Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Okay, what's going on?
Speaker: We are here with the co-founder and someone that just wrote a super good book that everyone should read.
Speaker: We have the honor of having on the one, the only Alex Nethercott with us today.
Speaker: It's Alex.
Speaker: Sorry, I think it's an Alex.
Speaker: So thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Good to be here.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: I'm sure that can't be the first time someone's called you Alex instead of Alex, right?
Speaker: My whole life.
Speaker: So that's what I, my go-to is no Alec with a C like Alec Baldwin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I always joke.
Speaker: I'm Taylor, but I always joke that my grandma calls me Tyler because I have a cousin named Tyler.
Speaker: So she gets us mixed up every time.
Speaker: So I've been like Tyler my whole life to my grandma.
Speaker: Oh, how funny.
Speaker: I know, you know, Tyler McAllister at Fusion.
Speaker: I don't know if you know him.
Speaker: I called him Taylor for like a year.
Speaker: I feel so bad.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Anyways, you're totally good.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And that's funny.
Speaker: You guys kind of look alike.
Speaker: It's like your doppelganger down there.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Tyler McAllister.
Speaker: We get that all the time with each other that we look alike.
Speaker: He's a stud.
Speaker: So I'm not complaining about that one.
Speaker: Not a bad person to be mistaken for, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, cool, man.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm excited to dig in.
Speaker: You recently came out with your book called Core for Leadership.
Speaker: And like I told you before we started recording, I'm on my second run through now, just super good.
Speaker: And what I love about it is it's, I think it's extremely applicable to solar cells because obviously you've been in the industry and
Speaker: You've been in door-to-door a lot of years.
Speaker: So all the lessons you've learned, you've taken it and condensed it into this book.
Speaker: And I'd say it's probably my favorite leadership book that I've read because, again, it's all applicable directly to what we're doing.
Speaker: Oh, that means a lot.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: So, yeah, we'll dig into that and everything.
Speaker: But before that, I guess you want to give us just Reader's Digest, how you got into door-to-door and co-founding V3 and...
Speaker: I guess the short version of how you did all that.
Speaker: Yeah, no problem.
Speaker: I got back from a church mission.
Speaker: I served in Norway, got back in 2008 and needed some money for a wedding ring.
Speaker: I wanted to marry my high school sweetheart, but obviously didn't have any money.
Speaker: So I had some friends that were doing well selling alarms.
Speaker: And so I did that.
Speaker: We did that for four years, recruited my friends.
Speaker: We went out to Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Speaker: And those are some good years.
Speaker: Dark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: dark summers, but good, wonderful, wonderful years.
Speaker: Then I graduated in finance and the goal was always to get out of door to door.
Speaker: I was always trying to get out and I always thought I would do real estate.
Speaker: So I did that for about three years.
Speaker: And that was at a time when the real estate market was just at an all time low.
Speaker: And so I raised a small fund.
Speaker: We bought 171 units across Northern California of apartment units.
Speaker: And that was a
Speaker: a huge just learning experience for me and made a lot of investors happy.
Speaker: Um, you know, when the market started to heat back up, uh, this was, this was in early 2014 is when we started looking into, uh, residential solar.
Speaker: And I had, I had studied solar in, in my bachelor's degree.
Speaker: Cause we, I, I actually, my degree was real estate finance.
Speaker: And so we looked at sustainable housing and how to develop communities that were sustainable and that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So solar was a big component.
Speaker: That was the first time that I had really done the research into PG&E.
Speaker: You're down in SDG&E, but it's a similar story.
Speaker: It's, you know, PG&E, for those who don't know, is California's largest utility company.
Speaker: And back then rates, you know, I thought rates were high back when I was, you know, in school.
Speaker: And
Speaker: You know, if you look at prices today, you, I just wouldn't have believed you if you told me what the prices were today, you know, in comparison to where they were 10 years ago when, when we started V3.
Speaker: And anyway, so, so, you know, so we saw a really big need there just deploying that solar and, you
Speaker: you know, we saw it not, not even so much as our opportunity, but a duty to do it.
Speaker: It's, Hey, we know how to do this.
Speaker: We know how to scale sales teams.
Speaker: We know how to go and sell this, you know, sell this product.
Speaker: Let's really scale this.
Speaker: And so that was back in, in early 2014 and been doing that ever since.
Speaker: And that's kind of my background, I guess.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, I wrote the book, the book, uh, I I've been writing the book the last, I mean, it's, it's taken probably four
Speaker: Yeah, four or five years to finally get to the finish line.
Speaker: But yeah, it's been really fun to see.
Speaker: The coolest part for me has been, you know, when you launch the book, you don't know if anyone's going to buy it or anyone's going to like it.
Speaker: You're like, okay, I'll at least sell two copies.
Speaker: You know, my wife and my mom are going to buy this.
Speaker: Anyway, so that's been really fun.
Speaker: So yeah, we'll get in the book, but I'm curious.
Speaker: You said you were, sounds like you were looking for ways to like knock, knock doors and everything.
Speaker: And I don't know if you were still knocking doors when you started B3 or running like the sell site or anything, but for you, were you just, I don't know, were you just sick of being on the doors?
Speaker: Or I know a lot of guys are like, oh, I don't want to knock doors forever, but what were your reasons for like trying to get off the doors and everything?
Speaker: No, for me, it was more about the product.
Speaker: We were doing alarms and it was just always just for me, at least I just, I wanted to
Speaker: play bigger.
Speaker: I wanted to just a product I believed in a little bit more.
Speaker: No offense to anybody selling alarms.
Speaker: I think it's a great product and I'm grateful for the time selling it.
Speaker: But for me, I was just interested in real estate more than alarms at the time.
Speaker: But that was one thing I really like about, you know, what guys like you and Sam Taggart and others are doing is, you know, bringing honor to door to door sales.
Speaker: Because if I'm being candid, part of it, part of my reason for wanting to get off is
Speaker: the doors or out of door to door was because of the stigma around it i wanted to have a big boy job and it you know my parents and there was just a lot of kind of social pressure to have have a real job i guess but now especially with solar i i have friends that are dentists and and doctors that aren't making the kind of income that you know some of these guys doing solar are doing and so it's it's a really respectable profession
Speaker: And so I don't know if that answers your question, but that was how it was for me.
Speaker: So when, and when you started B3, were you, uh, you weren't really like on doors or running cells or anything at that point, were you?
Speaker: No, in the beginning, well, technically when we started, my role was chief, was COO, but I was on doors.
Speaker: We were trying to figure it out, probably sold 20 projects in that first year, just with the sales team, trying to figure out how to get things off the ground and figure out the sales process.
