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Successful Life Podcast
Self-Improvement Podcast for Contractors that want to learn about how to grow their business through management and marketing. Develop business ideas to improve your business experience and be successful. Real stories from real business owners.
Successful Life Podcast
From Coaching to Closing: Ken Younce's Transformative Journey in Sales Mastery and Team Building
Imagine transforming your sales career with insights from a former high school sports coach turned sales powerhouse. Meet Ken Younce, whose journey from the sports field to the sales floor is nothing short of inspiring. In our conversation, Ken shares the pivotal role of authentic connections and genuine care in achieving sales success. By drawing parallels between coaching and sales, he reveals how his experience in the roofing industry paved the way for his own coaching company, where the human element of sales outshines the rise of AI-driven methods.
As we navigate the dynamics of teamwork and trust in the roofing industry, Ken paints a vivid picture of what it means to be the quarterback of a sales team. The importance of knowing your role and having a reliable team is underscored by his vivid analogies and real-life stories. Ken dives into the pitfalls and triumphs of the industry, emphasizing the significance of creating genuine relationships with customers, prioritizing their satisfaction, and investing in personal development to foster a culture of integrity and growth.
Ken also sheds light on the adaptability of sales skills across various industries, sharing strategies that transcend traditional methods. He introduces transformative concepts like the "dummy tax" and emphasizes emotional buying decisions as central to sales success. Through personal anecdotes and actionable insights, Ken encourages listeners to develop a mindset that prioritizes long-term success and personal growth. From door-to-door strategies to leveraging social media, Ken’s comprehensive approach provides listeners with the tools they need to build leadership and confidence in their sales journey.
https://www.facebook.com/youncek
https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
https://bit.ly/4bFz4yc https://www.housecallpro.com/successullife
https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Ken Yance. What's up, brother? What's going on, man?
Speaker 2:How you doing, brother.
Speaker 1:Good, good to see you.
Speaker 2:Man, same here.
Speaker 1:Super excited to have you on. Ken's been a friend of mine for several years now. We started out kind of an interesting situation. He was in here in Raleigh and I rode along with him for a little bit of time. He was in here in Raleigh and I rode along with him for a little bit of time. He was trying to teach me how to sell roofs and I got to say, you know, you got to process. It's a bit different than a lot of people but it works. And I think it works because of your authenticity and your genuine care for the individual. I mean, you don't, you're not there to sell something, you're there to help the customer and we hear that a lot in the industry. I'm just here to help you, but you can tell when somebody's really genuinely there to help you, when they're really genuinely there to sell you something. So, ken, tell everybody a little bit about you and I'll shut up for a minute.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, I've been a lifelong kind of sales in different industries, but one of the things I was very passionate about and always made a lot of time for was coaching. So I coached high school football for 23 years, coached from AAU basketball to church. Basketball, youth soccer, travel soccer, you name it. Baseball basketball I coached 19 years middle school basketball. So I was just it baseball basketball. I coached 19 years middle school basketball. So I was just always a coach man. I just loved.
Speaker 2:Coaches meant a lot to me growing up. I came up kind of in some rough situations and, man, my coaches were my mentors and I looked up to those guys you know, like father figures almost, you know. And so I knew as a 12 year old I want to be a coach. Now, making some decisions in high school and starting a family and everything like that kind of put a damper on a lot of my athletic dreams. But I got into coaching and ultimately that's what I wanted to do anyway. And so when I paralleled my sales successes with my passion to coach, I just naturally tried to really focus in. Okay, I'm able to do this, but why am I able to do this better than the other people that were around me. Why was I able to advance in sales roles so easily? Right, and I just started really studying, you know, so that I could coach it, and so being successful in so many different industries. Each time it's kind of like the old athlete that you know. Back in the day, athletes used to play four or five sports, you know, you know, and then they ended up in the NFL, but they were all-star basketball players or they played tennis or they wrestled and they did you know four or five different things and I feel like that really helped me become a better sales coach, because I've been in so many different industries and had successes and I see a lot of the parallels from one to another. So when I fell into roofing and that's how you and I met man roofing was just another step in my progression of my sales journey and I quickly became successful, as I kind of so predicted that I would be, because sales is sales, man, you know, it's just a different product.
Speaker 2:But I quickly realized, man, I'm 50 years old, going on 50. How much longer am I going to keep climbing these ladders and scaling these things and almost passing out from heat up there on those hot shingles man in Raleigh and Green upstate, south Carolina, and different areas, and I was like man. I got to follow my heart as coaching and so I've broken away and got into. You know, my company now is full fledged. You know LLC, just everything. I've got everything built out on go high level. I've got you know modules. I got probably 350 slides built out from 15 different modules that I coach. So everything from sales to leadership and I really we were talking a little bit before we got on air just how important I feel like leadership development is vital in the sales part, because just to get robots to go out there and just okay, go, say this, go do this, go that you have to be self-motivated somewhat, especially when you're out there, especially in the door-knocking realm, right, because that's really where I shined.
