Behind the Toolbelt
Behind the ToolBelt is a live, raw, and uncut podcast that brings real, unfiltered conversations about business, leadership, and the entrepreneurial mindset. Hosted by Ty Cobb Backer, CEO of TC Backer Construction, this live show features leaders, innovators, and experts sharing their experiences, strategies, and insights. From building successful companies to overcoming professional and personal challenges, each episode offers valuable perspectives for entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders looking to grow, and make an impact.
Behind the Toolbelt
The Art of One Call Closing: Building Sales Masters
"Men and women lie, numbers don't." These words from sales expert Shai perfectly capture his data-driven approach to transforming the home services industry. After 16 years mastering the art of in-home sales, Shai has helped over 1,000 sales representatives close more than $300 million in deals and built his own company from zero to $20 million in just 18 months.
What separates Shai's approach from conventional sales wisdom is his emphasis on systems over charisma. While many sales leaders focus on personality and motivation, Shai builds step-by-step processes that can be taught, measured, and replicated. This systematic approach allows companies to scale rapidly without sacrificing quality or consistency.
The foundation of Shai's success lies in how he engineers company culture from the ground up. Before launching Title Remodeling, he and his business partner identified 50 specific traits they wanted in team members—not generic qualities like "hardworking" but specific lifestyle preferences and values. This intentional culture-building creates an environment where people genuinely want to work, strengthening recruitment and retention.
Their setter-closer model exemplifies this systematic approach: 22 door knockers set appointments that 17 closers then convert to sales. Each role has clear metrics (door knockers must set four demonstrations weekly; sales representatives must generate $50,000 quarterly), removing subjectivity from performance evaluations. This clarity creates confidence among team members, who understand exactly what's expected and how to succeed.
Perhaps most fascinating is Shai's focus on velocity—the speed at which leads convert to sales, projects get completed, and teams get paid. This emphasis on momentum explains why his retail door-knocking approach generates approximately $2 million monthly without relying on insurance claims or storm damage work. By knocking today for appointments tomorrow (or even today), his team creates consistent cash flow regardless of weather conditions.
For those struggling with confidence in sales, Shai offers practical wisdom: focus on small wins rather than just closed deals. Getting to the kitchen table for a presentation or convincing a homeowner to let you inspect their roof are victories worth celebrating. This incremental approach builds momentum that eventually leads to greater success.
Ready to transform your sales approach? Check out One Call Close Academy or follow Shai on social media for training opportunities that can help you achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people.
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And we are live. Welcome back everybody to Behind the Tool Belt, episode 285. I think it could be 86. We'll get that determined throughout the episode here at some point in time. I am your host, ty Conner-Backer. Thank you for joining us on this Wednesday edition. Stay tuned. We'll be back after our short intro from our sponsors. Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt, where the stories are bold, the conversations are real and the insights come to you live, raw and uncut.
Speaker 2:Every week, host Ty Cobb-Backer sits down to bring you the stories, the struggles, the lessons learned and the wins. No filters, no scripts, just the truth. Please welcome your host of Behind the Tool Belt, ty Cobb-Backer.
Ty Cobb Backer:Hey, hey, hey, hey, welcome back everybody. Today's guest is a beast in the sales world, especially if you're in the roofing, remodeling and home services. He's helped over a thousand sales reps close over 300 million bucks, and that's with an m 300 million, not thousand, in deal, scaled companies to eight figures and build an army of sales killers with his One Call Clothes Academy. He's an author of the In-Home Sales and a Five-Minute Door Knocker is his book, actually the name of his book and the founder of the One Call Clothes Academy. My man, what's up? How are you?
Shai Ades:I'm fantastic. How are you doing? Thank you for having me on.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yes, thank you for coming on the show. Man, seriously, um, you know, after I did. You know, of course, I've I've heard of you and I've heard about you and, uh, vic Vic reached out. You were so gracious enough to come on to the show. We we sincerely apologize that I don't know if I've ever got to listen to you speak on stage or not, but, like I said, I do. I am fully well aware of who you are, what you've accomplished and you know it's amazing that you would take the time out of your day to come on to our show. So, thank you.
Shai Ades:Absolutely.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, yeah. So let's kind of dive right into this. I mean, with all these things that you've done, you're an author, you have two bestsellers Amazon bestsellers, right and you've created the one, the one call close Academy. What, what would have inspired you? You went from sales rep and and into you know um, developing a one call close system and founding of the One-Call-Close Academy. What inspired all of that? What happened? Was there a turning point where you're like you know what Screw, this, this industry sucks, I need to improve it. What happened?
Shai Ades:Yeah, absolutely. I've been in the industry 16 years. This April I came in as a sales rep off Craigslist believe it or not, back in the day when people used to job search on Craigslist and had success real quick worked at several companies, went from sales rep to assistant manager to manager to director of sales, worked at a couple other companies there's not always the best owners in this industry, as I'm sure you already know had a business partner for a couple years and, like many relationships, we broke up and that was December of 22. My wife, on the other hand, has been in my ear for the last 13, 15 years saying you should speak on stages, you should coach, you're so good at it. So when that relationship ended, I had a little time on my hands and I'm like let's start the One Call Clothes Academy.
Shai Ades:I've been teaching One Call Clothes, I've been doing One Call Clothes and it's more fun sometimes to teach the masses than just the people you work with, right? So I do own a company in Carlsbad with a business partner here called Title Remodeling and we do roofing, windows, paint and stucco, patios, pavers, turf, everything on the outside. But at the same time I get to do One Call Clothes Academy and consult companies in Ohio and Michigan and Florida and Utah, like all over the country, and it's a lot more fun to inspire, you know, instead of your 20 sales reps, to inspire thousands of sales reps. So I think really that's what kicked it all off and it's only been two years since it started. But man, it's, it's a fast ride and you know I feel old always saying it, but time flies.
