SPEAKERS

Dylan McCabe, Ryan Groth

Dylan McCabe  00:00

Roofing mastery podcast episode number 15 Welcome to the roofing mastery podcast. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode we give you a seat at the table. As we interview owners and CEOs of roofing companies and industry, thought leaders and experts so that you can get the strategies you need to take your own game to the next level. And in this episode, I interview Ryan Groff. He’s the founder of sales transformation group. You may have seen some of those ads on Facebook, his posts on LinkedIn, his videos on YouTube, he’s featured on many podcasts, he’s worked with over 150 companies. He’s helped some of the biggest companies in roofing and a lot of mid sized companies scale their sales processes in teams scale their commercial roofing programs. He’s also helped a lot of companies go from residential to start doing commercial. He’s got an amazing process, he’s going to share insights that he’s seen, he’s going to share weaknesses that he sees over and over and over again, the same weakness that he sees in a lot of companies with their sales teams. He’s going to talk about his process, he’s going to talk about the things you can do to take your company to the next level, I think you’re gonna get a ton out of it. Before we go there, let me make a shameless plug to our roofing CEO groups. Do you have a grip on your business? Do you have a 10 year plan in place? Do you have 90 day goals for the key staff in your organization? Do you have written processes that have been implemented, illustrated and followed by all? Do you have a grip on your business? One easy way to find out is to take our quiz, we’ve got a short five minute quiz. That’s 2020 questions long. I challenge all of you if you’re an owner or leader in a roofing company to go to our website, roofing mastery.com and go to CEO groups. Take that quiz. It’ll take five minutes, it could be the turning point in your company. I guarantee you will not regret regret the way you use that time. It’ll take you less time than it takes to waste. Scrolling through Facebook looking in other people’s stuff, I guarantee it. Alright guys, back to our interview with Ryan Groth. Let’s jump right into it. Alright, as I stated we have special guest on the show today, Ryan Groth with sales transformation group. Ryan, thanks for being on the show. Man.

Ryan Groth  02:14

Dylan glad to be here, brother.

Dylan McCabe  02:16

Yeah, I am, too. I’ve been checking out your website, I see a lot of your ads on Facebook. And the more I look at your site, I’m like, Man, this guy has worked with a lot of successful roofing companies. And I’m excited to have you on because you have a unique background. And you have a really interesting track record. So before we get into all of that, and what we’re going to get into in this show, just kind of share for our listeners, people that may not be familiar with you, what’s your background in the industry? And how did you come to start the StG? Yeah,

