10 Ways To Counsel Your Clients

Industry advisor Mark Richardson understands that remodelers typically don’t see themselves as counselors—but they should. In this edition of the Remodeling Mastery podcast, he says remodelers can greatly benefit from counseling their potential clients whose feelings of being overwhelmed and underprepared can derail a deal. (Richardson previously spoke on how a remodeler’s greatest competitor is a fearful, hesitant potential client). 

Citing Shakespeare who wrote “Good counselors lack no clients,” Richardson shares 10 ways you can master the art of being a good counselor and a great remodeler. 

TIMESTAMPS

1. Be a therapist: 7:00
2. Be a marriage counselor: 8:02
3. Be an investment advisor: 9:35
4. Be a tour guide: 10:54
5. Be an advocate: 11:55
6. Be a teacher: 13:02
7. Be the voice of reason: 13:52
8. Be an authority: 15:27
9. Be a connector: 17:07
10. Be a friend: 18:29

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT

Mark Richardson:

Welcome to remodeling mastering. Remodeling mastery is a podcast series that's really designed to help you kind of reflect and think about your business, not just do your business. What I tried to do is take different topics that are kind of interesting to me. But also with my ear to the ground of talking to many many remodelers all around the country every single week, I really get a feel for what is relevant, certainly to them. This podcast series is supported by my friends, certainly in the media, with professional remodelers and many others, but also, you know, with the Association, so I encourage you to as you're listening to this, you know, don't hesitate to really leverage some of these themes, and certainly pass them along to other folks that you think might benefit. today's podcast topic is a little bit more interesting, fun, kind of thought provoking, maybe even one that you can weave into your day to day game and find really a difference. I was reading a quote recently, and it really struck me it was actually a quote from William Shakespeare. So it wasn't certainly a remodeler, nor it was someone that was a contemporary, but he said good counselor lacks no clients. And you really think about that a good counselor lacks no clients. So as I thought about it, well, do you do you really think of yourself as a counselor? Or do you think of yourself as a remodeler or as a designer or as certainly a builder? You know, I think this whole notion of being a counselor, there's so many legs to it, I think that are really important. So at the end of the day, as you've certainly heard from me many many times that your competition today is not other remodelers. It's not other builders. It's not other architects. It's the client themselves. And it's their fears. It's their ignorance, and it's their overwhelm their time. And when you really breathe in, that's really what my competitor is, what you need to know is okay, if that's my competitor, that's what I really need to be good at, is mastering the client's fears, their ignorance and their overwhelm. So going back to this little quote about being a counselor lacks no clients, if you start to think of yourself, not as a remodeler, but more is something different, that also is a counselor, you might have a lot more benefit. So what I've done is actually created different kinds of roles, different vocations different types of things that you can at least think about, as you think about yourself as a remodeler. And what I would encourage you to do is jot down in addition to some of the little insights I'm going to give you of what are some of the attributes, what are some of the skills of being some of these particular things, this will make more sense as we're moving through things. So what's so important to this also, is that we tend to look at what we're doing. When we come to leads and opportunities out there, did we win the project or lose the project? Well, if you think of yourself as a good counselor, and you go in with every single prospect, every single human being that you interact with, and you give them really, really good advice, you're never really a loser, you're always a winner. And I think if you change that paradigm, a little bit in your thinking and stop qualifying, are they a project that I can sell? No, is it a human being I can try to help. And the reality is if in fact, you have the right kind of skills, chances are in some kind of fashion, whether you do business or don't do business with someone, you can probably be able to help them now, take this a step further and try to quantify now what I'm about to say, is so, so important, not just in terms of facts and figures, but in terms of real understanding and thinking and quite frankly, starting to create this kind of culture within your company. Many of the best and certainly my former company as well, many of the best out there get more business from people that they never have gotten business from. Now, what do I mean by that? If you think about this, from a numbers point of view, there might 10 prospects that potentially call you 10 leads inquiries. The question is, what do you do with those 10? Well, the reality is of those 10, for all sorts of reasons, there might be only two of the 10 that ultimately are the right client and the right project for you. Now, you can say that I only win two out of 10, I might argue, Well, maybe you could get another one out of 10, which would be significant. But there's all sorts of reasons why someone is not the right client for you. Maybe it has to do with the investment, maybe it has to do with the location, maybe it has to do with the scale of the project, or the type of project. But there's all sorts of reasons they're not. But with all those other reasons, it's no reason you can't help them, you can't be a good counselor to them. And if in fact, you are a good counselor, you can get more referrals, more referrals for other projects that ultimately become your clients than you do from the two that are your clients of the 10. So you can actually get more projects, more projects from people you never did business with, than necessarily just your clients. So I think I share this because if you adopt this mindset, and you start to think of yourself, what are those different kinds of roles that I play in the relationship with a client, that I can then be better at it. And I would argue with each one of the roles, so I'm going to outline and I'm going to go through 10 different types of hats that you can wear, what I encourage you to do, certainly is start to look at the skill sets of each one of these hats, think of the attributes of each one of these hats, and you will be better at it.

Okay. Number one is be a therapist, not a remodeling peddler. Be a therapist. Now, as you think about what is a therapist, you know, some of you have been to therapists. Um, some of you just watched it on television, what a therapist does, you know, they're really, really good listeners, they they're kind of, they create a level of calm in the moment. They're really masterful at asking the right kind of questions, they also can take down or break down misconceptions that people have about something, and frustrations and fears and help them look at it a different way. They're really digging into the feelings, not just the logic behind things. So try to be a better therapist. And you in fact, I think are that counselor that you're trying to to be?

Okay, number two on my list is be more of a marriage counselor. You know, in many ways with partners, clients, they don't always see things the same way, their priorities are not always the same. Just like in marriage, sometimes it's required to have a marriage counselor, that helps bring the two parties together in a way that creates a better marriage better outcome. So if you start to see yourself as a little bit more of a mediator, a mediator is not focused on a winner and a loser, a mediator is looking for Win win. And I would even add, add that it's a win for each partner, but it's also a win for the home, it's a win for the family, it's a win for the community as well. And if you can hit Win, win win on all those fronts. I think as a marriage counselor, you can be very successful when it comes to remodeling projects. You could also help them with alignment, you know, because I think oftentimes, there's just misaligned on certain things. And I think a marriage counselor can help with that. There are also differences in priorities, and oftentimes because of the ignorance on the part of your clients on how to do remodeling, a marriage counselor can help you guide that. But more than anything, marriage counselor brings things together, not pushes things apart. 

Okay, number three, be an investment advisor. So as an investment advisor, for those of you that ever been to an investment advisor, there's certain skills, but more than just skills or certain language they use. As you think about the home the home might be the greatest asset or investment the client has. So isn't it logical that you become a better investment advisor? So as you think about investment and advice, you're going to be looking at short and medium and long term returns, you're going to be looking at risk management, you're going to also realize that all people are not created equal, some people are more conservative. And some people are more aggressive in terms of how they approach their investments, and certainly their risk. I think also what you're doing as an investment advisor, you're not promising, certainly the sky, you're helping to educate them on how to see levels of risk and what the returns on those risks. And you're also creating a level of confidence that what you're talking about with remodeling makes sense. So try to be and use the skills of an investment advisor...