Jimmie Jayes is back again for another epic interview. Jimmie is a top business coach, educator and solar advisor.

n this episode of Close it Now, Sam and Jimmie talk about finding effective teams of people to bring in your company and help your company grow.

Sam Wakefield: Hey, Sam Wakefield here. Welcome back to Close It Now, the podcast where basically you can tap in next level, psychological thinking about sales. We get all the way down to the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty, but also, um, you know, what is not. In any other place that space in the industry that I have found.

And if you found some recommend it to me, because we all learned from each other is thinking about HVAC sales on a different level. And that's why I like to bring in so many people from outside the industry, because it forces us to think outside of our box. So my guest today, I'm super excited to have him.

He is a, if you haven't heard the last one. Go back to the podcast that we did before five essential networking connections on how to get more leads with Mr. Jimmie Jayes. He is back and I'm super excited to have him back here as a, definitely given a lot of his time to us to be able to, uh, to next level. You know, who doesn't want a next level, your game.

If you're a half a million dollar a year sales person, it's time to be a million. If you're a million, it's time to be two. If you're two, it's time to be four and it's all possible in the industry, if you're four it’s time to be 10, right? So a quick introduction for Mr. Jimmie Jayes I've known him for quite a while.

He is. A business coach currently working with company called Apricot Solar. He's a business coach for the company, also works in the field himself. So he is, it's not just coming at this from a, um, you know, overview trainer manager perspective. He also is walking, fleshing this out, walking every single day, doing sales himself, his, uh, his coach, this company though.

And here's these numbers that are going to blow your mind from zero. From the company started to $134 million in a single year. In five years alone. So that's one of the main reasons I reached out to him. It's like, you know, anything, anybody that can help a company see that type of growth, uh, has serious wisdom they can impart to us in here on the Close It Now podcast, his goal is to create 12. Solar millionaire, solar millionaires, 12 solar millionaires in just over 12 months. So in a year somebody's personal income going from zero to a million bucks in 12 months. So that's his goal. Clearly he can, if he can, if you can scale it on business level, you can scale it on an individual level.

Um, I'm excited to talk to him today. Uh, Mr. Jimmie Jayes, welcome to the episode.

Jimmie Jayes: Thank you so much. Great to be here and, and, uh, excited to be talking to your Close It Now community.

Sam Wakefield: Yeah, absolutely. Man. It's it's so cool when we. You know, w when you develop a, a group that is so focused on one thing, it's mind blowing what they can accomplish.

The things we've seen, our, our network, uh, support each other and help each other learn and grow in this last couple of years of since Close It Now out started, we're now entering year three. So this, uh, last about that April. Well, I was, this is June, we're in June. Now this year was a two year anniversary.

So we're a couple months into year three, which is exciting. So we've got a fun topic today. Uh, this one is going to be a good one. I know a lot of people, you know, when they talk about scaling and growing the business, their biggest thing that I hear from my business owners, from my managers, all the different people always reach out to me.

How do we find good people? You know, there there's so many of the biggest complaint is there's just a lack of qualified people in the industry. How do we find them? So today's topic hiring and building a team of HVAC professionals. Um, how do we do that? You clearly, you, you can't build a scale this fast by only finding people within a specific niche.

You've got to, you've got to go outside that. So let let's unpack that. Let's break that apart a little bit. What are your thoughts here?

Jimmie Jayes: Yeah, well, first of all, uh, the very first thing that I would say is I know that you've got a diverse audience of listeners and there's people on the line who are companies, owners, and there's people on the line, or maybe are just getting started in HVAC and there's people on the line that, you know, you know, do a million or tool, uh, you know, in, in sales every year, uh, just working in the field of HVAC. So what I want you to know is that this conversation applies to every. Okay. This conversation applies to everyone. Doesn't matter if you are a business owner or not.

You want to think like a business owner and unless you plan to crawl through addicts until you're 50, right? You need to have some sort of a way to get leverage, to get leverage. And it doesn't matter the space. If there's people in pest control, like, do you want to knock doors until you're 50? If there's, so it doesn't matter the space.

Okay. You got to find a way to get leverage. Otherwise you're going to work until the day that you. So you really need to learn. How do you, how do you find and build effective teams of people in whatever industry you're in? And again, if you're, if you're just selling right now, that's okay. Like how can you find and train great people to bring into the company to help your company grow?

If your company grows. That you're working with, right. There's going to be more leadership positions. There's going to be more opportunities. So think like a business owner, even if you don't own the business and think about what can I do to help this company grow. And if you get good at finding and recruiting and training people, you know, who can be, you know, closures in HVAC, um, I promise you, there will be opportunities that come your way.

So the first thing that I would say is it doesn't matter where you're at. Um, this is a relevant conversation for you unless you plan on, like I said, doing sales and crawling through addicts, when you're 50, you've got to learn how to be able to get leverage. You gotta be, learn how to be able to, to train people and to hire people.