Ryan Groth  02:44

I got to be here, first and foremost and get connected and detail and love what you’re, what you’re doing who you are and excited for your future in the industry. So glad to be on to support you. And But yeah, I little bit of my background, my mom and my stepdad started a contracting business in South Florida. When I was 12, they had a new kid they got remarried at a guy get they got married, had a baby. And I’m the old son working with my with my dad and living with him in Florida. And I came down to South Florida I saw them building and doing you know, making money. And I’m like, this is cool. My dad was an engineer at like a tech company. Kind of a little bit of geeky socially awkward loving meet love baseball and football we just did that was he and I just sports and movies was our like relationship, my mom and said that are starting this new life. And I’m like, wow, this is kind of like the American dream. They got a boat, you know, we’re going fishing. We’re going on vacations. And like they took me to the BVI. And like this is awesome. And so my eyes started to open up to like just more wealth. I just, you know, my mom’s parents were missionaries, like I didn’t come back come from any real wealth. And so to see wealth begin was very cool for me. And you know, when you’re I was a baseball football guy, so I like meet all these players. And you see the ones that the rich kids, they got the new bat and they got the parents, like the travel teams, and I just was always felt like the poor kid, you know, if I’m being honest. And so when I saw them start that I was like, really inspired and then pleased. And I would start to get involved in this that started to open my eyes to the potential in the business. But I wanted to play baseball and I wanted to go as far as I could. So I ended up walking on the FAQ, working at restaurants like pay my own way and end up getting a scholarship to a junior college. And I’m getting a scholarship to Oral Roberts University of Tulsa division one program, and I’m getting drafted for the second time signing with the angels and all the while my mom and my stepdad is prosperous as I was hoping for them to be when the recession hit. I was a graduate I got drafted in 2008. Right so I’m playing pro ball in the middle of the recession and I’m thankfully, I was like, I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is I get to play pro baseball in the meanwhile, my mom and stepdad business fell apart. Their marriage fell apart. And I’m like, dude, like, this is a bummer. Like everything that I was hoping for as a fallback plan just fell apart. And now I’m like, What do I do? And so, clearly, I mean, I worked hard in baseball, and I overcame a lot of adversity. So I already had that character in me. So I was like, Well, what do I do now? So I started to build relationships in South Florida. After my baseball career ended, I played a few years of minor league ball got released. And now what am I doing? So I started working for some businesses, contractors, mom and pop shops feeling like I’m an educated, you know, high level performing person, I want to be successful. I already had this image in my mind that I wanted to be wealthy, in a good way. This isn’t working. What do I do? What do I do? So I started surrounding myself with mentors, mentor, guys, like why don’t you get into sales? And like, I never thought about sales. Like I thought sales was bad. Sales is not good. But I realized sales from his vantage point was, was this a different narrative. And I started to explore that when he saw that I was going for it. And I started my family at a young age, which is a big part of what I think success is, is a good healthy family. And, you know, I didn’t want to see what my parents did twice over, right? I wanted to change the narrative. And I’m like, okay, so I got married, had a kid when my wife and I’m like, mean, make some real money. And sales was the best way to start that and which is very common for everybody, and especially pro baseball players. Most of either coaching kids are selling insurance. So if you look at all your buddies, all my buddies, like most of them are like selling software, or insurance or something. So I started getting into sport or sales. And then shortly after, I met a commercial roofing contractor who had a sale software that he wrote for his own company, and he was a University of Miami football guy, you know, he could he and I really connected the guys who introduced us for like, like a Christian Leadership Program. He’s actually the guy, the guy who oversaw and connected us was Billy Graham’s grandson. So I’m like, in this network of, like, the dudes, you know, I’m talking like the high integrity business owners in South Florida, and I could feel my confidence going really high. And like now I’m all in from x pro baseball player coaches at baseball schools and getting our jobs to, alright, I’m starting to get surrounded with like, really high level mentors in the industry. And then in the in the marketplace down there. And that’s when I was like, I’m home, this is where I belong, this is where I’m going to be successful financially. You know, family wise, this isn’t like the crooked time. This is like the holistic environment. And when I connected with this contractor, he didn’t treat me because of the way I came in as like anybody like he like really took me in like a son, and taught me everything about his business for like, almost five years. And really, let me take this, the CRM company from a bootstrapped is still bootstrap, but to just like, Hey, this is just a side project to Hey, run with this, take this as far as you can grow it with the revenue you generate. And you know, maybe you’ll get a piece of it, whatever, and none never actually happened. But what what happened, what was super valuable was that I got to management and the importance of analytics, just like baseball stats, just like performance. And so I realized that the industry needed a lot of help with becoming high performing sales organizations like I witnessed with him. I mean, he had a really great culture, a really great team still does, was doing about 24 25 million at the time, which for many contractors, that’s incredible. It’s hard to get there. But he sets them you know, when I met him from 24 25 million was already gone to 5560. Now, over five years, it was really cool. And the reason why motivated him to start being a sales organization was because the recession hit that took out my mom and dad’s company. He almost went out of business because he was too heavily reliant on new construction. And he just really wasn’t able to sell he was just an order taker. So when I saw him, make a mistake, and avoid the mistake that my parents struggle with, I was like, my brain exploded. And I said, How many more people could be walking off a cliff themselves or could be are struggling themselves. And if only they knew how to build a high performing team that I am witnessing and a part of right now, with the passion of being an athlete and my own family background, like, instead of me being a contractor, and doing it What on earth has helped the industry do it? So I started to just piece it all together. And I created some training. I did that for a few years as a president of the CRM company got a lot of good people that loved me and clients that I trained, but eventually being a coach and a CRM CEO under the same roof, it was just hard to really understand where we’re going and what happened was Ryan Groth, the sales coach, he like emerged, and there wasn’t really space for me anymore with our measly reoccurring revenue every month. Like I’m like, dude, I want to do something big and he’s got a huge roofing company to worry about And so I got such a great opportunity to really cut my teeth learn grow like an incubator, I get like a baby in an incubator just to grow in a great environment. So that by the time I started StG, all I did was focus 100% on a problem that I already knew how to solve. I just created a much better vehicle to get people to results versus like traveling across the country go into their office doing one on one coaching. And so now I’ve created like a crazy, tight, polished vehicle that’s affordable, to get somebody the type of results that if they do the work that my mentor saw, which is predictable, profitable growth, and a resilient business model and and resilient sales team. So I just have a lot of fun doing what I’m doing. And there’s a lot of passion that comes from it, because I just know how valuable the solution is. And if people only just believe in themselves, knew their value, had a big dream and had the right tools to go for it in this industry is amazing. So that’s really what I’m all about. And what we’re doing, I focus mainly 100% on sales, development and growth in this contracting space and various trades. And so yeah, 170 clients and growing later, we’re really starting to scale now. Because I got my sales team assembled. Now I got my lead gen my ads going. I’m excited. And so since then, we’ve been able to look at our lifestyle and kind of see what we want to do. So we live in Maui. Now, I have four children. And we’re living a pretty abundant life, and not because of the money, but because of just the quality of our relationships and our ability to help people.

