Skyrocketing Sales Through Effective Negotiation and Role-Playing Techniques

when you want help with your sales, the first thing I say is like, first question I ask is, how's the role play going? And so it's twofold. One, you have to be role playing.
Two, you got to be role playing stuff that actually works. It's always horrible when someone says we're doing role playing and I say, well, what are you role playing in terms of asking for the business? And you hear something like, so do you want it? And you're like, that's no, you're role playing the wrong thing.
So it's not practice doesn't make perfect, right? As Lombardi would say, perfect practice makes perfect. So yeah, role-playing it is supposed to be humiliating, right? It's supposed to take you out of comfort zones.
It's supposed to like, it's supposed to make you kick down walls of anxiety that are keeping you from actually getting up in front of your peers and doing it. When you master doing something back and forth, like between you and me in front of a bunch of judgmental technicians that all know how it's supposed to go and they're quietly or loudly making fun of you for doing it wrong.
When you get it right in front of that group and you go to do it, it's nothing. I'm telling you, it's nothing to do it in front of the client after that.
Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today.
To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you.
Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out.
I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy.
Now let's go back into the interview. Okay, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert.
My name is Tommy Mello and today's an exciting day. I got Brian Burden, one of the first days we're shooting in the new video room.

It's going to be amazing. Brian is a fellow podcaster.
This dude is giving it back to the trades. A lot of business owners, but more importantly, technicians, CSRs, dispatchers,

getting the right mindset, learning about getting healthy, financial wisdom. Brian's

an expert in leadership, sales advice, marketing, so many things. Here's a quick bio.
He was

Thank you. financial wisdom.
Brian's an expert in leadership, sales advice, marketing, so many things. Here's a quick bio.
He was based out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He just moved to Phoenix.
It's an exciting time. He's the VP of sales at one hour heating and air conditioning of Southeast Pennsylvania.
From January 22nd to present, Mr. Sparky Electric, operations manager.
He did that for four years previously. Benjamin Franklin Plumbing did that from 2013 to 2022.
Brian is the current VP of sales at One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning of Southeast PA, where he trains the next generation of professionals in the trades on how to sell the right way. He formally trained technicians for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing and Mr.
Sparky Electric on how to identify and present solutions to homeowners strategically. Additionally, he is the host of Waste No Day podcast, a podcast devoted to challenging, encouraging, advising, and highlighting the men and women of the home service industry.
Brian's a good friend of mine, and I'm glad you're here for Do a Killer podcast. Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Finally, to reciprocate, you've been on our show three times, and two of them went long. You and I can tend to do together.
So we made two parties out of them. So really, it's been like five times.
It's a cool podcast. I mean, talk about some of the people you've had on your podcast, so what the podcast has brought to your life, your family, your profession.
Well, we've had Brian Burton on every week so far. So there's that, you know, what more do you need? We've had Mr.
Tommy Mello. We've had my probably original mentor in selling aspect of the HVAC plumbing trade, who is Ken Goodrich, has been on twice.
I really attribute the majority of growth and development that I've seen in my life to Ken and his old team there at YES Air Conditioning and Plumbing. And from there, we've had like Chris Voss, author of Never Split the Difference, the one of the most successful FBI hostage negotiators in history.
If you haven't checked that book out, you're missing out. We've had Tim Kennedy, the MMA fighter, fought for two belts in the UFC, Special Forces sniper.
It was his team that took out al-Baghdadi. Man, what hasn't this guy do? He was the star of the show Hunting Hitler on the History Channel, where he would fly to South American countries looking for escaped Nazi war criminals.
All kinds of stuff. This guy's just a legit American hero and just an awesome guy all around.
I heard him on Rogan's show and I worked some real sales magic to get him on. What did you do? What's the pitch? So I was looking on his website.
If you're going after higher level people to get him on, it's really difficult to get through a gatekeeper when you're a plumbing podcast. Nobody's ever heard of you.
Cause this was like, this is our, I don't know, maybe a year in and we didn't have a whole lot of downloads at the time. So I went on his

website. I try to find like a sneaky way in where I'm not just going through their PR firm because

they want, you know, they want you to pay to get them on. Sure.
So, and we didn't have a budget because it didn't make any money. It still doesn't.
So we don't pay to get them on. And we didn't have a budget because it didn't

make any money. It still doesn't.
So we don't pay people to come on. So you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the webpage, and I don't know if it's still there, but in very fine print, it says contact him for this, her for that, them for this.
And in very, very tiny print, almost like a gag. It said, or if an American is in grave danger, email me at Tim Kennedy.
I'm not going to say the email, blah, blah, blah.com. And I'm like, I'm with my wife.
Like we're actually laying in bed. And I'm like, get the hell out of here.
Like she heard him on Rogan with me, on Jocko with me. We were huge fans of this guy.
I'm like, there's no way this is going to be real, but what do we have to lose? So I made the subject of the email. It was something like plumbers in grave danger, dot, dot, dot.
And then the body just said of dying of boredom. If you won't come on our show, the waste no day podcast.
And then I just told him what the show was and that we'd really appreciate him, you know, spending an hour on the phone with us. And he got back to me like the next night.
I was sitting at a buddy's house and I got an email that said, love to do your show. When do you want to do it? I was like, oh, that's awesome.
There's no freaking way that's Tim Kennedy. And it's such a generic email, too.
So I'm like, sooner the better, because if he realizes how small this show is, he's going to obviously change his mind because he's got better things to do. So we did it that week.
So first thing I asked him when we get him on the phone before we actually start recording, I say, what made you decide to do our show? Because I'm going to want to use this for someone else later, I'm sure. And he said, I was laying in bed, waiting for my wife to get out of the shower, doing her thing.
And it's Sunday night and I'm going through all my emails to set up my Monday morning. And he said, I saw this HVAC taxing grave danger, whatever it said.
And he said, so I opened it and I read of dying of boredom. And I started laughing right as my wife walked out.
And she looked down at me on the bed and said, what are you laughing at? And he said, this podcast asked me to do this podcast. He said, I get hundreds of podcast requests a day.
I don't even read them. But he said, because of this one, I read it to her.
She laughed, walked away and said, do the show. And I said, okay.
And that was that. That's awesome.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting about getting creative.

You ever heard of Blue

Fishing? No. Oh, you

gotta read that book. Write that down.
Done and done.

Blue Fishing,

he talks, I'm

brain farting. Anyway, this

guy used to be a bouncer

and in Hong

Kong. And

he's an American guy, short,

bald, you know, some

would say overweight. I And he's an American guy, short, bald, you know, some would say overweight.

I hope he's not watching.

You want to say that about a bouncer?

He's in great shape now.

But, you know, the dude drinks whiskey.

He's got motorcycles.

He's just uber successful.

And he's the guy you call if you want to make something happen.

You want to have a meal in the Sixth Chapel.

