Being a lifelong learner is one character every successful leader must possess. By understanding the lessons of your past, applying them in the present, and having the motivation to learn more in the future, nothing can stop you from growing and improving. Dr. Tracey Jones talks about how leaders can adopt this mindset with entrepreneur, author, and horse enthusiast, Gerry Savage. Together, they share tips on how to learn constantly from your past mistakes and experiences. Gerry also discusses the importance of setting work boundaries to avoid weariness, valuing connections with your team when making decisions, and how a 1000-pound animal can drive home a message of motivation.
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Gerry Savage – Leaders On Leadership
Our guest is Gerry Savage. Gerry began his sales career a few decades ago after serving on active-duty military as a United States Marine. He entered the field of orthopedic total joint replacement where he has decades of experience in orthopedic sales. He's also an entrepreneur, an author and a horse enthusiast. You're going to love to know what Gerry has to say about paying the price of leadership.
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In 1991, Gerry entered the field of total joint replacement winning five President’s Club Awards with Zimmer Orthopedics between 1995 and 2003. Gerry went on to become a distributor for Biomet Orthopedics, and then served as the Regional Director for Conformis and East Regional Vice-President from MicroPort Orthopedics. Gerry is the Vice President of Sales for Maxx Orthopedics US. He received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Business Administration from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania where he’s also an adjunct professor.
I want to talk also about Gerry because he is quite entrepreneurial. When not traveling or pursuing the next opportunity to grow the business, Gerry looks forward to spending time in Maine, and his family and friends writing with his trusted Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Brady by his side or at the barn riding horses. We're going to hear more about his work with horses and leadership. He has competed in the hunter ring over fences as an equestrian throughout Central Pennsylvania, where he has lived for the last several years with his family. He's our neighbor in Central PA. Gerry, it's wonderful to have you on the show.
Tracey, I'm excited to be here.
You’ve got a life that’s tremendous. You've got the price of leadership. You know this guy is tremendous. Thanks for taking the time out to talk. You knew my father's work. He wrote a speech called the Price of Leadership. Here on the show where we talk to leaders, we talk about a very pragmatic approach to leadership. There's theory, but there's a lot of experience out there. My father said that there are four things that you have to be doing to pay the price to be a leader. Otherwise, you're calling yourself a leader, but you may not truly be engaging in the active leadership, which is very different than being a leader. The first one he talked about was loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top. Could you unpack for us what loneliness has meant to you? You had a phenomenal career. Now you have your writing, your side business, you're a vice president of sales in this company, and you work with horses. You don't sound like a lonely guy, but I'm sure there have been times in your leadership journey where you have felt lonely.
Lifelong Learner: If you want to make that transition from a sales leader to somebody who's managing people, you have to be a lifelong learner.
I started out when I get out of the Marine Corps in sales. My dad was an orthopedic salesman for years. It's one of the reasons I got into orthopedics. Back then, we didn't have social media. We didn't have the things at our fingertips. You got put on the road with a catalog and a pager. Remember the days with the bag cell phones. When it cost a lot of money to talk on your cell phone. You had to learn by trial and error. You have to do that with anything. Making decisions even in a sales position where you're a sales leader, maybe not leading a sales team. When you're in sales they'll say, “You're a sales leader because you're a top salesman.”
You have to make decisions at the account level. You don't feel very lonely making those decisions, but when you get into a place where you're leading a team, that's where the loneliness comes in because there are other people that depend on you. There are other people that will look to you to make good decisions. We don't always make good decisions. We make mistakes. We have successes and failures. I've had my share throughout my entire career. I can remember when I first moved from a sales leader to a distributor for Biomet Orthopedics. I got a sales team in place. I wanted to give those people everything that I didn't have when I was a salesperson.
I found out that you can't do that because I earned everything that I got. You can't give things to people without earning that. When you start making decisions, you have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the entire organization. That's where it can get lonely because you have to make decisions that you might not have the right person in place or the right person on the bus. You might have to make a change. You can ask for advice from other people. When it comes right down to it, that decision is yours. That space and time where you make that decision, that's where the loneliness comes because you're saying, “Gut check. Am I making the right decision? It's going to fall on me.”
