In episode 54 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden welcomes guest, Doug Mitchell as they discuss the importance of building a strong sales team and maintaining a positive company culture. They also mention how they navigate the challenges of hiring and retaining employees, using tools like the DISC assessment to find the right fit for their business.
Tune in for a relaxed and informative discussion where you can learn practical tips and strategies for success in business, entrepreneurship, and sales.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:08:21] Core Values Impacting Company Success.
[00:12:22] Entrepreneurial Insight Into Business Operations.
[00:14:45] Fractional Integrator Piece.
[00:18:39] Business Strategies and Perceptions.
[00:23:32] 1099 Sales Relationship.
[00:27:37] Business Partnership Requirements.
[00:31:24] Education for Sales Reps.
[00:35:24] Assessing Sales Team Compatibility.
[00:38:08] Office Expansion Strategies.
[00:43:21] Building Effective Sales Teams.
[00:46:28] Hiring Based on Variables.
[00:51:36] Saturated Markets in Solar Industry.
[00:53:04] Entrepreneur Finds Success through Podcast.
In this episode, Ken Baden and Doug Mitchell emphasize that the DISC assessment can offer valuable insights into a candidate's behavioral tendencies, communication style, and work preferences. By incorporating the DISC assessment results into the hiring process, employers can gain a better understanding of how a candidate may fit within the company culture and team dynamics.
Overall, Ken and Doug emphasize the importance of hiring individuals who align with the company's core values and work ethic. They discuss the impact of having employees who believe in the mission and values of the organization, as well as those who demonstrate a strong work ethic. By hiring individuals who share the company's values, businesses can create a cohesive and productive team that works towards common goals.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKenBaden
Doug Mitchell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/txbizdad/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/txbizdad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/txbizdad/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
Sales Program Builder: https://www.salesprogrambuilder.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
Welcome back to another episode of the Kitchen Table podcast, virtual, not live. We just had a good laugh. This is our second take, by the way, we're giving you a little insight into the wacky world behind the scenes. But welcome to the Kitchen Table podcast. I am your host, Ken Baden. And I'm here again, with my man, Doug Mitchell. And I was getting ready to say your old company, but I'm not going to say that because you're a new improved Doug, doing things, speaking all over the place, consulting, and I can't wait to get into all the new stuff you have going on. But first and foremost, man, how are you doing?
I'm doing fantastic, man. This is, uh, believe it or not, my first meeting of the day, I had to take care of the wife this morning. She's a little sick. I'd take the kids to school, had to play dad duty. You know what I mean? And so I'm excited. This is my first one. So you got me at a hundred percent.
I'll take it, dude. You're, uh, the setup looks great by the way. I don't know. I think that is, uh, even new given the last time.
Yeah, this is, uh, This is what my daughter so eloquently calls my trophies. So it was my podcast trailer. And, you know, I was going to get into this partnership, uh, with this agency. And we were like, Hey, we're going to get office space in San Antonio. Right. And so I was like, well, I have office space. Uh, I'm moving out in a couple of months, so I just won't renew. And then in a couple more months, I'll work from home and we'll get some office space. Right. But the partnership didn't end up working out. And so I'm like, man, I really don't want to go back to driving to San Antonio. I live about 30 minutes outside of San Antonio. I was like, I don't want to go back to driving it every day. So I'm just going to work from home. Ended up being pretty miserable working from inside the house. And my wife, I've had this podcast trailer forever. She was like, why don't you just turn the podcast trailer into your office? And you'll be good. At least you'll be able to walk to the office. You know what I'm saying? It'll be outside. the house outside of your relaxing zen space, you know what I mean? And you can go in there and hammer down on your clients and do your thing and do your podcast and everything. I'm like, that's why you're my wife. That's why we got to listen to our wives, right?
That's why they make the big decisions, dude.
Yeah, exactly.
Need the most obvious thing smacked upside her head by the missus, because I could tell you I'm in the same boat. But I, uh, I guess that I can totally relate, by the way. I mean, as far as what you're just saying, I used to work out of my apartment and I hated it, dude. I hated waking up and I'm in the office. And like, so very clear separation of my wife would probably disagree because she thinks that I'm always on the phone for work and stuff. But at the very least, I don't know. It was an attempt made there, right? Like when I'm in here, I know what I'm doing. When I'm there, it's like, if I had to, I could shut it off. And I don't know. I liked the option nonetheless, dude. Having that space, which is my family space, be my workspace for me, even before I had a wife, before I had all those things, it was like miserable. I hated it.
Yeah, it's weird for me. I've had an office for 13 years, but I'm, you know, a solopreneur again. It's just weird, you know, but, uh, I love it at the same time. Like I have complete control, you know, I've got a partner in my other business and I've got, uh, a couple of, uh, overseas, uh, people on my staff. And so I still have a team, which is nice, but for the most part, it's, it's, it's the Doug show now.
Yeah, so I guess, you know, let's just jump right into it, man. I mean, Doug's been on before. Is he my first? Were you my first guest? I think you might have been.
I might've been first or second for sure.
I was definitely your podcast was my first podcast that I went on.
Oh, I remember that dude. You're a pro now, but your first one, when you were like, do I look okay? Is this where do I put my hands?
You know, just, uh, basically alcoholics anonymous talk. I've got a good amount of experience speaking in front of fellow drunks, so here, you're going to have that. But yeah, man, that's crazy. It's only been a year. It's really just been about a year between now and then, and the things that have changed in that course of time, both for myself and yourself. Podcast, you have a podcast, building great sales teams is the podcast, right?
