Sales and Cigars | Nick Hutchison | Books to Business | Episode 177

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Walter Crosby with Helix Sales Development, your host of Sales and Cigars.

[00:00:05] Today's episode, my guest is Nick Hutchinson.

[00:00:09] Nick has got a cool sales story that how he went from being a jock in a high school and

[00:00:17] not really being interested in books and reading and running a business and an agency

[00:00:22] now that's all about books and podcasts and he's following his passion, his dream.

[00:00:29] He's interviewed some people that we've read their books, Russell Brunson, Michael Gerber,

[00:00:37] Grant Cardone, right?

[00:00:38] Some really big names that he's engaged with.

[00:00:42] His podcast is really interesting.

[00:00:45] We have a great conversation.

[00:00:47] So if you're interested in books, if you're interested in podcasts, go grab a cocktail,

[00:00:52] grab a cigar, strap in for another exciting episode of Sales and Cigars.

[00:00:56] Thanks.

[00:01:11] I appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to jump on the podcast with

[00:01:15] me.

[00:01:16] Yeah, I'm excited to be here, Walter.

[00:01:17] Can I throw a curveball in and ask you the first question today?

[00:01:20] I am not surprised, but go ahead.

[00:01:24] What's the best book that you read in 2023?

[00:01:26] I see so many amazing books behind you.

[00:01:28] So what comes to mind?

[00:01:29] But that's like an impossible question to answer, Nick.

[00:01:34] There's so many of them.

[00:01:37] I'll answer it this way.

[00:01:41] It's a book that I reread and reread every year, if not twice.

[00:01:48] You can see it up at the top above my head next to the football helmet.

[00:01:53] Is it Meditations?

[00:01:54] By Marcus Rehlas.

[00:01:55] Well, Marcus Rehlas never intended it to be published.

[00:01:59] It was just his journals.

[00:02:00] But there's so much value, there's so many nuggets in there that it's the book that I

[00:02:08] go back to.

[00:02:11] There's so many things that I try to read every day or listen to a book.

[00:02:18] So I don't know, I probably didn't give you the answer you're looking for.

[00:02:23] Oh yes, you did.

[00:02:26] Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

[00:02:28] It's a journal that was never intended to be read by anybody else, but has impacted the

[00:02:32] lives of millions.

[00:02:34] I'm a big fan of Marcus Aurelius.

[00:02:36] I always joke with my wife.

[00:02:38] I'm like, when we have a son, his name should be Marcus Aurelius Hutchison.

[00:02:43] Because I stand for everything that Marcus does.

[00:02:45] I'm a big fan of stoic philosophy myself.

[00:02:48] It's such an actionable philosophy.

[00:02:50] So you chose a good book.

[00:02:54] It helps you live a life, right?

[00:02:59] I know your relationship with Ryan Holiday.

[00:03:03] I get the daily stoic delivered to my inbox every morning at 5-11, roughly.

[00:03:11] And I can tell you that's the first thing I read that is digital.

[00:03:20] And I can go to my inbox, search that out, read that, and then shut it off because it

[00:03:27] makes me think.

[00:03:28] In the other day, it was just like chaos like life, right?

[00:03:35] Just as chaos.

[00:03:36] And what he wrote in that edition on Monday was just like, yes, that is exactly what

[00:03:47] I needed to hear.

[00:03:48] I know it, but sometimes you just need to be reminded and have it hit you right between

[00:03:52] your eyes.

[00:03:53] And I think that is a great tool and value that he offers to people at really no cost.

[00:04:03] Yeah, I think so too.

[00:04:04] I was gifted a copy of the daily stoic by my friend Alec way back in the day,

[00:04:09] maybe 2018.

[00:04:11] And the plan was for us to each read the passage separately and then hang out on the

[00:04:16] phone for a couple of minutes and talk about it every day.

[00:04:19] And he didn't keep up his end of the bargain.

[00:04:21] He didn't read the book, but I did.

[00:04:23] And I read it year after year after year for a couple of years in a row until there

[00:04:27] were pages falling out of my copy of the daily stoic.

[00:04:30] And now I have a couple more copies.

[00:04:32] I'm not reading it actively right now, but stoic philosophy is truly amazing.

[00:04:37] And I had a chance to visit both Athens, which is where stoicism originated, and

[00:04:43] Rome and walk those streets and feel the energy.

[00:04:46] And it's just such a special.

[00:04:47] It holds such a special place in my heart as well.

[00:04:50] I mean, could you feel something different walking around those ancient areas?

[00:04:54] Was that real?

[00:04:57] I think so.

[00:04:58] Yes.

[00:04:59] I am somebody who, hmm, what's the way to say this without getting to woo woo?

[00:05:06] I feel it.

[00:05:08] The energy of those places.

[00:05:09] I remember the first time I ever visited a place that sort of knocked me right

[00:05:14] in the head was Machu Picchu down in South America.

[00:05:18] And I did a little quick meditation on the side of a mountain outside of

[00:05:22] Machu Picchu, and I was like, I could feel the energy.

[00:05:24] I don't know what it is.

[00:05:25] And I think those ancient places carry something similar.

[00:05:28] There's so many of them that, um, that there's a connection there.

[00:05:33] And without getting woo woo, as you said, I think all of those places were

[00:05:39] built for a reason on the location that they're built with that reason.

[00:05:44] I don't know if somebody felt something, there was some kind of energy going.

