December 26, 2024 • 38 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, chandler Bolt.
Here and joining me today isSam Taggart.
Sam is a good friend of mine,someone I've admired from afar
for a long time.
Super impressive what he'sbuilding and has built.
The guy knows sales incrediblywell, you can see if you're
watching the video version rightnow.
(00:27):
You can see his new bookspoiler alert over his left
shoulder.
He started selling golf ballsand lemonade at seven went door
to door.
So we have that in common.
The whole door to door salesthing Vivint, you name it has
built an incredibly successfulsales training company, d2d con,
(00:47):
door-to-door community.
But then beyond justdoor-to-door stuff sales,
training, sales and what we'regoing to be talking about today
is that sales is everywhere andhow you can use the skill set of
sales to sell more books, togrow your business and if we're
lucky and if I'm lucky we mighteven nerd out a bit on building
high-performing salesorganizations.
(01:09):
So entrepreneurs, ceos,salespeople, you're going to
want to listen to this and takesome notes.
It's going to get some goodstuff.
We're learning from the best.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, this will be fun.
Excited to be here, man.
Thanks for having me All right.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So let's dive in the book, guys, just so you know it
right off the top is is eat whatyou kill.
If you want to get better atsales, you need to buy the book.
Uh, and it's, it's.
It's it's just now launching,um, as we launched this podcast
episode.
So, uh, grab a copy of the book, but I guess I'd zoom out.
You've you've done multiplebooks, sam.
Uh, I was just digging throughAmazon earlier.
(01:44):
I'm like, wow, I didn't evenknow Sam had all these books.
So why books?
Why, you know?
Why is have you?
Why are you doing this as partof, as part of your brand, your
business, et cetera?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, uh, great question, and thanks for having
me on man.
This is this has been a longtime coming.
And for those guys that arelistening, like been a long time
coming.
And for those guys that arelistening like you're, you're
listening to dope podcasts, likeyou know, chandler always puts
on a good show and has a goodheart.
You know, there's like a lot ofpeople that don't have the
great heart and Chandler isdefinitely a good, good one.
So, for me, like books are.
(02:17):
It's funny.
So the first book I wrote wascalled ABCs of Closing and it
was in 2017 and it was mesitting in Lake Powell on a
houseboat and all of a sudden,this idea comes like the A close
, the B close, the C close, theD close, and I just like
literally did the alphabet.
I was like what's the, what'sthe Z close?
You know what I mean?
(02:37):
I'm like just like ABC.
And now I just created theoutline for the book, like I was
like, oh, I just write achapter for each letter of the
alphabet and I wrote it withinlike a week.
And then the second book wasthe self-experience, which you
can see up here, which reallywas more of a process of just
getting my story out and like myown experience and helping
others find their ownself-experience, and I think a
(02:59):
lot of people are afraid to findthat experience.
So it's like, why write a book?
I think this was the big ahafor me, making that second one,
which was, you know, the man inthe making, meaning a lot of
times the book isn't necessarilylike I don't know how many I've
sold to that, maybe 50.
I have no idea, but I don'tcare.
Like I give them away.
They're like you know I had afriend yesterday hit me up and
(03:20):
he goes man, I'm going through adivorce.
I know you went through adivorce.
I'm like, what's your address?
Ship him a book.
You know what I mean.
Like it's like let me notrespond to you by like me
talking through this with you.
Just go read the dang bookabout you know my divorce and my
.
You know struggles withreligion and this and that and
like what.
Like went through it and Ithink just getting your thought
(03:40):
in a paper.
But this last one has been likea two and a half year project
with Penguin Random House andit's called Eat what you Kill
and it's available on Amazon,barnes and Noble everything and
you know they reached out aftera New York article came out on
me where it was called the hardsell.
You can go look that up.
But essentially, like today,the world is calling for more
(04:01):
carnivores.
And you know, door to door,you've done it.
You know a lot of peoplelistening here might've had
their door knocked or maybe youstarted that route and you look
at like really successfulentrepreneurs, from you know the
guy CEO of Starbucks to youknow Mark Cuban, to Paul
DiGiorgio, like all these guys.
I literally just got off thephone today with a guy named
James Dixon.
He runs Absolute Motivation,really big keynote guy, and he
(04:24):
was just like oh my gosh, canyou come and speak on tour with
me?
And like calls me and like youknow, and he was stoked because
he's like that's what they'remissing.
And he's like when I got mystart, I'm going business to
business, door to door.
I didn't take a salary, Ididn't take you know the safe
route.
I said I'm going to hunt, don'tgive me the leads, I'll go
create my own freaking leads.
Where do you find people likethat today?
(04:46):
Like you go post an Indeed ad oryou go to a college and you're
like there's no base, there's nobenefit, there's no leads,
there is just you product go andthe 1% that are weird enough to
go do that.
They're the ones that areshakers and movers of the world.
And I'm like what if we couldcreate a book that inspires
sales organizations, sales teams, that shifts the mindset to
(05:08):
being like, oh, as long as I gotfive leads today, I got
somebody to call instead of like, how about you work referrals,
how about you go cold call, howabout you go hunt, how about you
go to businesses?
And that is just missing in themarket.
And I'm like looking for salesbooks other than maybe a Zig
Ziglar or a Brian Tracy who Ilook up to, and those have been
like virtual mentors of mine butlike it just isn't talked about
(05:30):
enough today.
So that's really what thepremise of me trying to get my
thoughts and my passion and my,my desire for the world to be
like the character buildingelement of going and hunting is
so needed as development, as ahuman being.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So tell me more about that.
Why do you think that'simportant and how?
How did you actually?
I'll take a step back Do youthink that is nature or nurture,
like?
Do you feel like you had thatwhen you hit door to door sales
or when you started your salescareer?
Or do you feel like that wasdeveloped through good
leadership, training et cetera?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Or do you feel like that was developed through good
leadership, training, et cetera.
It's both.
And let's like think about thisin a very caveman-esque eat
what you kill concept.
Okay, we are born to survive,right.
Like at the end of the day, weall got.
The problem is we've beendomesticated.
In today's soft society,everything's so convenient.
This chair is comfortable.
Back in the caveman day, youdidn't have a comfortable chair.
(06:25):
Like even trying to put pineneedles wasn't like.
Yes, look at this cozy bed,I've got.
You know what I mean.
Like like we have builtourselves domesticated into what
is the most comfort.
But at the end, like this meal,like I didn't have to kill the
freaking cow, like me versusanimal would suck right now.
Like it's not, like I'm goingto go kill a cow with a bow and
arrow right now and like huntsomething.
(06:47):
But if you think of like thenature of us as humans, we
actually get a thrill becausewe're one of the only things
that's anti-fragile.
The harder things get, and theharder things are.
The more we break, the strongerwe get, and so we're becoming
softer and softer.
There's a great book called theVanishing American Adult softer
and softer.
There's a great book called thevanishing american adult and
(07:07):
it's this concept of we're kindof vanishing in the sense of
doing hard things.
Hence why I love the fitnesstrip and doing a marathon and
things like that, because it'schallenging your mind.
Where I think, in business, somany people start a business and
and they've never had a like innature, you're like want to go
hunt, eat what you kill, but theof like, you never, ever, were
put in a scenario where youactually had to go, get paid for
(07:30):
what you got produced and nowyou want to be an entrepreneur.
You, you never had to go andactually hunt to survive.
I just got done with somebodywho was trying to sell me some
package, just barely, and I waslike congrats, like you're,
you're hunting, you're pitchingme.
I love it.
I love when a cold call callsme and I'll entertain them
because I'm like I am appreciateanother hunter out there, I see
(07:50):
what you're doing.
But the nurture that we've allbeen developed as is a cold
caller, as a door knocker comesto your door, as somebody comes
and tries to pitch you, you'relike get away, get away, go away
(08:12):
.
And it's like inconvenient.
I want to shop it on Amazon, Iwant it to show up on my door
and I'm like hold on.
I guarantee you Bezos startedhis business by door knocking.
I guarantee you Steve Jobs hadto go knock a hell of a lot of
doors for it to be theconvenience of a business that
just now self-select, that likeruns itself Right.
And so many entrepreneurs failbecause they never develop a
muscle and they never likeactually had to go through thick
and thin of like face gettingkicked in face, getting kicked
in face, getting kicked in andthey don't survive because
(08:33):
they're not willing to pick upthe phone or go knock or go cold
call that prospect or whoeverthey need to talk to and they're
just hoping that an emailworked or they're hoping that
some funnel worked.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Mm-hmm, and it's so much easier to just tie behind
the computer and let the funnelwork for you, right?
Which is when the moreeffective thing to do is to
actually pick up the phone andget told no, and do reach outs
and all that stuff.
