The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Outsell Your Competition By Selling From The Heart

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

Larry Levine is the bestselling author of Selling From The Heart and the Co-Founder of Social Sales Academy. Over the course of three decades’ worth of professional experience in the technology industry, Larry has successfully sold office technology, document management solutions, and managed services to a wide range of customers from small and big businesses alike. In this episode, we talked about sales, brand awareness, client relationships...

the biggest thing that helped me that I'd share with your listeners is I'm comfortable in my own skin and I always asked for help. So once I understood the power of networks, then I would take my current customer base, my current client base, and I would start looking through their networks. And I'd say, Hey, you know what? If it was you, Tommy, I'd say, you know what? I appreciate Tommy, you allowing me to serve you over this past year. And I'm glad I've been able to help you do better business. I'm just curious, can you help me out? Here's five people that you're connected to. Would you mind bridging an introduction? And that's how I started to

grow my business inside the copier world. And then I took it one step farther. Then I had my dream customers. These are these dream accounts, these A accounts that I'd like to have. And I always carried them around with me. And I would say, hey, Tommy, here's a list of 10 companies I'm trying to get into right now. I was hoping you can help me out. Do you know anything about these companies? And furthermore, do you know anybody in these companies? Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service

millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name is Tommy Mello. And today, I have a special friend that I met recently at the Relationship Marketing Convention. We were both speaking there. It's Larry Levine. And his expertise is sales, brand awareness, and client relationships. A little bio about Larry is a social sales Academy, co-founder and sales strategist from 2015 to today. Convergo social sales advisor from 2015 to today. Canonica Minolta business solutions. Okay. Not, not, not you're dipping into the well, dude, come on. Done a lot of stuff.

Okay, so let's just tell you a little bit about some of his accomplishments. He's the best-selling author of Selling from the Heart, three decades worth of professional in the industry, B2B sales, experience in technology, has experienced sold office technology, document management solutions, managed services to customers ranging in up and down the streets of the Fortune 500 companies, and has been coaching B2B sales

professionals since 2015. Larry, hey, listen, man, me and you kicked it off the day we met. I really appreciate you coming on today. No, dude, I appreciate it, man. You're dipping into the well. You're going like into the past. I'm like going, that's kind of cool. I forgot about some of that. Yeah, man, this is cool to have you on. I really got a lot out of just seeing you speak. And just the first thing I try to do is get the audience to kind of get a feel of who you are, where you came from, what your book's about, or what you kind of consult on. No, and I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on, Tommy. And it's the story that I shared at the Relationship Marketing Grand Summit that I think a lot of people can relate to.

And I always badger and make fun of the sales channel that I came out of. And I always say I came out of one of the most laggard, backwards, highly dysfunctional sales channels that ever existed. I sold copiers and software and solutions my whole life. So for 28 years, I spent in the copier sales channel. And I got thrown hard knocks all over the place. I've been kicked at, spit at, literally. And I share this because it's made me who I am. But I brought me to life because I got schooled a long time ago in an appointment. And I think, you know, your listeners can probably relate to this. Not every appointment's going to go well.

And I think you'd agree, right, Tommy? Oh, yeah. And it's what you can learn from them that, you know, that something in the back of mind goes, this will never happen again. So about 20 something years ago, I got schooled by a chief financial officer. Finally, I got that day came and I'd been working on trying to get an appointment with this person for multiple years. And finally, I walk in and I start having some conversation and I'm well into my meeting. And all of a sudden, this guy stops me dead in my tracks. He goes, whoa, game over.

I go, what are you talking about? Mentally, I'm like, oh, that was an awkward moment. I go, what's the deal? This guy goes, you know what? You're the third copier salesperson I've spoken to in a week because they're actively looking. They're in the market to replace their equipment. And he goes, you've asked the same set of questions,

maybe delivered in a different manner. It's been all about you. It's been all about your accolades. It's been all about how many great customers you have. And I'm tired of it. And quite frankly, you were in the right time at the right place and game over. And I go, wow, interesting. And I was almost going to just say, done, right? I'll never turn this thing into a sale. But I sat back down in the chair and I started asking this person,

why'd you say that? And he goes, because it was all about you. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about my issues and my concerns and how you can help me. And it was right then and there, Tommy, I said, you know what? It's never going to happen again. So for 45 minutes, I took multiple pages of notes and I went on a journey. And that journey took me to my current clients. And I started asking them, what do they want from a salesperson? How do they want to be treated?

How do they want to be served? And I started finding a common theme. And I packaged that all up. I didn't know 20 years ago, that was the journey around selling from the heart. Question-based selling, right? Is that what you would call it or what do you call that? I'll just say, giving a rip. And when I say giving a rip, that means showing how much you care. You're there, right? You're not there. There's no self-deception. You're not opposite sides of the desk, right? You're heart to heart, mono to mono, right? You're just there. You're there to help them. And I always say this is your sales funnel and what you do out in the world isn't going to be strong and it's not

going to be ever flowing if you don't have a relationship funnel. And that's what I took to heart. And I always found the best way to start developing those relationships is listen intently and show you care. And the questions that you ask, you get people to think. And they're thinking about, you know what, maybe I can do something a little bit different. Or Larry, you know what? This guy's a different person because I've never heard these questions before. I like that. So let's run through a scenario. So when you talk about selling from the heart, a lot of us are in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, home services, but a lot of us have some big ticket item, $15,000, $20,000. And you said that selling from the heart refers to one's genuine self.

