Alignment Beats Hustle: How Real Growth Happens

Dr. Joey Drolshagen shares his journey from struggling with limited resources in Detroit to becoming a specialist in rapid business growth through his Subconscious Mindset Training (SMT) method. His approach focuses on helping entrepreneurs create alignment with their goals before taking action, ensuring efforts lead to meaningful results rather than exhaustion.

• The SMT method starts with developing a "dynamic vision" that clearly defines what success looks like
• Our subconscious programming determines the actions we take or avoid taking, often sabotaging our conscious desires
• Most business growth struggles come from internal alignment issues rather than external market conditions
• Throttling back exhaustive efforts paradoxically creates space for opportunities to emerge
• Dr. Joey landed a $25 million contract and three new clients during COVID by stepping away from "hustle mode"
• The method creates unique "systems of accelerating habits" tailored to each individual's authentic strengths
• Authenticity in sales creates trust and lasting relationships, even through challenging business circumstances
• True empathy means genuinely understanding the customer's perspective, not superficial connection techniques

Get a free copy of Dr. Joey's upcoming book "Reprogramming your Mind: The SMT Method to Rapid Growth" by visiting coachwithjoeyd.com and scheduling a 15-20 minute conversation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Dr. Joey's Journey from Struggle to Success
• 2:10 Introduction to the Commission Code Podcast
• 3:38 The SMT Method: Aligning Actions with Goals
• 6:40 Stepping Back: Moving Beyond Exhaustive Efforts
• 10:32 Focus and Alignment: Finding Your Authentic Path
• 16:23 Building Authentic Relationships in Sales
• 24:52 Closing and Book Announcement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I come from a life in Detroit, michigan, of struggle and low-income type of things and stuff like that, and so it was a struggle from my early adult life into trying to understand why can't I do these things but other people can't? It just didn't make sense to me, and asking that question and then continuing to lead into it has been four decades now of continuous study and growth of my own life. But it's also because of my passion to help other people has brought about the SMT method, which is subconscious mindset training.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2: 1:21

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success.

Speaker 2: 2:10

We're very excited to have Dr Joseph Drolshagen as our guest today on the Commission Code and I got to tell you Dr Joey and I have had a nice conversation here getting started and I can't wait to learn more about him and what he does and the method that he's created. So I'm not going to try and mess it up like normal. I'm going to let Dr Jules Hagen tell us about himself. Dr Joey, thank you for being here, really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 2:37

It's great to be here with you, morris, and yeah, my whole passion really is helping people grow in their lives. I specialize you know they call me the rapid growth specialist and really where I tailor that to my wheelhouse is helping business owners rapidly scale their business. You know, get out of all the exhaustive efforts, massive actions, all that stuff and really get into alignment with that growth before we ever take a single action into it, so that the actions we're taking are really aligned with the end goal that we have in mind.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Oh, isn't that a marvelous idea. I start my client's hall with the clarity principle, which is basically what do you want? Well, morris, I want a successful business. No, let's go a little deeper than that. What do you really want out of this? And then you can get that alignment. So I think we're on the same page here, dr.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Jones, absolutely we are. And it's getting that clarity, yeah, that clarity of not only what do I want, but what does that look like when it shows up. You know that's even more detailed too, because a lot of times we can talk about what we want but there's no way we can visualize what that looks like. And it's getting into that, and every client I work with we come out of the gate by doing so. In the SMT method there's what's called a dynamic vision, you know, and we develop that vision right from the start.

Speaker 1: 3:53

The entire SMT method and I've been a guinea pig of this Morris, before it ever even had a name or anything to it because I come from a life in Detroit, michigan, of struggle and low-income type of things and stuff like that, and so it was a struggle from my early adult life into trying to understand why can't I do these things but other people can't. It just didn't make sense to me, and asking that question and then continuing to lead into it has been four decades now of continuous study and growth of my own life. But it's also because of my passion to help other people has brought about the SMT method, which is subconscious mindset training, and today I spend my days writing books and speaking and helping business owners experience rapid business growth. Even my business name IFGT coaching, consulting the IFGT stands for it's freaking go time. It's time to quit taking baby steps and you know two steps forward, one step back and all that. And it's time to really go off of the cliff and allow the soaring to begin.

Speaker 2: 5:04

That's amazing. I work with my clients and they tell me our job is to help you grow and increase your revenue and then have time to enjoy it, which is what you're talking about here, right?

