Why “More Leads” Doesn't Mean More Money

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes, and today I'm honored to have Lee Park. He is our VP of Sales here at the franchise, and he spends a lot of his time talking to owners, talking to prospective franchisees. But he has also kind of risen the ranks from field technician, estimator, general manager, and regional manager, and now is in the VP of Sales side of things. But he really has seen all aspects of sales inside of Augusta at the technician level, as the estimator, as the general manager. And so they wanted to pick his brain specifically about sales. And so everything to do with follow-up, everything to do with getting more estimates, talking with customers, communication that you're having with customers on their property, and really just dive into some aspects and hopefully have some takeaways for you to implement into your sales process. So, Lee, maybe give us just a quick kernel of your background in Augusta and then we'll get started.

Yeah, you summed up really well. Thanks for having me on the channel. So basically you hired me 8 and a half years ago to push a mower and now we're here. So started pushing a mower, worked my way up to more of a project management position. So that was back when we were doing retaining walls, patios, excavation, things of that nature. So learned how to use like heavy equipment and large— manage multi-day projects. Then when you launched the franchise, you needed someone to take over the local sales. That was then me. And then from there moved into a general manager's position and now have worked Directly under you and with Liz and Nick at the franchise for the last 4 years now. So 4 years, really 4 years in like operations, home services, day to day, and then 4 years in kind of scaling the franchise.

Yeah. So I think when you took over sales, we were at 50 locations.

Oh, sales of the franchise.

Yes, correct.

Yeah. So we just hit 50 locations and then that's when I took over the franchise sales.

So the past, what, 165 have been yours?

Yes.

Let's go. Good stuff.

Yeah.

I'll take it. Yeah.

I've 3x'd your output.

There you go. So I want to go back to, for those listening, walk me through some of the differences you might see in a sales process for a company that's, say, $200,000 versus $2 million.

Mm-hmm.

$200,000, likely the owner being out in the field doing estimates while they're doing work as a solo operator. $2 million, much more sophisticated. That's more what we're— Bellingham shop was when you were the estimator.

Right.

And so walk me through the differences in those and maybe give me some of the high-level areas of weakness you see in both of those.

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say kind of summarizing it, I would say there's really two words I would define to use to define each. So the $200,000 a year company is going to be reactive and very personalized. Okay. So that's what the solo operator is doing, right? They're reactive to when the customer calls, when the customer emails me, when there's a problem, when an estimate pops up, I need to react to that. I need to go and attack that lead, which is a good philosophy, right? Speed to lead is important, but it's very reactive in terms of the process because it's usually solo operator and it's very personal, right? They're establishing a relationship with a customer. They're building rapport with the customer. The customer knows that the person selling me the job is the person that's going to come do the job, is the person that's going to bill me for the job. So it's a very personal sales process. When I look at a $2 million company, it's going to be systematized. And it's going to be predictable. And so when you build a $2 million company, a sales system, like when you put me in charge of sales of your original location, you didn't say, okay, Lee, go do sales and hope. And you hoped that the revenue stayed at the same level. You taught me how we meet the customer, how we type up estimates, what our pricing structure looks like on the backend, what target margins we had, what target close ratio we had. All of those things were explained to me via the systems you created. And it made it for you as the owner, a predictable process, knowing that if I can teach someone these systems, the revenue is then going to be a predictable output from the systems I created. And so that would be the distinction that I would make between the two is you have this reactivity, this personalization versus this predictable system that just churns out sales. So I think that kind of answered the first question. I'm sorry, there was a second question there too.

No, that's fine. That's perfect. And, and I think for a lot of people listening, they're in that phase of, you know, maybe crossing $800,000, $1 million in annual revenue. They're starting to think about, I need to find someone to take sales off my plate. And I think for a lot of people it's easy to delegate admin 'cause we hate doing it. Yeah. We delegate operations 'cause we're tired. Yeah.

Yeah.

We're like, get it off. I wanna get off the truck. When it comes to sales, it's sometimes very risky 'cause we know that everything downstream of the sale is governed by whether or not that job was accurate budget hours, accurate materials, accurate pricing.

Right.

And it's very hard to let go of. And so I remember that fear. I was kind of forced to at the franchise, which was good because I had something else to go do. and it forced me to, to hand it off to you. From your perspective, you had to learn sales from me.

Mm-hmm.

But then you also had to train it to Marcus and hand off that whole role down the, down the road. What did you learn from learning from me? But then you, I added and made it better by teaching Marcus. Like what was the gaps that when I taught you, you're like, hey, I gotta make sure this is better when I give this to Marcus. Is this smoother? Mm-hmm. Because those are probably the same things that existing owners handing off sales for the first time will mess up as well.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. I think I would almost zoom out, right? Because you're asking a question about, okay, how are the day-to-day operations impacted by the sales process as a whole? And I think you need to zoom out to the business as a whole and decide what are the goals of the business, because the goals of the business should determine what the sales system looks like, in my opinion. And that would be, is the business optimizing for growth? If it's optimizing for growth, we're going to tweak what metrics are most important from a sales perspective. If the business is optimizing for profit, we're going to heavily focus on the pricing model and the margin side of sales, not necessarily the volume or the amount of sales, if you will, from a numbering perspective, not necessarily revenue. And so I would first say for those owners who are scaling and like getting to that point where like, hey, I want to hand off sales, when you hand off sales to your first salesperson, your first estimator, you make sure very clearly what their goals are. What is the goal of the business? When I hand this person sales, is it growth or is it profit? Because those are two very different ways that you are going to sell your product, products, as well as a different way for you to track and measure success inside of that sales system.

And so if I am like, hey, I'm— I don't need necessarily to grow the business a bunch, but I do require to sell quite a bit of projects because like that's, that's always a scary thing. Recurring, it's going to keep going. But especially when I hand it off to you, I would say probably 50 to 70% of our revenue, 50, 60%, probably.

Yeah, it was probably close to 50/50 when I stepped in.

Revenue was project-based.

Yes.

We were still doing walls. We're still retaining walls and like patios and drainage and grading. That was our genesis. And so when, when that comes into play, it's like the business could theoretically half in revenue if this person does not know how to sell.

Correct.

And so when you've trained Marcus, for example, what were some of the things that you did to make sure, hey, yes, we have to have good pricing and good budget hours for our crew. And that kind of keeps the estimator honest on pay for performance as the crew hates your guts if you don't give them enough budget hours or if you underbid a job. But what were some of the things you were working with Marcus on when you handed off sales to say, hey, yes, we gotta make sure we're accurate, but we also need to close enough jobs here. And where is that balance? Because as much as you say, hey, the goal is like, I don't just want revenue, I don't just want profit, I need you to fill the schedule. And I also wanna make some money at the end of the day.

