The Winding Road to Success

Hayden Lee

Welcome, everyone, to the Success Elevated podcast. As always, I’m your host, Hayden Lee, and I am joined today by a very special guest, Gabriel. We’re going to go full name here.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Hold on.

Hayden Lee

Gabriel van Dusseldorp, who is the corporate accounts manager for Aramsco? Gabe, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well, I’m super excited to be here. This is exciting.

Hayden Lee

We were joking before we started recording that you have a very, like, cool name.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well, I mean.

Hayden Lee

You must come from a cool family.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Oh, well, super exciting family. Now we can say it’s a cool name when you’re, you know, five And everyone’s calling you VanDussellDork.

Hayden Lee

That’s tough

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Not as cool, but you just. You get thick skin. It’s all good. That’s why I’m a good speller. There’s a lot of consonants in that name.

Hayden Lee

That’s amazing. You probably. You’re very good at, like, what’s the country of origin? You know? You know that stuff really well. Well, I wanted to have you on for a lot of reasons. You’ve been a part of the industry for a long time, Katie. our managing partner here at Spot On Solutions knows you really well, and.

And, you know, it’s like you got to have Gabe on to the podcast. So she was very complimentary. And I’m so I’m excited to have you on and chat a little bit. first and foremost, I would love to kind of talk a little bit about your career background. So let’s talk about how you got to where you are today.

What’s your maybe some steps along the way, career wise, that you’ve had that you want to talk about and how you, you know, maybe got into a restoration into the restoration world, you know.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well great question. Yeah, it can be a long story. We’re not going to make it a long story, but it could be a long story if I give all the details. But yeah, I like a lot of people in our industry, fell in to this. It’s completely accidental. the short version of it is. I’ve been.

I’m a farm kid from South Dakota. born and raised and, moved to Arizona. Got got married in kind of, well, honeymooned our way to Arizona. needed a job. I had a sales spirit about me and didn’t know any better. So I actually got into the bicycle business. Cool. Super fun.

Hayden Lee

Can you. Can you sell me a Schwinn?

Gabe VanDusseldorp

I wouldn’t sell you a Schwinn, but I could sell you some other stuff. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, so that’s, you know, that was a great industry to be part of. still a mountain biker. It’s a very big part of my life. big hobby, I should say. but there’s. Unless you’re going to be in the ownership group, there’s just really not a ton of money.

So, I took a job that was. Someone was hiring, and it was in the homebuilding industry. I was working in the office. we quickly realized that office was not a good place for me. I’m just. I’m a mover and shaker, and so, quickly, that opportunity dried up. But they didn’t. They didn’t want to get rid of me.

Hayden Lee

Yeah, they were nice about it.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

They’re very nice about it. funny story is, I. This girl fired me. now, they gave me an opportunity out in the field. This is in Arizona in June. Quite the opportunity. Right? 120 degrees. But anyway, funny story about that is the girl who fired me was also. She was who I carpooled with. so that’s a that’s a nice, awkward conversation.

But. Lovely lady. She’s just doing what she needed to do and ended up being the absolute best thing because, I learned how to build a house. I learned how to talk to customers about their house being built. and that kind of began my construction career, which would have been in, I guess, 04’.

and did that for a while. 04’ 05’ 06’ was some pretty good years in the homebuilding industry. Yep. I suppose it was probably, 08’ the market finally shifted. 07‘ 08’, and the market finally shifted, and and I was laid off. So, I kind of cried in my, you know, cereal milk for a while.

you know, took took a couple months to figure out what I wanted to do. And I got a phone call from one of my buddies that was still working at the homebuilding company, and he said, hey, we had a house catch on fire and house next door. Need some help? Can can you do it? And I was like, I built the house.

He’s like, well, you know, restoration. I was like, yeah, I can figure it out. Literally was my first job. Had no idea what I was doing, but I knew how to build a house. And I knew that smell shouldn’t be in the attic with smoke. And so did the best we could build it through insurance did everything.

We’re putting a last coat of paint because we ended up having to re stucco the whole entire house, and my phone rang is the same guy who’s like, hey, we had a house that the water ran all weekend. We had no idea you get here. I bet you can get this job. That’s my second job. I had no idea what I was doing.

