Sales Techniques For Business Growth: Leadership & Mentorship | Gene Slade

Want to turn your trade business into a sales powerhouse? This episode of Small Business Pivots features an electrifying conversation with Gene Slade, founder of Lead Ninja and Lead Ninja AI. From humble beginnings in his family's HVAC company to leading a sales training revolution, Gene reveals the essential strategies tradespeople need to boost sales and grow their businesses. This episode is packed with sales techniques, training insights, and actionable advice that can take your business to the next level.

Unlocking the Power of Sales Training
Gene’s story is a testament to how tradespeople can elevate their businesses by mastering the art of sales. He explains how the absence of formal sales education in trades like HVAC, plumbing, and electrical work leaves a gap that his training fills. Gene’s focus on asking strategic questions helps clients make better decisions, turning cold leads into loyal customers. His approach highlights the power of sales techniques and how it can transform the trajectory of a business.

Sales Growth Strategies for Tradespeople
Gene’s rise from lead installer to successful HVAC business owner and sales trainer is packed with lessons for anyone looking to boost their trade business. He sheds light on how to ethically overcome common objections—like price—and demonstrates how his clients have seen major income growth after adopting his methods. Discover how Gene’s unique approach to lead generation, including leveraging radio advertising, resulted in a thriving business that continues to deliver high-converting leads. Learn how to turn more leads into paying customers with his proven tactics.

Building a High-Performance Sales Team
Scaling your trade business requires a high-performing sales team. Gene explains the art of recruiting top-tier talent by prioritizing customer service skills over traditional experience. He emphasizes the importance of nurturing employees by aligning their personal goals with the company’s vision, leading to greater retention and higher performance. By focusing on mentorship and leadership—inspired by figures like Les Brown and John Maxwell—Gene’s methods create a ripple effect of growth throughout the organization.

Listen now and take the first step toward becoming a sales powerhouse in your industry.

Gene Slade: CEO and Founder of Aspire Growth Advisors

Website: https://leadninjasystem.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneslade/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@geneslade

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeadNinja

#SalesPowerhouse #GeneSlade #LeadNinja #TradesBusinessGrowth #SalesTraining #TradesPeople #LeadGeneration #BusinessGrowth #SalesTechniques #CustomerSuccess #HVACSales #SalesMentorship #SalesLeadership #SmallBusinessPivots #BusinessPodcast #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessOwnership

Chapters

• 0:00 Effective Sales Techniques for Small Businesses
• 8:48 Transforming Tradespeople Into Successful Salespeople
• 22:50 Building a Successful Sales Team
• 35:09 The Power of Sales Mentors

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots, and today we have a very special guest from around the world and, as I say weekly, I know there's nobody but the business owner that can say their name and their company, like the business owner. So go ahead and introduce yourself, your company and where you come to us from today.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Well, thanks for having me on, michael. I'm Gene Slade. I'm the owner of Lead Ninja and Lead Ninja AI. I own a sales training company. I also own an AI company that does conversational AI, and I grew up in the trades. So I mean, when I was 11, my father owned his own air conditioning company and my uncle owned his own plumbing company, and my dad said, boy, if you want food, you want clothes, come to work. So I've been working in the trade since I was just a youngster and it's been so phenomenal to us, so I'm grateful to be able to be here to do some giving back.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Fantastic. Well, I know our listeners will appreciate it. What do you think is a couple of things that we can help them with today so they can know what to expect?

Speaker 2: 1:02

Well, first and foremost, I think that sales is a massive thing that needs to be talked about more right? Nothing in business happens until a sale is made is what Zig Ziglar used to say. So some real simple tips for how to get better engagement with your clients, how to actually increase senses of urgency and get them to actually want what it is that you have without being salesy, would be one thing, and then I mean we can see where it goes from there.

Speaker 1: 1:34

I love it. I love it. Well, let's take a quick introduction for the show and we'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast produced for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. Well, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. We've got Gene today. If you're in the trades, you better buckle up, because we got a lot of good information for you, because sales is hard to come by these days, would you say.

Speaker 2: 2:23

That's a fair statement you, because sales is hard to come by these days, would you say that's a fair statement? I think, whether you think it is or isn't, you're right, like Henry Ford used to say right. I think that we've just got a lack of education and a lack of training. I mean, when you were in grade school or high school, did you have a sales class?

