On this What the Floor Podcast episode, Michael and Holiday step outside of their comfort zone and give you some unsolicited advice on how to sell differently in today’s ever-changing environment and how to take steps outside of your own comfort zone to grow personally. We tried something different, and we hope you will too after listening to this episode.
What the Floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc original production. You can find out more about us at tasupply.com or tasflooring.com. This show is produced by Jose Morales with help from Toni Collier and Jessica Riser. Tell us what you think of the show at wtfpodcast@tasupply.com or #whatthefloorpodcast on social media to let us know what you think.
On this What the Floor Podcast episode, Michael and Holiday step outside of their comfort zone and give you some unsolicited advice on how to sell differently in today’s ever-changing environment and how to take steps outside of your own comfort zone to grow personally. We tried something different, and we hope you will too after listening to this episode.
What the Floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc original production. You can find out more about us at tasupply.com or tasflooring.com. This show is produced by Jose Morales with help from Toni Collier and Jessica Riser. Tell us what you think of the show at wtfpodcast@tasupply.com or #whatthefloorpodcast on social media to let us know what you think.
This is What the Floor from T&A Supply Company, Inc, a podcast for the flooring industry. I'm Holiday Van Erem.
Michael Goria:And I'm Michael Goria. We're going to explore the hot topics of the flooring industry with a little humor and a new set of eyes. Happy summer, Holiday. It's officially summer.
Holiday Van Erem:It's officially summer. Well, I guess it is. It's nice today. It wasn't yesterday.
Michael Goria:Exactly. But that's summer in Seattle.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, I busted out my winter coat again this week. I go, well, here I go back out into the world.
Michael Goria:Yeah, but we're here. The kids are finishing school and the weather's getting nicer. So I think we're here.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes, hopefully it sticks around for a while. The last several episodes, we've done a lot of interviews with folks, which have been fantastic. And I really enjoyed that. But we talked a lot over the last several weeks about what we wanted the next episode to be about. And we thought more conversation between the two of us. So you had a couple ideas of some things that you wanted to talk about. And we'll just kind of see where the conversation leads us.
Michael Goria:Absolutely. I think the interviews have been fun. And naturally, as a podcast, I think interviews make a lot of sense, especially for our industry, we've been trying to introduce so many new themes and people to our listeners, but we settled on, you know, it's a real changing market right now, it's so different than it has been the last really two, even three years. So we kind of wanted to discuss how that's affected our business, how that's affected our people, and what can we do, to maybe change some things up to capture more business to make ourselves better? And see where we can take that.
Holiday Van Erem:I think both of us are the type of people who don't just sit around and wait for other things to change or like, okay, what do I need to do to make myself better to take this opportunity to do something different and find new ways of just doing new things or doing the things that I'm doing differently and better? I think we both thought, well, maybe we could provide some advice to other people or, you know, start having those conversations with others.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And I think the last two years have been so frantic. As a sales team, we almost became more, and I don't want to degrade it, there was a lot of sales going on. But almost order takers. I will say that loosely. I don't want to offend anybody. But you didn't need to be great, because the orders if you had the product, you would get orders. It just was, the pace of the market was incredible. And to all of our benefits. Numbers were great, and that was really fun. Now we're having to go back to some of the old block and tackle some people like to call it relearn, maybe reestablish how we do things. Change things up a little bit to engage our customers a little bit better.
Holiday Van Erem:I hope nobody's offended by that. But definitely, we had inventory. So all you had to do is be in the right place at the right time. And make sure that you were in front of those people or they knew how to get a hold of you because you had inventory. Well, now most people have inventory. I've been taking a master managers class the last several weeks, and one of the conversations that we had as a group was about how things have changed. And what did you do during the good times to set yourself up for maybe how things are different now. A lot of the conversation revolved around finding places to get inventory. Now we've got too much inventory, and things that aren't necessarily popular anymore. And we also may be diversified who we buy from, and we've got access to products that we've never had before or more suppliers than we've ever had before. And so just things are a little different. And we can maybe take some new opportunities, but we tend to fall back into that same block and tackle that we were used to in tough times. But I think what we're finding, at least what I'm finding is it's not the same old story. It's maybe some of the same issues, but it seems like it has to be dealt with in a different way now.
Michael Goria:Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of that is, so what we're getting into is, how do we change our behaviors? How do we change from what we've been doing the last two years to oh, wait, I've got to find a way to do this differently? What does that look like? How do I strategize for that each week? Maybe it's just strategizing.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, that could be new for you.
Michael Goria:And again, with the pace of the market, you didn't need to, you just made your calls. You did your job, but it was just that good. And now you're having to go hey, how do I engage that customer better?
