Unlocking Sales Success with Dave Mattson

Welcome to the Construction Disruption Podcast, where we

uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, manufacturer

of specialty metal roofing and other building materials.

Today, my co host is Seth Heckaman, the illustrious Seth Heckaman.

How are you doing, Seth?

I'm doing well.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

You know, I've been thinking.

I enjoyed yesterday.

You and I went out for lunch, and we ran into your family,

and that was a lot of fun.

That was a good time.

Yeah.

Girls enjoyed having lunch with Mr.

Todd.

Well, it's my pleasure.

I enjoyed it.

Uh, Oh, well, let's go ahead and get the show on the road, I guess.

So, um, I don't care what business you're in out there, but sales is going

to be an integral part of your success.

Um, and it's something that, um, even though a lot of companies,

I think, Feel like they do sales.

Well, I don't think most companies do it all that well

when it gets right down to it.

Um, but even beyond the outcome of sales efforts, you know, that thing of whether

you get the customer's business or not.

Good sales efforts also do a great deal in terms of establishing your

company's culture and what your company is known for to the public.

So for most businesses, the salesperson is that front front facing person

that You know, the customer sees and the customer relates to as

being the face of that business.

Uh, if they see that person's sales process as being, uh, pushy

or painful for them, and we've all been through that process, um,

then that is the perception that.

That person is left of the entire business when it gets right down to it.

On the other hand, if that sales process is comfortable and consultative and,

you know, even allows you to feel like, Hey, I'm, I'm kind of in control here.

And I'm having a little say in all this, then you're going to perceive that.

Company entirely differently as well.

So today is our spotlight.

I guess we have one of the country's leading experts in the psychology

of sales and also in sales training.

And that is Dave Mattson.

Uh, Dave is CEO and president of Sandler, which is a leading

sales training organization that you've heard us talk about a time

or two here on the show before.

Um, I'm excited to hear what he has to say for us today and share with us.

So Dave, welcome to Construction Disruption.

Um, really a pleasure to have you here today.

Thanks, Todd.

Thanks, Seth, for having me today.

Well, let's go ahead and dive into some questions.

So Seth and I are actually both fairly familiar with Sandler.

Um, love what you folks teach.

We're a strong proponent.

Uh, you know, whenever we encounter someone that's looking for the

right Local sales training.

We always encourage them to check out who their, uh, local sales or Sandler

sales franchisee is going to be.

But, um, I know you've had a long career with Sandler.

Can you tell us a little bit about an overview of Sandler and, um,

how long you've been with them and what really attracted to you,

uh, to, to what Sandler does,

yeah, I mean, well, it's Sandler started way back when, because

he was a fail failing salesperson, right?

He went out and was just getting.

Crushed using all their traditional methods, like, you know, if, could

I show up Tuesday at two or Thursday at three and all those other things.

And because they had been around for so long, everybody knew the moves.

And, um, and so he went out and got a psychologist and that's

really what attracted me was it's not a script based program.

I was the client.

I sat in the back of the room.

So, you know, for the CEOs and leaders that are out there today, you send people

to a one day or two day bootcamp, you know, wanting them to come back to be

just machines to sell more construction.

Right.

And,

and I was, I was

that guy and, you know, I spent my first day trying to figure

out my storyline to tell my boss.

What I, what I had learned the second day, and I wasn't even going to be there the

second day I was going fishing, right?

So I was like, Hey, I'm going to be here for half a day and

come up, but I got hooked.

I got hooked because it was based on psychology, not scripts.

There weren't scripts.

I didn't have to become somebody I wasn't.

And I think that's what I was afraid of.

So I had stayed the two days, embraced it, became the number one sales

rep for my company using Sandler.

And because I'm an introvert by nature, not a born salesperson,

whatever that's supposed to look like.

Um, and then I went to work for the local trainer because in my mind, I

was like, well, in order to become a machine, why don't I work for the machine?

And, uh, I went to work for.

Sandler and went down and met Dave Sandler, who was the man, right.

And, uh, I worked with David for six years before he had passed and

then started buying out the company.

And so I, I owned it all since 2012.

Oh, wow.

Very neat.

Um, so just.

In summary, I mean, you're a sales training organization.

You have franchised offices really across the world.

You're not strictly in the U.

S.

Am I correct on that?

That's right.

So we've got 400 Sandler trainers.

Uh, there's 250 offices and we're in 31 countries now.

Wow.

Um, so yeah, we've really expanded and we have two direct markets.

We have the large enterprise.

Companies, um, that can afford big departments that are

training hundreds of people.

But our, our legacy, our, our sweet spot where we grew up is the entrepreneurial

marketplace companies that are great craftspeople, um, but may not know how to

sell or trying to figure out how to scale and how to compete with the big box, you

know, and those that have the resources.

So no one ever paid attention to the small business.

And that's really where David spent all of his time.

So I'm helping small business scale and become more effective

and more efficient and that's those are two distinct marketplaces.

Very interesting.

Well, I'll go ahead and let the audience in on a little bit of a secret here.

So, for a number of years, I had owned a Sandler sales franchise and, uh, you

know, of course, life kind of plays out.

Fully believe and still really love what Sandler does and stands for

life kind of plays out and I ended up staying in the metal roofing business

and, uh, never pursuing that as a full time career for myself, but you know,

one of the things I really liked about it, and one of the things that became

so apparent to me during my time with the Sandler organization was, um, how

important it is to you folks that.

Those out there representing you are properly trained, and I really like

that because, you know, sometimes I've seen various types of franchise

operations and, you know, they just kind of say, okay, you're a franchisee.

Now you go out there and do it.

And, you know, You know, for me, that, that dog doesn't hunt, but you guys want

that level of consistency, um, in terms of, uh, training and delivery of your

materials, um, across all of your offices.

