Mark Mitchell: How to 10x Your Building Products Sales Game, NOW!
With Mark Mitchell, https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmitchell1
https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=16338944
This week, Tim and Caroline speak with Whizard Strategy’s Mark Mitchell about how the industry is doing amidst the pandemic, along with strategies people in the industry can use to help improve their business.
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk with old friend Mark Mitchell about his insights on the industry today, along with tips for people in the field to improve their work.
Sharing His Knowledge
Tim mentions that Mark’s podcast, along with Venveo’s podcast, really encouraged Tim and Carolina to start their own. Carolina’s boss gave her one of Mark’s books, which was really insightful to the industry, as she came from Motorola distribution. His book opened her eyes to what exactly went on in the industry and how the product goes from the factory to the end-user.
Mark really wrote the book for new people coming into the industry. He jokes that young people are being taught by “that old, white guy that has been in the industry for 30 years who was taught by a guy that’s now dead.”
There are also senior people, like CFOs or VP of Marketing, who don’t have a background in the building material business. They are really smart people, but they just don’t have the knowledge about the industry. So they make an assumption: “If I convince a homeowner about this product, it’s sold,” or “If I sell a builder, it’s sold.” Then they go, “What? What do you mean the contractor said no? What do you mean the contractor talked them out of our product?” That was the purpose of Mark’s book: to put all that together.
Mark mentions the phrase “thought leader.” He thinks we are all thought leaders. Every day you wake up and have an experience, positive or negative, you are picking up pieces of knowledge only you have. He always tells people that when he started his wizard strategy, his mentor told him that he had to write a book. Mark didn’t think he was capable of doing that. Another mentor told him that he needed to start a blog. They told him to write 30 blog posts in 30 days to get used to writing them.
After 6 months, he realized he had half a book written. It took him a little while to gain the confidence to not be afraid to offend people. If you try to be safe, you are writing about stuff people already know and agree with, so there’s no point. Another one of his mentors said that if someone doesn’t agree with you, you aren’t trying hard enough. So now, Mark relishes when someone disagrees with him.
He encourages all of the listeners to not think “Oh, Mark Mitchell has all this knowledge. Tim and Carolina have all this knowledge.” You, as listeners, also have knowledge. The world is looking for it to be shared, whether that is a podcast, a blog, a Youtube video or even just getting on LinkedIn, you can share a piece of knowledge you have learned.
Everyone has something that is valuable. Something that has held the industry back is the lack of resources for people in these positions. People need to share what they know, even if they don’t think it’s relevant, or they are nervous about sharing. Being nervous is a warning that you’re going past your comfort zone. Opening up with knowledge is highly encouraged.
Getting Started
In this field, people don’t like to beat around the bush. Everyone is busy, so the direct communication style is great. Carolina likes how Mark’s blogs and videos are so direct.
Mark remembers being at a meeting for a really big building materials company. They would call him and tell him that they had a great ad campaign, and how they were going to be on the Superbowl commercials — but now they actually needed to sell something. So, they would ask Mark to figure out who their salespeople should be calling and what message should they take, whether or not they should have a promotion. He would basically figure out what they’d need.
His job was always working in the channel. Even if he worked with advertising companies, although he didn’t like working in advertising, he thought it was like thinking with your checkbook instead of your brain. He mentions how his personality type loves to solve problems. He gets up every day looking for a new problem to solve. If he isn’t given one, he will create one.
Early in his career, he was working for his father’s advertising agency in Ohio. He discovered he really liked working with B2B clients rather than B2C clients. Then, he left his father’s agency and went to Toledo, Ohio, and worked for a 40 person agency that specializes in building materials. Even though they had some clients that they did the advertising for, he learned from the founder of the agency, John Stranburg, that they are much better ways to help grow sales than advertising. Advertising was his last thought. If advertising is your first resort, you haven’t thought enough. Mark learned from him how contractors, architects, builders and distributors work.
He really enjoyed the field because every day was a new problem to solve. He worked around really creative people, but they were all chasing the same thing. They were viewing themselves as “I’m so creative, I can solve any problem.” What Mark found was that their creativity didn’t have the discipline or research or strategy behind it.
They would immediately jump to a solution and think, “Isn’t this cool?” Mark would say “Let’s put that on the shelf, and let’s go talk to some builders or the salespeople that work for this company.” With this, you could go be creative while matching the strategy and objective. Too often companies jump from wanting to grow sales to building a new website. They don’t even take an hour to sit and think of other ways to reach the objective.
Mark set out to focus on a niche, and his niche was building materials. It has everything he loves about it — plenty of problems to solve. He can easily get a meeting with anybody in the industry because of what he’s built up over the years. If he was in general advertising, there would be a million other people just like him.
