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Tanner Smith is a guest on the Free Defining Wisdom Podcast. He talks about his journey as a hustler and how he got into flipping vehicles. He explains that he chose this route because he was interested in fixing things with motors and found it exciting. He also discusses why he dislikes office jobs and prefers being self-employed. He mentions that many people are miserable with their jobs because they lack challenge and motivation. He shares his own experiences of self-doubt and overcoming challenges while being self-employed. Welcome to episode one of Free Defining Wisdom Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel, and today I have a special guest, a buddy of mine. This dude embodies the hustler mindset, and his competitive stamina is off the charts. Without further ado, let's welcome the man, the legend, and an absolute dog, Tanner Smith. Thank you, Daniel. Yeah. Happy to be here, brother. Hey, Tanner. How's it going, man? Going good. Going good. A lot of business going on lately. That's a fact. Yeah, so one of the reasons why I just want to interview you, I want to talk to you about is you're in so many different things, and you literally embody what's called the hustler culture. Were you always like this, or something that you developed over time when you were in high school, college? Definitely in over the time. Definitely was not like this. Didn't have parents like this. I didn't really have ... I don't know. You know how you grow up, and you watch the people around you, and stuff like that. My parents always worked one job, stuck with it forever, and ever, and ever. My mom was a teacher for about 25 years, off and on. My dad was Army for 10, then got into truck driving for six, seven years, and then started a window cleaning business, and he's been doing that 20 plus years. I guess if I had to go way back to where it started, I was really broke, and I think ... Maybe I'll change my answer. It was high school. Junior year of high school, I was looking for ways to make cash, and it actually all started with a go-kart, is how we got going. My buddy had a rusted out 1970-something go-kart sitting in his garage, and I said, hey man, I was like, can I just grab that from you, and try to fix it up? So brought it home, sanded it down, painted it, got the motor running, polished it up, sold it, made like 350 bucks, and that was kind of the beginning, and then I was like, all right. If I can do this with that, then that turned into motorcycles, ATVs, four-wheelers, and then just doing stuff constantly on my own, figuring out problems, kind of just led me into everything else. Was there any reason why you chose that particular route? I mean, you could have made money in so many different other ways, but then you chose to grab things that they were all, or maybe unusable, and trying to fix them, and just basically flip them. Is there any reason why you just chose to do that instead of so many other things? Definitely. That's just where my interest is, especially at that time, if it had a motor on it, it got me excited. So the best part about flipping vehicles is that you get to play with them, too. Everything I had, I've had hundreds of different things, man, but it's always, you get a little pleasure out of it, you have some fun, and it's exciting, and it motivated me. I like buying new parts, installing it, that type of thing, and then there's no better thrill to me than taking something old and crappy, fixing it up, selling it. You get to have fun, the process is fun, and then the returns are good, too, so that's why. Cool, cool. You know, one of the things that I heard from you a while back, a couple of times, was that you would do anything not to get back to an office job, right? Which kind of has a follow-up question, like, why do you think that a lot of people seem to be miserable with their job, with what they're currently doing right now? At least from speaking from my perspective, I don't like the office job, I don't like fixed income, it's just not motivating to me. If there's not a reason for me to work harder, if there's no return on the other end of it, you know, I don't have a desire to, like, if I'm making $50,000 a year and I'm working in an office, the better you get at your job, the more work that you're doing for the same amount of money, right? And then you're hoping for a 1% to 5% raise at the end of the year. I'm definitely a money-hungry human being, you know, as kind of we all are, but I think people get miserable because it is just the same thing. You don't have to challenge yourself. Once you get in a fixed role, especially in an office setting, you're doing the same thing. You're talking to the same people, you're answering the same emails, you're filling out the same POs. It's over and over and over and over again. There's nothing exciting. There's no challenge. But I think people stick with it because of the security. You know, everybody wants to know that they're getting that paycheck every two weeks or at the end of the month, however they get paid. That just doesn't do it for me, man. And I definitely have an authority complex, too. I don't like when somebody else is telling me what to do, especially, you know, if you work at enough places, you start realizing that half the people who are telling you this is right, that's wrong, they don't know what they're talking about anyway. Yeah, I just don't like to be in a box, man, literally and figuratively. I don't want to be in a cubicle. I don't want to be in an office. It's boring, you know. But you did work for a while in an office job. Yeah. How long was that for? How long did you get to work? I guess from 2014, I worked at Circuit of the Americas. I started as an intern, unpaid, then got brought on actually by X Games. They were partnered up with Coda at the time. They hired me when X Games came to town, and then I talked them in to get me a job at the racetrack after that. So that was about four, four and a half years when I left there, right before 2019. Okay. Okay. That's not too bad. See, that's one of the things that I think about when it comes to being either self-employed or just have your own business or being entrepreneurs, right? Yes. When it comes to having a job at an office, you definitely have a ceiling. When you're an entrepreneur, your ceiling is unlimited. But the problem with that is that your floor, I mean, you can be in the red numbers for a while, and it takes, I guess, courage and it takes mental toughness to just overcome those little difficult times, not knowing whether that thing is going to work out at the end of the day. Yeah. In your case, once you got out of that office job, or even on your journey of being your own boss or being a self-employed, did you ever have some sort of low moments, having self-doubts like, oh, shit, this is not working out, or I'm not going to be able to make it? Oh, all the time. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a weekly battle, you know? Because it really, I mean, there's no one else you can blame. You know, there's nobody to fall back on, nothing guaranteed. But yeah, I have those thoughts all the time, especially when I first left the office. You know, I've done pizza delivery, flip bikes, worked at COTA, I even got my loan officer license and tried that for a little while, about three weeks, and I was bored of that after that. But yeah, I think it depends on what do you, I don't want to use the word hate, but what do you hate more? Do you hate sitting in an office and going through that miserable nine-to-five schedule, or do you hate the pressure of literally having to produce to have any sort of income, right? And I think you're never going to know until you try it. So if you've been in the same office job for so long, it is insanely terrifying to leave and say, hey, I'm going to start my own thing. I'm going to, you know, go on essentially 100% commission salary. And whether it was with Camp Gladiator, when I started as a trainer, that's all you. You know, no one's going to give you leads, no one's going to get those leads to sign up. You are managing your own people, and if you don't get a paycheck, it is 100% your fault. But I feel like that's where the magic is at. Because when you get into that position, it's amazing what you can figure out in a short amount of time. And so I feel like a lot of people aren't willing to take that step and just jump away from what's known and what's consistent and what's safe. And yeah, it does suck. I mean, the first year of anything, two years, most businesses aren't profitable until three to five years. So yeah, like the first six months, 12 months, 18 months, you can be in the red a long time. But there's no better feeling than actually making it happen, being successful, finding that success. It's just like weightlifting or you see results on your body, then you're automatically motivated to keep doing more. And then feelings, once you get to that point and things are rolling and you have a system, you have a rhythm, then it's like, all right, let's take this thing to the moon, you know? And how do you do to just overcome those dark moments? Because it's all in our head, honestly. I mean, that's self-doubt, that's like, shit, I should probably just... Just having an office job is the easiest thing, because you just go somewhere, you have Monday to Friday, somebody's telling you what to do, and then after that, you're gone. You don't have to worry about anything else. But having your own business or trying to figure it out on your own brings a set of insecurities and self-doubt. How do you overcome that on a daily or weekly basis? What's the mindset? What's the thought process? Like, hey, you know what? I can do this shit. How's it going? That one's a hard one to explain. I think maybe some people are born with it more than others, but I think that's why I kind of brought up the flipping game in the beginning, because I really had no idea what the hell I was doing when I started. And once you do it once, you're like, okay. You start to realize the only way out of a problem or a situation is through the problem. So I think a lot of people, it's a fear thing. Even people in sales, man, they're scared to reach out to the person that they're selling, and that's how they're making their income, because they're scared to get a no, right? Or they're scared it's going to mess up, or some big problem like this morning. I'll explain to you. I already have an issue. But after a while, you just get used to, okay, here's a problem. If I can't find the solution, I'm going to call somebody that has a solution, or I'm just going to keep Googling it until I figure it out, YouTube University. But I think, like I said, when you don't have a choice, you are the only person responsible for you. You're the only person who's going to put food on the table at the end of the day. I don't even really think about it on that level. There are definitely days where I'm like, oh, I don't know if we can pull this off. I don't know if we can pull it off in this timeframe. But it's just a constant, put your objectives out there. This is what I need to get done, and you just keep hammering away at it. It's amazing. It just kind of figures itself out. So the self-doubt, yeah, there's a lot of late nights where I'm like, God, what am I doing? Putting myself in financially risky situations, man, you just have to do it once. That's what I would tell people. You have to be able to just say, screw it, I'm going to go for it and see what happens. Because, I mean, worst case scenario, it doesn't go right. And you fail, and then, okay, now you know a lot more going to, I mean, it's basic stuff. But the daily battles, I think a lot of it also, for me especially, is I'm, like I said, very financially driven. So I have goals, I have things I want to get to, and in my brain, I cannot physically accept not getting there. So for me, it's an easy decision. Like, yeah, it might suck, I may not think I can do it, but I'm going to freaking go for it. Because that's the only way I'm going to get to where I want to be. And if you don't go for it in the first place, like, yeah, you're never even going to know. So I don't know. I like it. It's exciting. But the mental battles, you just got to stay positive, man. I'm going to attack this, I'm going to try, I'm going to try, I'm going to try, and you'll figure it the heck out, dude. I mean, yeah, it's funny, though, because a lot of people, I mean, when you're describing that self, those self-doubts, and all of that, it just, it reminded me when I decided to launch this project, it's just like, dude, I don't even know exactly if I'm going to make it. And every single day, just like, having self-doubts, like, what are you doing? I mean, what exactly, because I'm not, I mean, if I want to make a living out of this one, or out of this, it's just going to take me a few years. And am I ready to do that? But then I keep thinking to myself, well, if you don't try now, then am I willing to have that pain of regret down the road, just realizing, shit, I never tried that. And I think that a lot of people, they don't fail, I think that they quit early on, because in order for you to be good at something, you