Improve Your Remodeling Sales with “Assignment Selling”

Aaron Horner
So for the last six episodes or so, we’ve talked a lot about your marketing process, the exact steps that you can do to take a prospect and get them through your marketing funnel. Today is where the marketing process meets your sales process. And we’re talking about assignment selling. So if you’re unaware, it’s a sales system popularized and created by Marcus Sheridan, author of they Ask youk Answer. And the whole point is creating a structured approach for using all these marketing assets and educating your prospects in your sales cycle. On today’s podcast, we’re going to be talking with Logan about his experience using this process over the past seven plus years, common pitfalls that people fall into, and the benefits as a result of using this process.

Aaron Horner
If you’re at all interested in improving the efficiency of your sales process, this will be a great episode for you to check out.

Logan Shinholser
Hey everyone, welcome back to Contractor Growth Network podcast. Logan Shinholser, joined by Aaron Horner.

Aaron Horner
Aaron Horner, that almost sounded slick.

Logan Shinholser
So today we’re going through. If you’ve ever read the book they Ask you Answer or Endless Customers by Marcus Sheridan, there’s a concept called assignment skills selling. So we’re talking about that today. And that’s a. As a marketing agency ourselves, we use this heavily in our sales process. Like we do a ton of it. But the biggest, I don’t know, frustration I would say is when we produce stuff for clients and they it’s used simply as marketing and not in the sales process because we’re so content focused of producing content for our clients, producing things for our clients that are not just like a meant to be, a behind the scenes thing, but also meant to be like a, hey, you can actually use this in your sales process to nurture prospects or to help clients decide and make it a little bit easier.

Logan Shinholser
That’s where assignment selling comes in. So that’s what we’re talking about today.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, because in the last podcast episodes we talked a lot about what kind of media you need to have, what kind of resources you need to make it in, even on the website, how you should display it. But none of it matters if you aren’t getting it to people at the right time in the cycle and actually presenting it to them in a way that they will actually consume it.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So let’s start with this. So basically, if you’ve read those books, you know what we’re talking about. If not, I would highly suggest reading them. They’re really good. But the way that I like to think about with assignment selling is first think about what your actual sales process is. So prospect comes in and just in a typical way it could be fills out the contact form and you have a quick 20 minute phone call with them. And basically what you’re doing is you’re just trying to figure out, are we even the same ballpark? When you say you want your kitchen remodeled, do you know that it’s going to start around 85 grand?

Logan Shinholser
Or are you thinking, you know, as a homeowner kitchen remodel for 8,500, because all you really want is your countertops replaced, or maybe you want it all, but you don’t know what it cost. So you go through a basic initial phone call. Then typically from there you may have a more in depth one that could be like a longer zoom call. Or you could just go right out and do like the in home walkthrough, which then turns into like the actual design of the space itself. And then once all that stuff gets worked out, then you go into like a construction contract. But basically you want to think through and almost like if you map out on a piece of paper, like each step in the exact process, that is what your sales process should be.

Logan Shinholser
And you really want to use that when it comes to assignment selling. Because basically what you then want to be able to do is figure out coming in to each of those process pieces, what information would you want a prospect to know about your company to then make whatever that conversation or whatever that next step is even better for both parties.

Aaron Horner
Okay, so you’re saying first step is kind of breaking down like the cycle as a whole. And then before you have the conversation, you’re saying, I wish they understood more about our pricing, why we’re more expensive, and how that is actually a benefit to them before we have the discussion around what their price is going to be.

Logan Shinholser
Correct?

Aaron Horner
Essentially, yes.

Logan Shinholser
But basically what we want to do with this is let’s just like think about like all the things in general that you want a prospect to know about your company.

Aaron Horner
Right?

Logan Shinholser
And it could be you want them to like, everybody’s gonna say, look, I want them to know pricing and I want them to know our process and be okay with our process. But at the end of the day, you also want them to see projects that you do, because ultimately if they want something that you don’t do, you’re not gonna be a good fit. But at the same time, if you have really good looking projects that you send them, that gets them excited, that gets them even more involved into wanting to work with you. So there’s a lot of different things that you want prospects to understand about the industry. You want prospect, you know, to understand about working with you specifically.

Logan Shinholser
There’s also things that you want them to know without bragging, like maybe you have a lot of five star reviews, you want them to know that stuff. But how do you say, hey Aaron, have you seen and read all of our reviews? They’re great, right?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, it’s so good.

Logan Shinholser
It feels, it feels so cheesy. So there’s a lot of things here that like you actively want to educate on, but you also want them to like quote unquote, figure it out on their own. And that’s where a lot of this assignment selling stuff comes in.

Aaron Horner
So one of the things you mentioned there, and maybe we’ll get into this more of the details is I’ve always thought of assignment selling is just purely like a list of like facts and things that they should have like consumed before they talk to you and like information they should know, but also based on what you’re saying, like it’s an emotional state. Like you can think about it that way as well. Like giving them your projects and getting them excited before your conversation can increase their buy in on the process, which I haven’t really considered before.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, a lot of it’s basically like you just want to assign them homework or something to do, which is the assignment to help the sales process. Yeah, this is, you know, he coined it in a way that, you know, this makes total sense. But this is also like sales enablement if you’ve heard that term before. Back when I used to work@ Indeed.com, like we did not go into a sales call with or a demo if you will, with nothing. We went in with like a pitch deck that the higher ups who created everything at Indeed said, we know that if you go through this pitch deck, you will have a higher likelihood of closing this person because it explains what Indeed does, how they work, how it’s different than other people.

