08 - Ryan Shutt on Creating Raving Fans Through Transparency and Communication

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Selling in the Dwelling, the go-to podcast for the in-home sales and remodeling industry. I'm your host, Alan Langer, and man, we've got another great guest coming up today in Ryan Shutt of Allied. Before we get to Brian, the podcast website is sellinginthedwelling.com. The reason I bring that up is not only you can visit all the episodes, but in the top right, you have the Ask Alan segment. You click on that and send me a question. If I read your question on the air, you get a free Selling in the Dwelling t-shirt. And we've got a great question coming up from Tony in Boulder, Colorado, later in the show. And the final uh thing before we get going to Ryan, our podcast main title sponsor is Paradigm Vendo. It's paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling. It is the best software you can find for the in-home sales industry. You'll have more on them a little later. So without further delay, Ryan Shutt joins me. And Ryan, after spending many, many years in another role, took over the CEO of Allied Siding and Roofing, now soon to be Allied Exteriors. And I've been following him on LinkedIn for a while, and I always loved his post because he I think we're cut from the same cloth. He has the same type of mentality of customer first, experience first, but from a CEO standpoint, which is not as common. So, Ryan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me, Alan. Glad to be here. So tell us a little bit about you. You've been in home improvement now for how long? Almost 20 years. 20 years, okay. And you were at it, what was the company previous? And you don't have to mention if you don't want to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

No, no, for no great relationship with them still. So I was at a company in San Antonio called Southwest Exteriors. They've been in business since 1989. I was there for right at a decade.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

You switched over to Allied in the CEO role. And I know you have some things that you want to actually accomplish there, which will probably take us to the your philosophy of running a company. And I, you know, looking at the notes I've accumulated for this episode, I love some of the things you put down. You know, obviously better leadership, healthier cultures. One thing that jumped off the page for me was the term better homeowner experiences. Tell me what you mean by that as a CEO.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, so, you know, I've been in the industry for a while. And so for me, it allied, and especially even at Southwest too, you know, we sold a much higher priced product than most. And so for me, it's the whole Honda versus Alexis experience is very similar cars. I guess I guess Toyota less would be the better, better analogy. Homeowners pay a lot for this. And so for us, it's our job as an organization to truly provide them an exceptional experience. And, you know, we always used to talk about it in terms of how do we create raving fans. That really starts from the very first touch they have with us, which is in the call center, how do you have a phone call where that homeowner hangs up the phone and they say, Man, I'm really glad I called that company. It was such a great phone call I had with that phone person, and I really enjoyed it. After that, we would actually follow up every single phone call with a personalized video from the call center rep. So they get to see the face and hear the voicing of the person they talk to on the phone. And then that then introduces them to their sales rep who has a bio video. Then the morning of they get a video from their rep saying, Good morning. I look forward to meeting you today to talk about XYZ. There's all these touch points leveraging the video to where your experience is so much different out of the gate. And so by the time you get to the home, the homeowner, they know the rep's name. They they know that they used to umpire baseball in minor leagues. They know they've got two kids, right? That barrier you used to have to break down with them as far as connecting, they already know you. Then how do you continue that after the process? So after the sell, it's getting a welcome video from their project manager, understanding how the process is going to go from start to finish. My philosophy is very simple in the sense that if a homeowner ever calls for an update on the project, we've dropped the ball.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yes. Right? Couldn't agree with you more.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yep. They give you 30 grand and you disappear for a month. They have no update, no status. They're wondering where these folks go. And so, how do you set the proper expectation in the home of, hey, after we sell, you know, after you buy from us, we're going to contact you every two weeks to keep you updated. And then you have to deliver on it. And so that's really the experience I talk about is to where it's the biggest investment most people ever make is their home. Throughout that entire process, how do you make them just feel great about the fact they bought from you?