Dylan McCabe  11:31

And that’s awesome. Yeah, it, it sounds like what happened with you, you know, you mentioned the incubator. It sounds like what happened with you as, as you were in that process, you really got the the training and the experience you need, because I don’t care how many books you read on sales or leadership. There’s just nothing like on the job training, you know, I mean, you could read 1000 page book on scuba diving, but man until you put that apparatus in your mouth, and you’re 30 feet below the surface of the ocean, you don’t know anything about scuba diving. So you got this situation where you actually got to flex those muscles and grow and figure out what your lane was and just run in it at full speed. And then you created sales transformation group out of that. I just think that’s an awesome story. But let’s let’s touch let’s touch briefly on what you were kind of going through psychologically, as things weren’t panning out the way you thought they would, you know, because a lot of people are in that phase, and they want it. They’re thinking to themselves, okay, here’s another success story. Here’s Ryan Groff. And now he’s rocking and rolling. But kind of explain your journey and how you kind of overcame the mental barrier of man, this isn’t gonna work. I don’t have what it takes.

Ryan Groth  12:42

Wow, well, this is an entire podcast just on answering this question. We’ll try not to make it the entire podcast. Let me do let me tell you, like, talk about warfare. I mean, first off my first mentor who asked me, Why don’t you get into sales? Once you you know, he was a CEO and a startup guy. So when he knew that I was going to go work for a roofer startup, a tech company, what do you think he was doing in my corner of telling me, it was like, bro, you’re gonna start this thing, you need to have a piece of this thing. Because if they sell it, and you’re the one that did all the work, and you had all the ideas, and you got all the clients and you don’t get a piece, then that’s really on you, because you didn’t do it. But that gave me the confidence to believe that I’m worth that, right. It’s like, then it’s like, Hey, now I’m not just happy to have a cool job. But I could potentially make a couple of million bucks if we sell this thing. So now my brain is much as my founder of the roofing company loved it, he hated it, because I was like, you know, just pounding him like, gently and strategically, but wanting to own and so to think like an owner, but not really be one was like the best training. And sure, I could have got bitter about why or this or that, but man, I’m so glad I don’t own a piece of that company. And I own 100% of my own company, because now I can run with it. But I got to think like an owner in that chapter. So like, I remember there, there was a scripture that I read somewhere and I Gosh, I gotta find it. But it was like a song that was like, I know there’s an inheritance in a land for me. And so for me, like, like, not knowing where my land was right where my ownership was, where I was going to put my family in and grow and prosper. My family like to not know where that was, but to yet be charging full steam ahead, acquiring the knowledge and the skills and experience to hopefully get it with what I thought that it was going to be that in that moment was really a challenge to process because the carrot continued to dangle right there was never it never fit. There was a loophole and all that to say I’m not mad I’m actually grateful because that process got me to believe in myself who think like an owner got me to say if this is my company, how would I treat it so by the time I had my own company, I already made so many mistakes. I already had built so many relationships, I already had gained so much confidence that I went from making you know, 115 k a year to 20 k a month and like a short order as a coach. Now, I’m not trying to say this that everybody roofer wants to go be a coach. Now, don’t do that, because you can make a lot of money being a contractor, or any type of trade. But for me, that was very challenging. And so I would say that the belief that got me through it was first off, knowing that I have, there’s something for me that I don’t necessarily know is mine yet. But it’ll manifest as I believe I’m ready for it. And so I think that there’s a, there’s a quote from Charlie Munger, with Warren Buffett’s business partner, he says, to get what you want, you have to deserve what you want, this world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people. And so I, I looked at that and said, Well, whatever I have now is what I’m ready for, because I’m prepared for it. So I feel like, as soon as I put my coaching hat down to build a software piece for a year, whenever I started a CG, I wasn’t competing with myself, because that wasn’t a part of our business model. All of that worked out in my favor, because I was doing what was best in that moment to be faithful with what was before me, which was to work with the owner and build a great company, keep the relationship strong. So I think a couple things is knowing your value, but also honoring relationships, I think culture of honor is huge. I think somebody right now is working for an owner knows their value. But they could be very much aggressive, very much hurt, and very much like point a finger and say, You know what, or flip a finger and say, You know what, go start their own thing. And now they start their whole thing without any blessing or honor from, from the guy who taught him or gave him the game, that moment to be in the game. So I would say that, for me, this goes into a whole different type of subject. But for me, psychologically, what was going on was, something’s going to work out for me. As long as I listen, learn trust, and then honor the people who are supporting whatever is gonna happen, though, so they’ll see it to make work. And I think that that’s, that’s the biggest thing. And with Greg is his name, we were able to walk away from each other, not permanently. But in that same in that degree, which is very closely working together with a lot of honor toward each other, as much as I think both of us are very frustrated at times. I’m so grateful. Now, I’m just like, I was just another mentor. And other mentee that he had in his in his, in his Rolodex of people he was able to see grow. And I was just one of another one that there’s multiple, because that’s the kind of leader he is. And so I’m super grateful for that. And that’s a long answer.

