What Is A Lead | Dominic Carubba

If your team can’t answer “what is a lead?” the same way, your CRM doesn’t stand a chance.

Summary:
We kick things off with real shop talk from the field, then get straight to the hidden issue wrecking most CRMs: unclear definitions. Dominic Carubba from SalesAndTechnology.com breaks down a simple, powerful framework—leads are raw inputs, opportunities are real revenue conversations, and cases are what happens after the sale.

We dive into why vague language creates expensive chaos, why training alone won’t fix broken systems, and how switching CRMs can actually make things worse. Dominic shares how tightening stage criteria improves forecasting, accountability, and focus—so your pipeline finally works like a system instead of a guessing game.

If you’re tired of reacting instead of scaling, this episode delivers clarity you can implement fast.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari

💡 GOLD NUGGETS
 • Why most CRM problems are actually definition problems
 • Leads vs. opportunities vs. cases—clear and simple
 • How vague language creates chaos in your pipeline
 • Why training doesn’t fix broken systems
 • The real risk of switching CRMs
 • How stage clarity improves forecasting and focus

🔗 Guest Links
• Website: https://salesandtechnology.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiccarubba/

🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com

Sponsor:
Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!

Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!

Transcript

Home Depot Wisdom And Bathroom Rules

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can't be a good handyman if you run the Home Depot five times during the street. You can't.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Oh, we've talked about that, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Yeah, we have.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

That's why that's why Chris has got people now. Chris is actually out of the handyman business because if you're not taking five trips to depot, you're not doing Chris's way.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Exactly, right? So it's the same thing, right? You get to Home Depot at 5 30 before they open. You get your car, like all those things that people do to be more efficient. You gotta take the dump. You gotta take a dump.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Everybody likes to take a dump. Do you want to you hey, you want to not ever find a bathroom? Go get to a depot in Atlanta at 10 o'clock in the morning, 9, 9:30. They get loaded up, and you're buying six flipping people who are going in there dropping last night's burritos all over the place, and they are blowing that place up. I mean, it is DEF CON one being.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

But let me tell you something. That's if I'm gonna poop in public, I want to poop where people poop. I guess that makes sense. I do not want to poop where frat boys go, I'm the way he's pooping here, and they pee all over everything and they do like it's a mess. But when when dudes know, like, hey man, all right, not for nothing.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

I will say that. Every Home Depot bathroom, uh, you never had a toilet seat that was sprayed up. No, because you know why? You go into a shitty ass gas station. It's totally crapped up. That's why you never go there. Never go there. You go where people poop. I'll give you uh here here's my skin.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

It's gonna be the the the snippet that you start the podcast with when we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Well, I'll tell you I'm about to give you guys my absolute 1,000 percent. You guys want to know the best.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Definitely poop where other people poop because that's all ready for pooping.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

As a guy's been in over 18,000 houses, have been driving around, doing estimates, checking on jobs. When I had to go and I had to go, you know where I went? I went to the Marriott Hotel. That's a good thing. Because nobody ever stopped you. And you know what? You went in there? Those bathrooms are pristine until I finished it. Man, I don't know if you should have put that out there.

Small Business Safari Intro

SPEAKER_00 1:40

How did we get to this? We went from assembly line to pooping. Well, there is Well, that's how this podcast rolls.

Guest Banter And Brand Talk

SPEAKER_03 1:45

The small business safari where you always get great education along with energy, but not just entertainment. Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls, and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your extent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there, and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through this at We're lazy.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

We just got started. We just brought a guest in studio in Alan.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

We've already been told, I'm just doing this because I'm trying to get a podcast started. He goes, Are you guys gonna edit this? I'm like, no. He goes, Oh, so you guys are just fucking lazy. Lazy. I guess he figured us out already, Alan.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Well, the good news is the bourbon's flowing and the drinks are flowing. We got Dominic Karuba here, and we're ready to rock and roll, everybody. And happy birthday, Alan.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Today's your birthday? No, Monday. But I celebrate from. You celebrate all Monday.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

It's a it's a birthday month. That's what that's what men get. A lot of women do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

I'm not saying you're a woman. I'm saying a lot of women do many. That's with my feminine side.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yeah. And and now you wonder why. Before we got started, he goes, Yeah, so I was working with this client, great guy, but he fired me.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

I can't figure out why. I don't know why. What the hell happened?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

My favorite line in the green room is uh CL the brand. That's crap. CL the brand.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

We need to unpack guys. Let's get started with this thing. Let's get right into it right now. So we started this podcast four and a half years ago. Why? To get back to you, to get to get everybody going. You're driving around in your truck, man. Settling. This is going to be a good one. I can already tell we're going to have some good times with it. But yeah, eventually, guys, I mean, I'm trying to build my brand, the small business safari. I got my book from the Zoo to the Wild. Uh, eventually, I'm going to start a mastermind group. You guys, you know, get in the wings, get ready. It's going to happen. Uh, so I'm trying to build the Chris Lalomia brand. I've got the radio show, the all four seasons home show, where we're getting ready to blow it up here in Atlanta, make it even bigger than it is today. Uh, already starting to work on some of those designs. It's massive, gonna take over the world, probably syndicated, probably next year and I'll be in Australia. Thunder down under, like JD likes to say. So we got to get rolling.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So I mean, Marshall Limbaugh did lead a void. So there is a void in the marketplace, and I appreciate you trying to fill it. Thank you. See, there we go. Somebody who appreciates me, too. Pronounce it though. The CL the CL Well, and that was my thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I told him the CL brand, and he goes, there kind of hoping that like you'd already heard of it. And you didn't, and he was a little crushed, but he didn't show it. Sure. It was you'd want better than I love that.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

That was a little twinge of hurt. I'm not gonna lie. And so, and I'm still gonna go ahead with this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I do think my friend, my friend said, You're he said he called me Dominic X a long time ago. My email, my personal email is Dominic X at Gmail. Like Dominatrix. Well, it that is a uh we'll talk about that. Okay, I have a story about it that's a different that's a different podcast, Calvin.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

We are explicit, but not experience.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

