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Sam Taggart 00:39

This is Sam Taggart and I’m here with Alec Nethercott in essence a long time coming home saying is when do we say we need to do a podcast a year ago? Like a year ago we were trying to bring you on here Hey more followers now more or less?

Alec Nethercott 00:54
Yeah, that’s your I was waiting for Yeah. It’s like yeah,

Sam Taggart 00:58
You’re gonna reach Yeah. Anyway, so Alec has been part of our mastermind group for about a year now. And anyway, former are the founder, co founder of V3 Electric. He is built them to over 300 sales people big California company, really phenomenal, successful businessman. And I’m excited to see you know, he’s, he’s on his on progress to read a book or write a book. If you read a book. I do like read again. He’s read one book, and he’s writing a book. He spoke at door to door con last year. crushed it is with a crowd favorite on leadership. And a good friend and buddy now it’s Yeah, so appreciate you being on the show, man.

Alec Nethercott 01:46
Yes, I know. When I met you, I felt like I met a brother that I’d never I’d never met before. But now thanks for having me. Yeah.

Sam Taggart 01:53
So today, we’re I feel like we have to fill the listeners in why we’re saying George. Yeah, we’re one of them’s a hot dude in the back. There’s a cooler back. So yeah. But Jake is swimming, eating a banana in the pool all by himself back here. Yep. So we’re finished. We’re to order a mastermind event. So if you’re listening to this, we’re you know, the experts certainly come in St. George Zion. Today we went rappelling and getting jumped in lakes together. And you had yesterday we cried. Today before that, you know, who knows, there’s been there’s been a roller coaster of emotions. Anyway, so that’s why we’re whipping this podcast up today, it’s gonna be a lot of fun. What’s been your biggest,

Alec Nethercott 02:41
Biggest takeaway so far? I’d say it’s cool to hang out with a lot of high powered dudes that are doing big things. And then to see everybody get vulnerable. And to recognize that you’re not the only one with insecurities, and to look around the room. And people are opening up about things that maybe you can relate to, maybe you can’t, but just that everybody’s dealing with stuff, everybody’s got deep pain or insecurity that they’re getting. There’s nobody immune to that, you know, we’re all kind of dealing with that stuff. It’s part of the journey of life. That that’s something that’s

Sam Taggart 03:17
it’s so common, especially in the sales world, for us to show our best self, and sell everybody on why they should like us and sell everybody on a face that we need to put off. Because that’s how we know we can get where we want to gain it’s been mouth training us to do that to where we suppress some of our true identity, we’re afraid for full expression, we’re afraid to really get authentic and vulnerable. And so I anyway, part of this mastermind group for those listening is really designed to and my invitation will be find somewhere where you can have a space where you can actually show fully your true self. And oftentimes, you never even we have zero safe spaces for that. So it’s fun to see that people will you know, there’s like your follow him on Instagram, maybe some famous person, whatever, and you’re like, oh, he poops to get scared to jump off cliffs to Yeah, that you just like jumping off the 100 foot cliff is known as their fear.

Alec Nethercott 04:17
Well, I don’t say thanks to you for creating a safe place for that, you know, especially in leadership, there’s not a lot of people you can talk to about the type of stuff that you deal with. And so that’s been that’s been just awesome. So Thanks.

Sam Taggart 04:30
No problem. Okay, so we’re gonna dive in. So let’s leadership is a huge thing. You know, obviously the experts we try to cater from the rapid door to door comm to the podcast to university to this mastermind group. It’s like an invite thing like we don’t even like advertise separately. And we say okay, what what are we doing really service that leader in the whole premise of your book that you’re writing, and your big principle that you’ve been focusing on is not to develop reps, not to train reps, but to train leaders. So talk to me about sort of your principle of leadership and what that means to you.

Alec Nethercott 05:05
Yeah, so I think that, you know, at least, at least, for me, for probably many listening, lead sales is a great opportunity. And it at least for me, I recognized pretty quickly that sales management was, was what I wanted. But that was, that was the real opportunity, at least for me. But you learned quickly that not, you know, anybody can become a leader, or, you know, be put in a position of management? A very few actually good at it. And I think part of that stems from leadership is like, you know, it’s talked about a ton. It’s kind of this like, big, esoteric idea. And, you know, you talk to 100 different people and even 100 different philosophies. Yeah. And I, I’m a finance major. So I’m kind of numbers guy, I like formulas, I like to, I like to see, like, Look, if I do this, and then this, and then this, then I get this, almost like with reps like we can, we can say, look, if you do two things, at least, what I’ve always said is, I know that if you can do two things, you’ll be successful, one worth the hours and hit the goals, right, but put in the work. And then two, if you do it the right way. If you combine the two, you’re going to get results if you’re not getting results, because you’re not doing one of those two things. Anyway. So that’s, that’s kind of a simple thing that they can kind of break down. And it kind of demystifies it a little bit, it’s kind of a formula or a recipe to get success. But with leadership, I really struggle with just to feel confident that I was doing the right things that I was spending my time on, you know, things for me personally and manage my time the right way. And so this is just kind of like interviewing a lot of people that I really admire, this is reading. I feel like every book on leadership, at least, for me, I developed a system, or a similar recipe or formula for sales leadership. And I’ll say, I’m a student of this, it’s something I’m really fascinated with,

