7 Unlocking the Power of Genuine Sales: Inspiring Customers and Driving Growth

This episode is a conversation between Drew and Landon, discussing the responsibilities and approach of Landon's job as a sales manager at First Choice Builders. Landon's role involves being the first point of contact for customers who reach out to the company, whether through the website, phone, or email. He is responsible for thoroughly communicating with potential customers, understanding their wants and needs, and determining how First Choice Builders can accommodate them. Landon often encounters customers who are unsure about what they want, and his job is to guide them in the right direction, whether through consultations or providing marketing materials. His ultimate goal is to take action, get customers under contract, and fulfill their needs, whether it's a custom home or property investment. Landon emphasizes the importance of providing value and genuine assistance to customers, even if it means referring them to other experts or guiding them to make informed decisions. The conversation highlights the significance of honesty, admitting mistakes, and prioritizing customer satisfaction in sales.

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Transcript

How about this, drew, in your eyes as the grand, potentate, super kingdom master of the company. Considering I don't know what that is, but go ahead.

Okay, so in your eyes, as the owner of the company, what does my job entail? Okay, so Landon sales manager, a customer is going to reach out to Landon first. I don't need to talk to you like that person. Right.

So a salesperson will reach out to you directly. Your phone number is the one that's publicly displayed. And so when a customer reaches out, whether it's through our website or through a phone number or through an email, you're the one who responds to it.

Right? Right. And so your roles is first contact. Have a system, and we do have a system, but use a system to communicate thoroughly and completely and introduce ourselves and make a good representation of first choice builders.

Set up the meeting and find out where the customer is in their wants and needs, and then figure out a way for first choice builders to accommodate them in their wants and needs and then determine if that's feasible for us to do. A lot of times, people will come to us not knowing what they want or how they're going to get anywhere, and we expect that. And so it would be your job to be able to recognize where they're at and what direction to take first.

It might be with a consultation. It might be, hey, we already have our plans, and we just want to start. That does happen sometimes.

More often than not, people come, and they don't have much of an idea. Right. And so we can offer a consultation.

We have that consultation process we go through, and we can offer them some of our marketing materials so they can kind of get to know who we are and set up an initial meeting and get to know them. And then at a certain point when the customer has learned who we are, we have learned what they need and how we can help them. It would then be your job to take action and get them under contract and sell what we have to offer.

Chances are that's going to be a custom home. Right. It might even be somebody looking to invest some property.

But ultimately you have to decide what that person needs and how to fulfill their needs. Right? Yeah. That's why the term, the cliche sales term to me is whatever.

It's a title. A lot of people, when they see or hear sales, they associate it with the greasy haired car salesman selling a used car. Right? Yeah.

We don't do that. Yeah. That's not the impression that I want to ever put off, ever.

I never want to push anything. I never want to push anything on anybody. Perhaps it's like an obvious point to bring up, but a lot of people it seems like in today's world, the whole sales mentality is kind of dying off and it's it's now it's more of a consultant.

You know I am. Whatever. You gotta put something on your business card and I get it.

A title is a title, but that title should only represent you should best represent your title by your actions, not by what's on your card. Right. So me, I think it's super important that people understand that I'm here to help people.

At the end of the day. Yes, I have to put ink on paper, I have to sign a contract, the business has to move forward and that's part of my job. But 99% of what I do is simply helping people, trying to line people up in a manner that they're going to get taken care of or point them in the right direction at the very least.

Or perhaps I can provide some knowledge so they can best make a decision. Sometimes people aren't even in state and they're just kind of feeling things out, testing the waters. And maybe I'll never get anything out of anything, but perhaps a 15 minutes phone conversation with them will be all the information that they need and they walk away happy.

Like, oh, turns out we won't be moving there. I didn't realize this or that, but thank you very much for providing that info. I now can make a better decision.

Yeah, actually I'm glad you brought that up because one thing I was thinking about is we actually refer work out to people all the time. And it's not because we don't care about the customer, but it's exact opposite. We want that customer to feel like they're best taken care of and we're not good at every single thing.

Right. Right. Somebody calls us and says we have whatever it is, we need a new septic system.

Right. We're going to say, you know what, we actually don't do septic systems ourselves. And we have an excavation crew though, that can do a really good job at that that we use.

And why don't you call this guy? Or a lot of repair type jobs and a lot of these things, but that's essentially knowing what that customer needs and how their needs are going to be best fulfilled. And it might not be by us, right? It might not be us fulfilling, but we can give them referrals and stuff like that. At the very least, guide them in the right direction.

