Unlocking Sales Success with Dave Mattson

Intro: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Construction Disruption Podcast, where we

Intro: 00:00:04

uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

Todd Miller: 00:00:17

I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, manufacturer

Todd Miller: 00:00:20

of specialty metal roofing and other building materials.

Todd Miller: 00:00:23

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

Todd Miller: 00:00:27

How are you doing, Seth?

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:29

I'm doing well.

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:29

How are you?

Todd Miller: 00:00:30

I'm doing well.

Todd Miller: 00:00:31

You know, I've been thinking.

Todd Miller: 00:00:31

I enjoyed yesterday.

Todd Miller: 00:00:32

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

Todd Miller: 00:00:36

and that was a lot of fun.

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:37

That was a good time.

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:38

Yeah.

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:39

Girls enjoyed having lunch with Mr.

Seth Heckaman: 00:00:41

Todd.

Todd Miller: 00:00:43

Well, it's my pleasure.

Todd Miller: 00:00:44

I enjoyed it.

Todd Miller: 00:00:45

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

Todd Miller: 00:00:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:00:53

to be an integral part of your success.

Todd Miller: 00:00:56

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:00

I think, Feel like they do sales.

Todd Miller: 00:01:03

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:05

when it gets right down to it.

Todd Miller: 00:01:07

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:12

you get the customer's business or not.

Todd Miller: 00:01:14

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:19

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:32

being the face of that business.

Todd Miller: 00:01:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:44

then that is the perception that.

Todd Miller: 00:01:45

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:49

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:54

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

Todd Miller: 00:01:58

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:02

Company entirely differently as well.

Todd Miller: 00:02:04

So today is our spotlight.

Todd Miller: 00:02:06

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:09

of sales and also in sales training.

Todd Miller: 00:02:12

And that is Dave Mattson.

Todd Miller: 00:02:14

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:19

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:22

or two here on the show before.

Todd Miller: 00:02:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:28

So Dave, welcome to Construction Disruption.

Todd Miller: 00:02:30

Um, really a pleasure to have you here today.

Todd Miller: 00:02:32

Thanks, Todd.

Todd Miller: 00:02:33

Thanks, Seth, for having me today.

Todd Miller: 00:02:35

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:37

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:41

Um, love what you folks teach.

Todd Miller: 00:02:43

We're a strong proponent.

Todd Miller: 00:02:45

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:49

right Local sales training.

Todd Miller: 00:02:50

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

Todd Miller: 00:02:54

sales franchisee is going to be.

Todd Miller: 00:02:56

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

Todd Miller: 00:03:00

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

Todd Miller: 00:03:04

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

Todd Miller: 00:03:07

uh, to, to what Sandler does,

Dave Mattson: 00:03:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:11

he was a fail failing salesperson, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:03:14

He went out and was just getting.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:33

I was the client.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:35

I sat in the back of the room.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:44

just machines to sell more construction.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:47

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:47

And,

Intro: 00:03:47

and I was, I was

Dave Mattson: 00:03:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:51

out my storyline to tell my boss.

Dave Mattson: 00:03:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:56

second day I was going fishing, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:03:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:03:59

come up, but I got hooked.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:05

There weren't scripts.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:15

rep for my company using Sandler.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:21

whatever that's supposed to look like.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:27

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:31

And, uh, I went to work for.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:04:41

then started buying out the company.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:43

And so I, I owned it all since 2012.

Todd Miller: 00:04:46

Oh, wow.

Todd Miller: 00:04:47

Very neat.

Todd Miller: 00:04:48

Um, so just.

Todd Miller: 00:04:50

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

Todd Miller: 00:04:52

You have franchised offices really across the world.

Todd Miller: 00:04:56

You're not strictly in the U.

Todd Miller: 00:04:57

S.

Todd Miller: 00:04:57

Am I correct on that?

Dave Mattson: 00:04:58

That's right.

Dave Mattson: 00:04:59

So we've got 400 Sandler trainers.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:04

Wow.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:08

We have the large enterprise.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:11

Companies, um, that can afford big departments that are

Dave Mattson: 00:05:14

training hundreds of people.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:29

know, and those that have the resources.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:31

So no one ever paid attention to the small business.

Dave Mattson: 00:05:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:05:40

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

Todd Miller: 00:05:44

Very interesting.

