Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
Bad Hires Are Killing Your Roofing Business. Fix This NOW! with Jonathan Whistman
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Jonathan Wistman, the acclaimed "Sales Boss" known for his mastery in guiding sales teams to success. Witness firsthand how Jonathan's journey from entrepreneurship to consulting has shaped his unique insights into the vital importance of investing in people for business growth. We uncover the strategies behind building a workplace culture where employees thrive and explore the core concepts of people management, motivation, and leadership across industries, with a special focus on the roofing sector.
Unlock the secrets of the BOSS Hiring Framework—Behavior, Outlook, Skill, and Stature—that can transform your team performance. Jonathan shares actionable advice on hiring strategies, particularly in sales roles, evaluating the pros and cons of industry-specific experience versus general sales talent. Discover why understanding the critical behaviors and outlook of team members often trumps teachable skills, and learn how to construct a cohesive, high-performing sales team by defining the qualities your business most needs.
Prepare to be inspired by the groundbreaking work of a data scientist using machine learning to predict employee potential and retention. We'll delve into the fascinating dynamics of human behavior and how businesses can harness these insights to make informed hiring decisions. We also explore the captivating intersection of marketing and recruiting, emphasizing how thoughtfully crafted job advertisements can attract top talent. By aligning personal and organizational goals, leaders can foster more effective team performance, paving the way for long-term success.
🤖 Have a question? Ask this customized ChatGPT for the answer! Specifically designed for this episode, it’s here to help! https://roofingpod.com/chatgpt-229
Resources & Links:
🤝 Join The Roofing & Solar Reform Alliance: http://roofingpod.com/rsra
👉 Take your marketing to the next level: https://roofingpod.com/jobnimbus-marketing
🎯 Join Our Facebook Group: https://roofingpod.com/facebook
IG: https://www.instagram.com/roofingsuccess/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/roofingsuccess
📱 Text Jim @ (612) 512-1812 – Say Hi!
💬 Leave Us a Review: https://roofingpod.com/review
In today's episode, we're digging into what is the single most important system in any business identifying, hiring and training great people. Jonathan shares why he believes that in the roofing industry, the path to growth is paved by investing in your team. Jonathan Wistman is best known as the sales boss for his book by the same name, which reveals the secrets to hiring, training and managing successful sales teams. His extensive background spans tech, startups and consulting, with a focus on developing high performance teams in some of the most challenging industries. What sets Jonathan apart is his dedication to unlocking the potential in others. He's a strong advocate for building a team culture where employees feel that they're doing their best work of their lives. Whether it's instilling a sense of ownership or creating an impactful recruiting system, jonathan is all about cultivating people who want to be happy but discontent, always striving for growth. So get ready for a conversation packed with actionable insights into people management, from setting the right standards to designing an irresistible recruiting system. Let's dive in with Jonathan Wistman.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Jonathan Wistman, how's it going? I'm doing well. How are you? Good man? You've been contributing to the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance group for a little while now. You did a presentation in the group, a webinar of sorts, and then you did a, came down to the live event and presented to the group and I wanted to have you on because you know, I think, that people, that the business owners, struggle with understanding what their business really is, and I truly believe that you know we think of our business, especially, you know, in roofing it's like, oh, we're in the roofing business but, man, as you grow and as you develop, as you grow, from that, you know, small contractor, where you're doing everything to the, you know maybe an eight figure contractor and you're, you know, running big sales teams and doing all this stuff.
Speaker 3:I don't think people focus on people, yeah, and I think the important thing for people to understand is that, regardless of the product they sell, they're actually in the people business and if you can get a people part of any business right, you can scale any business. And so, to the extent that leaders focus on their ability both to identify quality people but then, once you have them, how do you inspire them and keep them and grow them? And I've always had the philosophy that people will stick with your company as long as they believe they can do the best work of their lives working for you, and the minute that that's not true, they're going to be looking elsewhere. And so you know, if you're a roofing company, you really need to sort of take off the roofing hat and say what's in it for my people long term. Have I thought about their future, because they're certainly day to I thought about their future, because they're certainly day-to-day thinking about their future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the best companies are not the ones that market the best, it's not the ones that sell the best, it's not the ones that build the best roofs, it's the ones that have the best people that stay with them long term. Right, like that's really an immeasurable aspect of success in any business but in a roofing business too is is finding the right people and keeping the right people.
Speaker 3:Right yeah, my grandfather used to say business would be easy if it wasn't for the people, and I tend to agree with him. People are messy, but once you figure out how to get people into your organization and get them moving in the right direction, then the rest of the things marketing, sales operations, installation, all of those sort of things start to take care of themselves because you have good people looking after them to take care of themselves because you have good people looking after them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about you for a second. Just a brief background on you and who hire and what you do and where you came from and your book and things like that, and then we'll get into what I think is. What we talked about was the single most important system in your roofing business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, perfect. So I'm best known as the sales boss for a book I wrote called the Sales Boss the Real Secret to Hiring, training and Managing a Sales Team. And so I've been in large organizations figuring out all the systems and processes around bringing people in, related to hiring and getting them going towards a particular goal. And I got into that role because I had I've always been self-employed, so I started my very first business way back and then got involved in technology. And then people started asking me well, what do you think I should do for my business? And I was always humbled by that question because at the time I was like, well, these are really smart people and they've got really big businesses.