Logan Shinholser
So basically this is a different way of having a very structured pitch deck. Yeah, but the beauty of assignment selling is you can actually customize the actual pro or the like what you’re sending to the individual based off of what they are interested in, what they need to know, things like that.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So going back to that idea of figuring out step by step, what do you want them to know? The whole point of that is basically there’s a lot of information, whether you think about it or not, that you that a prospect’s going to need to understand. Before they sign that construction contract. Yeah, a ton of information. And if you try to get all that information to them on that 15 minute phone call, how do you think that first call, how do you think they’re feeling about, you know, starting this project?

Aaron Horner
I mean, good.

Logan Shinholser
You don’t think they’re gonna be overwhelmed? If I was like, hey, let me hit you with all these different, like, pieces that you’re gonna have to understand.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, I guess that’s where I’m getting into the same thing of if you just overwhelm them with the logic, the. Then the emotion probably isn’t good. So yeah, I guess that would be kind of overwhelming.

Logan Shinholser
Cause it’s like when you think about all the things I’m not talking about, just like, they need to know ballpark pricing, they need to know this. They need to know. They would also need to know like the actual schedule of when people are coming out. Start dates, end dates. They would need to know all the material options. They would need to know all these things. So basically if you said, hey, Aaron, I’ve got for you to basically understand all the different facets that you should understand before signing the construction contract, which goes into design options, which goes into like the finishes as well. If you put all that on them at the very beginning, you’re basically going to have to give them like a binder of stuff to read and decide ahead of time.

Logan Shinholser
And we’re trying to basically take that information and then figure out when in the process is this important for them to understand before the next conversation or the next phase in the sales or design process.

Aaron Horner
Okay. And so when you go about breaking that up, here’s the information they need to have in this order, both like for CGN in your sales cycle, what you’ve done, also what you’ve seen all of our prospects do over the years. Is that consistent generally from business to business, or does it change a lot based on their personal sales process?

Logan Shinholser
It changes a lot based on the personal sales process. Okay, so before we get into the sales stuff and how to break it down, there is like, think about all the information. And some people do it where they basically just want to automate everything. And they say, all right, what I know is, Aaron, just to be super easy, I want you to know pricing, finish options. I want you to see projects, you know, a bunch of projects that we’ve done. And I want you to know ballpark timelines. And a lot of times what people will do is they’ll go into their CRM and set it up and say like, alright, we’re gonna do a drip campaign. So from the time that you actually fill out the contact form, over the span of two months, you’re gonna get 12 pieces of content.

Logan Shinholser
Well, typically when they fill out the contact form, like you should call them.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Their level of investment, I mean they’re probably filling out the contact form for a few different companies.

Logan Shinholser
Correct. So if that’s the case and you’re like trying to talk to them, but you’re. They’re also getting like quote unquote, like random emails that don’t really seem to make sense, like that seems kind of odd. At the same time, it depends on how they come in. So maybe they’re just saying like, hey, I want to hop on your newsletter to, you know, for whatever reason, then that makes more sense. But basically these are just two different ways of like getting that information across. One way is going to be all through the marketing. And that’s a lot of what we do at CGN as well, where it’s like we set the website up in a way that like, okay, what are the very important pieces of information that you want your prospects to know before reaching out to you?

Logan Shinholser
We will guide them as best as we can through the website with the right calls to action, the right triggers, things like that to get them over to those individual places or things that we want them to see. But ultimately it’s up to the prospect who’s browsing on your website or getting those emails from you to open it up and check it out. Okay, the difference here is instead of doing it that way, you’re now doing it where you’re verbally telling people over the phone or through text or basically a one one situation to say, hey Aaron, before our next call, I’m gonna send you over some stuff. I want you to check that out.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So having it be personalized each time.

Logan Shinholser
The customization of it makes it a way more likely because then it feels like it’s specific to Aaron. So if I’m the remodeling company and I’m trying to help Aaron with his kitchen remodel and let’s say I have an automation set up and maybe I’m really good at automations where like I know when you fill up the contact form you said that you want your kitchen remodeled. So now I put you into the specific kitchen remodeling workflow. So now all the emails are only going to be kitchen focus. But what if when I talk to you and you say, hey, my big Thing is, I’ve got two young kids. I want an island with a breakfast bar.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And unless I then have a whole workflow that only shows kitchens with islands and breakfast bars, if I start to just in the background send you stuff that doesn’t feel like it’s like, relevant to you. Yeah. Then it could become okay. Either one, I’m just on their newsletter list, or two, did they not understand that I really want a breakfast bar and an island? Like, what’s up with that?

Aaron Horner
And yeah, it’s very easy to lose trust with people like that. We’re so bombarded by different marketing things and emails and things like that. So it’s like as soon as it starts becoming the idea of this is just some automated thing, it becomes white noise to people.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And if it’s good, because we do this as well, if it’s good, it’s still beneficial. It’s kind of like that we talked about last time of if I emailed you a joke every single day, would you get annoyed by it? And you’re like, I mean, I would as soon as it stopped being fun.

Aaron Horner
Funny. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
But that’s the same thing here where once it feels like it’s no longer like, oh, this is relevant or beneficial or valuable to me, that’s when people are going to start to check out.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So the beauty of assignment selling is you get to kind of, you know, you have all your different resources and it’s almost like you have different types of ammunition. And then now it’s up to you to be the one to determine which ammo are you going to fire out of that client next based off of their sales, like what’s going on in their world that will then help them?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Does that make sense conceptually?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Is there anything I need to like, go back and re explain just around how assignment selling is different than like automations within marketing?

