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The Leadership Traits You MUST Develop - Alec Nethercott
273 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, what's going
Meet Alex Nethercott and His New Book
00:00:42
Speaker
on?
00:00:42
Speaker
We are here with the co-founder and someone that just wrote a super good book that everyone should read.
00:00:51
Speaker
We have the honor of having on the one, the only Alex Nethercott with us today.
00:00:55
Speaker
It's Alex.
00:00:56
Speaker
Sorry, I think it's an Alex.
00:00:57
Speaker
So thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:01
Speaker
Awesome.
00:01:01
Speaker
Good to be here.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:01:04
Speaker
I'm sure that can't be the first time someone's called you Alex instead of Alex, right?
00:01:07
Speaker
My whole life.
00:01:09
Speaker
So that's what I, my go-to is no Alec with a C like Alec Baldwin.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:14
Speaker
I always joke.
00:01:15
Speaker
I'm Taylor, but I always joke that my grandma calls me Tyler because I have a cousin named Tyler.
00:01:20
Speaker
So she gets us mixed up every time.
00:01:22
Speaker
So I've been like Tyler my whole life to my grandma.
00:01:25
Speaker
Oh, how funny.
00:01:26
Speaker
I know, you know, Tyler McAllister at Fusion.
00:01:29
Speaker
I don't know if you know him.
00:01:30
Speaker
I called him Taylor for like a year.
00:01:33
Speaker
I feel so bad.
00:01:33
Speaker
And
00:01:35
Speaker
Anyways, you're totally good.
00:01:36
Speaker
I know.
00:01:37
Speaker
And that's funny.
00:01:38
Speaker
You guys kind of look alike.
00:01:40
Speaker
It's like your doppelganger down there.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:43
Speaker
Tyler McAllister.
00:01:44
Speaker
We get that all the time with each other that we look alike.
00:01:49
Speaker
He's a stud.
00:01:50
Speaker
So I'm not complaining about that one.
00:01:52
Speaker
Not a bad person to be mistaken for, for sure.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:55
Speaker
Well, cool, man.
00:01:56
Speaker
So yeah, I'm excited to dig in.
00:01:57
Speaker
You recently came out with your book called Core for Leadership.
00:02:02
Speaker
And like I told you before we started recording, I'm on my second run through now, just super good.
00:02:08
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
00:02:15
Speaker
You've been in door-to-door a lot of years.
00:02:18
Speaker
So all the lessons you've learned, you've taken it and condensed it into this book.
00:02:21
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.
00:02:29
Speaker
Oh, that means a lot.
00:02:30
Speaker
Thank you.
00:02:31
Speaker
Of course.
00:02:32
Speaker
So, yeah, we'll dig into that and everything.
00:02:33
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...
00:02:43
Speaker
I guess the short version of how you did all that.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah,
Alex's Journey into the Solar Industry
00:02:47
Speaker
no problem.
00:02:47
Speaker
I got back from a church mission.
00:02:49
Speaker
I served in Norway, got back in 2008 and needed some money for a wedding ring.
00:02:54
Speaker
I wanted to marry my high school sweetheart, but obviously didn't have any money.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I had some friends that were doing well selling alarms.
00:03:00
Speaker
And so I did that.
00:03:03
Speaker
We did that for four years, recruited my friends.
00:03:05
Speaker
We went out to Chicago and Washington, D.C.
00:03:08
Speaker
And those are some good years.
00:03:09
Speaker
Dark.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:11
Speaker
dark summers, but good, wonderful, wonderful years.
00:03:15
Speaker
Then I graduated in finance and the goal was always to get out of door to door.
00:03:18
Speaker
I was always trying to get out and I always thought I would do real estate.
00:03:22
Speaker
So I did that for about three years.
00:03:25
Speaker
And that was at a time when the real estate market was just at an all time low.
00:03:29
Speaker
And so I raised a small fund.
00:03:31
Speaker
We bought 171 units across Northern California of apartment units.
00:03:36
Speaker
And that was a
00:03:38
Speaker
a huge just learning experience for me and made a lot of investors happy.
00:03:43
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.
00:03:52
Speaker
And I had, I had studied solar in, in my bachelor's degree.
00:03:56
Speaker
Cause we, I, I actually, my degree was real estate finance.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so we looked at sustainable housing and how to develop communities that were sustainable and that kind of stuff.
00:04:05
Speaker
So solar was a big component.
00:04:07
Speaker
That was the first time that I had really done the research into PG&E.
00:04:12
Speaker
You're down in SDG&E, but it's a similar story.
00:04:14
Speaker
It's, you know, PG&E, for those who don't know, is California's largest utility company.
00:04:18
Speaker
And back then rates, you know, I thought rates were high back when I was, you know, in school.
00:04:25
Speaker
And
00:04:25
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.
00:04:35
Speaker
And anyway, so, so, you know, so we saw a really big need there just deploying that solar and, you
00:04:43
Speaker
you know, we saw it not, not even so much as our opportunity, but a duty to do it.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's, Hey, we know how to do this.
00:04:49
Speaker
We know how to scale sales teams.
00:04:50
Speaker
We know how to go and sell this, you know, sell this product.
00:04:53
Speaker
Let's really scale this.
00:04:54
Speaker
And so that was back in, in early 2014 and been doing that ever since.
00:04:59
Speaker
And that's kind of my background, I guess.
00:05:02
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
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, four or five years to finally get to the finish line.
00:05:10
Speaker
But yeah, it's been really fun to see.
00:05:13
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.
00:05:19
Speaker
You're like, okay, I'll at least sell two copies.
00:05:22
Speaker
You know, my wife and my mom are going to buy this.
00:05:25
Speaker
Anyway, so that's been really fun.
00:05:27
Speaker
So yeah, we'll get in the book, but I'm curious.
00:05:28
Speaker
You said you were, sounds like you were looking for ways to like knock, knock doors and everything.
00:05:34
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?
00:05:45
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?
00:05:52
Speaker
No, for me, it was more about the product.
00:05:54
Speaker
We were doing alarms and it was just always just for me, at least I just, I wanted to
00:06:00
Speaker
play bigger.
