June 2, 2023 • 29 mins
John Sanchez when from an accountant to a public speaker. We discuss his path to becoming a public speaker.
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Episode Transcript
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? Brian (00:04):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episode ofthe Four Transplants and a Microphone.
We are broadcastingthis time from Belmont.
We are in tech Works, actually my office.
So a little bit unique for me, but.
Introduce around the room.
We've got a guest today, soJack's gonna introduce our
guest, but I'll start us off.
Brian Johnson and I am the ownerof Maine and Johnson, Brandon with
Jack (00:26):
Superior Data Solutions.
I'm Jack Tomkins with PineappleConsulting Firm and today we have
a fourth transplant, the raremoving north to Charlotte and in
sales roles and accounting roles.
Does speaking all sorts of good stuff.
John Sanchez, we met.
I don't know, probably acouple years ago at this point.
Yeah.
It's probably been a couple years.
Yeah.
Chatted a bit and Ithink you had a fun term.
You used to be an accountant.
(00:47):
Now you're not, but I'll letyou kind of take it away.
John Sanchez (00:49):
Give it a full intro.
Yeah.
The one that people seem toremember is a recovering accountant.
Yeah.
And I always say I'm arecovering accountant.
I'm not in a 12 step program.
Years ago I realized that I needed tobe in one for my communication skills.
So to make a long story short,at a happy hour, someone.
That I didn't know, but thatworked at the same company as me.
(01:10):
Let me know that we got into aconversation, they're like, you know,
you seem like a nice guy, but Guy I,I hate to tell you, but I thought you
were a jerk until this conversation.
And I was like, well, why?
And they basically proceeded totell me that they had said hi to
me a bunch of times in the hallway.
And I completely ignored it.
And when I reflected, I of course quicklychanged the right topic cuz it was like
(01:31):
really embarrassing and uncomfortable.
So the next day at the office,I asked a couple of guys that I
was good friends with at work.
It's like, I don't do that, do I?
And they were like, oh yeah,you kind of do it all the time.
And I started thinking about itand I realized that I had what to
me was a really high stress job.
I worked in m and a.
Everything that I did wentstraight to like senior VPs.
(01:54):
Board of directors and I was like 26, 27.
It was, you know, I wasn'tthat far outta college.
That was three years ago.
Yeah.
Just a few years ago, maybe before.
So I realized I was, when I waswalking down the hall, I was usually
looking at something that we weregonna talk about in a meeting.
And I was concerned that somethingwas wrong with this report that I did.
(02:15):
You know, am I gonna be ableto answer the questions?
And I was just stressed out all the time.
So I realized I had a realproblem with my awareness.
And it really pissed me off evenmore because I always felt like I
had a really good knack for justgetting along with anyone, like the
janitor, the ceo, didn't matter.
I just, I grew up an army brat, so I hadto learn to make friends fast, so I always
(02:36):
felt like I could get along with anyone.
So it really ticked me off thatlike I was giving other people
the impression that I was a jerk.
So I just started lookingfor self-improvement stuff.
I started reading how to winfriends and Influence people,
you know, all the classic stuff.
Started going to seminars andjust got into self-improvement.
(02:57):
And then about, it'sbeen about 10 years now.
About 10 years ago, somebody justfound me on LinkedIn and said, Hey
we were looking at your background.
Would you be interested inspeaking at a conference?
I was like, well, how does this work?
I never even heard of.
Speaking.
I was an accountant, a finance guy.
People tell me I'm a jerk.
Why do you want me to speak?
Yeah, well what's
Brian (03:15):
going on here?
Did when you were doing my backgroundview, did you notice it said accountant?
I'm not sure.
I
John Sanchez (03:19):
just wanna check first.
So, so this brings upa good point actually.
So they're very thorough.
Clearly the conferences werebudget and forecast conferences.
Right?
Okay.
And they were like, we're looking forsomeone to speak on demand forecasting.
And my first thought was, I'mnot sure exactly what that is.
It's a very specific niche, right.
I said, but tell me more about this.
And they were like, well,we'll pay all your expenses.
(03:42):
We'll fly you out.
I think it was San Jose.
We want you to speak for an hour on thistopic, and it's a room full of CFOs.
Now, you gotta keep in mind, at thistime, I was doing small business finance
consulting work, and my prime targetswere like mid-market CFOs and controllers.
And they're like, okay, it's aroom full of those people and
we'll pay you two grand to speakfor an hour on all your expenses.
(04:03):
I'll be there in 10 minutes.
Yeah.
Sign right.
Sign me up.
Right.
No brainer.
So, I went online and found the expertsin demand planning and got their
books and came up with a presentationand was sweating bullets when I went
through this thing cuz I thought.
Imposter syndrome.
Right.
They're gonna find me out in a minute,cuz these are all finance people, but
(04:25):
being the accountant and finance guy thatI was, I'm thorough and, you know, really
researched it well and it went well.
They asked me back and I endedup doing about a half a dozen
of those for them that year.
Wow.
But I still, it did not occur to me thatwas anything other than just a side thing.
Maybe a few bucks, but I didn'treally think that much of it.
(04:47):
And then one day somebody elseasked, a different organization
asked me to speak for them, and Iwent, wait a minute, two for an hour?
Yeah.
You don't have to be an accountant here.
What if I actually proactivelytried to get work like this?
I'd like this work.
Like I, you're so, if you haven'tdone this before, you're like a mini
celebrity when you do that, right?
Yeah.
Because you get a name tag that's aspeaker and everybody wants to sit
(05:11):
with you at lunch and all this stuff,and it was kind of an ego stroke.
And coming from a background where Iwas typically working in spreadsheets,
I wasn't working with people a lot,and I kind of got bit by the bug.
So I started fig trying to figureout how to get more work like that.
So between 2013 and today, Itransitioned from only doing finance
(05:34):
consulting to doing a little bitof like speaking and training.
And now I jokingly say, unlessyou kick in my door and throw a
bag of money at me, I don't do.
Finance consulting stuff anymore.
So you're, and nobody's kicked in my doorand throwing money at me to do that stuff.
Right?
So I pretty much do training mostlyfor accounting and finance people
teaching them how to do what I did,which is stop being a jerk, right?
(05:58):
Don't have crappy communicationskills and shortcut what took me
a long time to go through a lot oftraining material to figure out who
was actually good at this stuff.
And what was the stuffI actually should study?
And so I tried to also to tailorit to accounting and finance folks.
(06:18):
Yeah.
So you and I talked.
And you'd help me put togethersome content for like a visual
communication piece that I
Jack (06:24):
do.
Yeah.
So and so now we'remostly speaking, right?
And it's What kind ofteams are you talking to?
It's five 10 team.
Five 10 person teams.
Are you talking to bigger organizations?
No, no
John Sanchez (06:35):
organization.
Yeah.
Enterprise level company.
Okay.
So I've done training for DiscoveryChannel, Verizon, Oracle computers wow.
The a I cpa, a couple ofstate societies of CPAs.
That's cool.
Wow.
Jack (06:48):
Network build, grow in Charlotte, pretty much the same.
John Sanchez (06:50):
Yeah.
As, you know, build, grow in Charlotte.
Yep.
Jack (06:53):
Wow.
That's pretty.
And so you're talking to specificallyanybody in that finance realm.
But team by team, you're
John Sanchez (07:00):
talking to them.
So there's a couple of differenttypes of crowds that I'll talk to.
One would be so my clientstypically will be associations.
Okay?
So I'll use it as anexample, the ai cpa, right?
So if you're a certified publicaccountant, a cpa, typically they'll
belong to a state society of CPAsand they'll also belong to the
A I cpa, the American Instituteof Certified Public Accountants.
(07:24):
As a cpa, you have to have a certainamount of continuing education every year.
I think it's every two years actuallyto maintain your license as a cpa.
Right, right.
Okay.
So these associations, part ofthe benefit they offer is training
at a discount that qualifies forthose continuing education credits.
