[00:00:07.360] - Chris
Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots Podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:10.810] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:00:18.640] - Chris
I F@*%ing Love this industry.
[00:00:20.660] - Brandon
Yo, Chris. How are you?
[00:00:22.290] - Chris
Good, man. Yeah. Yo, I had a good night's sleep last night. I've been struggling with my sleep for.
[00:00:28.200] - Brandon
Like you've been a bit of a.
[00:00:30.090] - Chris
Grumpy b*tch the last.
[00:00:33.860] - Brandon
I don't know.
[00:00:34.420] - Chris
What it is, man. Well, you and I kind of share this. I know we both yeah, you've struggled with insomnia at various degrees, but it's brutal. I haven't for a long time, and then recently, I don't know if it's just my mind is just spinning. It's hard to get to sleep the last week or so. Of course, some people listening are like, oh, really? It's been better than this for you? Because I know a lot of people struggle to sleep, but yeah, I wasn't getting to bed till midnight and then I'd wake up at three. It feels terrible.
[00:01:04.680] - Brandon
It does.
[00:01:05.380] - Chris
We were talking about this yesterday. After a few days of it, there's a little bit of a depression that sets in. I was kind of dreading going to bed at night.
[00:01:15.010] - Brandon
Yeah, you almost get in this weird loop where you start to worry about not sleeping, so then the worrying about not sleeping makes it hard to get sleep. Stupid cycle that you can get in.
[00:01:27.490] - Chris
You know what did help, though, a little bit is kava. Kava. It's one of those it's like a route and it's from South America or something like that, but it has this really relaxing kind of vibe to it. You google Kava.
[00:01:44.340] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:01:44.850] - Chris
And you can buy the powder. It's not terribly expensive and you just mix it with cold water and you drink it like a couple of hours before bed. And it's interesting. It kind of almost numbs your mouth when you drink it. It's weird.
[00:01:56.050] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:01:56.670] - Chris
But then it just kind of settles you, calms your mind a little bit. It's just that little thing.
[00:02:02.740] - Brandon
It gives you a little bit of.
[00:02:04.260] - Chris
OK, I'm sleepy kind of feel to it. So that helped. And anyway, last night was better, so yeah. You finally got feeling good sleep.
[00:02:11.740] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:02:12.400] - Chris
Everybody's like, all right, move on to.
[00:02:15.190] - Brandon
I don't sleep either. Haven't slept well for six months.
[00:02:17.910] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:02:19.090] - Brandon
Anyways. Hey, so we were going to ping pong something today. Kind of a counter to maybe or the other side of the coin.
[00:02:28.030] - Chris
Yeah, I think so.
[00:02:29.230] - Brandon
On this, we did kind of a not too many episodes ago, maybe last episode. I lose track of which one is going to be put out when, but we did a piece on just leaders and their role within the cat environment and how that really translates into kind of this broader leadership requirement for our teams in our industry. And we got a little fiery on that one. I think it has value, though. It wasn't just, oh, dude, incredible.
[00:02:57.390] - Chris
Listen, do yourself a favor. Do yourself a favor and go back to the episode of I don't know what we call it, leadership in a Cat zone. I'm not sure.
[00:03:08.070] - Brandon
I don't know what our.
[00:03:10.910] - Chris
Previous one.
[00:03:11.950] - Brandon
We'll talk more about it, but you.
[00:03:15.220] - Chris
Got to listen to it because it's not kind of there's a ton of value in it. And I think you do a great job of really clearly describing what leadership looks like in a cat zone. Of course, you draw on some of your military background, and there's a lot we can learn, I think, from the structure that the military puts in place, the clarity their structure creates.
[00:03:37.010] - Brandon
Oh, the commander's intent.
[00:03:38.710] - Chris
Yes. Commander's intent. Yes. You have to go back and listen to that episode. Do that first, because this is really a companion episode. So yes. One of the things that I think all service companies struggle with is this dynamic between sales and service and the best of them, there's this really tight synergy between sales and service. But even with that, as a sales rep, it's an interesting role that is different than, say, a frontline technician role or even a PM role. I think it's a little bit different in that as a sales rep, you're really putting your own reputation on the line. And I think what makes it different is that as a sales rep, they're building networks of relationships. Now, you could argue we're all in sales, and we do argue that our project managers are estimated. Absolutely. And we all have the ability to have our teams, in effect, sabotage those relationships on our behalf.
[00:04:46.500] - Brandon
Yes, sure.
