Breaking News for ContractorCoachPRO

Hey, everybody. Jim Johnson here with some breaking news for the contracting industry and a special episode of Contractor Radio. We are super excited to make a pretty cool announcement today. We have done a lot in the last year, especially considering everything that's gone on with pandemics and all the weirdness that goes on in that area with our Contractor Evolve program helping contractors go virtual, bringing on some, some coaches to help you guys even more. Our finance coach, Jenny dupont, and our superstar new amazing coach, Rosalind Vergess, who is an HR and organization coach, works with some of our culture stuff, too. We've really made a lot of improvements to our coaching program to better serve our clients. And but we had some breaking news today. I want to kind of let everybody hop on and give a few seconds here to get everybody on board. It's good to see all of you guys. I'm going to try and pay attention to the comments a little bit here. If you have any comments or anything like that, say howdy, put your name in, let us know who's on board. I can't see actually names from your Facebook user profile unless you allow it. So if you want to say howdy, please do. But we are going to break some big news today. There's an area of our business that we're trying to improve a little bit. We've done it for quite some time on the sales side of things, where we come at it from a really a strategic aspect of things, like, for example, exactly how you're going to sell, what it is that you sell as a contractor. So whether you do roofing or fencing or siding, how to position yourself in a position of value versus a position of price, commodity value versus something unique. And so we help people build those type of systems. We create digital presentations for them. They're very proprietary and unique to that particular company. And then we usually will record that and teach their sales team how to present it. And then they're off onto the next thing with us, which would be production. We build out their production strategy. And it's just one of the 12 pieces that we work on, 12 disciplines of this contractor's blueprint. And so a few weeks ago, I got a phone call. And that phone call said, hey, there's this guy out there that he's looking at possibly doing something a little bit different. Do you have any interest? And I was like, well, who is it? And so they told me who it was. I'm absolutely, I'm interested because this guy is so aligned with where we are and what we do and our Core values and our purpose and his experience included with that made it absolutely a no brainer. And so what I'm pleased to announce today, this breaking news that we've got here at Contractor Coach Pro is we have another new coach. We have a coach that is one of the few people in this industry that I go, wow, that guy is a master at sales. I like to think of myself in that particular position. And so this is a thing for us here at Contractor Coach Pro. That's a little bit odd because I used to do and usually do a lot of the sales coaching and to bring somebody from the outside, I got to really believe in them. I got to believe that they are a master of their craft. And so we've had several conversations, we worked this out and I'm super excited to announce that we have a new sales coach here at Contractor Coach Pro. Welcome aboard. Chuck Thoke.

I mean, hey, Jim. I'm excited, buddy.

Yeah. This is amazing stuff, Chuck. I've watched the results of what you've done over these past years. Your background with Abel, your background with Mr. Roof, your background with All Weather Tech and you helping these contractors. You do a lot of speaking stuff. You and I are cut from the same cloth, it seems like. And I am pumped. Again, welcome to the team.

Thank you. This is exciting. This is, I. This is something that, you know, I'm sure we're going to get into this, but this is something that is, is just the next step. So I'm really, really pumped to join your team.

So here's first question. First question. You just said, hey, you know, I want to do what I do best, which is to coach people. That's what you do best. But there's all this other stuff with being a coach, right? Like I got all this marketing stuff I got to do and all these events to coordinate and I just. All that stuff. And you really wanted to focus on what you do. Great. And so beyond that, why Contractor Coach Pro? I mean, obviously you could have done it on your own. You could have chosen probably some other coaching organization to work with. Well, why us? I don't, by the way.

Yeah. And so when I started coaching myself, I heard about Jim Johnson, I heard about the Contractor Coach Pro. I started watching a little bit and then John Dye filled me in and I started to get a little bit deeper. And then you had me on one of your. I think it was a beginning of pandemic on how to deal with pandemic. But the just watching you, meeting you a few times as well as Looking at your team, what you're doing, what you're doing with people, and then the feedback from so many of your clients, it was just, you know, it was just a easy answer. Once me and John had talked and he says, hey, you know, there's, there may be this opportunity. So when I heard that and found out that there may be that opportunity to join a team that is not only a winning team, it's the best team. And I'm not just saying that because, you know, you're sitting right next to me there, but it truly is when you, when you talk to your clients, I mean, they understand what their next steps are, you know, And I'm not going to talk bad about any other guru because most of them or all of them are really, really good at what they do. But when you look at Contractor coach Pro, it's, it's the entire system. And, and that is the one thing that I have been missing is you can come in, you can get a lot of sales training or a lot of sales methodology, but then when they start talking about, you know, their CPA or they need to HR information, I'm just not qualified to give that. And it always scares me to refer them to somebody. So, I mean, this is just, this is, this is fantastic.

Yeah, we're super pumped about it. And that's really been our strategy. Our strategy is to take the best minds that are aligned with our purpose and core values, put them together, that whenever a client comes to me, they're going to get the elite, they're going to get the best possible coaching that they can find to move their businesses forward. And so a couple of things, you know, one of the things you're going to be doing is you're going to be helping contractors set up their strategic sales systems, okay? Putting it all together, giving them the tools, that whenever a guy comes in that first day, he's got something, he's got something immediately that he can learn, go out in the field with, get ramped up a lot quicker so he gets through this thing we call time to money, which is how fast can I go from talking to you this first day to actually make a check, right? Like, I want to make some money. And with sales training and sales coaching, that's the key. The faster we can get them there, the more likely they are to stay. So we give them some tools right off the bat, like a presentation to work with, some role playing practices, some scripts and some things like that. We can get them up to speed quickly, they start making money and Then we can do this kind of continual education side of things. And so that's one of the things you're going to be doing, is you're going to sit down with our clients, help them build out these programs and systems. There's a lot of creativity and fun. Not all of our clients are super creative on that side of things. So it's fun to have those conversations and kind of get them believing in this system. And whoever creates that with them has to be creative. And you are, you're, you're one of the most creative guys that I know in this industry. And stuff that you created in your past and where you've been before must work. I mean, come on, $150 million a year, that something's working. And, and that has to do with sales to generate that kind of revenue. So you're going to follow a little bit of what we do on that. Like, we're going to bring that stuff together, but we're also going to provide some sales tr. We do that in a small way right now. Like, we get done with the presentation, we do a recording of it, train on it and on exactly how to do it, and then we like give it to you and say, see ya. Right. Like, okay, go train. Well, now with Chuck, we're going to be able to train at a much higher capacity than we could before. And so what we're looking at doing is we're going to build a couple of different groups. We're going to build some group training. One of those group training will be coach the coach. Right. So you're going to work with these sales leaders and help them get their game up to speed to drive sales. Coach better be masters of their craft, not just from a sales perspective, but a leadership perspective. And then the other thing that we're going to do is we're going to create a group for salespeople. Salespeople that can come in. It'll be very affordable. And we're not going to work on, like, how do you sign this contingency agreement if you're in the roofing thing or any of the, you know, what I call very contractor specific. We're going to teach mastering sales. We're going to teach how to ask questions, how to beat objections, how to deliver a presentation, why the presentation is in the order. That's in the psychology of a sale. We're, we're going to talk about all that deep dive stuff that professional sales teams get trained to, because that's what we're looking for is professional sales Teams, and there's not very many of them in this industry. I think there's a few that are able to sign agreements in that insurance restoration world. There's a few that are able to really nail that retail world, but it's not, it's not across the board. I would say that's probably less than 10% of the country. Would you agree with that?

That is very. There was a definite disconnect when I started in on working with people, working with their teams. They had no idea. When I asked them, you know, what is your system? They they said, well, we had. We don't have one. We go in, we give a proposal, and then we hope for the phone will ring.

And.

And, you know, coming from a very large company, that was just a huge culture shock to me. So I really had to take a couple steps back and figure out how I was going to help these, these folks that are either just coming in or in some cases, just a husband and wife that wants to start. So, I mean, when we look at, when we look at bringing somebody new and are starting somebody in sales training, you know, it is really, really important on how we do it, on how we teach it, making it simple. So I just wanted to, you know, kind of help everybody understand when we do sales training. When I do sales training, it has to be simple. There is a process to it. But I don't have a bunch of funny names to my steps, and I don't want to say any because I don't want to call any of the other gurus out. But a lot of times it's very, very hard when you're in the house and you're trying to remember a name, a funny name, to the next step. It has to be very simple. It's got to be your entry and warm up. If you're going to go from the entry and warm up to your fact finding into an inspection, into your presentation, your demo, it has to be easy and has to be understandable. And that's how we train salespeople. Once we get that person to understand that there is a process, then. Then we show them that there is a script to the process. Now, before anybody jumps in and says, oh, you're going to script all my guys? Not exactly, you know, but they have to understand the script before they can understand how to give the script. So that's when we look at how to train salespeople or just how to train the trainer. That's how we do it.

Yeah, that was one of the things that you and I Were very aligned on is. We want people to become masters at being salespeople. You know, they. They instinctually know what to do and when to do it because they've been so trained to it that it just happens naturally for them. But you got to start somewhere, you know, riding a bicycle. Somebody didn't just set you on a bicycle and walk away, right? And go, hey, there you go. See ya. They're like, hey, let me hold on to this. Let me let you pedal a little bit and let's keep you upright for a little while so you can kind of get it. That's what those scripts and, and this systematic way of giving a presentation are all about, is you've got to have something to start with. And I think a lot of folks really miss out on the importance of getting it down by the basics. First get that nailed down, then add your own personality. You don't want to skip the steps. The steps are super important. There's an actual psychology behind all that stuff. But using your own terminology, your own words, making it comfortable, making it genuine and who you really are. This is sales isn't what it used to be. I really think sales 20 years ago is like this hard closed deal and you could really like pin people up against a wand. There was no, there was no cause or effect for that. Today, man, you do that, Facebook will blow you up all over the place and get bad reviews and all that other stuff. So you have to have a different approach. And it's really the right approach. And that's what we're after, is the right approach with that homeowner, that in the end it's a logical choice that you provide the most value for the dollar that they're spending. They see that there's worth to what it is they're getting. Would you agree?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And going along with what you were saying, you know, when I'm working with the sales rep, whether I'm working with just one or I'm working with 50, you know, I asked them to make me two commitments. And, you know, when we go through this, when we, you know, make sure that they understand the scripts, make sure they understand the process, I says, I just need two commitments from you. The day that you're driving down the road and you realize that you figured this thing out, you're going to start to laugh. You're going to be behind the wheel and you're going to start to laugh. You might start singing real loud. I need you to pick up the phone and give me a call that's the day that you have just changed your life. The other time that I or the other commitment I need you to make is that moment where you have made more money than you ever thought you could or ever have. I need that phone call. Those are the only two commitments that I need from you and I love about this business.

That's funny. I had a very similar thing. I called it the click moment. Whenever it clicks, I want you to call me or text me or notify me in some way, shape or fashion that, hey, I finally get all this. It clicked for me. And then on the day that you make your biggest check you've ever made for a week, want to go with you to help you cash at the bank. That's my job. My job is to take you to the bank every Friday and drag you there and help you make money. It looked like you froze up, but you're back now. Okay, good. So, Chuck, with all of our contractor radio episodes, we were. This was kind of a little bit of a brag moment on us, like, hey, this is cool. Great team up and all that. And there was some good stuff, golden nuggets in there. I want to talk a little bit more and bring some value today. Just proof in the pudding. This is what we're all about. So what are a couple of things that you talking to a sales leader? Perspective. What are a couple of things a sales leader could do right away to literally ramp their sales up immediately?

I'll tell you, the very first thing they need to do is they need to rate their people. They need to start with a good team. And so when I started out, there was a company that I started in home improvement of Bath Fitter. And when I came into Bath Fitter, it was like the friends and family plan. And so I realized at that moment that these people were hired because they were either friends or family, not because they were good. And that moment when I understood what the team needs to look like and I started to change people over that needed to be changed or, you know, trained the people that needed to be trained, that's when the numbers for the company, all the KPIs just started to roll. It looked like a, you know, someone's electric meter. When they turned on their, their Christmas lights, it started just rolling. But that is the first thing that a guy needs to do. He needs to start with a group of champions. And if you look at somebody and you realize that that person's never going to be the, the contract or the, the salesperson of the month. You May need them to replace that person. You know, every time you give them a lead, you may be wasting company money. So that's the first thing. The next thing is, do you have a system? Not only do you have a system, but does your people know it? I'll walk into a contracting company and I'll say, hey, do you have a system? Yes, it's up on the wall. How many of your people know it? I don't. You know, and that's what tends to happen is they have all the systems on the wall, but nobody knows it. They think that if they hang the poster long enough that it'll just soak in. Doesn't happen, you know, and then the second thing is, if you want to know what's wrong and where the, the biggest issues in your company are, set everybody down and have them do the price presentation. You're going to find out where your issues are at that moment. And that is, you know, that's what I've learned over the last seven, eight years that I've been coaching. And it's kind of a shortcut to find out where your breakdown is in your organization or your team.

Yeah. One of the beauties of what you do, Chuck, is you don't like. My background is the insurance restoration stuff. But prior to that I had a retail background and so I was familiar with retail sales and how that works. I also had a very strong sales training background and sales management background. But you have like uber level retail sales background.

I do.

Like, I will, I will bow to you on that one and say, chuck is better than I at this. And that's the whole goal of what any leader should do, is surround themselves with people that are better than them at what they do. So as far as salespeople go, especially thinking maybe from a retail perspective, what's a couple tips you give those guys to kind of change their trajectory with their sales success?

So anytime that I train a group of sales professionals, I always get two or three that'll come to me and they'll say, chuck, how can I be the best? Now here's the problem, because I'm going to tell them what they need to do to be the best. And I might get one in every five classes that will actually do what it is I ask them to do. Because when you're looking at somebody like, I want to be the best, the problem is, is they're looking for a silver bullet. They're not looking for the actual answer. Because that actual answer is, you need to find the best and you need to ride with them to find out how can you be better than them. Learn it as well as they do and then don't stop learning. That's how you're going to become the best. You know, if you come to me, you're going to get the best basics, you're going to get some advanced, but ultimately you need to, if you're going to be the best, you need to find the best in your organization. Ride with them, find out what they do in the house. Don't just sit there and talk to them during a sales meeting. You know, ride with them, find out what they do. Once you get to that level, don't stop because they have, you need to, you need to move past them at that point. But that's when, when someone says, I just want to be the best. The problem is, is are you willing to put in the work that is required to be the best? Not too many people are, Chuck.

It's like listening to myself talk. It's amazing. So whenever I got into the industry I was like, you know, so what do I got to do to be number one on the sales? And nobody could tell me or anything, you got to sell this many. And I said, well, where do I get the training on how to do it? Well, you know, here's how you sign a contract, here's a spreadsheet. Okay, that's maybe not what I'm looking for. I have my sales background. Like I knew how to like order and process stuff, but I want to see somebody do it. And so I went around, looked at the sales board and who's this guy? Brad guy never met Brad before. He comes walking in one day and he's 19 year old kid, he's got like gym shorts on, tennis shoes on, shirt untucked, hat on backwards. I'm like, that's the number one sales guy. Really? All right, I'm going to go hang out with him. And I, what I found out is Brad just made it really easy. He made it really easy for people, which made it really easy for me. And he had a little bit of a system to what he did. Not too much. I'm going to take what he's got. Now that I understand the process out in the field, I like Uber, ramp that up a bit. And it wasn't very long. I got to be top sales guy. I think first week, actually I sold 22 the first week and 28 my second week. And so it was. But that was the key. Like I had to go like, who's the best okay, that guy's the best. Now I'm gonna keep working to make it even better. I'm still working on it to this day, Chuck. Every single day. I'm like, how could we make this sales thing that we do a little better? How can we get more out of it? How can we close better? Close more, make it easier, all those things. And that's why we brought you on, because I think you're gonna help us get there even better than what we are. Chuck, I think you can tell, man, I'm. I'm jacked up. I'm ready to go. I think this is going to be really cool between us. I think we're going to provide a level of service to our clients that they've been asking us for. I get asked all the time, hey, can you train my sales team? I'm like, well, we really do, you know, strategy and tactics and stuff like that. We don't really do a lot. We will go in and do some of that kind of stuff. But now we have the expert. We got an expert that can help both in the insurance restoration side of things and retail side of things. I got a question for you. I ask these questions all the time. I ask you a couple, actually. Actually, I'm going to ask you three. I usually spread them out throughout the deal, but we'll. This was the whole different one today. So what's your greatest achievement to date? That isn't getting married or having kids. That's too easy.

Yeah, it's easy.

You better answer that way, because if she ever hears it, you. You better put her.

