DON'T Hire a Mentor, Be Your Own!

This one simple exercise will get you becoming your own mentor. So throw out the whole garbage you read online. I need a mentor. You might, and they're good, they're helpful, but really, really, the first thing you need to learn is to be your own mentor, be your own coach. And in fact, in my opinion, the best mentors and the best coaches teach you to be your own mentor and coach. Otherwise, what they're doing is just handcuffing you to writing them checks over and over again. So skip that and learn how to be your own coach. That way, when you do hire, if you decide to, and not everyone will even need to, you're going to know that you're able to coach yourself and mentor yourself in a way that is far more powerful than anyone can do for you. Now, if you're someone who's new to the business, maybe you're not flush with cash quite yet and you want a mentor, this is for you. If you're an owner or manager of a team and wanting to create this culture where people are coaching themselves, they this is for you. And if you're someone who just wants to be the absolute best at what you do and always be improving, then this exercise is for you. And I know it's a tall claim, but I think it could truly have the power to transform your life. It has mine. I do it. Every single speaking event that I do, I do them beyond just speaking events. And everyone on our team submits these to me every single Friday. So without further ado, let's jump right in and get to the nitty gritty of. Of learning to be your own coach, be your own mentor by following a stupid, simple exercise that I'm going to teach you right now. First, I just want to say a quick welcome or welcome back. My name is Adam Bensman, the roof strategist, and everything that I do here on this channel is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. So why do I do what I do? I do this because in my estimation, about 66% of roofing salespeople quit or get fired in their very first year. And the main reason for that is they weren't equipped to succeed. Succeed. And I want to help change that. So let's get started. Now, before I teach you this exercise, I just want to tell you a story. It's actually quite an embarrassing story. Now, I was at this bar one time back in my drinking days, and I no longer drink alcohol. And it'll be pretty clearly evident as to why as you hear this story now, I'm not someone who will sing. Like, in fact, my own voice scares me. You'll never catch me singing in the shower, driving or doing anything. I hate it. But. But I had enough liquid courage one night. I drank a ton of vodka, was out of this bar, and this song came on. And I had enough liquid courage that I thought, karaoke is a good idea. Tonight that song goes on. And I remember flying out of my chair, running up on stage and grabbing that mic. And I'm just getting into my song like a rock star, eyes closed. I'm loving it. Oh, yeah. And then I opened my eyes and this wave of pure embarrassment washed over me. That table that I was sitting at, the card table set up at karaoke, I had flipped it. When I got up, I was so drunk, I had no idea. All the glass bottles, mixed drinks that people got were shattered on the ground beneath it. Liquid was everywhere. The tablecloth was brushed off to the side in a mixture of glass, beer and mixed cocktails. Chairs were strewn apart and people were swarming over to mop up the mess that I was oblivious to because I was up there singing on that microphone. And my friend, the same thing can happen to you inside the house. Do you know what I mean? Those times where we get blinders on, we lose our levels of self awareness. So this exercise I'm going to teach you is to get those blinders off of you so you can learn to be your own coach and see yourself. So here I am, right? I'm going to see myself from this third party perspective so I can, in real time, almost like watching game tape, be my own coach and be my own mentor. So make sense. Let's rock and roll. What I'm going to teach you is what's known as an after action report. And what we do is we use this exercise every day in the field once we're done selling. And if you don't want to do it daily, I'm okay with weekly. In fact, getting started. The more you do it, the better. But if you did this every Friday, you're going to have a leg up on your competition. Now watch how it goes. The simple practice to be your own mentor. In fact, I actually went through this in a similar exercise with our newest team member. Her name is Kennedy. We were out in Scottsdale just yesterday and she was writing some things down. She said, I'm done. And I challenged her. She ended up getting 75% more. Let's rock and roll. I'll show you how. So first things first, on Friday, what I'm going to do is write this word down. Well, well, what did I do well? And what I'm going to do here is I'm going to write down every single thing that I did well that week. I'll give you a few examples. One thing I did well is I planned my day the night before planning. The next thing that I did well is I hit all my follow ups. Okay. The next thing that I did well was my presentation inside the house. And then the list goes on. This is your time to focus on what you did well. Do not start elsewhere. It's