Speaker 2: 2:40

No, they barely teach you how to balance a checkbook right and they don't really teach you how to even think. They teach you how to balance a checkbook right and they don't really teach you how to even think. They teach you how to memorize stuff right. So I think that having more education in that area would be phenomenal. And if I could give some people some examples you know I work in the trades mostly HVAC, plumbing, electrical would be the main three or the biggest three that we work in and electricians and HVAC guys. They deal with stuff like surge protection. So as I travel around the country, I ask people to establish a need for or to sell me a surge protector and they really just want to talk at me, it seems, want to talk at me, it seems. It seems like they just keep giving me information, expecting that giving me information is going to be what convinces me to purchase said product, but the reality is they have to sell a problem first, right. So here's an example. And we use questions in order to do what we call establishing a need for products. So pay attention, audience and count how many statements I actually make when I do this little role play for you. So if I was with a customer out by their air conditioner. First question I would ask is why don't you have surge protection? And I would just kind of cock my head sideways and look at them. They're probably going to say I don't know. And I'm going to say did you know that we get over 1.2 million cloud to ground lightning strikes a year here and that when that happens we get in-home surges? And did you know that when we get in-home surges, that your compressors and your motors can glow cherry red on the inside? Do you think that's good? Right, so I'll pause after three questions to let them answer. They'll usually say no. What do you suppose that does to the reliability of your system? How about the lifespan? Have you ever purchased a new compressor before so you weren't aware that a new compressor could cost you $4,000 or $5,000? Can you see now why our clients just get surge protection instead of replacing expensive compressors, motors, maybe even a whole system?

Speaker 2: 4:51

Now again, how many statements did I make there? And why am I asking questions? We're always told by sales trainers to ask questions, aren't we? Yeah, but do they ever really tell us what questions to ask or how to ask those questions? Tell us what questions to ask or how to ask those questions. So if you rewind the tape, what you'll find is I did give you information, information that a lot of people would give you as a technician or somebody trying to sell that product. But what I did was I added a few words to the beginning of each piece of information and turned it into a question. Now, if you're a business owner, this is super, super important, because sales is the lifeblood of your business, right?

Speaker 2: 5:29

If I ask you questions, who's in control of your thoughts? Would it be nice to be able to control what your clients are thinking? If you could control what they were thinking, could you get them to agree with you more? Could you get them to get the things that they really truly need? I mean, we're so negative. We usually say no six or seven times before we say yes to something, right? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to control what they were thinking? And that's what we get to do when we ask questions and the client ends up getting to come to their own conclusion that something needs to be done. See, I haven't.

Speaker 2: 6:03

I'm not selling a surge protector, I'm selling a problem. I'm selling the fact that we are unprotected. I'm selling the fact that we're going to get permanent and irreversible damage to something that is way more expensive. And if I can get a client to agree that they're paying for something and they're not getting it, I can usually get them to get it for their own benefit.

Speaker 2: 6:26

So that would be the main thing that I would be looking at as a salesperson or a business owner creating those kinds of questions, putting them on paper so that your humans I mean a lot of business owners we look at as like aliens. Right, they're a different breed. One of my mentors said that to me one time. He said, gene, your problem is that you're an alien and you're trying to teach humans how to be aliens. He said you've got to give them step-by-step processes, right, because you can't. It's really hard to manage people, isn't it? But people can follow a process, and can we manage a process For sure.

Speaker 2: 7:08

So I would be creating those types of questions, putting them down on paper and then role-playing that stuff with your guys. Get them to start asking those questions so that clients come to their own conclusion that something needs to be done, and then you can be the one that's waiting in the wings to solve the problem for them. And then, secondly, before you ever share your solution with a client, you want to bring in herd impact mentality? Right, so what we do is we train our people. Once the client has shown concern right, and we can see it on their body language We'll say something like would you like to know what our clients have us do when we run into this situation?

Speaker 2: 7:46

Right, so we're bringing in herd and pack mentality. Other people have been in the same position and if they've come through it safe, then I'll be safe too. Right, so we increase the client's feeling of safety by bringing in herd and pack mentality and we get permission to share a solution rather than jamming it down their throat. And when I started doing this as a salesperson man, the resistance just went way, way down. So those would be the things that, like, I would really be focusing on first as a business owner who has got a company that's, let's say, million, million and a half or less right, by the time you get up to a million and a half, you probably got some systems and processes in place.

