Speaker 1: (00:02)
Bill, Can I help you?
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I’m your host. Sam Taggart, creator of the D2D experts in D2Dcon. Is there a place we can sit down?
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We’ll come on him.
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Speaker 2: (00:48)
So everyone special, special treat today. We have Russell smooth in the house. That’s right. Russell smoke. Here we go. So we are here in Dallas. What’s up Jeremy? And uh, we’re about to jump into D2D podcasts. You excited?
Speaker 3:
Like yeah dude, I’m stoked.
Speaker 4:
Layover, quick little like layover. It’s like let’s go Dallas. It’s fun to jam. And we know each other for a while. I finally get this podcast out about the time. Yup. Okay. So I’m going to give, uh, Russell is little introduced, uh, like little introduction. First off, he’s been in this for six years now, six summer now, six summer. And we’re literally sitting in his office right now and it is like decked out. It is so cool. He runs a local, a local team here in Dallas who moved, packed his bags full on, just said, um, peace out Utah. I’m going to go just build an empire.
Speaker 1: (01:42)
That’s right. Build an empire. I love it. That’s right. So when he’s got it, he’s got over 40, 50 dudes, a couple of little teams here and there, and then a big one obviously here in Dallas. Yup. And uh, today we’re going to be talking on how to do that cause I think it, I think a lot of people get in this Utah battle. They’re just like, Bam, Bam, like recruit this guy and this guy’s going to this company, this come in. They’re having to charge them noon. And so what was so cool? It was Russell’s been able to expand outside of the bubble. He’s been able to be successful at it. And that’s like everyone’s dream. They’re always sitting there going, what’s up? Like how do we fricking duplicate this elsewhere and, and, and, and, and I want to hit all the naysayers.
Speaker 1: (02:24)
There’s so many naysayers I’ll do. They’re everywhere. I don’t think other people other than the return missionaries can knock doors, right? It’s kind of like, oh wait, you gotta recruit from you talk. Cause they’re the only ones that know how to knock. Look Dude, they’re just letting someone else train their reps for him. Yeah. The mission, the uh, the MTC, MTC trains him, right? Yeah. So we’re going to dive into, okay, how do you get guys outside the bubble? How do you get them selling? How do you run a year round program? How do you, you know, build an empire, recruit people and convince them you got to knock doors. You know, cause a lot of people are like, well, we can’t convince them to do that. It’s not a real job. Right. So
Speaker 3: (02:59)
we’re going to go through how he’s done that. And how do we, how do we make this duplicatable? So if you’re a manager, you’re looking to manage, you’re looking to grow, you’re looking to expand. This is the podcast for you. So welcome to the show, Russ. This is going to be good for you. Awesome. Okay. So tell us a little bit about how you got into the industry. Like how did you, who recruited you? That’s all my favorite question. I’ll shout out. So if you want to rewind way back, I was actually teaching at the MTC and uh, everyone tried to recruit me to every company like, oh, you’re an MTC teacher. Guarantee. I’m going to feel this. Oh, you did, you the MTC, like you’re going to be the best on the doors. Like join me, whatever. Um, honestly, like I would say in a way I recruited myself, but it was just that I had buddies that were going to go.
Speaker 3: (03:46)
So, um, and at the time, Jared who served to my mission with me, I know Jared. Jared. Okay. So Jared scowls one was the manager of that team. Do you know I had tried to recruit him. He was almost on my team. I taught him preselling like I went out there and taught them how to sell for platinum. Really? Yeah, no I didn’t he’s out of this way that works for Google or something now. But um, at the time I literally was like, hey dude, I’m going to come sell. Oh, hold on, keep going. I said, hey dude, I’m going to come sell. Um, I want to meet up so we can decide what you’re going to pay me and how we’re going to make this happen. And I sat down with him. I told him like basically negotiated to have a higher pay at the time and told him that I wouldn’t be out for the full summer.
Speaker 3: (04:30)
Like I just told them exactly what I wanted to do, which I probably could have done better with my summer if I had known to stay longer and to start earlier, that kind of stuff. But back then I was just like money and I was broke, dude. But you’re teaching the MTC high roll dude. My sister was 13 bucks an hour. I was making 13 bucks an hour. Had to pay it for six years ago. Sure. But when you only got five hours because they only give you, you cannot get over 20 hours a week, you landed about 15 hours every week. That’s nothing like I’m, we’re talking, I was making 800 bucks a month. That’s good. Three 50 goes to rent, maybe 400 goes to rent and you got a car payment back then car insurance. Okay. So you finally man up and you’re like, all right, let’s do this.
Speaker 3: (05:17)
Yeah. First year crushed it sucked. How has your first year? Um, honestly I wasn’t the best salesman my first year. I was extremely competitive. Okay. What I didn’t do is put in enough time to be at the top of the leaderboards on the summer. So did you second guess going out again or did you like yes, I’m doing this the second year. So I sold for like two and a half months and still made 30 grand. Oh well. So I was like, yeah, I’m going to do this again. I knew I could be good at it and I knew that I could lead people in it cause that’s something I, I’d already done throughout my life. And so no, I wasn’t out my first, my next goal was to manage a full team. Cool. And when was your first year managing that? Following your toes? So you just went straight from 30 K
Speaker 1: (05:58)
so I’m Marcel’s baby MTC manage. Yup. And now here you are with your own sweet set up here in Dallas. So fast forward. Did you have any bumps in the six years? Like did you run into like, ah, this sucks, I’m out of this, I’m going to get a real job as they call them. Like I kind of tell us some of the crossroads you’ve been through through this six year journey.
Speaker 3: (06:19)
Definitely. Um, so I did, once I manage my second year, I made the decision to come manage with someone, which in a lot of cases is probably a great decision. Right? That’s what I did. Yeah. In this case, uh, I did a lot of the work, but who the guy I could manage with most of the pay and at the time I was still new, I mean three years then you still aren’t necessarily an expert at everything. Right. I, uh, he ended up taking most of the pay, which happens and I felt a little burnt and I, and I quit basically. And I bought into a crossfit gym when all in into crossfit, competed in crossfit, went super hard and crossfit, but realize that I was really not making the money of off to make, yeah. So then you just said, all right, I need to get back or I mean, at the time, you guys already know at that time Nathaniel Olson was about to sell 600 on a summer and I was like retired like halfway through his summer.
