Maximize Your Summer Sales w/Sam Taggart

Transcript:

Kickstarting the Webinar and Investing in Yourself

Sam:

For anyone that is just joining, I am just, one, proud of you for coming on. You know what I mean? I think a lot of times, I just see a lot of people that fail to invest in themselves.

And so getting people to hop on these webinars, it's one of those things that you're like, what am I going to get out of this? Is this really worth my hour, however long? I hope to provide some value, because I know that your time is valuable.

So first off, just want to appreciate everybody hopping on as you're joining. And if you're watching a replay of this, proud of you, man. So big props to commit to yourself.

To me, education is so valuable, because it's the makeup of who we are. It's as we develop ourselves.

Gavin:

Yeah. No, I really couldn't agree more. When I was in my years of doing door to door, I remember the first, after my rookie summer, my managers would send me all these different links to different webinars.

A few of them were you, a few of them were other big names in the space. And I remember that first year, like, this is stupid. I'm not going to get anything out of this.

And then I went to one. I was like, holy smokes. I took three things from that.

I doubled that next year in production. And one thing that I've personally done when I attended events like this is I always told myself, OK, I'm going to grab one thing from this and at least run with one of them. Instead of grabbing 10 and not giving it the full effort on all 10, take one thing that really stood out today and implement that into whether that's my sales process, my day-to-day, whatever it may be.

And that's really how I think people can get a lot of value out of these events. So cool. I think we're ready to go ahead and jump into it.

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Introducing the Speakers

Lauren has given me the go. So I'll start with myself. So I'm Gavin Janis.

I work over here at Siro. My background fits perfectly for what we're talking today. I did six years in pest control, started as a rookie, worked my way up.

At one point, I actually started a pest control company where I even had dinner with Sam, and he gave me some tips on how actually to go build this and blow it up. And I ended up having a great career, managed dozens of sales reps, produced seven figures, no, sorry, eight figures in my downline over those years. And hopefully, I can even add some value on this conversation.

But we'll be letting Sammy T. drive it for us. And so, Sam, if you go ahead and kick it off with who you are, and then we can start jumping into the topics.

Sam:

Yeah, pleasure to be here, and thanks, Gavin, for hosting this. And you guys, I was actually excited Gavin gets to be the host. Joe's awesome, the team's awesome.

But sometimes, when you have a guy like Gavin, who has thousands of accounts under his belt, there's a lot more relatability when it comes to people trying to run summer program or run door-to-door. And there's an empathy, I think. And over the years, I started in door-to-door when I was 11.

I knocked at magazines, and I did curb painting all through high school, then graduated in 2008. High school, and went into alarm sales. And I went to Dallas, and then I went on a mission, and then I came back and started alarms until 2015.

End of 15, I got into solar, did that for a couple of years. And then 2018 was January of Door-to-Door Con 1. And this next January, we're going into Door-to-Door Con 8.

And for the last seven and a half years, we have been beating a drum to really unify, up-level, and bring honor and integrity to the door or space. And I think that there's so many people that have shame. What do you do for work?

Oh, I'm a door knocker. It's like, well, that's dope. Instead of being like, I'm a door knocker.

You know what I mean? It's this element of, can we be proud of being in direct sales? Can we be proud of our profession and what we sell?

Can we be proud and take it professionally and make real professional money? When he's saying I produced eight figures in my downline, I'm like, how many companies would love to be an eight-figure company and find a dude that recruited a bunch of other dudes that then produced eight figures in income, all with zero advertising cost? You know what I mean?

Think about that.

Gavin:

Yeah, and it's insane the negative rep it gets. It just blows me away, blows me away.

Sam:

No marketing, no risk, other than simply go recruit people to go be 1099 to go produce an eight-figure nut. You know, and I think that, yeah, why do we get crap on that? So my mission has been to bring swagger, bring cool training and tools.

We host big events like Door-to-Door Con to little ones like our sales boot camps or business boot camps. And it's been a really fun journey.

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Creating Effective Morning Meetings

Gavin:

Yeah, well, we're really excited to get your knowledge in front of the people on the Zoom today. And guys, as we're going through it, at the bottom, you guys should see a little Q&A button. So if something in the middle comes up and you wanna ask some questions, go ahead and throw that down.

And yeah, with this, we're gonna jump into five topics that we've spoke with Sam about. We wanna cover with you guys of how to have a killer summer. And where we felt it would be best to start is jumping right on into actually how to structure and run your morning meetings.

What does that look like in the day? What does that look like over the week? And so I'll turn it over to you, Sam.

The first general question here is like, what are your pro tips for running a successful morning meeting in the summer?

Sam:

Yeah, and I think first tip is the frequency. So let's break this down into context. So morning meetings, I call it sales inertia, meaning what's on the couch stays on the couch, what's in motion stays in motion.

And I watch people fail to activate, meaning to go from like, I'm watching Game of Thrones to, all right, let's get out of the couch and just go knock doors. Like by yourself, you have no environment, you have no, you know, there's nobody like at the neighborhood being like, where are you at, bro? Where are you at?

Like, you know what I mean? It's like two o'clock hits, three o'clock hits, five o'clock hits, six o'clock hits. No neighbors are like, man, that door to door guy's late.

He should be here by now. Or like in a traditional W-2 job, like they're like, oh, you're supposed to be here at nine and you're at 9.30, you're in trouble. And so the problem with like door to door is to activate.

So morning meeting is essentially when we meet, it then puts everybody in office, we rah-rah, and then we activate and we all go to neighborhood. If you're going office, home, then you've got to somehow reactivate, that's dumb. So go office, neighborhood.

And so a lot of people have like, I had a client here yesterday at our bootcamp and he was like, yeah, we have an 8 a.m. meeting every day, or no, once a week. And I was like, well, that's just dumb. Like what time do you want them to work till?

8 p.m., right? So that's a 12 hour day. Why don't you have like a 12 p.m. meeting if you want them to work to eight? Instead of like assume they're going to work from eight to eight, they got families and lives and things like that. But if you want them to work till five, then yeah, have an 8 a.m. meeting. And what do you do the rest of the week?