This guy, my buddy in New York, said, Oh, it's like you're like the Dominic experience. You have the experience of being you'll you'll get it after this. The experience of being with Dominic. And I was like, What are you talking about? It's like like he came to Chicago, he was a drummer on the uh the the production of Chicago, yeah from New York. They have the always have the traveling crew of the Broadway shows, right? And he said, You remember that time we were there with Stuart? I'm like, Yeah. So Stuart and I were talking, and I looked at Stuart and I was like, Stuart, you're fat, you know that. And we said, like that just and he says, When you said that to that guy, I'm like, Well, what was wrong with that? That was like he knows he's fat. He's got a mirror, right? Right, he knows that. Fat people know they're fat. Why can't we say it? I don't understand. I've got to be realistic. I'm fat shaming, I'm fat, I'm fat acknowledging. I'm acknowledging that you're short, you're you're tall, you're bald. And I'm I'm right. He's bald too. Yeah, I am too right. You could no, you got lots of hair.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

No, no, I don't know. Oh look at that.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Yeah, you did come in with a hair. So I can't.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Anyway, so the CL brand, I think you can we can come up with a better name because it doesn't match your book. Right. The Safari and the C L, who cares? That doesn't because I'll we'll find something though.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

All right, we're gonna do it.

Dominic’s Background In Performance Tech

SPEAKER_01 5:59

We're gonna workshop it later, but let's get into maybe maybe we should explain to people what Dominic does.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Let's try that. We don't know. Dominic can't explain it. We we were still trying to figure it out. Uh Dominic is a CRM expert, everybody. And are we all about CRM customer relationship management doing our thing? We gotta do it. I just got off an interview with uh the lady does my uh email. She's looking to blow it up, Mia Hannah, yeah, touch plus marketing. But she uh she said, you know, what are you trying to do uh and trying to get to? And I'm like, you're trying to get to these people who need to use their database more. She goes, Do you think handyman use their database? I'm like, no, they don't. Not at all. They use their phone. But she goes, but you do. I said, Well, I'm not like a lot of other people, which is why I have the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

But that's just one component of what you do. You're a certified performance technologist. Technologist.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

At least I was. I let it be. Certified performance technologist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

That's a fancy name for an instructional designer. Like in the world of training, there's three rooms. There's the boardroom, the classroom, and the back room. Oh, yeah, sorry. The boardroom is where you do the strategy, the classroom is where you teach it, and the back room is where you develop all the PowerPoints and all that kind of stuff. So the group that created it were back in 03. Certified portion of technology means I'm I know about human performance technologies, right? Basically, training, coaching are two of 17 performance interventions companies can use to improve performance, job aids, CRM, technology, communication. Kicking doors. Kicking doors.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Is that one of the 17? Kicking doors. That's the Italian 18. That's the 18th. Uh, that's the eight. That's the 80th Italian system. Thanks, Dom. Baby, B. Ah, the Paisan.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

He knows me. He knows me. I do that, but that's part of my legacy, my history, and what I do. It actually got me one job over the many years I was certified. It got me one job with the Army, and I'm the job I'm most proud of is I helped the U.S. Army uh develop a program to evaluate the effectiveness of the counter-IED training. Which counter-ID uh is to how you keep from getting blown up on the side of the road. They had the training, they didn't reevaluate it. I created that in a month, and it was great to help save life. And then the war ended. So you figured out what what triggers people, and then the war ended.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

And then here, and then and then you've got the So you ended the war.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Did you end the war? Is that what I'm hearing? I ended the war.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

So just because of my training, not only did people not get blown up by IEDs, but the war ended. So, Dominic, thank you very much. The Dominic experience exists.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

No, I evaluated their so they were delivering the training. They were so the army was going through the emotions of delivery they started doing what a lot of organizations do, and they don't think the leader cares. They just abdicate, they they they throw numbers against the wall to show the numbers, whether the numbers work or not. Right. I just I just created a couple of re evaluation points to say, uh, for example, this is this is this is groundbreaking, right? So they have a training. So somebody from every unit is was required at some point eventually to go through this particular training. And I just said, well, are you are you uh are you finding out later after the train? It's after the training, right? Most training doesn't work because after people don't do the work after the training. A are they training the thing that they learned how to train? So they were in the class to teach to learn how to teach it so they could pass the knowledge on to the troops. Okay, so they're training the trainers. You're training the trainers, training the trainers to train. Are they I said the first step in the evaluation was are they actually training the class? And like that's a good question. We should ask that. Second, that way, second, just a devastating insight. Then then if a unit gets activated, they go through a there's a process they go through before they actually land in country. And part of that process is preparing for to use the information. I said, Well, can you test them to see how they did uh post-training? If they took the training, did they learn anything that they and then manage the behavior to see if they actually did it? And it's part of training evaluation to see, you know, uh in the world of training, most people make the worst decisions about training. Everybody making decisions about training usually doesn't know what they're talking about. They I trained a class once in 73, I know what I'm doing. They don't. But the the real thing is are people training doesn't solve any problems. I'm just gonna save everybody a ton of money. What training does is it supports whatever solution you have to solve the problems. So you've got right, you know, handyman, they run their business off their phone. Yep, whether it's Android operating system or Apple operating system, they're just responding the best they can with email, text, and whatever the phone, whatever they happen to use on the phone, and they're just scrambling their way from one job to the next, making money the best they can. God bless them. But it's not a system, and it's not gonna help them scale, grow, or get better.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Absolutely not. And you're right, the training with no processor system doesn't work. So the training is not your solution. And I the training reinforces the solution you've got.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Exactly. I train I was a leadership trainer, I was a leadership trainer for an a men's group, that international men's group. It's international because they had Canada. So nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

So it was uh you asked the ace plus the first state, they can't find themselves international enough. At least Alberta.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

So with Dominican's joke uh description, we're intergalactic with our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

We've already claimed it.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Because we've already been, we've been, I think we've listened to they listened to us on the moon.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, you've had satellites broadcast to space and then back down somewhere. So I the whole thing I was doing this leadership training, I was in charge of for like 10 years. I'm like, guys, this is useless. We're just entertaining people and good stuff, but the the leader when I got into the leadership of the organization, they weren't doing the things I teach in leadership training that I got consistent. They also had no systems in place to use it. I'm like, well, it's just entertainment. If there's no system behind the training, there's no training necessary.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

No system, no training. No suit for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

No system, no training.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

I do that. We could put that together. Uh, there you go. There's a brand. I've heard of them. What? All right, let's keep going. The CL training solution. No, that one sucked. All right, we'll we'll keep working it out, though. We're gonna keep workshopping it. We got the whiteboard going. That one just got struck. But you know, there are no bad ideas when you're brainstormed. That was stupid. All right.

