Noob School - The Power of Understanding with Gary Tompkins

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Today on Noob School, we're joined by Gary Tompkins, President & CEO of the Kidder Group, an industry leading recruiting firm. Gary discusses his past experiences in the world of sales, from great successes to overcoming setbacks, to the all important fact that you need to truly understand what your client actually needs to be a great salesperson. Tune in for invaluable sales advice, and more. 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 #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School. John Sterling here. I've got my good friend Gary Topkins. Gary and I go back pretty long ways. At least 15 years? Yeah, at least 15. Actually, it's probably closer to 25.

What? Twenty-six years. Time flies. But Gary and I have been friends a long time, and we've collaborated on a few things. We've gotten a lot of trouble together. We have. We've got some trouble.

We've made some good things out. and some not so good things, but yeah, Gary's, Gary, Gary owns and runs one of the best recruiting companies, at least in South Carolina, the Kidder Group. Thank you. I appreciate that. South Carolina mainly focused? It is. Yeah. So I remember, I think I think this is right. I might have met you before, but we moved into an office on.

Woods Lake Road. Woods Lake Road? No. Before that. Before that, I met you at the office on Stone Avenue. Oh, yeah, Stone Avenue. It was an old office. I didn't know you.

You were next door to us. And I'm sitting there trying to work, and I can hear through the wall there's this guy, and he's just talking on the phone all day. And I was like, oh, my God. I was like, what? It kind of irked me a little bit. And then I figured, no, this guy is doing exactly what I would want any. salesman to do. He's on the phone all day talking to clients trying to get them situated with people, right?

Right. That's what I do for a living. Yeah. So you're either talking to the person who wants a job or the company that's looking to hire people. That's right. You have to know both sides and you have to know them well. Yeah. And so how many, first of all, what industries do you specialize in? I do manufacturing professionals. Okay. So I usually do executive level and a lot of mid-level positions. So engineers, and in today's world, most of the positions are 100,000 in on up.

Okay, so you said manufacturing professionals. So not the floor workers, the people are running the plant. No, COOs, plant managers, directors of operations. Okay. They'll do quality managers, that type of thing. Okay, okay, I got you.

And how many, what's your database looked like of people that you have contact with in South Carolina. South Carolina loans over 20,000 people that I know. Yeah. That would be number of people total at how many different facilities? Oh, that's hard to say?

Hard to say. Yeah. Probably 3,000. Yeah. And then how do you feed that group? How do you add to that group over time? I do a lot. Just two ways.

First one is LinkedIn, which is just a tool that everybody uses. The second one is checking references on people. Because I'm very thorough on checking references. And the reason is, before I present a candidate to a client, I want to make sure that they're good enough that my name is going on them. Because there's no way to do it afterwards. You can't say, well, that's not a good candidate. Sorry about that.

Well, you put your name on them, and that's your reputation. And so are you saying that when you check a reference on somebody that might lead you to more companies that would eventually be in your database too? This ought to be illegal. So I'm going to give any young recruiters the simplest way to grow your business is check references, but don't call and do a simple reference check. Get to know the person that you're speaking with. And by the time the reference check is done, you should have a breakfast or a lunch set up with that person. well. Gotcha.

That's beautiful. So that's an exploding, exploding networking idea. It's building a relationship though. Yeah. I agree. It's not just networking. It's going, hey, let's not just have a business relationship. Let's have a friendship.

Let's meet for coffee next week. Right, right. Yeah, that's exactly what happened with us. I think, I don't even know how we got started other than we just met, but instantly you found reasons that we might might want to do stuff together. Yeah, that's wonderful. I guess if I was going to title this podcast other than your name, I would say this is about networking.

I mean, you're the king of networking. And I'll give you one example. We, my son started this program to bring Navy SEALs to Greenville after they got out. He was a Navy SEAL and he wanted to bring other ones here and give them a place that they could call home. There actually wasn't a place in America at that time that wasn't a naval base that had like a on purpose, we want you to come here. And very quickly, Gary heard about that and raised his hand to get involved. I think I was voluntled. Voluntil.

I showed up and then I didn't show up in the next meeting. Before I knew it, you said you're in charge. Right. We said you're in charge. I can only start things, Gary. Not much of a... But anyway, it's been successful. It's been like six or seven years, I think.

