From Hustle to Leadership: Andy Matheou’s Journey in Sales and Staffing

Summary

Highlights

• Andy Matheou shares his inspiring transition from recruitment to leadership. 🌟
• The importance of hustle and work ethics in the staffing industry. 🏋️‍♂️
• Strategies for cracking into major accounts through meticulous prospecting. 📈
• Building a culture of support and growth within the team. 👥
• Why RHM places heavy emphasis on relationship-building over selling products. 💬

Key Takeaways

• Hustle and resilience are key to thriving in sales and staffing at RHM. 💪
• Success in staffing requires not only selling skills but also the ability to build strong relationships. 🤝
• Adopting a strategic and relentless approach is crucial for breaking into big accounts. 🕵️‍♂️
• Leadership is about selflessly lifting others, not just personal success. 🌟
• A supportive and cohesive team culture drives better results and personal satisfaction. 😊

Overview

From Hustle to Leadership: Andy Matheou’s Journey in Sales and Staffing Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 you know we one of the things that we've found out in our company over the years and we've been we're going on our 18th year of being in business is that the human beings that thrive at sales gravy are people who can take a 2x4 to the forehead hit as hard as you can not get knocked down and then they just shake it off and they get right back up again and the people who can't do that they they they will not survive our culture absolutely no I mean I i' read all your books and I just think you always resonated with us because like the first book was fical prospecting and the
• 00:30 - 01:00 reason our our companies you know do work together is because of the way you frame it up and the way the systems and processes that you preach it's the way it's frankly the way we were taught and um there are no shortcuts in Staffing there is no secret sauce There is no um cool software that no one else has all you have is your word and your work e there [Music]
• 01:00 - 01:30 welcome back to another episode of the sales gravy podcast on this episode I have Andy mathow who is with rhm you're going to learn a little bit more about Andy as we go forward it's an amazing company Amazing Story and I've been waiting for a long time to get Andy in here because he's like my my brother from another mother like he's got this this sales genius that I want to tap into and pull out we're going to be talking about sales a lot about leadership and some of the frustrations that leaders are facing today now before
• 01:30 - 02:00 we get started I want you to go to Amazon and I want you to go check out my brand new book the AI Edge if you're watching this I'm holding the book up if you're listening to it just go to Amazon pull your car over go to Amazon get the AI Edge this is not a techbook it's a sales book it is the hottest book in sales right now I never expected it to sell this many copies so fast but this book top to bottom from prospecting all the way to negotiating and closing and dealing with objections gives you all of the ways that you can leverage AI in
• 02:00 - 02:30 your normal sales motions to gain more time to sell more to win more to earn more go pick up the AI Edge right now on Amazon Andy welcome to the sales gravy podcast thank you great to be here so let's just start off with a little bit of history of you because you are um like your sales personified when you hang out with you there there's this energy and drive that you have around selling uh and I'm I'm I'm curious about like just a little bit about your history where you came from how did you
• 02:30 - 03:00 how did you end up where you are and then I want to talk a little bit from there about rhm and this amazing trajectory you've been on there yeah I mean probably a similar story to a lot of people but didn't grow up with much my uh grandmother was an entrepreneur had a couple convenience stores and um just you know regular high school college so on and so forth graduated with a history degree did a little HR internship still when I was like 25 didn't know what I wanted to do um I got a call from someone one day day that saw
• 03:00 - 03:30 some HR and some business to business sales that I had done and they introduced me to me to they introduced me to recruiting so after about six months I realized I was pretty good at it and I uh I started being the first one there the last one to leave came in on weekends uh you know got into sales they promote you from recruiter into sales like we do today uh it was a large organization that had a great training program and uh did did well in sales for a couple years and then uh after that they moved the leadership and the rest
• 03:30 - 04:00 is history so what is this about the getting in early and staying late that um that a lot of people don't seem to get like I I I hear you say that I feel like that is a reflection of me when I really when I first started with my career I would get there before anybody was there I'd be the last one to leave I would be the senior vice president of sales and marketing would be walking into their car and I'd be walking out with them on the door I mean I was I was there all the time I a lot of people don't have that drive and it's it's Unique where where
• 04:00 - 04:30 why don't we see this as much anymore and where did that come from in you I think I think for me I I always I always thought I was supposed to you know do something that was be successful I just didn't know in what and um when I realized I was good at the Staffing industry like anyone else like it's a kids in sports today like if you're if you're good at baseball when you're six you like it more you play more and I I think for me when I realized I was pretty good at it um I just went I just went deeper into it I just I just said I'm going to be the best at this um
• 04:30 - 05:00 where does it come from um my my mom used to go four in the morning go to work she'd get home at 400m my grandmother would get the crack a dawn go to to her convenience store would get back at 6:37 so they're both working 12 hour days and I just thought to myself all the sacrifices they made for me if I don't pay them back with worth working just just as hard as them what was the reason they did it all for so that was kind of like my that would be what my internal was was like I just
