Business Growth and Sales Tactics with Justin Shoemaker

Get ready for a dynamic conversation with Justin Shoemaker, CEO and founder of ClearWave Water Solutions, as he shares his journey from the Navy to a seasoned entrepreneur. Join us on his sales adventure, discovering the adrenaline rush akin to playing sports. Justin unveils tactics that brought him $30,000 in sales in a single month and how he applies sales skills to acquire and grow businesses.

Feel the entrepreneurial vibe as we delve into mental challenges and the importance of mental tenacity, likening it to physical fitness. Explore leadership's self-awareness and humility, emphasizing setting standards and being a role model. The podcast wraps up with a powerful message on living fearlessly, urging the pursuit of dreams despite the inevitability of being forgotten someday. Dive into Justin Shoemaker's insights on sales, business growth, leadership, and life—a rich episode brimming with valuable lessons for your journey to success.


NOTABLE QUOTES
"I loved the fact what was sales. You learn how to speak, you learn how to use body language, you got to learn tonality, you got to learn how to handle objections." – Justin
"If you're passionate about [your business], you'll go further than just trying to chase the dollar." – Justin
"CEOs always think we can do it ourselves, but it's not true. If you build a team, they'll do it for you and they'll be happier. And you'll be happier because you're not taking everything on yourself. You have other people in the fight with you." – Justin
"As you go through those hardships again and again, you realize it's just a moment in time and it will pass." – Justin
"We don't get the lion's share until this [business] is successful." – Justin
"Put some savings and still invest some of it and focus on that and have that kind of that target instead of focusing on just bringing in money." – Philip
“Once you finally made that decision, that's where you'll see the growth.”– Justin
“My job is not to sell [to] people, my job is to help people and give them a ton of value. “ – Justin
“I hate when I see high performers taking a salary job because you're literally letting some company dictate your worth.” – Justin
”When you get into sales, people don't really buy into the company, they're buying into you.” – Justin
“If people aren't happy, they're not going to refer people, which means that's the end of the game in any sales as referrals.” – Justin
“Know what you know and know what you don't.” – Justin
“What leaders need to do is to set a standard if you actually care about [your team].” – Justin
“If you're a leader, you have to keep your word at all times.” – Justin
“People are your most valuable asset.” – Justin
“The biggest thing that will make your team scale is to make sure you give them an opportunity they can strive for.” – Justin
“I always like to do positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement.” – Justin
“You wanna praise in public and you want to reprimand in private.” – Justin
“Once you know their goals, you can structure your incentives in the business to fit their goals.” – Justin
“As a leader, we have to be a great communicator and connect with the people we lead. “ – Philip
“Being the Salesperson, you are that face as a small business owner, we are the face of the company.” – Philip
“Live your life on your own terms and don't don't live it by anybody else.” – Justin

RESOURCES
Justin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/js_shoez_/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@justin_shoez

Philip
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Philip Sessions: 0:15

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. I've got Justin Shoemaker here. Also known as the world's water boy, he's the CEO and founder of ClearWave Water Solutions, a veteran and trainer for business and sales leaders, teaching them how to lead and grow exponentially, and in today's episode we'll cover leadership, sales and communications topics. But before we get into the episode Justin glad to have you on the show Tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Justin Shoemaker: 0:50

Hey man, I'm trying to give everyone that high quality H2O baby. That's it. You're away from that Gatorade baby.

Philip Sessions: 0:55

Yeah, that's right. That's right. We're all the craziness that's in the water these days.

Justin Shoemaker: 1:00

Yep, yeah, absolutely. But no man, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I'm always super. You know. I love talking to people, I love talking about business, and it's something I got into late in the game. But I think it's pretty cool because even though I got into it late in the game, I've been making some pretty quick strides in it, so I think it's good to talk about, especially for anyone that's interested in doing it. It's never too late.

Philip Sessions: 1:22

Yeah, and so tell me a little bit about the passion behind sales, because I know we've talked a little bit offline and previous conversations where you were actually doing videography and then now you're in this water business but you're also acquiring businesses, so all this stuff is kind of just rapidly happening, but you also have this huge passion for sales. So tell us a little bit about that.

Justin Shoemaker: 1:43

Yeah, well, it happened by accident, right. So I did. I was in the Navy and with my last duty station I was protecting the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense. So naturally I was getting ready to get out and I just figured I'd go into a three letter agency or work for NCIS or work with one of those protection type of jobs you know, pays well and just kind of what I've done my whole career. So it was a natural path.

Justin Shoemaker: 2:04

But I got out, covid happened and so all the federal hiring freezes were like nope, you are not, you're not going to be, we're not going to be hiring anybody. So obviously I didn't have any work, I didn't have any disability, I had no money coming in and I didn't really know what to do. So a buddy of mine was actually in water treatment and he said hey, I know you're into fitness and health and you know, I know I don't know about the how bad the water is out here, but this might be something you could do in the short term. So I kind of got into sales just out of desperation. To be honest, I didn't really know anything about it. It was pretty funny because my wife at the time was like I don't want to be married to a salesman. Like what, no, I don't want to do this. Like, and in my mind at the time I had a pretty negative view on salespeople, I think in general I was like, well, it didn't seem like, especially from what I was doing before, it seemed like a very it seemed like a step down at the time and I was like, okay, well, we need money and I've always been pretty good at talking to people. I like talking to people, so let me just give it a shot, let's see what happens. And my buddy was doing it and I trusted my friend, so I figured you wouldn't leave me down the wrong path. And I got into water treatment, fell absolutely in love with it. I realized how bad the water was. And then my second month I made $30,000 in sales and I remember calling yeah, and I remember calling my manager. I think I made. I think at that time my best week was $13,000. I made $13,000 a week and I remember calling my manager. I was like is this fucking legal? Like what is this? And it's like, not a manager, you're just killing it. And I think I just so I've always just kind of been into things that are really difficult.

