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EP652: Adam Allred - Mastering Sales: The Grit, The Game, and The Growth
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“You have to have a never quit, never say die attitude. Because even if you’re working hard, even if you’re coachable and teachable, you are going to have moments in business, many moments in business, where you want to quit. And you’re going to have every good reason in the world to quit.”
Sales is the lifeblood of any business, and success in it isn’t about having a specific personality—it’s about discipline, adaptability, and grit. The key to winning in sales is a mix of relentless work ethic, coachability, and an unshakable refusal to quit. If you can embrace rejection, learn from every interaction, and refine your approach, you’ll master the game. And beyond making the sale, the real art is in customer retention—reminding clients why they chose you in the first place. People forget the value they receive unless you make it clear, and that’s a fundamental business principle.
Adam Allred shares his journey from door-to-door sales to multi-million dollar business exits, emphasizing that selling is about energy transfer and authenticity. His insights dismantle the myth that only extroverts thrive in sales—anyone can win if they master the right mindset. He also highlights how market adaptation is crucial, recounting his experiences adjusting sales techniques based on regional differences.
Adam Allred is a serial entrepreneur with a background in door-to-door sales, having built and sold multiple businesses, including a garbage company and a pest control empire. With years of experience hiring and training thousands of sales reps, he now runs ventures across different industries, consistently scaling and exiting companies at a high level.
Expert action steps:
1. Relentless Work Ethic
2. Be Coachable and Always Learn
3. Never Quit, No Matter What
Learn more and connect:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/adamallredofficial/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adamallredofficial
Website (coming soon): https://adamallredofficial.com/
Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
Recommended
Transcript
Authenticity in Sales: The Key to Connection
00:00:03
Speaker
Authenticity sells more than anything else. So that's not pretending to be somebody else to sell like your neighbor sells or like the door-to-door salesman sells or like the used car salesman sells. It's you being your most authentic version.
00:00:15
Speaker
Because when you're authentic, it invites the other person to be authentic. And now you can find out if there's a real need for your product. I'm there to have a human connection with them and then see if there's a need there. Suddenly that's when the magic really starts to take place. And you don't have to feel like you're schmoozing anybody or you're twisting anybody's arm or you're manipulating or high pressure you selling.
Introduction to 'The Thought Leader Revolution'
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice.
00:00:54
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice. Welcome to another exciting episode the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Ballou, and boy, we have an exciting guest
Meet Adam Allred: From Door-to-Door to Industry Leader
00:01:11
Speaker
lined up for you today. Today's guest is a good buddy of mine. In fact, he's already been a guest on my other podcast, The Sovereign Man, and he's such an amazing business and thought leader that I knew I had to have him on this show.
00:01:24
Speaker
I am speaking, of course, of none other than one, the only, the legendary Adam Allred. Welcome the show, Adam. Nicky, I'm glad to be here. I've never felt better about myself. That's the greatest introduction I've ever received in my life. So thank you. have you saved that for Boom. Boom. There we go. Love it.
00:01:45
Speaker
So Adam, tell us your backstory for the sake of the business audience listening to you on this show. How'd you get to be the great Adam Allred?
00:01:55
Speaker
ah Well, i'm working on making this the great Adam Allred. I'm in the process. i'm um ah um I'm far from the mark, but, um, Yeah, a little background on my ah my
College to Success: Adam's Journey in Sales
00:02:05
Speaker
business. I went into college. i didn't I didn't realize that I wanted to be a business guy when I was going through college. I was taking the kind of the the path that was handed to me by the system, get a job. I'm in college trying to figure out how to pay for a school. And here in Utah, ah they recruit door-to-door sales guys. It's a big part of like the college experience for a lot of young men as they get recruited into these companies ah during summer semesters and they go all over the all over the country.
00:02:31
Speaker
knock doors. And I started doing that. started selling home security systems my first summer Detroit. Then I went into Connecticut and I was selling garbage in Hartford, Connecticut. And then I did four years kind of all over the country knocking, doing pest control, residential. So knocking on people's doors.
00:02:45
Speaker
ah It was such a phenomenal opportunity, really, really difficult work. But I got to the point where I was making well over six figures in a summertime, knocking doors. And i was like, this is crazy. I'm a college kid. I don't even have a degree and I'm making $150,000 in three and a half months. I was like, this is lot.
00:03:00
Speaker
but And, you know, and when I was going through college, I realized I saw a lot of guys that were just unhappy at work, you know, the guys that were further down the road that had gotten into the, into the kind of the standard outline, and ah for us. And it's, you know, kind of college designed and teed up to make you a cog in the machine and somebody else's machine to go work out your life, uh, making somebody else's dream happen. And I saw that. and I saw a lot of people that were just not satisfied. A lot of guys that I looked up to even that were just like not in places that they, they loved. And,
00:03:30
Speaker
I realized I kind of had two options. Either I had to find something that I was passionate about. You know, got buddies that wanted to be high school football coach. They wake up every morning and they love what they're doing. Cool. I either had to have that, that passion for something, or I had to find something that made me a lot of money and I, I didn't have the passion. And so I realized with this door to door sales experience that when I got out of college, getting an English degree, uh, that I could take this experience I had knocking doors and and start some
Philadelphia Venture: Challenges and Triumphs
00:03:55
Speaker
businesses.
