(lively music)
-: Hello and welcome to The Sharpest Tool,
where we take the sting out of marketing
by bringing you all the things that we do
on a day in and day out basis
in the marketing space.
My name is Josh
and I'll be leading the charge here today
but I brought somebody along with me that
I'm really excited about,
this is Steve Levitt who is
running our west coast sales team
out here at Scorpion and he brings a lot
of great background and advice.
I'm just excited to pick his brain.
So Steve, welcome!
-: Thank you, thanks Josh.
-: Yeah, you bet!
So today we're talking about something that
I think challenges a lot of home service professionals
today, their sales cycle
and the sales organizational development,
developing a sales team that's actually going to
work for them to help their business grow in scale.
We know that the sales models, but different.
The CSR's are constituted as sales people
in some instances.
The techs are sales people - they go into
the home and have to actually convert the ticket.
It's not just about diagnosing the job,
they gotta actually make sure that they're
getting paid for it.
-: That's right
-: So I think there's a very interesting challenge
that we face today so, give us just a little bit of
background in terms of what you've seen
in your experience in your career
that brings you to where you're at today
and how small medium and businesses have really grown.
-: Yeah, sure, happy to.
So, typically sales seems to be the one thing that
most people think they can do,
but often is the least invested in
and in many cases the least trained in.
Important to remember that there's a certain
set of skills you need to have to be in sales,
and choose that lifestyle to live your life
and your professional career. -: Sure
-: Studying the art and the science of sales.
So, often times we want to, as owners,
do this ourselves, you know, not necessarily
hand off the reigns because it's scary, right?
-: Yeah
-: Certainly is the lifeblood of the company.
Typically in my experience, it's been the owner
who's been primarily the breadwinner,
primarily the person that creates opportunities
for the company and it's scary to let go of that.
-: Yeah
-: So having a clear path to being able to do that
and investing in it matters,
and is the key to success.
-: Sure and how would you say you scale appropriately
from a small medium business world?
-: Yeah, I think that's a great question
and that is the number one thing that I have heard
is, "When do I do it?",
"How do I do it?"
So when is one of those things where
you kinda just know, right?
You just know my gosh, I'm spending way more time
working in the business than on the business,
and I have to start working on my business
or we're not gonna grow.
And many customers that I've worked with
are challenged because they don't have a good set of
to begin with, really numbers or KPI's or goals
we can call them whatever we want,
where by we say, "We are trying to reach
X number of jobs, tickets, revenue, whatever it
happens to be."
It's a great place to start.
What do you want to do.
-: I want to pull it back for a minute
because you mentioned something that might
be a little abstract for some of these business owners
and that's, you mentioned working in the business
-: Sure
-: Versus working on the business.
What's the distinction between the two?
-: Sure, great question.
Think of it this way Josh,
I know that my differentiator perhaps as a plumber
is that I know high pressure water systems
better than anybody else.
I'm making it up.
There's a certain amount of vocabulary
in things that I know what to say and how to do
on a call with a prospect or a client
that I have to eventually get my team
to be able to say, do and understand those things.
It further multiplies by the number of questions to ask.
When do you ask the right kind of questions
around what problems are you having,
are you having these other problems?
And many people tend to just do the work
rather than take the time,
and that's called working in the business,
well let me just go do it, cause often times
we get, "Oh my god, it's just easier if I go do it
rather than explain it to somebody else.
I don't have time."
Well, carving out that time to say,
wait a minute, what are those 10 key things
that I really need to have any one of my techs,
any one of my intake people, whoever it might be,
in my small business.
They need to know and ask these questions,
because it's gonna lead me down the road of,
being able to position what we do in the right way.
-: Yeah
-: Right?
-: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense
-: That documenting the process, is more what
I consider working on the business
than actually doing the work.
-: Got it.
I appreciate the distinction.
I think that, yeah, that's a lot more approachable
and it brings up a word
that was kept popping in my head
and it's this idea of duplication.
This idea of replication, one of the biggest
challenges for business owners today
it seems to me might be this idea
of replicating a process,
replicating a person (laughs), right?
-: Right
-: Cause it all rests and lies with that,
the business owner, and now you gotta make
another person like you, to do exactly,
to make it. -: Right
-: What are some principles that
business owners can apply to making
that transition successful?
-: That is what lies between, you know,
a small business owner and a medium business owner.
-: Sure
-: Right, and running more crews, more trucks,
more jobs, then that terrible feeling
of just, I can't get to the next thing.
I can't get to the next job.
I can't find that person.
So the question I think is really,
how do I go from me doing it to finding
someone else who can do it.