Speaker: Because we didn't know any, we had never sold it.
Speaker: We didn't know what we were doing.
Speaker: There wasn't,
Speaker: It was still the wild west.
Speaker: Like there was really, I guess Vivint Solar was around and Sunrun was around, but they, their sales process was totally different.
Speaker: And, but no, we definitely have, have knocked a lot of doors in my day and have a lot of gratitude for what door to door has done for my life.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Well, obviously you guys have been successful because as I know you've seen, I mean, we're out here in California where NEM3 just, you know, like took a ton of companies out of business and it's been a tough year for solar.
Speaker: And I think still a ton of potential here.
Speaker: A lot of systems to be sold.
Speaker: before we get into some of the leadership stuff, where do you see that some of these companies went wrong?
Speaker: Or why do you think there's so many companies that have gone out of business specifically here in California?
Speaker: And what have you guys, what did you guys do to, you know, get weather that storm of any M3?
Speaker: You know, it's hard to say what's,
Speaker: going on at other companies.
Speaker: I think that's why business is the great sport.
Speaker: You know, it's, you just try to play your best.
Speaker: You don't, you know what other companies are saying they're doing and what's going on, but you don't ever really know what's happening.
Speaker: A lot of companies will, not a lot of, I mean, all companies, even when, when times are dire, they pretend like things are great because you have to, you know, you have to put on a
Speaker: you know, you, you know, a happy face and, you know, your recruiting pitch has to be, you know, no one wants to go to a sinking ship.
Speaker: So you got to put on a good front, but you know, I, I, I think what a lot of companies struggle with, I think sales and marketing costs, I think is a big one.
Speaker: I think that the installers are not making nearly the margins that anybody thinks that they do.
Speaker: I think that the assumption is, is that there's a lot of meat on the bone and myself, I know you, you, you're probably, your network is probably, um,
Speaker: You have a lot of salespeople in your network.
Speaker: And I have a unique perspective because I also have a, you know, I've sold and I have an intimate knowledge of how the sales process works and an appreciation for sales.
Speaker: But I also have intimate knowledge of just the business side.
Speaker: I mean, a lot of these solar companies are just barely scraping by.
Speaker: to add insult to injury, you have cashflow problems with all these finance companies that are late on their payments.
Speaker: And I mean, it's, it's like, make no mistake.
Speaker: Solar is a, it is a tough business.
Speaker: So anyway, this is just a shout out to all the installers, make sure and thank your, your installers and your, you know, those who are running the, you know, the business side, you know, make sure and express gratitude because it is, it's a tough business and it's, it's proven to be
Speaker: the refiners fire as far as, you know, very few solar companies that were around even five years ago are still around today.
Speaker: So anyway, so I would say sales and marketing costs, I would say, um, cashflow is a big one.
Speaker: That's where a lot of them went wrong.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been tough.
Speaker: And, you know, all these reps that complain about having two higher red lines and all that, or the reps that have the low red lines and all their companies went out of business.
Speaker: It's like, I think a lot, especially on the sales side, I think guys are realizing it more now that you don't need the like the lowest red line.
Speaker: You know, back a year or two ago, guys were like, oh, if you're not getting this this low of a red line, then you're getting screwed over.
Speaker: All those same guys now, a lot of them aren't getting paid out or the company's gone under that they were with that gave them the lowest red line and everything.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: And you try to tell them, yeah, would you rather make more per kilowatt or would you rather make more on your 1099?
Speaker: Because you're not going to get paid.
Speaker: And anyways, I think it was necessary.
Speaker: I think that kind of had to happen just to show the market always reaches equilibrium.
Speaker: So if something feels too good to be true or if things seem out of whack, it probably is.
Speaker: Well, enough of the negative stuff.
Speaker: I want to get to the main reason we're here, and that's to talk about your book that just came out.
Speaker: So I'm excited to dig into a couple of it and definitely go check it out.
Speaker: If you haven't, I've been listening to on Audible, but you can get it.
Speaker: Where's the best place to get it?
Speaker: Amazon.
Speaker: Is that where most people pick it up?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So everyone should go gr ab a copy right now if you haven't already.
Speaker: But before we get into it, so what's the main reason you wrote the book?
Speaker: Because obviously you've been in sales, you have a knowledge of a lot of different things when it comes to business.
Speaker: So for you, why was it leadership that you decided to write a book about?
Speaker: What made you want to write a book about leadership versus a lot of other things that you could have probably written about as well?
Speaker: A main reason I wrote the book, I actually originally started writing it was for our own sales team.
Speaker: And it was...
Speaker: As a manager or business leader, you only have so much time that you have that you can spend with each individual.
Speaker: But one thing that was particularly helpful was audiobooks.
Speaker: If I could prescribe audiobooks for, you know, if someone listening is a manager of a team of
Speaker: you know, a small team and they, they're, they're not able to grow like they want to, they want to scale, but they, you can only grow as fast as you can train leaders that can carry weight and carry responsibility.
Speaker: And, um, you know, so that you can, you can just handle more and continue to
Speaker: grow.
Speaker: Anyway, so you can prescribe those books.
Speaker: There was nothing that helped somebody change in positive ways faster, including myself.
Speaker: Listening to audiobooks has completely changed my life.
Speaker: Whenever some college kid or somebody asks me, does an interview or something, says, what are your biggest tips for being successful?
Speaker: That's the first thing I say is,
Speaker: Honestly, stop listening to music in the car and start listening to audio books.
Speaker: Like it will change your life.
Speaker: Listen to like the best sellers in business and self-help.
Speaker: And I promise you, you will be a different person in, you know, in five years.
Speaker: The challenge with that was there was not a tailored book for like what I was looking for, which was specifically, how do I get somebody who has a ton of potential in being a sales leader to really go from here to here?
Speaker: Like they want it.
Speaker: They want to do it.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot of philosophies about leadership out there.
Speaker: You know, you talk to 20 different mentors, you're going to get 20 different philosophies on leadership.
Speaker: And, you know, so really, I put everything into a book, you know, that I had experienced.
Speaker: I heard someone once say that you, the person you're most suited to help is your former self.
Speaker: And so really, that's who this book is for is like my former self is like somebody who's struggling to understand like, okay, what are the philosophies that are going to make the biggest impact and move the needle to help me be a better leader and to help
Speaker: my team step up and be better leaders and, you know, provide that value.
Speaker: So that's really why, that's really why I wrote it.
Speaker: It was just to, cause I mean, I think everybody, you know, and I say this,
Speaker: I say this now, like, you know, that everybody struggles with that insecurity or like a desire to have more confidence and to be a more confident leader and public speaker and manager and all those things.
