Episode 10 "If we Don't Start Selling Soon, We're in TROUBLE!"

We are, like, in a position right now where if we don't start selling some more stuff, it's going to be, like, tough decision time. Like, ugly decisions that I don't want to have to make. It's seven days till Christmas, but payroll still due, expenses are still due, bills are still due. We're, like, two days away from me canceling every meeting on my calendar and only doing sales. It's a very scary place to be, knowing that I might have to make tough concessions. I might have to ask for concessions from others, and I might have to let people go. You can't be cold in Hawaii, people. If you have any idea what our friends will do to us back home, we'll be excommunicated. As Canadians, the dogs follow you everywhere.

I know. I'm just trying to get away from them because they're grossing me out. Like, I gotta clean the couches again and gotta clean the floor. So I pull up the mats. Okay, good. Good conversation. I'll get a grande iced gingerbread oat milk chive. I just said, I'm gonna take you to your second home. And then he smiled and he was super excited. Hi, I'm Allison.

And I'm Adam Sand.

And this is Building the Sand Castle. After traveling the country for two years, we settled here in Hawaii, where we welcomed our first son, Atlas.

With 20 employees working remotely, we had to go to market with a completely new product and service offering in order to keep growing the business and create stability for our family.

But it hasn't been easy, and we wish that we could see our heroes on their hardest days and experience the.

Lessons as they learn them.

Because social media only tells a story after they've made it.

If we believe in ourselves and that we might be someone else's hero someday, then we owe it to the future entrepreneurs of the world to document our.

Story, even when it's vulnerable.

If you're at the start of your entrepreneurial journey, then follow along with us and share in the experience. Come on, Rocket. There's food. There you go. There you go. There you go.

Yeah.

Good job. Okay. Okay, Rock Thanos. Let's do some tricks. Speak better. Good boy. Hop, hop. Sit. Shake a ball. Other one. Good boy. When I got back from Florida, Thanos was, like, just bouncing off the walls and really needed me to play with him quite a bit. So we actually went for a super long walk all the way down into town just to, like, burn off some steam and play with the rope and play in the backyard. Just been trying to be a bit More of like a family guy since coming home because I walked in through the door and he hasn't, you know, he doesn't let go of Allison. So I walked through the door and she's just like here, right, right away just needs me to like jump in and help. We actually did this really good activity yesterday. River of Life is just this activity where you go through your entire life, like from your earliest memory and you just talk to your partner until you literally go all the way until your history becomes shared.

Right.

And it, it was really neat to go through that with her. We're just using this as like a basis point from which to start establishing like, what is our values as a family, you know, like, what are we going to like decide are like non negotiables and then go from there to having like a vision for our future and our mission. Because, you know, you kind of live by the seat of your pants when you're dual income, no kids, right? Like, oh, well, you know, we could pivot at any time so we don't have anything that's really concrete. When you just start to deal with the realities of having a baby now, you start thinking on like 20 year time frames a little bit more. Right? You think about that a little bit in business, but you think it's different when you have a kid is what I've realized. Hey, honey, how are you doing? You really tired? So we're going to get some good journeys up Struggle street video content today. Take a deep breath, I'm going to punch you. That's, that's exactly the kind of content we're looking for. Good solid right hook would be great for camera.

Are you taking my coffee or you just didn't make me one?

Is it one of those days where when I make a coffee, in the quick moments that I have, you're upset that I didn't do a 60 second one for you as well.

You're savoring that one. Yeah.

Would you like a coffee? Okay, let me make you a coffee. Atlas was awake a whole bunch last night. He would just be like fighting to eat, like snorting and like frustrated. He was just like non stop getting frustrated and crying. And I was like, I gotta go sleep on the couch. I need at least like 35, 45 more minutes. And then Allison was so nice. She came out and put a blanket on me. She offered me to go back to the bed. But then I was like, no, no, no, just go back. But then I think that, that my frustrated walking out of the room being like I need another hour. Like, I was just frustrated, but I think that that transmitted into her. And now she got a abrupt feeling of like I was le. Like it's like, I'm leaving. I'm not dealing with this. I need another hour's sleep. That's probably how it felt for me at 5:30 in the morning after her not getting sleep for more than two hours straight. Oh, gosh. Just nuts crazy.

You want a big?

All right, my love. Here you go.

Oh, thank you.

You're welcome.

I have my braces in. Oh, you'll melt them. I only have one.

