When Humility Meets Influence

You’re asking yourself questions like this character says something I’d never say so why are they saying it? How do they say it? How are they gonna stand when they say that God created me to help other people find their way And to get better there’s a level of confidence that you have to have but overly confident It can be a turn off driven.

It doesn’t feel like you’re even working because you’re doing the stuff that energizes you and even hoofing it Feels so fun and it’s so rewarding. I want to see more people go up the mountain. I’d like to equip people for a living and have that be like the thing I do. You know, we value people and truth and kindness.

I can’t think of a client we’ve ever had or a project we ever did that didn’t have a little bit of that. It’s always present. There’s one thing that all champions have in common. They get shit done. So welcome to the get shit done experience. Well, well, well, we are back at it again. You are in studio with us.

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I hope that you’re finding this to be extremely compelling and interesting content. And we got a good one for you today. My friends, we’ve got a gentleman on that has seen it all. He’s been there. He’s bought the t shirt. He’s helped businesses scale to the next level. He has implemented his fundamentals into a plethora of businesses and help business owners to shine and make their vision come to life.

We’ve talked about a whole bunch before we got on camera, and I can assure you that this is somebody that you’re going to want to listen to and that person that I’m talking about is the CEO and founder. Of the Impact Foundry. His name is Mr. Greg Cox. Welcome to the show. It’s great to be here. Thank you, John, for the warm welcome.

And this, what a cool place you have here. I appreciate it very much. We, uh, we’re always excited when folks come in here. We used to do, uh, virtual podcasts. And part of the premise here was we wanted to create an experience for people. So, um, That has to be in person. So it’s always great. There’s just, it’s just a different exchange when you have people in office.

So I really appreciate you coming out and joining us today. And we took a tour and got to learn a little bit about the company, but now it’s all about you. Oh, so all right. Yes. That’s going to be fun. So, uh, as we talked about the impact foundry is, uh, essentially working with business owners to make their dreams come true within their business, bring their vision of life, essentially, uh, management, consulting, and much more, uh, and before we get into that, let’s, let’s learn a little bit about the man, the myth, the legend.

So tell us a little bit about, uh, I’ve asked this question before. I’m sure you woke up one morning when you were like 10 years old and you said, mom, dad, I think I’m going to start a management consulting firm. Right. That was probably your dream as a youngster. Uh, but in reality, what was the dream? Like, where did you get started?

Tell us a little bit about what your life was like coming up. I, the first thing I think I wanted. To be was a fireman. That answer is so common. I think. And I think that, uh, I wanted to be probably, uh, later on an actor, wanted to be, uh, uh, an actor and, uh, movie star probably, and maybe do a little bit.

Comedy. Okay. You know, kind of in the John Candy kind of way. Uh, it was a theater major, you know, so I did a lot of theater growing up. Oh, you really? Yeah. Get out of town. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, uh, but I, I grew up in a, um, great family. Uh, was fortunate to have two super loving family, uh, parents, uh, uh, a couple dogs, uh, a couple sisters.

Uh, so we had a great time. I got a chance to move all over the place. My dad was with IBM, so he was, okay, isn’t this guy? Yeah. They used to say IBM stood for, I’ve been moved. So, so yeah, so I was in California, uh, moved to Utah, moved to Georgia, moved to Wisconsin, and then right before high school moved to Illinois.

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Peace of mind, powerful innovation. We have a lot in common in that regard, in that my dad, uh, worked for Kraft Foods for 35 years. He got 17 promotions in 35 years. And just about every promotion came with a transfer, a move. So, yeah, I’m the youngest of six kids. We got moved around a lot. Same thing.

Different state after different state. Well, and, and, and, you know, that, you learn a lot from that. Don’t you? Because you unplug, you know, you kind of grieve when you’re leaving. It’s like, Oh, my friends. And, but then you make new friends. A lot of starting over. Yeah. You make new friends, keep the old one silver.

The other’s gold, I think is what the, what it says. my mom told me one time, you’re not losing friends. You’re making more. Yeah. And you know, you don’t really keep in contact with some of, some of the people, although Facebook, I’ve, I’ve kind of gone back in time. There’s probably some people even watching this that I probably haven’t seen for 40 years, but I’ve connected through social media and it’s like, Hey boy, time sure flies, right?

You know, let’s hope you get those messages where that’s right. We’ve gotten that response from people call me from high school after seeing this. They’re like, yeah, so hopefully that works out. Where was your favorite place to live? Oh, you know, I lived in so many different places. I think, I think, uh, Utah was.

Unbelievable. What’s that like? Well, you know, you got mountains, lived in the mountains, you know, went skiing every weekend, uh, you know, fly fishing. Uh, you had like just unbelievable nature, mountains. That was great. Every place had its, had its, uh, had its benefits. Mine was Atlanta. I lived in Atlanta for a while.

Yeah, I lived in Norcross. Really? I live in Dunwoody. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. We went to All Saints Church in Dunwoody. Get out of here. Yeah. All Saints. I played Murphy Candler baseball. All right. Yeah. I know, I know. I remember that. Yeah. And I played Atlanta Colts Pop Warner. Okay. Remember that? Sure. Absolutely.

And I went to the Dunwoody Baptist Church down in Atlanta. And, and Dunwoody high school, my, my, uh, nephew is, is the baseball coach there. That’s awesome. So he’s, he’s actually living where I lived 40 years ago. Yeah. Hey, all you in the Atlanta area, you got it made. Don’t move. It’s a, it’s such a great place.

I mean, year round baseball and golf was, you know, at least, at least 80 percent of the year you could play golf. I absolutely loved it. I was very upset when my parents moved me back to the Chicago area. Very upset the Atlanta Braves were just starting to get good. Oh, yeah, and We move up here and we move back here in I want to say was it 88 So we move up here, and like, every team stinks.

The Bears are dismantling after that 85 run. The Cubs are, are hurting. And I’m watching, you know, TBS. I’m watching the Braves go on, like, this 11 year run of playoff contention. Go to the World Series. And we had front row tickets to the Atlanta Braves. I missed all of that. Dad? Yeah, that is very painful. I actually had like the Atlanta Braves, you know, swag and, you know, the t shirts.

Yeah. So if I actually, when I was in Atlanta, Hank Aaron hit 715. So I got to watch, I watched it on TV, but I did get to actually see Hank Aaron hit home run. That’s amazing. County stadium, which was pretty. See, I caught the Glenn Hubbard, Dale Murphy, Ozzie Virgil, Bruce Benedict days. And then when we left all like Glavin came up and they traded for Maddox, like John Smoltz came off and they just went on this run and that was some run.

It was some raves. Yeah, that’s, that’s like, that’s like the bulls here, which was absolutely, which is probably one of the better things about Illinois was the bulls and the, I am a diehard. I’ve had my, my dad purchased season tickets. At one time for the 49 ERs. Yeah. And we left, and then we were in Atlanta and Utah.

We were still 49 ER fans. But then Atlanta, we had Falcon tickets, and Falcons were unbelievably bad. They were the worst. Tommy Bartkowski, Bartkowski and Tommy Nobu. Yeah. And then. To Wisconsin when the Packers were bad, we got the Packers in that one. Well, it was even though for that Lin, Lin Dickey. Oh no.

Yeah. And saw him break his leg, you know, against the 49ers. And then in high school, I moved. To Illinois, and I have been a Bears diehard Bears fan ever since, and the Bears are my team. We’ve got that in common. 1, 000 percent and they just increased the prices for season tickets by 18 percent in the last two years, and they’ve won a total of seven games.

They want to monetize the Super Bowl run. That’s good. Exactly. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. That’s right. I’m, I’m, uh, Optimistic that they’re going to figure it out, uh, this time around. It’s going to happen. So, mom and dad give you this great lifestyle, two sisters, two dogs, kind of this, this storybook situation.

Were you, were you, um, were you into anything in particular as you were growing up? Were you an athlete? Were you a big reader? Like, what was your thing? Well, in, in high school, I, I threw the shot, put in discus and played football and wrestled. Nice. So I was, I was doing athletic stuff all year round and was in a lot of theater productions, uh, went to Wheaton Academy.

Okay. Uh, which was a phenomenal experience, uh, for me, uh, in. Kind of helping me be the person I wanted to be, uh, both my kids ended up going there too, which was great. And then I went to Taylor University in Indiana. It’s a small Christian school between, uh, Marion and Muncie. And, uh, had a phenomenal educational experience there.

All of that stuff. Shaped me, you know, being a theater major even shaped me for what I would end up doing, you know, it’s so interesting that you say that because I went to a University of St. Thomas for two years. I was supposed to play baseball, but it turned out you had to be good. Oh yeah. So that didn’t last very long.

Small, small little detail. I ended up like shoveling this, the, the outfield I think for the first month. But anyways, um, I went there and I, I decided I was going to take theater because I always want to be a stand up comedian. That’s like my thing. Which by the way, um, when you’re sitting in front of the, the admissions team and your dad’s like, Begging them to let you in because your grades aren’t good enough and they say, what do you want to be with your, when you grow up, what do you want to do with your life?