You want to go meet anybody. Like, he makes make something happen.
You want to have a meal in the Sixth Chapel. You want to go meet anybody.
He makes the impossible happen. And it's a great book.
And Steve Sim, S-I-M-S, Steve Sim. And mind-blowing, that's going to change your whole life, I promise you, for what you're doing with your podcast.
So I always like to start out with just hearing about what you did in the home service space, why you decided to start a podcast, what the future looks like. Sure.
So I'm third generation, technically third generation plumber. Started in new construction, carrying buckets of gravel and kick axing foundations to lay sewer.
Just hated waking up every morning to that kind of work. I'm not afraid of hard work, but I would get dropped off in the foundation of a home by myself to spend the day there with a pickaxe and some piping and a blueprint.
And I'm, you know, like yourself, I want to be around people. So being there all day was pretty miserable for me.
So I did that for as long as I had to, and then eventually got in my own truck in a drain company because it was the fastest path to, you know, I didn't need my journeyman's card to get into a drain truck. So I started drain cleaning.
And then 2004, my wife got pregnant. So her parents were living in Las Vegas at the time.
And her dad, big intimidating Puerto Rican dude, was just going around to plumbers at gas stations, just banging on their window and saying, yo, how much you make last year? And every one of these guys that would answer, he knew I made 30, 35,000 a year in a plumbing truck in the Detroit area. so he would hear $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year.
And he would call my wife. These guys are making two, three times what Brian's making.
You guys got to get out here. So I went.
So we went. We just moved.
We never even visited. We just packed up our stuff and moved.
Not too unlike this recent trip to Arizona. But the opportunity was there, you know, and we just, we wanted to jump at it.
So we rolled out and I went to two companies. We spent every dime we had to get out there.
We had no money. My father-in-law had to loan me gas money so I could go hit a couple, put a couple applications in.
Hit the first place and it was like, you know, your real blue collar plumber who had his entrepreneurial seizure as a Michael E Gerber would say, and started a business. And it was a very small plumbing company.
He was everyone there. I interviewed with him, loved him.
He offered me like 25 an hour or something, which I was like, Holy crap, I'm going to make like twice as much as I did. Yeah.
Move over a Gates family, you know, comes the Bertens. So in my head, I said, done, I'm taking this job.
But, you know, we had the old map book and I had written down directions from my in-laws condo where we were staying, where I was in a top bunk bed with my brother-in-law to that company and then another company and then another company and then back to the condo. So I knew exactly how to like triangulate from home to these three places and back.
So I said, well, and I told my wife I was going to see three companies. So I went to the second company and that was, yes, air conditioning and plumbing.
And Lance Fernandez was Ken Goodrich's GM at the time. So I went in, asked for an app.
Mona happened to be the lady who saw me and gave me an application while I was filling

it out.

Lance came walking out randomly and just said, you know, what's up?

What are you doing here?

And I said, I'm here to put an application to be a plumber.

And he said, that felt derogatory where he was like, is that all you want to be?

And I'm like, you know, we're proud in the trades.

Like, isn't that enough? And he said, do you want to be a plumber? Do you want to learn how to make money? I'm like, well, I want to do both. And he said, would you be opposed to learning how to sell? And I'm just like, oh, now that first company, that guy had warned me about this quote unquote, warned me about this company and said, they're going to try to teach you to rip old ladies off.
So I had that going in, you know, that negative mindset going in. And I'm like, as soon as he said that I'm halfway out the door.
And he said, I'll tell you what, you know, I don't want to be some penny loafer wearing used car salesman, you know? And I said that to him. And he said, I'll tell you what, give me 10 minutes in the conference room, whether you come to work for me or not, I'll give you a, I think it was like a $50 gift card, a Visa gift card.

And like I told you, I just borrowed money from my wife's dad for gas to get there.

Let me tell you who had 10 minutes to make $50, this guy right here.

So we went in the conference room and I bet you it was like five minutes before Lance had me sold.

And I don't really remember the conversation, but as you say all the time, I remember how he made me feel and how he made me feel was like, not only was there more to this career and more money to be made, but there was more to me. And he told me something I'd never heard before.
He said, you've got a million dollar smile. You just don't know how to use it.
Oh, I like that. And dude, I'm like, I had goosebumps like five times talking to him because he told me how he sold his way out of being a HVAC service tech to now the GM and part owner of yes.
And it was all integrity driven. Keep your principles, offer upgrades more than like emergency stuff.
He was big on the IEQ. I became big on water treatment.
It was all like professional stuff. It was just above board, really pro status rebuttals and making people feel a certain way as opposed to pushing things on people.
Whatever he said in that room, I was sold. I actually did skip the third one, I believe, or maybe just ran in and out and got home.
And my wife said, I said, I took a position and she said, famous question, what are they paying per hour? And I said, it's not hourly. Zero.
It's performance. Panic attack one sets in for mama and she's just like, what? And

I'm like, but I will make more here than if they were paying me 30 bucks an hour.

It's exactly what I did. It was like 60 the first year, 80 the second year, just boom, boom, boom,

kept going up. So I did that.
Now I took an opiate addiction with me for years that kind of,

the hope for me internally was moving there would there would help me get rid of that addiction.

