[00:00:02.060] - Chris
Welcome back to another episode of the MRMM podcast. I'm Chris
[00:00:06.330] - Brandon
and I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business life and legacy.
[00:00:11.400] - Chris
It's business time.
[00:00:13.080] - Brandon
Well, my friend, how are you doing?
[00:00:15.730] - Chris
I'm good. I'm good.
[00:00:17.280] - Brandon
I'm looking forward to our guests today.
[00:00:19.000] - Chris
yeah Me too.
[00:00:19.780] - Brandon
You want to do the honors?
[00:00:21.150] - Chris
Yes, I will.
[00:00:21.990] - Brandon
Alright.
[00:00:22.990] - Chris
So first of all, I was doing a little bit of research on our guest today and the guest we have today. I've met once in person. And then he and I've had several interactions online and via text and over the phone. And I've really come to appreciate one thing about our guest and that is he's a perfect gentleman, like a standout in an industry that's not known for gentlemen. And I appreciate that. And as I was looking over his history, it's no surprise to me the success that he's had.
[00:00:54.480] - Chris
And I think it's just his manner of working with people and talking with people is something I really admire. And I think it's certainly conducive to sales and sales training, which is going to be a lot of what we'll spend our time on today. Gerry Edtl. [www.Gerryedtl.com] [https://gerryedtl.com/blog/]
[00:01:07.560] - Chris
Gerry Edtl is an industry veteran that started at the grassroots. Mom and dad owned ServiceMaster Franchise and Oregon. Did I get that right, Gerry?
[00:01:19.780] - Gerry
Yeah, that's correct.
[00:01:21.020] - Chris
So really grew up in the business and there's not a lot of us that can say that.
[00:01:25.610] - Chris
So that alone just the experience of growing up around it, doing door to door sales, cleaning, spending time working as a tech. And then overall, 34 years spent with Service Master in a whole variety of roles. So one of the things I latched onto and I thought, wow, this is a great experience. 19 years he worked as a franchise turnaround specialists within ServiceMaster and working in that consulting, advising kind of space. You learn so much with all the different companies and teams that you see.
[00:02:00.900] - Chris
I'm sure some of those stories may come up during our chat today. And then over the last 15 years, so retired with distinction from Service Master and then launched his own consulting and training business, public speaking, giving seminars, doing workshops all around the country and outside the US. Lots and lots of deep experience. But Gerry, over the last 15-20 years, he's really decide to focus his attention on... How can I train others to more effectively connect and build real partner relationships with insurance agents? Which is one of the sacred cows in our industry. Right.
[00:02:39.320] - Chris
It's a huge stream of potential income for restoration companies, if you do it well. And it's not necessarily easy to do well, and the game is kind of changed. And I think what I'm excited to hear Gerry talk more about today is what that history has looked like. Because we started out marketing to insurance agents in one way and things have changed. So now the approach has to be a lot different and that's what Gerry is really specializing right now with his consulting and training practice, which he co-owns with Jordan Donald, his CEO and chief sales trainer.
[00:03:16.970] - Chris
One little tidbit about Gerry that I really appreciate is he's married to his wife Lynn since 1974.
[00:03:23.880] - Gerry
Yeah.
[00:03:24.570] - Chris
And he seems to be happy about it still.
[00:03:26.770] - Gerry
OH Yeah.
[00:03:27.360] - Chris
Which is awesome. I just admire that. I always admire that when people are able to make a relationship work that long and still be happy in it. And then last little tidbit I wanted to bring out is Gerry is a Little League Baseball umpire.
[00:03:38.970] - Gerry
Yes I am.
[00:03:39.270] - Chris
In fact, was an Empire at the 2013 Little League World Series. So anyway, fun stuff there Gerry's obviously a multidimensional guy, but deep, deep, deep experience and background in the restoration history. So welcome to the show, Gerry.
[00:03:54.000] - Gerry
Thank you. I am honored. Literally. Seriously, I'm honored to be with you two guys. I mean, I look at you young guys and think you guys are the future. You guys are current. You guys are living it. And it's exciting to see you guys as young men, really doing... Caring about this industry. It's a great industry, and I see that in you. And so it's an honor for me, and I'm humbled to be here. To be honest. I mean, this is just a great opportunity to sit and chat with you two guys, and see what's going on.
[00:04:24.940] - Chris
That's cool, man. Well, listen, Gerry, you know how to make friends, because in the last 45 seconds, you just referred to Brandon I as young. Twice, not once, but twice. You referred to us two bald guys is young, and that made me feel really good.
[00:04:38.990] - Gerry
And I can remember being in my 30s. And I gotta tell you, you're young.
[00:04:44.940] - Chris
See, you did it again, Gerry, because I'm not in my 30s, and you just referred to us as in our 30s.
[00:04:50.350] - Brandon
I'm gobbling this up.
[00:04:51.720] - Chris
This episode just gets better and better. okay.
[00:04:54.060] - Brandon
I'm thoroughly excited at this point now. Dude, before we jump into restoration content, I have to go back to this thing that you said right towards the end there. You got married in 1974.
[00:05:07.570] - Gerry
I was 19 years old and my wife was 18, and I don't recommend it. My wife wouldn't recommend it. We've asked her parents when they were alive more than once. What were you thinking?
[00:05:21.360] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:05:22.980] - Gerry
And we've had a wonderful relationship. She was my best friend in high school. Just absolute best friend. And one day, a dawned on me. She's the one.
[00:05:33.580] - Brandon
Let me keep this thing going.
[00:05:35.920] - Gerry
Yeah. Yeah. So we grew up together. I mean, that's just the truth of the matter, we just grew up together, and neither one of us were gonna quit. We're, like, not gonna quit on... I'm not leaving. Well, then we're gonna figure this out. We've had plenty of those, and the one decision that my wife and I really feel like we nailed that decision, and that was we waited to have children for us. For us, we needed to wait. We were just so young. And when we were 30 and 31, we had our daughter.
[00:06:10.050] - Brandon
Wow.
[00:06:11.180] - Gerry
Boy, what a life changer. And what a joy that is, of course, as you guys know, being a parent. And today my daughter is my business partner, and she's now the boss. We had a lot of fun over that one. But we were like, hey, one of us has to be in charge. We both can't be... we're 50/50 partners, which is always a little scary. But one of us has to be in charge. Right. So we agreed to think about it, and we came back together and I said, "well, listen, I know you will tell me exactly what you think, no matter what I tell you, but I might change my mind based on what you tell me. So I'm going to go first." She's like, "hey, I think that's smart." I said," I think you should be the boss and the CEO, and I should be working for you because you're the young. You're the future. You're what this business is going to be about." And she's like, "I agree. I'm in. Let's do it." And like that, I got a boss and became full time sales since she's full time training. This has been crazy fun, crazy fun.
[00:07:10.160] - Brandon
I love it. And we're going to tear more into that sales piece because you can probably imagine we run the gambit in terms of what we run into in terms of people's posture towards sales. And it's always really fun to hear the people that get excited about it. So the fact that you were looking forward to, hey, you take this on. I want to Hone 100% in on the sales component is such a big deal.
