So trainierst du dein Vertriebsteam

0:00I sell lawn fertilization, weed control to Indianapolis homeowners. >> Dude, how did you win the affiliate contest? >> I text. >> You like got all the homeowners? You were like, "Let's go buy some books, baby." >> No, I didn't text any clients. It was all just friends, >> dude. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for promoting it. >> Um, if we do, uh, we'll probably end between 15 and 2 million this year. >> Okay.

0:24>> Um, I'd like to be at five before I decide what I want to do after that. Do you sell B2B to like who do you sell to lawn care? >> Primarily homeowners 90 90% residential. Um we have a few affiliate situations >> e-commerce or like inerson local. >> It's all local. We fertilize lawns. >> Got it. You do that too. My bad. I I thought you were just selling the fertilizer, not the services. Okay, understood. >> So, we're primarily dealing with homeowners.

0:50Um I feel like what's our main constraint is just I mean sales and marketing. We have a good product, good service. We don't have >> What's revenue retention? >> We uh the way I track it, we retain about 75%. Um we have a service in the fall that's kind of a one-off service and so those people churn at a higher rate and I don't have those numbers separated.

1:16>> Okay. Um Okay. Can you handle? >> Yeah. Yeah. I um I've been here like three times in the last three months. So, I feel like I kind of know what I need to do. I just got to do it. Uh but a big part of what I'm trying to work on over the winter, our big sales season, spring, and so developing a more standardized sales motion. We have one rep who has a ton of experience in the industry, but he doesn't follow anything. He just sells. We give him the leads and he closes. Decent percentage, 40 45%, but we don't actually know what's good about what he does. And so, I need to develop sales script and stuff like that. I don't necessarily know where to start when it comes to building a system, especially because this guy is not super good with change.

2:10>> So, that's all right. you have an allar saleserson. The best sales people are basically terrible at everything but selling. >> Hello. There we go. Um, so that's okay and normal and to be expected. The best way to do it is to observe it the same way that I was describing earlier. I think it was to Anders um about how to teach. And so you would literally just look at him as though you were an autist and say, "What does this person do?" And just literally observe them like you were a court reporter. So you can't put any emotion or any judgment on it. It's just what are the things this person does and what are the things they say and then their voice goes up here, they pause here. And the more quantified you can make that, the more you can drill it and train it. And the big thing with sales training that I think the vast majority of businesses underestimate is just how much training is required to make a truly world-class team. I think 90 So everybody who has the sales handbook can kind of get you guys have my schedule for how we onboard and how we train. And I think for many people that's a big belief breaker. It's hard for people to comprehend exactly how much we train at acquisition.com. It's a shitload. Um, and so to give context on that, our sales team trains every single day. Every day. And they all role play every single day. And every week they have a one-on-one with Game Tape, with their manager of what they specifically need to work on. And like that muscle and like do you know how to train like do you know how to train a salesperson?

3:29>> Um, I would say no. >> Okay. So you train sales people through like role playing until your eyes bleed because fundamentally it's the fastest feedback loop that you can give someone in terms of training anything. So they say something and so the way that we train is number one is you have to memorize a script. And so the way you memorize a script is you put the script in front of someone, they print out a second script and then they read the script out loud and then they black out one of the words and they read it again and they black out another word and they read it again. And by the time you blacked out every single word, you've said the script for as many times as there are words in the script and you tend to [ __ ] know it. And so then you're staring at an entirely blacked out page saying the entire script.

4:05That's how you memorize a script. Once you can breathe the script, which is what we call it. Once you can breathe the script, then we practice the role playing component. Um, which is us going back and forth. And so when you're reading the script with someone, we have a hand up with heads nodding. And the first time someone's going to go through a script, we're say, "Hey, just to be clear, we're going to interrupt you probably like 50 or 60 times by the time you get to the end of it." That's okay. The worst way that do people do role playing is that someone they go through a whole role play or someone just says the script. That's the worst way. The second worst way is that you go through it and we quote roleplay and at the end the guy says, "All right, so you know at the beginning you could have done this a little bit different and you know you kind of said this a little bit bad at the end and you probably should have offered it like this." No one's going to remember that. It doesn't matter. It's way too late. The reason that superstition happens is because you change something and then you immediately get feedback. And so once someone does it, we call it locking it in. So it's like they mess something up, we say, "Hey, stop. Try it like this. Do it again." They do it. If they get it right, we say, "Great. Lock it in." That means do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Keep going. And so that's how we trill the script so that every person delivers the script the same way. The vast majority of sales teams have a script. It's loose. No one really pays attention to it. And the way that they recruit sales people is that they just hire a bunch, see who sticks, and then let the rest go. exceptional sales or which I consider us to be can take anyone to be a savage.

