The SiteVisit

Matching Communication Styles to Beat Price Wars with Jeff Borovitz

• James Faulkner • Season 6 • Episode 181

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Price isn’t the villain—unclear communication is. We sit down with Jeff Borovitz of Sandler to explore how a psychology-led sales process helps construction companies stop chasing bad-fit bids, avoid unpaid change orders, and build trust that holds up once shovels hit dirt. Jeff breaks down the biggest trap he sees on both residential and commercial teams—premature presentation—and shows how to slow down, uncover three to five real pains, and turn conversations from “How cheap?” to “How do we make the outcome certain?”

We get tactical. You’ll hear how to spot and adapt to different communication styles so clients feel heard, not handled. We dig into handling discount pressure with questions that reframe value—like asking change order and final-versus-quoted price percentages—so you lead as the expert instead of defending your bid. Jeff also explains why revenue and profit are lagging indicators, and how strong leaders prioritize leading signals: pipeline quality, ICP fit, access to dialogue-based RFPs, and stage conversion rates that predictably move work forward.

The team also talks VUCA—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity—and the strain it puts on crews, clients, and owners. Jeff’s take: remove fear, doubt, and worry by modeling courage, setting clear expectations, and simplifying operating rhythms. And yes, AI plays a healthy role here. Use it to automate dull admin, improve precon clarity, and even rehearse tough client calls with an AI sales coach so reps show up practiced and calm when it counts.

If you want to protect margin without cutting corners, build a pipeline you actually want to win, and give your field teams cleaner handoffs, this conversation delivers a practical blueprint. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with the one question you want us to roleplay next.

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH

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SPEAKER_03:

Jeff, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02:

Great, James. Thanks a lot for having me on.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, thanks. Everyone has trouble with this studio door. It's like a push and it looks like a pull.

SPEAKER_02:

You got to be smarter than the equipment. And I unfortunately am not. As I pulled, as I proved by pulling on it like three or four times.

SPEAKER_03:

I I I would I would say that it's probably just from jet lag, but you're on the same time zone. So yeah, that doesn't count.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't have that excuse. I'm just not smarter than the door.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, come on. It is a bit of a faux gazy, that one, because it does, it does, yeah. Everyone does that. So don't feel uh don't feel that you were anewhat uh special in in regards to the door pull. I think Paul did the same thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that just proves that Paul and I are equally not adept at using equipment.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. So you've come all the way from San Francisco. Yeah. And uh how would you did you just get off a flight? I see you got luggage here.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. We just got off the flight this morning and uh we're gonna we're gonna take the seaplane in a little while over to Victoria. And uh everybody told me I got we gotta go over to Victoria and stay in the Empress Hotel. So that's what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, the Empress? Yeah, you know it's haunted. Don't tell me that. It is. I stayed there.

SPEAKER_02:

And why did you witness this haunting? Of course not, but it is it is known to be haunted. It is no all right. So we're staying at a haunted hotel.

SPEAKER_03:

It's beautiful, but it is it has stories. It's very old. Well it's an old CP hotel. Like it's really, really old.

SPEAKER_02:

One of the things you can do there is do a ghost walk, they said at night.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh so why were you surprised that I said it's haunted?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I thought it was I thought I thought it was like a ghost walk around the town. I didn't realize it was just for the Empress.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh. Well, you're staying in the right place because that's the bomb. You'll love it. All right.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we're doing that. And so the seaplane, I guess, lands right at the harbor there. It's across the street. And so I've never I've never been on a seaplane before. So this was one of the bucket list things that I wanted to do on this trip.

SPEAKER_03:

That's interesting. Um, Paul and I were talking about the seaplane because he took the Heli jet over and he said the reason is is because the seaplanes are so unreliable. And I said, Well, they used to be. But uh where I live, they're landing right in front of my window all the time.

SPEAKER_02:

It looks really cool.

SPEAKER_03:

But they fly all the time in fog and all sorts of stuff. So it used to be they couldn't you're like your flight was canceled. Um, but maybe there's some new uh they're fly by wire so they don't have to actually see.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't know. Uh they they seem to have very low cancellation rate. The only thing I've been warned about is that when they make the final approach for landing, it feels like you're dropping super fast.

SPEAKER_03:

It does. Yeah, the nose looks like you're going to crash into the water.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so everybody, I'm afraid of heights. So everybody that's nose I'm doing this has told me just don't wig out when they it's a bit sketchy.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. But it used to be with the smaller planes, but uh, I'm sure you get with it. Anyway, I'm looking forward to chatting with you about Sandler and coaching and construction and all the things that you're doing. So, yeah, let's get to it. Let's do it. Welcome to the construction. All right, Jeff. So you said borovits. I gotta I gotta put the V in there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, we gotta put the V in. What's the origin of Borovitz? So it's uh it's really funny. I just went through this whole family tree thing. Did you send your DNA in that? I've done that, but that didn't help as much. Is I was in uh I was in Salt Lake City. Yeah, and uh the Mormon Church has this family research center. Yeah, and you can go do this, it's free, which is right in the sweet spot of my affordability range.

SPEAKER_03:

Is that if you're Mormon? It's free. No. Okay, just check.

SPEAKER_02:

No, uh free for anybody, which I'm guessing is how they're building up their database.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Uh but usually if anything's free.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Nothing's free. Yeah, nothing's really free. But uh, I was able to trace all the way back into uh into the 1600s. Okay. Uh at their third place. And it turns out it's uh Borovitz is uh rooted from Russia, Romania, and Poland.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well that makes sense. Sounds like all of those. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But uh I know that the I think the Russians, Ukrainians, they don't pronounce their Vs.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So let's go play walleye ball, for instance.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I I think when they try to do it in English, it does come out that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're weary welcome.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And I think the, yeah, what is it, the W's or V's and the V's are silent.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. All right, so let's talk about um you, for instance. Um we'll jump forward to now. Um, you are you run a uh a chapter or a uh a franchisee of Sandler, which is a well-known coaching and operational development type of company. Yeah. And you take their methodologies and you've been able to port that into helping construction companies.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. We've taken you know, so Sandler has this amazing history and amazing content that Sandler was and still is really the only sales methodology and communication process that was based entirely on human psychology. And so what so what we've done is we've taken that and we've we've ported it to the construction world, whether it's both for both residential and commercial construction. And we've taken we've brought that science, the psychology science, uh around the communication process and how we talk to other human beings, and we've translated it from Sandler's traditional uh out-of-the-box content into content that will work in in both residential and commercial construction. Cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Um have you heard of NLP before?

SPEAKER_02:

Of who?

SPEAKER_03:

NLP?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah, sure. Neuralinguistic programming. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

Is there is that uh is that brought into the Sandler protocol at all?

SPEAKER_02:

We don't use it in in we don't use that much of it. Uh NLP is great, and uh it's not something we do a lot with. We I I'd say we we scratch the loose dirt on the surface of NLP. Okay. But if you want to get into the hard clay, that's probably somebody else.

SPEAKER_03:

Is it okay, yeah? Yeah, because I I was uh I was a big fan. Actually, I've been listening to him recently of Tony Robinson.

