45 Upgrade Your Marketing Like You Upgrade Your iPhone - Chad Sanschagrin Jan 27 2021

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine

Kevin Weitzel: and I'm Kevin Weitzel with Outhouse.

Greg Bray: And we are excited today to be joined by Chad Sanschagrin, the owner of Cannonball Moments. Welcome Chad. Thanks for joining us.

Chad S: Hey, thanks Greg. Thanks, Kevin, for having me I am really excited to be here. You know, I'm a fan of the show and I'm like, one day I'm going to get on, and then [00:01:00] lo and behold, I get the email. First, I thought Chris Hartley was punking me. I thought he was like, messing with me, like getting my hopes up.

Then it was like, Kevin actually responded. I was like, all right, so it's official and then I got all excited. So thanks for asking.

Greg Bray: Well, we appreciate it. I don't know that anyone has ever used the word "Fan" in the same sentence with our shows before. I think that's a new milestone for us.

Chad S: So that's funny I had for my podcast, I had a fan for a while. I couldn't figure out who it was and then my mother told me it was her. So the cat's out of the bag now.

Greg Bray: Well, we need to boost our numbers, I will tell my mom to have her friends listen That's how we do that. I get it, I guess. Well, Chad, for those few people who don't know you, haven't met you yet, give us that kind of short introduction about yourself and tell us a little bit about Cannonball Moments and what you guys are doing.

Chad S: Yes, my name is Chad. I own and operate along with a couple of amazing employees, a company called Cannonball [00:02:00] Moments, which really focuses on the betterment of company employees.

So a lot of people like to say, well, you're a sales trainer, and I was just having this conversation earlier on, on our talk earlier today. There's a lot of people who think they need a sales trainer, but that's not really what they need. They need somebody to help grow their people, not the position, but the person, and so we go in and help grow the people of a company.

Sales is one area that we see as a metric of improvement. I worked for another national sales training company for a while. I was in new home sales in 2000, from 2006 to 2012 and did really well all going through a sales training company. I'll go through a sales training program and we really liked the idea of this, contributing to the betterment of others, I think is the reasons I'm here. I have a strong faith and I think that's one of the reasons I'm on this earth is to contribute to the wellbeing of others, so I went to work with a sales training company.

[00:03:00] After a while, I realized I enjoyed it. This might be my calling, and I stepped out on my own about four years ago and made some tweaks to again focus more on the person and not the position. It's been very blessed since then.

Kevin Weitzel: You know, that's a little bit of the business side of Chad.

And actually, I think you're selling yourself a little bit short. You're being too modest. I mean, you were on the president's club three years in a row for Richmond and American.

The business stuff and not tooting our own horn or anything, but give our audience just a little glimpse into the personal life of Chad.

What's what makes Chad tick on at the homefront. Do you juggle?

Chad S: Yeah, I am married, I'm surrounded, by strong-powerful women. And so I have an amazing, "amazing" wife who I've been married to for going on 20 years now. I couldn't describe her or how amazing she is.

[00:04:00] I have two 16-year-old twin daughters. Who are again, just strong, powerful women that are just doing great on their own. I am an avid runner, which is crazy, cause I'm six foot eight and 240 pounds. So it looks like a grizzly bear was running down the street, but it's just me. I run a lot of marathons, and I am on a quest to be, just better. I just want to be better in my life. I want to be a better father. I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better trainer. I want to be a better Christian. I want to be better. I just want to be better. So that's the mission that I'm on is to find ways to be better every day than I was the day before.

Greg Bray: I love that. Chad, you've connected, that mission, that goal, to the idea of training. So that training is not just about the execution of a process or not just about, making more calls or doing better follow-up or [00:05:00] all of those things. But it's really more personal, am I understanding where you're headed?

Chad S: Yeah, that's exactly right. There's a line in a movie that you know how sometimes you watch a movie and there's one or two lines like really resonated with you and you never forget them. There's a movie Patch Adams with Robin Williams and there's a line in the movie and he's fighting this doctor and based on true stories fighting to do medicine in a different way to make it more personal and not make it so cold. He's in this courtroom or this certification. And he said, I assure you, "When you treat the patient, you win some you lose some, which means that some will live on some will die, but if you treat the person you win every time.

And what he was saying was that yeah, some will still live and some will still die. But I made an indelible mark on their life. For me, I think that the challenge is that I think people are starting to realize, I think for a long time companies and organizations [00:06:00] thought that the way to have better ROI, the way to have more sales, the way to have less turnover is to really focus on the position and fill them up with a ton of tools, as many tools as possible when it comes to selling.