5:27It's just a question of how much effort we're willing to put into somebody as long as you know how to train the skill of sales which ski sales is so trainable as a skill. Um that's the feedback loop that has to get created. So the first step for you is we have to observe the salesman and then we have to document the words they say and what they do. Once we have that, that becomes the basis for the memorization and then the role playing becomes making sure they execute that. And I always want adherence above everything. So we are like the New England Patriots in terms of how we run the sales team, which is the process is above everyone. No one's better than the process. And the way we position that is like thousands of sales calls, thousands of hours have gone into like men died and gave their lives to give us this script. You were not better than the script. And so you say the script because we know these words close people. Period. And that's the approach that we have and that's the difference that we give to the process. And so if you have a star salesperson, one of the difficult parts is that that person tends to be a cowboy, right? He does whatever he wants as long as he closes deals. That is a cultural issue. It will be a cancer long term if he's a primadonna. And so most of the time I would rather have a team of all eights closing on a 10 out of 10 process. And that team will always outperform a team that has one star and no process.

6:38>> Okay. Um, so from a logistical perspective, yeah, making the script, >> do I do that with him if he's not like following a script? >> He is following a script. He just doesn't know what it is. >> Okay. So, we I should work with him together. >> There are certain types of words that he says in a specific order to get people to buy. >> Mhm. >> If you observe 10 of his conversations, you'll get 80% of them. And then what most sales people who are like him do is they add too many words.

7:06>> Yeah. And so people get cute and so they'll add stuff. And so most of the times when you create a script, you want to eliminate as many words as humanly possible. And so if we go into an organization to fix the sales process, typically we'll cut the script in half or more because there's so much extra stuff. It's the sneezing. It's the I got to touch the plate in all four places before I hit the ball. There's tons of superstition that's woven into the script because they don't know and it worked one time. So they keep doing it and the script just gets longer and longer and longer. Not more effective.

7:32>> Yeah. Um, so, um, we I mean we only sell the majority of our services in call it March, April, May. >> Can I just walk you? Do you have the sales handbook? >> I Is it the ACQ closer one? Yeah, I have that. I read through it. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Model that each there's model that script. >> Yeah.

7:58>> Like there's an intro, there's a disco, there's recaps, there's offer, there's the rest of the pieces there. like just model the script. >> Yeah, I've been doing that for our Christmas lights for what was what we're selling right now. >> Is it working? >> Um well, we're just starting so I [laughter] can't tell you that >> Christmas hasn't really come yet. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um my [snorts] last question when it comes to uh the training stuff, you know, you said you do it every day. >> If that's something that I can stand here and say is my biggest constraint and I need to do it every day, I should just do it. But if I also say that it's not in my capacity, is that something that if I

8:32>> what prevents you from it being done? >> Yeah. Is there if I were to have another rep, could I just have the two of those guys do it every day together or do I need to be in there every day if I'm not even necessarily a sales guy? Like I'm not even good at necessarily. >> I think you not being a sales guy doesn't necessarily mean that you wouldn't be able to document the sales process. Well, >> sure. >> In some ways, it might actually make you better. >> Okay. So I would just not like let that like cloud your judgment around it too much. >> So I should still try and be there in every meeting.

9:00>> I think understanding like there's core elements of a business like understanding how revenue comes in like how are leads generated, how are they converted and how do we deliver are the core elements of every business. >> And so like I believe the owner should know how to do all those things. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> Because there will get to a point where like play it out the sales guy. So where's where's where's my pest control? There you are. See, like he'll just go and just start his own thing and then you'll be screwed. >> Yeah.

9:26>> Yeah. >> So, talk about keyman risk. It's like, how do we make sure that this business can, you know, sustain and thrive? Make sure you know the sales process. >> Yeah. I I was spending all my time marketing trying to acquire as many leads as possible. And my fear is that once we overcome what he's capable of doing that the next guy won't be able to replicate it essentially. >> But the business [laughter]

9:48>> they won't, but the business needs to operate% >> is the model. >> Cool. So just develop a standardized sales motion. >> Yeah. >> Thanks.