Ty Cobb Backer:Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth? Yeah, you know that's. What's great about you, too, is that you actually have experience and a background in our industry. I think there's a lot of people that you know that come into our industry, take advantage of a lot of our of our people in this industry and don't have much you know experience in. You know they have experience in sales, but not what it's actually like in the day-to-day operations of of running an exterior contracting company and and that's what I find very unique and inspiring about what you have done and the other thing, too what I like about teaching is where I've learned probably more from teaching other people than than you know what, then what I'm probably aspiring them to be. You know what I mean Because I'm studying, I'm working on myself and and would you say that's true Like, are you a different person now than you were when you started training and coaching and mentoring people two years?
Shai Ades:ago. Oh, 100%. You know, like one of the biggest things is aware of what you say and your nuances. I say the word right a lot Cause when I'm teaching and there's people not responding to like and this is how you do it, right, and I, I say things like that and it drives my wife crazy. So, like you just become so much better of a public speaker and aware of your language, your tone, I tried not to swear on stage as much as I did when I first started. There's still the F bombs come out and this and that cause I feel like you have more emphasis and more tone, um, but I'm well'm well more aware of it and try to limit the amount of swearing that happens on stage.
Ty Cobb Backer:That is so hard. Everything you just said is so hard. Getting rid of the ands ums right? You know what I mean.
Shai Ades:A hundred percent and more so. I think the most painful part of the whole thing is listening to yourself. You know you talked about like. You haven't seen me speak. I've seen myself speak. I'm like that's what you guys like. You guys like this is what I sound like. So you're going to be your own worst critic every single time. So one of my biggest tips for sales reps is to record themselves. I tell my reps if I have to suffer through watching you role play, you need to suffer through it first, because you're going to be more of a critic of yourself than I am. And you have these reps that they sit at the kitchen table and they don't know that they touch their face when they talk or they click or they have weird mannerisms. It's like you have to watch yourself before I'm going to watch you.
Ty Cobb Backer:Such great advice, such great advice Speaking of which you know sales, sales, people's issues. What would you say is one of the biggest hurdles they have to jump as a salesperson? And not necessarily like technique, but but but more personally like is it having confidence in themselves, the product, the company they work for? You know what. What would you say with working with as many sales reps as you have? What's the biggest hurdle they have to get over?
Shai Ades:I mean number one is confidence in yourself. But to have confidence in yourself you also have to have confidence in the company you work for. No one feels good telling people that X, y, z is going to happen on the job site and then finding out it doesn't happen. So you really do need to vet the company that you're going to represent if you care at all about who you are, your last name and what you represent. So I definitely think people need to vet the company and then they actually need to have confidence in what it is that they're doing.
Shai Ades:Like one of the biggest things I see in all the coaching I've done is people think that charisma is enough to sell. Like, oh, people love me, I'm a people person. But there's a confidence that comes in knowing your steps and knowing what to do. And I think that's the biggest thing that I end up going to companies and teaching is what's your sales process? And they're like well, this guy does it this way and Jimmy sells a lot because people like him and Marty's new and he's starting to figure it out. But he needs you know it's like no, I need you guys to have a step one, a step two, a step three, so that you can go from 10 sales reps to 50 sales reps and it's replicatable and you can actually. You have a system, because if you don't have a system, what are you doing in the sales meeting? You know, half the people aren't listening to you because they don't know what you're talking about.
Ty Cobb Backer:So I think companies lack systems more than anything. Yeah, no, no, I agree, and I think that also helps with self-esteem and confidence. If they can come into a company and it's very systematic and it's easily duplicatable, like you were mentioning, and it's easily teachable and trainable, I think that helps encourage them to pick up quickly on the systems, the processes, the products and the techniques quicker. But if it's, if it's a, if it's a confidence thing, because they just lack self-esteem or or they're insecure, what would you say to to a person new getting into the sales space and and they just can't get over themselves, what's, what's the best techniques that you've have tried or have experienced to help people kind of just get over that hurdle of like being, you know, confident in their abilities?
Shai Ades:I mean one thing if it's a people that aren't comfortable talking to people, I say you need to go talk to 20 strangers every single day. When you're in line at Starbucks, turn around and say oh my God, it's been raining all day, right, what do you think of this weather? Aren't you sick of it? When you're at the bank, go talk to the bank teller. You need to just start talking to people. But I think a lot of the confidence that people lack in themselves they can gain from knowing the knowledge of the system and what it is that they're selling. They may not be confident in themselves, but if they know, okay, I have to do step one, step two, step three. Then they can forget about themselves and just focus on doing that. And then comes the small wins. So a lot of salespeople they think the only win is if I make the sale. Well, what about the small wins of like you went to the lead and the homeowner's? Like you know what? Ty thanks so much, but we decided to cancel the appointment. We're not really interested anymore. We don't have any money.
Shai Ades:If you get yourself to that kitchen table to make a presentation, that's a win, regardless if you sell it or not right. If the people didn't want you on the roof and you got yourself on the roof to take pictures and do discovery, that's a win. And when you start stacking the little wins, the confidence starts to build right. It's like a little kid on a bike, you know. They start with their training wheels and they're excited that they're moving forward, and then it's let's take the training wheels off and I'll hold you, and then it's the riding, but they fall, and then they're popping wheelies right. So it's people want to go from zero to a hundred too fast, and a lot of people always focus on what's missing and never the gap. So one of the favorite books is the Gap in the Gain right.
Shai Ades:Because, everyone, always. I made 100 grand. How do I make a million? How do I make 10? When are you going to stop and celebrate the fact that you were broke and now you have a million dollars? When are you going to stop and celebrate the fact that you have money in the account right now? Yes, there's always more, and I always believe in moving the needle forward, but there's got to be that small win, right when you give yourself credit and let the confidence build inside of you.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, no, I totally agree. How long would you say before you throw a guy out there and he starts running appointments on his own? How long should that timeframe be? Two days, three days, three weeks, three months?