Sam Taggart 07:22
you know, a lot of people what teacher Sorry to interrupt your little sighting of what teachers, or where you were a student of that you felt like you really resonated with like what books, author, any authors? What people? Do you feel like you’ve really been mentored by that and helped you with that just in just in like a short tangent? I don’t mean to do yeah. So

Alec Nethercott 07:46
I’d say within the space, some awesome friends in the news, you know, companies from big names that we know, I guess I can say, you know, from great companies have given active people that are they, they have a big, you know, they have a great track record of creating great sales leaders, you know, kind of been a mentor for years. I worked at amp security for a few years and some great people there. But then I’ve also, I’ve also become a student of great coaches in sports, obviously, there’s a lot of great correlations between sports and sales. JOHN wooden bill Walsh, belleci. Just studying with AB Craig named hearing his speech of DDD, not this last one before. He’s obviously a great tennis coach and us Olympics. And then seeing that there’s actually a lot of correlations between just just leadership is great, great leader, whether they happen, and then kind of putting all those things in performance. Because if you were to, if you were to read all the books or, you know, do a bunch of interviews, it just this is exactly what I did. I had a list in my phone, and I just had all the traits, who do I need to become it to really get really make an impact to really become the man that I project?

Sam Taggart 09:12
Yes. Right. So if you’re a sales rep right, now, what ends up happening is so many people negate them, they take out the word leader out of their identity, because I’m just a rep is this relevant for me? If you’re listening right now, it’s kind of like this is more relevant than you to you, then you realize right now, and so I would say, lean into this more than check out the gobs gonna wait till the next episode because I just want to make that invitation. If you’re watching listening before you check out on this, because it’s oftentimes how we’re leading and where we’re at, because everyone’s a leader with where they are, whether they have the title or not.

Alec Nethercott 09:55
Yeah, so well, thanks. So and I’m glad you clarified that because it is easy to check out some charts. leadership, it’s like, before I read a million books on the you know, but especially in our space, there’s not enough resources, but it’s and yet, there’s so much information that there’s almost no information. And I think that it’s important to kind of demystify it a little bit, especially, if you’re in a leadership position, or you want to see yourself in a leadership position, you got to know how to uplevel yourself, you know, the law of the lid, you’re not going to recruit and train people, you know, that are, you know, that are bringing as much value as you are, right, you know, eventually they pass you up, they lose respect for you, or you’re not able to recruit them, etc, you know, or they see, like, you know, I’m gonna go work for somebody who can get me to the next level. And so demystifying that a little bit, I think it’s helpful, you know, kind of simplifying, you know, in to go back to that kind of list idea, and kind of come full circle, it’s, you know, you can make a list of 200, you know, traits or characteristics. And what I’ve found, and kind of what this book is about, is, I found that they really fit into four categories, you know, just to kind of simplify. And, and real quick to clarify, it’s not, I have to be careful when I say it’s a formula, because you can never, you know, you can never guarantee 100% success, you know, but what you can do is by, you know, success leaves clues. And so when you can follow some of those clues, you can increase your chances of success dramatically, by following it a recipe or a simple idea. Anyway, those those four attributes are vision, skill, character, and action. And we can dive into those if you want. But I found that they all kind of fit in those in those four categories. Is that in order? Or there is no, there is no order. There is no order, but but you can’t leave any now. So the great leaders, you know, who, who we want to be found, who the listeners won’t want to become, it’s not this or this or this or, you know, strong and wanting strong and, you know, it’s it’s vision and skill, and character, and action. That’s the that that’s so so I’ll give you an example. So, so vision would be, you know, this is like the evangelists. You know, this person is, it’s an important skill to be an evangelist for a cause, greater than yourself.

Sam Taggart 12:30
Do you notice a lot of people withhold this evangelist stick around door to door or around sower pest control or whatever you’re selling? in fear of the maybe just, I don’t want to preach it too much. Because it’s not that glamorous, you know what I mean? Like, it’s almost like they, they hold back evangelizing this opportunity, just in fear. You go, like, I don’t I want to negate the fact is door to door. It’s scary, or what if they say something? Oh, you have to knock doors like? Or, you know, have you felt that at all? Yes.

