The Difference Between Running a Business and Building One with Ryan Groth

It's helped me in the highs and the lows. Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from making mistakes. I think our lessons coming from failure can be our best teacher. We help contractors who want to grow their business. First off, they're growth-minded. Maybe the culture itself in their sales team is not retaining the type of people or attracting the type of people that are getting the job done. So we're looking for people who are hungry, people who are driven, people who have a motivation and a desire to see that the vehicle of sales will help them succeed in life.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Duden. If you grew up in a family construction business and as a teen witnessed firsthand the importance of sales and selling systems, if you pursued athletics and was drafted by both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the LA Angels as an outfielder, if you found your way into roofing first working for a premier roofing contractor in South Florida and breaking away to launch STG, the Sales Transformation Group, where he's helped over 1,000 businesses sell their way to a brighter future. Your name could only be the incredible Ryan Groff. Welcome.

Thanks, Jeff. I love that intro. That was, that was fun.

Good, good, man. Just sit back and enjoy your show.

Awesome.

Well, hey, I appreciate you. I was trying to remember. I know where I met you and I know what we were doing, but I don't remember the event that we were at. But, um, uh, I appreciate you coming on. It's been a minute.

Yeah, Rhino X, right?

Ah, was Rhino X. That's right, that's right. Are you going back this year?

Not this year.

Okay. All right. Are you—

you're going back?

Um, you know, I texted to see if they had still— I didn't react right away. They got a few spots open there, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. So probably not. Doesn't sound like it, but we'll see. Well, anyway, here's the opening question for you, Ryan. Why do small roofing companies stay small and why do others scale?

It's business acumen. I think that you got to— a lot of the folks that stay small, they're contractors and they're like, we're going to be a contractor. This is all— we're roofers. This is how we identify ourselves as. But I think that you see the shift when people mature from, they evolve from, hey, I'm a roofer to I'm a business person that happens to own a roofing company. That's why, you know, being 39 years old right now, I've been in the industry for almost 13 years. I've really grown a connection to like those generational handoffs and like the changes of hand just because I'm, you know, thinking about the next generation as I'm speaking with companies and You'll see that those who, they go to school, they get an MBA or they get some exposure to some different skills in business and business acumen. They come back, they're able to grow the business. And do they know as much about the trade itself? Absolutely not. But they've learned the business. So, I think business acumen is my answer.

What's the adage about generations of family businesses? The first generation starts the business, grows the business. Understands the business. The second generation, like you said, goes off, gets an education, takes advantage of the resources that the first generation has built, goes to get their MBA, come back in and scale the business. And then the third generation grew up soft and they tank the business.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, to see a successful three generations is, is absolutely rare and special. I know one contractor who's a fourth generation guy. I think they might have their fifth on coming up, which is unbelievable.

But yeah, well, private, private equity has interrupted the cycle, and there is a lot of activity in all of the trades— plumbing, mechanical, HVAC— but also in roofing and restoration. And just, we've seen massive roll-ups. So when that second generation comes in and scales it, they also maybe aren't as emotionally connected to the asset, and, uh, they're And, you know, maybe that, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Maybe not.

Yeah. You work with— I don't know, I think I read somewhere maybe you've helped 1,000 companies through your consulting business. I'd like to talk a little bit about, about your business. Who do you help? What do you do? What kind of programs do you offer people? And is it all in the roofing industry?

Great question. We help contractors who want to grow their business. First off, they're growth-minded. They understand that sales is a constraint. So whether they are frustrated with their sales process, they don't have a sales process, maybe their sales training or the process they've been exposed to isn't quite working. So whether that means their job size isn't where they want it to be, their margins, their closing percentage, Maybe the culture itself in their sales team is not retaining the type of people or attracting the type of people that are getting the job done. But nonetheless, they're growth-minded and they understand the idea of if we're the best sales organization we can be, that'll make revenue predictable, then that will allow our backlog to be more predictable and we can, you know, grow steadily and create a better, you know, business to serve our communities. And so we serve them by performing sales leadership workshops. We like to go to their office. And so we go out for a 2-day event and we work with their leaders and we assess their leadership competencies specifically for sales management. And we help set up sales plans, sales goals, KPIs, introduce some concepts around the sales process itself. What a playbook is, just the foundational infrastructure for the sales department. Many times when we're working with a contractor, it's like, it's like they built the house, but they don't have like the game room. Like they don't have the theater room. Like we need to construct that like from scratch in most cases. What are the job descriptions like? What's the comp plan? What should we have? Like we need to build that infrastructure with them, which is a lot of fun, but we have to find out what their goals are and what they're doing. So we do a workshop and then we, we do a 2-day sales team kickoff. So many of the contractors we work with, and to answer your question, it's not just roofers. Like we have, we were at Pantheon last year and we have, we have a couple like glass contractors. So we're working with both residential and commercial. We work with roofing, we work with HVAC, but the sales team kickoff is really a momentum shifting event because we're introducing some new things. Like the change management curve is real. Anything new, they're going to be met with some resistance and depression and they stick with it. And they start to see the success. We set up— I like to say, like, we set up these contractors that look like rock stars because that may be the first keynote sales presentation they're doing about changing direction in their business that they've ever done. So we'll be at their office. They have an hour-long keynote that says, here's where we've been, here's our story, here's why we're shifting, here's why we're embracing a new sales methodology, here's why we're working on sales, here's what we're seeing in the, in the business, which is why we're making a transition to this. We get them to buy in, the company to buy into the direction that that leader is wanting to take, and we're just helping facilitate that. And then we get involved with the, you know, the training itself and introduce sales process and show some sales deficiencies through an assessment. And we share the power of adjusting those. And then we start to roll out what an ongoing coaching engagement is going to look like. And then with that ongoing support and engagement, we have courses and group calls. I actually run, unless I'm speaking at an event that I didn't want to miss, I run every Thursday call. We have a C-suite, we call it the boardroom call. So anybody in leadership, we do a Q&A hot seat style call and then we have a commercial, then a residential sales coaching call where sales reps come on and they get coached and trained in groups. That's kind of our core basic program. And then we have—

Now, is that by company or is that anybody from any company shows up to those sessions?

