Noob School - Episode 36: How to Start Your Sales Journey in College with Todd Hardaway

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Todd began his sales journey in college out of a reluctance to return home. He went from slinging knives, to selling cars, to traveling across Europe before he even graduated! In addition to a nice chunk of cash, he also learned a whole heck of a lot about sales. Out of college, John hired him at Datastream. Among Todd's best assets is his ability to create an effective routine—something Noobs should look to tackle first in their new sales job. Listen closely, there's a lot of great advice here! Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

Hey, welcome back to Noob School. This is where we're interviewing great salespeople, and we're finding out how they got started and what we can learn from them in our careers. And today I've got a good friend going back a long ways, Mr. Todd Hardaway. Todd, thank you so much for being with us today. Absolutely. Good to be here. Absolutely. I like that word. That's a good one. So we'll start with the normal opening question. Tell us about how you got sales to begin with.

Okay. So I got started pretty early. My freshman year, I went to USC and enjoyed the freedom there, didn't want to come home. Back then in Greenville, there wasn't a whole lot going on for a college student. So I was trying to find a way where I could stay down there. And my parents said, you know, it's fine if you stay, but you got to pay for it. So I actually went through the want ads and responded to an ad for vector marketing. Okay. Now, do you know what that is?

I don't. It sounds familiar, but I don't know what it is. So they didn't tell me. I went in for the, you know, they kind of gave me a presentation and turned out being cutco nice. Okay. Cutco. Are you fair with cutco? I am. We bought Duck Co's before, yeah. So they had a, they had Zig Zigler do their presentation. So they had this amazing sales presentation. But I mean, on video. Well, it was, you know, they had hired him to custom do their presentation. presentation and they had like a manager that went through it. So he created the presentation and then taught the managers how to do it.

Exactly. Boy, I bet that was good. It was great. And I was able, you know, I've got a big family, as you know, and so started out with them and they all felt guilty and bought it from me. So I started out with a bang. But then it was all referral basis. So then I, you know, was able to get referrals and, you know, came out to Greenwald, did that came back to Greenville, did some, but I called on a doctor's wife in Columbia,

and she gave me the handbook for all the physicians in Columbia. So that kept me busy the rest of the summer. Nice. So what year was that in school? That was my freshman year after my freshman year. And you didn't want to come back that summer? Right. Okay.

I just enjoyed my freedom. So you want to go down to the elbow room or those places? Jungle gyms. Jungle gyms. Group therapy. Right, right. And the funny thing is, is one of the referrals was Terry Wall who owned Lexus and Toyota Greenville. And I had his wife on the biggest set.

It was called The Homemaker Plus 8. It was everything. And she said, well, I really like it, but I just need to go get my husband to okay it. I didn't even know he was home. So I was like, that's not good. So he comes down the stairs. His eyes were about this bit. And one of the strategies was, you know, you push the biggest set, the most expensive one.

And if they don't go for it, the next set was about 30% less, but you always sold more of the next set. Right. So that was part of the pitch. But they signed out for it. He bought it. And then he said, next summer, I want you to come sell cars for me at Toyota Lexus. And so I already had a job for the next summer set up. Sweet.

So you did that the next summer? I did. Okay. That's so cool. And just back up for a second. When you say you want to sell the highest end set of knives because you knew they were probably going to back up a little bit. We've actually talked about that some on other noob schools where we want to aim high. You know, we want to aim higher than we think is normal or fair because we probably know it's going to inch back a little bit.

Right. And we say it's the same thing in life. Like you want to aim a little higher than you think would be, you know, normal or good and just push it a little bit because it's, there's going to be some trouble along the way. Well, that's cool. So the next summer, how is that? It was good. Yeah. It was good.

I mean, it was, you know, a lot of my friends were like waiting tables and getting tips. Yeah. And I was selling cars. And you didn't sell, you might have sold two or three a week. But when you sold a car, that was a pretty big hit. So I made a lot more money than all my friends did. Do you get paid when you sell cars? Do you get paid a percent of gross margin?