Holiday Van Erem:And another thing that we need to continue to think about is that our customer is changing. It's no longer the Boomer that is in charge of the market. It is very much the Millennial customer now, and they want things done differently. They're interacting with companies differently. Our customers are retiring and selling their businesses, and new younger employees are taking over. And they do things differently. So that's the same way that we, you know, pre COVID sold and marketed our products, doesn't really work for this different generation.
Michael Goria:Right. So to kind of jump in, one of the first topics we had was ideas on how to sell differently. So how do we start that off? I mean, what do we want to encourage people to do?
Holiday Van Erem:I think first and foremost, people need to recognize that they actually have to do some kind of selling behavior. Don't just assume that you can just show up and take an order, that you just drop off a sample, and if they have it, they're gonna find it, understand it and gravitate towards it. You've got to actually put in some effort to sell that customer the product. For me, it's not a one time deal, we've got to come back a handful of different times and in different ways. It's in person, it's phone calls, it's emails, it's reaching out to them on social media, or sending them videos, or finding different ways to approach them. And it's gotta be multiple touches.
Michael Goria:Yeah, one of the thoughts I had in regards to that alone is even changing up your schedule, hitting them at a different time. Maybe you go to Customer A, and you hit them every Tuesday at 9am. And so you engage specific reps at that time, or, you know, but if you went on a Thursday at three, who would you see that's different? Is the decision maker there? Are their reps that you haven't PKed because they're never there on Tuesdays at 9am? So it's really changing up what kind of interaction is different on Thursdays at three versus Tuesdays at nine?
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, for sure. If you're looking at your call list, and the expectations are that you're going to grow your businesses here, and it's difficult for you to try to figure out how am I going to do that? You're not gonna necessarily gonna change all your customers, but changing who you're talking to in that store, that could make a huge difference.
Michael Goria:Yeah, absolutely. As many of you know, I like to run and I do a lot of different routes. And then sometimes I do them backwards. It's funny how your body, it feels different. Even though it's very similar. Instead of that downhill, it's an uphill now, and the the other up hills a different downhill. So it just changes your muscle memory makes you think differently, and it changes it up.
Holiday Van Erem:And I wonder, too, how many of your customers don't even realize that you came in, because you're always there at that same time? And you know, well, yeah, I saw that guy this week, because we always see him. But was he really there? What color shirt was he wearing? If you show up at a different time, and you see different people, and that's gonna throw them off guard, and you're going to be more like oh, Michael's here? What are you doing here? Like now, like, we had a conversation about why you came on a different day. And we're having like an actual interaction that they maybe are actually going to remember.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And now if you have a customer that wants you there on Tuesdays at nine, then certainly by all means show up at Tuesdays at nine. But I would still encourage you stop by at a different time and see if there's a different engagement you could have with that customer.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, for sure. I think it seems silly, but another thing just on that, like recall, bring different things than you normally do. Do your presentation differently. If you're the I stop on my way at that same Safeway that I drive past every morning, at that same time, and I get this same type of food to bring into that appointment that I show up at every Tuesday at nine o'clock. It's the same thing every time. And that is forgettable because it's consistent. You don't have to remember that so and so showed up and brought my bagels. But if you show up at a different day in time, or you bring a different food item or you don't bring it, you bring drinks instead of food or, and make it entertaining. That's the thing that bothers me a lot of times, when I go to see customers, it's usually for a different reason than what our sales reps go to see them about. So I'm talking about different things. I have a different purpose. But normally when I go, I put on a show. It's an event. It's exciting for me, I want it to be special and entertaining. And you know, I've heard some interesting feedback from folks, some new people that we've hired too, about different things that they do, that customers are like, I love that thing because they do it different. Nobody else does that.
Michael Goria:So what I have found and this is going to be a challenge to the men out there. The women reps do it better. They bring better snacks. They think about it more. Their presentation is better. How important is that? I don't know. I mean, but it's more memorable. We had a rep who used to be up in our North End and she always did such a good job with the treats when we did PKC. I was always impressed about the layout and what she brought. We've since hired a new rep in a different territory and she does charcuterie boards, and people really enjoy what she brings because there's thought put into it. It's different. Now, can you do that every time? No. And is it necessary every time? No, I don't think you would want to do that. But certainly changing it up, bringing a little different flair can can make a difference.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, I think the moral of the story is to think a little bit more about the things you just do out of habit. And put a little bit more thought into them, and they become a little bit more important.
Michael Goria:So the next thing we had discussed was, how do you differentiate yourself personally?
