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Sam Taggart 00:38
Alright everybody this is Sam Taggart with the D2D podcast. And I’m here with Becca Switzer longtime coming. So anybody in the roof space should know who Becca is roof sales mastery, right? You’ve probably seen her YouTube videos probably checked her Facebook page out and then you scrolled and just stalked her for a minute. It’s okay. We all done it might have seen her ass on the So anyway, so honored to have Yeah, we’re here at roof con in Houston, Texas. And now I’m excited to dive in, you know, not a lot not a lot of times you see women in the roofing space, so you kind of stand out you shine. And how’d you get into the roofing space? I want like a 32nd ratio here. Yeah, yeah, like the elevator.
Becca Switzer 01:16
So my elevator pitch version of this very long story is I dropped out of college my sophomore year because I started selling Cutco knives over the summer
Sam Taggart 01:23
my co co people was we love Coco le is
Becca Switzer 01:27
the stepping stone. And I was like, dang, I’m making a lot of money. I’m not gonna go back to college. So sold knives for a couple years. And then I got very long story short, got recruited into storm restoration by a guy who was currently the Vice President of like the second largest storm restoration company in the country. He was breaking off doing his own company. So he’s like, you guys would be great. He’s poaching Cutco people because Cutco people are such savage salespeople, too. And yeah, it’s really is true. And he’s like, it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel. You’ll be great. So went out there and I’m like, wow, no one’s training me anything. But I had no backup plan. It was like you just have to figure this out. So figured it out. Realize you can really make a bunch of money and now I teach it to awesome.
Sam Taggart 02:11
No congrats so been super successful in the roofing space. I think a lot of the Cutco principles should be and you probably have applied to roofing and obviously successful in that. So I want to dive into like recruiting so let’s just get into it. So Cutco has some of the best recruiting techniques. I mean, they recruit 10s of 1000s of people every year right? So you and roofing of price that Okay, you guys are idiots, you have three reps.
Becca Switzer 02:38
And you’re like no one wants to sell anymore. People are lazy. Nobody likes commission. That’s what everybody believes. But that’s why I always point to companies like Cutco, or vector marketing’s and like they’re recruiting 20 or 30,000 people a year. Yeah. Right. Like people are not afraid to do sales. It’s an issue of framing. So I’ll let you kind of I could go off on a tangent. No, I
Sam Taggart 02:57
like this. No, but I think that’s that’s the first point of recruiting is, is it’s the mindset around there are people if Cutco to sell knives, right and make $100 commission right versus a $2,000 commission right now you say I don’t have a leg up on this? No, you’re like, the fact that you have an opportunity, whether it’s solar alarmed, whatever, you know, people go, Oh, they don’t want to knock doors, they don’t wanna do sales they want and they start to actually get in this whirlwind of, I can’t find anybody.
Becca Switzer 03:27
Well, and I’m actually going to brush on something you just said. So you said people are having a hard time hiring for this opportunity. And it’s because people don’t want an opportunity. They want a job, right? opportunities sound very risky. They don’t sound secure. They don’t sound stable. And a job does. Right. Yeah, it sucks. And I’m sitting here you know, getting scoliosis at this cubicle and like soul sucking nine to five corporate job, but I know I’m gonna get a paycheck every single week. Yeah, I only make 50 grand yell, never live in the house I want to live in. But I always know I have a place to go to work next day. So the issue is, you do have an opportunity. Like when you’re in the business, if you if you’re in sales, and you make a lot of money. You’re like, it’s an amazing opportunity, and you’re telling the truth. But when you advertise it that way people run for the hills. 100%. Right. So like I always talk about, for example, in the roofing industry, the ad will always say something like this feels like no one’s clicking my ad. And I’m like, let me guess. It says something like now hiring, door to door roof sales, generous commission average income, you know, 75,000 $100,000 a year be your own boss, and you’re like stamp of approval. That sounds great. And you’re sitting there waiting for all these people apply. And then no one applies. Because people read it in there like that. They’re imagining themselves like selling horse vitamins out of their jackets on a street corner and like some weird MLM pyramid scheme or something. So they’re not even like I tell people always like put yourself in the position of the person who’s currently sitting at their $50,000 A year shit job that they hate. But they’re scrolling on indeed or monster, whatever, looking for the next job that will pay them $55,000 a year but with better dental benefits, right? So there’s it when they see you’re like door to door commission opportunity. They’re
Sam Taggart 05:16
like unlimited earning potential. Exactly. It’s like, write your own paycheck.
