Ryan Groth on the Synergy of Sales Mastery and Spiritual Growth

Join the conversation with Ryan Groth, the visionary behind Sales Transformation Group, as he recounts his evolution from an aspiring athlete to a beacon of leadership within the roofing and trade industries. Our heartfelt dialogue with Ryan unveils the intricate dance of intertwining faith with professional prowess. Hear how his steadfast belief in God has not only navigated him through life's hurdles but also imbued his role as a driven entrepreneur with a sense of empathy and servitude.

In the bustling world of sales and leadership, the quest for balance between spiritual devotion and work commitments often seems daunting. Yet, Ryan and I unravel the transformative influence that a profound relationship with Jesus can impart upon both realms. We discuss how an authentic 'secret place' with the divine can subtly echo through the halls of commerce, enriching the workplace culture without preaching from the boardroom. This episode is a testament to the power of leading by heartfelt example, marrying the art of sales with the wisdom of personal growth.

As we wind down, Ryan offers an intimate glimpse into the scriptural principles that shape his marriage, advocating for a bond fortified by mutual support and spiritual unity. Beyond the personal, we shift focus to practical strategies that can revolutionize sales teams, emphasizing the importance of cultivating relationships and honing leadership skills for sustainable success. Whether you're seeking to deepen your faith, strengthen familial bonds, or elevate your professional game, this episode promises a treasure trove of insights to enrich every facet of your life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Ryan Groth. What's up, buddy? What's up Corey? Good to see you, Good to see you, man. So, Ryan, instead of me telling people about you, just to give everybody a kind of a 30 second overview of what you do and who you work with and all that good stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Yeah, so 30 second overview. I'm Ryan Groth. I'm the founder and CEO of Sales Transformation Group. We're a sales training and coaching platform for the industry of roofing, primarily in other trade industries, both residential and commercial. I'm a former college and professional baseball player, from Florida originally, and I am now a father of five kids. I've been married 12 years, a big family guy, love seeing people grow, both personally and professionally, and just out to transform the industry and be able to serve people Perfect.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Well, so I got you know, I met you I guess it was a little over a year ago now at the revolt retreat we had. We actually got paired up, we did a walk together. I don't really remember what we talked about, but I do remember having that conversation. And then actually, I think I don't know if we went up on the same football team or not. I hope so, because you play professional baseball, which I wasn't totally aware of. But I do want to go into some differences in what you see with sales, training, with commercial and residential. But first I want to ask you. I want to ask you how God plays a part in your life.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Perfect. Let's talk about that.

Speaker 1: 2:42

So go for it. Well, I just want to know a little bit about for context and I don't know if you know this about me I'm a recovering alcoholic. So God does play a massive part in my life and you know I wouldn't say I'm a religious guy, but certainly spiritual and certainly believe in Jesus Christ, and you know that's just where I'm at. So, yeah, so I know that. You know I believe God plays a pretty big part in your life. So tell me a little bit about your journey with that.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Oh man, it's a love being able to talk about Jesus in this, in these contexts. So yeah, I mean I've been walking with the Lord for 21 years, 37 years old, so just in the middle of high school, you know, my parents had me pretty young, had a kind of a lot of challenges both with their finances, relationship, addiction, substance abuse, so no stranger to how that affects someone's life. And so, as I was kind of growing up, my mom's parents were missionaries, deeply committed to their work and just spreading the gospel, raising up leaders, teaching the Bible, leading people in worship, and I spent some time just being exposed to the beautiful environment that they lived in like in the Lord. And whenever I saw the contrast of that with my especially my dad and living with him and just the lifestyle he was leading, I started to feel a bit convicted. I think the Holy Spirit kind of convicted me Whenever I started to step into some sin as a teenager and, yeah, just got saved, god just grabbed me and saved me and then just set me on a course bro. I started to follow him into my athletic giftings and saw just miracle after miracle of just his guidance in my life and helping me reach the Division one and professional ranks and that just brought a lot of confidence to me as a young man to help me know that I can go, be that warrior that can take ground and lead and overcome, and it gave me, just gave me some certainty about the future. Right, just seeing that that happened. Although I didn't make it to a major league rosters and you know things like that, I was deeply marked by God, encountered him and the Holy Spirit in a physical way. I heard his voice audibly, the word jumped off to the book and I just started to be transformed.

