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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, Brian LoFermento, and we get asked all the time how the heck can I bring someone in to just close more sales for me in my business?
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Because a lot of you sell great services, a lot of you have great products, but you don't know how to close the sale.
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Well, that's why I'm so excited for all of us to learn from today's guest, because this is someone who not only understands sales at a really great level, but someone who understands how to teach and train sales at a level that sets so many people and so many businesses up for success.
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Let me introduce you to today's guest.
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His name is Neil Rumler.
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Neil is a seasoned sales professional with over 10 years of experience in direct-to-consumer sales, which, as someone who's been in the world of entrepreneurship for a long time, I will say that direct to consumer sales might be one of the hardest arenas to sell in.
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Recently, Neil founded his own company, Maverick Marketing, which specializes in upselling within the pest control industry.
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He's doing really cool things with home services companies.
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He started in May of 2024, but they've already generated millions, with a plural S millions of dollars in revenue.
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They provide elite sales talent to home services companies.
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I'm so excited to learn from Neil today so I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Neil Rumler.
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All right, Neil, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first, welcome to the show.
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Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian Heck.
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Yes, I'm excited to hear about not only the things that you do, but how you got there.
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So take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Neil?
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How did you start doing all this cool work?
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Yeah.
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So I grew up in Southern California and needed a summer job and I worked at Disneyland because it was convenient, it was close by.
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I actually was a jungle cruise skipper If you've ever been on that ride told the corny jokes, you know.
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And then at the end of the summer I looked at my total earnings, it was like $4,000.
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And I was like, ah, that was back in 2013.
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So still not a lot of money.
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Back then I said I need to figure something else out.
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I need to make more money.
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And so that's when I got into summer sales.
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So, for those that don't know, summer sales is a program that college students typically do.
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They'll go out and sell pest control alarms, solar Usually those are the top three.
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They'll do it in the summer and they'll make enough money to pay for their tuition so that they don't have to work during the school year while they're going through college.
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So that was the goal.
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It was to work during the summers.
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And then I wanted to become an attorney.
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And then I figured out that, hey, I actually don't like what attorneys do on a day-to-day basis.
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So, long story short, I graduated law school in 2018 and then just got back into sales because it was what I was good at and what I was passionate about.
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Yeah, I love that overview, Neil.
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Not only that you recognize those things, not only that you fine tune and sharpen your skills within the sales world, but take us to that entrepreneurial transition.
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Obviously, what you're doing right now with Maverick Marketing is you're impacting a lot of companies, not just growing your own, but you're servicing so many other home service companies.
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What did that transition look like?
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And the decision point that you actually said I'm going to take action.
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Yeah, so I was running a kind of an upsell program with several pest control companies, several large companies where I was in charge of the, the upsell to current customers.
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So it's like in the pest control space.
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It was like they already had general pest control sale to current customers.
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So it's like in the pest control space, it was like they already had general pest control, meaning just the regular service, but I would send out people to upsell them on termite control and had a lot of success, a lot of success there with those companies.
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But I identified some key inefficiencies and I was like, hey, if I just tweak this here or that there, the production would skyrocket.
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And yeah, ultimately made a decision after realizing that I could do it better.
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I just kind of splintered off and did my own thing.
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It was slow at first.
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First couple of months.
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It took me a while to get my first contract, but now I'm contracted with 10 different pest control companies and, yeah, continuing to grow.
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Yeah, it's very cool to hear about your growth, neil, I want to ask you about the business models and the strategy that really powers this, because you talk about upsells and obviously we've all heard about upsells and we've heard about different pricing models Amazon, for example.
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When they entered the marketplace, they said we're going to have some loss leaders, we're going to take a loss on the front end of sales, knowing that we're going to build an audience of loyal customers, and that became their model.
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How important is the upsell?
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How important is the initial sell?
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Talk to us about where your mind goes with that whole funnel of selling within the home services world.
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So the cost of acquisition is one of the biggest hurdles for growth, especially among smaller companies.
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And it's like what do I do?
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Do I cold call?
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Do I hire a marketing team to have door-to-door guys Because in my space that's primarily how people grow is door-to-door, but it's very expensive and so obviously doing it in-house is cheaper.
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But some people want that steroid shot in the arm, in which case they outsource that.
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So I would say definitely, initially getting the customer.
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That's the but it's.
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It's easier than you might think to sell and upsell to current customers because there's already that rapport there.
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They already trust you.
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Um, and yeah, it's just a, it's just a value proposition that you're presenting to the customer.