Speaker 3:And I'd get in and I'd look around and over and over again, what I recognized was that the single biggest problem people had was around how do they think about their people? And I tended early on to focus on the core sales team, because sales fixes a lot of problems. If you have sales, it gives you time to figure out the rest. And what I also recognized is that you know it's sort of macho from a business owner perspective, you know to say I need to fix my sales and I'm working on my sales and it's not quite as sexy to be saying, well, I need to improve my ability to be a good people person and manage people and motivate people. And gosh, I got some of my own problems that I need to work on and I'm not a very good leader. I don't know how to inspire people. So I always say, you know, sell people, sell people what they want. They want a better sales team and then give them what they need, which a lot of times that's the psychology around thinking about their people problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a good point. It's that we always think that the largest return on investment will come from sales right, or working on selling better or being a better salesperson or building better salespeople, which that is to a point. But really there is an enormous return on investment on having A players on your team, on having good people in all roles in the production side, having good people in all roles in the production side, in the office, on the job site and in sales right, because if you don't do a good job building the roof, you could sell all you want, but your reputation may be damaged from that right. And so having that, both sides of that and I've come to this conclusion.
Speaker 1:I came to this conclusion over the past few years as we built, as we built Roofer Marketers and sold Roofer Marketers to Job Nimbus, and you know it, all of a sudden there was a point in time where our business only became people. It was like who do we need next in what role? Right? Like that was the, that was the whole. Like what we did on a day-to-day basis was who and what right who, who do we need and what role do we need them in? And then how do we train them, you know, get them up to speed, you know, and then develop that company culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's a you know, outside of my own book which I'd recommend people read, yeah, the a great book that comes to mind is who, not how, by Benjamin Hardy. Right, and great companies get in that habit of, when they're facing an issue in their company, not asking themselves how am I going to solve this problem, but asking themselves who is the person I need and that person will solve the problem for them. And that again comes back to just being really good at identifying and quality people and knowing what it is that you're looking for and then having some sort of process to bring them in, get them up to speed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what we were talking about. You know before, before we went live. Here is the. You know, really, it really is the single most important system and that's how you defined it right. It's the single most important system and that's how you defined it right. It's the single most important system in your business. So you know what is the single most, what is the single most important system in?
Speaker 3:your business. It's the one identifying, hiring and training great people. That's it. And it was surprising because it seems so ridiculously obvious. And yet people have an accounting system. They have, you know, a roofing system. There's systems for everything, and yet the people part of their business oftentimes is sort of an afterthought, right.
Speaker 3:I oftentimes see managers who's like, oh crap, I got a noon interview with so-and-so and they're sort of rustling around saying where's the resume, and it's almost an afterthought to what happened in their day.
Speaker 3:And so I try to train companies, when I'm working with them, to be thinking about, when they move somebody forward in the hiring process, that their staff believes that they're making a half a million dollar decision. In fact, in my own company and the ones I train, I actually literally have them write a half a million dollar check. Now, we don't actually cash it, but that process of writing the check out and endorsing their name on the back of it causes them to go back to the conversations we've had about the importance of this hire in our business. Now, I don't know about your business, but who's authorized to write a half a million dollar check in your business? Probably not many. Not many, right, that's right. And yet we as leaders, give that authority to others and in our organizations to weigh in and make hiring decisions, and are we holding them to the same standard and scrutiny that we would, as if we gave them access to write a half a million dollar check?
Speaker 1:That's a great way to look at it. It really emphasizes the importance of that person, right? It's not? I think we get caught up in this in. So I look at it, I look at it this way and maybe, you know, I'm sure you could define it a little bit better but, like, I look at it as hiring and recruiting. I think of those things as two different things. And I look at hiring as is what a lot of small businesses do. When they have a need, right, and it's like we need a body for this seat, let's just get someone to help. Then the other side of it is recruiting, and recruiting.
Speaker 1:To me, the way I look at it is intentional. Right, you're actually looking for some, not just a warm body for that seat. Right, you're looking for someone very specific and you're willing to take some time and you're willing to, I think, like, put that, that emphasis, like you're talking about with the writing, the $500,000 check, like you're taking you're, you're putting that emphasis on that. You're really taking it seriously. How, how should, how should a, a roofing contractor or small business owner, you know, think about that. How do they, how do they put a recruiting process in place and not just hire?
Speaker 3:Well, it comes down one, when it comes down to really knowing what it is you're looking for, what's the role that you need to play. So, in sales, sandler was, if you've ever followed the Sandler sales system, david Sandler was famous for the saying that a sales team is, or a sales process is, like a stage play put on by a psychologist Right. And I think of companies like a stage right. And if you, if you're a director of a stage play, when you do a casting call, you're looking for very specific people. You're looking for somebody to play a lead, you're looking for somebody to play the secondary role, you're looking for a chorus, you're looking and you create auditions for that specific role and you're actually what you're doing is you're thinking about your audience and what's the emotional journey and the story that you're trying to take your audience through. And in many ways, when we look at our customer base and our community, we're putting on a stage play for our community. When they come in and the curtain's down and the curtain goes up, they have an expectation, through the marketing that you've done and the outreach you've done, that they're going to go through a certain thing with you, right? So that's when I first start talking to people about thinking about this.