Todd Miller: 00:05:45

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

Todd Miller: 00:05:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:05:55

know, of course, life kind of plays out.

Todd Miller: 00:05:57

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:03

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:07

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:11

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:15

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:21

important it is to you folks that.

Todd Miller: 00:06:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:33

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:37

Now you go out there and do it.

Todd Miller: 00:06:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:43

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

Todd Miller: 00:06:48

materials, um, across all of your offices.

Todd Miller: 00:06:51

And you said what 400 offices now, or

Dave Mattson: 00:06:53

yeah, we have 400 trainers yet.

Dave Mattson: 00:06:55

Wow.

Dave Mattson: 00:06:56

That's amazing.

Dave Mattson: 00:06:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:06:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:07

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:26

therefore it probably doesn't work.

Dave Mattson: 00:07:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:43

Let me see you do that.

Dave Mattson: 00:07:44

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:52

it to their own personality type.

Dave Mattson: 00:07:53

And so that's what we do.

Dave Mattson: 00:07:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:07:58

good agenda with a homeowner?

Dave Mattson: 00:07:59

Like, how do you do that?

Dave Mattson: 00:08:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:08:04

Uh, okay.

Dave Mattson: 00:08:05

Makes sense.

Dave Mattson: 00:08:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:08:11

this is actually how you do it.

Dave Mattson: 00:08:13

This is how you do it.

Dave Mattson: 00:08:14

And that's always been the magic for us.

Todd Miller: 00:08:15

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:19

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:33

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:37

This guy, they always help me.

Todd Miller: 00:08:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:41

And you're right.

Todd Miller: 00:08:42

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:46

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:50

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:55

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

Todd Miller: 00:08:59

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

Todd Miller: 00:09:02

Yeah,

Dave Mattson: 00:09:03

I believe that starts that first interaction, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:09:07

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:14

And so we have to kind of educate them.

Dave Mattson: 00:09:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:27

There's always horror stories, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:09:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:32

Like tell me who did a good job.

Dave Mattson: 00:09:34

Did they clean up?

Dave Mattson: 00:09:35

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:39

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:44

you're listening versus telling.

Dave Mattson: 00:09:46

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:09:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:09:57

I've done for everyone else.

Dave Mattson: 00:09:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:00

Let me tell you what I'm looking for.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:12

things are just all over the place.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:13

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:21

throughout the whole process.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:23

And I, that may not be true.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:28

nothing else to judge that by.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:33

A hundred percent.

Dave Mattson: 00:10:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:10:38

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

Todd Miller: 00:10:41

Yeah, I like that.

Todd Miller: 00:10:42

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

Todd Miller: 00:10:44

That's good.

Todd Miller: 00:10:46

So.

Todd Miller: 00:10:46

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

Todd Miller: 00:10:51

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

Todd Miller: 00:10:56

sales training organizations out there?

Dave Mattson: 00:10:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:04

That's very unique.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:08

The second one is we have local offices.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:18

it comes to sales and management.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:19

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:21

Like, let me hear it.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:36

And so that, that was there.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:37

So that's one.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:38

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:43

It's hard.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:44

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:46

have happened in our lifetime.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:47

It's amazing.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:11:52

also say there's two other things.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:53

One is the, what we call the success triangle.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:57

And so we focus on 3 things.

Dave Mattson: 00:11:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:03

the behaviors and the techniques.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:07

We've got to go find some new business.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:14

reluctance, you're not going to do it.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:15

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:15

So that's, that's the mindset.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:17

Like, how do I have equal business stature?

Dave Mattson: 00:12:19

How do I handle rejection?

Dave Mattson: 00:12:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:25

as many strangers as possible.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:26

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:32

I do it once a year.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:36

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:38

And then we do technique.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:40

Now Sandler's known for actionable tactics and strategies.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:43

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:47

going to a session today on mindset.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:49

Oh my gosh, really?

Dave Mattson: 00:12:50

Seriously?

Dave Mattson: 00:12:51

No one wants to hear that.

Dave Mattson: 00:12:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:12:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:02

have a full book of business.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:04

And they're like, yeah, of course.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:09

which is, are people do it every day?