None like, that’s kind of embarrassing to admit that, but. But I think that’s how a lot of us got into the industry, so. Hey, my then, buddy of mine, we started our own company, and so we ran that company in Arizona for a few years.

Hayden Lee

That’s awesome.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

It was, It’s just a great way to learn how to do things the right and wrong way. A little trial, baptism, trial, whatever you want to call it. There’s fire involved. he had a real strong construction background. I had a real strong people relationship sales background. So it really worked out until it didn’t, you know.

and then I just had a really great opportunity to go work for another restoration company in Arizona. And, wasn’t there very long in interlink.

Hayden Lee

Gotcha.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Which is now owned by Aramsco. came a knockin. And so I became their restoration specialist in Phoenix, selling drying equipment in the desert.

Just doesn’t get better than that. Right? so, yeah, I.

Hayden Lee

Maybe not as much water damage as you would think.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

It’s interesting being in water damage and being a homebuilder. It’s like, I know all those plumbers, right? So, it was an interesting industry to be in because that that segment of the industry in, in Phoenix was a very fast growing. so I got to be part of that and had a lot of companies that we worked through and, and I, I just approached sales differently because I was, I was a technician, I was an owner, I was a project manager like I was all things.

And so I really came across as, actually tried to approach my clientele at interlink as an education support, too.

So it really made a big difference. and so I, I guess I did that from 2010, and then we moved back to South Dakota in 2014. Like I said, I was born and raised there, and I think I’m maybe the only person, the only, like, Phoenician to ever move to South Dakota. Like, everyone moves to Phoenix, but

but yes. And we did in 2014. We’ve been back ever since. and I didn’t I didn’t know what was going to happen, whether I’d be able to stay within Interlink Supply. but, you know, like supply and Aramsco merged in August of 2014. and they knew that was going to happen. I didn’t, and they had a position for me that’s which is really cool.

Just says a lot.

Hayden Lee

Well, it probably was a little scary, obviously.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

It was. I mean, you know, like supply, it was just made up of some of the best people out there, like just just awesome human beings. the Hanks brothers are the ones that owned it. and they sold to Aramsco and then Tom Ford. He was, you know, a key, key guy in my career. And they knew that this was happening.

And so they said, I I’ll never forget my, my contract or my offer letter to move back to South Dakota just said, you know, Gabe’s going to be able to move back with his family. job description is to be determined. And I was like, that’s kind of a weird thing to put in there. Like, you’re writing the check.

Okay.

Hayden Lee

All right, let’s do it.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

I think we moved in June and in August, the acquisition happened, so. So. Yep. So then I became the national restoration product specialist. It’s a pretty big title. Yeah, it’s got a big name. Gotta have a big title, I guess. which was really, really cool because I got to go around and teach Aramsco. The Aramsco sellers how to sell the interlink products.

That’s yeah, it was a super is a super neat position. Yeah because I get to meet everyone at Aramsco. And I and I didn’t know that that would be so helpful, but super neat position. and then after about a year of doing that, I guess they figured they kind of got out of me what they needed.

And they asked me to take over a regional sales management role. And so I’ve been doing that. I had been doing that, nine years and seven months.

Hayden Lee

Up until just recently.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Just recently. So now that I’m counting nothing. So, May 1st I officially became a corporate accounts manager.

Hayden Lee

Love it.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

So, yeah, it just is. A it’s a it was a it’s been a great career. Super blessed. you know, farm kid from South Dakota. Not that I’ve made it by any means or anything like that, but just just a really great career. Just really blessed to be where we are.

Hayden Lee

That’s so cool. Yeah, there’s so many different directions. I think we can take this, and I and I want to try and squeeze it in without using up All of your time.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

You don’t need a two hour podcast.