Speaker 2: 5:26

And you know, as I started to read Proverbs and started to learn about like family and wisdom and foolishness and, you know, following evil and following the Lord and the narrow path, I just started to feel like this fear of God, like I want to follow you, lord. I don't want to just do my own thing, I don't want to be like the world. And he just gripped me and I always envisioned having a family, you know, being in a household where my mom got married and divorced twice, saw a lot of abuse and you know, look, it could have been worse, there's people with worse situations, but I felt a lot of shame and guilt about who I was as a young man, just because there was so much of that in my home. So whenever I was like learning who I was in Christ and like being washed by the word and started to like, like, you know, the blood of the bread and the wine, right the body and the blood, I started to be washed and learn my identity as a son, learn that things are happening for me, not to me Just seeing the world as like just a way to expand God's kingdom and to use my gifts and talents to serve Him. And as I've walked with Him and I've been, you know, just blessed. I got married 12 years ago. I have a beautiful family. I mean, my kids are beautiful, they love God. It's a dream come true. But I also have, as I've grown in this, especially as working in a business environment, being an athlete, going out and performing and competing, but that being your identity.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Whenever I was done with baseball, it took some time to find out who I am. And then, when I found out who I am mentally, like the Lord's showing me I'm a son and I'm loved and he's got a destiny. I'm not just a baseball player and all this stuff. So it's like then, after I had a time where I've rested and learned how to live, like that, when I had no money or no status or nothing that the world can offer and I found Jesus, and I found that I can abide in the shadow of His wing and be in that cleft in the rock and be with Him and find complete peace. I was able to feel like God brought me back out into a competitive space like business, and that business arena hasn't become my identity and I can tell you there's been times in which it has and I've absolutely slipped back into anxious action, competitive juices flowing, want to be the best da-da-da-da and just try to be really like, worried about things. And as money and growth happens, you start to run into hard challenges. But as I have continued to be steadfast, let Him be a light into my feet and lamp Him to my path.

Speaker 2: 8:28

I've been transformed over and again and, man, I just love Jesus, like I could tell you right now, like I'd rather spend five hours talking about Jesus, reading His Bible and worshiping, than doing STG. I would rather do this all day long. I love Him and I could tell you that the more I spend time with Him. The more I learn about Him, the more I spend like just praying and feeling like living in this place where I'm not caught up in the past, I'm not caught up in the patterns of this world.

Speaker 2: 8:59

And who's the coolest guy on Facebook and who's the next speaker at the conference, and is somebody doing better than me? Is somebody doing worse than me? All those things are like are starting to go away as I spend more time with Jesus. So, and then what happens is all the business stuff continues to go fine, it goes great and it grows, but he's after our hearts and I am one who's been marked by Jesus. I want Him, he wants me and I want to live that way forever. And I just get to do that and be in this industry and hang out with a bunch of people who want a better life, and I'm just doing a small part, by the grace of God, to provide tools and the community and coaching and accountability, ultimately to help them improve their lives, and both personally and professionally. But how does Jesus in my life? That is a very short answer, although it was long, to what I could say about Him.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Would you say that you do more personal development, more personal growth, in disguise of sales training?

Speaker 2: 10:40

That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Yeah, maybe you grabbed, maybe you nabbed me. You're like, hey, I found the criminal. That's Him. You know it took the mask off. I'm actually trying to help.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Yeah, I mean, sales training is really important, but it's definitely not all that we do. You can see there's sales transformation group right. So it's like I think it's equal parts sales like tactical sales stuff strategic but also transformational, because, at the end of the day, like, the best businesses to work for, the best businesses to have, are ones where the founder or the leader has a vision. People are a huge part of that, they feel loved and they're cared for genuinely and they're also developed into a better version of themselves and everybody's winning right. That's like that's the best place to work. I mean, nobody wants to work for an owner who's just greedy and it's all about themselves. So, and then you know, being a sales professional, if you can be a part of something bigger and have a connection, the only way you do that is if, like, there's a bit of a transformation happening into that outcome we're looking for from leadership and down and on, down, right, and so, yeah, it's a combination for sure, Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Yeah, I found that. I found the same thing. Like you couldn't say, you can't say I'm sale personal growth, I'm going to help your life be better, but through the disguise of sales transformation, it I just feel like. I feel like lots of times for me when I work with, and I work directly for one company now and but when I was consulting that that had a lot to do with it, had a lot to do with really working on the owner, what really even the salespeople that we really need to work on that hard.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Yeah, there's always skills you can develop, there's always things that you could change, but really kind of starts at the top and if the leader is not, they don't have the ability to communicate well, they don't have the ability to have empathy, they don't have the ability to see, maybe, when they're wrong and correct. That it takes a toll on the team much more than anything else in the organization because they look to the leader. I mean, right, that's why they're called the leader, that's why they started the thing anyway. So Do you just, do you get into the conversation with people? I mean, how do you? Because that could be a touchy subject, I suppose.

Speaker 2: 13:22

I think I, you know, I'm just led by the spirit of the right time, the right people. Some people can tell that I'm that way and that's a big part of why they're doing business with me, and then it gets brought up. Some people are like they're not even interested at all, and that's okay. I just, you know, we, yeah, that's I'm not. My job's not to save the world. Right, that's I can't do that. I can't save anybody. That's I cannot do that. Right, god can do that. But at the end of the day, like it's a dance, right, it's a combination of a few things.

