Sales & Cigars | The Art of Internal Selling with Matt Barry | Episode 224

[00:00:07] Hey everybody, Walter Crosby with Helix Sales Development, your host of Sales & Cigars, the podcast for entrepreneurs where the only smoke we blow is cigar smoke. Today my guest is my friend and client, Matt Barry. Matt's the VP of Sales & Marketing at a 70-year-old family-owned life safety business outside of Chicago called Reliable Fire & Security. We get into two topics. The first one, the need for salespeople to sell internally as well as outside the building. Why that's important.

[00:00:38] And two, the challenges that Reliable and other manufacturers are facing right now about hiring salespeople and the complexity of their roles and how not all sales roles are created equally. So if you're viewing this episode, you'll notice that there's a little wardrobe change about halfway through. Originally, recording date, my power and internet all went down due to my local utility killing a line. So we get into talking about cigars and bourbon and Jack Daniels.

[00:01:06] So go grab a cigar, grab a cocktail, strap in for another exciting episode of Sales & Cigars. Thanks. So Matt, welcome to Sales & Cigars. I appreciate you taking a little time out of your busy schedule. Sure. Thanks for having me, Walter. It's good to be here. So, full disclosure, Matt and Reliable are a client of Helix. So I'm not going to ask them really hard questions. I don't want to make them Matt.

[00:01:34] But we're going to get into some of the issues that VPs of sales have in the life safety suppression business and then in general. But before we jump into that, Matt, kind of give us a walk us through a little bit about your professional, your background. How'd you get to be in where you are right now? What line did you stand in by mistake? It's one of those things about be careful what you volunteer for. You may end up in a big chair.

[00:02:01] You know, my career started in sales. I had spent my first 10 years out of college as a sales rep for a specialty steel manufacturer out of Pennsylvania. Calling out OEMs, machine shops, you know, a whole variety of different players. Different industries, automotive, marine, aerospace. Pretty varied, fun job. Big stuff, big projects. Travel?

[00:02:23] Yeah, mostly throughout the Midwest. We had some specialty customers, you know, take us back to the, we'd have to go back to the mill in Pennsylvania or one of our facilities in San Diego. But most of my customers were throughout the Midwest, Wisconsin, Illinois. So it was pretty local. Loved the job, got to a point where I had to face the reality of potentially moving to Redding, Pennsylvania, and that just wasn't going to happen. That's, I don't mind small towns. That's a whole different level of small.

[00:02:50] Very, very specific small town too, right? Yeah. Small, very conservative. Not a place I wanted to be. Okay. So I had an opportunity to go to work for an investor who I had known for years. You know, my deal with him was I wanted to learn how to run a company. It would always kind of been my dream to be president of a company, learn how to run a company. He said, sure, come on in here, assure me you'll work your ass off and I'll show you everything you need to know about running a company.

[00:03:18] I spent 15 years for him and the boot camp of how to run a small business or how to get a small business to a midsize business is really where we ended up. How do you define midsize? Just based on revenue. The last company I ran there was about $25 million in annual sales. And we started at million, two million. So there was a lot of growth in there, organic and through acquisition. But, you know, through there, all the companies that I worked on, since my background was sales, I always kept the sales department under my umbrella.

[00:03:48] It was home for me. It was what I was comfortable with. And the investor I worked for had a mantra. He grew up as a sales guy too. And his mantra was nothing happens without a sale. So no matter what I was doing, I always kind of kept that close to me so I could control the process of flowing orders into the business. So, you know, 15, 20 years doing that was a lot of fun. There was a startup in the middle there that was like four years underwater. So I just happened to come across Debbie Horvath who owns Reliable.

[00:04:17] I was transitioning out of the startup that we were doing. Just kind of a great chance to get back into the sales game and just focus on growth as opposed to all the headaches around running a company every day. Now you just have the headaches of a sales department. Yeah, which turns out are the majority of the headaches of running a company every day.

[00:04:34] So I remember when I was talking to Debbie early on, she was excited about bringing you on because of your background, because of your breadth of knowledge of understanding all aspects of a company, right? Because finance, accounting, operations, service, all of those things, you know, it's a team effort, right? Nothing happens unless we sell something.