Aaron Horner
No, I think, I mean, here’s what I’m getting from what you’re saying. It’s much more about like in person or at least direct communication with them to say, here’s one specific thing for you to consume before our next thing.

Logan Shinholser
It doesn’t have to be one, it could be multiple. But there are some best practices that we have found as well, where if we say, hey, I just need you to listen to all of our podcasts before the next call. That’s an overwhelming amount. So there is like certain things. So basically, when you think about each step in your process, my vote is always to pick the minimum amount of information that they need to consume to then have that next piece beneficial.

Aaron Horner
Okay.

Logan Shinholser
And you can even start off with, let’s say, the contact form on your website. If I’m going to hop on the phone with somebody, like, our contact form here at CGN basically says it’s your name, email, phone number. If you have a company website, what industry you in and what’s your revenue? There’s actually reasons for that because basically we use, like, based off of, like, what your revenue is previously, it would, like, siphon out to different people. So we actually use that internally of, like, hey, if you’re at this revenue level, you would talk to this person. But if you’re at this revenue level, you talk to this person because they kind of had different, like, skill sets and, like, who they’re better working with. Same thing with, like, industry. But basically, you know what? We.

Logan Shinholser
If you absolutely have to get all this information from somebody in the form, there’s just a lot of data that shows the more intense a form is, the less likely it is that somebody’s going to fill it out. That may be your goal. You may be somebody as a remodeling company going, look, I’m. I’m busy. I got more than enough work. I don’t want people to reach out to me unless they’re, like, ready to go.

Aaron Horner
That’s great.

Logan Shinholser
And I’m gonna add a lot of filters. That’s cool. But if you have, like, a full sales team, which most remodeling companies don’t do, but, like, a roofing company would have a full sales team, they’re like, good. Just give us, like, your name and your phone number, and we’re gonna call you and we’re gonna do all, like, the heavy lift.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And that works. But basically, you want to have, like, on your contact form coming in. Like, if, you know, you get to kind of play with it. Of like, do you want more people? Do you want less people? But the more that you ask out of people, like, for example, if you require photos to come through, that could be fine. Like, people have to upload photos of their project to me on the contact form. That works. But what if I’m in the car with Audrey and this actually happened? I’m driving somewhere and the form requires photos. I don’t have photos of that project. So instead of me going, well, Audrey, turn the car around. Let’s go home and get those photos. I just said, well, I’ll just do it later. And later became four months.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So there is a Bit of a balance here of just making sure that, like, when you’re asking for information and you’re asking things out of your prospect, it’s just, like, the appropriate amount at that point.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, I mean, that’s a good point. Like, that’s a very real example from your perspective on, like, why a homeowner would stop midway through filling it out. Like, to you, it might be a simple. Obviously, we need some photos. It’s not that hard to have some photos of the space. And it’s like, no, it’s not hard, but if it’s not immediately convenient to the person filling out the form, they’ll just stop and do something else. Maybe they’ll come back to it when they remember.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And the thought could also be like, hey, if it wasn’t that important for, like, when they got home, they took the photos and did it. Then again, that’s totally up to supply and demand in your business. If you’re like, we have so much work and we’re good, like, then that’s okay. Like, you don’t have to cater to that. But, like, if you’re somebody that’s like, I want more of a. You know, it’s like one of the last presentations I gave, it was like a sliding scale of, like, one side of, like, this scale, you have, like, I only want you to call me if your credit card’s out and you’re ready to read me your numbers. And on the other side is like, hey, anybody that wants a home improvement project, I want you to call.

Logan Shinholser
Because ultimately, if I can’t service it because maybe you want a roof and I’m just interior remodeling, I can provide you out to somebody else. But I want you to come to me first.

Aaron Horner
You.

Logan Shinholser
You have to kind of decide where you want to be. Most people that I’ve talked to are typically more of like, that. Yeah. Anybody that, like, you know, I don’t want, like, anybody, but I want people to reach out and, like, if they have questions, like, I want them to at least call, and I can refer people out. But it all depends on, like, where you are in your business. So that’s a big thing to first consider.

Aaron Horner
Okay, so then my next question was, you talked about ammunition and having different resources. A lot of times. I mean, in my world as a videographer, I’m immediately just thinking of, like, videos or things like that. What typically are people sending as part of this? Is it all videos or you’re sending different pages on the website? What have you found to Be most helpful.

Logan Shinholser
It could be anything that gets the point across in a way that the prospect is willing to consume it. Okay, Video, for example. I was talking to a prospect and they had a very in depth, like, basically like our process and our approach. Video. Yeah, it was like 52 minutes long.

Aaron Horner
Okay. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s a video. And if somebody’s gonna move forward with a new home, it’s like, you know, a few million bucks. 52 minutes may not be a big ask. Yeah, but when do you put that in? When do you require somebody to watch that?

Aaron Horner
I would almost think, like, they’ve signed a design agreement at that point. Like, they have some money down, like, they have to be pretty serious or.

Logan Shinholser
They’Re getting pretty close. But like, do you do that on like, as soon as they fill out the contact form. Boom. 52 minute video that says before our 20 minute call, just to make sure we’re on the same page, watch this 52 minute video. Yeah, no, but again, it’s all dependent on the process itself. So you basically want to like, the more, like the further down the line and the more trust that somebody builds up, the more that you can ask out of them where it is. Hey, you know, if. You know what, like, for us, like we send out like a. Our like podcast on like the six steps to remodeling your business. It’s like an hour and 40 minutes. It’s long. Like, we do a big ask at the very beginning.

