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Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business.

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The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez  00:13

Welcome to this episode of the How of Business. This is Henry Lopez. My guest today is Dean Curtis. Dean, welcome to the show. Henry, thanks so much for having me on. Absolutely, we’re going to talk about, especially for home services businesses, but it can apply to other businesses. But when you have that sale that’s often won or lost, as we say, at the customer’s kitchen table or in their garage or in the driveway, Dean Curtis, who is with Ingage, joins me today to share how a more consistent, professional in-home presentation can dramatically improve your close rates, and they have the case studies to prove it from their clients. You can find all of the how a business resources, including the show notes page for this episode, which is where you’re going to go for a discount code if you’re interested. We’ll talk about that in a moment, but show notes page for this episode and to learn more about my one-on-one and group coaching programs, go to thehowabuzziness.com. I also invite you to consider supporting this podcast and joining the Howell Business community on Patreon, and please subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don’t miss any new episodes. Let me tell you a little bit more about Dean, and then we’ll get into the conversation. Dean Curtis has a passion for technology and business. He has served in leadership roles throughout his career at Apple, at Palm, at Intellisync, Oracle. At Apple, Dean was instrumental in defining and executing the strategy for adoption of iPhone and iPad across the Fortune 500. He joined Ingage in February of 2017 as their chief revenue officer and COO, and he was named the CEO of Ingage in October of 2019. Since 2008, Ingage has helped sales teams build interactive presentations that grab attention. It’s an easy-to-use tool for creating, sharing, and measuring standout sales content, and we’ll describe it a bit more here in a moment. But that’s the product that Ingage offers that helps salespeople become that much more effective and improve close rates. So, with all of that, once again, Dean Curtis, welcome to the show.

 

Dean Curtis  02:20

Thanks, Henry. That’s it’s a lot. So I think I have a lot to live up to. I’m

 

Henry Lopez  02:24

sure that you will, sir. Running

 

Dean Curtis  02:26

through the history lesson there,

 

Henry Lopez  02:27

absolutely. So let’s start with give us the the the high level pitch. What what is the solution that Ingage offers?

 

Dean Curtis  02:34

Yeah. So if you’re a home service home improvement company, you are selling in the home, and you are trying to convince the person that you’re talking to that you’re the right person to solve the problem they called you called you there to solve, and that process is highly educational. And what we learned early on in our our look at that market was what people were using in the home was not very convincing. It was typically off brand. It was random, depending on the sales rep who went. They were changing a lot of things. It was out of order. It didn’t match the sales process. And our first few customers helped us understand that when they have a really consistent on-brand professional set of content for their salespeople to use that matches their sales process, they close more deals because they’re training on this sales process. They are training on the company story and the products they sell and the process they do. And what they found was the more consistent they could make the materials that the the sellers were using, the better they were doing in the home. And we originally did not set out to solve this problem for home improvement. We found product market fit in home improvement because we found that we could tailor our solution exactly to this problem, and we changed our go to market to focus on this industry because we helped them create this amazing content. We helped to make sure their sales reps all had the latest version when they went into the home, and then we gave sales leaders the tools to understand what that sales rep was doing and if it matched what they trained on, so they could then coach and upskill their sales team based on closing percentage and how well they were doing in the home. So yeah, we’re software for the trades,

 

Henry Lopez  04:21

and Sadina, explain how it is actually used. When if I’m using it as a salesperson in my company or me, I’m an independent one one person operation, and I show up at the at the prospective customer’s home. How is it that I use this tool?

