The Code To Winning - BUILT A $3 BILLION REAL ESTATE EMPIRE AGAINST ALL ODDS || TODD CONKLIN || EPISODE 020

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Founder & CEO of $3 Billion dollar Real Estate Empire-  Episode 020   In this profound and inspiring episode of The Code to Winning, we sit down with Todd Conklin, the visionary Founder and CEO of Coldwell Banker Distinctive Properties and Coldwell Banker Commercial Prime Properties, a $3 billion real estate empire that has redefined the landscape of wealth-building through real estate.   Todd’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary—rising from a life of instability and hardship to becoming one of the most influential figures in the real estate industry. His story is a testament to the power of resilience, hard work, and the unwavering pursuit of a better life.   Raised by a single mother who had been married four times by the time he was 16, Todd grew up in a household filled with chaos and uncertainty—moving over 12 times as a teenager and constantly seeking the stability he never had. The lack of consistency could have broken him, but instead, it became the foundation of his grit, adaptability, and relentless drive that would later shape his business empire.   By high school, Todd found himself in and out of rehab, with no clear path to success. Without the opportunity to attend college, he turned to sales and traveling the country, knocking doors, and learning firsthand the power of communication, persistence, and human connection. Those early experiences not only helped him make life-changing money but planted the seeds of entrepreneurship that would define his future.   In 2002, Todd founded his real estate company, which has since scaled into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse with investments spanning across 90% residential and 10% commercial properties. But Todd’s mission goes far beyond building wealth for himself—his true passion lies in helping others acquire wealth through real estate, empowering individuals to transform their lives and break free from financial limitations.   Today, Todd is one of the fastest-growing sales trainers in the real estate space, sharing his knowledge and blueprint with agents and entrepreneurs looking to level up and take control of their financial future. In this episode, we discuss: ✅ Todd’s journey from instability and addiction to building a $3 billion business empire ✅ How sales became his escape route and changed the trajectory of his life ✅ The mindset shifts required to turn pain into purpose ✅ The power of real estate as a wealth-building vehicle ✅ What separates successful salespeople from everyone else ✅ Todd’s passion for helping others create financial freedom through real estate ✅ His definition of winning and how to live a life of abundance   This conversation is one of the most raw, powerful, and transformational episodes we’ve ever had on The Code to Winning. Todd’s story is a reminder that your circumstances do not define your destiny—with the right mindset, work ethic, and belief, anything is possible. Whether you're in real estate, sales, or simply looking to rewrite your story—this episode is packed with life-changing wisdom and practical strategies to help you win in business and life.

The Code 2 winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we are starting our Arizona, Scottsdale, Code 2 winning tour. Without further ado, we have an amazing guest. I'll give you a brief introduction of who we have in the studio today. He goes by the name of Todd Conklin. Now, he is the CEO and founder of a $3 billion real estate business. He's a sales leader. He's also an entrepreneur and trainer

and the fastest growing sales trainer in the country. Ladies and gentlemen, a special treat. Without further ado, Todd Conklin. Welcome to the studio boss. Thanks, you. How you doing? I'm doing great. Awesome.

Thanks for having me. Thank you very much for being our very, very first guest in a while. We came to Arizona, I think in February time. The podcast was launched in April. And ever since then, we've just been going for heavy hitters like yourself. So it's a great honor and privilege to have you in the studio. today. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you saying that I'm a heavy hitter, huh? I don't know, but we'll see. Maybe we should ask his son. Yeah, I know, exactly. I don't think we should

ask it. Also, stuff. If you could give us a brief introduction of pretty much, like, who is Todd Conklin? Like from the beginning? From the beginning? Yeah, from the beginning, pretty much. I want to get to know you a bit bit. I want to just go to know you as well. Yeah, look, I mean, I looked at your podcast and I did a little recon. I have no idea why I'm here, to be honest with you. But, you know, I'm, I'm, it's interesting. I think, I think all entrepreneurs sort of have this, this thing. They, they grew up a particular way that, that created an outer shell and a teflon, an ability to, to withstand some pain and just have a different tolerance of pain. And I think I'm no different. I think everybody's, everybody's experiences are different. You know, I was raised by a single mother.

Parents got divorced when I was six months old. And, and by the time I was 16 years old, she'd been married four times. The, we'd moved all. of the time. Like chaos was constant in my life. And so I really craved that stability. I think we probably moved nine or ten times in 13, 14 years. And so what that meant, it wasn't like we moved down the street. It was new friends, new school, new teachers, new baseball team, new coaches, new everything. And so it was a constant fight or flight. And that was, I think, that Teflon, that getting really strong, so that when I entered the real world, I literally chased anything I could do to find consistency and safety. And for me, that meant money. I felt like, hey, if I, if I made enough money,

I could buy my own consistency. I could, I could buy my own safety. And so I, I spend a number of years after, you know, 16 years old, out of college in rehab, tried to go to, to, or out of high school in rehab, tried to go to college, couldn't do that. I entered the world of sales. And I traveled the country in sales and I made a lot of money. I spent a lot of money. That's awesome. But I made a lot of money until I settled in Sun Valley, Idaho and sort of my real estate.

