Using Biology to Change Mindset Momentum | Don Markland

Executive Coach Don from Accountability Now dropped in to talk mindset and sales to find growth and happiness. People feel CONFIDENCE and if you bring it to your company you can create a culture that people want to not only be part of… but want to THRIVE IN. Accountability is usually associated with negativity, but Don explains how it can become a rallying cry and a positive MOMENTUM STARTER to help people WIN. You will get his 2 rules and 4 C’s that will help your team begin to BELIEVE in themselves, your product or service. He ties BIOLOGY to effectiveness and how it can help people get out of a down cycle mentally and start to go up the POSITIVE MOUNTAIN OF SUCCESS! Check this out & always hold yourself accountable. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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Don’s Links:

•  Instagram | @executivecoach.don

•  Website | https://www.accountabilitynow.net/ 

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(00:00) - Taking Breaks & Recharging in Business

(03:14) - The Importance of Embracing Failure

(08:51) - Confidence and Success in Call Centers

(13:18) - Building Momentum in Your Career

(23:06) - The Power of Momentum in Sales

(28:22) - The Power of Accountability 

(36:21) - The Four C’s of Accountability

(49:41) - Customer Service Pet Peeves!

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Beth Miller, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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If you loved this episode try these!

• How to Sell Your Time as a Scarce Resource | Mia Hannah

• More Balls than Brains can lead to Success with Rocco Sinisgalli

• Creating Multiple Streams of Income While Making Your Way to Hollywood | Amy Lyle

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I showed him and told him why I was going to be the best call center manager in the history of the world and he said I'm going to give you the shot. And at 19 years old, this company, teleperformance, moved me from Provo, utah, to Yakima, washington, and their call center. At the time, teleperformance had 52 call centers and Yakima was ranked 52nd in profitability and billable hours. And six months later we were number one across the board. We were the number one center in the business and I was like I'm going to do this the rest of my life. I was making fat cash. I was making $32,000 a year.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Woo, and look at at at 19 years for 19 year old, like I was rolling in the dough.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from any of your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. All right, Alan, here we go again with another great episode, with another good friend of mine who loves to keep me accountable.

Speaker 3: 1:30

He is totally putting you in check already and that's why I said just hit record, Hit record. He already insulted the podcast. He did he goes. Yeah, I listen to the podcast and it's not very good.

Speaker 2: 1:44

And that's why we have Don Markoff for accountability now on, who was a business coach of mine and we have stayed friends since. I have not been with him for a little bit but he's always right there and always been able to help me out a lot. So I'm excited to have Don on. But before we get to Don, I got to tell you what we're doing right after we get done with this podcast Alan.

Speaker 3: 2:04

You're packing to go to Tahoe, I know.

Speaker 2: 2:07

I'm packing to go to Tahoe, baby Tahoe and then Napa Valley 10 days in the beautiful Nevada, California, Hawaiian countries.

Speaker 3: 2:15

How's self-service out there, so you can stay in touch with your business, right Don?

Speaker 1: 2:21

Well, no, actually like I want. Like you know, it's a good point. So business owners really struggle to take in breaks all the time. They think I got to be connected all the time, I get to check in all the time and if you're doing that, then you're not doing it right. If you really want to grow your business, you need to learn how to take a break and recharge and come back and win, and Chris is doing it wrong. I'm sure he's making mistakes.

Speaker 3: 2:45

Well, he used to give him a compliment. You remember Harvey Pinnock, the golf coach. He said you know, you just take one aspirin at a time, not the whole bottle. So obviously you told Chris, maybe you should take a little break every now and then. And now he's in Tahoe and then Vegas and then Mexico and then Barcelona, chris, it should be.

Speaker 1: 3:03

hey, maybe you should work once in a while.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Yeah, just a little just a little, but Don hit on it. You got to be able to get back and recharge, right, do all that.

Speaker 3: 3:14

What happens when you overcharge your batteries? Don.

Speaker 1: 3:17

You take too much of a break.

Speaker 3: 3:19

You take too much time off. Doesn't that reduce your battery life?

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yeah Well, you're taking the metaphor to a bizarre level.

Speaker 3: 3:28

And so this is.

Speaker 1: 3:28

By the way, this is where the feed, this is where the podcast goes. You take metaphors to weird levels, but, joking aside, I would say taking breaks is super important because it helps your business fuel, but it also you have so many people in your business that depend on you and you have made them depend on you, and by you stepping away, it gives them the chance to step up and actually perform. And I think too many entrepreneurs and small business owners rob people of their greatest gift, which is struggle. They rob them of failure because they're like oh, you don't care about a lot of guy doing, I'm going to jump in and save you and I'm going to do it my way. Well, you became great because you learned how to suck. You learned how to fail and get back at it. So you going on a break, let them fail and grow and get better.

Speaker 2: 4:19

So that's what I did right before this podcast started is one of my estimators had sold a set of addicts there's that we can't find. I was looking for it and I said hey, can't do it. And I kicked it back over to my operations manager and he said I'm not, sir, I will find it. I'm like, yes, you will go struggle and fail for me, big boy. So no, he won't do that, but that's not standing.

Speaker 3: 4:38

It was I like it.

Speaker 2: 4:40

Yeah, actually it was good because I was looking for a little bit and I went screw this. You know he can do it. He's way better at this than I am.

Speaker 3: 4:47

So I'm saying you have to embrace the suck in order to be great, that's your employees, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:54

After the occasion and then they feel like they filled in the void Right. They have a little. They feel good about it yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Stop going in and thinking you have to protect them from failure. They remember both. I mean, chris knows this. I mean, chris was a bad manager his entire life. He's yet to be good, yeah Right, but his entrepreneurs skills. Like Chris, when you left corporate American, decided to become an entrepreneur, and you had to go through all this failure In order to build it Sometime. We do this not only as business leaders. We do this parents. We don't want to let our kids fail. We want to come in and step for them because we think we're doing them a service when all we're doing is allowing them to be average and then be frustrated when they're average.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Let them fail Let them struggle, because it's the greatest gift you're going to give them.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Yeah, failing forward is always a great point. To do that and we do that in sales all the time with our guys Is that you're out there running a call with them and like, nope, you know, I know the answer and I'm not going to let you. He looked at me like, hey, chris, any feedback on that? I'm like no, I really wasn't paying attention, man, why don't you guys just finish it? I just did it yesterday and he was able to. He was not really sure, but let me get back to you. And he won the job this morning. So, pretty cool, there it is. Yeah, so, don, you did not start out as a business coach. You have a really great background where you were in the theater, right, yes, sir, and you also now that you have entrepreneurial parents. How did this whole thing start? Because let's talk a little bit about how you got started and what you do and what you do today.