You do. Okay. All right. It's actually probably a percentage of net margins. So you got you got paid a percentage of the markup. Right. So the markup is 5,000. They also have some other things they take out, the under flush, the tow service or whatever it is.

Right. They leave you a fourth. were 4,000 and then you get paid what 10% or you get it's like 25% it was 25% of the of the real margin will say for the dealer yeah so if you sold um you know like Saturday was the biggest day yeah and um one I sold two three cars on a Saturday and I made 3,000 bucks which back then and you know that would have been 94 yeah I mean that was more that was way more than most of my friends made the whole summer right so um so yeah You're a diamond gym down there at the elbow room.

That's great. So you did that that summer, selling cars. I mean, you've had two hand-to-hand combat situations already in college. What about the next summer? So the next summer I went to Europe. Okay. And that was just something I'd always wanted to do. And, you know, had some money to help go towards that trip through that.

So I went to Europe the next summer and then I graduated the next summer. So that was it. And what was your favorite country? Probably Spain. Spain. Spain. Spanio. Why did you like it so much?

They just, the lifestyle is good there. Yeah. They like to have fun and they're pretty, you know, they like to be outside. And, you know, it just is laid back. And, you know, they were pretty friendly. Food's good. Did you learn that speak Spanish? No.

Yeah. No, I took French and, and, yeah, I got to use it. it a little bit when I went to Paris, but, you know, it's, it's hard when you don't use it every day. I know. I know. I know. It's true.

It's hard for me to pick. Those countries are all so interesting. Oh, yeah. They are. Listen, so I'd forgotten about all your college shenanigans because I, in the Noob School, I tell people, you know, these are going to be some of the best summers of your life, or they could be. Because you can do anything. Right.

You can go to Catmandoo if you want to. You can be a Sherpa. You know, you can do anything you want to do. And you obviously, you did two great things for your sales career and your business career. And one, which I also recommend is people go to Europe or Asia or Latin, anywhere you want to go. Go around the world, you know, check it out. Oh, yeah. Well, why you got the chance.

Yeah, it's fabulous. Yeah, when else you're going to have, you know, three months open on the calendar to go check out the rest of the world? Not very often. Never, right? Never really again until you were tired. higher maybe, you know, I mean, it doesn't kind of have this long stretch of time when you're working. Well, that's cool. So you graduated.

Did you go right to work for a great company or did you? Well, I did. So I graduated four years and it was, yeah, it's hard to graduate in four years. And so one thing, I was in the honors college at USC, so I had to do my senior thesis. So that bled over a little bit into the summer. So I finished it probably in August. And then September I came to Daystream. You came right to Data Stream.

And did I interview you and see on your resume that you'd sold Cut Coen knives and cars? Did I just love that? I don't think I interview with you. Oh, jeez. That's not a good story, though. It would be a better story if I did. I should have told you that. That's all right.

So you interviewed with Mark? I think it was Mark. Redheaded guy. Oh, Sullivan. Yeah. That was an HR guy. You're right. Yeah.

Well, if I would have seen it, I would have said, cut cows, yes, cars, yes, because you're getting some real experience, some real hand-to-hand combat. And I definitely, I recommend people what's in my book. Like, if you want to become a good salesperson, while you're in high school or college, sell something on commission. Right. You know, don't go work for, you know, grandpa's, you know, flower store, you know, and say that's great job that I should be looking at. for your career no that might be an interesting job but in terms of selling you know yeah i mean you got to be in the moment you got to learn what it's all about yeah because you know you're gonna you're gonna mess up a lot but but if you learn from that you'll be fine okay so tell us about

some of the uh some of your successes along the way starting the data stream and some of the other things you've done some of the bigger sales or things you've learned along the the way that might be helpful. You know, I think at data stream, what was, you know, it was kind of like a sink or swim type thing. And we trained a little bit, but it was, I mean, I was going to be in training for, I think, five days in the second day they came and got me out and said, you're on the phone. So, you know, it's just, I think with sales, it's, you just got to get your routine.

