Noob School - Episode 11: Marty Osborn

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Marty Osborn is one of John's favorite colleagues—and for good reason! He's got a great attitude, despite having a hard time getting his sales career off the ground. He tells John all about his journey to becoming one of the most well-known salesman in his state. Noobs: you're gonna want to take notes! Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

All right, well, welcome back to Noob School. Today, one of the all-time greats that I've ever worked with and one of the, I would say one of Greenville's most famous entrepreneurs and top-tier Clemson fan, Mr. Marty Osborne. Welcome, Marty. Hey, John, great to be here. Great to be part of the Noob School. Well, you belong here.

You belong here. So, why don't we get started with something easy? Tell us how you kind of got into the world of sales. Yeah, wow, the world of sales. I guess it's probably when you're born. You start selling from day one right out, you know, selling newspapers and working jobs. But probably my first job, I remember coming out of Clemson is I would drive from Clemson to Greenville and I would open up the industrial directory.

And I was calling on industrial accounts for this guy. I really didn't have a product that we just made up a sales line. And every day I would call and say, my name is Marty Osborne. I'm with the Texas Instrument. We're doing demonstrations. Would you like to meet? No, click, hang up. Next call.

Just dial the direct approach. The old direct approach. Just make a line up and go for it. And, you know, you'd make 30 calls. And then all of a sudden somebody would say, well, what do you do? And you're like, I got them. And that was when the excitement started. So that was probably the first.

And then when I started right after that, the guy thought I did pretty well. So he hired me in a job. and I started doing that. And then I remember, like, thinking, gosh, I am really bad. Like, I really suck. And so he put me in Dale Carnegie. And so I took the Dale Carnegie sales class. And I think the number one thing I learned out of Dale Carnegie is I didn't suck.

That was better than most of those people there. So, you know, so anyways, that's, you know, in the early days, right out of school, just hardcore picking up the phone and talking to people. Yeah. Interesting. So you got a sales job right out of Clemson. Right out of Clemson. And then what happened next?

Well, I just, you know, through the years, we just refined the skill, right? Just got a little bit better. And again, John, we'll date ourselves. But back then, I was a junkie for information. And so I would drive around with cassettes. You know, I would get Brian Tracy and Earl Nightingale. And, you know, my all-time favorite hero, Zig Zigler. Like, he was my man, right?

if you help enough people get what they want, you can always get what you want. And, you know, I would just get fired up with these tapes. And then all day long, I'd be banging on the phones and driving my car to go see people. Well, that's two good lessons there. You know, I don't want to let slip by. One is under the category of head trash where you just thought you weren't any good. And I think we all think that. And we all struggle with that.

Everyone, they just think that maybe other people are better. or smarter or faster. And very often, that's just, I've heard this before, Marty. You're not interviewing me, but I'll tell you anyway. I've heard it. That little voice, a nice way to think about it, is like you're rooming with somebody and they're a really bad roommate. Right.

And no matter what, they always say, well, Marty, you can't do that. Marty, whatever, it's a bad roommate talking to you. You just have to say, well, that's the bad roommate talking. I'm going to ignore him. Yep. I love it. I love it. I think sometimes they say they're like bricks, right?

Throughout our life, we've been told we're not good enough, enough fast enough to all on it. And we accumulate these bricks and we get this backpack. And eventually we just got to get rid of them and just say, I am good enough. And mindset, I mean, to me, the biggest lesson I learned today, not only in sales, business, and in life, it's all about mindset, right? If you don't believe you can do something, guess what?

Yeah. You're right. You're right. That's Henry Ford, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a common theme. The second lesson there, the common theme is if these nubes want to get good, if they want to become Marty Osborne or Scott Milwood or some of these people, is that they're all listening to positive, kind of enthusiastic tapes, CDs, audiobooks, you know, things that are going to make them better. I know you're a huge audiobook listener. Yeah, yeah. Just audiobooks, podcasts, you name it, I consume it. I read.

