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Bill, Can I help you?

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Speaker 2: (00:49)

Alright, I’m Sam Taggart, your host with the D2D podcast and I am here with Jeff Mendez, one of the VPs at Vivint, right? That’s right. Now you have your division, is that what they’re called? Divisions? Yeah. Authentic. And how many accounts did you guys do this year to put things into perspective? Guys, this is like big, just a little north of 50,000 accounts. 50,000 accounts. I mean that’s more than most security companies will do combined, you know what I mean? It’s like how many people is that? Yeah, it was quite a few people. Well I already had a lot more. Yeah. So I mean at the end of the day built a massive dynasty within vivant you came here and what year?

Speaker 3: (01:27)

Um, follow seven first summer of it was a wait.

Speaker 2: (01:30)
Alright. And before that you did satellite, right? Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, how many years did you do that? I did that for about five years. And you, okay. So this is what’s cool about your story. You weren’t the typical, I got off my mission and got recruited kind of guy. How old were you when you got into door?

Speaker 3: (01:49)
Uh, when I got into a door to door for the first time, I was probably 26 at the time.

Speaker 2: (01:54)
Everybody, six 27. And you came out? I was always viewed as the old guy. Yeah. You were like the old guy. That’s what I was like, you weren’t just the little like fresh off the minute Casey Wioa

Speaker 3: (02:05)
first summer ever. Like, we’re actually did a summer. I was 31 years old. 31 for kids at the time.

Speaker 2: (02:10)
Wow. Yeah. And you had to leave a decent job. Yeah. It wasn’t like you were off the streets. Right. What were you doing before this?

Speaker 3: (02:17)
Before satellite? No. Yeah. Before, before satellite I was doing a Walmart stores. Ain’t, I was a store manager for Walmart running super centers. I was converting regular Walmarts in a super centers. Did that in Utah and in North Carolina,

Speaker 2: (02:30)
which isn’t just like a little kid job. I’d be in that you had how many people you manage

“So you’re always worried about your numbers, always worried about your revenue”

Speaker 3: (02:35)
and a ton of people. 200,000 square foot box store, um, millions of dollars in revenue. Um, my last year there we are stored it at over 100 million in revenue and you get paid off of the bottom line. So you’re always worried about your numbers, always worried about your revenue, making sure that everything is working with precision because if you don’t hit your marks, if you don’t hit your revenue goals, you don’t, you don’t get paid. It was all bright and variable competent and that we tell plan as well.

Speaker 2: (03:02)
So I think it, do you feel like that is really that lesson you learned in the Walmart? You took a lot of that and applied it to this?

Speaker 3: (03:09)
Yeah, it, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re learning systems, you’re learning operations, you’re learning people, management, you’re dealing with your frontline employees, you’re dead, you’re working with your back office too. So you’re, you’re working with cashiers that are making pretty near minimum wage all the way up to your upper management and you have to speak all types of languages. So you, you’re EEQ has to be super high so you can relate to every single one of those positions. And what’s really cool about the Walmart philosophy is, you know how you need to know how to do every single, um, you need to be able to work every single position there. So I pushed carts, I cashiered, I, uh, I worked the Pallet Jacks, the forklifts, the scissor lifts, unloaded trucks, stock shelves, clean floors, mop floors. Did, I did it all, every single little piece of the bones.

Speaker 2: (03:57)
Wow. So then door to door. How did somebody sell you on that dream? You’re like, yeah, I’m going to leave this.

Speaker 3: (04:03)
Yeah, so a buddy of mine from college, um, he uh, he approached me and says, hey Yo Mendez, you need to quit Walmart and you need to come join our go to door movement where selling dish network door to door and I’m thinking to myself home door to door. I remember seeing companies that sold door to door in the pest control space when I was going to be what you I graduate Byu and 99 and back then there weren’t very many outfits selling door to door. Pest control is really the only player and I remember seeing these ads in the daily universe of Byu paper that had photos of guys and then their earnings during the summer and I’m like, this is wild. These guys are making crazy money and actually called one of those offices one day just to get some, some more, some more, some information and something to me off identity.