• 05:00 - 05:30 couldn't let what they did go to waste um but then also just I just I just as I got old I wanted to prove I had a chip on my should I wanted to prove everyone I was um I was good so then when I when I started seeing sales numbers come out and they they did the stack rankings and I just got addicted to I wanted my name on top of the list so my my proudest my proudest moment I was at I worked at a six billion dollar company was they had 3200 salespeople and I'll never forget one week it came out and I was number one on 3250 and I was like okay like I
• 05:30 - 06:00 finally did it so then that's where I wanted to get into leadership so I love that so are you that competitive in the rest of your life or like I don't know about your like my family like we we play full contact Trivial Pursuit like we're the most competitive family ever we will me we will literally kill each other even though we're we're related to win a game the same thing with me my kids my my daughters nine just all four of us my wife is almost as competitive as me probably not quite but right there so yeah it it definitely add yeah she's
• 06:00 - 06:30 not the one like oh Andy you're so no she's definitely uh she's trying to beat me at every board game for sure that's for sure so I'm with you what was it about Staffing and selling Staffing that really connected to with you like what why do you why was why were you good at that particular or this particular type of Industry you know I I tried selling cell phones when they first came out business to business before he got into Staffing I think I I I really believe I'm just better selling myself obviously
• 06:30 - 07:00 Staffing and uh rhm it's a service um and I would rather go out and explain what makes us different and deliver on what I say I'm going to do than I would selling a product that may or may not be right for you know or software or something like that and for for me personally uh you know I grew up like I said convenience stores uh some restaurants stuff like that where we were very service oriented so for me if I get them the right placement and I have a great service followup
• 07:00 - 07:30 so on and so forth um I just think it works for me personally so I I I wasn't the product guy the software guy I'm more the service guy but Staffing is freaking hard like it is it is so hard grind it is it's a grind it's also grinds it is like I mean so so why pick a why pick an industry where it's like it's hard like of of all our clients and you know we think about all the different things that people sell Staffing is right on top of my list
• 07:30 - 08:00 with advertising as these are intangibles they are you're selling an idea a solution a dream an Insight you are working with people in these organizations that have that are cynical they they've they've seen every promise from every staffing company that's ever been made and they've been heartbroken they've been let down they've had issues with uh with every part of their business because of staffing issues
• 08:00 - 08:30 it's like I mean it when you say grind it is the grind of grind of grind it's the grind of the grind look I'm not gonna lie to you it's hard um it's it's not the most glamorous uh industry um I have friends who work for these big companies and they sell this cool stuff and um I liked it and I was drawn to it and I think the people I picked to be on our be on our team they they want to work work hard and I just think for us I try to it's it's just not by acent the
• 08:30 - 09:00 people on our leadership team the people we hard the entry level that we move into the the sales role as they develop um we're looking for people who are willing to sacrifice work hard and and grind it out and to be honest with you people on our team can go work anywhere after working here two to five years but those same people who have a nice easy cushy job can't ever come work for us and I'm proud of that so yeah it's a yeah it's a grind but I uh people who
• 09:00 - 09:30 work here will have jobs at a high level till they're in they till they're ready to retire where I can't say that for every other industry so bring the grind on I love it you know we one of the things that we've found out in our company over the years and we've been we're going on our 18th year of being in business is that the human beings that thrive at sales gravy are people who can take a 2x4 to the forehead hit as hard as you can not get knocked down and then they just shake it off and they get right back up again and the people who can't do that they they will not survive
• 09:30 - 10:00 our culture absolutely no I mean like I me i' read all your books and I just think you always resonated with us because like the first book I wrote was fanatical prospecting and the reason our our companies you know do work together is because of the way you frame it up and the way the systems and processes that you preach it's the way it's frankly the way we were taught and um there are no shortcuts in Staffing there is no secret sauce There is no
• 10:00 - 10:30 um cool software that no one else has all you have is your word and your work ethic and that's just the um unfortunally probably lost with a lot of different companies or uh Industries but not with ours so make a great t-shirt my word and my work ethic that's what you can trust I love that yeah um so you said a couple times that you were successful and you wanted to get into leadership what what drove you to want to move from Individual contributor into leadership and let me let me uh couch that question with uh a statement of
• 10:30 - 11:00 fact the Staffing industry is a grind it is very very very hard but you can make a lot of money like you can you can I mean some of the highest paid sales Professionals in Industry across the board are in Staffing so at a young age show we have 25 year olds making a half a million dollars a year it's insane like it's insane but you got to have your word and your wor work ethic to get there I I love what you said there's no easy button no shortcut no Silver Bullet you got to do the work you got to follow the process I wish there was I I've tried a hundred times and every