Speaker 3: (07:13)
I was still not selling the dude’s putting in 10, 15 deals a day. And I’m like, what am I doing bro? Like I need to go sell. And I was always super competitive with them, so I was like, Bro, I got to go. Do I got to go? So you got to go catch up. And so I went back out. I put in a hundred deals the last month of summer. It’s awesome. And um, at that point I decided like, dude, I dropped out of school and I was like, dude, I’m just going to go all in and take advantage of like what exists right now. And so I started selling your router then. I love it.
Speaker 1: (07:43)
So fast forward, when was the point where you’re like, all right, I’m moving to Dallas. Like here it comes Dallas.
Speaker 3: (07:51)
Yeah. Um, do, that’s a hard to say. I’ve loved Dallas. I run my team here last year and ran the offseason for new out of Dallas in 2016 to 17, so I’ve always loved Dallas. Last midsummer I got sat down with um, a couple of leaders of, of some other companies that are well known in our industry that just wanted to talk about running year round models. Yeah. Cause that’s what every company would love is a year on model. And that’s all 18 t’s ever wanted is like why do you guys only produce during the summer whereas our your own production. Yeah. And so these guys sat down there. They’re big names in the 18th tee world I should say, not just door to door. Uh, I sat down with them and they pitched me this this year round model. Um, that was clear back in July of last year. I actually went home, bought a whiteboard, screwed it into my bedroom wall and wrote down like a whole game plan named it operation freedom operational data. I love it. Yeah. I wrote down a whole entire game plan for doing what I do now and I’d never pictured it anywhere but Dallas the time cause I was already here.
Speaker 1: (08:56)
How do you, the market, you know, maybe had a few, did you have some people that were here, local guys that you had recruited or did you bring some guy who did it?
Speaker 3: (09:04)
I started, yeah. So like even early on my guys would like bring a random dude that was local.
Speaker 1: (09:12)
Yeah. Cause it’s like you’re literally like, I was out in San Angelo this week were at buffalo wild wings and I’ve pitched the waiter, I’m like, you should do this. You’re good.
Speaker 4: (09:20)
Yeah, exactly. I’d be with him.
Speaker 3: (09:22)
You know what I mean? And the only problem that I think most people have had is it like out, we’re only here for somewhere. Like why waste time trying to get someone to do it with us right now, right from last month. Yeah. For the last month, a year or so. But my guys without me doing this, my guy’s already would bring random dudes to our meetings and we trained them on, I’m like, we’re not even trying to do this and we’re doing this right. We’re not even like attempting to build a year round like team. And we’re bringing in people that are local already. And I would say like half of my teams returned missionaries, but there’s a large percentage of my team that’s not missionaries, never served a mission. Um, one in particular is 10 are all red, 400 accounts, two years in a row came straight up. Our call center. Never served a mission. That’s crazy. Yeah, like so I’m like, they don’t have to be returned missionaries. I put this operation freedom thing together, finished out the year you met me or we, we started chatting a little bit more when I’d finished out the summer and I said, let’s do this. I was originally going to do it sooner than later, but uh, basically started on January 1st like we’re launching this thing, I don’t want to go for it. That’s awesome. So you double down, you said
Speaker 1: (10:28)
we’re doing it and you were just talking to me, you said this is probably 60 grand investment, just couch furniture, office build out this, this, that, you know what I mean? And Yeah. And it probably wasn’t an easy, just like, oh yeah, like if it doesn’t work out, it’s whatever.
Speaker 3: (10:42)
You know what, what I decided to do, which I would say is like one of the main success factors. If anyone wants to not only be good at summer but be good at year round is I just over committed. I mean there’s like, there’s no way I could quit right now. And the three year lease have a three year lease on this space. Um, spent, I mean, we’re talking, I meet with multiple bank accounts, one of my big accounts that I set for this head, 60 grand in it, and I used the whole entire thing up to get this going. That’s like drained it all in
Speaker 4: (11:14)
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Speaker 1: (11:29)
So now fast forward, what, six months? Yeah. Where do you see it now? Like I guess are you kind of like, wow, this is, I could see paying dividends fast forward another six months, another year? Yeah.
Speaker 3: (11:41)
Oh yeah. Um, there’s two sides to it. I think that sometimes like definitely get even just like discouraged because I want to grow way faster than is realistic, right? Yeah. Like, and I put this out there a ton, like I want my guy, I want to build into something that we do. 10,000 accounts is here. We’ve done 2,500 accounts, which means we’re behind, right? We only do about 5,000 and there’s days where I’m like, Gosh Dude, like this dude was outselling. He quit like these local man. He gets distracted, he quit. I’m like, okay, revolving door. This is frustrating, but what I see is that we’ve already done 2,500 accounts in a local market. What can we do next year? What can we do the next six months? A year doesn’t end when the summer ends.
Speaker 1: (12:27)
How? How has it like when you recruit a local guy, he pops off. I mean does he start bringing friends? I mean have you seen some momentum catch on now your guys are turning into more experience kind of guys and you’ll find that it’s created some momentum for you or do you see it maybe in the future happens?
Speaker 3: (12:45)
I see a lot of revolving door, but I see the local guys that are getting good have potential to bring on an entire team that would never be brought on through Utah. That’s what I see. That’s awesome. Like there’s a guy specifically, I was just on the phone with him. His name’s Antonio. He goes to a school in college station. He’s just here for the summer and uh, he sold in account every single day from the first day knock, which is pretty big for a local guy. Like it’s hard to get them to just to do that. What I see out of him is that he can now, like when we get them enough money built up on his summer, he’ll go back to college, tell everyone at his college about it and there’s no one recruiting there. Yeah. So then we’ll then build him a whole entire team out of his college that no one else else’s in
Speaker 1: (13:30)
yeah. For them. I think what a lot of people don’t realize, like you made 30 grand your first summer, but for a local guy that just, you know, it’s in between college or whatever. Like five grand is great for them.
