Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more, it's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more by but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right, welcome back to the Close it now sales training podcast.

Sam Wakefield here.

I am super stoked about our guest today.

He is someone that has been around a lot of different industries, touching different elements of sales, different elements of building teams.

He is the expert in not just sales training but one of the interesting things that differentiates him.

He is an expert sales program builder.

So he's all about having systems and documentation of the process which I know if you're anything like me in sales, normally we turn out to be visionaries and get really good at talking about stuff but very horrible at documenting it.

Along the way we get asked well what'd you do?

Well, I don't know, I just.

It just happened.

So today we have the expert that he's going to help us, help us get some good concepts and some great ideas about that and we're just going to chop it up.

He has started in door to door experience years ago which is also, if you've been listening for a while, very hot topic right now, especially in not just the trades but the more, the more home service trades, specifically H Vac.

No one's very really doing it and we're about to launch something pretty amazing.

So if you haven't had a chance, make sure to catch his podcast building great sales teams.

He has over 200 episodes.

And everyone, welcome to the show, Mr. Doug Mitchell.

Thank you for joining us sir.

Hey Sam, thanks for having me, brother.

It's an honor to be on the show.

Yeah man.

So super excited that you're here.

First of all, super quick shout out for everybody that's going to be watching on YouTube if you don't know.

Every time I do a site visit I'm collecting shirts from all over the country.

So just huge shout out to Osage Heating and Air.

I was in Arkansas.

Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Those guys are awesome over there.

Well actually a woman owned company and she is.

Her and her husband Jake are destroying it.

So Lacey and Jake, big shout out to you guys.

And yeah, this is the week after Profit Rocket.

It was the massive event here in Texas.

I know some of your counterparts that you people you do work with, your business partners were there and so that was exciting.

But I so well connected with them, which connected me with you.

So we always like to start out, man, give us a bit of your history, give us kind of a highlight reel of how you ended up where you, you are and give us a little bit of like business and life philosophy.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, I was your typical entrepreneur that got fired from the first 20 jobs I had from like 18 to 21.

I couldn't really keep a job.

I kept telling other people how to do theirs.

Right.

You know, I did a little marketing for real estate.

I did that for about two, a year and a half.

And then I worked for a.

Another entrepreneur that had several other businesses, one of them being a door to door sales company that was contracted with AT&T.

And so the manager at the time with the company, and so he asked me to kind of replace him, get it back up and running and get somebody to replace me.

He had no idea whether I could pull it off or not.

I was mainly marketing, but I had a really good rapport with the sales people in another one of his businesses.

So he, he kind of saw that and wanted to take advantage of it.

And so I started working in that business.

The first thing I did was knock doors for 90 days.

I've been doing this for 14 years now, and I've never knocked doors after that 90 days again.

And so that's kind of like my claim to fame because, you know, in, in my mind, the sooner you can delegate or automate, eliminate yourself out of that position, the better and the more that you can scale as you're proving the model on the way up.

Right.

And so I was able to delegate myself out of the salesperson position and then I was a sales trainer and then out of the sales trainer position, and then I was a assistant manager and out of the assistant and so on and so forth.

And I got myself into a true owner role within six months to where I had a sales manager in Corpus Christi, Texas, and a sales manager in Houston, Texas.

And we had, you know, some of the basics of building sales teams, which is, you know, we had the script in place, the sales flow, the recruiting workflow, as well as the onboarding train, the trainer, all these different documents and systems that work within Sales programs to enable you to scale.

And because that was, that was my instinct very early, was systems and processes.

You know, I was able to scale up to 110 salespeople and 4.8 million in revenue in 2014, three years after I took over the business, you know, and I also in that time was able to owner finance it as well and take over as 90 owner of the business.

And you know, one of the things I learned on the way up, you know, my philosophy was reinvest, reinvest, reinvest.

And so what happened is from 2014 to 2015, we went from 4.8 to 2 point.

And so what happened basically was all of my leadership kind of not necessarily capped out, but capped out of their own potential, you know, so they couldn't get to the regional level, at least they couldn't qualify for it.

And so they found other companies that were willing to pay them more instead of, you know, working towards the qualification.

Right.

And so I lost probably like half my leadership.

So I took a $2 million loss year over year.

And one of the things I realized with that too is it was on me also.

So I wasn't investing enough in my management.

All my investment was in the entry level rep and then making the company sexy for them to be recruited to or to come on to or to be onboarded with.

We were spending like 10 to 12 grand a month on, on recruiting every month.

So I was constantly reinvesting, reinvesting instead of investing at the top where my manager, my leadership was.

