Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I'm getting ready to, but I'm finding out that not many banks are lending 4x receivables, which is the deal I have now. The bank has "skin in the game" as it's their loan.
Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yesterday the kid did $4,860. So he's picked up close to 19k in work in his first week. That has to be some sort of record for us (for a new Estimator in their first week). My Main Estimator did 3k. This is a classic Ops problem, if you add capacity to your bottleneck, the bottleneck can change. Estimates was a bottleneck, but now capacity has been doubled there.
We are booked for the month of August if we do 4k a day in service fees. We are pushing the max of what we can do with this level of equipment. And if we keep picking up 35k a week and only doing 20k, it won't be long before we are absolutely buried. If I add another crew, it's 100k of equipment, minimum. Things I can do to mitigate is to hire a guy full time just to do clean up for the crews, so they are just doing the work and leaving. On the flip side, I can charge what I want. Customers aren't going to force me to take a short deal when I'm booked at close to max capacity for the next 30 days.
We are booked for the month of August if we do 4k a day in service fees. We are pushing the max of what we can do with this level of equipment. And if we keep picking up 35k a week and only doing 20k, it won't be long before we are absolutely buried. If I add another crew, it's 100k of equipment, minimum. Things I can do to mitigate is to hire a guy full time just to do clean up for the crews, so they are just doing the work and leaving. On the flip side, I can charge what I want. Customers aren't going to force me to take a short deal when I'm booked at close to max capacity for the next 30 days.
Shonuff
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I will hire at least one more to clean up behind the crews. We are that busy. The kid is smart, but also ambitious. In the interview, I asked him what he wanted to do five years from now, and he said he wanted to be me. Not be like me, he wanted to be me. He wants to be running his own business.
He's only 23, so it will be a long time before I have to worry about this. In the time that I've owned the company, I've had two employees try to learn how we do it, and then go start their own thing up. Neither of them really paid attention, which is why they are struggling. Anyway, maybe I can do things to convince him to stay. Everyone wants to be an owner, but most people can't stand missing a paycheck when it gets slow.
Just seeing this kid's demeanor, I could see him thanking me for training him, but he's going to be a competitor.
opiate82
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Well you could offer up some of the benefits that an owner might expect to entice him to stay if he continues to grow and is a valuable asset worth hanging onto. Profit sharing, flexible schedule, maybe even equity if you are willing to go down that road. If it does come down to him striking out on his own, and you are worried that he could be legitimate competition, offer to invest in his company to help him get off the ground so long as he gets his ass out of town.
Shonuff
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He's just an Estimator. He's pretty green when it comes time to do the work. I'm not concerned about him being a major competitor, as I'm establishing my company as a brand. The two guys that left to start their own company thought that since people were signing up, that it was because of them. The one guy who had been here almost 15 years found out the hard way that you can't beat an established brand. He works only four or five days a month. I used to tell him that getting the phone to ring was harder than he thought, but he didn't listen.Well you could offer up some of the benefits that an owner might expect to entice him to stay if he continues to grow and is a valuable asset worth hanging onto. Profit sharing, flexible schedule, maybe even equity if you are willing to go down that road. If it does come down to him striking out on his own, and you are worried that he could be legitimate competition, offer to invest in his company to help him get off the ground so long as he gets his ass out of town.
All I've done is give him a basic pricing guide, and given him some sales training. He just took that and ran with it. He doesn't do the more complicated jobs, as the pricing guide wouldn't apply. I'm pretty sure he can be replaced.
Simply put: Every couple of years someone goes off on their own thinking they'll run me out of business, and I don't even know notice they are gone. The three biggest companies have all been around for decades and the market is moving to the Big Three. I'm thinking to be a competitor and uproot one of us, you'd need one million dollars minimum.
Shonuff
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Youngblood is outselling my Manager at least 5:1 this week. His comment is all he does is go over the presentation I've developed, and he isn't even having to resort to hard closing. They just sign up at the end when it comes time to ask for the order. All I ask the Estimators to do is to justify our bid (and obstacles), go over the brochure on company background (giving the brochure to the customer) and then ask for the order. I'm not asking them to resort to douchebag car salesman sales tactics.