And you tell them that you want to be a standup comedian. Um, that’s a real effective way to get your father bright red. But, um, what are you going to monetize that? Yeah, exactly. What I found in later years, getting into sales is thank God that I got into theater and then I ended up doing second city and all that stuff.

Like, thank God I did that because You really understand how to keep conversations going. Um, you know, never saying no. Uh, being the yes and, so you continue the conversation. Um, and how to, how to read people and kind of understand where they’re gonna go. Did you feel the same way? Oh, you know, I think that, I think that being in theater, and that’s what I was best at.

Yeah, really. That’s better in theater than football or wrestling or throwing the shot, for sure. Um, but I think, you know, theater, it’s Co ed, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, different every production, you know, you, you create together, but it’s also empathy. You know, if you want to really learn your character, you’re asking yourself questions like, okay, so.

This character says something I’d never say, so why are they saying it? How do they say it? And how are they going to, you know, stand when they say that? Or do they move? Do they move fast? Do they move kind of slow? How do they pick up a cup of coffee or whatever? You know, and you, you know, it, it gave me.

Insight to people and reading plays and, you know, doing a good audition, you know, you, you end up learning a lot about people. And of course, every cast, depending on the show, you know, it’s a little, little different. And you, you end up having some drama, you know, behind the stage too. And, and, uh, that was a phenomenal experience for me.

Now, did you have a shot to do something with that? Like what, what the major was theater in college? I, I looked at it. I, you know, I, I. You know, did a lot of Shakespeare and, and, um, you know, I’d thought about. And I had an opportunity to travel on a bus with a traveling Shakespeare company. Oh, God, that’s Now Ferepalata on nuptial hour draws on a pace, four happy days brings in another moon.

Got to do that in the microphone, sounds kind of Yeah, that’s kind of cool. But, uh, yeah. Um, but, uh, I didn’t want to really live on a bus. Ooh. You know, I didn’t really want to, um Do it for the 13, 000 a year or something. It was like, it was like poverty, you know, poverty pay kind of thing. And so I went into sales.

Okay. So where, where was the, the, the start of the career as it relates to the business world? Well, I, I had a couple of sales jobs during the summer in, in, in high school or, uh, in, in college, really, uh, couple of different jobs that I sold world to light world horizon, lighted globes to world book customers, book, encyclopedia customers on the phone.

That was fun. Well, it’s better that it was on the phone. I can’t imagine you going door to door carrying a bunch of gloves. No, seriously, but I sold a couple of hundred of them. So I figured I was pretty good at that. And I did, I worked at an appliance store out by Fox Valley Mall. Uh, you know, after that, and I was like, and it was on commission.

And like, you got to sell service contracts on boom boxes and stuff. And you’re like, wait a minute. So I make this. But if I sell this, I make that I make five times as much, and if I keep selling, I keep. Okay. And when you get that realization, like at a young age, gears started going, the hunger starts to, to creep in.

Yeah. And so when I, when I graduated from college, um, you know, I went into, uh, copier sales. Oh, okay. Cannon. You know, and, and, uh, and a lot of people over the years when I’ve said, yeah, I went into copier sales, they go, Oh, that’s tough. That’s really tough business. Cutthroat. Yeah. Yeah. I actually loved that business.

Yeah. John. I mean, I, I. Loved selling copiers and started off, you know, in a territory that, you know, there was nothing, we had nothing in there. It was a kind of a weak territory, made it into a really strong territory, got to do all these kind of great things working with Canon. We had these president’s club trips and I got to go to Hawaii and to.

BAMF and to Bermuda and Monte Carlo and London. And so you just jumped out the gate and, and figure it out. Like, what was the, what was the magic to it? Because you’re absolutely right. Like selling copiers is extremely hard to do, but when you get, it’s so lucrative if you get good at it, but it’s very difficult to stay in the game.

A lot of people get burnt out. A lot of people get, can’t handle the rejection. I can’t believe how many people I saw come and go. Oh gosh, I can’t imagine. So there’s, you know, it really does separate. The strong from the weak and the strong survive in that, in that type of a sale. Yeah. I, you know, I was very fortunate, you know, I had, um, yeah, I had a boss, Tim King, man, and.

He like got after me. I mean, he kind of was like convinced. I think that I’d go and, or that, you know, the reps would go and goof off. And so he was like, you know, counting your business card, bit of a micromanager. You had to get your probably on occasion, but I needed, I needed, sometimes micromanaging gets.

A bad name. Well, I changed the term. I call it micro support. Oh, micro support. Well, yeah, you call it, but I, I, I, when I was fresh out of, out of school, I needed, I need some micro support and some micro kicks in the butt, some macro kicks in the butt probably. Now, was that consistent with how you were brought up?

Were your parents? Oh yeah, my dad was probably pretty tough. I mean, he went through the IBM training, so I mean. Yeah, he went through, and so he was, you know, but there’s, it’s one thing when you’re, A lot of times, you know, it dawns on you, you know, like dad’s actually pretty smart guy. He’s actually Isn’t it suck that it dawns too late?

Like this stuff he’s been telling me, it actually, it actually works. Holy cow. And I’ve been like, nah, nah, nah. This is the new way, dad. And he’s like, oh, not so much. But, uh, so I, I, uh I got into it and we had, and we’re, the Bears had just won the Super Bowl, you know, and we, we signed Walter Payton to be our spokesman.

So I got to hang with Walter Payton on a couple different days, like for a full day. Super cool. You know, super cool. I grew up four blocks away from Walter. When he, when we lived in Arlington Heights, he lived in Arlington Heights as well. And, uh, Get out of here. Walter had, um, had a Porsche. He had a limousine.

I mean, he had all these cars, but here’s a really interesting thing, right? So we lived in this little nice middle class neighborhood. This is pre him breaking the rushing record, which is what really that was the thing. That’s when he got the Lamborghini from the bears and all that. Prior to that, you know, he was doing well.

He was investing a lot of his money inside businesses and so on. But when you drove down the street that he lived on, Everybody had, uh, basketball hoops, but the basketball hoops were pre, um, the rims that have the springs on them, so you can, like, bend the rim down and then it pops back up, right? These were just the rims that were, like, the iron and Yeah, the old school.

The old school rims, right? So when you drove down the street leading up to Walter’s house, every single rim on the Block was bent, and the reason they were bent is because when he would drive home from practice, the kids would see him in the neighborhood and say, Walter, Walter, Walter, come play with us.

And he’d stop and play pickup basketball with the kids in the neighborhood. And it was almost like a rite of passage for him to dunk on your rim. So like every rim was bent from Walter doing some sort of dunk and bending the rim. And it was like a rite of passage. If your rim was bent by Walter, that was like the coolest thing ever.

So nobody fixed them. Cause Walter did it. Now, I later told Jared Payton and Connie this at a travel baseball game. I told Connie, I said, Connie, like, I went trick or treating at your house. You clearly won’t remember me. I went trick or treating. Walter always had dum dum lollipops. And he made you shake his hand.

His hand was like, it felt like it was Two yards long, it was like wrapped around your arm. And then we would go down the street and we’d change costumes, then we’d go back. And he’d be like, no, no, no, no, no. I know you feel it. I’ll tell you something, you know, and, and, and he was associated with Canon in Chicago for, oh, 10, 10 of the years that I worked there.

And you’ll appreciate this as someone that’s done promotions and he. Was phenomenal with customers. Oh, yeah. I mean, here, here’s the thing, you know, when you have an event, obviously you’d pay him for a special appearance and, and he would come and sign just all kinds of stuff. And, uh, but the thing that was great, if you got a customer there.

You could be assured that he was going to like, look him in the eye, say something nice, have a nice conversation. We had some other bears that were spokesperson and a couple of cubs, a couple of other athletes I’ve worked with. Let me tell you something, sweetness, everybody would just be in awe and you know, we’d have fun.

I remember he came up to me one time and, and, uh, Uh, you need to tell me my fly was open. He’d do this. I found out through it, but the budget and I’d be like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. And, and one thing he did is he. Would wrap his arms around, come up behind me, wrap his arms around me, and pick me up like I was nothing.

Yeah. And he would like, he would love to, Oh! Alright, so if you’re, if you’re listening to this on Apple or Spotify, Greg is a, is a big dude, right? This guy played football, he threw the disc, and, and so on. So like, he, this is a This is a big dude. So like, this isn’t like picking up a 90 pound weakling. No, this, he was picking up a dude that had some mass to him, right?

Yeah. So, you know, three or four 90 pound weaklings. Yeah. There you go. So, Walter, Walter, man, I mean, what a, what a superior athlete. But you know, what’s, what’s amazing about Walter is he’s more remembered for the person that he is. And the service and the service and it’s your point, looking people in the eye and, and I, and I could tell you from just, you know, brief interactions with Jared, he’s every bit the same, but Connie, man, she like took the time to hear that story.

Just amazing people. So legendary. So, um, so now you’re, you’ve, you’ve got this vibe for the sales thing and you’re figuring it out and you’re getting to interact with people like Walter Payton. And when did it, when did it really click for you? Like, what was the moment where you went, okay. Someone with dad said actually works.