I will say she's my greatest sale. So I will say that she turned me down flat the first two times. So it was great. But my greatest achievement. So when. When I was in junior high, high school, I was labeled severely learning disabled. And so I was in special classes and went from that to where I was one of the youngest aerospace engineers in the country, working for a place called Bombardier Learjet in their flight test department. So, I mean, that's probably my. My biggest accomplishment. Going from zero to what people would call Doogie Howser, which I am not. Within just a few years.

That's absolutely amazing. I want to dig into that story again anytime. Maybe we'll talk about that. That is incredible. And what that is, that's wanting something bad enough. You wanted something, and anything that involves a skill, you can get it. I see people all the time. I had to struggle with my own kids, like my daughter. I'm bad at math. No, you're not. You just don't want to work hard enough in math. You can accomplish anything you want to accomplish if you want it bad enough. And obviously you wanted it bad enough. And so that's super cool. Okay, question two. What is the best advice you've ever gotten from a mentor or coach?

Oh, wow. Best advice. I'll tell you. The best advice that I've ever gotten is just keep moving forward. You know, no matter what's going on, just keep moving forward. Whether it's something really bad and someone has to tell you that, you know, hell's a small town, you just got to keep walking. Whatever the case may be, just keep moving forward.

I love that one. Hell's a small town. Keep on walking. It's snowing today. It'll stop tomorrow. I actually get more enjoyment from the bad things than the easy things, the good things. The bad things are what challenges us and helps us rise to the occasion. That's. That's good. I like that advice.

You gotta have a lot of the bad stuff happen to really appreciate a lot of the good stuff, to tell you the truth.

True. Yeah. I'm very appreciative right now because there was a lot.

We'Re all going to learn, I think, over through what's going on right now.

Yeah, exactly. So last question. We all only have so much time on this planet, and one of our things around here is to, you know, make a massive impact in that time that you have, you know, leaving this legacy type thing. And one of these days, Jim's gonna go, Chuck's gonna go. How do you want people to remember Chuck Thoke?

So that's the whole reason I started into coaching. I loved management. I love training guys that they were, you know, before I got a hold of them, they were working in a car wash or fast food. If you've seen John Dye's podcast, when we were at Roofcon, they had the opportunity to see a guy that I pulled out of subway, and he's 19 years old and he just sold $2 million. I mean, so to change somebody's life like that, when you see, you know, a legacy, I just want, you know, a handful of people to say, you know what? My life is where it is today because I found Chuck. You know, I had the opportunity to talk to him once or twice, whatever the case may be, that's. That's the legacy that I want to leave behind.

That is super awesome. Leave people better than before they met you. Right?

That's right.

That's super cool, Chuck. Welcome to the Team. You're going to be on your first coaching call tomorrow with one of our clients. Can't wait for that. And I see big things for us in the future. Can't wait to see what that looks like in the next year or two. And we look forward to having you on the team.

I look forward to helping you conquer this industry. It's going to be fun.

All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right.

Thank you.

All right. All right, everybody. That was our big news. We brought on one of the preeminent sales coaches in the country out there to help you guys get better at sales. And so if you do, you want to get better at sales, you want to get better at running your business, you want to. You want to work on your business instead of in it, get control of it so you can grow it so you can find that financial and personal freedom that you're chasing. Check us out at Contractor Coach Pro. Click on that little free assessment thing. Take our assessment. It notifies us. It's a process, just like we coach you guys. And once you take that assessment, you're going to get a calendar link back. That calendar link will set up time for a free strategy call with us. And on that call, our whole purpose is to provide value to you that day. Whether you choose to be a client of ours or not, that's completely up to you. You're either ready for it or you're not. You're either willing to put in the work or you're not. That day that you meet with us on that free call, our goal is to provide you value, to propel your business forward. So thanks for joining us here on Contractor Radio this special episode. This is episode 47, and go check us out Contractor Radio, the podcast. You can look it up on any of your podcast platforms. Lots of great information, lots of golden nuggets in there to help your business and make sure you subscribe, download, pass along to your team, help them get better at what they do. We're here to serve you guys. That's what Contractor Coach Pro is all about. And we hope to see you at events, on our calls and as clients to help you get control, grow, and find that freedom you're looking for. Talk to you later. Bye, guys.