The Entrepreneur DNA - Eat What You Kill: How to Build a Sales Army & Dominate in Business | Sam Taggart | EP 63

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In this episode, I sit down with one of the top sales trainers in the country, Sam Taggart, to break down what it really takes to dominate in sales, leadership, and recruiting. We dive into the "...Eat What You Kill" mentality—why too many sales teams rely on leads instead of learning how to hunt, how business owners cripple their growth by stepping back too early, and why most sales cultures fail due to a lack of accountability. Sam shares hard-hitting insights on building a sales army, training B and C players into closers, and why the best sales leaders don’t just manage—they set the pace. Whether you're a real estate investor, entrepreneur, or sales professional, this episode will challenge you to rethink your approach and step up your game. If you’re ready to stop making excuses and start making money, this is the episode for you! -- Connect with Sam Taggart & Level Up Your Sales Game! 🔥 Get the Book: Eat What You Kill – Become a Sales Carnivore → https://a.co/d/fDmWbxy 🎤 Attend a Sales Bootcamp: Join one of Sam’s high-impact sales & business bootcamps → Visit The D2D Experts 📞 Book a Business Audit: Need help with sales, recruiting, or scaling? Schedule a call with Sam’s expert team → Contact The D2D Experts 📲 Follow Sam for Daily Sales Insights:👉 Instagram: @samtaggart👉 LinkedIn: Sam Taggart👉 YouTube: D2D Experts -- Thank you to Mando for supporting today's podcast! Stay Fresh, Stay Confident with Mando! Tired of body odor? Mando Whole Body Deodorant keeps you fresh for up to 72 hours—pits, feet, and everywhere in between. Grab the Starter Pack and get $5 off (over 40% off!) with code [COLBY] at ShopMando.com. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence. Get yours today! -- About Justin: After investing in real estate for over 17 years and almost 3000 deals done, Justin has created a business that generates 7 figures in active income through wholesaling and fix and flipping as well as accumulating millions of dollars of rental properties including 5 apartment buildings, 50+ single family homes, and 1 storage facility Justins longevity in real estate is due to his ability to look around the corners, adapt to changing markets, perfecting Raising private capital, and focusing on lead generation which allows him to not just wholesale and fix & flip, but also accumulate wealth through long term holds. His success in real estate led him to start The Entrepreneur DNA podcast and The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, and REI LIVE where he’s actively doing deals with members. He has coached and mentored thousands of aspiring and active investors over the last decade. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby​ YouTube: Justin Colby​ TikTok: @justincolbytsof​ LinkedIn: Justin Colby

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I found there's very big lack of training. It's like they'll hire training or they'll hire people and then they won't train them and then they expect them to be great. But when you give people real good scripts and real good accountability and work with them and role play with them and give them hope and coach them, you know, and actually lead them, then they will perform better. But I think a lot of people as a business owner, they're so busy doing all the other 50 things when I'm like the most valuable use cases
Starting point is 00:00:27 of your time are threefold, recruiting top talent. Number two is I'm training that talent. And number three would be leading from the front, having that wherewithal to delegate some of your $10 an hour tasks and actually go in the field and sell shit. What is up, Entrepreneur DNA? Welcome back to an incredible episode.
Starting point is 00:00:50 I'm super excited about this episode for one big reason. I have one of the, and arguably, and actually, Google has told us that one of the top salespeople in the country, he is also a bestselling author, and he focuses his time on entrepreneurs on sales, leadership and recruiting. I got Sam Taggart here people. What's up dude? How you doing man? Let me connect. Let's go. It's funny we have um I lean into four basic principles, mind, body and connections and then it leads to your business. That connection piece what we have it's funny that we
Starting point is 00:01:23 were just talking offline, right? Like our mutual, we've circled each other for years without even really even knowing it. I know, and it's fun to connect. That's why I was like, hey, it's, the best way, like somebody texted me, they're like, hey, can you go to lunch? And I was like, no.
Starting point is 00:01:39 But if somebody said, can you be on my podcast? I probably say yes. And honestly, it'd probably be a deeper, cooler conversation anyway, you know what I mean? So like, it's such a fun way to kind of really talk meaningful conversation without being like, why would I just go to lunch? You know, like there's some power in that, but with busy schedules, this makes more sense. Well, for sure. And I'm in Florida and you're in Utah, right? So dude, let's get into, first of all, I want to talk about your book. Your book is phenomenal.