Speaker 3: (04:50)
I didn’t pursue it. I didn’t go forward with it was kind of, it was kind of pie in the sky ash and kind of, I dunno, kind of weird. So I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t pursue it, do the Walmart thing. And then anyway, one of my buddies calls me up and says, Yo, quit your job. We’re doing this. And I thought to myself, I remember seeing these ads. I remember seeing the big money. Um, I actually served a mission for my church for two years. So I enjoy knocking doors, enjoy talking to strangers, enjoy talking to people. It doesn’t phase me in any way, shape or form. Then I thought, I have dish network at home. I actually liked the product. I like the service. If I went out and sold this product or door, I would probably be very successful. So it always like stuck in my mind.

Speaker 3: (05:34)
I said, hey, let me think about it and I’ll get back at you. And as any good recruiter, he was really persistent. So I was out my store in Midvale, Utah One day, two o’clock in the afternoon. And, uh, I got a walkie talkie call from the fitting room that says, Mr. Mendez, we have a shoplifter in the ladies department, please hurry up. Um, we want to apprehend them. And I run over there and it’s my buddy just laughing and said, don’t be calm and carbs. It’s me. Let’s take a late lunch. And I’m like, you son of a gun. It’s Ryan Slater. Okay. Uh, one of my buddies from college in his, his buddy, his brothers, sorry, Wade Slater’s the one who started atlas. Uh, so we went to lunch, he explained the go to market strategy, explained how guys get compensated and explain the gaps that he had in his company, meaning the type of personnel that he was needing at this point.

Speaker 3: (06:28)
So he was getting ready to go launch summer number two. They had a really successful summer. Some are number one in Phoenix, Arizona. Like they, they, they passed every single expectation that they had. It says Mendez, we know you’re an operator, you’re know you’re a go getter. We know you’re super organized, you are a people person, systems guy, et cetera. Like we’d love to have. And I said, listen, my ears were open, but I can’t leave. What I’ve got going on here. Like on a whim, I’ve got, I’ve got kids, got a livelihood, I got to take care of, so forth and so on. So let’s keep chatting. He says, men, as the best way for us to figure this thing out is if you come out with me and you see for yourself, and I say, not a problem. Um, let, let me take, let me take some time off and then let me go knock some doors with you and let me go see what it’s all like.

Speaker 3: (07:13)
Um, so we, we take off a Saturday, this is maybe two weeks later, hardly ever took Saturdays off and retail, it’s, it’s my Superbowl day. Took a Saturday off. My wife wasn’t happy. I said, listen, I’ll come home right after lunchtime. Let me just go figure out what this is. And then we can make a decision. But I think I’m going to look into this thing. So I go over to their office, we do some role plays. I see their correlation meeting. I’m seeing how everything’s working. I see a lot of parallels with what I did. You know, when I was in the mission field knocking doors, something like, oh, I can probably get behind this thing. And then we get in cars and then we’re driving all the way to Scipio Utah, little town, little town dirt roads back then. I don’t know if they’re paved now, but I was like, wow, this is, this is crazy.

Speaker 3: (07:57)
I didn’t even know that this town was here. We knock a door first door. Um, we get inside the home. I wasn’t impressed at all with my buddies door approach or his presentation and said, the whole course closing, I can do better than this. I’m thinking in my mind I’m like, oof, this is rough. Like you’re, you’re the guy training guys. This is, this is not very good. So we leave that house didn’t get the deal. The next guy has directv repitch and dish network at the time and the gentleman is closing the door. Wasn’t interested, but I felt like if we would have said a couple of things differently, we’d have probably grabbed his attention and potentially gotten a cell. So as he’s closing the door, I said, sir, sir, you mind if I ask you a quick question before you close that door on us?

