10 - The Sales Process That Builds Trust and Closes More Deals with Torlando Hakes

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the GoTo Podcast for the remodeling and in-home selling world, selling in the dwelling. And we're going to go to the painting side of selling in the dwelling today with my great guest Orlando coming up. But before we get there, just two quick housekeeping notes. The website is sellinginthedwelling.com. And I bring this up because in the top right, you're going to see a button that says ask Allen. Click that button and you send me a question. If I wind up reading your question over one of the next episodes, you get a free selling in the dwelling t-shirt. We've got a pretty interesting question coming up too, as well. And then second, our title sponsor is Paradigm Vendo. Visit them at paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling for the best in-home software you can find in the in-home selling industry. So without further delay, I've got Torlando Hakes with me today. And Torlando and I go back, God, it's probably seven, eight years now or something like that, right? It's been a while, Torlando, right? Yeah, I feel like it, I feel like it is has been a while, hasn't it, Alan? Yeah, yeah. So I met Torlando. I think we met uh over LinkedIn or something, but then we met in person. Torlando's in the painting world. One of my very first speaking gigs that I ever got was with the PCA, the painting contractors of America. And I went, I think it was in Florida. I did a talk out there, went really well, met Torlando in person. So we've we've kept in touch, but I'm bringing him on the podcast because he's really an innovator. He's got an MBA, he's got all kinds of degrees, but he comes from the world of helping homeowners with their projects from a painting standpoint. But he saw what I've been seeing my whole life is that the in-home selling industry is broken. And when you get to like these things that guys can just throw a ladder in the back of their truck and call themselves a painting company, same as with roofers. You get all these fly-by-night companies, and it and it kind of gives the entire industry a bad name. So you wanted to do something about it. So, first of all, welcome to the podcast, uh Torlando. Thanks for being here.

unknown 2:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, I definitely, I definitely have always had a passion for the trades. I I fell into painting. I think most people fall into painting. You don't you don't ever grow up, you know, thinking, oh man, I I'm gonna go up, grow up and be a painter, a house painter, you know. And but I just kind of fell into it when I was 18. I was, you know, working at a gas station trying to figure out what the next step was. And a buddy of mine, his dad had a custom home company, and they let go of their painters and they were like, Have you ever painted before? And I go, Yeah, my uncle had me paint his garage one summer, and they were like, That's sounds good to me, you know. So I got my first painting job, and and uh I I really kind of fell in love with it. And so, you know, by the time I was uh I started college, I think my freshman or sophomore year, I broke out of my own and started painting houses for homeowners directly. And it was an interesting time to start a painting company. It was, I think 2008, so that's a you know, thick of the great recession. In in retrospect, I don't know. You know, is it was it a good time to start a painting company or or the worst time to start, you know, a company? You know, on one hand, uh a couple guys went under, you know, and that that gave me the opportunity. But yeah, I just kind of fell in love with it. And you know, there have been times where I've thought the grass is greener on the other side. I I went into software sales for a little while and and I ended up coming back to painting and and I and I really did think like, man, we can do something interesting here because I I did spend that time in the in the software startup world, learned a few things, and thought, okay, how can we apply some of what I learned in that industry, bring it over here, and see if we can, you know, come up with a model that I don't I don't know if disruptive is the right word, but but certainly unique.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