Yeah. And that's the fine line that a lot of estimators have to walk, that you have to realize that like, hey, there must be work on the schedule. And if you're a project-based heavy company, sales is going to be ultimately the driver of a lot of your revenue, right? Uh, and to your example, yes, when you handed sales to me, we were about 50/50. So the business was doing around like $1.7 million in annual revenue. We had about $800-ish thousand in recurring work and then about $800,000 plus in projects on an annualized basis. And we're also selling those projects in like an 8-month time window, right? So there was 4 months of the year where we just weren't even really selling. And so to your point about like, How did I, you know, train Marcus on what he should do and how he should optimize his sales system? It was really around understanding that predictability and that seasonality in the business. And that was something that we really teach to our owners inside of Augusta is there's very clear seasonitis. And you wrote about this obviously in the Off-Season book that there are times where lead flow's heavier. And so we need to capitalize on time-sensitive and recurring jobs. And then there's times when there isn't as much, as many leads coming in. And that's when we're selling in-time sensitive and maybe one-time jobs. And so planning for that predictability was something I had to really train Marcus, because when you handed it to me, we didn't really have all these systems and you hadn't written all these books that have helped so many business owners. And so we were still trying to figure out, okay, what does seasonality look like? What does the predictability of our sales system look like? When do we prioritize those time-sensitive recurring jobs that are the backbone of the revenue that we don't have to worry about, like focus on when the window to sell those jobs is. Worry about the projects later and fill the off-season or times when recurring is at less of a high volume.

Yeah, I think one of the things that worries an owner and something I saw like you struggle with, Marcus struggle with, all the estimators that we used to have back in the shop was before we systematized things and now we don't need estimators, thank goodness. But when I saw the struggle was like we would go from 40, 60 estimates a week. All of a sudden the next week there'll be 10. And so what can I do if I am looking for a full-time estimator? What can I do to make sure that, hey, that's— you got to get estimates out as they come in. But when it dives, when it drops, what are some other tasks that that estimator can do to still be profitable and drive revenue for the business? Because otherwise, if they're just waiting for inbound leads, there are times leads just don't show up. Like if it's raining outside and it's horrible weather, no one's thinking about getting their landscape project.

Yeah, it's a great question. And that's something that, you know, I hand up, you know, and we'll say publicly, like, I was probably not the most efficient estimator because there were times when, yeah, if I was incentivized to just go do the sales and I wasn't incentivized to necessarily do outbound or keep a healthy pipeline consistently churning, then I just kind of sat and twiddled my thumbs and waited for leads to come in. And that's the risk of handing sales off to an estimator, is that they assume it's just all inbound. And so one of the things that we've seen across Augusta is that when our owners hand off estimating or sales to an estimator, they should either one, have that estimator go back into production. And this is obviously more of a sales conversation. So that's a simple answer. Put them back into production. Okay. The more sales-focused answer is going to be build out either incentives or strategies and systems around what to do when inbound is down. What are we doing for outbound? What are we doing for strategy long term? So let's go hypothetically, right? We're in the heat of spring rush and we got bad weather. Leads are down. We're not getting a bunch of estimates on the board. Okay, well, what should that estimator then be planning to do? They know that summer projects are coming. So what are their most common summer projects that they typically do year over year? I would then go to those customers and either resell them the same project that we sold them last year, or I would go and get door hangers or do outbound strategy to sell that same project to new customers. Right. And that's something that we work a lot with our owners inside of Augusta is being prepared for the season ahead. Like if you're planning for the season you're in during the season, you're already behind. And so we're looking at, okay, I know that fall is coming up in 2 months, whatever, right? If I'm in the middle of June and I know fall cleanup starts in September and I have a down day in June, why wouldn't I just go start pre-selling jobs for September when I know it's going to happen and I know demand picks back up? Let me pre-sell that and focus on the outbound, go generate work versus just wait for work to come to me.

It's time to lock in before the spring rush. And when it comes to locking in, you want to be able to rely on something to hold your business strong, just like this chain. That's why at HomeWorks, we have the logo of the chain because the 3 links in every home service business: sales, operations, and admin. So before the spring rush gets super hot and you have leads coming in like crazy, make sure you're set up inside of a software like HomeWorks that can take your business to the next level and allow you to scale this spring. Go check out today, go to home.works. How could someone kind of gauge that. So for example, like at the Bellingham shop, I think we've quickly identified that if it got slow enough, the estimator needed to be willing to be able to go back in the field.

Yes.

And that was the easiest way because otherwise we were spending money on marketing. 'Cause at the time we were in a slow demand is low, customer acquisition cost is the highest. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of people will do, if they have an estimator that is only used to doing inbound, yeah. Is I will go gas marketing in order to be able to fill their funnel to keep them busy.

Right.

And then basically you're just like paying a bunch of money on ads to keep your estimator busy on low-quality leads, and then they're low pricing to keep your crew busy out in the field. And you have this one like very unprofitable system.

Yeah.

And so one of the biggest things I think we do is like, hey, in the job ad, we're making it clear you are going in the field if you're not getting enough leads. What do you think would be a good measure for someone that might not have all their systems yet? They're growing very quickly. They, they might not even know the seasonal aspects of lead flow yet.

Mm-hmm.

What would be some of the metrics they could use to make it clear to a salesperson as to when they go in the field? Is that like number of estimates, number of sold jobs? Because like you could stay busy doing outbound, doing upsells and still fill up your pipeline, right? So what might be— and this is something I know we didn't ever do back in the day, but like what could be a metric someone could use to say you're sales, but when this number hits here, you're back in the field?

Yeah, I think it's a great question. I would say it really comes down to number of estimates sent and then also tying that to close ratio. So they can't be junk estimates. So they have to balance each other. Any estimator worth their salt can go type up 50 estimates today and just send it out, right?

Complimentary estimates. Complimentary estimates.

But if 1 out of 50 closes, like, was that worth the owner's spend to pay that estimator for the day to sit behind a computer and type up 50 junk complimentary estimates?

So almost maybe like, hey, you have to have this amount of volume, but if your close ratio drops below this point, say 30%, You're back in the field, right?

Correct. Exactly. And that's what I'm thinking. You have to kind of tie those two together. Like sales is a volume game, right? It's just numbers. Like we need to get estimates out. We know we will get more sales if we put up more estimates, like directly correlated. However, they can't be garbage. They can't just be sent out just to be sent out. So I need to anchor that to close ratio. Hey, we still need to hit our target close ratio. Let's just say we're in profit mode somewhere between 30 to 50%. If we're closing 30 to 50% of these jobs you're sending out, and you're sending out an average of X per day, X per week, whatever we define as that metric, then you're good. You can stay full-time sales. If we aren't hitting that X, the volume, the number we need to get out, and we are missing our target close ratio, then we might need to go back into production because we can't afford to just send out estimates for the sake of sending out estimates.