[00:05:49] There was something happening that drew those people there.

[00:05:53] And if it was happening 3000 years ago, 5000 years ago, you know, whatever,

[00:06:00] um, I think it's still there.

[00:06:04] Um, I was just kind of curious as if it, if you could pick up on

[00:06:07] it, you gotta be open to it.

[00:06:08] You can't be on your phone walking around those places and, um, not paying

[00:06:13] attention, you gotta be open.

[00:06:15] Yeah.

[00:06:16] Thousand percent.

[00:06:17] And, you know, the idea that Marcus Aurelius walked those same streets,

[00:06:22] uh, almost 2000 years ago, whatever it was 1700 years ago.

[00:06:27] That's really cool for me, you know, just to feel that energy as

[00:06:31] you're walking through Rome and imagine what it must've been like.

[00:06:34] I mean, I get a real kick out of that.

[00:06:36] Thanks for being part of another fun episode of Sales and Cigars.

[00:06:40] Let me ask you a question.

[00:06:41] Question.

[00:06:42] Are you tired of struggling to hire sales talent?

[00:06:45] That's going to move the needle for your company.

[00:06:48] Well, maybe you should attend my sales hiring secrets program and discover

[00:06:53] the number one mistake that business owners are making with hiring

[00:06:57] sales talent in their organization.

[00:06:59] The details are in the show notes.

[00:07:01] Click on the page.

[00:07:02] It gives you all the details.

[00:07:03] It gives you everything you need to know to solve the problem

[00:07:06] of sales talent on your team.

[00:07:09] Thanks.

[00:07:10] Yeah.

[00:07:11] Yeah, that's a, uh, not to be, to minimize it, but there's a,

[00:07:17] it's a cool experience that, um, I think, I think there's not enough

[00:07:23] Americans who have a passport that go and explore places because we're

[00:07:28] so big and expansive here.

[00:07:30] Um, there's enough, there's a lot to explore here, but going

[00:07:33] in like what's old in Greece is, is a little different than what's

[00:07:39] old here in the States, right?

[00:07:40] You know, Boston, um, there's some old stuff in Boston, but it's

[00:07:44] nothing compared to, um, England, uh, Italy, Greece, um, Egypt,

[00:07:52] uh, Mesopotamia, Syria, Iraq.

[00:07:55] I mean, all those places got a little bit us honest on history.

[00:07:58] Um, we may have come a little farther, but we've also may have

[00:08:02] fallen backwards a little bit too, not to get political.

[00:08:06] Yeah.

[00:08:07] Well, you're not wrong.

[00:08:09] And yeah, Boston was founded in the 1600s, which seems like so long ago.

[00:08:13] But then you think of the Acropolis and Athens and you get to go tour it

[00:08:18] and you realize, well, that's 2,500 years old and I haven't visited the

[00:08:23] pyramids or anything like that yet, but I can't, and there's a lot of

[00:08:26] dispute around when those were even built in the first place, but, um,

[00:08:31] thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

[00:08:33] It is crazy.

[00:08:34] But anyway, thank you for indulging my curiosity from the book question.

[00:08:39] Well, that's the cool thing about podcasting is that you think you got a plan,

[00:08:44] but then you go this way.

[00:08:46] And, and my role has always been for when I started this was to, for me to

[00:08:50] meet interesting people have, have conversations that provided some value

[00:08:55] and for me to have a good time.

[00:08:57] Um, so we're off to a good start, I think for everybody.

[00:09:01] Um, so now let's answer you answer the question.

[00:09:05] Is there a, is there a book that's important to you that you,

[00:09:08] from an entrepreneurial point of view, and I know there's a little irony here

[00:09:12] with what you do and we're going to get into that, but if you got a, a

[00:09:17] business owner who's had success and is striving for that next level, right?

[00:09:24] Five to 10 million or 10 to 20 million.

[00:09:26] And they've got a good product, but they're just missing some of the

[00:09:29] components and they want to get there.

[00:09:31] So there's something that, uh, that, that you would say you should

[00:09:35] read one or two of these books.

[00:09:37] It's probably 100.

[00:09:38] Well, just like you, I love the foundational old school business books

[00:09:42] like the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, but I'll take it in a different direction.

[00:09:48] One of the best business books that I've ever read came out a couple of years

[00:09:51] ago and that's $100 million offers by Alex Hormozi.

[00:09:55] Now he's recently released a newer book, $100 million leads, but I think

[00:09:59] the offer creation book is, is amazing.

[00:10:02] Alex Hormozi, he's been a guest on our show before.

[00:10:05] And, uh, what I think is special about Alex is that he writes about these

[00:10:09] very complex business subjects at a third to maybe fifth grade reading level.

[00:10:15] And he's able to simplify those very complex ideas, um, by going through

[00:10:22] the book, 15, 16, 17 different revisions, just trying to simplify

[00:10:26] the information because I think the simpler it is, the easier it is to implement.

[00:10:31] And so the first time I went through a hundred million dollar offers, I just

[00:10:36] rearranged some of the offer structures in my own service business and a huge

[00:10:41] boost to revenue almost immediately without offering anything different,

[00:10:45] just changing the way that I offered.

[00:10:48] And it's those little tweaks.

[00:10:49] It's those little 1% improvements that can have a massive, uh, downstream

[00:10:53] effect a couple of years after implementing them.

[00:10:56] And so I'm a really big fan of Alex's work.

