Training Like a PRO!

Foreign. Hey, everybody, it's Jim Johnson here, your host with Contractor Radio. Super awesome to have you guys here for this special episode because it's something that I've been seeing as a bit of a problem with contractors out there and it should help you to optimize and get the most out of your training. May verbally poke a few people in the eye as I do this, but I think it's important to talk about training and the difference between training, which is teaching and then coaching, and what those things mean out there to your businesses. I was having a conversation today with one of our contractors and I asked him, I said, so we've got this thing, this event that's going on. We're going to be hiring some folks. What's it going to look like when you train them? And the first words out of their mouth were, well, we're going to get them to ride with so and so. And I hear this over and over again, this idea of ride along training. And while valuable, there's nothing wrong with having a new guy ride with somebody with some experience. He's going at it with very little context. He literally showed up day one and you're saying, hey, go ride with Bill and figure out what it is that we do. Which is really not a very good approach because what it does is it ends up causing this guy to have to learn over a long period of time, which defeats this thing that we discuss called time to money. How fast can I get somebody trained up, especially on my sales team, in an effort to get them to the point of making some money? And unfortunately, it takes a little while to learn what we're doing. And this all happened back many years ago as I was trying to figure out what to do with my own team. I hearkened back to some of my own previous experience and really found that what happened is I got a lot of training, I got a lot of teaching, and then I got a lot of coaching. Those two things are very different. Teaching is getting the information and then understanding why that information is important. And then coaching is helping hone that information, holding people accountable to what it is that they learned and executing it well while keeping them motivated on those fundamentals, building the skills so that they go out and execute well. Unfortunately, in our industry, we don't see too much of that in the home services world. I think it's one of the big reasons why home service contractors fail to scale is they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to train somebody they know how to show people what they've done, but that's not necessarily making it something that is valuable for that person to learn from. I've been very lucky. I've gotten to go to millions of hours of sales training seminars, certification programs, but really, and truthfully, most of all, reading. Spent a lot of time really reading, building the strong foundation of these skills that I can now impart to others to help them to become great salespeople. And us as leaders, we really need to take on that responsibility to get that information so that we can then train on it. Well, we need to have a format to what we're doing, a plan, this idea that we're bringing somebody into our world and we get this one opportunity to affect their entire future. Not just a job with us, but hopefully a career with us. And even if it's not a career with us, you're going to have an impact on their career in sales and possibly whether they decide to continue to do sales or not. So it's a huge responsibility. So what are we going to do first? What's the first thing? Well, we need to gain the skills ourselves. A lot of times we have learned from somebody else, and we don't really know what it is that we're doing. We're just parroting, we're repeating back what we've heard before without any true understanding of what, why that thing may work. And so it can work for us. After many experiences of seeing it and doing it, a lot of failing forward, trying things out to see what works, and maybe through our persistence and drive, we end up actually making it. But many years ago, I'm like, there's gotta be a better way. I looked at what I had done before and said, hey, in our industry, if we bring that to the world, we can be very successful. And if you look around at the great contractors that are out there, they spend an enormous amount of time training, but they're not just doing, hey, this is how you do it, they're explaining why you do it this way and the psychology behind it, the science behind it, the art behind it. Because there's so much of that that's nuanced that some of us may not really understand what that is that we're doing. So in order to help you guys maybe get some of this down, I want to share with you some of the things that have worked well for me, and hopefully they'll help you do well out there in the field, teaching and then training and then coaching your own teams. So first off, you got to get some great base knowledge, this idea that the person that's doing the teaching, you don't go to college and learn from a professor that doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't understand the nuance, the full and true understanding behind what it is that he's teaching. He knows it inside and out, backwards and forward, and he really is a resource at just about any question he can probably answer. And if he can't answer, he knows where to go and find it. So he's got an extensive amount of schooling, training, reading courses, all types of things to get to this point to where he is. And we're really lacking in that in our world, whether we're the entrepreneurial leader or the sales leader in our company. What real skill do we have? Yeah, we've gone to some conferences and listened to some guy that sold a million or 2 million or 10 million or whatever the number is, but that guy doesn't know how to teach either. He actually knows how to sell. And those are two very different things. Very few people that can actually sell can teach it, which is a unique talent that you have out there that anybody can actually learn, though it is a skill. Some of us are naturally talented at sharing information, but learning how to teach people is a skill. Number one thing. Number one thing above and beyond all things. Start reading every book you can and listening to every podcast you can about sales. Try to listen to the ones that are more related to your particular niche. In other words, get the information that you need. Pick out the folks that resonate with you. As far as sales leaders, there's a lot of great ones out there. Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Grant Cardone. I mean, there's all kinds of them out there that are pretty good at what they do. My strong suggestion to you, though, is don't take everything that they say to be the only way. Pull the good pieces in that fit your culture and your value system, and then start to teach others what those are. So you got to get this base foundation. Go to every seminar. You can go get certified in the various, like Sandler sales. It's a great sales approach. Understand the different types of sales approaches. You have solution selling methodology. You have client centric methodologies. There's all these different nuances in the way that you approach people out there. I'm a big believer in solution selling methodology. This idea that I'm here to provide the right solution for a client, but I have to actually understand what it is that that client truly needs. And it may not be exactly what they're saying. So you have all of these various pieces that you've got to get put together before you can actually start teaching other folks how to do it and perform well. There's little things, the nuance behind what you do that you just take for granted that whenever you teach somebody else, you don't explain. For example, if you're out there marketing and canvassing and doing that type of stuff and you're knocking on doors, you may naturally knock on a door and step back from it and actually open up a little bit. And that's exactly what you're supposed to do. The problem is you aren't teaching the other folks the why behind why you're doing that. This nuance that stepping back, blading your stance and opening up to that client instead of being squared up to that client makes a huge psychological difference in how the very first piece of that action is going to go. And there's a thousand little things like that. The psychology that goes on, the human behavior and how we're wired in our brains and what makes us do what we do. Understanding, incentive. There's all these little things that we really need to teach people to allow them to be great coaches themselves. So become a master of your craft. Start reading. Read everybody. You can start following the people that you have some respect for. Ask others, now, why did you do it that way? Don't just listen to the words they say, but pay attention to their body language, the way they use their hands, the way they stand, the way they smile, the way they have their shoulders back and are confident versus the alternative, which is to just be you. Sometimes we need to understand that there are certain ways that we hold our bodies and hold our actions and do the things that we do that are going to have a huge impact on your success of being a great salesperson or not. And it will have a bigger impact on those that are teaching you to be able to share that information in a way that you understand it. So that's thing one, get all the knowledge that you possibly can and not just the information. But why am I doing that information? Is it because this is psychological? Is this something that is human behavior? Is this something that's technique or tactic, or why am I doing what I'm doing when I'm doing it, and how does that play with the rest of what I'm doing in my particular position, whether that's sales or anything else? Now, once we have that piece of what we need to go out and teach People, we need to be organized. We need to actually have a format to what we're doing whenever we teach somebody. And we want to make sure that we teach people quickly with great skill so that they can learn it, embed it, and make it real out there in the world. This idea of ride along training, if you really think about it, I'm going along to listen to you present to somebody else, and I'm going to listen, hopefully retain some of that, and then try to parrot, mimic or repeat that whenever it's my turn to do it. Well, unfortunately, when it comes to auditory learning, we only take in about 10% of what we hear. Like, if you're listening to this on a podcast right now and you're totally focused on it, like you're, you don't have any other distractions and you walk away from this, you're going to retain about 10%. And every day for the next five days, you'll lose about 2% of that until you're down to 2% total that you've learned from this podcast that you're listening to. Unless you take some notes while you're listening to this podcast, take some notes while you're listening to this podcast. Your retention level almost triples. You'll retain almost 30% of what it is that you learned now. Without any reinforcement, it will dwindle over time. Because our human mind, the way it works is what's important, is important right now, in the present. If that thing's not present consistently, it's no longer important. And that's why training repetitively is so valuable. That's why those large companies that you see out there who are uber successful doing like billion dollar numbers in the home service trades, train every day. They train every day. That keeps it top of mind, keeps it repetitive, embeds it into them, and they know what to do when they're actually out there in the field. But so many of us, if we're lucky, train once a week. Most of the time we train when something's going wrong and we need to like tune people up. We're not really training people in a way that serves them well. So on that side of things, this idea of having a format, I need to build a little bit of an outline, hopefully a training manual, something that you can actually give to people. But don't start there if you don't already have it, start with an