So I typically am working with theassociation, so I sell the association
(07:45):
on hiring me, and then typicallythey'll put the butts in the seats.
They'll just.
Put out a notice or they'll advertiseon this day, at this time, we have
this topic with this instructor.
They fill the room and I'll do the
Brian (07:59):
training.
Oh, I, and then I'm guessingsometimes one of those buts then
hires you to come into their
John Sanchez (08:04):
company?
Sometimes.
Yeah.
So that's the most common scenario.
The second scenario, that's, it'sactually pretty common as well.
It's what they call open enrollment.
So they, excuse me, that wasone called open enrollment.
Right.
So they'll just put on their website.
And they'll advertise howeverthey advertise to all the
people that are members.
Sure.
Anybody could sign up.
They also, I don't know if a I CPA does,but I have another client where they
(08:27):
have an internal sales team and they'llactually make outbound calls on big
companies to sell them their training.
And they've got a whole library ofdifferent topics and different trainers.
I'm just one guy on a roster for them.
And that's how I've done trainingfor some of the bigger companies is
they'll just go out and call on them.
(08:48):
And in that case it will be onecompany and their finance or
accounting team or some conglomerationof finance and accounting people.
But all working for that company.
Very nice.
Jack (08:57):
Wow.
That's pretty.
And so when, this is all sinceyou've been in Charlotte, right?
Cuz moved up from South Florida.
Right.
And what kind of year were we talking?
What was the move up here
John Sanchez (09:08):
for?
Oh seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
So genius, move on my part.
Moved to Charlotte rightbefore the economy tank.
Didn't know a soul.
Right.
Oh yeah.
That's tough.
Moved here at oh seven only to be
Brian (09:19):
Trump, that those that moved here, like right in March, 2020 right
before everything got shut down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I see the only ones thatwere worse off than you.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (09:26):
Right.
Probably would be.
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It actually, it was goodwhen I first moved here.
So I moved here from South Florida.
I grew up most of.
Most of my, I look at it as mostof my life in South Florida.
I moved about a dozen times.
Yeah.
Before I graduated high school.
Cause I was an Army brat.
But my dad retired right outsideHomestead Air Force Base, which
is Homestead's, a suburb of Miami,about 40, 45 minutes south of Miami.
(09:49):
And so I lived in, and then, so,Graduate high school in Homestead.
Went to school at Florida State,got my accounting degree, and
then I went back to Miami.
Worked in a bunch of jobs.
First as a CPA firm.
Then I worked at, I'm gonna date myselfhere, but I worked at Blockbuster.
Nice.
Back when Blockbusterwas the 10 ton gorilla.
So I don't talk about that much anymorebecause it, it makes me sound super old
Brian (10:13):
but it would be worse if you were like, and I was the one that
said, no, let's not get into streaming.
Let's stick with DVDs that Netflixs
John Sanchez (10:19):
is nothing.
Let's not worry about.
It's funny you mention that.
I use that as an example in one of mycourses, but maybe we'll talk about
that, maybe without down the line.
So worked for some big companies there.
I moved here basically after, soHurricane Wilma hit in oh five.
And I lived in a condo that got a lotof water damage and I actually ended
up replacing like 40% of the drywall.
(10:40):
I ended up getting sick.
I got I developed asthma and allergiesand all this stuff, and I was like, I,
you know, my parents lost their house in91 when Hurricane Andrew came through.
I lost everything I owned in that one.
I want to get outta hurricane alley.
Yeah.
And so it took me a while to kindof get everything together, sell
my condo, and decide to move.
And I made a list like lotsof people do, and then.
(11:03):
Charlotte made the shortlist and I waslike, well, let me go check it out first.
So before I moved here, I came in personand the first thing I realized when I
walked down Trium Street in Uptown wasI must have been looking at outdated
demographics because the demographics mademe think I was gonna be like the single
(11:24):
Latino dude in Charlotte and nothingcould have been further from the truth.
So I was very pleasantlysurprised everybody here.
So I grew up in the Miami area wherepeople can live next door to each other
for 20 years and not know their neighbor.
Right.
And they just kind of look ateverybody like, you're just
part of this crowd, you know?
So I got a little taste of theSouth in college because I went to
(11:46):
school at Florida State, which isin Tallahassee, almost in Georgia.
Right.
So I really liked howfriendly everybody was here.
I liked the seasons cuz Igrew up, it's just always hot.
Yeah.
It's either rain or it'snot, but it's always hot.
Brian (11:58):
There were two seasons.
There were warm weatherseason in monsoon season.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (12:01):
Yeah.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jack (12:02):
We got a touch of the seasons we took, we covered that a lot.
A lot of it's, you know, Charlotte,transplant City, all of us have moved
Connecticut, Ohio, LA respectively.
And that seems to be a common thing.
People move here for theweather, whether it's.
In Brian and I's Case, we were tryingto get rid of six months of winter.
In your case, you're trying tojust get a little dash of winter.
Yep.
John Sanchez (12:21):
Kids get rid of six months of Right.
Well I didn't and I didn't realize we getsometimes all the seasons in one week.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
Cuz it was 85 yesterday and 44 today.
Brian (12:30):
Yeah.
You knew it was time to packyour bags when you saw the devil
actually moving out of that area.
You know,
John Sanchez (12:36):
the funny thing is when I was in college, that's
when I started meeting people fromdifferent parts of the country.
And I would joke with people thatlived up north, like I've never had
to scrape sunshine off my window.
Right.
I was brainwashed to think thathot was just optimal for everyone.
Right?
Right.
Like that was paradise.
It's heat.
(12:56):
And since I've lived here, I'm like,why would anyone wanna live in like 90
degrees and 90% humidity all the time?
Jack (13:04):
So do you like the cold, like when it's winter here?
I do.
Do you like, do you ever go to likemountains and see some snow or, yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
John Sanchez (13:11):
All the time.
That's,
Brian (13:12):
As much as I can really get into this argument a lot.
It's not really winter here, it just No,it's like the seasons, they just, it's
when both spigots are turned off andthen like that's the temperature, right?
Yeah.
But
Jack (13:22):
to a South Florida guy, this is, yeah.
I mean, this is some serious winter.
What are we talking here?
John Sanchez (13:26):
This is about as much winter as I would like for more than a few days.
Okay.
Yeah.
Which, that's well said.
What do we get here?
Like an inch of snowEvery couple years maybe?
Yeah.
Like we get an inch of snowand the city shuts down.
Oh, yeah.
For And all you guys that lived up northare like, what's wrong with these people?
Yeah.
We're outside in shorts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:47):
And I'm going.
Cool.
Day off?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
You guys look at it all wrong.
It's a day off.
Well, except when you work for yourself.
Yeah.
Well, I get it, but Ican work at home, so.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah.
It's okay.
Yeah.
Jack (14:02):
So are you work from home?
Is that are you fully remote or
John Sanchez (14:04):
what's the deal?
Yeah, so home office.
Yep.
I do face-to-face training sometimes.
Okay.
Obviously since Covid much, much less.
But I was doing a lot of webinars waybefore Covid, way before it was cool.
Yeah.
OG Web.
Yeah.
Back when WebEx was likethe king of webinars
Jack (14:22):
I got a Just like a normal meeting request from somebody the
other day from, I think it was ADP orsomething, like a pretty well known
company, and they sent me a WebEx link.
I was like, Hey, like thisis probably wrong, right?
Like, I don't know if this is an old link.
Like, didn't you mean tosend Zoom or something?
They're like, no.
John Sanchez (14:36):
Still.
Yeah.
I wish that was,
Brian (14:39):
did the email come from an AOL account?
Right, exactly.
You
John Sanchez (14:42):
laugh.
I have customers that have AOLaccountants actually turned out,
I didn't even know until I got onefrom someone with an AOL account.
I didn't even know they still existed.
That's like how I, yeah, Iput myself on like a media
blackout in, in certain, well,
Brian (14:58):
On their signature block, they also list their MySpace page too, right?
John Sanchez (15:01):
No, I have I literally have two customers.
