On this episode we sat down with the founder of Dirty Dough, Bennett Maxwell. Bennett started and sold his solar company within 15 months, and took that money and invested it back in his other company, Dirty Dough.
Bennett Maxwell walked us through his journey from selling in high school fundraisers to pay for his various activities to building and selling his solar company for a 7 figure payout. We also get a chance to hear how an inconvenient franchise model helped develop the blueprint for, Dirty Dough.
Key Takeaways:
Connect with Bennett:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bennett.maxwell.3
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bennettmaxwell35/
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Speaker 1
Welcome to Building Great Sales Teams, a show dedicated to making sales teams tick, tick, boom.
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Speaker 2
Great sales teams are not recruited. They are built block by block. Let's get to work.
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Speaker 2
So what's your.
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Speaker 3
What's your plans for the rest of the week?
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Speaker 2
Do two weeks over, man. Go to sleep.
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Speaker 3
So they sleep in?
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Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm not I don't schedule anything. I'm a few other calls today, so a lot of follow up from the people I've met here. That's what I mean. It's. It's been great for me so far.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Now Austin is on the show too.
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Speaker 2
They're telling me that I think we have 150 stores that we're going to get from this event. I'm like, All right, well, if we could get a fifth of that, I still get it. Exactly. They're pretty confident on it.
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Speaker 3
So now it's been it's been pretty great. All right, guys, we got Ben and Maxwell here. Ben, it's been working and door to door since 2015. Is that.
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Speaker 2
Right? Yup.
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Speaker 3
And built up door to door teens in all kinds of industries from what you told me. And then. But the claim to fame right now is probably starting the solar company in 2020 and then selling it 15 months later. Yup. That's amazing. First of all, and I've got so many questions on that because I just don't think sales companies are sellable, you know what I mean?
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Speaker 3
So I, I would love for you to break that down for us. And then you did that because you wanted the opportunity to start franchising your dirty dough business.
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Speaker 2
Yup. I was trying to do them both at the same time and it was tough.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I can imagine. But what's crazy is you where you're operating two businesses at once and you still managed to sell one of them and I mean so many of us that have sales organizations, they either just fizzle out, we pass them on. They're incredibly difficult to sell because you have to be selling to someone else. That's, you know, is doing what you're doing, have ink and see the value in it.
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Speaker 3
And the multiples got to be like one x, two x, you know what I mean? So why don't we just what are we why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? You know, I know you're married, you got a few kids and all that.
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Speaker 2
Yeah. Grew up in or Utah and got married in 2015, so I met her doing my first summer. Sells stuff out in L.A., so I was cool.
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Speaker 3
That's awesome. Where was she selling to now?
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Speaker 2
We just met.
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Speaker 3
And I got to. I got to.
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Speaker 2
Move in and that's one of my the sales buddies that I was with was talking to her and I'm like, She's cute, man. What's she saying? You know, where she phone? He like, I have no idea, dude. She doesn't speak English. Oh, this is Spanish. I swooped in there and she speaks English now, but yes, speaking before, she's from Mexico.
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Speaker 2
We have three kids, though. Five, three and and one.
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Speaker 3
We have that in common. So, yeah, my fiance is Latino also.
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Speaker 2
Okay, cool. Yeah. So did did that kind of. That's kind of my backyard. It's always been door to door. I mean, selling stuff in elementary. I'll sell in candy bars on the freaking corner. And then I was doing door to door in junior high selling and education, and then I was selling cookie dough for wrestling and rugby as well.
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Speaker 2
You mentioned you were playing rugby.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 2
For me to pay for this stuff, I that's how I did it. I to sell and I always sold the most out of anybody. Yeah. Probably because I was in this rich neighborhood. So although bad, I was the poor kid in the rich neighborhood and everybody bought for all the.
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Speaker 3
Parents jumped in and there.
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Speaker 2
Was so that that probably set me up for success and doing like those discount, like starving student type cards and those for football and and it was all door to door though so that's kind of my background got in 15 2015. Did pest control just did a half a summer. Okay You're kidding me. Kind of halfway through before that, I was in Baltimore doing security installs, but he called me.
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Speaker 2
He's like, Oh, yeah, I.
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Speaker 3
Saw you went from sales to.
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Speaker 2
Installs to sales.
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Speaker 3
Oh, okay. Yeah.
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Speaker 2
So I was out there and I didn't know the sales game that they, you know, like a lot of these sells orders will take anybody with a pulse.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 2
And I didn't know that. So I was like, he's like, yeah, I think I can make space for yours. Like, dude, if you can make space for me that I would freak out. I'll drive there tomorrow. And I drove from there to the next day. I drove from Baltimore to frigid California. The feds controlling for that got me into it.
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Speaker 2
And after that next year did passed again. So here I was, still a rookie. You know, I've only sold for two months. Yeah, but I was a top rookie in that in that office in those two months that I sold.
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Speaker 3
So I just I want to find out why.
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Speaker 2
Do you think.
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Speaker 3
Whether it was, you know, selling candy bars or selling pest control, What do you think? You had that thing because you hadn't been formally trained until you started selling pest control, right?
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Speaker 2
No, I mean, it was really doing that, doing the like lawn aeration and stuff like that. And that was just for money. Like, I didn't I didn't get an allowance for nothing like that. Like if I, if I wanted money, had to go figure it out. And do you think it.
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Speaker 3
Was, you know, because it's usually one or two things, it was the work ethic or you had a natural ability to sell. So what do you think it was?
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Speaker 2
The work ethic. I'm not a super big extrovert.
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Speaker 3
You know, I like that's where.
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Speaker 2
I really like talking to people that much. But if I'm in a if I got something to gain from, I'll talk to. So I mean, it's like, do you want to go on on the in football camp in the summer? Well then you go sell 40 of these inside and I'll go sell them because I'm going to football camp and that's my only option.
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Speaker 3
That's a heavy integrator.
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Speaker 2
So that's what I think. Yeah. Just, just got into that. That's always been my mindset. Like when I left security doing installs, thinking that it was a secure way. Obviously, you know, go into a straight commission that's a little bit risky, but I kind of go off of the the rich dad, poor dad, work, work to learn not to earn.
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Speaker 2
And so that's what I told myself on my camera, move across country with zero guarantees on anything but I know that the worst that can happen is I learned how to sell that.
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Speaker 3
That's a such an amazing mindset to have at that age, you know? I know. I know. I never did. I was always very results focused. You know, I wanted to see what I would get out of, you know, an employment situation or something like that. And if I didn't see it, I would quit and move on to the next thing you know, I'm saying, yeah.
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Speaker 2
I got pretty fortunate. So I did cut Gonaives.
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Speaker 3
Oh, yeah, right out.
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Speaker 2
Of high school. So, you know, like I got all dressed up, I did like an interview, you know, and it was all commission. Yeah, but I same thing I like. I thought it was a real job. I mean, it was. I made money. It was. Yeah. So I do the interview. No, I. Yeah, we, we'd love to have you.
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Speaker 2
Right. So let's start your training next week is like, cool. How much to get paid for training. Oh, it's. You don't get paid on my commission. Oh, screw you guys. Like, I'm not going to do free training. So, anyways, I talked to my dad and I'm like, Yeah, I'm not going to take it. He's like, Why? He's like, And I told him, like, I'm not I'm not going to go spend 40 hours like it paid for it.
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Speaker 2
Yeah. And he's like, Is this for sales training? And I'm like, Yeah. He's like, Well, people pay for sales training. Like, if this is free, go do it. And I was like, Oh.
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Speaker 3
What did your dad do?
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Speaker 2
He's he's been an entrepreneur, so he's a construction background. Him and my grandpa built the asphalt zippers. It was called tore up some some roads but you have to hear 20 something years later, it's still the only piece of machinery that's used for that. So on business. But they sold that out in early 2000.
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Speaker 3
Guys, huh?
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Speaker 2
So he does that.
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Speaker 3
Runs in the family.
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Speaker 2
Yeah. Not, not so much the formal education. Like I didn't graduate. He didn't graduate. Most of my family didn't. But the the entrepreneurship aspect, everybody's always got, you know, everybody in the family's got you got something going on.
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Speaker 3
That's awesome, man.
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Speaker 2
That's I got fortunate for that, but that's why I made the move. And then it was the the mindset of what are the top guys doing that I can't learn to do not like that I'm not doing because I know I'm not doing a lot. But what's not teachable, what's not learnable, And that's how I kind of the second summer that I went out, that's how I built a sales team.
00:08:05:26 - 00:08:10:19
Speaker 2
I shut up a 40 dudes. So I sold for two months and I got 40 fricken idiots to follow.
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Speaker 3
Me to.
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Speaker 2
Follow an idiot out to North Carolina. And it was like all of our first year. I think there's like one or two people that had had completed a summer.