outline. Hey, we're going to talk about the history of our company, we're going to talk about the culture of our company. Then we're going to talk about what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it the way we're doing it. Then we're going to start getting into the meat of the matter. Exactly how to have that first interaction or generate a lead, how to answer the. Or knock on a door and have that first interaction with a client, whether that be canvassing or on an appointment. What's the first words that somebody's going to say? And I'm going to have them do it. After I teach them how to do it, I'm going to show them, I'm going to role play it and talk about why I'm doing it. Then they're going to practice and role play and give it back to me. They're going to keep giving it back to me until they're good at it. And then the next day I'm going to have them do it again and they're going to struggle with it if they didn't practice and embed it. So I'm going to remind them to practice while they're at home. Then I'm going to go through each stage of what it is that I need them to do. And ideally your focus those first three to five days maximum is what do I need to do to get the information into this person's head that gives them what they need to be successful to the point of getting a signature. Because a signature on a contract means money, time to money is important. If we can share what that contract actually means to them financially, they're more likely to do it in the future. So I have to have a format. You guys can build your own. You can work with us as a, as a contractor coach for a client. We help people build those all the time. But I have a format that walks it through exactly in order, step by step, from start to the point of getting a contract signed. So we're practicing a door knock, we're practicing an appointment interaction, we're practicing an inspection, we're practicing the discussion after an inspection. We're practicing all of those things to the point of getting a signature. Presentation, expectations, all these things that need to happen to get somebody to say, yes, I would like to be your customer. Once we get that kind of trained up, we're going to be able to get them out in the field quicker. Now some pointers on that that I think would be valuable to you is if you're planning on scaling your business, why just train one person at a time? First off, if you're training one person at a Time, you are their only peer, and so you're going to be working with them 100% of the. But if I train two people at the same time and I have some fallout, that's okay because I probably have one that stays. But while they're together, the two of them are practicing with each other, which takes some of the load off of me. Also allows them to be more comfortable because they're going to be working with somebody that they feel has their own skill level. Whenever you're working with somebody that you feel is a master or somebody that is more skilled than you, you're a lot more uncomfortable, you're intimidated, and we got to work slowly up the ladder to the point of where, hey, I'm the master now. I want to teach you. This concept of having multiples in your training works in a variety of different ways. It takes a little bit of a load off of you, because once you've taught, now they can practice together. It also creates a bit of competition between the two because one wants to do better than the other, and they're going to kind of battle each other through it. They're also going to learn from each other. Learning from each other is going to be really important. Hey, man, like, they will not ask you questions. They're not going to say, hey, I don't understand that, because they don't want to look stupid. Even if you tell them, hey, no such thing as a stupid question whenever you're teaching and coaching. But they will ask the other guy, hey, remember when he said that over there? What exactly? How did you do that? And so there's going to be a relationship there that built. Super important to try to hire. And by twos, 2, 4, 6, 8. Really no more than 10. 10 gets to be anything more than 10 gets to be an awful lot. Unless you're really highly skilled and unless you're really organized that training manual so they have something to refer back to. That was one of the most important things that I did, was building something like that because I was getting a million questions. And as their trainer and as their teacher and coach, you are their Google. You're simply one search away, which is a text message to you on any and every question. If you can get all those questions down and into a handbook, that's something they can refer back to. You eliminate 80% of the questions, and all the expectations will be the same for each and every person that you train. You don't want your training to sound one way to this group and a different way to another. Group, you have to follow the same format, be very consistent so that you can practice and embed that thing into them. So that's, that's thing two. So my goal in that first three days is to get them about 50% of the information that they need, the information that's needed to be successful out in the field. They are not allowed to go and talk to any possible client without being able to perform well. So they're gonna have to role play, you're gonna have to role play with them, you're gonna have to practice with them. And by doing so, they're not practicing on the rest of the world out there. If you have lead appointments to give people, how many do you burn through? Whenever those people are first coming on board and learning what it is that they need to learn, that they may have heard what to say from so and so, and then they're trying to repeat it out there in the real world, it's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen real well. If I can teach them what to say and then have them give it back to me to the point where I go, yes, that's good. Now go do that. In the field, they're going to be a lot more confident. Number one, they're not going to be burning money on my leads. Number