If you’re running a fence business and you’re still the only one closing deals, you have a ceiling — and no amount of leads will break it. Joe Crisara, America’s Service Sales Coach, joined me on the Fencing Success Podcast for a 39-minute conversation about how to build a sales team that closes the way you close, and why most contractors get the foundational mindset wrong.
Watch the full episode
What you’ll learn in this episode
- Why putting payroll on a credit card is the warning sign that your sales process is broken
- The motivation question Joe asks every owner to find the real reason behind the business
- How to create the family-circle emotional environment that makes customers buy
- The 20-year warranty pricing strategy that adds $5,000 to a fence installation
- Why most contractors lose deals at the close — and the simple language that fixes it
- The two questions that move every prospect to a yes or a clear no
Chapter timestamps
- 0:00 — Welcome to Fencing Success Podcast
- 5:00 — Joe’s background and what he means by service sales
- 10:00 — The cash flow trap and the credit-card payroll signal
- 15:00 — Finding the real motivation behind the business
- 20:00 — The family-circle environment that closes deals
- 25:00 — Charging more with a 20-year warranty offer
- 30:00 — Meeting the customer where they already are emotionally
- 35:00 — The two closing questions and what most people say
The credit-card payroll signal
Early in the conversation Joe made a point that hit hard: if you’ve ever put payroll on a credit card “just this one time to make it through the month,” your sales process is the problem. It’s not a cash flow issue. It’s not a season issue. It’s that you’re not closing enough of the right jobs at the right margins. Contractors love to blame the economy or the market, but the real issue is almost always that the sales process is leaking deals or pricing too low to leave any cushion.
This is why Joe spends so much time on mindset before tactics. Until you understand that the sales process is the lever, you’ll keep treating symptoms.
The motivation question
The single most useful question Joe asks owners is this: why are you doing this? Not the surface answer — money, freedom, time. The real answer underneath that. Maybe it’s that you want your kids to never worry about money the way you did. Maybe it’s that you want to retire your wife from a job she hates. Maybe it’s that you want to leave something your family can run after you’re gone. The real motivation is what gives you the patience to do the hard sales work — to charge more, to walk away from bad customers, to hold the team to a higher standard.
If you can’t articulate your real motivation, you’ll fold every time a customer pushes back on price. The motivation is the spine that holds the whole sales conversation together.
The family-circle environment
Joe described the ideal sales conversation as the feeling of being at a barbecue with family — where the customer feels like they’re already part of your circle, not being sold to. The fence contractor who creates that environment closes deals at premium prices. The contractor who treats the customer like a transaction loses to whoever shows up with the lower number.
This isn’t manipulation. It’s the difference between meeting the customer where they already are emotionally — wanting their backyard to look beautiful, wanting safety for their kids, wanting their property value to go up — and treating them like a number on a quote sheet. Customers buy from people who get them.
The 20-year warranty strategy
One of Joe’s sharpest tactical points was on warranty as a pricing lever. If a competitor is bidding $10,000 for a fence install with a 1-year warranty, you can charge $15,000 for the same install with a 20-year warranty — and win the job. Why? Because the customer is buying confidence, not just a fence. The 20-year warranty signals that you stand behind your work, that you’ll be around in 20 years to honor it, and that the cheapest bid is probably going to leave them dealing with problems on their own.
You don’t have to deliver 20 years of free repairs — your warranty terms will define exactly what’s covered. But the offer itself shifts the conversation from price to value. And that shift is worth thousands per job.
Meet the customer where they are
Joe emphasized that by the time a customer is sitting across from you, they’ve already decided emotionally that they want a fence. They’re not deciding whether to buy. They’re deciding who to buy from. Most contractors miss this and pitch features the customer doesn’t care about. The right move is to find what the customer is already excited about — the dog finally being able to run in the yard, the privacy from the neighbor, the kids playing outside without supervision — and become the partner who makes that vision real.
The two closing questions
Joe shared the two questions he uses to move every prospect to a clear yes or clear no. Once you’ve shown them the options and the pricing, you ask: “Are you interested?” or “Why don’t you make a selection?” Most people, when asked, will say yes — they’ll pick an option. The contractors who get stuck in endless follow-up are the ones who never ask the closing question directly. They hint, they hedge, they offer to “send some more info.” The customer ghosts because nobody asked them to decide.
About the guest: Joe Crisara
Joe Crisara is known as America’s Service Sales Coach. He’s trained thousands of contractors across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and home services on how to sell with confidence, charge premium prices, and build sales teams that scale. His material is the gold standard in service sales training.
Ready to build a sales team that scales beyond you?
If you’re stuck being the only closer in your fence business, the path forward is a process you can teach. Reach out through my Professional Network page. And to pair this with the lead-generation playbook, watch Dollar-a-Day for Contractors with Dennis Yu next.
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