That are CPAs that use AOL and will notunder any circumstances get off of it.
I'm like, you know, you'renot supposed to use this.
Right.
And let me guess, theyuse faxes every day too.
No, they don't fax, but theydefinitely love their aol Well,
Brian (15:20):
let me guess.
They pay their invoices on time.
John Sanchez (15:23):
No, it turns out cuz AOL strips the damn PDF out of the dock.
Do they still cut physical checks?
Yes.
I still have a client or twothat sends me physical checks.
I'm like, what?
You guys are like a societyof, I won't say the state.
You're like a society of CPAs andyou're sending me a physical check.
Yeah, I got,
Jack (15:41):
I have one of those, I have a tech company client and they use a pro, I think
it's called like bill.com or one of those,whatever, and they send a check in the
mail and like, you know, I guess you avoidbank fees, so I can't complain that much.
And they send it.
In the mail on the due date,so it's not technically late.
I get it from whatever, five days later.
Yeah, it takes
John Sanchez (15:59):
forever.
Yeah.
I don't, my thing is look outthere, you're sending me a check.
I'm not gonna complain.
It just still kind of seems weird.
Yeah.
I'm going to complain about gettingchecks because one, they take
forever to get to you If they everget to, cuz the mail, fantastic.
Yeah.
Then I have to get the checksand then take 'em to the bank.
(16:20):
That's two.
Yep.
Oh, no, you just need the mobile app.
Yeah, mobile button.
Brian (16:23):
But even then here's number three.
Go ahead.
I know what you're gonna say.
Wait, no, God, let tell me what three is.
So number three is, but then whenit's actually an amount that I'm
proud to receive, the bank says,well, we're gonna go ahead and only
give you this much available funds.
Yes.
And the other $4,000 we're gonnahold until we communicate back to the
other bank to make sure it's okay.
Yes.
And it's, but if it were done like.
Just through like a credit cardtransaction, an ACH h It's instant.
(16:45):
Yeah.
John Sanchez (16:46):
Ach h it's amazing.
You just log in and said Pay now, click.
And it just pays it.
I wonder if that's an issue, like, Idon't know if you do online courses I
wonder if as you go up in the volumethat you do with online cor, I guess
any time you're taking, dealingwith any kind of online payments,
there's a chance that could happen.
I've heard some, a few stories ofnightmares where people just had
(17:07):
like that hockey stick growth.
And they had a hiccup ingetting paid because of that.
Cuz it was like, wait a minute.
Well the online, I never, yeah.
Online I get never have a problem.
It's the physical check when youget check in hand and you hand
Brian (17:19):
them.
Yeah.
The reason is every touchpoint in thatprocess doesn't want this process anymore.
Right.
Yeah.
And so, like, cuz the last thingthe bank wants at the end of this
rainbow is to validate the check andgive you the cut funds up front and
then have to go back and fight withthe other bank if it doesn't clear.
Like, because when it's online,they're instant automatic.
They've already got theYeah, that makes sense.
(17:39):
Process set up.
So it goes through at each stage withouta hitch, like it's validated, verified,
and confirmed all at the same time.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (17:47):
I've had on multiple occasions, yeah.
Where I have a batch of checks thatare postmarked from six months ago
and I called the customer and I'mlike, Hey, we never received it.
Well, we sent it and I'm like, Just puta stop payment or whatever, and then
like five days later I get a batch ofchecks that are six months postmarked.
I'm like, this is ridiculous.
How did you lose this batchof checks for six months?
(18:09):
What's interesting if you trace processesand you start to see where people get
paid and how people get paid, like I washaving a conversation yesterday with this
company they're trying to sell me on.
Basically monetizing myLinkedIn group, right?
So of course you have to then invite thosepeople to some group off of LinkedIn to
(18:30):
do any kind of mon monetization, right?
And so their sales guy opens with whatyou realize LinkedIn hates you, right?
Like what?
Me personally, that would, he would keepme on the phone for a minute though.
That's not a bad opener.
Well, I kind of understood what hemeant because I've tried some, out,
some cold outreach on LinkedIn andgot flagged be just because of the
(18:54):
volume of outreach I was doing.
Yeah.
Brian (18:57):
It's because if you go over a certain amount in a day, like 25
reach outs in a day or somethinglike that you get flagged and if the
next day you hit 25 again, you'll
John Sanchez (19:07):
it'll kick.
Yeah.
Their, and their logic, at least whatthey told me was, This looks like you
might be using an automation tool,which is against our terms of service.
Right.
Okay.
That was my question to which Isaid, okay, I'll dial it back.
I mean, you know, I had somebodyI was paying to do that outreach,
so I didn't have to do it.
So
Brian (19:23):
you're like, trust me, this is copy and paste.
This is an automated, right.
John Sanchez (19:26):
I mean, you can dial it up as much as you're willing to spend.
Right.
But I quickly realized, yeahLinkedIn doesn't hate us.
They just.
They want to control the point of contact.
Yes.
And they wanna get paid thatnavigator money, so Yeah.
Yeah.
Turns out you can do 25 without Navigator.
Yeah.
Navigator.
You can do a hundred, 150.
Yep.
Right.
(19:46):
Oh, that's good to know.
Yes.
Yeah I use navigator too.
Yeah.
I've used it off and on, so I'm curiouswhat you guys have used it for that.
You felt was worth the navigator price?
I do not use navigatoranymore, so that'll dictate my
Brian (20:00):
just for me on the consulting end of what we do, it's not
something that I can just walkout this door and find everybody.
So you've gotta go search.
So it's usually, I don't use it tosell as much as just to make network
connections and people that wind up seeingthings in my feed and stuff like that.
Searching and
John Sanchez (20:14):
filtering.
Yeah.
Jack (20:15):
Yeah.
That is advanced.
Search stuff.
Brian (20:18):
I don't know.
And we've had a lot of conversationsin previous episodes, not that this
isn't still relevant and good, butlike on LinkedIn and it's like, yeah,
we've all been that one that, likeright now I'm on a trend where I get
these, you know, somebody wants toconnect with you and her name is Anna Z.
And it's like, your last name is Z.
Yeah.
And then before I can evenlike click on it, the message
(20:39):
says like, LinkedIn is flagged.
This is an unauthorizeduser and it's probably
John Sanchez (20:42):
automated.
I get a lot of those.
So I have a LinkedIn group.
And I get a lot of those that tryto join, cuz I have it set up.
So I have to approve them to join.
Which I just switched recently.
And we'll probably switch itback cuz now I'm getting a lot of
these, or you look at the profileand there's no profile picture.
They've got like three connections andlike, not even a fully completed profile.
(21:04):
I'm like, oof.
Yeah.
Well that's not gonna, my, my
Brian (21:07):
classic favorite was I got this, and of course they all, and I know
this is stereotypical, but they comein as like, Fairly attractive younger
women that are their profile picture.
I don't know if that's them.
Right.
And it was like executive assistant at,I don't know, I'm just picking a company.
It was like Columbia out outerwear.
An educated Cambridge and it'slike, and you're an executive
(21:30):
assistant, like, right, I didn'tknow they had a program for that.
You know?
Right.
I've got putting all the piecestogether, they've missed one
tiny detail that doesn't jive.
Right.
John Sanchez (21:38):
Yeah.
I've gotten a couple of those whereit's, it seems very clear that
they're just looking at my profilepicture going, oh, gray hair works in
finance, probably has money, and youknow, it's just, Clearly has nothing.
They know nothing about me,my business, any of that.
Brian (21:53):
Do you play in the gold market?
You know, yeah, that's, I canask that one all the time.
You need a reverse market.
I love, like, they'll message you andat first some of them sound pretty good,
and then you'll get the we should take,continue this conversation on WhatsApp.
And it's like, ah yeah.
It's because you want it encrypted.
John Sanchez (22:09):
And how about this one?
You're a coach, right?
Yeah.
So you must get these like, Dayin and day out, we help coaches
go from, you know, x to y revenue.
