EP: 182 Laura Kelly w/ Clover - 4 Growth Hacks To Help You Explode in 2024

And she's also toured the country with venture capitalists, investments groups, and has run over 30 events in eight months for business owners across the country. She has a tremendous business mind and she has picked the brains out of one of the best operators. In the country with her father in law, Paul Kelly thad, what was your favorite part of this episode?

They could take with them throughout their day to day lives, in their home lives, but in a very deep and big and significant way impact your bottom line.

What was your favorite part of the episode and what of these four hacks are you going to choose to implement in your business today so that you can start making an impact in your bottom line? Enjoy the episode. Cheers. Hey, welcome back to another HVAC Success Secrets Revealed, where we have great conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk. Cheers, my friend.

Of course, leaning on their experience in the consulting world, Laura has helped many businesses across the United States with her consulting practices and her and Josh started Clover specifically diving into the trades now and really helping grow businesses. They have 375 members in their contractor catapult program.

Who averaged a 30 percent growth which is phenomenal when you take into consideration that many businesses and some are going to grow a little bit, some are going to grow a lot, but some of those businesses are eight and nine figure businesses. And when you factor in a 30 percent growth at that clip, That's a big growth number. So I'm really excited for this conversation today and diving in to four growth hacks, since it's a clover, clover leaf, four leaves, ha ha ha.

Let's have some fun with it. But for growth, It's going to be a good time.

They don't make calls they actually directly integrate into your CRM, giving you a seamless experience. Don't let your competition get ahead at Elite Call connect with your customers and fill your board. You can visit them today at elitecall.net right there.

Visit chiirp.com/hssr for HVAC success secrets revealed and start boosting your revenue today and before we get started, I got a challenge for everyone today. Do your best not to get mesmerized by Laura's voice and try to pay attention to what she's saying because she is going to blow your minds with some great information today.

Visit onpurposemedia.ca, start your digital transformation and watch your home service company thrive in the digital world. Now we're ready.

Enjoyment of chatting with folk and it's like probably my favorite thing to do, especially good conversations and interesting folks. So I'm just as jazzed to be here. So thanks.

And we'll get more focused on our four hacks, a person's, you can feel a charismatic energy from a mile away or a person's energy from a mile away and even if, if a person's energy is iffy, it can be so felt and it's so bloody repelling and typically in spaces where, you know, like podcast spaces or event spaces, commonly they attract people that work on themselves, which try and actively work on negating the shite. That causes people to have this iffy kind of energy.

I just became aware of that early on, because I saw people that, it's those that had all these demons bottled up that they were told not to talk about, are the people that I never want to talk to, because they're they've got that crazy, dark, iffy energy. Yeah, it's personal growth is so frigging underestimated.

They end up getting a lot of us, they, and we don't want to invest in someone that's, not jazzed to be learning from us and after the seven day trial, they typically are and from there we're off to the races. From there they, roll everything out and that's when, like you mentioned earlier, 30 percent growth, 30 percent growth is average and I speak to a lot of badasses and I say I don't believe you're average and I only say that to the people that I genuinely don't believe are average.

I don't believe you're average. The people who don't implement everything or don't or timidly implement stuff can average at 30%. I believe you could do a whole lot more and the cool thing is like I didn't grow Parker and Sons to the size it is today, 250 million, but I am incredibly competitive and when I met Josh and married into the family, I hated that he knew so much more than me. Really did not like it. And ever since, I've been getting mentored by Paul every week.

And now, I'm on calls and Josh is frickin really profound at what he does. He can be a hard ass, but that saves people so much money in the long run but, there's things now I know that he does not. And helps my ego feel better about itself.

My plan was to keep doing that, but I didn't know how to mark, I didn't know how to market it. So that's why I came to the States to learn that and then go back and get more business and Josh Kelly trapped me and here I am.

And there's so many people that visit like our local town that are. Awareness of the nuances of where everybody lives when our country is so bloody small is so goes over some goes over folks head cause they just go, go about their day.

And I think a lot of businesses and shit, we just had a, we're part of a mastermind for our business, for our agency. And, one of the things that they talked about was cutting and crossing. And so cutting, obviously cutting expenses, cutting people, crossing was cross cells and upsells. And so I think that's an applicable thing in all businesses, but when you look at the reporting and the saving money where are some areas that, and that you guys have seen.