Dylan McCabe  17:46

It’s so good, though. I mean, it all comes back to leadership and self leadership. And I know in the training I received in my leadership program in my undergrad was the four major components to leadership or character vision, skills, and relationships. But it really doesn’t matter how strong your vision is, or how sharp your skills are, if you don’t have the combination of character and relationships. You sabotage your own growth, you sabotage your success. And what I hear from your story is, yeah, the skills were being developed. But what you maintain were strong relationships, and a pursuit have a strong character. And I just think that’s an encouragement to all of us who are in leadership positions. So that’s good stuff. Well, let’s, let’s change gears and talk about your sales training. This is all you do all day long. With companies, you mentioned over 170. I know people can go to your website, which I’ll put a link to at the end of this. And people can see the kind of customers you work with, you work with some very big names in roofing across the US. So there’s just a really strong social proof there. But what’s the biggest challenge you see with sales teams out of all these clients you work with? What’s one thing that just stands out again, and again, and again, that prevents sales teams for being successful?

Ryan Groth  18:56

A couple of things, a couple of factors. I think the first one is leadership, you know, so the leadership is, is poor. When I say poor, there’s not a lot of vision, there’s not a lot of generosity to see people grow and realize that’s an investment and the more I grow in my people, the more you’re going to win. So I think the biggest variable that, you know, clogs it up is leadership of an owner is living a good life pays a decent living loves what he does, but doesn’t have any vision beyond what he’s doing. And everyone’s going to be stuck underneath that person. And so that talent, if they invest in them is going to get bored, they’re gonna want more, you know, especially if they’re younger ish. They want to be able to provide for their family and they want to get out of the field and start closing deals and things like that. So I think the biggest thing is just how much the owner believes in. I remember I was talking to a prospect and I was like, what’s your desired situation? Where are you going? I was like, Bro, I want to get a B and I’m like, What do you mean be like 100 billion. I’m like, Bro, I love it. Like as much as I know that’s outrageous. Way too many, because it’s actually not actually happening and moving currently, it’s close to it. I mean, I think if you looked at the most recent top 100, it’s getting there. But the first goal is 100 million, which is even still breaking the top 10. And they were not even close to that, but the leadership, I believe them, I’m like, I’m going to help you. Let’s go, let’s party. So for me, that’s the hugest thing, because when there’s vision, and the infrastructure of the vision is, it’s like, you know, the, the incubator, we use that, like, I think they wanna write like Guana or the lizards longing to grow to the size of the cage, right? So I think as long as the vision is clear, it’s on to growth. And it’s sophisticated enough, you know, that understands that it’s not just go sell more, but how do I replace myself? How do I become a coach? How do I start leading others, that’s everything sales leader is everything. And I think I saw a quote recently, and I’m gonna butcher butcher it, but it was like, you can have a pack of wolves. But if you have a, if you, if you have like a dog, as a leader, they’re all gonna act like a dog versus a wolf or something like, versus if you have a wolf, as a leader, and a bunch of dogs are all gonna act like a wolf, they’re all going to act and behave like a wolf. And so I think that’s pretty powerful when you look at the impact of leadership. So for me, leadership would be everything, you know, the vision and the accountability standards, esops, and ramping playbooks and recruiting, I can promise you right now, if you have a really high performing talent, like I’m talking to God, or start at, like, legit, they’re not going to follow somebody that they don’t think is worthy of following, right. So I think that the biggest variable in all of this is an owner and their either charisma, vision detail, whoever they are at their best, they just start looking at themselves as not just I’m here to make a good living, but I’m here to create something, what is that thing are we giving to it’s not just about my family, but what is it about. So start dreaming bigger, if I can get a leader to think like that, and think of how they can find their why with a lot of purpose, then they can say no to other things, then they can start to invest and they can start to get people on board. So sales, leadership’s the very first variable that I want to, you know, make sure that they’re focused on then everything else is easier to tighten up from there.