Speaker 1: 5:15

Absolutely yes, and one of the things that stands me apart from a lot of other coaching programs is I don't have anybody's roadmap to success. Anybody who gave me their roadmap to success, it never brought me. I never ended up achieving the results from that. So the SM team method is geared to help each individual in developing their unique roadmap to success as we go through the program and now they have that pathway for any adventure endeavor they ever take on once they have that. But what works for you isn't going to work for me in building a business. So I don't give A, b and C to get to D. What I do is help each client come from their uniqueness of what those desires are, the uniqueness of what the subconscious programming, what their experiences have been, all of that stuff, and that's what we use to bring about that from the uniqueness of that individual.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Let's talk about that in a little more detail and get really practical here. I always like to make sure that in our time together we leave our audience with some practical things they can do today to get started toward growing their revenue and having more time to enjoy it, joey. So tell us a little more about the essay. Where better question where do you start when somebody comes to you and you begin to build that relationship? Where do you start with them? How do you get going?

Speaker 1: 6:35

I start by figuring out where they're at right now. It starts with a conversation really. I mean, all good things start with conversations, right, but it's a conversation about what's going on right now.

Speaker 1: 6:44

What are you trying to do and what's going on within that? So I understand that person. And in that conversation, morris, what I'm looking for is does this person have an open mind? You know, there's two kinds of people I come across. There's people that tell you they know what they have to do, when they have to do it, where they have to do it, how they have to do it, but they're still not achieving what they want to achieve. And then there's the people going man, I don't know, I'm just killing myself and I'm not really getting any headway here. So I need some help in figuring out. You know, I don't even know what's going on. That's a person.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I can help If I got that out is when I'm talking to somebody and they have the I know syndrome going on I know, I know, I know, I know. So what I tell people? Open mind, simply, all it is at its core is looking at the information going what can I add to what I already know? Yeah, Because if I'm going, I know, I know, I know I can't ingest anything new in that, I can't get anything new out of it.

Speaker 2: 7:50

But if I'm just looking for, what can I find that's new, that adds to or builds upon, then, all of a sudden, I become an open book and then we can do something about it. And it also doesn't it also have to be a complete understanding of where you are personally, I mean, I know, I know, I know exactly what I need to do. Do you really you know? Do you really? I mean, let's get back down into it and dig into it. Where is your business right now? What has it been? What are the trends and what's going on? Do you get analytical with them?

Speaker 1: 8:17

to begin with, I do because one of the things I try to drive it to the conversation and it comes up as part of the process anyways is ultimately one of the questions I like to ask prospective clients is why isn't your business growing?

Speaker 2: 8:33

Why isn't it?

Speaker 1: 8:34

at that level you want it to be, and most people will tell me that it's outside situations, circumstances, state of the economy, competition, things like that and I know that's incorrect. You know we see companies take their greatest strides during a down market and then we see so many companies struggling even in boom times. So it's not the outside, it's the inner alignment with it. That's where we're missing the bus.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Oh, and isn't that the truth? All the time it's a mindset kind of a thing. In 2008, when the economy crashed and the mortgage things and all the rest of that crap happened, our financial services company had one of the best years we've ever had, because our leader at the time said this can be good. We're going to go out there and talk to our clients about it and tell them what clients about it, and tell them what's going on and how great what they have really is, and they need to stay the course. And that was our theme for 2008 was call your clients. On the other side, you got brokers. The story goes that one of our friends told us that this broker friend of mine said wow, you know it's terrible. Everybody's calling me and they're all mad, they're all upset. The thing's going to hell in a handbasket. I'm going to Bermuda with my family. We're going on a four-week vacation. Yes, yes, it was like wait a minute, you're going to go hide.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So I'll tell you a little insight, a quick little story on that. Okay, when, when, like I had this business built up, I resigned, walked away from a vice president position as VP of sales and corporate America and such, and I resigned to step out and do this because as a VP I didn't have time to do both. I didn't have time to do all the hats of what you have to do and to the level I thought I should be doing it and elevate my sales personnel, the top producers. It just wasn't enough time and I really loved the elevation part of it and helping people that way. So so I resigned to step out and do this and business took off and it was going and then COVID hit and the whole thing kind of, I lost 13 speaking engagements I think it was in one day.

Speaker 1: 10:42

You know that were set up to happen and things like that. I mean just everything just poop, and I went into my head with it and tried to logically figure it out and it just brings all the effort. You know we're taught if you want something, you got to make it happen. So we spent so much of our time in that logical mind, strategizing and all that, and it doesn't get us anywhere, and so I was finally at a point of not giving up. But I wasn't too too far away from it and thank God I had a coach at the time and I talked to him. And he goes what are you doing? And I told him and he goes oh my God, why are you doing that? Why are you spinning your wheels like that? You know you're not going to get anywhere. He goes you know what? Go pack your stuff, go to Chattanooga and go hang gliding.