Yeah. In your business that people are just bloated, that they need to reduce this down or to be able to increase their margins.

So one of the favorite thing, one of my favorite things about what we do at Clover is we deliver fast, actionable ideas that can move the needle fast. So I'm just going to share with you some of our favorites and some of those that you can take away and run with I, I believe you guys are going to give my email here at the end. I truly mean it. My, in the depth of my heart, you can reach out and I'll give you whatever playbook supports the ideas I'm going to share with you. Afterwards.

So my email is Laura at grow with clover. com. Everything I share a lot of it you'll be able to just take away and run without a playbook, some of which you're going to want the, you're going to want the, what we've put together and you just take it away and make it your own. There's just a desire to literally help. Like I speak with some people and I'm like, some competitors of ours, I'm like, take it away, make a copy of it, make it your own, whatever. Just tell people to use it.

So four hacks. Reporting hack, I'm going to share with you a reporting hack. I'm going to share with you a call center hack, a hack for your technicians and a hack for your comfort consultants.

Reporting hack, I've spoken about this quite a bit recently but when I first met my father in law, Paul Kelly, who was the biggest contractor and still is the contractor that's grown the biggest residential company in one market like it was all self funded, all one market, 110 million when I had my first conversation with him and I said, Paul what is, this is around the time that I knew Clover was going to happen because there were so many people coming to us for help and I wanted to get insight

into how I could help these people that were talking to us fast and I said what do you believe is the number one thing you attribute most to your success? What's that one thing for you? And he said, the DP report. And I didn't know what that meant. So I said what is a DP report? And he said, it's a daily progress report. Essentially you take, you review your finances. We do this with all our members when they come on first, you review your finances.

We discover what it needs to be, what your revenue and profitability goals are at the end of the year. And we break it down. From, we break it down from year to quarter to month to day to week to day. And then every day you're looking, someone's populating the revenue you brought in from the day before. Typically, like ideally you want someone else inputting that data for you, but you need to be proactive at looking at it and making adjustments accordingly. And what I mean by that is.

There are businesses that I speak with so many contractors that tell me I want to have a million dollar month and it's the 27th of the month and they've done like 700k Too late in the month to make up that amount of revenue. So they end up not making up that amount of revenue and they end up missing goal and they end up then becoming a culture of missing goal, which causes a few things. Either they no longer look at their numbers or any number becomes good enough within that culture.

What the DP report allows for is pivoting early, he said to me in that same conversation, he said, Laura, there's three types of businesses in this industry. There's the proactive kind. There's let's start from worst to best. There's the reactive kind that they know the shoulder season is going to kick. They know it and they just sit and let it pass and they hate that it happens they are giving out when it happens, but they know every year it's going to happen.

There's the reactive kind of businesses that panic when their call log, when their call board looks crappy, they they panic and they frantically reach out to their digital marketing companies, their marketing companies, their team, their salespeople, their techs to try and fix that and it's this frantic energy that surrounds the office or there's the proactive crowd that anticipate the issues that are coming down the pipe, shoulder season happens every year, and they have levers in place to pull

when those issues become apparent. And that is what the DP report facilitates. It is like a North bloody star. Like I tell people to not underestimate that statement. Like I was fortunate enough to talk to the person who's growing the biggest residential company ever with only a seven, seven and a half percent mark share at the time, and he said, the DP report is the biggest thing that facilitated that growth. We have it and the formulas are all built and everything.

I have a video that allows everybody walk through it. I. Wholeheartedly just want people to have it because I've seen how much it shifts companies like now not now Parker and Sons doesn't just use it. All the wrench group companies use it. it's, I've never seen a more simplistic report that drives the needle the most, mainly because that your revenue and profitability goals have been worked out before this report's been ever built and the number used to strive for is sufficient.

So all you got to do, you don't have to be that business owner that is so anxiety ridden because you're thinking about 12 months from now, you're just focused on that week. I just need a hit goal this week. We don't really care when members don't miss goal any given day but if a trend starts to happen, that's when we ask you to pivot. So if you don't miss, if you miss goal for three days in a row that's the trend. Anything that happens three times is defined as a trend.

