Noob School - Episode 34: How to Develop a Bias for Action with Leighton Cubbage

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

No kidding, Leighton Cubbage has a remarkable story. He's had some incredible highs to go with some disappointing lows. And guess what? His entry into the sales world helped him breakthrough. Now, he's a pretty big deal around his neck of the woods. This episode is packed with wisdoms—how to grow a successful business, how to lose it, how to deal with a bad boss, and how to work your way to the top of the world. You've gotta listen to this one! Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

All right, welcome back to Noob School. You've come to a good episode. I've got to tell you, this is the place you come to hear interviews with people who have done great in business that happened to have started out in sales. So we're trying to dial it back and find out how they started, why they started, what they did well, what they wouldn't do the next time. And then also just some general business advice and things they've learned over time. And today, I've kind of sports vernacular kind of has. a home run because I've got one of the most successful people. I would say in the state of South Carolina, Leighton Cubbage, who's been a friend a long time. Leighton was a great football player through high school, on a state championship, and then went on and played for the Clemson Tigers, ran down the hill four years. Four.

And then somehow took that competitive thing, and took it to the world of sales. So, Layton, I know you're a busy man. Thank you for being here today. It's my pleasure. Good. Yeah. So the first question is, coming out of Clemson, was AT&T your first job?

No, no. I came out of Clemson. My last day of football, I went over and I needed a job. So I walked in a pizza place that a guy in a political science class it told me about it. He said, go to Chanel's pizza and you can make like 18% of whatever you deliver. I said, oh, my God, I'm going to be broke, totally broke. So I went over there and I said, listen, I need a job.

And the guy said, can you start right now? I said, yes. And so ended up being a pizza delivery guy as I was still trying to get out of college and ultimately went down to Columbia and started a couple pizza restaurants. No kidding. I didn't know that part of the story. Gosh, I'm going to have to talk to our research department on this. I should have been told this information.

So you got in the pizza business while you were still at Clemson. Yeah. And then opened up a few in Columbia. Yeah, yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. And then how did that go? It was great.

It was like the business, we were the first people in Columbia delivered pizzas, and we were close to the University of South Carolina. Yeah. So it exploded. and it was just absolutely crazy. And so I worked seven days a week. You know, we were open on Sundays, Saturdays, and my first wife took a vacation and said she's not coming back to I got out of it.

So I had some money in the bank and I had bought a little small house and I told everybody I was retired. And then my mother comes driving over from Sunker and while I'm retired sitting in. the house and she goes, what are you doing? You're an idiot. And I said, I'm retired. She said, you don't have enough money retired. You're 20-some years old. I said, okay. She said, I'm getting you a job. And my mother got, went back to Sumter and called a friend of hers. And they made me a manager in a paint store, Southern Codings paint store on Rosewood Drive, which was kind of nuts. into the carpet business because they were selling carpet and I figured out how to sell carpet and work with developers and stuff like that. And the great depression that happened

down there, when the interest rates went like 21% in the 70s. Late 70s? Yeah, yeah. The carpet stopped. So I was totally bankrupt. I lost my car. and everybody was booing me, you know, and I had, in fact, 1981 now I remember. And so my wife at times said, you just need to get a real job and quit doing this carpet business. And so I got a, I saw, she saw an interview with ITT International Telephone, and Telegraph. And I went to the, to the Sheraton and then Greenville and had an interview with a guy.

I've never been in sales. and the guy was, you know, just this guy from corporate New York. He gave me this big long talk. But then he wanted to talk about Clemson football. And, you know, I played about as much as he did in real games. So he liked me. And at the end of the interview, he told me that the guy in the job the last time had made $70,000, $70,000 a year. And $70,000 would be like $7 million.

It was just the biggest thing. Yeah. So I ended up calling the guy at home and, you know, talking more to him. I looked him up, found him, and called him and said, listen, I really need that job, but I'll go crazy. Yeah. And that's kind of where the telecom thing started. Wow. So you went straight entrepreneur bang, bang, two times right after Clemson.