00:06:01
Speaker
I wanted to just a product I believed in a little bit more.
00:06:04
Speaker
No offense to anybody selling alarms.
00:06:05
Speaker
I think it's a great product and I'm grateful for the time selling it.
00:06:09
Speaker
But for me, I was just interested in real estate more than alarms at the time.
00:06:14
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.
00:06:23
Speaker
Because if I'm being candid, part of it, part of my reason for wanting to get off is
00:06:27
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
00:06:50
Speaker
And so I don't know if that answers your question, but that was how it was for me.
00:06:53
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?
00:07:01
Speaker
No, in the beginning, well, technically when we started, my role was chief, was COO, but I was on doors.
00:07:08
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.
00:07:16
Speaker
Because we didn't know any, we had never sold it.
00:07:19
Speaker
We didn't know what we were doing.
00:07:20
Speaker
There wasn't,
00:07:21
Speaker
It was still the wild west.
00:07:23
Speaker
Like there was really, I guess Vivint Solar was around and Sunrun was around, but they, their sales process was totally different.
00:07:30
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.
00:07:38
Speaker
No question.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
Challenges in the Solar Industry
00:07:40
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.
00:07:52
Speaker
And I think still a ton of potential here.
00:07:55
Speaker
A lot of systems to be sold.
00:07:57
Speaker
before we get into some of the leadership stuff, where do you see that some of these companies went wrong?
00:08:02
Speaker
Or why do you think there's so many companies that have gone out of business specifically here in California?
00:08:07
Speaker
And what have you guys, what did you guys do to, you know, get weather that storm of any M3?
00:08:11
Speaker
You know, it's hard to say what's,
00:08:13
Speaker
going on at other companies.
00:08:15
Speaker
I think that's why business is the great sport.
00:08:18
Speaker
You know, it's, you just try to play your best.
00:08:21
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.
00:08:27
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
00:08:37
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.
00:08:43
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.
00:08:52
Speaker
I think that the installers are not making nearly the margins that anybody thinks that they do.
00:08:58
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,
00:09:06
Speaker
You have a lot of salespeople in your network.
00:09:07
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.
00:09:16
Speaker
But I also have intimate knowledge of just the business side.
00:09:19
Speaker
I mean, a lot of these solar companies are just barely scraping by.
00:09:23
Speaker
to add insult to injury, you have cashflow problems with all these finance companies that are late on their payments.
00:09:28
Speaker
And I mean, it's, it's like, make no mistake.
00:09:31
Speaker
Solar is a, it is a tough business.
00:09:33
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
00:09:48
Speaker
the refiners fire as far as, you know, very few solar companies that were around even five years ago are still around today.
00:09:56
Speaker
So anyway, so I would say sales and marketing costs, I would say, um, cashflow is a big one.
00:10:03
Speaker
That's where a lot of them went wrong.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's been tough.
00:10:06
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.
00:10:15
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.
00:10:23
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.
00:10:30
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.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:10:40
Speaker
And you try to tell them, yeah, would you rather make more per kilowatt or would you rather make more on your 1099?
00:10:46
Speaker
Because you're not going to get paid.
00:10:48
Speaker
And anyways, I think it was necessary.
00:10:50
Speaker
I think that kind of had to happen just to show the market always reaches equilibrium.
00:10:54
Speaker
So if something feels too good to be true or if things seem out of whack, it probably
Purpose of 'Core for Leadership'
00:10:58
Speaker
is.
00:10:58
Speaker
Well, enough of the negative stuff.
00:11:00
Speaker
I want to get to the main reason we're here, and that's to talk about your book that just came out.
00:11:05
Speaker
So I'm excited to dig into a couple of it and definitely go check it out.
00:11:09
Speaker
If you haven't, I've been listening to on Audible, but you can get it.
00:11:14
Speaker
Where's the best place to get it?
00:11:15
Speaker
Amazon.
00:11:15
Speaker
Is that where most people pick it up?
00:11:16
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:17
Speaker
So everyone should go grab a copy right now if you haven't already.
00:11:20
Speaker
But before we get into it, so what's the main reason you wrote the book?
00:11:23
Speaker
Because obviously you've been in sales, you have a knowledge of a lot of different things when it comes to business.
00:11:30
Speaker
So for you, why was it leadership that you decided to write a book about?
00:11:34
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?
00:11:40
Speaker
A main reason I wrote the book, I actually originally started writing it was for our own sales team.
00:11:45
Speaker
And it was...
00:11:47
Speaker
As a manager or business leader, you only have so much time that you have that you can spend with each individual.
00:11:55
Speaker
But one thing that was particularly helpful was audiobooks.
00:11:59
Speaker
If I could prescribe audiobooks for, you know, if someone listening is a manager of a team of
00:12:04
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.
00:12:15
Speaker
And, um, you know, so that you can, you can just handle more and continue to
00:12:21
Speaker
grow.
00:12:21
Speaker
Anyway, so you can prescribe those books.
00:12:24
Speaker
There was nothing that helped somebody change in positive ways faster, including myself.
00:12:30
Speaker
Listening to audiobooks has completely changed my life.
00:12:34
Speaker
Whenever some college kid or somebody asks me, does an interview or something, says, what are your biggest tips for being successful?
00:12:39
Speaker
That's the first thing I say is,
00:12:41
Speaker
Honestly, stop listening to music in the car and start listening to audio books.
00:12:44
Speaker
Like it will change your life.
00:12:46
Speaker
Listen to like the best sellers in business and self-help.
00:12:49
Speaker
And I promise you, you will be a different person in, you know, in five years.
00:12:54
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?
00:13:05
Speaker
Like they want it.
00:13:06
Speaker
They want to do it.
00:13:06
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of philosophies about leadership out there.
00:13:10
Speaker
You know, you talk to 20 different mentors, you're going to get 20 different philosophies on leadership.
00:13:15
Speaker
And, you know, so really, I put everything into a book, you know, that I had experienced.
00:13:19
Speaker
I heard someone once say that you, the person you're most suited to help is your former self.