Sam Wakefield: Sure. Absolutely. So what are some ways to do that? Because a hundred percent agree. I mean, if you're just keep doing the same thing, you're going to get the same results. We all know, especially in the, in our industry, the, uh, you know, there's a limit, you know, there's only so many hours in the day that a single person can put in and see a return on that.

Jimmie Jayes: Awesome. Yeah. So, um, it comes down to a couple different things. The first thing is, um, you just have to have, uh, an eye for it, so you need to be looking for opportunities to meet people. All right. So just like, uh, when we were talking about the five essential networking connections we talked about, uh, in the previous podcast that most people just look for, uh, ideal clients.

Like, are you a client? No. Are you a client? No. Are you a client? No. Are you a client? No. And they'll go to a networking event and it'll be. You know, do you need an HVAC? You need services, right? And if the person says no, then they're dropping a business card on their lap and they're going to the next person as quickly as they can, because they haven't trained their eye to look for the other four essential networking connections.

Right. The referral partners, the influencers. So again, go back and check out that episode. If you haven't, um, through, uh, through Close It Now. But it's the same sort of a thing when it comes to, you know, team building and training people, do you have an eye? Are you looking for people who know how to sell?

Right. So that's the very first step is you have to start to train your brain, um, and say, where do I find people like that? If you're, if your company has recruiting events, then then great. Like bring people to them and people get so caught up on, like, how much am I getting paid for this? How much do I get when I bring in somebody?

And you might be able to work out something with the owner of the company, that if you bring somebody in that you, you know, get some sort of compensation for that. But again, A business owner, right? If the company grows, it's good for you. Sometimes you get this scarcity mentality of like, well, somebody else comes into the company, then they're going to be taken my leads and my appointments.

Right. And it's the wrong way to think you bring people in and you get good at training. Um, I promise you, there's gonna be more opportunities for you. Uh,

Sam Wakefield: What's that old expression, a rising tide raises all ships.

Jimmie Jayes: Absolutely. Yeah. And the person who does more today than what they get paid, we'll soon get paid more than what they do.

Sam Wakefield: Absolutely. Yeah. I've adopted that from early on in my career was, you know, I've always, um, you know, done more take it basically, just like you're saying, taking ownership and treated everything. I touched as if my name depended on it. Not necessarily the company in the name and, you know, it's amazing. That's what happens when you give your, make a life goal to give more value than you take.

Jimmie Jayes: I love it. So the first thing we want to do is you want to make sure that you've got an eye for it, that you're looking for it. All right. Um, the second thing, um, that you want to make sure that you're doing, um, is a saying that I use is become the person you want to attract. So, if you want to attract somebody into your business, if you're a business owner, if you're in the field and you're training people, right?

Are you practicing what you preach? If you're preaching, follow up, follow up, follow up, and you're not doing any follow-up. You're not going to attract what you teach. You're going to attract what you are. Right. So, um, you want to make sure that you're becoming the person you want to attract. And, um, I actually learned this from, from John Maxwell leadership author wrote the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, um, and was fortunate enough to be in a kind of a round table with a small number of people.

And, uh, I got to be able to, um, you know, meet John through zoom, um, and he's going through an exercise and he said, make a list. What are the 10 characteristics. What are the 10 qualities that you want in HVAC professionals in your team? Okay. Sure. So take a minute and do that. Like, think about, even if you'd write down two or three, what are some of the characteristics that you want that you're looking for?

Is it somebody who's coachable? Somebody who is hungry? Is it somebody who's self motivated? Is it somebody who follows up, like just make a list of what are those characteristics that you want? And then you had to share them. And I was like, oh yeah, here's, here's what I want. Right. Somebody who's, self-motivated someone, who's a leader.

Uh, somebody who's faith driven and like somebody who's, uh, you know, takes time with their family and that they play all in and business time. I made my whole list, man. I was like, it's a good list. I'm gonna get some good people. And then he says, now turn the page over. And now I want you to rate yourself on a scale of zero to 10 in all of the areas you just wrote down.

Ooh. Oh, John, you're doing me dirty right now. Right? Like how, how, how coachable am I? How strong am I in my faith? Right? How, uh, how, how much do I follow up? Am I a self starter? One of my big ones is resourceful. Am I. Right. Am I waiting around for somebody to solve this problem for me or that problem for me?

Or am I solving it myself? Right. So that the idea is become the person you want to attract. Are you developing yourself daily, uh, into the person you want to attract and sort of the great things about this, Close It Now, community, right? I'm kind of preaching to the choir here that you guys are here. Um, and you're learning and you're becoming the person that you want to.

Okay, so thing, number one is have an eye for it. Thing. Number two is you want to become the person you want to attract and thing. Number three, I'm talking mostly right now to the business owners on the line. I said that this whole, that regardless of where you're at, um, that this whole conversation, you know, applies to you, I'm going to talk to it for a second of the business owners.

Sure. If you're a business owner, Listening in right now, right? Listen to the podcast. Maybe you're at the gym. Maybe you're on your way. Driving somewhere, like pay attention. If you want to attract high level people, you will never retain someone with the same or greater level of skill than you have, unless they have the same or better opportunity that you have to grow a company.