Logan Shinholser
It’s not required, but we say in the automated email that responds when you fill out our contact form, hey, this is what the call is gonna be all about. But check out in the meantime, this podcast, it’s going to help on this call to understand a lot more about what we do. And then that way the call is like a more elevated call versus, like just trying to figure out what it is that we actually do.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So they’re coming in with the basic understanding of like, here’s our process, here’s our ideology. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s basically just what we set. Because we said, look, like at this point we have a lot of like, prospects coming in. We’d rather have people like, listen to this stuff and go, okay, I know more about what you do versus us spending an hour and 40 minutes on the phone explaining what we do when in reality there’s a podcast that can do that for us, that the person can then listen on their own.

Aaron Horner
And how helpful in your experience has this actually been for the sales process, having that up at the front Maybe not just that example, but assignment selling in general. Can you tell when people are actually going through and watching the resources before your calls? And then how does that actually help with, like, their conversion?

Logan Shinholser
So I don’t have, like, the same, like, the conversion stats because we don’t say, like, oh, did you do it? Great, let me write that down. Like, add it to our step book. But, like, you can tell if somebody understands like, or like, they watched it or they consumed it, because then you can talk about it. Because basically at each step in this process, you want to think about what do they need to know before this next call? Where it’s like going back to the contact form, asking people what their budget is. If your first call with somebody is 15 minutes long. And on that call, I’m gonna be like, aaron, what do you want? You’re like, kitchen. I’m like, where do you live? And you’re like, charlotte. I’m like, cool, I do kitchens. I’m in Charlotte. Ballpark.

Logan Shinholser
Do you have an investment range that you’re looking at for this one? That’s a very quick thing where I wouldn’t ask that on my contact form because one people typically, I don’t think anybody’s going above and beyond, but. But most people are gonna, like, think like, oh, if I tell you this is my budget, then you’re gonna assume that’s what it is. Let me go lower. So it’s not always super accurate anyway. But a lot of times we ask for a lot of things upfront that ultimately you’re gonna ask on the sales call anyway, so why force it up front? So there is stuff like that you have to kind of consider. But then when he goes back to, like, your original question of, like, how has this helped?

Logan Shinholser
You can tell when people actually have consumed it, because part of this is in the assignment selling conversation. It’s not just, hey, Aaron, I’m going to send you a podcast. If you don’t mind, like, listening to it before our next call, that would be great. That’s a very passive way of doing it.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Okay. So it’s not even. It’s not even about what the resource is, but your conviction around why it’s.

Logan Shinholser
Important and why it’s mostly beneficial to them.

Aaron Horner
Okay. Okay. Can you give me an example?

Logan Shinholser
Sure. Let’s take that podcast that we have.

Aaron Horner
Okay.

Logan Shinholser
Hey, Aaron, like, before our next call, we’re gonna dive really deep into your specific company on our discovery call. It’s a pretty long call. I actually have a podcast that will make the call Run super smoothly, and you’ll actually come in with not surface level answers, but deep answers that we ultimately need to get through. This podcast sets it up perfectly. So when we have that call, you know exactly what I’m looking for. So the call is really focused on you and not so much like explaining concepts. I can still explain them if you need more clarification. No problem. But I need you to check out this podcast ahead of time. Is that doable?

Aaron Horner
Okay, so then from my perspective, you know, as like the prospect, what I’m hearing from that is like, okay, so if I want to get the most out of this call, I’m going to do the call anyways.

Logan Shinholser
Yes.

Aaron Horner
I want it to be as influential for my business as possible. I should go ahead and listen to that podcast. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And I’m still giving you an out of, like, look. If you know, if you get confused by this stuff, like, let me. I can go through whatever you want. I’m happy to answer anything on that call. But I need you to listen to this podcast ahead of time because all the questions that you probably have or our approach or things like that, it’s all here. So that’s gonna make this call that much better.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s all about how you are setting it up. You need to have a benefit to them of not just like, hey, I’ve got a podcast. Can you listen to it? Or I’ve got a project walkthrough. Can you check it out? You’re actually giving it in a way that’s like, you can go third party. Which is like, hey, I’ve been doing this for a while. And every client that we’ve worked with that we’ve done this or gotten them to consume this, has come in and said, that was such a good call. We came in way more prepared, and that’s my goal here. So if I send this stuff over to you, would you be willing to check it out ahead of time?

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so it’s like different talk tracks.

Logan Shinholser
But basically I’m trying to say this is the benefit to Aaron because I know what I’m doing. If I send this over, would you be willing to check it out? Will you check it out? You know, like, basically, yeah, yeah. You know, and is it 100%? No. Like, some people go, I just haven’t had time, or I started it, but I haven’t finished it. Like, stuff like that. But then on the next call, you know, I lead off with, did you.

Aaron Horner
Get a chance to, hey, did you.

Logan Shinholser
Check out that Podcast. What’d you think?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, great.

Logan Shinholser
What stood out to you? What’d you like? What didn’t you like? What was confusing? What can I help answer? But basically that’s my first way of understanding and as I’m pre qualifying the person.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Cause that’s also your way to gauge how committed they are.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, yeah. Like you had a guy that was a referral and I talked to him for a while on the phone. He’d never done marketing before. I was like, look, I’m gonna send you something that’s like, if you’ve never done this, I want you to listen to this because it’s gonna explain a lot. You’re gonna ask me all these questions. I know you said right now you’re fully committed, but I want you to truly understand what it goes into this before we talk next Tuesday, if I send this over, will you check it out? He was like, yep, no problem. And on Monday, he sent me a text saying, hey, I listen to the podcast. I now know everything I need to know. We don’t need the call. Lo and behold, I talked to the person that actually referred it.