• 11:00 - 11:30 time I'm over a 100 so now I'm just the the work ethic guy that's all we're going to do so why why make the leap from Individual contributor where you can make so much money into a leadership role where now you're responsible for all these people and all the problems that come with them yeah I think it kind of happened by accident I like I talked about my family I don't mean to go down that route it's like a typical story but I think when they sacrific for me I think in leadership what I learned is
• 11:30 - 12:00 you've got to be able to sacrifice for other people and I think the reason I wanted to do it was as I was coming up the ranks and I was like like I said one of the top people in the company I would help people and I I give them ideas and angles to take and different techniques and when it would work the the the the look on their face and how thankful they were now look it's 8020 R 20% of the people I help actually said Thank you and really appreciate it and 80% maybe didn't but the 20% that showed gratitude ude and really were thankful for what I
• 12:00 - 12:30 did was probably the best feeling I've ever had in my life you know until obviously I you know I had a family but as a as a you know someone in my that got leadership in my 20s like it was the best feeling I ever had and I wanted that that that that dopamine rush if you will right that uh that feeling of like I I'm impacting people and I just I just can't replace it so it got addicting and then I moved into like a director role uh you know before before the age of 30 and I've just been in leadership ever since
• 12:30 - 13:00 there's a lot of salese though that might be listening to this and and I I ran into this so when I was in the big corporate world we would promote good salese who would then proceed to blow up a sales team and we ran into this over and over again and I was you know I I was in my 30s when I was promoting people into these roles and one of the things that occurred to me early on was that a lot of people didn't have what you had I got into leadership for the same way or the same reason I I just dug like when the when the light bulb came
• 13:00 - 13:30 on and I was coaching somebody like that was the greatest feeling ever and when I moved into leadership I moved from a role where I was making you know you know mid six figures L money right I made less money as a leader than I did as an individual contributor and I remember sitting down with our leadership team and they were they were saying that they were like look you're going to take a step backwards but I did it because I loved lifting people up like I love the feeling of helping them but when I had leaders that I promoted good salese and they failed they never
• 13:30 - 14:00 got that like they never understood that as soon as you became a leader you had to put the needs of the people that you were leading ahead of your own and your ego had to get put away and um and that that becomes a problem so if you're if you are a if you're talking to the sales people in the audience who may be thinking themselves I want to be like you or I want to make that leap can you walk us through the conversations that you have with your young leaders before you promote them around what the role entails and the changes that they make
• 14:00 - 14:30 in their mindset and in their heart before they are able to Be an Effective leader typically you know obviously you want your top producers and Leadership role so for every 10 top producers two to three of them end end up a leadership role and the differentiator is when you see them like promoting people into the next role so we hire entry level recruiters and those sales people that are typically Crea Legacy for themselves promoting people into the
• 14:30 - 15:00 job they're in or splitting their territories and giving them opportunity they're few and far between and and typically you just see it in someone that they're they're okay putting themsel putting someone else in front of themselves most people don't want to do that the innate thing is yourself your survival mode um they might not get gratification out of it they might think it's taken away from the their weekly Chu um I just think you get you get more out of life and more out of your career
• 15:00 - 15:30 by helping other people um but I I think I think what the the question comes down to do you see them spend their time impacting people or is the extra time they have doing things for themselves and and that's that's kind of like that that's that's kind of what separates the the leaders from the non-leaders yeah it really is that selfless looking at the World Through The Eyes of the people that you lead and I've always believed that for a s you should your mindset
• 15:30 - 16:00 should be I get paid for what they do not what I do y and even though we know to be true that the sales leader is often the pivot point for a sales team if you've got a great sales leader you'll typically have a really good sales team and it's no different than if we look at the NFL for example if you've got a really good coach you're typically G have a good team now now star players matter you need to have top performers on your team but good coaches are able to get things out of people that bad coaches cannot yep so for you know for me it is looking at a person who says I
• 16:00 - 16:30 understand that what they're accomplishing I'm doing it through them and if anything that I do that gets in the way of them achieving those goals is detrimental to me and and and the leaders that I see that fail don't get that like they're doing a lot of I call it chicken stuff but they're doing a lot of stuff to their people that impedes their people from actually doing the job of selling and and they and they never get that and part of that is because of their ego they have to feed
• 16:30 - 17:00 their ego so much that they can never put it away and just be happy with people succeeding and one of the great examples of this I thought is um is I was watching the the the finals for the Olympics for basketball and the men's team won and they I mean they it was a one of the great it was a great game it was just fantastic the the all the players stood on the podium and got the medals and the announcers were saying the coaches don't get medals and if you think about that