SPEAKER_01 4:39

You just said so many things. My head is like exploding right now. You're just hitting on so many things I talk about when I train and when I was selling myself. Here's something that you just brought up that I'll talk about from a personal experience. I used to work, everybody knows, most people know where I used to work, but I'm not going to name the company that did this specific thing. But we were not allowed as reps at the time to call a customer if we were late. We had to call the call center first and the call center. And I never understood that because I'm the one who's late, not the call center. Right. I would, you know, I don't work there anymore, so I can say this. I would like screw that. I not only, if I was getting late or hit traffic, would call the customer. I started calling customers every time on my way to the appointment. And what it did was I'm no longer the stranger knocking on the door. Even if it was, hey, I'm Alan from Allied or Alan from you know ABC Roofing, I'll be there in 10 minutes. Oh, awesome. Thank you. That's what everybody did most of the time. And now you answer the door, and it's Alan rather than who is this guy. So what you're doing is taking that to a different level because now you're using video and things like that. And it's brilliant because the fear, like the reason behind what they told us was we don't want the rep calling because they're going to cancel the appointment. Right. You're operating from a place of fear rather than, you know, a great experience. So what you're doing is brilliant. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, and the other one too. And I know they're worried about reps pre-qualifying and, you know, and then having it canceled. And that's an inherent risk. But to your point, it's I guess the other part that always bothered me too is you would have you would call the call center and then you'd almost ask the call center to tell a lie to the homeowner of why the rep wasn't going to be there, was running late. And so that that's the other very strict rule that I've got is we never, ever, ever under any circumstance will lie to the homeowner. If we drop the ball, we drop the ball. If Alan forgot about the appointment, Alan forgot about your appointment. His car didn't break down. Yeah, and he's running late. So we would always tell the we always tell the truth.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, that's amazing how many cars break down in the sales industry for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So the other part that that and I chatted with this uh in the previous podcast that I had with Megan Beattie. Yeah, she's great. Yeah, she Megan's awesome. But it's it's about the customer experience that you're talking about. But when I ask CEOs and business owners, tell me about your customer experience. It's amazing how many of them start with the customer experience after the sale. Our installation experience is great, and all but they never talk about the person who picks up the phone, all the touch points you're talking about, and God forbid they talk about the sales experience because it's about the sales process, right? Experience, and they're two completely different things. So talk to me a little bit about I mean, you clearly have the have it down, like the experience starts the second the customer fills out that form online and calls you and goes right through. But talk about how you instill that culture in your company.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I'll just kind of start, you know, with the call center specifically. Now, again, I I can get into a whole conversation about you know mission and vision values, or you know, I'm a big EOS guy. We're at we're in the process of self-implementing EOS at Allied. So this week we've got our you know values and and core function discussions that we're going through. So we're establishing a lot of stuff that Allite didn't have in place that I, you know, walked into and I was a Southwest Exterior. So I'm not gonna bore the audience with you know how you how you prop pick out the proper values and you know how they should be actionable and all this stuff. But you know, with the call center, and this is one thing that's that's really shifted for me. So I started my career on the phones running call centers. That's where I started. And so it's it's something for me that's very passionate. Um very passionate about. And so I had an epiphany probably about six years ago to where I just decided no more scripts. That's gonna be a lot for some people to, um I'm sure, to actually, you know, digest. And so it was going from scripts to giving the the call center rep really a path to follow. And more or less, now again, there's still talking points, and there's still a journey we take that homeowner on. It's how do we have a truly memorable conversation? Now, again, just training, make sure the conversation gets out of hand. You don't want 20-minute phone calls. I get all that. But you know, it's it's very, very hard to train a script and not and not sound robotic. And again, some people can do it, most people cannot. For us, it's really about talking points. And so we start off our phone calls with a warm welcome, asking the reason for the phone call, assuring them we can help them out, and then we set the agenda for the phone call. Hey, Alan, I'm gonna take about four minutes of your time today, and I'm gonna ask you about four questions about your window project, and then we'll get you on your way. Does that work for your schedule today? So now I've already put them at ease. I've given the shot given them a shot clock for the for the phone call. They know what to expect, and that's how every interaction starts off with us, whether it be from the sales, even from the installation. We we always set a time frame so they know what to expect. Then that phone call goes pretty pretty smooth. I mean, it's you know, name, address, phone number. We do what's called a vanguard for the two-party ask, because I know two-party appointments are still very, very important. We will obviously run a one-legged appointment. We'll vanguard those appointments, and by vanguard, I mean kind of calling out the obvious. In those phone calls, you know, we'll tell the homeowner, hey, Alan, I'm gonna ask you a quick question about your wife being present for the consultation. Now, the reason why a lot of our competitions are gonna ask that question is they want to pressure you into buying that night. The promise I'm gonna make to you is Alad will never pressure you into buying that night. Is that okay with you and your wife? Great. So with that in mind, when's the best time to catch you guys both at home? Mornings, afternoons, or evenings?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Well, that's an interesting way to put it. I've never heard it that put it that way. That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