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. How are you not the every rep that comes in the door, selling me luxury vinyl products? That's hard. I think we talked a little bit about showing up differently, providing things that other reps aren't doing. Those are certainly the easy things. There's got to be some personal engagement. And if you're just showing up and showing a product and you're not engaging with him, and finding something of interest, and a topic that you can discuss with them, that's maybe outside of what you were there to present, but can then tie it into and draw them into the conversation. And if can, that's one thing that certainly can set you apart.
Michael Goria:I had some fun last week, I was over in Boise, one of our sales managers, and I were over there, and he had a great story. And so I'm going to tell it. He likes to iron his clothes, the easy way, which is putting them in the bathroom, turning the hot water on, closing the door, right? It's the easy way. So he got engaged with his daughter on FaceTime doing homework. And he went to take a step off the bed and there was a quarter inch of water on the floor. So the plug got left in the bathtub and flooded his entire room. The reason I tell this story is one, it's funny, and two is we were at a customer the next morning, and he told the story. It was worth telling. And then they proceeded to tell us their horror stories at hotels, and it was just fun to have these personal moments of engagement. I actually followed up in an email with them this week, and was like, hey, it was fun telling the hotel stories again. So it's finding those little moments of personal engagement, that differentiate yourself.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. And if you can tie those into and turn those stories into a reason that they should buy something from you, fantastic. I mean, immediately when you started telling that story, I was like, but I have a waterproof laminate and it didn't ruin the floor.
Michael Goria:That would have been nice. It was carpet tile. And they pulled it up and wringed it out. Yeah, quite the story. But you know, I think yeah, we just have to find little ways. Because ultimately, and this is said all the time in this industry, it's personal relationships. People buy from who they like, they have so many options. We all have clicked together, SPC, I mean, we all have it, we all have a lot of options. We all have nice looking products. What makes yours different, you know? So the other thing I would also bring up is what's the story behind that product? Not just the spec, but is there any product differentiators, I'll call them that make yours and separate yours from your competition? Is it a different core, we've recently come out with some more ABA construction, on our SPC, more dimensionally stable, does better in front of south facing windows or sliders. That's different. Yes, it's the same spec. It's you know what everybody has, however, we think it will perform better in a lot of the single extrusion standard core products.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. And what you did there, though, it was not just recite to me, the specs of the product, you explain to me why they're important. South facing windows and like, these are the reasons why you should care about this product. It's not just me telling you and selling it to you. But if you're the retail sales associate, you need to say those same things to the end user that comes in that wants to buy it. And if you feed them those stories and those explanations about why it's important, why this product shouldn't be the one that they pick, they're not making it up themselves. They're repeating those things to make sure that they're truthful, too. That's the other thing, there's been so many studies and surveys done recently about companies and people being able to trust them. So don't make things up. Don't over exaggerate what a product can really do. Be truthful, make sure that you're being honest about it, that you can provide the documentation to back up your claims. But explain and tell those stories. Tell them why it matters.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And I think once that retail rep has success with your product, right? They'll just keep using it. They've now, yes, you told them it was more dimensionally stable, but now, hey, they've put in 10 jobs of this and they've all gone well, and they've been in for you know, a year now and not had any issues. And so those were things that they build and then now your product is selling itself every time, you don't even have to really go in and resell that, they have done it for themselves.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, you change their behavior, but they're only going to do that if they were successful, they had the tools that they needed to do it. So you've got to provide that. It's not just drop the sell sheet off, let them know, here's another five millimeter, say product, it's got the, you know, it's 48 inches long, and that nobody's gonna remember or care about that, that we have a sea of that. And we've been, I think as a company, trying to really find products that have a why behind them. That have something that makes them different. And if you don't fully understand what that is, and you're not figuring out what that why is, or we're not as a marketing team, not sharing that information, you got to ask, you got to find it out. You travel with a lot of our sales reps, our sales managers, that's their opportunity to hear how you're gonna sell it. And the story you're gonna tell, and then repeat. Rinse and repeat, and tell it over and over again. I think we've mentioned before our rep down in Oregon that, you know, had the demonstration and the story with lighting the boards on fire and all of that stuff. It's not just a spectacle. Like, it really does it, it's not going to be damaged. This explains the why for this product, and he does it in a fun, flashy way. It doesn't always have to be fun and flashy. But you have to have that why, explain it and make sure that people trust it, understand it, and can share it.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And when you do that, the price topic becomes less and less. Yes, that product still needs to be competitive, it certainly still needs to fit within somebody's budget. But if you can show the value of that product, right? And the why is as you've been talking about, they will hopefully be able to upsell that and make sure that customers like yeah, that's what I want. Regardless of the price, that's what I want. If it falls within my budget. I'm going with that. Because you've now explained to me all these, you know, added features.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, when an end user comes in, and I don't work at a retail store and I never have. So this is just me as a consumer, my experiences, and then what I've seen. When I walk into a store, I already kind of had an idea what my budget is, or what I'm willing to spend on something. If I'm going in there, and I see a product that has that story, and it's more expensive than I initially thought I want, it's the story that's got me. And there's so many products are so successful, because they've built a story. And they've built that why and they've proven that they're worth it, that it doesn't matter how much it costs. The consumer wants it. And we try to do a good job as a company of telling those stories so that they're found online, it's easy for consumers to find it to come in and just ask for their product. But it doesn't always get through. And then you've got to come around the other side. And sell it and push it into that store and make sure that they understand it.
