How do they keep getting by with it part two

Hi people, I am still amazed. This past Sunday (4Th) I saw them ice proof rain proof sealcoaters at it again. This time is was 37 degrees cloudy and at any time was going to start raining or sleeting. These professionals have been in business for over 15 years. It did start sleeting then turned to rain about hour after they sprayed the lot. This is a very busy bank with a ATM blocked off for two days. This happen in Lenoir,NC. This bank is one of the largest in the state. Please some of you people that have dealt with this type problem, how do you handle it? I have talked, proved, gave all the manufactures info, until I have wasted so much time it is not fun any more. All people want is cheap. Banks manage millions of dollars a year but can't manage to have a parking lot sealed the right way? I can't understand. If you have to be a crook to be a sealcoater I will sell my equipment. Seven out or ten sealcoaters around here are cheating people so bad that it should be against the law. If I call it to anyones attention all they say is that I am just upset because I was too high on my bid. Robert or anyone else have any ideas on how to compete with sealing in 35 degree weather? Thanks, Jim

Hey Two things Some banks are going to use people that use there banks. And the other thing is. Use that job to show your customers the difference in your work and theirs. I had that done to me the other week.561 I put a bid on this investment place in late june. Never heard nothing back from them and went by there the other day (35 degree) and there was a guy will a bunch of buckets and using a broom and some add water. And he was brooming all 65,000 sq ft. I know he didn't put on two coats and I know he was a crook But I am not going to decide on where the money is going I will have to go by there and take some pictures to show how good it looks now. -Dean Also don't worry about those 7 out 10 sealcoaters in your area because they are never going to get any repeat business and all they are going to is make you look better

Dean, I agree with almost everything you say except these guys do get repeat business and lots of it. And if these 7 out of 10 get the business (most of the time they do) the seven get three times what the decent ones get. No one around here wants to pay to have it done right. Just get some cheap black stuff on the ground and let me drive on it by dark is what I was told to do a few weeks ago because another sealcoater had the business owner convinced that his way was best way not the manufactures way. It is getting worse everyday. If one bad sealer gets away with something another one will try to shave a little more off. I'll leave you with this one. A sealer in my town a few years back sealed the ford dealership here in town. I would guess 125,000 sq. ft. He sealed it with a 200gal oil drum hooked up to a sprayer with no sand and this part I know to be true. He did not blow the lot off, cover any cars, sprayed most of the lot in one day and used at the most 600 gallons of sealer. and you know what he got for it. On front page of local paper and just about a new ford pickup truck.And the sad thing the dealer was happy.

Jim, I (of course) have many ideas on how to compete with these guys. But you have really said it all already if I was consulting with you personally: YOU can't! Many people can, but as it stands now, you can't. You make 3 statements that jump out. I could pick out more, but these 3 are "biggies" and get the point across:

JimJack42 wrote on Dec 5, 2005:Go to #1

all they say is that I am just upset because I was too high on my bid.

No one around here wants to pay to have it done right. All people want is cheap. The first is because of your actions. Where in the "process" I don't know without knowing everything you do or say but it is entirely within your control. The second statement is incorrect but for you it is correct. Confused? It is incorrect because it isn't true. It never is, although I have heard hundreds of people from all over say the same thing. It is true for you because you believe it. The third statement, again is totally false. Again I have heard it hundreds of times from people coast to coast and north to south. But for you it is true and is self-fulfilling. Again only for one reason: because you believe it. (And that's not my personal opinion, it's proven scientific fact confirmed by dozens of research studies and is well-documented, only 20% of the decision to purchase is based on price, and that's the fact from people far smarter than me who have spent years & millions of dollars studying the subject.) If you don't believe it here is a question: Is Wal-Mart cheaper than everybody else? If you said yes then it proves my point. The fact is in any market where Wal-Mart has similar competition approx. 80% of the items in a Wal-Mart can be purchased for less somewhere else. And that's according to Wal-Mart's own marketing people (who are the best in the retail business) This isn't a sealcoating forum so I won't get into all the specifics but you already know what they are doing is bad practice and low quality. But everything else is your problem and exists only in your mind . You may think I'm crazy (many do, especially my wife) but no good sales & marketing person would. They know I am 100% dead-on about this one. I can't spend hours here trying to tell you in a post what I try to convey in 180 minutes of seminars and many pages of handout materials and what I convey in my private consultation business for individuals. But I will share this. Your attitude is everything . What you believe is true for you and only you can change what you believe. But what you believe translates clearly to your prospects in everything you say & do, even if you never realize it, and almost no one who makes these same business-killing mistakes ever realizes what they are doing. I will share this story, it's true, and if you want, send me a PM and I'll send you the fellow's contact info & he will be glad to confirm it. He is on the gulf coast so until today it was still sealcoating weather for him. He called after attending my new seminar in Vegas last month on why if everyone in your market is "slugging it out" with low prices you should raise your prices & use the high price as a selling tool. (Again 90 minutes wasn't really enough time so I can't go into specifics here) One of the things I covered was how using properly using "menu" proposals can be an invaluable tool in doing this and is especially useful as a "safety net" for people beginning to try this idea so that they don't accidentally convey any of the self-limiting negatives contained in statements like yours quoted above to customers. The reason the fellow called was because he had returned home and had to bid a job almost as soon as he got back. He had figured my ideas were about half-crazy but decided to do it anyway since after all, he had paid for the seminar. He said he wanted to give the ideas a fair chance so he followed all my suggestions to the letter including the menu proposal; however when he was figuring his "high price" he had figured it at 15 cents per sq ft but decided at the last minute, in his own words "what the heck, this is never going to work anyway, so I'll just put it in at 22 cents". The "low bid" from a "competitor" was 8 cents on the job. The reason he called is because he was amazed and wanted to thank me (and he was very excited). The prospect had listened to what he had to say, taken the carefully crafted proposal "package" he had put together as I instructed, and after reading through it a few minutes simply told him "I want this option here. When can you start?" And he was pointing to the 22 cent option. Like I said I cannot begin to go into the entire thing here. But the difference is he changed his attitude . The customer didn't change, the highly competitive market he is in didn't change. His lowball competitors didn't change. Nothing changed except he decided even though it couldn't possibly work, he would change his attitude and his way of doing things which most importantly included changing how he expects the customer to act . The beliefs you have I cannot change for you except to say the fact is you can't change anything but yourself and your attitude & way of doing things. You can't change your market (you can move but it's the same everywhere) you can't change your prospects much, and you surely can't change what the "competition" does. As long as you are defeated (which from the sound of your post you already are and should just sell all your stuff and get a job somewhere) but I answered because there is the faintest glimmer of hope. You did ask for help. So you must realize there has to be a way to overcome your current "problems" as you see them and find success somehow. That way all has to do with you. If you can believe that, you have a chance. If you think this post is nuts and you don't believe that the entire problem and thus the solution is in your mind and thus within your control, you are already defeated, and (I'm not being "smart-a**" here) you should sell out and find another line of work that doesn't depend on you believing that really, put all-too-simply, "it's all in your mind".