Yeah. And the first one was remarkable. Yeah, it was. The second one got hit by. Yeah, it was. We were one of the biggest seller of Armstrong carpet and floor covering, but at the same time, I did no squat about how to run a business. And, you know, it was all about, you know, getting more orders. And all of a sudden, the world stopped, you know.

And, you know, there was nobody building houses or selling houses. So the carpet business stopped. No car. You know, I had like four or five crews putting it in all day long everywhere. Yeah. And then the crews were coming to me going. We don't have any work. Yeah.

I think there's a lesson, kind of a hidden lesson there for people that are very entrepreneurial like you and I are. And I had the same thing. I had a couple of things that didn't work. Yeah. And I went to a member Clarence Bock night. And I said, hey, you know, I want to do something else. And I want to find another thing. And he's like, you know, you might just want to get a job for a year or two.

Yeah. You know, just get insurance. Yeah. I think people that are kind of natural. want to attack entrepreneurs, sometimes we don't do our homework well enough. We go running it, you know. Let's go get it. Yeah, let's go hit.

Yeah, right. We'll get it if we won't jump on it quick. Yeah, that's right. But there, you know, those lessons are valuable. All right. So, all right. So what age were you when you started with with the telecom? I guess I was around 20, let's see, about 28, something, 27 or 28.

Wow. Yeah, and it was great because the international telephone and telegraph, they had a microwave tower group going where they could complete calls to like 12 cities. So I'd walk in to sell somebody and say, do you call Atlanta? And everybody says, yeah. I said, well, I got something to help you. But they, they, I was trained in, in New York, Manhattan and Park Avenue and all that. And they were, had great training. It was a brand new thing.

Yeah. And so, and I was starving to death, you know. You're hustling. Yeah, yeah. And I'd say for, you know, when we're talking about the, you know, oriented toward the newbies. Yeah. It's no, it's no, you know, it's no shame to be broke, but just don't stay broke. You know, and we would, I was so intense and getting orders and making sure that everything that I was going to compete with to be one of the tops that I would not even, I ate very few.

lunches. I didn't fill out the orders during the day when anybody was there. And I was just kind of psycho about it. And I did well. I did well there. And how many years were you there? About two and a half. So you nailed it, you learned it. Yeah. And then they broke up. Yeah. And I'll tell you this, too. This is, had a boss that was kind of like the guy on the office where you would just, the guy did everything like that, you know, and he was, they were almost, as I went up through the performance and stuff, he wanted to stop me and make me smoother and more sophisticated and whatever. And he was always saying, you can't, you will not make this many sales if you don't, blah, blah,

blah. And he was just kind of corporate pressured, you know, and it was a real, real, really. real deal. He, he, he's not a, it wasn't a good guy. Yeah. So I was, part of what, ran you off? It was, yeah, yeah, a big part of it. And, and the other thing is just learning how to treat people. You know, I remember, you know, the way that I was treated and, you know, I was producing, but, you know, the guy wasn't real happy I was producing that much, you know, how, how do you lead the nation and you're from Spartanburg and Greenville? You know, they, they didn't like that. And so, but I, but I, I was, you know, full-on effort, total effort, just no, no, nothing else about that.

And how was you for the nobs? This is going back a couple of years, but you're out there trying to generate appointments with people that would be buying this service. How would you get in the door? I think, I think the first thing is you've got to have a bias for action. you can't talk yourself out of getting in the door. And more people stop themselves from picking up the phone or going to see somebody by what they're saying to themselves. And so, you know, oh, I've got to go get my car washed.

I got to get this done. I got to, no, you know what? We need to go see some people. Yeah. And quit confusing activity on your desk with being in front of a customer. Yeah. And you've got to, you know, you've got to create. the accurate mindset to be able to go, I'm going over to see them. I'm going to enjoy seeing them.

They're going to love me. What are you saying to yourself? We become what we think about. Yeah. So watch your thoughts, watch who you're around, and get out there. Just go. Just put one step in front of another. Make a list as a basic fundamental. Make a list and go see people. And just go see them. Hey, I don't know if I can help you, but you got a few. You got a few. minutes. Yeah. People appreciate that. Yeah.

