Ep 14 - Candy and Smiles are Dead w/Gerry Edtl

0:02 Welcome back to another episode of the MRM Podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life, and legacy. It's business time. Well, my friend, how you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I'm looking forward to our guest today. Yeah, me too. You want to do the honors? Yes, I will. All right. So first of all, I was doing a little bit of research on our guest today. And the guests 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.

0:44 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. And I think 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. But... Jerry Edel. Jerry Edel is an industry veteran that started at the grassroots. Mom and dad owned a ServiceMaster franchise in Oregon. Did I get that right, Jerry? Yeah, that's correct. So really grew up in the business. And there's not a lot of us that can say that.

1:25 So that alone, just the experience of growing up around it, doing door-to-door sales, cleaning, spending And then overall, 34 years spent with ServiceMaster in a whole variety of roles. So one of the things I latched on to and I thought, wow, this is a great experience. 19 years, he worked as a franchise turnaround specialist 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. 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 ServiceMaster and then launched his own consulting and training business, public speaking, giving seminars, doing workshops all around the country and outside the U.S., Lots and lots of deep experience.

2:23 But Jerry's, over the last 15-20 years, has really decided 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. 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 has changed. And I think what I'm excited to hear Jerry 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. And so now the approach has to be a lot different.

3:07 And that's what Jerry is really specializing right now with his consulting and training practice, which he co-owns with Jordan Donald, his CEO and chief sales trainer. One little tidbit about Jerry that I really appreciate is he's married to his life Lynn since 1974. Yeah. And he seems to be happy about it still. Oh yeah. Which is awesome. I just, I 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 Jerry is a little league baseball umpire. Yes, I am. In fact, was an umpire at the 2013 little league world series. Okay. So anyway, fun stuff there. Jerry's obviously a multidimensional guy, but deep, deep, deep experience and background in the restoration industry.

3:52 So welcome to the show, Jerry. 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. 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, it's just a great opportunity to sit and chat with you with you two guys and see what's going on. That's cool, man. Well, listen, Jerry, you know how to make friends because in the last 45 seconds, you just referred to Brandon and I as young twice, not once, but twice.

4:34 You referred to us two bald guys as young and that made me feel really good. I can remember being in my thirties and I got to tell you, you're young. See, you did it again, Jerry, because I'm not in my 30s. And you just referred to us as in our 30s. I'm going on this up. This episode just gets better and better. Yeah. Okay. 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. Yeah. I was 19 years old and my wife was 18 and I don't recommend it. My wife wouldn't recommend it.

5:16 We've asked her parents when they were alive more than once, what were you thinking? Yeah. And we've had a wonderful relationship. She was my best friend in high school. Just absolute best friend. One day it dawned on me. She's the one. Let's keep this thing going. Yeah. Yeah. So we grew up together. I mean, that's the truth of the matter. We just grew up together and neither one of us were going to quit. We're like, not going to quit on. I'm not leaving. You know, I'm not. Well, then we're going to 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.

6:02 For us, we needed to wait. We were just so young. And when we were 30 and 31, we had our daughter. Wow. 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, you know, we're 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.

6:43 But I might change my mind based on what you tell me. So I'm going to go first. She's like, 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. She's like, I agree. I'm in. Let's do it. And like that, I got a boss and became full-time sales and she's full-time training. It's been crazy fun, crazy fun. 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.

7:23 So the fact that you were looking forward to, hey, you take this on, I want to hone 100%. And on the sales component is such a big deal. You know, I was reading, you have like on your website, a profile about your full history with ServiceMaster and all the different consultative training and resource development roles and stuff that you did. I mean, you made national training programs and stuff for ServiceMaster 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. No way! Yeah. You are a young guy.

8:05 Well, and you know, and you know, I cut my teeth selling Cutco, which isn't quite, it wasn't quite door to door, but it was, you know. No, but I seen it at Costco. Same difference, right? Cutco to Costco. 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 Emberland? Is that an okay place for us to start? I will. And you asked me your questions, but I'll preface it by saying this. I met Bill in my late 20s, mid to late 20s. I went to work for him. That's a funny story. I don't know if we 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.

8:50 He will be 90 in a couple of years. He's still active in business. And I want to be like Bill. I'll keep working. You know, just a neat guy. So go ahead. 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 sort of a territory, had a number of franchises that he... He did. Yeah, in the system back then, there had what was called distributors. So the distributor worked between the corporate franchisor and the franchisee, and they sold the franchises. And then he supported the distributor role would be to support them.

