Noob School - Episode 99: Sales Talk with John Sterling - A Noob School Talk Show Special

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Today on Noob School things are a bit different than normal: introducing Sales Talk with John Sterling, with sidekick Marty Osborn and special guest Mike Thacker. To open, John and Marty discuss the book Reframe Your Brain by Scott Adams, a powerful piece of literature designed to change your outlook on setbacks, reframing how you see them for the better. Then, we welcome Mike Thacker to the show, diving into his career story and discussing the parallels between reframing your brain, and achieving a successful, enjoyable life. #NoobSchool #SalesTalk Check out what the Noob School website has to offer: https://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, well, welcome back to Noob School. As you can tell, we have a little different setup today. We've got a new show called Sales Talk, and me and my trusty sidekick, Marty Osborne. Hey, John. Hill. Hey, oh, Marty.

Marty's here to help me do some sales talking. And so we're going to pick a subject every week. This week is Attitude, and we'll have a guest out here a little bit later. So we'll have some fun today. So we're really going to try to give you a little deeper dive into one subject. So we'll start with attitude. Now, probably like all of you, I've always heard attitude is very important. Like you've got to have a good attitude.

You've got to have a great attitude if you want to be successful. And I think I believe that as a youngster, but I didn't really understand how to have a great attitude. Right? Some things I had a good attitude about, some things I didn't. For example, sports, I got a lot of positive reinforcement. on sports. I really had a great attitude about sports, but not so much on school, because I would hear things like, school's boring, school's dumb, I can't wait for school to be out, I can't wait to burn my books, can't wait for summer, kind of the common refrains I heard as a kid about school,

you know, that's all you hear, that's what you believe. So, you know, only really when I turned about 25, 26 years old, someone gave me a cassette tape of Zig Zig Ziglar, who, if you don't listen to Zig already is kind of the grandfather of all the great sales motivational speakers. And he convinced me just by listening to him that we need to have a positive attitude about everything we do. Now, the next question is, how do you do that? And that's what Marty now are going to talk about today. There's a book out there called Refram Your Brain by Scott Adams.

And Scott has really given us the playbook for how to reframe things in your brain. mind where you can have a positive attitude about everything. You know, not just your sports, but your schoolwork too. So Marty, I know you have read the book. Give me your thoughts on it so far. Oh, wow. Actually, really, I told John, I said, when we were just chatting about it, could be another one of my top five books.

Wow. Like, you know, what I think the book does is it takes a very sort of simple, concept of refraining or taking a thought and then how to refrain it to think a little bit differently, how to change your attitude. And it's funny because the brain works that way. You know, there used to be the five second rule. I don't know if you've ever seen that where it says when you're trying to get up in the morning and you can't get up, just count down five, four, three, two, one. And it's amazing. Like you just get up. Like you reset your brain. And so the concept, in there, I think were just really amazing and got me, you know, thinking about all kinds of new

things around attitude. Yeah. Well, when we both have read the book and talked about it a little bit, when Marty and I were talking this past weekend, Marty's a big Clemson fan, and I remember, I'm not. I pull for South Carolina, I'll admit it. But Clemson is kind of in the hunt for the national championship every year, at least of late. And a couple years ago, they lost the game early in the season. season to Syracuse?

No, is that you're Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh. And you would think, you know, that's it. Like, you know, here's my wrong thinking would be like, this season's over. You know, we're not good enough. We lost our quarterback. You know, whatever it is that happened, happened, and you kind of shrug your shoulders, like, well, it's over.

And my Clemson friends, Marty included, they said things like, you know what, it's early in the season. You know, we can lose one game and still get to the playoffs. we could win the national championship. We have time to solve the problems we have on defense or whatever it was. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. But isn't that a good example of reframing? Well, it's a great example because I think one of the things that we kind of learned,

I think, early on with Dabo is he loves the word believe, right, believe. And, you know, they talk about every meeting when he took over as a coach, he would have a sign at every meeting that said believe. And one time he was late to a meeting, he was like meeting the administrator and he came running in and he didn't have a sign with him. And the players made him go back to his office, get his sign, and bring it in. Because it was all about believing. And so not only did he have the team believing, but he had us fans believing. And I mean, we never forget the game against Pittsburgh.

We lost. We could have won it last second. Deshawn throws an interception and we're all like, but we're like, that's okay. Yeah. It's okay. We still believe. We still believe. Right, you've got to believe.