And I think that's important. I think that we provide, that's what we do. We provide tools to people's toolbox every day, but instead of just putting sales, tactical tools or leadership training tools in their toolbox, we put tools on how to be healthier, how to live a healthier life, how to be a better father, a better husband, how to be better.

And I think a lot of times the companies aren't focusing on that, they're focusing on, we just kicked off. We just finished up doing a six-week goal program with all of our people over 600 people in the last three or four weeks. And I said this, I'll say it over and over again. It gets people kind of, they don't understand it at first, but I tell them that achievement is for the ego. Betterment is for the soul.

And what that means is [00:07:00] that if your happiness is tied to the end result of achieving a certain sales number or a certain dollar figure, or a certain lose of a certain amount of pounds, then yeah, maybe you'll hit it. But if you get better, if your goal is to become better, to become a healthier version of me to become a more seasoned sales professional to become a better human being.

You will achieve. You will put yourself in a position, not only to achieve that original goal, but you'll achieve so many more things along the way. And I think that people are starting to wake up to the idea of, let me pour into the person and not the position. And I think that's what my mission is.

And that's what Cannonball Moments is all about.

Kevin Weitzel: Chad. I realized that this is just audio, but brother, were you just looking square at me when you said to lose weight?

Do I need to read into this somehow, are you trying to send me a personal message in today's podcast?

Chad S: I was not. I will not because I'm the last person to tell somebody [00:08:00] they need to lose weight, especially an athlete with your prowess. Yeah. Never.

Greg Bray: Well Chad, I love the idea of, when we focus simply or only on the end or the outcome, then when that outcome does or doesn't happen, we feel like this failure or the success and it's momentary.

But when we focus on the journey, on the steps, on the effort, maybe we're trying to lose weight and we don't lose as much as we want to, but hey, you know what? I'm healthier than I was yesterday. You know, I've still moved forward. I haven't failed.

But if we look at it like, Oh, I only lost one pound and not two. I failed, I missed my goal, and I think that maybe it's subtle, but to me it makes a big difference we look at things.

Chad S: Well, think about this. So, I have a tagline on my wall, [00:09:00] right.

I have it plastered all over the place. If you've been one of my clients, or if you've ever been around me for more than five minutes, you'll hear me say divorce, the outcome, and fall in love with the process. Right. And what I mean by that is I'll give you an example. One of my goals this year, is in my health category of my life is I want to become a healthier version of me right.

In my, my parental and my role as a father, become a more patient father in my role as a husband, I want to become a more present husband. Right. But let's stay with the health. Say, I want to become a healthier version of me. What does that look like? It looks like somebody that could finish an iron man. I've never done an iron man. So I signed up for an iron man show. So that's a goal. I want to be checking the box of finishing the iron man. Well, even though I've never ridden a bike for a long period of time and I've never swam in open water. I did do 18 marathons this year and I'm pretty stubborn.

I have a pretty big ego, and I could probably go out on January 1st and do an iron man. Now it may kill me. It may put me in a ton of pain. I may not be able to walk for a [00:10:00] week after, but I could force my way through it. No question. And if you get the metal and I can stand on the podium and I could say, Hey, look, I got a metal, and I finished an Ironman and that moment, I will feel good and I'll have pride, and that will boost my ego for a little while, but that feeling will dissipate because they didn't do the work.

I didn't get better. I just achieved more. But let's say I go in and I put together an entire process, and I change my habits, and I eat better and I swim three days a week, and I run four days a week, and I bike two days a week and I do all the work leading up to the iron man. And then September 18th, when I show up to the Iron Man, let's say, the iron man is canceled.

Right because of the pandemic or because of a jellyfish or because of weather because escaped unicorns, I don't care. Like pick something, right. It's canceled outside of my control. Well, I'm going to be pissed off. I'm going to be frustrated, but the question is, Greg, did I get better?

Of course, I did. Of course, I got better. I'm a better human [00:11:00] being standing there today. We never, nobody has full control of the outcome. So people tie their emotional happiness to, I want to sell 50 homes. You don't control whether you sell a hundred homes, you don't control what you sell, 50 homes, you control the process and the behaviors and actions you take.

You always control a hundred percent of that, of what you did to put yourself in position. To sell 50 homes, a hundred homes. So to me, like why fall in love with something. The outcome that you don't have a hundred percent control of when you can fall in love with the actions and the behaviors, which I always have a hundred percent control over.

Does that that make sense? You follow me on that?

Greg Bray: Absolutely. So let's take that in the direction if I am the sales manager and I've got outcome responsibility. I've got my job on the line, how do I translate that to getting my name and working to [00:12:00] help them be better, but yet I can't just say, well, forget the outcome it doesn't really matter. We tried hard guys and we learned something.