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And I would say my secret sauce is I teach guys to sell in a non-confrontational way via questions, whereas most sales they just push a product and they just talk about their features and benefits and at the end of the conversation they're like so what do you think you want to buy it?
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And most people say let me think about it, let me get back to you, whereas, like I, actually, if you've heard of Jeremy Miner, I've used a lot of his tactics.
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In my opinion, he's the best sales trainer out there Definitely rewired my brain on how to sell to consumers in the modern age when everyone's got their guard up.
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It's basically that, if I were to summarize it in a nutshell, my sales strategy it's getting the prospect to sell themselves via questions.
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Yeah, I love that, neil.
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That's a big teaser.
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You're going to have to take us there, because it's easy for us to talk about the things that we shouldn't be doing, and we've all been there.
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Even when you gave that ugly example, I'm like, yep, every single entrepreneur, we've all done that in our own businesses.
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What are those questions look like to lead the customer to essentially convince themselves?
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It sounds like yeah, it all depends on the setting.
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So it depends on if you're selling B2B or B2C.
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There's always going to be some discovery work, a little bit of discovery work.
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If it's versus, if it's a non-customer versus a current customer, that you do some discovery, figure out what their pain point is.
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That's the kind of the main thing you're trying to uncover.
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Once you figure out what the pain point is, then you've got to kind of like this is kind of a gruesome analogy, but twist the knife a little bit where it's like, hey, let's, let's, let's.
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Yeah, I've inflicted some pain, but let's show you how painful it really is, but I'm not going to show you, you're going to show yourself, um.
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And so an example of a question you might ask is uh, consequence questions are very powerful where you would ask something like um.
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Teeing it up, it would sound like, um, so how long has this problem been going on for you?
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And teeing it up, it would sound like so, how long has this problem been going on for you?
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Okay, and what kind of stress is that caused in your work life?
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Okay, and what about your personal life?
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Okay.
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And then what happens if we just, you know, if you just continue the way that things are going.
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What if you just stay the course?
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What if you don't change anything?
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What's going to happen?
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Okay, and then you get them to start thinking and then they start verbalizing of like, oh yeah, this is my problem.
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It's actually causing me a ton of stress, and if I could fix that, that would be amazing, whereas most salespeople are just like oh yeah, well, that problem I could definitely help you out.
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This is why this product will help you out this way, this way, this way, and most entrepreneurs are so excited and so passionate about their product.
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It's like it's like a fire hydrant of information of like, hey, here you go, and then it's like overwhelming, and they just they kind of get paralyzed and they're just like ah, they freak out where it's like, if you do it the right way, prospects will be asking you wait, why didn't I do this sooner?
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Like, why didn't you come?
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I wish you had come to me sooner.
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That's, that's the responses that you'll you'll be getting if you're doing it the right way.
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Yeah, I love that.
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Neil, you feel bad using that twisting of the knife analogy.
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But I'll tell you, when I first learned copywriting, the first formula that I learned was PAS problem, agitate, solve.
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And so the fact that you're bringing them through that it's an important step of it.
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They have to actually feel and remember how bad that pain is.
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So I love how you incorporate that.
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A lot of listeners will hear you.
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They know that we're completely unscripted here on this show and they'll think, neil, you just so effortlessly rattled off those questions as examples.
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How scripted is it?
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Because I would imagine that you can rattle off a lot of questions along the way.
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Are these things that you just have gained through reps Is?
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So in the sales world, I feel like there's this push and pull.
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I'm like oh, do you need to use a script?
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Do you not need to use a script?
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And I am a big proponent of scripts, at least foundationally.
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I think everybody needs a baseline and a foundation of what to say, and the analogy I use there is like think of Hollywood actors.
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The best of the best are reading lines, they're memorizing lines, but the reason they're paid so well is because it doesn't seem like they're reading lines.
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All you need to go, do is go to a community theater and you'll see the contrasts in acting quality.
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And so really good salespeople are using scripts.
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They just don't act or sound like they're using a script.
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And that's where the practice and the talent can come together.
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And that's what I've seen like most of my sales calls and coaching calls with guys believe it or not is just like dude, why are you saying that?
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That is totally random, like that is not in the script, go back to the script.
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And then they go back to the script and they close deals.
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And I can't tell you how many calls I've gotten from guys who say dude, neil, you'll never get it, you'll never guess what happened.
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I did exactly what you said.
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I said the words verbatim in the script and they bought.
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And I'm just like smacking, I'm just like you've got to be kidding me.
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Do I have to say it like 20 to five different times?
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Do I have to jump on one foot while I'm saying this for this to resonate with you?
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So yeah, it's like definitely proponent of scripts and summary, um.