Dave Mattson: 00:13:11

They're expecting you.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:12

They want you to push back.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:13

They want you to say, show it to me.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:22

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:28

A group of other salespeople and other owners and that community

Dave Mattson: 00:13:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:38

Hey, my, my prospect ghosted me.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:42

I feel like a stalker.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:43

How am I doing that?

Dave Mattson: 00:13:44

But you brought that up.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:53

also everyone else had a problem.

Dave Mattson: 00:13:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:13:57

We all kind of experience the same types of issues.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:00

So I walk out with a bunch of stuff.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:14:07

issue, but I know I have that issue.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:09

And the learning curve decreases geometrically when I'm with

Dave Mattson: 00:14:13

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

Dave Mattson: 00:14:18

So I think those are the things that for me.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:20

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

Todd Miller: 00:14:24

You know, I think that's interesting too.

Todd Miller: 00:14:26

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

Todd Miller: 00:14:32

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

Todd Miller: 00:14:37

people actually start to help each other.

Todd Miller: 00:14:39

And, oh yeah, I ran into that too.

Todd Miller: 00:14:41

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

Todd Miller: 00:14:45

How do we make something really great?

Dave Mattson: 00:14:47

Positive out of this.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:14:51

star and somebody else's sales call.

Dave Mattson: 00:14:52

Do you ever notice that?

Dave Mattson: 00:14:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:14:55

not do it themselves, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:14:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:15:02

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

Todd Miller: 00:15:04

Maybe I should do that.

Todd Miller: 00:15:05

Very good point.

Todd Miller: 00:15:07

Very good point.

Todd Miller: 00:15:08

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

Todd Miller: 00:15:13

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

Todd Miller: 00:15:18

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

Todd Miller: 00:15:21

Um, absolutely love it.

Todd Miller: 00:15:23

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

Todd Miller: 00:15:26

how that influences the way that Sandler sales training occurs.

Todd Miller: 00:15:32

Yeah.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:33

So the philosophy was sales is hard.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:36

Management is hard.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:37

You're made, you're not born.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:40

And, and you can learn it.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:15:44

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

Dave Mattson: 00:15:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:15:53

Honestly, no one cares about my business.

Dave Mattson: 00:15:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:15:58

that happens over time, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:15:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:02

you feel pretty good about them.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:03

That takes time.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:07

become a professional salesperson.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:14

Excellent.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:14

I've learned.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:15

That's, that's awesome.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:24

Go out and practice, fall, fail, fail.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:27

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:28

What happened?

Dave Mattson: 00:16:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:32

And then keep going.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:34

Just pick and choose what's important to you.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:36

And that's the other thing.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:40

It's overload.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:41

It's overload.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:46

I don't care about them right now.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:47

I only cared about those five.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:54

you to go practice role play, do it.

Dave Mattson: 00:16:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:16:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:17:01

You know how to ride a bike 10 years ago.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:03

You could just get right back on.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:04

It's like, Oh, I get it.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:06

I got it.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:07

Versus what was the script again?

Dave Mattson: 00:17:09

What was the script?

Dave Mattson: 00:17:10

And Sandler has never done it that way.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:17:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:17:20

is really what the book was

Todd Miller: 00:17:20

about.

Todd Miller: 00:17:21

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

Todd Miller: 00:17:23

just going to go ahead and ask it.

Todd Miller: 00:17:25

How do folks end up getting enrolled in Sandler training?

Todd Miller: 00:17:28

What's that process look like?

Dave Mattson: 00:17:29

You mean a general person or just the audience?

Todd Miller: 00:17:32

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

Todd Miller: 00:17:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:17:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:17:43

So something you can go do on your own.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:45

Yeah.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:45

So we have many of our.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:47

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

Dave Mattson: 00:17:52

I'm an individual contractor.

Dave Mattson: 00:17:53

I don't have anyone else, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:17:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:17:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:01

So they can locate a Sandler trainers.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:16

And just.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:24

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:32

clients have been with us.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:39

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:42

Like you have to prove it to us.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:43

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:45

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:47

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:51

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:18:58

They'll work out a program for you.

Dave Mattson: 00:18:59

And if you don't love it.

Dave Mattson: 00:19:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:06

What did I do?

Dave Mattson: 00:19:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:20

well, including, of course, construction.

Todd Miller: 00:19:23

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:28

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:30

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:37

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:40

Hey, I'm the latest and greatest.