00:13:24
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
00:13:36
Speaker
my team step up and be better leaders and, you know, provide that value.
00:13:40
Speaker
So that's really why, that's really why I wrote it.
00:13:42
Speaker
It was just to, cause I mean, I think everybody, you know, and I say this,
00:13:47
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.
00:13:58
Speaker
I was insecure the entire time.
00:14:00
Speaker
I just, I'll totally admit that.
00:14:02
Speaker
Like, and you probably will be too.
00:14:04
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.
00:14:12
Speaker
Cause that's really what you want to learn is you want to learn how these business leaders think,
00:14:16
Speaker
And so that's really why I wrote the book was to give you more confidence.
00:14:19
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.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:26
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.
00:14:39
Speaker
You would give them some advice, but then you would recommend like a book for them to deep dive on the topic.
00:14:44
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.
00:14:53
Speaker
You point them to like a book to go, um, deep dive on the topic.
00:14:57
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:59
Speaker
That's super smart.
00:15:00
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,
00:15:07
Speaker
you know, do a deep dive on the topic, then you just trying to talk them through something in five minutes.
00:15:12
Speaker
Then you lecturing them or something, you know, yeah, it's, you're totally right.
00:15:16
Speaker
And you're limited in time.
00:15:17
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.
00:15:27
Speaker
You may have, you know, but your, your time is limited or they can spend 10 hours in the car listening to
00:15:33
Speaker
you know, John Wooden or Brian Tracy or, you know, one of the legends.
00:15:38
Speaker
And then the benefit is, is that they listen to it and it's their idea.
00:15:41
Speaker
So they're coming to you with this thing that they heard.
00:15:43
Speaker
And you're like, yes, you know, it wasn't you lecturing the same point over and over.
00:15:48
Speaker
They, they found it out for themselves.
00:15:51
Speaker
And that's, that's, you know, a lot more powerful.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:15:55
Speaker
So would you say that's a pretty common trait?
00:15:57
Speaker
Like all, I mean, the phrase is like leaders are readers.
00:16:01
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%.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, without exception.
00:16:12
Speaker
I can't think of an exception.
00:16:14
Speaker
And outside of door-to-door sales and other industries too, it is a common theme.
00:16:20
Speaker
They are reading books.
00:16:22
Speaker
They're not wasting time with Netflix and dumb entertainment, just mindless things.
00:16:27
Speaker
They're being intentional with...
00:16:29
Speaker
leveling up.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, one of the best.
00:16:31
Speaker
I mean, sometimes I'm off and on with it.
00:16:33
Speaker
But I think the best thing I did to start reading more is just 75 hard.
00:16:38
Speaker
Sure, you heard of it, but just where they have you read 10 pages.
00:16:42
Speaker
The whole Andy Frisella workout thing.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker
So, yeah, I think that's a really good because 10 pages, I mean, usually doesn't take more than like 10 minutes.
00:16:51
Speaker
And then when you combine that with audio books, too, you can get through a lot of books.
00:16:57
Speaker
But for you personally, how many books are you typically reading a year?
00:17:01
Speaker
And what do you see from like good leaders?
00:17:02
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.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
To me, it was like crazy.
00:17:12
Speaker
I'm like, wow, that's I don't know if I have time for that much reading.
00:17:15
Speaker
But are you is it is it like that level?
00:17:18
Speaker
Or how many books would you recommend or like see that good leaders are reading on average?
00:17:24
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.
00:17:29
Speaker
There's those summaries app.
00:17:31
Speaker
There's a couple that I use.
00:17:32
Speaker
One is called Blinkist.
00:17:34
Speaker
The other is called Get Abstract.
00:17:37
Speaker
They basically take the good books and give you a summary that you can listen to in 15 minutes.
00:17:43
Speaker
I would say when I was younger, I would try to listen to...
00:17:48
Speaker
like one book every two weeks.
00:17:50
Speaker
Like I did a couple of years where I tried to do 25 books a year, but I actually didn't like that.
00:17:55
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.
00:18:00
Speaker
The goal is not to get through as many as you can.
00:18:02
Speaker
That's, that's dumb to me.
00:18:03
Speaker
You know, the goal is to learn and to like, let it sink in and marinate it.
00:18:07
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.
00:18:14
Speaker
But, and then there's other books that I'll listen to
00:18:17
Speaker
30 times, no exaggeration.
00:18:19
Speaker
My secret, like my book is Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale.
00:18:24
Speaker
Like I've read that book probably 30 to 40 times, no exaggeration.
00:18:28
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,
00:18:36
Speaker
22 year old kid, I would put on Brian Trace, or sorry, Earl Nightingale, lead the field.
00:18:41
Speaker
And it would pull me out of it and just pull me into like, just positive mindset.
00:18:44
Speaker
Because we're really like, like, think about it, like there's, there's so many sources of information that we're getting.
00:18:51
Speaker
And most of it, 90% of it, maybe more is negative or not helpful.
00:18:56
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.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:05
Speaker
Or like some Netflix movie that's just about dumb stuff.
00:19:08
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.
00:19:20
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.
00:19:27
Speaker
I've noticed that with me.
00:19:28
Speaker
You know, it's like we've got to be really deliberate with our inputs.
00:19:32
Speaker
Anyway, that's that's my rant about audio books.
00:19:34
Speaker
I love I love audio books.
00:19:37
Speaker
One what I love, too, is I think most people listening probably have like Spotify or whatever.
00:19:43
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.
00:19:51
Speaker
And I look up most like self-improvement sales books.
00:19:54
Speaker
A lot of times they're already included in Spotify.
00:19:57
Speaker
I think seven habits is free on there.
00:19:59
Speaker
I've listened to seven habits.
00:20:00
Speaker
That's another one.
00:20:01
Speaker
That's an annual read for me.
00:20:02
Speaker
I've probably read that one a dozen times.
00:20:05
Speaker
He's one of my heroes, Stephen Covey.
00:20:07
Speaker
So yeah, it's like people don't really have excuses to not listen to books these days.
00:20:11
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.
