Noob School - Episode 7: Bubba Britton

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

You might know Bubba better as "Mr. Clemson." This guy loves his Tigers! His sales know-how might surpass that of his favorite orange and purple, though. Bubba has had a long journey full of highs and lows, poor timing and happy accidents, and all of that has led him here. He shares helpful advice for Noobs who are just getting started or don't feel they're in the place they belong. Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

All right, today we have one of my all-time favorites, Bubba Britain. Bubba Britain, that's right. And he's here today. I was trying to decide what story to tell about Bubba. And so I'll just tell you how much, how well liked he was and still is by me and all the people that work with him. He comes to me. We're a public company. He works for me.

Trying to make a number, trying to make our quarterly number. And he says, John, he goes, hey, I got this opportunity that I'm going to need to take advantage of. And I'm going to have to leave the company to do it. And I'm like, well, how long? He goes, I don't know. He says, it could be a couple of months. You know, could be forever.

I don't know. So, what is it? He goes, I got a chance to be on this show, his TV show called Begbara and Deal, where he's, you know, it's like the bachelor, I guess, kind of thing, except for not the bachelor. Anyway, it hit me like a gut punch at first, and then I started thinking, man, this is really cool what he's going to do.

So we liked him so much and wanted him on the team so much. We said, you can leave, no problem. And if you want to come back, if Hollywood doesn't work out, you come back whenever you're ready. That's exactly what we did. And I'm delighted we did. And you can probably find Beg Barre deal on the YouTube. There's definitely some pieces of it out there.

You can see some of my highlights, if you want to call them highlights or low lights, but I don't know if I'd call it the, like the Bachelor, but in regards to The Bachelor, I guess it was a reality television show. But very similar to the Amazing Race Meets Sports Center. It was an ESPN, their first foray into it. But it was amazing that, John, that you said, hey, go do it, have fun, get back, hit your number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, of course.

People like you, you know, you want to keep, even if they want to take a little break every now and then. But tell us about the beginning, Bubba, when you got started with us. You know, I know you went to Clemson, but when you started with us, tell us about how that worked your first sales job. John, you know, you asked that question. The first thing I got to thinking about is that we are approaching a quarter of a century of knowing each other. Wow. Both through work, but also through friendship. And it goes back to I graduated from Clemson in May of 1997.

And of course, that's hard to believe because we don't look like we would have known each other, 25. years. But, and at that time, I was in the job market, kind of looking to see what I might do. And a couple of guys, and I think you probably maybe even have talked to someone on your podcast, said, you know, you need to come to Greenville and at least take a look at data stream. And so I did so and had the opportunity to meet you and took a couple tests and did a couple of other things. And the opportunity was presented. And I was thinking about. myself, oh, this will be something I'll do short term before I do something else. Yeah, yeah.

You know, six and a half, almost seven years, I worked both with you and for you. And it was just a great experience. But that moment, again, keep in mind we're trying to reach people that are thinking about their first job or maybe they just got started. But at that moment, when you're thinking, do this and then do something else later, did you know what that something else later was? Well, obviously later on it was not Hollywood. Right.

But graduating, I was a political science made. I thought, you know, I'll get a job that'll, you know, give me an opportunity to get a little bit of experience. But, hey, you know, maybe there's law school. You know, maybe I'll stay out a couple years, take a couple gap years, work, and then go to law school. Or maybe I'm going to, you know, try to do, stay in sales, but I don't know if I want to stay in Greenville. Maybe something big. Yeah. Yeah. And little did I know that I would find something I'd be very happy with. Okay. Okay. So you thought about maybe law school.

maybe another city kind of thing. So kind of a, was it your first job? It was my first job. Okay, okay. Good, good, good. First professional job as a college graduate. Right. And you were with us seven years, and then we had you in inside sales, right?

You did. And you left to go into the pharmaceutical space, as I recall, because it wasn't an outside job. Correct. Yeah, and that was kind of where I was, you know, I had figured early on that I was, would do inside sales for for a couple of years and then I needed to fly the coop and working with you and the rest of the executive leadership team, you know, there were great opportunities working inside sales. And, you know, while I don't necessarily feel like I always matched up perfectly with it,

you know, there was an esprit of core that you guys as leaders brought that made it a lot of fun. But when the opportunity had came about to be able to go into outside sales specifically pharmaceuticals and a lot of folks in my age group were doing that, they were going from their first job into that. It was a pay increase too, right? I mean, generally. Well, how long did you do that? I only did that about four years.