You don't know at the time. You can get all the data and say, “You're going to make a good decision,” but you don't know until you execute. I've had more than my share of times like that when I was a distributor. I can tell you, as I'm running the entire US organization for a company, that sense of loneliness happens more often. As you've traveled down a road, you've been there before. Maybe not so long but you say, “I've been in this space before. I'm okay. I can make that decision.” We build on our experiences. We get better equipped to make those decisions, handle that and get through those situations when you're potentially lonely.
I can tell you this isn't your first rodeo. I love when you hit on, you can't give things to people they haven't earned. I have fallen into that enabling type of behavior as a leader many times. If I would've had kids, I probably would've done the same thing. That's brilliant. I love that you talked about you've been in this space before. Because people are people, the old school thing is when you get to be a more evolved leader, these things stop happening. We change, but not everybody changes. It is in human nature to always go for the path of least resistance. As leaders, we're constantly reigning people in to stay on point, on path, and to bring out the best in them. I thank you for your authenticity because sometimes in leadership literature, it's like, “Sooner or later, you should have this figured out and it should be inherently easier.” Maybe I'm still doing it wrong after all these years.
When making a decision, try to do what's best for the company and every individual.
For instance, all salespeople aren't great leaders or don't become good leaders or managers, and not all managers can be salespeople. If you want to make that transition from a sales leader in the field to somebody who's managing people and being in a leadership position running an organization, you have to be a lifelong learner. You have to say, “I did this here and I can use that information. That's not the same information that I'm going to need to lead this team.” It's used a lot. This person is a lifelong learner. If you're not constantly learning in a different role or in a new role, then you're not going to rise to it. You're going to go on whatever your gut tells you.
You talk about sales. My dad was in sales. He would talk about one year you're at the top of your game, everything you touch turns to gold. A year later, you're wondering, “Where did my mojo go?” It's one of those things that if we don't constantly stay infused, motivated and pushing away the doubt, that's part of the human experience regardless of what role you're in.
You're only as good as the numbers in a sales organization. It's like, “Your numbers are great.” I remember I was a sales representative years ago up in Bangor, Maine. I had a regional guy that used to come up and work with me every so often. I won five President’s Club. I didn't know anything else but getting in my car and working. I would be so excited. I said, “I've got this done.” He'd go, “Gerry, you had a good month last month. What have you done for me lately?” It's the numbers. You could have the best numbers in the world, but we get to turn around and do it again.
I watch Project Runway. One day you're in and the next day you're out. Once the alarm clock hits 00:01, yesterday’s in the rear-view mirror. What are you doing now?
Lifelong Learner: By setting boundaries, you can call back a little bit of the wariness because you can manage your time more effectively.
I've always been driven like that. What is it going to take to get me to the next level? I'm not somebody that's always going from one job to the next. Every place I've been it's 5, 6, 7, 8 years. I get to a point where I always said, “What's next?” In my leadership role now it's like, “What can I do to give back?” I've got this experience. I haven’t always made the right decisions. I'm not afraid to talk about it either because people need to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. No matter what somebody tells you and says, “This person was a fantastic leader and they were so successful.” Unpack all the failures that they've had to get along to that point. I've mentioned that a lot in the book that I wrote. It's coming to a sense that you make mistakes, you can still be successful. What I like to say is that, “If I can do it, you can do it too because there are no special ingredients.” It's just that you’ve got to work hard and continue to learn about your craft no matter what it is.
Learning and earning, the IQ. You’ve got to work it out. Thanks for your perspective on loneliness, Gerry. I appreciate it. The next thing my dad talked about is weariness. It's tough in sales. As you said, “That was good, but what's next?” How do you stay replenished or refreshed and not burn out? There are cycles for everything, but how do you handle weariness?
Weariness in this sense is not physical, although it can turn into that if you're not careful. What happens is the daily things mount up on you. You can plan. You can have your day-offs like, “This is what I'm doing now,” and that first phone call blows everything up. You never get to the things that you wanted to get to. There are pressing things that need to get done. At the end of the day, you're mentally exhausted. What I've tried to do is to continually put it in perspective. In other words, I get overwhelmed with things. We all do. Whatever position we're in. It's easy to get overwhelmed with things. I take a step away and try to look at it away from the mirror a little bit and say, “What's causing this right now? I've got all this stuff to do. What I'm going to do is take a step back. I'm going to come back in and now I'm going to take it one at a time.” That's all that we can do.