And that's when you, that's when you wanna start pivoting meaning what I mean by pivoting is you wanna pull a lever that creates change, meaning you wanna run some promotion with your tax, you want to pull some marketing levers that gets some calls on that board. It's a lever is something that creates change that week, that creates short-term change.

When you have this DP report and you know your numbers because it's already been worked out ahead of time, you have this North Star and you can go to bed at night with bloody ease knowing that this is all I gotta do and you know when you're not on track, the report goes red, and you just reach out to partners of yours or friends of yours that are just doing a bit better than you, that can guide you, saying, hey, not on track for gold this month. What are some ideas that are working for you?

And now you become proactive and if you remain proactive, you'll get back on track for gold. You truly will. Burying your head in the sand, I really believe people don't have the desire to bury their head in the sand. They're just so overwhelmed and feel like, they're so overwhelmed they don't know what's enough because they haven't worked from what they need backwards, which the DP report facilitates.

When a person becomes overwhelmed, commonly they become paralyzed and therefore it's easier to get caught up in the busy because you're accomplishing something, but ultimately it's not that important because your numbers when assessed and dialed in are what allows you create the change culturally. It allows you to create the bottom line change, which allows you to create cultural change, create better experience, attract better talent. It is your North Star.

So when I say a reporting hack, there's all these hacks that are important. There's all these reports that are important. The DP report is, and I've visited so many companies at this stage and fortunate enough to do and still get that mentorship from Paul every week. And he too believes that report is what allows one be proactive. The one nuance to add to it is that many people have daily huddles with their people.

And I visit companies a lot and I. Observe first because I don't want to, plow all over a leader's, way of operating, I'll guide afterward and I see these morning huddles become reporting sessions where like they're reporting on how plumbing did yesterday and they say how it did and they admit that they didn't do great and then they move on to. HVAC or they move on to electrical and then they go about their day.

And it, awareness of numbers is better than no awareness for sure, but it's, still only awareness. It's not half as bloody impactful as doing something with that awareness. So the pivot I often I encourage people to make is like the reporting, honestly, the reporting sessions are just not that valuable.

What you end up doing is create, is just demoralizing your organization, demoralizing the leaders that take that demoralized energy that we already spoke about and take it back into their areas that they operate within. Instead we say, all right, what is a lever we're going to pull to create change here? So it's making those meetings proactive and the DP report facilitates that proactivity. Cause of the awareness you have the rest of the bloody month to create change. It's cool.

We're going to get back on track. What are we going to do about it? We got work guys. We're all bright people. We've bright people that works for us. What are we going to do? What levers are we going to pull to create change this month? And I always encourage people to ask that of their team too. Like the leaders that are in the morning huddles to still ask that of their department and I always say to people, if there's no room for failure, there's no room for innovation.

So when I go into call centers and speak to call center managers, I say invite the ideas from your CSRs. You can tell them upfront, I'm not going to implement them all, but I have 20 million ideas all the time and only two of them are good. I want you to continue to share me with the, share the ideas and there'll be some good ones. Yep and that's the reporting hack that when implemented, I truly wholeheartedly with all of me know it will change your business.

You're very welcome to reach out and I will send it to you that's reporting hack.

They've got too much data and you guys are in digital marketing, vanity metrics are vanity metrics. They don't necessarily drive the bloody needle. And both you and us. Want to be everything, but those that focus on vanity metrics. And yes, asking yourself that question, what is a report that would give me that, the sufficient data that would allow me to create change? The DP report is it for high level daily meeting, CEO, owner, GM position, I even have like key influencers within the business.

I don't mind sharing this report. It doesn't say the revenue, but I like to share this report with everybody. There's what we do in various businesses that we own throughout the States and businesses that we've run was we do a profit share where we give whoever has most influence in driving the revenue that month, get a percentage of that profit share. If that's something that interests you, I can send you that playbook too.

But it's it's, what that allows for is it gets everybody behind the one goal. It gets everybody behind just focusing on winning that month or winning that week. And you'll give bonuses accordingly based on how much they help you reach that goal every month, week, or day. A day is harder to measure. It can be subjective but month to month yeah.

It's just this arbitrary thing that we wrote down because we thought that we should have and we should do it, but we don't actually pay attention to it. So this is bringing moment to moment awareness and Gary Keller talks about how the purpose of a goal is not to actually achieve the goal. The purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in the moment. That's, I love having this kind of a focus on their daily numbers allows you to stay and course correct as much as possible.

