No Broke Months For Salespeople - Why Leadership Looks Different With Every Person You Lead

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

What you’ll learn in this episode: ● Why leadership levels change depending on relationships and trust ● How leaders can operate at different leadership levels with different people ● The role adaptability plays in effective leadership ● Why some successful organizations lose their direction over time ● How ego can quietly sabotage leadership growth ● The importance of understanding people before trying to lead them     👉 Don’t miss out! Sign up here:https://link.cpi-crm.com/widget/form/bJZ4NbRp6ZpSVgGoNb4j?notrack=truehttps://link.cpi-crm.com/widget/form/bJZ4NbRp6ZpSVgGoNb4j?notrack=truehttps://link.cpi-crm.com/widget/form/bJZ4NbRp6ZpSVgGoNb4j?notrack=true Shadow Hour Updates to get the latest updates and reminders for our Shadow Hour sessions. Stay informed, stay ahead! To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan RochonTeach to Sell Preorder: Teach to Sell: Why Top Performers Never Sell – And What They Do Instead

You're listening to No Broke Months for Salespeople podcast. I think, you know, I was having this conversation yesterday. Somebody asked me about leadership. Like, oh, I want to get in leadership. And they said to me, they said, I'm going to go to school and I'm going to learn about. She was talking about she's actually going to take a college course. Okay? And I said, well, what are you going to do that for?

And she said, well, I want to get into leadership. He said, okay, so tell me about this college course. And she said, well, it's about all the same kinds of stuff. It's about, you know, operations. and she just started talking about all these structural things. And I go, well, that's managing things. That's not leading people. And I said, those are two different things, right?

And so then we got into this huge conversation about leadership. And then, no, it's just one amazing topic, right? And so I think before I came on here, I was just thinking to myself. And I think one of the things oftentimes that we miss as a leader, at least when we're a new leader, at least getting into leadership. It's about others and it's no longer about yourself. It's no longer about yourself, right? And I think we have to figure that part out and get past that and ego aside.

It becomes about developing others and helping them get what they want so that you can get what you want. It's all about influence and doing it that way. What if you believe, you know, what if your new audience, an audience member today and what if you have a belief that you're not a leader? What do you have to say to that person? I say they probably are. And even if they're feeling as if they're not, it's a skill and it can be developed, right? So I'd probably ask them some questions. You know, can you think of a time?

And if I dug deep enough, there probably has been a time in their life where they've done it and they didn't know it. So it could have gone all the way back to grade school. I was thinking about that too, right? You could have been to pick the leader to lead like a kickball team and pick all the players, right, then put them in all the places. That's a leader, right? And unknowingly, you got that opportunity to be the leader of this kickball team in grade school, right? So if I question them enough at some point in their life, they've probably had that opportunity.

They just didn't recognize it at that time. And then if they're questioning as far as their skills, it is a skill. skill and it can be developed over time. And you do get better. And quite honestly, it's ongoing. I'm always working on my leadership skills. Gosh, I got room to grow. So, yeah, that's what I would say.

Yeah, I would say that everyone leads another in some manner. And, you know, for example, you may, maybe you direct your spouse or your partner or you, or they guide you, you know, or you may lead a child or a friend or certainly, I hope that you're leading yourself. And by the way, go Rose Hill Rockets. I just want to say that for Matt. because you talked about grade school, and Rose Hill is in Shawnee, Kansas, which is in Matt's neck of the woods. So that was my grade school because Curtis brought that up. And that's a long-winded

way to tie a whole bunch of 40 years of experience together. And you got to lead the kickball team. I got to lead the kickball team. How does leadership extend from your direct interactions? You mean more clarity around that. Well, let me share with you. I'll let me share with you my perception on it and then maybe you can expand on it. So I believe that the nature of influence allows for you to have a ripple effect. So you can impact people who you've never even met through the way that you lead those, you know, who are close to you. So I'll give you an example.