it. I just believe that, you know, for a period of time, you get to borrow somebody's brain. Yeah. And you get to hear their story. And you're like, hmm, I can do that. That's not that big of a deal. And so, yeah, education, learning, you know, number one thing. I think if you're in sales and you're not educating yourself every day, then probably you shouldn't be in sales. You know, to me, I always laugh. It's like a professional athlete who says, you know, well, I'm a professional athlete. I don't need to. train. Right. I need to train as much as anyone else. And I think that's, in sales, I think that's what people have to do. Okay. Well, I agree with you. And let's talk about some of the things that you've done. I know you and I connected around 2000. Right in 2000, yeah. Right in 2000. Yeah. Right 2000. So I'll tell you my version of the story, but Marty was running a smaller company, a smaller version of the company that I was involved with. And he was starting to kick our ass a little bit.

I mean, he was starting to cause us some trouble because of the way he approached things technically and sales-wise. And so we worked out in agreement to kind of join forces versus fighting each other, which is, I think that's a good lesson. It's a great lesson. You know, we could still be fighting. Yes. You know?

But anyway, you joined us there and really helped us kind of get the Internet model right and became our, really our product evangelist. Do you tell us a little bit about that period of time? Yeah, wow. You know, this goes back a ways when things were really changing. You know, we didn't have cool terms like cloud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were like hosting or stuff like that.

And, you know, I was telling some of our nobs at our company, you know, back then, you know, we had dial-up modems, 2,400 bought, and we were excited about that. And we would dream about the day when there was ubiquitous or unlimited internet, right? Can you imagine that? And so we kind of started building out that sort of hosting-based model. And, yeah, I think Datastream at the time was looking to get further into it. So John came a knocking, and I'll never forget our conversation, John, when you were trying to get me to join. And I was back and forth and we were negotiating.

You just said, you did the sales close. Are you coming or not? I was probably just exhausted, Marty. John, I'm coming along. That's nice. Yeah, that was your closing line. Well, we had remarkable time working to get learned a lot from you. And attitude was probably, you know, one of the great ones that you can pass on to these folks.

It's just always positive attitude, always looking at whatever happened as how can this be good for us? Yeah. How can we make this good? Yeah. So. I call it contagious enthusiasm. I mean, that's, and I have a funny story. I was thinking about this.

So I just bought a boat. And I've been looking for a boat. And so February, I went to the boat show. And I was just going to go around and kind of look at what's out there. And I walk in and I look at this one boat and there's a young sales personality starts talking. I've never seen somebody so excited about every little feature. And he literally put me into that boat and what it was like to be there. I could see myself fishing and why that little feature and the gar.

on it and how we could find fish and know our depths. And I just, he was so enthusiastic. And he just, he'd love that boat like it was his. And I'm like, I'm buying. Yeah. I mean, it was just. You want to get in, you want to get some of that. I wanted some of that.

And he knew the product. He knew why it different. I mean, it was, he got me excited. It was a cup holder that you put your rod in. Yeah. Probably every boat has it. Yeah. I don't know.

He seemed like that was the only boat that had it and why it was important. And I could see myself taking my beer out. and stick about fish and pole in there. And so, yeah, I just, that contagious enthusiasm is, I think that's what, you know, people need to really take away. And when you have that, people want some of that. They do. And it's not, again, just for the record, it's not the product they want,

is they want to be involved in that emotion, right? They want to feel like they're a part of it. So I agree. I have a hard time doing it myself. I think I'm more deadpan. Yeah, I don't get as crazy wild, but, but I totally agree with you. And I think there's a little bit of challenger sale in there, too, a piece of it,

which is another great book, that his product knowledge allowed him to say to you, this is how you need to use this boat, right? Because he knew, he wasn't asking the question, do you want, you know, he's like, based on what you told me, this is what you need. Yeah, he didn't go to price. It really is, teach me something new, right?

That's what the challenger says, is he challenged me on things. What do you want to be doing? Where do you want to be going? So he really wanted to understand how I saw myself in the boat, what things. And then he started challenging me and then showing me that things I never even thought about, like, you know, how the live well would work and how, you know, you have, you know, fresh water and raw water. I'm like, I didn't know anything about it. Didn't even think about it.

He made me excited about it. Yeah. So anyway, it's just well, simple examples. Very good. Did you hire him? No, he should be selling boats. What's a good point? Yeah.