9:32 And at the time I was involved, there were 90 some odd distributors, maybe as many as 100 if you count Canada internationally then. And of course, today they're all gone. That all got bought out and went away. But yeah, he was a distributor, supported franchise owners. And so he brought me on to help them with growth. Yeah. And so back then, as you were sort of developing this approach to sales training within restoration businesses, unpack the culture. I mean, for those of us who got into the industry in the last 10 years... things were a lot different, right? At that stage, you were working with Ed and the distributors and that whole thing. What was the whole sales environment like? Like how were restoration companies growing?

10:16 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. 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, you know? And there were programs, so pre-programs. There were no such things as TPAs. That just didn't exist. There was claims offices right here in Portland. There were claim offices over in Tigard. You know, there were claim offices all over the place. Salem, you name it, you know. 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.

10:59 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 learn quickly. And I think this is still true today. And that is never cause a adjuster to be surprised. If you let an adjuster be surprised, you're in trouble. And number two, don't let problems get to the adjuster. Fix it. Take care of it. Because if you give me problems, you let me get surprised, we're going to have trouble. That's one of those. Yeah, I mean, they would beat you up, tongue lashing, and then they would say, I'm done with you.

11:43 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 sent you more work because they knew your capacity expanded. I'm like, how did they know that? I don't remember telling them that we bought, we added, 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. Thank you. Man, you know, I'm listening to this and I think there's probably a lot of people listening that are just so jealous.

12:28 They're like, wow, simpler times. Oh, right. Where it's like 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 that was doing it. 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. I could actually go stop by their office. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like simpler times. It was.

13:09 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. What? Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a dynamic process. We'd put on continuing education courses, and we'd invite adjusters to come, and they would get credit for talking to 20 people at one time. Wow. What a different platform. Totally changed. Totally changed. Yeah. 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 as a legitimate kind of a loss?

13:53 Like, we're not going to hang there the whole time, but there's a reality, right? That something in this relationship elements have changed. From your perspective, what do you see as kind of the biggest losses from this transition from that environment? Hmm. At the claims level, adjusters had relationships with contractors, restores, actual real relationships. I think some people overdid those and indulged those a little bit and abused 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. Mm-hmm. Today, I don't see that.

14:34 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. I mean, if they're 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. Just call the 1-800-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 probably give it to you. So, you know, it's just funny.

15:16 That's a huge shift in terms of that relationship. The other one though is, is on the agency side. 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'd 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 change is... Again, back in the day, when I have a loss as a policyholder, I was told by my agent, and you call me, you call us, we're here for you. Yeah. Right?

15:56 Like a good neighbor, right? 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 deal, which was State Farm. Whatever State Farm does, they're all going to do. Sure. 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 and they come back around again.

16:39 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. You don't belong here. this is our cut and work claims. You just stick to sales. Stay out of it. Let us handle it. Quit sticking your nose in. Yeah. And they didn't, I don't think they meant to cause harm. Yeah. But you've taken the people who have the most relational skills or your sales professionals.

17:19 Right. Yep. And they look 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 going to 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. Okay. So what's happened to your customer? If the customer makes the mistake and calls the 800 number or goes online or uses an app, they're going to get whoever they get assigned who's ever up for rotation. It's a Russian roulette, if you will. You don't know. Yes, there's plenty. The majority of...

18:00 contractors and restorers 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, you know, and we all know that, right? And you just get randomly assigned. And I know there's matrices 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 is, You'll hear, and I used to hear it because I got in at the corporate level at Bloomington, Illinois. That's another story. But I was there more than once listening to the head of claims. And they're talking about this.

18:40 We don't understand why our customers, you know, our customers, we got to retain them. So you get the top guy with all the executives in there in the room bobblehead and say, yeah, we got to retain them. But you get out in the field and it's like, well, you're not giving them any care. Yeah. 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 separated the one person who can triage that the best for you. Yeah. 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.

19:27 We spend every single day selling promises. That's what an insurance agent does. Well, it is. 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. 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.

20:11 I heard a specific story. In fact, I ran into a customer that he did this for. He told and told us about this. He threw a chainsaw in the back of his own Cadillac or whatever he drives, drove out to his customer's house. So the claim call comes in. Oh man, I had a tree fall in my house from the storm last night. No problem. I'll be there in 30 minutes. Throws a chainsaw in 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 him. That was the kind of State Farm agent I was inspired to be. 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, Jerry, that was behind a lot of this shift is companies like Geico, Progressive, e-surance that started to take market share.