I’ve. Develops on my own style. I’ve got the training. I really feel like I have a knack for this. Like, when did you find your stride? And what was that, what was that moment where maybe you went, you know what, I get this. Well, I think it was probably when I crossed the bridge into leadership. Oh, okay. You know, cause like.

Not every salesperson is meant to head leadership ranks. And, you know, and I’ve seen a couple of people, you know, that got back into sales and leadership wasn’t for them, but I think that teaching people to sell, you know, and going on a call with. A salesperson and trying to shut up, you know, that’s hard.

’cause man, I was, you know, I, I, yeah. , I’d be like, this, this step aside this. Watch me, I’m a closer, you know? You know, and put that coffee down. Yeah. Put that coffee down. Go get me one. Yeah. I’ll show you. I’ll take this down. Yeah. You know, and, and you know, it took me boil, learned the hard way probably on that, you know, because, you know, like.

So many lessons I’ve learned by talking instead of listening, I’ve learned that like the hard way gone down the stairs a number of times over the course of my life when I needed to shut up and listen. But, you know, I think that. Uh, when I got a team together that I was able to, you know, listen to and coach differently and, uh, have the whole team do real well, real well, that was a, that was an important.

I think moment, you know, for me, cause I’m like, I really like, I like selling and I like getting the trophies and sometimes the salespeople would get more awards and, you know, it became pretty lucrative to be good at selling at Canon. But I think being a leader that that’s kind of where, that’s kind of what I thought my path was kind of God created me to.

Help other people find their way and to get better and to, and to, you know, take potential that what wasn’t getting into play. Yeah, you know, and to get that, pull it out, you know, to pull it out of them and to give them confidence, you know, cause you’d have, as you said, a lot of people, you know, they go in the copier industry, they don’t last very long.

You know, however, if you hire well, we got to hire well, hiring well is really important. Um, you know, you’re going to have a bunch of different moments where people are ready to quit. They’re ready to say, screw this. This is, this is abuse. You know, I did this demo and I did it just right and it didn’t work.

It didn’t, you know, and, and, uh, you know, Don’t you love that? I did everything you told me to do. Everything you told me to do. But then you come to find out that they did like 3 percent of what you told them. And they, and they bought the Gestetner. What the heck? You know, and, and, and it, and it, uh, but I think, I think that that.

Um, helping people find their way, you know, um, and I’ve got a chance to work with a lot of different people and, and, you know, some of them went on to do other things really well, but that, that, that was always really rewarding. So that gave you your rise, right? So if you think back, put yourself back in the shoes of that, that Greg at that time, what gave you a bigger rise closing that big deal or helping somebody.

To realize their potential. Well, I think that more and more it became the latter. Yeah, it did. It wasn’t an immediate thing. Yeah, it was kind of like I really, you know, and I curse. I really got a buzz when, you know, they thank me. Yeah. And they were grateful. I mean, a lot of times you get in gratitude, you know, when they.

You know, you know, they may not necessarily high five you, you got to get past that sometimes, especially when you get into consulting and that type of thing. But, but I think that, uh, uh, definitely it was like, I want to have, I want to see more people, you know, go up the mountain. You know, I, I’d like to quit people for a living and have that be like the thing I do, you know, and not have a worry driven.

Yeah, very much, very much purpose driven. And of course, when you’re purpose driven, it doesn’t feel like you’re even working, right? Because you’re doing the stuff that energizes you and even hoofing it feels so fun. And it’s, it’s so. Rewarding and so this is how I ended up eventually leaving Canon. It was a tough day because I had some really great relationships.

I even have. You know, kept in contact with many, many of my Canon colleagues, you know, some great friendships. But it was tough the day I, I said I was leaving because a lot of people like, Oh, I thought you would have been here forever and I went to a company called Dale Carnegie training. Never heard of it.

Just kidding. Yeah. We had a sales Jedi tell us the other day that it’s not, it’s not about how hard you work. It’s about how excited you are to do work. And I think that goes in line with what you were just talking about. It’s like, when you find that purpose, it gives you that rise. You never feel like you’re working.

Yeah. It’s like, how excited can you get to go do that, to go do that huffing? Yeah. Right? To go pull that next door handle. And that really is the difference. Like, if you can’t feel that excitement, you might be doing the wrong thing. Well, and this is, God, that is really true. And, and, You know, and sometimes, uh, people need to stick with it a while before they make that, make that call.

But, you know, I, I think that when you find, when you find your calling, it’s a. It’s an exciting day. So Dale Carnegie calls you, maybe not through a phone, but there’s a calling. You, you like feel like this is a transition. You got to go there. You get all these skills at Canon. We know that the printing printer, uh, and copier industry is, you know, there’s books written on.

The salespeople that have come from that shirt. Um, and some of the best salespeople in the world, um, got their start in that or continue in that, like, just absolutely phenomenal. You’re selling a commodity that a lot of people have, which means you really have to set yourself apart as a human being.

People really have to trust you, believe in you because From one copy machine to the next, from one dealer to the next, from one manufacturer to the next, there’s not a huge separation, new technology comes out, but very quickly, the next manufacturer figures out similar technology. So you might have a first in for a few months and then they’re coming behind you with the next technology.

So really what it comes down to is. Um, the, the person that you’re interacting with, enjoying you, liking you, believing in you, Um, and feeling like you’re doing right by them, service, all those different things. So you get all these attributes, you learn all these skills. Then you go to Carnegie, like, what did you take from that, that you brought to Carnegie, and then what did Carnegie Maybe unravel for you, because now you’re going to a place that essentially is practicing the art of sales expertise for a living, right?

That’s what they’re offering is. So like, what were you taught that transferred well, and what did maybe the Carnegie system unravel and go new? You think you knew? No, this is what you need to know. Yeah. You know, I think, oh, there’s so many things. There’s a lot of things in there. And I went in there. You know, as the leader of the organization in Chicago.

So I, I got, I got to learn a lot fast by people straightening me out and this type of thing. Um, but I think that a couple of things up until that point in my life, I probably. Was pretty self centered, you know, um, me and my and I, and, you know, and, and what I’m going to do and what I’m going to do to this place and stuff, and I’m going to change everything, I’m, I’m, you know, I call it the way I see it, I mean, like, I kind of had, Where do they get a hold of me?

A lot of, yeah, right. That’s like, what’s that from Robocop? I think so. No, no. That’s Joker from, from wait till they get all of me. That’s Joker. It’s Jack Nicholson. That’s good. But, uh, I was kind of thinking, Hey, I’m gonna, um, you know, take the world by storm and I’m going to speak. I’m going to be a motivational speaker.

Yeah. Without the van and down by the Ritter. I’m not going to be living in a nice house. Yeah. You know, and, and, uh, that’s right. Got the, here we go. Jack squat. Okay. All that stuff. Right. And so, uh, I think that, that what I learned at Dale Carnegie, it’s got a couple of really powerful things. First of all, I had, I had, you know, some.

Really good mentoring. Um, a guy named Don Adams taught me an awful lot about just a little less, he took a little bit of my, you know, the kind of the testosterone alpha male, um, kind of leadership style I had. And I had to kind of, uh, back up a little bit. Um, you know, I, I had to see things from the other person’s point of view, you know, to, to empathy, you start to learn and to be, to, to do that business well, and to work with the people that want to be in that business.

Well, you know, you, you have to sometimes do a little bit more listening, uh, listening to others. Understand, and you had to ask questions, you know, and you had to, rather than here’s what you need to do, here’s what it is. Here’s the solution. Chop, chop. I’m on to the next one. Now that you had, it, it, it, it slowed me down and got me to.

Focus on where other people were coming from. And so you had to learn how to, to kind of figure out where they were at and beat them where they were at, which means you had to learn a lot of personalities, right? It like how to, how to adapt to different personalities. Like what was the training there?

Well, you had to, you had to, a lot of that is. Is that, you know, a lot of it is intuition and you know, there are tests you can learn on that kind of thing. Mm-hmm . And how people speak and how they like eq. Yeah. The e the EQ thing. Emotional intelligence, you know, it’s, it’s like how does this person want to be mm-hmm

Communicated with, you know, and there were certain people that I would be kinda like, Hey, I do it, I do it the Greg way. And if they need statistics and they need a bunch of numbers, well yeah, I’m gonna dismiss them, you know, and, uh, guess what? You know, that, that will cost you, right. Or if they’re, you know, kind of soft spoken, you know, you, Anthony Robbins talks about mirroring, you know, you, you, you end up, um, paying attention, paying attention as part of emotional intelligence, paying attention, right.

And, and paying attention, maybe to some things you really didn’t before so that you can be successful, especially when you have a. Team of people that are all wired differently coming to make a decision on a training initiative. Yeah. You got the finance person. You got the sales rah rah guy. You got the person that doesn’t say nothing has a poker face.