We help coaches convert, you know, moreprospects to customers and all this.
And I've made the mistake I mentionedto you, I've got it somewhere in my
profile, the word coach, but I don'tactively market myself as a coach.
(22:31):
I don't actively do any coaching.
I've done some coach training so it'sin my profile somewhere, but I get this
stuff all the time and I'm like, you guysalready disqualified yourselves cuz if
you spent five minutes reading through myprofile you'd realize I have absolutely
no use for what you guys do, right?
I,
Brian (22:49):
unfortunately for a stretch considered this a bit of a sport.
Where I wanted to see if I couldflip the script on that person.
And so there were plenty of times whereI would get like an offer like that.
I mean, I don't remember an exact one,but it would be like, actually I do a
lot of pro bono work for my clients.
That would be great though, if you wantedto sponsor me with this and not charge me.
And you never hear another thing
John Sanchez (23:09):
again.
Did you?
You reminded me of, there's
Brian (23:11):
some, I can't remember His name gets spicy.
I have to do something.
So
John Sanchez (23:13):
Yeah, there's some that breaks the
Jack (23:15):
algorithm too, if you respond.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (23:17):
All right, Don, go ahead.
There's some comedianthat has a whole bit.
About a wrong number that he got andhe says, you know, the guy calls me and
he says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he goes, I thought this could be fun.
Yeah.
And so he literally just acted like hewas, whoever the guy asked for, And got
into a full conversation with this guyand left the guy confused and he's like,
(23:40):
well, I'm gonna call Nora and I'll callyou back cuz I, I need clarification.
And he gets into like a whole seriesof conference calls with these
people until finally like four orfive calls later, the jig is up.
Cuz they somehow figured it out.
And I'm like, This reminds me ofwhat I thought about doing when I
was like, I don't know, eight 10.
Right.
(24:01):
Frank
Brian (24:01):
Collins.
Frank Collins is like, I'm not sayingI'm proud of it, I'm just, you know.
Yeah.
I am.
I make sport of it.
You want some, it's kind of funjust to see, or when they come
back and they're like, well, doyou invest in the gold market?
And Well, actually I personally don't,but I have somebody that invests
my money for me for I like that.
Yeah.
And then they keep, because they'renot allowed to like disengage
until you basically say no.
(24:21):
Yeah.
And so I just never say no.
I just keep the conversation going tosee how much of their time I can waste.
And I've
John Sanchez (24:27):
heard, I got outta it.
He didn't say it's avery covid thing I did.
He'll do the same thing.
This comedian that was talking aboutthis said, the hardest part for me is
not cursing because apparently a lot ofthese, their customer service training
tells 'em, unless they curse at you, youjust have to, you have to keep going.
Keeping us back.
Right?
Yeah.
So he's like, I have to bereal conscious cuz you know,
I kind of have a dirty mouth.
(24:48):
And sometimes I'll slip up and thenthat's when they can hang up on me.
But until then, he's like, Iget away with the craziest crap.
I just asked him the dumbest questions.
Yeah.
Cause you could be an insane
Jack (24:58):
person
Brian (24:58):
without swearing.
Well, and I still love yourconversation with QuickBooks.
Yeah.
You just shared thatyesterday at our thing.
But
John Sanchez (25:05):
that's funny.
Yeah.
Between QuickBooks andRingCentral it's now a sport.
I just keep 'em on the phone.
I told the guy the last time I waslike, Well, I don't have anything to
do today, so I'm gonna keep you onthe phone as long as I possibly can.
Actually.
You
Brian (25:18):
say that?
Yeah.
I said, because he said he wouldn'tget his, he wouldn't get his ma.
He didn't have a supervisorpresent at that location.
He said,
John Sanchez (25:24):
I'm the only one here.
I said, I can hear like 50people talking in the back.
Oh, they're leaving.
They're going home right now.
Oh.
I said all 50 of 'emare leaving at one time.
I said, even your manager.
I was like, So you could justdo whatever you want right now.
You could just startthrowing papers in the air.
Brian (25:39):
And so
John Sanchez (25:39):
does that mean take
Brian (25:40):
your pants
John Sanchez (25:40):
off games?
You're sitting there, Hey, what?
What's your favorite video game?
Why don't we hop on a video game?
I was like, I call of duty.
I was like, I hope you got the next24 hours blocked out cuz we're gonna
have some quality time within 50.
I mean within five minutes.
Oh yeah.
My manager's here now.
He just came in.
Oh, yeah.
Started.
And then he got what he wanted.
(26:01):
Yeah.
Got, and then it turned out,manager fixed it after 20 hours.
He he finally got in there and he goes,oh, you just have a licensing issue.
I think if I didn't have such apublic facing presence between
just LinkedIn, you know, I do apodcast, I get a YouTube channel.
I, you know, I post on social media.
I speak at events, so my bread andbutter is people knowing who I am.
(26:23):
Right.
You're the
Jack (26:24):
brand, you're the
John Sanchez (26:24):
personality.
Yeah.
If it wasn't for that, like if I waslike behind the cur, if nobody like knew
who I was, I just, I probably would havea lot more fun with stuff like that.
Have to add it into the persona.
Yes.
Jack (26:38):
I've been told you should make, just like I've set up an email, you
know, pay the 20 bucks a year, whatever.
Set up just a fake person that youcould be like, what, you know John
Smith at, and he's a client rep andyou can just do all of that same stuff
John Sanchez (26:53):
as it's, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people that do
that, that we just don't know that.
Right.
That's the case.
Yeah.
Jack (27:00):
Yeah.
And you can have any sortof fun you want or, oh man.
Sounds
Brian (27:03):
fun.
I'm in wild.
Jack (27:04):
Yeah.
You'd be good at it.
I think
Brian (27:06):
you'd be good at it.
I have conversations in my head, likeback and forth anyways, so I mean, I
might as well make one of 'em like real.
Yeah.
Bring a couple personalities
John Sanchez (27:14):
to the table.
See when I was a kid, I wanted tobe like a, an actor, a comedian,
until I realized that, oh, I'mjust like water cooler funny.
I'm just like lunchroom.
I'm
Brian (27:24):
good at telling other people's jokes.
John Sanchez (27:26):
Yeah.
That's about it.
Yeah.
I can
Jack (27:28):
recite fact
John Sanchez (27:30):
right.
I listen to enough podcasts that havecomedians on them to realize, like,
yeah, it's, that's a whole different
Jack (27:37):
skill.
They got a whole nother skill.
Yeah, it's tough.
I I like the quick wit andbut putting together a set
would be a whole nother thing.
Speaking of your pod, so you've gotthe, you've got the LinkedIn group,
which is fp and a folks, right?
Yeah.
You've got the podcast, you've got YouTubechannel and website, all this stuff.
As a wrap up here, Bestway to connect with you.
Do you wanna plug anything with that?
What do you got
John Sanchez (27:57):
going on?
Yeah, I guess the easiest way my mainfocus right now, at least with kind
of getting the word out is my podcast.
It's only been around since January.
It's more than word show.com.
And you can see all of the I've gotlinks there to my business website.
So that's where I point peoplenow cause I'm trying to get more
exposure for that than anything else.
Well,
Brian (28:17):
we could probably help you really get above a million
viewers kinda like we've done or
John Sanchez (28:22):
Million listen listeners.
So Awesome.
Jack (28:23):
If you're familiar with Joe Rogan, he learns from us.
We
John Sanchez (28:25):
are actually a dude I'm in.
I think you guys are.
Checking the wrong podcast.
X.
Brian (28:32):
Oh wait.
Those are the ones I follow.
I follow this one.
Jack (28:36):
What's this one called?
No, John, thank you for coming, man.
This is a lot of fun.
This is awesome, appreci.
Appreciate it.
Hope you get some more podcastlisteners from it and We'll
definitely stay in touch, man.
Thank you.
Sounds
John Sanchez (28:44):
good.
Thanks, Manam.
If I had a perfect day, Iwould have it start this way.