So we'll vanguard it. And again, and and it doesn't mean we don't ask for the cell that night, but it means we don't pressure. We we we don't do a one-call close, we don't do a high pressure drop. And so, so from a cultural perspective, really what it boils down to in one word is transparency. And how are we completely transparent from website to final walkthrough with what's happening and what to expect? That means going to your boss with a problem before it becomes, you know, becomes an issue from a leadership perspective, not overreacting when that problem comes up, accepting it, you know, coaching that person on it, and then then moving forward. And so it's just transparency start with that, starts with us as leaders. If we're gonna overreact every time something comes up, we're gonna create a culture that's secretive. People hide stuff, you don't find out problems so they're really, really bad, and and stuff's gotten out of hand. And so that's really kind of the culture I try to cultivate, you know, within your organization.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

It's a term, I learned this term a couple years ago, and I love it. It's called psychological safety. Does an employee have the have the feeling of am I safe to talk to my supervisor, my my sales manager, my the CEO? Is it safe for me? Am I psychologically safe to do that? And many organizations it's not. They're afraid to talk to managers, so they keep everything inside, and then that fester is like you said. So that whole one party thing is fascinating because you're basically saying we're not going to ask for the order. But I'm guessing, I'm just gonna make a guess here, because of the lack of pressure, you guys probably do close quite a few sales on the first night. Would I would I assume that correct?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Well, well over half. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, that's it. That's amazing. And that's where I think a lot of these organizations or these sales processes fall short because it's almost like all or nothing. They don't close it that night, then it's just a dead lead, or then you're rehashing and then you're doing fake drops and all of those other silly things that that has gotten the bad reputation of home improvement to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah, and you know, the other misconception too, Alan, is you know, because what I hear, and the excuse that I use for years myself is well, you know, if we're doing a B back appointment, we're we're taking a future appointment off the board with that sales rep, right? And so I agreed with that and and for for many, many years. And, you know, with the ability with with Zoom, with video phone calls now, our our second touch sales, I mean, very, very rarely does it ever involve going back out to a homeowner's house. I mean, Oh, that's terrific. We're docusigning, you know, we're sending video follow-up to the homeowner, just being there as a resource for them. Hey, Alan, as you're going through your window buying journey, came across this article, thought it'd be very helpful for you as you're as you're making your final decisions. And so it's how do we really take that heart of a teacher approach and be supportive for that homeowner? And so again, it very, very rarely ever requires a second visit. Now, if it's a complex siding project or whatever, it may require a second visit, but very rarely, very rarely does it.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