Speaker 3: (08:38)
So sure. I ask them a question. I can’t remember right now what it is, but it was effective enough where boom, were inside the house. Yep. Boom. We’re at the closing table. Boom, we’re closing the deal. And everybody’s like, I was about do I go in and I’m training you and that what this is, what’s interesting is I didn’t know how to fill out the paperwork. We haven’t gone over that yet. So I slide the paperwork over to my buddy and he’s filling everything out and where it says sales rep line, he puts his name. Oh my typical typical. So I’m like, okay, I see. I can see that this is competitive and this is how it arose. And you eat what you kill, which is fine. I like that. Um, so we leave that house, we dissect the sale and he’s asking me, Hey, what did you learn?

Speaker 3: (09:19)
And I’m like, I learned that I like this and I want to compete against you. Now let me go do it on my own. So he says, you don’t want me to keep training you. I’m like, no, no, no, no. I want to compete against you. So that’s separate. And then before lunchtime, let’s call it 1230, whoever gets the most amount of deals pays for the other guy’s lunch. So I bust out three, he bust out zero. So, so it was game over from there. So at that point he calls his brother up weights later and says, we got to do whatever it takes. Let’s get this guy on board, let’s get them into the system. We need his leadership and we need his sales ability. That’s awesome. So that was the beginning of my daughter

Speaker 2: (09:57)
or industry. So part of this podcast, I want to actually leverage this story because it segues right into recruiting, which is really where I think a lot of people struggle in this industry is how to recruit. And to find talent, how to build talent. Sure. And there’s a few principles that this guy, the Slater did that I feel like our actual like principles of recruiting that a lot of people don’t take the heart. You know, first off is persistence and followup. Was it day one, he’s like, hey, you want to come sell? And you’re like, no. Then he stopped there, he shows up, you know what I mean? Like, um, you know, and then the, then let me show you, just come out, let me give you a good experience. And I think just some of those simple principles and it’s like now little did he know you recruited a VP of vivant 20 years or 10 years or however many years this has been.

Speaker 2: (10:42)
You know what I mean? And I think a lot of people they don’t fathom like that could be that recruit. Are you treating them as like that? You know, it’s kind of like, Eh, if I get them, I don’t know, man or whatever, move on. So I guess kind of like say going a little bit, one of the biggest questions I think a lot of people have is like now that you’re here, where you are, you know, after that first experience you took off, you went satellite, you then transition cause of bankruptcy, the rest and pds atlas. Um, but like kind of how do you, how’d you, how’d you get to where you are? Like what are the tips, the tricks? Like

“Everybody’s looking for the tricks. Tricks don’t exist.”

Speaker 3: (11:15)
it’s, it’s, I mean, you know, there’s, there’s no tricks. Everybody’s looking for the tricks. Tricks don’t exist. Um, and you know, we hear this all the time. The harder you work, the luckier you get, so forth and so on. But it’s hard work. It’s blood, sweat, it’s tears, it doesn’t come easily. And if it did come easily, you’re probably doing something that’s not correct. Not Right. Um, so we hear this all the time. If you’re on the easy road, you’re on the wrong road. But it’s persistence, it’s consistency and it’s understanding the why’s. So a lot of us focus on the web, like what are we doing? But we need to understand why it is that we’re doing the things that we’re doing. So for me, I’ve always focused on the wise, okay, so why would I want to leave Walmart and do something clicked?

Speaker 3: (11:55)
Is that okay? So why, why should I transition into this? You know, why should I recruit this individual? Why should I get this guy out of the situation in which he’s in right now and bring them over here and if the wise make sense, that house always come in. Simon Sinek talks about it, but the bigger the why, the easier the house, right? So for me, I’ve really focused on the wiser level. Like why would this guy not join us? Why would this guy rather be a technician versus a sales rep? Why would this guy I choose to do pest control versus smart home or solar or whatever the case might be. Why am I feeling this way? Why is that Guy Antagonistic? Why is that guy offended? So I think the more we ask ourselves, the wise we can put ourselves in the shoes of others and cater to that individual so we can capture hearts and minds. Um, you know, in this business that’s all trust. And if we, if we can understand the why’s behind things, then we can speak that language and we can have that, that speed of trust. So interesting

