What's going on Trial Talk, hope you're all keeping well. I've not been on for a bit, I've not done a video for a while now.
Let's jump on and have a chat with you all. I want to big up to all the new members that have joined Trial Talk recently.
Thank you for joining the group and get those work pictures shared, get those questions out there guys.
That's what the community group is for, so you can get your questions answered.
Anything that you're struggling with within the plastering trade, on or off the tools, Trial Talk's a safe space for you to do that without getting your questions or your work photos torn down.
So yeah, thank you for joining the group. I just wanted to talk about a post that was put on yesterday.
I've just watched Joel Cook's little video he's done on the RenderVate Hub.
Go join the RenderVate Hub guys as well if you haven't done that.
Joel's put a group together dedicated to the rendering trade.
Everything rendering related, machine spray rendering is Joel's speciality.
Silicon thin coat.
But anyway, I wanted to talk about a post that was put up in regards to pricing.
I can't remember now who actually put the post on, but it was sort of a little rant about people going in too cheap and undercutting other plasterers and damaging the trade.
This isn't personal to whoever put this post on, by the way, because this is a post that's been bouncing around Facebook plastering pages for years, maybe like the last seven, eight, nine years on social.
So it's a question that's common.
It's a common question.
So again, this isn't personal to the guy that's put the post on.
But it's a message just really, and hopefully a bit of help to the lads that do struggle with having their prices challenged and competing on price.
Now, Cookie's just mentioned, Cookie was quite brutal.
He said, level up or shut up, which I liked.
But I'm going to be a little bit more diplomatic.
But essentially, it's the same message.
But basically, if you're competing on price, then you've just basically joined a herd.
You've just joined the crowd of other plasterers that all look the same, all their work looks the same.
You know, they've got the same feedback, same video, same posts that they're putting on the group.
And it's like you've just become mediocre.
So as long as the customer looks at you and they're not seeing anything different or special, or you're not standing out in any way,
then you may find that you will have to compete on price.
So like Cookie's mentioned, there's a lot of help available, a lot of free help as well.
And of course, the mentoring groups there, which focuses on all this as well.
But in a nutshell, guys, in a competitive market where the supply exceeds demand
and customers can cherry pick which plaster they want to use,
our job really is to ask better questions.
So instead of asking, you know, how can I compete with that price?
What we need to ask is, how can I attract the top paying customers in my area?
How can I attract the customers that aren't interested so much on price,
but what they're interested in is quality, trust, reliability?
Can I give this guy my house keys while I go to work, leave my pet dog there,
leave him with my biggest investment, and can I trust him while I'm away to deliver the promise?
Now, when they ask that question, they're going to look for trust within your brand.
Can this person be trusted?
And me and Joel have just done like an hour and a half's coaching session on video marketing,
and we went quite deep into a lot of this stuff.
That's available to watch, by the way, on the coaching group for anybody that's interested.
Really, really good session.
Got some good feedback from the members on there too.
But guys, if we're competing on price, then we're going to get lost in the crowd.
We're just going to, you know, and I did a blog post on this,
and I'll give the analogy of years back when my missus was expecting one of our sons.
She sent me to the supermarket to get some bits and bobs,
and she said, look, grab some bread milk and grab some toothpaste.
And I used this experience as an analogy for you in the blog.
And I explained that when I was in a toothpaste oil,
I was overwhelmed with the amount of bloody toothpaste brands on this shelf.
And there was like 30 brands of toothpaste.
All different prices, all promising to give you the whitest teeth in the whole world.
And what happened was for me is I realised that when I was overwhelmed
and there was too much choice and I was confused and I didn't know which brand to go for,
I turned to a brand that I could trust.
I picked up Colgate.
And it might not be the best example.
You might be wondering, what the fuck's he going on about toothpaste for?
But stay with me.
When your customers are confused and there's a noisy market
and there's loads of plasterers and they're all saying,
we're the best, we're the best.
What they'll do is they'll turn to a brand they can trust.
And to build up that trust,
again, me and Cookie went deep on this in the coaching session.
Last week.
But to build that trust,
what you have to do is create what's called social proof.
So the more videos that are out there on the internet
of you proving that you're clean, reliable, honest,
you've got integrity,
you've got character,
your jobs are immaculate,
you've got tons and tons of five-star reviews,
you've got customer testimonial videos,
you walk,
you talk,
your personality is coming out and your video content,
things like that.
When you create that kind of social proof consistently,
not just the odd little random video on your Facebook business page,
but when you're doing it consistently
and you build a channel up,
for example,
when you do that,
people are going to want to choose you
because you've just like eliminated a huge issue that the consumer has.
And that is,
is this person a cowboy?
Is he going to bodge my house up?
Is he going to take a deposit and run?
Is he going to leave shit everywhere and plaster all over my carpet?
Is he going to leave me with loads of bags of rubble
and tell me I've got to put them in my wheelie bins?
And these are the sort of concerns that customers are going to have.
Is he a cowboy?
Or is he trustworthy?
And if you can eliminate that concern through video content
and building up your brand in a local area
and using things like Google Business Profile
and lots of other free platforms,
if you can do that and do it consistently,
you'll find that the customers that get in touch with you,
they're not so much interested in price
and just like Joel said recently,
he said the question that I want to get asked from a customer
isn't how much, how much, how much,
it's when, when, when, when can you start?
And he hit the nail on the head with something else that he said as well.
He said that the reason that his business is successful
is because it's him that's telling the story.
Because we were talking about, you know,
should we outsource our marketing and our websites and all this
to a social media and SEO company?
And we both agree that you're much better off doing it yourself
and being the face of your business.
Because no one's going to care about your business as much as you.
So listen, I hope that little rant, if you can call it a rant,
although it's not, I wasn't as brutal as Joel on his video.
I hope that little piece of information helps.
And if you do want any more help when it comes to, you know,
pricing jobs and competing with cheap plasterers,
because really that's what they are, they're cheap plasterers,
if you want any more help, advice or support in any of this sort of stuff,
then jump onto the Coaching and Mentoring group
because I've got tons and tons of video tutorial lessons
piling up now in the guide section on the group
alongside, you know, live coaching sessions and stuff like that
that's on there as well.
So listen, hit the comments and let me know what your thoughts are
on competing with price.
Is it a problem for you?
Or have you built your brand and your reputation that strong
that when customers get in touch with you,
it's not so much about price,
it's more about quality, reliability and trust.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and have a good day.
Thank you.