Unlocking Sales Success in the Plumbing Industry: Insights from Brian Burton, the Sales Expert

Welcome to the podcast where we unlock sales success in the plumbing industry! Join us as we delve into valuable insights and strategies with Brian, the renowned sales expert. Whether you're a novice or an experienced professional, this podcast will provide you with the essential knowledge and techniques to master plumbing sales. Brian, with his years of experience and expertise in the field, will share insider tips and proven strategies to help you achieve sales excellence in the plumbing industry. Get ready to revolutionize your sales approach and unlock your true potential. Don't miss out on this exclusive opportunity to learn from the best. Tune in now and discover the secrets to sales success in the plumbing industry!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Corey Berrier: Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier, and I'm here with my man Brian Burton. What's up, Brian? What's happening? Corey? Good to talk to you, man. In person, so to speak as we've done a little bit of chatting all sorry, and texting, but never actually spoken.

[00:00:20] So good to talk. Yeah, you too, my man. And you were almost set offline and you're like, well, maybe it's online, offline. It's only online. Yeah. Yeah. It's hilarious, dude. It's really funny. Yeah, this just become our way of life at this point. Yeah. Unfortunately, or fortunately, zoom and virtual. Yeah. Well, I think it, you know, I'll tell you, it really does save a lot of time.

[00:00:44] It you know, I am a per in-person. Person. Like I would much rather meet with somebody in person when I'm having a conversation with them. But at the end of the day, lots of times it just don't make sense. Sure. Yeah. You know I'm the same way. I'm gonna, I mean, on the DISC profile, I'm di used to be id, but the farther you climb on a management ladder, the more of a d you become.

[00:01:07] And that DEAC can stand for a number of things, depending. That's right. I wanna chat in person. I like to shake hands and fist bump and just, you know, kind of feel my way through who a person is and how to best interact with them and how to best motivate them. So yeah, 20 20, 20, early 20, 20 21 was especially difficult on people like us who are people.

[00:01:34] People, man. Like we, we like the interaction with other human beings. And yeah, I mean, that kind of takes us to my story which I'd love to get into if you want to get into I abso I absolutely want to get into that. Let's go. Yeah. So I'm Vice President vice president of sales now at a HVAC plumbing and electrical organization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

[00:02:01] Poised to do 40 million this year in revenue. It was a 6 million company when I got promoted out of a truck to, to manage the plumbing division. Then a few years later, I was asked to manage the electrical department. And then a few years after that asked to just to my glee, to my joy, asked to give up the operational stuff, which is, you know, red tape to me, to my personality and just focus on the revenue production, which is exactly who I am, exactly where I want to be.

[00:02:38] And Matt Buckwalter, who's the owner here at this organization is I mean, he's an assassin when it comes to seeing someone's strengths. And then finding the perfect place for that person. And he just came into a meeting at the end of, at the end of 2021 and he said, you know, if we're gonna do this thing right, let's move you here, and him here, and you there.

[00:03:05] And just kind of did a little shifting around. And then, you know we're big e o s people entrepreneurial operating system, traction, Gino Wickman people. So everything we do is by committee, by the leadership team. And Matt was just like, what do you guys think about this? And where do you see yourselves?

[00:03:24] And with some minor adjustments we moved positions and put me into VP of sales. So revenue production is my primary responsibility and it's exactly where you want me because I'm not by nature, I'm as disorganized or unorganized, however you would say that as you could possibly be. Possibly be. I have so many.[00:03:46]

[00:03:46] Bumpers on my bowling lane to keep me from drifting naturally into everybody else's lane. I'm I have to have a million systems in place just to arrive at work in the morning. Like everything I do is you know, it has to be by habit and by system, or it'll just never, it'll never get done.

[00:04:10] So, having me in charge of operations, you know, I made it work by delegation and by having smarter people than me in positions where they could affect that. But it was never my natural bent. Like I needed to be with people, dealing with people and helping promote culture and, you know, upsells. I mean, you know, it's a word not everybody likes to use, but I've moved away from caring whether the word makes people feel a certain way and just like that's what we do at the end of the day.

[00:04:43] If you're in a, if you're in a Selling tech role, a comfort advisor role, a sales role. We can call it all the things in the world that make us feel good, but at the end of the day, your job is to sell. And that doesn't mean it's a, you're a bad person and it's not a bad thing any more than, as I always talk about the Superb Bowl commercials that everybody's so excited to watch.

[00:05:02] Like my wife only watches commercials on Super Bowl Sunday. That's what she shows up for. When the commercials aren't on, she goes back to prepping side dishes and stuff and, you know, jumps on Instagram or whatever. But when the commercials are on, she's like focused on the commercial. And it's, you know, it's entertaining because we're seeing professional sales being done.

[00:05:24] But that the only reason you would get a Super Bowl commercial and pay all those millions of dollars for airtime and millions of dollars for production and million do of dollars for actors or voice actors or animation or whatever it is because you want to sell your product. And that is the most professional sales you will ever see is a Super Bowl commercial because it's the most expensive sale in the world at this current time.

[00:05:51] So I was like watching the commercials and you know, we show up Monday morning and one day I'm talking to the leadership team and some of our high producers and we're all talking about how great the Super Bowl commercials were. I don't even know what year it was, probably like 18 or 15 or something like that.

[00:06:10] And it, you know, it just occurred to me, I'm like, all we're watching is selling at a level that is just multiples better than me, better than I did in a truck, better than I trained people to do. The amount of quality production that went into this is just, it's on a scale I can't even imagine. Like, you know, they're bringing in psych psychologists to help them build these commercials.

[00:06:36] Like it's all set up to sell more product. Never do. We go what horrible people Pepsi are, you know, the people at Pepsi are just horrible scammers. They're just looking to take it to the customer and all they care about is your money. And it's like, of course that's what they care about. That's what they're in business for.

[00:06:57] Does Pepsi hate their employees? I don't. I mean, I don't know. I don't think so, cuz they have plenty of them. I assume they take good care of their people, but at the end of the day, if there's no top line revenue, there's no company's, if there's no bottom line revenue, there's no company. So it was like that moment that I said I'm not dancing around this thing anymore.

[00:07:18] Like we sell, we're professional salespeople. Nothing happens in a business until something gets sold. Nothing happens in a relationship until something gets sold. Nothing happens in any transaction until a sale is made. [00:07:32] So I don't really wanna play the game of like calling it something else to make people feel good anymore.

[00:07:37] Because man, who's got time that word's gonna change and offend people at some point, and you not gotta pick the next one. So we're just professional salespeople now here at least. And if you listen to our podcast, that's what you're gonna, that's what you're gonna hear. Well, you know, we're a psychiatrist performing a Broadway play, David Sandler.

[00:07:57] That's it. A hundred percent dude. A hundred percent. Yeah. But you are absolutely right. And I agree with every single thing that you said right from the start to finish every single word that you said, and people are hesitant about the word sales. But at the end of the day, it, every single thing we do involves convincing another person to do something.

[00:08:18] Either we want them to do or we are being convinced to do something that they want to do, one or the other. For sure. So, yeah. So how I, how so I started in a man, I don't know how far to go back, but you know, I'm a. I'm a Detroit, Michigan. Grew up in a poor horrible neighborhood in southwest Detroit.