Okay. And then I took on, I stayed in sales. Yeah. I had the opportunity to stay in the pharmaceutical arena, how to come. couple of companies that came to me trying to keep me or to acquire, acquire me. I sound like a major league baseball player. They were trying to acquire me. But I ended up saying, hey, I'm going to give real estate a shot.

John, unfortunately, my timing hasn't always been great. And that was around 2007. And we all know what happened in the real estate market. But at the same time, that was a great experience as well because I learned that, you know, you know, there's that old, that old adage that, you know, two mice fall into the buckets of milk. And one of them tries for a little bit and then he drowns. And the other one, he just keeps churning until he turns the thing into butter and walks out. Yeah.

Yeah, I found out kind of my metal by working in an industry in a bad time and made it through. Good. But thanks to a lot of the lessons I learned early on. Right. Yeah. So if I can just back up, we'll take a little more time. this to normal with you because they think it's so important but you started with I would say in a good situation you were in Greenville you're kind of you know you went

to Clemson so you were kind of in your territory absolutely right you knew people and were comfortable here you didn't move to you know Salt Lake City or something so you were in your territory around good people pretty good company but you were inside sales and you know any of you can take a look at Bubba and say he's not an inside sales person he needs to be out and about meeting people. And so you took the outside job. I think you did better financially and you were outside and had a little more freedom,

which was great. And I'd say you tried real estate and it just didn't work for you, probably timing-based. I mean, it takes a while to build that kind of business up. But you ended up in the best place. Absolutely. Yeah. You can see the tiger paw on his shirt.

I mean, he is a Clemson. man through and through. I mean, he is so Clemson, he was actually the tiger. He was the Clemson Tiger. You know, he was there. So, you know, my point in the book, he's in the book. I don't know what page it is. I forgot.

I'm not sure. It may be around 43. Forty-three, page 43. But he's the perfect example of somebody who, he was in a pretty good place, but it was inside sales. He was in a better place because it was outside sales. And then he ended up. at Clemson where it's the perfect place.

It's where he went to school. He was the Clemson Tiger. It's outside sales. He loves the people. He's dealing with Clemson alumni and donors and givers and athletes. And I mean, right? Absolutely. And John, one of the things I will want to point out because, you know, we do talk about

your book, Sales for Nobs. And, you know, I will say you talked about me being in a good place in Greenville around a lot of folks. I talked to a lot of students these days. Sure. It's one of the things I think that keeps me young is being on a college campus and talking to a lot of them. And one of the questions they ask quite a bit of is because they know I have the hand on the pulse of a lot of alumni and a lot of different industries. And so many of them do have that dream that I had that, hey, I'm going to go move out somewhere. I'm going to do something exotic so that when I come back to campus, people are like, oh, man, you hear what I was doing.

But what I found is that, you know, you kind of have your tribe and your folks. Yeah. You know, and of course, Greenville is a lot different than it was, you know, back then. Right. But whether it be Greenville or whether it be, you know, Rock Hill, South Carolina, or whether it be Pigs Knuckle Arkansas, if you've got, you know, good people around you, you know, that's going to take care of, you know, your personal connections. Right.

But also, if you're in a good organization, and we had a great organization. Sure. And, you know, I'm absolutely giving credit where credits do. You lead in that is you can. you can have that experience that you want. Now, I believe that so much of my success when I did get into outside sales came from, you know, being a part of that inside sales because sometimes it's very, you learn a lot by having a script and knowing, hey, go down, ask these questions.

Right. And then, you know, and then when you're in person and you can't stand there with a script in your hand and you're asking questions, you're thinking all the time, it's like, hang on, I need to find out a little bit more, and you never waste the opportunity to learn more. And that's where relationships are built. I agree. It's so interesting, too, the difference between people, like, say, well, he's inside and he's outside.

I mean, what's the difference, really? I mean, the difference is occasionally you meet people in person if you're outside, but you're still inside. Absolutely. You're doing most of your work, like, over the computer and calling people and texting, right? Absolutely. And, you know, but it goes back to a relationship. building. I go, I love to share that, um, that, uh, I was an inside sales rep, but I met a guy,

um, named Jim Rutherford who worked for chaparral steel out in, uh, in Texas. And we built a great relationship. And we, and although I was an inside sales person, I got to meet Jim. Yeah. And, uh, you know, you, you guys, um, supported us in inside sales. And even if we were inside sales, uh, you would, um, you would encourage or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, you would, holding us to say, hey, if you feel like it's important, we'll let you be a part of an inside outside group. Sure. And, you know, that relationship yielded quite a successful account for a long period of time.