You know, if it's raining, go. Yeah. Nobody else is going on when it's raining. Yeah. It's even better time. It's better. It's better. It's going there wet.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's great. Right. Right. You didn't ask for my email.

You know why? I tell you this, there's a whole headwind that it's hard for someone to say no to you in your face. But God, it's bad when they say no. Okay? You've got to get over it. Right. So what people are doing now too much, they're letting technology be the buffer. Right.

So would you like to do this? No. Well, no problem. Let me check Facebook. Boom. You know, whatever. Man, if you want to say no to me, say no to me. I want to take the proposal over to meet with you.

And that's how you get more sales. You don't get them hoping for them. Yeah, I love it. You're not a visitor. You're in sales. I love it. I love it. So a couple years there, crushed it, learned the business in Greenville, Spartanburg.

Yeah. And then AT&T had to break up into Bell. It was International Telephone and Telegraph, ITT. Not ATT. Not 18T? I wasn't 18T. ITT was like a $25 billion company. So who broke up?

AT&T and the Bell operating companies broke up. And that gave us the ability to compete. And so when that happened, obviously you saw it coming. They were talking about it. This might happen. Were you already thinking this is the perfect time to go do something? The next company I went with was called Tellman that was backed by Builder Marts of America. And I got a job being in charge of outside sales.

And so Charlie, Charlie Houser. Started that and split it off. Right, right, right. Okay. Right. And the company went public and it was a wonderful, wonderful. Is that where Brother Dan worked?

It was the next one. He was in the next one. He was in the next one. Yeah. Yeah. He was at CTG corporate telemanagement group. Okay. Superman, a legend.

Well, yeah. He's a rhino. He is a rhino. Yeah. But we were founded by Bill of Marks of America who had the biggest phone bill in South Carolina, or at least one of them. And what happened is they raised the rates on the Watts lines. And our CEO, Richard Ingram wrote the president of AT&T and saying, we're going through a depression here in an economy. And you're our biggest vendor, and you've raised our rates right in the middle of this.

And the guy wrote back some arrogant, snappy, you know, scholastic letter. Yeah. And Richard Ingram goes, you know what? If they treat their biggest customer like that, guess what? We could kick their ass. And you know what? We did. Yes, you did.

And for years later, I always thought about that. Yeah. How you treat your customers? Yeah. You got to love your customers. Every one of them. Yeah. Yeah.

I love it. So just from a new perspective, You know, Layton competed at Clemson Sports. He followed two entrepreneurial journeys, one more successful than the other, but he was going for it. Got, I would say, a real job in a real industry, learned it. And I think you did so well that people like Charlie knew about you. They must have. Here's something embarrassing, but I'll tell it.

I've got a couple buddies here too, and you'll laugh. But I wanted that job because I knew that, you know, I could do better living in South Carolina than ever moving to New York or whatever. And I knew their culture was a bunch of fake stuff, you know, wear the red tie in a white suit. And so when I went in to get the interview with the guy, Bud Stoner, I had a suitcase full of my trophies. So I decided if he was going to, if he was looking like he didn't want to hire me or whatever, you know, I was going to whip that thing out.

So during the interview, I opened up my briefcase. He goes, hey, is where I was number one. And if you knew Bud, you know, Bud goes, oh, my gosh, look at this. So I had the job. I got the job. You have to bring a trophy out. Yeah, I did. I brought them out.

I brought them out. Didn't want to, you know, didn't want to. Well, that's a good point for the nobs is, you know, you can be as enthusiastic as you want to, but Layton was backing it up. You know, you had two and a half years of kicking ass out there, being number one in the nation, had the trophies to prove it. He deserved that job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was, hey, listen, this is not pretty sometimes. You've got to ask for the business. Timit salespeople have skinny children. That's right. I love it. I love it. So, following along for the nobs, now VP of sales for a small, high-growth telecom company that's going to do great.

And that's where you really learned the business and became, you've got equity, got stock options and stuff like that. Yeah, I was director of sales. Director of sales. And then that company got sold tremendously successfully. And then you guys, you and Charlie and some other people. No, it was an interim thing. I had a guy that was wanting me to come up to Nashville.

