From Army Squad leader to Business leader: Elliot Quinones

Elliot Quinones is a former US Army Squad Leader and the current owner of the Grout Medic of Chattahoochee Valley. As a former Army squad leader who mentored over 300 soldiers, he now helps salespeople and entrepreneurs develop their leadership skills and sales technique.

Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to the Harbert College of Business Podcast with your hosts, Sarah Gascon and Currie Dyess. Elliot Quinones is a business leadership expert and mentor and the owner of the Grout Medic of Chattahoochee Valley. He helps salespeople optimize their performance and improve their leadership skills and is a graduate of the American Military University.

Currie Dyess:

Elliot Quinones, War Eagle and welcome to the show.

Elliot Quinones:

War Eagle, man, thanks for having me.

Currie:

Yeah, it is so great to have you. We are really excited to dive into your area of expertise. Look, you have excelled in the military. You have excelled in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. Tell us a little bit about how you got here.

Elliot Quinones:

Yeah, I think a part of it is entrepreneurship and leadership has always been a part of me. I've always been that kid who I'm always trying to find something like selling my toys on the corner, trying to do something to make money and learn that sales aspect. And I really just took it through. So all the way through high school, I was in ROTC, kind of a natural progression into the military, but it was really great because it taught me a lot about leadership and training. So that carried over into the military. So I had three deployments and I was leading teams as early as 20 years old. I was a team leader, taking other people, older people, all sorts into combat. And then from there, went into the drill sergeant role, which I absolutely loved because again, there's a big part of me that just loves the training, loves the aspect of trying to help people get to their goals.

So that was really another great learning experience about leadership and how people operate and just little things that you don't think people really like. For example, most people love discipline. You learn that that's really important. So I was able to take that and carry that into entrepreneurship. So I came out of the military, came out of being a drill sergeant and bought a CrossFit gym where I was able to apply a lot of those things that I learned in the military and even in high school to be able to coach and really break down movements and make things simple for people so they learned it easier, at least in my mind. And then just kept on studying and learning, learning about people, learning how they function, learning how to get better. And then what I realized is being able to coach and learning the different aspects of what makes people tick, it really helped me in that sales role as well.

So started to really take the sales a little bit more seriously. I always say that if you can sell fitness where I was, you could sell anything. So we sold memberships for a really much higher ticket, $2,000 personal training packages, things like that. And then eventually I went on to close it down and moved into a more of a corporate selling role, was able to sell about 2.5 million my first year and then moved into a sales manager role where I helped people do the same thing. I improved retention rate, improved growth year over year, especially in my market, and then decided that I'm going to do something for myself where I really want to take care of my employees, help people grow, do that. So I started my own company, which is also a franchise. Now growing that, which is called the Grout Medic of Chattahoochee Valley.

So that's what I'm doing now.

Sarah Gascon:

Have you had a humbling moment that forced you to reevaluate everything you believed about leadership?

Elliot Quinones:

Yes. It's probably a couple moments like that. A big one that comes to mind is when I made the transition from the military into my CrossFit gym, you lead a certain way in the military. A lot of leadership of people learn is what you see above you. And if I'm being completely honest, everyone in the leadership is not, everyone in the military is not a great leader. And so you have to learn to recognize those. And so when I went into my CrossFit gym, I took a lot of those lessons, probably not the best lessons for the military into that. And so basically I would go into the gym and I would coach and I'd give one the classes running, but prior to that, I'd sit by myself, expect people to come up to me, being the owner of the gym, expecting them to do that role.

And so then I ended up going to a seminar that was given by Ben Bergron, who's big in the CrossFit space. He's put a lot of games athletes through. And I remember him just saying right off the bat that everything that's going wrong in your gym is your fault. So if you're not going to your people and learning their names and you're not approaching them, you're wrong. Just because I'm the leader of the gym, that leadership to me now especially is a support role. So it was really humbling to think that you come from this area where you learn a lot of leadership, you learn a lot of things, but that those things can be completely wrong or maybe there's a different type of leadership that you need to be able to use where you are. So amongst other examples, but that was a really humbling experience because once I took ownership of that, the entire culture of the gym shifted within two weeks, people were coming up.