Okay. Let me tell you, it's way easier to find there than it was in Michigan.
Oh, Las Vegas? It was like everywhere. Everyone in the trades, it seemed like, and that's not the case, but everyone I found myself around was an addict and had real easy ways of getting a hold of that stuff.
So around probably 2010, I just called a timeout. Like I got to get off this stuff or I'm going to be dead here soon.
So my stepdad had gone through an actual crack addiction and he kicked it at a facility called Teen Challenge in Pennsylvania, which is actually an adult rehab center. So I moved, I moved into my mom's basement in Pennsylvania and went through that program.
Halfway through the program, my wife came to visit. So this is, you're working for YES for five, six years? So it was probably five years.
And then I left on my general manager's advice. I wanted to go get better at sales.
I said, like, I've done everything we have to offer here. You know, we had Terry Nicholson in and we had Carl DeBinion and like all the trainers came through and I took everything they had to offer.
I was going to Tom Hopkins bootcamp out here in Scottsdale every year on my own dime. And anything that came through Vegas, that was sales training.
I spent every penny necessary, took out credit cards, like whatever it took to get the training. And I said, where can I get more? And my GM at the time, who was going to lose his most, his prize possession.
Yeah. One of his biggest producing plumbers said timeshare.
And this was a whole other animal because this is like high pressure. You have 90 minutes to close someone who's not in the market for a timeshare.
So for a year and a half, I went and learned how to sell timeshare. Came back to yes and was there for about another year before the addiction was so severe.
It was all that mattered to me. I mean, my numbers were in the toilet.
My marriage was in the toilet. I was a horrible kid.
And you had one kid at this point? I had two at the time. Two at the time, yeah.
Yeah, we decided to make the move. Plan was probably to go out there and get some rehab and then come back.
My wife just wasn't working but became a waitress at the time to just make ends meet, moved in with her parents. I moved into my mom's basement until I could get into that program.
About halfway through the program, Amelia, my wife, came to visit and loved what she saw and wanted me to finish the program, despite the fact that it was several more months. So she moved the kids into my mom's basement in Pennsylvania to wait for me.
So you've got a wife and two kids at the time in the basement of a townhouse, unfinished, and my mom just doing whatever she could to make it work. So I finished the program, got out of there, went and met Matt Buckwalter and Larry Rohr, who Larry was the owner of the Benjamin Franklin one hour, Mr.
Sparky in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At that time, they were about five mil a year.
Me getting into a truck kind of helped change that for them. I think we did six million the next year.
And then they asked me to take over as operations manager for the plumbing department. So I did that for probably three years, maybe four years.
And then they asked me to take over the Mr. Sparky as well.
So Aaron Buckwalter and I shared responsibilities of operations for Mr. Sparky, where I took over all the training of the technicians and he took over like the actual operational stuff.
And we blew that one up pretty significantly to, well, in January of 2022, they removed all operations stuff from me and made me vice president of sales of the one hour Ben Franklin, Mr. Sparky.
So in 2014, when Aaron and I kind of took over, we were at a little over 6 million. This year, they're tracking just shy of 40 million.
And that was me, Aaron, Nate Minnick, my co-host on Waste No Day, and Mike Vavrik, who's our call center, built our call center, which is a phenomenal call center out there. So yeah.
And most of what I did when I'm in my element was train people to sell while raising their Google reviews, not lowering them. So yeah, I'm curious.
I got a good question that I've been thinking a lot about. So this is the hardest part.
You went to this plumber that was basically a technician, had his entrepreneurial seizure and all these guys say the same thing. They're 90% of the industry, but it's, it's changing now.
He's getting in there, seeing that we're valuable. We're awesome.
We're essential. We're good people.
We work our asses off. It's 118 degrees outside.
My guys are all working. This show is putting the word out there.
I mean, people are hearing this show. I hear it all over the place on the East Coast.
People are hearing shows like this one and going, I want what he's talking about. This is the mindset though, is why do these guys continue to say, I don't take advantage of customers that I don't sell things people don't need when they don't really take care of their employees? This is the biggest question I've always had is why are they driving used trucks? Why don't they have formal training? Why aren't they allowed to have a billboard? Why can't they take their people on vacation? Why don't they offer PTO? Why don't they have a 401k? Why don't they have insurance? Why don't they recognize people in meetings each week? And then they complain that you're taking advantage of the client.
They, uh, they quote unquote care so much for that client. Meanwhile, they haven't spoken to a client in two and a half years, but they care so much for the client.
I'll say this on our show. I don't want to call people out on your show necessarily, but you can always cut it out.
I'm sure if we're calling out of the mindset, what I feel to call out of mine. Yeah.
I don't, I don't feel like they care about their client. I've worked for so many of these guys over the years.
They hate their clients. They hate their employees.
They hate their coworkers. They're just scared.
Like they don't want to raise their price to where it needs to be. They're also very, they tend to be very controlling, very self-centered.
They're the top guy in the company and they never hire anybody. That even going to dispute anything that they, they don't want to hire anybody better than them.
And they say, I can't find any great people. Well, number one, you can't afford them never to.
Why would I come work for you? What's in it for me? They say, well, I took all the chances. You took all the chances.
You're making 150 grand a year. Your business makes zero.
Yeah. How many people do you have making here, making than 150 grand dozens 50 100 yeah and that's even cool when you see a business owner of a small trade organization making 150 because most of the time they don't they're not making six figures it's one of those things where i've realized now of where people could take me.
And the greatest, I've had a few really good people in the last two years, between Jim, Dan Miller, moving a couple of people around. It's like, all of a sudden, you hire for your weaknesses, put me in a position to do what I do best.
10X is better than 2X. It's a great book.
And I just feel like the mindset is so broken of we don't deserve to make money. We're blue collar.
It's almost like they were imprinted with blue collar is not allowed to make money. We only fix problems.
We'd run seven calls per day. We don't get to know the customer.
We don't get to build a really great relationship and give a great experience. And there are still bad companies that oversell and do take advantage.
Very, very, very small percentage. But if that's what you focus on, that's what you're going to find.
Well, I got to be very careful here because I always tell people, raise your prices. But when I say raise your prices, that doesn't mean just raise your prices.
It means pay your people more, drive better trucks, advertise different, raise the experience level, start really training on what they need to know. Because if anybody listens to me, you got these haters all over TikTok.
For some reason, Instagram doesn't have the haters. TikTok has people living in their parents' basements.
And all they do is spend four hours on TikTok and they go, I would never pay a plumber that much. Well, you don't own a house, first of all, and you'll never own a house with your mindset.
I've had so many times where I thought I was getting a good deal. My last house, I got a good deal on a roof, good deal on an HVAC unit, good deal.
Until two years later, I replaced them. The good deals weren't so good deals.
And I've learned firsthand what it's like. Why do people that don't have any money buy a new iPhone? They've got Jordans and they rent a Mercedes.
That's the biggest question I always ask. They say, I don't, I don't pay a lot of money for stuff.
Have you ever looked, you got a Rolex, but you still live at your mom's house. It drives me nuts.
You know, who's worse than that client, the quote unquote client who's never going to use you because they don't even own a home in their, in their mom's basement. The majority of the hate in our industries, particularly in HVAC, I think more than any of the other ones, is other HVAC people.
So if you go on any of these like HVAC for life or Facebook groups and you say, here's what one hour heating and air charges for a contactor, what are these guys going to say? They're going to say that's outrageous. The part only costs $20.
You're charging $2.50? Yeah, a capacitor, anything. But the same one.
So I did the math to have some arguments on some debates on Facebook with these guys on a Monster Energy drink, because every one of those guys does nothing but drink monsters and smoke all day, and a Big Mac. And the Big Mac was actually the worst one.
A Big Mac markup on material and quote unquote labor is 600%. So they're going six times their material.
Pizza. Pizza costs a buck 50.
But these guys buy it nonstop. Oh yeah.
They don't look at anything else. They don't figure out how much.
This is one thing that I think every company needs to see. What is the burden cost to get a truck out there? What's the time you're paying the guy the gas, the wear and tear?

How much did it cost the marketing?

How much did it call for the call center, the HVAC unit that you have keeping your call center cool?

The software.

Like, all these costs that no one ever thinks about.

They don't even think about that. Yeah, so McDonald's is allowed to mark up their meat product 600%, right?

6X. And what do they, do they bring it to your house? No, you got to go wait in line and it's a shitty line.
When you give it to your kids in the backseat, does someone run out of the McDonald's and clean your backseat up for you? No. Do they take the trash at least out of your vehicle? No.
Nothing. They don't vacuum up.
Nothing. But what do we do? We send a fully stocked truck to a house to do all those things for them.
And then do we leave, do you leave springs and coils and oil all over the garage floor? We've got a blower. We blow out.
We put the stickers up. We actually got some spray to clean up after ourselves to make the garage door cleaner than when we walked in.
Yeah. We clean everything up ourselves.
And then if something goes wrong. who's on the line? If you have diarrhea from your Big Mac, do they send an employee out to help you out? No, you're done.
That's it. But if you have an issue with that garage door making too much noise, what do you do? I'm back out there the same day.
They're getting cut in front of line. Warranties come first.
Yeah. So you take care of it.
But we should be called criminals if we mark our stuff up six times. Well, the mindset, it goes back to the mindset issue of I don't deserve, it's something that happened.
Maybe they weren't close with their dad. Maybe their mom didn't love them enough, but they don't deserve number one for themselves to be successful.
But number two, they artificially are holding people down. They literally say, I'm the owner of this business.
Why would you make more than me? Why would you make more than 60 grand? You're a effing plumber.

You're just a garage door guy.

Well, why is that the case?

Why wouldn't you want somebody to succeed?

Do you want to be known for somebody that kept somebody in an apartment that never gave

them the freedom to pick their kids' private school, that never were able to go winter

shopping for their kids?

Like, would you look in the mirror every day with this mindset and say, I'm really glad no one's making more than 60 grand a year. I can't afford insurance.
And they wonder why this labor market, I can't find good people that, you know, we've got lines of people waiting to come work for us. And our clients are happy because we offer apples to apples.
We sell oranges, you know that. And it's so easy in my industry and it's easy in a lot of them.
HVAC is the one that's getting smart. It got smart, I think in 1990 with Frank Blau and George Brazil.

But it's good that we're talking about this because I like your perspective.