Justin Shoemaker: 3:27

And during, like most people, during COVID, I got really into day trading actually before COVID happened and I loved just like the ability to make money and I loved the fact that what was sales. It was kind of hard and it was kind of like it kind of reminded me of back in the day, kind of like almost like playing the sport right, like you got to go in there, you got to win the game, to get paid and there's so much other things that you had to learn to be good at it. Right, like you learn how to speak, you learn how to use body language, you got to learn tonality, you got to learn how to handle objections. Like there was this massive world of like a skill that you could learn to get better at a thing that if the better you got at that thing, the output of that was exponential. And I just and I just saw the possibilities and I was like, holy shit, like this is what I've been looking for my whole life and for me the fact that part of it came so easy just like the talking part came so easy to me I was like, oh, this is something that like I could really do, and I think that's rare for a lot of people. I mean I had all my friends growing up. I mean, even with music and you know I've done I've been a music producer for 12 years. I've been, I've done all these things I'm really passionate about, but I never had like that innate skill at them. And with sales it was like the one thing I kind of fell into. I was like, oh, I'm actually like pretty good at this, just naturally. So I was like, well, fuck, if I actually try at this, I could grow. So I, you know, help grow that water company exponentially.

Justin Shoemaker: 4:46

And then I got head hunted for a solar company in Virginia Beach and this was this will segue into why I got into business scaling and basically I told him he called me up and say, hey, I want you to come help me build my startup. And I told him listen, I'm about to get into management here. I'm doing good things here. I don't want to. I'll give you an office right away. I was like, and they're, they're kind of stalling me at the other company. I was like, I fuck it, let me try it Right. And a family friend of mine was working there again, family friends and he had been in solar for a long, long time and he was telling me the benefits of solar, so came down here and that it became insane. I think that's probably the most I ever made. I think I made 60 grand in two weeks Was the most money ever made. It was. It was like I. It was crazy.

Justin Shoemaker: 5:28

Now the CEO wasn't the best to be fair but he was doing some shady stuff with the sales. But what ended up happening is we end up growing that from. I think when I got there doing 600k in 11 months, grew that thing to 25 million and after the CEO kind of ran into the ground by doing a lot of shady shit, I was like man, what the fuck am I doing? Like I am Building these companies for other people, making them all this money that they just go in a bezel anyway. And I know me, I generally care about the people I'm serving. I could do this way better.

Justin Shoemaker: 5:58

So, fast forwarded this year, I said alright, I'm going all in burning the boats, as David David Goggins likes to say. I sold my house me, my wife moved down to Virginia Beach and we started a water treatment company because one thing I was. You know now, as I've worked in two separate industries, is I Might have made more money in solar at the time, but I hated it, right. Well, it's a passion about it and. But I really love water and I think for any industry it doesn't matter what, in what industry you're in, if there's a market for it Like do your market research and there's a need in a market and there's at least some sort of scale If you're passionate about it, you'll go away further than just trying to chase the dollar, right? That's why I've seen, you know, 1099 reps go from pest control, the solar to water, back to solar, five first order companies. We're just trying to chase that money. Right, it'll actually find something they're passionate about.

Justin Shoemaker: 6:44

So I opened up the water company, so super passionate about it, and you know we've been growing that very quickly. We now serve the entire state of Virginia. So in six months went from zero to 400k, which is super nice, and I think part of that was me being able to build and scale a team. And because obviously you can't do yourself Right, that's kind of the biggest, that's the biggest misnomer, right? CEOs, we always want to think we can do it ourselves, but it's not true if you build a team, They'll do it for you and they'll be happier. And you'll be happier because you're not taking everything on yourself, not killing yourself every single day, right, you have other people kind of in the fight with you. And so, yeah, We've been at and I with that, I partnered with a, this young college kid who he was building his own company and he's doing media and marketing, and I brought him under my wing and he's really, really good at what he does.

Justin Shoemaker: 7:27

So he helped me build my, my social, and he's been managing all my social media, all my doing, all my video content. You know, I haven't do some Google ads for us and he's actually certified by Google. So we decided to partner up and we started with Shoemaker syndicate, which the syndicate is almost like a holdcoe when we have a bunch of different companies under it. But the idea is we are a turnkey service where, if you hire us, I, I, my side, I teach how to scale, recruit, sell, build the business side. He does the meat of the market advertising. It manages all your social content, records everything for you, does all your ads for you. So for one payment you get a digital market agency and a sales force, like a sales multiplier, which to me is a very good value proposition. So we've been doing that. We have a couple clients in that space I'll see it brand new so we're still growing that, but it's been really fun.

Justin Shoemaker: 8:15

Man, I think it's it's. I wake up every day just excited to get after it and, to be fair, there's been a lot of lows. I mean especially I will say the if you are trying to start your own business, you work somewhere else. I will say I, I know everyone says it's harder than you think it's gonna be, but I I miss misunderstood the mental taxation of just like the self-doubt you feel when it's your money on the line and there's no sales coming in for the first month, or slow, and just like the mental fucking hurdles you go through because you're like, oh, did I make a right decision? Like that doubt just seeps in.