Speaker 3:Recruiting is get really crystal clear on what is the role, and people get confused with a job description, which is a series of tasks that somebody is going to do, which is entirely different than a role. If you're a director, you're going to give somebody. You know, of course, you have a line and you have a script, but you're looking for that actor or actress to bring their own talent and their own energy and their own inspiration to that role and when everybody comes together and they do an inspired performance, they've taken something that can be, you know, an okay script on its own, a play, and they can make it this magnificent thing that goes on and wins awards and people come back night after night and, you know, give them a standing ovation. So just thinking about changing your perspective, that I'm not hiring, I'm not hiring an employee. I'm hiring somebody to put on my cast of players and every day when the curtain goes up on our business, we're playing for applause. We're playing for the critics review. Right? Your five-star Google review is actually like the critic that puts out a review of your stage play.
Speaker 3:How did you do today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so amazing. And what, really? What light bulb really went off in my head and this is one of those things that I've never thought. It's the role that you're hiring for. Right, the word is right there and like, oh, we're hiring for a role, and it's the same thing. You know, when, if you think of it from a sports analogy right, like the general manager is, you're not recruiting linemen to play wide receiver. Yeah, right, like you're not, they're not bringing in. Like you're actually saying this is, this is the person I want, this is the skillset that they need to be successful doing these tasks. Is that how I'm thinking about it? Right, like your job description? Are the tasks doing these tasks? Is that how I'm thinking about it? Right, like your job description, are the tasks? Now we say, well, what qualities make up a person who is good at these tasks?
Speaker 3:Is that is that. That's exactly it In my book, the Sales Boss, I named it BOSS. The BOSS is actually an acronym that stands for the four levers that a leader can look at when something's going wrong with somebody on their team, and they stand for these four things. B is behavior the thing they're doing right. And so in every role in your organization there is a behavior that's critical to that role. It might be the ability to knock and have a door-to-door conversation with somebody on their front porch, it might be like insert. Whatever the behavior is that's important and critical to that role.
Speaker 3:O stands for outlook. Outlook's everything going on, you know, between the years. It's their view of themselves, their view of their community, might be the relationship with their significant other, their competitor. All of those things come into play.
Speaker 3:And then the third at the S is skill. And a lot of times when we're looking for people we actually get stuck on the skill. We're like do they have this skill? I'm less interested in that, because without the right behavior, the right outlook, it doesn't really matter if they have the skill or not, but if they have the right behavior, they have the right outlook. I can teach almost any skill.
Speaker 3:And then the last S is for stature, and you've seen people that have stature right. It develops over time. They walk into the room, people immediately understand they're the expert that they belong there, that there's somebody that they should listen to, there's somebody they should value, so BOSS. So the way I put that into the hiring process is to get really clear on what is the critical behavior that's necessary for this role. So if the role requires them to be up and talking to a group all the time, have they ever done that? Not necessarily in my industry, but have they done that thing right? If it requires them to, you know, be doing whatever, whatever that behavior behavior is, hopefully that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And if you go back to the stage play.
Speaker 3:That's really what the director's doing. Have they ever played a leading lady? Have they done that role? They don't really care the venue under which they've done that.
Speaker 1:But have they done it before? I was talking to someone recently about that, one of my coaching in the digital marketing agency that I group that I coach in, we were talking about hiring salespeople and you know, I kind of I think that you have you have to simplify. You have three options, right, you have the person who has sales experience in your industry, so, like a roofing salesperson who has been in roofing sales for a long time, you have a person who has sales experience, but maybe not in your industry specific. And then you have the person that has no sales experience. Right, and we were having a conversation around well, which person would you like, you know?
Speaker 1:Do you want the person that you know they have no sales experience and you know, and what things would you want them to, to? What qualities would you want them to have if they were that person, if they had been in sales, but they just had not been in roofing sales, what qualities would you want in that person? That's the. You know. Maybe they don't have the roofing skill, but they have the skill of sales, right, and so they might not have the stature was the last one.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Stature. So maybe they don't have the confidence and the stature of a. You know that they can stand up there and do a roof inspection and really present the, the, the, the here's, your hail damage and this is what's wrong, and you know they may not have that yet, but but they have that sales experience. They can qualify that a little bit and we were talking about you know like there's different. It depends on who you want to, how you want to build your sales team right, like, do you want to really shape and mold people or do you want to just teach them roofing or do you want to manage someone who has habits that maybe you don't like right and have to? You know that. You know that you may have to change.
Speaker 3:They may have to change some things to work with your team and one of the interesting things and I'd love to tell you about this journey that we're going on with WhoHire. But think about looking at a room full of kids. Right, young, maybe they're, and they're. They're in that room and they're beating on pots and pans, like kids are known to do, just making a racket. What is it that? If you gave all of them the exposure to the same sort of opportunity and musical training, and that, what causes some of those kids to go on and play at Carnegie Hall and others to just like barely sing karaoke or you know, maybe even only what I'm singing in the shower? Right, there is something intrinsic to the way we're wired that causes us one to have a love and a passion for, for certain things and then a talent for them. Like, there are people that love to sing Nobody loves to hear them sing, right and there's others that they love it and they're good at it, and they go on for greatness. And so I've been fascinated by this study of human potential and what causes people to tick.