Speaker 2: (12:54)
you say that. So I’m going to bring in the personal story. Yeah. You tried to recruit me 2011. What I tell you, I can’t remember, but it’s probably no. Yeah. And I, when Alec Platinum rest in peace by reasons sometimes I can’t remember cause I have failure amnesia. So I can move on. I’ve moved on. I was in your team and I was still persistent in Rico. You know, you guys were like hammered me. Uh, I remember you being in the team photos and that team photos a soft close. Yeah. You’re like, Hey, just come on, come in our two photo. I was like, oh, I feel bad. I got to go with plan. Um, but the interesting part was like, you guys that year, every week, Rico, you, nick would text me and it was like, hey, we just did a hundred today. Like we haven’t done 102 weeks. And I just remember this like now that you’re saying like, what’s this why? I’m kind of like, I wonder if they just like were like, why didn’t see him come with us? Sure. And then you just stayed on top of me and yeah,

Speaker 3: (13:49)
yeah. About, you know, you have to be patient and the recruiting process, the twin pillars of success or inpatients ingredient. So the greed would want you to come now at this point in time it’d be done, but you’ve gotta be patient with that process. And then if you’re not patient enough, we would have cut you off and set up. He’s never going to come with us. We’re done. But no, you got to keep that bridge open. You don’t want to burn those bridges. Recruiting, recruiting isn’t a science. Recruiting is a liberal art. You don’t really always know how it’s going to pan out. You just have to be persistent and consistent, but in a good way. Bold but not overbearing. Um, so we knew that we would capture your business at some given point in time. We were probably premature and the, you know, w when it was 2011 but we knew if we killed it, we did really well in 2011 then we would set the table for get 2012. The best way to recruit for me is high production. High Accountability. Great results. Then people want to join. Join your program.

Speaker 2: (14:43)
Yeah. I was just like floored by like, I mean you had that year. I mean that was like monumental year in the industry in my opinion. You guys did what? 10,000 accounts with a hundred dudes. Hundred guns. Yeah. Yeah. 100 man sales team. 10,000. I mean average is ridiculous. And I was just like, Oh man, I top guy in my office was me.

Speaker 3: (15:04)
Well it’s just like this. What’s the toughest college football programs recruiting us. Why? Cause they, when they’re dialed in to have systems, have culture, they have the results. People don’t care what you say. People care what you do. And Alabama knows that really well. So if they can win, if they can have a championship program, they don’t have to say much because they’re doing it all. Yeah, makes sense. Well done. Much more powerful than Wilson.

Speaker 2: (15:31)
Love that. So let’s talk a little bit about this whole well done. What’d you do? Did do 10,000 accounts? 50,000 can, I mean obviously it’s like every, it’s like holy cow. Like how do I get a hundred guys? You know what I mean? Like what systems did y’all in place to say, I’m not just going to say it, I’m going to walk the walk. Like what are some of the best practices you’ve found

Speaker 3: (15:48)
to go do that? So again, it’s the, it’s a lot of different things. Um, it’s mainly empowerment and believing in yourself first so you can later believe in others. So if I don’t believe in myself, I can’t really believe in you. So have to be in a position of confidence so I can give of my confidence to others. And then my job as a leader is to believe in you more than you believe in yourself so that we can get maximum extraction out of your potential. So I have to work on my potential so I can elevate my game and become a higher, better leader so that I can always be prepared to empower others to become higher and better leaders. Cause you’re a prevalent of the

Speaker 2: (16:26)
it, the pioneers of this whole empowerment and delegation. And you know what I mean? To run 118 it’s not like Mendez and a bunch of reps.

Speaker 3: (16:34)
My and my hub, we had 2025 at the most, but then we had what we call satellite hubs with other team members running those hubs. And they were preparing themselves for the following year to split out and run their own teams because I knew I was going to be in a different position, which would be regionally. So for me it was a boot camp of training all held together in one core so that I could have influence with all these folks as much as possible and power as much as possible. During my, let’s call it university, so to speak, so that when I left that they would already have gone through it on their own with me being there. So that my risk of deploying assets outside of the core team would be mitigated near to zero as much as possible. That makes sense by design.