Shai Ades:I think it really varies on the guy right, but like we do a two week training in the classroom. So for the first two weeks you're not going anywhere. We're going to teach you our system, our pitch, our slides, our inspection, our pricing, our work orders, everything like that. And then you get guys that at the end of those two weeks are like put me in coach, because they go home every single night and they role play and they internalize it and they write out the script. And I have guys that have sold their very first lead, and not one guy I mean I've been doing this 16 years I can tell you eight to 10 guys that went. They sold their first lead. They ever ran Right. And then I have people that just went through a training class two months ago that they're still not ready and they're really on their way out the door. So like there's also a part of you that's like you got to be chomping at the bit to go be successful. And the people that are just going to wait and wait and wait, like you, this might not be the right job for you, but I think the average person to like truly answer your question.
Shai Ades:I think it's like three to four weeks, right? Because personally, what we do is we put them in two weeks of training, then we make them go on ride alongs, because I call it like the classroom in the lab. When you were in science in school, you had hands on training and you had classroom training. I'm more of a lab learner, you know. If I watch you go in house and I see Ty present four or five times, I'm like that's what you want me to say. I got you. I'll regurgitate everything you said, but if you want me to do it in the classroom, it's going to take me a lot longer.
Shai Ades:So we do two weeks of classroom, we do a couple of shadowed sales and then it's like dude, do you know your pitch? Come pitch me in the office. We make them do a small section of the pitch to hear what they have, because you don't need to hear the whole pitch. You can see like are they studying, are they not studying? How are they talking? And then we send them out to the wolves, right? And then it's always hey, I'm not going to fire you for not selling, but what happened? Let's draw a line down the piece of paper. What are five things you did great? What are five things you need to work on? Let's work on those five things, and that's a constant evolution, even for reps that have been doing this for 10 years. Your weaknesses, once you focus on them, become your strengths. Your strengths become your weaknesses, and it's a never-ending circle.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, yeah, now with your OneCallClose Academy, is that like a learning portal or is that you actually physically going to someone's facility and coaching the teams up?
Shai Ades:So it's a little bit of everything. So I'm working on the learning portal as of right now. I've been shooting and will be done probably in the next two, three weeks. So you'll be able to just go on my website and there'll be videos on door knocking, there'll be videos on mindset, there'll be videos on one call close. Currently, right now I announce it on my website I do a six-session door knocking class.
Shai Ades:So it's one hour for six days, usually Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. The following week Tuesday, wednesday, thursday and it's one-to-many. You sign up, we get live on Zoom and I teach six days of door knocking and then I have the exact same thing for one call close and I teach you what the steps are to the presentation, how to build your presentation. I handle a lot of questions and feedback and stuff like that. I also do live events.
Shai Ades:My first live event this year will be July 17th in San Diego. It's a six hour class and that's not really on one-call close. It's made more for owners and managers on how to build a one-call close business that nets six figures every single month. So that's going to be July 17th and then July 18th. I'm really excited. I'm just doing a networking event for seven and eight-figure people. It's at opening day of the Del Mar Racetrack, which it's kind of the equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. It's at opening day of the Del Mar racetrack, which it's kind of the equivalent of the Kentucky Derby.
Shai Ades:It's horse racing. I got a fifth floor level suite and we're going to put 45 entrepreneurs in there just to build relationship capital and talk, chop and watch horse racing. So I do like you said. I will have an online portal. I do online training. I'm flying out to Minnesota this next week on the 17th and 18th or 18th and 19th to train a window company. So I do all kinds of training. I do one-on-one on zoom. I fly out to companies. I like to go out to the companies because then the you can't hide behind what you really have and what you don't have, like I get to sit there and it's all exposed what you really have and what you don't have.
Ty Cobb Backer:Like I get to sit there and it's all exposed. Yeah, no, that's great. When, when you talk in terms of of door knocking, is it?
Shai Ades:is it more for storm damage or is it retail? So we are in San Diego, it's, even though it's cloudy, it's 70 degrees every single day and we have no weather. So we're a hundred percent retail shop. We do approximately $2 million a month in just retail business.
Ty Cobb Backer:Okay, so you train other companies how to knock doors for retail.
Shai Ades:Yeah yeah, there's a lot of companies, there's a lot of people that train how to do insurance and not to take anything away from those people, but that's an easy sale.
Shai Ades:It's like, hey, how about a free roof for $1,000 deductible? And now more than ever, I have so many insurance sales people reaching out to me asking how to do retail because the insurance companies aren't accepting the claims anymore. The owners want to know how to do retail because the cashflow is becoming a problem because it takes so long to get paid. So yeah, I focus a hundred percent on retail.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, and that's kind of an anomaly because and I say that because usually when, when in our space or industry, a lot of door knockers, you know, are in that insurance restoration space.
Ty Cobb Backer:But, I think it's very unique to to actually knock doors for for retail, and I think a lot of people don't even think of that, especially here up North. I mean, we have Anderson windows that that you know, goes around and they canvas and they do the hard cells. They're in your home for three hours and they kind of got a bad name for that, but it works. And why do you think? What separates that from, like you know, running SEOs, pay-per-click ads, billboards and stuff like that? Why, why did I guess what? What makes door knocking so special?
Shai Ades:Speed to lead right. If you're going to go SEO right now, you're going to call a company. You're going to have a one hour zoom call. They're going to have to build something for you for the next week. Then you're going to give them $10,000. They're going to post it online. You're like where's my leads? They're going to tell you oh, the algorithm has to learn. The algorithm has to learn. We have to figure out your keywords.
Shai Ades:Meanwhile, in all that time, I can go take door knockers out and you can be at a kitchen table tomorrow afternoon. I mean, we literally our business is next day business. We knock today for tomorrow, today for tomorrow and oftentimes today for today. I'll have my door knockers at 11 am. Hey, you guys gonna be home later this afternoon. Ty, how about we swing by at four o'clock and at 6.30, we have a contract, a deposit, and three days later we're tearing off your roof. So I think it's the speed to lead.
Shai Ades:Also, I'll tell you the other difference between retail door knocking and storm knocking is when a storm hits, you have thousands of door knockers come in right. So the homeowners are irritated. In one day they've had 12 door knocks right. And when there is no storm. These companies are starving right Versus. We go all the every day, doesn't matter the day of the year there is. There's's some competition, but the competition is much less so and you don't have to worry about, like, what to do if there's no storm. And that's also why people call me is they're like we haven't had a storm. How are we going to generate business? We need to survive.