That would be anybody from any company, large group.

Okay.

And then we work directly with sales leaders and owners to do sales leadership coaching and what we call our Sales Builder Program. We're customizing playbooks, all the things of— we have 50 weeks of programming and we're just working them through. Um, and then our biggest service is Platinum, which is that service plus a 1-day visit on-site at their office. And then some fractional sales management where we spend 3 more hours a week supporting their sales teams with huddles, some role-play training, and running their sales meetings. We help run the sales department. We just don't hire or fire people. That's up to them. But we implement the SCG systems and training and management system. To help their team succeed. And a lot of times the companies we work with are contractors who aren't necessarily the most sales-oriented company. They're like, man, we're like, we're order takers, we're operations people. We don't have, we don't have a sales culture or it's okay. And we want you guys to help us be better. And that's a big part of the industry.

People have to be motivated to bring in outside consultants, advisors, training. I was in Vistage for 9 years, and one of the realizations is any new CEO or president that joined our Vistage group, I learned to just wait until the second or third meeting to find out how dismally wrecked their company actually was that actually led them to sign up. It wasn't— they wouldn't say it right away, right? Because everything, you know, everyone's like, oh, I've got this business and it does this, and, you know, we're having growth and we're having all this. And, you know, by the third meeting it was, yeah, you know, we're My, my father is, you know, trying to steal the business from my sister-in-law. And, and, you know, we're all of the things, right? All the things are going on because you don't, you don't make that investment in time, energy, and money unless something's not working and there's a crisis point. What for, for you when you come in, I think you started down the path of saying, look, you know, we're, we're an operational company. We've been doing well. We've been in Charlotte for 50 years doing flat roofing, and we, we run 20 crews and we do $25 million a year or something like that. And we got repair replacement service contracts. We work with HVAC companies when they replace the units. We think we have all the things right, but like, they're, their salespeople are kind of their technical people, and, and, and they're flat in revenue, or What's happening now is more people become more sophisticated using tools and AI and all of the things, then maybe they're losing market share. Is that typical? People call you and eventually you get in there and you find out there's an underlying problem within the business that led them to reach out to you.

They do. And if it's left unaddressed, it can cost them a lot. For example, one of those in, let's just say, residential roofing company in the storm southeast corridor or Midwest down to the Southeast. They'll say, you know, insurance laws are changing. Our salespeople are used to selling a $1,000 deductible. They don't know how to sell retail. Now they've got to sell $25,000 Spruce system and they never sold value to, you know, save their life and they've never done it. They have some old— we got to get our whole culture to be able to sell like that. Okay, that's one. Another one would be, you know, we have order takers that just, they show up and give a quote and they don't really close. They don't— they can't close anything. They're emailing bids. Our whole culture is just like an order-taking culture. Or, you know, they have, uh, this, this commercial Charlotte company you just threw out there as an example. Um, they'll be like, well, new construction, we've been depending on that and it's super cyclical. We don't know if it's going to dry up. And, you know, we need service. In fact, like, you know, we struggle with cash flow because we have retainage and general contractors are holding our money and they're professional buyers. And we need to get more service work because the margins just turn into re-roof jobs. We really don't have a sales culture around that. We don't have one person proactively selling service. We just signed up a company that is doing about $280 million a year in total contracting, commercial company, but they do $5 million in service. Well, that's a very poor ratio for most commercial companies. It's all 1,000% reactive, right? They don't have one person going out there creating value with existing buildings to extend the life of their roof, which we know ultimately. So all that said, there's going to be a pain point there, or they, if they're savvy enough, they've been around enough, they can see further down, further down the road and say, we need to recession-proof this business, we need to be proactive, not reactive. So there's a few different things like that that happen that, that we show up, or, or they're just realizing, man, like the industry is becoming more competitive, there's more roofers than ever, and I'm not holding accountable my sales team the way that I know I should. It's, it's lackadaisical, it's loose. I'm losing people, they're starting their own companies. I got to figure this out, or I'm just going to do it all myself and just have— be a one-man show with a small team for a long time. And, uh, you know, that's the reality.

Small companies stay small. When entropy happens, friction happens. You start— you hire key people, you get things going the right direction, they leave, you start having service expectations, exceptions, you start getting poor reviews, your scores go down, your cash flow disimproves. And many small business owners don't push through and rebuild the company of the future. They revert back to the company of the past.

Yes.

And they just say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop doing things until the business is comfortable again for me to run. And that's why some huge percentage, 90-plus percent of companies, are less than a million dollars out there. Yeah, they're just their jobs. They're— and they're hard to run. A million-dollar service business is the hardest to run because you really don't have enough money to hire professional management, professional sales, all of those things. But all the things have to be done. So now you end up wearing 7 different hats and, you know, master of, uh, what's the saying, um, you know, doing, you know, not doing any one thing well.

Jack of all trades, master of none, or something like that.

Yeah, there you go. Is there any of the trades that does a better job scaling their business than others?

Yeah, um, I've noticed that, uh, I've noticed that the HVAC world seems to be on average more sophisticated than roofing. They have had more exposure. Here's a fun example. I just met a roofer, a guy at a roofing company that's interviewing us to do their whole commercial sales across all the brands of the company that they were acquired by 2 years ago. This guy doesn't talk the same as he did when I met him. He's learning an entirely new vocabulary. He sounds like the private equity guys. But because roofing is still kind of new, the private equity is relatively new, I mean, it's changed a lot in the last few years, but I just think that the, the sophistication level of that type of thinking has been in HVAC longer. And so we see that there's more resources and there's more exposure over there than in roofing. And so, yeah, I find that, you know, some of the smartest people I've ever heard run big HVAC businesses. And, you know, I see that a little bit more than I see in roofing. So I'd pick those guys right now. And then, you know, there's commercial. Which is a completely different sector. But I would speak to that on the residential side right now.

What is the state of insurance and insurance coverage in the roofing industry? You may or may not want to speak to it directly, but certainly there's been rumors coming from various states about deductibles or just hail exclusions on roofing insurance companies. I don't know the last person that paid for their own roof. It always seems to be insurance paid. Hailstorm blows through, everybody's door knocking, and if you can go to the weather report and find out there's been hail and you've got some shingle damage, then yeah, it's been a covered loss. Is that changing? And how fast is it changing and how widespread?

