Blaze Your Own Trail - S2:E27- For the Love of Insight with Billy Samoa Saleebey

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Billy Samoa Saleebey is an award-winning filmmaker (Rolling) and has led learning and development organizations for some of the most disruptive companies in the world, most recently Tesla, where he was Head of Global Sales & Product Training. He is currently President & Founder of Insight Media, a Los Angeles based production company that specializes in podcasting and digital media. In addition to being the host of For the Love of Podcast (a podcast about podcasting), he’s also is the host of the podcast Insight Out, where he interviews New York Times best-selling authors, CEOs/Founders, professional athletes, and thought leaders to see how transformational moments of insight have propelled their lives and careers. Connect with Billy: For the Love of Podcast: http://fortheloveofpodcast.com/ Insight Out Show: https://insightoutshow.com/ Website: https://billysamoa.com/ Connect with Jordan: Follow on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blazeyourowntrailmastermind/ Need help with your Sales or Marketing Strategy? Book a call today! https://calendly.com/impulseconsulting/30-minute-discovery-call Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoy this episode with Billy, Samoa, Salibi. Such a great guy and a true trailblazer from waiting tables to making a movie and building sales training programs and now running two podcasts and having a media company. He's doing some big things. So enjoy the episode and I will chat with you right after. Hello, everyone and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, George Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest would be today. His name is Billy Salibi. Or did I say that right? You did. You did. Okay. Perfect. I'm very good at slaughtering names. And I know off air you would mention it to me. So Billy, if you can, just give the audience some context into who you are and what you do. Thanks for having me on, Jordan. I'm super pumped to be here with you. Yeah. So I am a product of what I'll call hippie parents. I was born. in American Samoa and they decided to name me Billy Samoa Salibi. And so I've named after an

island that I was born in, spent most of my childhood growing up in L.A., wanting to be a baseball player, realizing at some point that that was going to be more challenging than I had thought. I did play all the way up into college and I loved the sport. But what I fell in love with in high school was telling stories visually. So I decided to become a film major, went to Loyola the Marymount. And out of film school, I was like, okay, what do I do now? I've got a film degree, which, you know, I live in L.A., so it's a better place than most to have a film degree. So I said, I better make a movie. So I spent the next seven years of my life writing, directing, producing, and ultimately taking a film to the completion and getting distribution. So that movie

was about the drug ecstasy. It follows the lives of eight characters who storylines intersect. And They kind of tell the story about their journey with the drug. Everyone from the drug dealer who's abusing it all the way to the school teacher trying it for the first time. But after spending seven years on that, I realized that I didn't make seven years worth of income working on the film. And so I was like, okay, how do I blaze my trail now? Knowing that I could go make another movie, but also being open to other things. And so I'd spent a lot of times working in restaurants as I was, in the filmmaking process and making an income doing that.

And I knew I didn't want to do that. But I learned a lot from waiting tables. Most importantly, how to interact with other human beings. And so that really lent itself to the sales profession. And so I got into sales in the solar space, kind of by accident. My brother had been in sales. It was just starting out in the solar industry. And at the time, the solar industry was just starting to become what it is today and like

have sort of a renaissance. And as sort of events was. transpire. I got a job with this company, Verango Solar, immediately took to the sales process and being with homeowners and helping them see how solar could benefit them. I did really well in sales. That afforded me the opportunity to get a management role, fell in love with leadership, fell in love with the art and the beauty of helping other people be successful, which led me into training, which I know we could we could wrap about that, but really became the training guy. So started doing training for solar and I tried to flip the script on the boring corporate training by incorporating games and activities and not just boring games, but fun and exciting games to get the competitive juices going.

So I did this family feud game at the end of the week where we'd test everyone's knowledge and pit one side of the room against the other. We did an American Idol type of interaction training where we'd have people do a customer interaction. And there were judges giving instant feedback. And so just try to make it a little less corporate and boring and a lot more fun and engaging. And so that kind of put me on the map, so to speak. I moved up the ranks at that company left there as the VP of sales. And I got the opportunity to work for this company, Solar City. And Solar City, I'm sure most probably recognize the name at the time was the biggest solar player on the planet.

And I couldn't say no. So I did internal communications and got a chance to tap into my creative juices one more time and create this program called Solar City TV, where I did a weekly broadcast, and we basically communicated with the entire organization through really a TV show, a super engaging kind of like ESPN style show. And that sort of transitioned into me leading all of sales training for Solar City. And as things would transpire, I built a leadership training program, all the sales training programs. Solar City ultimately got bought by Tesla. And that was my backdoor entry into Tesla. Tesla is not easy to get a job.

It's think it's harder than Harvard. So I wasn't Harvard educated. But I did have passion for people. And I did make some, I would say some good decisions when it came to meeting the right people. I got a chance to meet the person who was ahead of Tesla training. He gave me the opportunity to build what was known and is still known as launch, which is the onboarding program for all people that started Tesla globally. And so I built this program with my team.

That then led to the last job that I had, which was head of all sales training for Tesla globally. And so anyone that works in any of our galleries or any, does any sales at all for Tesla, my team would train them. Amazing opportunity. But ultimately, Jordan, I was never, ever, ever in the mindset of being a corporate guy. I just never wanted to do that. But I got in a wave that I couldn't get off and working for these companies. I just felt it was the right place and the right thing for me to do. And that brings me to today where I started my podcast.

