Ep 017 – Landscape Sales Simplified with Mike Weinberg & David Amigo

Mike & Dave John: [00:00:00] The Roots of Success podcast is for the landscape professional who's looking to up their game. We're not talking lawns or grass here. We're talking about people, process, and profits. The things deep within the business that need focus to scale a successful company from hiring the right people and managing your team to improving your operations and mastering your finances. We've got a brain trust of experts to help you nurture the roots of a successful business and grow to the next level. This is The Roots of Success. Tommy Cole: Welcome back to the Roots of Success podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Cole with McFarlin Stanford. And today we have two special guests on our episode. One is Mike Weinberg, a sales consultant, author, and speaker helping individuals and organizations help achieve their sales goals and processes. Also on the podcast, we have David Amigo with G& G Landscape Solutions out of Charlotte, North Carolina. David won the ACE [00:01:00] Innovation Award of 2023, which was fascinating. So, so he's probably on cloud nine right now and excited to be here. we're ready to get going. It's going to be a great conversation. So let's jump right into it. Mike and Dave, please give me,the highlighted, entry into how you guys know each other. I know, I know David very well, and, he is a great business owner, great guy, but man, he's got, he's got a kind of a semi famous friend, I guess. Mike Weinberg: He has questionable judgment and friends. I say probably more accurately, Amigo, you want to tell him how we met? I mean, this is, this goes back to a long, long time ago in Albany, New York. David Amigo: story. I was a freshman in college. Mike was a junior and I, I stumbled across a, co ed business fraternity. I'm not really much of a frat kind of guy, but I, this intrigued me. and it turns out Mike was in charge of, recruiting. He, he was the senior vice president. [00:02:00] And, most folks at the time, right, it was sophomore year minimum that when they usually, decided to, pledge the fraternity, there were, there were some academic requirements and, I put my hat in the ring and. Mike came to me, he said, listen, you're going to keep your grades up because I can't, I can't move forward if, if you don't make me this promise. Right. Do you remember that? Mike Weinberg: Yeah. So funny. David Amigo: And I was like, yeah, I got this. It's okay. So that's how we met. It was, it was in our fraternity. and honestly, ever since then, he's, he's just been an awesome friend and, incredible mentor to me. And, and PS, he recruited me again, right out of college to, to go work for slim fast foods. Mike Weinberg: we've worked together too many times. So I don't even know where to go. I love this guy. We became fast friends and I've learned way more from him than he learned from me. And, when I broke out on my own to go out into consulting 13 years ago, when I quit my job. He was the first guy that said, yeah, I'll be a little client for you to help you get going. So, a lot of [00:03:00] affection and mutual respect here. And it's been fun watching David be the entrepreneur doing what he's doing with companies, and I've been kind of running my own little solo thing here for the last decade. And it's been just kind of a joy to keep track of each other. David Amigo: Tommy, can I tell you a quick story about how I'm in Aces? Cause Mike might not know this, but it's, it's all because of him.So 2020, the GROW Conference was here in Charlotte and I had made a commitment that I wanted to get more involved in the industry And back then you guys really didn't advertise the Aces very well. It was, it was like a secret. And so the first day that my other gentleman went and that evening I talked to him and I said, how was the conference? He's like, Oh, it was awesome. 700 people there. The gentleman that runs the conference, Marty Grunder is a huge fan Of your friend, Mike Weinberg, he was, you know, sharing some of his philosophy and stuff. And I said, Oh, awesome. I'm going to have to introduce myself to Marty. [00:04:00] the next day I show up at breakfast. I don't know what Marty looks like. There's not a lot of, you know, signs. There's nothing about the ACE group. And I find Marty and I said, Hey, Marty, this is David Amigo. I just wanted to come meet you. I understand that you're a big fan of, of one of my best friends. And he said, who's that? I said, Mike Weinberg, and I swear to you, you would have thought I said either Elvis, Michael Jordan, or Santa Claus. He looked at me, his eyes got so wide, and he's like, how do you know Mike? And I was like, he was, you know, my best friend in college. Mike Weinberg: He used to make David Amigo: I have to talk to Mike Weinberg: team. Yeah, too funny. David Amigo: You, you need to come here tonight at eight o'clock in such and such room. And that was the cocktail hour for the aces. And had I not done that and had Mike not been such a superstar, I probably wouldn't be in this period. Tommy Cole: Wow. I mean, what an introduction to Marty Grunder. [00:05:00] so let's just jump right in. we gotta get into this book. multiple books. it's sales, simplified. Like my very, my most favorite word is like simplicity. I think we, we often just overthink, overcomplicate as small business owners. But Mike, why