Noob School - Episode 97: The Exotic Side of Sales with Michael Thacker

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Today on Noob School, we’re joined by Michael Thacker - CEO of FiveMT, a brokerage for those wanting to acquire some of the rarest, and most exotic cars money can buy, from a $6,000,000 LaFerrari Aperta, to the holy grail of classic Japanese sports cars. Join in on the podcast to learn more about his service, and a bit of backstory leading up to how Mike ended up selling what he’s most passionate about. Check out what the Noob School website has to offer: SchoolForNoobs.com I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. All right, welcome back. Welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got my good friend Mike Thacker here. Welcome, Mike. Good afternoon, John Sterler. Good afternoon. Good, good, good.

Mike has been a friend. We counted them up for 23 years. 25. 25, 23, 25. And we started a long time ago when Mike was getting out of school and he was in inside sales, working on my team and we became friends like instantly and we've been friends ever since. We've worked together obviously. I've helped him as he's taught about his different moves in his career, time or two. And all along the way, you know, one of Mike's gifts is he's really good

with cars, buying, selling, fixing up cars. And he's helped me with all the cars that my family's bought or sold for the last 25 years. That's a lot of cars. A lot. There's some great ones. Crashed a few. We've crashed a few. That's true.

That's true. So anyway, Mike, I'm glad you're here. And today we're going to talk just a little bit about your career thus far. But really, the most interesting thing is where you are now, which is you've finally gone out on your own and started your own kind of high-end custom, not custom, but high-end, car buying and selling service. Is that what you call? Brokerage, yeah.

Brokerage. Or brokerage. And what's it called? 5MT. 5MT. Okay, 5 Mike Thacker, because you've got five people in your family with the initials mty. That's correct. That's so cool.

5MT. Now, which car does Miles drive now? Miles has a Lexus. The Lexus. Now, he used to have that cool Jeep. You know, he didn't want the Jeep. That's the one you let me borrow for a while. I did, yeah.

I did. I was using your son's car. You were. And so he's moved on to Alexis now. Yeah, he is. How old is he? 16, got a band now at Daniel High School. Yeah, drummer. He goes to Daniel? He does. He's a drummer? And what kind of music they play? And what kind of an alternative, hipster rock.

on Spotify now. I'll plug him. Bad delivery is the name of their band. Bad delivery. I'm sure he knows about bad company. She heard that? Yeah, of course. Yes. God. That's a good name. I have to check that out. Bad delivery.

Five album EP on Spotify. Or five song. The business I know is doing very well because you've got you're good at it to begin with 25 years ago, but you've spent 25 years kind of doing as a side hustle.

Correct. Building up your contacts, your knowledge, your bankroll, everything to be able to do that business well. And now you're finally like, let's do it. Well, confidence, too. I mean, like, you go from flipping Honda's to Ferraris, it changes the game. Yeah, absolutely. But you've got to pay your dues.

Of course, yeah. I guess one of the great things about a side hustle is you can learn the business without risking the mortgage. Yeah, but the risk a lot of people do. don't do is finally ripping that band-aid off and taking a leap of faith. When I noticed my side bank role was doubling, tripling my salary, I said, maybe I should take... And a rule of thumb, and I've looked this up on a side hustle is...

Two-X. Yeah, 2-X. So when you're bringing in twice as much with your side hustle, then your main job, then you can give it up and not be too worried about it. Correct. That's cool. So let's talk about this. You obviously are in a great place now, but it was 20% of the way.

25 years of patient work to get to the point where you're comfortable doing it and the site else was generating the revenue already. This was not some flyer you took. But to get there, you know, Mike started out and spent a lot of years selling software. You know, pretty sophisticated software to big businesses. And I know you did for us. You did very well. And you worked for several other companies. One of them was based in Asia.

Correct. Not software. That was injection. tooling. Okay. Yeah. That sounds very difficult. It was very difficult. But you got to spend some time in Asia and understand that. And then you took a, you did take a flyer and you switched and went to high-end real estate sales and some resorts down in Mexico. Yes. Toulom? No, it was Plito Carmen. Playa Carmen. That's a Carmen by the sea. Correct. I'm not a speaking. I went on my dueling. River Eremaia was the fancy way they called it.