Yeah, I would say that I don't know. I'm not the most expert. I'm not the biggest expert on this subject, but I know that In certain states, in certain counties, it's already changed where you're basically having to sell the equivalent of a retail job and they have to finance that deductible because of how the laws are changing. And I think that it's going to continue to change. And I don't know how many years we have with, but it's definitely not what it used to be like now more than ever. You need to do an annual inspection. You need to sell relationships, not jobs. You need to be in the community. You need to be branding. You need to be building those partnerships now more than ever, um, because people are going to be spending real money and they're not just going to let anybody do their roof. So they need to know it's a trusted brand, that somebody's going to stand by their work and do a good job. I, I'm seeing that, um, people are starting to scramble now and say we either need to get into commercial because we know we want service and more predictable revenue, or we need to start adding retail as a larger percentage of our business now. That's— people have already shifted from 20 to 40%, 30 to 70% last year. They're already making the change. It's kind of an answer to prayer for many of them because, like, like Colorado, for example, they didn't have hail for 4 or 5 years, and so they had massive amounts of companies going out of business. And unless you change your retail or did more exteriors or commercial and diversified, you were done. But then they got whacked and then some people, you know, who were able to sustain it crushed. But I think there's other people that may know more information about that, about the more the timing. But I could tell you that the ones that I have chatted with, I was just at RoofCon, an expert, you know, who's really sharp with the shingles and deficiencies and issues around shingles, he was like, "What you're talking about with relationships is going to be more important than ever. People are hurting and this is going to be even worse. It's changing a lot." So, I think it's coming pretty fast.

What about shingles? Every product, I mean, you've got children, correct? You have 4, 5, 10?

6.

6. I knew it was a— I knew it was more than I could count on one hand since I had that extra pinky removed so my gloves fit. But the— look, Lunchables are getting smaller, every juice boxes are getting smaller. What's going on with shingles? I mean, I've— so I've been roofing since 1992 is when I first started roofing. I was in South Florida. I was working Hurricane Andrew, and man, we did. Hundreds and hundreds of re-shingles. We did commercial roofing. We did— we used to do the torch-down roofing. So that's what we were putting on. But the EPDM membranes, they weren't out much yet. So there wasn't— there wasn't a lot of rubber membranes and things like that. It was just coming out. Or so we were doing asphalt modified bitumen, you know, torch-down roofs and then shingle products on, on anything that had enough slope to it. And, you know, if I pick up a bundle of shingles now, same thing, let's say just a 3-tab standard shingle. I think it weighs— that bundle weighs less than it did back in 1992. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, they're trying to find ways to make it more affordable. You got to stick with the right companies.

We—

quality is really important. I don't care how, you know, the warranty, the marketing materials that some of these companies put out. We choose to partner with CertainTeed. They're the longest-standing building material company and longest-standing manufacturer. Of shingles in the country, in the world. So we partner with them and they're, they're the most quality. So big plug for Certainty. They do business builder workshops throughout the country and bring in their contractors and educate them. And we've been a part of those seasons for 3 or 4 years and they've been incredible. Yeah, you know, you want a company who's going to stand by their work. You know, you got companies that have been selling shingles less years than they promote the length of their warranty. So you don't even know if that's even something that they can stand behind, right? With certainty, do you have to worry? So I think, I think working with the right brands and no matter how slick the marketing and the sales pitch is, you know, look at the, look at the products themselves.

So yeah, well, 25 years in restoration for me. So hundreds and hundreds of roofs, if not 1,000, who knows? But I've never seen— I've never gone on a roof inspection and even once thought about manufacturer's warranty because my— if a manufacturer's warranty is going to cover a manufacturing defect. So if the shingle is just not splitting down the middle because there was a problem with the machine when it's being made, I mean, there's really not going to be a warranty claim that you're going to be able to get on a shingle. It's going to be granules, it's going to be wear and tear, it's going to be impact damage from things like hail. Or whatever. So it's, you know, I understand this is a 25-year shingle, this is a 35-year shingle, but I think that's more of a suggestion than an absolute.

For sure. There's some other really great products out there too that, you know, specialty products out there that are really, really amazing.

So I wanted to ask you about some alternatives. I mean, I think, well, I mean, if you want to go all the way, Elon Musk has one that's made of Solar panels. You can put solar panel shingles on your roof. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I don't know how that works. Have you seen those?

Yeah, I have. Yeah, those are— we know, I work with some Tesla certified contractors that are installing those and—

okay.

Yeah, they're like average roofs, like $250 grand, you know, just big, really nice, really nice projects. Yeah.

So what is it? Do they have like, remember those little racetracks with the— with what they put the car on and they would go? Do they have like a channel or something that they— that gets the electricity? And they—

I think like every shingle, and I'm not as much of a technical guru on these, but I think every shingle is powered. And then they, you know, they have their own battery that they go— that you purchase with it. And so you gotta have to buy that whole package and that whole system.

Okay. So each one has like a wire or something like that, or?

One of those are attached in the system.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting.

Pretty complex install.

Yeah. I, I thought it would be more like you lay down channels across the roof or strips and then you have contacts on the shingles and that's how it, and then it I could be doing or something.

I don't know, they've changed their technology a lot, so I could be totally screwing this up right now.

But that's all right, they'll have them on Mars.

Yeah, yeah, they sure will.

Yeah. What about things like plastic shingles, or, uh, is there, is there alternatives to asphalt that are coming out? Of course they'd have to be mechanically fastened and all, but I, I just, I hadn't seen anything that I would that would be attractive to me to do. I mean, unless you're gonna go with like a tile roof or something.

Yeah, tiles. I mean, I was gonna say that's more traditional and a beautiful look depending, like South Florida's got a ton of tile, you know, where you're from. I mean, yeah. Have you heard of like the DaVinci products, those types of, like heard of those guys, DaVinci?

Yes.

