When the doubt gets loud, but answer that call. Vision ain't real till you grind at speed, so breathe in deep. Then call the damn leads. Call the damn leads. Hey, welcome back to Call the Damn Leads, the show by sales professionals for sales professionals. I'm your host, Drew B. Wilson. With more than two decades in sales, I've seen it, been through it, heard about it. Now I'm bringing it to you, my favorite people in the world, the sales community. So let's be honest, this is the greatest job on earth. It doesn't matter where you come from, what background, what personality type, you can create an amazing life in sales. Today's guest, no stranger to the journey, I'd like to welcome Alex Gore to the show. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I appreciate you, man. I want to jump right in. I want to hear your crazy sales story. Craziest sales story. I would say the craziest sales story was this client who didn't believe that we could do the work. and they basically, it was for this modern house and we've done a whole bunch of it. And it's weird because in architecture, you can do a whole bunch of things, but if you don't do the specific thing that they want, they might think that you can't do it. And what was great about this client, and honestly, I don't know how many other people, I wrote a book and the book has probably had 300 sales, something like that. So it's not popular and by any means whatsoever. It's called The Creativity Code by Alex Gore. You can buy it on Amazon. Maybe it'll be popular now. And what was weird was that they basically said, hey, we want to go with you, but we don't think that you can do it. And I said, okay, sign the contract. If you don't like my first design pass, you can instantly fire me. And then literally they signed it. And I think within a day and a half, I showed them this initial like 3D design and they said, absolutely. This is amazing. This is exactly where we want to go. And it turned out it's going to be, it's one of our best houses that we've ever done. It's done. It's called Kenwood Drive. And it's super amazing. And you know, what's interesting is when you run into someone that has a little resistance like that, you really have two choices. You can either push back and kind of fight them on it, or you can essentially give them the opportunity to lean in and trust you. And it sounds like that was kind of the route that was effective for you was like, listen, hey, I'm going to make you an offer. If you don't like it, we don't work together. You don't pay me. And that's an interesting aspect of sales. And so how did you, you know, being in the architectural space, how did you develop your sales skills? What would you say was like the thing that got you to kind of cut your teeth and be able to handle a situation like that? It's such a great question because I think a lot of times people who go into sales, they know what they're going into, right? They understand and maybe they don't have all the tools, the techniques and all that, but they understand that the job is sales. for a lot of small businesses, owners don't maybe know that like they are the sales and marketing team. And I don't know if they like essentially signed up for that essentially. And for architects, I know a bunch of them haven't because essentially they're all just, you know, word of mouth and that's it. And then they have their niche and then people who like their niche fall into it. But that doesn't really protect you in a recession. That doesn't protect you if you want to expand into different things like that. So one of the smartest things that we did when we started our firm in 2008 was Lance and I would go to all the sales meetings together. And what was great about that is, you know, I'm sure we weren't the best at it. There's things that we didn't even implement that we implement now, but we are able to see each other and, and, you know, how he would say something to a client versus how I would say something. And then we could watch essentially the reaction of the client. And it was probably two, maybe even And three years into it, we finally said like, hey, I don't think we need to do these together anymore. We can divide and conquer. And that's what we did. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's when you think about creatives, right? I had an interview about a month or two back with a guy who works with a lot of creatives and creative people. They want to go in and be creative. They're not necessarily salespeople. So getting the reframe in the mind around like, you are a salesperson and your job is to go out there and sell people on your thing. It's always such an interesting shift. And what I'd be curious about for you, is that something that you're helping other architects with now? Or is it something where you guys are just kind of still growing and scaling your business? No, we're definitely helping other architects. And I know at the end I'll have an opportunity to do this, but I have a coaching for other architects. architecture architects. It's at buildabetterco.com. And one of the big things, exactly what you said is that creatives want to do their creative stuff, but you can't do your creative stuff unless you can get people to do it, to sign up with you and actually execute. And I don't think that a lot of people realize that at some point this might seem detached, but it's also like a numbers game. Reaching out, talking to contractors, talking to real estate agents. And it's so funny because we're an architecture firm that also builds and we have preferred, my framer is awesome. My concrete guys are awesome. MEP is awesome. And we have our preferred structural engineers and things like that. And