19 - Is Your Sales Team Failing You…Or Are YOU Failing Them? | Dustin Rhoades

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Selling in the Dwelling. I'm your host, Alan Langer, and this is the GoTo Podcast for the in-home sales and remodeling industry. And selling in the dwelling is much more than just selling, but today we are going to concentrate on selling. And I've got a big heavy hitter coming up that you're going to really enjoy in Dustin Road. So before we get to Dustin, just two quick uh housekeeping notes. The podcast website is sellinginthedwelling.com. And I bring it up because I'd love for you to go to the Ask Alan button in the top right. Click on that button and send me a question. If I use your question in an upcoming episode, you get a free selling in the dwelling t-shirt. We've got a great question coming up from Michael in Nebraska later on. And also don't forget to visit my title sponsor, which is Paradigm Vendo. It's paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling for the best in-home software you can find in the industry. Okay, well, I'm really excited today. Dustin Rhodes, thank you for joining me, my friend. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Oh, fantastic, man. Like I always say, best day of my life every single day. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Every single day. That's that is awesome. So I've known of Dustin for many, many years being in the business. Dustin has now been in the in-home selling business for 26 years or so, almost 27. I've been in just about 30 years. And I've seen kind of his, I've just known he's been around and knew of him when he was at Renewable Anderson and then Great Day Home Improvement. And now he has his own consulting business. And you can see for the folks who are watching on YouTube, he's got a background that has the 90 days or 90 sales accelerator and then dumb tax. And he's got a book called Dumb Tax, which we're going to get into later. But Dustin has a myriad of experience in this industry, really from the sales side, but he can also help with operations and helping a company overall with the things. But he's he's really focused on sales. But a couple of quick things. I just want you to know how the caliber of professional we've got here. A couple of his highlights, he took one company, I think it was an RBA dealership from 13 million to 37 million just in one year. He was at Bathworks, Great Day Home Improvement, Home Depot. He's been kind of everywhere. And now he's imparting his wisdom to help the world. So, Dustin, thank you for joining me. And, you know, I'd love to get right into this, if you don't mind, because tell me what you're seeing in the business. Tell me when prior to our cult, right now, prior to our recording, you said you really want to help businesses. You want to help them. And I that's why I'm doing this as well. But what do you what do you think they need help with the most that you're seeing?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

There's there's a lot of things. And I think even before COVID, post-COVID, right? And I think the one of the biggest bubble differences is when COVID was over, you know, the ease of walking up and pretty much having their checkbook out, right? And, you know, every every customer's got their next checkbook out. What's the next check number in the book, right? That type of thing. I think the biggest thing that I see struggling is what I call middle management or sales leadership. You know, a lot of people take their top rep and they promote them into management. And just because you're a great leader doesn't mean you don't deserve an opportunity to be a good sales leader, but it's a difference between making other people good and just making yourself good, right? And I think there's a uh a fine difference in there's no playbook or good playbook out there that I'm aware of on teaching people to be a strong sales leader, not from a sales aspect, but from a sales and an operational aspect, right? Because one of my favorite questions I always ask leaders is hey, why do you exist for the business? And it's funny because owners, sales leaders, and most salespeople don't even know how to answer that question. And I'll I'll basically uh keep that one on the tongue for a minute. But it's it's one of those pieces where the law of the lid, like have you ever taken EOS or you know people that have done EOS, uh good system, but throw the 21 irrefutable laws out all the time, right? That John Maxwell, well, there's a law of a lid, right? Which is law number one. You know, the the dictation or the cap of most businesses happens within the leadership. Because let's say you uh if you're a leader on this call and you're listening, you're a sales rep, you might be looking at your leader specific ways. You might love your leader, you might not like your leader, whatever it might be. But there is a lid. I don't know about you, Alan, but growing up, there were people I'd go interview with if I wanted to go take a job where I want to take their reps from them. That was more what I would do. And I'd gate them. And if they were like a four or five as a leader, like on a one to ten scale, I'd be like, ah, I'm not working for that guy, right? So I'd pick some place with somebody I felt like could challenge me, better environment stuff. So those fives, they're gonna bring in threes and fours, right? So it means they're never going to build a team that's gonna excel, right? You got to be careful because you got a bunch of eights, nines, and tens. You might have a bunch of pre- Madonna's that think they're better than they are, right? But again, I always say, show me a pre-Madonna and then show me their back end and what the paperwork and how their back end loves them. I think it might have a different story, right? But I would tell you, like, in my opinion, leadership, like sales leadership is probably the weakest part of our entire industry.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

And and I I would echo that because I do get asked quite often, you know, what do you see the biggest problems in in selling and in in home sales? And I think people want me to talk about the reps. Oh, they don't ask enough questions or they don't do discover, like all these silly things that all fit into a scripted box. And I answer, like you just said, I said, you know what? I think the leadership, there's a lot of bad leadership out there. Not everybody. I I I've talked to some really good leaders, and you know what's even funny? When I do go out and do my trainings, I do trainings more for companies that are actually doing pretty good, and they understand that, you know what, we can never stop learning. The teams that are closing 18, 19, they never call me. And it's just like, you know, well, we're we're doing great. This is what we're supposed to be. I literally was out and I'll give them some props. RBA of Montana just had me out last week. And I got out there and I asked Derek Quick, who's the the VP over there, what's your team closing percentage? You know what he said? 48%. Wow. That's unheard of in the industry for a team. Yeah, and especially in RBA. And I said to him, What the hell am I doing here? And he said, you know what, we can never stop learning. And I was so impressed with that. But you're right, though those type of kind of guys are the exception. And and what why do you think that is? Do you think that they're just taking a lot of these good sellers and they're just making them managers and leaders when they're when that's either not what they want to do or they're just not skilled enough to do it?