I figured out HVAC because I looked for all the guys with private jets. And then I started

studying HVAC. It's very, very simple.
They got private jets, but it's okay. If somebody comes up with anything else and they got a private jet, it's okay, but it can't happen in home service.
It's amazing, but the tides are turning. And I think people are starting to listen to what we're saying and putting out there.
And I think people are like, maybe I was wrong. Maybe that is true.
Maybe everybody around me should succeed too. Yeah.
And they, and they really are. It really is happening.
If you look at like the reviews of your show, reviews of our show, Waste No Day, the reviews of like Cristiano's show, which is one of my shows I listen to as well, is people one after another after another talking about how they listen to these shows and their mindset changed. they listen to these shows and now they have a different perspective on their own business moving forward and it's like i uh read a new one this morning one of these reviews that gets sent and

i'm just like my heart starts racing because you see it with your employees nonstop, right? And since I've been training the selling in the Lancaster, you know, we're in Amish country with no real severe weather any time of the year. But in Amish country, we have number one and number three highest producing Mr.
Sparky techs in the nation. We have the number one one-hour service tech in the nation, and we have two or three top, one top five and two top 10 plumbers all across the nation, all in a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country, HVAC plumbing and electrical business, simply because they're all bought into this mindset of one.
The main thing being every person we see deserves the right to hear about every product we have. Now, does that mean they go through our price book and list every single thing we offer? No, but when you sit down and have a conversation with someone and you get a feeling for, or what you should be doing is getting a feeling for what products we offer that they would benefit from, right? That they would really enjoy as a family.
And then giving them the opportunity to say yes or no to it, which is by far the biggest thing missing in- They don't ask. A lot of people don't ask.
They don't show them anything. They get there for the toilet stopped up.
They plunge the toilet, auger the toilet, and they roll out versus getting the needs, the Tom Hopkins formula for needs, N-E-A-D-S. What do they have now? What do they enjoy about what they have now? What would they alter, if anything? Who's the decision makers? And what's the solution, the needs formula? So they figure out what they have now.
What would you change if you could change anything? Or my famous slash infamous question I used to ask. So if I would go on a FOF, we would call them at Yes, Yes, Plumbing.
You know, we would hit plumbing maintenances twice a year because we had so few customers. So we just go out twice a year and tune up the water heater and check the plumbing system.
F'd out flushes is what we call them because you'd have six badass dudes like, you know, Mike Bissell and Brent Buckley type guys out there before you. There'd be nothing to do.
So I would get out and I designed a question that would give me the opportunity to get one more thing. So it could be a husband and wife, really work the best on the wife.
If it was like a high D disc profile or a strong like A-type personality, I'd probably skip this question. But if you're sitting there with your coffee cup, or if we have nothing but an ink pen in between us, I would say, well, I'm all wrapped up here, but I do have one more question before I take off.
If this pin was a magic wand and all you had to do was go poof and your plumbing system would be perfect, what would change? And before they would answer, because they would automatically go, well, I would go, you got to use the wand. Or if they had like a coffee cup sitting there, I would go, do me a favor.
There's a genie in your coffee cup. You just rub the side of it.
And this purple Robin Williams is going to pop out and you get to make one wish. And that wish is going to grant you a perfect plumbing system in every way, shape and form.
What would you wish for? And if they go to answer, I'd go, ah, you got to rub the coffee cup. And what would happen was, and this is just out of desperation, we get no hourly.
I just, I have no idea what else to show these people. So I'm just going to put the weight on them to have me show something.
I would ask one of these questions. And then the answer would oftentimes be something that I never thought of.
Something that is either irritating to the wife who's home with the system all day or to the husband that has one thing that bothers them, which is 90% of the things, the answers I would get were things that bothered somebody. It was rarely like, I want this to upgrade.
But oftentimes it would be something cool, like adding a shower head to the shower that's already there or- Or like get the stuff hotter quicker or what, I could come with 10 things. Yeah.
Also the wife would say oftentimes in plumbers, if you're listening, this is a big one. The wife would say, when I turn the faucet on in the morning, I swear I smell pool water.
She gets a gust of chlorine because as it, as it sits there and at the end of that faucet overnight, it builds and builds and

builds. And when you first turn the faucet on in the morning, you get hit with that chlorine.
Yes. Yeah.
And that's chemical. They want that out of there.
So. So it's interesting.
I was at this event. I don't know if it was Pantheon and I'm on this bus and I'm sitting next to this guy and he's in South Florida, Tampa area, I think.
And he's like, dude, he's like, my average air the conditioning cells, 45 grand.

Phew.

And I said, how is that possible? He goes, well, number one, I only market to these houses. He goes, I'm not in the whole area.
I'm specifically in multi-unit homes. Number two is, my famous thing I do is I get the wife and we walk around and he goes, one of the biggest things that, and I don't know much about HVAC, but he said, when you're getting ready, and these are pretty wealthy people, when you're getting ready and you jump out of the shower and you're doing your makeup, does it get really musty and humid in here where it's like spreading your makeup? Because your return, and don't quote me on this, but he's like, your return's in the wrong spot.
This place is going to be really humid until we fix the piping. I don't know, the vents and the return in the right spots.
And he's like, once I have her and I found the need, and almost every time, it's Florida, it's humid. Your makeup's going to spread.
He goes, but I can keep it way drier by the system we use. And he goes, it's such a big need.
It's such a big deal.

Bree gets ready for an hour some days.

And she's got her in her closet.

Like if you were solving that pain, they would gladly do it.

And these people have money because they were marketing to the affluent.

And that's just one small thing.

I'm curious.

You've trained how many texts do you think?

Hundreds now.

Hundreds of texts.

I've got a list that I made up on attributions of a great tech.

I'm going to name a few things.

I don't want you to name a few things.

You know, I don't look for people with skills.

I look for people that smile.

I look for people that are just, they tell a great story.

They're smiling.

They're confident.

They're optimistic.

They're people I want to get to know.

I look for people that actually don't mind writing down a plan and holding themselves

accountable.

I look for people that love to practice.

They've been good at something, whether that's sports, whether that's karate, whether that's playing the trumpet. Farming's great.
And I look for their tone and I'm like, this is a guy I'd hang out with. This is a gal that I'd absolutely do business with.
Like, that's someone I find as a busboy, an Amazon guy. Like, I'm going to not only get their information, but I'm going to almost beg them to give me an opportunity to work with them, to just get them out one day.
And I feel like most people, they're not actively recruiting, but my guys don't take no for an answer. They're like, they assume the sell.
They say, here's what we're going to do today to make everything all better. But what would you say you've got, you just went over some of the top guys in the country are in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because we could all make great people.
We know we're not born and it's just how much time do you have? So if you were to get a great canvas, what would some of these things be? So our rule was hire for charisma, train, technical, but Aaron Buckwalter and I did. For the longest time, we were kind of shared operations management of the three departments before we switched roles there.
And we had one rule. When we get into that conference room to interview someone, and we interviewed everyone together, top down, part runners, CSRs, no matter what, they had to go through us first.
The rule was, if we get into that conference room, sorry, we would be in there first. If the person comes in and the energy drops as a result of them coming in, we're done.
If it stayed the same, we'd have a conversation. But if the energy rose, now we're like you and I, we're just having fun.
We're talking about goals. We're making jokes.
If the energy went up, we're probably hiring that person. We didn't really look for a whole lot of other things, but it's eye contact.
It's smile. It's care about your appearance.
You don't have to be dressed necessarily correctly. Like there's no uniform you need in the interview, but you have to give a crap about how you look.
Like this is. Yeah.
Did you have a haircut? Did you at least respect yourself enough? This is an interview. Yeah.
I mean, you don't need fancy clothes, but did you, did you at least attempt to look good? It was, uh, so I had this question I asked if you came in with long hair or a big beard or piercings in the face. It's tough, man, because typically when you walk in like that, my hope is already down a little bit.
But if you walked in and sat down, one of the first questions I would ask was, assuming this goes anywhere, not saying it will, not saying you'll want to be here necessarily, but assuming this goes somewhere, how married to the facial hair are you? And if real quick, they said, you know, I'm trying to get this thing down to my knees, that interview is done, you know? But if they said, not nearly as married as I am to a good income and a solid career, but like, yeah, buddy, like that's what you want to hear, you know? So mostly what we're looking for is like, I just had a conversation. I had an Uber, Uber dropped me off just now from a house we're staying at in Glendale until our home closes on Friday.
And I love this guy. He's renovates homes as like his kind of side hustle and then just does Uber when he's slow.
Put him onto my show, put him onto your show, told him he's got to take some steps, you know, and these shows would get him on the right track. But what did I see? Great eye contact, hopped out of the vehicle to say what's up.
Didn't like, you know, just make me grab the door handle and get in, which some do. Big smile when I got in, shook my hand, wanted to make sure he had the first name right, shook my hand with eye contact.
These are the things you look for. A little bit of confidence, not all the confidence in the world, because I feel like typically, and maybe not in a hundred percent of cases, but in a large majority of cases, your most successful people have been through some stuff.
Probably they're humbly confident. They've not had the easiest life in most cases, hopefully one good parent at least, but majority of my highest producers I've trained, including myself, had it pretty rough in the beginning, have had to go through some things.
So you might have low confidence in the beginning, but you're looking at somebody that you go, I can work with that. You know, they can be molded because I was molded.
I was a piece of crap when I got to yes. And I had very, but it also, I guess it goes to the point where you went and you sold timeshares for a year and a half.
You went to how many different places? I think Tom Hopkins is the man. But my biggest thing is now, at the point in my career, I did this for 17 years.
The first seven to 10 years, I could hire people and work with them for years. Now, I don't have the luxury.
I've got big goals. I'm not saying I don't give people opportunity.
I'm just saying, if you want to change your perception of yourself, go work at Starbucks and then come back to me once you believe in yourself. Cause I always say when I start my orientation, you'll believe in me cause I care about you.
I love you guys. Like I'll do anything to make sure you're successful.
You'll have new trucks. You'll have the best tools.
You'll have the best trainers. You'll have the market acceleration technician training.
You'll have a great market manager. One thing I can't do is give you, I can't look in the mirror for you and say, I believe in me because I believe in myself.
I believe when I walk in a room, I'm a badass. I have the best self-perception of myself.
And that's hard. It's hard to change that.
Man, I firmly believe when it comes to you sitting in a conference room, interviewing someone,, in most cases, you're probably seeing the absolute best version of that person sitting across from you because you bring it out in people. Your energy is electric.
Your confidence is contagious. You know, I feel more confident around you.
I feel like, you know, we're going out to dinner tonight with the sales boss and our wives, Jonathan Wissman.