Speaker 1: 6:31

I love that. That's a great question.

Speaker 3: 6:35

So, don, it is not a great question, that's right.

Speaker 1: 6:39

You have to make him feel good or he'll whine and whine.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Well, there is that. He does pout too. Don't forget pouting.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, this is Chris management 101, right.

Speaker 3: 6:49

So there's a whole group thread that we have on people in Atlanta.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Can I get on that? Yeah, I'll send you an invite, all right. So I was. You know, when I was in college I was a musical theater major. I thought, for sure I was going to go to Broadway and be the next great big star. And I even had a scholarship to NYU at one point in their voice and musical program, and my wife and I were married at the time. We're still married, but at the time we were very young, married with one son, and I remember I got this scholarship from NYU and this is back when we you got letters, not emails, right, right, you guys can remember that far back, okay?

Speaker 3: 7:30

But I had this letter A pirate.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Yeah, I had this scroll that was said to me from a runner and I, well I'm you know my talking about my with my wife, what, what do we do? And I'll never forget how awesome it was, how supportive she was. She said look, my fear is not the grind of going to New York and trying to make it. My real fear is, I think you're going to make it and if you make it Right, remember what the life that means. We live in the city eight shows a week. You know this whole lifestyle. Bung, bang, bang, bang, bang. She goes. But I'm gonna support you either way. This is what you want to do. If this is what you think we should take our family towards, let's do it. So she goes to bed, sat there in the kitchen. I'm a religious person, so I prayed and Then I got up and I tore that scholarship. I put in the garbage and never told him Right, I just tore it up and then the next morning I changed my major to finance and that was it and that was it winning a business.

Speaker 2: 8:31

But you still were doing musical theory. That was for fun and still is not like we're in playing music and stuff. So very much come out. And what was your first job out of school, or what were those jobs that led up to where you?

Speaker 1: 8:42

are. Where are now? So my, my, my very first job. What, like my first big boy, my big boy job was. I was working at a call center.

Speaker 3: 8:51

He is very theatrical.

Speaker 2: 8:52

He is.

Speaker 3: 8:54

We never had anybody sing on our show before we Instruments.

Speaker 2: 8:58

I've actually I've heard him sing because he's he goes and sings for people in Jacksonville and they were streaming it and I was pretty good man. I'll give it to you?

Speaker 1: 9:05

Yeah, oh I'm, I'm really good, let's not mess around. He is like I, I'm really good. I've done karaoke in Atlanta Right and I and I've dominated you brought down the house at karaoke. I'm a competitive karaoke here. Let's just say that Karaoke baby like. I show up and I watch people sing and I'm like I'm gonna beat them, I'm gonna beat them, I'm gonna bury you, yep. So I Get this big boy job. It's call centers. I'm doing outbound calls like gritty credit card sales back in the late 90s brutal and after two weeks I was really good and a job opening came up for a Supervisor.

Speaker 1: 9:46

And here I was 18 years old and I applied for it. And I still remember my little buddies around me like you can't you think you're 18 years old, you live in your two weeks like you're crazy. And I said, hey, you don't know me. Like you don't know what I can do. So I applied for it and I went and met with my boss at the time. Her name was Kim Clegg. She's big Baltimore Orioles fan stupid like what was worse?

Speaker 3: 10:07

What an idiot.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Yep and I met with Kim and I told her why I was gonna be the best call center supervisor in the history of the world. I showed her this whole thing and she gave me the job and I was making 625 an hour and I had my own team of 25 reps and Then about three, maybe five months later we were the number one team in the site and the assistant call center manager like the number, like the right-hand person opened. So I applied for it and again all my buddies were like that's your 18, like you haven't even been here a year. And I said you don't know me, like don't tell me what I can't do. And I went, met with Kim again and Told her why I was gonna be the best right-hand person in the history of the world, showed her this whole.

Speaker 1: 10:51

We didn't have PowerPoint back then. We had like a different thing that we were using to do presentations and I showed her that and she gave me the job and I did that and we started having awesome shifts and I started. At that time I started really reading a lot around John Maxwell I know you guys know John Maxwell stuff, right reading.

Speaker 1: 11:10

I was obsessing over Leadership and I was reading zigglers, exigler, reading sales leadership and all this stuff and my team. The whole shift started Just accelerating. We became outstanding. And then I was 90, I turned 19, and An actual call center manager position opened up with this company in Yakima, washington. So I applied and it even Kim told me like don, this is for people in their 30s and 40s like you're 19. And I was like Kim, you don't know me, give me a break.

Speaker 1: 11:40

And I drove up to Salt Lake City and I met with Greg Borland who became one of the great mentors of my life. He's a lieutenant colonel in the military and I I showed him and told him why I was gonna be the best call center manager in the history of the world. And he said I'm gonna give you the shot. And at 19 years old, this company teleperformance, moved me from Provo, utah, to Yakima, washington, and their call center. At the time, teleperformance at 52 call centers and Yakima was ranked 50 second in profitability and billable hours. And six months later we were number one across the board. We were the number one center in the business and I was like I'm gonna do this the rest of my life. I was making fat cash. I was making $32,000 a year.

Speaker 1: 12:28

And look at at a 19 year for 19 year old, like I was rolling in the dough.

Speaker 3: 12:34

Sure, I got. I got to ask you was it just like you? You were young and fearless, or you had this theater background? Did you just think of this as a show? I mean that's a really hard industry.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Yeah, so the actor, so I and I. This is one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the arts and I encourage people to do it, because it gives you fearless confidence. And Chris knows this because we've talked about it. Confidence is an infectious thing that is hard to ignore. But you look at the greatest leaders in history, good or bad, good or bad, they were confident, right. They just they show up with confidence and people are like I don't know what it is, I'm just drawn to this confidence here. I was 19, fearless. I was reading, you know, 40 to 50 books a year. I mean, I was obsessed with trying to be better and I would. I was confident and I that, and I know my theater background helped, but it was kind of a combination of all of it.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Yeah, so coming in with the confidence and getting the team going and getting and then going from 52nd to 1st as you were making those steps, what are the when you look back on it, what are the things that you felt like you did to help the team get to that point and that because that's building that skill Later on for being an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1: 13:54

So exactly 100%. So the first thing I did and now this was a little scary, it's a great story, you guys love this. So I'm, you know, 19, super fearless, super cocky and Yakovah Washington I didn't learn this until I'd lived there for a while had the number one, the had the highest ranking of crime, gang related crime for capita in the United States. That little city did. It was just an apple orchard town. Yeah well, there's a lot of apple orchards, there's a lot of picking, there's a lot of. You know, it requires a lot of. There's a lot of immigrant groups that came up there which led to gang violence and I'm not saying they're all tied to gangs for immigrants. Right, I want to keep a show PC, but it's been PC, I know.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Truck loads of gangs, and so when I showed up my first life still, I'm my first day of the job they introduced me, and I'm looking over this group of 150 employees that are now my employees, and I'm telling you, half of them, at least, were gang thug bangers. Like stared at me like who's is white kid from Utah right, there's Mormon kid right? And so I Was walking around fearless. I started firing him hey, I think you're toxic to the behavior of here. It's one strike, and I just literally started like you're fired, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired.