He's doing what his passion is about. And so sometimes that's finding that, again, in sales is it's not we can sell anything. I think we have to find what we're passionate about what we love, whether it's technology, whether it's boating or fishing or whatever. When you find that passion, yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. I think, you know, in the book we talk about it a little bit is, you know, head trash. Okay.

Head trash people think, well, I want to be, you know, I love playing baseball. I just love playing baseball. And so I'm going to play baseball. And then one day baseball's over and now I'm going to go be a boat salesman. You know, it's like I can't do this because I wasn't good enough to be a major league player. Right. That's the head trash. And the smart, the Mario Iceborn thing,

would be, what can you do around baseball? Yeah. You know, be an agent. Sell baseballs. Yeah. Bats or something. Bats, mitts, gloves, work for a team. Get into events.

An answer, you know, but where you're going to be going to spring training every year. Yeah. You know? And so you're just around the ball. Yeah. So I totally agree with you. So let me ask you that. Well, let me say for the record, you know, we had a great run from 2000 until how long did you stay with the combined embassy?

Well, data. stream I think was acquired 2006. Yeah. And so I stayed for 18 months more with Infor that made the acquisition. And then I said I had a Jerry McGuire moment. I just, I guess in organizations and in leadership, I think people need to be treated differently better. I think we need to treat our customers better.

And I have this belief about that. And so, you know, I wrote a dissertation like Jerry McGuire, and I literally got up and walked out with my plant, and a few people were going to come with me, and they didn't. And I started a company, you know. And I basically said, I want to build a company I want to work for. And that was 13 years ago. And today, thriving, we've got 120 just enthusiastic young consultants doing asset management

and carrying on the legacy of data stream. Right. Well, I'm delighted. Again, for the noobs out there, Marty started in, you know, let's say the mid-80s, about when I did. And, you know, had a slow start because you were, you know, doing cold calls off a magazine or whatever it was, a directory. And eventually, you know, you did some more interesting things.

And then you got to data stream, and I think you flourished for at least eight years. Yeah. And then you started your own company, which is just killing it. Yeah. You know, 120 people. It's one of the larger employers of tech people in the R10 Greenville. And I just, I mean, I think also I've never seen you so happy. Oh, man, I'm having a blast.

That's great. Really am. And, you know, I think one thing I look back at, and Trude Cathy, you know, from Chick-fil-A, there's a great story where he was sitting around the table and all the people are worried about Burger King and McDonald's. And finally, he just had enough. He pounds his fist on the table and says, look, if we just get better, we'll get bigger. And I think as individuals each and every day, if there's one lesson is just get better.

If each and every one of us, every day we just get a little bit better, we're going to get bigger. We're going to have more success. We're going to do this. And simple concept, but it really sort of galvanizes our mind that what am I doing today to make myself better? And that's why I think today, you know, at 60, I'm probably. the happiest I've ever been. I'm having the most fun. And, you know, when they say you're having fun, you never go to work. Right. Right. I love it. So tell us what you look for when you're

hiring a new salesperson or entry-level salesperson in your company. And this is an interesting question because we're going through this now. And we've made some bad mistakes and we've tried some things and so forth. I don't know if you remember. There used to be a software package, a contact manager before Salesforce called Act. Sure. And they said, sales is a contact sport. And I think when it's all said and done,

sales is a contact sport. And you just, you got to like to talk to people. Because if you don't like to talk to people, no, let's just text them. Yeah. No,

and it's funny. We have a, you probably have them on your show, Jefferson Sturkey, but he calls it Alexander Dam Graham Bell, pick up the phone, you know. And so I have found that people that,

you know, early on, and I think you knew this early on and some of your testing is it's just people who love to talk to people. If you want to pick it up, because that's all we are. What did you say one time? A CEO does what? Puts his pants on one leg at a time or a dress on or a skirt or, you know, we're all human.

We all get up in the morning. We all brush our teeth and we're just human. And so when you think about that, sales sometimes people have that fear of talking and it's just, they're just another person. Right. And another piece of head trash, I know I've had it before, is, you know, we don't want to lose the sale. Like, you don't have a sale. You might have a conversation, and maybe there's a sale, maybe there's not.