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Speaker 3
Oh, wow.
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Speaker 2
And I'd never even started a summer at this point. So I got there. That was over two years. Yeah, I got there for you. But how I recruit a lot of them like that was my focus is like, yes, we're going to make some money, but let's put that aside.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 2
It's about learning. Like what? What industry can you go into that you don't need communication skills. Yeah, and really focusing on communication rather than cells.
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Speaker 3
I think because some of us get deep in the industry, we forget that, that we're actually giving them a gift. Yeah, you know, we're giving them the gift of one salesmanship, but also just that mindset, that growth mindset, a development mindset. And so we don't advertise that enough, you know, and we got to get back to that. So that's a great point that you're bringing up right there.
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Speaker 3
So let's fast forward to. All right. When did you decide to had you been selling solar already and then you decided to open up your own solar company?
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Speaker 2
So I was told that solar was this big, long sell and you can't do a solar summer. That's impossible. So I just kind of stayed away from it. And there's this company that said a guy named Tanner Huber introduced me and he's like, He's working for Enlight, so we're going to do a solar summer. And I was like, How any fast installs this and that?
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Speaker 2
So like, cool, let's give it a go. So that was summer of 2018. So I moved out to Sacramento area, probably May sold for for a few months and I'm like, this is stupid. Yeah. Like I'm working 4 to 8, making twice as much money as vivid alarm. That's where I came from. And Vivint, I love Vivint. I worked with some great people there, made great money, but I'm like, This is dumb.
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Speaker 2
Like I'm making $10,000 a deal and saving people money.
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Speaker 3
Again, another massive education for Vivint. Like I have, I have stolen so many of their culture building ideas. And yeah, when I see their their new hire pamphlet and you know, all their swag, I mean that's that's what we're all about now. Yeah, that's I saw that. I was like, oh I'm stealing all that.
00:10:09:10 - 00:10:29:14
Speaker 2
They do a great job and they have all these training videos and that's what I did. I just every day everybody else is listening to music or just dicking around. I'm watching the same video that I watch ten times, playing the video, pausing it, repeating what I just learned out loud until it becomes ingrained. But I would just watch those full sales videos that I've ever had.
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Speaker 2
And same thing. It's like I never sold alarms, but I came in, you know, with good numbers right out of the gate because it was like, What are these dudes doing that I can't learn, that I can't figure out? And I really do believe that. It's like so kind of back to like, I'm recruiting these guys 40 dudes.
00:10:47:02 - 00:11:05:22
Speaker 2
And a lot of it was, you know, I'm not a natural salesperson. And that's like, Well, are you a natural doctor? Are you an natural lawyer? Like, sales is a profession. Yeah. Like if you want to go out and make six figures in a summer or multiple six figures in a summer, like you don't think you're going to have to frickin study your ass off like, that's the key.
00:11:06:00 - 00:11:22:27
Speaker 2
And then let's try to cram, you know, a freakin bachelor's degree worth of sales in right now. You know, in a few months of you're just going to eat, eat, sleep, sells, you know, listen to the audio books and the sales training. And that's what I did. And it's that sales pitch in the people is like, sales is learnable.
00:11:23:03 - 00:11:37:19
Speaker 2
Yes, you can be a born salesperson and maybe but it's it's a learnable skill. So let's focus on that. And again, even if you don't kill and sales and the communication, I mean, financially, you don't kill it. There's nothing better you can do.
00:11:38:00 - 00:11:58:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, that that is the foundation. If you want to be a business owner or you want to be a top level executive, you want to be any type of an entrepreneur. That's the foundation you need. Yeah, 100%. You know, and you just made a really great point. And, you know, we always forget that too. That, you know, you go to college for four years, be a doctor, you know what I mean?
00:11:58:03 - 00:12:18:04
Speaker 3
You go to college for two years to get into business management. You know, I'm saying, why not look at your your new job at the sales company as getting the degree and get paid for it. You know what I'm saying? That in it's not taught in school is not taught in high school, it's not taught in college. It's salesmanship.
00:12:18:04 - 00:12:26:02
Speaker 3
Should be a college course. Yeah. Like why is it not? It makes no sense whatsoever. And so that's a huge point. I think bringing.
00:12:26:02 - 00:12:45:01
Speaker 2
Out sells has a just a negative connotation, which is stupid. Riling Sells has changed my life and everybody is wanting to sell. But for whatever reason you rephrase it and you say communication skills, then everybody's like, Oh, and so communication skills, Yeah, you know, Oh, I want to go into business where I want to be a dental hygienist.
00:12:45:01 - 00:12:59:18
Speaker 2
So it's like, Well, do you need to talk to people? Okay, well then come on, learn how to talk to people. And when that that shift, I think, you know, I don't think we should have to make that shift. But because of the sales, especially here in Utah. Yeah. I mean, this is where all the freaking door to door sells.
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Speaker 3
All right?
00:13:00:27 - 00:13:11:00
Speaker 2
So everybody's like, Oh, you know, those the bro is going to need sales. I don't I don't want to be part of those meet heads, you know? Yeah. So but it was like, okay, let's not talk to ourselves to talk about communication.
00:13:11:09 - 00:13:28:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. And yeah, that makes sense that, that kind of it's a good way to put it. And you know, a lot of the listeners that have, you know, so a lot of the guys who listen to me are typically in construction trying to get that first salesperson, you know, And so they, they think they need.
00:13:28:18 - 00:13:30:05
Speaker 2
That the bro, you know what I mean.
00:13:30:05 - 00:13:49:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. Or the like, you know, elite salesperson. But all you really need is someone that believes in your product and then, you know, maybe a little help putting together a sales program for them. You know, just that initial setup. But other than that, so going to back to when did you decide to make that leap? You you were doing the.
00:13:49:21 - 00:13:51:02
Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah. So I sold the summer.
00:13:51:02 - 00:14:04:04
Speaker 2
I did this whole summer and I liked it. I loved it. So then I'm talk to my wife, you know, hey, you know, do we want it this year around? And she's like, Yeah, You know, as long as we moved to San Diego. So I was like, Oh, nice. Yeah. So I that's.
00:14:04:04 - 00:14:07:13
Speaker 3
The only city in California I've been to. And it was amazing. I had a great.
00:14:07:13 - 00:14:33:20
Speaker 2
Experience, so we lived out there for a little bit, partnered up with my brother Brant Attaway. He kind of did the sells, I mean like the marketing, and we started doing online sales. So he came out with me in Sacramento and we do like a little test, okay? And we hired some people, the Philippines hired a lead agency and they started, you know, the leads came in, train the Filipinos to to call them to the appointment and to verify the data.
00:14:33:28 - 00:14:49:16
Speaker 2
So this was our test. We did 18 appointments and I drove to all 18 appointments. I got zero no shows. I got 16 of them the first set and one on the second set and the last one did it close. And I'm like, All right, this is stupid. Like, I'm not I'm only leaving my house for an hour or two and I'm still making the same amount.
00:14:49:16 - 00:14:56:09
Speaker 3
What you describe, though, is what 90% of the people at the conference were are trying to do and can't figure out right now.
00:14:56:11 - 00:15:15:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a but anyway so that was kind of like the okay, yeah well again, if if we could kind of figure it out, let's, let's go try to do that. So then we moved to San Diego, got our first recruit, you know, started in January of 2020. A buddy that I grew up with, he came out and started doing the sales, you know, moved to San Diego with me.
00:15:15:12 - 00:15:18:25
Speaker 3
So are you just recruiting closers because you're setting the appointments already.
00:15:19:10 - 00:15:34:12
Speaker 2
At that time? That's that's what that's what we were wanting to do. I mean, I this guy had worked for Google Fiber and he and he ran that program doing door to door. Yeah. So to kind of I'm always very hesitant of like, yeah, yeah, we're going to provide leads, but you're going to have a door knock as well.
00:15:34:18 - 00:15:54:28
Speaker 2
Okay. So kind of like a hybrid model and that so we wanted to reward reps to keep them active. It's like every, you know, I think we start out with like every three cellphone or every cellphone and close you get like three leads or something like that, three, three appointments or she was scaling it when we started getting more reps to provide them all with confirmed appointments.
00:15:54:28 - 00:16:00:23
Speaker 2
And then, you know, a small geographic area. It's pretty was pretty difficult. But that's that's how we start.
00:16:00:27 - 00:16:04:19
Speaker 3
Was difficult, having too many leads and then not doing enough.
00:16:04:19 - 00:16:27:11
Speaker 2
So often get getting enough leads. Getting enough lead. Yeah. So let's see, you have five guys and five guys can handle three appointments easily per day. That's 15 confirmed appointments. And it's like, well how many, you know, four, 15 confirmed appointments. We're going to need, you know, like 100 leads or so many leads. Right. And finding the lead agent, you know, the ad agency to get us that many leads, we struck out a lot.