Yeah, we're about, I think episode 260 comes out this week. So we're 260 episodes in and it's just, it's rolling, man. I'm back down to one a week. I don't have time for my three a week that I used to do anymore. I finally conceded to the consulting taking over and the coaching taking over. And so I was like, I just need to get down to one a week and provide some value every week and move on to the paid things, right?
Yeah and I mean I remember you doing that I was like holy crap dude how is he and now you know when we have to I'll crank out two a week but man I really It's funny you say that, because trying to find the time. Time is just our most precious commodity. And for guys like that, currently, right now, I'm in the middle of a scale. I've hired John Paramore. Admittedly, the main attraction to bringing him in was Moore. I watched him help Brandon over the course of last winter, Brandon J. Roofing. and Brandon scaled significantly. Now, Brandon J. Roofing did the work. No disrespect to John, but I don't believe that they're at 35 million because John came in, but I do believe they went from 10 to 35 successfully and didn't fall apart with their system. and production, because they had someone come in and make sure all that was dialed in. I was really looking to get that part. That's what we're focusing on. That's the most time-consuming, monotonous, tedious workflows, KPIs, systems, auditing systems, auditing all the things that are currently either working, not working, or won't work at all at $35 million.
Those are my love languages right there.
There's a reason. Because Doug, you know, that's his jam, man. That's Doug. Yeah. So I knew you were going to be like, oh, yeah, that's that's awesome. It's getting hot in here, Doug. Guys, dude. But in all seriousness, man, I know that's your thing. So like and that's kind of what you do. Right. I mean, because I could have brought you in under a similar pretense. Right. So talk about that. Like, what are you doing?
Yeah. Um, you know, so it started out innocently enough. Right. Um, I had been building my sale, my personal sales teams for 13 years, right. Door to door B2B telemarketing, all the things, uh, all different kinds of clients, you know, fortune 10 fortune 100 companies. And, um, I scaled it, scaled them several times up, you know, uh, different sales teams from, you know, a hundred thousand to a million. Uh, at one point we were doing a 5 million a year in commissions, you know? And so, uh, you know, If it has to do with the sales team, I've been through it for the most part, right? And so I winded down my two divisions at the end of 22. I had a solo division that I had dumped half a million dollars into and didn't get anything back out of. And then I had an AT&T division that was doing really well, but myself and the leadership were no longer aligned on core values. And so one of the things I talk about a lot with my clients, as well as on stages and stuff, is everybody loves to talk about core values and implementing them into the company. And then, you know, those are the reasons that their companies have scaled or done really well, but nobody's really ever talked about core values being the reason that their company ended, basically. So, you know, over those 13 years, we really didn't have, we had a mission statement, you know, we had a vision, but we really didn't have core values in place, not ones that we actually implement, right? So once I started implementing them, you know, I started systematically eliminating people from my company, you know, because I knew I wanted to operate a certain way. This was. you know, the Doug Mitchell 2.0, I guess you could say. And so I started architecting my life, you know, on the business side and on the personal side, you know, I knew I only wanted to work certain hours. I knew I only wanted to work with a certain type of people. And it started really just filtering my company apart in a sense. And so when I came to these big moments with leadership where it was like, all right, I've got a decision to stick to my guns on these, these values and, um, cut you loose. But I'm by doing that, I'm cutting loose 1.1 million from top line revenue. Then I'm making the decision. I'm making that seven figure decision to, to cut you loose. Cause this is who I want to be now. You know, this is how I want to operate. And this is what I want our company to represent. And so by the end of 22, I had systematically winded down both of my divisions and went full-time consulting. So at the time, I had people lined up basically to consult with me because you know, I was part of groups like we're part of, right. And they saw what I had done, what I was capable of, and, uh, they wanted me to come in and consult for them. So I started out of the gates hot, you know, January, I brought in a hundred grand in consulting fees, you know, and that's not normal. Right. And that was January of 23. Uh, so a year ago. And so I thought, oh man, I got a million dollar business right out of the gate. And this is a million dollar business with like a 70 to 80% net. You know what I'm saying? This is no longer the $2.5 million sales org that I had that had maybe a 12% to 13% net. It's completely different now. And I know in roofing, you guys are used to that 10% to 15% net as well. So you know what I'm talking about. And so it just opened my eyes like, hey, I'm making personally double the money if I pull this off that I was, you know, running 40, 50 people before. So I was like, well, this this just may work. This may be perfect for me. Right. And then February comes around and I bring in about 40 K and then March comes around and I bring in about five K and then April comes in around zero. So what was happening is what happens in all businesses, right? When you start doing fulfillment and you focus on fulfillment, what do you forget about sales? Right. And so, uh, I started figuring out this balance and right around that time is when everybody, all the ADL funds were running out. You know, everybody was finally getting hit by all the cash being sucked up out of the marketplace. Right. And so you saw a lot of businesses struggle and even go out of business in the middle of 23. And, and so it was probably one of the worst eight months I've ever experienced in entrepreneurship. I got to say, um, Had, you know, had, had to struggle to pay bills at, you know, all these different things happen, you know, had to tell my friends that I had purchased services from the, Hey, I can't pay you just yet, but I'm going to pay you how to proactively communicate. And, um, go through all of that. And then towards the end of the year, I figured something out with some of my clients, right. Cause I was doing just enough to stay afloat. I figured something out with a lot of my clients is I had come into the organization. I'd start consulting on their sales program and, you know, they would see immediate results. They'd be able to bring in people faster, onboard people faster, get them rolling. And, um, that was great and everything, but. what I figured out was their operations were not doing well. You know what I mean? They weren't organized properly. They weren't meeting with certain teams at certain times. They weren't running, like we were talking about earlier, they didn't have their scorecard set up. They didn't have their KPI set up. They didn't know when something was about to go wrong based on the data. So I started just as an add-on setting up their EOS systems. I started setting up 90 and all these different things. And so what I realized after a while is like, Hey, you know, more than anything, yes, the sales program consulting is my jam, but also these, these business owners, they need integrators in their business. And once I realized that it clicked and I went to a few of my clients and I'm like, Hey, I think I can put something together where I can do both for you on a monthly basis. You know what I'm saying? And then I'm tied to the bottom line as well, because now I'm, I'm not just setting up a sales program or consulting or doing like a fractional CSO. I'm doing a fractional integrator where I'm a big piece of the business and I'm coaching the different departments and everything, making sure everybody's hitting their KPIs, their rocks and all that good stuff. So. I put that offer out and it's gone really well since I did that because, you know, we've hit a lot of rev share marks that they wouldn't have hit before had we not put it in place. Right. As well as, uh, I got an offer, uh, last year to start coaching, uh, for another, uh, company called win rate consulting. They coach construction owners. And so I have, uh, I'm going to be having 10 clients with them. And so that's another, uh, piece that I put together for this year. So basically I ended last year around 230, 240 K. And, uh, this year, this year will be closer to half a million, you know, and, and that's the second year in coaching and consulting. What was that? Yeah. And a half of a hundred of that was in January.