• 17:00 - 17:30 like what a great analogy for being a sales leader your salese are earning the money the spiss the trips you don't get a medal and but those coaches were just as proud they were standing there and that coaching team for the men's basketball team was decidedly the difference between winning and and potentially losing to a really good French team that had the American team not been coached well they could have
• 17:30 - 18:00 made individual mistakes that would have could have lost the the gold medal what's interesting is we we actually had a meeting uh last week and we had our best developers in the meeting and um there's 10 of them and if you look at our our sales team right now that's you know close to 100 salespeople out of those out of those 10 people if you look at the root of who promoted who they you know there's a legacy goes down the line um just like just like the coach you're talking about like Steve cerr who you know coached or played for Phil Jack and played for papovich and you know it's
• 18:00 - 18:30 it's like a lineage um like 60% of our sales people just come from these 10 people originally if if you do it like that so there's definitely something in in growing growing a company where you have to you have to have people that are willing to multiply themselves and sacrifice for other people and there's no better gift if someone's out there listening to this that that wants that's deciding between sales and Leadership then sitting in a room and you look around and you see all the people you impacted their lives and who they
• 18:30 - 19:00 impacted and their families and you just got that out of leadership so you know I chose at a young age like I want to be that person who do impacts people so love it so let's take a step back and talk a little bit about rhm you have a phenomenal story uh you started off with you basically and a couple of other people and now you've 275 people in your company can you can you just take us through a a sto the story of how you and your team were able to build um what
• 19:00 - 19:30 you've built it's it's incredible and I I wish people could I just wish people could experience your team we'll talk a little bit about what it's like to be around your people but I I I want to I I I want to hear the story from from the beginning and and how you end up here great I was actually so I I I started for someone else uh the Chicago market for another company and my partner Matt howder who's phenomenal a great partner like my uh like my my my uh my work wife
• 19:30 - 20:00 you know I call him because you know obviously we talk three times a day and he he does more the corporate in strategy and a lot of the stuff that we do decisions we make um have his uh foot know fingerprints all over it so he owned a search firm and he reached out to another search firm because he he started getting companies that were asking him to do Staffing and he really didn't know what it was so he reached out to the search firm and they submitted like I don't know 5 10 people wasn't the right fit and then finally this recruiter been talking to me for a decade said I you've always said you
• 20:00 - 20:30 wanted something like this I think I got it for you just go meet this guy uh we met at Harry Ker's restaurant in Early 2015 and uh we hit it off right away we're completely different people uh he's more he an accounting degree you know very strategic analytical um I'm more of the you know send mean a couple people that I trust into a battle against a 100 people and I'm gonna win like that's like my mentality right so but but but our our work marriage is we
• 20:30 - 21:00 complement each other perfectly so my my job was to obviously build a recruiting in the sales team uh and you know grow Topline sales so to your point I started the company with driving an hour and a half from Chicago to Milwaukee because I was in a non- compete non-solicit and the company started in July of 20 uh 2015 with me doing that when that ended in early uh 2017 I was back in Chicago where I'm from and um we start just hiring a lot
• 21:00 - 21:30 developing a lot and the way I built the team was what I did what we've been talking about the last uh the half hour has been I had a multiply myself we were going to grow um we had when we started Chicago in January of 17 I think we had like 10 employees um we're now almost at you know it's been now at seven and a half years we're almost at 300 employees uh we did in in 2016 I think we did about $3 million of sales we're going to do like 135 million this year and most staffing companies are down this year
• 21:30 - 22:00 we're up 20% year-over-year um and you know people always ask me I have people ask me to go to lunch all the time we go to lunch they you know they're like I'm gonna buy you lunch I need some advice and um I don't sugarcoat it I don't I don't I tell them the same thing I told you ear I don't any special sauce we prepare every day sincerely we make a lot of calls we read a lot of letters we s a lot of example resumes how good we are we put our put our money where our mouth is every good
• 22:00 - 22:30 conversation or meeting where to thank you card uh we stop by we take people to lunch we do anything to build a relationship and tell them all about rhm um but I will not lie to the person who takes me to lunch it's a lot of hard work um and it's a lot of grind and the people who take me to lunch they always they always want um a magic pill um they want some advice that makes the jobes you know we said earlier um there is there is no antidote the antidote is you
• 22:30 - 23:00 need to hustle if you want to be successful you get you get out of it what you put into it and that's just kind of like what I would say um how I explain rhm if you come work at R for rhm or you come watch our company for a week you are gonna you're gonna look look at each other and be like all right so those guys just outwork everybody and that's 100% the company that me and my partner Matt howder wanted to have so I love it I been you know my so so funny you say that because i' it's been my Mantra since I was in my early 20s and I've always said this to people I'm not the smartest human being on the earth