[00:04:47.260] - Chris
Because we're sending people out kind of in our name, right. If it's a PM, they have subs that they're bringing into a job that ultimately those subs behave badly, that adjuster, that they've been building relationship for a long period time. So in a way, it's all the same. In another way, it feels a little bit different. As a sales rep, I think us as sales reps, we think it's different. Whatever it is, just like everybody else, we're sticking our neck out to create and build these relationships with the VPs of this condo associate, the board member of this condo association, or this VP of operations, or these directors of facilities and stuff like that. And I think we have this emotional attachment to our work because we're putting our name out there. Right. It's very common. As sales reps, a lot of us are wired as merchants. We've talked a little bit about that with the Core Values Index. Like merchants, we are really, really good at starting, creating, establishing relationships. We're really good at building depth in these relationships and personal connection and affinity and all this kind of stuff. And so when we get a job and we feel like expectations are not being met, the customer is frustrated with the way that we're delivering service, the personality of the person delivering service.
[00:06:07.590] - Chris
Like any time we hear anything from that customer that's negative about our team or the quality or whatever, there is a natural reaction that happens with salespeople. And so I thought we should talk about this, we should break this down. And I want to delve into history a little bit because you and I, we also wrestle with this dynamic quite a lot.
[00:06:28.840] - Brandon
Oh yeah, sure.
[00:06:29.770] - Chris
A lot. So I wonder if you can think of some scenarios you can certainly bring them up because I know this happened quite a bit where I was coming either on behalf of our other sales reps because at one point I had about five sales reps kind of covering our market, but I was the one directly reporting to you and it's a pretty regular occurrence. Could you put words to that? What was it like when I would come to you? What kind of stuff would I come to you with?
[00:06:55.810] - Brandon
That's a good question. I think inevitably what it was kind of the pattern, I guess, or the theme would commonly be a concern directed at the actual execution of service delivery. And this is kind of where the challenges because at times you were spot on and there was other times where it was a perception difference right between what your team was hearing or experiencing versus what the operational team was hearing and experiencing. And both are true. Both types of scenarios are inevitably happening at the same time. But it was normally a concern of the client is saying something that doesn't appear to reflect well on the way our team is executing and delivering service. Now, what we learn over time is there are so many variables that are creating those perspectives and maybe the gaps between teams and that's where some of the wrestling happens and some of the nuance that you have an opportunity to develop and we'll probably talk about it. But I would say the theme consistently was I'm hearing this kind of feedback from the client. It's not super motivating. It doesn't appear to paint us in a great picture and was normally accompanied with what is going on?
[00:08:13.180] - Brandon
I don't have a clear idea of what's happening with my accounts, my live project. Would you agree that that's pretty much.
[00:08:21.270] - Chris
The yeah, well, I mean, I would instead articulate this way. I'm sure that I was right about my assessment 100% of the time, but my behavior or the choice of whether or not to bring it up at the time I did. So here's the deal.
[00:08:40.160] - Brandon
I'm only laughing because I can in my mind even see the arc of day one of these kinds of conversations to kind of like as the team build time and battle rhythms together, our.
[00:08:52.420] - Chris
Audience is like, when the hell are we going to start actually talking about something here? It's like we're talking about talking about something here. Is this reality that sales can get really frustrated and angry with service because they feel like they're sabotaging their relationship with their client. And I think it is most of the time I think this is true most of the time for me is I was equally concerned I was talking with my wife about this last night. I was equally concerned about my reputation and the company and just the satisfaction of my clients. All three of those things were important to me. And of course, sometimes we can get out of balance, where really what's hooking us emotionally, though, is how is this going to make me look? If we're honest, as a sales rep, sure. How is this going to screw up my opportunity and my reputation? Because as a sales rep, let's face it, right, you're inside a certain company, but there's always this understanding that at some point I may get a better opportunity with a company elsewhere. But so my personal reputation, if we're honest, is paramount. But I think those of us who really care about what we're doing and the people we work with, it's also this component of how does this reflect on the company that I'm with and how is this affecting my client, etcetera.
[00:10:06.960] - Chris
Et cetera. So it's all the things we're honest. And the question is, what is the healthiest way for us to deal with this tension as a team? And you spent a lot of time last week really unpacking the necessity of leadership on the service delivery side. And so we've got that well established. Well, what is the role of the sales leader? What is our leadership role? And how do we deal with those moments where, like right now in Florida, there's a lot of teams on the ground that are given everything, they got.
[00:10:40.350] - Brandon
Crazy hours being loved, and we've been.