It's like a pattern interrupt in the industry because that's why you know I loved learning about what you were doing because you saw that, you know, the painting industry, just like most of the in-home industries, had had its issues, you know, not only guys just throwing ladders in the backs of trucks and calling themselves painters, but you know, the the sales process in the home, what were they doing? Was it high pressure? Did they know how to sell it all? Was it the owner basically, you know, just going in and all these different things that everybody always does? And you decided this can be fixed. There's room for improvement here. And you wrote a book, first of all, called Sprint, right? Which is which was a book about systems, not only in the painting industry, but I think you can apply it to most in-home selling models. Tell me about why you decided like this needs to be fixed, and then how you decided to do something about it.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah, I mean, so so the book was really um, it was really an ode to the stress that I felt as a business owner trying to figure out how to produce these jobs. I I learned about a framework in software, it's called Agile or Scrum. I was at a point where I was trying to hire a project manager, it was going really poorly, the customers were getting frustrated, painters were clowning around, we couldn't find the right people. I mean, it was just a disaster. And not only that, my second child was on the way. I had a sales rep whose baby ended up being born the day after my second child. My sales rep went on maternity leave because, you know, she was having a baby. Yeah. My wife at the time was having a baby. It's the thick of summer. It's actually that daughter's birthday today while we're recording that. Oh, wow. Well, happy birthday to her. Yeah, she's nine years old. So this was nine years ago. I lost my sales rep. I lost my project manager. And at that point, I had been mostly just kind of working on marketing and, you know, and finances, basically, which I was I was horrible at at finances back then. I I mean, my art degree, as you could imagine, did not prepare me managerial accounting. I was I was up a creek, the start of the summer, start of the busy season, my whole support team was gone, it was all back on me again, and I had to figure out something fast to to you know manage these jobs, take on the sales again, you know, taking on project management, doing it all. I came across this uh this single page PDF that explained how agile works in s in the software world. And it's it's a pretty straightforward system. It's super easy to understand and to to follow. Um, but it's basically just a a cadence of meetings where you plan up front what work needs to be done, you put those you know, jobs into work orders, you have a a a stand-up meeting where you talk about what got done, what needs to get done tomorrow, what stands in your way. And then at the end of the two-week period, which is called a sprint, you have a retrospective meeting where you kind of debrief and you talk about what went well, what went wrong, what can you improve. And and that took me from having to go to every single job site to start the job, to get the guys kicked off, to go into the job sites every single day, to check in on them, see how things are going, to being able to empower the crew leaders in the field with decision-making power, with customer service responsibilities, right? With with knowing what they have. I would I would print out work orders and give them a folder of all the jobs that they needed for the next two weeks. And and that enabled me to spend the next nine days selling. Right? Gotcha. Yeah. And and that's the that's the hurdle that I think so many business owners who turn into, or, you know, especially workers who turn into business owners, painters or, you know, whoever, you know, technicians who turn into business owners, they struggle to make that leap because they can't get out of the field. They can't, they can't delegate it. They don't know how to do that handoff and give the responsibility to the crew leader so that they can turn around and focus on sales. And so once once I figured that out, and I think I said that was about nine years ago, that's my hedgehog principle. Like the the sprint framework is is what I use in in, I mean, I even use it at home, Alan. You know, we we use it to organize the kids' schedule. You got what, three or four now? How many kids you have?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, so that that needs some scheduling for sure. Wow. So did would this apply to a larger company that has perhaps like an install manager or production manager? Like they would actually run that meeting, I'm assuming, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah, exactly. So it scales to massively large companies because, like I said, it was developed out of software. So any of your large tech companies, you know, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, all of them are going to be using Scrum and Agile in some form or fashion um in their companies. I know that university systems have adopted it. The military has adopted it. Uh Bill Belichick, when he ran the New England, uh New England Patriots and uh Scrum. Did he really? I did not know that. Yeah, he did. And I imagine that you're you're probably a fan.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Oh well, I'm a fan of of the process, although now you're getting me to, I'm gonna look into it a lot closer than I have. But no, I moved I moved to Rhode Island from New York, so I'm a Giants fan. So okay, guys. I I get to uh but yeah, I get to hear about Bill Bell James. You get to hear it. Well that that's interesting stuff. So now you started doing this, but then at some point you changed to this new model that you have called Craftsman Painter. Yeah. And this to me is fascinating because tell me how you went from where you were. Now you've got Scrum working, you got Agile working, you're you're doing well, but you still made a change. Why was that? And and how did you get to that point?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think every journey is not as straight as you'd like it to be. Yeah, Alan. I mean, I'm I'm in my 40s now. That's that's a tough thing. You're still a baby. That see, people keep telling me that, and I'm like, that's when do I get to say I'm old?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