And you said what 400 offices now, or

yeah, we have 400 trainers yet.

Wow.

That's amazing.

You know, I think to your point though, when we're out there searching and

reconnoitering for top, you know, trainers, we need people who can sell.

And people who have managed, you know, what we all don't want to do is to go to

a program with somebody that doesn't know your industry and has never sold anything.

And you're like, well, wait a minute now, how am I doing that?

So we, you know, we sell every day, as I said, and we expect people in the audience

to say, Well, I don't do it that way.

And so if you think about blind spots, right, if I don't do it that way,

therefore it probably doesn't work.

And so, and I don't want to get out of my comfort zone unless

you're going to prove it to me, because I'm kind of okay with 5%.

I'm not really, but I'm comfortable with that 5 percent success rate.

So if you think you've got this magic bullet, show it to me, David.

And we're always expecting them to say, Todd, so show it to me.

Let me see you do that.

And so we jump into role play because I think, you know, people learn

by watching and then imitating and then kind of, you know, manipulating

it to their own personality type.

And so that's what we do.

And so we've kind of taken the what, like, how do you set a

good agenda with a homeowner?

Like, how do you do that?

Instead of saying, Hey, you should get a good agenda on your calls.

Uh, okay.

Makes sense.

But Sandler has been very successful in the, what should you do with

this is actually how you do it.

This is how you do it.

And that's always been the magic for us.

One of the things that was always kind of fun for me, I would go

out with a, a Sandler trainer sometimes, and we'd be looking for business and out

cold calling and, uh, you know, getting past gatekeepers and, uh, the person I

was with was just an expert at saying, you know, I just act a little needy.

I just act a little bit like, Hey, you know, maybe, maybe I need to help you.

This guy, they always help me.

And, uh, that was just always a lot of fun for me to watch.

And you're right.

It just comes very natural and, uh, you just do it.

So, so I kind of made the comment earlier that I think a sales team,

um, you know, how their behavior is sort of kind of sets the tone for an

entire company or, or at least that perceived culture of the company.

Um, can you kind of reflect on that a little bit?

Yeah,

I believe that starts that first interaction, right?

Because if you think about we live and breathe what we do every

single day, the buyer doesn't buy what we sell every single day.

And so we have to kind of educate them.

And if you think about the sales profession, the And even in construction,

it's not like we have the greatest reputations out there and it's, and

we're doing all the right things, but the movies don't put us in a good light.

There's always horror stories, right?

There's always horror stories and you're waiting for referrals.

Like tell me who did a good job.

Did they clean up?

Did they actually do what they said they were going to do?

Were there any work order up to, you know, all that stuff.

And so when you're talking to them in that selling process and

you're listening versus telling.

Right.

So you're that doctor of sales, you're listening, you're gathering,

like, what is your vision of what you'd like to have done versus here?

I'm going to just show up and throw up my pitch book.

Like, Hey, let me show you all these wonderful things that

I've done for everyone else.

Well, as a buyer, I'm like, I don't really care.

Let me tell you what I'm looking for.

And so that interactions there, but if you're late, yeah.

Or if you're, if you look at the vehicle that you show up into the truck and

it's, it's a mess, like, you know, you've got stuff hanging around and

things are just all over the place.

Your perception is since I don't have a relationship with you.

If it's hard in the sales process, I perceive it's going to be hard

throughout the whole process.

And I, that may not be true.

But it's true to me because that's what I believe because I have

nothing else to judge that by.

So when you opened up that way, I said, Oh yeah, absolutely.

A hundred percent.

You know, you are the brand and act like the brand on every single interaction

because they don't know you and they don't know how to buy what you sell.

Yeah, I like that.

You are the brand and you have to act like the brand.

That's good.

So.

What to your way of thinking are, or to your thoughts on what are some of

the things that really set Sandler, you know, above and different from other

sales training organizations out there?

Well, I mean, one of the things I think we've

covered two already, one was the combination of the what and how.

That's very unique.

It sounds intuitive, but it's, it's unique.

The second one is we have local offices.

So, you know, certainly we have online platforms and you can watch

videos and all that good stuff, but I want human interaction when

it comes to sales and management.

Like this is what they said, what do I say?

Like, let me hear it.

And I think that's really what we successfully have done.

Like, and I can watch a video on golf, but I promise you, I still stink.

I promise you, it hasn't, it hasn't done anything, but if I can walk and play

golf with somebody and they can say, no, David, try, I get a little better.

And so that, that was there.

So that's one.

I think it's also our philosophy of reinforcement ongoing.

It's hard.

It changes all the time and think about all the changes that

have happened in our lifetime.

It's amazing.

So it's that constant reinforcement, but I, I would

also say there's two other things.

One is the, what we call the success triangle.

And so we focus on 3 things.

So when we teach you anything, we're talking about the mindset, the attitude,

the behaviors and the techniques.

So let's talk about, let's say prospecting as an example, right?

We've got to go find some new business.

Well, we can tell you to do it, but if you're afraid to do it, if you have caught

reluctance, you're not going to do it.

Right.

So that's, that's the mindset.

Like, how do I have equal business stature?

How do I handle rejection?

You know, my parents told me never talk to strangers.

I work for, you know, you two guys and they say, go talk to

as many strangers as possible.

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

And so then I've got the behavior stuff, which is, oh, I don't mind prospecting.

I do it once a year.

Well, that's not, so how often do I have to do this?

Right.

It's the frequency that I have to do this.

And then we do technique.

Now Sandler's known for actionable tactics and strategies.

So, as you know, we lead with technique because no one wants to hear, I'm

going to a session today on mindset.

Oh my gosh, really?

Seriously?

No one wants to hear that.

So we have awesome tactics and strategies that we're known for.

And then, you know, we weave in, uh, here, this is how you have to think about it.

Or this is how many times you have to do this in order to

have a full book of business.