What A CRM Fixer Actually Does

SPEAKER_01 12:17

There's lots of bad ideas, but we welcome them.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Right. So, Dominic, you're coming on the podcast. Uh, and we talked about, you know, eventually you're gonna have your own podcast. I'm just out here doing the podcast circuit, blah, blah, blah. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

But what do you do? Uh I'm gonna put it the simple way, because right?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Because he looks at me when he says that.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

No, I saw that. Simple. Well, your eyes might be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

CL requires simple. Small words. CL requires simple. Do you have any pictures? Simple pollutions. I'd say the simplest way to describe it is I unfuck CRMs.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Okay. All right. So we have a CRM, and you're gonna get me out of my own way. Hopefully, yeah. All right. So any CRM, you're your CRM agnostic? I'm agnostic now. Look at that. Huh?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I was he does not believe CRMs. I I blew I grew up, I grew up in all a bunch of them. I actually started with Salesforce back in 99 once. I was a customer-ish for them. Then I started training all the big ones, and then then up for the last 10 years, about eight out of the last 10 years, I was dedicated to Salesforce. And two years ago, I gave up my dedication, and now I'm agnostic. I can help anybody.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

So go let's go back to those days when you were in Salesforce, because uh 99, Salesforce, that was a startup. It really was, because SEBL was the big one at the time, and that was what got birthed out, and Salesforce was like, oh, well, SIBL's gotten too big for their britches, so we're gonna come after them, Oracle, and I'm trying to think who the other dominant player back in the 90s was. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

SAP was kind of interesting, but they were they were like ERP, anybody who gives a crap about the acronym.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah, right. It's like ER, it's like CL. Who gives a crap about that acronym? Sucks. CL's gone. That's I'm a little bored right now. Why? Oh my god. Why too many acronyms? Too many letters, yeah. Too many letters. Let's go back to that Salesforce. I mean, were you uh you were involved with that as a customer-ish and then get involved. I mean, that was really a startup for them at that time, 99. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

It was useless just like all the rest of them in the cloud, right? It so I was a uh I'd sold my phone company in 99 and I'd tried out and then I became when I when I sold my phone company in 99 as a fire sale. Uh the only thing I really liked doing as an entrepreneur is being a trainer. Like I trained a lot of people, trained salespeople, trained all the people that worked for me, did all the training. So I said, ah, I became a professional trainer. And I was trained in CRMs because those were easy gigs to get. Um and then Salesforce went like I didn't see Salesforce till about 2005. It started showing up in the background of a lot of training projects as the CRM. And then over the years they became bigger and more front-end, right? So, right? And then and then in um 2015, I just went all in on Salesforce. And I'm in from 2015 to 2023, that's all I did was Salesforce.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

And so you run around training guys, you were a solopreneur or did you have trainer?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I was a contractor. So I worked for, and then I was contracted to Salesforce, the TNC department, which training and certification. And I started training people to be certified in Salesforce.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Alan, you you act like you don't remember this. But Alan, as we all know, enterprise enterprise refugee. If you hadn't have an acronym in your meeting, you were actually.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, I remember all that. I still got a PTSD from that.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

There you go. More acronyms. Thank you.

The One Question That Exposes CRM

SPEAKER_01 15:24

So but I'm I I want to ask the question that everybody listening out there is already, it's like, I've implemented a CRM and he's telling me it's wrong. Totally wrong.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Okay, so why? All right, I'll tell you the test. Here's the test. You want to know the test? Yeah, I want to know the test. Here's how you know your CRM is fucked or not, right? Send out an email individual to everybody in your company and ask one question. And if everybody comes back with the same exact answer, you're you might not be fucked. All right. And the question is, what is a lead? Oh, he's he sat back.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

He said he did. You know what? He just did mic dropped. He just mic dropped. He, I mean, just right on the table. Like all kinds of definitions. What is a lead? What is a lead? Oh my god, that's the title of this podcast, Cindy. What is a lead? Right? The Dominic Experience.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Because here's the thing. What is a lead? Is it is it I define a lead very simply, it's a business card. Right. And then when I was starting out in my sales career, my two older brothers convinced me at 21 it'd be a good idea to sell financial planning to older people. So imagine a 21-year-old sitting across the table from you telling you how to you to plan your future.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Oh, I can't wait to hear how smart you were gonna tell me you were.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Well, I wasn't smart because now I'm they quit and I did it. I wasn't smart, but I did become a vice president in two years, which only happened at that time in 89. Um, I was one of five people who'd ever been promoted to vice president under the age of 25. Now, the reason for that was two things. One, I had to hustle my ass off, and in the last six months, I dragged an old guy with me, and then he got all the credibility. I was just making all the sales I could possibly make. Oh, so did you just get somebody off the street just to be basically my yeah, my friend, my girlfriend's friend, her dad is genius. Her friend, her dad was an insurance guy, and he said he was looking for an opportunity. I brought him along for the training sales, and every time I said something brilliant, which is awful, the couple would look at Gil, who was in his like late 60s and uh mid-sixties. I don't know. He had gray hair and a beard, and they look at him and he would just nod his head. Yes, he didn't say a word.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

All right, so if you were 21 in 1989, when you had a six-year-old next to you, I mean you thought he was almost dead. And you're like, perfect. I brought I brought I brought your grandfather with me.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