Speaker 2:And I think I shined there because if I was to make KPIs for myself, corey, my KPIs weren't how many sales I got, it was how many people's phone can I get my name in today, if I left a situation, did I find out? What did that person do for a living? What was her name? How long have they lived there? You know what I mean. So how many kids they have. How old are their kids? What are their kids into?
Speaker 2:Like, when I made true connections, it really it made me way more successful in sales in every industry. Even when I was B2B, I did some B2B stuff. I was a Southeastern director for a company called Millbrook and we sold general merchandise to grocery chains and fast food stores and different things like that, and I started on a route. Man, I tripled the size of the route in less than nine months, built new accounts, did all that stuff. So they moved me up and, man, all I did was go in there and just connect with people.
Speaker 2:Man, that's the missing thing. And the crazy thing is we hear all this stuff about AI. Now, right, ai is supposed to take over the world. The reality is, man, I would take any AI system and let them sell against Zig Ziglar and see who comes out on top. Yeah, the thing is, the reason that we feel like we need that Is because we have such a lack of training of people, like what Zig taught, what the way Zig approach things, and so that's what I'm passionate about.
Speaker 2:Man, a lot of my books everything are some of those old school guys, because they're just regurgitating the Grant Cordones and the, the minor guy. I forgot his name. Yeah, those guys they're, just if you listen to them, and I'm not taking away from their content or what they do, but it's really just repackaged what was done back in the sixties and seventies by Zig Ziglar, like he was the godfather, and so everything he talks about is relational. You know what I mean how to relate to people and I just feel like that's a lost art and that's what I, that's what I stand for and that's what I push. So, and you experienced that firsthand, man.
Speaker 1:Well, it is about relationships, but I thought I'd ask you you mentioned leadership. I see this a lot. You've got a top sales guy. I mean, he's absolutely crushed it in any industry, whatever it doesn't matter the industry. Let's just take Rufin as an example. We'll use that as an example, since that's what we were talking about. You take that top sales guy and naturally or a lot of people naturally think, well, I'm going to move him in to the sales manager role. He's crushing it in the field. He should be moved up. What usually happens.
Speaker 2:Well, let's go parallel. You know I use a lot of analogies, I use a lot of parallels to make my arguments. Who is, historically probably and you could argue this, but very few people would argue it who's the worst general manager in NBA history?
Speaker 1:I don't know shit about NBA, so I don't know. I'm going to tell you Michael Jordan, okay.
Speaker 2:When he became the GM for the Charlotte Hornets or Bobcats or whatever they were at that point worst ever. He could not identify talent. He could not put together a team. Now I'm asking another question who, arguably, is the greatest basketball player to ever play? Michael Jordan, michael Jordan, those two skill sets are completely different. A great salesperson does not make you a great leader, and a lot of times the things that you need to be a great salesperson takes away from what you would need to be a great sales leader. It's two different things, and so I think that there's a little bit of a selfishness to it. There's a little bit of just the dog in them. They're kind of alphas and it's hard for them to kind of Michael Jordan. If he coached and Magic Johnson, larry Bird took a swing at it, didn't do real well, but Michael Jordan would simply look at you and say, dude, just jump from the free throw line. It's not that hard Because he can't articulate why he is as good as he is. He just is, and a lot of great salespeople just are.
Speaker 2:Out of all the sales teams that I coach, the workshops I do and the events that I speak at, the very common thing is a lot of the guys come up to me and this is what I love, it's the top guys at these companies. They come up and say, man, I sell just like that, that's how I do it, but they don't know how to articulate or coach it. Coaching is different than doing it. Very few times can you do those two things, but I think a lot of times. I know what your company does. You guys go through great extents to evaluate people, to kind of predict what their success rate is going to be, and I think that we don't do that a lot of times as owners of companies and people in position to assign leadership to a sales team man, we just think that just because they can do it means that they can coach it to totally different things. You know, lou Hulse wasn't exactly NBA Hall of Famer or NFL Hall of Famer. I mean, the guy weighed 90 pounds, I think, but he could coach the hell out of some football right.
Speaker 2:And so when I got into roofing I'm not super active in roofing, I still get a lot of leads I'll go out there and run them and actually hand them off to different companies that I've worked with and companies I know are good quality companies that I trust to kind of carry on in my name because my name's attached to it, if they reach out to me, right. But I'm not super active and there's a lot of people that, well, you got to be out there in the streets, you got to go out there and do it. You got to do this to get credibility and that's okay. That is what it is. But here's what I'll tell you Sales is sales. I was successful at sales the first month that I started doing it. As I was the fifth year, I was doing it right, because I knew how to connect with people, right?