When do I when am I allowed? I don't I mean, I can say you're a baby because I'm 60. I'll be 61 next week, but I still don't say I'm old, so I don't think you ever say it because it's a f it's a state of mind. So more than more than that.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

You can you can tell that to my back, but that's okay. Well, I haven't been painting for 20 years either. So that's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

You know, I I had always had this vision of something akin to a marketplace model. And and I I mean I remember in the old days, you know, being up on a ladder and thinking, man, if I could just run my business from my cell phone, I'd that would be great, you know, because I'm I was up on a ladder, you know, it's like going home at night and processing bids at 2 a.m. Like you got a stack of five bids that are late, you know, it was a nightmare. And so I just I had always this is my holy grail. Like I'm just trying to find a way, a model that's actually going to scale a painting company. You know, I think I'm at the the precipice of it. Like I think we've we've stumbled upon it. It's taken a taken a while to figure this out. But when I say marketplace, you know, I think back then, and I'm you know, I'm talking 2015 or so, you know, I was thinking, uh I had this on my mind, which was Uber. How does how does Uber do it? Right? Like Uber was big. Like, I mean, Uber's big now. It's a you know, it's a staple now, but back then it was, you know, that was what everybody was talking about. It's like, man, Uber of Uber of X. Like, how could you become the Uber of whatever, you know? And so like I had always been thinking, like, how can I do this? And I had I'd invested in in a startup where we tried to build some software to do this, and that failed. I ran out of money. That company ended up getting acquired. I I actually joined that company for a while and uh was there through the exit. Just I've just always been trying to figure this out. You know, it's it's just this nut that I just can't keep myself from trying to crack. I started looking at different models, not just in the tech world, but just anywhere, looking at insurance models, looking at real estate brokerages models, even looking at injury lawyers, you know, sweet James. You ever hear you have a sweet James uh out there? We have he's called a heavy hitter. You got the heavy hitter, we got the heavy hitter, yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Every billboard, every you sing and jingle as you're as you're jogging, it's ridiculous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