Philip Sessions: 8:49

But yeah, dude's, there's so much to dissect here and I really want to go on that. That last point there that she talked about, I think that's such an important thing that somebody don't think about. And for me, I'm on the other side of that right now, so I still have a full-time job as I build out this business. So I've kind of had words like well, I've got the cushy income I'm doing, okay, I don't have to have this money from the side business. And so there's been times where I have let off the gas because I'm like well, you know, I think suck, like oh, well, I'm not gonna worry about it and and it's a fight to really stay in there.

Philip Sessions: 9:22

But then from your side, like he said, yeah, like it is brutal and a lot of people don't think about that how mentally taxing that is and how can you just continue to be excited?

Philip Sessions: 9:31

And actually had a friend that has done an event recently and I mean it's just so many things going on his personal life, so many things not really going well in the business, and he did the event and he moved forward with it and they had people talking about like, oh yeah, how can you say it's that's a successful event that are all these things, because but they don't understand everything that's been going on in his life and now that's somewhat of an excuse, but still, I mean there was valid excuses for sure.

Philip Sessions: 9:57

But people they just look at it and say, oh, you want to say that you're successful or you're doing well, and then here you are on social media, being, you know, mr Mrs, positive, and yet they don't see behind the scenes and all that mental stress and how you have to stay positive and us being an apex and everything we're around these groups, like why would you pay to be in a group and there's just so many things there. But I would, I would like for you to dive into that a little bit and tell us about how you kind of work through that. Or you know what? What are your I'll call coping mechanisms, if you will, to push through that mental Fatigue.

Justin Shoemaker: 11:20

I mean the way I look at me, like what else would you do, right? Like? I mean it's a price to pay for success. I mean, if you want to, I think people have it kind of fucked up that they think you should like that's a bad thing to have that Right like, yeah, it sucks, but it's necessary. I give anyone's ever been to general worked out Understands that to get bigger, to get more fit, you have to strain your muscles. Right. You have to go through some pain to get a good-looking physique, which a lot of people don't want to do. That's why half the fucking United States is fucking fat, because people don't want to do that. Right, it's a thing for you for business, right? Like.

Justin Shoemaker: 11:51

When I made that decision, you know, one thing I found is, for me, having that safety, that definitely is a hindrance, because when you get into those positions where you're just at your Lowest low and it's dark and you're doubting yourself, well, you have, you don't have an option to go back anymore, right? So for me, the biggest thing for me was like well, this is what it's supposed to feel like, right, this is what it's supposed to feel like. This is what you have to go through to get there. And this point Every entrepreneur has been there and somehow they've made it. And it's kind of you know, with experience you think you start to figure out the very first time you get into that load that you get that doubt, it feels unmanageable and it does right. And I'm not gonna pound my chest in, I'm the fucking best. I remember the first time I had it I was like laying on my couch just stress free. I just know what to do.

Justin Shoemaker: 12:33

And I didn't really know at that time either. I didn't really know how to like. Okay, I have this big problem, how do I break it down into small, small pieces and attack it? But I just, you know it took a deep breath. I can actually. I went to the gym. I came back home and I said, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna try to talk to clients, we're gonna try to get some leads. So I remember a cold calling to get a couple leads and Actually called some of my little sore clients and I'll be at one sale, and and that that month, okay, I got a sale and and then, you know, after that month, it started picking back up and you know, we're still here and I think, as you go through those, the, those, those hardships again and again, you realize it's just a moment in time and it will pass. I Right.

Justin Shoemaker: 13:08

And the same thing when it's going really good and I think that's the biggest thing too is when it gets really really good. You know you almost you can't get high on your own supply because just as high as it goes it's going to come back down again. And if you're too high on your supply and it comes down again, it's like it's like a crash that you're just going to be like fuck, what's going on, and then you might think something's going wrong. But I saw businesses work sometimes, right, sometimes you get a really good month, sometimes it goes down a little bit Obviously over time. On a longer time horizon you want to see accidental growth. But I think you know and I'm really guilty at this, to be fair, is I always kind of look more at like the short term, when really I'm like well, what are we doing long term? What's like our one year, two year outlook? Are we growing over this? One year, two years? Great, okay, we had a down month, maybe. Like we did 12 deals in this month. We did seven, just as an example. Well, that for me, because I'm so competitive, I'm like, fuck, what's going on. But I was like, but wait, four months ago we're only doing one or two deals, we're still, you know. So, yeah, I think you just, I think you just have to know that that's why most people fail and, to be honest, that's why I think most small businesses fail.

Justin Shoemaker: 14:10

I made this tweet. I don't think businesses fail. I really don't. I don't think 99% of small businesses fail. I think 99% of people fail. Yes, and I think a lot of people also go into entrepreneurship with one just, they have this idea and they want to do it to. They've never actually worked under a business. That's done this.

Justin Shoemaker: 14:29

Like the only reason why I felt confident to do this because I was basically running this guy's solar company, because he's out of the picture. I was his number two guy. He was gone. So I got to actually work as the CEO for about seven, eight months with zero risk. I had no liability on the business, right? So I think, and I think when people get into this, they just don't know what's going on. They don't recruit the right partners, right? That's the other thing, like for me, I'm not an operations guy. I hate operations. So I brought an operations guy on that's really really good, who I met through the solar company right but and I had these assets to bring over and I think some people the reason why they failed too is they just go into it so fast with no support.

