STG - Sales Transformation Group

I help contractors build a predictable sales model - How? Why? Here’s my story

Thanks for visiting this post! If you’re here reading this now, you might be in a situation as an owner or a sales leader of a company where you are looking for ways to survive and thrive. You see, the problem that I see most in the contracting business is the degree of energy that they’re spending on so many different opportunities and ideas that come their way. This leads to multiple arrows going in different directions, which leads to a lack of consistency. This lack of consistency is what sabotages many companies from building an organization that they can leave and go on vacation without it falling completely apart. It also creates this tension between generations where the business isn’t really a business at all, but a burden that most children want to run away from because of the lifestyle that it created in their home. This is a problem, a huge one at that!

You see, I was involved in my own family business with my parents early on in my life and I saw the challenges that it created. The dinner table was full of plans and specs, paperwork everywhere, pressure on my parent’s marriage, it was controlled chaos. Although they had cast a vision of me one day taking over the company, I wanted to leave and create my own path because I thought the contracting business was a disaster that I didn’t want to be part of. Looking back, it’s as if owning a contracting business was “a blessing and a curse” and it was more like a high paying job, not a really company that could survive without them. So, I decided to create my own path and pursue a career in baseball. I went on to play collegiate baseball at Florida Atlantic University, then a stop a Florida Junior College, then finally landed at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK. I worked diligently and received scholarships, got drafted twice by professional organizations and eventually signed with the LA Angels and had 2.5 year minor league career. It was awesome, but challenging! I will never forget the emotions that I had getting called up and back down, hitting well and having slumps, it was a wild ride!

When that chapter ended, I decided it was time reinvent myself and decided what was “my next step” and moved back to South Florida to get rooted into a region and stop traveling around on team buses like a nomad. I went back into construction and spent some time with a concrete restoration company as a project manager, but I noticed it wasn’t much of a step up from my parent’s chaotic operation. I didn’t see where I could really grow like I saw my trajectory with baseball, you know like real professional level growth. I still wasn't getting inspired by the level of excellence and professionalism that I knew existed.

I went to work networking and got connected with a great community of people, which led to a friendship with a couple of entrepreneurs. I thought to myself, "if I’m going into business, I’m going to get to the big leagues, no more little league play”! As I continued this approach, I saw was a different caliber of business owners within this network. Eventually, I got connected to one of the top business owners in the South Florida market, a Commercial Roofing Contractor that turned into a 4.5-year chapter where I received very hands on mentor-ship and learned the nuts and bolts, mindset, vision, strategy, structure, systems, and processes of his $50 million per year local contracting sales organization. This contractor created and was living in his own of what I call “Contractor Nirvana”. He had a young, highly motivated sales team that was trained and accountable, he saw a massive boost in closing rates and shortening of selling cycles, his margins got better and he was able to create a model that was scalable. I mean, it was so cool. He created a culture, a leadership team, a playbook, systems and processes, a brand that carried a great reputation. He was able to give to charities and have time to mentor a guy like me, it was like I got a hands on Master's degree in Contracting Sales Organization Design.

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