Speaker: I was insecure the entire time.
Speaker: I just, I'll totally admit that.
Speaker: Like, and you probably will be too.
Speaker: And any tools that you have, like one of the best things I did was invest in help and just things that I could, I could do that would help me learn how to think.
Speaker: Cause that's really what you want to learn is you want to learn how these business leaders think,
Speaker: And so that's really why I wrote the book was to give you more confidence.
Speaker: And anybody listening, if they, you know, are on a similar path, that they could just have some resources that could help them right away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that was actually one of the nuggets that I got from your book on the first listen through is I think there's a section where you talk about, you know, if reps would come to you with problems and whatever.
Speaker: You would give them some advice, but then you would recommend like a book for them to deep dive on the topic.
Speaker: Um, just cause obviously there's only so much you can tell them in that moment, but it's like, Hey, I'm struggling with closing the deal or whatever the problem is.
Speaker: You point them to like a book to go, um, deep dive on the topic.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's super smart.
Speaker: Cause, um, yeah, that's like, they're going to learn more, way more if they themselves go and search out the book and, um,
Speaker: you know, do a deep dive on the topic, then you just trying to talk them through something in five minutes.
Speaker: Then you lecturing them or something, you know, yeah, it's, you're totally right.
Speaker: And you're limited in time.
Speaker: You may have a full hour you can give them, or maybe you're a super manager and you like spend, you know, like, Hey, come over tonight and we'll go from 10 to midnight and we'll just jam on this idea.
Speaker: You may have, you know, but your, your time is limited or they can spend 10 hours in the car listening to
Speaker: you know, John Wooden or Brian Tracy or, you know, one of the legends.
Speaker: And then the benefit is, is that they listen to it and it's their idea.
Speaker: So they're coming to you with this thing that they heard.
Speaker: And you're like, yes, you know, it wasn't you lecturing the same point over and over.
Speaker: They, they found it out for themselves.
Speaker: And that's, that's, you know, a lot more powerful.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: So would you say that's a pretty common trait?
Speaker: Like all, I mean, the phrase is like leaders are readers.
Speaker: Would you say that's pretty true that pretty much every good leader you've saw or built up, they're super into books and reading? 100%.
Speaker: Yeah, without exception.
Speaker: I can't think of an exception.
Speaker: And outside of door-to-door sales and other industries too, it is a common theme.
Speaker: They are reading books.
Speaker: They're not wasting time with Netflix and dumb entertainment, just mindless things.
Speaker: They're being intentional with...
Speaker: leveling up.
Speaker: Yeah, one of the best.
Speaker: I mean, sometimes I'm off and on with it.
Speaker: But I think the best thing I did to start reading more is just 75 hard.
Speaker: Sure, you heard of it, but just where they have you read 10 pages.
Speaker: The whole Andy Frisella workout thing.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that's a really good because 10 pages, I mean, usually doesn't take more than like 10 minutes.
Speaker: And then when you combine that with audio books, too, you can get through a lot of books.
Speaker: But for you personally, how many books are you typically reading a year?
Speaker: And what do you see from like good leaders?
Speaker: Because I know I've heard like the stat that CEOs of like Fortune 500 companies read like a book a week or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To me, it was like crazy.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, that's I don't know if I have time for that much reading.
Speaker: But are you is it is it like that level?
Speaker: Or how many books would you recommend or like see that good leaders are reading on average?
Speaker: I mean, in my experience, even the guys that are saying that they're reading a book a week, like they're probably doing like a summary.
Speaker: There's those summaries app.
Speaker: There's a couple that I use.
Speaker: One is called Blinkist.
Speaker: The other is called Get Abstract.
Speaker: They basically take the good books and give you a summary that you can listen to in 15 minutes.
Speaker: I would say when I was younger, I would try to listen to...
Speaker: like one book every two weeks.
Speaker: Like I did a couple of years where I tried to do 25 books a year, but I actually didn't like that.
Speaker: At the end of the year, I was like, I didn't, I like it better when I can take my time with a book.
Speaker: The goal is not to get through as many as you can.
Speaker: That's, that's dumb to me.
Speaker: You know, the goal is to learn and to like, let it sink in and marinate it.
Speaker: So it's not like, I'll take a book and like, sometimes I'll listen to a couple of chapters and I'll kind of get bored of it and move on to something else.
Speaker: But, and then there's other books that I'll listen to
Speaker: 30 times, no exaggeration.
Speaker: My secret, like my book is Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale.
Speaker: Like I've read that book probably 30 to 40 times, no exaggeration.
Speaker: Like when I was on doors and I was in my head and I was sad and, you know, like couldn't go on, I would, you know, as a 21 year old kid,
Speaker: 22 year old kid, I would put on Brian Trace, or sorry, Earl Nightingale, lead the field.
Speaker: And it would pull me out of it and just pull me into like, just positive mindset.
Speaker: Because we're really like, like, think about it, like there's, there's so many sources of information that we're getting.
Speaker: And most of it, 90% of it, maybe more is negative or not helpful.
Speaker: Whether it's the news or, you know, the rap song you're listening to that's talking about drinking in the club and freak dance, I don't know, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or like some Netflix movie that's just about dumb stuff.
Speaker: So, you know, we've got to be really intentional with our inputs, with the things that we're allowing in, because it's going to directly impact our mood, the way that we show up in all of our roles.
Speaker: Like, and we don't even realize that sometimes we'll watch a movie that will put us in a weird mood for a week.
Speaker: I've noticed that with me.
Speaker: You know, it's like we've got to be really deliberate with our inputs.
Speaker: Anyway, that's that's my rant about audio books.
Speaker: I love I love audio books.
Speaker: One what I love, too, is I think most people listening probably have like Spotify or whatever.
Speaker: And I think there's not really excuses to not listen to audio books because anyone that subscribes like Spotify, thousands of books on there.
Speaker: And I look up most like self-improvement sales books.
Speaker: A lot of times they're already included in Spotify.
Speaker: I think seven habits is free on there.
Speaker: I've listened to seven habits.
Speaker: That's another one.
Speaker: That's an annual read for me.
Speaker: I've probably read that one a dozen times.
Speaker: He's one of my heroes, Stephen Covey.
Speaker: So yeah, it's like people don't really have excuses to not listen to books these days.
Speaker: Cause it used to be that you had to buy this, you know, we're, we're kind of old, me and you, we, we came from the day when you had to listen to like books on CD and you know, when I was a kid, I think it was books on tape.
Speaker: Even I still have a bunch of them, but yeah, not the tapes, but the CDs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My dad's got the tapes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it was CDs.
Speaker: I don't think, I don't think I'm that old, but yeah.