You also said to be a true professional, you need to be authentic and have substance. You know, tell me a little bit about the stigma about a salesperson. Most of my guys, they hate the word sales. I mean, most customers, when you, no one says, I'll send out a salesperson. Most of my guys, they hate the word sales. I mean, most customers, when you, no one says, I'll send out a salesman. That's just, it's a nasty word. And how do we break through that stereotype? And how do we actually get to the root to please that customer and make them raving fans? Do you bring up a really great point? Because, you know, it was so interesting because of the sales channel that I came out of, Tommy, you know, this would be decades ago, right? When somebody say, well, what do you do, right? And inevitably, it comes up, by the time you peel it back and you peel it back, hey, I sell copiers.

Right. And the stigma around sales is what it is, is because salespeople and their companies have done it to their customers and their prospects. If you get what I'm throwing at you, they're treating, and I write about it in Selling from the Heart, when you lead with your wallet and all you do is see dollar signs, people smell it. And we live in this world, and I don't care what you're selling, but we live in this world where they just don't trust salespeople. And they think that everything that comes out of their mouth is just nothing but BS. And they're skeptical about everything. And I'll share this because you just brought up some things that even I conjure up in my mind, right? Like plumbing or roofing or any of those things. I have the hardest time trying to find those people for the same reasons why most people hate salespeople. Tell me a little bit about that. What do you mean by that? And where do you go when you're

looking for someone like that? I'm curious. I always ask family and friends, first of all, I go to social, right? So here's what's interesting. And I think this will get to the heart of where you're going with this is, you know, the whole trust and referral things is I work out every day and inside the gym, I become friends with one of the city inspectors here in the city that I live in. And so now when I needed to have an electrical panel changed on my house, I just went to him and said, you know what, Gene? Hey, can you tell me who would you recommend? And Gene says, you need to go to this place to have it done.

I didn't even question it. And why didn't I question it? Because I was friends with Gene, and I respect Gene, and I trust Gene. And that's why and so now when i have issues around my house who's the first person i ask gene yeah gene right so now you know i want people to start thinking about this is if we live in this world regardless of the profession you're in but if we live in this world where people don't trust us and they don't believe anything that comes out of our mouth and they think that we're skeptical, then how do we flip that? It's how we walk, talk, and act and how we treat people.

And if you have no credibility, if you don't bring sincerity to what you do, if you don't bring any substance to what you do, I refer to those people as empty suits. And there's a lot of empty suits out there's a lot of empty suits out there, right? And it's not necessarily in the sales B2B profession. It could be in any profession, Tommy. Yep. That's interesting. I'm just thinking about some of this stuff. So, you know, one day this guy told me this, Larry, he said, who is the number one company in your city for HVAC and plumbing and he went through this routine for about five different industries and i told him and he said no he said who's the

biggest and then he said who's the most expensive and i wrote it down because i've heard no they're the most expensive and what i've learned is i used to relate cost of a product or service with it being bad if I charge somebody enough money till I understood one thing. The reason why they're the biggest and they're the most expensive is because they've got the best employees. They've got the nicest trucks they could afford to advertise. And you are the minority. I mean, I hate to tell you this, but if your faucet's leaking or you've got a hot water heater exploding in your garage or your air conditioning's out and you got your mother-in-law there sweating, you're not going calling everybody around. Maybe you are, but you're the exception.

Most people are going to Google saying, how quick could I get somebody out here? Because time is more important. And they say, how much do you charge to get out here right now? Okay, come on up. Yeah. And it's a little bit different. It's kind of like if your roof was leaking. So, but the relationships, you know, I had a guy come in here, Larry, you'll love this. He comes in here from Canada. He's been working with me for about eight years. And he goes, Tom, I can't even do a Canadian accent right now. No, Tom, I don't even know. That's a little bit British. He goes, listen, he goes, I need 56 doors.

He goes, I've never shopped you once. I know you'll treat me right. We go through it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ends up with openers trimmed 16 by 7, still back doors. Ended up being, I don't know, around $110,000, $120,000. Gave him the whole two remote keypad, you know, good stuff. Worked him out a special price, worked with my DC. Long story short, I started thinking to myself, you know, you specialize in a lot of B2B.

And to me, he's a big time builder. He builds a lot of these projects. Every three months, he's got 50 to 100 doors. And I'm like, man, that one customer alone, and I consider him a client, there's a difference between customer and client. Sure. Absolutely. You know, this guy, this guy's going to spend between a quarter million and a half million dollars with me. And I started really thinking about this yesterday. And I think you could definitely enlighten me because this is what you did for so long. And this is what you talk about.

But I want to get in front of guys like that and gals like that and business owners like that that say, I go through huge projects all the time. And I guess what I'm asking is, first of all, I want to get in front of them. Second of all, I like what you say, sell from the heart, because I'm telling you what, I gave him a walkthrough of my place. I talked about his kids. He needed something done at his house. I went there and did it myself.

And I just said, look, don't worry about this bill. I'm not giving you, I've given you a great price on everything. You could shop me whenever you'd like. It's not about anything else, but I want to take extra special care of you because I got to tell you, you are definitely making an impact on my business. You're half a million dollars a year. Yeah, we're a $35 million company, but still that's one 70th, one client. We do 6,000 customers a month. He's one 70th of our company revenue.