Speaker 1: 8:23

No, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 8:26

A long answer, Michael.

Speaker 1: 8:28

It's a good one and it sounds like the right one because it's worked for you. So let's talk about how you got where you are leading up to discovering the questions for sales things like that. So others can kind of relate to hey, he's been where I'm at, kind of talking about that herd mentality of I was in your shoes. This works.

Speaker 2: 8:48

I've spent over 30 years now in the trades and you know, going back to my father, he trained me and by the time I was 15, I was a full-fledged lead installer. So my father decided to turn our one truck company into a two truck company, went out and bought a truck, got a 21 year old to be a helper for me and drive me around, and we became a two truck company. I ended up going off to college and did some wrestling there, but came right back to the trades as soon as I got back and around 20 years 21, 22 years old I ended up getting into sales because I was frustrated that I was making half of the amount of money that the sales guys are making and I knew 10 times as much as them, and so I did really, really well in sales. It took me three years and this is 20 years ago now, but it took me three years to break that elusive million dollar mark. I got really bored and almost quit the trades because I didn't know anybody else who was selling that much. I ended up finding some people down in Florida that were really killing it and I went down and learned that you could really make money in the trades, my father. We were like two chucks in a truck. We were the cheap guys. Beer can cold, hvac guys will know what that means. But I found some guys that really understood business and I just became a sponge and I just listened to whatever they said and I did whatever they said and I didn't try to reinvent the wheel. And then, of course, as you experience life, you learn stuff along the way as well. So I ended up eventually starting my own HVAC company.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Um, we ended up hitting a bunch of ink magazine awards and six years and one day later I ended up exiting that business for a nice seven-figure profit, went into semi-retirement and almost went crazy. Right. Five, six months later I'm sitting on my couch and I'm like what in the heck am I going to do? I need to do something. I got a non-compete and it just popped into my head that I had this radio show that I'd been using that generated two or 3,000 new customers a year for me, and so I went. You know what? I bet you I could just take my best show, have it transcribed, swap out the names, make sure that they're willing to do the type of work that we're going to talk about and I'll just go and sell that and I'll just get paid every time the phone rings. And it was wildly successful. Like four months later we started that company and generated tons and tons and tons of leads for everybody.

Speaker 2: 11:13

But the problem was and we were on conservative talk radio. That's where we advertised One-hour talk shows and the clients were calling me saying, hey, listen, we don't think these leads are very good. And I'm like look, they're from conservative talk radio. 35 to 65, middle to upper income. They don't like inconvenience, they have disposable income, right it's. You don't have a marketing problem, you have a sales problem. And so eventually I had to go out and start showing them what we had done with our company and how we turned those leads into gold and the the sales training side of our business just took off. So now we're the leading uh sales training company for the trades, at least for HVAC, plumbing and electrical.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Is that in North America?

Speaker 2: 11:55

Yeah, well, I don't think that. I think that North America pretty much represents the world when it comes to sales training and people like that, but, but definitely in North America there's nobody that can touch the results that we get. We literally have a guy that just came out of one of our mansion events that we hold, where we hold sales training, and this guy had never made more than 50,000. His name's Clay. Never made more than $50,000 a year and in the last two weeks, michael, he's made $18,000 in commission. Wow, yeah, like that was what he used to make in four months. But when you, when you put these principles together with ethics, morals and doing things legal, it's amazing what can actually happen for you. So that's what we do today. We take guys who are making 50, 60 grand a year and we show them how to make half a million.

Speaker 1: 12:46

So the process in between getting to the questions and I've got a lead in front of me. There are so many trades people out there you know we call them Chuck in the truck type people and you know they're all competing on price. You know it's commodity. But for someone that has a lead like yours, how do they get to the lead so that they can start asking those questions? Cause I know we can get leads a lot of different places, but how do we get their attention to talk to us so we can start asking those questions? Do you have any advice there?

Speaker 2: 13:20

Do you mean once we have secured an appointment with them and we're at the house?

Speaker 1: 13:26

Or just getting an appointment with them.