Okay. Thank you for bringing the blanket out to me last night. I appreciate that. Good morning.

You're welcome. You a little pissy today?

No, I'm not pissy. I know that it felt like that when I went left.

No, it didn't feel like that. It was like that.

Right. But then I came out here and I was in a good mood because I knew that I was gonna get like, 45 minutes more sleep.

Were you new?

Yeah, but I had to wake up right out of bushy tail to be ready for a webinar. You get to wake up and be mad at me. That's a whole different level of, like, willpower. I have to come out and be nice to people. You get to come out and be like, hey, you suck. Make me coffee now. So we went to the roofing process conference, which is run by the Roofing Insights Channel. My friend Dimitri Lipinski, some really big wins, were being able to bring our sales team down so they could kind of see me in action. I could show them all the great ways to start conversations with roofers and. And really establish themselves as an authority by learning the right questions to ask and what the right and wrong answers are so that we could demonstrate our competence in new ways. So we had a really big influx of sales at the beginning because of just all the demand and attention driven around the whole idea that we have a free CRM for roofers and that there was this really cool thing with a revenue guarantee. But then now that, like, we're not the hot new thing, there's this lull in sales. And now we've. We've kind of taken that part of the market that was waiting for us to deliver a product like that. Well, we've sold them. And now we have to try and convey this message to people who may have never heard of us before. And now really getting clear and concise, having good handoffs between the initial MDRs and then the AES that really settle the deals and work out the exact scope for the customer. That process is rocky to get started, and we're probably facing the biggest cash flow crunch we faced in years. We are like in a position right now where if we don't start selling some more stuff, it's going to be like tough decision time. Like ugly decisions that I don't want to have to make. And it's seven days till Christmas, but payroll still do. Expenses are still due, bills are still due. And so we're going into this all teams meeting and I have to basically go in there and say we need big things to happen or there's going to be issues. Well, we are. Yeah, Sales is the issue. We're like two days away from me canceling every meeting on my calendar and only doing sales. We all know what we need to do. Everything right now is about de risking the business, getting more customers and making them worth more. That's just like we teach in our consulting methodology. And then everything will be fine. So we got to think what's easy to do that would have a big impact? Do that. First, what's hard to do that have a big impact? Do that. Second, what's easy to do that have a little impact?

Do that.

Third, if you get to the point where you're looking at things that are hard to do that have almost no impact, we should probably be finding another constraint again and start over at the beginning. If we can just think through all of our problems that way, the company does great and then everybody has career progression. The night is often darkest before the dawn, and this too shall pass. But it's a very scary place to be. Knowing that I might have to make tough concessions. I might have to ask for concessions from others, and I might have to let people go. Starting with the non essential, highest cost employees first, which it's hard to pick from somebody in the company who could be considered less essential than anyone else. So at the end of the day, it just comes down to we got to get it done. So as long as we try and remain fiscally responsible and keep perspective, I think we're going to do fine.

Cute little double chin.

Hi.

Hey, hey, hey. Oh, you got gas. Oh, he's got gas. He just seems so big. I want to get a baby waist scale so I can see, like how much he grows week by week. Oh, no, it got worse. Oh, he's so relaxed. Hey, Rocket, did you take that from. From Thanos. Okay.

I'm really looking forward for a brief break for family time over the holidays with the pressure on. I feel like I can't just like take a week off. But I know that in this business, my time away is not December. My time away is closer to like August. Right? That's when I really usually get some time. But I'm really excited because Allison's mom and dad are coming in for New Year's. You can't be cold in Hawaii.

I am so cold.

You can't be. No way. People who. You know what our friends will do to us back home, our families. No. We'll be excommunicated as Canadians.

I'm going to go get my winter jacket.