[00:08:47] Don't know. My father was raised by a single mother in a, mostly in a one bedroom, second floor apartment in Detroit. Dropped outta high school in the, I say 10th grade, but I'm not even positive. I was like 16, so maybe 10th or 11th grade. I actually don't really know. But didn't stay to graduate in Detroit public school.

[00:09:12] Got into plumbing with some uncles and just kind of went through, working with three different uncles and they taught me plumbing. Started in new construction. Really hated life to get back to where we started here as I was on new construction sites, I'd just be. In the middle of winter there with the pick ax and the blueprint and expected to, you know, lay sewer trenches in, in the foundation would what would end up being the basement in frozen ground with a pick axe.

[00:09:46] And, you know, I'm 16 and weighed like 135 pounds and I just, I was there by myself most of the time, which didn't fit my personality at all because I like to be around people, but there was nothing else, you know, like everybody was seemingly everybody that I was around at that age was, you know, gang banging, selling drugs.

[00:10:09] And I, you know, dabbled in my fair share of that kind of thing. But if I was gonna escape, I was gonna get into plumbing, and that version of plumbing was pretty miserable to me. It wasn't really the work so much. Although it was monotonous and I don't like monotony. I need, you know, I need my day to be as chaotic as my mind is.

[00:10:31] So I like to do different things, but the only thing I really didn't love about the job was the fact that I would just be dropped at a house and be there all day doing a various task. And sometimes that task might just be carrying buckets of peak gravel you know, 70 yards, five gallon buckets full with my little arms ready to pop off the sockets.

[00:10:54] And then getting 'em down into the hole. And then, you know, just pouring 'em over the piping as we would do in new construction, plumbing. And that would be an entire day in these big houses way out in like Clarkston or West Bloomfield, Michigan. Which was funny too, cuz I'm working in houses as far as I knew at that time that I would never set foot in outside of, you know, doing the actual work for.

[00:11:16] [00:11:18] And then I got into drain cleaning which I liked a lot more, believe it or not, because I was going to different homes every day. And that was like a big win for me to be able to knock on someone's door, meet a different person three or four times a day, and then do a small job for them, you know?

[00:11:40] And then in 2000, early 2004, my wife got pregnant with our first child who's 18 now. And her parents were out in Las Vegas and her dad was a big Puerto Rican and like intimidating guy. And the way he told the story was, I know exactly how he did it, but he would say, You know, I, I saw a plumber in his van at a gas station.

[00:12:06] So I went up and knocked on his window and asked him how much he made last year. And when he says that he meant, he walked up in an intimidating way and tapped on the window and said, yo, how much he made last year, cuz that's who he is, you know? And he's like, and these guys are saying, you know, 70, $80,000.

[00:12:26] And I didn't know what they did at the time, but I figured now they were probably like union new construction plumbers working on like the city center project out in Las Vegas in the early two thousands. But to me, who made like 32,000 my last year in Las Vegas I said, well, this is, that's like twice the money, like, you know, move over Mr.

[00:12:47] And Mrs. Gates, you know, here come the Burtons. So if I can make that kind of money. So we moved out, we'd never even been there, man. We just packed every, all the very little stuff we owned in a U-Haul trailer and drove out to Las Vegas and. I was there for we got there like Saturday afternoon and Monday morning, I, you know, we had the old foldout paper map back in 2004.

[00:13:13] Like I didn't have any kind of g p s or anything. No smartphones existed yet. And I, oh, I'm sorry. It was actually the map book. So I wrote on a notepad, these three companies I wanted to go see. And on that book, I wrote the addresses and I had this thing, the directions written down. So I left where my in-laws lived, went straight to the first company, went straight to the second company, which was yes, plum heating, plumbing, heating and air.

[00:13:43] Ken Goodrich's organization at the time. And then the third company, and then back to the apartment they lived at two bedroom apartment we were staying at until we could get a place. So I went to the first one and the guy offered me, it was like 20, $20 an hour, 25, I think it was 25 an hour. And I'm just like, he was just your typical plumber, you know?

[00:14:08] He was like an old master plumber who started a business. It was small, the trucks were kind of beat up, but he was like a plumber's plumber. And I said, I know him. Like, this is who I've grown up around, so I wanna work here. And he was a, seemed like a good dude. So I wanted to accept the offer, but I said, you know I've gotta, I've gotta hit these other two for my own sake, for my wife's sake.

[00:14:32] I can't just go back and say, I accepted the first offer, but I'll probably be back. The fact was more than anything, I was gonna struggle to get back. So I've written these directions down perfectly. So the next stop was, yes, plumbing. And I went in and I just asked for an application. There was nobody there to meet with, so I said, can I have an application?

[00:14:56] And Mona who was with them at the time, sat me in the lobby, said, I'll be back with an application. And [00:15:04] then Lance Fernandez, who was the general manager of yes, at that time just happened to walk out. And he just looked down at me and he's like, what's up? And I'm like, what's up? And I just, you know, looked back at the floor or whatever.

[00:15:19] I was very shy back then. And he said, no, what's up? What are you doing here? I'm like, I was hoping to fill out an application to work here. He said, what do you do? And I said I'm a plumber. And you know, he made me feel a certain way right away, but it was just like, is that all you are? And I'm like, what do you mean?

[00:15:37] Is that, I'm sorry. He said, is that all you want to be? And I said, what do you mean? Is that all I want to be? He said, do you just want to be a plumber? And I'm like, Isn't that enough? Like I'm proud of the fact that I can plumb, you know, that's a skilled trade. And he said do you wanna learn how to sell?

[00:15:56] And my, I, my immediate reaction was like, no, I don't want to be some penny loafer used car salesman. Like, that's a dirty word where I came from. It's a dirty word in most places. And he said, and I don't remember his exact words, and I really wish I do because, you know, it was a pivotal moment for me. My everything in me said, just get out of there.

[00:16:19] And truth be told, I told the other guy where I was going next and he had nothing but horrible things to say about them. They'll teach you how to ripple ladies off. Was what he had me thinking, driving over there. But there was something about this guy I was talking to, he was professional, he was driven clearly ambitious, but very well dressed.

[00:16:45] But he was not a, he was not someone who would rip people off. He was very forward, but he was not someone I felt like would take advantage of somebody. And, you know, he was like, well, and I'm like, no, I don't wanna learn how to sell. I don't wanna be like that. And he's just like, well, you know, if it's not for you, then it's probably isn't a fit.

[00:17:03] And I stood up and I was ready to walk out and I think I even opened the door and he said Hey, I'll tell you what. Give me, I don't know what it was, 10 minutes or 20 minutes real quick in the conference room. If you'll give me that and you don't want to come work for us, I will give you like a $50 gift Visa gift card or something like that.

[00:17:28] Maybe it was a gas station gift card. Now, what he didn't know and you don't know yet, was that I had to borrow gas money from my fa, my father-in-law to even get there and back. Like we spent every dime we had to get to Las Vegas. And we were gonna stay with them in their two bedroom apartment until we were, you know, ready to make our next step.

[00:17:49] And I said gift card you say. I'm like, well, all right, but you know, if you try to screw me on that, we're gonna have a problem at the end of this. And he's like, I won't, if you don't want to come work here, I'll hand you the card and you'll be on your way. And I don't remember what exactly he said, man but he put sell professional selling to me in a way that just it ended how I would look at my career going forward.