Speaker 2: 13:28

From a marketing perspective. I don't want to get too deep into the marketing side because I really don't understand a lot of the SEO and the PPC and LSA and stuff. I was a one trick pony when it came to marketing, so that would be a really difficult question for me to answer. But being in front of the client and talking about the price concern that you were talking about, that concern that you were talking about that, that really is the number one objection, isn't it? Yeah, price. They don't typically say that. They usually say something like I got to get some other quotes, I need to talk to my wife or I need to think about it. Right, and those are just all smoke screens. They're veiled price objections Like that's. Answer me this, guys if it were free, would they need to think about it? No, of course not. So it's just a veiled price objection. You've got to get that out. Once you've gotten it out that there is a price objection, you've got to be able to stand tall and defend your price. The most fortunate thing that ever happened to me was I started my sales career at the most expensive company anywhere within 100 miles of us in Michigan and that taught me really quick how to build value, and I hate that freaking term, but I'm going to give some of the people out there even some word tracks right now. So if somebody says something like hey, my neighbor got one for six grand less right? My first reaction is going to be would you like to know why more people choose us for this type of work, regardless of any difference in price? What do you think the client's going to say? They want to know. Like 85% of people buy based on perceived value, 15% or so buy based solely on price. So I'm going to, I'm going to pique their curiosity as to why other people choose us, bringing in herd and pack mentality at the same time, and I'm getting permission to brag about my company. Then I will start hitting them with features and benefits. Now, guys, this is when, again when I travel the country. This is the difference between a $2 million sales guy or a million dollar sales guy and a $5 million sales guy. A one to $2 million sales guy sells the features of whatever his company does or the product does. An experienced salesperson sells the benefits, the emotional reason, what it means to the client, those features and why we're talking about them.

Speaker 2: 15:52

You can't just say we've got 24 hour service. That's not enough, right? You've got to expand. So here's a for instance. So if they said yes, I'd like to know why you're so outrageously expensive and why people still do business with you. I'd go. Well, we're in over 5,000 homes a year in this area, which means that we know the codes, the climate, the construction of the homes. We know what works and what doesn't.

Speaker 2: 16:15

Your job won't be a testing ground or a training lab. It's going to get done right the first time, which is going to save you time and money. That's the benefit saving them time and money. We use only time-tested, field-tested parts and supplies. They work better, they last longer and they're more convenient because your system is not going to be breaking down all the time. We have 100% satisfaction guarantee, which means it's impossible to waste your money with us. I'm going to hit at least 12 features and benefits like that In the trades.

Speaker 2: 16:46

I'd say if we do background checks, we do nationwide criminal background checks. Did you know that the number one and number two trades being taught in the prisons today are plumbing and air conditioning? But with us, you, your home and your family are safe. We do drug testing. Drug-tested technicians have clearer heads, they get to the job on time more often and they have fewer callbacks, which is convenient for you, right? So I'm just going to keep hitting as many of those as I can until they either A stop me or B I run out, right, and when I run out it's time for a trial close. So if you guys don't know what a trial close, it's a question that I ask before I close, to see if it's okay to close and see whether or not we're on the same page, right. So I might say can you see now why more people choose us for this type of work, regardless of any difference in price? And if they say yes, I'm ready to close. So you want me to go ahead and take care of it for you, like, I'm going to assume it at that stage of the game.

Speaker 2: 17:41

So that's really the key to handling the price objection. Guys get permission to share why you're more expensive, be confident about it and then have a list of reasons that people do business with you and what that means to the client, why they should care, and that will help you to get that five or six grand difference, sometimes double. For instance, I just had a guy that had an $85,000 sale. The closest person to him was 35 grand less, but the client could see the difference. Right Again, people don't buy just based on price. They buy based on the perceived value that they're getting and the way that you make them feel. That's why it's so important to share why these features have a benefit and what that benefit means to them. So that's what that's what I'd say about the price objection, man.

Speaker 1: 18:34

What about you're listening to? Small business pivots? This podcast is produced by my company boss. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support, apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. Now let's get back to our special guest. The core of the show is pivots that people have made, so let's talk about a few pivots you've made.