Airline pilots, they're off course as much as 95 percent of the time when they take off, all they're doing the entire flight is course correcting. But if you don't pay attention to it on a daily basis in your business, or on a minute to minute basis on a flight, you get too far off course. And now it's too difficult to get back on course, which is exactly what you said.

I the more you look at the numbers, the more influence you have upon those numbers, which allows you get back on course to your point, it's okay to be off course for any given day. It's also very possible to get back on course. So why not do it?

There's got to be an element of realism or execution will come with low belief because they don't believe that is why when you do, whether that's with us or on your own, I really encourage you to look at your numbers from the year prior and year to date. Year to date, it's not really relevant because it's January, but the year prior and look at how you are trending and set revenue goals based on where you were last year. And you want to be just a little bit above it.

You don't want to just pick this fricking number that sounds good out of the air and there's no, you want something that you did achieve last year and it's just a bit above it. So it's, a stretch to a point, but it's a stretch when you have this awareness and you now have the help on your side or you have the intention to actually do something with this awareness, which you may not have had last year.

So that's how the goal is set is considering what was done last year and depending upon the amount you want to grow by, you can set the revenue goal to that amount. If you. have been having, poor years and you've just really, you've been missing gold in this culture. The whole organization then again, stops taking gold seriously. There, you have to have that shift. So you have to start creating wins.

When you start creating wins, then they start to actually start to, then they start to care about the goal again. I also for key, it depends on the size of your organization. There's some organizations that actually bonus a ton of people in their organization when they hit DP goal. So everybody's focused on that one goal. Everybody focused, everybody's focused on that one goal. which, and then you bonus them at the end of the month.

So with that one focus, you end up getting, the whole, everybody's rolling in the same direction. So I would say, look at last year, look at last year and just a little bit above that, and then start talking about the DPU report and start creating wins. Your goal, if you've lost wins before, and you have a culture of failing, is to get a lot of wins under your belt. So they actually start to care about goal again, and they know your numbers are not just pulled out of your backside.

They can wrap their head around, their hands around what was already done last year. And now they just have to push a little bit. And they already believe. That pushing is possible because you various people now on your side that you didn't have prior or various systems in place that you didn't have prior or awareness that you have now in place that you didn't have before.

So it's just enough that there's still belief, but also it will, but it also will result in you being profitable at the end of the year or you having that growth goal that you anticipated or desire. Does that make sense?

Talking about a why, in doing so, you need to consider what's important to that person. What is the whys of that person and tapping into that motivation accordingly. Okay. Hack number two I want to tap on various elements of an organization. So a call center hack honestly quoting Paul Kelly again he, I only gosh, like maybe not even two months ago, he. Wouldn't mind me saying this. I called Parker. We obviously use Parker and I didn't like how they answered the phone.

The service was not how it should have been. And I told Paul I said, Hey I think he's partially retired, partially not the dude doesn't know how to not work. He's passionate about it. Good at it. I was like, I think it might be worth you, popping over and he did. And I said what's going on?

And. Because the call center wasn't also wasn't doing as well as it has been in the past or had they're 250 million now Yes it yet It's not doing as well as it was when they were smaller Something's really going wrong like meaning because I because I have this direct insight from Paul So I don't know he went over and I talked to him and I said what's changed and he said I used to make, it used to be a requirement that you ended every call with an opportunity. Now it's do it if you want.

That was the only thing that changed. sO that change actually had ripple effects. People were making less money cause they were getting bonus less often. People were having less wins in the CSR office because weren't. It wasn't a requirement. The energy was different and it's being a CSO is a hard job. Like people call, people don't want to talk to you when they call you. They have a problem. They don't want to talk to you. Yeah they call you. They don't want to talk to you.

It's to deal with that kind of negativity every day can be hard. You need to create an environment that actually feels good for CSRs to be in, which is a whole other conversation. People don't prioritize their environments. They can be crappy. We can talk about that if you want me to. But the hack here is.

Ending every call with an opportunity and here's how you do it the, it's, you do it with a script or a concept called, Oh, by the way, so at the end of the call, when the call is booked, you end it with another opportunity by saying, Oh, by the way, Mrs. Jones. X, whatever it is. If the focus I commonly encourage the call center manager to determine what you want to focus on that month or that week.