Alec Nethercott 13:06
And I feel like even more, so people will get lazy. And just talk about money. Instead of you know, there’s a lot of places that our reps can go to make money, there’s a lot. Why do they want to work for you? And why do they want to work for you long term, is to build anything great, you have to have people that are that are loyal and want to be a part of, you know,

Sam Taggart 13:26
more than just a job and to give you kudos, you know, obviously, we worked together for a year now. Your people are like that. And, you know, I noticed I work with a lot of leaders. There’s a lot of leaders out there that cycle through a lot of people. And it’s a first indication and say, they’re not leaving your company, they’re not leaving, like you, as a leader, have not given them value for them to want to stay right. But interviewing and I’ve been on your guys’s podcast and see them that way, you guys can have a son that interacted with you guys on the platform, whatever. And you can tell they’re bought into you in your vision. Hence, a lot of them been there for years. And thank you, that means a first indicator of a good leader. So kudos,

Alec Nethercott 14:11
thank you. Well, we’ve got an awesome team. And it really is, it really is a team thing. You know, it’s, there’s, there can never be one individual that that makes it happen. It’s it’s a shared effort. But what is really important, and the job of the leader is to make sure that everybody’s rowing in the same direction. That you know, and as a leader, you realize that people, not everybody has a vision for the future, for themselves and what they want to be a part of, when they when they hear it. They, you know, and they can relate to it and they hear that you’re passionate about it. They don’t even need to believe in what you’re saying. They just need to believe that you believe, you know, and then they hear that and they want to be a part of it. Because otherwise, I mean, if they just come for money, then they’re just going to Leave from a song going to pay off for more money news, because again, I have no loyalty. But people want to be a part of something that’s going to get big, they don’t want to get a part of something that’s just a job, it’s just going to be flat. It’s exciting to grow, it’s going to be big. And what I’ve seen is that, you know, leaders in and outside of our industry, you know, they, they energize with their ability to be able to tell us what they see, you know, and I think people people crave that CEO of jack welch, CEO of GE, legendary to get, he talked about how he would get sick of, he gets so sick about talking about vision. He’s like, it’s all I talk about sick of talking about. But he realized quickly this is in his book winning, is that I realized quickly that they craved that it was a key part of my job, when I would do my visits there, you know, they’re in the trenches, and they’re powering forward and they read that for me, I needed to bring it for them, I need to tell them what we saw as a vision for the company. And not even just for the company. And this the political environment shoes is also for them as an individual, what do you see for that? leadership, future leadership opportunities, you know, how this thing is going to be around long term, what this means for you, but this is, you know, we’re changing an industry, we’re disrupting this space, or whatever the division is, that gives people energy, and they want to be a part of something that’s, that that’s big. And I see a common mistake when leading with money. And also with managers that was, you know, they’ve talked about themself, so like, you know, you’re doing this for me, or, Hey, get out there and make me money. I cringe when I hear that kind of stuff

Sam Taggart 16:46
with a lot of people don’t say get out there and make me money. With their words. Yeah. But with their actions, and their feeling and their intention, says it all. Yes,

Alec Nethercott 16:59
Yes. And you can’t really fake that they can smell it. No, you have to genuinely care more about the cause than you do about yourself. And then the result, follow. It comes as a byproduct of awesome people, all locking arms, and working together towards a cause. And then you know what they say hi, high tide raises all boats. But this is we’re going to do this together. And we’re going to lock arms, it’s going to be fun to be challenging to really hard. But we’re going to do this. Let’s go make it happen. And, and that, that’s a key part. So the next one is skills. skill. Yeah. Yeah. This one is pretty self explanatory. This is, you know, the ability to especially in sales, this is you got to be an expert in your craft to get expert.

Sam Taggart 17:47
You know, and you sure here’s what makes me an expert. Okay, guys, fun tip. Yeah, make sure that say expert on them. You’re an expert. Yeah. Let’s say okay, yeah,

Alec Nethercott 17:57
This shirt doesn’t really make a lot of sense. But I just wear it so I can say as appear people are trying to figure it out. Like, I get that people always checking me out. So skill. Yeah, being an expert, you know, they want to know that you’re sharp as a tack. They want to know that. You know, you you know what you’re doing, you have the ability to help them level up, you know, with, you know, with their, with their skill. This is controlling the conversation. This is de escalating, heated conversations. This is you know, kind of knowing what to say, you know, especially in sales, but also, you know, conversations with your, with your people.

Sam Taggart 18:40
I found that this also can be debilitating. So I’m gonna put like an Asterix and maybe you’re gonna play devil’s advocate for a second. Some people say, once I have this much skill, I now can be a leader. So I don’t want people to fall into the trap of there’s like this weird destination to skill that they have to reach in order to take on the mantle of leadership, gotcha. Your influence Will you actually have more influence as a leader, you’ll be more impactful as a leader if your skill increases, but realize that’s a that’s a forever journey. And also be open to you don’t know everything you don’t I mean, like it, but the first step is puts leadership and emotion in my opinion. But realize like, nobody wants to follow you if they don’t trust the fact that you have some good nuggets that they’re coming to learn from. And, and so that’s where the skill it’s like, I’ve watched it leadership is you have this manager that you’re like, I would never I don’t want to go to your training. He like I yeah, there’s nothing I learned from you. Why are you in this position? So somebody need to fill a hole? Don’t be that guy.