You know, once you can get in a routine, then you can get through it. it. And then it's a lot of listening. You know, a lot of times you're listening more than than you're talking. And then just, you know, learning more about who you're talking to. You always want to know more about them than they know about you. Right. And, you know, get the hang of it. Yeah. Yeah. I thought you would say something like that because I remember, I do remember that you had a good routine. And, you know, I think you probably have used that your whole career as you figure out what is it I'm supposed to need to do every day to get the success I want. And let's just check those things off the box.

Right, right. And a lot of people, a lot of challenges that salespeople have is they get too excited about one thing or they get down about something and they kind of forget their daily metrics. And, you know, just figuring out what those things are. How many people am I going to talk to every day? How much learning am I going to do in my space? How many customers am I going to go see a month? You know, whatever they are.

Just kind of have them. Give us an example. Either data stream or now or somewhere in between of like what's your daily checklist looks like. Well, you know, I think, well, there's a lot. But I just think like, well, you know, with data stream, it's kind of like there probably everybody has their own equation, right? So you know that if you make, if you make 30 calls. then you're going to get, you know, maybe eight sales out of those calls. You know, so you got to make sure that that you're doing that every day.

Right. Because, you know, if you do two calls and they go well and you take a break or you do two calls that don't go well, you take a break. Yeah. You know, you're not going to get the same output. Right. So you got to be sure that you're always doing, you know, what it is that makes you successful. Yeah.

Yeah. Consistency. Mm-hmm. insistency tell us about something that you learned about sales that turned out to be different than what you thought it was going to be I think you know one thing I remember because at day stream but was software sales and you know I'm not a very tactical guy but you know I think one thing you told us was like hey you sometimes the more you know about your product is gonna hurt you you know because if you get in the

details and the weeds and you know you may get confused the guy you're talked to is probably getting really confused that's gonna lower the probability of getting that sale right right so you know what I found was is that if you get them excited about you know what it can do and they can feel like they will be more successful if they have that in hand then that's what you that's what you want to go for you're building that that picture with them. Right.

What it can be like for them. That's, that's right. I mean, I don't want to know about, you know, whether the thing has a reverse gear situation on the car. I mean, I don't care. I don't even understand it. But I want to, how do I look in that car? How am I going to feel in that car?

Right. So I'm with you on that. That's awesome. That's awesome. And then Colby. Do you remember what your Colby scores were? I don't. I remember doing it, but I don't know what it was.

But it must have been okay because I think I got the job. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm sure it was okay. I should have, I should have pulled that copy. I've got it somewhere. I've got it somewhere. And I should have pulled it. I just didn't do it. So in your career thus far, tell us about a couple of good decisions you made that made a real difference, not just a 1% improvement, but some change you made along the way that really helped you. I think, you know, so my, I had an interesting career path in that I went from data stream to my family owns a business and my grandfather wanted me to come work with him. So I went from data stream that was really fast paced like every day to the family business, which was very slow. And it's kind of like we're in this box, but we don't want to, we don't want to, we don't want to try this out here because this is what we have done. all these years and so I lost a little bit of that when I went and you know just like the you know the average age of day stream was like 23 or 24 you know and and

I was all sudden with people I was probably 24 hours of people that were like 55 you know and so day stream we're doing office pools for the NCAA tournament we're doing fancy football and there it's like you you didn't even having those conversations so One thing that I did was I always tried to keep my knowledge base up by doing like, you know, I wouldn't call like outside education more like, you know, finding out where my peers were, whether it was conferences or things like that and just building my network. You know, it's funny in life how things circle back, you know, just like you being in my building now.