Starting point is 00:02:08 It's really leans into, you need to go out there and work as a salesperson. And if you're relying on a good economy, I've been preaching this for years in the real estate space, real estate investors specifically. The last 10 years has been amazing. If you are not doing well in real estate in the last 10 years, then you weren't breathing, right? But now that the going has gotten a little more challenging,
Starting point is 00:02:32 this leans into your book, right? Eat What You Kill, right? Like you gotta go work for it. So let's talk a little bit about your book, dude. Yeah, so it's called Eat What You Kill, Become a Sales Carnivore. And basically the premise is I felt like the sales world doesn't matter if you're doing software or,
Starting point is 00:02:50 you know, every business has sales. But the problem is, is there salespeople, whether they're in person, B2B, B2C, over the phone, Zoom, they're all, like I look at the majority of businesses and they have herbivore businesses, meaning as they're very codependent on the marketing, the leads, the funnel. And many of them have never really fully experienced a 1099 carnivore, eat what you kill, no dependent type of sales culture.
Starting point is 00:03:19 And the sucky part is a fish doesn't know it's in water, you know, until it's out of water, right? Like, and, and I come from a culture where I never got a lead. I knocked doors since I was 11 years old. I, you know, like if I wanted something, I knew how to go knock, never got paid a W-2, never got paid a salary, never got paid anything to, I just created wealth. And I look at the company I was a top rep at,
Starting point is 00:03:44 3,000, 1099, multi-billion, multi-exits, publicly traded, vivant. They never, none of us forgot a lead. You know what I mean? There was just an army of foot soldiers that went out and knocked. And it created, made a billionaire out of the owner. And anyway, long story short,
Starting point is 00:04:04 the people in today's economy are just getting more and more soft and they never learned the skill of resilience. They never learned the skill of a cold call. They never learned the skill of the pound the stone over and over and over and over again. And they're lacking those skillsets, yet they're trying to run a business
Starting point is 00:04:24 or they're trying to, you know, they're wondering, why are my sales guys not doing anything? It's like, cause you gave them two appointments on the calendar and then they twiddled their thumbs and that's it. Like that's all they'll do. And once an herbivore kind of always an herbivore. So it's like, how do you shift
Starting point is 00:04:37 and change your sales culture internally? And so this is like the Bible for that. It's got nine sections on from mindset down to body language, down to prospecting, to pitching, to presenting, closing, objection handling. It goes through every concept of the sales cycle for creating more of a carnivore. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:58 Yeah, listen, you know, funny enough, a lot of people know my story, so I'll keep it short. I graduated UCLA, pretty prominent college, right? prominent college right good. Not Asian that's impressive. University of Caucasians lost among Asians baby you know it you know it so listen I've never used it you know what my first real-world job was after college? What? Door knocking. Business to business, door knocking. You may know the company, company called Sidcor. Have you ever heard of Sidcor? Yeah, I've consulted some of their teams. Right. So if you've met one of their senior, I forgot the rankings
Starting point is 00:05:37 now, but senior whatever, Matt Osborne, really real dear friend of mine, my first mentor, right? He took me under his wing and helped me understand it. And, you know, the reality is I wouldn't trade that for the world because those two years that I did that, I learned so much. And you talked about it, the mindset, like every morning we had to be in there by 7 45 and we're going through skillsets and mindsets every day the top leader would be able to go up there and give an analogy of what life is like and how we can use that analogy in the real world. I mean, there's just so much that you get from it and being able to hear no a hundred times so you can get one yes a day. That was the model.
Starting point is 00:06:22 I needed to go here. No, one hundred times so I could get my one yes and unfortunately I caught pneumonia when that when you know when the client moves you to a different state I went to Boston I'm a California boy Sam that winter boy door knocking come on man it was zero degrees some days right I had tights I had thermals, I had wool coats, I had wool suits. You couldn't get this California boy warm enough.
Starting point is 00:06:49 Then I caught pneumonia, which launched my real estate career, but I'll tell you, that is incredible, dude. It's just- The pride of passage. Like I think- It is. You know, like if you're a parent right now
Starting point is 00:07:00 and you don't put your kids into door to door, whether it's in high school or, you know, that you don't promote that, I think a lot of parents are like, oh, you're talking to strangers, it's dangerous, or you're the scum of the earth, you're a salesman. And I'm like, that is what created a financial security or freedom in your inside. It gave you confidence that you're like,
Starting point is 00:07:20 I could go do anything. If I can knock doors for two straight years, bro, I could go do X, you know what I mean? Like, if I could go do anything. If I can act or for two straight years, bro, I could go do X, you know what I mean? Like if I could do this. And I think many people rob the opportunity for that development from a young age and or are too prideful to even step into that.
Starting point is 00:07:36 Yeah. It's crazy because I still can use the four. So we were taught, I literally say this to my sales team, there's four levels of salesmanship, right, or there's four qualities of a good salesperson. You have to use indifference, you have to use fear of loss, you have to use Jones Effect, and you have to use sense of urgency.