And I'm like, you know, candidly, I'm like, man, talking to my wife, we just made a big move.

We were getting, you know, two thirds of the house and one eighth of the property for twice the price of where we live currently.

And like financially, this is a big step for us and times are tight.

But I'm like, babe, I want to buy these guys dinner. Like, I don't want to chance one of these guys feeling like picking up the tab tonight.
We didn't end there. Don't worry.
But I'm like, just in Tommy's case alone, and I'm a huge fan of the sales boss. That book was revolutionary to me.
I had no idea you knew him. Oh, yeah.
Personally, I just told him because they requested to come on W no day. And I said, are you kidding me? Like I love the sales boss and I loved his episode of your show.
And I said, I'll be in Arizona next week. Why don't we get together and talk about the episode? And he said, or his assistant said, yeah, we'll see if we can get Tommy to join.
Of course, Tommy knows him, you know, but what I was saying to her was like, And, you know, Tommy in particular has done so much for me confidence wise career wise with very little personal influence on anything that's happened in my life but like listening to your show religiously weekly I always say it's the one I listen to I actually listen to two religiously it's this one in the Wizard of Ads podcast, but it's only six minutes a week.

Yeah.

So it's pretty easy to listen to.

You know, I'm a paralysis by analysis guy.

I grew up in Southwest Detroit.

I went to a Detroit public high school.

I grew up in a place where the nail that sticks out gets hammered flat out, 100%.

And I grew up looking a certain way that I already stood out everywhere I went in Detroit. So I was trying as hard as possible not to any more than I already did.
But you and your show and your energy really inspire me to just take action, man, to like believe in myself more. And you're a Michigan boy like I am, you know? So I think your energy promotes people having more self-confidence.
So the people you're seeing are probably completely different people and much better people than a two garage door across the street that probably interviewed them before you. You know, it's interesting because I could do so much, but what I've learned is when you have accountability at work, and I'm a big piece of that, but you need the accountability at home.

And you just said you've been talking to your wife.

You guys made a big move.

You talked about dinner tonight.

I've got a gal, Leslie, one of my top guy's wives that says,

Eric, don't come home until you sell a garage door.

We're going on pinnacle trip.

We are going to earn this trip.

We are going to earn equity in the business.

We are going to do this. When they have that at home, so you want to know a little secret? You get an A player, take their wife, take their husband out, find out how much they respect each other.
Because if they're not having a great time together and they just, there's like this contempt and there's this unhealthy relationship, how's someone going to go and you can just see they're bickering. You can just see they're mad at each other all the time.
You can just see the marriage is not really going anywhere. If you're not happy at home, it's hard to come off and turn that off.
One of my guys says, zip it up when you leave. But when they're very good with each other and they bought it and the wife's bought it, all those bad days, those hard days, those Saturdays they got to pick up, maybe late job,.
All of a sudden, it's easy because they're working on a goal.

They understand what they're working towards.

Even their kids are involved.

I think you have to have that.

And when you have that and you've got a great ride-along and the team that's going to train

and do the ride-alongs that the trainers believe, you help pick them.

So it's not Tommy Mello decided this, therefore he's granted in.

If I meet somebody and I love them, they will have a better chance of making it,

but everyone's gotta be bought in.

Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this podcast interview.

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That's freedomevent.com. And I hope to see you in Orlando.
Now let's get back to the interview. And that's the other thing you have too.
Like you don't have years to invest in people anymore. With this role shift that I'm making at a different company, I'm actually going from vice president of sales of a 130 person team to something significantly smaller, just a restructured version of what I do now.
I'll actually have a little more time for one-on-ones, but you don't, you don't have to have that at your size because of the team that you've put in place now is just micro versions of you all the way down the line. And everyone that person comes in contact with is getting little pieces of you instilled in them so that what used to be two and a half years to get someone somewhere should now be like three to six months.
Well, I look at this. One thing I've really examined over the years is I kind of watch how people gather.
What I noticed one day is this, my cousin, who's definitely not listening to this show, so I'm going to worry, but he was working in Kansas City. And then I had another manager in Dallas and they called each other every day and complained.
And they also sat in the back of the room. They also rolled their eyes whenever anybody talked.
And those guys couldn't attract great talent. You walk in their place, the A1 there, there was pizza left out from two weeks ago.
None of the chairs were tucked in. They didn't have the A1 core values anywhere.
I mean, literally Jonathan Wissman went to Kansas and said, this is disgusting. You'd be ashamed.
This was never how you'd run. I've been to everywhere that you've been to, and it looks extravagant.
Like if a toilet's running too long, if a fan blade's dirty, I'm looking at it. And this is not who you are.
And I've noticed that with technicians, CSRs, dispatchers, there's certain people that kind of, they gather together and there's other people that gather together. They don't drink as much.
They're focused. They got their eye on the ball.
Their families know they become very great fishermen and they always talk to each other about the good. And it's a mindset thing.
Like, listen, get your head out of the gutter. You're going to a tune-up.
They called you for a tune-up for something. Who cares? The CSR didn't do a perfect job.
Who cares? Control what you can control. That's what I tell people.
Don't worry about things out of your control. Focus on the things you can control.
You know, someone says, I don't get as many leads. All these business owners I deal with.
What's your booking rate? Well, I'm not really sure. What's your conversion rate? What's your average ticket? How much are your people promoting you? Do you have self-generated leads that you pay them on? Like, these are all things you can control, but you're bitching about the marketing company because the last few years we were spoiled.
If you didn't make money the last few years, you shouldn't be in business. Yeah.
Period. You're probably not by now.
Yeah, Jocko Willink has a great saying, and we have his trainers on, his echelon front leadership trainers on off and on Waste No Day. Really just working our way to getting Jocko on.
But his saying is one word. Whatever the complaint is that you just said, he answers with good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly says.
Hey, you're alarmed and it'll go off or you're tired when you wake up. Good.
Good. You know, the weights, you don't feel like doing it.
Good. You know, you don't want to get in the ice plunge.
Good. All this stuff is good.
And my buddy, this is all. If you don't have the calls.
Good. You have more time to spend with each client.
Yeah, you get three reviews. You get five reviews.
You make it to know the neighbors while you're there. You got plenty of time.
You go to a B&I meeting on the way home. You learn how to close.
Imagine such a thing. Well, I will say, I will say this, and I've been in this shoes.
If you got one call a day for five days in a row, that's your everything. You're almost like guarding it.
You're like, I don't want to lose. don't want to lose.
Like I got to like really be careful because this is my, I need to feed my family with this one call. So it's my job to make sure you got three calls.
We're on 40 markets. It's just capacity planning is a pain in the ass, but I take that very personal.
That's my number one goal is to drive leads. Just to make sure guys have somewhere to go.
Make sure they do. And I'll send somebody to Denver, send somebody all over the country to make sure they're willing to do that.
And then my biggest secret sauce that I never talk about on podcasts is I'm going to go buy a small company. If I don't have enough leads, I'm buying lead sources.
You know how hard it is to make Google rank and do everything. All I do is buy two lead sources there of somebody that's running nine calls per day.
I can pay them way more than they're worth. I'm buying lead sources.
The best thing I tell my market managers to do is go find a couple of small companies that are getting 20 leads a day because of stickers or because of past customers or because they're good on Nextdoor or Yelp or whatever. That's good, man.
It's a lot cheaper than trying to figure Google out. I think we're good at a lot of things.
And my big push yesterday, you know, we partnered with CoreCat Tech