Hayden Lee

first off, how did you fit all of that onto a business card? No.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Um I don’t

Hayden Lee

I did all the titles, but, you know. No kidding. I think the first thing that I wanted to kind of pick your brain on a little bit was, the sales aspect. sales, like, has been a huge part of who you have been over the last 20 years.

maybe. Not necessarily. Always like on the direct front line selling, but, like, training others how to sell and how to sell the products. is that something you’ve always just kind of gravitated towards? Something you’re naturally good at. You know.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

That’s a that’s a great question. I don’t know how to answer it without, like, sounding pompous.

Hayden Lee

Go for it

Gabe VanDusseldorp

I think I think God gives everyone gifts. And that’s a gifting that I have is to teach people, to do what he’s gifted me with. which is just, I’m a sales guy through and through. My dad always said you should have been an attorney. And I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a lot of work.

He’s like, no, you should have been an attorney because you never lie. You just tell the truth in different ways. I was like, pretty, pretty sure that is not what I. It doesn’t sound like what I do. I don’t do that. But, that’s what he said I did, but that but yeah, I mean, sales have just been a huge part of my career.

And, I think the big thing for me in this last position I had is as a regional sales manager, I think it’s super important to be able to show the ones that you’re working with. So my salespeople, my outside salespeople, that you can also do their job and not that I’m better at it, but I have the Gabe version of it.

And so I think that, that’s been really, really beneficial.

Hayden Lee

Well, leading by example, right. In a lot of ways you got you got to be able to it’s hard to lead when you haven’t sold. It’d be hard to be a manager, I guess, in a sales role if you hadn’t done any kind of selling

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well, it’s it’s tough. It’s tough. I’ve seen it. Tried. I’ve never seen it successfully. Done. It would be difficult.

Hayden Lee

Well, I think probably the, the, you know, a big thing about you is you’re very easy to talk to. I feel like you build relationships really quickly. Do you feel like that’s probably been one of again, coupled with just the God given ability that you have to to sell, but like, you feel like that’s that’s also been a helpful way that like, you just build relationships quickly.

That’s something you’ve noticed that’s been helpful with that.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

That’s been that has just been instrumental in my career. you know, it’s one thing to go in and make a sale, but it’s another thing to answer the phone at 6:00 am the next day when when maybe they just misunderstood the capabilities of that tool or whatever. but yeah, relationships is how I sell, and I, and I will say that’s how Aramsco sells as well.

it is a differentiator between us and the competition. we we and I can say this because I was one of the ones that was key in this. We really try to hire industry experts, that know our industry, but also know how to apply those things in our industry. Right. so, yeah, for me, relationship management has been there’s there’s nothing higher than that.

Which is why it was a good fit for me to move over here to corporate accounts.

Hayden Lee

Right.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Because I’m still selling, but I’m selling, I’m selling and walking out right now. Just on not just words when I’m selling and walking out. How Aramsco. If you partnered with Aramsco, what does that mean for ABC restoration. Right. you know, we’re not a telemarketing company. We just aren’t. We’re we’re, the guys that you call when Houston gets a hurricane, you know, 24/7.

Hayden Lee

For people that maybe you’re listening to just a little later. There is an active hurricane in Houston right now. That’s 100% the case. And to your point, I mean, We’re joking about this, but like, your team is crazy busy right now. Yeah, because of that and because they’re trying to take care of their customers with the hurricane.

Go on. And you’re at a trade show by yourself because of that.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Yeah I am I am

Hayden Lee

that’s I think indicative and speaks to who you guys are. And you’re like, hey, at the end of the day, yes, we want new business and we want to grow, but it’s more important that we take care of our Our customers. So that’s Yep. the other thing, the other direction I wanted to go, I think with this a little bit was you’ve been in restoration now for a long time.

Why stick with restoration? Why? Obviously getting into it was kind of just. It just happened. Yeah, but at any point, you could have maybe found another job or maybe gone more into the construction world. But you found this opportunity with restoration and it continued with it.

Why? Why stick with restoration? What? What has made you so passionate about it?

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well, I’m one of those guys that doesn’t sit still very well.

So? So I have all sorts of side gigs. I could go down all sorts of, you know, rabbit holes. And I’m a big coffee guy. And so I could go down that road too. But as far as, like a career restoration and, it just it’s just a really attractive thing for a guy like myself, meaning, I mean, we’re both guys.