So say for instance, you're in plumbing, you say, for instance, you do various you've various different services your HVAC department, it's a shoulder season, your HVAC department is slow when they, when a person calls in for plumbing, the, oh, by the way is.

Oh, by the way, Mrs. Jones, we have oh, by the way, Mrs. Jones, have you got a tune up on your system this year or, oh, by the way, Mrs., if, say, they book for HVAC, oh, by the way, Mrs. Jones, have you any dripping drains or leaky faucets? So you're describing what's actually happening. And you're creating, you're ending the call with an opportunity. Oh, by the way, Mrs. Jones, are you going to pay full price today? She's not going to want to pay full price.

So she'll ask questions and you can segue into your maintenance agreement. I heavily suggest the call center manager determines what spoke about that week or month to facilitate the success of other departments or to facilitate the success of, say, maintenance plans so when the shoulder season kicks, you can still keep your talent busy. That is the only thing that changed and their numbers were fricking drastically different when their business is bigger. buT it stopped grow.

There was a point where it stopped growing at the pace that it was the call center. Is not a cost. The call center can make you money if it's run correctly and it's using the, oh by the way, script at the end of every call. It's not a script, it's a concept like, oh, by the way, opportunity. It's just so passive, non-salesy.

It's nice to just, when the intention is to go in and speak with the owners, to drop this script and concept in, in the call center and say, I'll be back at the end of the day and you're going to get spiffed X for every, whatever you sell. And they end up flipping, making a load of money and they are, they then believe that. They actually have influence. They actually then believe, what I do matters. I'm, making more money for my family or whatever.

This sheet, it's literally explaining the concept. I can send to you, but really you take what I said today and have that meeting with your CSRs in the morning. Say, I want you to every single call after it's booked, get that opportunity first, word in hand. With an opportunity and you will spiff them, whatever the dollar amount is your call center will be a much more exciting environment by the end of the day. Side note, make your call center exciting. Make it colorful. It's a hard job.

Make it exciting. If you think about the winning call centers in the world, what do they look like? Are they dead quiet or have they loud exciting music do that and give them this oh, by the way tool and spiff them accordingly You'll want to hang out in the bloody call center because it's an exciting winning environment.

So I'm glad that helped you email me for the sheet if you want it or dissect what I just shared and bring it into your call center and I'd love to, I'd love to hear the result of it. It's always exciting. It's always fun and that's the stuff that really gets me going, seeing the change that happens with such a tiny little shift.

This is a common theme from all of our great operators on our business or on our podcast rather is that their business has a phenomenal culture. To be able to allow them to do this. That's a big thing there you go Shauna Hoffman Brown, laura@growwithclover.com. I'll I'll send you the her email address and a message or as a response to your comment there shortly. But, oh, by the way, have you heard about this random question generator that we have?

You're selling on the phone, you're selling them on why they should book a call with you. So I love all of that. I'm curious top three offers that you would ask, add as a, Oh, by the way, gosh, businesses offer one service.

What is the one thing that if focused on or sold or offered on the over the phone would make everything else easier or unnecessary? That 'cause can, in giving you that guidance, I'm giving you accurate guidance that will create dramatic change in telling you the technical things to sell is not I've never been a technician.

I've never but I've seen a lot of companies, helped a lot of owners, a ton of owners think differently and thinking differently is also often enough sufficient because you guys Have the information within you just need to ask yourselves better questions. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life I am the smartest man alive!

As an example, if you sell enough maintenance agreements, the talent that you're afraid you'll lose in the shoulder season, you won't because you can keep them busy via maintenance agreements. So it's asking yourself those questions, anticipating problems, which allows you to be proactive and that's the one variable of the best companies is proactiveness.

There's a, there's no better feeling than the feeling of self reliance, the ability to handle shit yourself and the ability to actually be a capable individual, give them that gift instead of just giving them the answer. They can take that everywhere they'll remain loyal to you for facilitating that within them.

Who were the link that you're going to want to follow? And we can help you get your marketing pointed in the right direction. So I'm sure you're familiar with how this goes. We give you three choices. You don't get to know what they are. I just get to tell you, do you want behind was door behind? What is behind door? Number one two or three?