[00:10:58] And so I'd recommend that anybody out there take a look at hundred

[00:11:02] million dollar offers and hundred billion dollar leads by Alex Hormozi.

[00:11:05] Yeah, I, I, I, I agree.

[00:11:08] I have, uh, I was at the launch that he did for the leads book.

[00:11:13] Um, I picked up a few extra copies of that, but what he has one concept

[00:11:19] that, um, when you're, if you're going to read the book or you

[00:11:23] gotta listen to the book and I never really thought about this until

[00:11:27] a year or so ago when he, when I heard him say it, listen to the book

[00:11:31] with the book in your hands in front of you, right?

[00:11:34] So you've got two senses, you know, occurring at the same time.

[00:11:37] So more of it lands.

[00:11:39] Um, but I remember walking around the city of Lexington early one morning.

[00:11:45] I was just exercising walking, right?

[00:11:47] That's what I do.

[00:11:48] And I was listening to a hundred million dollar offers and I'm walking

[00:11:52] down the street, making sure I didn't bump into buildings and cars listening

[00:11:56] to it and I could comprehend what he was saying, not the smartest guy in

[00:12:00] the world, but he had broken it down to such simple pieces and simple steps.

[00:12:06] And that's because he's gone through and done all of those things and

[00:12:12] iterated on, on mistakes and cleaned it up and went back and tried it.

[00:12:16] And, um, you know, his idea of a hundred days spending, um, you

[00:12:21] know, the same amount of money every day for a hundred days.

[00:12:23] That's how you learn and test something.

[00:12:26] Um, is a, uh, he's, he's, he's brilliant.

[00:12:29] And people think he's, he's a genius because of what he's done in the last

[00:12:34] couple of years, but it's really what he's done with all those failures

[00:12:37] before that that's led to this.

[00:12:41] Um, so that's, that's another great.

[00:12:43] I know that one never pops into my head, but that's a great, uh,

[00:12:48] that's a great, a great, uh, um, lease there.

[00:12:51] So let's talk, I mean, you're in the book business.

[00:12:54] Um, you're in the book, your podcast business.

[00:12:56] So help the audience understand if you would what Book Thinkers is all about.

[00:13:04] And we can talk a little bit about your podcast because you got some

[00:13:06] pretty, pretty powerful, impressive people that you've worked with.

[00:13:13] So Book Thinkers, my agency helps nonfiction authors promote and market

[00:13:19] their books.

[00:13:20] So we'll help an author once their book is finished, we'll help them get it all

[00:13:24] over social media, we'll help them create short form video content to build

[00:13:27] their platform, we'll help them get booked on podcasts.

[00:13:30] I love helping authors get their books into the hands of the right readers

[00:13:35] because I believe the right book at the right time can change somebody's life.

[00:13:40] Now, as I started to build my community on social media, uh, in by

[00:13:45] providing book recommendations years and years and years ago, uh, before the

[00:13:49] business was really even monetized.

[00:13:51] And I'm happy to tell that story after, uh, I noticed that some of my favorite

[00:13:56] authors, they were reposting my book reviews, they were following my account.

[00:14:00] They were engaging in some way, shape or form.

[00:14:02] And I had a mentor of mine say, Nick, you should start a podcast because

[00:14:07] I bet the people in your audience would tune in there reading these same

[00:14:11] books, they have follow-up questions.

[00:14:13] You have follow-up questions, but you actually have access to these authors.

[00:14:17] So you should go out and interview them.

[00:14:19] Record the conversations, upload them, let your community get involved.

[00:14:24] And I said, okay, let me try that out.

[00:14:26] And, uh, now we've hosted a boatload of interviews and I've had a chance to

[00:14:30] interview some of my all time favorite authors you've referenced a couple of

[00:14:33] them already, including Michael Gerber who wrote the E-Myth Revisited

[00:14:37] and a bunch of other books.

[00:14:38] Uh, we've talked a little bit about Ryan Holiday, who's he's also

[00:14:42] written The Daily Stoic, but a ton of other books and I love working

[00:14:46] with these people, uh, to help them share their message because books have

[00:14:50] helped me become healthier, wealthier, happier, and I know they could do the

[00:14:55] same for just about anybody I come in contact with.

[00:14:57] I think there's a book to solve every single problem that we face as

[00:15:01] human beings.

[00:15:02] And, uh, so that's a little bit about my business, you know, again,

[00:15:05] we're helping authors promote books, but then on the reader side, we

[00:15:08] have a podcast, we have a large social media following where we

[00:15:11] provide book recommendations and it's all centered around that idea that

[00:15:15] the right book at the right time can change somebody's life.

[00:15:18] I mean, how did you get to that?

[00:15:21] I mean, there's, I mean, you're, it's, you're absolutely right.

[00:15:23] You know, books can change people's lives.

[00:15:25] There, there's something out there.

[00:15:27] You're too young to have gone to the library of when you were six

[00:15:34] years old with mom to go check out books and, or look at the books in

[00:15:38] there.

[00:15:38] So how the hell did you get to the books?

[00:15:40] Like what was there?

[00:15:41] What was the beautiful?

[00:15:42] Here's my story.

[00:15:44] I was not much of a reader growing up.

[00:15:47] I was more of the athlete stereotype, right?

[00:15:50] Not really much of the academic.

[00:15:52] So I played football in high school.

[00:15:54] Uh, we went to the Superbowl and Gillette stadium.

