Creating a team of engineers that you can trust to grow and develop your business. Compliance and organic growth working hand in hand.
I’ve been listening to what you want and need, and here it is.
A unique and bespoke professional development course, to train engineers to cross-sell, to provide excellent customer service and create compliant sites.
There is nothing else like this out there, a new concept to raise the bar in standards and productivity for engineers.
Let’s talk about the problem
You have an engineer on site and in front of your customer, you have other services that you can provide. Yet the customer doesn’t get to know about it!
All additional sources of revenue overlooked and not mentioned.
What I see out there are engineers who think that servicing extinguishers is their job and nothing else. As you and I know, their role is far more than this. They’re not working to their full potential. Corrective action required labels should be applied here.
They arrive on site with a list of extinguishers and move from fire point to fire point servicing. And that’s it, it’s like they are blinkered.
It’s frustrating for you because you can see the potential for increased honest and ethical sales. Money is just going down the drain and organic growth stopped in its tracks. How annoying!
As a business, you need your engineers to do their job. You need to be able to trust them to do what you have promised your customers; a professional service ensuring that they and their property are kept safe. To also advise them of their legal requirements and all they need to know.
How helpful to your customers would it be if they knew of your other services so that they could combine everything into one point of contact?
Why won’t they just speak up?
You think … why can’t they just tell the customers about our other services? Why won’t they just say it? It’s so easy!
Well, maybe not. Let’s just say that the mind is complicated, and it causes problems for people. There are some things that need to be unravelled here to help them to do something new, something that they are probably very uncomfortable with. Such as:
- Feeling awkward.
- Not knowing how to communicate effectively.
- Being frightened to get it wrong.
- Lacking confidence in themselves.
- Fearing being judged and criticised.
The idea of selling does this to people, unless you have a natural tendency for it. If a person feels uncomfortable, they will (naturally) avoid the thing that causes them discomfort. In the same way that you wouldn’t pick up a lump of burning coal.
The Solution: a fire protection and psychology fusion.
There is an element of psychology to this course to help engineers break down the fear or obstacle to promote your other services. My wife, Jan is a therapist and her expertise, with mine in the industry comes together to create a powerful learning for engineers. Thinking differently is required and help to do this is an essential part.
We’ve called this a psycho-fire fusion but I need to clarify that the psycho stands for psychology, Jan doesn’t like it if I call her a psycho.
The need for organic growth
We know that it costs a certain amount per day for you to have an engineer on the road, you’ve got overheads you need to cover; your premises, your vehicles, utilities, insurances and many other things. It makes sense to do all that you can to ensure your engineers are creating organic growth to make more profit.
If they’re not making enough money to cover your costs what does this mean for your business?
Add in call backs, where mistakes have to be put right, further reducing your profit margin.
You don’t want to lose business through unhappy customers or another company coming in and pointing out the things that are wrong.
Engineers can create organic growth ethically by providing a duty of care to your customers, to be advising them of what they need and what is available for them. They can create an excellent working relationship with them to ensure loyalty to your company.
You’ve got enough to do without worrying about what’s happening on site and whether the engineer is doing a good job or not, I’m here to take that strain off you and educate your engineers in what they need to be doing.
Engineers are the face of your business
Engineers are not taught in the classroom about many things that are so important for you as a business. They are the face of your operation and how they conduct themselves on site is a reflection of you. They need to know a lot more than their existing training has provided.
The details
This is a one day course that I can present at your premises, if your facilities allow. The cost per candidate is £325 (minimum 3 engineers) plus travel expenses.
So, what are your engineers going to be learning?
This course is about all of the essential things that engineers need to know, things that are not taught in their external training.
This is a short trailer of a full walk-through I have created to train your engineers in what to look for on-site.
1. Cross-Selling
Of course.
I will cover all of the additional services you offer and the need for additional and necessary equipment on site.
2. Observation skills
Many engineers appear to be blinkered and don’t even see the site. They see the extinguishers, service them and leave. Observation and awareness are skills that can be taught and essential ones, in order to see the opportunities that are there.
3. People skills
Good old fashioned customer service is so important for building rapport with your customers. Being friendly, informative and helpful can mean the difference between you keeping the business or not. People buy people, they will buy into the person more than they buy into the product or service.
4. Duties and responsibilities to your customers
Advising customers of their legal requirements and offering advice all builds trust between the engineer and the customer. And of course, it’s what they should be doing as part of their role.
