17 Insights On How Remodelers Can Better Communicate With Clients

Industry advisor Mark Richardson has always appreciated the adage “Say it and they understand it. Say it well and they feel it.”

In this episode of Remodeling Mastery, Richardson talks about the importance of using the right words when talking with clients and—perhaps even more importantly—why your delivery matters just as much.

“At the end of the day, when it comes to remodeling and relationships with clients, this process is extremely personal and highly human. If you learn how to say things well, you create a kind of transfer of feelings, and that is going to be memorable. If they get it, they'll buy it.”

TIMESTAMPS

Techniques

1. Words Matter: 2:27
2. Use the Power of 3: 6:10
3. Think about the phrases you use: 10:08
4. Use metaphors: 11:43
5. How to talk about money: 16:45
6. Focus on storytelling, not story selling: 20:17
7. Make your pitch more visual: 22:00

Tips

8. Learn it, do it, teach it: 23:50
9. It’s your obligation to communicate, not the client’s responsibility to understand: 24:27
10. Intentions without actions = squat: 25:13
11. Practice doesn’t make perfect: 25:56
12. If you fail to plan, plan to fail: 26:32
13. A+B=R: 26:53
14. Knowledge instills confidence: 27:56
15. Don’t become irrelevant: 28:30
16. Success is a verb: 29:17
17. Make it happen: 29:42

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Mark Richardson, and welcome to the Remodeling Mastery. Remodeling Mastery is a podcast series that's really designed to help you take your business and take your techniques and strategies to the next level. What I try to do is take different topics that I think are especially relevant to the times. You know, today it's really kind of tough out there. I think that oftentimes there's a series of headwinds and tailwinds when it comes to sales and lead flow and those kind of things in businesses. And if you're not pivoting and adjusting to those things, you probably are falling short. A lot of my podcasts are focused understanding a little bit more the beliefs or the why behind things, and in some cases, what some of the strategies are. But today I'm going to focus a little bit more in the how, the how you go about speaking, the how you go about using words, how you go about using language and metaphor in the remodeling communication process when it comes to your clients. You know this podcast series is supported by my friends at Pro Remodeler, as well as all the associations, and I encourage you to certainly not only support these but also pass this podcast, along with your team, if you feel that it's really beneficial. So there's a little adage out there that I've always liked, and it was, say it and they understand it. Say it well and they feel it. You know, at the end of the day, this process when it comes to remodeling and relationships with clients is really extremely personal and highly human. So if you learn how to say things well, you will actually create kind of a transfer of feelings, and that ultimately is going to become memorable, you know, at the end of the day, if they get it, they'll buy it. So I want to give you 10 techniques that I think would be helpful to take your game to the next level. And these are techniques. These are kind of categories. And then I'm going to close out this podcast today with a series of quotes that I think might be able to help you frame it as well.

So the first one I want you to be thinking about is words matter. Words matter. Now I learned this many years ago, certainly in my career, where not only I realized words affected how people would think and feel about things, but also how they would think about me by using certain words. That's how you have more authority, that's how you really express more empathy. So using the right words when it comes to your conversations and dialogs with clients really make a difference. So for example, try to avoid some of the scary words. Now, why do I say scary? Your biggest competitor in remodeling and remodeling sales is the client themselves. It's not other remodelers, other builders. It's the client themselves. It's their fears. It's their overwhelm and it's their ignorance. Now using the right kind of words, you can address their fears. So for example, when you're talking about what you want to do with a client, don't talk about a contract. Talk about an agreement. It's the same thing. Or when it comes to changes, don't talk about change orders. Talk about addendums. Now you know, and I know any project is going to have adjustments as you go, but try to use words like addendum or like agreement when it comes to, I think the relationship with how you want them to think about the money. Don't make it about your price. Make it about an investment. An investment is there a price is yours? Don't make it in about an estimate that's yours. Make it about a budget which is theirs. These are just simple words that if you can pepper in more of these words into the conversations, and you can practice more of these words into the conversation, you're going to see a little bit of a shift in feeling, in that they will start to understand. It's more about how they are looking at things, and it's more about the relationship that you have, not necessarily the specific paradigms that they have in terms of asking for estimates, asking for contracts, asking for proposals from you, it's really more about what they're leading to. So those words really, really do matter. And I think the more that you practice the words, if you want to show a little bit more authority pepper in a few technical terms, like fascia or soffit, they don't necessarily know what those words are, but you might weave some of those words in just as should say and show you know, I'm an expert in this, in design, you might talk about Some words that relate to geometry or specific types of balance or symmetry, those kind of words that are a little bit more design oriented words, if, in fact, that's what you want to convey. You know, oftentimes, even using words that they don't quite understand, or most don't understand, all of a sudden, it creates a level of trust and and really faith in you, for example, using the word fenestration. Well, many people don't know what that word means, especially your clients. However, all it really means is the openings or the windows and doors, is the fenestration when it comes to a remodeling project. So finding words that really accomplished the goal, which, again, is creating the right level of vibe and the right level of feeling when it comes to your client. The second category of tips I want to talk about is using the power of three. Now the power of three, and it's been written about, it's been studied as it relates to how people process decisions and not get overwhelmed. It's such an important theme to do, and I'm going to give you a couple of examples, but as you think about it, helps to frame the decision. It helps to reduce the overwhelm that the client has. That's one of your competitors, the client overwhelm. So by using the power of three, you're going to find, for example, that they will understand and when they get it, they'll have more of a likelihood to feel comfortable to buy it. So for example, using the power of three, you might talk about, well, there's typically three kind of levels of design styles when it comes to faucets or fittings, you have your traditional, you have your contemporary, and then you have your transitional or your eclectic. Use the three. Which of those three do you tend to gravitate to even use words like gravitate? That's not pushy, it's just a comfortable word. So

that's an example of the power three.

You might say to a client, there's three different levels of remodeling that people can do when it comes to a bathroom renovation or a kitchen renovation. You can do more of a cosmetic, which is kind of more of a refresh. You can do more of an intermediate level of renovation, where in a bathroom, you're tearing out the main fixtures in the cabinetry and but keeping some of the core elements. Or you can do a complete gut and redo and redesign and move things around. Now, needless to say, for these different levels of renovation, you also have different levels of investment. So it's using the power of three. Another example of the power of three is in how you close the particular you might say. Many of our clients have found this is a confusing process. There really are three questions that you need to ask yourself in this process, the first question is, how do you feel about the advice and direction we've discussed today? The second is the level of investment consistent with what you'd like to put into this project. And then the third is, how do you feel about the relationship, and do you feel like we're the right fit to really create your dream kitchen or your project. Now by asking those three questions, what you're doing is you're framing the question for the client. You're actually helping them to decide whether they proceed or not, and then it allows you to really take it a step further. But there's so many different ways to use the power of three, it's important to work on practice and master it now, more than ever, with a client overwhelm of all the things they want to do, you might break it into three parts in terms of of using the power of three in terms of the types of projects that they should tackle. So after you look at the full scope and do a full tour of what they'd like to do, you might let them know that you know projects you know in terms of, fall into three categories. In terms of, they're the things that you have to do. You can't let the house die. Use that word, you can't let the house die. There's the things that you want to do that have to do with your lifestyle and your family, and then there's the fantasies that you really want to do...