00:03:55
Speaker
And, um, I started my first company in in Philadelphia, a garbage company knocking doors. And if you know anything about Philly, there's a lot of mob influence there. A lot of ah like old Italian gangsters that have kind of survived not being you know thrown in the landfill or sleeping with the fishes or going to prison or whatever.
00:04:15
Speaker
And we got into this really rough market. me and my business partner were out of Utah and ah we get this yard. We buy these old used garbage trucks. All the money I'd saved up from knocking doors.
00:04:26
Speaker
We're buying used garbage trucks, putting new coats of paint on them, buying a bunch of carts and pretty much put everything that we had into it. And, um, And it didn't go well at first. I mean, we were getting our asses kicked. We were working, you know, 17 hours a day.
00:04:44
Speaker
And I don't know how much you want me to go into depth on this, what it takes, but we were putting in so much time to try and make that thing work. and And it just, we weren't hitting the sales. We had door-to-door sales teams that we'd hired, the guys would have been working for us. You know, from my experience in that that world, we brought them out to knock doors in Philly and sign up residential customers for us. And they were really struggling. It's a different market in Philly than ones that we're used to.
00:05:07
Speaker
In Philly, it's interesting because we had these guys who were knocking in Virginia for half the summer while we earned up money so we could launch our our business the second half of the summer, these college kids. And Virginia folks and Philadelphia folks are very different.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah. You're knocking doors in Virginia and they want, Hey, you want it to slow paced and you're smiling a lot and they're inviting you in eat some food. And it's really about building relationships through being really friendly in Philly. They mistrust that.
00:05:35
Speaker
So if you're friendly with them, they, they think you're kind of schmoozing them. And so my guys would go up on the doors and they were just getting chewed up and spit out. And, uh, We had so many other things on our plate. We weren't knocking doors with them. So we didn't realize why they weren't selling. We're like, why were they selling so well in Philly, stacking these accounts on? And now we brought our, sorry, in Virginia. Now we brought them up to Philly and they're just completely
Adapting Sales Strategies Across Markets
00:05:56
Speaker
tanking. They all want to quit and go home.
00:05:59
Speaker
So we got out, my partner and I pulled over one day and all the work that we had to get that business launched. We pulled over one day, the truck and we're like, we're just going to get out and knock and see what these guys are running into. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe it's just harder to sell customers in Philly than we thought.
00:06:12
Speaker
Within an hour, he he had sold four and I'd sold five. and we're like, this isn't, it's easy to sell here. These guys just don't know how to sell Philly, Philly people. So we went back the next morning, had a big correlation training with the guys, all the sales reps and said, look, this is how you do it When you knock on the door and somebody in Philly, you don't, you're not nice.
00:06:28
Speaker
You mirror, you mirror their body language. If they come at you hot, you've got to come back at them hot. So you feel like people come to her and be like, hey, are you doing to my door? And instead of being like, hey, I'm the garbage guy. We're just out here filling up the routes. You're gonna be like hey, I'm the garbage guy. selling garbage. you think I'm doing? And then they'll be okay, well, what's going on? And then they start asking you some questions. And it took that little paradigm shift. And all of a sudden, our guys were just selling lights out. And we built up a really cool Really cool company out there.
00:06:54
Speaker
We planned on keeping it. I thought I was going to be in Philly for 20 plus years building this garbage company. ah But we were taking so much business so fast that the competition, these old Italian guys would come around like, hey, hey let's do business. let's talk about a deal. you know And they'd have their pinky rings on and their silk shirts. And ah we'd meet with them and we'd we you know they'd slide us an offer. And we'd, ah, we're not interested. We're planning on being here for a while.
00:07:19
Speaker
They kept meeting with us and they kept making us bigger offers. And finally they made us an offer, you know, cliche, but they made us an offer we couldn't refuse. And we ended up selling that company after 18 months of being in business for three and a half million dollars. And we're like, dude, this is wow this is crazy. We did that in 18 months. And ah so we took those funds, moved back to Utah where there's the hub of door-to-door sales, started up pest control company, a p pest control company.
Building and Valuing a Pest Control Empire
00:07:45
Speaker
At the time was called Axis. Now it's called Mindfold. This is our Our logo right here, ninefold, we've been doing this for the last 12 years. We've been building pest control branches all over the country.
00:07:56
Speaker
We've had a lot of multimillion dollar exits over the years. ah The valuation just to the pest control company right now is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $100, $120 million. dollars didn't It's just wild to think there's this much money in pest control or that much money in garbage. We own ah we own a garbage company out in Lincoln. We've got some real estate ventures. We do some marketing projects.
00:08:16
Speaker
But that's a quick overview on ah on where I'm at with the whole business thing. So I've been doing this for my whole career. i've been in door-to-door sales since college, 20-plus years, and been in business for the last 14.
00:08:28
Speaker
So why do you think so many people are afraid of sales? Well, I think it's... Sales requires to be to be good at sales. or requires total commitment ah to the process.
00:08:43
Speaker
ah You can't kind of half ass your way into the end of getting good at sales, particularly door to door sales, which is just absolutely grueling. So you spend all day every day that you're out working, which in our case, it's six days a week.
00:08:56
Speaker
you're just knocking on people's doors and you're, you're getting turned down a lot. And so you have to be prepared to get rejected over and over and over again. And it's just, it's just sometimes the threshold for a lot of people it's just too emotionally draining, too psychologically draining.