Ty Cobb Backer:I'm like dude, go retail doorknock yeah, no, I, I agree with you. Instead of sitting around with your thumb up your butt waiting for the phone to ring, like you need to actually go out and get it. And a lot of times when you show up at these people's house houses they know they need to call somebody, but they just haven't had the time, they haven't worked up the courage or whatever. So, realistically, you're showing up as I guess, for lack of better terms the hero like yeah, I'm, I'm here, let's, let's do it now. So when you train somebody, like, are you sending out like a canvasser to set the appointment? And then we do.
Shai Ades:We do a setter closer model. So, like at title, here we have 22 door knockers. They go out every single day. They set up leads for tomorrow. I have 17 closers. They get assigned the appointments that the knockers create.
Ty Cobb Backer:Okay, Okay, cool. Let's I guess let's dive into the title remodeling case here, you know, tell us about how you were able to scale it from zero to $20 million in such a short period of time, like 17, 18 months, Like how do you do that? Yeah, absolutely, I mean one.
Shai Ades:It comes with 16 years of experience, so we already know what we're doing. Right, it's just a new company and it really I think some of the biggest things that separate us is the culture, you know and culture is a word that everyone throws out there but I'll tell you, the culture was intentional before the company started. A lot of companies start and then they look around, they're like so what is our culture? And they all just figure it out from what's there, versus we reversed, engineered it and we said you know, myself, Tyler, my business partner we like to surf, he likes to scuba dive, we're environmentally friendly, we're active people. He's just turned 35. I'm a little older, right, but we wanted a young crew. So, like I really recommend to people and I learned this from William Lamb, who's he practices NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming it's like write 50 traits down of your ideal candidate, of your ideal salespeople, right, and not the bullshit of he works hard and he's motivated. No, they like to work out, they like tennis, they like scuba diving, they like to give back, they like team atmosphere, they're competitive. There's never enough money for them, stuff like that. And then you start building avatars of who these people are and I'll tell you, we have people from our Indeed ads because it talks about our culture so much that they show up to the door. They're like, hey, I really want to work here. We're like, why didn't you send your resume? And they're like because I really wanted you to meet me and I really want to work here, Right.
Shai Ades:And then we have a gorgeous office with roll up garage doors and polished concrete floors and we have a whole turf wall. And people come in here and they're like what is this place Like? It does not look like a construction company, so I think that helps attract a lot of talent. People come in for interview and they automatically want to work here. We have the music going at all times. There's some dogs in the office, Like it's just a really friendly place to be.
Shai Ades:And then, on top of that, we add the swag to it. Right, we have an amazing swag shop that tyler created. Every time you get a sale at our company, you get five dollars to the swag shop and at the end of the month we give you a gift card. And we have golf jackets and we have hoodies and we have shoes and wallets and shot glasses, and I mean the. Every day we're adding to the swag shop and people are like why does that matter? Well, because because these guys are so proud of working here that when they're out at Saturday night they're still wearing title gear. When they're out at the beach, they're wearing title gear.
Shai Ades:We also do things like beach cleanups. First Saturday of every month we go down south and clean up a beach. You have 18 dudes head to toe title remodeling. People are like who are these people? What is it? Dudes head to toe title remodeling. People are like who, who are? Who are these people? What is it? I want part of the movement. So you create the culture, you create the success. Right?
Shai Ades:We have bonuses every single month. Um, just like I'm doing the meetup at opening day, we have tables for our guys. Top six reps this month go to opening day. We do once a year. We do actually twice a year. We do a mindfulness retreat for our guys where we take them out to like joshua tree and they do journaling and meditation and breath work and people think it's a little you know woo, woo, but like these guys out connected like a unit and you have men grow like crying around a fire where they really make connection, and then we do fun stuff, we do yacht parties and stuff like that. But on top of it all, we train and we train and we train. And, like what I was saying about being replicatable, you can take a sales rep here and have them start pitching you and stop him and have another rep go and say finish his sentence, and then another one, and another one, and you're going to get a coherent pitch out of them.
Shai Ades:So, because they all know the pitch, our sales meetings are very effective and then we do what's called power results. We look at our results and we train based on results. We don't just train. Hey, what do you feel like training on today? It's like well, we had a lot of no demos this week. Well, let's train on mindset and let's train on how to get in the house. Well, we had a lot of no demos this week. Well, let's train on mindset and let's train on how to get in the house.
Shai Ades:Well, we had a lot of pitch misses and the main objection this week was need to think about it. So what does need to think about it? They either didn't trust you, you didn't kill the competition, you didn't create enough need and urgency, or you just didn't close it with the negotiation tactics that we teach. So let's focus on those things. And we do that with the salesman and we also do it with the door knockers. So if the door knockers create a bunch of leads today and there's a bunch of no-shows, they didn't create enough need and urgency for the homeowner to be there. So today I'm going to go in there from 10 to 1030 and give a meeting on need and urgency. Or if they had one legs meaning the homeowner was, the wife was home, but the husband wasn't we're going to teach them how to make sure both homeowners are there, because we are one call close, we need want to go one time. So we need to make sure both homeowners are there so we can do our presentation and walk out with the sale.
Shai Ades:So I'm sorry that was winded, but I mean there's so much that added to us doing 18 million dollars in our first year of business and we're still working on it. And now we're like we have the whiteboard up here and it's like how do we get to $5 million a month? And we know that it's just an equation. Men and women lie, numbers don't. So right now we average around 120 leads a week. We know that if we get 333 leads a week, we'll be cruising over $5 million net business every single month. So now that's our number one goal is more knockers, more leads and get to 5 million a month.
Ty Cobb Backer:How many doors is that a month that somebody actually has to knock to get 320 leads?
Shai Ades:So it would be somewhere around.
Ty Cobb Backer:Would you say that's 10%, like, like, is it?