Speaker 2: 13:57

I think that the way I just described to you is might be the boldest I've ever sounded in the industry. I'm not constantly talking about God, but they. But there's enough where, you know, at the end of the day, like I feel a bit convicted, where, like I could sit there and I think people can talk more about God to others and not even spend time with them themselves. It's like you're not even like getting, you're not even doing it yourself, you're just like you know you're connected to God and he's touched you and it's obvious like what if you just went deeper into a secret place with him and you know the Bible talks about that like getting alone, having like a secret place, having a closet, having a place that's isolated, just be with them. You know, I think that's more important to me, like everything takes care of itself, but I don't lead with it. It's not my sales pitch, you know. I'm not saying, hey, christian, you should work with me. It's nothing to do with that. I honestly think that what I do is I'm very passionate about it, but it's it's just one part of my life, you know, and there's a whole nother area, like my family, like my wife, my marriage, my children, my community that I build with my, with where we live, and there's just so many other places where that part of my life is really the main focus.

Speaker 2: 15:26

And you know, but it's important that you could talk about, like, if you say you're a Christian and you're a teacher, you're going to have a lot more accountability on you, and I think that integrity, doing things the right I mean, if you're going to have your mouth be used on a platform with a megaphone, you better have, you better be ready to deliver and do a great job, be excellent, because it just makes it even uglier for people who aren't Christian to hear you talk about God and then you do something wrong or you do something immoral, or you do something unethical, or you don't do something you said you were going to do, or I mean I'm I've learned the hard way, you know doing things fast and hard and quick. I made a lot of mistakes, continue to, probably will make mistakes, but I'm very cognizant of how that message is sent from my business platform. But outside of that, there's a lot of Jesus talking, being talked about in my life on a personal level.

Speaker 1: 16:36

So it's funny you bring up. You know, I don't know if you say keep your commitments, but I had a. I had an interview two guys this morning and it was at eight o'clock. Owner was running a little bit late, something with his keys, and so the meeting was going to run past 930 or what it felt like it was going to run. It did run past 930.

Speaker 1: 16:57

But I had a prior commitment to, I mean, a recovery program, as I mentioned and I'm not going to mention what recovery programs have made that mistake before and I had a commitment to chair the meeting. And so I messaged one of my guys. I said, hey, dude, like could you do the meeting? He's like, yeah, I think I'll do the committee, the meeting on keeping your commitments, and like he was being a smart ass about it. But the truth of the matter is I had to cut the interview short because I am a guy that keeps my commitments and I do what I say I'm going to do and you know I am human and in that moment I felt like it was more important to sit there and interview those two guys and I'll tie this together or something that she said if I go, do the things I'm supposed to do, like be at that 10 o'clock meeting, the other stuff's going to take care of itself, but if I choose to sit in through that meeting, something might go sideways.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Right, the owner was there by that point. He could handle the rest of it. Obviously, he owns the company. And so when have you found a time? Maybe that you chose a work situation or a meeting over something that you had committed to personally or spiritually or whatever that just you didn't feel right about about, about canceling the commitment? But maybe you made that choice, and what was the outcome of that?

Speaker 2: 18:31

Oh, I mean, I got about 10 years of that. I got about 10 years of that of choosing work over everything and the outcome is anxiousness. It's like you live in anxiety. It's not a good place to live. I mean, look like you know there's, there's.

Speaker 2: 18:53

I was reading scripture and you opened me up here, so I'm going to talk about God here. A couple of people. There's a scripture that I that I found. Let me just pull it up.

Speaker 2: 19:02

This is good stuff because a lot of times, as, especially as a husband and a father, your spiritual commitments impact your family commitment, do they kind of like overflow into that their balance to? It's certainly hard. I mean, you know, come on, man, we're high performers. You don't say hard, no, but it's certainly an area of opportunity and it could be a challenge at times. Okay, I'm not finding it, so I'll just do my best to read it. It's basically saying that there are it's in proverbs, there's like four things that will create an unearthed ground, that'll create an earthquake, that, like God gets so irritated that it'll create an earthquake in the world. Okay, I don't know if this is a physical one, but I think it's certainly true. It's. One is like I forget the first one and the second one is to have a married woman who's unloved, a married woman who's unloved, and then a woman who's mistrust becomes the wife, like where the wife's mistrust becomes married to the husband. Like, basically, when a mistrust over which could be pornography, it could be literally cheating on a wife, it could be whatever may be. But what I'm to go to, the thing that's most common, is your man and there's women who own businesses on this podcast listening. So I want to just say this in context.

Speaker 2: 20:38

But let's say, husbands, you believe in God, your spiritual commitments they're great. If you're missing those, you're probably sacrificing your family commitments and then you want to see an earthquake in your life, have your wife be unloved. Watch what happens. I've lived it. I've lived in earthquakes. What happens when an earthquake? Corey, stop everything we're doing. We got to make sure we're good. Like everything's got to stop. Like the world stops, business stops, everything stops, nothing matters more important if you and your family are in an earthquake but I don't know how many men and women on this podcast are trying to run a business and they're on the verge of divorce right now. I could promise you people right now are saying man, my wife wants to leave me because and she's just sick of it she's sick and tired of it.