[00:04:59] But as salespeople, we don't want to go make whatever we sell or go deliver whatever we sell. At least I didn't. So we do have to figure out a way to play nice in the sandbox with everybody else. Yeah, and I think that's kind of a concept that's easy for salespeople to overlook. You know, we commission them based on sales and close, close, close, close, close. But at the end of the day, it's got to be profitable. It's got to be work that's clearly defined for the people that have to execute that sale.

[00:05:28] And having a respect for the whole ecosystem, everything that's involved in that process, I think is really important. It's not what you want salespeople focused on, but they have to understand what's involved in all that. Well, I think the word you use, respect, is the right word, that there are other people involved in the delivery of our offering. And if we're not providing them the information that they need to do their job, if we're not setting the right expectations with the customer.

[00:05:55] I mean, every customer wants something faster than we want to deliver. But at the end of the day, we've got to help manage those expectations so the rest of the team can have a level of success. And they're not always under the gun. Business acuum is something that I see a lot of salespeople. You have it.

[00:06:15] But the salespeople we manage, they don't always have that understanding of top line revenue, bottom line, what we get to keep at the end of the day, what falls through to ownership and all the little pieces that come out of that. How do you deal with that? Or how do you help salespeople understand there's more than just the top line number margin? Yeah, it's a tough balancing act because, again, you don't want them focused on all the things that might happen. And you want them focused on closing that sale.

[00:06:46] But in our world, we're in the service business. And they're out selling hours, basically. It takes X amount of hours to inspect a fire alarm system. It takes X amount of hours to inspect a sprinkler system. So we need them fully educated on, you know, what is the work involved with that? So when we send a technician out, we're not quoting five hours on a job that takes 10 hours. So for us, it's about the training of getting them in tune with those inspectors and how much time do we really need.

[00:07:15] Beyond that, it's important for me to make sure that they're fully aware of all the people here in our office in the trickle down. You know, how long does it take to schedule all these customers? It's one thing to book an inspection and say, OK, fine. I sold it. You guys take care of it. But if they're communicating with that customer and they're making it quicker for the scheduling department to do it, it's going to close faster. They're going to get paid faster.

[00:07:40] So to have them kind of integrated into that process and understanding what's going on in the office, I think is really critical. And managing that process, again, so that they stay focused on creating the opportunities and closing the business. But they do have to have that. So it's a combination of respect and understanding, respect and knowledge of what needs to occur after the sale and making sure that we're not shortchanging the rest of the company. Yeah.

[00:08:10] And I like the respected knowledge part because we don't want them involved. You know, we want them to be able to book that sale and move on to the next one, keep moving. But as long as they know the people here in the office are working as hard as they did to get the job, to get it scheduled and get it booked and get it done, then there's kind of a mutual respect there and a cooperation that makes sure we get these things done on time.

[00:08:31] When I worked at a fire alarm company, you know, I made friends with the person who wrote the commission checks, made sure that those guys, like I always wanted her to be my pal. But the other person was who was running the service department. I wanted to understand their workflow. I wanted to understand where they were in terms of backlog and understand what we did as salespeople that could put them in a better position to win.

[00:08:58] Because as salespeople, we can change that dynamic with our customer. And sometimes we could defend the service department when they needed defending. To me, that opened up a line of communication with the person sending the text out. But it also just gave me a better understanding of the business. Do you find that a natural thing by salespeople? Or is that something you got to coach them up to realize that they're not alone in this?

[00:09:23] It's something you got to coach them up on because they're by nature, the good ones are hunters and they're out there and they're focused on closing. And I think it's just an easy thing to say, I've closed. Not easy. It's a natural thing to say, I've closed this. I'm turning it over. Now it's their problem. The part that I think really good salespeople learn is you're always selling something. Closing that sale is one thing.

[00:09:46] But having the relationships internally where you're constantly fostering those relationships internally just help remove so many roadblocks. People buy from people they like. People help people they like. And so those schedulers, are they most likely to go do a little bit extra for the salespeople they like? Yeah. You know, the inspectors likely to give you a little more information on something they do because they like you and they got a relationship? Yeah, they do.