So I think at minimum three times a week meeting, and then the other days that you're not in person, meet virtually. I've built some really cool virtual cultures, but the sophistication of that's a little tougher. But you have now a structure to that meeting, get numbers and have accountability, then go some training and role-playing, go over some motivation, get some goals and go hit it.

And just structure that to where people feel involved, they're getting value. I watch a lot of meetings where it's like, show, tell me about your deals. How'd it go yesterday?

Okay. All right, let's get at it. And I'm like, dude, that's not a meeting.

Like the meeting should have energy, it should be motivating, it should be educated and bring resources to it. And that creates a successful meeting that activates this like work mode. And then we go hit it.

And I think that's an important piece of being successful in this industry.

Gavin:

No, and I'd totally jump in there and add. So my third year when I actually started that company, the prior two years was with a large company and we had an office for us to go meet at every day. Well, this was, we're starting a pest control company, pretty cash strapped.

And the meetings for the first half of the summer were actually just in my apartment and like on the couch where seven of us would get into the room and we'd have our meeting. And then being at the apartment, what would happen is the guys as they would, we actually had a very dialed morning meeting the majority of the days. We were still figuring some things out for sure.

But we had strong morning meetings that were, they were effective, but guys would go, oh, I gotta go grab my lunch from my room or I forgot my Segway or I forgot my keys. And I started to see when pins would get dropped. And as the summer drained on, guys are showing up a little bit later in the hood.

And it's totally that thing. It's like, if you go back and sit on the couch, even just for a minute, you're totally out of that mental mode to go crush the doors for the day. And so I would actually say if anyone's on the call and maybe you're not in a situation where you have an office to go meet at, not everybody has that opportunity.

What we did is I got, I kind of snapped. I'm like, I gotta figure something out. I went down about 10, 15 minutes away, found a Starbucks, found the manager and said, hey, I wanna have my team meet here every morning and I'll go ahead every day.

We're gonna make sure we buy all these coffees. Do you mind if we take this section from nine to 10 a.m.? We were starting early those days. And I told him the story, I told him the initiative, and he loved it.

He goes, dude, this is your office. And when we started doing that, guys were getting on the doors at 11 versus 12.30. And everyone was in the right mental state before they hit the doors because they didn't go home and chill. And so totally gotta have a spot you go meet at.

And from that spot, you go right to the doors. Doesn't have to be at nine or 10, like Sam was saying. If it's at noon every day, that's better than having one 8 a.m. meeting a week. And so could not agree more. Make sure you guys have those meetings, get in the right state, and go have some huge days on the doors. Sam, within the meetings, is there anything that you see like top performing cultures, like they have this one thing dialed, one or two things that they always do every single meeting?

Sam:

Public display of winning and losing. Like, I think it's so simple, but it's like having a digital or physical dashboard that says top rep, bottom rep. And every day I get to put a number on the board and I either suck or I didn't.

And nobody wants to be the guy to go write the number on the board and say, I can't sell. And I think just that simple piece where, and a lot of people are like, well, is that shaming or that's not good? I'm like, well, I don't like call it what you want to call it, but their bank accounts are shaming when nobody's selling.

And it's embarrassing talking to Timmy who hasn't sold in three months. And you're like, what does he still do here? You know what I mean?

But like eventually that either weeds out the crappy or it levels up the crappy and it keeps the good good. And it drives this competitiveness. I think that people in meetings don't, they're afraid to call people out and be like, you didn't sell yesterday?

Like what's going on? Like, you know what I mean? Like expectation now is we sell not the expectation is I come home with bagels.

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Importance of Team Communication

Gavin:

Yeah. That's a perfect transition into the next piece here. And this was Sam's.

He really wanted to focus on this. He was saying, you know, you got to have strong communication within your team to work as a team and how that's going to end up driving better production, not just for the individual, but for the collective group and taking this. It's more of like a collective effort from everybody.

It feels like a team, even though we're going out there and solo producing, it feels more like a collective sport. Like we're a team together working there. So Sam would love to hear some thoughts on your end for how you've seen teams communicate with each other to create that sport like environment.

Sam:

Yeah. So you have a meeting that's in person and then throughout the day, the doors are a lonely place. So think of it as like when I'm out in a neighborhood and I feel like I'm the only person in a neighborhood because you are and everyone is out to get me.

This is not fun. But if I feel like there's an army out here with me, even though I don't see them because every five minutes or every 20 minutes, my phone is dinging going, got a deal, got a deal. Oh, I'm free.

I'm like, okay, they're doing something. I don't see that.

Gavin:

It's real, it's possible.

Sam:

Someone's doing it. It's real, it's not a possibility. And so I had a manager yesterday get mad at one of the reps.

You know, here, we have a gong because we're in office, right? And the guy was like, I don't like ringing the gong. And he goes, he's like, I won't ring it unless it's a $30,000 dip.

And I was like, okay. And so the manager said something really impactful that he reflected to me yesterday. He said, is the gong for you or is the gong for them?

And he was like, what do you mean? He goes, so maybe you don't feel like you should ring it, but what is the gong saying to everybody else when you go hit it? It's giving them hope.

It's creating their competition. It's then saying that this is what it gets exciting. So sometimes people in the group chat when they're not putting their numbers or they're not giving high fives and they're not constantly communicating, even down to like, I sold Tiffany Smith.

She's the mayor. Now all of a sudden, everybody in that town selling around.

Gavin:

And they've done that exact thing. You get the HOA president, the thousand neighborhood.

Sam:

People could benefit from the name drop and that needs to be communicated because as much as you think this is an individual sport, it's more like a team sport than you think because there's this like pack mentality and we'll see a lot more improved results collectively than we will individually.

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Training Techniques for Sales Teams

Gavin:

No, totally. Really like that piece there especially. I would love to know, just I've got my own thoughts on this and I can add those, but Sam, have you seen like any type of, besides what do you see these companies, if you're a 10 rep roofing company as an example, what forms of communication?

Is it group chats? Is it some other application? Just curious like how you see other companies actually communicating with each other the best.

Sam:

Yeah, I mean, whether it's Slack, Pronto, you know, WhatsApp, GroupMe. I mean, there's all sorts of different apps out there and then it's creating a cadence, meaning here's how we use the group. And I think there's standard bylaws by the group, meaning don't just over in a date with, yays, yays, yays in this chat.