• 23:00 - 23:30 because I'm not and I'm not the best salesp person on the earth because I'm not I'm certainly right but I'm not the best entrepreneur I'm just I'm I'm not the tallest fastest strongest um but no I it doesn't make a difference how much better you are how much more talented you are than me you will never out hustle me ever I will outwork you and I will I will do it to a point where you will give up because you cannot you cannot have the dis to wake up every day and I've always felt that way and what
• 23:30 - 24:00 you're saying is your rhm the culture is we're just going to out grind you until you give up we're going to make our competitors cry because we're willing to do what it takes to get in the door I mean every Market we go to we end up being the top company in that Market's number one competitor uh it's probably one of the things I'm most proud of in terms of the results people want to make money they want a big sales number a margin number my number one
• 24:00 - 24:30 thing is wherever we put in office it's us for the other company and that means something it means we we're taking market share and it means that our service is so good they have to give us a chance and I just that's what I'm proud of you know I think but I think that there's something and I I keep saying this especially in the age of AI that yeah if you like if you phone it in if you let your Bot if you let your AI do it for you people don't respect you I I think that there and I've always noticed this in in sales is that there is a huge amount of respect that you get
• 24:30 - 25:00 even if that someone turns you away a hundred times that you keep showing up that you're willing to do the hard work that you're willing to give them your word show up early stay late get it done and eventually that begins to win the day because the people that you're selling to start to believe in you too like they believe that your your company is willing to work this hard you care about me and those are the people that I want to do business with yeah my partner always says the next job order is is not to anyone so you know for us it's like
• 25:00 - 25:30 if you have the people and you have the talent and you're willing to work and provide the best service in our industry they're going to give you a chance and I I I just think that uh that's probably what we've mastered is you know just give us a chance what there's there's there's that famous movie so you're telling me there's a chance right that's right um was it Dumb and Dumber maybe so um but no and that's that's kind of our that's kind of our mentality is we're going to do whatever we whatever we can to get that chance but when we do like you said in the beginning when you
• 25:30 - 26:00 talked about our industry when we do get our chance nine time nine times out of 10 we delivering what we promised and in a service different than a product you you got to come through on what you say you're G to do you're done I remember the first time that I met you and I met your uh your team we were it was in Chicago I flew in from some other event it was it was at night I was going to spend some time with your team the next day and I walk into a restaurant and you and your leaders and you've got this you've got this young
• 26:00 - 26:30 group of like badass leaders that you've surrounded yourself with y'all are sitting at a table you're you know you're having a little drinks and you're having some good food and I walk in and I sit down and it was like the best way I can describe it is I instantly felt like I was part of your group and and that's that's a hard thing to do like it was it was a level of of humility and authenticity and just genuinely nice
• 26:30 - 27:00 people but also massive talent and that's a really hard thing to put together because a lot of times you get massive Talent you get massive arrogance attached to it yeah but your team's not like that and then I was with y'all and I I want to talk a little bit about this because I've been living on this high for the last uh nine months but we had dinner in Nashville at an event there and it was the same feelings so was even better then it was like they were just a group of people that they love each other and they're working together and then you you you get a guy like me I
• 27:00 - 27:30 walk through the door and sit down with them and they just treated me like I was one of them how do you build a culture like that because that's it's Unique it's different it's one of the reasons why I I really do love your people I like your team I like you I like the what you've built but how do you as a leader create and sustain something like that where you're people don't get too far over their skis and their belief about themselves like they they they're always willing to be humble and learn
• 27:30 - 28:00 like I I said that that dinner I barely ate because they spent the entire time asking me questions about everything like it was nuts and um and they could have all said hey we already know everything this is good we don't need you how do you do that I I think like first and foremost I have the best team I don't always I don't always tell them that which kind of gets to my the answer to your question is they are great people I hire off trust I I try to figure out if I'm going put someone in leadership role especially at the level of the people um the people you're with
• 28:00 - 28:30 they're running the company they're managing all the people with me um and I have to trust them first F first and foremost I think the second thing is my strategy when I manage people when I lead them is I want to be 100% just myself with those people if I can't be myself and I can't uh be direct with them and they can't be themselves with me you just don't have you're not going to have a good relationship people are always going to wonder where they stand with with you um you lose trust that's
• 28:30 - 29:00 when you lose your leaders um I I I think the one thing when they're doing really good like in coming out of the um the pandemic in 2021 I mean the Staffing industry will never it was a BL Black Swan event it was companies were calling us saying could you do 100% markup but can you give us your people um people were doing really well they were getting great bonus checks you know we do a incentive Stock Program Phantom stock program they were getting stock and and I and I and the thing with me is to me I