SPEAKER_02:

Tony's great.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, like so he is apparently like NLP on on steroids. So anytime that he says, so does anybody want to do this? Say aye. He does that. That's like full-on any NLP on steroids, that statement.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, and uh one uh a buddy of mine um used to work as his right-hand guy.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so and so Tony, Tony's amazing. I've been to a couple of Tony's of Tony's seminars. I've um and and he's fantastic at what he does. Uh he's great at the NLP stuff, he's great at the motivation stuff, amazing at it. Uh, we we blend really nicely with his stuff. Yeah, because once you're once you're revved up and ready to go, yeah, you need the behaviors, attitudes, techniques to go execute. And that's what we and that's that's where we really go kind of hand in glove with them.

SPEAKER_03:

That's cool. Nice. Yeah. So he gets them all excited and then you deliver.

SPEAKER_02:

And we deliver. And we give them, we give them the ability to go execute.

SPEAKER_03:

Has has uh Sandler ever and done work with Tony Robbins? No, we haven't.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I don't I don't know that it's required. I don't think there's a reason why we haven't, except that uh he's six seven. That's a good reason. Yeah, he's um he's he's six seven, I'm five eight, so it would look a little weird.

SPEAKER_03:

That yeah, that would have a definite difference, that's for sure. Um all right. So let's let's hop in for a minute about um you and your background. So take us through the like high school forward. What have you been doing? How do you end up here?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, so uh after high school, I looked around, went to college. Um what did you take there? I took communication class. Well, I start I I started out at San Francisco State as a um film major. Francis Ford Coppola was the dean of the department.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. So it was really cool. I got to take a class from Francis Ford Coppola.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

A screenwriting class, and got to see Godfather Three, which is by far the least of the Godfather movies, uh, before it was ever released. Yeah. We had a matter of fact, I had to do a critical review, critical film review analysis as our final for Godfather three. Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah, it was really neat. And uh and then I just couldn't, it was so impacted I couldn't get classes. And so I ended up switching class switching my major to a communications major, uh, figuring that, hey, no matter what you do in life, you've got to be able to communicate.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

And so I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I had at up to that point, I thought I wanted to be the next Steven Spielberg.

SPEAKER_03:

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh, but so then I didn't want to stay in school for seven years to graduate. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my mom and dad would have greatly objected.

SPEAKER_03:

That's very Seinfeld of you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom and dad would have greatly objected to seven years of college tuition.

SPEAKER_03:

No kidding. Well, back then it was only 900 bucks.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was it was a it was a little cheaper than it is now. My my my oldest just finished college, and it was a lot more money than what I was gonna do. Yes, it would be. Um, but but uh so I went and got a degree in communications, and then I uh decided, you know, naturally like everybody else, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. So while while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I got a sales job.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And I was selling the really cool, exciting product of brown corrugated shipping boxes. Nice. Yeah. Before they were cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Are they cool now?

SPEAKER_02:

No, they've never been cool. Okay, I was gonna say it's still before they're cool. So although I think Amazon's made them a little cooler. Have they? I mean the little smile on the boxes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe a little cooler. Yeah. Um, and so I I I did that for a while. Okay. Um, and then I decided, well, I wanted to try uh all these dot-com startups, right? And I went to a startup that went dot bomb. Okay. And uh and then I went back to selling corrugated boxes. Okay, because this was what I knew. And then I decided I wanted to get out again and I started a business uh doing marketing. Okay, and did okay at that for several years. And I went to work in tech and spent uh gosh, about eight, nine years in tech. And and uh then started my Sailor business.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So how does the how does the um with similar similar things to me in in a way? Um I have the the construction uh folk, if you will, is a very interesting bunch. Okay and uh very tribal. Yes. So do you um I mean I've come in through the technology side, uh as you can tell, SiteMax. And um is there a um this is gonna you might I don't know if you'll you'll like this. You'll like this you'll like this statement, but remember Dennis Miller? Yeah. Okay. You know, when when you talk about something that that you aren't really in, it's he's a hit his thing was it's like getting a sex talk from a priest. Right, right, right. I need to see a zipper in your pants or proof of purchase. Yeah. Um so is there when when I talk about construction, they go all I in the early days, they're like, well, you don't understand how it is because you haven't worked on site and all that. I did renovate my kitchen, by the way. And I do know how to run table saws and and all of those things. And I am actually, I do build in the background. But um what is interesting is that um I find that there is a cultural piece there. So as you're going through your coaching business and in in the early days, were you did you run up against that at all? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So how did you stick out on that?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we fortunately, I started out on the residential side of construction doing coaching. Okay. And we have been, my wife and I have been a client on the registry on the residential side several, several times, yeah, with both uh some amazing people and some people that quite frankly should be in jail. And so we've seen the good, bad, and ugly on the residential side. Right. And so I was able to talk to the residential people early on and talk about the fact that, hey, listen, when you say this, I want you to understand what your client actually hears. Yeah, it's not what you mean to say, right, but it's what your client actually hears. And this is why it causes friction in your communication process. And and that resonated. And uh and then I had a client who checked out.

SPEAKER_03:

Give me an example of something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, when they say we're gonna one of the things that the residential guys like to say is uh we'll we'll value engineer this. Value engineer? What does that mean? Well, value what they what the residential construction person means by value engineer is we'll use some cheaper materials, some lesser materials. Maybe we use a thinner, a thinner layer of granite. Um we use a lesser type of wood.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. But that's not what the client hears. The client has no idea what resident, what value engineering means. To them, it means you're gonna give me what we've designed for less money.

SPEAKER_03:

Ah, I see.

SPEAKER_02:

And then it creates this friction when they look at the material and it doesn't quite look right, doesn't look how they thought it was gonna look, it doesn't feel the way they thought it was gonna feel. It creates this friction down the road. And change orders. And and and well, it's the worst part is it creates unpaid change orders. Ah, yeah. Okay. Because now you're doing things to make the client happy, and they generally are like, I already paid you for this. It's not my fault you decided to go to a lesser grade of wood.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

I didn't understand that. Even though it was in the value engineering change orders, right, they don't read them. And nobody called it out to them. Gotcha. So the client feels bait and switch.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So you you were in the you you've hired some residential contractors over the years, and you're like, this so your experience was not great in the beginning. And so you thought, hey, there's an opportunity here that the way that people are listening to things and the way that the things that they're saying are, you think there can be some optimization, some alignment there. So did you, were you part of Sandler before that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. You were okay. Yeah. So I was already in Sandler and I I saw an opportunity to help. And then, so as I got in on the residential side, one of the guys said to me, Hey, you know what, Jeff, I'm tired of hearing you say you've never sold anything uh commercial, you've never sold any construction agreements. So I went on three sales calls. I closed two deals, and I looked at him and I said, Now do you believe me when I'm saying will work? He goes, Yeah, because that's higher than any closing rate I've ever seen. And both the deals I closed were on design agreements that went through to that went through design, went to construction and completed construction at a at a profit level that was higher than his normal profit level.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice. Okay. So just for everyone listening, is that, you know, there's a reason you're sitting here is firstly because of our introduction from Paul Atherton from HighSpire, who was on the last podcast. Awesome guy. And he's like, you got to talk to Jeff. And the second reason is after talking to you on a phone call, uh, I realized that you have quite the coaching business on your hands. Thanks. And uh you have quite a number of customers, clients who you're working with. And um yeah, so you're no slouch in that.