Speaker 3:And four years ago I came across a gal great story. She grew up in Taiwan literally in a rice paddy, no running water, no electricity, first of her family to go to college amazing data scientist, io, psychologist and a great thinker. And she had asked herself this question around what causes people to tick? And there's a lot of like pre-hire types of assessments out there People are probably familiar with, like DISC and Myers-Briggs and PI, that really look at introversion and extroversion and that sort of thing. And she had said, she came up to me I was speaking at a sales conference and she said you know, I think companies sort of get this wrong, because I don't think a company cares whether someone's introverted or extrovert. I think they care. Will they be at the top 10% and how long are they going to stay around? And so she had went, she went, what she, what she did, is. She went back into academic research, coming out of universities and she had identified about 450, what, what's known in the industry as psychographic traits or so things like cognitive agility, practical intelligence.
Speaker 3:Things like cognitive agility, practical intelligence, interpersonal listening, self-efficacy, self-awareness, locus of control, life stress, emotional regulation there's all of these things that science says we can measure reliably in humans and they don't change a lot over time. We're just sort of wired. It's like a kid who you know, exposed to the right thing he does great at music, as opposed to the other kid exposed to the same thing who just sort of sings in the shower, and so we should think about our roles in our company like that. There are humans on this planet who are? They just sort of get off and get on with the thing you're like. It lights them up, right. Like if you put me in front of a spreadsheet all day, I can do the work, but I'm going to want to shoot myself Like at the end of the day. You know, this is not the way I want to spend my day. Other people love it, like when it comes out and all the ledgers line up and it, you know, zeros out like they. They actually get ecstatic about that sort of thing and because of that they become talented.
Speaker 3:So what she did is she went into companies like Mercedes-Benz and she got thousands of car salespeople and she did a huge psychographic assessment about 450 human traits, so got this really rich view of who are the kinds of people working in those jobs today, and so that's one big bucket of data. And on the other side, she got their actual performance. So how many cars did they sell? How long did they stay on the job. What was their average margin? How much did they discount? And she fed that into a machine learning pattern recognition engine, into a machine learning pattern recognition engine almost like it's not almost like almost identical to the type of algorithms that are the insurance companies use when you sign up for insurance to say how long is this person going to live, what disease are they likely to get? Right, because they're trying to hedge their risk. That's right. And so what was what came out of? That was what we call a performance blueprint.
Speaker 3:So now companies like mercedes use that for somebody to take a, a 10-minute questionnaire coming in and she puts out a prediction this person's likely to sell 50 cars a month or 40 cars a month. They're going to stay around long term. This person's going to churn out early and she was getting to within 15. Like that's pretty amazing for how messy people are and when you sit down in an interview, almost all of those things I listed would be impossible even for a great interviewer to get.
Speaker 3:And so we've done that across the trades industry. So think like HVAC, plumbing, electrical, solar roofing, where we've gotten hundreds of people in those roles like door-to-door roofing salesperson, and we assessed them. We said what causes some people to do really great in this role and churn out and what causes people to be naturally talented at it and run well. So we've put that into technology that customers can use to just give them that edge. Now what we're not saying is and this is an important point just like those kids we're not saying this kid today can play at Carnegie Hall. What we're saying is if you give this person the right training, the right development, they're the sort of person who that training and development is not going to be wasted on. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:That's an amazing point. And so that gives you that hey, that person with less experience. It gives you the confidence to say I'm making a better decision. One of my favorite quotes is from Gary Vaynerchuk. It's hiring is guessing, firing is knowing. Yeah, that's right, and so, so we, we really want to make the best guess possible and and you know, I know, you know, I know DISC and Predictive Index and Colby and all these, so many of these, give us some sort of information.
Speaker 1:But this is taking it a step further really yeah, we're just trying to do that on a much broader scale.
Speaker 3:Science has come a long way in 30 years and the core science that things like DISC are based on are 30-year-old science. It's great science, but it's just. You know we have so much more available. It's. You know, roofers used to use a hammer and you know now they use a pneumatic hammer.
Speaker 1:The hammer works and this year in New Jersey there's robots on the roof, so it's, you know like it will evolve, right, but but what are some of those things? So let's talk through some of that, like, let's talk through some of those performance predictors. You know, is's really just great pattern recognition.
Speaker 3:So some of the things that that you know show up inside of sales reps in the home service industry doing well, and refers particularly is that are sort of interesting is, in addition to having like a type A personality, they also possess a high degree of cheerfulness. Right, and when you're thinking, when you think about like in an in an interview, you might not necessarily be measuring for cheerfulness. A second area that is super important in home service sales is self-esteem Like what is their interview of themselves and a high degree of not only feedback seeking but self-confidence, meaning they are self-directed. They don't need a high degree of somebody giving them direction.
Speaker 1:Those are great things here's one that I found surprising.
Speaker 3:Gentleness ranks about 12% of the weighting of a high-performing sales rep in roofing. You don't typically think of roofing salespeople as gentle at least, at least I don't and yet that that came through over and over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that that does make sense. When you're thinking about the homeowner experience, that customer experience, right, that man, they just took care of me, right, like they, the, the homeowner feeling that they were well taken care of. That. You know if, if you're too harsh, you know there it will become adversarial with a customer, right, if you are, if you are more gentle and understand that man, I have to, I have to explain this in a in a better way. I have to do a little bit more, I have to take more time, or, you know, I could see how that, how that really could play into that.