Starting point is 00:07:56 And if you can use all four of those points, this is what I learned, I swear to God, I still to this day talk about it. An expert salesperson, a Sam Tiger, Justin Colby, we can use all four of those in one sales cycle, you would be able to consider yourself an expert at it because it takes a talk track to be able to go be indifferent, talk about Jones effect, have a fear of loss and have a sense of urgency, which are totally different things. A lot of people think that they're the same, they're totally different.
Starting point is 00:08:23 Um, and so dude, it dude, it's incredible to just think about all that kind of stuff. Love that. Yeah. As many of you know, I'm constantly on the move, juggling multiple businesses, traveling, and ensuring I get my morning workouts in. Staying fresh isn't just a preference, it's a necessity.
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Starting point is 00:10:09 I've written other books, this is my fourth book, but this one is like to me the anthem of my life's work. So it's exciting to kind of get it out there. So if you're listening, go get a copy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or something and give it to your team. The end of the day, if you're an owner and you're a business, you know what I mean? I think of Justin as like, I'm training my sales team.
Starting point is 00:10:28 I'm like, if I could give them one book that's like, read this book, I promise you, it's like, nobody's gonna complain about somebody that's cold DMing, cold calling, going through your old data, willing to go hit the pavement. You know what I mean? That is like the golden goose for any sales team.
Starting point is 00:10:46 You know what I mean? Most managers and owners are bitching about, dude, what like you're not performing or why aren't you selling? And it's like becoming more and more of a lost art. And so it's like, can we reactivate this whole, you know, purest form of selling, which is where I come from and you started
Starting point is 00:11:00 is like door to door. Like, I mean, it's just people are like, people still do that? I'm like, yeah, very much so. It's actually a growing industry and you know, it's just becoming more and more sophisticated. It's incredible. The, um, you're, you're just talking about it briefly, right?
Starting point is 00:11:15 And in the real estate space where I really am, you know, the door to door world is such an undervalued asset, right? You're looking for people who want a, to sell, not want, need to sell their home. And if you just walk by a home that looks like no one's mowed the lawn in six years, and it looks like no one's painted the house in 22 years, do you think there's some motivation there?
Starting point is 00:11:38 Yeah, so here's what's crazy, Justin. So I spoke, I don't know if you know Cody Sperber, him and I both, and we did an event together. And anyway, he's got all these wholesalers there and he's telling me about this technology. It's called Drive for Dollars. And he goes out and has people take photos and uploads it to the system. And there's all sorts of these data for pre-foreclosures, distressed property data that people are paying so much money for.
Starting point is 00:12:02 And I'm like, how about like, knock for dollars? Like, if you're gonna drive all the way there and you're gonna take a photo and you're there, like walk up and I promise you this pitch, which is going to sound so terrible, is better than your photo. And it's, hey, you wanna sell your house? And you can get the door slammed and it took you 15 seconds.
Starting point is 00:12:23 But at the end of the day, that was the worst pitch in the world, but it was better than your effing photo you sent. Yeah, dude. Because I add their data, I did, did, did, did, did. But I'm like, now I could teach you the psychology of an amazing pitch to that, but it was better than no pitch.
Starting point is 00:12:38 Yeah. And I'm like, and he's like, well, how do I get people to do it? I'm like, like what? You just don't make it an option. We just talked about the company I worked for, SidCorp, there's not an option. There's no sending DMs for SidCorp.
Starting point is 00:12:51 You don't, Matt wasn't like, hey Justin, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna train you on how to send DMs. That wasn't the business. The only option was to go outside and knock doors all day long. You train them by making it the only option, right? And so now let's grab it, by the way,
Starting point is 00:13:08 get this book on Amazon. This guy's world-class, literally world-class. You do how many events a year? D2D Con, you just had one recently, didn't you? Yeah, we just had one, 3,000 people. I mean, we do about two to three events. Like tomorrow I have a sales manager bootcamp teaching sales managers how to go run their teams
Starting point is 00:13:26 for two days and then next week I'm in Dallas on a sales bootcamp, the next week I'm in Florida on another sales bootcamp. We host events three, four times a month regularly where I speak or I'll go and actually create an opportunity whether it's sales, business management or recruitment. And I think, you know, a lot of people always struggle with this formula of like,
Starting point is 00:13:47 I don't know how to find any sales guys. Like it's just me, right? They're a business owner and they're just like, really, like I spoke at a pressure washing and Christmas lighting convention last week in Florida. And most of these guys, I'm like, raise your hand if you're the sales guy and the business owner and like 90% of the room,
Starting point is 00:14:02 there's like 300 people. And I'm like, oh, you guys are just it. You are the effing business. So like congratulations. And I'm like, well, number one is we gotta recruit some people. Yeah. And two is we gotta train and manage those people.