Yeah, those are, that's a really high-end, you know, quality product that is a specialty product. That is not asphalt, that is an alternative to that, that has a lot of durability and it looks amazing.

What's that made out of?

I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

Have you seen any of these roof coatings out there?

Yeah.

I know there's one that's a soy-based product. There's some others that are a little bit different. I don't know how popular those are going to become, but maybe as there's more retail opportunity there, if there is a cost savings or any other features and benefits, maybe those products become more popular.

Yeah, I think that when it comes to the product and how it's made, I don't speak to that. I let typically the manufacturers talk to that and I speak to the strategy more. But what I find with, with coatings, it has— there's been a lot of coatings companies popping up more in the last 10 years. It's a great economic alternative to a tear-down and re-roof, tear-off and re-roof and go down to the deck, especially on commercial buildings. And it's a good downsell. I think it's become for some companies who are trying to break into commercial it's become a way for them to get high margin projects and be more competitive and take, take that type of market share from the big guys and competitive. So I find that I think every company should be willing to offer coatings, especially on the commercial side. And, you know, those, those warranties are obviously shorter than a full replacement system. But a lot of them are just selling, they're like white labeling and they just have a lot of them are the same product just with a different company logo on it. Yeah. But, you know, I think it's a good solution. It's not a permanent solution, but it's a good economic solution for companies. And if you can lead with service and sell service first and then construction re-roof jobs, but then have the ability to downsell coatings or meet them where they're at, knowing that their budget isn't going to in the cards for a full replacement. You can, you know, make good margin and do and be competitive and have good margin on coating. So I think the companies, there's some companies that only sell that and they're selling against the re-roof, but that's not always what's best for the customer. So I think you need to have it as part of what you do and maybe not just rely only on that sales pitch.

Yeah, typically more established companies that haven't offered it are going to be reticent to do it because they feel like they're selling against themselves. Right, until they lose a few jobs, lose a few customers, and then they'll probably take a harder look at it. But I do think coatings are going to be part of the industry going forward. I think there's an opportunity to enter the market, maybe even residentially, but certainly commercially. We're in a 22,000-square-foot building here with a very low-slope metal roof, and we don't have any leaks. And it's a pretty, pretty high-grade— I don't know if it's a standing seam. I think it's a standing seam roof up there. So, you know, those typically are not going to leak that much as opposed to ones that have just a ton of, you know, rubber grommet screws in them. But I do, you know, my first thing would be if that thing starts leaking is put a coating on it.

Yeah, coatings, I think, you know, here to stay. I've known companies that have been around that started and they've been around a long time now. And I think that shows that it's being well received by people. I think I've seen majority of companies like just wanting to break into commercial jumping on with coatings. That's what I'm seeing a lot of. So it's a good way to start. But then you gotta, you know, then you get certified and they start to, when they go upmarket and they can compete on those big projects they get excited. So yeah, for sure.

Let's talk about salespeople a little bit. Sales is at the core of your product— sales, sales training, sales KPIs, sales culture. So when you go into an organization and you talk about changing the culture, generally if it's an established company, they're good operators, people have been there a long time, they do good work, they have repeat business. They've got a good culture, but there's a— but there's a sales culture is different. And in, in our business, even observationally, I mean, we have one culture in our support team because we're supporting the franchisees, the ongoing franchisees. And then you've got to have a different culture kind of in your sales team because it's a different— it's a different speed, it's a different tenacity, it's a different level of focus because those people are I mean, they have to make all these calls and they got to get people on the phone and they got to, they got to work people through a process. So when, when you walk into an organization and you're identifying sales athletes that are already existing within the business or maybe making suggestions on new ones, what, what's the difference between a good salesperson and a great salesperson?

So we assess using a third-party assessment tool The company's called Objective Management Group. It's great. And what we measure are 21 core competencies. So if we were to look completely objectively, not just looking at who's got the age, the talent, the drive, just who's got the potential canvas to paint on, like there's, there's like the blank canvas to paint on. Then there's like, well, what would we actually be looking for objectively? And so there's 21 of them. They're broken up into 3 different categories. And the first one is The will to sell, which is, I think, like the heart. So that's going to be your desire to be successful in sales, your commitment and willingness to do whatever it takes as long as it's moral and ethical in sales. The person who's motivated and we understand how they're motivated, whether it's extrinsically motivated, altruistically, intrinsically, we are able to identify that. Do they have the figure it out factor? Do they take responsibility? Or do they blame outside circumstances like the economy or the competitors? What is it like? What is their will to sell? Do they have the desire? Because if they have that, a lot of the other stuff could be changed. So we're looking for people who are hungry, people who are driven, people who have a motivation and a desire to see that the vehicle of sales will help them succeed in life. And then we shift into the sales DNA. So these would be, if I were to say this will to sell is the heart, the sales DNA is the mind. I would also like to say it's like the operating system of your phone. You have to update the operating system to run the phone. If you are in sales and one of the things we measure would be like, we would call it the need for approval. Well, if you're in sales and you have a high need to be liked, And the sales system that we teach requires you to ask great questions and to ask more questions. If you have this high need to be liked or a high need to be, need their approval for them to, for them, it's basically if I think you need to like me, I may be more hesitant to ask you tougher, deeper questions because my fear is that you therefore would not want to answer those and you wouldn't like me and then you not liking me is going to kill my sale.

Right.

Well, right there, we identified that as a problem. That's a huge thing that we identify. If they have a desire and commitment to be better at sales, we can train that. If they don't really have any desire and they don't really care, it's like, let's find some people who are hungry and we'll teach them how to think. So then we work on that, right? Another one would be like their money ceiling or their comfort discussing money. We can measure that and say, man, if they think $1,000 is a lot of money, you know, and then we're trying to sell commercial roofing and we're talking about a $2 million job, they're going to be having a really difficult time feeling confident selling the value of that job and delivering that message and that proposal and that price and selling that value. So, these are some things—

You can't let your lip quiver when you're delivering the price.

That's right.

You know, it's like, I've never even uttered a number this big. You know, it's, you can't do it. You got to be comfortable.