Awesome. And I'm very fascinated because one of the things when I came to America, I was very impressed by how amazing the real estate market is, but the amount of entrepreneurs that were millionaires through real estate as well. If you don't mind sharing, obviously right now the business has grown tremendously over the years. Where did you start? How was your first investment in real estate? Yeah, so we built our empire not through the investment of real estate, but actually building a brokerage in real estate. So I started as a real estate salesperson in 2002. We started our company in 2006,

and it was two of us in the basement of the house. He was a couple of days old, and we just got after it. What was interesting is I, you know, as you look, back, I always tell people I was not the man for the job. And I don't think I was the man for the job at any point in my career. That chasing of safety and consistency, everywhere I went, there was chaos. And I could never quite catch up to the safety and the consistency. And what I realized was that the common denominator was the guy that was sitting in my chair. And so when we started the company in 2006, we were meteoric in our growth. The market was crazy good, too. That didn't hurt. What I learned probably in the first five or six years was, hey, look, you're never going to

build something that has great impact for others until you first change. 100%. And that really started my personal development phase of my life was probably around 2011, 2012. Awesome. And I mean, now that you, I mean, you guys were 2002, then 2006, it's started, the real estate market was great at the time, but I think two years along the line, the financial crisis happened, if I'm not mistaken. That's correct. And how, what effect did that have in your business, considering it was only about like two years old? Well, it was devastating, but if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be who we are today. See, every single day we get an opportunity to choose the darkness of the light. And there was a moment where I was sort of curled up in a fetal

position going, gosh, what am I going to do? Until I had a conversation with a mentor of mine who said, hey, what if? What if this crash is actually the opportunity that you've been looking for? And at that moment, I know exactly where I was, I knew exactly what I was doing, everything changed. And I started to see opportunity around every corner. Okay, no, that's awesome. Real estate can get sometimes overwhelming.

I have some, I think I mentioned earlier on, the fact that I'm in sales, many of the the salespeople seem to sometimes to be jumping, maybe getting a duplex, getting a house and so forth, not realizing like the investment that's involved. Sometimes when they have to try and flip a home, they have to put so much of more money they never budgeted for, which can get overwhelming at times. What you say often the mistakes and misconceptions people do when they get into like their first property? Well, they sell it. Okay.

See, wealth is created, not in buying real estate. It's keeping the real estate. Okay. If you look back 30, 40, 50 years, the price. have continued to go up, up, up. And, you know, one of the big things that everybody's talking about right now is, hey, consumer debt is at an all-time high. It's true, and it's scary, and it probably is a red flag, or at least a yellow flag at the very least.

But what they're not talking about is over the last 10 years, also at an all-time high is home equity. See, you don't get the equity if you don't sell. And you don't get the equity if you didn't buy it in the first place. So two best times to plant a tree. First was 20 years ago. The other one is today. Buy property. Even to this day, even with the market upward trajectory.

100%. Because people are still like, I know personally for me, there's these memes that have been going on around on social media saying, what were you doing in 1993? I should have been buying a real estate house at that time. Considering the fact that the price was so cheap, obviously it's a joke. However, the market has just been an upward trajectory for the past, like since 2008, it's just getting more and more expensive.

People have been praying and hoping for a market crash to try and capitalize on the opportunity to buy a home. Would you still recommend people buy a home today? 100%. You're not buying a home for six months. You're buying a home for a lifetime. So buy the home. Buy it now. Start building your life. Your experiences. You know, I've got three boys. My oldest is 18 years old. It goes fast. If we had just been waiting and waiting and waiting for the perfect time,

they would have never had a home. And so buy the house. Now look, here's the great thing. As your income increases, as you grow your businesses outside of just real estate investing, what you're doing is now you've got another home that maybe you can pull some equity out to go buy another home, that would be your primary residence and you keep the other one and use it as a rental. You don't sell it. Okay, no, that makes perfect sense.

I appreciate that. Now, when up scaling a real estate business, obviously that takes a lot of vision. it takes execution at the same time as well. What are the key strategies that you've used over time to try and make your business just from start to where it is right now? I love this question. Somebody asked this question about me yesterday. I am not the guy to answer that question.

I didn't have an intent to build a $3 billion company. That was never the intent. The intent was I wonder if I might be able to transfer some of my passion, some of my vision, some of my skill to somebody else. so that this industry that changed my life might change their life. And I did. And then I did it again.

And I did it again. And I did it again. And next thing you knew, I was literally changing the lives of hundreds of people. And then I was developing leaders that could also do the same thing that could change lives. And now all of a sudden we're changing the lives of thousands of people. And then we woke up one day and went, holy smokes,

we've got the fastest growing real estate company in the country. We've got one of the top real estate company. in the country, look what we did. Everybody wants to know, well, what was the trick? What was the framework? What's the hierarchy? How do you run meetings and how do you do infrastructure? I can tell you all of the things that we do now,

and I can show you what we do now, but that's not going to get you the success. Getting you the success is focusing on the one thing that matters, and that is having an impact on people. Because just like in any sales, you're in sales, you know this, right? Our job isn't to talk somebody into doing something that they don't want to do. 100%. Our job is to help them make the best decision for them.

And if we can help enough people make the best decision for them, it's not about our success. It's about their success. Oh, no, I love that. I love that so much. And now also, you know, speaking about the Fossus growing real estate company, I want to know exactly also for our viewers, if you were to break down those investments, Is it like mostly commercial? Is it residential?