first need to be bad at something. Really bad. And the pain of being bad at something, it sucks. I guess it's just like, as I was talking to a friend of mine, and I wanted to have your take on this, let's say you are on ground level, right? And you see your goal on the 20th floor. And whenever you look to the 20th floor, you say, holy shit, I mean, it is overwhelming. It's like, how am I going to go from here to here? So how do you focus on just looking at the next step, instead of looking so much down the road? Because that gets a lot of people, that brings a lot of fear for people, and they get overwhelmed, and they just quit. It's like, well, I don't see myself doing that. How do you keep that in perspective? I think at first, that's the hard part, because before you're into it, everything's daunting. Everything's scary. You have a to-do list or a task list that's a thousand line items long. But after, it's always this, I think for me, it's just the start. Like if you just start, you're going to realize you're going to have so many things going on, so many problems, that soon enough, you're just trying to tackle the daily, and the daily leads to the weekly, leads to the monthly, leads to the annual. And so I think if you just focus on that day or that week specifically, other things just start lining up. And you realize, oh, I did this, and this is what happened, so it's like, all right, now this is a little bit easier, I can move forward with this, and then the progression happens naturally. People focus too much on floor 20, like you said, and they're on one, or even on ground level. I just focus on, okay, now I need to get to one, and then one goes to two, and then maybe you skip a couple, now we're up to six. But it's always a constant, like, focus on the day, focus on the day, focus on the week, focus on the week. And if you can knock those out, you don't have to worry, because you're gonna be so busy doing items one, two, three, four, five, that you're not even thinking about 20. And then two years in, you're like, crap, I'm already almost there, or I'm halfway there. And then, you know how it is, like, one year into something, if you look back at where you were 12 months ago, you're like, oh, I was just ignorant, yeah, like I didn't even know what I was getting myself into. So a lot of times, I feel like people just don't even, or they say they tried, or they say they started, whether it's fitness, whether it's business, whatever, they don't actually give it a legitimate chance. You know, anything that I've ever done, any job that I've worked on my own, I mean, it's gonna take six, seven, eight months of, you're not getting paid. You're wondering, why am I doing this? People are asking you on a regular basis, why are you doing that? Like, that's a waste of time, why don't you go into this? You know, that's guaranteed this. Like I said, you have to focus on the first step first, second step second, and then see where it goes from there. But also, I don't think people need to get so set on, I like to put big goals out there, but I also am flexible with where those goals are gonna take me. So you may have an ideal goal at, you know, 420, but halfway there, you may realize that's not even where you want to go in the first place, you just had it kind of mixed around in your head, it's like, actually, this is where I think I need to be, this is where I think I want to go, so step one first, always step one first, just start, just that's, if I would tell anything to anybody, just start, and give a legitimate two, three, four, five, six month effort, and then reevaluate and see if 420 is still where you want to go. Yeah, because I think people don't give enough time, and when you mentioned fitness, just like any other stuff, you don't see almost any progress within business when you don't make money for the first six months, eight months, even the first couple years, or in the fitness, if you go to, if you go to the gym, twice a week, four times a week, or every single day, you're not gonna see results until after a few months. So if you're trying to see results, it is easy to get, to lose the motivation, right? It's just like, okay, I've been going to the gym for a month, and I don't see any changes in my body, I might as well just quit, and that happens almost in any area of our lives, like good things worth achieving take time, and not seeing those results, it is tough for a lot of people, and if you see almost any graphic, any successful people out there, what they see is that for a long time, it's just kind of like an exponential graph, for a long time, you don't see any results, and then it just goes up like crazy, and I think that yeah, 90% of people don't start, because they're way too much in their head, and I used to be one of them for years, I wouldn't start anything, it's like, okay, I would just already see the problems, I would already see, okay, what if it doesn't work out, and then if it doesn't work out, what's the point, instead of looking, well, instead of looking from a different way, it's like, well, what if it actually works out, and I guess that's a tough part. Yeah. What do they call it? People live in the scarcity mindset. Yeah. They think, oh, man, even whether it's landing a job, or you're talking to a customer, and you got a lead, and you're selling them on this side or the other, it's like, this is my only shot, this is my only person that's even interested in talking to me right now, and it's like, you have to have the mindset of there's always somebody else, there's always a next door to knock on, another person to talk to, another lead to call, whatever it is, there's always going to be more, I mean, we have however many freaking billion people in this world, there is plenty of opportunity, and I think the more you go around the block, and I'm not that old, but we've all heard it, everyone's faking it, man, it's a fake it till you make it world, and if you don't realize that now, if you go work for yourself, you'll really realize it, whether it's in the contracting game, or fitness game, people have no idea what they're doing. We'll try to figure it out. Yeah, and so when you kind of bring everybody back down to earth, and I think a lot of that is what intimidates people not to start, because a lot of times to start something, you have to reach out to other people in the industry, and they don't want to seem stupid, and they don't want to feel like they have a lack of knowledge, and they don't want people to look down on them, and you just got to get over that, like I'm sorry, like there is literally no excuse, like ask questions, ask