00:16:27:20 - 00:16:28:16
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, you.
00:16:28:16 - 00:16:30:15
Speaker 2
Know, a lot of guys, every company in the business.
00:16:30:26 - 00:16:48:22
Speaker 3
That's why so many so many guys are are just they put you know, and I'm one of them. But 4040 grand and elite, you know what I mean? But I wasn't ready on my processing, so I wasn't ready to bring them in and convert them. You know, I'm saying y'all converted them with the Filipinos overseas, you know what I mean?
00:16:48:22 - 00:16:50:18
Speaker 2
So that helped us a lot.
00:16:50:22 - 00:16:55:16
Speaker 3
Figuring that part out is, is kind of the the minutia and then all, you.
00:16:55:16 - 00:17:12:06
Speaker 2
Know, I mean, so what after that kind of that solar summer. Right. And then when it came sold en masse, like let's let's start it up, let's do it start recruiting people. And now we opened up our doors and, and that in January of 2020. And because we were I mean, we were doing door to door, but we were doing online.
00:17:12:06 - 00:17:25:08
Speaker 2
So then COVID hit and it wasn't a hard transition. Yeah, because we're already doing it. So it's like, okay, well, now let's see what we did. Instead of the people in the Philippines nurturing the leads and setting the appointments we had the sales reps do that.
00:17:25:09 - 00:17:26:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:17:26:22 - 00:17:45:08
Speaker 2
Because everybody has a hard time. And then the other relationship early, a little bit of a higher conversion or a decent amount, higher conversion, those leads. But it's a different not all salespeople can do it like they're not going to be watching their phone. And then a message comes in because like we, you know, the lead count comes in, you got a message and within a few seconds.
00:17:45:17 - 00:17:47:12
Speaker 2
So like that should be automated, right?
00:17:47:20 - 00:17:54:07
Speaker 3
And then that's where we're failing right now. Okay. On that, I think you and Wayne talked about that the other day, and he brought that to me and I was like, Son of a bitch.
00:17:54:08 - 00:18:07:10
Speaker 2
No. Yeah, it has to go out. It has to go out immediately. And then it's, hey, I'm going to be calling from this number because you just fill out this form, you know, make sure to answer whatever it is I didn't do all the copy writing that was my brother on that. He does a great job on that.
00:18:07:18 - 00:18:12:24
Speaker 2
But so you need a salesperson paying attention to, you know, actually call.
00:18:12:24 - 00:18:24:25
Speaker 3
And so and so my instinct is, okay, well, okay, virtual appointment set up and then let the salesperson disclose. But I think the model that you guys built out is they've got to be on it as soon as it comes in.
00:18:25:00 - 00:18:43:05
Speaker 2
The what you just described, the first, you know, the center closure, that's that's a better way to do it is just I'm kind of thinking like right in March, right when we got shut down. Yeah, we had we had them doing Yeah. You just put the salespeople to a closer is better at closing. Yeah. And the center's better setting and then trying to separate those is definitely the way to do it.
00:18:43:05 - 00:19:04:00
Speaker 3
We I was going to ask you about that because that's kind of what we're doing right now, is, you know, we're not afraid to bring in closers, but we also have appointment centers, whether the door knocking and then we have a digital or virtual appointments that are in-house. And so we're kind of trying to figure out how do we see these closers without them having to kind of generate their own leads.
00:19:04:00 - 00:19:21:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, You know, and we you know, I had Jake Hess on about a month ago, and he kind of explained to me that that's what their model was. All the closers do is close the gap, you know? And so I was gonna ask you about that because you said he coached you, you know what I mean? So it's like in the beginning you all kind of started opposite of that.
00:19:21:10 - 00:19:27:19
Speaker 3
So where did, where did you end up? Where was the final like, okay, this is how it structured and this is sellable.
00:19:27:25 - 00:19:49:08
Speaker 2
And so we had much of that. I mean, that's what the what we were going for. Let's let's like closers, close setters set, you know, marketers market type deal and really try to hyper focus on what you're doing. So that's we were moving into that direction. Having these sales reps actually set for themselves was very short lived. Okay I mean a few months.
00:19:49:13 - 00:20:09:17
Speaker 2
So okay that I anyways but yeah that's, that's kind of what we were doing. Moved a little bit further and then started hiring people here us based to do some setting as well virtually. And then we started closing virtually as well again with Zoom. Yeah. And cool with like yeah you were forced to it is a great option.
00:20:09:17 - 00:20:14:28
Speaker 2
And again I think we were primed to do it because we already Yeah, yeah. Starting that direction you had.
00:20:14:28 - 00:20:16:22
Speaker 3
Half of the process was virtual already.
00:20:17:06 - 00:20:27:15
Speaker 2
But after like all said and done, the best model that we found is you're setting the leads virtually, but you're showing up and closing in person.
00:20:27:27 - 00:20:36:20
Speaker 3
And that's where I'm at. That's that was my instinct, you know what I mean? And I've been told different things. You know, I've got friends that said I'm nothing but virtual and they're really good at it.
00:20:36:20 - 00:20:37:29
Speaker 2
Yeah, some people crushing.
00:20:38:17 - 00:20:58:17
Speaker 3
Guys are doing nothing but lead dotted or legion and closing in person. And then and then, you know, they got the center closure model. But then there's also the ones that like I, I said it, I close it. I do everything, you know what I mean? And I'm like, That sounds exhausting, you know? And so I think that's where we're going to end up as well.
00:20:58:17 - 00:21:00:26
Speaker 3
So appreciate the free consulting.
00:21:00:28 - 00:21:16:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, the virtual closing. We did a lot of that. Yeah. Just conversion rates for whatever reason were the conversion rates to get them from set to close was higher with door to door and then also from close to install was a little bit higher as well.
00:21:16:04 - 00:21:17:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, it makes a lot of.
00:21:17:15 - 00:21:22:15
Speaker 2
Sense and you can make a little bit more money. You don't have to be so worried about price, I guess.
00:21:23:15 - 00:21:27:28
Speaker 3
So there was a post in the Solar Pro group this morning. Okay, you saw it.
00:21:27:28 - 00:21:29:02
Speaker 2
And I went, okay.
00:21:29:10 - 00:21:46:10
Speaker 3
Well, basically the idea was sales orgs are going to go out of business and that EPCs are going to be are going to be able to just hire these already trained and ready to go salespeople, you know what I mean? And that, that you don't need sales organization.
00:21:46:23 - 00:21:48:28
Speaker 2
That posts gets circulated once every few months.
00:21:48:28 - 00:22:05:10
Speaker 3
Yeah yeah yeah they I don't want to stir shit up and get everybody you know kind of troll, you know, and you know, I don't want to be the guy that, oh, because I'm a sales org, like, I'm going to like this, you know what I'm saying? And so I try to look at it objectively.
00:22:05:11 - 00:22:09:04
Speaker 2
And there's some truth to that, right? You got freedom forever. You can't be a dealer for them anymore.
00:22:09:04 - 00:22:09:12
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:22:10:15 - 00:22:24:07
Speaker 2
Sunrun can be anywhere from I mean, I've heard they brought that back a little bit. Vivent right now they're Sunrun. So I was another big installer that you can't really be a dealer for. For now. There's still a lot out there, but I mean, and then, you know, Empire is and the large ones, they went out of business.
00:22:24:12 - 00:22:34:28
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it's like it looks like it's gravitating to that, but it's definitely not dead. Yeah, I think it will ever be dead because you'll always have the local installers that have no idea how to do sales and they'd rather hire that out.
00:22:35:09 - 00:23:06:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, that makes sense. And then I think every sales org wants to be linear eventually. Yeah. I'm saying whether that's buying a installer group or partnering up. Yeah, exactly. So I think there's going to be hybrids of that everywhere. So let's get into, you know, a lot of what I talk about and I consults on is Kodak and it's walking through it as compensation claim, opportunity, development, operation and culture, you know, and it gets more important as you go down the line.
00:23:07:07 - 00:23:12:10
Speaker 3
And so in terms of compensation, digital pay the most in terms of closing.
00:23:12:25 - 00:23:28:29
Speaker 2
You know, there's always people that pay more and and it's typically not always, you know, related to the value because it's like, well, we're doing incentives and we're not going to pay as much if we're if we're going to Mexico because we live in San Diego, you know, Mexico trips where we're most like it's a little bit less, right?
00:23:28:29 - 00:23:33:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. So definitely I mean, I think we pay competitively but didn't pay anything crazy.
00:23:33:25 - 00:23:36:07
Speaker 3
You kind of focus a little more on your incentives.
