My Education From Dr. Mohamed El Damir
In my last post I detailed the influence that Todd Leyse of Adam’s Pest Control made, and still makes to this day on my trajectory in this industry. The fourth individual to finish the points of the compass is also a team member at Adam’s Pest Control in Medina, Minnesota.
Dr. Mohamed El Damir is the staff entomologist and training director for Adam’s. When a new technician is hired on, they become a 30 day student in Dr. El Damir’s class room where the board certified entomologist educates the new techs on everything creepy, crawly, and fuzzy.
When I first stepped into that second floor classroom, I was convinced it would be a cake walk for me due to my experience with Presto-X. I had my AIB certification, my first level purdue certification, and went through the entire Copesan gambit. Dr. El Damir could have cared less.
As I sat through the first week of training, I soon realized that Adam’s was running a much different training system than what I had with Presto-X. Presto-X implemented a self paced training program to be done, while riding shotgun in your trainer’s truck, and ongoing training and certifications were in the evenings and on weekends on “your own time”.
At Adam’s it did not matter what you THOUGHT you knew, Dr. El Damir trained you the exact way he had trained every technician before you. The same study materials, the same lectures, the same insect samples for identification, and the same timeline. There was going to be no fast track through this training process.
Dr. El Damir is a smart man, and his theoretical mind is amazing. You could describe a situation or issue to him, and he could quickly visualize it and give you the academic result necessary. This was great 85% of the time, but 15% of the time, his recommendations and protocols were difficult to accomplish as either the client would not be willing to perform the necessary modifications to their internal systems, or financially there was no room in the budget of the price the work was sold for to do the work Dr. El Damir prescribed.
Many technician’s at Adam’s were hesitant to tell this to Dr. El Damir to not offend him, and then would try to find a happy medium in between practical and academic. It rarely worked out that way in the end.
As I moved up the ranks at Adam’s and became a service manager with a team of 6 to lead, I soon realized this was a problem. After three months of struggling, I found it was easiest to try and convince the sales team to build a “buffer” into some client’s invoices. If we could show the technician there was enough money in the work, then there would be motivation to perform the service in accordance with Dr. El Damir’s directives. So I paired with a buddy of mine in the sales team to try and rework some of the contracts for some “trouble accounts”.
In one account in particular, we managed to show the purchasing manager that if we could add $45 a month per location to their invoice, we could perform an additional half hour of drain service at each account. This would significantly decrease our client’s small fly issues, and lead to less retreats and tension between the technician and the site managers. With 17 metro locations, this added an additional $765 a month to their company’s total pest control budget, so it was no easy sell.
When we were able to bring Dr. El Damir in to explain to the client why an additional half hour in each of the 17 locations would decrease the small flies you could see a light bulb go off in the purchasing manager’s brain. So why was the client receptive to Dr. El Damir and not myself or my sales friend?
My sales friend and I are very outgoing, abstract, type A personalities. We have strong convictions on things, and rarely waiver. We would sell through determination, persistence, and “grit”. We would explain over and over again to the client and get nowhere. It would frustrate us, so we would push even more. We were determined to get the additional half hour because our technicians need the time, and it would benefit the client in the long run.
Dr. El Damir approached it differently. In his mind, money was not even a factor, and he cared less about invoicing, he strictly wanted to solve the clients problem. When he met with the client he asked questions, gave educated responses, and led the client to realize the importance of the extra half hour of drain work. Within the 45 minute meeting, the client was sold and was asking us if we thought the tech should be spending any more time on any other portions of the services.
What I realized at that point was Dr. El Damir threw the money part of it out the window and that was his key to success. The client had a problem, he knew how to solve it for them, and in the end, the invoice was what the invoice was.
From that point forward I stopped pressure selling and told my clients “this is the cost for me to solve your problem. If this is not something you are willing to pay, I understand, but then I am not going to be the one you hire to solve your problem.”
This has followed me since. Huntsman Wildlife works hard to find the RIGHT solution to your nuisance wildlife issue. We will give you the answer on how to solve that problem in our inspection, and then provide you an estimate on what it would cost for us to achieve the results we promise. We give one price to all clients. If that is not the price you can/will pay, we understand, but then our company is not the right one for you. It’s as simple as that. We don’t barter, we don't haggle, we don't discount, we don't run seasonal promotions. The price we give a client with a 1.5 million dollar home in Indian Hill is the same price I give a retired widow on a budget in Finneytown.
Dr. El Damir taught me to find a way to solve the problem first, THEN tell the client the cost. From there, leave it up to the client to make the decision. No pressure tactics, no “closing language”, just solutions to their problems with a black and white price.
Though he may have been the technical director, Dr. El Damir taught me the best sales technique I have ever seen.
Till Next Time… See Ya Folks!