Richard Bishop, President at BRS Sales & Marketing

In this episode of Voices of Leadership, Chris Atwell sits down with Richard Bishop to discuss the experiences and mindset shifts that have shaped his leadership journey as a second-generation manufacturers’ rep agency owner. 

Richard reflects on how his leadership has evolved from trying to manage everything himself to recognizing the importance of trusting his team and delegating responsibility. As rep agencies grow and the complexity of the business increases, Richard shares how learning to prioritize the most important tasks,  while empowering others to take ownership, has helped him operate with greater clarity and less stress. 

Richard and Chris also discuss one of the most difficult leadership moments he has faced: making the tough decision to part ways with a long-tenured employee. In a small organization where team members are closely connected, the decision had a major impact on the company dynamic. Richard shares how stepping back into the territory temporarily, mentoring a younger salesperson, and rebuilding the business ultimately led to that territory becoming the company’s top performer. 

Throughout the episode, Richard emphasizes the importance of routines and intentional time for reflection. From exercise and personal health to carving out quiet time each week to focus on priorities, he explains how reducing distractions and being deliberate with his time helps him lead more effectively. 

Looking ahead, Richard is focused on evolving the way his agency goes to market. With greater use of CRM and data, expanded marketing efforts, and stronger engagement with contractors alongside distributors, he is helping guide the company through industry changes such as consolidation, shifting sales channels, and new customer expectations. 

Chris and Richard explore: 

• Transitioning from doing everything yourself to trusting and empowering your team
• Making difficult personnel decisions and rebuilding stronger afterward
• The value of intentional routines and focused planning time
• Using CRM and data to manage and grow the business
• Expanding relationships with contractors while supporting distributors
• Adapting to industry shifts and evolving the traditional rep agency model

This episode offers practical leadership insight into navigating change, building trust within a team, and evolving a rep agency to stay competitive in a rapidly changing industry.
 
Chris Atwell is the Founder of Mindset-Conquest, a leadership and mindset coach working with manufacturers’ rep agencies across North America. He helps leaders strengthen their mindset, elevate their leadership, and create the clarity and structure needed to grow their business and their people.
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Voices of Leadership. I'm Chris Catwell, and in each episode, I sit down with the leadership in the future of the manufactured record industry. Real stories, real challenges, real world. This is where leadership comes to life. Richard, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. And what I really want to do is pick your brain about your leadership journey and learn about the growth you've had, the lessons, the mindsets that you practice, so that we can we can help other leaders in this space learn and step into their leadership at a higher level. Sure. Awesome. So my first question is around uh your leadership journey early on in your leadership journey and how it shaped you. So if you if you look back, I'm curious what a pivotal moment that may have occurred in your leadership journey that really shaped who you are today.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I don't know if there's one singular thing, but uh certainly something through the the training that you provided me were yeah, the the thought or the um the idea of the rocks, pebbles, and sand. And and then everything around setting excuse me, setting goals. Um I don't know, it was it overall a number of different things that brought me around to it, but really the shift of anything from as simple as to um giving people all the responsibilities that you could trust them, and that was uh has always been the thing for me is can I trust any of the other people in my organization to do some of these things? Because you know, rep organizations, especially when they were maybe 10-15 years older, it was really very centric to the owner, the principal, and that person did so many different things. Can't operate that way any longer. I have to have the right people around so I can trust and give them the responsibility, elevate some of these people as they start to grow and learn in the organization so that they can also be a source. One of the big things for me, and you probably know this, is always the communication and the management of our relationship with our manufacturers. And even some of that I've I've struggled with uh giving off giving away some of that responsibility. I've got to let some of my other guys be part of that process.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah. So what I'm hearing here is that the moments that have really shaped the leader you are today are are those aha moments where you recognize that understanding what the priorities were and allowing others, not just you, to also be part of executing on those priorities, have opened up the door to uh this version of you that you are today.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, excellent. So it's actually helped me calm down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not quite as stressful. Right. It's always going to be stress in the business, but uh that has really helped me and during this time as I've given a little bit more responsibility to some of the guys, again, especially when interacting with the manufacturers and some of the day-to-day stuff where we just organize some of our meeting schedules and manufacture trips into the territory and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah. Many leaders have experienced, or it's it's it's inevitable, there's gonna be tough moments that we need to face. And I'm wondering what tough what what would be like the the biggest, toughest moment that you've ever had to face in your journey so far, and and what did you do to overcome it?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Man, uh probably and what you knew about this too was um having to part company with one of my fairly longtime employees, having to make a very difficult decision that I thought was going to be best for the business in the long term. Uh that was probably in the last couple of years has been one of the most challenging things for me, especially in a small company. You know, it can be it's a it's impactful. It's impactful to uh not only me and managing the business, but also for the rest of the people in the company because we are a small group. You become you become very tight. So that changes the it upsets the dynamic, and then that it takes a little while. Um, and then you know, changing things with the way that uh we interact with certain manufacturers that that person might have been involved with. That was probably the in my recent history has been the most challenging thing for me.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, yeah. And what what have you done to overcome that?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Uh just really buckling down and getting into the nitty-gritty of what was working and what was not working in that person's territory and their interaction with certain customers and so on, and reinserting myself into it for a little while as I then brought somebody else into it. Um, and it's actually turned out to be that particular territory is actually turned around uh is actually our best territory now. And this was a um a younger salesperson who was kind of off to the side, who is now he and I working together. I'm not saying it's all me, but he and I were just working together and and spending a lot of time with one another. His confidence level has raised. You can see it in all his interactions with our customers, and I've put him out in front with our manufacturers, and that's my best performing territory now.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