 

Dean Curtis  04:36

Yeah, I’ll go from small use case to a bigger use case. So the most simple thing we had one of our recent customers. They simply downloaded a piece of content from one of our building product manufacturers. So we have relationships with some of the largest companies out there: Provia, James Hardie, Certainteed, etc. Major brands that a home improvement person can’t be a home improvement person. Without products to install, and all this person did was grab this pre-made content from Provia Windows and used that when they were pitching in the home to show off all the features of Provia Windows. In a weekend, they closed $100,000 in sales, and it was total game changer on how they were able to showcase the value of Provia Windows. That’s the most simple case. They didn’t build anything themselves. They only used something from a marketplace that was provided by one of the building product manufacturers. You step up there. Let me

 

Henry Lopez  05:32

let me interrupt there because that that’s so critical. Here is a small operator. Could have been a one person. Could have been a two person shop. It doesn’t matter. Instead of them having to go create all of this marketing material, these vendors have invested millions and millions of dollars to develop the messaging that connects with people. It’s just a matter of how to now get that in front of that prospective customer at the dining room table. Let’s say, in a consistent way, right? It still requires that person to bender to make that personal connection, but now what was shared was the best that it can be. Yeah, that’s

 

Dean Curtis  06:08

right, and it helped them convert because they they were more well versed in all the different options of the windows and how the windows are constructed and the different sill options, different grid options, like all of it’s included in this really rich professional content, and it also made the one-person shop look the same as the 100-person shop, because most of the time the smaller guy doesn’t have the resources to build this kind of stuff.

 

Henry Lopez  06:34

Right,

 

Dean Curtis  06:34

and if we can provide it, that’s a that’s a huge win for the contractor.

 

Henry Lopez  06:39

All right, so I interrupted you then at the larger end, let’s say it’s a franchise group, or you’ve got you know multiple vans running around in multiple cities.

 

Dean Curtis  06:46

Well, I’ll even build on that one person use case. So maybe the the first piece of content that that he downloaded was the the window presentation, but we also have an easy way for them to download a company story, which is about their company, how long they’ve been in business, their business licenses. We’ve seen this hundreds and hundreds of times. We know what homeowners want to know, so that they can trust you that you are a reputable contractor to do the work. So there’s other content within our marketplace that that solopreneur, that one or two man shop, can use and easily customize, customize for your brand using AI. Understand, you know, put your customer success pictures in there, your testimonials, your customer stories. Really, really simply. So that’s like the simplest level. And then you can go all the way up to: I’m a big company. I have a really high-powered marketing team, and I want to create all this content from scratch? No problem. We can support that too. So it really scales from that one one to two person solopreneur, entrepreneurial roofer. You know the the classical truck in a truck, Jan in a van, who just wants to be like the other guys, to the biggest and the best of the home improvement industry. This is

 

Henry Lopez  08:03

Henry Lopez briefly pausing this episode to share exciting news about business bookkeeping. Yes, bookkeeping-it can be exciting, especially when it’s accurate and timely, and you don’t have to do it. I’m excited to announce that I’ve launched the How of Business Bookkeeping, a technology-driven essential bookkeeping service for small business owners like you, and I’m accepting a limited number of clients in our early access program. Let me ask you this: Do you have accurate and timely financials to measure the performance of your business and help you make critical decisions? If you’re behind on your books, or tired of doing it yourself, or frustrated with your current bookkeeper, then I invite you to consider my new bookkeeping service, the How of Business Bookkeeping. The service includes your QuickBooks Online subscription, monthly account and credit card reconciliations, accurate financial reports, a KPI dashboard, and professional bookkeeping support. So you always know where your business stands, and you can make decisions with confidence. All of our bookkeeping work is performed by U.S.-based QuickBooks certified bookkeepers, ensuring your books are handled accurately and professionally. And it’s all brought to you by my company, The Howa Business, a name you can trust to help you run and grow your small business. And right now, I’m waiving the $99 onboarding fee for new clients. So to learn more or to schedule a free consultation, just visit thehowabusiness.com. Look for the bookkeeping service link on the homepage or on the menu. Take that first step today, and finally get the timely and accurate bookkeeping you need to help you grow your small business. Visit thehowabusiness.com to learn more. All right. Let’s break this down now, and and I want to start getting into kind of the reasons why a tool like this is effective. But I want to really focus on the principles of it, regardless of the tool. The tool makes it that much more possible. But consistency, for example, and what you all see now that you work with these. Companies, why is that consistency in the sales process? Whether I’m using your tool or whatever other tool, why have you found that that’s so important with this type of sales?

 

Dean Curtis  10:11

These types of sales are so. Our core market is the replacement remodeling market. That’s very different than the custom design build market, right? If I’m going in and doing a custom kitchen, I’m literally selling something unique every single time.