So you're not, you're not lying. You, uh, definitely had a, uh, but, I was trying to let you wrap that up, but that fractional integrator piece, has that been a big thing for you? How much of that can you sustain? Do you try to cap that at a few?
Yeah. Uh, what I figured out is I can only sustain three clients with it. I have two, two right now that I have set up, but I can only sustain three. So the way I set it up is my Mondays is one client. My Wednesdays is another. And so all of their L10 meetings, uh, divisionally, and then the leadership one are on those days. And I have some hours in between to make sure that I'm buttoning up that's a dues and the tasks and the, uh, the rocks and everything that, that go along with those. So now it's going, it's, it's going really well because, and, and what it's done for me too, is it's allowed me to kind of step into that. And like, we, we just had the entrepreneurs meet up in apex, right. And so Ryan is going through this too, you know, where he's having to implement these types of systems. And so he's speaking about him from stage and he's like, okay, go into your breakup groups and set up your scorecard. And then, uh, figure out what SOPs you need to set up so that the scorecards are on point. Right. And I'm just like, Hey, I tell my group and I'm like, Hey, this is literally what I do with my clients every day. Would y'all let me run this thing? And we we did all 12 of them. They all have their scorecards now. They know what SOPs that they need to create. It was such a cool experience to be able to, like, do that and kind of get back to Apex in that way, because it's given me so much.
Yeah, that's awesome. I saw that on Facebook. That's so important, man. And I mean, like for someone like me, I'm a traditional flat out visionary. So I mean, like, that isn't my language, but I also know how important it is. You know what I mean? Like, just because I don't speak my forte doesn't mean I know or don't know how important, you know what I mean? I know that we live and die by those things. And we're currently in search ourselves for a full-time integrator. But man, I just know that's going to change everything for me. You know what I mean? Like, that was a big reason why we brought John in is because he was, you know, we were looking We were looking at a firm to help us and they spoke the language. They understood what EOS was and they were looking to help us like find a COO or whatever, you know, which integrators typically could easily be a C-suite position. I thought maybe it was a little premature for that. But then again, I have a partner of mine or he's not a literal partner. I have a friend of mine, a peer of mine who, uh, hired a COO last year, and I would say the two of his businesses combined last year probably did, but like we did a loan in the one. And I only say that because he had hired a COO for one of those and was like, brother, I tripled my revenue. They paid for themselves immediately and also allowed me to focus on the other one, which now this year, he's got huge scale plans, right, for the other one that he wouldn't have been able to focus on at all had he not gotten that COO in place. So I'm excited, man. We got a lot of stuff moving and shaking here as you could imagine, but I just can't stress, I mean, if you're a business owner, Or even if you're a salesperson and you're listening to this, you've got entrepreneur aspirations, or your day-to-day sales life, or these types of things, and tracking how often are you speaking to your clients? How often are you following up with your clients? You could benefit so much from just adding a little bit. And I'll even let you talk about that. I mean, speaking to our viewers, our listeners rather, you know, what are some of the baseline things that just used to go under utilize or just flying under the radar, you'd be surprised or maybe not you, but it always blows me away. Like the things I think are so rudimentary. And then like, to somebody else, they're like, dude, I don't know what you're talking about. Like it just got into business and I've been doing this forever. And this is just how we do it. And it's just like, wow, man. Okay. Well, there is a better way. So talk about that, you know, what are some of the things they can implement right off the bat that could really help them benefit their businesses or if they're sales folks, that's just still technically, probably businesses in the room, right? At least till the current legislation that's being proposed.
I don't know if you saw that, but we'll see. Yeah, that's going to be fun for us all.