And he's a, he's a damn well, good margin too. I mean, I'm not giving it away for free. Like a lot of guys do that probably are listening to this podcast that go, well, shoot up. I can't make any money off builders. Well, that's you. That's your prerogative. If you want to be the cheapest, you've chose to do that. If you want to be the best quality and do it on time, I mean, you know as well as I do, Larry, a lot of these guys that come out and say they're going to be the best price, they never hit their time commitments and it ends up being low quality. And I never wanted to do that. Can you imagine if I had 25 of those guys giving me half a million dollars a

year? No, I get it. Wow. There's a lot to unpack there. But you bring up some very good points. I want to go back to something you said probably three, four or five minutes ago. I think you alluded to profit around that.

I had a hard time dealing with it in my younger days, selling. I'm afraid if I put too much profit in this deal, they're going to find out about it. I had to get over that. This is how I got over it, Tommy, and I'll never forget. It wasn't about the price and all that. It was, I'm comfortable in my own skin and I know the experience they're going to get and I know how I'm going to serve them. And that's worth something, especially in the world that I came out of, where they were used to broken promises and busted dreams and high turnover and all that. So I said, you know, you get what you get. But the reason why my costs are where they're at, because this is what you get. And if that's important to you, great. And if it's not, then we

might not be the right fit. And I remember having those conversations and it's tough for a lot of people to digest, but if you can say it in a clear manner with conviction and people believe in your message, they will follow you. And that's what I learned is it's not so much because I came out of an industry, right, where people hide behind their products and they hide behind their service and all that. And they said, well, you know, it's always price. I lose deals because of price. No, you don't. You just lose deals because somebody outsold you and somebody got to the heart of what really matters to somebody. And it sure wasn't price. And that's what I want people to think about. And I got to share a funny story. It's not a funny story. It's actually a sad story.

And it just happened yesterday. I'm a firm believer relationships do matter. And if somebody is going to turn over their hard-earned corporate dollars to you and your company, and you don't show them appreciation, and you're not in there helping them do better business, and you're not in there showing you care, then why the heck should they continue to give you money? Would you agree? 100%. And so what this was interesting, and this just proves a point is I enjoy coaching. Part of what I do is I coach high-performing sales teams and individuals on those sales teams on one-offs

on how to become better. And I remember yesterday, I got a call from somebody. She was on a team call with me on last Friday. She sends me a text. She goes, I really need to talk to you. I said, fine. So yesterday she calls me and we spoke for half an hour. And this person, Tommy was almost in tears. And she goes, I'm just mad. I'm pissed off. Right. I lost my mojo a little bit. And I said, help me out. Where are you coming from? She goes, I've lost four customers this year because of right.

Fill in the blanks with all these excuses. And I go, okay, continue. Tell me more. And she goes, well, this one particular one really is grading at me. They were a valued client. And then she switched the word to client, right? She goes, they were a value client of mine for 15 years, right? I took them to were a value client of mine for 15 years, right? I took them to ball games. I bought them things and things like that. And in April, they decided to do business with somebody else because my price was more expensive. And I go, interesting. You're not going to like what I'm about ready to tell you, but your relationship was a whole lot different than they thought the relationship was. They didn't leave you overpriced because you used the word client

and customer interchangeable in our conversation. But if you treated them as a valued client for 15 years and you're in there digging deep, I promise you this, they wouldn't have left over price. And that's why I urge people, regardless of the profession you're in, is what are you doing to show appreciation? What are you showing? How are you showing that you care? And how are you building multiple relationships inside your customer base or your client base, however you choose to refer to them as? Because you never know who knows somebody who knows somebody. And then furthermore, how do you stay top of mind? And we live in this world today where anyone can go to Google and find out anything they want about somebody. And I always share with people this, how do you expect to get noticed in a marketplace if nobody knows you exist?

And furthermore, how do you do this if some of your customers or clients don't know you exist? How do you stay top of mind of these people that Tommy's the go-to person, or Larry's the go-to person, or Joe's the go-to person? Yeah, I love that. Digging deep, staying top of mind. I love to hear, so let's just say we have our perfect avatar. We know who they are. We've got a list of amazing people.

We want to get in front of these people. But more importantly, where does that conversation occur, Larry? Where do you get that intimate time? Because look, they don't know you from Adam at this point. You build these relationships. And I'm a big fan of relationship marketing. But tell me what that looks like. How do you see this playing out?

If you've got, I want to hear some of your printer days, your copier days. Tell me a little bit about that. So if I understood what you're saying correctly, how would I build upon and expand upon my business? Is that where you're going with this? Yeah. I'm just saying that there's a book called The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes, and he talks about your power 100. And there are 100 clients that if you've got a dozen of them, you'd be set for life. And he says, stay top of mind. So he sends them a little gift every three months, like a tape measuring device. And he says, are you measuring the results of not working with me? And stuff like that. So how do you prospect them? And then secondly, when you get in front of them, what does that look like? And when you

talk about selling from the heart and getting down to the digging deep, what does that look like? So, okay now I know where you're going with this is I learned a long time ago. So this goes back I'd say early 2000s mid 2000s I found it harder and harder and harder to get in front of people because people are hiding behind email people are hiding behind voicemail Right. I mean I respect that people value their time. So I hired a business coach and this business coach to this day, I owe, I wouldn't be where I'm at today if it wasn't for this person, because the single best thing happened. He goes, Larry, he goes, I'm going to coach you on the art

of what it means to brand yourself. And I go, where are you going with this? And he goes, we live in, we're starting to live, right? Because this is early 2000s. He goes, we're starting to live in this digitally driven, highly connected world. And I want you to think about how do you become an influencer inside your current customers, as well as your prospects. And the way that you're going to do that is you have to be everywhere. And what he meant by everywhere, Tommy, was you have the exact same way you walk, talk, and act face-to-face, you have to mirror and replicate that online. Because he was sharing with me then, and I hold true to it today, is relationships start

in many different ways. Conversations start in many different ways. And we stay top of mind to people in many different ways. Right. So I had to learn real fast how to bridge what I call the physical and digital world together. And then I took it one step farther and I go, you know what? This is kind of cool. And I enjoy the art around connecting with people and driving conversations. Then I started to find out that my customers were connected to other people that I might want to get to know. And I learned how through education and I learned how to. And, but the biggest thing that helped me that I'd share with your listeners is I'm comfortable in my own skin and I always asked for help. So once I understood the power of networks, then I would take my current customer base, my current client base, and I would start looking through their networks. And I'd say, Hey, you know what?

