S2 Ep 40 ServiceTitan Crashed and So Did the Sale

What do you do when your CRM crashes and your client is still ready to buy?
 This is the painful truth most electricians aren’t ready for but need to hear.

In this episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, we break down a real-world sales failure caused by a CRM crash and the bigger failure it revealed.

A premium buyer. A confirmed appointment. A perfect offer. Still, the deal died. Why?  Because the tech failed and the technician didn’t have a system that could survive without it.

If you're an electrician or home service pro relying on software like ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, or Jobber, this episode will shake up how you view your sales process.

We reveal:

• What really happened when Service Titan failed mid-sale
• How to close $8K+ jobs without an iPad, price book, or CRM
• Why presenting six hand-built options makes the difference when tech fails
• How to build emotional value in minutes, not hours
• The key differences between techs who close and techs who stall

Real training. No fluff. And a serious call to be better than your tools.

⚡ BONUS:

$8K SAME-DAY CLOSE: How a tech built new options on the fly in his car and closed it.

TEAM EXPANSION: How a simple “We don’t do that” became a new service offering.

PREMIUM BUYER TURNED AWAY: Why making the customer do the extra work kills trust.

 00:00 – Intro: The sale that should have closed
 02:30 – What went wrong: A buyer with cash meets a failed system
 06:00 – Value equation breakdown: Time delay and customer effort
 08:45 – Real wins from real clients using our Loop Method
 12:30 – Six-options vs. CRM dependence
 18:00 – How to recover after you’ve already failed
 22:00 – Final coaching: What to do differently next time

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Million Dollar Electrician
• 0:30 Joe's Latest Home Service Experience
• 3:02 When CRMs Crash: Service Failures
• 7:03 Client vs Customer: Service Excellence
• 12:12 Fail-Proof Options Without Technology
• 17:05 Scaling Solutions and Saving Sales
• 22:15 Final Advice and Weekly Wrap-up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician podcast where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.

Speaker 2: 0:13

I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeier, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service van.

Speaker 1: 0:20

Now it's time for sales, it's time for scale, it's time to become a million dollar electrician. Hello you guys, and welcome back to yet another episode of the Million Dollar Electrician podcast. I am joined, as always, by my esteemed co-host, joseph Lucani, fresh off vacation and ready to stun you guys. Today We've got some more Joe experiences. Of course, he was on days off. He had to have some troubles at home and call some other home service providers and have some more experiences, and I want to share with you guys why this episode may be valuable to you, because what we're going to do in this episode actually is unveil one of our little trademark secrets the things that we teach our clients to make your options fail proof. So even a failing CRM or no internet, no service like nothing could stop you from getting this done and getting a transaction. Joe, how are the holidays, brother?

Speaker 2: 1:24

You know it was phenomenal and you know it's cool that we're saying it's a holiday, because it was. It was nice, but it was a work away from work. Every year, my wife and I we like to do projects around the home, so I was able to take some time off to do more work and I loved it. I came back rested, refreshed, a little sore, but physically I'm feeling great. I'm so happy to do what we do.

Speaker 1: 1:44

You know what, coming from someone else who works from the basement office, I got to say it is actually really nice and it feels good to just get things off the honey-do list, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:55

Oh yeah, no, realistically open cycles, as we've said, are the vampires of our livelihood, and I've had this long honey-do list which I made. Like I made the list, but because we're so dedicated to what we do, both as fathers and as business owners, things get pushed aside that aren't essentials. So when I took the four days off, it was yeah, we're gutting the home, yeah, we're emptying everything out, but in any free time evenings, mornings and gaps I had we were doing things to get them off the list. And now the list is at zero, which is great.

Speaker 2: 2:25

All the afters are done. Almost all the helpfuls are done. Seasonals have been addressed.

Speaker 1: 2:29

I'm ready to rock and roll. Love that man. So answer the burning question here.

Speaker 2: 2:40

What broke this time, okay, well, so I'm in a situation where and it's not necessarily something broke, but there was an essential need for something, pretty much my wife brought to my attention that we need to have a whole home filtration system for our water, and obviously there's some reasons for that. But I agree with her. She says it needs it and I'm going to support it. But I'm in a situation now because now I need it and there's a lot that goes into it that I did not realize that it goes into a whole infiltration system and I had a whole experience getting someone out here and making it happen.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Experience. Here we go. Joe always has an experience. It's never just even keeled great service, not how Joe wants to be served. As a reminder, guys, we've been doing a few of these episodes where we're talking about not making assumptions about how your customers want to be served. That's one of the reasons we teach our six option secrets is because you can let your presentation and your development of what you present actually help you identify who this buyer is in front of you and how they want to be served. So, no matter what they choose, they're going to experience above standard and premium level service. However, they still have choice in the matter. Fortunately, no one ever gives Joe that choice. So let's uncover what happened this time, joe. Go deeper for us, brother.