[00:10:13] So that's kind of the next step for a really good salesperson is to understand that you're selling internally too. You know, that goes a long way. It's not a natural thing. When I managed a team in that same organization, it's like you're pissing off Mary, right? And Mary was the one who controlled where the people went. And you don't want to make her mad, right? You don't want to make her life more difficult. And it's not about being gratuitous.

[00:10:43] It's just about, hey, Mary, where are you at? Like, what's going on next week? I got something that's coming up, but I don't want to throw a wrench in your system. And it was amazing if you just opened up that line of communication and showed you cared that somehow things could get worked out. And that you weren't always moved to the front of the line. You weren't always getting everything you want. But you at least had the communication to deal with your customer in a way that was productive.

[00:11:08] I want to kind of wrap this idea of that salespeople need to sell outside the building and inside the building. And that as a VP of sales, how do we get them to realize that we got to make our internal folks our friends, right? How do we get them to really realize that they're selling every day inside the building as well as outside the building? Yeah, that's one of those real challenges there that salespeople are used to seeing success by getting an order.

[00:11:36] They got a tangible proof that they've accomplished their goal. But when you do that in the office, you don't get that PO. You don't get the tangible results. So I think it's really important to continue to remind the sales staff that it's the little things. It's the favors you need. It's when you drop in a phone call and say, listen, I really need this done. Can you help me? The more they can recognize that those people are helping them because they like them. They got a good relationship. They get along.

[00:12:04] That helps them see that win. It helps them understand that they've done a good job of internal selling. But it's a challenge. You have to see that. It's a challenge. And I like the way you're putting that. They have to get those people to become their friend, at least build some rapport with them. And when I was doing what you guys do, I mean, I knew what my service coordinator, what she liked to drink.

[00:12:28] And when I had a problem that I needed her help with, I would walk up the stairs to go see her in her little office and I would plop down a caramel macchiato. And then she got to the point where she looked at me and she goes, what's the problem today? But the idea was that you do get feedback. You don't get the purchase order, but you get the feedback because they're willing to help you. Right.

[00:12:52] And the salesperson has to realize we need empathy for our customers, but we also need empathy for the people in the building that are trying to do the things that we need them to do. And if you show just a little bit of grace to somebody, you know, even if they make a mistake, like I'll handle that with the customer. Let me do it. We'll worry about it. Right. That goes a long way. I think that's a really strong point that you've brought up that salespeople need to really work on and be cognizant of it all the time.

[00:13:20] So let's talk a little bit about sales roles and the challenges of finding, I mean, you don't have this problem, but finding new, competent, aggressive, successful salespeople. Yeah. No problem at all. Easy. But to be fair, everybody's looking for the A players and there's only a few of them out there and they're all employed doing what we want them to do.

[00:13:46] So because your sales, your sales roles, you have a variety of people that are in sales, but they're not typical sales roles. Why don't we kind of talk a little bit about that, about the differences? So we've really got kind of four sections that if you looked at our sales staff, they would divide into. So there's a customer support slash inside sales role and that's sort of critical for us.

[00:14:10] We have pure business development people that work on our inspection service side of our business. Then we have installation people that focus on fire alarm installations and suppression system installations. And the fourth bucket would be our security sales division. So you've got four different categories. The inside salespeople, we've got 10,000 customers. Our salespeople don't get assigned accounts.

[00:14:36] When we bring in an inspection customer after the first year, it turns into a house account. So those inside salespeople have a big role for us. They have to negotiate renewals. They have to try to expand our presence with those customers if we can. It's inside sales. They're not hunting. They're not looking for new business. The really critical one for us are those hunters. There's the new business development people on the service end of our business. Depending on the month, we're 75%, 80% service work.

[00:15:05] So growing that part of our business is critical. But it's a tough job. It's all business development. You've got to go out and find it. You've got to grind away at it. And it's the hardest job to fill right now. And you don't have any competition there in Chicago area, right? That's pretty simple. You're the only game in town. Yeah, other than five or six other people that are incredibly aggressive price-wise and pain in our ass generally.

[00:15:31] Yeah, but when somebody's winning business for price, they're going to lose business on price. Your go-to-market strategy is a little bit more complicated than what I'm going to say. But you're selling value. You're selling something that has to be done that is looked at as a commodity. And as a lot of people that are listening, their business is viewed as a commodity. You've got to get them to realize that we know it's a commodity. We know that this is something that you have to do.