SPEAKER_02:

We we try not to be right now. We're currently working with about give or take 15 people, 20 people on either side of it, about 200 construction folks, yeah, both residential and commercial combined. Right. And uh we do quite a bit of work with Paul and the HighSpire group. Yeah. Uh working with both on a uh sales uh and leadership coaching. Yeah. And uh and I will say that the folks we've met through HighSpire have been absolutely fantastic, outstanding, terrific people.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice, cool. Okay. So now that we understand um where you've come from and understand what what Sandler is, let's just for those people that don't know, just give us like the the um the organizational description of Sandler, what it offers, and how you're involved with them. Well, like what's that?

SPEAKER_02:

So uh Sandler is the only sales and communication process out there that was developed fully off of human psychology. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

We we did said that said that already. So how many I guess what I want to know is how many people like you does Sandler have across the world? No problem, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02:

So we have about 200 franchisees across the world.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Um every Sandler franchise runs their business independently.

SPEAKER_03:

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh we have people that you know are fantastic trainers uh that teach straight out of the book and do an amazing job. And then we have people who've chosen, like I have, to specialize in certain industries. Right. And they've customized the material, they do a fantastic job. And so uh we have about 200 franchisees across the world, and we are in, let me think now, 36 countries.

SPEAKER_03:

Cool. Do you go to an annual convention?

SPEAKER_02:

I do. Uh matter of fact, ours is coming up in November.

SPEAKER_03:

Where is it this year?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh it's in Washington, DC, uh, which has a number of people a little bit uh concerned about it. Um is there a big cost to those? To the convention? Yeah. Uh so this convention is for only the franchisees, yeah. Not a huge cost. We have an annual convention that is for clients uh that is in Orlando, Florida, every March. Yeah. And uh that one is, I think it's about$1,300 for people to attend.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So the cheaper ones are in the uh are not in the hot places. Right, right. Exactly. Not by the water. Yeah, you got it. Cool. Um all right. So can we um chat a little bit about some specifics when it comes to um when you're saying that Sandler is the psychology um organizational framework in order for to help construction companies on the organizational side, on the communication side, on the sales side, where do you guys play?

SPEAKER_02:

Sales and communication.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh we we play a little bit on the organizational side.

SPEAKER_03:

What about the operations?

SPEAKER_02:

Not uh only from the communication standpoint.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So let's just focus on those two things, communication and sales. Okay. Okay. Marketing too or not? Yeah. Okay. Uh and where do you uh marketing um plans, I guess? Or helping them with marketing? Marketing messaging. Messaging, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Marketing messaging.

SPEAKER_03:

Like so brand messaging. Yes. Okay. So frontline state, like front and frontline, like, okay, I got you. Um on the communication side of things, how do you dovetail in the psychology um piece uh that Sandler is heavily, I guess that's what they weigh their value proposition on, is this is what you're selling. Um how does that give us some some uh tactical things that that you do with companies?

SPEAKER_02:

We I mean we we focus on we focus on teaching companies both internally and externally how to quickly build trust with other human beings. Right. Uh because we believe that trust is the baseline for all relationships. And should be yeah, I mean realistically, nobody's gonna spend millions of dollars with you if they don't trust you.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, that's just common sense, right? And and and the and we believe that every communication, whether it's sales, marketing, or just interpersonal communications, begins with trust. And then you've got to find a way to make sure that you have mutual agreement on things, which is cementing the trust into place. Uh how many times have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and you think you're there to talk about one thing and they think you're there to talk about something different?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean that right now. Just sorry, I couldn't resist. No, it's all good. No, no, no. We're all we're all insane, don't worry. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, you know, oftentimes it happens when you think you're there to talk about one thing, they're talking about something else, and you're surprised or they're surprised. And it those that surprise creates all kinds of friction. And so what I think of is the Sandler process is like lubrication against friction. Okay. It it reduces friction. And the reason that that's important at this point is that surprise in the communication process is the enemy of yes. Because the minute people are surprised about what you're talking about, they tend to push back. And push back comes in the way of no, or even worse in the sales process is let us think it over and get back to you. Right. That's what kill that kills far more salespeople than no than no's do.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Well, which I mean, I I have uh I talk about this this term and I can't tell you how many times on this podcast over the 180 episodes, but um pre-buyer's remorse.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Like the fear you're not gonna like the outcome, so you don't do anything.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, right. And and you know, and that's what I say all the time is that construction companies lose far more deals to the status quo than they do to their competitors. And they the reason the status quo exists is that prepires them remorse. And we've got to build trust to overcome that.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So so what do you do on the communication side to help them do that?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, so we teach them how to how to how to read people's communication styles. Every every single person on the planet has a a communication style that they are comfortable with. You know, if you think about the people that you communicate with most effectively, and you'll start to think about it, you'll realize that they tend to that that they tend to communicate in a way that you're comfortable with. Um versus the people you have a hard time communicating with tend to be people who communicate in a different style than you do.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, for sure. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02:

And makes you uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03:

So people who are a closer communications dial. But obviously, in when you're dealing with sales, um, you're gonna have a huge spectrum of how comfortable that is.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And so what we what we do is we teach people how to recognize, how to observe, assess, and recognize other people's communication styles, and then adjust theirs to match and mirror the other person's. Because when you do that, that'll make that one make them feel comfortable and open them up to trust.

SPEAKER_03:

Is there a term for that? Like mirroring, is that matching and mirroring, yeah. Matching and mirroring, okay. Um I mean, is that uh is that a genuine thing to do?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it is as long as you're as long as it comes from a as long as it comes from a place of honesty. Yeah, I guess you're switching modes, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. You're trying to optimize.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. As long as your your goal is to genuinely help the other person solve the challenges that they have, then I think it's I then I think it's honest. I think that if you're there just for your own purposes, no, then I think that it's it it it doing it that way would be manipulative.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So what do you think? Um like reputation is a huge thing. Do you do um how to if someone's had like bad reviews or they've had uh they got some skeletons in the closet, they got deals that have gone bad, uh projects that have been over budget or they've huge problems, warranty issues, all that kind of stuff. Um is that mostly because of the beginning of those missed expectations? Usually that's the source of it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Almost always. It it it it's a it's a miss in communications. And so, you know, I think that we have to understand that the clearer we can be in communication, the more honest we are. Even if it costs us a deal, we're far better off. Not sometimes we're better off not not getting a deal that will not go well than we are getting a deal that doesn't go well.

unknown:

Right?

SPEAKER_02:

When deals don't go well, it costs us money, it costs, it frustrates our people. And by the way, it's one of the top reasons that construction folks leave and go to a new competitor, go to your competitors and sign and and start working for them. Because the miscommunication, the stress involved with it, giving them bad clients who treat them poorly gets is what causes your talent to leave.

SPEAKER_03:

Very good point. Yeah, so your talent is on the job site, on the front lines, and then the client comes for a site visit and they're like, site visit. Um there we go. Yeah, comes to the comes to the job site and is saying, This is wrong, that's wrong, this was not in the plans, etc. Why is this here? And then the foreman or the superintendent has to like has to absorb this miscommunication.