Speaker 1: 15:16

One time I fired this kid kid, haraldo, and All of a sudden, the next day, his brother came in. And his brother came in hey, where's? Where's the boss? Where's the boss? And you know, I'm like, you know I'm all tough. And her all, though, got in my face, and he was like nobody fires my family, you better watch your back. And I was putting on a front like get out of here, man. He leaves, and I'm like it's Ryan in the bathroom. I'm so scared I'm gonna get killed.

Speaker 1: 15:42

And then, no joke, that night I went home to my apartment and on my on my car, but the next morning, when I woke up, on my car was a piece of paper that said leave town tomorrow. Wow, and I was like I am here, I'm 19, right, and I peed an immense amount in my pants. I was just like, oh my gosh, and I called a human resource for this company until performance is a multi-billion dollar company. They were back then, so I called HR, told them what happened and this is why my we're my first love of HR King. They said well, there's nothing we can do.

Speaker 1: 16:17

I was like what do you do? And so I had no choice is a good question.

Speaker 1: 16:24

Yeah. So I just kept on and I thought I'm doing it right, be smart, right, Don't be alone in an alley, Like just, you know, do my thing. And I started going to work really early before anybody got there, and staying away late. So, like, anyway, we got rid of people that were not contributing to the culture of the business and by doing that, that allowed me to put people that understood our mission and what my mission was. I was big at a Stephen Covey I still am. So I had my own little team mission statement of what we were gonna do. And you know, when we'd interview people I'd ask them here's my mission statement, what does it mean to you? And tell me, tell me what this means to you. And we only brought in people I don't want to exaggerate, we tried to only bring in people who weren't perfect, that supported the mission of what we were trying to do as a sales call center and it worked and that I mean that's big.

Speaker 2: 17:23

You know, when you talk about this, what's that phrase? Culture eat strategy for lunch, and you got to build that culture if you want to start to make that change. So you started because that wasn't a day one fix. I mean you didn't go from 52 to one in a day and a day doesn't make it happen. I mean, obviously there's a lot of work, so the first thing was culture and mission statement and then starting to find the right people and get them in the right seat.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Yeah, exactly the Jim Collins statement, which I didn't learn until years later, of getting the right people in the right seats. And then I was studying so much about sales. We were sales call center and I learned that the first real principle of sales is momentum. You guys are sports guy? Well, you're Atlanta Braves fans. I don't know if you're sports fans, yeah but and who do you follow? I follow the New York Mets and the Green Bay Packers.

Speaker 3: 18:07

And you're talking about momentum on the Mets. There it is, that's a trick 80 feet Boy, here it is.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Do they still play baseball? This is getting salty, it's getting really it's getting really salty here.

Speaker 3: 18:18

Yeah, All right. So let's imagine the Mets had momentum. Go ahead with your story.

Speaker 1: 18:22

So I learned that sales was about momentum more than anything Like. There's so many techniques to learn Scripting yes, you gotta have that, you gotta have training. I know, chris, you and I have aligned on training. You gotta train every day. You gotta have all these things. But without momentum it just doesn't matter. And too many times we spend so much time on process and getting the right people and getting all this stuff, making sure they can send invoices correctly. We try but the sales team never gets momentum. And you guys have seen this in sports A team that doesn't have momentum, they're losing.

Speaker 1: 18:55

They're losing too. I've seen in sports as such a great example. Great teams lose to horrible teams that they should have never lost to. George has done this many, many times. They've been a great team. They lost to horrible teams and it was because of momentum. Well, they didn't get out coached, they didn't think the other team got momentum early and then they were like, wow, I don't know what to do, and then they just kind of roll over so that reminds me of a story when that happened for me.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Just real quick, I gotta get. So I'm doing little league baseball with my friend and we're coaching together. And then little league baseball, it's rec ball, so everybody has to play so many innings in the infield and so many innings in the outfield. Everybody's got to have a chance to play and do that stuff. And so I was doing that and I was trying to develop the worst players in the beginning and we were getting throttled, man, we were getting killed. And my coach came up to me and said Chris, can we just stack the deck once? These kids need to win, just let's get them win. Sure enough, we did it. We go get the win. Then we go back and do a little bit of each, a little bit of this. Next thing you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. Last year we were in last place. This year, that year we won the whole league.

Speaker 1: 20:01

There it is.

Speaker 2: 20:02

But it's momentum.

Speaker 1: 20:03

back to your point, even with kids, no, it's human, it's I mean, it's gravity, it's the law of gravity.

Speaker 3: 20:09

Well, and it's a scientific law, it's a huge thing and I love this conversation because when you're on a hot streak in sales, you're bulletproof, you know you're going to get the next one and you can't wait and you start bragging and then you know our last podcast is like let's see if we can break a piece of the customers furniture. It still closed the deal. But then when momentum goes dark, it's like, oh my God, how am I ever going to sell this next one? And there's a lot of pressure. How do you fix it? How do you turn it?

Speaker 1: 20:35

around. So go back to you know, I'm not trying to use blame sports metaphors, so I hope you guys can keep up. I use sports references and I know you don't really know it.

Speaker 3: 20:43

Yeah, I can use more musical theater references. Chris might get this. So in basketball, in sport of basketball, this is a quick cat coaching in basketball.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In basketball the role of the timeout is a pure usage of momentum. That's all the coach uses it for. So if the opposing team scores six in a row or seven in a row or eight in a row, that coach knows timeout before this turns into 20 in a row, let's run a play that we know we can score on and let's stop this dang thing. And that's the role of it. So if I have a sales rep that's gone, we, in fact in my sales team now they have the. We have it called the 0 for three rule. It's called the Ofer rule 0 for three.