Open up the bridge.
Tall boy.
Yeah,
don't.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episode ofthe Four Transplants and a Microphone.
We are broadcastingthis time from Belmont.
We are in tech Works, actually my office.
So a little bit unique for me, but.
Introduce around the room.
We've got a guest today, soJack's gonna introduce our
guest, but I'll start us off.
Brian Johnson and I am the ownerof Maine and Johnson, Brandon with
Jack (00:26):
Superior Data Solutions.
I'm Jack Tomkins with PineappleConsulting Firm and today we have
a fourth transplant, the raremoving north to Charlotte and in
sales roles and accounting roles.
Does speaking all sorts of good stuff.
John Sanchez, we met.
I don't know, probably acouple years ago at this point.
Yeah.
It's probably been a couple years.
Yeah.
Chatted a bit and Ithink you had a fun term.
You used to be an accountant.
(00:47):
Now you're not, but I'll letyou kind of take it away.
John Sanchez (00:49):
Give it a full intro.
Yeah.
The one that people seem toremember is a recovering accountant.
Yeah.
And I always say I'm arecovering accountant.
I'm not in a 12 step program.
Years ago I realized that I needed tobe in one for my communication skills.
So to make a long story short,at a happy hour, someone.
That I didn't know, but thatworked at the same company as me.
(01:10):
Let me know that we got into aconversation, they're like, you know,
you seem like a nice guy, but Guy I,I hate to tell you, but I thought you
were a jerk until this conversation.
And I was like, well, why?
And they basically proceeded totell me that they had said hi to
me a bunch of times in the hallway.
And I completely ignored it.
And when I reflected, I of course quicklychanged the right topic cuz it was like
(01:31):
really embarrassing and uncomfortable.
So the next day at the office,I asked a couple of guys that I
was good friends with at work.
It's like, I don't do that, do I?
And they were like, oh yeah,you kind of do it all the time.
And I started thinking about itand I realized that I had what to
me was a really high stress job.
I worked in m and a.
Everything that I did wentstraight to like senior VPs.
(01:54):
Board of directors and I was like 26, 27.
It was, you know, I wasn'tthat far outta college.
That was three years ago.
Yeah.
Just a few years ago, maybe before.
So I realized I was, when I waswalking down the hall, I was usually
looking at something that we weregonna talk about in a meeting.
And I was concerned that somethingwas wrong with this report that I did.
(02:15):
You know, am I gonna be ableto answer the questions?
And I was just stressed out all the time.
So I realized I had a realproblem with my awareness.
And it really pissed me off evenmore because I always felt like I
had a really good knack for justgetting along with anyone, like the
janitor, the ceo, didn't matter.
I just, I grew up an army brat, so I hadto learn to make friends fast, so I always
(02:36):
felt like I could get along with anyone.
So it really ticked me off thatlike I was giving other people
the impression that I was a jerk.
So I just started lookingfor self-improvement stuff.
I started reading how to winfriends and Influence people,
you know, all the classic stuff.
Started going to seminars andjust got into self-improvement.
(02:57):
And then about, it'sbeen about 10 years now.
About 10 years ago, somebody justfound me on LinkedIn and said, Hey
we were looking at your background.
Would you be interested inspeaking at a conference?
I was like, well, how does this work?
I never even heard of.
Speaking.
I was an accountant, a finance guy.
People tell me I'm a jerk.
Why do you want me to speak?
Yeah, well what's
Brian (03:15):
going on here?
Did when you were doing my backgroundview, did you notice it said accountant?
I'm not sure.
I
John Sanchez (03:19):
just wanna check first.
So, so this brings upa good point actually.
So they're very thorough.
Clearly the conferences werebudget and forecast conferences.
Right?
Okay.
And they were like, we're looking forsomeone to speak on demand forecasting.
And my first thought was, I'mnot sure exactly what that is.
It's a very specific niche, right.
I said, but tell me more about this.
And they were like, well,we'll pay all your expenses.
(03:42):
We'll fly you out.
I think it was San Jose.
We want you to speak for an hour on thistopic, and it's a room full of CFOs.
Now, you gotta keep in mind, at thistime, I was doing small business finance
consulting work, and my prime targetswere like mid-market CFOs and controllers.
And they're like, okay, it's aroom full of those people and
we'll pay you two grand to speakfor an hour on all your expenses.
(04:03):
I'll be there in 10 minutes.
Yeah.
Sign right.
Sign me up.
Right.
No brainer.
So, I went online and found the expertsin demand planning and got their
books and came up with a presentationand was sweating bullets when I went
through this thing cuz I thought.
Imposter syndrome.
Right.
They're gonna find me out in a minute,cuz these are all finance people, but
(04:25):
being the accountant and finance guy thatI was, I'm thorough and, you know, really
researched it well and it went well.
They asked me back and I endedup doing about a half a dozen
of those for them that year.
Wow.
But I still, it did not occur to me thatwas anything other than just a side thing.
Maybe a few bucks, but I didn'treally think that much of it.
(04:47):
And then one day somebody elseasked, a different organization
asked me to speak for them, and Iwent, wait a minute, two for an hour?
Yeah.
You don't have to be an accountant here.
What if I actually proactivelytried to get work like this?
I'd like this work.
Like I, you're so, if you haven'tdone this before, you're like a mini
celebrity when you do that, right?
Yeah.
Because you get a name tag that's aspeaker and everybody wants to sit
(05:11):
with you at lunch and all this stuff,and it was kind of an ego stroke.
And coming from a background where Iwas typically working in spreadsheets,
I wasn't working with people a lot,and I kind of got bit by the bug.
So I started fig trying to figureout how to get more work like that.
So between 2013 and today, Itransitioned from only doing finance
(05:34):
consulting to doing a little bitof like speaking and training.
And now I jokingly say, unlessyou kick in my door and throw a
bag of money at me, I don't do.
Finance consulting stuff anymore.
So you're, and nobody's kicked in my doorand throwing money at me to do that stuff.
Right?
So I pretty much do training mostlyfor accounting and finance people
teaching them how to do what I did,which is stop being a jerk, right?
(05:58):
Don't have crappy communicationskills and shortcut what took me
a long time to go through a lot oftraining material to figure out who
was actually good at this stuff.
And what was the stuffI actually should study?
And so I tried to also to tailorit to accounting and finance folks.
(06:18):
Yeah.
So you and I talked.
And you'd help me put togethersome content for like a visual
communication piece that I
Jack (06:24):
do.
Yeah.
So and so now we'remostly speaking, right?
And it's What kind ofteams are you talking to?
It's five 10 team.
Five 10 person teams.
Are you talking to bigger organizations?
No, no
John Sanchez (06:35):
organization.
Yeah.
Enterprise level company.
Okay.
So I've done training for DiscoveryChannel, Verizon, Oracle computers wow.
The a I cpa, a couple ofstate societies of CPAs.
That's cool.
Wow.
Jack (06:48):
Network build, grow in Charlotte, pretty much the same.
John Sanchez (06:50):
Yeah.
As, you know, build, grow in Charlotte.
Yep.
Jack (06:53):
Wow.
That's pretty.
And so you're talking to specificallyanybody in that finance realm.
But team by team, you're
John Sanchez (07:00):
talking to them.
So there's a couple of differenttypes of crowds that I'll talk to.
One would be so my clientstypically will be associations.
Okay?
So I'll use it as anexample, the ai cpa, right?
So if you're a certified publicaccountant, a cpa, typically they'll
belong to a state society of CPAsand they'll also belong to the
A I cpa, the American Instituteof Certified Public Accountants.
(07:24):
As a cpa, you have to have a certainamount of continuing education every year.
I think it's every two years actuallyto maintain your license as a cpa.
Right, right.
Okay.
So these associations, part ofthe benefit they offer is training
at a discount that qualifies forthose continuing education credits.
So I typically am working with theassociation, so I sell the association
(07:45):
on hiring me, and then typicallythey'll put the butts in the seats.
They'll just.