Speaker 3: (13:41)
Oh Dude. You know what I mean? Like living in Utah, everyone’s like, I’m going to make six figures, I’m gonna make six figures. Dude, you scare someone away. If you tell them they’re going to make 60 , they think you’re making it up. You have to tell them that 60 grand is good or like 50, 40 grand. And that’s like amazing. Yeah. Because hundred grand, they’re not even trying to get a hundred grand yet. That’s like a way bigger reach for them. Where in Utah it’s like, oh, you didn’t make six figures, dude, you suck man. Like it’s a different culture for sure.
Speaker 1: (14:10)
That’s crazy. Yeah. So we’re going to kind of go through some of the, like the three main points that you’ve found to help you be successful through this year round program. We’ve touched a little bit on them. Uh, and the first one mainly was just kind of like all in and commit earlier than you thought. So tell me, kind of like by going all in and committing earlier than you thought, how would one start, right? Like, you know what I mean? Like everybody’s kind of like, well that sounds really good. Just keep saying that. But like, like how does somebody just say, all right, I’m going to do this. I’m picking through to do Omaha, Nebraska, ou to dude and you know, whatever’s, yeah, yeah. How would you start? How do you start
Speaker 3: (14:52)
that and then how do you kind of commit and make that happen? Um, I think that to start and not, I think this is a huge misconception. People think that they have to have a whole entire built plan and yes, I had a plan, but I’ve already changed it. Right? Yeah. And I was just as uncomfortable. It is for you to like learn to knock and sell, right. Everyone’s out of their comfort zone to do that. Yeah. If it was not that at that uncomfortable, it was more uncomfortable to jump into half and to pay a lease on a space. Yeah, it was, it sounds like I can’t afford it. I mean, I own it. Pork part on a gym you had, so it was never like fully responsible. Okay. This time, my name’s on the lease. Right. So yeah, I have to know how to pay the lease, but not only that, the next uncomfortable thing for me was hiring an assistant without knowing how to task and assistant all the way.
Speaker 3: (15:45)
Right? Yeah. So one of my first interview questions is, Hey, like are you going to know what to do? And I don’t know what to tell you to do. That’s it. I mean it’s so true though. Like I’m in the same boat right now and it’s like I just, you know, I had an assistant like just in the summers, but it was kind of like they already had their stuff. You got to do licensing paperwork area, you know, this, this and this. It’s like, other than that, like now you’ve probably got a million hats. You’re like, will you keep track of these hats yet? But I don’t want to tell her, keep track of these hats. Like could you just automatically, yeah. Yeah. How’s that been? If you’d gone through more than one assistant or if you just had one. And I’ll same assistant everywhere now than when I started cause she’s worth it.
Speaker 3: (16:21)
And um, I don’t always know what to give her to do. So in a salary, let’s say you’re paying, you’re probably hourly or salary or something. It’s our Aurelia. So how do you, I mean, at that point that’s a commitment. It’s like I’m what, 30 to 50 grand a year in that range. I mean, uh, 15 and hours where she gets put an hours probably Walter I now, so I know, I’m just guessing. Yeah, no. Yeah. So she makes the 15 hour fulltime. Yeah. It says I pay her an insurance stipend so she can have health insurance as we’re all tax and there’s a, and I always pay payroll tax and I paid, I pay for them to process my payroll so they can process my, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of costs that goes into that. And so that’s like another thing that I just had to commit to because having her also, it makes me better.
Speaker 3: (17:09)
Right? Yeah, I do. I’ll preach assistant to everyone. Like if you want to be a good leader, you need someone to have to keep track. Because what we’re not good at and sales is like being organized in my po, we suck at, if you, if you don’t have add, you’re probably a mid to low level that yeah, I’m with you 100% so having her makes me committed to a better schedule for example, because like I know she’s going to show up here at 9:00 AM every single day and if you’re not here she’d probably like wait, what? What’s going on? Right? Like where’s this dude? What’s he doing? What’s, and also if we’re not continually like progressing and recruiting sheet, I mean part of her task is the recruiting through all of our online campaigns. And if I’m not following through and she’s, and she’s just like, what’s going on? Like she’s not going to stay committed to the bigger mission either.
Speaker 1: (17:55)
So you have her actually doing the recruiting. Yeah. So how does, how do, how do you have her doing that? Like what is she
Speaker 3: (18:00)
so I mean we launched indeed campaigns. We have an Instagram ad that comes up, it’s like a story. So if you’re in DFW, might’ve seen it. Um, some of our guys come from that actually a large percentage.
Speaker 1: (18:10)
Should they have an ad like a sponsored ad? Is it like a cool hype video that makes it dock door knocking look sexy or is it like no, no, no. It says like,
Speaker 3: (18:17)
hey good jobs are hard to find. Um, it’s basically like, it doesn’t even say anything about hockey that was good. Jobs are hard to find. Um, come work for us basically. I mean it’s,
Speaker 1: (18:27)
yeah and if people are like, oh I need a new job
Speaker 3: (18:30)
swipe up cause they swipe up and they apply and we get them loaded into an excel spreadsheet as a lead parent. She, what I’ve told her is that like most of the people applying, you’re going to be younger. So I was like they suck at answering their phone, text him. So we have, we pay for like phone numbers and everything here. Local phone numbers. She texts him from one of those local numbers. Everything we do initially is through text recruiting than a phone interview. And then if she screens all that and then if there to where it’s worth interviewing them in person, she scheduled them for an interview.
Speaker 1: (19:01)
That’s cool. What success have you found with indeed or monster, craigslist? Like how does she manage that and kind of what are some hacks that you’ve learned through trial and error kind of work for you?