Is it like multifamily homes? Can you try and break down like where you saw the opportunity and where is the fastest growth for that as well? Yeah, I mean, we're probably in 90-10. 90% of our business is done in the residential space. 10% of our business is done in the commercial space. Okay. And then would you recommend people,

I interviewed a gentleman as well who owned just like a commercial real estate. And for the first time, obviously, in my situation, being super young, I've never really thought about owning a commercial place, but I realize the opportunity that people can actually rent out of office space and sometimes it makes it super easy because if you control one entity and just hire it out, you have more control and I feel like there's more revenue. Would you say in a situation like that,

like how hard is it to own like a commercial real estate property? Well, you know, it's risk mitigation is what we're really talking about, right? I can buy a condo as an example, and the price is much lower versus buying. buying an industrial building. Price is bigger. Return's going to be more, but so is the risk. So what I like on the residential side is I tell people,

hey, why don't you go find yourself a duplex, a fourplex? Find yourself a 10-unit place. That way, when one tenant moves out, your spicket did not just get shut off. Now, coming with that, comes some complexities about property management. So you've got to be prepared for that or you've got to be prepared to outsource that.

Same thing on the commercial space. there's some different lending requirements. There's some nuances and complexities that come with commercial. But I like commercial property that has multi-tenant. So I worry about a big box industrial when one tenant leaves. Now it's going to take you some time to release that space. You're going to be out. You better have planned properly and you better have some gunpowder stored away.

Love that. Love that so much. And as I mentioned earlier on, he's the fastest growing. sales trained in the real estate space and which is going to segue to our next topic. We're going to talk a bit more about sales and sales training as well. And with your experience, especially when you've trained a lot of sales professionals and people within this industry, what would you say is distinguish the difference

between those top performers and like an average or good person as well? Well, so let's define what happens to average. So in our industry, in the real estate specific industry, but by the way, This crosses all industries. It's specific to sales. 90% of the people that get into the business won't make it three years. So average is death. Okay.

Plain and simple. Can't be average. It means you've got to be in the top 10%. In the real estate specific industry, the top 10% on average make $47,000. Well, nobody got into an all-commissioned business to make $47,000. Nobody. Nobody signed up to, you know, sleepless nights, working weekends, worrying about when the next paycheck was coming so that they could make $47,000. So what you're really talking about is you've got to

get into the top 2%. And the difference between those people that get to the top 2% and those people that don't is that the people that do have either a true or manufactured reason that they have to, not that they want to, but that they have to. Because the saying is the things that you won't change, you chose. At the end of the day, if you absolutely have to, to win, you will. If you absolutely have to change, you'll change. And I talk about my dad, so my dad died when he was 44 years old. And he could not change. Like, he just could not do it. And this applies to salespeople all over the place, right? The stat just came out that 89% of the business currently in the real estate business in the industry is being done by

11% of the agents, 89% of the business. Wow. So what happened to the other? than 89% of the people. Well, they're just out of business. So what do they need to do to change? Well, they need to make the decision to change. So my dad could not stop smoking. He just couldn't do it. It's too hard. Too much anxiety, too much pressure, whatever, fill in the blank. Until one day, he went to the doctor. And the doctor said, Phil, you have cancer. You're going to die. It was the last cigarette he ever smoked. The difference between want to and have to is where all the magic happens. Now, some people actually have their backup against the wall, and they have to go get a listing, get a buyer, sell something

because if they don't, their kids won't eat. The ones that don't have to have to manufacture a reason. They've got to get psychologically from a mindset perspective. They've got to convince themselves that the worst thing on the planet would be to fail. Oh, my, I love that so much. And when you spoke about that, I often refer to like muscle memory. you often do what you're very accustomed to unless you give a no option. I want to actually share a story.

James can actually concur with that. It was in 2019. I was in New Jersey. We're doing sales around that time for about like six months or so. Selling pest control, great market. Matter of fact, it was both of our PR weeks that time. But I was living off Red Ball and Eggs. Just Red Bull and my eggs.

Like, I just wanted to get out and just bust the doors, just get right there and there. But it was a funny experience. And so it was Saturday evening, and it's like, I pitched one client. I took like three red balls that day. And I'm like, yo, my chest is pumping. And I'm just trying to sit down. And he's just like, I'm overcoming objection after objection, after objection.

And I just sit down. The next time I just remember being like in an ambulance, you know, transported all the way to New Jersey. By the way, I got back Sunday. I sold him. He's not going to run away, brother Patel or Mr. Patel. You're running away from me. But the moral of the story is that that was. the last time I personally had a red ball, but I was forced to not have it. Of course, a few times

where I can get like, I need to use some sort of like, I don't know, something just to kind of like spike me up a bit, but it's not going to be red bull, not going to be like these energy drinks. And I often feel sometimes we become accustomed to a certain pattern of lifestyle until we are forced to change it like your experience with the dad. So I just felt like sharing that as well. Do you want to add anything regarding that? Well, no. I mean, that's a real life example. And it happens all the time. I get to see front row seat it happening to literally hundreds of salespeople in our organization because, well, we're a conduit, right? I always laugh because people are like, well, why do you have a coach? Well, I need the accountability.