Speaker 2: (17:18)
So it was like, let’s, let’s watch me BMI office, not just watch me and I’m going to watch what I’m saying the year before that. Yeah. And then it was like, I’m gonna Watch you do it. Kind of just make sure that you, you know,

Speaker 3: (17:31)
we’re in polished here, you know, and their support services back up. There’s, there’s that, there’s that, uh, there’s that camaraderie, that culture that, that winning atmosphere and then you can, and then the next two out, some link shots, you know, it’s, it’s, um, we, we talk about it in business. Let’s explore and exploit. Some are really good and exploration, but not good at exploiting their resources. I wanted to make sure that I was exploiting and at the same time exploring and figuring out who could lead my teams. What better way for me to know as a leader who can go run pockets. Then by seeing them day in and day out in my own organization so that I know with assurity that once I launch and once I released some of that team’s going to go do 3000 accounts. That team’s going to go do 2000 accounts, so forth and so on.

Speaker 3: (18:15)
And these leaders, you saw 12 plus guys that 300 accounts. That’s insane. And you were one, I mean you did not matter. You can, I have to have influence and let’s talk on that for a second because I think a lot of people it’s like, well I consult all these little companies all the time, right? And it’s like pulling teeth to get the manager to even go knock half the time, the owner, whoever it needs to be. I’m like your, your new hires or just you’re going to like just send them out there and just say, look guys, you’re going to sit in this office and do what? And I just think like a lot of people don’t understand like how much involvement you were in. I mean not only just from selling 300 but what were you doing in the mornings? Evenings. Like how did you set up your, your days to kind of have it just a machine to go crank out accounts then?

“I mean, you’re eating, drinking, sleeping, the job.”

Speaker 3: (18:59)
I mean, you’re eating, drinking, sleeping, the job. But again, that, you know, we’re telling these, you mentioned smaller companies or you need to go do this. They understand that what? They don’t really know the why. So the reason why I knew I had to sell 300 is so that could have influence and speed of the leader. Speed of the theme. Leadership is influence. Nothing less, nothing more. So if I’m getting in front of correlation and I’m sitting on a Bagel or I only did one and I’m trying to get the team to move up and performance and I’m not leading from the front, I don’t have a loud voice, I’m going to have to delegate that training and that voice to other members of the team, which you can’t do that as a leader. You can’t relegate your influence and relegate your leadership. Yeah, you can delegate roles and titles.

Speaker 3: (19:44)
But in that given point in time, if I’m the, if I’m the main liaison to the team, if I’m the CEO of that team, I have to be leading from the front. That’s my job. That’s my duty. That’s my obligation. And I’m going to do it full heartedly. I had already maxed out pay skills before the summer began. We did 2000 preseason accounts. Yeah. It’s one of the most offices ever even do. Yeah. So for me, what was I doing? I was doing it all but mainly working on a system that could scale. Because if I was trying to do too much myself, then I would exhaust myself and I wouldn’t be able to give the best of myself to others. But you’re still eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing the job. But you’re doing it in a way in which you’re working on the business and not always in the business.

Speaker 3: (20:26)
For me, you know, this about me, it’s systems and then the systems manage the people so that you can scale. Um, so, you know, I, I would put systems in place where the car teams were dialed in. Licensing was dialed in, housing dialed in, area management, Dobbin training, dialed in, recruiting for the following year. Dalvin leadership principles, doubt, everything. Every little tiny piece. Even like the, the, the, the technicians and the way we installed jobs, everything. Attrition. We looked at every single tiny KPI and the business to make sure that we’re running on all cylinders so that we’re building an enterprise versus just another team. And you do that by working on that system, by working on that mechanism that can spit out results that you want to get. The more sophisticated your system, the more sophisticated the results that you get out of that system. So work on your system. Don’t try to manage our p people so you can’t scale it up.