20:58 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 had, they changed the compensation programs for agents where it used to be like service income. Yeah. And now you had to sell so many life insurance policies and finance 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. Along that same vein though, what? Because inevitably, there's always two sides to a coin.

21:40 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? 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 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.

22:25 There's a group of them out there that recognize, I think corporate's wrong. You look at what is threatening them today. Geico used to be a threat. The truth is State Farm used to grow a full Geico every month. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, but not anymore. Oh, yeah. But now the thread is the internet. And you look at companies like Lemonade, Amazon, Google selling. I mean, Amazon, it's coming. The agent is in a fight for survival.

23:05 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've turned us into a commodity and now they've turned themselves into a commodity. Whenever you turn yourself into a commodity, you're competing on price and volume. I mean, that's your game. And play that game. But there are agents out there that are saying, this is a mistake. This is going to bite us. Mm-hmm. 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%.

23:47 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. It's the new thinking. I think today it's more like 40%. But these agents are saying, corporate's 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 owner. You are a franchisee. It wasn't any different. You had a contract.

24:27 You 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. 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? Right. And so I think as I see what's happening, I believe we will see less agents and bigger ones.

25:09 Yeah. And those bigger ones are going to be, yes, they're sales focused, you bet. But they also recognize there is a service component. There is an opportunity. And for restorers who can partner with that agent. Yeah. and really do stuff that's of value. And you've got some great stories of sharing that, you know, that kind of stuff we've talked about. But for us, if we can do that, we have a tremendous opportunity for them to use their influence and recommend to the customer that you've got all kinds of options. Here's three companies. Yeah. So I think one of the things you're hitting on too, the opportunity in some of this is for us to level up as an industry because...

25:54 These changes, these shifts have forced us, I think, to become more professional 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. Sure. And I found it very annoying. I had five people on payroll. I was the sixth person and the last one to get paid, 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 $100 plus an hour in payroll.

26:36 And so when you see the different sales reps, and they weren't all from restoration. There's just all kinds of sales reps. Just pop up your door, unannounced, chitty chat with everybody, fill the candy jars, hand out swag. And after that 10 or 12 or 15 minute stop, well, then all of my team had to get kind of back in the groove of what they were doing. They enjoyed having these marketing reps come in. Nice conversion. Nice break. They loved the little Dove chocolates, 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.

27:21 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. 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 Pure Clean, the Service Master, the other company in town is doing it, well, we kind of got to. Right. Because... Wrong. Right? And that was that feeling that almost that FOMO, that fear of missing out. If we're not in there also filling candy jars or dropping things off, they're going to get the job and we won't.

28:02 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. I mean, pretty big agency. That's a big one. Yeah. And 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. Yeah. Yeah. And he cited an example of how we had taken out one of their employees to lunch and they, instead of coming back in an hour, they were back like an hour and 10 or 15 minutes.

28:52 And this was like two or three months prior and he still remembered it. I thought, oh boy, we need to really up our game in terms of our professionalism and And we need to treat these prospects as these are businesses. Right. They're trying to make money. And the fact of the matter is, in the moment, they don't care about restoration and all that stuff near as much as we do. Right. Right. 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 as more professional. I think it's more in line with the strategy you teach, which is partnership rather than promotion.

29:33 The industry has been in promotion mode. Top of mind awareness. Last person in, best candy, best notepads, mousepads. Right. To now it's, hey, how can I help you build your business? I like the word you use, differentiate. That agents are concerned about differentiation. So talk more about that. When you say, we have the opportunity to help an agent differentiate, can you double click on that and say more? Yeah. When the agent that, again, you always have to remember, we're talking about a specific agent, a type of agent that says, I think corporate's mistaken here. I know I'm not involved with claims, but I'm going to help my clients.

30:14 I'm going to be there for my client. Yeah. I'm not talking about the chainsaw and the caddy either. That day is really gone. Right, yeah. The Norman Rockwell days. 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, keepsakes, that kind of stuff.

30:56 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? Yeah. Any first responders heard that. Anger. This isn't right. Somebody's got, you know, they're angry, you know, oh my gosh, you know. Yeah. Fear. Yeah. Am I going to get canceled? Am I going to lose my insurance? Am I going to lose my rate? Right? Those are just a few emotions, right? So it's messy. Yeah. One of the areas that we can really help that agent because we're on site and our team is on site. So this is everybody is in sales. Everybody, every job is in sales.