 

Henry Lopez  10:25

Right.

 

Dean Curtis  10:26

In the replacement remodeling space, roofing, windows, doors, siding, gutters, one day bath. That world is the same thing being sold over and over and over again. The objections are very are very common. The things somebody needs to know about the product are very common. The process that you use, financing-it’s all very, very consistent. And the more consistent a salesperson is in their approach to that appointment, the higher they’re going to close. There’s data upon data that shows it. And what companies do is they build that, they train that process over and over again, and they build content around it to support it. Because they know, for example, when I get to the point where you’re like, “I think this is for me, but I’m not sure I can afford it. They know at that moment the exact content to show to explain the different affordability options for that for that client, or they know that I can’t show products until I until I show that my process is going to fit their thing. I can’t show process until they trust me as a company. So, like the flow of that has to be really, really consistent, and that consistently consistency leads to more sales.

 

Henry Lopez  11:39

Yeah, and one one of the things I’ve seen in in leading sales teams or or my clients is often what falls into this category is a tendency sometimes to say or allow maybe perhaps the the prospect to dictate the path or the process say well maybe we don’t need that we’ll just talk about it out here by the window that’s part of that consistency as well making sure that we do build that value in the best way possible, and not skip that steps. That speaks to consistency as well. Is that what you have found as well?

 

Dean Curtis  12:10

Yes, I believe so. I I think the challenge that most salespeople have, especially younger salespeople, they’re taught a process, and they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to go straight through A to Z, and if I do that, that’s fine. Well, what’s the old Mike Tyson quote? Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face, right? Everyone has a plan until somebody lobs an objection that you’re not prepared to answer till 17 pages down in your linear PowerPoint. How are you supposed to get that question answered so you can continue moving on and not rat hole. Well, I look at it this way: Have you ever played bingo? You ever been to a bingo night? And they have the big board, and it’s all the numbers, right? B-I-N-G-O, and then the numbers across. Well, the winning combination of numbers lights up a different pattern on that board every single game, right? If you’ve ever been to bingo, except for maybe the last game when you got to cover the whole thing, that’s when every every light is on. Well, imagine a sales call is the pattern of lights that have to go on that bingo board for you to get the sale. It’s random sometimes. You want to start on the left and go to the right, but a lot of times you can’t. Yet every number on that board represents something you should probably know that the customer will ask you an objection, a product fact, something about your business. Like every number on that bingo board is knowledge that your salesperson has to have. The best salespeople understand the lights to light up for that particular customer to get them to yes.

 

Henry Lopez  13:44

Okay, but then how how does not then a structured tool like this, if I’m understanding it correctly so far, how does that not make it more difficult for me to be able to adjust to what the prospect is asking of me? They want to jump to this objection. No, wait a second. I got to get through this video first, or these slides first.

 

Dean Curtis  14:04

Most presentations, as you think of them, are what they’re very, very linear, right? Sequential. I’m going to play

 

Henry Lopez  14:10

you this presentation, and it’s going to take X amount of time to get through the slides.

 

Dean Curtis  14:14

That’s right. Our platform allows you to move dynamically around very, very easily through a dynamic navigation paradigm, like a that’s a technical thing, doesn’t really matter. But imagine you can move anywhere really easily to answer that question. Get back to where you were. You can easily bring up another piece of content that maybe answers their question. You can jump out to the web and answer something that’s not locally on your iPad. So all of those things are built in, and the whole idea of interactive content is not only the visuals we’re presenting, but the way you can use it allows you to be dynamic in how you approach the presentation.

 

Henry Lopez  14:55

Excellent, excellent. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The other thing, of course, we we we kind of. We haven’t talked about specifically trust is such an important component, obviously of all sales, but especially these types of sales, and often contractors or these types of home services. I mean, the reality is, at least from my experience, they don’t have a lot of trust built in, right? So, what do you? How do you think that this helps, or what do you think it is that can help in general for that salesperson to gain trust.