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I think it's pipeline and understanding, right? So you know, I don't know about you, but as a young guy when I got into it, I wanted so brilliantly to be the leader. Like I was uh, I remember young, I was into there, and I fought my way into my first actually general manager position, right? Not just sales manager, but general manager way before I was ready. Way before I was ready. And um, I was like, because even though I helped sell the business and get a business bot, I really didn't have that much to do with it. I had more of the I built the sales side of it up. And then when I figured out I actually had to run the whole PL and I forced my way into it, um, the idea of it was more, way, way more fun than actually doing it. And actually, that first year I lost my butt, right? That's where dumb tax came from, right? Because the price you pay for bad business decisions, right? And I uh realized that hey, there's inventory, there's this, there's PL management, there's all these things that go into it. And I later I figured them out, you know, really well. But at that time, I'd I had no business stepping into it, but I sold my way into the right. And I think a lot of people love the idea of leadership, but they don't really understand what it takes to be a great leader. It's two completely different things, right? And the industry, um, they look at it like I'm gonna have more time, more evening, my evenings are gonna be free, my weekends are gonna be free, where we're gonna end this until you really know what you're doing. I mean, this most leaders don't, you're a slave to the business, right? I mean, if you're a leader on here and you're listening, I mean, how many nights have you been with your family where you get to step out and be on, be on, be on, go out to a restaurant, and now you gotta step out and go walk around the parking lot and look like you're uh talking to yourself, right? How much how many times are you playing with your kids, your family trying to watch a movie? You gotta get up and you gotta go take a you gotta take a call from a rep in a house. Oh man. You know, how many times you're trying to get specific things done in the business, you can't because you're constantly taking calls or fielding headaches or going out and cleaning up paperwork, whatever it might be. These things that people call luxurious, they probably don't understand the full game. They don't understand why they're happening, right? So you'll find a lot of sales leaders that are in there burn out quick or uh client balance is really not good. So they go try to do something different. A lot of managers that they they go right back down to being a sales rep again because it's easier when there's less headache when you only got to worry about yourself, right? So it's uh I think there's uh there's a myriad of different ways, and I think that a lot of leadership is desperate. Like owners, young managers or general managers are desperate to find someone the seat so they don't have to be in it, maybe so they get someone else to blame. Maybe there's somebody that they feel like they could maybe mold into it if they had the time. And I think there's a lot of variables, man. And and sometimes, again, like your best rep is not your best manager. And you got to figure out what you're looking for on the recipe, man, because there's there is definitely a recipe, and there's definitely people that are good. If you think about it, I mean, documented trainings for sales leaders out there, right? There's not that many of them out. I know RBA, a similar one, right? But the most of them, I was talking to actually Dave Kroll. I don't even know Dave Kroll probably knows. I know Dave, yeah, very well, yeah. The other day is like there's so much void in that piece of the industry and the like learning what's important and actually what moves the needle, right? Because meetings suck, sales suck or think they're supposed to be the next Tony Robbins, whatever it might be, right? There's you know, I think it podcasts and thinking that sales leadership, you know, it's it it's accountability, right? And it's execution. That's one of my favorite things. You probably know this, right? If you're listening, do you really know the difference between systemic and execution? Those those two words are very important when you're leading and managing, right? Systemic and execution. And they they mean two things. Very interested. I want to leave people thinking about that for a minute because if you think about systemic and execution, some people know what it means. Some people are like, I don't have a freaking clue.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Well, I want you to I want you to expand on this right now. You teased us, so now you got to tell us what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Well, a good salesman's gonna do a cliffhanger, right? So we got exactly you got me. You got me leaning in, Dustin. With the inner mindless layer of the data, right? Who do you want to be? Who do you want to be when this podcast is over, right? Um so the gist is, man, you look at it, systemic is a system issue, it's a system failure, right? Systemic issues means the business is failing the people. Means that the structure of that that's that system is not designed to help the business get to where they want to go. It might have been designed, and it could have been designed five years ago, it might have been an SOP, might not have been, but it's something where the business is failing the people. Could be an updated commission structure, could be your pricing. You talked about paradigm vendo, right? I helped uh Infinity from Marvin do their whole paradigm vendo when that shift came out, right? Often, awesome, off them, right? But the thing is, like there's so many systems issues, like could be a tech issue, could be an iPad issue, could be Wi-Fi issue. There's things in there that they don't think about in a business that become systemic issues that affect the performance or the success of the representative, right? Or even sometimes leadership. And then execution issue means the people are failing the business. Well, I love producers, I love top producers, but I love top producers that also do their job, right? If again you hand a contract off and you think someone's there to be your sharman and wipe your rear end, uh you might survive with the little leagues, but you're not gonna survive with the big leagues, right? Because I because if you do it right, you build a bunch of those same type of people and they're all level played. But the but the thing is, again, if the people aren't setting the business up for success and they decide they're above them, they're above the SOP or above the paperwork process or above the financing expectation, uh, that means the people are failing the business, right? Because you're not passing the baton or handing off to the next person to allow the business to be successful. And I'd say at the end of it, you got your, you know, did you get a five-star review? Did you get a referral? Did you get an add-on? Did you get a customer for life? What are you doing to make sure that that business replicates and you're not just one and done? Right. And that's her so systemic is the business is failing the people. Execution means the people are failing the business. It's one of those two things always.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Wow. That that's fascinating. And you know what? It reminds me, or it just it just brings me back to when I was at RBA, and I brought this up with Matt Esler, who I had on my very first podcast I did actually. And when I was there, the top rep, the rep of the year was always the guy who's the guy or the woman, usually we only had, I think, two women at the time, uh, who sold the most. That was it. Rep of the year, most volume, that was it. Didn't matter what your reviews were, didn't matter how many referrals you got. And they started realizing to their credit that that's not the best for the company. So exactly what you're talking about. So sometimes the best seller kind of hurts the company because, yeah, he sold $4 million, but he's got a 2.3 average in his reviews because he high pressured everyone, didn't follow up, and things like that, had a high cancellation rate. So what they started to do to do, again to their credit, was they started to look at reps overall, and Esler called it 360-degree professional. Not only what you sold, what you know, what your what your average job size was, what's your all of that stuff, your closing percentage, but your referrals, your medalli scores. And then they came up with this metric, and then all of a sudden, yeah, you might have had a top 10 volume guy who finished first because all the other metrics were way up there as well, referrals and testimonials and things like that. That was something that was completely different in the industry. But I think it's, you know, for them, it changed it for the better. And I loved it because I was doing all of those things to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah. And it's it's kind of funny, dude. Like, usually your profitability by rep, I guess that's a number I look at too, is uh not. Profitability by rep.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah, because you gotta figure out what your break-even point on a rep is, right? And we don't think of things like that because I've worked with private equity, I've worked with a lot of big organizations, right? It's not about analyzing the rep under a microscope because you part of it is figuring out where where there's a leak and how to plug the hole, right? So if you can help a representative that goes into it, might be giving a job away. Well, maybe his finance percentage is screwed up, or maybe he's doing too much 12 months, no interest, right? And using that as a crutch, or maybe he's not price conditioning, right, or the value proposition's not there, right? There's or his inspection's terrible. Right. So there's there's things in there that you do to build that you can build people up rather than just looking for reasons to get rid of people and and shame them. It's not about that if you're doing it right. It's about we grow people, especially if they're invested and they're willing to put in the business. How do you grow people into the next evolution? Because, you know, I don't know if I don't know if anyone on this call has realized, but the world is not the same as it was in the early 2000s, early 2020s, right? It's it's a little bit different. Oh, yeah. Fat more fast paced, people don't want the dog and pony show, the long pitches, right? The different things of that nature. There's you can still get in there and earn your, you know, earn your time, but again with a short attention span. So it's like, you know, so if you're reverse engineering, you begin with the end of mind, like what is the result you're trying to get, and then what's truly important to that result and what's taking away from it, what's making you the villain, what's making you the guide, what's making you the hero, right? I saw your post on Donald Miller earlier where you were commenting on that. Big Donald Miller guy. I love, I love the marketing side of it. I think you have to, I think you gotta realize like, why do we exist for any business, those salespeople? Think about it, right? If you think about what why do salespeople exist for a business? Not just to go out and sell stuff and be Wolf of Wall Street and pound our chest and you know get our get our Rolex and you know. Sell me this pen. I have to have a Rolex, but it's like, but not taking away from any of that, right? But that's vanity, you know. But businesses hire salespeople, sales leaders for one thing, right? It's if you think about it, if you break up a PL, which is really what a business is all about, is profit, right? Yeah, top line. And it's a top line. If I spend money on marketing, I want to get a return budget, right? I want to get a return on budget. So I used to do this thing, managing within the five. Like every five leads, you have a score. And that score based on the money we spent on to you, every five leads, are you is your rate of return the right rate of return? Because it tells you if you're profitable or not. So if I before I give you five more leads, instead of giving somebody 15, 20 leads and they just burnt them to death, now my marketing, now my whole month's screwed. Well, how do I going to even thinking of a rep, dude? What's your profit? But every time you knock on a door, talk about NSLI is one number, right? Well, well, what's your NSLI percentage? You make 10% and I got a $5,000 NSLI, and what I'm making $500 for a door I walk into, right? But again, if I sold zero out of five, well, I my NSLI percentage is zero. I'm not making anything. So why? Right. Right? So if you're dumb enough to keep going as a rep and not look in the mirror, what am I doing good? What could I do better? What I just learned from that, if I had to repeat it over again, what do you do different this next five leads? You gotta, you gotta check yourself in the mirror and you know, check out from the deck up. And and really, a mentor of mine gave me probably the best ever statement. I and I abuse it and use it and probably don't give them enough credit for it. Confidence humility is a strength. Arrogance is a weakness.