We we like to be the hero, right? With with restoration, you have that opportunity to be the hero. And so when I, when I own my own restoration company, I remember explaining it to my wife. She’s like, man, this is kind of a crappy industry to be. And I was like, yeah, yes and no. I’m the guy that you call when you’re having the worst day of your life, right?

And and what that translates in if you, if you, handle it properly is you get to be the hero, 100%. And it’s not just in words like, I remember sweet little old lady in Sun City West in Phoenix area, her husband had died about three weeks before, and she had a flood. It was not a big deal like I’d seen.

I’d seen way worse floods that day. Right. But I walk in and I’ll just never forget she’s just crying. And I said, oh, hi, Mrs.. I think it was Mrs. Johnson. my name is Gabe. I’m going to help you clean this up. And she’s and she just literally comes up and just cries, is weeping on my shoulder.

And she tells me my husband passed away three weeks ago. He would have taken care of this. And so, I mean, obviously, we still gave her an invoice, right? But I had the opportunity to walk her through that and just say, hey, Mrs. Johnson, I know this is upsetting, and I know you got a lot going on.

Just let me take care of this for you.

And so it was that moment that I said, you know what? This this industry does a lot of good. And I think I think I’m going to stick with this for a while. And then just been blessed, to kind of apply my salesmanship to it. It’s just it’s been a really good ride.

Hayden Lee

Well, and I love that piece because that’s something that I think a lot of people share with you that, that like, as we’ve, as we’ve interviewed and talked to people on this podcast and I’ve met my clients and customers, spot on solutions and all that fun stuff like this. There are a lot of people in this industry that are extremely passionate.

And I think that’s a that’s a big piece of it is that they love this opportunity to help people. They genuinely enjoy enjoy it. Yes. There’s, we enjoy being here. Oh, there’s a dopamine rush. Like sure that is great. But at the end of the day, like, I think there’s a lot of people here that like, truly care.

About people and helping them. And restoration gives you this opportunity to do it in a way that, is different because it is like you are helping people on their absolute worst day.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Whether you like it or not

Hayden Lee

whether you like it or not.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

And because some people are really friendly on their worst day, right. There’s a lot of people who aren’t. Yeah, I can tell you those stories.

Hayden Lee

There’s there’s pros and cons. Right. There’s definitely the pros where you get those awesome stories, like with Mr. Johnson. And there are others that, you know, you get blamed for trying to be helpful. Yeah, Which is it can be the case too. But I love that because again, I think something again outside looking in newer to this industry than you or Katie or a lot of other people, but so passionate and people care about helping you, which is just cool.

It’s cool to be, to be a part of it in some, some small way, which is awesome.

So the the one thing that you mentioned that I thought was super interesting yesterday when we were talking briefly with Katie, was you mentioned your previous role.

which was, which was great, but had a little bit of craziness to it. especially with the amount of management that you had to do. I’m like team management. You mentioned something had like 30 something direct reports or something like.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Yeah, yeah, I have.

Hayden Lee

maybe Even more than that?

Gabe VanDusseldorp

So when, when I handed the position off to my, I guess the guy who came in behind me. I had 17 direct reports for outside sales. and those are, those were people that were out actively selling. And then, of course, you take all your indirect reporting that was, you know, 20, 30, 40, however many you want to say.

Hayden Lee

So many others. Just.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Yeah, just, people that you’re involved with that you have get the privilege of answering questions for.

Hayden Lee

So that’s a huge number. It is as a, as a manager like there are a lot of different things out there in theories. And but a lot of places say you can’t really effectively manage more than 8 or 10 people at a time. As far as direct reports go. So you know, obviously that your role is change.

You’re not necessarily in that, but it sounds like you were successful in it because you’d been doing it for as long as you did. How did how did you handle that. What what were some tactics or some skills that you had to learn in order to better manage a team that large?

Gabe VanDusseldorp

that’s as a as a great question. It is not easy to answer. No, no, no. because I think it’s.

Hayden Lee

Probably a little controlled chaos

Gabe VanDusseldorp

It is it absolutely is. And, and one of the interesting things is when I came into that position, I was the youngest person on my team.