write these books about sales? what was your goal? Like, how did you get involved in this? Making Sales Simple Mike Weinberg: Yeah, it was not like my life plan. I got frustrated leading some Marker Mike Weinberg: sales teams, about 13 years ago. And I went back out on my own kind of round two and consulting. And I was, I was blogging and putting out some content and picking up some really nice clients. And a couple of publishers found me and they said, Hey, you can write and you've got a voice. Why don't you do a book proposal? That led to New Sale Simplified, which is my first book. And I can't even talk about that book without sounding like I'm bragging. It just, it's been a bestseller for 11 years. And the reason is because The world is hungry for simple truth that works. Everybody wants to complicate everything. And I get particularly to the small business owner, running your business is complicated. You've got people and [00:06:00] you've got compliance and you've got HR and you've got tax and you've got inventory. And it's a mess. So, you know, the tendency is to kind of make sales seem more complicated. And then you got the jokers in my industry that are always trying to sell you the secret sauce or tell you, you need their cool tool or trick or toy to drive sales. I'm like, ah, the same thing that worked 30 years ago, pretty much still works today, you know, the best practices, the fundamentals of the fundamentals, people need to, Know who they're targeting for business. They need compelling messaging. They have to be able to get a meeting, conduct a consultative meeting and salespeople better own their pipeline and their calendar. And I say those five things like multiple times a day to whoever's listening. So I am all about simplicity and I find that you can solve most sales issues with,simple frameworks and getting people to do the basics. And then on the sales management side, there's only a handful of things that really matter there, right? Culture and getting the right people in the right role. That's a whole conversation we can have because. Every sales role is not the same and we need to hold them accountable and we need to coach them. And we need to pay [00:07:00] them in a way that drives the behavior results. And it's kind of helpful if we can articulate our strategy and, and point the salespeople the right direction. And if you just marry up the things that. I just mentioned, and we'll probably spend most of our time unpacking them salespeople that are targeted in the right way with the right story, getting meetings, conducting good meetings and owning their calendar and their pipeline and sales leaders. They get the right people in the role and pay them smart and hold them accountable and coach them really good things happen. And that's kind of the world I've been operating in, and that's what the books are about. Tommy Cole: Our ACE peer groups have read one of your books, the sales management simplified, and I know for a fact it had rave reviews, about, getting exceptional results from your team. How Sales Have Changed Recently Tommy Cole: You know, let me, let me kind of take a step back. what I coach to a lot in the last few years, a lot has changed in sales. COVID sort of changed everything in our industry from the fact that we'm not sure we're going to work [00:08:00] to all of a sudden sales just multiplied, overnight. I mean, people stayed home and they're looking out their front yards. Right. And they're going, Oh my God, I got to go do something. cause I'm working from home for however long. And that's, that really just catapulted our industry. and, and sales didn't really have to like happen. it was like, here you go. And they say, how soon can you start? We don't care. Right. David Amigo: It was order taking. Tommy Cole: it was ordered to David Amigo: there was really no selling about it. It was simply order taking. Tommy Cole: we got a little complacent over the last few years and,fast forward to now and David will probably agree, right you have to go after sales, right here we are. Like that's all sort of in the past. things have changed with the economy and interest rates So this is like the perfect timing to talk about sales, in the process and the management, more, more hunter than farmer. Right. so can you give us a few good [00:09:00] nuggets, Mike, as our industry is in this sort of phase right now. Mike Weinberg: Yeah. The first thing I'll say is you're not alone. There were a lot of people, including the giant tech companies that were overloaded with demand during COVID and they staffed up and now you see them all cutting back. And you know, it was easy to be a salesperson in a lot of industries when people are throwing work at you. And the danger is there are a lot of people that may not be good at developing new business. Who end up in sales roles because of David said it, there are order takers. They're good at fulfilling demand, but they're not creating demand. And the reason we let salespeople make more money and we put them on compensation plans where they can earn it is because they have to earn it. Right. If they're going to bring in the business, we're happy to pay. That's, that's a very different behavior than quoting, right. When there's overwhelming inbound demand coming your way. So the first thing we just want to ask ourselves is Do we have the people in the roles that are fit to