31:37 It's not on production and your sales. Everybody, every job, it's in sales. Yeah. And it's like this customer is really freaking out. Okay, that's emotion. What is the emotion going on there? Get ahead of that. Get on the phone. Or go in person, see that agency, your customer is going through this experience. He's feeling a lot of anger right now or depression right now. They're depressed. Okay. That agent now has the opportunity, whether they 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.

32:28 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 has happened to them, a call from you might, man, 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 upfront 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 customers deal with all of the emotion that comes with this, what word would you like us to give them?

33:29 We can do that for you. You're busy. You've got to stick with sales. I understand that. 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, and the bottom rung might have been just be an Aaron person, right? Right. 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...

34:09 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. Jerry, that is so good because what you're positioning yourself as with that kind of phone call is 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 goodwill. Do you want to check in on them? Their countertops are backordered for five weeks.

34:52 They're really frustrated about it. They're annoyed that it's going to, they're going to be out of their house for another month. This might be a great chance for you to have an impact on What a different kind of relationship with those agents, right? See, now when you walk in their office, you're seen as part of my team. Yes. You might be on the restoration contractor's payroll, but I see you differently. I don't see you as that goes another hour or $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 down. When we do this right, they see us, hey, morning.

35:33 Yeah, you can sit at that desk, make calls, set up the internet connection, 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. So I've shifted the position from being another restorer, another contractor, 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 that loss for you. So if it now goes to the program and it randomly gets assigned to somebody else, it's...

36:17 I can't help you on those, right? Oh, I can't help you. You're SOL, man. That sucks. Right. You know? Yeah. Now you're 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. 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, right. But 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.

36:57 Yeah, yeah. And the reason guys still do the old Number one, it used to work. And so, and it did because they were, had claim responsibilities. That stuff was important. Yeah. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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, man, work for your grandfather, man. It's time for something different and it's hard.

37:39 And I think that's good news and bad news. All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MitResto 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, right? 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, you know, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all.

38:21 But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah, and that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission-critical information, i.e., guys, your team will actually use it. 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.

39:06 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 xlrestorationsoftware.com forward slash MRM and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM listeners. All right, let's talk about actionable insights. Owners, GMs, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimating. You might've been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry's always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to Xactimate and Matterport, how does that scale? You're the bottleneck.

39:47 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 practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again. For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients. 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 team's got access to those things. A 3,700 plus page database of Xactimate templates.

40:29 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, bam. 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 points and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.getinsights.org backslash fcg. From your perspective, I mean, obviously, we're looking back at your history, being someone that at a national level was training people in sales.

41:09 Where does some of this mindset come from? Is this natural wiring? Is this part of the stuff you learned under watching your father and what he did? 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? I'm not quite sure I'm following. Give me a little bit more on that one. Just like your mindset in general. The first time I talked to you was, I'm not even sure the first time, but it was probably five plus years ago. Oh yeah, it was. Your perspective though on partnering, on relational navigation, on wanting to do that, that even though the environment that we're experiencing now is forcing us, right?

41:50 To take a new perspective or a new look at our sales tactics and techniques. Okay. You've been teaching this a long time. So where did that come from? Yeah. When did you start innovating? What was the genesis of that? 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, Jerry, you know, the agent route was, It's not working. Our CEC, we're not seeing results anymore.

42:32 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. Third guy tells you that, hmm, something's going on. I kept hearing it over and over again. And for about two years, I kept hearing this because I was the guy that trained them. I'm the guy that brought that training. I brought continuing 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 used to work for.

43:13 He called me and goes, you know, hey, we're having a problem. This and that aren't working like they used 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 change it. Something out of the box. That was 2008 and 2009. I was glad for an opportunity to have a contract and some revenue. Yeah, right. No kidding. Yeah. So I said, okay, I'll put the leadership on hold. I'll work on this. And for two years, and we made some huge progress. We dove deep into partnering with agents on loss ratio and... and impacting performance bonuses that they would get, profitability bonuses of their book.

43:58 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 of figuring this thing out. And then the contract had a third year option and they had already said they were going to exercise it. We got to the end of the first two years. The guy I worked for got fired. The boss above him that was there for 20 years got fired, brought a new leadership that went a different direction. I sit down. This was the end of the year. And they had canceled my contract. And I sit down with my wife. And we're like, I'm on the edge of really figuring this thing out.

44:41 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. Hmm. And I hate to quit. She's like, well, 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. 10,000. 10,000. R&D. R&D. I mean, but we figured it out. Like, oh, okay. This is really simple.