Once upon a time I was a waiter at a high-end steakhouse. And there was a particular client that would come in. I don't know if we would call him a client, I guess customer. And he would come in and he was the, biggest a hole in the planet. Like this guy was a jerk. And I would always volunteer to go and wait on the guys. And one day one of the other waiters was like, damn, why, why do you want to wait on

the guy? He's an okay tipper, but he's just a jerk. I said, because I care for the next guy. And he says, what do you mean you care for the next guy? I said, because he's in this restaurant as a jerk. And he's going to leave this restaurant as a jerk. But I have the opportunity to maybe lead his day. So he's maybe just a little bit less of a jerk when he leaves.

here. So the next poor schmuck before Uber is a taxi cab driver. So the taxi cab driver that he interacts with when he leaves here to go to Capitol Hill, this is in D.C. that he's that less much of a jerk to that person. So that's a way that I had an awareness of that at the time. But we may not realize the ripple effect that we have in our leadership where we're not even intending to do to lead. And that's what I mean by like, what is the extension of leadership? How does that extend from your direct interactions? Because now I'm impacting the cab driver. I'm impacting the cab driver's kids, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think Maddie, I believe it to that, like how we're showing up each and every single day, in every, how do you say, in every interaction that we're actually having. And you gave a perfect example. I love that example. We are having that impact. And I think about it that way. You know, how am I showing up? I heard one thing that I started talking about.

He said something about how, you know, what did he say? How are you that people see that, right? And so, you know, what are your standards? And are you keeping up with your own standards? And I heard you even say, you're going to make it to the gym after we're done today, right? So I get that. And see everything that you view, right? So that impact runs deep.

And again, your example was perfect. It is just like that you described. There it is. Let me ask you another question. I got a wanting dog here. So I'm going to ask you a question. And then you're going to be solo here for about 30 seconds while we hit the door there. What do you do if you have critical feedback for another person?

Oh, I love it. Yeah. And he does leave. Look at that. So, I mean, critical feedback with other people. That's tough commerce. we've all probably had to have it. If you haven't yet, you're probably going to have to have it sometime in your lifetime.

You know, it's something that you have to approach with the perfect balance of care and candor. And, you know, when I always do it, that conversation starts out with care and I end with candor. I mean, we've got to, you know, you've got to uncover that problem and get to the root of it in order to get the solutions. But it's got to start with that care. And conversation is always going to end with some candor. Again, we're talking about leadership and is about other people. And if I care about them, I am going to be candid with them by the time I finish that conversation. Because that's what's going to make them better.

And I know that I would appreciate that. And instead I've had the opportunity to lead, they've all appreciated that. And you made it back. I did. Leslie, can you do my favor? Can you share the slide with the checkmark? And I want to show that to the audience. And then Curtis, I want you to comment on it.

Sure. And it's a slide that starts with a solo person and the impact that you can make as a solo person. And then the struggle, right? The struggle of now I'm putting together people. Yeah. And sometimes that you may take a step back when you do that. But then when you get the right team of people and how the performance increases. So explain maybe in a Curtis Tirey way what I just.

said about this image that's on the thing here. Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about, okay, I'm in the real estate bit, because I've seen it so many times, right? I am individual. I'm having success. And it's time for me to build out a team, right? And so I've seen it time and time again. And I got to coach people that, you know, built teams and what that looks like. And it does get ugly. And it does start out exactly like you've explained. It's an individual. we start gathering a couple of people, bringing them into our world. And quite honestly, you're just some random group. I've seen it time and time again.

And there's a number of reasons for that. We've tired the wrong people. Sometimes we fail to train them. Sometimes we're not holding them accountable to standards. Sometimes we're not holding them accountable at all. And so we've just sort of running them up all over the place. And then finally, and what happens, or at least what I'd seen, is that so don't we just replace people.

We do that for a while, and we just stay this group, and it's this is ongoing random group. And people, people out, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then finally, you know, it had enough and sort of worked on those leadership skills and setting a big vision, which is a, you know, skill of leadership that you need to do. You know, getting good with understanding people and boring into them. and it's influencing that it's about them. Turning from a group into this team.

And that's when, as your chart alludes to, that's when you start seeing the performance go up. I see people that, you know, again, started a team and for one, two, three years until they sort of figured it out. Their numbers were just like this. Like, they didn't grow. They had a whole bunch of people.

They didn't grow anywhere, at least not through numbers. And then again, when they start to develop their leadership skills and implement the things that are required of being a good leader and putting together a team for performance and having high standards, holding people accountable, that's when they become a team. And that's when the performance starts to just go out of this world. So what my belief is is that your success is mutual with those that you lead. And when you engineer a team to succeed at an optimal level, with every member taking on their duties entirely, and you as the leader responsible for making sure that you're casting the vision, we talked about that before, that you're setting the expectations. We talked about that before. That you're helping to guide them for their success. Then at that point, it becomes a higher performance team because you have people that are.

supplementing each other's strengths and weaknesses. What you don't want to do is you don't want to have a bunch of, though I think this would be a damn pretty probable team, but a bunch of people like you all, there's only, there's only, I'm not saying there's not enough room for more than one of you, but what I'm saying is that if it's all you, if it's Curtis and Matt and I, the only three members of the team. We're in trouble. Well, I don't know.

