Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream. This isn't an interview and we're not journalists. But each week we'll ask our guests
[00:00:15] Speaker B: to open up and share their secrets to business success.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: As always, my co host on the West Coast, Joe Ardell.
Joe, what's going on?
[00:00:27] Speaker C: What's up, kj?
Another.
Another week, man. Another.
Another opportunity to kick some ass today.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it, man. I love it. So, so you're joking. I'm wearing this Philly shirt. And Joe joked and said, this shirt's big enough. We probably could have fit the whole word, which I thought is funny. It's a good thing. I can laugh at myself, Joe, to be honest. But I will have you know I am down £16 from October 1, so I'm going in the right direction.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: You're looking good, bro. You're looking good, man. How's the, how's the, how's the boozing, bro?
How's it, how's the beers?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Completely cut out. Watching my calories.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: Is that right?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Up early.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Is that right?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: You got witnesses.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Not 4:30 early. I'm getting up, listen, I'm getting up at 5:15. I have a group of people within Princeton Mortgage that I get together with on Mondays And Wednesdays at 5:55am on Mondays we get together, we talk about our goals. On Wednesdays we get together, we talk about a book that we're all reading right now. We're reading the Go Giver right here.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: All right.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: It's been helpful, man. Just an accountability group. Just a, you know, they get up early, everybody gets on zoom bed head and all, you know, and it's been kind of cool. We've been doing it for, for the last couple of months.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: I like it, man. I like it. It's just. Yeah, it's a good step, dude. The key that I found for me and this doesn't probably maybe doesn't work for everybody, but I started doing difficult things. And then when those difficult things become routine, then I add another layer of difficulty to what I've been doing. And then ultimately you start to feel normalized or comfortable with doing these tough things. Like getting up at 4:30 in the morning is nothing now. Like, that's when I wake up. And then you add things to it. The next thing you know you're just like, holy crap.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: So did I just see you drinking a milkshake though?
[00:02:34] Speaker C: No, actually, you know, it. Well, it's funny you should say that because I have three Things that I do every single day. All right. This isn't a milkshake. It's protein. I was told I need to get more protein in my diet, so that's the best way to do it. But three things I do every single day is sauna. I do the sauna or the hot tub every day, no matter what. 20 minutes minimum. I take a nap every single day, and I eat an ice cream cone or ice cream every single day. And if I do those three things, my day is complete. I feel great. If nothing else, I get those three things in. I've had a completed day.
So it's.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: It's my common with a four year
[00:03:17] Speaker C: old, you know, they. Life's simple, dude. When you 4 year olds don't have a whole lot of stuff to worry about. When you keep it simple, you keep it easy and, you know, keep it. Keep it moving.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: I think being married to Laura is a big. A big plus there, enabling you to take naps in the middle of the day.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Well, she takes a lot off my plate. I will. I will definitely give a lot of the credit to her. For sure.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Get air.
[00:03:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Was that you or is that me? But hold on.
Let me do this. Dude.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: That's better. Dan will cut this out later.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: I'm gonna.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: He glitched out. Yeah.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: I keep quiet, but I.
Hold on one sec. Let me switch my WI fi because I'm. I got a whole new.
I'm gonna put this on my hot. I'm gonna bounce out and then bounce back.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Hold on.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: I. I would. I thought we were given explicit directions to keep going if we glitched, but that's.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Hold on a sec.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Connor.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: All right. Am I back? I'm back, right?
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I see it.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: All right, cool. I just switched to my hot spot. We're good.
Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Just. Just pick it up where we left off. That's all.
Just, you know, you'll find this in the video.
There we go.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: All right, Jazz.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: So anyway. Anyway. You got a lot in common with a four year old. And being married to Laura is the secret to being able to take naps is that kind of what we're. Our people should be taking?
[00:05:17] Speaker C: That's pretty much. That's. And then also too, with the.
I've conditioned the kids that, you know, runs downhill. So I Very, very tough on the oldest. And if anything goes wrong, he's accountable.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: He's gonna hear about it and then.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's just kind of like.
So they all kind of keep each other accountable, which is good. So that gives frees me up a lot of time to do the fun stuff I like to do and, you know, keep it moving.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: So I love it, man. So real quick, big waves in California, man. What's going on there? Like.
Yeah, is it weird? Like I'm seeing this stuff all over social media, like, you know, peers are getting knocked down. Is it that bad?
[00:06:00] Speaker C: It's not bad. It's great. Dude, we, I surfed. Me and AJ is, who's 12 year old phenom son of mine, we surfed like 8 hours a day for like 3 days straight. So every so often, you know, every couple times a winter we get blessed with these massive swells that come out, you know, from the North Pacific or wherever and they just.
The surf gets huge. But if you're a surfer, it's awesome. If you're a pier, it's not. If you're, you know, beach. But it was. Yeah, man, it's, it's, it's great if you know what you're doing. That's fun.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Wild, man. Anyway, let's bring on our guest for today. We have an awesome guest today.
Super energetic, you know, been around the block. Seems like he's got his hands on a million things.