SPEAKER_02:

They feel hung out to dry.

SPEAKER_03:

Because they just want to build Lego and build it properly. That's it.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? They're they're there to build. Right. And they the what we everything that's happened before we get to putting a uh a a shovel in dirt is what determines the success after we put shovels in dirt. Right. And and I mean, not to say that production never makes a mistake, I'm not gonna say that, but the vast majority of the of the friction that happens after we put shovels in dirt comes from what happened before the the we started production.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's all communication.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So um so what's what sort of size of companies are you dealing with? Like what's the what's the smallest company you're dealing with? What's the largest? Um like team size.

SPEAKER_02:

So I'd say the the smallest company I deal with, um it's pretty small on the residential side. How many employees? Uh they maybe have seven, eight employees, but they gen they they contract out everything. That's right enough. Right. Okay. And then the largest? Largest is wow. Um, we've got a couple clients with several thousand employees.

SPEAKER_03:

So what do you see that's common between those?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, it's it it's all communication. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So like communication is it's a very broad term. We have to get to some more.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll get somewhere deeper on that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Just a little bit. Yeah. So I think that it it varies based on the whether we're talking about operations, uh, management, sales, marketing. What I see, the most common thing I think on I see on the sales side is we jump, we jump to presentation too fast. Um, we hear a problem that a client has and we go, oh, I can solve it, right? And we want to present. And I and so we call that uh we'll keep it, we'll we'll keep it PG 13, like we agreed beforehand. Uh, we call it PPS, which is premature presentation syndrome, right? We we jump to presentation before we really should, and we're solving problems. And when we do that, we we usually have an incomplete understanding of what the client's problem is and the impact of that problem is on them.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And when and then we're presenting to an incomplete picture, which we may be right, we may be wrong, and then we and then they agree to something, and then we get into the the details and we realize that we we we missed each other by hundreds of miles.

SPEAKER_03:

I see.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. That's the sales side. On the leadership side, what we see is I think the mo the most common thing we see is leaders focusing too much on results, which are a lagging indicator. By the time we can judge results, it's too late to do anything. Okay. And not looking out the front, windshield of the car enough at the leading indicators to know, hey, trouble's coming, or we're in really good shape because we have all these leading indicators that we're running our business off of.

SPEAKER_03:

So give us some examples of those.

SPEAKER_02:

So sales is a lagging indicator. Profitability is a lagging indicator. Leading indicators are more uh number of number of clients in the pipeline. What percentage of those clients actually match our ideal client profile? One of the things I'm really surprised by is uh I was recently working with a large commercial company. We we looked at 105 deals in their pipeline, right? And when we went, we compare that to their ideal client profile, 21 of the 105 matched their ideal client profile. And the other ones they knew didn't match, but we're keeping it, we're keeping them in there in case we in case we get low on revenue.

SPEAKER_03:

Weird. Okay. So um there's obviously a cost base to getting those in the pipeline.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So are they paying their salespeople to get those in and then not not utilizing them, even though they're not part of the ICP?

SPEAKER_02:

I think that the mistake is that they're is that they're frustrating in this company, they were frustrating their salespeople because they're letting them go after things they should never let them go after. Right. They get in the pipeline, and then when things are good, they tell them, no, we can't do that. When things are bad, they take it. It sends this very unsteady message to the sales team where they get confused. And now when we ask, and you know, we went through the exercise of asking uh seven of the salespeople what the ICP was, we got seven different answers. And and that's and that's not the salespeople's fault. That's a leadership problem.

SPEAKER_03:

So is the so is the ICP mostly based around the project or the type of customer?

SPEAKER_02:

The ICP should be based upon the client, the type of client, right? And so when I look at ICP, I I judge four things in an ICP.

SPEAKER_03:

Why the type of client?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, because if we don't, if we're not talking to the right type of clients, they don't have the right type of projects. It's it's not it's so if okay. I gotcha. Yeah, I mean yeah, if if somebody's if the client mainly builds small res small commercial strip centers, yeah, and we're looking to build skyscrapers, we shouldn't be talking to develop to developers who build strip malls. It doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Right?

SPEAKER_03:

But sometimes they do.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and when they do, we'll take those projects, right? Okay, right, because the the project makes them a fit. But when we're going out to prospect to those developers, yeah, we have to be aiming at the ones who we know fit our ICP.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And listen, there's nothing wrong with people who build small strip malls. I know, I know some companies that make a lot of money doing that. Yeah, right. And so we just have to decide what do we want to be, because we can't be everything to everybody. And so for me, there's four things. What are the characteristics of your best clients? Right. And if you want to know what the characteristics of your best clients are, the best way to know that is to go backwards. Look at the last five, 10 projects you've done. What were the common, what were the characteristics that those people had? What, you know, uh, what type of what type of developments do they do? What was their history like? How many people do they have bid on projects? Right. I I don't know about you, but if I was running a commercial construction company, I'd rather not bid against seven or eight or ten other companies. Right. Um, maybe those those developers are not who we want to be with, right? And and figure out what the characteristics are of our pat of our last five, 10 clients. And then what and then the second thing is we want to go.

SPEAKER_03:

It'll be the last clients that the projects were deemed successful from a company point of view. That's right. So not just every past client, just every past client. The ones that they're like, yeah, we would do that again.

SPEAKER_02:

We would love more projects like this, right? Right? Go look at the characteristics of the developers, right? On the commercial side. And then what are the actions that those people took? Right? Did they go to bid to any everybody, or were they selective who they went to bid with? Were the was the bid a was the bid a straight RFP with no discussion? Or was it something where you were able to talk back and forth? Right. And usually the most successful ones are where we can talk back and forth. Right. And so if we know that those are in this company's case, they won six out of ten when they had discussion back and forth. They won two out of ten when they had no discussion back and forth, and it was just straight RFP. Where should you spend your time?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, fair enough. The um Do you think AI is gonna make this worse?

SPEAKER_02:

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, the RFP isn't gonna be more robots than there are gonna be conversations.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I I think that we have to think about AI as what AI is and what AI should be. Listen, I I just saw the other day there are robots in Japan swinging hammers right now. Right? I don't want to scare the hell out of anybody, but there are robots in Japan that can swing hammers and do it more effectively than human beings can.

SPEAKER_03:

In Japan?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When was this?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh there was something on on the internet the other day about it.

SPEAKER_03:

In Japan.

SPEAKER_02:

In Japan.

SPEAKER_03:

I was just there like a year and a half ago.

SPEAKER_02:

They were showing they were showing it the other day.

SPEAKER_03:

They know the weird thing about Japan is I've I found from from uh when I was in Tokyo, is that the um all the construction sites, all the hoarding is exactly the same. It's it's uh controlled by the by the civically and there's no signage, there's no color, it's all white.

SPEAKER_02:

How do you know that?

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. And it all is identical. So I think that your hoarding around your job, you you're not allowed to see in.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03:

They make it so there is zero, so they once the gates close, um, it's yeah, it's totally opaque.