What else can a customer see from the service? Do they know what’s actually gone on? To them they’re paying out money and they see no return for it. It could be viewed as a grudge purchase, much like having to buy car and house insurance.
5. Presentation and professionalism
Are they smart? Do they look like the professional? How do they represent your company? Attention to detail matters.
How do they conduct themselves on your customer’s premises and is their workmanship to an excellent standard? Do they tidy up after themselves, make sure that the extinguishers at least look clean? Are they respectful? Mindset, attitude and behaviour training is included.
These images are examples of what I come across time and time again. It sends a message to your customers that you don’t really care. It’s important that your engineers understand this.
6. Business awareness
The course includes an awareness of your expectations of engineers in their role. The reasons why this is essential in terms of keeping a business running with a healthy profit margin.
7. Communication skills
In order to make recommendations, offer other services and advise as they should, an engineer needs to feel comfortable to do this. I cover the difficulties that engineers come up against in doing this.
There are a few tricks up my sleeve to enable them to view this differently, for them to practice a new way of productively talking to customers.
8. Preparation and time efficiency on site
There is a myth that there is not enough time to do extra things on site, such as evaluate, observe, talk to the customers etc. This is not true as it takes very little time at all.
Being prepared so that they are not backwards and forwards to the van for things they have forgotten, for example, creates an efficiency in the way that an engineer works. There are lots of hints and tips to improve how they work and use their time.
9. Reporting correctly
In my experience this is a problem! It creates difficulty for the office staff and for the customers when they receive quotes for things they knew nothing about.
10. Understanding the importance of their role
Engineers may not understand the importance of their role, having a belief that they just service equipment. As this is a fairly simple process with modern equipment, they underestimate what they need to be doing on site. The course covers why their role is so important so they can grasp what needs to be done.
I’ll be teaching them all of this as well as a practical walk through of everything they need to be aware of on-site. Things that are missed and create additional (needed) sales for you.
My aim is to develop a well-rounded and competent engineer. Someone that:
- carries out a service in line with the British Standards, which includes providing the customer with the correct information and advice.
- can do this comfortably and competently.
- is able to promote your business and create organic growth which is much needed.
An extra bonus for you
I’ll be checking out their understanding of Part 8 for you too! If an engineer is not competent in part 8, asking them to evaluate premises for additional equipment is going to be a problem. This is a common occurrence unfortunately where the classroom training has not translated into real live on-site situations.
It’s also common that an engineer does not understand the British standards well enough to talk to your customers about it.
I do have a course that de mystifies part 8, also a day course. If this is needed I will let you know.
Why train with me?
I have a unique ability to see things from the engineers perspective because I was an engineer for many years. I understand the difficulties they face.
I have a passion for engineer growth, not in the growth hormone type of way. A 7ft tall engineer wouldn’t improve compliance would it? 🤓 Their development and achieving their potential is important to me.
Excellent customer service has always been a no brainer in my career. It’s one of the most important things to create a successful business. Your engineers won’t yet have understood the business and customer perspective of what is needed from them.
Training doesn’t have to be serious. I present in a light-hearted way, a positive and fun experience for your engineers. They will learn so much that they didn’t know they didn’t know!
This course will help them in their role to feel confident and proud of what they do.
FAQs
Are there any course notes?
On the basis that they probably wouldn’t look at them anyway, no. The course is not information heavy. It involves many mind-set shifts to get engineers thinking in a different way about their role and responsibilities.
They will receive check lists of everything they need to ask and advise to your customers.
Is the course accredited?
This is not accredited but it will be a credit to yourself with organic growth. To your engineers in increased confidence and skill set. To your customers who receive excellent customer service. What other accreditation do you need?
Is there a certificate?
There will be a certificate of completion of the course.
We haven’t got the facilities
We can discuss where the training might be held.
Taking engineers off site.
How about a Saturday? Although it means an extra day of wages this does stop any disruption to your work schedule. Any costs you incur here can be recovered at every visit to every customer moving forward.
Will we lose customers if the engineers are suddenly telling them things they should have been told before?
Don’t worry, I cover this too. I spent a year honing this craft as I followed around a ‘rag and tag’ type of person who shirked every area of responsibility. I didn’t lose one single customer.
Availability
I should be able to arrange a date quite quickly with you, particularly on Saturdays as I don’t allocate this day to any other work apart from this course.
What could you lose?
Nothing, just everything to gain.
Any other questions?
Please ask.
What are your terms and conditions?
You can read these here: