The Data of Presentations with Ingage

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Hello, everybody. I am your host for this week's episode of Contractor Radio. My name is Nathan Thibodeau and we've got some really interesting information that we're going to bring to you this week and we're really excited to talk to you about it. It's a little bit tricky information. Many of us have heard lots of stuff around it. We want to create some high level understanding of, of what is so important about data. And so I'm entitling this podcast the Data. And so a few things that we're going to try and address in this is why is data such a big deal? Why is it important to, to, to be paying attention to your data? That might seem like an obvious answer, but data can be kind of tricky and some people just, they get lost in it and they, they don't know what to do with it. Maybe they have too much and they're getting in the weeds. Other people just decide to ignore it altogether because it gets kind of complicated sometimes. So we're going to talk about what is such the big deal about data. We're told from many wise people to try and make decisions based on the numbers. Right, make decisions based on the numbers. Well, what exactly does that mean and how do you do that? We're going to talk a little bit about that. And then lastly, many people, especially in the small business circle, one of the questions that you might have is, okay, well, how can we make decision, analyze and make decisions according to the numbers or according to the data and kind of still keep our humanity or still keep our culture and not become too cold in the black and white world of what exactly data means? So today I am going to be joined by two awesome gentlemen who've got a lot of experience and expertise in this world with Mr. Dean Curtis, the founder and owner of Engage, an awesome, awesome partner of ours that builds probably the premier presentation tool that you'll find out there in the world. And he's got some great perspective around that. And then Mr. Chuck Toki, who, if you listen to this podcast, you know exactly who that guy is and you're going to get to hear from him as well. So we're really looking forward to diving in and we're going to do that right after a quick word from the contractor radio sponsor. If you're a window installer, you deserve a simple choice. Andersen 400 series windows. They're the Windows contractors trust most based on a 2022 survey of U.S. contractors, probably because they have fewer callbacks and extra peace of mind. And thanks to shortened lead times, they're available even faster. Make your go to Windows andersen 400 series. Request a quote@andersenwindows.com welcome back to this week's episode of Contractor Radio where we are talking about the data. Please pay attention to the sponsors we put out there. Those guys make the podcast possible as well as many of the other things that we do. And if you know us at Contractor Radio and Contractor Coach Pro, we're pretty selective about our sponsors. And so they're at least worth going and talking to those folks and seeing, seeing what they do and how they can help you. So I am going to bring in our guests this week, Mr. Chuck Toki and Mr. Dean Curtis. How are you guys doing today?

Doing well.

Awesome. Thanks for having us.

Awesome, awesome. So, Chuck, many of our listeners know who you are, but Dean, not many of them know who you are. Would you mind maybe giving us a little bit of background to kind of where you came from, what you're doing now, and maybe you could even just give us a quick you run down on Engage for those that maybe haven't heard of it yet?

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, thanks so much for having me on the podcast today, Nathan. It's a pleasure to be here and sit alongside you and Chuck and have this conversation about data in the market. As you mentioned, I'm the CEO of Engage. @ Engage, we believe it's just plain wrong that it's so hard to create an amazing presentation, share it with the people who need it, and then measure whether it's actually doing anything for your business. So we, as you mentioned, we make interactive presentation software. Lots of folks in the contractor world use it for in home sales presentations, appointment confirmations, and lots of different content that they're sharing with their sales team as well as their customers. Personally, I've had the great fortune of being in the technology industry for more than 25 years. I started my life as a classroom teacher and quickly realized that my calling was actually in technology. And I've worked for some, some great companies. Oracle, Palm, Apple. And I've been here at Engage for the past five years. So my real passion is helping businesses find a way to leverage technology and then using that technology to help them drive efficiencies, improve productivity. And then I think our topic today of data is really helpful in helping drive business.

Forward. Very cool. Thank you. Thank you for that rundown. Very much so. Chuck is our resident bourbon and smoking expert. I probably shouldn't say that Jim. Jim would get all pissed off of me about the Smoking meat. Smoking expert. Part of that. Sorry, Jim. So the first thing, this first question may seem kind of academic, and that's okay. We don't have to spend a bunch of time on it. But just. I'm one of those people, likes to set some definitions so when people hear us use a particular word throughout the rest of our time together, they kind of know what we're talking about. Why, first of all, how would you define data and why is it.

Important? You want to go first.

Chuck? Yeah, I'll jump in. When you look at data, there are so many different types of data. When we look at data, sometimes when, like when I'm talking about data with a company, I'm looking at all the leads that come in, all the names, address and phone numbers, and they look at it like, oh, this is so worthless because we didn't get a chance to. To get them on our schedule. And I'm like, this is a real person that has a house and it has a roof, siding, windows, whatever. So it's data that you can continue to mine through as long as it's within a certain period of time and you don't get caught by the telephone companies or whatever. But that is one of the biggest pieces of data that I look at. Then you're looking at data such as the data that happens inside your KPIs. And most people, and I don't want to get too far ahead, but most people look at their KPIs and they want to run their business by their KPIs, which they should in many cases. But we can't take the emotional piece out of it.

Either. I mean, for us, we think of. I'll keep it in the context of what we.

Do.

Right. So I think a lot of people, when they deliver content to their sales team, they have no idea any data behind it. All they know is I created it on this date and I put it on this server and I think somebody might have downloaded it. Right. So for us, it's really about, are people delivering presentations, how long are they spending, what are they doing in those presentations? And then linking that to other pieces of data to make good decisions. Right. So if I had to define data, it's the core, it's the, it's the raw material on which we make decisions. Right. And data is only that. It's only data. Right? Right. It's. It's really just the raw.

Material. It's like it's information. Right. So if you're going to define it, it's just information. So if, if you're on a sales call and you're asking a prospect information about their experiences or about their home or where they live, their answers to you are data. They're giving you data. And you're, if you're a good salesperson, you're going to be using that information to make decisions later on down the road throughout that process. You know, when, when you're, when you're figuring out what your year to date revenue is, how you know that's data, that's information. When you're figuring out what your average sale ticket is or how long it takes for you to produce a job, those are little, like just pieces of information that's essentially called data. And so best way, I think, is just think of data as information. I mean, interesting. Like, as human beings, we're taking data in constantly. Like right now I'm looking at you guys, I'm hearing you guys, that's data. And then this, this tool we're using is keeping track of all the little minutes and seconds and all these little ones and zeros flying around. It's all, it's like, literally we're surrounded by data. And so this, this, this concept of data, like, based on that kind of definition, every business has data.

Right? Too much of it, probably. Right. More than they know what to.

Do with, that's for.

Sure. Right. Okay, so where do you find it? So I know I just said like, data is this huge, giant, broad concept. Okay? But when we do say every company has data and somebody goes, okay, I've got data. Where is it? Like, so if you're a company thinking I'd like to gain something from it, like, where do they find their.

Data? Yeah, this is a hot point for me because, I mean, you're, you. It should be found in your CRM. And if the CRM is, it's customizable enough, because every business is different. The CRM companies have a hard job because they put it out there and they know that everybody's going to complain about it because everybody wants it in different ways. But if they are able to put all the data in all the right places and the company knows how to separate that data so that it's not all jumbled together, they, that what you can do with that data is absolutely amazing. You know, I can find out exactly what's going on with every lead source. Not only that is I can find out what's what salesman is good at, what lead source at what at what time of the day. I mean, so if they put the information or data, where it's supposed to go inside those CRMs and they house all that data in the same CRM. Because I've seen many have several different CRMs and they feed off of each other, but if they put it on that, in the. All the data in that CRM, they should be able to mine that data and be able to run the company in such a way that it's.

Streamlined. Yeah, Chuck, I agree. I mean, data is everywhere. And unfortunately, that means it's on a sticky note on their desk and it's also in their notebook and it's on the napkin in their truck. Like it's in. It's literally everywhere and without a central place that everyone agrees should be the place where it.

Goes. We need to make a sound bite of.

That. Yeah, there we go. Coaching moment. Hey, data is everywhere, including the sticky notes that are on your desk or fell behind.

It.

Exactly. I got it right.

Here. And that's the problem. So what we try and preach to our. I mean, because remember, even though we're a software company, we're sales team just like everyone else. Right. What are the good processes you have in order to make sure you're capturing all of that data and in the right place so that when you're ready to make a decision, you have it all Right. Because it can get unwieldy at times. And I just did an analysis of all of our software systems. Oh, boy. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many we have. I won't even mention the number, but it's a lot. And the more systems you have and the less streamlined you are in the processes to use those, your data is going to be everywhere. So data is everywhere. So how do you get the processes around it to make sure it's in the right place when you have to make a.

Decision? Yeah, we have different data receptacles. Right. So QuickBooks is a source of data. Your CRM is a source of data. If you've got spreadsheets of some kind that you use for something that those tools don't use, that's a source of data. So when you're putting in a date or when you're putting in a quantity, or when you're putting in a line item of some kind, or when you're establishing a time frame, or when you're taking in some information from a phone call that goes somewhere, and so that somewhere that you guys put that stuff out there in the.

World.

Right. That's your. That's where your data's at. So if you're going, I probably have this information. Where is it? Where do you put your information? I mean, some guys like have a notebook. There's what I used to, I had, I had a boss that I used to work with who was a little stubborn on, on software. And he had what he called it his analog CRM. And it was just a moleskin notebook. It was all it was, right. So God forbid something happened to him and, and the rest of the team needs to follow up and work with these clients because he's out of pocket or something and it's all on a notebook and nobody knows where it.

Is.

Right. Furthermore, you can't analyze it, you know, like, so that your data is wherever it is that you put.

Information. And the thing is, you want to, you want to reduce those islands of information, right? Think of them as islands surrounded by water that no one can get to. Right. You want to create the bridges between them so that you have all of the data again, when you want to make those decisions, get rid of the islands of information. Make sure you have great places where everyone's agreeing on what goes.

Where. Yeah, I'm working with an Amish company right now that they're not allowed to use phones they can't use. I mean, so I asked, I says, well, so where are all your files? And they take me to this thing called a banker's box and they just open it up. And it was. At first I thought I was going to get overwhelmed and I was almost refreshing. You know, it's like, you know right where your files are, you know exactly what order they're in, you know that you know exactly. And I asked, where's your, where's your sales schedule? And he points up on the wall. And I was like, wow, this is, it was something that, that blew me away as I haven't seen in so.

Long. Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, so we've got these data receptacles and Dean, you kind of started alluding to this concept a little bit in, in, in gathering. Like we want to try and probably reduce those data receptacles as much as we possibly can, have as few as we can. If you're listening right now, I'm going to tell you right this second, there is no one single source solution for all of it. Not unless you're going to spend, and I mean literally millions of dollars to build an enterprise level solution that's customized to your business. You, you're never gonna find a one stop shop for all of that. So just take a deep breath and Relax. You're probably gonna use multiple different tools and components throughout your business. Okay, so. But that kind of leads to my next question or thing for us to try and flesh out a little bit. How do we then if we have, I mean, even if you've got a company that's got two data receptacles or two data point places where they put information, how do we take the data we have and make it something that we can read? I mean, like the word aggregate. We take this information, put it into a place where we can go, okay, I know this thing's happening over here, and I know this thing's happening over here. If I combine those, that gives me a better picture. How do we make our data something that we can read and.

Process? That's typically done in customizable reports. Reports that.

Can.

It. If I was wanting to look at all of my sales reps and I want to see all the different data, I would have all the different rows. One row would be how much they sold. The next row would be how many appointments they had. You know, all the way through to my close rate, my NSLI Everything would be in one long row. So I can see that rep and everything that is associated. So it would be, I guess you say most of it would be inside of a comparable type.

Report. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think even maybe a precursor to that is what questions do you want to answer? Right? So a lot of times, you know, you jump to the solution of, oh, I need, I need a report. Or I, I did this in my own leadership team. I'm like, guys, we need to, we need X, you know, whatever it is. And what I forgot was I really wasn't the answer. Asking them the right question. Right? Because we weren't, we didn't have the data because I didn't really know what question I wanted to be answered. Right? So I went back a step right to the higher level of what question are we trying to. Trying to answer to your point, Chuck, like, who is, who is leading us in? NSLI well, okay, now I know I needed to go to this system and maybe I have to combine it with this other system so that I can get that level of data to be integrated in one place so I can actually answer that question and make that decision based on the data. So I think it's. I think, yes, there's tactical things, but there's also strategic things of, oh my gosh, what question do I really need to answer? And most importantly, how does it help me make a good business Decision moving.

Forward. Yeah, that's the best answer I think I've ever heard is what answer do you. Are you looking.

For? I've worked for a number of software companies actually in my, in my own life. And for those of you that use software and that software company has support, one of the best things you can get in the habit of doing is when you call the support company at your software because you want to know if the software can do a thing. Can my software do this or can it do that? Instead of really asking them for. Because the thing is you'll end up in this language barrier is what happens. The support people are thinking about their software in terms of what it can and can't do. And you've got this random outside concept and you're not totally sure how to communicate it. So instead what you say is, can it do X? Whereas a really powerful way to. Much more efficient way to ask like a tech support person would be, I need to know X. How can I get this product to tell me X? Right. I mean, I'm sure like it Engaged. You guys run into that all the time. I know that engage has some internal data components. And what if somebody was using, I mean, engaged software, other type software when somebody calls out and they're like, hey, I need to know some information. How do you guys deal with those kinds of.

Questions? Yeah, I mean, I'll go all the way back to our product development. Like literally the call I was on right before I jumped on, this was our roadmap call and we were going through some, what we call user stories in order to find some new product features that we're working on. And we don't think about building things in terms of features. We think about problems that we're.

Solving for, for a.

Customer. Right. So it's kind of that, that same thing of what problem are we trying to solve, not what feature am I trying to build. Right. If you think about. I'll take a bit of a diversion. But back to my time at Apple, we were competing against BlackBerry. And BlackBerry had a feature called software encryption. So all of your data at rest was encrypted, but the problem was it was encrypted with your passcode. So it was done when you entered in your passcode. It was part of the encryption key to decrypt the software so that. And it would all happen in software. And everyone that we were selling into the enterprise, they're like, you have to have this. BlackBerry has it. We're like, okay, well when Apple came out with it, they did an encryption scheme in hardware which was infinitely faster. Right. So you didn't have to sit there and wait for your whole device to decrypt. It would do it on the fly. So it was just a piece of technology that. Answering the question of what do we want, the what problem are we trying to solve? But thinking about it in a completely different way. Not just saying we need to do what the competition does or we need to do what this other company does, we, you know, at Apple, we solve it in a very different way. And I think that that applies here as well. Like, when you're looking at the data, what problem are you trying to solve? Not, am I just trying to do what everybody else.

Does? Yes. Yeah, I think that's a. That's a really good call out. Is really wanting to know what that is. Right. The efficacy of our sales team or the speed with which we're doing production, or if you're trying to find inefficiencies, you're looking for inefficiencies in how your company does things, where do you start? I think oftentimes we will attack the thing that makes the most noise. Right. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. But that squeaky wheel I found more often than not is a symptom of something that isn't hardly making any noise at all. And so, you know, if we want to improve something, we've got to be able to get a baseline of understanding of what it's doing now and then. And then look at the trend and then figure out those markers along that. Along that trend. And that data is really part of what. What tells us that. So some questions for you, right, Dean, I'll just ask you. I know, and I've talked to your team, and they're like, Dean is a data hound. He loves data. He's always asking for data, and sometimes he wants it faster than I can get it to him. But when it comes to reading data, how do you read your data? And then what is it telling you when you get it? I mean, and you can be specific, and we don't have to be too general. I mean, some of these. Some folks will probably relate to it, and some of it, because it's software, may not make as much sense, but examples are really.

Helpful. Yeah. I mean, I'll give you a real example in terms of our product. Right. So if, let's say you're using Engage or using presentation software and you want to say, hey, is there a correlation between my close rate and the delivery of an in Home sales presentation, right? I mean, you spend tons of time training on it. You spend tons of resources building it, refining it. There's a link between sales and marketing understanding. You know, is it really matching the right, you know, the right message that we want to send? Does it have all the products? Are the products up to date? Like, all of that? You spend tons of time in your business making that. So the question is, is it helping? A real question, is it helping? There's no one metric that says, is it helping? However, if I can bring a few pieces of data together to say, hey, you know what? Nathan is presenting, and the average time that he presents is 64 minutes, and the average time that Chuck presents is 72 minutes. And then we go a level deeper and we say, well, you know what, Chuck? Where's that eight minutes being spent? Oh, it's actually being spent in section two of the presentation. By the way, Chuck's close rate when I look in the CRM is 10 points higher than Nathan. Sorry, use an.

Example. Come.

On. But how can I correlate that data, right? Independently? It's like, Chuck's doing 72, Nathan's doing 64. Whatever. But when I can now get deeper and more granular to, I can actually maybe answer some of those questions to say, or maybe you guys are both not doing well with financing, and you look at the data and you're like, oh, my gosh, neither of these guys are ever getting to the financing slides. Like, come on, fellas, what are you doing? Right? And it's not a Big Brother thing. It's more of a, hey, we know that when Sam got to financing, Sam is actually closing at seven points higher. And by the way, he's getting four, you know, X number of basis points for us from the financing company as well. So his average deal size is up, but also he's closing faster, and we're getting some residual from the finance. Like, all of that can be brought together not because you have a single piece of data, but because you can start stitching them together to again answer those questions that you're really interested in.

Answering. I'm going to show this to my kids because it's like when you go to school and you got those word problems and you sit there like, I'm never going to use this. Like, oh, yes, you.

Will. You know, it's funny, Chuck, when I was a teacher, I was a math teacher, and my students, my sixth grade students would all ask me, like, when am I ever going to use this? And my answer was always, never. But I said the skill you're developing is the ability to solve problems. And if you're, if you're able to solve problems, you're. You're going to be great in any profession. Right. And I think everybody out there, that's what you're doing every day is solving problems. Right. So the more you can do that, the better you're going to.

Be. So, Chuck, you want to, you want to put a little bit of kind of your, your angle or perspective on this, how you read the data and what it tells.

You. Yeah. So the, the easy answer is if you take all the data and you line it up, whether it be per sales rep, per lead source, or for the presentation itself, it all tells a story. When I'm looking at a sales rep and I just got done this morning with a client when we were going through their data, and I says, look, you got to understand that John, he doesn't truly buy into the product because he's always selling the good system, none of the better and the best systems. But also all of his profitability is low. So he thinks that the price is too high and he doesn't believe in the product. You know, it's. And so when we're going through this, we can help them understand. Now we have, you know, we have Billy. These are not real names, by the way, but you have Billy, that he's always selling the best and his profitability is high and his close rates low. He's padding his pockets. You know, he's going for the home run every single time. So we now know how to manage our sales teams, but we also know how to manage our lead sources and what needs to happen with, you know, if we're going to use it with engage. We know what pages they like, what pages they don't. Doesn't mean that we're going to get rid of those pages. But I would like to know why we're only spending two seconds on the danger signal page. So those types of things, we want to know.

Why. Well, and the one thing too that occurs to me is that it's that the, the information you're getting isn't always just static. So, for example, like when you said Dean, you're like, well, you know, Nathan may be closing at 64 and Chuck's closing it at 74. What's going on there? Right. Well, what if one of those two guys has an average higher ticket? So what if, maybe, maybe this guy over here is closing at a lower rate, but for Some reason he's 5% higher when he does close than everybody else. So then you've got these two different angles from which to start asking additional questions. Like, okay, well, how do we get this. How do we get this guy with a higher ticket up to a higher percentage rate? How do we get the guy with a higher percentage rate up to a higher ticket? And so it's not always necessarily a one or a zero. There's numerous other things that you could be looking for or, you know, how much time somebody spends in the home. Like, we really have a hard time. Like, we've got this guy over here, he closes at 90%, but, gosh, he can only run two appointments a day because he's there so.

Long. Right.

Okay. And then. And then all of a sudden, do we have a customer service? Like, do his clients not like him very much because he's there for three hours and won't leave until they say yes? So then you've got this whole other data set over here to start considering how there's so much that goes into it. So how. The next question I have has a couple of components to it. How do we make decisions by the numbers, like, what filters should be we be using as we look at our data? Or maybe. Maybe I shouldn't say what they are because they're probably. Probably very. And then what. So what are some filters that we should use mentally to look at our data with? And then what influences those.

Filters? And you guys, I think one thing. Data should inform the questions you ask. Yeah, right. So the. The whole point of. It's funny, when we. When people look at our solution, they're like, oh, my gosh, people are going to think it's Big Brother while they're presenting. Not at all. It just gives you so much context into what's happening and allows you to ask some really good questions. Hey, I notice whatever it is, help me understand. I'm not in the home with you. I'm not on those sales calls, nor do I need to be anymore, by the way, because I can see what's happening. You know, I want to understand. Help me understand. You're doing this really. You're. You're doing this really, really well. Help share with the rest of the team.

Why?

Right. So I think it's the filter is what questions you ask and how you can drive better conversations because of having access to information that you might not have had.

Previously. I like how Sebastian talks about our copilot program in the form of Moneyball. And so if you watch that. That movie, it's all about data. Everything they do is about data. And they win a ball game based on data. Not skill, but data. And he says it's all based on consistency because I can bet on consistency. So that's the same thing with us, is that we're looking for consistency, but also profitable consistency of, you know, if, if it, if we're more profitable and the person that is, is off highest product and, and not doing any discounting, then fine, let's, let's take a look at that. But most importantly, you know, where's the profit and where's the consistency.

Lie? I was also thinking too a little bit like, we have this, this concept of, like the way our economy moves and operates. And so as a business owner, I think sometimes you're looking at financial reports, you're looking at your, your budgets, your, you know, budget to actual, you're looking at your staffing needs, you're looking at, you're looking at your overall strategy. And sometimes your strategy or what it is you're trying to accomplish is going to have an impact on how you read the data. Like, sometimes people go in and they look at their finances because the question they're trying to answer is, can I afford to hire a marketing.

Person?

Right? And then some people go into their finances going, how much money am I making? Two different questions to ask. And they're probably going to look at very similar data for that. But you should be, I think you should be aware of the filter you're using as you look at your data because it will impact the decision you make. The numbers are still the same, but you're looking for something. And if you find it, yay. Or you find it, boo. Right? And so I think that's an important thing to keep in mind because I tell you what, us, we human beings are pretty good at finding things that confirm what we already believe. And so, yeah, we're already, we're already looking for it. Like, oh, I found a zero in this place and I was expecting a zero there. Well, yeah, but is that the only factor that's important there? So I think that sometimes we can approach data with a little bit of our own bias or our own fear or our own expectation. Maybe we have a strategy in mind and we're trying to see if the data supports our ability to initiate or continue with that strategy is having thoughts on.

That. I mean, confirmation bias is definitely real. So you have to be careful when you are looking at your data to be like, wait, let me put it all on the side. Let me, let me really? Let me ask the question I'm really looking for and go in with eyes wide open to not have that confirmation.

Bias. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. This sales guy's terrible. Look at that. He missed one deal. We should fire him.

You. I'm sure we've all seen this. It always is. It's always. It's always. It's like it happened.

Once. We had a situation just the other day, so I won't give the specifics of it. Someone's like, I can't believe this is always happening. I was like, okay, well, how many times? I just asked a simple question. How many times it happened in the last week? Once. How many times it happened ever? Once. But I think it might be a trend. That's not a trend. You need two points to make a line.

Right? That's.

Right. Oh, man.

That. That is tough because your emotions will betray you. Your emotions will betray you, especially on the negative things. And I've seen this in Contract Man. Every time this crew does this kind of roof or this kind of siding project or these, we have a problem. And it's like, maybe it's happened three times in the last, like, maybe month or two months, but you've had that crew for three years. So before we go firing anybody, maybe we should see if this. Is this really a thing or. Like you said, Dean, how often does this happen? Not very. See it happen a couple times recently might warrant a conversation. But be careful with that because. Yeah. Data will. If. As long as you can keep your eyes open, it will. It will squash how you feel about a particular thing.

Thing. Yeah. Recency bias and confirmation bias. Two very important things to just be cognizant.

Of. Oh, yeah. And I've had, believe me, I had it happen to me. I'm like, if I just feel like this thing's happening all the time and then we pull the numbers and I'm like, oh. I'm like, all right, well, I guess I need to check myself a little.

Right. It just hurt really bad.

Right. Just my feelings are just so. All right, we're going to. We're going to jump into something. We're going to get a little more human here in a second and talk a little bit about how some of this matters, what leaders may be looking for. And if you're a manager or you're part of a leadership team, some of the interworkings, and bring the humanity component, which we kind of were leading into with confirmation bias potential there. But we're going to do that right after a quick word from another one of our.

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Today. Hey everybody, welcome back to Contractor Radio. Thanks for taking a few seconds to listen to our sponsors. We love those folks, give them a little love, pay attention, check out their websites and if you're out and about and you are at an event or something, stop by their booths, tell them Contractor Coach Pro sent you. As a matter of fact, if you ever talk to any of our sponsors, make sure you tell them Contractor Coach Pro sent you. Because most of them take very good care of the of the Contractor Coach Pro and the Contractor Radio folks. And I know Engage is one of those people too. So make sure to mention us when you reach out to Engage to radically and dramatically improve your presentation process in the home. Also man, Engage does. We did a, just as a side, we did kind of a little bit of a training thing with Engage. Alright, sorry, Shameless plug. And we learned that Engage not only has a series of automations that can be built into a process, but it can, it can do, it has integrations and communications with other people. Outside of that Engage could, could, could, could function not just as a presentation tool, it could also become part of your training program. It could technically become part of your actual production as well. And so my mind started, if you guys are wondering how does that happen, you gotta contact Engage. Cause we don't have time to get into that now. But after I got a chance to get a little deeper into it, I was like, holy cow. This actually, this twisted my mind up pretty good on what I could do if I still had a contracting company with Engage. So anyway, sorry, second commercial. Sorry about that everybody. But so the next thing I wanted to kind of get into.

Is.

So Dean being your CEO over at Engage. Okay? You and I know this because I talk to your people, you ask them for information, you ask them for data. You ask and I'M also guessing that when it comes to them making decisions as leaders and managers in your business, you're probably asking them what data supported the decision that they made. Okay, so as a leader, as a C, as a CEO, as an owner, what are you guys looking for from your people that you would want to see data on? Or how does that apply as a leader when you've got a team below.

You? Yeah, I mean real world scenario that happened recently, right. We had some folks in our sales team who are doing outbound calling and we were doing an evaluation of is this actually one of our, one of our core values as a company is what we call is, is the value of value. Right. And it's not like, do you have values? Like if you don't, you're not going to survive here. So it's do you value and do you, do you look for ROI in every resource spent? Right. So we do that consistently. I mentioned earlier we just looked at all of our software systems. I cut out 13 software systems systems because we weren't using them and it wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was 50 bucks a month here, 50 bucks a month there. It all adds up in any business, right? So we always look at the ROI of every resource spent and we were doing that with our outbound calling team and we were looking at are we really getting a return on investment from there? And I said, how would we know? Right. It's a real simple question that I ask a lot. How do you know? And so we looked at a lot of the different metrics. We looked at conversion metrics from calls to connects, from connects to demos and then the demo sit rate based on those things. So I'm very, yes, my team knows that I ask for a lot of data and it's really not as anything other than a check and balance because our gut can tell us one thing, but the data can help us validate and verify that. So if we can't answer the question of how do you know with something material, then we have to go find that information.

Out. So Chuck, I know you've kind of, you, you've also been on both sides of this fence and are currently on both sides of this fence and coach people who are on both sides of this fence. So what should be the mindset or approach of a manager when it comes to data reporting? What should they know? Like if you're a sales manager, production manager, your, you know, you have somebody that you're reporting to and that person's probably going to want Some validation or verification and especially like if somebody, you're setting your sales goals for next year or you're, you're trying to establish the amount of volume that your, your fulfillment team can manage. What are some things that people in those positions should have in mind, especially in light of kind of what Dean just.

Said? Well, first we all need dashboards. That's what I like about a lot of the really good CRMs is that they have great dashboards. When you open your computer and there's all the data that you need from the prior day, whether it's, here's your close rate for the week, here's your close rate for the month and for year to date. Going into, you know, what's my backlog, you know, so that I know exactly if I'm going to go into a meeting with the production department, I know what my backlog is. I'm going in with the admin, I know what my AR backlog is. So having that data right there in front of you as a dashboard is key. Then you have your drill down. If anybody has asked for a reporting, you should have the highest level and we always say the CEO level on top of. And I used to have this CEO at Able, he would sit in the meetings for probably the first 20 minutes. That's all you could stand. And so we knew that we had to have very high level data for him. And then once he left, we could do the drill downs to make sure that the next meeting is better. But again, you start with your CEO level data and you work your way into where the drill downs are. You know, why is the, the AR where it's, is it all in commercial? How much AR do we have in commercial, how much do we have in residential? How much do we have in service? You know, so you have different reporting based on who you're talking to. I hope that's what you're, you're looking.

For. Yeah, that was good. Dean, you have any thing to add in that? I mean especially that concept of like what information a CEO wants and whether or not they, they do want to see all the little nitty gritty or they're just, they look at the overall numbers and go, okay, like I'm good with that or what have.

You. I think, I think what's important is not being married to what you're doing. Meaning maybe you have a certain set of metrics that make sense for this quarter, but then it's okay to say, is this really helping us to make good business decisions? Should we be considering Something else. Right. It's the no sacred cows sort of thing. Oh, well, we've always done it this way. Okay. But what if we could grow 10 faster if we did it another way? And are there other metrics that are more meaningful, even just, you know, cyclical metrics? Like, maybe because, like, Q3 for us is a slower quarter because a lot of contractors are out there installing stuff. Right. They're not selling maybe as much now. They're out installing. So. Okay, what are some other metrics we need to look at in Q3 that might not be as relevant in Q4 or Q2? Right. So I think also just being aware of the cyclical nature of your business, not holding on to things that might not be providing value to you anymore, and being open to your leadership team coming and saying, you know what? I've noticed this trend. Can we add this to the dashboard? Great. And let's watch it for a little while. Maybe it's not relevant, but maybe it is. So being open to those kinds of changes, I think is also really.

Important. Yeah, yeah. Don't take that.

Personally. No, gosh.

No. And I mean, it's hard not to sometimes. You know, if you're in the organization and you've, you were tasked with putting together all this information, all this data, and you built this spreadsheet, you built this dashboard, you can go all this kind of stuff, and then somebody comes along, goes, you know what, let's try doing it this way. And you're like, I. But I just, I, I built. I've been working on this thing for a year, you know, so, like, like, be sure as a leader, like, especially if somebody's got a bunch of time, that at least make sure you show some appreciation. Because a lot of people put a lot of work into putting information together and getting that thing out there. And, and, and, and so, you know, you want to make sure that they didn't spend all that time for nothing. Right. So that one's for.

Free. We just added a couple metrics to our product reporting dashboard as a result of a conversation we had in our leadership team meeting of what is. What's happening with this? I don't know. Do we, do we have a metric that we can start tracking to see it? Yeah. Okay, let's add that and let's take a look at it over the next six weeks and see what we see. Right. And it may disappear in six weeks. We're like, nope, it wasn't valuable. Great, we'll remove.

It. This is more of a distraction than Anything.

Else?

Totally. Okay. So I know that for some people, especially people who are very culture obsessed, they're very concerned about the culture of their company. They're concerned about putting people first, they're concerned about their, their personality and just the humanity that's involved there. And I mean, I'm not gonna lie. The larger, more corporate you get, the more data is proliferated and then a data point seen somewhere near the top of the leadership chain, there's a human being behind that, somewhere near the bottom. Right. And so we, there's. There's a fear, and I think it's a valid fear where somebody just looks at data and then starts making decisions about human, about people's lives based on ones and zeros grows. And so if a data, if data, if a company becomes data obsessed and running their company by the numbers, can that ruin their.

Culture? It can, it can if it's not deciphered correctly. I mean, numbers are cold. They're very cold. And you could look at a number and immediately say, this person needs to be fired. And when you look at it, it's like, well, I think that we can change their attitude. I think that we can train them. I think that we can. Whatever, you know, before we make the decision based on the number that is, is beside their name. So, I mean, you got to look at it and, and run the company by the numbers. But how you decipher and disseminate that information to your team has to be, I'm very big on, on, you know, throwing the right cross or hitting them right between the eyes. But it does need to, to come to the team in such a way that it's not.

Demotivating. Yeah, I mean, we, we use three main big metrics that our company marches to and those, those numbers drive. Literally, if you're doing something that's not driving those three numbers, we question what you're doing. Right. So we always try and tie it back. So I think it can be used as a real motivator too. You know, one is a revenue goal, one is a customer satisfaction goal, one is a growth goal. It's like if we're not getting to that customer satisfaction, towards that growth, towards those revenue targets, that's. So it can be, I think it'd be greatly motivating as well, because it's very simple. When you wake up, we say, when you wake up and you come to work every day, is what you're doing today driving one of those three things? And if it's not, pause, ask yourself why you're doing it or go get some direction from someone who can help you redirect so that we make sure we're hitting those three right now. If you only build your culture around those three things, probably not a great way to live, right? Because you want to give like we give our engineers 10, what we call 10% time, and they have 10% of their time where they can work on things that really are additive, that may not tie to those top three things they usually do, but might drive some innovation. Right? So you have to be flexible in terms of the numbers and you have to build things in buffers in so that you can have the humanity in it, so that you can also innovate. Right. Because the innovation side could spur something that you never even planned on. Right. But there are at the same time, the other side of that coin is sometimes you have to be clinical in your decision making.

Making. I like those guidelines in there too. And I thought that that 10 time is super cool.

Because. Very.

Cool. It may, you know, they may be working on something at the moment and it's necessary and it's needed, but they may be just like, man, I. This is like, especially like software folks. They. There's things they really, really love doing and then there's things they know they got to do and they just don't really like doing it. And I think that's a super cool thing. They've got this opportunity to go, okay, I've been working on this thing for hours. At this point, I'm going to take a break from it, work on this really fun thing over here that I'm interested in and passionate about. And it gives them a chance to kind of like break. That's really cool. I love.

That. Yep. Pretty good innovations in our product too, I have to admit. So we just did a rebranding of our whole admin console and that was one of our engineers was just like, I think I can try this thing. And then literally within seven days after he tried it, our whole administrative interface was re reskinned and rethought and redone in a very, very responsive, cool way. And customers have had a great response to it. So, yeah, you have to be careful to just latch onto numbers too much. Right. You have to give some creativity that drives great.

Culture.

Right. Excuse me, Chuck, did you have something to.

Say? No. One thing I do want to throw in there and it goes back to sales and when we're looking at the numbers and the cross culture and helping the. The team understand the numbers because remember that, that with Sales reps, you have to help them understand what, what it means to them. And so like nsli, just as, something as, as simple as your net sale per lead issue, your net sale per lead issued, your revenue per. Per appointment. So if you take somebody that earns 10% and you tell them that, hey, if you're, if your NSLI is $5,000, just understand that every time you go to your car door, you open your car door, that's $500 you just made. And you know you're not going to have anybody in the room. Everybody's running to their cars. But again, you're helping them to understand the data and what in. In such a way that benefits.

Them. That's a, that's a, that is an absolutely brilliant call out. Thank you, Chuck, for that. Because I actually, that when I slipped past. Me too. The idea that, that yes, you can have KPIs and yes, you can have numbers, but those things mean something to you as well. You mentioned it earlier, Dean, I don't want to be just big brother over here. Like, I want to know where you. Where you're doing well. I want to know where you're doing well. I also want to know where you need help. Because if I know where you need help, then you're not going to hear me. You know, like a good example of sales meetings, right? We get into a sales meeting and the sales leader goes, hey, what is everybody having a problem with? And then four or five different issues is thrown out there, and we randomly pick one that maybe only one or two people are having a problem with, but these people over here aren't having a problem with that. So we're about to waste two hours of a large group of our team's time over these two things. But these two people do need it. And so we want to help you improve, like, instantly. You know, you. You don't want to go to training. Great. I'm going to show you some data. This guy over here, he works less than you and he makes more money. Would you like to work less and make more money? Yeah, I think so. I don't know a sales rep that isn't going to say that.

Right?

So. Well, here's the data. If you could improve your closing percentage or your NSLI or whatever by this, these little data points, guess what? You. You have to run half the number of appointments that you do right now. Would you like that? Oh, yes, I.

Would.

Right. And if you ran the same number, think of how much you'd make it at a higher Conversion.

Rate.

Correct.

Right.

Yeah. So that's a great call out, Chuck, is that this data is designed to help you improve your life. This isn't just about this cold hearted machine that we have pumping through numbers. And then, you know, the one thing that I was actually in a meeting not long ago, going over some, some cold, hard numbers, looking at different things and looking at the expenses of these different categories and these different things and the pricing, profitability and going, what works, what doesn't. But I tell you this much, and I kind of put this, this note, this thought came to my head. It's like data tends to tell you what happened, but not necessarily why. So you could look at two things and say, well, this thing's profitable and this thing isn't. But if those things are related, then you may, you, you go, well, this thing clearly isn't profitable. Let's get rid of it. Well, hold on a second. Your sales trainer may not be a profitable line item, but these guys over here who are killing it were trained by that person. So does that show up as a profitable line item in its own vacuum? No, it does not. It may not at all. But as it relates to these other things, you might be shooting yourself right in the foot to make a decision like that. So like Chuck said, it tells a story. And, and it doesn't always have all the footnotes in it. And so it does. It is helpful to kind of know some of the behind the scenes and be involved with your. Because your people do have the.

Footnotes. Yeah, it definitely drives the conversations you want to have and informs the questions you want to. You want to.

Ask.

Yeah. And then the rest is dialogue.

Right? Yeah, that's man. So I know we're kind of coming up towards the end of our time here, and Dean, I got a couple of pop questions for you. So these are off topic, but we like to do this with everybody that, that graces us with their presence on our podcast. So first question. Okay. Now, are you, are you married and have kids?

Yes. Happily married, 26 years, four.

Children.

Congratulations. Thank.

You. All right, so we know that getting married and having your kids.