The sad thing is, he has very little technical skills, but benefits from having a trustworthy face. His tryout day with the crew was a disaster, but something told me I could put him in front of customers.
The sad thing is, he has very little technical skills, but benefits from having a trustworthy face. His tryout day with the crew was a disaster, but something told me I could put him in front of customers.
Tmac
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This is the difference between people with technical skills and people who can sale and why I think most of us were pushing you to go with a salesperson over someone with "three years industry experience".
You don't have to be an expert to price-guide and sale a good product. Valuable lesson, indeed.
Shonuff
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Youngblood helps out on the simpler jobs, but on the ones that are complicated ($5,000 or greater), I won't let him touch those.
I just looked at a YTD comparison, and sales are up 25% this year, profit about the same. Profit should have been higher, but we've lost probably 15 days to excessive rains, and we are just now getting to the staffing levels that I wanted to have back in May. Work totals are at an all time high: $95,760 in backlog. The last time the total was that high was where it was all emergency work. This is 100% regular work. Pretty much this is driven by advertising. In YTD 2012, we spent about 20k for advertising, this year (same timeframe) was about 70k.
I was forecasting a 35-40% increase, but I needed to have more guys earlier in the year. I still need one more good one. And you can't just throw people in together and expect max productivity, it takes time for them to gel.
I've been expecting higher monthly profits, but they'll come, now that my team is more solid. Instead of doing 13k a week, they are doing 20.
Tmac
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Right. He's still green, I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that it pays to have a "salesperson" in a sales position. Obviously he still needs training in estimating, but I bet after a few months of training, he'll get the hang of it and you'll be able to try him out on the bigger jobs.
I foresee the same gap in sales you're seeing now between him and your current estimator. My only point is that it's better to fill a sales position with a salesperson rather than a person with industry experience. Obviously training and time are involved to grow them in their ability to handle more and more responsibility, but in the end it pays off.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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The problem, in these situations, is that the guy doing most of the selling starts to get an attitude like he's the owner. He's produced like 4k a day since he's gotten here like clockwork. I'm hoping this isn't going to happen like I've seen in other businesses, where the Superstar feels as though he can take a shit on the showroom floor and no one will do anything. We've gotten into it a couple of times already. He talks to very few customers a day (like eight on average). I can run eight estimates in half a day. I've told him he doesn't need to spend an hour on a twenty minute bid, he says that he's an "artist" and needs time to do his "art" correctly. And then, a couple of days ago, he came up with ideas to automate our sales system and office. In both cases, I asked him who the hell he thinks he is. I told him, you just got here, you have no technical skills whatsoever, stick around six months and then come up with ideas. I'm trying to keep him humble. Because, in sales, when one guy outsells everyone else 5:1, that can make for strange team dynamics.
I hired him because he has a business degree, he's intelligent and has a trustworthy face (which goes a long way in sales). Yet, when he's with the guys, he's the butt of their jokes because he has to be told what's next and has zero technical skills.
I'm wondering how long I can ride this horse, before he says I'm bringing in more $$$ than the Manager and want to be paid like him. He can sell, but he couldn't lead the guys out of a ziploc right now. They roll their eyes when they see him walking towards them. At the very least, I'm going to need to pay him Crew Leader money, and that won't go over well with the Crew Leaders. But they have low interpersonal skills, I've tried to work with them, but they just don't get "it." In a way, this guy is as valuable as a Crew Leader already.
Tmac
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And this offends you why? Sales is an art form imo.
Sounds to me like he's just excited about the job and spends the time he's not working thinking about how to improve the business...and you yell at him for it? Are you sure you're not letting your past experiences paint a picture of this kid two weeks in?Lyrical_sl said:
Obviously you don't want him to feel like he's bigger than the job, but cutting him down does more to remove excitement and joy than it does to instill humility.