I built my company Insight Media and we're producing and creating content that entertains while also educating. And that's sort of what I'll call the blend of my early career where I was a filmmaker and then my most recent career where I was focused on helping people learn and grow and develop. Awesome, man. Well, what a great intro. And so we're going to really unpackaged that for the audience. So we have a lot of synergy.

geez, like you said a second ago, but I was that kid, too, that, you know, played a lot of baseball, looked up to guys like, you know, Ken Griffey in that era, and then, and then realized that I didn't like it. You know, it's like, yeah, I don't know if I really like baseball. I think, you know, my mom put us all in sports, you know, soccer for 10 years, baseball for 10 years, and, you know, I'm sure she was trying to hope that we could make it somewhere, you know. She had five boys, but all of us really played, played until we got tired of it, you know? So I can definitely relate to that. So, you know, getting your first role in sales, which was that waiting tables? Was it being a server? Was that kind of the first introduction to sales? Well, yeah, that's a good point. I mean,

I think when you are waiting tables, it's a version of sales. So yeah, I mean, I started, I got my first job at 15, scooping ice cream for 31 flavors. But after that, every job that I had for the next 10 years was in some form of a restaurant. Everything from high-end, upscale dining to the place in London, the oldest restaurant in London called Rules, sort of a posh sort of English, traditional English place, all the way to a burger joint in L.A. Yeah.

And listen, you know, that's the foundation, right? That is the training ground. If you can effectively communicate with people, right? And these are, when you're in the restaurant business, I never actually served. My wife did for a number of years. but one thing that I know and that I've learned through her, and you could probably relate to this,

is you've got to be on all the time and you've got to be good all the time. Because when you're not, people can, they can almost smell it, right? When you're having a bad day, they can almost smell it. And what does that impact? That impacts your tips. That impacts future business, right? That impacts a lot.

So what would you say you did to help keep yourself in that positive attitude back then, right? And it's easier probably to talk about how you do it today, but I'm very interested for you to share with the audience. How did you do it back then? Because mindset is something that's built, right? It's something that's built over time. So I'd love for you to share that. Yeah, no, great points, all of them.

And absolutely 100% correct that you are on all the time. You're the show. If you're doing it well, you're the show. If you're not doing it well, then you blame other people. You're just a conduit to get them food. and you're just doing the bare minimum, and I've never believed in doing the bare minimum. Don't let your minimums become your maximum.

So my thinking, honestly, was how do I wow these customers so much so that they absolutely cannot ever even contemplate giving me a crappy tip? I want them to feel like they owe it to me almost. And so when I took my first job in a restaurant, it was this place called soup plantation. which is now defunct in the COVID world salad bars. That was a glorified salad bar.

It's called sweet tomatoes some places. And it really was in it. And it was just close recently. It's just it's a glorified salad bar. And my job wasn't to be a server as much as it was to be a bus boy, really. And they called it dining room attendant. And what I did when I started that job was I didn't allow myself to just do what they expected.

I wanted to go above and beyond. So an example would be when somebody got there, I would say, hey, how you doing? I'd introduce myself. I'd say I'm taking care you for the day. Happy to refill your lemonade, your Coke. If you need anything from the salad bar, I'm also happy to get that for you too. And it surprised people because normally they come there and maybe somebody clears a tray or maybe takes some plates now and then, but they don't have somebody that's actively engaging. And so my thinking is, as far as mindset goes, is have the mindset that they're people. And if you approach people and the way you would want to be approached, that's a winning recipe.

If you approach it as I'm just trying to get something out of them and I'm just doing the kind of the foundation, the bare minimum, yeah, you're going to get bare minimum tips. And so my mindset was always to treat them like a human, be genuine, be honest, be open. And then when the mindset really gets challenged is when you have somebody that doesn't reciprocate. When they're a jerk, when they're mean to you, it does become hard. And I think that is really where I probably started to develop a lot more control of my temper. I grew up a hot head. I shared this recently in a comment on a post. I had a just an anger streak. If something happened to me, I would react. But you can't react when you're waiting tables because you'll

lose your job. You just won't. It's not just saying you're going to get a tip. You'll lose your job. And so I started to develop this, what I'll call discipline when it comes to understanding my reactive nature, that I was just a reactive person by nature. I subdued that and remembered that they maybe had a bad day. This is not personal to me. And just let it go. If it got bad enough, then I could talk to a manager and maybe figure out of the solution. But that was very, very rare. It would get that bad.

And so I think you bring up a really interesting point, which is our control of our mindset plays into almost any job that we have, but especially where you have something where you're seeing so many customers. And I think that's why it's such a great training ground for sales. It's just it's a numbers thing. You're seeing hundreds and hundreds of people on a weekly basis. And each time is a new customer interaction. It's a new chance to be challenged, but it's also a new chance to win them over and wow them. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, like I said earlier, it is the training ground. It is how you develop the tough skin, right? If you can take a bunch of else or a bunch of nose or a bunch of jerks, right? All of those things that happen in the sales world. And then you can show up the next day. Like, you're going to be way better than you were the day before, right? I just, I had written an article on LinkedIn and it was all about the things I learned going door to door at 14 years old, right? And that was through knocking on 100 doors a day.

and the first day having every single one tell me no, right? I didn't want to go back day too, but it was a pride thing because my brother and my buddy Steve down the street, they got sales the first day. And I knew I was better than that, right? Like it was like an ego thing. And so, you know, but I, you know, the one thing that I just posted about this yesterday when it came to sales, and I didn't understand this when he said this to me, but I remember handing in that clipboard that after that first day, pissed off.