And at the time, he was going to give me a comp plan that was worth like $100,000 or something. I said, well, if you give me a salary of $100,000, I'll come. said, you won't come otherwise. I said, nope. So he gave me 100,000. And 100,000 was like a million. Yeah. And so I got the salary and I went up there and they had this guy, the chairman of the board was a Harvard MBA. And when he, I sat down with him or he was the CEO of the thing, I sat down with him and he started lecturing me on how to sell long distance. He'd never sold a long distance. And he was like saying the budget. And I said, you know, how much would how much would a good salesman? be able to do, you know, X, he goes, well, we're doubling that. And we're going to hire

20 people and they're going to all do that. And I was like, oh, my gosh. This guy, and this guy had an office that had furniture in it from like museums. And the company was only doing like 20 million. So, so I, I began to realize that I was making a lot on a salary, but that I started coming back to Greenville. And that's kind of when CTG started. Yeah. So you all took the knowledge, success from Tillman. Some of those people started up a new company in the same type of field. That's right. Broughted a bunch of young, aggressive salespeople.

Great people. Some like my brother. Yeah. Yeah. It's, we all said, we're not trying to make great salespeople, but we'll find some. When you find them, you know it. And then you get out of their way and love them. praise them and that's where it happens.

And so by that time, you'd moved up, were you the president at that time? Yeah, you're the president. Yeah, you're the president. So again, this person for the nubs, this person who started out as a salesperson is now president, you know, CEO of a, of a soon-to-be-big company, but still a salesperson. You know what? I've been a CEO and a chairman, and you better be able to sell. Yeah.

You know, I mean, nothing happens if you don't sell. That's right. You know, and whether you're raising money or you're talking to customers or whatever, you know. And, you know, in the old day, selling had sort of a bad name. Yeah. Oh, you're a salesman. You know, like, but now people understand that, you know, people do business with people. Yeah.

It's not companies. Right. And so you've got to go and pull them together. And that's how you persuade and grow your business. Right. I agree. So what would you say some of the best decisions

that you made along the way that had been helpful to your business career? You know, just saying the word Charlie Hauser, Charlie Hauser is the kind of guy that you can trust, that you can believe in, and he will love you if you try.

and he will treat you good. And very similar like Davosweeney, you know. And Charlie, Charlie allowed me to let my God-given natural abilities play. I never had that before. Charlie would just go, go, go, you know, and he would, I'd do all this crazy stuff. Yeah. But he would love that. Right.

And then he just, you know, he built this infrastructure where I felt safe and comfortable. and, you know, I was, you know, we were partners. But he's 10 years older than me and about 10 times smarter than me. And 10 times nicer and finer guy. And, you know, the love he put on me, I could give to anybody. And I could do whatever I wanted to do. Yeah. You know, he went on a boat trip in February one time.

And all of us got together. And we said, well, let's welcome him home when it gets back. Because we've been here working. So we had a big barbecue, and we took white sand. It filled his office with sand. It was a February day, and we all had a Hawaiian clothes on and everything like that. So just crazy stuff, you know. So you're saying great decision, number one decision.

Yeah, that was a great. Finding and attaching yourself to a great business mentor. Get around the right people. Yeah. and you only got one life. Get away from the wrong people. Those wrong thoughts will drive you down. I heard Eddie talking about, you know, not even watching TV because you're hearing the news.

I mean, we, so many people, you know, that's a nice shirt. But if I threw something on it, you'd want to fight me. But I could sit here bitch and moan and be a winy punk and just ruin your head with negative thoughts. And you're like, oh, you shouldn't be doing this. well, you know, you've got to get away from the wrong thoughts. Yeah. But then go toward the right thoughts. Yeah.

You know, and that's big, big part of winning. Yeah. And it sounds simple. And I remember hearing simple things like that when I was a new, but I would hear it, but I didn't really hear it. You know what I mean? I kind of heard it, but I like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Zig Ziglar would say these things, and I would be like, yeah.

But that one is simple once you understand it. Yeah. It is so simple. I mean, when I hang around, people like you, I hang around good, strong, positive people, my life gets better. Yeah. And if I hang around the other ones, you know, not so good. We become what we think about.