Speaker 2: 3:53

So the funny thing was is I actually expected there to be an issue, not with them. They seemed like a great company, but obviously I've had so many bad experiences in the past that I actually called them in advance and I said I understand you're going to come out and I understand you're going to test the water. I'm letting you know that you can do that, but I want to make moves on this. This is not something I'm shopping out. I want to get something done. Please come prepared to make that happen. And he's like great, no problem, we'll make that happen. Awesome day of shows up exactly on time. He did. All the confirmations were there. The office was phenomenal, no issues.

Speaker 2: 4:29

It turns out, though, that when I brought him to the kitchen table, I'm like so what are we doing? He started going into descriptions what was happening, but his service titan decided to crash. Now, normally, that wouldn't bother me, because, as someone who's built options on the fly off, you know bits of scrap paper. It wouldn't bother me because, as someone who's built options on the fly off, you know bits of scrap paper. It didn't bother me. I didn't think he was going to halt the presentation, but he couldn't give me what I wanted. He came because what he said was I knew you said you wanted to do something. So when I knew Service Titan crashed, I went back to the office and I actually started making some options that I thought you were going to want, and I already got them all built out and I brought them.

Speaker 2: 5:06

He only made two options, right, but the thing was he made them. He had to go back to the shop and print them out. And I paused him like, well, that's not necessarily what I want. I mean, I want that, don't get me wrong, but this is not a logical purchase, this is an emotional purchase and I want to go overkill on this for that reason. So we need to add more to this package. And he was like, oh, we can do that, sure, but I want to do that today.

Speaker 2: 5:29

I was like what can we do to make that happen today? He's like well, we can't do that today. Why can't we do that today? It's like well, our CRM crashed. How does that stop you from giving me a number and shaking my hand? It's like well, I can't access my price book, so I can't even give you the prices, and I can't access my invoice, so I can't write you an agreement and I don't even have options to get into it. I don't have anything yet. Without Service Titan being open, I can't do anything with you right now. We can have a handshake, but there can be no exchange at this point.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I want to call a pause right here and just analyze, analyze this exact situation. Now I get that he's feeling a bit of pressure. You know what's worse than your trusted system not being there? So basically, your crutch is gone and now you're forced to walk across the street and you haven't walked on your own in maybe years. I feel for the individual Joe I got to say I understand, but also he's saying, well, I can't do it today, so let's pull out Hormozy's value driver equation here. We've got two negatives on the bottom. The bottom first one's time delay and he's telling you there has to be time delay.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Yeah. So the first was there was time delay. Second was that after we eventually decided what I wanted, which was like multiple stages of filtration and protection, I was like, all right, so we have an overbuilt system. What about a backup to the backup system? And he's like, oh well, you're going to have to call a granite guy and he's going to have to come in. I'm like, wait, no, no, no, I don't want to call anyone. I want to give you money. I want you to do the thing. He it. It's not something we do. I can give you numbers and you can call them and I'm like you know what? I wanted to buy it, but if I have to do extra steps, I'm not going to buy it. Let's just stick with what we have right now and we'll do that. I want to do it. If you change your mind that you can do the granite, I'll do it. But I want one warranty with one company no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 7:33

This is such a big piece of it. Okay. These service providers are so fortunate to have someone like joe who actually calls to attention the things that he feels and thinks Most people don't do this. We covered this on an episode recently where we talked about this is the most dangerous space, the space at which people don't quite say it, but it lives there. It's a real truth. You're not serving someone really at a level where they want to be served and maybe, maybe even they don't realize how important this stuff is because they haven't spent so much time as we have analyzing these truths and what it means to be served. But if you're delaying time and you're making your customers do more, you are missing out wholly and truthfully. Let me insert a win of the week. I know you had one too, but I think this ties perfectly into this. Go for it.