00:20:21
Speaker
Even I still have a bunch of them, but yeah, not the tapes, but the CDs.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:26
Speaker
My dad's got the tapes.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:28
Speaker
I think it was CDs.
00:20:29
Speaker
I don't think, I don't think I'm that old, but yeah.
00:20:31
Speaker
So it's like people got no excuses these days.
00:20:33
Speaker
So easy to go on audible.
00:20:36
Speaker
Uh, just, and you, do you read your books?
00:20:38
Speaker
Do you listen to them or do you do both or what do you like?
00:20:41
Speaker
I listen almost exclusively.
00:20:43
Speaker
I listen.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
I like, I like, I think I do get more, I'm more of a visual learner.
00:20:48
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.
00:20:54
Speaker
But
00:20:55
Speaker
I do that with a few books, like Ray Dalio's, his book Principles.
00:21:01
Speaker
I've listened to that one, you know, while I read it physically, I've done that with seven habits.
00:21:06
Speaker
So I agree with you.
00:21:07
Speaker
I think that's a great way to learn.
00:21:08
Speaker
Like if you can do both and you can be highlighting while you're listening and reading.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:13
Speaker
With like listening.
00:21:15
Speaker
Um, that's the cool thing is even less of an excuse.
00:21:18
Speaker
Cause yeah, we're all driving a lot in cells.
00:21:21
Speaker
Um, most of us are at the gym and all that.
00:21:22
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.
00:21:29
Speaker
So.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:21:30
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:21:31
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:21:32
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
The Core Principles of Leadership
00:21:47
Speaker
doing.
00:21:47
Speaker
Like if you're in, if you're in a sales role,
00:21:50
Speaker
there's few books that will have more actionable items, you know, like, and you're trying to scale a team.
00:21:56
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.
00:22:03
Speaker
That's, that's tailored.
00:22:04
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
00:22:16
Speaker
written for exactly what you're doing in your career at this time.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:21
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:22:22
Speaker
A lot of stuff we talk about with books.
00:22:24
Speaker
Didn't mean to turn that into half the podcast, but... But yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
So I wanted to get into... In the book, you talk about just like this, doing this self-evaluation thing.
00:22:39
Speaker
So that's another thing I got.
00:22:40
Speaker
I would say one of the bigger takeaways is...
00:22:43
Speaker
Your core four principles are the leadership.
00:22:46
Speaker
Going to have to look at my notes again, but it's vision, skill, action, and character, right?
00:22:52
Speaker
Are the four core four.
00:22:54
Speaker
Good job.
00:22:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:56
Speaker
Wrote it down because I knew I'd forget.
00:22:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:59
Speaker
One of the well, first of all, I guess, how did you and I think you did talk about this in the book.
00:23:04
Speaker
So people can read it to you.
00:23:05
Speaker
But how did you narrow it down to those core four?
00:23:08
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.
00:23:16
Speaker
I'm sure there's a lot of like important leadership principles.
00:23:19
Speaker
But how did you narrow it down to these four things in specific vision, skill, action and character?
00:23:25
Speaker
I don't know, I'm kind of nerdy.
00:23:27
Speaker
My degree is in finance.
00:23:28
Speaker
And so I just, I view the world in formulas.
00:23:31
Speaker
They just really helped me simplify a complicated world, I guess.
00:23:35
Speaker
Especially early in my career, I was really a student of this.
00:23:39
Speaker
I'm still a student of this in many ways, just of like a good leader.
00:23:43
Speaker
Like, what does it look like?
00:23:44
Speaker
How do they think?
00:23:45
Speaker
How do they get the results that they're getting?
00:23:48
Speaker
But especially as a young aspiring leader, you know, trying to scale a sales team, I was...
00:23:54
Speaker
just constantly looking for that formula.
00:23:57
Speaker
Like, okay, just tell me what I've got to do and I'll do exactly what you tell me.
00:24:00
Speaker
Like, what is this formula?
00:24:01
Speaker
What does that look like?
00:24:03
Speaker
But I never could find one.
00:24:05
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.
00:24:16
Speaker
You say,
00:24:17
Speaker
Hey, listen, if you will knock the doors and if you will say the pitch the right way, you will see success.
00:24:24
Speaker
Like I've been doing this for years.
00:24:25
Speaker
If you just do those two things, you'll see success.
00:24:27
Speaker
And they try to overcomplicate it and tell you it's this and that.
00:24:30
Speaker
And there's all these other problems.
00:24:32
Speaker
And you're like, no, no, no.
00:24:33
Speaker
It's just these two things and you'll be successful.
00:24:35
Speaker
For me, that was really helpful just to always come back to that simple formula.
00:24:39
Speaker
Okay, I can control the controllables.
00:24:41
Speaker
I'm going to do these two things and I'll get results.
00:24:43
Speaker
And it always worked.
00:24:45
Speaker
But as a leader, you know, if you're trying to scale a team, it can be discouraging.
00:24:49
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.
00:24:56
Speaker
And then they lost, you know, all of them because the company went under.
00:24:59
Speaker
Now they're starting from scratch.
00:25:00
Speaker
And it's like, man, what do I got to do here?
00:25:03
Speaker
How do I, you know, like, what did I do wrong?
00:25:07
Speaker
And so anyway, the formula really came from
00:25:12
Speaker
from studying this idea and trying to find out what made leaders great.
00:25:16
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.
00:25:36
Speaker
And so anytime I hear somebody raving about their manager,
00:25:40
Speaker
you know, like in a good way, like, wow, like, Oh, just wait till you meet this person.
00:25:43
Speaker
Like, they are just awesome.
00:25:44
Speaker
Like, they're just incredible.
00:25:45
Speaker
Like Dave Allred, I always heard people talk about Dave Allred has become a friend and, and, um, uh, close friend.
00:25:51
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.
00:26:03
Speaker
Um,
00:26:05
Speaker
there's a lot of names out there.
00:26:06
Speaker
Ashton, you work with Ashton Buswell, Kyle Nielsen over at Aptiv.
00:26:14
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.
00:26:23
Speaker
So whenever I would hear that, I would get really curious because it's a rare thing.