Speaker 2: 19:10

So I saw the first conversational AI that came out through a company about 14 months ago and it was selling a pair of Oculus goggles, I think, and it was really just a demo. It really wasn't ready to do that, but I was like, wow, that's incredible. And it also scared the crap out of me because I was like this is a sales tool like that is going to grow into something that is going to be phenomenal. And so immediately I went and licensed the technology because I said I'm not gonna I'm not gonna have this thing replace me and if it replaces, I'm going to be the one programming it. Right? So essentially I took this bot that will call my customers, that will answer telephone calls. For me Sounds just like a human, I can change the voice, I can change the accent male, female, whatever and it was a real bitch first, use the language because it just kept breaking over and over and over again and it would be months that it was again and it would be months that it was broken. And there were times where I didn't feel like I was going to make it, like I had hundreds of thousands of dollars into this and promises to clients and my name was on the line. We ended up even having to change softwares, but we finally got it locked in. And so now I've got clients who have got lists of customers and they need appointments and they need me to book, let's say, a bunch of maintenance for them. And if they need 50 calls on the board today, I can go into the database. I can press a button and then my AI makes one or 10,000 telephone calls all at the same time, scheduling those appointments, links into the CRM, sees what appointments are available, books them for the time slot, and does it way faster than any human could ever do it. And so then I programmed all of my knowledge into it, all of my scripts, my whole radio show is programmed in there, and so it can go to the knowledge bank for just about any question that a client could ask. And we've got a 95% adoption rate. We actually announce when we call that it's an AI, and we didn't at first.

Speaker 2: 21:22

But after about a month I was like I wonder how this would work, and I'm a big Chris Voss fan I'm not sure if you've ever heard of him, but he's always talking about going for the no. So I programmed it to say hey, you know this is Susie from HVAC company. Please don't hang up, it's super important. I'm actually an artificial intelligence customer service, artificial intelligence that's designed to improve your experience with our company and I'm learning all the time. I can be available for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I was just wondering if you'd be opposed to me being the first person or the first contact that you have when you call in or when you need service or there's a reminder, and 95% of the people are like that's cool, right, we've been talking to machines for years.

Speaker 2: 22:04

This is just a much better machine and if a customer gets upset it'll actually get more empathetic. We've got a program to do that and it doesn't need a smoke break. It doesn't pee, doesn't that? Baby mama or baby daddy Chairs up on time? Yeah, exactly, and it'll work 24-7 for me. So those 50 appointments, I could literally book those in 5 to 10 minutes Done Like that. And we now have got it down to the cost of about half of what one human would cost inside of the business making inbound or outbound telephone calls. It replaces answering services. I mean, it's the bee's knees.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Wow, that's incredible. Wow, that's incredible. Let's talk about those early days of how you got over the hump when you were the two-person operation. I know that's frustrating for a lot of contractors. They just can't get over that hump. Can you take us back and kind of some of the things that you did and that you also see now with companies that?

Speaker 2: 23:10

Yeah. So I was fortunate when I first started because I was already a pretty good salesperson. I had trained people for other companies, large sales teams, so I was capable of going out and doing it myself without a problem. I mean I, even within the first couple of months, I had a big stack of money that was in the bank. I mean, I started with nothing. I started with $70,000 in credit card debt, but within four or five months all that was basically paid off and I had a chunk of money in the bank.

Speaker 2: 23:41

I almost started feeling bad and then my mentor was like you need to stop feeling bad. You don't have any money. I was like, well, there's $35,000 in the bank, right. And I was like, well, there's 35 grand in the bank, right. And he was like no, you don't have any money. He said you need a computer system, you need a phone system, you're going to need a bigger office, you're going to need trucks, you're going to need this, you're going to need that. And I was like, okay, I get it.

Speaker 2: 24:05

And later I ended up starting to hire people and this is where the challenge really came in. I take myself out of the field. I'm a top performer. Now I put three people in place to replace me, because it took at least three people to replace me from a sales perspective, maybe four and now I've got to pay them wages. I got to pay their all the expenses, right, and we're just not making the kind of money that we need to make. So, um, I had to fire friends that I didn't want to fire just to survive.

Speaker 2: 24:34

But the biggest thing, the biggest turning point for me, was when I had like five or six employees and I was just struggling to get them to sell, like me, and one of my mentors says Gene, your problem is that you haven't given them a process to follow.