[00:18:17] Like I looked at this career as a different thing as of that moment, and all he did was show me the difference between a used car salesman and a professional salesperson who's presenting something they truly believe is beneficial to a client, but presenting it in a way that a client is gonna see the benefit of this product or service.

[00:18:39] As more valuable than the money that they're gonna spend on it. And then, you know, he showed me how we survive off of our customers talking about us. And he [00:18:50] showed me this wall of letters that customers had written about technicians and he started talking about the way they talk about their customers.

[00:18:58] And, you know, I was from a mom and pop shop, several mom and pop shops at that point. And you know how the trades probably still are in a lot of places, but certainly were up to that point where customers are talked about like crap. They're treated like crap. They got, they were never given time windows.

[00:19:15] They're just like, we should be able to get there today. If they called in to complain, they, they very likely got cussed out by the owner or the owner's wife, who is the dispatcher or the tech who had the phone or whatever. And this way of like how we treat people was a big eyeopener for me. It was like a game changer.

[00:19:34] I said like, That's kind of how I treat people anyway, you know, and this felt like such a better fit to me than the way I had been taught to tr to think about and look at and treat clients. So it, he just, it changed everything, man. I mean I went to that next company. I, oh, one thing he said was like there's no hourly rate.

[00:19:58] They do like what's called commissionable units, you know, it's just a straight commission. Like you, you keep what you kill, so you go sell it, install it, and then you get paid. If you don't sell anything and install anything, you don't get paid. And a lot of people hate that system, man. But that system made a, made an animal out of me.

[00:20:17] And Brent Buckley's, one of the guys that was there on, on the team with me and several other guys who are very successful now, had to go through that gauntlet, you know, that, that fire to become who we would become later. So, I went to the next place, they ended up offering me 30 an hour. I had to go home to my wife and say, I got offered 25 an hour, 30 an hour, and I'm taking the one that is offering me zero an hour.

[00:20:45] But they're gonna teach me how to communicate. And he did he actually made me kind of do a contractual handshake. Within weeks of starting, I said, you know I want to do what you did. He was a, he was an HVAC tech apprentice, turned technician, turned selling tech turned general manager, turned part owner of the business.

[00:21:12] And I said, I want do what you did. You know? And he's like, well, if you wanna do what I did, you have to do what I did. Like you have to be who I'm gonna tell you. You have to be and you have to follow my instructions. And I said, I'll do that, man. And he held his hand out and he said, If you'll promise to do what I tell you short of anything that compromises your actual principles or integrity, which he wouldn't do anyway, I will mold you into something great.

[00:21:36] And I'm like, you know, boom, shook his hand. No problem. I got a baby on the way. I'm, you know, I'm in it to win. So I did everything he said and everything he said was extremely difficult. He never gave me tasks that were like hitting of my personality or comfort zone. He walked out one day and heard me listening to Jim Rome r o m e, the sportscaster, you know, this was in on the west coast in Las Vegas.

[00:22:04] So he's on, I think it was like 9:00 AM he would be on, I'm in between calls, dumping some stuff out of my truck. And he heard me listening to sports radio and he, you know, all but went off on me like you're wasting your drive time. And he, so he gave me this Brian Tracy tape, the 21. Success, secrets of Sales Superstars.

[00:22:27] And it was only like 58 minutes or something. So it was like, side A is 30 minutes and side B is 28 minutes. And he said, here's a sticky [00:22:36] notepad, here's a pen. Put sticky notes on your dashboard and draw Roman numeral every time you listen to both sides one time. And when you've listened to this tape a hundred times, I'll give you another one.

[00:22:48] And I'm like, cool. Sounds good. And I don't know if you've listened to Brian Tracy recently, but he is among the most dry, monotone people that have ever trained. So I'm, you know, I'm probably looking for somebody more like Eric Thomas at the time, you know, a little more exciting and motivating. But you know, also at that time, I'd never heard anything motivating or like, I, you know, that stuff where I grew up, it didn't exist.

[00:23:14] It was just like, survive, you know, was all you were trying to do. So, I listened to it the first time, and albeit somewhat boring, I was blown away by how rich the content was. Now around time 60, I was over it. I could quote the entire thing word for word, and I got to a hundred. I took the tape back to him and he pulls out this what looked like a plastic briefcase, huge.

[00:23:41] Puts it on his desk and he pops the hatch open and he raises this thing up and I look in and, I don't know, it was like 200 tapes and it was all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? You listen to that guy a hundred times? And I come to find out that tape is a clip from his from Brian Tracy's bestselling book, the Psychology of Selling.

[00:24:01] That's just a little piece of that book. And I ended up getting the whole book and listened to it over and over, and then got into Tom Hopkins and listened to him over and over. And the one thing. I would say I lamented in a truck those years, was that all the sales training you could listen to, at least on tape that I could find was almost solely based on real estate.

[00:24:26] And these guys were awesome. And I would be presenting, you know, months into listening to this stuff and something that Brian Tracy said would slip out or something I heard Tom Hopkins say, would just randomly pop out of my mouth and I would sell a job that I normally wouldn't sell. And I would go, like, what?

[00:24:45] Like, that wasn't me, you know? And I'd be super proud and I'd walk out Pam, call Lance, you know, like, oh my God, it worked, bro. And call Brent and like my twin brother who worked there at the time, and just call these guys. Like it works. You know, like stop listening to music. Like you gotta start listening to this.

[00:25:01] But the one issue was there was nothing that, there was nobody I could listen to throughout the day, who knew what I was doing for a living. I couldn't relate to these guys. They wore suits to work. You know they sold they sold people who knew that they were in a selling situation where I'm going to do a maintenance on a water heater most of the time, you know, like they don't know.

[00:25:25] They're in a selling situation, which I find to be a leg up for us because they don't have their guard up. Like, I have this guy who's simply coming here to sell me something, but at the same time I couldn't relate to their people with defenses all the way already up. Like, I'm not gonna be sold here today.

[00:25:43] So I always wanted something to listen to that was more based on what we did, which is how, kind of how our podcast came to be. And now I see that like you have the Successful Life podcast and there's like, you know to the Point and J Dubs podcast and freaking Tommy Mellow show, and our show wastes no Day.

[00:26:05] But I see all these things and I'm like, yes. Like, yeah, you know, we all do an hour a week. So the fact that there isn't a lot of cross-promotion of shows, I think is, it's just it's little guy syndrome. Like these, a lot of people are like, well, I don't, if I promote yours, it's taken away [00:26:22] from mine or whatever.

[00:26:23] And I don't have that. Well, I mean, we don't sell anything and a lot of these guys do. So maybe it's like, like they don't wanna promote their competitors. So I get that point. But there's only, you know, there's how many hours of drive time in a week and you've got all these shows that only do an hour and a half at most per week.

[00:26:42] So, like for me, you know, I promote every one of those shows at this organization. You know, there's 130 employees here and 70 of 'em are in trucks. And I'm responsible for the training for those 70 and I'm like all day, every day telling 'em, you should be listening to these shows. Boom boom.

[00:27:01] I do not want to hear about music. And I have a standing bet with this whole company. And I've had it since I got here in 2013, 1213, whatever it was, sorry, since I got in management here in 2013, which is, if you ever hear me pull up or pull off and you hear anything like music, standup comedy, sports, radio, news playing, I have a hundred dollars bill in my car have since then, that a hundred dollars bill goes to whoever hears it.