See, I think that's what you're doing is sort of you're tapping into what I think is the future of home improvement, of the future of good home improvement, because the transparency is enormous. Like, for example, what's happening now, and I think you and I chatted about this at some point on LinkedIn. Like the number one search now is not roofing company near me or siding company near me, is how much is a roof near me. Now people want to know how much. And then they're going to ChatGBT or Claude and they're saying, all right, what's the average roof cost in Texas? And they're getting all this different information. They're about 90% done with their buying journey before they even contact a company, many of the many of these customers. So, you're prepared for that as a company, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Very much so. And so one thing I know that a lot of folks will do, because I always do it, is they'll go to the website of the person who's on there. And so I will have the disclaimer that we're in the process of building a brand new website for allies. So you'll still still see some stuff that I preach against on our website. So that's that's in full disclosure.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Disclaimer alert.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, well, it takes time to change. And I was, I was thinking before the podcast, I was like, it's kind of like the Hippocratic Oath, right? It's like first do no harm. And so like I can't come in day one and be like, hey, we're doing all this change in the first two weeks. It takes time to get buying, it takes time for the sales guys to see it. I mean, because again, I mean, you you know, sales guys tend to be a skeptical bunch. And so it takes time to move that ship, right? It's we're moving a big cruise ship, not a little speedboat. It's having pricing on your website. And again, it's not exact pricing, it's giving ranges. It also explains to the homeowner, hey, what impacts the pricing? What could make it more, what could make it less. Pricing tools are a great thing. So I just hired a new marketing director. She's doing an awesome job, and she's already got our pricing tool built out for the new website where the homeowner can go in and enter in, you know, number of windows, style of window, you know, material of window, and it gives them a range.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Give them a range, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you know by I have like a secondary company that I started with this tech guy called Quote Boat, and it's exactly that. It's a widget that home improvement companies can put on their website so they don't have to build it themselves. And it just sends a really nice email with a pricing range, and then you set the appointment from there. And those types of companies, as we move along, those transparent companies are gonna be the ones that people are gonna be saying, I like them because I got a price. These other people that they want the rep to come over, they're they want both people there. It's the typical sales crap that I've seen all my life. Oh, but Allied's different. I can get a get a pricing range, I'm gonna have them come over. I think it's huge, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah. Yeah, I think the worst thing that companies can do in that situation, because I I see it a lot, right? I click on a lot of ads in my social media feed intentionally so I so I get fed more, so I know what my competition's doing. And there is nothing worse than seeing an ad for pricing or going to a pricing page on a website and you don't get pricing. You get taken through the whole process of number of windows. I went through one the other day where it even asked my credit score range. And so I filled all this out and it still did not give me a price. It said, you know, hey, we'll have one of our you know contractors contact you. And just from it from a user experience, I mean, that would be miserable to go through and you just close all this information and I still don't have a price.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Wow, that's awful. Yeah, I mean, and again, that's the part of the journey, that's the experience from the get-go. And and now, you know, younger people are starting to own homes. So now you got these people who who spent their entire life buying stuff on Amazon, and the concept of like, oh my god, I got to meet with a salesperson is foreign. And they're like, you know, they have so much resistance to it. So really great stuff. And I love what you're doing. And and you're kind of like, I don't know, I kind of call you like the new wave of you know home improvement CEOs. So so great stuff right there. Hey dwellers, you know what term is becoming very popular today in the in-home selling world? Well, it is called tech stack overload. Another word for it? Shiny object syndrome by all the business owners out there. They get so overwhelmed, they get a call from a salesperson for selling software and they buy it. Then they next week they buy another software and then they try the CRM. They're trying too many things at once, and they're creating what they're calling tech stack overload to their reps. Well, our title sponsor, Paradigm Vendo, takes care of all of that. It is a one-stop shop, one computer, all the software you need in one spot for your rep to give the customer an amazing experience in the home. Paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling. Check them out. You will not be sorry that you did. You're a culture guy. Is there anything if there is a a young business owner listening right now or someone who's starting a business and you always hear the buzzword culture? How do you start a culture or how do you build a good culture? Is there anything you could sort of give some advice about the building of culture, or is it something that just I don't know if it happens on its own, but what would you say about if someone said to you, Ryan, how do I build a good culture?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