Speaker 3:If you go back to you know, directing a stage play? Yeah, it would. It's not just enough to get somebody that can do the role. You've hired salespeople, as an example, that can do sales and they might even be really good at it. You actually need somebody that not only can do the role, but it energizes them, like they are recharged and their view of themselves is influenced by how they do. You can think of people who go out on stage uh, and they can. They can give a great speech. They come away and they're tired, they're exhausted, they're like I gotta have a nap. I'm not, you know, like I need three days. And there are other people that get off the stage and they're energized and they're like, hey, let's go have a beer and can everybody. You know, I'll answer questions for the next three hours. I'm going to hang around until the last person goes home. And that's what you really want in your organization is is not just the potential for this skill, but somebody who, the way they're wired, actually is recharged by doing that role.
Speaker 3:And that's where the science that we're trying to get at is. What is it about humans that makes some people recharged in that role and other people, even though they can do it, they're stretched, they're strained by it. Because when you're stretched and strained, what do you eventually do? You quit, you turn out, you do less, you take a break. But when you're energized, you seek it out. You know, if you love science, you read about it, you go to conventions like you geek out on it. Hours pass, and if you don't like science, your eyes glaze over the minute. It doesn't mean you can't do it, that you can't understand the concepts. It just doesn't do anything for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a big. I think that's a big, that's a big aha moment for people listening and that's that's the reality of it. So if you know, you know, it's easier on the you know, maybe, to talk. We're always hiring sales reps and there's a lot of talk on the sales side, but but that person, who's who's do, who your product, your production manager, needs to not get drained by all of the problems that come up during the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you have people that can handle the problems they're capable, but it drains them. And you have people that can handle the problems they're capable, but it drains them.
Speaker 1:It drains them. Instead of that, you need someone that's like oh, we're missing materials here. Cool, I got that under control. Yep, I got that one, I got that one. And their joy comes from the solving of those problems who would drain another person, of those problems who would drain another person. Yeah, I think of, yeah, I think of that. On like a when, uh, you know, accounts receivable right, collections, right, like my uh phone gets real heavy if you uh, if you want, you know, but there's other people who get the, the, they get a kick out of collecting money. Yeah, right, like, right, like it's, it's energizing.
Speaker 3:Right, you know, I think about my, my son. It loves to go to waffle house. I don't. I don't know why, but you know what? The waffle house has the open kitchen right and you can sit at the bar there and they cook and there's a lot of restaurants like that and you can see like short order cooks in that environment, like there's a lot coming at them and they're having a good time. They're turning around and joking with the customers and like there's a little song and dance going there and you can tell they really enjoy working that kitchen and have the having the audience right there. And there are other people that you know they can cook a decent breakfast but you can just tell it weighs on them Like they're not, they're not any joy, this is a job and they're eventually going to turn out. Every role in your organization is that way and that's the lens with which you build. A great team is. Go back to thinking of it as a role, as a role performance, not a job performance.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's the and and and. Just with that thought process of, will this person be energized with what they're doing on a day-to-day basis? Even if someone doesn't have access to the data like you have, or working with you guys on stuff, they can at least have some sort ask, some sort of questions that may lead to that right Like that.
Speaker 1:May that that may get to at least part of the way there right, they may not get all of the way there, but they'll get you know like you know so, but but I think it's it's what you focus on improves right. So if you focus on hiring or recruiting through this lens of who can we find that is energized by this role? Just going into it with that mindset, I could see that making an enormous impact on the people that you bring in and if you say what's the non-job equivalent to this behavior?
Speaker 3:So go back to boss, behavior, outlook, skill, stature, what's the non-job equivalent? Right, so it might be coaching, little league, it might be, you know, whatever it is there's, if somebody's energized by it, you'll find non-job evidence that they do those sort of things. Yeah, right, that they're energized by it. So one of the shorthand things I look for in every interview, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter the role. If I could only make a hiring decision based on one thing, it would be is this person a happy discontent? Be is this person a happy discontent? And what I mean by that is is their view of the world and of themselves generally happy, like they're they? They have a positive outlook. They see people as having good intent. They see themselves as capable human beings. They're not miserable, they're like, they're just genuinely happy people.
Speaker 3:And then I say a happy discontent meaning there's also a part of them that's slightly unhappy with where they're at, because they know they could do better. They know there's more yet out for them. So they're striving, they're seeking, they're sort of self-improvement baked into them. But that desire for better doesn't make them unhappy in their day-to-day living. It doesn't create a negativity, it doesn't create this mindset of entitlement that you know they've been shortchanged, the world's dealt them a bad hand. So for your listeners I would say, if you just write at the top of the paper when you're interviewing somebody, say, are they a happy? Discontent, what evidence can I find that they're happy? I can ask a lot of questions and I don't really care. Their answers to any of those questions I just does the language they use to describe the world around them tell me that they're happy. And yet they realize there's more out there for them. They were built for more, that they're not static humans.
Speaker 1:That's an important part the not being static. I think in most organizations I mean, you want people who are continuously improving right, continuously improving right, and who are willing to continuously improve and who want more because they're willing to put in the time and the effort. And I think they have a better understanding of that. And if they're unhappy, people naturally and they want more, that's a problem.