[00:27:33] Never paid it out once yet. Now, what sucks about these Bluetooth things is sometimes I turn that car on and it just opens the Apple Music app and starts playing music despite the fact that I was listening to, you know, your show or a Brian Tracy audiobook or something on the way in. So I'm like always cautious to like, turn the knob down before I turn the car on.

[00:27:58] But I'm, yeah, I'm heavy on, on like, you know, Nate, my co-host mentioned something on an episode recently where he said, What's your r o d? And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be good. And he said, what's your return on drive time? And I don't think we can stress that enough that your windshield time, whatever you call it, drive time is, as Brian Tracy always said, is your opportunity to get to go to your University on wheels.

[00:28:29] And we've done episodes called mvu, my Vehicle University cuz I had a sticky note on my, I had tons of sticky notes on my dashboard thanks to Lance. And one just said, MV U I'm here to get my degree from Mvu, my vehicle university. That's what I do when I'm driving between calls. Now, if it's Saturday afternoon and I'm rolling with the kids or the wife or even by myself I might listen to something else.

[00:28:58] I very well may, if I'm lifting in the morning, when I'm lifting in the morning if I'm not feeling it, like this morning I'm listening to an, I was listening to an audiobook at the gym, but yesterday morning, man, I got up sluggish. I didn't feel like doing it. It, you know, it was one of those days where discipline had to take over cuz motivation didn't exist.

[00:29:18] And I turned on rap. Like I turned on old fricking gangster rap that I grew up with cuz I needed a beat. I needed something to get me going a little bit. But man, in between like driving to work at work, driving home from work I'm listening to something that's gonna further my career. So Waste no Day came from that came from my mentor.

[00:29:39] It's like get your return on drive time. Like be doing something to better yourself. And since the day I got into leadership at this company, that's what I've promoted and pushed very hard. And I don't just promote it, I don't just ask people to do it to some people's discouragement and some people's encouragement.

[00:30:04] I do what my mentor did, which is [00:30:08] if I walk past your truck and I hear you listening to music, I shame you. I give you the business. Especially if we've sat down in this room and you've told me that you have aspirations to make 200 grand this year or you're trying to do such and such for your wife or you have this, you big vacation you want to do if you hit this number.

[00:30:28] And I'm like, you know, the same thing I would say to my son if he's playing on his phone at the gym with me. Cuz he, he goes to the gym with me often now, which is that what you're here for? So if we're out at the parking lot and somebody's heading to their first call and I hear 'em listening to music, I'm like, all is that?

[00:30:46] Is that why you're here? You're here to be entertained. And, you know, I joke around and stuff and try to keep it light, but I'm not joking. Like I want the best for each person that works here and each person in the trades that, you know, I know what people are by and large in their trades. It's not a bunch of college graduates.

[00:31:04] It's not spoonfed people. And it's largely people who don't even know their father like myself. Like you don't have time. One thing I love about Brian Tracy and that he really taught me was not knowing my dad. And growing up in Detroit with a single mom and not having a high school diploma does not mean I won't be successful.

[00:31:26] It just means I'm starting back here and the people who have all that are starting a little bit ahead of me. So I actually have to work a little bit harder. Well, I find out more and more year after year that I don't have to work that much harder cause it's just, there doesn't seem to be a lot of drive these days, but I've always worked as hard as I could and pushed as hard as I could and spent that, you know, demanded the most return on drive time, even though I didn't know that acronym until Nate said it the other day.

[00:31:55] But and I really try to demand that of our people and, you know, people who may come across this show or our show or any show or any, anyone who hears my voice. Everything I post on social media is like, it's just a kind of a stop wasting time thing. Like, you know, stop pretending this thing's infinite and like just get after it, as Jocko Willink would say, but get after it.

[00:32:22] Like, be about your business and the music has its place, but it's not getting you there. No, you're right. What audio book are you listening to right now? I have. 13 audio books that get recycled right now. The one I was listening to this morning, if that's what you're asking, was the Sales Boss by Jonathan Wiman.

[00:32:45] Okay. I'd actually never heard it before. And somebody on, somebody in the Waste No Day Facebook group recommended, said it's a great book. I've never heard of it. So yeah, I actually started it this morning, but so far so good. I've never heard of it either. So you had wow. You packed a lot of that.

[00:33:09] I I moved to Vegas about 2000, so I wasn't too far behind you for about a year. It is a different animal in Vegas, that's for sure. I've never heard a sales boss, but I agree with you with the audio books. I listen to more audio books than I do anything because. It is an look, it is a absolute waste of time to listen to music unless there's a, unless there's a, an intention there that you need to get rolling, like you said, you know, and very rarely do I need to listen to music.

[00:33:46] Very rarely. Yeah. But when I do, I listen to same shit over and over. And, you know, books [00:33:54] I, dude, I mean, it's the easiest way. Now, my guess is based on what you said earlier, you probably have a little touch of a D H D like I do sometimes. I have to listen to 'em twice, three times touch. Yeah.

[00:34:07] Right. Listen to it on double speed, and then often come back and listen again two or three times because Yeah. I'm, yeah. I'm all over the place. Yep. I do it at like 1.5, which I think is just like, I think that's the biggest hack in the world. It really is. Yeah. That's, dude that's incredible. No PLU Plutarch had a great quote.

[00:34:29] The mind is not a vessel to be filled. The mind is a fire to be kindled. And when I used to listen to these audio books and stuff I thought that I had this space in my brain that I'm trying to keep full all the time, you know? And it was a problem to me that I would listen to these books and I don't know if you've had Tommy Mellon on the show, so, you know what a freaking just savant that guy is.

[00:34:57] I have not had him on my show yet, but I will. You haven't had Tommy on? Not yet. Oh. But I will. Yeah. You got, we gotta get him on cuz it's just he's one of those guys. He, good luck getting a word in. Actually. Good luck even wanting to get a word in, because if you just put your mic down and keep your headphones on, you're good to go.

[00:35:16] Like, it's a, it's an awesome episode. He's. He remembers seemingly every word of every book he's ever read. Really? It feels like that. I mean, I think he has a photographic memory, but I'll remember almost nothing of the books I read except like two or three broad concepts. Like I, I have these concepts of the book in mind and a few quotes, but I have since 2004, I had a actual paper notebook that back then, cause you know, there was no, couldn't like Google a quote back in the day.

[00:35:51] If I heard a good quote or was reading a book that had a good quote in it, I would just go, Ooh, that's good. I'd write it down and I'd put the author next to it. Now that's the notebook in my iPhone. But yeah, so that's how I remember the quotes. But I remember just broad concepts and I always thought like, because I couldn't remember enough of the knowledge from the books, I wasn't getting anything from them.

[00:36:15] And I just thought, you know, my brain is somewhat broken. I. And in need of a fixing somehow. But it wasn't until I heard that Plutarch quote that the brain's not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. That I realized as I'm listening to these books I'm not filling a filing cabinet in my mind.

[00:36:34] I'm just sparking that fire and like getting ideas generated. And when I get into the home and I knock on that door and I've been listening to something like that all the way there, I'm working in those terms now. And if I listen to Metallica all the way there, which is what I would rather be doing, like you're listeners who are talking smack about us right now, like, I'm gonna give him my music up, bro.