If it was you, Tommy, I'd say, you know what? I appreciate Tommy, you allowing me to serve you over this past year. And I'm glad I've been able to help you do better business. I'm just curious. Can you help me out? Here's five people that you're connected to. Would you mind bridging an introduction? And that's how I started to grow my business inside the copier world. And then I took it one step farther. Then I had my dream customers. These are these dream accounts, these A accounts that I'd like to have. And I always carried them around with me. And I would say, hey, Tommy, here's a list of 10 companies I'm trying to get into right now. I was hoping you can help me out. Do you know anything about these companies? And furthermore, do you know anybody in these companies? Yeah, all you got to do is ask. That's all I tell my guys. The hardest part about it is these simple words of just asking.

Well, yeah, no, but you bring up a good point. How many people are afraid to ask, Tommy? And ask in a way that, you see, I'm annoyed because I get so annoyed with this. I had a guy, Larry, this was 10 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday. He said, Tommy, imagine you were going to go to a basketball game tonight. This is a financial planner. The guy was probably 35 back then. And I said, okay.

He goes, who's the six buddies you bring with you? And I thought about it, just a young, innocent guy, just writing the names down. And he goes, do you think that they could benefit from what I've showed you? Maybe he goes, would you mind? And I didn't like his approach. I thought it was snaky. I thought it was something that he learned and it was just not authentic, if you will. Whereas I think if you're authentic and you're from the heart and you say this, you're like, man, you have no idea how much you've changed my business.

I tell people that I know you and it goes a long way. And, you know, if I knew a few more guys like you, I think it would change my life. I not only get a lot out of the business relationship we have, but I get a lot about hanging out with you. And I want to surround myself with people like you. Do you have anybody else that you can recommend that like, is like you that actually like make, gives a crap about people? And you know, that's like a genuine conversation of that I would have versus, well, write down six people you would like, you know. Dude, that's so cheeseball-y. I mean, that, that annoys the hell

out of me. But what you just said is, you know, it's so interesting because everybody knows Tommy, the power of referrals, right? They know it. I mean, they deep down inside, they understand the power of referrals. And I always challenge people. I don't say it to disrespect anybody by no means. But I said, the reason why a lot of people struggle to ask for referrals is deep down inside, what have they done to enhance and build a relationship with the people that they're serving? And that's what I want people to understand is it's hard to ask for help. It's hard to ask for referral if you really haven't done anything to enhance the experience. Why should they, right? I agree.

Enhance the experience. And I think that's all in the eye of the beholder because you could pretend you're enhancing an experience if you're selling a blender and you said, Tommy Mello, let me tell you something about this blender. It'll chop dice and machine anything you're looking at. If you don't like eating celery, guess what? We've got this flavoring, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you would have asked me why I'm buying a blender, it's because you've heard of this before, Larry,

but Blue Ocean. It's because I want to live longer. I want to have more energy. I want to sleep better. And a lot of times not getting to the root of the problem from that customer. Another story I tell is a guy walks into Best Buy and he says, let me ask you something. He goes, I see this is the best computer in here. Gets a sales rep and says, does this happen to have Windows 9 on it? And the sales rep smiles, leans back and says, absolutely. All of our computers come with Windows 9. And he said, okay, I'm out of here. I hate Windows 9.

I can't believe you guys carry this crap. And because he didn't find the root of the problem. Yeah. I would love to hear what that is, what those questions look like. You say getting to the heart of it and digging deep. Let's go deeper into what that means. And again, I'm going to pick on the world I live in a little bit, but I still do this today when I coach people and so forth, is I think most people, Tommy, ask surface level questions. Just enough to extract maybe one or two things that they can pounce on and latch their product or service onto. Would you agree? Yep. I'll just say, hey, maybe it's the world that I came out of, right? So we're having difficulties with our current vendor, right? We, you know, slow response time. So then right away, that salesperson goes, okay, they don't like their vendor, their

slow response time. So then they start talking about, well, let me share with you how great our service is. Let me share with you what our response time is instead of going, okay, well, can you tell me a little bit more about that? When you say slow response time, what does slow response time mean to you? Oh, slow response time to me. But see where I'm going, Tom? He's just asking those next layer questions. Or when somebody says, well, slow response time, well, why are you saying that? What's slow response time mean? And then they're going to say whatever they say, right? Well, why is that? Why do you think that happens?