questions, a lot of times if people do judge you, and they look down on you, and they say, oh, I can't believe this guy's in this industry, he doesn't know this, it's like if you bust it for the next year, a year from now, you're going to be working together, and they're going to be like, holy crap, like this person has come miles and miles and miles from where they were a year ago, so people just got to let their ego go, man, and you got to be okay with looking like the dumbest person in the room. That's key, dude, that's because I'm like that. To me, I would rather figure it out myself rather than ask around, and it's not efficient, and it's not even good, but whether I was at an office job or anywhere else, to me, asking other people has always been hard, asking for help is like, I mean, and the way that you learn and the way that you grow is a lot faster when you rely on other people's experiences, right, because you don't know what you don't know, but then somebody will tell you, hey, don't do it like this, or do it like that, because that person already went through the pain of just experiencing that, and being the dumbest person in the room is tough, I mean, and it's funny, because if you watch any of Brogan's podcasts, he asks the most, I mean, the dumbest questions, because he just wants to learn, and to be comfortable with that is not easy, but as you said, you need to let the ego just ... Also, the people you're asking, people love to talk, and they love to talk about themselves, and they love to talk about what they know, so if you're willing to ask, trust me, somebody will give you their opinion, and if they know more and they've been around it, they're going to help you out. I mean, I've done it both ways, but you realize, especially now working in construction industry, I've spent days trying to solve problems on my own and not even realizing it was one phone call away from one person, or a lot of times, people like to, when they get into a new field, they have a problem, they want to hide it from other people, because they don't want people to see what they did to mess up, or maybe they didn't submit this form. There's an easy solution. It may not be fun. You may have to take some flack, or you may get a slap on the wrist if you're working in an office job, or whatever you're doing. Somebody may correct you, but that's just going to put you in a better position moving forward, and you're not wasting time, and that's the key. If you can figure out how to solve a problem, or bring someone in and have them solve the problem for you, you're going to learn in that process, one, on communication, two, on what the technique is for whatever the problem is, but yeah, people have really got to, you've got to rely on the resources around you, man. I used to work with a lady at Circuit of the Americas, and I can't remember what the book is called, but her dad wrote this book, and it basically was like, you already know all of the people in your life. You know enough people in your life to be successful. It's a pretty popular book. I don't know what the title is, but I remember reading that, and it basically is saying that you have enough resources in your life, no matter who you are, to be successful at whatever you want to do, and I don't think people really think that way. They always think there's some guru, or there's some guy that knows everything, or some gal that knows everything, but in reality, if we all have enough people around us that we know, or they know somebody else, that can get you to where you want to be. And that's a very interesting point that you make there, about we have people around us, but none of them are gurus, and I think people's mistakes are that they, as if they are starting their own careers, whether it's a podcaster, or a business owner, or like a side hustle, and they just look up these accounts on Instagram, or Twitter, or TikTok, and they see the top 1% of performers, and they give you good advice, but good advice, once you're at their level, but that advice is the wrong advice for you when you are just starting, and if I want to put this in a kind of analogy when it comes to running, just like if I'm just trying to run my first mile, and I only follow people who run marathons, then whatever advice they are giving is not going to work for me, and I think that's very important, because a lot of people get frustrated, because the advice that they're following is not working for them, but how can they work? I mean, if you want to try to close sales, and improve your, or just getting more commissions, or anything like that, and you follow these addicts for most, it's like 100 leads, or just 100 million leads, whatever, yeah, but if you don't have the confidence to first talk to a client, or if you have the scarcity mindset of, oh, I can only rely on that person to say no, then it doesn't matter what the other people say, and I think that a lot of people can learn more from you, because you're still at this level where you're not that huge yet, but then you have walked that path, and you're training people like your brother, and some other ones that never were in the business side of things, but now they're just learning how to approach a new customer, how to manage certain problems. Yeah, I mean, it all circles back to where we started, like, you have to start. Experience is the name of the game, and my gosh, man, I, looking back, and this is an example of, we were talking about, you look at yourself, you know, when you started, compared to now, and even if you start something else, kind of like we were talking about, you have your guy on, you know, level 20, you may be amazed that you may not even be in the same building by the time you get done with your first year, like, you're going a totally different direction, but starting something has always led me to something else, you know, delivering pizzas, you know, that, believe it or not, was my first introduction to interacting with strangers, right, on a quote-unquote business level, right, but, you know, you're exchanging with homeowners and customers, and you're collecting money, and also you start dealing with people and their problems, you know, if a pizza's wrong. Sounds, you know, basic, but those were like the building blocks to me going into sales later on when I started. Yeah, when I started doing CG sales, I think that is the number one most beneficial thing I've ever done in my life, because I've sold fitness to thousands of people, like, the amount of conversations that I've had, at this point, I don't have to think about how to sell somebody, it's just me talking to