Speaker 2: (21:19)
So how do you, how do you kind of figure out what the system is? Cause I like, let’s say I’m smaller and it’s like, man, I feel like I’m doing everything right. And that’s how a lot of managers get right? They’re like, man, I just have to do everything. Like I can’t count on anybody to do anything. Yeah. Like how do you, I guess the question would be more, so how do you get people to buy in to the system versus, I feel like a lot of times it’s like, man, I’m just trying to pull everybody back into the, into the doing what I want him to do instead of just like following your system.

Speaker 3: (21:47)
Yeah. So I think it’s a really good question and there’s a lot of different answers. But one of my main answers is you got to make it people, the people’s teeth. If you make it all about you, about the one person, then nobody’s going to buy into that. Nobody’s going to buy into the Mendez show. Nobody cares. But if, but if they own a piece of that and they’re a part of that and their decisions matter and they’re revered as an awesome human with great inputs and contribution contributions there, they’re going to want to contribute to the 10th degree, right. Employees and people who feel appreciated do much more than what’s expected from them. So you got to show maximum authentic appreciation to your folks. And they’ll always want to contribute to, always want to improve so that the whole can can benefit from it.

“I’m just a player on this team. That’s it.”

Speaker 3: (22:36)
But if they feel like it’s a Sam Taggart show or the Jeff men is shell, there’s no enthusiasm there. There’s no, there’s no pie. And so I always created cultures that fostered teamwork and camaraderie and we’re building this together and this is y’alls deal. Not My, not my deal. I’m just a player on this team. That’s it. I don’t her bag, I have a role. But, and then I always told the guys, listen, all of us here, we’re going to respect each other equally. Just because I have a certain title doesn’t mean that I deserved more respect than anybody else. In fact, if you don’t do your job as a rookie, the team suffers and you rookie deserve as much respect as I do. You can’t respect me more and you less. That doesn’t work anybody. So if anybody here disrespects anybody on this team, you shouldn’t be a part of this team. And if you disrupt disrespect any of our technicians, you shouldn’t be a part of this team. If you disrespect our office manager, you know the person that helps us with the licensing and everything. You shouldn’t be a part of this team. Don’t disrespect anybody. We all work together and less of that. That’s part of the philosophy there. Yeah. Cause I think a lot of people when they get put in a leadership role, they just, they almost make it more about them. It’s like God, it’s positional leadership versus authentic leadership.

Speaker 2: (23:50)
Yeah. Um, so now that you’ve kind of built teams and teams and multiple teams of teams on teams, um, what did you do to kind of keep people around? Right. I think retention is probably one of the hardest pieces in recruiting side, right? It’s like I can, I get a guy and had built it and then you finally becomes aware that he’s like, man, I’m really good. Everybody wants me. How do you, how have you done? Cause that’s what probably kept your growth is to be able to retain good talent or good leadership.

Speaker 3: (24:20)
And I, I think it’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting question with an even more interesting answer. Okay. Is you don’t try to hoard your people. Um, so I have friends watching or at some point we’ll watch this, like Chris Burgess, he’s over at Trey solid yet. We’re still really, really good friends. Um, I have friends, smart tune, you know, he works at Vivint solar, which is a sister company of, of an ink that he’s out there running on day running his gig marker skin. You know, buddy from the atlas days over at caliber running his thing. And you have, you have to want what’s best for your guys. And if they know that, I mean, even you, when you chose to leave, I don’t know if you remember that conversation, it was like Sam or prior to Ya. I love Ya. We had a really good exit interview and we stayed in touch ever since.

Speaker 3: (25:04)
Um, it’s not always easy, but if you can empower your folks and they know that you have their best interest in mind, that I think that that’s how you retain. And then if you ever lose assets, which you will, everybody’s going to lose guys. You have to be good enough where you can backfill and also develop your current staff so that they can always recruit on their own. So if you’re having a hold on a certain people, and if those people bounce and you don’t know how to backfill, and then you don’t know how to backflip, you can’t train others to backfill or empower others to do that job, then you’re going to, you’re going to be in trouble. So even with my managers, I said, hey listen, you guys need empower your recruits to recruit and you guys as managers, you guys manage the system.