Starting point is 00:14:15 And everybody's like, well, I can't afford them or I don't have the leads or I don't. I'm like, I'm not talking about leads, bro. I'm talking like make them go eat what they kill. Yeah. Everybody's bottleneck is if I had more leads then I could go recruit more people. And I'm like, well, if you had they kill. Everybody's bottleneck is if I had more leads then I could go recruit more people. And I'm like, well, if you had carnivores
Starting point is 00:14:27 then you don't need leads. See where I'm going at this. I totally do. So for those entrepreneurs right now, they're like, Sam, I get it, I get it, I get it. But how do I motivate them to go do it? What's your answer to that? That's what I'm teaching tomorrow for two days.
Starting point is 00:14:41 Okay. It's all about proper sales management. And so kind of think of it as like threefold. You have competition, which is this free energy. So it's how you facilitate. So I just launched one for my internal sales team. I got like 15 guys and we sell coaching, right? And we launched March Madness.
Starting point is 00:15:00 So I put them in teams. We've got like six teams, you know, an SDR, an AE and an expert all on a team. We create these pods and every day I'm posting the scorecard and I'm saying who's winning, who's losing, what's the prizes, shit talking, calling out, you know, doing a game out of this. Gamifying it totally. Gamifying is like number one.
Starting point is 00:15:19 Number two is accountability is you got to trim the fat. You've got to have clear pips, you know, performance reviews. You got to have call-outs and daily huddles. What are pips just for the person? Performance reviews, basically. Like you put them on a performance plan where if they don't hit X, then they're fired. And I think a lot of people, they keep all this fat around
Starting point is 00:15:40 and they have crappy salespeople, but it's called addition by subtraction. When you start to cut the bottom 20%, your top 20% actually performs better. Yep. So today I'm firing a guy, you know? Sadly, last week I fired a guy and it hurt. Like obviously I have an emotional heart,
Starting point is 00:15:56 but sometimes I start to now be like, good, my team will do better now because they know I'm willing to hang a man to show them that don't be an idiot and suck because you're giving permission to suck to everyone else if you have no accountability. Yep. In a sense where a lot of people in sales cultures,
Starting point is 00:16:12 they almost are like afraid to call people out. They're afraid to like hold people like to quotas and numbers and like, dude, this is a sales culture. Does the NBA just let Joe Schmoes in the court? No. No. And then number three is training. And I think the most people,
Starting point is 00:16:31 and so we're a sales training company, right? So we have thousands of videos in different categories and different coaches and we do all sorts of cool stuff. But like I found there's very big lack of training. It's like they'll hire training or they'll hire people and then they won't train them and then they expect them to be great. But when you give people real good scripts
Starting point is 00:16:51 and real good accountability and work with them and role play with them and give them hope and coach them you know, and actually lead them, then they will perform better. But I think a lot of people as a business owner, they're so busy doing all the other 50 things when I'm like the most valuable use cases of your time are threefold, recruiting top talent. I'm always recruiting. Number two is I'm training that talent, meaning I'm pouring into those people
Starting point is 00:17:18 so they pour into me and that's multiplication. I think most business owners are like, I'm the only guy that can sell. And I'm like, well, what if you develop 10 of you? Now you just multiplied you. And number three would be if they, you know, actually sold as a business owner, where most of these business owners, I got off a call yesterday, a guy started a new roofing company,
Starting point is 00:17:37 split from his partner. And I'm like, he wanted me to pay, he wanted to pay me on a profit share. And I looked at this new kid and I'm like, you just started a business, he wanted to pay me on a profit share. And I looked at this new kid and I'm like, you just started a business 30 days ago, you split up, how many are you gonna sell this year? And he's like, what do you mean?
Starting point is 00:17:51 I mean, thought of that. I'm like, you just started a company, you just said your overhead is X, you have not sold any and you have no sales guys. And you wanna hire my sales guys to come and be your interim sales leader and CRO as a transition. So are you asking my guy to be all the sales?