00:09:12
Speaker
It's physically difficult. You're working in the the middle of the summertime, knocking doors in Atlanta or ah Texas or Phoenix or, you know, wherever, you know, you're just knocking every single day in the heat and,
00:09:24
Speaker
getting turned down all day long. And it takes a certain type of of commitment to the process that I think a lot of people are just reluctant to. I think a lot of people are afraid of getting rejected. it's It's hard for them to do that. They take it personally.
00:09:37
Speaker
Um, but sales is the highest paying career in the world. As far as I know, you know, the people that make the most money the people who know how to sell. And so it's been a phenomenal, uh, not only just an experience in building businesses, but in how much has developed me and how much I've seen it develop the guys that I have hired over the years and trained I've hired and trained and managed literally thousands of sales reps now.
Personal Growth Through Sales Experiences
00:10:00
Speaker
Mostly young men, some young women. And ah to see how much it shapes and when the the ones that don't quit and go home, the ones that don't give up on themselves, they can take that kind of mental anguish, physical, you know, the difficulties and emotional difficulties. they just those it it changes them.
00:10:16
Speaker
They become something almost superhuman from the process. Yeah. There's lot of people that start off in business and they're a little naive about what it takes to actually be successful, right?
00:10:28
Speaker
And they think if they're they have a good product or they're good at posting on social media, somehow sales will magically come their way, right?
00:10:42
Speaker
They don't realize that it actually takes a conversation with a human being to do that. And I say this all the time, if you don't sell, you don't have a business.
00:10:57
Speaker
You have a hobby. If you don't sell, you don't have business, you have a hobby. And I'd love to hear your take on that. And I'd love to hear what you have to say to somebody who's reluctant to get their hands dirty and sell.
00:11:12
Speaker
Well, I think nothing happens until something is sold. Otherwise, it's all just theoretical. You can come up with all the best ideas in the world. You can spin your wheels, making the best concepts and frameworks and social media stuff. And you can have the coolest idea or product, but nothing happens until a sale is made.
00:11:29
Speaker
ah Selling is the most important aspect of any business. And there's a lot of important aspects of business. It's not the only thing. But it is the most important because nobody else has a job until something is sold. yeah So nothing else happens.
00:11:41
Speaker
And you can have a ah mediocre product or service. And if you have great marketing and you see this all the time, it's going to work. You can sell some mediocre stuff. I don't we don't do that. I don't I don't I wouldn't take any pride in that.
00:11:53
Speaker
But I see it all the time. I see businesses that offer subpar services or products, but their marketing strategy is phenomenal. ah They know how to sell and you can have the best idea in the world. You can have the best product, you know, would change people's lives. But if you don't know how to market it, it's not going to go anywhere. So marketing is fundamentally, foundationally the most important aspect of any business, in my opinion.
00:12:12
Speaker
So step one, embrace selling, right? That's step one. Embrace selling. Step two, acquire a sales skillset, right?
00:12:28
Speaker
You gotta do that.
00:12:31
Speaker
Step three, sell. And step four, um rinse, repeat, right? Essentially.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then it's about retention, right? Then you got And that's also selling. Retention is also about selling. You're keeping people, you're reminding people of why your product is valuable to them.
Retention: Communicating Value and Satisfaction
00:12:52
Speaker
So you will you you spend all this work acquiring customers and that's all sales process. And then retaining customers in a lot of ways is also a sales process. Because even if like I do pest control and it's it's interesting, like when you do a phenomenal job at pest control, people don't see pests anymore.
00:13:08
Speaker
And so then they don't think they need pest control anymore, you know, because you did a good job. You kind of, you can work your way out of of a customer by doing an exceptional job sometimes. And so part of that is like, for example, we have our technicians doing sales processes now with every customer.
00:13:23
Speaker
Like they take pictures of what they're doing cause a lot of times customers don't even know what you did. You showed up to their house, you took care of the black widow's nest, you know, you took care of the hornet's nest, you did X, Y, and Z on the outside of their house. They don't go outside. They didn't see it. So they just know they're paying this bill and they have no idea what they're paying it for because they don't think they have any bugs.
00:13:37
Speaker
So part of it is just constantly reminding them that the perception of value is a sales process. So that constantly creating that perception of value in an existing customer is also part of the whole sales process. It's how you retain them.
00:13:48
Speaker
So like, for example, our customers, you know, when our technicians show up, they're not and typically sales guys. We train and They don't have the natural sales gift. That's why they're technicians. But we make them, we have them as part of the process on every service. They write a hand note to the customer saying, thank you so much for your business. I'm Bob. I just took care of your pest control today.
00:14:06
Speaker
This is what I saw. dadadadada This is what I treated. Oh, by the way, I cleaned up the the wood piles by the side of your house. there were some spiders there that I took care of. And then they'll send pictures to them through the software that we use. They'll actually send pictures of the work they do around the house. That's all selling.
00:14:20
Speaker
That's all reminding the customer of why they want to stay with us. And when we do that, well, we don't lose customers because they're constantly reminded of the value that we provide for It's funny. I yeah took my car into the shop.
00:14:35
Speaker
And i'm I'm dealing with a new mechanic. I know him from the gym. He's become a buddy of mine because my old mechanic sold us, sold a shop and it was kind of far. And this guy's a lot closer. So I decided to give him a shot.