It can happen on its own. And if it happens on its own, it's usually not great, right? Yeah, right. As leaders, I mean, we have to be calm in the midst of a storm. They're gonna look towards us and say, hey, how is Ryan responding? Stuff that's hit the fan, we missed a goal for the quarter, cash flow's tight. How's Ryan responding? As leaders, that can be a very lonely place. I'm a big believer in whether it be, you know, something like a vistage or C12 or some sort of leadership, you know, support group to where you've got like-minded people that can, you know, be a good sounding board, you've got to represent, if you're gonna put core values on your wall, I've got my personal core values hanging on my office wall that are that are mine personally because I went through a life journey process. You've got to live by them. You've got to exemplify them every single day. If you say, hey, we're gonna be transparent, and then you tell the guys, hey, just tell the homeowner this or hey, just charge for this and don't tell them or charge them for that, you lose credibility for transparency, like out of the gate. If we say we're gonna do the right thing and we don't do the right thing as leaders to our people, you know, if we promise somebody a promotion or a pay raise and we back off of that, like we're inherently creating this culture of dishonesty and not doing the right thing. And so, and again, I won't make it a you know about faith, but my faith drives a lot of the type of culture that I want to do and that I want to lead. For me, it's not about being infallible, but it's it's about owning when I'm wrong. If I do get upset with an employee, it's truly owning it and going up to them and saying, hey, Alan, you know what? I was out of line when I talked to you that way. But it's also not repeating the behavior, right? Because if I if I just keep asking for apologies time and time again, then eventually after the fifth time, you're probably not gonna believe I'm gonna change my behavior, right? Right. So now I'm creating a culture there. So it's being really intentional. You know, I mentioned about going through the EOS process, which I'm a firm believer in EOS. I think it's a great platform to run an organization on as you get buy-in on you know the values that you're gonna put on your wall. I mean, it's gotta be a leadership team value. It's asking questions of, hey, are we gonna hire for these values? And more importantly, would we fire somebody for violating these values? Yeah. And you've got to do it in every case. I mean, it's tough, man. You've got guys, I mean, I know that you know it probably better than anybody, is you know, you you have these top-performing sales reps that are selling, you know, two and a half, three million dollars a year and that are just killing the culture of the organization. Killing it. Yep. Is you as a leader are you gonna have the backbone to stand up and say, hey, Alan, you're in violation of this culture and these values, and either you strape it up or we're gonna let you go, and then you let them go. It's super scary sometimes, but you got to stand by because that one single person that's a deterrent to your culture, they are eroding everything that you preach about in every team meeting, every quarterly update, whatever it is. You you got one or two people that are just eroding that, it's a very, very short road to total chaos.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Well, and it and it shows a lot about the leader. If they're willing to say, here's our best guy or our best girl, they're selling three million a year, but all the other things are they're not doing right, I'm gonna get rid of them. That's uh sends a huge message to the organization. And I remember when when I sold for Renewal by Anderson, one of the things that they changed when I was there, and I was so kind of proud that they did, because every organization in sales, especially 10 years ago, whatever it was, the number one sales rep was volume. You sold three million. I don't care how crappy you were to your customers, you sold three million, you got rep of the year, you went on your trip. They changed that because they realized that sometimes the best, the guy with the girl with the most volume was not the best rep. You got bad customer reviews, they they didn't follow up, they they did some so many things. They got bad medalli scores and things like that. So it became more of a metric. Yeah, volume was one, but how many referrals did you get? How many self-changs did you get? What are your Google scores and all these things because you can get it all together? And now the number one rep may be third or fourth in volume, but everything else they did raised the entire company. So that that's the kind of philosophy that I think is going to carry, you know, the better companies going forward for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Agreed. Yeah, I love that. I love that approach.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. So before I ask my next question, you mentioned EOS a couple of times. I know what that is, but there may be some people in the audience who don't know what EOS is. Can you give a quick explanation of what that is and and why you you believe in it?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah. So entrepreneurial operating system is what it stands for. I'm trying to be the best way to break it down. It's really a couple things. It's it's one, setting up from a cultural standpoint, what your what your core focus is as an organization, why you exist, what's your Nishes. And then from there, it is building out your core values. It's, you know, getting you very clearly defined with your marketing strategy, you know, who's your ideal buyer? What are our principles? What are what are our non-negotiables from a marketing? What's our guarantee as a marketing? So it's having these great conversations with the leash team and mapping this stuff out and literally solidifying it. And then from there, it's really the cadence, right? So you'll you'll come up with basically a 10-year vision for the organization, a three-year picture, and then you're breaking that down into a one-year plan. And so it's very intentional, 10-year, three-year, and then what do we accomplish in the next year to get closer to that three-year and 10-year plan? And you meet quarterly to go over there and establish ROCs. And then from those quarterly meetings, you're doing basically what are just called weekly L10 or level 10 meetings with your leadership team. Every department below that should also have a weekly L10 meeting. And it's just this cascading message of going, hey, each week we're going through the scoreboards, we're going through to-dos, we're going through issues, and the issue portion of it is the longest, and we're actually solving issues in those meetings, and then we're doing cascading messaging to the rest of the organization of what was accomplished in those meetings. I'm sure some EOS coaches listening to this right now are going, Ryan, you completely screw that up as far as how you explained it. But for me, it's much more the cadence and the accountability and having meetings that are meaningful. I mean, I I got a meeting a few minutes ago, and it about five minutes in, I had to hit the timeout button and I said, hey guys, like what does success look like for this meeting? It wasn't an L10 or an EOS official meeting. I think we have so many bad meetings to where nothing's decided. Yeah. You know, the purpose of the meeting gets sidetracked out of the gate. And so by following EOS and their L10 meeting structure, it is it is a very workable structure that allows you to truly make decisions in meetings and move on to the next topic.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