we get a lot of people coming to us. There's sales from the other side, you know like they MEP firms or structural firms that want to work with us They even take us out to coffee you know a painter or something like that And I was talking with my business partner Lance and I go it weird how some of them stick and some of them don stick And I don't even know, well, this might be a them problem because sometimes when they stick, what happens is, you know, let's just say it's an engineer and our other engineers are busy for whatever reason. And they just email that, that right time. And we're like, oh, we do have a project, you know, like, you know, bid on it. okay, that's in line with what all the other costs are. And if they knock it out of the park, all of a sudden it's like, now you're in our system. Now, like now you're a trusted person, you're, you're ready to go. Where those other ones just a, either the timing wasn't right or be their followup. They have no followup game because if they had a followup game, then that time, because I'm dealing with, you know, my staff of, you know, four or whatever that is. Plus each one of those staffs probably has at least four to five projects, which means I know those four to five clients. Right. And then there's, you know, all the trades that go under there. So when you're selling to owners or people that are busy, busy, sometimes it's not just like that one and done and they didn't get to you. So like that lead is dead. No, it's just the timing's wrong. And I might have forgot about you. You know, I definitely could have forgot about you. Well, and I thank you for sharing that because that to me is one of the hardest conversations to have with people is like in this space, especially of business to business, business to business owner, entrepreneur, we're busy. We're building a business. We got things going on. And if you want to work with someone like that, you have to understand that it is a timing thing. And as much as the online sales gurus and all these guys want to tell you, like, you just got to be a better closer. That's not always how it works in the real world. There is a value to being able to be in the right place at the right time and being the kind of person that someone wants to work with because you're not a spammy salesy obnoxious asshole. you're literally just popping in on occasion, having the right conversations and knowing that, especially in a world like yours, Alex, there's probably 1,800 other guys that do what you do and are trying to vie for that spot. And all you need to do is just be one person that stays consistent and separates yourself from all the other noise. And I would imagine that's the same thing with the architect side is like, there are other people out there that want to sell people on what you can do for them, but you have to be able to be the one to show up as the authority at the right time for these people when they're ready to make that decision. Yep. And there's definitely something to being a better closer. And I think that that's a huge part of your sales game, but there's just something that if you push too hard, especially in the scenario where I say people were selling to me, there's nothing you can do about it. This project is already underway. It's already with guys or girls. I already know. You're this is now hurting you. You just got to wait for the next job, you know? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, um, I learned something early on is, is, you know, permission-based sales. Like if you're not closing them today, get permission to follow up, get permission to continue building that relationship and working together because you never know when, man, you could have nine projects in the works and not be able to take on the one that you want, but refer it out to somebody and be like, by the way, I've got a guy who can handle that. Here's an introduction to him. And I think so many sales professionals in the business to business space, like they're just trying to just volume it. Like I'm going to make 10 million calls and have 10 million conversations. And if I get one, great. But I like what you said about there's, there's a line where you can't push too far or you kill the relationship. And so what, you know, what have been some of the bigger, you know, lessons that you've learned building your own business and then stepping into kind of helping some of the other businesses? Yeah. First, sales is about solving your client's problem. They have a problem and they may or may not be able to articulate it. And it's not always the problem that you are thinking of or that you are used to. So, you know, for example, in architecture, I mean, like, they might just have the problem of they need to get the drawings through the city, right? And that is a different type of client than one who is making a forever home that's built or lived in two or three homes again before. And this is going to be their final one. So like understanding what the problem is and really letting that being able to ask questions and investigate to find out what that problem is. Because you can solve those different problems, but you can't speak to one problem like it's a different problem. The people that are going to do the forever home, if you only talked about how you're great with the city and you can get it through the city and you know all the codes, that might be great, but you're 100% missing the mark. You're 100% missing the mark and you might lose it because you didn't emphasize what they actually really wanted to get done. And they wanted to visualize their space. They wanted to see it. They wanted to craft it. They've done things wrong in the past. They don't want