Speaker 2: 24:51

You come in and you preach at them all morning for an hour and you're expecting them to retain it. That's not how human beings learn, that's not how they were taught to learn. You've got to put this stuff on paper, you've got to practice it with them back and forth, out loud. And so I began to write down everything that I did on a call, from start to finish, and I created that process, and one of the very first scripts that we created was the surge protector script, because it is super secular, right. It's people have heard of it before, and if I could increase somebody's faith in the process on something like that, I could probably increase their faith on the process with another product, and so getting those products and sales systems in place was what enabled us to really begin to start growing and daily training. I follow a guy named Brandon Dawson. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but he's in the Cardone world.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Okay.

Speaker 2: 25:56

And he's a scaler, business scaler. And Brandon says you're never going to find good people, you have to train them. Yeah, and isn't that the truth? I mean, as a business owner, we don't look at ourselves like this, but aren't you really a coach? Yeah and aren't you in, aren't your employees? I hate that word, but aren't your employees actually your internal customers? And who's more important, the internal customers or the external customers?

Speaker 1: 26:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Right. If we take care of the internal ones, they typically take care of the external ones. So you've got to be, you've got to have a career path for them. You've got to be able to show them how to get from where they are to where they want to be. And your dream's got to be what it's got to be big enough for all of their dreams to fit inside of it. So some of you might need to expand your dream a little bit so that you got room for other people's dreams inside of your dreams.

Speaker 1: 26:54

That's a great point, because that's probably the number one challenge I hear from contractors today is attracting and retaining employees.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Yeah Well, guess what? After four technicians, I started hiring people from outside the trades. Completely. I mean, I was tired of trying to fix other people's bad habits and so if you could change a tire on a car or change the oil on your car and you gave me good customer service and you were one of my servers, I was recruiting you and I was showing you how to make two and three and four times more money than you'd ever made in your life. So that would be another massive tip Stop packing your lunch.

Speaker 2: 27:39

Go out to restaurants. Don't go to the cheap ones. Go to the good ones and find people who provide the best customer service. Even ask the hostess who is the best server that you got? Who's it that everybody raves about? And get that person to start serving you. Build a relationship with. I have people now that I recruited that were my server on my date nights, who are business owners now doing millions and millions and millions of dollars in business. So, and always be recruiting. Spend a third of your time doing it, because as you skill people up, some of them are going to leave you, some of them are you're going to create other business owners, and that's just part of it. Be happy for them. Be happy that you contributed enough to their lives to where they can do that, and that's just part of it. Be happy for them. Be happy that you contributed enough to their lives to where they can do that and maybe give them help, maybe partner with them. Consider that.

Speaker 1: 28:30

Yeah, that's a great reminder because many of the successful business owners that we've had on the show that are doing big, big money hundreds of millions of dollars most of their time is spent on culture, building people up. They set the standard when they founded the company and now they spend a lot of their time keeping to that standard and continuing to grow above it. In fact, one of our guests even said that your culture is a 90-day experience on the employee side. So every day that you let that culture slip is another day. You're having to work harder to get it back to that night because it's an experience. It's not those words you put on the wall, and that all comes from the owner, like you said.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Losing momentum in any area is bad for the company.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Yeah Well, with you being in the trades. What are some other areas of topics that you could help us with today?

Speaker 2: 29:25

Oh goodness gracious. Well, let's talk about bringing people into alignment when they're not doing. You know, early we talked about how it's difficult to manage people. But people can follow a process and we can manage a process. So, for instance, I have a software tool that my guys are supposed to log into and they're supposed to watch 20 minutes worth of videos every single morning and answer multiple choice test questions at the end before they go see any client. Right, they're supposed to train before they go to see any client. That's part of the culture. It's part see any client. That's part of the culture. It's part of the rules. It's part of what we do. It's who we are.

Speaker 2: 30:07

So we sharpen that sword before we go out to cut lumber. And if a technician's not doing that because I get reports on the back end, that's important too. You need to inspect what you expect, right, if you're not inspecting what you expect, how are you ever going to get better? But I will look at those reports and I'll go oh, johnny's not doing his training, johnny's not getting the number hours in. Johnny's supposed to be getting in Now. Do I just fire Johnny or do I bring him in for coaching, since I'm a coach? So I'll call Johnny up and I'll go hey, johnny, I won't do it in the middle of the day because I don't want to tweak him out and I don't want to mess up his sales. That hurts everybody, right. But at the end of the day, when I find out he's done dispatch, lets me know. I'll call him up and go hey, johnny, how was your day? Pretty good, boss. How are you? I'm doing great. Man. Listen, I need to see you in the morning. I know we normally conversation with you, but just meet me there at six. Well, what's going on, boss? Don't worry about it. I don't want to talk about it tonight. We'll just talk about it in the morning. Now he's got to sit with that all night, right? So he comes in at six o'clock in the morning, sits across the desk from me and I'm like hey.