I remember posting the otherday talking about direct sales
and direct sales, door-to-doorsales, and how I think it's the
(09:07):
best thing I ever did in my lifewas knock doors in college.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You had to learn.
You learned a skill.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yes, and you learned to cope with rejection.
It's a unique thing, I mean,it's one of my brother's
favorite stories.
I mean, within 24 hours of myfirst day on the doors, I got
three girls' numbers in incollege.
And it wasn't because I gotbetter at asking for their
number, it's just I got so manyno's that I got back to school
(09:36):
and I'm like what, what's onemore?
I wanted to ask.
And?
And so it's just so funny howit just translates into all
areas of your life.
And so I wrote this post.
I said, hey, I think everyoneshould either be in direct sales
or out of out of high school,should you?
You should either go intodirect sales or go to um, get a
(09:56):
trade degree Uh, and noteveryone, but most people
instead of getting a dumb,worthless four-year degree, you
should do one of those twothings.
So that's my take.
I want to, I want to kick it toyou Like, do you?
Do you agree with that?
Do you think it's?
Hey, this is definitely not foreveryone.
What's your take on that?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I agree to a point.
I think everybody needs to atleast give it a go for four
months or something.
But I also agree to the pointwhere now you're in your 30s
Okay, did you get fat now?
Does that make sense?
I think everybody should play asport in high school.
But it's like okay, but I don'tthink everybody should get fat
when they're 30 and stop playinga sport.
Does that make sense?
(10:34):
So, like it's now you're likeyeah, I used to play basketball.
It's like I want.
When somebody calls me and sayscome play pickup ball and I'm 34
, I don't want to be the fatcrappy still still got no game
and talk about when I played inhigh school.
I still want to still keepupkeep to where you asked me to
play pig or horse or 21 orwhatever with you today.
(10:55):
Or pickup, I'll hang.
Does that make sense?
And I'll hang with the 22 yearold kid, because I think people,
as they grow older, they thinkthey lose touch with the things
that got them where they are.
And they may have made amillion dollars and they may
have had a successful business,but then they're like almost too
good to go back to thefoundational thing that gets you
(11:15):
business, and if you think ofany core business, it's prospect
get a lead present, talk tothat person close.
And I go through that in thisbook.
I go through how to go properlyapproach people, how to craft
your pitch, how to go overcomethose objections on the initial
hurdle, then get into the homeor get into a business or
(11:35):
present yourself in anopportunity or land a book deal
or whatever the thing thatyou're trying to pitch right.
And it's like, if I can teachyou how to go to actual work
tracks, what to say, how to doit, how to craft it, what
psychology do you need?
And you could shift some thingslike that into your vernacular.
Essentially, then, how muchmore conversion do you have?
(11:58):
Because, at the end of the day,the whole point of business,
the whole point of life, reallyis conversion.
You're trying to find a wife.
Obviously you struggle to beconverting, right.
You're trying to preach thegospel.
You're struggling inconversions.
You're trying to get friends.
You're obviously struggling inconverting friends, like
whatever the thing is.
And so it's like yeah, so it'slike I think people get soft in
(12:20):
their later years because theylose that dog, like you know.
They lose that prey drive, thatfight, and so yes, in the sense
at a young age, from adevelopment standpoint.
So let's use my son, for example.
He's eight and he wanted ago-kart.
And so what does a normalparent do is like no, you can't
have a $1,200 go-kart.
Like it's the Segway thing.
(12:41):
He's obsessed.
He's like I need this.
And I said I'll tell you whatyou can call and sell
door-to-door con tickets.
They're $400.
I'll give you a hundred dollarcoupon code and you can go into
my CRM and just start dialing.
And he's like well, what do Iget?
And I was like I'll give youfor every as long as you sell 10
tickets, I'll give you ago-kart.
(13:03):
He's like bet on the phone andwithin literally two days, about
four hours each day, he hadsold 17 tickets, $6,900 of cash
collected.
You're kidding, cold calling asan eight-year-old.
I have the whole thing onInstagram.
If you go to my Instagram youwill watch this part one, part
two, and I recorded a lot ofthem just because I was mind
(13:25):
blown.
Because then I walk over to mysales team and I said how many
calls have you guys made today?
And I looked he had made threetimes the amount of calls.
You're kidding, he's eight yearsold and he collected more than
the entire five sales repscombined in one week.
He did in less than 24 hours.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
That's a tough day to be on your sales team, I know.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I look at my sales team and I go if my eight year
old is kicking all your assescombined cause he's out hustling
you, he's out.
And here's what I learned fromthis.
And I go wow, there's some dumb, there's some lessons from this
.
Because I started selling golfballs when I was seven.
My dad said you want something?
He taught me this principle thatI think 99% of parents don't
teach their kids because they'relazy.
They just will say great, youcan go get the go-kart or no,
(14:15):
because they don't want to comeup with a problem and a solution
.
They don't know how to say.
I'm a professional problemsolver.
I said I'll give you a way toget it because I made 6,900
bucks.
He made 1,200.
That's a win, right there.
Right, I said I'll give you away to go do it.
And I think parents strugglewith that because if you're in
your 40s right now listening tothis, your parents may have
(14:37):
never given you that.
They may have conditioned youto say go work at Starbucks and
go work in college and go get$70,000, $60,000 a year and work
your way up.
And you never were conditioned.
What I just taught myeight-year-old and my dad
luckily taught me at a young ageI said I had to go sell golf
balls.
I had to paint curbs.
All through high school I hadto go eat what I kill.
(14:58):
And so when you say, is itnature or nurture, I go.
The problem is actuallystarting with our parenting and
then it can be a learned skillbecause then everybody goes.
Well, I'm just not a sales guy.
I'm just not that kind of guy.
I go great.
So you want to live your wholelife having somebody else
dictate what you're paid, havingsomebody else dictate your
future and you getting your jobsecurity solely dependent on the
(15:19):
position of the company andwhat their profitability is.
And you have no contributionbecause you aren't willing to.
No offense to any W-2 employeeout there.
Because it's like you're making70 grand Great, that's because
whatever the company's valuedyou at and you're like yes, I
will take that and I'm notagainst that, I need those
people like they're great.
But I'm just saying how muchmore empowered would you feel if
(15:41):
you knew you could go selfdictate whatever you wanted.
And I'm teaching an eight yearold now I've broke him because
he's like oh, I'll just, I wantan iphone now and I'll get that
in a day, and I'm like it's notalways like the best and the
worst thing that ever justhappened that kid he's hooked
dude he's hooked he's not goingto school.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
He's on the phone.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I know he's literally he showed up to school that day
in a suit and he showed up towork in a suit, dude, and I was
like who is this eight year oldbro?
He's like I'm making businesstoday.
I want to say one more thing onthat.
The lesson that I thought wasso interesting was because even
me calling somebody to tell thema door to door con ticket, I
(16:25):
said you know, we'll have 3000people there.
I've done this for eight years.
I get on the phone withsomebody.
I'm afraid to ask for VIP, I'mafraid to give it to them at
full price.
Me, I'm the owner, like I'vedone this for eight years.
And he was just like it'sJanuary 7th, 8th or 9th.
You want general emissions 400,vips 1200.
Which one do you want?
He had no fear, like no, andthen and then they go and I'm
(16:52):
like to me, I'm like they'renever going to get it.
There's no hope because I'vebeen conditioned this way.
He's like they're going to getit, they're going to call me
back tomorrow Like the dumbnaivety.
But he was so belief, his likeconviction, his belief, his
excitement.
And I'm like how often do welose that?
Because maybe we've been doingthis for so long.
(17:16):
You know him being so new, andhe's like they're gonna get it.
He said he's gonna get it, he'sgonna call me tomorrow and he's
gonna buy.
I gotta be there.
He said he's gonna call me back, like you know, and it's like
how often do we lose this faithin sales or in business because
we maybe got hit once, maybewe've been conditioned like,
yeah, they'll never call me.
So then I lose hope.
On every one of them weblanketed.
You know what mean.
So I thought that was aninteresting lesson I just
(17:38):
watched.
I mean, this is in the lastweek or two, so this is what's.
It's kind of fun, so anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
That is wild what you talk about.
The three kind of three pillarsin the book there was
prospecting, there was somethingelse, can you?
Go back through what, what,what are those?
And and yeah, it's kind of laythe framework um, really simple.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
like you have kind of the mindset in the sense of
like, what is a carnivorementality different?
And how do I startreconditioning?
Because it's not an overnight,because I always say what's an
herbivore, always an herbivore,and I and I say that laughingly
because there are a lot of leadbabies that are probably
listening to this right now thatI'm sorry, like it's just hard
(18:21):
to come back.
And when you've taken anddomesticated a dog and put him
out in the wild, he's not goingto beat the cougar.
