Noob School - Episode 45: The Most Adaptable Man in Business with Adam Fineberg

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Just like in nature, the business world favors those that can adapt quickly to ever-changing conditions. In this episode of the Noob School, our host John Sterling talks to Adam Fineberg, the founder of Rock My Resume, Jackson Square Company, and Grow BPO. All in all, Adam has lived in eight different countries, adjusting his management skills and sales chops  to different cultures. When cancer forced him to slow down, Adam returned to the US to settle down and founded his own business, only to be forced to adapt once again by the COVID-19 pandemic. Adam talks about finding your passion, and being flexible enough to adopt new ones if the situation requires you to pivot to another. From being a door-to-door seller in Buffalo to working as a CEO in Sofia, Bulgaria and finally founding his companies, Adam continues to acquire new skills and following where there is demand.  HIGHLIGHTSThe 3 companies that take up Adam's time Door-to-door selling in wintry Buffalo, New YorkJump to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange then Sofia, BulgariaFight with cancer, getting fired, jumping around countries and jobs Return to the US and setting up businessesTips for finding your first sales jobLittle things can change the course of your life  QUOTESWhat Adam learned from his first sales job as a door-to-door salesperson: "Just because you got a no, doesn't mean the next person is going to say no. I think that a lot of people get discouraged very easily. But if you understand how to take no and use that to motivate you to get the next yes is a huge and very important lesson to learn in sales." Adam's number one tip for first-time job hunters: "Find something that you're passionate about. Find something that you believe in the cause because a big part of selling is transferring that certainty to your prospect."Adam on being flexible and adapting to market conditions: "An end goal is always important to have. But also, understanding that in life, there's so many variables that are involved and your passion is one of them, but also just the world market is another." Connect to Adam in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-fineberg/ Connect with Noob School and John by visiting the following links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsterling1/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnsterlingsalesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsterling_/Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_TikTok: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_Website: http://salestrainingfornoobs.com/

We really just help people with their resumes. We help people, you know, find their career. And, you know, we do LinkedIn optimization. We offer different types of career coaching, reverse head hunting. So everything we do at Rock My Resumet is to help people, you know, find their career, which is, you know, really fulfilling work. Welcome back to Noob School. This is where we interview successful business owners. And we dial it back to the beginning and figure out what they did to make their revenue grow.

All right. We're here today at Noob School with AdW. Adam Feinberg, Adam has, among other companies, he's got one that really picked my interest when I heard about it called Rock My Resumet. And he's just up the road in Charlotte. And what they do is just help young people with their resumes and some other things they'll tell you about to get ready for that first job. So welcome aboard, Adam. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, man. Appreciate it. Tell us about Rock My Resum. Yeah. Yeah, so Rock My Resumet, we started this in the beginning of the pandemic, actually, and we really just help people with their resumes. We help people, you know, find their career. And, you know, we do LinkedIn optimization. We offer different types of career coaching, reverse head hunting.

So everything we do at Rock My Resumet is to help people, you know, find their career, which is, you know, really fulfilling work. Perfect, perfect. Well, that weaves right into Noob School. That's exactly the same vision we have as any people we can connect. Knewbs with anything we can provide is exactly what we want to do. So that's awesome. Now, you also have a couple of other businesses, Jackson Square. Yeah.

So Jackson Square Company is my recruiting agency where we work with businesses around the U.S. and just help them find qualified candidates. And then I also have a company called GrowBPO, which is an business process outsourcing company. There we do similar work. We work with our U.S. clients and help them find talent overseas. that can do the same work at a fraction of the cost. Okay.

And what kind of work primarily? So with GrowBPO, we work with different positions, everything from virtual assistant to graphic designers to recruiting, even salespeople. Yeah. But with Jackson Square Company, I specialize in sales and marketing. Okay. And as you know, it's so important to have a good salesperson on your team, you know,

and they drive really the bottom line and they bring in the money for the company. So, you know, my expertise is, you know, understanding and identifying these individuals, attracting them to my clients, and eventually getting them hired. Okay. And what are your primary countries that you're using? For the Grow BPO. Yes. So I've lived in about eight different countries, and two of which are in Eastern Europe. So I primarily work with Eastern European countries.