You’re not quite sure what the dealio is. You got the new people that are like, yay, this sounds great. This is all new to me. Yeah. Right. And you have like all these different people and you got to align them like a shish kebab. Right. You gotta, you gotta. You know, not that you’re scaring people. Okay. But you know, I was going to say, what’s, what’s for the steel car?

Are you training? No, but, but if, if you have a, if you have a shish kebab and you try to cook it without the skewer, you got the tomato and the mushroom and the meat, and it’s all over the place down in the grill and stuff, that’s not going to work. You got to align, align people and, and. If you’re going to do that, well, you got to pay attention to like different people and, and where they’re coming from.

And, you know, if you’re selling in a, in a, in a, to a group, boy, you know, you don’t want just the former athlete testosterone extroverted people liking you. You got to get, you got to get everybody around it. So I’m a sales lifer, right? Came up in sales somehow ended up in marketing and branding, but. What I have learned is I want to tell you how, how profound what you just said is because I love the, I, the, the visual of the skewer, right?

The line, but there’s all different flavors on that one line. Well, it’s a whole bunch of, yeah, flavors. And if you’re missing one of them, your shish kebab, it’s not the same, right? So think about this in terms of marketing, like a, an advertising agency. And I align this with the car industry. They are brilliant in a minute and 30 second commercial spot.

They hit every personality types, decision impulse. So think about it like the car commercial that showed in the, in the beautiful winding roads of California. And it’s just, it’s absolutely gorgeous. And it’s a fricking model driving the car and they’re with their significant other, who’s also a model ass.

So. You know, a person like me who looks at that, I like, I, I like that impulsive stuff where I’m like, Oh, I can see myself doing that, man. I want to drive in the mountains. And I like to think that my wife is gorgeous sitting next to me in that car driving on that mountain. But if my wife saw that commercial, she would be completely turned off by it because that doesn’t matter to her.

So in that same minute, 30 second commercial, they show the beautiful visuals and the person is talking. The scenery is beautiful. And then it comes on about. The safety measures, all the safety requirements and the fact that it was given this award by J. D. Powers for exceptionalism in manufacturing and safety.

And then at the end of that, The real statistics come in like, hey, if you buy now, if you come down now, um, you’re going to get this percentage off of your down payment. So there’s the impulse of price and then, and then they hit the, Hey, by the way, we have payment options. You could pay better than this lease will agree, we’ll get you this and so on, but make a long story short in a minute and 30 seconds, they essentially hit the analytical.

It’s packed. The director, the driver personality, the, the, the, the creative, they hit them all in a minute and 30 seconds. And that’s kind of what you’re talking about as it relates to understanding how to present this sales training to salespeople that all. Could be successful, but they’re going to have to do the same thing in a different way.

You’re having to hit all those, you’re having to communicate a system, right? But it’s got to hit a different way for each person because their selling style is going to be a little bit different based on their personality. Otherwise they default to what they would want to have done to them. Well, that’s not exactly what you want to do.

You want to do what the other person wants. That’s the platinum rule, not the golden rule. You know, you, you figure out how does this person want to be communicated with and that, to get that. And have that known to you and act upon it. That’s pretty powerful. So what was the function of what you’re doing?

You’ve alluded to the fact that you were speaking. So are you like, you were like lining up an organization’s massive sales team and they’re going to come and hear you. You’re the keynote. Like, how does that model work? Well, it was a little bit of that, but I think that it was a lot of, uh, running a team of consultants, you know, that would go out.

Into the marketplace and try to drum up business. A lot of times they’d bring me, you know, um, along, uh, uh, you know, it’s a TL. Yeah, right. And that’s right. And, uh, turnover, right. Yeah. Yeah. And so takeover. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it depends. In other words, get out of the way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I got this. Yeah. All right.

And so, uh, And so that was part of it. And then a lot of the, what that business model had was classes that would be taught a lot of times in the evening or sometimes during the day where, uh, people would come into those classes. And, you know, for decades, you know, We, we had been teaching classes where people from different companies would come in, meet each other, network, and then take a set curriculum over a several week period.

Um, while I was there, even that there was a little bit of a change where most everybody in a program would be from the same company. And, uh, we would, we would, uh, sell them a leadership program or a sales program to push their. Push their team. It’s all about training, right? Well, a lot of it was about training, although sometimes it was coaching, you know, I got into, especially toward the end, a lot of coaching and consulting where I would be talking to clients about what they ought to do with their business and, you know, their, their talent.

And, you know, and so it started to dawn on me that. I probably, you know, would be better to open up my own practice and be able to kind of build it like I wanted it. So the, the point of entry for you was to figure out the sales game, which led you to figuring out the coaching game all the while, because you’re running the office, you’re starting to figure out the business of the business.

Right, sure. The, you know, the management, how to, how to motivate and inspire people to be more productive, how to measure, track all these different things. What was the hardest part about running that office? Well, there were a lot of things that were hard and sometimes there were things that probably were harder than I thought they were at the time.

Yeah, yeah. You know, um, I think that, uh, you know, I think that, that, One of the things that, that was challenging sometimes is, is that, you know, you had a lot of young people in that business, you know, and that were ready to go, talented, could communicate effectively, had a lot of things, did not necessarily have the experience, you know, did not have.

Wisdom, you know, and wisdom, you got to have experience to have wisdom. Right. And so sometimes you get into, you know, a situation where, you know, I would be talking and, you know, they wanted to talk, you know, and, uh, you know, and it was, so that, that was, that was tough sometimes because what the, what the client needed.

You know, it was something a little different, you know, so the, the younger folks that didn’t have the wisdom yet had a not knew enough to be dangerous, but they were two or three questions away from being found out sometimes. Yeah, sometimes it was a little bit like that, but, but, you know, it was, you know, one of the things that I loved about that business is that it was.

Heavily based on fundamentals, you know, principles, the blocking and tackling right feels and, you know, you get people that would come in and would be enthusiastic and loving on people and, uh, encouraging people, you know, you could do some good, you know, and so. And we did, you know, I was there for 16 years.

Nice. So, we get to a point where, and I’m always curious about this, right? It’s called the get shit done experience for a reason. There’s people who have gone through all types of adversity, ups and downs. They’ve learned along the way. They established that wisdom. All this, all this is leading up to you at some point saying, okay.

I think I have all the tools. I think I have the knowledge, the wisdom, and I think that I have the capability, like the confidence, the self belief, that I could go about this on my own. And if you’re like most people I’ve talked to, You knew, but there still was a battle of like, can I really do this? Am I good enough?

That imposter kind of syndrome that creeps in. Oh yeah. How did you deal with that? Well, I mean, this is, and everybody, everybody’s got that mm-hmm. To a certain extent or their lying, right? I have it right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, but, but it, it, you know, you end up going like, what the, what did I do? You know?

Mm-hmm . You, you end up, um, you know, and I think. That, um, what you do is you just do what you do, you know, you, you end up calling people and, you know, asking to have some conversation with them about their business, they’re sure as heck going to be interested in their business and to optimize it and to get better results, you know, and you go in there and you do the best you can, you know, as a consultant, you know, you certainly don’t want to do any harm.

Um, that’s like the Hippocratic oath, right? You do no harm. Uh, but you, you try to bulb, you know, you have to have, you have to be careful the imposter syndrome because if, if, if you let that, if you let those gremlins that are in your head, you know, talk trash to you, stinking thinking is Zig Ziglar called and I love that, you know, it’ll end up, you know, taken.

Taking the spirit out of you, it’ll, it’ll start the reek of it to start to leak and reek and leak. Yeah. So, so you lose your oomph. Yeah. And, and when you, when you leak that you’re not confident, no, one’s going to hire, you know, so you have to, you know, I always, I always kind of like the, um, you know, phrase like fake it till you make it or to.

You know, to just be bold, you know, um, courage, courage doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid. Okay. It means you’re, you might be a little afraid, but you go anyway, you’re willing to deal with it. You go anyway. You go, you do it. You just go, you jump and you build your wings on the, on your, on the way down.

Steve Harvey says, you know, you, you jump. And you build your wings on the way down. And so I jumped and my wife was also, you know, at Dale Carnegie at the time. So we both left on the same day. Oh man. And, and you two are interesting at a party, right? And yeah, right. And, you know, and she goes about 105 pounds.

So we don’t like share a lot of outfits, but, um, but we both left on the same day and, and, and started this thing called the impact foundry. And so part of it. I was just, uh, you know, um, being, being, knowing that this is what we were supposed to do, having a passion for doing it and doing it our way, you know, doing it our way, you know, that that’s, that’s one of the things that was kind of nice about the impact foundry.

I got to decide. What the way is to the Sinatra music and like, did it my way my way, you know, and, uh, uh, but, you know, the way that we would approach selling the way we approach leadership, you know, we got to think about that and, you know, it, it, it became, you know, that’s, that’s part of how you get intentional, you know, intentional, you spend a lot of time thinking about, um, What do you want your vision here?

You know, you think about, okay, so what do we want to have people thinking when they’ve experienced us? What, what kind of place do we want to have? What do we value? I mean, you know, we value people and talent and, you know, taking people’s, you know, God given, you know, we don’t go and give out the talent. No, God gives it and we’re here just as kind of.