I want to talk about compensation for a bit, a minute. And like one of the biggest flaws I see in home services is salespeople getting a commission. So they're basically incentivized on closing the job. They don't really care about profitability. They don't care about budget hours.

Yeah.

They don't care about anything besides getting the job on the schedule.

Mm-hmm.

So commission-based, and then the crew not having any incentive around getting it done efficiently.

Yeah.

This is like the worst scenario is get as many jobs accepted as possible who cares about the profit, and then the people doing the work don't also care about the profit. And then people wonder why like the business makes no money. Yes. Um, from a sales perspective, cuz I think from a production perspective we're aligned. Pay for performance.

Yes.

Keeps the estimator somewhat honest on budget hours and makes sure that there's enough budget hours. Because if, if I'm giving this person commission, but they're cutting budget hours, they're cutting supplies, and the crew is mad, it kind of keeps the estimator honest. Mm-hmm. What other incentives or things you think of could keep an estimator honest to making sure the jobs are not only sold, but they're done efficiently and profitably? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. And I would say, I don't mind sharing like my personal experience. You gave me a piece of the pie and that's profit sharing at Augusta. And so that means that I am not only, yes, incentivized to keep the schedule full, but I'm incentivized to keep the schedule full of profitable jobs. So actually now as an estimator, I might work a little bit harder to close a job that I know is higher margin than one that's lower margin, lower ticket, and an easier sell because I know I'm also getting a piece of the profit that I'm selling for the business. And that was a balance that we struck is that yes, there should be some commission elements of like, hey, the volume that you do, the close ratio that you're hitting, Like, yes, we want to incentivize that from a sales perspective, but we also need the business to be successful long-term. And that means bottom line profit. So I would recommend kind of based on the way you paid me is like, give your estimator a piece of the bottom line profit. That way, you know, that when they're offering discounts to customers, they're only doing that when they have to. That way, you know, when they're working the extra hours to close high margin jobs, they're doing it because they're incentivized to do it. And you should be happy that they're trying to close those jobs.

And they understand the balance between like keeping the crew busy.

Yes.

And not letting the truck sit idle, but also making sure it's high enough revenue and margin to where there's profit sharing at the end of the day.

Exactly.

Do you remember roughly like percentage-wise, was it like 25, 30% of your pay was bonus or was it more? Like was it 50%?

Uh, well, when I was in the sales role, it was, it just wasn't as structured. Right. So it was still a decent base. A good chunk of it was still base. Um, because we hadn't really built out the systems, but when I moved into more of like the manager's role, kind of managing the production and then working with Marcus on sales because we were, you know, when you have an office manager of a $2 million company, the office manager and the salesperson are kind of doing sales together in terms of how they handle that whole system. And so that was where I would say it was probably closer to 50/50. Like once I moved in like a full-time manager's position, sales was probably like 70/30.

Okay, I guess so.

Like 30% of that was like a commission bonus type structure and then 70% was like my base.

When it comes to sales, from your perspective, if someone's looking to get an estimator, I think the natural progression is I get someone from my field that is really good at the work, can look at the jobs, know how many budget hours, how much material. Would you, would you tend to have that person be your estimator? Again, I'm talking about someone that's going to build a business that has an estimator full-time sales, or would you go out and get someone that has done sales, maybe not in the same industry, but they have the skill of gifted gab, follow-up, they don't mind knocking on someone's door. Which is harder as a pros and cons to finding a salesperson that is either in-house and I'm training them and they might just be more or less a technician or bringing them from outside, but having sales experience.

Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And let's just assume we're eliminating all the intangibles of these two candidates. I personally like the in-house, uh, hire or the in-house promotion. One, because they already understand the culture of the company. They already understand how the culture operates. They might've already been paid on P4P. They understand how profit sharing works. So they're already bought into like core belief systems that you've built into your business. If you're running it the way that you advise and how most of our owners at Augusta do. So that person, I can then train on a lot of the sales techniques because sales is a learned skill. It is a technique. Yes. Maybe there's an outside person that's got the gift of gab. They're great with customer rapport. They're fantastic communicator, very professional, but learning the industry knowledge, one, is a pretty uphill battle if you're coming from outside the industry. And two, I think the culture of the business that you've built out is hard for some salespeople to understand. Like, why are these guys getting a portion of production? Like, understanding P4P from a sales perspective is like wild, right? I have a sales coach. I've even kind of half explained it to him and he was like lost because it's just not common in most worlds to do like, wait, you give your guys a certain percentage of what they generate? That doesn't even make sense. How do I then sell that? Right? Because that's where salespeople go. It's like, how do I sell that to the customer? And then how do I make sure that I'm getting a cut of whatever? Right? Because salespeople, they want their commissions. Not a bad thing if they're money hungry. A money hungry salesperson usually is a good trait in a lot of ways. It can be bad, but, um, I'm getting off topic, but the long and short of it is I think the in-house hire makes more sense from a cultural perspective. I think that's, that's number one. And then I think from, uh, an alignment of the industry, like they already have done the production. So they understand production rates. They understand labor hours. They understand supplies. They probably have a good understanding of the cost matrices that we use inside of Augusta or the business. If you do open book management, like all of these things stack on top of each other, which makes the in-house hire or promotion much easier.

I think too, seeing some progression from the technicians that there is a place to move into. It might not be the general manager, 'cause like management different than sales. Yeah. Right? Like, so like there's sometimes great estimators don't become great general managers either.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right? So, but there can be a stepping stone or a place for them to move into from production into a sales role. If they go out and get the talents, listen to audiobooks, gain skills, get taught how to do the sales side. Yeah. I wanna talk about if you have hired someone that is a salesperson.

Yep.

And they're not doing some of the things I know they should be. For example, they don't follow up.

Mm-hmm.

They don't say things exactly right to the customers in person. How do I address or train an estimator as the owner, as I have now trying to let this thing go?

Mm-hmm.

But I'm seeing all these mistakes and flaws in their process.

Mm-hmm.

