Noob School - Episode 39: Create Tangible Results to Get Your Prospect’s Business with Bill Lee

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

SHOW SUMMARYThis episode of Noob School with John Sterling features Bill Lee, Business Consultant at Lee Resources and author of Gross Margin and 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves In The Foot. Bill helped grow Builder's Mart from nothing to $678 million over the course of 19 years. He shares how testing sales teams with the Kolbe Index was a gamechanger and that the core of selling is relationship-building.To get the business of their clients, not only did they have to match or beat the competition’s price but they had to convince clients that having a relationship with them is more advantageous than with their current suppliers. He also shares anecdotes on how listening is one of the most important skills sellers must have.HIGHLIGHTSGrowing Builder's Mart from 0 to $678 millionDo something tangible for your client or prospect to get their businessTeach salespeople about business so they can identify problems and solutionsThe Kolbe Test is a "cheat code" for hiring great salespeopleQUOTESLessons from psychology that apply to sales Bill: "In interviewing people, in talking to people, you learn not to do all the talking. They call it the Rogerian Theory, and after that you just let them go. My theory is you want to listen to what people talk about because they talk about what's interesting to them, not what's interesting to me."Create tangible results to get your prospect's business Bill: "Do something for your customer, do something for your prospect, do something that helps them solve their most pressing business problems, do something to help them make more money, and try to find out what those things are by asking questions, by getting to know their people, by touring their facility. And, once we did that, once we did tangible that they couldn't do for themselves, it opened the doors beautifully."Do business with people you have relationships with Bill: "If there's one key to sales that doesn't have anything to do training necessarily, it's relationships. Who trusts you? Who knows you? Who believes in you? Who knows that you have great integrity? That's the kind of person you want to do business with and, no matter which company they work for, you tend to do business with them."You can find out more about Bill and get his books in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-lee-b3a673/Website: https://leeresources.com/Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Lee/e/B001K8XECC/Connect with Noob School and John by visiting the following links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsterling1/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnsterlingsalesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsterling_/Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_TikTok: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_Website: http://salestrainingfornoobs.com/

When I first started in selling, or let's say what I first got out of college, I didn't have a lot to offer because I had a bachelor's degree in psychology, which was worth virtually nothing in the marketplace. And the only people that really paid me any attention whatsoever were people looking for salespeople. And my image of a salesperson was a car salesman, or it was someone you see at a comic strip, a door-to-door kind of salesperson. in those days, women were opening the doors and slamming the door in the salesperson's face. And it just didn't look very romantic to me to be a salesperson.

So I decided that I would stick with psychology and I went to work in a psychiatric ward. And the pay was so little, I mean, I couldn't do anything. I mean, I barely could pay for an apartment. So I moved up one level into sales with Atlanta newspapers. I was still not making a lot of money. And my father had a lumberyard outside of Atlanta. He had a salesperson that took an interest in me. He drove a Mercedes, so I knew he made some money.

At the time I knew him, he was a referee in the Southeast football conference. He was a football player growing up. And he said, Bill, you know, we've got a job opening right here in Atlanta. I'm sure if you interviewed for the job, you could get it. It paid double what I was making. I've often said there's as much to learn about sales as there's about fine wine. or medicine or anything. There's so much to learn.

It's a great industry and a great profession. Welcome back to Noob School. This is where we interview successful business owners, and we dial it back to the beginning and figure out what they did to make their revenue grow. Back at Noob School, I've got, I'll say he's a good friend, has been for a long time, but he really, Bill actually saved my bacon back in the day.

I think it was about 1990. or so. And I was a young sales manager in over my, let's say beyond my paragraph. I don't know what I was, but I didn't know what I was doing, basically. But I was trying. And I had five or six sales people and we were hustling trying to make sales. And somehow, I don't know how, Bill, you might remember, but we got hooked up and we hired you for a couple of days of sales consulting, I guess, for lack of a better word. And it wasn't exactly what you did because you were more focused on the lumberyards, you know, than what we were doing. But I think maybe friend of a friend or something got us hooked up.

And I'll never forget. I was so proud of what I had done. I had a little sales room and I had salespeople and I had a board. And, you know, I was really kind of excited. And Bill looked at my sales board and said, it looks like it's interesting. This guy here, you know, Frank, he's doing like 3,000 this month. And this guy's doing 30,000. And this person is doing 55,000.