Riviera, Maya. Okay. But, you know, in that role, in that, everything that you've done so far, you've learned something. In the software business, I mean, what would you say is the big takeaway from your software sales education? A solution selling was the biggest takeaway, I think, just understanding there's more than just the software. It's the problem it's solving. And having that tool that gets them to their end goal. understanding their needs before you just throw a solution in front of their face.

Yeah. I think that's one challenge a lot of people have early in their career is just, I want to sell, sell, sell, sell, so. But take the patients to actually, like, understand their needs, do a needs assessment. And then you'll get a reference out of that account more so than just a, you know, a deal. I think it's a great lesson. Of course, it took me a while to learn it too. Because we all just, you know, we kind of came out of sports and we wanted to win the deal and get them to sign and all that. and you really got to back up and say, what is it that they want to accomplish?

Correct. If they know that you heard them and you understand that, you're about halfway to close. Because most people don't listen. The old classic, based on what I heard. Based on what I heard. Yeah. Based on what you told me. Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a very important lesson. Now, what did you learn working for the company based in Asia? So I'll tell you the biggest thing I learned working in Asia was just because you're a good salesman and you're cocky doesn't mean you can sell. That was a very technical sale. And it took me a long time to understand the mechanics and mold flow of an injection mold tool product. We were doing minimal sales to local companies, but I've always kind of been an elephant hunter.

ended up getting Whirlpool G, Huscavarnas, still who makes chainsawls leaf blowers, once I understood. And then we grew that company 10X, where we started and ended up selling it off. Had an equity piece in that, and it was kind of a game changer. How did you get that equity piece? It was something that I negotiated in my entry to that organization is if I'm going to be part of this, I need a piece of it, basically. Nice.

Yeah. I think that may have been something you taught me a lot. Well, I never had to teach you to ask for what you wanted. You're particularly good at that. But it's, you know, I think it's everyone's dream that goes into sales. I mean, you're in sales for some degree to make money, right? I mean, that's why we're in sales instead of like traffic cops or something. I mean, we're trying to make money.

But to try to get a piece of the pie. Of course. And once you get a piece of the pie, you want a bigger piece. pretty soon you're going to be able to have the whole pie. That's kind of where you are now. Yeah. So from there, you went to, did we talk about Mexico? Like, what did you learn in Mexico?

Mexico was prior to Asia. But yeah, when I was in Mexico, it was, you know, luxury real estate. Yeah. Like a third home, fourth home kind of thing. Yeah, you know, we were three to $13 million properties. And these are the folks that, you know, it's a, it's a. want more than a need, they just wanted to have it. And it was fortunately before the market, you know,

went in the crapper. So my timing was impeccable getting out when I did. But it was a great run. I enjoyed, I learned a lot. Leap of Faith to take that jump over to the Caribbean for a couple years, but it made moving over to Asia. I was really going back and forth, three weeks, back, two weeks, one week back, four week.

I mean, I was back and forth. I had an apartment there in Shenzhen. But it was easier to make that transition. You know, I'll encourage any young person in their career if they have the opportunity to live overseas. It really makes you not only appreciate what you have here, stateside, but also when you're negotiating deals, understanding culturally how things work.

I mean, so many things are done in Asia, to actually be able to say I was boots on the ground in Asia, negotiating deals, you get a respect factor that you don't get from just, you know, Joe book. Hey, I've read about these deals they do in Asia, but yeah. Yeah, I've, you know, fortunately, I've gotten to work with lots of salespeople. And the ones that have that experience where they're relocated overseas, they're just different. Yeah. They're kind of easier to promote, certainly easier to send to another country.

Yeah. You just kind of feel like they've seen more. And so, you know, we recommend to the Noob School, we recommend that people take a year off before college or at the end of college or whatever and go all the way around the world. You did that with all your kids, right? Yeah, all my kids. And I've done it several times. I mean, you need to see it all. Yeah.

You can't learn that. No, they can't read it. You can't YouTube it. I mean, you've got to see it. Let's do it, Mike. Let's go. Let's do it. You got a computer you can take with it.

You can flip that thing open. Listen, one of the biggest deals I closed was in another country. I can do my job anywhere now, which is kind of nice. What was the biggest car deal you've closed? Recently, $6.2 million. $6.2 million. A La Ferrari of Perta, one of 70 in the world. A law?

What? Ferrari. L-A-F. A La-F-R-A-Furta. La-Fara. And it's one of 70? In the world. What color is it?