and I said, guys,

we're going to spend a lot of money

over the next six months.

I picked five markets.

We're going to blast the branding.

We're going to be on every TV commercial.

You're going to see 60 billboards.

You're going to see us on radio bus stops.

You're going to see our trucks.

We're going to be at every single event.

And I said, this is going to bury us

for EBITDA for the first six months. And they have a lot of faith in me.
And they said, is this what you want to do? I said, yeah. It's not a one-year plan.
It's not a one-year plan. So I really love the conversation.
This is so important because everybody always asks me, how do you get such great people? What other things? So I've got maintenance techs, right? The guys that go run the service agreements. You guys have that.
What's the different personality between someone going and running those and working on turnovers than maybe a top guy running a 10-year-old unit? So we have in Lancaster at the Mr. Sparky in particular, Logan Altland is the highest producing electrician in all of Mr.
Sparky, right? He only runs demand calls. Right.
Struggles with a maintenance call. Jamie Mellinger is the third highest producing Sparky in the country.
He's been first two years by the last four or five. He only runs maintenance calls.
And this is so interesting because I want to know, you gotta explain this. So we did a great objections episode with the two of those guys where we actually covered this and then just did objections for, I don't know, an hour and a half.
But what is that? What is the name of that podcast? It's waste. No day.
But waste. No day.
Let me say it one more time. Waste.
But what is that? Starring Brian bird. That's objections.
I think it's just called objections with Jamie and Logan. It's pretty phenomenal.
Well, that's, that's a must listen to for those out there. But guess what? All of a one technicians and installers are going to be listening to that.
So I've already done two. You know, this is what I do.
More downloads, baby. Yeah.
So Jamie is, and I was a maintenance guy. Now, if there's a water heater leaking everywhere and it flooded out the HVAC unit and there's water all over the house, obviously that's the call anyone wants in a plumbing truck.
Outside of that, give me a maintenance call 100% of the time. I crushed maintenance calls.
And the way Jamie sees it is their guard is a little lower. There's not a lot of heavy stress in the home already, you know, so people are relaxed.
They see him as just coming in and checking the system out. And if he doesn't find anything that needs to be done and just offers a few minor upgrades that they would just enjoy having, he gets out of their hair, no harm, no foul, no money spent.
But more times than not, he finds some things that either need to be done or he thinks they'll really enjoy more about their electrical system. And since their guard isn't already up and their hands aren't in front of their face and they don't feel all defensive, they're never getting estimates.
They're taking that work right there because Sparky's their company and Jamie is their technician and that's that. So he feels, like I felt in a truck, you don't have to overcome the already existing stress.
You don't have to overcome the fact that they're getting two more estimates out because they already knew they had a problem. Logan, on the other hand, who struggles with maintenance calls, he thrives on that stress.
I mean, he's such an empathetic guy. As soon as he walks in the home and you have no power and half your house and the salmon that you and your grandfather caught in Alaska a year and a half ago that's in the deep freezer is getting ready to start thawing.
And oh my gosh, if that happens, you know, and like he feels your pain deeply and works with you to overcome whatever the pain source is. He builds such a friend on that stress that he can literally sell anything he wants.
He sells water treatment all the time. He sells HVAC equipment all the time.
He just gets in there and makes it happen. It's really two different personalities.
Jamie's very, very process driven. Jamie uses my sales system literally to the letter.
And every time I want to try something new, funny about Jamie, every time I want to try something new in the sales process, I haven't run a call in almost a decade, right? So I'm not going out in the field and trying these processes out. I'll call Jamie and I'll say, next time you get this objection, try this rebuttal.
Now, word for word, boom. And he'll write it down.
And next time he does, and the next time he gets that objection, he'll try the rebuttal and he'll call me from that call and say here's what they said he'll literally try it word for word anything i come up with so he's very process driven whereas logan on the other hand is all people he feels everything you feel parroted back to you builds a relationship like you cannot believe he has people crying with him i think he cries too, like all the time. So it's, yeah, it's two completely different personality types.
You know, it's interesting. I have the same guy that I just use, I've used for the last eight years.
And I'm like, listen, I got this idea. And one day I wrote down the top part.
I could put a lot of frivolous things like surge protector, deco hardware. I thought of everything, oversized bottom rubber.
It comes with thicker hinges. And I said, see if you can get 3,200 for this.
This was years and years ago. He's like, boss, I sold two of them today.
And then I sat around. I said, week later, I said, see if you can get five grand for that.
Started slanging them. And I was like, because I just, I wrote down, it was like 20 things that came in this package.
It was everything I could think of. And I'm like, when I looked at the pricing, I was like, we're not really making as much as I thought on this.
And now that that package is like eight grand and still. And then now that I've got economies of scale, I went back to my vendors and I said, guys, do you want my business? Because I've got choices and I need you guys.
And I said, here's where I need to be. And I said, how much of my business do you want? Well, I got a text message on Friday that said, we're going to be your biggest partner.
And those are the type of people that they want our business because they see us scaling and they say, we don't get in now and do something. So I didn't let them give us their best price.
I told them where I needed to be. And I don't know what Chris Voss would say about that.
But in a negotiation, I think if I walked up to you. His number one thing he would say, in a successful negotiation, both parties win.
Oh, absolutely. Both parties got to win.
And I said, hey, give us the biggest things you guys make money on. And I want to know that.

I want to know your one year, three year, five year plan. And I want you to come in and spiff us on the things you make the most money.
I get my guys in that behavior of selling that stuff. And I used to buy and sell a lot of cars and let's pretend me and you are buying and selling a car right now.
You got a car listed a 95 Accord and you're selling it for five grand. I don't know, Five grand, low miles.