And they're kind of all over the place. So is that consistent with your hiring profile? And I'm like, my what? He said, you know, the ideal profile you're looking for, the perfect person that you're going to recruit to come sell for you to give you consistent results over a long period of time. And I think I just, you know, I was like, oh, my gosh. I don't know whether I was embarrassed or excited, but...

Never thought about that. I never thought about it before. I was just kind of hiring people like most people still do today, most smaller businesses, where they're just like, well, you know, Francis is a, she's the cousin of my friend, Julie, and she seemed like a nice girl. She went to Auburn. Let's give her a try. Do you still see that happening a lot?

Absolutely. People hire friends, and they hire neighbors, and they, anybody, what I usually say is that you hire people who come to work for what you're willing to pay. Yeah. And let's get started. Yeah. I agree. I see it all the time. And that's exactly what I was doing. And no kidding, Bill, I don't know if you remember this, but I was so frustrated that I could not get them to get to work on time. I couldn't get them to make the number of calls I wanted a day. It was just so, I literally had a heart monitor on for a fibriolation. I was like, I was just so crazy. And you were like, well, John, that's going to change. When you get the right people, this is your fault. And you didn't quite come out in. say it, but that's what I heard. Like, it's my responsibility. A lot of times I use the analogy of sports,

you say, well, I'm going to hire a baseball player. Right. Well, you know, there are a lot of baseball players out there that can't play very good baseball. Right. But they know the rules and they try. Right. But they don't have the right stuff.

Right. And we're looking for people with the right stuff. Right. And also I've learned from you that it is quite a disservice to those people who aren't a good fit to come into my organization and have me try to beat them, you know, do what I want. Because it's not in their nature. They should be doing something that's more in their nature. Exactly.

So thank you for that. I've thanked you before, but I thank you again. I remember learning that very same lesson. You learned it too? Yeah. The first time we learned about testing was our CEO, Clarence Bognite, who you know quite well, is we were doing business with, I believe it was CNS Bank back in those days. And they gave him a test, and they scored the test.

And they said, if you're not CEO of your company, you should be. Well, he was sold immediately. He loves testing, yeah. He was sold immediately because he was our CEO. And we started that test. And it was the first time we really learned. how to categorize people's behavior and get a good, good shot at how they're going to perform. Right, right.

Well, one you turned me on to, the main one was the Colby, Colby test. And that came a little bit later. A little bit later. They didn't start until 89. Right. But Bill, you know, and I've done this for other companies since, so I'm passing it forward. But Bill came in and I said, well, how are we going to do this, Bill? you know, like incredulously, how can you possibly do this?

And he's like, well, he goes, we're going to test all your salespeople and just see if there's any pattern of the high performers and the low performers in terms of what the scores are. And then if there is, then we're going to take those scores or the top people and start trying to hire people more like them. And there's other traits that go with it, like where they went to school, what they majored in, Did they play sports? Were they leaders? You know, these different little pieces that we could add to it. But in essence, the Colby was kind of our, you know, one of the main things that we used. And, you know, we went from when I met you, five salespeople to when we sold the business, we had 100.

And the next 95 all were in that range. Well, if you think about it, the Colby and all the testing that we used and did you use, is a scientific instrument. Right. I mean, there's nothing guesswork about it. Right. It's been proven to be accurate. Right.

Yeah. And people would, one of the arguments I still hear, and I heard it then, was, well, there are people who don't fit in your perfect little profile who could sell your stuff. And I'm like, that's true. But I don't want to be the guy shifting through all of that, right? I don't want to take the chance that I'll hire eight people where it's not a fit for them. Exactly.

And I did, I'm sure everyone does it too. I did every now and then, you know, go out and take a chance. Yeah. I like the person so much. And normally it was a mistake. Not always. Yeah, we hit it off. Yeah.

You know, we hit it off. We just, just easily hit it off. I can change him. That's the good one. I'll change him. But, yeah. But yeah, but anyway, that was really cool. That was really cool.

Now, you came here. I know you're, was it Chattanooga? From Atlanta. Yeah, from Atlanta. Yeah. From Atlanta. Okay. And you went to Emory.

Went to Emory. And you got two degrees from there? No, just one. Just psychology. Psychology. Minor in business. Okay. And the psychology, did what they teach you help you in sales?