Speaker 1: 21:31

If you go over, you have to speak to me personally, like, don't take another lead, don't take another call, talk to me and let's timeout, let's run a play, let's get the layup. And I did that same thing way back when I was 19 at that call center. I was like, okay, momentum's everything. So you go over three Timeout, you come in with me personally and I mean I did, I just get them training, I get focused, get motivated, let's get them a hot lead, like let's do something that makes this break, make break the run. And momentum changed that call center. It's changed every business. When I do my business coaching right, the first thing we try to do is get. Like when I was working with Chris, right, the first thing was let's get revenue up fast, let's go, go, go, go go and create momentum. Because when there's momentum, the business owner's like oh, let's go to Athens, let's do this, let's do this Like when you do anything, because I've got momentum.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Right, yeah, that's a great point. I mean the momentum, and the breaking of the momentum is another one. I think that's key. When a sales guy's on a heater, it's easy to stay off him, but when he's in that deep dark spot and come back saying, oh I can't, you know price, it's all price, it's all price, you just gotta say timeout, right, stop, we know price is fifth in the list man. So let's go find, let's get you a win. So how do?

Speaker 3: 24:03

you make sure your team has momentum when you're in Napa Valley for 10 days and not in Napa for 10.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I mean Napa for four, I was in Tahoe for six, so total of 10.

Speaker 1: 24:15

That's right, but I mean he's got yeah, and he's got to have a team, right, he's got to have a team that can do it. He's got to have a team that can do it. And remember what momentum is, and I talked about this gravity, right? So if I'm, I mean, you all know Indiana Jones, right? So the big boulder that rolls down, right, the big fancy thing, it doesn't. Once it starts to move a little bit, it's going to get faster and faster and faster it goes down. All I got to get it to do is move a little bit. That's it. That's the principle of momentum. We think we have to do these big, enormous things? No, just go sell a box of pencils to somebody, right? Like, just get a little movement and that ball is going to roll downhill, and that's how easy it is.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Yeah, I, it's true, because that's what happens with our sales guys. You can see it when they go in the up and downs and they all have them. I mean it's, it's a natural cycle of everything. And when they get in that down spot, man, you just, you cannot tell them that there's a sunshine coming. Don't worry about it, those aren't all clouds. No, all I can see are clouds. No, don't worry, the sun's behind there. Nope, nope, it's just, it's just not working.

Speaker 1: 25:18

And you got to find a way to break that, and I'll give you an example like what I would do in like larger sales teams that I'm coaching with. We got one guy. He's 0 for 3, 0 for 5, 0 for 7. He's in the dark clouds. Okay, he's soup. He's a Mets fan. He's miserable, he's you know, he's really upset. Way to take one, yep. And so now I got to break this, okay. So let's look, do I really want to give this guy a lead right now? Probably not. Okay, I want my lead to go to closers. So, but I got to break the momentum. So I'm going to say, hey, let's say this crappy salesperson I'm going to make a banana and let's call him Chris. Yeah, let's say this crappy salesperson is Chris. I'll just pick a random name Right?

Speaker 2: 25:58

Yeah, let's pick one of the other, shall we? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 26:00

Yep. So, chris, I'm going to say so, how do I get momentum? Remember, I just got to get a little movement Right, so I might say hey, chris man.

Speaker 2: 26:09

I'm working with this guy, tom over here and he's really struggling.

Speaker 1: 26:12

You want to come watch me do, or you and me watch him do a sale. Maybe give him some feedback, because remember the principle of endorphins Every time we teach somebody, every time Chris knows this because he's a teacher at heart every time we teach somebody something and they go wow and you see him learn it, I get an endorphin rush and I start to think man, I know this, so I'm literally manipulating the situation to hack his brain.

Speaker 1: 26:36

So I say, Chris, let's go look at this. We watch any salesperson. They're going to have gaps. And I'm going to say, Chris, what do you think? What would you do? Well, what I would do is this I do this and I do this. And the guy goes, oh my gosh, that's great, those are good ideas. Boom, momentum, If anything, close the deal. I just got momentum. And then when I'm walking back with Chris, I say, dude, has good feedback.

Speaker 2: 26:56

You know what you're doing, you know how to close this stuff. Go get it. Now he's got a belief system back. And now because you know again. The other adage is that a salesman only sells at their lowest level of belief and he was the product of the service of trying to sell. And now he's got the belief and he's like wait a minute yeah, you know what I got this?

Speaker 1: 27:11

I do know this, and I'm using biology to win, because I got him to teach. His endorphins will kick on, doesn't matter who he is, every single person that teaches and when somebody acknowledges it, their brain just goes, make it these little goosebumps. They're like I'm the savior, I'm the greatest person in the world. They just feel on top of the world.

Speaker 3: 27:34

Well, it gets you back to basics too. The back to the blocking and tackling. I mean, some of the best golf I've ever played is right after somebody else says, hey, you know I don't play, but can you show me a few things? And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to be your teacher, but I'll work you through some drills and stuff. And next thing, you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe I should be doing that.

Speaker 2: 27:52

And you know what, and then I'm yeah, maybe it is just backing through.

Speaker 3: 27:55

Yeah, exactly, you actually got another one down to the big golfer.

Speaker 2: 27:58

So that's there you go. You actually hit on an analogy. He's gonna pick up on that.

Speaker 3: 28:02

Is that right?

Speaker 1: 28:03

I think he's gonna run over it Too many times. Get away from baseball. Look. Too many times we think working with a sales rep means I have to go coach them, I have to teach them. There's so many ways to hack their brain and get them confident. Have them do the teaching, have them teach you right. Like I might go to a sales rep that's struggling and be like man, I'm really struggling with my pitch on this thing. You mind giving me some feedback with role play, like why do I always have to be the one to teach them? Sometimes? My goal is momentum. That's it. That's my goal. Not making me look good, I don't care. I want this guy to have momentum, but close, so sell some crap.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Yeah, exactly right, and when they start teaching each other and you see the wind there. And that's where we are right now with Goody Bee, my sales manager. He is the teacher and the primary guy in the sales side teaching and that's key and it's always great to watch that where he's actually given good feedback and the team's responding to him. It makes you feel better as an owner.

Speaker 1: 29:01

That's right. That's when you can go to Napa and do those things, because you have somebody that's doing that. That's how, thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:08

All right. So Don, you left the incredible fun world of call centers, which I remember building call centers back in the day, but these were service centers for banks and they're. It's a tough environment and it's closed. It's eight hours. It's a grind. You were doing outbound sales even harder because you don't get the rush of being in somebody's house, which is fun for us and home services. When did you break out and why did you end up leaving the call center? Was it burnout? Was it opportunity?