And I say, Brian, what's the lowest you'll take? And you go, you know, 4,500. If I offer you three grand, you're insulted.
Yeah. But if I walked up to you, Brian, and I said, Brian, CB joints, CB joints, gone.
The tires need to be replaced. I need to do this, this, this, and this.
The max I could possibly give you. And by the way, I'm buying this literally.
And I'm going to use emotion. I'm going to say, I'm barely making ends meet.
This is so me and my, I get to get my daughter to school. This is like, this is very important for our family.
I got cash right now. I can give you 2,500.
If you need work around the house, I'll help you. I just, I want you to feel my empathetic to me.
I want you to feel emotion and I want to give you a decent offer and let you know what I need to do to make it safe for my family. You'd probably take that.
Yeah. And even if you wouldn't, what I wouldn't feel was screw this guy.
He's wasting my time. Versus if you offered me 500 more at three grand, I'd go screw this guy.
He's wasting my time, roll my eyes, walk away. But if you offered me 500 less than that, the way you did it, this conversation is not over.
Even if I can't take 2,500. My dad called me earlier and he's like, it's good buddy, John.
He's doing some work, handyman work at a guy's house. And the guy's like, I'm donating this van to charity.
And he goes, well, I don't have a really good vehicle to drive to work at all. He goes, why don't I be your charity? And I'll come do whatever you need at the house anytime.
He's like, I'm just trying to make ends meet. The guy's 72 years old.
Oh, wow. So, I mean, what would the charity have got a couple grand for a guy that's going to come now and be available?

And those are the things just asking and being empathetic and saying, listen, this is, I learned this from Josh from Parker and Sons Josh Kelly.

As he says, you know how we made it so easy that anybody could do it is Brian, here's what you need to do.

This from my house, I would say, this is what you should do.

This will get it working.

This is what you should do.

And if you were my mom and I would say this, my mom worked three jobs when my mom and dad got a divorce when I was seven. My mom was a server, a bartender, and she also was a real estate agent.
She'd go knocking on doors. For sale by owner, she was there knocking on their door.
She was on high heels all day. I love my mother more than anything.
This is what I would do for mom. You know, then shut up.
And it does everything, but it's simple that any technician could do it.

You need to do, here's what you should do. And if you were my mom and then look at them and say, my mom is everything.
Or say your grandpa, say whoever took care of you that you look out for,

that you would really, and I always ask my guys, would you really fix this door for your grandpa?

You must be a really shitty grandson if you're going to fix this piece of shit.

You know what I mean? That's really what I feel. And if you make it so simple and they could

Thank you. really fix this story for your grandpa.
You must be a really shitty grandson. You're going to fix this piece of shit.
You know what I mean? That's really what I feel. And if you make it so simple and they could practice and it's so hard for people to do stuff in front of me.
So I stay away. But as long as I can do it in front of the trainer, because I get that some people in front of me, they feel like, well, is he going to criticize? I don't care.
Just keep practicing. If you can't do it in front of your family, that's what role play is for role play, role play, role play.
Get humiliated here. So you never get it in the client's house.
Tom Hopkins was the ace of it. He goes, repeat after me.
Exactly like me. This is not a prepayment for word.
Prepayment penalty. No, it's a prepayment privilege because you got the privilege to pay it up early.
And in 05, when I was in 04, I knocked on my first door as a quote unquote selling plumber for Ken. I had knocked on hundreds of doors over the years as a plumber, but this is the first time as, you know, my palms were sweaty.
I had a huge knot in my stomach. I'm like, I'm expected to sell on top of be a plumber.
And I was a complete train wreck knocking on that door. It was a Moen 1222 cartridge in a tub that wouldn't shut off all the way.
And I did not get the sale. It's just a $200, $200 job.
And I missed my very first call for Ken out at yes. But the very next year, I don't know, seven, eight months later, went out to Tom Hopkins bootcamp for the first time.
And I was on stage, actually posted a picture of it on Facebook here recently of me and Tom on stage role-playing something in front of, I don't know what it was, 2,000 people or whatever he had at those boot camps. You want to talk about humiliating.
And Tom, he didn't humiliate anyone. He's actually been on Waste No Day as well, but he didn't humiliate you, but he corrected you and you went back again.
But doing it in front of that crowd, let me tell you, when I went back to do it in front of John and Sally at their kitchen table, you know how much easier it was than the week before? I went out to this boot camp to do it in front of all these hundreds or thousands of people or whatever. The role play, in my opinion, is popular and as much as we know it's necessary at the higher level of organizations in the industries.
I still know for a fact, because I talk to business owners all day, every day now, reaching out for advice and whatnot because of the show. When you want help with your sales, the first thing I say is like, first question I ask is, how's the role play going? And so it's twofold.
One, you have to be role playing. Two, you got to be role playing stuff that actually works.
It's always horrible when someone says we're doing role playing and I say, well, what are you role playing in terms of asking for the business? And you hear something like, so do you want it? And you're like, that's no, you're role playing the wrong thing. So it's not practice doesn't make perfect, right? As Lombardi would say, perfect practice makes perfect.
So yeah, role-playing, it's supposed to be humiliating, right? It's supposed to take you out of comfort zones. It's supposed to like, it's supposed to make you kick down walls of anxiety that are keeping you from actually getting up in front of your peers and doing it.
When you master doing something back and forth, like between you and me in front of a bunch of judgmental technicians that all know how it's supposed to go and they're quietly or loudly making fun of you for doing it wrong. When you get it right in front of that group and you go to do it, it's nothing.
I'm telling you, it's nothing to do it in front of the client after that. So role play, role play in front of Tommy, if you have the opportunity, like you've never had a better chance to grow than role playing it in front of someone who's probably going to call you out for every mistake you make and hopefully embarrass you.
Because when you realize that you're not going to die from a little embarrassment, you're actually going to get stronger, then you've accomplished something. You're on your way to being great.
I love this. You know, Xavier and Giuseppe have been really like thinking about ways to get great content.
And I'm like, you guys just want me to show up to houses when they're doing an estimate? Yes. Because when I show up there, people are always like, listen, do you think you could out beat any of your sales guys? And I'm like, I don't necessarily think I could beat every single salesperson, but I guarantee you one thing.
I'm going to make sure they're raving fans. I'm going to make sure I got the neighbors names, HOA presence names.
I'm getting the reviews. I'm going to make sure that I left them in a position to become an ambassador of our brand.
And when I'll show up, I'll just say, listen, you know, the reason why we have a two-tier system is so you can call your manager and that you're talking to someone of power that can make decisions. My guys are not allowed to give more than 5% off of a deal.
They got to call it in. And we keep an eye on our discounts.
And we learned a lot of that from your podcast. It's just, why are you discounting your service? Do you not believe in it? Like, do you not, I pay more for everything.
If there's two things on Amazon and one's $10 more, I'm paying for the more expensive. Cause I'm like, what's wrong with this other one? Like, yeah.
Why can they afford to give money off on this one? It's just like, literally I got one of my dad, uh, my dad, one of those motors that you put together real slowly. And like one was 500, one was 200.
It looked like the identical one. I bought the $500 one.
I'm guessing one was made just, that thing still runs. I go over to his house and we play that all the time.
Yeah. So discounting is that, you know, there are cheat codes in sales.
I believe the strongest one we have is gratitude. And I'd love to spend five minutes on it in the way that I train it.
But gratitude is literally a cheat code really to life. Forget about selling, but life in general.
But another one is discounting. When you offer something and you have interest and you just drop the price by 20% and say, hey, if you want to do it right now, we'll do it for this.
That is a cheat code. People who are horrible at sales find great success with that discounting.
The problem is it is a race to closing the business's doors because you train your clients to expect it. You train your people to offer it.
If you allow discounting, you are training people to use it. If you discount as a tech, you're training your client to never pay.
Roy H. Williams said this.
When you establish yourself as a company that discounts, you establish your client to say, never pay that company full price because they will do it for less. You know, when you're operating in businesses that are, you know, hopefully around 20% net profit and you start thinking about the fact that you're giving someone 15% off, you're giving 75% of the company's money away in one job for what reason? I mean, what's the reason? Because nobody can eat revenue, right? You don't keep revenue.
Revenue just pays the bills. Profit is the only thing the company makes.
So imagine giving away 75% of your paycheck because that's what you're doing to the company, to the team when you give a 15% discount on 20% net profit. That's ridiculous.
And I understand exactly. We're going to spend, this is going to be one of two because we're going to get something in 10 minutes.
But here's what I'm going to do. I am going to figure out a way to hire you to come in to this class.
There's only about 10 guys for our next class. But if I could break you for three hours, because I'm always wanting to train the trainer.
And if there's gold, you know, I got a meeting in September with all my managers in the whole hiring. And my biggest complaint is I'm like, is this somebody you'd want at your grandma's house or if your wife was at home with your your 17 year old daughter is this the guy you want coming in yeah looks are not everything but just the whole demeanor and my biggest thing is i want to hire aces can you imagine if you had all a plus players what would happen if you had all of uh uh, Jamie's and Logan's can't even, well, you guys would be at a hundred million.
I sure wouldn't want to manage that team, but you know, eight players are a little fence guys. I love you guys, but you know, you guys are a headache.
The prima donnas, they all get like that. I mean, I was a, I was a high producer.
I was needy, man. All top producers.
Dale Stills was needy. He wanted it set up so perfectly.
You know, Dale and I were together for a few hours the other night, and he says, you know, Tommy, I closed higher than anybody because I demanded perfection if I was going to take their call. He goes, but we didn't sell as much as we could because I literally made it so good that if I didn't have the five green lights and it wasn't perfect, I didn't want the call.
So I said, go back there and get it. And if they didn't get it, I didn't take the call.
He goes, that's why I had, you know, I think he did 12 million in a year. So when he got his reflex.
There's a, you said images or appearances and everything for first impression appearance is literally everything. It's the only thing a client has to go off of.
And in impression, appearance is literally everything.