Um, a little bit. Actually, we learned, I learned a lot about testing. Okay. in psychology. It was clinical testing for mental health, but it was still an instrument. And it was, I learned that you could gain a lot of insight into people by giving them a test. Right. Interesting. That's a, that's four years seemed like a long time to learn that. And another thing I'll mention about psychology is they, in interviewing people and talking to people, you learn not to do all the talking.

You learn, they call it the Rosarian theory, but you say, and you, and after that, you, and you just let them go. Yeah. And you, and you, my theory is,

is you, you want to listen to what people talk about because they talk about what's interesting to them. Not what interesting to me, but what's interesting to them. Yeah. And when you ask them questions, you try to do it about the things they're interested in as opposed to the things I'm interested in.

Right. And I learned that in psychology. That's cool. That's cool. I've got a cousin like that. Every time we're around her, we end up, she just keeps asking these questions and we just keep talking. Sometimes I know what she's doing and I'm going along with it. You can't stop.

No, I like talking. So, yeah. Yeah, it's a Rosierian theory. That's interesting. So you came here, you got recruited to come work for Buildermart. Yes. Okay. And you were already in the trade.

Yeah, I was a salesperson for an asphalt roofing company. Okay. I was sales manager, in fact, in Savannah. Okay. And I knew Buildermart's through being a customer. They were our biggest customer. Right. Okay.

So Builder Mart is just for the audience. I'll give my version of it. I mean, it's one of the biggest success stories in Greenville ever. It's now sold, but at the time, it was almost half a billion dollars. Well, our claim to fame, we took that company from scratch, zero to 648 million in 19 years. Wow. That's strong. That's strong.

And then for the people that sold the company, how many executives like yourself do you think stayed in Greenville and started businesses and... Oh, a couple of dozen, probably, yeah. Yeah, that's strong. That's strong. That's the thing that people, I think, sometimes overlook about a business is, you know, they bring these great people here, Atlanta and other places. And during that rise, that 19 years or however long the part you were there,

what was the, what was kind of your main sales methodology that helped you grow that fast? the number one thing we had is we had a unique approach to the business. We gave an exclusive to what we tried to find to be the biggest, most powerful business in town. And we were focusing on the building supply industry. And we would go to those people and give them an opportunity to buy through us. and if our price was equal or better, that was our kind of a gentleman's agreement. Yeah.

That if our price was equal or better, you'd do business with us. Right. And we had all the top manufacturers anyway. Yeah. And they jumped all over that. Yeah. They liked that idea. And probably the biggest obstacle we faced is the same thing sales people face today

is relationships, personal relationships, that these people had with other vendors. Sure. And they weren't willing to sacrifice those relationships. And our job was to break it. Right. Interesting. So just so I understand it, if you were a lumberyard back then,

you had lots of relationships with different suppliers. That's true. And what you offered at Buildermart was just one relationship with Buildermart, and you'd be kind of the distributor for all those different suppliers. Well, we gave them the buying power. Okay. And they still had salespeople calling on them from the vendors that we represented. Okay.

So they had the benefit of the sales force from the individual companies, but the billing came through us, and that gave us that millions of dollars worth of volume that gave us the buying power to do what we did. That's so cool. That's so cool. It was a great run. Absolute great run. What did the very best salespeople do the top 10% of the President's Club people at Builder Mark?

What do they do different than the rest of the people? Well, that's a great question because I remember I had the tremendous respect for Clarence Bognite. And he was a very intelligent man, not just with the... numbers, but he was a great salesman too. And he did it by the book. I mean, he had a, he had a method to do his madness. And his philosophy was to do something for your customer, do something for your prospect, do something to help them solve their most pressing business problems, do something to help them make more money, and try to find out what those things are by asking questions, by getting to know their people, by touring their facility.

And once we did that, once we did something tangible that they couldn't do for themselves, it opened the doors beautifully. Yeah. I remember one time we had a customer that just wouldn't, would not do a sufficient amount of business with us. Right. And Clarence says, okay,

here's what I want you to do. I want you to go up there and ask him permission to do a take-off of his showroom. Now, back in those days, there were no home depots or Lowe's. Yeah. Lowe's was around,

but they didn't have the big box stores like they do today. And he said, I want you to take off their showroom, place the post, the posts where they are, the doors and the windows, and just do a layout for it, and then bring it back here,

and we'll lay it out professionally, placing our products on the gondolas. Okay. And we'll do the signage. We'll do it really look short. And I did that. You know what I mean? That was easy to do.

