Angel Sandoval on a Couple of Pointers
SUMMARY
What counsel did Angel Sandoval provide as a sales trainer, and how has that counsel evolved since he took over Day Porter?
Previously, Angel Sandoval, a sales trainer, would advise working hard and acquiring the most opportunities with the least amount of effort possible, but today he would suggest working smart and concentrating on raising conversion rates rather than just increasing activity.
The finest lead creation tool for Day Porter's inbound commercial cleaner leads is...
A podcast is the ideal lead creation tool for Day Porter's incoming clients who are commercial cleaners.
Main question: How can cold calling be successful?
In order to be successful while cold calling, it's critical to comprehend the person's viewpoint, have a student-like attitude, build your brand, conduct marketing research and insight, set up an appointment, qualify leads, and improve the other person's day while on the phone.
Main question: When attempting to get through a gate, how may one create a favorable impression on the gatekeeper?
It's a smart move to acknowledge the gatekeeper's function and be pleasant in order to make them feel good.
TRANSCRIPT
Ricky Pearl: So we here today with a couple of pointers podcast. We're lucky enough to have Angel Sandoval on with us Angel, welcome to the show.
Angel Sandoval: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me excited to drop some nuggets.
Explain it like I'm 5 - what do you do?
Ricky Pearl: Well, we want to hear them. So for the sake of the audience, explain it like we're five, what do you do?
Angel Sandoval: I find gold man in rivers. I'm just kidding no, but what that is is I basic, we basically prospect for commercial cleaners. That's what our bread and butter is so, email, LinkedIn, cold call. Anything to be able to get what you would consider a, walkthrough, which would be, imagine like a demo, right?
If we're talking tech, but this is an, a visit in person looking at the building and
Ricky Pearl: Right. I love that because everyone's talking tech sales. I'm a big fan of old school business, service businesses, classic MSP and how that translates to tech sales and how tech sales translates back to that.
So how did you get into selling for commercial cleaners?
Ricky Pearl: So how did you get into this?
Angel Sandoval: Yeah, man. I mean, I've done tech sales. I've been in SaaS but the way I got into this is basically with my business partner, James Harper , he used to be his sales coach and then he got me out of tech and SaaS to join his sales agency. And then we had a couple of commercial cleaners within the, within our, our clients. And then basically we just fell in love with the space, man. So now we have the Profitable Cleaner Podcast we've been doing it for 18 months. We own the best domains you can think of in the space, cuz we're bringing basically what we know in tech and SaaS. And we're just bringing it into commercial cleaning.
What's something that used to work that just isn't working for you right now?
Ricky Pearl: I absolutely love that. So on that, what's something that used to work that just isn't working for you right now?
Angel Sandoval: Something that used to work that doesn't work. I think it depends on like the industry. I'm gonna try to stick as much as I can to like tech and SaaS cuz I know that's who like
Ricky Pearl: You do you.
Angel Sandoval: Sounds good. Sounds good. For me, what used to work that doesn't work anymore again, and this is gonna be fully my opinion. I'm not a big fan of it. I don't like tentative schedules. What do I mean by that? Or like tentative booking. I hear that when I hear life cold calling and tech so much, a lot of people are like, "Hey, why don't we put a placeholder for 1:00 PM in seven days?" I, I, I personally do not like when people do that, because that's why your show rate is like 40%, 50%.
Our show rate with our team is 90%, but that's because I would rather not book it. Then get a kind of maybe possible opportunity. So personally, what doesn't work versus what works is a tentative appointment date versus an actual solid opportunity.
Ricky Pearl: And I could completely see that, right? The tentative ways, just trying to get a foot in the door, but they were deliberately keeping that door shut for a reason. So unless you crush the reason and make it worth their while, and them want to meet you, you always fighting an uphill battle there.
Angel Sandoval: And I think it's also like a lie. I mean, let's be honest. I don't like when you hit the gong and we hear the recording and it's like, eh, like, was the, did the prospect actually want this? Did the prospect actually was even intrigued? Or was this just you using it for your own ego just to hit your numbers?
Ricky Pearl: In our world, a gong is a meeting set. Meeting booked is as, yeah, it's vapid. It doesn't exist until they're in the meeting.