Becca Switzer 05:23
Exactly. Don’t write my own paycheck.
Sam Taggart 05:24
I just want somebody tell me what I’m getting paid, right? How I get paid. And I just want to make sure that my mortgage is paid for
Becca Switzer 05:29
Exactly. And so business owners are really shooting themselves in the foot. And I always say the dilemma here is like you’re being honest, it is a door to door commission, commission job and you can make a shitload of money. But the way you’re wording that is scaring people off. And actually, I always start about like this. Imagine you’re on a date, right? Your first date, and 15 minutes into the date. You’re just like, this is the girl of my dreams. I know it I can just tell it’s my gut feeling. But you blurt that out that you want to have your average american mortgage two and a half kids in a golden doodle with her within the first 15 minutes. She’s gonna run for the hills, right? Or you’re gonna attract the like stage five clinger that wants to have a joint Facebook account with you. Either way, you’re not getting the right person. Yeah. Okay. So you have to put yourself like, you’re that person that’s at their nine to five job. How can I frame the joke because you’re not changing the job position. You’re not changing the job name is exactly how you talk about it. And if you don’t mind me giving you one more analogy, just because I think it’ll help people understand. Imagine two ads. Okay. The first ad says, Now hiring, no pay on call 20 477 days a week. No exceptions. extremely stressful. Next ad says now hiring, challenging but rewarding work. Some say it’s the best job they’ve ever had. They’re both advertising Parenthood. Alright. But one is like this frazzled woman with bags in her eyes and like a Starbucks and her hair’s messy. And the next ones like this mother in a pasture like blowing dandelion, her toddlers glistening in the sun, like trying to grab the seeds billionaire, you’re both advertising the same thing. But how you how you present it how you word that advertisement is either going to attract people or repel them. So you have to think about the same thing when you’re putting out your job opportunity.
Sam Taggart 07:29
Yes. And so here’s an interesting way we put it, we call it two hats, okay, we say you have an HR hat. And then you have a sales hat. And oftentimes, because we’re salespeople recruiting, we’re wearing our sales hat instead of our HR hat. And so if you put it in this frame of, I’m hiring as an HR professional, and if you were to go apply for a job at Google, they’re not like, hey, please, like you’ve got to work. You’re gonna make so much money man, like, and then we’re gonna like help you. Okay, but what happens is, that obviously pushes them away. So we just say put your HR hat on as if you were hiring at Google and saying we have an interview process we’re not 100% sure if we take you and it creates this like I’m not the needy Yeah, the scarcity there’s like a professional selective there’s an onboard process there’s an application process right to put you through like a job so it’s interesting because in our mission at door to door is like to unify up level bring honor and integrity to door to door. The problem is, is the way that people are framing the hiring process makes us sound like some MLM. Oh, yeah. So it pushes people away. And, and, and, and I’m trying to help. I’m so glad we’re on the same page, because they’re like, well, that’s not a real job. Yeah. Well, yes, it is. What is a real job like, this is actually more than a real job than any other job like, so it’s, it’s the framing so that’s, that’s, this is huge. I love this. Okay, so what so let’s kind of transition because I feel like, this is good. Yeah, let’s keep going deeper. So what other like, flaws or mistakes that common recruiters make?
Becca Switzer 08:58
So the interview sucks, alright, so step one, your ad probably sucks to your interview sucks. So here’s the other thing that happens is people think, well, as long as I can get candidates or applicants in the door, then I show them how much money they can make.
Sam Taggart 09:14
Everyone’s gonna want to fly to the paycheck. See this dude?