That I am not comfortable really releasing sales to them fully. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So that's why I would first always try to look inwardly and that is, okay, what did I do to prevent that from happening? So how did I train them? What resources did I give them to avoid these faux pas or these mistakes or whatever it may have been? And then secondarily to that, did I set up a structure to avoid that in the future? And so this is very common in the sales world, like stepping out of home services for a second just to bring it in. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea is in the sales world is call reviews. Right, where a sales manager does a call review on a regular basis with any of their frontline reps. And that means, hey, we're going to pull up a recording of your call, we're going to listen to it together, and you're going to tell me all the good and bad stuff you did. And I'm going to tell you all the good and bad stuff you did because I want you to be a great rep and I want you to make more money. And I think we can apply that to the home services world. And that's where, you know, we did kind of 1-to-1 training, right? You and I just drove around on the truck for like 2 or 3 days and then you were like, all right, here's, here's the keys, start doing sales. Um, but in those 2 to 3 days we drove around together, we would get back in the truck and you'd be like, hey, maybe say this, don't say that. Hey, when we do our follow-up, we should do X, Y, and Z. And that's that live feedback. And you and I had the rapport to do that. You're scaling rapidly, or you already have an existing salesperson that's maybe outside of the lines, they're not following the script, uh, they're making these faux pas, these mistakes. Like, set up a schedule to start doing reviews with them. Make it less about, hey, I need to come down on you, more about, hey, I want to align with you and make sure you're crushing it at your job. And that would be kind of my, my tool that I would use is set up a time to meet with this person, do call reviews with them, do email reviews, whatever sort of follow-up review you want to do. And then the last kind of piece of advice, I'm going, getting long-winded here, but the last piece of advice, and I got this from my coach, literally anytime you want to give someone feedback, just prime them for feedback. Quite literally, just prime them first so they know it's coming. And then it, what, when you know you're doing it successfully, is you will get it as a joke back to you. So this is all he says. He says, Mike, can I give you some feedback real quick? Right? And that's if you hear your estimator doing a follow-up call and they just say something just like way off the rails, like, why did they say that? Right? You're sitting there and we've all had that experience. If you've managed a salesperson before, you're like, why in the world did you say that? When they get off the call, just be like, hey Mike, do you have a second? Can I give you some feedback? And then they're primed and ready for that. And sometimes you sprinkle in like, that was a great call. I loved that you said X, Y, and Z phrase. And they're like ecstatic you gave them that feedback. But you can also use it as a corrective way to be like, hey, when you said this, I think the customer might perceive it as unprofessional. And so we need to make sure we're saying that. Does that make sense? And so that would be the biggest thing is like it needs to be a culture of feedback.

All right. Stepping back from, from more of a, a systems perspective, um, creating a sales process.

Yeah.

As in something that we did at the Bellingham shop, then it was like, how do we systematize this across the Gus Nation? Even on, on the phone estimates, instant quotes. But if you were to walk into a shop, you know, $1 million, $2 million in revenue, they do some projects and they have a salesperson and they basically are like, hey, I do not have a sales process. How this works is someone calls in, they say, I have a job, I go out there, I put some numbers together, I talk about with them. They say yes, no, like, I don't know. We don't really keep track of it. Like, what would be the first few things you'd be doing in like the first 90 days to actually correct or create a structure for their sales process?

Yeah. So the first thing that I'm going to do is metrics. I need to understand what metrics they are, one, trying to achieve and are currently attaining. So what are they doing right now in the business? What does their close ratio look like? What does their sales cycle look like? So the time period from lead to close or lead to, you know, answer from the customer, like, what does that look like? I need to understand what their follow-up sequence currently is. It sounds like it's nonexistent, right? And so I need to understand all these metrics, the measurables to then put a plan in place. So if the goals are volume, we wanna make more sales. Okay, great. I need to know what their close ratio is to see, are we even going to achieve these volume goals? Right. Um, if they are, if the goal is more profit, then I need to understand their pricing structure, right? Another metric to understand what margin we're trying to hit, to see if it even is even in the ballpark of the way in which we're selling. And so that's the first thing I'm looking at the metrics and that's gonna be top of mind would be like close ratio. How many jobs are we closing on average? Right? I'm looking at, are we, what's the goal of the business? Are we optimizing for growth or profit? If growth, what does that growth look like year over year, month over month, whatever. If profit, okay, great. What margin are we looking for? And then the more granular metrics of the actual sales process, right? And that's going to be, what does our follow-up process look like? How many times are we following up? What does our sales cycle look like in terms of timeline from lead to close? All these different metrics, I first need to understand all of that. So for me, if I'm stepping in, it's data collection, right? And you believe in this and you speak this to your audience all the time is data-driven decisions. I understand how the business operates currently. Once I understand that, then we're gonna put a plan in place to help them achieve their goals.

Okay. And then like in terms of doing that cross-functionally, so for example, especially at a, a large business impacting the sales role actually has an impact a lot on admin, affects the operations. And if you now have multiple managers, as you do a GM+ model, having sales manager, operations manager, admin manager, when you want to make sales tweaks, you want to basically change the way that the sales process is operating, but it's affecting all these downstream impact, like impacting all these other people. What are some of the roles from more of a management side that you're going to have to talk to an office manager? Okay, hey, we're We're doing scripts this way now.

Yeah.

Uh, like the way the inbound forms need to look like this.

Mm-hmm.

From more of a management perspective, but taking, putting more of a sales hat on, what kind of conversations are you having with operations and admin to make sure that we're all on the same page outside of just like, yes, we all want the business to do well and make more money. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. It's aligning the goals of each individual role together to like the greater vision of the company. And that's something you've done really well at the, speaking more from the franchise level is that you have your, uh, operations, your administrative, and your salesperson. I'm the salesperson. And so they all do live in tension in some way, like, uh, as a business, they all have their own priorities, but they're all chasing one specific goal. And that is ultimately to make the business as profitable as possible, typically, right? That's the goal or a certain rate of growth. And so it's understanding that changes in the sales process will impact operations and admin, like discounts. Oh yeah.

We're gonna throw that in there. And those are required to get the sale, but it also creates downstream effects.

Correct. And so it's understanding that like, hey, when we are making changes to a sales process via discount, via promotion, via whatever, you know, it's the new year, right? So corporate sales kickoff season, right? It's like, you know, whatever new promotion or thing you're doing is showing one, the admin and the operations, how that aligns with the overall goals of the business. Hey, we're doing this because it aligns with the overall goals of the business. In X way, right? And so making that very clear and then understanding from their perspective, like, what do you need to make this as smooth as possible? I know that if we start doing sales like this, it's going to change operations slightly. So how can we better make that a smoother transition for you as my operations person? So it's just further working towards alignment.