[00:07:32.720] - Chris
You know, I was reading you have on your website, a profile about your full history with Service Master and all the different consultative training and resource development roles and stuff that you did. You made national training programs and stuff for Service Master, back in the day. I was reading over that, and it said in this one little paragraph, it said, selling didn't come naturally to you, but you learned it from your dad, who was a really awesome door to door salesperson. What's so funny about Fuller Brush, my grandfather was a Fuller Brush salesman as well.
[00:08:02.540] - Gerry
No way.
[00:08:03.520] - Brandon
see you are a young guy.
[00:08:04.700] - Chris
Well, and you know, I cut my teeth selling Cutco, which it wasn't quite door to door, but
[00:08:11.630] - Gerry
No, but I see at Costco.
[00:08:13.330] - Chris
Same difference, right? That's right. That's right. I was meeting with house moms and cutting rope and cutting pennies and doing the demos and stuff. So anyway, hey, could we go back to your time with Bill Amber? Is that an okay place for us?
[00:08:26.920] - Gerry
I will. And you ask me your questions, but I'll preface it by saying this. I met Bill in my late twenties, mid to late twenties. I went to work for him, that's a funny story. I don't know if we would need to get into that story, but it's a fun story to share. But Bill became, for me, a lifelong friend and business mentor. He will be 90 in a couple of years. He's still active in business. And I want to be like Bill. Just a neat guy. so go ahead.
[00:09:01.180] - Chris
Well, it sounds like that was really where you blossomed in the sales training component was under Bill. And so do I understand it correctly that Bill owned a sort of a territory. I had a number of franchises that he?
[00:09:13.540] - Gerry
He did. In the system back then they had what's called distributors. The distributor worked between the corporate franchisor and the franchise, and they sold the franchises then he supported the distributor role would be to support them. And at the time I was involved, there were 90, some odd distributors, maybe as many as 100, if you count Canada and internationally done. And of course, today they're all gone. That all go bought out, went away. But, yeah, he was the distributor supported franchise owners, and so he brought me on to help them with growth.
[00:09:53.560] - Chris
And so back then, as you were sort of developing this approach to sales training within restoration businesses, unpacked the culture. I mean, for those of us who got into the industry in the last ten years, things were a lot different, right. At that stage, you were working with Ed and the distributors and the whole thing. What was the whole sales environment like, like how a restoration companies growing? I mean, the industry was still kind of in its tweener stages, right. It was still figuring itself out. Give us a little bit of a picture of what things were like then.
[00:10:24.370] - Gerry
We're, of course, pre Internet, pre cellular phones. We're back... I mean, it sounds funny to talk about that in my lifetime, but that's the reality of it. And there weren't programs. So pre programs, there were no such things as TPA's that just didn't exist. There were claims offices right here in Portland and claim offices over in Tigard. There were claim offices or all over the place. Salem, you name it, you know
[00:10:50.290] - Chris
Oh, yeah.
[00:10:50.860] - Gerry
And you could walk into a claims office, see whoever you wanted to see, claims adjuster get introduced to other adjusters. That kind of stuff. Back in the day, there was a lot of let's go have lunch. Let's go have dinner, let's talk. You know, that kind of stuff, that was a big part of the sales process back then. And you learned quickly, and I think this is still true today, and that is never cause a adjuster to be surprised. If you just be surprised you're in trouble. And number two, don't let problems get to the adjuster fix it.
[00:11:30.690] - Gerry
Take care of it. Because if you give me problems. You let me get surprised. We're gonna have trouble.
[00:11:38.240] - Gerry
Yeah. I mean, they would beat you up tongue lashing, and then they would say, "I'm done with you," and they'd walk out and you're out, and you didn't hear from them for months. But then they'd come back around because they really did need you, and they were kind of hoping you would... And something that I never understood. I don't know that I still I'm not sure today I can put my finger on it. But whenever we moved into a larger office with a larger warehouse space, adjusters knew it, and they send you more work because they knew your capacity expanded.
[00:12:08.850] - Gerry
Like, how did they know that? I don't remember telling them that we expanded our warehouse capacity and we can handle more work. But they knew that kind of stuff. So they paid attention to us just as much as we paid attention to them I think.
[00:12:23.330] - Chris
Man, you know, I'm listening to this. And I think there's probably a lot of people listening that are just so jealous. They're like, wow. Simpler times.
[00:12:30.320] - Gerry
Oh, right.
[00:12:31.240] - Chris
Where the adjusters were localized. And when I was a State Farm agent, that was still the case. I left the insurance business right around the time that everything was sort of reorganizing centralizing at three or four operations locations around the country. And, of course, it wasn't just State farm the was doing. It was all the different carriers that were going through this simplification process, closing all of those local claims branches. But I do remember the day where I could go talk to a claims adjuster that was helping one of my clients.
[00:13:02.610] - Chris
I could actually go stop by their office. Yeah. So it sounds like simple times. Simple times, right?
[00:13:09.080] - Gerry
I mean, back then, the adjusters had in their job description. Part of their responsibilities was to call on so many of their company agents every month for PR.
[00:13:20.420] - Chris
What?
[00:13:21.050] - Gerry
Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a dynamic process. We'd put on continued education courses, and we'd invite adjusters to come, and they would get credit for talking to 20 people at one time.
[00:13:31.350] - Brandon
Wow. What a different a different platform.
[00:13:36.120] - Gerry
I totally changed. Totally changed. Yeah.
[00:13:39.650] - Brandon
So along those same lines, from your perspective, watching these big shifts in the way that relationship is developed, what are the parts about that that you see really is a legitimate kind of a loss? And we're not gonna hang there the whole time, but there's a reality that something in this relationship elements have changed. From your perspective, what do you see is kind of the biggest losses from this transition from that environment?
[00:14:06.480] - Gerry
At the claims level, adjusters had relationships with contractors, restores actual, real relationships. I think some people over did those indulge those a little bit and abuse some of that a little bit. But in the end, it was a trusting relationship. We were working together to get this taken care of. Today, I don't see that. I don't hear that until you get into some larger loss where you've got a company adjuster, staff adjuster working with you now. Where you get into so much program work, which dominates today our businesses, that whole relational component...gone.
[00:14:54.520] - Gerry
I mean, their call centers, you might talk to somebody once or twice, but it's just "next." We got a standard joke in agent sales training. If you want to know who the agent is, just call the claim office. It's called the 1800 claim number and ask for it, and if they tell you no, just hang up and call back because somebody else will answer, and they'll probaly give it to you. So it's just funny. That's a huge shift in terms of that relationship. The other one, though, is on the agency side.
[00:15:21.530] - Gerry
So you've got two silos. They're two business silos. The way they work agency is sales. Claims is claims. They're different profit centers. You think they're all one big company? They're not. They're separated. They're siloed off. And they have been, and they still are. But one of the things that changed is again back in the day, when I have a loss as a policyholder, I was told by my agent "you call me. You call us. We're here for you."