Justin Shoemaker: 15:03

They don't have anyone that they can rely on, they don't have anyone that can give them the expertise that they may not have and they get burnt out and they fail because they just they don't have the runway to. You know to do that. And the less amount of money you have invested, the shorter runway you have, the more talent you have to around you to recoup that money Right. The bigger overhead, the more, the faster you got to recoup that money. So I think that's the biggest issue and I think for people that might want to start a business like, let's say, it's in sales, Well, if you're not working in sales, don't start the business yet.

Justin Shoemaker: 15:34

Go work in sales for a year or two and learn the business that you want to get into right. There's plenty of you know there's plenty of opportunity out there for lay of the lawn, but just go get it. And you know to be fair, four or five million is work with somebody else anyway. So if your end goal really is money and it's not because you actually want to be your own boss and run a business and deal with that fucking stress, then just go work for somebody else. Be a top producer there, don't have any of the liability and making a shit ton of money. Because I know right now, as of this podcast, there's probably some sales guys making way more money than I am. I guarantee it. Yeah, being a sales guy, I'm sure some of my sales guys right now are making more money than me, right? Because there's that weird curve until it equals out for the entrepreneur, because we have all the liability on the overhead and we play a long game. We don't, we don't get the lion share until this thing is successful.

Justin Shoemaker: 16:22

And, to be honest, you what? You can't get through that mental fucking, that trap of fucking doubt, unless you generally really know. You can't breathe through anything else. And that was just where I was at like 10, 9 years in military. I was like I'm so sick of being under someone's thumb and then, when I got into the civilian sector, I just saw how terrible these leaders were. I was like I can't work for anybody else in the civilian sector. I didn't have any options, right Like it was. It was immensely. I just couldn't do it. I was like, fuck, I just have to do it myself. Like I didn't have the option. Because that's the thing is. If that's what I'm coming, it probably worked out. And you know, the CEO wasn't a douchebag and wasn't embezzling money. I probably would still be working there, right, if he was taking care of his clients. I probably would just still be there because I was the top producer, making a ton of money, living a good life, and I was leading the team.

Justin Shoemaker: 17:04

So, it's just one of those things.

Philip Sessions: 17:06

Yeah, and man, entrepreneurship is definitely something that's over glorified. People don't look at the other side of it. They look at people that have been in business for 10, 20, 30 years and now, yeah, they have the people in place, they have the systems and processes there. They're still distressed, but they can also go take a week or two off and it's no big deal because they've got the people in place to run it. Now they are the visionary, or they should be the visionary at that point, and so they have to go lead so they can continue to grow and scale and everything. But most people don't think about that. They just think, oh, I'm just going to start making tons of money. No, you definitely aren't.

Philip Sessions: 17:42

And I actually experienced we were talking about the highs and lows a couple of months ago and this was the first time when I realized, except, it's like, oh yeah, it's back to zero on day one of the month and I had like my biggest month ever in the next month. I'm like I was kind of like riding that high a little bit. It wasn't too much, but I was like, oh man, this is awesome. And I wasn't. I guess riding it wasn't too much, but it was like man, like this is awesome. And then I got back and I'm like, oh crap, I'm at zero again, like this, this sucks. And that's when I realized that. And it's like now it's been like every month. Okay, I'm kind of chasing it. I'm chasing it and I've set up my priorities a little bit different, my goals when it comes to the income with the business and everything a little bit different and how I'm saving money and stuff like that. But it is how long term.

Philip Sessions: 18:23

How have you changed it? So I really just started focusing on. I said like, hey, what am I making monthly? Because part of me is like, for the exit of exiting the full time job, to go into this. So rather than like, okay, look, I want to make like 10,000 months because that would replace my income, I'm like, okay, I want to set aside like $50,000. So then I have, like this, savings. And I was always like, oh yeah, I'll have some savings there.

Philip Sessions: 18:45

But now it's like, no, I'm going to be more intentional about that. And then, of course, I'm still watching what I'm making monthly and the target still is to have at least a 10k a month. Hopefully it'll be more than that, but we'll see. But I can go back. And then it's like when it's time to really have that conversation with my wife, like, hey, I've got $50,000 sitting here. That's a lot more solid ground to stand on than to say, hey, I'm making 10k a month. So that's that was kind of that shift there. Like, hey, instead of trying to go and reinvest completely, like all the money and never have anything in savings, like let me go actually put some in savings and still invest some of it and everything and focus on that and have that kind of that target instead of focusing on just bringing in money, so to say yeah, yeah.

Justin Shoemaker: 19:27

I think what you'll notice too is, once you find me that decision, that's where you'll see the growth.

Philip Sessions: 19:30

Yeah, yeah, and I have been seeing there's been a lot of changes happen and everything, so it's been pretty cool. So I want to go back real quick. You mentioned something about like you didn't really think about going into sales and what I noticed it wasn't necessarily about the commission or lack of stable income. There seemed to be something else there of why you were a little bit hesitant to go into sales. So could you kind of go into that and then how you got out of that hesitation?

Justin Shoemaker: 19:57

Well, I mean, you think about it right, like and this is a definitely a misnomer is you know, you think of salesman just kind of like a little sleazy. Right Seems like a sleazy profession and that's probably because of old media and I think most salespeople suck. So I think most of the people that you run into aren't that well-trained and they're not that great. So I think that's why most people have a bad outlook on sales. One of my things I'm trying to do is I'm trying to change that persona because it's completely changed my life. I wish I'd found this when I was 18. If I had done this instead of the Navy, I guarantee, if I got into sales and didn't go into the military, I don't think I'd be the person I am without the military. So it's kind of one of those things. But financially, if I had gotten into sales instead of the military, I would 100% be a deck of millionaire by now. It's just because it's a profession that and I guess, to go back to your question that was my hesitation.