Speaker 1: 8:20

So recent clients of ours, charlie and Wendy. They learned about this exact process that we're talking about, but it wasn't about a granite guy. It was about painting, drywall patching and painting. How many electricians maybe it's you guys listening right now? If it is, I encourage you to take action. Like Charlie and Wendy, have they literally brought a painter on board and instead of, like every electrician, saying, well, I'm an electrician, not a painter, they embrace this and said, gosh, we are missing this, we're not doing that thing. And, as a result, not only do they have painting and all their options and prioritize that for their customers who are electrical customers, they're now accepting additional relationships, additional contracts and projects and work for their painter independently. It literally branched off and became another piece of their business, another department. Now, joe, I get that we're electricians and maybe a little proud to paint. I mean, who doesn't love watching some paint dry? Not me too. But if someone's willing to pay you for that and that's a profitable venture on side of your electrical, are you willing to do it?

Speaker 2: 9:28

I mean I don't want to put this in too broad terms, but if the number makes sense, there are very few things I won't consider doing Because, at the end of the day, it's my customer wants to be served. Actually, here's a good way of describing it For a client, I'm willing to do a lot of things, but for a customer it's different. A client is someone you want to invest in long term, and I'm willing to invest in the relationship and go outside the box to be so different than what they've experienced that they want to work with me for life. Whether that's I'm coming with a saw and trimming branches around the house, whether that's I'm shoveling your walkway when I come in and bring in the garbage, whether it's I'm painting your home. If we do the things so they don't have to, I can very literally say your only responsibility is to sign the check and for it to clear. You do nothing else and I will do everything short of rubbing your feet, included.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Nice, really good stuff. Now, I didn't want to sell you short on your win. Did you want to throw a win in here this week too? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:27

There's one I'm super proud. Alex just absolutely did an amazing job. He, oh, yeah, yeah, there's. There's one I'm super proud. Alex just absolutely did an amazing job. He's one of my favorite clients. I love this guy.

Speaker 2: 10:35

He had a situation where he came to me yesterday in the options class and, as you guys know, we lead an options class where our clients can come in and talk to me on things they're trying to build and we build them on the fly with them. And he came in and said you know, joe, I'm doing a presentation in an hour. I'm getting in the car, I'm getting ready to go in like 20 minutes. He's like I have to go, but I'm not sure about this presentation. Can you review it with me? Can we tweak it quick, like I only have 20 minutes, but can we tweak it and can we do a run through of how it should be presented? And what ended up happening was we even did it while he was driving to the call, like he actually switched off his tablet, switched over to his phone and went in the call and we were really working with us while driving there and we redid his presentation and then I had him present it to me. I then judged based off his techniques, tweaked it in ways that he could actuate in real time and the win was it was an $8,000 sale. He got the job and it was an 8K sale.

Speaker 2: 11:28

But that's not even the win itself. Like that's already a huge win, but there's more. But wait, there's more. This was for a landlord and the tenant was present at the same time. So the landlord, literally out of state, comes in, is sitting with him side by side. He shows up and they're like listen, I want to get this done, but we only have 20 minutes. What can you do? So he had to go completely off the cuff but because we prepped him on how to consolidate your information to the most effective way, he was able to present it in a way that built value in a very short period of time, asked how he'd like to proceed and close on a bronze, 8k job and benefit is he's going back to look at their main house for more electric. Like they literally want more work in addition to what he's doing.

Speaker 1: 12:12

Nicely done, alex, and great guidance, joe. Well done, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing. Let's get back to the subject matter here. How can we fix this water filtration job? How would you have done it differently? What is it that we teach? That would have absolutely crushed what you experienced here.

Speaker 2: 12:31

So, to put in context, I'm a premium buyer who wants to buy. I was very clear that if he it wasn't even price-based, I was like, if you can do this in the way that I want, I am looking to invest in this today. That should set off as many red flags or any flashing lights into the salesperson's mind as possible. The fact that he couldn't have access to his numbers, as well as not having access to the ability of presenting an option difference or even giving me the invoice. My thought is, why even come? Because I would rather be able to reposition this and say I would rather make sure that we're in a situation that if I'm with my client, if I can't even sell it, why am I going? I can't physically win. If I did everything the client wanted me to do, I still couldn't do the job. So what would we do differently? The difference is, if he instead worked off a service rate where he knew the physical number and can calculate it by himself, he wouldn't need to be tied to our price book. So that'd be situation number one. It by himself, he wouldn't need to be tied to our price book. So that'd be situation number one. Yep, situation number two was.

Speaker 2: 13:34

He came pre-prepared with two different options, not a full suite, two options not knowing what I wanted, only based on the description of what I gave him over the phone.