Right. Well, my big point before I move on, just to double say it is, you know, you did well everywhere you were. You did well, and I would say based on your personality, you'd probably be happy anywhere. You know, you did it along the way, but you ended up at the place where I would coach people to say before you get started while you're in college, maybe even while you're in high school, starting to think about what does that look like for me? What is that perfect job? And then and then start to, maybe there's 10 or 15 people that look like that,

starting to try to touch them all, you know, starting to get to know people, right? John, I had, this is so serendipitous that we're here together today. Because yesterday, I was on a Zoom with Coach Davoswings. Nice. And I've heard him say many things that are inspiring, encouraging, things that you jot down and go, hey, I got to remember this. But to what you're saying right now, I think whether it be a newbie and a job that it's just that first job, and they're just, you know, whatever it is.

But he said this and it resonated. And he said, everybody's ready, but not everybody's prepared. And so, and he followed that up by saying, whatever you're doing. be the best at it because you never know who is watching. Yeah, exactly. And that he talked about his head coaching opportunity came because an athletic director was watching him in the way he did things. But further is, hey, hey, we're ready to get the big deal.

Yeah, we're ready for that. Hey, we're ready to get that big commission jet. Yeah, we're ready for that. But are we prepared for those things? And he talked about, you know, he had started when he was 24 years old, putting together a book, a notebook of preparing himself for if a head coaching job became available. So I say this is that in your book talks about it. It gives kind of so much advice on being prepared.

But I'm in my dream job, working for the place that I love more than anything. But what I tell students now and what we're talking about right now is that first job, it may not be the next step to where you want to be. There may be some sideways steps and set and the other. But if you do the best that you can and you're the best at it and you are just a superstar at it, you'll get where you want to be. Yeah. But you need to be always preparing for when that opportunity to come.

I love that. I love that. Wherever you are, be the best at it. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So you mentioned a real estate real quick. I mean, besides that, I mean, that was a thing you tried.

to do that for what, you know, timing reasons didn't work out. Is there anything else you would tell the listeners and the people watching today something that you would not redo as a rising salesperson? What I would redo? Yeah, what you wouldn't do again? Like a mistake. You know, I guess you could even say that maybe going into real estate was kind of a mistake taking me somewhere, but at the same time I wouldn't.

I wouldn't even say that. I will say I'd go back many years. So I'm not going to answer the question you asked. I'm going to answer the question that's very similar to it. But something that I look back upon and didn't even realize John was some of my best sales training, working in a restaurant as a server. And I'll tell you why, as I looked back upon times when I did that, and I would do this back then, I would say, okay,

this is my company. I wasn't Joe's restaurant or the lost, whatever fancy place it was, this is Bubba's restaurant and these are my tables. And my supplier are the guys in the kitchen who are the cooks. And my prospect, my business development is the hostess who's, who's, you know, put sitting people in my section. And so I tell those things to say, if you build great relationships with your business development,

your person providing prospects, whether you build great relationships with those people who are your suppliers, your cooks in that situation. And then, of course, if you just be yourself while you're being a server, you're going to be successful. And I never thought about the fact that I had multiple things going on there as a server.

And if more people would take, that's some of the best sales experience you can have because you're building relationships with a prospect development and suppliers. Yeah, and brand new, brand, brand new customers coming in. You have to get used to. I never did that, but I've always heard it's a great thing. Well, going back to our day, you had both account-based sales, those who come back. Yeah.

And request you. What kind of restaurant was it? It was kind of a middle type, so it wouldn't be like your five-star, but it wouldn't be. So I'm trying to think what would be a good example. be maybe a, I don't want to call out any, any chains, but it would be a step up from, say, a Fridays or something like that, but not quite Ruth Chris. Okay, all right. We talk briefly about head trash.

Do you have any head trash that you believed when you were just starting out that turned out not to be true? Talk to me about head trash. So, like if I say, if, if, if, if my mom says to me when I'm growing up, money, John, you know, it's not polite to talk about money. You know, and so I started to believe that. I'm like, well, I'm not going to talk about money then. Then all of a sudden you're in sales and you won't ask the guy, you know, well, tell me how you're going to pay for this or what's your budget.

