If you strive to lead in the most inspiring and effective way possible, gathering all your strength and taking a huge jump is needed. Those who want to lead must realize how huge the role they are going to play but still do everything in their power to stay within their vision and values. Dr. Tracey Jones is joined by international best-selling author Bob Burg on talking about the secrets of strong leadership. They go deep on how to go after dreams that are much bigger than anything else, achieving the dedication of non-quitters, keeping yourself in “learning mode,” and maintaining a constant character that can touch others.
---
Listen to the podcast here:
Bob Burg – Leaders On Leadership
We have an acclaimed speaker, leadership expert, and dear friend, Mr. Bob Burg. Bob is an international best-selling author and one of the world's elite authorities on relationship marketing and influence. You probably know him from his bestseller The Go-Giver and Endless Referrals. You're going to love what Bob has to share with us.
---
I am beyond excited to welcome my dear friend, incredibly successful author, motivator, speaker, Bob Burg. Bob, thank you for being on the show.
Dr. Tremendous Tracey, it is great to be with you.
Bob is a member of the National Speakers Association and he's an inductee into their speaker Hall of Fame. Bob Burg is an international best-selling author and one of the world's elite authorities in the field of relationship marketing and influence. The Go-Giver, many of you have heard of that book, who he co-authored with John David Mann, has sold over 850,000 copies and created an international movement.
His sales classic, Endless Referrals, continues to be used as a resource for companies and sales teams throughout the world. Bob is an advocate, supporter, and defender of the free enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve. That's why my dad loved you, Bob. You two were like that. Bob is an unapologetic animal fanatic or furnatic and he served on the Board of Directors of Furry Friends Adoption clinic in his hometown of Jupiter, Florida. Bob, welcome.
It’s my pleasure. I love the fact that I can speak with the daughter of one of my major life mentors because you know how much of a mentor your dad was to me.
You were to him. He loved you. Bob, since I came back, since he passed in 2008, you have been such an authentic advocate as you were to my father and mother and so you are to me. You stayed right there. When I was fumbling through all this, you're like, “What do you need? What can I help you with?” You even came back when we had the warehouse and you did a seminar for free where you spoke. You live it and breathe it. I'm thankful to have you here and to share with other people so they can find out how tremendous you are too.
In my father's one of the life-changing classics, one of his best-known speeches is called The Price of Leadership. In that, my father talks about how leadership is one of the greatest things that we can do but it isn’t easy and it isn’t for the faint of heart. It's one of the hardest things we're going to do. He talks about four keys that a leader is going to have to be prepared to pay to get the price to where the mantle of leadership. Leadership is a lot of responsibility. The first one that he talks about, he references the term loneliness. It's tough to be lonely. It's lonely at the top. As collective human beings, we don't like to be alone. He talks about that there are going to be times in leadership when there is a loneliness that goes along with that. In your decades of experience, can you share with me where you've encountered that as a leader or how you would define loneliness as a leader?
One place that it happens is when you first understand that you are a leader, whether you think you are or not. One of my biggest failures was when I made the jump from sales producer to sales manager, which should be called sales leader because that's what you're supposed to be. I was one of those people. I was a good salesperson. I was a top producing salesperson. I got moved into management leadership. I was horrible. I was the worst. I didn't know I was the worst. I didn't even know leadership was a thing other than they said, “You're the manager. You're the leader.” When things didn't work out, I came to realize, “This is not as easy as it seems.” That's lonely.
He talks about, of course, the loneliness of a leader that you're busting your gut trying to help your people and they're abandoning you. I wasn't even at that point yet. To me, it was realizing that I had no idea what I was doing. When your dad first started teaching this, soon after he had become a successful leader. In one of the speeches people would say, “Charlie Jones, how do you come as an authority on leadership?” He said, “I don't. I come as a student of leadership.”