And I think that's really what attitude separates winners from losers. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let's talk about some other reframes in the book. I know you have a whole long list of them. One of them, which I love, is the original framing that a lot of people believe is like life is not fair, right? Life is not fair. And then the reframing is where can I find where it's not fair?

fair in my favor, right? Because it is, it is not fair, right? It's not, we're not all equal. You know, people might say, gosh, John, you're too tall, or you're too, you're too, you're too heavy, or you're too old, or your hair's too long, you know, well, they can, they can find something. Yep. Or maybe you're not technical enough.

They could certainly say that about me, you know, you know, but, you know, I found, you know, sales and sales training, you know, works real well for me. I wouldn't do very well in an engineering field. Right. So I think that's the key is to find out where your spot is and also understand some will have more than others, right? So let's hear your thought on that. Yeah, well, it's kind of funny because that word fairness, we kind of live in this world today where everything's about what's fair. You know, are you paying your fair share or whatever?

And what we find is that I think we probably laugh when, you know, something happens as a kid and somebody gets two pieces. of candy and we go, that's not fair. And what does our mom say? Son, life isn't fair. Right? And so, you believe it. You believe it. So I think the refrain is life isn't fair, right?

But the key to success is it's not going to be fair. And I think we have to look at in sales is we have to find what it is that makes us give us an unfair advantage. And I think that's the key, right? Is there something in what we do is going to be different. than our competitors, that's not fair. And I think one of the great stories is when I work with you at Datastream and then we worked for In4 and I went to start my company at Voco. One of the reasons I started is because I knew all the salespeople.

I knew the customers. I knew the developers. And guess what? I had an unfair advantage. Sure. It was like counting cards at the casino. And that's how we built it. And people, some people even said, well, that's not fair.

And I'm like, well, that's sort of life. Yeah, but they could go back and work a data stream 20 years ago. I mean, they could. I agree. I totally agree. You know, what's another example? Well, it was funny this weekend had another really good example of refraining. And I was talking to my niece and she just had a new baby and kept dropping the pacifier.

And she said, yeah, we used to worry about it. But, you know, germs kind of build, you know, immunities. It's, you know, you know, and, you know, I think about that sometimes like germs, like, you know, our frame is germs are bad, and we've seen that. But really, reframing is germs actually help us build immunities, right? And so there's just some simple things like that that in our brain, we want to try to construct a narrative when in actuality, if we just reframe it, it opens up the doors to whatever. Yeah, and you can practice on anything. Like this weekend or yesterday, I think it was yesterday, Marty texts me. We had this whole, got the studio lined up for weeks.

And he says, hey, oh, by the way, I can't make it at the right time. You know, I forgot something, you know. And so immediately, because I was reading the book, I was like, that's not going to be a problem. You know, we're going to figure it out, you know, and one way or another. And sure enough, the studio was able to switch it. My other guest was able to switch it and worked out fine. But even if that wouldn't have worked out, we'd have figured something out. Yeah, I believe that.

And what an example he does in the book, and this is one of my favorite, it's called talent stacking. And sometimes, you know, we're told, like, just be really good at something with passion, right? It's sort of the frame. But the re-frame is, why can't you be at multiple things that when put together makes you even more indispensable? And I think about sales, right? I think sometimes we kind of box ourselves in and we look at it. at handling objections or, you know, cold calling or whatever, like we're looking at when we should sort of talent stack, like, why aren't we learning about negotiation training? Why are we not learning

about how to write a better proposal or read a marketing book, right? Because marketing books, like one of my favorites, story brand helps teach you to think simply. And I mean, you were great at Datastream. You know, we brought Bill Garcia in and we taught everybody sales. negotiations, but people think, oh, negotiations is at the end. I've got to get there, but I think it's so important to talent stack and that refrain is don't just be good at one thing, but what multiple things can we do? Right, absolutely. So you think about, in a typical company, let's say Marty's the boss, and he's got these two people, and they're both good salespeople. They're both making their number, and they're both good people. But one of them also has gotten

very good at public speaking. One of them also, you know, dresses a little nicer, kind of wears the blazer. And also is a, let's just say, plays the piano, you know. And so it comes time for promotion. And there's really no, there's just no doubt which one's going to get the promotion. It's the one with the talent stack. Yeah. Right?

You see that person kind of moving up and doing more things. They're kind of proving they can handle more than just selling. So I'm a big believer. Now, my talent stack is so diverse. I convinced myself it's all going to come together one day. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see about that. Well, I think just you're, I think playing the saxophone and doing the basker stuff.