Yeah. You know, what do you think it's worth? Those are all things about money that you would be hesitant to say. So that stuff is not true. Do you have anything like that you can think of if you don't? It's no big deal. Well, there's a couple things. I do believe this is, and this is one that I think,

some of the folks that you've already interviewed, some of the people we know are extremely talented folks. So I know that they were told at a young age, hey, you're going to accomplish a lot, you know, this, that, and the other. And I know I heard some of the same things. And so if someone gets in a job and, you know, don't ever feel like there's a job below you because going back to what Coach Sweeney said,

you'd be the best at that job. That's head trash thinking that, you know, I should be in a different job because when you have that mindset, you're not going to be successful in that job you're at because you've got the wrong attitude. But to your point on some of the head trash, you know, I think it's one of those where if not head trash where you hurt it or just you kind of build that culture,

maybe it's a fear factor. But when you hear folks say, it's not ready to talk about the order. It's not ready about this. If you can prove that you can bring value to a client, you can talk about it at any time. And I think about the things that I buy on Amazon or if I go down to the store,

if I feel like that it's got value, then I'm willing to pay a little bit more for that product than for something else. And I hope somebody will tell me why I should. Yeah. So I got that. So the head trash is really not to believe it necessarily when someone gives you the kind of the polite objections

just to focus in on proving the value. And you can overcome that. Absolutely. And I know you had a framework that was named after a high-end automobile. Yeah. And it was basically going through asking for objections. And one of the things that has always resonated, And I know I drive people who are close to me, family, friends, crazy because I still do this.

But if there's something that, you know, I'm trying to make the, talk them, I don't want to use term talking them into because that might sound like we're going to do something that we shouldn't be doing, John. But if I'm trying to, to share my opinion, I often will still say, is there any other reason? Yeah. Is there any other reason? Is there any other reason why we do this? And I learned there is that once you get all of those. objections out that way and you are just don't try to answer any of those objections first yeah get all the objections out right then when you answer those you you've

proven your case it's over and I mean I didn't go to law school but hey hey case closed right yeah and so I always believe if somebody brings up one more objection you know you it's fair game to say hang on hang on I asked there was anything else and you said there was nothing else. Yeah. They normally don't. No. Because they kind of know that they've, this kind of the unwritten contract we have.

Correct. Anything else. But also if they do, then maybe the product wasn't for them. Yeah. They don't see the value anyway. Maybe. Good.

Okay. I think I know the answer to this, but what's your favorite word? Absolutely. Absolutely. I thought so. Now, how many of your guests have used that word? I think it's about half so far.

Okay. About half, yeah. Well, yeah, we get that from you. And for anyone listening to this podcast, for everyone listening to this podcast, use the word absolutely and use it and you overuse it. And I'll tell you this, but use it when you should. And I stand by this. There's nothing more confident, more confidence inspiring than when somebody tells you

absolutely. Yeah. And it is. And when somebody tells me absolutely. Yeah, got it. 100%. We're good. Yeah.

Well, I love that word too. Well, Bobba, any other questions, thoughts? Anything you want to pass on to the nobs before we close out? You know, I think it just keeps going back to John is that, you know, I'm sure they've heard it, but your first job is not your last. You know, bloom where you're planted. You know, the grass is greener where you water it. And so if someone, if something, you're planted, you know, you know, the, the grass is greener where you water it.

And so, if, if, if, if you're, you know, you're, you know, you're Somebody is, you know, they, I think of a couple of people that we, we work with that were young and precocious. And I can tell you, I think of one who invested in what they were doing. And they've been greatly successful since then. And some of those who didn't have not had the same success. So if you, in your first job, and I know in your, in the book, it talks about getting to. And I'm a great example. It took me a long time to get to where I'm happiest.

But build a great relationship. Learn wherever you are. And then, you know, to what I shared earlier, it was like, remember, you never know who may be watching. And then be ready. I mean, be prepared. Don't just be ready. And as the great philosopher, Snoop Dog, says,

if it ain't fun, we don't do it. So have fun. I love that. Well, that's a perfect ending. I really appreciate you being here, Bubba. Hey, thanks for letting me be a part of this. This is spectacular. You got the best attitude to business. Well, absolutely. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

Always good to see you.