[00:10:42.660] - Chris
Connected to a number of teams that are in that Florida cat zone. And it is hard, it's grind your face off kind of activity, especially over the last ten days. And of course, that's going to start to subside. People are going to start to get into a cadence. People will start to be able to we're going to start getting back to those 910 eleven hour days instead of 1820 hours days. But I think it's true of noncat environments as well, right? What is my role as a sales leader when things break down on the service delivery side? And I really do think there's two paradigms that do exist when we are in a storm, a regional catastrophe event versus normal day to day operations. I think it requires a different posture and different approach. So let's talk about cat experiences because we're still kind of in hurricane season here, obviously, and there's still going to be more storms. And several of many of our listeners, I would think, are also in winter storm environments, too. And we've had some experience in that. And so I'm thinking back to snapocalypse 2016. 2017. I had some not so shiny moments during that time.
[00:11:55.390] - Chris
For that reason, I had sales reps who were developing relationships with property management companies, vacation rental management companies, and Snapocalypse was an absolute regional disaster like we'd never seen in that central Oregon market. And I had some of these moments where my sales team and myself were getting calls from these connections that we've been cultivating for months and months and months, and now all of a sudden, they were experiencing some breakdown in our service delivery. And it's little things. It's like, hey, you guys said they would be here 30 minutes ago, and they're still not here. And as I said 30 minutes ago, that's the key operative language. Yeah, you guys said you would be here 30 minutes ago, and they're not. What gives? Now, as the sales leader, I hear that criticism and my stomach drops. I have this visceral reaction to that basically, oh, shit, my clients mad at me. I said one thing and my team didn't follow through. This is the language in my head right now, mind you, like, you the general manager of the company. At the time, we had two locations and 80 or so employees that we're trying to deploy in this scenario where, if I recall correctly, we had 4500 job leads in a period of three, four weeks when, I mean, it was just a massive, massive influx of work that nobody in the region could handle, let alone us.
[00:13:29.710] - Chris
And everybody was pushed way beyond, way beyond capacity, way beyond. But from my perspective, when we started fielding some of these service calls, I'm just thinking, oh, shit, they're mad at me, and this is not going to end well. And we've been cultivating these relationships, and this is going to blow up this opportunity with XYZ Property Management and so forth. So I'm reacting from that scared place.
[00:13:56.680] - Brandon
Sure.
[00:13:57.160] - Chris
Right?
[00:13:57.610] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:13:58.300] - Chris
Now, of course, while that conversation is going with that property manager, you guys are continually fielding inbound calls for more and more jobs, and you guys are sitting in the war room. I remember this whole setup, right? You guys are sitting in the conference room. You got the screen up there with the mitlog of all these inbound jobs and stuff that needs to be scheduled, and how do we deploy our teams, and can we get any temp labor? No, because everybody wants temp. I mean, it's nuts, though, but I'm not taking that into account. All I can see is disappointed client. And I was chatting with one of our sales leaders that's in the Florida cat zone right now, and they were echoing similar struggles. And I get it. I can almost feel it in my gut as they're describing their frustration with their teams. And I was trying to remind them, so I was going into this. Now I'm in coaching position, and you've.
[00:14:55.500] - Brandon
Got the benefit of hindsight.
[00:14:56.950] - Chris
I've got the benefit of hindsight. And one, I have this internal dialogue of oh, I remember when I was in that exact same scenario and how poorly I handled it a lot of times because it was really difficult for me to put on the perspective of my service team. Here's where I want to go with this because I think that hindsight perspective is really helpful. And what I was trying to articulate to these sales leaders in market there in Florida is I think when we're in those kinds of scenarios where the team is under extraordinary strain. Is that we really have to flip our perspective because I think under normal operations. One of the things we're oriented around is kind of managing our service delivery as a sales leader. We're feeding information to our service team with the expectations. Preferences. The standards and stuff that we've gathered from that customer through all of our discovery and so forth. We're essentially managing the service delivery from the sales perspective, hey, here's what the customer needs, here are their requirements, here's their expectations, all that stuff. I think what happens in a cat zone or a regional storm or any kind of elevated environment, we've had a huge influx of jobs.
[00:16:07.950] - Chris
So we need to flip it around and we need to instead of supporting our client and managing our service team, which is typically the mode that we want to operate in, instead we have to do the opposite. We have to support and encourage our service team and we have to manage our clients. And as I was breaking that down, let me give you some language for that because I think really it just comes back to truth, which we talk a lot about in commercial sales, but it's so relevant to every area of our businesses. We just we want to deal with the truth. And sometimes instead our tendency is to posture or position or manipulate to tell a story around the truth. So the customer isn't quite as destabilized by it. But what you and I have learned over the years in dealing with snowpocalypse and other cat events and regional storm environments is the customer deals a lot better with the truth than they do us telling a story around the truth. Sure, right. And I think as salespeople we can play a really critical role in assisting our service teams by reestablishing expectations with the customer as we go.