I mean, I think that sort of proves you can kind of do something different and learn, but it makes you a lot more interesting. And think about it. In the sales world, it's not just about selling and focused, right? We buy from people we like. We buy from people that are interesting. And when you start to add interesting things to your repertoire, I think it makes you really separate to an unfitimate. I think it makes you really separate to an unfair advantage.

I agree. That's the idea. That's the idea. But it is true. I do play the saxophone on the street and I'll do it in any city, you know, any country. And, you know, when you do that, you're comfortable doing it. It makes speaking in public and meeting new people, all that stuff becomes quite easy. So one other concept in the book that I also liked was, you know, just sort of, you know, be yourself, right?

Be yourself. You know, you just have to be authentic, be yourself. But the refrain is, don't necessarily be yourself. Do something awkward. Do something embarrassing. Because the only way we're ever going to grow, right? And I love the concept of, you know, why do we just want to be good when we can be better each and every day? Right.

So to me, challenging ourselves to do awkward things, to do a speaking, to do a podcast. I mean, I'm sure when you first started playing under the bridge, Right? Like it's, you probably like, oh, people are going to see me. And you're like, yeah, great, whatever. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's the way most things are. It's like approaching a stranger or making a cold call or whatever.

You fear this thing and it's not there. Yeah. Right. A couple more I want to talk about. One is the word hate. You know, when someone says, I hate this person, it's a wonderful reframe to say, hate when I hate someone it's me punishing myself for the misdeeds of others so somebody's being a jerk and I punish myself for it it's so silly yeah yeah you know it's funny that one I remember now reading

that because it does jump out at you that why am I now being consumed with somebody else's attitude or actions when quite frankly they have nothing to do with me and I think One of the things that I know I'm guilty of this, and I think we all are, is in that scenario, too, is we want to talk bad about that person or, you know, can you believe this person or so forth? But again, it's taking up all of our energy about us, not about them. So, yeah, it's a great one. Okay. One more, which I loved, which was my past trauma has just crippled me. Right, and people can believe that their whole life.

It just, it ruined me, you know. The reframe is my past trauma is why I can kick ass. Yeah. All right, it gave me that spark I needed. And I've seen that with people before. They really, you know, they had that thing in them that came from some trauma. Yeah. And they didn't, like Michael Jordan didn't make his 10th grade team.

Yeah. You know, and he became kind of good, kind of a beast. Yeah. So anyway, I think those are some good ones. We could talk more with, Mike when he comes out. Yeah. I highly recommend everyone get this book or listen to it.

Refram your brain by Scott Adams. I'll see if I can grab a copy here in a minute, so I'll have it up where you can see it. So after you read this book, Sales for Noops. Or reread it. Or reread it. You can't get enough. We just republish it. You can see we have a new cover.

Yes. So, all right. So we're going to take a quick break. We come back. We're going to have Mike Thacker here. And we're talking about his new business. and also get his take on the book too. So we'll be right back.

Don't forget to pick up your copy of Sales for Nubes. This book will help any young person that wants to go into sales. Hey, you can pick up my CD Jazz at the Falls on Spotify or Amazon. Your choice. Hope you enjoy it. All right. Hey, welcome back. Welcome back.

That was some darn good break music. Thank you, Chris. Well, Marty, now we've got one of our old friends Mike Thacker coming out. I think this is going to be exciting because we go back a long way. We do go back a long way. He was one of those, I think he was in the gifted program in sales because he didn't have to follow all the rules. Like getting to work at a certain time or making a certain number of calls. He would just achieve his quota every day.

Right. But see, you refrained it. You said, you know, you have to be here from eight to five. But the refrain is, why does it make it? matter if somebody's meeting their numbers. It does not. It does not matter. So Mike, come on, come on and join us, Mike. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Hey, good to see you guys. Good to see you. How good to see you? How are you doing? Welcome aboard. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. All right, Mike, you've been on the podcast once before.

Yes, one of the original old studio podcast. It was like first 10 people, I think. Yeah, it was. I think I was one of the first three. All right, so how long do we go back, Mike? We go back to 1998. 1998. Yes, sir. So 98 plus the 20, 22, plus two. Yeah. What's that?

24? 23, 25. 24 years? Never had a fight. Never once. Yeah. Almost. We almost had an incident.

We did. We did. You're out of town. It was a potential. It's 23, so it's 25 years. 25? We roll that back? Yeah.

Roll that back once. 25, 23. Yeah, 25. All right. Well, you started as a sales guy working with me. Mm-hmm. And like I was, we're riffing with Barty, you, uh, you had, we call them Thacker Rules. Yes.