Justin Shoemaker: 20:52

And it wasn't until I got into our treatment and I saw that you're actually helping people. And I had a client of mine who had her daughter had psoriasis all up her body and they were spending like two or three K a month to try and get rid of it, going to doctors and all kinds of stuff. So I sold her a system of mine because with a lot of the chemicals and pharmaceuticals in the water, especially for some people, when you have high chlorine levels or even just the calcium magnesium in the water, it can actually affect their skin and a lot of people don't realize. With hard water, the soaps that you use every single day, a little bit like it's left on your skin when you're done rinsing and showering if you don't have a softener. So I sold them a really nice water filtration system for the whole home, told them hey, listen, I can't promise you can do solve all your issues, but it has been shown to help with psoriasis, things like that. Four months later she calls me crying completely, completely healed.

Philip Sessions: 21:39

All of it was gone.

Justin Shoemaker: 21:40

I had high sensitivity to the stuff that was in the water. So I saw that I was like oh, wow, like my job is not to sell people, my job is to help people and give them a ton of value, right, and if I do that I make a lot of money. And I was like this just seems too good to be true. I get to feel good about what I do and help people and I get to make a ton of money doing it, because it's 10 99 commission, so you get it's kind of almost like a pseudo, pseudo CEO situation. You take all the risks because you're not getting the salary. So when you actually provide value to the business, they pay you very well. And I was like great, right.

Justin Shoemaker: 22:09

And for me, I've always been performance based. Again, that's where I think the military helped me is. I think a lot of people are scared to go into a 10 99 job because they're like oh, I'm not going to make any money. That's not true. You'll make so much more money than the salary, unless you fucking suck, right, if you're lazy, yeah, you're not going to make any money.

Justin Shoemaker: 22:25

And I think that's the problem is, you know, 10, 99 is definitely not for everybody and that is for people that don't want to make money because they don't want to work. And that's why I hate salaries. Like I hate when I see high performers taking a salary job, because you're literally letting some company dictate your worth and I don't care if it's 200, 300 K, I mean in sales. My best year, I think, I made 500 grand, probably over that, actually. That with all bonuses that's included, like I don't know. Like you, just if you're a high performer, there's no reason to be working a salary job.

Philip Sessions: 22:50

Yeah, yeah, definitely, and I agree with you with the sales thing. That was a struggle for me because I felt like, hey, I'm taking your money and then I had to realize that, hey, look, I am providing a great service for people. I know people need this. I know the way that the speaking and helping myself get better at speaking has helped me and changed my life tremendously, so I know I can help other people and so, yeah, finding that space that will help you and it could be I would hope that you would find a, especially if you go into sales. You're going to find something that you're passionate about, that you want to help people, but maybe it is about helping yourself. But I and I think you'll agree with this that I wholeheartedly believe that if you go into a sales position or starting your own business and you are selling a product or service that benefits somebody, you're going to get more enjoyment out of that versus just making tons of money.

Justin Shoemaker: 23:40

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And like to be honest, if you are about looking to join a company, do your definitely do your research. Like, definitely look at the ownership, look who's actually running the business and do your due diligence, Look at them online Just a huge thing. If you go online, you see the company that you're going to work for doesn't have a good online presence. And I made this mistake is I'm telling you there's a reason why. Okay, if they don't care enough to take care of the online presence and they really don't care about their clients that much and I got to tell you the worst feeling in the world is selling a bunch of people a product and the company drops the ball Cause you inadvertently feel like you let them down because they did trust you.

Justin Shoemaker: 24:17

And that's the thing is, when you get into sales, people don't really buy into the company. They're buying into you and you'll see, you'll make some of the best friends from some of your clients that you deal with, because you're in these people's homes a lot of times for one to two hours. You get to know them, you get to build all this rapport and if you're really good business, you get to help them. So you want to make sure that you actually are in a company that they do want to help them. So if I'm, if I'm going to work for a business, I always ask about that. I'd say, hey, what is you know? How do you tailor this company to customer experience, like what is your?

Justin Shoemaker: 24:49

If a customer has an issue, what's the path to reconciliation? You know what? And if they don't, if they can't give me clear answers on that, I'm not going to work there, because it just it's going to bite you in the ass longterm. And even you know, let's say you're a narcissist and you don't, and you hate people, right, which I know, they're out there. But it affects your commission as well, because you don't get referrals, right. If people aren't happy, they're not going to refer people, which means and that's the end of the game in any sales as referrals, right, that's how you make, that's how you make the most money. So if you're going to come that can't take care of people, well then you're not going to get referrals. And then you're going to be broke, right, and you're going to be in that sales person cycle where you're just living paycheck to paycheck and you're always broke all the time.

Philip Sessions: 25:26

Ye ah, I completely agree with you there. And speaking of like building up people, having this rapport with them and everything, this really segues well into talking about the scaling and leadership, and I know you're passionate about sales, but you're also passionate about leadership, and you mentioned this with your company. What you're doing and what you're helping other companies with is really helping build their teams. So how do you go about building those teams? Because, like you mentioned earlier, there's so many leaders out there that are just terrible. They don't know. They really just get elevated into this position and I'm forgetting the term that people use but they get promoted past their skill level and so now they're in this leadership position and they don't know how to lead. They've been a good operator, but they are a terrible leader. So how do you go about like leading and then helping other people learn how to lead?