Yellow. This one was yellow. Yellow. Yeah. And so how did you get that lead? So I, as you know, I've been kind of known as the got a guy. Yeah, you got a guy? You know a lot of people. And just through years of relationships and knowing people. And for whatever reason, people enjoy talking to me.

And sometimes divulging information of things they have that they may not tell everyone. And I get these weird requests for certain cars, old Ferrari. and new Ferraris. And anyway, this guy was like, hey, I'm looking for this particular Ferrari. And it's a very hard car to find. And they're anticipating in the next five years it'll be worth like $8 million. So to find one is a task in itself, but to know someone who has two is unheard of. So one had 315 miles.

The other one had 187 miles. Oh my gosh. And both yellow. was literally like if we have an opportunity to show the screen I can show you the picture of it was in his dining room like it was a piece of art really the Shanley absolutely wow breathtaking and it was off market and that's another big thing is people want cars that aren't advertised when they're that level of network you know because it's it's almost like the the line outside of the

club but nobody's in there who I mean it's the door of getting something that no one can get and it was one of the quickest deals I ever did and it's interesting like you think about some of the big deals you're bigger ones are easier to close I've worked hard on a Honda Civic than I did on a yeah six million dollar car yeah and negotiated everything with a you know the owner the buyer very clean deal but it just happened recently and it was mind-going so the final sales price was 7.2. No, 6.2. 6.2 million. And can you share with us what the opening offer was? He wanted to pay six, he wanted to ask 6-4. The other guy wanted to pay 5.9 and they agreed.

That's pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty close. Well, congratulations. Yeah. That's a pretty strong deal. Yeah. Wasn't too bad. That's nice. But then oddly enough, I get a question for a $10 million car after that, but have not been able to find that car. So we'll see what you're. shakes out. But don't stop looking. No, I'm not. Stop looking. So I would say for a lot of our listeners, they would like to be successful at sales. They would like to enjoy what they do.

And they'd like to eventually have, you know, their career kind of in their own hands. Because I know you, like just about everyone, there was times when you were frustrated with your management and asking for TPS reports and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Not you work for me. Of course not. I was too lazy to be a hard on it. Right. Yeah, let's do what you want. Life was a lot easier if I just hit my number.

Well, that kind of is a beacon for everyone. Yeah. If you make your number, you're probably going to be okay. You get forgiven. Yeah. Because what does the sales manager want? Talk about what people want. What is the manager want?

I mean, you want to not have to worry about what the person is. Yeah, I mean, you want to do as little work as possible. Right. And have the average of your salespeople be the quota, so you'll hit your number. Yeah. It's a lot easier to manage people that are just doing their job. Yeah. Yeah.

So that means, we're switching subjects now, but that means recruiting for a sales manager is probably your most important job. Yeah. You can do training and coaching and one-on-ones and all that stuff later. But if you got the wrong person, it's just not going to work. Yeah. My last job before I hung it up, I was a leader of the Southeast. and my number one guy was like a mirror image of me at that age, like, you know, just crushed it,

like did not want to be bothered and made it very clear not that he didn't want to be bothered and did not want to be micromanaged at all. But I didn't, you know, I love managing him because he over-delivered every month. Yeah, that's good. So you got your own business now. And, you know, there was times in the past when you didn't like, the process they were making you do in terms of call reports and things like that. Here's a question for you.

What's your process now, now that you're the boss? So I have to keep track of everything. And, you know, that's not always been my strong suit. I have it all here, but now I have to really keep track of it. Like now it went from when it goes from side hustle to main hustle, the game changes. So you have to really keep track of what you're spending, where cars are. I mean, I've got 10 in play right now,

and they're scattered all over the place. And now it's gotten to a point where I'm like, hey, I probably need to get a warehouse. I don't have one car. So you have 10 that you own or control. Yeah. But I have learned this in talking with you in the past. They're not all sitting at your house.

They're like, you buy one in Indianapolis. You might just leave it there. Right. I bought a 57 Corvette the other day in Iowa. 2,000 my car, absolutely stunning. And it's going to Dubai. I've already got it sold. But it'll sit there.

I'm not going to, there's no reason to move it. It's in a climate control warehouse. I acquired it for the guy, and it's going to get on a boat in the next month or so. So when you go to Dubai, do you wear like a... No, full, full gear. You wear the gear? I'm just kidding. You need to.