We're gonna welcome John Duffin from Duffin Media.
John, thanks for joining me and Joe today. Coming in, hanging out and having a conversation.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: I'm delighted to be here. I'm laughing at the been around the block bar. I don't know what that's code for, but that's typically not never good. But anyway, regardless, I'm still really glad to be here.
Thanks for having me, guys.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: You bet. John, tell us a little bit about your business. It seems pretty multifaceted, but tell the people that are listening kind of some of the things you're into.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. So it heads in literally one central direction, which is communications based, and the second direction is voice related. So there's. It typically goes in two ways, which is number one, I do voiceover work, voice narration work, I host a podcast. So I get to throw my voice around a lot and which is fun for me. And then also I coach people how to speak, to present and lead better. And I, I'll say from the coaching platform, the business, that business platform, optimizing your communications by leveraging your voice, which enables you to sound more true, more authentic and convincing is never a word I want to throw around. But if you want to stay in the corporate game, you want to deliver a real estate listing with some degree, not just integrity, but Believability. You, you've got to sound like you know your way around a big money business situation. So it goes in two ways, which is utilizing my voice to convey a corporate message or helping organizations galvanize their sales teams or their leadership teams to be able to speak and present better to their stakeholders and to their clients. So one way or other, it's coming from someone's voice, whether mine or I'm teaching others to use theirs.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Well, I will tell you that you're absolutely. You got those velvety pipes, man. You're making us down.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Thank you, man.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Sound like a bunch of static. You sound great.
So tell me, I guess, you know, are you real estate centric? Is most of your. Is most of your business kind of directed towards, you know, real estate professionals?
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Some. So I, I, Absolutely. So I, I am a licensed real estate agent. I have trained some of the public speaking that I've done has cent real estate events, real producers in Philadelphia and Bucks County. So I've been the host MC of a couple of different events. So the fact is absolutely, yes. And then the other, when I talk about communications, my background is a lengthy career. That's why I'm laughing about the Ben around the block broadcast ad sales and executive sales management for over 25 years.
Those would be the two major sweet spots in terms of. So whether it is digital broadcast, streaming, advertising sales and sales management, and then also real estate as well too, in regards to coaching and speaking.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Fantastic. Tell me about how. So, so when you're. Take me back 20, 25 years ago, when you're. Are you in ad sales? Are you in corporate America? Tell me about that.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I began that. Oh my God. Yeah. So I've been privileged and really grateful to say that I've worked with some of the largest media organizations in the United States and went from beginning with a small independent television station in Philadelphia which isn't even around anymore.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: What was the station?
[00:10:42] Speaker A: What was WGTW TV48. Oh, yeah. Channel 48 was relaunched.
That. There you go. There you go. So it was relaunched in the 90s and that's when I began. And so it was small and we scrapped for every nickel as it first began. And then from there I worked with the Tribune organization. I worked with Univision Communications with Greater Media Radio, which is now Beasley Communications.
So I've worked with those for the majority on the television, digital streaming side.
And then, yeah, it was like finding my way and, you know, flailing around some in the beginning and then being grateful that I Was able to navigate some degree of success and then went from salesperson to sales management and up the chains in regards to corporate and executive leadership in that regard, but always with some sort of a foundation of sales. Always. And communications.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to come back to that because I want to. I want to talk about that transition from. From corporate sales to. To entrepreneurship. But before we get too far along. Yeah, before we get too far along, one of my favorite games to play is two truths and a lie.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Hopefully you came prepared. So, John, why don't you share with us? Joe's going to be listening. He's going to be listening for clues throughout this entire conversation.
He's pretty good, but he's not. He's not perfect. You know, I'm not.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: I'm already impressed.
Channel 48, remember that? It was between. There were 17.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Wouldn't it be awful if that was one of the lies?
[00:12:29] Speaker C: 1729 and 48 and 48 would have, like, reruns of, like, Zeros and Gilligan's island and all that back in the day, in the 80s.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Oh, then we're in the right place. We're in the right place. Yep.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I remember.
I remember when Philly 57 started.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: That was a big.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: That was big. We got a new station. Whole new station.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: And the whole bit.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Anyway, you're making me happy. You're making me happy by. By sharing all of that.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Give me two truths and a lie. Give me three facts.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Okay?
So I'm grateful to say that during that stretch of my career that I either directly or led my teams to generate in excess of $200 million in ad sales.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: I have run six marathons, okay.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: And
[00:13:32] Speaker A: my favorite color is green.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: All right, so we got. Generated 200 million in ad sales, ran six marathons. Favorite color is green. All right, Joe, we'll see.
See what we can come up with here. All right, so let's get back to the conversation. So you're. You're really crushing it in corporate America, right? You're pioneering, you know, new TV stations in the marketplace.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: When did you decide? Or was it always in you that entrepreneurship becoming, you know, starting business was. Was, Was in the cards. When did, when, when did you kind of start to feel that burn or that.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: That itch late in the career? Like, like couple things. Like, first off, it was like, no, it wasn't always in me to launch my own company. That, that just wasn't so that I really loved when I got into the field.