And there were stuff we agreed to. Yeah. I said, as long as you, unspoken. If you make your number, then I'm a hands-off guy. Right. I worked better that way. You did. Right.

And even back then, you were like flipping cars, weren't you? I was. Yeah. Yeah. So Mike has always had this, this side hustle of buying, selling cars. He's always driving a pretty cool car. And even back then, I could remember. telling you, you're so naturally gifted at this, you're so good at it. I bet you could make more

money just doing this than you could be in a software sales guy. You pushed me for years to go at home. I did. I did. And you're like, no, never, never. Anyway, along the way, you've sold successfully software for several different companies. And then you took a flyer and you went and sold ultra high in real estate in Mexico, right? Correct. Okay. And my recollection is, in Mexico, that's where you really learned to spot who had the money and who didn't. Yeah. Dealing with ultra high net worth people was less intimidating that I expected it would be. They're people.

Honestly, the folks that you would think are the flashiest. Basically, it's like a tell of the wealthiest is not showing it. You know what I mean? Like the guy with the shorts and flip-flops may have been a billionaire. You know what I mean? But like the guy with the, you know, new Rolex and, you know, diamond chain was the guy who knew money. Yeah. Right.

So how would you, how could you tell? I think it just came with time, you know, almost like with any deal in sales. You kind of know when you need to walk away and who you can pay more attention to. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But you had a good run down there, didn't you? I did.

Yeah. I mean, that's when that kind of real estate was really hot. Yeah. right before it blew up, right before the world. 2000 and what? Six? Eight, eight.

Yeah. That's when the world. So you decided to get out of that business? Well, I got offered a five-year contract down in Tulum, and I just missed home. I was ready to get back. Okay.

Yeah. We missed you, too. No, it was good. It's good to be home. I did go down there, you know. You did. Yeah. I think you went and saw Po.

I did, but you weren't there yet. I'd come right after you. All right. Well, you learned a lot about selling big deals, complicated deals, software deals and you learn a lot about the high net worth folks all on the way you're buying selling cars. Finally, I think because you had such success in your side hustle, you finally said, I'm going to

do this full time. Really, the quintessential moment was I did a trip over to Dubai in the Maldives. My wife and I was an anniversary trip. And it was when we were in the Maldives. I would never forget I was sitting in my villa. And it was Easter weekend. and they knew I was on a two-week trip. And I was like, hey, just listen, I want to have a little time, a little R&R.

Please don't bother me on this trip. Kept getting emails, hey, I need your forecast update. What's your team going to do? I'm like, guys, I've been gone for literally two weeks. Me giving you a number right now would be like throwing a number at a dartboard. I have no idea. And I was out swimming. And I was like, hey, listen, Meg, do you care if I just kind of hang it up and not do this anymore?

She was like, you've been miserable. why don't you follow your passion? And I did. I made that decision. I said, when I get back, so it was the day after my birthday. So my birthday is May 3rd, May the 4th. I call it May the 4th be with me. I put in my resignation,

off to the races since then. Good. And so what's the business called, and what do you exactly do? So the business name is 5MT, and a lot of people ask me, what does that mean? And so my wife is Megan,

I'm Michael, my three boys are Miles McCoy and Miller. M.T. is M. Thacker. Mike Thacker, Mac Thacker, Miller Thacker, McCoy Thacker. And all are names, so it's 5MT LLC. And what I do is I find, locate, acquire exotic cars

from anything from, you know, an older Porsche to a Lamborghini, a Ventador. I mean, it could be anything. Yeah. Like those old, like cool bathtub, Porsche? Yeah. The 9-11.

Three-five-six. Is it called 9-11? Yeah, those are, the old ones are three-five-sixes. I'm not sure nine-leven's. Well, wasn't there one call? No, no, nine-11. I mean, they're still exotic. I mean, I just sold a...

Would I fit in that thing? You would. Okay. If I, you know, stretched it. Let's do it. If you stretched it. The top wasn't on. And so someone will call you and say, hey, Mike, I want to get this kind of Porsche or

this kind of whatever, or do you got to or whatever. And you would... Figure it out with your sources. Yeah, sometimes people come to me to find a car. Other times I know enough about a car to know there's enough profit in there, so I'll buy it on a speculative, you know, buy. Just own it. Yeah.