Speaker 3: (25:44)
But if you’re having a meet with every single recruit that’s brought in, you’re not doing a very good job of leading. What you’re doing is not empowering. What you’re doing is reporting. So you need to empower others to be able to put your people through the recruiting process, have them onboard and do all that, even get them trained and then have them come introduce those recruits to you, the manager. I’m talking even the manager level. So if everybody’s recruiting, everybody’s contributing, everybody’s empowered, you’re just growing this organization without you having to be in every single little tiny, um, meeting. Uh, we, we talk about, we talk about culture all the time and about relationships and relationships are key in this business. But if you think about it, same, you can’t really scale relationships. Like if you’re out there doing your speaking gigs and you gotta be an all 30 locations, you personally, that’s really tough, a tough business to scale to way.

Speaker 3: (26:35)
But if you can scale your, your culture and your, your um, your, your, uh, your value proposition, then you, you can have a really good, awesome scalable business. So you’ve got to create cultures that, that foster relationships, but you don’t have to bill your culture like on, hey, we played basketball every single Saturday cause you can only fit so many people on the basketball court. You’ve got to create a culture that would maybe have 10 different basketball games happening in 10 different locations and snowmobile activities happening and softball tournaments happening and all these things happening so that you can create that culture of Camaraderie that wants to, you know, go knock doors.

Speaker 2: (27:13)
I love that. Um, so it kind of on that note, like what are some things that you’ve done in the past, like, like the softball tournaments or whatever, like things that you’ve done that you’ve found has helped you kind of empower these people or activities or, or, or systems that are like, man, this is a winner, this, this, we tried this one, it sucked. We did this one. It was like, wow, we’d love it.

Speaker 3: (27:35)
You’re not afraid to try new things. The only thing I, a barber shop in this, and then there’s guys getting their hair cut right here. Just like, Hey, let’s hire them. Hair cutters. And Yeah, you’re always thinking inside the box and outside the box. Again, explore and exploit and you know, some things won’t be home runs. That’s fine. You can get some singles and some doubles and triples. And, and you’ll be fine. I mean, if you, if you’re batting 200, you’re getting paid big bucks and the MLB. So you just try new things. And if you ain’t, if you ain’t trying anything new, then that right there was already a failure. Um, but you know, we do softball tournaments, basketball tournaments, um, you, you name it, we’ve done it and you name it, we will try it. Um, if it’s a good wholesome activity that brings camaraderie and teamwork together and it highlights certain people in different situations where all about it.

Speaker 3: (28:23)
Um, if we’re always playing basketball, you’re only going to highlight those guys that are good at basketball. But if you’re doing basketball and pickleball and rack up on all these things, like somebody’s going to be a hero and really love that language that’s being spoken when you’re doing these different activities. And what it allows us to do, it allows us to put our guard down, put, put work away for a minute and become human. So what, what I’m trying to create is an environment where people can belong instead of fit in. I don’t want you to have to fit in here. I want you to come as you are bringing unique talents and unique abilities and maybe any quirkiness that you may have and be a part of this thing and the long instead of trying to fit in two minutes

“Yeah. It’s kind of like just be authentic, be you.”

Speaker 2: (29:02)
authentic. Yeah, that’s part of it. Yeah. It’s kind of like just be authentic, be you.

Speaker 3: (29:06)
They will be come in with your, with your strengths and your weaknesses and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll figure things out together. Cool.