Speaker 2: 21:33

What I'm trying to say is earthquakes spiritual, relational, emotional earthquakes happen when you don't follow through with your spiritual commitments, because that's going to be a precursor to your marital commitments. Here's why, corey, when I see God and I trust Him and I pray, I know the world is going to be okay. Then I get with my family and love them because I know my world is going to be okay. Right, why do I ever sacrifice family? Because I'm afraid my world is going to stop. I'm afraid business isn't going to do well. I'm afraid if I don't follow up with this email right now, something's going to happen. I'm afraid, if I don't touch this lead, whatever it is, I'm afraid of the business, the failing or the whatever. That anxious belief is right.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Well, there you go, your spiritual life. You have no peace because it's circumstantial. Instead of spiritual peace, you get circumstantial peace. I have a lot of money in my bank account, so I'm happier than I was when I did it. Well, you're serving an idol and your business is your God. Obviously, because your heart's desire flies up, your heart's fulfillment flies high when it's going good and it's going down when it's not good. That means you're worshiping your business and money and status and what people think about you. That's real. So if you want to live in peace, see God, let Him be your lover and where your source of life comes from, then, when you know the world's going to be okay, your business is going to be okay and you're going to make the right moves and you're going to learn, you're going to be fine, then guess what you don't do. You don't sacrifice your family, but you know what creates an earthquake An unloved wife. Talk about an earthquake.

Speaker 1: 23:25

So I am a firm believer that God speaks for people. At least in my life, that's how I receive a lot of messages, and what you just said was smack between my eyes. Just this week I started working with this guy locally Been there about three weeks. As you can imagine, I go all in with whatever I do, 100%, no matter what it is, to the point that my schedule is I get up at 3.30 in the morning, I do my cold plunge, I go to the gym, I get to work earlier than everybody else, I stay maybe not later than everybody else, but pretty close, and then I have a recovery commitment after that. Well, that leaves zero time during the day for anything, or certainly not my family.

Speaker 1: 24:22

And so this has been going on for I don't know four weeks or so. I've been running hard like this, and my wife just said to me yesterday pretty much what you just spelled out and just said I'm going through a lot, I'm struggling with a lot of things and I just don't know what to do or where to turn. And what I realized last night in having this conversation with her I was at home, of course, when we were having the conversation is that I'm just not present in our relationship. I'm not fulfilling my duties here and I got blinded by all the other things that I think I need to do, and therein lies the problem is, I'm thinking about what I need to do selfishly and not thinking about the other people in my life. So great scripture that was. That was spot on.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Let me encourage you with something, man, and for anybody listening, it's you know. The Bible talks about Ephesians 5, talks about marriage and being imitators of God. Right, but what it says is not why. I've submitted her husbands, which if you read that by itself, you think great. The husband does whatever he wants to do. She's better going to, she better recognize, she better fall in line, right, and then I'm going to do what I want to do, which is I'm going to get jacked. I'm going to make as much money as I can. I'm going to be as popular as possible and be as successful as possible, all of the name of I'm providing for my family and you better be happy. Okay, right, that, right there. If you read that in that context, that's what you're going to see. But if you read the whole thing, it says submit to God, submit one another, submit to one another under God. So imagine this. Imagine you. Imagine this is how your date nights look, this is how your morning coffees look. Imagine you submitting your heart, all the things that make you anxious, all the things that get you excited, all those things. Submit it to her, and then she submits to you onto the Lord, onto the Lord, and then. So now you're actually like a unified front with God, one flesh. But what's wild is you know?

Speaker 2: 27:05

The Bible talks about a couple of things in Genesis two. Do you know, when God made the heavens and the earth and he said, man, this is good. He said, this is good and this is good. And then he said then there was, he made Adam. And then he's looking at Adam and he said, oh, this is not good, this is not good. That man's alone. Everything was good until Adam was alone. And then he said this isn't good. Do you know why it wasn't good, corey? Take a guess. Why wasn't it good?

Speaker 1: 27:39

I don't know, I can't even begin to guess.

Speaker 2: 27:42

Well, here's why I think he said this isn't good, because there was an enemy in the garden. The enemy was the serpent, the devil. And so he said I'm making, I'm going to make a woman to be your helper. Now that word in the Hebrew is actually means a militant, a military help. Like military are like, like like nation with nation. Military help.

Speaker 2: 28:17

That means that means when Adam fell into a deep sleep and he took a rib out, god took a rib out and fashioned Eve. Beautiful Eve formed Adam but fashioned Eve. Now they are equal, equally made in God's image. And he says this is bone in my bone, flesh of my flesh. Now, corey, this is what this means. The Bible also says when a cord of two strands can be broken, okay, so now you have Adam's on a loan, which, if you're living by yourself, you're susceptible by yourself, and then if you have your wife, then now you're a cord of two strands which is still easily broken. But when you have Christ in it, now you're a cord of three strands and you are not easily broken. Like that means the enemy cannot attack you and defeat you.