That's right, that's right. The heavy hitter, right? I mean, that that model, as cheesy as it is, is uh a brilliant business model. It is a it is just a brilliant, brilliant business model. And so I I just kept trying to figure out what are people doing out here. So yeah, we started Crass and Painter. The initial idea was we're gonna try and we're gonna go for broke here and and try to go multi-market right out the gate. It's been a tremendous struggle. I mean, it is really hard. You know, we've we've had two or three markets where we entered and hired some people, ran out of money, had to shut it down, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's just been hard, but but we're we're starting to crack the nut. Like we're starting to figure it out. And a lot of it has to do with our ability to sell remotely and our ability to incorporate the software systems that we're building into that sprint process, you know, the process that I outline in the book. Like we're it's that combination.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So it's it's not a craftsman painter, it's not exactly a franchise model, it's more of a brand. Someone buys into becoming a craftsman painter, they get all the branding and everything. And then here's what really like opened my eyes because I thought this was incredible. I haven't really heard about anything like this. You sell for them. You have someone remotely selling. So this person's in Florida, but he's he's selling jobs in Indiana, right? Yeah, like Indiana and in Ohio, yeah. Yeah, and that but selling a home improvement project like painting over uh online over Zoom or or Google Meets, whatever, is is really not easy to do. And you you found a way to get it done, right? You're selling for these guys that are that are in these other states.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, yeah. So so in the Indiana market right now, our our sales rep, like you said, he is in Florida. He's got about a 50% closing ratio, which when he told me that, uh, I was like, it's time to raise our prices. And so exactly. So we nudged it up a little bit and and and we're still, you know, we're still competitive, you know, we're still you know, right in there. Sometimes we're you know, sometimes we're a little more, sometimes we're a little less. So, you know, I think we're priced right. But yeah, there there was a breakthrough with with the remote selling. You know, COVID changed a lot, right? Like COVID changed changed the world in a lot of ways. And, you know, I took notice of of those things that instantly became common. And video calls have become common. A lot of our customers, especially the ones in their in their working lives, very they've become very comfortable to online video meetings. We'll have situations where we'll got a wife who's at home and the husband's at work, and they're both on the sales call. You know, they're both at the estimate, right? Because they can join from video. And, you know, I can't remember exactly what the catalyst was for that outside of COVID. I mean, COVID impacted that, you know, COVID was just like, well, we have to reduce. Yeah, you gotta do it. We gotta figure it out, right? Yeah. And so I think that's probably where I developed the m the pricing model of like being able to look at a room without measurements and tell how big it is, you know, scope it out, get an accurate price, created a a system of points. So everything we bid is in points. And we, you know, we bid in points, we pay in points. It's a whole it's a whole other podcast, honestly. But that was that was the first thing. Was like, okay, if we have to if if if we have to be on video temporarily, how do we put together a price if we're not pulling out the tape measure? That was the first thing. The second thing was how do we overcome the trust hurdle? Right? How do there's a trust gap in in trade. So you talk about all the time. You know, contractors are hated. So how do we overcome that trust gap? Well, if we're on the computer, then that means that we can show them a lot of stuff. We can we can prove a lot of things, we can show our portfolio, we can show our reviews, uh, we can show a lot of things. That was another piece. And then it was just a matter of figuring out the process. Is it one call close? Is it two call close? If we need to go in person, you know, how does that work? Do we fight against it? Do we go with it? A lot of those questions we've just kind of been figuring out bit by bit. But I think that the the real, you know, I think one of the big things was, hey, let's get them on their phone and let's get them, let's get them using their camera and pointing around so that it feels like we're we've got eyes on the on the place. And we need those eyes on the place. Like we need to see that.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And the other thing it does, you mentioned this when we were chatting pre-call, having them walk around with the phone is is involving them in the job. It's it's it's like they're not just saying, hey, go look at the living room and tell me how much it is. Now they're doing it themselves. And then you add the component that they it's almost like they have a little shopping cart where they can start picking things as you're on the phone with them. And once customers start picking things themselves, pointing and clicking whatever they had to do, now they start owning the job and it becomes their price, not your price. And that's psychologically, that's huge. 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.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

I'm I'm really big into sense making as a part of the sales process. A Gartner study about about sense making, the idea of sense making, right? Like the the evolution of of sales has been in the old days, you just tell people, hey, this is this is what you can buy. Here are the here are the features, like, you know, do you want it, right? Right. You know, that kind of invites uh an apples to apples comparison and and ultimately it uh you know turns into price shopping, right? Then then consultative sell selling came along, and you know, consultative selling is uh very much about problem identification and demonstrating expertise and you know consulting the person into the decision that you want them to make, right? From the old way to consultative selling, I think the jump in in sales effectiveness was something like 50% higher. Which was which was good. Those are a lot of games. But when you engage in this process called sense making, what the Gartner study found is that it uh increased sales effectiveness by 80%. And so so what is sense making? Well, sense making Yeah, please explain. Yeah, so sense making is more about uh putting all of the options on the table, standing shoulder to shoulder with your customer and saying, here's how we can make sense of all of these options that you have. Right? I'm going to help you understand what this stuff means so that you, the customer, can make a well-informed decision on your own. Right? And and I would say that, Alan, this is not too different than what you talk about in your book. Options, options, options are so so critical. Because the conflict and the battle between a salesperson and and the homeowner is is the pocketbook. Nobody wants to talk about how much money they have, right? Right. Like that's you know, that's the cards, those are the cards that they're holding to their chest. And and you've got all these sales systems that are, oh, you gotta try to figure out what their budget is and you gotta try to do this. All that does is it creates friction and and discomfort. Like nobody wants to show their card. No, exactly. Yep. So so what sense making does is it it provides enough options so that you have something that's within budget, regardless of what their budget is. They just have to make sense of what pieces are they gonna pull together, right? So so in painting, there are so many different SKUs for paint, right? So many different product lines. You you can buy paint that costs $150 a gallon. You can buy paint that costs $20 a gallon, right? How do you make the decision? What's best for my home? Well, what do you want? What are your needs, right? You know, are you going to live here for a while? Are you getting ready to sell? Do you have kids? Do you have dogs? How hard are you on your home? Like, are you pretty active? Are you pretty light? When's the last time you painted, right? How long do we think and want this to last? Right? Do you care about aesthetics? Do you care about aesthetics? Do you like higher sheen, lower sheen? Do you like washability? Right? There's all these questions that we have to uncover and answer by being able to lay these options out on the table and say, which one do you want to, which one is right for you? You give them the control over the sales process, right? And that's the thing that gives them the most anxiety is lack of control. Like that's what anxiety is, it's lack of control.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