Peel the onion. Yep. And then you say, my favorite question back, when I ask questions and somebody gives me a response, well, why'd you say that? I'm just curious. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, why? And by the time that you ask three or four whys, now you've gotten to the heart of what really matters. But I think what happens in sales is they ask these surface level questions

just enough so they can hear what's going on, then they pounce on it right away. As opposed to asking a couple second and layer and third questions. Hey, in addition to that, Tommy, can you tell me something else, right? Ooh, I like that one. In addition, one of the things we do when we interview is we really try to get to the why is you got to peel that onion back to the layer of what really made you want

to come in here and interview? Well, I need to take care of my family. Yeah, but really, we all need to take care of our family. What is the main goal you're trying to get out of working for our company and sometimes it's just to get a job right And that's what I need to know But I think digging back because everybody's the hardest part that I found is clients and customers are difficult But we're selling one thing up front and I love the idea of a lifetime relationship But if I have a lifetime relationship with you and I just did your roof, you got issues. Because if I'm out there every couple of years

meeting you, I probably didn't do a good job. So the lifetime value of a customer is not exactly the same per industry, right? And I would agree with that. So I like your acronyms. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is one I teach. And the way I teach that one, and I like yours too, is always be helping others and always be helping the customers. But when I explain that and I say fear, uncertainty, and doubt, FUD, right? People go, why would you want to sell on fear, uncertainty, and doubt?

And I said, well, let me ask you this. Your wife comes up to you and she says, hey, honey, I think it would be good if we took the kids on a good trip. I've got my eye on Hawaii. What do you say? Or let's play the second scenario using fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Hey, Larry, I've been doing a lot of thinking and I've talked to the kids and you've been working a lot and you've been on the road a lot. And quite frankly, is the kids aren't getting enough of their dad and I'm not getting enough of my husband. And if something doesn't give, I really think this relationship is not headed in the right direction.

I'm really looking at this trip to Hawaii. It's a way to get away from work. And I've got dates picked out. I'd really like to make sure you schedule that time off to be with me and the kids. What do you think looks better for your wife to make that sell to you when she wants to go to Hawaii? No, I mean, obviously that's a no brainer. And I mean, you bring up a really good point

because this whole thing with fear, fear drove me as a salesperson. It was that fear and uncertainty. And I created a lot of that doubt because I mind screwed a lot of things in my career, Tommy. But one of the things that I bring to the forefront today because I see it and I expand upon it is that whole fear thing to sales teams and their leaders. And where I really go with this, because everybody says, if you ask a group of people, right, if you ask a group of salespeople and group of business owners, how well they take care of their current customers, what do you think they're going to say nine times out of 10, Tommy? Tell me.

No, I mean, do you think if you ask, they're ask they're gonna say well we take crappy care of our customers and we enjoy one star reviews and things like that of course not right they all say the same thing every all say the same thing right i got great relationships our customers love us and all of that stuff so then flipping it around i said okay what would happen if in the next 30 days, you got the dreaded phone call from one of your top five current customers that says, hey, guess what? We decided to take our business elsewhere. How would you feel? Oh, man, that's the one thing I like about my business. You know, I have guys that I told you about, but I said 170th, you know what I mean? It's like, it's scary to look at companies

that you could buy that are like one half of their business is this client. But you're right, I feel like crap. I mean, it would make us feel devastated. So it's that whole fear, right? That scarcity mindset that unsure is okay. Well, how would I feel? Well, then you got to do something about it proactively, which means that you have to love and protect and cherish

your customers. And if you're not doing that, then don't be surprised one day if you get the phone call. So these are the things that we're going to do to work on that. And that's the whole thing what you just said, Tommy, is we can say, Hey, you know, you got to build great relationships with your customers. I think everybody knows that, but if we flip it around and we put the little fear of God in them, then they go, you know what? I could be doing things a little bit better. I could be taking care of my customers a little bit better. I could be building better relationships. And if I did this, I have a more loyal client. But if I don't do this and I don't enhance the experience,

then I have to face the wrath of what if. Yeah, you know, as I'm thinking, you get in my mind just kind of wandering right now about certain times that so many companies have failed to communicate with me. I mean, there's so many things like if my pest control company, they're not great and they do a decent job when they come out, but if they just called me up and it's about those touch points, those top of mind and just, and I feel like connecting with the customer, sitting down at their kitchen table, talking to them, and follow-up is where we,

I think most companies fail on the follow-up. I teach ref, build rapport, educate, and then make sure you follow up. And that's something I'm obsessed with. And building a process around the follow-up. See, I posted something yesterday on Facebook as I was thinking. As I said, I don't feel great when I fix a problem.

I feel so much better when I fix the system because the system is what dictates everything that happens of the outcome. And I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but it's just so important to me to really, as I look back and think about how many companies have failed by not just calling me saying, you need to switch out your air conditioning filters.

I could come by. It's not an expensive thing. We want to be your company. You choose that. We know you've got a couple of years left on that unit, but we want to be the one you choose when it does. And hopefully you can appreciate where we're coming from. Let's protect that investment for the next few years.

And then we'll get you something on a little bit more efficient, right? Yep. It's interesting is we all play on this experiencing and I'll use this example. And I use this a lot with sales teams is I said, are you creating the Disneyland experience when you're servicing your clients? They go, what do you mean? How are you tying Disneyland into this? And I believe this, right? Set aside, Tommy, set aside products, services, and all that.