Well, you know, and I've got my wife who's an attorney, uh, combing through that. And then we've got a couple other attorneys and Todd's had his attorneys and like, ah, man, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it's as cut and dry as like, I've had a couple people send it to me and I'm like, look, I'm not an attorney. And according to my wife, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's legislation that I believe was just passed on the 10th and it speaks to what they call and refer to as the gig economy. But really what it is, it's a classifications issue in terms of who you can and who you cannot determine is a business. And there are different factors that are points that, you know, either fall into one column or the other as well. There's nine points. She explained it as it's doing away with one way, and that one way, I guess, had precedents, like certain points had precedents over the other, whereas now, they don't, they're all of equal value. She was like, in some ways, it makes it more ambiguous or more open, more like, hey, this one doesn't determine more than the other. That helps because it opens it up for you, so it doesn't necessarily hurt you. So, you know, there's a few ways to look at it. And again, I'm not an attorney, but I would say consult your attorney before you just assume, oh my God, I gotta go. Cause that's exactly what was being implied to me. Cancel all of it, move them all W2 right now. Mind you, we've been very safe, very smart. We've done it. Just like Todd, and what I mean by the right way is if I say I have a 1099, I have an actual business underneath of me with an LLC and EIN, and I see Doc stating that they are a business, and their relationship to their business and our business and our documents are reflecting their business and their business dealings with our business and their business with them and so on and so forth. It just got to be doing it that way, I think you're still safe, but that's my personal opinion. And my wife and our attorneys are still coming through that. I'd actually like to hear what you think on that. It sounds like you're well-versed on it. What do you think about that?
Yeah, we just had a conversation yesterday with, I think it was nine other construction business owners, several of them roofing. And, you know, we're all going through this and we're kind of combing through it collectively versus anybody necessarily being an authority on it. One of the companies, roofing companies, he does like 30 million or something like that. And so he's already got his lawyers all over it. And he's putting together docs that support the 299 relationship. And I'm very much, and I have always been of the mindset, it's entry level. 1099. And then as soon as you decide, Hey, they are going to be like a player in your company. I don't know, not even a player. As soon as they go into training somebody else, that's when I'm going to move them over to LLC. Just like you're talking about where we're going to lock them up. Um, they're going to be doing business under us. We're going to pay them for training, uh, which is, you know, consulting in itself. You know, I'm going to start using terminology that the lawyers say is ironclad, basically. And it's the same. It's the same as you said. It's like you've got to consult your lawyer. Every state's different. You've got state laws that you got to deal with. And then we got the federal one. Right. And so what I will tell you is the state will come after you so much more than the federal one will. Now, the federal one is where you won't feel right afterwards. You'll feel like you just got violated. Right. But you still need to be locked up at the state level. And I would argue that you need to be locked up at the state level first, because I have been, I've had complaints against me at the state level, as well as investigations at the state level. I've never had a federal one, so I can't speak to that as much, but I've had probably seven or eight state level ones, and I've won every single one. And I've won every single one because I had a $500 an hour lawyer backing me, you know? They came up with my original contractor documents all the way down to when we talk about training materials, when we talk about comp plans and all that stuff, they went through those and changed the wording in them. The words on your comp plans, on your training materials and everything matter. And so one of the things, and I'll just start with this right off the top. When you talk about the 1099 sales relationship. that title of that person in your organization needs to be different than the title of the person that you're referencing in all of your training documents. Now, if that, and this is where it gets ambiguous, right? Now, if that LLC salesperson wants to use your training docs and you want to charge them for them, now we've got a true 1099 relationship. Because you're saying, hey, you're using my training. I'm going to charge you for it. And so I used to charge $5 a week for office space, for consulting, coaching, or training, or software use. I mean, I put everything under there. And it is a terrible line item for a business owner in terms of the ROI. There is no ROI. You're losing a ton of money per person on that $5, right? but you're still charging them for it. So when you do consult your lawyer, ask them about that, because I think they'll like that. That's something that can create more of that relationship to where you're charging them for using your facilities, your software, your services. And so it really does create a lot of that. And so, yeah, I definitely think it's something that needs to be talked about, but every smart person is going to preface it with consult your lawyer first before you go through all that. But it is, it's going to be a big deal. More than anything, what's happening with this is the IRS is focusing on construction and contract, which is not what we want to hear, but it's the truth. The guy that I was talking about earlier that has a $30 million business, he's going through right now. He told me that he got, they are like nitpicking a $3 charge he had when he was out of town for I think it was like for lunch or something. And they're trying to say that he spent that money on one of his LLCs. And, and so they're an employee and it's like, wow, you guys are going deep. You know what I mean? So just be prepared for that is all that I would say in regards to that legislation.
Yeah. It's a, it's a lot, man. And we want to make sure that You put your hand head in the sand, you're going to be up Schitt's Creek whenever it hits.
You know what I'm saying?
I want to continue to keep guys the way and look, it's a smart play. It is fortuitous in terms of having, you know, uh, a really high ROI. I also know a peer of mine that if you do it the right way, of course, but the other given take is you had better have your stuff covered. The days of, and I myself have worked at many companies where I was a 1099, and I can tell you, I never had a business I never had an LLC and I never had insurance. I don't know what happened to those companies. Some of them are really big. Some of them are really good. Some of them are nobody's, but I do not do things that way. Um, I'm also married to an attorney, but even before we got married, I was really paranoid about that because I don't know. I just knew like, what are the things that like, you know, Actually, you know what? I thank my original attorneys because they were vehemently like, no, they got to be W-2. And then at the end of the conversation, we spent an hour going over how these guys were treated. And they're like, I got a saying. I think they're 1099. I'm like, yeah, I've been telling you this. Like I said, I've been a whole career. We don't tell them where to go. We don't tell them what, you know, how we want our results.
Right. Like, right. They're running their own businesses.