SPEAKER_02:

It reminds me, you were talking about the Seinfeld reference earlier, right? Oh yeah. And I I remember seeing Jerry Seinfeld in concert and Jerry uh do a comedian come uh comedic show, and uh he said he was talking about construction sites, and the reason they have windows in the construction sites is because guys will guys like to pretend they know a lot more about construction than they really do, right? Oh yeah, you guys are using steel beams. Yeah, that'll work, right? And and he said, because if they didn't put windows in, the guys would be up over the walls walking around the construction sites. And the whole reason that they they put windows isn't so that that doesn't happen. It sounds like in Japan.

SPEAKER_03:

In Japan, yeah. Yeah, no. So you've seen robots swinging hammers on the internet the other day, uh like two weeks ago. Is that real?

SPEAKER_02:

They swore to God it was real.

SPEAKER_03:

Who did?

SPEAKER_02:

The people that posted it.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, those those those people, those them, those trustworthy people on the internet.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, listen, I could it have been fake? Sure.

SPEAKER_03:

Not saying that.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey man, I'm I'm uh I I don't know, but I know that I just saw a robot. I just saw a robot that that can jump on a box and dance. And if they can do that, how far is it to doing this?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it depends if it was or not, though.

SPEAKER_02:

Was it doing it? It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, no. I'm talking about the hammer one. I'm really fascinated. I want to I want to focus on that.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't I don't know. I can I they showed video of it. It didn't look like an AI video, it looked like a real video.

SPEAKER_03:

But like was the dexterity there, it looked like you you could just leave this thing to actually do something properly.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, looked like it.

unknown:

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

It looked like it, but I I I think that my point Did it have was it a humanoid?

SPEAKER_03:

Did it have wheels?

SPEAKER_02:

It was it was legs and and arms.

SPEAKER_03:

Legs and arms. Yeah. Do you know what brand it was?

SPEAKER_02:

It was white. I don't know the brand. It I not what that's although I I don't remember the brand on it. I it was a white robot.

SPEAKER_03:

Gotcha. Okay. Um that's uh that's yeah, that's that's an interesting setup there.

SPEAKER_02:

Um but but I I guess my point to it is really this is we have to decide what AI is gonna be and what AI is not gonna be in each of our businesses. And I think that where AI really can benefit construction companies is to take to is to take the tasks that are repetitive in nature and low skill, and that's certainly not construction, but some of the paperwork stuff, right? And automate it. Um to take to take the things that our our people don't like to do, the what I'll call scut work.

SPEAKER_03:

Dull, dirty, and dangerous?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, dull, dirty, dangerous work that has to get done, but nobody likes to do it. If we can automate that, that makes all the sense in the world.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you know the guys from Super Droids?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. They're making construction robots. Have you seen the painting robot?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

That thing's deadly. That's what I was interested about the one hammering, because hammering is such a weird thing. Like it's I mean, how much hammering is going on these days? We've got nail guns. Yeah. The hammer is kind of like a blunt instrument these days.

SPEAKER_02:

I felt like they were using it to demonstrate dexterity that what they what they could do, right? Well, and it was like two taps and the robots driven the nail all the way in.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Um, but I think humans can do that too. Um, Mr. Miyagi did it in one, right?

SPEAKER_03:

With a good e with a good, nice, balanced east wing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, cool. So let's get back to um um you know, you we were saying that there's an RFP that is just communication only, like email or whatever, and then that's it. Or there's opportunities where you actually get to talk, and then you can actually discern what that communication style is. Then you can do the mirroring and matching. Um and then is it is it always gonna be then about price, or is it gonna be about promise, or is it what's what's it usually shouldn't be about any of that, honestly.

SPEAKER_02:

What should it be about? It should be about what are the what are the what Sandler would call pains that they have, and pain gets to be an overused word. And so let me define it for you for you and the listeners. What we call pain is a compelling emotional reason to do something.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And I don't care if it's a residential remodel or a commercial skyscraper, there's pain involved. Right? And we need it's our job to ask questions to understand what the pain is, why it exists, and how it impacts the company or the individual. The what, why, and how. If we can understand what the pain is, why it exists, and how it impacts them, that and now the question becomes is it something that we can solve? If it is, we should solve it. Right. And and if we can find, we know statistically, if we can find three to five of those what, why, and hows and that we can solve, our chances of making the sales go up in a closing rate goes up into the high 80s, low 90s percentiles. And and it doesn't become about money at all, because it becomes about you understanding their problems and appealing to them on a more emotional level. Okay, and takes the intellectual part of the sale, which is money, by the way, out of it. You know, we we like to say at Sandler that sales are made emotionally and justified intellectually. Interesting. Yeah, that's cool. And money's the intellectual part. You know, I mean, I want you to think about it. And here's here's what I'll say is this. Um if you go, if you go if you go to the store and buy this bottle of water, this Canada's Whistler bottle of water, um, how much does it cost?

SPEAKER_03:

Dollar twenty-nine.

SPEAKER_02:

And you feel okay about that? Yeah. If you go to Vancouver Airport and buy this bottle of water past security, how much does it cost?$6.50. And you feel okay about that?

SPEAKER_03:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

But why do you buy it?

SPEAKER_03:

Because you need the water. Because you're thirsty, right? Or you can't get back out of security. Yeah. Emotional. You can't buy it anywhere.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you can't bring it in. So you have to call forced demand. That's well, forced demand, but it uh but you could choose to wait to get on the plane where they'll give you free water. Um but most people buy the water then because they they have an emotional need for water, right? They're thirsty, the what and and I want to quench my thirst, which is the the how, right? How it's impacting me. I'm thirsty, I want to, I don't want to be thirsty anymore. So I'll spend$650 for a dollar twenty-nine bottle of water. And it's the emotional need that uh drives the sale. The intellectual second surpass the intellect. It surpasses the intellect.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, there's an element of satiation there. Yeah, and there is in that that it's like I don't care what it costs right now. I I've got I'm so thirsty. Yeah. Does that happen with this though? It does. So think about this way. They're not actually, because uh I'll just I'll just say it's a good example to some degree, but let's just say that past security, there are four stores, one's four dollars, the other one's six, the other one's three different brand of water, but it's not the same as the one that was on the other side that was a dollar twenty-nine. So um, and that's kind of how how this works, right? There's that there's there's the emotional side where okay, let me ask you this. Have you had customers that they say, look, we really want to go with you guys? But can you sharpen your pencil a little bit? Because the other guys who we'd rather not go with are like quite a lot less.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Often I've I've heard people say, go with though then. Go go with them then. Because we can't, we're giving you, we're we are charging you on a price that we can service you properly. Anything less than that, we have to cut corners. I mean, I don't I don't want to do that on your project.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So that that's not a horrible answer, but it's you justifying, defending, and explaining your position. Okay. What's better is to ask some questions back. Okay. Right. So I might I might say, well, if if they're that much less, why wouldn't you just go with them? And see what they say, right? That's like that's good, yeah. Right. And then I might ask them, hmm. I'll use what I'll call a presumptive question. Okay. Where I'll say, hey, when you ask them what percentage of their jobs have change orders and what percentage what's their finished price percentage to their quoted price percentage, what did they say? Well, I know darn well that they didn't ask that question. But what are they gonna ask now? Right? But if I do that, I've got to be very careful because what's the next thing they're gonna say to me? What are they gonna say? They're gonna ask me that same question, right? What's your as the client to me? Yeah, as the client, the client's gonna say to me, Well, what's your percentages? Okay. Now, if I know that, so if I'm asking that question, I I'm gonna make sure I know them before I ask that question. Right? And then when they go to my competitor and ask them that question, they don't know it, who looks better? Who looks more honest? Right? When they go, Oh, well, I don't know. We'd have nobody's ever asked us before that us that before. We'll have to get back to you. And then they take an insanely long time to get back to them because they will. We know that. Because they're gonna have to go back and figure it out, right? Um, that scramble that the client sees doesn't instill confidence. It instills confidence in the person who knew it. And so rather than go back to, hey, you know, sharpen. I have never given in my whole sales career, whether I was selling corrugated boxes or marketing or tech or sandler, I've never given anybody a prize I have and say, oh my God, that's amazing. Yes, let's go. Almost every single time there's a pause and they'll say something like, Can you sharpen your pencil? Or can you guys do any better? Right? It's just common. And so rather than start to justify, defend, or explain, ask questions. Put them in the position of having to sell you on why they should of what they mean and why they need a lower price, right? And and when you force them to justify, defend, and explain, it comes across as you as the ultimate professional and the expert, which is where you want to be.