Moulders, clay, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I totally connect with that, with that analogy. And, and so we’re here to make a difference, to help. Heck we’re grain of sand in the scheme of the universe anyway, really. Yeah. Right. And so, but while we’re here, we’re going to get it done. You know, we’re the impact foundry, like it’s, it’s steel and heat and.

Pounding and we’re going to do hard stuff. And we’re going to, um, we’re going to, we’re going to find our team with people and help them find their way through it. IT decision makers, this might sting. Frustrated with IT issues, security threats, and the stress of your technology infrastructure. Your technology should blend seamlessly with your business objectives.

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Oh man. So imagine getting your sales training from an ex Navy SEAL. And did you have to like start at like five o’clock in the morning? Yeah. Like, yeah. And you do pushups in the surf. Yeah. And you were, you were not in the surf, but you, you, we were also done, um, when the machine stopped, you weren’t, there was no clock.

It was when the job was done, you went home. So that might’ve meant nine o’clock and you called Hawaii. That was what it was, but, um, learned a lot and one of, one of the things that he, that he talked about was professional arrogance. That was the, the baseline that we started at, um, and We, we, we, we rolled with that and that was that confidence level, like why would somebody allow you to come in and consult them if you didn’t have that professional arrogance, but there was another factor to that.

I’m really curious of what your thought is on this because. There’s a level of confidence that you have to have, but overly confident can be a turnoff. Sure can. So, how do you balance I found that out the hard way. Yeah, so did I. So, how do you balance confidence and humility? Like, what’s the, what’s the median line?

What’s the center for that? What’s the mindset to be able to portray that confidence, but also not turn somebody off? So, having that level of humility. Well How do you do that? Yeah, I think that

You know, you have to be about your clients, you know, and if you’re about you, that shows up eventually, it may not, it may not show up on the first. Gig, you know, that you have with a client, um, but usually it’ll get sniffed out. It’ll leak, you know, and you know, and so who y’all about, what are you about?

And, and, you know, servant leadership, you know, consulting that has a servant attitude, um, toward it. Um, I mean, that’s, that’s what we want to be. Um, if we’re all about us. It’s not going to end well, no further reading on that. Just read Hamlet or Macbeth or King Lear seriously. And, and, uh, because hubris hubris leadership, you know, and we have some examples in the world of leaders that have a lot of hubris.

You know, you can look around, even watch television. There’s some leaders that have a lot of hubris. And even sometimes a lot of them are really smart and capable, have good policy, but they got, they got hubris, you know? And the problem is with hubris is that you don’t bring as many people with you. Yeah.

You know, that, that’s a, you know, and I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican or whatever, you know, hubris. Is it going to be a turn off to at least 50 percent polarizing? Yeah, right. It’s polarizing. And you either pick, you either pick this side or this side. Yeah. And boy, we certainly have that going on.

I think not only in the country, but in the world. And there’s got to be a better way of doing it. Yeah, I. I’m curious, like, um, I’d love the statement of bringing people with. And I’ve always said, um, and I firmly believe this, you can’t be an expert at anything unless you can teach it. And you really can’t be an effective leader and teacher unless you can bring people with you.

Right. They got to, they got to latch onto it and want to come with you on that journey. What do you think about that? What would you say about that? Well, I think it’s, it’s a hundred percent accurate. I think that, you know, people will support a world that they help create, you know, it doesn’t mean they have to have complete authorship.

I mean, that was one of the things I, I learned at Dale Carnegie was people support a world they help create and, and That means that, uh, I mean, a lot of times in the interest of time, there’s certain leaders that say, you know what, I’m going to just tell everybody what we’re going to do. And I don’t, I know more about this, anybody.

So I’ll, I’ll decide what the plan is. Careful, not on our, certainly not on certain things. And so when we want to bring people with us, you know, sometimes it, you know, and again, Sometimes it’s, it’s a long game kind of thing. You get to know your team, you get to know your team over time and then stuff comes up.

It’s not like everything like, okay, what are we going to do with this? It’s not just a, um, a single event. You have to get to know people and you have to get to know. What their vision is and what they want to do. And then I think when you’re trying to figure out, okay, what to do about a problem. Okay. And you’ve done the homework and you’ve gotten to know them.

You can, you can go around the table. You can, you can share and figure out, okay, so what do you think about this? Which, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Let’s go 90 seconds, no more than 90 seconds apiece. Let’s go around the table. Let’s get a quick survey. I think leaders that do that.

Um, have an unbelievable better chance of getting everybody rolling in the same direction. Yeah. And a lot of times leaders think they’ve saved a bunch of time by saying, you know what? I made a couple of PowerPoint slides. They’re going to tell you how we’re going to do this here. Here’s what they are.

And they read them off and, and people are like, this sucks. Of course, they may not say that during the meeting, but they say it after the meeting. And they say, and the worst part is they say it at the cookout that you’re not invited. Over the beers and you know, whatever. And, and, and so what happens is, is you’ve got, and the leader walks out of that going, I felt that went pretty good, don’t you?

Totally lost the audience. And guess what? You know, this thing, this thing, you’re not going to get everyone rowing. You’re not going to get anyone’s discretionary effort. You’re not your discretionary effort, but, and so if you, if you take the time and you get people’s ideas and you let them, you know, stick the sword in the dragon, so to speak, and you get them to give it, uh, get their input, you know, again, it doesn’t mean that.

You know, all the ideas are going to be accepted, but you let them participate in it and they feel like, okay, I’m a shareholder in this. So two things to that, and I’ve seen this play out in another mentor talked about adoption over compliance. And we built out a brand model that was very much about getting people to, um, to want to, instead of have to.

And it was a lot about an incentive and encouragement and training getting people to see the light and play a part in what that culture was, what that brand stood for. And when you do that, you do see that people, when they have skin in the game, they will fight a little bit harder and they’ll believe a little bit stronger.

Burn the midnight oil, you bet, they’ll bring it. I told, I was, um, I told you about the, the mentor that I have. The best salesperson that I ever came in contact with is a gentleman. My name is Jay Rogers. Jay was one of those guys that Came from brokerages and investment banking and mergers and acquisitions And he was one of these guys that like had built up his million dollar empire lost it Built it up again lost it built it up again.

It’s just He just, he just was unbelievable, but he was the best sales person that I ever interacted with in my life. And at the time when I was interacting with him, I was probably about 27 years old and we were selling business valuations over the phone. On cold calls, right? So we were cold calling small to midsize business owners, you know, 10 million, 15 million companies, um, that maybe didn’t have the second or third generation to transfer this business to, you know, their kids came up in a lifestyle where they got the best education that came up in a lifestyle where they had seen everything and done everything.

Their dad, who owned a trucking company or a, uh, a cartage company or an excavation company, and it built it up, um, likely encouraged them to not go through the pain of the blood, sweat, and tears. Go be a dentist. Go be a doctor. Go be a No, there’s certainly challenges that come with that. But that parent had built an empire and wanted to give their, their child a better thing.

So they didn’t have another person to hand it to. Well, selling a small to midsize business at 15 million dollar company is pretty hard. There’s not a lot of people that are running around that have the ability to buy a company like that, that might be willing to. So the first step to that was to be able to evaluate their company properly.

And so we were selling these valuations, business valuations for anywhere from 27, 000 to 50, 000 over the phone, right? So I was the guy who had to essentially get the person on the phone, create the interest, establish the pain, get the situation and problem out, and then Jay would come in. And sell the impact, need payoff, spin selling, classic.

Yeah. And get them essentially to put a down payment on over the phone. Or pay for it over the phone and then we will go out and do the valuation. So I have watched, I watched Jay execute this. System of selling through all question asking and essentially saying, so, you know, getting all the pain out, repeating the pain and the want and the need back and essentially like pausing that silence, that awkward silence and essentially saying, so let me ask you a question.

This is what you want, this is what you need, this is the end goal. You don’t have this, you don’t have this, you don’t know how to do this. What are you going to do about it? And making the person essentially come to him. So I go to Jay one day and I said, Jay, you’re, you’re, no doubt, you’re the best I’ve ever heard, I’ve ever seen, this is absolutely tremendous, you’re making everyone in the company so much money, I’m learning so much.

I said, Jay, tell me, what is the, what is the key to sales? So he pauses for like three minutes and he’s thinking, he’s thinking, he’s thinking, he’s goes, well, I appreciate the compliment, but to be honest with you, I’ve never been very good at sales. So I’m sitting there 27 years old going this guy that I idolized just told me that he’s not very good at sales and if he’s not very good that I clearly suck and I have no chance and what that and he’s I’m thinking this and then he says I’m not very good at sales because I’ve always been too focused on helping the customer to buy and That clicked with me.

I went okay, so it’s not about what you say It’s what you get them to say, it’s what you get them to, to bring in the way of information and getting them to ask for it. Yeah. And when I learned that, that was a complete game changer. It sounds like that is You were very much running in alignment with Jay of being that steward, salesperson, that steward leader to get people to buy into the idea, to have skin in the game, and to essentially tell you what they wanted, but that they don’t have.