You can do that in this chat, but this one's all the announcements. No one else can post except me. This is important information so it doesn't get lost.

You know what I mean? Or whatever the rules are. And create a system around how we communicate, even down to just like verifying.

Let's say that I give you homework. I want a thumbs up to know that you accepted it and got it. Does that make sense?

Instead of like, I communicate something to you that's important as a leader. And I'm like, I hope they all learned the thing and do the thing. But then what ends up happening is, you know, 30% of people and then say, yeah, I got it.

And then 70% ignore it. And then you're sitting there going, I'm taking an energetic bandwidth, hoping that they do the thing I asked. You know what I mean?

So it's give a command, over, copy, job done. You know what I mean? Having that education around how do we communicate is an important part of being successful.

Gavin:

Totally. Yeah, it's like the military. You got to get the copy back.

Got to know that the instructions were heard. And, you know, don't want to sit here and just talk zero. But like, so this past summer, this was my last summer knocking doors, had multiple offices.

And one of the things was, you know, with the guys who are lower performers, you know, you got to be able to support them mentally. Sometimes it's not even just training. It's like being with them, being by their side.

And, you know, if you guys ever use zero, it's where, you know, your reps are recording live throughout the day. And one thing I would always do is just, even if my rep was really struggling, just a little, hey, did you just crush that objection rebuttal? Or dude, that was the perfect way to, you know, handle the price objection, whatever it may be.

And it was cool because my guys at the end of the day, maybe it wasn't even the most impactful training. They would just come back like, dude, thanks for getting in there and, you know, giving me the time to, you know, like listen to my recordings and coach me up. And even if you guys are just using voice memos, something like that, just actually getting in there and supporting your people, making them feel like they're cared for by you as a leader in those communication efforts.

In, you know, day to day, as much as you can do, that's just what's going to keep them going for you, right? And why they're going to go grab that deal after 9 p.m. instead of getting in the car at 8.30. So yeah, communication's huge. Sam, do you have anything else you want to add there?

You want to move on to the next one?

Sam:

I think communication, there's a chat element, but then there's like the voice memo element, meaning, hey, like I'm going to send you love via voice memo. And then there's a call element, right? So there's, I think some people misinterpret communication.

If you give feedback via text message or chat, sometimes they can misinterpret because there's no- Yeah. They didn't put the heart emoji on that. Like, you know, and people, and I feel like one of the most disgruntled pieces we get in an office or within a manager or an owner, a lot of times it's just a miscommunication.

And, you know, even down to like yesterday, I had a scenario where I sent the guy over to meet with one of my team members. He sends me a long voice memo at the end of the day. And he's like, you're really frustrated in the XYZ.

And I was like, oh, you totally took this wrong. And I'm sure before you communicated me back your frustration, because he might've carried that for like weeks and just been like, F this, I'm just not going to like be productive. Then he had the emotional intelligence, which I appreciate to say something to me.

And I go, whoa, total miscommunication. I still want you to do the thing. You're crushing.

Don't think less of you. I just thought I'd give you more resource and they're here to support, not take over. You know what I mean?

But that's where communication could kill a culture or promote a culture. And I think, you know, I've never been the greatest, you know, it's just because I know sales doesn't make me know how to communicate as a leader sometimes.

Gavin:

You know what I mean?

Sam:

Transactional communication sometimes is a lot different than relationship communication. It's different than leadership communication. And it's being able to like balance the texts, the calls, the emails, the voice memos, and the feedback loops on Xero, you know, all the different ways that we communicate verbally and non-verbally, textually and not, and knowing that that's a huge part that drives your experience in production.

Gavin:

Yep. Totally, man. Well, cool.

I think that's a good transition into training. I'd love to throw just, you know, right now, right? We're in the heat of summer.

The days are reaching the longest they're gonna be. We got the most time on the doors. And that means we've got the most, you know, content and opportunity to actually train on.

And so I've got a few specific questions that I personally would, you know, wanted to have known back in the day when I was, you know, running teams from you, but would love to kick off with like, do you have any big picture general recommendations for how we train, you know, in the summer?

Sam:

So there's like how we train, and that's an important like element. There's how I train me, there's how I train others, and then how others train me.

Gavin:

Does that make sense? Totally, totally.

Sam:

And I think too many people, and I'm gonna put this really clear, is I train me is an underserved piece. What we're all doing, whether we're brand new or we've been doing this for five years, is we're sometimes caught in this, I'm expecting my manager or leader to do all my training. And I'm like, no, he's good.

He's making money. And he'll make more if you make more. But at the end of the day, like why are you leaving your success dependent on him and his time and energy and resources?

He's investing into you. Does that make sense?

Gavin:

Yeah, totally.

Sam:

And so I think distinguishing, if you're gonna be successful in this industry, if it's meant to be, it's up to you to go actually train yourself and be self-sufficient, know what questions to ask, resources to pay for and buy, know what tools to look for, you know, and to invest in. And just by scrolling through Instagram is not training. That's called consuming.

And I think there's an important distinction. Do you think by watching football, NFL players became good football players? You know what I mean?

Like, they go to training and they have different types of training. They have workouts, they have drills, they have scrimmages. You know, those are all different elements of training.

And then they have game film. So watching football is an element of consuming football and studying the game, but it's not an encompassed element of training. So what's cool about Siro is you can train you by just simply, you now can script out factually, here's exactly what I said.

You can watch your own game film and probably make some clear distinctions between, did I do well? Not, here's where I lost it. Now, some people might be like, well, duh, I need somebody else to tell me where I lost it or else I wouldn't keep doing this.

So I keep in this pattern. That's where you bring coaching. That's where you bring outside perspective, a manager or a coach or whatever.

Can you review this? Tell me where I probably went off and how you would have changed it. So a coach could be somebody like a manager that is invested in you or somebody you pay or somebody maybe that's digital.

So you're like, okay, let's take D2D University, for example. We have thousands of videos on industry-specific content from the greatest sales reps in the country. So we take all these different videos and that's what's cool about this partnership is we've uploaded a lot of them into Xero.

And so they give you recommendations of like, okay, here is a video that might give you a better example of what could have been said. Compare that to what you're saying. Now you're self-learning again.