Yeah. And I brought it back, and we had another fellow in our country, named Tom Mills, who was extremely good at doing store layouts. And he did that, he did the work on that. And I took it back to the sky. And his mouth, his jaw just dropped. Why, I can't believe that you did this for us?

This is beautiful. And it automatically, it changed his, it changed our image. In other words, we were doing consultative selling. Right. We were doing something for him that he couldn't do for himself. He had a showroom, but it was dusty and dirty, and it wasn't very appealing, especially to women. And women make most of the decisions on showroom material. And that was an example.

Yeah. One thing I brought with me is one of our former Builder Mart people, Jim Sobeck, who is still in town and is CEO of a really large company here. But Jim wrote a book called The Real Business 101. Lessons from the trenches. and he's got, this is the most interesting book I've ever read. I use it today all the time, but it has a hundred and twenty-three chapters. And each chapter is three or four pages long, and it's the solution to a problem in a business.

Yeah, yeah. And this is what I show salespeople when I do sales training. to carry this book with you. And when you see a problem in a business, the odds are the solutions in this book. Right, right. And I've never seen a book written like this before. Yeah.

It's a great book. I've read the book. It goes down like if you're worried about collections and credit reports and just every little thing you can think of. Yeah, you know, it's just telephone tips, selling tips, disaster planning, developing talent. Yeah. Just, and this is a way, a salesperson who doesn't know a lot about business.

Right. If they could just identify the issues that a business is facing, right. Eyes are the solutions in this book. Right. I agree. I mean, I'll just add on to that. First of all, I love the book and Jim Sobeck, and he's going to be on the podcast, I think in about a month.

So he's agreed to be on. But I hear young, I hear salespeople all the time, young and old, meet a new prospect and say, well, Bill, the thing is, I want to be your trusted advisor. And then the big smile, you know, I want to be your trusted advisor. And the buyer is going, I've heard it all before. But when you do something, like Clarence says, when you actually do something, then you're showing him.

All of a sudden, you're on the same side of the table working on this problem out here together. And then the next thing that comes along, it's going to count it. You are going to be as trusted. Let me tell you another idea of depending on the salesperson. But if the salesperson's had any training and knows something that he can teach, my experience has been that salespeople in a typical business have never had any training other than product knowledge. Right.

That's all they know. Well, that's what the owner typically thinks training is. Yeah. They know the product. You know, ride with our drivers. Yeah. See what we deliver. Yeah.

But they don't know any of the techniques to selling. How do you open conversation and the things we're talking about today? And I encourage the salespeople to say, listen, one thing that I enjoy doing, if you'll give me permission to, is maybe conduct a lunch and learn program for your sales force. You know, give them, we'll bring in a box lunch and I'll do 45 minutes of sales training. Yeah. And I've got maybe 10 programs I can do like that. Yeah. And give them something tangible that they can go out and do to improve their eyes of getting the business.

So do you do that as part of your trying to get business for lead resources? Would you go in and say, let me do a lunch, learn for your group? Maybe get some... Well, I would if I were... But I work nationwide. I work throughout North America. Okay.

And it's hard for me to do it in Vancouver. Okay. To run out and do a lunch and learn. Sure. But this is more for local salespeople. Yeah. So you would do that as part of the sales process. Right.

So, you know, the next thing we did, before you get a big commitment, let me just come out and talk to your salespeople. I'll teach them something about negotiation training. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Now, you bring up another good point. about when I first started selling, I had excellent product knowledge training. There wasn't, fortunately, it was a product that didn't have a great deal of mystery to it.

Well, asphalt roofing. But I knew how the products were made and I knew how to deal with the complaint and that sort of thing. But as far as sales techniques or sales tools, I had no clue. Yeah. And I would go out, I remember when I went out by myself the first time, I was, I had no idea what to say. And the first thing that I did, I said, well, how's our price? Are we competitive? Or anybody been cutting the price?

Sure, should we lower it? And, I mean, that's about what I'm going to say next. but salespeople today will frequently say, let me quote you a few prices. Let me just quote you a few prices to give you an idea of where we stand. Just so you'll know whether we're competitive or not. Yeah. And when they'd offer to quote prices, what they're not saying is we have the lowest price in the market, do business with us. Yeah.