I hated it, didn't want to do sales anymore. And the distributor said, listen, Jordan, you're not going to understand this today, but hopefully somewhere down the road, this will make sense. And what he said to me is something I'll never forget. He said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. And what I said to him in that moment was, that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard, Jim, and I'll like to go home now, right? Because I was done, I was over it.

But a few years later, I had actually gotten good at sales. I did go back for day two. I ended up getting better. And I remember I was leading somebody business to business sales as a trainer. And they sucked the first day. I remember them coming back to the office with that same look that I had on my face. And they said, no one buys this product. This sucks.

And they were down in the dumps. And I turned around. I looked at them and I said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. Right? Because people have objections. Like as human beings, we are wired to say no. You think back to when you were a kid. You want an extra cookie.

What'd your mom say? No, you can't have that. No, you can't stay up later. No, you can't go outside. No, don't touch the hot stove. So we're literally wired from adolescence to tell people no. And we even do it to this day. You go and do a department store.

Someone says, hey, can I help you, sir? What do you say? No, I'm good. Like, we're literally trained to say no. It's our default, yeah. Right? That's our default. So when I shifted that no to from the word no to no equals next opportunity,

and I went out and searched for the nose, that's when everything changed. When my mindset shifted to actually focus on how many noes can I get versus yeses, the yeses are a bonus to that point. That's right. No, and you touched on just such a key fundamental premise, which those that are fantastic at getting to the know and understanding why the no is there and then obviously having a way to convert them from a no to a yes, those are the people that are successful in sales.

If you're avoiding nose or if you're not embracing the nose, you're looking at it from the wrong lens and wrong perspective. Absolutely. So on your journey of working at a few different restaurants, right, you've done some across the pond, you did some locally in the U.S. When did it click for you, right? Because there's always this pivotal moment where something clicks and you're like, I know this person is going to give me X amount of tip or I know this is going to be, this is going to be a good one, right? So when was that shift for you where you just knew you found the sauce, if you will, of what you needed to say within that first amount of time in meeting somebody and things really kind of took off from there? I think the aha moment was realizing that laughter is such an important ingredient to becoming more a human. And what I say that, what I mean is ultimately people just want to engage and feel comfortable

with other people that are exposed to, and it could be a waiter, it could be somebody you see in a store, it could be anybody. But where I had the aha moment is if I can make the customer laugh by having a sense of humor, by not taking myself too seriously, having a bit of levity in the conversations that we're having, that's when I'd win the customer over and that's when I'd get the best tips. Now, I'd be lying at me. I said, I always knew I was going to get a good tip, because sometimes you never know. I mean, working in L.A., I've waited on, I mean, Robert Downey Jr., the Cohen brothers, Cameron Diaz, you name it. I've waited on so many famous people, and most of them are actually really, really nice.

And most of them were great tippers, but you never know, right? So it's like, it's no matter what, just take the same approach that works, which is be real, be genuine, be kind, be thoughtful. And one of the biggest things is set expectations. So if you know something's going to take longer, don't shy away from that. Tell them. because they would much rather know on the front end than you have to apologize it on the back end.

No, so set expectations, don't make excuses. I've always believed in not making excuses. And one of the things that's like a pet peeve of mine is when somebody blames somebody else, there's something that's happened. Oh, oh, yeah, it was the chef's fault. Oh, the kitchen messed this up. Like even if that's true, protect the kitchen.

Just say nothing or say something else that is truthful but is not pointing a finger. at somebody else. And especially, especially don't do it. If it is actually your problem that you made, I would be much more inclined to give somebody a big tip if they said, I completely messed up. I'm so sorry. I forgot to say no bacon. Whatever. And so point being is just own up to your mistakes, don't make excuses, set expectations on the front end. And all the while, be a human and make others laugh. I love that. I love that. So I'm sure that experience definitely came. in handy as you moved further into the sales world. So what was what was the next point after your

last you know gig at a restaurant? What was what was that next position? Sure. I had a pretty good gap in between my restaurant career and when I went into solar, maybe a couple years where I was like I couldn't take another job. So I was heavily invested in the film. You know, we took the film to four different continents. You know, so many films. festivals. We got a chance to win some film festivals. So obviously this was like a really pivotal point for the film because this is what helped us get distribution is distributors started taking note of the film and then ultimately got distribution. So this part of my journey was more than anything, it was learning about how to market and brand and get messages out. We're

talking 2007. So this is like early days, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace even. We promoted the film on my space. And so what this taught me, and this is great that you're, you're asking me this, because I'm just like unearthing these memories is, right? The film was about ecstasy. So we knew who our audience was. Our audience was people that are ravers, partygoers, people that have experimented with the drug, people that either are currently immersed in this scene or at one point was immersed in this scene. So we went to where the audience was. So we went to events. We went to early days of Electric Daisy Carnival. And we promoted. there. And if I think back to the promotions that we did, like we went all out. I mean, we literally