[00:37:00] If I was listening to music, I have a good rhythm and I'm walking into the call excited. There, there is that, but I don't know what I'm thinking about on the way in there. I'm not in control of that. Whereas if I'm listening to, you know, back in the day be Tom Hopkins or Brian Tracy, now. I don't know, grant Cardone or you know, Corey or us or whatever.

[00:37:22] I'm thinking about how this call is gonna be the most successful for the client, the team, and then myself. That's what I'm thinking about. And whatever order that is, you can put yourself first. I don't care. Be selfish with it. [00:37:40] That's fine, as long as you're doing it with integrity and not, you know, suing the trade as a result of what you do.

[00:37:46] So, yeah, so for me it was like, maybe it's the amount of A D H D that I have, that I had zero control of what I was thinking about as I walked in that door, unless I was programming my mind from the shop to that call, from that call to the next call and so on and so forth. And I even got to the point, you know, where I'm, I was listening to to like marriage podcasts or.

[00:38:13] Fatherhood podcast and stuff for audio books on the way home. So I could like shift gears, you know? And my mentor actually had me, I always wore a yes plumbing hat, always wore a hat back in the day cuz the Vegas son was, it was much for me who grew up in Detroit. You know, it was like, when that, when it was hitting me, I was like, ugh.

[00:38:34] It's like trying to shy away from it. So he would have me take that hat off, put it on the dashboard, take my Michigan Wolverines hat, put it on and say, I'm no longer Brian the plumber, I'm Brian the dad, or Brian the husband. And then try to walk in like that. And I actually found it to be effective. And I've talked to guys who just said, that's, you know, that's cornball.

[00:38:53] I'm not doing that. But I'm like try. I think that's the smartest thing. I think that is one of the biggest takeaways that somebody's ever said on here. Cause it's so hard. To, to the Michigan move green thing. Yeah, because it's a, it's just a, you're shifting your mind. That's the, you know, that's the tool that you use, you know, to start that other person.

[00:39:18] The other person needs to come home, not the guy at work. And a lot of people don't know how to turn that off. And look, I'm not, and listen, I'm not the best at it, but, well, I said it in the beginning. I have to have these systems in place, right? And it is because of the lack of coordinated organization that exists in me.

[00:39:37] And to say it exists, I mean, it does not exist in me. I'm not a, I'm not naturally coordinated or organized in any way, shape, or form. But ma'am, when you finally admit something like that to yourself and go, this just isn't me, to be this disorganized, all of a sudden you now you see that deficit and you go, I can fill that deficit with systems and with people.

[00:40:01] And I have guys like my co-host and our VP of operations here, Nate Minnick, who is the most organized person on the planet. He is he has systems for systems, naturally. And when he doesn't, he is super uncomfortable and I'm flying by the seat of my pants, at no point did I shoot you a text or an email and say, what are we talking about today, Corey?

[00:40:27] Cause I'm just right. I don't need it. But if I bring a, you know I book all the guests for our show and kind of pick the topics that we're gonna talk about. And if I bring him a guest and we sit down to, to start the episode and we're waiting for the guest to call in and he goes, what's our topic? And I go, yeah, whatever feels good.

[00:40:47] He turns red. He's just like, you can't do this to me. Thank you. So, yeah. So that's a deficit for me. But you fill that with systems and one system is, you know, when I was in a truck, is. Because look, if the day went great, I could be getting home at one o'clock in the morning, but if I made $1,300 that day and ended up just selling something at 7:00 PM and stayed all night to put it in, I didn't care.

[00:41:12] I was super happy, man I'd get my food out of the microwave and heat, get it heated and eat it and change and go into the room and kiss my wife on the forehead and wake her up. But if I ran, oh, for [00:41:26] five that day, and you know, I made $110 and worked 13 hours to do it, I was not in a good mood on my way home.

[00:41:34] I don't take those losses very well, even in the beginning, which is unfortunate when I didn't have the training to be great. But I still expected to be great, you know, and I didn't want to, I didn't wanna disappoint Lance, and I certainly didn't wanna disappoint Ken Goodrich because he's just not a guy you want to disappoint.

[00:41:53] And I didn't wanna look in that rear view mirror that served no purpose. Because, you know, we had the big box trucks, so you couldn't see out the window Anyway, the only purpose it served was, so you, for me, so I could role play, I'd turn that thing down to me and I'd go, you know, I'd practice my gratitude or I'd practice asking closing questions.

[00:42:12] Because at some point, Mike Bissell, who was a very high producing plumber there, when I was there, he said, you know what your biggest problem is? You don't ask people to buy. And I'm just like, the hell are you talking about? I ask everyone to buy all the time. That's all I do. And he goes, asked me to talk to me about water treatment, asked me to buy it.

[00:42:33] And I gave a little short comedic presentation on water treatment, and then just stopped and looked at him. And he's just like, what? I'm like, what do you mean what he said? You didn't ask me to purchase it. And I'm like, huh. And he redid it for me and he roleplayed and he asked me to become an owner of that product today.

[00:42:55] And I'm like, oh, snap, you're right. I present it and then I like, try not, I try not to say anything stupid and I just stand there nervously with butterflies in my stuff, you know? So I would turn that mirror towards me and I would practice asking somebody to buy over and over again. But yeah, other than that, the, you know, the mirrors didn't do anything, but I'd be looking at myself on the way home from a horrible day.

[00:43:19] Like, what a disappointment you are, how you're in the wrong trade, how you never should have signed on for this. You might as well just be, you know, at the city center and on the strip doing new construction. This selling thing isn't for you. Now I gotta go in and tell mom I'm, you know, I spent 13 hours to make $40 or $0.

[00:43:38] Some days it could have been a zero. Sure. And I let my dispatcher, Kevin Oliver, who was just a fricking animal of a dispatcher that we had there. I let him down and he would give you the business man, cuz you're running his calls. It's his schedule and it was just a miserable day. So taking that Yes.

[00:43:59] You know, taking that career hat off and putting that family hat on. It didn't change the day. I don't want to make it sound like it was the end all, be all of attitude change, but it just made me go, all right, knock it off, bro. Grow up, you know, get in here and be enthusiastic to see the family and just, you know, make it about them to some extent.

[00:44:23] You're not gonna win. You're not gonna win every, excuse me, you're not gonna win every day, every deal. I mean, we think that, and it's interesting about asking Cuz you're right, once we explain whatever the product or services is, we assume, big word, assume that people understand the next part is that they buy.

[00:44:43] But you can't assume that you've gotta ask, you've gotta be transparent. And you gotta be forthright. You can't assume anything. And I think I think that's where a lot of people go sideways. And that's where, you know, I don't know if you guys do anything virtually. Do you do virtual sales?

[00:45:02] Do you do with your comfort advisors? No everybody's, we bring everybody in for training. We're one location. Well, so the reason I ask [00:45:12] that is I think that, you know, the drive time, for example, as important as is to listen to books. You know, I've seen companies that are eliminating that by having people come in and sell virtually the tech hands, the basically hands it off to a Zoom call.

[00:45:27] We do actual selling virtually. Yes, absolutely not. No. I'll have to be forced by gunpoint to get into that. Really. Well what is your hesitation with that, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to negate the fact that it could very well be my own bias because I never did that. Sure. And I was successful selling plumber.

