Why Your Roofing Reps Quit in 90 Days (It's Not Training or Money)

This is how you build a purpose-driven team. So if you are tired of the revolving door of salespeople coming and going and your team's not performing at the level that you think they should be, it often starts inside something deeper. Now, in this interview with Dr. Gary Sanchez, we're gonna break down what it takes to build a purpose-driven team so you can drive peak performance, have a lot of meaning at your work, but most importantly, get a team that actually sticks around. Dr. Gary Sanchez worked with me personally and he got nothing from being here. I invited him on this interview because of how much value he brought to my team, my people, and even presenting inside RSRA. Dr. Gary Sanchez watched the famous TED Talk by Simon Sinek that starts with why, and even though he was a dentist at the time, he didn't really know what his why was. Now, he ended up working personally with Simon Sinek to develop what is now known as the YOS, discovery tool, part of the Why Institute, and he's bringing those learnings and insights here to help you get a deep learning about who you are at your core and what makes you tick. This is a longer interview and it's a little bit of a departure from the normal tactics and strategies, but if you're looking for soft skills to focus on building a powerful culture in a purpose-driven team, this interview is for you. So let's rock and roll. Gary, roofing companies struggle with high churn. Tons of churn. And a lot of owners have this mindset like, hey, I did it, I figured it out, so can you. And what that leads to is this revolving door of salespeople. And what everybody wants is a high-performing team that attracts top talent where people stick around and they grow. In the best companies that I know, they say that they run like a personal development company that just happens to be roofing. So what I'm hearing from you is that what you mean by this is a purpose-driven company. I just wanna start, what is a purpose-driven company and why is it so important?

Well, why don't we, you want me to share my screen and just kind of jump into that right off the bat?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's focus on building a purpose-driven team.

Yeah, let's do that. So, you know, purpose is what the world sees, right? You have a purpose as a spouse, a purpose as a, like let's just say a father purpose as a leader, a purpose at your church or different location, other things that you do with your life. But all of that comes from one why. What is your why? And so that's where we start is helping people figure out what is my why. That concept has been around forever, right? You've heard Tony Robbins or Simon Sinek or many other motivational Gurus talk about, you gotta know your why, right? But actually figuring it out and knowing it is another thing completely. So as you know, Adam Bensman, the, the software that I developed actually finds your why and goes even deeper, finds your why, your how, and your what, and builds your own personal message for you. Mm-hmm. So you know who you are because it gives you the words to tell the world exactly who you are from that perspective. And then once you know that, then things like finding your passion, your purpose, your direction, building your messaging, marketing, building your team becomes a whole lot easier. And that's where purpose comes in, right? So what we said was purpose is what the world sees, but the why is where it comes from. And so purpose-driven companies grow 3 times faster than competitors. Says the Harvard Business Review, right? Purpose-connected training drives 23% higher profitability. Teams with a shared purpose are 2 times more likely to outperform financial targets. Employees who find work meaningful are 2.8 more time— 2.8 times more likely to be highly engaged, which is what you want, and they're 4 times more likely to stay. So, To sum it up, purpose creates faster growth, higher profit, higher performance, higher engagement, longer lasting teams. And I think that's probably what your tribe would like to have. Is that right, Adam?

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, the RSRA, the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, is about purpose. We are a purpose. We're on a mission to stomp the scum out. We're a community of folks who By the way, I refined a lot of my messaging after working with you, where we challenge the status quo together, we solve daily challenges in the trenches, and we find better ways to grow. And I wouldn't have, like, I refined my messaging through taking the YOS, which by the way is why you're here. Like, we met at an event, at a Genius Network event, and started talking and you kind of forced my hand to take this assessment. And I learned I'm one of those people doesn't like to be told what to do. I did it anyway and it was great. So let's get back to this. Let's get back.

Hold on. Hold on. I'm not letting you off the hook yet. I'm not gonna let you off the hook. Let's let your people get to know you from that perspective. So let's go back to that. So Adam's why is to challenge the status quo and think differently. He doesn't want to follow the typical traditional path. He doesn't want to draw inside the lines. He wants to think outside the box. Push limits and imagine extraordinary, right? So does that feel right to you, Adam?