That's one thing about your dad because he was everybody's mentor, but he always considered himself to be a student. He never stopped learning. He never stopped growing. There's a loneliness in that as well. There are many aspects as a leader, as you go from not even knowing that you're not a leader to realizing you're not a leader, to starting the process of maybe becoming a leader. There's loneliness every step of the way and you either accept it as a thing or you don't.
I can't believe you said that. True confessions because you brought it up. About halfway through my dissertation, I realized being a leader and being good at leadership are two different things, and I was like, “That's where I've been missing it.” I am glad you shared that because a lot of times, I can be a leader at something, you led at sales. Leadership is completely different. It's getting stuff done through other people.
I'm glad you said that because I always ran a tight ship. I was in the military. I always have my stuff squared away, but that doesn't mean you're going to be good at leadership. That's why, as a leader, if you are feeling lonely, you may want to look at that and say, “Why aren't I getting the right people in?” I love that you said, “I didn't even have the right people around to say, ‘They're not going to follow me.’” I love that my dad was always pragmatic about that, too. Who knows? There are some people that seem gifted at it.
Strong Leadership: There's loneliness every step of the way; you either accept it as a thing or you don't.
Leadership is a complicated and tough thing until you get that right team and you realize that it's not about you doing the right thing, but about the people under your influence doing the right thing. I’m like, “How did I miss this?” I have been in leadership my whole career. Thank you for sharing that you too went through that metamorphosis where you realized, “I'm good at stuff. Why aren't I good at leading people.” Leading stuff and leading people are two completely different things.
You can be a producer, that doesn't mean you're a leader. You can lead at things, that doesn't mean you're a leader of others or that you can lead the field. It's a different thing.
When you were doing this and you realized you were the sales leader, how did you make the transition then? Did you realize, “I am alone. Nobody's following me?” Did somebody come up alongside you? For our readers, if you're going through this, it's a natural thing. Some of it is seasoning in growth. Don't be upset if you're like, “That's where I am.” This isn't intrinsically obvious to people. You have to grow into leadership shoes. How did you make the transition, Bob?
It was the same way that when I first got into sales. I always say the company where I first started selling, their training was negligible at best. When I say at best, I mean non-existent. Don't I sound like your dad when I say those things? I was at a conference once. We both spoke at a Jim Rohn conference and we were on a panel together. Your dad did his usual unbelievable thing like he always did. I got up and I couldn't help but I had to do a Charlie Jones imitation.
I can't do his voice. I never mastered his voice. The things that he said, the way he said it, I could do it. I said, “Charlie would say to you something about how to win friends and influence people too. Do you know this book, How to Win Friends & Influence People?” Charlie would say, “Don't read this book.” Everybody was, “What?” He’s like, “Devour it. Eat it up. Take it in.” You think, “Do people think he means it when he says, ‘Don't read this book?’” That was what he’d do. He’d always surprise you with something that was opposite of what you expect him to say then he’d explain it. I always love that so much.
I floundered in sales for the first few months until one day I was in a bookstore. This is years ago, back in the day when bookstores were known more for selling books as opposed to coffee, pastry, cookies and things like that. There was a sales section, which surprised me. Nowadays, we take that for granted. Back then, who knew that was even a thing? I remember seeing two books, one was by Tom Hopkins and the other was by Zig Ziglar. I bought those books. I looked at the titles, “What? There's a way to do selling?” I devoured them and I practiced. Within a few weeks, my sales went through the roof. The only difference between where I was right there when I walked into the bookstore and three weeks later was, I had a system. I had a methodology.
We all define things in our own ways. I define a system as simply the process of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how-to principles, the key being predictability. It's been proven that by doing A, you'll get the desired results of B, then you know that all you need to do is continue to do A. Eventually, you'll get the desired results of B. When I realized that I knew nothing about leadership, I got books on leadership and started getting tapes. Back then it was cassette tapes. It was one step above an eight-track tape.