What a great example. I mean, so many people can likely relate, right? You've got a long-standing employee that's been part of the organization for so long. You have high hopes that they're going to uh uh contribute at a deeper level. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out, and then you have to step up, get your your you know, your roll your sleeves up, sure, get into the nitty-gritty, and in the end, things turn out even better, which is kind of that's that's amazing. So very cool. Yeah, you know, I'm a big believer in uh routines and habits and uh mindset. Uh-huh. What is your approach? What are the most important habits and routines that you know you need to take care of on a daily basis that allow you to show up as the leader that you want to be?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

From the business perspective, personal perspective, or all the above? The the ones that are going to impact the way you show up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I've changed some routines personally that has helped certainly with my mindset and it has to clear my mind. You and I've talked about things like exercise routines, diets, and so on and so forth. So I think that's always a work in progress for somebody that's busy. Um just carving out some mindful times during the day, especially before the barrage of emails and phone calls and things of that nature, and even sitting down with a paper and pen is something as simple as that. And all right, what were the priorities last week? I can I can remember those. What should be the did we solve the issues, whatever they were? What are the priorities this week, next week, and so on, and just having those times where we're less distracted again from the phone calls and emails and anything like that. So, you know, one thing that I did learn from you was turn off the notifications on your phone and that kind of thing, um, and carving out again, say on a Monday, a good hour, hour and a half, where there's you have nothing to do but focus on yourself and focus on what you need to get done for the business in that week and so on.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. Intentional time to move the body, get exercise in, take care of yourself, and then you know, uh scheduled time to really get focused on what your priorities are for the next level.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yep. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Great. You know, you're you're second generation owner, right? Yes, yeah. And I want you to picture yourself early on in your journey, okay? Richard's being promoted and he's stepping into his leadership. All right. What advice would you give him today?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Oh, I don't know where I'd begin on that, but it would be a lot. Um, yeah, certainly was at a different point in my life back then, and probably did not understand how complicated this business could be. Yeah. And maybe took it at a little bit more of a um maybe didn't grasp the seriousness of it necessarily, or you know, and then how uh if you really embrace it and how successful you can be. So it took me a little time to figure that out, and it's just at a different point in my life. So yeah, I would I would do that and eliminate some of the other distractions. Uh, not that you can't have a social life and hobbies and so forth, but maybe balance that out a little bit differently. Uh, that would have maybe cemented my um place in the business a little sooner than than what uh than what it turned out to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Great advice. Absolutely great advice. You know, there's a lot of change happening in the industry. Your business is evolving. What are you most excited about that's coming up for you and your business and the industry?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