do the job required of them? like does the DNA of the [00:10:00] human fit the job description of someone who is a proactive new business development focused salesperson, because there's lots of kinds of sales roles and it takes a certain individual to manage existing relationships, someone who's technically or product competent, right. Who's good at service. Who's very respectful and responsive. Someone who's good at preventing attrition and keeping a customer. Like those are wonderful skills. But they don't necessarily translate all the time into hunting where there's conflict and there's risk and there's rejection. And you gotta, you know, be self motivated and you know, you wake up in the morning and you say to yourself, where am I going to go create opportunities? Who am I going to talk to? Who am I targeting? And I use this phrase a lot. Who am I committed to proactively pursuing with my discretionary selling time? Who am I committed to proactively pursuing to go shake a tree and try to create some demand? So there's a lot we can unpack from that statement. I'll let you kind of, you know, jump back in here. But the first thing we want to make sure is [00:11:00] we've got people in the job that are okay with being proactive and interrupting people and not conflict diverse. Like they're, they know what to do when someone's not interested. They can kind of push back a second time and ask, are you sure? Should we, can we talk about this anyway? You're going to get a lot of value from our conversation. So there's a confidence and a self starter thing and, not being afraid of conflict or pushing past resistance. That is such, those are such important characteristics for someone who will succeed when we need them to go out and create business instead of just respond. Going on the Salles Offensive Tommy Cole: that's good. I read that part in, in your book. It's so funny because I have it tabbed here. This is, this is just completely ironic. But, you know, right people in the right, seat is very fitting for our organization. Right, David? And, we oftentimes find, we categorize salespeople as just, I will, stick to the clients I have in my back pocket, right? I had, I had a gentleman asked me the other day and he said, Tommy. [00:12:00] The leads are just not coming in. I don't know what to do. And I said, Bob, what are we doing to go on the offense? And I, I, I kind of use this sort of football term, but like where we can go on the offense. I said, can you look around and, and create opportunities that you haven't touched? For instance, you're already working on five job sites right now that you've already sold. Can we put a sign out there to intrude people to be invited to that job site? Right. It was kind of like one of those things and he's like, well, I never really thought of that. Right. So you're, you own these job site signs that you pick up and move from job to job to job. And it's got your. business card on there or the phone number, like creating opportunities, like you said, proactively going after that. I think that's what we, we struggle with. Right, David? David Amigo: Yeah. I think one of the shortfalls in our industry is we actually [00:13:00] run simultaneously multiple business models. If you're in commercial maintenance, you're in a B2B sale. Okay. Your strategy for being proactive is different than if you're in design build, focusing on a high end residential client. Your strategies of going after that, that client are, are totally different. And for somebody like us, we're running, you know, these models all simultaneously. And because we're small or relatively small, we sometimes have the same person in charge of these different silos. And I think the shortfall is sometimes we don't take a step back and recognize how we proactively go after one. ideal client is not the same as when you go after a different ideal client in a different segment of our business. Mike Weinberg: It's really good. Tommy Cole: very, very, very good. Yeah. [00:14:00] our sales people probably wear multiple revenue streams, right? It's from commercial to residential to what we call enhancements. That's a whole nother opportunity. And enhancements is kind of considered like we already have this beautiful commercial property. How do we add more value to it? Enhance it. that's not always a dedicated salesperson. It could be someone just maintaining the relationship that has to kind of put their. They're they're sales hat on my what's you have another you you mentioned the number one, you know The first one which was people in the right right seat. Do you have any more to add? Mike Weinberg: Oh, yeah, we could, we could go all down that path it's a, it's a topic that doesn't get enough attention. It's really hard to sell when your story isn't strong. You know, you're not confident. You don't want to pursue people. You end up getting lumped in with everybody else and commoditized and having to sell on price. It it's, if we're going to ask people to go out and be proactive and get meetings and set ourselves apart and charge a premium [00:15:00] price, because nobody wants to be the Walmart in their industry, that's not a fun game. if we're going to sell at a premium, we need premium messaging, I call it your sales story. And we need to help our salespeople be really good at articulating the value that our solutions, whether it's commercial maintenance or