to make the same mistakes again. They willing to spend money now so they don have to spend tens of thousands later on corrections or just live with you know a mistake And then the second biggest thing that I learned and this actually came from watching YouTube, but it really kind of clicked because I was wondering like, why do I like some of the videos that I like? Because some of them talk about like really nerdy stuff from space to like, to, you know, how electrons work, you know, just like all these crazy stuff. And the consistence theme that I saw was, oh, they're demonstrating it. Somehow they're demonstrating it. And the same thing is true as now, once you've identified the problem, can you demonstrate how you're going to solve that? Whether that's with visuals, whether that goes back to original, like with a style, whether that comes with some, you know, a sketch or something else or a story, how do you demonstrate that you can solve their problems. Not just tell them, I can do that, which is actually fine. Like you can just tell clients like, we've done that before, we can nail that. But if you can then also demonstrate that somehow, I think you're really locking it in. Yeah, there's, not to get too nerdy, but this is the stuff that I love about sales, right? And when you think about humans and how their mind works and how they process the world around them, everybody processes in a different way. Some people are very visual. Like you said, they need to see an example. They want to be able to look at something and go, yes, I can. I got my eyes on it. That makes sense. You know, I like that. And then there are the people that are more auditory based, right? They just need to hear it. As long as it sounds good, they're dialed in. They're like, yeah, absolutely. I want to rock and roll. That resonates. Let's do this. Then you have the people that are more feelings based, right? That's probably the forever home type of person where they're like, listen, if I don't feel 100% about this, it ain't happening. Because as you said, they don't want to look at it for the rest of their life and have that regret or have that feeling like I didn't get what I actually wanted because I wasn't willing to speak up or that guy didn't ask me the question. So I didn't get to, I didn't know I had this issue until now and now I'm mad about it. And then you have the fourth one, which is the logical thinker. They're the one that they want all the details step by step. They want the full breakdown. They want to see everything. the data, they want to nerd out on it. And then they want to decide how they feel about it after they've looked over everything. And if you can start to understand what perspective of the world, the person that you're speaking to is coming from, as you alluded to, you can do a much easier job of helping them decide that you're the right person to work with. And so what do you do when you're in that situation and like someone has that big complex problem? Like how do you help break it down and simplify the process of providing a solution. And I think the question kind of birthed the answer in itself is that it is the process that leads to the solution. Because honestly, sometimes people, and maybe, maybe I'm not the best salesman, but I haven't had too much success with people who want answers that are far away in the future right now. So for example, they'll want, I can give them a cost per square foot if they're worried about that and what we can design to. But then they might want, well, what if we do this different way of doing structure or all these different things? Here's an example. We want to know exactly what it's going to cost from the beginning, but we also want to explore three or four different options at the same time. It's hard to do both. It's hard to do contradictory, you know, things. It's sort of like everyone's heard that, like, I'll get it wrong, but you can have it done right. You can have it done quick or you can have it done cheap, but you can't have it all three. You know, you can have two of them. I've just referenced that the other day. That's such a good analogy. Yeah, yeah. So if you can then turn it and if they can understand that it's a process, it's kind of, I know that I'm talking about architecture a lot because that's the field that I'm in. But could you imagine like even Ford, it doesn't matter, any car company, right? They're going to design their 2027 new vehicle that they haven't done before. You know how they brought like the Bronco back or whatever? Yeah. And they're like, and you go, okay, great. Before you start designing, before you start designing, tell me how much it's going to cost. and they might say like, oh yeah, we're going to try to sell this whatever vehicle for $60,000. And they're like, yeah, but what if I want a, this won't make sense technically, but it will make sense in spirit. Yeah. But I want a Ferrari engine in there. Like, okay, then it'll probably cost more than that. You know? Well, how much more? And then we're like, well, we can't commit to the design unless we know how much the end cost is going to be exactly. And if we can fit a Ferrari engine in there, a spoiler, some carbon fins. It's like, well, if we talk about the car process, you would understand that there's a team of car designers that go through reviews and then there's engineers, right? And then they go with their manufacturing partners and then they know how much the supplies cost. And then they set up the factory and they're like, oh, this is going to be this you know it going to have to go through this whole thing Okay And then then they iterate on it and refine it because it turned out that that was going to cost 85 but