00:26:26
Speaker
It's like, wait, you love your manager?
00:26:28
Speaker
What do you mean?
00:26:28
Speaker
Well, what do they like and how do they do this?
00:26:30
Speaker
And
00:26:31
Speaker
And then getting to meet these individuals.
00:26:33
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.
00:26:47
Speaker
And, you know,
00:26:48
Speaker
I mean, like the people who are at the top of these organizations are like they are the real deal.
00:26:55
Speaker
They are just total like class acts, awesome people.
00:26:59
Speaker
And the thing that they have is it's a combination of four things that makes them so special and so unique.
00:27:06
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.
00:27:11
Speaker
But, you know, those four things are vision, skill, character and action.
00:27:17
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.
00:27:27
Speaker
They'll never be able to really break out until they have all four of those things.
00:27:32
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.
00:27:41
Speaker
But the challenge...
00:27:43
Speaker
is that most people tend to study the things they're interested in, not the things that they need to work on.
00:27:50
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.
00:27:55
Speaker
Like there's such a thing as blind spots.
00:27:57
Speaker
So some people have no idea.
00:28:00
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.
00:28:11
Speaker
And it's been a breakthrough.
00:28:12
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.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:29
Speaker
So.
00:28:30
Speaker
Does that answer your question?
00:28:30
Speaker
That's a long answer to your question.
00:28:32
Speaker
Sorry.
00:28:32
Speaker
No, that's good.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:33
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.
00:28:42
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.
00:28:57
Speaker
So, yeah, I like that idea a lot, too.
00:29:00
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.
00:29:17
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.
00:29:21
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.
00:29:33
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.
00:29:42
Speaker
you know, they have everybody there has something different holding them back from, you know, kind of getting to their, their next level.
00:29:48
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.
00:29:58
Speaker
You know, it's not just anecdotal you saying, Hey, you need to do this.
00:30:01
Speaker
It's, Hey, look at the data here.
00:30:03
Speaker
All of your reps say that, you know, you need to work on this area.
00:30:07
Speaker
And then it's like, okay, like, Hey, this isn't a mean thing.
00:30:09
Speaker
I'm not being mean to you.
00:30:10
Speaker
This is like,
00:30:11
Speaker
You know, we're in the war room.
00:30:13
Speaker
We're in, you know, we're in the locker room before this football game.
00:30:17
Speaker
And your sprints aren't fast enough.
00:30:19
Speaker
You need to train sprints because you're holding the team back.
00:30:22
Speaker
And they say, okay, that's what I got to do.
00:30:25
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:30:30
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.
00:30:37
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:30:41
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
00:30:44
Speaker
But it's not a door knocking app.
00:30:46
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:30:50
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.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:31:04
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:31:08
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
00:31:12
Speaker
You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
00:31:15
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.
00:31:24
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:31:28
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:31:30
Speaker
Because it's our job, you know?
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:34
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:31:34
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?
00:31:46
Speaker
Because it's like, you can tell them, okay, go work on the, let's improve this part of your presentation, whatever.
00:31:52
Speaker
Let's hit these metrics.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:54
Speaker
But to me, it seems like vision and character.
00:31:57
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.
00:32:06
Speaker
So what are some things specifically with like vision and character?
00:32:09
Speaker
How would you say that you've seen guys improve in those areas versus just like sales?
00:32:16
Speaker
Like how do you, is it like books you point them to kind of like we're talking about earlier?
00:32:20
Speaker
How do you, how do you get guys to like have a bigger vision and better character?
00:32:24
Speaker
Great, great question.
00:32:26
Speaker
And that's interesting that you say that, that those two would be easier because for everybody, it really is different.
00:32:31
Speaker
Like, like for some people, they look at that and they're like, oh, those two are easy.
00:32:34
Speaker
Like, I can see what I need to do.
00:32:36
Speaker
And they have this big vision, you know, or they, or they're really strong in character.
00:32:39
Speaker
They're really, you know,
00:32:41
Speaker
that's not something that they're even thinking about, but they're just really lazy.
00:32:44
Speaker
And they're like, but action, like, I don't know how you do it, Taylor.
00:32:47
Speaker
Like, how do you get yourself up every morning and get out there and get after it?
00:32:50
Speaker
Like, I just don't feel like doing it, you know?
Importance of Vision in Leadership
00:32:52
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.
00:33:05
Speaker
But I would say in general, this is a generalization, but based on...
00:33:10
Speaker
no data, just my
00:33:12
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.
00:33:23
Speaker
I guess going back to that formula from earlier, right?
00:33:26
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.
00:33:32
Speaker
That's kind of like action and skill, right?
00:33:34
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.
00:33:41
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.
00:33:52
Speaker
I would say, I would say, so you asked about vision and character.
00:33:56
Speaker
I'll start with vision.
00:33:57
Speaker
So vision, vision is really important.
00:34:00
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
00:34:06
Speaker
you know, a business leader and a sales leader.
00:34:08
Speaker
It's important to understand that the future is created by people
00:34:13
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.
00:34:22
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.
00:34:27
Speaker
And that was their idea.
00:34:28
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.
00:34:39
Speaker
That's really the future resides in your imagination.
00:34:43
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.
00:34:59
Speaker
I think that's important.
00:35:00
Speaker
I think most sales reps can't see past the commissions or the next year.
00:35:07
Speaker
They struggle to see, okay, well, how can we 10x this?
00:35:11
Speaker
How does this look?
00:35:12
Speaker
Hey, I'm managing a team of 10 sales reps right now.
00:35:16
Speaker
What does 100 reps look like?
00:35:17
Speaker
Okay, well, what software do I need to have?
00:35:19
Speaker
What kind of culture does it look like?
00:35:25
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.
00:35:33
Speaker
I'm going to, we're going to need help here.
00:35:34
Speaker
So, you know, how, how do we get these people to step up and them to be, to be leaders?
00:35:40
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?
00:35:48
Speaker
But yeah, definitely prescribing books.
00:35:52
Speaker
In my book, Core 4, at the end of every chapter, there's recommended books.