And that's what I was trying to talk about earlier
is really knowing what it means.
Okay, I need to have X number of jobs sold,
or revenue booked,
and that's what I'm searching for.
Then, breaking out, well what are
the right types of accounts that I need to have
that, or ideal clients that we should,
or should not be working with.
What sort of solutions or collateral material,
or what do we want to say to them?
Who should I have on my team?
Who should be responsible for this?
And then what do I want them to do?
Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, right?
And then how do I make sure they're doing it.
We could probably do a whole series of podcasts
about each one of those things, right?
Because they all get very deep very quickly
but the very level if you can set goals,
figure out who you want to work with, right,
understand what you want to say to those
ideal clients, right?
Figure out who you should have doing it,
what you want them to do be doing,
regularly, and measurably, and then,
how you can look in to whether they're
doing that or not from a management perspective
will at least give you a roadmap
to understand, okay, I need to hire two more crews
in order to do that, and I need 50 more jobs
per X period of time.
-: Sure
-: And we're going to do that by focusing on these
right types of clients that we know we can help.
And here's what we're going to say
to those kinds of clients
as to why we're better or what our unique
proposition is in the market and then
figure out well who's the right people to do it?
Often times it may be the tech.
It may not be.
-: Yeah
-: Depending on the size of your firm.
-: Totally
-: It may be someone in the office,
often times as the owner it's easy to just say
no, it's me.
And that's the case for many reasons.
One, the buck stops with you, always.
But, you know the business.
You've done every job.
You know how to sell.
And there's a certain level of accountability there.
-: Yeah
-: Creating that culture on a sales team
is important.
I believe, placing someone in charge of it,
finding someone that has that responsibility
as their primary focus in the company
it has to start there
and that's scary as heck.
-: Yeah, absolutely
-: Because suddenly I'm now asking you
to be the mini me.
-: Yeah (laughs)
-: Right, and you're not there yet.
So it requires investment in that person
and helping them get up to speed
and all the things I just mentioned.
Maybe having them shadow you,
understand what you need to do,
but also setting clear direction about it.
Here's where we're going.
-: What's necessary?
You mentioned sales culture.
What's necessary for a thriving sales culture?
-: Yeah, um, so we tend to do a really good job
of this at Scorpion, I gotta say.
Well, to me the most important thing
that sales people really wanna feel is
that they are playing a game they can win, period.
In my career, you know, there's been times
where I knew I can go hit my number,
and it was super easy.
Then there were times where I was playing a game
that even if I did everything right
I couldn't get there.
And no fun.
Bad for moral.
Stretch goals, but hey, we're crushing it.
We're doing it.
We're getting there.
This isn't easy, I'm earning it,
to me is where it starts.
So back to the first piece about setting goals.
Realist goals, attainable goals for the business.
You're not gonna suddenly go from running
one crew to 50 crews in a quarter or two.
Maybe, maybe you are, but probably not.
So let's have a meaningful game that we can play
and we share in the success and the victory of that.
And having that line of sight
gets sales people engaged, excited and focused.
And also feeling like they're supported
and have the other things I mentioned, right.
Hey, we do know how we talk to clients.
Here is what you should say.
Here is the right type of client.
This is what you need to go get in the market.
Often times we'll put, we'll hire the cheapest
resource we can find that has good personality
stick 'em on the phones and say go do it.
-: Sure, what's your recommendation, would you say,
for companies who strictly deal with
sales people who are responsible for all aspects
of the sales process, versus having
a supportive administrative staff.
Do you find one to be more successful than the other?
If so, why?
-: Yeah, good question.
It's not a simple answer.
Earlier, earlier in the stage of a sales team,
it's my opinion easier and better to have
one purpose, one person doing it all.
As you want to grow, and get larger,
and scale, we use that term around here a lot,
and scale can be tricky, you have to specialize.
So, if you're adding one or two sales people
as truly as individual professional sellers start there
listen to them.
Ask them what they need to do more.
But then, when you feel like
hey they're consistently performing,
usually I suggest we recommend someone
that can help set appointments for that person.
Once that person is able to demonstrate
that they can bring us more jobs,
bring us more tickets, bring us more sales,
whatever, however we measure it in our goals.
What we want to start to do is specialize.
The next person I would typically hire would be
an appointment setter, or a cold caller.
To put that person in a position to sell more.
Then add another sales person.
That ratio gets tricky.
But you'll find that as you scale,
you need to specialize.
Same thing goes for inbounds.
Or referrals, and making sure they're the right fit.