Can we just agree for the sake of this podcast? Let's just throw this one out, right? I think what most people are selling are experiences and memories. I don't care if it's garage doors, plumbing, copiers, right? Yard care service. Yep. Think about that one for a second. Disneyland, right? It's an amusement park and so forth and so on. Aren't they selling memories and experiences? But yet year over year, don't they jack the price up to go to Disneyland? Oh yeah. relate to the B2C world or B2B world is I want people to think about that. If you're continually not capturing memories and if you're not enhancing experiences,

you're not out there sharing stories and serving others, then what experience and memories are they capturing of you? So if you're not in there building relationships, if you're not in there being a servant, if you're not in there helping them do better business and providing them the unexpected thing, I'll tell you a quick story. So again, I've told you I came out of the copier world. You know what experience I provided them? I provided them a freaking white glove experience. And I had to wear a suit every day to work, Tommy. Yep. And in the trunk of my car, I carried Windex and rags. And I saw my top, top, top customers. You know, I set this out.

I divided my customers up between A, B, and C customers. Okay. And they were all on routine visits from me. And guess what I did? I fricking busted out a bottle of Windex in a suit and I went around and I cleaned all their printers and copiers. Did I have to do that? No. That was the white glove first-class experience I provided to my clients. And what do you think happened along the way? I started to drive different conversations. They saw me in a different light. They go, holy smokes, I can't believe what I'm just seeing. And then guess what happened? They'd go out and

tell that story to five other people. You don't believe this. Larry services our copiers and our printers, and this guy freaking in a suit walks in here with a bottle of Windex and cloths and starts cleaning our equipment. Now, how do you think that can translate into other people's worlds? It's no different, right? It's just going above and beyond and doing it because you care.

I love that story, man. That's cool. You know, it makes you kind of want to sit here and all the listeners out there like, look, what could I do above and beyond? I've got some, I'm sure everybody's kind of going through their head if they're like me right now going, I can do a little bit more TLC to a lot of the current clients I'm with. And what could I do?

When I write down, when I'm working on an ad to put out there to hire somebody, Larry, I've learned a different way of doing it. I've learned, and this is doing it. I've learned, and this is a great practice and I advise everybody that's listening to do it is, I write down and say, at the top of the piece of paper, I say, what am I offering and why would I want to work for me? So we invest in Dave Ramsey, which is getting yourself financially in check. We invest in homeownership. So we have a guy come talk every six months about homeownership. And we've got four new homeowners in the last three months. We do, you know, and pay time off, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we give them a nice new

truck when they start. We give them an iPad. We put at least 100 hours of training into each employee per year. But more importantly, we do fun things. We have outings. We cook for everybody. We've got a game room. We've got a gymnasium here that we can work out at. And it's like, look, I want people to walk out of here and my internal customers and say, it's pretty darn cool. Man, these guys walk around. They're pretty happy people. They're kind of stress-free. They don't have a lot of anxiety. They're not yelling. They're not, you know, I hate those people that only talk to me when I did something wrong. I try to catch people doing something right.

And when I'm filling this thing out, I want to say, what else can I add to this to make this company and me better to work for? And if you genuinely feel like that, you'll watch the hardest part right now, Larry, is unemployment is so low. And everybody part right now, Larry, is unemployment is so low and everybody who's anybody's going, how do you get more people? What is the secret? How do I find them? And the trick isn't going on a job board and Craigslist and Indeed and

Career Builder and I could keep going, just keeps going. It's having people say, hey, if anybody knows anybody looking for a job right now, we're going to be hiring two people and having 10 applicants come in that day because they know a friend or a family member or a neighbor or an acquaintance. You know what I mean? Yep. But I mean, you bring up some really good points, Tommy. And by the way, I applaud you for what you just said. But it's interesting because I was just in a conversation with somebody, you know, right before we hopped on your show is I said, you know, I'm not'm not here to papooey on salespeople and all that because I'm a firm believer they're a product of their environment. So this all rolls up to the top, right?

And we always say, we all know where a fish rot from and so forth. Right. I mean, I always say this. Your people will take care of your customers and our clients the same way that you take care of them. If you crap and you look at your employees as numbers and revenue signs, then guess how they're going to treat your customers? No different, right? Yep. So if you don't invest in the well-being and if you don't invest in your people,

why the heck should they invest in doing anything else? And I'm keeping it simple and sorry I'm being harsh. But it's just that because it's something that I have to talk to sales leaders and VP of sales about all the time. If you're not investing in your people, if you're not helping them grow, then what are you doing?

And if you're not in providing a learning environment and a caring environment and a nurturing environment, I can flat guarantee you, I know how they're taking care of your customers and it ain't going to be pretty. Yeah, that's exactly it. And you know what I've had, Larry, is there's some people that just, they want the nine to five. They want a job. They say enough with these meetings and your role playing. And, you know, there's always something you want us to learn. And there's always, you want us to do a checklist. And, and what I've learned with those people is it's going to be really hard for them to be successful because there's no culture. They just, they don't care.

And you can just tell by the demeanor on their face, they never smile. The business is business. And you just know that I don't want to even see that person at a family party because I don't want to be around them. You know what? I had a guy sitting next to me last week, a huge vendor trying to get my business. And he goes, Tommy, what do you want in a vendor? What would I have to do? What is it? And I said, here's the number one thing. I need to want to go have a beer with you. And that goes for every employee, a beer, a coffee, whatever it might be. The point is, I don't want to cringe every time you come in. I don't want to cringe every time I look at my phone and I see your name.