Alec Nethercott 19:53
Yes. Yeah. They have to know that you’re somebody that can help them level up if they have to have competence. And I totally You don’t have to, you don’t have to be top rep in your office, you don’t have to be, you know, outsell every you know, everybody and Bs, you know, lights out salesperson, but you do need to be, you know, you need to know what you’re doing, you know, and you need, you need the product, because this is how they’re going to perceive you as competent. And it’s somebody that they can, you know, respect. And I’ll circle back to that after we talked about this too, because I’ll tell you how I applied this, because I kind of developed this three years ago or so and then survey and continue to survey all of our, all of our, all of our sales leadership on these four attributes. And it’s been super helpful. So we’ll dive in. Anyway, but yeah, that So the next one is character. This is, you know, this is who you are, when nobody’s looking. You’re your, your, your people have to, it might be I don’t know how else to say it, you have to be the type of person that people want to be like, they want you to rub off, they want to spend more time around you, because you’re gonna help them, you know, become a better person. This is like, you know, this is it’s humility, it’s the ability to say, Sorry, if you mess up, I see so many macho leaders, you know, manager, guys, and gals that are new, they feel like they have to bite people’s heads off. And, you know, if you mess up saying, sorry, you actually, you know, it goes a long way. It’s doing what you say you’re going to do. It’s, it’s having your personal life in order. You know, there’s, I see, so many people hit a cap, and they have a blind spot, they don’t see it, they hit a cap because of who they are,

Sam Taggart 21:50
you know, that saying your character isn’t asking for more? How you’re showing up isn’t receiving more? You know, I think a lot I wouldn’t 100% agree.

Alec Nethercott 22:01
Yeah. And it holds them back. And, and, you know, they’ve got a drug problem, closet, drunk, pop, you know, whatever alcohol problem, they don’t want to talk to anybody about it. But if people know, you know, or they’re, they’re showing up late, they walk in late to their own meetings, it’s like, sorry, everybody, I have this, you know, they’re making excuses. And, and it’s a blind spot. And this is one of the trickier ones to to give feedback. Because this one too, is typically the blind spot. But until they until they can level up their character, fix their personal lives, fix their financial situation, I mean, all these things, you got to have that in order, that’s all part of character due to time management.

Sam Taggart 22:39
And when receiving feedback, in 90 cents, it’s one, it’s like, they’ve got to get the feedback to they’ve got to receive that feedback, to do something about it. And I’ve noticed, because of the ego, especially in this industry, is people don’t accept shots fired at their character. And they get very prideful, the ego pops in there. And they say, well, you just defended and blah, blah, blah. And they go that just just received the freakin feedback and say, Well, I’m going to do something, or not do something with this, but it’s feedback, they must be saying for some odd reason, and then interpret and go with something from there. Yes, it’s the biggest stagnant to growth is the inability to take shots fired a character and not flare up and flight and totally make fun out or whatever your your reaction is. But it’s to just say, cool, that’s how my character showing up to these people. What am I gonna do about it?

Alec Nethercott 23:37
100%? Well, it’s also recognized that in a leadership position, it’s your job, to give them feedback, or in other words, to help them level up, because that’s what you’re doing. And your ability to be able to do that help them level up is, is what’s going to keep them in, it’s what’s going to make them want to be around, you know, oftentimes, we’re too afraid to bring it up because we’re gonna hurt their feelings or because they’re, you know, they’re not going to receive it well, or because they must obviously, no, it’s whatever reason. But this is all part of developing leaders, which is kind of the theme we’ll be talking about, don’t stop training reps or training leaders. And that’s where the time is spent in one practical thing that they’ll share is your you’re absolutely right, just sharing feedback, and just spitting that out there. And saying, like, calling them out and saying, hey, you’re doing this, you’re messing up your you know, whatever. That’s kind of just being rude. That’s not really the right way to get feedback. But the right way to get feedback or at least, you know, in my experience has been, you know, receiving and giving has been, you know, you have to have an ingredient that will give the person it has to be a mutual agreement that, you know, to coach and to be coached, right? And so that may happen beforehand, or it may happen in the moment and you may need before you get the feedback, you have to have a quickness Like man, and you say, you know, one of the most valuable things that I can do for you, is to help you level up and reach your potential next level. I do have some feedback for you. Do you mind? For sure? some feedback?