whether it's, you know, design and build or it's projects or upgrades or whatever it is. What's in it for the customer, right? Are we talking about how great we are and our services and our culture and our equipment and our years in business, which is the typical about us pitch that almost everybody gives in any industry. Or when we're talking, are we leading out with what's on the mind of the customer? It's different if it's a property manager on a commercial site, who's got tenants breathing down his neck because the place looks disgusting, right? Or they're not getting renewals on their leases. That's an issue. Or if it's a homeowner who cares about property values or. They want to entertain or they want to feel good when they pull up. Like those are, those are others focused customer issue, customer outcome, focused points versus the typical stuff that salespeople [00:16:00] tend to toss out, which is about us and how great we are and how long we've been doing this. So if we not only get the right people on the job, but we arm them with good messaging that really articulates what we bring to the marketplace, the problems we solve, the results we achieve changes the whole dynamic when you're selling. And it makes the salesperson a whole lot more comfortable to initiate that dialogue and a lot more comfortable when they get in that dialogue, because they have things to talk about other than specs and pricing. And in your world, you know, I know a lot of it's, it's measuring and quoting and operational excellence and is, is important to maintain margins. And I get all that, but if we can change the conversation with the customer, so we're not selling like everybody else, right. Just speck and, and, and pricing, but we're talking about the experience and what the outcomes will be. That totally decommoditizes the purchase process, which I think should be our goal. Tommy Cole: Wow David outcomes. I love [00:17:00] this because I believe the sales have kind of gone back to pre pandemic. and people are saying it's just the sales aren't there. The sales aren't there. And I said, You have to be the difference maker in your industry, right? Simple Sells Tommy Cole: So to me, some simple things are very, I'm going very simple. Like, are you on time? Are you the professional looking? Are you providing a professional looking quote, right? That you can hand off. Can you explain the story and how visionary this this opportunity be? Do you follow up with the calls? Do you follow up multiple times with things? Do you value engineer and give options? Right? So when I hear this story, like, first off, you got to give them a story of like what this grand master plan will look like. Right? So you're painting that picture, but you got to also provide value of going, you grabbed their few issues. There are a few things that they're complaining about and you turn them into a solution. Is that correct? David Amigo: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there are [00:18:00] the top three, issues that clients have, the pain points the clients have in our industry is real simple, right? Communication, communication, and the last one is communication. And, and, Tommy Cole: Hold on. Let me get those real quick. I'm still taking notes. Communication. No, I got it. David Amigo: no, it's true. I mean, and it's not, it's just not landscaping. It's all contracting. Right. And we know that's the pain point. And frankly, our team, when we're selling, we're hitting that head on. This is what we'll do. Here's our cell phone number. You know, you can text me. Here's our communication promise. We have a communication promise, which is a bare minimum of how you can get ahold of us. And then, you know, I do think for us, we always try to emphasize, no matter what happens, we're going to make things right. It is construction. Sometimes, you know, things don't go the way we want them to go. but in the end, we're always going to stand by it. [00:19:00] But it goes directly to what Mike's saying. Address the client's pain points and, and to your point, Tommy, yeah, we're not order taking anymore and, and sales aren't any different than they were, as Mike said, 30 years ago. It's just fundamentals, Mike Weinberg: No, but don't, but don't undersell David's point on the communication. And I'll give you an example in your own industry, because I think salespeople today, everyone's too cool. I don't want to be a pest. I don't want to be a bother. You know, I'll, I'll try them once, or then you go through this whole process and you do the estimate and you put all this work into it and then you don't follow up or you don't deliver it in a nice way. I had a guy. Did my landscaping when I first moved in this house 20 years ago, and about three years ago, it was time for an upgrade. We, everything needed to be redone. And I called the same guy back. He showed up, walked around, asked me some questions, you know, looked at things, emailed me a quote. Never called me, never wanted to meet with me, never followed up on him. I'm like. You don't even care. And it wasn't, it wasn't a giant job, but it was [00:20:00] pretty big refresh of him's, you know, a major thing he did 20 years ago. Being Assertive in Sales Is Not a Bad Thing Mike Weinberg: So I think there's this, there's this mentality today. It's not cool to be assertive. Let me say something. And I love the way David put