Yeah. And so you can't go hang out with the lowest level and just hang around and hear what they're doing and they're all, you know, you got to go, get away. And just stay by yourself if nothing else. Right. You know. Just stay even. Hey, Eddie talked about gratitude.

Yeah. I've got a list on my phone right now. If I have a little bit of a little twinge, a little something that's not right, I can read that list. The list is about 40 things. And I can read that list. And by the time I get thankful for it. Yeah. And it says, thank you, Lord, at the top.

And, you know, it's the health of my kids. All those things, I read that thing. And I'm ready to play. That's smart. Put me in. Yeah. Ready to go. I love it.

I love it. that's part of being able to put positive things in your head like Eddie was talking about versus letting negative things in. Right. That's wonderful. I've got something like that too that I look at every morning like part of my morning checklist is all positive things. Now all the different things, first of all, one crazy question. One time you and I were looking at a business for booking doctor's appointments or something. But I was going to ask you, you were also looking at one that was like flying men. like in the sky out in Portland? Yeah. Whatever happened with that?

My brother-in-law actually built, built this thing, and it was on CNN. And he was needing some help on distribution. So that went pretty well for a while. Yeah. Yeah, my wife has had a company with him making toys. Yeah, and so they sell those things all around the world. The Chinese kind of stole it. Did they?

Yeah. Well, I just, one of the things I love about you, I mean, I love your story, obviously, and your friendship, but you're always looking at something new and willing to try something just like you're willing to try the pizza business or carpet business, you know, right at school. But I know now, I mean, one of the big things you're doing is Lakeside Lodge over at Clemson, right? Yes. Which is really cool. Yeah. Unbelievable. You tell the nobs about it.

Probably a lot of them are Clemson fans. They probably know about it. Well, my partner, Steve Mudge, was also on the Clemson football team. And we've been together over 10 years in developing projects and turning things around. But we got involved with one in Biltmore, the Biltmore Residences. And we bought a bunch of that and took it over. And it performed so well. We dreamed to have a one in Clemson.

And Steve called me one morning and said there's a big spot on the lake. this open. You want to do a Belkmore down here on the lake? And I said, yep. And so it's been really good. After careful review. Yeah, it's right. Yeah. So it's like a lot of analysis. Yeah. But Clemson people go there. I mean, you go for any reason, but game day, they buy the condos, they stay there. It's a condo hotel. Okay. And so you, you know, you can have a unit there and you stay and you just pay for the cleanup. And then when you leave somebody, that night comes in and rinse it for you. And so all these old Clemson guys that are bought these units are, you know,

a lot of them can write checks for whatever they want to do. But I told everybody, I said, I know when these guys start getting the checks in, they're going to not come here and stay. They want the money. Yeah, they want the money. I mean, it's like, I said, those old guys that were broke at Clemson and now, they've done so well and everything. They, you know, one-em bought another unit just so he could let his big unit be renting.

So it's like it's a, but it's a, it's a profitable thing. It's a great investment for certain people. That's wonderful. Yeah. Well, I'm very happy for you. Yeah, thank you. All the Nobs. If you're over at Clemson, check out the Lakeside Lodge.

Last question, Layton. Okay. What's your favorite word? Love. Love. Love it. Yeah. You got, you know, you got to love people.

You got to love people. each other you got to love yourself yeah yes uh you got to love your customers you got to love getting up you got you got to you got to love winning uh you can go on and on yeah you know it's i like to you know probably if i see this myself i'll probably about you know gag but and i want to say like god i was a tough linebacker but you know what the hell with you know what love people yeah if you go out and treat people like you want to be treated they're going to come to you and be with you, you know, help them reach their goals. Yeah.

My old man used to say, you can't out give God. You get in a giving contest, you're going to get beat, you know. Well, that's a beautiful word. And thank you, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. This is a real honor to have you on the podcast. Love what you're doing. Thank you, my friend.

Thank you, sir. Hey, is John here? Thanks for listening today. Please check out noobschool.org. That's my website. That's where we have other videos and content that can help you get started in sales.