It's me training me, but I'm using a resource. Does that make sense? Whether it's, here's some recorded scripts of the best reps in Xero.

I'm gonna put them side-by-side against mine. And now I have my own ability to self-train.

Gavin:

Yeah, the consuming piece, like that one's resonating with me so well right now because people on the call have probably coached a rep. Hey, instead of saying this, you should say that. And then the rep goes, okay.

Sam:

Okay, I consume.

Gavin:

And then you give them more, okay. And they consume, they consume instead of, hey, go watch this video and then actually role-play that rebuttal 10 times directly after that.

Sam:

That's where you can- Send me a video of you doing it. Now you actually have to say something. By you saying, okay, you had to say nothing.

Gavin:

Yeah, you didn't, nothing stuck. You have to actually hear somebody do it right and then replicate it yourself. Try and copy the best of the best.

And then what you do is gonna start becoming the best of the best, not just hearing it.

Sam:

There was a guy yesterday at our bootcamp. He'd been to 96 Dave Matthews concerts. It's like, damn, I've never been to the same concert twice.

So he's a Dave Matthews super fan, let's call it. So I'm gonna use this analogy. I've consumed a lot of Dave Matthews, right?

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

I'm sure he's played one of his songs on the radio even more. So if you said, all right, it's your turn. And you put them up on stage to say, all right, go perform the Dave Matthews.

That would be extremely different. It doesn't make him a great guitar player. As many times as he's heard it and him being able to get on stage and perform in front of thousands.

Does that make sense?

Gavin:

Totally, yeah.

Sam:

Like that is the difference.

Gavin:

Yep.

Sam:

So practice. And what's interesting is I had an MLB client. He played in the MLB and he was telling me, he's like, he signed up for DDU and he came to some of our events and stuff.

And I asked him, I said, do the professionals train differently than in college? And he's like, when I got to college, everyone's really good to play. In the major colleges, you're the best, right?

And not everybody gets full rides to like big schools. Yeah. And that happens as you're all knowing that you're competing to try to get drafted.

So once you get drafted, you're thinking, okay, I'll get there. And these guys that have been playing in the MLB for six years, he gets in there and he's like, they trained two times harder.

Gavin:

Yep.

Sam:

He's like, what the heck? I thought that it would be like, you made it. We're playing 120 games a year or whatever.

When do you even have time to practice? He's like, they would practice before the games, after the games, in the breaks. Like, and it's just like unbelievable.

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

But it's what you don't see. They're not posting on Instagram. They're getting highlight reels on SportsCenter.

They're not getting highlight reels on their bench press. Let's look at LeBron James squatting today again.

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Advanced Sales Skills Development

Gavin:

But then you do see it. And then you hear all these stories about the Kobe's of the world. And I'm sure Kobe would even have said it himself.

He's like, I probably was not maybe the most. He's definitely top 1% of the 1% gifted in skillset, but it was his work ethic. And that's what everybody said was what made him literally debatable.

But with it for sure, top 100, probably top 10, maybe top five, maybe number one of all time. It was the little stuff, the little efforts he put on the side, which was more than the next game. A little transition still on training.

This one, we're in June. It's still early-ish days, but we're moving now. Summer's been rocking and rolling.

And so Sam, how would you recommend introducing advanced sales skills for maybe a newer rep, maybe a second-year guy, or maybe even somebody who's been doing this for five years and they wanna introduce a new skill. What would be your recommendations as the basics might start to feel a little redundant?

Sam:

So great question, by the way. And this is where I see a common pitfall and ego is the enemy to great because what ends up happening is most people's training curriculums get to the basics. I need an onboarding program.

And so they'll build out videos, tests, quizzes, resources. They'll give it to you and they'll say, I've had 60,000 reps go through our training platform. So there's something like, I have some interesting data that most people don't.

And the number one most watched video, what is it?

Gavin:

What is it?

Sam:

The first video in the welcome.

Gavin:

Oh, yeah.

Sam:

It's gonna be you, right? And if you look at the sequence and think, guys, when I say a lot of videos, I think it's like thousands of hours every day watched in our platform. And you go, okay, what's the most watched course?

Well, the first welcome course. And then what percent of people start that that get to the second course, which is mindset. And then what percent of those get to the third course, which is work ethic.

And then what percent of those get to the fourth course, which is area management. And wait a minute, there's a constant drop-off, right? You can imagine the curve.

You're like, okay, they haven't even gotten to like the pest objection handling course.

Gavin:

Yeah, that's that 80-20 rule showing up right there.

Sam:

That's like 20th course, right? I'm like, oh shit, maybe we're looking at this thing wrong. But I'm also like, well, I can't go there.

I don't know where they are in their journey. But what everybody does is they start at the beginning and then they go like this. I'm like, oh, the good shit's actually in the workshop videos at door-to-door con four, when Zach's, you know what I mean?

I got this guy that's going on a 45, it's in there. But how many times people watch that?

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

That's advanced objection handling by the top golden door winner that's sitting in their training platform that's been watched six times. And I'm like, well, that shit's good. That's an hour long, great video.

They're still like, well, you know, I watched the mindset video, we're good. And I'm like, oh shit. So first off, what ends up happening is they start to watch trends of like top performers who's watching the most, what are they watching?

And I noticed the guys that are making the most money end up watching the good stuff and they're always on it. And it's the guys that are like, I was told I had to go through this onboarding course. So I did the thing and a lot of them don't, you know what I mean?

And I'm like, okay, hold on. Why do you think you were told to go through training? So that you make more money, not for you, not for them, but for you.

Like, let's be real, like I'm not gonna do this training cause you're telling me to, like we're missing it. Yeah, so when we go to rookie training, that's important. And we'll call that the basics.

And then you get into it advanced. And I had a rep yesterday come to me. I was at, I had a host events and he was here from Denver.

And he, I mean, granted he got a golden door last year guys. And it was funny, he goes this week, I've had the big realization. I just need to get back to the basics.

And it's like, he's been now, he's like, I've been knocking realtors, you know, he's a roofer. And he's like, I go to all these realtors and I go to these insurance agents. And dude, if I can get a hundred agents, my phone will be ringing off the hook.