[00:15:55.060] - Chris
Yeah, right. Like a good neighbor. Right.
[00:15:58.520] - Gerry
I'm not sure we can even say that kind of stuff, but. Yeah, like a good neighbor. That's the model. And it wasn't just state farm. It was all of them. Everybody followed the big dog, which was state farm. Whatever State Farm does, they're all gonna do.
[00:16:10.160] - Chris
Sure.
[00:16:11.070] - Brandon
So that shift, I think, has had side effects that are yet to be identified and understood at the corporate levels of the companies. And I think when they understand them, there will come a time where they will come back around. If there's one thing I've noticed. And you guys have noticed that things tend to go around and then come back around, and they go around again. They come back around again. And I think what happened is without purpose of intent, they have caused the agent to be told you don't matter in this process.
[00:16:52.580] - Gerry
You don't belong here. This is our cut. Were claims. You just stick to sales. Stay out of it. Let us handle it. Quit sticking your nose in.
[00:17:05.380] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:17:06.330] - Gerry
And they didn't. I don't think they meant to cause harm, but you've taken the people who have the most relational skills are your sales professionals, right? And they looked that customer in the eye over the phone, and they made a promise, and they said, We're going to take care of you. Okay? If you have a problem, we're gonna take care of you. You let me know, and I'll make sure you get taken care of. Well, now you've told that individual, don't be involved. You don't matter. So what's happened to your customer?
[00:17:41.120] - Gerry
If the customer makes the mistake, and calls the 800 number or goes online or uses an app. Right. They're going to get whoever they get assigned, who's ever up for rotation. It's Russian roulette, if you will. You don't know. Yes there's plenty... The majority of contractors and restores in third party TPAs are wonderful, great human beings doing the best work they know how to do. Okay, I believe that. But you've also got these skunks in there. We all know that, right? And you just get randomly assigned.
[00:18:16.650] - Gerry
And I know there's a matrix and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, that agent and taking that agent out of that component to triage that customer...You'll hear, and I used to hear it because I got in at the corporate level. It blew me to Illinois, that's another story. But I was there more than once listening to the head of claims, and they're talking about this. We don't understand why our customers, our customers we got to retain them. So you get the top guy with all of the executives in there in the room, Bobble heading.
[00:18:49.510] - Brandon
He'd say we got to retain them, but you get out in the field and it's like, well, you're not giving him any care.
[00:18:55.930] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:18:57.160] - Gerry
Do you know why they call it a loss? Why do we call it a loss? Because people have lost. Not like the loss of life, but it can be, and it can feel like it. And you have grief and you have emotions, and you have all that stuff. And you've separated the one person who can triage that the best for you.
[00:19:19.080] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:19:19.770] - Chris
Well, and the other thing that I used to talk about, I used to tell people about I used to talk to my team about this when I was a state farm agent. We spend every single day selling promises. That's what an insurance agent does.
[00:19:32.170] - Gerry
All it is
[00:19:33.150] - Chris
we sell promises, and frankly, we do something similar as salespeople within the restoration industry. Right? It's like, hey, when something bad happens, we're here for you. 24-7. Call me. I'll make sure you're taken care of, but we sell promises.
[00:19:45.720] - Chris
So I left the insurance business in 2012. Right as this transition was happening, and I grew up in the insurance business, seeing agents that still really cared. These are the old school folks. In fact, I remember one, I won't say his name. But in Lebanon, there was an agent there that he was known for, like, after a storm and somebody had a tree... One of his policyholders had a tree fall in his house. I heard a specific story. In fact, I ran into a customer that he did this for and told us about this.
[00:20:16.320] - Chris
He threw a chainsaw in the back of his own Cadillac or whatever he drives, drove out to his customer's house. So claim call comes in. Oh, man I had a tree fall on my house from the storm last night. No problem. I'll be there in 30 minutes. Throws a chain saw on the back of his car, goes, helps him cut it up, helps him remove it, gets a tarp up over their thing and then talks to them. That was the kind of State Farm agent I was inspired to be.
[00:20:42.280] - Chris
I love to sell. But to me, the delivery of the promise was, what do I do when somebody has a claim? But I think the challenge, Gerry, that was behind a lot of this shift is companies like Geico, Progressive and essurance that started to take market share. And all of a sudden, now State Farm and all the other big ones, they had to reprioritize growth, like, oh, we got to take back share, which means they had to cut prices, which means they changed the compensation programs for agents where it used to be like service income.
[00:21:13.880] - Chris
And now you had to sell so many life insurance policies and finding to make up that difference in comp. And so they started to recruit more agents that were sales focused rather than service focused. And so that shift happened. But anyways, it was definitely a loss for me as an agent, because I felt like this is my chance to shine and really earn my customer.
[00:21:34.670] - Brandon
Along that same vein though, because inevitably there's always two sides to a coin. So obviously we're forced to adapt or Pivot is the COVID word of the century, right. So what do you see as positives from your vantage point? What are the one or two items that you think, man, because of this transition, there's hope in this or there's this new way that we're doing business that's positive?
[00:21:57.840] - Gerry
Yeah. When I look at as it relates to agents and the agency side of this thing, it is true. What Chris, you've just articulated there's a shift in the old agents model is phasing out and almost gone. There's new agents coming in. And what we've seen, what I've seen and the people I work with have seen is it's not all of them. There's a group of them out there that recognize, I think, corporates wrong. You look at what is threatening them today. Geico used to be a threat.
[00:22:36.610] - Gerry
The truth is, State Farm used to grow a full Geico every month.
[00:22:42.540] - Chris
I remember that. Yeah.
[00:22:44.360] - Gerry
Yeah, but not anymore.
[00:22:47.040] - Chris
Oh, yeah.
[00:22:48.020] - Gerry
But now the thread is the Internet, and you look at companies like Lemonade, Amazon, Google selling. I mean, Amazon, it's common. The agent is in a fight for survival. The corner neighborhood, brick and mortars, there's going to be a lot of them that aren't going to be here. Because how do I compete? We're as an industry, it's a commodity it's become a commodity. They turned us into a commodity, and now they turned themselves into a commodity. Whenever you turn yourself into a commodity, you're competing on price and volume.
[00:23:25.750] - Gerry
I mean, that's your game and play that game, but there are agents out there that are saying that's a mistake. This is gonna bite us. So there are agents, statistically I think it's around, it's a little over half in most communities. I think in big cities, it's probably about 50%. I think in smaller rural cities and townships, it's probably more like 30%. But statistically, it's about 40%. The last true study was done over 15 years ago by the Boston Consulting Group, and it showed 30% of agents don't help, don't get involved.
[00:24:05.480] - Gerry
It's the new thinking.
[00:24:07.610] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:24:07.940] - Gerry
I think today it's more like 40%. But these agents are saying corporate is making a mistake separating this. And yeah I'm not involved in the claim. Yeah I'm not getting paid for it. But I got a business to run myself. And as you know, you are an independent business you were a franchisee. It wasn't any different. You were sold an exclusive product. And there you are. And so I think the good news is the upside is we can target and identify the right ones, the agent that actually thinks this way.