Absolutely. So, we kind of identify that and say, okay, it's like for us, if we're thinking, hey, we want to see you guys be a major league And in baseball, we have 5 tools, you know, a 20 to 80 scale. We measure all those 5 tools and we can, we could put a scouting report together and see what kind of potential athlete you could be in the big leagues and what you project to be, right? We do that for salespeople and we say, well, here are your areas for improvement and here is how we can put together, here's the personalized coaching plan. To demonstrate that competency change from a low score to what would be demonstrable evidence that you have now that competency. And then we have them retake the assessment. But what really matters is how it shows up in their numbers, right? And so what we find is quickly they're like, yeah, I'm having better conversations than I've ever had. I'm asking questions I never asked before. People are sharing information that I've never heard them share before. Therefore, I'm different than everybody else and they see me as more valuable, as more of an expert, a consultant, a trusted advisor. And deals are just closing with a lot less effort. I don't feel like I have to overcome more objections. We identify them earlier. Their pipeline's more predictable. You know, their deals have more sense of certainty around them rather than they're just kind of quoting and hoping and then begging, spraying and praying, things like that. So what we try to do is identify all of the deficiencies that would hold them back from being able to execute. A milestone-centric consultative sales process. We work on that, teach the sales process, create reinforcement, and then now they have the mindset and the habits, the time management and the ability to stay present in such a way that they can deliver on that sales process every day. And it's like they just start crushing it.

If somebody did not have the ability to stay present, what would that be an indicator of?

Yeah, they're thinking about the past or the future, right?

Okay.

So that means they're too hung up on what they did wrong or something that already occurred, or they're thinking about the commission check that they're maybe going to get for closing this deal. And so now they stopped asking questions in the moment, being present. You could tell when somebody is not being present when they they can't be active in their listening. And active listening means that you can hear what they said, repeat back, and they know that you now understand them. And that's, to me, in sales, the very best way to show if someone's present or not.

Yeah. So if you're just waiting for them to finish to change the subject to the next thing, people are going to clue in on that.

For sure. Yeah.

So would you say that the greatest salespeople are more born or more made?

Absolutely made.

Yeah, really? Yeah, really. Through, through hard work, repetition, training, humility, all of the things.

Yeah, I don't think someone's going to come out with tonality skills and empathy and this skill of asking great questions out of the womb and they just have it, right? I don't think that. I think that all of those are trained and made. Yeah.

Although, you know, go back to your 5-tool player, right? So in baseball, you know, okay, you're a 5-tool player in baseball. So I have a nephew, he's a pitcher. He's projected to be a first-round draft pick next year.

Go. Nice.

Yeah. Touches 98, 99. Right-hander pitches for NC State.

Let's go.

From the time he was 2, okay, he could throw the ball 3 houses down the, down the street. I mean, he had the livest arm, you know. And I'm sitting here teaching my kids, you know, all of the throwing— pick the apple off the tree. And I'm teaching, trying to teach my kids how to throw and all that. And just for whatever— and he just came out slinging it. So at, at the end of the day, I mean, there are things now, I will also say that many of the hangups that people have were from an ear— early childhood experience, neglect, abuse, not being listened to, some failures, you know, lack of positive reinforcement, bad personal image, you know, these types of things that, uh, maybe, you know, uh, lack of resources, which leads to money, not being exposed to anybody that thought different. So there's all these things. So. Okay, they weren't born with those things, but they were given those things. And then that person shows up in one of your sales training classes and you're just like, this is too much work. Sure, this person should probably, you know, I mean, we'll, we'll give them the training, but, you know, based on our assessment that we've done, I don't see the tools. I just don't see the natural tools here. So are the tools things that people walk in the door with, these 5 tools, or in your, in your view, are these things that you can You identify 3 of them, you can build 2 of them to get a complete player. Sales player.

That's a great point. Yeah. Like there's some people who have more God-given ability and talent than others. And I definitely know that, you know, you got to use what you've been entrusted with and you've been given a measure of it. I think that selling in reality is a system. There's a system, but you can be robotic about a system and you can have somebody who's got a lot of brokenness and, you know, their mindset isn't very renewed to being growth-minded. They're stuck in some old ways that are easily offended. Like there's a lot of things like that that could shine through in a sales call and somebody still never want to buy from them. Right. I could see that. Or they're— yeah. So I think you have something, a good point there. There's going to be talent and there's going to be people without talent. I think that in general, let's look at it this way. The industry, if you're looking at, you know, rural Kentucky with 3 roofers, you don't need that league. If we look at it like athletics, is the equivalent of like, you know, private junior varsity baseball. Whereas if we're in the heart of You know, South Florida, Atlanta. Yeah, exactly. We're playing, we're playing in Houston or we're playing in SoCal. We're playing in, you know, the 10-year-old is legit. Like he's nasty. Like he's, he knows the game. He's fundamentally sound. He had to be that good to compete to make that team. And I think what's happening is you attract, like the industry is growing and evolving in certain markets and there's more talented people realizing that they can have success in the trades. So what I think is really fun, and I love helping sales leaders recruit people, is by creating messages that attract high performers and talented people. And so then you can now, now you have, you know, and I don't want to make anybody sound, feel a certain kind of way, but like, you know, I'm 6'2", I try to work out, take care of my health. You know, take good care of my— what I— how I dress, how I present. That is helping people decide if they want to buy from me or not pretty quickly on how I represent myself. And then I've done the same thing with other teammates. Like I have a guy who speaks with us. He's very similar. He played pro baseball like I did, played at University of Arkansas. There's just a lot of stuff that's already included in that type of person. And then we teach sales, we teach them methodology, we teach them We teach it for— in their world, it's like, yeah, we could take a talented human being, an attractive person that someone want to buy from that has some relationship skills and they have a desire to be successful and they're the type of person that matches your core values. And you could teach them the trade itself and even teach them the sales acumen that is trainable. So I think with this industry, what's happening is the sport of the trades is now requiring, because of the talent, requiring you to have, uh, the talent or the tools of those people that are activated with the system and the training. Just like you're seeing in sports where maybe 10, 15 years ago, people who, you know, they just wouldn't compete today, like they just not put in the work, they don't have the talent, they're still having success despite themselves.