Put out a notice or they'll advertiseon this day, at this time, we have
this topic with this instructor.
They fill the room and I'll do the
Brian (07:59):
training.
Oh, I, and then I'm guessingsometimes one of those buts then
hires you to come into their
John Sanchez (08:04):
company?
Sometimes.
Yeah.
So that's the most common scenario.
The second scenario, that's, it'sactually pretty common as well.
It's what they call open enrollment.
So they, excuse me, that wasone called open enrollment.
Right.
So they'll just put on their website.
And they'll advertise howeverthey advertise to all the
people that are members.
Sure.
Anybody could sign up.
They also, I don't know if a I CPA does,but I have another client where they
(08:27):
have an internal sales team and they'llactually make outbound calls on big
companies to sell them their training.
And they've got a whole library ofdifferent topics and different trainers.
I'm just one guy on a roster for them.
And that's how I've done trainingfor some of the bigger companies is
they'll just go out and call on them.
(08:48):
And in that case it will be onecompany and their finance or
accounting team or some conglomerationof finance and accounting people.
But all working for that company.
Very nice.
Jack (08:57):
Wow.
That's pretty.
And so when, this is all sinceyou've been in Charlotte, right?
Cuz moved up from South Florida.
Right.
And what kind of year were we talking?
What was the move up here
John Sanchez (09:08):
for?
Oh seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
So genius, move on my part.
Moved to Charlotte rightbefore the economy tank.
Didn't know a soul.
Right.
Oh yeah.
That's tough.
Moved here at oh seven only to be
Brian (09:19):
Trump, that those that moved here, like right in March, 2020 right
before everything got shut down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I see the only ones thatwere worse off than you.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (09:26):
Right.
Probably would be.
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It actually, it was goodwhen I first moved here.
So I moved here from South Florida.
I grew up most of.
Most of my, I look at it as mostof my life in South Florida.
I moved about a dozen times.
Yeah.
Before I graduated high school.
Cause I was an Army brat.
But my dad retired right outsideHomestead Air Force Base, which
is Homestead's, a suburb of Miami,about 40, 45 minutes south of Miami.
(09:49):
And so I lived in, and then, so,Graduate high school in Homestead.
Went to school at Florida State,got my accounting degree, and
then I went back to Miami.
Worked in a bunch of jobs.
First as a CPA firm.
Then I worked at, I'm gonna date myselfhere, but I worked at Blockbuster.
Nice.
Back when Blockbusterwas the 10 ton gorilla.
So I don't talk about that much anymorebecause it, it makes me sound super old
Brian (10:13):
but it would be worse if you were like, and I was the one that
said, no, let's not get into streaming.
Let's stick with DVDs that Netflixs
John Sanchez (10:19):
is nothing.
Let's not worry about.
It's funny you mention that.
I use that as an example in one of mycourses, but maybe we'll talk about
that, maybe without down the line.
So worked for some big companies there.
I moved here basically after, soHurricane Wilma hit in oh five.
And I lived in a condo that got a lotof water damage and I actually ended
up replacing like 40% of the drywall.
(10:40):
I ended up getting sick.
I got I developed asthma and allergiesand all this stuff, and I was like, I,
you know, my parents lost their house in91 when Hurricane Andrew came through.
I lost everything I owned in that one.
I want to get outta hurricane alley.
Yeah.
And so it took me a while to kindof get everything together, sell
my condo, and decide to move.
And I made a list like lotsof people do, and then.
(11:03):
Charlotte made the shortlist and I waslike, well, let me go check it out first.
So before I moved here, I came in personand the first thing I realized when I
walked down Trium Street in Uptown wasI must have been looking at outdated
demographics because the demographics mademe think I was gonna be like the single
(11:24):
Latino dude in Charlotte and nothingcould have been further from the truth.
So I was very pleasantlysurprised everybody here.
So I grew up in the Miami area wherepeople can live next door to each other
for 20 years and not know their neighbor.
Right.
And they just kind of look ateverybody like, you're just
part of this crowd, you know?
So I got a little taste of theSouth in college because I went to
(11:46):
school at Florida State, which isin Tallahassee, almost in Georgia.
Right.
So I really liked howfriendly everybody was here.
I liked the seasons cuz Igrew up, it's just always hot.
Yeah.
It's either rain or it'snot, but it's always hot.
Brian (11:58):
There were two seasons.
There were warm weatherseason in monsoon season.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (12:01):
Yeah.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jack (12:02):
We got a touch of the seasons we took, we covered that a lot.
A lot of it's, you know, Charlotte,transplant City, all of us have moved
Connecticut, Ohio, LA respectively.
And that seems to be a common thing.
People move here for theweather, whether it's.
In Brian and I's Case, we were tryingto get rid of six months of winter.
In your case, you're trying tojust get a little dash of winter.
Yep.
John Sanchez (12:21):
Kids get rid of six months of Right.
Well I didn't and I didn't realize we getsometimes all the seasons in one week.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
Cuz it was 85 yesterday and 44 today.
Brian (12:30):
Yeah.
You knew it was time to packyour bags when you saw the devil
actually moving out of that area.
You know,
John Sanchez (12:36):
the funny thing is when I was in college, that's
when I started meeting people fromdifferent parts of the country.
And I would joke with people thatlived up north, like I've never had
to scrape sunshine off my window.
Right.
I was brainwashed to think thathot was just optimal for everyone.
Right?
Right.
Like that was paradise.
It's heat.
(12:56):
And since I've lived here, I'm like,why would anyone wanna live in like 90
degrees and 90% humidity all the time?
Jack (13:04):
So do you like the cold, like when it's winter here?
I do.
Do you like, do you ever go to likemountains and see some snow or, yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
John Sanchez (13:11):
All the time.
That's,
Brian (13:12):
As much as I can really get into this argument a lot.
It's not really winter here, it just No,it's like the seasons, they just, it's
when both spigots are turned off andthen like that's the temperature, right?
Yeah.
But
Jack (13:22):
to a South Florida guy, this is, yeah.
I mean, this is some serious winter.
What are we talking here?
John Sanchez (13:26):
This is about as much winter as I would like for more than a few days.
Okay.
Yeah.
Which, that's well said.
What do we get here?
Like an inch of snowEvery couple years maybe?
Yeah.
Like we get an inch of snowand the city shuts down.
Oh, yeah.
For And all you guys that lived up northare like, what's wrong with these people?
Yeah.
We're outside in shorts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:47):
And I'm going.
Cool.
Day off?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
You guys look at it all wrong.
It's a day off.
Well, except when you work for yourself.
Yeah.
Well, I get it, but Ican work at home, so.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah.
It's okay.
Yeah.
Jack (14:02):
So are you work from home?
Is that are you fully remote or
John Sanchez (14:04):
what's the deal?
Yeah, so home office.
Yep.
I do face-to-face training sometimes.
Okay.
Obviously since Covid much, much less.
But I was doing a lot of webinars waybefore Covid, way before it was cool.
Yeah.
OG Web.
Yeah.
Back when WebEx was likethe king of webinars
Jack (14:22):
I got a Just like a normal meeting request from somebody the
other day from, I think it was ADP orsomething, like a pretty well known
company, and they sent me a WebEx link.
I was like, Hey, like thisis probably wrong, right?
Like, I don't know if this is an old link.
Like, didn't you mean tosend Zoom or something?
They're like, no.
John Sanchez (14:36):
Still.
Yeah.
I wish that was,
Brian (14:39):
did the email come from an AOL account?
Right, exactly.
You
John Sanchez (14:42):
laugh.
I have customers that have AOLaccountants actually turned out,
I didn't even know until I got onefrom someone with an AOL account.
I didn't even know they still existed.
That's like how I, yeah, Iput myself on like a media
blackout in, in certain, well,
Brian (14:58):
On their signature block, they also list their MySpace page too, right?
John Sanchez (15:01):
No, I have I literally have two customers.
That are CPAs that use AOL and will notunder any circumstances get off of it.