Yeah, I mean, I would never thought that 20 years ago. But it does, and everything circles back. So if you can make those connections and you can keep the relationships, then, you know, you're going to prosper in the future. And there's a lot of people I've done deals with that I knew them 10 years before we ever did a deal together. But you build that network and you build the familiarity. So when you get in a position where, you know, whether it's a sale or whether it's a real estate deal, whatever it is, you're already. you know, you're already on second or third base. Right.

You know, so it's not like having to start over each time. Yeah. So that's something that I did. And I think it was more because of the situation I was in, but it really benefited me more than I thought it would when I was doing it. Wonderful. So make sure I understand what you're saying. You were at a great company.

I know the company. You're a great company. But it was different, we'll say different age group. Different pace. different pace. And so you went out of your way to keep networking with people in your, your age group, I guess, around Greenville. Yeah, in the southeast. The southeast. Yeah, the whole southeast. And then those people have, you know, somehow ended up, you know, some of them you're doing business with, including me. Yeah.

You know, doing business with different places. And so, I mean, was there any specificity to that networking? Was there like one person a week or one show a year? Yeah, I mean, there was, so there was probably three conferences I did every year. And then I wouldn't say it was as really intentional like weekly, but just getting out there and, you know, keeping it going. Yeah. I've seen some good examples of it, Todd. I've never been real specific about it either. But, you know, of course, I'm trying to help these nobs. You know, some people are just like, take somebody to lunch once a week. It's not in your network.

Just once a week. And that's 52 people, new people a year. That's just plus whatever else you might get into along the way. Yeah. It always comes back. And, you know, for your guys you're talking to, I think it's important for them to realize that, you know, when you get, sometimes when you're in school and you have like a major and you're like, okay, I'm going to be. Yeah. This is what I'm economics.

I'm economics. And then you may get that job and say, I don't know about this. You know, this isn't what I thought it was. And so all of a sudden you're transitioning, which is fine. You know, everybody does it. And but the relationships you make are the ones that you're going to keep relying on, you know, the rest of your career. So keep the relationships. Don't, don't burn bridges.

You know, I know we have some guys that like when they left, they left them a blaze of glory. Yeah. But it always comes back around. So, you know, you can't do that. I agree. I agree. What about something that you wish you to know when you started? I think just the, you know, that it takes a little bit of time to get your routine down and be successful.

I mean, you know, when you come in, you want to be great from the first day. And it doesn't always happen like that. But, you know, it happens. Right. So just. Yeah. And, you know, you just, when you come in, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just a building, it's part of the building blocks.

It is. It is. And again, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm certainly guilty of that myself. I mean, and so you're just so amped up. You want to be number one, you know, and you start looking for shortcuts and some big deal that'll, you know, right. You just got to get in there and just start doing the process and learning. And I have not seen one person who.

who was patiently effective in their job that stuck in the same relative niche, in the same relative geography, who wasn't very successful by the time they were 40 years old. All of them, every single one of them. Now the ones that hopped around a bunch and changed careers and maybe other things, maybe personal life wasn't so clean, it's more difficult. people who just kind of kept it together in one general area for they're they're successful yeah there's only one Elon Musk you know we're all going to be Elon but i mean just successful people who are doing well um yeah there's you know and you're always trying to measure yourself because

there was a lot of talent at data stream i mean there was you know it was when you look back and you think about all those guys that were like 23 to 25 years old i mean there was like 60 of them yeah you know and the majority of them were really talented guys and they're doing great now. And so you're always measuring yourself, which is good in a lot of ways, but some ways it's, you know, it can be destructive in a few ways. But, you know, you want to be good and measure yourself against those guys and do well. But, you know, if you stay the course, you're going to get there. If you're doing the right things. Yeah. And again, I'll follow on and just say that I've been down that path before, you know, the comparison game and the,

better question to ask yourself is, how am I doing? Right? How am I doing? Am I comfortable with where I am? If somebody else has become Elon Musk or Bill Gates or somebody, good for them. That didn't happen for me. But how am I doing? Right.