 

Dean Curtis  15:24

Yeah, there’s a few things. Number one, it’s their brand. When you send content out with salespeople now, a lot of times they they get creative and they change it, and we prevent them from doing that if you want to. So the brand matters, right? Within point 05 seconds of you showing up their at their door, they’ve made a judgment call on your brand. What you mean? That’s

 

Henry Lopez  15:45

what your truck looks like, what you look like, how you read everything, all of those things. Yeah. Are

 

Dean Curtis  15:50

you well kept? Are you not? Do you put booties on your shoes? Do you take your shoes off when they come in your house? That is all related to your brand and the brand that you bring personally, but the brand that you show and how well prepared you are represents trust. That’s number one. The second one: Do they see themself in the process that you use in sales? So when I bring out content, do I show them something that matches their neighborhood, or am I having them make the leap in the connection-it’s massive. How can I make that personal and that that that? Can

 

Henry Lopez  16:25

you give me an example there on that? What that might look like?

 

Dean Curtis  16:28

Totally. Imagine the first page of your presentation is their house, not a house. Imagine the words on the cover when you show up are you know Henry Lopez, 123 Main Street, not random person’s house with some random text. So we can do all of these types of fun things with our platform, but that personalization builds trust as well. And then I think the third one is education. This market that we sell in, and I think every sales market, there’s a certain level of education that’s part of sales. When you are seen as the guide in that story and not the hero, you make them the hero. Their problem is needs to be solved. They’re the hero that’s going to make the roof safe for their family or stop the draft coming in from the windows. If you can tell a great story and show that you could be the perfect guide to solve that problem for them. Those three things: brand, personalization, and helping be the guide and allow them to be the hero. Those things build trust immediately because guess what? No one cares what you can sell, what you can install if they don’t trust you.

 

Henry Lopez  17:40

Right, been my experience as well, and there’s all of those little things add up to trust. True trust takes time to build, but we can build quick trust, enough trust to get to that dining room table and have them trust us enough that we’re going to get them what they need to solve their problem or their challenge or their aspiration, and all of those little things add up.

 

Dean Curtis  18:02

Yep, totally.

 

Henry Lopez  18:02

Let’s talk about some best practices that you’ve seen. You’ve done a lot of case studies, a lot of case studies on your website about your clients using this, and just in general. But to improve close rates, what’s two or three things that the winners, those companies that do it well, that stand out that they do that maybe others don’t too.

 

Dean Curtis  18:22

Yeah, the number one is that they they invest in the training of their team and they don’t wing it. You know, some people will build great content, hand it to their sales reps, pat them on the back, and wish them good luck. And the best ones, they have a training ritual within their team. So from the time they’re brought on the team weekly, biweekly, daily standups where they are literally going through, looking at the analytics. It looks like people aren’t using these pages. What’s going on? And then creating that dialog because you can’t train in a vacuum. You need to understand what the pain points are. So training. The second one is practicing. You need to give them time to practice before they go out. So I could train you on everything, but if I don’t give you some safe reps to do with your peers without having your quota on the line, that practice piece is also critical. So our best customers they train, they practice, and then once the the the sales rep goes out and and does the pitch. They have a feedback loop and a coaching loop that allows them to really inform what needs to be trained, what needs to be practiced, so that the next time they pitch, maybe there’s some objections they didn’t handle well. Maybe there’s sections of the content they never got to, but they know the best closers get to page seven within 20 minutes, and they’re not getting there. So that type of insight from the analytics allows them to have that coaching rhythm. So the the best ones they train, they practice, and then they coach, so that every time they pitch, they’re getting a little bit better.

 

Henry Lopez  19:55

All right, let me break that down a little bit. The practice is I have never met a salesperson, including myself. That doesn’t hate what we used to call role play, right? But you’re seeing that that has not fallen out of effectiveness. That you have to get your team, and of course, there’s nothing harder than presenting to your peers or your manager. But it is still one of the best ways to make sure you’re getting it right. It’s not as opposed to saying, “Well, you’ll get better as you get out there and pitch it, and have burn through prospects as your test audience.