Speaker 2:And do I have to know everything about roofing? No, because I never did. I still don't. But here's what I sell them on. I no, because I never did. I still don't. But here's what I sell them on. I sell them on my team.
Speaker 2:You know what, mr Corey? The reason I work for this company. I can't answer that question. I'll be honest with you. But the reason I work for this company is because we got such a great team and I can find out that answer for you. I'll get it right back to you.
Speaker 2:I'm the quarterback. Nobody asks a quarterback to return kicks. It's we all have our roles and we're very good at our roles, right? And so one of my big sayings is, if you go around your house and ask everybody what they want for dinner, if they're going to go pick up something, nobody's going to say probably jack in the box, right? Because if they want a burger, they're going to say five guys. If they want chicken, they're going to say Chick-fil-A. But the reason you end up going to Jack in the Box is because they have a little bit of everything. None of it's like Premier, but they can do a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2:We are the Chick-fil-A of roofs If you want just your roof and done and I am the Chick-fil-A of communicators and information guy. That's the role I play with this company. You don't want me up there building your roof, right? We got guys that do that. They build about 250 of them a year. They're great at it. Anything, I can't help you with man. That's why I'm with this team. That's how I sell beyond, not even knowing anything about roofing, right? Yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:I mean so what about the guy that you know? Maybe the team sucks, maybe they, maybe there's a bunch of callbacks or they get a bunch of complaints. Obviously you're working for the wrong company if that's the case, but you can't really fall back on the team. But I guess you realize at that point you're on the wrong team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it's just you are on the wrong team sometimes. I mean, it just is what it is, you know. And so, and all you know, I couldn't believe when I got into this industry how easy it was for you know somebody to become a roofing company. Ok, so the chuck in the truck was the first like termed as I went in. That's a real thing, you know. I mean, there's a. This is real.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think what was great is in the circles that you and I frequent and the people that we associate ourselves with are truly, really businesses. They run it like a business, they look to properly train their guys and they try to stand for the right things and do the right things. And you know, I worked for Ty Backer and Ty came in one day and he'd got a phone call. He was down visiting you know five, six states away from his home office and they had accidentally put the wrong color roof on somebody's house. And they had accidentally put the wrong color roof on somebody's house and he said, look, we'll find out who's what happened later on, but go over there and put the new roof, just change the roof out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was no questions like we're going to do the right thing, and when you're around people like that, you know that's a team you want to be on. You know what I mean. And so I've been fortunate enough and I know you've worked with several companies that are like that. They just do the right thing, man. And so we're about to go to an event I don't know if are you going to RoofCon.
Speaker 1:I'm not going this year.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're not going this year. I'm going to RoofCon. I'm very blessed I get to speak at a breakout, different breakouts and and the people that invest in their teams and go to that loser, to anybody who goes and invest in their team to go to try to be around that culture and that environment. Man, that's the team that you want to be with it. I stand by that.
Speaker 2:I was lucky to break into the roofing industry with Hunter Ballou's team and I was one of the first probably dozen guys that he had as salespeople there when he was kind of getting going. And, man, the culture was phenomenal. I was there for the culture, not for climbing roofs, dude, I got a picture of me on my first roof. Dude, it was January, it was like 31 degrees, the wind was blowing, it was a 10, 12. I went up the valley, I got up there, man, I got my jaws clenched. I took a selfie picture just to commemorate the moment and, man, I was like dude, this is nuts, dude, and part of it was because I was cold, part of it was because I was about to crap my pants because it was steep and slick and I was like dude, what am I doing? But then you start making the money and you realize well, dan and I had a saying look, I hate getting on the roost, but if they hide $100 bills in chimneys and I become Santa Claus, I'll get to the chimney, we'll figure this out. But that money sometimes attracts the wrong people because they're just on the paper chase.
Speaker 2:What you want to do is to find yourself and align yourself with companies that continue. Yeah, you got to make money, you got to protect your bottom line, but you also want to keep investing in your people, make sure they're getting trained right and getting what they need to be successful and truly care about. You know, we hear that. I know what you do now as well. We hear from companies all the time that say man, we want to build relationships with our customers. Well, okay, hey, well, what does that look like? You know, what does that look like? You know what does that look like, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I get on these calls and some of the teams that I train, we get in a WhatsApp chat and they send me audio recordings of their door knocks, and so just throughout the week I'm just randomly getting these things up, so it's outside of the week. Once a week we get on a Zoom call and do training, but I'm constantly getting these things from guys out the field and then I just reply with a video message back about a minute long, just say hey here, say this. You probably shouldn't have said that, see how, when you said that it caused this reaction. So just coaching them right. And it's amazing how many people door knock. And this is a very simple thing, cory, but it's a pet peeve and it makes the most sense in the world when they say introduce yourself. If I introduce myself to another human being, yes, part of that is I tell them my name, but what do I need to do for it to be an introduction? I need to find out their name.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Dude, we don't even find out people's name until we get permission to go up on the roof, and then we just want to get their name because we want to put them in our CRM. So now, if that's what you're coaching your team and that's the response of how your team is interacting with people, does that person feel like you're trying to build a relationship with them or trying to make a transaction?