[00:45:50] So that's very possible. It's very possible that's the issue. But as far as I'm concerned if we have the opportunity to shake someone's hand and look them in the eye and establish body language and read their full body language, be in their home I think we're our chances of success are dramatically higher than if, like you and I right now are seeing each other virtually.

[00:46:17] It's better than a phone call. It's a million, million times better than an email. But I would say in person is gonna give us our highest chance of success. And man, leads are expensive. So if we can up our chances of success 1%. And then I wanna jump all over that. You know, Peterman brothers, they're, you know, they've moved I don't know if it's entirely to that model, but the service tech will go in and, you know, check everything out and then they hand it off to the selling tech, which takes, you know, a lot of pressure off the service technician.

[00:46:49] You're still in the house, you're just the selling tech's not in the house. Sure. And then, you know, I was listening to Devin on HVAC Success Secrets the other day, and they said that they had taken their close rate from 50 to 80% doing it that way. I think it's pretty fascinating. 50 to 80 80 doing a virtual chat.

[00:47:14] Wow. Yeah. So the tech is staying on site. Yep. And they're making the call to the advisor or salesperson. That's right. So if you think about that, it eliminates, you know, it eliminates that selling tech from having to go out to drive to the house. Right. So time-wise, they're closing seven to eight deals a day opposed to three to four.

[00:47:38] It's a pretty significant jump. Yeah. Oh man. I don't know. In the Pennsylvania market where it's like a high of 76 today and we had our tied our record low temperature for June the day before yesterday, having seven or eight leads sounds amazing, right? Yeah, that's right. But closing, closing at 80% sounds that sounds pretty amazing too.

[00:48:01] Yeah. Do you know, you said that was HVAC c success secrets. Yep. I gotta check that out. Who was the guest? Devin. Devin, yeah. He works for Peterman Brothers. Okay. Do you know a guy named Skip Chuy? I don't. All right. He's a friend of mine. He was, he used to be up in Pennsylvania, I don't know where in Pennsylvania, but he's pretty knowledgeable guy in, in hvac.

[00:48:26] Anyway, I just thought I'd ask. I didn't know. We're in we're in Lancaster. We're in Amish country. So Pittsburgh and Philly are where most people are. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. And I have no idea where he was. I did want to ask you, I, and I think this right, you have to correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you have Chris Voss on your show?

[00:48:45] We did. Yep. That dude is something else, isn't he? Yeah. Oh man. Yeah, that was, there aren't many Chris Voss out there, man, that like well, when I read [00:48:58] that book, it changed the way I was going to train our people to sell. It became a different version of training and it was unfortunate and very fortunate, unfortunate for me.

[00:49:13] I didn't love the fact that I was finally moving away from what I actually did in the home. Almost scripted. Just kind of changed up for the HVAC and the electrical guys. But it was fortunate because when I started implementing so many of never split the difference. Yeah. Yeah. So many of his concepts into what we, how we trained, our closing percentages went up across the board.

[00:49:41] Our people were just, they just ate it up. Yeah, we actually got him to role play as a comfort advisor on the show, which was pretty, pretty fun for my poor my poor co-host who I made be the client, he's just like squirming in his chair, like, I'm gonna end up buying something for real. Stop. Yeah.

[00:50:02] He's just he's a master man. I mean, he's so good. The title of the book is, Never split the difference how to negotiate like your life depends on it. And That's right. You know, we're pretty casual sometimes about what we do for a living, but you know when you're presenting something and plumbers have had this happen, electricians have their version HVAC people have their version.

[00:50:28] It's that 50 gallon electric water heater where you don't even need to pull the panels off the front. You can see the moist rust running down the front of it. And you have this conversation with this person and you walk out like, man, this person's an idiot. They didn't even go for it. And you know, it's in a finished basement with no water protection whatsoever, not even a pan.

[00:50:52] And you know, when this thing lets go, they're in trouble, but they didn't believe you for whatever reason. And never split the difference. Just added so many ways for our people to be more convincing. You know and what we're saying, so many ways to be more believable, so many ways to relate better with that person.

[00:51:14] Because you know, a lot of times when that stuff happens, they might believe you but they're, as soon as you walk out, they're gonna call somebody else because they didn't connect with you. And what he did in that book was just show us a hundred different ways to better connect with people. It's just the whole thing is it was revolutionary to selling and it started as just negotiations, you know?

[00:51:39] So, yeah, he's, they're with the Black Swan Group. We actually had his son Brandon on, well, actually, so we weren't, we hadn't been hosting the podcast very long before we just started it for our own team here because of Covid. So we started in 2021, but the concept, you know, came out, came up in 2020 where it was just like we had a lot of complaints about, I, I work here because of the culture, you know, because of the team.

[00:52:10] Like, this place is the place to be because of the team. And if I can't be around the team, I'm not feeling it's the same job that it was before, you know, and we had ever, we weren't bringing the techs in here. We didn't want a group of people getting sick and testing positive at the same time, and like giving it to all the CSRs and having a, an empty building.

[00:52:31] So we just kept everyone out. Go hit your calls for sure. Take whatever precautions you or your client deems necessary. I mean, we had our minimum precautions, but we weren't one of the more strict [00:52:44] companies. We had several in our area, thankfully for us, who actually closed their doors and then were mandating vaccines and like we didn't do any of that stuff.

[00:52:55] So thank you. Thankfully we came through pretty well, not unscathed. We actually exploded in growth that year. As you know, less and less companies were even running calls. But we decided to do the show as just like, we'll put this out to the team. We'll bring in one person at a time once a week. And if you look at the early episodes, it's just one of our team members.

[00:53:18] We'd interview 'em, we'd do a little sales training like we would normally on, on Wednesday mornings, and then we'd put the episode out to the crew. We ended up, you know, we put it on Spotify and Apple and a few other platforms. And then before we knew it, probably within just a few episodes, maybe a month or two, we were getting contacted from people outside of the organization and then started getting contacted from people outside of Pennsylvania and then outside of the United States.

[00:53:48] And then now it's just crazy. But when we, when people were asking to get outside influence on, we had been at the Global Leadership Summit and Chris Voss was one of the presenters. And I'd never heard of him but I watched him talk to this lady in his interview on stage, and I'm like, F B i negotiation tactics for in-home sales.

[00:54:18] Like what? Okay. All right. Yeah. Count me in. Count me in. I got the book. I read the book. I was like, get out. Like, what did I just read? So he was like one of the first people, like it was him, Tom Hopkins, who ended up getting on Tim Kennedy for completely different reasons. Just because I heard him on Joe Rogan and Jocko Willings podcast who ended up getting on just for a comp.

[00:54:44] Yeah, a completely different thing. But and then Brian Tracy, I mean, immediately these were the guys who I wanted to have on, cuz they had big impacts on me. Brian Tracy's the only one we haven't actually gotten on yet, and frankly, because they charge. They charge for Brian to do a an audio podcast.

[00:55:03] Really? And I don't hate the idea, like he's gotta get paid for his time. And he's getting up there, man. He's he's had a lot of surgeries lately and he's not in great health. But we don't have a budget. We don't advertise, we don't do any marketing. We don't make listeners listen to commercials.

[00:55:20] I don't have anything to sell. So we have no money coming in, so we always kind of look at it like, look, if you wanna do the show, come and do the show. If you need to get paid to do the show outside of our listeners hope, hopefully buying your books, then it's just not meant to be, you know? But Boss was one of the first ones.