unknown 18:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So you can confidence, say that again? Confidence with humility is a strength. With humility is a strength, okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Arrogance is a weakness.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

If you're not able to check yourself and hold yourself accountable, then it doesn't matter what the company or anyone else says because you're only worried about yourself, anyways, right? And that's but if it's yeah, humility, like you said, the people close at 40 something percent is funny, the most successful are the most humble.

unknown 18:49

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

100%. Yeah, yeah. I've never heard anybody usually, yeah, usually, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah, I've never heard anybody that's really freaking killing it and truly killing it that wishes bad on people doing worse than them, right? If they do that, you probably have BPD, right? And that's uh that is typically a situation you're never gonna fix. I wish you the best. But confidence is generally not lacking from most salespeople. But you gotta look at I challenge everybody on this, right? Because I was a top performer, young freaking hardhead, right? My wife beat me into shape after 20 years, but it took her 20 or 40 years. But you gotta look at it like there comes a point where you stop listening and you stop being effective, right? And we all know the cute sayings, right? Seek first to understand to be understood, right? Whether you're getting that from Covey or the Bible, one of the two, right? So that the gist is though, we know the cute sayings, they've been overused, right? But it's like, do you really know what it means and why? And in my opinion, to be elite in our business, elite in sales, and stay elite, not have what I call a roller coaster. I always laugh the person that does like 400k one month and like a hundred the next, and then they do 300 and then like maybe one 175, 200, and then it's cost up and down, yeah. Up and down, they can't they don't understand why. A lot of leads, bro. It's it's what sets them between the ears, right? It's uh it's your it's your ability, you feel like you're pivoting. And what I what I say is like, oh, they think they're a natural salesperson. You walk in change everything every time because you feel like you're a natural salesperson, you've got this gift of gap. Well, then if you're so natural, why are you not consistent? You know that exactly motivation, right? It's not it's consistency. And I I remember a mentor of mine said the biggest thing you do to stay that you to stay relevant in our business. And you've been in as long as me and you, you kind of know, right, is is consistency. Right, consistency will outperform anything. It's like you put money in the market. Do I want something that's got a big bump and then it dips dramatically, or do I want something that's consistently raising over the time, right? So the gist is we got to figure out, like from our industry too, is like test and gauge, right? So if things are changing, you're getting your teeth kicked into a house, right? You're walking in, you're like, dude, I got this customer, man. They're freaking, they're not giving me time, they're dominant, they're in my face. We got these things that are moving, you know, and I and I every time I walk into it, I keep getting things rather than admitting you're just not good at that customer. Well, who do you need to be? What do you need to change to be effective with that customer, right? How do you flip the dynamic? How do you become the guide rather than the villain? Right. And so there's there's varitables in there if you're not thinking from a perspective of the customer. Old school saying, I'll show my age on this one, right? You probably heard this a million times too, that in order to sell John Brown, what John Brown buys, must first see John Brown to John Brown's eyes. I remember first time I heard that, it meant anything to me because I was too arrogant to even pay attention, right? Too worried about being the biggest, toughest guy in the room. And definitely not the tallest, but biggest and toughest. But the whole gist was uh when I heard it, it was cute. It didn't really mean anything, right? Later in life when I went and read my notes and I remember uh kind of Denver Clark gave me that saying a long time ago, right? And I was like, ah, I love Denver. I I said, um, man, I read back through it and I was actually taking an NLP course, right? 'Cause I got bored of that. So I started studying neurolinguistic programming, right? Became a master practitioner just for the hell of it. I was bored. But when I started studying it, and then I saw that, I'm like, oh shit. Like it's a paradigm shift, right? I gotta look at I gotta look at what's important through their eyes before I know how to navigate. And if I can begin with the end of mine, but through like understanding what they think and what their motivators are, it's like if I go into a per wealthy house, well, their their fears, their fear stake and motivators are different than a upper middle class or a middle class or a or a lower income. So I've got to change my dynamic and why they flip in order for me to be effective when you're selling to high worth individuals. Like you come to my house. I mean, I live in a pretty nice house in San Diego. Pretty much you I could brag about it, but I'm not going to because it's not relevant. But the whole gist is it's you've got to come, you come into my house and you're gonna treat me like you treat somebody like a John and Mary lunch bucket. I'm gonna eat your lunch, kick you out of my house in two seconds. Because you're not, I don't feel hurt. And I joke around, I'm definitely not gonna give the answer to this, but most people screw up in the warm-up, they already screw up within the first 15 minutes in the house.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

100% couldn't agree with you more.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Terrible. Just they think the warmup's the key to selling. And I I always laugh. I'm like, good for you. Tell me how it works out, right? It's the gist, and warm-up's important, getting them to be real is important, but it's not to the extent that people think that is. And that's uh that's the thing I laugh about when I walk into organization. I hear that. Hey, what'd you do? Good what's what'd you do on your appointment, Alan? Oh man, my warm-up was killer, dude. They love me. Great. How much how much you write it for? Well, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah. But they're gonna call me back.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