Dylan McCabe  22:28

You know, it’s that’s twice now during this conversation that you’ve talked about sales, leadership and a sales organization. And that’s something that Chet Holmes in his book, The ultimate sales machine talks a lot about, a sales driven organization of my previous company was in healthcare software. And the CEO and the CEO were like, I mean, they lived and breathed sales, it didn’t matter what else was going on, everything was done with excellence. But it all came back to sales. They would, they’d hire a new web developer, and they’d be like, and this is going to help you sell better. I mean, it was just all sales process process. So when I hear you say that, I think of it you having a conversation with the owner or CEO of a company, maybe they’re doing whatever revenue there for whatever reason, they’re comfortable? What does it take to get them? I mean, do you even try to get them to think differently? Because I think of the whole Who Moved My Cheese scenario? Like, it’s pretty clear, you need to start thinking differently if you want to take this to new levels? Or do you not really have to do that so much, because if they’re talking to you, they’re probably already thinking they want change

Ryan Groth  23:27

already? Are they already are growth minded companies work with me, like I don’t really work with very many, like anybody that doesn’t already have like a strong desire, right? But when they see my case studies, they go, Well, they get this breath of like, sweet, I want to do that. I want to be like that. So it gives them the confidence to get there, at least on a revenue level. Right. And, and maybe beyond some of the other elements of their outputs of their business, whether it’s numbers, trucks, or getting back to the community, whatever tickles their fancy, so to speak. But yeah, I mean, I like to ask them their desired situation on a business level. But then I say, well, how’s that affect you? Like, personally? Like, what’s that change for you? Like, give me give me like, what’s that world look like? And most of them are like, well, I’ll spend less time doing stuff. I can really build a culture, I could spend more time building relationships, I can certainly be with my family more, which I’d like to do, but I feel so hooked up. And you know, my kids are eight, nine now I got like 10 more years and like, I need to be present things like that.

Dylan McCabe  24:33

Yeah, that’s some good positive pressure to make you do what you got to do to get there. Yeah, well, and I looked at your and you know, looking at your training and your videos and case studies and all this stuff. I know there’s been situations where you’ve come across guys that are doing the residential thing. They’re doing it well, but they really want to get over into commercial and kind of share what’s your What’s your biggest piece of advice for somebody who’s thinking like that? What’s one of the first things they need to do to start heading in that direction?

Ryan Groth  25:01

Yeah, good question. First off, the reason why you would want to do that is a couple of big reasons. One is the deal sizes increase, like, if you want to go from 20 to 100 million in just residential, that’s a lot of 15 $20,000 roofs. Like that’s a lot. But if you get into commercial, you can start landing a million dollar roofs that helps you get there a little bit more quickly. And the gross profit margins can still remain the same. But I’d say the biggest piece of advice that I would say is a warning sign is don’t jump into new construction as the way you get into commercial. The reason why is that those those contractors, GCS are literally like, they’re like professional buyers, like they literally are trying to screw you out of as much money as they can and get the most from you as you can. And so many, many contracts are many a roofer or many anybody going into commercial who’s not the GC and as a sub, they find themselves getting disillusioned with the dollar signs of what they will get. And they end up being grossly you know, regretful of the choice. So what I do is I say, just go right into service repair, and just try to build a service repair business first Why? Well, the cash flows faster, the sales cycles are shorter, the, the market conditions are always there. So whether it’s COVID, no COVID economy’s good, or no economy’s bad economy, like people are some would rather Repair and Replace anyway. So that’s going to be important, the margins are better, like you could, you could yield 70% margins with this type of work. And it’s reoccurring when you get larger accounts. So if you don’t have a great customer experience on service, you’re not going to build a good commercial business. It’s also a really cool way to justify paying more base salaries, because you have recurring business and fast cash flow versus a seasonality. Like I have a company who was nine years a storm contractor in Denver, I mean, residential roofing contractor, you know, OSI platinum, like good company doing well, they had, but they’re up and down their years are never the same, because the storms are unpredictable. They wanted Predictable Revenue. And I was like, well, you gotta get into commercial and you got to start with service and think about accounts versus jobs and a whole nine. So they bought my program, but fully in 18 months later, that three and a half million in commercial sales, but it’s like service and reverse sales, not just get on a bid list and bid a bunch of new construction work, you can get to three and a half million really quickly. But you won’t make any money, you might lose your business, because you mess up and make a mistake and your cash poor and you don’t have the working capital to build a bit. I mean, they hold 10% retainage until everything’s done, and then they pay you like it’s not good, like so. But you have to be able to sell and build relationships on the commercial side. That’s why the skill set and the system I teach you is really, really important. So with that said, he testified to me that dude, he’s like, bro, this last January, we did 250,000 and billing, like we’d never build in January, we’re either having a flow people or lose our sales, guys. Because the seasons not there. You know, I mean, so like, they, like our office is empty, we’re carrying overhead, like all that stuff. He’s like, we build 250 Ks, like, this is a game changer. We’ve never done that before. So that was really cool to see just that small degree of a success story, just one residential guy go into commercial. But this guy is building relationships, he’s leading with service, he’s doing that first, and then advising them on the replacement. And then typically, that non professional buyer, right, that manager, that owner who just wants a job well done and wants to know you’re going to show up and communicate and do what you say and, and do it right the first time. And that changed your view to death and their tenants won’t leave them like that’s what matters, right? So that would be my biggest piece of advice. And I know it sounds sounds rather simple, and you can go run with this. But we definitely have a system to accelerate that and get everybody bought into that mentality. Because even compensation wise, if you’re going to go after this aggressively, which is what I would encourage you to do. You know, if you pay somebody a commission, the same on a repairs or replacement, they’re not going to sell you repairs, right, they’re just going to try to go for the homerun because they want to make money. And then therefore, you’re cutting yourself short, you’re shooting yourself in the foot for a lot of the long term reward of having a lot of accounts. Because the service is short, there’s a low barrier to entry into the account. And then you expand the account versus I just want to get a job, which is Hey, let me bid this job and get one out of 10. Now, we build a lot of accounts, we start closing it like 70%, which is my client to do my system, close service, account sales, and then replacement 60% of time they’re gonna go with the one who service them. So it’s a little bit more of a patience game, but I try to make those as as possible with the right elements.