So I moved that over a little bit.

I got a little more cost effective across the board.

And you know, like in 14, the net profit on that 4.8 was roughly like 9%, 10% tops.

Yeah.

And then I was able to work it to in 16, you know, we did about, I think 2.5 million at that time.

And my net got all the way up to 32%.

So I got very, a lot more effective.

I, I got rid of all the fat, all the extra stuff that my guys weren't using.

All the stuff I thought I needed for, for, I guess, aesthetics and stuff like that, I didn't really need.

And I got very lean and trim and was able to make more money, more money net with less, you know, half the money coming in gross.

Right.

And so lots, lots of lessons during that time.

And so right around 2020, I got into a group called Apex and you know, I, I joined right in at the top into Apex Executives, which it's a mastermind for entrepreneurs.

Right.

And this, you know, executives, is not cheap.

At the time it was 40 grand a year.

I think now it's like 60 grand a year.

Right.

And so I got into it because I was kind of looking for that tribe.

I had kind of been a solo operator for a long time.

You know, I was always the successful guy in the room or whatever the case is.

I.

People around me that were going to challenge me, you know.

And this is Ryan Stuman's group, right?

Yeah, that's Ryan Stuman's group.

And so once I got in there, I immediately had imposter syndrome, because these guys were, were millionaires.

My business was doing millions, but I wasn't a millionaire.

Right.

These guys were true.

They were what I was grossing, they were doing in personal income, you know.

And so I was like, man, I do not belong in this room.

And then all of a sudden, the first day that I was in there, you know, we start talking, having conversations with different entrepreneurs and stuff.

And I realized quickly, they're asking me questions, they want to know how I scale, they want to know how I do my onboarding or training or how I was able to even manage 110 salespeople, you know what I'm saying?

And they're all of a sudden trying to get information out of me, you know, And I had plenty to learn from them.

And there was this beautiful exchange that was happening.

And so that, that's when I kind of opened my eyes to what I do now, which is consulting for small and medium sized businesses and building their sales programs.

And that's when I realized I had something.

Right.

Yeah.

So I ended, I ended up going on a. Ryan Stuman does these private jet trips for like 5 to 8k a seat.

I ended up going on one with him.

Well, on that trip, he was doing a full day consulting for a credit repair company.

And I was like, you know, normally you, you pay for the ticket and you get to Mastermind in the sky, right?

So you get Stuman with other five other entrepreneurs in a, in a private jet for, for, you know, four to six hours, just depending on how long the trip is, which, you know, one hour with Stewman is worth that.

Right?

And so when we got there, I was like, hey, can hold a bag, I can hold a camera.

I just want to see this happen.

Like it was a six figure consulting gig in one day, right?

One day.

So I was like, I just want to see this thing happen so I can kind of learn and maybe I can do this in the future.

Because this something I always wanted to do.

I always wanted to help other business owners because I had an instinct for systems and processes and that's what they were missing so many times.

And so he was like, well, do you think you can do a sales training for credit repair sales?

I said, hell yes, I can credit repair back in the day.

But I kept telling the owner how to do his job.

So I got fired.

Anyway, so I. I pulled some.

Some of my training from that.

I actually called the company ahead of time and talked to the sales manager, talked to the sales people, did a little research.

And so by the time I got there, I have.

I had a fully built out deck for them.

I walked them through the training, I introduced them to role play.

They had never done role play before, to controllable actions.

Basically, like, all you need to focus on is these controllable actions so you can get the desired result.

You have an average.

You guys know what it is.

You have the data to back it up.

And then I introduced them to overcoming objections.

GIFs, Jones effect, indifference, fear of loss, sense of urgency.

All those.

All those things that, you know, in our industry and door to door is commonplace.

Right.

But when you transfer them into, you know, credit repair sales over the phone, it's gold, you know?

Yeah.

And so that was kind of like the day that changed everything for me.

And after that, I put together my codec process, which is compensation operations.

I'm sorry, conversation opportunity development, operations and culture.

That's how I audit sales programs.

If there's any holes in there, I fill those holes, basically.

So that's what I do for.

Love it.

Love it.

Man, that is really.

That's really a cool story.

And what a privilege to get to.

To get to train right alongside Stuman.

Right.

Hardcore closer right off the bat.

Right.

Right out of the gate.

So that's cool.

Yeah, that's.

Apex is actually interesting group that I've kind of circled around for a good while.

A friend of mine, Mike Claudio, is in there with the Big Stud podcast and he does some really crazy good stuff there as well.