Which is a just a different dynamic. no, I, I was no longer the youngest person on my team, but when I came into it, I was managing, some people that had been with the company for 30 years.

So, that was a very interesting dynamic. And so I, honestly, I was just super blessed. I prayed a lot. Yeah, Because, you know, this is the livelihood of a lot of people. And so I was, attempting to affect that change. but the big thing that I found is, I think with managing people, if you don’t get involved with those people like to do life with those people, you don’t really know what their skill set is.

And so that was one of the things that I did that seemed to be quite beneficial is I did life with my salespeople, seeing, you know, babies get born while I was their manager. and, you know, unfortunately, we buried parents while I was their manager. I got the privilege of officiating a wedding. One of my salespeople.

So. So really, just doing life with your sales team, you naturally find out what their skill set is. And so, you know, the all 8020 rule that, you know, 80% of your work is going to become, you know, that kind of thing. I think really being able to double down on the skill set that your people have and say, hey, I, I can manage them lightly in this way.

You know, maybe they’re just natural sellers, but they struggle with time management. So then I could come in and say, hey, you know, time management is almost as important as your salesmanship or sales skills. Let’s work on that. So I think I think approaching it from a very, relational, family oriented model, was really, really helpful for me.

And because I’m a relationship guy, it was just a natural fit.

Hayden Lee

And so it made sense. Well, and I think, in any management scenario, like you have to develop some kind of trust. And a great way to do that is to talk to people outside of work or talk to them about stuff that’s not just work related. if you’re always talking about work and always cracking down on certain things, like you’re not going to have as much trust or it doesn’t work.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Yeah, it just doesn’t work. I mean, there’s so the millennial generation has been really good for lots of reasons. But a big thing in Gen Z as well is the work life balance, right? You know, so if you are constantly talking about, hey, numbers like, you know, what have you done for me lately? It’s the second, well, you’re behind.

It only works for so long. And it just it’s not a healthy relationship. And my number one goal, even though I never sat down, narrowed it out, but my number one goal was to have a healthy relationship with my sellers, Because you do hard things for people you trust. And that you respect. And so that was why it was super important for me to always be willing and able to go do a sales call.

And you’re on, on sales calls and you go to someone that you’ve known for ten, 15, 20 years and then say, hey, let’s go do a cold call together. Seeing your boss do a cold call, successful or unsuccessful does a lot for a seller. Yeah, yeah, for a salesperson.

Hayden Lee

one of the best leaders I ever had. And I think this is pretty relatable, but the best leaders. And it was, it was like the first real, legit job I ever had growing up is I moved irrigation pipe on a local farm. Okay. And, the guy that I moved pipe for was probably in his mid to late 50s when I started moving pipe for him.

Okay. and hired me was like, okay, you’re going to start moving pipe in this field and had one of his sons kind of show me how to move the pipe one day, every single morning I’d be out there moving pipe in one field, and I could look about, you know, a quarter mile away across the road and see him that mid 50s, late 50s.

Moving as much or more pipe than I would be. every single morning. And only recently only in, like a and that was, I don’t know, 14, 15 years ago. Okay. Only like this last year has he stopped doing that. So like he was well into his 60s. he was doing this And that was really impactful for me as a young kid, to be like, this leader is not going to ask me to do something that he himself wouldn’t go do.

And I and I think that’s what, you know, it’s made you a good leader. And I think a lot of people can take value from that is like, hey, I’m not, let’s do it. Let’s do something together. Let’s do a cold call together. Let’s go talk to this customer or this client together. Let me let me show you how I would do it.

And then if you want to take some things from it, that’s great. Like, you’re not you’re not telling people to go do something and you know that you wouldn’t yourself do

Gabe VanDusseldorp

And I think the other thing is, especially in our industry, which has become, it’s different. It’s changed so much in the last ten years, you know, good or bad, when private equity has really played a big role in it. And so, you know, publicly funded or private equity companies, it’s about numbers. Yeah,

But you can still have a human aspect to the numbers. And so many times over the last nine years and seven months, I would work with the sales salesperson and say, hey, numbers are down. Let’s dive into this together. And figure out where it’s from. And not every time. Sometimes they just weren’t doing their job. Right.