Yeah. So in this podcast, Lee and I are talking a lot about salespeople and aligning their incentives with that of the business, whether it be commission or some form of profit sharing. But if you haven't yet done this for your technicians out in the field, I wouldn't worry about thinking about a salesperson. We've got to make sure that the team out in the field, the technicians, are aligned with the incentives of the business, which is we want the jobs done as fast as possible and the customer satisfied. And that's what we call pay for performance, where the employees, the harder they work, the more money they make. They get a percentage of all the labor revenue that they earn for the business. And if you want to know how to implement this in your business, go check out p4psoftware.com. Go to the training section. It's completely free and you can make your technicians out in the field 20 to 30% more efficient and pay them a lot more. So go check it out. Maybe talk to me a little bit about, you kind of saw us going at the Bellingham shop from very complex services and you understanding a lot about the project management and grading and degrees and all this other stuff when it comes to projects. And you guys saw the evolution of as you handed off to Marcus and then Marcus downwards, it was like simplification. And so when it comes to that, I think one of the things I think of estimators is like it gets boring. It's like, look, I'm doing property cleanups, I'm doing maybe some mulch installs. This is very basic. How do you keep an estimator motivated to actually do those type of jobs when they're not actually strategically or like, uh, from a skill set, they're not being challenged and it is much more of a game of numbers. And I say this also to say, give you a rose here. And that is like one thing when it comes to the franchise, like you have not ever been like, I need something new. It's like we do the exact same thing. It's the same numbers, the same questions are being asked. People are joining Augusta and they have the same 52 questions and you just gotta know them like the back of your hand. And so, um, I have seen a lot of diligence in your part to stay focused and just being honing the craft of the process. But for an estimator, it's like, I just bored with the numbers and the sales and the metrics. I just want more complicated things to work on. And I fell in this trap even before you came along. And that's when we started adding putting greens and artificial turf. It's like, I wanted to keep that person motivated and engaged and challenged. That was the word. I wanna keep them challenged. Not knowing that, like, that challenge becomes my challenge very soon. And so what would you say to the person that is having an estimator, they have someone in that role and they're, they've been in it for a year, they've been in it for 2 years and they're pushing them for more complex projects, mostly so they can stay more challenged in that role.

Yeah, I think it would— I would zoom out in that conversation. So let's just say I'm business owner, you're the estimator that's, that's bored, tired, wanting some challenge. The way I'm going to approach it with you is I'm going to see like, hey, what are your goals long-term? Like, and does that align with the short-term and long-term goals of the business? And if it does, then hopefully I can explain how keeping this process the way that it is is going to benefit you long-term, right? And so if the goal is like, hey, I want to be challenged. Okay. What does challenge look like to you? Is that you just want to bid and sell more high-ticket jobs, more complex jobs, or does that mean challenge in your career and maybe getting promoted to a management position, right? From sales to manager. And if it is more so, hey, I just want to sell more complex jobs and higher ticket.

Okay.

Well then it might not be a long-term fit.

Right.

And that's something that's, it's hard. It's easy to say on a podcast. It's harder to do in practice, obviously, but you did that, right? As you just said, a real-world example is like, we were going to lose a very highly skilled team member who was an awesome guy, great to work with. And you were like, okay, he knows how to do turf. I don't want to lose this guy. Let's just start doing turf and he can sell it and he can install it. But then we lost him like 6 months after we started doing that, which you now realize was a bad business decision. And ultimately it's easier to say on a podcast, hard to do in practice, but you probably would have. Now, with hindsight being 20/20, you would have rather that person just left and not had that 6 months of pain of figuring out turf installations and then refunding multiple customers. Right. And so that's the real world example. That's the proof. But ultimately, it's do their long-term goals align with what my company is headed towards in terms of direction? And I think to come back to you talking about me personally, like my long-term goals are like long-term, I want to have impact on this industry. I want to help small business owners. And I'm money motivated. Like, I'm not afraid to say that I am money motivated. And I know that there's money on the table in the future. If I just put my head down and answer the same 52 questions every single day from people interested in joining Augusta. And for some salespeople, they would hate that.

Right.

And I don't mind it. Like, does it get boring at times? Like, no, it never does. It never gets boring.

If you have questions about Augusta, never.

Does it get boring? No, no, no, no, no. Uh, yeah, it gets boring. Like it does. It gets tiring. Like you're like, I'm doing the same thing over and over and over again. But my overall goals in life for me personally align with the overall mission of Augusta. And so I'm willing to put my head down and have that repetitive monotony. But I also have access to you and the rest of the team, and there's so much more at Augusta. And so that's the conversation you have to have with your estimator.

For someone that might have an estimator or even maybe even a general manager that might feel like they're doing the same thing all the time, because as you simplify and you standardize services, especially on the sales side, it just does become monotonous. And for the person that's not money motivated, because I know it always varies, like, well, we have targets for close ratio, we have targets for profit sharing, and this person's like, I don't really care. I'm making like a decent wage. I just wanna do like different stuff. I wanna be more complex. Like, speak to the estimator for a minute. Mm-hmm. Um, what would you say to them? Because I think one of your greatest skills is your ability to take something that is monotonous but still improve it. Mm-hmm. And so I think if you look at our sales process for like the franchise, for example, 3 or 4 years ago versus now, it's like worlds apart. And like, we would definitely cry over our sales process years ago. And so what, what have you done? And speak to that estimator to stay focused on your craft and become leagues better in that department without needing new or different things coming along to pique your interest.

Yeah. To the estimator out there, to the employee out there that is in a sales role, I think it is understanding, you know, and you don't have to be inside of Augusta, But our number one core value at Augusta is important, is number one for a reason. That's embracing constant improvement. Constant improvement does not mean new or exciting or, uh, external challenges. Constant improvement is I can make the thing that I'm already doing better every single day. And to your point, that's what we've done over the last 3, 4 years. You and I with the Augusta sales process, we would look back and cry, laugh, mock, whatever we were doing 3, 4 years ago. And now it's completely different. And that's, it's the same thing. Like my daily tasks are the same overall from a comparative perspective. It's like take calls, take notes, do follow-up. But the system in which we've created over the last 3 to 4 years is night and day. And that's because I've really sunk my teeth into the constant improvement of that thing. And that's the challenge in and of itself. And so if you ever feel like, speaking very directly to the estimator or the employee that might be listening to this, if you ever think like you've maxed out, Like, think again, like just in all honesty, like, I'm the best landscape salesperson out there. Like, that's great. And you might have awesome skills. Like, that's not me shouting you down. You might have great skills and fantastic customer rapport and you can sell ice to an Eskimo, if you will, but ultimately you can still get better. Like there's somebody out there better than you. And this is something that I realize that helps me with my monotony to get real personal is when I'm like, when I'm sitting there like, man, this is boring. Like, I don't want to do this. I'm like, there is someone out there selling something else. That wishes they were selling what I'm selling. Quite literally. Like, and for the estimators in this industry, like a lot of us get to drive around in cars or trucks. Like you get to go visit beautiful properties. You get to talk to awesome homeowners, affluent people, people you'd never meet in regular life because they asked for an appointment at your house. Like there are salespeople out there that dream of doing what you do. I, there are days where I'm sure you do too. You wish you could just get in the estimator car, crank the AC and go like walk multimillion dollar properties. I can have awesome conversations with these people. And so it's that perspective of like, there are people that wish they could have my job.

Right.

And, and sometimes I think about it too, like there's probably some like guy who does massive high ticket sales. Like I'm talking millions in sales. He's like, man, if I could just sell a franchise license right now, my life would be so much easier.

Yeah.

Right. And so it's the perspective of it. Yeah.