I, I dressed myself as the DVD box. I had a big box. We turned it into the DVD box where I'd have my arms on either side coming out. And then like basically the movie poster, which was just a bunch of pills of ecstasy at the time. And it said rolling, it was very distinctive, very memorable. and then we would pass out cards with the website that had a little baggy in it with breath mints that looked like ecstasy. And so that wasn't sales as much as marketing, but this just taught me that we could have done like just passed out flyers and that's it. But instead, what we tried to do was make it so that it was a conversation piece. So many people took pictures with us because we were dressed in this crazy way. And then they loved that we were passing out something that

looked like existing. They all knew it wasn't, of course. But it was memorable. And so now they would go home and they would look up the film. And that's, I think, helped us get some early traction and early momentum. And so I'd say that was the next leg of my journey. That's awesome. And that's and that's grassroots marketing, right? I mean, that is thinking outside the box, right? Dressing up, passing things out and actually showing up in the environment where the watchers were going to be. That's right. Right? Like, right? I mean, I think that's a brilliant move to do that. So you worked on the film and really like when you think about a movie, it is a sale, right? It's just a long sales cycle. Right. I think they're getting shorter and

shorter, right, as movies are being developed. But back then, it's a long cycle because at the end of the day, you are selling that movie to people so that they can distribute it for other people to watch, right? So I think that it's probably thinking back, it's probably been advantageous for you to go through a sales cycle that long because it makes all the ones today seem very, very short. Even if they're a year, right? They're a lot shorter than creating a film. Yeah, no, it's a great point. And it makes me appreciate just one, when you work on a project that it's this long cycle like a film and clearly not every film needs to take seven years. But when it's an independent film and we didn't have the resources to accelerate the timeline, that's how long it can take. But I think

it does give you perspective and an appreciation for, one, the importance of seeing something through to the finish line. Two, realizing that some things take a long time and the reward won't be realized for a very long time when you were taking that long just to make something a reality. And learning the value of patience, I think, is an incredible thing to learn. I have a tortoise somewhere on my desk. So you have this tortoise here. And this tortoise is just, just the reminder that you don't need to go at lightning speed with everything you do. In fact, you can make mistakes. You can have things happen that put you in a position to feel like you are behind

or you may not be on target for your schedule, but you can make up for lost ground. You can do things that will help you maneuver in ways that will allow you to accelerate your pace down the road. And so I think all too often we get in this situation where we're thinking too much about the time aspect and we're so hard on ourselves. I know I'm guilty of it. We're all in this sort of race to get things done quickly and don't get me wrong. There's there's a ton of value in speed and and having a sense of urgency. But at the same time, the flip side of that coin is allowing ourselves to get overly consumed with it and to cause unnecessary stress. It doesn't serve us. And so I think what we all have to do is, you know, if somebody's listening to this and

they're a creative person or if they're in sales or if they're really if they're in anything is be a little easier on yourself remember that time is on your side and you know my mom shares that statement with me over and over and over again and it's a great way to remember that we we're not judged on a given day right don't don't look at one day and say I only accomplish this today no look at yourself on the yearly and instead of the weekly or the monthly or even the daily, you have an ability to do a lot of things, incredible things, if you look at things with a broader time horizon. No, I think that's a really, really awesome point because, you know, I tell this to my eight-year-old

all the time because she is the, it's not fair. They got this. I didn't get, you know, and I always say, listen, comparison is a thief of joy. And you're proving it to me right now because you're upset about something that you don't even have. It's not, you know, it doesn't even matter, you know. And I think that's a great message for people to hear because, listen, we all fall victim to it, right? We're like, hey, I want to do this and then someone else does it.

And you're like, man, I'm behind. Like, I feel like I should be a little further in that aspect. Right. But if you really, if you really do it and you look at it through the lens of you versus yesterday, right, versus you versus everybody else, then it makes it a lot easier to actually see that progress through and not be so concerned about what everybody else is doing. So powerful, man. I love that perspective. And you're so right, though. It's like we get so caught up and consumed with the comparison between us and other people.

The comparison really should be who we are today versus who we are yesterday, who we are today versus who will be tomorrow. And remembering that is just gold right there, man. So thank you for sharing it in such a beautiful way. And it's just a great reminder. I have an eight-year-old as well. So I definitely understand that. The inner workings of their mindset, it is kind of a, their common phrase is that's unfair and everything is unfair.

And, you know, I think a lesson that we could teach the little ones is, one, life is unfair and get used to it to some degree. But two, it shouldn't be about you versus somebody else. It should be about you. And that's that. Absolutely. All right. So movie finishes up. It gets launched.

right uh put a you put a lot of time and energy uh into it and listen there might be some folks listening to say you know that sounds sounds like a cool movie so would you mind sharing what it's what it's called with the audience maybe they can find it find it somewhere and watch it yeah they can watch it right now it's a rolling movie rolling is the name of the movie um we have a website rolling movie dot com but you could find it it's on uh you could find it pretty much anywhere it's on netflix it's on booze it's on Amazon. Some of it's streaming. I think Voodoo, that's the Walmart one.

I think it's still streaming on that one. On Netflix, you have to have the DVD. But just type in rolling movie and you'll find it. Awesome. So the movie gets wrapped up. And, you know, what was it that made you say, you know what? Like, I put a lot of time and energy. I know you had mentioned before that, you know,

it didn't match up to seven years of income. So I'm sure that was probably played a big role in finding the next thing. but what was it about solar that maybe struck a core with you? Or was it? I can't hear you all of a sudden. Oh, sorry. Or was it maybe not solar, but it was somebody that just told you about a sales opportunity.

Yeah. Yeah, it was the latter. So basically what happened was my brother got aligned with this company, Verango Solar. He had asked me to help with promotion. So I was creating a video for him to promote solar. It was such a new thing back then. nobody was talking about it.