I'm like, you know, you'renot supposed to use this.
Right.
And let me guess, theyuse faxes every day too.
No, they don't fax, but theydefinitely love their aol Well,
Brian (15:20):
let me guess.
They pay their invoices on time.
John Sanchez (15:23):
No, it turns out cuz AOL strips the damn PDF out of the dock.
Do they still cut physical checks?
Yes.
I still have a client or twothat sends me physical checks.
I'm like, what?
You guys are like a societyof, I won't say the state.
You're like a society of CPAs andyou're sending me a physical check.
Yeah, I got,
Jack (15:41):
I have one of those, I have a tech company client and they use a pro, I think
it's called like bill.com or one of those,whatever, and they send a check in the
mail and like, you know, I guess you avoidbank fees, so I can't complain that much.
And they send it.
In the mail on the due date,so it's not technically late.
I get it from whatever, five days later.
Yeah, it takes
John Sanchez (15:59):
forever.
Yeah.
I don't, my thing is look outthere, you're sending me a check.
I'm not gonna complain.
It just still kind of seems weird.
Yeah.
I'm going to complain about gettingchecks because one, they take
forever to get to you If they everget to, cuz the mail, fantastic.
Yeah.
Then I have to get the checksand then take 'em to the bank.
(16:20):
That's two.
Yep.
Oh, no, you just need the mobile app.
Yeah, mobile button.
Brian (16:23):
But even then here's number three.
Go ahead.
I know what you're gonna say.
Wait, no, God, let tell me what three is.
So number three is, but then whenit's actually an amount that I'm
proud to receive, the bank says,well, we're gonna go ahead and only
give you this much available funds.
Yes.
And the other $4,000 we're gonnahold until we communicate back to the
other bank to make sure it's okay.
Yes.
And it's, but if it were done like.
Just through like a credit cardtransaction, an ACH h It's instant.
(16:45):
Yeah.
John Sanchez (16:46):
Ach h it's amazing.
You just log in and said Pay now, click.
And it just pays it.
I wonder if that's an issue, like, Idon't know if you do online courses I
wonder if as you go up in the volumethat you do with online cor, I guess
any time you're taking, dealingwith any kind of online payments,
there's a chance that could happen.
I've heard some, a few stories ofnightmares where people just had
(17:07):
like that hockey stick growth.
And they had a hiccup ingetting paid because of that.
Cuz it was like, wait a minute.
Well the online, I never, yeah.
Online I get never have a problem.
It's the physical check when youget check in hand and you hand
Brian (17:19):
them.
Yeah.
The reason is every touchpoint in thatprocess doesn't want this process anymore.
Right.
Yeah.
And so, like, cuz the last thingthe bank wants at the end of this
rainbow is to validate the check andgive you the cut funds up front and
then have to go back and fight withthe other bank if it doesn't clear.
Like, because when it's online,they're instant automatic.
They've already got theYeah, that makes sense.
(17:39):
Process set up.
So it goes through at each stage withouta hitch, like it's validated, verified,
and confirmed all at the same time.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (17:47):
I've had on multiple occasions, yeah.
Where I have a batch of checks thatare postmarked from six months ago
and I called the customer and I'mlike, Hey, we never received it.
Well, we sent it and I'm like, Just puta stop payment or whatever, and then
like five days later I get a batch ofchecks that are six months postmarked.
I'm like, this is ridiculous.
How did you lose this batchof checks for six months?
(18:09):
What's interesting if you trace processesand you start to see where people get
paid and how people get paid, like I washaving a conversation yesterday with this
company they're trying to sell me on.
Basically monetizing myLinkedIn group, right?
So of course you have to then invite thosepeople to some group off of LinkedIn to
(18:30):
do any kind of mon monetization, right?
And so their sales guy opens with whatyou realize LinkedIn hates you, right?
Like what?
Me personally, that would, he would keepme on the phone for a minute though.
That's not a bad opener.
Well, I kind of understood what hemeant because I've tried some, out,
some cold outreach on LinkedIn andgot flagged be just because of the
(18:54):
volume of outreach I was doing.
Yeah.
Brian (18:57):
It's because if you go over a certain amount in a day, like 25
reach outs in a day or somethinglike that you get flagged and if the
next day you hit 25 again, you'll
John Sanchez (19:07):
it'll kick.
Yeah.
Their, and their logic, at least whatthey told me was, This looks like you
might be using an automation tool,which is against our terms of service.
Right.
Okay.
That was my question to which Isaid, okay, I'll dial it back.
I mean, you know, I had somebodyI was paying to do that outreach,
so I didn't have to do it.
So
Brian (19:23):
you're like, trust me, this is copy and paste.
This is an automated, right.
John Sanchez (19:26):
I mean, you can dial it up as much as you're willing to spend.
Right.
But I quickly realized, yeahLinkedIn doesn't hate us.
They just.
They want to control the point of contact.
Yes.
And they wanna get paid thatnavigator money, so Yeah.
Yeah.
Turns out you can do 25 without Navigator.
Yeah.
Navigator.
You can do a hundred, 150.
Yep.
Right.
(19:46):
Oh, that's good to know.
Yes.
Yeah I use navigator too.
Yeah.
I've used it off and on, so I'm curiouswhat you guys have used it for that.
You felt was worth the navigator price?
I do not use navigatoranymore, so that'll dictate my
Brian (20:00):
just for me on the consulting end of what we do, it's not
something that I can just walkout this door and find everybody.
So you've gotta go search.
So it's usually, I don't use it tosell as much as just to make network
connections and people that wind up seeingthings in my feed and stuff like that.
Searching and
John Sanchez (20:14):
filtering.
Yeah.
Jack (20:15):
Yeah.
That is advanced.
Search stuff.
Brian (20:18):
I don't know.
And we've had a lot of conversationsin previous episodes, not that this
isn't still relevant and good, butlike on LinkedIn and it's like, yeah,
we've all been that one that, likeright now I'm on a trend where I get
these, you know, somebody wants toconnect with you and her name is Anna Z.
And it's like, your last name is Z.
Yeah.
And then before I can evenlike click on it, the message
(20:39):
says like, LinkedIn is flagged.
This is an unauthorizeduser and it's probably
John Sanchez (20:42):
automated.
I get a lot of those.
So I have a LinkedIn group.
And I get a lot of those that tryto join, cuz I have it set up.
So I have to approve them to join.
Which I just switched recently.
And we'll probably switch itback cuz now I'm getting a lot of
these, or you look at the profileand there's no profile picture.
They've got like three connections andlike, not even a fully completed profile.
(21:04):
I'm like, oof.
Yeah.
Well that's not gonna, my, my
Brian (21:07):
classic favorite was I got this, and of course they all, and I know
this is stereotypical, but they comein as like, Fairly attractive younger
women that are their profile picture.
I don't know if that's them.
Right.
And it was like executive assistant at,I don't know, I'm just picking a company.
It was like Columbia out outerwear.
An educated Cambridge and it'slike, and you're an executive
(21:30):
assistant, like, right, I didn'tknow they had a program for that.
You know?
Right.
I've got putting all the piecestogether, they've missed one
tiny detail that doesn't jive.
Right.
John Sanchez (21:38):
Yeah.
I've gotten a couple of those whereit's, it seems very clear that
they're just looking at my profilepicture going, oh, gray hair works in
finance, probably has money, and youknow, it's just, Clearly has nothing.
They know nothing about me,my business, any of that.
Brian (21:53):
Do you play in the gold market?
You know, yeah, that's, I canask that one all the time.
You need a reverse market.
I love, like, they'll message you andat first some of them sound pretty good,
and then you'll get the we should take,continue this conversation on WhatsApp.
And it's like, ah yeah.
It's because you want it encrypted.
John Sanchez (22:09):
And how about this one?
You're a coach, right?
Yeah.
So you must get these like, Dayin and day out, we help coaches
go from, you know, x to y revenue.
We help coaches convert, you know, moreprospects to customers and all this.