I know I'm not doing it. I mean, that's the same, right? like time out no i mean i mean like like we're all going to be like hey let's let's the vision and then we're going to be looking around and we're going to be like having pizza one day we're like well did anybody actually ever do that thing we were going to do i thought you were doing it did anyways so that's you know so it's about understanding to get the right people in the right places right and then set expectations for your relationships um and remember a complaint reflects an unfilled expectation. I want you guys to write that down. A complaint reflects it. And when you stand for the

greatness of those that you serve and that you leave it to the people's strengths, not their weaknesses, and you know the strengths to hire for your fault, then you can be able to perform at a higher ruckus in my family. She's doing really good in school this year. And she's not necessarily, her superpower is her charisma, is her beautiful personality. And I could tell you, she's going to get so much further in life with that beautiful personality and that charisma and that likability than if she was like, you know, going to Harvard and, you know, all academic, which would be great too. But it's understanding that here's the strengths. So let me pour into those strengths of my daughter or my employee.

I don't like even using the word employee. I'll say my partner. Okay, I only use that word employee just so you guys understood a perspective, but I don't like that word at all. I think that's worse than a curse word, by the way. My partner, all right, and my job as that is the leaders is serving them. Curtis, what is the number one mistake that you've seen leaders make?

Oh, wow. It's a complex question because it depends on what level they're at, right? I'm thinking of a name right now that I will never say out loud, but I want you to read my mind right now. I'm trying. I want you to read my mind right now of a gentleman. And I want you to consider what's the number one mistake that you believe that that gentleman has made?

I bet you I just asked that question in a way that was understood. With me or what you say Matt? Is Matt on here still? No, Matt's not his head. Matt knows what I'm saying. You may or may not. I think you do. I don't.

Matt, you want to answer the question? Where's Matt? I hesitate to answer the question. And yet, so I would say that one of the biggest challenge, that it's like leading through fear, fear-based leadership and just, like driving for results without relationship would be probably one of the biggest things that I've seen leaders fail at. I would answer the question. And the question that I'm thinking of is getting to a place of success and then not recognizing

that you have to then adapt to a new... I'm out now. And I thought he might be going there, but I wasn't sure. That's, yeah, so there's two perfect examples. He's talking about fear and you're talking about being adaptable. Yeah. Yeah. And I might have gone towards being a poor communicator, but, hey, not sure.

Look, three different opinions. Well, and I think they're all valid because I think you both may mention John Maxwell because he, you know, the leadership is like his niche. John Maxwell goes to five different levels of leadership and how the pinnacle of leadership is to teach others, you know, to be leaders, basically. And we had another speaker on earlier today that was talking more about that. And but you may be on level five with the pinnacle relationship, leadership with one person. And number one, which is positional leadership with another person. Because you haven't yet developed the trust.

You haven't yet developed the relationship. You haven't yet learned about what's in the world. And so you could be on different levels of leadership based off of the relationship, based off the size of the organization that you're leading. So I gave you an example of a very, very large, and I was very vague intentionally the way I asked the question of an incredibly large company that I believe lost his way. Okay. And I believe that he lost their way because they had a level of success and then they didn't

have the foresight to make a change to the environment. And I think that that's an example of maybe it's poor leadership, maybe it's just a mistake, maybe it was a situation that couldn't have been changed, I don't know. But the point that I'm making here that I go through in the book, Teach to Sell, is that you're a different leader to different people in different environments and different circumstances. You are. And may I share what I think? I'm just going to say one word.

Ego. I'm on a mission to help one million people to sell without selling by teaching them how to think through Teach to So thank you for being a part of that mission. And to be able to spread the word, I'm going to have a very simple request of you. Give me a five-star review because that's going to help us to be able to reach more salespeople, more entrepreneurs, more business people who are looking for consistent, predictable income so that they can start building their faith in their selves today. So just take a second.

Five-star review. Cost you nothing. Thanks so much. Love you to death.