Speaker: So it's like people got no excuses these days.
Speaker: So easy to go on audible.
Speaker: Uh, just, and you, do you read your books?
Speaker: Do you listen to them or do you do both or what do you like?
Speaker: I listen almost exclusively.
Speaker: I listen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like, I like, I think I do get more, I'm more of a visual learner.
Speaker: So I find I do actually get a little bit more if I like read or even better if I can listen and read at the same time.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I do that with a few books, like Ray Dalio's, his book Principles.
Speaker: I've listened to that one, you know, while I read it physically, I've done that with seven habits.
Speaker: So I agree with you.
Speaker: I think that's a great way to learn.
Speaker: Like if you can do both and you can be highlighting while you're listening and reading.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With like listening.
Speaker: Um, that's the cool thing is even less of an excuse.
Speaker: Cause yeah, we're all driving a lot in cells.
Speaker: Um, most of us are at the gym and all that.
Speaker: So it's like, why not use that time where you're already doing something to, you know, kill two birds with one stone.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Well, that's really a big reason I wrote the book too, is, is, you know, like you said, there's this book really, I, I, one piece of feedback that I've had often is just that it's perfectly tailored to what you're doing.
Speaker: Like if you're in, if you're in a sales role,
Speaker: there's few books that will have more actionable items, you know, like, and you're trying to scale a team.
Speaker: Like if you're in that, that phase of your career, there's fewer books that have as many tangible like takeaways right away.
Speaker: That's, that's tailored.
Speaker: Like you might read a book from some CEO of a tech firm, or you might read a book about a basketball coach or, you know, but the, and there'll be great books and you should read those, but there's not a ton of books out there that are
Speaker: written for exactly what you're doing in your career at this time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: A lot of stuff we talk about with books.
Speaker: Didn't mean to turn that into half the podcast, but... But yeah.
Speaker: So I wanted to get into... In the book, you talk about just like this, doing this self-evaluation thing.
Speaker: So that's another thing I got.
Speaker: I would say one of the bigger takeaways is...
Speaker: Your core four principles are the leadership.
Speaker: Going to have to look at my notes again, but it's vision, skill, action, and character, right?
Speaker: Are the four core four.
Speaker: Good job.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wrote it down because I knew I'd forget.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: One of the well, first of all, I guess, how did you and I think you did talk about this in the book.
Speaker: So people can read it to you.
Speaker: But how did you narrow it down to those core four?
Speaker: Because like you're talking about before guys can go read a lot of leadership books, and there's going to be like principles and all of them.
Speaker: I'm sure there's a lot of like important leadership principles.
Speaker: But how did you narrow it down to these four things in specific vision, skill, action and character?
Speaker: I don't know, I'm kind of nerdy.
Speaker: My degree is in finance.
Speaker: And so I just, I view the world in formulas.
Speaker: They just really helped me simplify a complicated world, I guess.
Speaker: Especially early in my career, I was really a student of this.
Speaker: I'm still a student of this in many ways, just of like a good leader.
Speaker: Like, what does it look like?
Speaker: How do they think?
Speaker: How do they get the results that they're getting?
Speaker: But especially as a young aspiring leader, you know, trying to scale a sales team, I was...
Speaker: just constantly looking for that formula.
Speaker: Like, okay, just tell me what I've got to do and I'll do exactly what you tell me.
Speaker: Like, what is this formula?
Speaker: What does that look like?
Speaker: But I never could find one.
Speaker: As a sales rep, I found it really helpful to have, I don't know if you guys do this or a lot of people listening, but brand new sales reps, it's always helpful to give them a formula.
Speaker: You say,
Speaker: Hey, listen, if you will knock the doors and if you will say the pitch the right way, you will see success.
Speaker: Like I've been doing this for years.
Speaker: If you just do those two things, you'll see success.
Speaker: And they try to overcomplicate it and tell you it's this and that.
Speaker: And there's all these other problems.
Speaker: And you're like, no, no, no.
Speaker: It's just these two things and you'll be successful.
Speaker: For me, that was really helpful just to always come back to that simple formula.
Speaker: Okay, I can control the controllables.
Speaker: I'm going to do these two things and I'll get results.
Speaker: And it always worked.
Speaker: But as a leader, you know, if you're trying to scale a team, it can be discouraging.
Speaker: If you're, you know, there's might be people listening who have, you know, scaled up to 10 reps and then lost half of them or scaled up to 100 reps maybe.
Speaker: And then they lost, you know, all of them because the company went under.
Speaker: Now they're starting from scratch.
Speaker: And it's like, man, what do I got to do here?
Speaker: How do I, you know, like, what did I do wrong?
Speaker: And so anyway, the formula really came from
Speaker: from studying this idea and trying to find out what made leaders great.
Speaker: Like there's, there's a lot, I mean, hopefully you've had good managers, you know, but I've had a lot of bad managers in all my jobs, in my high school jobs and, you know, throughout my, throughout my life, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people will become a manager at some point, you know, maybe be a man, a management role, but very few actually get good at it.
Speaker: And so anytime I hear somebody raving about their manager,
Speaker: you know, like in a good way, like, wow, like, Oh, just wait till you meet this person.
Speaker: Like, they are just awesome.
Speaker: Like, they're just incredible.
Speaker: Like Dave Allred, I always heard people talk about Dave Allred has become a friend and, and, um, uh, close friend.
Speaker: Now I invest with them and he's, he's, uh, you know, what, what early in my career, I would hear about him and the numbers that they were putting up and the, the, the, you know, the size of his team and just what a stud he was.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: there's a lot of names out there.
Speaker: Ashton, you work with Ashton Buswell, Kyle Nielsen over at Aptiv.
Speaker: Before I met them personally, I would hear from their people about them and they couldn't stop talking about how great this person was.
Speaker: So whenever I would hear that, I would get really curious because it's a rare thing.
Speaker: It's like, wait, you love your manager?
Speaker: What do you mean?
Speaker: Well, what do they like and how do they do this?
Speaker: And
Speaker: And then getting to meet these individuals.
Speaker: And, you know, I've had the fortunate experience of being able to, you know, share dinner tables and just get to know a lot of these guys at not just within door to door sales, but also in, you know, insurance sales and real estate sales and tech sales.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: I mean, like the people who are at the top of these organizations are like they are the real deal.
Speaker: They are just total like class acts, awesome people.
Speaker: And the thing that they have is it's a combination of four things that makes them so special and so unique.
Speaker: And so, you know, you can read more about, I guess, the you know, how I came up with it with each four in the book.
Speaker: But, you know, those four things are vision, skill, character and action.
Speaker: And, you know, a leader may rise to a management role because they're good at one or two of those things, but they'll always have like a ceiling above them.