Todd Miller: 00:19:42

Um, just, just maybe give us a snippet.

Todd Miller: 00:19:43

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:46

how does someone not do that?

Todd Miller: 00:19:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:19:52

don't just start telling them what I do?

Dave Mattson: 00:19:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:19:57

analogy is be a doctor of sales.

Dave Mattson: 00:19:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:03

say, Hey, thanks for coming in, Dave.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:04

Let me show you all of my diplomas.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:07

This is where I went to school.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:08

What they actually do is thanks for coming in.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:11

Why are you here today?

Dave Mattson: 00:20:12

And they ask you a bunch of questions, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:20:14

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:19

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:29

proportion that were given to you.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:30

So how do you start?

Dave Mattson: 00:20:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:36

Right?

Dave Mattson: 00:20:37

And you can set a quick agenda.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:39

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:45

done by and things of that nature.

Dave Mattson: 00:20:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:20:59

emotionally and justify their decisions.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:08

Have you thought about this?

Dave Mattson: 00:21:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:22

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:24

So.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:29

me to ask me about my weekend.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:32

You must have children and blah, blah, blah.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:39

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:41

So other people love that.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:21:54

We call it an upfront contract.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:56

And then you should start off by asking questions.

Dave Mattson: 00:21:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:03

would you like to have done?

Dave Mattson: 00:22:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:08

know, versus you just running your mouth.

Dave Mattson: 00:22:11

Hey, thanks for inviting me over.

Dave Mattson: 00:22:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:14

Wow.

Dave Mattson: 00:22:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:19

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

Dave Mattson: 00:22:25

It works 25 percent of the time.

Dave Mattson: 00:22:27

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:29

So that's tough.

Todd Miller: 00:22:30

You know, it's interesting.

Todd Miller: 00:22:31

You make the doctor analogy.

Todd Miller: 00:22:33

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:37

sales people I know in the home improvement industry actually was

Todd Miller: 00:22:40

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:43

that wasn't what he wanted to do.

Todd Miller: 00:22:45

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:52

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

Todd Miller: 00:22:56

is going to do something to them.

Todd Miller: 00:22:58

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

Todd Miller: 00:23:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:05

all.

Dave Mattson: 00:23:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:08

sued for malpractice, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:23:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:10

right things all the time.

Dave Mattson: 00:23:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:21

our solution without diagnosis, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:23:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:27

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:35

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:38

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:45

have price objections down the road.

Dave Mattson: 00:23:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:23:57

to go get three bids, all that good stuff.

Dave Mattson: 00:24:00

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:03

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:06

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:10

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:15

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:20

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:27

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:31

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:36

Um, and you're right.

Todd Miller: 00:24:38

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:42

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

Todd Miller: 00:24:46

Sandler rules for sales success.

Todd Miller: 00:24:49

Um, Clue us in on a rule or two.

Dave Mattson: 00:24:52

Sure.

Dave Mattson: 00:24:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:24:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:24:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:02

after C and there's some rules.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:11

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:13

Okay.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:13

I get that.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:14

And same with sales.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:16

Um, the problem with scripts.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:22

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:30

So, the rules tend to help you think.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:43

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:25:43

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:25:53

Cause those are all lagging indicators, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:25:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:00

ups, X amount of net new context.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:02

X amount of asking for referrals, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:26:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:08

do now, because it's been two years.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:13

Results just don't magically occur in sales.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:16

And we also have peaks and valleys.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:21

Um, I like the other one.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:29

So what does that mean?

Dave Mattson: 00:26:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:49

like, you know, I know everything.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:51

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

Dave Mattson: 00:26:54

They ask for help.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:54

You talked about that scenario earlier.

Dave Mattson: 00:26:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:01

when people struggle, other people rescue.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:03

Yeah.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:07

psychologically is to stump me.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:09

It's just human nature.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:11

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:14

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:17

And those are two rules that stick out.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:22

how to fail in order to win.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:24

Mm-Hmm.

Dave Mattson: 00:27:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:27:32

that we lose more than we win.

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:34

Mm-Hmm.

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:34

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:37

baseball, we'd all be Brazilian errors.

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:38

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:42

Uh, we don.

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:43

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:27:46

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

Todd Miller: 00:27:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:27:52

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

Todd Miller: 00:27:56

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

Todd Miller: 00:28:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:04

So when I was buying Sandler, I actually was a

Dave Mattson: 00:28:07

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:11

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:28

And I followed a process, which is.