Speaker 1: 11:22

And I did for four days While I was there. I'm literally putting the glider together to take another launch and somebody called me out of the blue and they heard a podcast idea a while ago or something happened or this. I ended up getting three new clients in one week of hang gliding because I just got out of that trying to make it happen enough to allow it to unfold. And every business owner I work with and you probably found the same thing, maybe morris is everyone I work with. The first thing I have to get them to do is throttle back a little bit with the exhaustive effort, throttle back the hours a little bit, kind of move off of so they can open up to it coming about other ways. But when we're doing 150 miles an hour, like we're taught to do, we're just blown by all these opportunities that are right out here just waiting for us to notice.

Speaker 2: 12:12

And so many times it happens just like you said. It just happens kind of serendipitously, it just comes. But it comes because of all the things you've done, as you said, all the podcasts you've been on, all the things that you were doing and then all of a sudden it starts to come back around and it's amazing. Some of my biggest clients, when I was actually out boots on the ground selling, came and I didn't do a dead gum thing to get them. They just showed up from one way or another. My biggest client right now just called me one day and said I need a business coach and you're it. We had known each other years and years ago.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Yes.

Speaker 2: 12:47

But that was it. I didn't do anything to develop that, other than keep my head down and work hard and do what I know I'm supposed to do do the things that are necessary.

Speaker 1: 12:57

And when I was like ground floor with sales, developing territories from nothing and stuff, you know, I would travel three to five thousand miles every single week, over and over, and over and over.

Speaker 1: 13:06

And I wasn't really making much of a dent. And then, as I started learning these things and implementing it before they even had a name, just because I wanted to live a better life, I wanted to be like those people I saw that are landing contracts easily and stuff. I landed the largest contract I ever received while in corporate America. It was a year over year contract for five years of $25 million a year, and it happened easily and it unfolded and it came together and it wasn't I didn't travel three to 5,000 miles or things like that, it just unfolded and all I did was exactly what we're talking about. I just got into alignment with that. And it happened multiple other times.

Speaker 1: 13:43

I'll talk to sales, you know, to business owners even, and they'll go yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have the time to sell it, but you don't, it's not the time, it's what you're doing in the actions that's making all the difference. So there's times I'd be out on the road and things like that and I would all of a sudden like I, just out of the blue, I just get a thought of somebody. It was like oh my God, I quote and I'd call multiple times throughout my span of being on the road. Multiple times I'd talk to somebody and they go oh my God, I'm getting ready to source that today and I forgot I had your quote, or I don't?

Speaker 2: 14:18

I'm getting ready to source it, I don't see your quote and every time I would get awarded that business because of that thought of that phone call. Yeah, it's a timing thing. It's always a timing thing, I believe, and you just have to be out there doing your job all day, every day, and the timing is going to be right for somebody.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yes, but when I'm in alignment, you know I can't control the timing of things I'd like to be able to teach people that, but I'd be a liar.

Speaker 1: 14:45

But what I can do is be in alignment to where I'm taking advantage of those moments more regular. You know, like coincidence, right? People will say, oh yeah, well, that's a. It is a coincidence, but there's a way we can live by that design of experiencing coincidences over and over and over. And it doesn't come from our logical mind and massive actions, exhaustive efforts and all that stuff that we've been taught it does.

Speaker 2: 15:09

So where does it come from?

Speaker 1: 15:12

it comes from when we get into alignment. For me, what I call a dynamic vision, you call it when we get into alignment with that when we get into alignment with that vision.

Speaker 1: 15:21

All of a sudden we start opening up to seeing those parts, pieces of that vision start opening up, and then we start experiencing coincidences more. We start experiencing breakthroughs, and, and part of the SMT method is because in our subconscious mind we have this program that plays over and over and over. It's the voice we hear in our head, but that subconscious mind determines the actions we take or we don't take. So in our conscious mind we know what we want, but all of a sudden we know what we want but we're not taking the actions that lead us to that, or we procrastinate or we have fear. We have all these things covered. That's all in that subconscious programming. So even in developing the vision when you think of a dynamic vision, that's big. So in developing that, we start bumping up against that programming so that we can identify it.