I'd read the books by the John Maxwell's and the Stephen Covey's and, of course, the Charlie Jones. By the way, the book Life is Tremendous was one of those books when I first got into sales. Once I understood sales and then you started finding out about all these other books. Life is Tremendous, with that picture of your dad looking like he's punting the football, which was one of the books that you had to read. You never went to a sales seminar, read someone's book, heard someone in training who didn't say, “Get Life is Tremendous.” Isn't that unbelievable to know that your dad made that difference? For umpteen years, that was one of the books. You got that, The Greatest Salesman in the World and of course Zig’s and so forth. Your daddy's book, that was one you had to have.
I started learning about leadership and started learning from the people. First, with the books and the tape but I'd also start paying a lot more attention. I start asking people because I now knew what I didn't know. I was in a position to start exploring and finding out. It's like anything else. You get the information. You start applying it. You start making a lot of mistakes. You start course-correcting and that's what you do.
A good way to cure loneliness, too, is to read about the other leaders that have been through what you're going through 100 times worse and live to fight another day. That's why I got a doctor in leadership. People are like, “What do you mean? You've been doing this.” I'm like, “Yes.” When you study leadership, you understand that there are constructs and there are taxonomies. There is a structure to it. We're emotional creatures. Yes, some people are more gifted than others. There are a lot of things that you can control and develop their skillsets. There's a science to success. It's not something that happens to some people. You find out what you don't know and you're humble enough to admit it and you're open enough to absorb it and receive it. Books can be your best friends when everything else has fallen apart. Most of the time, when I've been lonely, I couldn't even talk to my mom about something. I'll go grab a book and it'll get me where I need to go.
Bob, the next thing he talked about after loneliness, he talks about weariness. It's tough. We're not spring chickens anymore. He kept going like he had vitamin T going through his veins. There's always going to be people doing way more than their share and ones that aren't. You probably remember this quote, he's like, “My problem isn't keeping myself motivated. It's keeping other people from demotivating me.” He stayed as a pretty good self-propelling machine, but then you get into the grind of the world where there are different things. How would you define weariness? How do you keep your stamina, your strength, your attitude going?
There is that danger when you get around people. He talked about the people that you get around who would try to talk you out of things and those are dangerous people to be around. You let them affect your mind. Of course, we have so much of that in the world whether it's online. Everyone has an opinion and they know they're right.
Worse yet, “You're wrong.” I don't mind people having opinions, but I don't want you to tell me that somebody is wrong. That's people's values and convictions. Everybody's entitled to that. That's even wearier.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
It wears you down. In a sense, it begins with you having a higher reason for doing what you do and that's such a human thing. We've been programmed as human beings to want to make a contribution and to want something bigger than ourselves. Few people can be motivated strictly by money. To a certain point, of course, it's important. Money is an echo of value. The more value you provide the marketplace, the more money with which you'll be rewarded. That's important.
Once we have enough to be able to subsist and live in a way we choose to according to our values, after that, we’ve got to have something more. Take your dad, for example. His goal was to touch other people's lives and make a difference in their lives. I remember being at another conference with him and he was speaking at that one and I was in attendance. I remember coming back afterward and I was watching him at the book table, at the sales table. He would tell people about books. He gave away more books that he sold. All he wanted to do was touch people's lives and introduce them to something that would benefit their lives. He would talk about the books with such love.
He was a guy who lived for something greater than himself. Whether we talk about that in terms of religious faith, books however it might be, he had a reason for living that kept him from succumbing to that weariness. He said, “It's not that I didn't want to quit because everybody wants to, but you want to not want to quit too because you have something more to live for.” It’s not that you don't get the feeling of it, but when you have something bigger than yourself, you will resist that urge and all you want to do is quit wanting to quit because you know you have something that is there for you to grasp.
He’d say, “We all want to quit. You can quit, don't do it.” It's perfectly natural. He's like, “Now I made a fortune out of wanting to quit but I'm not going to do it.” Bob, have there been times throughout your career where you've been tempted to call it a day, put all your pieces back in the game box and say, “Let's try something else?”