Dylan McCabe  29:52

Well, that’s good. I mean, you said it sounds it sounds simple, and you can do it. But I think it’s simple to you because you become an expert at this point on how to implement that process. But for somebody people listening, I think they may be thinking, Well, yeah, that I want to know step by step how to do that. And it’s great that you and we’ll give a plug to your website, your program at the end of this people can get help, you can help people start this process. And I love that idea. Because when I came into this industry from the outside, the biggest weakness I saw in the business model, overall, was the variation in revenue. It’s like, we’re in Dallas, Texas, we have hail storms, we have a huge year, we don’t have any hail storms, we have a very scarce year in revenue. And I hate that idea. You know, I like the idea of having multiple income streams that bring a balance in a more leveled out flow to the cash flow. So well, having said that, let’s talk about a story where you’ve come in, and I want to do like almost a dramatic case study where you’ve come in, and you’ve helped somebody. And maybe they were stagnant. Maybe they were about to file bankruptcy. I don’t know. But just a really good story, where you’ve come in to help somebody let’s talk about where they were, when you started, and where they ended and why it was such a good deal.

Ryan Groth  31:01

Yeah, I mean, I’ve worked, I worked a lot of large brands. And I don’t want to sit here and talk about how big and awesome all my clients are and how great they are. I’m going to talk about one that anybody who most of you listening to probably relate to, I got this 24 year old kid had a food man to Western New York, because he wanted to look older. And this guy is like, responsible LinkedIn message. I was prospecting to him. And he’s like, I don’t usually respond to these, but I just felt like connecting with you. So you get on a call. And he’s like, bro, I’ve spent like 30 grand on leads. And I’m not like he’s doing Residential Roofing. He’s like, I’m not selling anything. Like, I think I’m the problem I can’t sell. I’m like, well, you’re probably right. But it’s also the way in which you’re getting business. It’s not really relational. You’re not really branding and prospecting sounds like you’re just trying to pay for shared leads. And you know, typically, by the time you get them, they’re already like looking at multiple bids, and you’re just in a more competitive environments already. It’s like trying to exercise with a lot of g force gravity working against you versus just being effective. It’s like, I think you have that. Plus, you don’t really know how to do it. So you’re just you’re just burning cash. He’s like, yeah, and it sucks, man. And and I don’t want to do this anymore. I work hard. I don’t mean, I don’t have a family yet. I want to build for this. But I’m like a non nugget position. I’m married to what I’m doing. I was like, Okay, well, and I proposed my offer, and it was the most money he’s ever invested in himself. It’s just one thing for him to buy a truck. It’s another thing to buy a piece of equipment. It’s another thing to hire labor. It’s another thing to invest in knowledge in yourself. Like that was new for him. Like he’s like, bro. I’m like a farmer turn roofer like this is like, so for him to invest in the sales training mindset, training process sales process. And for him to learn it himself was a was a big deal. It wasn’t like he was an owner with sales guys, like, hey, I need to get make them better. Let’s do it. I know the ROI is gonna be there. Like, this is a kid like, trying to like make it and dude, so this goes from buying leads, and not closing residential leads to selling repairs and building accounts in western upstate New York. The kid goes from like 600 k when I met him to like 4 million in 18 months. And he’s like, just printing money right now. And now he’s like, I gotta get work. I gotta get the work done. Man, these guys don’t like to work I need to get farmers they like to work and now he’s like trying to build a team. And it’s awesome to see him have the the margin and the money to start to say I don’t have to be on every job anymore. And so but the thing that opens up that that window of time and gives you the margin to even go there in your brain, and then your behavior is the backlog being filled with profitable work that fills up the bank account. And that all happens from sales. So if you don’t have that down with the right strategy and the right approach, and you’re you’re spending a ton of money like Dude, he did all that without having to spend money on leads is a thought on how to prospect and how does the right messaging and how to build relationships. And so I’m just so proud of Bow Bow and no bows now look at his LinkedIn profile. He’s all cleaned up he’s got like a he’s got like a button down shirt next to like a big building and he looks super clean. I’m like this guy’s up and his game. So he went from Fu Manchu and a hat to to, you know, sophisticated, you know, more business guy like that happens to run a roofing company. And that’s just in a short time. So those are the kind of stories that I’m hoping to see more and more of, clearly I’m working with existing companies that have already are sophisticated and they just want to tighten things up and they want to do less new construction. They want their sales guys to have more confidence and ask better questions. Seems like all that stuff’s there. But that was a cool story that that makes me happy. Thinking about.