00:23:36:15 - 00:24:00:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, we try to again, going back to the let sales people sell let managers sell like managers are good managers. I mean, a lot of good managers are good managers per say. Yeah. And you need them to be leading from the front. So like the same thing, we were developing this back and process in the Philippines. So what we would do is when a saw so you have, you know, you close the account now you also have to babysit it.
00:24:01:00 - 00:24:11:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So how can we help sales reps babysit it so they can go sell another account? So we did like this whole gifting service. So the accounts closed, We sent them cookies. So the first thing that they would.
00:24:11:08 - 00:24:11:24
Speaker 3
Get, man.
00:24:11:27 - 00:24:28:17
Speaker 2
And then they would get a text from the Philippines, you know, someone in the Philippines not knowing it's from there. But yeah, hey, you know, we're sending you some cookies the day that the permits were approved. Hey, congratulations. Your parents are approved. We'd love to buy a small dinner. Typically, we buy two pizzas from x, X, Y, Z unless you want something else.
00:24:28:17 - 00:24:46:16
Speaker 2
And sometimes they're taken, you know, we're taking their order for the local restaurant that they love. Yeah, or we're just ordering pizza. But we had that and then we did like this welcome packet and I was like, This is cheesy. My brothers are freaking cheeseball. Do they love superheroes? So you open it up and it's like you're not only saving money, you're saving the world.
00:24:46:16 - 00:25:00:24
Speaker 2
And it has like literally a super hero action figure. So I'd like the Hulk in there, so. Oh, my God. You know, and people loved it. And they would the kids would play with it. It's in this pictures. And then I think we sent him a bonsai tree once this install was scheduled. And it was a it was called the money Bonsai tree.
00:25:01:10 - 00:25:03:12
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. I mean, that is a thing. That's right.
00:25:03:17 - 00:25:22:07
Speaker 2
It's kind of a cool thing. And then Dave installed, we ordered him wine and so it was kind of like, Let's make sure that we're touching them at least once a week because the sales are up. Should be, but they're not always doing it. So let's, let's the sales reps, so come up with this back end process. And then for the managers, it was, you know, we do our meetings every Monday.
00:25:22:07 - 00:25:42:23
Speaker 2
So it's like, you know, you're doing like the Throwdown 30 days, you're competing well on the back end. We were tracking that for them. So whoever won, they're going to get lunch order for them Monday during the meeting, but the managers have to worry about it. It's in the Philippines. They're back and team is sending them a DoorDash link and saying, you know, we chose Chick-Fil-A today.
00:25:43:03 - 00:26:00:17
Speaker 2
You can order up to 15 bucks for your lunch and then they're eating it in front of everybody else at the meeting because they won, you know, but the managers didn't have to track that. Yeah. So they could come out and they're doing like we would give them like the incentive budget. You know, every cell goes in for allocating $50 kilowatt and then they have their budget of a credit card.
00:26:00:17 - 00:26:20:23
Speaker 2
So so some autonomy there. But in the back end, we're really trying to do everything for them. I'm like, oh, who want it? Okay, well, we're going to order that for them just to try to let the managers lead more from the front and just trying to sell and talk to reps rather than an organizational piece, because sometimes it's hard to find somebody that's good at both and maybe you want somebody that's good at both.
00:26:21:06 - 00:26:42:26
Speaker 3
So to your point, we have our operations admin right now. Cheyenne Shout out to Shane. We recognize she was a good salesperson, She was an assistant manager at the time, but she was a freaking bad ass with the operational pieces, you know? And so at the time we were heavy staffed, you know, so we couldn't pick her up.
00:26:42:26 - 00:26:58:12
Speaker 3
We should have. But she ended up leaving and going, working for another company because she was she, she was knocking it seven months pregnant. Wow. I'm saying she sold her decision like we didn't even know she was pregnant at one point. And then she, you know, obviously we saw.
00:26:58:17 - 00:26:59:11
Speaker 2
You know, I mean.
00:26:59:18 - 00:27:16:02
Speaker 3
And she's like, no, I'm still lucky. She was not going to all the way to eight months, I think. But anyways, fast forward, she worked at a few other positions or whatever, and we were like, we need a strong operational person. And Wayne's like, Hey, Cheyenne's doing this. And I don't, I think we can get her, you know?
00:27:16:10 - 00:27:36:00
Speaker 3
And so we went back and grabbed her. But I 100% agree with that. Like we're super light on a lot of this stuff. So first the gifting. That's something that we just started putting into place and but we only put it into place once it installed. So what was your spend by the time they installed? It sounds like it was about 200 bucks.
00:27:36:11 - 00:27:46:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was like 150. Sometimes you're sending cookies in the council? Yeah, the cookies are like 25 bucks. Yeah, sometimes we're sending pizza. Then they cancel, and that was like 35.
00:27:46:14 - 00:27:48:09
Speaker 3
But yeah, so your break point was.
00:27:48:09 - 00:27:57:14
Speaker 2
But, but like our allocated budget, including the labor on the back end, you know the hourly time to send in message everything. Yeah we're budget about $200 after cancellations.
00:27:57:18 - 00:27:59:02
Speaker 3
That's awesome That's great.
00:27:59:03 - 00:28:06:14
Speaker 2
So it's like $200 on a deal and making, you know, 5 to 15 on like who cares about $200.
00:28:06:14 - 00:28:25:06
Speaker 3
So I read gift gift ology John Room and that's kind of where I got that from. So what I want to start doing is once they install for them to get a block of the cocoa knives. Yeah, but not be our freakin logo on it. Be their family. Family name.
00:28:25:10 - 00:28:25:17
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:28:25:17 - 00:28:36:22
Speaker 3
And if we can even research their family crest, that's awesome. What? And so the whole idea is that every time they walk in the kitchen, they see their family name, they see their knives. You know what I mean?
00:28:36:22 - 00:28:52:28
Speaker 2
And then who they're thinking of exactly. Or somebody else, You know, at the dinner table, they invite somebody over. And what it was actually, I think, a jackass who would give them a fancy bottle of wine because he's like, when are they going to use that wine? You know, when they're celebrating, they usually invite somebody over and then it's like, Oh, where'd you get this right?
00:28:53:05 - 00:29:07:12
Speaker 2
So it's having something in their physical in their house, whether it be a stupid tree. You know, I went to a solar customers, you know, he's like, Hey, come over. You know, I got some other houses to sign up, like walking. And this is over a year after I sold them and installed a frickin bond tree sitting right there, I was like, Let's go, Louise.
00:29:07:13 - 00:29:09:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, Get my bonsai tree, man.
00:29:09:11 - 00:29:18:21
Speaker 3
That's awesome. And those are. Those are like, You got to take care of them. Yeah, You know what I mean? So you're really nurturing a relationship that was built off of a solar transaction.
00:29:19:01 - 00:29:33:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, yeah, I thought was anyways, they cut corners, so that's, that's a big, that's a big gift. Yeah. And they're going to keep that and people are going to ask them about it and they have a limited warranty. Yeah. No taco dude. Yeah, they're slinging those man.
00:29:33:16 - 00:29:48:26
Speaker 3
So yeah, yeah. I did the same thing in high school. I did go to high school for a little bit. I was horrible at it, you know, And it's crazy. I own a sales organization, but I don't consider myself a good salesperson. You know, I was saying, you know, now I can sell the shit out if the opportunity.
00:29:49:11 - 00:30:13:18
Speaker 3
You know what I mean? It's just a different deal. But anyways, or so the the Koko deal. So that's a great way to solidify yourself and the customer in mind. We just made an energy drink right into the energy. Uh huh. And so shout out to Dennis Morales with drink labs. So it's a lot more affordable than you think.
00:30:13:22 - 00:30:31:25
Speaker 3
And so are you going to MDM? Brian's doing it in Dallas, so we will be giving everybody free energy drinks at random. So we're giving those away. And on the back there's a QR code for a quote. That's awesome. And so every time my customer gets in-store, we're going to drop them off like two cases of these energy drinks, right?
00:30:32:06 - 00:30:49:13
Speaker 3
And then they're going to they're going to have them for probably eight maybe. It depends on how much they consume, if they're in sales in the house in three a day. But anyways, so then yeah, they're going to hand them out to friends, family, they're free, you know, they got a QR code on the bag. It's got our core values, our mission statement on there and everything.
00:30:49:18 - 00:31:12:03
Speaker 2
That's real cool. Yeah. I'll show you something after that. You can do that QR code and incorporate it with augmented reality. So they're scanning that. They, they, so they scan it, a browser pops open so there's no app required. You face it to this Red Bull and then literally a Red Bull, it looks like on your phone popped up behind.
00:31:12:03 - 00:31:20:16
Speaker 2
And finally, you know, and then you can say thank you for your purchase from, you know, X, Y, Z company name. But there's there's a lot of cool tech out there that we're doing a lot of that they can use.
00:31:20:16 - 00:31:21:08
Speaker 3
They can post it.