[00:17:16.950] - Chris
Here's an example and I remember having these conversations with clients personally while operating in the field and I think it works. I think the conversation with the client needs to shift into this conversation of hey Mrs. Property Manager, mr. Jones, bob, Susie, here's the reality on the ground right now. The only promise I can really give you with an environment like this is that I'm going to be here for you when I have new information. I promise to relate to you right away. Here's another thing I can promise, is there's going to be some times over the next few days and a few weeks where I'm going to give you a time that I'm going to say our team is going to be here, and then 15 minutes later I'm going to call you back and it's going to be 2 hours and it's going to feel really frustrating. What else can I promise you? And I can promise you there may come a time in our process here where you have team members on your end. You're responsible to report to you. They're asking for certain kinds of information. It could be an invoice, it could be a proposal for some aspect of the project we get to repairs, etc for.
[00:18:24.780] - Chris
And I relate to you that my team is going to have you that information by tomorrow, close the business, and then I'm going to call you at 02:00. And let's say my project manager is actually backed up on 22 other proposals right now. I'm not going to be able to get that to you till tomorrow. I just assure you there's a good chance that's going to happen because of the environment that we're in right now. And I could go on and on with other examples, but the idea is that the more honest and truthful we are with that customer, the more trust we actually build with them. I think the fear is sales reps that we carry into these cat environments is anytime I go back on my word, my customer is going to trust me less. Well, that's true, and that's why we need to set the expectation that I'm going to tell you things, I'm going to give you updates, and then that information is going to change. I'm going to tell you, hey, our team is going to be there such this time and things are going to change. And it's not going to be that, it's going to be later.
[00:19:21.040] - Chris
The key is honesty. It's just all about honesty now. Are you going to have some people who will bristle with that at first and be annoyed by that or say, oh, well, I can go to such and such companies, get that done? Well, listen, Mrs. Jones, if you think they can do a better job in this environment right now than us, and they're being honest with you like I'm trying to be with you, then maybe you need to try them. I'm just telling you this is the environment we're in. And from everything I can see, no other companies, if they're telling you they can do all this stuff, they're probably not being honest with you. I'm trying to be honest with you. That's the posture we have to take. It's all about just communicating the truth. We can't fight what's real. What's real is your team is going to fail in this environment a lot more often than they would under normal circumstances. And I think what the team needs and what tends to help the situation. I saw this after I screwed it up and bungled it many times, is when I went out of my way in those cat environments to encourage the team and grab coffee on my way into the office, or stop at the bakery and grab donuts for the team.
[00:20:25.630] - Chris
It's all gathered in the war room, trying to figure out how in the world are going to address the job load they have in front of them. It nearly always served for my jobs to get more attention from them because they want to do well. And when they feel supported by their sales team, they want to support the sales team. And they'll go above and beyond, beyond what they're already giving to the company to do that. It's just human nature. When we feel cared for, we have a stronger inclination to care back.
[00:20:56.230] - Brandon
Yeah. I think what you're kind of landing on a bit there is this idea of instead of slipping into the service delivery, the field staff owe me something. It's, how do I help support the staff so that we can deliver? What the best product possible? Right.
[00:21:16.440] - Chris
But I think as salespeople, we want it to be 100% all the time, and we even go into a storm environment, and we are going into, this is our opportunity. Yeah, the calls are coming in, but we don't take into account the full picture of what it's going to mean to deliver at all in that environment, much less 100% standard of excellence.
[00:21:37.470] - Brandon
Well. And I think one of the things that just came to my mind. As you were saying. That this is kind of similar to a conversation we're having with somebody yesterday. Was as their company grew. They started to realize they had more customers. Service calls. More service failures. And it was a bit overwhelming. But then when they went back and looked at the percent of files in the context of the growing file load. They realized.
[00:22:03.450] - Chris
Okay.
[00:22:04.110] - Brandon
The percentage hasn't changed. There's always going to be some percentage of a mistake, right. We do. We drop the ball or against some communication gaps, some things that happen, like, we're never going to be 100%. But what we see in a cat environment is the same idea. Like, all of a sudden you start hearing people talk and it's like, we get to develop this perspective of, oh, my gosh, the team is just failing across the board. Because I've heard five calls today where people were frustrated with our timeline or our arrivals or whatever, and it's like, okay, yeah, but our file volume is 14 times what it would be under normal circumstances. So it is appropriate, and I hate saying this almost because people kind of why it's okay to fail now. No, that's not what I'm saying. But let's be realistic about these internal expectations. If your file volume increases 14 x, there's a strong chance that a service failure opportunity is going to increase exponentially as well. Yeah, right. It doesn't mean now the team's completely fallen off the tracks. It just means we've got that much more exposure, many more file volume coming in that could affect our ability to deliver.