I mean, it's spot on. Yeah.

So we can count on Adam to not be a very good employee, um, and not want to show up on time and he wants to do things his own way. Who says we have to do it that way? Let's think outside the box.

Although I do show up on time. I hate people that are late. It drives me crazy.

Okay. There we go. Now, how you go about doing that though is by making sense of the complex and challenging. What that tells us is that Adam is very good at solving complex and challenging problems. The more complex, the better. And so he's usually a step ahead of us and almost, if he's not being humble, has to dumb himself down to let us catch up because he figures things out really, really fast. And then ultimately what he brings is a better way to move forward. So he finds, he thinks outside the box, solves the problem, and then finds a better way and shares it with the people in his tribe. And I can imagine that's what all of you that are listening to this have seen in him over the years, pushing limits, solving problems, finding better ways. And how does that feel to you, Adam?

I mean, it, I, when, when you first shared this with me after I took the YOS assessment or discovery, I was like, I feel like you just described exactly who we are as an organization. Because that is my purpose. It starts, you know, when you talked about starting with why, I feel like I've built a purpose-driven organization and it's a community. And that's literally exactly what we do. And now in my videos, for folks that are watching this interview, you'll probably notice that this language, you'll see, hey, Adam started saying that in videos right before this one published. You're seeing it in emails. Hey, we're the community where we're solving complex problems together, right? Where we're challenging the status quo and finding better ways to grow. So it, it, it is, uh, absolutely spot on.

Let me add a little bit to that now. There's almost no question that I could ask you, Adam, that you couldn't answer from the perspective of your why, how, and what, or them individually. So like, why should I choose you? Well, if you're looking to think differently, If you're looking to solve complex problems that you have and you wanna find a better way, well then I'm the guy for you.

Yeah.

Because that's how I think. That's what you're gonna get when you work with us. And think about how easy it has made your messaging. Before this, it is challenging to come up with messaging for your company. Mm-hmm. With it, it becomes very easy. It's the essence of why someone would choose you. It's the essence of what you say on your website, what you say in person, what you say when you meet with clients or customers. It gives you the confidence to say it just like you are now, right? You're, it's gonna show up everywhere because it's authentic to you. And that's typically a very hard thing to do. Yeah. Now imagine knowing that for every one of your team members. Mm-hmm. So that, you know, who you have on your team and where to place them, where they're gonna love doing, love what you have them doing. So let's go back to you, Adam. You show up, let's say, uh, let's say you're showing up at my business and you fill out an application to work at my office or my business, and you write on that application, good with numbers. Wonderful. Adam is going to be our new bookkeeper. He's going to be sitting in that cubicle right over there, crunching numbers. Because he is good at numbers. How's that going to work for you?

Not going to do well at all. Yes. Especially folks that have tuned into the channel that have been around a bit know that I've screwed up math on the fly and it's not my forte. But yeah, and no, don't put me in a box.

That's the whole thing. If we put you in a box doing the same thing every day, how's that going to work for you?

Yeah. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

What if we stuck you there for a year?

I wouldn't last a day, Gary. Let's not go there.

But there are people that feel stuck in a position where they don't love what they're doing.

Yeah.

And if you put them there for any length of time, a year, let's say they're there for 5 years within your company and they need the paycheck and they're working hard, but they hate it. What do you think that does to them emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, all that kind of stuff? If you put somebody in the wrong spot.

Yeah, it's crippling.

It's crippling. And then they start to think something is wrong with them. What's wrong with me? Why can't I do what they're asking me to do? Why can't I just be the team player? Why can't I? Why can't I? Right? And then it becomes this whole mental— a whole lot of stuff happens. Let's just put it that way.