And they looked at grandpa, and grandpa nodded his head. And now that we're that age, over and over again. I'm like, after the three training sales, Gil said, Great, I'm on my own. I'm like, hold on, bro, you ain't going anywhere. No, I need you. I can eat dinner now on my own. Like, no, you're coming with me. And I just took him to like because it was a sales promotion, right? So I just took him on all my sales, and um, that was enough to propel me at the time to vice president. That's how much, that's how many look. I was pitching, um, I was in New Orleans at the time, and I knew people wouldn't buy from me, but I know they cook dinner every night at their home. 21 in New Orleans. Yeah. So I was 23 when I got promoted, right? So 89 I was 23. So when um people would ask me, hey, you know, coming from the appointment, there were people were polite. They go, Can I get you something? I go, Yeah, can you give me a piece of baloney? And they look at me like, what? I'm like, look, I've been running and gunning all day. I just I haven't eaten. So just a piece of baloney would cut, take the edge off, and I'll eat when I get home tonight. And I could see the food that they had that night for dinner on the stove still. Like it was still there. Like I scheduled my appointments at seven, and they had food on the stove. So most people in New Orleans, all but one guy in two years, most people would say, Let me just fix you a plate. I'm like, awesome. So I wasn't really knocking on doors to sell, I was knocking on doors to get a meal that night so I could eat this day. This that was my sales revival strategy.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

100% clothes. If you uh if you haven't had a chance, go out there and check out our friend Paul Burleson, who's on the episode. He uh was the one of the original, not the original, but he was in the 10 men world. So he sold he sold siding roofing windows, yeah uh and he talked about the different clothes, and you just came up with the baloney clothes.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

The baloney, and only one guy ever gave me bologna. He's like, Okay, here you go. Yeah, I'm like, oh you're when it was.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

So the opposite Paul was the opposite. Paul Dominic, because he was the kid that they had sit in the car, and they would get the sympathy because the sale, the salesman's kid was in the car.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, great. I'm gonna stay here. The kids out there would just sign the paper.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

He's out there doing his homework. Do you mind checking on him? And he just sat out there and looked pathetic, and they'd invite him in. And as soon as he got a sandwich, he knew he got a deal.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

And people, and people think that parents putting their kids on iPads is a bad thing. Look what our parents did to us. You sit in the car until I make a sale. He did it, yeah. Anyway, all right, so the money cloak. So the lead we digress? No, yeah, we didn't know. What is a lead? What is the lead? What is a lead? How do you define it?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

And you can just do that. Yeah, no, no. I mean, so there's the lead is is just any kind of an opportunity and uh and and yeah, and then you've got a qualified lead, which is what I'm more interested in. I'm not I'm not interested in a random phone number because somebody somewhere thought they needed to do something.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

The lead is any target that really entered your ecosystem, right? Now it's got to be qualified by marketing. You gotta you gotta engage it, you gotta do the there's all the things that leads do to become better leads and then qualified. And Salesforce is great. Here's the one great thing about Salesforce besides their politics, okay? Because their politics suck.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Okay. I didn't know they were a political.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

They are political internally. They're very I'm not like I'm the wrong politics corporate politics and their whole mentality around who they hired, all that stuff, right? But a lead what's really great about a lead is a lead is like a business card. You got a little bit of business information, you got a little bit of personal information, but not enough information to do business with. Now it's work. It's work, you got to work the lead, it's an expense until it converts to an opportunity. Now that's the way the system works at Salesforce. Not all platforms work that way. HubSpot confuses it like crazy. But ideally, if you look at Salesforce, if they could become the standard, we could actually formalize the language of sales, which a lot of people don't. See, when you have a there's only one place you record the activities that make money in any CRM, and that's the opportunity record. And the opportunity record is a it's the only place you can track your conversations that lead to revenue. Because that's the only place you make money in any any CRM.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

All right, so you work a lead and you work it, and so you guys qualify it. And then you qualify it. So the next day is now you have a qualified lead to Alan's point, and he's very snobbish about this podcast. And he should he only do that he only does this podcast. Uh he says, I really don't want your leads coming for the podcast, Chris. Only if they're ready to start doing business with me. So correct. Well that's right. And and it is uh

SPEAKER_00 22:52

In real estate, there's an engage lead and then there's a qualified lead. So there's MQLs, SQLs.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

So if you want to be a snobbish qualified lead, then you can call Alan. And SQL.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah, you can call my people. No, but in my in my industry, I mean, there's just so much chaff. When you talk about the funnel, the funnel is just like ridiculously wide. Whereas in Chris's industry, it's probably a tighter funnel.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So some talking about people who want home reports.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

You still have a hammer? Uh I am not. No, I've got 15 guys out there doing it. They're doing it, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yeah. So then that world, depending on what there's what they're fixing. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

He's the C working on the brand, working on the name. Big Hamber brand. I don't know. No, no, yeah. Sliver hammer brand. I've never seen you just buckle. He's so keep going, Alan. He's Cindy, cut that out. That's the worst one ever. All right. You know she won't. I know she was still in there.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

All right. So their different leads are in different stages of their nurturing and all that. There's all the things, right? Right. But I'm just saying, most people can't identify a lead. They they they'll talk about an engaged lead, they'll talk about a qualified lead, they'll talk about an opportunity, they'll talk about a sale. And they all use the same words. And words matter when you're talking about systems. Because systems have a I'm gonna use a big word. You ready? Y'all don't have to just use it in parties. People think you're smart. Lexicon. Whoa, 25 cents.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

You know, my son give you a 25 cents for that. That's a great word. Awesome. And he's a lawyer in training, so good luck.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, so a lexicon is it look, I was a handy-ish kind of man too, right? Um a two by four is not the same as a two by six. If you ask somebody for wood, you got to be specific about what you're looking for. It's gonna do a different job. So the words matter. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Words matter in their system that you're developing.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Because the system in that you're creating a system.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

So in that world, what is an opportunity versus a qualified lead? An opportunity is you're having a conversation that leads to cash. So that means I'm in the house trying to give you an estimate. That's an opportunity. That means I'm coming to your house, I'm gonna talk to you about remodeling your bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Well, it could be something it could be so the opportunity is the so let me put it this way in every CRM, there are three types of records that you have leads, opportunities, and cases or tickets, problems after the sale. So ones before you get into a sales conversation, ones in the sales conversation, and ones after they become a customer.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

So we're on a podcast, nobody can see. I'm raising my hand. Well, where's the customer? There should that be a contact.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

The customer becomes a customer at the end of an opportunity conversation.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

When I get when I get my money.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