Speaker 2: 31:15

So the reason that I've got you in here is because you know that it's part of our culture and our process and part of your responsibility to be doing training for 20 minutes a day before you see your customers. Yes or no? Yes, it is, and I can see on the report here that that hasn't been happening, correct? Yeah, it's not been happening. I'm not going to ask you why it hasn't been happening, because it doesn't really matter, right, but I want you to do your training this morning.

Speaker 2: 31:39

Before anybody gets in here, let's make up what you missed and look, if you don't do your training again and I have to call you back in here, what do you suppose is going to happen? And they usually go probably going to get fired. And I'll go. No, I'm not going to get fired. What are you talking about? You think I'm the Gestapo or something? No, I'm going to bring get fired. What are you talking about? You think I'm the Gestapo or something? No, I'm going to bring you in for more coaching, just like this. Okay, right, so I'm not. I'm not beating him with a stick, but it is something that's unpleasant.

Speaker 2: 32:14

They have been worrying about it all night, wondering whether or not they got a job. They come in, I ask them questions, get them to come to their own conclusion that they need to be doing what we're supposed to be doing, and then I set up some expectations, right, and let them know that there's going to be consequences. You're going to have to get up an hour early and come in here and face me again. Yeah, and that was such a great lesson that I got from somebody else of how to be a coach, rather than, you know, beating people up because we're so frustrated a lot of times. Business owners aren't we? Aren't you dealing with a million fires every day? And now I got to tell Johnny again to do his training. Why do I have to tell Johnny so many times to do his training?

Speaker 2: 32:57

And it reminds me of John Maxwell's book, the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. He's like we get irritated that we got to tell people things over and over again, but that's a leader's job. A leader's job is to remind people to do things until they do them and to help coach them to do them right. So get out of here. Get it out of your mind that people are just going to have a magical switch one day and you're not going to have to remind people of stuff. Get used to it, become a better coach, become a better leader and also have some empathy for people.

Speaker 2: 33:32

I mean, aren't we all going through our own story? Aren't we all going through things that we keep from other people? You don't know what people are carrying right. So that's another tip. You know how about you ask your people how they're doing. How about you take them out to lunch every once in a while individually and just ask them what their goals are and how close they are and whether or not there's a plan, and how about you set up a plan to help them hit their goals right? It's really hard to get a happy employee to leave. Really hard.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Yeah, yeah. I often say that a business owner that has challenges, he or she either created them or allowed them.

Speaker 2: 34:13

Sometimes we get bored and we'll create stuff, mess stuff up just to fix it. I know.

Speaker 1: 34:17

Or just say that's okay, I'd rather do that than have to battle the demon. And so until they change, nothing around them changes. So what would you say is a good starting point for those contractors? You know, because most contractors work somewhere else. They're like I can do this better. I'm tired of putting up with the crap over here and then they go over here and they deal with the same crap. Where could they start?

Speaker 2: 34:43

The old entrepreneurial seizure. Yes, start, where do you mean start?

Speaker 1: 34:51

With leadership, like where can they go? Where would you say is a good starting place for somebody like that, that they just have the contractor skill set, mental mindset and they want to get into some leadership and coaching so they can be better? Where would you say is a good spot for those people?

Speaker 2: 35:09

I think that every owner of a business should be as good of a salesperson as they possibly can. I learned so much becoming a salesperson and dealing with people inside of sales and how to listen to people. That's a big key. A good salesperson is not a good talker, he's a good listener, right? So I would focus all of my effort on finding a really good, ethical sales mentor and try to become as good at communicating with people as humanly possible.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Second thing, from a leadership perspective, I wouldn't call myself the best leader, right, but I did read a great book that I mentioned earlier, by John Maxwell, called the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Read it and listen to it. I typically listen to most of my books, but I really, really liked that book and I think that if you followed the principles that John Maxwell's laid out, there's not really anybody else that I could say is a better leader than that man. So find the people that are best in those areas and just listen to them, just do what they say. And, last thing about that, don't go too wide.