00:14:46
Speaker
All he did today was he would call me and he would send me pictures of the parts in my car. They were fucked. Right. Like the air filter, the, um, the air filter inside the glove box, um,
00:15:03
Speaker
And he just would send me pictures of what mine look like and what a new one would look like. And says, we're changing this for this reason. And when he gave me the bill, and it was a decent sized bill, right? $1,400. I didn't even bat an eye because given everything he showed me, he did. it was like, yeah, okay.
00:15:25
Speaker
That actually sounds right. Sounds reasonable. You know? And the truth of the matter is that, um, What you're talking about is brilliant.
00:15:36
Speaker
You need to show people what you're doing for them. like In our business, we help entrepreneurs who are non-sales sellers, we call them, right? So these are people who are not good at selling.
00:15:50
Speaker
Selling ain't their skill set. So what I teach people, Adam, them a big part of what I teach people, it's not the only thing. I've got like three main kind of pain points. But one of them is if you suck at sales and you need more sales, you come see Nikki, right? So that's what I what i teach these guys to do.
00:16:05
Speaker
So this woman... lovely woman she deals with a big issue um called SIBO right it's like irritable bowel syndrome on steroids you can't ever leave your house because you you got to hug a toilet bowl like you're just going there you know like imagine you know you you're married to somebody and you have this uh SIBO thing you you You can't even get intimate with them because if if you want to have sex with them in the middle of it, this happens. you got You got to get out of the bed and run to the bathroom. didn't Think about that.
00:16:38
Speaker
How crazy that is. Right. oh cellular for both I mean, it's a visual, right? It's a visual. So she's she's like there's so many people, especially women who have this.
00:16:50
Speaker
And she has figured out how to solve it for people, how to resolve it. But she has not been good at selling. She's been a little nervous about it. Well, you know, the way that you're saying to have a sales conversation, I'm not sure that's my style.
00:17:05
Speaker
So my sweetheart, Teresa, she does the coaching. I do the pushing. She does the one-on-one coaching, gets them out of their way. Like she's really good at looking at your mindset or whatever the hell is in the way of you getting the way you need to go. she's got So she figured it out with her and boom, she went two for two on two discovery calls with new prospects.
00:17:28
Speaker
And she basically been going zero for whatever the number was, right? Boom, boom. And it's just because We did that. And I'm thinking what we should do is we should say, hey, so what happened was you had this mindset that you couldn't do this. You had a call with Teresa.
00:17:47
Speaker
Teresa was able to help you overcome that mindset. And then you were able to get the result. And I think it's important that we go and explain this. and And I really appreciate you teaching me this because retention is about teaching the customer, educating the customer.
Perceived vs. Intrinsic Value in Customer Retention
00:18:02
Speaker
on what you've actually done that's added value, right? That's really what it is, because otherwise they'll forget, right? Is that is that what you're saying? There's value and then there's perceived value and perceived value trumps intrinsic value any day of the week.
00:18:18
Speaker
So you can be doing doing the best job on the planet, but if people don't realize that, if they don't perceive that value, doesn't mean anything to them. Perceived value is even better than like, like it yeah, trumps actual intrinsic value because but And that's the selling process. When somebody feels like that you're taking care of them, even if you're not doing much for them, they're going to be willing to pay you an arm and a leg for that because they can perceive that. Now, we do both. You want to provide intrinsic value for customers. You want to do a really good job on whatever it is you're selling them.
00:18:47
Speaker
But if you want to keep them, there has to be that perception of value that's constantly, but they're constantly reminded of what you're doing for them and how good your service is for them product.
00:19:00
Speaker
So I think this is very important because we have not done a good job of this. So thank you for this. This has been helpful to me. See, one of the reasons I do these interviews is because I get a free coaching call from my guests. You're the legend, Nicky. I'm here to learn from you, man. Listen, when I'm interviewing you, I'm learning from you. I'm going to learn.
00:19:21
Speaker
you You can learn from me. I'm happy to do that on a different conversation, but this is my opportunity to learn from you. Remind them of what you've done for them. and And how it's helped them. Yep.
00:19:35
Speaker
Perceived value is where it's at. You got to constantly remember that if you want to keep customers is you got to constantly be working on that perception of value. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Okay. So um here's.
00:19:50
Speaker
Here's what we want to do here. We want to make sure that people understand this. So they got to understand that they got to embrace the selling process. They got to understand they got to get good at acquiring sales skills and they've got to go out there and sell and they've got to keep
Essentials of the Sales Process
00:20:05
Speaker
repeating this. But they've also got to constantly remind clients of what they've done for them and what value this has added to them.
00:20:13
Speaker
And this has got to be a constant process, constant, constant process. And I think this is very, very smart. This is something to teach coaches to do because a lot of coaches just intrinsically don't do this.
00:20:27
Speaker
Just go, yeah, well, they know what I did for them. The truth of the matter is some point they're going to forget. yeah At some point, it's going to feel like they did it without your help. That's the truth. That's what it's going to feel like. And it's not it's not the actual truth that they did it without your help, but they're going to perceive that that's what happened.
00:20:45
Speaker
And you need to kill that perception before it ever has a chance to take root. Brilliant, Adam. Brilliant. Fucking brilliant, Adam. Fast learner, Nikki. You can pick that up quick, but that's exactly right.
00:20:56
Speaker
Hey, and I wanted to jump on something going back to the actual process of selling.