When they get the agreement, right? And then there's all the things that have to happen, right? So these are all three of those types of records are process records or project records. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end to the story of each one. So you get a call, that's a lead, right? And and then you talk to that person, you find out they're homeless and they just happen to find your number and they found a quarter and they called you. Okay, great. Not qualified. Right. If there are homeowners and my toilet's running, blah, blah, blah, and I got a window that's got a crack, blah, blah. Great. That's now an opportunity because you know they have the problem that you can solve. Correct. And you're engaged in a conversation with them. Now you might have to include the husband, the wife, the kid, the other, the blah, blah, blah, the the person who checks you in at the gate at the country club. Like all those people are involved in the conversation and they all have different roles, but they're not a customer until they say yes. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Customer at yes, not customer at cash.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yes, because you're gonna collect you collect you got to collect a commitment before you get the cash, right? Those are all mechanisms that have to be.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

So customer at commitment, not customer at cash. See what I'm doing? Yeah, quicker, curve. That's good. CC. That's right. Huh? CC for the CL brand.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

All right, back.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

You're being a pain in the ass.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

I don't even know what a C What does he mean by CC? He's an example.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

He's saying customer per cash. Customers are not cash. Customers are commitment. And so that's what because that's what I talk about in my company is that we have leads, then we qualify the leads. Now here comes our funnel, and then we get the opportunity to go out to do the sales call.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

That little piece of the puzzle when they convert from an unknown to a known. Now look, once you know, once you have a once you have a in your business, once you have a contact that you know owns a home, right? And you do home services, guess what? They're always going to be a contact in your database. This is Salesforce language, which means they're sitting there waiting for you to contact them on another opportunity, whatever that may be. Hey, we're doing a window cleaning. So you send them a marketing message, a campaign, to the contacts and leads to see you got windows that need help. We got this thing. That now becomes part of a campaign, and you can measure that by whoever raises their hand and says, let's have a conversation about it. No, the opportunity is the conversation. You're tracking the evolution of a conversation.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

A lot of C's in this thing, though. Constant contact is who I uh is who I use for my email marketing. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

That's good. And and they've got a little bit of a everybody's got a little bit of a something built into them.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

Yeah, a little something, something. All right. So uh loving this stuff. So but each company, like you said, we all have random definitions or definitions that work in our own company, but sometimes those definitions get in the way. And then how do you market that? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

I want to go back before that. I'm sure there's somebody driving around out there going, who cares what I call it?

SPEAKER_00 28:12

I mean, what oh, here's why it matters.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah.

Process Thinking From Ford To Funnels

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah. You know why it matters? Why does it matter? Great question. Because I because part of my background too is in what's called organizational development, that is the people part. So the thing I do is the people, the process, and then the platform. It's all three have to be there. It's either P's, not C's. That's right. I do P's. Mind your P's and Q's. Mind your P's. So if you don't have the language, if you don't agree on the language, it creates friction. It creates uncertainty. And you know, sales. This is what I learned from my time working with Tony Robbins when I worked for Tony Robbins for a few months. Oh, like a ball. I didn't work very hard, but I did. Anyway, so um sales, let's talk about what sales is. Sales is the transfer of the feeling of certainty. Nice. I've never heard that. Sales is the transfer of the feeling of certainty. And if you're not speaking the same language as an organization, it just diminishes the possibility of certainty at the highest level. So words matter. So you're out there talking about it doesn't matter here and there. Right, it doesn't, because you're the one guy doing everything, or you're the one guy who just does all the things, and you doing your own thing outside the system, you're causing friction and you don't care. But when you want to scale and grow, you have like you got 15 guys you said working out in the field?

SPEAKER_03 29:36

I have 15 handyman, and then I and then I have another three up in Athens, then I've got uh some remodeling guys, yeah. So I have 32 total employees.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

They're all employees of yours.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Got it. Well, if you guys start if you're all speaking different languages, that just causes friction.

unknown 29:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

That's why they all have to speak my language, which is stick-the-door Italian.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Exactly. Hey, it's called Salesforce, not sales ask. Remember that. Right. It's called Salesforce. If you can't force your employees to use the language of your company, then just give up the company to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

There's another great leadership less. So can you give an example, a real world, real, real world example of what this friction does? What does it look like? Why is it a problem? Why are the words a problem?

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile industry with one thing. Do you know what it was? And I hope I'm right about this. And if I'm wrong, screw you, put it on the chat. The assembly line. Process.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yeah. He didn't make the better, he didn't make a better vehicle. He figured out how to mass market and mass produce a vehicle through process.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

He figured out how to make better, he figured out how to make vehicles better. He didn't make a better vehicle, he figured out how to make vehicles better.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

So every stop in the process, everybody knows the thing they need to do.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

So if before you guys want to just kill Dominic on this one, he's actually right, as a guy from Michigan and can confirm it. I can can back you up on that.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Okay, you may not be able to see this. You guys on the camera can say, where in Michigan are you from? This is the this is the standard, right? I was in the middle. Yeah, exactly. So it matters because here's why whatever. In um at the core of productivity, right, when you're doing to be productive as a company, that's really what company owners do. They create systems that produce results, right? If you don't know what you're doing at every stage of the assembly line, then you have to stop and do something else. And if uh you get the words right, that's another way to say it is if the words are consistent, then everybody that has the same words need the same behavior, and you can do all those things at the same time and get more of it done. I had a buddy of mine who was a trim guy in the house, right? And he used to go in these neighborhoods where they where they when they're building 40, 50 houses, right? He was the trim guy. He could do uh two, what did he say, a house a day? Okay. Oh, 30, 15, 1800 square foot house in a day. But he spent the first three hours doing what? Taking the trim, setting it everywhere he needed to set it, putting his saw into place, getting all the things so that he could chop every he got all the measurements twice, maybe. He did all, he had a process that allowed him to do everything all at once, not run back and forth. Like you can't build, you can't be a good handyman if you run the Home Depot five times during the time. You can't.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

We've talked about that, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:24

Yeah, we have. That's why that's why Chris has got people now. Chris is actually out of the handyman business because if you're not taking five trips to depot, you're not doing Chris's way.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Exactly, right? So it's the same thing, right? You get to Home Depot at 5 30 before they open, you get your car, like all those things that people do to be more efficient. You gotta take the dump. You gotta take a dump.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Everybody likes to take a dump. You want to you hey, you want to not ever find a bathroom? Go get to a depot in Atlanta at 10 o'clock in the morning, 9, 9:30. They get loaded up, and you're behind six flipping people who are going in there dropping last night's burritos all over the place, and they are blowing that place up. I mean, it is DEF CON one.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

But let me tell you something. That's if I'm gonna poop in public, I want to poop where people poop. I guess that makes sense. I do not want to poop where frat boys go, I'm the way he's pooping here, and they pee all over everything and they do like it's a mess. But when when dudes know, like, hey man, all right.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Not for nothing, I will say that every Home Depot bathroom, uh, you never had a toilet seat that was sprayed up. No, you know why? You go into a shitty ass gas station. It's totally crapped up. That's why you never go there. Never go. You go where people poop. I'll I'll give you uh here here's here's my skin pooping.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

It's gonna be the the the snippet that you start the podcast with.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Well, I'll tell you I'm about to give you guys my absolute 1,000 percent. You guys want to know the best?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

It's all ready for pooping.