[00:15:57] That was a fun story.

[00:15:58] I was captain of the wrestling team and you couldn't pay me to do my homework.

[00:16:02] And that attitude, that behavior continued through most of my college

[00:16:06] experience as well.

[00:16:07] You'd find me the dining hall.

[00:16:09] You'd find me hanging out with my friends, but not really in the

[00:16:11] classroom.

[00:16:12] And I took an internship going into my senior year at a local software

[00:16:16] company, who's a sales internship.

[00:16:20] And my boss at the time, Kyle, he recognized some unfulfilled potential.

[00:16:24] That's a nice way of putting it.

[00:16:26] I was a, I was sort of a know-it-all kind of cocky, arrogant

[00:16:29] 20 year old and he said, listen, man, you're commuting an hour each

[00:16:33] way to this internship over the summer, five days a week.

[00:16:36] That's 10 hours a week in the car.

[00:16:39] He said, listening to the same song, the same playlist, the same radio

[00:16:42] station for the 500th time.

[00:16:44] It's not going to get you closer to where you want to be in life,

[00:16:47] but the right podcast might.

[00:16:49] And so he recommended a couple of shows where a successful host would

[00:16:53] interview a series of successful guests and they would share what they had

[00:16:57] done to become successful.

[00:16:58] And very quickly given the volume of shows that I was consuming, very

[00:17:02] quickly, I realized that so many of these successful people, they were

[00:17:07] giving credit to the books that they had read and that's where the

[00:17:11] success was coming from.

[00:17:12] And I heard the same titles over and over and over again.

[00:17:15] Like we know a lot of the classics, how to win friends and influence

[00:17:18] people rich dad, poor dad, the E-myth revisited seven habits of highly

[00:17:23] effective people thinking grow rich and on and on and on.

[00:17:27] And I just realized like if all of these successful people are doing

[00:17:30] that and I'm not doing that because I'm not it's readings, not cool.

[00:17:35] Like then I'm choosing to live under my potential.

[00:17:37] So I went to my local Barnes and Noble one day, I grabbed about 10 books,

[00:17:42] which was a lot of money for me to spend at the time as a broke college

[00:17:44] kid and the rest is history.

[00:17:46] I've been reading 50 to a hundred books a year ever since.

[00:17:50] The you you've reached out like one of the people that you've interviewed.

[00:17:54] One of the people that you're connected to is Russell Brunson, who

[00:17:58] has a program that's helping us get back to some of those classics

[00:18:04] that we didn't even know were classics.

[00:18:06] There's some authors that he's he's laying out there.

[00:18:08] That's like, I had never heard of, but the, the, the concepts are.

[00:18:14] Clean, simple from a perspective that I had never heard or seen before.

[00:18:21] And, and some of these, these women, like, I don't know how they got

[00:18:25] published given how screwed up the culture was at that point.

[00:18:31] Like they had to do something to fight to get what they wanted.

[00:18:36] Cause even in the 1970s, women couldn't get a loan for a business.

[00:18:40] It's like, so I mean, they were some pretty powerful thinkers.

[00:18:43] So that a manager, somebody from an internship turned you out to a

[00:18:50] podcast, which turned you onto books.

[00:18:52] So it was a twofer, right?

[00:18:55] And it helped you get connected as your job helped you, you know,

[00:19:01] advance your career.

[00:19:02] And probably the biggest piece was you realizing you were

[00:19:05] living under your potential.

[00:19:06] Um, Yep.

[00:19:09] Yep.

[00:19:09] So from there I started, I, I ended up going through my senior year,

[00:19:14] continuing to read great books.

[00:19:16] That's when I first discovered Napoleon Hill and a bunch of these people.

[00:19:20] I graduated and I took a full-time job with that same software company.

[00:19:23] It was a pretty sweet gig.

[00:19:25] Um, and I was reading books on sales and marketing.

[00:19:29] I was applying them to my role and I was experiencing a lot of financial

[00:19:32] success at a young age relative to the people that I was around.

[00:19:37] But despite the success and me giving all the credit to the books

[00:19:41] that I was reading, my friends and my family for the most part, and my

[00:19:45] coworkers, they didn't want to read these books.

[00:19:47] And so I turned to social media and I just started sharing the books

[00:19:51] that I was reading with the hopes of connecting with like-minded people.

[00:19:55] And that's how it started.

[00:19:57] Uh, that's where the original momentum came from.

[00:19:59] I was just like, here's what I'm reading.

[00:20:02] Here are my takeaways.

[00:20:03] That way if somebody asked me about it, I could reference, you know,

[00:20:06] Hey, go check out my Instagram channel.

[00:20:08] Um, and as the audience grew a lot faster than I expected, authors started

[00:20:15] to reach out and they'd say, Hey Nick, I love your book reviews.

[00:20:18] Can I pay you to review my book?

[00:20:21] Like, well sure.

[00:20:22] Why not?

[00:20:24] Getting paid to read sounds like a pretty sweet job.

[00:20:26] Right.

[00:20:26] So that was the first successful form of monetizing my love for reading.

[00:20:31] Cause I had an audience of engaged, you know, followers and they had a

[00:20:35] book that needed to be sold and that's how my agency started, you know?

[00:20:39] And there were a few failures, you know, along that process.

[00:20:43] And, uh, that's, that's how it all happened.