When? Uh well next week. Okay, cool. No date. Come on, bro.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Hey dwellers, quick break. Hey, did you know that the closing percentages for in-home sales has been dropping consistently over the last 10 years? It's really crazy, and there's a lot of reasons for it. But one of them is reps have so much to do in the house because there's so many different platforms that you're jumping back and forth all the time. Well, my title sponsor, Paradigm Vendo, takes care of that. In one digital platform, you can go from initial appointment right to final sale and signatures by visiting just their platform. It's amazing. You gotta check them out. It's paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling, par-a-r-a-d-i-g-m vendo.com forward slash dwelling, because your reps need to give the homeowners a great experience in the house, and jumping around doesn't do that. Visit paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling and take care of the experience your reps are giving in the house. Hey, sales professionals. Are you proud of your profession? Are you proud of being in sales? Well, you know what? You really should be, and it's time to start showing it. And that's why I created my new merchandise shop, the sevensecretshop.net. It's the the number sevensecretshop.net, and there you can find great hats, t-shirts, beanies, water bottles, phone covers, all kinds of really fun merchandise with great sayings like I love sales or sales rocks, or even for your kids, my dad is a sales rock star, my mom is a sales superstar. Visit the sevensecretshop.net with the number seven, and you can pick out anything you want to show your love of what you do for a living. The sevensecretshop.net, visit it today. Dustin, what what you're talking about, first of all, before I ask you this question, say the saying again, the John Brown saying again. So because they usually people are listening to this driving and stuff, so I want them to make sure they they they absorb that because you said it a little quickly. So say that again.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Yeah, I speak quick because I move quick.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

That's okay. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Um, yeah, in order to sell John Brown, what John Brown buys, I must first see John Brown through John Brown's eyes.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Well that's yeah. And that's all about empathy too, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

100%. Yeah, because unless I can empathy and sympathy are two completely different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Completely different things.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

So what you're talking about, Dustin, is something that uh has really um I've been asked more often this year to start training and talking about this than any other year previous. And it's the concept of of EQ, emotional intelligence. And everything you're talking about is reps with high emotional intelligence are the better reps. Period. End of story, full stop. Because the the emotional intelligent rep, I always say this at a training session. You obviously have to have a sales process. You got to know your know your product, you got to know everything inside and out. But today, if you're not nimble within that sales process, if you don't know how to adjust from what you said, the high worth individual to the maybe the low income individual, you do the same exact process and sales pitch every single time, you're gonna be a 20% closer, 22% closer. You have to have the emotional intelligence to understand yourself and understand the customer and then adjust properly within the sales process. Would would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Oh, 100%. Um, kind of funny because like I built a thing called Dustin AI. It's like a filled right-along coach, right? Kind of it's like it's like Ciro and Rilla, but it's it doesn't feel like a spy. It's like more your coach, right? So you don't get recordings that give it to your management or leadership. It's more of like having a guy like myself in your pocket to where you can do and it'll do it. It's kind of cool, dude. I'll give you a like right when you sign up, it gives you a sales DNA report, and then it tells you about yourself right off your last, your nine questions about your last 10 appointments, and it breaks you down and goes through a uh like kind of an analysis. It lets you do what I call pre-call plans where you can tell it, you know, the name of the customer, the the lead type, and then it give it a the information notes from the thing. It'll give you a game plan that it's like coming from. It's like nine thousand an hour for my brain that's been recorded on there with trainings and stuff, and throws it out and it uh will actually tell you how to orchestrate the plan. You can ask it three or four questions when you're in the house, and it will literally tell you what kind of customer, what color you're setting in front of, right? A red, blue, yellow, white, and also it'll do a 60-second drill every morning with you, right? And uh every morning it gives you a notification this time to do your 60-second drill, and you're role-playing with me every single morning, getting ready before your appointment. So you're not warming up in the first appointment, you're warming up uh with my AI. And it's like literally, it'll cuss you out just like I'd cuss you out and just can't, but it doesn't cuss you out. It's just very harsh things, just like your real coach would. And it is designed in a wrap down with you. It's all kinds of cool stuff. I actually have designed it and built it towards the leadership, uh leadership guide too, right? But it's but the cool thing is why while I'm talking about that is the accountability side of not just being EQ but holding yourself and having someone hold you accountable to it, like buoyancy partners.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Because we get our teeth kicked in, right? You look at it like and everybody knows, right? Just like athletics and sports and baseball, I was a big baseball guy growing up. But baseball, you know, three out of ten, dude, you're hitting three out of ten, you're in the freaking, you know, you're in the hall of fame, but you're still losing 70% of the time, right? And if you're not learning from it and you're not growing, you know, green and grow, ripe and rot, that old saying, right? But the the gist is then you're just staying the same and you're falling back. Right. And right I would say communication books and things like that are more important today than they ever have, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I agree. I couldn't agree more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

EQ. So tell me like, well, you're going in, you're talking about EQ. That's that's an interesting thing. I love you said that. So what about like in your mind? What is like one or two things that people should be doing like with EQ to practice if they don't really understand or know if they're effective?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

The two biggest things for me, if a sales rep wants to get better in the house, because unlike IQ, EQ, you can train. EQ is a skill. You can get better at it, but you have to practice it. And I think the two things that are easiest to adjust as an individual sales rep is studying body language, like nonverbal signals. So many reps. I still go on ride-alongs, you know, companies hire me to do training, and then I'll do some ride-alongs with the reps. So I'm in still in houses, and I'll be sitting there, and the customer will give an obvious nonverbal signal. Like you're talking about the low energy efficiency, you know, the energy efficiency of the glass and the low e-coatings and all this crap. And the customer glances at their watch. Very simple micro expression, and the rep will just yammer on and on and on and just keep going. You just lost that sale. You lost the customer, you lost the sale. So study body language. Learn how to not only be aware of body language and and notice it, but then when you see something, what to do about it. Yep. And I train, and I have a small training, a piece of my training called labeling, when like like um Chris Voss did in his book. When you see something, say something, you'll TSA expression. So if I see someone purse their lips, I'm not going to keep talking. I'm going to stop and say, hey, Dustin, let me pause here for a minute. Does everything sound okay so far? And now I just brought you back into the conversation because I saw you purse your lips, which means you didn't like what I just said or whatever. That's number one. And number two, this goes right back to the old saying, sales is not rocket science. Never has been, never will be. But please, reps, ask more open-ended questions. It's amazing how many closed-ended questions sales reps ask. And it's simply because the brain defaults to that. The brain wants it to protect you. So the easiest thing to do is to ask closed-ended questions. And when you start asking open-ended questions, that'll dig up the why you're there, which will also dig up the emotion of why you're also there. And that's why you'll sell. You're not gonna products don't sell anymore. Emotion does. You can't, everybody has a good window, everybody has a good roof, everybody has good siding now. It's all good. Now it's based on why they are buying. It's because the sales are up in front of them asked really good questions. That that's how I would answer that.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

That's freaking money, right? So did you know you're a visual learner, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know how I know. Oh, you know, you're talking about me personally? Yeah. How do you how do you know?