Speaker 2: 16:10

And then it has the tools within the SMT to shift that and start opening up the doors to greater results for the efforts we put in. Would you talk to me a little bit about focus, joey? I mean, that's one of the things that I see so often is create your vision, create your dynamic vision of what you want, get real clear about that. But if that dynamic vision has 15 different strategies and five different you know octopus arms going off in all sorts of different directions, I tend to like to ask my clients let's focus on what's most important to you. Is focus a part of the SMT?

Speaker 1: 16:43

Oh, absolutely. But I mean, you think about having a vision. Right Now we got this vision. We got something we're really excited about and we can see ourselves in that vision and living that life and everything else. What would ever pull our focus away from that, other than limited thinking Bingo. So now, if we have a way to identify and deal with that limited thinking, what's going to pull us away from that vision? Nothing.

Speaker 1: 17:06

And so part of the SMT method is we develop systems of accelerating habits that are unique to the individual.

Speaker 1: 17:13

So now we come up with the ways. You know the 10,000 pound phone You've heard that before right, well, there's things we can do about that, or we can work around that in a lot of cases as well, to where it doesn't have to. You know, we're, and what we're doing is aligning what lights the individual up, and then we're finding more time to do that the individual up, and then we're finding more time to do that. So what you come up with for you know, the systems of accelerating habits are not going to be what I come up with, but yours are going to fit you and mine are going to fit me, and one of the ways you can see this very clearly you ever see somebody do like a Facebook social media live and you can tell they can't stand what they're doing and they're fumbling. And you can tell they can't stand what they're doing and they're fumbling and you can see they're embarrassed and they feel off. You've seen those, right, yeah yeah, and you just skip through those.

Speaker 1: 17:57

I feel bad for the person. Morris.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Oh, me too, and you wonder why they do it in the first place. You know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And then you see somebody who's at home, they're in their wheelhouse, they get you hand to them more. So that person that enjoys doing that, then we find more time to do things like that. That gets them out there in front where they enjoy and they shine. And then the other person, we find other avenues to do that because they have things that light them up. It's just not that.

Speaker 1: 18:26

So, instead of following these processes and I know, with the insurance and things like that, a lot of training processes are. Everybody does this, but some people that's going to hit for and some people that's going to miss completely. And now you have a whole huge group that you could be helping, but you can't because you're forcing them to do what's outside of their rung to do. So what the SMT method does is we bring alignment for each individual we work with, so the actions you're taking are leading you to the results that you want to achieve.

Speaker 2: 18:56

And that's the whole idea is getting that behavior done, that action that you need to have to be able to get things going and, as you say, going in the right direction, getting aligned, getting focused on what that dynamic vision really is and where it's going to go. Joey, talk to me a little bit about what your philosophy is in the sales process and how people buy, because it's much more about how people buy than it is about how we sell, would you agree?

Speaker 1: 19:25

Yes, yes. The one thing I've learned in multiple areas of selling in my own business and things like that is connection-based. You know you got to be whatever it is you're selling. You have to be able to bring this and show the solution of it right, show what changes it produces from what they're experiencing now. But then the connection side of it, you know, to be authentic, to be truly who you are, not put on a mask and try to be somebody other than who you are, because it's so easy to see through those things and that person doing the social media that can't stand doing it.

Speaker 1: 20:02

What are they showing? You know. But we do the same thing when we finally, when we get into and we're talking to somebody, whether it's a consumer, whether it's another business, whether it's a VP, whoever it is, you know it's to be authentic, who we are and the more we can get into and come from that authentic man, that's how, when it talks in different things about we each have unique talents and gifts within us. That's the only way to bring those out. We can't bring those out trying to be somebody of who we are not or doing things that are not the right things for us to do oh, I think I think you're right on target there.

Speaker 2: 20:36

In fact, when you were talking about the, the facebook live kind of stuff, the word authentic went crashing through my head. That that's exactly what it boils down to, if it is so easy to see when someone is their authentic self and and when they're not. And when they're not, chances are damn good. You're not going to buy anything from them or engage their services oh, because you're pushing people away from you instead of attracting them.

Speaker 1: 21:03

When we become authentic, when we're living through those gifts, talents, whatever they are, all of a sudden it people, people are attracted to that. That's the number one thing in sales and it's not. But you can't do that and be fake.