And I'm like, but how'd you get a golden door last year? Oh, door to door, I'm really good. I'm like, dude, it's, I'll go out for an hour.

I'll get two jobs, go home. I'm like, like, what are we, like, wait, hold on. Let's like, think about this for a second.

If you just got a little better at that and a little better at that. And like, you just actually did it instead of like trying this whole realtor and insurance thing that all of a sudden you're hoping your phone's ringing. I'm like, you just made 250 grand last year.

Why don't you just do more? And more dudes doing that. And he's like, oh yeah, good point.

And so sometimes we overcomplicate things as we get better and better and make good money. And so it's like, go back to the fundamentals and nine times out of 10, when you're not closing like you used to, it's because you got out of the rhythm of the basics. And so basics are monotonous and boring, but they're important.

But then it's that little sharpening. Why does LeBron, Tiger Woods and all the greats still have a coach? Is because they know that it's the millimeter differences that go a long way, especially when you're playing at the highest level.

And so I look at the basics and the basic reps that are trained, they're going to be able to sell the people that want it. Then you've got the people that are, you could convince me in a neighborhood and the okay reps are going to get them, but it's the guys that have the money and are sharp and are hard to sell, the advanced reps that have those little micro differences are closing those. Does that make sense?

Gavin:

100%, saw it live, yeah.

Sam:

And they're a bigger majority of the pool. If I go to a hundred homes, maybe one was actually interested in getting pest or one was interested in getting solar. Like, oh, I was actually looking for this.

It's like one out of a hundred might say that, maybe one out of a thousand. And those are the guys that are just going to be founded by sucky sales reps. Does that make sense?

And so the advanced training goes from, here's what to say. Advanced training in my mind says, here's why to say it. So despite the product, despite the customer archetype, I know why I'm saying the script and what I'm saying so that if I need to pivot, move, shift, I've got an ability to psychologically in milliseconds, say insert new strategy, different script.

Does that make sense?

Gavin:

Completely. When we were running teams, we had a bi-weekly back to the basics training and our reps by the end of the summer, it's August. They've heard it, you know, however many times, right?

And they're just like, really, we're doing this again? And yeah, you do need to form that foundation. You actually have to have the basics.

It's a 100% of the time you hit them. And then yeah, you can start introducing those advanced skills. And that is what does take you to the next level, but you'll never go there unless those basics are so, you know, it's the rule of 10,000 hours.

Like you've done 10,000 hours on the basics, you 100% know that it's like the back of your hand. And then you can start introducing those advanced skills. And something we would do with guys on advanced skills too, is, you know, like the switch over and pest control, more steps to it, a bit more, you know, complex.

And guys would be like, all right, yeah, I want to learn the, you know, the switch over script. And they'd be like, okay, yeah, like give me the script, send it over, blah, blah, blah. We'd send it over.

They're trying to do every single thing perfectly within day one. I'm like, let's start with literally step one, which is the second they say I have a company, you don't say who, you say, okay, cool. Yeah, so Kathy was with Terminix, and then Johnson's were with Optiv.

Who do you guys have? There's a big difference there. And if you don't nail it from step one, which is the basic of the advanced switch over sale, you're not going to get there.

And so like, we always introduce advanced skills to our guys, but it was very slow. You slowly learn them the same way you learn the basics. You're basically just doing the exact same thing and learning the general script with advanced skills.

Don't just try and do it all at once, so.

Sam:

Well, what happens is, and I like that you said that, because an advanced skill is going to come as stacking onto a basic, not replacing a basic, right? So think of like, if you've ever country danced, there's the basic dance move, or if you've ever, you know, and the cha-cha, it's like, you do the steps. Okay, learn this.

But if you look at how they spin, they're still on the same bounce. And then all of a sudden they're dipping, but they're still keeping the same bounce, right? And if you watch somebody that all of a sudden is not hitting the cadence of the rhythm of the basic steps that when you start to watch somebody really advanced dancing, like dancing with the stars or something, you watch the cha-cha, you're like, oh my gosh, there's the basic step.

You see it in their entire dance. But they look so majestic because they're adding all the spins and the thrills and the this. And what ends up happening is when you go do a spin, but you are not still in the same step, you're like, wow, that looks super clunky.

Because all of a sudden you started to go do some advanced psychology and you start to dive in a weird question base, but you're like, wow, you're actually hurting yourself. And it looks ugly. Then if you would have just stayed on track.

And so we fail to recognize sometimes in sales training how there's a micro difference between that's gonna be great for you and that just shot you in the butt. Darn it, you lost. And that costs you a thousand bucks in commission.

You're like, good. And if that's experiment there, that's the cost of your education and season and wisdom. All that comes through, okay, just don't do that again next time.

But I had to learn from a thousand dollar mistake so that I could then not do it the next time. You know what I mean? That comes with practice.

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Gamifying the Sales Process

Gavin:

Totally. Well, cool. I think this is a good transition.

You know, we could probably run on the training content for three hours if we really needed. But we talked a little bit earlier about creating a community, having open communication, building this team sport-like environment. Would love to dive into things you've seen companies and reps even themselves use the gamify things.

How can we create competition using external motivating factors? Maybe what comes to mind on that topic?

Sam:

So let's break down the word gamify. Where does that come from? And why I like to think of it more like Sportify because I don't come from a video gaming background, right?

But the word gamify in my mind, I do come from settlers of Catan. I love board games.

Gavin:

We ignore maybe. We ignore.

Sam:

You know what I mean? And so what's funny is you say, okay, what makes me want to keep playing Pinochle or Sari or a board game, right? And it's the winning and the losing.

But it's no fun to go play a game of Sari or settlers of Catan when you see a guy just cheating and pulling off cards and you're like, wait a minute, you didn't roll that. Like, why'd you grab it? Oh, shit.

Or if somebody's cheating and looking at the cards in poker game and you're like, well, that's dumb. So who am I playing with? Do I trust that we can all standardize by the rules of the game?

Does that make sense? So step one, we all know the game and Hold'em is different than Blackjack. Both are called poker.

So can I set up a framework in my mind of, okay, we're all selling pest control. We're all selling roofs or whatever. That's the vehicle.

We'll call that poker. Now we can play the games of Hold'em, Sneaky Peaky and 21, right? Like there's so many different games of roofs that we can play.