So I, I think that's a really good point. And private equity bringing, uh, raising the sophistication of the trades, rolling companies up, creating demand for bigger talent. They're willing, they want, they, they have to grow the business, so they're gonna, they're gonna invest in talent, they're going to invest in training, which plays right into your business. These are people that are going to need what you do. It's going to be critical for them to hit their numbers year in and year out. What translates really, you mentioned one of your speakers or one of your presenters, but you were a professional baseball player. I was a college football player. And when I talk about business athletes, I say business athletes, but it's not always, when I talk about that, it's not the sports athlete always. I see people that haven't touched a sport in their life. But they're diligent, they're aggressive, they work long hours, they have a big motor, they're fearless, they take chances, they, they rise to conflicts, they finish all of their work, they train and prepare, they read, they improve themselves, they get coaches. I mean, all like— so when I talk about a business athlete, it can be the least physically athletic person that I've ever seen. And I see some of these people, but some of my— some of the people I work with, man, you know, they have not— they did not do a sport. But you put them on a deal or you put them in a business situation, they are relentless and they have 4 coaches helping them become better. And they have— it's just— so in your experience, do you look for the sports athlete and what translates to the business athlete, or are they two completely different things in your opinion?

It's a great question. In general, they're different things, right? You can have a guy who played— I mean, look, you can have a guy who played in the NBA and couldn't talk to somebody at all, right? They couldn't be a salesperson. I've seen it. I've seen professional athletes. But you'll notice, though, a lot of the guys who played professional and collegiate actually are really good communicators because they're leaders. They're like way different level of of talent, like that translates in business. So I don't think that in the sense they're the exact same thing, but I do think in, in a sales role, we're finding that because the sales athlete culture that STG is like showcasing and speaking about, we're finding that companies will hire athletes that are transitioning from college, you know, or even pro ball. And they're helping them find that purpose of you are an athlete, you have been and always will be. You just need a different sport to play that can pay for your future. And so they just, maybe they, you know, I'll be, I'll be, I'm one of them, me and my front end sales guy that does a lot of speaking, like locker room humor is real. Like we got to clean that up. You know what I'm saying? Like some of that doesn't, that doesn't work right now. We got to do a little something different because it's not, it's not resonating, you know, with everybody. So no, I think that. They're two different things, right? There's a guy I'm thinking of right now who he's like, dude, I don't have a six-pack, you know, I don't work out, but I am a freaking stud at closing deals. And I totally believe in that because everything you described is, but the thing is 55% of communication is nonverbal. And when you have somebody working in an outside sales scenario and they are athletic, they already are different. They already look different. But You know, but I think that most of them are really good at working in teams, leading. Yeah, I think that, I think that they're two different things. But in sales specifically, the athlete who has that talent and applies those same skills in the sales sport of sales has a pretty strong edge.

It absolutely can. When I think about some of the non-athletic best business athletes that I've seen, it actually comes down to this desire. They just hate to lose. I mean, they hate to lose. They're not going to lose more than anything, man. It's like love of the game. I'm gonna outsell you. They're— if, if they happen to outsell somebody, they'll be in the Slack channel, you know, pointing it out, making, you know. And by the way, you, you need those people. I mean, competition is, is the best thing about athletics. And bringing Bringing that into business in a healthy way is incredible. Is that something that you— do you create gamification on your sales teams?

Absolutely. I've seen 3-person sales teams where guys work harder than ever to beat the other guy than they are about— they're worried about the money they're making because it creates purpose. And I think the identity of an athlete and a competitor needs to find a home somewhere. And if it's done in a healthy way, right? It's, it's done well, I think.

I think, yeah, the loser's not getting the SpongeBob tattoo on the calf.

Exactly.

That's, that's for family. That's for fantasy football. Yeah, that's for—

love the gamification, love the leaderboard, love the competitions. It's fun. Yeah, we love, love seeing the competitor come out of people.

Well, hey, the biggest disappointment from this call so far is you told me you're leaving Hawaii. I've been, you know, since I met you— we met, we met at a conference, we chatted, and then we actually met down in the gym in the morning. So we were working out and, and we had a conversation. And I mean, I don't know, that was— gosh, was that last August already? I mean, it was a while ago.

It was in, uh, I think it was a year ago, January. I think the beginning of the year last year. Yeah, yeah.

It's taken this long to get you on the podcast. Sorry about that, Ryan.

No, I'm equally the problem. We had to move.

So, you've been living in Hawaii for 6 years. Do you live on Maui? Do you live on the Big Island?

Live on Maui. Yeah, we're hoping to keep our property. That's the goal. But yeah, we have a nice couple of acre property that overlooks the West Maui Mountains and bicoastal view and chickens and, oh, man, it's a nice life. But it has, with the amount of kids we have and the amount of travel I do, and quite honestly, man, like baseball, we do the whole Perfect Game travel ball. It's a real budget to like fly, take the family or take your kid, your son rather, hotel room, going out to eat. Like, you know, there's places, I mean, on the mainland, you can get that kind of competition to play against. Right down the street, you know, many weekends a year. Where us, we're like, all right, we're the best team on the island, we're the best players. So like, in order for us to play, we gotta go— okay, we go to Oahu, it's pretty good. But then last year we went to— so my son made, um, he made the Perfect Game All-State Hawaii team, which is the best 10-year-olds. And, you know, the coaches didn't really know him. He was working hard. They didn't play him at shortstop. He had to work his way into the outfield. And, man, it was good. It was so good for my son to be not the guy and not have an automatic spot in the lineup or whatever. And he worked his way through the lineup and he came in and pitched against California and out of the bullpen, no warmups, just shut them down, was throwing like 60 and just 3 up, 3 down, 8 pitches. I was like going out, I was going nuts. But then he came in later and he was batting the 10th hole spot, which is, he's never batted 10th, but he We did, and it was 2 outs, 2 strikes, bases loaded, and we were down. If he gets out, the tournament's over. Hits a bases-clearing triple. I lost my voice, uh, words, uh, and I was so fired up. And, um, but the reality is, is like, if I could get addicted to that and I'd be like, dude, let's do this all the time. And so with our— with between that the, the, uh, the amount of travel I already do for business, you know, the cost of living is real, and, um, the time zone and just getting up at 4 AM, going to bed at 8 PM, it's just kind of, it's kind of wearing me out. And, uh, you know, just, and I think there's a reality of some optics of like, okay, Ryan is serving the industry, but he's over in Hawaii, he's living in Hawaii. And I, uh, I just feel sometimes I can't connect to and relationally engage with people the way I'd like to. Um, so it's been a big move, um, but our hope is that, that the property, we're, we're going to try to keep it and rent it out. And, and Lord willing, we're able to go back there and make it a family hearth and something we were able to enjoy, um, as a family. But, um, yeah, it's a great place to visit. It's, it can be tough to live there. A lot of my friends are already retired and they're just super wealthy and they have a sick spot and they kind of do whatever they want. So yeah, A lot of guys grinding like I am on Maui specifically doing the remote thing. So I feel like I'm ready to be around some other people in my town too. So we're looking at Nashville actually. I'm actually here right now. We're looking at Nashville potentially as where we land.