And then I'll enjoy it for a little while. So, you know, I had a Ferrari for a little while that I had for a couple months and made some money on. I just enjoy cars. Yeah. So sometimes I have to put a little money into them to make them right, but I know the profits there to leverage the buy to make money. It's a risk, but I got burned real bad on, oddly enough, Nicholas Cage's, Ferrari 355, and I lost like 20 grand.

I was like, I'll never do that again. So now I do my due diligence on cars and figure out. You just thought it had to be worth this much if he owned. I mean, no, I just, it was a good buy in relative terms. If I would have kept that car, now I would have made probably 40 grand because the gated 355s are worth a fortune now. And back then they weren't. There's a lot of cars that have just skyrocketed in value, the old NSW.

sexes. I mean, a bunch of stuff you guys probably don't know the names of the cars, but just certain cars of just, you know, $30,000 cars worth like $150,000 now. If I would have bought it 10 years ago and just help them to it. Well, I know you've helped me and my family for years buying and selling cars, nothing fancy, except for that one. Oh, the Clemen. The Clemen you got for my wife, what she loved that. But you do that still for everyone?

Yeah, I mean, just wants help? He knows a guy. He knows a guy. I tell you what, I, I, A, I don't like dealing with it.

Yeah. Okay, I don't like dealing with the car thing. And B, I think even after paying him like some kind of fee, I think I come out better. Yeah. I mean,

I've done enough negotiations and I have enough dealer talk track to know. You know what they're coming from. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And truthfully, a lot of people have that phobia of car dealers.

Yeah. Like, just that conversation of like, they're going to get you and, you know, add that extra warranty that you don't need kind of stuff. The underflesh?

The old underflesh. Well, everybody has that fear, right? Right, of course. They're going to buy a lemon. They're going to buy something wrong. And so talk about sort of trust in your business because it's got to be like one of the most important things. Well, absolutely. It's interesting.

You know, you kind of build a rapport in that space if you find someone a deal, if you find someone a good car. And the one thing that I've found that's been really great is I've had some. resales. So like I sold a car to a guy in Austin, Texas. He came on hard times. I bought it back from him for less, but sold it to a guy in Greenville. So it literally sold it, shipped it back, sold it to a guy in Greenville who originally wanted the car and he paid me more than I originally was going to sell for. So I got basically a triple flip on that. Yeah. So I mean, Marty, probably not too dissimilar than like a good investment broker where I made money with Mike and I'm going to let up trust him do the next thing, next year, you know, kind of thing.

Yeah, and also relationships you build in that space. So there's a lot of car people, but there's not a lot of ultra high-end, almost like real estate guys. You know, in Greenville, there's a handful of guys that you know, like the Jacob Manns and the, you know, million-dollar homes. So, you know, there's that show a million-dollar listing and there's a million-dollar car. It's those kind of people. There's not a lot of folks like that. And, you know, I'm a little guy in Greenville and all of a sudden we've got people asking me to find crazy cars that, you know, I couldn't pronounce 10 years ago.

Yeah, and those guys all have 10 buddies just like them, right? Yeah. They'll tell their buddies. Well, that's good. So let's talk about, let's talk about, well, first of all, how would they, if someone wants to find you to help help with a car, fancy car, regular car or whatever, how do they do that? Just five? So I actually have, purposely have no website. I have no social media, which people are kind of pushing me to do.

Right now, it's all phone calls. Oddly enough, that's how my dad's done his business and had a lot of success. Interesting. I know eventually I need to do it, but right now I'm trying to, I'm not wanting to be the biggest guy in the game right now. I'm kind of wanting to crawl before I walk. I mean, I think what's interesting about that, and I think back to the book, reframing is the frame is that you need social media and everything else.

The reframe is you probably don't want those people calling you because all of a sudden you're starting to do all this work for people who think they want a car and you go chase around and they don't have the money or they don't do it. All the donkey work. Yeah. Here's the book, by the way. Refram your brain. And I don't think I've mentioned that this guy, Scott Adams, made his fortune writing the Dilbert cartoon. So he worked in big corporate America for like 10 or 15 years. just saw all the dumb, dumb things that they did and wrote comics about it and made a

much of money. But he's got a lot of great ideas beyond comic book stuff. And this book is a must. It's a must. Wouldn't you say, Mike? I agree. Yeah. I like it.

So here's some more reframes. Here's one, Mike, you're pretty good at this. Confidence in social situations. Like many people would say the frame would be, I don't like talking to strangers. or I don't know how to start a conversation. People will tell themselves that. And what would the reframe be? You can.

You can. Yeah. Just put yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Maybe you'll find yourself more comfortable than you realize. Right. You do it five times tonight. Go karaoke. Yeah.