So that's interesting. So again, another company who's listening to this or an owner, I would recommend they check out EOS. It sounds like you know, you're you're a big proponent of it. So it's definitely a system that has been around, it's been around for got decades, I think, now, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Get the book Traction by Gina Wickham. Track. Read that. Yeah. So right now we are self-implementing, which is which is a challenge as a CEO to self-implement. There are tons of EOS coaches around the U.S. If budget allows and time allows, I recommend using a coach if you can. But right now we're making this into to self-implement. It's just it's a little unique as a CEO to be a CEO and a facilitator in those meetings. So you have to have a unique culture to be able to do that where you're not swaying the room with every decision that's made.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Now you've been in the in the business a long time and you've already mentioned the customer experience and some of the sales processes that has issues in home improvement. Give me something else. When I say, if I said to you, Ryan, what what are some of the top two issues you see in the home improvement world right now? As a CEO, how would you answer that besides the couple things you've already spoken about?

SPEAKER_00 24:43

I'll start off with the marketing because that's that's another thing that's very near and dear to my heart. And so I actually I did a post about this last week. And, you know, I think there's just a lot of predatory things that are going on right now when it comes to lead gen. And it's it's frustrating in the sense that, you know, I feel like there's there's ads that are intentionally misleading seniors. There's ads that are intentionally misleading veterans and other low-income income areas. And these ads, I mean, I I've literally saved hundreds of them because they pop up at my feed constantly, but it it's literally touting programs to where seniors and veterans and low-income folks can get free windows or free roofs to their house. And there are some government programs. They're very, very stringent. There's very, very few dollars to go around, and it makes it sound like it's it's it's open to the masses. And so, you know, I think it's one of those things where you know you're targeting somebody who probably really does need a new roof, and they're a veteran, and they think, man, I can actually get this roof paid for because I served my country. And as they go through the process, they find out it doesn't exist. It's just somebody selling their lead to multiple companies, and now their phone's ringing off the hook and they're they have some high pressure rep coming in their home. And so I think that just does so much damage for the industry. As we go out there and as we talk about you know Windows, whether it be on TV or radio or whatever it may be, I mean, we're gonna get lumped into the same bucket as these companies are generating leads that way. And so it angers me to the point where I just want to, you know, stand on the mountaintop and scream and shout and say, this is this is not the way to do this, guys. There's a better way. And I think collectively, you know, I myself am not going to change it. I'm I'm not that naive. I think if you know, if we refuse to buy those leads and we demand a different way, I think we can change it.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because you get a lot of the companies that are doing this for the first time are trying different things and they fall they fall prey to some of these pretty underhanded marketing companies like you talked about. Yeah. And it goes the same with sales. You know, so many salespeople and sales leaders have been trained just bad. And they're trained to do high pressure and and do ridiculous drops from 60,000. Oh, now I can do it for 18 if you sign tonight and some stupid crap like that that's been going on. And it's the reason why nobody wants to meet with a salesperson. Like this is one of the premises of my book. Nobody wants to meet with you if you're a salesperson. Well, then the next question is why? Well, it's because of all the underhanded stuff that's been going on for a hundred years. Yeah, and it's hard to overcome that. And and I think the industry is getting better. I think it it's getting a little better as you move along. But there, you know, you still talk to anyone, you just pull anyone off the street. Hey, you want to meet with a salesperson? If you need a new roof, hell no, I don't want to meet with anybody. I don't know how much it is and where I can buy it. I don't want to meet with a person. So that's what we're missing.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

That was I I had the benefit of speaking, I was able to speak a qualified remodeler in Las Vegas. I think it was either two or three years ago. And that was actually how I started off my my talk, which was would you be proud if your mother sat through your sales process with Andrew's sales guys?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And I mean, for me, that's the ultimate filter. Or would you buy for your company? I was on the phone with a vendor, I'll re leave the vendor remain unnamed. They were selling a product, and throughout the course of the phone call, I could tell where this was leading, where he was leading to a one-call close in some special offer. And I'll I'll just say Bob. The guy's name wasn't Bob. I was like, hey, Bob, I said, I said, don't do what you're about to do.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