[00:16:00] So why work with reliable, right? That's what those hunters are trying to ascertain. And it's a very small reason why somebody's willing to. But they've been pissed off at somebody, that customer. They've experienced something that you guys can latch on to. And because you're selling the value, you're selling the service that you've done. You've got history, experience. You've got competency. You're taking away their problems.

[00:16:24] Yeah, and that's the angle we really like our staff to focus on is there's a value to working with a 70-year-old company that's been sort of a pioneer in this industry. It is still family-owned and focused on the mission of the company. We've got to make money like everybody else, but we're not here to cut corners. We're not here to just get by and get in and out of the building as quick as we can. So we're not going to be the low guy. If our salespeople are comfortable just telling their customers that, then sure, you want somebody who's $100 less than me? They're out there. They're everywhere.

[00:16:55] But are they going to stay on top of your inspection? Are they going to be here when you need them? If something goes wrong and you have to get somebody out here, are they going to be available? All those types of things that we pride ourselves on offering our customers and actually doing, not just offering. Those are the things you've got to focus on. Yeah, I remember talking to one of your salespeople a few months ago and I'm like, tell them. We're not going to be the cheapest game in town. Probably won't be the most expensive.

[00:17:22] And he's like, well, what am I supposed to say when they say I can get it cheaper down the street? Why are we talking? Something's going on. And you just get that customer to tell you what they've experienced. And then whatever they tell you that the problem was, that becomes the reason that they're willing to pay for value. Yeah. You know, I think if you're a salesperson and that's the objection you get, I can get it cheaper somewhere else. If you're going to buy into that and automatically just say, I got to cut my price. Well, you're not sales. You know, you're just out there taking orders where you can get them.

[00:17:51] You know, the whole key to successfully selling is being able to change a customer's behavior based on the value proposition you bring them. And that's why the best salespeople get paid a lot of money because they're good at it. They earn it though, right? I mean, that's the thing. I mean, one of your sales guys busts his butt. He does all kinds of things at odd hours and weekends, but he earns it. He does well. It's being able to support those guys.

[00:18:17] Everybody thinks that salespeople are out there socializing, playing golf and screwing around. But at the end of the day, they're out there having difficult conversations with their customers to help them see there's value. We're trying to help them, right? And if we're not having fun doing that, then we're doing it wrong. Yeah. It's too hard of a job. And if you're not having fun with it and you don't enjoy it, you better love it because it's a hard job.

[00:18:45] Especially with what you guys sell is a service. And you can't just say, you know, we never miss the service call. We're perfect. Nobody's going to believe that. But you have one big advantage in that 70 years or 75 years? Just 70 last month. That can be a line that they use, right? We're not perfect. We do make mistakes. Judge us on how we make a mistake. Not the fact that we made the mistake. How do we handle it?

[00:19:15] But also, like, hey, we've been around 70 years. I mean, what does that mean to you? Right? And throw it back at the customer without telling them that we're doing A, B, and C. It's like, how many 70-year-old companies do you know in this marketplace? In any place? Yeah, especially in sort of a niche industry like this that changes fast. And it's a testament to hard work and dedication. It's not the norm, that's for sure. So speaking of fun and hard work, I want to transition a little bit to cigars.

[00:19:43] And we look different than what we were doing. You're in one of my favorite places, going to do some stuff that's fun. But let's talk a little bit about cigars and bourbon for a second. Perfect. What's your go-to cigar? You know, I was forever a LaGloria guy and smoked them for decades. And just recently, one of my friends is on a Cohiba kick. So probably the last year or two, I've been buying those a box at a time and got one at my desk, got one at the golf course.

[00:20:12] They're always around somewhere. That's kind of where I've been. So you're on the bigger side, like mild, bold, but more towards the bold? Yeah, bold. But, you know, a Churchill, I don't like anything too big. You know, a nice Churchill is a perfect size for me. Especially on the golf course? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I'm easily distracted. So if I'm smoking on the golf course and it takes me all 18 holes, that's not going to be good. So how many cigars typically on the round? You know, one.