[00:55:39] So I contacted their organization, the Black Swan Group, and they sent back, you know, a lot of people don't even send an email. They just, you just never hear from them. They just ignore you. But I'm relentless. I actually add a person to the list and I email that. Company every single Wednesday. So I just send out the email to all the people on the list every Wednesday of like Mike Rowe and these people that I really went on the show, Chaco, Joe Rogan, you know, you know, probably the same list you have, right?

[00:56:08] So they responded immediately and said, you know, unfortunately, due to the size of the show, like Chris Voss time is very limited and he has to select shows by these certain metrics. And we weren't, we weren't even close, you know, but it, he did Jocko recently, like that's the type of show he's looking to do.[00:56:30]

[00:56:31] And Jocko, I don't know what, he has like 4 million downloads a month or something. Like we're not quite there yet. You know, definitely not. So but she, what she said, Amina Collins which was his booking agent at the time, said, but we do have these people available. One that I noticed was Brandon Voss.

[00:56:54] And I remembered in the book that's his son, he actually helped him write the book. That's right. And he was the president of the Black Swan group. And I'm like well let's get him on, like, what do we have to lose? So we got him on and the episode was amazing. I mean, this guy, a lot of people told us it was better than Chris's episode really.

[00:57:16] But truth be told, I only, yeah, he role-played with us for a long time. He just crushed it. I mean, he had Nate more nervous and like beat up than Chris did by a long shot. And he's funny, you know, he was very engaging. The reason, truth be told, the reason I had him on was I said, immediately I said to Nate and a couple other people here, this is how I'm gonna get Chris on.

[00:57:41] That's right. It might be a decade before we have the kind of audience numbers he's looking for. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna soften up the gatekeeper here. I'm gonna do them as many favors as I can. And I'll get Chris on for our 100th episode. So we had Brandon on, he was our top downloaded episode for like a year.

[00:58:02] Wow. Amazing episode. And then, I don't know what it was, six months later or something. So we got Brandon on, I asked Amina Collins for the address to their shop. I sent her a $50 Starbucks gift card and a handwritten thank you note of how she treated us. And she really did treat me like I was the host of Joe Rogan's podcast.

[00:58:28] Like she treated me very professionally, got back to us immediately made me feel, you know, like we were an important show. And at that point, nobody had ever heard of us and they didn't treat me like that. Most of the time. They didn't get back to me at all. So she then wrote me an email and like went off on how grateful she was and like, nobody really, nobody's ever given her a gift for booking somebody, anything like that.

[00:58:57] So like six months later I said, Hey, we wanna do another Black Swan Group episode. We'd love to have either Derek Gaunt Yep. Sandy Heim or Troy Smith on, which was their other three trainers at the time. And she said, Derek Gaunt and Derek Gaunt wrote where is it? That must not, oh, this one right here.

[00:59:22] Ego Authority Failure. That's it. Derek Gaunt was a, he was the tactical commander of the Washington DC SWAT team for 20 years or something like that. So, good book too. Yeah. Also a hostage negotiator. So we got him on it. I sent her another gift card to Starbucks and a handwritten thank you note.

[00:59:42] Well, Our hundredth episode is like, you know, seven weeks away. And I wrote Amina Collins an email and I said, Hey man, hate to do this to you, but if there's any way we could have Chris on for our hundredth episode, we would appreciate it so much. But also if it can't happen, we totally get it. We would never wanna put you in a tough situation with the boss.

[01:00:08] And I don't know what she wrote back, but it was something like, I will do everything in my power to get him on your show. And it, you know, it [01:00:16] worked flawlessly. It was a long view sales process. But I looked at this like a sales opportunity. And she got Chris on for us. Not only did she get him on, but he recorded a a little clip for us before we started the show where he said, this is Chris Voss former f b i hostage, negotiator, and author of never split the difference telling you.

[01:00:41] That everything in life is a negotiation. And if you wanna hone your negotiating skills, you should start every Monday with the Waste No Day Podcast. Oh dude, that's, and it was like a total mic drop moment. Like I told Nate, I was gonna ask him and he was like, don't you dare, you know, I was like, Hey Chris, can I ask you for a massive favor, man, while I got you?

[01:01:02] Because like, I'm never gonna talk to Chris Voss again, you know? And he's like, yeah, sure. And I said, if we give you something to read, can you do a little commercial for us? And he laughed and he's just like, yeah, of course, no problem. So he's like, here's my cell phone number. Just text me the message. And I'm like, that's hell that's so good.

[01:01:19] I'm like texting him Happy birthday now. Yeah. He's a guy that I absolutely want to have on. And I, you know I got on stage with him in Clubhouse of all places. What's that? And Clubhouse is an audio app. I don't mess with it anymore. 2020, it came out, everybody was, you know, shut in. And it's just an app where, I mean, I'll be honest, it, you know, it didn't prove my speaking skills because it essentially, you log into a room like you would a chat room back in the day except for it's audio.

[01:01:55] And so you can see the picture of whoever it is, not through video, but just whatever picture they put up. Oh, so your picture's there and they hear your voice. Yep, absolutely. You gotta be on the stage in order to talk. And so I got on stage with him. I think it was in there, or maybe it was in another app, but either way.

[01:02:13] And I asked him if he would be on the show and he said, well, email, I'm assuming, I don't even remember if it was her. I didn't follow up probably. But I assume it was her and they didn't get back with me and it is what it is. But I will have that dude on. Yeah, do it. Do it just. Yeah, do it again.

[01:02:33] I'll give you a different email to use for sure. Yeah, that'd be great. I think he, oh man. He's been on Jocko now, so it's like we, we may have just gotten lucky there, you know, he's incredible. He's absolutely, I'll tell you, man for my money, and this is no shot at Chris Boss. I know what he is.

[01:02:53] Brandon Voss, well, you know, Chris is wildly successful man, and he's internationally known now, and he's not working for money. But Brandon is pretty young, his son, and he was so clearly, he was clearly so much more eager to make a name for himself. He knows the material as good as Chris does, and he trains it for people like that.

[01:03:22] Do what we do way more than Chris does. If you listen to those two episodes back to back and you didn't know who either one was, I can almost guarantee you would get more out of Brandon's episode. I'm probably gonna take your path on that. I'll probably get Brandon on first. Yeah.

[01:03:40] And then move into Chris. That's the smart thing. Or Derek for that matter. I like Derek. I liked that book. Awesome. I thought the book was a great, he is awesome. Yeah. I don't know much about Sandy I think was in, did you watch his masterclass? I did. Yeah. Like way back in the day on Facebook. Yeah. So his but you can go through, I think it's [01:04:02] masterclass.com and it's really good stuff.

[01:04:05] I mean, it's not far different from the book, but then you get to visually see it. Sure. Yeah. It's good. It's real. I probably knew through three. Yeah. She was one of the trainers on it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, he's, he is by far one of my favorite dudes. By far. Yeah, absolutely. And I use the hotel thing, like if I get to a hotel early, I use that.

[01:04:26] You're asking for the upgrade? No, I don't ask for the upgrade, but I'm like, I just say, look, I'm, you know, I'm about to make your day ridiculously difficult and I don't say anything. And the way it is, just like he says, like the person just steps back cuz they don't know what to think, what they're thinking right now.