-: Yeah, definitely, and you mentioned
finding the right people (laughs)
and I think it's always tricky
in the sales world, so,
obviously in the home services arena,
a lot of the techs, they go into the house
and then they diagnose and effectively sell
on why they need to allow them to fix it, right?
So what do you think from that aspect of
a techs job, what should be considered when
hiring techs, or what, if you have a tech already
that maybe isn't strong in that area,
what qualities should be considered
in training those people in?
-: Yeah, great, great question.
Good people are super hard to find.
They don't come to you.
You gotta go find them.
Plain and simple.
We look for people that are already working.
Most of the time.
I think that ideally, what you will start to notice,
is the same techs that are rising to the top
are probably doing a couple of things.
They're probably doing a lot of listening.
And being a bit empathetic,
with whoever our clients are,
to really deeply understand
well why is this a problem for you?
Okay, I got it, and I am confident now
that I am going to solve this problem for you.
I'm gonna quote, kill the problem for you.
End quote.
That gives me as a buyer, a level of trust,
and comfort that you're not here to just take my money
and get out and come back in three months
and do the same job over again.
We have a saying here,
no listen no trust, no trust no sale.
So your top techs, are probably
really going in, listening to the client
talk about what's going on,
understanding why that's a problem,
and then adding their professional layer
of problem solving and bringing their knowledge set
to bear on the problems and saying look,
here's what you probably need to do.
I know it's frustrating, you could either bandaid this
or you could kill the problem
and that's gonna cost you substantially more.
-: Yeah
-: Understanding that component may be another way
to go and scale, right?
So suddenly now you've got people in the field
booking jobs and not necessarily turning wrenches.
-: Yeah
-: And that's how we can do it.
It's scary, cause I'm there and now there's a cost
to going back out, again, back to the goals.
If you've got goals that say
we need to do X more jobs,
is it realistic?
As you're starting out, it probably makes sense
for you to have one person move into that role.
-: Yeah, absolutely,
and I'm gonna ask you the age old question.
Marketing and sales (laughs),
what's the difference?
-: Yeah, if anyone could let me know, that would be great.
(laughter)
Just kidding.
Yeah, so it's been interesting over the last
few years, especially.
I've tend to come from more of a B to B background
but I do know that sales and marketing
now more than ever are so closely married together
that it's hard to separate them.
Consumers are showing up to all sorts of
buying cycles with far more information
with far more research,
you know, competitive analysis done,
even for things as simple as,
finding an electrician.
Solving my problem, they're more educated.
The key component here is just making sure
that when the sales person finally talks to
a new client or prospect,
they're saying the similar things
that the marketing team has said to them.
So, if I tell you the cars cost X
in my radio or TV commercial,
but I show up and it's really Y,
we start to erode trust.
No listen no trust, no trust no sale.
So making sure there's that alignment
between sales and marketing is so so critical now.
Make sure that who you're targeting,
what you're saying, how you're saying it,
is backed up by your sales people.
Now, where we get into trouble
often times as companies, is we want to grow.
However, we haven't taken the time to make sure
that what I said earlier about the solutions
or the sales collateral is aligned
all the way from marketing to sales.
If we're not saying the same thing,
and the salespeople have goals that are different
suddenly you have an opportunity
to create bad behavior
and we want to avoid that at all costs.
It may seem like the right thing to do
in the short term.
It is not.
It is 100% not.
-: So consistency is the key
for them making sales and marketing work together
-: Absolutely, yeah, because there's no
friction for me to turn right back around
and say this didn't work for me
as a customer.
This is not the right firm,
therefore don't use them.
Now, the next marketing and sales experience
someone has with me is
maybe a little more challenging.
Let's leave it there.
-: That's awesome Steve, well I wanna
wrap this up with a nice bow here.
If there's one thing that you think
would allow a home service business
to make a strong impact
when it comes to their sales
right now, what would you suggest that be?
-: I would have to say, the one thing
they could do in order to make an impact
with their sales efforts is to
really set a goal for being where you want to be
at X period of time, and then, so
we always say start with the end in mind
I wanna be at X number of jobs or trucks
or crews or revenue, doesn't matter.
Start there, work your way back into how
how are you gonna do that
from a sales perspective,
from a marketing perspective.
If you're driving demand in marketing,
how are you gonna answer that demand
from a sales team?
-: Yeah, awesome, well Steve, this has been great.
-: My pleasure.
-: Thank you so much for your time,
I really appreciate it.
-: All good
-: And if you're enjoying all this awesome content,
definitely hit that subscribe button
wherever you might be so you can get more
of all the goodness we're bringing your way.
Once again, my name's Josh and this is
The Sharpest Tool.
We'll talk to you then, bye!