He always tries to tell building material people to be the person the customers look to for expertise. It normally has less to do about the product and more to do about their issues. Everybody’s good at the product — why memorize something you can look up or have technical people tell you. It’s much better to know about the problems and how to solve them.
You Are the Message: Getting What You Want by Being Who You Are by Roger Ailes talks about this concept and how Ronald Reagan used it during his election.
Avoiding Standard Presentations and Training
Tim mentions that he really appreciates how Mark doesn’t look at everyone as a competitor. Mark will have conversations with other people in the field and join up with people who could be considered competition.
Mark notices that when selling to architects, people think the only way to sell to them is through Architect lunch-and-learns. They think it’s the only way to get a meeting. However, no one says any of those lunch-and-learns actually lead to a sale. They just think lunch and learns will somehow lead to a sale. So, they tell the sales reps, “This is your metric of performance.” Mark has been with reps and they say, “Mark, I’d love to go back to this firm, but I already did a lunch and learn there this year. So I can’t go back until next year.”
Some smart people think a lunch-and-learn is a big-time commitment, a large expense and is largely unneeded in this new marketplace. It takes half a day out of a week to do a lunch and learn. Mark only does lunch and learns when he’s requested and knows who’s going to be in the meeting. He wants to know if it’s worth his time; he doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time, including his own. He isn’t going to do something just to feed 10 people and to give them some CEU credits. Time is valuable.
Mark also believes that every sales rep should bring some additional knowledge — not just a PowerPoint that they’ve been trained to give. He says it’s easy to be a sales rep and to stand out because the bar is so low. It’s mainly because people are trained about the products first. Then, maybe they’re giving some training on how to be a salesman, but they’re never trained on the customer. There’s a lot of assumptions about who the customer is and what motivates them, like a lower price. It’s really shortsighted thinking.
Mark found that when he talked to architects, builders and contractors, they wanted to meet with reps because they keep them informed about new things, new products and things that they weren’t aware of. But 50% of the time, if Mark doesn’t know the rep, it could be a waste of his time.
There are some reps who come in and are valuable. Unfortunately, so many reps are so focused on the products, and they have no idea how it’s used, how it’s installed or where it fits in the planning process. The ones that know that information rise to the top. Architects will say, “I really enjoy talking to you, and I can’t wait for our next meeting.” The other ones get, “I’ll let you know if we need any of your products, thanks for coming.”
Tim says that one of the things that helps people stand out is just understanding and empathizing with the challenges people face, and you can’t possibly know how to position to help them unless you understand that. He loves that Mark’s content figures out those things before pitching products.
Carolina emphasizes how Mark’s book really is a great source of information for understanding other’s challenges. You have to know what the architect and designer need at each of those stages so that you’re not calling on them when they’re busy or you’re not giving them information. You also have to understand the personalities of people, like the facility manager, the distributor, the architect or the manufacturer.
Mark’s CANDID Thoughts on CEUs and Dodge Reports
Carolina touches back on Mark’s thoughts on the value (or not) of Reps performing Continuing Education Credit (CEU)presentations for Architects. She asks Mark, from the architect side or the designer side, what is the feedback that he gets on CEUs when a random rep just shows up because they were told to show up?
Marks sees that there’s a percentage of people sitting there who actually go to learn more about waterproofing, for example. They are like, “Plus, I like the free lunch and I have to get so many credits, so it’s a no-brainer.” To Mark, none of the lunch and learn presentations stand out and they follow this boring format.
He keeps waiting for somebody to say to their creative firm, “Okay. I know I asked you to be creative when you do my ads and my trade show booths, and my website. Now I need you to be creative in doing lunch and learn.” People should say, “I want you to come back next week. That was really memorable.” If it’s the same thing over and over again, people get de desensitized.
Mark also mentioned that a lot of people will also say they subscribe to dodge reports. They’ll see a big project that could use their product, so all of a sudden, leadership of the company is aware of this product, and they’re putting pressure on the rep. The problem is that your five competitors are doing the same thing. The GC is smart enough to play everyone off each other to get the lowest price. So, the guy that wins the bid probably isn’t making any money.
Mark recommends avoiding those dodge reports because they’re putting all their best salespeople on this one-time project. Mark wants to go after customers, whether that’s architects, roofing, contractors or GCs owners, so that there’s repeat business. It’s an annuity. He tries to build a customer relationship as opposed to working on a single project.
How to Stand Out
Mark recommends connecting through LinkedIn or social media where you can start to create a relationship with a person having never met them. You can first send a connection request and come with a valid reason why you should connect — one that’s not “I want to sell you stuff.”
Maybe over six weeks, they’re following your company or firm, and they’re looking at what they share or post. They’re liking it, they’re commenting on it and they’re sharing it.