So huge shout out to Mike, everybody.

If you haven't listened to the Big Stud podcast.

Make sure you do.

He does training for just general contractors and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

But let's go back.

Okay.

I had him on the podcast and I was a guest on his podcast.

He's actually developed his group for contractors really well to this point.

I think it's called Champion Circle.

This is.

Is his group.

So if you look up my Claudio and you're a contractor, he is the man when it comes to running that side of the business, especially construction and trades.

Right.

100 agree.

So yeah, he's actually have two episodes with him on, on this one too.

So yeah, we have similar, similar circles.

I love coming across people.

But let's go back to a couple different things you, you kind of mentioned in your, in your journey.

The first thing is, you know, ever so many owners get tied up in the vanity metrics of how big the company is.

But one thing that you mentioned that was so powerful is, you know, you, Your revenue was 2.5 million, but at 32% net versus only 9% at 4.8.

And it reminds me of this expression that I hear over and over, especially at profit rocket this last week.

It doesn't matter how much money you make, it's how much you keep.

Right.

So dive into that a little bit of that, that kind of transition and how you leaned out and made it more efficient.

So the most, I guess the most frustrating, the thing I hear from sales reps, leader, sales leaders and then owners on top of that is their gross revenue that they sold, you know, especially in solar.

Solar is the worst at it.

Yeah, I've been in solar and I, and I've heard these guys, oh, I, I sold know, 2 million in solar last month or I did 20 million in solar last year.

Well, if you guys actually do the math on this and you know, the average system is 60 to $70,000.

You realize that's not that many systems, you know.

Right, right.

And guess what?

You're not really doing that business.

What's happening is you're subbing the install out and then the part that you're earning is about 20% to 25% of that.

Right.

And so you don't have a $20 million business.

You have a $5 million business because that's the, that's the gross revenue that you actually have to pay anything after that, commissions, admin, you know, marketing costs, whatever the case is.

And so I want to establish that first off, that's a, that's a big thing that is an issue in the industry because people are trying to sound bigger than they are, you know, and I'm going to call them out every time because I've been in this business for a long time.

So when I say I did 4.8 million in commission, that's commissions.

That's no product fulfillment.

None of that stuff.

Stuff costs in there.

Right.

And so I wanted to point that out first.

But you know, what we did to get it, I Guess get our net up so high.

Well, being a brand new business owner, I wasn't really paying attention to the net.

I was more paying attention to, you know, beating the records for the the region, beating my dealer counterparts, making sure that I was incredibly attractive as a door to door commission only sales organization.

Right.

Because it's highly competitive.

You're being recruited from all the time, so you have to make sure your stuff looks really good and it's sexy.

So one of the things I did in that process is because I didn't really recruit the summer guys, Right.

It was more the guys that had families, that had kids, that wanted to stay local.

Right.

More.

More career people.

Yeah.

More.

More career oriented, you know, versus, you know, doing the summer programs and traveling.

Right.

And so because of that, I eventually transitioned my guys to W2 in 2013.

And then we had, you know, for assistant managers and above we had health insurance and you know, what is it called?

It's not major medical, it's the additional benefits like supplemental.

There you go.

Supplemental on top of that.

So our guys were well taken, taken care of, especially at the assistant manager above level.

And but what we realized is that didn't buy loyalty, that didn't buy culture, you know what I mean?

And, and so we were spending probably 20 to 25 more than most organizations on our overhead because of that.

And it would, it ended up hurting us.

Right.

It made us less competitive in a commission based position, which is incredibly important to be, to be paying somewhere in the realm of, you know, the competitive commission that's required.

And it also created a lot of admin work, HR work.

And we weren't able to operate the way we should have been because they were W2, you know, like we, we couldn't, they couldn't work over 40 hours a week or they to get overtime pay, you know, or they had to be salary, so they had to have a minimum of 40k paycheck, you know.

Right.

And so there were all these things that kind of constricted us.

We're out here trying to do the good thing, but it's not always the good thing.

Isn't always the best thing for business.

Right.

And honestly it wasn't just a good thing.

It was a great thing, you know, but it was too much, you know.

Yeah.

So that was just one of the ways.

Another way was one of the things that I invested in was Cardone's virtual training, you know.

And you know, I, I understand that like you're involved in virtual training products, you know, Sam Tagger's got an amazing company that Door to Door University.

But virtual training doesn't work if you don't implement it and you don't, your guys don't take advantage of it and they don't use it.