We don't have to be the expert and physically do everything for them. That's definitely something I've learned along the way, too. And that goes even more internal as well with my role as a sales manager is I have to lean on my team in that same manner.

Oh, I'm not sure on this, but let me get you in touch with our project coordinator. He can better answer those questions or whatever. You are being a conduit and guiding them to their next milestone.

That's what you're doing, whatever that may be. And I will say that nine times out of ten, we're not like, profiting in some way. Nine times out of ten, it's strictly educational.

And that's where the term like, consulting is. They're consulting in me to make the best decision for them. It's not about me.

Yeah, I think that's awesome and I think giving somebody value is I think giving some value should almost be, like, top priority. Yeah. They may not have needed to pay for the value that we give them, but the value could be from a referral or it could be from pointing them in the right direction.

It could be by simply saying, you know what, this is a perfect situation for our consultation. Our consultation is it's a non committal, but we'll go through all the work of all the pre build documents, bidding, bidding, drawing, planning, scheduling, budgeting, everything, and give you a packet when we're done. And this consultation will give you all the information that you'll need.

And then if you don't want to build, fine. We're not under contract to build. We're only agreed to do this consultation and maybe that's the best value.

Yeah. Perhaps they needed that information so they realized that they in fact don't want to buy this piece of property. And now, because of this, their whole plan has changed and they go a different direction.

That's actually happened. I can think of an instance where that happened. Another thing is, when it comes to referrals, I've had multiple people who I will always follow up with those people, even if they're someone who I'll never probably do work with or whatever, I still care about what they got going on.

I genuinely do. If you called me and you talk with you for five or ten minutes, you are now a person to me. I'm not just going to hang up and never be seen from again.

Well, I've witnessed quite a few times, like, going to lunch or going to coffee with people who we actually bid on their project and never even got it right. Yeah. Hey, let's go get coffee.

I want to touch base with you and see how things are going. And that's one thing that I really like about you is because you're not about the job, you're about the customer. And I know that personally because I witness it all the time.

Well, yes, it's a good thing. It does have its faults, too. I mean, if I'm being realistic, I think it's great.

I think it's something that it's a good thing to have as a salesman. From my perspective, it looks to me like that's what you enjoy doing. It is I'm not saying this to try to make your head big.

I'm just making an observation that you clearly enjoy just doing that right. And I do. I generally enjoy people.

People. I'm very much an extrovert. I really enjoy shooting the breeze with people or talking business.

I say there's a fault there in that. Me personally, I can burn a lot of time. I can shoot a lot of breeze.

I need to learn how to kind of keep my we've all noticed. Yeah, I'm sure you have. So there you guys know, that's one of my many faults.

I'm really good at making the time fly when conversation. But what I was going to say to revisit the point about the referrals, I've had several referrals and people that I've checked up on long after the fact. Hey, I remember last we talked, I got you in touch with so and so to help you with your septic system.

Anything ever turn out with that? How did that go? Yeah, actually I was able to get a hold of him and we met up and worked out great and this and that. Thank you so much for the referral. I've gotten that call and it's awesome.

Or I have called that person and checked in on them. No, you know what? I was never able to. Oh, shoot.

Well, maybe I can find somebody else for you. Value in even the smallest way can go a long ways in a relationship, especially if it's some stranger and they're like, wow, this guy actually gives a rip about me. I do, yeah.

So to relate to that, before you came and worked here, I was the salesperson, right. And I've gone out to quite a few jobs where I was leaving the office knowing that I wasn't going to be a good fit for this job because of their description on the phone. But the thing is, many times when I go out there and I look at the job and I meet the person and we kind of get a feel for each other as far as how we operate and stuff like that, and then I can make a good decision on who could actually fulfill their needs the most.

I've had people give me raving reviews because I can't believe you spent all this time to come out here and look at my job and decide the best route to go and send this referral or send a referral to somebody on my job. You didn't have to do all that. We've actually gotten good reviews because of stuff like that or even that.

The fact that that person knows somebody else, maybe this particular person you're not going to be working for directly. And you help them out in that manner and then you move on. Well, what if their friend moves into town and suddenly they have a product that does fit your expertise more? Who do you think they're going to call? Yeah, I met Landon at First Choice, and they weren't able to do my job, which is however they feel about that.

But they sent me this referral and they were really nice and respectful. And I think personally, I think that's a big goal for any salesperson to strive for. Yes.

Just give people value. Yeah, 100% give people value. Even if you don't have the value directly to give, at least point them in the right direction so that they can get it.

And that is in terms of that is giving value. Exactly. Because they won't have known who to go to, right? Yeah.