Starting point is 00:18:09 So I said, right now, my question is how many you sell tomorrow? Because you just keep calling it death by business cards where you, you've spent so much time on the shirts, the hats, the, you know, all these things of just like, but how many are you selling? And I'm like, you need to hire out
Starting point is 00:18:26 and or give your uncle, cause his uncle's sitting there and he's like, yeah, I might come over with him and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, how about uncle? You do everything, but sales. And you bro are nine to nine in the field until this thing makes hell of money. And what happens is you start to attract
Starting point is 00:18:40 and recruit your people. But I need you out there in the field. And he was like, well, and I was like, then you're probably not, I'm not a good fit for you, pro. Cause this isn't gonna work. This is a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And so I think that leading from the front,
Starting point is 00:18:52 having that wherewithal to delegate some of your $10 an hour tasks and actually go in the field and sell shit. Yeah. The challenge I think all of us have, right, is what you're talking about. Even if I'm all of us have, right, is what you're talking about. How, even if I'm willing to do it, right? How do I get others to have the same passion, desire, motivation, be inspired to go do it?
Starting point is 00:19:16 And there's usually a breaking point. I actually talk about it more in a leadership form, right? And you're the expert in recruiting leadership and sales, but the leadership part is tough. And the reason why is people don't work that muscle out enough, right? They just think they have it just because. And because maybe they're a good manager,
Starting point is 00:19:34 but it is not the same thing as being a good leader. And I have a sales manager playbook. It's like 101 pages. And like, I think page six is literally managing versus leading. And what's hard is, and then they're selling. Most great salespeople actually make terrible managers. They're not meticulous.
Starting point is 00:19:55 They're not- The owner of the companies take the sales guy and make him a manager. Yeah. It's the craziest shit. And leading a great sales guy could be a good leader. I was always a really good leader, but if I didn't have an assistant manager,
Starting point is 00:20:10 meaning I was the sales manager for many years, and then I was a VP of sales at Big Solar Company or whatever, and I found if I did not have a sales manager, like an assistant manager that did area management, lead management, rep 101s, onboarding, training. I was like the pace setter. I was the inspirer. I was the leader.
Starting point is 00:20:29 I was the number one, number two guy in the company always so that if I can do 10 in a day, you could do two. Come on, let's go. And I said, throw them in my car and I'll ride out to area with them and I'll just fire them up all day and like show them what's up and then I'll give them feedback. But for I'll ride out to area with them and I'll just fire them up all day and like show them what's up and then I'll give them feedback.
Starting point is 00:20:45 But for me to actually sit down and have empathy and like work with somebody and have, you know what I mean, that patience. I'm like, if you don't get it, like, come on, let's go. Next. Next. And I think that's a detriment. So it's one, understanding the balance between that, you know, I think of the military drill sergeant,
Starting point is 00:21:03 that's a manager, right? And what's weird is I could never be managed like that. That's why I didn't go into the military. I'd go into hell. Like, it would be like, are you kidding me? You're going to yell at me all day and tell me exactly what to do and say? And people willingly sign up for this.
Starting point is 00:21:17 And I'm like, wait a minute, they're asking for true accountability, being told what to do, tell me exactly where to be and where to, like most people, believe it or not, need that. Yeah, totally. You are over here as an entrepreneur being like, if that was me, I'd kill myself.
Starting point is 00:21:33 Yet now there's the disconnect of, you're not managing your people, meaning daily accountability, monitoring everything they do, tell them exactly where to be and when to do it. You know what I mean? Like exactly the management side, hence why your team is underperforming. Yeah, that management and leadership is tricky
Starting point is 00:21:51 and then goes down to, I think what you highlighted is really important for most people. They need to set the pace, right? Like as the owner, you can't be the guy who has his feet on the desk. Now there may be a season that you can get there, but probably not in the first five years of business. So like the story you just told me
Starting point is 00:22:09 about the new roofing company, I'm like, I'm surprised you kept it together so well. Well, I was yelling at the guy. Like I was, and I'm like, you've already paid me for my mastermind, like 60 grand, and then you just bled up, and then you just wanna pay me to be like a fractional CRO or my team and we do that. Like we come in and step in
Starting point is 00:22:31 and actually give a players as an interim. But I'm like, not on a profit deal with just you, dude. Like, what is this? Right. And I was like, you're the door knocker. He left his dad's company. So let's just like break this down. He left his dad's company. So let's just like break this down. He left his dad's company that his dad's company
Starting point is 00:22:48 hadn't grown for 20 years. He's a local roofer out of Houston. And his dad's like, hey, I want to bring you on as a partner. He was there for like a year and he wanted to do door knocking. He wanted to implement door knocking. He wanted to grow this thing.
Starting point is 00:23:00 I guess there was friction with him and his dad because it was like, hey, you don't believe in this door knocking thing and I do. so I'm going to go start my own thing. So now he's a month in and I'm like, you just left your dad's because you believed in this door knocking concept, yet you're now not willing to door knock and you asked for a $300 grant and or you're going and raising capital and you've got an overhead that's already plus 80 grand a month and you're in your first month and I'm over here like, this is a recipe for disaster, bro. I said, put all of your F in overhead and just go sell your first 10 jobs.