It was. First oyster rose was 2017. Yeah. And we've got, I think, how many seals do we have living around the area? We have over 40. Oh, my God. That's unbelievable. So I think, you know, our goal was just to get it started to the point where they would start

to cluster here, and then we just kind of get out of the way. and now they are recruiting each other, which is kind of the way we expected it to be. But my point on the networking is I probably know 15 or 20 of these seals now after seven years. And I asked Gary, I said, how many are you connected with now? And he said, 700. And it's like 850 now.

850, yeah. So he's using LinkedIn and his relationships with these people. So if I was really pushing it, let's say these 15 that I know, I'd be trying to connect with the people that they know, right, and trying to help them. So tell me how that works. Seals are a very interesting group of people. Yeah.

And there's a brotherhood. It's very much a closed community. And if you're not in the community, you're not invited into the community. Yeah. But when other seals recommend you to their friends, they take it very, very seriously. Yeah.

And so a lot of these are people that, come to me and going, hey, you know, so-and-so told me about you and Greg Thurman nicknamed my house the bone frog in because I've had so many seals come stay with me. And now there's 800 seals know that they can come to Greenville, can stay in my house for free. And we're not talking about a night. Yeah. I mean, Greg stayed for eight months. Wow. And so I had four seals in September, including an admiral and a commander stay with me. And, you know, one night we had four seals in the house at the same time. We had a really relaxing evening.

It was not wild and crazy. It was one bottle of wine for five men. And we had a relaxing evening and really spent some time reflecting on how blessed we are. Yeah. Well, you've done an amazing job with that group. And again, like I said, we'll still be supportive, but the seals have taken over as they should. And I think Greenville's got a chance to have a really large number of seals living here. And that would be pretty damn cool.

We have another one coming in next week, the interview. He's going to be a potential in HR manager at a local company that makes carbon fiber composites for the Naval Special Warfare community. Perfect. So 95% of their business is supporting the seals. Good. That's perfect. That's perfect. Well, let's back up for a minute.

that we always back up to the beginnings so people can kind of hear your story. You know, let's start with, where did you go to high school, where you're from? Originally from Akron, Ohio, came down and went to Furman University because it was a beautiful campus and there were a lot of beautiful women.

At that time, the women were on one side of campus, the guys were on the other. When you went to go visit the ladies, you had to sign your name in, you had to have an escort. And that way they knew they could find you in the building when visiting hours were over, which was like 11 o'clock.

Yeah. Met my wife there, got married. We live on Paris Mountain. Same beautiful bride for 31 years. Wow. Same house. Yeah. And so that's good.

So I worked at Chemit for seven years. You did. I worked my way up. Right out of Furman? Right out of Furman. Well, I got my MBA at Clemson. Okay. And then started my at Chemit Corporation.

Okay. Seven promotions and seven years. Okay. Left there Because I got recruited out by a good recruiter locally Yeah And that didn't work out because I went to a company that went bankrupt basically And I was there four months

But it quickly showed me that I could become a recruiter So I started my company with no experience in recruiting No candidates and no clients Yeah, perfect And this is part of it Why I'm drawn to the seals Uh huh there's people in this world that say I can do anything get out of my way and there's other people that say it doesn't matter how much somebody helps me I still can't do it it's too hard it's too hard yeah so when I started it was just 16 hour work days yeah and I remember on the second day of work on HR manager said I need a he said if you can fill this position I'll give you 18 more I was like okay what do you need he goes I need a German English Spanish speaking quality engineer

with the BS and mechanical engineering. Yeah. And that 10 o'clock there next morning, I had a guy who called from Atlanta, who was born in Germany, was a quality manager for GM in, I think it was Poland. He also spoke Spanish because he spent time in Spain and he just got his green card that day.

And a friend referred him to me. And so my first official placement was on, day two because he drove up that morning. I typed his resume as he drove because he didn't have one. And back then, people didn't have computers. Yeah. We didn't have the internet.

Typewriter. I had to fax things. Yeah. But he interviewed that day and we had an offer on the table by a 6.30 that evening. Did the manager come through with more work for you?