Chad S: Great question. It's such a great question. John Wooden once said if my team shows up and they run the plays and they do the process and they have great practices and they have the right mind set and they show up and they lose.

Should I reprimand them? On the same hand, if they show up and they don't practice hard and they don't run the plays, they don't listen to me. When should they be celebrated? Right. So too many times sales managers are celebrating the result because we are a for-profit company results matter.

I think what happens is we go in and we say to somebody there's two-fold. So one you go in and you say to somebody, all right, what do you want? I want to do 50 sales a year. Great. Let's go over your process. What do you need to do? I need to prospect five times a day, five days a week.

I needed this. Great. Let's come up with a strategy. Let's come up with the process. Now I'm going to hold them accountable to the process. Like, did you make your sales calls [00:13:00] today? Did you move current deals forward? And I'm going to hold you if I don't hit my numbers. Then there's something wrong with the process and I can go back and I can find the recipe of the process, but if I do everything right and I set the process in place.

The results should take care of itself and from John Wooden to Bill Walsh, the book says the score takes care of itself. Like everything that happens is always the result that your sales are results. The outcome is the result of your process. So there's no bad salesperson. There's just bad processes.

There's bad actions. So fix that, coach on that. To that same point, Greg. I just was in Waco, Texas this week with a new client. I said what do you do, what happens when somebody gets a sale? So you put yourself like you're in a home builders office, right.

So somebody just has three sales. What do you think most people do, they walk around and they're like, hey, great job on [00:14:00] the sale. Hey, you are crushing it. Great job on the sale, they high five, and they're celebrating right. Not one of those sales managers, I shouldn't say not one, very few of those sales managers stop and say, Hey, tell me how you got that sale.

What did you have to do to get that sell? How did you overcome this? What did you do, and so what we're saying to our salespeople is, I don't care about you. I care about your outcome, but when we stop and say, tell me what you did. Tell me how you did it, tell me because every sale and every nonsale has a recipe.

So now I go to the salesperson, I say, hey, tell me about your process. What'd you do? How'd you get the sale? What we're doing is we're cementing it in to that person, that sales mind, that I care more about the process than I do the outcome. That's what we should be celebrating.

I'm not a participation trophy guy. Like I don't think you should show up and get a metal, I think you have to produce. But you have to produce by fine-tuning and have repeatable excellence in your [00:15:00] process.

Greg Bray: I think that's great insight to ask that question because I think it also creates some introspection on the part of the sales person.

What did I do to get that sale? So I can do it again tomorrow, as opposed to I just got lucky or I just happened to ask the right question.

Chad S: Well, I asked people this year. You know, homebuilding had such a great year. This year I asked every one of our 600 people.

Hey, let me ask you this question. Did you get better? Are you a better salesperson today right now than you were one year ago? And without a doubt, everybody goes, Oh yeah, yeah, I'm better. I'm better. I was like, awesome. For me, I say, great.

Well, tell me how you got better. They say, well, I sold 50 homes. I sold 30 more homes. I'm like, so you achieved more and just because you achieve more [00:16:00] doesn't mean you got better now. It doesn't mean it's not mutually exclusive, but if you can't tell me how you got better, For example, "I added this process in here."

I added three new habits in, I did this, I did that. Then the chances are, you probably didn't get better, or you don't consciously know how you got better, which means you can't repeat it. Hmm.

Kevin Weitzel: Where are you seeing builders, especially in the sales teams, marketing teams, where do you see them falling short when they do get this influx of just sales landing in their lap versus having to go out there and earn that business?

Where do you see them falling short in that process?

Chad S: Well, I think, I think the number one thing that we get away from, is where I think they're falling short is, they stop prospecting. They start order-taking, they start just waiting. I see it, you know, web traffic is up. And then now, you know, I just saw a thing the other day saying, Hey, 50% of all sales came from online [00:17:00] leads, which we know that's really important.

So what happens is they're just becoming accustomed to it, which means, I don't think people are consciously getting leads. I think people are becoming really busy trying to manage backlog and try to convert the sales they already have. I think it's the traffic they already have, but I think they're going to stop prospecting.

I think most salespeople are not prospecting. The challenge is, we know this always goes in ebbs and flows. So it's incumbent upon a salesperson to always be driving traffic, to always be following up with people, figuring out how to get more leads and not just depending solely on that online leads coordinator and solely not depending on the web traffic they get, Hey, we'll take it.

We'll take the web traffic. We'll take the online leads, but if you become fixated, that's going to be it, I consider it like a dam. If you think about a dam. Right right now, most sales builders, most builders have one flood [00:18:00] data from one income, one or two flood gates open when it comes to a track to a prospecting and that's online leads and web online leads and their online sales for days like those are flat, like the gates are open and it's just running.