So you not only have to have the system like amazing systems like SAM's and the One that you're working on right now, but you have to have a plan to implement because if you don't, then your guys aren't going to use it and they're going to just do what they do every day and make the same always make right, sure.

They have to see basically the light at the end of the tunnel.

If I go through this and just think about it when they're training, you know, yes, it's an investment in future commissions, but they're not making anything that day from that training, you know what I'm saying?

Right.

At least they can't, they can't see that.

Right.

And so you got to show them the light at the end of the day tunnel that results in them making more money over time as well as being more effective trainers, leaders and being able to communicate that to new people coming in so they can build out their teams.

And so I didn't do that well whenever I invested in, in that.

Plus Cardone was mainly, you know, car sales based.

It didn't really translate well, you know what I'm saying?

And even though they made it all very general, it didn't translate very well.

So we were spending five grand a month just on that.

You know, we were constantly getting the upgraded hotels, taking the guys out for steak dinners and just doing all these things.

And what happened is these guys got spoiled, you know what I'm saying?

We'd go out to eat and you know, the one time I wouldn't pay, they'd be like, oh, you're not paying.

Wow, like you've changed.

Yeah, it's like, hey, we got, got our gross revenue cut by 2 million last year.

Like I, this is a forced change, you know.

So it did.

It forced me into being a more effective business owner, you know, and, and not overspending on stuff that was more aesthetic than function.

I love it.

I love it.

Yeah, that's super powerful, man.

Well, we need to do a series of these because I'm thinking of a dozen different things we could talk about now.

But let's, let's move into more of the, the systems and stuff.

When you step in with all of that experience, when you step into an organization kind of at first glance, what Are some of the one thing this podcast is known for is leaving the listener with an actionable item.

They can immediately implement every single episode.

So with that idea, when you step into an organization and you're just kind of first glance evaluation, what are some of the most common things that you see that are missing or out of place or misplaced that are some of the first like low hanging fruit changes that you help organizations with?

100 probably the first one is going to be the train the trainer.

So even if an organization is established, maybe they're doing a few million a year or half a million a year, whatever the case is, they are always missing that train the trainer.

And it's kind of hard to understand at first.

What do you mean train the trainer?

So obviously you have trainers in your organization, but.

And when you have a salesperson come in, they have a script, right.

Or they have a outline on how they should present the products.

Qualify, or I'm sorry, intro, qualify, present, close.

Right.

So they've got this outline.

Maybe you use bullet points, maybe you use full sentences.

Whatever the case is, you've given them something to operate on.

Where most sales organizations miss out or miss out, most sales departments miss out is they don't give their trainers anything to operate.

So there's no, you know, we started out with a training checklist, you know, so this is a very binary concept here.

Hey, these are 10 things that they absolutely have to be trained on.

And so you need to sign off on this and the trainer needs to sign off on this that this is getting done.

And so both of you are comfortable saying, hey, we trained on this, I know it well.

And then the trainer saying, yeah, he's got it down, you know, because that way, you know that they're being properly trained now.

They can pencil whip that.

You know, that's, that's not a huge deal.

Right.

But you're going to realize it very quickly when their, their people aren't qualified to be selling.

Right, sure.

And so the, I guess the, the evolved version of that is the train the tr.

So let's talk, you know, door to door because that's kind of what we've been referencing this whole time.

But I'm doing this for B2B, for telemarketing, for business development, all different companies.

And I'm, I'm just translating kind of that door to door language into the client's language.

Right, sure.

And so what we're doing with this is, you know, you have a day one, day two, day three in the field.

Most, most Door to door, sales positions, you know, solar closers or maybe like H vac tech included or excluded, you can get the job, the training job done in three days.

Right.

Because they're just an opener, I guess you could say, you know, or maybe they're selling a lower end product like cable, pest control or energy.

Right, sure.

And so you can get that training done in three days to where they can make their first full sale.

And so the first day, you know, what are we doing?

We're doing the orientation, right.

We're doing the classroom training and then, you know, all their onboarding should be obviously filled out and taken care of by then.

And then we're going to cover the intro the first day and we're going to, you know, shadow the trainer and then by the end of that first day the new sales rep should be doing an intro.

You know, this is door to door 101 when it comes to training and most people learn this over time, but there's no established SOP on how to execute it.

So that's what I'm, I'm outlining right now.

So, so day one we're doing that and maybe we're covering some company information, maybe we're covering some product knowledge as well on day one.

And then day two we're going into the qualify and then by the end of the day, maybe the last 15, 20 doors, that trainee is doing the intro and the qualify and then the trainer is taking over at the presentation and the close.