Accountability is bullshit, right? If you don't want to do something, you won't do it. I don't care who is in the room. Now, you could pay for it. Is it going to make it a little bit more painful? Sure. but at the end of the day, you will decide to change or you will choose to stay the same. Accountability is from within. So you had an experience that said, because you knew that living on Red Bull and eggs was not good for you. Precisely. My dad knew that smoking was not good for him until you had the moment. So the question is, will you wait until you have to?

Literally, your life depends on it? Or will you make the decision early? so you don't have to. 100%. Love that, love that so much. Which kind of shifts as well towards like mindset. And I want to figure out like within your sales training, how important do you stress on like the ability for people to have a different paradigm shift

and understand how important it is to have a great mindset. So mindset is one of those. Like it's so broad, right? I think in my organization, we can talk about mindset. I think there's a lot of people online that are talking about mindset. I'm more of a, let me just show you. And what I mean by that in our organization, speed of the leader, speed of the pack.

Precisely. Okay. So if somebody is going to outgrow me, they should leave me. It makes sense, right? They should go and work someplace else where there's a leader that's doing bigger, better, faster so that they can go bigger,

better, and faster. So a mindset for me is transferred from me to them. If I wake up every morning at five o'clock in the morning and I'm in the gym and I'm grinding it out, well, I'm creating an environment where other people are like, okay, well, I want what he has. So I better start doing what he's doing. And the more they do it, the stronger their mind becomes. If I'm living to a schedule and I get more done in a four-hour period than most people get done in four days, somebody looks at that and says, I want to follow that because I want a piece of,

of that and they start doing that, their mindset gets stronger and stronger. If I'm constantly pushing myself to be different and to grow and to change, now all of a sudden somebody goes, oh, I didn't know that was available to me. I want a piece of that. Now I'm going to grow and I'm going to kill off my old self so that I can give birth to my new self. That to me is the best way to create an incredible mindset and ecosystem. And then just to follow up on that, I love that answer so much. What are the certain habits that entrepreneurs or sales reps can try and replicate or develop in that process to get a great mindset? Because it's sometimes hard when you just like one setback, one failure, one shortcoming. And it's like, ah, this is so hard. What are the habits that can be

developed? You know, I don't know what they all are. You probably need to talk to somebody smarter than me. I can tell you what worked for me. I just started keeping my promises. I just started doing what I said I was going to do. I just became a man of integrity. When I said I was going to get up at a particular hour, I just did it. If I said I was going to make my phone calls, I just made them. If I said I was going to do something, nobody was ever going to say, that guy's full of shit. And I wasn't always that way.

I mean, I was the guy that, you know, kind of overpromised and underdelivered. I didn't mean to. I wasn't trying to be a jerk or a liar. I just felt like I needed to be, you know, all things to all people. The moment I was true to me, and when I said yes, I meant yes, when I said no, I meant no, everything changed for me. When I say I'm going to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, go to the gym, I don't want to get up a 5 o'clock in the morning and go to the gym. This morning, 5 o'clock came really early. I was up until 1 o'clock in the morning working.

So I didn't want to get up at 5 o'clock this morning. But guess what time I got up? And did I go to the gym? You're damn right I went to the gym. It starts with these little micro decisions, these promises. that we make to ourselves. And the promise that I can tell anybody listening, if you won't keep a promise to yourself, I know 100% you won't keep one to me. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's powerful. That's really powerful. Personally, in your career, you've accomplished so much,

considering the fact that you built a $3 billion real estate business. The entrepreneurial journey can be so painful, lonely, scary, a lot of risk involved. when you look back, what are some of the setbacks and failures you had throughout the journey that you end up overcoming as well? Do you mind sharing any person? I would love to. Yeah. And I'm actually going to look at the camera for this one. There we go.

Because this is a colossal failure. My son's in the room, so I'm going to try not to get emotional. But the saying is it's lonely at the top. It doesn't need to be lonely at the top. It's lonely at the top because you didn't bring anybody with you. if you will not include your family on the journey, if you will not develop other leaders, what do they say?

If you can't find it, build it. If you won't bring and build other leaders along the way, it's going to be lonely. But if you bring them with you, it's not lonely at all. So I would say that was the biggest mistake that I made with my family is I really kept them on the outside. And I had every excuse under the sun, right?

Well, I didn't want them to feel the stress. and I didn't want them to understand what we were really risking because we have to risk a lot, and you have to endure a lot of pain, and you've got to eat a lot of shit along the way. It's just part of the deal. Like, you know, everybody talks about like, oh, you know, it's overnight success. Yep, overnight success, 20 years in the making, right? You have to grind in the dark, and you've got to deal with so much pain and adversity.

And it's one of the reasons that I point to people who had some rough growth, growing up tend to be stronger entrepreneurs. Because you have to be unwilling to quit. You can't beat somebody that never quits. And there will come a time that any rational, reasonable person would have quit. And they probably should have. But I'm delusional. I'm irrational.

And my pain tolerance is higher. I didn't want to expose my family. So that was the excuse I gave. It was the wrong thing to do. I was given a second chance to be able to expose my kids, my wife to everything that we did. And once we did that, now we're all in the boat. We're all rowing. We all know what the cost is going to be.