It's a good thing to remember one more point, too, just in the same vein. We talked about giving people value, being able to sort of not confront, but be the guide. Be the guide.

Sort of be bold and have to kind of put the firm down and draw the line when need be. One thing that's super important to me personally, and I know this is something that's important to everybody, but I really hold this genuine is being genuine. And this is so important because the difference in what I'm just like you and I are having this conversation now, and it's a genuine conversation.

But then there's the other we'll call it the sales pitchy, the butterfly side of it. Like, oh, you're only going to see the good side of me as I'm a salesman. Oh, you want to meet with me? I'm going to just be all smiles and cheers and everything's going perfectly great over here.

And first, Joyce has no problems whatsoever, and we are a perfect company and we're so awesome. Really, that's sort of like the standard. You want to put off this good impression and by doing so, you're willing to baffle them with all this BS on how everything's great.

I just don't do it that way. I mean, obviously there's like, say internal issues within a company. I'm not going to just go tell the world of it or whatever.

But if someone were to genuinely ask me, even if they're a stranger, if they're like, how are you doing, man? And if I'm having a bad day, I'm like, you know what? I've had a rough day. I had this and that happened to me and whatever. But I'm generally going to say so.

Or if I'm doing good, I'm doing good. Being genuine, really, it's just being honest. Oh, yeah.

You could argue, well, I wasn't necessarily dishonest. They didn't ask, so I didn't say, I don't fly that way. Well, I think here's the thing.

Wisdom comes from experience, right? And if a person experiences things good and bad, that gains wisdom, right? So if a person makes mistakes, say First Choice Builders makes a mistake on something and you're able to take it. So for the people listening, first Choice Builders has daily meetings on issues, roadblocks, and challenges. IRCS.

Yes, IRCS. Every day we have a meeting. It's only like 15 minutes.

And then every Monday we have a company wide meeting that we also review IRCS. And so our goal is to embrace the mistakes that we've made, admit to them and correct them and choose the right path forward. Now, customer comes to you and says, hey, if a customer comes to you and says, what's the single biggest mistake you've ever made? You'd be able to honestly answer that because, you'd know, we've oh, you know what? It was just a couple of months ago we did this.

And you know what? We sat down, we had a meeting and we talked about it and we're very fortunate to be able to fix it and whatever. But bottom line is we know the mistakes that we make and we're able to correct them. And we're more than happy to admit that.

Yeah, own up to them. I think just the simple fact that you can own up to a mistake speaks volumes because most people, they'll downplay it or we had this, but that wasn't a big deal and actually it was our supplier and blah, blah, blah, passing the buck on or whatever. And it's like for those out there who truly believe they can BS their way through a conversation with somebody pretending like they never make mistakes or they're never the issue, I'm sorry, but it's not going to work.

People see right through that crap. Why would you do it? In my opinion, the best salesperson is exactly that. I mean, you are as open and honest and clean cut.

What would you say? Transparent. Transparent as possible. And admit to fault and take the lead and give guidance.

There's so much learning to do for a salesperson. Those are only topics. And then to learn about each one of those, keep everything prioritized and categorized.

Yeah. This topic, I like to put it under the umbrella of Extreme Ownership, the book that Jacob Willink and Lee Babin wrote, extreme Ownership. Love that book.

So I've read that book twice now and I could guarantee I could read it two more times. It's just so just keep getting more out of it. Yeah, there's so much value there.

But in a nutshell, part of this, say, admitting to faults or being able to talk about the mistakes you made and how you would correct them, that is extreme ownership. That's you being open and honest and transparent. And taking ownership for your mistakes or whatever, that's just a part of it that just came to mind.

But that's one thing that I hold to the utmost priority, is that I'm honest and open about everything with everybody. So do this. Landon, can you walk me from first contact through your process? And this conversation might be geared a little more towards a person looking to better their sales career.

Or maybe they're already a salesperson. They want to become better, or maybe they want to become a salesperson. And keep in mind, we're talking about building custom homes here.

Tell me your process. I want to hear about it. Yeah.

So you get a lead comes in, whether it's through an email or a phone call or a form submission on a website, you get a new lead. My number one thing with a new lead is you respond within 24 hours, even if it's a dad gum smoke signal, they need to have something within 24 hours. If you can't call them back, text them, email them, within that time, it's gone.

And then now it's already become a cold. So they've already called two or three other people. How do you when somebody calls, we get a lot of scam calls.