And what this does too is it prevents the trainer from saying, oh you got it and then walking away before he actually sees them.

Get it.

Yeah, you got it.

See ya.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so, so that's day two, you know, and again you're covering a little more product knowledge.

Maybe you're covering, covering some of those frequently asked questions that prospects come up with.

And then you're also showing them how to work turf, you know, how to fill out a street sheet, how do you use sales rabbit or whatever platform you're using.

You're showing them the technology pieces.

Yeah, a big part to understand of this is you're slow dripping it to them because a lot of companies give them everything on day one in the classroom and then they send them out to the field without any field training, which is insane.

So you're getting agreed.

Yeah, field training every day.

I forgot to mention on day two, the morning when everybody meets at the office or if you do a zoom, whatever the case is, you need a breakout room or you need to take you and your trainee into another section and basically go over the things you're going to cover in the field, but do it classroom style, right?

You're going to practice the qualify with them.

You're going to, you know, role play through that and everything so that when they go out to the field and they get to do it for their first time, they've not only seen you do it for half the day, they also have done it themselves and are ready to do it with the prospect.

Right.

And what's, what's nice about this is it accommodates the guys that are fast learners and it accommodates the guys that are slow learners.

You know, this is kind of a right in the middle in terms of tempo.

And so day three, we're going to be doing the, the presentation and then the close, right?

So the reason you can do the presentation and the close on the same day is because if you qualify properly and you present properly, the close is one line.

You're overcoming objections.

Right.

And so day three is all about the close, overcoming objections and processing.

Right.

So you're going to walk them through that processing technology.

You're going to walk them through the last bit of frequently asked questions and rebuttals to objections as well.

And then by the end of that day, they should close their first deal from start to finish with very little assistance.

Maybe during processing you give them some.

Assistance because usually that's data entry or something.

Yeah, you need reps in order to be good at it, you know what I'm saying?

And so, so then you get into day four, day five, that's when your bunny hopping starts and then you leave them in the field on their own.

I always like to leave them in the field on their own for a day or two and then come the trainer come back to them and evaluate how they're doing.

Are they progressing?

Do they have this down?

Do they still need more of my help because they're a slower learner or did they just get some bad turf or something like that?

Whatever the case is, but that's all outlined in that SOP as well as the modules that you're doing in the morning, the second day morning and the third day morning.

We call them modules and they're these training outlines to go through with them on what you're going to cover that day.

So again, highly detailed, but everybody's doing the same thing.

So what do you get?

You get predictable results, right?

Right.

And if the results aren't good, then you change those systems and see if they affect the results positively.

They don't.

You keep tweaking it until you get that positive result or that increase in sales, increase in attention with your salespeople.

There's all these KPIs that you can measure based on what you changed in the sales program.

That's why I never changed multiple things at once.

I have a sales program and I'm, you know, obviously by department, like recruiting or onboarding or sales training.

I may change something, several things within or one thing within each department at once.

But I don't want to change multiple things in each department at the same time because then that's going to give me, I guess, a convoluted result.

You know, I don't know if it's the one thing I changed or the second thing I changed.

Right, yeah, absolutely.

That's a big part of this.

This is a big science experiment that you're doing with, with sales programs and entrepreneurship in general, you know, so you can't run a, a sales dealership for 14 years and not come across everything that most entrepreneurs do.

So it's a lot of testing, seeing what works, adjusting, pivoting, you know, and never, never thinking that you've got it figured out because as soon as you do, freaking business will hit you in the face so fast.

I love it, man.

Well, thanks for outlining that because.

And so for everybody, listen, that was, you know, obviously for doors, but also that's just as effective for.

It doesn't matter the position you're training, you've got to, you've got to go through it in a logical order.

You got to go through it in the system and have a system is the underlying theme that I'm hearing here.

I heard something when I actually, when I was in the solar space for several years, I still am.

And you know, an hour in the field is as good as a week in the classroom because that's where it just, we just see it.

That's why even when I'm doing my ride alongs, my, my in person on site trainings at companies, you know, we're half day classroom, we're half day in the field, you know, I'm going out, I'll demonstrate once or twice, then start passing that baton over and then just be their safety net watching that and we're debriefing and we're going through, even in the virtual, the virtual sessions I've got, we're doing, we're recording our in persons and then we're unpacking them, you know, kind of like having virtual ride alongs.

Because it's, it's kind of a virtual way to be able to do that.

So, yeah, thanks for going through that.

It is super powerful.

So listeners, visualize how you can go through that flow with all and write, start writing systems for all of the departments in your organizations.