And what I mean by it is, am I gaming inspections? Am I gaming claims filed? Am I gaining final signature to contract value?

Am I gaining first doors, last doors? Am I gaming? Now what game can I play here?

We have a way to track that. Now the problem is like, with CRO is a good way to track certain things, different like apps, like knocking apps, like CRMs. And sometimes it might just be selfies. Like it's gotta be a freaking spreadsheet.

But now is there a standard digital visual getting constantly updated way of a scoreboard? Because when you're playing settlers, you're like, cool, I'm counting the points. I can see it right there.

When I'm playing a video game, they've got a tracker of like, they're at 20, you're at 10. You're like, oh shit, we're losing. If you're selling and it's ghosts and crickets and nobody has some way of seeing what the scoreboard is, it'd be like playing a football game and all of a sudden, like 90 minutes or however long in, all of a sudden a whistle blows.

And everybody's like, what was that? Oh, it's over. Well, who won?

I think they got, you know what I'm saying? But then I need to be like, I don't know. Let's like add it up.

I have no idea. And I didn't even know it was gonna end. So there's no start and stop.

There's no winner, loser. There's no red versus black. There's no rules of game.

There's no, call it quarters, call it checkpoints, call it propaganda, meaning Charles Barkley's shit talking with Shaquille O'Neal being like, yeah, you know, I actually think the, you know, and they're propagating. Like to me, then there is no game. Games I like to play have all of those things.

What most people call gamifying is they're like, hey, whoever sells 10 today gets a thousand bucks. That is not a game. Does that make sense?

Gavin:

Just an incentive, yeah.

Sam:

What is not is important and recognized because people to be successful, they chase incentives. Hey, whoever can sell 30 this month gets Nike shoes. Nobody cares about the Nike shoes.

They care about kicking the other dude's ass.

Gavin:

You know what I mean?

Sam:

To me, it's about the game of like the bragging rights. I don't play settlers to make money. I don't play even poker to make money.

I don't even gamble at a casino. The addictiveness of think Vegas is built on. And I'm like, why are they sitting there?

It's the hopes of winning. And 90% of them walk out losing, but they still go back because I might win one. And can I play with this thing called dopamine?

And it is a very addictive. And if I know that Vegas was built and many people's lives ruined off of the addictive behavior of gambling in the game and then video gamers somehow don't sleep all night and they are literally up with their red eye, you know, and you're just like, how do they get them so bought into playing this Zelda game where they walk around with this fairy thing following them for 12 hours straight? Like, it's so dumb.

It's like, you're about to unlock the next level. And then you're out, you know what I mean? And it's like, now let's understand psychology of gamifying because so many people get an app that's like a sales enablement tool or so many people have a game, but I'm like, you're not understanding how to implement it the right way because let's back up what is psychology and what are they really chasing?

And do I build my game around that? Yeah, I can't watch what happens to my culture.

Gavin:

We introduced this game. You might've heard of some group doing it. If someone from the crowd has not implemented this, I'd highly recommend it.

We have basically every day I've ever done this and my teams, and you can't overdo it. You know, this is once a month, once every few weeks. We shattered our records on these days.

We called it car bingo and your car group, you know, it'd be two to three guys and it'd be a nine by nine or sorry, three by three bingo board. And the goal was to block the bingo board and we'd get in the morning meeting. We'd create, all right, what are the things that you have to do with a customer in a sale to check off the bingo board?

One of them would be at one point, you know, for a minute you have to pitch the customer in crisscross applesauce. The next one would be a Jersey swap with a customer. You sell somebody that you take your shirt off.

They hold yours. They hold your polo. You're holding their shirt.

And our guys, there was, I mean, people are getting out of the meeting where people are running over each other to get to neighborhood so they can go win. And the things that we would win is like an energy drink or a $25 gift card. No one cared about that.

It was just beating the other car groups. I would recommend, you know, something like that.

Sam:

That's good. I like that.

Gavin:

Yeah, oh gosh. The stories, the stories from those days. I still have them, all the photos saved in my phone.

They're great memories. It's what makes the summer fun. And it's, yeah, that chasing that feeling of beating your buddy or your buddies is just, it's elite.

It's a great feeling when you win. And so couldn't agree more there. Sam, we're gonna wrap up with, you know, a classic one everyone knows.

And like at the beginning I said, take one thing from the call, especially like on this piece. Sam's gonna give us, you know, his recommendations on how to commit to your why. He's probably gonna have like 10 different things, right?

For each one of you. One's probably gonna resonate more than the rest. And I would say, you know, take that one and implement it.

And so yeah, I'll turn the floor over to you, Sam. Like, how do you see people best commit to their why? Discover that, commit to it.

And I'll turn it over to you.

Sam:

Yeah, I think everybody says if your why doesn't make you cry, it's not big enough. I say, most people have not asked themselves why to begin with. And then I'm gonna challenge everybody's why, because they're like to feed thousands of people that are starving or to make a hundred millionaires or to, you know, and then they come up with some textbook answer that's like, I'm just gonna call it bullshit on 99% of them.

So I'm like, okay, let's be real. And I remember going to sell solar with this company Solstice as a VP or whatever. And I was like, why do you exist?

Before I come and get recruited here. And he goes, first and foremost to make money. And I was like, oh, the first person that told me, you know, and every solar company is like, we're on a mission to change the planet and the renewable energy and all this shit.

And he's like, we're in business to make money. Cause if we don't make money, then we don't have jobs. And then we don't have a mission.

And I was like, thank you for just bluntly telling me why to make hella money, like, thank you. And, but then why to make hella money? Well, let's make that money matter.

And what does the money matter mean? Well, sometimes it's just to feed your family and sometimes it might be to save the starving children. And I think what the problem is, is many people get an imposter's wants or they get a borrowed line.

And they've never woke up to asking some themselves because they went through some exercise with their manager and they looked at the other reps like, ah, I like that. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do that one. And I was like, no, the why does that have to make you cry?

The why doesn't have to be some crazy thing like make a hundred millionaires. The why can just be simple. And it can just be simply, I wanna go to bed at night not having to worry about my bills.

Okay, cool. Like, that's okay. Nobody's gonna bug you with that.