Yeah. You know, it was really interesting when you came in to present at RSRA Inside the Community, and a lot of our members took the YOS discovery. I did, our whole team did. You had shared, which we may end up getting to today, a kind of a high level, like, hey, here's a snapshot of a team with each person's name, the position they're in, and then their Y profile. And, uh, Mike, our, our general manager, within minutes just shared that with our team. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is beautiful. And I know like how to, to coach, encourage, what position. I knew that Melissa on our team, I need to give her some more room to, to, 'cause she ha— is also a challenge. Uh, why? And, and giving her some more room to do that, which has led to deeper conversations. So I'd love to continue this on like getting into helping people discover their purpose, but also putting the pieces together to build a purpose-driven team that folks really rally behind. 'Cause that's the difference I see of like a company that, gosh, this is gonna sound so callous, but it's almost soulless in a way to the company that is just a magnet. And you, you walk in and you can feel the magic in the room. The people, like they're just, they're sinking and they're performing. So where do we go from here? And by the way, you can command me to, to share your screen anytime.

Share my screen again. Let's go there. Let's go. Because I wanna show you how easy this can be. So let, let's talk about, Team YOS, the YOS of your team. And what that looks like is this. This is what you were talking about right here. So you're going to create a matrix for your team that has who they are, what they do, what's their why, how, and what. And then you can very quickly see, do we have the right people in the right place doing the things they love or do we not? And if you don't, that doesn't mean you have to move them right away. But ultimately, if you can put them in a place where they're going to love it, So, so that's a big point, Adam. Mm-hmm. There's a big difference between being able to do something and loving what you do.

Right.

And so maybe there's a time in your business career where you just gotta have a warm body there. Right? And so you just gotta have somebody there to, to do whatever it is. But ultimately, you wanna work towards a place where you have the right people in the right place, doing the right thing, so they love what they do. And if you can build your whole team that way, man, it makes work so much more fun for everybody. For you as a leader, think of how much easier it is to be a leader. If you're somebody that's struggling with being that leader of your organization and you don't really like it and you, you don't, because you just don't feel like you know what you're doing. If you just start with figuring out who do I have on my team and how do I talk to them in a way that they want to be talked to and how do I put 'em in a position where they're gonna love doing it? If that's all you did, man, that would make such a big difference for your company.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, plus it is, uh, more rewarding. I mean, I, I love when I see my people just in the zone doing their best work in a fulfilling, like the There's nothing more rewarding than having someone sit down and share with pride what they just did, what they built, the initiative, the project, the result, and being like, this was it, this was magic. And knowing that it came from within in a really beautiful way. And you'll see, especially when running sales teams, the salesperson that will celebrate the win of winning a new customer, right? They got the big deal in the bag, so to speak. But the next one, his win and his celebration, because his language is, let's say, more from a contribute path, and they're celebrating the big win of helping the retiree get their roof approved and covered by insurance and save them this huge out-of-pocket expense. And anyway, so everyone's got their different performance love language in a way. Yes. And when you know that, when the leader knows that, to be able to support, give acknowledgement and praise, and put people in a lane, inspiring them through the language that matters. And just recently I was talking to a CEO of a $60 million a year roofing company, and he says, man, in the past, like, I used to just run these events and it was like, here's how you can make money in roofing. And I realized like, no one cares. And it's funny, that's not what it would, it would fires me up. It's our values. It's how we improve our family, our lives. Our, um, uh, the skill sets that we develop. So I love that. But anyway, uh, back, back to, uh, back to Purpose Driven Teams.

Yes. Yes. So let's just say, well, you don't know me and you look at me right now and you look at my hat and what I'm wearing and what's in the background. You'll create a narrative around what you think you see. Mm-hmm. And then that's who I am to you, right? We all do that. Mm-hmm. What somebody's wearing, you know, all the, all the things, what they're driving, all those kinds of things. Go into the narrative that we create for them, and then that's who they are and that's how we're gonna treat them. And then what typically happens is we speak to them from the perspective of how we say things, right? Well, this is how I would do it. This is what I think you should say, or this would, but that's oftentimes not as valuable as being able to speak to them in the way that they see things, right? The way that they look at it. Their language, and like you said, it's kinda like their business love language. Mm-hmm. So what the YOS will do is give you a playbook for how to talk to your team members in a way that they're going to enjoy the interaction as well as understand it.

