A red hard hat and clipboard can bypass office gatekeepers and get you direct access to the decision-maker at industrial facilities.
Kevin describes his guerrilla sales tactic of wearing a red hard hat, walking into the back of warehouses, and gathering intelligence from workers before approaching the front office armed with information. ✦ AI generated
Kevin · My First Million · 2026-08-19 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 23:56
So, what I would do is I had a red hard hat that I would put on, get the clipboard going, walk into the back and try to find the person who's physically loading the dumpster... Most of the time they would just work. They're just not sure. They're just like, 'This guy's asking me like, How many pickups do you get? Who's in charge of it?' I start to kind of size the account, get some info, and then I would go to the front armed with info.
verbatim transcript · starts at 23:56
23:56learned >> Yeah. >> You don't want to go to the office because the office they're going to, you know, they're going to tell you no. So, what I would do is I had a red hard hat that I would put on, get the clipboard going, >> right? [laughter] walk into the back and try to find the person who's physically loading the dumpster. You got the red hard hat on. Start asking questions.
24:11Most of the time they would just work. >> He's like, "Dude, there's no construction around here." >> You're the trash contractor for the company, >> right? They're just not sure. They're just like, "This guy's asking me like, "How many pickups do you get? Who's in charge of it?" I start to kind of size the account, get some info, and then I would go to the front armed with info,
24:28and then I would, you know, work my way to the decision maker. >> How many months until your first dollar? >> Right away. right away. And the first >> How thrilling was that first sale? >> Oh, it was great. Oh, it was great. I was like out with our neighbors when they first because these are like kind of chunky contracts. We're talking about like large I mean for me at the time,
24:45you know, couple thousand bucks a month recurring revenue. So, it only took two, three, four accounts to basically pay my debt service and my driver. So, >> you had a driver right off the bat? >> I hired a driver right off the bat. Yeah. And did Smash Rush give you this playbook or you were just like, I'm going to redh hard hat this or they were like, hey, here's how you do it.
25:04>> They didn't tell me about the red hard hat, but they gave you the basic playbook and then I before I opened went around to a couple other franchises, including my buddy I mentioned, >> and just was like, "Show me everything. How do you guys do it? What works?" It's sort of like, have you ever seen those videos where someone's so my friend Neville Madora, he's an Indian guy and
- ·Red hard hat + clipboard = instant credibility
- ·Gatekeepers can't distinguish vendors from maintenance
- ·Bypass front desk to reach decision-makers
- ·Enter through warehouse loading dock
- ·Target workers handling dumpsters
- ·Ask: pickup frequency, who's in charge
- ·Size up account before front office approach
- ·Approach with insider operational knowledge
- ·Shifts cold pitch to informed consultation
- ·Workers become unwitting intel sources