It certainly makes for an interesting situation, but I think the real lesson here is to put more "salesmen" in sales positions. Instead of trying to bring him down, why not try to push everyone forward? It's nice to have a pacesetter. It doesn't make much sense to try and take the lead horse's legs our from under him.Lyrical_sl said:
So what? He gives them work. His position is in a completely different ballpark than theirs and they're probably just jealous. In turn they point out the fact that he's terrible at their job. Cool. They're terrible at his too.Lyrical_sl said:
You could always move to a commission heavy salary for him, so that if he wants to make more money, he has to continue selling like he is now. If he's making money off of his own merit, it kind of makes sense that he'd pull in more dough.Lyrical_sl said:
Ultimately, it seems like you don't want him to be a part of the team until 6 months in anyways. You told him to keep his ideas to himself until he'd been there a while...
Think back to the recently graduated Lyrical. How would you respond if someone told you your ideas weren't valuable when, it would seem from what you've posted here, that you were a "hotshot". I don't mean to come across raw, but your push to keep him humble comes off closer to insecurity.
Why not encourage him? I think my "taking the lead horses legs out from under him" analogy makes the most sense here...
Tarrant
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As a salesman myself I can tell you, it -IS- an art form. Closing sales takes a touch that not many people have. Anyone can soft close, there's no skill in that. Hard closing though? There's a fine touch to it that not everyone understands. The fact he talks to half the people in one day that you would like him too and yet he out performs everyone is an indication of this.
Saying "Who the hell do you think you are?" when an idea is proposed to you is beyond unprofessional. The guy is trying to add value to himself and what he brings to the table and you talk to him like he's worthless? Seems to me you'd be doing the opposite and just tell him it's something you'll look into when you feel the time is right and move on from there.
Someone selling 5:1 makes for an odd dynamic? It can yes. But only for those not doing it. You have a guy in front of you that is showing you he can talk to half the people anyone else does and make 5 times the amount of money. I don't understand why that's not causing you to question everyone else that works for you, not the new guy. Clearly he's doing something they all aren't or simply aren't capable of and to me that should send up red flags everywhere. I'd have other people you have selling shadow him just so they can see his sales approach. They don't like it because he's new? Fuck them, tell them to make as much money as he is and then they can bitch about it.
I work in telecommunications, I wouldn't be able to do our techs jobs for 13 seconds yet they know that I'm the one that keeps them busy. I can't do their job and they can't do my job. We work together so we both make money. If your crews can't accept that fact then they need to be verbally smacked around and told he's one of the reasons they have a pay check coming in, if they can't see that or appreciate that then fuck them.
In terms of when he will want more money, I would keep his base the same, don't lower it in favor of commission heavy. I'm quite literally one of the best sales reps in my company and I make very good commissions but I can tell you first hand if they ever lowered my base in favor of more commision I'd start job hunting. The trick is to offer him the same base and keep his commissions the same until he hits certain goals. "You hit your sales goals and your common is X%, you exceed those and hit this $$$ amount? You're commision from that point on is XX%"....and so on and so forth. Lowering his base will piss him off in my mind.
It looks like to me you're treating him like an outsider, a guy who came in, has jack all experience in your company and is lighting everyone up. He has shown drive and ambition and thats what sales reps use to keep themselves going and doing well and the things you're doing are going to smother those ambitions and his drive. If you can't "ride that horse very long" at this point I'd say thats your fault and not his. Instead of fighting him you should be embracing the way he's doing it and see what parts of his techniques you can get your other sales people to pick up. There's no need to see "how long you can ride this horse" when there's no reason you can't have this be your new horse and put the others out to pasture who wont keep up.
That's how working in sales works.
Right now you should be asking yourself and your other estimators "what can we do to get you guys producing like this?" Not "Who the hell does this guy think he is?". That is madness.
Saying "Who the hell do you think you are?" when an idea is proposed to you is beyond unprofessional. The guy is trying to add value to himself and what he brings to the table and you talk to him like he's worthless? Seems to me you'd be doing the opposite and just tell him it's something you'll look into when you feel the time is right and move on from there.