If we let ourselves get hit with so much, overwhelm is where we get weary. When we start to get overwhelmed with things, one project after the next. For instance, in my position, a director coming back and everything that they have is immediate. One of the things that help weariness is coming to the realization that we have to set boundaries. I have been terrible with this in the past because I want to serve. I want to make sure I'm always available. That in itself will make you extremely weary.
If you set boundaries and what I mean by setting boundaries is not so much in the world of COVID anymore, but somebody running into your office and you're on the phone. They got to talk to you right away. You put down what you're doing. You go to that person and you do that. You can't. It doesn't do them any good. It doesn't do you any good. By setting boundaries, you can call back a little bit of the wariness because you can manage your time more effectively.
If you're not constantly learning in a different role, you're not going to rise to it.
There are a lot of different kinds of weariness. What is it that has you so tired? A lot of times it's not physical stuff. I can get eight hours of sleep, be in top health and still be drained. You’ve got to look at it and go, “What is it? What do I need to do?”
Have you ever gone through a day when you're physically tired at the end of the day? That's okay. If you haven't done much during the day and all of a sudden, you get tired, there are some other things in there that have brought you to that point. The trick is for us to try to avoid that at all costs. Better time management is one of them. When you've got major decisions and I've had a few lately with my position with regard to accounts and people. That in itself will make you weary as well. You've got a lot hanging on you because there are a lot of things hanging in the balance. When people's lives are hanging in the balance, I guarantee you, that will make you weary.
Loneliness and weariness, thanks for bringing that up because as leaders, I never understood until I got in the leadership chair. That's a lot of responsibility. You can pooh-pooh leadership but they're aware. They're having to keep things going and numbers met so everybody can stay employed. That is draining, especially with COVID. I've had many of my dear friends say, “I had for the first time let somebody go or put them on partial.” It's exhausting for the people making that decisions too.
I've had lived that. I did that early on with COVID. I did it again moving somebody out of the organization into a distributor role. It's something that needed to be done. It's not pleasant. If you're a good organization, you’re truly trying to do the best for your people. Part of leadership is trying to bring out the best in your people too. When you have to make a decision, you try to do what's best for the company and for that individual as well.
The Secret Law of Attraction as Explained By Napoleon Hill
The next thing my dad talked about was abandonment. That has a negative connotation, but his point was that we need to abandon what we like, what to think about, and do in favor of what we ought and need to think about and do. For him, it was more of a focus. Can you explain that for me, Gerry? You've got a lot of different things going on. People are coming in your office. You have several jobs. You're doing this horse thing now. How do you stay focused?
You and I talked a little bit about this but vision with the right action in place. Abandoning the things that you might like to do, but aren't going to get you where you need to be. That's tough to do because we get caught up. Everybody gets caught up. We get tired and you're like, “I'm going to do this.” Abandoning those things that aren't going to help you get where you want to be in the world in life is the first step. You can do that. If you can look ahead, focus and imagine yourself already in that position or in that role, that helps you get through that. The book that I read from 2005 was Law of Attraction. Napoleon Hill even mentioned a lot of that stuff in his book. When you focus on something and see it as if it's already happened, then you attract those things and the people in your lives that are going to help you get there. That's a big thing with abandonment. Abandon those things that are maybe pleasing at the time and they may be short-term, but think about the other things. Those things are much bigger and much broader.
Sometimes it has a shelf life. It may work for a season. You're in sales and things are always changing so you’ve got to be clear. Churchill quotes, “However beautiful the strategy, we must look at the results.” I read a book called Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers. That's my favorite title in the whole world. I’m like, “It's tough. It's my sacred cow. I don't want to let it go.”
I know from having met your dad one time and reading his book that he was a lifelong learner just like I see that you are. That piece being that lifelong learner, and always trying to focus on where you want to be or where you want to go. It helps you alleviate some of those things that you shouldn't be doing. If you want something strong enough and surround yourself by the people that will get you there, those people will show up because they start to believe in you and what you’re doing.