Becca Switzer 09:17
Same problem. They’re just backing it up one step, right. They’re like, Well, okay, I won’t do it in the ad. But when they come in for the ad, I’ll be like, hey, like, you can make six figures in six months, and they’re showing him like a $20,000 commission check. And they’re like, look at my Ford F 250. out there. I bought that in two months pay cash, right? I have no debt. And people are like, it’s like, have you ever seen ballroom? Yep. Ben Affleck is like, you’re gonna be a millionaire. You’re gonna be a millionaire. And they’re like, right? Like you’re doing the same thing. You’re scaring them off. So one thing that I talk about is, even though there is an incredible income opportunity to get I’m going to use this for the storm restoration roof cells industry. What I teach and I’ve actually scripted it into the interview that I teach these contractors is Instead of telling them how much money they’re gonna make, you give them figures that help them do the math on their own. And so what you do, like, for example, we say, look, you know, the average rep turns in one or two deals a week. And each deal is about 10 grand, like, that’s what a claim costs for us. That means the commission is about 1000 bucks on each of those. And most people, you know, and then you give these average numbers, and everything, I get emails all the time, but people say, Becca, as soon as I get to that part, you watch people, because they’re taking notes, right? They do the math, and they’re like, what, one or two points because to them in their head, that’s like two hours of work, right? And they’re like, sitting up straight in the chair. And now all of a sudden, they’re excited. But you have
Sam Taggart 10:39
to act like you’re like, oh, man, I mean, yeah, this is kind of what it is. You’re not excited, you’re not like, and then they do too. And then it’s just like, yeah, I mean, they would do two jobs.
Becca Switzer 10:50
About this, yeah, like, you know, our average rep does about one or two weeks, that means, you know, anywhere from 50 to 100, in your writing on the board, right? 50 to 100, a year average Commission on each of those jobs for regular house is going to be 1000. You know, if you get an apartment building or a hotel or something like that, that might be, you know, 10 grand, and you just keep going. And they’re like, when, so if I do two week, that doesn’t sound like very much and making 1000 bucks, that’s $2,000 a week. So they’re doing the math, but that allows you’re not overdoing it.
Sam Taggart 11:20
Right? Here’s one of my favorite lines in the recruiting, in this interview process. I go, there’s a huge problem in our industry. And really what it is, is it’s because people get paid like $1,000, or $2,000 in a sale happens is they’ll make 40 $50,000 pretty quickly. And then they just get really complacent. And you can’t vote. Yeah, we can’t motivate them to work the full hours that they’re supposed to. And so we just really try not to hire people that after they would make like, you know, $1,000 in commission that’s for two $3,000 a week. And then what happens is they just get lazy, and they won’t work for two, three weeks. And so we just can’t, we can’t bring anybody on. That’s going to take a two three week vacation after making two three grand in a week. Right. And so really, the biggest problem in our space is just we overpay sometimes. Yeah. And so in framing of that, and then and then they’re like we like yeah, so honestly, like, it’s it’s a huge problem. So we just want to make sure that you’re not one that’s going to just like, go in a week. And so honestly, it’s one of our biggest problems here hiring right. And that’s great. They’re just like, Well, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna be that guy that’s gonna just stop not work for three weeks, and you’re like, but you’re letting them make that decision. I’m letting them make that decision. And when it does happen, because it is a thing, is it true problem? Then I’m like, wait, you told me you weren’t gonna be the guy that gets fat and happy after a week’s commission. Right? So that’s another like interview technique that we teach. That’s very, very, like very good in that in the same content. Right? So have that Okay, so number three. Number two is the interview. What’s number three?
Becca Switzer 12:55
Advertising in the wrong places? I mean, I think that’s becoming less of an issue but in my industry, it used to be just Craigslist. So people put out ads on crack because you’re thinking about the average person like door to door sales is kind of a we’re in like the dark weird corners of the job market with that right like a dusty What’s going on here?
Sam Taggart 13:14
prostitution door to door sales.
Becca Switzer 13:16
Right? Yeah, exactly like drug smuggling. So door to door is interesting. And what most of the contractors used to do is just go straight to Craigslist, but what you find is like, I always make a joke like you’re gonna get the guy that comes in he’s like an ex convict with a spider tattoo on his neck. It’s like a bunch of post Malone’s but no talent, right? So advertising in the right places. This is becoming less of an issue, but indeed is a great place to advertise you know, Glassdoor zip recruiter, stuff like that. Where are the other five for my talk? Today? I gave five. They were great. Um, what were they? You might need to ask me another question. It’s been a long day. You guys, I’ve traveled from Colorado and talking all day. Love it. Recruiting. Yeah. So
Sam Taggart 14:01
other hacks like so obviously have the ads, you have the interview process? I think a lot of people, they get them all excited, like, Okay, how do you make the offer and then transition them to start because I feel like we say there’s five platforms you have like sourcing, interviewing, signing, and then onboarding and then training them right, getting them going. Right. And a lot of times people fall through these cracks because the handoffs are bad, right? kind of walk me through like, Okay, how do you how do you make the offer, because I’ve seen a lot of different opinions on when do they like extend the offer? And then how do they like get them going?