And they're like, yeah, of course.

And so that, I think that, Along with the other thing that I said,

which is, are people do it every day?

They're expecting you.

They want you to push back.

They want you to say, show it to me.

And when you have somebody that's done it, you suspend disbelief and you try it.

And there's one more thing that you know, as being a Sandler trainer, you're with.

A group of other salespeople and other owners and that community

when I may not have a situation that you brought up today, let's say on,

Hey, my, my prospect ghosted me.

We had great meetings and now they're ghosted me.

I feel like a stalker.

How am I doing that?

But you brought that up.

And when that's solved, I get to leave these 90 minute sessions with.

My problem solved because we do have problem solving clinics, but

also everyone else had a problem.

And let's face it, they're all very similar, right?

We all kind of experience the same types of issues.

So I walk out with a bunch of stuff.

And when I hear your issue, I don't have that blind spot because that's your

issue, but I know I have that issue.

And the learning curve decreases geometrically when I'm with

others and the ROI we have found over time is absolutely amazing.

So I think those are the things that for me.

Stick out above and beyond all the great other systems that are out there.

You know, I think that's interesting too.

And, you know, as I, as I think back, I mean, back when I would watch the sales

training sessions going on, I would really see how the camaraderie of how the sales

people actually start to help each other.

And, oh yeah, I ran into that too.

And then the conversation would start and, okay, how do we Sandlerize this?

How do we make something really great?

Positive out of this.

Well, you know, psychology is kind of interesting because everybody's a movie

star and somebody else's sales call.

Do you ever notice that?

Like everyone will tell you what to do, but yet they may

not do it themselves, right?

And so when I'm in these sessions and say, Hey, try this pretty soon.

I'm saying to myself, well, maybe I should do that.

Maybe I should do that.

Very good point.

Very good point.

Well, You know, the founder of Sandler, uh, Dave Sandler, um, wrote a book that

still to my way of thinking, it has the catchiest book title ever, ever heard.

And that is you can't teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar.

Um, absolutely love it.

Um, and you've kind of already led into it, but go ahead and say

how that influences the way that Sandler sales training occurs.

Yeah.

So the philosophy was sales is hard.

Management is hard.

You're made, you're not born.

And, and you can learn it.

And the question then is we don't have magic water.

And so for all those that are leaders and owners, uh, you know, you have

to say, um, if I could make 50 mini me's, my business would be great.

Honestly, no one cares about my business.

Like I care about my business and no one knows what I know, but

that happens over time, right?

You've nurtured and you brought whoever within your organization,

you feel pretty good about them.

That takes time.

Same with all the different things that you have to learn to

become a professional salesperson.

And by going to a one or two day seminar, you can't just check the box, right?

Excellent.

I've learned.

That's, that's awesome.

No, you've got to go out and practice.

And when you, when the title was, you can't teach a kid how to ride a bike

at a seminar, it's try it, right?

Go out and practice, fall, fail, fail.

Like, Hey, I said this, it didn't work.

What happened?

And we'll get you back on the bike, right?

And then keep going.

And you don't have to do everything at once.

Just pick and choose what's important to you.

And that's the other thing.

When you go to a two day boot camp, there's probably 25 topics.

It's overload.

It's overload.

Of which 18 of them, either I don't care about right now, they're important.

I don't care about them right now.

I only cared about those five.

And I think that spoon feeding things that are important to you, allowing

you to go practice role play, do it.

That's how you learn how to ride a bike.

And once you know it, and that's the other thing, you don't have to look at scripts.

You know how to ride a bike 10 years ago.

You could just get right back on.

It's like, Oh, I get it.

I got it.

Versus what was the script again?

What was the script?

And Sandler has never done it that way.

So I think that ongoing reinforcement, always working on your identity

and your role, because that's, what's always in battle is really,

is really what the book was

about.

Well, I'm going to, I may be jumping ahead a little bit here, but I'm

just going to go ahead and ask it.

How do folks end up getting enrolled in Sandler training?

What's that process look like?

You mean a general person or just the audience?

Yeah, I think anyone out there that might be interested.

So I guess one of the questions is, um, let's say that you're a salesperson,

you're interested in Sandler, but your company's not doing it.

So something you can go do on your own.

Yeah.

So we have many of our.

Uh, or people are small businesses or, and what I mean, that is that

I'm an individual contractor.

I don't have anyone else, right?

It's me or my company's not going, but they support it by either have to

pay for myself or, or they're going to sponsor it in some way, shape or fashion.

So they can locate a Sandler trainers.

I said, we've got them all over the country.

And quite frankly, if you just tell them that, you know, they heard it on this

podcast, they'll invite you to a program on, on me as my guest sit and learn.

And just.

See if you like it, you know, because to me, it's you get to watch the movie.

If you just say, Hey, listen, I, I heard Dave and you know, I was with

Seth and Todd and I, yep, have at it.

And because if it's not for you, you shouldn't do anything.

If it is for you, because it is life changing, most of our

clients have been with us.

Seven plus years minimum, because they get that ROI every single year.

And you know, most of us as entrepreneurs, we're, we're cheap.

Like you have to prove it to us.

If I don't get 10 X, I'm not spending it.

Right.

Cause I don't have a budget called sales training.

I mean, that's coming out of my own pocket and I better prove it to you.

So just show up, tell them that we then observe, watch, listen.

If you love it, you know, talk to them.

They'll work out a program for you.

And if you don't love it.

Okay, it was a good, good investment of 90 minutes because you don't,

you don't have to go down that road saying, what, what did I do?

What did I do?

You know, because we even have, as you know, we've got 51 books now, right?

So we even have a book on how to sell into the home.

If some of the, some of the audience sells into the homeowner.

So we've applied Sandler tactics and strategies into the different verticals as

well, including, of course, construction.