Justin Shoemaker: 26:20

Yeah, no, it's awesome. I mean number one I'd say know what you know and know what you don't. And I think when you get into a leadership position, especially if you're new to it, you feel like you have to know everything and that's not the case. And that's where a lot of leaders fail is they let their ego get in the way and they feel like if someone's under them is smarter than them, they bring better ideas, like they feel like they got to know these things If someone else knows it, like that's attacking their credibility as a leader and that's just not true.

Justin Shoemaker: 26:43

Your job as a leader is just really a couple of things. Number one you got to set a standard. Okay, one thing that I learned from the military, which is so true I so I'm actually writing a book and I highlight this in my book I had, when I was stationed in Italy, we had, we had I was in three divisions with three different leaders, so same people, but we had three different groups of leaders to come in and the first leader was really good. Yeah, you know, set the standard. Major, everyone showed up on time and was really friendly, had you know, but major, we all looked good, right, the next leader that came in, but we are, you know, our I'd say our performance was subpar, was the average, right. Then we had a leader that came in and they're known as being just like a dick, like a hard ass, and they really weren't. But when they came in, I mean they set really hard standards. I mean it was you show up five minutes early, boots all shine like they were over the top, like inspecting all your weapons, making sure you're happy, like everything was crazy, right, double checking vehicle checkout she's double checking your patrol records, like everything. Like it was crazy. Like I'm talking, you know, was all about the performance.

Justin Shoemaker: 27:44

We were running drills like crazy, and everybody bitch and complain, right, I actually enjoyed it. And our division, our performance went through the roof. I mean we were the top, we were the top division in the entire command, right, everyone was, was was doing well, we were all getting promoted, you know he'll, you know they're really enforcing what we had to do, you know, even outside of just our daily jobs. So they were going really, really well. And then they end up leaving. We got a new batch of leaders in and the new leaders, the third leaders, like the cool, cool leaders, right, like they were super lax and super chill, they didn't really care and performance went down. And it's funny because people still complained. But they complained even more and they realized, oh, we actually liked what we had before. We liked that structure.

Justin Shoemaker: 28:27

So I think number one, what leaders need to do, is they need to set that standard right. Yes, you want to. You know you want, you want to take care of your, your, your employees, and you know you want to be friendly to them. Let me addick to them. But you need to make them reach a standard Okay, because what's going to happen is, if you actually generally care about them, you want them to do better, you want them to succeed.

Justin Shoemaker: 28:47

You can't do that if you don't make them meet certain standards and criteria. And when they fuck up and they don't meet them, then you got to be the one to come down there out of love and say, hey man, why are you fucking up? Like, what can we do to get you better? What can we do to get you to this standard Right? And then if you have someone that really doesn't want to meet there and they don't beat that standard, you got to cut them. You know, give them. You know, give them as much time as you can, you know, give them that effort, but they really just can't meet that standard that you set. Cut them and what's that's going to do? Is that actually going to get you a very powerful team? All right, you're going to have a bunch of killers. You're going to have a bunch of people that are high performers, because you build the high performers and you make them meet that standard and you recruit the people that are trainable and that want to actually get to that level. Right, that's, that's number one. Number two you got to be a man of your word. Okay, if you're a leader, you have to keep your word at all times, and you also need to make sure that if you're going to tell your people to do something that they at least know, you can do it as well. Right Now as as you get bigger, it's a little bit harder to do this, but, especially starting out, this is where it's the most important and really, once it's started out, that's where you know you need to make sure you do your best job, because the startup phase, where you build the foundation, that the whole thing is going to sit upon anyway.

Justin Shoemaker: 29:57

So for me, for example I work in an industry where we do door knocking, just as an example. I know there's a lot of, a lot of those out there. It's very hard for me to get time now to do that, but if I do, I go out there and I crush it, right. So last week I took two of my new guys out, went out there and I set five appointments in two hours Just to show them I still could, right. And and that's important, especially in the startup phase is, if you're going to have people cold calling, if you're going to have people door knocking like, you need to show them that they, they can, that you can still do it. I, you know. I think back to when Grant Cardone was first making a lot of his content, you know, back in 2014,. You know he has videos of him on YouTube and go look at him cold calling with his team. And that's the thing about leadership that stuff never ends. You always need to make sure you're touching back with the troops and make sure that you understand that, hey, I'm still here. I still I've done this. That's how it got to where I'm at.

Justin Shoemaker: 30:42

The third thing is reinvestment into the people, and the people are your most valuable asset at the end of the day. So you need to make sure you reinvest them, whether it's with your time, with your money or with some sort of an opportunity. So the biggest thing that will make your team scale is when they come on, is make sure you give them an opportunity they can strive for, whether that's a long-term equity stake in your business, whether that's a management position with better pay whatever it is right. There should be something that your people can strive for and you wanna make sure you set firm metrics on those things. But people will be carter for an opportunity that they will pay check. That's just been proven. So you know, if my people understand that, hey, like, right now we're expanding is this I can really speak on this because we're doing it right now, but we're expanding.

Justin Shoemaker: 31:29

So I'm about to leave the Virginia B Champion Roads Office. So I told my team. I said, hey guys listen, I need someone to step up and be the leader of this office. I need someone to run this. Who's gonna do it? It goes to whoever earns it right. Who's gonna set the most appointments, who's gonna sell the most deals, who's gonna lead my team, and then whoever does is the leader, right. So that's and that's how you get to see who actually rises to the top and then always reward them, right?