It was one of these things. Where it felt true and right really fast. And I had an extreme level of enjoyment in doing it. And it was probably the first time professionally that I felt some degree, Some degree of fearlessness where it just felt like, okay, this is going to work and it's going to go, and.
And, you know, you got to do this. And it started from nothing, and I just would.
And so the enjoyment, the upward trajectory, and I don't take that for granted at all, or there's no arrogance when I say that, because that had never happened to me before, that sense of all of that happening. And so I was really happy.
But there was two things that were going on now. I used to push back very regularly. The fact, in terms of people commenting on my voice, I hated the sound of my voice, hated it.
I didn't want to hear myself. And secondly, when somebody would come up to me, which I should have said this for the two truths and a lie. But the accurate, like, the part is the truth is for what I'm gonna say any week, every week for a series of years in. And I don't mean friends, family, mom. I mean, people will come up to me, like in coffee shops or restaurants, or they would just hear me. I'm also loud, so it's like people can hear my voice pretty readily. And people would say to me, are you in radio? You should be in radio, or you do this. And I would push back. I would always, no, no, no, no. That's not my thing. I'm in sales. I'm in sales. This is what I do. That's what I love. And blah, blah, blah.
But as time went on, especially on the later side of my career, that I remember thinking, well, what of the right.
What if they're right? And what if there's. What am I just ignoring it? So it just kept getting, like. To be a heavier and heavier reminder. And then, so toward the very end, it was one of these things where I was starting to realize, like, okay, I'm not loving the corporate game as much as I used to. And I'll tell you what's a really good indicator when it's time to make something happen, which is the other part was too, the things that I used to love the most about what I did, I started to not like.
And that was like the sign. Like. Like, for me, it was the sign. Like, travel is one of my favorite things to do. And I traveled all the time. Like, it was literally maybe three to four weeks of a month. I was traveling for a stretch. And traveling used to really energize me until it did.
And it's hard to sound grateful.
Like we were talking about never taking for granted. And I remember acting just at the end, oh, I gotta go to LA next weekend. Oh, man, I gotta go to Miami the week after that. And, and no one would understand.
You just sound like an over privileged, you know, entitled clown griping about the fact that you're going to some of the coolest places and they're covering it and you know what I mean? And you're just showing up.
And that's when I knew, that's when I knew I had to do something different.
And I started to pay attention to what I was hearing and feeling. And so in 2019, that's when I launched Duffin Media.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Congratulations on listening to yourself because think about how many times in our lives do we follow these rules or this path?
You're on the path, you got to stay on the path because you've been on the path. You've been on the path for so long. Why would you get off that path? Like, and I struggle with that too. Me and Joe talked about that as, you know, recent as the other day. You know, think about this is, I'm doing this because this is what, this is what I'm supposed to do, you know, whether it's certain aspects of your job or your career path or anything like that. And, and, and you know, I'm reading a book. I don't know if you've read the Code of the Extraordinary Mind.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Have you read that A while back? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you believe what was about
[00:18:30] Speaker B: is these bullshit rules that we force ourselves to follow simply because the culture scape and the, and society kind of, we're trying to conform to this like, predictable behavior and, and staying in your career, staying in your job, getting a retirement, 62 years, getting that pension. Those are all predictable behaviors.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: But you didn't do that. You took that, you took that leap and say, you know what? I'm going to sit here in a job that don't enjoy anymore. You're going to recognize you're not. That there's.
You're gonna take that, you're gonna take that step. That's pretty awesome. But you weren't scared, scared at all?
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, I was scared. Okay, but do you remember. Of course, in the beginning. But you know what? Remember that fearlessness that I was talking about earlier? Yeah, like there was a part of that too. Now look, this is what, like, at least I'll just speak for Me, what happens is you launch the field, I go buy all the handy dandy equipment, and, you know, all that stuff, and that part's great, but you realize, at least if you're me and relatively quickly. It's the first time I really. I felt excited.
It was wonderful. No one's, you know, checking my calendar, and I'm doing this and I'm doing that.
But then there's the sense that you are alone.
Where I was never alone. I worked in big organizations. I always have said, still feel that way. I work better collaboratively. I always work better collaboratively than alone. So now I'm working from home office, Grand Central home Office, and I've got my equipment, and when something is wrong, it's on you.
And that's when I start to get scared.
You know, I don't know technical stuff at all. I didn't have to.
Now I need to know, how do you fix things? How do you move things? How do you contact people? I've shared with others, too, that get thick skin right away. Because I remember getting my first voice job. Oh, my God. It was probably two weeks after I launched the business. It was less than two weeks. I got a job almost immediately, and that was wonderful. And then I'll let people. I'll ask people the question, how much time do you think it took between job one and job two?
And the answer, seven months.
Yeah. Yeah. So be ready fiscally, be ready technologically, be ready in terms of building up your own internal support.
And that's when you start to realize that's when you get scared, you know?
But what fixes it, what fuels it for me was there was a sense of purpose. There was the ability to be able to start to pivot in terms of the things that I was doing.