Sam Taggart 25:12
No, sorry, ask for permission is not like don’t just go in at it. Because the second they give you permission, it’s like, you’re the one that said,

Alec Nethercott 25:20
what are they gonna say? 99% of the time? Can I give you some feedback? Yeah, of course. Exactly. And then now you have that permission. And now now you can speak without that agreement, you’re going to get that wall, you’re going to get the ego, you’re going to get the defensiveness, you’re adjure they’ve been working hard. How can you not, you know, recognize this, and it’s just so effective. And this helps with our marriages, this helps with children. This is this is human communication, you know, but especially with our, with our salespeople, you know, we want to make sure that we have agreement. So now you move into the last one, which is action. Yeah, the most, probably probably the most rare and perhaps the most important one, which is action. This is leading from the front. This, you know, especially in sales leadership, we have we have a unique job, in that. We’re all offense no defense.

Sam Taggart 26:12
Yeah, I had a client two weeks ago, not in California consulting, said something if you’re listening to this iPod, I’m not trying to throw him under the bus but tonality phase. They said, he goes, I don’t care what expensive. I just spent whatever. Forget. I just care about selling more deals. Like no defense. Yeah, no defense is nice defense is a good offense. Yeah. So this is where that’s where it’s gonna go. And then he says exactly that, quote, he goes, best defense is a good offense. And I was like, true salesmen. Let’s go.

Alec Nethercott 26:44
I guess I guess what, like, if you’re, if you’re CEO, then that that can probably be a dangerous mentality. But if you’re, if you’re in a sales leadership position, that’s your job, its revenue. It’s the frontline, you hire other awesome people that are gonna play defense, and make sure that you don’t put the company out of business, and you are charging, it’s your rhinoceros you’re going for. And you see this mistake. reason i say it’s most rare, is you see so many people that when they get promoted, they want to become a glorified secretary. They take off their Nikes, and they want to put on fancy shoes and sit in a nice, you know, office, and they don’t realize that the most valuable thing is the hard thing, which is out on the doors, grinding up, you know, leading from the front, you gain some respect, and I’ve gained so much respect for you for for doing this to that mess up for because you, you, you embody that you’re out there, you don’t have to do that. But you’re doing it, you’re out there, you’re you’re grinding, you’re still with people out on the doors, and I love that. I think that’s such a, that’s, that’s so important. Because you, you could take any excuse, and many people do. And most people, you know, look like, Oh, I did that. I’m not going to do that anymore. The problem. The bad news is that it just doesn’t work. And I hear it all the time. Well, I told that Rep. Like, Oh, you want what I have, but you don’t want to do what I did to get that, like, I don’t do that anymore. It’s like, I’m sorry. But when you when you take the job, you don’t have that. Right. It’s they’re gonna do what they see you doing? in you know, now, they’re, they don’t care what you did before they care what you’re doing right now. I had to pay my dues. Yeah. Doesn’t even mean yes. And And so anyway, so that’s the four. And what I’ll say is that, oftentimes what I’ve seen, so So, so picture, a picture be serving 30, managers and system managers, and everybody gets a chart that you know, for them, and picture, vision, skill, character action, and then picture a BB rating. So we sent a questionnaire survey to all their reps anonymous. They could say their name if they wanted to. You know, but it was it was anonymous feedback. So that was real data. It wasn’t just coming from me, but it was actual data from the field. And you know, so So anyway, with that premise picture, yeah, vision, skill, character action, and the pitch like a bar graph. So it’s rating them like, hey, you’re an eight out of 10 and vision. You’re a hero. eight out of 10 players score. Exactly. You’re a four out of 10 character, and you’re five out of 10. They’re self judging, or they know so we’ve done we’ve done self judging, and then, but it’s actually really helpful. From the reps perspective, because you’re asking questions like, you know, this person is approachable. You know, waiting on this person. I feel like this person listens to me. So this person understands. And remember that character is kind of is the category. Right? So it’s not just their, you know, these characters. These are the character traits, like, you know, humility, integrity. Just curious because it’s like, a skill. What are your character? Yeah, nobody’s gonna be like God, definitely a four. Yeah, exactly. I’m an idiot. Screw everybody are. And that’s why that’s why, you know, the survey doesn’t say what they’re doing, it’s just asking a bunch of questions, but each question is tied to one of the actions. So for example, you know, this person shows up early on time. Yeah. Okay, this person pick up on that, you know, this person shows up on time, this person is reliable, this person, you know, questions like that. And so it’ll iterate them. And then what happens is, you get in, you know, this is, for me, this is the system that I’ve kind of developed to help leaders level, right. And to give them feedback, and it’s so helpful for them to see that data. Because you can’t argue with that, it’s like this is actual, this is actual data of how others see you. And it’s not, you know, we have the agreement going into like, this is gonna be a little uncomfortable. But, you know, you’re here to level up, we’re here to do some big stuff. And sometimes that means, facing some things that we, you know, might might not want to see. And the other interesting observation is the is the blind spots. For some people, when they rated themselves, what they rated themselves the highest than the other Solomon, the lowest in that category, which was really interesting.

Sam Taggart 31:41
It is interesting.