Authenticity and Energy: Drivers of Sales Success
00:21:00
Speaker
It leads into everything else because, again, if you're in business, you're in the business of selling. That's what it is. like You have to know that fundamentally.
00:21:07
Speaker
Business is selling. It's marketing. That's what you've got to know. When you're talking to people, a lot of people will say, i run into this all the time and I run in this particularly with door-to-door sales reps, but they'll say, I'm not a salesperson. And usually everybody, that that first of all, there's not a personality that is a salesperson.
00:21:22
Speaker
i've I've seen introverts as the best salespeople on the planet. I've seen extroverts as the best. I've seen both be bad, extroverts and introverts. I've seen people are intuitive do really well and really bad. I've seen people who are ah you know processing and systems and analytical, those people do really well and do really bad.
00:21:40
Speaker
Really what it takes is a total commitment. It's like we were talking about earlier. It's a total commitment to the process. But here's what people get in their minds when they think about selling. They think often of what they've seen in TV shows or they think of like a used car salesman that's like coming at them high pressure and I'm trying to buy something and choosing them. And i'm gonna got all these like, you know, sales lines and hooks that they use and For some people that works, but the reality is what sells more than anything else. First of all, selling, the process of selling is the transfer of energy.
00:22:08
Speaker
So it's exactly what you were talking about. If you think you can't sell, you're not going to sell. That's the energy you're taking into that meeting. If you think you can, You have a chance. Now, you may not sell, but you have a chance because you bring that energy to the table.
00:22:20
Speaker
And so, one, this isn't a personality type. It's an energy type. It's a commitment to the process. Are you showing up believing that you can sell this bill? One, the second step to this that just sets people free and liberates them from this false stereotype of what selling is is authenticity.
00:22:38
Speaker
Authenticity sells more than anything else. So that's not pretending to be somebody else or trying to be sell like your neighbor sells or like the door-to-door salesman sells or like the used car salesman sells. It's selling how ah you sell.
00:22:49
Speaker
It's you being your most authentic version. Because when you're authentic, it invites the other person to be authentic. And now you can find out if there's a real need for your product. Typically, when you go into the selling process, everybody's walls come up.
00:23:02
Speaker
When I knock on a door, ah you know, they come to that door trying to get rid of me. That's their goal. They're like, how do I get this guy off my door? They already have these walls up and there's a kind of a literal wall with the door there that you have to get past.
00:23:15
Speaker
um When I'm authentic and I'm not trying to get anything out of now, this sounds like ah a huge contradiction because you're there i' was there to sell them a pest control service. But when I can put that out of my mind, I'm not there to sell them anything.
00:23:28
Speaker
I'm there to have a human connection with them and then see if there's a need there. Suddenly, that's when the magic really starts to take place. And you don't have to feel like you're schmoozing anybody or you're twisting anybody's arm or you're manipulating or high pressure selling.
00:23:39
Speaker
I never do that. Literally, when i knock on a door, my primary goal is to find some way to connect with that person as quick as I can so I can get around those walls. And that can be through a myriad of different things. Sometimes it's talking about, oh, yeah, I saw your license plate. You're from Michigan. I lived in Michigan for a while.
00:23:53
Speaker
Where'd you guys live? Oh, now you're having an authentic conversation and they don't even know what's going on. They think you're just talking and and and but you're you're connecting with them. And now, you know, like, oh, you guys got three kids. I got three. My littlest one is a year and a half. Your little boy looks like he's about his age.
00:24:06
Speaker
Suddenly you're having a human connection with him. And I'm not being dishonest or trying to schmooze him. It's not like leading him into a trap. It's just getting their walls to come down. It's me being an authentic human being with them.
00:24:16
Speaker
And now their walls are down. Now we can have a conversation about whether pest control is something they're interested in or not. Now I can say, yeah, by the way, I'm just here because I just set up your neighbors. We're taking care of their house. Since I'm already in the neighborhood with the truck, it's 50% off. We don't want to be pushing bugs from one house to the next.
00:24:32
Speaker
So I'm just taking care of everybody else at the same time. And then invariably, this is what they do. They'll ask you a buying question. You know, they'll be like, oh, well, how much are you guys? Or, hey, do you guys take care of these little ants? I've been seeing these. They'll start to volunteer things.
Human Connection: Understanding Customer Needs
00:24:43
Speaker
I have never twisted somebody's arm into buying anything from me ever. I try to manipulate them into buying anything from me ever. I show up, have a human connection with my, I try to bring that positive energy to the, you know, that ah energy to the to the interaction and my most authentic self. The best way that I can connect with that person And now that's where the sales process really starts. Now it's just a matter of me explaining to what the value of my my service is, explaining to them what the deal is that they're going to get, you know giving them kind of a bandwagon sense like, hey, we're we're taking care of a lot of people right now so they don't feel like they're the only person signing up.
00:25:16
Speaker
And it becomes an easy process. And I actually literally never ask anybody if they want to buy. So are you ready to do this? That never comes out of my mouth. By the time we get done with it, like, yeah, we take care of the ants. We take care of that. Yeah. going to have my technician over here. He's going to do X, y and Z. And they're like, oh, okay. Yeah. That sounds good. Let's get it done. And and we're, we're making the deal happen.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, I really like how you do this. It's, it's good. Me. I asked for the sale. I always do. but, um, but All the other things you say are very, very much resonating with how I do what I do.