00:31:21:17 - 00:31:36:05
Speaker 2
And then they can post it. They can share it. You can do games. So like we're doing Subway runner on our freaking cookie boxes. So anyway, it just again, kind of kind of side note I'll show you after but it's real cool. Yeah that's what you guys are doing giving out some energy drinks for for a little bit extra.
00:31:36:05 - 00:31:45:01
Speaker 2
You can have a full on customer experience when they scan it or like solar panels are popping up behind the energy drink, you know, click here for your solar or whatever.
00:31:45:08 - 00:31:51:11
Speaker 3
So we were just talking about it in DM in our booth and I want a, you know, basically a green screen backdrop.
00:31:51:12 - 00:31:51:15
Speaker 2
To.
00:31:51:26 - 00:32:01:14
Speaker 3
Them to take a picture and something crazy be behind them, like they're flying out of a plane or something and they're holding the energy drink in their hand. Yeah. And so that's even better because we don't have the jack with the whole set. I'm saying.
00:32:01:14 - 00:32:07:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, it just pops up with whatever background and you can make it interactive. So we're doing that in our stores as well, looking to go in.
00:32:07:22 - 00:32:08:25
Speaker 3
And plug who does that.
00:32:09:01 - 00:32:12:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, we're using Continuum XR, They're looking near to Utah.
00:32:12:11 - 00:32:12:21
Speaker 3
Okay.
00:32:13:20 - 00:32:15:13
Speaker 2
So they're doing yeah, with.
00:32:15:13 - 00:32:18:29
Speaker 3
I know there's like 17 business owners that just heard this and they're like, okay.
00:32:19:19 - 00:32:34:26
Speaker 2
LG Yeah, yeah. Continuum X Ah, I forgot the owner. But yeah, so super cool guys, super cool guys. Check them out. Doing games and their actions and stuff. Yeah, it makes it a lot more experience. Yeah. Or a better experience I guess, for the consumer.
00:32:35:10 - 00:32:49:15
Speaker 3
So one thing I want to touch on before we get into the actual sale of your company is development. So you hired Jackass four was it was a coaching for you at that point or did he kind of coach the whole team?
00:32:49:21 - 00:32:54:09
Speaker 2
It was it was the business was me and my brother. But you know, you would come into games and things like that.
00:32:54:09 - 00:33:02:07
Speaker 3
Awesome. And so what did you guys do to to train your guys besides the 1 to 1 type training?
00:33:02:07 - 00:33:22:28
Speaker 2
So we had a, you know, a weekly correlation meeting on Mondays and a lot of it was done and that our brother was very big on screen recording Quick's record on this is how you you're doing this as well We're implementing you know, send it out, watch it and then you're tracking if they actually watched or not. So a lot of those were just like five minute videos.
00:33:22:28 - 00:33:27:01
Speaker 2
And we always try to even five is typically too long because and then they don't frickin watch it Is.
00:33:27:01 - 00:33:28:19
Speaker 3
That is that loom how are you tracking.
00:33:28:19 - 00:33:37:12
Speaker 2
It? I don't know. All right. I suppose that that's a great question. We do use little I use it this morning. I don't know if that's how he was using it to track.
00:33:37:12 - 00:33:38:11
Speaker 3
It though, or what.
00:33:38:14 - 00:33:56:29
Speaker 2
The software was by that. But a lot of that was, you know, breaking it up into these two or three minute videos. That's how we did all of ourselves training as well. So we'd onboard onboard people and then give them access to this sheet with all the links and then they're marking if they're done or not. But all, all of the training we do, there's so much info on YouTube.
00:33:56:29 - 00:34:09:06
Speaker 2
I'm going to show you this. This a I mean, all these videos on like just basics or education free videos online that are like 1 to 2 minutes, like super basic. We would require sales reps to watch those before they came to our.
00:34:09:06 - 00:34:15:00
Speaker 3
First training and you would just like add them to like a sheet that they were all linked on, you know, thing like, like an important links.
00:34:15:02 - 00:34:30:08
Speaker 2
So yeah, that's how we started out with. And then we started building on a platform so they can go and you know, take courses. But yeah, started out with just said here's a Google sheet and here's the, the video title, what's it about the length of the video. So they know it's not more than like 2 minutes and then click on it for the link.
00:34:30:16 - 00:34:52:10
Speaker 3
That's awesome. So I just actually spent a good amount of coaching for my consulting division to it's basically it's a go high level set up, right? But the client's actually able to log in, access all the documents you've created for them, the sales program and everything. And also if they pay for it, obviously you can do custom training videos for your sales organization and they can access that too.
00:34:52:21 - 00:35:10:23
Speaker 3
So I'm like at this point, because I'm so invested in solar right now, I might do that for my company. Yeah, set it up like that. As if, you know, the solar is the client and then kind of build out that for them. So it's all automated and they can go through the checklist and, and yeah. In that you can see if they watch it or not you know.
00:35:10:23 - 00:35:14:07
Speaker 2
No, yeah that would be money because it's also going to be a testimony for your other clients.
00:35:14:07 - 00:35:14:25
Speaker 3
Exactly.
00:35:15:01 - 00:35:18:29
Speaker 2
Of how I was like did I did it with my own freaking company and I was all right.
00:35:18:29 - 00:35:32:16
Speaker 3
So I'm not thinking that I'm ever going to sell to sell this organization. I'm thinking that I'm going to pass it on to my kids and they're going to run it someday, and it's going to to print money for them, Right? So what got that in your in your mind?
00:35:33:15 - 00:35:53:05
Speaker 2
I also didn't think I was ever going to sell. I thought I was going to do it for, you know, a few years, make some good money. And then until I found out what what else I wanted, what's next. Yeah. So it was kind of just a guy that I'd work for or with on one pre season, so I didn't know a ton.
00:35:53:13 - 00:36:16:01
Speaker 2
But Jason Newby Vivid. Okay, so he moved to San Diego and he is a phenomenal sales person, phenomenal recruiter, and he had like 40 guys selling through, you know, a few different installers and they were just starting so they had big volume anyways, their operations, the operations are set up like they just weren't set up at all where we had, I don't know, reading like 20 or 30 a month.
00:36:16:27 - 00:36:38:07
Speaker 2
So nothing crazy. But we had a good back in operations and you know, I was running the cookie company mainly, so like I, I wasn't even insular upon at that point. I was mainly doing the cookies. But we had we had just hired a really good ops person and then they had a team and, you know, like a regional manager and then they were overseeing some, some great managers.
00:36:38:11 - 00:36:46:26
Speaker 2
Gotcha. And they were kind of run and running the show. So anyways, Jason reaches out. He's like, I want to buy your company. I thought it was just bullshit and me.
00:36:47:05 - 00:36:49:03
Speaker 3
Wow. Okay. And I'm like.
00:36:49:08 - 00:37:02:25
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to my brother. We didn't talk to our brother. And then like two weeks later, same thing. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll talk to my brother. He didn't talk to my brother. And then they went and met at some solar thing randomly, like without me introducing either. But he came back. He said, We got to hear Jason.
00:37:02:25 - 00:37:23:28
Speaker 2
I was like, All right, let's hear Jason out. So then we started talking to Jason and and it was basically there's a there's solar integrated roofing corporation. Hmm. That's a publicly traded company on like the pink slips or pink sheet stocks, whatever. It was like low regulation, but it is public. Yeah, they did like 50 million the year before and this was, you know, Right.
00:37:23:28 - 00:37:34:12
Speaker 2
I think this was like April or May when we started talking and we had done year to date 5 million in revenue, which again with solar is not a ton. I mean it's a decent amount but like between.
00:37:34:17 - 00:37:37:11
Speaker 3
Is that 5 million and like gross profit or is it 5 million.
00:37:37:11 - 00:37:46:03
Speaker 2
Just gross No, I mean even retail. Okay. So where they're counting because they they just purchased an install installation company. So it's like if you guys if they own diesel.
00:37:46:09 - 00:37:47:03
Speaker 3
So that means.
00:37:47:20 - 00:38:00:15
Speaker 2
Then your kind of whole thing. So that's what they were worried about. Oh, we could pick up you guys, we could pick up J.D., I mean, we could pick up Jason's and, you know, double our revenue, maybe pick up you guys gained 5% but with but provide some structure with Jason's.
00:38:00:26 - 00:38:22:08
Speaker 3
So companies do that because well one you had probably the most efficient back end of everybody in that transaction right but two then then your purchasing power increases your costs go down a little bit. You know you can start shaving margins and it doesn't even the company you're buying doesn't even necessarily have to create this huge net profit, which it did.
00:38:23:05 - 00:38:23:26
Speaker 3
But if it gives you.
00:38:23:26 - 00:38:27:24
Speaker 2
That you're after that revenue, they the revenue to drive stock prices higher.