• 29:00 - 29:30 have a mentality of enough is never enough so with them I try to instill that in them where they're never gonna you know get too cocky they're never G to get too arrogant they're never G to get over their skis they're always going to be you know they're hey we're going to reward them they're the top paid in the industry they get a lot of recognition so on and so forth however we're never too good to work with our people we're never too good to work late stay late and just you know just you got to stay right in the middle because you never I never want those guys that work
• 29:30 - 30:00 for me on our team the leaders to be fearful I don't want them be you know entitled and comfortable I always try to maintain keeping them right in the middle and I think that's like my my special sauce but I have a great team they work hard and this company would be nowhere without my leadership team just bottom line without them we're nothing and I just uh I'm just the guy talking and they're the ones that you know that that are really making it happen so I love it and that and it it's reflective in who they are even after we
• 30:00 - 30:30 spent some time together with your team in Nashville my phone rang for like the next three weeks and it would be one of your leaders on the phone with their team going hey Jeb we ran into a problem we got a question about it nobody ever does that nobody I give my phone number out to thousands and thousands of people every single year nobody calls me your team like took me up on it like I said you call me good no there's no doubt they they're thirsty to be good I I 100% that does not surprise me whatsoever I mean I'm I can I can I can tell you
• 30:30 - 31:00 like all the airports I was sitting in when I was I'd be having a conversation with the folks on your team it was it was great let's let's let's switch to a a subject that I want to dive into a little bit more and that is coold calling y'all are fanatical Prospectors it is a a book that you've adopted in the process you've adopted Y and we spent some time with your team in Nashville I keep alluding to this but it was a killer day so all had U we we got everybody together we did some workshop and then we had this full Ballroom of over a 100 people in the ballroom and we
• 31:00 - 31:30 started running prospecting blocks list pin phone and I remember we we got started your leaders were kind of in there they're hanging out the people were making calls and then we stopped we did count we did another block and it got louder and louder and louder and pretty soon like you got people that are standing up at the table a couple of times people are standing on the table and they're they're getting past objections and setting appointments it was so amazing like it was incredible the energy and they set a ton of appointments they surprised themselves
• 31:30 - 32:00 in a lot of places and you know co- calling in a lot of in a lot of sectors has Got U you know it's got a a bad uh I reputation why would you ever call call why would you pick up the phone nobody nobody answers the phone and there were a lot of people answering the phone that day we got through a lot of doors we did and one of the things that that happened to your team recently is that you guys sold a massive account I I I think um y'all would call it an out of a reach account like this is one of those big big deals it was a a food processing
• 32:00 - 32:30 company about 40,000 people and Tessa and Elijah were the ones that spearheaded this but one of the the parts of the story that I think is phenomenal and I want to talk a little bit about more because people don't get this and I was just on a call with a group that didn't understand this they they said well the coold calling doesn't work one of the things that that about the story is that there was a massive amount of coal calling that was used to identify who are the people were supposed to be selling too yep and that's one of the things that I think
• 32:30 - 33:00 totally gets missed in this like we think I pick up the phone and talk to people and I didn't sell something or I didn't get an appointment I failed versus I picked up the phone and I did the groundwork I had a conversation with someone and they gave me a little bit of insight about how decisions are made here or they open the door that this person I should be talking to over here how important is that groundwork whether it would be cold calling by phone or cold calling in person like you can show up in people's businesses for understanding the lay of the land and these massive accounts where even if you
• 33:00 - 33:30 went to a you know a data tool or you went to LinkedIn and you try to build the map of the stakeholders based on role that's not always how decisions are made inside these organizations or who has the political juice or the ability to drive the process can you talk a little bit about that yeah it was a a 20 location Fortune 100 company nationally um right we don't we don't get into those every day Tessa Garis Elijah they did a phenomenal
• 33:30 - 34:00 job and the way we the first thing we do when we attack an account like that is we just build out an orc chart and we we label the people in three buckets is it's our internal acronyms we have um information gather uh managers we have um um influencers like who people influence decision we have decision makers so the information uh Gathering meetings are and phone calls and cold calling is calling those people that are either subject matter experts Lead Supervisor of you know small teams but
• 34:00 - 34:30 they're the ones who you know they'll tell you what what projects are coming in how hiring you ask them quick questions they're more willing to talk to you um we we co- call on um influencers the people that will Champion you and that just means someone who's an influence the buying decision to the decision maker and we build relationship with with those people call those people last week we get to the decision makers by that point we know exactly what's going on what the good things and bad things are going on with their current provider um we we know like you know what the angles are we have people that have our back and I