Escape Room Stages And Better Data

SPEAKER_03 33:42

As a guy who's been in over 18,000 houses, have been driving around, doing estimates, checking on jobs. When I had to go and I had to go, you know where I went? I went to the Marriott Hotel. That's a good thing. Because nobody ever stopped you. And you know what? You went in there, those bathrooms are pristine until I finished it. Man, I don't know if you should have put that out there.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

How did we get to this? We went from assembly line to pooping.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

Well, there is Well, that's how this podcast rolls. The small business fire where you always get great education, along with energy, but not just entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I didn't learn that by the way, my buddy is an eye doctor at Fiesta Plaza Fiesta on Beauford Highway, right? Right? You can spot him easily. He's the six foot four white guy. He's the only one there, and he's the only there's two eye doctors, he's the only one there. But in those bathrooms, because of that culture, those people don't mind pooping in public. The culture of Plaza Fiesta, not any race or ethnicity, but dudes that go there leave it clean enough to use it because they know they might need to use it next. So they this is sort of a cultural thing, right? Right, and that's good. So back to back to why words matter, because they could it creates alignment and it just makes things easier, it makes your data cleaner, it makes your systems easier. And you know how I think about the sales process. Have you ever done an escape room? Yeah, have you done it with strangers, by the way? No, you did it with your kid and your cousin. No, I mean, like there's like sometimes you don't have enough people to fill up the room. Right, no, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

And then they they all start working independently.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

That's part of it. But but the the idea of an escape room and how I relate escape rooms to sales, because you got to get this to salespeople, right? Every stage is like an escape room. You gotta collect the clues to get the key to go to the next stage, right? Now you might collect clues for other stages down the line, but the clues at each stage have to be complete before you unlock the door and move to the next one. And why I say that was iHeartRadio doing their sales process. Well, I was teaching them Salesforce. That was the first project I went in 2015. And what I noticed is salespeople, this is the this is one of the it was one of the worst implementations of Salesforce I've ever seen. Screw you, iHeart. Um, I'm telling the truth on you. The salespeople would put in an opportunity and it would be at 98% complete. I'm like, you just added it. Yeah, but they're gonna buy. And they were taking orders, so it was true they were gonna buy. But here's the thing you couldn't the the truth of what was happening, because I got brought back by a couple of markets after I led the court company's version of the training. A couple of the managers in each office said, You really know what's going on. Not like I had to train when I almost got fired three times because I was like, This training sucks. You're not teaching them the right thing. But they said, You suck for telling me I suck. So we'll let you go. And like, I need the money, I'll shut up. Um what they what they missed was is that what here's what most salespeople do, right? They put the data in the CRM when their boss demands it. That's right. And then they use something else up until that point. So you, the boss, lose all visibility as to what's really happening in your sales process. You're making shitty decisions based on shitty data because people have a shitty relationship to the what the CRM can actually do for them. Because what this world we live in, I'm the ADD guy, right? You see the ADD on my shirt. Um the world is busy, confusing. There's all this shit happening, right? We live in a TikTok world now. Oh, you bet. Seven seconds. What? So Squirrel. So the benefit of a CRM is it lets you filter out everything you don't need to do the thing you're doing right now. So if I'm making prospecting calls, I don't want people I need to make customer service calls to in the way. I just want who do I need to call back now? Who do I need to call to open up a conversation? Who's ready to buy this month? Like the data tells you what you need to do. If you can filter out all the garbage, then you can focus. And you can work on something for an hour or you can work on something until it's done. But when there's everything in a pile, you can't tell apart. It all and then it slows you down and you can't figure out what there is to do next. So you're you're you're so part of the training.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

So people are using the employees are using the CRM because they're told to do so, but they're not taught why it benefits them.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

And they don't that's the one thing that made me different as a that's how I kind of led myself here is that when I I've always had a passion for the salesperson because I was one, and I had salespeople that worked for me. And so when I started training for other people, I always heard the feedback from the class. Like, this software sucks. I'm like, I know. But here's how I my gift and what I figured out is my gift was I could figure out how to use it so it did benefit me. And I could train, I could tell salespeople, look, I know it's screwed up to do all these things you got to do, but here's the way the click path, I call it, right? Here's how I would do it if I were you. Uh, or I would commit suicide if I had to do it. But like, this is what you have to do to get them satisfied satisfied, like the data ding ding-dongs, the CEOs who ruin it. The data czar. Yeah, exactly. So here's how here's how you just get it done, and here's how you use it to benefit yourself. And that's why I got good reviews on my training because I did something no one else did, is I taught them how to use it to get the benefit out of it. And I also would teach them how to game the system. And then I would teach the managers here's how I taught them to game the system. This is how you can break the game. And then I'd tell them, I taught your manager to look for the game in the system. So good luck. When I got a chance to do that, that's what I got to do.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

See, game of gamifying right there for salespeople and is awesome, right? If you gamify everything, I love it. So maybe we're coming to the end. We're trying to dig into the uh couple things that we'll talk about. So uh what did we accomplish today? Do we do well? Words words matter, Alan.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Words matter, choose people and judge you by the words you use.