It's basically like you said, I never heard it called the sense making. I think that that's that's a really good way to do it because you want the customer to make sense of what they're choosing. But the the key is the choices, because when you when you lay down one price, and you know this, here's your price to paint your house, 12, you know, $14,561. And then you just sit there and you stare at them. That's what salespeople were trained to do. And that ridiculous line, well, the first person who speaks loses. I mean, that's just like that that whole mentality. And and what that does is one price puts the customer in a yes or no mindset. Yes, I like this. No, I don't. And they usually just say, okay, great, you were a great salesperson. We need to think about it. That's what they get all the time. But now when you have three choices, now they're thinking, which one, I love it, makes sense for me. Which one do we like? Or they could say, you know what, well, this one, honey, has everything we want, but wow, he can do the garage for an extra thousand bucks or this per month. Well, let's just do that while he's here. So now they're talking about what to do rather than saying, oh my God, should we say yes or no? So it's it's a brilliant way to do it. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah. And I think by by positioning yourself as kind of a co-planner or a um, yeah, just kind of like a sense maker, like really trying to position yourself, you know, shoulder to shoulder and not face to face. Yeah. Yep. They'll they'll bring in the other estimates, you know, they'll bring in the other, you know, the other things and lay those out on the table. And now, now we're not just making sense of of our bid, but we're also making sense of the the competitors' bid as well. And and so gaining that level of trust, you know, we don't do it every time. We're not able to, you know, people, people are people and they always have their trust issues and and all that. But there are times where we'll we'll have a conversation, okay, let's look at the other bid, you know, and and they volunteered that, right? That's been like a big eye-opening thing. It's like we need to we need to invite ourselves as co-collaborators on this. Like we're you don't need co for collaborator. You can think you can just be a collaborator. I wasn't gonna say anything, but you said you brought it up. But if you position yourself more as a collaborator in this in this planning process, rather than, yeah, I'm just trying to, you know, trying to nudge you to the sale and trying to put you to the sale, it changes the dynamic and and people trust you more and they are more comfortable and and you start to understand their problems. So I was I was on a coaching call with my team this morning. We were we were talking about you know just that. And I I mentioned a customer that we had a few months ago who um I was I was honestly very concerned that she was gonna be a problem customer. Like she just she just had a lot of anxiety. She um, you know, was a a talker, so it's kind of hard to leave the sales appointment kind of thing. And yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and and I was worried, like I was like, man, if we if we this job, like she could she could turn a page and you know, you know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

It's goes to the old saying, there's some customers you just don't want, and you gotta make that decision sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah, and I was I was getting concerned, you know? And and what I realized was that she she had some constraints. She was in between two houses. She had a a house up north, and then she was buying this house. She was strapped for cash because she was still in the old house. But she couldn't move into this house because the bathrooms, the bathrooms weren't ready. Okay. And and I didn't I didn't quite understand that, but I but I started asking, I was like, okay, there's there's a lot of I mean it was it's a massive house. It's a really big house. And and I'm a fan of breaking the project up into phases. There's part of it that just makes it more digestible for my crew. There's part of it that it's an easier sell for the customer to kind of narrow the scope. And and then it's planning for the future a little bit. It's like, well, you know, sure we did five grand this year, but next year maybe we'll have another five grand, and the year after that, another five grand, right? So so I'm kind of a fan of like, you know, I don't have an ego. Like when I go to the gym, I don't try to do one one rep maxes or anything like that. I'm like, well, I'll do, you know, 20, 20 sets of, you know, 20 reps of 30 pounds, you know, like I've low rate, low, uh, low weight, high repetition, right? I don't have an ego about about the ticket size, right? I'll often kind of downsell them in order to get the price range into a comfortable budget and knowing that I'll I'll get back there later.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