 

Dean Curtis  20:26

Yeah, but when when a lead costs you $1,200 to sit at their table, that’s expensive training. Very expensive training grant. Yeah, and there’s a lot of folks out that we work with a lot of coaching partners. So the these guys who work similar to yourself, where they’re coaching and they’re building AI that you can practice with yourself against the AI as well, right? And I think there’s great ways to demystify the frustration or the the uneasiness of presenting to your peers with technology that can help as well to you know make that a little bit easier. And also, I can get reps at 11 o’clock at night when my teammates are off with their families, and I might be able to get some good feedback from those types of things.

 

Henry Lopez  21:05

Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s a great approach. Even back in my early days in the ’90s of selling, we would just record ourselves, and even that with you know with videotapes. So now there’s so much technology that can help you with that, but it’s so critical. And then of course you you get better and better in that feedback. So, how have you find that the organizations that do it well that that feedback or coaching doesn’t feel like Big Brother watching every word I’m saying at a presentation because that that can be paralyzing if nothing else is well. So, how does it work well?

 

Dean Curtis  21:36

It works well when it’s not a top down mandate. So, I’ll say that in two ways. One, our best customers do have a top-down mandate of saying this is how we sell. This is the content we use. It’s our process we use. There has to be a mandate. But where it fails is when the boss is the only one who’s part of the feedback loop. And if the sales rep is out there in the field and like, hey, listen, I get to the financing. I use financing as an example because everybody does it really poorly. Like it’s it’s a big tripping point for a lot of our customers. It’s like, well, when I get to the financing page, this page doesn’t actually support the talk track that you want me to say. If we made this little tweak, I think we could be more effective in if the sales leadership or leadership or marketing, whoever’s building the content doesn’t have open ears. It’s a, it’s going to fail. And the best customers, it’s a, it’s literally a loop. It’s not a one-way communication. This is always how you do it. They’re, they’re open. They’re humble. They’re, they’re curious enough to hear. Well, what actually happens in Henry’s home, because that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where this stuff is proven to be useful or not useful. And the sales reps are the ones who are doing the reps over and over and over again. They’re the ones that have that information. So that two-way street of communication is so important.

 

Henry Lopez  22:56

Have you found? Obviously, probably varies to some extent. Certainly by product, but is there like a a good range of time that that presentation section should last? Is there have you got any data on that that says it should be about this long?

 

Dean Curtis  23:11

So let me tell you what it’s this is a really hard problem to solve in our product because we need to we build telemetry in our product to understand where people are getting value. So, as the software vendor, I might look at your usage and you’re using it for 15 minutes at a clip, and then I look at another company; they’re using it for 75 minutes.

 

Speaker 4  23:31

Wow!

 

Dean Curtis  23:31

Does that mean you’re not being successful yet? The other one is. I don’t know because I’ve talked to a number of customers. Some people use it as a resource. I go in and out to answer questions, but our script is different from the presentation. Some people have a process that is soup to nuts. I need to show something at every phase. So the I know it’s a weak answer, Henry, but it’s it depends. But how do you how do you know?

 

Henry Lopez  23:58

You said something a moment ago, about what’s most effective. How do you know what’s most effective in that 30 minutes worth of content or 10 minutes worth of content?

 

Dean Curtis  24:08

There, it’s again, it depends on the on the client, right? Okay. So some clients who I did a one of my favorite things to do is to literally go into the field. I watch the morning the morning meetup, and then I get in a car and I go and watch people use the product. I went with two different people from the same company. One of them, great salesperson, used it for about 20 minutes total in a two-hour meeting. One person referred to it over and over again, and I asked them when we got back. I was like, I noticed that you know, person one did it this way and person two did it that way. One sales leader, are you okay with that? And the answer is yes, as long as they’re closing business, right?

 

Henry Lopez  24:45

Right.

 

Dean Curtis  24:46

And what I found was the newer rep used it more because it helped them stay on task. The more experienced rep knew the places that he needed to bring it into the conversation to solidify a point or answer a question. Or or handle an objection, so it’s not a one size fits all thing. Yeah, the the the learning though is that content helps convert, and how they use it depends on the process, the expectation, and also what you’re selling. Some things are just more visual and need that support.