45:21 You know what? It's really simple. Yeah. It needs to change. Their contracts change. Their needs to change. That old message doesn't work for them. Stop it. You need to stop it. Let's just stop. You're hurting yourself. 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 Jerry, 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 processes. the past processes and procedures. At minimum, you created something that was deployed on scale, which means a lot, right?

46:03 And so what's so impressive for me listening to you tell this story is how you had to look at the systems that you had your name on. This was your baby. This was your baby. And you ultimately had to turn around and say, you know what? The baby's ugly. It's time to reinvent this. Yeah. 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.

46:46 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. 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. The old process was simple. It was easy. The metrics were easy. How many stops did you make today? Yeah, exactly. It wasn't how many jobs are we getting in. This is a different, integrated process that involves the team.

47:27 It hits at cultural levels within the team. Yeah. 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 coursework has now been put into an online course. We've updated it continuously because things are evolving fast. Right. 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.

48:10 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. Yeah, it's true. I don't mean that disrespectfully, but the fact is you're doing harm. You don't realize it because of what you just said. Business owner accountant, I'm spending a hundred bucks an hour with this. Go get out of here. Yeah. I believe it's going to 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 Master, all the names, we all know all the big names. There's enough of a network effect where I have 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.

49:05 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. 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, Jerry, because I think part of this conversation leads back into service delivery. And you and I have talked about this a little bit, just how, just like you described in insurance, there's silos between claims and the agency side, sales side.

49:46 What we've observed too is that in our industry, there tends to be really established protected silos between our marketing and salespeople that are out talking to customers and agents and so forth, and our production teams that are delivering on the promise, like we talked about. So that's become a real deep belief of ours is that salespeople have to be engaged in in order to protect the customer experience and protect the agent and 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 salespeople or marketing, whatever we want to call it?

50:29 We call them marketing reps, sales reps, whatever. Yeah. There's sales. What do you think there? I know I prefer the sales word. It's new business development. That's right. That's right. Yeah. What do you believe the role of the salesperson is in the customer service, in the production side of the business? Do you have any thoughts on that? I do. I'll speak idealistically for a moment. Yeah. There's always the practical component of this thing. But 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. Yeah.

51:09 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'd get out there within 30 minutes. They know that. They feel that. They won't articulate it. But 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 chainsaw, and I don't mean that. Maybe not literally. But I'm 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.

51:58 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? Oh, 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. Okay. Yeah, it's almost like you're a proxy for the agent, right? Like you said, they want to be the guy who has the chainsaw in the back of his car, but they can't. They can't. So you are by proxy. Exactly. So I believe you need to be that first one. And then when the crew gets there, I 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.

52:39 And I've reiterated that to them, that you've got one of the best and they're going to take your view. Here's their phone number. Here's the cell. I'll be talking to them. What message do you want me to tell them? All those kind of handholding things. Then my crew walks through the door. Joe, Jane, whoever. Hey, this is Mr. and Mrs. Yes. You're in great hands. These are, I love these guys. They're amazing. I'm selling them now. They're going to take care of you. I'll be back. That sales rep is really facilitating the customer experience. And protecting the experience that that person had. You know, one of the things that we advocate for with a lot of our clients, and just in general, we've practiced in companies we operated, is salespeople need to be involved in the production meeting.

53:30 So production means a regular rhythm that everybody has aversion to that. For the reason why. So you're taking it to another level, which I really... It's very interesting to me. But one of the things that we always felt... You mentioned how adjusters hate surprises. Yeah. 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've found, and I'm sure you have too, agents, they like surprises even less because they feel powerless. Because at least the adjuster, adjuster is holding the purse strings, adjuster is navigating the process. But an agent gets an angry call from a customer, they're at a massive disadvantage.

54:10 So one of the tenets that I know matches up with your philosophy as well is, never ever let the agent be broadsided by their policyholder. That part of our role as salespeople in the restoration side is to backstop our production teams. Right. To know when like the countertops are backordered, to know when whatever the dog accidentally got let out by one of our subs, right? To get in front of that, let the agent know, hey, just so you know, here's what happened. Yep. And here's how we're trying to make it right. 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 want to give you a heads up.

54:50 You know, that kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah, that's it. You use the phrase, help me get it right, everyday sales activity, every job sales activities. Is that the phrase you coined? Yeah, you remember that. 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. That day out of that, if you nosey into that, you're going to get it slapped off. You know, don't do that. Sure. But deal with that human element. Be aware and help that customer any way you can.