The company was first a voice company exclusively, a voiceover company, and then it morphed to hosting a podcast, and then it morphed to coaching people to do that, and then it morphed into other things. And that's where, like, you talk about listening. It was really important, and I didn't do that right away, but it was really important to, like, pay attention to the signs and the clues and the
[00:21:32] Speaker B: opportunities, you know, for entrepreneurs. You know, this podcast is directed towards salespeople.
Right. And entrepreneurs primarily. I mean, it's for everybody, but. Yeah, but, you know, we really. We, you know, between Joe and I, have some unique perspectives and experiences and I guess talk about it. And maybe Joe, he's on budget WI Fi, so I'm not sure if Joe Can.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: That's okay.
But tell us.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Talk a little more.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Oh, Joe. Heard that.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Joe. Joe, you can hear me? Joe? Joe.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: I can hear, dude. I'm listening.
Talk about what?
[00:22:14] Speaker B: All right, talk about what John mentioned. What John mentioned was the lonely factor. Right?
[00:22:20] Speaker A: You're alone.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's, that's a, that's a real doors.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: And, and how did you, how did you fight that?
[00:22:27] Speaker C: You feel? It's, it's crazy because it's, it's a lone for me and it's been a while. I mean, I've been at this for. Geez, long time. But I remember distinctly, like, when you're a high performing executive in a big company, all of your time is accounted for by somebody else. And so you have these checks like, okay, I have to be here. I have to be here. And then all of a sudden you have all of your own time and no one is checking up on you or whatever. So you almost, you just feel like you're in this huge void of like, whoa, what do I do now? And they're like, maybe I should do this. But I'll say this, and I think that this definitely goes understated. If you have a sales background and you're an entrepreneur, I think that you have a much greater advantage because of the linear relationship between growing your business and what it takes to be good at sales. So you know that, okay, well, if I talk to X amount of people that will give this many opportunities, and out of these opportunities I will get this much business. So, like, when that helped me to really compartmentalize that void and that loneliness, because then I was able to fill it with, okay, well, you know, motion creates emotion and action creates, you know, react. So that's, that's sort of how it helped, helped me in that time because it's a huge leap of faith. But one of the things that's a hack that I think is like, you can start a business and not leave your current job. Like, you don't have to just throw the baby out with the bath water and be like, all right, here we go. Putting my stake in the ground. Open the door. Day one. You know, you can sort of. And it sounds like John's kind of done.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Oh, now you tell me.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: So, you know, like in the beginning, you're like, okay, this is my business.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: What do you know?
[00:24:25] Speaker C: This is what I'm gonna do. And you're like, tick tock. Like, okay, well, where are these jobs coming in? It's like, well, maybe we'll just pivot and I'LL start doing this because this will generate money, and then this will generate money. So there's like, an evolution with a lot of these businesses where you start out that this is my main street that I'm gonna drive down, and then like, okay, well, this isn't covering all the bills, so we're gonna branch out. But then eventually what happens is you. You grow your business big enough that you can then focus back on what your bread and butter is. And then kind of. So that's. That's sort of been my journey, where right in the beginning, you're just like, all right, give me whatever you got, you know what?
[00:25:05] Speaker B: And.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: And then you can kind of refine it from there. But definitely trust the process of what makes successful in sales is going to make you successful in business as well.
So that's my two cents.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Tell me about.
You know, I. I want to. I want to stay on this topic a little bit, because I do think it's something that entrepreneurs, especially people who are starting fresh with it, where it's just.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Talk to me about what are some of the things you did to combat that. That loneliness that I want to say loneliness, but, like, that feeling like you're on an island. Because sometimes that can have an adverse effect. Right. You have your own echo chamber inside your head, like your own biases about what direction you should go in some blind spots. What are some things you did early on to make sure that you were getting perspective and insight from other folks?
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Great question. So, first off, part of the answer goes to one of the things that Joe had talked about. I am lucky in the sense that because I have an extensive sales background, and anyone who does knows the ebbs and flows of the way the business goes, you don't close every deal, and you don't land the big appointment each and every hour of every single day. So you. You have that foundation. And the biggest part of it is the resilience. And that's the part that immediately you get to draw on. Oh, right. The experience and the resilience of what you were able to do to overcome it. So I'm not equating lonely to sad.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: But the easy fixes are this. And by the way, I was doing this in.
So Covid was really 2020. So there was a fair amount of time that Covid was involved in the business. But how do you fix it? Make certain you have contacts, you have a sphere of influence. You've got. You know what I mean? Colleagues, you've got.
Talk to people. Number one, include Them, there's no reason to remain lonely and alone. There's no reason.
And one of the big advantages, number one is I'm grateful that I know a lot of people. And that's what happens when you're in business for over 25 years. But even if you don't, even if you're newer, you can utilize social media, use people, talk to someone, bounce things off of them, ideas, suggestions. When I talk about collaboration, typically what collaboration is is literally just bouncing ideas off of people that you trust so that you can get feedback and ultimately make a better decision.