He did. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That's the way to do it, man. your NBA at Clemson and then Kimet. What kind of job were you doing at Kimet? I applied for CFO right out of school.

Good for you. Apparently you need experience to become CFO. I didn't know that. But I was that brass that I applied for it anyway. And they said we have a CFO and a controller. But we do need a second shift manufacturing supervisor. So I took that job. And went from there to weekend plant manager within a year and a half.

They moved my line to Mexico two and a half years later. And I was working on my PhD in industrial statistics while I was weekend plant manager. Yeah. So I didn't finish my PhD because I hadn't moved to first shift because I had a beautiful daughter and a wife who was a stay-at-home mom. So I was a quality engineer for about eight weeks. And I automated a report that used to take 40 hours. I got it done in one cup of coffee. Because I knew how to use computers, because I always stay abreast of technology.

So Charles Culbertson promoted me the first financial analyst. And then I both plant controller over one plant, and then it was two plants, and eventually five plants, three in the U.S., two in Mexico. And then they promoted me to senior financial analyst over about an $800 million business unit. They were still rolling hard then, weren't they? We grew from 250 people to 7,000 people. in seven years. Yeah.

That was a great run they had. So I don't understand why you would leave that and go to work for this other company. What did they offer you that sounded so good? Two things. My role was strategic financial analyst. And I always joked with people at Kempik because I said, why are you leaving? I said, because my job is to look into the future three years. They're like, yeah, so why are you leaving?

You looked. At that time, we had 20,000 employees that Kemet in the U.S. I knew that we were moving to Mexico and China, and I didn't want to be part of it. And within five years, Kemet went from 20,000 employees down to 300 in the U.S. So they laid off 19,700 people. And they did move everything to those countries? After that, they had some other issues. Oh, they went bankrupt.

Yeah, yeah. That's an issue, I guess. Yeah, stock went from $72 a share to being delisted. And then they finally did a 12 for one split. So if you sent 12 shares in, you got one back that was worth a nickel. So you, to answer my question, you were responsible for looking into the future and doing an analysis, and you decided you don't want to be part of that. You have to look and be honest with yourself.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good, that's good call. You definitely made the right call. It's kind of like AI right now. Everybody goes, oh my gosh, we don't know what's happening. happening. I was like, well, slow down and take a look at it. This is a tool, just like if you're digging ditches and somebody says, I have a back-o, don't run away from it and go, hey, is there an owner's manual, operator's manual? How do I learn to run the back-up? Yeah, yeah. And you're going, well, they won't

need me to shovel dirt. You're going, no, but I'm going to shovel with a back-o. And it's easier and faster. Yeah. So embrace the change rather than run from it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think it's easy to fret about things instead of saying, hey, this has happened. How can we make this work? That's right. I mean, that's the right answer. But I must say every now and then something happens and I fret about it a little bit. But I want to be able to say, this happened, what are we going to do about it?

And I think that's good advice on the AI. Now, I'll consider you an outstanding. networker and salesperson, did you have any training, any sales training that helps you? I had no sales training before I went into recruiting. Okay. And I think that was probably the best thing that happened to me. Because at that time, and still to this time, most of my competitors will take a resume and they stamp a letterhead on it and they send it on.

Yeah. So, but I was on the other side of the desk at Kevin. We were hiring people and I'd get the resumes from recruiters. I'm like, this doesn't tell me anything about the person. It doesn't tell me why they're qualified for the job. It doesn't tell me what they've accomplished. And so our secret weapon, which is not secret, because I share it with people, is a series of questions that we're asking the candidates to do and the write down. And the ones that are A players really enjoy it.

But it winds up being a portfolio of work, including pictures, that might be anywhere from six to 20 pages long. But the client's like it. I was just at lunch with a client. It was Scott Fletcher at Miko today and replaced gentleman Rob Brown with him. And Scott said we had two candidates. Actually the other candidate, not my candidate, was much more qualified for the position. But Scott said he went back and read the portfolio and he said, I really like Rob's answers to overcoming situations where he didn't know the

answer and just his motivation and it's kind of funny because Scott said he took it home and let his wife read it and she goes I don't know why you interviewed this other guy even you know just hire Rob and and everybody in the office said the same thing yeah so it's it's finding the people that have the motivation which is probably the best predictor of success whether somebody's going through buds or somebody's going to become a young salesperson or a young young engineer. Yeah.