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So yeah, it's like definitely proponent of scripts in summary and um, but for for myself, it's I put in the 10,000 hours.
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So that's how I'm able to, to just rattle stuff off.
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Unscripted is because I've done enough reps that I can think, uh, it may basically shoot from the hip and and think on the fly.
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Yeah, I'm so glad you called that out.
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I always remind listeners it's reps, it's reps, it's reps, and then until we get there having that script to lean on, neil, we're humans.
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We like to complicate things.
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That's why your guys are complicating it, because it seems too easy if they just follow the formula.
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So kudos to you for providing that to them and guiding them there and really hammering home.
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No, this stuff works.
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I really love that.
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I want to ask you about timeline, because that's something that I've been an entrepreneur for 16 plus years now and I always struggle with that question of when do I upsell, neil?
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Is it immediately upon project delivery?
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Is it a week afterwards?
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Is there a soft way to do it, a more effective way to do it?
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on timeline.
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I don't think there's one perfect way to do it.
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I started off in door-to-door sales and so you know an opportunity to upsell in that scenario would be like you sell them general pest control and then at the very end, once you've already finished paperwork.
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Occasionally, you know, I would say, oh, and, by the way, you know your neighbors were saying that they get really bad mosquitoes here because you backed up to a lake.
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Is that any interest to you at all, whatsoever?
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And then they would be like, oh, actually I've been looking for a mosquito.
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So in scenarios like that, yeah, you can upsell at the point of sale, right after you've closed them, and some people would argue that that's the easiest time to sell them once they've already agreed to something.
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But for my business model now currently, because I'm selling a higher ticket item in the $2,000, $3,000 range, I found it helps to season the customer a little bit.
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The earliest I recommend going to upsell them a higher ticket item is about two months.
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That case, in that scenario, they've received two services.
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That's the bare bones minimum.
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Now I will say like I've also had the experience of upselling to customers who've been loyal customers for multiple years three plus years.
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Those were some of the easiest sales where they weren't even questioning my findings because the trust and rapport was already established and well established at that point.
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So I think it depends you can.
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You can be successful doing it at a variety of points, but don't overwhelm the customer.
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Like they'll be very skeptical if you sell them a $500 item and then you turn around next week and you're trying to sell them $10,000 product.
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That's where you're going to start running into issues.
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Um, but if it's similar in price, you could do it at the point of sale.
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Um, it's a little bit higher.
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I would say, wait a little bit and season them.
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Yeah, it's really cool to hear about your thought process there and the considerations that you enter into the mix, because we all have to extrapolate that for our own businesses, our own industries.
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Neil, a lot of companies probably haven't experienced the joy, the effectiveness, the ROI, of bringing in external sales talent into functioning within their own business.
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Talk to listeners about that model, because I love the fact that you've recognized you've done this for other companies.
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Why not supply talent to other companies to do it for them?
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It's a different type of model than what a lot of entrepreneurs entertain, but it's super effective, because that's probably the thing most entrepreneurs complain about is sales.
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Why not have people who love sales do the selling for them?
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Give us an overview of that model and how it works.
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Yeah.
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So I experimented with price points in the beginning to see kind of what was a win-win and I came up with a pretty, pretty awesome proposition.
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And it's not hard to close the owners, um, for the most part.
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The thing that's hard about it is if they're too old and set in their ways.
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They just see my price, um, as they're like, oh, that's way too high.
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I would never consider doing that.
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It's just because they're used to doing it one way.
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So it's kind of falls in that category of can't teach an old dog new tricks.
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But if they're a little bit younger, they're all about it.
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They're super excited, maybe a little bit skeptical in the beginning, but once they see the revenue coming in, it's cash flow positive for them, so it's profitable.
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The revenue that I bring in is profitable day one and so that excites them and it's a steroid shot in the arm, like I said.
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It's like you bring in these sales mercenaries, guys that have been seasoned via door-to-door sales five, six years experience.
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They're the best of the best.
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It doesn't get harder than being able to brave those conditions for multiple years in the hot sun.
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A lot of these guys are on foot getting rejected hundreds of times a day.
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So when you give them a warm lead, that's a layup for a guy with that kind of a background.
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And that's why the success is so immediate is because they're used to cold calling.
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That's all they do at least with me, that's like all they do.
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And so they get into a setting with a warm lead and they're like it's like a godsend.
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They're so grateful, they treat it with respect.
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They're not going to be complaining about leads like oh, this is a terrible lead.
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It's like, oh, this is a terrible lead.
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It's like no, they're grateful that it's a lead to period and so, yeah, I mean that's that's why it's a wins, because it also it brings in the revenue.
