Easy To Do, Easy Not To Do

I was introduced to Jim Rohn by another mentor of mine named Joe Cunningham. I believe it’s vital for us to all have people who guide us and pour wisdom into our lives. I listened to most of what Jim published but I never met him in person. Today I want to introduce you to a simple concept that Jim taught me about success. It’s not the big things that cause a person to fail, but the small things that get neglected every day.

It’s like an avalanche that starts out very small but compounds over time. He compared it to an “apple a day.” It’s easy to eat an apple a day but its also easy not to eat an apple a day. Jim also made the point that if you skip an apple a day for a month that it won’t help to eat thirty apples on the last day. It’s the slow, consistent good behaviors done over and over that lead to success.

I highly recommend Jim Rohn’s teachings. He was one of the first self development gurus and he trained many of the famous self development teachers who currently teach.

There are only a handful of solid behaviors that I think a technician should execute that, if performed consistency over time, will lead to better results. They are so easy to do but often neglected. Jim would tell me that the pain of regret is smaller that the pain of discipline. It only takes a few good disciplines performed over and over in a consistent manner that can lead a technician to better results.

Check the history of each client before you pull up to the house. This is a very easy thing to do, especially for those of you that are now all mobile. In the worst case it simply takes a call to the office. How would you feel if the the doctor did not look through your chart? Wouldn’t that be borderline malpractice?

Levi learned this a few years back while doing a ride along. We pulled up to the house without checking the history file and got out of the truck quickly. We were blind and knew nothing about this customer other than what the dispatcher told us. We only knew that we were to fulfill our service agreement responsibility and nothing more. Yes, its easy not to check the chart and just show up blind.

An elderly women came to the door and looked at Levi with a strange expression and tone and asked, “Are You Mike?” This threw Levi and, because I was there, he was nervous and ignored her question. She again asked in a louder voice with a frustrated tone, “ARE YOU MIKE?” Not being able to ignore that loud plea, Levi quickly answered, “ No Ma’am, I’m Levi.” “Well. Where is Mike?” she asked with anxiety in her tone. “They promised me that Mike would be coming.” We explain why Mike did not come and calmed her down somewhat and assured her that we could talk care of her today. But then she asked “Well, do you know all about my system, what was done last spring?” “No Ma’am.” Levi answered.

Boom! Levi has now dug himself a deep whole and we have a very unhappy, fearful client… and on top of that we look extremely incompetent. This whole process felt like wrestling and we are not even in the house yet. How are we doing with rapport and establishing credibility and competence? I would say pretty awful up until now.

It is extremely easy to avoid this predicament by checking the history file. It’s a simple thing to do but often it is consistently neglected. Listen to this virtual ride along and you’ll get my point. Josh does a great job and he executes the script flawlessly, but the script does not fit because he did not check the history file. The customer corrects him and we look incompetent. *Open mouth and insert foot.*

Just so you know, a VRA, or virtual ride along, is a recording of the conversation with the client. We record the greet and the presentation for training and coaching purposes. Josh got to listen to this correction and it helps him grow. Since we started the VRA process with Josh, his average ticket has increased $96. Do the math and we see that this is a lot of extra revenue in a month’s time.

For those of you interested in learning more about our VRA process, please send me a quick email at roger@rogerdaviston.com.