Okay. I'm considering to expand into Latin America as well to get some Spanish speakers and then also have their schedule align more closely with the U.S. All right. And how important is like the perfectly fluid English? Well, it depends on the type of role, right? So if it's something like logistics where they just need to tell someone where to go, like a trucker, you know, it's not extremely necessary as long as they can read street names and understand numbers and things of that nature. When we're talking about individuals who are more customer-facing or client-facing, some of these industries can be pretty sensitive, you know.

So we really want to make sure that we understand kind of what exactly are the client's needs, and then we fulfill them from there. Okay. And if I was going to use or wanted to use some of your salespeople in Eastern Europe to sell some of my stuff, do you have anything available where it's just commission only, or is there always a setup fee? Usually we want to provide them with some sort of base salary. You know, a lot of people need to, you know, feed their family. So we want to, you know, or we can put them on some sort of stipend in the beginning where, you know, they have some sort of probationary period.

And eventually they work towards a full commission base. But it's not something that I usually do, but I'd be willing to explore that with a client if needed. Just curious. I know several people, even around here, that make a million dollars a year in sales, but none of them have a salary. Right. It's almost like you have to give up, we have to give up the bottom protection to get the... Right.

You know, I think it goes with just high risk, high reward. You know, people who are willing to take big risks, you know, business owners, these are usually the people who end up making the biggest reward, you know. Right, right. Cool. Well, that's pretty cool, man. You're a young guy and you already have three great businesses, and they all seem to be touching kind of the noob school, you know,

sales-related things. We've talked a little bit before. I know a little bit about your back. In the background, eight countries is pretty amazing. Right. But I do want to back up to the beginning and just understand kind of how you got started in business and in sales and kind of hear that story for the benefit of our viewers and hear, you know, what went well, what went wrong, what you would do differently, things they might, like

we were talking to our nieces and nephews like we were talking about. Sure. What would you tell them? Yeah, well, you know, starting all the way back to when I, I was in college. I never wanted to get into sales. Actually, I've always wanted to, I just wanted a direct route to become the CEO, you know.

And then eventually I understood that, you know, when I, getting into sales, I had the ability to determine how much I was making. Instead of going on a fixed salary, that's really what incentivized me to get into sales. So I started working in insurance, actually, doing door-to-door sales. back in 2012.

So I'm 32 now. My first sales job was when I was 22. And I was actually doing sales before that. I just didn't really identify it and categorized it as sales. But my first real sales job was just doing door-to-door sales at combined insurance. And over there, I just knock on doors and regularly get the door slammed on my face. And all sorts of nice words people would say to me, you know, along with that. Where was this?

This was in Buffalo, New York. Holy cow. Yeah. So, you know, wintertime in Buffalo can be pretty rough. And when you're wearing a suit and tie, you know, and you're walking a knee-high snow, you know, with your dress shoes, it can be pretty stressful. But eventually, yeah, I mean, I worked that job. And within a couple months, actually, I was doing training for a lot of the senior people. So I think what they had, what had happened was our market director wasn't available that

day to run the morning meeting and they just kind of threw me in the hot seat. And I think I handled it pretty well. So from there, I felt, I felt real good about, you know, managing people and leading salespeople. So what was the, what was the lesson learned there, though? That's a tough first sales job. Right. What did you learn from that? I mean, I think the most important thing I learned from that was just, you know,

how to develop a thick skin and, you know, understand that just because you got to know doesn't mean the next person is going to say no. And I think that a lot of people get discouraged very easily, you know, and if you understand how to take no and use that to motivate you to get the next yes is a huge, important, very important lesson to learn in sales, yeah. So you have to be ready for the yes when you get to that door. Exactly. Right.

So, you know, you don't want to bring that negative energy from those previous doors that slammed on your face or whatever happened. And you want to just, you know, smile and continue and be once again, like you said, be ready for that next yes. Yeah. Cool. All right. So you did well there. And then what happened? So once I, well, I did well, but I wasn't able.

I didn't do well enough to become like a territory manager or a director. They wanted me to be like a sales manager, which was actually a pay cut, you know, because you were getting commission on your employees instead of, you know, your own commission. So I really wanted to make a lot of money, and I understood that that was not the way to do it. So I eventually actually moved to Israel. I'm Israeli myself. So I moved to Israel when I was 23 or 24. And there I just started, you know, looking for jobs. And I found this one job in what they call the borsa there, which is like the Wall Street of America, we known as trading.