Angel Sandoval: Exactly. Exactly. So don't do the whole, like I've even seen live where they're like, well, I got kind of like half a meeting. It's say what? It's a tentative accepted date. It's like, no, if you didn't get 'em to solidify the meeting, it's probably because they're not truly interested or you didn't do good.
So might as well nurture it through email, send something of value and then call back in then solidify the appointment. So that's what I would say.
What was the advice that you used to give four years ago, that was a core piece of advice that you still give until now that you're in Day Porter?
Ricky Pearl: Brilliant. Now you were a sales trainer originally with James and now you've transitioned that into running Day Porter. I assume sales training is still a large part of your job. What was the advice that you used to give three, four years ago, that was a core piece of advice? And now that you've matured in the role a little bit what's is it still the same advice you're giving?
Angel Sandoval: Beautiful question. Um, and yes, I still do some, I do some consulting right now. I work with three other companies with their sales for. Yeah, man, the first one I would say is, I used to just say it's all about, and this is gonna get so much heat, uh, it's all about the activity. I used to just say like, dude, pound the phone work freaking hard now, man.
Now I'm like I work smart. I actually never, in my our team, we never expect them to hit 70 dials or whatever, nothing like that. We're trying to figure out how can I get the most viable opportunities and the less effort possible. So like the advice I used to give was you gotta like sheer hard work. Oh my God.
But, not really. My fiance she works for demand base, she's I don't see her do a lot of outbound as far as like cold call, but she's such a ninja in email that I just I'm jealous of how much less intense work. Right? It's a smarter work versus just like pound the phone type of conversation. So those would be the two advice I would give.
Ricky Pearl: Yeah I get that. If you can increase conversion rates, if you can increase the quality and reduce activity. That's what you want because ultimately that still means you can achieve more if you up activity. Only lever you have is increasing activity, that's just a ticket to burnout.
Angel Sandoval: Exactly. Exactly.
Ricky Pearl: All of the people that are saying no, right?
There's, you're just churning through your total addressable market, which we all know, particularly when you start in getting into physical sales or, or less tech sales. You gotta be hyper aware of your total addressable market, cuz often you quite defined by geography, you know, by scope.
So you need that conversion right up there. But on that, you've got these different channels, you know, emails, calling, LinkedIn. You're doing all of those for Day Porter, which is your primary channel at the moment.
Podcast as lead generation tool for Day Porter
Angel Sandoval: It depends. So act- commercial cleaners, hire us to do it for them. Right? Our best lead generation tool for Day Porter for like inbound commercial cleaners has been our podcast. Right? So like that's our lead generation you know, number one, commercial cleaning podcast. So it's like, cool. We get a lot of attention.
We funnel them to us. We get our clients and then we do outbound for them. It depends. Right. So like, depending on the size of the cleaner, certain things work. So, the smaller the target market that they want, like building size, easier it is to get through email. The bigger it is, the harder it is to get through email.
And so that this would take like a LinkedIn approach, like, like the big, big, big, big buildings. You start with LinkedIn, follow into a sequence of calling an email. The smaller ones, I'm just like sending emails, right, individually to them. Boom, boom. Cuz it's just
easier
Ricky Pearl: obviously more as well a bigger total addressable market of small businesses.
If you could employ a fictional character to do this job perfectly who would it be?
Ricky Pearl: So one of the questions Angel that we like to ask all of our guests is if you could employ a fictional character to do this job perfectly or to do your job perfectly, who would it be?
Angel Sandoval: If I had to hire a fictional character to do my job perfectly and, or, and, or hire to like work with me.
Ricky Pearl: Any genre of fictional character.
Angel Sandoval: Oh man. I have a few in mind, but I know that it has a lot to do with me personally. Okay, cool. I have two in mind. But I'm gonna, oh, I can only say one. Okay. Now I'm gonna just pick one, pick two. Okay. Okay, good. Good. So there's two there's one obvious one that people have probably said, Mike Ross, I would pick Mike Ross from Suits.
If you haven't seen the yeah, specifically to hunt the bigger whales. Uh, I had to sign a multimillion dollar contract. It would be with all the research that he has been able to do, competition research, that he's just really good at that. And then I would send him over to close the deal. I love Mike Ross from suits.