I can't tell you how many times. In the first few years of the business, there were times I had to decide and came close to having to get a real job and then maybe speak on weekends if I could. I remember I was about three years into the business and I was everything in my business like you start out being and the big challenges that you can sell your services but then you have to go out and perform the services so you’re stopping selling your services and it goes like that for a while. It's a never-ending thing. From the outside, it looks like you're doing great but you're treading water and starting to sink and that's what I was doing.
I remember I was at a National Speakers Association conference. Linda Miles, I don't know if you remember Linda, she worked like Naomi and Jim Rhode in the dental field. She’s a sweetheart of a person. I remember her saying that at one point when she first started, she got desperate she was reading the want ads thinking, “That's what I was doing.” It reminded me of Linda's talk. At one point, I was down. I had one more day, it was a Friday afternoon and I said, “If I don't land something, I need to read the want ads and at least get a full-time job selling and then build my speaking business.” I didn't want to do that though. I didn't want to quit because I loved it. It was near the end of the day and it was pretty much it. Nothing was happening. Back then, we used to have this big, huge directory. It was called the National Trade and Professional Association Directory. It was a huge thing.
I got that. They sold for $900. They still have it. You can get it online for $2,500. I bought it years ago.
I remembered something I used to do when I was in sales. At the end of the day, when the day was over and there were no more calls left to be made, I would make one more call. If I was on the road, I would stop in one place. If I was on the telephone, I'd make one more call. I didn't have to make a sale, but one more call me. Here's the interesting thing, as you can imagine, it was amazing how many times that one more call landed something. I thought, “It’s the end of the day. I'm through. If this didn't happen, I'm going to have to read the paper. I'm going to make one more call.”
I opened up the National Trade Professional Association directory and I landed on the PGA of America, Professional Golfers Association of America. There's a group that does not need what I sell. In fact, at the time, I was teaching a program on how to remember people's names. That was my big thing back then. That's what I started out speaking on and did that for the first few years. I said, “What do they need?” That wasn't the point. It was one more call.
I called and a nice woman answered. I even said something like, “I don't know if this is something that could ever be of use to what you do.” In pro golf are the people on TV. I said, “I do this program on how to remember people's names and faces where I can show them how to blah, blah, blah.” She said, “It's interesting because the division you called, we don't work with the pro golfers. We work with golf professionals. In other words, the ones that run the country clubs and teach lessons. We have a continuing education program. We have about 42 sections.” They called them sections instead of states. “This sounds like a great course for continuing ed credit.” She said, “Is that something you'd be interested in doing?” I'm thinking, “Yes.”
Over the next couple of years, I did like 32 or 33 of the 42 divisions and it kept me in business. It allowed me, at that point, to hire a part-time person who could help me. It was one more call. It was a weariness that I fought off by making one more call. As a leader, what can we do when we are feeling wary, for whatever reason, because no one's listening, no one's moving, no one is this or no one's that? We say, “Can I touch one more person's life? Can I have one more conversation with one of my people and find out what I can do to help serve them better, whatever it is?” Remember, it was a matter of making that one more call. Fortunately, the results turned out well. They won't always, but you know you did the work.
There's a saying in the teaching of the Rabbi's, it's called hishtadlus. Hishtadlus can be defined as the personal human effort that we take as human beings in partnership with God. It's not saying, “God, deliver me a client.” Do the work that you need to. Do the hishtadlus. If it's supposed to happen, then it's going to happen. When we talk about weariness, we need to say, “I'm going to overcome the weariness by taking the action.”
That's a great point because sometimes when I get the weariest, sad and almost depressed, it's when I'm not taking action. Activity has a way of energizing me. You talked about your business and I love how you said it. It's the old The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber, “Don't work in the business. Work on the business.” I love that you brought it up because for small businesses, “I got to do the operation stuff, but then I'm out but then I'm not pumping the pipeline.” Can you talk to me about how you scaled your business? As you got this business, you hired somebody on. A lot of people are good at what they do. Can you give us some ideas of when you know you need to scale the work so it doesn't all come down on you?