And the truth is, nobody really has the lowest price of the market because the market sets its own, it's like water, it seeks its own level. And if you color the price, I'll meet your price. Yeah. We eventually learn that that's not the way to do business. Yeah. I was the same way, Bill. I remember, I mean, I had very, I had no formal tactical training. And, you know, particularly going out and seeing people in person.

The phone's a little bit easier, I think, because you kind of have a script, usually. But it's just showing up and just completely letting them take over. Like, where are we going? What are we going to talk? What do you want to talk about? You know, it was pitiful. And so it kind of makes me more interested in helping people. Because the stuff we're talking about is not that difficult.

You know, having an agenda ahead of time. Well, what you want to avoid doing is being a waste of the man's time. Yeah. The person's time. Yeah. Because if you don't have something to bring to the party, you're basically wasting the person's time. Right, right. And they want to get you out of there and get to the next salesperson.

Yeah. Yeah, I had some of those, I think, I know what some of those stairs meant early on. They were like, wasting my time, kid. They never tell you about the salesperson that, I mean, Excuse me, the buyer that wrote a book. He was in purchasing for 20 years. Tell me, tell me, tell me. He wrote a book.

The title was, what buyers say behind your back after you leave. And he and his fellow buyers kept meticulous notes about what the salespeople said and did on sales calls. And they'd talk about them after they left and then compare notes. And he says it's amazing when you, if you could hear what's being said about you after you walk out the door. You know, that guy was the biggest waste of time. Yeah, yeah. And yet other, we need more like him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And which one are you? Right, yeah. And so he wrote a book on it. What's his name? Do you remember? Yes, his name is Bradley Hartman. Bradley. Okay. He's got a podcast. Yeah. I've looked at some of that. That's interesting. Okay. Well, let's switch gears a little bit. Now, of the Builder Mart run, which was 19 years, you were there for most of that.

Yeah. And then you left and you started Lee Resources. That's correct. So why would you do that? Well, it was the peak. I felt like it was the peak. Okay. One thing is about getting old is that you've been through a lot of corrections and recessions. And it's like what we're in right now. I mean, we're just blowing it out economy-wise. And there's got to be a correction coming soon. Yeah, right. And that always happens.

And I felt like we were at the absolute peak. I felt like I was at the peak of my career, age-wise. And I had something I wanted to do full-time. And that was be a consultant and a trainer in this industry, in my industry. Right, in your industry. And so I put together a business plan and rented me an office. Yeah. One-room office and went to work.

And again, I mean, just for the sake of the noobs, I'll always point out when somebody gets into a career, in this case the building supply career, early, and you continue to stick with it your whole career. So from salesperson in roofing to executive with Builder Marts to sales trainer four lumber yards and writing a book about it and all that stuff. I mean, it's just, Bill has contacts that are CEOs. and people who write the magazines and run the websites in this industry that he's known for 30 years, I'm sure. Absolutely. And if he sold out to me tomorrow and he said, I'm going to go, you know, get my CPA and be an accountant, wouldn't know anybody. That's right.

You know? That's exactly right. If you had another 50 years to work on it, you could figure it all out. But, you know, why keep starting and, you know, starting over? So I think it's a good idea. Did you recommend the same thing to people? Absolutely. I see in my old industry, virtually everyone stayed in the industry.

And the reason is if there's one key to sales that doesn't have anything to do with training necessarily, but it's relationships. Right. Who trusts you? Who knows you? Who believes in you? Right. Who knows that you have great integrity?

Right. That's the kind of person you want to do business. with, and no matter which company they work for, you tend to do business with them. Right, right. So that's why I think it's such an important, and one of the reasons I wrote this book, it's so important early on to figure out, first of all, what do you want to be? Do you want to be a salesperson? Do you want to be, you know, a manager?

Do you want, what do you, and kind of get that situated and then figure out what area are you comfortable hanging out in? Because you've been hanging out in the building industry for your whole career, and you obviously like it. But if it was me, you know, could say, well, I'm about to start my career. I love fishing. All I like to do is fish, you know. And so I'm going to go to work for a bass master or I'm going to get in that industry and be selling, you know, kind of. Well, you know, every industry has his own lingo.

Yeah. Its own slang and code words. Right. And once you learn those words, you know, you're in. You're one of them. Right. It's a different language. Yeah.