00:35:57
Speaker
So there's some really good ones at the end of Vision.
00:36:02
Speaker
Just books that I just love.
00:36:03
Speaker
You know, The Magic of Thinking Big.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:11
Speaker
I don't have it right in front of me.
00:36:14
Speaker
Help me out.
00:36:14
Speaker
What were some of the other recommended books?
00:36:17
Speaker
I remember that one, but, but yeah, I guess people have to read the book.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
I'm not going to spoil it.
00:36:23
Speaker
I won't spoil it for you.
00:36:26
Speaker
Which one?
00:36:27
Speaker
What else am I thinking of?
00:36:27
Speaker
I'm thinking of, there's a, whatever.
00:36:33
Speaker
I guess you can cut that part out.
00:36:36
Speaker
No, no, no, no.
00:36:38
Speaker
Whatever.
00:36:40
Speaker
Anyway, some really good books about vision.
00:36:42
Speaker
I really sold that well.
00:36:44
Speaker
But yeah, prescribing books just to kind of help people think bigger.
00:36:50
Speaker
Elon Musk is one of the books I prescribe just because that guy thinks so big.
00:36:56
Speaker
You hear about the games that he's playing and the problems that he's trying to solve.
00:37:00
Speaker
It just makes you think
00:37:01
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?
00:37:12
Speaker
Like, what am I doing?
00:37:12
Speaker
I need to stop stop playing small.
00:37:15
Speaker
So, you know, I think that's really important with with vision there.
00:37:20
Speaker
There's it's just important to dream.
00:37:22
Speaker
It's important for us to create.
00:37:24
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.
00:37:33
Speaker
And, you know, they want to come help you build.
00:37:36
Speaker
Nobody wants to go, I learned this the hard way, you know, nobody wants to work for something small.
00:37:43
Speaker
Like everybody wants to work for something that's going to blow up.
00:37:46
Speaker
That's going to get big.
00:37:47
Speaker
Like they want to be a part of something that's has a bright future where people are really pushing hard and,
00:37:52
Speaker
are dreaming.
00:37:53
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:56
Speaker
Especially good people.
00:37:58
Speaker
Exactly.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:59
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.
00:38:10
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.
00:38:23
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.
00:38:32
Speaker
So, yep.
00:38:34
Speaker
So, yep.
00:38:34
Speaker
And again, that's why you need all four, right?
00:38:37
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?
00:38:49
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.
00:38:55
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.
00:39:02
Speaker
And, you know, it's, it's, it's important to be, you know, aware of, aware of those companies.
00:39:08
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.
00:39:14
Speaker
And so it's one thing to have a great vision.
00:39:16
Speaker
It's another to actually deliver on that.
00:39:19
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.
00:39:29
Speaker
And, you know, or 10 years ago.
Character and Trust in Leadership
00:39:31
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.
00:39:46
Speaker
Um, so it's not just about talking about it.
00:39:48
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.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right.
00:39:56
Speaker
So, um, it's important to deliver on it.
00:39:59
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.
00:40:07
Speaker
So character is, um, is, is, you know, number three on the, on the list of the, of the four multipliers.
00:40:15
Speaker
Character is very underrated.
00:40:19
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.
00:40:40
Speaker
It's like, honestly, that stuff has always just really...
00:40:45
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.
00:40:53
Speaker
It's like, I don't want to be associated with that.
00:40:56
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.
00:41:01
Speaker
Like that's what, that's not what they were about.
00:41:04
Speaker
They're not, they're once again, like the great leaders are
00:41:08
Speaker
like they're class acts.
00:41:09
Speaker
They're the real deal.
00:41:11
Speaker
They're not into that.
00:41:12
Speaker
They're not wasting time and money.
00:41:14
Speaker
Like they're investing.
00:41:16
Speaker
They've got great families.
00:41:17
Speaker
They're spending, you know, they're thinking about the right things.
00:41:20
Speaker
They're actually somebody that you'd want to be like.
00:41:22
Speaker
So when we think about character, that's what I mean.
00:41:25
Speaker
It's like, do your reps actually admire you?
00:41:28
Speaker
Like, do they want to, would they trade places with you?
00:41:32
Speaker
You know, or is your personal life a mess?
00:41:34
Speaker
Like you've got a drinking problem or you've got,
00:41:37
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.
00:41:46
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.
00:41:52
Speaker
But, you know, we've, we've, you're going to attract the type of people that you are.
00:41:58
Speaker
And so that's one of my favorite quotes.
00:42:00
Speaker
I actually have it up on the wall over here, which is,
00:42:02
Speaker
which is by Jim Rohn.
00:42:04
Speaker
Or no, no, no.
00:42:05
Speaker
I'm thinking of the one by James Allen.
00:42:07
Speaker
This is in the book, As a Man Thinketh.
00:42:10
Speaker
And the quote is, men do not attract that which they are.
00:42:13
Speaker
Or men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
00:42:19
Speaker
In other words, in life, we don't get what we want.
00:42:22
Speaker
We get what we attract.
00:42:24
Speaker
And we don't attract what we want.
00:42:26
Speaker
We attract what we are, what we are.
00:42:28
Speaker
If that makes sense.
00:42:29
Speaker
So I remember sitting across from this, this, um, sales rep who she was actually, she was a female, um, real nice gal.
00:42:38
Speaker
And, um, but you know, her life was a total mess and she would kind of open up about that.
00:42:45
Speaker
And she was, she was crying.
00:42:47
Speaker
We were doing a one-on-one and I was, I was checking in on her and trying to help her.
00:42:50
Speaker
And she, you know, she had asked for some advice and she had just broken up with this bat, really bad guy.
00:42:55
Speaker
And, um,
00:42:57
Speaker
hopefully this doesn't sound judgmental.
00:43:01
Speaker
I'll keep her name confidential.
00:43:03
Speaker
But at the end of the conversation, she just said, why can't I find any good guys?
00:43:12
Speaker
Why can't I find a good... I just want to find a good man.
00:43:15
Speaker
And again, this is going to sound super mean.
00:43:18
Speaker
I'm just saying, but I didn't say this out loud, but I had the thought.