Starting point is 00:23:33 Yeah. That's it. I mean, just go make money. And too often owners, the business owner thinks they should be in an owner's seat. One of the bigger mistakes, dude, I'll, you know, be totally open about that is I was running a business at a high level that I felt like I could take a back seat and put my feet up and guess what happened to my business? Grumbles.
Starting point is 00:23:56 Right. Is they were maintaining for a while, but they damn sure weren't growing. And until you are at a level, like I mean, I guess the thing I would even tell you, look at the people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, they still are in their business people. It may look a lot different than when he started Tesla or when he started PayPal or when he started, you know, making investments if you're Warren Buffett. It may look a lot different, but they're in their business. And anyone who is making less than $10 million a year and feels like they shouldn't be in their business and anyone who is making less than 10 million dollars a year and feels like they shouldn't be in their business at an integral level I
Starting point is 00:24:28 believe is doing it wrong. They still might be able to make 10 million dollars a year but look at what you're talking about. You're running a multiple 10 million you're running a what is that an eight figure business and you're still in your business speaking at your events building your sales team running your sales meeting like I know your schedule because it took pulling teeth to get you onto the episode, right? Like you're not fucking sitting around on the beach, but that's what it takes. I was there literally training at nine o'clock last night, my sales guys.
Starting point is 00:24:58 Like I was literally sitting there with my sales team saying like, I know that this guy has a lot of potential. He was there. I had three sales guys that stayed till 9 PM and I was like, I know that this guy has a lot of potential. He was there. I had three sales guys that stayed till 9 PM. And I was like, I'll stay as long as they're willing to stay because I don't get that precious time usually during my day to actually like sit with these guys and coach them. And this guy was like, you know, I know his family, he's not making the money he needs to make.
Starting point is 00:25:23 He's got all the energy. He's willing to work the hours and he's got the, he's not making the money he needs to make, he's got all the energy, he's willing to work the hours, and he's got the potential. I was just like, but nobody's sitting there working with the guy. Like, you know how much it meant to him, me trying to fricking lock down this last minute deal that he was to Hail Mary in, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:25:36 and I'm sitting there like piping in but not trying to take over, you know what I mean? But it's like, that will go a long way for that guy. He will be a loyal soldier because I took the time just to have a conversation with the guy. It's incredible when you actually pour in your people genuinely and they'll be with you forever, right? There's something I talk about,
Starting point is 00:25:59 like my manager's been with me for 10 years, like I'm able to retain a lot of people because I pour into them with genuine heart. And again, this is the breakdown of where leadership really goes is because they just say, okay go out there and make sales. And that's really not what the owner of the company really should be focusing on. And so that is the next pivot to where our conversation should go, which is you know when you're talking about sales, what is the best format in your book
Starting point is 00:26:30 that you have in your manuals that people should be leading with in the sales script? Everyone worries about scripts. Do you give a shit about scripts? Yes, until you don't need to. That's right. And so I think, here's a good example. So I paid like Myron Golden,
Starting point is 00:26:47 a lot of money to coach me on speaking. And he comes to my event, I do my speech and he's like, that was so good because you're naturally so good. It's like, you're too good with your winging it that it actually made you bad. It's a detriment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. And I was like, wow, what a kick to nuts.
Starting point is 00:27:06 Cause he's like, you're natural, like, you know, and you think we get complacent because we have a natural, we see the wins, right? But he said, if you memorized your entire speech, I promise you'd get two times, three times the results. And so two years later, I finally humbled out and said, okay, I'll do it. And I made over a million dollars at speech.
Starting point is 00:27:28 And so it's like the difference between making 400 grand in a speech and over a million dollars is me memorizing it. Yeah. And I was like, and that's one sales pitch. And I don't get as many shots on target as I did when I door knocked, but it's like, if you had a perfect, like so good,
Starting point is 00:27:45 down to the, how do I head nod, and when do I head nod, and down to when do I pause and ask the right question, or when do I make a joke? Like, I know when I have to plant a question and when I have to plant a joke and when I have to ease it up and when I have to be silent. You know what I mean? Like, if you start to like really dial in a process
Starting point is 00:28:03 that you could duplicate with your people, they're not gonna naturally just know how to go wing that shit. Like it's the consciously competent. And that's when I started to realize, like I was always naturally really, really good. I was the number one rep of a multi-billion dollar company, but like I didn't know how to duplicate myself.