Speaker 2: 29:16

The number one thing this world needs is families that are married couples serving Jesus together Like that would change the world if that happened. But what happens is there's no God and then they separate man and woman. Now they're a bunch of individuals and it just messes up everything. So if you think about this, corey, you're basically leaving an artillery military unit in your home. It's deactivated when you're by yourself and when you're not submitting to the Lord on the net together. But what happens is when you and her and this goes for everybody you and your spouse pray together, wash each other with the Word, like read the Bible.

Speaker 2: 30:06

My wife and I don't go watch movies on day nights anymore. We eat a meal, I may have a drink or two, and then we'll worship, we'll read the Bible and we'll just speak beautiful things over each other and I'll wash her with the water of the Word. That's what it says. And now she is getting spotless, making me spotless, and we're submitting our will and emotions to God, like we're just like buzzing when we leave, when we go home, and then we make love and it's beautiful and it's like there's all the support in the world.

Speaker 2: 30:37

It's all the support in the world and we cannot be broken, because I can tell you the devil is coming like a lion he's not playing with and he's not coming with rubber bullets, he's coming with a machine gun. He wants to knock us out. He wants to knock you and your wife out. He wants to knock everybody out. But, dude, we can be on guard and we could do that by mutually submitting, laying down our lives together to the Lord, and that right, there will never be time wasted. I would rather spend every day an hour or two praying and reading the Bible and praying with my wife than in the gym getting jet. I love the gym, I love being an athlete, but when I work out and I work and then my wife and kids and my spiritual life is neglected. I'm standing on an earthquake zone and it's tough.

Speaker 2: 31:31

It's tough but, dude, everything gets better whenever things are in its right priority. People talk about it. Yeah, here, how you spend your time is what you're actually doing, what you actually value. How do you spend your time? That's what you value Truly, if you value God and you're not just going to go to church on Christmas and Easter, or once a week you're not going to.

Speaker 2: 31:53

I was listening to a guy, very popular sales trainer, who's all jacked up and he's just always, and he's talking about God, which is cool, but he's like spend 10 minutes a day with God. I'm like, bro, I couldn't spend 10 minutes a day and be filled. I need an hour, I need two because because, dude, god's not a vending machine Like, oh, let me get my quick thing Now. He wants to give us true meat, and meat takes time to marinate and to put in a smoker and it's like this is a good meal, I've got to let it take time. If you want God in your life, it's going to cost you something. And if you want a beautiful family, you need God in your life. It's going to cost you something, but you know, I'd rather be spiritually rich and have a beautiful family and have no business and not one person know my name than have a beautiful big baller business. I'm famous in the industry and I'm a millionaire and I'm paying child support and my wife and kids are with me.

Speaker 1: 32:52

There. So all right. So I didn't necessarily tend on the whole thing being about this and we will get to sale stuff eventually, but I do have a good. It's a personal question. So I tend, I tend to Bible study. Everyone I call into a conference call and just friend of mine who is a pastor at a church, an hour for me, hour and a half for me.

Speaker 1: 33:14

Really he's the reason I got saved. I say he's the reason, like he was the person that you know kind of said the right things that convinced me or convicted me to raise my hand that day at church and I attend the Bible study with him every morning. It's about 15, 20 minutes. But I really don't understand what's going on. Like and I'm pretty new into you know, I've probably been going to this Bible study nine or 10 months, maybe something like that. I just don't know. Like I just don't, I don't. Sometimes I it's really hard for me to follow have some of the time because I'm not paying as much attention as I should be. Did you have trouble with that at first when you first started reading the Bible understanding? Maybe I don't need to understand it, maybe it's just the act of listening.

Speaker 2: 34:04

No, no, no, no, no. You need to understand it. You need to understand it Basically, bro, like, let me just give your as a in the faith you're a baby, you're like a newborn, right. So I'm not saying you're a baby, you're amazing, sure, like in the spiritual life, you're like a baby, right. So you know, when a baby has like a little like has toys and has like a toy sword, it's like, oh, you know, it's like that plastic sword couldn't fight a thing, anything, right, nothing, maybe a fly, right? Well, the Bible, the word of God, is the sword. It's a sword, like it's a sword. And right now you're fighting with a wet newspaper. You're fighting with a baby sword from Toys R Us, right? Yeah, what I would encourage you to do is to say, but I'm a warrior in the spirit, okay, you need to know your Bible. You didn't know the Bible, because if you don't have the sword, corey, what's going to happen when the enemy attacks?

Speaker 1: 35:18

Screwed I like better.