Michael Goria:Yeah, I think one of the companies that's done that the best is Apple. I mean, people will pay more, because it's an Apple product. Right?
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, they don't even question the price tag.
Michael Goria:No, people will sign up and get a new phone every year because they want the latest, and they want that product. And then they want the Air Pods that go with it. And the MacBook and well, you know, the iPad, it's incredible what they've built, and they've never been the low cost.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, they never have, and they've never tried to be and that is not who they are. That's not the type of product that it is. So when you're trying to sell a product that is not meant to be the cheapest product, you don't need to talk about the price. You can tell them what the price is because they're going to need to know. But that's not the selling feature. And there are plenty of other features, you just have to take the time to sit down and understand it. Ask questions. If you don't if you're not sure and aren't convinced that this is this worth it, then you need to find out what it is because maybe we missed the mark on explaining it.
Michael Goria:Right. And I think that's where for you and I it's it's incredibly important, you know, you as being in the marketing department, and then myself being kind of on the front end of presenting and starting a lot of these products, launching a lot of these products. If we're not helping our reps understand the why, then we haven't done our job.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah. And you need to call us out on that. We need to put more thought into it so that you can be successful. But we're not going to know that if you don't say anything. Because we knew everything about it. If we didn't explain it correctly that you know, I don't know that I didn't explain it correctly.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And you always run into that issue where we learn it, we know it so well. Are we passing it along well, though? That's the important part. Sometimes we probably keep too much of the information to ourselves and don't pass it along the right way. So it is important to make sure we're passing that down.
Holiday Van Erem:And trial and error, I think. Don't just keep doing the same spiel every time. Look and see if it made a difference. Did those people seem like it resonated with them? Did it make them want some samples? Did they play on their phone the whole time you're talking to them? Like if that story doesn't resonate with them, then maybe we need to change it a little bit.
Michael Goria:Well, I think we found that out with [inaudible]. I mean, PVC free is important, but it's not the driver with either of those products.
Holiday Van Erem:And they have so many other features, but they get lost because you were so concerned about explaining the PVC free story.
Michael Goria:Yeah, we got kind of stuck in those weeds. And we forgot about all the other added features and benefits that that product brought. And we missed the boat a little bit. So we have to make sure that we're engaging the right story. And if we're not making sure we're adjusting the story to be relevant to our new hires.
Holiday Van Erem:I want to kind of pivot a little bit and talk about how you can market yourself differently. Besides just coming in and doing your normal, I show up at a store, I give my PK, I drop off my samples? What else can the sales rep be doing to reach their customers in different ways?
Michael Goria:Yeah, and there's a lot and it's funny, as we were kind of preparing notes and going over this, this is probably where I don't do a good job or haven't. I'm of that generation, I'm probably, hopefully still a little younger. But in this interim generation, where I don't use social media well at all, I'm just not a fan, I don't engage in it well. Even personally, it's just not my thing. But I need to do a better job, flat out. There's ways I need to engage in that more to make sure I'm in front of different people. And that's not a strong suit for me.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, well, and it needs to be appropriate. Because if you're not using it the way that it's intended, then you just look stupid. If you're using the wrong platform, where your customers are not apt, then you're wasting your time. So your it takes some time in trying to figure out, okay, where are my customers? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they still using Facebook? They're probably not on Twitter looking for flooring right now. Most people aren't there anyways, anymore. Or have they moved to a different platform? And if your customers, the ones that you're talking to, when you talk to them, and ask them about social media, and where they're getting their information, and where they'd like to see you at sharing information, if they're not using it, then don't waste your time doing it. But I think that we're finding more and more that there is an expectation that people can find information and see it in some format of social media somewhere. And it's not necessarily always the ones that you think of, the ones that top pop in your head as the most important ones. It could be other places. I think definitely, for me, I find that LinkedIn has become more important. I think they've changed the way that the platform works a lot over the years. And it is becoming more important for business people to share business information that way. And it's not the sole only place that they need to share it. But it's definitely a really good place to find people, and try to hone in and kind of widen your networking.