Starting point is 00:28:20 And so my guys would get all frustrated and I get frustrated at them. Cause like, I say what you say. I'm like, yeah, I say the same thing you did. Like, you know, you know, like, oh, no, just work hard. Don't be an idiot. Like that was my response, but then I liked that response. And so I started to have to like, okay,
Starting point is 00:28:33 let's build out frameworks and strategies. And I came up with different names like conception shovel or intentional loop, or, you know, I built frameworks of sales training. And then I started seeing my rookies sell more than every other rookie team in the country. And I was like, oh, my guys are pound for pound better than everybody because I started to learn how to teach them.
Starting point is 00:28:51 I started to build out scripts and make them, I made a 17 step dance to my sales presentation and I made them do the dance moves as they said it. Like I'm like, it's all 17 steps and it sounds like a lot, but I'm like, if you memorize it with dancing and a song, then you maybe remember it remember it and I said don't have to skip these steps So then it's into scripts to steps to now you can personalize it because you understand the Psychology of why I built the script and why I built the steps the way I did Yeah, it's you know, there's a skill set that most of us have as leaders in this innate and that's the challenge It is our biggest benefit but could be a biggest detriment because of it because we don't have to There's a skill set that most of us have as leaders and it's innate. And that's the challenge.
Starting point is 00:29:28 It is our biggest benefit, but could be a biggest detriment because of it. Because we don't have to, I'm similar to you in a lot of respects. I'll go up on stage and I can wait for an hour and get a standing ovation. And it's great. But I didn't have a script to that hour. It was kind of the fluid way I go about what the room needs, right? But could I even, Myron would probably light me up in a very similar way. He'd be like, bro, what the fuck, like great.
Starting point is 00:29:49 That was awesome. But dude, you could have been so much better, right? And so that is a challenge. And so I would tell everybody to really harness that if you're a business owner. Well, my CRO has this principle and he was the CEO of a hundred million dollar company and smart dude.
Starting point is 00:30:06 And he- Kind of. Yeah, so good recruit, right? I'm all about, you recruit smarter people than me. There you go. And his philosophy, my philosophy always go recruit A's. He's like, I don't want A's. He's like, it's not scalable. It's very hard to go recruit and sustain
Starting point is 00:30:22 and build a scalable business on A players. He's like, I want Bs and Cs. Me, I was like, I don't want Bs and Cs. But he's like, if I can make my system so duplicatable, I can go hire way more Bs and Cs and train them to be, I can train a C and a B to just be pretty good. And I can make a duplicatable thing versus an A player is gonna leave you
Starting point is 00:30:43 and go start his own business. He's gonna get poached. He's gonna always ask for more and he's going to be hard to manage. He's like, if I just say all you B's and C's are replaceable because I just have a funnel of B's and C's coming in and I know how to duplicate. He's like, that's a much better business model. And I was like, Touche. Well, and there's a way for them to level up. Right.
Starting point is 00:31:01 So when you go get the A player. They're leveling up with you. They're going to stick. You know what I mean? Yeah. That creates a stickiness. there's a way for them to level up, right? So when you go get the eight player. They'll level up their oil, they're leveling up with you, they're gonna stick, you know what I mean? Yeah, that creates a stickiness. And talk a little bit about stickiness. I think that the only reason why I kind of had to bow out of the door to door is I literally caught pneumonia
Starting point is 00:31:16 for four months. I mean, I was, it was just, the winner beat me, right? The door knocking didn't beat me, the winner beat me. But let's talk about stickiness because I, you know, it's funny, the people who make the most money in my organization are the salespeople. But they're also the same people
Starting point is 00:31:34 that try to leverage themselves out of being a salesperson. And especially the business owner, ironically, in the real estate space, business owners are like, oh, I need two acquisition people and two disposition people. I'm like, so you need two people to negotiate your deal
Starting point is 00:31:47 on the front end with the seller, and then you need two people to negotiate the deal on the back end with the buyers. So all the sales responsibility is out of your hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to do that. That's how I'm gonna grow and scale. Okay, I get leverage. But how much are you gonna pay yourself?
Starting point is 00:32:02 Because your income right now is directly connected to the fact that you're holding these responsibilities. So where's that money gone? Yeah. You know? And people don't realize that. So like this retention though, people one, they don't actually understand their margins enough
Starting point is 00:32:19 to build out a leadership growth path. And I tell people like Alex I coached for years, right? And it's cool. He just had an acquisition with his roofing company and they went to 150 million. You know what I mean? Like really crushing it. Right. And one of the things we, I noticed different when I coach Alex and listens
Starting point is 00:32:40 versus most roofing guys is they would pay their reps like a 50-50% of profit, but there was no margin really for a manager, a regional manager, a vice president, you know what I mean? There is no, so what happens is you have 5,000 roofing contractors in Dallas alone because it's roof, or owner to rep, and there is no middle level management. So the second the rep wants to grow and develop, the progress plan is go start your own roofing company. And so they've just create more roofing companies than their competitors. And so you're never gonna grow if that is your model.