• 34:30 - 35:00 mean that that took us months to get into that account but in the end of the day um the amount of prospecting call sheet making outbound calls to get that account done was probably over a thousand call calls 40 letters um every phone conversation that we got some information we teach them to write a thank you card a quick little thank you very much for your time on the phone we know you're really busy anything to just make friends and build
• 35:00 - 35:30 relationships to do some something a little different um and then they did a great job on the meetings and eventually you know we got an opportunity a thousand think about that so how you know think about how many salespeople this is the person having lunch with you looking for the Easy Button they're looking for the oneand done how many salesp people make one phone call and they get told no and they never call again they make they make one touch and I love the thank you notes and I I think I was telling your group this I I just kept a a stack of pre-stamped thank you
• 35:30 - 36:00 notes sitting on my the front seat of my car back in my days when I was in the field like Tess and Elijah and I walked out of a place or I got off a phone call someone I wrote a thank you note and put dropped it in the mail because those little things matter in terms of creating that service like ours yeah because they think you know we want want them to know it's hard to different differentiate yourself in what we do so our example is if we're sending you great resumes and great talent we're promising you that later on we want you to know we have it and we're going to do
• 36:00 - 36:30 these little things imagine how hard we're going to work for you when we actually have your business that's kind of what you know what what what the reasoning for that is and we were able to do that with this large organization a thousand calls so Chris Chris bot I was talking to you this morning I'm not going to name your company but if you're listening to this because you told me you are and you your team listening to this this is what we were talking about like getting out you've identified the accounts you've mapped out the stakeholders and then you've got to go out and have lots of conversations with them and that means you've got to pick up the phone and have synchronous conversations cuz you're not going to be
• 36:30 - 37:00 able to accomplish this any other way they're not going to call you they're not thinking about you and you know this win for your team was was massive and awesome and part of it is like it's kind of like you know the four-minute mile when the four-minute mile was broken now everybody can do it like your team you know broke in and knocked down this massive account definitely railing it around it and it's a good example for everyone to your point for sure so when we when you think about yourself as a leader Okay so let's just you know back into this and you think about
• 37:00 - 37:30 bringing on New salese on your team yep so so you've sold him the dream rhm is a great place and by the way if you're looking for a job it's a great place uh or looking for a career as a leader what are your biggest frustrations with brand new salespeople when they join your team um that just causes you to sit back and and as a you know as a as a leader and go I just don't understand why this isn't connecting yeah so we hire entry laa but
• 37:30 - 38:00 but we promote them it's usually at the one you know the one year mark and we put them in sales and I think they they think it's going be easier than it is probably because the people that are selling have been doing it and they they think they're GNA be able to just catch on just like they are um unfortunately it's really hard and some I wish I I could just put what I know in their brain and be like it's going to be okay just follow the process process here's what exactly what to do because we do have a very specific process we've
• 38:00 - 38:30 adopted a lot of your teachings into it as well um we're very diligent with that but the the instant gratification they want is probably not going to happen so my biggest frustration is if they could just work as hard as they can do the best they can put there you know just prepare sincerely do make the calls we tell them to make so on and so forth good things are going happen unfortunately it's just going to happen in a few weeks and I think just like a diet right you're not
• 38:30 - 39:00 going to just like eat good for a couple a couple days and you're going to lose some weight so that that's my biggest frustration with them is like they their lack of patience and just trusting the process I I love that you said about trust in the process and let's let's make sure we put a uh an explanation point on this sales is a process and and rhm is a process-driven organization you've mapped everything out Y and you know how it works like if you do these things it's going to work most salese are working for organizations not all sales people most sales people are working for
• 39:00 - 39:30 organizations where there's been a mapped out process if you follow the process you'll be successful if you haven't worked for those companies go read fanatical prospecting sales EQ objections ink virtual selling the AI Edge I'll give you the process follow that process you'll be successful but the thing that that that I think I see a lot of of salespeople lacking is they have lack faith in the process like they don't believe it I believe in my heart like I believe that if lost everything tomorrow and you took me an airplane and
• 39:30 - 40:00 dropped me in some City someplace and said go make it that I'd make it because I have such faith in the process like a thousand calls inside an organization after you map the stakeholder group and then I'm going to work my way up that funnel until I've got a Insight message to tell the the the uh the DMS so I can convert them into a meeting I can convert them into a sales and then I'm going to produce and I'm going to I'm going to stand by my word I you recognize that that works and it works consistent ly over time so it is that