Michael Goria:Yeah. So I have an interesting question, kind of in mind, what's your thoughts on, say, with Facebook, let's say you have a personal account, right? That's how it was built originally, what's your thoughts on engaging with customers on Facebook in maybe a non professional way?
Holiday Van Erem:I think it needs to one, be appropriate for your business. If your company is not okay with you using your personal accounts to promote that you work for that company, and to share things or that were that you feel like some of your core beliefs and values don't necessarily match the companies, then it's probably not appropriate, and you're gonna get yourself into some trouble. But for me, personally, I don't have a separate work Facebook account, I have my own and I have a lot of customers that I follow or talk to, but I've also built personal relationships with them. And I'm not necessarily using it to network to create new relationships. It's more of an afterwards after I feel like we've gotten to the point where you've talked about our families, and we have things in common that maybe I'll seek them out. Or it'll pop up as somebody that you might be, that you've got a lot of common people with. So I think it's appropriate. But I think that you should think about the type of content that you share. And whether or not you actually want your customers to see that content.
Michael Goria:I think that's the biggest thing is if you're going to engage in you know, even, I'll call them personal slash professional relationships. You have to think that much more about the content that you're sharing. Because you do represent the company you work for. And again, even if it's on more of a personal professional level, they're still your customers and become friends with them. So it's an interesting thing to think about for those that use that as a platform.
Holiday Van Erem:Which is why I definitely recommend if you're using social media for marketing and networking and business relationships, I would heavily lean towards LinkedIn, because that is less of a where I put my family in front of photos and the like weird, like Tik Tok videos that I find and stuff. That information is public. Yeah, for the most part and you gotta be careful about what you put out there about yourself and because sometimes it will come around to bite you. So I definitely would suggest that people need more than that direction. But I certainly have family and friends that include customers and business associates. But I also find that I use social media to watch other people. I'm not necessarily super active in a lot of places I go. I ebb and flow depending on what I have going on in life, but I certainly watch a lot of people, watch a lot of other companies, watch our customers accounts to see what they're doing and what's changing. And that's on a lot of different platforms. I think it's good just to know what's going on, you need to stay relevant. You know, if there's a new product that's come out from your competitors, and you don't know anything about it, but they've got it all over their social media channels, you look kind of stupid, not knowing about it.
Michael Goria:Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've actually used Instagram for that, you know, I follow companies. And yeah, it is interesting to see, oh, they just launched this new thing. There's definitely ways to use social media that are benefits, you may see, oh, hey, that person no longer works there. Oh, they were here now. Well, I have a relationship with them, I need to reach out, maybe there's an opportunity to either buy what they're selling, or them buying what we're selling. So there's lots of ways you can use social media to better yourself and grow your business, I think you just you really have to be aware, especially on the personal front.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, for sure. Outside of social media, even though we're not necessarily all work from home anymore, some of our customers still don't let us come into their showrooms as often as they used to. But for the most part, we're open for business. I think it is still really important, though, to not only show up in person, but to be reaching out through email, through phone calls, sending links to videos on products, you know, sharing information, that is not just what we talked about in person. Following up with information.
Toni Collier:Maybe you've given it to them, or I've talked about some video, but you can follow up that PK with an email too, and like, make sure that that video lives in their inbox, or they can save it into whatever resource management they have, and put it on their website, if it's appropriate for that, or you know, all kinds of stuff like. So, you know, I've changed the way I do our presentations, I try to make those presentations, not just a training tool for us to educate our sales team. But there's not a lot of information in there, that is irrelevant to our customers. Our team can take that presentation, and use it as a tool either to give their own presentation, or just send it to them afterwards. So I think it's important for multiple touchpoints anytime that we're trying to educate people, it's not just a one PK or one link to the website or something it's two or three touches, or three or four.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, following up. I saw another thing that reminded me that conversation that we had about that product, here's another link to more resources. Setting up web calls, you know, if you can get them, everybody from that store that isn't necessarily going to be in person, but we'll get on a Zoom or a Team's call. Why not continue to do those, even if you can do them in person, too.
Michael Goria:I think that's one of the biggest benefits of the pandemic, that is a weird way to say it, but is how comfortable people became with Zoom, Teams, whatever platform you choose to use, because we had those platforms before and we use them and it was we all felt clunky using it. Now, I mean, not only are we really good at it, but our kids and everybody else in our lives, because that was the way to do it for so long. So yeah, if you're not continuing to use that, or finding ways to use it, I think, you know, we're just reevaluate that thing. Hey, how could I use it? Could I engage? If you're down in our Portland market, and you want one of the product managers to give a think, well, maybe they can't get down there on that date. But could you use Zoom or teams to patch them in and you could still give a presentation and you're there live and bringing fun new treats? And engaging that audience?