And he's like, What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

I I said, I said, don't ask me to buy today, and don't tell me you have special pricing if I buy today. I go, I go, please don't cross that line with me. He didn't listen. He kept going. And he did he did the drop in the buy today. I said, Hey Bob, I just said, I said, so you know, I said I will never do business with you or your company in in the future. And I I've held to that, and again, I'll never mention it who the company is. Yeah. But I mean, it's just, it's even I don't want to be sold to that way.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, and nobody does. And and it's a great point. Like, would you buy for your own company? Ask the leaders that question, and what would they say? They don't want they or I love it. Would you would you want your mother to meet with one of your sales reps? Yeah. How are they going to answer that? And and a lot of them probably would say no. So, hey, sellers and dwellers. So the next segment of selling in the dwelling is sponsored by our friends at Destination Motivation. You know, what would a 33% increase in close rates and a 55% reduction in cancellation rates be worth to you? Well, check out Destination Motivation because that's exactly what they can do for you. You want to visit www.increaseroursales.com for more. Now let's get to the ask Allen segment. We are flying by, and it is time you'll hear the angels singing as as as they sing. It's time for the Ask Allen segment of the podcast, sponsored by Destination Motivation. And what we have today is a very cool one. So Tony from Boulder, Colorado writes in. And again, I go through these questions as they come in and try to pick the ones that are pertaining, or will you know look at the guests that I have? And this one's really, I think, a good one for Ryan. So Tony from Boulder writes, So I am interested in getting into a sales management role within my current company. I am a top five sales rep right now. What are some of the things I should be doing to prepare myself for a role like this? So as a CEO, how would you answer Tony's question?

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah, so really a couple things. So I would say, first and foremost, half joking, half serious, reduce your spending levels because you're probably going to make less as a manager than you are. It's a top five sales reps. That's tremendous. So I mean it it it is what it is. I mean, that there's there's a lot of top sales reps that will never go into manager because of that simple fact. Yeah. And so I think just to be very open about that is is super important. And there is a great book called Impact Players by Liz Wiseman. For me, it's a book that I give to every single young person who wants to get into leadership. You know, what it really boils down to is saying yes and raising your hand early. So I I would encourage him to, you know, his opportunities come up that nobody else wants to do when it comes to sales. It might be testing out a new software, it might be, you know, leading some sort of project is raise your hand and say stuff, say yes to stuff like that. Because it really allows you to say, hey, is this even something that I want to do? Because I mean, let's be honest. I mean, I pick on sales guys, no offense. I've been around my entire career. I love them, but I also know that sales reps are also tend to be a very high maintenance bunch of people. And so, you know, the more familiar you can get with actually running a team like that, I mean, you've got to truly be a psychiatrist at some level when it comes to being a sales manager. Is sales guys, most of them are 100% commissioned. There's high highs and there's low lows. Man, I can't imagine working for a week and knowing that week I didn't sell anything and I made no money. I put in a 70-hour work week and I made zero. And so I think it's, you know, to truly understand that and go, hey, how do I lift that guy up? How do I coach him? How do I keep his headspace right? And also, too, it's it's the not glamorous things, too, right? It's is a sales leader, if you that that's what you want to be. Role play, role play, role play. You will not be popular, but I'll tell you what, your guys will get good. And if you can do role-playing well and you can role-play true scenarios, you can become a great leader for sales guys. And the same thing, too. I know there's great tools like Ciro and Rilla, but to still get out and do some ride-alongs occasionally, that the teams what the team wants to see you out there and not just facilitate role play, participate in role play, right? So the guys can see you doing it. And so, you know, just as a leader, man, is you've got to truly be one of them, but at the same time live out the values of the organization and be and be a leader in the process. So, not a very succinct answer for him, but hopefully it gives him a little bit of direction on where he should be going.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