You know what I mean.
Like the fight is not going tobe as strong, but if he grew up
in the wild he's going to have astronger fight.
Does that make sense?
So, what's the mentalityexercises you can start to do to
start to be like damn it, I'min the wild now.
I got to go eat.
I don't want to get eaten, solet's go.
(18:44):
And then the second piece wouldbe the prospecting.
So, like what to say?
How to craft a pitch, how tolike what's that initial like
pitch, let's say.
Then you have present, whichwould be how do you build out
and model out real valueconditioning, real objection
staking, real like tacticaltools that you can do when
you're mapping out apresentation.
(19:04):
You got them in the hook, yougot them on 45 minute demo or
whatever you're trying to sell.
How do I really map this out?
And then closing, which wouldthen kind of have a subset of
objection handling.
Right, so objections are goingto come out throughout.
So there's a whole section onobjection handling and I wrote
another book on closing.
So we went.
We didn't go through like ABCsof closing, but like we
technically went through, likehow do you tie people down?
(19:27):
How do you get them to believeit was their idea?
We call that the inceptionshovel.
How do you, how do you helppeople want to buy instead of
want to be sold, and I think intoday's world like selling is
different than if I were to pickup a Zig Ziglar book.
The archetype of selling, theway we have technology, the way
that we have, you know, socialmedia, the way we have outreach
(19:48):
and the inundation of emails andinformation people have access
to the research ability versusmaybe you sold pre-internet.
That is just a different way inthe modern day of selling.
And so I talked through, kindof like what in today's world
can you do to become more of acarnivore in your own business,
your own home, just in life?
How do you move through totransact more and convert more
(20:11):
in life?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
That's good, I like that.
And gosh, there's so manyfollow-up questions.
I could ask you what is yourtip for the person who they've
domesticated cat or dog orwhatever you said, the person
who's in business and they'vehad success now and they've
(20:34):
gotten lazy and they've lostthis?
Eat what.
You kill mentality.
How do you re-spark that andrebuild that?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So let's take like a typical, let's just use a use
case of like real estate.
I'm a successful real estateagent.
I've been doing this for 10years now.
Most of my business is probablyreferral, repeat, established
right.
You bring on a new real estateagent into your firm.
They're going to say, monkey,see, monkey do, does that make
sense?
So they're going to say I'mgoing to do what my boss, my
owner, my culture calls for.
(21:03):
Does this make sense?
But what they didn't see iswhat you did 10 years ago to
build your book to where you are, and so you survived 10 years
where the average realtor mightonly survive three months.
How many people get their realestate license and never even
sell a deal?
So it's like, let's just usethis use case, because I don't
care what you're selling or whatculture or what business you're
in is.
Your team needs to see you godo what they do.
(21:26):
And so best practice would beeither once a week, once a day,
once a month, once a year, havesome kind of a blitz where they
see you back in trench and whatyou could do is just even
schedule an hour a day.
I'm going to get on the phoneswith you guys for an hour a day.
They watch you and all of asudden you'd be shocked.
You're like dang, I just grewmy business because I took an
hour and what I can do in anhour it's probably what they
(21:47):
could do in a day.
And so you just took an hourand just boom, boom, boom and I
beat all my sales guys lastmonth.
I'm still out selling them.
I have 10 sales guys now and Ihad the best month because I'm
like look, beat you.
So, door to door con it said me, I'm going to sell a thousand
and you guys collectively sell athousand.
I'm going to stay in thetrenches with them.
(22:08):
So it's like me versus the team.
So doing things as an owner toplay games with your teams and
getting back to those roots oflike, okay, kim, my assistant, I
was like schedule a time for anhour I can just actually make
my calls, cause I'm like if I'mback on the phones, my business
does better.
Does that make sense when,instead of like, oh, I'm waiting
for a referral or I'm justworking my network, well, guess
(22:29):
what?
Like, if you spend an hour aday just calling out people, but
you, you justify all the otherthings that fill your calendar
and do all the things, but talkto prospect and then you're
bitching about how you have amoney problem.
But it's not that you don't getreferrals, it's not that you
don't have a good name, it'sjust you're not doing the things
like you used to eight hours aday just on the phones.
(22:51):
You just do an hour a day.
Does that make sense?
And then all of a sudden youcan move it to two, or then you
start to like remember, and youget in touch with your sales
culture and team and you're like, oh okay, I see what you're
doing with it.
So all that's going to be verypowerful.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's great.
I like that a lot.
What would be?
I'm going to take the last 10minutes or so of this and I want
to do a live case study.
I love it and I want to do alive case study.
Love it.
Okay, Hopefully this isvaluable for people.
If not, I think it will be.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, I'm here to help you too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I was going to say it would be very valuable for me
and I think there's a lot ofother people that this might be
beneficial to.
So I'll frame it upEight-figure company, about 60
employees We've been remote fora decade, I think.
I maybe even texted you aboutthis we're building out our
in-person sales team here inAustin For the first time.
We've never had an office,We've never had an in-person
(23:45):
sales team, any of that stuff.
So we're having to learn abunch of stuff and we're really
we're creating an SDR office.
So for those who don't know,sales development reps, outbound
calls to inbound leads, kind ofthing.
So let's take this as a casestudy.
We're resetting the culture andwe're building it from the
ground up here in Austin.
(24:06):
So walk me through how youwould approach that.
How would you recruit?
How would you recruit at a highlevel?
How would you think aboutdeveloping or changing?
I'll ask some follow-ups, butlike that's just kind of a tee
up.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So in 10 minutes that's a lot, but I have a bunch
of resources I'll send youafter this.
Like, we have a recruitingplaybook, a business playbook,
like you know, scripts, like allthat kind of cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, I'm about to buy a person we hire.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yes, no, that would be a good practice, Like, but,
but it's not the first week ortwo, right.
The first week or two is I'dhave you know.
So let's think recruitment, youcan use Indeed, you could use
Facebook ads, you could usewhatever, right.
But the architecture lookingfor in the interview question
you want to ask is if I gave youzero leads, what do you do?
(24:54):
You have eight hours of worktoday.
You have no leads.
What do you do?
Does that make sense?
Because, like, these areoutbound, like you want to say,
does this person think like acarnivore?
Meaning they say I'll go onsocial media, start DMing people
, I'll go start calling, likeyou know, like, do they have a
way of even thinking, to thinklike a carnivore?
So they're like.
(25:14):
And then if I took away allyour leads and I said you got to
make a hundred dollars a day,or you lose your job, and or I
just said you got to make ahundred phone calls a day, would
you do it, yes or no?
And there might be some peopleare like I'm over that, I'm not
doing that.
I need somebody that's at leastgoing to make a hundred dollars
a day.
So it's like finding the rightarchetype of a person.
So they sit down and now it'slike I have a meeting every
single day and probably, if I'mstarting out twice a day, I
(25:38):
daily huddle at nine to ninethirty and an end of day huddle
from like we'll call it five tofive, thirty or something.
Let's.
Let's call that your schedule.
And then I have accountabilityevery day in my slack, right,
like when you get a set, you setit and you put in there one,
two, three and I've got aleaderboard posted and it is
very clear who is performing andwho isn't.
(25:58):
I think a lot of sales culturesdon't have this like I'm badass,
you suck culture.
And if you want a sales culture, that's like ooh, we're all
equal.
I'm like sorry, you're notgoing to have a really good.
So you just need to have aclear indication of this guy's
kicking ass and you need to callout.
So I'm firing my friends andsay it's a lot, two people today
(26:22):
, right, they started two weeksago and I started a fast start,
right?
So you have a fast start andyou give them a two week
timeframe that you just say youhave a, you have a competition
and here are the bonuses as youhit one, tier two tier, three
tier, four tier, five, tier.
And if they don't even make atier, it's a clear indication of
they're not going to work out.
So I hire every two weeks I'mhiring, and I know that if I
hire five I'm probably going tokeep one or two because they're
not going to pass my fast startsniff test.
(26:42):
And I just statistically know,because I've trained thousands
of sales reps now over 20 years,I know that I know how this
plays out.
So instead of like trying tolike force and only hire three
people and hope all three peoplework, I'm like like no, I'm
going to hire these candidates.
I'm going to say go to work,I'm going to make a clear game.
I'm going to say you play thegame.
And if you don't even want toplay this game, then that's like
(27:03):
, what are we doing?
Like, this is your first twoweeks.
Like, you should be showing off, you should be wanting to like
impress.
You should be asking all thequestions.
Things are only because I knowwithin those first two weeks,
really an indicator of like, howserious are they about this job
?
And I make sure that I cut thefat because if you get
(27:24):
permission to suck within yourcompany, then their culture is
going to suck, and so I don'tlike to tolerate just people
that want to just sit here as afree love for bread.