Speaker 1:Transaction.
Speaker 2:And so something that simple and the teams that I train is okay. Well, what was their name? So my first thing is and people say all the time, nobody cares about your business card, man, I have a thing called a trust. I mean a sales triangle, my sales triangle. I feel like you have to close this triangle in order to have a successful sale. Right, and everybody has a version of this. Mine is trust, value and urgency. You have to have those three things or you don't, nothing's going to happen, right?
Speaker 2:The first thing is trust. Well, here's the thing I'm out knocking on your door Random rent, just Mr Rando, out here knocking on doors in the middle of the day on a weekday. Yeah, I might have a shirt on, but I could have got this. A good will. You don't know me, dude, and I look like every other guy on America's Most Wanted. If you cut my hair and do my beard different, it just depends, I can look like all them cats. So my point and I got tattoo sleeves like I'm a hot mess, man. If you talk about just someone sitting at home by themselves, and here I am knocking on the door and it's, you have a lot to overcome, man, in that situation. So the first thing you have to build I had this conversation with another gentleman on a podcast not too long ago was what's the most important thing, and I think it's trust.
Speaker 2:I think because without trust, nothing else matters. If I tell you that this is the world's greatest vodka, I'm just saying that because I don't think you can have the world's greatest water in an Aquafina bottle, but it's the world's greatest vodka. I can tell you that. But if you don't trust me, you're never going to believe it. Like, dude, that's just water, right. So it's the trust. Fight dude. It's like trust them as a more thing.
Speaker 2:So when I knock on the door, what's going to build trust? Transparency. You need transparency. So you know a business card they. So you know a business card. They may throw it away, I don't care, it's worth the seven cent or whatever it is for a thing. If you buy like seven cent for me to show it, just so you can see, it's got my website on there. And I have a big thing where I tell them when I do get permission to get the inspection hey, I want you to check us out while we check you out. That's transparency If your girls have doubts of where you're at and what you've been doing, just say hey, here's my phone, here's my passcode, check it out. There you go, whatever you want to do. Whether they look at it or not is irrelevant. You was transparent and now the trust gets there. So transparency to me is hey, here's my business cards, here's who we are. Whether you want to look at it or not is irrelevant to me.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing is to kind of start building trust and you do that through transparency and it's just some of the stuff that I coach there. But we don't take time to coach those guys on those things. We think that sales coaching is your price, your product and your process. Okay, but what about the personal development? Right, what about the mindset of getting your ass handed to you multiple times as you're out there on doors in 100 degree weather and, just like it's too easy to get back in the truck in that air condition, say, dude man, tomorrow it's supposed to be 10 degrees, cool tomorrow, get an early jump tomorrow. And you tell you that stuff yourself, that stuff, enough times that you just end up in this rut and and then that process is repeated over and over. And that's a mindset. That's personal development can fix that, it can change your mindset. So where do you coach your teams in that Right?
Speaker 2:And then people skills when does that come in your sales process? So, as sales trainers, they go out there and they push the price, the product and the process, how to enter it into the CRM, how to take pictures and how to interact with the adjuster and how to submit things. So you got all these different things. That's process, bro. That's just. You can train a monkey to do that stuff. Where the success versus the fails come in the sales profession is in those other two components, like your personal development, your character, how you attack your day, how you attack your life. And then the second thing is obviously the people skills. It's such a lost thing, man, and so that's where I think a lot of people are falling short on their sales training.
Speaker 1:Well, it just takes the same point here. You could also have a situation where you get 10 wins and they're easy wins, easy customers. Right? Not a lot, not likely, but it does happen. Well, then you could also shift into the mindset that next 11th one is going to be like the last 10.
Speaker 1:I just went through this personally. I got to a rut where it was just easy, it was order taking, and so I got in the mindset of order taking and I lost my common sense of relationship building and so when they started not becoming hot as hell leads, I was losing people because I was treating them like they were hot leads and it was just, and it's not that I don't know. I just need to take a step back and realize, hey, dude, like you got to figure out what's going on here, because you're the problem, what's happening here? What are you doing? That's not working. Well, it was real simple. When I went back and looked at the videos, it was real clear. I wasn't spending any time with them up front, I wasn't building any sort of relationship, I was just going straight into it, and the best of us can fall into that trap. But you got to also have the awareness to re, you know, to refocus and be able to look at your part, you know and take suggestions and if you don't know, ask somebody.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I do, corey, in my training is we have homework, right? So in between there's always a two-week gap between the sales training and there's a two-week gap between leadership, because I alternate weeks, so it's a four-week out of the month, and so weeks one and three is leadership, weeks two and four is our sales team, but you always have some type of homework. One of the things that I assign is a power of three, so we're going to do a power of three homework. You're going to send me at least one a day for two weeks. You're going to send me after whatever kind of appointment you did, whether it was a cold call, door knock or a lead that you ran, or whatever. It is a cold call, door knock or a lead that you ran, or whatever it is a colors meeting, whatever situation might be. But you're going to send me, and I want three things from every meeting, so every interaction, what's three things that went well, that you did well was three things that you did bad, that you could have done better. And if you could go back and redo the whole scenario, what's three things that you would do differently? Right, and so when you do that as a consistent thing. It's called self-coaching, self-evaluating Most teams.