No, I I think it's very succinct because you brought up some stuff that he may not have been thinking of. And the thing that I that I think about when I see, I mean, I don't get a question like this all the time, but I've seen it countless times, where companies will take the top sales guy or the top second or third and say, Hey, we want to offer you a managerial position. And then the sales rep starts to think, Well, I don't have to work Saturday nights anymore, I don't have to work evenings, I'll make a little less money, let's do it. But they have no idea how to be a leader. Right. And they put people in positions of failure rather than of success. So from a managerial standpoint or from an owner standpoint, I'm always shocked on how many people who should not be leaders are put into those roles. And how do you look at that when when you're ready to promote someone or you you know, do you look at what are their leadership skills first? Because yeah, they can sell, but can they manage a team?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, I mean, it it's for me, typically your top sales guy is not going to make the best sales manager. I I agree a hundred. I mean I mean it it just is what it is. But also as leaders, like we have to provide the training and the support that these guys need to be the leader. So literally within my first month at Allied, I could have brought in a lot of things, right? I I could have brought in EOS, I could have brought in, you know, some big and powerful sales trainer. Instead, I'm working with a group that specializes in leadership. It's called the question the first group. I think you can blurb it out if you want to, but they're a great organization. Since my my second month here, we've been doing a weekly training with our coach, and the coaching centers around strictly on how to have impactful one-on-ones, how to ask great questions, how to you know help those the people you know get to the answer themselves. Because as leaders, right, we're so busy, it's easy when questions come to us. We just shout off the answer and they go and do it, right? Well, I've missed an opportunity to build a leader and help help you think through how to solve that problem, what's the best way to approach it? And so, I mean, it it's grueling training. I talk about role playing. I mean, me as a CEO, I'm role-playing one-on-ones, I'm recording one-on-ones that my coach is listening to. And my other leaders get to hear my feedback and my coaching on it too. And so it's so important, you know, to start there and provide your team the training that they need in order to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

And you made a great point about the psychology of being a leader because I do I do sales leadership training and I talk about this. And one of them is I play a game with the people I'm training, and I call it, Is this you? And I come up with a scenario and I say, okay, whatever the scenario is, and then I put ask this question and I have them answer yes or no, and there's five questions, and and I say, Is this you? And one of them that always gets people and and it's from the sales rep's perspective. So the question comes from the sales rep. So the question is, does your manager, does your leader inspire you? They have to they have to answer yes or no as the leader, and they think about this stuff, or does your manager lead by metrics or by emotion? Most sales leaders just coach on on the numbers. You're not hitting your numbers, they're gonna put you on a pit plan. Well, that's not a good leader. You got to find out the person behind the numbers. So the emotional part of the thing you talked about is is huge.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

You know, you mentioned some of it earlier too, but it's it's how do you how do you make your team feel safe? One of my favorite, you know, Leaders Eat Lasts by Simon Sinek, who's a fantastic read. Yep. And he talks strictly about that as it how do we make our team feel safe? So when they do mess up, they're not coming to your office like a beat puppy and you know, they're worried about what you're gonna say to them, how you're gonna degrade them and challenge them. They're gonna go, hey, I'm gonna go see Ryan because he's he's gonna build me up and he's gonna help me get through this.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Well, Ryan, we are well over 40 minutes and it flew by, and I want to really thank you for joining me today. We really got some golden nuggets out of you, and we can keep talking forever. But people aren't gonna listen forever, so we probably should shut it down now. But hey, if someone wants to reach out, say hi to you, or say great podcast, where do they where do they find you if you don't mind sharing that?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, so they can find me on LinkedIn or they can shoot me an email. It's Ryan.shut S-H-U-T at Allied CustomHomes.com. Confusing email. Don't ask about it. It's getting changed, Allied Exteriors Soon.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Allied exteriors soon, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

LinkedIn's always great. I stay pretty active there, checking my messages so they can reach out to me there. Man, I I love having these conversations with folks. So happy to help.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, this is this has been great. And I and I really want to thank you for being on. This has been a terrific uh episode. And I want to thank everyone out there for joining us on Selling in the Dwelling. So, Ryan Shutt, thank you for being here. And everyone, don't forget the podcast title sponsor is paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling. Check them out. I know you heard a little bit about them in the middle of the episode. And don't forget also Destination Motivation, great company if you want to lower your cancellation rate. And they are the sponsor of the Ask Allen segment. That's it for us, everyone. Thank you, Ryan, once again, and thank you out there. We'll see you next time on Selling in the Dwelling. Take care.

unknown 37:03

Selling in the Dwelling!