Dave Mattson: 00:28:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:34

One is blind spots that we have as leaders.

Dave Mattson: 00:28:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:38

And we've identified what those are more importantly,

Dave Mattson: 00:28:40

what to do to get out of them.

Dave Mattson: 00:28:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:53

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:28:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:28:59

One is planning.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:00

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:06

Like, what do you want to do personally?

Dave Mattson: 00:29:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:15

three years, because I am connected.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:17

I own the company, I am the company.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:18

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:19

And so I only did one.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:20

So that was one.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:22

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:25

Sandler to be in three years.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:28

What roles do I need?

Dave Mattson: 00:29:29

Like, what positions do I need?

Dave Mattson: 00:29:30

Right?

Dave Mattson: 00:29:31

So they're all piece of planning positions.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:37

in order to, to get that plan in place.

Dave Mattson: 00:29:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:29:57

and saying, well, what could they do?

Dave Mattson: 00:29:59

Where would I move?

Dave Mattson: 00:30:00

Mary?

Dave Mattson: 00:30:01

What would I do with Steve?

Dave Mattson: 00:30:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:10

These are the positions that I need.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:11

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:14

And so I retrained some.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:28

we weren't really buttoned up.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:33

And so that was the last next one.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:46

I want my people to be accountable.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:48

Okay.

Dave Mattson: 00:30:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:30:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:06

So that's a problem.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:07

And the last one is, is passion.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:13

tactics and we've launched that.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:22

To where they want it to be.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:24

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:32

sell it, whatever the case may be.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:42

But I had no framework to put it in.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:44

So I was just like always in the reactive mode.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:47

Like I felt like a sailboat, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:31:49

I would go to a meeting.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:52

Then I go somewhere else.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:31:56

this put it into guardrails.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:58

This is the plan.

Dave Mattson: 00:31:59

This is what we're doing.

Dave Mattson: 00:32:01

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:05

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:08

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:13

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:17

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:21

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:26

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:29

And so I, I love that.

Todd Miller: 00:32:30

And when

Dave Mattson: 00:32:30

you and I are going to age

Todd Miller: 00:32:31

ourself,

Dave Mattson: 00:32:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:32:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:32:38

to walk away because you're right.

Dave Mattson: 00:32:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:32:44

talented people that built practices surround that revolved around them,

Dave Mattson: 00:32:48

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:51

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

Todd Miller: 00:32:56

Cells never change.

Todd Miller: 00:32:58

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

Todd Miller: 00:33:05

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

Todd Miller: 00:33:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:17

I think

Todd Miller: 00:33:17

the

Dave Mattson: 00:33:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:26

that there's not a lot of innovation.

Dave Mattson: 00:33:28

There's acceleration, like things happen faster.

Dave Mattson: 00:33:31

And that's really what's occurred.

Dave Mattson: 00:33:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:33:57

You know, this is what a metal roof does.

Dave Mattson: 00:33:58

This is what this is.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:00

80 percent 86 percent of buyers have already researched you,

Dave Mattson: 00:34:06

what you do and your competitors.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:08

And you're naive to think anything else.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:10

So that's the big change.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:34:16

they are, money is precious now.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:18

And so decisions have slowed down, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:34:21

And decisions have become more conservative.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:24

And so we also have.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:27

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

Dave Mattson: 00:34:33

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

Dave Mattson: 00:34:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:34:41

or we're going to make one decision for.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:43

All of the corporation, not just one.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:45

So you've got that stuff going on.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:34:53

between selling and managing remotely.

Dave Mattson: 00:34:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:00

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:05

when people aren't interacting?

Dave Mattson: 00:35:07

I mean, it's really hard.

Dave Mattson: 00:35:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:24

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:29

And even now people are admitting the productivity level.

Dave Mattson: 00:35:33

Isn't it?

Dave Mattson: 00:35:33

What?

Dave Mattson: 00:35:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:44

know, everyone gets to see on the news.

Dave Mattson: 00:35:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:54

This is what you've said.

Dave Mattson: 00:35:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:35:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:07

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:10

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:13

brouhaha that we all went through.

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:15

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:19

and just what you're leading through.

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:21

Obviously when we all hit March, 2020.