Well, You used one of the popular Sandler sayings early, just,

you know, don't show up and throw up.

But another Sandler saying was don't spill your candy in the lobby.

And, um, I think a lot of salespeople do that.

They just, you know, immediately want to start pitching and start saying,

Hey, I'm the latest and greatest.

Um, just, just maybe give us a snippet.

Don't give us everything, but just a little snippet about, you know,

how does someone not do that?

Um, I think a lot of people out there who sell, what am I going to do if I

don't just start telling them what I do?

So if you think about even a good doctor, I think the good

analogy is be a doctor of sales.

So, you know, when I show up at a doctor for the first time, they don't

say, Hey, thanks for coming in, Dave.

Let me show you all of my diplomas.

This is where I went to school.

What they actually do is thanks for coming in.

Why are you here today?

And they ask you a bunch of questions, right?

And when the more questions that they ask, the more comfortable you feel.

So I think of salesperson's value is determined by the information they.

Gather, not give, and we should use two ears and one mouth using the

proportion that were given to you.

So how do you start?

You know, I would just simply say, Hey, thanks for inviting me in today.

Right?

And you can set a quick agenda.

You know, there must've been a reason why you invited me and love

to hear what you have planned and, you know, when, when it has to be

done by and things of that nature.

But I think if you set the agenda and then start by asking questions and I can

give you the tactics, but start by asking questions like, Hey, tell me a little bit

about what you're, what you're trying to do, then they get to talk and people buy

emotionally and justify their decisions.

Intellectually, when you show them all your stuff, that's intellectual.

When you ask them what they want and describe it, and how long has that been?

Have you thought about this?

And now you're in that consultative conversational sales model,

people are like, listen, he understands my guy or my gal.

And so that's really super helpful, but otherwise, especially with my personality

type, like I'm a high D on the disc thing.

So.

You know, you start talking and you're going to try to engage with

me to ask me about my weekend.

And now I noticed you've got footballs around here.

You must have children and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, Hey, but, uh, I guess I got like 45 minutes.

Like I've got a, we've got to cut to the chase here right now.

So other people love that.

But it's your job as a salesperson to change the way you communicate,

not the buyer's responsibility to change the way they buy.

So I suggest you go in with set a good agenda.

We call it an upfront contract.

And then you should start off by asking questions.

And it's really tell me, you know, like, what do you, what

would you like to have done?

And when would you like to have it done by and the rest just starts to happen, you

know, versus you just running your mouth.

Hey, thanks for inviting me over.

I've been, you know, in business for 25 years service.

Wow.

You're going to really love the way we did this.

If I showed you any pictures yet, you know, all that stuff that we

do, that's, that's a yawner for 75 percent of the population.

It works 25 percent of the time.

Keep doing it, except that you don't know who's who when you show up.

So that's tough.

You know, it's interesting.

You make the doctor analogy.

One of, uh, the, uh, most, uh, professional and highest integrity

sales people I know in the home improvement industry actually was

trained as a doctor and he was almost to the end of med school and decided

that wasn't what he wanted to do.

And, uh, he is just phenomenal at that whole question thing.

And again, It's all about high integrity, professional selling.

Um, a lot of times people, people have this fear that a salesperson

is going to do something to them.

And it's very obvious when you sit down and meet with somebody who is

trained in the Sandler methodology, that's not what they're doing at

all.

Well, you know, you know, doctors are always fearful of being

sued for malpractice, right?

So they want to absolutely make sure they're doing the

right things all the time.

And they've been taught the Socratic model, ask, ask good questions

if salespeople could get sued for malpractice, because we tend to prescribe

our solution without diagnosis, right?

If you really think about what we do, Oh, you have a, Oh, you've got a roof.

Oh, Let me tell you about what's going to solve that problem.

Well, okay, sometimes, you know, if you just let them talk it through about what

that damage is doing and how long it's been a problem, who else has looked at it?

First of all, you don't have price compression.

So I think if you don't ask good questions and engage Todd, you tend to

have price objections down the road.

But if I truly do understand, I think you tend not to have the level of pushback,

ghosting, can't find them, you know, after that initial conversation, Oh, I've got

to go get three bids, all that good stuff.

You know, I think it's just a lot cleaner.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I, uh, invited a salesperson

in to talk to us about one of these motorized pergolas to add on the back

of our home and, um, yeah, I mean, it was just a pleasant experience and it, I

immediately knew sitting there that, oh, he's been through Sandler trading and, uh,

gentleman by the name of Jim Ledbetter, great guy, but, uh, you would get toward

the end and, you know, I mean, I'd already committed, um, but I said, yeah.

Um, you, you went through Sandler trading, did you?

But yeah, and it's great as a buyer, it was a phenomenal experience.

Um, and you're right.

It helps to limit buyers remorse and all kinds of things.

So you have written a book called how to sell the modern buyer, 52

Sandler rules for sales success.

Um, Clue us in on a rule or two.

Sure.

So the, the reason why we do rules first and David Sandler did that is

because I said a couple of different times, we don't have scripts, right?

And so if you think about math and English, I before E except

after C and there's some rules.

And if you think about sales, like I can't learn every word in

the language to figure out how to spell it, but I do know that rule.

So if it comes in there, I like, Oh, I before C.

Okay.

I get that.

And same with sales.

Um, the problem with scripts.

Is that you can't have a script for every possible scenario and be the other side

doesn't know the script so I can learn my side, but the buyer never actually follows

the script that I was hoping they were going to say, and there's a breakdown.

So, the rules tend to help you think.

So, Sandler taught us how to think and that's really the gift really.

And so a rule would be do the behaviors and the results were follow.

Right.

So we're always like, it's as an example, focused on the results, how

many appointments, how many closes, how many presentations, that's all great.

And we should, but it's really the behavioral stuff on the front end.

Cause those are all lagging indicators, right?