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Because uh, before you go, you pull up, which means you pull from vision, you're visually remembered, before you actually get before you share with me an information that you're pulling out to, right? So you you pulled up on your information before you shared where you were gonna go with it. So I was paying attention the second you talk about body language, I instantly went into eye reading, right? So uh that's what I do when I interview and teach people to like analyze it, because the eyes don't lie, right? Once they find your baseline, once you find the baseline, you gotta find someone's baseline for the eyes matter. But once you find a baseline, then you can start reading eyes. Then you get into Jedi stuff where you look at tell you if they're telling you the truth or they're not, and then you can start really reading body language along with it. And it's amazing how predictable the human body comes. That's like some of the stuff that they even caught AI on it to make you she make you freaking. It's this can be so much fun, and you can make so much money, and you can do the right thing for people because you're really helping them, but you can use tools you've learned along the way to really elevate and execute to that next level, right? Because there's a there's there's the there's the basic rep, right? And then there's a Jedi level that you're like, how in the hell do they do all that stuff? Well, learn traits, right? Because it's not communication, is a lot of it, a lot of, like you said, is non-verbal.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I can tell if someone's come to 93%, according to all the studies. 93% of communication is non-verbal.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

And I love Chris Voss and I've studied him and I've watched the master classes and I've done that. I know our buddy Chuck has gone gone and worked with him a little bit, which sounds cool. The whole thing is like I I read this book by Joe Navarro back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

What everybody is saying. Is that the book?

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Absolutely. That is it. Yep. And I had it, I had it on autopilot where it'd be sitting, you know, back in the day when you had like the DVDs or the CDs you throw in there. The cassette tapes and all that crap show up. But you start that you start getting into that. And until you're really at a point where you're ready to learn it, sometimes you try to jump to what I call master's level stuff before you even have basically your associates level or your even your.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

So you gotta like, I would tell you if you're if you're newer coming up and you listen to this, right? Yeah, if you haven't mastered your commitments first, you need to do that because you ain't selling shit out of your commitments, right? You're not that those are what I call like guide rails, those are the basics. And then you gotta make sure you're not too scared to pre-close and make sure you do so like a pre-close, you don't slight a stale ass, right? Well, if Jonah Murray is the only reason we're not moving forward the fuck to you, price for payments, I did nothing else, right? So there's you got to be careful on how you package things, right? And how you say it. Because it has to get a rise, pressure price that can't get it wrong, right? We want to make sure we're putting ourselves in a situation as that is like, what are you doing to learn? And then who are you role-playing with? How are you role-playing? I know the gist of like people, we become what we repeatedly do, right? It it's kind of funny because you got, you know, your your brain is like this, your biggest tool and resource you have, but it literally is predictive, right? So 20 minutes when you wake up in the morning, the last 20 minutes before you go to bed, that's the only time you're really able to soak in information to get past your conscious brain, get your subject, you make difference, right? But but the challenge is like we have this anxiety and fear about walking up to a neighbor's house or walking up and handing a business card out to somebody at a gas station because our anxiety kicks in, right? Your prefrontal cortex, which is that part of your brain, right? If it can't predict the outcome, it's gonna have anxiety, which means you're gonna overthink everything.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

And it's protecting you too. It's trying to protect you, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah, because that's what it is. Like 90% of our life, like I think Dustin was warrior, right? That was what my name stood for. But that was because I was trying to be in survivor, getting eaten by dinosaurs, I guess, back in the day. But yeah, it's it's the gist, is like when you look at it from an anxiety point of it. I mean, when you walk into a house and somebody tells you no, is that really the worst thing that's gonna happen? Yeah, you live, you learn, you don't, right? But the whole gist is it's really funny. I give everyone in here if you if you're into this stuff or not, right? But I'm married to a psychiatric nurse practitioner, way smarter than that.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Not an easy job.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Well, no, yeah. And trust me, being married to her is not an easy job either.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

But all right, now she's not gonna listen to this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Oh, no, I know, I know. But but my favorite saying she actually had in here, and I'll I'll break into the next piece of it. My favorite saying she does is time and my time is my currency. Your lack of preparation is killing my currency, and I will not allow you to bankrupt me. Right. So that is a very powerful tool when you're listening and you're thinking about time. So if you think about the homeowners in the homeowner's house, I I don't know where the first place you worked was or where your first place into it, but I worked for a company called Paysetter Corporation, right? And back in the day, these leads where people were able to open the door and were waiting for you and knew you were showing up. We had it where people would call you on, call somebody on the phone and say, I got a guy that's gonna be the air, he's gonna stop by, he'll see you. And by the way, just hear him out. He's gonna he's gonna make a special trip over there. I don't want him coming out, huh? Actually, you know, you're driving out there 45 minutes in Oak Free, you're turning left, and you're going down to the broken down trailer, then you're turning right, you're going to the house with a little spotlight, and there'll be, you know, there'll be a broken down something in the driveway, right? And you're pulling people on like, where in the hell am I at, dude? And there was no GPS, and you're looking on maps and stuff, and your whole job was to sell in 15-minute increments, right? And you'd your first your first 15 minutes, you had to earn your second 15 every time you're in the house. And in today, think about it, right? How long can somebody sit on their phone and watch something without scrolling? I built a little social media following on my on my Instagram. I think I got 20 something thousand followers, but the gist, as I learned, is like, you know, your first three seconds, your hook makes all the difference in the world, right? And then your content is not speaking the right SEO. So there's so many different miracles in there. So just like with your homeowner, like you're stepping inside their house, your guest, they invited you out. What are you doing that's earned your next 15 minutes? And if you're not doing something to earn your next 15 minutes, then what everything you say from that point moves you toward or away from the sale.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Like we talk about negativity all the time. Like in our in our industry, it's so easy to be negative. So, like, let's say you're part of a team, right? Let's say you're uh a negative name, well, you'll say you're negative Nancy as far as your teammate goes, right? Did you realize that three seconds of negativity affects the central nervous system for 21 hours?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

I did not know that, but I I believe it for sure.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Yeah. Well, so if you think about that, well, let's put that in context, right? Words are cheap, right? Everybody's got everybody's got context, everybody looks at you know the little quote sheets that come out, they're all cute every day. If you think about that, three seconds it's not very long, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:11

No.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Okay. But if that can affect 21 hours of productivity or direction, who in here's been cut off by a driver and been shot the finger? Anybody? Just me?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Everyone that's listening.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