this, You're demonstrating you care by the fact that you're pursuing them as hard as you are. I'll even tell the client when I'm pursuing them, the reason I'm coming after you and I keep following up is because I'm convinced you're going to get the most value from us. That you're going to have the best experience here. And if you think I'm communicating well with you now, wait till you're a client. Our number one promise is communication. You will know where I love that he has this communication promise as part of his brand. Like that, you know why too, it's differentiating. Everyone else is talking about something. He's like, let me tell you what most people are pissed about that. They never hear from the people and you're going to have our cell phone number and we're going to respond, you know, on the spot. And there's a, there's a thing there that sets you apart and gets you noticed. Where it's a clear differentiator. So yeah, we need great messaging, but as you guys both said, the, the execution of the blocking and tackling and not thinking we're too [00:21:00] cool to pursue someone a few times or leave the third message I am pushing because I have a customer's best interest in mind. If I am trying to sell sales training and I know they're talking to me and some Sandler guy and some other person in my industry that may be, you know, independent guys got a book and I listened to their situation and I'm convinced they're going to get the most value and the best results for me. I'm going to sell my ass off because I feel like I almost owe it to them. Like it's fiduciary responsibility. I think you're better off with me. I'm going to make the effort, you know, and that's, I'll say, I'll leave it there. Right. That's effort, effort and intentionality goes a long way. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the effort and the attitude, that I coach to the most, you know, what's funny about that story of the landscaper is you're almost treated as like, oh, they're already a client. I don't really have to do. because I already have them right and I've already previously done work. All I got to do is shoot on the bid This is easy. It's in the bank. No big deal, right?[00:22:00] David Amigo: Tommy, some of, some of that's true, but some of it's not true. Some of it is, it's typically the owner who's the salesperson and he's doing 100 other things. And this is just, this is a place where you don't have somebody dedicated to sales. It's very hard to be in sales and run the company and sign the checks and do payroll and all the, and project manage that, that happens a lot in our industry. Now, I think you hit a certain point. We've hit that point. We have dedicated sales folks. Right. And so what you describe might happen to some of our guys, but I think some of the guys that are a little bit smaller and they're wearing multiple hats, they just, they don't have the time to dedicate to it. And that's not a formula for success. **What If I Don't Have a /am Tommy Cole: Yeah, Mike any input on that? That's a very good one. We have a lot of owner operators, right? They're handling multiple things They might have one, you know one person in management, but that might be an operations [00:23:00] type role where the owner is the sales guy, how do they bring that value when they're, Mike Weinberg: you can do Tommy Cole: balls? Mike Weinberg: but it takes a, it takes a ton of discipline. I have many companies I work with, some of them really big, but where the person in charge of sales management has a dual role. So it could be an entrepreneur in a small company where the owners weren't all the hats, but it could also be a branch of a John Deere construction dealer. Right. Who's got a massive business and seven salespeople working at a one John Deere construction equipment store. And the guy who's the local store branch manager is also the sales manager. Same situation. Here's what I can tell you. 100 percent of the time that leader will default to the operations and service challenges, because those are urgent. And in his face, someone didn't show up for work. There's a problem in the service department. A customer's pissed off. Something's going on with the bank. You plug in the problem. That's what they're going to pay attention to. And they don't know they have a sales problem until the end of the month. Cause if you have both [00:24:00] operational and sales responsibility, you always default to operations because it's, it's in your face. So time blocking and really being disciplined about when you spend the time on either selling or doing sales management is, is absolutely critical. I'm teaching very sophisticated companies today that, you know, the names of them. Because I go in and I ask, Hey, do your people have a good list? Can they tell their story? Can they get a meeting? Can they conduct a good meeting? And do they own their calendar and their pipeline? Same five things I brought up when we started the show. It's always the fundamentals. It's it's, it's nothing sexy about this. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Well, it goes back to simplified, right? Mike Weinberg: And, and let me say this, and this is where David is so good at this. It's on the leader to point the team.We do not want rogue entrepreneurial salespeople faking strategy every week. We need to point them the right direction. So it's the leader of sales to sit down. If you're in the commercial business, these are the properties we have, and these are the properties we could penetrate. And these are the properties we don't have, but they look like a whole [00:25:00] lot like properties where we've had success. Let's make a strategic finite list and put salespeople against that list so they can start having conversations. And if the leader doesn't point them and set good strategy, it doesn't happen. Cause salespeople default to doing what's easy and what's comfortable. And we have to point, we have to get the right person, the job we got to pay them smart, and we got to hold them accountable, but it's really helpful if we point them the right direction. Tommy Cole: David, do you use these principles in your business? David Amigo: Oh, absolutely. Every day. The 3 Verbs off Sales David Amigo: Mike would be proud, right? So he talks about the only three verbs. That count create advanced close. we got, we got a big, big poster in our sales office, right? That that's all that matters, right? Mike Weinberg: I want that Tommy Cole: does that mean? What does, what does that mean, David or Mike? What does that give me a little deep context in that? Mike Weinberg: There's a lot of salespeople that get really distracted. They're really busy. There are salespeople that work 50, 60 hours a week. They get to inbox zero. Their customers love them. They sweep the floor. They, they take people [00:26:00] out to lunch. They're the most loved people ever. And they go to bed on Friday night with a clean conscience. They say, I gave my company my all, but my question is, that's great. You may have worked 50 hours and been the nicest person ever. Show me the opportunities you created that you put in the top of the pipeline. New people we're talking to tell me about the people we're talking to already that have interest or we're quoting that you advance closer to a win. And then tell me about the people you closed. The only three verbs that matter in sales are create, advance, and close. No one cares how busy you are or how likable you are at the end of the day. What are we creating? And the more you create the fatter the funnel, the more you sell from an abundance mentality and you own your process and you stick to your price. You're not giving shit away. Like you, you gotta create, so you have health and then you get good at advancing and closing. And what I beg salespeople to do, and I'm going to get nerdy for a second with you, but it's time. If salespeople would divide their time and their attention across customers and deals in all three [00:27:00] phases, and they would commit a third of their selling time to creating a third to advancing and a third to closing. It would be amazing how healthy the deal flow and the pipeline would be. Because most salespeople, they default to service. And then with the time they have left over, they do what's hot. You're trying to close the hot deal. And I get it. They could taste the commission. They want to get it over the finish line. And I'm like, that's good. But what would, if you divided your time in thirds and you spent a full third trying to create new stuff, then you'd always have consistent deal flow. There'd always be something in the pipeline to try to advance or close. That doesn't happen unless you're really disciplined and you time block your calendar and you commit to proact. I said this a few minutes ago, you commit to proactively pursuing those target accounts on your list with your create time. That's what matters. Tommy Cole: Wow. Wow. That is, that's powerful, It's just very simple, Mike Weinberg: Focus, focus. Yeah. Tommy Cole: It's listen, to be really honest, [00:28:00] that's exactly what our industry is, right? It's all about the hours I worked. it's about the time I put in, but like, did you actually close the five deals that you had to close, right? David Amigo: It goes back to results, right? Like the only thing that matters really is, is results. And to Mike's point, you 50 hours in sales and you could have made a bunch of people feel good, but if you're not getting the results, you're not supporting the company. And if you're not supporting the company, it's not going to be a longterm relationship Mike Weinberg: And if we have salespeople that don't understand that we probably have the wrong people because real salespeople understand it's about the results. You can't tell me that they love you and that you're working hard and that they're all excited. That's great. Show me the deals. And I'm not, I'm not a jerk. I'm a nice guy, but when it, when it comes to accountability, you got to get to numbers. It's the pipeline is the lifeblood of the business. You as a leader cannot spend enough time asking, what are you creating? What are you advancing? What do we got? [00:29:00] What's coming. And then if we don't have enough in there, the next question, okay, what are you doing to put more stuff in the top and go create, who are we going to go call on, who are we mailing? Where are we going to ask referrals? Who's on our target list? What doors are you knocking on? Like, let's go. that's how we drive business. Tommy Cole: Love it. Absolutely love it. Well, Dave and Mike, I've got multiple pages of notes here that gives me some firepower about sales and, and, I'll have to go back and listen to this because I think I can't read some of my writing, but, but, this