00:38:27:29 - 00:38:28:29
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:28:29 - 00:38:37:29
Speaker 2
So same thing like again I kind of ignored them the first two times because I'm like why would you want to buy sells company. Yeah. You know like what do you mean you got, you got dudes.
00:38:38:05 - 00:38:38:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:38:39:00 - 00:38:51:14
Speaker 2
But I also didn't see really the value of what we built on the back end and the like. What? Yeah, actually, we do have a full team that's like, I'm not going to these meetings anymore. Like, it's running here, down there? Yeah, it's right there.
00:38:51:17 - 00:38:52:01
Speaker 3
Down then.
00:38:52:02 - 00:39:14:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it that's kind of how it came about. Came about like, okay, well okay, let's do it then. So he bought us and then he sold to the Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation. I mean, like within a week both transactions happened. That makes sense. And then we plugged into that. There's two other companies involved, so there's kind of like four smaller companies combining into one under future home power.
00:39:14:11 - 00:39:35:12
Speaker 2
That was Jason's company. But all of them have like, you know, at least one or two admin people. And I mean, the transition was as rough as they come. So at that point, you know, I was kind of like, you sell it and then you want to implement and keep going with everything you're doing. But there's an organization piece and then now you now you don't have control, right?
00:39:35:17 - 00:39:52:17
Speaker 2
And so it definitely didn't turn out like how we how we thought we would as far as keeping that going, keeping it going. But again, like, I mean, I stuck around, tried it like, okay, what's the new org chart and kind of push that. But we were just on a different page and they were more like, Yeah, sell, sell, sell.
00:39:52:17 - 00:40:01:20
Speaker 2
I'm like, Yeah, we need to sell, but let's organize, organize, organize. Like that's what the reason about us. Yeah. And it seemed like they never really used it, but they got, they got our revenue.
00:40:01:27 - 00:40:04:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. So was there an exit plan?
00:40:04:18 - 00:40:05:04
Speaker 2
What was that?
00:40:05:04 - 00:40:16:24
Speaker 3
Was there an exit plan for you? I mean, typically that's what happens when when another company buys home, they're like, okay, we want to keep you on. Yeah, six months, here's your salary, here's this. But you can't do any of this, you know?
00:40:16:24 - 00:40:33:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Non-compete. So that's exactly what it was. And a lot of it was based on because, I mean, it was a public company like, I can go buy their stock. So it was actual real stock. And I'm like, I don't trust stock. Yeah. Oh, but if I'm in a trust stock, maybe, maybe this one could be the one to trust because it's actual stock.
00:40:33:05 - 00:40:37:12
Speaker 2
You know, all these like, Oh, we're going to sell at some future date and you can have X percentage of the.
00:40:37:12 - 00:40:38:01
Speaker 3
Company, right.
00:40:38:02 - 00:40:59:09
Speaker 2
Right. Like that. They may never finance like. Yeah, but this one was already public. So I'm like okay, so you know, we were getting a percentage back of gross revenue and stock and then anyways, so I kind of looked at it like I was, I did, I was already doing my cookie stuff. You know, they would give a decent salary to kind of keep the lights on, but you're getting paid based off of revenue.
00:40:59:20 - 00:41:22:24
Speaker 2
And it was about what we were getting paid anyway. So it's like, no, this is a good transition to get a little, little bit of cash and then some stock. I'm not happy to say that stock sales isn't worked out. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. But anyways, so I was supposed to stay on, but after about two months I just like one.
00:41:22:24 - 00:41:23:25
Speaker 2
I'm like.
00:41:23:25 - 00:41:24:20
Speaker 3
An exit package or.
00:41:24:23 - 00:41:44:20
Speaker 2
I was. Yeah. I mean, I was unable to make any changes because I couldn't make it, couldn't make the decisions anymore. And two, I didn't ever get the stock members through the stock, from the sell, from the initial sell. So I'm like, when you get the stock ready, then let's talk again. Yeah, exactly. And actually, he called me yesterday and he's like, We got this stock ready for you, dude, it's a pretty good year, man.
00:41:45:04 - 00:41:45:19
Speaker 2
Anyways.
00:41:46:05 - 00:41:52:26
Speaker 3
So, you know, I don't know if you can, but the juicy question is, you know, how much were you able to sell for?
00:41:52:29 - 00:42:06:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, we sell for a few hundred thousand. I mean, each in cash and a few hundred thousand in stock. The big thing again was like, I mean, if we can get, you know, like I got 315,000 for my half.
00:42:06:06 - 00:42:07:12
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:42:07:12 - 00:42:18:26
Speaker 2
So it's like that's, that's an 86, it's some money. But the big thing was okay, well if we did 5 million the first quarter and we get, you know, a percentage of that back, you can make several hundred thousand dollars.
00:42:19:01 - 00:42:20:14
Speaker 3
It's not just for sale price.
00:42:20:14 - 00:42:35:12
Speaker 2
Yes, it's all based on that again, but that was contingent on staying in and I didn't end up staying in, but that's kind of it. Was it because, again, they were looking for that revenue and they're like, well, we'll give you a back percentage of revenue. And me always working, you know, a commission job. I'm like, Oh, that's fair.
00:42:35:14 - 00:42:51:27
Speaker 2
Like, I look at like that. Yeah, like because I think I could give it 10 million. It's like it's I may not maybe get a million in stock. And so that's why we did it. And then the cash was kind of just a little, little bonus on it. Yeah. But at the same time, I did make the decision based on what if the stock doesn't pan out at all.
00:42:51:28 - 00:42:54:07
Speaker 3
Right, so you took a little more cash up, so.
00:42:54:07 - 00:42:54:16
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:42:55:02 - 00:43:00:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, that makes sense. And then you also I imagine you wanted that cash to get into dirty dough.
00:43:00:20 - 00:43:04:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I already purchased the company is already going, but it definitely helped.
00:43:04:25 - 00:43:05:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, for.
00:43:05:10 - 00:43:07:18
Speaker 2
Sure. Other than the frequent capital gains taxes.
00:43:07:18 - 00:43:29:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. So you had a really the boy that. Yeah, that makes sense. So let's talk about dirty. Okay. Where, where did that come from. And then, you know obviously there's huge opportunity with that for everybody listening and you know you don't see stuff like this too often. So I definitely want you to stay on for this last part.
00:43:29:08 - 00:43:30:28
Speaker 3
So where did that come from?
00:43:31:26 - 00:43:50:20
Speaker 2
Crumble Cookies is killing it. There was absolutely it. My cousins heavily involved with them. I try to get in by franchise. They were sold out in the in Utah and the places that I want to live and they require to live there and I'm like, not stupid. Yeah, like the cookies aren't going to be my profession. And then here I am, the cookies.
00:43:52:03 - 00:44:09:09
Speaker 2
Oh, no, I'm not. I'm not going to move out to run a cookie store. I just want to throw in some money. Yeah. So I had the opportunity to buy this company when I was in San Diego and I was out of Tempe, Arizona, and I'm like, I've never worked in food. Yeah, but if I buy it and I can prove that I run it with no knowledge out of out of state, then that is money.
00:44:09:10 - 00:44:21:14
Speaker 2
That's the franchise. Well, all right, then. I can go and do what Campbell was offering at the time of like you can invest in these stores and hire a good manager and you don't have to. It doesn't have to be your career.
00:44:21:19 - 00:44:22:16
Speaker 3
Needs to be passive.
00:44:22:16 - 00:44:41:28
Speaker 2
So I want that's what I want to make. So I bought the company and then, you know, like, well, I identified the areas that sucked, which was labor and waste. Okay, well, how are we going to fix that? And after a lot of networking and meeting the right people like Jeff Fenster was on the first guys I spoke with, he's the owner of Evermore.
00:44:42:14 - 00:44:46:17
Speaker 2
Okay. So he helped. He's like, now you got to centralize to do this and that. So basically we took a lot.
00:44:46:17 - 00:44:48:14
Speaker 3
Of our friends are invested in their role.
00:44:48:16 - 00:45:08:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. So he helped out and then started bringing on on some other, you know, just just high talent to figure this out. So where we're at right now is we centralize all ordering to our warehouse here in Utah. So when you centralize your ordering, you're no longer going to do the third party distribution companies. We don't have that markup.
00:45:08:21 - 00:45:24:00
Speaker 2
And then now you're not buying a £50 bag. If I were, you want a truckload of flour, so you're flour and your sugar, your main ingredients are much cheaper. And then instead of mixing 70 cookies at a time in each location, we can make 700 cookies at a time, right in a giant mixer and have a professional baker there.