And then you essentially slide in as the answer. Yeah. Well, I think that That that is very wise and my mentor on that was Socrates. Yeah. Okay. Do tell. I didn’t know you were that old. You can find that under Socrates. Socrates, yeah. Just Google Socrates and up it’ll come. But that’s a little bit of a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure line.

But, uh, but I, you know, that’s the Socratic method. You know, is that trying to tell people stuff. Tell, tell, tell, tell, you know, is you ask, and this is, this is why in leadership and selling, which, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, they’re very similar selling and leadership. A lot of leaders say, Oh, well, I never could be a salesperson.

Well, guess what? You’re not going to be able to lead a very big team. Well, if you also sold the bank to give you money, you sold your employees to come work for you. You sold people to pay attention to your brand. So yeah, you’re selling all day. So this is the thing. And, and. I think that the, you know, one of the things is that, you know, salespeople talk less, they need to talk less, you know, they need to listen more and ask questions because if, and if you do that, it’s, it’s a lot, it’s a lot better.

And, and the clients are a lot happier and you solve it together. It becomes a collaborative exercise. Now you got to. You know, you, you, you end up earning your fee by knowing what questions to ask. You know, you’ve heard that story about the, you know, lady that has the furnace guy. You know, come over to fix her furnace in the middle of winter and, you know, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, goes down the basement stairs.

And, you know, couple minutes later, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. There you go. Here’s your bill. And the bill’s for 175 bucks. And the, he says, well, that doesn’t seem very fair. You just went down there. Well, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, seven bucks for the part and the rest of it is knowing what screw to turn.

You know, and so it’s like that’s where you earn your it’s it’s in your know how been there before. I know what questions to ask. That’s that’s where you that’s where your value is is realized. It’s powerful stuff. I think that, uh, it’s it’s interesting. The point that you bring up about, um, The kind of the intellectual property and the know how and I, I’ve always felt like with sales, correct me if I’m wrong, the statements that you make are only to earn the right to ask the questions that you need to ask.

So like. When you make statements there to establish credibility there to showcase that you have the know how, but that’s not where the sale is like you’re not going to talk somebody into something because of how smart you are. It’s very difficult to, to build a lasting career in sales that way, but you need to be powerful enough in the statements that you make that they go, okay, I’m listening.

But then when you flip it on them and you, you earn the right to ask powerful questions of substance. Depth, feeling, emotion, where you get, you know, the want behind the want behind the want. Like, if you stay at the one want, that’s that surface level. You gotta get to the want behind the want behind the want, which is typically an emotional driver.

Um, it’s that thing that they’ve always dreamed of, and this thing is standing in the way of them getting that. If you can get to that, so I’m curious what your thought processes is on, on, like, what are the layers of questions? How deep do you need to go? Yeah, well, I think, I think that, um, even before, you know, Even like before some of the questions, although you, you start to build, build this with effective questioning, it’s, it’s really about trust and trust is, if you think about trust, like a stool, like a three legged stool, okay?

And there’s three legs. Okay. And, and the legs are. Transparency, you got to tell the truth. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta be, um, have integrity. Um, you can’t, you know, exaggerate and you can’t, you know, uh, be being transparent and they’ve got to be transparent to build trust. Second, you have to be vulnerable.

You know, you have to allow them to tell you the truth too. And you have to invite the criticism and you have to. Explore and probe for where it might not be working. Yeah. So transparency, vulnerability, very different things. And then accountability. Those are the three legs accountability being, Hey, do what you said you’re going to do.

Follow through. So those three things have got to be in play and there’s this escalating permission and access that a customer will give you. You know, as you develop trust and credibility, do what you say, you’re going to do, you tell them you speak the truth and you, the trust, trust grows and the trust grows and you get, you get essentially permission and access to then coach them, consult them, say, I got a suggestion for you.

Here’s where it is, but without permission and access, you’re not really there. And so people, a lot of salespeople, what they do is they show up and throw up. That’s not, that’s not a pretty picture, but that’s what it really is, you know, and they’ve skipped a whole bunch of steps and they’re talkers and they’re, you know, they’re closers, you know, and, and, um, you know, they miss.

They, they, they miss a lot, they, they miss, um, a great deal. And so, you know, I think that what’s, what’s important in a lot, a lot of times we have to get to it because it’s, you know, time is of the essence, but I think building, building trust with people and, um, Uh, that’s, that’s, that’s going to be really, that’s going to really be key.

And a lot of times we think we have trust, but we don’t. And that’s because we lose, we lose. And we’re like, what, what, there was someone else in there. And we find out all this stuff, like in the, in the postmortem deal, we lost. We find out all this stuff. We’re like, what they were. Those guys, they didn’t, they, they let us on and well, guess what?

You didn’t have trust. You didn’t have the three legged stool, all three legs and your stool fell over sometime early, probably in that process. I think, uh, I mean, that’s powerful stuff because I think trust, you know, um, trust is really hard to establish quickly. And I think that that’s probably the biggest challenge that people have as a, as a brand, a marketing department or sales, that tip of spear, you establish trust.

Uh, that’s a slow play and it takes patience to do that, which is why it’s so important to have so many touches to be doing so much to educate, to, to inspire, right, to inform, to do all these things. Yeah, I’m really curious what you mean when you say vulnerability, because I think that that is a really sexy word that is being used, um, right now in sales and marketing and branding.

I see it online a lot. I know for me that vulnerability is really powerful from the standpoint of, like, how can I expect somebody to open up and tell me their truth if I’m not willing to let them know what my truth is? I think vulnerability is very powerful as well because we typically in sales come across, um, as perfect.

And I, we talked pre recording. I can’t relate to perfect. I just can’t. Because I’m so imperfect. Because I’m human. Because I’m a God, I’m God’s creation. Um, uh, you know, I, I know that it’s said that you, you know, God creates perfection, but the reality is I think it’s our imperfection that makes us perfect.

That’s what we’re, why we’re all going for that thing. That’s what inspires us to try and To keep building and to learn and to create and to go for that next thing. So I’m really curious when you say vulnerability, what you mean. For me, vulnerability means that I’m going to tell you my truth. And because I tell you my truth, that sets me free.

But it also gives you a somewhat of a permission to feel comfortable to tell me your truth. Yeah, so. I would see transparency is your willing to say your truth. Got it. That’s how it comes. It’s how I really feel. Yeah. Vulnerability. Okay. Is you letting me tell you my truth. Okay. Regarding this, this is where it goes.

It’s like, it’s Trent transparency is, is kind of what you speak. Vulnerability is letting other people speak, even if it’s like what they tell you. Yeah. Hurts a little bit on the first listen, like, Oh, so you’re telling me you don’t really like what I did. You don’t really like my proposal. You thought that I was a little bit assumptive on that or you whatever.

And of course what happens is because people don’t want to hurt our feelings. They don’t want to think, you know, want us to think we’re chopped liver or whatever, you know? And so they will pull back. Hmm. Okay. But I think that what we really need to be able to do, you know, if we’re going to grow and be our best version of ourselves is we’ve got to be vulnerable.

Okay. We have to open up and say, okay, so coach me on this. Okay. Like in a, in a monthly review with that, that a leader has with their direct report, you have to have the, hopefully the person has to be coachable, coachable, coachable. It’s part of vulnerability. I mean, if you’re willing to let somebody else speak to you.

Now, I, I had a couple of coaches that had a whistle and they had the power of making me run wind sprints if I didn’t listen to get you to listen. All right. Right. That’ll get me to listen. Right. Cause I did not like wind spray. Is it weird that we make our salespeople here, do wind sprints in the parking lot?

It’s funny. I think that is, that’s a great, that’s a great tactic. Yeah. You know, but, uh, I think, I think that the vulnerability. Is, you know, and it’s, it’s one of those things that we’re almost taught like, Oh no, you need to be confident. You can’t let them see your weaknesses. But I think that, that having a honest conversations and be willing to receive criticism, even if it’s delivered suckily.

Okay. Cause sometimes you ask, did you just invent a word? Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. But you know what I meant though? Words are meaning, words matter, right? Words are symbols and meanings are in people. I learned that in my communications class. Thanks, Jessica Rousselot. There you go. Yeah. Right. And then, and then, uh, but, but the, the, the, the vulnerability is the ability to let other people speak their truth.

And not, you know, getting all hurt because if we get hurt by that, we’re never going to get it again. Yeah. We’re never going to get it again. Truss is broken. Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s one of those things and the stool falls over, you know? And so, um, you know, I found, you know, and again, I’m not, you know, picking on any generation or whatever, but you know, it’s one of the things that is really powerful is when you get.

Intergenerational conversations that have those three legs where it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s transparency, vulnerability, and accountability going together. It really ends up having a lot of benefits, you know, where if somebody’s thin skinned, doesn’t want to get coached, wants to be given unconditional positive regard.

You know, then guess what, they’re going to fall way short of their potential, you know, and, you know, as a leader, I don’t want to let that happen, you know, as a, as their sales manager, I wouldn’t want that to happen. And so what, you know, this, this is one of the things, and so we talk about that. And sometimes, you know, before we ever need it, we say, okay, so what would vulnerability look like?