How To Get Help With Your CRM

SPEAKER_03 39:36

And and one of the things, uh, I want to go back to one of the things this is a great sales line because I've often said this to my guys is that when uncertain people uh you're talking to them and they're uncertain about their finances or where they're going or their job or their situation, they do not buy. Certain people buy, uncertain people don't buy. And you said that too, is that you gotta have that transference of certainty as a sales guy through that. And as a manager of that, you got to be able to look down on that because you just mentioned when you said I filled it out 98. It's an A. Oh, and the manager's going, hey man, we're about to close our best month ever. At the end of the month, he goes, What happened? It was a big pile of shit. What happened? Hey, what happened to my guys? Well, oh, you mean I should I should have made it 98% certain? Yeah, no, you just met the dude. He gave you a business card. Yeah, it doesn't even have a buy. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

You got to deal with sales psychosis, right? You got to clear out that craziness too.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

So words matter. People can get help with their CRM, doesn't matter what your CRM is, but getting your people talking the same language. Let's put your pitch together, let's get this thing going so everybody knows how to get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Oh, well, it's easy. Salesandtechnology.com. If you can't spell it, ask Google. Um, that's the name of my company. So what I do, and you could book a time on my phone. That was available. It was, right? I did it. No. My web guy said uh when I got the URL, I had a meeting with him. I said, I go, sales and technology. He goes, that's a good URL. I don't, I know, I don't, I can't believe I got it either. So I train lead and coach people on how to get the best out of their people, their process, and their platform, whatever it is, right? And if you don't, if you're if your CRM doesn't do it, I'll get I'll plug the holes and then um of whatever it needs to get, whatever it needs to happen, I can give you or guide you. Because here's my when I when I'm in networking meetings, I tell owners all the time, you're good at what you do, you're good at running a handyman business and being a handyman, right? I'm good at the first you're good at commercial real estate. I'm assuming now you're good at that. Those I'm assuming you're good at your job. Why are you taking on the job of deciding about how to buy and use technology when that's my job, bro? Yeah. Right? So um let me decide for you because I'll make better decisions than you will. I'll I will. I will I promise you.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

If you think you're gonna make a better decision, if somebody right now is listening to saying, I'm thinking about changing my CRM, which is absolute suicide. Because I've done it. But if I want to do that, I could get you to come in and evaluate why you're wrong about doing that.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Or fix it. He would just use what you have and make it better.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

I try to do that unless you're just using spreadsheets. Then hashtag stop using spreadsheets. I mean, it's better than nothing, but don't stop using spreadsheets and use nothing else. But the evolution of your business should go beyond spreadsheets because that's the evolution of you as the leader. And and and it's hard, especially for men. You know, you read the book, The EMyth, right? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. All right. Gerber's been talking about this stuff. I met him back in 2010. He's a he's a man, another name drop. Damn it. I have I never got to work with him, but everything's about getting yourself out of the job you're really good at so that you can run a business. And I'm honestly, the truth is, I gotta tell you, I don't run a very good business. But I know where people fuck, I know where people screw up all the time because I lost a million dollars twice. I'm really good at doing that. So I'm really good at spotting what's dumb.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Awesome. So will you uh consult for me for free?

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Well, I won't do that anymore. Yeah, right anymore, exactly anymore. But what I mean, meaning I've done that.

Rapid Fire Questions And DIY Disasters

SPEAKER_03 43:06

That's like that question. When did you stop beating your wife? What uh how do you answer? You can't. I would do that if it were.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Oh, so you did get a real question is when did your wife start listening?

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Well, how many answers? I'm about life. Am I right, Alan? Am I right?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

I can't go there. He does it every time. Anyway, so So salesandtechnology.com, you can book a time on my calendar. I'll take a look at what you got and I'll tell you how to fix it. And I know how to fix it really fast. And my listen, you're not gonna like all the answers I give. I'm not in it to give the I'm not in it to make you feel good. I'm in it to make you make more money.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

I got a feeling he is like that prickly teddy bear, right? He's got a lot of he's got a lot of prickles, and but you know what? He's gonna hug you and make sure that you're successful and you're not gonna like it. You're like, oh my God, Dominic, I hurt. Yeah, well, you're gonna like it more. Oh, take that. Oh, take that. You're serious, stupid, you're dumb, stupid. Go. All right, yeah, but you know what? If you're not willing to listen to that stuff, you're not willing to grow. We've got to grow, man, every time we're running the business, but we gotta finish with our final four questions. Dominic, I said, Hey Dominic, did you read this stuff? He goes, No.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

He doesn't even get to the no. There was just the pause that we knew it was.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

That pregnant pause it says. I might have seen it, but like I tell my buddy, do I remember it? I mean, I might have read it.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

It's not the question, but he remembered the understanding. All right, handyman.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

Yeah, there we go. All right, number one, give us a book that you'd recommend to the small business team called The Adventure Team. Small business safari. What book would you recommend to us?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

I mean, I started with the e-myth, right? You did. Give us another one. Uh, the only one other one I would recommend next would be The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. Oh, that's a good one. I have you read it? No, but I've read the emyth a lot, so and we've had that recommended. It's not far off from the emyth. There's just 12 systems that you need to develop and practice over time. Now, here's the thing Chet Holmes is dead. His daughter took over. She's now going back to an ashram, and a guy named Ted Miller the third is the heir apparent for that market for the to do the things that he's done.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Nice. All right. Second question you ready? What's the favorite feature of your own home?

SPEAKER_00 45:04

We have a mid-century modern house that we bought in Smoke Rise. It's got a flat roof, which leaked during COVID for about nine months. Um we finally got it fixed. But we have what's called Georgia marble in the living room. Uh and that's the best feature. Because you take your shoes off and walk in my living room on on the part that's not covered by the$20,000 frickin' Oriental rug that we got for a thousand. So um estatesale.net, go for it. Um the Georgia Marble is amazing. Does it feel soft? It does. It feels it uh warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Right? Really? It's that weird, it's weird Georgia Marble. You know what it's like? It's like a pinkish uh I know it, I know that you're you know what you're talking about, right? I do, I know exactly. I don't make it anymore, but if you find any, please let me know and I'm gonna grab it because I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

All right, there you go. Georgia Marble. All right, here we go.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Come on, he goes, I can wing it, baby. I'm a sales guy. I'm the wing, I got it. I'm the king of it. Hey, was I sell was I selling old people on how to how to buy their how to fix their retirement at 21? That's what I was doing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