You know, and... Why are they here? Yeah, why are they here? I tell people that all the time if you're interviewing with somebody is to have a reason that you're talking to Gary. I'm talking to you because I've always wanted to be a recruiter or whatever. You know, it's got to be some reason. So...

So a friend of my Josh Cotton, I don't know if you know Josh. Josh did all the psychological testing for SEALs for five years. And he was hired by the Navy to try and determine who would make... it through buds. So he spent five years with access to retired seals, current seals, and future seals. And after five years, he said the key ingredient that makes somebody successful as a seal is not able to be determined on a test. It's their heart. And he said, you can't stop a man who's motivated for success. And if you think about that, you can't stop somebody who wants to be successful.

Yeah. And you think starting your own software company? Yeah. Did you have any experience in software? Not really. So you were not qualified for the role. You would not have hired yourself for that role. That's right.

But you just don't get John's way because he's going to be successful. Well, we'll figure it out. You have to figure it out. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I think people also, if they stop their short-term thinking and just say, I've decided to have a really successful recruiting company in South Carolina, and there is no end date on it.

It's just I'm moving towards that every single day. And it's continuous improvement. Yeah. So I signed up for a class just yesterday on using AI, a new AI tool. At the end of the class, the class was only 15 minutes long. Wow. I said, okay, sign me up a week from now, I'm committing. Yeah.

And you're going, what if it doesn't work? I was like, 15 minutes. Well, a couple hundred bucks, but I'll know at the end of the first week whether or not I'm going to use the tool. Yeah. I like a 15-minute training class. That's good. Oh, that was a sales class. That was an overview, but it was enough for me to go, I've made my mind up in 15 minutes.

Make a decision to move on. So you never had any, like, Zig Ziglar training or Sandler training. I listened to Zig Zigziger after I started my company. And I still love Zig because it's the phrases he gives you the word pictures. I'm going to make you smile so big that you can eat a banana sideways. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was good, clean sales.

But the same reason that Zig was successful is because he helped people tap into the inner aspect of success, which is it's personally motivating. And the motivation comes not from money. It comes from helping other people. Yeah. So his famous quote is, you can have anything in life you want. if you help enough other people get what they want. And that's my philosophy, whether it's helping seals or whether it's running a business.

It's helping people get what they want. And that just keeps coming back to you. Keep coming back. I agree. I've seen you in action doing that. The other one I like, I like so many of Ziggs quotes, but he has that one talk called Acres of Diamonds where the punchline is

the people living out on this poor, farm ended up having these diamonds the whole time. They discovered diamonds later. And the point is that we all have these seeds of greatness in us. And we have to believe that first before we can go out there and get it. So yeah, he's, I say it for a young salesperson, if you're not going to read my book or give me to help you or come to my training class, just listen to Zig Ziglar. He's got he's got all the classics.

Yep. I went to Peter Lefkowitz out in Missouri, and we used his class extensively for a long, long time. But I wasn't introduced to him until my ninth year in recruiting. Okay. And I kind of heard some of the stuff, but I hadn't listened to it all. Yeah. And when I actually listened to a DVD that somebody loaned me, I was at his class within two weeks. Wow.

So part of this is if you're a young salesperson, make a decision. Don't sit on something go I don't It's like You know Go go find out more quickly Yeah And then make a decision

Yeah What do you I know you have a Really big like e-newsletter Right You have a newsletter that goes out to your Not really No

Your email that goes out to them I don't No And there's Part of that is a Strategic mindset Okay I never blast emails out

With job openings Okay I'm still a I'm like a seal sniper Okay. I'm sitting back here and going, and what does the client want? And then I go, who do I know who has that personality? Yeah.

Who do I know who fits in the geographic realm and who's got the experience? And then I'll call them and say, let's meet for lunch. Uh-huh. Yeah. So typically when I fill a position, I'll send two resumes for one position. Gotcha. Okay. So it's not a spray and prey.