[00:20:46] To me, the people that are, whether it's somebody like

[00:20:50] Cromosy or Brunson, um, or you, you, there's some sort of, there's a

[00:20:57] kernel, there's a passion that is the driver and digging that out is, is,

[00:21:06] is usually the fun part of a conversation.

[00:21:08] But, but having that, that's what drives those, those

[00:21:12] entrepreneurs because it's tough.

[00:21:13] You've screwed things up, you fail.

[00:21:15] You think something's going to be great and it falls apart.

[00:21:18] You waste a bunch of money on, on ads and, and, and a direction

[00:21:21] and you realize it's not wrong.

[00:21:23] But, but that's part of learning and having that drive helps you keep

[00:21:28] going because you have that passion.

[00:21:31] And, you know, some of the people that you're, that you've engaged

[00:21:34] with, I mean, is that, is that common amongst everybody from a

[00:21:38] R.Mosy to a Brunson to a, you know, Bob Smith, who's just, uh,

[00:21:43] you know, wrote a book because he was passionate about some, some

[00:21:47] concept that it can help people.

[00:21:49] I mean, is that, is that a common thread through everybody or is it,

[00:21:52] is it unique?

[00:21:54] Well, I've seen sort of two buckets here.

[00:21:58] One is that somebody has a preexisting passion for something and then they

[00:22:02] go ahead and build a business from it because they are passionate and

[00:22:05] that is the through line that allows them to overcome additional obstacles

[00:22:10] and continue to pursue success.

[00:22:12] So having a preexisting passion and building a business around it,

[00:22:16] that is pretty common.

[00:22:17] I think the other most common path is sort of the inverse, which

[00:22:21] is that somebody doesn't have a preexisting passion, but they do

[00:22:25] have an urge to improve themselves and improve the lives of the

[00:22:28] people around them.

[00:22:29] And so they get really good at something and through that

[00:22:32] consistency, they start to see some success and they build a passion

[00:22:37] as a result of the consistency, which is what happened with me.

[00:22:42] Right.

[00:22:42] I didn't read growing up.

[00:22:44] I wasn't into personal development books, but very quickly I went from

[00:22:48] non-reader to reader because I experienced a lot of success, financial

[00:22:52] success as a result of the sales books that I was reading and

[00:22:55] applying them to my role.

[00:22:56] So I continued to do more and more and more of it.

[00:23:00] And then all of the sudden reading for the sake of reading and

[00:23:03] implementing information and satisfying curiosity became my passion.

[00:23:08] It wasn't preexisting like yes, I might've been really competitive

[00:23:11] and wanted to live a great life, but the passion came from the

[00:23:15] consistency, not the other way around.

[00:23:18] I will say the one major through line that I've seen having worked

[00:23:22] with and interviewed a lot of these people that we're talking about

[00:23:24] is that there is no such thing as an overnight success.

[00:23:28] Every single one of them, all of them have stories that

[00:23:33] we don't really get to hear.

[00:23:34] Now, Hormosi has done a great job at highlighting his, right?

[00:23:37] Sleeping on the gym floor and going broke and all of that, but

[00:23:40] they all have.

[00:23:41] Grant Cardone is in his sixties and in his late twenties, he was in and

[00:23:44] out of rehab for alcohol and that story is more common than I

[00:23:49] think the overnight success is.

[00:23:56] I suppose there are overnight successes, but it always, the thing

[00:23:59] that pops into my mind is somebody who watches a prize fight with

[00:24:04] Mayweather or go back, I'm old so I'd go back to Muhammad Ali,

[00:24:08] Joe Frazier, those guys.

[00:24:10] They weren't overnight successes and they didn't win the millions of dollars

[00:24:16] that they took away because they were in that fight and it lasted 15 minutes or

[00:24:23] three minutes.

[00:24:24] It's all of the work that nobody sees.

[00:24:26] It's all of that running.

[00:24:28] It's all of the ugly stuff that you saw in Rocky with Sylvester

[00:24:34] Sinalone, all of that.

[00:24:35] That's what gets people there and that's what stops people from being

[00:24:39] successful is that lack of discipline.

[00:24:41] So I would say that you being like when you were talking about your

[00:24:46] high school and college days, you were a jock, right?

[00:24:49] In the vernacular that my generation uses is you were that jock that

[00:24:55] just were successful on the athletic field, had skills, got confidence, and

[00:25:03] that was going to carry you through.

[00:25:05] But that, there's discipline there.

[00:25:08] There's consistency there.

[00:25:10] So that's a thread that helped you like when you see, like you read a

[00:25:14] couple of books and you say, oh look, I applied that and I made more sales

[00:25:17] and I applied that.

[00:25:19] So I think that's a piece that is, that you pulled from your youth of

[00:25:25] just being an athlete and being competitive, wanting to get better.

[00:25:33] I'm curious that, you know, I don't need the books, but I'm like the,

[00:25:39] what did you apply?

[00:25:41] Cause if you took an internship in sales and then you took a full-time

[00:25:44] gig in sales and you're selling software, that's not a walk in the park.

[00:25:52] So how did you gain, like how did you learn sales and how did you

[00:25:56] learn that discipline?

[00:25:59] Cause there's discipline within sales to stay with a process and a methodology

[00:26:04] and ask the right questions and go slow enough and be willing to disqualify

[00:26:09] people.

[00:26:10] I'm curious as to how you learned through that.

[00:26:16] Well, it started with repetition.