Logan Shinholser
That guy was like, I’m not listening to a podcast. Like, there’s no way. And it’s like, that’s fine. But like, if you don’t want to listen to it, that’s cool.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. But we’re just not going to be.

Logan Shinholser
The best fit because now I’m going to have to explain all this stuff. And at every step in the process, you’re going to get frustrated by not knowing what it is or why it’s that way. And basically this is our process. And if you don’t want to follow that is okay. We’re pretty moldable and we’ll adjust and tailor to what you need. But at the end of the day, if you’re not willing to do like the first thing, like, it probably not going to go very well and it’s going to be a waste of both parties times.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So where’s the line there? Because I can see exactly how it’s like, even if it doesn’t go well, it’s saving you time. Like, even if that prospect wasn’t a good fit, at least you found that out earlier on and you can spend time with somebody else, but it’s like, maybe it’s just the quality of resources that you’re sending them. I’m trying to think in my head, like, what’s the difference between giving them too much and then being like, well, they probably were a good prospect. But I asked too much from them versus, well, they weren’t a good prospect.

Logan Shinholser
Because they weren’t committed when people typically start this. And this happened a lot with my dad, who did the whole shin fu thing, which is basically a sales process. He was a sales trainer for contractors and taught them basically his over the phone process of like, here’s how I pre qualify, people. My dad was a koi pond company. He owned a koi pond company. And the thing that I wish he would always caveat, but I don’t think he really did, was he would get 2,000 leads a year. He could only sell 100 projects.

Aaron Horner
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that was the one missing piece. That was a big freaking piece that I would see a lot of people that they would do all this sales stuff and they’d be like, well, I just saved my time from this tire kicker and I just saved my. And it’s like, that’s fine. But you don’t have.

Aaron Horner
If you don’t have the lead flow.

Logan Shinholser
Correct.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
You need to make sure that, you know, if you’re like, hey. And there is a level of like, that person was never gonna buy. So it’s probably good. But a lot of people typically, what they do when they first start some of these things is that they’re like, well, I just saved my time and I just.

Aaron Horner
It’s a little prideful. I’ve seen those kinds of posts in the stuff.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, exactly. And that’s. That’s what we’re trying to avoid where it’s like, you know, first off, you’re typically not asking the right way. It’s the same thing. If I say, if I said, like, hey, Aaron, what’s your budget versus Aaron? A project like this is anywhere from like 100 and 200 grand. Have you thought about what you want to spend on this?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
There’s a difference between how these completely tonality, the actual talk track, all that kind of stuff. There’s a lot of nuances that like, a lot of people miss out on with a lot of this assignment selling stuff. Hey, Aaron, I’m gonna send you this podcast. You better listen to this. And you’re like, whoa, all right, dude, like, chill.

Aaron Horner
I’m out.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, so there’s like, there’s a lot of these nuance y things that I’ve just. We’ve done it so much that, like, it’s become easier and easier. Obviously there’s still room for improvement and stuff like that. But, like, that’s like a big caveat that I wanna make sure Is that, like, one. If. You know, if it’s going to be easier on, like, in that one case with that guy? And he said, I, you know, basically he didn’t listen to it. If we had no leads coming in the door, then I would say, hey, like, I’ll walk you through this stuff. Because if I’m now explaining to him live, he’s probably gonna build more trust and rapport with me because he’s gonna be able to stop and ask questions as it’s, like, pertains to his business. I would go that route.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Cause that was gonna be one of my other questions. It’s like, what if you get to call and they just. But it’s entirely dependent on a lot.

Logan Shinholser
Of things, you know, like, do you have enough work that you can basically say, I don’t need this? But if you’re like, this person didn’t do this. So I told them, like, hey, you better reschedule this call then. But then you go home and just watch Netflix. You get nothing else going on. That’s not the right move. Yeah, yeah. It’s a supply and demand thing for all this stuff. And, like, you have to kind of be picky and choosy, but the goal was to get to the place that you have enough demand for what you do that you get to be a little bit more like, hey, I need you to, like, check this thing out.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s basically, like, something that you want to, like, think through. But whatever you’re sending over to them, we also want to make sure that it aligns with the brand and it gets them excited. And it’s basically, like, in a way that they want to consume it. Like, we do a podcast because the clients that we work with drive a lot.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
They’re in their truck. They’re going to a job site. I’m a big podcast person. I love consuming podcasts. But if you gave me, like, a very long book, my first thing is gonna be, like, great. Do you have the audible for.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah. Is there an audible link?

Logan Shinholser
Right.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
But if you gave me a book and said, I need you to read this book before you call me, if I’m super motivated, then I’ll do it. But if I’m like, you know what? I’m still trying to figure this thing out. If they have an audiobook, I’ll do it. But if you don’t have an audiobook, maybe I’ll just delay it. And then now you got to kind of chase me to see. Did you listen to the book, hey, maybe you didn’t listen to, so maybe I’ll explain it. So it all really depends on, like, are you making it easy on them? And that’s like a big thing in like the SEO world where basically if you want to learn about a certain topic, you could, like, let’s just say you want to learn about, I don’t know, the human heart.

Logan Shinholser
If you typed in human heart on Google, Wikipedia is probably gonna pop up pretty high because Wikipedia is basically a lot of information distilled down in a way that’s easy for you to consume and understand. But what’s a probably more factual thing would be like an article from an actual, like, doctor that they did in like med school. But that’s so confusing to read and it’s super long and you just wanted to know basically like how many chambers are in the heart. That’s all you really wanted to know, but you had to decipher through this entire article that was super confusing from this doctor. That’s not a good way to get that information across. So when it comes to this stuff, you need to make sure that it’s in the medium that it makes sense.