them, right, but if I would have never have taken that first step, you know, we did these sales blitzes, and you and I have talked about this before, but the first one I went to, I was just hoping to get a sale, a random, I'm selling fitness in front of a Starbucks with a table, you know, it's that annoying person, you know, everybody looks the other way, but if you can put yourself in a position like that, and you are forced to talk to people who don't want to talk to you, and you find success in that, for me, that was life-changing. That sales contest, I went from showing up, just hoping that maybe I could get a couple sales, and, you know, put my name out there in the company, because I was brand new to Camp Gladiator, I actually ended up winning the whole thing, so for me, that was like the spark to just get me going into, you know, flipping houses, it was just having the confidence that I could do it, because I didn't even believe it myself when I showed up, but putting myself in that position forced me to perform that performance, I figured out how to do it, carried over, it was like a 10-day sales blitz, and by the end of it, I felt like a new man, I was like, crap, dude, if I can do this, if I can sell somebody on working out in a parking lot in front of a Starbucks, then I can sell anything, right, so, but if I would have never gone, I would never know, and who knows where I'd be. Yeah, I mean, that is the cliche saying, like, be comfortable being uncomfortable, right, and whatever you fear the most, once you overcome that, you realize it wasn't that big of a deal, but then we leave so much in our head, and again, it would have been intimidating for me, because I was in the sales business for, like, a few years ago, and I was miserable, I mean, I would just be sitting in business every single day, like, five, six businesses, but being on, and what I was selling was easier, because we had this floor of the seat of Austin, but being in a parking lot, trying to be that annoying person, that whether you're selling a product, or a service, or something, just, like, do it, I'd rather do something else, but that, but I guess, those few people who actually go through that, then, who are willing to go through that, it's just, as you said, life-changing, and it gives you enough confidence, it gives you enough evidence that you can do bigger things. Yeah. So, in this case, and I think that you have more business knowledge than a lot of, you know, what a lot of colleges give you right now, or just business school, I went to business school, and I think that outside finance, and accounting, that you need to know, in order to be successful, know where the money comes, or where the money goes, what lessons have you learned from a business perspective of doing this, or whether it was your roofing business, CG, or anything like that? Two things. One, communication. Even if you have a bad product, or something goes wrong with whoever you're selling to, the product is bad, the experience is bad, if you can communicate with anybody, and make sure that you are on the same page with whoever your client is, or, you know, even if you're jointly working on a project with someone else, having constant communication, making sure that everything is laid out, that everybody is on the same page, that'll solve 90% of your problems right there. Also, just be a human. I feel like a lot of people, so communication obviously being the most important, but number two is transparency. If, especially now in construction, like, you can't hide things from people. So, if there is a problem, you need to address it in the front end, right? So, if something goes wrong, if, you know, like this morning, you know, we had an issue with the water spout, like, you can't hide that from a homeowner, try to get it fixed, and then, like, you need to be up front, you need to tackle the problem head-on, like, hey, here's what happened, here's how I'm gonna fix it, here's what we're gonna do to take care of you. If you can be transparent, let everybody know what's going on. People just don't trust salesmen, they don't trust somebody, a trainer, because they don't know what is really going on behind the scenes. If you just let people in, and they can see, hey, this is what I'm doing, here's how I got this figure, if you're selling somebody, and there's a price point, if you can break everything down, be transparent, be honest, be humble, that'll alleviate 90% of your problems, because people will feel comfortable moving forward with you. And then, once people feel comfortable with you, their friends hear about it, their family hears about it. Yeah, your business is growing just, you know, organically, but those two things, communication, that's what I see 90% of the time, whether it's been in roofing, whether it's been in fitness, whether it's, you know, in vehicles, people want to know the details, people need to know the details before they feel comfortable moving forward. And I feel like you've talked to salesmen, you've been in sales, half the time, you feel like you don't really know what their angle is, right? Or like, what, you know, what's their commission structure on this, or what, you know, I tell people, like, here's how much I'm making doing this, and you don't always have to do that. But if somebody is worried that you're ripping them off, or they feel like they're getting shafted on the deal, it's like, hey, here are the numbers. This is, this is my time I'm putting into it. This is what I think I deserve. And you tell people that, and they're like, okay, like, what, are they going to disagree with you? And if they do, then maybe you shouldn't be doing business with that person in the first place. It's interesting, because what you said is true. I mean, a lot of people don't trust salespeople. And I know, I know I'm one of them. Anytime somebody wants to sell me something, I'm like, you know what, I'm out of here. I just, it is, it is a very strong barrier of entry if you're trying to be in an industry or business where you need to sell. Which is pretty much every industry. Exactly. I mean, in fact, you need to, to me, sales is one of the most under, is one of those skills that every single person needs in their lives. Because you need to be able to even to sell yourself to get a promotion, or to get a better job, or, or anything, basically. It's just sales. Selling doesn't mean selling a product. Sales means, hey, can you convince the other person that you're worth your time, that you're worth what you're asking? And I think a lot of people, since they have this rejection for salespeople, because they always, most