[00:24:40.140] - Gerry
And once you see that, they're looking for someone that can help them differentiate themselves. So in sales, we all know what's our value proposition, what separates us? How do we bring real value into this equation? And these agents are looking for how do I differentiate myself? And so I think as I see what's happening, I believe we will see less agents and bigger ones. And those bigger ones are going to be yes they're sales focused, you bet. But they are also recognized there is a service component.
[00:25:18.830] - Gerry
There is an opportunity. And for restores who can partner with that agent and really do stuff that's of value. And you've got some great stories of sharing that, that kind of stuff we've talked about. But for us, we can do that. We have a tremendous opportunity for them to use their influence, recommend to the customer. You've got all kinds of options here's three companies.
[00:25:54.670] - Chris
So I think one of the things you're hitting on to the opportunity and some of this is for us to level up as an industry, because these changes, these shifts have forced us, I think, to become more professional, like in our approach to relationship with agents. So rewind back to when I was an agent, I remember, if I'm honest, I remember Restoration companies coming into my office quite a lot, just like everybody else. And I found it very annoying. I had five people on payroll. I was the 6th person, the last one to get paid.
[00:26:27.610] - Chris
Right. And so I remember having these feelings of frustration when I would see XYZ different marketing reps coming through the door. Because for me, I knew at any given time, I was burning a hundred plus dollars an hour in payroll. And so when you see the different sales reps, and they weren't all from Restoration. There's just all kinds of sales reps poppin' in your door, unannounced Chitty chat with everybody, filled the candy jars, handout swag. And after that, ten or twelve or 15 minute stop, well then all of my team had to get kind of back in the groove of what they were doing.
[00:27:02.810] - Chris
They enjoyed having these marketing reps come in.
[00:27:05.030] - Gerry
Nice diversion. Nice break.
[00:27:06.730] - Chris
They loved the little Dove chocolates with shiny wrappers. And they loved to have a pause from writing apps and taking loss reports. But for me, as the business owner, I was like, okay, we sell insurance here. And what's interesting, it was a real learning experience for me, because despite that experience I had when I came into the restoration industry, later, I discovered, this is just how we do it. This is just how everybody does it. We create a route. We visit every single agent in the area. And so I came into an operation that was doing that because it was the accepted best practice.
[00:27:40.520] - Chris
It's just what you got to do. And I think certainly a lot of that was in our head. We felt like we had to do it because all of our competitors were. And so it's just been this perpetual cycle where, well, if the Puriclean the service master, the other company in town is doing it, well, we kind of gotta
[00:27:56.170] - Gerry
right
[00:27:57.250] - Chris
because... And that was that feeling that's almost that FOMO that fear of missing out, like, if we're not in there also filling candy jars or dropping things off, they're gonna get the job and we won't.
[00:28:10.090] - Chris
And it took me a while when I got into the industry to realize this is a broken system. And one of those things was I went out. I was headed up our sales team at the time. I went out and met with one of our referral partners. Big independent agency, maybe 10,000 households, pretty big agents.
[00:28:27.820] - Gerry
That's a big one.
[00:28:29.620] - Chris
I met with the owner, and I just said, hey, could you just give me an honest appraisal of what you guys think of us as a company? We've been coming in once a month or so for the last few years. And he said, Well, to be perfectly candid, I am sick and tired of everybody in your industry coming in and bothering my employees. And he cited an example of how we had taken out one of their employees to lunch and instead of coming back in an hour, they were back, like, an hour and ten or 15 minutes.
[00:28:59.310] - Chris
And this was, like two or three months prior. And he still remembered it. Oh, I thought, oh, boy, we need to really up our game in terms of our professionalism. And we need to treat these prospects as these are businesses
[00:29:15.480] - Gerry
right
[00:29:16.350] - Chris
They're trying to make money. And the fact matter is, in the moment, they don't care about restoration and all that stuff near as much as we do. And so that was a real moment of truth for us. And we ended up really dramatically changing our strategy at that point to one that now I view is more professional.
[00:29:35.240] - Chris
I think it's more in line with the strategy you teach, which is partnership rather than promotion. The industry has been in promotion mode. Top of mind awareness. Last person in best candy, best notepad mouse pads. To now it's hey, how can I help you build your business? I like the word you used differentiate... That agents are concerned about, differentiation. So talk more about that. Like when you say we have the opportunity to help an agent differentiate, can you kind of double click on that and say more?
[00:30:08.140] - Gerry
Yeah. When the agent that again, you always have to remember, we're talking about a specific agent, the type of agent that says, I think corporate's mistaken in here. I know I'm not involved with claims, but I'm going to help my clients. I'm going to be there for my client. I'm not talking about the chainsaw and the Caddy either, that day is really gone.
[00:30:30.800] - Chris
yeah right?The norman rockwell days.
[00:30:32.570] - Gerry
Yeah. But the point is, there's that human connection that they want to have. And so when you're talking to that agent, you've identified that agent. Then the easy one for me to go to is. Customers... It's called a loss, I go back to it's a loss, because they've lost time, energy, money, valuables,keep sakes that kind of stuff. They're going through tons of emotion, all kinds of emotion from shock, I can't believe this is happening to me. You've heard that, right? Any first responders heard that.
[00:31:16.270] - Gerry
Anger, this isn't right, somebody's gonna... You know, they're angry, you know? Oh, my gosh. You know.
[00:31:21.850] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:31:22.420] - Gerry
fear, am I gonna get cancelled? Am I lose my insurance? Am I gonna lose my rate? Right? Those are just a few emotions, right? So it's messy. One of the areas that we can really help that agent, because we're on site, and our team is on site. And so this is everybody is in sales. Everybody. Every job is in sales. It's not I'm production and your sales, everybody, every job is in sales. And it's like, this customer is really freaking out. Okay, that's emotion. What is the emotion going on there?
[00:31:57.530] - Gerry
Get ahead of that. Get on the phone or go in person. See that agency. Your customer is going through this experience. It's feeling a lot of anger right now or depression right now. They're depressed. Okay, that agent now has the opportunity, whether the act or not is up to the agent. But you unlike all the other route people with candy, you have given them a real opportunity to impact their business. Not only for the human component, it's a human issue. This is my client. I have an opportunity to reach out.
[00:32:35.950] - Gerry
I also have an opportunity, from a business perspective, to retain if the underwriting Department doesn't cancel them or the adjuster doesn't cancel them, which is what's most likely to happen. But I also have an opportunity for goodwill, which is referrals from friends and family of this person. Right? true sales professionals get that. We understand that. And so by giving them a heads up by saying to them this is happening to them,
[00:33:04.380] - Gerry
a call from you might ....Yeah,that's a golden opportunity. When the panic and the anxiety is normal and not over the top, there's an opportunity to ask the agent up front on a one time basis. When we're in that environment, when we're working for one of your policyholders, what word from you? What word? Of calm, of assurance that would help your customer as they deal with all of the emotion that comes with this? What word would you like us to give them? We can do that for you. You're busy. You've got to stick with sales, I understand that.
