worth. What’s most important to us is to develop relationships with our clients that are deeper than just the project. As we worked through the Sandler process and started to understand what we offer that’s different from other businesses, we found our difference and value. We started to sell that value to our clients. Sandler helped us do that, and we’ve become successful because of it.” Jay explains that if you charge more, you need to provide more, likening the difference to that between a Ritz-Carlton and Motel 6. By the time they got to looking at their price models, Jay and Debbie knew that they were coming across facets of their business they had never truly considered correctly. When they were taken through the process, they thought they could never charge that amount of money for their services. “Yet here you are,” says Debbie. “What strikes me about that conversation is that I vividly recall us protesting that there was no way we could charge that amount, and I laugh to myself when I think about it now. One of the tenets of Sandler is sales training, and that’s when it really got through to me that I could not sell myself near as well as my past clients could.” This spawned a change. In order to get an estimate now, they require their new clients to talk to their past clients. “In this way, clients become friends,” Debbie explains. “It becomes like a family. In fact, just yesterday, I got a call out of the blue that basically consisted of them telling us to give them a call next week. They have a job for us. They didn’t even think about talking to anyone else. People will be like, ‘Your contractor is a friend?’ and I just tell them, ‘Yeah, our contractor is our friend.’ People don’t want to believe it, but that’s honestly the way it’s been turning out.”
For Jay and Debbie, the best endorsement is being invited back again for another project. One instance in particular sticks out in both their minds as something they’ll never forget. “We went in to do a remodel, and just before we started, the homeowner fell ill. She took time off work to recover from this illness,” Jay says. “The homeowner was downstairs in the living room and we were upstairs. My lead carpenter started his air compressor. It turned on and he said, ‘We can’t have that. She’s right below just trying to recover.’ So he thought fast, took some straps and rope, and hung the compressor off the rafter so the vibration
and energy to the client and the project while still making sure that the project was a success. They soon learned that it was not just about finding success as a company, but also finding success in the riches of a pool of happy and satisfied customers. Jay and Debbie were soon let in on another important tenet of a company’s functionality: the buy cycle. The buy cycle revolves around the way you buy being a direct reflection of the way you’re able to sell. The first roadblock in buying and selling is that the market will only pay you a certain amount of money for your project. “We had to figure out how successful companies price their projects so they can earn a living,” Jay explained, “We don’t want to gouge the client. We should aim to be fair, honest, and respectful while also earning a living.”
“The first thing I had to deal with was my own belief of what we are really
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