So I actually pay my people.
So paying compensation isprobably another topic.
You want to architect, you wantto incentivize the behavior you
want, so I give a very smallbase to get them in, but then
most of their money should bemade by sad appointments or
(27:44):
closed deals, right?
So I don't want to have thislike if somebody comes in and is
like I need 70 grand guaranteed, it's like you already are
scaring me.
I will help you make way morethan 70 grand.
Don't be a bitch Like.
You're just not going to fit myculture.
And so if they're like, well, Ican't, I'm like, honestly,
that's because you're probablyan herbivore.
So peace, you can go to theherbivore cultures.
And if you're trying to getsomebody to make a hundred
(28:06):
thousand a day like you justdon't want that guy.
You want the guy that's willingto bet on themselves and we're
going to be super aligned.
So I'd have my daily meetingsand I'd run those two weeks in
the first fast start and thenI'd have, you know, your kind of
monthly or quarterlycompetitions going and that is
as much as I probably could spewfastly.
(28:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So a couple of follow-ups on that would be when
you talked about thecompensation, are you just doing
an onboarding base and thenit's commission only, or do?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
they keep a base.
Like what does that look like?
I let them keep a base and Ipay, you know, 2,500 to 3,500
bucks a month.
So nothing crazy.
Um, because I am willing tofire.
Where bases become bad is if youdo.
If you say you've gotten threeconsecutive weeks, I give them
about a 90 day because you knowreally good within the first two
weeks so you should just fireright away.
(28:59):
But then after about 90 daysyou know how these people are
going to play out and they'veactually kind of overcome a
learning curve, because there'susually about a two to three
month learning curve with anynew sales job.
Because you know everybody'slike I'm in sales.
I'm like does that mean yousold at buckle retail at the
mall or does that mean youactually were like a top door to
door guy?
That was like slaying.
You know what I mean.
So like everybody says they'rein sales but most of the time
(29:21):
they get a sales job and thensales training starts, versus
they're a professionalsalesperson, like we have sales
certifications that we offer andyou know that kind of helps
people but it doesn'tnecessarily mean they're good,
right, like so, and then 90 daysyou know if they're going to be
good or not.
And then if they're not hittingtheir metrics after about 60 to
90 days consecutively, then I'mlike you just got to go, cause
I can't keep paying your baseand you're actually bringing my
(29:44):
culture down by keeping youchallenging thing for us.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We're just so used to recruiting remote right, and
now we're now it's okay Local toAustin, in person, in the
office, five days a week, allthat stuff, and so it just feels
like it's really narrowed ourour recruit days, but also like
you just have to recruitdifferently.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's just a different muscle.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So where would you go ?
Where would you look?
How would you approach that?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
If you're me, we do me, we do both and our SDR team.
We're like we started so I'vehad only an office, then I went
only virtual and now we'rehybrid and so I only hire AEs
now actually that are in local,because I have so much going on
that I want them to be sointegrated.
And like yesterday from five tosix I was done with my workday
(30:35):
and I go and see all the AEs,kind of chilling, and I sat for
an hour like pouring into them,where if you weren't here
there's no way we would havedone that, and I realized like
we have so much variation ofproduct and things like that.
I actually really love havingthat.
Where, having a local culture,what's so cool is you start to
build the momentum of like Itook them go-karting two weeks
ago.
You know we have top golfmembership, we have.
(30:58):
You know it's like how do youbuild in this culture?
And so I realized that mystruggle was I had to be the
sales manager for a while and ifI'm not willing to be the sales
manager, it's going to kill theculture.
And so unless you have somebodythat's every day pounding,
walking the floor, payingattention to them, that sales
leader is your kingpin.
And if you don't have one, youhave to be willing to play that
(31:19):
hat and drop and offload certainthings, because it's like the.
It is literally like thedriving force of your revenue
and so many people don't realizelike they make the best sales
manager and their guys look upto them as their leader but
they're so busy doing all theseother things that are also
important.
Can I offload some of that orprioritize time?
(31:40):
So it's like I was in everymeeting for like four or five
months until I got a salesleader.
You know what I mean.
Like play that culture driveruntil you've replaced that.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Love that, and so where do you recruit, though, is
it Indeed?
Are you going LinkedIn?
Are you going localorganizations?
Are you coming straight out ofcollege?
Are you going door to door?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
If you're going, SDR team right now.
I'd go like to a campus rightnow and I would just say, hey,
we're offering, you know we'rehere local, we have a really
cool long-term career path.
You know, a lot of people gettheir start in sales and I would
just go campus recruit, to behonest and and cause what you
want with an SDR is kind of thatyoung, hungry entrepreneur type
.
Like I need to learn sales, youknow, and you're not, don't,
(32:22):
don't expect to keep an SDRforever, right, like, and so
you've got to have this.
Like if, if they're good, theycould move to AE maybe, but like
know how to go find like theseyoung, hungry dudes that are
willing to be competitive andwilling to go hunt and you know
college might be a good place,but indeed, like, we get good
ones off.
Indeed, like my new guy, likeout of the four hires, one of
(32:43):
them is like badass, like he'smaking, and we got him on,
indeed, you know.
So have indeed going maybe goto a booth at a college and kind
of compare what kind ofcharacters are we getting?
But just having an indeedstrategy, you know you have a
thousand applications come in,500 of them you, you slough off
and then 250 of them is actuallyanswer.
And then you know you just it'sa lot of work to like actually
(33:03):
go through the pipeline ofapplications for Indeed and so
as long as you have either a VAor somebody or an outsource
company, like we do this for alot of companies where we kind
of do all the heavy lift of thatso that you get the second
interview or third interview,cool, then it helps like speed.
You know that filtering process, cause it is a heavy filter
(33:23):
process.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Right, that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, it brings me backto my student painters days.
Honestly, when we used to doclass talks and you're going
into the business school andahead of class you're talking to
the professor hey, can I speakfor just two minutes about an
internship with the school?
And then you're telling youknow, it's just like that kind
of grassroots, college-basedrecruiting.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
But the other thing, like here's another place you
could recruit Post on yoursocial and like you'd be
surprised because you have sucha mentorship opportunity.
Like people listen to you, theycare about you.
Like people get starry eyedwhen I come in and do training,
like they're like dude, that wasso helpful.
Like for me to spend an hourwith them, like I make sure they
know I charge like four or fivegrand an hour to do a coaching
(34:06):
thing.
I just spent that hour with youand I could have gone home.
You know what I mean.
Like I want them to see this aslike you get time with Sam,
like that's a perk of being partof the job.
You get time with Eric that's aperk of being part of the job.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You know what I mean Cool.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
So you might get some of the fanboys listening to
this podcast or on your socialthat are like dude, I'm like
passionate about what you'redoing.
Can I come move to Austin andor either live there?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yep.
Well, hey, if you're listeningto this, watching this right now
, you're in Austin, Texas, oryou know somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, dude, hit them up.
You want to come make sixfigures?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
and change the trajectory of your family tree.
You know who to call Sam gosh.
This is so fun, so good.
Guys.
The book again.
It's called Eat what you Kill.
Buy it, pre-order it.
If you're watching this,listening to this, the book's
already come out.
Maybe pre-order it.
If you're watching this,listening to this, the book's
already come out.
Maybe you need to buy this bookfor your sales team.
That's what I'm going to bedoing, and so I'm excited for
that, and so I think we got somestuff cooking with your
(35:05):
conference coming up, sam,where's the best place to send
people at the end of this?
Where can people go to buy thebook?
Check out more about you.
All that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah.
So the Sam taggercom you'll seethe book on there.
You'll see anything on me, um,and you know the Sam tagger on
Instagram and you know more thanhappy if you have a sales team
that's like struggling.
You got a bunch of herbivores,you want to turn them to
carnivores, like that's what wedo best.
Like you know, when we built,like all I did from 11 until my
(35:35):
whole career, I've never had aW-2.
I've made millions and millionsof dollars knocking on doors.
You know been one of thehighest levels at it.
And I think there's too manypeople out there that are like,
well, we don't do door to door.
And I'm like, yeah, but if youtake dudes that made millions of
dollars in their 20s knockingon doors and put them into your
car's lot or put them into yourrestaurant or whatever, like I
(36:00):
put them in your, yourrestaurant or like whatever.
Like I had a car wash companywe just contracted at 37
locations.
It's like I want to teach mycar wash people to be dogs and
it's like we get those all thetime where it's like we, you
know there's too many peoplethat aren't teaching this and so
if you need a jolt to the arm,um, we're more than happy to
help you out.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I love it, guys.
Check Sam out His companyConference the book.
If you enjoyed this episode,subscribe.
Check out the next one.
Appreciate you, sam.
This was great.
