Training Newbies Into Confident Closers Who Stick Around: 3 Secrets

When training a new person from outside the industry, what are the top two or three points that we need to train them on so they succeed and they stick around and have confidence? Alright, Top three things. They need to have clarity on their goals, period. This business is not for someone who is not goal oriented. If you just think that you're going to show up for work every day and put in an effort without chasing something, you will fail or you'll be broke and then fail. People in this business are successful because they're chasing something bigger than themselves. They want to achieve more and set a new benchmark. So if the benchmark is not there, it doesn't exist. Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. Great. Read another one. Obviously on the mindset side. What was that? Can you get my copy? Maybe. We'll see. Say something smart later. We'll do it. He did say something smart earlier. So thing number one is having a goal. All right? In this business. Again, think of the times. How many days have you had that you just wanted to quit, go home and drink instead of be at work? Let's be real, raise your hand. Has that happened to you? Have you ever had a day that you're like, hey, this really sucks. So here's the truth. And then I'm going to get to the other, the other two pieces. Money is only so much, but it is the reason that the majority of people come into this business. People don't come into this business because they're excited to go knock on a stranger's door. And they're not getting into this business because they're passionate about roofs. They're getting into this business like I did and like most people do, which is the rug got ripped out from under me, I'm broke and I need to make a change or I have nowhere else to go. I'm unemployable. The roofing industry will take me. That's how most people come into it. And when we're broke, money is all that matters. And then once we make money, money doesn't matter that much. It's called the hedonic treadmill. I talk about it in my book. The hedonic treadmill is once we adapt and get used to a certain lifestyle, it becomes normal. And they've studied this with folks that have gone from homeless to saying, hey, if I just had a clean bed every night, everything would be fine. And they get a clean bed. If only I had my own place, everything would be fine. They get their own place. If only I had a more Stable job that paid better. They get it. If only I had a car to get to work. They get it. If only I could afford to buy my house. They get it. If only I could afford to remodel the kitchen. They get it. Again, this is the hedonic treadmill. So there are days that are going to occur where that person, once they achieve that income goal or are on track, the number. In the past, inflation changed. It used to be about 73, excuse me, $75,000 a year. Again, adjust for living costs. And wherever you live, once you're at that point, someone's going to have a bad day and they're going to pull up at the neighborhood. They're going to have had their teeth kicked in. They're going to have. They're gonna have had the crew call. Cause they left a bottle of pee on the driveway. And the homeowner's angry about that. They're gonna have some other failure. They got a flat tire, and they're gonna be like, screw this. I don't wanna get out of my door and go to work today. And there needs to be a deeper why. Which brings me to number two, having a deeper why. The exercise that I like to walk people through is this. I ask a salesperson, how much money do you wanna make? Okay, how much money do you want to make? And then I have them write it down in the goal. I have made X amount by this date. Once they write that down, I ask them this next question. Why do you want to make that much? If they can't answer that question, they do not have a why. We go deeper. Don't worry. I did this to a gentleman. He says to me, adam, I want to earn $450,000 a year. That's my goal. And I was like, that's really specific. Like, I feel like if you were that close to half a million, dude, just punch it to 500,000. You know, why are we stopping at 450? And I said, well, why? Why do you want to make 450,000? And he goes, well, I've never made that much. So my next question was, well, what was the most you've ever made? And he said, 60,000. And I was like, that's a leap. It's a really big leap. But I'm a dreamer. I'm all for moonshots. Like, I'm not judging him. But then I asked him again this next question. Why is that so important to you? And he stared at me like a deer in the headlights. Do you think he hit 450 that year? No. Hell no, he didn't. So question number one. How much money do you want to make? Why do you want to make that much? And then why is that so important to you? Another answer from someone else who also said 450. This was at a different event. This was a company I trained in Denver said something like this. How much do you want to make? 450. Why? Why do you want to make 450? Because I didn't have the stability of a house and comfort as a kid growing up. And I want to provide that to my kids. I want to be able to purchase a home. I want to be able to save money to put my kids through college and pay off all my debt. And I want to be able to buy my parents a house. And why is that so important to you? Because I really want to give back. Soccer was the number one thing that kept me grounded in life. And I know that there are kids out there that can't play soccer, especially traveling because they can't afford it. So I want to start a non profit soccer league that will allow kids to play traveling soccer regardless of their income. Who do you think is going to have an easier time on the Friday afternoon after they had a crap week actually going to work versus going to sit at the bar? Yeah. Second guy. So that's thing number two. Thing number three, role play. The reason that I gave you this list of these three things. Number one is the goal. Number two is the why. Number three is role play is when we talk about training. I could say train on this, train on that. But everyone's going to pick things up differently. There's some people that will pick up pitching at the door really quick. There's some people that have no problem with objections. Others are going to freeze like a deer in the headlights. Some people cannot follow a process when it comes to presenting. Others are really detail oriented and they just need it. Word. Word. But the only way that they're going to excel in sales is through practice. And if they think that they can practice in the real world, what they realize is they're having better odds here at this casino because they're gambling with their livelihood. Every time they go out to a house and they just try to make it work, they're gambling with their livelihood. Because who in this room is the primary breadwinner of your household? Most hands go up. If your hand did not go up, you married very well. Nice. Nice work. Most of us are the primary breadwinner in our household, which Means the income depends on us. So if we don't practice every time we go out in the real world and we screw up, we're taking food out of our loved ones mouths and we're literally letting customers take money out of our pocket. So we do role play to practice. Role play. When you talked about building confidence, role play is where people are not confident. Make people comfortable in the hardest situation, which is in role play, and they quickly become comfortable. I do role play with my team. I do role play when I'm out with companies training and the role play that I teach, which is in my system. But I'll share the high level details. Number one, keep it short. Just like in repetitions, if you're weightlifting or training, you have a short focused repetition. Tip number two, you don't let someone respond. So if Miha and I are doing role play on the objection, I have to think about it. I have to, I'm going to say hey Micha, I have to think about it. All I want is for Micha to respond like that. That's it. It doesn't matter what I say back because I'm trying to build in the repetition of that muscle memory of learning how to respond to the objection. And then tip number three is we do an after action report. So I'll pause, be like, miha, what'd you do well? What could you do better next time? Team, what did he do well? What could he do better next time? Then I coach him through the same and then we repeat. And when we practice those three things, having a goal, having a why, and doing practice, that's how we build confidence and a clear vision of what they need to accomplish.