Well, the challenge is you need all five flood gates open, right? You need to figure out how to get walk-in traffic. You need to build realtor relationships. You need to do all those things because if one dries up and one goes bad, if online web traffic starts to go down, which we don't think it's going to, there's no reason to think it's going to, it only looks like it's going to go up.

It only looks like it's going to go up, but I don't want to be a one-trick pony. I'll tell you a perfect example. When I started my company, I had a couple of clients. One of my clients represented 80% of my business, one client, 80% of my business, and they kept getting bigger and bigger and they're a national company. And sure enough, I couldn't handle that as a whole. I couldn't handle the different parts. I [00:19:00] couldn't handle all of them. Right. They said, and I'm still great friends with them, and they said, Hey, Chad, you're going to hire more people, or we're going to have to go somewhere else.

And so we agreed. Hey, let's just not renew the next year, and they went somewhere else. Well, that happened all within like a two month period. So I lost that client in a two month period, 80% of my business was gone. I was like, I hadn't been prospecting, I hadn't been looking for new customers.

All of a sudden that rug got pulled out from underneath me. I was like, I'm never going to make that mistake again. I'm never going to stop prospecting and I'm never going to let one client have 80% of my business. You know that that's where it hurts you.

And so if you're a salesperson and you don't track where your business is coming from, if you're not a builder and you're not tracking where all your business comes from, one area or a majority of one area, well, to me, you better try to find a way to open the gates because if you don't. As I just said, nobody believes web traffic is [00:20:00] going to go away, nobody, but nobody also believed that we'd be in a pandemic wearing masks not being able to go outside.

So you never know what's going to happen. You have to control your controllables.

Kevin Weitzel: Just because the farmer had a bumper crop doesn't mean he doesn't have to plant seeds the next season.

Chad S: That's such a great analogy. That's exactly right. 100%.

Kevin Weitzel: Then he has to look at the analytics as to what areas of his acreage yields the most outcome.

Chad S: Yeah, that's exactly right. What's crazy and go back to the personal, it amazes me how strategic we become with work, but we don't apply the same principles for the rest of our lives. Like, it's not complicated in the sense of you have a recipe for success over here.

It doesn't always translate 100%, but there's a lot of clues. Hey, how did you become successful? And that's what we like to do. We want to move people from the unconscious to the conscious, like, I want you to know. [00:21:00] Like how you got that sale. We give everybody a recipe card. After every sale you get, or every sale you lose.

Take two minutes. It's the greatest thing that salesperson can do and do a one page. Just debrief yourself on how you got that sale. When you lose a sale, do a one page debrief on how you lost the sale. You become the best sales trainer in the world by just looking at your own data. So there's always a recipe in everything we do.

And so we want people to move from the unconscious to the conscious so that they can have repeatable success.

Greg Bray: I think that's a great tip. And frankly, it doesn't require any fancy technology. It doesn't require any super effort.

Chad S: Yeah, paper and pencil, pen to paper.

Go take out your iPhone. When I was selling, I took my phone out after every sale I had. I would take out my phone and do a two-minute video of myself just talking about the buyer, because I [00:22:00] wanted to talk about the buyers so I can keep in touch with them over the course of the process. Like, what was their hotbuttons?

What was this, what was that? We didn't have a robust CRM system back then. So I just used my phone and I had a file on everybody. And to me, if you just took out your phone and you just video dialogue, hey, this is what's going on. This is how I got to the sale. When you're not doing well, go back and watch it.

The recipe is there of how you were successful six months ago. You know what I mean?

Greg Bray: No, that's a great tip. So Chad, when you look at some of these recipes and these processes and steps, what are some things that you've seen really changing over this last year?

That the successful salespeople are just naturally kind of seeing and doing and others are kind of being left behind because they're not paying attention.

Chad S: Yeah, I think they're advanced. Like they are pivoting. The most successful people are pivoting quicker. They're the ones that are successful [00:23:00] or not.

Don't have this fixed mindset about change and how to adopt new behaviors, new beliefs. I think we've spent a lot of time in fighting the old, like, no, this is this, this is how I did it. This is how I always did it. And even if it takes you two weeks to convince you to do a video tour, well, two weeks, guess what?

It's already moved again. So now you're behind even more. So you have to adapt. You have to be the best chameleon right now. And I think you have to be able to figure out how to let your ego go to the side and you have to figure out how do I shed my coat of like fear of looking bad or your insecurities, let them go and be willing to fail, be willing to change because the people that are most successful right now, they're figuring out as they go.

There's no genius on how to sell [00:24:00] during a pandemic. There's a million people that tell you they are, but it's only been around for 10 months, 11 months. So you didn't become a master in 11 months. So there's no master. There was no like, oh, let's go to this person on how to sell during a pandemic.