Speaker 3:You know, what's interesting interesting, I find, especially for entrepreneurs is that we're by nature, we grow things and we become dissatisfied with them and we want change and we need to look at the role not from our life perspective, but for the life perspective of the person that's there. What's the life perspective they want? In my book I talk about four truths about human behavior, and I really feel like mastering those helps you build an organization. But one of them is that things are only good or bad by comparison, and what I mean by that is like when we think or feel a certain way, it's always in comparison to something we've experienced in the past, right.
Speaker 3:So when I first started renting cars, I loved renting cars because it was always better than the car I had. I had a, I had a piece of junk, right, and now I rent a car. I'm never impressed with a rental car Never Right, cause I have a different point of comparison. And so we have to, as owners, sort of rewind time to think about what is the reality of the human that we're putting in that role and the role they're playing, and and how did they get their standard of good? How did they get their standard of great they got it in comparison to something else. I'll use a really simple example. If you think about what standard somebody has for clean, that's a massive difference. But they'll all describe it as hey, my house is clean and you walk in there and you're like man, I wouldn't let my dog live here.
Speaker 1:Right, Jonathan, I have nine-year-old twin boys, so you know their idea of a clean room is much different than your idea of a clean room.
Speaker 3:If somebody grew up in a hoarder's house their, you know, their family was a hoarder grew up in a hoarder's house, their family was a hoarder they could have what they really genuinely feel is a standard of clean that to you and I would be horrific, but it's better than what they experienced. So when you're hiring somebody into your organization and you're recruiting somebody into your organization, you want to hire somebody whose reference for great is as close to the standard you need. And what I don't see leaders asking in that interview and when they're working with new employees is where did that standard come from In roofing? Where did their standard of honesty come from? Where did their standard of truthfulness come from? Where did their standard of work ethic come from?
Speaker 3:In many cases, you know, people may have come from broken families. They might have come from and that's their standard, and I'm not saying that's a negative thing. I came from a broken family. But you have to acknowledge where did their standard of great come from? And there's a lot of scientific research around.
Speaker 3:People have a, a set point. You think about a thermostat right, you set it to 75 and when it hits 75, you know it stops and you can turn the temperature up and it'll get to 80. You can turn it down and you'll cool. But everybody has a set point and people's set points tend to be somewhere within 10 to 15% of their peer group, of their standard. So meaning when I'm making 15% more than the rest of my family, I think I'm making a great living. When I'm doing anything slightly above the standard, my set point goes off. It doesn't mean I don't consciously shut off, but there's a complete difference between I've parked my car inside a parking garage and I can't get it out unless I have the $12 to pay the parking fee, and I can't get it out unless I have the $12 to pay the parking fee, versus I'd love to have an extra $12 to buy an ice cream cone, like if my car is locked up. I'm desperate and you just got to think about what's. What's the drive coming from?
Speaker 1:And where is their thermostat set? Going back to those kind of what I was talking about, the three types of sales reps that I kind of. You know that new person a lot of times you have to make sure that they are willing that their temperature will be set high enough to reach a sales goal. That helps to achieve the company sales goal. That helps to achieve the company sales goal If that makes sense, right? Like if you have a $5 million goal for your company and you hired five reps and you need each of them to hit a million dollars and to hit a million dollars they'll make six figures. Let's make the math easy, right? They'll make $100,000. If their thermostat is set at $45,000, once they get there, they're going to not feel inclined to knock the next door a lot of times right and we're all like that.
Speaker 3:We're all like that and that's the challenge. If you, as an owner, think there's something wrong with that salesperson, it's actually you. You just don't understand human nature. Your business owner is the same way. When they got to make payroll and they got to do everything else, they work much harder. But there's a point at which and it's different for every business owner there's some business owner that are under 5 million they're panicked. There's others that are under 10 million they're panicked. Everybody has a comfort level with how many zeros and which side of the decimal point it's on in their bank account at which point they panic. The humans we bring into our business are the same way. They have a standard. So the better that you get at saying not what is my team's standard, but what is Joe or Bob or Craig or Cindy and how did they get that standard? And then great leaders one hire as close to that standard as possible. But secondly, they think about what are the ways they can raise that standard.
Speaker 3:I grew up in a super small, uh home. Double wide trailer really is what I would call it, but uh, I don't know if it even qualified as a trailer. Yeah, I remember the first time I walked into a 4 000 square foot home like I thought that was a mansion and you know, and now like that feels really crowded but I just had never been exposed to it Like my, I just couldn't comprehend. But you know, and then that so. So as a leader, how do you start stretching what's possible for people and yet still have it real If you have somebody that's been earning 40, $50,000 a year and you say you can earn unlimited income or you can earn like they don't think I can earn 150. They, they think I can earn 70.
Speaker 3:I was going to say in your job ads I see roofing companies make this mistake all the time is they say we can you know competitive pay one competitive pay? You might. We can you know competitive pay one competitive pay? You might as well. You know shorthand, for we pay you as little as possible to take that out of your job ad. But secondly, they say you can earn unlimited income or you can earn up to or you can earn. It's really mushy language.