So you can do that with whoever your group, your support group is. So number one, just include people. They may not be the same people 10 years down the line, but, but include whoever you got.
Do you trust them? Do you respect them?
Talk to them? Hey, I was thinking of heading in this direction. I was thinking of trying this idea. What do you think that's collaboration and then accepting and listening so that you can make better decisions.
And that to me helped me tremendously, which was, I preach the whole deal in terms of finding your best, most authentic voice. The easiest way to do that is to make yourself a little bit vulnerable. Hey, I was thinking this, what do you think?
Because they may not be, if they really matter, they used to use the term years ago, your board of directors, so to speak. And your board of directors are just the important people in your life, right? Whether it's professional and, or personal, the vulnerability comes from you say, hey, I was thinking this. And they say, you know what, I don't know, that's a great idea. I think maybe.
And it's your ability to be able to stand in and hear it and not defensive like, no, it's more listen. And so that in essence is all collaboration is.
So the part of being alone is so easily solved. And that's what I learned was that number one, get out of the house when it wasn't Covid. Number two, which was there's networking events, there's business events. A colleague of mine in the field who he was basically just starting out had said to me early on, hey, I go to three events per week. And I'm like, where do you find them? Eventbrite meetup, you know, so be in front of similar people, you know, find people that are aspiring upward. I know this sounds like such a, like I said, you know, a high performance coaching cliche, but find people that are aspiring upward, find like minded people and they will help you. And that takes that away. And that's what I was able to do.
That's what I was able to do and chose to do.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: So I love the idea, the concept of building your own board of directors, like your personal board of directors, you know, and that's kind of, you know, again, just part of the birth of this podcast was Joe and I, you know, you know, on each other's board of directors. Like, he, you know, whenever he has an idea, wants to run it by me, and I tell him it's the dumbest idea I've ever heard, and he does it anyway.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Sometimes you need. But sometimes he's usually.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: He's usually right.
I appreciate that.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: So I want to switch gears a little bit to part of a facet of your business where you help people find their voice. Right, right. And, you know, as salespeople, you know, authenticity, integrity, all of that stuff, but also learning how to communicate, how to listen. All right, so that's all like, high level stuff, but, like, talk to me about what are some of the biggest mistakes salespeople make when it comes to communicating.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I love that. It's funny that it makes me laugh, but I love that question because it matters so much.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Much.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: And the fact is, if you're trying to command respect, biggest mistakes, not knowing your story, which is this, there's a big difference in trying to know all your bullet points or know your script as opposed to know the story.
I've seen it in real estate. I certainly have seen it in communications. People are memorizing the wrong things or they're memorizing nothing.
And my thought is this. It's impossible to remember every word of a script. I don't care how good you are, because you're going to forget a couple of words and you're so focused on memorizing or really knowing. Ice cold. Again, minutia.
You're going to slip up. You're going to sound unprofessional, you're going to sound unprepared. So I coach people. I know the story.
What is the in and out? Rather than memorizing a script, can you tell me? Like, I had an acting coach and I love this part. She was like. And you would be going over, like, a script, and she would have you go through it twice. And then she'd literally be like, okay, put it down, put it down.
What are you trying to say?
And the mistake would be trying to remember all the words.
Instead, what the hell are you trying to convey? All the twists and turns. Oh, here's the opening part where I'd like to get your attention. And here's the part where I've got all the intricate data and here, can you walk through, can you answer, what is the intention of the story?
The intention of the story is not to close the deal. The intention of the story is not because it has nothing to do with a person hearing it.
What's the intention? What are you trying to convey all the way through?
Because then you don't have to be beholden on each and every word and bullet point and be worried about.
I remember getting my real estate license and I remember I was deathly afraid of scripts. Now remember I've sold for over 25 years and was deathly afraid when they pulled out. Oh, here's 900 scripts.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: I don't believe in scripts personally.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: You can, you can. They. They sound canned because they are canned.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: And so it's, we're focusing so much on content.
When you say this, then I say that and then what did he say? Oh, then you need to say this.
And nobody's focusing on the authentic part. What are you trying to convey from top to bottom?
Because the details all get factored in.
Secondly, second big mistake trying to motor through a presentation because you don't know it.
Whether in communications has happened all the time. One of the things early in my career I remember was the dreaded research part.
So here's all the facts and data of why you should be buying our television company. And we would go through all this heavy qualitative data.
We would just cram it in because we felt like, you know what, the more data we can slam into this, the more convincing will be. And then the problem was you didn't know what the data meant. So then you would just motor through it and talk faster.
Well, no one's buying it.
And the third and the biggest one for me, when you're talking at people and not talking to people, it's the number one problem. If you're talking at somebody and giving some one sided speech, you can't, you can't be authentic and it never gets received properly.
And so the fixable things is you're always including people you talk to. Talk to people, not at people, talk to people one at a time.
Whether it's one person on a call, two people on a zoom, or Riverside in this case, focus on each person, the others will keep up.
So talk to them, include them specifically.
And don't worry that you don't have every factoid.