Logan Shinholser
Where it’s like, if you want people on the first call to understand how you build a house, a 52 minute long video doesn’t make sense. But maybe a two minute long video that hits the high points is enough. Where they go, okay, now I understand what you’re trying to go for. I’m excited for this call.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. And for these resources. I mean, so like we said, they can send anything they want, whether it’s like even just a chart, a video, a link to their website, what does the production quality? Because I’m thinking now of Reed, since a remodeler listening to this is thinking, like, I mean, this is good in theory, but I don’t see it actually being worth it for me because now I have to go through and create all of this ammunition that you’re talking about.

Logan Shinholser
Well, you know, it all depends on what, like, how much information you’re trying to get across, like what your brain’s known for. Basically what I would suggest is doing less things but doing them better. Because first off, if it looks like, let’s just say, like for our podcast, okay, if I said, hey, I’ve got an hour and 40 minute podcast, but you see, it’s in the studio, it’s on our website, it’s recorded in a certain way, it looks like we tried. But if I said, hey, I’ve got an hour and 40 minute podcast. And it’s just a video of me in my kitchen with bad audio saying the same stuff. Does it seem like I really gave a lot of energy and effort to it?

Aaron Horner
No, it feels more haphazard. I guess I would be questioning myself more of, is this worth my time?

Logan Shinholser
Exactly. So if you make whatever it is a big deal in both production quality, but also getting them to like, hey, you need to check this thing out, like, I poured my heart and soul into this thing, they’re more likely to do it. But if you’re like, hey, I had a speaking coach and he wanted you to do these weekly exercises on speaking. And the video was just like him recording in selfie mode. And I was just like, okay, well, if this is that important, you should make this thing important.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
If this is like your staple thing, you need to make this a big deal. Kind of like in the remodeling world. Like, if your projects are the thing that speak for itself and you just get bad photos, like, how much energy and effort’s in that? There’s not much. Now the client’s going, well, is this that important to me in my life?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So production quality is gonna be big. Not everything has to be amazing. But basically what you wanna be able to do is take the pieces that you have. So you’d rather have maybe one before each stage or one before only a couple stages that you really want them to understand, and you just lean into that heavily and then that will, like project walkthrough pages or feature project pages that we do on clients websites. That’s like a perfect thing because each of those has projects. It talks about the backstory, it gives highlights of price points and timelines, and it actually shows the design process. So those things are meant to be mini stories. And the beautiful thing here is most everybody sells by showing other projects that they’ve done and then saying, oh, let me tell you about this project.

Logan Shinholser
So basically, instead of me showing you photos in a photo album and. And then explaining to you verbally, or me texting photos over to you and then calling you about it, you have a page that specifically walks people through this thing. So as you’re sending it over to them, or what’s even better is if on that initial call, you can actually walk them through this thing live. And that’s a lot of what we do. And we have a lot of clients that do that as well, which is like, hey, you’re asking about a kitchen that does this, and this. I actually have one on my website. Have you seen that one? Can I walk you through it? Alright, go ahead. Click on this, click on this. Can you pull that up?

Logan Shinholser
And then they’re able to like kind of show them there just to like now you’re putting a project and the story and everything as the homeowner and you’re associating with all that, with the person that you’re talking to on the phone.

Aaron Horner
Okay. So you’re talking, I mean like at that point then you’re basically recreating. Like you talked about that example of having a slide deck that you go through.

Logan Shinholser
That’s exactly what that is. Your sales enablement thing. You get to have fun with it because like on these pages, like we do like cute word tracks where it’s like, hey, you see that five star review right there from the client? Yeah, I do. Okay, scroll past that. But like you’re using it as like anchor points as you’re like guiding somebody through the site.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so earlier when you’re saying like, hey, did you check out our reviews? Right.

Logan Shinholser
Like how do you say that? So in this point you’re not like, hey, you see how that client gave us a five star review? Read it.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Pretty nice, right?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, like that’s odd. But if you like in like a kind of a cheeky way get to use it and like, hey, like just to make sure we’re on the same page. Like do you see like that in home, like music studio picture. Okay, perfect. Just wanna make sure on the same page you’re like calling out the cool stuff or like the backstory or whatever it is to the client as a way to quote unquote, just like make sure they’re on the right page or make sure they can walk through it but you’re highlighting the things that you want them to highlight. Like, hey, you see that section that says like how we overcame their challenge using design. Yes. Have you thought about design?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s like that kind of stuff. So you get to use these basically as like a. Let’s look at the same thing together and then have an open conversation around it.

Aaron Horner
That’s great. I could see us doing additional resource just on that, like a YouTube video, walking people through. Like, here’s how to use your website as a sales enablement tool. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Because you have these design pages. Hey, do you know about our process? I can either explain it to you or actually have a page on our website. You’re already on the site. Can I walk you through what that looks like? Okay, perfect. Now you see The. On the design page, you see the stats that prove, hey, when you go through design, it’s actually faster, cheaper, and less headaches. Oh, yeah, I do. Perfect. Scroll right past that because I want to get you to the next section. Yeah, but what did I just do?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, you called it out. Yeah. You drove their attention to it. Yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And now is somebody going to go, that sounds great, but I don’t want design. Like, you’re like, well, I just. You literally, you know, so you’re like, doing it in that way. But then you can go, hey, there’s a few things here. Like, we find that with our clients, design helps really, with three things. Either one, they’re able to actually visualize what it’s gonna look like at the end, which is big to them. Two, it actually helps, like, figure out what you can do in the space. Cause, like, sometimes it’s kinda hard to see what really, like, are the solutions here. And then three, it helps with alignment on budget to make sure that we’re not getting into the project and getting halfway through and realizing, like, wow, we made the wrong selections. It’s going to cost a lot more.