[00:23:14.500] - Brandon
Like all these variables impact that. And I think there's an element of mindset that's important that I think you're talking about is our sales team members need to have a little bit more grit mentally in terms of how they're receiving this information.
[00:23:30.640] - Chris
Hey, friends. Hey listeners.
[00:23:32.200] - Chris
We're doing something a little bit different with our ads. So you've been accustomed to doing some ads with our favorite partners and companies in the industry. Now we actually have a product page, our partners page, on our website. So Floodlightgrp.com Partners want to give you a quick rundown, though, of the people that we're partnering with and we believe in as really go to resources in the industry. The first one is restorationerep.com. Right. ERPs are an important part of our sales process, our customer development process, and why reinvent the wheel? The rest. Recent ERP platform is awesome. It can be customized to your business, branding and all that kind of stuff. It has all the components to really create a value add for your commercial client. Accelerate Job management software. Everybody needs job management software. And we just found accelerate. Not only is their team just really great to work with, when they get ideas from customers, they throw it into the product roadmap and they implement it. They're really advocating for the contractor and trying to create a software solution that works for them. Actionable insights. We recommend actual insights all the time.
[00:24:34.840] - Brandon
Right.
[00:24:35.260] - Chris
All of us as restoration operators are looking for turnkey resources and training solutions that we can take our team to the next level and AI, when it comes to estimating and matterport and a lot of the other essential tools we're using, they are an awesome resource and they're always coming out with new great stuff.
[00:24:53.490] - Brandon
Super influential in the industry. Super Tech University soft skills development training for your technicians, for your Frontline personnel. Let's face it, frontline personnel are the heartbeat of our company. They are the ones that connect with our clients and create the customer experience. There's no better investment than investing in the ability for those individuals to represent themselves, our clients and our brands. Well. So super. Tech University. Surety. They essentially are cutting down this lifecycle between delivering service and then getting paid, stepping in, removing the middleman in terms of mortgage companies, refining that pipeline, making sure that there's at least friction as possible so we can go out and do a great job, and then our businesses don't suffer while we're waiting to get paid. The money is coming and it's coming quickly. And then the last one, guys, is Lyftify. It's kind of a newer entry to the industry. They're driving Google Review, so they're a turnkey partner that we can literally go out, provide a great customer experience, hand that name off to our trusted partner in Liftify and have them go chase.
[00:25:56.950] - Chris
That Google review 25% conversion rate, which is industry wide. People tend to average 5% of people you ask for if you actually convert Lift to five bumps at 25. We were such a big believer. We are a customer and they've been generating all of our floodlight reviews in a matter of a week and a half, or close to 15 reviews in just a short period of time.
[00:26:16.620] - Brandon
And I think people just underestimate what happens organically with your SEO search activity when you're getting these new and active five star reviews from our clients. And we just can't let the pedal up on that because of the effect on our businesses long.
[00:26:30.030] - Chris
Big deal. So check it out. Check out our partners page. Do business with them. You won't regret it. We're confident in that floodlightgrp.
[00:26:36.970] - Chris
Compartners.
[00:26:38.880] - Brandon
Thanks, guys. I want to drop this on you and see what your thought is. I think it's all the more reason why we point towards things like understanding the customer segment, really being a student of it, because then it allows you as a salesperson to have a much more influential role in leading that relationship because you're more confident about the issues that you hear them talking about. It also equips you with more information to filter that incoming thought smart and ask some more questions. Be like, okay, I hear what you're saying here. What's that doing to the rest of the team? OK, now I have a better understanding of how that's influencing the situation. Okay? Right. And now you can speak to that more confidently when you know that customer segment better. Because part of the reason you're freaking out as a salesperson is you don't have enough working knowledge of either side of the parties. And so when you hear bad information, it's like you basically just fall on the sword. Oh, they're right. It is all hell in a handbasket. It's all garbage. We suck. Okay, now you're just letting someone that's emotionally as wrapped up in the situation as you are, maybe more so to lead you in the asking good questions, filtering through the emotional responses.
[00:27:59.800] - Brandon
But again, the more trained you are on that customer segment, the more wit you have about you. Stop when shit's hitting the fan. Right? And so I think that's part of your responsibility. When we say leading your client, understand your client, like, as an industry, not just Joe Smith, the personality from the five hits.
[00:28:21.370] - Chris
That is so appropriate, man, because we were talking with this particular leader of the company and from their perspective, they have high level executive leadership relationships and a lot of these property management companies and they're like, they love us. So what? Down the line at the local site, they may be the one that's snapping about this isn't going fast enough.
[00:28:45.900] - Chris
You.