[00:33:40.630] - Gerry
And if it's super bad, we'll let you know. But in the norm, what could we? And all of a sudden, I'm becoming an extension of them by offering to be a messenger. Well, In the day ,you wanted to go to work for a company you started on the bottom floor, the bottom rung might have been just be an errand person.
[00:34:01.010] - Gerry
Right?
[00:34:01.290] - Chris
Right.
[00:34:01.950] - Gerry
Deliver a message. But it's a little thing that can have huge impact. It sets that agency apart with his clients. He cares about me. She cares about me. And if needed, they can pick up the phone and call them or do a Zoom with them. Or some will go see, some will actually say, thank you. This is exactly what I needed. Don't do anything more with that customer, except take care of them. I'm going this afternoon to see that customer, because when it turns out it's a mega customer to them and they're trying to damage control.
[00:34:33.640] - Chris
Gerry, that is so good. Because what you're positioning yourself as with that kind of phone call so good is a partner. It's really it's peer language. It's partner language. You're getting outside of that salesperson role. And you're saying, hey, MR. Agent, we have this thing come up. I think this might be a great opportunity for you to build affinity with your client. Build some good will. Do you want to check in on them? Their countertops are back ordered for five weeks. They're really frustrated about it. They're annoyed that they're gonna be out of their house for another month.
[00:35:04.850] - Chris
This might be a great chance for you to have an impact on the relationship. Bill or Bob or Sharon. What a different kind of relationship with those agents. Right.
[00:35:15.180] - Gerry
See, now, when you walk in their office, you're seen as part of my team.
[00:35:20.640] - Chris
Yes.
[00:35:21.440] - Gerry
You might be on the respiration contractors payroll, but I see you differently. I don't see you as that goes, another hour, $100 of my money. Right. I don't see you that way. I see you as a partner who comes in. You have a place to sit out when we do this. Right. These is. Hey, morning. Yeah. You can sit at that desk, right. Call, set up Internet connection. You need to use the conference room, whatever. Get your coffee, whatever you want. Why is that going on? Because I'm part of their team.
[00:35:53.340] - Gerry
So I've shifted the position from being another restore, another contractor to a position of... I'm a partner. Now I have needs just like you do. And I need to get out on losses, and the only way you can get me on losses is with your customer. And I can only do this for you when I'm on your loss, when I'm on that loss for you. So if it now goes to the program and it randomly gets assigned to somebody else.
[00:36:22.620] - Chris
I can't help you on those. Right?
[00:36:26.280] - Gerry
I can't help you. You're Sol, man. That sucks, right? You know, now creating internal motivation. That agency owner. And I should be talking to you, Chris. As an agency owner, I should be focused there and then working with the team.
[00:36:48.120] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:36:48.600] - Gerry
We've got it backwards. And that's because we don't know how to get to the boss. But that's another topic, right?
[00:36:55.090] - Chris
Right.
[00:36:55.350] - Gerry
It's just such a golden opportunity to differentiate ourselves, to help them differentiate themselves, to help them survive and compete in this changing environment. And the reason guys still do the old...Number one, it used to work, and so and it did because they were head claim responsibilities. That stuff was important.
[00:37:15.610] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:37:16.530] - Gerry
Not anymore. People don't recognize the shift unless they listen to interviews like this and think about, well, yeah, of course, agents world, their contracts changed. You get that? You know what that looks like and feels like commissions, et cetera, service commissions are gone. Oh, my gosh. We have a golden opportunity now to position ourselves and the old system it worked for your grandfather man. It's time for something different, and it's hard. And I think that's good news and bad news.
[00:37:49.790] - Chris
All right. Let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MIT Resto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there.
[00:38:07.600] - Brandon
Right.
[00:38:07.840] - Chris
Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work, or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all. But we can't get our team to consistently adopted and input information to it.
[00:38:35.340] - Brandon
Yeah. And that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's right. It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission critical information. I guys, your team will actually use it.
[00:38:50.370] - Chris
Let's talk about sales right after years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients. And the essential piece there is. There's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience, the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use.
[00:39:13.630] - Brandon
Yeah. Imagine, guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor. Go check these guys out at Excel Restoration Software Com Mm and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM listeners.
[00:39:33.680] - Chris
All right, let's talk about Actionable Insights owners. Gms, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimated. You might have been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industries always change and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to exact mate Matterport, how does that scale you're the bottleneck. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where Actionable Insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equip your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best pre practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes.
[00:40:09.630] - Chris
Again. For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of the clients.
[00:40:13.560] - Brandon
Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your teams got access to those things. A 3700 plus page database of exact templates. I don't know what else to say here. Other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it.
[00:40:43.350] - Brandon
Bam.
[00:40:43.880] - Brandon
database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle. A couple of points, and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.GetInsights.Org/fcg
[00:41:07.800] - Brandon
from your perspective. I mean, obviously we're looking back at kind of your history being someone that a national level was training people right in sales. Where does some of this mindset come from? Is this natural wiring? Is this part of the stuff you learned under kind of watching your father and what he did?
[00:41:27.560] - Brandon
But Where's the foundation of this? Because not all of it is just a live, creative thinking right? There's some backstory to this. Where did that come from?
[00:41:36.400] - Gerry
I'm not quite sure. Following. Give me a little bit more on that one.
[00:41:40.480] - Brandon
Just like your mindset in general. The first time I talked to you, I'm not even sure the first time was probably five plus years ago.
[00:41:47.270] - Gerry
Oh, yeah. It was
[00:41:48.700] - Brandon
your perspective, though. I'm partnering on relational navigation on want to do that, even though the environment that we're experiencing now is forcing us to take a new perspective or a new look at our sales tactics and techniques.
[00:42:03.620] - Gerry
Okay.
[00:42:04.250] - Brandon
You've been teaching this a long time. Where did that come from?
[00:42:07.550] - Chris
When could you start innovating? What was the Genesis of that?
[00:42:10.220] - Gerry
Yeah. When I had left corporate for the first couple of years, I was actually working in leadership development. I wasn't a sales training company. I was leadership development. And a lot of my clients were franchise owners that I had worked with for 30, some odd years, and I kept hearing from them, hey, Gerry, you know the agent route its not working. Our CEC's not seeing results anymore. What's going on? One guy tells you that you think he's probably just got a problem. Second guy tells you that you think that's interesting.
[00:42:49.140] - Gerry
Third guy tells you that... Something's going on. I kept hearing it over and over. And for about two years, I kept hearing this. Because I was the guy that trained them. I'm the guy that brought that trained. I brought continued education to the company at a national level. There were people doing it locally. We figured out how to scale it and how to replicate it. I did all of that kind of training for people, and it's not working? What do you mean, it's not working? And out of the blue, I got a phone call from the guy I use to work for.