I was having a conversation with somebody and I'm like, “Don't build it and hope that you're drawing the right people. Fire it up inside here and then like moths to the flame, they’ll come to you.” The old paradigm is, “I've got to figure out what people want.” I've tried that for quite a few decades. Maybe other people are good at it but I'm not.” The clearer I get on what I'm here for, the right resources, people, books and advocates start coming in. I found your definiteness of purpose, you're talking about Napoleon Hill. That's the greatest factor as far as abandonment because then I can push off all the time suck. I can push off the conversations that are like, “Let's go to lunch and catch up,” but I only have so much time in a day. It comes a time where you’ve got to stay focused on that.
Success is when you can give back and see the difference you're making in people's lives.
You're also because you're looking at something bigger. You get to a point in your life when you've gained experience and you've had successes and failures. For me, if you said, “Gerry, what's success to you?” It's not having all the money in the world right now although you want to be financially independent and all that. Most of us do in life, but what can you do with that? If you can give back and make a difference in people's lives and you can see the difference that makes. For me, that charges me up. I mean that sincerely because several years ago, I’m like, “I want to be successful.” What is it?
You start thinking, “What is success?” Success is when you get to a point where you're able to give back and you can see the difference that you're making in people's lives. For me, if that doesn't fuel you or fuel me then nothing will. I wrote the book, The Four Pillars of Sales. I had an orthopedic surgeon called me. He said, “I'm reading your book. I’ve got to tell you it's not about sales. The whole first part of your book is about life.” Several other people call and give me that feedback. I had a woman in Maine that I knew a few years ago called. She bought the book for her nephews. She sent me a picture of the book on this young man's desk, a freshman in college with notes. The book opened on his desk in his room. To me, that's powerful because if you can touch people's lives like that, that's a big deal. You abandon that other stuff and focus on what's good.
With getting older, your mortality starts closing in. I'm much more aware of every passing moment, not in a scary way but in the sense of urgency like, “Come on, Tracey. You're going to finish strong whatever that race is up.”
It's interesting you said that because I think about that a lot. I'm getting older. It’s not like I'm going to go from one job to the next. What does that look like? Taking in every moment, doing the things like we're talking about. I work with horses. I love it. Seeing what a difference that can make in people's lives opens up a whole new chapter. As you get older, you have to discover those things. We have a stronger capability of finding those things when we get older if we open up. We make sure that we continue to have a vision. Vision is seeing what it is and getting it done. You've got to have a clear vision no matter what age. I love Ronald Reagan because I went into the Marine Corps because of him back in 1981. Ronald Reagan rode horses until he was in his 80s. He quit until he got Alzheimer's. Age is only a limitation if you make it. You can still make a difference in people's lives as you get older and older. It doesn’t matter.
I love that you're talking about your vision. Vision is getting stronger as we get older. That's what I tell a lot of the younger kids. When you're younger, it's so much tougher because you're trying to figure out, make ends meet and raise kids. You then get to this season where it's like, “What am I going to build that's going to last?” I know you hit on the vision word, but can you share with us how you hone your vision? I know you went out to California to tweak your vision. I'd love for the readers to know what you're involved in.
Lifelong Learner: When you focus on something, you attract those things and the people in your lives that will help you get there.
The first part of the question, that's a tough one. There are many things that I like and I'm interested in. Over the last few years, I've tried to say, “What am I good at? What do I enjoy the most and how can I bring that together to make a difference? That's been my thought process. Sales leadership is one of the reasons that I came up with The Four Pillars, but then horses. It's an interesting thing. When we start to have that vision, we start to attract people and things into our lives, and move things in a certain direction.
That's exactly what happened here. I've been riding horses for several years. I'm riding at a barn in Carlisle Johnna Stables, a beautiful indoor facility. The owner of that facility, Donna Snyder, when I was finishing The Four Pillars and getting the draft on and everything, she had read it. She says, “I've wanted to create a program around leadership. We could do something with this. What do you think?” I sat on that and this happened while I was sitting on a horse. She was giving a riding lesson. I went back and I started googling things and looking at leadership in horses. I found this program that was based out of Germany called HorseDream.
A gentleman named Gerhard Jes Krebs developed this program years ago. It’s all based on horses are herd animals, but they're very intuitive. They don't care whether Dr. Jones or Gerry Savage had a good day or bad day. They're always present. Because they're herd animals, they always work within an environment that has leadership built within it. They're all as important as one. The leadership role on the front is as important as any other role within the herd. Because horses are prey animals and they're always present in their mind, they can sense that in people.