And the why might be, and here's the next thing. So many people attach a why to a number. They're like, why I wanna make a million dollars, okay.

What I found is once you make the million dollars, you're still gonna be empty because you never associated an emotion to the why. So my recommendation would be, how do you create an association to the why so that there's when I get it and when I feel it, I can correlate it. Does that make sense?

Because I might get the why because so many people are like, why do I do this to create financial freedom? I'm like, you already have it. Do you even know when you have financial freedom?

Tell me what it looks like when you got there. Does that make sense? I'm like, can you describe, because financial freedom is a feeling.

Gavin:

It's an ability- Very different for different people. Very different.

Sam:

Does that make sense? A millionaire could be not financially free and a hundred thousandaire could be financially free. It's a decision, it's how you live.

So the problem is, is so many people have these big whys, but they would never recognize if they're even there today or if they'll get there in a year or 10 years. And so I like to associate a feeling. I will feel these things knowing I'm on track or knowing I'm there.

Because the reality is the only thing we care about when we get the Ferrari 10 days in, the new Ferrari vibe goes away. Our friends saw us in a picture. They give us thumbs up, we got dopamine and then we're driving home.

Right guys? It isn't even that reasonable of a car. I can't fit a car seat in the back.

And like, why did I spend all this money? It could have gone into a real estate property. Damn it.

All I cared about was the likes and the fricking thumbs up. But now 10 days in, everybody's like, cool, you did it. Yeah.

Still empty. So are you caring about likes and thumbs up and validation or do you really care about Ferraris? If you really are a Ferrari advocate, congratulations.

Go get your Ferrari. But if you're just doing it for validation, then you're empty. And does that make sense?

So maybe I can get validation in many different ways and maybe I can just self validate better. Boom, I made it. I got it.

We're there.

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

Does that make sense?

Gavin:

Totally. Yeah, it's hard to find the why. I remember literally that question gets asked of you often, especially in the door-to-door space.

Because what we do is a very difficult job. Like you need a reason to get up and keep going every day. And I didn't really even know what it was until three summers ago.

I like really just dove into it. Like, why do I actually like even care about this job so much? Like what's actually...

Because I knew I cared, but I actually didn't know what it was. And I just became addicted because I realized like when I saw a rep who came out and maybe struggled initially, or maybe it was someone who I just didn't think was gonna even make it, find that success. And then maybe I was chasing a bit of gratitude from other people.

I'll admit that. But like when they would come to me and say like, dude, thank you for this opportunity. Like this changed my life.

I realized that's why I was going out and selling really hard every day. Cause I had to put on a good example for them. That's why I'd stay up late training, making those morning meetings as good as I could.

And that's why I went to war every day. And it wasn't really for anything that I was gonna personally receive besides watching the people that are out there have good experiences. I became addicted to it.

And once I realized that, then I even got better at understanding what I need to do with my job and really ramped up and ran one of the top offices. And it was really once I understood why the heck am I getting up every day? So it can take a while.

It took me like four years in door to door to really understand the job so much.

Sam:

Yeah. If you just took 20 minutes and you whipped out your why and you're crying out the why.

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

Let me say one thing. Number one problem with door to door sales guys is they don't take pride in themselves. And for me, I'm like, I signed up for this job.

Your choice. You didn't get recruited. You got caught recruited.

You didn't get convinced. The end of the day, you're in charge of your own life. You signed up for the job.

Now the question is when you put on that jersey every day, are you making yourself proud or are you not? Are you making your mom proud or are you not? Are you making your wife proud or are you not?

Are you like, are you taking pride in what you do every day to provide an income for yourself? And too many people don't take pride in what they do. And a why could be simple of saying, anything I do, I do it well.

And if I chose to do this job and this is the chapter in my life in which I'm in, whether it's for one summer or for 10 years, I am choosing to be the best at it. So whatever is required, whether it's just a 30 day sprint or a 30 year sprint, whatever is required to do the best and be the best, trained, commit, top a leaderboard, because I am proud and I have a reputation to carry.

Gavin:

Love that. Alrighty, we'll go ahead and that's everything I wanted to cover, Sam. Unless you got anything else you wanna toss in last minute and then we can throw it back to the crowd for a few questions.

I got DMed with a couple already.

Sam:

Yeah, no, that's good. Let's open up the questions and wrap up.

Gavin:

Cool. So first one, Sam, do you have any tips to get reps or a team out of a slump if they've sunk into one?

Sam:

Change the environment. You know, I think a lot of times we get into the same cycles. So mix it up.

I would go blitz another neighborhood or blitz another town, go get in an Airbnb for a week. Another one is sometimes you just gotta fire a dude like, you know, chop a head. And I think sometimes it's cancer that's pulling the team down without it and it sucks.

But another one is like, he's made it fun. Like what happens is the slump is because people are either bored, jaded or they're lost. Meaning they've lost vision, they got jaded or they're bored.

And so the car group game that he came up with, the bingo takes the boredom out of the mundane. Yeah. Vision, the why or direction.

It's like, wow, we hit our numbers or, oh, you know, we got beat up, jaded. So test it and ask them like, where were they at? That's probably what's creating the slump.

Gavin:

Oh, then we got one more here. Sam, what do you see as the best practice when it comes to shadowing reps? How would you do it?

How often and who should be shadowing who?

Sam:

I think always have somebody on your back was a mantra of me. Like every day I had somebody shadow me, I was the top rep. So I'm like, what better person to shadow than me?

And what does it do for me? It helps me be accountable to showing up. So I think shadowing is sometimes even better for yourself.

And I said, you're not taking away from me. I'm just gonna take two hours. I'm gonna show you what my first two to four looks like.

And then I'll send you on your own. And they wouldn't have done shit between two and four anyway. Might as well, like, you know, half these dudes that I'm taking are like not effective in that time.

And so I was like, throw them, throw them in with me. And so I, that's them shadowing me. Now me shadowing them was, hey, look, I'm going to watch you do a few.

And if you start it, I'm not talking just so you know, I won't say anything. So they'd be like, and then the objector would hit and look at me and I'd be like.

Gavin:

Yeah.

Sam:

And it was because I found the more that I jumped in and sold it for them, it actually was more detrimental than it was helpful because it just showed them. Yep. Reaffirmed.