It's the only thing a client has to go off of.

And in 2013,

there was a Journal of Behavioral Ecology did a survey with 100 men and 100 women

where they just simply asked

every person to draw a picture of a criminal.

100% drew a man.

Of course, because we're going to do the crime, you know? I would draw a man for sure. 82% of both total combined, 82% drew facial hair on that man.
Only 18% drew somebody with no facial hair. Now, I don't know what the numbers are anymore.
I know back in the early 2000s. I want that survey.
I'll get I'll get it to you buddy yeah so yeah the point being like I believe we're at a point where facial hair is more acceptable now than it ever was before you will not see me with facial hair because my mentor Lance back in the day if I came in with with two days worth of stubble and I couldn't grow much facial hair anyway but I'd that stubble. He would take my first call, give it to someone else and make me go shave.
Now, a lot of people would love to have that time off in the morning, but that wasn't me, bro. I was in my in-law's apartment, sleeping above my brother-in-law.
My pregnant wife was on the couch. I needed work.
So when he sent me home to go shave and I missed my first call, I missed money. So it's drilled into me.
I'll never have facial hair and consider myself a professional. But yeah, just look at that survey.
Like that's something that tells you something. 82% of people.
I love what you said. I love it.
Hey, Brian, so I close out. Like I said, we're going to do a 2.0 in the next month because I love this stuff.
And there's so much more. And I'm going to talk to you a few times about it.
We'll get ready for it because there's a lot of things I think we could do. I wouldn't even mind getting a little bit of you questioning a little bit of Jamie and Logan.
But yeah, if someone wants to reach out to you, Brian, obviously Waste No Day. You can listen to the podcast.
It's a wealth of knowledge. Lots of great people are on there.
WasteNoday.com has some contact info for me. If you just find me on Facebook, Brian Burton, Waste No Day, shoot me a Facebook message.
At some point, I respond to every message. I will get back to you.
So as we close out, would you mind? I'm not a big poetry guy. Okay.
But you know the times that most small business owners are having in the trades right now. I mean, the last three years were big moneymakers, relative ease of doing so.
I mean, it's not easy, but it's the easiest it's probably ever been. This year has not been that.
As you know, I'm sure you talk to enough trade people. Most businesses are struggling to put calls on the board, particularly in HVAC.
For some reason. It seems to be the hardest hit one.
A lot of layoffs are happening in companies where you wouldn't think that would be happening, but the big name companies. And I just wanted to, I wanted to read my favorite poem.
I'm not a big poetry guy, but this one's a, I feel it's an encouraging word. And whenever I'm struggling, I go back to this poem and it's written by a fellow Michigander, Douglas Malick, who also grew up in Michigan, although he was born in like 1887 or something.
So we didn't get to know him, but it's a, it's an encouraging word for going through some stuff. And if you're a business owner or manager, even a tech, and you don't have calls right now, you're going through some stuff.
I mean, regardless of whose fault it is or how you can make it better, like your world sucks right now. And I get it.
So would you mind if I close this out with my favorite phone? All right, here we go. The tree that never had to fight for sun and sky and air and light, but stood out in the open plain and always got its share of rain,

never became a forest king, but lived and died a scrubby thing. The man who never had to toil, to gain and farm his patch of soil, who never had to win his share of sun and sky and light and heir, never became a manly man, but lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
The further sky, the greater length. The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow, and trees and men, good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth, we find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars, whose broken branches show their scars.

Of many winds and of much strife, this is the common law of life. Yeah.
Douglas Malek. Good times grow weak men.
That's a fact. Yeah.
So listen, Brian, we talked a lot about a lot of great stuff. I love that poem because I think about all the strife I've been through in my life.
And I think about my parents and how much they've cried about things that have happened to me. And I say, mom, dad, it's 3%.
The 97 has been good. It's made me stronger.
And I look at everything half. If the cup is empty, I still think there's a drop in there.
It's full. So great poem.
Is there anything you want to close out with? The poem was amazing, but just a message to the audience here that we didn't cover. That's how I wanted to go out, buddy.
All right. Well, listen, we're going to do it again.
I'm going to have you work with our trainers just one day. We'll make it worth your time.
I would say a book. A book that I...
Yeah, give me the three books. I was going to ask that.
I don't believe most books I would say I've heard mentioned on here before, but one book in particular, I don't think I heard mentioned on here before. He was a guest on the show.
He works with the Black Swan Group, Chris Voss's company. It's called Ego Authority Failure by Derek Gaunt.
Derek was the commander of the hostage negotiations task force, I believe for Washington DC for like 25 years.

And it's a book on leadership and how ego is the ultimate crusher of souls. And it's such a, such a good leadership book.
But I mean, if I left with a message, I'm buying that with four two leaders. I presume I got to, yeah.
If I left with a message, it would be like, man, for leaders, like forget yourself, encourage your people, stop with all the disciplinary and stuff, breaking people and crushing people's spirit. I want to see more encouragement and more light and more appreciation in the trades.
Great job, Ryan. I really appreciate it.
Looking forward to dinner tonight. Awesome.
Can't wait. All right, guys, hopefully you implement some of this stuff.
Lots of good knowledge dropped and we'll catch you on the next episode. And PS, the biggest compliment I could ever receive for what we do here.
We don't sell ads. We don't really do any of that stuff.
This is not a money grab, but if you let us know how we're doing on the reviews, it would mean a lot to me. It means a lot to Brian.
When you do it with Waste Note Day. It just take a few minutes.
It doesn't take long, but it makes the biggest difference in the world. If you just let us know how we're doing, like this and share it on Facebook.
Really appreciate it. You guys have a great day.
Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy.
I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets to help me transfer my team

from stealing the toilet paper

to a group of 700 plus employees

rowing in the same direction,

head over to elevateandwin.com

forward slash podcast

and grab a copy of the book.

Thanks again for listening