That would be like somebody I would wanna employ to work hand in hand with me. The second one that I would actually, he would be my sales trainer and here we go is, would actually be a Po from Kung Fu Panda. My, it he's definitely my favorite cartoon. Favorite cartoon, favorite kids movie or favorite movie in general.
The overall Kung Fu Panda thing or Master Ooguey, all that crew, like that would be a badass crew. They would be like my sales trainers. There's a lot of teachings within those movies that I actually deploy myself for my team. And whenever I do consulting
Ricky Pearl: I think I watched that movie with my six year old, I'm gonna have to
Angel Sandoval: There's three. So you gotta watch all three there's, three other movies. And the third one is awesome, right? Like one of the easier quotes that I love is like, "If you only do what you know how to do now, you only be as good as you are now." Right? Like it's little quotes like that, that change the game for me.
What's something that's you're currently struggling with a challenge within your business, that if you had a magic wand and could make disappear or have solved for you?
Ricky Pearl: Brilliant. All right. What's something that's, you're currently struggling with a challenge within your business, that if you had a magic wand and could make disappear or have solved for you, that you would want solved?
Angel Sandoval: Oh man, what's one problem or one struggle we're currently having with our team that if we can solve, we would solve. You know, I would be intrigued to learn from any, um, fractional Sales Manager or fractional VP of Sales companies and how they structure, how they go and get clients and how they structure their payouts, that they can help more companies.
Cuz there's a lot of companies that have that need the more we're in the space, the more we know that commercial cleaning companies need it. But we wanna do right by them. So I wouldn't say it's like a struggle, but it's definitely a big question mark that's currently in our radar. How can we leverage our skill sets and our team and position it. So it's a win-win for, for them and for us. And of course there has to be like a system for that.
so
Ricky Pearl: As opposed to a race to the bottom on margins.
Angel Sandoval: Exactly like, yeah, exactly. Cause commercial cleanings profits are low as it is. So taking any margin from it is as tough as it is. So like how do you make it a win-win? What kind of systems do you have in place to set up a fractional CMO? I mean CMO, uh, Sales Manager. That would be something interesting if somebody's listening to this and has some answers to that, that would be super beneficial.
Ricky Pearl: Absolutely like the classic of, we wanna just make this a win-win if you're getting a po- positive ROI and we getting a positive ROI. This is net win-win, but people don't always look at it that way. Right. They specifically comparing you to say, employing a Junior Salesperson. So they've got this upper limits in their mind of what they wanna pay for the role, as opposed to broadly saying, well, if you bring in X, we're happy to give you Y.
Angel Sandoval: Yeah. I mean, wouldn't be opposed to like, bring X, give us Y the question's how would you even position that? I know there's some companies that are really successful at it. I haven't been able to crack the code myself.
Ricky Pearl: All right. Well, that's a topic we're gonna have to chew on here on a couple of pointers. One of the things I really admire about you. And I've actually watched some of your training Angel. You might not know this, but when we will, when we were starting Pointer, James was a bit of a mentor. He was one step ahead of us in what he had started already.
He's like, Hey, why don't you just watch my Sales Trainer Angel we've recorded all of these looms for our team. Why
Angel Sandoval: Wait what?
Ricky Pearl: Don't we just invite you to our loom space? you can watch all of them. So what you don't know is I've actually watched all of your training and that's part of why I have you here today.
Angel Sandoval: That's hilarious, I didn't know that.
Ricky Pearl: Now, you.
Mental models and mind frameworks
Ricky Pearl: know, You speak a lot about mental models, mind frameworks, what you might call, tell our audience a little bit about that.
Angel Sandoval: Yeah, man. I think, well, I think it's pretty simple. Like sales can look daunting, especially for some new people, right? And then you get the, you have like a split between leaders. Some leaders say like, I can develop anybody. And then some leaders say like, if you're not born with it, or if you're not ready to go super hard, like you can't make it.
So like I, every time I coach any team or I train any team, I like to set up like almost like a little rules or boxes that they can live in. I got the best advice like Jordan Peterson, I think he says it. He's like, , "You can't really see somebody's creativity really come out unless you actually give them some rules, like some box that they can work off."