Shai Ades:So the average door knocker is going to knock 200 doors a day and they're going to come back with two to three leads, right so you got to multiply it by three, yeah, so if we want it. If that's that's 1300 leads a month that we want. So we need to knock closer to 3,600 doors to get to 1,300.
Ty Cobb Backer:Right on, right on, and that was just a random question. I was sitting there thinking about it because I kind of know that from just our experience too. I've been doing this a long time myself. But I love the topic on culture and getting the team engaged and swag. I mean we are a huge swag company. Every event that we host, we have plenty of swag there and we get involved with our community on a lot of different levels Fundraising, we create our own events, we help other companies with their events, we win awards for, you know, our charitable events.
Ty Cobb Backer:Not that we set out to do that, and I was kind of the company that didn't reverse, reverse engineer. It was kind of like I don't know three, four or five years into it was kind of like, all right, what culture are we? You know what I mean and and, but but I I envy you in terms of you know, being able to set out and know what your goal was and vetting those people. So my question, going back to how walk us through, how do you find these people? And then what is your vetting process to make sure that you're bringing the right people on the team to not ruin the culture?
Shai Ades:Yeah, and I'll tell you real quick before that. Why the culture is so important, that you have a congruent team, is because of things like bonuses. Right, if you have a bunch of 18 year olds and a bunch of 60 year olds and you say the bonus this month is to go to a concert, you know, like I don't know, they all go to a concert. Like the 18 year olds want to go to the concert, the six year old doesn't want to do that, so it doesn't align for him. So if you have all this group and they like the same stuff, then the bonuses and everything works for them as well. Right, but we do. Indeed, that's where most of our people come from right now, and we spend a lot of time writing those ads because, if you go on, indeed right now, every single company's ad looks identical. The only thing that's different is the company name. So ours talks a lot more about the culture, and my business partner is a guru on chat GBT and he writes prompts and we talk about the pain points that the people we're looking for would have not belonging to a company, not making enough money, not finding success quickly and then we put the 50 traits that we want to find and then we write ads that way. So once we do have Indeed, we have a woman that does Zoom interviews for us and she's the first screening and then after that they come in for in-person interviews and Tyler will interview and I will interview sometimes, and then we'll set up another interview for the other person. So they have to go through three interviews to go through it. And that's for our salesmen, our door knockers. They go through a Zoom interview, they do an in-person interview and then we actually make them go to work for a day.
Shai Ades:Because what we found is, when people are interviewing even though, like I tell you how hard the job is and you're going to get rejected and kicked in the face all day long when people are in interview mode, all they want to do is get the job. They don't even know what they're saying yes to. They're like yes, yes. And then you put them through two days of training, paid training, right Cause we're in California, it's W2. I can't 10 99 them. Then they go out to a day in the field. They're like Holy shit, this is hard, I quit. So now we reverse engineered, we flip the script. We're like go see how hard it is. If you still want to do it, then we're going to train you and the door knocking. Training is quick. It's two days, four hours each day in the classroom, teaching you how to identify damage, how our pitch and how to give some rebuttals to objections. And then it's shadowing in the field. You know I'm going to walk with you, listen to what you say.
Ty Cobb Backer:Then you're going to walk to me, listen to what I say, and then we train them every day for 30 minutes wow, no, this is great, this is all good stuff, such great information and that you're freely open to sharing those things with us. Yeah, so, and I love how you do the interviewing process. We do the same thing too, because you figure, if they make it to the third one, it's usually, you know, because that that's one way to to kind of sift s sift them now, because most people show up to the zoom meeting call Cause we'll do a group call and I'm imagining that's why, probably what you guys do you'll get you know three, four, five, six, sometimes 10 people on the zoom call that applied for the ad and then set up a second one. Some start to drop off and then, by the third interview, more start to drop off by that time because they got to put in the work right, they got to put in the time, they got to put into work and right away it's an opportunity for you to see.
Shai Ades:Can this guy show up three times on time?
Ty Cobb Backer:Yes, right, exactly, I think we froze a little bit here I think we're there, we go there you are yeah, yeah so I was saying it's an opportunity, they can show up on time yeah, exactly so I love that piece.
Ty Cobb Backer:You know, basically, hire slow, let go quickly. So let's talk about, like the the letting go process, like after you've realized that you you've done everything, because I'm a firm believer that you know if you're pointing a finger, you got three pointing back at you and our team knows like we need to pour into this person because some people, like you said, might take two weeks, some people might take four weeks. It doesn't mean they're going to be a bad salesperson, but if they're not meeting us halfway, you know when, how do you determine, like if they're not meeting us halfway?
Shai Ades:they're not going to cut it. How do you determine that? And then, what's your process of letting them go? So everybody knows, after three months on the team, if you don't hit 50 K in sales, you're fired. So I'm not firing you, you're firing yourself.
Ty Cobb Backer:So you're setting that expectation up front. 50.
Shai Ades:K, you don't hit that. Thanks for playing. We give them one week to self-generate, a sale of $10,000 or more if they really want to keep the job, but usually once they've gone three months without hitting 50K, they're gone. Canvassers, on the other hand and this is also depending on attitude and if they're not putting in the work, there's times where we let go day four, like I asked you to do homework, you didn't do it. I asked you to do homework again, you didn't do it. I asked you to come 30 minutes early for some training, you didn't do it. Dude, we're just not a good fit for each other. Get out, right. And there's the people that are really trying, really trying, really trying and just not hitting it. So we have minimal acceptable performance, which is four demos a week, right? If you don't hit four demos a week, we're going to talk about it next week. If you don't hit four demos a week, we're going to talk about it. See what's going on. You'll be suspended for two days. You come back from that and you don't hit four demos a week, again, we're going to part as friends, right?