Speaker 3:So I, if you're going to put compensation in your ad and you need to put compensation in your ad and you need to you shouldn't say can earn. You should use the term you must earn. So I'm looking for somebody who has an urgent need to earn 125K and in fact if you don't earn 125K, we'll no longer keep you working with us. And then that has to be followed by the term. Because, because we know the value of our leads, we have a proven sales process and we know how to train you to get there. So for that person that's looking, they're going to go oh, this company means that when they say I can earn 125 K, it's real. And then I'm not going to hire somebody who I'm requiring to earn 125. That's only earned 30,000 a year. I'm just not going to do it because I know when they hit 30, they may push themselves to 50, but certainly by the time they get to 50 or 60 K they're living large. It's twice what they've ever made.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that was. This is exactly where I was going with. It is that practical application. This is the way I've always thought about it. I've framed it on the, I've talked about this on the podcast multiple times, but I always think of everything.
Speaker 1:To me, everything is marketing. Being a marketer, everything is marketing. So I look through everything as a marketing lens and I think that a lot of business owners only look at marketing to prospective customers. The second way they look at marketing is maybe to repeat and referral business right To past customers. So we're always looking at filling that funnel.
Speaker 1:But I think that there's two other places to market to that that get overlooked, and that is marketing for future employees and marketing to current employees for employee retention. Right, that Christmas party, that, that outing that you went on at the, you know the, the, the barbecue that you had, the, the, the, the, taking them to a trade show or taking them to the RSRA event. We'll plug that right Like. That's all marketing to your employees, and so the job posting is the beginning of that. Right Like you are. This is where the marketing funnel starts for your team, and I love that.
Speaker 1:I've had conversations with people in the group, in the RSRA group that are starting to use your formula on this and they're like it's crazy, the candidate that's coming out of the other side is much different, and that's because it's marketing, right. When you are, you know, in marketing, you determine who you are marketing to, right. Then you are determining the message that will resonate with that person and then you have the how you're going to get that message in front of them and that is whatever. Maybe you're using Indeed or you're using whatever, you're using social media. However, you're doing that right, that's your how. But you're filtering it at the job, at the job posting level. But at that job posting level, you are also creating interest and you want someone to click on your job post, right?
Speaker 3:It's not just yeah, I think people forget that, that that recruiting is marketing. So you know, when you're marketing to a customer, one of the things they start with is be really clear on your avatar who are you marketing, who's your buyer? Same thing happens in recruiting. You should be really clear on who's the human that you want clicking your ad and then you should describe that person rather than the role. What are they going through in life? What are they thinking for those that aren't in the rsra? We, we had talked about rewriting your job ad with that um and you know you get job ads that that'll start with. You know xyz is a veteran-owned company continuing to grow due to increasing market share, robust demand. We're in need of an outside sales rep. And it goes blah, blah, blah. Right, just this long diatribe about the company. Totally different, if you start a job ad with little text message snippets that says things like done working for someone that doesn't get it, that doesn't understand the meaning of loyalty, commitment, crushing every challenge, know you're built for more. If you're ready for something bigger, keep reading. That has a. You're immediately getting someone to go. Oh, this is for me. This describes how I'm feeling in this moment.
Speaker 3:Have you ever shopped for a book on Amazon and you know you may be typing a leadership book or a sales book, or you know, vegan cooking, I don't know. But you, you, uh, when you put that, when you put that search term in, you're going to just get a bunch of covers. You don't actually click every cover and read every review. It's like which one catches my eye and you're like, and you don't even really know why it catches your eye. It might be the bright color, it might be the slant or font of the words, but you click on it and instantly you go, you start reading, you're like, ah, this isn't for me. And, and, and and. You go on and click another one. You, you might get to three or four. Right, so you pick the one.
Speaker 3:If you're a business owner, think about how. How is the reader of that advertisement or piece of marketing? What does it say about your company? That's why hiring events oftentimes work. We did a hiring event for our clients where they had it outside a brewery and they had all their clean trucks outside, music going on. The candidates coming in got an opportunity to talk with people that are already working for the company. It had an energy. Another company did the same thing, but they did it at a community food truck and a farmer's market. They're trying to go for a different kind of hire in those two environments.
Speaker 3:Who are the kinds of people that go to farmer's markets and truck markets? You know, probably family oriented, believe in eating healthy, giving back to their community, go out to the brewery. It's probably, you know, single or you know early age young men that's. But they're two different audiences. So you get like, how are you? How are you showing up in the areas that have the kind of people who do?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, you get into all sorts of things with, with hiring these days where we get really politically sensitive and we say, well, you can't. You know, you can't have any age discrimination, you can't have any sort of, and that's true. We shouldn't be excluding people exclusively for those reasons. However, it's also true that there are certain segments of society that thrive and love doing that sort of work, because that's their identity. If you have somebody that has been a greeter at Walmart and they lose their job being a greeter at Walmart, what job do they go look for? They go look to be a greeter at Target. Or maybe they think, oh, maybe I could be a stalker you know, stock food on the shelves or maybe a stalker of humans. That would be weird, but but you know, they, the, the people have sort of degrees of where they go next and what I mean by that and why I'm I'm bringing that up is are you shopping where people see your job within reach?
Speaker 3:Right. There's also somebody that's had the $150,000 a year job and they're never going to reach backwards. It's beneath them to do that thing you're asking them to do. So I get ageism, I get, you know, race and gender and all of those other sort of stereotypical things. There are home service companies that are doing really well attracting women into the trades, Right, and they're opening up a whole new model of people.