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah. So we had a sales meeting with a group of our sales representatives couple weeks ago, and one of them mentioned, using technology in his in person presentations. And it was a type of technology that his wife who's a teacher uses in our classroom to engage kids. And I thought, that is a fantastic. I don't remember the name of it. Kahoot.
Michael Goria:Kahoot. My kids do it.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. So that is a really fun way to use technology that people find entertaining still. And I mean, it's like a party trick without being like a magic trick. Yeah, you're not a magician, but you're the Kahoot guy. So I thought that was so awesome. That's a really great way to incorporate something fun and different and memorable and technology savvy, which makes you look really cool. As long as it works. And I thought that was a really great way of finding something new and different to incorporate in your presentations. I'm sure there's plenty of other types of things like that, that you could find, or resources that you could find to incorporate in your presentations.
Michael Goria:Yeah, even I mean, a lot of our vendors, you know, we've had great videos over the years and things that really showed the way our product works or the installation of a product. And in all honesty, we don't as a team use that probably enough to get going. We've done it this way for so long. Could we incorporate, hey, we just want to show you this? Because when you see things, or bring in the boards and show them how to do it in person, but making data, a part of your presentation would be a big hit.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah. Not just telling them about the video that you watched, and like, tell them where to go find it later. Because they're not really going to do it. But if you make them watch it with you, right there. That's powerful.
Michael Goria:Yeah. Or maybe you have them watch it. And you bring boards to interact with.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes, yeah. Yeah. So I think the last thing that I want to talk about too, is personal growth, and things that you can do just in your personal time, that will help you grow. And I don't think it's just about what can I do better to up my sales game? But how can I grow as a person? What are things that I can do to try to improve me as a whole? That also might rub off on to other people, too, and you may, you know, become an inspiration for some other people, because you took some steps to grow and make yourself better? I don't think it's ever too late. And I don't think you're ever too old to learn new things.
Michael Goria:Absolutely. And we all get out of that habit, but forming those habits of Are You reading, are you engaging yourself and reading? I think Toni's here as well, for all your listeners. All three of us are readers. So we we often talk about books, and we're engaged in a book club.
Toni Collier:So speaking of the book club.
Holiday Van Erem:I haven't started yet.
Toni Collier:No I haven't either. You guys talked a lot about the why and talking more about why we bring products on. And that was our book club. I mean, you even brought up the Apple example. So that was in our book club, I don't know, a handful of months ago. And I have changed how I make my presentations that we use to educate the sales team and our customers. So, just like a little book recommendation. Yeah, Start With Why is fantastic. Yes, I listened to the audiobook, most of the books I consume are the audio book, and I can recommend that. But yeah, I've heard a lot of people really like it. And I thought it was really useful.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, and they have it as a TED talk, too, that you can find on YouTube, if you don't have time to read the whole book, or you just want to kind of figure out like what it's about, there's a really good fairly short TED Talk where he goes through the presentation of it. And that's how I first thought I was taking the class. It was one of the assignments was to watch that. There was something that I did many, many years ago that was recommended by a employee that works here that I definitely would consider a mentor for me. And we had a handful of other employees who did the same thing was went to Toastmasters, it made a huge difference in my life, I definitely am a more introverted person. And I'm not always comfortable getting in front of groups of people and talking. And that's the whole program, you're forced to show up in a group where you don't know hardly anybody and to talk in front of them about things that you might not have any idea about. But it made a huge difference to me. And I don't think you have to go forever. I think even just you show up every once in a while. I think that's a really basic, it's kind of an old school kind of thing to do. But I would highly recommend it to people who feel even just a little bit uncomfortable about talking in front of anyone, it will make you grow a little bit outside of your comfort zone. And I think that those are really great opportunities to do those things.
Michael Goria:Yeah, learning how to talk in front of people is, it's a practiced skill, I would say. Some people are just naturally very good at it, obviously. But for a lot of us, it is something that just takes repetition, little tweaks here and there. But there's definitely good ways to learn how to do that, certain things like Toastmasters, there's other classes. Books you could read. But my kids often I have to give a presentation. I'm like, good, it's good for you. It's hard to get up in front of your peers and talk or perform. But it's so important at the end of the day.
Holiday Van Erem:I don't think anyone's ever comfortable. Even if you don't mind getting up in front of people and you are fairly comfortable talking in front of groups. If you're not at all nervous about giving a presentation, there might be something wrong with you. Like you should be a little bit nervous. It's just even if it's excited, nervous.