[00:26:17] It was get my butt in the seat, start dialing for dollars

[00:26:21] and learning the process.

[00:26:23] You know, from there you fail a lot and you become resilient.

[00:26:27] You expect failure as part of the process, and then you have to reflect

[00:26:30] on how can you improve?

[00:26:33] Then you identify opportunities for improvement.

[00:26:35] You go out and educate yourself.

[00:26:37] And because you're constantly going through this process, you have something

[00:26:42] to work from a base of knowledge and understanding.

[00:26:45] And so you apply the sales learnings to your role on a day-to-day basis.

[00:26:49] You try another group of activity.

[00:26:51] You reflect on it.

[00:26:53] You identify additional opportunities for education.

[00:26:56] You go out there and read the books or listen to the podcasts.

[00:26:59] And then that cycle continues and continues and continues.

[00:27:02] And I think that the person who succeeds the fastest fails the most

[00:27:06] and makes the most changes.

[00:27:07] And so prior to that, when I was earlier in college, I did run my own

[00:27:12] house painting business for a couple of years and I had some door-to-door

[00:27:15] sales experience there.

[00:27:17] So I think a lot of my early failures happened in the door-to-door

[00:27:20] sales, then I moved into this phone sales position and I was able to

[00:27:25] bring a lot of value into this business almost on day one, just because I would

[00:27:30] show up, I would dial, I would learn, I'd iterate, I'd change.

[00:27:35] And then I moved very quickly into a position where I started to close

[00:27:39] business and I had my own territory and I was flying all around the country

[00:27:43] making sales presentations.

[00:27:45] And you know, I think that again, I was able to get to that position so

[00:27:50] fast, so young because I was learning from the world's best sales teachers.

[00:27:55] Right?

[00:27:55] They, their books are available for $20 each in a few hours of your time.

[00:28:01] And you just have to be able to delay a little bit of Netflix or a little

[00:28:04] bit of social media, read and apply these books and some magic happens.

[00:28:07] I mean, these names like Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar, like it didn't take

[00:28:13] them a couple of days to learn what they've written about in their books.

[00:28:16] It took them decades.

[00:28:17] And then they put their greatest life lessons into the book and you

[00:28:20] can use it for 20 bucks and then everybody chooses not to.

[00:28:24] So it wasn't rocket science.

[00:28:26] It was just showing up and doing the work and using those books.

[00:28:31] It, it comes down to that's what it comes down to is doing the

[00:28:34] work and being willing to have some failure.

[00:28:38] Um, the, the dialing for dollars concept is scary for a lot of people.

[00:28:44] My first job out of college was I'd make 450 dials a day.

[00:28:51] Um, and I, and I'm in New York city.

[00:28:54] So I've talked to five people and three of those people would hang up on me.

[00:28:59] Right?

[00:28:59] I mean, it was, but did you learn how to get past the gatekeeper?

[00:29:02] You learned how to get value quickly.

[00:29:04] They didn't care.

[00:29:06] Like, you know, if you got a meeting with somebody, it was like,

[00:29:09] what do you want?

[00:29:10] Right.

[00:29:10] They don't even remember it.

[00:29:11] So is all of that be willing to do that and take that, that, that

[00:29:17] learning from the school of hard knocks sometimes, but you were smarter

[00:29:22] than I was because you were reading these books and paying attention to

[00:29:25] these people that didn't come for me till later.

[00:29:28] Um, I was just dumb and kept doing the dialing and got lucky, uh, early.

[00:29:35] Well, I got lucky that my, my boss at the time, Kyle recommended

[00:29:39] the podcasting, which turns into books.

[00:29:41] Uh, cause without that, I would have been just like you.

[00:29:44] Yeah.

[00:29:45] But did you, did you, uh, did Kyle stick with you through that?

[00:29:48] Was that a manager?

[00:29:49] Was that a mentor to you during the time there?

[00:29:51] Yeah.

[00:29:51] Kyle was the director of sales and so it was a small software office,

[00:29:57] you know, in New Hampshire.

[00:29:58] And so I'd see Kyle every day.

[00:30:00] I mean, here's the fun story.

[00:30:02] I'll give, I don't really talk about this very much, but I run

[00:30:06] my house painting business for two summers and there are a handful of

[00:30:10] other students at my university who were also selected to sort of run their own

[00:30:15] business and you get a little bit of sales training, they give you some

[00:30:18] coaching, they take care of liability insurance and workers comp, and then

[00:30:22] you go out there and do the work.

[00:30:23] And I was the lowest performer both summers out of the handful of

[00:30:27] students at the school that ran their own businesses.

[00:30:31] And I realized like I have a lot more to learn in order to be successful.

[00:30:36] I'm the worst performer out of these students.

[00:30:38] Like I'd like to go work for another business.

[00:30:41] So I'm at a school career fair and I'm walking around with one of my friends

[00:30:47] that's a computer programmer, and I'm not, I'm a sales guy, I'm a business guy.

[00:30:52] And he is talking to this software company at their booth and I'm just

[00:30:56] kind of standing off to the side waiting until he's done so we can

[00:31:01] continue walking around and this guy sitting next to me who's also off to

[00:31:06] the side just strikes up a conversation and hey, who are you?

[00:31:09] What experience do you have?

[00:31:11] Why are you at the career fair?

[00:31:12] What are you looking for?