No, it helps. But if the choice is know the whole story or know every singular bullet point Know the whole story.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I believe that. You know, and Joe and I both worked in fields where scripts were required. We sold, we sold coffee over the phone. That was literally, you know, objection, response, objection, response. Even the yellow page business was very script oriented from a standpoint of training. And what do you say when they say, well, you know, I'm not going to buy an ad, I bought my funny story. So when we were in the yellow page business, it was very early on in the Internet, right. And people would say, well, I don't need an ad in the phone book, I already have a website. And the response was. Joe, do you remember the response?
[00:36:18] Speaker C: Yeah, what, are you going to boot up your computer at 2 o' clock in the morning when you're standing in 2ft of water to call a plumber? No, you're going to pick up the phone book.
That's exactly right.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: And it was true at the time.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: I love that, I love that response.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: So scripts and objections were a part of our business. But now I absolutely agree with you. You just need to be intentional about what you want, the outcome of the call or the sale, the sales call to be. And from a sales perspective, doesn't matter what you're selling, ultimately there's a there your job is either make someone feel good or solve a problem. You should already know in your head kind of almost what you think that, that from, from a global perspective. But the questions you ask are going to drive the script. Right. You have to continue to uncover, uncover, uncover and, and, and, and then, and then once you truly feel like you've uncovered the real issue and you have a true solution, then you talk, then you bring the solution to the table. And you're right, it's not about, it's not about just a monologue. You have to add a ton.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: So if you, if you truly understand, if you understand what the function of a sales script is from, from a top level down, it's like, okay, so I have this product and I want to get it out to the masses and I need to get as many people possible saying essentially the same thing. Right, right. So that's where these scripts come from. This is. So that's the guideline. But the people who truly excel is. And same with acting, I'm assuming I'm not an actor. But you can take that and you make it your own words. So the sentiment's there. But the.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: But that's exactly right.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Your own but what's really important that I've found in sales is that when you are A true advocate for the person that you're trying to quote, unquote, sell. They want your opinion on the facts that you have in front of you. So they're assuming that you've done your due diligence.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker C: Know about their business, you know, the facts of the product or the service that you're selling and you're just giving your opinion on as to. Well, this is why I think it would work for you. You know, tell me what you think. So it's not so to, to John's point, if you just, you know, they say telling isn't selling or whatever, all those expressions. But it's true if, if you people truly want to know what you think, like, okay, well, you're the expert here. You're the sales guy. What do you think? I was like, so in my own words, I'm going to tell you, like, this is either good for you or not good for you. And you know, so it's definitely really, well empowering when you have your own voice.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I only had, I've only all complete agreement and I would say you both covered it. But I would just say the thing is, none of what I'm saying replaces preparation.
Right. You really have to be the one buttoned up in regards to what you know and the situation. And, and, and can you, as you're referring to like that sense of am I solving a problem? Or you, you need to know that. You need to know the interest, intricacies. Easy for me to say, but you know, but you need to know that. So none of this.
The reason you get so buttoned up and focus on the things you need to know as opposed to minutia is because you can stand in the conversation longer. Really the whole point of this is to. And Joe, you were alluding to it. Bring the other person in, allow them to fully be in the conversation. The client, the audience, the company, whoever you're speaking with, you want to be able to hear them properly, you want to be able to respond properly. If I'm so worried about, well, they say this, it's, you're not listening. It's just the basics of how well can you listen. The authenticity comes from being very well prepared, comfortable and confident enough that whatever you're going to say to me, I'm going to be able to accept and prepared enough that I'm going to be able to respond in kind. And if I don't know the answer, I'm just going to literally say I watched Bringing Up Real Estate right before I got licensed. I was with a colleague, and I hung out in an open house. And I never was more impressed with this person than when they literally said to the people when they asked a question, I don't know, but I'll have the answer by this evening.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: He sounded smarter, not dumber. He sounded smarter to me. And how do I know? I looked at the two people's faces. The two people that came into the open. I looked at their faces and they were like, great, Great.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: As long as that question is not,
[00:41:11] Speaker A: is this house for sale? Well, that Mike.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: Or how did you get in?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:41:18] Speaker B: It was. It wasn't.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: How'd you get in? Wait a minute. Oh, is this.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: But why you wear my sweatshirt?
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Because it's nice.
But it was that. And so it's focusing and being fully present that, like I said for myself, was never easy for me early on. I was much more the people pleaser type early in the sales career, you know, and feeling like I needed to act like. Like the harried server in a restaurant. Can I get you this? Do you want that? It took time and experience getting knocked around a bit personally and professionally to get to a point where I could feel more comfortable standing in on a conversation. And when I figured that out, that's when I realized how important the actual authentic part is. Do your homework, of course, but just stay. Stay in.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: So salesperson, or someone who's playing a character of a salesperson. Right. Like their. Their inflection, their. The words they're using, their mannerisms is not. They're not. They're not trying to create a connection with the customer. They're trying to act like a salesperson. Like a character.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Like a salesperson. Exactly.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: Earlier.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: That comes obviously with experience about.