If you think about if I'm doing the daily behavior, X amount of follow

ups, X amount of net new context.

X amount of asking for referrals, right?

All that good stuff, following up on past clients to see what we could

do now, because it's been two years.

If I'm doing all that behavior, the results will happen.

Results just don't magically occur in sales.

And we also have peaks and valleys.

So if you can do the behaviors, results will follow.

Um, I like the other one.

Which is professionals do what a novice did, but on purpose.

So what does that mean?

Actually think about some of the new people in the, in your company

that may not have grown up in the industry to ask a ton of questions.

Really, they ask a ton of questions, but veterans been in here a long time,

it seems like the longer you've been in the industry, the less questions

you ask because you know everything and your ego gets involved and you're

like, you know, I know everything.

And so, in the beginning, they ask a ton of questions.

They ask for help.

You talked about that scenario earlier.

I, I, I'm a little, you call it needy, like, hey, I struggle a little bit because

when people struggle, other people rescue.

Yeah.

When you go in super slick, like I know every answer your job

psychologically is to stump me.

It's just human nature.

You're like, okay, I'm going to give you one that you don't know the answer to.

And so I just think, I just think this happens.

And those are two rules that stick out.

You know, you have to, the other one is you have to learn

how to fail in order to win.

Mm-Hmm.

, you lose in this industry, you know this, you're gonna lose 80% of the time.

As far as prospecting and other things, sales is the only industry

that we lose more than we win.

Mm-Hmm.

. Dave Mattson: And if we have the same batting averages, like professional

baseball, we'd all be Brazilian errors.

You know, they guys getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars for a 30%, 300.

Uh, we don.

You know, we like, Hey, you need more business.

So those are some of the rules that pop out for me.

Well, you've also written a book on leadership called, uh, the road to

excellence, uh, six leadership strategies to build a bulletproof business.

Um, and so that's focused a little bit more, um, for that business owner,

I would assume, and, and leadership tell, tell us a bit about that.

So when I was buying Sandler, I actually was a

client of this company before I bought it and it helped me scale.

And so when I purchased the company in 2012, and I ended up selling a

portion of it in 2022, I actually increased the value by 38%.

I mean, 38 times, not 38%, 38 times in that short in that 10 years.

And I followed a process, which is.

You know, we all have, first of all, we have, there's two parts of the book.

One is blind spots that we have as leaders.

Like these are the blind spots that most of us have.

And we've identified what those are more importantly,

what to do to get out of them.

But the steps to, to scale your business, to tighten it up and not to be a hostage.

If one of your key people left and now you're like, what am I going to do now?

Right.

Cause I had so much, you know, put into this one individual is there's some steps.

One is planning.

Like create the plan, create that three, that three year plan for the business.

But more importantly, what are you going to be doing?

Like, what do you want to do personally?

Like my planning up to that point was always company, company, company, but

I learned I've got to actually do what, what does David want to do in the next

three years, because I am connected.

I own the company, I am the company.

Right.

And so I only did one.

So that was one.

The second one was if that's my plan, like, this is where I want

Sandler to be in three years.

What roles do I need?

Like, what positions do I need?

Right?

So they're all piece of planning positions.

And then I would, I would build out this framework of what it would look like

in order to, to get that plan in place.

And then the third step is what type of people do I need?

Because I may have people that I need to move to different.

Positions or I may have to go find somebody new and what I was doing

Todd was the entrepreneurial mistake of always looking at my current team

and saying, well, what could they do?

Where would I move?

Mary?

What would I do with Steve?

He's been a great lead carpenter, but what am I going to do with him now?

And I was making all those based on people versus this is the plan.

These are the positions that I need.

This is what I'm going to end up doing here, the people.

And so I retrained some.

I had to replace a couple and I brought in a bunch of talent.

And then we went to like, what, what are the processes that we need?

And I thought we were, we were a bundle now or a buttoned up, but

we weren't really buttoned up.

Everybody had their own way of doing things and it wasn't scalable for us.

And so that was the last next one.

And then the next one, cause we wanted to keep it in a P it's, it's really

metrics, but it's perform metrics is what metrics are we going to measure people?

And I think as owners, we all want this, um, you environment of accountability.

I want my people to be accountable.

Okay.

And I hear that a thousand times, but oftentimes the other side doesn't

really know what you want in specific terms, like what do you need when,

and the specific, so I have one, you know, Uh, I guess meter by which I'm

judging as the, as the leader, but the other person is not on the same page.

So that's a problem.

And the last one is, is passion.

And so really I took this formula, uh, included all the Sandler

tactics and we've launched that.

And we have a lot of entrepreneurs going through this to really help

them take their business from where it is today, wherever that is.

To where they want it to be.

And that's, that's an individual journey, right?

Because everybody's got their own, Hey, I'm X years old, or this is

what I'd like to do, or I want to hand it to my kids or I'm going to

sell it, whatever the case may be.

And, and that really was a roadmap because up to that point in time,

I'm with all these groups of people brainstorming and sharing ideas.

But I had no framework to put it in.

So I was just like always in the reactive mode.

Like I felt like a sailboat, right?

I would go to a meeting.

I hear a genius attack that Todd says, and I'm going to go off on this side.

Then I go somewhere else.

And Seth says something, then I'm over here where, but

this put it into guardrails.

This is the plan.

This is what we're doing.

And everybody became hyper focused and that's, and that's what it is.

And, and the end result was you increase the value of the business.

And so, so often I think for entrepreneurs, I feel, you know, it

makes you kind of sad, you see them devote their whole life to something.

And, you know, when it does come to where it's time to sell or whatever,

they find out, I really haven't created anything of value here.

It's, it's all been about me.

Um, and, and there isn't anything here I can really sell.

And so I, I love that.