Ultimately. And I think too, um, one thing I think about even is seeing what good looks like and you then being able to get a coach. To be like, oh, like, you have all these holes and like, you think, hey, I'm good. Or someone that might be an estimator feeling like, hey, I'm doing the same thing. To go shadow or learn or get a coach or be able to see someone that's at a whole nother level and then be able to bring it back to reality. Like, okay, there's a lot of areas for me to improve. And one of the things I always think about is like the difference of like average and then like a master or a masterpiece is simply how long they stay in mode of improvement versus addition. And so like, if you think of a masterpiece, like a painting, it takes years to like craft it and hone it. And like some of the things, like the masterpieces we look up to, whether it be painting or sculptures, like this went years. And like every other architect or person, like sculptor, could have made that, but they got distracted with 4 other sculptures that they built over the course of the 5 years. Whereas one person just constantly kept improving the one thing that they were good at. and it took it from the average 50th percentile to the 99th percentile. Mm-hmm. And so I think seeing you even like looking at coaching and, and getting someone else's perspective on your system and then refining it, making it better has also led to a lot of returns.

Yeah. I think you have to be open to that. And I, and I appreciate the, the kind of compliment there is that you have to be open to realizing you can always improve it. You can get outside perspective and staying focused on the one thing like can be boring. It, it can be right. And that's kind of what we're talking about here. But ultimately, I don't even think it's passion-driven. Like a lot of people are like, oh, are you passionate about sales? Like, if you would've asked me 5 years ago, would I want a full-time sales desk job? Like, honestly, if you would ask me that 5 years ago, I'd be like, I would do any other job in the world, quite literally. And guess what I've done for 4 years in a row now? A full-time sales desk job. Uh, now I have a standing desk and a walking pad. Very nice. Um, but it's not necessarily passion. It's like, I am I am passionate about improving this thing. I am passionate about honing my skills. And I know, and I've said this with like full confidence and like, however this is going to get perceived is fine by me. Um, I know that if Augusta blew up tomorrow and there was like, if I, there was a world where I could not exist at Augusta, I would have, I would be working somewhere tomorrow morning selling something because I've spent 4 years honing the craft of sales. Like I would go to the interview and sell them on why they're going to hire me. Like it wouldn't— it's not even a question because I've built the skills over the last 4 years. And that's by no means am I a master salesperson. It's just the confidence I've built in myself as a salesperson will now give me the skillset to go and get whatever other job I want.

Yeah. Speaking of getting a job, so on-target earnings. Yes. This is something that I know you've gone a lot over with the owners in the state of Augusta around general managers. So this can kind of be for general managers, overhead positions, salespeople, even office managers, but give a kind of a, a rough overview of how this can be used to attract salespeople, managers, office people, et cetera, uh, around, hey, instead of being like, hey, here's your base and you're gonna make bonuses. Yeah. And making it sound all great, but like actually having on-target earnings. What does that mean? OTE. And give it a quick kind of summary for someone that might be looking for a salesperson. How do I actually express to them that their comp is 30, 40, 50% an additional bonus?

Yeah. So it's one of the hardest things to explain to a salesperson in a non-sales world, right? Yeah. Home services is sales. Like you are selling to homeowners your products and services, of course. But the sales position in the sales world, like when I step out and I talk to other high-ticket salespeople, like they're talking about OTE, on-target earnings. And it's like the only way you attract high-quality salespeople is you need to show them that, hey, there is a base pay, but if you hit your targets, if we hit a certain amount of lead volume, if we hit a certain close, if we hit a certain close ratio, you will make X. And it's that percentage that you're willing to pay them on commission or sales bonuses. And so I took that theory of, okay, on-target earnings is very important in the sales world. Why can't we apply that to our owners in Augusta, how they pay general managers and salespeople? And so building out a framework of what you're comfortable paying a salesperson on base pay, very important. Like we need to understand that like employees want security. That's why they're employees and not entrepreneurs. They want a base pay, but we want the upside to be as high as humanly possible if they're willing to take the risk of not getting that payout. And so what you need to do is create a system that shows if we hit certain targets, certain amount of lead flow, certain amount of, uh, or certain close ratio, certain amount of jobs sold, I can pay you X percentage of that. And this is what on target you will earn here at this, at this position. And so we found that as a really good tool for owners in Augusta to explain distributions to managers, distributions and bonuses to salespeople. And so I think that's a great tool for business owners if they're trying to do an outside sales hire. Or even promoting from within is not giving them the ethereal, hey, I'm gonna promote you and there's more money on the table. Mm-hmm. And that's what you did with me 5 years ago. And there's nothing wrong with that. We just didn't have the system in place.

Mm-hmm.

And that we had enough relationship capital where I believed you. I was like, yeah, if Mike says this is a promotion, I'm gonna make more. I will.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, we didn't know what that looked like. Now we can say, hey, I'm gonna promote you. You are gonna make more. And if we hit these targets, here's what you're gonna make. Does that look nice? Yeah, it does. I'd like that job. Okay, great. Now here's what happens if those targets are 10% less. You have direct control of some of these metrics. So if it's 10% less, here's what you're going to make. Fair? If it's 10% more, here's what you're going to make. Fair? And so it shows them that risk-reward balance of a salesperson.

If you want to get more leads for your home service business, go check out homeservicewebdesign.com. The average business that joins Home Service Web Design doubles their leads within 12 months. And I think especially when you're doing profit sharing or distributable cash, One of the biggest reasons I say, hey, take a year in profit mode before you go and find this general manager is now I can look at last year's P&L and be like, based upon last year's performance, I have really clear OTE if you just did what we did last year. Oh, and by the way, we're raising prices and, uh, we are getting our lead flow has gone up by 15%. Here's what we projected to be. But based upon last year, I have way more confidence in OTE. And as an employee, it's not like, oh, you get 25% of profit sharing. I, it just boggles my mind. People like, yeah, it's, you get $60,000, $70,000 base, get 25% of profit sharing. As a team member coming in, they have no idea what that means.

Yeah.

And so if you can show, hey, based upon last year, if you have your current percentage, here's what you would've made.

Yeah.

Now if we increase that by 10%, here's what you make. If you go down, here's what you make. Yeah. And having an actual like graph, a rubric by which I move the variables.

Mm-hmm.

And I come up with like, oh, I'll be making this amount instead of this completely like made up and no one has any clarity. And I think it leads to a lot of GMs quitting is just the lack of matching expectations versus reality as the— there's 6 months, 12 months into the job and realizing like, what's this profit sharing thing? Like there is no profit. They told me 25% of profit, but this thing is in growth mode and not making any money. And so speak to me a little bit about like the importance of that and having the clear numbers to attract the type of person that's actually gonna stick around.