And going there, I thought that I would have to kind of, you know, stand out and really outwork everyone and put in the extra hours. But the fact that I had English and my communication skills were already developed, you know, I stood out from day one as a top performer. So from there, I took a bit of an unorthodox. to the corporate ladder where instead of, you know, kind of waiting around for them to promote me, I moved to other companies who are willing to, you know, hire me as a manager. Then I became a VP. So by- They're still in the Bursa?

Yeah, this is in the Bursa. So the Borset. Let me just summarize for the news so far. Step one, door-to-door insurance in Buffalo. Right. Step two, Wall Street and Israel. Right. Okay.

Keep going. Yeah, yeah. So it was a bit of a jump, right. Yeah, keep going. So then I just was kind of jumping around within different companies at the Bursa. And the Bursa is just so everyone knows, it's right outside of Tel Aviv. So Tel Aviv is one of the major cities there. And there's an area called Ramat Gan.

And over there, that's where they have the Diamond District and the trading district. So I was just kind of going from different companies to different company. Eventually, I got a phone call from an individual who was in Eastern Europe. and they had built somewhat of a reputation for myself a couple years in Israel. And they wanted me to come to Sofia, Bulgaria, to work with them. And, you know, it was a great opportunity for me, and I went there for a week. And, you know, the owner of the company showed me a very good time. And, you know, kind of got incentivized me to move out to a third world country almost.

You know, living in America and Israel where these countries are fully developed. And then I moved to Sofia and, you know, my story from there gets more complicated. But, you know, I worked there for about six months and I had over 150 direct reports and about 700 indirect reports. And I was about 25 or 26 at the time. Actually, I was 26 because I was only in that position for less than a year until I actually got cancer in my thyroid. So that happened. that was a bit of a halt to what I was doing. And, and, you know, I tried to kind of just recover. I took a, went back to, came back here to America for the surgery. Actually, originally to take a

vacation, but instead I ended up, you know, having to get this surgery and recovering. So what was a two-week vacation or was supposed to be a two-week vacation, ended up turning into two months of recovery. And then all the while, the owner of the company was aware of this. And I had one, I wanted to surprise my employees. My employees really liked working with me. And, you know, I had presence and things to bring back to them. And, you know, eventually I got back to my office.

And unfortunately, somebody had taken my position as CEO. Naturally, the owner of the company, you know, his mindset was business must continue, you know. and he wasn't sure if I'd be able to be in a suitable position to run the company when I came back. So, you know, I understood his decision. It was, it was a, you know, a tough pill to swallow. But, yeah, I mean, that kind of led me to my next, you know, my next thing. And, you know, and after that, after I lived there for a while and I was doing that, you know, and the cancer happened, I decided to start a recruiting agency to actually help his business.

And my old business part. Okay, okay. So he, so he, he was my boss at the previous company. He brought me to Sophia and then, you know, we went into business together for this recruiting agency. And, you know, it was actually going very well. I was doing a lot of, I was training salespeople and then sending them off to the different call centers, you know, where to work. And, you know, I had, I was in contract for, right. roughly a quarter million dollars, and this was at a point where I never made that type of money before.

And I told my partner, I said, hey, you know, I'm going to be putting in, you know, 70 to 80 hours a week. And unfortunately, you know, we just kind of had a falling out because I was doing a lot of the work. And he had never, you know, put in enough effort, in my opinion to earn, you know, 49 or 50 percent of the profit. So eventually we liquidated that company and I moved on to just have a more simple life of being a sales trainer. And finally, after all these years, I went on a salary, you know, a fixed salary. So that's when I was just training people, you know, on how to how to sell and how to trade in the market. What company was that? That was redline marketing.

Okay. So they were based in Serbia. Okay. And over there, yeah, things were going great. And I was there for about, I don't know, eight to nine months. And then eventually they closed that company. And then I moved around a little bit more around Eastern Europe. And then eventually it led me to moving to China.

I stayed in China for a while recruiting English teachers to the country. And then I also worked in Hong Kong for a while with, you know, someone who was in the forks industry, who was a VP, and I worked for him for a while. So I was kind of bouncing around, but ever since I got cancer, I kind of never really got my footing, and I never got to the position where I was making the same amount of money

where I was making before that happened. And then 2019 came, and I actually came back to America, to simplify my life and get all of my tax returns on one country, you know. And that's when I started Jackson Square Company. So, and then, And from there, I just got right back to what I was known for, which is just selling, you know, and that's where I, you know, closed my, it took me about five to six months because this is an industry that I had no experience doing any recruiting in America at all. I was recruiting overseas.