[00:28:46.120] - Chris
Guys said you're going to be here, that kind of stuff. But the reality is that the actual service is meeting expectation. A lot of cases with the high level executives, we just don't understand the decision making process, the hierarchy, the relationships within our clients business and the way things work. Why would they be upset? So I agree with you. It is that helps a lot. But I think as a sales rep too, it's important to recognize when our ego is getting flirted up. In that experience, I think often we don't we don't connect with how much of that is driving it. And it causes us to not to lose our solution orientation and instead become complainers.
[00:29:30.960] - Brandon
Absolutely. And you really you literally set the stage to fail again. So, like, kind of some of your examples of the team, I get a call from my client and find out. My team's 45 minutes late past the window that we said, and they're still not there. And our knee jerk response to that is because our egos flared up or lack of security or self confidence in our team. And what we're doing is, I'm going to call you back in 15 minutes.
[00:29:55.830] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:29:56.220] - Brandon
No, you're not. Because there's no way in hell you're going to have an answer in 15 minutes right now. So stop that and pause and be like, client, I want to reassure you, you are critically important to us. I want to remind you again, circumstances are difficult. Here are the steps I'm going to take to make sure that we continue to move this ball forward. But don't set an unrealistic expectation that then you're going to intentionally fail to meet or intentionally you set the table for you to fail to meet. Now we're just compounding the friction that's being created. Calm down. Let them know, I'm going to dig into this. It may take me a few hang tight. I'm going to follow up with you. Right.
[00:30:35.960] - Chris
And so the other piece, I think that often accompanies this is just a general lack of information flowing between service and sales. Right. So I think as we start to freak out as salespeople, we're like, what in the world is going on? Why? Why is it this way? How could they possibly not be on top of this? What's happening that's so important?
[00:30:58.930] - Chris
This is a huge client.
[00:31:00.610] - Chris
We have this whole narrative going in our head. And I think it also points back to the essential behavior of planning time to be in the shop. Like, as a salesperson, I think it's really important to we can become really siloed. We can deploy from our house, go out to visit our clients, go out to make our sales calls, go out to do the things, and never rub shoulders with our service team for days or in some cases weeks on end. We come in for our sales meeting, we have a few hallway conversations, and we go out. And then you get in this environment where it's it quickly becomes us versus them because we don't have a relational connection to the people delivering service. That was something I struggle with at times. I got my tunnel vision. I'm running the sales team. I've got my own sort of target clients that I'm working with and supporting. My sales reps are calling me with issues and it's kind of like we're our own little organization. It's very easy to start throwing stones at other teams when they're just other teams. Like when I'm not thinking in terms of my PMS, my estimators as first names and people, I'm in the box like we've talked about, where I'm just seeing my service delivery team as an object that's causing me problems or is failing my clients.
[00:32:20.060] - Chris
We don't even realize it when it.
[00:32:21.520] - Chris
Starts to take hold. It's just you're in that mindset. And there's a number of times, obviously, where you had to kind of snap me out of that mindset of, dude, get your head out of your ass, right? There's more than just your team going on out here.
[00:32:35.230] - Brandon
Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, is inevitably with most organizations, there are multiple sales development team members, groups of clients and accounts. They're all equally as critical to us as a company to be able to show that we are actively supporting and effectively delivering service to all our BDMs clients. But then there's all these operational relationships that have been created over the years too, that have absolutely nothing to do with you, and they are mission critical. They've been relationships that have provided millions of dollars in businesses, in most cases for long periods of time. As key leaders and operational staff, we're thinking about those relationships as well. And sales team members can slip into the space where it's their shit and their shit only that's critical. And again, they don't do it with malicious intent. No, this is normal stuff we all suffer from. Yeah, but again, I think what you're alluding to here is it's this mental maturity, it's this slow down, pull yourself out of the ego response and start thinking about how you can effectively have an impact on what's happening right now and asking yourself the kind of questions that equip you to do so versus making you a victim of circumstances.
[00:33:52.900] - Chris
And I always come back to you as a sales leader. We have to be willing to lower our expectation in those special circumstances. And sometimes, I mean, listen, we're talking about Cat Zone because it's here, right? Many, many teams all over the country are in Florida dealing with this environment salespeople and our service teams. The reality though, is it could be just a massive commercial fire that comes in and takes the whole team over. The whole cleaning team is deployed on this, and other jobs in process suffer because of that. So the same kind of scenario, but I think as salespeople, it's just essential that we come alongside the team and buffer communication and manage our clients in such a way that the team can still be successful under those extraordinary circumstances. And the only way they're successful is if we set accurate expectations with the customer. And sometimes it means, hey, Mrs. Jones, I recognize how frustrating this must be, and under normal circumstances, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, this is absolutely what you could expect from us. Here's why we're kind of in a weird scenario, but I'm here, you can count on me buffering communication in such a way that sets the team up for success in those extraordinary environments versus comparing them or judging them against what a normal, everyday neighborhood job should be delivered like.