[00:20:39] My habit would be on the 10th hole, unless I'm playing bad and I need a mood changer a little bit earlier. But, you know, usually in the 10 tee box, I'll fire one up and then it'll last me half the back nine or so. I was always one on the front and one on the back. I'm sort of retired from golf. But this was a pet peeve of mine when I was golfing with people. They would take their cigar out of their mouth on the green and toss it almost to the side. Like, and that green is full of everything. Yuck.

[00:21:08] Yeah. Right. Yeah. So how do you, like, do you keep it in your mouth when you're putting or do you have a little stand that you use? No. I mean, if I'm walking, I'll put a tee in the ground and just keep the end up off the ground. If I'm riding, I got some buddies that are real, you know, they're really dedicated to this and they have little clips they put on the golf cart so they can keep the cigar and the clip in the cart. I don't know that I ate that carried away, but. Oh, come on. I had a clip and an ashtray that fit into the cup holder that was built for a cigar. I had one.

[00:21:38] If you're not playing golf anymore, send that down to Chicago. I might use that. All right. Next time I come down there, I'll bring it with me. So last question on the bourbon, because I didn't ask, like, relationship with cigars because we've had this conversation. So bourbon, you're at a nice venue this weekend where bourbon is somewhat popular. Is there a go-to bourbon that you look to? So I'm a little bit of a ruffian. I've been a Jack Daniels guy my whole life and people always look at me sideways when I

[00:22:06] say that, but I've always just loved Jack Daniels. You know, around the house, I'll have two or three different bottles of different things. Buffalo Trace is a favorite. Woodford is always good. Double Oak? I have not had the Double Oak. Dude, then you haven't had Woodford. You got to get to that. Real. All right. Put it on the list. Yeah. That's the one that when you come down to buy your own barrel, that's typically the juice that they're putting in that is the Double Oak. Okay. All right. I'll define that.

[00:22:35] I mean, Woodford's fine, but this is, you won't go back. Yeah. It's funny, the Jack Daniels, when I was still, like, younger and making, you know, trying to make money living in New York, I had a Jack Daniels, and that just became my go-to for a decade. I just drank Jack Daniels. And, you know, people like, really? Isn't that a little harsh? I'm like, it's charcoal mellowed. What are you talking about? Yeah.

[00:23:03] It does have a different taste to it, and technically it's not a bourbon, but there's something cool about it. So, in the summertime, there's something called a Lynchburg lemonade that I'm very particular about, but I drink those a lot in the summertime. Problem is that they go down pretty smooth. That's the danger there. All right. Well, we'll land it there with Jack Daniels, Cohibas. What's going to be the cigar that you smoked this afternoon? I have about six or eight Cohibas sitting on the table next to me, so I'll have a couple this afternoon on the golf course,

[00:23:32] and whatever's left, I will have at the racetrack tomorrow. Right. Just everybody knows I'm jealous he's going to Churchill Downs to watch the Derby on Saturday, and I'll be sitting at a freaking barbecue at some friend's house on an outdoor TV with a cigar, though. Well, I was going to say, what will you be smoking tomorrow for the races? It will be probably a Fire of the Gods, a little celebratory fancy pants cigar. I don't smoke those every day, but at that time, kind of a barbecue,

[00:24:00] I got permission I can be over in this part of the guy's backyard right by the smoker where the brisket will be going, and all the other people will be over here away from me, which is my plan. Perfect. Sounds like a great afternoon. Thanks so much for listening to Sales and Cigars. If you like what you heard or you want to share your two cents about the show, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:24:30] We'd love to hear from you. Now, if listening made you realize you need a little extra sales help, you can check out helixsalesdevelopment.com, where you can find free sales tools, blog posts, and an opportunity to reach out and optimize your sales team. If you really want to get inside my head, you're in luck because I wrote a book. Check out the link in the show notes to snag a copy of Scale Your Sales, Avoid the Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make. It's compact, it gets to the point,

[00:24:57] and you can read it over a cigar and two or three cups of coffee. I'm no one biased, but I highly recommend it. Sales and Cigars is executive produced by me, Walter Crosby, and it's produced by Courtney Blomquist. Editing and further production support is done by my team at Resonate Recordings. Thanks for listening.