I don't mean to take a whole rabbit hole here, but do you answer every person that calls? No, I think that the robot blocker thing I have on my phone is pretty handy. It'll say, potential spam, and every single one of those that have answered has been spam, so I just don't answer it. So you've learned to trust that.

But you answer every other but every other phone call, if I don't know what it is, I answer it. And one thing too. Every single phone call that I get, if it's a new number and it becomes like, a lead or an associate or a person of interest right then and there, after I hang up, I put their contact.

I update that contact so I had the name with the number, because I will forget it in a half an hour. So I have to do it right then and there. And that way, whenever I get that phone call again, boom.

I know, right, who it is. I know what we're talking about. It's already there.

Okay, so somebody reaches out. Somebody reaches out. You respond within 24 hours.

And with that response, it should include something like, hey, I appreciate you calling. Have this sort of, like, present who you are or not present who you are, but essentially appreciate show appreciation for them reaching out, and then kind of cut to the chase of, hey, what you after? What do you want? That's what I want to know. If someone's calling me that's the first thing I want to know is, what are you after? Perhaps they're doing a remodel, and they got a referral that they're looking for, or they want to build a custom home or who knows what.

Right? So number one is gather info on what they want and in tandem in doing that, depending on what that is, will determine your next steps. So if it's a person looking for a referral, I still hold them as a client. They are still a person of priority to me.

So I will create a contact with them, my system put down their information. What system do you use? HubSpot. HubSpot is a sale little CRM.

Every person that reaches out goes into HubSpot. Correct. Now if it's just so and so calling and perhaps it's an associate, maybe it's a rep from say, an internet company or something.

I may or may not, it's kind of my discretion. But most of the time if it's a person of interest, it's going to go into the HubSpot. Okay.

So that way I can forget about it in a month. But the reminder on that CRM will remind me. So they reach out, you send them information or probably put them into HubSpot first.

Yeah, put them into husband, send them information and then what? And so based on the information I send them, or based on what they want, I will create a task within my CRM and that task will tell me what the next steps are. That way they don't become forgotten. Okay.

So it's really important, I would say the most important thing in my CRM are my tasks. They remind me what I'm supposed to be doing. Because if I get twelve of these in a matter of three days, you're going to mix up tasks, you're going to mix up people, you're going to mix up numbers.

So it all has to go into this system. So that's really where sort of it hits a multitude of crossroads. So what do you call that first piece of information you send out? I would call it a welcome email.

Okay. Or I guess I don't really have a title for it, but just getting any sort of shock and wow type package. Yeah.

Well that again will depend on the lead. So if it isn't that factor lead, then yes, I will send them a first choice builders presentation. Assuming that it's a good qualified lead.

Right? Exactly right. If it's sort of just like the, hey, they're feeling the waters, they're from Nevada and there's no, any sort of committal or anything, I'll still send them that information. Or perhaps if they seem interested, maybe I'll subscribe them to our email or whatever.

So you send them information? The information depends on what they're looking for. They're in the CRM, they've received information, then what? From there it's really a matter of what they were asking for. Assuming they're just a qualified lead.

If they're a qualified lead looking to build a custom home, I would set up a task and that task would say set a meeting. So the next step is to get in front of the person and truly get to know them, kind of get the ball kicked off. How long do you wait from contact to first meeting? I shoot for a week.

So that means you're scheduling it within a week, or you are I am sitting in front of them within a week. So how long before you schedule it? It's immediately. I try to do it.

So the initial phone call, I like to hang up that phone with a homework assignment. One, it could be send additional info. Then it is perhaps providing them with some value that they've asked on that same, like, hey, I was curious about cabinet prices.

Maybe send them a brochure on some cabinets and then also set up a meet. Dean, I try to hit multiple birds in 1 st. Right.

Instead of being like, Phone call this. Yeah. You want to get in front of them? Yeah, I want to get in front of them as soon as possible.

I don't want to push them into anything. Right. But I want to make sure that they don't become left unattended.

Right. So I want to try and push that ball as quickly as I can and get in front of them as soon as I get in front of them, that's where the real information starts flowing. That's when you're truly you can feel them out.

You can see what they're after. They perhaps have some concepts, sketched out, whatever. So that's my favorite part, getting to dive into something new with somebody.

Initial meeting. Initial meeting. Okay, so they've left the initial meeting.

How do you know? You've come to a conclusion of what these people want based off of the initial meeting, and then they leave and they said, let's keep in touch. We're interested in moving forward with building with you guys. So what does this become a hot lead at this point? It now qualifies as what I call a prospect.