Don can you post or give us an example of a menu proposal ? I would like to give it a try next season.

DON YOU ARE DEAD ON!!!!! Jim don't give up it is becoming the winter already in north carolina and things should be dying down up there nd you should go ahead and start knocking on the doors for next year. Don't get stuck with just Lenior. Go to hickory and keep on going down 40 towards winston-salom. I am here in south carolina and I travel all over the state. -Dean

thanks for writing back guys. I would like to talk with you later on this subject Don. But here is one of my dealings with a positive thinking fast talking,private consultation superstar that had all the answers. We had a guy that came and bought the sealmaster franchise in NC a few years back. Talked with ideas exactly like you. Had two offices one of them in Charlotte. Was voted the most successful new franchises with Sealmaster. He talked positive thinking and taught seminars and was a private consulate. Told and promised me that I could make tons of money sealing at 45 cent a square yard. That was a few years back. Do You know what happen to this person? Well check around and find out. After 18 months or just a little longer this positive thinker and slick talker is bankrupt, a crook, and a drug addict. I had to reseal over $20,000 worth of pavement at my cost because of the sealer I bought from his plant was so watered down is was just that black water. If a sealer(myself) can't trust the owner of a franchise, a private consultation expert, a acclaimed public speaker and motivator who can you trust? I know how to seal the right way and that is the only way it is going to get done. PERIOD. I know what kind of profit I have to have to make a living. I know how to sell my product ( I was a top national sales rep for a major company for years). I was a retail store manager for years and always made more profit than the rest of the store managers made. So I do not doubt my ability to sell product. MY question was the help I need was to put these cheats out of business by legal means. They are breaking the law everytime they do a job. At banks if you want a loan you have to give them your life history. I do the same to them when they wanted sealcoating done. If they are smart enough to loan someone a million dollars they should be smart enough to make a decision on the right way they want there parking lot sealcoated. again thanks for the help but we should be trying to figure out how to put the crooks out of business after all the one I am talking about has been in it around here for about 15 years and I have never seen a lot his has done right.

I've seen some guys go out of business, but the sequence is 1. drug addict. 2. bankrupt. 3. crook. Not the other way around.

I won't take your remarks about seminar speakers or consultants personally but unless your state has some unusual laws you won't put these guys out of business by "legal" means. You have let anger get the better of you if you have the background you say or you would know better than to entertain all the self-defeating thoughts you have going in your first post instead of forgetting about the other people (who you can't control) and concentrating on yourself and your business (which is the only thing you can control). I will mention one thing and this is not criticism: You have achieved success selling & managing for other people (the business owners). While this surely gives you a "leg up" on the competition and many people who go into this with no sales skills do remember this: Before you were selling for them while being good at that was great now you are "them" . Meaning you are the business. It's a different position and while much about the "mind-set" is the same on the sales end your questions have more to do with the business end. Before if your product or the company you worked for was in a slump or having trouble with the competition you could always find another product or company, now you are the company . So you set the company goals, ideas, and sales philosophy. Not going into an hour of details about all that but it is an important difference to remember. (some recommended reading: "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber) I don't know about your state but here it's the "wild west" as far as anybody with a broom & a bucket can call himself a sealcoater, or anybody with a 4" roller or an upside down aerosol can call themselves a striper & go to work for any "sucker" foolish enough to hire them. Nothing illegal about it if they stay small & avoid state sales tax (which if they don't, wouldn't care about the quality of the work as long as they paid the tax) I have personally watched a guy who said everybody else was a rip-off, mix his "special secret" sealer he "invented himself" by mixing used motor oil, some bag cement, and some unknown junk from some buckets all together in a deep wheelbarrow mixing it with a small paddle by hand. Then dumping the "batches" on the lot & brooming it on (lasted maybe 2 months) but nothing illegal about it (other than probably the EPA if they had ever caught his "home brew" but the chances of that are slim to none) As far as your experience with the other guy I would never seal for 45 cents a yard, NOBODY can do a good job & make a profit at that in this day and age BUT do remember the source. You don't have to know or do anything to have a SealMaster franchise plant other than pay the money for the franchise. That's all they care about. I don't know if he makes money or not but the new franchisee in Dallas only took 2 minutes for me to tell he didn't know squat about sealcoating, just bought the franchise. Especially since I asked him about prices for a couple of SealMaster products and he denied SealMaster even made them until I picked up the catalog on the counter & showed him...he had got some REAL good training for his money, I can imagine how he made sealer