Speaker: They'll never be able to really break out until they have all four of those things.
Speaker: And so the fastest way that you can become a better leader is to figure out which of those four areas you're most deficient in and then start working on those things.
Speaker: But the challenge...
Speaker: is that most people tend to study the things they're interested in, not the things that they need to work on.
Speaker: You know, because either because they just don't want to face it, they don't want to confront it, or because they're completely oblivious.
Speaker: Like there's such a thing as blind spots.
Speaker: So some people have no idea.
Speaker: So at our company and for many years, we've done this survey and basically surveyed all the sales reps and all the sales leaders on these four attributes.
Speaker: And it's been a breakthrough.
Speaker: I guess it's been extremely helpful in helping people go from, you know, base level sales rep to now we have, you know, we have, we have guys that are managing, you know, 200 man teams that were, you know, they all started as a, as a sales rep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Does that answer your question?
Speaker: That's a long answer to your question.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: No, that's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was actually going to bring up the survey thing because that was another like big takeaway I got from the book is that sometimes, yeah, we don't see these blind spots.
Speaker: And I just like any it's helpful to get the feedback and know because you have a lot of stories in the book where guys were like really good in a few areas, but they had no idea that that's what was holding them back and just seeing like the results of the survey.
Speaker: So, yeah, I like that idea a lot, too.
Speaker: Yeah, one thing I'll say there is just the analytics, just to be intentional about personal development and leadership development instead of just, you know, hey, let's get a cabin and go to Park City and let's all read Extreme Ownership and let's talk about it.
Speaker: Like you're going to have a good time and that's, you're going to have good comments and everyone's going to feel good.
Speaker: But then two weeks later, when everyone's back in the field, literally you're getting the same results and you won't know why you're like, Oh, well, we had this great leadership retreat and we did, you know, it's like, well, yeah, because you didn't like, that was good.
Speaker: That's better than nothing, but you need to actually be intentional about it because every single person there has something different that they need to be working on in order to be better.
Speaker: you know, they have everybody there has something different holding them back from, you know, kind of getting to their, their next level.
Speaker: So, you know, looking at it from a numbers base, again, going back to formulas and surveys and actual data, you just can't argue with the data.
Speaker: You know, it's not just anecdotal you saying, Hey, you need to do this.
Speaker: It's, Hey, look at the data here.
Speaker: All of your reps say that, you know, you need to work on this area.
Speaker: And then it's like, okay, like, Hey, this isn't a mean thing.
Speaker: I'm not being mean to you.
Speaker: This is like,
Speaker: You know, we're in the war room.
Speaker: We're in, you know, we're in the locker room before this football game.
Speaker: And your sprints aren't fast enough.
Speaker: You need to train sprints because you're holding the team back.
Speaker: And they say, okay, that's what I got to do.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Because it's our job, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So what would you say to, because I think in my head, it seems maybe a little bit easier to improve on like action and skill, right?
Speaker: Because it's like, you can tell them, okay, go work on the, let's improve this part of your presentation, whatever.
Speaker: Let's hit these metrics.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But to me, it seems like vision and character.
Speaker: So those are things that seems like it's a little bit harder to like measure and maybe like less tangible, less like metric based.
Speaker: So what are some things specifically with like vision and character?
Speaker: How would you say that you've seen guys improve in those areas versus just like sales?
Speaker: Like how do you, is it like books you point them to kind of like we're talking about earlier?
Speaker: How do you, how do you get guys to like have a bigger vision and better character?
Speaker: Great, great question.
Speaker: And that's interesting that you say that, that those two would be easier because for everybody, it really is different.
Speaker: Like, like for some people, they look at that and they're like, oh, those two are easy.
Speaker: Like, I can see what I need to do.
Speaker: And they have this big vision, you know, or they, or they're really strong in character.
Speaker: They're really, you know,
Speaker: that's not something that they're even thinking about, but they're just really lazy.
Speaker: And they're like, but action, like, I don't know how you do it, Taylor.
Speaker: Like, how do you get yourself up every morning and get out there and get after it?
Speaker: Like, I just don't feel like doing it, you know?
Speaker: Anyway, so that's another reason why the book is helpful because you can go back to those four chapters and depending on what you're working on or what you want one of your reps to work on, they can reread those chapters and get something new every time.
Speaker: But I would say in general, this is a generalization, but based on...
Speaker: no data, just my
Speaker: personal interactions with people that vision and character are the most, I think that the most common that you'll find are a lot of people that are, you know, skill and character or skill and action.
Speaker: I guess going back to that formula from earlier, right?
Speaker: You've got the, you know, if you, if you'll say the pitch the right way and if you'll knock enough doors, you'll be successful.
Speaker: That's kind of like action and skill, right?
Speaker: So, you know, someone can be successful with those two things as a sales rep, but they're going to recruit friends and those friends are going to leave.
Speaker: They're going to recruit other people, you know, if they're not developed in vision and character, they're just going to struggle in building a team and, you know, doing anything other than just being kind of a solo producer.
Speaker: I would say, I would say, so you asked about vision and character.
Speaker: I'll start with vision.
Speaker: So vision, vision is really important.
Speaker: I think it's, it's important if you want to build a team, if you want to get good at this, if you want to be
Speaker: you know, a business leader and a sales leader.
Speaker: It's important to understand that the future is created by people
Speaker: no smarter than you or I. Said another way, like the present that we live in right now was created by people no smarter than you and I, but just people that had a vision.
Speaker: Like the, you know, the room I'm standing in, the room you're standing in, like somebody, you know, built the blueprint for that.
Speaker: And that was their idea.
Speaker: Or the office building that you go to every day, you know, or, you know, the garden that you drive through, you know, on your way to out to area or whatever, you know, like somebody had an idea for that.
Speaker: That's really the future resides in your imagination.
Speaker: And it's the people that dream and scheme and imagine, like, those are the, those are the people who are creating the future, you know, like that's, so, so I think understanding that is really important, but also, you know, just, just dreaming more, dreaming bigger.
Speaker: I think that's important.
Speaker: I think most sales reps can't see past the commissions or the next year.
Speaker: They struggle to see, okay, well, how can we 10x this?
Speaker: How does this look?
Speaker: Hey, I'm managing a team of 10 sales reps right now.
Speaker: What does 100 reps look like?
Speaker: Okay, well, what software do I need to have?
Speaker: What kind of culture does it look like?
Speaker: You know, if we're going to have a hundred reps, then I'm going to need some of these 10 to step up and I'm not going to be able to manage a hundred by myself.
Speaker: I'm going to, we're going to need help here.