We also know what the payoff is going to be. And it's no longer lonely. Wow. That's powerful. It's a different kind of perspective. And I like that answer because it kind of like shows the importance and also shows your why and why you're doing what you're doing as well for the bigger picture as well, not just selfishly for yourself as well.

So I appreciate that. Obviously, known as one of the fastest growing sales trainers in the game, you often teach and train a lot of sales professionals. What are some of the core principles that you teach sales professionals in order to try and elevate their game as well? Well, it might be a little counterintuitive. You know, I think everybody wants to talk about, well, hey, what's the best lead source and what's the conversion strategy

and all of those things? I really don't spend a ton of time. Well, that's not true. I do spend some time on that. But I think where we start are our four foundations. You know, in our world, we chase God. It's all about family. If you don't have good health, you can't build wealth.

And then, of course, there's finance. And so we really focus on the four foundations and making sure that the life that we're building is when we actually want to live. The skills around, like this whole idea that salespeople are born, not made, they're not born. They're made. Not one of us came out knowing how to sell. Not one of us came out knowing what to say, when to say, how to say it. Those are all skills that can be taught. And frankly, you can learn them online. And we'd love for you to learn them online on our YouTube

channel, but you can learn them anywhere. It's the heart behind it. And if you don't have it all, you don't have anything at all. Like I know people, you probably know them too. They're like, they're crushing the world. Like they've got more. money than they know what to do with. But, you know, they're three times divorced. They're not happy. They're out of shape. You know, got health problems, whatever. And it's just shallow. I just don't think that that's the life that any of us were put on this planet. I believe that God gave us all very specific talents and their gifts given from God. Our gift to God is what we do with those talents. So we've got to get square with God. And then we've got to really get square with our family

because the legacy that you're going to leave is in your family. Listen, I would love to believe that all of these people that we've had an impact on their life, that they're, when I'm dead and gone, they're going to be like, you know what, that Todd. But we know the most important thing to them is their family. So my goal is to help them build legacies in their family so that they're the heroes of their family. I love that. And then, of course, I don't know what the mystical power behind getting in shape is, but I'm here to tell you.

I wish I could explain it. The more jacked I get, the more jacked I get. I have more energy. I have more clarity. I have more confidence. And as you scale a business, as you start to get better, listen, you will be judged by everybody. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody.

You'll be judged by the people like you. You'll be judged by the people that don't like you. You'll be judged for the decisions that you make that are right. You'll be judged for the decisions that you make that are wrong. You'll be judged for winning. You'll be judged for losing. The more strong physically that I get, the more strong mentally I become. And that stuff doesn't bother me as much.

And it's a critical component to success, whether you're in sales dealing with one-on-one rejection or whether you're an entrepreneur trying to grow and scale a company. Okay. No, that's awesome. It's very true. And I think we've seen it with people. Like, just if you work out and you kind of stick to a routine, you just end up building confidence in everything you do, even in school, whether it is with sales, whether it is with

interaction with people. Because at the end of the day, we're selling ourselves without even realizing every single day. When we approach people and when we go dates, when we date, when we get married, I think sales is just a part of a lifestyle. However, I never realized how big of a market it is in America and how life-changing it is as well. I think we spoke about it earlier. I mean, I'm born in a region, South Africa. You do door-to-door at home. You're knock at they'd be like, what the hell are you doing? And you can sell. But I'm saying, like, America is the capital of capitalism.

Like, there's a market for it. And I don't want to try and, like, discredit the fact that there isn't at home. I just feel like there's just such a great opportunity here. And I want to just give an experience. After we graduated, we end up going back to Idaho for two months. My friend and I started, like, a window cleaning business. Literally window cleaning. We got a few tools.

We got, like, some material as well. And we went to, like, areas and, you know, charging between 300 to 600 to, but we're signing up about 10 people a day because it was like one-time fee. And I ever realize that it's one of those things you can just get up and just go sell. And we didn't even have a pitch. We were just confident and we were excited. And we kind of leveraged that, just make up a pitch along the way. And I think that's very important that obviously, you know, that's better than most people,

that majority of sales is not even what you say, but it's like pretty much body language and tonality as well. Can you talk a bit about that as well? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think, frankly, in fact, Cole and I were having the conversation earlier this morning. Cole's very talented. He has the gift of gab. He has the ability to talk himself out or out of trouble in a way that really is fairly spectacular, which will serve him really well.

But, you know, we talk about athletes, right? There's a lot of very talented athletes that will never make the pros. And there's a lot of mediocre athletes that will make the pros. Well, why is that? Well, there's a difference between amateur and pro. And pro learns all. It's not just the route. It's how you run the route.

It's how you do the head fake. It's where your eyes are. It's the transfer of a belief that you're going to go left, but you're really going to go right. And in sales, that's what we're doing. We're really transferring an emotion. And you have to believe, you said it, right? The biggest sale that you'll ever make in your entire life is the one that you do to yourself. If you won't believe in you, and if you don't believe in your skill,

if you don't believe in the product or service that you're selling, I don't care who you are. You're not going to make it. You may make it for a short period of time, but you're still an amateur. You're just going to get lucky along the way. And then you're going to bounce from industry to industry to industry because it's always going to be the product. You've got to sell yourself that for someone not to choose you, not to choose your service, not to use your product,

Like it would be the worst decision they could possibly make. They have a problem. They've identified the problem. You've helped them potentially identify that problem. And you have the solution. And you are so passionate about that that you are going to transfer that belief and that emotion to them so that they can make the best decision for them. 100%. I actually want to read this one out as well.