And listening to the shit that my dad comes out with, it's like, it's this it's nuts and I genuinely believe it would go viral because it's like madly, hilariously dysfunctional and chaotic and lots of those happen at Christmas.

I'm speaking on a, at a conference at the end of the month. And I wanted his thoughts on, did he align with what I thought and he did, and it was bringing that accessory into the house and putting it on the kitchen table that alone, what's your average ticket, like that's how simple this tip is, that hack is, have them bring the thing. Into the house.

First, you have to make sure you have it on the truck, but first you have to make sure you have it on the truck, and then bring it in to the house, and, a quick way of knowing and, it becomes a requirement, just like the, just like ending every call with an opportunity, and there's a few ways you'll know whether they're doing it or not.

You can either talk to your distributor on how many of whatever you've been selling or if they ask you for more, or you can have someone follow up on the call and say, did they bring up X2U putting whatever the accessory of the month is we talk about this a lot in Clover and have our team, have our clients do it, having an accessory of the month that you roll out every month and create big Excitement behind whatever the accessory of the month is, having it, bringing it in with you and putting it

on the kitchen table is making, and this is, this happens after the call, if it's a requirement to bring in, it in. At the end of every call, your average ticket, your monthly revenue will dramatically go up. I challenge you and encourage you. Literally, I had this affirmed from a 250 million dollar residential contractor yesterday, who's in charge of the rent, who's one of the leaders within the rent group right now.

It was bananas league game changing for him and that's a word I may have never thrown out before bananas league game changing. I like it too. bring, after you've serviced the house, so you've gone out what you've gone out to the home to do what was intended, to do what they called you for, to do what was panicking them, you fix the thing, you've gone out to the truck, brought the, brought it in, put it on the table and told a story around why it's important.

You can tell that story in, in various ways you want it to be a story. So it doesn't seem salesy and a way to bring up opportunity to people. You can use the, I notice most of why script, I noticed, Mrs. Jones, you don't have an air scrubber. Most of our customers have an air scrubber because of X, Y, or Z benefit. May I ask why you do not You can use that, or you can just tell a story around the benefit of X and why it would help them in their home.

The habit as an owner, if you're listening to this, is it's now a requirement, just like ending every call with an opportunity, for them to bring in the thing into the house and put it on the kitchen table. That it's not no longer talking about it or, wishing, because sometimes I do believe the technician has the intention to talk about it. They get caught up in the technical. They might not want to talk to the business owner and they get out the door and they're gone.

If it's on the table and it's part of their, it's part of their process. It's a talking point that has to be spoke about. So bringing in. Whatever the accessory of the month is or whatever you want to sell more of into the home, putting it on the kitchen table, just making that you're going to get no's, but you're going to get a whole lot more yeses because you're asking more. There's a great book called the power of yes, or the power of an ask. And it's a sales book.

The more asks you get, the more yeses you're going to get. And the. That's it. That's the hack. Bring it into the home.

If you are not that person that can influence people to do what you want them to do work on your leadership skills and have. Another person asks that of your text. if that's what really defines a good leader is, are they willing to do the things you ask of them? if a leader has good intentions, you're going to only ask good things with it, which enhances the lives of everybody. But that's it. I know we're running on time here.

Every single time, whatever the accessory is that you want to focus on, bring it in and put it on the table. Make that a habit.

The whole thing was hum ha gets the cheese knife. He's you got to see this thing and he would lose his mind over it. Inevitably, I'm going to buy that because they got so excited about it. So how is it that you can not only get them to do it and bring it into the house, but get excited about it even when they're not?

Like we have, I've seen people where their kids were young and they can't, they kept getting sick. So they put air scrubbers in their home and all their units and their kids just stopped getting sick as often. And he was a comfort consultant. He was selling tech and then became comfort consultant and they put air scrubbers on every unit in their house and their kids just stopped getting as sick as often.

And this dude who was so bombarded by not being able to go to work and his wife being sick and his kids being sick and no one being able to visit because they just secluded themselves because everyone was sick, it was around the COVID y time he speaks about this thing. And you try and find money if you didn't have money to buy it so then I would tell those people, yeah, keep selling that thing. You don't need to worry about the accessory of the month.