 

Henry Lopez  25:16

Right, exactly, and and it helps it, but but it makes sense to me if I apply it, maybe an old old school sales guy, the thing that I worry about with any technology like that is how we used to worry about PowerPoint. That everything is my PowerPoint. Everybody’s looking at the PowerPoint and not me, right? The sale is made here between you and me and your wife and and whoever’s making the decision. If all I’m doing is pointing to the screen, I can see where that diminishes that, but again, either way works. The key, though, is that that at least using this tool keeps my message consistent, and I’m hitting on all of the things I need to. But it sounds like the better salespeople and users use it as a tool that’s part of their overall conversation they’re having at that kitchen table.

 

Dean Curtis  26:02

That’s right. I mean, who wants to be powerpointed to death?

 

Henry Lopez  26:06

Exactly. That’s my point. Now I get it. It makes sense that a newer sales rep might need it more. I’ll use the word crutch, not necessarily in a bad way, because but at least they’re following it until they get to a point where they’re comfortable not having to go off of it and have it be what prompts their next thing to say. Right? It helps us when we’re first nervous that we’re not going to say all the right things.

 

Dean Curtis  26:29

Yeah, and the other piece of it is the content within our platform is usually highly visual. Right? They’re videos, they’re walkthroughs, they’re time lapses, they’re they’re motion graphics, they’re things that capture someone’s attention. So the idea being, if I just if I just got done talking to you about a roofing system, and by the way, most people buy one roof in their entire life, maybe two, and it’s 20 years since they bought the last one, so they don’t remember anything from the first experience. And I start talking about underlayment and and and decking boards, and vapor barriers, and ridge vents-your head’s going to explode. But if I show you a visual with a tearaway interactive feature of a roof, where I just keep peeling back the layers, that solidifies the education that I’m giving you. So no, I don’t necessarily have to go page by page and bore you to death, but I do need to know that content well enough so it supports what I’m trying to teach you. So you trust me, you want to buy from me, and you see me as the solution to your problem.

 

Henry Lopez  27:30

Right, right. I love that. Yeah, and being able to go to that, I can see that you know, following on on that example, if I’m sitting with someone who doesn’t understand even where to begin, if I say, well, let me show you visually. Well, that that improves that trust, right? Because you’re, they don’t feel often. People feel like, okay, maybe I don’t really need that thing he said, but but if I show you why it’s so important and why we look for that and why, oh, okay, thank you. Now I appreciate that you took the time to educate me on that.

 

Dean Curtis  27:59

Yeah, I always encourage people to put a couple horror slides in, right? So we have this really unique thing before and after slider. So you can say, “Hey, here’s your roof, but did you know this could be underneath? And it’s like this, like totally rotted thing, and the the attic is all moldy. And I mean, it’s just the visuals help.

 

Henry Lopez  28:17

Absolutely. All right. So related to this, you you touched on it when you first were explaining in the Ingage solution, but the marketplace is a key component to this. So, explain again how that works. I mean, I think we’re all getting now that I’m showing up with a laptop, right? Excuse me, not laptop, an iPad or a laptop, either laptop, whatever. I’m propping something up on the table. I’m using that as we’ve described to help me with my conversation and my pitch and my presentation. But the content on there, you’ve explained some of it. But the marketplace is key here. Explain that again and how that works and what’s on the marketplace that I can leverage.

 

Dean Curtis  28:57

Yeah. So the marketplace is filled with a few different types of content, so one is example presentations that we’ve built with our expertise and working with hundreds of clients in specific vertical markets: roofing, siding, windows, doors, gutters, concrete coatings, basement seal coating, like all these different markets. So we have a whole marketplace full of the typical story that you want to tell and build trust about how you solve those problems. So that’s one piece. The other is a library of templates with lots of different pages that allow you to showcase your work. So whether it’s an image gallery or a carousel of images, we have all these different ways that if you want to show your work, we have tons of pages to showcase customer testimonials. Right, people believe a testimonial from someone else for about at a 40% rate as if they’re their best friend. So, like, can you put your Google reviews in there? Can’t all of that. Templates for that easily customized, added to your content, and then on the other side of it, we have relationships with some of the largest building product manufacturers, siding manufacturers, roofing manufacturers, window manufacturers, seal coating companies of the you know the the different types of concrete coatings that you can put down. So 50 plus of those in our marketplace, that you can get ready-made content, so you don’t have to build that Provia content or the Owens Corning roofing system or the GAF roofing system. We have that pre-built for our customers.