It says in sales leadership, it's not just about hearing numbers, but creating a winning investment. environment. How do you inspire your sales teams to consistently perform at their best while maintaining a positive culture? Man, look, we're adults. I think the challenge that most people have is they think that they have a sales leader and they've got to manage those leaders. We don't micromanage. We micromeasure. We're all adults, right? We're all grown-ass men and women that give an opportunity to do something spectacular. an organization that's to change lives. And it's not for everybody. And frankly, it's not for most people. Most people won't make it in an organization like mine.

Only the strong, only the warriors will really survive. Only the people that are so committed to doing all of the things that need to be done to level themselves up and to hold themselves accountable will make it in my organization. Because I'm not going to babysit. That's not my job. I did not sign up for that. What I did sign up for is to create an environment where possibility, like I will create a roof, a ceiling that is so high that everybody's dreams can fit in it.

And if that's the kind of organization that you want to be in, then we're a great place to be. Those people further a culture of self-reliance, self-motivation, inspiration, accountability, and they just, frankly, they just get shit done at a level that other people want. Those are the one percenters. I love that so much. I want to just add on that as well. One of our church leaders back in like the 1800s said a beautiful saying that God gives men principles, but men govern themselves. In other words, as much as there may be a blueprint of how to become successful at the end of the day, you have to make the decision.

It's like goes back to the same analogy. You can take a donkey to the well, but you kind of make it like drink. You know what I'm saying? And I think it's very important. accountability. And sometimes those that are micromanaged often don't end up becoming successful because you're so used to being told, do that, turn left, turn right, go sell. But if it comes from within, but I still feel like coaching is still so important because I realize

from the people that I've learned mentors that often hold you accountable to the goals that you set out for yourself that just end up like playing a beacon, trying to help you achieve as well. Would you agree with that? Yeah. And I think coaching is a really interesting piece. So from accountability standpoint, my conversations, rather than that. than being like, well, you know, you said you were going to do this, are more like, you know,

it's interesting to me, you said you were going to do this, but you didn't do this, and you said you were going to do this so that you could have this particular outcome, life, experience, change, what have you. I wonder what it is about what you said you wanted and what you didn't do that might be missing. Okay. Because you've got as a human, as an adult, we've got to sort of understand that we are in control. It's extreme ownership, right? Extreme ownership. Everything that happens to me today is my fault. If it's bad, it's my fault. If it's good, it's also my fault. And a lot of people don't like that because they think, well, you know, like bad things happen to me. Well, okay, but you know, you chose to go outside, right? I see it as a badge of freedom because now I know

that nobody, nobody can keep me from feeding my family. Nobody can keep me from achieving something that would leave a legacy for my family. Nobody. And it's entirely up to me to get the right training for my skills, the right goals for my mind, the right plan for execution, the right people to keep me honest, right, to tell me the truth when I've gotten delusional again,

that's all my job. So if I do it well, good things happen. That's where coaching becomes sort of an interesting deal. People get confused between training and coaching. Training is developing a skill. Coaching is helping you see the blind spots, see around corners, see around bends to avoid potholes, right,

and seize opportunities. I love that so much. I actually, I don't even plan on asking this question. It's more of a personal one, but I think it's also one of the most important questions I can ask. Personally, for me, my role model is always been my dad. He's always been that one person that created,

a culture in our home where we can achieve anything if we just put our mind to it. And that played a big role in anything I ever wanted because I realized, hang on, I can do it because it wasn't still for me in a very young age, can do so. Why I'm going with this, making it so personal, you stress a lot on one of the core principles of ensuring that entrepreneur is

and the people that you train abide by principles by putting their family and God first as well. Being a father of sons, I'll call you Father April, Abraham had been sons. But being a father of sons, what would you say to those dads out there that are perhaps feeling inadequate and feeling like they're, you know, they're shortcoming and they're not really achieving their goals? What would you say is the, I want to make sure our phrases correctly, the symbol or how is it correlated between successful entrepreneur and a successful dad just from your experience? Yeah, I'm not sure the correlation.

Here's what I would say. If you're a father and you are feeling bad about what it is and how you're showing up for your sons, change it. I mean, you're responsible for it. They are your responsibility. The legacy that you leave in them is your behavior. They don't care what you say. They're watching every move you make. So if you yell at your wife, they are going to yell at their wives. And if that's what you're looking for, great. If you got a bad marriage, you're going to teach them, hey, go find a woman that you can have a bad marriage with. If you're a bad dad, what you're doing is you're making sure that your grandkids are going to have a bad dad. Change it. Okay, no, I love that, man. I love that so much. Yeah, I'm so fascinated by real estate. I know I keep like going back between real estate and so forth.