And that also builds the trust, by the way, when you downsell it.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Exactly. Exactly. So so I so I'm talking to her and I say, okay, you here's the thing. You've got so much house. This is this project is is overwhelming you, I can tell. And she goes, Yes, it is. And I say, What is preventing you and your husband from moving in today? And she goes, Well, he needs uh an office so that he can work because he works from home and we need bathrooms. And I said, Okay, let's do that. Okay, we'll do the office and we'll do the bathrooms, and let's not worry about anything else right now. Let's just get you into this house so that you can get the rest of the so you can get your other household and you can get moved in and you can feel settled, and then we can we can work on the rest stuff, right? And so, so the the question is you know, what is this is a this is a Clayton Christian framework. What is the job to be done? What are they hiring our service for? In this case, she might have thought that she was hiring us because she wanted, you know, an elaborate color scheme or you know, the walls were shabby or whatever. No, the problem was that she she didn't have a pot to piss in because the bathrooms you can move into them. The toilets were out. Literally did not have a pot to piss in. Right? I was okay, let's get these this basic human function taken care of first. Exactly. You know? And then we'll and then went really smoothly. She gave us a five-star review, and we'll be back there soon. So I think if you know those principles and those ideas, whether you're doing that conversation in person or over video, like you're still talking and you're still communicating and and you know, being able to do that remotely for us may be more of a maybe more of a personal challenge, you know, than anything, but it but it has a lot of benefits, right? Like we're able to now sell for other painters in different markets. We're able to, I'm able to be right now, I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona for two months away from my business, and we're still selling jobs. That doesn't mean that you know every job is going smoothly. You know, we had to deal with an issue this week, but it's happening. It's working, you know, and we're still selling jobs.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

What you just said, I think is so critical, and where so many sales reps and even sales leaders miss the boat because everybody's stuck on features and benefits and all of those things, but you need to find out the why that you're there. And most reps will go in and say, you know, it'll say on the notes, uh, windows are 40 years old and drafty. That's it. So they go in and say, okay, well, I'll send you, I'll sell you a brand new whatever window because it's not, it's new and it's not drafty. But you need to find I always wanted to find out why I am here. You know you had old windows. Why am I here right now? What is the actual why? And you'll find out, well, the one in the living room blows on the back of my neck every time I'm watching TV at night. That's why you're there. Right. You know, I always use this funny story, but it's so true. You go to a you're a roofer and you go, you know, it's Orlando's roofing company, and you go and you see this guy, and he says, the roof is leaking in my garage. And you say, Great, let me show you my shingles, and you start selling all the shingles and all the warranties and everything, typical roofing salesman. But then if you go in, you're you're now Alan's roofing company, and I say, What's wrong? You know, can I help you? He says the roof's leaking in my garage, and I simply say, Tell me more about that. And then he says, Well, it's been leaking for three years. Wow, that's a long time. How's that affected your life? Two open-ended questions. And then he says, It's been leaking on my wife's Christmas decorations for three years. You just found the real problem. Yeah, that's why you're there, right? Quite often in training because it makes people realize, oh, I'm not just here because the roof's leaking. If it wasn't leaking on his wife's Christmas decoration, you might not be there at all. So you need to find out as a sales rep why you're there. And when you said, tell me what's going to prevent you from moving into this house, that was the why. And that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, there's a there's a consulting framework called the five whys, and you just you ask why five times, and that that's supposed to get you to the real core of the of the problem. Of the issue, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