Speaker 1: 29:35

No, no, no. So we I was with this call center come I eventually have teleperformance and joined another one and I found myself. I was 25 years old. I was the vice president of sales and operations. We were about seven million in size and a lot of things on paper showed I was doing really well. I had a good six-figure salary. I'm at 25 with a great six-figure salary. I've got my beautiful wife and three kids and I was about 60 pounds heavier than I am now. I was on an airplane 25 times a year going to all these different call centers and I started thinking there's got to be a better way to do this. And I still remember sitting in this break room in Rock Falls, illinois. We just had a big sales training with like 150 reps and I was sitting in the break room polishing off a chalupa from Taco Bell. I don't know if you've ever had a chalupa from Taco Bell, but it's so freaking good.

Speaker 2: 30:36

There's a way to make me really hungry right now. All right and so.

Speaker 1: 30:40

I'm sitting there and I'm thinking this can't be what my life is 60 hours a week, just grind and grind and grind. And that's when I took out this little notebook that I used to care around with me. They had quotes in it and I read this quote by a guy named Bob Proctor that said accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results. And I was like man, that's cool. And so I sat there and I wrote down the four C's of accountability, which was my own personal mantra about how it's going to be more accountable in my life and how I was going to understand accountability from then on. And I took that little mantra and I started to live it first and, as I did, like magic things happen. I lost weight, I started to spend more time at home, my wife liked the thinner me, which was a bonus. That was super great.

Speaker 1: 31:29

And my business started to do well. And I started to teach that accountability model to my team and they started to do well and this business grew from 7 to 12 to 25 to 45 million and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm the greatest executive in the history of mankind. I'm a genius, and this is the way I think God works that sometimes, right when we think we've got it all figured out, he reminds us that we don't. And I'm 26 on cloud nine and my wife is diagnosed with cancer, and I was like, oh my gosh, like everything. Everything changed in an instant. And here we have three kids under the age of six. And look, I don't mind saying this, but I feel bad saying it. I remember being angry with God because I remember thinking look, I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't swear, and you give my wife cancer. I can think of a lot of people that deserve this more than I do.

Speaker 1: 32:33

And the next few years was tough, but we got through it because of the four C's. We got through it because we were accountable to each other and we knew what that meant. And as we came out the other side, I remember telling my wife I wouldn't wish these two years on my worst enemy and at the same time I wish everybody could go through this because I have a better relationship with you, with kids, with God. I'm a better father, husband, entrepreneur, executive, brother, manager, cousin, you name it. Everything's better because we went through this and it was right.

Speaker 1: 33:09

After that, the president of the company came to me and he's like, Don, I'm going to look and do some philanthropic work and we had met with the board and we're looking at naming you president and I'm like I'm not even 30, I'm going to be president of this company. And then I got this vision of I'm already traveling 25 times a year. We're going to keep growing longer. I'm going to travel 50 times a year. Like this is not for me. And I came back to him and said I got a better idea Maybe, maybe I walk away and found my replacement, sold some of my shares back to the business and didn't, and left and decided we're going to do this different, and that's when I joined a startup at full entrepreneur mode and I put some money in. I became a co-owner of this business and this is where I made my first real mistake in business. I joined a business as an owner without looking at the financials.

Speaker 2: 34:06

All right, here we go.

Speaker 1: 34:08

Yeah, and I jump in and I remember Bubba was his name. He shows me the financials and we were losing about $10,000 a month.

Speaker 1: 34:16

And I was like Bubba, like this is a terrible business, like what are we doing? Like we're losing 10 grand a month, every hour we're open, we're losing money. And he said, yep, I know, that's why you're here. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. And the next kind of I don't know five, six months was awful. We were losing money. Worse, I was making it worse and because I was doing every mistake entrepreneurs, do I throw money at it? I hire more people, hire, do this and get more. Oh, what do I need Software? Software will save me. And everything was making it worse. We were an outbound lead generation and marketing agency is what we were doing. And I still remember this moment.

Speaker 1: 34:54

I called my wife one day. I had about an hour and a half commute to work every day and I called her and I was complaining and whining this job sucks, this business sucks. I should go back to my old job. I could get in heartbeat. I had a travel budget, I had all this stuff and now I'm losing our money, our livelihood, everything is just going down the tubes and my amazing wife, she's letting me go through that. And then she said are you done whining, and I said yes and she said good, I'm sick of it. Lucky and this is true, is anything. She said these exact words lucky for you. I didn't marry a loser. I like it. She was. You've been complaining for weeks and I'm tired of it.

Speaker 3: 35:37

No chalupas for you.

Speaker 1: 35:38

Yeah, she said only call me when you have solutions Only call me when you're going to have something to solve, otherwise maybe you are the problem. And then she closed it with only call me when you're going to talk about the four C's. And then she hung up the phone.

Speaker 3: 35:52

Do you think that she got that kind of toughness because of what she went through? Would she have said that if she hadn't gone through that struggle?

Speaker 1: 36:00

That's a great, great question.

Speaker 2: 36:02

I mean my wife's always.

Speaker 1: 36:04

My wife's always been the greatest person I've ever known, from day one, of course. I mean she fell in love with me, so she's obviously great, but she's incredible, she's always been incredible. She's always been ambitious. She had been a senior executive for a company in Utah she was more successful than I was earlier on, and so she always had grit, for sure. But but crisis illustrates our true character, doesn't create it, right. Crisis exposes what was already there and makes it bigger. And so I think, sure she was grittier, right, you know the sandpaper had made her skin tougher, but I would say she's always been the toughest one I've ever met.

Speaker 3: 36:49

That's awesome yeah. So, you've mentioned the four C's twice. Do we have to pay you to get the four C's, or can you tell us?

Speaker 1: 36:54

No, I look, that's another thing in business. What I tell entrepreneurs all the time is give it away for free, because they're not going to follow it anyway, the higher. You give it all away for free Because, guess what, they don't have the discipline to do it Right. So give it all away and they'll be so intrigued and they'll fail 100 times and they'll come back to you. Personal weight loss and fitness proves this. You think there's not. You know weight loss programs for free online. There's thousands of them.

Speaker 1: 37:21

But why so the? Why would you ever hire a personal trainer? Because you know you're never going to follow it. Never going to follow it Never, never in a million years. So four C's are really easy and this will be really impactful and I'm sure it'll change your lives forever. So the first thing before we get to the exact four C's is we have to cover the two rules, because we all have a misunderstanding of what accountability is. We think accountability is always associated with negative consequence, and you both already do this and you don't even realize it. When somebody screws up, you tell yourselves man, you need to hold them accountable.