Speaker 2: 13:45

So, additionally, I would have wanted to question what I want and find out that it's emotional, not logical. If he did that, then he'd be able to give me more on-code options. Then, once he understands my need, I would recommend presenting a range of choices, from the overkill to where I say no, all the way down to the barest, most minimum, where it's like a Home Depot filter, and realistically I may not have bought the top one at that level, but at least if he had offered it, I would have been able to tell him no, because what happened instead was he made his offer, it was his best offer and it wasn't enough. It didn't solve the emotional concern I had. So I literally asked him for more and he couldn't sell it to me. Not that he didn't want to, he was a phenomenal guy, I really like him but he could not sell me because he could not do it off a CRM.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Nice, I want to add some dimension to this. You literally told them on the phone what your needs were and how you like to buy Exactly. So, right off the dispatch point of view, right from CSR ground zero, I've got what could be a VIP customer here client, rather, someone that might be part of our maintenance program I bought it over the phone actually I bought the maintenance agreement over the phone, the the membership.

Speaker 1: 15:00

I already purchased it okay, so right then and there I already know that I've got you in the bag for years more. Yeah, forgive that expression, it's not really about that. It's about service and and maintaining that client, you've created a lifetime client? Yeah, absolutely, and so what you're suggesting, then, is they came then unprepared to be able to serve you at that level. So what is it about our program or what we teach that could have solved this piece for them?

Speaker 2: 15:31

So the thing is we don't lean on technology as the crutch. What we do is we put the technology in the technician's hands because it's not something that breaks. We know our own prices. We have our own service rate that a technician can understand and have full accountability over. So he could give me a number based on our pricing principles and be safe because it would account for material, it would account for anything else that would be into it. So one if he had a service rate, he could have given me a number. We could have at least had a handshake you know what I mean Like something I would have given him $20. I don't care Whatever it was. If we could have agreed on it and had a number, I could have said yes yeah, he could have said something like hey, joe, here's the funny part.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Because the crm isn't working today, we're able to have this agreement, happy to shake your hand, but I'm actually not even able to follow our policy of that 50 deposit that we would otherwise collect to put you on the schedule. So you're off the hook this time. But would it be fair of me to say you know what? What? As soon as this gets back online, I'm able to come back out here, go over the options again, make sure you're happy with everything you elected, collect that deposit and we'll continue to work together.

Speaker 2: 16:39

Yeah, you know, actually you brought something up that I completely forgot to mention. Well, there was at one point where I actually was ready to buy, because he was like he went through like the backdoor different ways. Like I can log into my email, I can print it off to myself, I could then send it to another email and then I could show it to you and then I can send from there to you, and then you could see something like okay, cool, let's make it happen. So he sent me one thing and I thought it was what I wanted and I'm ready to click accept right, cause this is like three or four different channels of email now and I'm like hey, just so you're aware, is this the best that we could have done? And he's like well, we could have also included this, this and this.

Speaker 2: 17:15

Like, okay, let's time this out. Can we do that? Well, I'd have to get you numbers for that. Okay, well, I'm not going to do this right now because I want to make sure I'm making the right decision. Can we move forward tomorrow? And literally that was the situation. I was ready to buy, I was so close and he had gone through so many backdoor channels to get it to work, but he couldn't, and I wanted to move forward.

Speaker 1: 17:37

I personally, because you've identified yourself as a lifetime client, even if I didn't have this process and training nailed down a lifetime client, even if I didn't have this process and training nailed down, I'd be willing to take some risk and work outside of a regular process to as Jacob said, actually on the podcast with him to humanize the exception.

Speaker 2: 17:54

Exactly. I love that and the additional things that I would have recommended at this point is really scaling in two different ways. The first was when you present your solutions, you should never assume what the customer wants until they tell you right. But at the same time, no matter what the house looks like, no matter what the person looks like, they need to see the full range of premium, mid-range and economy.

Speaker 2: 18:17

I can understand I didn't present as a premium buyer. In how my appearance was at the time, I was wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a muscle shirt, so I can imagine I wasn't showing up in a suit. But the fact was is I was ready to buy, I had the cash, I was ready to do it, but because it wasn't presented, I couldn't say yes, even though I wanted to. So start with your best, make sure that you have it scaling from the best, then go to your mid ranges, then go to your economies and as long as you have the range, I won't need to shop it out because I see the full thing. I have everything I need in front of me. It wasn't something that was going to shop out, I just wanted to do it. So if you had offered the range, even I could have been even taken a bottom option Like, hey, let's start here, let's at least get get this on the calendar, start ordering the materials and then come back tomorrow and we'll upgrade. That wasn't even suggested.