Yeah.

You know, it, that's when you can connect on a, on a much more profound level, much faster, where you can make better connections faster when you have this information right in front of you. And you've already experienced this.

Yeah. Yeah, I have. And in fact, I've got mine pulled up. I've got it on my other screen here. But we've got a mix. What's interesting, I am Challenge, founder, CEO. Co-founder, COO, my wife Sheena is Right Way. Melissa, who's my EA and runs our customer support, is also Challenge. John, who's our CMO, CTO, is Make Sense. Lorena, who's our video editor, is Better Way. Matt Poole, who's our VP of Membership, is Make Sense. And Mike Dudley, our manager, is Contribute. And it, it, I feel like we've got a really stacked lineup here.

You do. And if you could bring it up, do you want to try to bring it up on the screen here? And I'll, we'll go, we'll look at it. And I can tell you where you're gonna, um, where you're gonna do really, really well.

Yeah.

And where there might be some potential challenges.

And it's, it is, uh, it's, it's, uh, perfect. It's perfect. But go ahead. I think it's perfect. We're gonna see if it's perfect.

Well, so here's a couple things we'll talk about right off the bat. Your why of challenge is in the perfect spot. You would make a terrible almost anything else here. Except for a visionary.

Yeah.

Because you see things the rest of us don't see. Don't want to be told what to do. Don't want to be put in a box. Don't want to do the same thing every day. You want to see things the rest of us don't and, and help us get there along the journey with you because you've already solved it and found a better way. So super powerful why, how, and what for the visionary and founder. The best-run companies that I, And we've done this with thousands of companies now, from small yoga studios to $500 billion companies. And the best ones have a COO with the Y of right way. It's just so funny. You happen to have that. So she wants to do things the right way. She wants to solve, make sense of the problem, and she wants to be the one you can trust. Super powerful to be handling money.

Yeah.

Right? And then, you know, executive assistant customer support. She gets you by knowing the whole why of challenge, but then she'll simplify it so that it can have an even bigger impact. Very, very nice to have. Um, you know, CMO, CTO makes sense. Great. Because things can come and go and move and, you know, you need somebody who can take on a high, has a high capacity.

Yeah.

That's what you've got. And somebody that creates structure and somebody that you can trust. Super powerful, you know, and every one of these you have really, really good. Just, I don't know how you did it, but you did it. And, and, you know, even when we go Lorena and Matt and Mike, those are, you almost couldn't find a better scenario than what you have right there.

Yeah.

So somehow you were able to build a really powerful team that, and you really don't need any to move anybody anywhere. Yeah.

It's, it's, I don't know if you feel, thank you. I do. But I, I also want to acknowledge that I did move someone and it was shortly after taking the YOS. And, uh, by the way, an absolutely beautiful, amazing human being. And I had that person in the wrong seat. So, uh, yeah, but having this framework and looking and just seeing on mine, I'm going to pull it up because I want to point to a couple of interesting things here. That trust. Sheena, who's my COO, you know, I'm the gas, she's the brakes. She's the filter of my ideas as a visionary. And she does carry the trump card and she has full right to use it. And she's, she's only been wrong one time. And it's because I've been wrong a lot more times. I just hold it over her because I gotta have one thing, you know what I mean? But she gets to use it and she uses it with a high level of accuracy. But I have so much trust for these 3 people on our team that I lean on as filters. John, so I don't go off the rails with all of our marketing things. And then same with Mike. Like, these trust components are just so massive. And that Melissa being the glue of the company, handling a lot of our internal team things and my executive assistant with the what of contribute is just so powerful. So I want to bring this Do you want to have one more thing you'd like to add there?

Yeah, I do. Because it's, it's with you and Sheena. Because you said it very well, but people with the Y of right way end up being the no people. N-O. N-O people. Like, hey, Adam, yeah, I know you got 6 more new ideas today, but no, we're not going to do those. We'll stick those on our possibly in the future list, but let's get done what we said we were gonna do.