But, you know, my skills and the, you know, the network that I had built for myself really, you know, helped out. So I closed my first deal and that deal led to the next deal. so on and so forth. Okay. That's interesting. I mean, that's, I mean, you're 32 now, so whatever you've done has led you to the point where you seem very comfortable operating these three companies and probably will do a lot more in your career.

So this, you know, this multi-country, multi, you know, selling different things, prepares you account it for anything. Yeah. I mean, right now I'm trying to get comfortable with delegating tasks to my team, you know. And I think one of the most important traits of an entrepreneur is recruiting, you know, finding the right people to do the right job. I'm not extremely well educated. I don't have a bachelor's degree. I don't have a master's degree.

A big portion of the people who work for me have those. But I'm not the, you know, I own a resume company, for example. in all transparency, I am certified to write resumes, but I'm not the best writer. The people who work for me are fantastic, though. You know, my writers, their team leaders, and of course the chief resume editor, all of which are fantastic writers. And, you know, we have a very thorough process of onboarding and training, which makes them that much better when they're prepared to do the job.

Well, I don't know about you, but I got to spend a good bit of time doing business in different countries, almost all those countries you've mentioned, but all over Europe and Asia and Latin America. And so when I come back to the U.S., I'm just thankful, you know, it just seems so much easier. Right. You know, one language and one set of rules. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, doing business in America is great.

I plan to continue, you know, running all my companies here in the States. And yeah, I think, you know, like yourself, you know, we find ways to kind of live. leverage our network, you know, to build our companies, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So what would you tell, like, again, if your nephew is about to go look for a sales job, what would you tell them about finding that first job? I'd say find something that you're passionate about.

Find something that you believe in the cause because, you know, a big part of selling, and I'm not sure where I've heard this, but a big part of selling, but a big part of selling is transferring that certainty to your prospect. Yeah. You know, whether it's an iPhone, whether it's a, you know, bottle of water, understanding how important that is and how much it can impact someone's life and then transferring that certainty over to your prospect. I agree.

Some of my videos talk about it because I think the same thing. But I was, I went to the Orvis store in Greenville like yesterday. And this guy helped me, Dan, and he looked like he just walked out of a stream. You know, like I'm sure he was a fishing guide. I don't even have to ask. He was a fishing guide on the weekends and he works at Orvis. He knew all about every pant and every shirt I was asking about and what temperature I was going to be in and all that stuff. And he wasn't telling me this because he'd read up on it.

You know, he lived it. Right, right. And I think, I tell people all the time, people, there's these mistakes people make about words like, you know, follow your passion. Like, I'm passionate about this. And no, maybe not. You know, if you want to be the best tennis player in the world, go for it. If you want to be the best drummer, that's a passion, go for it. But just in general, if you just want to go into sales and you want to have a good business career,

what is that area you'd like to play in, right? So if I love, let's say, the outdoors and hunting and fishing, maybe I'm not going to make my living, you know, as a fisherman. Sure. But I might make it selling advertising for a fishing website. Exactly. Or working for Shakespeare reels or I don't know. But you kind of, and they're afraid to enter that area because the head trash they have is,

I can't make a living as a fisherman. Right. And it's not true. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people like to work with things they're familiar with. Yeah. And that ties into what you mentioned with the fishermen. to go into something that is unknown to you, that you're not familiar with, you know,

it's much more difficult than to, you know, just transition from something like, you know, like you said, you know, fishing to doing advertising for fishers or whatever the case is. And just having that basic knowledge. And I think the same thing goes for sales. You know, once you understand the fundamentals of it, you can sell anything, right? Once you get to, you know, I was just saying that example for my business. nephew, you know, because it's like, you know, understanding that up front with the first product that you sell, or the first service even, then moving from there, one of the part, one of the

most important parts of the interview process is understanding if that's something that you want to sell, if that's a product or service that you want to sell. Right. Yeah. I totally agree. I don't know what you see in your business, but I see all the time that people, particularly sales people, they wait until the little last second, and then they panic, and they start looking for a job, right? Have you found a job yet? No, I hadn't found a job. And so sometimes they'll just find a job, and they'll say, well, tell me about it.