they know the market is like 60 65 That the process And then you make you know along the ways And if I love that you, I love that you're fighting the humor. And if you can, if clients can come to the understanding that that's what you're selling is that process. And then you get that Ford Bronco that I've seen so many of them. It's classic. It looks awesome. I'm sure it's 60 grand. I have no idea, but it's in some reasonable amount of money. It's not 200 grand. It's not 20 grand. That didn't come on day one. They took them a little bit to do that. And if you want the results of that, and I don't know if this is the best selling vehicle recently, but it seems like it is. I'm sure it's successful. Well, then you got to invest to design and engineering to do it. And I think that's the part where understanding the perspective does get tricky, right? Because in that scenario, what you really kind of layer back is like, all right, well, what's the purpose of putting the Ferrari engine in the Bronco instead of just buying a Ferrari and a Bronco and driving one here and driving one there, right? So it sounds to me like you need two properties for us and we need to design this one for when you're trying to be off the grid. That's just my sales mind of like, all right, they really want two different things here. And so now I have to decide what of the two things do they really want and why is it important to them in this moment to understand that? Because I think there are a lot of people out there that want luxury without the luxury price tag. And then there are people who understand that you can have quality and luxury if your perspective is on certain aspects of what you're getting when you're making that investment. And that could be in your house, it could be in your vehicle, it could be in your business, right? Everyone's version of success is a little bit different. And so you just kind of have to peel back that layer and understand like, what is their version? And then, as you said, being able to handle the conversation of, well, listen, if you want me to put a Ferrari in a Bronco, you're obviously looking at a pretty hefty price tag because of all the pieces that are going to have to be customized for that specifically. So, you know, just peeling it back one layer at a time. And so what I'd be curious is like, in the architectural industry, are there certain trends or certain things going on right now where you get on a call and someone says it and you're just like, of course, that's what you want. That is the thing, right? Maybe it's the Ford Bronco of the architecture world. What are you seeing right now. There was that modern farmhouse that, you know, like white farmhouse look. Barn dominiums are becoming a thing. The home and garden TV. Yep. There's a bunch of, there's always been container homes and container things, you know, things like that. But I just want to go back to what you originally were riffing on there was you can do some luxury for a decent price. And what that comes down to is like, well, then you should have a knowledgeable architect that knows to designed in two foot increments because everything comes in two foot increments. They should know how structure works so that you can do your low profile roofs in a way that doesn't break the bank. But if you wanted true luxury, everything that you see in magazines, that looks awesome. And on a really affordable price, the big builders would have already figured that out. And every normal neighborhood would have huge glass, cool wood soffits, amazing. You know what I mean? Like they would have already just done that if it was possible because everyone would be like, yeah, I'll obviously take that normal suburban house, but in a magazine style, you know, look. Yeah. And, you know, man, this is something we could probably nerd out on for several hours because I have lots of questions and I'm sure the listeners do too. So how do we come find you, follow you, check out more of your content and learn more about what you could do there? Yep. A couple of things. If you just look up F9 Productions on LinkedIn, or if you go to build, if you are an architect or an engineering firm owner, go to buildabetterco.com. There's a little bit of training about how we increased our profit while reducing the time that it takes to do stuff. Go check that out at buildabetterco.com. Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing that. You guys make sure you go follow them, check out their content, especially if you're into building cool shit. I was checking out their page They've got some awesome stuff on there. So definitely check it out. If you enjoyed the show, share it on social media, tag us, let us know you invested some of your most valuable asset, your time here with us, that you got some value out of the conversation. Maybe you heard something that you know someone who kind of sucks at sales and they need to hear it, like send them this episode. You don't have to tell them they suck at sales, but just say, hey, this episode made me think of you. I wanted to send it your way. And then go leave us a review. Tell some more people about it. If you have a crazy sales story, because you're in sales, which you have to be, that's why you're here listening to this episode, and you want to share your story, head over to callthedamleads.com forward slash podcast. Send us your details. While you're there, grab a hat, grab a t-shirt, grab some swag. And remember, you guys know what to do next. Go pick up the phone, call the damn leads. We'll see you next time. When the dog is loud, but answer that call. Vision ain't real to your grind at speed. So breathe in deep. Then call the damn leaves. Call the damn leaves.