Becca Switzer 14:38
Yeah. So I really modeled this after what I learned in Cutco. And so in Cutco, what they do is and I’ll back up a little bit is a group interview. Okay? So because again, when you’re recruiting for sales, you have to if you’re trying to interview people one by one, congratulations, that’s your new full time job, like you’re just gonna be interviewing all the time. So group interview allows you to bring 20 People in a time hire everyone you know, except for the guy with like a swastika tattoo on his face or something like that, you pretty much hire everybody. And then but you still have to find a way to make it feel like they’re they’re being selected, right? People don’t want to be like, they show up and they go, everyone’s getting hired herded like a cattle, right? Exactly, exactly like that just doesn’t work. So you have to have a way to make it feel like you’ve been chosen. So the process is, you set up a group interview, when everybody comes in, you actually tell everyone to come in about 1520 minutes early for paperwork, what you’re going to do is spend even just two minutes in a private office with each applicant. And just be like, you know, we call the pre screen, you go, this is just to kind of go over your resume, make sure that we can kind of put you on to the next part of the interview, like check out your experience, and you know, shake your hand yada, yada, then they go through the group interview, where you’re just explaining what the position is. And you talk about the income opportunity in the way that we talked about right what the job entails. And then you say, I’m going to go go ahead and take go into my office, I have a sheet for you guys to all fill out. And it has a series of questions like why do you feel like this would be a good position for you What qualities blah, blah, so you’re keeping everyone busy? you’re answering just a couple questions, writing it down. And then one by one, you start taking your best candidates. And what we actually do first is if there’s somebody that’s just the Hell no, take them out first. And then you bring them in you go based on you look at their answers you’re like, so based on XYZ, you know, maybe they don’t have reliable transportation, or you pick some obvious reason that they’re just like, they they can’t look you in the eye or something like that. You let those people go, then you start bringing in the other candidates. And what you do is, you bring them in, you go over, you ask them the questions, and this really only has to take three to five minutes, but you want to make them sweat. So you get to the end and you go, well, Brian, your resume looks good. And I know you maybe don’t have a whole lot of experience in this industry or with sales, or whatever it is you want to do some sort of push away disqualification, right? And you say, and unfortunately, like we can’t hire everyone, right? And they’re always like, and then you go, you’re like, but I think we can offer you a position. Like I really think even though you don’t have like this, this, we have a really incredible training program. And because you have these qualities or this background, I really think this could be a good fit for you. And then they’re like excited because they thought they weren’t gonna get it, you stand up, you congratulate me shake their hand. And then the next key is so in Cutco, we call it your show, there’s a show percentage to everything. What’s your show to the interview? Yeah, if you scheduled 20 people, but only four showed up, you dropped the ball, right? But if your show is, you know, 5060 70%, you’re doing pretty good. So then you want to have your show from the interview to training. So if you hire 10 people, again, we want to get as close to 10 to show up for training as possible. But your show depends on the quality of your interview. Right. And then also how quickly you get people in, we in recruiting, it’s like if they apply, get them on the phone in 30 minutes, like we want to get them there. We want to schedule for an interview the next day or the day after, if they get hired there in the next cycle of training, which should be less than five days from then. Cool.