00:25:55
Speaker
I really believe that human connection is the most important part and having a positive energy ah transference is super important. And then having a conversation to discover what they're dealing with, what their pain is, and then seeing if They really need us. And then if they're a good fit for us, and if that's the case, then I make them an offer.
00:26:18
Speaker
Simple as that. To your point, there's not a there's not a right way to do it or an only way to do it, I should say. like I know a lot of guys that ask you know that that's that you know close the deal. They do hard closes when they get to the end of the sales process and they do phenomenally well.
00:26:32
Speaker
You don't have to mimic or be exactly like anybody else. You've got to figure out what your lane is and you learn from others and you apply techniques here and there. But ultimately, you're being yourself on the door. The most more authentic you can be, the more likely you are to sell somebody.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's the truth. The more authentic you are, the more the more likely you are to to be able to create a sale. It's a beautiful thing.
00:26:58
Speaker
It's really fun. When you get into that space where you can get out of, I'll give you an example of how how to get authentic because a lot of people, when they put on their sales hat, the personality changes and all of a sudden they feel all this pressure and they feel like they got to act this way that way.
00:27:12
Speaker
My sister came out and she sold with me one summer. And again, door-to-door sales is is probably the hardest form of selling, at least it's the hardest form of selling that I It's really, really what separates the men from the boys.
00:27:24
Speaker
it's It's brutal. I mean, it takes its toll. My sister, who is not an extrovert at all, she's an introvert. She came out because she just really wanted to prove it to herself that she could do a summer. All of our family members, myself, we'd done it. and so she wanted to feel like she was part of that, which was really cool. And I wanted to support her. and So she came out.
00:27:41
Speaker
And, you know, she wasn't naturally gifted. And so it took a time process for her to kind of find her legs. But, uh, she called me at one point during the summer and she was just bawling her eyes out. I could feel the tears coming through the phone. She was down in Virginia. I was up in Philadelphia. We had her down in that office and she's like, I've been doing everything you tell me to do. And it's just not working. I'm not making any sales. And she's having her, she's had zero days, zero sales for the last two days in a row. And now she's just at a breaking point. And, uh,
00:28:07
Speaker
ah you know The first thing I go to is whether she's like talking about the neighbors and creating a sense of like everybody's kind of doing this right now. it's like I'm doing that. I'm talking about the neighbors. i don't know. That's like a technique that I always i always hit first. is like If somebody feels like they're the only person signing up with you, there's a strong possibility they're not going to sign up with you. You've got to create an effect, a sense that kind of everybody's doing this. This is what everybody's signing up for.
00:28:30
Speaker
So I pushed the, I pushed that with her and I can tell that she is doing that. She's telling me, I say, I talk about the neighbors all the time in my pitch. I say this, I say that. I'm like, okay, okay. Here's what I want you to do, sis. She's got two hours knocking. This is seven o'clock at night and they get done at nine o'clock at night. I'm like, for the next 20 minutes,
00:28:47
Speaker
I want you to knock as hard as you can. And I want you to make sure you don't get a sell. I want you just to talk to the customer, but I don't want you to sell them. I just want you to have an experience with them and interaction with them. Can you do that?
00:28:59
Speaker
She's like, she's kind of surprised, taken off guard. She's like, yeah yeah, I can do that. so Don't sell them. I want you to call me back in 20 minutes and tell me you haven't sold a single person. You just talked to him. You had some connection with him. Can you do that?
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'll try my best. Fine. I'll do that. And she's still flustered, but she's not crying anymore. So she does that, she calls me back 20 minutes later and she's like, okay, I did it, I didn't make a sell.
00:29:22
Speaker
And I said, well, how do you feel? And she's like, actually, I feel a little bit better. I'm like, okay, because you're not trying to sell anybody, you're not trying to get something out of anybody, you don't have an agenda anymore, you're just knocking on the
Overcoming Sales Pressure with Authenticity
00:29:32
Speaker
doors. Now what I want you to do is knock the rest of the evening, you have an hour and a half to sell.
00:29:37
Speaker
I want you to knock the rest of the evening, I want you to do the best that you know how to do, just like you've been trained, just like we've gone over your technique and everything, But I don't want you to give a shit about selling anybody. I don't even want that to be in your mind. I just want you to show up and you just connect with them and just do the best you can without giving a damn about what the outcome is.
00:29:57
Speaker
That's what I want you to do Can you do that? She's like, yeah, I can do that. She's got a little more pep in her step now. Well, nine o'clock rolls around and she has nine cells. She went from zero to nine in an hour and a half. And nine is a really good day for a full day of work.
00:30:09
Speaker
And it was all because she could step out of that whole pressure feeling like she had to sell somebody. And she could step into being just an authentic human being, a person that's just knocking on doors, talking to people, you know, finding out if there's any interest there, connecting with them. And all of a sudden, of course, there's interest. There's no longer what we call commission breath.
00:30:25
Speaker
Commission breath is what- See, I fucking say that all the time. Commission breath's one of my things, bro. it's it's such a It's such a phenomenon. I mean, think about like you walk into a, but let's say you go into a store and and ah a sales rep comes up and says, hey, do you need anything? And they end on that high note. That's that commission breath high note. You know that they're going to try and sell you something. So even if they could help you find what you want, even if they could make your process a lot more smoother, because there's that sense of commission, it immediately puts your walls up and you say, no, I'm interested. I'm not interested. I'm just going to go look around. I'm just going to, you know, browse.