Thanks for being here.
Hey, chandler Bolt.
Here and joining me today isSam Taggart.
Sam is a good friend of mine,someone I've admired from afar
for a long time.
Super impressive what he'sbuilding and has built.
The guy knows sales incrediblywell, you can see if you're
watching the video version rightnow.
(00:27):
You can see his new bookspoiler alert over his left
shoulder.
He started selling golf ballsand lemonade at seven went door
to door.
So we have that in common.
The whole door to door salesthing Vivint, you name it has
built an incredibly successfulsales training company, d2d con,
(00:47):
door-to-door community.
But then beyond justdoor-to-door stuff sales,
training, sales and what we'regoing to be talking about today
is that sales is everywhere andhow you can use the skill set of
sales to sell more books, togrow your business and if we're
lucky and if I'm lucky we mighteven nerd out a bit on building
high-performing salesorganizations.
(01:09):
So entrepreneurs, ceos,salespeople, you're going to
want to listen to this and takesome notes.
It's going to get some goodstuff.
We're learning from the best.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, this will be fun.
Excited to be here, man.
Thanks for having me All right.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So let's dive in the book, guys, just so you know it
right off the top is is eat whatyou kill.
If you want to get better atsales, you need to buy the book.
Uh, and it's, it's.
It's it's just now launching,um, as we launched this podcast
episode.
So, uh, grab a copy of the book, but I guess I'd zoom out.
You've you've done multiplebooks, sam.
Uh, I was just digging throughAmazon earlier.
(01:44):
I'm like, wow, I didn't evenknow Sam had all these books.
So why books?
Why, you know?
Why is have you?
Why are you doing this as partof, as part of your brand, your
business, et cetera?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, uh, great question, and thanks for having
me on man.
This is this has been a longtime coming.
And for those guys that arelistening, like been a long time
coming.
And for those guys that arelistening like you're, you're
listening to dope podcasts, likeyou know, chandler always puts
on a good show and has a goodheart.
You know, there's like a lot ofpeople that don't have the
great heart and Chandler isdefinitely a good, good one.
So, for me, like books are.
(02:17):
It's funny.
So the first book I wrote wascalled ABCs of Closing and it
was in 2017 and it was mesitting in Lake Powell on a
houseboat and all of a sudden,this idea comes like the A close
, the B close, the C close, theD close, and I just like
literally did the alphabet.
I was like what's the, what'sthe Z close?
You know what I mean?
(02:37):
I'm like just like ABC.
And now I just created theoutline for the book, like I was
like, oh, I just write achapter for each letter of the
alphabet and I wrote it withinlike a week.
And then the second book wasthe self-experience, which you
can see up here, which reallywas more of a process of just
getting my story out and like myown experience and helping
others find their ownself-experience, and I think a
(02:59):
lot of people are afraid to findthat experience.
So it's like, why write a book?
I think this was the big ahafor me, making that second one,
which was, you know, the man inthe making, meaning a lot of
times the book isn't necessarilylike I don't know how many I've
sold to that, maybe 50.
I have no idea, but I don'tcare.
Like I give them away.
They're like you know I had afriend yesterday hit me up and
(03:20):
he goes man, I'm going through adivorce.
I know you went through adivorce.
I'm like, what's your address?
Ship him a book.
You know what I mean.
Like it's like let me notrespond to you by like me
talking through this with you.
Just go read the dang bookabout you know my divorce and my
.
You know struggles withreligion and this and that and
like what.
Like went through it and Ithink just getting your thought
(03:40):
in a paper.
But this last one has been likea two and a half year project
with Penguin Random House andit's called Eat what you Kill
and it's available on Amazon,barnes and Noble everything and
you know they reached out aftera New York article came out on
me where it was called the hardsell.
You can go look that up.
But essentially, like today,the world is calling for more
(04:01):
carnivores.
And you know, door to door,you've done it.
You know a lot of peoplelistening here might've had
their door knocked or maybe youstarted that route and you look
at like really successfulentrepreneurs, from you know the
guy CEO of Starbucks to youknow Mark Cuban, to Paul
DiGiorgio, like all these guys.
I literally just got off thephone today with a guy named
James Dixon.
He runs Absolute Motivation,really big keynote guy, and he
(04:24):
was just like oh my gosh, canyou come and speak on tour with
me?
And like calls me and like youknow, and he was stoked because
he's like that's what they'remissing.
And he's like when I got mystart, I'm going business to
business, door to door.
I didn't take a salary, Ididn't take you know the safe
route.
I said I'm going to hunt, don'tgive me the leads, I'll go
create my own freaking leads.
Where do you find people likethat today?
(04:46):
Like you go post an Indeed ad oryou go to a college and you're
like there's no base, there's nobenefit, there's no leads,
there is just you product go andthe 1% that are weird enough to
go do that.
They're the ones that areshakers and movers of the world.
And I'm like what if we couldcreate a book that inspires
sales organizations, sales teams, that shifts the mindset to
(05:08):
being like, oh, as long as I gotfive leads today, I got
somebody to call instead of like, how about you work referrals,
how about you go cold call, howabout you go hunt, how about you
go to businesses?
And that is just missing in themarket.
And I'm like looking for salesbooks other than maybe a Zig
Ziglar or a Brian Tracy who Ilook up to, and those have been
like virtual mentors of mine butlike it just isn't talked about
(05:30):
enough today.
So that's really what thepremise of me trying to get my
thoughts and my passion and my,my desire for the world to be
like the character buildingelement of going and hunting is
so needed as development, as ahuman being.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So tell me more about that.
Why do you think that'simportant and how?
How did you actually?
I'll take a step back Do youthink that is nature or nurture,
like?
Do you feel like you had thatwhen you hit door to door sales
or when you started your salescareer?
Or do you feel like that wasdeveloped through good
leadership, training et cetera?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Or do you feel like that was developed through good
leadership, training, et cetera.
It's both.
And let's like think about thisin a very caveman-esque eat
what you kill concept.
Okay, we are born to survive,right.
Like at the end of the day, weall got.
The problem is we've beendomesticated.
In today's soft society,everything's so convenient.
This chair is comfortable.
Back in the caveman day, youdidn't have a comfortable chair.
(06:25):
Like even trying to put pineneedles wasn't like.
Yes, look at this cozy bed,I've got.
You know what I mean.
Like like we have builtourselves domesticated into what
is the most comfort.
But at the end, like this meal,like I didn't have to kill the
freaking cow, like me versusanimal would suck right now.
Like it's not, like I'm goingto go kill a cow with a bow and
arrow right now and like huntsomething.
(06:47):
But if you think of like thenature of us as humans, we
actually get a thrill becausewe're one of the only things
that's anti-fragile.
The harder things get, and theharder things are.
The more we break, the strongerwe get, and so we're becoming
softer and softer.
There's a great book called theVanishing American Adult softer
and softer.
There's a great book called thevanishing american adult and
(07:07):
it's this concept of we're kindof vanishing in the sense of
doing hard things.
Hence why I love the fitnesstrip and doing a marathon and
things like that, because it'schallenging your mind.
Where I think, in business, somany people start a business and
and they've never had a like innature, you're like want to go
hunt, eat what you kill, but theof like, you never, ever, were
put in a scenario where youactually had to go, get paid for
(07:30):
what you got produced and nowyou want to be an entrepreneur.
You, you never had to go andactually hunt to survive.
I just got done with somebodywho was trying to sell me some
package, just barely, and I waslike congrats, like you're,
you're hunting, you're pitchingme.
I love it.
I love when a cold call callsme and I'll entertain them
because I'm like I am appreciateanother hunter out there, I see
(07:50):
what you're doing.
But the nurture that we've allbeen developed as is a cold
caller, as a door knocker comesto your door, as somebody comes
and tries to pitch you, you'relike get away, get away, go away
(08:12):
.
And it's like inconvenient.
I want to shop it on Amazon, Iwant it to show up on my door
and I'm like hold on.
I guarantee you Bezos startedhis business by door knocking.
I guarantee you Steve Jobs hadto go knock a hell of a lot of
doors for it to be theconvenience of a business that
just now self-select, that likeruns itself Right.
And so many entrepreneurs failbecause they never develop a
muscle and they never likeactually had to go through thick
and thin of like face gettingkicked in face, getting kicked
in face, getting kicked in andthey don't survive because
(08:33):
they're not willing to pick upthe phone or go knock or go cold
call that prospect or whoeverthey need to talk to and they're
just hoping that an emailworked or they're hoping that
some funnel worked.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Mm-hmm, and it's so much easier to just tie behind
the computer and let the funnelwork for you, right?
Which is when the moreeffective thing to do is to
actually pick up the phone andget told no, and do reach outs
and all that stuff.