Speaker 2: 37:59

That's right. We need to hold them accountable. It's a negative word.

Speaker 1: 38:03

We only bring it up on the mistake, and accountability is associated with all of your choices. I want you to be accountable for your wins just as much as your losses the fact that Chris has taken a break. I want to hold them accountable. Chris, great job, it was awesome. When a salesperson crushes it, I'm going to pull them off and say, hey, you followed these three techniques, great job. But that's exactly what I want. I'm going to hold you accountable. I'm going to say that word. I want their brain to associate it with the right behaviors, not just when I screw up, because we all do that and we do it to ourselves more than anything. We just crush ourselves when we make a mistake, but then when you do it right, you do this. I'm being humble. Now I just say to somebody else I had guides. Stop that. Tell yourself, man. I kicked freaking ass at that. I was awesome that I made those decisions and I feel better about it. It's not being cocky. You're holding yourself accountable.

Speaker 2: 39:04

This one. It's hard to do. When Don was working with me, we talked about this word. I was actually trying to make this the word of the year for my company, but it's got such a negative connotation you really got to put that in your culture to get it going. So we do talk about that now. We celebrate the wins. We don't say the word accountable, but we definitely celebrate the wins and we celebrate the losses. You know what that was? A good loss, that's right.

Speaker 3: 39:28

What's the C word? Did I miss it?

Speaker 1: 39:31

No, so that's just our definition. The two rules are really quick. The first rule is accountability. Always starts with me. We don't walk into a room and point at other people. We realize we contribute to our own future more than anything else.

Speaker 3: 39:46

I wanted to ask you about that, because the way you were describing it, it seemed like you were holding yourself accountable, whereas when I think of accountability, I think of accountability it's external yes.

Speaker 1: 39:55

So it always starts with yourself. Always, I contributed to that, I made that. I made those I contributed. And the second thing is there's no room for egos. Anyone can hold you accountable and I use a little simple metaphor. I say there's baseball game. And if there was, if a pitcher throws a pitch and it's a swing and a miss, it's a strike. And it doesn't matter if the umpire calls it a strike or the opposing player calls it a strike or a fan understands calls it a strike. You swung and you missed, it's a strike.

Speaker 1: 40:27

But we spend all this energy when somebody tells us, calls us out on something of hey, you know, it's not your job to tell me where I screwed up. Or we'll say things like yeah, but will you do it too? Who gives a freaking crap that they do it to? Of course they do, right, that means they're an expert at it. It didn't mean you didn't screw up. Get over it. Okay, drop the ego. So anyone can hold you accountable, from your spouse to your kids, to your lowest level ranking employee to a stranger on the street. And get over yourself. You aren't above it.

Speaker 2: 41:00

Those are the two rules. I know it. I trust him. I have a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Yeah, all right. And now the four C's are real easy. First one is critique success.

Speaker 1: 41:10

We do it better every time, whenever we win, before we break our wrist, pat ourselves on the back, we stop and say how could it have been better? How could we do this better? Okay, this is our first discussion. Second one is we correct failure? Chris knows this because he's really big on this. We don't punish mistakes, we correct them. If somebody makes a mistake he already talked about it we're gonna celebrate it. We're gonna tell the team awesome job, you had a huge mistake and let's break it down. Oh, you made that assumption based on this data and now can you see how that was a little rash and a little wrong. Okay, fix that. Go left, not right, and everything's fine. Okay, right, if Marty McFly and Doc Brown had just tore up the book or burned it, then Bif Tannen would have never gone back at time and created the whole second movie. Correct the mistake, that's it. There you go. I'm full Little pop culture reference. Love it.

Speaker 3: 42:03

Yep, I'm digging it, I was in.

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yep then. Third one is celebrate growth. The hardest thing we do in this life is grow and make that choice. When you're in the weight room, it's the 13th rep, it's push until you fail. It's extra weight on the bar right. Too many times we think we're doing work and growing, when all we're doing is just going to our discomfort and then we stop. And there's David Goggins quote where he says there's no growth in the comfort zone.

Speaker 2: 42:29

That's right, and that's what this is about. You gotta grow.

Speaker 1: 42:33

You gotta grow, and when you do, that's when you throw your parties, that's when you celebrate, that's when you sit back and say, man, I went on a sales call and I knocked the door and I wasn't ready for that and I did great. I'd celebrate the growth, not success. People ask me all the time, don, why would you celebrate growth and not success? And I believe God sent all of us here to be successful. That's why we were sent here. Doesn't mean we're all sent here to be billionaires, but success is what you define success as, and we were all defined. We were all sent here to be successful. So why would I celebrate you? Meeting expectations Doesn't make any sense. You're meeting your potential and when you start to celebrate expectations, it creates entitlement. So I'm expecting you to be successful, great job. But what I'm gonna celebrate is the growth to get there, the hard things. That's where I'm gonna celebrate like crazy. That's the third thing. And then the fourth one is my favorite. It's called Crush Mediocrity.

Speaker 1: 43:36

In Florida, and I know in Atlanta, we have enormous bugs, and I don't care how clean your house is, you've got big old bugs that love to hang out, and when a roach cockroach comes running around, we've got this thing in our house called the lonely flip flop. That's somewhere it lost its partner and it's just hanging out and we use that to get rid of these bugs. And when you see if I don't know if you guys have ever done this you see a cockroach and you smack it. If you don't hit it hard, that cockroach is gonna laugh at you and then go call all of his friends and be like man Don's a wuss, come on over, we've got the run of the place. You have to crush it with everything you've got, and that's what we do with mediocrity. When you find it be violent, be upset and crush it and move on. That's good stuff.

Speaker 2: 44:23

Yep, we've been talking about it. That's good stuff. You've been working with companies, so, out of the call, some of you still are a partner in businesses, but you're also doing coaching. Let's talk a little bit before we go into our final four questions, a little bit more about your coaching program and how people can find you and what you've been doing with some of these companies.

Speaker 1: 44:40

Yeah, so our business right we are. Accountability now is we've recognized last year as Inccom one of their top five management consultant companies in the country. For our work.

Speaker 3: 44:53

Congratulations.

Speaker 1: 44:55

Yep, and that was a big win for us. We just won another marketing award with a company called ClickFunnels, so we just won. Our program is very different than just traditional coaching or traditional consulting. We follow what I call the player coach model. Many coaches want to sit on the sidelines and remind you of all the problems you already existed. Well, thanks for helping. Okay.