00:30:57
Speaker
ah the The commission breath is what kills cells. And so the only way I know how to do that, to get rid of commission breath, is to train yourself into actually not caring about what the result of it is.
00:31:07
Speaker
You're not caring about the outcome. You're caring about the input. You're just caring about showing up authentically and doing the best that you can. When you're there, using your best skills, but you don't care. Like if you don't care, it takes such burden off the customer. Now their walls come down because they don't feel like you actually really are going to try and pressure them into anything. And now they'll start actually asking you questions where before they wouldve just told you, yeah, we're not interested. Can I get a card? They'll just tell you to take a hike essentially.
00:31:33
Speaker
But when they don't feel like you're actually trying to get anything out of them, it invites them to actually come to the table and and their authentic self now can show up and you can see if there's a deal they make.
Business Structure and Marketing Innovations
00:31:42
Speaker
I gotta tell you, Adam, I really like how you think about sales. It's incredible to me that you and your team have created a pest control business with $120 million dollars validation valuation, excuse me, and that this is based primarily on a sales-centric approach to your business.
00:32:03
Speaker
And of course, that makes total sense, total sense. So, Adam, um how do people... find out more about your company, what you do, where do we send them?
00:32:19
Speaker
Well, it depends it depends on what company you're talking about. If you're talking about pest control, the actual servicing side of my business, those are all actually different LLCs that we set up in different cities that we go into. We do different partnerships with our sales reps. so they they work their way up into ownership with us. and then we create a new LLC in whatever city that is. And they go in and they have ownership in that.
00:32:38
Speaker
So for example, here in Utah, our pest control business is called Greenline Pest Solutions. But my marketing, my door-to-door sales team is called Ninefold. You can find us on social media. ah Ninefold is where we hire all of our sales guys.
00:32:51
Speaker
We train them. They're actually, you know, they get paid from Ninefold. But when they go on the doors, they represent Evergreen Pest Solutions or Greenline Pest Solutions. We have a green in every one of our names. Greenway Pest Solutions.
00:33:03
Speaker
That's what they're actually wearing on the doors, but who they're actually employed by is is ninefold and we own, we own ninefold and we own the servicing companies. they're just different companies. Okay. Got it. Okay. So we'll send them over there.
00:33:14
Speaker
So we end every episode by asking you as our guest expert, what are your top three expert action steps?
Expert Actions for Success in Business
00:33:24
Speaker
These are your best three pieces of advice in bullet point form.
00:33:28
Speaker
Go. Okay. I, Let me see if this is what you're asking. So what I tell people, and if we're talking about sales, we're talking about business, these are the three things that you have to have. Again, it's not a personality type.
00:33:39
Speaker
Okay. You don't have to have a pure certain personality. You got to get that out of your head. It's whether you have these three things. The first one is whether you have work ethic. If you can just work regardless of what the circumstances are, regardless of how many no's get, regardless of how hot it is, regardless of what, you know, excuses are out there, you just get to work. Work will turn up sales. Sales is a number game. You knock enough doors, you make enough calls, you're eventually going to start to sell.
00:34:05
Speaker
Then you have to just commit yourself to working. That's number one. And there's no shortchange for that. And I've seen the guys with the most amount of skills fail when they don't have work ethic. It doesn't matter how naturally gifted they are. It's about work.
00:34:16
Speaker
And the number one sales guys in any industry are the guys who get the most no's. They're just knocking the most most doors, making the most call. The second thing you have to have is you got to be teachable. You got to be coachable and you're going to learn from yourself more than anything else. You're going to learn from those experiences where you fell.
00:34:32
Speaker
The nose, the nose. You keep trying to coach yourself instead of walking away from the door and being like, oh man, they just weren't interested. Nobody's interested. I suck at this. You walk away and say, okay, where did I lose them? At what point in the sales process did they drop off? You yeah analyze it. you You're constantly like teaching and coaching yourself.
00:34:48
Speaker
And then, of course, you're getting mentors or whoever the highest highest sales guys are in the company. You're picking their brain. You're surrounding yourself with them. What they say, you start to apply some of that. Not you're trying to sell just like them. You never will.
00:34:58
Speaker
But you're trying to pick up nuggets and pieces of, you know, little little hacks here and there that will help you. But you've got to be teachable. I know a lot of guys that work hard and they they just think they've got it figured out and they don't learn anymore and they plateau. They stay at a certain point.
00:35:11
Speaker
So this is where you really see guys take off, guys and girls, is when they work hard and they're constantly in a position of learning new things, new techniques, applying new, you know, mindsets towards the process.
00:35:22
Speaker
And then the last thing that you have to have to be successful, and all this applies to just business in general, is you have to have a never quit, never say die attitude. Because even if you're working hard, even if you're coachable and teachable, you are going to have moments in business, many moments in business, and you're going to have many moments in sales where you want to quit.
00:35:39
Speaker
And you're going to have every good reason in the world to quit. You're going to have all the excuses handed to you. Why you can't do it. Why this doesn't work. Why should give up. And you have to have a never say die attitude.
00:35:51
Speaker
If you can commit yourself to the process, come hell or high water, whatever it takes, you're going to work. You're going to learn and you're going to just keep going regardless of what excuses are waiting for you out there.