At a random place. Yeah. You know what I mean? Play your saxophone on the street. Right. Play your saxophone. Yeah. I mean, one thing I hear and I think is fascinating is,

when you're selling, right, and you put yourself out there. The one thing you do have is a knowledge of the cars. Like you've done your homework. You, like, I can sense it in you that this is something you're very passionate about. And so to pick up the phone and talk to somebody no matter who they are, I kind of feel that passion. I see that. Is that kind of what you're finding? Yeah.

And you can also vet if they're a player or not. Yeah. Really quick. I've had to do a lot of formal breakup letters that, you know, you get a guy and he's like, you do all this due diligence, you find the car, and he's ready, you know, and then, and then all of a sudden he goes ghost. And it's real simple email us in. It's, hey, you know, when you're ready to talk, you know, clearly this is not of interest.

Let's talk. It's amazing how quickly. Oh, whoa, hold. Not so fast. Not so fast. Yeah. I think a lot of people are pushing that space. And I almost feel like I add enough value that you should be happy to work with me more so than just,

I'm Joe, find the car guy. Yeah. I'm finding you the best. the best. And one of the refrains I think, and John, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, is the word no, right? Salespeople are so scared of no, when it actually is the greatest word because no sets boundaries, no lets you go to your next opportunity and, quite frankly, telling them maybe you don't qualify sort of changes and reframes that relationship. It also deals I've lost asking why. You know, going to them and having the,

They're formal like, so I understand we didn't go with us. Can you help me understand for future deals? What made you not choose us? I mean, it's amazing the responses you'll get from that to make yourself better. There was this young man who was a good friend of my sons. We went to the beach one time there. I guess they were maybe senior in high school. And, you know, he walked up to a group of like eight high school senior girls and like their chaperones.

He just walked up and said, hey, you know, I'm Frank. You know, from Greenville, where are you all from? It just, you know, he started the, let's call it the Thacker, you know, the conversation. And they were just talking, talking, talking, who knows where it went from there? But afterwards, I'm like, man, how did you do that? You just don't know these people? There was like 10 people there. And I said, how did you know they wanted to talk to you?

He said, they all want to talk to you. That was his refrain. They all want to talk to you. He believed it. Now, is it 100% true? Maybe not. but it's 90-something percent true. Those girls aren't.

We've had enough success. Yeah, they're not down there at the beach for nothing. Yeah. They're not there for the fried seafood platter. Right? I love it. That's so true. It's so true.

I love that. Well, and confidence, you know, I think early in my career with you, giving the price of something that was kind of uneasy, like when we do the recordings. Yeah. But once you get to a point and you say it with confidence, they hear it. They sense it.

You've got to believe it. It's 11. Yeah. Exactly. It's just a number. Absolutely. It's just a number. 100%.

Here's another one. The one we used to all here. Well, we can't make any money because it takes money to make money. Right with a little head shake? You can't do that, you know? And of course, you know, you could borrow the money. You can find someone like Marty who's got money and go in with Marty. I mean, there's a million ways you can do it.

Right. But people just, they just, they just, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, lose before they leave the starting line. It's interesting to say that. My father, I attribute this to him. All the cards I buy, I pay cash for. And it comes from him with credit cards. I don't have any credit card debt. I really don't have any debt whatsoever.

But you don't feel the pain of the purchase of what he always said. So when you buy something with credit, you don't feel the pain of the purchase until after that purchase is made and you get the credit card bill and you're like, oh, crap, what did I buy? with buying something when you can afford to buy it, you feel that pain immediately, and you have motivation to get rid of it quicker. So I try to not borrow if possible.

It's just worked out better that way. That's good. So what kind of big, I guess if you were talking to the nubes or people starting out in sales, you know, what would you say the one or two things that you've learned that if you went back to the old, you know, If I could interview myself back. Yeah.

What would you say? I would say be smarter. When you start making money, be smarter with how you invest it. I think a lot of people early when they start making money feel they need to spend it and buy dumb things that they don't need. If I could go back, there's a lot of stuff that I bought. I probably shouldn't have bought. You know what I mean? And just always, if you look at the best athletes, you look at the best people in anything,

you know, like we're talking about this book, practice and surround yourself with winners. That is the best advice I can give. Your surroundings lead to your success. If you have somebody that's going to hold your back, you need to trim that back real quick. John, you remember in the book, he talks about toxic people. Yeah. What do you do with toxic? people?