 

Henry Lopez  30:33

That means if I’m following, not only do if I’m starting out with this, I have a starting point, a template. I don’t have to start from scratch as to what this presentation should be. I’ll adjust it for what I think I want to do and for my market. Then, especially as I grow beyond myself, I’ve got this library of additional content that I can bring in. Especially if I’m as I’m getting ready for a particular client, or I might customize it for pictures of their house, but I might bring in examples that would apply to them. I can pull these things from the marketplace to adjust that presentation so that it is a specific and non-target for that particular client. Is that that’s correct? That’s

 

Dean Curtis  31:16

right. And there’s also other things. So we’ve focused our whole conversation about being in the home, well, one of the biggest problems that a lot of companies have is they set the appointment and it never gets run because they cancel. So we also have good examples of content that you can send somebody to keep that appointment warm. I see content that you can use to send them after the appointment. Let’s say it wasn’t a one call close and you need to send some follow up to say, hey, here’s everything in our platform is infinitely shareable over the web. Then maybe you want to have a referral deck. Hey, thanks for being a customer. We’re done with your project. Send a piece of content that helps generate referrals for your business. So we focus because the the core is the in-home presentation. But there’s a lot of things during that entire customer journey where content can play a really big role as well,

 

Henry Lopez  32:03

and we have integration with CR with our CRM there to track all of that, right?

 

Dean Curtis  32:09

You can, yes, yeah,

 

Henry Lopez  32:10

yeah, okay. So since we’re on it, I think we’ve touched on everything that the Ingage solution provides at a high level. One of the opportunities we have here is Dean has made available a discount code. That’s How of Business is the discount code. I’ll have that on the show notes page for this episode at the HowOfBusiness.com. If you’re not, where you can write it down, but that’s going to get the listener using that code a 10% discount to what Dean

 

Dean Curtis  32:38

to Ingage Pro. So our our entry level offering for, and I think the audience is is probably more in the smaller business perspective, which we talked about ahead of time. And to get started on Ingage, our Ingage Pro offering gives you the opportunity to pick 10 things from our our marketplace and customize them for your business, and that would give you 10% off the $50 per user per month charge that you would that you would have.

 

Henry Lopez  33:07

Yeah, and again, you mentioned the pricing. I mean, the price point it really is very scalable. It is affordable for anybody from the single person in a van, like we said, all the way up to larger organizations. And that starting point is great, and you get a 10% discount on that. So the discount code will be on the show notes page again for this episode@thehowabusiness.com. And what’s the website that we should go to?

 

Dean Curtis  33:32

Our website is Ingage i n g a g e.io.

 

Henry Lopez  33:36

I’ll wrap it up with this last question. Let’s let’s put the technology aside. You obviously in your business now, and and observing like when you do those ride-alongs, you’re you’ve learned a heck of a lot about how this works well, how people who do it well, who are selling home services. What’s one or two tips when you see people who are not doing it well? What’s one or two things that if they would adjust might really improve their close rates.

 

Dean Curtis  34:02

Yeah, I think number one is to is to do the same thing every time. I mean, I’m not a big baseball guy, but I went to the Phillies game the other night, and I noticed a real pattern. The batters would come up to the plate, and they would go through the same routine every single time to maximize their success at the plate, and that’s the number one thing. If you’re if you’re winging it every time you go to a sale, and I don’t care if this is home improvement or anything, if you’re winging it every time you go to the sale, you don’t know what works and what doesn’t work.

 

Henry Lopez  34:33

But isn’t that part of why we might be winging it as we’re trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work?