I want to smile and say, wow, this is awesome. I can't wait to catch up. Because if I got to have, I don't care, I'll pay more. I'll pay way more to do it, that to have an experience with somebody I enjoy my life with, then I will have to be around somebody that's a little bit cheaper, but just a freaking punk to be around. You know what I mean? Yep. Wow. It just goes back to, you know, I always say this, you know, we got to rehumanize what so many people have dehumanized. And I don't know any other way to say it, but, you know, we always say that, you know,

where we're at today, everyone hides behind technology. And I said, you know, we got to, I don't care if you're inside or outside the company, we got to step away from our keyboards and we got to step away from our phones and we got to build better relationships and we got to really get to know somebody. And it's hard getting to know somebody through a screen or texting and all that. And that's how we've, it's the world we've come to. And I would say, you know what, it's okay. And I'm not poo-pooing it because we all use it, but it's how can you use this to re-humanize and build better relationships and not hide behind these? Yeah. Wow. That's interesting, man. I love having these conversations just about,

it's really caring. How do you teach somebody to give a crap, Larry? I mean, what do you do? How do you find employees that really do? I mean, we could talk days on this one, but I talk about value alignment a lot, Tommy. Yep. And, you know, I said, we got to do a better job and I'm not here to, to say the hiring process is all screwed up and things like that. But we got to do a better job of bringing people in. Is that the right person that's coming into our culture? Right. And we got to peel this thing back and say, okay, does my company values, right? What I value as an owner, right?

And the values of my company, is that going to align to that person who's going to come into my company? And if the answer is no, or I'm not sure, then I don't know if you have the right employee. Would you agree? Yeah. But there's a lot more to it than that. Yeah, obviously. I mean, when I think about it, I got a list. I'll tell you, I'm not just your average. I'm pulling out a full-time recruiter and I'll tell you, I'm not just your average. I'm pulling out a full-time recruiter and I'll go through. I just wrote them down the other day. So background check, drug test, that's given, right?

I'm checking their credit. I want to see if they're financially stable. I mean, I've seen people that don't have money do things that aren't so good at the time. I want to see what kind of awards. Did you win any trophies in high school? What kind of sports did you play? I want to see your tax returns. Not because I care how much you made, but I want to see that you at least are a human being that files a tax return. I want to check references. I want to do a personal profile test. I do a disc assessment. I'm looking for letters of recommendation. I want to talk to your last... The question I ask, Larry, is not what if I talk to the last person that you work for,

but I say when I call Steve Smith, because this is the guy you have here, when I call Steve tomorrow, what is he going to tell me about you? And that's the, you know, there's certain questions. And then I actually put them through a small course. And here's the thing. I like having a huge,. And here's the thing. I like having a huge, huge wingspan of a funnel. And then I like to see who makes it through it because when they make it through, it's like, they're like, wow, I've earned this. It's kind of like

getting a master's degree. It's like, wow, I'm the elite of the elite. And my goal one day, Larry, when somebody says I worked at A1 Garage for a service, everybody in the industry is going to beg for these people to say, if you work there, kind of like enterprise and sales, if you worked at enterprise, people want, they're like, shoot, yeah, you can work here. I think the same thing for Southwest Airlines. If you work for Southwest, you're a certain type of person. The process in which they get them is rigorous. But I think that's the biggest mistake. I used to hire people that could fog a mirror. And you're a lot more involved in personal sales because you could scale yourself up because you've got a podcast and you've got a book and you do public speaking and you do a great job of it. But when I think about it, for me, sales and a lot

of the people listening is more about our employees and educating them and getting them to represent you. And how do you get them to want the things that you talk about to work for someone else? And that's the hardest part of it, isn't it? Yeah, but you said something that just struck a chord with me a few minutes ago, that you said that you build this wide funnel. I think that's what you said, Tommy. And this is what I want. And I think nowhere am I even close to being, you know, some expert or anything like that in the hiring process. So full disclosure people, right? So let's just get that one out on the table. But this is what I want people to think about because I speak about a sales funnel and a relationship funnel. And I want people who are in management who are responsible

for hiring people. Same thing with salespeople, right? If you want to have an ever-flowing sales funnel, you have to have an ever-flowing relationship funnel. Which means if you're a salesperson, you got to always be prospecting for new business. You got to always be prospecting for new relationship. You always have to be prospecting for new conversation. And this is non-negotiable. But what happens a lot of times in sales, unfortunately, is when does management and people start looking to fill a position? When they need someone, they're never, oh, you're so right. I talk about this all the time. Right? So I said, listen, right? If managers and, you know, if they have hiring people,

right, are constantly building relationship funnels and constantly building relationships and sharing the vision, right? And staying top of mind and leveraging the power of social and smashing this all together. Now they've built a big, huge relationship bench. And then when they fill a position, then when they need to fill a position, couldn't they be a little bit more picky? Instead, what happens is there's no bench. So then everyone freaking panics. And over the next 30 days, they go, well, heck, man, we got to fill this position. We got to fill it fast. And I just want to add on to that. It's like yesterday, I probably talked to 20 people that I knew inside of Phoenix that don't work with me. And I just mentioned to them, hey, listen, do me a favor. If you know anybody that you think would be great at this position,

and a lot of them were at my grand opening of the new building and stuff. And I'll tell you what, we've got a lot, like 10 interviews today. And it's not just me, but it's, you know, we have pizza parties, right? On Friday sometimes. And I'll be like, look, just post these ads. We're eating pizza, get some videos, post them on Facebook, post them on your Instagram or Snapchat. And people are like, man, they're eating pizza in a game room at A1 and they're hiring. I want to check this out because you know what I hear a lot of? It sounds better than where I work at. And 84% of people are looking to move their jobs in the next year. So I think there's a lot of power behind that. And I think that leadership, there's a lot to do with culture and leadership there, but I say always be recruiting.