00:45:24:06 - 00:45:24:16
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:45:24:19 - 00:45:41:06
Speaker 2
To increase the quality control rather than training, you know, hundreds of teenagers between hundreds of locations or thousands of teenagers. So that's kind of the way we went. And then I found a machine that automates everything. So rather than weighing everything by hand, like what we were doing, putting little pieces of dough till it was just right, yeah, we just throw it in a machine.
00:45:41:13 - 00:45:57:18
Speaker 2
What We were doing it taking an hour to do with human labor. This machine is doing it in 4 minutes, and it's perfect consistency. Yeah. So it's like, okay, so now we're delivering these dough pucks and they, they're three layer cookies. It doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. So you get this like the large gourmet crazy cookie.
00:45:57:18 - 00:46:16:19
Speaker 2
Like it could be a sugar cookie on the outside and you bust up and there's, there's a strawberry dough in the very center. There's a marshmallow cream, right? Yeah. So, like, you're getting this cool cookie, but you don't have to spend the labor on on top of the cookie. Right? Yeah. So it's a it's a it was a very unique product, which is cool because typically, like, you go away from a unique product if you automate it, right?
00:46:16:19 - 00:46:36:10
Speaker 2
And we kind of got lucky and. Got both. Yeah. So I hired on a CEO, Jill Summerhays. She founded Maui. Why we see and in coffee back in the eighties, first ever mobile franchise to exist worldwide and she brought that up to just under 700 locations sold it grew another brand from like you know, 1 to 90 locations.
00:46:36:10 - 00:46:45:05
Speaker 2
And I'm like, again, I don't know, food. I'm not going to pretend like I know food. I still to this day, don't know how to I've never mixed cookie dough, you know I don't have that but I.
00:46:45:14 - 00:47:01:23
Speaker 3
Her on I mean it's that's the thing like so many so many business owners get hung up on oh I've got to lead from the front you know what I mean. What does that really mean though? That means you're busting your ass for your business every day and too many people get hung up on. Oh, that means I have to go out and sell.
00:47:01:23 - 00:47:15:04
Speaker 3
I have to be the one knocking on doors, too. I got to remind the guys who the boss is or why I'm the best. You know what I mean? And it's like, that is so shortsighted. It works temporarily, and then all of a sudden your business is not operating properly because your ass is on the doors. Yeah. I mean.
00:47:15:12 - 00:47:35:18
Speaker 2
Is E-Myth revisited? I would recommend everybody look at that. But that's how when we got into solar, that's what we did and that's why we were able to sell really is because we started Man Brand we built our own charter houses or I mean, it was me and Brett, and then we had this big ass org chart and mine and Brent's heads are in every single position.
00:47:35:18 - 00:47:55:07
Speaker 2
So it's silly, right? And then you focus on each position and you say, this is what this position is doing. And you are I mean, you build out the structure, then you go hire that person, then you work on the next position, the next position. So when we sold, I was in the org chart and like, I don't have a responsibly right now and dirty don't I don't have a responsibility to You have a salesperson right, A production manager all that well you have the.
00:47:55:07 - 00:47:57:01
Speaker 3
Responsibility you're the shit out of the business.
00:47:57:02 - 00:48:02:11
Speaker 2
Well yeah. And then I got to do this, right? Yeah. And this is where I'm going to make the biggest impact, not making cookies.
00:48:02:24 - 00:48:19:22
Speaker 3
So literally within three podcast, guess you and Justin Nelson. I'll just explain the same thing. You know that you need to recognize your strengths, right? And yours is not mixing cookie dough and it's also not scaling franchises or.
00:48:19:22 - 00:48:23:05
Speaker 2
Even honestly managing. Yeah, yeah. Sells. Like I said, it's.
00:48:23:10 - 00:48:35:02
Speaker 3
It's been a rainmaker. You are the rainmaker for the company, you know what I mean? And so it's going out pitching the franchise and getting franchises and that's how you go from 1 to 90. Like jilted. Yeah. Or 1 to 700.
00:48:35:02 - 00:48:56:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, so we're at we started franchising in December and our pitch is like, over here you have these other cookie companies and they kill it. Yeah, and that's a great option. But here's another option for, you know, we're half the cost or half the labor per dollar of revenue. I mean, you know, you get a cookie, a pre-portioned cookie pack, you put it in the oven when the timer goes off, take it out.
00:48:56:21 - 00:48:57:29
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you don't, you messed up.
00:48:58:08 - 00:48:58:28
Speaker 3
Yeah, sorry.
00:48:58:28 - 00:49:09:22
Speaker 2
But you're not putting in too much baking soda. You're not weighing the cookie. Incorrect gooey. Like that's all done on corporate. So it's the simplest fried food franchise model in existence.
00:49:09:26 - 00:49:10:20
Speaker 3
It's an easy bake.
00:49:11:00 - 00:49:28:16
Speaker 2
It is easy. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. It's like we can do a third of the sell sales of our competition at a, you know, not a crazy margin and you're still getting a 50% ROI. So and then we've teamed up with like you Pie Syndicate that were with that solar con. They're offering 100% ROI through those guarantee and it's like.
00:49:28:16 - 00:49:34:20
Speaker 3
Those guys start talking like, wow, I know you just lead lost me like halfway through the course.
00:49:34:20 - 00:49:35:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:35:12 - 00:49:37:01
Speaker 3
Like over here taking notes, you know.
00:49:37:16 - 00:49:58:06
Speaker 2
They're awesome. Jerry and Austin. Austin and his family, they have like 100 something, five guys and Zaxby's and they know the restaurant business. They know how to run it. So we have these solar people that have money, and and our first one was a buddy, and like, he made over $1,000,000 last year, personal sells. So it's like, you know, he's like, oh, I mean, let me buy let me franchise deploy this.
00:49:58:06 - 00:50:13:25
Speaker 2
Yeah it's like and these like without any leverage, you know, all in 175 200, these are low costing franchises. So like this is nothing to him you know he made in a few months we get on for like closing he's ready to wire some money. And Jill, she's like, no, I don't I don't think this is a good fit for my deal.
00:50:13:25 - 00:50:26:03
Speaker 2
This is my friend. Like, would he do it anyway? So it's like, okay, well, who can we team up? You know, somebody with money that wants a good investment with somebody who's a great operator going back to like, that's what we did. Solar. Right?
00:50:26:03 - 00:50:26:12
Speaker 3
Right.
00:50:26:20 - 00:50:34:16
Speaker 2
Let's let sales people sell. What's that? Money. People like you're going to make more money knocking doors than managing a cookie store. Can we get you to do both, though?
00:50:34:16 - 00:50:36:24
Speaker 3
So the pies and pies in the in between?
00:50:36:24 - 00:51:02:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, they make it a white glove service and we've done that as well. On the corporate side, we want a corporate franchising model. So we own and operate everything. I mean, we own 51% of a group of stores, so kind of have two different options for people to get in on that. But I think I mean, really what I was trying to do is provide the most simple food franchise so people can get in like myself I wanted to get in three years ago.
00:51:02:20 - 00:51:07:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, but it's like, what do you want to move to frickin Albuquerque? You're on a kick. You start a hell no. Don't want to go to Albuquerque.
00:51:07:14 - 00:51:11:13
Speaker 3
Do you know? Or Chick fil A's? Same way. Yeah. Like you got to. You get to work in the end.
00:51:11:13 - 00:51:26:23
Speaker 2
It's like it goes against the IMF, right? The E-Myth Revisited is like the whole premise is if you have a job. I mean, if you're a business owner, it doesn't make money when you're not running the business and you have a job and you have a shitty job because you work the most and you get paid last. So absolutely.
00:51:26:23 - 00:51:46:19
Speaker 2
Like, do you want a business or do you want a job? And I wanted to create a business investment for potential investors. Yeah, rather than a job. I don't want people just seven out a job. So that's, that's kind of where we create it. We've sold 57 of these in the first four months. And I mean, I think from this event alone will sell several dozen.
00:51:46:19 - 00:51:53:22
Speaker 2
We have another 15 closing here pretty soon, another 13 somebody buying. So I think we'll have several hundred of these by the end of the year. Probably 200.
00:51:53:22 - 00:51:54:12
Speaker 3
It's amazing.
00:51:54:12 - 00:51:56:28
Speaker 2
So it's it's going good. People like cookies.
00:51:57:03 - 00:52:12:26
Speaker 3
Here's the here's the part. We didn't talk about it, which is the best part, huh? Holy fuck. Are these cookies Good. I had one of the in Ryan our meeting. You guys shaking his head back there because he had some to. I had one of the. I had one that shared cookies. Yeah. You know, I mean, I was.
00:52:12:26 - 00:52:14:19
Speaker 2
Like, okay, one. Yeah, it's good.
00:52:14:26 - 00:52:24:22
Speaker 3
I'm okay. But then I had one of the chocolate ones. I have no idea what it's called or any of that, but I put into this thing and chocolate comes pouring out onto my lips and.