Justin Shoemaker: 31:50

I always like to do positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement, and the biggest thing I will say is and this is something I learned from the military that has served me very well in the civilian world is you wanna praise in public and you want to reprimand in private? Okay. The biggest thing to destroy your team is when you start. Dogging somebody in front of the entire team Makes you look stupid and weak and it doesn't help morale, right? You always want you wanna over praise in public and then, when people are messing up, you wanna take them aside one-on-one, okay, cause it just as like a way to get better performance. You know, people have egos and if you start berating people in front of the entire team, like they're gonna get defensive and even if you have a good point and you think they did mess up, I'm telling you like it's not gonna get you anywhere, it's just gonna cause resentment. So pull them to the side, tell them where they messed up, and then one thing that works out really well is I'll say hey, listen, if let's say they, you know, let's say they didn't give someone the right system or they didn't do the inspection right.

Justin Shoemaker: 32:44

What I like to do? They like to empower them. I say, hey, listen, you messed this up. I want you to show me how you went wrong and then we're gonna work together with it, right? Instead of me telling them, hey, you fucked up doing this and this. Like well, let's talk about what you could have done better. And I'm gonna say, hey, great, so I want you to train the team next week.

Justin Shoemaker: 32:57

You lead the team and you train them how to do it. Why? Because if you've ever led or trained somebody, you understand. You understand something better once you've trained it. Number one, it forces them to go in and make sure they know what it is. But then, two, it empowers them because now they're training the team and it's not so much like, hey, you suck. I'm gonna tell everybody in front of you. He's like, no, hey, you messed up, go get better. Now train the team and get them better. Right, because if one person messes up something up, I'm sure the rest of the team could too. Right, so that's a big thing.

Justin Shoemaker: 33:25

And then being there for them, right, as the leader, you are gonna be kind of daddy. Sometimes. You're gonna be big brother, you're gonna be the person that really they lean on, and one thing I gotta say is you gotta create the culture of success, and what that means is you know I see a lot of CEOs that are just negative or shitty or fat, that shape or just slobs, and you know that doesn't create a really great environment for people to work in. Right. You need to almost be seen as this figure that they want to aspire to be right. I think some of the biggest leaders and the people I respected the most are the people that I admired, like in my military career, the people I followed.

Justin Shoemaker: 34:02

Most of the ones I was like man. I kind of want to have his attributes Like. I love the way he thinks, I love the way he acts, I love his work ethic. I love how this person lives their life Right. That's why I want to be like that person, if I want to work hard for that person right. So you need to be that person right. Like, if you're the leader, you need to be someone that they look as like holy cow, this guy's really doing it. So if you're out of shape, you need to get in shape. Just, you got to. You've got to be the guy they look at like a whole work of this guy. Right, you want to make sure you're not get to paint on what the culture is, but you want to make sure you're not going out getting fucking loaded every night on fucking drugs and getting sloppy and getting picked up and they're coming to like pull you off the sidewalk and that kind of stuff. Right, like you want to be, you want to make sure they know you're running this shit and that you got it all together. That's super important. That's why you see some of these influencers.

Justin Shoemaker: 34:50

They get so much of the following when they get the nice cars and they get the nice gear and, to be fair, like, listen, if your business is doing well, I will say it's a great recruitment tool. Like, if you can afford it, and this is, you got to know your means. But having as the CEO, having a nice car, having a nice office space, having to make sure you dress really nice, goes a long way. I recruited three people from my team because at the time I had a brand new Audi RS5 that I bought Right, it was a gorgeous car, custom painted, everything was gorgeous. I pull in and they're like yo, how'd you get this car? And I'm like, well, this is how I did it. And then come work for me and I'll show you how to do it yourself. Right, so there is value to that.

Justin Shoemaker: 35:26

I know some people you know some people are like, oh, you shouldn't waste money on these cars. I was like, listen, I like cars. So I like nice cars, I like nice washes. I'm a little bougie. I like nice things, I like luxury travel, I like to have nice restaurants. Right, that's just who I am. I like that stuff. So I'm gonna buy that stuff. If I can afford it, I'm going to pay for it and having that as a part of, like my culture, like, hey guys, this is what I enjoy, this is what I'm achieving, this is how you can get that too.

Justin Shoemaker: 35:53

And then the last thing I will say is understand your people's goals and desires. So every organization should either have it publicly posted or somewhere posted where you have their short term, their midterm to longterm goals. Short term is the next one to two years. Midterm, four to five years. Longterm, like the next 10 to 15 years, right. And you should have it posted somewhere where everyone can see.

Justin Shoemaker: 36:15

So we use discord for our digital office. So I have every other goals in discord and the reason why that's important is what drives your employees is different when it drives you. Like I said, I know what I like, I know it drives me, but I know the people I work for. Everyone's got different things. Some people just want to do well for the family. Some people want to get in a real estate. Some people want to get into investments. Some people want to just acquire wealth and save it. Some people want a COO position right. They want c-suite titles right. Everyone has something different that they want and what your your job is to help them reach those goals, as, as a leader, that's your job. We want to help them reach their goals.

Justin Shoemaker: 36:50

So what I do is I make sure those goals are there so if they're not hitting them, I can hold them accountable to their own goals and say, hey, why aren't you hitting your short-term goals? What can we do? Where are we at? You know, every every two months I go hey, where are we guys at? Where are we on your short-term goals? Where are we on your midterm goal? Like, how are we pacing to this? Oh, we're pacing good, great, let's keep going. You're not pacing well, okay, what do we need to make sure that? What do I need to do to make sure that you can? You can hit those goals right.