Let’s just call a spade, you know, call it what it is. but a lot of the times there was one big sale that came in that month that no one expected, and it’ll never happen again. And so now all of a sudden, you’ve got the salesperson that’s supposed to comp off of this crazy big sale. And there’s a story behind that.

And so I think that’s one of the areas, if we’re not careful with whomever it is that is in ownership over this, that’s looking at numbers. Right. You take that human aspect out of it. It’s problematic.

Hayden Lee

And so let’s set your quota higher next month because you got that big sale it. It’s like I’m not going to get that.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

No you got to have that that that humanity and humanity needs to be involved. Yeah yeah

Hayden Lee

So oh that’s such good advice. Seriously. well, thank you for coming on and chatting here for a few minutes. I don’t want to bug you too long, because I know you got a lot going on. Your manning a booth by yourself I want to leave you with the opportunity here to maybe kind of plug a little bit about what you’re doing right now and where people can get in touch with you.

Yeah, they’re interested in learning more about Aramsco or. Or they want to maybe connect with you and look for maybe some future partnerships. how can they reach out to you?

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Well, Hayden, thank you for that opportunity. This is fun. Yeah, yeah, My wife always says, oh, my husband like, yeah, he can sell because he talks about himself. It’s his favorite subject. So no, we can take that out. but yeah Aramsco. So like like I’ve been talking about being with them for 15 years and you know, a couple of things that set us apart.

and why you would want to have a corporate account with us or a corporate agreement with us is we have 65 locations nationwide. And we are, we are we are truly a full service distribution company. we have competitors just like everyone else does. Right. But what we do that’s different is, we sell all the products you need, whether it’s restoration, carpet cleaning, janitorial, sanitation, concrete grinding.

we are in, we’re in, granite countertop installation. And we are also in, traffic safety. We’re actually one of the largest traffic safety companies in the United States. So, why do you want to partner with us? Was multiple locations. And one of the big things that set us apart is we we we, do education, we do the sales of stuff, but we also do repairs and we do the rental.

So we really are a one stop shop. So on my side of that, with the corporate accounts, you got these big companies that they want to be able to have their multiple locations work with our footprint as well. So it really does work really well for.

Hayden Lee

Great partnership

Gabe VanDusseldorp

In our industry. And we all know that hurricanes tend to happen in the Gulf in Florida. You know, they happen every once in a while on the West Coast, but they don’t really amount to much. But we have such a huge presence all up and down the East Coast in the Gulf. So yeah, it really is a good partnership.

you can reach out to me at Gabe V, I’m not going to make you spell my whole last name.

Gabe V as in Victor Gabev@aramsco.com And I can put you in touch with that. I’m one of I guess 3 or 4 corporate accounts managers. but obviously core is a big part of my, my book that I manage and, this is my first trade show being at Core.

Hayden Lee

That’s awesome.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

My first core trade show. And it’s it’s a fun group. Oh,

Hayden Lee

Been a great couple of days and it’s tomorrow’s going to be awesome too.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Looking forward to that as well. Thank you for this opportunity as well.

Hayden Lee

Thanks for coming on Gabe. And I think we we got to have you on again in the future.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Let’s do it

Hayden Lee

I’d love to have you chat a little bit more, and we can maybe talk more about some of those crazy stories, as I’m sure you have. both as like a restoration owner, and now you know all of this. I’m sure you can have some awesome stories as well.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

So yeah, there’s a there’s a few out there. a couple years ago, Guy by the name of Drew, that was within our marketing department. Yeah, he actually did a whole I guess it’s a bio. Okay. We were just talking. He’s like, do you mind if I start writing this up? And it’s a whole bio on some of the crazy stories I’ve done.

I think that’s on Aramsco.com. If you go to like the the blog section.

It’s it’s it’s good you know downtime reading.

Hayden Lee

Well thanks Gabe I really really appreciate it. Like like I said we’ll have you on again in the future to talk more about this. But yeah, thanks for coming on.

Gabe VanDusseldorp

Thanks for having me.