What would be vulnerable for you, you know, what would you, what would you share? And sometimes it is a story of, uh, a truth learned the hard way. Yeah. You know, it’s a humbling story where you got humbled. You went down and landed on your ass, you know, and, and, you know. Okay. Learn from it. Yeah, learn from it.

Speaking of learning from something, I’m going to hold this up here. This is the Impact Foundry. This is their leadership principles. And it’s a little, it’s a little book, but it’s packed with a ton of information. And these are the fundamentals and the principles that the Impact Foundry would bring to your team.

And, um, And how they would approach the, the partnership and the relationship. So let’s talk a little bit about point of entry with the impact foundry. First off, is there a type of business that you are, you are looking to work with? Uh, is there a specialty, is it, what’s the ICP, if you will? Yeah, you know, I, I’ve worked with a lot of different companies over my career in the, in the Impact Foundry does the same, but I think companies with people at, well, Adam, wait, that’s one of the things, that’s one of our vertical.

That’s a qualifier. Yeah. It’s a vertical. Vertical. People, people that are imperfect. Yeah. Working together. So no AI owned, AI operated businesses. Yeah. None of that. Okay. And, and so, uh, so, but I think that, you know, from a size range, you know, it’s, it’s, we’ve got all kinds of different sizes, but I, I’d say that most of the organizations we work with, uh, are under 500 people, but we’ve got.

Plenty of them that are in the seven, 8, 000 that we, that we work with. Um, I think that, that, uh, one of the things that, that we take very serious, seriously is the people that work with us had better be ready to do the work. I think that that’s, that’s key. Well, I don’t like to go in and do an initiative that’s being done to somebody.

And so I think it has to have buy in from leadership. You have to have leadership that values. What we do, values doing it the way that we’ve kind of described, you know, in our, uh, with our principles. But I think that, um, it, it’s, it’s, it’s an unusual, um, and wonderful, uh, kind of quality of the business that we’re in, is that it’s, we’re looking for for people that want to improve their results.

Gotta get people around things, gotta get people to, uh, be on the same page and. Uh, want to do something important with that, you know, and, and so, um, you know, we’ve got, we’ve been working with laboratories, you know, that are in science, you know, everyone’s wearing white lab coats. I’ve got people that are making chocolate.

It’s not Oompa Loompas. No. It, there’s like chalk, pretty cool for what it would be. And I asked if there were a balloon, but it’s when I went there, I’ve got, I’ve got people that are in the, uh, variety of different foods. It got, uh, people that are in, uh, manufacturing of all kinds of different things. And the thing they have in common is they have people and they’ve got people issues, you know, that they need to, to figure out and, and, uh, they, they’re looking for, uh, Leadership, they’re looking for, uh, they need to get results to other people.

You know, organizations that need to get results through other people. Yeah. Okay. They’re a great prospect for a first time. And, and, and when they want to improve that organizations are looking to optimize how well people work together. Maybe they, they’re coming off a merger or an acquisition. That’s been great.

Um, we work a lot with family. Businesses, they’re looking to have a succession plan that’s successful. You know, you got to start that earlier than you think sometimes. And you know, we’re big on having family members go through a process of readiness. Yeah. And sometimes that involves, you know, scrubbing urinals and doing some of the stuff at the bottom first.

That’s by. That’s my favorite, a good urinal scrub. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, that’ll set you straight. That’s starting at the bottom. Yeah, right. I get it. I see what you did there. I see what you did there. Yeah. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. By the way, I don’t know if you watched the United States versus Canada. game last time.

Oh, that was some game. Yeah, it ended poorly, but it was a fantastic game. But, uh, was it, how many overtimes did that have? Just one, but yeah, but I mean, uh, the U. S. had what, I don’t know, 15 shots on goal in like, in like the last four minutes of the third period and then in overtime. And Canada, like, Was having trouble getting it on net and then McDavid just put one in the top corner.

But if you notice behind the goal, uh, there’s a company called dude wipes. Shout out to Sean Riley. Okay. Sean Riley went to Illinois state. I know that’s super interesting, dude. Um, his marketing team is absolutely brilliant. Uh, but you know, they, uh, they have this. This fantastic product that is, that is, uh, effective.

Uh, but their marketing is just brilliant. So behind the goal. It’s behind the goal. There is a, um, a saying on there that says, um, it says, uh, protect your crease with, with dude wipes or something like that. That’s, that’s a, that’s catchy. And I just thought that was absolutely brilliant. Um, to, to put that out there and to market the, the company in that way and the amount of views that that received is just absolutely brilliant, right?

That’s great. So, um, you know, I think to myself, like. Uh, a company like that has the, the, the, uh, the vulnerability, if you will, like the, to put something like that out there. And it’s just, it’s absolutely blown up. So I think people are more and more encouraged by that type of communication style and that willingness to go there.

Right? Yeah. And I think that that’s a lot of what you’re, what you’re talking about is that willingness to go there with people to kind of, to, to be ultra creative in that regard and to hit them in that spot. I’m curious, though, for you, like, what is the point of entry? So John Moore’s Enterprises. Has, uh, people working at the company, has desires, has wants, wants to take the company to the next level.

What’s your point of entry? Like, how are you, are you doing an analysis on the company? Like what’s the first step? Like, okay. So we say, all right, we want the impact foundry to come out. We want to onboard. What’s the first step? Well, a lot of it is, is a conversation around, you know, what you’re looking to do and, you know, where you’re at.

And it’s, it’s, it’s always good when you’ve got someone that really owns the pain. Yeah. When you have the owner. The owner is, is a great, or, or the, the leader that has kind of that unilateral, unilateral decision making ability with the project, you really have to have buy in from the leadership. And so usually what we’ll do is we’ll go in and depending on what, I mean, I sent out like before I left here today, I sent out a survey to an, to a group we’re doing a project with, and we’re going to do a survey first.

You know, sometimes you do that. Sometimes you do. Kind of roundtables sometimes it’s, it’s a little bit different, you know, I think that, that what companies that would want to work with the impact foundry would want to do is get together, have a conversation that’s just exploratory. It’s informal, uh, getting to know each other a little bit and finding out.

You know, where is it that we want to create change? Where is it that we want to create impact? Where is, where do we want to point the intentionality ray gun, you know, and we get into a conversation that is really simple and that we’re really good at executing, you know, it’s, it’s about what do you want, what do you want?

Desired future state, tell me about it. And we dig deep on that. What, what is, what does it need to look like? What needs to add, delete, modify? What needs to morph, you know, we get a time machine, you know, whether that’s a, one of the ones with a spinning thing, or it’s a, it’s a DeLorean or a hot tub, you know, depending on either direction, right?

You know, if we were to go in the future, what would we want to hop out and see that we don’t know, you know, and. It starts with a conversation and then we go back kind of to the workshop, right? And, and, and we’re thinking about, okay, what do we got? What would we, how would we solve this? How would we build something that’s, that’s going to get in there and make it different.

Sometimes the due diligence goes a little bit. Longer than that. And there’s some other interviews, some other things that we do to, uh, build an understanding so that when we come up with what we’re going to recommend, we get buy in and we get success. Yeah, you know, and so that’s kind of how we do our work.

It’s a little different every time, you know, and you know, you get into some of the, uh, consulting firms are out there. They’re rigid on this is the way I do. But again, what they’re analyzing is something sometimes a little different than what we do. We’re looking at people stuff, you know? And so, you know, what we really confidently do is have yeah.

Conversations with people and try to get an understanding of it. Sometimes summarizing it back when you get to a discussion paper and, and, and, you know, often I’ll have people say, holy crap, you put that, you put that in three paragraphs, that is exactly, that’s, that’s exactly where we want to. What we want to aim at, Oh my gosh, you know, even, even sometimes the exercise of doing that can help build your credibility is like, how did you, how did you word that in a way that, that, that’s exactly what we do that.

Yeah. Let’s get that. How often do you go in and the ownership tells you, Hey, look, this is what we see is the problem. This is the vision of where we want to be. Here’s the gap in between, right? And obviously the solution to the problem is fixing the gap in between. Yeah. Then you start interviewing employees.

And it’s like, Whoa, what just happened? Um, and in interviewing the employees, You come to find out that the ownership might be the issue. That’s a delicate situation. It’s delicate. Like, how do you handle that? Because now you got to come back and they’re, they’re, I would imagine they’re hopeful. There’s anticipation like, hey, yeah, we told you we thought the sales team was the problem.

We told you we, the marketing wasn’t good. We told you that production managers are dropping the ball. So what did you find? And then you got to go back to them and go, look, your employees actually have a better understanding of what should happen here. And they kind of feel like you’re the bottleneck.

How do you handle that? Well, you remember that’s three legged stool, you know, with transparency, vulnerability and accountability. I mean, I think that that plays a role, you know, but you have to be able to get to the point where you can speak truth. Yeah, you know, you have to, so do you preempt that kindness, you know, it’s, it’s speak truth in kindness.