Don't. But don't. It's Hawaii. You can see cold here. They could have it open on two windows on their screen. They can have a full screen experience. This is all like dream state stuff. Like I sit here and just go, yeah, Gosh, like how amazing would that be? And it's gonna take time, right? They all, they all sit there. Like when I was at the conference. Rocket, enough with the, with the treat. One second. Now he's gonna think I'm playing with him. Woo. Rejected. And he peed on my floor. I hate this dog. I hate this dog. I don't know why we keep him. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Business owners. When I was at the conference, like one thing I would. When I was trying to sell the value platform, I would say, like I say, let me guess. But once a year you sit down. Hey, Rocket, you want to come help? You want to do this? Maybe you could learn how to do this. If I could train you how to clean your own pee. Maybe I could train everybody in this company to explain inside outside sales and why it's a no brainer for roofers. This is maybe the barometer through which I should test my own ability to train and lead others to model and mimic and master the behavior patterns of successful businesses. So we were able to land an out of niche client that's not a roofing company. And the only time you really want to go wandering off the beaten path of what you know works is is if it's something that means something deeply personal to you. I've been following this guy, Alex Hormozi. He owns this company called acquisition.com. he used to own a company called Gym Launch. He sold it. I think he still owns 30% of it. But this private equity company bought it for big money. That's kind of one of his big claims to fame. I've hung on every word of this company of its founder. Learned so much I feel like I understand how they do what they do because I followed it, and I've tried to model, mimic, and master it myself. So I feel like I have an opportunity to learn and grow as a result of helping a company that has put out so much value in the form of content and lessons that I've learned from to outgrow my business. So the opportunity to do something of value for that organization in return is a huge blessing and something I'm taking as seriously as a heart attack. And I've put the best people that I could find on the project.

So today, Alice and I are going to go out in the rain. So we're going to go drop Adam off at Capilli because we only have one vehicle, and then we're gonna pick up some groceries and just do some running around. Big stretch. Look at all those big stretches. Oh, yeah, that's a good one, because.

Okay, we had 48 qualified and 35 showed. Where does those 13 people go? So really understanding what are the decisions being made now that could be automated and improved? I got the crew crawling in behind me here, so. All right.

Bye.

Bye. We're going through the sales inventory sessions. This is taking inventory of everything that they do in sales and making sure that we can build it all in HubSpot and improve it where we can. So I have to get running to.

Yeah. Are we gone? I just have to change.

Are you driving me to Cavilly?

Yeah, because we need the vehicle today.

Gotcha. Perfect.

I didn't realize that everybody was going to come in here when I came in here.

That's okay. The dogs follow you everywhere. I know.

I'm just trying to get away from them because they're grossing me out. Like, I got to clean the couches again and got to clean the floor, so I pull up the mat. Okay, good. Good conversation. Thanks. For sure. Okay, I'll get myself ready. Don't worry.

There's no reason that an MDR should not be making at least 100 outbound calls a day. Like, if you just call 100 people, you're gonna get 10 people to pick up. You're gonna get two appointments today. So I'm just headed into Capilly for the day and gonna go try and help out some sales manager stuff.

Want me to bring you to Starbucks?

Oh, crap. I forgot my lunch. That'd be great.

Thank you for your lunch, too.

Yeah.

Okay, so we just dropped Adam off at Capili, and because we have one vehicle, we kind of have to figure it out together. So now we're gonna head over to and we're gonna go pick up some groceries and do a little bit of errands. Oh, and we're going to Starbucks, which is so nice because Uber Eats charges way too much for Starbucks. So we're super excited. I'm coming, I'm coming. I'll get a grande iced gingerbread oat milk. Chad. We're actually out of the gym, Fred, right now. Cool. I don't really like gingerbread. I felt really pressured there.

Actually.

I'll do a grande ice sugar cookie latte, but can I do oat milk instead of almond? Oh, I just said I'm gonna take you to your second home. And then he smiled and he was super excited. The grocery pickup is so helpful because I can plan out my meals for the week because I like to decide like what we're gonna have and then I can basically look at the recipe and add it in my cart and then just I open up my trunk and drive away. Super helpful. I don't know how women back, back in the day did it.

All the excuses are kind of gone now. We got the house sorted out, baby routines going. We have the launch done. The sacrificial lamp has been my fitness. I don't know. It's a shitty place to live as a human being. Constantly pissed off at yourself or it's all mindset. I just don't know how to fix it, you know.

See, I don't know why you relax in the night stressing out when it starts doing school that they set up my grandmother that she could calm any baby and I always wanted that. Not your own though. You walk in the room, stress me right after this. 2023 was a very. It was like a growth year. Adam made a few really big decisions at the beginning of the year that caused stress on the business and stress on our relationship. Adam and I have to leave and go back to Canada on Saturday. But I don't know what to do with Atlas because I can't get his birthday certificate. I contacted the lawyer and I am concerned about going home because I'm not going to leave Atlas. But I only have 180 days.

So we got a bad review on Glassdoor from an employee, previous employee.