Starting point is 00:33:16 So if you don't build in and understand that it costs money to pay the salespeople, to pay the sales manager, you know what I mean, and develop that because most people don't understand economics of their business because they were the commission. So then they're like, Oh, my business function is great when I'm 90% of the sales, right? Because you're paying the, you're funding the business. But now when you have to fund the manager and the sales commission and the
Starting point is 00:33:44 marketing spend, and most of your business were out of mouth and you didn't have a marketing budget, now you're really not a business. Does that make sense? Yeah. And you've got to either up your price, you've got to take, you know what I mean? So it's understanding the context to go scale this thing. Do you know a good friend of mine, Dustin Kekowski out of Dallas, Ruffer? That name sounds familiar.
Starting point is 00:34:05 Yeah, you might. He's incredible. He's actually in that same space Alex was at with the acquisition. So he's like on that, he's like, dude, give me 60 days bro, give me 60. Like go get it, go get it dog. Well, listen guys, I think you guys can see
Starting point is 00:34:21 by just what we're talking about, the level that Sam plays at. And if you're in sales, by the way, if you're in business, you're in sales, let's just call out what it is. I know a lot of people think sales people are slimy or whatever you want to call us. The reality, if you're in business or selling something, right? A service, a product yourself. So get used to that.
Starting point is 00:34:42 One of my friends, Dean Graciosi, who's actually gonna be on the next episode, funny enough, he always said something, he said, if you're ashamed of what you're selling, you're always gonna be bad at it. The best salespeople love and are passionate about the thing that they're selling. And if you can align yourself with that, and if you're a business owner listening to this
Starting point is 00:35:01 and watching this, then align yourself with Sam. Go follow him on social media. Go get his book on Amazon. He's in the top 10 salespeople in the entire United States. You know, he's been coaching thousands and thousands of business owners to grow, scale, develop leadership, recruit in business. But attach yourself to the thing that you enjoy selling. Cause you know, it actually provides a value to whoever wants it. Right. I don't care if it's cupcakes, that person that wants cupcakes, you better make good cupcakes because they want the good cupcake, right?
Starting point is 00:35:34 So bro, I appreciate you coming on, man. No, it means a lot. And thank you for your time and does listening. You made it this far. So congratulations, um, go and obviously subscribe if you haven't to his and we hope to see you guys on future episodes and maybe at some event and we're excited to hang. Yeah, you got a couple of events coming up, don't you?
Starting point is 00:35:54 Talk about a couple of events as this will come out within some of these event dates. Yeah, so we have a sales bootcamp usually monthly. We have a business bootcamp. So if anybody's like trying to grow a direct sales org, you know, we talk recruiting, business strategy, pay, all that stuff. And they're intimate little bootcamps,
Starting point is 00:36:13 40, 50 business owners in a room, sales manager bootcamp. So we do kind of these bootcamps or two day just sprints where we just go into the tactical stuff. Like it's no fluff, there's no David Goggins speech. It's just like, we have these playbooks, here's the systems in order to implement so that you get results. And we've done eight years of those
Starting point is 00:36:34 and over thousand plus businesses and 50 different industries that, you know what I mean? So it's just like, we'll see this rinse and repeat. And we're like, we just know how to get people results like quick, you know what I mean? So it's just like, we'll see this rinse and repeat. And we're like, we just know how to get people results like quick, you know what I mean? So I'd come hang out. Come up and where can they find you? They just go follow you on Instagram or go to your?
Starting point is 00:36:52 Yeah, the dddexperts.com and then you go to events. But I'd reach out, you know what I mean? Like schedule a call with one of my experts and they can do like a business audit or they can work with you on like, okay, my sales team sucks. What do we need to do to like give this a facelift? And that's usually when you get the phone calls is like,
Starting point is 00:37:09 yeah, our marketing spend is not going as far as it should. You know, I don't even know if my sales guys are good or not. You know what I mean? Those are the phone calls we always get. And I'm like, let me get my experts on them and let's figure out how to help you guys. The DDD, the D2D expert. Experts.com, yep.
Starting point is 00:37:24 Go to the website, check out Sam, get his book on Amazon, eat what you kill. This guy is a beast but he's a sweetheart. He cares, he has a bleeding heart. He wants to help you guys. So I appreciate you coming on here brother and if this helped you guys in sales, make sure you share it with at least two of your friends so everyone you know knows Sam. Appreciate you guys. We'll see you on the next episode. Appreciate it Justin.

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