Speaker 2: 35:21

Yeah, you're done Addiction, lack, divorce, depression, anxiety. And then you combat it with selfishness, ambition, hustle, hustle. All looks good, but you have dead bodies along the way, a bunch of casualties in your life, spiritually and emotionally, that aren't making it and they're not thriving under your leadership because you got bamboozled by the enemy, right? So what I would encourage you to do is say this Bible, I need to know this thing, I need to tattoo it on my heart, because guess what happens when you have this katana, just samurai sword or Excalibur with glowing, with power, like in, like cube lasers at the enemy. Like you're unstoppable, you will win, you will ascend the hill of the Lord and you will have a life of peace, abundance, overflow, stewardship, humility, rich relationships, beautiful friendships, like peace all the good stuff that only God can provide, not the world, not the world. Provide God, not money, not status, not that, not the word, the world, sorry, what God can provide. So you got to know the Bible and I would just encourage you to read it and when you spend time in it, just listen to, just read it, and read it daily and not five minutes a day, like you need to.

Speaker 2: 36:56

Like the Bible says that Jesus went out alone to be with the Father all the time alone, not with his buddies, not at a Bible study. Like he went alone because I could promise you that God will speak to you in those scriptures. It is alive. But if you're out there and you're texting people and you're like you're just constantly distracted and you're accessible, jesus wasn't accessible. You didn't know where he was when he went and prayed. Like where's Jesus? I don't know. I don't know where he is. That's the point. He's alone with the Lord, with the Father, right, and I think that you and I and all of us listening, if we want to grow, we need our daily dose of the Lord. The daily, like daily, not just weekly, not once a year.

Speaker 2: 37:42

And the other thing, too, is that, like that Bible step preacher man, he's feeding you milk. He's like here's some milk, corey, drink it. Drink it, right. But what's cool is like my one year old doesn't need the nipple and my wife, he can grab a bottle and drink himself. He's like I want this. He starts to drink it. He gets a little bigger. He can eat solid food and he gets a little bigger. He's eating meat. He gets a little bit. Now my son, my oldest is five foot one, 130 pounds. He's 10. He's massive and he's just a beautiful young boy. I'm just so impressed with him but, like, on a spiritual side, we're just, we're young, like you're a baby.

Speaker 2: 38:25

But time it's not linear with God. So you're going to, you're going to grow as you're processing and spending time with him, and true life is knowing him. That's it. Knowing him, that's it. It's true life is knowing God and the only way to know him is to spend time with them. And, corey, what's scary is that there's people the Bible talks about that will do miracles, cast out demons in his name, heal people in his name and all these things, and then they're going to go to God, to heaven. Jesus is going to say I never knew you. That's because they didn't get to know the one doing the miracles. They didn't get to know him, they just wanted to do the stuff or they just wanted all the stuff. And you don't get to know anybody without spending time with them.

Speaker 2: 39:14

So my encouragement to you and to myself is to not wake up and work out, not wake up and do the cold plunge first. Wake up and get with the Lord first, as the most important thing, the first fruits of my day is going to him and I spent about an hour drinking coffee and reading my Bible. Man, everything's better after that. The day's better, the world's slower. It's just a better life. And I can tell you right now, when you start playing higher level sports, the game speeds up and it gets harder. But when you learn how to slow the game down, it gets easier. And then if you're playing high level, then you go to a high school field and the game looks like it's being played by children compared to that level, and you're just like you can dominate the game slower.

Speaker 2: 40:05

You and I, we like to go fast, but guess what? Like it also gets a little crazy and chaotic and we try to act like we're awesome and we got to figure it out. But I'd rather play when my world is slower and it slows down. When you spend time with him, the maker of heaven and earth, you spend time with him, you get his eyes and his ears and his heart. You're like, oh, you start to have more peace and you make better decisions, better at communicating. Everything's just better.

Speaker 2: 40:40

So yeah, man, I know that's a lot here. I'm giving you a lot of information, so, but yeah, I think that appreciate your transparency. I would get a Bible plan. Right now I'm reading the Bible. In a year it's Bible plan on the app Read the Bible plan and you're going to have a lot more success staying on track with something, and I'm you know, I started at the beginning of the year. It's 35 days or 34 days in a row and it's like heck yeah, it's not like two days and then I don't do it again for three weeks and then I jump in for two days. It's good stuff. So, get a plan, get a Bible plan yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 41:22

Yeah, that totally makes sense. So do you. And the last question that I swear. We're going to move to a couple of simple things. So do you attend a church every Sunday, or do you? How do you? How does that part into your life work?

Speaker 2: 41:39

Oh, yeah, big time. So I'm in Dallas right this moment. There's a church here that I go to. I go once a week during their church services, but they actually have a prayer room. They do prayer sets with live like musicians and leaders, and it's open like Monday through Friday, like 6am to 8pm, all dollar in the week. So when I'm in town, what I typically do as a way to prioritize him is I'll go into the prayer room and spend an hour to two hours just like just connecting to God and like not working, it's not working. Let me look like oh, you should be working. Look, dude, I've done the days where I've done nothing but work and I know what that turns into. If you don't have things in order. I tell you what man like. It's a beautiful thing and I'm very, it's very. I'm privileged to be here.