is great. David, what, what is one thing that we may have not mentioned or something you would like to elaborate as we close? And then I'll ask the same question. for Mike. David Amigo: honestly, I'm going to give a shameless plug to his new book. I think I read that in one day. I gave that to my VP of sales and a gentleman who I'm good friends with. Yeah. And I, I challenged them and anybody who knows me, I hate to read. I just [00:30:00] despise reading. That's why I like listening to your podcast. It's visual. I can hear it. I can see it. I read that in one day. I read the book in one day, it was spectacular. I think for anybody, whether you're new to a sales management role, whether you're experienced in the sales management role, or even from my perspective, more importantly, even if you're not in sales, but you own the company and you need to understand more, that book was spectacular. Mike Weinberg: You're very kind. Thank you. I'll just pick up on that. I have a, if you go to my website, Mike Weinberg. com and you go to the page for the new book, there's a place you can download the table of contents and the introduction and the table of contents is a pretty darn good checklist, even if you don't buy the book, it's a really good checklist of things we need to do from sales leadership. And it's, it's holding people accountable, coaching people, spending some time with them to help them get better. Making sure that we're not being the [00:31:00] hero and doing their job for them. The job is the leader is to coach and to lead and hold them accountable, not to do their job. And then we got to get the right people in the right job. We got to love and over support and hang on to our good salespeople. And we better confront underperformance and coach those people up or out. And if you do just that, and the reason that this, and I'll show you this, this is why David could read this in one night. I'm holding the book up for those of you that are on video. And I, this is, this is my thinnest book for a reason. And it was weird when I first read it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is kind of lightweight. But the more I thought about it, the reason this book is shorter is I've been doing this a long time and I was able to cut out all the fat. And I promise I'm making people is if you do, what's in this little book, it was like 167 pages and the audio is like five and a half hours. If you do, what's in this book. You will win as a sales leader. And what's interesting, the big executives from the giant companies that have all read it. The thing they've said is what David said. It's not just for the new manager, even though that's who I wrote it for, because it's, if you, if you get the right [00:32:00] people and you hold them accountable and you keep your good ones and you coach up really good things happen. And you have a lot more fun as a manager. So I appreciate the time to talk about it. This is just fun talking about sales. I love your industry because it's real people doing real work. David Amigo: Focus on the fundamentals. That's, that's all it is. And that's what, that's what Mike's preaching. Tommy Cole: Very, very Mike Weinberg: You're very kind. I appreciate that, David. Tommy Cole: man, he, he's gotta be, he's gonna have to Mike Weinberg: Oh, the the the big dinner is on the way. I've, David Amigo: I don't want anybody to get the wrong impression. I think we need to take a few minutes and talk about spring training in college and, and, talk about backing up a car. How to do that because Mike Weinberg: you don't need to David Amigo: without that people might get the wrong impression that I'm just, you know, a big Mike Weinberg: You know what the problem is, you know what the problem is when you have really good friends with long memories, they remember all the bad stuff about you Tommy Cole: All the bad things. Mike Weinberg: And it comes out once in a while, even though people know me. My, one of my other, I have two really good friends that know me forever, my friend Rob and David. [00:33:00] And once in a while, my friend Rob will say to me, Mike, remember, I knew you before everybody else knew you and I have all the dirt. And so does David, it's the same story. So it's Tommy Cole: Oh gosh. We have all kinds of history, right? All, but it's all good. Mike, for sure, it's a pleasure meeting you and, and, we gotta have you on again and talk about some more things because we can go on and on and on for hours. And, David, it's always been a pleasure. I visited your place many years ago and I got to see your son, the other day. And we told stories about, what your shop looked like in the past. And it was,massive changes,you are a great client of ours and a great ACE member. And, you've always shown. growth and development and you and yourself and your business. So thanks for being on. And it's been a, it's been a great one. David Amigo: Ready to take the next step? Download our free Profitability Scorecard to quickly create your own baseline financial assessment and uncover the fastest ways to improve your business. Just go to [00:34:00] McFarlinStanford.com/scorecard to get yours today To learn more about McFarlin Stanford our best in class peer groups and other services go to our website at McFarlinStanford.com And don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. See you next time on the Roots of Success.