Yeah. It's that sniper who's going, I'm trying to hit my target at one thing. 400 meters on the first shot. Yeah. Well, that's an amazing answer. I had no idea how you did it that way. But from a sales perspective, the difference between sending someone an email,

take a look at this resume, it's just so easy in our busy days to go delete, I'll look at later or no, versus you're having a lunch with someone. You're forced to read it, discuss it, and make a decision. But it's also having lunch with the case. It's both sides and bringing them together.

You bring them together. So you make the interview happen. I make it happen. But it's done in a way that like Zig says, sales is the most noble profession there is. But if you look at it right, if you're a server down at Sobees, and I think his name is Booker, Booker down there. Just I love Booker as a waiter.

He's been there for 22 consecutive years, and he makes six figures a year, the server at Sobies. But he will sit down with me and my wife and go, Gary, what type of experience do you and your wife want tonight? He doesn't say, let me tell you about the specials. He starts by saying, what type of experience do you want? And if we're going to the show at the Peace Center, he's like, hey, let's go ahead and do the entrees right now.

Do you know what you want? Let's figure that out. How about the drinks? Are you going to need dessert? And he says, I'll go ahead and put your entree order in. Then I'm going to go get the drink order. And I'll bring the drinks back. And when I bring the drinks back, I'll bring your bill with it so that you can go ahead

and sign it. And I'll pick the bill up when I bring your dinner. And if you order dessert, I'll bring dessert at the same time. And that way, when you're done with your dinner, you can leave. Yeah. But other times, you'll sit down and he'll say, what type of experience do you want? Yeah. You say, hey, it's our anniversary.

The kids are with my mom and dad. and we have a hotel downtown, and we want just to relax for a three-hour dinner. Yeah. He's like, you know what? I'll go get your two drinks, and I'll come back and check on you in about 45 minutes to an hour. Yeah.

That's cool. Thank you, Booker. I've got to go check him out. That's good. Sales is asking people what they want, and then helping them get what they want. Yeah. Listen, that is it.

You said it just exactly right. And isn't it surprising that more restaurants don't operate that way? where they ask the person what they want. Because I can't stand it sometimes when some guy comes and starts telling me the specials and talking about the many of you. And I've been there 15 times. Like, I've already heard all this, you know.

Yeah, I don't want to hear that. Yeah, that's great. What a good story. That's wonderful. But most people are not willing to change either. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true.

I think if you're trying to improve, like you said, a little bit every day, you've got to be willing to change and try things. Or you're going to be the same? That's right. Now, social media? I do LinkedIn.

LinkedIn. That's the only one I do. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Instagram. Okay. I must say, I was dealing with some couple, let's just call them, under 30-year-old people the other day. And I said, I couldn't find you on LinkedIn. And they were like, what?

I'm like, I couldn't find you on LinkedIn. I was trying to connect with you. He goes, we don't do that. I said, what do you do? How do you connect with people? Because on X, so they put their, it's like a little mini bio on X,

and that's where they connect with people and talk to each other. I mean, really, if you look at it, that way, it's very similar to LinkedIn. I just don't do it. I understand. I understand.

I don't do it a lot. I'm set up on it, but it's interesting that that might be, I don't know what the numbers are, but that might be something that's coming, you know, towards parity with LinkedIn at some point.

And the reason I don't do X or the other social media is, it might say I have ADD. Yeah. If I get on X, it's like, oh, look at this news story. Well, now I'm reading a news story. And you're going, oh, look, and it leads to another news story that I really, it doesn't affect my life. But I just spent 10 minutes reading news stories. And that took me away from my goal. Yeah.

And it was wasted effort. Yeah. And you're going, well, it wasn't wasted. It was relaxing. if I'm going to relax, I don't want to read two news stories on X. I want to go relax. Yeah. I agree with you in principle, but I don't do it that way.

I can't help myself. Like if I'm watching something at night, some kind of show or something I'm always like checking, and that's what I do my scrolling, my fun scrolling. Okay, how about this? What's your favorite book? Without a doubt that the book that was written that really made a difference in my life, It's called Fearless by this is the story of Adam Brown, who was a Navy SEAL, who was a superstar athlete in high school, got into drugs, got into alcohol, got into thievery. He had 12 felony against him by his parents because they'd broken into their store and stolen stuff.