Shai Ades:Um, there has to be like a matrix and KPIs that people know, because if not. Then it becomes too emotional, like well, this person didn't hit it and you kept them on and because what I'm Brown, you didn't, you know, like whatever it might be. So it's just gotta be like men and women lie, numbers don't. And I really try to run, uh the business on numbers. A lot of times when we look at sales stats you know you have all their information in the names. I put a piece of paper across the names and I just look at numbers and then, after I'm done looking at the numbers, then I'll look at the names, right, so that there's no emotion tied to it.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, no, that's great, that's a great idea. That is actually an amazing idea. No, I love that, I love, I love that. So let's change gears here a little bit. Let's talk about you personally, and so you know, you've been in the industry for 16, 17 years now, or in the sales industry space. I guess what has been some of the biggest hurdles that you've had to go through to get where you're at today and this can be like a timeline, like the first hurdle was this I had to get through that and into where you're at now, Like what's your biggest struggle today? So give us, give us that timeline.
Shai Ades:So I mean, my first hurdle was my first 30 days in the industry. I showed up, like I said, craigslist ad home improvement company, looked at the sales board. I'm like man, this is a cool job. Prior to that I was in an office banging out cold calls for software. You know I would have hung myself from the? Uh the phone a couple more days there, um, and the first 30 days, uh, I went through training. Back then it was a one week training. I actually ran a lead the first. I trained Monday through Friday. I ran a lead that Friday Um, cause I just took it so professionally.
Shai Ades:I sold my second day for $17,000 to a woman in Long Beach, california. She canceled Boom. She went to church that night, told them that she got a coding system on her house for $17,000. The church canceled the job. The next day there was people from her church painting her house for free. And then it took me a month to sell again and that was a really long month because I always say salesmen without sales are just men, right, and when you're doing a sales job you need to be selling.
Shai Ades:And it was Tracy, my wife. We've been together 16 years. She was with me at the time she just got to keep going, keep going, I'm like I'm going to quit. She's like, keep going, I'm going to quit, keep going. And it was like I would believe the homeowners you know it made sense. Like the homeowners would tell you we're not really in the in the market right now. You just knocked on my door yesterday. I'm like that makes sense. No sale, or we need to think about it, or we need to get other bids.
Shai Ades:And then day 30, it just clicked and I sold. And then I sold day 31 and day 32 and day 34 and day 36. And then it was off to the races. And then it was off to the races. But it was that self-belief in the system, because everyone goes through the same process. One, they got to believe it's possible. Then they got to believe it's possible for them. So, yes, I work at the company. I see other people making sales, cool, well, can I make the sales?
Shai Ades:So that was like my biggest hurdle, number one. Number two was I stayed at the first company for too long. It was an owner that cut people's commissions too much. He was an alcoholic. He was nice during the day, horrible to work for at night and I just believed that this was the only place that it happens. I was so narrow-minded so it took me three years to leave. And then I'm like, oh my God, god, there's a hundred home improvement companies that do what we do. Right? And my next biggest hurdle was having a toxic business partner. Um, and you know, he was a lot wealthier than I was and you know I was. Everything was in my name, I was the worker bee and he was just the owner, even though we were both owners, and I stayed in that toxic relationship for too long.
Shai Ades:And now my biggest hurdle is really just, I know what needs to get done and getting it done faster. Right, I know what we need to do to get to $5 million a month. And it's just, things don't happen as fast as you want, and I think that happens for all business owners, and that's why a lot of people fail for a lack of patience and persistence. Right, won't call close Academy. I have a Facebook group called won't call close Academy. It only has 1200, 1300 followers and it's exhausting to post every day and not get the likes and not get you know, because you see, we're in a social media world where these kids have a million followers. It's like, why doesn't won Call Close Academy have a million followers? But I talk to people like yourself and other people that are doing it and just keep going, just keep going and one day it'll pay off. One day it'll pay off, I'll tell you. The first hundred took a lot longer than the first thousand, you know, and it's just now going to be compound effect. And getting on your first podcast A year and a half ago was my first podcast, and then this is my third one this month.
Shai Ades:The persistence is something that I think people have a hard time with everything. It's why I don't have a six pack. I go to the gym for a day. I look in the mirror. I don't see any results. Gym doesn't fucking work. Everyone's lying. You got to go for months. You got to watch what you eat Like. There's so much that goes with it and that's why one I think another thing that attributes to our success is we just don't train sales.
Shai Ades:We train a lot of mindset. We make our reps journal right. That's why I like my new book, the five minute Journal. It's like 300, some pages, but the book is only 68 pages and the rest of it's all journal. It's all journal journal journal, journal for door knockers. It's got a daily journal, a weekly journal, a monthly journal. Because I don't think adult men and women spend enough time writing down their ideas and a goal or a thought that's not written down as a fleeting moment. And if you're really gonna commit to something you gotta write it down. And that's also why a lot of people fail is they don't have a strong enough why. Or they think, oh why, because I want a Bentley but you didn't write it down so you didn't really commit to it. So you're not really working every day, especially on the days you don't feel like doing it, because everyone's got the days they don't feel like doing it. But if your why is strong enough, you're going to get up and do it even the time you don't want to do it.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, amen to that. Yeah, delayed gratification I think we've become such an instant gratification world. You know, even myself, you know, in in just with the little bit of followers that I have I mean, that's taken years to get. Just I think I might have 6,500 personally. I don't even know what our company has like all together is probably 12 to 15,000 followers, right, and and what's sad about that is that you know, once you've identified, there's more people watching you than than you think, just because they're not following you doesn't mean they haven't seen your content. And, honestly, I think some of these people that have a million followers, I think they bought them 100 percent.
Shai Ades:Yeah, people that just relate to the space and that's what other people tell me. It's like I'd rather have 1500 followers that actually follow me and do what I like and get advice from me than a million, and you know, half of them are in Asia that aren't even real. Like I actually want to have influence on the people. I mean testament to you. You're on episode 285, right, every single week, you told me you haven't missed a single week. That's exhausting. There's times when you're probably man. Should we keep doing it? Should we not keep doing it? You know, like, but here you are at 285 and in a hundred episodes you'll be at 385.
Ty Cobb Backer:Like you know, yeah, yeah, it is exhausting, you're right, and it's just you gotta be, you gotta stay consistent with it and it's gotten easier over time and, like you said, it's it's been so beneficial because I'm getting better, I'm getting better at speaking, I'm I'm creating and galvanizing relationships with people that have come on that I've never met before, but because of social commerce, right, I've got to meet you. Um, you know, and like you you were talking about earlier, I think, uh, how how did you say it? Like the I always your network is your net worth right and you, you called it something else relationship capital right.