Yeah. All week. The best thing we can do is like, Hey man, we'd like to see a return of X in order to, you know, make it in your contract. We'd like to see this many pieces of business brought in to be a partner here. Otherwise, there's somewhere else that I'm sure could care less when and if you do any business at all. But if you want to do business with us and have us install your business, we'd like to see X, Y, and Z. amount. You get it, how you get it, where you get it, that's not our business, it's your business. But we have specific requirements for our business in order for us to install your business. And these are those requirements, and they're listed here very clearly. And you know, the same thing, man, like, you know, some guys have upfront cash to invest in their business. And that's where things get like, it's a pain in the butt, like it's best just to have, but like, Like you said, man, even if you're like, oh, they need a pair of boots and you go to like, get them said boots, you cannot pay for those boots, right? Like anything, you know, and if we, if we did hypothetically, it would be a loan. And those loan terms need to be clearly stated. And again, I'm not an attorney, but my whole point would be like, you can't just pay for these things.
Like just put a hypothetical in front of it, Ken, we'll be good. The IRS is always listening.
Even if we did, the term would be clearly stated that like, look, this is a loan. And the loan has a statement of when we anticipate and how we anticipate being repaid. I mean, none of it or a business and as such, you gotta pay for everything. And then again, anything, cause we might do draws or whatever and it's all loans, man. It's all loans with clear stated, return, I don't know, clear stated statements of how we expect to be paid in return. So anyhow, we're not attorneys, we're just trying to talk, but you know what? I think a high population of who listens, a high piece, a key piece of our demographic is probably door to door, solar, or commission only. And honestly, I would, I would wager 80 plus percent of this, um, this already pressed in this topic.
So, and they are, they're, they're listening to this right now. And, and they're, they're like a little irritated. Right. And they're like, man, I don't want to do all that. And I know why you don't want to do it. You don't want to do it because you don't have the kind of culture that keeps people. You know you have high turnover. And if you have high turnover, think about all the money and the time and the investment you're spending on each person in order to make sure they're legit through and through so you don't get audited, so you don't have to pay back taxes. Like, you don't even want to think about that. So it's, it's one of those things. If you, if you have high turnover, you're not hearing any of this because in your mind, well, they're going to quit in a couple of months anyways, but I'm going to get three months out of them. I'm going to get four months out of them. You know what I'm saying? And then, and if you're, if you're irritated by this, or if you're like, it's hitting you a little bit, then that means you need to fix that part of the business. You need to fix your culture. You need to hire better. You need to fire faster. Stop keeping these guys on that are a cancer to your business because they can pull a few numbers every now and then. It's not worth it. I'd rather have, you know, below average guys that believed in the mission and that had a work ethic. Just, I don't need this insane work ethic. I need a solid work ethic. You know, and then I can teach them from there. I can train them from there and I can develop them from there. And those are the guys that you're going to be okay with investing in. You know, this LLC education, this tax education, you know, one of the things I do with my clients to make sure that their, their sales reps are ready for this and have been ready for this for the past year is I bring in, uh, Keith gauze in particular. And he does a tax training and an LLC training and an investment training. And then we break it into three videos. He does one training with all three. We break it into three videos. So one of the first trainings they do when they come into the company is a tax training, understanding, okay, do I need to save my receipts? Like what is, uh, expensible, what's not expensible. And then as soon as they go from rookie to salesperson, They go through an LLC training. This is how you open up your LLC. This is how you're going to structure it. This is, you know, how you set up your bank account and then how you pay yourself all these good things. Keith goes through all that. So it's a recorded training that they go through when they get, uh, quote unquote, promoted, hypothetically, promoted in the company to the next level to where they can earn more or maybe get company leads or whatever the case is, so that they go and open up their LLC and now we're legit and we're good to go.
I think we've hit a happy medium, man. Like for us, like to your point, like when we get to a point where they're in like real like proposed leadership, those positions we've just flat out made W2. Yeah, W2, 100%. You know, but reps, you know, it's all I've known. Um, I would like actually probably to have them W2 or some of the control elements and stuff.
That would be nice.
But, you know, you have to look at too, like what's the market dictate is market offering that, um, you know, how many, and that was successful.
It's not, there's a bunch of companies out there offering these high commissions, no control. Exactly. Yeah. High commissions, no control. And they will not be here next year. They'll, they'll, there'll be another name and it'll be, you know, somebody that can't put their name on the business because they owe back taxes. You know what I'm saying? We know these companies, they pop up, they pop down, they pop up, they pop down.
It's the same people. Guys that were cut by myself and other people saying, watch them go start businesses. Like you've got to be kidding me. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
Your DBA is not gonna cut it, bro. Your TBA is not gonna cut it.