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But number two, it kind of like levels up the organization in terms of what is possible, like in their minds, the numbers that I say on a sales call, even though I'm showing them screenshots to back up what I'm saying, a lot of times they don't believe it until that revenue hits their bank account.
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And it's funny because they're like are you sure you're going to be able to get those prices?
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Like it's a really competitive market and then I'll send the guys in and they'll deliver.
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And it's kind of like the four minute mile.
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If you know who Roger Bannister is, everyone said, oh, it's humanly impossible.
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Like you will die.
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The human body is not capable of running a sub four minute mile.
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And then he was the first to do it.
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And then, lo and behold, 15 other people I can't remember the exact number broke the four minute mile barrier later that year.
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And that's kind of what happens when I inject my salespeople into an organization.
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They're like, oh wow, well, if they're doing that, I should be able to do at least half of that production.
00:16:16.423 --> 00:16:20.000
And so it's like even if you don't use us forever, it's going to.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.067
There's going to be that intangible benefit long-term.
00:16:22.774 --> 00:16:25.260
Yeah, I love that analogy of Roger Bannister.
00:16:25.260 --> 00:16:34.333
That is so influential because it opens the door to possibilities which, neil, we're going to get into your entrepreneurial mind in just a little bit as well, because I know there's a little bit of rebellion there.
00:16:34.333 --> 00:16:37.623
We're going to throw some shade at traditional education and the costs involved.
00:16:37.623 --> 00:16:43.635
But before we get there, it's really cool hearing about this, especially you and I talked off air before we hit record about.
00:16:43.635 --> 00:16:44.778
You found your niche.
00:16:44.778 --> 00:16:46.561
You understand the home services industry.
00:16:46.561 --> 00:16:47.803
You know that you can help them there.
00:16:47.803 --> 00:16:49.908
What's that onboarding look like?
00:16:49.908 --> 00:16:50.808
Is it essentially?
00:16:50.808 --> 00:16:54.980
You know, we have that old cliche in the world of sales is someone can sell ice to an Eskimo?
00:16:54.980 --> 00:16:58.823
It doesn't matter what they're selling, the fundamentals, the principles are the same.
00:16:58.823 --> 00:17:04.665
Is there extensive onboarding for these sales guys to get to know the companies that they're selling for?
00:17:04.665 --> 00:17:05.728
What does that look like?
00:17:06.734 --> 00:17:09.144
So right now we're just in the pest control space.
00:17:09.144 --> 00:17:17.082
So it's super streamlined, like literally I just need a customer list and then I have people that call and set up the leads and then the closers go out.
00:17:17.082 --> 00:17:23.161
So the company literally only has to worry about the service side of the installation of what we're selling.
00:17:23.161 --> 00:17:37.161
If it was a new industry though for example HVAC or roofing, something like that, where I'm not super well-versed in that product, yeah, it would be some product education time that would need to be spent on educating me and the closers on the product.
00:17:37.275 --> 00:17:45.765
But you're correct in the sense that sales is sales at the end of the day, once you have that product knowledge, you can apply these principles to any product and sell it.
00:17:45.765 --> 00:17:48.683
That's why you see guys that are in door-to-door.
00:17:48.683 --> 00:17:58.287
A lot of them transition into tech sales and really are successful there just because they have that foundation where a lot of sales is just straight mental.
00:17:58.287 --> 00:18:26.431
It's like it's you versus you, and so if you've already established and won that mental battle so many times, when you go into a different industry and it's a different product, like it's so easy to to onboard because you have that foundation and you're just basically calloused, like, imagine, like the you know, kicking your leg against a wooden post, and then you upgrade to like a metal frame to callous your bone, your shin bone, so you don't break your leg when you kick.
00:18:26.431 --> 00:18:29.344
That's what door-to-door does to you in a figurative sense.
00:18:30.075 --> 00:18:31.157
Yeah, for sure, Neil.
00:18:31.157 --> 00:18:46.665
Hearing the scope of the work that you do, it's fun for me to envision what your responsibilities and your role is since you've started your company, because I imagine part of it is finding that sales talent, onboarding and training that sales talent, but also, of course, managing the client side of the world.
00:18:46.665 --> 00:18:51.785
And then, of course, behind all of this is managing your own business as you've continued to grow.
00:18:51.785 --> 00:18:53.749
What does that role look like?
00:18:57.055 --> 00:18:58.734
no-transcript.
00:18:58.734 --> 00:19:08.155
Yeah, so in the beginning I was doing a lot of it, but then one thing that I saw other people fail at, uh, as entrepreneurs, was the inability to delegate.