Alec Nethercott 31:43
The other thing that we found out was people that were high in one tended to be low in another, in the sense that over time, throughout their life, like I’ll give you an example, somebody that is high in, you know, we had somebody, a couple people who are very high envision, the charismatic leader could just lead an army and just get the whole group energized, ready to go to war. And they had, you know, but they’d show up late, and they had, you know, they’re out of money, they’re broke, they’re making a bunch of money, but they didn’t have you know, they’re dead, asking for advances still, you know, it’s like, yes, it’s crazy. It’s like, you know, their personal affairs are not in order. You know, so they tend to, to develop a deficiency and not in every situation, obviously, but this, this is, like a common, a common thread that I saw, and, you know, so they’ve, they’ve got this great vision. And, you know, anyway, they were located. The other one that that was more common. It was those who are high in skill, were very low in action. And the reason for that, after it’s asking a bunch of questions and thinking about this, is those who have, you know, picture the natural born citizen, they’ve gone into a role, but they didn’t have to work as so for example, like, in high school, you know, they get a, they get a C on a paper in their English class, and the neighbor get, you know, got it got an A, right? Well, that person walks up to the teacher spends 30 minutes negotiating after that walks out with an A minus guilty, because I’m so good at that. I don’t make fun of me. Yeah. And then, whereas the other cater, that day minus actually had to work for it. And they learned how to work for, you know, but, but those who have a sales ability, we get them kind of generalizing here. But you know, with that natural sales ability, you develop a deficiency in another area, which is, which is, which is, which is interesting. And once you identify listed

Sam Taggart 33:42
a lot of wasted talent in this industry, in my opinion, I think, the most talented sales industries in the world. And I think that we also deal with the lazy industry, like it’s hard to get some people to work eight hours a day.

Alec Nethercott 34:00
Yes. And they might, they might feel their time. And they might say, Oh, well, I was on the phone all day, and I was putting out fires, and I was on the phone with this Rep. And I was giving him a test, or whatever. It’s like, Listen, they they smell it on you, and your team will produce so much better, they will respect you so much more, if you can, if you can just get to here on action, and then you level up when you get up to here. And so it’s been cool because we started doing this about three years ago. And it’s been cool to watch. Some people love some not take the feedback really, at all and they’re they’re literally almost in the same place that we’re in. And then also to watch those who did take the feedback and took it to heart. And I think it’s one individual. One person in particular, who was high in vision scaling character, good, good, good dude. But very charismatic, very, you know, natural salesperson, really good guy. And just lazy. As all get Just like, you know, you’d send everybody out, and then he would just go sit in his car you just be hanging out, you know, that’s you listening right now, if you got it got it, right, yes, please, please. Because I’m telling you, it is holding you back. If you can figure this out, you will have a breakthrough because what this guy did was he took that feedback. And and we, you know, I coached him on we had, we talked about it, and it came up in all of our QB hours and we bring it up, and we talk about it. And, you know, we got to read some good books like rhinoceros success, be obsessed with the average 10x rule, which by the way, I actually like tennis school a lot. I thought it was going to be another book on how to get 10x results in half the time. But what was it about those 10x the effort. And anyway, so it’s probably a good book about action. So he’s working on that. And, and so now he’s, he’s high. And in all four areas, he’s like a, you know, seven, or eight or nine in some areas. And he’s our, he’s our top manager, crushing it, he’s developing more leaders than any other of our offices. And there’s a direct correlation with, with that, and, and so as a way, for me, and I’m gonna take me into credit, because he gets it because he applied the feedback, you know, all I did was help him, see it, bring it to light and then help him work on. But it brings so much confidence. And many leaders struggle with confidence and struggle to feel like they’re given the right advice and coaching the right way. But it brings so much confidence just to have kind of a methodology or a system to be able to give confident advice is like, Hey, this is

Sam Taggart 36:48
what you need to do to level well. And I think that what’s so cool is you actually have a trackable accountability, you have some reporting, it’s actual accurate, you have some data points to go make some decisions off of, versus so many people they justify, or they are just based on emotion, create some artificial like, mark that people feel like, unlike me, is like a seven, leader, you know, where did you even come up with that data? Yes, arbitrary, arbitrary, like, so I love that you’ve kind of built these studies and had some statistics and case studies and been doing it long enough to actually, like, make a legitimate case for your point.