Speaker 2: (29:12)
So last question. I know we’re on a time. What have you done because you played a massive impact in like not only the internal, like your division culture, but obviously within the entire organization on this competitiveness. Sure. I think one thing that Vince has done better than probably most companies out there is this ability to compete in turn the job into a sport versus just a job. Like what are some things if you had to give advice to an owner management to like

Speaker 3: (29:42)
really make it a a game. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, you know, this, Kevin Swiss has been a huge mastermind behind that culture in that competitive advantage. So we got to give massive

Speaker 2: (29:55)
plastic shot. Shout out

Speaker 3: (29:57)
this team. I mean, I don’t want to start mentioning a ton of names was I’m to offend people that I leave out, but there’s too many to name. Um, so for me it was easy because I just latched on to what somebody, you know, some of these guys created. Um, and I always felt, listen, if something is there, I want to leverage that something so that my people can, can latch onto that and increase their production and increase their cultural buyin to what has already been created. I don’t know if that makes sense. Said some people think it’s too cool for school for me, like, no, no, no, no, no. This hat is like, yeah, and if, and if you buy into it, that’s, that’s 90% of the work because if the leaders bought in than the folks will be bought it. Um, so I’m competitive by nature.

Speaker 3: (30:43)
I think most of us in this industry are competitive by nature. It’s very competitive to want to knock a door and go back and forth with somebody on the other side of that door. Cause it’s seller be sold. You’re always selling. So you have to be, you have to have a competitive heart, competitive mind to be able to do this job. But viven has built a really phenomenal competitive platform that rejuvenates itself year after year. It doesn’t get stale at all. In fact, I think it’s gotten better and better throughout the years. And it’s the, it’s, it’s the folks that have bought in. So it’s everybody because you can create this incredible mechanism, but if you don’t have the buy in from the leadership, it doesn’t work. We don’t have the buy in from the CEO. It doesn’t work. So it’s, it’s just this macro thing that has to come together for it to, to work. So, so for me, um, luckily it was easy that it was built and I just latched on to that could have this buy in and that’s contagious. I bought it myself, became contagious. If it’s important to me, it’s important to them, it’s important to them. It’s important to me. And you just go, you create a winning atmosphere that you hate losing and you don’t compete, you dominate and then you just, you just go at it, turn it into a sport. I love that.

Speaker 2: (31:51)
Well, we got to wrap up due to time, but honestly I want to one, thank you. And I have one last question before that. Yeah. But I’m excited wanting to hear your door to Orrcon. I mean, I think I’ve been hit up multiple times being like, hey, stoke demendez and he Mendez is, or we’re looking forward to Mendez. He’s like the best speaker, you know, I mean, obviously you’ve been a name in this industry for a long time, so we’re excited that you’re coming to January. And uh, but I always ask like, uh, the last question is like, if you could give one piece of advice to the door to door industry as a whole, what advice would you,

Speaker 3: (32:20)
um, I think what, what I would, I could go with a million different things, but I would say is we got to be grateful for what we have. And we have to sometimes not take ourselves so seriously. And I, and I’m a pretty serious person by nature, but, uh,

Speaker 2: (32:36)
I just seen him laugh a few times. Mafia, you’re getting play Mafia in Nepal. I mean, that’s when you kind of serious because I got some crap.

Speaker 3: (32:44)
But with that said, I think, uh, we need to enjoy what we do. The job, the job can be tough, but I think we add stress that’s unnecessary. And sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. Um, and it’s sometimes I think we take what we have for granted. Um, we have a special skillset that a lot of people wish that they had. And if you, if you surround yourself with people that don’t have, that sells EEQ that we have, that’s the one thing that they want. And I, and I, and I share this because I’ve, I’ve experienced it and I’ve been around some really, really high Iq individuals and they’ve said to me, man, I wish I would have had the opportunity to knock doors and have the type of Vq that you have because without that Eeq this Iq that I know I have people that I’ve met are just brilliant, but they have a hard time relating that brilliancy.

Speaker 3: (33:39)
And sometimes they impose their intelligence on other people so they don’t know how to relate and talk can sit in some like southern Alabama and they can’t, they can’t sit back. They, they, they speak before they should and they talk more than they listen. So I think don’t take this industry for granted. Don’t take yourself so seriously. And I think the other part would be is we can all do more. We can all do better. Um, and we can all take this industry to new heights that we don’t even quite understand now. And I think you’re a huge part of that. So props to you for making that happen. Thanks man.

Speaker 2: (34:14)
Okay, well you guys heard it firsthand. How much love I got a much larger one, baby, the class and we’ll see you guys.