Life is Tremendous
That's a fantastic discussion point because it's important. There's only so much that you can do if you're going to grow and stop treading water. The tough part and the part that we never know is when we're in that region where we know we need to but we know we can't afford to but we can't afford not to. What do you do? One of the things your dad talks about is don't wait until you know the decision is right. I'm not saying step out on faith without first considering it.
The Bible talks about that, even the Old Testament, counting the cost.
Once you believe you have the facts there, you've got to make a decision. You don't know that it's going to be right, but you know that when you make the decision, and your dad said this, you can do what you need to make the decision right.
He'd say, “Make it yours and die by it.” What he meant by die by it is not die by it. He meant to stick to it. He had this adaptive capacity. Make it today, but then tomorrow you may find out you get another contract or you lose one and you can tweak and you can make adjustments. We don't have to stay rigid to it. Things change.
I've had a lot of other people, especially a lot of other speakers, who've been in that nether region and have said, “Bob, should I get somebody? Should I hire somebody?” The answer is I don't know, because I can't make their decision for them. We can say, “What would happen if you don’t? Where do you see things? Do you see yourself being able to slowly grow to a place you'll be able to or you're going to keep treading water but sinking a little bit? If that's the case, you've got to get someone.”
That is huge. I know for the readers out there, that is something. I don't care if you're selling insurance or you’re a wealth planner or real estate, a lot of us are entrepreneurs. We have to grow our business. To grow it, we have to eventually be delegating. Thank you for that because it will get weary. I love that but you don't want to do the death by 1,000 paper cuts. You want to make sure that it’s in the grand scheme of things.
The next one he talked about was abandonment. “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Stephen Covey. He would say, “We need to be disciplined and focus on what we ought and need to think about and not what we like and want to think about.” You know, as well as I do, as entrepreneurs, we get a million miles a minute. We're never short on ideas and doing stuff. How do you stay honed in on what you need to do, Bob?
This is something that I've always had to work on because I am that person who was that old cartoon, that squirrel. The next thing for me is always exciting. Because I know that's a weakness of mine, I had to learn to say no to pretty much everything and say yes only to those things that were going to be the highest and best use of my time. If I wasn't doing that, I wasn't going to be able to serve those who I serve.
This is true in a lot of areas. When you talk about a person's character, for example, character comes from an old Greek word for scrape or scratch. It came to me in an engraved marking and eventually a defining quality. If one were to wax poetic, we could say that character is what happens when life etches or scratches itself onto your soul. That would be wonderful, except I'm not poetic. I like a defining quality. We could say more accurately the sum total of all one's qualities is their defining quality or character.
You think of people that we know, people like my dad, your dad, Tom Ziegler's dad and different people that we know who have that immensely high character. When you think about it, people with high character always tend to stand for something and we all know where they stand. That doesn't mean they don't make mistakes because they're human. Of course, they make mistakes. It doesn't mean they don't course correct. They absolutely course correct. It doesn't mean they're not flexible on strategy. Absolutely, they are. When it comes to those values-based decisions, they are immovable, immutable, and unchangeable and that's why we respect them. Even if we don't always agree with them, we respect them.
I always thought that was one reason why Ronald Reagan was such a great president. Even people who disagreed with him always knew where he stood. He was principle-based. If you look at the leaders that we know, the greatest leaders, they have that sense of character where you know what they stand for. They're not going to veer off from that because it's so much a part of them. When we talk about abandonment, somebody like that will not be abandoned but it doesn't mean you don't feel like it. Remember, that person of character, how many times do the people around them, maybe not necessarily have that same sense? That can make a person, that can make great leaders feel abandoned. That goes back to people saying, “You shouldn't do this because so and so.” Except you're going to do it because it's who you are. Because it's who you are, it's what you do. You got to be strong.