And that is, that will dramatically help you scale.

Because you can't scale if we're just guessing at it.

Right.

It's a huge part of scaling is, is documentation, sops, all that good stuff.

Love it, man.

Love it.

So, so let's dive into a little bit more about, about you and what you do.

What are you super excited about right now?

What's going on in Doug Mitchell's life and building great sales teams?

Well, we just, you know, what I love about what I do now is I'm constantly challenged.

You know, one of the reasons that I exited door to door was because it just not that like, I was so successful at it.

It wasn't a challenge anymore.

Like, I just, I didn't get up in the morning.

It was like, man, I don't know how I'm going to pull this off.

And that is one of the most exciting parts of entrepreneurship, especially for a visionary like you referenced earlier.

You know, so I'm, I'm kind of a high integrator.

I'm an 89 integrator and 86 visionary.

So that's using EOS, the testing that they put you through over there.

And so I'm, I'm more of a hybrid.

Right.

But I still need that like visionary itch.

I got to scratch it.

I love to start stuff.

You know, the way that I could scratch it in, in my sales dealership was I had, I developed sales programs for AT T, for Vivint, for solar, for energy, for B2B, for telemarketing.

And so I was constantly, you know, setting up the sales program, hiring a few people, getting them trained up, and then hiring leadership and then hiring executive that would run that department.

Right.

That's what I did over those 14 years.

And, but, but you know, after that rinse and repeat, I got tired of the space that I was in, which was direct commission only.

And not really.

It was more helping Fortune 5000 than it was helping small business owners.

Right.

Yeah.

And so once I got the opportunity to do that, what I, what I get excited about every day is like today, you know, I sent out a proposal for this company that does custom soft, you know, software as a service.

Right.

So, you know, in my mind I'm thinking, go high level.

I'm thinking you know, Zoho, I'm thinking, you know, maybe some contracting software, fulfillment software.

Right.

These guys are building 300,000 to a million dollar systems custom for these companies and they're, they're working for like Fortune 20s and stuff, you know.

Yeah.

So once they walk me through everything, I was just like, wow, you know, and they're making one sale a month and they don't have a sales department, they don't have a business development role.

So what I'm excited about doing for them is outlining that business development role, putting together all the systems and processes for it, the documents that are going to run that role as well as the systems and software that are going to enable them to execute.

Right.

But it's also finding out like how do you find a prospect or a 300, 000 software.

Now they have a rent option too.

So they'll build you a 300, 000 software and you can rent it from them.

But you don't own.

Right.

Some of these companies want to own it, some of them don't care, they just want the execution.

Right.

And so it is a very, very niche prospect that is going to be able to even afford this.

Right.

And so you know, we're, we're workshopping network opera, you know, networking opportunities.

We're workshopping.

Obviously, you know, LinkedIn is going to be a huge part of this and connecting with the CTOs and companies as well as managed service providers.

And so this is going to be a complicated, I guess role that has several different buckets that it can prospect from.

But you know, in any sales position you need to make sure that they can always put their nose to the grindstone and go right and, and that's one of the hardest things about these is if you, if you're getting one sale a month as a company company right now and you're a 10 million dollar company, it's like how do you, how do you get someone excited about that?

Well, the only way they're going to be excited about is that one sale a month is going to be, you know, 30, $40,000 in commission.

Right?

Yeah, it has to be, it's a.

Much longer sales cycle.

We're talking, you know, six month sales cycle for every deal that you do.

And so we're going to have to structure the position pretty well.

Obviously there's have to be a base involved.

But this, the sales program is one of the most challenging ones I've come across.

Before that, you know, I did a sales program for a high end security company.

So they did private security for like tech CEOs and Lockheed Martin government contractors and private residences and stuff like that.

And so they did that and I developed a business development role for them.

Very similar, but at least their product, every company that had an office building could use, you know, because they're doing walkouts, they're doing, you know, the security at the front, all that stuff.

So there was a much wider audience that I was able to go after.

So I guess what I'm excited about right now is the, the challenges my clients are bringing me and then trusting me to overcome them.

Right.

So I did see.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty exciting feeds that miss the like solving problems part of our, our minds when you're that the type of person we are.

So you were just at a big four day conference recently as well.

Tell us about the, about that conference.

A little more about what was going on with that.

So.

Because stalking your social media, I see you're in a lot of different things.

So yeah, clearly this is part of what you're doing as well.

So I'm very alignment focused, you know.

You know, I, I could work with one client a year and, and, and cover my burn rate for my personal life, you know what I'm saying?

Sure.