It wasn't like it is today where everybody is talking about solar. And I was making this video and I just started asking him questions about how it works. And what he told me just made a whole lot of sense is you could get solar on your roof with no out of pocket cost. You just pay for the electricity the system produces and the rate is less than the rate you're paying the utility. I'm like, why? Why wouldn't anybody do that? That's the thing. My job was only to convince people that it's not too good to be true, that it's really.

that it's real. And so it was actually an easy sale, but people are more rigid when it comes to changing behavior. And so I said, okay, let me try this. And I interviewed and got a role in sales. And my initial role was just literally going instead of people in their kitchen table or living room and explain, hey, this is how you could benefit from solar. And so as things would transpire, I just had more and more success. End up setting the record for, most sales in a month. And I, when that happened, they're like, okay, you need to go teach other people. So then I took over a team. My team ended up being the highest performing team. And I don't claim that it was me necessarily that made the team that successful. But what I will say is

I tried to create an environment where the people on my team felt like they could be themselves and be comfortable showing who they are as a human being to the customers. And I think that had a big role in helping them see success and helping them see the kind of success that I saw when I was in a similar role, just doing the same thing a few months prior. And so that's how things sort of took off. I didn't expect to get in sales. I certainly didn't expect to be in solar, but I've always been somebody that believes in common sense and believes why not take advantage of this giant reactor in the sky that's providing energy might as well. Awesome. And, you know, I know I had to be challenging it first, right? When especially if, was that your first management role on the sales side?

It was. First time managing a team, right? And so I've been that guy. I've been the one that was doing the sales and then was training the other people how to do it. And I can remember specifically the first day that I felt so inadequate, right? Is that, you know, I've gotten sent down to Florida to take part in some advanced instructor training. And I was nowhere near advance because I just got promoted, you know, and so I remember being in a room full of my peers. It was like 14 people, other folks in the property management industry, and the back of the room, there was a camera set up. And this is my first time walking into any formal, like, training where I'm going to get a certification. And I remember being so freaked out about this because I had to, we all had to go

up and enter, like, do public speaking. And we were being recorded and we had to watch it at the end of the night and each day we would compound and work on it. Right. So I don't know if you had a similar experience where they sent you to some training or if it was just kind of a throw you to the wolves here, figure out how to build a PowerPoint and just start going to talk to people. So I'd be interested to hear kind of what your journey was like. Yeah. So when I decided that, I mean, I really did love the leadership component and love the training and coaching. And the thing that stood out is, you know, not everybody learns the same way. Not everyone should be coached or developed in the same way.

And so when I did take the training role, they gave me the opportunity to be the director of training. I didn't have any experience, much like what you're describing. They didn't send me anywhere either. And so I had to kind of figure it out on my own. So it was more the latter of what you spoke about. And I actually look at that as a true blessing. And the reason why is I didn't know what I didn't know.

And I had to invent things. Yeah, I could look at that. look stuff up and I did, but ultimately everything I looked up felt very, I don't know, just boring. And so that's where I started to come up with these more creative ideas to make the training stand out a bit more. And so I already mentioned, you know, we did like a family feud and the American Idol. Those are just some of the things that we did. I recognize that what would work best is to create an environment where everyone feels really good every morning coming to training. They feel like it's going to be different and unique.

And so we would do things like we had performances even where they'd come up and perform in front of the room. And we did it. It's called a tag team presentation or tag team consultation. And so in between each part of the consultation, we would play theme music. It'd be like that song tag team. It's kind of old now and dated. But we'd play that. And the reason why we did this is,

It would allow each person to see somebody presented in a different way. So we'd have like the introduction and then the discovery and then, you know, all the sales process is broken up into chunks. So each person would get a chunk of the sales process and they would come up and sort of tag the person that was there before them and they'd give their part of the presentation. But afterwards, we'd all sent around in a circle and we'd give constructive feedback and that was the most valuable part because what you're able to do is when you're actively paying attention and listening, you're putting your teacher hat on.

You're putting your hat on where you're thinking about how could I coach this person? Even though they're new people, they know enough that they could coach. And so at the end, they would do each person would give some feedback. And not only with the person who was getting the feedback, get something out of it, the person who was giving it would get feedback out of it. And this would start to ingrain the knowledge and the information and the approach into the people. And so when they would go out and apply it in real world, which that's when it comes to life, they could think back to activities like the one I just mentioned that they can draw upon and they

could remember and so for me you know I didn't have the luxury of having formal training I probably made a bunch of quote-unquote mistakes but I think that ultimately served me and served the people that came because they had a training that wasn't something they'd ever even remotely experienced before I love that. Yeah. And what you said about making sure it was a fun environment, you know, I think, especially when you're doing direct sales, you know, I can remember working for several direct sales companies. The atmosphere is everything, right? Like setting the tone for the day, practice pitching, like tagging each other in. Like those simulations are actually what makes success out there, right? Like actually being a practitioner of it with each other and with your peers and then being able to be able to be able to. to go out and apply it. I like what you said earlier too about making sure that people could make it their own because that's when sales as powerful is when you can take a framework, right, a system, and then you can plug in your personality and your own stylings because like you said, everybody's a different learner. Some are audio, some are visual, some are kinesthetic, right? Everybody

learns a little bit differently. So when you give people that environment, that freedom, that's conducive to success. Totally. No, I mean, I love it, man, and I'm glad we're on the same wavelength. And, you know, talk about energy. Music's a powerful, emotive tool. So when people will get there in the morning, there was always a music blasting. There's music at breaks.