[00:43:20.740] - Gerry
He calls me and he goes, you know, hey, we're having a problem. This and that aren't working like they used to. I need you to... I know you won't come back to work as an employee, but can we hire you on a contract? I want you to come back. I want you to help us come up with figure out what's wrong and how to how to change it. Something out of the box. That was 2008 and nine. I was glad for an opportunity to have contract and some revenue.
[00:43:46.360] - Chris
Yeah, right. No kidding.
[00:43:48.820] - Gerry
So I said, OK, I put the leadership on hold. I work on this. And for two years, and we made some huge progress. We Dove deep into partnering with agents on Loss re Show and impacting performance bonuses that they would get profitability bonuses of their book. Retention was big. We focused on that. We focused on review of jobs, and we were making progress. I mean, the progress was. Wow. These things seem to be moving us in the right direction. And, man, I'm on the edge figuring this thing out.
[00:44:22.040] - Gerry
And then the contract had a third year option, and they had already said they were gonna exercise it. We got to the end of the first two years the guy worked for got fired. The boss above him, that was there for 20 years got fired. They brought a new leadership and they went a different direction. I sat down. This was the end of the year, and they had canceled my contract. And I sat down with my wife, and we're like, I'm on the edge of really figuring this thing out.
[00:44:48.700] - Gerry
I don't know what it is. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm on the verge of really breaking through, and I hate to quit. She's like, wow, go for it. And okay, here we go. So I've got no income, right? Lost the contract. Continued with what I was doing, took it to another level of one to one work. And to make a very long story short. 10,000 hours later, I stopped keeping track of hours
[00:45:17.640] - Brandon
10,000?
[00:45:18.050] - Gerry
10,000 R&D. I mean, we figured it out.
[00:45:25.940] - Gerry
Okay. This is really simple.
[00:45:28.960] - Brandon
You know what?
[00:45:29.870] - Brandon
It's really simple. The age of change, the contracts changed, their needs have changed. That old message doesn't work for them. Stop it. You need to stop it. That's just stop you're hurting yourself.
[00:45:42.080] - Brandon
You know what I love about what you just said? And I don't know if a lot of people are going to Hone in on this if we don't point it out. But, Gerry, these are and correct me if I say this incorrectly, but what I heard you say was, these were processes that legitimately you probably part of a team, played a significant role in establishing the past processes and procedures. At minimum you created something that was deployed on scale, which means a lot. Right. And so what's so impressive for me listening to you tell the story is how you had to look at the systems that you had your name on.
[00:46:21.310] - Chris
This was your baby.
[00:46:22.270] - Brandon
This was your baby. And you ultimately had to turn around and say, you know what? The baby is ugly. It's time to reinvent this. That is an absolute, massive testament to you as an individual. So all this sales experience aside, I think people really need to note this about the caliber of individual that you are and what this means for other business owners and leaders listening. We have to be light handed when it comes to the systems the processes and the procedures that we adopt and create, because there are going to be an inevitable situation where you look back and you have to say, it's not working anymore.
[00:46:54.610] - Brandon
We got to reinvent this. And we can't let our egos hold so tightly to that that we don't reinvent ourselves. And so I just have to say that's very impressive, especially when we're talking about something on this scale that is a big deal, really impressive.
[00:47:08.470] - Gerry
I appreciate that. I can tell you that it is hard to do. This kind of thinking is hard to do. This kind of conversation isn't simple and easy, and the old process was simple. It was easy. The metrics for easy. How many stops did you make today? You know. Yeah.
[00:47:25.620] - Chris
Exactly.
[00:47:25.920] - Gerry
And it wasn't how many jobs are we getting in? This is a different, integrated process that involves the team. It hits at cultural levels within the team. And it's only good for today because it's evolving. The business is evolving. The process that I'm teaching today that we standardized in an online methodology for the training curriculum. The whole course work has now been put on into an online course. We've updated it continuously because things are evolving fast.
[00:48:04.060] - Chris
Right.
[00:48:04.890] - Gerry
And you just have to look at it and say, okay, what's next? And for today, because it's hard for those that can do it, it's really good news because it's really hard to do. It just means all that other stuff that everybody's still doing it. All the big box companies are all doing it. Still. They're just making us look really good.
[00:48:31.910] - Brandon
Yeah, it's true.
[00:48:33.380] - Gerry
I don't mean that disrespectfully, but the fact is you're doing harm, and you don't realize it because of what you just said. Business owners accounting. I'm spending $100 an hour with this. Go get out of here. Yeah.
[00:48:47.510] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:48:47.810] - Chris
I believe it's gonna change. I think it's the paradox of success is why a lot of these big name companies are still doing it, because, I mean, service Masters, sure, all the names we all know all the big names. There's enough of a network effect drive national jobs and things coming in, that I think there isn't the necessity to figure it out. Like Some of the smaller organizations that we work with, and I know you work with, and independents that don't have that resource. So there's a natural effect where I think the independents in the industry have been forced to figure this out faster and execute on it sooner because they don't have any kind of stream or gravy train of jobs that are just going to show up.
[00:49:27.250] - Chris
And so I think that's behind the slow adoption, some of the principles that you're teaching and advocating for. I want to shift gears real quick, Gerry, because I think part of this conversation leads back into service delivery. And you and I've talked about this a little bit, just like you described in insurance there's silos between claims and the agency side sales side. What we've observed, too, is that in our industry, there tends to be really established, protected silos between our marketing and sales people. They're out talking to customers and agents and so forth and our production teams that are delivering on the promise like we talked about.
[00:50:11.230] - Chris
So that's become a real, deep belief of ours is that sales people have to be engaged in the service delivery process in a meaningful way in order to protect the customer experience and protect the agent actually partner with the agent. Can you talk about your thoughts on that? Like, what is the role within the restoration industry? What do you believe the role of our sales people or marketing? Whatever we want to call it. We call marketing reps. Sales reps. Whatever.
[00:50:39.380] - Gerry
Yeah, there's sales.
[00:50:41.050] - Chris
What do you think there? I know. I prefer the sales word.
[00:50:44.140] - Gerry
It's new business development.
[00:50:45.500] - Chris
That's right.
[00:50:46.220] - Gerry
That's right. They're new business development is sales.
[00:50:48.550] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:50:49.210] - Chris
What do you believe the role of the sales person is in the customer service, in the production side of the business? Do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:50:57.140] - Gerry
I do. I'll speak idealistically for a moment.
[00:50:59.780] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:51:00.610] - Gerry
There's always the practical component of this thing. Now, I think as it relates specifically to the agent that's referring me to my referring partner, I need to be the first responder. If I'm the sales professional. I need to be the first responder, or I need to be part of the first responder group. I need to get out there when this is first happening. Because if I really could do what the agent in their heart knows they ought to do, they'd be that guy that had the chainsaw in the back of the caddy and they get out there within 30 minutes.
[00:51:37.830] - Gerry
They know that they feel that they won't articulate it, but that's they know they should, but they can't because they're stuck and they can't. But I can. And so if I pull up out there with the chains saw, I don't mean that maybe not literally, but sure, not advocating we all get chainsaws in our truck. But I'm saying if I've got the boots on and I show up out there with the crew or before the crew and I'm triaging the customer, I'm doing what great salespeople should do.