• 40:00 - 40:30 you've got to have faith in the process that that for me gives me such peace of mind like I know exactly how it's going to work and for sales managers that are listening to this and sales leaders the process and what's mapped out from your organization is is made for the 80% that are probably you know maybe call it average to above average talent but if you follow the process there're those people are making a quarter of a million dollars and all the incentive trips it's not made for the 20% who just are like
• 40:30 - 41:00 super aggressive and natural at this and you I hear Too Many sales managers all the time go well if I just said Johnny like like that leader does it's like well guess what you don't and we we we don't expect you to what what we teach you is to get these 80% to we call to to our incentive but that incentive trip means they're making x amount of dollars and they're they're loving the company and that's their job so um that that that to where the where the magic says is that is how do you teach the 80% exact and it's the same
• 41:00 - 41:30 thing with sales training we're not we don't come in sales training to try to teach the savants how to be better Savant exactly right there're When leaders go well the these guys aren't doing what you what you say I I ask like what are their sales numbers they're the best people in the company I go well leave them alone because they figured something out that I don't know that's fine I'm here for the people in the middle that if we make them incrementally better you're going to crush your number because if you get the the 80% doing better and the savant keep doing their job you're rolling and you're you're exactly right and I think
• 41:30 - 42:00 that's where it's a a really good Insight from you is we have to be very careful that we don't look at top performers who just have something that no one can figure out just get it and and everything we've got baked around that I one of my clients said we just need more of those I said good luck if you can if you if you can get an army of those like figure out the formula and quit running your company and sell that that formula because it doesn't exist you're never
• 42:00 - 42:30 going to get that so as a leader you got to get into the trenches and you've got to coach and you got to help people believe in the process and believe in themselves along the way yep yep absolutely so um before we take off this a great conversation I want you to tell people why they should consider we know that it's a grind we know it's hard work we know that there's no easy we know Staffing is really hard we also know that you can make Bank make a lot of
• 42:30 - 43:00 money and you can work on a really cool team these kids they don't say Bank anymore J they call them stats okay stats stats yes you can make venmo whatever yeah what exactly right so um tell us why I mean this is your opportunity to talk to the audience why should people who may be looking at making a career move consider rhm and then where would they go to to have a conversation with your team about potentially coming to work for you yeah
• 43:00 - 43:30 I think uh I think for us I don't think there's any better organization if you're coming right out of school that's going to teach you the ACC of sales but not just sales it's the discipline the sacrifice the preparation um the mindset that it takes to be really successful and I I always tell people you can work r at rhm two years and go get a go get a good job where you're the best I get so many messages every week I get one from a
• 43:30 - 44:00 former employee from even from my past that is like God the the habits the winning habits we were taught I didn't realize what you were trying to teach me at the time but now when I go to this these different companies wherever I work I always have the best systems and processes and it's because of what you guys you know drove with me uh we get that all the time so if I'm an entry level person and I and I and I want to learn sales and Sales Management the greatest thing about what we do is you're touching human resources you're touching you're learning about workers
• 44:00 - 44:30 comp you're learning about sales you're learn about recruiting because even if you're not in Staffing you have to recruit people for your team whether you're a school teacher or you know a customer service rep you learn every part of running a business everything and I I don't think there's a better job out of school why RM specifically um well not only going to do all those those things but I just think we have a great group of people um our leadership turnovers almost almost not exist cons our sales turnover is very low once you
• 44:30 - 45:00 get into sales and I just think um it's the it's it's the culture we provide where if you want to be the best of the best and you come work at rhm um if you don't want to be if you don't want to work hard and you don't want to be the best of the best go get it just go get a job because this is a career you know I usually use a different companies in that joke but I I I thought I'd save for the Pod job and where do people go to learn more about the careers at rhm yeah I think it's just www. rhm staffing.net um you go there and then you can apply there and obviously we have LinkedIn and
• 45:00 - 45:30 we're all over LinkedIn with uh postings and stuff like that so beautiful all right Andy mathal rhm Staffing thank you so much for joining me today it's been a long time I've been looking forward to this conversation you are honor thanks for everything you've done for our organization so thank you have a great great rest of your day awesome all right everybody listen go to Amazon go pick up the AI Edge uh you're going to love this book it is uh uh the the handbook that you need in sales to start deploying AI to sell more win more earn more I wrote
• 45:30 - 46:00 it with my good friend Anthony anerino it is the hottest book in sales go to Amazon right now the AI Edge we'll see you next time on the sales gravy podcast hey I'm doing a happy dance because you watch this video make sure that you click like And subscribe so that you never miss one of our amazing sales trading videos