I have, when I did an African, or not Africa, the desert safari, I wore the whole guy. Just thinking when you're dealing with them over there, the American businessman wear American clothes and... Yeah. I mean, listen, you know. I haven't been over there. I don't know. You got it. Yeah.

I skipped that on my worldwide tour. Do you wear a yarmica? Like when you go? No. Exactly. You just got it. It's a respect thing. So we've already talked about your training in sales.

It's not like your favorite training was solution selling. I love solution selling. Yeah. And Bill Garcia's stuff. I mean, I still use that. The one for 10 is one of my favorites. Yeah. So that what he's talking about is tableforce.com.

The tableforce.com. Bill Garcia, he's got some great. practical training, particularly around negotiations. And Bill will teach you to negotiate, you know, not just like we're negotiating a contract, obviously, but like getting the appointment, getting past the gatekeeper. He and I really clicked from day one. Yeah. Like he liked me, I liked him.

Yeah. You know, stayed in touch over the years. Yeah. I'll never forget. I felt so stupid. I was, you know, I was in charge of the damn thing, and we had Garcia in there to teach all of us. and he gives me the little piece of paper

and says, okay, your job, you got six minutes to sell Francois, this boat, you know, a little thing, whatever. And we got in the end. He was, okay, John, do you sell the boat? And I'm like, no, we ran out of time. And Bill goes, why don't you ask for more time? Right? Yeah.

It was a great message for me. It was, I just felt like, well, that was what he said, so that's, no, you ask. I need more time. Yeah. So, anyway, you wouldn't have fallen for that one. I'd have sold the damn bet You sold the one of course you did

Who else do you follow in sales I know Garcia I know what solution selling is Bosworth's right Yeah Anybody else you follow? Ziegler It's always a good one You know the book we just talked about

With the What's the name of that book Oh Scott Adam Reframed your brains Yeah we talked about this one On another day Yeah exactly A couple days ago

Yeah, but it's a great book for attitude adjustment, I would say. Yeah, people, a lot of these. I mean, the noob school. I love them. Of course, the new school. Yeah. Well, you get to see a lot of your old friends on the podcast, too. Yeah.

I'm a retread. I'm second time here now. I know. I don't think anyone's been three. I don't know. Maybe Pace. Has Pace been three? I don't think so.

He will be. Yeah. He'll be three. Yeah, I think Ziegler's a good one, Mike. I mean, I tell folks, you know, I wouldn't recommend they go read like a whole Ziegler book. I mean, no one really is reading big, big hard books anymore. Most people aren't. But you could just say to Siri.

You can just say Siri. You can just say, Cigler, and there he is. Yeah, that's wild. You know, and you just hear these, they're little snippets, and they just fire you up. Yeah. Who's the best? Yeah. And just, you know, the old check your grip, you know, like just keep getting yourself educated.

little, that's one of the things I've loved staying in touch with you because every, we may talk about nothing, but I come away with something. You know what I mean? I can't remember what it was. Yeah, I don't know. It was something. So I'll give you my Ziegler story. So he was so famous back in the day, you know, he would travel the country selling out arenas. You'd pay like a hundred bucks to go listen to them. So this was the old Memorial Auditorium. Oh, yeah. Jam packed with 5,000 people, me being one of them. And during the talk, he said, I can't wait to get. back to the airport. I got a hustle to the airport, right when this is over.

To get on that airplane and go back and see the redhead, back in Dallas. I can't wait here. So it's over. I go up there, shake his hell and say, Zigg, he goes, yeah, yes, sir. I said, my car is real close to the auditorium. If you'd like, we can just jump in my car. I'll zoom you right out there.

You can get on that. And he's like, I appreciate that, but they already got a town car waiting for me. It's right out there, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Fine. So literally, I'm literally driving this old sob. Now, you didn't sell this to me. This is before my.

Right. I didn't sell you a sob, though. I'm driving this old sob home, and it breaks down. And it is so old that people said, you probably just, it's, there's no need to even fix it. Right. So it was gone. And so I wrote him a letter. And I said, you know, it's funny that that day, whatever, he wrote me a letter back.

No. It just said, funny how things turn out for the best, and thank you so much. anyone. I mean, just, if you do enough of those small, little thoughtful things like he does or did, it adds up to millions of people. Absolutely. That he touched like that. That's a small thing, but.

It meant something. It resonated. Yeah, of course. Yeah, the zig's the man. Now, one thing I got a bone to pick with you on. Okay, go ahead. It's a social media thing of yours. Okay.