One thing Mark is advising clients right now to do is to focus. So, the first thing is to figure out where your product really has an advantage. Then, take the product, like samples of their product or their story, and put it in a box. Then, either through LinkedIn, emails or however you’re going to do it, you’re going to say, “I’d like to introduce you to my product.” If they say yes, you’re going to send them the box before the zoom call. The box needs to look nice from the outside, not just a FedEx box.
When they open it up, it is a unique unboxing experience, and there’s your product. The creativity really makes it stand out. This way, during that Zoom call, they have the product to touch and refer to. Now, you can’t afford that to be sent to 5,000 people. You need to focus on those clients that you’ve narrowed in on.
Because of COVID, presentation is everything. You aren’t in front of customers or at tradeshows, so standing out through presentations is an extreme benefit. You also have to differentiate yourself as a rep. You need to talk about the customer and their challengers versus the product.
Have talking points that you can use when talking with customers and clients. They will appreciate your questions and your interest in them and their company. Mark advises that every sales call should start by talking about the customer. Do some homework and understand potential issues for that client or company. You really have to care about their challenges.
Go into the presentation with the mindset that you want to learn something from the customer, and from there, you will demonstrate to them why they should buy your product. Don’t be bogged down by so much product knowledge. Instead, be curious about what is going on in their world, and this will set you apart.
“Unsexy” Products
It’s just very easy for people to put together something beautiful that a designer or an architect is going to fall over. Waterproofing air barriers, roofing material, weather system and other building material products are not sexy. You have ductwork, concrete, HPAC systems, water heaters and so on. Mark says that probably 70% of building products are where you can’t see them. People go to view a house’s countertops, faucets and closets. You don’t see what is inside a wall, what makes the house quiet or energy efficient.
Mark brings up that architects are the most open people to new ideas, even though they don’t seem like it. There is an idealism. Every week, an architect wants to build a better building. Every week they want to improve upon what happened last time. Builders and contractors have more of the mindset that if the original way is working, why change it? It doesn’t make sense to me.
So as far as your product goes, you have the opportunity to box your product more “sexy” and add the creative element there. You can get a creative team together to design a box or make the product look more exciting. But you still need to focus on that selected group of clients to market your product to.
If you send somebody something that’s in a box, a tube or three-dimensional package in any way, there’s at least an 80% open rate. If you send somebody a catalog, an email or something like that, the open rate drops down under 5%, depending on what you’re doing. So, Mark would rather send 50 people something that is in a box that’s well thought out, well-designed and impressive than designing something for 5,000 people that’s cheaper.
The beauty is if you go through those 50 people, you can then pick the next 50, and you’ve got the program in place, and you know how to make it work.
A Topic That Needs Attention
Mark mentions two topics he thinks that need attention:
- With COVID, the healthy home is going to become the new green home. Mark brings this up to builders and asks if somebody comes to your model home, do you show them any healthy features? The builder says no because the people aren’t asking for it. Mark mentions that Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca said he was going to build this thing called a minivan. All the research said that nobody’s asking for that. Here’s the thing: If people don’t know they can have it, why would they ask for it? If you are the one builder or salesperson that brings up something that the others don’t, you stand out. It will make that space different from all the others.
- Labor. People in the field, at the suppliers, estimating, contractors – the industry has allowed this itself to fall off young people’s radars. It’s easy to be a rock star in the industry because so many of the other people are going to Wall Street, working for Google or in other fields. The industry is doing absolutely nothing to make recent college graduates be interested in the field.
For people sitting there thinking if college is not right for them, it should be encouraged to just go to work for a roofer, for example. Then, set a goal like, “After five years, I’m going to start my own contracting firm.” And from there I’m going to make a million dollars a year, you know? How much would you make if you got that degree and you went to work for a company as opposed to running your own business?
Our education system and our public schools removed all the shop classes. Now, there are no examples for young people to follow anymore.
Mark is passionate about this business. He tells young people looking for a job to look at building materials. There are 20 different jobs you could have in the building materials industry. It would be great if an association was formed and everybody contributed to it. It would make working with building materials a cooler job for people to do.
Common Errors Building Materials Companies Make
- They’re talking to the wrong person. It may be that they’re talking to an architect and they should be talking to an owner. It may be that they’re talking to the wrong architectural firm guy. They’re just talking to the wrong person.
- They almost always have the wrong message or literally no message.
- They’re using the wrong methods to share that message. The customers are on social media. Before they call you, they’re going online and typing a question into Google and see what comes up. Own that and utilize that.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.
Connect With Mark:
Website: https://www.seethewhizard.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmitchell1/
Mark’s Books:
Other Resources:
- Mark’s Newsletter
- Mark’s Podcast
- Mark’s Vlog/Youtube
- Youtube Channel – Uneducated Economist
- LCX Podcast – The Future of How We Buy Building Materials – Mark Mitchell