Yeah. It's extremely important, primarily from a perspective, if you haven't built like trust with these people, like especially if it's a new hire, right? They don't trust you. And that's what I said 5 years ago when you said, hey Lee, I'm gonna promote you and you're gonna make more. I just trusted that that was gonna happen. Nowadays that just doesn't fly, especially if you haven't built a relationship with someone over time. And so to your point, it is the open book management side of here are the numbers we did last year. Here were our targets last year and here's our actual production based on these numbers. Here's what you would have made last year. This year, these are our targets. If you hit these targets, you will then make this. So one, it builds trust very quickly from a transparency perspective. This person is willing to share all of the numbers of their business with me. That will automatically buy you trust from a salesperson because a lot of salespeople operate on a sell this product for X dollars, you get Y percentage. That is most salespeople, right? Product is worth X, you get Y percentage versus here's everything that the business did last year. Do you like and understand all of these numbers? Yes. If you perform at the same level, you will make this. There's no black box. There's no like, well, if I sell for X and I get Y, one day can I get Z? Like there's no like negotiation of like the percentage of commission or the percent of bonus. It's quite literally you You make this business produce more in terms of profit, you will make more. That's on-target earnings. That is when we hit certain targets, you will make more money. And so what it does in a lot of ways, a further way of building trust is it, um, removes a pay ceiling, right? Because if you're willing to pay for a top-performing salesperson, like you should not be worried about a ceiling. If it is tied directly to the targets and performance of the business, you should be willing to pay them whatever. And that's one of the things that I appreciate with you every kind of year we do our, like my contract negotiation. Is ultimately like there's never been a cap or ceiling put on me. And that builds trust with, uh, with you and I, because I know that you trust if I perform amazingly, you will pay me handsomely for that performance. Right now the floor is there because I'm an employee and I can't take full risk. I'm not an entrepreneur, but ultimately there's no ceiling and that builds trust for me to you as, as the manager.

Awesome. Cool. Well, I want to make sure that we wrap this up, but if you have any questions down in the comments for Lee, definitely drop those, whether it be estimating, follow-up process, sales systems, high-ticket stuff with projects, any questions you have, drop in the comments. I'm sure we'll get back to them. I appreciate you coming on.

Yeah. Can I, can I ask you a question? This wasn't scripted. I know you had your questions. So in terms of like the business owner out there that's listening to this, um, you know, they might be struggling with that handoff. Who do I give sales to? And I know you struggled with it and this isn't a personal question about me, but what traits or what qualities did you see in me or that they should be looking for in order to feel more comfortable with handing that sales position off?

Yeah, like we definitely, you had risen through the ranks. So like to your point, you had already been in the business and you had built up trust at like mowing grass and then doing projects and then like you had done all these things in the business. And so a track record of trust is super valuable. Mm-hmm. Um, also the ability for, to see the, the salesperson be able to learn. Because like the reason we have constant improvement as the number one value of Augusta is cuz if you can constantly improve regardless of where you're at in the pecking order to start, you'll eventually get to the top.

Yeah.

It's just a matter of time. And so you, by you watching like videos, podcasts, reading books and being engaged in like the Audible program and stuff like that when we had it, coming to meetings and learning about the numbers of the business, that's a huge indication to me that someone can improve.

Mm-hmm.

If someone can improve, they can win. It's just a matter of time.

Mm-hmm.

And so, uh, having the fact that someone can improve and then they also have this base level of skill that I don't have to teach cuz they've been in the business and they know operations and they know admin, that was super valuable. And so I think the number one thing is trust and like, I need to trust number one, that this person looks out for the, the team and for the business. And then two, trust that they're going to improve their skills over the course of time and not stay stagnant or decrease.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's like the worst thing you ever want is like you have to demote or fire someone cuz they simply lost the passion to get better. Mm-hmm. And you had the fire, like I knew you wanna make more money. I knew you, like once you, once I knew you're like, you're gonna have a kid or be married, I was like, great, he's gonna be all in on money. And so it was very easy to be like metrics, benchmarks. And so I think this is like, uh, Alex talks about this sometimes, like, uh, when he looked at people that are married, they make more money. When they have kids, they make more money. He's like, it's just increasing deprivation.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think every time you got more money, it wasn't like, oh, look, I can settle. It was, okay, what can I do more, make more? And I think for a lot of people it's like, well, they're greedy. It's like, no, that is what you can build on. It's so much easier to build on top of versus like we've had other managers where it's like they don't care about money. It's like, well, I guess 'cause it's really hard to make your comp plan. It's like, what do you want me to do? Pat you on the back? Well, no, I'm not there. So like you had very clear metrics for success in your own life and especially like, Once you got married, like you wanted Sarah not to have to work and things like this. Mm-hmm. And so I was like, okay, I know that we can align the business's goals with his because he has goals.

Mm-hmm.

So like, do they have goals? Are they working towards them and constantly improving? And then do I have built level of trust? If you have those 3 things, you can, you have a lot to work with.

Yeah. Can I ask another question?

I'm sorry. Yeah, we're good.

You booked me for an hour. So, uh, uh, we can cut all of this by the way, but I'm here. You put a mic in front of me, you click record. You're getting the full hour. Okay. Um, so what are your thoughts on the integrity of someone in their personal life versus in their business life specific to sales? Right? Because sales, there is, there's a lot of animosity towards salespeople, sales breath, right? There's so many negative connotations about salespeople out there and people like Alex Hormozi and my coach and a bunch of other people and shout out my coach, Mike Manzi, awesome guy. Um, They're making a better name for salespeople for sure. Um, but how do you take that one? Like, okay, hypothetically, you brought up a lot of the personal aspects of my life. You're like, yeah, this guy's getting married. He's motivated. You know, he and his wife have planned that hopefully she can be a stay-at-home mom one day. So like you saw these personal aspects and that's not me saying like, those are good traits. That's, those are the personal decisions that I have made. I'm not saying they're good or bad. That's how I live my life.

Okay.

You saw those personal traits and then you also were like, well, that'll tie to performance. How do you walk that balance beam of maybe personally this person is on one side of the tracks, but professionally they're fantastic? Not trying to put you in hot water.

Yeah, no. I think it's mostly a matter of do they want me to win? So this is the gauge that has made it very easy for me is will they get me closer to my goals? And so if they are willing to help me get closer to my goals, all I want is to be able to return the favor.

Paper.

Mm-hmm. And so especially as someone works closer to me in terms of like the leadership team, for example, I need to very, be very acutely aware of what their goals are. Mm-hmm. So that way as they pour more into the business, I'm able to pour more into them on their level and their, their goals.

Mm-hmm.

Like what they want. 'Cause like they obviously don't want a big business. They, they, they have chosen not to do that when they likely have the skill to do that. Mm-hmm. And so I wanna make sure that whatever their goals are, I am pouring into them. Now if they have things outside of work that are like not integrous. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't want to make it too like amorphous, but I also don't want it to feel like I'm like talking about a specific person or like specific types of people. But it's like, yeah, there, there is a lack of integrity in their personal life. Yeah, that's a great way to describe it. Now, people can define integrity how they see it, but like very clear history or track record of like lack of integrity. But sales, they're like phenomenal. They're a smooth talker. They're great with customers. They close the deal.