Alec Nethercott 37:31
This is cool. One, it helps so much, especially with character and action. Because it’s in character. It’s that’s not an easy conversation. Hey, man, you’re characters, you’re a mess. You got to work on, you got to work on some stuff. You got to clean this up, because it’s affecting your team. I mean, they’re gonna look at you and not respect you. You got to you got to fix this and told me about, and that’s not always easy to hear. But so that’s been that’s been

Sam Taggart 37:59
I’m excited. Discovery. None of these guys have done the feedback exercise. I think we’re gonna do it Saturday. Oh, there. Oh, yeah. It’s your favorite. Yeah, because it just shot at character. Yeah, feedback exercise. So those that are listening, basically getting the group’s SAP circle, and you just remember the person and it starts out soft, you’re kind of like, Oh, you know, I didn’t really like your shoes, and you’re not allowed to talk. Yeah. And so you’re just taking the feedback. But then a guitarist, it’s like, you have to sit there and think of like, how do I actually serve this person? Give them true feedback. How they show up. None of them are probably watching this. So they don’t know that’s coming. Like, I can say that with you. But I’m like, why would we not do that? Because it’s a bunch of

Alec Nethercott 38:46
Newbies that came in super helpful. And it’s really helpful to, to see yourself how others see you. Yeah. Because as long as we don’t get Yeah, we don’t get to

Sam Taggart 38:54
See that where I’m seeing this right now that you appreciate as your favorite thing we’ve done in the last year in these groups. And, you know, for us, as business owners and leaders to say, do and you’re like I would have never done and some of its positive some of that you’re insecure. Sometimes you get feedback that is so good, because you’re like, oh, that Yeah, I I’ve thought something different my whole life. Like, that’s so cool that I’m consistently showing up like maybe I can let go of that belief system that doesn’t serve me totally. And the other one is like, Oh, she’s like, I got a new problem. I gotta work on like, you know, I mean, it’s but if you would have never told me no, like, give up like today. I was like, you have a booger in your beard. And I was nice enough to tell you about the booger in your beard. But it was like at you had not said that you would have walked in with some burgers. I had no clue like I’m helping you like it.

Alec Nethercott 39:50
Well in and I love that and it’s Yeah, it Mark Eaton said something that needed econ. He said, when you help somebody level up You become invaluable to them. When you help someone level up, you become invaluable to them, which is, which is really important in a management role. Because, you know, you’re, you’re, you have awesome people working for you. It could be other places, lots of other places, you know, probably, and you have to develop the skill to be able to help people level up so that they, they know that you can help them do that.

Sam Taggart 40:25
Right. And I actually think a lot of people don’t want the responsibility. I think it’s a lack of, it’s a fear, it’s a selfish element. In my opinion, when you’re choosing not to be a leader. You’re making that kind of conscious or even unconscious choice, avoiding responsibility, avoiding growing up avoiding moving in a progressive, and growth mindset. And it doesn’t mean necessarily, you have to go after some title or after some position. What I’m saying is, one of the things that hold you back succeeding in sales is this avoidance of responsibility and level up. Because if I feel like I’m responsible for helping you level up, and I fail, then I can’t carry that. So might as well just kind of like, do me.

41:14
Yeah. So common 100%. And another another mistake is that companies tend to expect that their sales management to train themselves people, and then they fail to train themselves management. And I’m not talking about this is another problem with like, leadership, you know, in general, is that it’s not, it’s, it’s that it’s not enough to do like, Okay, everyone read Extreme Ownership. And then let’s, let’s, let’s have a discussion about Extreme Ownership, which is a fantastic book, by the way, but what’s going to happen is, you’re going to have this great retreat, you’re going to spend time on the whiteboard, everyone’s gonna feel good, because it’s fun to talk about personal development and these big things, big ideas. But there’s no like, like, catered takeaways, because everyone’s going to be something different because of the four attributes, right? The person who’s, you know, there might be somebody who’s already great at owning things, you know, which would fall into character like ownership. And so what’s gonna happen if you have everybody go back? They’re like, yeah, I feel great. Oh, I love that book. And that was a great time. But everything’s, everything’s gonna go back to where it was. So it’s like a dilemma, you know? Better than nothing. Yeah.

Sam Taggart 42:23
But some people need to get out for Yeah, I’m literally out of my company in Texas last week, and we just finished knocking. And, you know, we knocked at the one of these guys that have been there for about six months, and they was sharp, dude, like, I liked them. I didn’t disagree with the owners judgment is like, I think it would make this guy, a manager. And I was like, I was like, Yeah, I liked it. I was like, Yeah, I think so. Like, you think you’d be good a leader? I’m like, yeah. And then we drive by, as we’re going to the airport, he rolls down his window. Well come here real quick. So do I think I really think you’ve been prove yourself smart. And if you ever make your manager, and how’s that sound? Like, he’s like, sweet. And then we drive away. Awesome. I was like, so so that’s just just like that. That’s how you do it. So he’s sitting there going with the free does that even? And there’s so many. I got just like, so you gave him like, congratulations. He doesn’t know how to leave. Like no leadership development map. No, like, perfect, like expectation. Like, we’ll just like, Yo for it. And I was like, wow, just go Okay, full send it does, like you just miss a massive opportunity. So I gave the owner feedback right there. I said, you could have made that such a big deal. You could have propagated that for a month. And we have built that as a scoring job in the company. Yeah, you could have gotten so much more. Why did you just do that? Like that was like a really, dude. Yeah, that could have been a 10 opportunity to build trust and relationship in college, this person. And he walked away going.