Speaker 2: 42:37

This place is special. This church community specifically is like a nation worldwide effect. It's like worldwide what's happening out of here. It's just a little place in Dallas. This place is like a house of God that I find a lot of shade in and feel resourced in my life spiritually and it's been great. And where we also live is in Maui, hawaii, and we have a sweet church community there that also offers some other weekly activities.

Speaker 2: 43:12

But all of that, corey, all of that should not be your food. That is not the food. The food, spiritually, is you and God alone, and that's where you get the most growth is when it's just you and God, because all the people in church are trying to do is to get you to be equipped and trained to hear from God yourself and to have a relationship with God yourself. And to do that within a community is the idea. It's not designed to say, hey, I am the mouthpiece of God for you and you should tie it for me and I'm going to make a lot of money off of you while you are dumb and you don't know anything about God except when you hear from me. That is like old school church stuff. That's just a problem.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Church is meant to be a community where you can encourage the body of Christ together and encourage one another. But it should be an oh amen. That's what God was showing me, not. Oh my gosh. I don't listen to God, I don't try to hear from God. I'm just listening to you right now, or I'm just connecting to God during worship with you right now.

Speaker 2: 44:26

That's not it. That's not it. It's not enough. We need to give him our life daily. And then when you go to church, it's just like all these people have been spending time with God on their own and we come together. It's like an explosion versus. This is why you go to church and it feels like dead. It's because nobody's searching God on their own. It's just dead. It's like boring. But the church I go to, I'm blessed in a sense, where everybody's like most everybody is just on fire for God and when we come together it's just like an eruption of His presence and it's just so fun. So it's a big part of our lives personally and it's honestly how we centralize our family life around that. It's pretty much pivotal for how we live that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 45:15

All right, well, thank you definitely for that. That was a lot of information, but I you know all super, super helpful and I think it was just exactly on time for this conversation. So I want to switch for a moment and talk about how you transform sales teams on the commercial side and on the residential side, because I think there is a difference there, probably not a finite difference, but there is a difference in sales cycle and you know customer interaction. So can you dive into that for a quick moment?

Speaker 2: 45:50

Yeah, there's a lot that we do at SDG lots, I mean, we do a ton but basically I'll just touch on commercial and residential let's just say roofing or any trade. Typically commercial is very account centric and so what we need to do is help teach. We teach people how to focus on relationships and making sure their service offerings are supportive of a long time relationship. In commercial there's a lot of temptation to just be in what we call a bid shop or we just go up there and give a bid. Go up there and give a bid. Go up there and give a bid and that's really important to be able to estimate. But when you stop truly selling and having human beings who are trained to sell and you stop prioritizing that in your sales motion and then you kind of just rely only on the estimating part, you end up getting into a very low closing ratio environment, unless they're a really good customer that you've done a great job with for a long time and you have a high closing ratio and you're their only contractor. We want to get to that point. But what happens is in commercial, if they get comfortable there and they don't grow because they don't have anybody finding new customers, and then when they do get new inquiries they don't know how to sell those new customers the right way and then they kind of just look expensive to the customer prospect and they don't work with them and it's just like it's a slow growth. So if you want to grow faster and more, you need to know the sales process that supports you being different and asking deeper questions and then getting to the actual decision makers. Versus in residential, it's just a shorter sales cycle typically and it may be relational, but then you do get a reoccurring business with customers. But in residential you only do that unless you have multiple service offerings. But in commercial you're going to have a client that you can service, even with roofing, over and over again for a long time. So there's a lot to unpack there. I literally could speak for eight hours straight on all of those differences.

Speaker 2: 48:17

But in commercial we're transforming companies by providing a plan, compensation plan, identifying the areas of weakness in the sales team with a third-party assessment, training and coaching those salespeople to fulfill a sales process that is more supportive of getting their ideal clients. A lot of times we're helping them move away from GC work, move more toward the private sector or not new construction so that helps you break into a higher margin, less competitive environment. So we help them strategically do that. We help them with lead generation and business development and branding. But really you got to close the deal and you got to land the account and that takes a certain type of sales rep to do. We think we can train people to do that but it is different.

Speaker 2: 49:15

We're residential. On the roofing side there's two, there's retail and there's insurance. On the insurance side we're heavy on the door-to-door, we're big on the mindset of door-to-door, the culture of door-to-door, accountability around door-to-door and how that process looks and the right milestones in that process. Then retail is even different than those two. It's different in a sense where we still do door-to-door around the neighborhood and get relationship referrals from relationships, but it is typically a little bit of a different setup than a post-storm door-knocking. So there's a lot of different variables but some of the common things are going to be leadership, accountability, coaching, motivating and recruiting and then having an ongoing culture of coaching around the sales process and then just continuing to shape a good environment for the sales teams.

Speaker 1: 50:28

Is there one of those that you find that you spend more time on than some of the others?