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:24

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:27

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:31

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:33

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:36:37

So

Dave Mattson: 00:36:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:46

different label playing field now.

Dave Mattson: 00:36:48

What is the plan?

Dave Mattson: 00:36:49

Um, and so we went through that again.

Dave Mattson: 00:36:51

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:36:58

It's not like you can check the box.

Dave Mattson: 00:36:59

I've done it.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:00

So we constantly do that.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:07

face to face prior to March.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:13

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:30

It just.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:31

Didn't do it.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:31

So we kind of banded together now.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:34

And so your clients could jump into ours.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:46

Really?

Dave Mattson: 00:37:46

Um, so that's happened.

Dave Mattson: 00:37:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:37:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:00

And creating tools where you could actually take what we taught

Dave Mattson: 00:38:04

and then personalize it for you.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:11

completely been rewritten.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:17

50, 000.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:29

And we have avatars, Seth.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:30

I mean, think about an avatar.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:39

Here's how you qualify.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:42

You also now get to pick an avatar.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:38:56

And now my kids like love that.

Dave Mattson: 00:38:59

It doesn't do anything for me.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:01

I'm old, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:39:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:08

never there before ever there.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:12

really think about it, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:39:14

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:19

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:24

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:27

can manage the change, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:39:28

And here's how we communicate.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:29

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:35

for it and you're in scramble mode.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:37

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:37

Um, because your buyers are doing things differently.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:40

The sales organization has to do, do things differently.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:46

and we've talked a little bit about that.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:51

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

Dave Mattson: 00:39:55

that's actually become a differentiator.

Dave Mattson: 00:39:57

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:00

What?

Dave Mattson: 00:40:00

I haven't met anybody in five months.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:02

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:05

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:09

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:29

coming in, but I actually believe that.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:31

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:34

Now AI goes in and says, guess what?

Dave Mattson: 00:40:36

You have an 86 percent chance of winning.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:38

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:40:47

stuff that great salespeople did.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:50

It's doing it for you now.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:52

It's amazing.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:53

It's amazing.

Dave Mattson: 00:40:54

Actually.

Todd Miller: 00:40:54

It's amazing.

Todd Miller: 00:40:55

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

Todd Miller: 00:40:58

Oh, yeah,

Dave Mattson: 00:40:58

we we've tapped into it.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:00

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:02

bandwagon or be a dinosaur.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:03

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:11

an hour on a call and would take you.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:12

Forever to get that done the pipeline even sequencing.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:17

Now, somebody reaches out.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:18

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:20

You know, I need a new roof.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:21

I need to do this.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:22

Um, here's my number immediately.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:25

A.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:30

Why?

Dave Mattson: 00:41:30

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:34

You auto load your sequences.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:39

you, which is supporting your storyline.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:47

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:51

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:52

Wow.

Dave Mattson: 00:41:52

How did that happen?

Dave Mattson: 00:41:53

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

Dave Mattson: 00:41:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:04

everybody gets to do it now.

Dave Mattson: 00:42:05

It's kind of amazing.

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:06

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:09

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:14

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:19

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:24

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:28

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:33

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:42:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:41

Yeah.

Dave Mattson: 00:42:41

And it works that way too.

Dave Mattson: 00:42:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:52

This is Seth behavioral style.

Dave Mattson: 00:42:54

And you're not engaging with Seth.

Dave Mattson: 00:42:56

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

Dave Mattson: 00:42:59

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:08

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:12

must think like Dave, right?

Dave Mattson: 00:43:14

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:22

And the trust level goes up.

Dave Mattson: 00:43:24

Like who would have thought that was going to happen?

Dave Mattson: 00:43:26

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

Todd Miller: 00:43:28

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

Todd Miller: 00:43:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:43:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:43:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:43:41

Um, Where do you, what excites you?

Todd Miller: 00:43:44

Why, what do you really love about what

Dave Mattson: 00:43:45

you're still doing?

Dave Mattson: 00:43:47

It's like, what's coming next?

Dave Mattson: 00:43:48

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:51

to see it happening in our lifetime.

Dave Mattson: 00:43:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:43:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:07

airport, I will bet you my paycheck.

Dave Mattson: 00:44:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:19

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:24

would have changed my whole career.

Dave Mattson: 00:44:25

Right.