two, and if they're out door knocking and creating their own leads, they're not leaving you with a bad reputation. So we have gaining the skill. We have order and format to what we're teaching. We have role play and practice consistently over and over. Don't just do it for a week. Keep them on their toes, ask them the questions. Later on, whenever you see them the following week, just walk up to them and say, hey, I need to think about it. Because you're going to have objection training in that initial three days. You want to get them the most common, the objections they're going to get 80% of the time. Get those well rehearsed and well practiced. Because when they get an objection, they need to be able to give it back right away. They need to give the appropriate response. We use flashcards. You can actually buy pivot points from us that are objection flashcards. We can send them out to you. You can use those in your training to handle those objections. So now that I've got that done, the next phase of this is reinforcement. So I'm going to have continuing education over the next 90 days. I'm trying to ramp this person up to about 80% of the knowledge that they need we're not going to just talk about the sales side of it though. We're going to talk about their paperwork, how to use a CRM, financial management, maybe how to fill out an order, how to watch a job, whatever it is that your guys need to do to get to 80% proficiency, where the other 20% we're really going to gain through some experience. But 80% of it's through training. Really only 20% of it's experience right now. What I see in most cases is 100 to 80% of it through experience and maybe 20% of it through training. So become a master. That's really your goal if you're going to step into this world of sales leadership, is to master your craft. If you master your craft, you understand what it is behind it that's allowing you to be successful when others may not be. You can then start to teach that and teach the why behind it and help create other masters who will grow with your company and scale your business. So that's the next 90 days I have this continuing education program to get them to 80%. I have that organized formatted. I may not have them in quite as often now. Me personally, I would have them in once a week, building them as fast as I can possibly. I'm sorry, once a day, building them as fast as I possibly can. But not all the time. Do you have that amount of time to invest? So maybe four days out of the week they're doing some learning on their own, on some video content, a book that you've given them, some things that will help them. Maybe it's the help area of your CRM platform, but you have it laid out every day what it is that they're supposed to be working on to get to that 80% within 90 days. And then once a week you're training, reinforcing what it is that they learn, helping them through the challenges and obstacles that they're dealing with. After 90 days, they go into full continuing education. Training is every day. I got 365 days a year planned and I have that laid out in format and I try to base that on what's happening seasonally out there. In January and February it's one thing, in August, it's a different thing. January and February, I'm kind of getting refinement of skills, maybe even some initial skills, making sure that those things are solid, maybe some new techniques, getting the season started, building up my pipeline, those type of things. Where in August it could be something completely different. You know, finishing strong, worrying about need and fear in the sale process because winter's coming. It's going to be a variance based on where you are and the regionality of who you're working with. Your demographics are going to make a difference. Your market's going to make a difference. I'll never forget how different it was from the Minnesota market to the Missouri market. Missouri people didn't want to sign anything because they're the show me state and they absolutely believe in this idea of the show me state. And so how do you cross that challenge or get over that hurdle? We had to really talk about what it was that we were going to do to make that happen. So you have to be a little bit nimble. Last piece of advice. Okay, so we've got this initial three days, 90 days to 80% and then 365 days a year to make masters. Be very involved with it. Don't just send people off on videos. You need to be engaged and caring and empathetic about their learning. The thing that will gain the most for you is to not stop learning. You have suggested all of this content and everything for them to learn. You need to continue to learn. I've found books in the last two, three, four years that have been amazing and helping me become better at teaching sales. One of those books called Pitch Anything by Oren Clough. Great book. Should read it. It gives you this different viewpoint of what sales is that's valuable to you. There's lots of great resources out there if you want to invest time into learning those things and some of those resources. We have a top 50 book lists out there. We have a top three sales organizations to learn from. You can come to one of our top rep events. We've got all kinds of things here, but we're not the only ones that exist. There's all kinds of great content out there. Go learn everything. You can be a sponge. That's who I'm looking for as learners, hungry sponges. If I find a hungry sponge man, I'm going to pour into that person. That's what you're looking for in your team. And last but not least, this is probably the nuanced part of it that is the most difficult. You have to be excited about what you're doing. You've got to bring the charisma, you've got to bring the excitement. You got to put your mind in the place of the day. When you learn that thing that you learned that you went, ah, that's one, that's one extra thing that I know that's going to be helpful for me because that's a bunch of new people that are learning that from you. If you don't bring the energy and the excitement and this fun part of what it is that you do.