00:52:25:03 - 00:52:26:09
Speaker 2
That's a three layer cookie and.
00:52:26:09 - 00:52:45:03
Speaker 3
I'm a mess, you know, I'm same, but I'm a happy fucking mess. Yeah, you know what I mean? And so, you know, we didn't even talk about that, you know, And most investors don't care about the end product. They just want to see the numbers. The numbers work. They're good to go. But I believe you should care about the and, you know, the easiest way to sell is be passionate about your product, which obviously you are.
00:52:45:20 - 00:52:55:18
Speaker 3
So that's I think that's the biggest thing there. So there's there's a lot of opportunity. I'm excited about what you're doing with it and I can't wait to get my money and other things so I can get it into the.
00:52:55:18 - 00:52:57:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:57:22 - 00:53:15:14
Speaker 3
So yeah, that, that is a hell of a story, you know what I mean? And coming from the entrepreneurial family that you did, but then going out and doing it on your own too, obviously, you know, your, your dad wanted you to make your own way and you did that in pest control and then eventually in solar.
00:53:15:25 - 00:53:34:14
Speaker 2
And when I jumped in Brant again, I'm like, I know I'll make more money knocking doors. But it was back to the work work to learn later and Brant right You know he's he's 13 years older than me so yeah. And he bought a franchise when he was like 22 or 23. So like that's, he's been the entrepreneur.
00:53:34:14 - 00:53:39:26
Speaker 2
So I'm like if I don't make any, you know, like I could go knock doors and probably make a million bucks.
00:53:39:26 - 00:53:41:29
Speaker 3
Well, like you said, your friend made $1,000,000 a year.
00:53:42:13 - 00:53:42:23
Speaker 2
But even.
00:53:42:23 - 00:53:43:24
Speaker 3
He recognized like, Hey.
00:53:43:24 - 00:53:44:20
Speaker 2
I need to deploy this.
00:53:44:20 - 00:53:47:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't want to be working my ass off, you know.
00:53:47:17 - 00:54:09:24
Speaker 2
To get that. So it's but that's really why I jumped into it. I'm like, I will make more money off personal sells, but I, I will learn more by to run a business. Yeah, and I did. And now that gave me the confidence to to buy dirty doing dirty does definitely taking off and then and you know building the enterprise value in a franchise system it just goes up really quick.
00:54:10:00 - 00:54:28:24
Speaker 3
Yeah I mean there's you know I probably got two people in my organization right now that make more money than I do. And I'm the owner, you know, same. But I I'm playing the long game. Yeah, it's the Enterprise. I can get it. I can get on virtual right now. I can set my I can set it up to where I got 15 leads a week, closed three of them.
00:54:28:24 - 00:54:38:19
Speaker 3
We probably make $1,000,000 in a year. But again, I want to do that investment. I want to I want to passive income. You know, I don't want job. I want freedom and investing.
00:54:39:06 - 00:54:43:20
Speaker 2
Yeah you're I mean your time into the skills required to make it passive.
00:54:43:29 - 00:54:56:17
Speaker 3
Exactly. I really appreciate you taking the time. And we've had a busy few days. You've been incredibly busy. I know we're both exhausted right now, but you still showed up here and did this podcast with me, so thank you so much for that.
00:54:57:16 - 00:54:58:04
Speaker 2
You know, how can.
00:54:58:04 - 00:54:59:01
Speaker 3
People get a hold of.
00:54:59:01 - 00:55:22:02
Speaker 2
You and they can visit me on my Benet Maxwell dot com and 80. And I just started doing like in the trenches report so just like what's going on in the business like the nitty gritty I'm I hate this like stigmatism of like you don't talk about money and how much money you get paid and this and that like I like that you just like how much you do the business for.
00:55:22:04 - 00:55:38:28
Speaker 2
Yeah. And to answer that a little bit more direct. So I got 315 and there's a few hundred, I think it's 350 shares, 450,000 shares of stock. Okay. And then I was getting more shares of stock and that's where the anyways. But so when talking.
00:55:38:28 - 00:55:41:13
Speaker 3
Numbers of seven figure actually yeah.
00:55:41:13 - 00:55:59:27
Speaker 2
Okay so even though anyways jumping into like what I'm trying to do with this that like the end of trip in the trenches is like where it is talking numbers like actual physical you know dollar amounts of like oh we're making this, we just friggin spent this much money and that is not over this much.
00:55:59:27 - 00:56:10:27
Speaker 3
That's not going to stop me from going and buying a $4 cookie, especially if it tastes like the one I had the other day. It's not gonna stop me because that's the whole idea is like, Well, if you tell everybody what we make, then they won't support our product. Hell yes they will.
00:56:10:27 - 00:56:42:29
Speaker 2
Like, yeah, and then anyways, and then it's all cause based and yeah, we're out of time right now. But it's we everything that we do, every dollar that we make ourselves in our franchise, we have a nonprofit we're giving back to mental health awareness and education for kids in K through 12 building wellness centers. And it's all about catching kids in the stress and anxiety stages before it goes to the depression, suicide stages and teaching them mindfulness, you know, breathing techniques and happiness mindset, all meditation, guided meditation, things like that and trying it.
00:56:43:00 - 00:56:43:29
Speaker 2
So, you know.
00:56:44:07 - 00:56:47:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm 35 years old and I'm just finding that stuff, man. Yeah, So.
00:56:48:04 - 00:57:05:10
Speaker 2
That's what I like too. Yeah. So we're funding a lot of these, these schools. I think we have several hundred of these within the next probably two years that we funded. So we're really, really pushing that. But yeah, if anyone wants to follow me and then, you know, all my social media is on there, but really trying to be as transparent as possible and what we stand for it.
00:57:05:10 - 00:57:25:04
Speaker 2
Dirty dough, it's a dirty, messy cookie. Life's dirty and messy, but it's meant to be enjoyed. We're fighting against that stigmatism of like, I have my average life and I compare it to your perfect life on Instagram. Yeah. So it's just about being raw with like, shit. We just pay two companies $10,000 each to do the same damn thing because the first one screwed us over, you know?
00:57:25:04 - 00:57:29:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, like actual dollar amounts and like, what we're doing good and what we're doing bad.
00:57:29:10 - 00:57:30:27
Speaker 3
Well, there's a lot of education in that to.
00:57:31:03 - 00:57:44:00
Speaker 2
Trying to get people more in that mindset. And I just feel like it's too ambiguous. A lot of times like, Oh yeah, I sold this or like lost some money. It's like, Well, what's some money? Yeah, you know, So just trying to try to really get down in the trenches.
00:57:44:06 - 00:57:49:01
Speaker 3
Absolutely. So what is is there a certain organization that you guys are supporting?
00:57:49:12 - 00:58:04:27
Speaker 2
So we're doing it our own. Okay, So you create in your own. Yeah, we're creating our own on Tuesday and meeting with the lady and she said she'll have it up for me in five days for nonprofit. We are officially I mean we are donating to some other ones. One, right? I haven't been finalized yet.
00:58:04:27 - 00:58:06:12
Speaker 3
To pass that. Some of it's passed.
00:58:06:12 - 00:58:20:29
Speaker 2
Some of it to pass through. But we are contacting these schools directly and say, hey, you know, if we fund this wellness room, do you guys have a room to convert? Right. And can you guys run this? And then but we're in housing. I just want to make sure that it's done correctly.
00:58:21:00 - 00:58:21:20
Speaker 3
It's done right.
00:58:21:29 - 00:58:31:10
Speaker 2
But there's some other educational programs that we're teaming up with, some other ones to do, like the happiness mindset, stuff like education towards parents. So things like that.
00:58:31:17 - 00:58:36:11
Speaker 3
Awesome. What is that organization be called? Because obviously you have to have a separate nonprofit.
00:58:36:11 - 00:58:39:27
Speaker 2
Yeah, probably the cookie with the cause something like that costs. Okay.
00:58:41:00 - 00:58:43:19
Speaker 3
As long as they follow you, they're going to they're going to get that information.
00:58:43:19 - 00:58:56:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, again, I'm going to have to have a come up with a name in three days. So I have a few things. But you just the the cookie with the cost. I'm like that. Awesome. Trying to make a difference with her, with her cookies.
00:58:56:01 - 00:59:08:17
Speaker 3
Now that's huge. I'm I'm glad you made a point to to talk about that because you know, some people may just want to go and donate toward directly towards our cause, you know so that's awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you coming on. We're going to we're going to wrap it up.
00:59:09:02 - 00:59:30:23
Speaker 1
And thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of building great sales teams. We sure do appreciate it. Give evidence already. Make sure you're subscribed the show wherever you consume podcast. This way we get notifications as new episodes become available. Remember, great sales teams are not recruited. They are built block by block until next time.