Speaker: So, you know, how, how do we get these people to step up and them to be, to be leaders?
Speaker: It forces you to just think in a more creative way, a different way of like, okay, how do we, how do we solve these problems differently?
Speaker: But yeah, definitely prescribing books.
Speaker: In my book, Core 4, at the end of every chapter, there's recommended books.
Speaker: So there's some really good ones at the end of Vision.
Speaker: Just books that I just love.
Speaker: You know, The Magic of Thinking Big.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't have it right in front of me.
Speaker: Help me out.
Speaker: What were some of the other recommended books?
Speaker: I remember that one, but, but yeah, I guess people have to read the book.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not going to spoil it.
Speaker: I won't spoil it for you.
Speaker: Which one?
Speaker: What else am I thinking of?
Speaker: I'm thinking of, there's a, whatever.
Speaker: I guess you can cut that part out.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: Anyway, some really good books about vision.
Speaker: I really sold that well.
Speaker: But yeah, prescribing books just to kind of help people think bigger.
Speaker: Elon Musk is one of the books I prescribe just because that guy thinks so big.
Speaker: You hear about the games that he's playing and the problems that he's trying to solve.
Speaker: It just makes you think
Speaker: It can't help but inspire you and think, wow, like I'm I'm thinking about paying my bills this year and he's thinking about going to Mars, you know, like, what the heck?
Speaker: Like, what am I doing?
Speaker: I need to stop stop playing small.
Speaker: So, you know, I think that's really important with with vision there.
Speaker: There's it's just important to dream.
Speaker: It's important for us to create.
Speaker: Because it also makes it, it makes it more fun to show up to work every day, but it also makes it more inspiring and attractive for good people that want to come help you.
Speaker: And, you know, they want to come help you build.
Speaker: Nobody wants to go, I learned this the hard way, you know, nobody wants to work for something small.
Speaker: Like everybody wants to work for something that's going to blow up.
Speaker: That's going to get big.
Speaker: Like they want to be a part of something that's has a bright future where people are really pushing hard and,
Speaker: are dreaming.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially good people.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think if people paint that picture, have the vision, it can overcome, I would say, a lot of maybe deficiencies in business or even like lesser pay or whatever.
Speaker: Because I will say the first company I was with that I started with in solar, they were really good at painting the vision and they had this big plan to eventually sell the company that we were going to be part of and all this stuff.
Speaker: Um, and we were getting paid less and there were other problems, but we all just kind of overlooked it because we were so bought into the vision of what could happen with that company.
Speaker: So, yep.
Speaker: So, yep.
Speaker: And again, that's why you need all four, right?
Speaker: Like you, you also need the character you need, you know, because a good way to know, you know, sales gets a bad rap because there's a lot of bad players out there, you know?
Speaker: Um, and you hear stories about that con men and people that are, you know, they sell you on this big vision and then nobody gets paid.
Speaker: And that's really unfortunate because there's also a lot of really good players out there and there's people that are doing it right.
Speaker: And, you know, it's, it's, it's important to be, you know, aware of, aware of those companies.
Speaker: And one way to identify them is the best, the best way to know what people are going to do in the future is look at what they've done in the past.
Speaker: And so it's one thing to have a great vision.
Speaker: It's another to actually deliver on that.
Speaker: Like the people that I work with, they know that the reality that we live in today at V3, those were all things that we were talking about five years ago and we delivered on that.
Speaker: And, you know, or 10 years ago.
Speaker: And, you know, I think that that's really important because that also builds trust and it reinforces it that year after year, you know, they want to work for leaders that are thinking big and then they actually have the ability to deliver on that vision.
Speaker: Um, so it's not just about talking about it.
Speaker: Sales reps are actually really good at that, you know, making it sound like it's going to be this great thing, but actually have no ability to fulfill.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, um, it's important to deliver on it.
Speaker: So that's probably a good segue into character, which is, you know, um, character is really important because that's how trust is built.
Speaker: So character is, um, is, is, you know, number three on the, on the list of the, of the four multipliers.
Speaker: Character is very underrated.
Speaker: I think in business in general, but especially sales, you see a lot of sales teams that are, you know, I don't want to offend anybody here, I guess, but, you know, they're on the yachts and the bikini babes and they're ringing the gongs and they're, you know, they're snorting cocaine or whatever, the movies show, you know, all that stuff.
Speaker: It's like, honestly, that stuff has always just really...
Speaker: like repelled me from like, especially, you know, when I was, you know, years ago when I was trying to get out of door to door, that was something that I would think of.
Speaker: It's like, I don't want to be associated with that.
Speaker: But the cool thing is that the more great leaders that I got to know, it was that they didn't want anything to do with that either.
Speaker: Like that's what, that's not what they were about.
Speaker: They're not, they're once again, like the great leaders are
Speaker: like they're class acts.
Speaker: They're the real deal.
Speaker: They're not into that.
Speaker: They're not wasting time and money.
Speaker: Like they're investing.
Speaker: They've got great families.
Speaker: They're spending, you know, they're thinking about the right things.
Speaker: They're actually somebody that you'd want to be like.
Speaker: So when we think about character, that's what I mean.
Speaker: It's like, do your reps actually admire you?
Speaker: Like, do they want to, would they trade places with you?
Speaker: You know, or is your personal life a mess?
Speaker: Like you've got a drinking problem or you've got,
Speaker: you know, you're always going through, you know, every, every month you've got a new girlfriend and you've got, you know, I don't know.
Speaker: Once again, like I'm not trying to put anybody down or like everyone has their own journey and I believe in second chances and all that stuff.
Speaker: But, you know, we've, we've, you're going to attract the type of people that you are.
Speaker: And so that's one of my favorite quotes.
Speaker: I actually have it up on the wall over here, which is,
Speaker: which is by Jim Rohn.
Speaker: Or no, no, no.
Speaker: I'm thinking of the one by James Allen.
Speaker: This is in the book, As a Man Thinketh.
Speaker: And the quote is, men do not attract that which they are.
Speaker: Or men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
Speaker: In other words, in life, we don't get what we want.
Speaker: We get what we attract.
Speaker: And we don't attract what we want.
Speaker: We attract what we are, what we are.
Speaker: If that makes sense.
Speaker: So I remember sitting across from this, this, um, sales rep who she was actually, she was a female, um, real nice gal.
Speaker: And, um, but you know, her life was a total mess and she would kind of open up about that.
Speaker: And she was, she was crying.
Speaker: We were doing a one-on-one and I was, I was checking in on her and trying to help her.
Speaker: And she, you know, she had asked for some advice and she had just broken up with this bat, really bad guy.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: hopefully this doesn't sound judgmental.