very important. We start here. Now, the other piece, I want you to go as deep as you can. Why? Because you're going to find golden nuggets. Like, why was your presentation so good? Actually, it was how I transitioned. I used the new virtual presentation we're using on the iPad. And the more you focus on what you did well, it's easier to keep that momentum going. And you know, oh, I do more of that. And we always focus on the negative first. But it's garbage. You need to focus on what you did well so you can enhance it. So I write that column first. Then I'm going to write my next column, which is what I could do better. Next time now is where you give yourself that critique. Hey, better. I didn't handle objections at the end. I got stumped. All right. Better. I didn't have great time management. I really wish I structured my schedule better. Oops. Put time schedule. Because I was talking time management. One thing that I could do better is closing. At the end of my presentation. I didn't get my closing questions right. For example. And I'm going to go through this list in great detail of what I could do better. Oh, how about this? Like my intro in the house. If I could just build a little bit more rapport, I'm going to even put that down rapport. That would really, really help spending some more time. You know what? I didn't ask enough questions in the beginning. And I think if I ask questions and built rapport had a good intro. That way when I'm in the home next time I'm going to feel really sharp so I can sell them with my presentation that I did really good at and I'll keep doing this, but I'm going to improve on my questions. Rapport. Building my intro on the house leading up to my presentation so I can cater my presentation to those needs. And you see, now I start Thinking about how to piece it together. So first again, the list of everything you did well and exhaust it. It'll take time. When you think you're done, you're not. You're just getting started. Go again, sit in the quiet, then go through everything you did better. Next, we're going to create a plan. So what I might do is I look at this and I'm going to say, alright, so I see my questions, my report and intro to the house. I need to now convert these things that I wish I did better into a plan. Here's my plan. I my rapport. I'm going to spend two minutes on building rapport by finding common ground. Building rapport. And I'll just say common ground for two minutes. Okay, there's an action plan. This is an idea. This is a plan. Do you see the difference? I'm taking a concept and putting into something I can actually bring to life in the real world, then that's building rapport. Then in my discovery I'm going to ask questions. But what questions am I going to ask? Example, where are you at in the process? How many estimates have you received? Why did you call us? Okay, what's the problem with your roof? These are questions that I can ask to further understand where they are. Where are you at in the process? How many estimates you received? What's the problem? Why did you call us? Alright then I'm going to focus on these. And now that's my core focus. In fact, I don't even need a third one because my intro on the house gets covered. I'm building rapport and asking those questions. Now all I do is now I come into my next week on Monday I'm going to review this plan. I'm going to say, alright, building rapport. In this week's presentations, I'm going to spend more time building rapport and finding common ground for two minutes forward. Family, occupation, recreation, dreams. Learning to like our customers. So those, those compliments land with authenticity and don't like them, love them. They're people, they need help, they need your help. And then I'm going to ask these questions. That's my plan. I've become my own coach and I'll self reflect what I did. Well, I nailed my presentation and I nailed my follow up and I had great planning a day. If I can keep keep doing these and do this better, boom, next week is going to be great. And then what am I going to do? I'm going to repeat on Friday and before you know it, you've become your own coach and your own mentor on a world of perpetual improvement. Each and every day you're going to gamify your growth and as you level up your skill sets as your own coach because no one else is giving you this feedback. No one else is in your truck with you. No one else is in that house with you as much as you are there. You learn to see yourself from this perspective. Focus on what you did well to do more of it first, what you can do better. Turn it into a plan, rinse, repeat, and before you know it, you're going to watch your income double or the income of your team. So there you have it. The After Action report done weekly and if you want to go gangbusters, do it daily. Now I'd love to hear from you. Do you do after action reports? What do you think of this exercise? Drop a comment below and share it with me. Well, that's all for this video. Thanks for joining me today. If you like this video and you want more, jump into my free training center right here. Or text the word free to 303-222-7133 or hang with me here on YouTube. YouTube thinks you're really going to love this video and I'll see you in the next one.