[00:35:17.440] - Brandon
No, I agree. And I think one of the things that we need to account for in this conversation is the way that we approach conversation with our operational staff. So as a salesperson, the way that we approach them to problem solve or get answers or to dig into a concern or do research on a customer complaint really affects the entire response from them as well. And when we show up with this kind of I'm a victim of circumstance. I tried to do X and you guys didn't allow me or, you know, I wished I knew what was going on with my own jobs and all the things. And granted, there could be some element of truth to it, but just like your clients are going to receive a modified behavior pattern from the teams because we're at maximum capacity, we're way beyond maximum capacity. You, too, as an internal team member, are going to receive things differently than we would under normal circumstances, so get fucking used to it. You're not going to get all the proactive communication that we would like to have. Do we want that? Yes. Do we need to continue to do everything in our power to not let the chaos take us over and fail to deliver?
[00:36:31.060] - Brandon
Yes. But don't show up like a whiny bitch because things aren't going the way that you expect them to go. Like, there's part of me that just says duh. Like, the 3000 homes that were affected by 120 miles an hour winds, they're all thinking the same thing you are. Life's not going exactly the way they have planned. Right? So again, step out of that. Let's think about how we're responding to our team. Hey, so and so, our Mitigation manager or a response team leader or whatever, I know you guys are running and gunning, man. I just appreciate everything you're doing. I got a client that's parking on me. From their impression, it sounds like some service delivery issues. Fill me in. What can I do? How can I come back to this client and start filtering some responses so that we get them back on the same page with us and walk them off this ledge. And what we see more often is a salesperson show up bleeding on behalf of the client because everything that they've spoken is truth. And we show up disgruntled and frustrated and pissed off at our team already. It's like, okay, what's going to happen when you show up with that kind of mentality is you're going to get a shit ton of tired workers basically bristling up and going into an immediate defensive posture against you because they're exhausted, right?
[00:37:53.020] - Brandon
And the key leaders are exhausted. And you're probably talking to key leaders that have done everything in their power to make sure that everything's going well. And they're just as burnt out on the customer complaint concerns the service delivery issues and struggles that the team's having.
[00:38:08.730] - Chris
And they already feel like they're failing.
[00:38:11.130] - Brandon
They're already they know.
[00:38:13.170] - Chris
They know they didn't get back to everybody that they were supposed to yesterday. They know that they've still got 14 inspections to do before the end of the day, and they only got an hour and a half left a day.
[00:38:24.030] - Chris
They already know.
[00:38:25.200] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:38:25.840] - Brandon
And that just changes the dynamic. It's that unification of, look, just being honest and saying, look, this is what they're saying to me. I understand that it's not all facts, but let me help you. Let me shoulder some of this, let me get back strategy, right? Like, just fill me in. What do I need to understand so that I can go back and lead the client? I guarantee you, man, if I'm a field person and I'm exhausted, I'm a project manager, I'm a commercial EMS manager, and we have all this work, and I see that we're kicking ass and taking names, and I'm doing everything to pump up my operational team, and they're doing 20 hours a day, and we're 100 and something hours a piece in payroll. I'm doing everything I can to keep them motivated to go one more run with me. Dude, that pressure is so high. And then a salesperson walks in as a victim, I can't necessarily completely control my emotional response to that. It's going to come across coarse and cold and like, get the fuck out of my face, man. Right? And so again, it's like, this is part of your job to roll in and be like, oh, your credit.
[00:39:34.020] - Chris
You never said that.
[00:39:34.900] - Brandon
I did not. But I can guarantee you, at times we were thinking it's just inevitable, right? And so again, we're kind of beating this up. Just show up with that different mentality of, man, I know you guys are grinding gears. Give me enough information so I can be another pair of hands and feet for you. Let me filter some of this. Let me tide them over. Let me interact with them enough.
[00:39:57.970] - Chris
Let me buy us some time.
[00:39:59.020] - Brandon
Let me buy us some time. That's a different way to approach these issues than showing up whining, complaining, you didn't do X. Somebody didn't do, why they never all these bad statements we tend to slip into when we're emotionally charged up by the situation.