Dave Mattson: 00:44:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:30

know, cause really sales is communication.

Dave Mattson: 00:44:32

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:35

to go through the pain that I did.

Dave Mattson: 00:44:37

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:40

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:44:49

that's what keeps me coming back.

Todd Miller: 00:44:51

Good stuff.

Todd Miller: 00:44:51

Very good.

Todd Miller: 00:44:52

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

Todd Miller: 00:44:57

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

Todd Miller: 00:45:01

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:03

Um, nobody's a born salesperson.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:05

You've got to put the work into it.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:06

It is a profession.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:07

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:10

Treat it as such.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:11

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:16

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:20

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:25

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:31

I was actually just Getting my words out.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:33

So my ears could hear what my mouth was saying.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:35

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:37

So I think that's there.

Dave Mattson: 00:45:39

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:43

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:46

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:49

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:45:56

And I think new salespeople get confused between role failure

Dave Mattson: 00:46:00

and I'm a failure as a person.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:02

Not true.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:03

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:07

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:11

of I have equal business stature versus this subservient thing

Dave Mattson: 00:46:16

that happens with new people.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:17

I don't know.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:18

I can't ask.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:19

You've been doing it longer.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:20

You make more money.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:20

That's not how this works.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:22

And, um, right.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:26

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:31

Don't wing it.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:32

Don't wing it.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:33

I don't want my surgeon to wing it.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:38

Don't wing it.

Todd Miller: 00:46:38

Great advice.

Todd Miller: 00:46:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:46:42

great episode for our listeners.

Todd Miller: 00:46:44

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

Todd Miller: 00:46:49

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

Todd Miller: 00:46:52

wanted to, to share with us?

Todd Miller: 00:46:53

Be sure you share

Dave Mattson: 00:46:54

with our audience.

Dave Mattson: 00:46:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:46:58

So I thought that was awesome.

Dave Mattson: 00:47:00

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

Dave Mattson: 00:47:04

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

Dave Mattson: 00:47:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:47:14

You're still gonna have to talk to people.

Dave Mattson: 00:47:15

You still have to create trust.

Dave Mattson: 00:47:17

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

Dave Mattson: 00:47:22

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:27

out there in the tech world.

Todd Miller: 00:47:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:32

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:36

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:42

to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions.

Todd Miller: 00:47:46

So these are seven questions we ask you.

Todd Miller: 00:47:49

Some are serious.

Todd Miller: 00:47:50

Some are silly.

Todd Miller: 00:47:51

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:53

Of course, you have no idea where.

Todd Miller: 00:47:55

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

Todd Miller: 00:47:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:00

isn't it?

Dave Mattson: 00:48:00

It would, it really would.

Dave Mattson: 00:48:02

Let's do

Todd Miller: 00:48:02

it.

Todd Miller: 00:48:03

Well, we will alternate, uh,

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:04

Seth, you want to ask the first question?

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:06

Sure.

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:07

Question number one.

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:09

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

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:13

AI.

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:14

Be a game changer.

Seth Heckaman: 00:48:15

Yeah.

Todd Miller: 00:48:15

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

Todd Miller: 00:48:18

most of these questions for me.

Todd Miller: 00:48:22

Uh, okay.

Todd Miller: 00:48:23

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

Todd Miller: 00:48:26

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

Todd Miller: 00:48:29

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

Todd Miller: 00:48:34

The best

Dave Mattson: 00:48:34

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:39

without situational is always prepare.

Dave Mattson: 00:48:42

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:46

Your client deserves the best.

Dave Mattson: 00:48:47

So you should put the time in ahead of time.

Dave Mattson: 00:48:50

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:55

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

Dave Mattson: 00:48:57

people from competitors and they were larger than I was.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:01

And so I just suspended my intuition, my gut.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:12

and I do, they must be geniuses.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:14

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:18

cost me a lot of money actually.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:21

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:24

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:27

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:31

cost me tens of millions of dollars.

Seth Heckaman: 00:49:33

Wow.

Seth Heckaman: 00:49:34

Very interesting.

Seth Heckaman: 00:49:34

Question number three.

Seth Heckaman: 00:49:36

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

Dave Mattson: 00:49:41

Ice cream.

Todd Miller: 00:49:42

Any particular flavor?