Speaker: I'll keep her name confidential.
Speaker: But at the end of the conversation, she just said, why can't I find any good guys?
Speaker: Why can't I find a good... I just want to find a good man.
Speaker: And again, this is going to sound super mean.
Speaker: I'm just saying, but I didn't say this out loud, but I had the thought.
Speaker: I was like...
Speaker: I was like, you, you know, you've got a face tattoo.
Speaker: Actually, she didn't have it.
Speaker: She didn't have it.
Speaker: Anyway, maybe I'll backpedal here.
Speaker: This was just the first thing that I thought of, you know, but, you know, she was, I'll say it a different way.
Speaker: If you are, if you are not attractive, you're not going to attract people.
Speaker: someone that is attractive.
Speaker: Or if you are a piece of garbage, you're not going to, you know, you're going to attract other pieces of garbage.
Speaker: You're not going to attract the type of person that you're going to want to take home to see mom and dad or somebody that you're going to want to live with and have kids with and build a life with.
Speaker: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, but she's a nice girl.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: A sweet spirit, as we say.
Speaker: You know, she was nice, but she... But, you know, anyway, but I think we're all like that in some ways.
Speaker: I'm sure I'm like that in some ways, where it's like, in order to attract the success you want, there's probably a personal change that you need to make.
Speaker: And finding what that change is and confronting it is the first step.
Speaker: Like, that's really important.
Speaker: Ray Dalio, in his book, Principles, he says...
Speaker: Um, everybody has one thing that's holding them back.
Speaker: At least one thing holding them back from their success, find yours and deal with it.
Speaker: I think that's really important because that's, that's hard to do.
Speaker: It's hard to confront, you know, it's hard to confront our weaknesses and those things that are holding us back.
Speaker: That's why character, you know, we're talking about the, the four multipliers character often is the hardest one because, um,
Speaker: it really forces us to look at our life and our character and the things that other people are going to judge us on, candidly.
Speaker: And when you're in a sales leadership position, you want to believe that
Speaker: there's a separation between your personal life and business, guess what?
Speaker: There's not like they're watching, they're watching closely.
Speaker: And if, if they see you as somebody that they can learn from and that, you know, that you have a type of life that you could show them how they could also get, they will follow you and they will watch you and they will be loyal and they will, they will hang around you.
Speaker: But as soon as they see you just making bad decisions and being, being frivolous, either with your money or,
Speaker: you know, you're not, you know, you're showing up late to your meetings or you say you call and you don't call or you, you know, you've got a drinking habit and you you're unreliable or whatever it is, like, guess what, they're going to go somewhere else.
Speaker: They're going to go follow somebody that can help them get what they want.
Speaker: So developing character is, is extremely important.
Speaker: And I'll, I'll, I'll define character also in a, in a, in a few ways.
Speaker: It's, it's being dependable.
Speaker: It's, it's being a firm foundation that they can build on, not something that's finicky.
Speaker: That's, you know, they, they're trying to build their career on it, but you just keep, you know, pulling the rug out from under them.
Speaker: They can't rely on you.
Speaker: You know, you, you've, you've got to do what you say you're going to do, like relentlessly, like to a fault, right?
Speaker: Like if you say you're going to do it, you do it.
Speaker: Um, even if it's midnight and you forgot to do it, it's like you get out of bed and you go do that thing that you promised that you would do because you said you would do it.
Speaker: They will remember that.
Speaker: And that goes a long way.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: The ability to say sorry is a really good indicator of someone's character.
Speaker: I don't know why this one is so hard, but people have such a hard time saying sorry.
Speaker: Like if you mess up or if you were late or if you, you know, you said you'd call someone, you know, it's like, hey, you promised you'd call this recruit.
Speaker: You didn't call.
Speaker: It's like, oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: That's totally on me.
Speaker: Like, I don't know why that's so hard just to say sorry, but I watch interactions between reps and their manager all the time.
Speaker: And they'll try to put it back on the rep somehow.
Speaker: And they just won't take ownership and just say sorry.
Speaker: So that's a really good indicator if someone has high character.
Speaker: And as a bystander, sometimes they don't even know you're watching, but you'll see it.
Speaker: And immediately what happens?
Speaker: You respect that person more.
Speaker: You're like, oh, that just like he just said, sorry, like that, that goes a long way.
Speaker: That person has humility.
Speaker: And I already trust that person more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whereas if someone doesn't take ownership, you it's almost a deposit in the, you know, it's like a withdrawal from the bank account.
Speaker: You're like, okay, mentally, I'm refiling this, you know, that person, you know, is not, you know, not credible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and do you have any advice?
Speaker: I know we don't have a lot of time left here, but last question or two, Alec.
Speaker: Do you have any advice for like reps?
Speaker: Maybe they see a lot of these deficiencies with their leader.
Speaker: Maybe they just joined the company and they're like, oh, I can't count on my leader.
Speaker: My leader's not even producing because I've unfortunately been with companies where I've seen that too.
Speaker: The managers like aren't great.
Speaker: Sometimes they're really good in one of them, but they're lacking on a lot of the other ones.
Speaker: So what would you say to like maybe a newer rep where they see, okay, this guy's, he's not that good in character.
Speaker: He could be a lot better producing.
Speaker: Do you think it's just on that?
Speaker: They should start setting an example or what would you tell rep where they're like, oh man, my leader's not doing any of this stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, that a couple of thoughts.
Speaker: One, that is probably,
Speaker: just the wrong approach to take with with with the book or with with some of these ideas like the right approach is to look at yourself it's to look inward that's really what we should be doing it's not to look at our at our leaders one thing i'll say is that is that um you may have leaders that do have deficiencies but you know serving myself in in multiple leadership roles both at you know
Speaker: you know, church and, and work.
Speaker: And as a dad, like the, the people that, that, uh, you know, are in your stewardship, like there's, you know, they only see maybe 50%, you know, maybe, maybe 20% of the work that you do and the sacrifice that goes into being a leader.
Speaker: So that respect, I just want to make sure that that's clear.
Speaker: Like, don't be critical of your leader.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: you really like, they need your support and you're, you're, it may be valid what you're saying.
Speaker: Like, like if a rep is thinking that they're reading the book and all they're thinking is, Oh yeah, my manager sucks.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: My manager really needs to read this book.
Speaker: It's like, that's, you're kind of missing the point.
Speaker: Like you should be doing that for yourself.
Speaker: And so, so what I would say is, is, you know, that rep should say, you know, Hey, we should do a book club.
Speaker: And we should read, you know, either my book, you know, obviously, you know, I think I'm going to be biased here, but, you know, that's why I wrote the book.
Speaker: So I think that would be extremely helpful.