Michael Goria:Well, I love comedy and stand up comedy, and I've watched a lot of movies or documentaries on stand up comedians, and it's amazing how much they practice their routine. They're not just up there winging it. That is, in a sense, a scripted practice of a presentation They just know how to deliver those lines. They know how to hit that, or respond to that audience. But it's practice, they've all gotten better over the years. They didn't start out the way they are.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah. And you know, I'll go back to Toastmasters again, it wasn't just about learning how to speak in front of people. But it's also learning about listening to what other people are saying to you so that you can respond properly. I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, it's come up a couple different times over the last couple of months where he went to debate someone and failed miserably at it. And this guy just wiped the room with him. And then he went to a school to a debate club and have these high school kids explain to him what went wrong? And how he could you know, how would I fix this? And a lot of it was, he wasn't listening. And he wasn't preparing a response fast enough to what he was hearing. And that's a huge part of going back to your comedy references. they've practiced it so many times, but also with different reactions. Because if they react this way, then I'm gonna pivot and do this routine instead, I'm gonna change my joke, or I'm gonna do this. You have to practice with all of these different elements. And you have to listen to how your audience is responding so that you can stay relevant and continue that conversation. And have them remember it.
Michael Goria:Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. I never thought of it as listening. But when you're giving a presentation, you can read the audience. There's little cues that audience is giving you the entire time. And it could be an audience of three, or it can be an audience of 30. Right? Or bigger, it doesn't matter. But we often make adjustments during our presentations, depending on how the audience is going. Now, I will tell you, it's harder to do on Zoom. Because you can't read your audience as well, especially when they don't have their camera.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, that's tough. We've done presentations before where we can tell they're not interested. And so that you've got to quickly okay, they like eye contact. Yeah, they don't like this, we got to move on to the next thing. They're not, this isn't working. But even on Zoom, I guess I was fortunate to be a little bit more technology savvy, or I recognized very quickly that I needed to make sure that I have my presentation up. And I can see everybody whose cameras are up on a separate monitor. And I have the setup, because it's harder on Zoom. But you can tell when they're not paying attention and where you need to okay, there's way too much on the slide. I just need to skip through it. Yeah, they're not interested in moving on to the next thing. It is harder when they don't have the cameras on. Which is why in person presentations can be easier for that. But you have to listen, you have to read the room, you can't just do the presentation the way I do it, dammit. And this is how you know, they're just gonna have to suffer through it. If it's not worth it, and they're not listening. It's time for a joke, let's go back to our friend Jeremy. All right, it's time for a joke. I gotta get y'all or Toni, everybody needs to stand up and shake it out. So like sometimes you got to do those things, too. Because you're reading the room, realizing what's going on around you. We all have kids when they're not paying attention, like there's no point in continuing to lecture them about it. You need to find a different way to reach them.
Michael Goria:Yeah, or a different time.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes. Or a different time. It goes back to your first point. Maybe you need to show up at a different time. You know, if these PK's are always a disaster for you first thing in the morning. Maybe you need to ask them if you can come in the afternoon. Because maybe they haven't had coffee yet they're not energized enough. There's just too much happening in the morning that they can't concentrate.
Michael Goria:Yeah, that's when all their problems are hitting, their sellers are there. They need to get stuff out. To catch up on they gotta get that quote out. It could just be the wrong time. And maybe, maybe that's just when they've done them. Your customer may say we only do PK's at 9am on Tuesdays, okay, ask.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, hey, by the way, I noticed, that doesn't seem like a great time for you guys.
Michael Goria:Could I try a Thursday at three? And just see if it changes. You might help them realize that wasn't a good time at all. This is way better. The engagement was far better. They learned more, they retained more. So don't be afraid to ask that question. They may tell you no, this is how we've always done it, and this is what we're doing. Okay, then you take that opportunity, and you do it. But it's worth asking.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, for sure. So if we were giving recommendations, everything I feel like we've given a lot of recommendations. But I do feel very passionately about education. And I feel like there are lots of places that you can go, LinkedIn has a fabulous program called LinkedIn Learning that you can use. And with certain library memberships, you can use it for free, Toni, right. So it's not necessary something you have to pay for if you know the you know, secret codes to get in. Just contact me if you need to figure it out. There's so much learning. YouTube is great. Just there are so many authors that give talks about books that they wrote, If you don't have the time to actually listen to the whole book or read the whole book, find the TED Talk on it. Find the author talking about it giving you the like the main snippets. I have gone back to school so many times in my life. But I feel like that I never really knew what I wanted to do until I'm actually doing it. And then I started, okay, well, I want to pivot this way, I want to learn more about this. And I'm not ready to stop learning new things. So it can be expensive. But you can also find ways to work around that and, you know, free classes and things, you just have to keep your eyes open for those opportunities. And AFCD has some fantastic training programs, the Hardwood Association has tons of resources, and we're a member of that. We can share that information with our sales team, they can log in and watch all of those training videos and read all that documentation.