SPEAKER_03:

Is there um you provide strategies for knowing um knowing how much the client needs them? Yeah. So and knowing how invested they are like in the process. Yeah. Because it because if you if they already know kind of who they want to go with, and then now it's just a matter of the intellectual part, then there's a certain amount of and emotional investment that's already been put in. So I'll just give you an example. Here's the ultimate amount of investment in a sales transaction, and it's not related to construction, but I'll give it to you anyway.

unknown:

Sure.

SPEAKER_03:

So I'm selling something for a thousand bucks, okay, on Craigslist. The person's like, hey, um, you know, can you sharpen your pencil? Like, no, no, that's that's seriously, yeah. Like I listed at a fair price, blah, blah, blah. Then I say, okay, well, you're gonna come and pick it up. And they go, yeah, well, I live out in blah, blah, blah. Can you meet me halfway? It's like, look, do you want it or not? Okay. So they drive an hour and a half to come and get this thing. Okay. Now I know they've made an hour and a half drive investment. Yeah. Right. I've actually had it where somebody says, hey, uh, I only brought 950 bucks with me. And do you know what my answer is? Well, it's now 1,050. And they go, Well, you can't change the price. I'm like, you're trying to right now. Only because I have the intelligence of knowing they drove an hour and a half. That's right. That's why I know I can say now it's 1,050 as a bank machine around the corner.

SPEAKER_02:

But that's the pain, right? That's that pain stab.

SPEAKER_03:

It is. So you get to identify how much pain, though, and where you stand.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's what we that's exactly what we teach is a predictable, repeatable process that people can follow to understand the pains and understand the what the pain is, why it exists, and how it's impacting them. Right. If you can understand the emotional impact, which is I just drove an hour and a half, yeah, right. I'm not leaving here empty-handed over 50 or 100 bucks. Yeah. Right. You're you're in the driver's seat. Most people, James, don't do that. They'll go, okay, it's only 50 bucks, sure. Right. And they'll give them, and and the, and and when we do that, you know, you always have to think about this, especially in construction. You're training your client how the rest of the transaction is going to go. Very good point. Yeah. Right. If I, if I cave right here, right now, what's going to happen on the first change order? And we know there's going to be one, right? And I've just taught them that they can push me on price every single time. Right. Your sad behavior. Yeah. I've taught them that that's how I sell, and that's okay for them to buy that way. And that's crazy. Right. Instead, you know, my favorite, my favorite is, hey, can you do it for nine, can you do it for$9.50? Wish I could, but I can't. And that's the only statement I make. I just, I'm going to be in a bunch of trouble next at the end of this week, uh, because my daughter's been away at college. She's coming home for the first time since she left. And we just sold her car. We told her before she left we were going to sell the car, but we haven't actually told her that we sold the car yet. When I was selling the car, it was a used car, a 15-year-old car, 16-year-old car. And the guy, and we were selling for$3,500. It's got 140,000 miles on it. And the guy said to me, Can you do it for$3,000? Right? He's got, he's already test-driven the car. He's already told me he likes it. And he's already told me that his other car is dead and he can't drive anymore. And he's having to get rides from friends. All right. And is there any way, shape, or form that I'm going to come down to$3,000? Yeah. No. I said, I looked at him, I said, I wish I could, but I can't. He's sitting there and went.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so I'll go.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, here's$3,500.

SPEAKER_03:

So this is really cool. So do you have strategies for people during the sales process and during the RFP process if they get to have conversations?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, of how to position themselves to be able to get this information to know where they stand.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's exactly what we do.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. So how do you do that? So we teach without giving all of where you're standing.

SPEAKER_02:

I find it's not about the what, it's the how that people I can give us the what I can give you exactly what the what is, and people will still not be able to do it. Okay, go. Okay. And so what we do is we have taken Sandler has a process as a tool called the Sandler Pain Funnel. It works really good, except that in remote in construction, whether it be commercial residential remodeling or or commercial building, we have to change it a little bit. Yeah. So we've we've altered it. We give them those pain questions. And but those pain questions are like it's like the elevation A of a of an architect drawn. It shows you, here's what you have to ask, but it doesn't give you all the quite all the all the things behind it, right? It's like, you know, it always kills me when people say, when when clients say, well, we want to see some pictures of finished projects. Why? Do they not think that you have finished projects? Can you tell a lot by the pictures of a by the pictures of a finished project?

SPEAKER_03:

This is though, this is for the justification for later. Yeah. This is, hey, we pick these, and someone else says, so, oh yeah, so what projects they're doing? Oh, yeah, this, this, this, and this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's just credibility.

SPEAKER_02:

That's credibility for later, right? But in the but when they ask for that too early, we need to ask questions to understand what they're going to do with those pictures. Okay. So what would the what would the rebuttal be? So yeah, we have lots of pictures. What are you how are how is how will the pictures help you and how will you use them in the process? And now I'm putting it on them. Right? Because, and well, we want to use it to prove quality. Okay, interesting. I I just wonder how the pictures help you prove quality when I know for us, most of our quality is what's behind the wall. That's a really good setup, right? And it puts them in a different position. Right. And so the pain funnel questions are important, but what's more important than the pain funnel questions are behind every one of those pain funnel questions, there's five, six, seven follow-up questions. And that's what that's that's the how, right? Is the qu is what we call the questions behind the questions. And having them ready at the tip of your tongue is the key to being successful.

SPEAKER_03:

Cool. So do you uh do you provide them this conversational framework? Yes. Of possibles. This is how you interact with us.