00:36:02
Speaker
You will find success. I promise you that. It may look different. You're going to fall forward a lot of times. You're going pivot and make some, you know, call some audibles, but you're gonna keep moving forward because you don't quit. You don't quit. You don't quit. You always fall forward. When you trip, you fall forward. You just get back up, pick yourself back up, fight through it.
00:36:18
Speaker
You're going to turn out as a phenomenal salesperson. doesn't matter what your personality is. And the awesome thing is you are going to be so unique. No one will sell like you because it's so authentic and it's just you.
00:36:30
Speaker
Amen, man. Adam, buddy, I love this conversation. I learned a ton that um
00:36:41
Speaker
piece of coaching you gave me around retention and always continuing to remind clients of what you've done for them and the value that you've added to them so that it's always top of mind for them is gold.
00:36:56
Speaker
Honestly, that is worth the price of admission. And anybody who learns from you how to sell is going to learn a skill that's going to hold them in good stead for the rest of their life.
00:37:09
Speaker
And I'm really blessed that you and I got connected on social media. That's one of the great things about social media is I come across some incredible people like you and I reach out to them and I say, Hey, you seem pretty cool.
00:37:26
Speaker
Would you like to do an interview with me on my podcast? Some people don't, don't respond. Some people say no thanks. And some people like you say, yeah, I'd love to. And more often than not,
00:37:39
Speaker
Men like you and and even some women who say, yes, I'd love to because Danielle Hage is someone that I met through social media and she came on my both my podcasts as well.
00:37:50
Speaker
These are my kind of people. They are quick deciders. I have learned something from my coach and mentor, Mark Von Muser. I'm going to introduce you to Mark. He's about to go away to some business trip in Asia for the next three
Nikki's Four Qualities for Business Growth
00:38:03
Speaker
weeks. But when he's back, you need to meet him. Mark used to be Tony Robbins' is director of sales, coaching, and training.
00:38:09
Speaker
He helped add $150 million a year to Tony's annual revenue. So he's the shit. And he is the greatest kind of heart based sales expert in the world. What he has to say about it, how he teaches it top notch. I've learned a ton from him, but he taught me these four things. He said, if you want to be successful and successful means wherever you are, You know, you could be someone starting out. You could be someone like you with $120 million dollars valued company who wants to get to the next level.
00:38:43
Speaker
There's four qualities you've got to embrace. Quality number one is you must be decisive. You must make a decision to say, yeah, I'm yes. So when I said, do you want to come on my show? You were an instant yes.
00:38:56
Speaker
I like working with people like you. i don't like working with people that don't Want to make me jump through 15 hoops before they decide whether or not they're going to do anything with me. You know what I mean? So that's number one.
00:39:06
Speaker
Also, a decisive person, someone who really very quickly attracts success, right? Very quickly attracts success. Secondly, you got to be committed to the process. And you talked about this, right?
00:39:19
Speaker
You got to commit because when you start at whatever, if you're at 120 million valuation and you say, i want to be a billionaire, buddy, you need to be a whole different human being. And there's a process you got to commit to, which is going to involve you sucking for a while before you get good. Right. That's the truth.
00:39:34
Speaker
Thirdly, you said this, you got to be teachable. You got to be coachable. You got to invest in yourself. You are the most important asset in your world. You have to invest in you.
00:39:45
Speaker
And honestly, I've worked with some of the top thought leaders in the world, Robin Sharma, who wrote the legendary book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, that sold 15 million copies.
00:39:56
Speaker
If you've never read that book, I highly recommend it. It's one of the best personal development books you'll ever read. He said to me once, because I used to be his ah health coach, he said to me, Nikki, if you want to double your income or your net worth in any given year, what you need to do is you need to triple your current investment your personal professional development.
00:40:19
Speaker
Triple it. At the time, I was maybe investing a couple thousand a year and so to myself. You know, maybe did a course here and there, that sort of thing. And I said, that means I got to go to like six grand? He goes, yeah, at least.
00:40:31
Speaker
I'm like, okay, so I did it. I attended another conference and then said the next year, triple it again. So I went to like 20 grand the next year. That was a big deal.
00:40:43
Speaker
big leap. But I got to tell you, he was right. i did double my income and then some each year that I did that. And then the final thing is you got to be resourceful. Tony Robbins says, it doesn't matter what level of resources you have. but It's not about how much money you have.
00:40:56
Speaker
It's about how resourceful are you? How much time, energy, as well as money are you willing to put in into your betterment, into your success? And I got to tell you what I've learned from you is that you're a man who embraces those qualities in your day-to-day life, which is why you and I, I think, connect well, we get along well, and we become buddies. And I just want to say thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
00:41:22
Speaker
And thank you for teaching me something really relevant and important when it comes to retention. God bless you, my man. God bless you, Nicky. Thanks for having me on, and you're doing God's work, man. Thank you.
00:41:34
Speaker
Thank you. You too. And listener, Check out um Adam and his ah ninefold company on social media. Reach out to him if learning about sales and wanting to get into the field of sales is something that's relevant and important to you, especially you're young man or woman.
00:41:54
Speaker
And um if you enjoyed this episode, Please share it with someone who you know needs the message. That wraps up another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. To find out more about today's amazing guest, the one and only Adam Allred, go to the show notes at thethoughtleaderrevolution.com or wherever you happen to listen to this episode, be it iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Rumble, YouTube, or what have Until next time, God be with you and goodbye.
00:42:29
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.