Drop them. Drop them. Yeah. And it's funny. We get so tied up in people negative. I don't have the right leads. I don't get the right deal. You know, the market stinks.

I remember a guy worked for me and he would always say, well, they have no budget, no budget. And that was like everything was no budget, no budget. And it's like, well, then why are you even in sales if, you know, what are you doing? Nobody ever has like a budget. You know, they don't really just, they're here's, here's my. my budget. They've got it. They just don't want to talk about it. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. What's another good one? Well, you know, here's one I use all the time. I've got my golf clubs in the back of my car. And I'll get to the, you know, the club place and they'll say, sir, you leave those

golf clubs back there. Does you worry about them? I'm like, I'm worried if they don't get stolen. I would love for them to get stolen me. I need new. Those things aren't working right. Right. It's defective. So I want new golf clubs. And I would get them if the insurance, you know.

So I'm ready for new golf. Is that why you leave your trunk open outside? Pick me. Yeah, please pick me. Yeah, another one would be, you know, someone, you know, people lost their jobs. Yeah. Like, oh, no, what am I? And they just, you know, what am I going to do?

And it wasn't fair. What about Sarah? She was worse than I was and all that stuff. Versus like, you know what? I got a fresh start. I got a zillion jobs to choose from. I can find something better, something I'll be happier with. And so it's just a...

It is a mindset. I mean, if you look at some of the most successful people in the world, every one of them has more failures than success that they can talk to leading up to their success. It's how they deal with those failures. that makes them win. I mean, gosh, I've had my fair share of, you know, abuse and problems in my life that have happened. But if you use it as negativity or excuses, you're not going to be successful. If you use it as motivation to get better, that's when you're going to win. Yeah. It was funny. I was listening to a podcast. I think it was Seth Godin. And he was talking about failures. And he sort of said, you can always start with this line that says, well, it might not work, but I'm going to try. It may not work. Yeah. Right. Going after that. deal. I'm, you know, I mean, if you worried about is the person going to sell you a car or is that person going to buy the car, if you worried about everything, all that does is the future creates anxiety, right? And in the book, he talks about, right, the past creates depression, right? We worry

about the past. The future just creates anxiety. Peace is when we're in the now. And I think one of the things that I think helps in selling is stop worrying about the future. Stop, you know, what if I win this deal. What if I live? No, live in the now. Where are we right now with this deal? What things can I do to help that person? And I think that that kind of brings it in. I don't know your thoughts, Michael. Live in the now, but believe in the future. Yeah, I like that. If you don't believe that you can reach and obtain that goal, you're never going to get there. Yeah. Yeah. When we were earlier talking, I was telling John with the Clemson people, the Davos story. Oh, yeah, the believe. Yeah, that he just always had that sign.

And Ellis said my three favorite mottoes is Davosweeney says, Believe. Nick Sabin says, Do your job, right? And Zig Ziglar says, always do the right thing. And if you kind of piece those three together, gosh, it's pretty weak. Bill Garcia, Am High, do better.

Yeah, I'm going to do better. Yeah, exactly. Well, Mike, I know you've got to go to another appointment. Yes. But thanks for coming by. Absolutely. Glad to be here. It's great to circle back up. Always good to see you more. I want to get some car tips. I was already in the back was talking to Michael about some cars.

Now, do we have a parting gift for Mike? We do have a party gift. We do have a party gift. We have. We have jazz at the falls featuring John Sterling on the saxophone. Wow. I'm going to have to get an autograph. Yes.

We'll get it later. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for being. We'll be right back. Mike, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Absolutely. All right. Yeah, good see. Absolutely. Hey, thanks for listening to my music over the last couple of years. We have a band now called Sweet Pea. And if you want to book the band, just call or text a number on the screen. Thanks. All right, back from the network break, Marty.

Man, that was great. That was fun. It's always good to talk to Mike Thacker. Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, what's interesting is to kind of watch, you know, Michael said he started 98. I joined Data Stream in 2000. So a couple years behind, but to watch that evolution. And then also, one of the things that jumped out of me was when he had that moment. He talked about being on vacation. And he just, when you have that clarity, like, where's your forecast? Like leadership. Where's your forecast?

Give me two weeks. I'm with my wife. Like, you don't need it. But for some reason, sales leaderships. And I think one of the lessons for salespeople is you're going to get these bosses. You're going to get these people because they just think every week I have forecast. forecast forecast because they all want to appear smart when in reality doesn't really matter so it's what it was two weeks ago yeah and so i love that clarity because i've had that moment yeah i had that what

i called my jerry mcguire moment where i just got sick and tired of you know the same old rat race just numbers results wasn't about the people anymore it wasn't about the customers and um I had that clarity. So hearing that story, I just really resonated with me. Like, you know, why can't we just be human? Yeah. Well, let's transition a little bit to one of the more important reframes of the book, which is goals versus the process, right?