of them seem to have an angle. And they don't care about the customer. They just care about making their commission and move on. And I think what you're saying about not only be human, but be transparent and have that like a type of communication of understanding how, how you need to approach a certain customer, because everyone is different. But some people might be more resistant. And you need to try to get new, a different way of approaching those people and trying to just basically sales. But in your journey as a salesman, what would outside of, of communication, how do you break that, you know, glass wall that customers tend to put in front of you, when you're trying to sell something, even if it's for their own good, even if it's if even if you know that, that that is going to benefit them more than it's going to benefit you, but they don't know it. And they just put a wall thing, you know what, I want to talk about it. I think a lot, you're talking about the glass wall, which is the philosophical glass wall, right? So it's, you can feel it, right? When you talk to somebody, anytime you initiate a conversation, and it's a sales conversation, people immediately, their defenses are up. I think the hardest thing with selling anybody on anything is the fact that the way sales are taught nowadays is very scripty. Okay, right. And it's also people are in this state of despair, because they're so desperate to get a damn sale, that they ramble really, really fast. And they're just trying to lock in the sale, or they try to like we were talking about not being transparent, they try to kind of like, keep the the crappy parts of what's actually going to happen in the process. You know, just like a car salesman would write like the hidden fees and stuff like that. So they try to hide that stuff, which people are really good on picking up on body language and tone and stuff like it. So if you're coming off desperate, you're automatically starting behind the eight ball. So I heard something from a buddy of mine the other day. And I actually really like it. He said, I don't vet my customers, or excuse me, my customers don't vet me, I vet my customers, which I really like that. Because just because you're talking to someone and the potential for business is there, the sale is there, or the idea of even if you're just pitching an idea, doesn't mean that that is the person that you should be doing business with. Right. And I learned that the hard way in the roofing industry, just when you're dealing with insurance and stuff like that, it's there's a specific process you have to follow and homeowners will try to get you to deviate from that and bend it. Right. So if those are the type of people that those things are, those items are being brought up in beginning conversations, you probably shouldn't be doing business with a shady person in the first place. But to go back to your original question, don't be in a desperate mindset. Like you just have to talk to somebody as a human being, the number one thing they want to hear is that they will be taken care of. So you need to establish three things. One, you need to know what their overall end product is, what are they looking for? Two, what are their concerns with the process going through it? So again, being transparent, explaining all of the details, hey, this part might suck this fee, this sucks, but it's on here. And this is why we have to charge it. And then number three, constant communication and reassurance. If you can just assure someone, even if something goes wrong, we will take care of it. We will make it right. And you actually follow through on that. Those three things will put you in a way better spot. But you cannot approach every deal like it is the only and last deal. Like there's 20 lions in a room and there's only one piece of meat on the ground. And that's how a lot of people approach sales. They're just, they're trying to grab it as quick as possible. For me, what seems to work is I don't go on a script. I never sell on a script for any company I've ever sold for. I just talk to people, right? I always let them do 90% of the talking. I ask two or three questions to get them going. And sometimes you have to lead people, you know, if it's a roofing thing and they're kind of on the fence, I start throwing out ideas. Well, maybe, you know, what color would you like? Let's say we do the roof, right? Like what color would you like? Hypothetically. Yeah. So now it's not, are we doing the roof? It's what color are we putting on top of the roof and how would this, you know, aesthetically change the house? And oh, well, if we do that, maybe we need to add gutters and we need to make them. So it's not necessarily skipping to the end. Everybody wants to skip to the close, right? The close should come naturally. So you have to just talk to people, assess their needs, and explain to them transparency, how you are going to help them get to where they want to be. Like, if you can describe the end product and the process, the close is natural. It's like, okay, when do you want us to get started? Not, are you going to go with me? Yes or no. You know, it's just, you lead them casually through conversation. Just don't be desperate. Don't act like this sale is literally going to make or break your rent payment at the end of the month. Because if you're, and even if it is, you better fake that shit. And you know, you, you have to remain calm, confident, collected. And again, the transparency thing and communication, that's 90% of where people mess up when they're trying to sell somebody. Do not force the issue. And if somebody doesn't want to do business with you in that moment, let them take a step back, think about it and follow up with them nicely. Don't give a scripted, Hey, John. Hey, Sally. Hey, Susie. Um, are we, you know, are we still on to do it? Hey, I was thinking about this and I was thinking maybe this is some way I could help you out or what are your major concerns right now, holding you back from moving forward with this project. And then they're going to give you all the information that you need to move forward. And if you listen to people, they're going to tell you what they want, whether it's directly or indirectly, and just being able to explain coherently that you can handle that problem for them is going to take you a lot of those places. Interesting. A couple of things you said there, one was, um, working on the customer psychology, right? When, even when you mentioned, well, hypothetically, what would be the corner of the new roof? Now you're, you're going to, just touching his, um, the customer's emotional