And I've made the mistake I mentionedto you, I've got it somewhere in my
profile, the word coach, but I don'tactively market myself as a coach.
(22:31):
I don't actively do any coaching.
I've done some coach training so it'sin my profile somewhere, but I get this
stuff all the time and I'm like, you guysalready disqualified yourselves cuz if
you spent five minutes reading through myprofile you'd realize I have absolutely
no use for what you guys do, right?
I,
Brian (22:49):
unfortunately for a stretch considered this a bit of a sport.
Where I wanted to see if I couldflip the script on that person.
And so there were plenty of times whereI would get like an offer like that.
I mean, I don't remember an exact one,but it would be like, actually I do a
lot of pro bono work for my clients.
That would be great though, if you wantedto sponsor me with this and not charge me.
And you never hear another thing
John Sanchez (23:09):
again.
Did you?
You reminded me of, there's
Brian (23:11):
some, I can't remember His name gets spicy.
I have to do something.
So
John Sanchez (23:13):
Yeah, there's some that breaks the
Jack (23:15):
algorithm too, if you respond.
Yeah.
John Sanchez (23:17):
All right, Don, go ahead.
There's some comedianthat has a whole bit.
About a wrong number that he got andhe says, you know, the guy calls me and
he says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he goes, I thought this could be fun.
Yeah.
And so he literally just acted like hewas, whoever the guy asked for, And got
into a full conversation with this guyand left the guy confused and he's like,
(23:40):
well, I'm gonna call Nora and I'll callyou back cuz I, I need clarification.
And he gets into like a whole seriesof conference calls with these
people until finally like four orfive calls later, the jig is up.
Cuz they somehow figured it out.
And I'm like, This reminds me ofwhat I thought about doing when I
was like, I don't know, eight 10.
Right.
(24:01):
Frank
Brian (24:01):
Collins.
Frank Collins is like, I'm not sayingI'm proud of it, I'm just, you know.
Yeah.
I am.
I make sport of it.
You want some, it's kind of funjust to see, or when they come
back and they're like, well, doyou invest in the gold market?
And Well, actually I personally don't,but I have somebody that invests
my money for me for I like that.
Yeah.
And then they keep, because they'renot allowed to like disengage
until you basically say no.
(24:21):
Yeah.
And so I just never say no.
I just keep the conversation going tosee how much of their time I can waste.
And I've
John Sanchez (24:27):
heard, I got outta it.
He didn't say it's avery covid thing I did.
He'll do the same thing.
This comedian that was talking aboutthis said, the hardest part for me is
not cursing because apparently a lot ofthese, their customer service training
tells 'em, unless they curse at you, youjust have to, you have to keep going.
Keeping us back.
Right?
Yeah.
So he's like, I have to bereal conscious cuz you know,
I kind of have a dirty mouth.
(24:48):
And sometimes I'll slip up and thenthat's when they can hang up on me.
But until then, he's like, Iget away with the craziest crap.
I just asked him the dumbest questions.
Yeah.
Cause you could be an insane
Jack (24:58):
person
Brian (24:58):
without swearing.
Well, and I still love yourconversation with QuickBooks.
Yeah.
You just shared thatyesterday at our thing.
But
John Sanchez (25:05):
that's funny.
Yeah.
Between QuickBooks andRingCentral it's now a sport.
I just keep 'em on the phone.
I told the guy the last time I waslike, Well, I don't have anything to
do today, so I'm gonna keep you onthe phone as long as I possibly can.
Actually.
You
Brian (25:18):
say that?
Yeah.
I said, because he said he wouldn'tget his, he wouldn't get his ma.
He didn't have a supervisorpresent at that location.
He said,
John Sanchez (25:24):
I'm the only one here.
I said, I can hear like 50people talking in the back.
Oh, they're leaving.
They're going home right now.
Oh.
I said all 50 of 'emare leaving at one time.
I said, even your manager.
I was like, So you could justdo whatever you want right now.
You could just startthrowing papers in the air.
Brian (25:39):
And so
John Sanchez (25:39):
does that mean take
Brian (25:40):
your pants
John Sanchez (25:40):
off games?
You're sitting there, Hey, what?
What's your favorite video game?
Why don't we hop on a video game?
I was like, I call of duty.
I was like, I hope you got the next24 hours blocked out cuz we're gonna
have some quality time within 50.
I mean within five minutes.
Oh yeah.
My manager's here now.
He just came in.
Oh, yeah.
Started.
And then he got what he wanted.
(26:01):
Yeah.
Got, and then it turned out,manager fixed it after 20 hours.
He he finally got in there and he goes,oh, you just have a licensing issue.
I think if I didn't have such apublic facing presence between
just LinkedIn, you know, I do apodcast, I get a YouTube channel.
I, you know, I post on social media.
I speak at events, so my bread andbutter is people knowing who I am.
(26:23):
Right.
You're the
Jack (26:24):
brand, you're the
John Sanchez (26:24):
personality.
Yeah.
If it wasn't for that, like if I waslike behind the cur, if nobody like knew
who I was, I just, I probably would havea lot more fun with stuff like that.
Have to add it into the persona.
Yes.
Jack (26:38):
I've been told you should make, just like I've set up an email, you
know, pay the 20 bucks a year, whatever.
Set up just a fake person that youcould be like, what, you know John
Smith at, and he's a client rep andyou can just do all of that same stuff
John Sanchez (26:53):
as it's, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people that do
that, that we just don't know that.
Right.
That's the case.
Yeah.
Jack (27:00):
Yeah.
And you can have any sortof fun you want or, oh man.
Sounds
Brian (27:03):
fun.
I'm in wild.
Jack (27:04):
Yeah.
You'd be good at it.
I think
Brian (27:06):
you'd be good at it.
I have conversations in my head, likeback and forth anyways, so I mean, I
might as well make one of 'em like real.
Yeah.
Bring a couple personalities
John Sanchez (27:14):
to the table.
See when I was a kid, I wanted tobe like a, an actor, a comedian,
until I realized that, oh, I'mjust like water cooler funny.
I'm just like lunchroom.
I'm
Brian (27:24):
good at telling other people's jokes.
John Sanchez (27:26):
Yeah.
That's about it.
Yeah.
I can
Jack (27:28):
recite fact
John Sanchez (27:30):
right.
I listen to enough podcasts that havecomedians on them to realize, like,
yeah, it's, that's a whole different
Jack (27:37):
skill.
They got a whole nother skill.
Yeah, it's tough.
I I like the quick wit andbut putting together a set
would be a whole nother thing.
Speaking of your pod, so you've gotthe, you've got the LinkedIn group,
which is fp and a folks, right?
Yeah.
You've got the podcast, you've got YouTubechannel and website, all this stuff.
As a wrap up here, Bestway to connect with you.
Do you wanna plug anything with that?
What do you got
John Sanchez (27:57):
going on?
Yeah, I guess the easiest way my mainfocus right now, at least with kind
of getting the word out is my podcast.
It's only been around since January.
It's more than word show.com.
And you can see all of the I've gotlinks there to my business website.
So that's where I point peoplenow cause I'm trying to get more
exposure for that than anything else.
Well,
Brian (28:17):
we could probably help you really get above a million
viewers kinda like we've done or
John Sanchez (28:22):
Million listen listeners.
So Awesome.
Jack (28:23):
If you're familiar with Joe Rogan, he learns from us.
We
John Sanchez (28:25):
are actually a dude I'm in.
I think you guys are.
Checking the wrong podcast.
X.
Brian (28:32):
Oh wait.
Those are the ones I follow.
I follow this one.
Jack (28:36):
What's this one called?
No, John, thank you for coming, man.
This is a lot of fun.
This is awesome, appreci.
Appreciate it.
Hope you get some more podcastlisteners from it and We'll
definitely stay in touch, man.
Thank you.
Sounds
John Sanchez (28:44):
good.
Thanks, Manam.
If I had a perfect day, Iwould have it start this way.
Open up the bridge.
Tall boy.
Yeah,
don't.
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