00:43:21
Speaker
I was like...
00:43:23
Speaker
I was like, you, you know, you've got a face tattoo.
00:43:26
Speaker
Actually, she didn't have it.
00:43:26
Speaker
She didn't have it.
00:43:27
Speaker
Anyway, maybe I'll backpedal here.
00:43:31
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.
00:43:38
Speaker
If you are, if you are not attractive, you're not going to attract people.
00:43:43
Speaker
someone that is attractive.
00:43:44
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.
00:43:49
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.
00:43:57
Speaker
Does that make sense what I'm saying?
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:00
Speaker
You know, but she's a nice girl.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:44:03
Speaker
A sweet spirit, as we say.
00:44:05
Speaker
You know, she was nice, but she... But, you know, anyway, but I think we're all like that in some ways.
00:44:10
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.
00:44:19
Speaker
And finding what that change is and confronting it is the first step.
00:44:23
Speaker
Like, that's really important.
00:44:24
Speaker
Ray Dalio, in his book, Principles, he says...
00:44:27
Speaker
Um, everybody has one thing that's holding them back.
00:44:31
Speaker
At least one thing holding them back from their success, find yours and deal with it.
00:44:36
Speaker
I think that's really important because that's, that's hard to do.
00:44:39
Speaker
It's hard to confront, you know, it's hard to confront our weaknesses and those things that are holding us back.
00:44:46
Speaker
That's why character, you know, we're talking about the, the four multipliers character often is the hardest one because, um,
00:44:56
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.
00:45:05
Speaker
And when you're in a sales leadership position, you want to believe that
00:45:10
Speaker
there's a separation between your personal life and business, guess what?
00:45:14
Speaker
There's not like they're watching, they're watching closely.
00:45:17
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.
00:45:30
Speaker
But as soon as they see you just making bad decisions and being, being frivolous, either with your money or,
00:45:36
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.
00:45:48
Speaker
They're going to go follow somebody that can help them get what they want.
00:45:51
Speaker
So developing character is, is extremely important.
00:45:54
Speaker
And I'll, I'll, I'll define character also in a, in a, in a few ways.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's, it's being dependable.
00:46:04
Speaker
It's, it's being a firm foundation that they can build on, not something that's finicky.
00:46:08
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.
00:46:14
Speaker
They can't rely on you.
00:46:15
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?
00:46:23
Speaker
Like if you say you're going to do it, you do it.
00:46:25
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.
00:46:33
Speaker
They will remember that.
00:46:34
Speaker
And that goes a long way.
00:46:37
Speaker
So good.
00:46:38
Speaker
The ability to say sorry is a really good indicator of someone's character.
00:46:42
Speaker
I don't know why this one is so hard, but people have such a hard time saying sorry.
00:46:45
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.
00:46:52
Speaker
You didn't call.
00:46:52
Speaker
It's like, oh, I'm so sorry.
00:46:54
Speaker
You know what?
00:46:54
Speaker
That's totally on me.
00:46:56
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.
00:47:02
Speaker
And they'll try to put it back on the rep somehow.
00:47:05
Speaker
And they just won't take ownership and just say sorry.
00:47:07
Speaker
So that's a really good indicator if someone has high character.
00:47:11
Speaker
And as a bystander, sometimes they don't even know you're watching, but you'll see it.
00:47:15
Speaker
And immediately what happens?
00:47:16
Speaker
You respect that person more.
00:47:18
Speaker
You're like, oh, that just like he just said, sorry, like that, that goes a long way.
00:47:23
Speaker
That person has humility.
00:47:24
Speaker
And I already trust that person more.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:28
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.
00:47:34
Speaker
You're like, okay, mentally, I'm refiling this, you know, that person, you know, is not, you know, not credible.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:42
Speaker
Well, and do you have any advice?
00:47:43
Speaker
I know we don't have a lot of time left here, but last question or two, Alec.
00:47:46
Speaker
Do you have any advice for like reps?
00:47:48
Speaker
Maybe they see a lot of these deficiencies with their leader.
00:47:51
Speaker
Maybe they just joined the company and they're like, oh, I can't count on my leader.
00:47:56
Speaker
My leader's not even producing because I've unfortunately been with companies where I've seen that too.
00:48:00
Speaker
The managers like aren't great.
00:48:03
Speaker
Sometimes they're really good in one of them, but they're lacking on a lot of the other ones.
00:48:07
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.
00:48:14
Speaker
He could be a lot better producing.
00:48:16
Speaker
Do you think it's just on that?
00:48:17
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.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah, that a couple of thoughts.
00:48:26
Speaker
One, that is probably,
00:48:34
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
00:48:57
Speaker
you know, church and, and work.
00:48:59
Speaker
And as a dad, like the, the people that, that, uh, you know, are in your stewardship,
Personal Development in Leadership
00:49:05
Speaker
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.
00:49:15
Speaker
So that respect, I just want to make sure that that's clear.
00:49:18
Speaker
Like, don't be critical of your leader.
00:49:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:21
Speaker
you really like, they need your support and you're, you're, it may be valid what you're saying.
00:49:26
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.
00:49:31
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:49:31
Speaker
My manager really needs to read this book.
00:49:33
Speaker
It's like, that's, you're kind of missing the point.
00:49:34
Speaker
Like you should be doing that for yourself.
00:49:37
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.
00:49:46
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.
00:49:53
Speaker
So I think that would be extremely helpful.
00:49:55
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.
00:50:07
Speaker
Like a lot of these books are just so good for developing character.
00:50:11
Speaker
And then, you know, encourage that leader to, you
00:50:15
Speaker
you know, manage the discussion on it.
00:50:17
Speaker
And then they're, they're going to have takeaways and they're going to have thoughts about it.
00:50:21
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.
00:50:29
Speaker
I haven't been great at this thing and they may own up to it.
00:50:33
Speaker
But so, yeah, again, the point is not to be critical of your leader.
00:50:37
Speaker
You definitely want to give your leader as much support as you can.