Speaker 3: (19:12)
Well, so I think what most people do on indeed is very much not enough. So we launched like 20 in deed campaigns in DFW. Most people launch ones, like, I’ve had people call me about this. They’re like, hey dude, like we’re not getting a lot of traction from a do you? Like what are you doing? I said, do I have 20 ads up
Speaker 1: (19:30)
and you’re paying for that. And I pay for every single one of them. Yeah. How much do you spend per ad and more or less,
Speaker 3: (19:35)
um, primary budget. So if it’s in like this, this exact zip code where we are, I put a $200 monthly budget on it. Cool. Ones that are farther away. I put 20 to 50 so, but no, I mean my first month I spent like $1,000 in recruiting ads, which maybe it doesn’t sound like a ton, but dude, I mean,
Speaker 1: (19:54)
well, Hey, say that in Utah. Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying is it’s like I don’t think people realize to run the business. It takes money. And I think a lot of people, they’re relying on their company to provide all the resources, their company to be the one to front the bill on all this stuff, on everything, on everything. And I think p, you know what’s interesting shout out to the CUTCO world is they force all their managers to sign a lease. They foresaw their managers to pay for the recruiting, make they forced them to pay for an assistant that comes off from their own pockets. We ought to learn from CUTCO. No, it’s crazy. And I’ve, I’ve loved studying some of the other cultures outside of this bubble because it’s teaching them, that’s real entrepreneurship. You go try to start some company and you’re starting from some summer sales rep or manager and you’re like, no, I never had to manage books.
Speaker 1: (20:41)
I never had to process payroll shifts to some W2 somewhere. I never knew how to negotiate a lease. I never, you know what I mean? It’s all stuff. So I think what’s, what’s disempowering that we, I think is summer sales or, or sales dudes are managers and stuff like that is, is that I think it’s so dependent on the companies because we’re like, well, if our company wouldn’t pay for it, I’ll just go to some other company that’s willing to figure out my house too much and we lose a lot of money over it. And it’s, and it’s been, it’s ridiculous. In my opinion, it is probably one of the biggest pitfalls and that has to do private that you tell level, oh really? Does the competition. It’s a competition as you like. Um, and that’s why like if, if anyone’s listened to ground cardamoms, you’re plenty of listening to grant Cardone.
Speaker 1: (21:23)
He says, quit competing. Start dominating, right? Yeah. Find a way to dominate your market. The reason I went year round is not because I wanted to go year round. It’s cause I’m obsessed with winning. That’s the number one reason I want you around. And I knew that no one else had worked 12 months. It’s awesome. That’s the reason I did it. So we easily doubled the next team in our company last year. Not because we had an insane summer, but because we had a big 12 months. Yeah, you worked 12 months. It’s like you go four months, I go 12 I’ll beat you. Even if we suck. It’s just definitely way or at least mediocre last year. Right. But that’s the thing is I think a lot of people, you know it’s funny, we have this golden door or that door to door con, right. And some people were like, well he didn’t sell do booboo.
Speaker 1: (22:06)
And I’m like no, he just worked year round and hit the golden door war cause there’s no 12 months guys. I’m not. I’m not sitting here as well. He didn’t, well we did that in four months. I’m like okay. Yeah. You just chose to work 12. It’s the same dollars yet it’s like, hey, you know what I mean? It’s so you’d rather make 50 grand and let him make a hundred because you did it in the summer. Like all right. It’s just so funny. Like I just laugh at like I’ve had people complain and I’m like, no, it’s just, it’s this is it. It’s 12 months. It’s a year. Like you just choose to do it part time and some people will do a full, like it’s Oh kid. Uh, so now kind of going to step two, because I love this recruit. Well let’s finish this recruiting convo cause we kind of got on a tangent.
Speaker 1: (22:49)
So you spent $1,000 on indeed ads and you know how much you spend on Instagram ads? 50 bucks a day, 50 bucks a day. That’s the budget, right? It’s all click based. Yeah. So essentially you’re getting clicks. If I’m getting enough clicks, it pays for itself because that means I’m getting recruits. So if you kind of calculate or what’s your cost per hire slash what’s your cost per retained? Higher. You know what I mean? If you’ve gotten that meticulous. No, I haven’t gotten that meticulous cause I’m not really like wired that meticulously. Oh, you’re just not organized and you have add and where’s ?
Speaker 1: (23:23)
It’d be smart though. Costs per head is now, no, for sure. No, but for real. Yeah. No, I think that would be smart. I mean what I, I tend to wing it, right? We all do. We tend to wing it. But yeah, I, what I look for is we’re spending 50 bucks a day. I at least need to be getting enough sales from someone from Instagram to make that make sense. And so that’s what I look for. Like, all right, how many of our guys have come from this Instagram ad and are they producing enough sales to where we’re not only are we covering that 50 bucks a day, but we’re making money still and that’s the way I look at it. So right now I ought to run on like what’s my cost per head kind of thing. It’s just this concept of like you’re not playing the short game.
Speaker 1: (24:04)
Right? Here’s the principle, here’s the nugget. What is it? An APP now? A good time nugget. It’s you move out to Dallas, you move out to build an empire. Absolutely. Short term probably cost you a lot more money than if you just said F y’all, I’m going to take my five best guys and go sell. Yeah, fair. Right, for sure. And so I think the principle is play the long game, reinvest in yourself, and that’ll end up being the best investment. Absolutely. Six years down the road, fast forward. The guy that was just rep, rep, rep, Brett, Brett, Brett, every year trying to play that short term cash, they sit in their burnt out as fricking new way our life. There’s still where they were though too. They made money and spent money. Exactly in a row. Yeah. Well what did they build? And I think that like the reason guys get burnt out, the reason guys like don’t stay in the industry, the reason they look for a real job is not because they aren’t good at selling, and it’s not because they’re not making money, but they’re not looking for a way to continually grow and improve.