Okay. So we'll say nine times out of ten, after the initial meeting, I'm going to have a multitude of homework items to do that I will personally be doing and that my team will be doing. So one of the things might be, oh, they had this rough plan.

Can we get a rough number on this? To see kind of where we're at? We want to get an idea on what it costs, and then we'll go from there. That's very common. Or perhaps they have that rough concept and they would like a rough number, but they also have a multitude of questions on some selections, to which I would say something like, maybe if it's more simple, I could say, hey, I'll get you some brochures on that, or get you in touch with somebody.

If it's a humongous list of items, I would recommend a consultation. So depending on how that goes, or perhaps like the example you mentioned earlier, they have a plan. They're ready to rock.

They already have their selections picked out. Well, then it would be the question of, well, looks like you've done a lot of legwork here. When do you want to start or how can I help you with what you have set up? Where do you want to be? Let me see if I can help you with that.

That's kind of where it goes to. And as far as putting a timeline on any of that, it's impossible because every scenario is completely different. So one thing that is handy, though, with the CRM is it will track with every contact that you have.

It'll track every time you put a note in there, an email that they sent you, you name it. You can schedule your meetings in there, and it will specifically tell you when the last activity was on that particular contact. So I can quickly, at a glance, see, okay, last time I talked to so and so was two days ago.

But if I'm doing everything right, I should already have a task set to that contact. I should already know what my next action item is. Okay, so they've left, and you've gotten all this homework.

You've decided the best route to go. Then what? You've given them all this information. You've maybe even helped them choose a house plan.

You may have signed a consultation agreement, which then opens up a whole nother can of worms. Yes. And they're like, okay, I'm ready.

We've gotten all this information. We like you, and we chose to not go to the consultation due to time in our conversation. Right? Yeah.

Let's move forward. How long is it from typically, how long is it from then to your relationship turning from a salesperson to, what would you say, a person who, because you as a salesperson, you don't necessarily leave just because we've now gone under contract and we're building them a house. Right, but now you're not actively selling them anything.

You're basically just keeping in touch with them. And how long is it that usually take place? I mean, you're talking about through the build process, through till the end of your life. I mean, how long do you keep in touch with these people? Well, if the job goes really bad, they'll never hear from me again.

No, not at all. I would say particularly if there was a job that went bad, I want to get in touch with them. I want to take that person out to lunch because that's where I'm going to extract some good value on where we can improve the people.

That where everything goes perfectly and they're so happy with everything, and we're happy. Well, great. And you can maintain that relationship and make, you know, perhaps you're you're in the area, you swing by and say hi.

Nothing wrong with that. The time frame from signing a contract and sort of my role in that, you could argue that once ink's on the paper, I'm out, but I. Just don't look at it that way.

I am part of the consultation team to help guide and direct them in the decisions that they make. And thus far I've been taking care of them. I genuinely care and I'm probably the one who understands their situation the best at this point.

And it's very important that I make sure that I am still in the picture because that's how they are going to get the most value out of whatever they're doing. Now, does that mean I walk onto the product midway and start directing people and doing the PM's job? No, what it means is, hey, just checking in with you, hoping everything's going great. I have this little survey perhaps that you could fill out or hey, do you want to go grab coffee? I have an opening this weekend and I remember you'd mentioned something about this.

Let's go grab a coffee and let's talk about how it's going. Yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing about that because actually, as far as a customer who has had a challenging build, I 100% agree because if you finish poorly and you leave and you disappear, that's the last thing they know about you if you have issues.

But you always come back and you fix them and you always are upbeat and energetic and positive to talk to, putting your best in there even though the job didn't go as smoothly as possible, the quality of the job is going to be good either way because we have such good people who work for us. The customer service, the interaction with, what would you say, the person? Different personalities can be challenging. When you're tied together, you're basically married to a client for six or eight or even a year.

Six or eight months, a year, or whatever. And if your personalities differ, it can be extremely challenging. That's always true.

But if you never give up and you're always positive and energetic even after the job is done, and you always come back and fix things, that job, that customer is going to remember that, right? Yeah, you can be pretty down in the pits and still shine right there's. Like finishing strong right in the race or whatever. No, that's definitely true.

And one more thing, just to sort of add to that a huge, I would say proponent of my role. This really applies to relationships in general. It does require a certain level of intuition and sort of feeling out what people truly want and what they're after.

I'll just end it by saying that getting people to really visit and sit down and talk, take the time to go take them to coffee or whatever, that's how you better understand the person and what they want. And at the end of the day, that's my goal is to bring as much value as I can to them. Well, that's awesome.

I think we are far out of time from what I understand indeed.