Let me say that again, you will never retain and attract somebody with the same or higher leadership ability as you, unless you give them the same or better opportunity as you have in the field, you have to create an environment, right. Where rather than having this old school belief around business of like the more that goes out, the less that comes to me.

Rather than thinking about how can I lower my expenses, including lowering my commissions, right. That I pay to the field so that I can keep more of the pie. As backwards is backwards. You got to think about how can I give higher commissions? How can I give higher levels of ownership? How can I give higher levels of freedom?

Right. In, in, uh, coaching with Dave, um, in the solar company, as, as a for instance, um, one of the first things, um, in our, in our consulting that we did together is said, how can we create a owner's profit pool? Where people who are not owners of the company, right? Can get to a certain place. If they do enough volume, if they, if they produce enough, they can actually get paid in some of the percentages of the profit of the company.

Wow. And you might say, well, but it's my company. I take on the risk and I listen, they're going to leave. You're going to lose them anyways. You will never retain somebody long-term unless they have the same or better opportunity as you. And so you can spend your time taking five years, 10 years training somebody, coaching somebody, showing them everything, and you're just training your competitors unless you give them the same opportunity.

That you have. So find some sort of a way to be able to incentivize people, right. Reward that loyalty, because you know, there's a point where people come in and you know, you're doing a lot more for them than they're doing for you. But over time, that pendulum starts to swing and it gets to a point where they're doing more for you and for your company, then you're doing for them.

And they could very easily go start another company. And they got to wake up every day and decide, am I going to be loyal to you, the business owner? Or am I going to go get the same opportunity that you have because they can't have. Sure. As a business owner, you got to find ways to not make your people make that choice every single day.

Right? Give them the same opportunity that you have, find some sort of a way, um, hierarchy, if you need to, uh, you know, figure out a way, right. That you can give them the same opportunity, um, and where your goal is, how do I pay more money to the field? How do I have more success stories, uh, inside of HVAC and usually, um, You know, in the, in the path and the process of doing that, you're going to scale your business and scale your profits to a point where all of a sudden your, um, you know, your costs are actually lower as a percentage.

And so you can pay more out and still be able to make a lot of money and be able to retain a higher quality people. 

Sam Wakefield: Wow. This is, you know, there's an old adage in the industry that I've heard for years and years. And honestly kind of forgotten it a little bit until you're mentioning this. The adage is, you know, so many business owners complain and say, well, what if I train my people and they leave?

And then the course of the rebuttal of that is, well, what if you don't train them? And they stay, we know which is worse, but at some point we all that, that's kind of a paradox because we know. That is what we're battling against is getting to that place. We've trained them enough and you know, they see us driving the nice car because the business has grown and now they want to go buy their Ferrari.

Um, so I love this conversation, man, dropping bombs today. This is, literally this concept is turning the, if any of you out there listening are actually hearing, what country are we staying here? Talk about turn our industry on its head. This is how the Ken Goodrich's of the world and so many others, uh, you know, that have scaled to such amazing, uh, volume and, and huge, you know, huge size.

This is the concept they've adopted now. I don't know anyone else. Who's grown a company to a hundred and over a hundred million dollars in five years. So the man, this is so applicable. To what we do. So man dropping bombs today, man. I love it. I love

it.

Jimmie Jayes: Well, here, here's a mind bender for you. When I started coaching Dave, he was in the field knocking doors, selling solar.

Alright? So what it means is that there is a company owner. That Dave was working for and they were just keeping all the profit. Uh, Dave was investing his own money in advertising to get his own appointments in solar and he just was under appreciated. And, you know, people who were at the company were, were just keeping most of the profits.

And so he didn't want to create his own company. He created his own company, uh, out of a necessity. Um, and he became the owner that he wished he had. He became the owner that he wished that he was working under. Um, and so in creating his own company, um, there was just, just a little while ago here. Um, you know, you've heard that, um, company $134 million last year, I believe, uh, that $89 million a year before that, I believe they'll, they'll do a, uh, a billion dollars, uh, in calendar year 2022.

So, you know, a ton of growth and yet. Right. Uh, you know, David, the owner of, of, of Apricot Solar is putting so much money back into the field, right? Spending money on appointments, spending money on, on commissions and putting a whole bunch of money back into the field to the point that, um, just recently one of the sales, um, you know, associates inside of the company, um, like literally bought a Ferrari for Dave.

Sam Wakefield: Oh, my gosh.

Jimmie Jayes: Geez. We're talking like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like it's a Spyder, a super nice car. Right? And here's the thing David had bought himself one multiple times over as the, as the owner of the company. Right. He literally spends more than that in advertisement every single month to keep, uh, people in the field, their calendar is full with appointments.

So. That's the level, right. That, that he's giving it. And, um, and so there's somebody in the company that's like in, in the field making the kind of money that they can afford to go buy a Ferrari and give it to the owner to thank the owner for...