And when

you and I are going to age

ourself,

it's like cheers, you know, when the last session, they

just turned off the lights, you worked your whole life just to, just

to walk away because you're right.

Some of them, you know, some, especially in this industry, we've got a lot of

talented people that built practices surround that revolved around them,

but that's not, that's not sellable as you said, it's not sellable.

So I know in sales, we often talk about, you know, the, the basics of.

Cells never change.

I am curious though, I mean, since COVID and things and technology changes so

rapidly, um, are you seeing any change out there in, in selling methodology or

what it takes to be successful or any, uh, core changes, I guess I'll say.

I think

the

acceleration, um, especially since COVID let's do COVID

for a You know, with the pandemics of any kind, history will teach us

that there's not a lot of innovation.

There's acceleration, like things happen faster.

And that's really what's occurred.

If you think about the buying process that has evolved since 2020.

Now, in home may not be completely different, but there are some differences

that are universal, whether it's, you know, in a boardroom, let's say,

or, you know, in a living room, which is People have more access to data.

Now, everybody's researching before your job as a salesperson was to educate.

You know, this is what a metal roof does.

This is what this is.

80 percent 86 percent of buyers have already researched you,

what you do and your competitors.

And you're naive to think anything else.

So that's the big change.

Another big change is, especially with the interest rates of what

they are, money is precious now.

And so decisions have slowed down, right?

And decisions have become more conservative.

And so we also have.

More people involved in the decision process more than ever in the past.

And so if you're selling commercially, maybe I had one or two, and now

I've got much more than that because everybody's paying attention to that,

or we're going to make one decision for.

All of the corporation, not just one.

So you've got that stuff going on.

And then the whole zoom thing, like us today, think about the differences

between selling and managing remotely.

Like I, I have people that have never met each other.

How hard is that to create a culture and to scale your business

when people aren't interacting?

I mean, it's really hard.

If you think about it, new employees coming into your business.

It's hard to onboard anybody, you know, now, if we're all on the job

site, that's one thing, but sometimes that's not actually what happens.

And I think that there's going to be a study Todd, I don't, I just don't

know when about the effects of this remote workforce and it's not positive.

And even now people are admitting the productivity level.

Isn't it?

What?

isn't really what we touted it to be, you know.

Um, but there's, I think something's been lost and, and you can see it in

the education system with the kids and everything else that's popped up that, you

know, everyone gets to see on the news.

But I do think that some of those things and, and even the ability to use a

whiteboard, if you're on a zoom call and say, well, let me sell you this.

This is what you've said.

If I draw it out, is this what you look like?

I mean, just those things to, you know, Engage individuals and to take what

you say and create the picture, all that stuff doesn't happen overnight.

You really have to practice and there's a whole new set of tools.

I'd love to hear, you know, we mentioned the COVID

brouhaha that we all went through.

And uh, before that you talked about the trajectory of the value of Sandler

and just what you're leading through.

Obviously when we all hit March, 2020.

The plan, the positions, the processes, all, you know, uh,

all the peas kind of got turned upside down and changed quickly.

So what did that, what did that look like in your business?

That inevitable pivot and how, how did you lead through that?

So

that caused us to, I mean, absolutely like nailed it.

That caused us to go start, almost start over, like, okay, we have a

different label playing field now.

What is the plan?

Um, and so we went through that again.

I've done that now seven times, I think.

So it's one of those spinning, you know, it's, it's a flywheel never ends.

It's not like you can check the box.

I've done it.

So we constantly do that.

But for us, I did, um, 80%, 85 percent of our business was all

face to face prior to March.

Um, in a dime that changed right to a hundred percent.

So in, from March to June of 20, we did 3, 500 bootcamps virtually,

virtually, and the culture now, now we're helping each other because we had

some people that were not accustomed or equipped to do virtual training.

It just.

Didn't do it.

So we kind of banded together now.

And so your clients could jump into ours.

So we created co ops training, co ops that we could support, you know, that,

and that's still going on today because it was like a genius tech by accident.

Really?

Um, so that's happened.

We've retooled all of our content from sitting in a program for three

hours or six hours or whatever they were to 90 minute chunks, cause

you're not going to sit on a, on a zoom call for that amount of time.

And creating tools where you could actually take what we taught

and then personalize it for you.

So for the bottom line is we have a whole new set of our contents

completely been rewritten.

Like we have, we have 50, 000 people come through our system every year.

50, 000.

And if you think of it, it's like a university.

So if you use a university analogy, every textbook's been redone

through by virtual, like this is how you're going to do it virtually.

And we have avatars, Seth.

I mean, think about an avatar.

So you could watch me on a video doing, here's a great.

You know, uh, pain statement or whatever, pick something that we do.

Here's how you qualify.

And so you've got a bunch of trainers you could pick from.

You also now get to pick an avatar.

I would like a person with this race, this age, you know, this part of the world.

And then here comes a computer giving you the Sandler content.

And now my kids like love that.

It doesn't do anything for me.

I'm old, right?

So I'm like a bit of a dinosaur, I guess.

But it's all that stuff that has happened in our business that was

never there before ever there.

And it's happened in a very short amount of time if we

really think about it, right?

Because it's really 21 through 24 and 24 is not even done that this has happened.

And it's shocking and, you know, that change management, it's one,

it's one thing if you create the change as an owner, because you

can manage the change, right?

And here's how we communicate.

We've got to, but when it's forced upon you by the environment, you're not ready

for it and you're in scramble mode.

Right.

Um, because your buyers are doing things differently.

The sales organization has to do, do things differently.

You've got to kind of vex like the buyer journey has changed dramatically since 20

and we've talked a little bit about that.

So it's, it's a real challenge for a lot to people.

Now I see the pendulum going back to more face to face, you know, and I think

that's actually become a differentiator.

When you say, well, you're an hour away, let's just meet face to face.

What?