[00:31:13] And at the end of the conversation he goes, just so you know, I actually

[00:31:17] own that company over there and I'm just here to observe like how my

[00:31:20] staff is operating at the booth.

[00:31:23] And he said, we're not here to hire a sales guy, but you're hired.

[00:31:27] How much do you want?

[00:31:28] And I was like, you know, and I just kind of spit out some numbers

[00:31:32] per hour and I was like, I want commission and growth opportunities.

[00:31:35] Like I didn't know what I was talking about.

[00:31:36] I had never worked for anybody before.

[00:31:38] And he's like, yeah, he knew that.

[00:31:41] And he's like, well, you're hired.

[00:31:43] You're going to work for this guy, Kyle.

[00:31:45] He's the director of sales.

[00:31:46] He's going to tell you what to do.

[00:31:48] You'll have some marketing responsibilities with this woman, Karen.

[00:31:51] She's the director of marketing.

[00:31:52] Like just come in later this week, HR will take care of the paperwork

[00:31:56] and you'll start once you, you know, once the summer starts.

[00:31:59] And Kyle wanted nothing to do with me.

[00:32:03] He didn't hire me.

[00:32:04] The owner of the business did.

[00:32:05] He didn't want a sales intern.

[00:32:07] So they gave me my own office, which was really rare because there were like

[00:32:12] dozens of employees that had been there for a long time that still worked

[00:32:15] in cubicles, kind of an open space, but they didn't have any room for me

[00:32:20] in one of those rooms.

[00:32:21] So they just kicked me into a, into my own office.

[00:32:24] So Kyle, you know, he was rough with me in the beginning, which was amazing.

[00:32:29] But he did stick with me and became a mentor of sorts.

[00:32:34] Like if you, if you've ever seen the show suits, sort of like that relationship

[00:32:39] between Harvey and Mike Ross in the beginning, like he's rough, but he's

[00:32:43] teaching because he knew that there was some potential and so that's kind of

[00:32:47] what it was like for me.

[00:32:48] And ultimately upon graduation, I was given a lot more responsibility.

[00:32:52] I became Kyle's sort of partner with a few other people on the team.

[00:32:56] And then ultimately Kyle moved on and I took the director of sales position

[00:33:00] before Book Thinkers, you know, was my full-time thing.

[00:33:04] That's a great story.

[00:33:05] And you know, the funny thing is, is that most people that, that are in sales

[00:33:14] and have had success have a story that's not unlike what you said.

[00:33:18] They're just standing there.

[00:33:20] They end up in a conversation.

[00:33:21] They don't know who they're talking to.

[00:33:24] And then something like that happens, right?

[00:33:26] And it's not necessarily that exact story, but it's weird.

[00:33:30] My daughter is graduating college and she went to, she's into equine management.

[00:33:37] So she, she's doing some social media work for some lady that owns a bunch

[00:33:41] of horses, so she's taking photos.

[00:33:43] So she made it her business to like try to make some, some networking.

[00:33:47] So she went over and she was looking at some saddles and there's a

[00:33:51] gentleman that was, you know, turns out he was a rather high level

[00:33:55] guy with the saddle company.

[00:33:57] And she struck up a conversation and, and she's, he's like, you know, are

[00:34:02] you, when are you graduating?

[00:34:03] What are you looking to do?

[00:34:05] And, you know, she's got, I think she's on her fourth interview with this outfit.

[00:34:11] And it's like, it's a perfect situation for a sales job.

[00:34:15] Um, but, but it's because of the conversation that is initiated

[00:34:22] and you act like an adult and you show who you are because there's no pressure.

[00:34:27] Um, and that's, that makes it easier for a guy that owns a company to like

[00:34:32] realize that you had no idea who he was and what he was doing and you

[00:34:36] were just you and he saw something.

[00:34:38] That's a, that's a great story.

[00:34:40] Um,

[00:34:40] Yeah, if I didn't bump into him, I wouldn't be having this conversation

[00:34:44] because I wouldn't have been introduced to books and I wouldn't have

[00:34:46] interviewed those, those guys like Russell and Michael Gerber.

[00:34:49] And then I wouldn't have written my own book and I wouldn't have been, you

[00:34:52] know, looking for podcast opportunities.

[00:34:55] And so, uh, it all goes back to that day where I decided to

[00:34:58] go to the career fair.

[00:35:00] It really does.

[00:35:01] Yeah.

[00:35:01] It, it didn't, it, it, the, what are the stories called that?

[00:35:06] Um, it's not a shade.

[00:35:07] What's the, what's the amorphous T.

[00:35:09] Yes.

[00:35:10] Thank you.

[00:35:11] The love of one's fate.

[00:35:12] Yeah.

[00:35:12] Yeah.

[00:35:13] It is a, um, it's one of those concepts that, that we, you have to embrace when

[00:35:19] it happens and recognize it.

[00:35:21] I, yeah, I actually got an amorphous T tattoo on my right bicep when I was

[00:35:26] in Rome, uh, to sort of memorialize that whole experience.

[00:35:30] And what's funny about that concept of like a love of one's fate is,

[00:35:34] is basically the Stoic say, like nothing is inherently good or bad, but

[00:35:39] you should view it as good, you know, even the bad stuff, you should view

[00:35:42] it as good.

[00:35:44] And when I went to get that tattoo, I sort of got scammed a little bit.

[00:35:48] You know, it tested my patience quite a bit.

[00:35:50] They said one amount online.

[00:35:52] I show up, they say another amount.