You suck. I can't. And I would then give them the feedback and I say, what a lesson we get to learn.

Because if you keep doing that and you keep having to turn your head and say, I don't know what to do. How much longer does it take for you to quit? How much, how many more deals do you want to walk away from?

Because I'm not telling you I would have got or not got that deal. But the real question is how many opportunities like that do you run into every day? And right.

That's the lesson that they needed to hear. And I said, if you don't start training and taking this a little bit more serious to get better at that part where you just ran into, which was this objection or this thing, and you don't actually take that to heart and take this as the most, most important thing you need to focus on right now. And you just keep knocking and keep running into it and never get better at that.

Gavin:

Yeah. Two things I would take away from that. One, like, you know, if you're on the call and you're a top rep make like when I ever had a rep shadow me, it was, you better be in the back type of notes down, like what you learn.

And we're back on that piece from earlier to just, if you just sit there and watch me, you're not getting anything out of this. Be in tune with it. Take some notes as you're going through it and let's discuss what you think worked and why.

And that's again, right there, like a way you can make that shadowing super effective. And then on the flip side of that, I actually forgot where I was going to go with the next piece, but take that one piece away right there. I think that's super key on the shadowing front.

Well, cool guys. I don't have any more questions. And this is your last, we'll give it a minute here.

Let anybody, if they want to throw something last minute in here, you got Sam ready to answer the question. It could be literally anything. It doesn't have to be related to anything we talked about today.

We'll go ahead and give, you know, the crowd 30 seconds to a minute to, you know, throw it into the Q and A, or you can tag me on the chat, whatever you want to do. And we can get that question answered.

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Committing to Your Why

Sam:

Yeah. And guys feel free to reach out on Instagram at the Sam Taggart or D2D experts are pretty responsive there. You know, or guys invest in Siro, invest in training, invest in getting better at this.

Like, you know, and again, consumption, just watching this didn't make you better. It's now going and putting it into practice and role-playing it saying, I'm going to try that. Or I'm going to take that to heart.

I'm going to actually like challenge my wife for a minute. And you had to sit down for, for an hour today and actually focus on your Y instead of just like jumped back on to the next thing. And, you know, I had a coaching call yesterday at a coaching call today where I'm getting coached and, and I'm still training.

And I think we've failed to see that. Like it's a constant journey to mastery and anyone that claims to be master, I would shy away from a big, they obviously haven't learned the white belt mentality of like, we're always learning.

Gavin:

We do got one more actually from yep. Here we go. All right.

So how would you recommend changing culture as a sales director when the owner is minimally invested into the sales team? Should I work somewhere else or keep working in the team and culture?

Sam:

First off, I feel that there's a little victim to that question. No offense, meaning the owner isn't invested into the, the sales culture. Of course, he's invested into the sales culture.

You don't sell. He has no business. And so for him, he's probably just busy trying to juggle other things or energy is going elsewhere because he's empowered and trusted you.

Hence why he gave you a job. And if you're so dependent on the owner, the owner's job is not sales director. The owner's job might be looking at QuickBooks and making sure that people hit their payroll, be innovating a product.

It might be business development. It might be marketing so that you have branding that you needed. And right now your job is sales director.

So if you keep playing victim, then you're going to transition where there you stay at that company or go to another company at a codependent mentality instead of saying, I'm in charge of sales. It sounds like, cause I am the director of sales. And so I, no offense, I don't know who this is, but like the second piece would be now a leader who has a director level title should be able to solve problems.

Somebody that problem is, is most people get promoted to titles as a director level title, but have yet developed the leadership skillset to really solve the problem. So I had an employee the other day come to me and he said, Hey, how do I make 120 grand instead of 80 grand? Cause I know there's other people here.

And I said, well, tell me what you do different over the next 12 months, 12 months from now, what it would look like. What would your department look like? He manages like three or four guys.

He's over at apartment and, and he goes through all the things. And I said, what have you done over the last 12 months? You're the department head.

And he goes over his things. And I said, are you open to some feedback? And he says, what do you mean?

I said, the questions you asked and the advice you gave in the problems you were looking to solve were $80,000 problems. And I said, $120,000 guy would come to me and say, based on the retention, long-term value customer, based on our average ticket, based on our this and looking at the data. And I would then change this here to be my action plan.

That's what $120,000 guy looks like. And you didn't even come close to even see, and you have yet because you've been in that position for a while to even question. Well, if I had that information, I said, well, you know what a guy making $128,000 would have done found the information.

He would have said, where can I get this information instead of saying, well, if I had. And you see what I'm saying? So the difference between when people move into problem solving and leadership and wanting more responsibility and empowerment is I would ask myself, the owner is counting on me.

Am I solving the problems well for him? And if I am, that's probably why he's not involved because you're doing a good job. And if he's always poking holes at you and had to hover over you and do your job for you, I would be scared for my job security.

Gavin:

Yeah. I kind of felt a similar thing my third year when starting that company, we were starting a company and I was in charge of sales and the other guy was in charge of operations and running the business. And I kind of felt a similar feeling.

I'm like, dude, like, God, where's Rob? Why isn't he doing this? Why isn't he doing that?

And I was in that a bit of a victim mentality, not necessarily saying that's the situation, but just like I had to have one-on-one with myself. I was like, all right, what do I actually need to happen from him to actually get the results that we had wanted to get? And I really put probably two to three hours, wrote all the things out.

And I came to him with a plan. I was like, I need this, this and this, and here's why I need it. And he's like, dude, this is fantastic.

I'd love to give you this. And so on top of that point, like if you're feeling that, like I'd say there could be a portion of that's actually very true, or maybe it's a hundred percent true. We obviously don't know the situation, but come to him.

And if, you know, you put the time and effort in, it was just absolutely shut down and it feels completely wrong. And maybe it's not the right spot, but I think go have that open conversation with them is a great spot to start at. So, well, cool.

We ran a little over. Sam, I really appreciate you doing this. Guys, thank you for the questions.

This will be sent out so you guys can have access to this, reflect back on it, and hopefully we're doing something similar in the future.

Sam:

Okay. You guys are awesome.

Gavin:

All right, Sam. Peace, man.

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