So that way mentally they know this is where I live. Now I, how do I make the most of where I'm at, right? And so like, for example, the first one, everybody always teaches on objections, right? You're gonna get shut down. You're gonna get these objections. It's all about being persistent and not letting it get to you.
We're human beings. It's gonna get to us. So like one of the things I always tell my team is what is an objection that like this fit let's understand the objection first. Like what is an objection? A it's not a smoke screen. It's not all that. An objection is basically like, Ricky thinks one's way Angel thinks one's way.
We think differently. An objection is you have a thought. I have a thought. So in order to get past an objection, right? It's not about saying the good things. It's not about, it's about, can I understand what Ricky is seeing? And then can I ask Ricky, can I invite Ricky to sit next to me and look at what I'm seeing? So that we can get both perspectives and then we move across it.
Right? So like that makes objections much less scary. It's not someone saying no or going against you. It's oh, shoot. My prospect thinks this way. And I think this way, oh, let's figure out what they're thinking and let's figure out if we can teach 'em what we're thinking. Right? Like
Ricky Pearl: Curiosity, empathy, like all the things that we discuss are fantastic attributes within sales, as opposed to the classic way of thinking, which is I'm right. My prospect needs this. He just doesn't know it yet. Okay. Let me force my opinion down there.
Cold calling is branding, marketing research, insight, making the appointment, and qualifying the leads
Angel Sandoval: Exactly. You can't force your opinion into somebody that thinks differently. That doesn't make sense. The best way to get somebody to think differently is to first understand how they think. Get in their head. Right? And so that's why it's important to see it, right? Like, I always like to tell people like, "Hey man, I actually don't see it that way. Will you mind sharing with me how you got to that? Like how you got to that decision? Like I would love to learn." Right.?
And then that puts you in a student mode. So like that's the first one. The second framework I tell 'em is like, when you're, especially when you're outbound, like cold calling is not about cold calling and booking the appointment.
Cold calling is branding. It's marketing research. It's insight. It's making the appointment, of course, qualifying the leads. And then the other part, which I love the most is they get thousands of call or hundreds or 50 calls a day or whatever. How are you gonna make their day? That's a rule that we always have. If you're gonna call someone. Yeah, if you're gonna answer me, I don't care. If you're pissed, I don't care. If you're happy, how am I gonna make you smile that day? If I can't make you smile on the other side of the phone or make you at least go, "Huh, that was a good call", then what's the point of booking the appointment, right?
Do you specifically try, bring in humor?
Ricky Pearl: Do you specifically try, bring in humor?
Angel Sandoval: I that's me. Me. Yes, that's cuz I'm a humorous guy. I love, I love making people smile. I like making people laugh. But I think even something as simple as saying the words, "Please" and "Thank You" and catching their name. So many people don't catch the gatekeeper's name.
Ricky Pearl: Yeah.
The gatekeeper
Angel Sandoval: Like, I always catch the gatekeeper's name. If I get an email, I'll send an email and then I'll say, by the way, like Martha, Angel, whoever the gatekeepers was awesome. Great job at that hire. Like, things like that on that email. And I will copy the gatekeeper in there as well.
Ricky Pearl: That's brilliant. That's
Angel Sandoval: So like, cuz why, why? Like it makes feel good. Right. Make 'em feel good.
Ricky Pearl: And that's a great technique because it's, I guess it does depend on the size of the market and the company you're going to, but typically, that gatekeeper, I don't even like calling them gatekeepers necessarily because that kind of diminishes who they are for this company.
Often the person sitting at the front desk, particularly in smaller businesses, that you might be cleaning. They're customer success, they're customer supports, you know, they, the person who's doing a host of administrative and team management, they're the one that's coordinating the team. Like they have a lot of responsibility and often a lot of authority that's given to them within that company. It's not that old school receptionist. Right? Like plug a wire out of the switchboard and plug it into that switchboard. And that's their job.
Angel Sandoval: I think like, that's why this, this is what I mean by frameworks. Like I love paying attention to the meaning of words. Like if you tell me something I'm gonna study every little word you told me, and if it doesn't make sense, then I just know you're saying things right. Not you, I mean, in general receptionist versus gatekeeper, like depend-
Now my question to somebody is like, what depends, um, a gatekeeper. They keep somebody from getting across the gate. Okay. So then what kind of gate are they guarding? Cause see, like I'm a faith. I, I believe in God and I, I love faith. If they're the gatekeeper to getting into heaven, there's no better job than gatekeeper.