Speaker 1: (25:05)
100% and then they’re not getting them dissatisfied. So that for me, I had to take this step or I would’ve quit. Does that make sense? Yup. Oh yeah. For scent, I would just absolutely not be satisfied if I were doing the same thing I was doing last year because I have to be looking for another level. Like there’s some kind of improvement that I can find. And this was it for this year. Next year maybe we’ll double our office space. Yeah. Maybe have one in South Dallas. And here’s northern guy mean. So I think that’s the principle I think people need to realize is so many people are afraid to spend 1000 bucks the 58 50 bucks a day on Instagram. So you know, they’re like, well, I’ll just kind of maybe go talk to a wager or go to a college campus for day and chill or tab. And it’s like, or you know what?
Speaker 1: (25:51)
They’ll still do say, hey company will you pay for this? And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s still work. But you don’t have as much commitment when you do that. No, there’s no skin in the game. You’ve got to have skin in the game so can move into principal to culture and a foundation. So you started this place in Dallas, you convinced a few your homeboys to come out here, right? Yeah. How many came with you? We had 12. 12 dudes are like, I’m moving fulltime to Dallas. Yup. Holy Cow. That’s still sells. I’ve ever heard it took a couple of months first right to commence or some, some still have like an apartment or a house or something. And you thought they did and now their phones they don’t. Right. Wow. Um, and I would, I would attribute that completely to culture and to vision and opportunity. Right. Team. And they see probably more growth. It’s like, do you really think you’re going to become some manager in the at race, in like your
Speaker 3: (26:44)
chances of growth and managing and running your own, your own empire is probably much higher out here. And they probably bought into that. Right. And they do buy into that. Because for me, the reason I grow and the reason I’ve grown and the reason we produce is because my focus is not on my income. I have goals just like anyone else, but there are lot more associated with how can I help this dude make six figures this year? All right, I got this manager last year, he made 50 grand. How can I double his income this year? What am I going to do to do that? And by being that type of manager, they want to be here, right? That I’ll, I’ll take whatever I make to reinvest in them right now because I know that two, three years down the road, they could do three to 5,000 accounts and then we’re in a way better spot than we are right now.
Speaker 3: (27:33)
Yeah. I love that. That, I mean, that’s what it comes down to. So tell me about this culture that creates this team of Ninjas that you just drag a loyal and it moved and so had this motto, tell us about your model. Yes. The motto, if you haven’t heard this, check it out. Uh, it’s more money, more freedom. And anyone on my team knows that from the B, from the very beginning when they’re in an interview, they know the internally we’re more money, more freedom. Like that’s our name. Um, and what does that mean? That basically comes down to, and I’ll say this straight up to him, that people will tell you it’s not about the money. Right? And if grant Cardone, I’m addicted to grant Gardner, but he’ll say, yes, it is. Right? But what I tell people is like, yes, it is about the money, but it’s not about having the money.
Speaker 3: (28:17)
It’s about what are you going to do with your money, right? What freedom can you have by having money? All right. Did you, you, you have a dream of going to feed you. Let’s see, try to do it without money. 100%. You can’t do it. So what we literally ingrained in everyone is freedom, right? Which is, if you study psychology at all, then there’s a lot of books out there about this. But people are motivated by either fear or freedom. I love that. Psychologically this is dough. So, uh, some guys up in Utah decided to put this together for me. Actually, this is our logo. That’s more money, more freedom. I think Texas flat, like, you know, the proud to be an American. It’s private right there, man. America, America. So yeah, that’s a, we go by Nmf a lot of the time. That’s more money.
Speaker 3: (29:03)
More freedom. But not only do we sell like that, right? So like, like I got Gucci shoes on right now. It doesn’t really matter. Right. But that’s, that’s my expression of the freedom side. Right? Let’s say I got a dude and he’s like, Bro, I won’t Gucci Shoes. Well, when the dude doesn’t work, guess what I say, look man, you’re not going to buy Gucci shoes. No money, no freedom, no money, no. But I might say, hey, you’ll never buy Gucci shoes with the Palest work ethic. Ooh, I liked. Right. So rather than me motivating guys and keep them guys accountable when it comes to sales, I don’t keep them accountable by like having a, what’s the word? Like threatening or having a, it’s a negative. The negative. Like, you don’t sell, you get, you don’t, I reward. And that’s what I base everything off of. So it’s like, look dude, you want some Gucci shoes? Sell 10 in a day, I’ll go buy you a pair of Gucci shoes. Like it’s all rewards based. It’s all freedom base. It’s all like leveling up together, but you’ve got to earn it. I love that. Okay. Real quick, quick commercial break. Commercial break. We’re good.
Speaker 3: (30:17)
Awesome.
Speaker 1: (30:18)
Yeah. Okay. So basically keep jamming on this, but I actually had another question on that.
Speaker 3: (30:24)
Okay. What do you do to continually instill,
Speaker 1: (30:30)
like what other things do you do, like systems to instill this culture and foundation that you’ve been building and created?
Speaker 3: (30:37)
That’s a, that’s a really good question. Um, I would say that this is another nugget. If you don’t have a system, you’re probably going to fail because you’re going to just try to manage people all the time. Yeah. Um, we built a system in part of that system is it? Everyone takes Mondays off. Okay. So most summer teams are gonna be like, dude, you guys are nuts. Why are you not selling? A Mondays?
Speaker 1: (30:55)
Could you sell 12 months who we sell to upon, right? And, and even the guys,
Speaker 3: (30:59)
the other teams in our company are like, wait, what? Why are these guys taking Mondays off? Dude, when you’re gone in September, our production will still be the same. That’s what it comes down to. But there’s a freedom side to that as well. It’s like, look guys, you’ve got a two day weekend, so go hard for five days. You take Sunday and you take Monday off Denver take Saturday off, right? Because that’s the big huge selling day. But um, that’s part of our culture. But also we are always finding a way to make sure we celebrate wins. Um, I’ll take for example, I’ll take, I’ll say, hey, top five reps this week. Let’s just say anyone that sells 20. Okay, so 20 in the week and we’re all going to Ruth’s Chris, Chris here in Dallas is a Ruth’s Chris there also a barrier
Speaker 1: (31:43)
flight got delayed. So cancel your flight. Where’s the fairies is good. What is the freedom of being tied to fly man canceling. Afford another one of my could kill me. Uh, yeah. So what are some cool systems that you’ve done to kind of help you manage that culture? Do you have any specific ones that are creative that are fun, that are, you know, Monday’s off. That’s another, that’s, that’s awesome because it’s instills freedom. It’s like we choose to take Mondays off. Is there another, I don’t know, other things that you’ve done to kind of
Speaker 3: (32:17)
help with that? Other things,
Speaker 1: (32:19)
other systems systems. I like the dinner. I liked it. I’m just trying to think. Anything else?