All right, all right. One of the things we haven't talked about, but we have, and we've talked about customer service a little bit, but now we're talking about this. If you're the customer and you're out there and you're looking for good customer service, what's a customer service pet peeve of yours? Because Alan is seriously a customer service freak.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Here's what I'm crazy about. I got it's this one. I have a farm, I had to actually uh buy a farm to hold all my pet peeves because the homeowner association I live in now says too many pets in my peeve category, right? I got a lot of them. Here is the thing that pisses me off every time. In customer service, stop asking me questions, you should know the answer to. If you know if you're looking at, because here's what I know, right? If you're looking at your CRM, you and you're and you're and you're asking me, well, what did they say? I'm like, I don't know. Check your freaking notes, right? Like, I expect systems to work the way I would design them, unfortunately. And in customer service, if you're not enabling your customer service people to actually have the information at their fingertips, you're a dick. I don't know if I can say, is that clear? Is that clear? If you're an owner of a company and your people have to go anywhere but the one place to answer your customers' questions, you're you're gonna make yourself look bad because that's the worst thing in the world.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

I'll tell you, um, it's it's the uh you know what comes to my mind is when you go buy a car and you you walk in, you seal the salesperson, you tell them exactly what you're looking for, and then they still walk you through the funnel of pain. And it's all the all the questions that I just gave you the answers to. Yeah, I guess me neat.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

I wanted this VIN number. See this VIN number? That one, yeah. Uh no. You want to look at these other two? Nope, just this VIN number. All right, we're gonna, as a business owner, uh I in fact, I do not deal with an auto dealer anymore because when we because I buy at least uh one or two, sometimes three vehicles a year. A lot more than everybody else does, right? And uh in this guy's they try they tried to make me sit in that uh that room for three hours. I'm like, nope. Nope. Now I do everything over the phone. I'm like, Daryl, I want this one, I want this one, this one. I got my boy Daryl Porter. He goes, Gotcha, Chris, done. Um, I'll just drop the docs off. Can you just sign them? Can I get you? And we're gonna bring the truck up to you. I'm like, yep, done.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Good, go. Yeah, treat your auto deal like a drive-thru, right? Now I got it. I got a tip since you brought up auto buying. All right. What's the best day in the year to buy? One, there's one day in the year. Super Bowl. Nope. That's second best. What's the day of the year? Nope.

unknown 48:38

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Uh July 3. Damn it. I don't know. Halloween. Uh, the day before October 31st is the best day to buy a car. Oh. They gotta get back to their kids. Well, here's a reason, right? Yeah, they just came off a new model month in September. What's the onus? What's the sales pressure that every salesperson feels? Every month you got to close and they want you to close more than the last month. October's the worst month to close more than last month. Because all the idiots who buy brand new cars when they first come out buy them in when? September. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

There's a gold nugget. You just stay, if you stayed to the end of this one, you just got it. All right.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

We got to hit you the last one.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Handyman is tell you.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

You ready? My buddy bought a car so cheap that the sales manager called him every day for two weeks to try to buy it back for more and more money until he got fired. The sales manager got fired for selling him so cheap on Halloween day. Wow. Nice. Because parents are with their kids and single people are dressing up like whores and vampires in order to be do whatever they're doing. So they're not, it's a ghost town. Make your best deal.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Nice. All right, handyman. Give us a DIY nightmare story where you did it and you almost lost a finger, a life, an eyebrow, an eye. Credibility. All right, maybe a tooth.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

All right. So I have so many to pick from. So it's it's a it's a so do I, my friend. So do I. Um the one that I remember the most viscerally, and you could still drive, or you could still drive on to the Marietta Square. If you come from the east to the west, there's a plantation house. And it had, I don't know what is that about a seven, eight pitch roof? Is that what that is? I I yeah. Uh that's well, that's my guy. I was just getting into flipping houses. My buddy who guided me to lose a million and half bucks. I mean, the buddy who helped me, you know, do all the stuff, he said, come help me on the roof. I'm like, sure. This was 25 years ago. I got up on the roof and I'm on the tow boards, so you know what it's like. Yeah, and I'm I'm like a kitten on a sheet.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Just spread eagle hanging on for my life.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

I get up there, and the moment I get up there, I just pump. He says, Hand me something. I was like, I can't. Because I can't like I screw you, dude. Like it is like so. I learned very I learned I'm not good on a roof at all.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

So I have that one too. I I have them all. I mean, if somebody would if if people would be as authentic as Dominic when they come on this podcast, we would have a lot more stories from Chris. So we uh my wife and I buy our first house go in together, and I had to go up on the roof to run a bath fan out, right? And it's a really shallow pitch roof. But the ladder moved when I got back down there and I freaked and I froze. So I'm on the roof and I'm I'm pounding the shit out of the trying to get my wife to come out to bring the ladder and hold the ladder for me to get down. She thinks I'm up there bagging with the rest of the thing. It's taking a little time to get your things, Jake. I'm up there on that roof for like 45 minutes. So here comes the sun, and it's baking the shit out of me. And she finally comes out and goes, What's going on? I said, Can you just hold the ladder for me? She goes, Oh, you're all done. I said, I've been done for an hour, babe.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Hey, by the way, I could have literally jumped down. South Louisiana, I learned I wanted to go to college. Why? Because it was summertime before I went to boot camp. I went late in summer. I worked a roofing job for two days in New Orleans. No. In the summer. And that was Hago, right? Hago get this, Hago get that. I'm like, and I'm just up and down. Like, it was so hot. I said, I gotta go to college.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

You bet.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

This sucks.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

I got to get an education, man. I do not have to do that. We all need that one to keep us driving. Alan, we've had another great episode. Dominic Caribba, go check him out. Salesandtechnology.com. We're gonna keep going up that mountain. You're gonna keep making it happen. Don't go out, go out there. Just you know, tell your friend something. Dominic's gonna actually start following us. Uh, he's gonna check us all out. I've already told him, hey, ADD boy, before you leave, you're gonna have to do all this stuff. So let's get out of here, make it happen. We got a roll, let's get out of here. Cheers, everybody. Cheers, Al. That's awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Department. Remember, your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in the wild world small business understanding. Until next time, make it a great day.