There was no button. So what the pandemic did? Was it leveled the playing field, whoever was going to rise from it was going to be the one to adapt and try new things and be willing to fail the quickest. And those are the people that I think are going to be the most successful. There are still people that are thinking this online thing is a fad.

I'm not social media selling. Like there are literally people who still tell me I don't do social media. And I'm like, well, okay

Kevin Weitzel: Chad stop doing stand up comedy right now. That was a solid joke. There was nobody that thinks that.

Chad S: Oh, there's a lot of people that are salespeople still telling me I will not communicate via social media.

And I'm like, Well, then you are going to have very skinny children because, you're not going to sell anything.

Kevin Weitzel: [00:25:00] In 10,000 years they are going to be in a museum with them right next to T Rex where they're going to say, this is the death of this salesperson.

Chad S: Meanwhile, that person has an iPhone in their pocket, and is doing a sale on a computer.

I'm like you're so against social media. You're talking on a wireless phone, you're not handwriting your contracts anymore. And they're like, well, that's because it's easier. I went, okay. All right. If I want to sell a car. I'm not going to try to sell it to people that are 10 years old, that don't have a driver's license.

I'm going to meet the buyers where they are, and that is on social media. So there's so many people that are just like, well, I'm not, I'm not doing social media. That social media is the work of the devil. I'm like, that's because you choose to look at the wrong thing. Like for every negative you can give me about social media, I'll give you 20 positives.

Kevin Weitzel: Chad on that note [00:26:00] about, you're not selling cars to ten-year-olds, but you know what you are doing, you're introducing ten-year-olds to those cars so they can get excited about it when they are ready to drive .

Chad S: Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Kevin Weitzel: Let me ask you this though, because you're in a slightly different situation than Greg and I are in, you know, with me being a VP of Sales and business development here at Outhouse and Greg being over there with his whole team, that are selling website development and SEO and everything else.

You know, we're selling, we're hawking our wares. You're in a very unique scenario where you are confiding in the client from several different facets and aspects. It's easy to get a sales team excited about, yes, we need interactive, this. We need visuals that look realistic.

How do you get the brass to engage to buy into the concept of, you need to stop doing it the way you've been doing it the last 20 years, because that's no longer relevant.

Chad S: Yeah, I think the one thing is to make sure, and I think this is where a lot [00:27:00] of trainers get it wrong, only in my opinion is that they go in and instead of trying to understand what the employees and what that person is thinking and what their mindset is. They go in and say, Hey, listen, what you're doing is wrong. And it's broken. Let me shed the light on you. I want you to spend 20 minutes onLinkedIn tomorrow, right?

I want you to scroll through, but I want you to count how many articles, how many people say. Something to the effect of, I have the six secrets of selling. I have the golden nugget of selling, right? Like it's insane. Everybody's got them a magic potion. That's going to make you successful. What I will tell you is I don't have a magic potion.

There is no silver bullet, and what you're doing has worked for you for as long as you've been here. Right. I believe that. I just want to give you more tools. I would just want you to have this unlimited toolbox, right? God gave you [00:28:00] one of the greatest gifts you were ever given, was a toolbox that can never be filled, right?

So we have this brain that will never, ever be filled. And so what you're doing isn't wrong, and I'm going to give you tools that I believe will help make your life better. You may never need them. You may need them tomorrow. And I tell this story a lot that I'm not a handy guy, but my wife believes I am, even though we've been married 20 years, she has this fascination that I'm going to fix something. And I'm not that guy, like I'm not fixing anything, nothing, but she'll make me go to Home Depot or Lowe's with her because she has these fantasies, that I'm one day gonna wear a tool belt and start fixing stuff around the house.

I'm not, it's never going to happen. Right. But on those trips to a Home Depot, I've acquired a ton of tools because what happens is, I give in and try to fix it first. I screw it up even more. And then we end up calling somebody. We haven't gotten smart enough to just like cut the middle out. So I have a garage full of tools, [00:29:00] and on one of my trips, about a month or two ago, she asked me to clean the vents in our hood, above our range. Now, I felt I could accomplish this little task. It's literally snapping them out and go hose them off. So I go to pull it out and it falls behind that range. Even though I have these long Orangutang arms, I could not reach it. I was like trying to get down, and I couldn't reach it.

So now I'm like in this pickle, I'm like, all right, let me just pull this range out. Well, I couldn't move it. So I'm like, how do I get this? It's like this Viking range. Right. And I'm like, how do I pull it out? So I grabbed it by the oven door and I yanked it. Well, then the oven door came flying off.