Speaker 2: 50:39

Yeah, the sales leadership part is severely lacking in our industry. I'm actually going to start writing this new guide like the ultimate guide for sales leadership and contracting, because it's usually lacking in our industry. Owners typically do the job. They wear the hat, but they do a terrible job, excuse me, so feel free to svpccom. I think that there's nothing that's going to transform your organization for sales more than having a sales leader who knows how to wear that hat of a coach and holding a standard high and builds relationship with their team and trust and respect that leader and that person can truly like level up and coach athletes, like athletes get coached and coach them up in sales.

Speaker 2: 51:40

And at the end of the day, if we can do that and you know, move away from this culture where it's like nurseries where babies are being fed, versus barracks where warriors are being bred. It's like that's sales leadership. What's what are you going to be? Nursery where babies are being fed, or barracks where warriors are being bred? And when you do that, you start to lean into all the things that go within being a warrior and creating a place where warriors are wanting to come alive and be successful. In your company, you're going to start to have owners will be like, oh my gosh, like this is where the growth comes from is when our sales team is trained, accountable, fired up, getting coached, following a leader they respect, they're hearing you a process that's repeatable. And then they have success stories within their sales team where guys and girls are winning like, winning, like they're actually having a lot of success as individuals in the role and then it's very marketable, right.

Speaker 2: 52:46

Then if you have case studies of successful sales professionals and now you have a marketable product to join your organization, man, it is, it's a special thing. That's the crux, right. There is like, oh, I'm two to four to five million, I want to get to 10,. Like, man, we just did a third of what I just said, we get to 10. And if you just did more than that, you're going to get. You're going to get to 15 to 20, to 25 and beyond. But but yeah, we find sales leadership is the biggest hole in our in the industry and we're plugging that in by doing some fractional sales leadership and sales leader peer groups to try to encourage and coach them through a peer group environment and then also content and in someone on one, consulting.

Speaker 1: 53:36

Perfect. So just for people that may not know what sales transformation group does, some of the core offerings. Could you run through that really quick before we wrap up?

Speaker 2: 53:49

Yeah, so I have this like kind of pyramid that shows, shows what we do. But everybody we work with is going to get a core learning plan. A residential sales accelerator, a roof warrior program or a commercial sales accelerator, excuse me and we're building a pavement one, one, two for paving businesses. So we have those and everybody gets a core learning plan. It's online learning. And then also we include group coaching, which is like a one to many model, pretty affordable program, and then everybody gets treated the same with a third party sales assessment. So we do a per individual sales assessment charge for that. And then we do a series of five to six zoom calls leading up to a two day in person kickoff with your company. So we go to your office and we do a two person facilitated kickoff where we introduce to do a lot of stuff together and then after that they'll remain on the core platform and just go to the video training and get group coaching. Or we'll add a sales leader peer group it's called the winner circle which they meet twice a month with other sales leaders. They're like minded that we're looking at numbers, we're looking at challenges, we're having discussions around those, assigning action items, rating the meeting, and so we're doing that every two weeks for two hours with those groups about three or four companies in a group. So that's a certain.

Speaker 2: 55:16

That's a program on top of the core. And then another program we have is called sales builder, in which we actually help build out your recruiting funnel, your ramp up playbook. We help you build out your KPIs, how to run your sales meetings with our five star sales meeting framework, and then we're also adding some other tech partners where we help you basically project manage that thing through to have the structure of your sales organization, which is also compensation plans and things like that are included. And then the final and the most expensive program is our high touch platinum program where we help you with your sales meetings. Every week we go monthly to your office and we do a classroom and field sales training in your office with a coach and we do some one on one zoom coaching sessions in that program.

Speaker 2: 56:06

So it's like a fractional sales leadership sales management program. So those are the four, the three coaching engagements on top of our core video training and group coaching platform that we do. Typically, customers are with us for a couple years. Hopefully we're trying to set it up where people can be with us for a very long time. But yeah, that's kind of where we're at today. It's a ton of fun and, yeah, very fulfilling and a lot of work to do is still a lot to do.

Speaker 1: 56:35

Perfect, yeah, thank you for that overview. That was great. Well, look, I know that we're getting to the end of our time. Ryan, if somebody wants to reach out to you at STG or wants to find you online or where, would you recommend someone go to get touch with you?

Speaker 2: 56:52

Yeah, go on LinkedIn. You can go to Instagram. Follow me on the sales athlete. That's my Instagram handle, the sales athlete. Facebook I'm. You know it's hit or miss. I'll be on it every day, but you can connect to me there. My email is our groth, our groth at sales transformation groupcom. You can also go to our website, sales transformation groupcom. If you want to go to our YouTube. We got some content up there, some keynotes I've got uploaded up there. So, yeah, you can check us out on YouTube. I mean, there's all kinds of ways. Just like, I'm not on TikTok, probably won't be for a while, not on some of the other things, but those are the main ones. And, yeah, love the industry events. I'm typically at most of them. You can see me.

Speaker 1: 57:37

Perfect. Thank you, brother. I appreciate the conversation.

Speaker 2: 57:42

Thanks, corey, appreciate you having me on. Got it, I'm in.