Speaker 2: 21:16

No, gotta be your real self yeah, you know, people buy from folks. They they know and trust trust right, yes and that's that's the key relationship piece that I think is out there is is building that business relationship of trust where you know, I trust that you're not here just to earn a commission and blow me off and take my money and my time. I trust that you're here with my best interest in your head, as it is in mine.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, and I'll tell you one of the things, ways I was able to show this, I guess without intending to. I didn't set out with a plan to do this. You one of the things, ways I was able to show this, I guess without intending to. I didn't set out with a plan to do this. But you know, when I was in the last organization I was with and we're in bankruptcy and you know, we doubled. We had to because of the situation we're in. We had to double the lead times, so instead of six months, it would might be a year lead time. We had to double the price of what the sales price was, whatever we were selling for, and then we had to get 50% down just to buy the raw materials to produce it. Wow, and do you know, through that almost year process, we maintained we held above 90% customer retention rate through that, right through that.

Speaker 1: 22:29

And the reason being from a sales standpoint and leading the sales team is, I would tell everybody all the time we will always be honest and but we're going to be careful on how we explain that honesty level to it and we were very authentic about it. Here's what's going on. Here's what it is. You know we're black and white with it and stuff, but we would try to find ways. You know, it's sometimes, sometimes, even when you have a tough thing like that and you're selling man, you have to get on the customer side with them and you have to feel what the empathy that they're feeling and things like that.

Speaker 1: 23:02

So it goes deeper than just the words we use or the tone we talk and things like that. But we've got to be able to get into man. I even hate to tell you this and I have to do this and then explain what you know and then and then be. You know what I'm saying. So it's really being authentic across the board and all of it. And we we can't practice that and we can't read it from a script. We got to just be it. Yeah, one of the other things for sales, for somebody to achieve top level sales, is they got to be able to put their self in that other person's position and see things from that angle yeah, and that empathy is so, so, vitally important and it's so much more than oh.

Speaker 2: 23:41

I see you have a picture your son playing baseball. Well, my son plays baseball.

Speaker 1: 23:45

No, that's not what we're talking about here.

Speaker 2: 23:48

That's that fake, superficial stuff, but it's got to be. That word keeps cropping back up authentic and that positive business relationship. When you were talking about the situation your company was in, I thought, yeah, the whole reason you did well was because of the relationships you had and your team had with the customers, and that's basically what it boils down to, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 24:13

Yeah, and Morris, I'll tell you I've had people during that time period that said, man, we hate your company, we as a whole hate your company. And then the person that would go, we love you but we hate your company. And what I would do that is help them transform that into they hate what my company is going through and how that impacts them. Yeah, exactly, and then when things like that happen but they're not things I can plan out in the parking lot before I walk in. They're things that just happening and being authentic.

Speaker 2: 24:42

And that's the reason they love you is because of the authentic nature with which you build a relationship. I love it. I absolutely love it, Joey. It's absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to learn more about SMT and how it all comes together, and I think you got a book coming out right.

Speaker 1: 25:01

I do and I have a very special, special gift for your audience here and stuff too. But yeah, I do have a book. It's called Reprogramming your Mind the SMT Method to Rapid Growth. Cool Yep Coming out in a couple of weeks here, I'm so excited.

Speaker 2: 25:17

I bet you are. That's fantastic. Well, thank you, I appreciate that, and I know our audience will appreciate it as well, because that's a that sounds like exactly what I want to read.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Yeah, well, and here's what here's. Here's the special gift I've been holding on to and excited about, morris, is, you know, I always offer a conversation 15, 20 minute conversation after, after, you know, talking like with you and I talking and stuff to your audience anybody that wants to talk more about this, anybody that wants to, you know, more clarity around different areas and stuff like that I love. This is my life. I don't leave here and go. This is my full time. This is my life works here, you know, and so one of the things I'm offering is anybody that schedules one of those calls and we get on with the discussion. I'm going to give you thank you and then to do so, all you gotta do you're welcome and all you gotta do is go to coachwithjoeycom and schedule your appointment with me and during that conversation, I'll get your information and send you a copy of the book coachwithjoeycom coachwithjoeycom that sounds perfect.

Speaker 2: 26:20

So everybody, y'all, get out there and go to coachwithjoeycom and, most importantly, have a great conversation with Dr Dr Dahlshagen, because it sounds like he can do some really great things for everybody. It's out there just like, just like I am. So you're trying to grow my business, just like you are. So give Dr Joey a jingle on email and set up a time to talk with him, and, on top of the whole thing, then you get his new book. So that's a wonderful part. Joey, thank you so much for being here with us today. On the Commission Code.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Absolutely, Mark. It's such a great conversation with you. Absolutely. I love talking about this stuff. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: 27:02

Oh, me too. I could do it all day and in fact I do. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims, thank you.