Ty Cobb Backer:That's what you know. It's not just about the views or the followers. It's the relationships that I've been able to galvanize over the years of doing this is what has made me more wealthier, not in terms of monetarily, but but knowledge, and and you know those relationships that have turned me on to other products or people that have helped us in situations where I need Just. The list is endless of what you know social media.
Shai Ades:How many people can you call right now? Hey, I'm in this situation, what should I do? And people that have done it and are successful, like there's so much to do it. And that's also another reason why title has grown so fast, because it's I've been doing it for so long. I already knew the suppliers. People already knew who I was. It was easy. Versus if you're brand new, how long does it take you to open an account at abc?
Ty Cobb Backer:you know I did it in a day, like so stuff like that changes too, for sure, because of your relationships, your past relationships with people too, you know I, I a hundred percent agree with you. Now, what, what would you say? Cause you know having a book you know called, uh, you know, uh, one call close what, what, what do you think the biggest misconception of that? Because somebody might look at that and hear that and say, oh God, that's grimy, but like what, what, what's the biggest misconception?
Shai Ades:Just, that, just that that people are grimy, right? Um, we are very ethical in what we do and I teach people you know how. To close with the definition really of the sale. I teach it's an emotional sale supported by logic. There's nothing logical about doing business with a door knocker. There's nothing logical about signing a contract with the first bid. Everyone's responsible and wants to get three bids Right. But when you teach people how to actually do it, it changes companies. So I think that the people think it's sleazy salesmanship right, kind of like the car salesman. But you read the book and you'll be surprised.
Ty Cobb Backer:But just salesperson in general gets a bad rap just because of the word sales in front of person, you know, and we don't go ahead.
Shai Ades:I'm sorry, it's not even a word used today and I wrote about it in the book back in the day. Our grandparents they were. They were salesmen. They wore suits and Cadillacs and it was a thing of pride. And you go on Indeed Today and companies are looking for business development reps and you buy your Apple computer from a genius, not a salesman. They're called genius. And you go to Lululemon and they're called facilitators or educators or something like that. Right, every single job that is a sales position. They don't even use the word sales position anymore because it's so frowned upon.
Ty Cobb Backer:For sure, for sure. No, I agree, we talked about that last week and I should have looked it up between last week and this week. But the word sales itself I don't know if it's old English or old Spanish, I believe it actually means help. You know, to help someone, not to necessarily sell something to somebody. And I think the world has become so uneducated, even though we're in the most educated world. You know that. You know the knowledge is so readily available to us. I think we've become so narrow minded and have been burnt so many times by used car salespeople. People are afraid to use the word sales.
Ty Cobb Backer:But when you can, you know, and this is the thing that I think you've mastered the most, and I don't think you can find this in any book, you know you get books on sales, you get books on business, you get books on business, you get books on leadership, but nobody talks about velocity. Okay, and what can keep a business sustainable is the velocity in which it moves. Okay, and with that reoccurring revenue. You know, because a lot of it's like and I think that's where a lot of business centers get hemmed up and you do a lot. So do we?
Ty Cobb Backer:We, we do roofing, siding wood has got her solar right and we did we still do landscaping. Now we kind of morphed it all into one business and and and, and I even contemplated times like you know, decks and pulling permits and doing all these things, man, like there's no velocity to it unless you are doing some form of volume with it. You know what I mean, where you're selling 12 decks a week and you got that monetary volume clicking. But I love how you've mastered, you know, velocity, which to me one call close or manager or sales manager or whatever. Listening to this right now, this is very important. The velocity in which you close the sale right and the velocity in which you get it on the schedule, the velocity in which you move to keep the homeowner happy, get the job completed on time and then get paid. That's what's going to sustain it and keep your business relevant.
Shai Ades:And pay your rep, don't forget the rep, right, like, that's so important for these guys too and that's what keeps them going too. And the other thing like you said, you do a bunch of products. I do a bunch of products. Like, the average homeowner buys two and a half products from us, right? I teach our guys to only sell one product at a time because you don't want to overwhelm the homeowner.
Shai Ades:It's easier to make a buying decision at 25 K than 60 K. There's less buyer's remorse. But three days later, once we start tearing off your roof, like, believe me, we're going back to sell you insulation. We're going back to sell you gutters. We're going back to sell you paint for the facial boards we just replaced. So anyone listening that's not doing complimentary projects or products, like, if you're selling roofing and you're not doing attic insulation and gutters, you're leaving money on the table. Right. If you're selling paint and you're not doing the patio cover, like, instead of painting the patio cover, sell them a replacement patio cover. Right.
Shai Ades:If you're doing like and it all rolls one into the other, and if you find a customer that likes you and trusts you, they want to and they're also excited because a lot of times, especially with the door knocking, we're taking people that are not in a home improvement state of mind and putting them in a home improvement state of mind and there's a lot of excitement and emotion that goes into it and one project rolls into the next. When you buy a new car, you tint the windows and you add sound. When the car's old, you don't do anything to it. You think about getting rid of it. So it's like, how quickly can you capitalize on this emotion? And I tell people you need to go, capitalize on the emotion and we call it a reload, reload more projects before the bill comes, because once the bill comes the emotion's gone.
Shai Ades:Now it's this bill, right? So we sell a lot of projects in a week, two weeks, to the homeowner and it comes down to making sure your salesmen are going and visiting their customer. How often does the guy that signed the contract go visit their job? Never, they're on to the next one. But you've got to build that relationship. And then we teach our salesmen how to knock on the neighbor's doors and make sure the neighbors want to keep up with the Joneses, right? And then it just builds and builds, and builds and we pay them more money. We pay 20% of profit share to our sales reps for leads that we give them. If they generate the lead themselves, we pay them 35%. We almost double their commission to incentivize them to knock doors and ask for referrals on their free time.