Speaker 3: (32:23)
I mean we will have mall incentives. We’ll have extra cash incentives that are maybe a little abnormal. They’re not abnormal, but they require a little more work than a standard incentive. For example, like
Speaker 3: (32:35)
on a random day, let’s just say I might be like, all right guys, first, first three people to get a sale, get an extra 50 bucks. That’s a pretty normal incentive. Yeah. But I might take that to another level and throw another one out. So like the first three, get it. All right, next three, get another 25 for me to be able to like throw incentives all day. I have to be like 100% involved. Right. Yeah. Um, and I think that where a lot of managers and leaders fall short is that they don’t stay involved with their sales all day. So like a system that I have in places I literally, I’m in, no, I’m not addicted to our leaderboard. So I will continually keep track of the leaderboard and I actually will, I shoot it some type of tech stuff for every sale that goes through every day.
Speaker 3: (33:19)
Really? Yeah. So do you have 40 something dude? And you’re like always texts. So I’m on my phone all day and if I go into, like if I go into a lunch or a dinner or an interview or something like that, I’ll let it and preface it with saying, hey, if I have to answer my phone, I’m going to, because I believe in the sales. Right. And if I have to take a call to help close a deal, I will, regardless of where it’s at. So if I’m in an interview interviewing a new rep all literally I’ll stop the interview and say, Hey dude, I’ve got to take this call. It’s just helped me and make a sale. What does that prove to him? I’m all about the sales. Right? And so that’s part of our culture. It’s like being addicted to making sure our sales go through.
Speaker 3: (33:56)
Yeah. Um, I’m trying to think of some other systems that are not just talking about your head. I just, you know, everybody’s always asking me like, Hey, this question a lot from people, whether they’re like, what, what are some our systems from our structures, some more this or that. So that’s, that’s why I asked that question. Well, here’s the system for you. We have a set schedule that actually has come from a lot of your podcasts, but I built a, kind of in my own way of, uh, reps first week. Okay. So if we sign a rep or hire a rep, right? Cause I don’t recruit anymore, I interview. Yeah. I hire people. It’s got to be that different. Right. Um, I interview in a hire and every time I know they’re going to start on Monday. So I don’t have like this sporadic Mondays are off for everyone but me.
Speaker 3: (34:44)
But that’s your training. That’s like your implement and it’s like your start bootcamp or whatever you can do it. Right. So guys that I have that want to be managers that are managers, they work with me on Mondays. Cool. Right. But guys that are knocking, they’re still like they’re on the doors. They have Mondays off. I still work Mondays. And what that looks like is new reps, all new reps that we signed in one week, they’ll start on Monday. And I know that every single time you’re going to start on Monday, you’re going to do a three hour in house training, three days in a row before you touch the door. So it’s three days. How many hours each day? Just three hours. Okay. So we don’t bombard them with a bunch of information and what time it is that is, that is at night from 11 to two, 11 to two. Let’s say they’re currently like, Hey, I’m at, I’ve got another job right now. What do you tell him and make him quit their current job before they go two feet in? Or do you say, hey, try this. Like how do you kind of play that game? I’ve had, I’ve had a few people quit their jobs first. Okay. I have some people right now that still have another job that
Speaker 1: (35:40)
could you get some people like I found with year round it’s like, can I do this part time after my current job? Or like, I mean, how do you balance that? Do you allow that? It’s like no tolerance. Is it kind of a case by case? Like
Speaker 3: (35:51)
so case by case, but what I, what I believe in is like if I can take a guy and he has another job right now and that’s perfectly fine and show him how to make money doing this, he’ll quit his other job without me telling him too. You know what I mean? Um, I just got a text from a guy who has been doing this for a couple of weeks. Okay. He’s made a few sales, nothing crazy because he has another job, but his few sales pitch dwelled. Right? Yeah. And so he just said he put his two weeks into there. So that’s awesome. Um, so let’s give them a taste and say, do you want to get addicted to sales kit cocaine? Cause I’ll give you the wait for your paycheck and how kick in in a minute. We’ve got a guy right now, um, who just started this last week. He started on Monday. He works a night shift. He’s like, and he’s a hustler and he’s wants to do this. He doesn’t even care about the money, which it probably does care about the money. So it’s just his way of saying it. But um, guarantee he his job in the next two weeks, it’s cool because he’ll just see better income. Okay. So last principle is teaching, right?
Speaker 1: (36:59)
And this segues right into this, which was systems to teach. Your guys had a sell fast because the role, the revolving door is a real thing. You’re right. And they don’t make money. They quit. They, this is hard. This is new door to door. It’s hot. It’s that we’re not talking about, we’re not talking return missionaries. Yeah. This is like, wow. I was not expecting to get my face kicked in. Like, yeah. Mean, so I was asked like systematically, which we just kind of already we’re talking about, but I know that’s the third principle we really wanted to touch on was how to get my guys selling quickly and constantly the, the, the continual, you know, not because, because this is the issue people run into is it’s like, oh, I’m going to go family vacation. Uh, I’m going to go, I got date night. Oh, I got soccer game. Oh, I got this. I got my friends coming home from is this, and it’s like, it’s life. Like people always have life in a year round program and it’s more life than anywhere else. Right. Yeah. And it’s always something. So that’s, that’s the question that I guess I think a lot of people ask is how to get your guy’s selling fast and at the beginning and the, how do you keep them motivated to continually sell consistently?