They can sense if somebody is present. What I mean by that is if you're bogged down in things during the day, and you're looking at your cell phone. You're talking to somebody and you're not in it, they get that right away. They know that you're not present. If you have a goal or something in mind and you want to get to that goal, the horse could sense that. That sounds out there, but what we do is work with horses in a sense that they become our partner. When we use a little obstacle course that we can lead the horse around, we ask people to walk with intention, walk with that goal in mind and use that course as the roadmap for them to get to their goal.
They go off and they're leading the horse, and they're walking with that intention. If they're unsure of themselves or there's something else going on, the horse senses that and it reflects back to the person. For instance, when I was in California, all this stuff is going on. I want to do this business and all this stuff. I started leading a horse and the horse stops. I'm like, “Why? Come on, follow me.” People that were observing saw me looking down. They saw me with tension on the lead rope. The horse said, “I don't have a leader here. I'm going to stop and eat grass.”
Leaders need to be honest with themselves before they can be honest with other people.
What one person reflected back to me, and what happens is when you're going through this course, people watch you. They do not want to judge you because it's all data. They watch you to give you feedback. Somebody said instantly, “Vision without action.” If you're in a classroom and somebody tells you that, it might sink in and three days later, you forget it. I can tell you if a 1,000-pound animal tells you that you have a vision without action, I guarantee you, you'll remember that for the rest of your life. That's what we do in the course. We have teams of business leaders and team members come out. We do a bunch of exercises. What gets reflected back is amazing. People find more about their own leadership style, where they fit the best and more about themselves. It's such a step out of the classroom.
My goal was to develop a sales training process, work with personality styles, and develop that in the book. This is such a step beyond that because it takes you out of the classroom, in an environment where things make sense. People tend to bond more when they're in an exercise like this. I’m excited about it. It's getting off the ground now. We did our first demonstration day. We're doing another one on December 12th, 2020. From that point, the hope is to have companies come in with their teams and go through the exercises for a day.
Gerry, we've discussed loneliness, weariness, abandonment and vision. Anything else on the topic of you as a leader, sharing with other leaders out there that you would like to include?
As leaders, part of our responsibility is to bring out the very best that people have to offer, the people that we're leading. By doing that, we have to become the best version possible of ourselves. I love the phrase, “Being a lifelong learner.” People take that to heart. They're always learning and searching for new ways to be better, to improve their leadership and leadership style, and connect with individuals. In The Four Pillars of Sales, I've tried to live by honesty, integrity, knowledge and genuine interest. Leaders need to be honest with themselves before they can even be honest with other people. That's a big one.
Integrity is where people say the cliché, “Doing the right thing when no one's looking.” I'm sure you know this, Tracey, having been in the military. When you see somebody with a lot of integrity, you want to mirror those. Those people become your mentors. Those people are the people you want to model yourself after. Whatever business you're in, whatever it is, stay relevant. I've had the sad opportunity at times to be at meetings in my field where I've seen people walking. We have big conventions, not now because of COVID but every year, there are big meetings.
Lifelong Learner: Age is only a limitation if you make it. You can still make a difference in people's lives as you get older.
You see people walking the floor that had been in the business for 35-plus years. They're looking for the next cup of coffee to talk about the old days. I don't mean any disrespect to them. Age is just a number. That's why knowledge is staying relevant. Knowledge is continuing to read, continuing to learn new things from people, and staying relevant in your field. If you stay relevant, you're valuable. If you stay relevant, I don’t care what age you are, you have value. I would caution people. I don't care what age you are, stay relevant in whatever field it is that you enjoy and if you want to stay in that field.
The last one is genuine interest. Every leader has to have a genuine interest in people. You can't just lead because you want to be a leader and you want to be out front. People sense that if you're looking at them when you're talking. Forgive me for going back to this, but I met your dad at the mall with my daughter the first year that I moved here. I didn't know who in the world this man was. I walked into the mall and there were executive books. This man with a black bow tie came up to me, shook my hand and he said, “It's good to know you. We’re good to see you.” I'm like, “Who is this guy?”