It was a lot lighter. People were more open to asking questions, and it was all because of something that I was doing.

Sarah:

Just as a follow-up, how were you able to diagnose the problems? Did you have somebody come in and help you assess the situations that were happening in your gym or even in any other environment that you've been in?

Elliot Quinones:

I think for that particular instance, my problem wasn't that new. So it was kind of one of the first things that Ben Bergman talked about in the seminar was those kind of things. You go into your gym, you think you have a good culture, but you're sitting there and people are not coming up to you and that kind of thing. And it was like this moment of, wow, this isn't just me, but this is a constant thing that's happening. So I was able to really just take that lesson and apply it. And to me, that's one of the most important things. You can learn, learn, learn, but if you're not applying the things that are taught or you're not taking ownership, then it's useless. So in that scenario, it was more just listening. But I will tell you that there has been plenty of moments where I have, I would say almost every major thing that I've done, I've had a coach that I've talked to and that has helped me diagnose and look into what's going on.

So a little bit of both.

Currie:

And whenever you're taking full ownership of the environment that you're in, all of the success and problems start with me, right? Has there ever been a moment where you felt that taking that full ownership, it was unfair or overwhelming or it was uncomfortable, and then ultimately that changed their trajectory of the environment?

Elliot Quinones:

Yeah, I think that if you are in a true leadership role, especially if you are an entrepreneur and at some point you don't feel overwhelmed, you don't feel like, man, this is a lot. You don't feel like maybe you're not doing the right things, then you're probably doing it wrong because those feelings are just going to come. And it's really tough to constantly take ownership of something. I mean, the short end of it is you are literally blaming yourself all of the time, and that is not an easy thing to do. But what I think about is what's the alternative? The alternative is I blame somebody else or I blame something else that I ultimately can't control and nothing changes. There's no nothing because I'm just blaming the other person and I can't change that or I can't change that thing. But what I know without a doubt that I can change is something that I'm doing.

And so if you can take ownership of that, number one is you're going to grow a lot more because you're going to be constantly learning from your mistakes. You're going to be constantly figuring out ways to improve because you have to, number one, and two is you don't want to feel like that anymore. And then what you will realize is you will see massive changes. So again, going back to that example, something very simple was I consider myself back then really bad at names and names when you're talking to people so important. It's the number one word. It's the number one thing that a human being wants to hear is their own name. And so it's something simple where, again, you think people are not coming up to you, whatever the case is. And it's like you blame them at first, but then you're like, I haven't even taken the time to remember their names and I'm not even using this.

So let me take ownership of this, let me learn that. And then seeing this massive shift now from a little tiny change of something that again, you took ownership for.

Sarah:

So let's talk a little bit more about sales. What's the biggest misconception beginners have about sales that holds them back the most?

Elliot Quinones:

That's a great question. I think the biggest thing that holds salespeople back is their belief of what a salesperson is. I think that there is still a bad stigma around salespeople. When we think of salespeople, we still think of that fast-talking car salesperson, pushy, they're just trying to sell more and more things to you. And sure, I mean, I'm sure that there are salespeople like that in the world, but the reality about sales is at its core, selling something is solving a problem, and that's really all you're doing as a salesperson. I cannot sell and I will not sell something to somebody that they don't need and that I don't fully believe in what I'm selling. So if you're thinking about getting into sales and you think like, "Oh, I just don't want to be that person. I feel salesy. I don't want to have to push somebody.

I don't want to push a lot of pressure. I don't want to have to talk a lot. I'm not good at talking," is another one that a lot of people are like, they think they need for sales. And in reality, it's listening. So I think that just getting all of those old 10, 15, even longer than 20 years ago, salespeople mindset I think will help people to move into that sales role and understand that it's rewarding and it's very different than what it used to be even 10 years ago.

Currie:

Elliot, I was doing a little snooping around on your LinkedIn and it says on there that you helped increase the sales revenue of Renewal by Anderson by $20 million. And for those that don't know, Renewal by Anderson is like the big leagues of selling. If you can survive there, you can thrive anywhere. If a founder listening had to replicate just one strategic move you made there, what should it be?