Speaker 3: (38:08)
Yeah, for sure. Um, I’ve learned a lot about that in the last six months. Haven’t been perfect at it. I’m sure there’s been a lot of trial and error and failure, dude. Yeah guys that can sell three in the day that just quit out of nowhere. And I’m like, what? Why? Right. But what I’ve found to be the number one thing is too, from the very beginning, plant the right expectations with them. Okay. And what that comes down to is day one in their first interview ever with me, I will talk to them about that. This job is not easy. Yeah. Not everyone can do it. You got this picture that like, yeah. Did you make tons of money man, like coming money with us bro? Like it’s super sick. Like money won’t feed him, come make money. Right. And then they go pretty much that and that’s what we Stratton Oakmont man.
Speaker 3: (38:58)
But no, if I paint the picture wrong from the very beginning, which I did at first, right. Because I’m used to refuse to recruiting that I’m used to recruiting. I’m used to being like this is the best place to be. Be. Well, they get on the doors and they never knocked for dude. They’re done within days. And I went through that a ton. We had a thousand applicants on indeed when we first launched. Oh, okay. 1,000 applicant. Now they don’t all show up for interviews. That’s something to remember. They’re not all gonna show up. But what I’ve found is if I paint the right expectation from the interview to the training to help them focus on what’s gonna make them good, which is putting in the hours, not the sales, then I get the consistency out of it. Right? But if I focus on the sales and I say, come on man, let’s get those sales.
Speaker 3: (39:42)
Let’s get this like, and they don’t get sales for a couple of days. They’re gone, dude. So I get them focused on 40 hours a week. Right? Because I don’t expect you to work. Mondays are expecting to work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, eight hours every day. That means they’re on the doors by one o’clock and they work till nine right now during the summer. If they don’t do that and they come to me and they say, why am I not selling? I now have that first thing to go to. Are you working eight hours? Then I can go from there and say, okay, cool. It’s part of our first things in training is their first day knocking on their own. They’re not focused on making a sale. I tell them to focus on talking to a hundred people. Go talk to a hundred people, learn first, because then you’ll earn, right. That comes from a ton of people out there.
Speaker 3: (40:26)
But yeah, if I paint the picture with them that they need to learn how to sell for their future and they give them a vision much bigger than the next couple of weeks or the next month and then a couple of months, but I say like two, three years down the road when you’re crushing 500 accounts a year, you’ll look back at this, right? I say things like that. You’ll look back at this and say, that’s why he wanted me to focus on learning now. Right, so knock a hundred doors your first day. Well actually talked to a hundred p tag, top 200 people, not knock on the doors, talk to a hundred people your first day. The guys that do that start to sell on their first day. Not all of them, but yeah, but did you find out you got to find some ways exactly date too, which is different from the summer sales model that day too.
Speaker 3: (41:12)
I still not trying to push him to make a sale. I want them to focus on different things and I haven’t focused on how many homes did they get into. Yeah. Like how many real qualified customers are they talking to and sitting down at pitching and if I can track how many people they talk to, how many homes they started getting into, then I can get, teach them how to close at that point and they’ll start closing deals. But they’re like, they go, that person, we get training there. Second, we get trained in, they’ll start closing their deals pretty much daily because they learned to put in the hours and they want him to like do just the key steps. So coming out of the bubble. Yeah. Do you get people give you pushback being on a commission only and being held to working the 40 hours?
Speaker 3: (41:50)
Absolutely. So they’re like, well you can’t, I’m 10 99 or like what do you, how do you manage that? Uh, I dunno conundrum. It’s a conundrum. It’s a weird dynamic. Right? But like I said earlier, I focus a lot more on reward, more like much more than I would do on a punishment. Okay. So when I bring a guy in and we’re talking and he shows to me verbally that he wants to be successful in level up, which is like 99% of people will say it. Right? Yeah. And I’ll say it, plenty of people will say 5% mean it. Yeah, exactly. So these dudes come in talking a big game, whatever. I don’t say you have to work 40 hours, but what I’ll do is I’ll sit down with them and say, wait, what are some of your bigger goals? Um, I was on a phone call interview with a guy the other day. Um, he wants to have 20,000 in savings by the end of the year.
Speaker 3: (42:44)
Okay. Which to a lot of us, that’s not a lot, but think a local guy. He’s, he’s paying his own rent. Yeah. Okay. He’s paying his own bills and he’s surviving on a check to check basis right now. So what we need to do is figure out how are we going to get him to where he’s surviving on a check to check a basis plus 20,000 this year. Right. If you can break that down for them and show them like, all right, dude, this is what you want to get there. Eight hours a day, a hundred people talk to transitioning to 20% of homes. Let’s just say so you know, you’d be getting into 20 homes.
Speaker 3: (43:20)
If you don’t do that, you won’t reach your goal rather than you have to do this, right? Yeah. Yeah. You don’t do it. You’ll never do what you said you wanted it to do. Exactly. And that’s on you. And then two weeks into the row in, into their experience, I find out they’re not working the hours. What can I talk to him about? Yeah. Hours. Yes. But then their goal, what’s your goal? Man, Tony Grant, it’s like, do you really want the 20 grand? You want to say 20 grand by the end of the year? Not like, yeah. My goal is to help them do that, not to hold them to being an employee. Right. You tried to play the game of like tracking hours through technology or, I mean, has that had any luck? I’ve definitely thought about it, but what has made me a good leader over the years is that I’m not a micromanager.