Todd Miller: 00:49:44

Just ice cream.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:45

Yeah.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:45

I love ice cream.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:46

I love express or chip.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:47

So I love anything.

Dave Mattson: 00:49:48

Chocolate is my, my go to.

Todd Miller: 00:49:51

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

Todd Miller: 00:49:54

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

Todd Miller: 00:49:58

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:02

jam on top of vanilla ice cream.

Todd Miller: 00:50:04

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:08

he could have it that night or not.

Todd Miller: 00:50:10

Okay.

Todd Miller: 00:50:11

Fourth question.

Todd Miller: 00:50:12

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:18

Superman.

Todd Miller: 00:50:19

There you go.

Todd Miller: 00:50:20

Okay.

Todd Miller: 00:50:20

That's a good one.

Todd Miller: 00:50:21

What would you

Dave Mattson: 00:50:22

like to be remembered for?

Dave Mattson: 00:50:23

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

Dave Mattson: 00:50:28

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

Dave Mattson: 00:50:30

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:33

No, no doubt.

Todd Miller: 00:50:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:36

Okay.

Todd Miller: 00:50:37

Next question is mine, I guess.

Todd Miller: 00:50:39

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:43

That was a real game changer for you.

Todd Miller: 00:50:46

Sort of a, Oh my goodness.

Todd Miller: 00:50:47

Where's this been all my life moment?

Todd Miller: 00:50:49

Not

Dave Mattson: 00:50:50

that, not that I know, not that.

Dave Mattson: 00:50:52

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

Dave Mattson: 00:50:55

I don't.

Todd Miller: 00:50:56

Very interesting.

Todd Miller: 00:50:56

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

Todd Miller: 00:50:59

That's time to think about it.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:02

I have to think about the game changer.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:04

I mean, there's.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:06

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:10

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:12

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:15

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:19

I don't have a good 1 for you.

Seth Heckaman: 00:51:20

No problem.

Seth Heckaman: 00:51:21

All right.

Seth Heckaman: 00:51:21

Last rapid fire question.

Seth Heckaman: 00:51:23

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

Todd Miller: 00:51:28

I'm there.

Todd Miller: 00:51:28

I'm there too.

Todd Miller: 00:51:29

That'd be my preference.

Todd Miller: 00:51:30

Yeah.

Todd Miller: 00:51:31

Outer space.

Todd Miller: 00:51:31

Well, this has been great, Dave.

Todd Miller: 00:51:32

Thank you so much for your time today.

Todd Miller: 00:51:34

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

Todd Miller: 00:51:38

Sandler, um, how can they do that?

Todd Miller: 00:51:41

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:43

Well, you certainly can contact me on LinkedIn.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:45

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:48

com, look up any training center.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:50

You can certainly email me at DMattson at Sandler.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:53

com.

Dave Mattson: 00:51:54

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

Dave Mattson: 00:51:58

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

Dave Mattson: 00:52:01

I'm happy to do it.

Todd Miller: 00:52:02

Sounds good.

Todd Miller: 00:52:03

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:07

to work in our challenge words.

Todd Miller: 00:52:09

Seth, you had the word.

Todd Miller: 00:52:12

Brouhaha.

Todd Miller: 00:52:13

Yeah.

Todd Miller: 00:52:13

You worked it in.

Todd Miller: 00:52:14

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:20

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:24

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:28

know, hunting truffles or something.

Todd Miller: 00:52:29

Well, this has been great.

Todd Miller: 00:52:30

Thank you so much, Dave.

Todd Miller: 00:52:32

We've really enjoyed this.

Todd Miller: 00:52:33

Been good.

Dave Mattson: 00:52:33

Thanks for having me.

Todd Miller: 00:52:35

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:38

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:42

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:47

We always have great guests.

Todd Miller: 00:52:48

Don't forget to leave a review.

Todd Miller: 00:52:50

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

Todd Miller: 00:52:54

Keep on looking for better ways to doing things.

Todd Miller: 00:52:57

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

Todd Miller: 00:53:00

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

Todd Miller: 00:53:04

Simple yet powerful things we can all do.

Todd Miller: 00:53:07

So take care.

Todd Miller: 00:53:08

God bless.

Todd Miller: 00:53:08

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

Intro: 00:53:15

This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty

Intro: 00:53:20

metal roofing and other building products.