Dylan McCabe  35:06

That’s awesome. I mean, the big thing that stands out to me is that success is not accidental. I mean, you he, you worked with him, you guys implemented a strategy and a plan with a process with steps that could be followed. And this is not a guy with coming straight out of school and MBA degree and is passionate about sales. This guy’s if anybody were to look at this guy, by the way, you described it as, they’re not going to say this is going to be one of the most successful contractors in the area, you know, but you guys, you guys turn it around. So that’s an awesome story. Well, let me ask you this and put a little pressure on you. If you were to explain your strategy in 90 seconds, what would it be?

Ryan Groth  35:44

I evaluate your current sales team, whether it’s one man show or 100 people and I set put them against what the top sales producers on the planet look like, show them every single sales weakness they have. And they give that to them, I give them access to the course to build a structure onto a predictable sales model, they do a team building kickoff, with mindset training in the sales process and worksheets, and they work together to Team build around this new way in which is going to be a transformed company. And then they do more sales trainings for seven more weeks as a team, and then they jump on our coaching calls to get the repetitions for me to coach them. Much like a professional hitting coach to teach anybody how to hit and break down the mechanics, we do that in groups. So with that, we give the compensation structures, the worksheets, the mindset training, the evaluation, feedback, the course access, the coaching to accelerate them. And then once they transform their existing team, we wanted to leverage technology to optimize our current team that’s in a team. And that’s kind of, you know, been shed a little bit. And then we leverage technology, which is like quiz forms, automations, email campaigns, and everything to drum up more business and everyone’s taking massive action. Now the uptake has already occurred, like on multiple levels. And then lastly, we help them with a recruiting strategy to leverage recruiting video sales letter funnel, candidate assessment and group interviews to onboard and ramp up with a ramping playbook architecture, bringing on a players who are going to change the environment from bunch of guys who are now getting better to higher level talent, how are we going to challenge them, and now everybody’s just starting to function at a much higher level. Senator mainly around commercial and retail sales,

Dylan McCabe  37:24

man, so what I did not hear you just say is I go and get everybody pumped up. And by the by the end of the weekend, when I leave, everybody’s fired up, and they just go sell better. What I heard was a very detailed, strategic process. that’s ongoing. it you know, I think that’s where a lot of coaching and sales training no matter what kind it is, for what organization falls flat, is it’s very brief. And it’s not deep enough. But it sounds like you’re going and actually implementing a sales process at a company that they can adopt and make their own over time.

Ryan Groth  37:57

Yeah, that’s that’s one one way to put it. Yeah. It’s pretty neat. It’s very thorough.

Dylan McCabe  38:02

Yeah, that’s awesome. And so before we, you know, before we part ways, I guess there’s a lot you could say about sales and knowing what we’ve discussed in this short meeting, and what we haven’t what would be just a final parting piece of advice you have for, for people listening this and they’re struggling, they want to do better at sales, and maybe they want to go from 5 million to 10 million, but they just they feel like they’ve maybe hit the lid, you know, they’ve reached the ceiling.

Ryan Groth  38:28

Yeah, I would say, I would say that, you know, training and coaching your team and having a good environment of learning versus just performing is very key. So create a learning environment versus just a performance environment, you know, create an environment where you literally sharpen your saw one belief, man, one click I like to have in my profile, my signature says the next level is one belief away. And what does that mean? It’s like, Well, once I believe that $1,000 isn’t a lot of money anymore. And I think it’s not a lot of money than therefore selling for more margin, just right there with my confidence and belief that we’re worth that value makes it easy for the prospect to believe that it’s worth that to then you’re making more margin just on one belief, right. So like, I would say, keep a learning environment, whether you buy my program and train with me or get some other trainer make space to just keep learning and investing with knowledge. And who cares if your sales guys get so good, but they start their own company, at least you didn’t keep them on and they were below average, and they stayed Okay. I’ll just just keep learning.