My daughter was standing right next to me. I had no idea. He looked me in the eye and he had a genuine interest in me. You can't get beyond that. If you have a genuine interest in people, people see that. They respect you. When I talked about attracting people into your lives, when you have a vision, you'll attract the right people. If they know you're genuine, they're going to want to come along for the ride. For our leaders out there, that's my interpretation. Sometimes I write blogs. I like to say leadership in the trenches. Leadership in the trenches is not just doing, it is also continuing to learn.
You talked about your book, where can people pick up copies of that and where's the best way for our readers to stay connected with you?
I have a website, which is FourPillarsConsultingGroup.com. My bio is on the website. You can also find The Four Pillars of Sales on Amazon. If you go to the website, you can press the link to go there as well. That's pretty much it. I'm on LinkedIn, Gerry Savage. Please reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can send me a private message if you want on LinkedIn and I'll respond to you. That's a great way.
To our readers out there, make sure you check out Gerry's website. If you're in South Central, PA, maybe see you out at the December event, that would be fun. Gerry, thank you so much. You are an authentic leader. I appreciate it. I can tell you have paid the price of leadership. I salute you. Thank you for sharing with our readers.
Tracey, thanks for having me. It's been great. I appreciate it.
I love that story about you running into my dad. Somebody asked me that, “How did he achieve the most success?” I said, “He made everybody feel like they were the greatest thing on the planet.” That was it. I don't know what else to say other than he had that touch.
It’s nice to have his book. I showed it to you. I sent you a copy of his signature on it. That means a lot.
That's what leaders do. To our tremendous readers out there, if you like what you have read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button, ding the bell. Also, if you would do us an honor of leaving a review or a comment, we answer all of our comments. If you have been blessed or inspired by something Gerry said, please be sure to share it so other leaders can realize there's a price to pay and we're all out there doing it. We're here to support one another. Thanks, everybody, for being part of our tremendous tribe. Have a tremendous day.
Important Links:
Gerry Savage – LinkedIn
About Gerry Savage
Helping companies grow and prosper by creating a clear corporate vision, actionable sales processes, and strategies to empower sales teams. My book “The Four Pillars of Sales”™ is about navigating the sometimes-turbulent waters of the sales environment.
During my career, I’ve driven business growth and development in total joint replacement, Orthobiologics, sports medicine and trauma. My In-depth knowledge of distributorship operations at all levels has enabled me to build strong relationships with medical device distributors and spearhead market growth through effective territory management, strategic planning, and strong client partnerships.
Leadership, in sales and business are about bringing out the best in people. I enjoy seeing people grow and reach the level of success they desire. As a leader the culture I foster in organizations and sales teams breeds “Espirit de Corps the, feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty”. As Zig Ziglar once said “Your attitude determines your altitude”. I strive to bring every organization I work with to new heights.
My passion for life, business, and working with people continues to grow every day. What people can accomplish with a little belief in themselves and an occasional nudge along the way is truly amazing.
INDUSTRY RECOGNITION
5 Time Winner of the Zimmer Orthopedics “President’s Club Award”
NATIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR:
“The Four Pillars of Sales”™ (Available via Amazon)
BOOK TESTIMONIALS:
“The Four Pillars of Sales™ ... should be in every professional’s library.” -- Robert Leopold (3T Medical Systems)
“The blueprint for building a successful career … and lasting personal partnerships.”-- Steve DeBree (Performance Possibilities Group)
TRAINING PROGRAMS:
The Four Pillars of Sales™, Sales Training
The Four Pillars of Sales™ is a timeless program that incorporates the basic principles of communication you already possess and intuitively combines them using personality styles. Understanding your style and that of your customer connected to a process spoken in your own words, finally allows you to build those long-lasting relationships you may have considered not possible.
CORE COMPETENCIES:
Strategic Planning | Business Plan Development | Territory Management | Contract Negotiations | Sales Training | Sales Marketing Initiatives | Sales Process | Selling Skills | Market Strategy | Budgets | Forecasting | Market Development | Leadership | Leadership Development | Coaching
CONTACT INFO:
Gerry Savage
Gerry.savage@maxxortho.com
FourPillarsOfSales@gmail.com
(717) 514-1523