The EPAC guarantee provides a measure of assurance, but in many cases, it will not be enough. Put yourself in the prospective client's shoes for a moment: Wouldn't you still want some kind of assurance of the quality of past performance? Even with the guarantee, would you commit 10's of thousands of dollars to someone with an unknown or no credible history?
How will you provide that credibility and assurance with no experience with EASI projects? EASI may tell you that you have the EPAC guarantee (which I will discuss in another blog post), the entire history of EASI standing behind you, and that they have referrals that you will be able to present to your prospective customers. Beware.
Here is my advice on the matter of referrals:
Before the end of your first day of new affiliate training (when you have to pay), and before you sign anything or pay any money, make EASI show you their collection of referrals. Do not be satisfied until you have seen them - all of them not just a sample - for yourself.
I trusted EASI when they lead me to believe that their collection of referrals was going to be a great resource to support my sales effort. I didn't ask to see them. After signing the contract, handing over my hard-earned money to EASI, and going out into the field to sell projects, I learned that the referrals were not at all what I had expected. There were not very many, and for the most part, they were very old and outdated. The majority were from one company in Syosset, NY. This company may have been somehow related to Merlo's old business prior to forming EASI.
At the time I was provided access to the referrals on the EASIworld website, there were just 37. 18 of those were from the business in Syosset, NY, all of which were dated 1982 or earlier. That's not a typo - you read it correctly: 1982 (At this point, you should probably review your information to see when EASI was formed and compare that date to 1982). Only three were dated after the year 2000. Four were dated in the 1990's. Think about this for a minute - how many hundreds of dealers has EASI signed over the years - and this is all they have to provide for you in the way of referrals? I felt so duped when I discovered the quantity and quality of the available referrals.
When I asked about this quantity and quality of referrals, I was then told by an EASI employee that dealers rarely provide their referral letters to EASI because most dealers either don't care enough to support that resource and have virtually no incentive to do so, or they just flat out don't want other dealers using their referrals to sell other projects (potentially in their own geographic area - remember, you have no exclusive territory). I can't say that I blame dealers for not sharing referrals. That explanation made sense, but it didn't help me, it conflicted with what I had been led to believe during the recruitment and training.
The point was that there were essentially no recent, credible referrals (especially from my geographic area) to support my sales efforts. I found myself on my own, with no history in the business, and that really makes it hard to sell an EASI project. Trying to sell a project by standing on the "long and esteemed history of EASI" doesn't carry much water either when you can't back it up with a referral, and it is therefore a dangerous card to play. The customer's perspective will be this: "You're telling me that EASI has been in business for all these years, and has installed all these projects, and has never had a claim against the guarantee, yet you can't produce a single credible referral for me to review or call? Something is not right." I was laughed at on one occasion when I showed one of the referrals that was dated in the 80's or 90's. I left that prospective client's office that day knowing that my business was in trouble, and feeling ashamed of myself for having placed my trust in EASI.
Maybe and hopefully EASI has improved the quantity, quality, and availability of referrals since I was in the business. But the point is that you must turn this stone over before paying them a penny. Make sure you know what's available to you in that referral collection, and do not settle for verbal assurances from anyone at EASI about the quantity or quality of those referrals. See them for yourself. I don't expect them to give you copies of the referrals, but there is no reason why they can't set you up on a computer at their office to eyeball them. Be suspicious if they refuse to let you see them, no matter how convincing the reasons may sound.