Logan Shinholser
So with that said, do any of those stand out to you, or do you have one that you’re really into and that’s what design could help with? And if they’re like, yeah, I don’t really have any creative solutions, like, okay, cool, let’s talk about that. Like, on your project. Talk to me about what’s going on right now and what you’re looking for. Yeah, but you’re using these as, like, sticking points in the conversation as well. So. Yes, it’s a lot of, like, read this before you reach back out to me. But it’s also like, you’re able to guide them live on these things where if somebody said, like, hey, on your website, Aaron, I saw you did this kitchen with like, navy herringbone backsplash. Would you go, oh, yeah, I know that kitchen. Cool. No, you’d probably be like, hey, let’s do this.

Logan Shinholser
Can we navigate to that? Because I want to look at the same thing that you’re looking at. Perfect. I got that kitchen page pulled up. Are you on that page? Perfect. When you look at this, you said you like this. What specifically do you like about it? Just so I’m taking notes. I understand what you’re saying. That’s a huge way that you can make all this stuff work. So it’s really just you’re. You’re taking these marketing assets instead of passively hoping somebody sees it now you’re actually adding it into your sales process. It makes it so much easier. Like, I don’t know how you sell a visual thing. Like, we never would sell a website without showing websites. Yeah, like, I don’t know how people like do this over the phone. I mean, they clearly do.

Logan Shinholser
But like to add a visual component into these conversations makes it so much easier. So basically it’s just like breaking out your process and figuring out what do I want them to know ahead of time or even on that call. And then what are the marketing pieces that should be created or already have that I can start to slide in place right there?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, outside. So the feature project page is having a website page that walks through client examples and specific instances and that you can point out to them. Is there another resource past that? Like, just for people looking to get started, get into this. What would be the next one you’d recommend to people?

Logan Shinholser
So I know like, Fry uses like we have like custom calculators on his website. He uses that to basically price out a project, live with a client just to get like a ballpark range up front. The beauty of that is now if it’s a higher number, the calculator is the bad guy.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, he’s showing them. He’s not doing any back end dealing. It looks like you’re driving this kind of car. You sound like this kind of person.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s straight up just like, hey, we’re looking at the same thing. Yeah. I want you to guide me through. Like, hey, we got option 1, 2 or 3. 3 is custom cabinets, 1 is stock cabinets, 2 is semi custom. These are the differences. Which one seems like what you’re looking for? Got it. Custom. Let’s go ahead and slide that over to step three. So you’re able to do that live on the call. That’s another big one to do. So like pricing is big, process is big as well.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Where you’re like able to like walk them through your design process or your pre construction process or what. It actually looks like where if somebody’s like, hey, on my last remodeling company project that I had, like, they were terrible at communicating. Like, what do you guys do? I’d be like, hey, I actually have a page like that. Like, instead of me just like rallying off a bunch of stuff, kind of like pull that up and show you. Perfect. Okay. You see that? That’s called a Gantt chart. That is going to be super helpful. Did you get one at your last company? Oh, you didn’t all right, this is going to walk you through all the specific timelines of the project so you know what’s happening now.

Logan Shinholser
Once a week we’re going to have a walkthrough and at that point, if the Gantt chart has to change because something got back ordered for whatever reason, or like the project that I have at my house right now going on, the weather was terrible and the. The frameworks couldn’t come out and do anything because it was like pouring rain for three straight days. So that delayed us by three days. So then what they do is they, in Dobtra, they adjusted the Gantt chart a little bit, but they walked me through it. But basically you’re able to explain that stuff live. But there’s a visual of a Gantt chart, the same way that my neighbor keeps showing everybody that Gantt chart. And now everybody in the neighborhood is using the same company as he used because I guess everybody loves Gantt Charts.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s another way that you can go about it. So basically, it’s like project pages are always gonna best because you can do a lot where you can actually show off the product. You can show off the price point that’s associated with the project. So it’s not just like, our kitchen started at 85, that’s fine. But like, what’s an $85,000 kitchen look like? Like, there’s still gotta be like a level of excitement to a lot of this education that we wanna get across. So the more that you can make this stuff that visual and easy to consume, but also makes them excitable is the goal.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Okay. I mean, so assignment selling is not even just prepping things before the call, but also having additional resources to use as sales enablement during the call and things like that.

Logan Shinholser
I would put it all together. I think maybe assignment selling is technically ahead of time.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
But do both.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. The concept of creating resources to enable your sales process, whether that’s prior to the call, during the call, or something you send afterwards. Yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Because like, think about when you’re doing design, like, and you’re presenting design, you could email it over.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
But you could also bring them in on the vibe board and walk them through it and say, let’s do this, or this. Hey, we actually pulled some samples of these exact things that we’re showing off. So that’s the same thing on the sales enablement side, but you’re doing it as part of your in person design presentation. But now what I’m saying is, on that Quick call up front or as you’re like, you know, starting to ramp up with like, you know, going deeper and deeper into the sales process, your first thing is not like, hey, your first step is not a 15 minute call with us.

Logan Shinholser
It’s you have to come into our showroom immediately, which is like, maybe that’s part of your process, but you want to make, basically make it like easy on people and meet them where they’re at, but still paint yourself in a really good light. And if you have these project walkthroughs that you’re able to like show off ahead of time, like, that will get them so much more bought in because it also makes you look like very legit.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s what it is.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, all that makes a bunch of sense. And like again, the emotion stuff of it and kind of structuring it in a way to make it still enjoyable for people and not actually just enjoyable, but a better experience for people. That makes more sense to me than even when we started the discussion.