Someone selling 5:1 makes for an odd dynamic? It can yes. But only for those not doing it. You have a guy in front of you that is showing you he can talk to half the people anyone else does and make 5 times the amount of money. I don't understand why that's not causing you to question everyone else that works for you, not the new guy. Clearly he's doing something they all aren't or simply aren't capable of and to me that should send up red flags everywhere. I'd have other people you have selling shadow him just so they can see his sales approach. They don't like it because he's new? Fuck them, tell them to make as much money as he is and then they can bitch about it.
I work in telecommunications, I wouldn't be able to do our techs jobs for 13 seconds yet they know that I'm the one that keeps them busy. I can't do their job and they can't do my job. We work together so we both make money. If your crews can't accept that fact then they need to be verbally smacked around and told he's one of the reasons they have a pay check coming in, if they can't see that or appreciate that then fuck them.
In terms of when he will want more money, I would keep his base the same, don't lower it in favor of commission heavy. I'm quite literally one of the best sales reps in my company and I make very good commissions but I can tell you first hand if they ever lowered my base in favor of more commision I'd start job hunting. The trick is to offer him the same base and keep his commissions the same until he hits certain goals. "You hit your sales goals and your common is X%, you exceed those and hit this $$$ amount? You're commision from that point on is XX%"....and so on and so forth. Lowering his base will piss him off in my mind.
It looks like to me you're treating him like an outsider, a guy who came in, has jack all experience in your company and is lighting everyone up. He has shown drive and ambition and thats what sales reps use to keep themselves going and doing well and the things you're doing are going to smother those ambitions and his drive. If you can't "ride that horse very long" at this point I'd say thats your fault and not his. Instead of fighting him you should be embracing the way he's doing it and see what parts of his techniques you can get your other sales people to pick up. There's no need to see "how long you can ride this horse" when there's no reason you can't have this be your new horse and put the others out to pasture who wont keep up.
That's how working in sales works.
Right now you should be asking yourself and your other estimators "what can we do to get you guys producing like this?" Not "Who the hell does this guy think he is?". That is madness.
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Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I don't need to overhaul all of my systems based on the recommendation of a guy who has been here two weeks. I've looked at overhauling some of them, and the reality is when I call other companies in my industry that have gone to a paperless system, they tell you it's not so smooth, and that there are problems. It takes time to do it. He's been working long hours to revamp several systems all at once, and didn't even tell me he was doing this. I'd rather him work at getting his industry certifications - my Manager is a Certified Arborist. It would make him more knowledgeable at the POS (as well as help him close more sales). Right now, if he went on a big bid for a construction company or a city, he'd be laughed out of the room. It's going to take him six months to get his certifications, and after that, he'll be even of more value. I want him to learn the business and get his certifications, that's 70-80 hours a week right there. Anything less is energy wasted. He's been working from 7am to 8pm every day (his choice) and then he goes home to work on revamping systems. I need him to work on his certifications during that time instead.
It is an interesting dynamic with him. I just met with my Manager, and as I always do, started asking about people. So my Manager is now dogging him, along with the rest of the guys. Youngblood's been selling 5-6k a day, yesterday he had a bad day. It happens in sales. My Manager made it a point to remind me that YB had a bad day. All I said to my Manager is that I showed YB the sales process I have in place, told him to work on it, and he's smooth as silk. My Manager gets nervous some times during bids, and that comes off as being unsure to the customer. So I've told the Manager what YB does, and what I expect. As YB says, with the process I have in place, he just has to ask the customer to sign up. He's not had to hard sell anyone, he says.
Tmac
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You've got a motivated saleman who is working for you around the clock and costing you half as much. Are looking at this like its a problem?
It sounds like he just got excited and jumped on a project on his own. I think most employers would love to have a guy like this. He's invested. He simply needs a refocus on how he's spending his time until he gets X, Y and Z certifications.