Speaker: Or pick a different book that's about character, like, you know, John Wooden, or there's some great books about Abraham Lincoln that are, you know, great for character or Seven Habits or How to Win Friends or Influence People.
Speaker: Like a lot of these books are just so good for developing character.
Speaker: And then, you know, encourage that leader to, you
Speaker: you know, manage the discussion on it.
Speaker: And then they're, they're going to have takeaways and they're going to have thoughts about it.
Speaker: And they might even in that, in those moments, you know, don't have any expectation, but in those moments that they're sharing, they may say, Hey, and I, you know, I have a confession.
Speaker: I haven't been great at this thing and they may own up to it.
Speaker: But so, yeah, again, the point is not to be critical of your leader.
Speaker: You definitely want to give your leader as much support as you can.
Speaker: If you're, if you're choosing to be on whatever team that you're on and whatever industry you're in,
Speaker: Your leader deserves your support and unity.
Speaker: And I know this is a long winded answer, but I think this is important because for any team to win, you just can't have disharmony.
Speaker: Like there has to be unity.
Speaker: And so again, that's not, that's not the point is to create reps that are, you know, critical of their, of their leader.
Speaker: They should, they should read it and think about themselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that goes for anything.
Speaker: Yeah, but I've heard that and that's usually my response is, okay, you're doing this the wrong way.
Speaker: You got to, you know, look inward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: Extreme ownership, right?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Ownership of what you can control.
Speaker: So that's great.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: So before we, uh, after I pop up here, where if I know you said people can get the book on Amazon audible, um, if they want to connect more with you, follow you, what's the best place to connect with you and, um, see more of what you got going on, Alec.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Instagram, uh, at Alec Nethercott, um, or email me Alec Nethercott at gmail.com.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But yeah, stay in touch.
Speaker: Hope you like the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So everyone go read it.
Speaker: And then last question.
Speaker: So if we got people on here, maybe they're thinking, oh, this leadership stuff is great, but I don't really care about being a leader.
Speaker: I just want to go get my own sales, make my money, and that's it.
Speaker: I don't care about babysitting other people, stepping into management, leading others.
Speaker: So what would you say to those people?
Speaker: Would you say leadership, like everyone should want to develop these leadership skills?
Speaker: Or do you think some people are just, just aren't like built for leadership or shouldn't be doing it?
Speaker: What's your opinion on that with a rep that's like, I don't really care about that.
Speaker: And it doesn't interest them as much.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say I would share a quote with them.
Speaker: And this is the quote.
Speaker: This is by Jim Rohn.
Speaker: He says, if you work hard on your job, you can make a living.
Speaker: If you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune.
Speaker: And the takeaway is that personal development is leadership development.
Speaker: Leadership development is personal development.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot of jobs you could have.
Speaker: There's a lot of places you could go and just get a paycheck.
Speaker: But if you're not growing as a person, you should take a good hard look at that because you, you know, five years from now, 10 years from now,
Speaker: You know, when you're on your deathbed, the thing that's going to matter the most is the person that you became through the work that you did.
Speaker: So if you're just doing it, you know, if you're not doing it to become a leader or to be a better parent, which is, which is like the ultimate leader is, you know, you're, you know, if, if you, you know, if you have kids, like if you're, if you, if you aren't doing it to become a better leader, what are you doing it for?
Speaker: You know, is it just a paycheck?
Speaker: Because I would say you should get curious about that.
Speaker: You can get a lot more out of that time.
Speaker: You're going to spend so much time working.
Speaker: You know, you want to do something that's going to be helping you become a better person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I just think that at the end of the day, everyone's leading at least one person and that's yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's like I think better you can lead yourself.
Speaker: And then for me also, I definitely produce better when I'm out there trying to, you know, leave from the fronts, bring other people with me.
Speaker: I know I produce way more myself and make a lot more money.
Speaker: And yeah, I think a lot of benefits to it.
Speaker: So, uh, it's more fun.
Speaker: It's more fun too.
Speaker: You know, I I've, I've, I've been doing this for 16 years now and I've seen, I've seen it happen over and over that, you know, if you're working, if you're just a solo producer, you know, they, they typically are just, they, they reach a certain point where they just get lonely and they're not stoked just being a solo producer.
Speaker: It's like, okay, every day is the same.
Speaker: Every day is Groundhog's Day.
Speaker: But when you're working with a team,
Speaker: It's, it's just, it's more fun.
Speaker: It's more inspiring.
Speaker: You're building something great together.
Speaker: Like that's, that's, um, you know, that what, that's a beautiful life.
Speaker: That's a beautiful way to work.
Speaker: Yeah, I've seen it many different times where even a few of them that worked with me on previous teams that weren't the best where they've gone and joined other teams and all of a sudden they're like producing at a way higher level.
Speaker: So and my first thought was like, oh, why weren't you working this hard when I was when you were with me?
Speaker: Like, why weren't you producing those numbers?
Speaker: Yeah, what the heck?
Speaker: But yeah, but now as I've like learned more of this, I'm like, I'm like, maybe there's a reason they're producing more.
Speaker: Maybe it's a better team.
Speaker: Maybe it's better leaders because it's not always just that they weren't working with you.
Speaker: And there's such a thing as a better culture fit.
Speaker: I mean, I've seen that happen multiple times, you know, many times throughout my career.
Speaker: And I would think the same thing.
Speaker: Oh, why are they selling so much better over there?
Speaker: And honestly, I'm happy for them.
Speaker: It's like, hey, you found your tribe.
Speaker: This wasn't the right fit for you, but I'm glad that you found it over there.
Speaker: I mean, ultimately, that's what you want.
Speaker: That's what you wish for a person is that they can
Speaker: they could thrive.
Speaker: Well, I want to be respectful of your time.
Speaker: I know you got other meetings and stuff to get to, but hopefully guys will go by the book.
Speaker: If you haven't reached out to Alec, wish we could go like two more hours.
Speaker: Such a good podcast today, but we appreciate you coming on Alec and hopefully we can do more stuff like this in the future.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Appreciate you having me.
Speaker: Thanks, Taylor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we'll have to talk more.
Speaker: You got the guitars and stuff in the background, so we didn't even get to talk about music, but.
Speaker: Oh yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you play?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm a drummer, so.
Speaker: Oh, no way.
Speaker: I've got a Roland electric set back here.
Speaker: This is the attic.
Speaker: This is my little.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, to be continued.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: All right, brother.
Speaker: Well, hey, appreciate you so much.
Speaker: And yeah, we'll have to have you on the future.
Speaker: Thanks again.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Okay, appreciate it.
Speaker: We'll see you.
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