Dylan McCabe  39:37

Leaders are learners. That’s Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so for people who do want to get in touch with you and learn more about your program, how do they get started?

Ryan Groth  39:45

They can go to sales, transformation group, comm muscle, LinkedIn, I’m also on Facebook, but I send everybody to my website and they go to the call to action, which is get a price. They can go to my landing page, so I do a little welcome video. I’m like showing you my best patio and like a sparkling water. I’m like, hey, fill out a questionnaire. So what you do is you fill out a questionnaire, it’s a question, it’s about 22 questions long. It’s not like a lot of typing. But it is takes a moment to fill it out. I do that because I don’t want to just spend a bunch of time with people who aren’t that serious. If you’re serious enough about growing, you’ll spend five minutes on a questionnaire, I have some great videos, you can watch case studies, a full one hour presentation and nine minute demo video, just walking through our program. But then from there, you’ll just schedule a one hour call with myself or a team member, my sales team is getting really strong. So I don’t jump on as many calls because they’re good. Like, I don’t need to be on those calls. And they’re good representation. But I if you really want me on, they’ll drag me on and but you better buy okay on the spot. Just kidding. Now, but no. So what we’ll do is we’ll spend an hour, we’ll just ask you a lot of great questions based on what you filled out in the questionnaire, we really want to find out where you are, where you want to be, where your gaps are, what you think’s holding you back, all that good stuff. And then we’ll share with you what our offer looks like our price, how it works, the timelines and everything like that. And then from there, you can be a part of what we’re doing is pretty short and punchy to be to get involved with us. There’s an investment. And we could talk about that, depending on how big your company is, things like that. And then, yeah, and getting involved is, is easy, you just got to do the work and put put, make the time. So I know we’re heading right now the recording of this heading into the fall shortly. And in a winter. For many people, this is a time where they like to train. So you know, because once the summer hits, they’re wide open and things like that. So, but not you know, everybody, everybody’s different. And I don’t know when you’re listening to this, but we’d love to be a part of your training process.

Dylan McCabe  41:41

Awesome. Well, I know just from the time I’ve gotten to know you, you’re very high integrity guy, I know that you’re the real deal. And you don’t have to worry about working with somebody kind of who’s different behind the scenes. And I’ll love your background story as well. So Ryan, we’re definitely going to put the link to your website on the show notes of the podcasts or for people listening to you. If you want to look at the notes, just go to roofing mastery.com, check out this episode, and you’ll see the link to his website there. And you can take the quiz which I checked out the quiz as well. very insightful questions. So anyway, Ryan, we will like you said, we’re gonna have to have you back on and maybe just spend a whole hour talking about the mindset you need to have. But this has been a great primer for that. So thank you for being on the show.

Ryan Groth  42:22

Yeah, love to And guys, if not working with jellen give them a look to I know he’s doing peer groups and co peer groups are powerful, even if it’s just for a year. Being around a certain level guys, I know my mentor, Greg, who I mentioned in my story book before, he’s in a peer group that he’s been with for 30 years. And it’s really cool to see the relationships he’s built. It’s kind of like a group therapy session at times for him. But you know, when you’re at the top, you don’t have that much. You know, you don’t have group therapy with your wife. She doesn’t want to hear everything all the time, which she did, she gets anyway. And then your employees can’t be thinking about her, you know how you think sometimes because it affects them, you know, pretty largely, and they don’t always have the ability to control it. So peer groups are really good. I’m glad you’re doing them. And they’re very valuable. So I would encourage you guys to jump on for sure.

Dylan McCabe  43:10

Awesome. Thanks, man. You got it. All right, awesome interview with Ryan Groff. He’s just a good guy. He’s a high integrity guy and he’s got an amazing track record. So for those of you listening this you can learn more about him just go to sales transformation group.com that sales transformation group COMM And you can take his quiz that he has on his website, and you can schedule a discovery call with his sales team as well and I think you will be very glad that you did. Guys if this been helpful to you please take a minute to rate and review on iTunes and share this with people in the industry. You can just go to rate this podcast.com slash roofing mastery or you can go to our website roofing mastery calm but if you want to just go straight there, just press pause on whatever you’re doing on your phone and go to rate this podcast.com slash roofing mastery I would greatly appreciate it’s a great way to say thank you, and it helps us get the word out. Alright guys, this is Dylan McCabe with a roofing mastery podcast and I will catch you in the next episode.