[00:40:16.390] - Chris
All right, so let's summarize here. All right, so some of you listening. You're in Florida. You're struggling. Maybe you're out selling on behalf of the team, and you feel like, gosh, things are falling through. We're not doing what we say we're going to do all the time. And you're frustrated. What should you be thinking about? Well, first of all, I think the number one directive is reframe your thinking. Remember your role. We're all in sales. We're all in this partnership together. You're nothing without them and they need you. We're all in this team together. And so I think approaching it from the perspective of, okay, what information do I need in order to lead this customer effectively through this, to make this a win for the whole team and then approaching from that vantage point. Right. Leave your accusation in the truck because there's inevitably information you're not privy to and you're working with a tired team. We're all people, I think, setting a tone of honesty with the customer from the jump, like just making that part of your vernacular, look, this is weird, this is hard. We're not going to be able to deliver to the standard that we would otherwise deliver to.
[00:41:28.530] - Chris
And that's going to be true of every single company on the ground here. Mrs. Jones, I can promise you that I'm here for you. This is my job, is to support you through the process, even though it may be a difficult one.
[00:41:38.400] - Brandon
Right.
[00:41:38.620] - Chris
So we have to change our language. We can't use the same sales language that we use in normal times.
[00:41:42.630] - Brandon
Yeah, great.
[00:41:44.510] - Chris
And then I think and this is what I told, you're going to love this. My sales rep said, so what do I do? What does that actually look like for me to be encouraging and supportive of my team? What does that mean? I said, well, dude, just lean into the love, man. I said, look, you know what love feels like. That's the orientation you need towards your team. You're burning the candle at both ends. I get it. But as salespeople, it's not the same.
[00:42:13.480] - Brandon
Not the same.
[00:42:14.310] - Chris
It is not the same. Please don't act grinding your face off as what your service partners are experiencing and doing and committing themselves to. Let's be real. And so remember to keep that perspective like you have extra juice in the tank. Your team doesn't have.
[00:42:32.040] - Brandon
Let's be honest, your 20 hours a day does not look the same as our technicians and our field staff. 20 hours a day. It just doesn't.
[00:42:39.670] - Chris
Isn't. It isn't. And my ego didn't like accepting that in the moment, but that's just the reality. Right. And so lean into the love. Right. So if you're going to go inspect a big, large loss that you brought in, stop by a bakery and grab a bunch of ham and cheese croissants, spend $25, and take them some sustenance. Bring a gift, bring some encouragement, right? The whole golden rule thing applies, and you'll be amazed at how your team starts to warm to you. They want to deliver for you to begin with, but give them some extra juice. Bring some positive energy to them. And I love how you set it to hold. When there's a service, issue a breakdown, investigate your thoughts about that situation, and come open handed, open minded to the table with your service partners. Hey, listen, here's what the customer is communicating to me. I realize it's only part of the story, and I know the strain you guys are under. Let's help me mastermind how I can best lead them. I don't want to set an expectation that's going to be difficult for you guys to fulfill.
[00:43:45.190] - Brandon
And I think what's important here, man, just to add to this, is this relationship component has to be getting developed all year long. It does, right? Like, those same behaviors even more so when we're not maxed out. You should still spot check one of your clients projects and go feed the team or encourage the team on your desk. Build this relationship all year so that when stuff does hit the fan, we remember that this is a team sport, and we know that what, under normal circumstances, were all shooting for. Like, we didn't just decide to stop taking care of clients.
[00:44:21.310] - Chris
You know the character of your team.
[00:44:22.980] - Brandon
You know the character of your team.
[00:44:24.000] - Chris
Because when we really know each other and I was guilty of this, of just being in my own sales lane and never stepping out to go connect with other people, I wish I could go back and redo some of that.
[00:44:37.320] - Brandon
Well, it's funny, right? Because salespeople are relationship people. I know, but just, like, kind of in marriages and stuff, we forget to invest the same energy into developing our relationships at home. We take advantage of those relationships instead of building on them. And at the end of the day, it's like, use some of that whoopower to build a relationship with the operational staff, because they're the ones that will actually take care of your client. Right.
[00:45:01.710] - Chris
Get up early, show up to that morning, stand to on your mid team.
[00:45:05.100] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:45:05.590] - Chris
Ask them, hey, where are you guys headed today? What you guys got on your plate? Awesome. Pat's on the back. Hey, by the way, that job you did for my client, it's freaking rad. It gave us a five star review.
[00:45:16.930] - Brandon
That kind of shit is important, man. It's critical. And you did a massive pivot with that dude early, and it affected everything. Like, it really does.
[00:45:28.310] - Chris
Don't neglect the relationships at home. Yeah. That's great feedback. Okay, guys, take care.
[00:45:34.420] - Brandon
See you. All right, everybody. He. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Booth.
[00:45:41.500] - Chris
And if you're joined the show. You love this episode.
[00:45:44.490] - Chris
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[00:45:45.760] - Chris
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