Right? It's was a big debacle, like four hours later. I got that back on and then still had the vent down there. So I remembered on one of my trips to Home Depot. I had purchased this little grabber, gooey kind of like thing you can grab stuff with. I bought that thing, that tool I never knew I was gonna need it for until now.

I need to try to go out in the garage, and I'm not [00:30:00] organized either so that took me an hour, but I found it. I found the tool. And I go back and I pick it up and grab it and put it back in. So the point of that is, because you have this unlimited sized toolbox, just be open to, letting me give you more perspectives, more tools.

You may never need them, and they may help you, and they may not help you, but, the minute we stopped allowing people to help give us more tools is the minute we stopped growing. So I'm not casting shame or blame or thought that what you're doing doesn't work and there's not a one size fits all.

I sure as heck am not coming in and telling you that what you're doing is wrong. The question is, are you getting what you want? Right. Are you living the life you want? And if not, then allow others to help give you more tools and more perspectives that might get you in that perspective, in that place.

Greg Bray: That's profound. That's really profound. Chad. I appreciate that.

Chad S: I read it on a [00:31:00] fortune cookie.

Kevin Weitzel: Thats a big fortune cookie.

Greg Bray: We're all we're looking for shortcuts. Aren't we all just want it quick and easy. We want to take the pill. We want to buy the, whatever. We want the quick and easy way. And the reality is it's just about learning and trying, and you said this phrase fail faster a few minutes ago. I think that's one that I don't know that people always recognize what that means, but this idea of just trying it and see if it works right. And, and, and then move on if it doesn't,

Chad S: Why live in this state of shame? People are so confused. Like, well, this guy said, these are the 30 quick steps, and these are the guys that know the secret bullet is over here. And they're like, Yeah. Salespeople's heads are spinning because we keep giving them the quick fixes as opposed to Hey, It's okay if you fail, just don't stay.

Don't stay there. Like if you [00:32:00] were going on a trip, Greg, and you packed up your car and you started driving toward Yellowstone National Park, and that's where you and your family are going. And you get a flat tire and you pull over and you're in a ditch. Do you take up residence in the ditch?

Are you like, oh, we're home now, hope you're comfortable. No. You figure it out and you get out of the ditch, like, okay, I'm in a ditch now I'm leaving the ditch. So just don't stay there. Like there's no shame in getting there. There's shame in staying there. Cause that's a choice.

Greg Bray: Oh, awesome. So Chad as you're looking ahead to the next couple of years for builders and sales teams, what are some things that you're watching for and trends that you're anticipating you think people need to get ready for?

Chad S: Yeah, I really believed that people need to get ready for an influx like we've never seen of first-time home buyers. I think that there's [00:33:00] more first time home buyers that are ready to buy. And I think people have been misled thinking that the younger generation, this 20 to 30 old generation doesn't want to buy houses anymore.

They don't have to work in an office. They can work from home and their living situations have changed. Interest rates are really low. They're becoming fiscally smarter and they're like, you know what? I'm going to buy a house and we're going to see an influx of first-time buyers.

You'd say, well, Chad that's really good. Except for our sales staff is in a much different generational period than our first time home buyers. Let's say you're my age, I'm 47 years old. I'm 47 and buyer profile is going to be in their early twenties, early or mid twenties.

Right. Then you got to know how to communicate to them. And you better realize that their mindset. You can leave your personal judgements and your thoughts about the [00:34:00] younger generation aside. If you can't communicate with them, if you haven't figured out how to speak their language, if you don't know what Tik TOK is, if you don't know how to communicate.

I think you're going to find a big gap in communication between the buying pop, the buying generation and the selling generation. And we better figure out how to talk that language.

Greg Bray: On social media. Right.

Chad S: Right, right, on social media. Like some people were like, Oh, Tik TOK is horrible. Let me tell you something.

If Tik Tok is in my opinion, probably one of the greatest social media apps ever created. And what I mean by that is you want to learn something, go to Tik Tok, like I've learned how to invest better on Tik Tok. I've learned how to cook better on Tik Tok. Now that may change over the next couple of years, but, you better be open to trying new things, not just on social media, but you know, there's a lot of personal judgements people have right now about a lot of different [00:35:00] things. I think that's going to be a big gap. You better train your sales staff on how to communicate with the younger generation, because over the next three or four years, I believe there will be a shift. Now I'm not an economist.

Maybe there are people that have different views, but I think that's going to be our biggest generational buying population and the person who's going to get the most sales. Where it used to be the young people trying to look old. Right. Like the 20, 22 years salesforce, can't relate with the 35 year old buyer right now.

You're going to have the 35 year old salesforce and they can't relate to the 22 year old buyer, and that's going to be a problem.