[00:42:38] Speaker C: About your. Your journey as an entrepreneur and starting your business and the importance of having a thick skin. And I. I know for me, when I was in a sales role or working for bigger companies, there was definitely.
I had sort of an advocate feel for my clients. And I was like, okay, we're going to take this. This is the issue. I'm going to go to the company and there's somebody in there, and we're going to work on this together and whatever. Talk to me about, like, kind of that transition for you when you have issues where, you know, with customers, clients, and the buck stops with you. There's no other department that you can pass it on and you're selling them on the reasons, like, talk to me a little bit about that transition and kind of how you. How you went through that.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
Part of it was simply getting more comfortable and right with myself, you know, like, like I, early in my career, like I was saying before that I was much more the people pleaser type, which by the way, ain't bad as it results as it regards to the clients love that you may not be able to sleep so great. But the fact is the clients love if you're just running over, can I get you more bread? Can I get you more of this? Can I get you a bigger loan? Can I get. They're like, sure, thanks.
But for me it was, I, I started out and I was much more of a fear based. If something goes wrong, they'll have my head, they'll take my job, they'll, you know what I mean?
And, and part of it was time. Part of it was the resilience that I talked about earlier was also from a personal vantage point too. Like I was the nut that, you know, couldn't come out of the closet until I was 42.
It wasn't a big shock at that point to anybody. But I was gonna say, but I'm holding on to stuff because I'm just thinking that if you find out, well, then I'm a fraud and all that stuff. So I finally let that go. You know, I put myself into some weird personal situations and had to, you know, I went into recovery and all that sort of thing. Was terrified that, you know, I'm a fraud and if I get found out.
So working through some stuff gave me, I'm going to say just enough confidence in the beginning, just enough in the beginning that I could be more transparent.
I didn't feel like the whole deck of cards was going to collapse or the whole house of cards was going to collapse if I didn't know an answer or if I didn't solve a problem or if I didn't fix your situation stat so I could stay in the conversations longer, I could become a legitimate advocate. Joe, as you asked, when did you run? I could worry a little less and then eventually a lot less in regards to, well, if I do too much for the client, my bosses are going to think X.
So I could be a whole lot truer, a whole lot more authentic. And so the compass, the right, wrong compass as it relates to business problem solving and it relates to business became so much more clear for me.
Right. So whether it was managing a team, I could be an advocate for them. I wasn't in the beginning. I was, I felt like I was a terrible manager in the beginning because I was so worried about pleasing the people upwards that I wasn't helping the real people that needed me. So then that changed when I felt comfortable with myself. I could stand in for my clients because I knew they needed me. But I just started to get a better, like, central compass of, okay, no, I'm being taken advantage of, or they're pulling me, or.
So the advocacy part became a whole lot more accurate, and it went a whole lot further outward as time went on, rather than protecting me and my interests and that stuff. So that's the part then it became more gratifying. And then. Then you find you can. You can make all the mistakes in the world, but when you're heading in the right direction, people want to help you.
[00:46:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: You know,
[00:46:52] Speaker B: want to help them. Then they trust you. Right?
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Then they trust you and. And they give you a whole lot. Right. And so it's not like I made no mistakes at that point. It's. It's the opposite. But the trustworthy. You just said, Ken, 1,000% correct. They understand that. That you're in their corner, so you get a lot more latitude.
And that's the part where, like, the real gift of authenticity is not, like, what you're doing.
You know what I mean? It's not like. And then I did this, then I closed that. It's way more the sense that you're helping people and the satisfaction comes. I think the biggest thing often takes care of themselves.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: I think the biggest. The most empowering thing that a salesperson can do or, you know, any business that's offered is get a client. Get a potential client in front of them and tell them, no, you're not a good fit. And once you. Once you can do that and you identify that I'm not just trying to sell everybody, then you have so much more conviction for the people that, you know you can help because you know that you're not just out there taking everything that comes under the sun. So that's a. That's a really.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Taking everything that.
Oh, my God.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: That's a good point. That's a very.
[00:48:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: Joe, you just said something. One of the things that. One of the things that was really tough for me, I'm still a work in progress in this regard, so I'm not going to act like I solved anything in this case. Right, right. Exactly. But what I would say was pushing back.
I was really bad at that and so deathly afraid if the client turned on me or wave reported or whatever.
I.
I do a live stream now, and I'm intentionally taking that topic on. And I'm not gonna out the people that I'm thinking about specifically, but I remember having clients that terrified me, and I was literally the one that is like, they would hang up and scream at you. And it was like, well, if I lose this business, they spent a lot of money, so they felt like they just, you know, ran the show.
And I remember it was like they wrecked a lot. Or I'll say it better. They allow. They.
I wrecked a lot of my own weekends because I allowed them to walk all over me.
And so even when they got what they wanted, my weekend was the one that was wrecked. They probably weren't thinking anything, you know,
[00:49:16] Speaker B: builds up, too, which is not a fun thing. Right?