SPEAKER_02:

We do more than that. We we not only we not only give them the conversational possibles, but we're we're gonna give them some examples. And then we're gonna ask them to define their own for because listen, every business, I have in all the thousands of companies I've worked with, right? Commercial, residential, and tech, and everything else, every one of those clients, every one of those owners have told me the same thing. And and it's really funny when you think about it. But what they say, James, is well, you know, Jeff, that's great, but we're different. Every one of them says we're different. And so if we believe them for a minute, let's go ahead and say we believe them, then they can't, yes, use an out-of-the-box solution. If they're really different, and which they're not as different as they think they are, but we'll we'll let them feel special, right? And we'll and we're gonna get, we're gonna let them come up with the questions behind the questions. We're gonna guide them, we're gonna help them mold them, but the concepts are gonna be all theirs. And then what we have is we talked about AI a little bit earlier. We have an amazing AI tool uh that blows people's mind. We have an AI sales coach that is programmed with Sandler, and so we can create, every one of our clients can create their own role play for where they are in the sales process. It takes less than five minutes to create the role play, and then you can go on and you can role play with the with exactly, you can even put the LinkedIn profiles of the people you're talking to into the into the roleplay tool, and it'll act as those people's LinkedIns. And and you can role play and then get coaching based on how it went. Here's what you did well, here's what you should do more of, here's what you could do better. Right. Um, and and now you can go out and try it again, you know. And I think that that's that's a huge piece of the pie. Uh, because now when you think about it, how much does it cost a construction company to get into those conversations? I mean, lots. Lots of lots of dinners, lots of coffee. Right. And it's thousands of dollars, probably, right? At the very least, at the very least, hundreds of dollars. Would you rather have your people practicing on the leads that cost you all that money, or with this role play tool?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And have the, and by the time that by the time they go to have the conversation, it's the fifth or sixth time they've had the conversation because of the five role of the four or five role plays they've done, yeah, where they got to a 85, 90, 95% completion, and now they're super prepared when they go in to see the client. Right. And so not only are we giving them the tool, not only are we giving them the development of their own tools, but we're giving them the ability to then practice before they go see the client.

SPEAKER_03:

They need these on dating sites.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

No doubt, right? Have a lot more happy people out there. Yeah, for sure. Um, well, that's pretty cool. So um so what do you think is like the what is the biggest issue that you come across right now with most of the companies dealing with besides the word communication, because we've dug way deeper into that now. But what do you think uh is the main is one of the things that they're all freaked out about?

SPEAKER_02:

I I think there's I think that they are freaked out by VUCA. Um the the VUCA is an acronym that uh the U.S. General Arnold uh um Norman Schwartzkoff. Okay. Um almost said Arnold Schwartz in error. It was close. Yeah, it was close. I don't think he actually went to war, but I don't think he did. Umly in the movies. Um but nor uh Norman Schwarzkopf, who Who commanded the army, uh, the armies during uh the Iraq war in the 90s, he called it VUCA. He said VUCA stands for volatility. And there's certain I don't know if there's ever a time in my lifetime that we've been that the world's been more volatile than it is at the moment. Yeah, it's weird right now. Right? Yeah. The the U stands for uncertainty. Yeah. Right? We're certainly in uncertain times. Uh we've in the US, where I'm from, we've got federal troops being deployed into cities, right? Carrying rifles.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you actually see that right now?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

It's nuts, right? Um and so, and then the C stands for complexity. I don't know if the world's ever been more complex than it is right now. And the A stands for ambiguity uh ambiguity. And there's certainly a lot of ambiguity in the world. And so I think when we allow the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity, the ambiguity to affect us, we're also allowing it as leaders, we're also allowing it to affect our people.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And because if the leader feels it, the people feel it. Right. And if they're not feeling it, the news is certainly giving it to them every single night, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03:

So how does the um how does the leader inoculate their staff from this feeling that they have?

SPEAKER_02:

They have to eliminate three things from their minds. They have to eliminate fear, doubt, and worry from their minds. So you ever see the movie Inside Out? Yeah. So I I do believe that that little committee of cartoon characters exists in your head, right? Yeah. And three of the people, three of the three of those characters are fear, doubt, and worry. And when we let, and here's the thing about fear, doubt, and worry. They show up early. They stay late. They're great employees, right? They show up early, they stay late, and they speak up more often and more loudly than anybody else in our heads, in any of those voices in our heads. And we have to replace those voices with other voices. And we have to, so if we look at what are we going to replace them with, I listen, I think that fear is the fear is our guard out of out of out of out of VUCA that stops us from being getting out of the VUCA area and going into a a growth area. Fear likes to keep us where we're at. Right. And so we have to re we have to have we have to understand that the antidote to fear is courage. And courage courage is not what Hollywood sells us. Courage is not the is not uh Mel Gibson and Braveheart giving a speech and yelling and charging. That's not courage. Right? I mean, what courage is is and I I'll go back to remember Tiananmen Square? Yep. Remember the guy standing in front of the tank? I do, yeah. That's courage. Courage is standing in front of what you fear, even though everything in your body is shaking and quivering and doing it anyways.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

That's courage. And we've got to listen to the courage, right?

SPEAKER_03:

I I think um Can we double click on this for a sec? Yeah. So I don't have any data on this, and I don't really I don't know who does in terms of the emotional evolution of humans since uh we would go out and try and hunt, we're gonna be killed out there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Like real. Or we're stepping into someone else's hunting zone and they're just gonna kill us if we try and take their game. So I don't really know I I'm not a psychologist, but do you think that you know we have sprinted so fast into this this pseudo-fear world, whereas we're fearing this thing, we're designed to think it's actual death that we're staring uh down the barrel of a gun, but it isn't. But it feels like it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

So how do you what's the intersection there of letting people know? And I heard this the other day, is is that what worry does is we always think it's the worst. We don't, you know, you think of it's a worst case scenario, worst case scenario. And that is, is that a human condition of trying to keep us alive? It can be, I think. It must be. Why else would it exist? Because that's probably why the human race has been able to exist enough, because it's got in that in the amygdala, there you're you can actually uh save yourself from getting killed.

SPEAKER_02:

I think there's a difference between worry that saves us and worry that hinders us. Um I mean, we have to decide at some point the cavemen right had to decide did they want to come out of the cave at night and go over the hill. At some point they decided to do it. Right? And that necessity to do that was a creation of fire. Is AI the new fire? I don't know. It could be, it could be in certain ways, right? I mean, it's it's really interesting to see what's happening. I there's uh I heard on the news this morning as when I was at the airport, uh getting ready to fly out of San Francisco that there was uh a report uh the con the US Commerce Department that says that AI could eliminate a hundred million jobs in the next 10 years. Right? Think about that. Well, if it eliminates a hundred million jobs, that's 35, 40 percent unemployment.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, what about your Tokyo uh hammer slayer?

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Same thing, right? Yeah, it could be. Uh but but I think that's I think the truer thing is this. The problem with that is they said the same thing. They said um they said the same thing when when uh when we went to the printing press. It was good it was gonna kill the economy. And then the automobile was gonna kill the economy. It did kill the horse and buggy business. It did. It evolved it evolved. Because if you ask people in the horse and buggy era, it did kill the town crier. It did. It did. The printing press. But it created how many other jobs? Got it. Right. And and uh and more recently, I'll go to the the personal computer in the 80s, well, late 70s, early 80s, right? When IBM PC came out and then the the the Apple II. Yeah, right? Oh, it was the end of everything, remember? Uh it killed the typewriter business. The word processor. Yeah, it killed the word processor, or killed the typewriter. Yeah, right. Uh, how many typewriters do you see anymore? But it created how many uh how many tens of thousands of millions of jobs over over time.