I remember posting the otherday talking about direct sales
and direct sales, door-to-doorsales, and how I think it's the
(09:07):
best thing I ever did in my lifewas knock doors in college.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You had to learn.
You learned a skill.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yes, and you learned to cope with rejection.
It's a unique thing, I mean,it's one of my brother's
favorite stories.
I mean, within 24 hours of myfirst day on the doors, I got
three girls' numbers in incollege.
And it wasn't because I gotbetter at asking for their
number, it's just I got so manyno's that I got back to school
(09:36):
and I'm like what, what's onemore?
I wanted to ask.
And?
And so it's just so funny howit just translates into all
areas of your life.
And so I wrote this post.
I said, hey, I think everyoneshould either be in direct sales
or out of out of high school,should you?
You should either go intodirect sales or go to um, get a
(09:56):
trade degree Uh, and noteveryone, but most people
instead of getting a dumb,worthless four-year degree, you
should do one of those twothings.
So that's my take.
I want to, I want to kick it toyou Like, do you?
Do you agree with that?
Do you think it's?
Hey, this is definitely not foreveryone.
What's your take on that?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I agree to a point.
I think everybody needs to atleast give it a go for four
months or something.
But I also agree to the pointwhere now you're in your 30s
Okay, did you get fat now?
Does that make sense?
I think everybody should play asport in high school.
But it's like okay, but I don'tthink everybody should get fat
when they're 30 and stop playinga sport.
Does that make sense?
(10:34):
So, like it's now you're likeyeah, I used to play basketball.
It's like I want.
When somebody calls me and sayscome play pickup ball and I'm 34
, I don't want to be the fatcrappy still still got no game
and talk about when I played inhigh school.
I still want to still keepupkeep to where you asked me to
play pig or horse or 21 orwhatever with you today.
(10:55):
Or pickup, I'll hang.
Does that make sense?
And I'll hang with the 22 yearold kid, because I think people,
as they grow older, they thinkthey lose touch with the things
that got them where they are.
And they may have made amillion dollars and they may
have had a successful business,but then they're like almost too
good to go back to thefoundational thing that gets you
(11:15):
business, and if you think ofany core business, it's prospect
get a lead present, talk tothat person close.
And I go through that in thisbook.
I go through how to go properlyapproach people, how to craft
your pitch, how to go overcomethose objections on the initial
hurdle, then get into the homeor get into a business or
(11:35):
present yourself in anopportunity or land a book deal
or whatever the thing thatyou're trying to pitch right.
And it's like, if I can teachyou how to go to actual work
tracks, what to say, how to doit, how to craft it, what
psychology do you need?
And you could shift some thingslike that into your vernacular.
Essentially, then, how muchmore conversion do you have?
(11:58):
Because, at the end of the day,the whole point of business,
the whole point of life, reallyis conversion.
You're trying to find a wife.
Obviously you struggle to beconverting, right.
You're trying to preach thegospel.
You're struggling inconversions.
You're trying to get friends.
You're obviously struggling inconverting friends, like
whatever the thing is.
And so it's like yeah, so it'slike I think people get soft in
(12:20):
their later years because theylose that dog, like you know.
They lose that prey drive, thatfight, and so yes, in the sense
at a young age, from adevelopment standpoint.
So let's use my son, for example.
He's eight and he wanted ago-kart.
And so what does a normalparent do is like no, you can't
have a $1,200 go-kart.
Like it's the Segway thing.
(12:41):
He's obsessed.
He's like I need this.
And I said I'll tell you whatyou can call and sell
door-to-door con tickets.
They're $400.
I'll give you a hundred dollarcoupon code and you can go into
my CRM and just start dialing.
And he's like well, what do Iget?
And I was like I'll give youfor every as long as you sell 10
tickets, I'll give you ago-kart.
(13:03):
He's like bet on the phone andwithin literally two days, about
four hours each day, he hadsold 17 tickets, $6,900 of cash
collected.
You're kidding, cold calling asan eight-year-old.
I have the whole thing onInstagram.
If you go to my Instagram youwill watch this part one, part
two, and I recorded a lot ofthem just because I was mind
(13:25):
blown.
Because then I walk over to mysales team and I said how many
calls have you guys made today?
And I looked he had made threetimes the amount of calls.
You're kidding, he's eight yearsold and he collected more than
the entire five sales repscombined in one week.
He did in less than 24 hours.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
That's a tough day to be on your sales team, I know.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I look at my sales team and I go if my eight year
old is kicking all your assescombined cause he's out hustling
you, he's out.
And here's what I learned fromthis.
And I go wow, there's some dumb, there's some lessons from this
.
Because I started selling golfballs when I was seven.
My dad said you want something?
He taught me this principle thatI think 99% of parents don't
teach their kids because they'relazy.
They just will say great, youcan go get the go-kart or no,
(14:15):
because they don't want to comeup with a problem and a solution
.
They don't know how to say.
I'm a professional problemsolver.
I said I'll give you a way toget it because I made 6,900
bucks.
He made 1,200.
That's a win, right there.
Right, I said I'll give you away to go do it.
And I think parents strugglewith that because if you're in
your 40s right now listening tothis, your parents may have
(14:37):
never given you that.
They may have conditioned youto say go work at Starbucks and
go work in college and go get$70,000, $60,000 a year and work
your way up.
And you never were conditioned.
What I just taught myeight-year-old and my dad
luckily taught me at a young ageI said I had to go sell golf
balls.
I had to paint curbs.
All through high school I hadto go eat what I kill.
(14:58):
And so when you say, is itnature or nurture, I go.
The problem is actuallystarting with our parenting and
then it can be a learned skillbecause then everybody goes.
Well, I'm just not a sales guy.
I'm just not that kind of guy.
I go great.
So you want to live your wholelife having somebody else
dictate what you're paid, havingsomebody else dictate your
future and you getting your jobsecurity solely dependent on the
(15:19):
position of the company andwhat their profitability is.
And you have no contributionbecause you aren't willing to.
No offense to any W-2 employeeout there.
Because it's like you're making70 grand Great, that's because
whatever the company's valuedyou at and you're like yes, I
will take that and I'm notagainst that, I need those
people like they're great.
But I'm just saying how muchmore empowered would you feel if
(15:41):
you knew you could go selfdictate whatever you wanted.
And I'm teaching an eight yearold now I've broke him because
he's like oh, I'll just, I wantan iphone now and I'll get that
in a day, and I'm like it's notalways like the best and the
worst thing that ever justhappened that kid he's hooked
dude he's hooked he's not goingto school.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
He's on the phone.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I know he's literally he showed up to school that day
in a suit and he showed up towork in a suit, dude, and I was
like who is this eight year oldbro?
He's like I'm making businesstoday.
I want to say one more thing onthat.
The lesson that I thought wasso interesting was because even
me calling somebody to tell thema door to door con ticket, I
(16:25):
said you know, we'll have 3000people there.
I've done this for eight years.
I get on the phone withsomebody.
I'm afraid to ask for VIP, I'mafraid to give it to them at
full price.
Me, I'm the owner, like I'vedone this for eight years.
And he was just like it'sJanuary 7th, 8th or 9th.
You want general emissions 400,vips 1200.
Which one do you want?
He had no fear, like no, andthen and then they go and I'm
(16:52):
like to me, I'm like they'renever going to get it.
There's no hope because I'vebeen conditioned this way.
He's like they're going to getit, they're going to call me
back tomorrow Like the dumbnaivety.
But he was so belief, his likeconviction, his belief, his
excitement.
And I'm like how often do welose that?
Because maybe we've been doingthis for so long.
(17:16):
You know him being so new, andhe's like they're gonna get it.
He said he's gonna get it, he'sgonna call me tomorrow and he's
gonna buy.
I gotta be there.
He said he's gonna call me back, like you know, and it's like
how often do we lose this faithin sales or in business because
we maybe got hit once, maybewe've been conditioned like,
yeah, they'll never call me.
So then I lose hope.
On every one of them weblanketed.
You know what mean.
So I thought that was aninteresting lesson I just
(17:38):
watched.
I mean, this is in the lastweek or two, so this is what's.
It's kind of fun, so anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
That is wild what you talk about.
The three kind of three pillarsin the book there was
prospecting, there was somethingelse, can you?
Go back through what, what,what are those?
And and yeah, it's kind of laythe framework um, really simple.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
like you have kind of the mindset in the sense of
like, what is a carnivorementality different?
And how do I startreconditioning?
Because it's not an overnight,because I always say what's an
herbivore, always an herbivore,and I and I say that laughingly
because there are a lot of leadbabies that are probably
listening to this right now thatI'm sorry, like it's just hard
(18:21):
to come back.
And when you've taken anddomesticated a dog and put him
out in the wild, he's not goingto beat the cougar.