[00:35:55] The guy kind of cracks like a little smile.

[00:35:57] They're talking in Italian.

[00:35:58] I'm like, I should walk out of this room, but I'm like, Oh, I'm being

[00:36:00] tested, like I'm getting a tattoo about viewing this circumstance as

[00:36:04] positive yet I'm reacting negatively to things that maybe I'm just

[00:36:09] perceiving, maybe I'm the one that's wrong and I'm making assumptions here.

[00:36:12] So I got the tattoo and it's, it's just like a funny reminder of that whole concept.

[00:36:18] Those are the little things that keep us on the straight and narrow.

[00:36:20] And that's a, uh, and you, and we need those reminders from time to time.

[00:36:25] Um, and it doesn't always have to be a tattoo, although, although we have,

[00:36:31] I have one of those that reminds me of a, of a certain situation.

[00:36:35] So, um, this was a great conversation.

[00:36:39] I knew, I knew we were going to go some places that I didn't anticipate.

[00:36:44] Um, but could you share quickly what like, there's people out

[00:36:52] there that should write a book.

[00:36:54] There's people out there that have a book in them, just don't realize it.

[00:36:57] Um, how, like when they get the book done, you can help them.

[00:37:01] Or if they're, if they're thinking about doing podcasts, you share

[00:37:05] like who your, who your ideal customer is and how would they self identify?

[00:37:12] My ideal customer has written or is in the process of writing a nonfiction

[00:37:19] business or personal development style book that will be used as a lead

[00:37:24] mechanism, a business card for some type of higher ticket, complementary

[00:37:28] product or service.

[00:37:29] Like it's the first step in Russell's value ladder, right?

[00:37:32] So if that book leads to coaching or consulting or speaking or online

[00:37:37] courses or some type of business, then you're a good fit for me.

[00:37:41] I can really help you generate additional leads for your business by

[00:37:45] helping you promote and market your book more efficiently.

[00:37:48] And if that person is in your audience and they'd like to get in touch with

[00:37:51] me, they can go to book thinkers.com, which I'm sure you'll throw down in the

[00:37:56] show notes and you could set up a discovery call with somebody on our

[00:37:59] team to learn more.

[00:38:01] Awesome.

[00:38:01] Um, let me ask a clarifying question.

[00:38:06] Are you doing the funnels or are you just doing the promotion piece of it?

[00:38:12] We, we specialize in organic traffic that then goes to the funnel.

[00:38:17] So we do have a couple of referral partners that help with the

[00:38:19] funnel building.

[00:38:20] We're not, you know, our ideal client has the funnel built out already.

[00:38:25] We're just driving organic traffic to it and building

[00:38:27] their social media brand.

[00:38:29] Got it.

[00:38:29] So that's helpful.

[00:38:30] Um, so we're going to have, we're going to have this, uh, the, the best

[00:38:34] way to reach you is there to get the go to the website and then book a

[00:38:38] discovery call and it'll, it'll launch from there.

[00:38:42] Um, I definitely encourage people, uh, to go look at the website.

[00:38:48] There's some, there's some cool photos on there.

[00:38:50] And there's some cool, um, like I've never seen that image of

[00:38:53] Michael Gerber before, like he's, he's not as buttoned up as I've

[00:38:57] seen in, in when I've seen him in person.

[00:39:00] I actually have a copy of one of my copies.

[00:39:03] It's not in my pile.

[00:39:05] It's in, uh, it's in the house tucked away, but he signed it, um, just

[00:39:10] cause it's not like out here with all of my other stuff.

[00:39:16] Um, but I have a, that is the book I recommend to people on a regular.

[00:39:22] They haven't read it.

[00:39:22] They got to read it.

[00:39:24] Um, let last question.

[00:39:26] Um, past or present any relationship with cigars?

[00:39:32] Yeah.

[00:39:32] The only time that I was really into cigars was when I ran my

[00:39:36] house painting business in college and I had a couple of guys that worked for

[00:39:40] me that loved to smoke cigars, uh, you know, while they were painting

[00:39:45] houses and so whenever I'd stop on the job site, you know, I'd participate

[00:39:50] and, uh, you know, I've had some, some cool cigar shop experiences as well.

[00:39:56] Um, you know, all over the place as a traveling salesperson in my prior life.

[00:40:01] I'm not something that I do regularly right now, but I definitely have

[00:40:04] fond memories of hanging out with the guys and, you know, up on a ladder,

[00:40:08] trying to smoke a cigar or the paint brush and the other hand, that, you

[00:40:11] know, that was pretty common for us back in the day.

[00:40:14] This, this, this can be a little complicated, uh, um, on certain types

[00:40:18] of days, but the cool thing about a cigar lounge is you never know who

[00:40:22] you're going to walk into run into while you're there.

[00:40:25] And there's always characters in a cigar lock.

[00:40:29] It, and I seek that out when I go someplace, I'm always looking for that.

[00:40:35] Not the one that's the fancy one, but the one that's the local one

[00:40:38] where you get the, you get the neighborhood characters and it's always,

[00:40:42] always fun.

[00:40:44] Um, you know, Nick, I appreciate your time.

[00:40:48] Um, this was, this was a lot of fun.

[00:40:50] Um, we'll, uh, promote the hell out of this to help, help your, your

[00:40:54] business and, um, get the word out.

[00:40:57] Thank you.

[00:40:58] Thank you.