So how are people dealing with the fire? And was that all of Lahaina? I love Lahaina, by the way.

Yeah, it was like 99% of the fire was in Lahaina.

Yeah.

From our property though, we were there and we actually saw some, a couple of fires from our own eyes, which was really freaky to be able to see a fire from your property and be like, that's really close. But yeah, no, Lahaina, it's been almost, I think it's been almost 2, it was the summer. So I think it's been 18 months plus.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been, it's really on the mend. And, but it was devastating. I mean, devastating. There's still people out not living in their homes and living in temporary FEMA housing. But it's been really neat to see how people in the community have stepped up. Yeah, it was devastating. That whole place is completely torched. I mean, there's a couple buildings and houses are being rebuilt though now.

Yeah. But I mean, the character of the area, the character of the restaurants and the stores and all of the surf shops and everything, we've been there several times. Really, it's one of our favorite places to go. And yeah, everything's gonna be new and new and commercial. And I don't know what the rules are around local businesses and signage and all that kind of stuff, but man, it's, you know, hopefully it's the same, or hopefully it creates— maybe it— well, you know what, nothing's ever the same for any of us, but hopefully it creates a new vibe and the locals cannot get pushed aside too much and things can get back to some semblance of— have you seen families that have just picked up and left or is everybody kind of staying to make a go of it?

A lot of people moved. Yeah, a lot of people moved. A lot of locals moved. Yeah, it was pretty wild. But good thing the whole west side wasn't destroyed. I mean, there's a lot above Lahaina that is still good and that people, you know, are living normal lives. But yeah, a lot of people moved, you know, between that and COVID, it was like a couple of haymakers to the, to the island.

Yeah.

You know, when COVID happened, I remember traveling and I was like having to go in and, you know, quarantine every time I got home and like, you know, all that stuff. It was, it was a lot. And then so the, the travel, we moved there in 2020 and that was the crazy part. We moved there in April. So the world shut down from events, I had about 10 months where I didn't have to get on a plane to go speak or something. And so, that was pretty special. And then, there was nobody on the beach and we're just enjoying this island all to ourselves. It felt like it was really cool.

How did you pick it?

Yeah. So, my wife had always dreamt of moving to Maui. I think if I were to give anybody marriage counseling, premarital counseling is really make sure you're aligned on every major life decision decision beforehand. She had a desire to move to Maui way sooner than I thought. I thought it was like more of a retirement thing. And so, yeah, when we started to explore like, where do you want to live moving from South Florida? She had already had Maui in mind. And so it was like, you know what, can I take you to Nashville? Can I take you to all these other spots? And then we did Maui and I saw her light up in such a unique way that I was like, I need to figure out how to sow into this. Because I love her, right? And I want to make all her dreams come true. So we did move in during COVID And, um, yeah, it's been real special for our family. We have some dear friends there. Um, but it put a lot of— it's put a lot of pressure on me. That's been pretty difficult.

So, and yeah, we're on 60 is what, 9 or 10 years old? The 60-mile-an-hour pitcher, Stan?

Yeah.

Is he your oldest?

He's my second oldest. So I have 12, 10, So Asher's 12, Hunter's 10, Henning is a girl, she's 8, Naomi's 5, and then I have 2 more boys at the bottom. So I got Rhett, who's 3, and Preston, who's 6 months. All right.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's— with the— as they get older, there's going to be more pressure to zip over to California and be in a tournament or do something more of that.

I mean, I want it, and it would break my heart to just kind of say, ah, you know, we just can't do it. And then like, we just hope that the, that myself and the time I give and the high school program is enough. And maybe they go like JUCO, mid-major, D1, and then they play well and they transfer portal somewhere. And then they, you know, like, you know, I'm trying to balance the whole like, am I the dad who's like, he already knows everything about their future and I'm architecting it like from that? Or, you know, I'm still trying to figure that out. Like, how do I parent? And create a high-performing environment athletically with a large family. And so it's, it's been fun, but we sowed in pretty hard last year and it was cool to see the fruit. So when we relocate, we'll settle in, put the boundaries up for the family, and then start to, you know, figure out our club ball, travel ball family and see if we can find a manageable balance. And then, you know, you don't really know what a kid's got until he's hit puberty anyway, right? Like Like, there's kids that are like the best, and then they hit puberty and they kind of tap out. And then there are guys like me who— I was a late bloomer, and, um, you really didn't finish growing until I was about 20, and then I started to fill out, and then it started to kind of click. So yeah, it's fun.

Do you guys do any homeschooling?

We are a homeschool family right now. Yeah, and we'll probably stay like that. We'll probably do a co-op. When we move. So, um, but I'm not opposed to the public school scenario. Hawaii's public schools aren't the greatest, but you can't be a homeschool family and, uh, play for your local school when you are, uh, in Hawaii. That's a state rule. There's— I've already talked to governor, like, state officials, and basically they're like, that'll never change unless it's like, uh, because it's a little bit more of a liberal state and they want to protect the school system and get more people into the school system. So, they were like, it would have to be a national push that overrides that across the entire country. And I was like, okay. So we were gearing up thinking about maybe like having them go to the local high school, but I'm pretty relieved with the idea of moving to a mainland scenario for all that, all those reasons too.