Speaker 2:You have a bye week in NFL and high school, college and everything like that, and so a lot of times that bye week is where you go back and you have your defense coordinator I coached offense. You have your defense coordinator go in and break down film on you in the last five games. Say, man, what am I doing? That's predictable If you were coaching against me. What am I doing? Okay, well, every time you're in this formation, 82% of the time, you run this play. Well, other teams are seeing that, but we don't realize. We might be 5-0 when the break comes, but there's still room for improvement.
Speaker 2:And it's that constant attention to the detail that you get from coaching, right from coaching sports, that you realize, even in the wins, there's a lot of coaching that you can get from that, and so that's what we have to remind ourselves in business, especially in sales. Is that just because you're winning doesn't mean that you're winning Because you're not winning? I don't feel like, unless you're learning from every situation. And even on the games that you won, you squeaked it out. You kicked the 54-yard field goal to win it.
Speaker 2:That's great man, but why were we three for 14 on third downs. What are we doing wrong? So it's like, how can we get better? And so that just goes back to just intentional training and continuous hands on it. And the problem that you run into man is you get caught up in the rut of doing it, of doing the day to day. You're doing the actions and you're not going back. You know what I mean, especially when you start stacking them. W's man? It's like man, this is easy man, and then you just forget what got you there and it goes back to just having intentional coaching. That's why I run so many parallels from coaching in sports to coaching in sales is because it's the same parallel dude, it's like the same mindset, the same attention to detail that you have to continue to win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll tell you something else. I think is pretty cool that you said when you're working with these guys throughout the day, when they're sending you the WhatsApp messages. It would kind of be like if Bill Belichick coached all through the week and on Sunday morning or 1 o'clock or whatever time they play, he goes all right, I'm going to check out now, I'm going to head on home. He's got to be there through that process as well, which I think is what you're seeing with the messages and them recording their calls. I mean that's vital because then you can catch it right in the moment, you can fix it, you can make a tremendous amount of progress having that kind of detail and attention.
Speaker 2:Well, you know how many you think back and you've done this, joe. I know we've had these conversations before, but as you progress as a sales professional, every time you learn from an experience and then you know, ok, well, I'll do it differently next time. From an experience and then you know, okay, well, I'll do it differently next time. When you look back in hindsight, how many opportunities that you could have flipped deals and made so much more money, had so much more success. And it was like man and there's a guy in the industry, jonathan Sherwood, and Jonathan is big out West and very well known in the commercial space, and Jonathan has something that he says man he's. I paid the dummy tax. I already paid the dummy tax, right, so just, I got the cheat code. Bro, just follow me. You can go try to figure it out and beat your head against the wall or cost yourself all kinds of money, but I paid the dummy tax and that's why I feel so passionate about what I do is to you know, I played, I paid the dummy tax.
Speaker 2:Man, I wasn't always great at sales and every time I got into an industry there was a learning curve, but once I figured out how to just like right now coaching different industries. You know I'm connected with some fencing industries HVAC. I've got some fitness instructors like personal fitness people Like those people are like they're really in a tough spot because they're very passionate and great at training people on how to get in shape but then they also have to sell their service, like they have to be a salesperson too and dude, that's so far removed from what they got into the industry for. So just we're always in sales and some component like of it is part of our everyday life. And just as I got into roofing man, there was some learning, a little bit of a learning curve there, because here's here. There's never been a more. I don't think there's ever been another industry that I've been involved in that. That proved the point as much as roofing that people are not. Don't buy from logic, they buy from emotion.
Speaker 2:That's right, because it makes too much sense If you're in a storm market and I'd say 80% of the roofs that I sold on the residential side have been storm damage, like insurance jobs but it makes too much sense, dude, I remember getting into it, dude, this is going to be so easy, so they pay $1,000 to get a $15,000 roof. That's stupid. I'm just going to be shooting fish in a barrel and then it's not shooting and fishing the barrel. You know what I mean. It's almost like it's too good, you know. And so, people, there's just a whole different component that I had to take my philosophies and my theories and everything that I've done in previous careers that I had and just tailor it towards roofing.