I haven't met anybody in five months.

You know, it's kind of, it's like, it's all that stuff that's happening now.

It's um, that we've never actually had to deal with in the past.

And even like AI, AI is just, you know, for us, um, I have AI tools

that can predict the probability of close of things in your funnel.

In the old days in 20, I did listen to you, you know, and I had to debrief you

and then I had to actually figure out, well, you said a million dollars is

coming in, but I actually believe that.

I think I'm going to put down 400, 000%.

Now AI goes in and says, guess what?

You have an 86 percent chance of winning.

Probability of closing that deal and here's how you can increase it.

If you ask these three questions, so it's actually doing the intuitive cognitive

stuff that great salespeople did.

It's doing it for you now.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

Actually.

It's amazing.

So is that something Sandler has tapped into then you guys?

Oh, yeah,

we we've tapped into it.

We, we, you know, it's one of those things where jump on the

bandwagon or be a dinosaur.

Right.

So we've included AI into, we have, you know, even the older, older stuff,

older stuff, a year and a half ago, like auto dialers, you can get 10 people

an hour on a call and would take you.

Forever to get that done the pipeline even sequencing.

Now, somebody reaches out.

Hey, I'd like to get this job done.

You know, I need a new roof.

I need to do this.

Um, here's my number immediately.

A.

I kicks in, send you through social media, third party stories.

Why?

This type of construction is better than this type, because that's what you do.

You auto load your sequences.

So they're getting bombarded by social media, which has nothing to do with

you, which is supporting your storyline.

It's just stuff like, you know, it's almost like Alexa, you talk in your home.

I don't know if this has ever happened to you.

You talk in your home, you know, Alexis on, you open up your phone.

You're like, well, isn't that interesting?

Wow.

How did that happen?

I just got an ad for an XYZ, but that used to be for.

You know, for like, um, Amazon and and those now it's everybody,

everybody gets to do it now.

It's kind of amazing.

Oh, it's powerful, but those are great examples of using the

technology and tools to enhance these key principles that Sandler has been coaching

for however many years rather than I got prospected by someone last week for a

new tool of, hey, we are an AI generated email prospecting or prospecting.

Yeah, email prospecting tool to write all your emails for us.

I wrote this email for you with the tool and, you know, and then it started spewing

a bunch of information that was not at all relevant to me and totally misunderstood.

So it, uh, you know, they submarine themselves before they even started.

Yeah.

And it works that way too.

But you know, Seth, you know, now they even have AI that comes up.

Like I have a dashboard on my, if I was on a sales call, it's not now I would say

I'm talking to stuff and it'll come up.

This is Seth behavioral style.

And you're not engaging with Seth.

You need to change the way you're doing it and, and start doing it this way.

It's actually in real time telling me to adjust the way I talk to you

based on what your buying style is and your behavioral style.

Otherwise I just keep blah, talking the way Dave talks because everybody

must think like Dave, right?

But that's not true as my wife tells me all the time.

So it's now AI has told me to adjust so you and I can bond quicker.

And the trust level goes up.

Like who would have thought that was going to happen?

I mean, it's, it's amazing.

You know, it's very apparent to me, Dave.

I mean, you've been at this a lot, your entire career, um, a number of years.

Uh, but it's very obvious you're still just as passionate and as excited

about it, uh, as you've ever been.

Um, Where do you, what excites you?

Why, what do you really love about what

you're still doing?

It's like, what's coming next?

Almost, you know, it's overwhelming all the stuff that's happening, but

to see it happening in our lifetime.

Really, um, and where we're going to end up is I have no idea where we're

going to end up, but, but I'll tell you what it always does excite me.

So it's the people side, not the technology side.

So, if I wear a Sandler shirt as an example, and I'm going through the

airport, I will bet you my paycheck.

Somebody will throw out a Sandler word or you guys changed my life.

And I hear three things that make my heart, you know, I'll come forever.

One is, um, I wish I met you 15 years before I did, cause you

would have changed my whole career.

Right.

I use this in my personal life as much as I use it in my professional life, you

know, cause really sales is communication.

And the third is I want my kids to go through Sandler so they don't have

to go through the pain that I did.

And when you get letters saying I paid for my kids.

You know, education and debt free, or I retired early, or I bought a

second home because of the stuff that you guys taught me to me,

that's what keeps me coming back.

Good stuff.

Very good.

Well, what words of advice would you have for maybe someone young

out there or, or old who's new to sales and just entering the field?

Um, what words of advice would you have for them?

Um, nobody's a born salesperson.

You've got to put the work into it.

It is a profession.

It is a profession, so treat it as such, right?

Treat it as such.

Um, always be curious and put the time in, like put the time in.

You and I both know from our Sandler experience, like I spent

a lot of time role playing and even practicing my talk tracks.

Like before, before Bluetooth was super common, I would have

the thing in my ear and people thought I was talking on the phone.

I was actually just Getting my words out.

So my ears could hear what my mouth was saying.

So I didn't practice in real time in front of prospects.

So I think that's there.

And also it's, you have to separate your role.

I'm a new salesperson with who am I as a person.

So when you get rejected, don't let it wipe you out.

It's just one call that didn't go well.

I get it, but that doesn't mean you're at any less of a person.

And I think new salespeople get confused between role failure

and I'm a failure as a person.

Not true.

And once you can get that in your head, life is pretty good.

And I think you also new salespeople have to go in with this mentality

of I have equal business stature versus this subservient thing

that happens with new people.

I don't know.

I can't ask.

You've been doing it longer.

You make more money.

That's not how this works.

And, um, right.

So I think that's really where I would focus my time.

You get a methodology that works for you, you know, whatever it is.

I hope it's Sandler, but get a methodology that works for you.

Don't wing it.

Don't wing it.

I don't want my surgeon to wing it.

I don't want my sales people to wing it.