Michael Goria:Classes you can take. We just have to get you signed up.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, just ask for those opportunities. If there's something that you are interested in, that you want to know more about, that you don't feel comfortable with. Reach out to somebody who might know more than you or you feel like is an expert on something and ask, where did you learn this? How did you learn this? Because they might say, I watched this video, I took this training course, I talked to this person, he taught me how to do this. So I think there's so many opportunities for that. And you just need to take a little bit of your time. And it's hard for me, I have a very busy life, I have a kid, family, work, all sorts of things that I should have said no to that take up a lot of my time. But I tried to turn those things into learning opportunities. So that's definitely a recommendation from me, personally, is don't ever stop learning new things.
Michael Goria:Yeah, you can always make yourself better, you can find ways, and like Holliday said, I mean, you don't have to spend a lot of money. I mean YouTube alone. I mean, if you want to change your front tire or you want to learn to cook sourdough bread, I mean, literally anything. And why not use those things?
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, absolutely. Toni do you have any words of wisdom for our audience today.
Toni Collier:Put me on a hot seat.
Holiday Van Erem:You know, what did you expect?
Toni Collier:No, I am really passionate about education too, and really like learning. So like you already mentioned LinkedIn Learning. And there are conferences and seminars and webinars and all kinds of things for any industry in any profession. So I think those are really valuable too, to look into. So like we're part of Marketing Profs, and that's been really valuable over the years. So I'm sure there are ones for accounting and ones for purchase. Like I don't know, I'm sure there are all these things for all kinds of stuff.
Holiday Van Erem:Oh yeah, Master Builders has lots of classes, Flooring Association used to and I know they're trying to head that direction again. There's lots of opportunities in your industry to find ways to learn.
Michael Goria:I don't want you to hear us saying you got change everything. Change one thing at a time, try something different, a different approach. That's really I think, was our goal for this whole topic was let's see what we can accomplish or how we can grow our business ourselves by changing little things incrementally. You can't do it all overnight.
Holiday Van Erem:And you shouldn't try. That's too much
Michael Goria:No, you shouldn't, and I use the running analogies all the time. But you don't go from sitting on the couch to even running three miles right away or certainly running a marathon. Yeah, you train you you make little, literally it's most training programs show you one mile increase each week. One mile. So that's what we're asking you is change one little thing and see if that makes a difference in your business this year.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, change one little thing and stick to it for a while. Try it out, see if it works, make tweaks to it before you try to start doing anything else differently. But I'm sure that there is one thing of all the many things that we talked about, that you could take, even if literally exactly what we said but it makes you think of something else that you could do differently, to bring more why and to provide more value.
Michael Goria:That's what our customers are looking for. Whether they know it or not.
Holiday Van Erem:Absolutely, we need to stay relevant. And we're not going to do that if we're not making changes and trying to improve.
Michael Goria:Yeah, and so if you are stuck in this, if you want some ideas, you know, certainly reach out to Holliday or I, we're obviously happy to help you ideas we can you know, personally walk you through things one on one.
Holiday Van Erem:Yeah, ifyou want Michael as a mentor.
Michael Goria:Yeah, if that's what you need it your life.
Holiday Van Erem:I think there's at least one person out there that wants that. You just wait, you're gonna get a flood of emails in your inbox. I need my close, my mentor.
Michael Goria:I will not be offended when you don't write.
Holiday Van Erem:Oh, that's funny. Well, I hope this is helpful to someone. It's not helpful just for us. Haha, sometimes we just need to talk things out.
Michael Goria:Yeah. And maybe we'll come back with what we've changed in our approach to our jobs and our lives.
Holiday Van Erem:Yes, I think I challenge all of us to change one thing before our next recording session, and share.
Michael Goria:All right, a follow up.
Holiday Van Erem:Okay. Yes, a follow up, and I'll follow up with all of you. All right. Well, that's What The Floor for today. So What The Floor is a T&A Supply Company Inc. original production. You could find out more about us at tasupply.com. Or TASflooring.com.
Michael Goria:This show is produced by Paul Van Erem. With help from Toni Collier. Hosted by Holiday Van Erem and Michael
Holiday Van Erem:Tell us what you think of the show or if you Goria. need Michael as your personal mentor at WTFpodcast@tasupply.com. Or on social media because you're going to start using that all of a sudden, #WhatTheFloorPodcast.