It blows me away, but it's also reality of what we deal with, man. And so it's like, hey, you know what? I was talking about this recently, you know, cause I've seen one young man. And again, it doesn't matter, man. I can also tell you, I have mentors here that are huge and are just like, you know what? I watched so many companies sprout up underneath, not even funny. And I just, you know, what can you say, right? With me, we've actually had a really good retention rate. Uh, you know, and the guys that aren't here, guys that either just weren't good fits any longer. And for whatever reason, even possibly mutually like, Hey man, you know, the season's gone and you were great this at this, to this point, but you know, go fly. Right. And, or to your point, you know, we thought having this retention rate was so great. And then finding like, well, now we're really reinforcing these core values. I don't, I don't think you're a good fit. You know what I mean? So like you did, we went and chopped a ton of LLCs we were doing business with, which is, that's another nice fortuitous, like, Hey, you know, we've got this disagreement to do business together, but at this point, you know, A, you're not upholding your end and B, you know, you're not a good integrity fit, you're not a good core value fit, so it's just not gonna work, right? And so, which can be scary, but to your point, accepting toxicity is not an option, right? Like, now we provide assessments for anybody and everybody, which we were doing depending on the service that attracted them, you know, like Wise Hire does DISC, but now we just send out a three-parter DISC, and I don't know if it's Myers-Briggs and a couple others, but definitely DISC. And, you know, what's nice about that is it gives you your prototypical sales guy or gal. But, you know, I also have to say that, you know, this is where I disagree with, you know, the gentleman that has been working with me and I, we were looking at these tests and he won't, you know, he'll see like, oh, they're not, they're just not a salesperson. I mean, mid to high I, high S, What you'd love to see is high I, high D. I'm 99 D and I. I'm low to everything else. If I saw me on there, I'd be like, great. I'd also probably figure this guy's going to be a pain in my ass. Sure, I check all the boxes for quintessential sales guy. What I'm talking about, folks, is the DISC test. DISC method, DISC test, and there's a few tests that we have our team do, or our prospective And it also goes into common sense, leadership capability, et cetera. But my differencing is I have built a few of these smaller $5 to $7 million offices. And whereas he wouldn't even consider, like, I have to weigh other variables. I have to weigh the fact I have an office in Delaware that now is a brick and mortar. And even the way he would have done that would have probably been a satellite, which is kind of how we were doing it originally. Satellite. LLC that's out there just kind of selling, feeling out the market, realized the market was hot, the market was good. So we put two W2s out there to run it. And he wouldn't do that. But I would. I would. It's far enough away. It's too far for me to be here. And if something goes awry, be two and a half hours away, right? Like, I need installers there. I need W2s, at least one or two there.
I personally like doing stuff like that, like forcing myself to invest. if that makes sense, you know, cause you know, you gotta, gotta at least break even on those W2s and that brick and mortar. So the fact that you opened up that office, it's like, Hey, I can't treat it like my redheaded stepchild. I gotta, I gotta produce out of that office and at least pay for itself. So I have the opportunity to expand. And I do that to myself all the time. Like I start things like 75 hard, or I, you know, do these different things or join this group. Cause I know I need to do what they're doing in that group. You know what I'm saying? So it's like kind of forced myself into
We just talked about like, all right, look, man, it's, let's just say 10K a month minimum that you guys are costing at this current rate, which is X jobs a month. And we need to start getting them now. Cause we're already going in the hole. The second we signed this lease agreement and we've been paying you for a couple of weeks, let's get going. Right. Cause to your point, I wouldn't have that level of enthusiasm. I don't, I have a Virginia rep. We're waiting for our licensing to click over there. But even if it went today, there still wouldn't be the urgency because
He's got to pay for it. He's got to pay his way. He's got to pay his bills. But that's the urgency is his bills. You know what I'm saying?
For us, it's like, no, no, no, no. And our goals this year for that office are five to seven, which to me, like those are genuine, like that's an office like that required an office. So like, it's gonna require, you know, that's the way I heard to do it. And my point would be, so we have gentlemen and we have one sales concentrated W2 and one ops concentrated W2. And again, a little bit of a disagreement there, but he would only have one main point of emphasis in the headquarters office, Crofton, being the facilitator of all things.
That's rare. the person that can do both, it's rare.
And, you know, to, to have a production manager at 35 million, which is proposed and we're doing everything based on where we want to go. Right. So I've got to be able to handle 35 million in volume, which means he's got to be able to, according to his POA, run and order every job with quality control reps that, uh, could or could not be 1099. I mean, that's another one where it's like, okay, well, we'll hire businesses that we will then go like pay them to go out and run the job. As long as again, as businesses and flat out, like the terms are clearly outlined or you could have them be W-2 and pay them a small wage. And, you know, but again, it's how you- Performance bonuses. Exactly. Like, I don't care if you do this for somebody else or not, you got a business to do it as long as you're at my job on this day, you know what I mean? But that's neither here nor there. My point being, we could operate that office in theory then with those two W-2s and a whole bunch of, okay, business is here, business is there, right? 1099's here, 1099's here. and sales. However, the nuances on a state-to-state basis, to your point, like the paperwork has to be different. What if install protocols are different? What if the building standards in Delaware, PA, and Virginia are different? Now, this gentleman in HQ has to make sure that he keeps tabs on every nuance, every difference, and where and what state this is being installed in before he does takeoffs. To me, it's an awful lot.
And again, that's, you're expecting a sales centric person to do that.
Nope. I guess to be fair, uh, you know, I hired, right, exactly. I hired a gentleman that wasn't, he was, he's actually perfect for that as far as, but again, he would focus on just having one. We're getting off topic here. I had a point with this. My point being, as we scale, there's more than one way to skin a cat is what I'm getting at. It's not just so cut and dry in my professional opinion that you use these assessments and tests. And again, it's worth bringing up because people who listen to this show may say, okay, well, this method, and it's a hill to die on. And I for so long did. Are you right? I had one rep that I knew was going to test great and I'd already let him go. So that tells you everything you need to know, right? Exactly. Oh yeah. I knew he would test and look like that because that's what I saw in him, but he is, he just can't put it together. And as, and the adverse of that is the guy that like, oh no we're just not going to interview him for sales could be phenomenal he could be great i mean okay maybe he's not the quintessential cliche uh i was born for this but does that mean he can't do the job well he's not there forever probably because you know it's not in his dna well if he's here for a quarter and helps us hit our goals when we're building a brand new office while we're still recruiting, because it never stops, never stops. For those pieces that fit, that we can then retain permanently, what does that hurt? Especially if they're online and we're just giving them a shot for this industry that they want to try. It's very low risk outside of the things that we have to do to make sure we're compliant, but like, I just don't see why we wouldn't. So I just want to preface that with saying like, I used to live and die on that hill of like, this is or isn't like he did as far as method goes. But now I've kind of reverted back to my original requirements, which are just good attitude, good work ethic, and we'll train the rest. We'll give you a shot, you know? Go ahead. Yeah.