And so they literally were filing charges because they couldn't change his behavior. And they said, we're going to lock them up. And he accepted Christ on the floor of the jail that night. And he went to the judge. And he said, I know that amerald in the picture behind you because I grew up with his son. And if you'll allow me to become a Navy seal, I will stay out of trouble. So he was allowed to go try out to become a seal. And the caveat was, if you failed out of buds, he was going to spend the next 25 years in jail.

But he made it through, and he became one of the best seals there was, and he was unfortunately killed in action. Oh, man. But it's a fantastic book. Okay, fearless. Well, I have to check that one out. That's a good one. How about, I love music?

How about a favorite band? I'm going to say in 1980s. The whole 80s. The whole 80s. Okay. All right. Because I just grew up in that era, and I'm like you. Love the music.

I love music. Yeah. You can do music. I was kicked out of the band in seventh grade. because I don't have rhythm or good tone. And the band director told my parents, if you let them quit, I'll give them a B. Well, you know what?

It's just as good to enjoy it and dance to it. Yeah. I play music. I don't create music. Yeah. That's all right. How about favorite word? I'm going to say resilience.

Okay. And I say that because I've been defibrillated 24 different times while I've been awake. I've been shocked by my internal defibrillator. I've had four heart surgeries at the Mayo Clinic. I've been clinically dead. I've been back. Four years ago today,

I had opened, or four years ago last week, I had open heart surgery where they cut my chest open, cut my heart open. And I remember coming back to my home gym and that first week, I was able to get up to 11 minutes on the treadmill at one half a mile per hour.

Whoa. So last night I did 45 minutes of heavy weights, 45 pound dumbbells and such and more and squats, and then an hour on the elliptical. So I've been doing about an hour and 45 minutes to two hours of workout per night. So the resilience is it doesn't matter what happens to you in life. If you mess up a sail, get back on the horse. Make the next phone call. If you have heart surgery.

don't say I can't exercise. You just start and each week you increase it. My goal back then was to increase the treadmill at one-tenth of a mile per week. So by the end of the second week, I was going 0.6 miles an hour, but I was able to walk for 30 minutes. Yeah, yeah. And I just increased it a little bit more each week. Yeah.

Well, that's a great word for you. You've definitely lived it. you know, your friends all know what you went through, but I think your attitude, you know, certainly really helped you to make it through and to recover because I never heard you say, you know, woe was me or whatever. He was like, this is, I'm going up here, this is going to happen. And after that, I'll have to recover. And, you know, it was just like, chink, chink, you know, slowly take me off the field, it ain't over, right? There were some dark times in there.

Uh-huh. You know, and I know in Mayo Clinic, I spent 14 days in the cardiac ICU, and they told my wife his organs are shutting down. Oh, geez. So, you know, when I say resilience, it's coming back. Hey, two days later, I was able to get out of the bed and I walked six steps. Yeah. And that was a long six steps.

Yeah. So that's why I tell people, you know, look where you're at. You have health, you have this. Yeah. Living Greenville? Yeah. Well, we're so happy for you. That's wonderful.

It's a great word. Let's do one last thing. If you'll just give your pitch on the kidder group and the kind of people you're trying to attract and the kind of companies you're looking to work with, and then we can conclude. Sure. So for the last 26 years,

I've done recruiting in manufacturing companies that want to hire people that make a difference. They want to hire people that are A players. They're willing to accomplish. compensate those people. And then the people that I'm looking for are the people that find a way to win. And Navy SEALs have a saying it pays to be a winner. And those are the people that I'm looking for. And part of our homework assignment is, you know, tell me how you're going to be a winner. And it's very successful, both on the client side and on the candid side.

and the number of people who have written positive recommendations on LinkedIn is over like 80 people. Wow. So it's not for everyone because there's a lot of people that don't want to be winners. They just want a job. They just want a job. Yeah. And those are not the people I want. I want the people that really want to grow.

And I've helped several people get to where they're earning seven-digit compensation packages. Yeah. Nice. Well, thank you for taking time to come out here. and tell your story. I think you have a wonderful story in many ways about resilience, but also just your constant approach to networking to just have the most possible people in your network

that you can draw on to kind of link up and make people successful. So I think it's a wonderful story, and I'm glad you joined us today, so thank you. Thank you, brother. I'm always here for you and always here for the team, guys. I know you are. Thank you. Okay.

All right.