You know what I mean.
Like the fight is not going tobe as strong, but if he grew up
in the wild he's going to have astronger fight.
Does that make sense?
So, what's the mentalityexercises you can start to do to
start to be like damn it, I'min the wild now.
I got to go eat.
I don't want to get eaten, solet's go.
(18:44):
And then the second piece wouldbe the prospecting.
So, like what to say?
How to craft a pitch, how tolike what's that initial like
pitch, let's say.
Then you have present, whichwould be how do you build out
and model out real valueconditioning, real objection
staking, real like tacticaltools that you can do when
you're mapping out apresentation.
(19:04):
You got them in the hook, yougot them on 45 minute demo or
whatever you're trying to sell.
How do I really map this out?
And then closing, which wouldthen kind of have a subset of
objection handling.
Right, so objections are goingto come out throughout.
So there's a whole section onobjection handling and I wrote
another book on closing.
So we went.
We didn't go through like ABCsof closing, but like we
technically went through, likehow do you tie people down?
(19:27):
How do you get them to believeit was their idea?
We call that the inceptionshovel.
How do you, how do you helppeople want to buy instead of
want to be sold, and I think intoday's world like selling is
different than if I were to pickup a Zig Ziglar book.
The archetype of selling, theway we have technology, the way
that we have, you know, socialmedia, the way we have outreach
(19:48):
and the inundation of emails andinformation people have access
to the research ability versusmaybe you sold pre-internet.
That is just a different way inthe modern day of selling.
And so I talked through, kindof like what in today's world
can you do to become more of acarnivore in your own business,
your own home, just in life?
How do you move through totransact more and convert more
(20:11):
in life?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
That's good, I like that.
And gosh, there's so manyfollow-up questions.
I could ask you what is yourtip for the person who they've
domesticated cat or dog orwhatever you said, the person
who's in business and they'vehad success now and they've
(20:34):
gotten lazy and they've lostthis?
Eat what.
You kill mentality.
How do you re-spark that andrebuild that?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So let's take like a typical, let's just use a use
case of like real estate.
I'm a successful real estateagent.
I've been doing this for 10years now.
Most of my business is probablyreferral, repeat, established
right.
You bring on a new real estateagent into your firm.
They're going to say, monkey,see, monkey do, does that make
sense?
So they're going to say I'mgoing to do what my boss, my
owner, my culture calls for.
(21:03):
Does this make sense?
But what they didn't see iswhat you did 10 years ago to
build your book to where you are, and so you survived 10 years
where the average realtor mightonly survive three months.
How many people get their realestate license and never even
sell a deal?
So it's like, let's just usethis use case, because I don't
care what you're selling or whatculture or what business you're
in is.
Your team needs to see you godo what they do.
(21:26):
And so best practice would beeither once a week, once a day,
once a month, once a year, havesome kind of a blitz where they
see you back in trench and whatyou could do is just even
schedule an hour a day.
I'm going to get on the phoneswith you guys for an hour a day.
They watch you and all of asudden you'd be shocked.
You're like dang, I just grewmy business because I took an
hour and what I can do in anhour it's probably what they
(21:47):
could do in a day.
And so you just took an hourand just boom, boom, boom and I
beat all my sales guys lastmonth.
I'm still out selling them.
I have 10 sales guys now and Ihad the best month because I'm
like look, beat you.
So, door to door con it said me, I'm going to sell a thousand
and you guys collectively sell athousand.
I'm going to stay in thetrenches with them.
(22:08):
So it's like me versus the team.
So doing things as an owner toplay games with your teams and
getting back to those roots oflike, okay, kim, my assistant, I
was like schedule a time for anhour I can just actually make
my calls, cause I'm like if I'mback on the phones, my business
does better.
Does that make sense when,instead of like, oh, I'm waiting
for a referral or I'm justworking my network, well, guess
(22:29):
what?
Like, if you spend an hour aday just calling out people, but
you, you justify all the otherthings that fill your calendar
and do all the things, but talkto prospect and then you're
bitching about how you have amoney problem.
But it's not that you don't getreferrals, it's not that you
don't have a good name, it'sjust you're not doing the things
like you used to eight hours aday just on the phones.
(22:51):
You just do an hour a day.
Does that make sense?
And then all of a sudden youcan move it to two, or then you
start to like remember, and youget in touch with your sales
culture and team and you're like, oh okay, I see what you're
doing with it.
So all that's going to be verypowerful.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's great.
I like that a lot.
What would be?
I'm going to take the last 10minutes or so of this and I want
to do a live case study.
I love it and I want to do alive case study.
Love it.
Okay, Hopefully this isvaluable for people.
If not, I think it will be.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, I'm here to help you too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I was going to say it would be very valuable for me
and I think there's a lot ofother people that this might be
beneficial to.
So I'll frame it upEight-figure company, about 60
employees We've been remote fora decade, I think.
I maybe even texted you aboutthis we're building out our
in-person sales team here inAustin For the first time.
We've never had an office,We've never had an in-person
(23:45):
sales team, any of that stuff.
So we're having to learn abunch of stuff and we're really
we're creating an SDR office.
So for those who don't know,sales development reps, outbound
calls to inbound leads, kind ofthing.
So let's take this as a casestudy.
We're resetting the culture andwe're building it from the
ground up here in Austin.
(24:06):
So walk me through how youwould approach that.
How would you recruit?
How would you recruit at a highlevel?
How would you think aboutdeveloping or changing?
I'll ask some follow-ups, butlike that's just kind of a tee
up.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So in 10 minutes that's a lot, but I have a bunch
of resources I'll send youafter this.
Like, we have a recruitingplaybook, a business playbook,
like you know, scripts, like allthat kind of cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, I'm about to buy a person we hire.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yes, no, that would be a good practice, Like, but,
but it's not the first week ortwo, right.
The first week or two is I'dhave you know.
So let's think recruitment, youcan use Indeed, you could use
Facebook ads, you could usewhatever, right.
But the architecture lookingfor in the interview question
you want to ask is if I gave youzero leads, what do you do?
(24:54):
You have eight hours of worktoday.
You have no leads.
What do you do?
Does that make sense?
Because, like, these areoutbound, like you want to say,
does this person think like acarnivore?
Meaning they say I'll go onsocial media, start DMing people
, I'll go start calling, likeyou know, like, do they have a
way of even thinking, to thinklike a carnivore?
So they're like.
(25:14):
And then if I took away allyour leads and I said you got to
make a hundred dollars a day,or you lose your job, and or I
just said you got to make ahundred phone calls a day, would
you do it, yes or no?
And there might be some peopleare like I'm over that, I'm not
doing that.
I need somebody that's at leastgoing to make a hundred dollars
a day.
So it's like finding the rightarchetype of a person.
So they sit down and now it'slike I have a meeting every
single day and probably, if I'mstarting out twice a day, I
(25:38):
daily huddle at nine to ninethirty and an end of day huddle
from like we'll call it five tofive, thirty or something.
Let's.
Let's call that your schedule.
And then I have accountabilityevery day in my slack, right,
like when you get a set, you setit and you put in there one,
two, three and I've got aleaderboard posted and it is
very clear who is performing andwho isn't.
(25:58):
I think a lot of sales culturesdon't have this like I'm badass,
you suck culture.
And if you want a sales culture, that's like ooh, we're all
equal.
I'm like sorry, you're notgoing to have a really good.
So you just need to have aclear indication of this guy's
kicking ass and you need to callout.
So I'm firing my friends andsay it's a lot, two people today
(26:22):
, right, they started two weeksago and I started a fast start,
right?
So you have a fast start andyou give them a two week
timeframe that you just say youhave a, you have a competition
and here are the bonuses as youhit one, tier two tier, three
tier, four tier, five, tier.
And if they don't even make atier, it's a clear indication of
they're not going to work out.
So I hire every two weeks I'mhiring, and I know that if I
hire five I'm probably going tokeep one or two because they're
not going to pass my fast startsniff test.
(26:42):
And I just statistically know,because I've trained thousands
of sales reps now over 20 years,I know that I know how this
plays out.
So instead of like trying tolike force and only hire three
people and hope all three peoplework, I'm like like no, I'm
going to hire these candidates.
I'm going to say go to work,I'm going to make a clear game.
I'm going to say you play thegame.
And if you don't even want toplay this game, then that's like
(27:03):
, what are we doing?
Like, this is your first twoweeks.
Like, you should be showing off, you should be wanting to like
impress.
You should be asking all thequestions.
Things are only because I knowwithin those first two weeks,
really an indicator of like, howserious are they about this job
?
And I make sure that I cut thefat because if you get
(27:24):
permission to suck within yourcompany, then their culture is
going to suck, and so I don'tlike to tolerate just people
that want to just sit here as afree love for bread.