Kevin Weitzel: I agree. And I think that technology is easy, it's the easy button. It's the vehicle that you can put in place implement almost instantaneously to allow for that flow, to streamline and smooth up that process between the generational gap.

Because if your user experience and your customer experience, your buying experience is smooth and easy. That's what they demand. If that's what they demand, they didn't want to have to go to salesman X, [00:36:00] to get it. You know, to find out the price and what the options are going to be and stuff they don't want to have to be handheld.

They want the information and then they come to you and they say, Hey, Mr. Builder, here's exactly what I want. Sell me this.

Chad S: I'm 47. I have purchased in my life, nine cars. I've never bought a used car. Right. So I purchased nine automobiles.

And that's because, again, I'll go back to that non handy thing. I don't know anything about cars. Like if you gave me a million dollars. I couldn't tell you where the oil filter was. So I always have to buy new because I'm so ignorant to it. Any kind of manual labor, to be honest with you, but the idea is, so I purchased nine cars.

Well, two months ago I bought a Tesla. A Tesla model. Y

Kevin Weitzel: So jealous.

Chad S: Unbelievable the greatest thing in the world, right? Ask me how long it took me to purchase the car. How long from start to finish, I [00:37:00] buy the car and get in, sit in it, drive it off the lot?

Kevin Weitzel: You walked in knowing you were taking home that car.

Chad S: Yeah, but I knew I was going to leave in it. Right. I knew I was buying it. I knew I was buying as long as they had one once they did. And it was rare. They had one, but the process, the paperwork to fill out all that, I literally hit two buttons on an iPad. That's it, the whole purchase, the financing and buying.

I hit two buttons on an iPad, and five minutes later I was outside. I was gone right now. I'm not suggesting that you should speed up the sales process. I think my salesperson was amazing. He was awesome. Very, very competent. But I think that the number one rule of selling is make it easy for the customers to buy and we don't do that.

Right. And somebody. Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos is going to figure it out. They're going to [00:38:00] figure out people used to be fine with standing on the side of the street in New York and waiting 10 minutes to hail a cab until somebody said, I think there's a more efficient way. Let's create Uber. Right? So like, somebody's going to figure it out without, losing the personal touch, without losing the relationship.

Because I think that's ultimately important. Right? But you better find a way to make the transaction of buying faster and easier for the customer.

Kevin Weitzel: Chad. I tell this to people all the time. I say, you shouldn't give a crap what DR Horton is doing. And vice versa. Carl, the Builder shouldn't give a crap about what Bob the Builder is doing, because that's not your competition.

Your competition is going to instantly be derailed. When Apple, Bezos, one of these, a corporation out of China comes in and completely changes the entire way that people purchase it. When that happens.

Chad S: Yeah, no, I'm with [00:39:00] you. And I think people know that. But they're too busy right now. And that's the thing that people don't have time to innovate because they're too busy selling and they stop innovating, and you will have plenty of time because you will stop selling. The idea is like, you better figure out a way.

Elon Musk overtook Jeff Bezos with richest man in the world. 1:30 in the morning. Right? There is no way that Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk are sitting around counting the money and going, Hey, look how good we are right there.

Figuring out what am I creating for 10 years from now? What am I creating for 15 years now? What am I creating? Like, they're innovating while they're still growing. Right. And so, how are you innovating right now? In the pandemic in the situations that's going on? How are you still trying to find ways to get better?

And if you don't then, and that goes for companies, but that goes for [00:40:00] salespeople as position, but even as human beings. I've been married 20 years, to think that I can be the same husband to my wife that I was 20 years ago would be ignorant because we're not the same people.

We didn't have kids back then. We didn't have a mortgage. We didn't have, you know, college coming up. I can't be the same husband I was 20 years ago. It doesn't work. Our marriage would end in divorce. So what makes you think that any part of your life, you get to stay the same as everybody else grows around you?

You can't. So you better be constantly trying to innovate to the next version of you. So what does Chad 2.0, look like, what does Chad, 2.5 look like? And it's a perfect example. How many people do you see that have the iPhone two right now? Very few. Why because there's a better version.

The iPhone 12 and next in two years, there'll be a 14. Keep upgrading yourself, just like companies, upgrade products.

Kevin Weitzel: And planned obsolescence [00:41:00] that helped in that situation.

Chad S: Right. but it's the same thing, like if I don't upgrade myself, but I don't become Chad 2.0. Right then Chad, 1.0, will soon be obsolete.

I can't be the same person to my wife I was 20 years ago. I can't be the same salesperson. I cannot be the same salesperson I was pre-pandemic or that I'm going to be post-pandemic. Like I have to be constantly growing.

Kevin Weitzel: I have a tendency of being a little OCD when I was a cyclist. You know, that's all I lived for was how fast, how efficient can I get on that bike?