self, because the customer's now, instead of looking at, he's trying to sell me something he's imagined his house with a, with a different color proof that he or she wanted it. And, and it almost takes their minds away from, from all these guys trying to sell me something. So I think with a lot of salespeople, they need to work on their psychology, not in a manipulated way, but then in a way that that benefits the customer. And that's, that's genius. Just looking from, from that perspective, I don't think many people do that instead of, well, but look at what the person actually wants. The person might not want to go through the whole deal of a new roof, but if you offer to change the colors, it could be, that could be the motivation that that person needs in order to move forward. And another thing was about, which happened to me when I used to be in sales, like what, I don't know who said this, or I just, I read it somewhere and that's for me for not knowing, but somebody said, when, when, when a customer or, or a potential customer says, no, it just means not yet. Yeah. Right. I mean, it doesn't have to be, okay, no, I'll never, I mean, you can convince that person a week from now, a month from now, a year, you don't even know, right? The fact that the person said no now doesn't mean that that person's going to say yes. Yeah. Later on, when it comes to the scarcity mindset, it's funny because that's what I'm seeing a lot lately because it could translate from sales to even the dating world. A lot of people just feel like, oh, if that person is petitioning to me, then I need to just, I mean, I won't find anybody else. And then people get into the scarcity mindset, just like, I have to like, dude, you're basically ruining it by, by just seem desperate. And it's not that you're desperate, but you feel that you're not going to have another chance. You're not giving yourself enough credit in a way that you, if you could do that with one person, then you can do it with other people as well. People, again, it goes back to just starting because if you like, when I got into this roofing game earlier this year, dude, I was out knocking on people's doors, going door to door on weekends, you know, like I put in months of constant selling, constant selling, and I'm selling a company that's brand new and essentially untested, right. And didn't even have a website at the time. So that's a hard sell, right. And I knew it was a hard sell going into it, but given my past experience, I knew that, you know, we could make it happen. I could make it happen. It's just a constant push. You have, you have to have a constant push. It can't be, of course, you're going to have a scarcity mindset if you're not willing to put in enough time, because then, yeah, if this is your only lead, it's probably because you aren't talking to enough people and you're not giving it the real chance that it needs to be successful. If I don't knock on a hundred doors in a day and I'm out door knocking, that is my job that day, like I have not done my job. So how can I expect to get results? And, but that comes through time, man. Like people, you have to go out, like we were talking about in the beginning, you have to go out and suck. Like you really do. Like you have to, my brother's a good example. Like he'd never sold professionally. He'd never sold for a company. I mean, he knocked doors for, he doesn't have a network, you know, not a great one in Austin. He knocked doors for three months and never got a paycheck, you know, that's hard. And you have people slamming the door in your face. People ask you to get off their property. They tell you the 27, you're the 27th roofer that's knocked on my door today. I love that. I hope somebody says that to me because then I get to explain to them why I'm better, right. And what I'm going to do for them. And I go, like I said, the script thing, you don't, hi, I'm so-and-so. I work for so-and-so's roofing company. We are offering like, nobody wants that crap, dude. People like to talk to a human being. Yeah. They, they want a human being. They want you to be there and present, not if you're so worried about, and again, that's where the repetition thing comes in. That's why I'm saying you have to go out and suck because after a while, you're not thinking about the sales process. If you're thinking about the sales process, you're not going to close the sale. If you're having a conversation with someone, you know, your material front, back, left, sideways, forward and back, or at least you can make it sound like you do. That's going to get you in the right spot because now instead of thinking, okay, what do I need to say? If the homeowner asked that question, it flows, right. And it's calm and you seem assertive, but not overbearing. You seem confident, right? So I know that I can handle this problem for you and here's how I'm going to do it. And you're not going to ever get there unless you go out and freaking do it, man. Yeah. And then, cause I guess if you're not relaxed, then you're just, if you're thinking too much on the self pitch, then you don't, you're not going to be relaxed enough to understand the other person needs or whatever. And then you're just going to ruin for yourself, I guess, in that sense. I think silence is a key thing that people avoid, right? A lot of times, I love how this has gone like almost a hundred percent sales, but I love this stuff. People need to understand that when you're talking to a homeowner, you need to give them time to think and process. And also asking an open-ended question and just being comfortable with sitting there for 10 seconds while I think about it and ask them a hard question, especially selling fitness. I would love to say, okay, just as an example, I meet somebody selling at an HEB. Well, I've tried everything. List me five things that you've tried in the last year, right? And maybe they can, right? Okay. Now, how long did you work on this? How long did you work on that, that, that, and that? If they start breaking that down to you, they're just giving you ammunition, man. Same as in the roofing game, you know. Well, what did you not like about your last roof experience, right? Like, what was the contractor like? What were things you would like to improve on? Boom, dude, they're just giving you the ammo. So, but you have to ask those questions, sit back, don't say a word, especially on the close. This is important. When you ask somebody, do we have a deal? And they sit there and they don't answer you right away. Most people are squirming in their shoes because they're just, you know, the anticipation is killing them. Is he going