It sounds like he just got excited and jumped on a project on his own. I think most employers would love to have a guy like this. He's invested. He simply needs a refocus on how he's spending his time until he gets X, Y and Z certifications.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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He's great. I'm just trying to build him up to rest of the guys. They just haven't accepted him. As My Manager said, YB went to go work on the job on his tryout day, and he couldn't even figure out how to put his safety gear on. It's hard to come back from, as far as the guys go. They are all looking at me, asking me why I hired him. I've tried to explain, but they still crack jokes while I explain to them that he's sold three weeks of their pay already. He's just going to get better over time, most guys have a ramp up phase.
He's got to be able to do to do the work, or he'll never be able to do the bigger jobs. And I can explain costing all I want, but until he sees how some of the jobs are a PITA, he won't get it. I bid a job the other day that was double what the pricing guide was; it ended up taking that long because of the difficulty. The pricing guide said five hours, it took twelve. You only get that through hands on experience.
I want to groom him to be an Assistant Manager, and that is going to take six months. Because if he's in charge, they WON'T listen to him. Think like GoT, when Theon came in and tried to boss the Ironborn around, and they laughed and did what they wanted. He's got to prove to them that he's one of them. I can talk him all I want, he's got to earn their respect.
I encourage him a lot. But I've worked sales a long time, and the last sales position I had for a Fortune 10 company was $200 million a year. I'm trying to avoid the "type A personality" syndrome that comes out when one guy is outselling every one. I outsold every one on my team some days. I made sure to let them know my dick was bigger than theirs. All it did was make them stick knives in my back every chance they could get. Eventually, I thought I could do better by selling a product of my own and getting a larger piece, and now I'm here.
Right. I don't want him doing anything else but getting his certs first. He actually called me asking me what projects I wanted him to work on yesterday, instead of him going off half-cocked working on what he wants (even though it's a low priority with me). So he's getting it.
Tarrant
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You're handeling this all wrong. Like I said, I don't know dick about what our techs do but they are smart enough to realize that I'm the one that keeps them busy and they respect me because of it and they all know they couldn't do my job either.
Your crews either need to realize this you you can tell them they can start taking a hike. Crews get jobs done, without sales there are no jobs to do. You need one before the other but both need to mesh. If you want to grow adjustments need to be made on all ends otherwise your new guy will move on to something else and you'll regress back to where you were.
I'm not saying this is unique to this guy, I'm not saying he's the Jesus of your business and needs special treatment but not all sales people are the same and as long as they make you money thats all that matters coming from them.
When I started where I am now we had a bunch of rules on how you were supposed to do things and I never followed them. My boss came down on me all the time until my numbers started rolling in and then she he backed off and saw I knew what I was doing and listened to how I was doing things, we then retrained everyone in my direct team and now we're one of the top producing teams in the company. We did that retraining with me in charge of it after I was here for 2 months. If a fortune 500 company can listen to a single guy who had been there for 2 months I'm sure you and your operation are able to see what you need to take from this to make it right.
You have to be able to change and adapt to new ways of doing things or else you wont ever see the growth you want. You think this guy is unique in the way he is? Most good salesmen are just hwo you describe him.
Your crews either need to realize this you you can tell them they can start taking a hike. Crews get jobs done, without sales there are no jobs to do. You need one before the other but both need to mesh. If you want to grow adjustments need to be made on all ends otherwise your new guy will move on to something else and you'll regress back to where you were.
I'm not saying this is unique to this guy, I'm not saying he's the Jesus of your business and needs special treatment but not all sales people are the same and as long as they make you money thats all that matters coming from them.
When I started where I am now we had a bunch of rules on how you were supposed to do things and I never followed them. My boss came down on me all the time until my numbers started rolling in and then she he backed off and saw I knew what I was doing and listened to how I was doing things, we then retrained everyone in my direct team and now we're one of the top producing teams in the company. We did that retraining with me in charge of it after I was here for 2 months. If a fortune 500 company can listen to a single guy who had been there for 2 months I'm sure you and your operation are able to see what you need to take from this to make it right.
You have to be able to change and adapt to new ways of doing things or else you wont ever see the growth you want. You think this guy is unique in the way he is? Most good salesmen are just hwo you describe him.