[00:52:05.870] - Gerry
Tell me what happened. Show me. Oh, show me. Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's get that water off right away. Maybe I got the key. Turn the thing off. Whatever. Where's it get it off. Whatever's necessary. What can I do? Let me get this picked up. This shouldn't be in the water. Let me help. My guys are on the way. That's what an agent would do.
[00:52:24.350] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:52:24.710] - Chris
It's almost like you're a proxy for the agent, right? Like you said, they want to be the guy who has a chain saw in the back of this car. But they can't.
[00:52:31.090] - Gerry
They can't. So you're by proxy. Exactly. I believe you need to be that first one. And then when the crew gets to there, I'll hand them off. I've Triaged this customer, I've calmed them. I've delivered a heartwarming message from their agent who cares about them. And I've reiterated that to them that you've got one of the best, and they're going to take you. Here's their phone number. Here's the cell I'll be talking to. What message you want me to tell them? All those kind of and all these things.
[00:53:00.460] - Gerry
Then my crew walks through the door. Joe, Jane, whoever. Hey, this is Mister. Missus. You're in great hands. These are... I love these guys. There are, I'm selling them. they're going to take care of you. I'll be back.
[00:53:17.720] - Chris
That sales rep is really facilitating the customer experience and protecting the experience that person has. One of the things that we advocate for with a lot of our clients, and just in general, we've practiced in companies we operate is... Sales people need to be involved in the production meeting. So production meetings is a regular rhythm that everybody has a version to that.
[00:53:40.970] - Gerry
Absolutely.
[00:53:41.590] - Chris
For the reason you're taking it to another level, which really is very interesting to me. But one of the things that we always felt, you mentioned how adjusters hate surprises. They don't like getting those calls from out of left field from the client that's ticked off about this or that. And we found and I'm sure you have too agents... They like surprises even less because they feel powerless because at least the adjusters holding the purse strings, adjuster is navigating the process, but an agent gets an angry call from a customer.
[00:54:16.120] - Chris
They're at a massive disadvantage. So one of the tenants that I know matches up with kind of your philosophy as well as never, ever let the agent be broadsided by their policy holder. The part of our role as salespeople in the restoration side is to backstop our production teams, to know when the countertops are back ordered, to know when whatever the dog accidentally got led out by one of our subs to get in front of that, let the agent know. Hey, just so you know, here's what happened, and here's how we're trying to make it right.
[00:54:53.050] - Chris
Just so you know, Mrs. Johnson is real upset at the moment. But here's how we're trying to make it right. I just wanted to give you a heads up, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:54:59.840] - Gerry
Absolutely. Yeah. That's it. You use the phrase maybe help me get it right. Everyday sales activity, every job sales activities, right? Yeah.
[00:55:11.510] - Chris
You remember that?
[00:55:12.420] - Gerry
And it's like, yeah. I mean, we have to understand we have to participate. There are things that we have to do on every job. And I think the salesperson needs to be involved, not in the decision making process, not in the who does? How does? Production stuff. Stay out of that, if you nosey into that, you're going to get it slapped off. Don't do that. Deal with that human ellement, be aware and help that customer any way you can. I love that term. You just used backstop.
[00:55:44.880] - Gerry
A Little League Empire for most kids. I'm the backstop.
[00:55:49.230] - Chris
I figured you might like that.
[00:55:51.140] - Gerry
You know? I mean, there's a reason why I use a big pillow for an Empire pan for the younger divisions, because I'm their backstop. But we need to do that for production.
[00:56:02.070] - Chris
Well, the other thing, too, that I think is just a reality for all of us who've been operators in the field doing the work is that things can get out of control. Things can get out of control, whether it's a cat situation or it's just a huge influx of business from a new partner we took on, or we have some turnover that happens, and we're short staffed. Things can quickly feel chaotic and can start to spin out.
[00:56:28.580] - Chris
Right.
[00:56:28.950] - Chris
I think his restoration people, we've had to become really good a cleaning things up and raining things back in. But in those moments where things are crazy, it's the sales person's job to backstop, right? The production team, so that as much of that chaos as possible is kept within it's sort of the contents of the company. The agent isn't exposed to that. The customer isn't exposed to that. The adjuster doesn't realize what's going on. Like, Brandon has its phrase that we use all the time, which is it's like a duck, right?
[00:57:01.200] - Chris
Calm above the surface of the water, but their feet below where you can't see are just cranking away like, furiously.
[00:57:08.080] - Gerry
It great. Good one, Brandon. That's a good one.
[00:57:10.630] - Brandon
I'm pretty sure I stole it from somebody smarter.
[00:57:12.900] - Chris
I think so.
[00:57:13.860] - Gerry
It's a great one.
[00:57:14.730] - Chris
It's great, but it's appropriate, right? I mean, that is the thing. I think that's a reality that all of us confront is, man, things go sideways. Jobs are just stuff happens and things get ugly from time to time. And I believe. And it sounds like you agree the salesperson plays a critical role in buffering that information, getting in front of it, letting a customer know, correcting expectations, all that kind of stuff.
[00:57:40.320] - Gerry
Brandon, you asked me earlier what's some of the big change big change. One of the big changes is as a result of TPAs, we've turned our businesses into order takers. We've lost the subtleties of selling the customer. So it's just a job where we've become focused on the structure and the contents and not the human.
[00:58:07.100] - Brandon
Man, I love that. You gotta hang there for a minute because what you are saying, Gerry, the problem with that is it's now seeping into the culture of most of these companies as well. So now leaders are treating their people that way because it's so void. Right. So what do we do from your perspective? How do we get that incorporated back into the process?
[00:58:30.960] - Gerry
Yeah, it's a tough one. I don't know how to pull that off. We worked there was a period in my business where we shifted back into some leadership cultural components to try to help businesses deal with that, what you just said, that human the side of it. We did that for a couple of years because we were seeing businesses grow and then have all kinds of trouble. That culture that internal culture, and we worked hard to try to figure that out and had a good process and helped.
[00:59:07.240] - Gerry
But it reverted. Reverted. Change is difficult.
[00:59:11.390] - Brandon
Do you feel like in some ways, like the seed? I'm trying to think of how to put this question, but one of the things that Chris and I learned as an example is when we started to grow this business for instance. We've learned that it can be difficult to sell to someone the pain that they don't really realize they have. Like, it's easy for us to see it because we're the fresh eyes. Right. And so what we've learned over time is that we have to get more comfortable with this idea of let's sell to the level of need that the customer can admit to, which most of the time is a symptom, knowing that once we establish that trust and that relationship, we're going to have an opportunity to really work on maybe what that causes the root cause.
[00:59:53.410] - Brandon
Right. So do you feel like in some ways, from your perspective, you can identify for an owner or a key leader...Hey, we need to increase sales. And here's a way for us to increase those sales. Do you find it, though, that once you get in and you start to establish trust and relationship, that you're able to then have some words in or shed some light on these perspectives of bringing the humanity element back into the process?