I found that when I switched over and bought the warehousing software company, Foxfire, as I got over there, these guys did not work for me. Now, they were talking in this language. I didn't know what they're talking about. So anyway, stick to what you're doing. So At Lee Resources, give us some more examples of the kind of thing you did and that you saw with the Colby that helped, like, the building supply companies you dealt with. Well, you hit the nail on the head when we first started about people hire people they know

and they hire people that they hit it off with during the interview. But we had used testing at BMA for years and years and years. And I believed in it with all my heart. I was kind of the resident expert on one of the tests that we used. The Colby didn't exist at that time. And I started immediately offering that as a product, you might say. Right. And I used the disc, D-I-S-C that measured a person's personality.

And then I heard about the Colby from a psychologist who was using Colby terminology. and I thought, I majored in psychology. I try to keep up with it. I don't know what this guy is talking about. And I said, what is Konaugent? I've never heard that word. And he starts explaining it to me. And I said, where did you learn all that?

He said, well, there's this woman out in Phoenix. And I mean, the next day I called and made an appointment to go out and being in one of her programs. Yeah. And I was on the ground floor of the Colby. And that helped me enormously. It gave me a double the ammunition that I had in the past. Right. And so we tested about 30,000 people with the Colby and the disc.

Wow. And we had three people committed to that business by itself. I remember because we did quite a few. with you and we would get the people to take the Colby and then Bill and his team would spend days writing up like pages of analysis on the people. I was kind of the little bags. I was like, just tell me what the numbers were. I just want to know the numbers, you know, because it's my little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's so cool. The Colby, I would say if I was hired to be a picker of salespeople and I have the Colby and the other person,

it doesn't. It's like cheating. It's like a cheat coat, I think. That's the way I always thought of it. Well, it's, you know, it's like going to a doctor and he talks to you and tries to diagnose you. Right. But, you know, he gives you blood tests. Right. Various and sundry, listens to your heart, and he measures all these things and makes a diagnosis. And that's what you're basically doing when you interview. Right. You're right. You're right. And it really, I mean, if I found two people liked them, you know, liked them, thought they were both squared away and both could be good, test them both. And if they were, one had the numbers and one didn't, it was easy. Easy pickings.

It was a good call for the person who didn't get the job. You know, so many times we look at a person's image. Yeah. I mean, they just knock you dead with their image and their personality. And that doesn't, that doesn't last very long. Right. You know, once you get past that, you've got to get the substance. Right.

Well, I know you wrote a book called Gross Margin, which I read and loved. And basically, that's about ways to have salespeople think more about how much money you're actually making per sale versus just the total price, obviously. And oddly enough, in our data stream rise, we never got to 600 million, but we got to about 100 million. but we got to about 100. Our jumps and revenue came. Considerably higher margin, though. There's a good margin. Softly's a good margin.

But our jumps came when we raised the price. And we kind of did it accidentally. And what I mean is, like when Windows came out, we said, well, this is a good time to raise the price. We should make it more expensive than the old one. And so we almost doubled it. And the unit sales stayed the same. The salespeople were clicking out the same member of units. So sales almost doubled.

And then somebody had the idea to bundle in some other stuff with it, you know, some services and stuff. And that almost doubled it again. And then when the Internet came out and client server, and it was almost like technology, we didn't understand the gross margin at that time. But technology gave us the idea that we should raise our price. And unit sales kind of stayed the same every time. Well, you know, one of the statements I make about pricing is that salespeople are usually far more price sensitive than the customers. Right, right. I mean, we're scared to death.

Our price is going to be too high. Right. Because customers, they never say, you guys need to lower your price a little bit. I mean, you price, you need to jack up your prices a little bit. They're always saying you need to lower it. Right. And we as salespeople are gun-shy. We don't want a quarter of price that comes across as high.

Yeah. But you get what you pay for. And with technology, you're going to get a return on that investment. Yeah. Yeah, that's the way I look at it. Now, I didn't look at it that way when I was a junior sales guy because I was all scared about price and 100,000 seems like a lot. And it does seem like a lot unless you honestly understand how much money you're going to save that company.

And if it's a million dollars or more, and you're saying it's 100 grand, it's like they should say, well, gosh, that's a real deal. Well, especially when you consider before you came along, they were getting the job done anyway. Right, right. Without your product. Right. Now you're trying to give them. And that was what it was. I was with the computer company for five years, and they were using a bookkeeping machine.