The accessory of the month allows for the opportunity to find some, for a person to find a thing that they love or we have some organizations do is if there's something that a person is passionate about having in their home, because they believe it would make a big difference, let them have it in their home so they can experience the fruits of it. And therefore. They're speaking from the heart and people typically feel that like the cheese knife guy.

Cause people will people buy into stories. People genuinely buy into stories because that's real life. And we're all, stumbling our way through life. Life has its ups. Life has its downs. It's normal. And people resonate with that, buy into it and take action accordingly. All day. That is like such brilliant advice versus the service manager that's not out in the day to day quite as much who's not in it, the person that's in it, that is their peers. it all powerful, a hundred percent. I love it.

I love it. All right.

There's the one variable that's most significant that separates those that like have average sales or crappy sales. Those that have great is they care deeply about their appearance. I actually mean that like they're not just charismatic. They care deeply about their appearance.

So what I would first say is never hire a person, never hire a salesperson who's not charismatic and who's not charismatic first, but the variable I've seen is those, when I do ride alongs, I know they're closing percentages and I ride along with them, I've been with people who like I've been with people who go to the house and their car Their truck looks like crap. It's so dusty. They smell like oh they smell like they had their head in an ashtray for like a month.

They just stink and like they've never converted. They've never converted. They're closing percentages atrocious. I get anxiety when I see them go out in the field, cause I know they're going to lose the sale when already this company needs that sale. Cause that's why they bring us in the first place to turn things around. and then the comfort consultants that do amazing, all the best ones, every one of the best ones. When they go out, they've been in the attic, they've looked at the job.

They like, so like they're. They do, some of them like spray, I've seen some of them like, shine their shoes again. a lot of them like, a lot of them do both of those things. They like look at themselves to make sure that everything's clean, their hands are clean, they wipe their hands and they spray something on themselves and then they go in. There's something like. Very professional about them from an appearance perspective. I don't know.

Is that necessarily the exact reason that they close more, but it's that they take their whole profession more seriously. That's what I believe.

So they, they bring, there's this been common variable where they bring the ladder back out to the house. They reset themselves and they go back in and that's when they sit at the kitchen table. So there's this like reset.

There's, you don't have to be held hostage by your people and appearance actually, from what I've learned from all these ride alongs is an insight into how seriously they take their job and it drastically impacts the revenue you can take away from that call at that house.

Typically salespeople are quite competitive and they like they want to compete and they actually enjoy competing. It also shows them what the other guy is doing. So it shows them what's possible creates belief in that way. But that life scoreboard not just allows you have the numbers to hold them accountable. It allows them to hold themselves accountable.

That. Bringing in that report has had the biggest difference, firstly, because it's created awareness in the owner's mind when they build the report out and they're like, crap, this guy's crap. And they realize that they have to get a lot of people out, It does like when I roll it out with people, it's they're like, crap, thank you. It facilitated all these firing and it's crap. Someone had to lose their job. But it which I don't love what I do love though, is.

If you believe this person has potential, you can have a conversation with them that, okay, we now have this awareness, this is going to be displayed on the screen.

The screenshot is sent to you the end of every day, the start of every day, and we, they're all being paid accordingly and that's a whole other podcast on the correct pay structures that allow people to actually be motivated, what people, versus what people think motivates people, whole other podcast, but it's the technician scoreboard, a technician and comfort consultant scoreboard that's live in the office on a large screen that you can't really ignore, obnoxious, screenshots of them start and

end of every day. So there's this ongoing healthy competition amid each other. There's, you can take that a step further, but that report I can send you that as well. Incorporate it into your organization and the healthy competition that already lives with, lives within a lot of these salespeople is just sparked because Commonly, they think you're not really looking at the numbers which now you're not just looking at the numbers, you're making them look at the numbers.

And now they know that all their peers also know how they're doing. And it's not just being an ass, you're helping them get the best out of themselves also. And you truly do allow them to see what their potential is when otherwise they were just, not playing, they were playing, you play two games in life, the how little can I do game versus the how much can I do game. And commonly people will try and get away with playing the how little can I do game to just get by.

When you play the how much can I do game in the areas of life that actually. Can cascade your happiness the most you end up improving the quality of your life dramatically Typically you can only do that in three areas. So many people choose, family their profession and Like wife mom profession, whatever those three areas are for You allow them play you give them the opportunity to play the how much can I do game which dramatically?

cascades their life in the direction of Where they actually want to be. They were probably just hungry for that accountability, hungry for actual leadership. Everybody needs leadership. People just sometimes need you to start stepping into that role in a more obvious way.