Logan Shinholser
The biggest things here that I can say is map out your sales process like box by box. Like step one, lead comes in, step two, 15 minute intake call. Step three, we sent out a MoSCoW report. Step four, we. So like put all those in boxes and you’re going to go like draw a line from each to each. And then basically just think through like what information would you want the prospect to know ahead of time?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
About the industry, about the specific service, about your company, whatever it is, write that out in the arrow that goes from one box to the next. So if you’re going from step one, which is intake form, to step two is 15 minute phone call where that arrow is, you’d actually just put a couple bullet points of. I want them to know this is the type of projects that we build.

Aaron Horner
Maybe you’re just sending them some example.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. Whatever it is, figure that piece out. That will help you immensely. Because basically what you want to do is you don’t want to pre qualify people for the sake of weeding them out. Because I think that’s the wrong mindset around this stuff. Because it’s not like there’s bad. There’s some bad clients, I’ll give you that. But most people don’t. They don’t want to get sold to. So it’s not like they’re actively reaching out and saying, hey, I want to waste your time so you can also waste mine because I’m just bored. They want to be educated on this stuff. So you don’t want to necessarily weed them out in a way that, like, feels like you’re weeding them out. It needs to be a way where it still feels like you’re willing to help, in my mind.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s not just like, and you can do it if you want, but after that first intake form and an automated email goes out that’s like, hey, we have a call. Cancel this call unless you’re willing to spend $250,000 again. You can do that if you got enough demand for what you do.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So just think about step by step, what information would the prospect need to know or should know that’s going to make the next conversation or the next step an even better one for them and you? And then figure out now based off of that, what is an asset, like a marketing asset or a sales asset? Or, you know, like, is it a video? Is it a page? Is it an article? Is it just, like, a couple photos or an Instagram post? Whatever it is, what content can you send over to them ahead of time that makes it even better? And that’s what all this stuff is really all about.

Aaron Horner
That’s awesome.

Logan Shinholser
That’s what it is.

Aaron Horner
Any last pieces from your experience that you haven’t shared yet that you want to get in?

Logan Shinholser
No. If I can just reiterate, like, all this stuff. Again, it’s very nuanced. Don’t take this as the gospel of, like, oh, like, this is exactly what I have to do. It’s the same thing when somebody is trying to learn sales and they’re like, yeah, like, this sales program, like, they shouldn’t feel like it’s not helpful. I already asked people what their budget is, and I’m like, how do you ask them? They go. I say, what’s your budget? And I’m like, okay, well, like, yeah, like, so there is a level of finesse and practice. And like, I remember, like, with the assignment selling stuff with, like, with our sales team, I used to, like, practice, like, we would one line, which was basically benefit ask was how we did it.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Hey, so that the next call that we have is amazing. And I don’t, like, throw any curve balls at you. I actually have a podcast that I would love for you to listen to. So basically it’s like, here’s the benefit to you. Yeah, Pause. Here’s the ask.

Aaron Horner
Okay.

Logan Shinholser
Versus here’s the ask. Then here’s the benefit. That’s just how we did it. You can do it however way you want. But, like, we would practice that line. I remember like, we first started really heavily doing this. I was like, teaching Chris, who used to work here. We would practice for, like, two hours straight getting it right of, like, so that I can do this. Then can you do this? And now, even to this day, like, as Chris, like, I know one of his, like, favorite word tracks is like, so I can take care of you best. Yeah, would you.

Aaron Horner
He does that in normal conversation as well.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, all the time. Yeah, all the time. So, like. But it’s. I’d imagine, because we would hit this one line so much because that was such an important part of all this. Like. Cause like, even now that we have this assignment selling stuff, we have a lot of content comes in. We take the concept, like, the transcripts that, like, for these podcasts. And if there’s a prospect that’s like, you know, we made it. We talked about how to make their sales better. Yeah, I will then take this and then send this over to them to say, hey, just, you know, I know we talked about this, and this. Here’s a podcast that I think you would really like. Check this out before our next call. That helps nurture them as well.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s a lot of, like, you can then customize what the actual message out to them is. So it’s not like, hey, Aaron, here’s a templated text or email from me saying, check out this podcast. It’s like, hey, because we talked about your last project, you feel like you kind of got them to go forward, but you didn’t actually have project photos to show them. Yeah, this talks all about assignment selling. This is exactly what we’re going to be talking about on our next call. Check this out ahead of time. So it’s like you get to, like, tailor it to that specific person. And now with AI, like, you can make it easier and easier where it’s like, you know, we do it where it’s like, hey, here’s our last conversation transcript. Analyze it.

Logan Shinholser
Here’s the transcript for this podcast that talks about assignment selling. Help me write an email that tailors them listening to this podcast based on what we talked about. And it does that. Then I go back, read it, check it, make sure it’s, like, accurate. But it’s just having a tool that helps me do a little bit faster. Things like that.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, that’s great.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, so that’s what it is.

Aaron Horner
Awesome.

Logan Shinholser
Cool.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So next week we’ll be moving on. I don’t think I’ll be here next week. You’ll have a real remoller that you’ll be talking to. So I have to give up the chair, but.

Logan Shinholser
All right, so on the assignment selling, this is like, the big thing on this is your marketing is great, but if you can make sure that your marketing is infused into your sales process, it makes it so much better. And then a lot of your work does a talking for you on these calls in the sales process. So make it happen.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Cool. Thank you, guys.

Aaron Horner
See ya.