Justin Shoemaker: 37:14

And that shows again, that's investment of time into your people, right, where you care more about their goals in your own and they'll work harder for you for it right, because and you have to the thing is get to generally want them to get there. You have to genuinely help these people, right? You can't just put these things in place and think it's gonna work. It won't. You have to genuinely care about your people and this is one of the ways you do that.

Justin Shoemaker: 37:33

And what you'll notice is, once you know their goals, you can structure your incentives in the business to fit their goals. So, instead of saying, hey guys, first person to get 10 appointments gets 100 bucks, maybe you know you have a guy who really is in a real estate and you know like, let's say, there's an apex convention or an apex thing coming up and there's like a real estate guys talk about real estate and you know you guys are, are gangsters. You can say, hey, man, if you can get 15 deals in a month, I'm gonna pay for you to go to this real estate conference and you can learn more about real estate. Hmm, they'll work way harder than just some arbitrary incentive you give out right, and I guess a lot of people get it wrong. They try to make it too about themselves. What's worth that you've got a map, your incentive structure. They're gonna do it to your people.

Philip Sessions: 38:15

Yeah, everybody wants to make a cookie cutter and then, with that too, I thought of, of course, from a communication perspective, if you can tell their goals are all around their family, stuff like that, that's something you go talk to them about. You can talk about their family hey, how's the family doing? Because you know they want to talk about that. Somebody else, that's all about investments. You know they're probably more business oriented. So you go and, hey, man, how's business stuff going? How's investing going? You get these, there's these conversations that you can go into with them to connect with them. And as a leader, we have to be a great communicator and connect with the people we lead. And if we can't connect, I mean that's that's where that disconnect comes in. And why people and leaving companies. People don't leave companies because they well, most people don't. I feel like the more and more seem like people are leaving me because they just don't want to work.

Philip Sessions: 39:00

But yeah more people leave a company because of a terrible leader, because there's no vision within the company. They don't see themselves there long term, so they're going to, they're trying to find that greener grass on the other side rather than staring where they're at. And so, really having that vision and and as you talked about all those different aspects that a leader needs, I completely agree with you on those things. I noticed. Vision was like really just a core thing of all that that vision, vision, vision.

Philip Sessions: 39:26

If you don't have vision for your company, if you don't have vision for your employees, they're not going to stay there, they're not going to want to be a part of that. And then really even your clients coming in, like going back to what you talked about being the Salesperson, you are that face as a small business owner, we are the face of the company. If and if people can't see the vision of us going in but beyond, like hey, we're just trying to sell you this one time, they want to see that. Hey, we're trying to grow, and they want to be behind somebody, almost kind of like that underdog, like oh, that's cool If I can help them out and be a part of their journey to get to where they want to go.

Justin Shoemaker: 40:00

So people, people love that man when you want to go home here, like hey, we're growing a business, like, oh, I want to help you.

Philip Sessions: 40:04

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So having that vision is so important and Adjust this has been all really cool, but I want us to get to our last question here, which is if you only had one message to share for the rest of your life, what would that message be?

Justin Shoemaker: 40:20

live your life on your own terms, man, and don't don't live it by anybody else. Is that be it, right? Like, if you want to do something, just do it. If you have something you want to do, just do it, because at the end of day, it all goes to zero. So, whether you start a business and you fail, you're gonna die at some point. Right, we're all gonna die. So everything we do really does not matter that much, right? It does not, right? Everyone's gonna forget about us eventually. It doesn't matter how big a big of a business you build, right, you're gonna be forgotten about.

Justin Shoemaker: 40:48

I mean, think. I think Alex from mosey said it the best. Think about Betty White. Right, she's probably the most successful person in the world. I think about what she's accomplished. No one talks about her anymore. Yeah, they're not even right, but she was huge. Yeah, they bought us, right? So, and and I think that's a really cool perspective and that's one I've kind of adopted of just like, hey, it doesn't really matter. So why not go for the thing you want to go for, right? Yeah, parents think if you want to do something, go do it. Who cares? Right? Yeah, and you fucking fail at it, who cares, at least you can say you tried it. You know, that's the biggest thing, if you can at least do it. Just try it, man, because it does not matter. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't.

Philip Sessions: 41:26

I like it. Man, you're exactly right. That's what I try to do for myself is just live my life to the fullest, just do what I'm set out to do. Of course, that within, within certain constraints. I said I've got a family I got to take care of and stuff too, but definitely trying to live out as much as I can and get there along the way. But yeah, just yeah. It's just about living life without regrets. So I really like that. And yeah, justin, this has been awesome. If people want to follow you, get to know more about you, learn about sales and business and leadership from you, where's the best place for them to reach out?

Justin Shoemaker: 41:59

Yeah, I mean I'm all over. So tiktok and instagram are probably my main two platforms. So it's j s underscore shoes with a z underscore on on instagram and then I think it's just an underscore shoemaker on on tiktok. But if you find me, I'm the water boy. I'm all over, yeah.

Philip Sessions: 42:16

Nice, well, y'all heard from the water boy today. Make sure that you like and subscribe to us here on youtube. Make sure that you subscribe on the podcast platform that you are listening to this on and go out there and crush today and make sure that you share your message, because your message is important. Let's get it.