No matter where you go, no matter who you're talking to, say, if you know anybody that's looking, I'm always looking for great people. Even if I've heard of GE doing layoffs and Jack Welch hiring, even through the layoffs, if he found the right person. So Larry, let me ask you a couple of quick questions here. If you got three books, obviously selling from the heart, you guys got to check it out. It's how your authentic self sells you. It's a big book. It's got big lettering in there,

but a hundred and a, you know what I hate Larry? Sometimes I hate buying a book and it's number one. I hate it. If I pay for a book and it's like 20 pages. And I also hate if I buy a book that should be 20 pages, that's 200 pages, but this is a 180 pages and it is a lot of great stuff in here.

I mean, you've got just so many, so many great things about, and it's all evolved around great customer experience. And really what we forget about is retention with our clients. And I think that so many of us say, we got to keep going, getting more, getting more, adding to it, adding to it. And the same thing we do with employees. It's the same thing. Instead, we should think about what do I need to do to

keep what I have? Because I've seen companies fall apart. That girl you talked to the other day lost five clients. And we just can't let that happen to us. So you guys got to pick up the book. Larry, if they want to get a whole, so you got to tell me three books first. They could be anything and everything. Three books that I'm reading right now are three books that have had an impact. Three books that changed your life.

It could be fiction. It could be, you know, the Bible. I don't care. I just, we always try to get the three books that kind of moved you in your direction that you get a ton out of. So I'm going to give you one oldie. Okay. One that's about 10 years old and one that's fairly new. Okay, cool. So the one that I refer to, that's the oldie all the time. It's the second

book I ever read is how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. And the simple reason is that book's written well over 80 years ago, Tommy. And the core foundation of that book, in my opinion, is still alive and well today. It's about building relationships and changing the way people think. No different. We're still doing that 80 years later. Agree? Yep, absolutely. So that one, a book I read about 12, 13 years ago that validated my approach was a book by a friend of mine. His name's Kevin Davis. And he wrote a book called Slow Down, Sell Faster. And it aligns with everything that we're all talking about right now is I said, you know what? We try to speed up the sales process and we try to cram it through this thing called a 30-day window or a 60-day window.

But I always came from the approach is if I don't spend the time to get to know somebody and what makes somebody tick and how I can help them, then why on earth should they do business with me? And I found out that if I slowed it down a little bit, I actually sped it up. So that book just validated everything that was going on in me. It slowed down so faster. And the last one, and this book is pretty powerful. It's written by a guy named Dr. Randy Ross, and he wrote a book called Relationomics. The book really comes at you from a leadership perspective. It'd be a great book for you to check out, Tommy. It's all about how you treat people and how that is translated to how you treat your customers. And it's all about relationships. I love it. This is great stuff. You know, I'm a big reader and I kind of just get through books really quick. Sometimes

I listen to them so fast. When I was reading yesterday, I was in a recording studio reading some of my manuals and I was just like, not the home service professional. And I'm like, man, I've got a program in a certain way that I just, and I skip words and I just read so fast now. And it's so hard to slow down and say, how can a home service professional transcend transactional relationships?

I'm like, Jesus Christ. So Larry, if someone wants to get ahold of you, learn more about what you do and more about just building these lifetime relationships and really caring. I love it. What's the best way to kind of reach out to you? Well, a bunch of different ways. You can find out anything you ever want to know about Selling from the Heart at sellingfromtheheart.net. Obviously, you can read the book. You can listen to our Selling from the Heart podcast on whatever your favorite podcast app is. You can find me on Instagram. You can find me on Twitter. And then thanks to my good friend, Mark Hunter, at the Relationship Marketing Summit that you were involved with,

I got shamed into Facebook. Now you can find me on Facebook. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. And then, and then, you know, if you ever want to, you can reach out to me. Let me, I'll, if it's okay, I'm going to, I'll give people my email address if they ever want to reach out. Perfect. It's my first initial L, my last name, Levine, L-E-V-I-N-E at sellingfromtheheart.net. Perfect. And then the way that I usually finish, Larry, is if you had one thing to leave the audience with, one great tip, one major takeaway, one thing that you think would change their lives and their business, and I'll give you the floor here. It's simple. And it's three things that I hold near and dear to me is be sincere, have some substance,

lead with your heart, and great things will happen. I promise you. Lead with your heart, ladies and gentlemen. If you're looking for it, it's Larry Levine's Selling from the Heart. I really appreciate you coming on today, sir. Hey, no, it's my pleasure. I can't wait for next time.

All right, brother. All right, later, dude. Make it easy, bud. All right, brother. All right. Later, dude. Take it easy, bud. Hey, I just wanted to take a quick minute and thank you for listening to the podcast. You know, most people don't understand this, but the way that the podcast has grown is when people subscribe and they leave a review. So if you would please, please, please, Wyatt's top of mind, take a quick minute to subscribe and leave a quick review. It'll help me out so much. If you just took a little bit of time right now, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the listeners and the feedback. And also when you subscribe, what I'm

going to do is let you know the next guest coming on the podcast, and I'll let you email me anything you want me to ask that next person coming on. All the pros I have on here, I want your feedback. I want you to subscribe so you can start giving me the questions you want me to ask and help us grow together. Also, I'm giving away my book for free now. All you got to do is go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast. You got to cover the shipping and handling, but I'm giving the material out for free. It's 200 pages. It's a hardcover book. Homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast. I appreciate each and every one of the listeners and thank you for making this Home Service Expert podcast a success. I hope you're having a great day and thanks again.