And there's always there's always uh almost 100% of the time there's the there's the fake problem, which is my roof's leaking to the real problem. So I want to hear about your vision now with Craftsman Painter, where you see it going, and then after that, we'll get to the ask Allen segment because uh we are actually starting to run out of time, but I want to keep you on for longer.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

So yeah, sure, sure. You know, the for the rest of the year, the idea is we need to solidify what we're doing. We we've been developing some software, you know, definitely doing a tremendous amount of expl exploration, experimentation with AI, software development. Again, another podcast. Quite a few ups and downs, and fall starts with that, but but we're getting to a point where we've got our entire website built out. We've got a really cool AI visualizer tool for paint colors that I built, you know, myself with the with the help of AI. We're building out our automation processes, work order management tools is all built by basically building every software that I could possibly want to use or want to buy. I'm building it myself. Building is amazing. And it's starting to it's starting to pay off. And so, you know, for the rest of the year, the plan is to solidify those those models. A lot of that comes down to trying to simplify them, figuring out how to simplify them rather than make them more feature rich. And then and then sustaining growth in in two of our markets in in Cleveland and Bloomington, Indianapolis area. At that point, I'll feel like, okay, we've we've really figured out how to close these jobs, how to produce them. This this summer's been a really good experiment so far. I mean, I'm a month in and like I said, we're selling jobs, we're closing jobs, we're solving problems. It's not like, I mean, man, in the old days, I just couldn't, I just couldn't go on, I couldn't go on a week-long vacation, you know. Right. Not you know, not without everything falling apart. So, so to be out here for a month and and things are still moving forward, that's that's a good sign. Uh, we'll see, you know, we'll see how much money I end up in the bank at the end of the summer. Right. But then, you know, 2027, you know, I look at I look at all the the issues that that we're having with the software development in particular, and the the rate of advancement in AI, I I look at all these issues as solved problems by then. I mean, it's just it's just advancing so quickly. And we're able to create, you know, I'm I'm really creating my dream platform, the one that I that I envisioned, you know, up on that roof, you know, somewhere out there so many years ago. Like I'm actually able to create it and to create it, you know, without the cost of, you know, development team and I don't I don't need to raise money, you know, like all that kind of thing. Like we're just able to build it. So yeah, I think next year we're probably looking at, you know, I'd love to get another two sales reps next year and selling maybe into two or three new markets. I think that would be I think that would be a big win. That would allow us to kind of solidify the model of running um multiple virtual sales reps and scaling that way. And then and then after that, we'll see. You know, we'll see how how how where it goes. You know, I I definitely envision a world where I'm selling to private equity for you know multiples of of millions of dollars. And I've I've designed a a phantom equity program in the company to to give some of those early adopters of the brand license. They're they're licensing the brand from us, and then we provide some you know some services, but giving them some equity in the company for those early adopters.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

You're all about processes, and I think the most successful companies are the ones that develop processes, follow them, don't deviate, and see what works and see when fix what doesn't. And uh, you know, you're you're a great example of that. So that's gonna take us now to the ask Alan segment, and this is this is a really interesting question. I had a question a few episodes ago about an issue, and here's another one. So this is from Peter in Austin, Texas. Peter writes, I'm a sales rep for a siding and roofing company, and I'm getting very discouraged with our installation teams. They don't seem to care about customer satisfaction or customer service at all, and they rarely do what we say they will do, I'm assuming from a sales rep standpoint. I don't know how to handle this without sounding like I'm whining. Plus, and here's a big sentence, the installation manager is related to the owner. And he writes, and caps help with an exclamation point. So really fascinating question, probably something that's not that uncommon. So, how would you respond to Peter or give him some help on that?