Speaker 1: 19:04

I've got a photo somewhere in our archives of one of our clients who came in, absolutely jumped into this, didn't even have an iPod yet, an iPad yet. Rather, ipods are important too, guys. Maybe fading, maybe fading a bit, but he didn't have an iPad yet literally wrote six options in blue ink and made a $24,000 sale from a written set of options that he was able to price. And just do you earn a certain respect when you're able to completely customize and just serve your clients at the highest level? I think there was definitely an opportunity for that to happen here. It's not actually uncommon what you're saying, though Unfortunately it is common. These things are happening. Nobody really talks about it. We rely on price books and the CRM is our crutch, and when it breaks down, as does our process, and we lose lifetime potential with people who would otherwise repeat, refer and leave us multiple reviews throughout the relationship with us, and those add up, joe, that's my concern for this one.

Speaker 2: 20:07

You know, in addition to it, like I want to make it super clear that they were a phenomenal company, like their customer service was great over the phone, their follow through, their follow up, all their marketing, all the engagements. I felt phenomenal working with them, which is why I didn't want to price it out. I liked them but, despite having a great person in my home and a great reputation and a great brand and having a customer who wants to buy, it couldn't happen. It didn't happen and it should have happened, All right.

Speaker 1: 20:37

So here's the coaching question to wrap us up here today. If they were on the call right now, they're looking for your guidance what would you advise them to do to salvage this situation? To salvage it.

Speaker 2: 20:49

So what I'd want ideally is if the person were to give me a call at the morning the following day or within 24 hours and say I'm really thinking about the situation and I've been thinking about what I can do in your home because it just wasn't sitting right in the way that we served you here. So what I'd like to do, if you're open to it, is can I come back to your home, maybe meet with you and Melanie and I'll show you a full menu from the best you could have. So at least you know what it is, down to the most cobbled thing you can do, and obviously I know you don't want to go that route, but at least you'd know. Would it be wrong? I mean, at least show you that. And if you want to continue with what you have, we can do that. What are your thoughts? I would be fine with that, I'd be totally fine with that. So that's the first thing Get back in the door, show the options and then make sure, if nothing else, at least secure the job you already have, get the deposit.

Speaker 2: 21:37

There's a second thing that I would recommend as well, and that's when we started talking about money down, we were talking about and saying well, what do you, what do you require? And he said well, usually what we do is we take 50%. And I stopped him. I was like timeout. I was like I have to take the customer hat off and put on the coach hat and simply say don't tell me usually, because that gives me a choice. If you are requiring 50%, don't bend on it. That's what it is, because the moment you give me a choice, I'm going to argue it. But if it's not a choice and that's what it requires, that's what I would do. He's like all right, that's what we'll do. It's 50%. I'm like great, when you can give it to me.

Speaker 1: 22:16

I'll give you the deposit. I was like, just get me the thing, make it happen, so I'm still waiting for it. This is where, with your money right now, joe, what's going on?

Speaker 2: 22:23

I don't know it's haram, apparently. I don't know it is what it is, but I want to be served. I want to coach the people who are serving me, because I'm not trying to dick them around. I genuinely want to be served and I'm willing to pay for it and I'm willing to teach and even I'm willing to take some on the chin if necessary. I know they're not all going to be perfect, but I know what I want, I know I can afford and I just want to make it happen. Time is very important to me, so maybe there is something wrong with my money. I don't know, but I'm doing the best I can.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Maybe we're going to follow up and have another episode about the arborists and the outcome there, following that popular first one about what we learned from them and everything we could do to serve better. You know it's we covered so much here. We did, but nothing that isn't just outside of great service, you guys. So you're going to ask yourselves are you really ready to serve your customers even if the technology is absent? Or would this be a place where maybe you'd fall short too? And if that's the case, then you know what? Like Charlie Munger said, show me where I'll die so I never go there. Maybe it's time to build a fortress around those places and adopt a process that allows you to serve no matter what the technology is doing. Guys, wishing you the best week, we'll see you again next week on the podcast. Be blessed, my friends. See you soon.

Speaker 2: 23:52

And that's a week. We'll see you again next week on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Be blessed my friends, see you soon.