If somebody would have, let's say, $150,000 right now in the bank, what advice would you give in terms of real estate investment, would you prefer they go for a multifamily home, single family home, Airbnb? What advice would you say is the, it's got a more substantial amount of growth in the long term? If they wanted to make the first investment. So a couple of questions first. Number one, is this their first investment? First investment. All right. So they don't own a current home. They don't own anything. Yeah, they've been renting. Right. Buy a home. Okay. For them to live in. Okay. Whether they're married or not. Doesn't matter. Okay. Buy it now. Okay. So that's the

first step. First step. You wouldn't recommend getting a multifamily than renting another portion. Sure. I love that idea. I think that's a fabulous idea. But the idea is that I'm buying a primary residence. I'm going to buy a home that I'm going to live in.

Because the investment that we're making, the best investment you can ever make in anything. It's not real estate. It's not stocks. It's in yourself. You've got to invest in yourself. And having a home and having some place that you can call home, that you can build a life in, it's important. Often sometimes if you feel like, hey, there's no need to buy a home because I'm not

going to stay there for 30 years and so forth as well. What's the misconception regarding that whole mentality? They're thinking about it just as an investment instead of the investment in them. Yeah, we, people that own homes make more money. Does you know that? People that stay married, they make more money. People that go to the gym that are in better health, they make more money. Super strange, right?

Did you know that men and women that prey together, the divorce rate is less than 7%? Like their success leaves clues. I just like finding what other successful people do, and then I just copy them. You talked about mentors. I didn't have role models. Like I did, right? I told you my mom was married four times. So my role model was how to not stay married.

I didn't have a dad that was in the picture. So I didn't have a father figure as a role model. So I had to go out and find them. And so I found people in my life. And I do this constantly. I am always, always, always auditing my inner circle. Some of these people don't even know that they're my mentors. But if you want a great marriage, go find somebody that's been married a long time and

they still hold hands, right? And pick their brain. talk to them, pay attention. You want to live a long time and you want to actually live healthily, go find somebody that's done it. You want to find, you know, you want to have a great spiritual life? Go find somebody that's got a great spiritual life and copy what it is that they're doing. So I love the role model deal, but at the end of the day,

I don't think it's as hard as many of us make it out to be. There are a lot of people that are quietly winning in life. Just copy them. Awesome. And when you said, you've going to have a long life, Dr. Pepper a day keeps the doctor away. Is that what it is? No, no. No.

Another one I want to read. There's certain questions that I just love. I don't want to paraphrase it as well. I love this a lot. It says, developing trust and credibility as a leader is essential for growth. What steps do you take to build strong leadership brand both within your organization and in the industry? Yeah. So this is sort of a, we talk about authority.

versus influence. It has to start with authority, though. And authority is only built through integrity, character. What do they say? A judge of a man's character is not what he does in public, but it's what he does in private. You have to show up and just absolutely keep the promises that you make. Period.

End of story. If you're one of those people that doesn't, just fix it, fix it right now. Because you can have an authority in a space, but still not be believed, not be trusted. So you may be good at real estate as an example. but you also may be known as somebody who will do just about anything to get a real estate deal done. You don't want to be that. So building the authority is really important, integrity, trust.

But there's a lot of people that have incredible authority in their space in any industry, but nobody knows them. That's not influence. And frankly, there are a lot of people that don't have the authority, but have a lot of influence that are having, I would call a negative impact on industries around the world because they're on social. they've built an influence, but they don't know what they're talking about. But they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. They read a book and they're just regurgitating what they learned. So I believe that leaders, especially today, there needs to be a battle cry for people that have authority in space to stop being selfish. The world needs you now. If you are good, if you are proven if you are doing good things in your space, the world needs your leadership right now.

It's time for you to lean in. I know it's uncomfortable. I know video is uncomfortable. I'm sure it was uncomfortable for you to start your podcast, right? But what you're doing is leading in a space with authority and you're saying, hey, look, I'm going to have an impact on a community. We need that right now. So hire a videographer, get on camera, post on social media, whatever it is that you need to do, start a YouTube channel, start talking to people because people need people of authority to be guiding them right now. That's so powerful. I appreciate that a lot.

And one of the things I realized from leaders like yourself, leaders like Andy, even like one of the leaders in our insurance space, is that the importance of leading from the front. Sometimes when people get in a form of leadership, it's easy for them delegate and just say, okay, you go do that, or you go do that as well. but actually being in the trenches often makes a big difference because those are some of the most important leadership qualities, which goes to my next question from identifying some of the strong leaders that you've seen, what would you say are the top three,

and I know you mentioned integrity is one of them, what would you say are the top three most important qualities that the best leaders have? I mean, obviously the number one thing has to be that they're trustworthy. They just have to be the people for the job. But they also have to be humble enough to understand that they may not have the skill necessary today, which probably is the third thing, and that is a constant evolution. So as I said earlier, I've never been the man for the job.

I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I'm not the most handsome guy in the room. I'm not the most athletic guy in the room. I just wasn't that person. But I am delusional and I am relentless. And I am humble enough to identify the chinks in my armor, and I will go find solutions. Now, what's really funny about this, we talked about getting judged. Oftentimes, I get mistaken for the arrogant guy in the room because there's nothing that I don't think I can accomplish.

And I mean that. But it's only because I know that I wasn't the man for the job and I was able to develop the skill for the occasion. Make sense? So I would say trust. I would say a willingness to recreate yourself. and a level of humility to understand where you're missing skills. I love that. I love that so much.

