10 Ways Remodelers Can Help Clients Understand Risk

In this episode of Remodeling Mastery, industry advisor Mark Richardson offers tips on how remodelers can sell risk to mitigate risk, and why doing so helps clients buy into the project, not be sold on it.

“So many remodelers are talking to clients about the remodeling project. It's all about the project. They're not seeing themselves as a risk mitigator. They're not seeing themselves communicating this notion of reducing risk and increasing the pleasure of this project,” Richardson says. “If you can do this really successfully, I think you will, in fact, differentiate yourself, and the likelihood of you getting the project is much greater.”

10 Techniques for Addressing Risk

1. Choose your words carefully: 8:25
2. Use memorable phrases: 9:19
3. Put projects into categories: 11:10
4. Sell a process, not the project: 12:22
5. Use data: 13:
6. Employ the power of 3: 14:57
7. Tell a story: 16:40
8. Ask simple questions: 18:05
9. Address price escalation: 18:20
10. Frame the decision in terms of risk: 20:09

Partial Transcript

Welcome to Remodeling Mastery. It’s a podcast series that’s really designed to help you take your business, take your game to the next level. What I try to do is take different topics that I think are interesting and especially relevant. I think in these crazy, kind of wonky times that we've been experiencing the last few years, I think you really need to get out and think about, how do I crack the code? How do I adjust? How do I pivot to what I'm doing? You know, I am a big, big believer that if you're not changing, you're gonna become irrelevant. Your stock is going to go down, not going to go up. And therefore, I think these little tweaks and thoughts that I try to share with you are really designed to be able to do that. A topic I've been thinking a lot about recently is, how do you go about kind of shifting the narrative in terms of how you work with clients? Now, shifting the narrative is shifting it one or two degrees. It's not shifting it 45 degrees, but you got to shift to kind of the narrative, I believe, to really get that one more out of 10 that could kind of tip your way. You know, many years ago, I kind of heard this adage and theme that I think was pretty relevant, and that is that people are really motivated by increasing their pleasure or reducing their pain. Now, certainly in some of the Sandler insights, they talk a lot about what's the pain, but I think the key word to this adage is not pain, or it's not pleasure, it's motivated. What is going to get them motivated? Your biggest competitor today is the client, not other remodelers. It's the client, and it is, in fact, their ignorance. They're making mistakes when it comes to who to work with, how to work with, products, to choose.