Elliot Quinones:

I think the biggest thing that's helped move the needle there is shifting, again, the mindset of what the team thought of traditional selling and the mindset of how they're selling. So this is kind of weird, but let me explain. So I think the biggest thing is a lot of people go into these roles and they think that everyone sells or everyone buys the way they buy. And in their mind, if you look at a Riddle of my Anderson window, I mean, a Ronald Anderson window is four or $5,000 for one window. It is what it is. It's a great value, but it's four to $5,000 in one window. And so when you go into that sales role and you start selling, if you don't fully believe in that value, if you think to yourself that nobody's going to pay that price for a window because you are doing the math of, oh, well, this window probably costs this and it can't possibly cost that for them to buy it, you're not understanding what sales actually is because you're not selling the window, you're selling the fix to a problem that the customer has.

So shifting a team to really understand what it is that they're selling and to understand that not everyone values the same thing, I think is one of the biggest shifts and the hardest things to do because it is a complete mindset shift. So I'll give an example where I had a rep that called me and he was just struggling. He was closing below, I think maybe 15%. He went a whole bunch very early on. I think it was like 30 or 40 sales, but he didn't make a single sale. And so he called me and he's talking to me about his clothes and his pitch and all that stuff. And the first thing I asked him was, again, I was like, very straight up, I'm going to ask you a straight question, would you personally purchase these windows? Do you fully believe on what value we're giving to the customer?

And as soon as I asked that, it was silent for 10, 15 seconds and it was like, no, I don't think that I would pay for these. And I'm like, okay, well, now we have a problem. And so we talked through that of why he's not seeing the value, where he's placing the value. And after that conversation, once he realized, okay, now I can understand, now I can see, and now I understand that other people are going to value different things, he went out and his close rate increased tremendously. So I think it's just getting people in the right mindset of what they're doing, what the goal is and how they're selling.

Sarah:

So how do you operate in that space? Are you going with your person to observe and pitch to the client or just assess what's going on? We talked about the gym and diagnosing the problem in action, or are you sitting in a classroom and working with one of your team members to improve their performance?

Elliot Quinones:

For both sales training and athletic training, I think there's really something you always have to do, which is an assessment. So to me, there's always an assessment of whatever it is that I'm training of where the person is now. So whenever somebody was getting ready to do CrossFit, I'd put them through an assessment to see what were they capable of, where was their fitness level, where were their limitations? And it's the same thing in sales is you get them, you sit them down and you talk to them, "Hey, what's your experience? What do they know? How do they speak? How do they act?" You can do that a lot. Of course, the interview process is going to give you a lot of that as well. And then from there, you design your training program. And 100% is there's two main things needs to happen is one is you have to be able to set the example.

And in sales, that means being able to sell, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to close every deal because we know that that's just not going to happen, but you have to believe in your process. You have to do the things that you're asking the sales rep to do. And it's the same thing when you're coaching and training athletically, and you guys probably know, is you may not be the absolute best, may not be able to lift the 400, 500 pound deadlift, but you can teach the mechanics. So when you lift, your mechanics are sound, you're doing the things that you're asking the athlete or the sales rep to do. So with that, depending on where they are, you may do a lot more one-on-ones, more in the fitness, the basic train or the personal training, but in sales, it's the same thing.

Maybe you're going on those rides and you're observing. So you do it first and then you come back and you observe. And I think the biggest thing, the biggest difference that I see or I notice about the great trainers is they are 100% focused on the process. They're not looking other ways. They're not doing two other things, three other things. They don't even really care if you sell it or not. It's what can I do in this moment to improve? So definitely those one-on-ones recordings are going to be huge and then literally just going through those recordings and dissecting different pieces. But I would say that one of the biggest things to do too is that when you are doing those one-on-ones, however you do those training is, making sure that you're not overwhelming either. So you're not giving too much feedback where now the person is just lost and they feel like it's just too much.