Speaker 2:And now what's great is getting on these discovery calls with different industries and saying, ok, well, what's your pain points, what do you guys do? What's your process, what is, what's your pushback that you normally get, what's your pitch or your, your approach? And then I usually come back and sit for about a week and put together a structure using my core stuff and just apply it to that industry, dude, and it's. You're back in a thousand. Like what book? What sales does Zig Ziglar's book not apply to?
Speaker 1:Not fair.
Speaker 2:Like I mean, it's's just let me get the information and then we'll figure this out, bro, and then we're going to apply it, and then it's, it's a wrap, because we're paying attention to those other two components of the wheel, not just product, price and and process. We're focusing on the personal development of person and people skills. And once we get that's the most important part, like people bought stuff, dude, I signed the first roof. I was on, like the first roof I was on and I didn't even have business cards yet. I knew nothing about the roof. I sat there and talked to a guy about Pittsburgh Steelers for 30 minutes. He actually asked me why I was there, because I had talked to him about the Steelers so long, because he had a Steelers flag in his yard. I said, oh man, we're just out here trying to sell roost and get people to insurance to buy it. He goes okay, cool. And then I kept talking about the sealers again, like, literally kept going. He goes well, man, you want to borrow my ladder Cause I, like the other guy I was riding with, took off to go to an adjuster meeting and I guess he thought and the first one, as he was driving off, I knocked on.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting there killing time. So he tried to loan. He loaned me his own ladder to do the inspection on. That's how little I knew, or how little prepared I was. And I came back down and I said, man, it looks messed up. I didn't even know what hail damage was. I just said the roof didn't look good. I said, man, it looks jacked up. So what do we do now? I said I have no clue, bro, we'll wait on the guy to get back. And we came back, we signed him up. Man, he went up there, did an actual inspection. There was damage and we signed him up. But that's how little I knew.
Speaker 2:So that proved to me that my people skills right Was the most important component, because I had nothing of value for this guy. I didn't create urgency I didn't know anything about, I didn't tell him one thing about his roof, but I related to him and I talked to him and I connected with the guy and he signed me up. Now now, keep in mind there was three other people, neighbors of his, that had already got roof replacements. He had five or six people knock on his door that he just blew them off, and there's two of the people actually was sitting on checks and just hadn't decided on a roofer yet, and so from that connection with him, I didn't only get him, but I got the other two that already had checks in hand and signed two other deals in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:I knew nothing about Roos bro, like nothing. All I did was to relate to this man over one topic that I was passionate about. Let him talk a lot about. You know his experience to go into games and stuff like that. I found that common ground. The rest is history, and so, again, that's applicable across any sales process, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, active listening too. Oh yeah it. It's so important because if you vomit out all the things that you could do, all the benefits and the product benefits and features, and you don't give them an opportunity to tell you what they're looking for, then you can't really solve their problem. I think it's you that gives the analogy. I could be wrong, but I think it's you that gives the analogy that you know if it. Well, if there's not a, if I don't know there's a problem with my roof, then there's not a problem. I think you give an analogy about a car. Is that you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you check engine light on. Yeah, because you check engine light on, a lot of people don't change their oils with their check engine light, or that thing pops up and says change your oil, right, they don't know. And for your roof, your check engine light is a water stain on your ceiling. So if they don't see a check engine light, they have no idea that they could have a problem. Right, and that's what they always kick back and I'm good, I don't have any leaks, I'm good. Well, dude, like by the time you see, the leak is too damn late, dude, like it's already worked through five or six layers of materials up there and cost you a lot of money. So we don't want to get to that point. And I also say this like for you to come up and beat on the door and within 10 seconds of meeting these people, you're already telling them how insurance is going to pay for the roof. And they were just in there cooking lasagna and like getting the kids homework done. The last thing on their mind was roof. Like they're thinking about everything else in the world. And now you're telling them all this stuff. And it's like, dude, you might as well have knocked on the door and told them, pointed at their car and said hey, your car needs a new motor. What the hell are you talking about? That's putting yourself on the other side of the door, and that's a big part of what I think, too, is what I love about what I do now, corey man, is I get to dive into different industries and find out what their battles are, why they're not successful at sales Dude, and I love figuring that out.
Speaker 2:It's like I played organized basketball, played school ball, played AU, all these different things, but my favorite thing to do was to go just drive up on a new court and go play pickup basketball. I don't know anybody there. I don't know how they play, if they can shoot, if they can jump, if they got a good left hand, I don't know how to play defense on them. I don't know how they play. If they can shoot, if they can jump, if they got a good left hand, I don't know how to play defense on them. I don't know who's going to do give and goes and cut a lot and run off the ball. You got to figure all that out right there live, and usually you're the only white guy on the court too, so that makes it even more interesting.