That thread that you mentioned circles back to the loneliness portion. In studying followership, which is what my focus study was, the best leaders had the best followers. Yes, it is important that they lead, but 80% of it is on the followers and/or co-leaders, team members. The more that they are all in, the more the leader can be all in. I tell people, “If you want a better leader, be a better follower because it's lonely enough at the top.” It's like trying to be married to somebody and knowing that in a minute, they're checking everybody else out and they're ready to jump ship. I tell people, “It's tough, but if you're going to show up for a job, if you're going to earn a paycheck with somebody, suddenly, some of the signatures on it or like you, go all in. Make that last call. Do whatever you can. You got to go all in or it's not going to work.”
That’s in a nutshell.
Strong Leadership: You don't know if something is going to be right, but you know that when you make the decision, you will do everything to make it right.
Especially in the world now, we put so much emphasis on, “Do we like you? Do you have this fan base?” I'm like, “Courage is about you doing it whether you have one supporter or not.” Sometimes, you're the only one that may see it for a certain time. When you've got that cause, sometimes it's you and that cause going along your merry way. Until other people are drawn towards that and see that strong character, then you draw that strong team around you. Otherwise, you'll keep drifters coming in and out of your life.
That then segues into the next part of what your dad talked about, which was vision. The easy part is having the vision. The toughest part is holding the vision, especially when you go through loneliness and abandonment.
Weariness. People calling you, “You're out of here and I want you to stop.” Mark Victor Hansen, he's going to be on the show. He's doing a book. He said, “Publishing is 10%. Marketing is 90%.” I'm like, “No kidding.” That's what vision is. Dad would say that. Vision is seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Anybody can look at the world and see what needs to be done, but who's going to show up and do it? That's what vision is.
Mark and Jack, look at the vision they had to have with this idea. I remember Mark, he came in to do a talk for the Florida Speakers Association Chapter. He talked about how Jack Canfield had this idea for a book. They were going to call it Chicken Soup for the Soul. They hadn't even written it yet. Didn't they go through something like 135 or 150 rejections? Their own agent gave up on them. Look what they did. How many people think, “They lucked out. They hit on a good idea?” They got a vision that few people believe in other than themselves and they went with that.
I watched some leaders and they're blessed at every stage of their career. Dr. Ken Blanchard was on. At every stage of his career, he had somebody come alongside him and co-lead with him. There's the rest of us that you know, maybe you're blessed with that or maybe there are going to be times where you're the only one seeing it and even your family and friends are like, “Okay.” Walt Disney, when he first started out, everybody's like, “Please, you're bankrupting us. Give this up.” He's like, “No. I see the vision.” I knew it was a struggle to get that push. Vision has that future component. How do you keep adjusting or honing your vision, growing in wisdom and discernment for what you need to do with your organization and all your Go-Giver networking group, your facilitators?
It's staying in student mode and staying in learning mode and looking to see what those who you admire are doing. You’re not copying them, but emulating their thought processes. Sometimes, it is the idea that hits, “What a great idea.” For others, it's how they think. You keep things open that should be kept open. We don't want to be open-minded that our brains fall out, but we want to be open-minded enough that we're able to take in information and say, “Maybe I hadn't thought of it or thought of it that way.” There's a way to do that.
I have a brilliant business partner, Kathy Tagenel. She does so many things well. I do a few things well. I do a couple of things well. Everything else, I am horrible. She does well at all these amazing things that I would be lost about. It's a wonderful partnership. We can look at things together where one of us sees something and the other doesn't. We play it off each other. We’re able to discuss it. We're also able to call on our network of people and ask, “What do you think of this idea?” She might see something and I don't, especially with something that has to do with online. I tend to be one of those people because I’m non-technical. I tend to almost, by nature, want to dismiss it. That's not a good trade. It happens to be when I get a little intimidated. She's good at the online stuff that I know that if she thinks it's something that is worth looking at, it's probably worth looking at. It's being able to be a good student and stay in that mode. I'm not sure it's anything more than that.