SPEAKER_03:

Jobs that other humans use their fingers for. That's right. This is different.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because this is no use for humans because they're inefficient.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's really interesting. Um, my son's starting, my son just graduated. I told you that before earlier. And we uh how old is he?

SPEAKER_03:

He's 22. Okay, so what do you what do you what is he focused on?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So it's really interesting because he tried he's tried to find a marketing job. And he spent nine months trying to find a marketing job. And most first-level marketing jobs have been overtaken by AI. And he's had a horrible time. And so finally he came to the conclusion, he said, you know what? I know quite a bit about AI. He created a company called People First AI, that he is training business owners of small, medium-sized companies how to implement AI into their companies in an ethical way that is responsible to the people and helps elevate people, not push them out.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And so he's created this company doing this. And for right now, I think he's in the right place at the right time.

SPEAKER_03:

How's it going with him?

SPEAKER_02:

He's just getting started, so we'll see. Okay. He's got his first uh his first class starting, I think, later this week or next week.

SPEAKER_03:

First class? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, teaching people. Teaching people.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, cool, yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

And so he's got a group of business owners he's put together to go do that. So we'll see how it goes for him. But it's a great idea. Um, you know, devil's in the details.

SPEAKER_03:

So what else is in the VUCA? So we, you know, so we've got to take the uncertainty. Yeah. And what's the like all this tariffs and all this kind of stuff creates a crazy uncertainty? Interest rates. Yeah. Um, immigration, how many houses we have to build? Are they gonna kick everyone out? Like, what's the deal?

SPEAKER_02:

So I'll go back to 2020. Remember 2020, and everybody thought the world was ending, right? With all the changes and and like with COVID, you mean? Yeah, with COVID. Did you think it was gonna end? I didn't, but the I can't tell you the number of remodelers that thought residential remodelers that thought their world was ending. Um, and because there was no construction starts. There was no remodeling for a good period of time. Right. Right. And if I had, you know, it's funny because if I told the remodelers back then, hey, I think you're gonna go have the best two years of your in the history of your company in 21 and 22, they would have thought I was crazy. But it's exactly what happened. Right. Because here's what we know is is that necessity is the mother of invention. It forced them to find new supply chains, it forced them to do things differently, right? Forced them to put COVID practices into place.

SPEAKER_03:

Use software. Huh? Software, not paper. That's right. It turned into a soccer match. That's right. You can't touch anything with your hands, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Good. I like that. Um thank you for calling soccer, not football. Um the the but I think that when earlier this year, when when the president of the United States announced all of these tariffs and all these things, and I all my Canadian clients are like calling me and emailing me, texting me, oh, we're gonna die, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. None of them have died. It's been harder. But every one of them, if you look at their business in October of 2025, where we are right now, versus April of 2025, six months ago, yeah. It's evolved and changed.

SPEAKER_03:

But it was interesting because I remember in the the 2008 financial crisis, um, you saw a significant amount of fallout happening on Wall Street, but it took till mid-2009 for businesses to actually feel the pain. So is this a delayed response?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think so because what we're seeing, many of my clients right now are seeing things start to pick up again.

SPEAKER_03:

In the U.S. Well, the US and Canada. Well, the U.S. is like all in on the US. Like it is like hands across America. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02:

I wish that were I wish that were true.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't think it is?

SPEAKER_02:

I I I it is for building. Well, I don't even know if it's true for building because I can't tell you the number of builders that are going that have are still stuck in that in that VUCA, right? They're still stuck with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity because oh my gosh, I don't know what's going to happen. One of my builders, uh good or bad, most of the most of the skilled labor is it uh for them is is Hispanic. Well, they've had people get picked up by ICE in the US who were born in the US, are U.S. citizens, but because their skins that way, they're getting picked up. Some of these guys are afraid to go to work.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? And so I still think there's quite a bit of that going on. But we're starting, it's really been, and and April till August was awful for builders in the US.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I would think like construction sites are this big open air, like, you know, proving ground of of whether or not eyes can do their thing. Because everyone's outside.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Or you can walk into a job site.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's what's happened in the US. Yeah. That's what's happening in the US. So there's a lot of uh a lot of fear, down, and worry right now going on in the US around this. And but we're starting to see it calm down. We're starting to see people return to I it's a I I hate the term, but I don't have a better one, a new normal. Yeah. Right? We're starting to see people return to a new normal and pent-up demand is starting to take place. Right. You know, we're starting to see more construction uh starts, right? September was the first month construction starts in the US have been up. Cool. And I think that's what we've seen with my Canadian clients is the same exact thing. Everything was horrible. But as we've gotten into the fall, things are picking up. They're not to where everybody wants them to be yet, but there's that new normal, and we're seeing things pick up.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, it is a it is a once there's no um construction work, then you know you're in a real recession. Right. When when construction workers are out of work, as in there's nothing, they don't know what to do now. That's the signal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But in and at least in the US, we're seeing the union halls are still empty. They're not the people that they're working. They're not, they're not sitting around the union. I remember 2009, the union halls were full, right? Uh they those guys couldn't get work. And but right now they're still empty. They're still out working. What does your hat say? Uh it says you're on mute.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, you're on.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thanks. I do a lot of uh appreciate that. Yeah, I do a lot, I do a lot of training. James, just so you know, I'm not listening. Yeah. No, they I do a lot of training on Zoom. Okay. And I can't tell you how many times.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, you're on mute. I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and so I was at uh the HubSpot uh conference a couple weeks ago in San Francisco, and uh Fathom was given out these hats that said you're on mute. I'm like, oh, I gotta have one of those.

SPEAKER_03:

I like it. Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so um I think this has been pretty, pretty awesome talking about all this stuff with you. It's been fun. Yeah, thank you very much. So um, so how do people get a hold of you? What's the deal?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, so pretty simple.

SPEAKER_03:

How expensive are you?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh what we always say incredibly expensive but worth it.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh to that is the answer that I would imagine you would have a good communication psychological approach to that question.

SPEAKER_02:

But uh so listen, we have a couple ways uh to engage. The first one is if if if one of your listeners is on Instagram and they want to learn more, yeah. We have over 500 posts on Instagram of little sales tips, snippets and snippets, 30 seconds to 60 seconds. Uh so on Instagram, it's just selling with Jeff. Nice. Okay. Uh is the Instagram handle. Okay. If they want a little bit more, they uh you know, they can email me uh with selling with Jeff at Sandler.com. Okay. And uh happy to happy to schedule time to talk to them.

SPEAKER_03:

Cool. And then LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh LinkedIn, Jeff Borovitz. Borovitz. B-O-R-O-V-E-I-T-Z. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, cool. Okay, well, that's cool. This has been uh super good. Uh enjoy your time in Victoria. Looking forward to it. When you see Paul, yes, say hello for me. I will. Um, and uh yeah, it's this was a pleasure. This was cool. This was fun. Thanks so much for having me. You're very welcome. Thank you. Thank you for listening.