And how did that affect your day? What were you thinking about for the next hour, the next week at home, right? You you that you lived with that until you went to bed, woke up, now maybe you're feeling a bit better. But that little bit of negativity that was thrown at you literally affected your performance for and what your thought process was focused on for the next week. Because think about it, if I was a baseball player and I stepped at the bat and I was thinking about that guy that flipped me off, not about the pitcher sitting in front of me, I'm probably not gonna do where the hell up at. I'm gonna make a mistake, right? Because your next thought is your first reality, right? Your next thought's your first reality. So if you are around people, so that five people that you hang around with the most, I'm sure everyone's heard that, right? So the five people hang around the most is like if they're feeding what you're feeding you is a dictation of your result. Because it's kind of funny, your brain attaches to your words. You talk about survival, your brain attaches to your words. If I say something out loud, my brain symbolizes important. So if things coming out as negative and and dwelling and fear-based, man, if I don't make a commission, I'm gonna get, I'm not gonna be able to pay my bills, my car's gonna go here, I'm gonna do this, right? Well, that talk right there, guess what? You're not gonna do it already, because you've already positioned yourself to hit it, right? Just like if you have so much confidence when you speak out loud to yourself and you keep putting that out in the air. It's called actually auditory programming. It's a real thing. Where your brain will grab a hold of those things you throw out and you can condition it. Like vision boards, I thought I used to think were the stupidest things in the world. Then I then actually I built one and I rolled it a box. I heard this thing that they said, I'm gonna put it away and then don't look at it for a little bit, but read it out to yourself. So I did this vision board thing as a young guy. I was like, I'm gonna win, but I'm gonna do everything I can try. So hell, I'm gonna cut all these pictures and put them on a poster board, right? And I talked in my little at that time D VR thing, and I've listened to it in the morning when I went to bed, or when I woke up, listen at night when I went to bed. And dude, I wouldn't be, I'd be lying to you if I told you that 90% of everything on that board came true. Right? Amazing percent, not 100, 90. And I went back and looked at it, I'm like, that's actually freaking amazing. It's weird how your brain attaches to an outcome and not so much a step. As we talked about earlier, like some of the sales leaders we talked about, they're missing those steps on how to get there. Because the next question your brain asks after you give it the outcome is what's the pathway to get there? And if it doesn't pathway to get there, you're never gonna get there, right? But that's a little neuro track, neuro hack. If you're listening, you want a fun thing to try in the car, fun thing to play around with at home. It's always good.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Well, you you're also touching on to you know, another piece of my training, which again, it's becoming to me, it it's everything. And you just mentioned it, it's mindset. It's the you know, salespeople, when you look at the studies, I saw a study last year and then I saw it redone, and it's the same result. The worst mindsets in the profession. So they listed the the top 10 professions with the worst mindsets. So number one is middle management. So people who are stuck in middle management have the worst mindset. And number two are salespeople, just in general. Salespeople have the worst mindsets because they judge everything. Uh, look at this shitty lead that you know that Dustin sent me on tonight. I'm gonna half-ass this so I can get home and watch the game rather than actually going in and taking care of these people. So, mindset is everything. And then they also go to I even did a post on LinkedIn today. How many sales reps in the in-home space get referrals and self-generated appointments? It's like 3%. It's it's it's unb it's so bad. And they sit around waiting for the leads to come in, and then they bitch when they don't get a good lead, or they don't or they complain when they don't get two leads on Tuesday, only got one. And it just goes back to your mindset. And for me, if I was hiring salespeople, I would look at mindset and EQ first before anything else.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Capability, training, and focus, right? Those are the three levers I always pay attention to in there because your capability, are you capable to even do the job, or why would I hire you, right? You know, yeah, yeah. Up to me to provide that and make sure that the company and the focus is my job is to catch in the interview that your focus isn't somewhere else, not here, because good people have bad spots in life, right? Yeah. People have things that happen in life. And those are things that before I invite you into my culture, do I want you to be a part of my culture and do you fit? Because one bad person, as we talked about that three, you know, three sex negativity affects 21 hours. I got one guy doing negativity on 21 on base of my other. 15 reps or 10 reps or three reps or 20 reps, then I've just infected my entire team by allowing someone to come in and breed negativity on. So stuff has to be key mode. So your garden grows and it doesn't get a bunch of weeds infecting it. Right? Or you got to set up weeds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. And hold that thought because that's going to that's actually going right to our ask Alan question, which is coming up in a few minutes. But before I get to that, I want to ask you about your dumb tax. You have a book called Dump Tax. Explain what you mean by that. And I I have a feeling I know what it is, but for the audience, what it what do you mean by dumb tax when it comes to home improvement companies?

SPEAKER_02 44:36

So the the term dumb tax stands for the price you pay for bad business decisions, right? So it's like it's it's it's you if I make the same one again, that's dumb tax, right? So you can pay it once or you can keep paying it. Yeah, it's really the gist of dumb tax where it kind of because when you first hear it, everyone thinks it's like a tax book or a tax something. Yeah. At all. Tax is again something you don't really want to pay, but you have to pay. And if you learn from it, you will learn how to make like real taxes. I learn how to make better decisions with my money. So I have to pay less tax, right? So in business, it's funny how many businesses keep paying the same tax on it. Like the the cost of a bad hire, right? Take a look at it.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

So the the the book, the first series of the book here is called, you know, find your wife for hiring. This book really breaks down from a psychological standpoint on how to how to hire the right representative of our industry. Even on my website, I give you a free workbook, but it's designed to take you down and strip the the representative or who's sitting in front of you down to their whitey tidies and then exactly who you have setting in front of you before you br allow them to come on your team. Right. And hiring, like building culture, a lot of times 90% about hiring. And about it's about who you let in, not what you let in. And again, it's being able to identify that do are they capable to do the job, right? So I don't want a high D, high I, you know, high C, mid-C, low C, whatever I did, depending on what I'm what I'm dealing with here, right? And then is their makeup here? I had it so dialed, Alan, when I was doing my thing. I built a, I think last team I ran with like 33 people that I ran into. And I had one assistant manager myself in the evenings. I barely even took a phone call, right? So it was uh, you know, it was like all pilot and KPIs were there, everything was there on autopilot because I realized later in life I had to be smarter to surround myself, people who actually knew how to build the right team, not arrogant and stay by myself and didn't know it. So I took the best little pieces of everything, paid my own dumb tax from fail it from failure and trying to get it. And I realized I kind of built a system around hiring, which is what that book was built off of. So it teaches you there's even a part where I do an interview, a live interview that got recorded, dictated out. At the end of it, you'll find that he wasn't the right fit. But I asked the question, do you feel like he is? And I hid the answer, and you have to read the book to get the answer. But it the answers that were given were different from what the actual real answer was. Because I gave the why and the explanation back behind it. But in there, I also teach you how to read the eyes. And uh at the last section would be last section is basically what it costs to have a bad hire in your business compared to what it did in mine. And you'll find it's a pretty alarming number that per bad hire is really closer to that, it's well into the six-figure numbers, anywhere between I'll give you a number, could be 120 up to 300,000, depending on the average ticket size of company, and within just 90 days. Right. So hence is the 90-day sales accelerator, which is not a sales course, it's a sales leader course, trying to get them, help people get the access resources and things that they need that's self-guided or can be with assistance, but we gotta fill it, we gotta fill the gap and void. And those are things I hear I think go into. So the book is designed to teach you to have a weapon or be a weapon, because more like a workbook on how to interview and build a sales team, like from the interview side of it. Right. So it's a yeah, anyone that I think Window Nation has used it throughout their thing, uh New South, there's like tons of freaking people that have used it, right? I suck really bad at getting reviews on it. I realize that. Like Brian got picking my butt, but I've had over 45,000 copies sold of it. So it's a um Wow, good for you.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