[01:00:19.380] - Gerry
We do. We absolutely do. Jordan, my partner does a brilliant job at that because challenges come inevitably with getting simple information like, who is the customer's agent? That's in every job sales activity that is just totally ignored by the masses, right. And the friction and the tention, and then why do you have to know? Well, look, if I don't know that this job that came in is associated with my agent, that's a partner, and I'm out there calling on them, and I'm not out there on this job site for them because we've got ten jobs and none of them are associated to my agent.
[01:01:01.470] - Gerry
I am a liar. So guess what? We collectively are liars. Okay? And that means that somebody's not going to get work tomorrow from the jobs this guy or Gal would have been giving us. It's a dynamic tension. And so we try to help business leaders work through that. And to be Truthful, when I find the right fit for us, knowing how difficult our process is, it's not simple and easy anymore, or knowing that we all want fish sandwich whenever I want it. I don't want to learn to fish, and I don't want to go fish.
[01:01:39.300] - Gerry
Right. We want things now. And so it's tough to get people to make those changes, but you have to work on it and find the right people.
[01:01:47.190] - Brandon
Yeah.
[01:01:48.500] - Chris
Gerry, One thing I want to talk about and I think is as we see this shift happening in the industry, both within our industry, of how claims are handled and TPAs and so forth. And it's become so much more transactional and what not as we combat that with this new, more human, professional, sophisticated, more intentional strategy with agents, it seems like the profile of person required for the job has changed a lot, too, because it used to be that we could just get an enthusiastic, fresh faced College age kid to come in and just be an excited representative and sling the candy and all the fun things and build report and all that kind of stuff.
[01:02:31.240] - Chris
That was enough. That was kind of the game. That was the profile. Well, what we've been talking about...it's a more sophisticated sell, more sophisticated customer relationship. How have you because I know part of the thing that you help people do is to identify qualified candidates to do this sales role. How have you seen that profile of sales rep shift from back in the Eighties and nineties as this agent route sales strategy was thriving to now with this new, more sophisticated approach, what kind of person are we looking for?
[01:03:06.080] - Gerry
Completely the opposite, you know, businesses that tell me. Oh, I've got a marketing rep, she's been here or she was at this company, or he was at that company, and they know how to do it. Probably not gonna make this sale, Gerry, but that's okay. Let's see if you can help them at least embrace reality, cause that's not gonna work. very once in a while, you get one who's only been there for maybe a year and frustrated and has all these sales skills and not using them.
[01:03:33.580] - Gerry
And sick and tired of this route stuff and looking for a better option. And I get a lot of those calls. Interestingly. I get a lot of those calls, and I try to help them, but their boss won't make the change. Okay, keep a short list, Gerry, because there's people around the country looking for her. Yeah. And part of our job is when we become a partner with a business, and we're a short term partner for someone. By that, I mean, about a year. Typically, one of my jobs is to help them recruit, assist with recruiting, bringing in a sales professional.
[01:04:06.990] - Gerry
And it's like the person you want is an X pharmaceutical sales rep. They're hard to find, but that's what you want. That's your model. That's who you're after. Look for those people. Look for people that are like that. To have those skills, you'll have to have two critical skills according to competency theory, which is achievement, goal oriented achievement. And you have to have the skill of persuasion. And you'll find those in pharmaceutical reps big time. There's other places where you'll find them. But those are the kind of people you're looking for, people that understand relationship with the doctor and know how to get along with the staff, because you aren't gonna get through to see the doctor unless you get through the gate keeper.
[01:04:51.670] - Gerry
And those are people that have acquired skills. Okay, what they need is a process. And so we help find those kind of people. I'd like to tell you, we always find pharmaceutical sales reps, but we don't. We find a lot of x insurance agents.
[01:05:05.110] - Chris
Oh, sure.
[01:05:06.880] - Gerry
Oh, yeah. So we're working with a team right now. And the guy's biggest fear was I don't want to be a candy jar deliver. I want to deliver real value. This guy just been amazing is like, on fire with what's happening and his results. I mean, there are a million dollar streams of revenue that a sales professional can bring in from this just year after year after year from those agencies by doing this. And it's like, you can't ignore that.
[01:05:33.800] - Chris
Yeah, that's a big difference that's you completely is in the industry. I mean, I think a lot of people are hearing this, and they're like, yeah, I have this Gal that we've always had or this young guy that we're paying him $17 an hour, 40,000 a year. And they hear pharmaceutical sales rep, and they're like, oh, man, boy, that feels like huge air gap between where they're at, what you're talking about. But when you see what somebody like that can produce for your business and your brand, all of a sudden, the added investment makes a whole lot of sense.
[01:06:03.170] - Gerry
Right
[01:06:04.200] - Gerry
You got it. I mean, their question is, if I'm on a percentage, if I get a Commission, if I get a bonus factor, can I make six figures?
[01:06:12.670] - Chris
Yeah, yeah.
[01:06:13.710] - Gerry
If you're bringing in a million, you're gonna make six figures. You bet.
[01:06:18.090] - Brandon
Yeah.
[01:06:18.660] - Chris
Yeah, yeah.
[01:06:19.210] - Brandon
And I think that's where people get lost a little bit and bridging that gap, which is why a role like yours is so important is that we got to have data. We got to have a matrix to follow. We've got to have accountability, and then we're not so afraid to spend that kind of money, right? If we know that it's actually going to yield some kind of return on our effort and on our spend.
[01:06:38.160] - Gerry
well said.
[01:06:39.900] - Chris
Well, Gerry, this has been a lot of fun, and we may need to do a second pass, have another sales conversation in the future, because things do change. And I know you're always...I Follow all your stuff on LinkedIn. I recommend people find Gerry. It's Gerry with the G.[linkedin.com/in/gerryedtl]
[01:06:53.280] - Chris
You find his linkedin in our show notes, but you're constantly posting best practices and tips and new insights and stuff like that, which is awesome. I think what you do is really important and philosophically you and I've talked, and there's just so much alignment around the power of really building meaningful relationships with agents, getting beyond the promo and the candy and smiles and really building meaningful, pure based partnerships.
[01:07:23.890] - Gerry
Mutual beneficial.
[01:07:24.940] - Chris
Taking advantage of the fact that when we get a job, whether it was direct, referred or not, we at that moment, we have a mutual client with that agent and just the power of that, you know? And so I appreciate what you do, man. I'm so glad that you have an audience. And this message is getting out. Like the industry is shifting, and it's really fun to be connected with you, man.
[01:07:45.750] - Gerry
again, thank you for having me. It's been great. You guys are fun.
[01:07:49.650] - Chris
Right on. Right on. Okay. Well, like I said, we may have to do it again. So anyway, I have an awesome weekend. Gerry, and thanks for joining us man.
[01:07:56.830] - Gerry
All right. Thank you, guys.
[01:07:59.570] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast.
[01:08:04.830] - Chris
And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend. Hit subscribe .Hit follow. Leave us a five star review. Thanks a lot.