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Well, you know, I think that there's a I think that there's a process answer and then there's a interpersonal answer here. And and the reason the reason why I'm not jumping to process right away is because the process is honestly the easiest part, right? It's like, well, you've you've gotta delegate better, right? I mean, it's like you gotta empower those people. You can't treat subcontractors like they're subhuman beings, right? Like you have to, they're people and they need training and and you've got to be involved. Um, but I think that the real kicker here is is that relationship um between the installation manager and the and the boss. I I mean I've seen, you know, I've seen situations like I know a guy right off the top of my head, he's in a family business. He's got issues with the the daughter and the son of the owner. And he can't do a dang thing about it. And he never I've heard that more than once. That's a tough spot to be in. I think it's important to evaluate how how much you're valued and and you know, can you be valued somewhere else? A real consideration is to just find a different job. But at the same time, it's like, well, you know, maybe the maybe this is one thing that's just kind of annoying, and and if it could just get fixed, then then that'd be great. And a lot of times it's just a matter of having a heart-to-heart and taking the guy out to lunch and you know, kind of resetting the table and saying, hey, here's the truth. I want to be confident in selling for you guys, but I'm I'm losing confidence. And the reason I'm losing confidence is because of X, Y, and Z. Help me, and this is where we get into Jerry McGuire. Help me help you, right? Yeah, help me help you because I want to be confident in selling. Show me the money. I want to be confident in selling, right? And I and I do remember, I remember having a sales rep who who expressed that to me years ago when our when our uh production team was uh struggling, and she was like, I'm losing confidence in selling to these guys for these guys.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

That is that is that can't happen. That can't happen.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

That's great, right? That is absolutely brilliant, and I think it's wonderful advice because this to this to me, I I've seen this many times where you've got family-owned businesses, and the son works, and the daughter works, and the brother works for the owner, and all this stuff, and then everyone else who's not related is sort of on the outside looking in. And that's a that's not a great, that's just a bad culture. Yeah, and then here's the other thing if you're building a cult culture and it sounds this way through his question, where you don't have psychological safety, which means you don't feel comfortable talking to your boss about this, you said it before that you might might want to start looking for another job because that culture is not going to change. That that person who's related to the owner is gonna keep doing what they keep doing unless you got a real different and special owner there. So who knows? But the approach to saying, listen, you kind of put it instead of complaining, you say, Listen, it's this sucks, these guys suck, it's terrible, saying, Hey, I just want to tell you, I'm losing confidence because I've seen these things happen in the field. And I can't sell someone in the house that we're gonna do three coats when we only do one, something like that. And and if he's an owner or she's an owner and they have any salt whatsoever of success in their business, they're gonna listen to this person. So that that that's great advice, Peter, that that Torlando just gave you. And but again, if you don't, if you try this and nothing happens, time to uh spice up that resume, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

All right, Torlando, we're running out of time. This is awesome. So if people want to reach out to you, you know, it sounds like you'd make a great consultant for someone who'd who would like this as well. How do they find you? And and and also how would they find your book if they're interested in that?

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Yeah, for sure. So I'll so I'll go ahead and give you my uh the link to my digital business card. It's torlando.craftsmanpainter.com. Yeah, if you want to hop on a call, like it's it's my it's my card. So, you know, you can book an appointment, you know, shoot me an email, shoot me a text, whatever. The book is on Amazon. It's called Sprint. Just I would type in the word sprint, and then my name is probably the easiest way for it to type up, just type in Torlando and the word sprint and it'll pop up. I'm proud of it. I'll say that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Good for you. And it's Torlando, so Orlando with a T in front of it, and uh Haikes, like rakes, H-A-K-E-S, if you want to look them up on LinkedIn as well. Well, we are out of time. Torlando, thank you, my friend, for joining me from beautiful Arizona. I hope you have a good uh couple of months in the summer there. It doesn't get too hot on you. It looks like a beautiful day. I want to thank everyone out there for listening to this episode of Selling in the Dwelling. And don't forget, Paradigm Vendo is our title sponsor. You gotta check them out. It's paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling, the best software you're gonna find for doing everything in one spot in the house. That's it for us. Orlando, thanks again, and we'll see you next time on Selling in the Dwelling. Take care.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Selling in the Dwelling.