I want you to be happy with that. And there are certain personality types that just they're geared towards being successful and making, yeah, they're going to make more than everybody else pretty quickly. Yeah. Sometimes in other parts of their lives, they're, yeah, they're not as well-rounded, but it took me a while to learn that. Like, it's almost like a sixth sense and you just got to, you know, you have to accept it and understand it. Well, you're doing good. So, Todd, what's your favorite word?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. I love it. That is a good word. Absolutely. All right. We'll promote yourself a little bit.

Tell us about what you're doing now. And maybe there's maybe someone, maybe you can help each other, some of these folks out here. Yeah. So, you know, where I went, I know one of your questions was did you ever think about getting into other things in sales? So with my family's business, we had an insurance company and a real estate company. And so mainly when I went there, I got on the investment stream. So help of my grandfather with stock portfolio for the insurance company and then getting into managing the real estate company kind of day to day and doing the leasing, which is basically sales. And some property management, that type of thing.

And then that led to development, which is building buildings and leasing them up. So I think for me, yeah, what I've been able to do is just kind of had a well-rounded approach coming from sales, then coming from family office background. And now I basically just, yeah, I work for an investment company, WCM. And so I'm putting real estate deals together. Okay. So we raise money from investors. And we're, you know, real estate's our primary vehicle. So I'm putting the deals together.

We're raising money. And then, you know, they're typically last three to five years. And then we're out. So our investors get a return. We get a return. And it's been great. It's a lot of fun. It's never the same.

And, you know, real estate has been a really good space to be in. There's a lot of things you can do real estate. You can't do in many other avenues. And so it's been great. It's a lot of fun. And, you know, my sales background is valuable. Are you on the side that's figuring out

and putting together an actual real estate deal? We're more on the side of the equity. So like we raise money. So you may say, I've got this great idea. I wanna build an office or a condo building or something. And so typically the person he puts it together may not have the money they need because a lot of times that's a big check.

It can be like $10 million. And so we would be the people that would partner with you and bring the money to the deal. I got you. And so part of my job is, you know, math actually is a pretty big part because you got to underwrite it and make sure it makes sense and kind of have the market knowledge. Yeah. Like, you know, make sure that whatever they're trying to do is accepted in the market, you know. So it's networking, talking to people who do similar things and say, hey, you think this will work. You know, what are the rental rates?

you know and then you just put the package together right this is how much it's going to cost this is how much the you know the net operating income the NOI is going to be and you value that on a cap rate and so you create a value you can understand what the value is right and whether you're going to make money or not so cool because you know we didn't talk about head trash today but some of the head trash i hear from college students about sales is i don't want to be a salesperson you know they think they're going to do it their whole life most of the people Most of the people that they see on the new school, they aren't, you wouldn't classify Todd as a salesperson today.

You are, right? But you wouldn't classify yourself as one. Or some guy like Marty Osborne who's, you know, running a business or, you know, there are people that are still salespeople and it's great, but that's by choice. So, you know, I would say that the sales, the sales background you got in college and those first couple of years working for data stream, that's just another one of your skill sets. Right. You know, you've got the math skill set, the deal skill set, and the bank, you know, the whole thing.

So, well, I mean, in my business, sales is so important because I work with technical people. It's like architects and engineers. And, you know, those two fields aren't associated with super outgoing people. You know, a lot of, a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of introverts in that. But the ones who are the most successful are the ones that can sell themselves because they're still having to sell themselves. They don't just get jobs. They got to be out there and talking to people to figure out, you know, to get those jobs. So it's a necessary tool in your arsenal.

Yeah. Even if you're in a technical background, you still got to be able to get your, get the word out. I know. I know. Everyone's in sales. Mm-hmm. Everyone's in sales. Well, so if any of you want to do like a big, fancy $10 million real estate deal, talk to Todd. It'll help you get it done.

Anyway, thank you so much for being with us today. We really appreciate it. And I'm glad we started together a few years ago. So I'm glad we're getting to reconnect. We're reconnecting here today. Yeah, absolutely. All right. I've enjoyed it.

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