But take the pressure off. Take the pressure off. Well, it's funny. I'm like I said, kind of a book junkie and so forth. And there was a book out, Annie Dukes. And I don't know if you know. No. So she's a poker player?

She's a poker player. Yeah. She's one of the best poker players of won bracelets. But she has a book called Thinking and Betts. And whatever big things. is it's not, especially in poker, you cannot control the outcome. In sales, you can't, you know,

you cannot control the outcome. The only thing you really can control is the process, right? And so they say, what is it? It's E plus R equals O, O being outcome, E being an event, R is, are we going to react or respond? And so there are events, are things going to go on.

And so we can't control output. We can't control events. What we can control is how we respond. respond or react. And that's, again, as individuals, we have to kind of think about that. You know, when you go to your doctor, do you want them to, you know, put you on medicine and say, well, John, you're reacting to the medicine or you're responding. Yeah. Yeah. I want to respond. That's sure. I want to respond. So I think that's, you know, again, I think as we're in the sales process and we're thinking about our calls, it's how are we

reacting, right? Because, you know, it's, uh, Babe Ruth, what, they, or Lou Garrett got to the Hall of Fame batting 300. So, right. So just from a process standpoint, I think if I, if I was 20 or Gray's age, you know, the intern, I was Gray's age and someone said, read more. Yeah. Or listen to audio books. I was, hmm, okay. It's kind of a general thing. How would you, how do you slot it into your daily process? When do you actually do the reading or the listening? Yeah. Yeah, so people are going to think I'm crazy when I say this. And it's funny because I have a really good friend who never thought they would do this and now are. But I think it's you get up early, right?

It's that 5 a.m. right? Winners get up at 5 a.m. And, you know, a lot of people say, I just like to sleep. I'm not at my best. You know, we'll get all the excuses. But if you can get up at 5 a.m., do a little bit of reading, do a little bit of writing and a little bit of meditating, it just it's amazing because at 5 a.m. there's nothing going on. And I actually learned morning by I had a paper route when I was a kid.

And I loved the mornings because it's so quiet. Nobody's up, no cars, no phones, nothing. And so to me, I just think to be great if you can get up early, you have that quiet time, not only read but write. And it doesn't matter what you write. It doesn't matter the quality of the writing. But writing helps me. And I've started,

I have a blog called marty's minute.com. And I started that out of really messages to myself, stories to myself, things for me to remember. And it just, it's kind of taken off. And I've been doing it now for three years every week on Monday. It comes out. So you, in your case, you get up early, five, and you do some reading or listening during that five to seven time. Yeah. And then, and then your day, you've got a wonderful family.

and you've got a growing business, and you just can't probably put your finger on when you're going to be reading again. The rest of the day. Yeah. If you can, you can, but maybe a walk or something.

Well, you can walk. That's why I said, you know, we do fitness challenges at work. We do all kinds of stuff. And, you know, you put your pods in and,

you know, go for a 30-minute walk in the morning. And, but yeah, morning is the time. I think it's when you have clarity. You're fresh. And,

again, I think there's a whole funny story. I'm a Seinfeld junkie. So everything in life is a Seinfeld episode. And Jerry Seinfeld did a thing, Night Jerry and Morning Jerry. I don't know if you ever seen that skit. Gosh. Well, Night Jerry, you know, Night Jerry's out partied and everything else.

And basically, Night Jerry is, you know, screwing Morning Jerry. Because Morning Jerry can't get up because Nightjury was having too much fun, right? I want to stay up. I want to watch that game. I want to play that game. So Night Jerry's having all the fun when in actuality he's hurting Morning Jerry. And then Morning Jerry can't. it up so then he can't go to work and he can't money can't make money so then night jerry gets

mad at morning jerry because night jerry has no money to party with it's a funny skit but in reality it's you think about things we're doing at night well i can't get up in the more why because i'm probably playing a video game i'm watching movies i'm netflix binging well is that really advancing your career is that what winners do it's not and so um and like i said i have a good friend and for years he said he couldn't get up. And the last two years, he's the most turned on person I've ever seen. He gets up at five. He writes, he blows my phone up at 5.30.