00:50:40
Speaker
If you're, if you're choosing to be on whatever team that you're on and whatever industry you're in,
00:50:45
Speaker
Your leader deserves your support and unity.
00:50:51
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.
00:50:59
Speaker
Like there has to be unity.
00:51:01
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.
00:51:07
Speaker
They should, they should read it and think about themselves.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think that goes for anything.
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah, but I've heard that and that's usually my response is, okay, you're doing this the wrong way.
00:51:20
Speaker
You got to, you know, look inward.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:24
Speaker
True.
00:51:24
Speaker
Extreme ownership, right?
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:51:27
Speaker
Ownership of what you can control.
00:51:28
Speaker
So that's great.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:29
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:51:30
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:51:31
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.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:45
Speaker
Instagram, uh, at Alec Nethercott, um, or email me Alec Nethercott at gmail.com.
00:51:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:54
Speaker
But yeah, stay in touch.
00:51:56
Speaker
Hope you like the book.
00:51:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:59
Speaker
So everyone go read it.
00:52:00
Speaker
And then last question.
00:52:02
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.
00:52:10
Speaker
I just want to go get my own sales, make my money, and that's it.
00:52:13
Speaker
I don't care about babysitting other people, stepping into management, leading others.
00:52:19
Speaker
So what would you say to those people?
00:52:20
Speaker
Would you say leadership, like everyone should want to develop these leadership skills?
00:52:24
Speaker
Or do you think some people are just, just aren't like built for leadership or shouldn't be doing it?
00:52:29
Speaker
What's your opinion on that with a rep that's like, I don't really care about that.
00:52:33
Speaker
And it doesn't interest them as much.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah, I would say I would share a quote with them.
00:52:40
Speaker
And this is the quote.
00:52:41
Speaker
This is by Jim Rohn.
00:52:43
Speaker
He says, if you work hard on your job, you can make a living.
00:52:48
Speaker
If you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune.
00:52:51
Speaker
And the takeaway is that personal development is leadership development.
00:52:55
Speaker
Leadership development is personal development.
00:52:58
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of jobs you could have.
00:53:00
Speaker
There's a lot of places you could go and just get a paycheck.
00:53:03
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,
00:53:13
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.
00:53:19
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?
00:53:35
Speaker
You know, is it just a paycheck?
00:53:36
Speaker
Because I would say you should get curious about that.
00:53:41
Speaker
You can get a lot more out of that time.
00:53:42
Speaker
You're going to spend so much time working.
00:53:45
Speaker
You know, you want to do something that's going to be helping you become a better person.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
And I just think that at the end of the day, everyone's leading at least one person and that's yourself.
00:53:57
Speaker
Right.
00:53:57
Speaker
So it's like I think better you can lead yourself.
00:54:00
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.
00:54:08
Speaker
I know I produce way more myself and make a lot more money.
00:54:11
Speaker
And yeah, I think a lot of benefits to it.
00:54:14
Speaker
So, uh, it's more fun.
00:54:17
Speaker
It's more fun too.
00:54:18
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.
00:54:35
Speaker
It's like, okay, every day is the same.
00:54:37
Speaker
Every day is Groundhog's Day.
00:54:38
Speaker
But when you're working with a team,
00:54:40
Speaker
It's, it's just, it's more fun.
00:54:42
Speaker
It's more inspiring.
00:54:43
Speaker
You're building something great together.
00:54:45
Speaker
Like that's, that's, um, you know, that what, that's a beautiful life.
00:54:50
Speaker
That's a beautiful way to work.
00:54:52
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.
00:55:04
Speaker
So and my first thought was like, oh, why weren't you working this hard when I was when you were with me?
00:55:09
Speaker
Like, why weren't you producing those numbers?
00:55:11
Speaker
Yeah, what the heck?
00:55:12
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.
00:55:18
Speaker
Maybe it's a better team.
00:55:19
Speaker
Maybe it's better leaders because it's not always just that they weren't working with you.
00:55:24
Speaker
And there's such a thing as a better culture fit.
00:55:26
Speaker
I mean, I've seen that happen multiple times, you know, many times throughout my career.
00:55:31
Speaker
And I would think the same thing.
00:55:32
Speaker
Oh, why are they selling so much better over there?
00:55:34
Speaker
And honestly, I'm happy for them.
00:55:35
Speaker
It's like, hey, you found your tribe.
00:55:36
Speaker
This wasn't the right fit for you, but I'm glad that you found it over there.
00:55:40
Speaker
I mean, ultimately, that's what you want.
00:55:42
Speaker
That's what you wish for a person is that they can
00:55:43
Speaker
they could thrive.
00:55:44
Speaker
Well, I want to be respectful of your time.
00:55:46
Speaker
I know you got other meetings and stuff to get to, but hopefully guys will go by the book.
00:55:51
Speaker
If you haven't reached out to Alec, wish we could go like two more hours.
00:55:56
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.
00:56:02
Speaker
Awesome.
00:56:03
Speaker
Appreciate you having me.
00:56:04
Speaker
Thanks, Taylor.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:05
Speaker
And we'll have to talk more.
00:56:06
Speaker
You got the guitars and stuff in the background, so we didn't even get to talk about music, but.
00:56:10
Speaker
Oh yes.
00:56:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:11
Speaker
Do you play?
00:56:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a drummer, so.
00:56:15
Speaker
Oh, no way.
00:56:17
Speaker
I've got a Roland electric set back here.
00:56:19
Speaker
This is the attic.
00:56:20
Speaker
This is my little.
00:56:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah, to be continued.
00:56:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:56:30
Speaker
All right, brother.
00:56:31
Speaker
Well, hey, appreciate you so much.
00:56:33
Speaker
And yeah, we'll have to have you on the future.
00:56:35
Speaker
Thanks again.
00:56:36
Speaker
Awesome.
00:56:37
Speaker
Okay, appreciate it.
00:56:37
Speaker
We'll see you.
00:56:40
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:56:41
Speaker
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00:56:51
Speaker
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00:57:03
Speaker
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00:57:10
Speaker
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00:57:35
Speaker
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00:57:41
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:57:49
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:57:56
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.