Nashville is a great spot.

Yeah, we'll see. Well, it could change tomorrow. You never know. We've been all over the place. But yeah, I like the sound of it. We have— we know like 20 families already from our different walks of life that have moved here. Like 7 of them from Maui, which is wild. Like a big group of people moved already here from Maui. So Nashville seems good. You're close by, right? You're— are you in Charlotte?

Charlotte.

We were looking at Charlotte. We were looking at Charlotte. Do you like it?

It's been great. I grew up in Chicago. I came out to App State University in 1989 and then a little bit working, chasing some hurricanes for a few years, but then I ended up back in the Charlotte area since '95.

We're looking at Charlotte. Yeah, that looks interesting to us too.

Yeah, it's great. It's— I mean, you know, other than— I mean, the thing that Nashville has is you don't have state tax.

It's true.

But I mean, we have, I think, really good property values, relatively low taxes comparatively to other places. We've got all the major league teams. There's still a lot of green space around here. It's pretty good. You can get to the ocean 3 hours. You can get to the mountains in an hour and a half.

So that's all attractive. Yeah. We've been thinking that's been second on the list. It's been right there with Nashville actually.

Yeah, we grew up— my kids are 27, 24, and 21. We grew up taking them to the campground down at the beach, or we had owned a townhouse down there for a while. But, you know, we— they spent plenty of time on the beach.

That's awesome. That's great.

Yeah, we're climbing around in the mountains. Yeah, it's not a bad place. Southeast is good. Real quick, I just kind of a spitball here, but trends that you see— labor, kids, young people in the workforce, products, any major trends that come to mind? Obviously, we could talk about AI. This is probably the first podcast you've been on that we haven't talked about AI. So, you know, if you got anything that you want to throw out, but like people are talking it to death and the robots are going to get us all anyway.

Yeah, AI was going to be the first thing. Yeah, I would say AI has got to be it, the biggest one. But yeah, I mean, with ICE, you know, like there's real budget going into ICE. It's going to get harder. It's labor. Yeah. I mean, massive, like that's the, that's the opportunity for, for people is the next generation is it's got to, they got to see that just a simple skill labor, you know, being an American, um, you can make a lot of money. Um, but it's getting harder, right? It's getting harder and harder. It's, you got more, you got people being deported. Trump's not messing around. He's increasing the budget. I don't know what the number was. I did a podcast with the NRCA president and he shared with me what they're increasing it to be and it's not good. So it's not good for labor. So I think that what I think needs to happen is these business owners need to create that trajectory and that career path. I think that's going to be more and more common. You see people who have to start in the field and can see themselves promoting, being promoted into sales and over time and having to start there. So I think that's difficult. I think AI is mind-blowing. I've seen like CRM companies 10, 15 years ago. It's all the agents, right? These agent companies, it's like, boom, there's another one, Broccoli and NetEase and Alivoo. It's like, bam, they're everywhere. A lot of funding coming into that. So yeah, I think that, I think that this industry is more and more valuable and we have to, and it's just going to become more sophisticated and it's going to be more competitive. I take, I pinch myself, my man, it's what a cool place, what a cool place to be working in and to see all these changes. It's pretty mind-blowing, but I got my kids, my wife and my kids are, we're talking about the trades a lot, just being in it and thinking about it like I'm imagining a world where we have multiple businesses within our family doing the trades and they're all part of it. Awesome.

Thank you for that. All right, Ryan, we're getting about that time. I think it's time that we kind of turn this longboard towards the shore, ride the last wave in. If you want to play, I want to throw you a curveball and then I want to shoot you a fastball right down the middle. But before we do that, how can people get in touch with you?

Yeah, you can go to salestransformationgroup.com, check out our website. We have a lot of the way we describe our service offerings there. Just book a call with us. You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram and YouTube. So just look up either Ryan Groth or Sales Transformation Group. You could check us out. And if you do download anything, you'll be in our, our email list. And we like to do webinars once a month and we're typically speaking at most roofing events are attending, so you can connect with us. Um, so yeah, you can connect to me that way, or maybe if you're in Nashville, just hit me up, we can get together.

There you go, meet you down at the honky-tonk. I do like Nashville, do like Nashville. The kids are gonna love it. Okay, here we go, curveball. Gun to your head, you've got to start a business in the next 30 days. Can't be something you're currently doing, Where do you see the opportunity in a market? What business would you start?

I would pick— I feel like if I were to pick a market, I think that Louisville, Kentucky has the least amount of more developed and mature businesses and it's a good market. Good metropolitan access to a lot of other markets if you wanted to expand. So I would probably do something like a Southeast or Midwest, uh, and I would do a roofing company because I just know it more. I'm not a roofing contractor, so I can say that because I'm doing consulting and training. But I would, I would pick that, and I would, I would do residential, commercial. Um, I would probably I would probably do residential first, and I would eventually mature into being like that main street roofer and have multiple. But I know that they're two different businesses, and I'd probably end up making sure that they're pretty separate. But I would start with a residential roofing company.

Nice. Awesome. Thank you. All right, here's the fastball. Last question, right down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

I would say, man, that's a great question. You know, I would have to say that if you need to define success for yourself and commit to becoming the best version of yourself. And yeah, I would say that to the general audience is to find success and commit to being the best version of yourself. And, you know, this too shall pass. You're going to get through it. And, you know, what you focus on, you empower. There's a lot of different things I just said. Sorry, Jeff. It's a lot there. One sentence. That's a tough one. Um, let me say this one. Um, wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes. I think that's one of the biggest ones that I remember one of my mentors told me, and it's helped me, um, it's helped me in the highs and the lows. Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes. I think our lessons coming from failure can be our best teacher. And, um, yeah, that's what I got.

All right. Perfectly said, Ryan. Thanks for being on today.

Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate you, man. You're a great, great host.

Oh, it's been a lot of fun. I'm Jeff Duden. We've been here with the incredible Ryan Groff, and we have been on the Unemployable Podcast. Thanks for listening.