I don't understand by someone who's doing this high-end car thing. thing, brokerage, wouldn't be showing off your stuff. Okay, I'll tell you why. You have a theory? I do.

I do. And I see it happen daily on people who are selling this stuff. If you get an opportunity to go on any of the forums or any of the groups of people selling Ferraris, Lamborghini's, Porsches, there are so many haters

who are just going to destroy your car and talk So if you say I'm selling a 57 Corvette for $18,000, I'll say, that's not worth that, that kind of thing? If you can find one for 18 million. You know what I'm saying? I know. I'm just like, people are just such keyboard warriors and they like just, they can't afford the gas in the car, much less the car itself. And they just sit there and talk trash. The people who want to find me will find me.

And, you know, I may change my mindset. I may hire someone to handle my social media, but for now, I. I don't need it. You're doing where's Thacker on Thursday? I do love it. It's taken off. Is that, that's it on Facebook?

It's LinkedIn. LinkedIn. He does have, you know, you can find Mike, I know it's going to be tough, but you can find Mike, Michael J. Thacker,

right, on LinkedIn. Yep. And he's got something called, where in the world is Mike on Thursday? Where's Thacker Thursday? Where's Thacker Thursday? W-T-T. Yeah.

And he's usually somewhere around cars, somewhere interesting. Yeah. I was, I was in Charleston this week and I didn't post, but I had a good time down there with some of my friends. Now, what about these auto auctions? Are they good businesses?

It used to be, but there's so many, like, guys who have kind of jumped on that scene. I have people that I pay to find stuff for me now. Cars and garages, I just found an unbelievable restored Porsche the other day that I'm picking up that you just don't, off-market cars are where it's at.

The stuff that's going through the auction is probably going for a reason because it's got a problem. Just run it through. Yeah. Get what you can. Hell. Okay. So to get in touch with Mike, LinkedIn's a way to do it.

Let's go about a couple more things, Mike. What is your favorite book? You know, of course the Bible. Is it the Bible? No. You know, the Bible's obviously a great book, but the rhinoceros success, the one that I got from you. I love that book.

So it's called rhinoceros success, and it's kind of half cartoon, half whatever. It's all about being a rhino versus being a cow. Correct. And we want to be rhinos. Absolutely. We want to charge. I mean, that book, you can look at some people in life. I mean, Bach being one of them, life changer.

He's got a tattoo of the rhino. Yeah. Well, it's very quick read, easy to read, keep it on your desk, but definitely recommend rhino's success. But one of my favorite pieces of rhinoceros success is, you know, the rhino charges through the jungle, and he expects to get nicked by some thorns. And he don't worry about it. He's like, I've got thick skin and I'm a rhino and I'm going to get nicked, and I'm just going to keep going. instead of like stopping and crying and putting on a band-aid and all that stuff.

So there's a lot of that stuff in there that are good, good messaging. So I'm glad that's good. Favorite band? Oh, man. Tough one. You know, I'm a big Floyd guy, believe it. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Well, I remember when they came here a long time ago. Clemson, 1999. The Zeppelin came over. 94, yeah. Vision Bell. Yeah, it was flying over. I remember.

It was pretty cool. Yeah, I was at that show. I bet you were. Favorite word? Wire. Wire transfer. That's right. Money's coming in.

Yeah, so wire is your word now that you're collecting money from Dubai and places like that. First Citizen says it's real and you're like, hell. Okay. Anything else you want to promote today? You know my Airbnb business as well has kind of taken off. What started as a secondary home has turned into the number one Airbnb in Greenville and then I have a place at the lake as well So the Airbnb downtown downtown the one I've been to that's the number one last five years number one now is that's just by by what? By what measure? Utilization reviews and there's a an award that goes out to Best Airbnb.

Yeah, that's a great spot. It's been in a couple publications. Yeah, I remember you gave me the tour over there. It's very nice. It's very near, like right downtown, kind of in between downtown, the point second. East Washington, yeah. Yeah. Very cool.

All right, well, you can find more about that for Mike at LinkedIn also because you won't have social media. I'm going to be the last guy. The last holdout. Well, Mike, thanks for coming back and sharing that information with us. We appreciate it. I have to come back and give us an update and maybe let me drive that fancy car next time. Okay, for sure.

All right, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. All right. Bye, bye.