And just be amazing on the bicycle. When I got into sales, I wanted to improve the entire process, but I tend to compartmentalize my life, and I'm not able to section out, you know, those five areas of goodness in my life. Whereas when I concentrate on my professional life, I tend to sacrifice the personal Kevin.

So what advice would you give to our listening audience as a way to delineate your life to create betterment in those [00:42:00] five categories.

Chad S: Yeah, do not buy into the belief that you have this tyranny of the, "or" that it could be this or that. I can have this over here, or I can have that.

I'll go back to what you were given, this unlimited toolbox, right? There is nothing that you cannot grow. There's no reason to think that I can't be an amazing husband and an amazing father and an amazing business owner. And I can have a successful marriage and I can have this.

Make sure you're asking yourselves the right questions. Stop asking yourself, what do I want to achieve? And actually stop. Who do I want to become? And then put a process in place to become that person. And when I say process, I don't mean like here's the ABC's too.

Like, I mean, if you look at my scorecard for January, so I'm going to add three new habits in January. Now, I don't know if I'll be able to add them. Will I adopt by the [00:43:00] end of January, they may take it to the end of February. They may take to the end of March, but one is Iron Man training six days a week.

Right. So I want to hit my iron man training six days a week. That's what I'm supposed to do. Right? One is to write a handwritten card. Seven days a week, one handwritten card to somebody every day, it takes 10 minutes, not even right. So it could be a friend. It could be a contact it could be a client.

It could be a long, long lost schoolmate, like one handwritten card every day. And it's to watch one masterclass video and read 30 minutes a day. Right? So there's four new habits. One is for health. One is for friendship. One is for personal growth. So there are different areas of my life.

And I said, I want to grow this year. So once those habits, they literally, those I've been doing them for seven days that he's in seventh or the eighth of the month. Once those habits take hold. At some point they will take hold. I hold myself accountable. I got a [00:44:00] checklist. If I do them, I check the box, but if I don't, I don't check the box.

Once they take hold, they now enter my comfort zone. So now I can add something else. I can add another habit. I'm not trying to become the best Chad today. I'm just trying to become a better Chad today in the areas that I want. All too often I think people lead life by other people's designs.

What the circumstance tells them they have to do, or their environment tells them, I want to live life by my design. So if I want to get better in my health area and my personal growth area, then I want to just move. Like, that's all I want to do I want to make a habit. I want to add a habit. You only get better.

The only way you get better in life is by adding new habits, new beliefs, new behaviors into your comfort zone. That's it. That's the only way you get better, it's a proven fact that. This is how we get better. I no longer do this or I do this, and it's been growing with what I want. So to me, figuring out what you want.

And then just slowly just add behaviors that are congruent with, who you want to become, [00:45:00] not what you want to achieve, and you will get better more days than you don't. And that's to me the easiest way, but don't fall into this thing, I gotta sacrifice everything if I want to be great here.

Kevin Weitzel: Terany of "or," I love it.

Greg Bray: Yeah.

Chad S: You weren't created to choose, like, I don't care what your faith is. Do you think that there's a God that says you can have this, or you can have that, you can only be a great husband or great businessman, and I'm going to make your whole life about sacrifice.

People live their whole life. In a state of sacrifice and suffering because they don't understand that everything they need to be great. They already have within them. They just need to hone it into where they want to go.

Greg Bray: Chad, that's some amazing advice. I'm so grateful for the stuff you've shared today.

One of our things we usually ask people at the end is, do you have any advice for our listeners? And I just feel like we've already got, you know, way too much. [00:46:00] So I don't feel like it's fair to ask the question.

Chad S: Yeah, people are sick of my advice. How many Red Bulls has this guy had? I don't drink any caffeine.

Greg Bray: This is all-natural, right?

Chad S: Yeah. This is.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you.

Thank you so much, Chad, for spending some time with us today. It's been really enlightening, we learned a lot. If, people want to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to touch base and talk with you?

Chad S: Yeah. Yeah, please.

I'm I am on all the socials. I'm Tik Tok famous because I have five followers now, five. And if you take my wife and two kids out of it, my mother, I only have one and I'm gonna find that person somewhere. You can connect with me on Facebook, on social media, on Instagram. I love LinkedIn.

But yeah, I would love to connect with as many human beings as possible, but I appreciate it. I appreciate just the opportunity. You guys have an amazing show. There's a lot of shows, a lot of podcasts in the home building realm, they [00:47:00] all have their own qualities, but yours is, on top of my list.

So I really, really appreciate it.

Greg Bray: Really appreciate that and thanks again, Chad, and thank you everybody for listening today. Please join us again. Next time on the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: I'm Kevin Weitzel with Outhouse. Thank you.