Does that make sense? Like, and so they have more power than we think. And so the question here is like, if you're calling, I don't mind calling 'em gatekeeper. Because they, they are literally the ones that have the keys to one of the biggest gates that you're trying to get into. So my they better be your friends,right?
Gatekeepers are decision makers
Ricky Pearl: In my mind, they're a decision maker. Like they're not the decision maker on the holding the budget for the product we're trying to sell to them. But they're a decision maker and their decision that they have to make is the original high level, does this person add value to the person they want to talk to? Like, that's what they're trying to decide. Hey, I'm trying to protect the time, the energy and the attention of Mr. CFO, Mrs. CFO, I shouldn't have used gender there. The CFO, and
Angel Sandoval: It's alright.
Ricky Pearl: This person has to make a decision because if you cut out everyone from the CFO, well, you're not gonna get access to the market. Like they-
It's important to be that filter to allow through value and try reduce distractions. So they are a decision maker with a very important decision to me, and I'm gonna treat them like a decision maker that they are.
Angel Sandoval: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. That's why when people say like, always be closing, some people don't like that, that statement cuz they think of, of uh what's the movie. Um, I can't remember, uh, it's not Boiler Room, it's uh, Glengarry Garren Ross. Right? Like always be closing. Um, but it's not really that it's like-
You're closing them on a certain step. They're making a decision on a specific step. And so what can you do to do that? Right? Again, if they answer me, I'm just trying to figure out how can I get them to smile? How can I get them when they think of Angel, they think of a good And then how can I give them enough of those things to get them to pass me through?
Cause if I ask you, like, why do people buy? Or why do people make decisions? I mean, Why do people buy? A lot of the times is because they feel like it. Not cuz you pre, you can pre present the best freaking case study business case. And they still might not, they might not be in a mood to buy. And I think that people forget that.
So my question is how can I get this gatekeeper in a state where they wanna pass me through to the right person, where they wanna buy into what I'm telling them so that they can hand me over to somebody else with a good feeling. There's a difference between, "Hey Mr. DM, hey Mr. CEO, Mrs. CEO, Angel's on the line" versus, " Hey, I have this awesome person on the line you should probably talk to him. Hey, let me make the introduction." Those are two different. Let me get you to the decision maker, you know?
Sorry, mate. Anyway, um, I'll just, I'll ask you one last question to close it off. Hopefully I'm fucking hoping in the back end of this mate, that it can all be stitched together.
If it doesn't we'll rerecord. No worries.
Ricky Pearl: I'm sorry. Like I, I don't know why I've been having so many issues. Like
Angel Sandoval: No worries. No worries, bro.
Be present, don't present
Ricky Pearl: So angel, wants to get hold of you. How can they do that?
Angel Sandoval: Man best way is I'm active, super active on LinkedIn. So reach out to me on LinkedIn, send me a DM. Let me know that you heard me here. And yeah, we'll be able to connect. I'll say one more thing. Just real quick
is, sales is, is a tough role. It's not a diff it's not a hard role. We're not construction workers. We're not astronauts. It's not that type of role. But it requires to be, it requires you to be in the right mental space at all times. You have to be present, right? Instead of presenting, you have to be present. There's a different, different, like, most people present a demo, but they're not present during their demo. Right? Those are two different things. So make sure that you are present every single day. You're not there to present, you're there to be present. So you can hear what they're saying, and you can actually filter and navigate conversations to get people to make a decision that they wouldn't have made if you weren't there.
Which basically that's what closing is. Right? Getting someone to make a decision that they wouldn't do otherwise on their own if you weren't there.
Ricky Pearl: That is one of the best quotes. And I think that one is gonna stick with me for a long time to come.
Angel Sandoval: Good man. That's what, what having good mentors is. That comes from my mentor, Nicholas Barili and it's amazing.
Ricky Pearl: Fantastic. Well, it's been so good talking to you and hopefully the people listen to this got a lot of tips out of it, and I'd love to chat you again soon.
Angel Sandoval: You got it. Thank you so much for having me man. Later, brother.