Speaker 3: (44:03)
You don’t have to micromanage it cause it’s all reward system. It’s, it’s rewards. It’s recognizing the people that are doing it. It’s, it’s giving props to those that are striving for that and holding them to their goals. Yeah. I liked, yeah, I liked that because a lot of people, you know, they’ve come up with the t sheets where they’re tracking every movement and they’re dragging, you know what I mean? And I’ve done eventually, are you going to distract you guys from what’s important? I think so. Yeah. I agree. I agree 100%. So we’re kind of running out of time. Yeah. Uh, you’ve got to flight to get
Speaker 1: (44:32)
your part and I guess late or something. No, but I honestly like it’s fun and there’s been a lot of people on here. If you know Russ, comment on here and give him some love. Give him some thumbs up or a heart or something. Share this podcast if you’re listening to it, uh, on, you know, Facebook or Linkedin or whatever you guys use. What are some of the other weird ones? Periscope, periscope, this please? Uh, uh, no, but I always ask, honestly, this has been nugget after nugget. I need to make like a little like chime right
Speaker 5: (45:04)
everybody give it like you hear a nugget. Everybody should be like,
Speaker 3: (45:07)
yeah,
Speaker 1: (45:08)
Mcdonald. Like a nugget that like what would be a nugget and sound like?
Speaker 5: (45:14)
I can’t think about it like an acorn landing on the ground. Kind of like a,
Speaker 1: (45:22)
uh, and then I’ll have to like go back and edit all the fun little nugget sounds. But anyway, so one piece of advice, and I always ask this and I’m going to ask it to the manager, right? So let’s say you’re speaking to managers in all industries, right? Running teams, whether they have two guys are a hundred guys, uh, what would be your one piece of advice that you’d give that manager?
Speaker 3: (45:46)
Okay. I expected a question like this and before hand that reached out to a few other people that I’ve worked with over the years. Um, and I said like, what stands out about me yet? Because I’m not, I’m not the greatest at like being like, dude, this is what I’m like the best up. I’d rather have someone else kind of like point that out. Um,
Speaker 5: (46:05)
but they did, did they give you some prompts? So yes, I was on the phone with him like right before this, I talked to a couple people that I could get ahold of them. But, um,
Speaker 3: (46:16)
I think the biggest thing that stands out that people need to realize is that this is about people, right? This is not about like, all right, like one of my goals, do I want to make $1 million this year? Yes, that’s one of my goals, but I have to focus on my people to do that. And if I take care of my people, they’ll take care of people to take care of customers. And so if I can focus on making sure that my people reach their goals and I can take care of them, I can reach my goals. But it’s not about like, Bro, like why are you sucking where you’re not selling? Like, dude, you got to take it and be like, you, okay man. I’m like, what’s going on Bro? How can I help you reach your goals? Because if you, if someone decided to do sales, they’ve got big goals, period. Right? And if they’re not like pushing for those goals, something’s off. Yeah. So if I can take care of that person, I can bump their production and in the long run that’s going to bump my production. Right. But the biggest thing that I’ve found that people have even said is that I take care of people and love. Yeah. That’s the end goal. I love that because it’s like there’s
Speaker 1: (47:22)
always that quote, if you can help enough people get what they want, you’ll in turn get what you want. I’m sure there’s that. I Dunno, I obviously suck at quotes, but uh, no, but I love that. No good thing.
Speaker 3: (47:34)
Yeah. So one of my goals, so just to kind of go along with that is one of my goals is to help 200 people boost their income this year.
Speaker 1: (47:41)
Yeah. And it’s like maybe that’s taken a guy that was making 15 bucks an hour and you did all the math and you’re like, all the hours you worked, you made 17 what’s up? Pay Raise. But I feel good. Think about that. If I can help crazy 200 people do that, that’s like a massive dent like it to take admission. It’s a bigger mission. It’s a bigger mission than just like, I wanna make 1 million bucks. It’s like, well, what are you doing in the million bucks? So it’s like, no, I have an army of 200 people that I made a huge impact in their lives. And in return I made a million and then what happens? You don’t get burnt out. Yeah. Cause you’re fulfilled. Hundred percent fulfillment, freedom. Those are the things that we’re all looking for.
Speaker 3: (48:15)
Absolutely. It this last little thing, I know we’re trying to finish up, but we hear this all over the place like millennials who suck at life. So can we do we hear this a lot, right? Let’s go jump off a bridge. If you are a millennial, we will do it with you. We were all going to jump off a bridge because we suck. Right? Tell us you what I realized. Yeah. Being a millennial and seeing the younger crowds and the younger everyone, dude, all they want from what I see is to be seen as someone that is capable and to be like given. Yeah, right. Are we, are we agree? I don’t know if anything like, and this is one of my pet peeves, everyone knows, don’t call me buddy, don’t call me bud. Right? But that’s just because of the connotation that comes with that. Yeah. Buddy’s not a bad word,
Speaker 1: (49:01)
but just want the right connotation. We want to feel honored. We want to feel, you know,
Speaker 3: (49:06)
like, oh, millennials suck. All they do is get on their phone. Guess what? We’re going to probably make $1 million in our phone right here, Sam. Tagger. Right. But, um, what I started to see was, obviously I’m a millennial, but dude, there’s so much room 30 years down the road from now for a good leader. So true. There’s room for it because the people that see millennials is not good, don’t want to lead them and, right. But I, I do.
Speaker 1: (49:34)
Yeah. So it’s like, well, you have to learn how to lead them have issue. It’s like you can’t just put your head in the sand and be like, oh, where else society will crumble. It was always plain a simple game over. He came over. We have to learn how to be the leaders that those that are in this younger generation want to be led by.
Speaker 3: (49:51)
And the ones they want to be led by are the ones that see them as capable, give them more tasks, um, allow them to be free, which is why this moment anymore freedom thing resonates with everyone I talked to is because they want freedom. They want, like, they don’t want to be micromanaged. That’s not bad stuff. That’s just
Speaker 1: (50:12)
different. We have to learn how to work with it. Right? So that huge, Kay, you guys heard it firsthand. Uh, Mr
Speaker 3: (50:21)
Russ, give him some love. Give him a little thumbs up if you’re still on here. You made it through the whole thing. Congratulations.
Speaker 6: (50:28)
And much love guys. This is DDD podcasts and we just, uh, coming to you live from Dallas. I’m from Dallas.