So I actually pay my people.
So paying compensation isprobably another topic.
You want to architect, you wantto incentivize the behavior you
want, so I give a very smallbase to get them in, but then
most of their money should bemade by sad appointments or
(27:44):
closed deals, right?
So I don't want to have thislike if somebody comes in and is
like I need 70 grand guaranteed, it's like you already are
scaring me.
I will help you make way morethan 70 grand.
Don't be a bitch Like.
You're just not going to fit myculture.
And so if they're like, well, Ican't, I'm like, honestly,
that's because you're probablyan herbivore.
So peace, you can go to theherbivore cultures.
And if you're trying to getsomebody to make a hundred
(28:06):
thousand a day like you justdon't want that guy.
You want the guy that's willingto bet on themselves and we're
going to be super aligned.
So I'd have my daily meetingsand I'd run those two weeks in
the first fast start and thenI'd have, you know, your kind of
monthly or quarterlycompetitions going and that is
as much as I probably could spewfastly.
(28:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So a couple of follow-ups on that would be when
you talked about thecompensation, are you just doing
an onboarding base and thenit's commission only, or do?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
they keep a base.
Like what does that look like?
I let them keep a base and Ipay, you know, 2,500 to 3,500
bucks a month.
So nothing crazy.
Um, because I am willing tofire.
Where bases become bad is if youdo.
If you say you've gotten threeconsecutive weeks, I give them
about a 90 day because you knowreally good within the first two
weeks so you should just fireright away.
(28:59):
But then after about 90 daysyou know how these people are
going to play out and they'veactually kind of overcome a
learning curve, because there'susually about a two to three
month learning curve with anynew sales job.
Because you know everybody'slike I'm in sales.
I'm like does that mean yousold at buckle retail at the
mall or does that mean youactually were like a top door to
door guy?
That was like slaying.
You know what I mean.
So like everybody says they'rein sales but most of the time
(29:21):
they get a sales job and thensales training starts, versus
they're a professionalsalesperson, like we have sales
certifications that we offer andyou know that kind of helps
people but it doesn'tnecessarily mean they're good,
right, like so, and then 90 daysyou know if they're going to be
good or not.
And then if they're not hittingtheir metrics after about 60 to
90 days consecutively, then I'mlike you just got to go, cause
I can't keep paying your baseand you're actually bringing my
(29:44):
culture down by keeping youchallenging thing for us.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We're just so used to recruiting remote right, and
now we're now it's okay Local toAustin, in person, in the
office, five days a week, allthat stuff, and so it just feels
like it's really narrowed ourour recruit days, but also like
you just have to recruitdifferently.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's just a different muscle.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So where would you go ?
Where would you look?
How would you approach that?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
If you're me, we do me, we do both and our SDR team.
We're like we started so I'vehad only an office, then I went
only virtual and now we'rehybrid and so I only hire AEs
now actually that are in local,because I have so much going on
that I want them to be sointegrated.
And like yesterday from five tosix I was done with my workday
(30:35):
and I go and see all the AEs,kind of chilling, and I sat for
an hour like pouring into them,where if you weren't here
there's no way we would havedone that, and I realized like
we have so much variation ofproduct and things like that.
I actually really love havingthat.
Where, having a local culture,what's so cool is you start to
build the momentum of like Itook them go-karting two weeks
ago.
You know we have top golfmembership, we have.
(30:58):
You know it's like how do youbuild in this culture?
And so I realized that mystruggle was I had to be the
sales manager for a while and ifI'm not willing to be the sales
manager, it's going to kill theculture.
And so unless you have somebodythat's every day pounding,
walking the floor, payingattention to them, that sales
leader is your kingpin.
And if you don't have one, youhave to be willing to play that
(31:19):
hat and drop and offload certainthings, because it's like the.
It is literally like thedriving force of your revenue
and so many people don't realizelike they make the best sales
manager and their guys look upto them as their leader but
they're so busy doing all theseother things that are also
important.
Can I offload some of that orprioritize time?
(31:40):
So it's like I was in everymeeting for like four or five
months until I got a salesleader.
You know what I mean.
Like play that culture driveruntil you've replaced that.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Love that, and so where do you recruit, though, is
it Indeed?
Are you going LinkedIn?
Are you going localorganizations?
Are you coming straight out ofcollege?
Are you going door to door?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
If you're going, SDR team right now.
I'd go like to a campus rightnow and I would just say, hey,
we're offering, you know we'rehere local, we have a really
cool long-term career path.
You know, a lot of people gettheir start in sales and I would
just go campus recruit, to behonest and and cause what you
want with an SDR is kind of thatyoung, hungry entrepreneur type
.
Like I need to learn sales, youknow, and you're not, don't,
(32:22):
don't expect to keep an SDRforever, right, like, and so
you've got to have this.
Like if, if they're good, theycould move to AE maybe, but like
know how to go find like theseyoung, hungry dudes that are
willing to be competitive andwilling to go hunt and you know
college might be a good place,but indeed, like, we get good
ones off.
Indeed, like my new guy, likeout of the four hires, one of
(32:43):
them is like badass, like he'smaking, and we got him on,
indeed, you know.
So have indeed going maybe goto a booth at a college and kind
of compare what kind ofcharacters are we getting?
But just having an indeedstrategy, you know you have a
thousand applications come in,500 of them you, you slough off
and then 250 of them is actuallyanswer.
And then you know you just it'sa lot of work to like actually
(33:03):
go through the pipeline ofapplications for Indeed and so
as long as you have either a VAor somebody or an outsource
company, like we do this for alot of companies where we kind
of do all the heavy lift of thatso that you get the second
interview or third interview,cool, then it helps like speed.
You know that filtering process, cause it is a heavy filter
(33:23):
process.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Right, that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, it brings me backto my student painters days.
Honestly, when we used to doclass talks and you're going
into the business school andahead of class you're talking to
the professor hey, can I speakfor just two minutes about an
internship with the school?
And then you're telling youknow, it's just like that kind
of grassroots, college-basedrecruiting.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
But the other thing, like here's another place you
could recruit Post on yoursocial and like you'd be
surprised because you have sucha mentorship opportunity.
Like people listen to you, theycare about you.
Like people get starry eyedwhen I come in and do training,
like they're like dude, that wasso helpful.
Like for me to spend an hourwith them, like I make sure they
know I charge like four or fivegrand an hour to do a coaching
(34:06):
thing.
I just spent that hour with youand I could have gone home.
You know what I mean.
Like I want them to see this aslike you get time with Sam,
like that's a perk of being partof the job.
You get time with Eric that's aperk of being part of the job.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You know what I mean Cool.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
So you might get some of the fanboys listening to
this podcast or on your socialthat are like dude, I'm like
passionate about what you'redoing.
Can I come move to Austin andor either live there?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yep.
Well, hey, if you're listeningto this, watching this right now
, you're in Austin, Texas, oryou know somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, dude, hit them up.
You want to come make sixfigures?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
and change the trajectory of your family tree.
You know who to call Sam gosh.
This is so fun, so good.
Guys.
The book again.
It's called Eat what you Kill.
Buy it, pre-order it.
If you're watching this,listening to this, the book's
already come out.
Maybe pre-order it.
If you're watching this,listening to this, the book's
already come out.
Maybe you need to buy this bookfor your sales team.
That's what I'm going to bedoing, and so I'm excited for
that, and so I think we got somestuff cooking with your
(35:05):
conference coming up, sam,where's the best place to send
people at the end of this?
Where can people go to buy thebook?
Check out more about you.
All that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah.
So the Sam taggercom you'll seethe book on there.
You'll see anything on me, um,and you know the Sam tagger on
Instagram and you know more thanhappy if you have a sales team
that's like struggling.
You got a bunch of herbivores,you want to turn them to
carnivores, like that's what wedo best.
Like you know, when we built,like all I did from 11 until my
(35:35):
whole career, I've never had aW-2.
I've made millions and millionsof dollars knocking on doors.
You know been one of thehighest levels at it.
And I think there's too manypeople out there that are like,
well, we don't do door to door.
And I'm like, yeah, but if youtake dudes that made millions of
dollars in their 20s knockingon doors and put them into your
car's lot or put them into yourrestaurant or whatever, like I
(36:00):
put them in your, yourrestaurant or like whatever.
Like I had a car wash companywe just contracted at 37
locations.
It's like I want to teach mycar wash people to be dogs and
it's like we get those all thetime where it's like we, you
know there's too many peoplethat aren't teaching this and so
if you need a jolt to the arm,um, we're more than happy to
help you out.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I love it, guys.
Check Sam out His companyConference the book.
If you enjoyed this episode,subscribe.
Check out the next one.
Appreciate you, sam.
This was great.
Thanks for being here.
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