And I've done that on purpose because I lived that, you know, 20 grand a month burn rate, you know, back in the day.

And then as soon as my business went like this, I was like, oh crap, I can't afford my lifestyle anymore.

You know, I've always, I've made sure since then to kind of chip away at that burn rate.

So my burn rate right now, and if you don't know what a burn rate is, that's the personal expenses that you have to cover in order to live or take care of your family.

Right.

So I've got it down to like eight grand a month now, you know, which is crazy for me.

I used to have, my vehicle bills were three grand a month alone, you know, back in the day.

Sure.

So yeah, I've worked hard to get that down.

But because of that it's enabled me to kind of choose who I work with.

Right.

And so the four day conference that I was at was put on by Donnie Boyd.

Right.

And he asked me to come out and be on a sales panel for his conference.

And his, his group is a lot of, you know, starting out entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and stuff like that.

So it's not my demographic, but I align a lot with Donnie and his principles.

How he teaches networking, how he teaches business ownership, and how he teaches mindset, you know, So I wanted to go out there and show up for him.

And it turns out that he's got an opportunity in San Antonio because he does local chapters of his network and he has a president for each chapter.

I mean, it's legit.

It's like BNI for entrepreneurs, right?

Sure, yeah.

And so I'm gonna be.

Well, I'm applying right now, but hopefully I'm a shoe in.

I'm going to be the president for the San Antonio chapter of Champions Success Champions, which is his networking group that he developed.

And another thing that I did during that, which is probably what you're seeing from today, we posted a reel about a United Way conference that I was at.

So I went on Wednesday, I did the VIP session for Donnie's group, and then on Thursday, I had a fly to Newark and I spoke at a United Way conference that Aaron Younger put on, and that was all about United Way and.

And them innovating their marketing.

So I talked about CRMs, as well as them being able to propose, solicit donations from donors.

You know what I mean?

And so myself and Adam Lyons put those two clinics on.

And then I had.

Then I went back to the Badass Business Summit and was able to finish up over there.

So one of the things that I've really enjoyed in all of this and, and building my social media, my machine that generates organic leads for my business, is speaking.

I've really enjoyed speaking because, as you can tell, I'm a very tactical guy.

And while I appreciate the mindset stuff, I love Eric Thomas, Ed Mylett, all those guys, as much as the next guy.

But I love bringing something to your podcast or bringing something to the stage that somebody can actually write down into their business that same day and execute on right away.

Love it.

That's a big part of it.

Oh, man, that's.

That's beautiful.

That's.

That's so much of what this podcast is, is we stay really hover a lot around psychology and NLP and a lot of the different cells principles and stuff.

But like I mentioned, every single episode, there's something that they can immediately implement.

If it's an awareness switch that just changes.

And when you're aware, all of a sudden you can make the change, or if it's, you know, language or like today, the.

The concept of having, you know, when you walked us through the train, the trainer as that missing piece in an organization, I can guarantee you there will be probably thousands of Listeners that said, oh my gosh, I've been wondering what the missing piece was and I didn't even know what I didn't know.

So.

Yeah.

So thanks for that, man.

I love what you're doing, man.

This is.

This is exciting.

I feel like we can definitely be talking some more in the future.

I know we're coming up when your time limit for today, but yeah, leave us with something that.

Leave us with some nuggets, man.

What's the next step for Doug Mitchell?

What's the next step for building great celsiums and let everybody know how they can get a hold of you and you know what, you know, the services you can provide to specifically this group is, is very much trades.

Trades focused, a lot of H Vac and that kind of thing.

And yeah, make sure to let them know how they can listen to your podcast too.

100%.

The podcast is building great sales teams.

You know, an easy way to connect with me as well as get some, some material that'll help you out with your sales teams is bgst salestoolkit.com that's Bravo, Golf, Sierra, Tango sales teams or salestoolkit.com I had, I had to bust out the military.

I love it there.

But yeah, bgstsalestoolkit.com that'll give.

That'll be.

That'll set you up with the selling the way customers want to buy, which is something I imagine you train on.

That actually came Absolutely.

Rory McVaden, which is a hero of mine in the sales training space.

Or Rory Vaden.

Sorry.

And then that'll also set you up with how to structure your.

Your sales script as well as what is the last piece of it.

Overcoming objections.

You know, all the basics.

And that'll set you up for that.

You can go to txbizdad.com for all of my info.

That's social media to schedule a discovery call or whatever the case is you want to do there as well as the podcast will be linked out there as well.

Love it.

Excellent, man.

Well, thank you so much for that.