As I said, there's music in the activities. And it just made it a more lively, fun, and stimulating atmosphere. And you already mentioned that word atmosphere. And I think that's so important because when you're in the right atmosphere, you're more inclined to embrace the learning. And yeah, to your point, like actually applying it and being a practitioner of it is so, so important because you could sit and listen to somebody do it. You could sit and hear the information and try to be a sponge and get the knowledge.

But it's that's just like, that's like mission one like A. It's got to have that. But that's not going to get you to the finish line. How do you actually apply it and put it into practice and be relentless in terms of your practice? that's how you get better at it. That's how it becomes second nature. And that's what you want to get to. In sales, you know, people say, well, I don't like practicing.

Well, if you don't practice and polish and perfect so much, then yeah, you're not going to. If you don't practice enough, I was just having this conversation with somebody earlier. If you don't practice enough, that's where it feels staged. That's where it feels phony and fake. That's where it feels not organic and genuine. But if you practice and you do it enough times, then it becomes like driving a car from point A to point B where you forget your driving. That's because you're on autopilot.

That's your subconscious doing it. And that's where you want to get to in sales where your subconscious is thinking about is determining the words you're going to say. But then you're consciously thinking about maybe the delivery or understanding reading the customer and understanding the personality style or profile that you're talking to. Like those little nuances and the curveballs that get thrown at you, that's where your mind and attention should be not on, am I delivering? it the right way. You should know that because you've done it so many times.

Absolutely. And so one thing that I've always found super fun, and you can probably relate to this as well, was ice breakers, right? Like if you're if you're doing appointment setting, you know, I used to love like pulling up to the house, looking at the flags, looking at certain things in their yards, because that was going to give me ammunition to really break the ice within that first, you know, one to five seconds to set the tone for the rest of the meeting. So I would love for you to share some ice breakers that that you like to use when you're out in the field. Yeah, man. Well, we, we, you're speaking my language, man. We really are so aligned. It's not even funny, man. I can't even believe. When I first found you on LinkedIn, I was like reading about you and just

seeing what you've done. I'm like, man, there's a lot of parallels here between me and you. And I'm excited that we're getting a chance to dive into some of those now. That's the connection. is where it's all at, right? That's, if you don't get a connection, and especially of early connection, you have absolutely caused yourself to not have the advantage of trust. And trust happens when you like someone and when you connect with someone. And so we, I think one of the things we talk about was the four peas. So talk about people. You talk about plants, pets, places, things that you're looking for, right? And so, an example would be, if I'm in a neighborhood where I went to school, for example, I could talk about, like, I went to high school

right up the street. Or if I'm in a neighborhood that I know really well, I can talk about that neighborhood. Now, when I'm walking up to a house that you have the advantage of looking at everything there, do I see they went to a college that I love or maybe even that I hate? Here's a great thing. Oh, I'll forgive you that you're a USC fan, right? I'm a UCLA fan. I grew up in Los Angeles. I love UCLA. All UCLA fans, they hate USC. So that's an instant, you know, fun way to be a a little bit contrarian and say you don't support the Trojans, well, they're going to get a kick out of that because they don't like the Bruins, right? And so thinking of things that will add humor, but will also endear you to the people. So pictures is another P. So as you walk into the house,

you look at pictures. You see they went to Hawaii or you see something that stands out a picture. So I was born in American Samoa. So maybe I can talk about, it's always about drawing a connection. Now, don't make it about you, make it about them. And then, later in how that connects back to you. So the reason I'm married to my wife is because she grew up in the town that my aunt lived in, like up the street. And that conversation was the first conversation we had when I found out she grew up in Arcadia. I go my aunt Barbara lives in Arcadia. It turns out she lives a block and a half from where where my wife grew up. And so had we not had that conversation, I would not be married to my wife. It's as simple as that. My son

wouldn't exist. And that's just like shocking. I get, I get tingles thinking about it. But it's the same thing with the sale. If you don't, if you go in and you're transactional and you just come in with a getters mindset and you got commissioned breath, they will see that immediately. But if you come in and you're just a normal human being that's having a conversation and that wants to find things to relate to and just have a conversation, like just have that conversation. They're going to love that. Now, I will say with one small caveat, it can be very clear when you're fabricating commonalities and it feels forced. So be really thoughtful with your delivery, with what you're talking about and how you're doing it. Because I'm sure many people listening have seen this happen or been on the

other end of this happening where somebody comes in and it's clear as day that they're just, they're just small talk into small talk and it's not real. And what I'll say is, even if it's something you're not curious about, be genuinely curious or interested about them. If you're not, then just don't bring it up. Don't say it. It can't be phony. It's got to be something that is real and that you legitimately have interest in, even if it's interest in them having an interest. That's an interest. Absolutely. Yeah, being authentic is key, right? It's key in sales. It's, to me, it's key in social media. Like, just showing up is who you are because, like you said, people can smell it a mile away and people will find you out real quick.