Speaker 1: 45:18

I already know I said okay, and consultants will sometimes want to charge these exorbitant fees to come in and do slow paced work. Well, we don't. We do a player coach model, which means we're gonna work with our clients. Everything is month to month. We never sign a long-term contract ever, which means the risk is always on us. To perform you again a sports metaphor Guys in their free agent year outperform I like crazy. So we put that on our us, like, hey, we got to deliver every single day, no matter where we could lose the account. And we're player coaches. At times I'm gonna sit with the CEO and say you're the problem and let's fix that. And then at other times I'm gonna say, hey, let's jump in, let's solve it, let's come up, let's do strategy, let's do training, let's train your team, let's design the process, and we will jump in and get our hands dirty. And it's been great. We have 71 clients right now in seven countries and we are. We're having our best year we've ever had as a business and it's been outstanding.

Speaker 3: 46:22

How many weeks a year are you on the road now?

Speaker 1: 46:25

I don't travel. You know, I have a current engagement that's a pretty great engagement that puts me traveling during the summer one week a month and then outside of that I probably travel I don't know 15 times a year, baby right.

Speaker 1: 46:42

And it's a different season, yeah, most of the time it's almost always virtual and you know I'm in a different season. Back in the early days of my career, you know we had little little kids and now my wife works in the business, right, she's got her own portfolio of clients and her primary specialty is medical. She does a lot of stuff in the medical any medical practices I think. She works with them and she's outstanding. She's again. She's the smartest and toughest person I know. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 47:12

So accountability now that's how you can find them. You can find them at cannabinolenet.

Speaker 1: 47:17

you can find me at cannabinolenet. We do a lot on Instagram, executivecoachdon, and I do wanna say people should read your book right, Like when I first started out.

Speaker 3: 47:29

Look at Chris.

Speaker 1: 47:30

Beam.

Speaker 3: 47:31

Look at me next up.

Speaker 1: 47:36

Uh-oh, oh no, he froze when I was doing that first business, and when I was failing at knowing stuff. Oh, did I freeze Can?

Speaker 2: 47:41

you read it Right when you're about to say why it's a good part of the book. You were gonna gush on Chris's book and then we saw the universe just said yo, we can't screw up Chris's ego anymore, Chris you're joking.

Speaker 1: 47:51

When I started that first business and we were failing. There was no podcasts, there wasn't, there wasn't. You know how I got health was to start calling people like dude, tell them what to do, tell them what to do Right. And if there had been a show like this where I could have said you know, and listened and listened to insights and listened to things that other people are doing like holy cow, that would have helped. And Chris's book really simplifies it. I mean, it's kind of, you know, kind of a dumb fashion, right, anybody can read it. Yeah Right, small words, big pictures.

Speaker 1: 48:23

That's exactly what I went for, guys, but my point is I mean, we were trying to read Jim Collins, we were trying to read stuff that was, you know, super high level. We're like we're not a fortune 500 company, like what the heck? We've got 10 employees, and so I appreciate the work that you do. People don't realize the work that goes into putting on a podcast, even as crappy as this one, and there's so much work behind it and it's really a value to the entrepreneurship community and I think that's cool.

Speaker 2: 48:52

Yeah, man. No, it's been great. Yeah, actually just got a film with the guy two days ago who, just because I put it out there, anybody wants to talk to me. You can, you know, hit me up on email and I'll give you 30 minutes and we'll just chat. You know, again, put it out there for free, and I did.

Speaker 2: 49:07

I talked to this guy. He's thinking about, you know, starting his own handyman company and Spokane Washington. He asked the question. He goes Chris, do you think I'm crazy? I'm like, oh yeah, of course, 100%. I said now you got to figure out if it's the right crazy for you, man. I said, because it's a crazy hard world that you're getting to.

Speaker 2: 49:23

And we talked through it a little bit and he had he actually had listened to the podcast and I said you know, you got to have some interesting questions. Make me ask, make me answer some pointed questions. And he did. He said I got my three questions for you because I I know I have 30 minutes, so that's pretty cool. There you go.

Speaker 2: 49:39

I was a mini coach for 30 minutes, so, anyway, but now we have the man coach on today, don, who has helped me out quite a bit as we put the 10 for two program in at the trusted toolbox and we're still striving for it and going after it and it's galvanizing the team. So at the toolbox we have appreciated what Don has done for us, but now we have to go to our final four questions as we bring it to a close. So you brought up a lot of books and you've read a lot of books and I'm well aware of that. What is one book now? You would, you would give out to our audience looking to start a business, looking to scale a business, but just a book.

Speaker 1: 50:12

Yep, I saw, and a big reader I read, you know, somewhere between 1680 books a year, right, but I reread every May the 10 X rule by Grant Cardone, every May 1st. And the reason why is, look, that's a little, that's heavy sales, heavy entrepreneurship, heavy mindset. And the reason why is because you set your big goals in January, you get your word of the year, you get all this stuff, and then you get to the end of April and you're like man, I'm tired, what the freak am I working on? I think I'm so exhausted. And so every May 1st I read it again and I just realized, holy crap, I've so much more I can do. Let's go.

Speaker 2: 50:45

That's a great one too. That's a great time for him to do it, yep.

Speaker 1: 50:49

And I've done that probably 15 years. I reread that book May 1st every year.

Speaker 2: 50:55

Solid. All right, here we go. Now on to the next three questions. Why don't you?

Speaker 3: 50:59

incorporate my question into the three. I mean there are four questions you don't have to separate them. I said four, now we have three left. And you're like, okay, now we're going to get to the three that are important.

Speaker 2: 51:09

What's the favorite feature of your house, Don?

Speaker 1: 51:12

My favorite feature of my house when we put in a pool. It took a year and a half to get the pool in place. Chris and I remember we they were just starting down that path and we had they cut a pipe and we were chatting on a call and he's like did they do this? He went right into like what the hell is going on, and so there was just nothing like sitting out there at the pool with my kids, and I just love it. That's what I love, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 51:36

Love that that's a good one. Okay, when you're out there in the world and we're getting customer service, you know things are out there in the world because we are customer service freaks. We want to know what is a customer service pet peeve of yours.

Speaker 3: 51:50

When you're the customer.