That’s something that’s a lost art today in business and politics and a bunch of places like framing it, speak the truth in kindness. Right. And so what you, and I, I can’t think of a, of a, uh, client we’ve ever had or, or, uh, a project we ever did that didn’t have a little bit of that. Yeah, it’s always present, you know, and so you have to get people prepped for it.

You have to, you have to, you know, sometimes it’s a question where you say, Hey, John, you know, so we’re going through this, you know, sometimes I, I might discover something that, Oh, you’re not going to like, what would you like me to do with that information? I love that. And they say, I want you to tell me. I want you to believe me instead.

Yeah. Okay. Well, do you want to know what it is first? Right. I mean, this is, this is the thing. It’s like, so, so even a simple question like that. Okay. So I got some stuff. I found some stuff. What do you want me to do with it? You know, 95 percent of the time, probably more than that. I don’t know if I haven’t really tracked it, but, but they’ll say, tell me, tell me.

Now, how do you want me to tell you? Just tell me, what do you want me to text you? No, I want you to just tell me, tell me now, what is it? Well, okay. You know, again, that’s just for effect exaggerated a bit, but, but I think that part of effective consulting is to be able to have the. Guts, okay, to, to tell people what you find and, and, and not to kiss their butts, not to be popular.

That’s not, that’s not my role. The impact is not going to happen if we do a bunch of schmoozy kinds of stuff. And there’s a lot of consultants that will come in and, and sugarcoat it because they stay longer, you know, but, but that’s, that’s not, that’s not what, um, That’s not the arena that we want to be in, you know, we’re, we’re going to want to have, um, I mean, we do, we do feel really strongly about some of the insight that we get just from talking to people and picking up on stuff that you just mentioned, because that is there, you get, you know, and, and even in the one on one interviews that we’ll do sometimes to say, Hmm, so would you say that this is something always You know, uh, most of the time, seldomly or never, you ask a question like that, which, which puts a quantity measure on something that’s somewhat subjective, you have that kind of conversation.

You could people, you see people go, Hmm. Yeah. Oh boy. That’s a, that’s a loaded question. Oh, okay. Is it? Or is it just quantified? Right. Well, you know, and there’ll be some people that hem and haw and, or they’ll say, I don’t want to answer that question. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, I plead the fifth, you know, oh, okay, well, ding, okay.

If you got high EQ and you’re having this conversation, you start to figure out this stuff and, you know, and again, there’s not a book or a slide rule. There’s not a, in the kind of consulting that I do, John, there’s not like some, there’s no magic bullet. It’s, it’s, it’s, it has to do with. With experience and, you know, hopefully some, some ability to recognize patterns.

That I’ve seen before and solutions that have worked before, you know, in piecing it together in a way that feels doable, you know, that, that doesn’t have people feel that they are in a vortex and they’re Yeah. Screwed. Yeah, you could get somebody through that process to the point where they go, well, what’s even the point?

Right? Right? So it’s almost like you got to get them to feel the pain, but in a way where they desire badly to fix it because it’ll expand their, their strengths to the next level. Absolutely critical and it’s got to sound doable. You got to have a solution that sounds reasonable and you’ve got to have one that gets everybody rolling, you know, and because.

You know, one of the things that leaders overlook sometimes is the power of getting everybody in their organization around something. Yeah. They’ve, they’ve been such doers their whole day. I built this place, I’ll do it, you know, and, you know, again, they don’t listen enough. They’re not, they don’t maybe realize what they really have in their organization.

That’s can be harnessed the opportunities that are in the blind spot there for the taking, you know, so, um, and so that’s what. That’s what we do. So it starts with a conversation, starts with a conversation that’s about, you know, where are you at and where do you want to go in the gap in between? Okay. So let me ask you this question.

Always a gap. Yeah. Where are you at? And where do you want to be with impact foundry? Where are we going? What’s the vision? You’ve gotten it to this point. You’re established. You’ve 10 years. Yeah. Brilliant. I mean, what percentage of businesses don’t make it to 10 years? Like 94%, some crazy number, some crazy number.

So congratulations on that. It’s absolutely fantastic. Well, you’re not going to do this the rest of your life. There’s a, there’s a point. Well, where do you, where do you see this coming? Is there a succession plan? Yeah. Um, I think that, that, um, I’m not, I got work yet to do. Cool. That’s fun. You know, I’m, I’m, uh, I’m 62.

Get out of it. I am. I am for you. 62 holding onto it too. Look at you holding onto it. And I, I will probably, uh, uh, work for a while because you know, when. You do what I do. It doesn’t feel like work. And, and, you know, and I just, I just love doing this. And, um, you know, as long as my brain’s working, you know, I, I, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m going to do this.

Do you need to work or you want to work? Well, I think, you know, I, I think that, um, I want to work and, and, uh, I feel called to this. Yeah. There’s something powerful about that when you’re working with a consultant and they don’t necessarily need to work. But they want to, yeah, that, that feels a little different.

I feel it’s a calling, you know, I, I feel that, that, um, that I’ve been given, you know, um, is goofy as I kind of am, you know, uh, but I’ve been given, you know, uh, the ability to see some things in a, in a light that a lot of people won’t see, um, you know, uh, Optimistic, you know, um, you know, I try to be, you know, creative and find a way through it, you know, that, that a lot of times hasn’t been seen and, and, you know, sort of what is Spider Man, what is like through with when you’ve been given some things much as expected to you or something like that, I’m trying to think what it is, I wish I could quote that line anyway, um, what is it?

Uh, with responsive, you know, whatever, it’s pretty much every superhero has it right now that I’m a superhero, but, uh, Hey, you know, you’ve got to, you got to take what you’ve been given and do good. And, um, I teach that to my kids and, you know, I got taught, you know, I stand on the shoulders of giants. It’s like, you know, Sir Isaac Newton said, I stand on the shoulder of giants.

Everybody wants to give me all this credit for inventing gravity or whatever. And I stand on the shoulders of giants. And so, uh, I still have more to pay forward and, and still have work that I. Wanna pursue and do I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, the, uh, website is www.theimpactfoundry.com, the impact foundry.com, just like it sounds.

And by the way, um, you the word foundry in there. Okay. Uh, that’s ’cause they’re, they’re making impact, right? That’s a play on words, baby. I figured this out. Yeah. I thought you were melting stuff. You know, putting it turns out, you know, you’re, uh. You’re melting problems out of businesses and putting them up on the anvil and pounding them with a hammer.

Let’s go make it happen. That’s right. All right, Greg, uh, it’s been absolutely fantastic speaking with you. You’re a gentleman and a scholar and I look forward to seeing you in your next big movie. You know, you could always go back to theater. There’s so still parchment. Who knows? There might be a cool scene for you.

But I always like to wrap up the show with. Something really positive and inspirational. There’s a mantra that you’ve lived by. There’s a way of being that has gotten you to this point. Um, there’s something that has inspired you to get shit done. There’s, there’s that thing, right? That. That, um, that drives you, uh, leave our listeners with some words of inspiration.

So they’ve got something to hang on to here and, and, uh, maybe something that lights them up so they can take that next step in their life. Maybe there’s some fear that they have of making that next big decision. You’ve overcome that in your life and you made the big decision and it’s cashed in, it’s paid off and it’s helping other people to cash in and it’s paid off for them.

What is that thing? I would probably say. That when you’re getting it done, it’s not an accident, it’s not an accident, you know, when, when, when you’re going to accomplish things and have an impact, you know, this intentionality thing, I think is means that it’s by design. It means that you thought about it, you planned it, you did it, elbow grease, sweat.

You pounded it out, you know, and it gets done, you know, and, and especially when it’s the important things that you want to get done, you know, it, it needs to happen by design. It needs to happen by accident and, uh, or it can’t, it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. It happens purposefully, you know, and I think that what I would challenge everybody that’s an earshot of this is to.

You know, sit down and write down what you want to happen. Okay. What is, what is it that you want to get done, you know, and, and then take action on that, take action on that, you know, don’t daydream about it. Don’t. Don’t just keep regretting that you haven’t done it. Do it. Do it. I mean, Nike said it right.

Just do it and do it so that so that you will have impact. And you know, and for me, that means that your life will bear fruit that your time on earth will have, you know, something good. Come of it, but you, you took your giftedness that you got from God above and did something with it, you know, and don’t, you know, sit on the couch and, you know, watch Netflix, go do something.

Everything is by design, right? I mean, we are designed, we are designed to create. And, uh, you know, the, the, the saying that if you’re, if you’re a believer and I am. God is everywhere and God is within you. Um, God was a creator. He wants us to create. So be a creator. Do it by design. I love the idea of manifesting.

I think that if you’re gonna take action, it helps to write it down. It helps to see it. It helps to believe it. It’s a lot easier to be something if you can see yourself being it. Once you see it, you gotta take the action. Amen, brother. Love it. Hey, I wanna remind you, Greg. You got shit done. Absolutely.

Thanks for being on. All right. Thanks for having me, John. Been a pleasure. Cheerio. Take care.

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