All right. So you moved up the ranks. You made it to VP of sales and then you got another opportunity because that that company had sold. So was it a very similar, was it a very similar experience where you came in with this new organization and you already had a framework, a system, a training, a way to train people in place. So I'm sure you took the content that you've created and it was simply, was it a plug and play?

going into the next one or did you have to come up with some new content? Yes and no. And the reason to say yes and no is my role at Solar City didn't start as head of training. I was head of internal communications for sales and I was basically tasked with building a leadership development program. That was my first job there. And so those two sort of parallel tasks were monumental, both in importance and in work, And so the first month I was there, I was like, oh man, I made a mistake.

It was just like overwhelming. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. I ended up calling my old CEO and I almost left. I'm so, so glad I didn't, Jordan. I'll tell you, my experience at Solar City was absolutely extraordinary. And the reason it was extraordinary is I stretched and I got uncomfortable and I did things I'd never done before. So the first thing I had to do was build out this Solar City TV.

SCTV we called it and so that was totally new I had to figure out how to I mean I made movies but I didn't done broadcast before so first we found a studio we used a studio then we built our own studio quarter million dollar studio I mean that we did not spare any expense and anyone listening that is familiar with the show they know that it can't it shined through I mean it the show looked like legitimately like a real broadcast level show with again three cameras and You know, I was back in the studio with telling, okay, camera A, okay, go camera B. And like a whole organized show with videos and just you get the point. Along with that, I built this leadership development program.

And that's where I started to take some of the things that I built with the sales training. But it couldn't be plug and play. So now I'm teaching time management. Now I'm teaching how to give coaching conversations, how to fire somebody, how to hire somebody. So it's entirely different thing. So new games had to be created. So I'll give you one example. We did this time management game.

And I did get the general skeleton of this game from a resource, but we made it our own. And so basically time management is all about prioritization. And so we put up this list of tasks. There's a bunch of managers in the room. And we put it up on the projector on the screen. And it says, okay, this is a game of speed. When we show you these things, we want you to do it as fast as possible. So on the list is all this random stuff.

So it's like hop on one leg, run a slant pass and catch a football pass. Do the conga with your fellow managers, like all this random stuff. We play this crazy music. And we say, okay, ready and go. And immediately people start going. They start doing all these things. They're running to do slap pass. They're doing a dance.

They're doing all this random stuff. And there's two judges for each team. Eight minutes, this activity happens. And it feels like just pandemonium the entire time. They come back and we say, okay, what did you get from that? Like, how did you do? Like, we did great.

We got this many points, blah, blah, blah. Well, what they didn't realize is that if they looked closely, we told them this too, but if they looked really closely, each thing had a point value. There were some things on the list, like running the football slant, had zero points. Yet they did it over and over and over again. So had they taken the time to plan in advance, prioritize,

like it might have taken a minute, even two minutes to like figure out like a way to do it. they could have done one activity over and over and over again and they could have got the result. And so that's just an example of something that I did with this leadership development course, which sort of flipped on the head. We talked about the principles, but we also immersed them in the principles by giving them a valuable lesson that they could take away and remember. And so, you know, we had things like that. We had a dancing exercise and all this other fun stuff. But when I did that, that put me on the map with somebody that,

ended up saying very positive things to the head of one of the senior executive, the chief revenue officer of Solar City, who then gave me the chance to lead all of sales training for Solar City. And that's when I started taking, okay, now I got to do this training again. So I took a lot of the pieces that I had built at my previous company and I applied it into Solar City. And so that then led to kind of obviously the next phase, which was Tesla. That's awesome.

And for anyone that's listening that's ever sitting in a training session, you know that most of them aren't that fun, right? And so, like, I pride myself also as a facilitator to think outside the box, to get creative, to make sure that there's plenty of people getting out of their seats and whether it's drawn on the wall, right? Like, different activities because, like, as we know, you know, we don't have that big of an attention span as humans. I think goldfish is actually, their attention spans a little longer than ours. So I think that's, those are some awesome ideas and ways to think outside the box because when you do that, it's a lot more impactful. And the ROI from those experiences is way more impactful than just sitting there and lecturing people all day. You know. 100%.

So, so next comes Tesla. So how did that hold? thing happened, right? Because like you said, it's not an easy place to get a job in. And I know that I can see how it probably happened with the track record that you've set up at Solar City and the advancement and the programs that you built. But what was kind of that lead into having that opportunity come to fruition? Yeah, well, look, you're right. It didn't have to happen the way it did. And I feel very fortunate that it did. Luckily, and perhaps, you know, maybe it's not luck, maybe it's a variety of factors, but I had the opportunity to meet a guy

named Ben Putterman, who was the head of training for Tesla. Prior to the to the acquisition, I met him. We talked, we hit it off. At the time, we didn't know that Solar City would acquire Tesla. I just wanted to build that relationship and meet the head of training. I was the head of training at Solar City. I want to meet the head of training in Tesla because a lot of people may not know, but Elon's cousins were the ones who started Solar City.

And so that's how like, and he was on the board. And so there's, there's that relationship. So there was always some talk about maybe Tesla one day buying Solar City. But I had put a foundation in by meeting Ben and we hit it off and we really liked each other. So flash forward now it's really happening. Now the acquisition is like done. Like it's happening. And I have to work really closely with Ben in terms of defining what a merged training organization looks like.

So I have my team. He has his team. How do we combine those teams? And unfortunately, some people didn't keep their job. I had to be a part of a lot of layoffs, not just because of the acquisition, but just throughout both at Solar City and at Tesla. There were many reduction in force exercises that happened. And I unfortunately had to make the tough decision to decide who stays and who goes. And it was never easy.