It's their fears. They're fearful of making a mistake, and when you don't want to make a mistake, you tend to punt and hit the pause button. But it's also they're overwhelmed, and they're motivate. They're motivated by, you know, just kind of moving on to other things. So they're just overwhelmed by the different things in their life. So it's very hard to get them to act unless they're fully motivated. So the question then becomes, how do you get them motivated? How do you get them to not only act but also kind of stand up and salute and really make not only you but their home really a priority a good friend of mine who's very much of a Top Gun in sales, she asked every single client, how much space do you have in your life today, for me and this project, the cool thing about a question like that is that then it follows up, you can quantify the amount of Time and Space you feel like you need, and even more importantly, you can start to differentiate yourself compared to others. It's a very simple question, but it also gets to this whole issue. I've got to get them motivated. I've got to make them believe that they have the time and energy to be able to put in a successful project if they're working with us. So with all that being said and done, I want to really focus on, how do you sell risk? How do you sell mitigating the risk in a remodeling project? And I think there's some interesting themes that I want to touch on, but then, most importantly, I have a list of 10 techniques I think you can weave into your game and get really better at this topic. So the first is that theme number one is an educated consumer is your best client. If you really, truly believe that, then you're going to focus on, how do I go about educating them how to give them insights, so that they are, in fact, a better client. The second is, help them buy. Don't sell them. If you really focus on, how do I help them buy, how do I help them make better decisions, rather than, how do I layer on a lot of suede shoes sales techniques, I think you're going to be more successful. Successful. Number three is simplify. You've heard from me on many occasions my three E's, make it easy, do it early and do it every time. Well, the first of those, ease is easy. Simplify it for your client to really kind of understand and be able to crystallize the decision in the right kind of way. And I think you're going to be more successful. Number four theme is your job is to be the voice of reason, and the key word to that is reason. If you know that's your job, don't be just focused on the emotions and the feelings. Focus on the facts and figures too. And as a voice of reason, you're going to weave in reasons or data into your process, which we'll be talking more about number five. And I shared this, I think, in a in a podcast a little bit earlier, that was actually a Shakespeare quote, that counselor lacks no client. So if you really think about if you think of yourself as a counselor, not necessarily a romantic salesperson, you're going to lack like lack no clients. So what does that mean? You have to be kind of a professor. You have to be, certainly, a investment advisor. You have to be a therapist, you have to be a marriage counselor. All of those things have consultative counseling related things, more than anything. And then I would add one more to that, in the spirit of this podcast, and that is, you have to be a risk mitigator. So if you think about what a risk mitigator is, you know, it's really a person that's communicating risk communicate, help them to understand these are the levels of risk. So that's really what I think, for example, insurance professional is doing is reducing your risk. That's what a person that is that when you're buying a major decision, that you choose a warranty on that product that's mitigating the risk. When you're doing home maintenance and those kind of things to help the home be in a better place, you're reducing the level of risk, Okay, number six is, you know, be a pro, not an amateur. You know, a pro, for example, is really investing the time and the energy to practice some of these techniques. If, in fact, you want to see yourself as a pro, be paid as a pro, then start to be more of a pro, not just in terms of a remodeling specialist or a designer, but also in terms of this whole issue of helping to mitigate their risk. It's our obligation to communicate, not their responsibility to understand. So part of being a pro is being masterful how you communicate these things that we're going to be talking about. And number seven, and certainly not the least on my list of themes here, is be different. Be different. And I say that because you have so many people out there that are talking to them about the remodeling project. It's all about the project. They're not seeing themselves as a risk mitigator. They're not seeing themselves communicating this notion of, how do I reduce risk and increase pleasure in this project? And I think if you can do this really successfully, I think you will, in fact, differentiate yourself, and you differentiate yourself, differentiate yourself. The likelihood of you getting the project is much greater. Okay, so let's move into some specific techniques that I think will help you to really not all get arms around this subject, but really practice number one is words matter. Start to use words that are really wrapped around this this topic, start to use the word risk in a sentence. You know, have you thought about kind of the levels of risk of different kinds of projects or different kind of people that you work with? You might use different kind of examples as it relates. You might use the word more feasibility that this project really warrants looking at the feasibility. Why? Because you want to reduce, potentially the risk. You might want to use the word explore. You might want to use the words mitigate. You know, these are all words that you just need to start to use, maybe in your language with clients that start to, I think, address and get them to think about there is a downside to making a bad decision. Okay. Number two is try to use more memorable phrases I know, for example, just a few. One I heard from someone, this was about 20 years ago, up in Minnesota, and I was having dinner with her, and she said with every client, she says or weaves into the conversation, don't let your house die. Don't let your house die. And even the thought of your house dying is probably something a client never thought about, but it's a very memorable little phrase. Or I was just with someone recently who a client, asked him, What are some of the ways that this house could kill me? And I thought about that. You know, if you could create a list of, here's five or 10 ways that this house could kill you. It could be related to natural disasters. It could be related to a structural thing. It could be related to indoor air quality or something like that. But I think that's kind of a memorable phrase that you don't want to kind of vomit it on them, but you want to make sure that you at least pepper that in another one that I think is, you know, in this, this kind of goes to the risk of just kicking the can down the road. You know, it's really hard for me to say you should do this or not do this project now, however, as I look at the last 1020, 30 years, I've never had a client say to me, I wish I would have put the project off. I've only had clients say, Gosh, it would have been great to have this new kitchen while my mom was still alive, and she could have enjoyed it as well. So you if you use some memorable phrases in what you do, I think what you do is you also address this issue of risk...