Don't wing it.

Great advice.

Well, Dave, this has been a fantastic and this will be a

great episode for our listeners.

Um, we really are close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things.

Um, is there anything that we haven't covered today that you

wanted to, to share with us?

Be sure you share

with our audience.

No, I mean, I think you've done a good job taking us around the world in 42 minutes.

So I thought that was awesome.

Um, but, but I, I think it boils down to people and there's been tremendous change.

We've talked about that, but it's still a people business and we can talk about

technology and AI, but at the end of the day, you still have to do the behaviors.

You're still gonna have to talk to people.

You still have to create trust.

And that's how you get to separate yourself from the pack is that that

connection and, and so don't lose sight of that, regardless of what's going on

out there in the tech world.

Well, this has been good and I encourage everybody out there, you

know, check out Sandler, um, find out who in your area is doing it.

And, uh, yeah, it's well, well worth the investment.

So, um, before we close out, Dave, I want to ask you if you're willing

to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions.

So these are seven questions we ask you.

Some are serious.

Some are silly.

Um, all you have to do is give a response.

Of course, you have no idea where.

We're about to ask, are you up to this challenge?

Well, it'd be difficult to say no at this point in time,

isn't it?

It would, it really would.

Let's do

it.

Well, we will alternate, uh,

Seth, you want to ask the first question?

Sure.

Question number one.

If you could instantly become an expert in any subject, what would it be?

AI.

Be a game changer.

Yeah.

And I was just going to say, actually, chat GPT wrote

most of these questions for me.

Uh, okay.

Second one, actually, this is one of my favorite questions.

I wrote this, but, um, you have a choice on this.

What is the best or the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

The best

piece of advice is that I've gotten, um, if I take it generically

without situational is always prepare.

Like don't show up and expect that you're going to bring your best.

Your client deserves the best.

So you should put the time in ahead of time.

Um, and, and don't let your ego get in the way.

So that would be the, that would be the best.

And I think is the worst is that when I brought in talented

people from competitors and they were larger than I was.

And so I just suspended my intuition, my gut.

So when they brought a new idea, I, I just suspended by saying, well,

they must know, I mean, they have a much larger construction company

and I do, they must be geniuses.

The fact of the matter is that's not true and I suspended that and that

cost me a lot of money actually.

And so you just have to overlay what people tell you with what you

believe and come with and start the dialogue and come to a happy medium.

But I just suspended saying I gave up and said, well, they must know huge mistake

cost me tens of millions of dollars.

Wow.

Very interesting.

Question number three.

If you could only eat one dessert for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

Ice cream.

Any particular flavor?

Just ice cream.

Yeah.

I love ice cream.

I love express or chip.

So I love anything.

Chocolate is my, my go to.

Our, uh, our mutual friend, Bob Chapman once told me that,

uh, his wife would, uh, determine every, every evening, whether he

was able to have his favorite, which was, uh, I think blackberry

jam on top of vanilla ice cream.

And, uh, based upon how he ate the rest of the day, his wife would tell him whether

he could have it that night or not.

Okay.

Fourth question.

Um, which cartoon character would you like to have as your real life friend?

Superman.

There you go.

Okay.

That's a good one.

What would you

like to be remembered for?

Um, I think I, I would like to be remembered for helping others

reach their level of success, whatever that was for them.

That's what I would like to be remembered for and being a good dad.

No, no doubt.

You're well on your way on both of those.

Okay.

Next question is mine, I guess.

Um, Oh, have you purchased a product or a service in recent memory?

That was a real game changer for you.

Sort of a, Oh my goodness.

Where's this been all my life moment?

Not

that, not that I know, not that.

No, I don't know if I, I don't think I have a game changer gig.

I don't.

Very interesting.

Well, we'll, we'll, we'll have you again sometime and maybe you'll have one.

That's time to think about it.

I have to think about the game changer.

I mean, there's.

There's paper, like places on the water that just kind of settles, you

know, it's good for your head that those types of things, but I wouldn't

say that those are like, you know, earth shattering game changer stuff.

So, uh, I have to, I have to unfortunately pass on that 1.

I don't have a good 1 for you.

No problem.

All right.

Last rapid fire question.

Would you rather explore outer space or deep sea outer space?

I'm there.

I'm there too.

That'd be my preference.

Yeah.

Outer space.

Well, this has been great, Dave.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Um, for folks who want to get in touch with you or maybe learn more about

Sandler, um, how can they do that?

And we will put this in the show notes as well.

Well, you certainly can contact me on LinkedIn.

Um, Dave Mattson, you can certainly go to Sandler.

com, look up any training center.

You can certainly email me at DMattson at Sandler.

com.

Any of those work and whatever I promise you, I'll respond and I'll point you

in the right direction or send you something that you've asked me for.

I'm happy to do it.

Sounds good.

Well, I can report back to the audience that we all were able

to work in our challenge words.

Seth, you had the word.

Brouhaha.

Yeah.

You worked it in.

Well, um, Dave, you had Reconnoiter, Reconnoiter did a good job with that.

And I had, uh, that dog doesn't hunt and I'm not sure I worked it in the best

way, but I got it in there and I didn't have to say anything about, I don't

know, hunting truffles or something.

Well, this has been great.

Thank you so much, Dave.

We've really enjoyed this.

Been good.

Thanks for having me.

And thank you so much to our audience for tuning into this

very special episode of construction disruption with Dave Matson, uh,

CEO of Sandler, uh, please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

We always have great guests.

Don't forget to leave a review.

Um, So the next time we're together, keep on challenging the status quo.

Keep on looking for better ways to doing things.

And don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter.

Make them smile, encourage them, bless them in some way.

Simple yet powerful things we can all do.

So take care.

God bless.

And we will see you on the next episode of Construction Disruption.

This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty

metal roofing and other building products.