Yeah.

Uh, and we can talk about that another time.

Yep.

And so you're very fortunate to have that.

Yeah.

Because otherwise, and she's able to stand up to you. That's another thing. So that's, you know, to have someone who has the no, you know, the trump card like you called it, but doesn't have any, any power with it, mm-hmm, is not gonna be that helpful.

Yeah. You know, I found it so important to just bring in insights. I'm very anti-dogma, right? I like, you can't throw out the message with the messenger. And I had someone respond to one of my videos. I mentioned some really brilliant advice that I heard from a controversial person, Jordan Peterson, who said, do the things that only you can do and you do best. And I thought that was the most powerful advice in business that I had ever heard. Just simplify, do the things that only you can do and you do best. And I had someone that was incredibly upset with me. I got a very nasty email. I shouldn't say nasty. It was not nasty. A very upset and emotional email saying, hey, this is someone who's marginalized people and et cetera, et cetera. And I actually sent a personal video message back saying, I'm very sorry you feel that way. Nothing that I said, they said, I can no longer follow you because you endorse someone who has views that marginalize people. And I said, I'm very sorry to feel that way. I don't agree with every single thing that, like, I have bookshelf upon bookshelf. Doesn't mean that everything I read and find helpful, that I believe everything or follow or validate the messenger. So I wanted to give that little disclaimer that it's so important to grab bits and pieces of the things that resonate with you through different platforms. And one thing leading back to the, the, the visionary and integrator roles in the EOS model. I don't follow the EOS model in my business, but I read Rocket Fuel and it, and I, my wife read Rocket Fuel and we took tests like the Predictive Index and the Why Discovery, and we grabbed all the components and it just led to a healthy relationship knowing one another. And at the end of the, at the end of the day, in my opinion, I really love what Ryan Dice says. He says, build the people and the people build the company. And the only way you can build the people is when you understand their purpose and their purpose starts with why. So if we were to kind of wrap all this up, Gary, into a, like a rally cry, so to speak, for a visionary entrepreneur who's tuning in and spending, thank you by the way, for spending your valuable time with us, or a manager who's spending their time, you know, learning how to build a powerful team. What advice would you have to rally people around building a purpose-driven company?

Well, the first thing I would say is take the time, make the time to understand yourself first. Mm-hmm. Because if you don't know you, well, that's the starting point.

Yeah.

In building anything, you gotta know who you are. Self-awareness. The first step in peak performance is self-awareness. Mm-hmm. The first step in self-awareness is figuring out your YOS. Mm-hmm. So just start there. If that's all you do, if that's all you get out of this whole thing is just figuring out who you are so you can understand how you can lead even better, then that's the step one. Then if you wanna take it further, then find this, find the YOS of each of your team members so you know who you have on your team, so you can speak to them in a way that they wanna be spoken to, so you can put them in a place that you know they're going to love. And then if I were to take a step 3, well, I'll give you a 3 would be build your messaging, marketing, and branding all based on your YOS. If you are the visionary and you are the leader, just like we were talking about with Adam. And then maybe step 4 is take this to your family. Because ultimately that's where it's gonna show up the most is the relationship you have with your significant other, the relationship you have with your kids. Because I, I can tell you that the types of conversations that you can have with your kids when you know who they are is so different than maybe the types of conversations when you don't know who they are and you just tell them what you would do.

Yeah.

And so start step 1, figure out who you are. Yeah.

That was beautiful, Gary. And if people want to follow along, where's the best place for them to find you? and how can they take the YOS Discovery?

Yeah. So if, if you, um, go to yinstitute.com, that's where you can follow us or follow us on any of the social media platforms. You'll see what we're doing as the, the, it kind of glows, goes globally around the, around the world. And, and then we have a, a special deal for everybody to, to take the YOS Discovery, and we'll just put the, the link in the you know, down below so that people can see it and get to it. Um, because we want to make sure that everybody gets an opportunity to do it.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Gary, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me.