So it's trying to find those one to three things that you really, really want to focus on that are going to move the needle. And it's a mix of one-on-one and listening and talking through it, debriefing. And it really just depends on where your salesperson or athlete is at that time.

Currie:

Elliot, I have worked in sales as well, and I think that there is a giant chasm between being good at sales and being a good sales trainer. It seems to me like you were really a student of the game and you trained soldiers, you trained salespeople, you trained people at the gym. What leadership principles stayed the same in each of those arenas and which principal was completely different, had to change?

Elliot Quinones:

I think the leadership principle that stood the same throughout was understand, again, going back to understanding that leadership to me, at least the style that I use, it really comes down to being a support role. So it's not a, "I'm going to tell you what to do, you're going to do it. " In the military, it's like that a lot. And to answer your second one is, what do we have to do? So in the military, at some point you're going to have to tell somebody, "Do this right now," and there's no questions asked depending on the situation. And so when you leave the military, you kind of think that's the norm. Even when I go into a company, a corporate, it's like, I'm just going to tell somebody what to do and they're going to do it. And you quickly learn that doesn't work.

Even as a soldier, eventually you've got to tell the soldier why they're doing something. You've got to show that you've got their back, you support them, you're going to cover them, you are in it with them. And I think that throughout in every leadership position that I've ever been in, when I lose sight of that or when a leader loses sight of that, when they start to do a lot more micromanaging, when they start to, instead of teaching, they start to just doing themselves or they don't set expectations, that's all support. It takes a lot of work. It's exhausting because you could do it yourself faster, but you want to teach other people. So I think the biggest thing is understanding that leadership is a support role and then having to throw away the thought that people are just going to blindly listen. So if you look at John Maxwell, he talks about the five levels of leadership, which was one of the first books.

I think it was actually the first real leadership book. I was like, "Oh my God, this is so great." Because they taught it in the military, but they didn't teach it to the extent that the book wrote. And of course, when you leave that role, people are like, "Oh, it doesn't matter. Just do what I'm doing. Don't care about what you just learned. Just do what I'm doing." And so what he talks about at that first level just being people are going to respect you because of your title. And again, young military, that's just what you expect. You're a drill sergeant, they're going to listen to you. And it's not like that at all. If you want them truly to learn to lead themselves, to be a great team, to want to continue to work for you, you've got to put the effort, time, they've got to understand the why, and they got to know that at the end of the day, you have their back and you're going to support them.

And I think that was a good lesson coming out of the military and going into other roles.

Sarah:

Can you talk a little bit about the tipping point or your decision making from going from Renew by Anderson to owning your own franchise? It seems like it would be a very challenging decision leaving corporate America.

Elliot Quinones:

Yes, it is challenging, and I'm going to try to be as tactful as possible here. So I think working for a company like that, you're going to learn a lot, you going to learn so much. But when you do work for a company like that, you can only control so much about the people above you, how they run things, certain aspects of that. And you only have so much input. And what I found more and more, and there's studies too, you could find them, but there is not enough money in the world for you not to feel valued and recognized. Recognition is a human trait. We love that. We love to be recognized. And so unfortunately, the leadership culture was not what I believed a company like that should have been like. And as much as I tried to take care of my people and block them from some of that, it just wasn't an environment where I felt like where my talents were being used the way I thought they should have been used and they were just things that I just did not agree with.

And that goes back to ownership. So if we had a salesperson who was struggling, it was never a look at the leadership and what are we doing that is wrong that's causing us to have such high attrition rates? It was never those conversations. And so to me, that was very frustrating because these are people, these are their jobs, these are lies. And if we can be doing more and we're not, then that's a failure on us as leadership. And so I wanted to start a company where not only do we take care of the customer, because let's be honest, the contracting and home improvement is not the greatest. You hear stories all the time about contractors running take money or not coming back. So I wanted to be a better version of that where you come in, you talk to somebody, normally it's not intimidating to talk to the person that's about to do the work, but on the flip side is not only are we taking care of our customers, but we're taking care of our employees and understanding that my goal is not for my employee to be working for me forever.