Ty Cobb Backer:I'm thinking of LTV, you know, lifetime value, you know, and reoccurring, reoccurring clients, because that's one of our biggest. You know, we I call it a three-legged stool. We have a couple of three-legged stools, but one of them is is repeat customer referrals and shit. What's the other one, review, we, we, we ask for reviews and stuff like that. So I, yeah, so I don't know if I've ever thought about sending the guys back out during the project and, you know, bringing things to the homeowner's attention, like, hey, you know why we're here, we can do this and do that, I mean, I think Hi, I feel like I'm so sorry.
Shai Ades:I can't. I was so focused on your roof that.
Shai Ades:I didn't notice the peeling, chipping and cracking on your siding. I didn't notice this. I'm so sorry. Let me go outside and show you something. And then you walk out with a sale and then the other one is take that homeowner. Do you know the neighbor? Awesome, ty, can you do me a favor? Will you just introduce me to the neighbor?
Shai Ades:Now you're not even cold and door knocking anymore. You're having John go take you to Dave's house. All he has to say is hey Dave, this is shy. He's the guy that's doing our roof. Hey, dave, how are you doing? I'll take it from there. Who came first, you or John? Oh, we've been here before. Then how old's your roof? You know I'm going to be here all week. How about I just hop up there, give you a free inspection, no obligation? Next thing, you know there's your sale and then you're selling him insulation and then gutters. And, by the way, who do you know? Because we also give our customers $500 referral credits, right, yeah, you want me to pay for the deposit, or do you want to pay for the deposit? If you want me to pay the deposit, give me two referrals that buy from me. We'll waive the thousand bucks. I'll give you a thousand bucks, awesome. So it's all these little things that we teach our reps that keep the momentum going.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's all about velocity and the momentum, man, and when you got the momentum you got to keep it going too. Great, great, great, great. So before we get off here, let's dip into a little bit on the personal side here. What keeps you motivated, both professionally and personally?
Shai Ades:So I have huge goals right. I have an incredible wife, love of my life. I have three beautiful daughters and I just want to give them a life that you know we all dream of. We travel a ton, so we love to travel. That's big for us. We're about to build our house. We've been in the city for over three years to build our house.
Shai Ades:The girls like what my girls think is normal and what I grew up with was normal. You know, eating out five nights a week is normal to these girls. To me, eating out was a special occasion right Going to New York for Thanksgiving, going to Mexico, going to Tulum, going, you know, to Italy, going here, going there To them. They really treasure it and they remember this and the culture they're getting is amazing. My parents traveled with us a lot and one of the things that Tracy, my wife and I said when we had kids is we're never going to let our kids stop us from traveling. We're just going to travel with our kids. And I really like nice things too. I like nice cars and I want a yacht and we want houses. And my wife wants to do a month in Spain and a month in Italy, and you know I want to be able to give them all these things. And then the other thing that keeps me going is the reward I get from watching my reps.
Shai Ades:You know, tyler, my business partner at Tidal, used to be a manager for me. He was a sales rep for me first, then he was a manager for me and then we did this together. He bought his first house because of what we did together. I have sales reps that bought their first house together. I have sales reps that move out of living with their parents to renting their houses. I have multiple reps right now that are getting pre-approved to buy their first home. I have reps that were driving, you know, hoopties, that are driving BMWs and Mercedes right Like, and that to me, sometimes that's a more of a win for me than my paycheck right Is watching other people level up.
Shai Ades:When I started One Call Clothes Academy, you know you think of what are your core values and what's your motto and everything I came up with, you know, with empowering ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results, and that's what I want to do. I just want people to achieve extraordinary results and to me it's just a little feather in my hat and it's a win, and your wins become my wins, and that also creates a stronger bond and relationship. I have people that have worked for me that have their own companies now and, yeah, they compete with me, but I don't look at it as competition because I think there's enough sunshine for everyone. And every now and then you get these text messages like thank you so much, I wouldn't be where I'm at without you, and like to them that's a simple text, to me that's like dude, that's, that's a heart stopper, you know, and that's what keeps me motivated every single day. And my three little girls I mean, they are my world.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, amazing, amazing, great order. I love the order that you put them in. You know, and you should be family first, but the impact that you're having on on your team and your local community is definitely, you know, great, great motivators and and watching. You know, and and I've said it before we've had people come, a lot of people stay, um, but unfortunately, or fortunately, we have people go and, and most recently I just experienced somebody now it wasn't a text message, but it was a comment on a post on Tik TOK that you know, a guy that used to work for us had made a really nice comment in in the in the post, and and I just they kind of just you know, and this is the strange thing about legacy is is that that's a part of your legacy, whether they want to admit it or not, it's because of the tools and resources that you educated them on right. They've been able to apply that into their own lives and create their own businesses, and the only thing that we can hope for is is that they impact. Hopefully, they make a hundred million dollars and can impact another hundred million people. You know, with the tools and resources that you've, you've given them Right and that's.
Ty Cobb Backer:That's the thing about leadership. Like we, we can't, we won't be able to take credit for everything, but but to watch other people groom, you know, to groom them and watch them grow to me that's probably definitely up on the top five of my highly motivators. Of course, number one is my family and watching them grow and and and and, blossom and flourish and help them achieve their goals and their dreams and give them the life that you know, we, that we want. And I say we emphasize that because it is without them I'm nothing. And what I can't do alone, we can do together. And and when I say that I'm, I'm thinking of my family, and then, of course, my work family too. So great, great, fricking episode, man, like you crushed it and and thank you, we're just about out of one hour.
Shai Ades:That was incredible. Thank you so much.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, no, this was good, Thank you. So you know that's a wrap for today's episode of Behind the Tool Belt. Huge thanks to Shai for dropping some serious knowledge on what it really takes to close deals with confidence and integrity. If you're in the field, in the home, or just looking to level up your sales game, make sure you check out the One Call Close Academy. Grab his books, follow him on social. This guy's the real deal. If you guys got value from today's episode, do us a favor like, share, subscribe, whatever to anybody that you feel might get something out of this. Leave us a review until next time. Keep grinding, keep building and we'll catch you on the next episode.