Speaker 1: 51:52

Yeah. So customer service is about creating magical experiences. That's all it is. Just create magic. It's all I want you to do is create magic. You don't have to solve my gang problems. Create magic, make it feel good, right, because, remember, magic's not real, it's never real, but we love it because of the way it makes us feel. So customer service sometimes thinks I just got to get right to the problem, I got to solve it wrong. Make it magical, just create magic. And then it's because there's a lot of times you can't solve it. Sometimes you got to tell the customer, like, wait is what it is. I don't know what to tell you, right, but if I can make it magical, doesn't matter. If it's real, you're going to walk away, remember it. And when they don't make a magical, they just kind of, even when they solve my problem right away. That's why I like to call Disney with a problem, because Disney is going to make it magical.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. I like that too. It's again because we all know that's how you feel at the end of that transaction, not at the date that came out of it. All right, last thing, give us a DIY nightmare story, to not involve those guys cutting your sprinkler. Yeah, this is a.

Speaker 1: 52:53

DIY. This one's great. So my wife loves to know and they joke around about it that I'm the least handy person in the world, and so we get. We've got our house, we've got an upstairs part of our house and stuff like that. And I see on Amazon Prime Day it's Prime Day right now, but it was Prime Day years ago, it was like six years ago these little outlets that had USBs in them and I'm like I'm going to install USB outlets in our whole house Genius.

Speaker 1: 53:23

So, I ordered two of them and I tell my wife I'm going to put these through the whole house and she's like like hell, you are right, you're a mess. And I was like, no, trust me. I watched a YouTube video, I'm going to do this. She was like why don't you start upstairs? So I go upstairs Now. You guys do this stuff all the time. How long should that have taken?

Speaker 2: 53:41

I'd say an hour for an amateur in the beginning. Yeah, to do the two, I'll give you an hour.

Speaker 1: 53:46

So I'm not exaggerating. Four hours later, our power was out in the whole house. We had no power at all and we're freaking out and I had no idea what to do. Like it is gone, I have no idea. Nothing's installed. I got cords hanging out of a wall. I got crazy stuff. We had to call an electrician. He came for about an hour and he was saying like what were you? Why were you twisting these? What were you doing? I looked at the YouTube video. I swear.

Speaker 3: 54:14

What was?

Speaker 1: 54:15

the.

Speaker 2: 54:15

YouTube video. I said white goes to black, Green goes to black.

Speaker 1: 54:20

And so they came and he was there about an hour. He got it fixed and he goes do you want me to install these? And I said, no, throw them away, we're done, we're banged. All together, and that's what it was, and they bring it up all the time, Like when I get a little like I'm going to do a DIY thing, Don do you remember the outlets?

Speaker 2: 54:37

You're right.

Speaker 1: 54:37

We're going to call somebody.

Speaker 2: 54:39

It's like remember the Titans, Remember the outlets Don.

Speaker 1: 54:41

Remember the outlets Go away Now this has been awesome.

Speaker 2: 54:46

I'd say we've talked about this on other podcasts when do you need a coach? When do you want to get a coach? It just depends on where you are. I've used a couple of coaches throughout my 15 years doing it, and Don has been the one I've used most recently who helped, and so I think a big question a lot of people ask themselves is when should I get a coach, when shouldn't I get a coach? And I would answer for Don is that when you're ready, it's time to at least find out. But don't just follow somebody and just because you found them on Instagram, get to know the guys, get to understand who they are and can they really help you. And that's where Don was a great fit for me at the time. I was looking for this kind of coaching from him to help me really accelerate my growth in my company. So as you go to grow and get your company going, you got to make sure you're looking for the right people to help you, but you got to keep rolling it right.

Speaker 3: 55:35

Yeah, and it's really interesting to me because not too long ago, don was talking about you know, and I'm talking to the CEO, and if they're the problem then I tell him they're the problem. And we just had a coach, not too many episodes ago, who wouldn't have done that unless they got permission to. And I kind of have a feeling, don, what I just told you. So there's a huge difference in styles of coaches. Do you want somebody who's in your face, tell you like it is, or do you want somebody who's more of a therapist?

Speaker 1: 56:00

Well, and I'll say two quick things. I know we'll run along here, but two quick things to remember on that. One is remember the law of entropy. This is scientific law. The law of entropy is everything left unto itself is in a constant state of decay. That's true as anything those shirts you're wearing. They're constantly getting older. Everything we have is in a constant state of decay when it's left unto itself, including our ability to be successful, and I would tell everyone.

Speaker 1: 56:29

If you don't have a coach, then how are you getting better? You think you're that good, you're the one entrepreneur you know. Every great, successful entrepreneur in history, like in the last 50 years, has had a coach, and you just think you're the one that doesn't need them. Or is that your ego telling you that right? And so every great athlete, every great actor, every single one has had somebody they go to that coaches them. But you're apparently better than Tiger Woods.

Speaker 1: 56:54

You're one that doesn't need a coach. Good for you, because you're full of crap. You're full of crap. Everyone needs a coach. That's right.

Speaker 2: 57:04

There are great quarterback in high school. You have one coach, you may have two, you have a quarterback's coach. You go to college and you immediately pick up a strength and conditioning coach, a quarterback's coach, and offers a coordinator. And then you get to. By the time you get to the pros, you've got all kinds of nutrition coach. You've got every mindset coaches. Think about Wimby.

Speaker 1: 57:23

I got the number one draft pick for the Spurs, right? You know how many people he's probably got around him coaching him now, right, like to help him as opposed to where he was at. But for some reason, business owners, entrepreneurs they think I got it. I'm good. I'm the one person that doesn't need help.

Speaker 2: 57:42

I know some of you guys too. That's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 57:45

And so, always, always, always, have a coach, always, and make sure it fits your budget, make sure it fits your style, Make sure it's somebody that's pushing you into uncomfort zone, make sure. And if they're not, then they're not a coach, they're just a friend. Right, you don't need to hire a friend, you need to hire somebody that'll tell you hey, put more weight on the bar. I think you could take the business to 10 million. I think you're wrong. We got to go to 10 million and let's go, let's do it.

Speaker 1: 58:15

That's what you need.

Speaker 2: 58:16

You can do it too. Everybody Take this and I hope you guys got some good stuff on this one. Go check out the show notes. Go out there, man, and just do me a favor. I just asked two of my good friends to go out there. After they told me, hey, I really like your podcast, I said can you out there and give me a review? I just went and checked yesterday. You know what?

Speaker 3: 58:30

No, they didn't do it.

Speaker 2: 58:32

No, you know what? They're off my friend list. They're gone. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 3: 58:35

Slash their tire.

Speaker 2: 58:36

You go out there and you give me a good review and I'll become your friend. All right, don, thanks so much for taking time out of your very busy day. We enjoyed it and I hope everybody else got a lot out of this one, because I know I sure did. I got a page full of notes.

Speaker 3: 58:46

We'll see you on the next one. Awesome Thanks, Don. Cheers Out of here,