[01:04:42] What? And I'm like, I need to check you in early. And they're like, oh, no problem. Ok. Oh, you don't go for the upgrade? Oh, you gotta go for the upgrade. Have you tried it? Oh yeah dude, I get butterflies. Like, you can't imagine. But this is one of the thing my mentor would have me do all the time was, would be taking a flight like to Tom Hopkins sales bootcamp out in Scottsdale.

[01:05:04] And he would make me like get three pieces of information from the flight attendant or we'd be sitting at a bar eating lunch or whatever, and it wouldn't be our waitress or waiter. He would say, go to the bartender. And find out what city he grew up in or how many kids she has or what city they got married at.

[01:05:26] Like the most random stuff like, like c i a training crap he would make me do to come outta my comfort zone and establish, cuz I was very nervous, man. I grew up, you know, white in a city that's 97% black and like it was a violent city and it and it was full of, you know, people who didn't like me just based on what I looked like and that was legitimate.

[01:05:53] That was a real thing. So I was reserved and shy and quiet, although that wasn't my personality, it was just a defense mechanism. I learned that the nail that sticks out's gonna get hammered. So, you know, like the first time I knocked on a door in Las Vegas to as a selling tech, now I wanted to puke. My hands were like dripping with sweat and.

[01:06:14] I was physically shaking. I'd run a thousand plumbing calls in Michigan, but now that I'm a selling tech, I was horrifically nervous. So he was always doing these things to make me come outta my comfort zone. But even still going up to this person behind the desk at a hotel to ask for the upgrade it every single time.

[01:06:36] But now I do it on flights too sometimes. Like I, I'm like, all right, I gotta get up here to the Southwest booth, you know and see if we can get a or not Southwest, but like Delta or American or whatever, and see if we can get better seating or what have you. You know, I haven't been doing that stuff here probably the last couple years, but you're making me think, get back at, I'm in a comfort zone there and I gotta get out of it.

[01:06:59] It is, and it's the thing I, that, that process takes you out of that comfort zone so quickly. I mean it is still nerve wracking just about every time. Yeah, you feel like, I don't know, I intrinsically you have that feeling of the rejection of this waitress is more than I can handle. And it's like, why?

[01:07:23] Right? If you really weigh what the results of that rejection are at your level, at our level, at whatever you do for a living, like her saying, no, we can't do that. You're like, okay, just thought I'd try. Thank you though. Yeah. Like, who cares? But GOs and watch how you it's an illogical propulsion of your system.

[01:07:45] Like, don't freaking do it. Don't do [01:07:48] it, don't do it. Like the comfort zone you're gonna kick through is insane. But you feel like a million bucks whether you get told yes or no, walking away from it, you know? Have you ever listened to it's think it's called the five second Rule. Yeah. Mel Robbins.

[01:08:05] Mel Robbins. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. That's one of the most impactful books in terms of not letting that, you know, not letting that fear creep in. Cuz if you just do it right, then you think not letting the moment pass. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Guess her five second rule is probably mostly based on like, when you have that idea.

[01:08:31] Yeah. Like when you have one of those shower moments where you're like, oh yeah, that'd be a good idea, you know, and start counting down from five and before you get to five you have to take some kind of action on it. And that action is usually a very small almost insignificant thing. But for some reason, man, when you go to take that action and you've taken that action you start down, you know, CS Lewis talks about in, I think it was mere Christianity where he talks about.

[01:09:01] We all feel like if we take just a little bit of a turn off of what we know we're supposed to be doing or who we know we want to be in life, it's not that big a deal, right? But if you look at your journey as a hundred mile walk and you took a six inch left turn at the beginning of it, like how far off your track are you gonna be by the end of that a hundred mile walk?

[01:09:24] Well, this is the opposite of that with Mel Robbins, that five second rule, you feel like just taking action on that one, like your idea just now, if I'm gonna get Chris Voss on the show, like that can just be a hope or a wish. But if you just took that pen and you wrote down, get Brandon Voss on the show, get Derek Gaunt on the show, which you can do.

[01:09:46] Sure. You took a six inch left or right turn or whatever, toward becoming a person of action. And every time you do it, you take a little bit further turn toward becoming a person of action. And if you see yourself a hundred miles or a hundred days from now, or three years from now and you kept taking little steps toward being a person of action, you have no idea who you can be three years, five years, 10 years from now by, by taking these little five second rule action, actionable steps.

[01:10:22] That's right. And if you don't, you know exactly the person you're gonna be cuz you're not gonna change. Yeah. Actually I, I think it's worse than that. Man's something Ken Goodrich always said to me and I won't, you know, we've had him on the show a couple times now, but I won't ask him if it's his own quote.

[01:10:39] Because I like to quote him as being the person who said it, cuz he said it to me. He said all the time you're green and growing or brown and dying. There is no standing still. Now you decide and you're not, you won't be who you are today, 10 years from now, from taking zero action, you'll be a much worse, much more self-centered, much more defensive narcissistic version of who you are today because you'll build your life around nothing interrupting your comfort and your sense of yourself.

[01:11:09] And you can't, we can't afford to be that. It's like, it's a it's a, an invariably it's a fatal flaw and it's something that will, it won't let you maintain anything. It will cost you everything. You'll people will bail outta your life. All the right people anyway. So, dude, I totally agree. I totally agree.

[01:11:32] Well, look, [01:11:34] Brian, where can people find you? Man, this has been a great show, by the way. I appreciate you. Appreciate it, man. Yeah. If you want to hear me, I'm on the Waste No Day podcast. If you want to shoot me an email, like Facebook is where I do most of my communication, Brian Burton, waste No Day.

[01:11:51] If you type that in, you'll find me pretty quick and shoot me a private message. I will respond. I actually have a thing right now where I'm, I don't know if I should put it out there again, but, cause I'm getting a lot of 'em where I'm taking two 30 minute windows a day just to talk to people in the trade.

[01:12:10] So if people get ahold of me I'll book a 30 minute window with you. It's usually on my drive home on, on two days a week. And I'll chat with you for 30 minutes about whatever you want to chat about, help you with your sales, help you train your team. That kind of thing. So if I don't know a lot, there's tons that I don't know that I'm not good at in the business.

[01:12:33] If it's something I don't know, I'm just gonna point you in a direction. But I do have a pretty big network, so. Perfect. That's how, yeah. Find me on Facebook or listen to the podcast. Perfect. Appreciate you, brother. Cool. Good talking to you, Corey. 

[01:12:47] Brian Burton: Hey, before, before we do disconnect I do want to say to your audience, it means the world to us as podcasters, you know, and we we don't, certainly you don't pay anything to listen to these shows, but if you enjoy Corey's show and I hope you do Go to Spotify, click the five star button, go to Apple, click the five star button, write a review on Apple.

[01:13:12] Tell 'em what the show's done for you. Share it with somebody. Create a public post on your social media. And you know, you don't have to be an influencer just to say, if you're in the trades like I am or doing whatever I am and you want something to give you a leg up every week, listen to this show and just create a post, tag 'em in it and share the thing, man, cuz it, it means a lot to our shows.

[01:13:36] Corey Berrier: Thanks, Brian. You're a hundred percent correct, but you do not get paid for this, but that is the biggest payment somebody could do, you know? Yep. That's it. Appreciate 

[01:13:44] Brian Burton: you, brother. All right, thanks Corey. You got it, man.