Sam Taggart 18:13
So I think that that’s, I mean, that’s what I teach as far as rolling people over and getting them going we have a software called recruiter Matic. It’s an ETS that tracks you know, from applicants to interview to second interview to showed up to training the first sale and it just maps out all those important indicators, because a lot of times people don’t really pay attention those numbers and they might have like a full time recruiter, that’s like making all these calls or spending all this money on indeed. And they’re like they’re blaming the applicants. Yeah, they’re blaming the applicants. I’m like, No, your pass offs are bad, or you’re not having a good first interview, you’re scaring everybody away. So that’s why they’re not showing up where they’re showing up in your interview sucks. And so they’re nobody’s showing up to training because you’re just scaring everybody away. And even though they’re like, yeah, yeah, except I never call on that. Okay. And then they’re too afraid and too nice to just tell you straight up. No,
Becca Switzer 18:59
you know what I mean? And it’s just like salespeople, like if you have a salesperson in your company that’s constantly coming in with no sale after no sale after no sale after and their closing ratios, like 4%, or even 20%, something like that. And they’re like, it’s just the customers man. Nobody wants to pay their deductible. Everyone thinks that people just want a bed. It’s the salespersons fault. Like we would go. You’re right, man. People just don’t buy roofs anymore. People don’t buy security systems anymore. We should probably go do something else like make shoes or something. I don’t know why that’s the career pics, but it’s your show like you’re doing a sales presentation to your applicants. Yeah. So you have to take responsibility for that. And again, without tracking I love that you made that software, but without tracking. How do you know in Cutco. We even tracked the receptionist. All they were doing was calling when people send in their application and setting them up. So the receptionist we always had him in competition who has the better show this week. You know,
Sam Taggart 19:52
I had a I visited a Cutco office in New Jersey to just do some research and one of the things that they did that I really liked was in that initial training camp. They actually mined those people for new potential hires. Yeah. And so they did a game and they said, Hey, we’re gonna see how many people you guys could also bring to the next interview. And they’d had like a whole training around recruiting, right, which was actually pretty cool. So they get referrals, not only for sales, but also for recruiting and right sure you guys got trained on one
Becca Switzer 20:20
Person? Yep. Pr is like we every time we recruited people, like, Hey, you guys want to like work with your friends, we really like you think you’re cool. Like your friends like you, you know. And so and even today, I did my PR pitch I went to renounces just a little bit long, but that’s a great opportunity as well, for sure.
Sam Taggart 20:35
So any other last, like recruiting hacks?
Becca Switzer 20:39
Well, I would say this is the last thing I talked about earlier today, in my talk was, I think another thing that happens in sales is, companies are constantly just like trying to find the right people, instead of focusing on developing quality people, like they’re looking for the shortest way to where where’s my next million dollar producer? So they’re trying to find these, like, out of the box ready made like LeBron James level sales people. And everybody wants that, right? Like what a dream come true. You just find somebody who’s a freak of nature that can come on and be like, amazing sales, but especially in my industry, like you’re not that’s just, it’s not realistic. Like that’s not scalable. It’s awesome. When we find I always call the unicorns It’s awesome. When you find a unicorn, you’re like, hell yes, kids, like already great at this or, you know, but really, I think a lot of companies are lacking on having and providing legitimate formal sales training. Yeah, because sales. And again, I know in some businesses, it’s a little bit different, but like storm restoration, roofing sales, it’s like the easiest frickin sales job on the planet, like selling a $2,000 vacuum door to door to people who already have a Dyson animal. That’s hard sales. So it’s just, you have to have proper sales training and you know, walk through the door. That’s one in 1000 to start your basketball team, you know, when you’ve got a bunch of varsity players that you could train up to be NBA players like so that’s just another angle that I think people take for granted. I love that.
Sam Taggart 22:08
No, this has been awesome. And thank you so much for sharing so abundantly. I feel like a lot of these are just like hacks that some people are like, Well, I’m not gonna tell you like my good stuff. You know, this is what you get for free, folks. But anyway, so last any other like advice? For you know, the door door space, a lot of these guys are obviously like, well, you guys make it look so easy. I’m like any other just thing you’d want to share before we wrap up for door to door
Becca Switzer 22:35
Specifically, you know, this is kind of a broad, nonspecific thing. But I think that one of the issues that people have, if you could just take this one note home with you is relaxed, more like people go to the door and they’re either so on edge, or they’re putting so much pressure on themselves, because they like have to make the sale or they’re being overly enthusiastic, right, like kill the pen is and I’m, I’m Brian with ABC roofing and blah, blah, like being too cheery, relax, like, just make it be a human being, like, don’t be a weird sales robot. First of all, you’re going to have a better time, you’re going to be more relaxed, and people just be more receptive to you. So of course, you know, study good pitches and stuff like that. But the more you’re just like, chill, and you show up, you’re like, you know, I’m really sorry to bother you. I hate knocking on people’s doors, but like, here’s why I’m here and you know, your neighbor XYZ and when people actually listen, you have a better time, you know? So that’s just that’s something that if you take that as your foundation and then build upon that you just you get received a lot better at the door.
Sam Taggart 23:35
I love that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome. It’s been a long time coming. So thank you so much. very welcome. If you guys got some love out of this, go follow Becca and share this like this. We love reviews and we’ll see you guys on the next episode. Sounds good. Bye, folks.
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