to say yes? Is he going to say no? They're scared. That's really what it is. But if you can stand there and look somebody in the eye and say, do we have a deal or do we not? They usually tuck themselves out of the deal. Yeah. And then if you can sit there and be quiet, now it's on the homeowner. You have no pressure. If they're going to say yes, or they're going to say no. If they say no, you redirect and you keep going. Like you said, it's not, it's a no right now, but maybe, and you may have five conversations with the same person in one sales call, but eventually they're going to come around. If you, like I said, if you can be transparent and you can explain things thoroughly, professionally, they'll come back around. And, but you also have to be confident in what you're selling. If you don't have something good, if you're selling a bad product, you shouldn't be selling a bad product. If you're selling a bad experience, you shouldn't be selling a bad experience. So you got to put yourself in the right place to make sure that, you know, you even have a chance to have success in the first place, but don't be scared to be quiet. Ask a question, let them answer. Yeah. That's definitely a good one. And for, for a closing question, I would like to know, what's the best advice that you have ever given? Ever given or ever received? Received. I'm sorry. That's a tough one. Best advice I've ever received? Or, yeah, or, or one of the, or, or, or, or a piece of advice that really stuck with you. And you know why? I'm going to kind of sum it up in a conversation actually. So I had a, my grandpa, which I kind of think exactly how he worded this. My grandpa had a Lewy body dementia, which is like protein deposits develop in the brain. I think it's similar to what Robin Williams had his whole life. He worked as a linesman in Nebraska, worked the same job for 40 years, got his retirement, saved every penny he ever had. So he could have this comfortable, relaxed, you know, life at the end of his, or at the beginning of his retirement, that was the plan. So I think he retired and was retired for five years when he found out that, you know, things weren't looking so good. So he had about a year to live at this point. And this guy was a penny pincher, man. When I talk about beyond frugal, I mean, this guy would wax his lawnmower, like, this is the type of guy we're talking about. And my whole life, it was save every penny you ever had. Don't go on that, that trip, that vacation, you know, don't do this, don't do that. You have to save, you have to save, it's the only way you're going to be comfortable within your life. That's how he lived 60 years of his life. And then come to find out, now he has months to live. So I had a conversation with him, and he ended up passing about three months after that. But he kind of broke it down into everything that he had been telling me, he didn't believe in anymore, right? You know, he's like, you got to live your life now, right? So I think what I took from that is, especially when it comes to sales or business, or trying to start a business, the end of the day, you're going to die. So why the heck not, dude? You know, why not go for it? That was kind of what he told me. And same thing with, you know, the frugal part of it is like, a lot of times people don't spend money on things that they want to do or items that they want, because they're scared they may not get more. That's again, it's a scarcity mindset. If you have the willingness to hustle, you can buy what you want to buy. But you just have to be willing to put forth equal and effort or equal effort and work on the other side of it to afford it. And also, it's like, if you go on that trip, it's like, now I want to go on a trip or who knows, you might even meet somebody on that trip that you weren't supposed to take. And now it's leading you into other things. So I think people live in their box, like we talked about the circle back to the beginning, they want the safe, they want the comfortable, they want the predictable. And that was how he lived his life. And he told me, he's like, if I had any opportunity to go back and switch that up and live thoroughly, and you know, every day is an opportunity, essentially, it sounds super cliche. But if you don't, if you don't go for it, you're going to be like him. And you're going to wonder, what would my life have been like, had I just done this differently or done that differently or not been so scared of what the future is. And that was his thing. He was scared of what the future brought, and he wanted to be secure. You're never secure. So I think what I took for it or took from our conversation was, you really, you don't know, like, you don't know, you could die tomorrow, you could die next week, you died three years from now, but you might as well just go at it with 100%. Yeah, like it's, you have to try. I think everybody is so scared of effort and trying. And I think nowadays, with where social media and stuff like that, and I hate to even get into that, but people are scared to even tell their friends, their family, their other co workers, hey, I started this podcast, right? What is everybody gonna say? Dude, that's not gonna work. All right, like that, that you're gonna have to put in years. So what? Yeah, like, why not? Like, I would rather be doing this creating something on my own, like, you're gonna be more proud of this in four years, than you would ever be working for somebody else. Totally, no matter where it's at. Yeah. And you're gonna know so many more things. And you're gonna have a lot more experience, you're going to talk to a lot of people who are going to be great connections. So I feel like, as far as advice goes, it was live your life the way you want to live it. This is essentially what my grandpa told me. And just stop worrying about the future. I have a bad habit of doing it. I still do that. But go for it. Like that, that would be my advice, people start something, go for it, do it. And if it sucks, then do something else. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely. Don't get trapped. Yeah, like, I feel like a lot of people are trapped. And I mean, look around, talk, talk to somebody and see if they like their job. Yeah, most likely. Yeah, well, I mean, it was a pleasure having you here. Where can people find you? Because I know that you have your own business. If they want to do like a roofing. Oh, top job construction group, LLC. I'll add that one. I'll add the website on your Instagram account on the show notes. And yeah, I mean, it was nice having you do it. All right. Thank you, Mr. Daniel. Appreciate it.