Alec Nethercott 44:08
He’s like, yeah,

Sam Taggart 44:11
that’s like, like Michigan? Oh, yeah. Yeah, like it was a cold.

Alec Nethercott 44:15
No, and we’ve seen this and we know that just just because you’re good, you’re good at sales, does not mean that you’re going to be good at management or leadership. Right? It mean, it’s, it’s so it’s so much more than that. When you’re just training skill, you know, the sales ability, you’re not training, you’re not training the whole person, you’re not developing the whole person is and being a good leader and getting the results you want with, you know, hiring, managing, retaining, you know, recruiting all this, all the parts if the management is a difficult job. And if you’re, if you don’t have all four parts, then you’re going to you’re going to struggle to do all the performance responsibilities.

Sam Taggart 44:53
Amen, so got to wrap up, but I appreciate you. Like I said, this has been a long time. I’m coming. appreciate how you show up as a leader, you’re not just the one that talks about once the idea is, you know, like, but doesn’t have any action. You know, somebody that has done stuff that you’ve done is taken action. You know, I’ve done even podcasts where I’m like, shutting down my podcast, like you’re talking hypothetical action. I love people that it’s like, I can literally throw a year’s worth of relationship and watching your company grow and how you operate with them, where I can say this with confidence in action.

Alec Nethercott 45:30
So that means a lot, especially coming from you. And thank you for your example of that you inspire you.

Sam Taggart 45:37
So any last words for the D2D tribe, For the D2D tribe, I would say, you know, and where we began, stop training reps and start training leaders, you’re going to need them. help them grow or watch them go. Evil. People want to be the one to go and get, you know, people want to work where they’re going to grow and develop. And when I say that, you’re going to need leaders and great people later, you’re not just going to need great salespeople, especially for many that are ambitious and want to scale their sales organizations. You’re going to need great sales leadership. My I should say, Our biggest bottleneck right now is not access to capital. It’s not area. It’s not equipment. It’s not labor. It’s one thing, sales leadership, we can only scale as fast as we have good sales leadership that can perpetuate the sales culture and grow and open a new strategic markets. And so if you’re not working on it right now, you’re you’re you’re behind and it’s going to hold you back. It’s going to be a bottleneck for you it’s going to be it’s going to be a chokehold was Tony Robbins say you’re the you know, because it because of the the chokehold on the growth of any organization is the psychology and skillset of the leader. And so if you’re not, if you’re not leveling up yourself, and helping others to level up, it’s going to be a chokehold. And it’s a big responsibility, because that’s going to be you. That’s holding them back. Because if you don’t do it, who’s going to do it? And if you’re not developing the future leaders, who’s, who’s going to do it, they’re not naturally going to come You know, you’re not going to get them from other companies. Stop waiting to I’m just gonna find a guy. Yeah, you stop waiting for them to fall in your lap or to find them. Oh Gosh, we dish $100 for every that, yeah. You know, we’ve consulted 100 plus companies, and the first thing most of them say, Can you tell me find like a good new VP of sales or like the sales manager just kind of update you? And I’m like, “No, I’m not Harry Potter but…”.

Alec Nethercott 47:46
In my phone, I got a guy just sitting in Wait, exactly. Right. I get those texts weekly. Dude, I’m checking for people that don’t even pay me. I’m like, Yeah, Yeah, dude, I’ll look at it. I got one. Yes. Yeah, here it is. I’ll

Sam Taggart 47:57
Send you this contest. Like, I just lost a team in den or you know, man, gameplay, you can like help rebuild this thing. I’m like, yep, speed down a list of awesome leaders in my phone. I do. But it’s not like, Hey, I’m gonna connect you to some rando that just lost this whole company. So you want to go there?

Alec Nethercott 48:17
Dude. It is. So, there’s a book called good degrade that talks about this. I know you’re a big fan of that book. It says it’s never going to fit in. It’s talking about CEOs, these companies that they’re studying, but it says, Yeah, it’s never an outside savior that comes in and saves the company and recreate you know, what you don’t like? The hard data. It’s it was the companies that crushed it. The leadership came from within the organization. If the CEO somebody who had been at 15 or 20 years trying to think of somebody get somebody started it’s like a janitor, some weird, weird thing. Like he just worked his way up seat worked his way up on his knees, etc. So so you’re, again, don’t yet don’t expect somebody you know to fall in your lap or people good people are locked in whether that right in those situations, you know, they’re there. They’re irreplaceable, where they are in the organizations that stop waiting for people to just stop waiting to find a players and start creating future leadership.

Sam Taggart:
Love to get you guys heard firsthand in the podcast. You got some value out of this. We appreciate your reviews on Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you’re listening on the Walkman. And.

Alec Nethercott 49:36
And, yeah, streaming is on your Zoom.

Sam Taggart: 49:43
Okay, love you guys.