Yeah, I think the easy answer is like, obviously you want someone with integrity. I think though that words like integrity can be defined differently by the different people.

Yeah.

And so, and what my preferences are, I don't want that to overshadow someone's performance or them getting their own goals because like I have a, I have a different way of how they should live or preferred way that they should think or whatever. And so I've always been like very clear, here are the business goals and if you are going to serve these and those align with things like, our cultural values, treating the team correctly, me trusting you, all these things, I could really kind of care less what your goals are. I just want to support them. And so there have been times when I have supported people's goals that I might not think are like the best thing for them or whatever. Like, who cares? This is their goals. And to them, these are big deals. And if I expect them to treat my business in a way that is a big deal to me and I think about a lot, I should in turn return the favor regardless whether I think it's integrous or righteous or the right thing or whatever. I should be supporting their goals. Now, if their lack of integrity comes in conflict with the values of the business, now I have grounds to stand on.

Mm-hmm.

And so that's why like I think core values and like what you stand for as a team and as, as, as a company and as a culture is important because those are the defining factors as to when I, someone gets cut from the team.

Mm-hmm.

Right. We've always said like, Firing dictates culture. Yep. And so if you ever did something that violated the values of the, of the team, then yes, I fire you. Mm-hmm. But whether or not someone's personal preferences, beliefs, thoughts, opinions, that's not really on the table. But integrity in the form of like lying and stuff like that, I have to know that you're gonna treat customers and the team correctly so that way I can back you up blindly. Mm-hmm. And that's the part where I've always had the line of when it comes to promoting people is I will not promote you unless I can blindly back you up because I know Whenever I start digging, your intentions are correct. And so like, this is like with the, the, the leadership team, I can always, if someone says something bad about you guys, I just always back you guys up blindly. 'Cause I know when I go back to you, it'll always be supportive of the vision, supportive of the values, supporting the owners. Like I never question that.

Yeah.

Yeah. And because I don't have to question that, I don't have to question your integrity. Like it, it allows us to move faster. Mm-hmm. And so I think, um, as long as the team is treated correctly, like integrity is, man, such a great word. I'm just trying to like, Recycle what that word means in my mind. But I think overall, obviously we want integrity. I think if I can trust that you have integrity, I can move faster.

Mm-hmm.

I think when, when there's a lack of integrity, there becomes a lack of trust. And when it comes to lack of trust, I move slower.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think, yes, obviously integrity's important. That's why we have the leadership team that we do. Um, but the ability to be able to back up blindly people in your organization, both from the employee to the owner and the owner down, mm-hmm, is like where you can actually make leaps and bounds forward and knowing that sometimes people will make mistakes, but you still back them up blindly because you know their intentions are correct. And then intentions is a derivative of integrity.

Yeah.

And so I think that's where I think as long as I know someone's intentions, I can almost— integrity is like very close. I'd have to look at those words.

That's good. I like that.

Yeah.

No, and I think kind of the way I was looking at it from a sales perspective, I think it's really good. It's like intentions will show in level of integrity, I think in a way. Um, because when you look at sales, there's like the 3, the 3 things that a customer needs to have to buy from you. They need to like you, they need to know you, and they need to trust you.

Yeah.

And I think trust directly relies to integrity.

Mm-hmm.

Like you, you will not trust someone that you don't, do not, do not think has integrity. Mm-hmm. Like if you think there's no integrity there, I don't trust them automatically because their intentions, to your point, are misaligned with mine. Mm-hmm. And so that's where, from a sales perspective, I think integrity is even of a higher importance. In a lot of ways because customers need to trust you. Right. And that's where when salespeople have integrity, they can look a customer dead in the eye and say, this is the best decision for you. Yeah.

And once an owner is out of the, out of the daily operations, I think having that trust of your salesperson is important because you will get bad reviews.

Mm-hmm.

You will, you'll meet someone in the supermarket and it was an old customer and they're like, I don't really like that Lee guy.

Yeah.

And like, if you don't have that full confidence, you, you get questioned right away. And this is like, I have this massive gift I've been blessed with that the leadership team, I can blindly back up every single time. And they might be wrong, but I know their intentions were correct. And I know that they weren't trying to be malicious. They weren't trying to hurt anyone. And when it comes to sales, I have to know that that salesperson cares about the customer.

Yeah.

They care about humanity. They care about doing the right thing. They care about making sure that like their track record is one of honesty. Because if I know that I can back them up without even talking to them.

Mm-hmm.

And that's like a, a huge gift. And if you don't have that, it is, uh, very difficult to to grow and not have that trust. Okay.

Last thing. Last thing. I promise I'll be done after this. Because there isn't enough of this on the internet. Let's each give one sales tip.

Okay. Sales tip.

Okay. Let's give a sales tip.

Okay. Go ahead.

You start it out. I got mine. This is my default.

Somebody's like, is there non-financial advice?

Yeah. There we go. If somebody's like, hey, I need a sales tip. This is like my default.

Okay.

If you're not sure, agree and ask. A-A, agree and ask. So if you're not sure what a customer is saying, it's like, yep, totally, 100%. I agree with you. And then follow up with a question. If you do that, you'll get more information from them. And so if you're ever just like stuck in a bind, you're on a follow-up call, you're meeting with a customer in person, you're like, man, that's, that's an intense objection they just gave me. Or man, I don't really understand what they said. Totally, 100%. So when you said that, and then you just ask a question. So that's like my default, agree, ask.

Yeah, my sales tip. Okay, I'll go, I'll go more strategic. So cool. I would say on follow-up phone calls, reserving their spot. Nice. Because once they have that taste of it in their hand, hey, we can solve this problem for you next Tuesday. I'll go ahead and reserve your spot and I'll call you back tomorrow to confirm. It always keeps the door open to you or keep, uh, keeping in control of the sales process. Mm-hmm. Because the biggest thing that people do is they follow up and then once the customer says, no, I appreciate it, but like, we'll, we'll contact you if we have questions. As soon as they say that, it's done. I want to stay in control of the sales process. And to do that, I can just say, hey, I know you're thinking about it. I know you're going to talk to your spouse and I got to get 3 other estimates, whatever. I'm going to go ahead and reserve your spot for next Thursday because we're booking out really far and I'll call you back tomorrow. We can confirm it. So keeping the door open and staying in control of the sales process.

One step more aggressive than reserving the spot is the A/B close. Hey, does Tuesday or Thursday work? Yeah, exactly. I also like that one. If you're like, This person's 99% there. It's like, does Tuesday or Thursday work? And, uh, you know, to anyone out there that may be interested in joining Augusta, it's like, hey, does the February training work or does the March training work?

Right.

It's just like, which one are you coming to at that point? But anyways, I appreciate you having me on. Thanks for letting me share. Hopefully it was valuable for everyone out there.