Yeah. And it didn't give them much information, but it was dirt. cheap. And here we're coming along. Our average price was $120,000. Yeah. And they were thinking, now, what am I going to get for $120,000? Yeah. And you had to be prepared to give them a return on that. I'm showing that. A few more questions, Bill. So what's something that you thought about sales when you were just getting started that turned out to be completely different than what you thought? Well, when I first started in selling, or let's say I first got out of college, I didn't have a lot to offer because I had a bachelor's degree in psychology, which was worth virtually nothing in the marketplace. And the only people that really paid me any attention whatsoever were people looking for salespeople.

and my image of a salesperson was a car salesman or it was someone you see at a comic strip, a door-to-door kind of salesperson. And back in those days, before a woman's lib, women were opening the doors and slamming the door in the salesperson's face. And it just didn't look very romantic to me to be a salesperson. So I decided that I would stick with psychology and I went to work in a psychiatric ward. And the pay was so little. I mean, I couldn't do anything.

I mean, I barely could pay for an apartment. And so I moved up one level into sales with Atlanta newspapers. And then I was still. not making a lot of money. And my father had a lumberyard outside of Atlanta. And he had a salesperson that took an interest in me. And he drove a Mercedes. So I knew he made some money. And he was a, at the time I knew him, he was a referee in the Southeast football conference. He was a, he was a football player growing up. Yeah.

And so I just had a lot of respect for this fellow. And he said, Bill, you know, we've got a job opening right here in Atlanta. I'm sure if you interviewed for the job, you could get it. And it pays double. It paid double what I was making. Double. And I interviewed with his sales manager, and I turned the job down. Oh, because I didn't want to be a salesperson.

Oh, wow. And I wasn't very impressed from the salesman. manager anyway. Yeah. And this guy would not give up on me. He telephoned a friend of his in Mobile, Alabama, where they had another plant, a manufacturing plant. And he said, I've got this young man up here in Atlanta.

I believe he'd be an asset to our company, but he's got some strange ideas about sales. And my boss couldn't hire him, and I wonder if you would talk to him. He said, oh, I'll be glad to. And he calls me at home one night. and offered to fly me to Mobile Alabama. Well, I'd never been on a jet airplane. And that appealed to me to fly down there. So I said, yes, sir, I'd love to come interview with you.

So I get off the plane, he picks me up, takes me to dinner. And all he did was ask me questions all night. He didn't tell me anything. He didn't try to sell me anything. He just tried to learn what I was all about. And the next day, he started selling. And he was night and day different than the sales manager I spoke to in Atlanta. And I said, well, I'll take the job.

He says, no, you won't. He said, you'll go home and talk to your wife about it first. Then you may take it if she agrees. And so I went to work with him. And he was my first mentor. And he taught me so much about selling. And I found out it was a respectable job, first of all. It was a profession.

It wasn't just something that you did if you couldn't get a job doing something else. And it's something that I could learn a lot about. I mean, there was a lot to know. And I've often said there's as much to learn about sales as there is about fine wine or medicine or anything. There's so much to learn. Yeah. And it's a great industry and a great profession. Right.

Well, let's, let me ask you this. I've got just two more questions. I need to know the favorite word, Bill. What's your favorite word? Well, I used it a few minutes ago. Integrity. Integrity. Okay.

The integrity is something that I think everyone respects and everybody wants more of it. And it's the watch word for me. I do my best to have integrity and for people to never be able to talk about me behind my back and say that you can't believe a word he says. But tell the truth. whether it sounds good or not. Yeah, that's a great word. I think you're safe.

And let's close up. Tell us about the latest book, 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot. Well, gross margin was, I wrote that book because I had a real passion for gross margin. And most people think about gross margin as being buying better. and I identified 26 factors that affect gross margin. And that's what that book was about.

But on the consulting side of my business, I was dealing with owners and managers and CEOs. And I identified 30 ways that I thought were the most common ways that managers shoot themselves in the foot. And hiring is one of them. you know, hiring people that are willing to come to work for what you're willing to pay. And lack of training, not investing in your people, those kinds of areas. And so I have one chapter, 30 chapters, and one chapter is on a, every chapter is about a way that managers typically shoot themselves in the foot.

Is there anything in there about, like, getting too juiced up at like Christmas party? Well, I didn't include that one. Everyone should know that one. Everyone should know that one. Well, Bill, I started by saying thank you. I'll say thank you again. I appreciate you saving my bacon way back in the day and then our friendship ever since.

Well, it's been a pleasure working with you all these years. Thank you, sir. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate it. Okay.