55:34 I love that term you just used, backstop. You know, as a little league umpire, for most kids, I'm the backstop. I figured you might like that. You know, I mean, there's a reason why I use a big pillow for an umpire pad for the younger divisions. Yeah. Because I'm their backstop. But we need to do that for production. Well, you know, 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.

56:16 Things can quickly feel chaotic and can start to spin out, right? I think as restoration people, we've had to become really good at cleaning things up and reining things back in. But in those moments where things are crazy, right? It's the salesperson's job to backstop the production team so that as much of that chaos as possible is kept within 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 this phrase we use all the time, which is it's like a duck, right? Calm above the surface of the water, but their feet below where you can't see are just...

56:58 cranking away like furiously. That's a great good one, Brandon. That's a good one. I'm pretty sure I stole it from somebody smarter. I think so. But it's appropriate, right? I mean, that's, that is the thing. I think that's the reality that all of us confront is man, things go sideways, jobs are behind, you know, 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 the customer know, correcting expectations, all that kind of stuff. 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.

57:45 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. Man, I love that. You got to hang there for a minute because what you're saying, Jerry, 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? Yeah, it's a tough one. I don't know how to pull that off.

58:28 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 humanness side of it. We did that for a couple of years because we were seeing businesses grow and then have all kinds of trouble. Right. Because of that culture, that internal culture. And we worked hard to try to figure that out and had a good process and helped, but it reverted. It reverted. Change is difficult. 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.

59:22 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 cause is, the root cause. 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?

1:00:11 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 tension and then the 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 10 jobs and none of them are associated to my agent, I am a liar.

1:00:56 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. And 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. Yeah. Knowing that we all want a fish sandwich whenever I want it. I don't want to learn to fish and I don't want to go fish. 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.

1:01:39 Yeah. Yeah. Jerry, one thing I want to talk about is, 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, it's become so much more transactional and whatnot. 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 rapport and all that kind of stuff.

1:02:22 And that was enough. That was kind of the game. That was the profile. Yes. 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 80s and 90s as this agent route sales strategy was thriving? Yeah. To now, with this new, more sophisticated approach, what kind of person are we looking for? Completely the opposite. 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.

1:03:06 It's like, probably not going to make this sale, Jerry, but that's okay. Let's see if you can help them at least embrace reality because that's not going to work. Yeah. Very once in a while, you'll get one who's only been there for maybe a year and frustrated and has all these sales skills and not using them 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, Jerry, because there's people around the country looking for her. Yeah. 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.

1:03:49 Typically, one of my jobs is to help them recruit. I assist with recruiting, bringing in a sales professional. And it's like the person you want is an ex-pharmaceutical sales rep. They're hard to find, but that's what you want. That's your model. Yeah. That's who you're after. Look for those people. Look for people that are like that, to have those skills. You 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.

1:04:32 People that understand relationship with the doctor and know how to get along with the staff. Because you ain't going to get through to see the doctor. unless you get through the gatekeeper. And those are people that have acquired skills, okay? What they need is a process. And so we help find those kinds of people. I'd like to tell you, we always find pharmaceutical sales reps, but we don't. We find a lot of ex-insurance agents. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. We're working with a team right now. And the guy's biggest fear was, I don't want to be a candy jar deliverer. I want to deliver real value. This guy's just been amazing. He's like on fire with what's happening and his results.

1:05:13 I mean, there are 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. Yeah, that's a big difference. That's a huge change in the industry. I mean, I think a lot of people are hearing this and they're like, well, geez, I have this gal that we've always had or this young guy that we're paying him 17 bucks an hour, 40,000 a year. And they hear pharmaceutical sales rep and they're like, oh man, boy, that feels like a huge air gap between where they're at and 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, right?

1:05:56 You got it. I mean, their question is, can I, if I'm on a percentage, if I get a commission, if I get a bonus factor, can I make six figures? Yeah. Yeah. If you're bringing in a million, you're going to make six figures. You bet. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where people get lost a little bit in 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 us some kind of return on our effort and on our spend. Well said. Well, Jerry, 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.

1:06:39 And I know you're always, I follow all your stuff on LinkedIn. I recommend people find Jerry. It's Jerry with a G. You find his link 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 peer-based partnerships. Mutual beneficial. Right. Taking advantage of the fact that when we get a job, whether it was direct preferred or not, we at that moment, we have a mutual client with that agent and just the power of that, you know?

1:07:27 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. Again, thank you for having me. That's been great. You guys are fun. Right on, right on. Okay, well, like I said, we may have to do it again. So anyway, have an awesome weekend, Jerry. Thanks for joining us, man. All right. Thank you guys. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast. 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.