Yeah, so not a bad thing. And on the back of it, you'll find um one of my buddies. He's an agent for the NFL. He's uh Brandon Aubrey's agent, actually. And he was an ex-NFL guy himself, introduced me to some cool people. He in there, they used it on a study in the NFL too, which is kind of cool on uh behavior analysis. So some cool things in there that help people kind of elevate their game up. Now it is was written a couple years ago, right? So I've even adapted and gotten better in my in my study, but it's from what I what I hear, pretty solid.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

So yeah. And I and I love everything you just said about that and just the fact that, you know, I I'm very selective and particular about the guests I bring on because you you and I are cut from the same clothes because you're talking about you're talking about body language, NLP, and and all of these things that I think are so critical in sales today and how sales has evolved. Uh, you know, I've got an approach by, hey, let me be on your podcast. I'm like, okay, how do you, you know, just tell me how you train salespeople. Let's what's your sales philosophy? And they talk about stuff from the 90s and the 2000s. This is this is, you know, we have we have a 12-step process and they got to do it in order and they gotta follow the. I'm like, you know, you're not for my podcast. That's not how I just don't think that's successful sales, and I'm not definitely not going to train that or have that be associated with that. So you're you're talking about stuff that's right up my alley, and and that's why I think we're so aligned. So really great stuff. Hey, sellers, let me ask you something. Your best rep walks into a home and closes the job. Now picture everyone else on your sales team or anyone else in your company walking into that same home. Is it the same story, the same confidence? How about the same result? For most companies, the answer is no. And that's not a talent problem. It's actually a readiness problem. That's exactly why I want to tell you about our good friends over at Engage, I-N-G-A-G-E, the sponsor of the Ask Allen segment. Engage is the industry's leading interactive sales presentation software built exclusively for in-home sales teams. Dynamic, interactive presentations that make every rep look like the obvious choice the moment they open their iPad. And now they built a free sales readiness playbook that shows you where your team is ready and where the gaps are. It takes just a few minutes to complete. Take a trip over to salesplan.engage.io. That's salesplan one word.engage i-n-g-a-g-e.io to check out the sales readiness playbook because your presentation is everything. We're flying right now, actually, but I want to I want to get to the ask Alan question, which I think you've touched on a little bit, but let's let's get into the question because I think it's a good one from a gentleman uh from Nebraska, actually. His name is Michael, and Michael says he is a sales leader for a large sales team. And he says, here is a culture question. The question is, I've got overall a pretty decent and good sales team, but I've got three or four reps who are selfish and bring the team down. So I don't know what he actually means by that, but it sounds like a culture issue. However, they sell a hell of a lot. How can I get them to see that sales is a team sport and not just individual efforts? So, pretty good question by Michael. Dustin, how would you answer that question?

SPEAKER_02 51:56

That's a great, that's a great question. I think we've all dealt with something like that. Um, first first question I would throw back at Michael would be is um tell me what your core principles of business are. If you if you walk into there, it's integrity, it's teamwork, whatever it might be. Like most most businesses have what I call the bumper sticker hanging on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Principles, right? You know, that that talk about that stuff. So, number one, if you really live it, if you really truly live your principles, you can generally tie back the performance of the team back to a principle that you're talking about, right? Whether it's teamwork, makes dream work, building culture, yeah. The one thing about culture, I tell you, Michael, it's like if you've never defined what your culture is and what is acceptable behavior or not inside your culture, you have to start there. Because before you behavior, have you taught the team the behavior they need to follow? Because if you haven't if you haven't experienced and then set the standard for what it is to operate underneath your leadership and your culture, and then the the defined culture for the business, then again, you it it could be your fault why they're why they feel like the ability to act like it. Think about athletes, think about children, right? They learn from behavior and from what they feel like's accepted and where they can get away from, not from what is actually done. So I would say is with them, there's meeting structures, right? I don't know what your meeting structure is, whether you're a Monday and you're doing minor meetings through the week. Maybe it's something that you need to test them with some leadership. Or if they are negative, pull them aside, right? Because I always believe reprimand in private, but pull them aside. Why do you feel the need that to do this with the team? What is that? Is that making does that make you feel better? Is there something you're missing? Is there something that's upsetting you? Can you explain to me why you feel the need to bring other people on the team down? Is that is that make you feel better? Is there something you're trying to accomplish? What's going on inside that's making you get outside that way? I'm not, I'm a little concerned. I would get down to the root cause. Maybe it's something they got going on in their own life. Maybe it's something, maybe it's a performance issue, maybe it's anxiety, maybe they're nervous with the new people coming in, maybe they feel like they were an athlete that had to shame it. So you become the oy do O'Doyle. I remember that show Billy Madison, right? Oh Doyle, rule, right? Come the O'Doyle of the sales team. But and all joking aside is you got to correct the behavior and let the behavior know what's acceptable and not. And good culture has to have these three things. It has to be consistent, it has to be fair, and it has to be defendable. And the whole team should be treated equal. If somebody shows up late, the same consequence should be there for a top performer compared to a low performer. If somebody doesn't turn their paperwork correctly, top performer for slow performer, no one gets put on a pedestal. Because the second somebody feels like they're above the rules, then you have a cancer that sometimes the only way that you can get it out is to remove it unless you reset the expectation. So I would tell you identify your culture needs to be clearly identified. You'd instill what I call the three-foot rule. Three-foot rule would mean that anyone inside of there that's within three foot of that person that they find is outside of culture, it's as much of their job to protect culture as much of it as yours. If not, you're a Charlie Brown teacher talking about it, but no one's listening. So culture the best cultures I've ever been part of and I've ever helped build that I was the most proud of were ones where the culture managed itself, not theater. And I can tell you just went to a uh comedy show like two days ago. I didn't want to go. I was like, I like I don't like to leave the house really, to be honest with you. So one of my old female reps, she's a killer, man. She rather wrote she wrote three, four million dollars a year, killed it. She's working for a buddy of mine, Peter and I, a lifetime. But she was she she took on comedy. So she goes, I can't think of anyone I want to come at least experience. I want to heckle you. I'm like, I don't want to go. She's heckling, she wrote her freaking skit around it, right? So I had a way to go up there and did it. And she goes, you know, one of the things that she got off stage and walked outside, and I hadn't talked to her in a couple years, right? But she goes, you know what I still think is the most amazing thing is like how you had 33 and probably 25 of the biggest personalities, but yet everyone wanted to help everybody. Everyone else wanted everyone else to be successful. And if they didn't, they were held accountable, but not only you, by everyone else in there. And it always rec it always corrected the room, just including me. That's why I always look at you as the best leader I knew. I said, You guys did it, I just was here to help. She goes, but your expectations were consistent, fair and defendable. And yeah, I tell you, if you listen to those words, hopefully you took something from that. Because before a good culture as a leader, you gotta look inside first before you look outside. Am I consistent? Am I fair? Am I defendable? Have I set the right roles and engagements for the team so they know what's acceptable and what is not? And then again, do they understand what their purpose and why they exist for the company, except for to sell stuff? And what I would really do if I got four people that are putting themselves on a pedestal, you might find a way to look at the KPIs, the total KPIs, maybe profit per rep or abuse of certain financing programs and make sure as good as you think they are. So if you're one of those four guys, I hope you're as good as you are. Yeah, I think you probably are, but if you think you're done growing, good luck. You need to continue to keep growing.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