And what is that gonna require of you when it comes to your leadership? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Well, um, you and I've talked many times about CRM and data and focusing more on data and managing the business more with data. I'm excited about that. I'm excited about as we bring on new employees, uh, which I have a new one now, and then I'm I'm looking to bring on another one uh in the Carolinas. I'm excited about onboarding them. I'm excited about uh new direction that we're taking with more commercial products and more controls, something much more specific. And then we're doing a whole heck of a lot more marketing than what we ever had. Um, I was using some of the framework that you and I had worked on a while ago, and it's slowly starting to work. We're doing some other things, going to more uh developing our relationships with contractors and even doing a little marketing to homeowners for one of our more consumer-focused products. So I'm really excited about that to see where all of that's gonna end up and land and you know, hopefully taking us into a whole different direction over the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So what does that require of you, right? You're running the business.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

It it's a mindset change, and it is also a um increasing my level of trust with my salespeople to continue to manage and foster the relationships with the distributors, but also asking them to do something different, which is work with contractors on a more regular basis. And everybody feels stretched and we're all pressed for time. But this is very important to the business. It is it is shifting. Um we love our distributors, we love our wholesalers. You all know who you are, but they're pulled in a lot of different directions these days. And so for some of our products, those guys just don't have the time. We have to foster those relationships with the contractors and do the pull-through sales and um and help out our distributors in different ways than what we ever have. So it's it's a it's a different way of operating the business from what we've ever done because it was always 100% reliant on our distributors. Yeah, we still rely on them, but we're just doing it in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah. So you've got to show up to make sure that your team understands why and how they're gonna do that and what the new expectations are, and that mindset is something you're adopting.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah. We're setting goals. Uh, one of our particular product lines is you and I've talked about this too, is is very contractor focused. You have to stay in front of the contractor to make it successful. So everybody has a goal of four to five contractor trainings per month on that product line. Right. And then we can measure the sales based on that. Usually it takes about 30 to 60 days to see the results. Uh, but we do review that on our bi-weekly calls as a group, and then I'll do that individually on the other weeks.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Got a question for him? All right, he's gonna he's gonna shoot me a question. Okay. You know, we we we let me let me see how I how I can frame this. Yeah. You know, a lot of a lot of people think that what got them here is gonna continue to work and get them to where they want to go. Okay. Do you think that a lot of rep agencies might be addicted to the same old playbook that got them here, even though they know that it won't get them there?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

I I do. Yeah. Uh I yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Why do you think that is? Why? Uh maybe it's I don't know, it could be resting on laurels, it could be apathy, it could be, hey, I'm just pulled in so many different directions, I'm gonna keep on rolling with the the program or the the business model that we had. Uh, I don't see it that way. I mean, it's the stuff if you're a a business owner that keeps you up at night that you say we've got to do things differently. I can see it in the sales figures sometimes. So yeah, that's the most evident thing, of course. But uh just having watched the this change in our industry, whether it's manufacturer consolidation, wholesaler consolidation, and so on, or private equity being involved with so many contracting firms, you know, we have to change the way that we go to market. And um I think any of the reps that they may see it, but they're not quite reacting to it, are gonna get caught. Yeah. Um and hope they're some of my competitors, but no, you know, uh, but but the manufacturers do see it too, and that's we're we're getting um that kind of feedback all the time, and we're working with our manufacturers on different plans than what we've ever had in that regard. So you can't keep doing it the same way.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

No, well, thanks for giving me that perspective. I appreciate it. No problem, Richard. Thank you very much for joining me today. Absolutely. You know, you've had an incredible leadership journey, and for those who I see coming up in the industry, they could benefit from your experience. So if they're looking to learn, grow, lead with purpose, listen to this uh interview and uh appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Happy to help anytime.