I would love that if I had positions and we grew and we were able to take them and put them in different spots. But my goal is that when they leave working for me, that they are a hundred times better than what they came in. And the next job, they're going to take those concepts and that growth and the learning and put it into whatever they're doing next to be successful. And so ultimately I realized I can't do that at that job with that environment, that culture. I would've loved if it was changed, but it was the reality of what it was. And so I thought to myself, well, I'm going to just go back to betting on myself and doing it the way that I believe it should be done. And yeah, so that's why we started the GroutMedic.

Currie:

All right. Talk to us a little bit about why sales is important for everyone. I

Elliot Quinones:

Will tell you guys, I truly believe that sales is a skill that absolutely everyone should have in some form because whether you believe it right now or not, if you're listening to this, you are selling something. Every day you are selling something. If you're a professor in a class, you are selling the lesson for the day. You have to get your students to believe what it is you're saying. If you're a coach, you're selling the drills, you're selling the fact that these things are going to work. If you are in operations or if you do customer service, you talk to somebody, you're selling them on the idea that we're going to be able to fix the problem that they have. And so I think that, and we've been talking about this a lot lately, is a lot of the times when you see these people who are doing really well in sales is they're selling billions and millions of dollars and they talk about how much money they've made.

And it can be overwhelming because you feel like, man, there's no way that's the top 1%. That person must be doing this crazy stuff and maybe you don't want to give up and sacrifice the things that they had to. But I believe that if you can learn simple concepts, like simple basic human psychology that we see a lot in sales, it's no matter what role you're in, you're going to be able to improve in it. So for example, I always use the example of if you're in the service industry and you make tips. Well, there's a study that, long story short, is a study that if you take a piece of candy, when you leave your bill, you take a piece of candy, you put it on that bill and you walk away that your tip will actually improve, I believe it's by 9%. So think about that.

Literally just taking a piece of candy, if you'd have just read a book or read this study or learned this, put a piece of candy down, it's a little bit of that law of reciprocity, you give something, they want to give something back and you increase. But then it goes one step further that if you walk away, and by the way, you tell them like, "Hey, you guys were great, great host, whatever, great guests." But if you walk away, you turn around and you go, "You know what? You guys have been so, so good, I want to give you another piece of candy and put a piece of candy down." Well, now you're talking about the double digit increase. You're talking about 20% increase from whatever the original tip was that they're going to give you. And so a lot of people that are in the service industry, they don't think of themselves as salespeople, but they are.

You're selling the meal, you're selling the service, you're selling that. And so a simple concept of, again, that reciprocity can increase your tips by 20, 25%. Well, what would a 25% increase in your money coming in every week do for you if you just learned a simple, simple sales concept? And I think that that's across, again, any industry that you're doing is if you learn how to talk to people, if you learn how to really make them understand, because this, again, you're not selling anything sleazy, you're selling something you believe in and you really make them understand that this is going to solve their problem and that you're here to genuinely help them. I think that across the board, you're going to see increases in money and happiness and compliance in relationships and whatever it is, you're going to see an increase in it because you know how to present the thing that you're selling.

Currie:

Okay, Elliot, speaking of the rule of reciprocity, which that was gold, by the way, one of the biggest sales roles that any college student's going to have coming out of school is doing a job interview well. They're going to sell themselves to the organization they're going to. How can somebody apply that rule of reciprocity in a job interview? Is it even possible? I'm going to put you on the spot.

Elliot Quinones:

This is a great question. And I think it is possible. I think it is definitely going to depend on your interviewer as well. So in any company that you're going to interview for, you should do some research. There's LinkedIn, a lot of people that I've interviewed have looked up my profile and they're like, "Oh, I noticed that you ran a CrossFit gym before." And so they'll bring up stuff about fitness and things like that. So I think that if you can do enough digging where maybe you find something that the company really loves or the person that is interviewing really loves, or maybe it's a food or something like that, you come into the interview and you bring one of those things, I think that that is definitely going to trigger some of that reciprocity. And then also if you're in an interview and you realize a problem that the interviewer has, again, you're opening up the conversation, they mentioned something and you give the interviewer value, genuine value is something that they can use later, they're going to want to give that value back.