Which kind of goes to the next question, I don't mean to play devil's advocate, but I want to give like a historical reason I'm asking this. You often look at stories like Alexandra the Great. You often look at like the Vikings when they're about to conquer and they end up burning their ships saying, you know, we either conquer or we die. You often look at a lot of the traits, like in the Bible or scriptures, of just extremely like young, almost like predestined, four ordained leaders as well.

Where I'm going with this, there's often being a conflict between opinions between this specific topic. Leaders are born or can you develop that skill to become a leader? I think everybody's a leader. I mean, I think every single person is a salesperson and I think every single person is a leader. Now, they may not recognize that they are

And oftentimes, you know, people don't want to be a salesperson because they, they assign something icky with sales. And yet, without sales, the world does not exist. They're focusing on the frauds, the snake oil salespeople. But the world by and large is made up of incredible people that literally help solve problems for humanity. And those people are called salespeople. They're not the inventors of the world. They're the salespeople. Inventor can invent anything they want.

But if you don't have a salesperson, they can take the product and deliver it to the person that needs that product. It doesn't ever happen. So salespeople, to me, are the nucleus, the power of everything that happens. And I believe that everybody's a salesperson. All you need to do, anybody that has kids, all you need to do is go home and watch your three-year-old sell you on the fact that he or she needs whatever it is that she wants right now. I sell my wife every single day. I sell myself every single day on stuff. Right?

Okay, I don't want to do this. Yeah, but you need to do this. Yeah, but I don't really want to do this. I don't really have time to do this. Maybe, Todd, you said you were going to do it. All right, I'll do it. It's sales. So I think everybody's sales, and I think everybody's a leader,

and whether that mean that all you're doing is leading the person that you see in the mirror, you're leading. If you've got people that in your family, they're watching you. I don't care who you are. You may not want to be the leader because you may not want the pressure

that you assign to being a leader, the responsibility of being a leader. But don't get confused. Every person walking around is a leader. I love that. I love that so much. If I had a mic drop, I'd drop it right now.

That would be the one. So right now, I know I want to value your time. Thank you very much for coming. I'm sorry we started a little late, but I really appreciate the lot. Just the last two questions, then I can leave you in peace

before I'll bother you in the next few months. I love you. I love your voice. I can stay here all day. Don't make a black man. Deep in there you'll find it. All right. So just one advice would you give to a leader right now

that is trying to balance between pushing results for their team while trying to ensure that they all feel supported, motivated, and also valued. So for the team or for everybody? For the entire environment, yeah, the team and everyone, like within the organization. Yeah, I mean, look, I think people, people want to be inspired. And I don't think words are what we're talking about.

You know, they come and go. I think people want to believe that there's opportunity and there's something else. And so I would just say, lead by example, go faster. oftentimes what we see are, there's, there's a community out there that's looking for KG. But KG wants to try to be all things to all people, doesn't want to live on display. For whatever reason, oh, I don't want to be ego, I don't want to be this. The problem is, is that everybody that's looking for KG can't find you because you're hidden. You're a secret agent.

So we've got a lead, and we've got to lead boldly, especially right now. And if you'll lead boldly, those people looking for you, will find you. And that's an incredible environment when you're surrounded by people who believe like you, that love like you, that love like you, that think like you, like let's go, let's go conquer the world. That's incredible. And then of course, you've got, I mean, once you make the decision that you're actually going to build and scale a business, there's no quit. It gets faster. Gases on the right, there are no breaks, figure out to go faster, more efficiently, go, go, go. Because it's not just you and your family that you're talking about. It's everybody behind you and their families too. You are the

limit to their success, literally. And if you will wake up every single day and tell yourself, I am the limit to the success, which means I'm also the ceiling. So if I can raise the ceiling, I can raise the level of success of everybody that's following me. That's building an incredible environment and building incredible leaders. Wow. Thank you very much for that. And now the last and final question, because it's like the co-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. We ask every single guest, as everyone has different answers and different perspective. But in your own opinion, what is the definition of winning? The definition of winning, I have this visual of a fan cam. You know, you know, the

fan cam that pans in the arena and it comes up to somebody and it's somebody that's, you know, kind of squawking at his wife and all of a sudden he realizes that he's on the camera and he's like, oh, hi, you know, all of a sudden, nice guy. Look. What we get in public was paid in hours of pain and cold and darkness and doing the right thing over and over and over and over and over again in private. Powerful. When I go to the pearly gates, I think it's at my lap that talks about when he goes and he meets Peter, he wants Peter to go, man, I had this plan for you, but like you knocked my socks off. Like you even did better than I thought. that all happens in the darkness in the in the quiet.

And so winning, winning is always doing the right thing and maybe even more than you thought you could when no one's watching. Powerful. Powerful. Thank you very much. Well, Tari, if you could let our viewers know where they could get a hold of you,

if they can reach out to you via social media, text number, just like let us know if they want to get trained by you as well. If you could just like lift the camera and people know where it can get a hold of you. Yeah, of course. The best place to reach me is on YouTube. It's the distinctive agent show. and of course there's Instagram,

official Todd P. Conklin. I would love to see you guys there. If you need anything at all, you can always text me too. I'll give you my phone number. 83333-38-0078. It's my personal line, so feel free to text me,

help you with anything. Like I said, ladies and gentlemen, special guest, the coach-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Todd Conklin, great honors. Thanks, brother.