I say, well, it pays, you know, 40K base and so-and-so of this, and I get a company car. And so, what are you selling? I'm selling, you know, carpet. Really? That sounds boring to me, right? Unless you really like carpet. And the worst thing that could happen to that person who falls into selling something they don't really like is they could do okay at it. And then they're stuck.

Right. The rest of your life. You just keep getting more and more and promoted and just selling carpet the rest of your life. And, you know, we use something called the trade show test. Do you ever go to trade shows? No, not really. You're too young, aren't you? Yeah, I think so.

They still have them, apparently. I used to go to them all the time. But, you know, let's just say if you were in the music, business, you know, there would be a grand trade show once a year in Chicago with this massive convention center with everyone in the music business would be there, selling their stuff. And if I like music and I'm selling in the music business, that's the trade show I got to. Right. And then I'll be hanging around with the other music people.

Right, right. But if I'm in the rug business, I'm going to the same convention hall the next week with the rug people. Right, right. So what trade show do you want to go to? Is another thing we use when we're talking to the noobs about where they want to go? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'd say probably something career-oriented, right?

Because all of my businesses are relating to careers, right? So, for example, a hidden feature that I have behind my resume company is that all my customers get added to my recruiting database. Right. And then another cool thing about my recruiting agency. see is if I'm speaking to, I did an interview actually on the way here, if I'm speaking to someone and I'm interviewing them and I don't like their resume, hey, I got a 20% coupon for my resume company, right? So, and then of course the same thing with the outsourcing. If I'm, if I'm prospecting and I'm talking to them about getting them talent, I can also talk to them about

hiring talent overseas. So I think at this stage in my career, you know, I'm helping so many people with their career and their job. But there's definitely a difference between a job and a career. Yeah. And that's really where I love to help people find their passion of what type of career they really want to get into. Right, right. Yeah, I think, I'm going to stay on this for just a minute,

but I think about, I know so many people that are doing pretty well in areas where they're just not having very much fun. They're not that interested. but they grind it out every day and they make the number and they do pretty well. Think about somebody in sports, you know, like you're a general manager for the Denver Nuggets. Right. And you grew up playing basketball and you love basketball. That's kind of a dream job.

Yeah. Right? And I think everyone should shoot for their dream job or something, you know, in the ballpark. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of times in life, the course changes, too. That's true. So you would say that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, actually, it's funny, it's funny you mentioned that my uncle is actually the doctor for the big sports team here in America. And I saw him recently, and his partner was saying something similar where he said, you know, the direction that you had, you know, the end goal is not always the same as what the end goal is going to actually be. So, you know, little things that happen in life change the course of your path, you know, and you can see it kind of as a sail of a boat where you adjust that. you know, just a couple degrees and then, you know, a few days later you're in a completely different destination than you would have been had you had not made that adjustment. So, yeah, I mean, I think having, having an end goal is always important to have, but also understanding that in life, a lot of things are, there's so many variables that are involved.

And your passion is one of them, but also just the market, the world market is another, you know. For example, COVID, you know, a lot of, I mean, two years ago, we wouldn't be able to sit next to each other. We'd have to do it, you know, remotely. Yeah. That's actually what led me to create rock my resume. Because when I had my recruiting agency and just Jackson Square company, I was doing recruiting and I had a few, you know, great contracts to work on. But then when March hit 2020, all my clients froze hiring.

Yeah. So essentially the income for the company had froze, and then I had to kind of pivot and say, understand, you know, what can I do to adapt to this new market? And that was resumes because people are still looking for jobs. Right. Just because companies aren't hiring doesn't mean that people aren't looking. Yeah. Right.

Well, I didn't give you a heads up on this one, but I always ask people what their favorite word is. Do you have a favorite word? A favorite word. No, I mean, it's hard to pick a favorite because I'd like to use them all. But I think passion is one of my favorite because that's something that is a soft skill that you can't learn that. You can't learn passion. And I think for salespeople, that is probably one of the most important traits. You can't learn passion.

You can't buy passion. You either have it or you don't. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Passing, that's a great word. Well, Adam, thank you so much for coming down from Charlotte today. We appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm happy for all your success and your three companies so far. But anyway, thanks for being here. We hope to have you back in another time. Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you.