So people can go back and watch that one. Cause it was. A fascinating conversation. What is it that you feel like truly separates the best leaders from the more mediocre ones?

That if you have an incredible ability to self reflect where you could objectively look at yourself from a high level view downward like I've spoke with the biggest goats of the industry, Dave Geiger, Tom Boyce, Paul, Tommy Mello, really large guys. And there's been this, and Josh Kelly, I've, there's this common variable that exists between people that are the, that are great leaders and it's that they have this.

Objective ability to self reflect some people think that they can, some people think they're self aware and they're really not I know people that believe they're self aware and they're really not. If you can develop the ability to objectively self reflect and be real with yourself and make pivots accordingly, that's what allows leaders become the best leaders because you will immediately.

You will, a part of that is being able to put your ego aside, but you'll immediately see where you are lacking in and bring people in to compensate for your weaknesses and step even deeper into your strengths and pivot in ways that you know are hindering the organization. Your ability to put yourself up here and reflect down and objectively look at your strengths, your flaws, and make peace with them and pivot accordingly based on them.

A person can have the potential to have great emotional intelligence and they're so deeply insecure and haven't worked on those insecurities or traumas that they it's less hurtful for them to live a mediocre life than to go back in and navigate through that nonsense, which navigating through that nonsense allows you actually tap into your EQ and not allow your insecurities or your ego or your. Inadequacies, which we all have, get in the way of your potential.

I clearly was pushing it away for years and I put myself there and I wasn't ready. So I would tell you to do it with somebody, to put yourself through a journey. Where you've the support to actually dive into your inadequacies because we all have them and it's fucking okay. It's okay. And a person that I with all of my being could point you to and you will be safe protected and you'll come out the other end. Utterly thriving is Mary from bold driven leadership.

When you go on to their website it's a cool website. But what's really cool is when you actually speak to people that have gone through It's like the dude with the cheese knife like there's so many people that will just sell this for her They've, she's dramatically shifted their lives because she stands alongside you as you tap into the stuff you don't love about yourself.

And we all have those stuff or stuff that we know our weaknesses, but we haven't truly acknowledged or we don't like to acknowledge. And we there and it therefore bottlenecks us on a day to day basis or a week to week basis. Mary driven leadership. It's a three day retreat in the middle of nowhere. It's I believe it's six and a half K, but six and a half K to dramatically shift you forward. It really is, pennies on the dollar. And if you're a employee working for this, encourage your team.

Encourage your owner to pay for it. Put him in touch with me and I'll tell him all the good things about it or I can, you could speak with, Mary directly. Driven Leadership is the name of the website. They are Goodman's they're one of Goodman's preferred trainers. that's it. Cause everybody's it, traumas stunt them in one way or another and being aware of them and navigating through them in an appropriate setting is invaluable.

I was like, I understand that. But if you're not in business next year, because you're not profitable, then we lose a client and that's no good to us either. That's why this is a partnership and we want to work on both sides. And if we can help you in this area, then we're going to offer some feedback. And if that's not okay with you, then we're not a good fit.

And you miss the lesson within. Yeah. I'm not perfect. Josh thinks of me sometimes and I feel like telling them where to go, but sometimes I need to hear it.

I definitely enjoyed my glass of red wine in the middle of the day, which felt inappropriately amazing, which made the glass of wine even more delicious.

And so we have one scheduled earlier next later in the month. It's 10 a. m. or 11 a. m. And you're damn right. So I'm going to be drinking a whiskey.

So now's not the right time, but I answered, I asked, I told you the question and I answered it for you, but that's that's, I love fascinating conversations. Get me going. Love it.

It's insight into those people's brains and journeys that would facilitate just so much fricking hope for folk that are so solid and just don't believe they are or people that are solid and their businesses are like, they're just, they no longer motivated by money because they got a more, they know what to do it. I have so much insight into all of that, which has been awesome and I just want to share it with everyone.

She will give you the playbooks and it's the value first, which is what we really appreciate, about using values as us so laura@growwithclover.com. You can hit their website up, grow with clover. com, or if you want to follow them on the Facebooks, it's facebook.com/growwithclover