So you can try using both of those. The reason why I say it depends on the interviewer because the way you counter the law of reciprocity, so salespeople will try to use this to help influence things. And again, if they're selling the right thing, then great, they're helping the person get out of their own way. But if you have a really sharp salesperson sales manager, they're going to know that you're trying to use the law of reciprocity. And so they'll actually block that off. They'll say, "Okay, so I know that now it's going to hit me emotionally. I really like this person, but a lot of times I've got to take that emotion out and drive into that logic and make sure it's a good fit." So definitely it can't help to try, but just keep in mind that if people pick up on it, then it may not work as well.

It works really well if you want some free drinks all night, you just buy a drink for somebody and they buy it for the rest of the night.

Sarah:

So here at Auburn, we have this really fun competition. It's called Tiger Cage. It's like Shark Tank for listeners that don't know about it, but we have all these brand new entrepreneurs. They're all undergraduate students or graduate students. And for you being the owner of the GroutMedic, what's one thing that you wish new entrepreneurs understood about growth, scaling, and early chaos of ownership?

Elliot Quinones:

I would go back to when I started my gym, there was this thought that if you build it, they'll come. And also you have a thought of who your audience is. And for some reason in your mind, you think, especially early on, I thought it was going to be CrossFitters. People love CrossFit. They're just going to find my gym and they're going to magically come. And I think what you need to realize about any business that you're starting is, and I'm going to really say too, is number one is you have to really know and understand your customer. That is number one, is what are you selling? You You could love it. You could love your product, but it does not matter. You could love your service. It doesn't matter. Do people need it and do they like it? Are they going to buy it?

And so the switch for me was realizing I'm not trying to get CrossFitters in here. I am trying to get people that want to be healthy. They want to be able to play with their kids or they want to be able to experience life, to climb that mountain, to work at their job and feel comfortable in their own skin. That was my audience. And so once I realized, okay, I am going after the wrong people, so my message is not correct, that's a game changer. So number one is knowing your audience fully. And then number two is understanding the value of advertising and marketing. Because at the end of the day, if you start a business, and again, you could have the best business, you could be the best at what you do, but nobody knows who you are. Nobody knows what you do. It doesn't matter at all.

And marketing and advertising, it's not a, should I do this? It's you have to do it. And you have to understand that the money that you're putting in marketing advertising, if done correctly, it's not an expense, it's an investment. Because if my cost per acquisition, so my cost to get a client is $200, but I turn around and I make $5,000 from that 200, then I can spend as much money as I want on marketing as long as it's not going into my other ... Unless the percentage is going into other things. But typically it's about 20% of your revenue is going to go to marketing. So if I spend 200 bucks, I make five. I mean, I'm killing it. I can do that all day. And so I think a lot of times is people tend to rely on word of mouth and, oh, this is just a good thing and I'm a good person and I'm going to make a great business because of it.

And some people maybe, but it's a very, very small margin. So going back, you have to put the time and effort into the marketing, advertising, and that's digitally and locally. So I'll give you an example with the GroutMedic. It's interesting because nobody really ... I mean, how many times, again, have you guys thought about the grout lines in your house? Yeah, Curt shaking his head, there's no way. And so in my mind, it's a service that people need for sure. Grout cracks, there's dirt. I mean, I always tell people, imagine the amount of dirt on your grout on top of your floor. You would never allow that to happen. But the problem is nobody knows we exist. So for the last 45 days while we've opened, it's been nonstop of local home shows, talking to people. Now we're driving traffic through Facebook to get people to start seeing that this is a service that we offer.

And once they do, then they click or they close, they want an appointment. But to think about it, if I just started the GroutMedic and I thought, this is a great product, this is absolutely awesome. It's going to save people thousands of remodel. But I didn't do anything to put my name out. We would be out of business in six months. Really understanding those two concepts I think is huge for a new entrepreneur.

Sarah:

Sorry, just to follow up, how much of that is pouring in your own money first or deciding on getting a business loan or maybe working with a VC?