 

Dean Curtis  34:39

I think at at some point, though, you need to have a plan. And sure, early on, if especially you’re the solopreneur, you’re trying to figure out sales. But at some point, you have to do the same thing over and over again to see where it’s failing. It’s like the old, you know, high school experiment, Mister. I had a Mister Hand, which is crazy because I think it’s also part of. Times original high. My chemistry teacher would always tell us, like, stop changing five things at once. You’re never going to know what happens in the chemical reaction. You have to change one. And I think, sure, we want to iterate, and we want to, we want it, but we have to really think about. We have to

 

Henry Lopez  35:14

tweak. We, but we have to have some consistency. To your point, to see what works and what doesn’t work. Right.

 

Dean Curtis  35:19

That’s right. Okay. The second thing is technology is not a silver bullet. Like our product, anything people are going to come and say, “Oh, you need to deploy this technology in your business. I don’t think that’s true. I think you have to have a problem that technology solves, and you can actually say that technology helped me solve this specific problem that I have in my business. If you have an inconsistent sales process and you believe having content to guide you would be a good solution, we can help with that. But if you don’t, we can’t help that. So, like, make sure any and this is with any technology you bring into your business. And AI is such a shiny object right now. I have tons of friends who are like failing and failing and failing with AI projects, and I always ask them a really simple question: What problem were you hoping to solve? Well, it looks cool. Well, great. Lots of things look cool, but that doesn’t mean we have to do them.

 

Henry Lopez  36:12

Yeah, solution looking for a problem. Yeah,

 

Dean Curtis  36:13

that’s right. Make sure you have a problem before you apply software to it.

 

Henry Lopez  36:17

All right. Was there anything about the Ingage solution that we did not touch on at a high level?

 

Dean Curtis  36:21

I think we’re good. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share with the with the audience a little bit about what we do.

 

Henry Lopez  36:25

Yeah, I love I love I love this product. You and I had had a chance to chat ahead of time, and that’s why I wanted to have you on because I I can see having had so many clients and have clients in this space how a tool like this can really improve things and really result in improved close rates. What’s one thing, though, you want us to take away from this conversation we had about again that that small home improvement business and improving that sales process, that close rate? What’s one takeaway?

 

Dean Curtis  36:56

Yeah, I think the the thing to remember is the more ready you are for the game, the better you’re going to perform. Sales is a game. Sales is a sport. You’re going to the you’re going to the pitch to play the game every single at bat when you go into someone’s home. The more prepared you are for that conversation, the better you’re going to perform. And obviously, we believe content plays a role in that. But just in general, be ready. Do all you can to prepare, and once you do, you’ll figure out where you were not prepared well enough, and that’s where you can make your improvements. But if you’re going in and winging it every time with a new plan, that’s not going to scale.

 

Henry Lopez  37:34

Agreed, agreed. Especially being prepared for those objections that you know are probably going to come your way. I’ve always found that that’s critical. So thank you. That’s a great takeaway. The other takeaway was what you highlighted for me. Anyway, was what you highlighted about where trust starts. Right, trust is the moment even before you drive up. Right. So even if we look at the technology, if I’m sending a video ahead of time that tells us what we’re going to do on this and this appointment, and then I show up looking the right way and behaving the right way, and then I show a professional presentation that’s tailored to them. All of those things tied together build trust.

 

Dean Curtis  38:10

That’s right. Little deposits in the trust bank go a long way.

 

Henry Lopez  38:13

Tell us again where you want us to go to find out more.

 

Dean Curtis  38:16

Yeah, sure. Our website is Ingage.io. I n g a g e. i o. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m sure Henry can put that my link in the show notes there. And I actually hang out on Instagram a lot. Post a lot of content on mindset, business, and leadership. And I’m Dean Curtis 23 on Instagram.

 

Henry Lopez  38:35

Excellent, Dean. We’ll have all of those links, including that discount code How a business to get the 10% off on that plan that Dean mentioned, so that’ll all be on the show notes page. Dean, great conversation. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.

 

Dean Curtis  38:51

Thanks, Henry. It’s been a pleasure.

 

Henry Lopez  38:52

This is Henry Lopez, and thanks for joining us on this episode of the How Web Business. My guest today again, Dean Curtis. I release new episodes every Monday morning. You can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the How of Business YouTube channel and my website, thehowabusiness.com. Thanks for listening.