Speaker 2: 36:23

I have friends that that like they listened to too many people. Uh, grant Cardone taught us that you, if you're gonna, if you're gonna have a mentor, try to learn everything you can about that person and everything that they've done. Like, go deep into that person's life. You want to learn about Walt Disney, go deep into his life, ben Franklin, whoever but try to learn as much as you can from that person rather than being so scattered, if that makes any sense. So I would find one or two mentors, maybe three tops, and that had something that I wanted in their life in different areas, like I wanted my life to be that way, like maybe I have a marriage mentor, maybe I'd have a business mentor, maybe I'd have a financial mentor, but that's what comes to my mind when you ask that question.

Speaker 1: 37:12

Well, I want to remind our listeners every week, our guests, at some point in the show or another they say a mentor or a coach. So it's just so valuable it's. It's almost impossible to figure this thing out alone because you're going to be six foot under by the time you even get close to doing that. So I appreciate you sharing that. Can you kind of recap your company, so exactly what it does and how you can help our listeners?

Speaker 2: 37:42

Before I do that, can I just piggyback on something you just said? Absolutely One of my mentors is Les Brown, and if you guys haven't heard of him you've got to look him up. But Les Brown is famous for saying no man is an island. We ask for help not because we're weak, but because we want to remain strong. So ask for help and don't stop until you get it. There are people out there, successful people, like helping other people. That's how they got there, Okay, so a lot of them will help you for free. Just ask for the help and use the free help until they tell you listen, dog, you're going to start paying me.

Speaker 1: 38:24

Hey, well, I'll share a story. When I first, the way I learned how important mentoring was was here in our city. They had used to in the paper when it came out on Sundays, they had the business person of the week and it was somebody that was featured that was successful. I didn't know who these people were and I was like you know, I was in, I had owned my business for maybe a year and a half and I was like this this has got to go. Something's got to change. So I just started reaching out to these people random people, successful, featured in a paper and said hey, I saw your article. I'm a brand new business owner. I have no clue what I'm doing. Would you help me?

Speaker 1: 38:59

Yeah, I was never turned down once In fact almost all of them said I won't tell you what to do, but I will tell you what not to do. They came from that angle, almost every one of them, but none of them told me no. So for all you listeners, people want to help. It doesn't have to be a coach that you pay to start with, but at least find somebody.

Speaker 2: 39:18

Yeah, a hundred percent. So, wrapping up what you asked about, um, we are, at least in my opinion, the number one sales training company for HVAC, plumbing and electrical in the country. We're famous for taking people who are making 50 grand a year a hundred grand a year and doubling and tripling that in like 60 days or less. It's not difficult. We just have to know what not to do, like what you were just saying earlier. If you wanted to find me, all you would have to do is just go to the Google and type in Gene Slade. There will be plenty of articles from places that I'm sure that you guys have heard of in the past. So G-E-N-E-S-L-A, l, a, d, e and most of my socials are at Jean Slade.

Speaker 1: 40:08

Fantastic. Well, I always end with a question, and that is if you were in a room of all kinds of business owners, all seasons of business life, everything else, what is something you could share that's applicable to all of them?

Speaker 2: 40:22

You know this might sound like copycat, but you said quotes right. Zig Ziglar and Ed Foreman both made famous the quote that you can have anything in life that you've ever wanted if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. And also, more importantly, people don't care what you know until they know that you care about them. If you can genuinely care about people, this is one of the this is a, this is a superpower If you can just really go about your day in sales loving people, not like loving to be around them, but like loving that person that's across the table from you, not thinking about what you're getting out of this deal or your commission or anything like that. Don't ever think about the commission that you're going to make while you're with a client. Just show them that you care, do actually care about them, and they will share their wealth with you. I promise you. People don't care what you know until they know that you care about them. Wow, that's how I'd end it Words of wisdom.

Speaker 1: 41:31

Well, Jean, you've been a blessing to many and a wealth of information. Appreciate you taking the time to share with our listeners today.

Speaker 2: 41:38

Thank you for the platform. I do appreciate it as well.

Speaker 1: 41:41

My pleasure day. Thank you for the platform. I do appreciate it as well. My pleasure. Thank you for listening to small business pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company boss. Our business is growing. Yours. Boss offers flexible business loans with business coaching support, apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.