[00:49:19] Speaker A: That's exactly right. So that's where it's like one of the things that I think is really important in regards to entrepreneurs or. Or whether you're working in a corporation, especially if you're an entrepreneur. Joe, as you said, the ability to say, not every single person is the perfect fit for your business.
Find those that are. Find those that are, you know, and as I said, it's like, work harder with that sense of freedom with time and not having the layers of bosses. Work harder to find those ideal fits or as close to ideal as possible.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: Totally.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: Well, this is all good stuff. I would love to take our podcast and start with the end and go backwards because I feel like we work up to these, like, really, the really great segments of conversation, and I just hope that the. That the people listening get to this point that they haven't, you know, turned
[00:50:12] Speaker A: this off right now.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: So, John, we're gonna go. We're gonna go with our true truths and a lie here. Joe, after listening to. He is going to give you what he think is the lie. Walk us through his logic. Hopefully his budget WI fi is working.
And let's see what. Let's see what he comes up with. So, Joe, we have generated $200 million in ad sales. We have ran six marathons, and the favorite color is green. Which one's the line?
[00:50:45] Speaker C: So I'm. It always kind of trips me up a little when people are very specific with numbers. Because when you say, like, I ran six marathons, it could be seven or it could be five or it could be three, right? So, like, so. So that's. That's usually like a pitfall. You're like, nah, I did run marathons, but it wasn't six. So I'm not going to go with those because that's too tricky. And he seems. John, you seem like, very honest gentleman. So this is. This is making it very difficult.
200 million in AD sales after this conversation. I feel that's very doable. I think that that might be. You might be underselling yourself there. It might be double that. But you don't seem that. That you're a boastful type of person. So I think that that's probably pretty accurate. And the. The only really subjective thing that we couldn't prove one way or the other is whether your favorite color is green or not. So I'm just going to. Even if you say that that's not the lie, you can't prove that it's not the lie to me. So I'm going to say that your favorite color is not green.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Okay, Ken, how about you?
[00:51:57] Speaker B: Listen, this is Joe's.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: All right, all right, all right, all right.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: I'll throw it out there. I kind of agree with a lot with. Joe says I'm going to go on the logic. Six marathons. I think, you know, you have run marathons.
Maybe it was more than six or maybe it wasn't six. I'm going to go with. That's the lie.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: Shoot. That's. That's fantastic. So, first off, I'm honored that you guys both had me here at all. That was. That part was great. The correct. The lie is. Joe, you nailed it. My favorite color is red. It's on my logo. It's on.
It's on a lot of my brand. It's on most of the things, like. Right. My favorite color is red.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: So you.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: I have run marathons. Yes.
First One was in 2016 in Chicago.
Oh, by the way, I'm not going to bore you with running stories. Nobody wants to hear them.
[00:52:50] Speaker C: Well, Kenny likes to tell one. Kenny's got a W. Where, Where?
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Where?
[00:52:54] Speaker C: Philadelphia.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: Oh, where.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: If you get a chance, there's an episode of Selling the Dream. It's on Apple. It's on. You know, it's our podcast.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: No, I. I know. I have heard, but I don't know the episode.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: The episode with.
What was his name? Oh, now I'm drawing a blank. Arthur Scott. Arthur Scott ran the Philadelphia Marathon 26 times, and I was fortunate.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Now I know who you're talking about.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: I was fortunate enough to. To bump into him serendipitously while you ran center and listen to that story. You'll love it.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: Oh, my God, I'm so on it. That. That is part of. Great.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:53:33] Speaker A: Yeah, Chicago, Chicago, Berlin, Germany, Miami, Philly, the Big Sur Marathon, virtually.
And then Again, Philly. So that's, like I said, were the ones that I did so far. I, if I didn't say it perfectly, the other part was I have generated conservatively 150 to 200 mil. But that is, I'm going to say conservative, that I, I, I, as you said, that's just the number I do give, because I know I can back that up. But I was going to say I don't know, but, yeah, that's it.
[00:54:13] Speaker B: So.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: All right, Nice work. Nice work, John. I hope you come back. I feel like some of the conversation.
We really. I have other questions I want to ask, so we'll save those questions for another. For another episode. But thank you for spending time with us. Thanks for hanging out and being. Being a good sport, and we look forward to next time hanging out with you guys. I.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: First of, I'd be honored to come back again in a heartbeat. Secondly, I would only invite you guys. Well, I'll invite you guys in any way, solo or duo. But I was gonna say, but you guys are great as a duo.
As. As a duo. So that's probably the invite. I would love to have you on mine as well, too. Although I need to write ramp up the games and foam part so I won't steal two truths and a lie. But hell, Joe's favorite game is what Am I Wearing?
[00:55:09] Speaker B: So.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. We might need to work on. On that specifically. But guys, I'm, I'm really.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: That's only on my.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: Is the one that pointed us together in the right direction.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: Plat.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Right. So I'm, I'm just. I'm. I'm thrilled. Thank you both for having me. It was an absolute blast, and I'd love to come back.
[00:55:31] Speaker C: Awesome. We'd love to have you. Bet.
[00:55:33] Speaker B: All right, guys, till next time. We'll see you later.