So the, the DIS method for me is a, a measuring tool. Right. And every team has that, you know, high D, high I that is going to crush you no matter what, but also, you know, dips out for a week at a time with no explanation.
You know what I'm saying?
So, you know, uh, the natural born salespeople, they have their place, but they're not who I'm building my company. You know, and I've maintained this for a long time because I had a company that I could, if you could walk and chew gum, I could train you how to sell and you can make a thousand dollars a week in my company. because of our systems and processes that were in place. So there's a difference between a company that has a well-built sales program that anybody can walk into and do well at, because it does favor the compliant and the steady, right? That, that sales program that's well-built favors the compliant and the steady because all they have to do is follow it.
Yeah. Yeah.
They eat it up. They eat it up, you know what I'm saying? And when you have that person that executes it well, they often outsell over time the high D and the high I, you know what I'm saying? Now, if you have the company and you don't even have a script, you don't even have a train the trainer, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you want high D, high I. You need the natural born salesperson that can take a little bit of information you're giving them and run with it. The problem is, is you go from, you use that from zero to a million. to maybe 2 million, maybe 3 million. You get those high D, high I guys, and those are your salespeople, and that's who you're looking for. But at some point, you're going to have to transition to those guys that are more steady, more in the middle, or more compliant. And so, because those are the guys that are going to push the systems that you put in place. Those are the guys that are going to run the play that you provide for them in the playbook. And those guys are the ones that you can build a business on.
You heard it here, man, that for me actually was refreshing to hear. Because again, I've been beating my head against like, and think about this, right? I have tasked two gentlemen that we had already agreed. We interviewed these guys six times, Doug. And it was important to me. I'm proposing to expand my first new brick and mortar. Like I'm not going to just assign just anybody. I would have loved to bring somebody up internally, work out that way. I didn't have anybody who actually lived there. So it was kind of like, okay, man, like the guy, and it just worked out that we found a couple of solar guys that were running it off. in Delaware very successfully through my consulting company. I have had a history of taking solar guys to insurance restoration and having them do that for a bit, much less me feeding them on the back end from headquarters. So I'm like, well, yeah, we can, these guys can do this. And they've, and they've so far, you know, been great. But my point is like, now they're tasked with recruiting because that's the first real task, right? It's like, okay, cool. You've learned what's going on now. We got to get some bodies in here. Well, this guy is shoveling folks in left and right. And I'm supposed to just poo poo like, ah, Hey man, sorry. They didn't pass. We're not going to interview him. Like, how is that? going to continue to promote this gentleman recruiting?
It's a variable, not a filter. It's a variable, not a filter. So if they have all the things, but they don't score well on the disc, then I'm going to hire them because they have all the things, you know, I can see the, or maybe for whatever reason, I know their work ethic or for whatever reason, I know that they can speak well, you know? And so to me, it's a variable in the calculation, the disc assessment is right. I would, I would argue even going further than that, but A lot of the sales programs I have built are based on minimum standards within the first 30 days. So we have these minimum, these controllable actions that they have to adhere to in the first 30 days. And if they hit those, they're in good shape. So it's more of a filtering process after the hire. You know, and this is always tough because of what we were just talking about. It's like, okay, I'm supposed to be compliant. I'm supposed to be ready for this audit, the state level audit, this government level audit, if it happens. But I'm basically hiring 70 to 80% of my applicants and then filtering them out in the first 30 days, you know, and sometimes that's what you need to do because you're not, you know, you're not well funded or you're not, um, you don't have a big staff or you don't have all these people that can, can filter them out for you. where you're not spending money on personality assessments or whatever the case is, right? So sometimes the sales program has to filter them out in the first 30 days. And then sometimes you have to use variables like the disc assessment, but to me, it's just a variable. It's not the end all be all. I agree with you a hundred percent.
I love that, man. And I was on the other side of that fence until recently. And I'm like, well, wait a second. Did I build either of the two first offices that I built to get to five to seven? And we did it very quickly the second time around, like, I didn't use any of that. I knew it was available. Yeah. Yeah. Half those guys myself. And again, man, hell man, in the very beginning, did you have a heartbeat, you know, and then yeah, exactly. And so like, it's only improved and it's just, you know, I believe water seeks its own level. Your culture kind of dictates who you bring in. And I just, I love what you said. It's a variable. be all, it's something to consider. And sometimes they're spot on, and sometimes they're not, right? Like they may be spot on as to what their propensity for X is, but to my point, I had a gentleman in here that I knew would test very well. He did test very well, and he's not here because he just can't put it together. You know what I mean? He was out of my ability, and so there you go, right?
When they're too high, they fall off the freaking edge.