Speaker 3:Like if a woman came to sell me a roof, if she was competent and understood what she was doing, my wife would probably rather buy from her. To be honest, that's right, and my wife's probably the one making the decision because I got a bunch of other things to do. So we, you know, there's, there's, there's the two sides of that coin. One, don't close your mind off to the potential of the, the, the, the humans that can do the job. That goes back to behavior. If the behavior requires a certain kind of person in a role, it doesn't matter male, female, that sort of thing. But you better be really hyper clear on what's the avatar you're trying to market to.
Speaker 1:That's the main thing for people to take away is know who right, know who that person is, know who you're looking for specifically and some of the great tips that you've already shared about the different, what do they find enjoyment from, and things like that. We're really looking for that. Now let's talk a little bit about there's a mindset. You talked a little bit about the job site, job postings and how to attract someone. What's more of the process after the job posting is up?
Speaker 3:In every stage of your process. Your communication with the customer has to communicate that you have a strong vision and a standard for performance in your company, that you know how to help people be successful. And then, secondly, you have to have speed and clarity on what the process is going to be Meaning. We live in the world of food apps DoorDash, uber. You know if you're hungry and you order. You know a Chalupa burrito or whatever your thing is. You want to watch TV with and you order it from DoorDash. Between the time you order and the time that burrito shows up, how many times do you look at that app? Right, you're like they've got it figured out. It's like the dasher is on the way to the restaurant. The restaurant has your order, the restaurant's cooking your order, the dasher's waiting for your order, the dasher's on the way Be prepped for your dasher. The reality is, it doesn't matter how often I look at that app. It isn't changing the time my burrito arrives.
Speaker 3:But they have trained us to sort of stay engaged and yet when people apply to your company, they're getting a thanks. We'll be in touch shortly. They come in for an interview. Great, I'll follow up with you. It's not going to work. You have to clearly say to your people that you're advertising to is. We have a robust process in place, but we move quickly for the right person. There's four steps. Here's what they are, and you could be working for us in as little as 10 days or 14 days, or we'll always follow up with you within 12 hours of every single step in our process. Like make a commitment to the people that are coming into your in through your hiring funnel. Just doing that's going to make you stand out as different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, I talk about the. I've talked. I talk about this from a marketing perspective. Not from a marketing, but from a customer journey perspective. Right, like if your customer is wondering you're losing and so it's the same way. It's the same thing with a, with a candidate. Like if you, if there's a really good candidate for a, for a role in your company, and they're wondering if you're going to call them back, wondering if they're ever going to you know get an interview if they're wondering.
Speaker 1:If they're wondering you're losing, right. You want to be that. You want to show your like you had said, I think a strong vision and your standards right, like you want to exude that through your communication style with them. If you had to, I know we're. I want to kind of take a summary of all of it now, if you could.
Speaker 3:Like from what we talked about. What is the like? What is the? How do they find success in recruiting for their recruiting, the right cast for their play?
Speaker 3:I would go right back to the beginning and be really honest with yourself. If you ask the rest of the people on your team what is the single most important system in our company? If the answer isn't the system for recruiting, hiring and training humans, then you need to adjust the mindset of your company. Then you need to adjust the mindset of your company. You have to be a company that is completely focused not on your customer, but on the humans coming into your business. Everything is about them. You have to believe that your employees aren't lucky to have a job working for you, that you're lucky to have humans that will devote a portion of their lives helping you build your dream. That mindset has to be embedded completely within the organization. Just that one action.
Speaker 3:If you did nothing else, you didn't use tools like WhoHire, you didn't improve your interviewing that just that focus is going to improve. But then, if you really believe that that is the single most important system, I would follow that up with the question of well, how do we know that Like? What evidence can we find, like if somebody's most important value is being a healthy human, if you audited their life, you would find evidence. You'd open the cabinets. There wouldn't be a bunch of Snickers right. There wouldn't be a bunch of sugar loaded cereals. You'd probably see a set of tennis shoes and maybe a racket sitting there. Or you know some evidence that they have a gym membership. What evidence is in your company? Could you find that you believe that the that the system for recruiting, training and hiring is the most important system in your business? And I would just leave it at that summary. I would do an audit of your business and there's this loop that you go through. How do people see your business? Like, walk up to the front door of your business and what does the cleanliness of the window say about your business when they walk into your lobby and the greeting they get from somebody sitting there. If that's the kind of business like, what does it say about your business? You're in and out of it all the time that it's just. You know it's sort of blending in the background, but I tell you when I visit companies I can immediately say this person doesn't care about their business. This this company's stressed out, running behind, wouldn't know their you know hole from their head, from a hole in the ground.
Speaker 3:Like we get serious about the stage play, what show are you putting on for your employees? Like you're not going to get a great star cast if you, if you, if you don't have a great theater. Right when, when people are casting for a show on broadway, people show up, the best actors show up because they know what broadway means and they also know what off broadway means and they also know what, uh, you know, community theater in kansas city, missouri, means. Like what are you? Are you the can, are you the community theater in the middle of Kansas City or are you Broadway? And just be really honest with your like, with the rest of your leadership team. Like, what kind of theater are we? What kind of play are we putting on?
Speaker 1:Awesome. Check out the book Sales Boss by Jonathan Wistman. Check out WhoHire WhoHirecom. Jonathan, it's been a pleasure today. Thank you for your time. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast For more valuable content. Visit RoofingSuccessPodcastcom While there, sign up for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