So everybody listening?

If you're to the point in your business, I'm sure there's like a.

Specifically, there's a threshold that all of a sudden happens.

We hit that overhead wall and realize that, okay, we can't grow any bigger because all of our systems and things are dependent on a person and that person being there.

So if that is you listening and you know that, okay, we're being the bottleneck is the people.

And the minute that we can get some of what they do on paper and in systems and processes before we're able to grow and move past that.

That is the moment that you need to get a hold of Doug and start a conversation, see what, how he can help you build that out and scale that out.

Because that sounds really a big part of what you do is that.

Am I hearing you right?

Yeah, absolutely, Sam.

And I appreciate you saying that.

And I'll leave them with one more tool.

Right.

And if you've ever read, read Rocket Fuel or anything by Gina Wickman or used eos, then you already know what this is.

But I definitely want to encourage everybody listening if they haven't already.

Even if you're a solopreneur, you're one of one.

You need to go ahead and set up your accountability chart.

Right.

So a simple way to set it up is visionary.

And then under that, you're gonna have your integrator.

Right?

Everybody wants to be the visionary, but not everybody is the visionary.

Even if you are a business owner, it does not mean you're the visionary.

And so you fill yourself into those roles if you're one on one.

And then there's three other roles that you are the head of.

That's operations, that's fulfillment, and then that's sales.

Right.

I'm guessing most people on this have sales centric businesses.

And then the fourth one sometimes is marketing.

Right.

And you know, for us in our businesses, it's never been marketing because we.

Were door to door.

Right.

The door to door was the marketing.

But the fourth one is, is marketing.

And right now you are the head of all those roles.

Your goal should be to replace yourself at least one of those roles every six months to a year.

And then everybody under those roles is the support staff, the admin, the entry level salespeople, assistant managers, you know, just depending on how it trees off of those roles.

But your ultimate goal is to replace yourself in all those roles so you can work on the business and not in the business.

Love it.

Classic Jim Collins right there, man.

That is it.

Thank you for that.

That is very powerful.

I'm here learning something as well.

I'm never the guy that runs the podcast that says I know it all.

Let's, you know, listen to me only.

I love bringing in people who are experts in what they do.

And it's all about uploading.

When we choose to be that lifelong learner and the sky's the limit, it's our only limitations in our mind.

Right.

So absolutely.

Same.

Well, thank you for.

Thank you for that man, this has been a good, good episode.

I appreciate you being on this episode.

Will it'll be dropping next week, right?

This week we're having a break.

Everybody listening.

Last week, by the time you hear this last week was the gap week between season three and season four.

So we're rolling out season four and this will be the first interview of season four.

And yeah, really excited about.

Yeah man.

So you're the the introductory episode for season four and we're excited that I restructured my mind a lot at Profit Rocket this last weekend when I spoke on the sales panel there because every single thing was about systems.

Every single top leader that's grown businesses from 0 to 8 million or 10 million or 20 million or 40 million in three to five years.

This was the number one topic.

Have a system, have a system, have a system.

So it's no coincidence that you are the episode here because I'm helping really focus on helping entrepreneurs.

And even if you're out there and you're say you're employed by someone else, if they don't have a system for you, take responsibility and ownership and create your own system.

That way you can function better and more efficiently.

We're all about work less and sell more.

The only way to do that is to be efficient and have a have your own system and so it's your own core value and bmo.

So well awesome man.

I'm glad you joined us today and we will definitely continue the conversation for everybody listening.

Make sure to leave.

If you've ever gotten value from the podcast, scroll down to the bottom and leave me a five star review.

I appreciate that very much.

And make sure to join the Close It Now Facebook group.

Email me sam close it now.net and let me know what value you got from this.

Get in touch with me about the training programs.

We've got a lot happening right now.

And last big announcement.

The online course is live.

So I have just launched and released an online course.

You're going to be seeing a lot of announcements about that.

So it is the sales training process, the actual sales system, the Close it now sales system complete with I co recorded recordings with Sam Taggart about how to get on the doors for H Vac.

So it's all built into the course.

It's an insanely dirt cheap introductory price so I will be posting the links to that.

So watch out every everywhere that you see close and now you're going to see some advertisements promotion about that for a while.

So but that is the episode today.

Thanks for joining us.

Doug, you are a rock star.

Definitely filling a hole in the space that not many people are doing and it's much needed.

And I know that you will have some contacts from the listeners of the Closing out podcast and to everyone else.

This is the time of year we're gonna say go save the world.

One heat stroke at a time and one fright frostbite at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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