Speaker 2:But I just love that. Let's figure this damn thing out, bro. Let's figure this damn thing out, bro. And what I love about trying to study these different industries and what makes people successful or not successful and trying to help them get that thing on the right track is just the thing that it all comes back down to the same core things that you're not doing right. It's still the same core things.
Speaker 1:So, now that you're working in different industries, do you also find that, because you have experience, let's say, in the roofing industry and you're starting to work with HVAC or whatever, do you find that your experience in the roofing industry and anything else that you've done, there are components to that industry that other industries just don't know about, and so I think that's where it makes somebody like you valuable, because you've got experience in multiple different modalities, so to speak, and some industries don't know about certain things. I can use a million examples. Uh, there's technology out there that some industries just don't have a clue about, and if they did know about it, it could take their industry to the next level. And what I've found working with well with different industries, for example, hvac, plumbing, electrical roofing they don't all know all the tricks of the trade, right, I think that's where it makes somebody like you valuable, because you do have experience in other areas and you can bring some of that experience to a different industry.
Speaker 2:Right, oh, yeah, for sure, man, there's things. And you, just you start stacking all these experiences, man, and it's what happens is I think that you gain confidence to you. I mean, like it's not a, it's not cockiness, but it is confidence that I know, when I go to knock on a door, whoever opens the door. This is what I love about it. It could be a 70 year old Asian lady, it could be a 25 year old African-American lady, it could be a 60 year old, grumpy old white dude, I don't care who opens the door. Dude, like we're going to figure this out, bro. And my first goal, it really is more about connect with. How can I connect with this person? Like I'm thinking about that before anything else. And I think that you get confidence from all the different experiences that you've had and, honestly, like I don't. It's water off my back if that would not work out, because what I've come to find out is that some will, some won't, some, so what? And it's just it's. And the thing is and I know you've heard me talk about my tree farm analogy but sometimes you're planting a seed, sometimes you're nurturing it, sometimes you're harvesting, I go up and with the idea that I don't care if I harvest or not. I'm going to this door to plant a seed Period. I'm only going to this door to plant a seed. If I walk away with fruit, bro, that's awesome. But I'm going to leave with something right. I'm going to leave with my phone number in their phone. I'm going to leave with my business card in their possession. I'm going to leave with a future appointment date. Right to come back. I'm going to leave with a Google review or I'm going to leave with a testimonial video. You know I'm big to leave with a Google review or I'm going to leave with a testimonial video. You know I'm big on those. How many, dude? I've got probably 50 testimony videos in my phone right now that I can show you from things where I just did an inspection and there was nothing really happened, like the roof was in pretty decent shape, and I just said, man, did that go well for you? Yeah, it went great. Do you know anybody else that might you, that might be able to benefit from one of the good guys and becoming their roofer? Because one of my big sayings I'm not here to sell your roof, I'm here to become your roofer. Right, that's right. So, and there's a big. There's an analogy I'm going to break this up a little bit with.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you've heard of Barry Sanders. I know you're not NFL guy, but Barry Sanders was the greatest running back, I think ever. The things that guy did. He was a magician and he saw through people. I don't know how he saw people behind him and he was amazing. But I remember an interview they did with Barry. They said, barry, what do you see when you're running the ball?
Speaker 2:And he says well, I never see the guy in front of me. I know he's not going to tackle me. I see the guy behind him. I'm setting the second guy up and that has always stuck with me, because if you've ever been on the sideline near a NFL practice or a game, the speed TV does not do it justice. See and think that way, but then his body to react and do the things that he just instinctively did because of what he saw was amazing to me.
Speaker 2:But I applied it to sales. I try to apply everything from sports into sales and what that means is I know I'm going to get your money. This is a done deal, bro. How many more roofs am I going to get from this relationship. Am I going to do your mom's house? Am I going to do your co-worker's house? Am I going to do your brother-in-law's house? Somehow you're a done deal, bro. That's almost laughable to think that you're going to tackle me. I'm thinking in Barry Sanders mode and because I think of that way, yes, the first guy might tackle Barry every now and then, but because he's so conscientious of the next guy, that's what he goes. He starts running the ball, looking for the second level defender to make him miss. If the first level makes the play, then great, we'll get up snap ball again, we'll run it again.
Speaker 2:But that's the way I approach sales. That's the way I coach people to coach. Listen. That's harvesting, is harvesting. The fruit is ready, is there? Sometimes it just falls off the tree. You ain't going to climb, right. But what we want to do to make sure that we're being successful is we want to keep planting and keep water. And so when I walk up to a door, my intention is to plant water. If I happen to harvest man, I can do that with the best of them as well. But when you go with that mindset, then you become way more successful.