And I love what he said, and that's an amazing answer. And I love the the three the three pillars you mentioned. But Michael says, I want to make them understand that sales is a team sport. I love that he said that. So he's at least got the right mindset as a leader. Uh because I, you know, you've been in it, I've been in sales organizations where they they cherry pick, they, they, they, they say, oh, these are my five top guys. I'm gonna feed them the best leads. Everyone's gonna complain about it, but I don't care because they're they're bringing the best stuff in. So he's got the right mindset of the team sport. And here's what I would say to Michael, and I'm saying this because I had I had a really cool guest on a few podcasts ago named Al Levy, and he told a story about he he did consulting for a company, and this this was one of the problems. And he told the owner, fire that bet you fire your top sales rep. He was bringing the company down so much, he was such a cancer, but he was selling five million a year. He goes, You got to fire him. And and and the owner was like, fire him. He's five million a year. I can't fire him. Well, guess what happened? They fired that guy, and they actually went up uh like a half a million dollars every single month after that, without him there. And that was eye-opening to the owner. And I would tell Michael, you know what? Do a lot of the stuff that Dustin said, but don't be afraid to fire these guys because at the end of the day, you'll actually wind up in a better position than you want. If they're a cancer and they're bringing your team down and causing everyone anxiety, get rid of them. I don't care how much they sell. That would be my my advice.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

Three seconds of negativity, 21 hours. So those four people could infect the rest of your team, which means you burnt again. If I don't know how many people on your team just say it's 10, means 60% of your team is poisoned every day by basically 40% of them. So if you absolutely look at it like uh you're just pulling the weeds, cool. And if they can get in the line, but I'd say again, chin check, you know, you got to check it up and give them an alternative and put a deadline and expectation, and maybe you watch them conduct a meeting for those people for the rest of the team as a punishment. Now they got to go teach the team something on a topic that you want them to cover and prove that they're willing and able to do it. And if they're not willing and able, it means you're never gonna have a team, you're gonna have individuals, right? And maybe they've watched that, whatever it is, any given Sunday show. We either live and die as individuals or blah blah blah, whatever the hell Al Pacino. They realize, and this Nick, one last thing, is if they make the team better, the lead flow gets better because the marketing dollars increase. So, what's their why they should be part of the team and not against it? Why should they be lifting the team and not? And your job is to deliver that message and have them forward thinking on what the possibility is they help you build instead of break. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

And I would do and I would end with this, or this final thing that popped in my head that I think is also important. What I what I see a lot of sales leaders um doing is they manage and they lead based on the KPIs, and they don't manage and lead based on the person. And, you know, if you're just leading or managing or making decisions based on just the person's numbers, well, what is the person behind the numbers? Maybe they're having a bad month because they're getting a divorce or their dog died. Or you if you don't know that stuff as a leader, you then you're not just not a good leader. You can't just manage based on KPIs and that's it. You gotta know your people really well as a leader. I think that's one of the things that's also missing in in leadership.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Yeah, that goes that goes just for the customers, it does a rep, right? Think about that. In order in order to sell John Brown, John what John Brown buys must first see John Brown to John Brown's eyes. It can be your employee.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Homeowner, it can be your production team, it can be your your measure technician. You gotta you gotta get in the fields sometimes where people's perspectives are on how you're per how they're perceiving you. Yeah. You might just be the prop, right? So yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

Well, Dustin, this has been awesome. We're we're we're we're we're totally running out of time, and I and I could keep talking to you for a while, but why don't you tell everyone listening how they can find you, how they can find dumb tax, 90 sales, a 90-day sales accelerator, all that stuff. Where do they go to to if they need your help or just want to check you out?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Yeah, sweet. So I do have uh Instagram, I just give out, I give out like yourself, free tips every day. That's uh it's called leadership underscore lessons underscore DR. That'll help you out there. I give you, I give a free tip pretty much every day, a couple times a day. And then also uh my website's called dumptax.org. You can get on there where you can find access to the sales accelerator on my dustinai. Dumbtaxinc.com is where my dustin AI lives. And you can get on to try it out, $17 to try it out dirt cheap. It's not meant to make me rich. It's meant to help people in the field not struggle, especially because knowing sales leadership doesn't have the ability sometimes to get out there and help and do the right ride-alongs they need to. Maybe you don't want to do the ride-alongs, but look at it like a coach for 17 bucks. Good luck. You're not gonna find that, especially having a guy like Russell in the car with you, or at least my knowledge base.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

So, anyways, little little Dustin in your pocket. Pocket coach.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

A little weird. There you go. Well, Dustin, thank you very much for being on the show. This has been awesome. You've really a lot of great nuggets for everyone. And uh, I want to thank everyone. Um first of all, Dustin, thank you for being on the show. And I want to thank everyone for listening to the show. This has been Selling in the Dwelling. I'm your host, Alan Langer. Don't forget to visit the website, sellinginthedwelling.com. Send in a question. Michael from Nebraska is getting a free selling in the dwelling t-shirt for his awesome question. And don't forget paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling. Paradigm Vendo is an awesome software package uh that every rep should be using when they're in a sales situation in a home. That's it for us, everyone. Dustin, thank you, sir. And thank you out there. We'll see you next time on selling in the dwelling. Take care.