Elliot Quinones:

So it depends on the business. I will tell you that there are ... So let me just start off with there are plenty of businesses where you don't need to necessarily pour your own money in initially. So think of businesses where you can, if you're doing a consulting service or you're doing digital products and things like that, your first initial sales, you could probably get word of mouth.You could do a little bit of local marketing and talk to people, you get that initial sale, and now you take the money from that sale, and that is now funding your marketing and advertising. So as long as you're consistently getting sales, which you should if you've got a good product and that kind of stuff, you can do that. Now, the GroupMinics of franchise, so franchises require certain things that you have to do. So it does take upfront money to be able to do that.

So for me, because I did so well in sales, I had a pretty nice little nest egg that I can live off of while my business starts to become profitable. So initially it is loans, however you want to get the loan, you're going to SBA or just unsecured loans or whatever the case is, or private lenders. You get that money and then you're using that as working capital. So that's what we're doing right now is we're using that as working capital as we build our market and as we grow as a company. It's a balance. I think it depends on your business. I would say that if you're going to franchising and you just don't happen to have money that's sitting around, you're probably going to end up taking a loan, but be smart about that. Have the ability to function without a paycheck for a year or two years, or you can do a semi-absentee owner where you still do another job.

So that's where I'm going to be also doing is doing sales consulting, business consulting, that kind of stuff so that I can have another income coming in as I grow this. But you don't necessarily have to do that either. There's other ways. So it's a balance depending on the business.

Currie:

You're doing consulting. Just give us a real quick high overview. How can somebody consult with you?

Elliot Quinones:

Yeah, I think just reach out to me, basically helping anybody from a salesperson who wants to bump their close rate up by however much they want to bump up, or if maybe you're going into a sales management, a sales leadership, maybe you're an entrepreneur who has a team under you. And I think one of the biggest struggles, and I think you mentioned it, is it is not the same to be able to do something. So to be able to sell, be able to play a sport and to be able to train it. And I think that there's a huge disconnect there for a lot of leaders and for a lot of people in general, and being able to break down what it is that you do. And actually I learned this, one of my CrossFit coaches said this to me once, and it was another eye-opening moment, which is we were learning pull-ups.

And you guys do CrossFit, it's kipping pull-ups. So I learned that KIPP, and it takes a lot of body awareness to be able to do that. And so I've always been the type where normally if something's shown me, I can look at it once or twice, I have pretty good body awareness, I can jump up and just do it. And I remember from my coach, it was taking months. And some of the athletes, it was almost frustrating like, "What am I doing here?" And she looked at me and she just said, "You've got to realize that you're athletic. Things come to you a little bit more naturally." She's like, "It took me two years to be able to do one kipping pull-up.

I'm not coordinated like that. " But what came out of it was she was so good at explaining it because she needed it to be broken down that way for her to understand where I did it. And so that was a big eye-opener because I started to realize I have to learn even more so how to break these things down and how to talk through it simpler and how to take these concepts that come a little bit easier for me and make it easier for the masses. That's really what I do when I consult with people is if they're looking at building their team, it's how do we take your concept, what you know, and how do we make it simpler and put it in a system for your team? How can we apply that? And if you're just kind of a salesperson, it's the same thing.

It's what is the thing that's in your way, whether it's a belief. And nine times out of 10, it is. It's a belief that your customer doesn't have enough money or you don't believe in your product or whatever the case is, and we just help them to get past that. So it's very customized. It's not like a one size fits all, but yeah, just help anybody to be able to move the needle five or 10%, which when you're talking about sales or life in general is huge.

Sarah:

Thank you so much for your time, Elliot. It's been great. How can our listeners keep up with your journey and contact you if they have any questions?

Elliot Quinones:

Yes, I am on all of the social media channels probably except TikTok, but LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you can just type my name in and I will pop up, but you're more than welcome to shoot me a message, pick my brain. I love it. So my genuine, always been my why is just to help people succeed. So you can find me on those.

Currie:

Thank you so much for your time. It has been so great. War Eagle!

Elliot Quinones:

War Eagle! Thank you guys.

Narrator:

Harbert, Inspiring business.