Speaker 1:And a lot less stress walking up to that door.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I felt no stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's just the mindset, and that's really a great hack for people, because if you think you've got to sell a roof, you're going to be nervous, you're going to say stuff that you don't want to say and you're going to look like an amateur. Yep, you press, yeah, you force it. So I know we're getting short on time. I want to wrap up with. I want you to tell everybody a bit one where they can find you, ken, and a little bit about what you're doing in your program.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I got a website berealsalestrainingcom. You can go on there and book a discovery call. That's really all I really want from people is just let's jump on a call and let's just ask some questions. Find out, man, what's your company about? How do you sell? I'm going to speak at Roofcon about the. You know it's called Make Door-to-Door Great Again is the name, the title of it, and it's really just explaining why, even if you're a lead running company, why you need to integrate and become a hybrid.
Speaker 2:Because as I drive into a neighborhood that I got a call from, I could pass seven houses that have snapped off shingles and obvious issues I can see from the road and I'm just going to drive back there and as I drive out, I'm just hoping that one of those seven people, maybe two of those seven people, call my company. That just seems silly to me. Dude, just go up to the door and knock on the door. It's like crazy that we're oh, that's not. I don't door knock, dude, you're losing so much money. I'm going to speak on that, but really all I want to do is, no matter what type of sales you do is just get on a call, see what your process is See where perhaps I can help you. If I don't think I can help you, then we'll come to that conclusion. But get on there, book a call. I'm on.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to do better on my social bro. I trying to do better on my social bro. I'm like so bad at social. I really have always used social just to talk trash about sports teams and make talk about funny stuff and talk about my family and stuff like that. But I'm trying to do better. But I do have a facebook page called ken yontz dash be real. So it's actually a picture on there that you took of me last year at RoofCon is the picture for that one? Ken Yonce is a very not many Yonces out there to begin with Y-O-U-N-C-E. My regular account is getting kind of full so you might have to go to Ken Yonce. I've also got a business page, be Real Sales Training. That's on there as well.
Speaker 2:I do have a YouTube channel. I've not put that's on there as well, and that's pretty. I do have a YouTube channel. I've not put enough stuff on there yet. I've actually got to pull it from my other regular YouTube channel to get it over in one place. But that's pretty much how much how you reach me as far as what I do, man, everything sales related, leadership related, is what I'm trying to pour into.
Speaker 2:Teams, man, the companies that what I run into a lot are the companies that are going through a lot of salespeople. They don't understand why and I know you and I had a conversation about how much money you lose when you lose people, when you bring them in, you train them and stuff like that. The investment to bring in a true sales coach that covers all your bases for you and kind of takes that off of your plate. You know, I keep them busy, I keep them accountable and when I come in I'm part of your team, your sales manager. The great thing about having the sales leadership meeting or the meetings on alternate weeks is you have those in-between weeks that you can actually have your in-house sales meeting as well. So I'm not taking up all your time, but with the homework and everything like that, we get a lot done and really try to coach the people on the things that they need to be successful.
Speaker 2:My goal is to teach everybody, coach people on being leaders, even as a salesperson. You have to be a leader If you're out in the field, trying to close deals. You have to be a leader, because the room that you walk into, the table that you sit down at, you have to be able to take control of that situation. You have to carry yourself with the right confidence. There's always something you say or don't say that costs you that deal. So let's really get into breaking down the science of selling, the art of selling, and then accompany that with the leadership, the personal development and people skills. And that's basically what my program is.
Speaker 2:Man, it's much more than just hey, what do you say whenever they give you this objection? You know I'm probably the best out there at taking away objections before they even come up. That's my goal, you know, if I? You know I had a guy the other day. I said well, why didn't you tell him to check out your company and check out your website? He said we're working up in an area this is in Minnesota. We're working in an area where they had opened an office about a year ago. It's about two and a half hours out of the main city where they were, where their website says they're at, but they hadn't went and updated their website yet. He says well, I don't want them to look on the website and not see us like listed on there and think that we're just an out of town company.
Speaker 2:I said, well, what do you do? Let me ask you this let's take away the objection before it becomes one, because if they look you up and you're not there, then what's going to happen is they won't mention that, but they're going to not trust you because you wasn't transparent. So what I would do is say look, please, look us up. I want you to check us out while we check you out. By the way, we're not this. Our local location isn't listed on there. We're just terrible at updating our website, but we definitely been doing business around here, but I just want to let you know. So nothing seems kind of fishy. I've actually got some people around here. I can kind of tell you, you know, show you where we've already done some work. Here's the thing. They might not have cared about it, but they might have looked it up and that might be the reason you lost a job and opportunity and you never even knew it, right, right? So those are the type things we get into, man.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, man, and I had an opportunity to see, like you said, last year at RoofCon. I thought it was one of the best you know, one of the best breakouts that was out there. I mean and I really do mean that, Like it was really phenomenal information, and so anybody that is going to RoofCon I definitely encourage you to go check out Ken's Breakout.
Speaker 2:for sure I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I appreciate you, bro. I'll talk to you soon, all right man Later.