Oh, I mean, just, you know, like the lack of organization, which we all have. And then the contrarian, the D and it's just like too high D or it's like, I'm not gonna listen to anything you're saying. this isn't gonna work. And like you said, we have sales systems. Now, again, it's hard to like, you have to, well, you can't say that, but like, we have a proven system that works. And if you're not having success, and you refuse to even like, utilize the system that we know works, well, at this point, we're out of things to help you with as a business. And you're not performing to the level of what we would want from our Sorry, we're just not right fit. We started this conversation because of how many just randoms pop up left and right going into business doing this. The barrier for entry for solar and roofing, insurance restoration roofing is very low. It's what? Take a test. get an LLC, have a truck and a ladder, right? And go tell somebody you're gonna give them a free roof, which is not the case. We have to pay a deductible. We have to do these things, but these guys do it, right? These guys do it. We do not. It has a... Okay, well, now we're going to use this to show our value and what we do and let them know what's out there and educate our customers. Like, look, you got to be careful, man, because my God, this company, this company and our company, I mean, there are companies that have sprouted up left and right of just personal opinion, of course, but like, I mean, one of them was doing solar two months ago, right? And now he's supposed to be the guy that's your expert on get your roof on. I mean, I mean, my goodness, right? Like it's, it's almost, it's almost a damn shame, but it's like, you know, ma'am, I've been doing this for 16 plus years. I've installed roofs. I'm not saying you have to do that to be good at this, but it's just like, it's absurd. It's absurd how quickly, and it's just like, You got to know that. You got to know what you're up against. And you have to protect your clients. And so doing things the right way, finding someone like a Doug, asking for some help, maybe enlisting their help, is all of the difference in the world and will make you the 1% versus the 99. Because I think it's overwhelmingly, I would say 75. I think it's overwhelmingly saturated, both solar and insurance restoration.
Honestly, I really do. And here's the beautiful thing, guys like us have made your investment zero. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, absolutely. You can hire us to consult whatever the case is, but you don't have to, you got the kitchen table podcast. You got the building great sales teams podcast. You know, we have a ton of free content out there. You're going to have to go search for it and you're gonna have to put it together yourself. You know what I'm saying? Instead of jumping on a, an hour call or a 30 day or a 90 day engagement with us, um, where you're just compressing time. But if you're just starting out and you're the guy with a truck and a ladder and a license and an LLC, and you're just starting, listen to these freaking podcasts. That's all you have to do. And then let them pull on the thread that'll take you down the wormhole so you can go after this information like a dog on a bone, man. And if you do, I do, I have people that It was like at the apex entrepreneurs last week. Um, I had a guy that's in roofing and he's like, yeah, I've been listening to your podcast for a year and I have this, this, this, and this. And he's like, he's got my whole system. He pulled it from the podcast. He pulled it from the free information. I was putting out the templates that I pulled out everything. He's got the whole thing. He put together a, uh, 20 K 90 day consulting package himself through the content that I put out there. You know what I'm saying? And I was just, I was like, man, I want to hire you to like, help me consult. You got this shit down. You know what I'm saying? It was awesome to see.
I'm sure you both, it would be a moment for you, I'm sure. I mean, giving away the free value knowingly. So you, it's nice to see something, you know. That's the idea.
And there's only, there's only so much time you can sell for money. You know what I'm saying? Like I have other things that I'm doing because I know that, that probably half a million is my cap where I'm selling time for money. You know what I'm saying? So I have these other things that I'm doing that I know, okay, can scale me back to seven figures where I want to be. But I'm, I'm really enjoying this moment right now. I'm really enjoying just being able to pour into people, being able to coach other people. and being able to do podcasts like this with guys like you, it's awesome, man.
I couldn't agree more, man. And in fact, I take my 12 o'clock lunch to go crank out a podcast and we're about, we're up against it to where I have to go back to my real job. But Doug, first and foremost, take a listen to his podcast, Building Great Sales Teams. Am I saying it right? Is there anything like... Yeah, that's it. It's super simple. I mean, there's a bunch of places. Obviously Doug's a wealth of information. He's the first best that I had on for a reason. I've actually hired and used his services. And I mean, I own a consulting firm. So that should tell you, you know what I mean? But I have strong suits and Doug has strong suits and my strong suits are different. And so, And I say this, not like, I guess it's coming off a little salesy, I just kind of realized that, but he's a good friend of mine. I trust him. And that's freaking hard, man. I was just talking to a friend of mine last night about how hard it is to weed through the fakes, the phonies and the BS. And that's difficult. So if anything, I can put my stamp on Doug's the real deal. If you own a business or you're just looking for some general consulting on how to get your stuff together you know, compile all of that data metrics, all of the things on how to get organized and get your systems in place, your sales systems, give him a call, man, you know, listen to his podcast. I think, I think from there, you'll, uh, you'll hear what he's all about, but Doug, I love talking to you, man. Honestly, it's been an hour and it doesn't feel like it. We could probably talk shop all day, every day and just geek out. Um, but I'm proud as hell of watching your growth, dude, from absolutely. what you did, how you did it, and just committing to like, nah, dude, I'm going to go do this. That's what I want to do. It's an integrity move. It's a core value driven move. And I love seeing it work out for you, man. And I will catch you. We'll have to do a follow up here soon, but I'll catch you on you. I'll come back on yours if you'll have me.
Yeah, absolutely, man. I'd love it.
All right, my brother. Well, how can they find you? We want to make sure they find you. Awesome, brother. I appreciate you. Where can they find you? We got to make sure they find you.
Yeah. On all social. Yeah. So salesprogrambuilder.com. Uh, it's got my podcast on there. It's, it's, it's got, uh, my content, my free stuff that I give away. It's all on there for you guys. So definitely go take advantage of that. And, uh, all my social media is TX biz dad.
TX biz dad, my man, dude. All right. Sorry. I didn't mean to freak out there, but I had to make sure you didn't like log off before. So. Go watch and check out my guy, Doug Mann. And guys, I hope you got something out of this podcast. Doug, we'll get you back on soon, my brother. And thank you so much for stopping by. Sounds good. Thank you, Ken.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. It is how new people find the show. Until next time, remember, there's always a seat at the table for business.