And ultimately, you know, Ben, to his credit and to my benefit, he found a position that would meet my skill set, but also meet the needs. need for Tesla. And so that was creating an onboarding organization that would be dedicated and focused to creating the new hire experience for any person starting at Tesla globally. And so my team created what's known as launch. And so the idea behind launch is when you launch your career, it's a lot different than starting your career. And so we wanted to immerse people in a way that would set them off in a very, I would say, good way that set their trajectory to go at the the speed that you need to go when working at Tesla. Tesla moves fast. And if you're not set up for success in a way to execute and to be contributing quickly, you will likely not survive. And so

part of it is we wanted to make sure they understood what an amazing company this was. And so we create very interactive and engaging training events, both virtual for our distributed workforce, but also in person at our Fremont factory and our other factories globally. And so when they came, you know, we'd have things like stations where they could engage and see the car. We would do test drives. We didn't do this, but we tried to get the projection car, which has a projector in it to project the, you know, the imagery for the event. But we'd incorporate music. We'd incorporate videos. We'd incorporate things to get people's adrenaline up and get them up out of their seats. Because as you know, as a trainer, you don't want people sitting and just

listening. And so how do you how do you get them to engage and create ways for them to start to meet people right away? So we do things like bingo where they'd meet people immediately by playing this this game that was like you would have to find people that basically you would learn something about them and then you would get a letter and then you'd basically whoever got bingo first would win. And so just these little things that would allow them to start to build a network at their job because one of the ways that you do launch is by feeling comfortable to ask questions, to feeling comfortable to the people you work with, to start to get to know people, started to build out a mentor program and a whole host of things. And so after building launch,

my, my next role was to do what I had done before, which was in sales training. And so I moved into the leader position for sales training. They actually didn't have someone doing global head of sales training before. They had individual leaders. And so that ultimately was the last job that I had there. And it was the end of my wave because Elon, he's a super smart guy. And ultimately he cares about the bottom line. And what he recognized and realized is that a global leader may or may not be necessary. And so my position was deemed not necessary because there were people in North America, in Europe, in Asia. And like, I knew I added value, but ultimately, and I could have found another role at Tesla, but I ultimately took that as an opportunity

to do my own thing. And I'm so glad that I did. I've had so many wonderful opportunities to take new roles in corporate world, but I don't want to right now. I feel so passionate about helping people on their journey, whether that be through podcasting or through LinkedIn or leadership, giving back to the people who, you know, need it, who really are starting something exciting and want to do something amazing on this planet, if I could play some small role in that, that gives me great gratification because not only has the through line of my life been experiences, but it's also been new beginnings. And so helping people with new beginnings is something that I just feel so privileged to be a part of. I love it, man. And I love the journey,

right. It's been a journey of groundwork. Like you literally laid all of the foundation that you needed to to start your own thing. Because if you think about it, a lot of the work that that you did, you did multiple people's jobs. Right. Like you're doing multiple. When you're a facilitator, like you're the marketing guy. You're the content. You're the instructional designer. You're the coach. And so when you can wear so many of those hats over such a period of time, it actually makes sense that you launch and do your own thing because you know how to do it all. Right? You've got it. It's a good point. It's a good point.

And I think that's something that I both relish and appreciate, but also something that I battle because as an entrepreneur, as you know, doing it all yourself can cause friction points. And so I'm fortunate that I have an editor that helps with my podcast. I have some editors and help with some of my video content. And, you know, I'm building out of team. I love collaborating. So I think it's important to have a blend of being able to wear those hats as you've just talked about, but also recognizing that there's some things that might not be our superpower strength. And if so, let's find somebody that is strong in that area and give them an opportunity to shine

and contribute and help with the overall vision. Absolutely. Yeah, you definitely, you know, have to surround yourself with people that can do things better than you can. You know, right? Or if it, like you said, if it takes energy away from the thing that you're the best at, yeah, you've got to be handing those off as you start to scale. Absolutely. Well, this has been an amazing conversation.

It's been great to learn about your journey of how you have literally blazed your own trail, right? So it's been cool wrapping with you. Where's the best place for people to find your show? If you want to share the name of your show, and then the best places on social for everyone to connect with you. Sure. Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, I love connecting with people. So find me on LinkedIn, Billy Samoa Salibi. I doubt there's many people with the middle name Samoa. And connect with me. I want to meet you. I want to hear about your journey and what you're working on. And if I could help in any small way, I'm happy to do that. My website for the show is insightoutshow.com

and my personal website is Billy Samoa.com. And yeah, like I said, I love meeting new people. and Jordan, super grateful for the opportunity to connect and share our parallel universe that exists and so much that we've worked on, even though we've been in separate states, it sounds like there's so many commonalities. It's uncanny. Absolutely, my friend. It was definitely a pleasure learning about your journey and your story, and I'm sure we'll definitely be in touch. I'm excited to come on your show soon, and we'll definitely be staying connected. Sounds good, brother.

Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to that episode with Billy Samoa Salibi. Man, the guy's got a lot of energy. I know he's going to be doing some big things. His new podcast is out. Make sure you check it out for the love of podcast. And if you have not subscribed to this show yet, make sure you do hit that subscribe button. And also give us a five-star review if you enjoy the content.

And, you know, we really, really appreciate that support. It helps us move up in the rankings. And our goal is to reach an impact as many people as possible. So thank you so much for the support. And we will talk to you on the next episode.