And, you know, for most of my life, I mean, it was all about the goals. You want to get into this school. You want to graduate. You want to do this. You want to do that. You know, and then once we got into business, and you and we're in business together for a number of years, it became a goal every quarter.

When we had a goal, it hit every quarter for 10 years. That's 40 Super Bowls, you know. And it was funny, before you came along, before we went public, we had a private business for about 10 years. And our leader, Larry, kept an immaculate, updated, almost daily business plan. on what we were, who our market was, how we went to everything.

And this is kind of an exaggeration, but not really. I mean, the day we went public, that thing went out of the window. It became what number do we have to hit this month? And so the point here is that was the original framing for most people, is what is your goal? And what the book talks about, and I've heard Scott talk about it before, is you know you really don't want to have goals you want to have a process you follow to improve on something like like a weight goal for example if I wanted to lose 20 pounds I would put it up on the

wall and check it every day and take a sauna and eat less whatever it is I don't want to do it but I mean there's got to be some way but I would lose the weight and then I would be done and then I'm probably just gaining it right back yep but if I had a process to live and eat differently than I think I would be just forever healthy. Yeah. And I think we really see that in sales, right? I think, you know, I think, you know, one of the advice I would have for young salespeople and people in the business is they're going to get leaders that all they talk about is goals

and numbers, goals, numbers, goals, numbers, right? And you start to believe. So the frame is that's all that matters. And what Scott Am's talking. And he talked about this in his previous book. He said goals are for losers. Is that it is about the process. What as salespeople, it's not just the number because you can't control the outcome.

Right. You can't. What you can control is the process, the number of calls you're making. The people, as I think Michael said, right, the key to his business, picking up the phone and talking to people. How many people, if he just sat there and stared at the phone, are going to just call them? You don't have social media. Didn't have a website.

So a typical salesperson, this is something that I struggled with as a salesperson way back when was people would tell me things, but I couldn't quite understand how to do it. So the how of the process you're talking about would be something like, you know, the wrong way to do it is to look at your pipeline and say, I've got to close these two deals to make my number. That's all month long. That's all you're thinking about. The good way to do it is to say every day I'm going to make 10 prospecting, calls and try to build my pipeline. I'm going to call the people in my pipeline and, you know,

see how we're doing on the deals. I'm going to do so much training. So I'm going to get a little bit better at what I do every day, et cetera, et cetera. So you have something that just makes you better and your territories manage better every day. And eventually that will lead to massive success. Yeah. I'll give you one last reframe. Yeah. Was that it was about the number of calls. Yeah. And we started struggling with that. What we said at, at Vogue, was you need to have so many meaningful conversations, right? Because just having a call, but meaningful conversations changes it and the fact that find out about his family, where do you go to school? You know, you don't have to just be closing a deal. And so to us, we looked at it as

how many meaningful conversations can we have? And a meaningful conversation is, I'm not interested. We have a maintenance system. We're not looking, but I appreciate your calling. That's a meaningful conversation because we got what we needed. Well, the point is, whatever you're working on, this book says that Marty and I say it too. You need to figure out a process that will move you towards that, that ultimate thing that you want to be and not just a goal. And from personal experience, I can tell you I've had several moments in my life,

where I have worked, work, work, made a goal, and then just been like deflated. And then just kind of shrugged my shoulders and it's just like, and then it really, and taking my eye off the ball. You know, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're not doing what you were doing before and you'd have to kind of ramp it back up. Whereas if you said, I'm following this process, let's say an exercise process, a nutrition process, an education process, it's forever, right? Because you're constantly going to get better.

Yep. Great recommendation on the book. It's the recommendation on the book, but the whole talk today has been around, sales talk today has been around attitude. And all of these reframes will help people have a better attitude and practice in anything. Practice figuring out a way to make whatever comes up in your life, you know, a positive thing. Yep. Even if you're not right, just do it. Yep.

And thank you for getting me to do it. to read the book. Yeah, man. That's a good one. I loved it. And I've got so many notes here that I'm going to follow up on and I can't wait to share more stories on it. All right. Well, thanks, Marty. Thanks for coming to Sales Talk on the Noob School. See you next time.