He gets ideas. Green light, green light. I don't have you seen Matthew McCona. He's book, yes, he says, and he'll go, green light. Well, I'd like to talk about that a little bit more because I completely agree with it. But I'll say this, when I was the 20-year-old noob, and it was hard for me to hear this, right? because I could barely get to work on time. I mean, it was like fighting to drive really fast to get there by, you know, 8 o'clock.

And it was just a mindset. It was just like you get up, you don't want to get up, and then you want to stay. I mean, I get it. But now, I mean, part of the reasons we do this is we're trying to tell people. We're trying to reach through the, you know, the hole and say, listen, if you got up at 4 or 430 or 5 every day from here on out, then you probably have to go to bed sooner. And you have this maybe two and a half or three hours before the normal day starts. It is literally like you're living a second life.

It's a second lifetime. Three hours. You're going to crush it. 15 hours a week. I also believe in the seven-day-a-week approach that every day is the same. I mean, in terms of when I get up, when I go to bed, kind of what I do every day is pretty much the same. What do you think about that? Yeah.

I never thought about it that way. I mean, I think once you build a habit, you almost can't sleep in. I mean, I get mad. Like, I'm like, I'm going to sleep in and 5 a.m. I'm up, like, you know. So I think sometimes it's more that the habit creates that. You know, again, Sunday is a little bit different, I think, days, because obviously different people do different things on Sunday.

And there's a day of rest and a day of peace versus a Saturday. So probably they're a little different for me. But yeah, mornings are, you know. You get up and kind of do your routine. I do my routine. Every day, yeah. I do too. That's good.

What's your favorite word, Marty? Oh, he, probably my favorite word. And I think it's what ultimately we went from our business. We were doing well, but we were doing not where I thought we should. and the word that I think changed me and changed our business was intentional. Being intentional. Okay. And when you think about, again, what we just talked about,

getting up in the morning is an intentional act. Reading is an intentional act. Writing is an intentional act. Studying, making your calls. If you are intentional in what you do, you know, I laugh because people laugh, but, you know, I write notes. Now, I've learned to go into meetings. Every meeting, I script every call.

I think about, I'm intentional in that call. What do I want to have? And people laugh, said, you write all that. And then they'll be like, the meeting went exactly as you wrote it down. I said, well, yeah, because I let it. I was intentional about it. And it's funny how if you have the list, they'd be like, well, Marty, first thing I want to do. You know, and you're like, somehow this call is going your way, right?

And you're like, okay, it's amazing. I totally agree. That is, why don't more people do that? I do it when I almost meet anybody. I'll take a little list with me and say, I'm meeting with so-and-so. I don't get to see them that often. I'm going to make sure I ask them these four things. Well, it's, it probably is my biggest disappointment for a salesperson that just shows up.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. You know, John and I, we show up the meeting. John, we're here and you're like, okay, where's here? Well, we're at X, Y, Z. Well, yeah, I get that, but why are we here? Like, what are we trying to do?

And so I think more and more I watch. it's the old reps, it's every rep, like they go into a call, they don't know the person's sister. I mean, we live at a time. I mean, think about back then, how did we know what John Sterling, like, I had no idea how to find you, right? We didn't have Facebook and LinkedIn and digital footprints all over the place and Zoom info. And so, you know, we can learn so much about people if we just take the time. We get intentional in our calls.

You know, people are amazed. and you'll see them react differently, right? Because when you go in a meeting prepared, they're almost like thank you for being prepared. So, yeah, intentional, I think, is my word, and it definitely is the word that changed my life, I think. Good. Well, I'm thankful that we got together back in 2000.

We're friends now, and I'm really happy your business is going well. Yeah. But, John, it's been a pleasure. And as always, you always make me laugh. and I love your enthusiasm and your spirit. And I'm glad you wrote the book because you have made a big influence in a lot of salespeople's lives in Greenville.

And as I think you write about the data stream mafia. The mafia. Yes, the mafia. You're one of the king pens. Oh, man. I'm just one of the characters. Well, thank you, Marty. John, thanks.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Noob Schoolers. Thanks for being here. See you next week.