews. And it's kind of hard for you to ask for a bad review. Right. But but listen to this. All five star reviews are less credible. And I think studies showed that 4.8 stars was more credible. See, no one believes that you're perfect. So they start making up in their minds that your reviews must be fake. So when I see a bad review among lots of great and credible looking reviews, I certainly consider it.

[00:07:45] But it doesn't usually stop me from purchasing. All right. So back to this other guy. See, on my initial call, I left a voicemail. Got no return call. I knew this was a very small business, probably a guy working out of his home. So I gave another call the next day and the guy picked up. Awesome. I explained the problem and he said to bring the vehicle to him and he'd be able to fix it pretty quick. And by the way, this was a four wheeler. They call it a quad that was not running. Right. Now the symptoms indicated the carburetor was clogged. So when I got there, I could tell immediately, you know, I know a lot of this stuff and could have fixed it myself. But time, you know, and and money sometimes get in the way. So I could tell the guy cared about his work. He pointed out things that he would fix that I didn't even know was wrong. And this was a used vehicle. And the previous owner had done some things wrong that I even noticed when, like, he installed a fuel filter backwards. Right. So. So anyway, I had great confidence in this guy in dropping off my vehicle at his home without even a receipt for it. So several days went by, which was expected.

[00:09:03] But I got no word from the guy how things were going. I called and the voicemail was full. I texted, got no response. Now I'm starting to second guess myself for the decision to use him. What if he just stole the machine and claimed I never dropped it off? What if he just let it sit there to take a bunch of easier and more lucrative jobs? What if he broke something and it's and he's afraid to tell me? Anyway, I'm thinking all kinds of bad things. Now I finally get him to answer the phone and he tells me he cleaned the carburetor and it still wasn't running. Right. And that he suspects the valves need adjusted and that he would get right on it. Och, I feel a little better, but I still have lingering thoughts that he may just be putting me off to buy more time to sell my machine for parts or whatever bad things he could do. All right. So several more days went by, and since the voicemail was always full, I started texting, asking for an update. Then out of the clear blue. No and no response to those text, by the way. Then out of the clear blue, a week after I was supposed to pick it up, he called me to tell me it was finished and I could come pick it up.

[00:10:22] So. So I got there. And again, he was diligently showing me how the machine is running great and what he did. And he pointed out lots of things I needed to watch in the future. And then I was kind of back feeling that he did a really good job in the actual work. But he had put me through all these mental worries because he was too busy or didn't put an emphasis on looking out for what the customer is feeling when the customer isn't right there face to face. All he would have had to do was text me updates and invite me to call if I had questions. And as it stands now, I love his work. I got the machine back. Everything's fine, but. I'd be reluctant to refer him without a caveat. Something like, Oh, hey, he does great work if you can get a hold of him. But you better be prepared to wait to make an appointment and to get your vehicle back. All right. You don't want to have to say those things. You don't want people saying things about you, do you? So both of these people have similar problems. They concentrate on the work they love so much, but they forget about the customer's other needs. Yeah, they need their car or truck or motorcycle fixed, but they have a need to trust you and your process.

[00:11:47] And keeping in touch with updates is a small hassle compared to giving up referrals and future business, don't you think? And yeah, I know some customers are a pain and they ask every stupid question imaginable. I get that. But most aren't. Just do better at your business communication and keep up the quality of your work and watch those referrals and repeat customers. Give you money. All right. If you want help with this and the other million things. Oh, excuse me. I think it's now up to a million and a half things you've got to know to have a successful online business. I am your guy. I have been the guy for, I don't know, 1700 plus people over 28 years. So I think I can fit one more person in here. So check out greatInternetmarketingtraining.com and let me help you save money and quit wasting time and doing dumb things because some geek told you that never and they never made a nickel selling anything. You know, we do that we clean have to clean up messes all the time for for that. I don't want you to spend money on that. I want you to spend money on stuff that actually works. So check it out. GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com and I will see you on the next episode. Catch you later.