Mark Amtower was on before you and he said the same thing. Once you get your vision, you have your vision, but then run it by the people that you like, trust, and are better at it than you to get their input. My dad would say, “Don't let people talk you out of doing it.” Sometimes, we get counsel because he'll talk me out of it. We're not talking about that. We're talking about people that can hone your vision. Our vision is prickly and it needs rubbed off and it needs a reality check. It needs some structure on it so we can make sure we're not blindly doing something that we know we don't have a good chance of succeeding at. Vision is a collective thing. It's born in a singular person's heart, but then it's a collective.
There used to be an older guy and successful in business, but he was a negative guy. I used to run ideas past him. Figuring me, he was going to say it's a loser of an idea. That wouldn't matter to me. I would still go and ask other people. If he said it was a good idea, I knew it was a good idea because he was negative about ideas and yet again, he was a successful business person. I knew because different people operate in different ways. If he said, “It’s lousy.” “Thanks. I appreciate your thought.” I go on and do whatever it is I was going to do.
He reserved it. He made you work for it. I like that. Critical thinker of the highest order. Anything else you want to leave our readers with, you as a leader, to encourage them or some council on leadership?
There are two things. One is a lesson I learned from your dad. This was such a great lesson for me. This is a talk I saw with him. I've told you some of the stories about your dad, like when I first met him and things like that and so forth. I always love sharing Charlie Jones stories because they're always awesome stories. I didn't meet him this time. One of the first times I saw him speak, he was the keynote speaker at a National Speakers Association Convention. I was a younger speaker. I had been at the point where I had a speaking business going. Certainly, it wasn't at a point where I was comfortable with it yet. I don't know why this was. There was something in the economy or something but the business was down for most people. You know speakers. Everybody is doing great.
They paid $600,000. It’s all good.
Your dad was a speaker. Remember, I had not met him yet. All I knew him about was from Life is Tremendous. It’s like, “I'm going to get to see Charlie Jones.” Charlie's up there. I know I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Please forgive me. It was a long time ago. I remember him saying, “People are saying, ‘What's going on with a business right now?’ Is this a time for business? People are saying the business is bad, the economy is bad, and you're thinking, ‘Isn't a good time for business?’” Being Charlie Tremendous Jones, he was going to say, “Yes.” He goes, “It's a horrible time for business. It's the worst time for business. This is the most horrible economy.”
Strong Leadership: If you want to make a lot of money in sales, don't focus on making money. Your target must be to serve others.
He wouldn't quit, but then he goes, “No. Don't be a bonehead about it and stop. Get on the phone and make calls. Forget about how bad it is out there.” He did that thing where he says the opposite at first of what you think you're going to say. There’s another thing he said to me. He talked about this in his speech that we've been referring to. He talked about challenges. He said something in his speeches. This wasn't at the speaker's one. This is the one that’s based on The Price of Leadership, that speech. He said, “What about those speakers who say, ‘I love challenges. I live for the challenges.’” He said, “I hate challenges. I don't like challenges.”
He likes to sit back and watch things work, “I like to kick my feet back.”
He said, “I like results.” It's funny because when people talk about change, they say, “Change is wonderful. Change is great.” I think, “I hate change. I don't want to change. I want to build something and keep going without changes.” Back in the late ‘90s, as things started to change in terms of the internet, I didn't change with the times. It set my business back almost to the beginning where I had to rebuild. The lesson in it was I don't have to like change. I have to change if I want the results that you're going to get by changing and not the results by not changing. That always reminded me of your dad. That was one thing. Whether we like something or not isn't necessarily the issue. We're going to like some things. We're going to hate other things. We have to know that if we want this result, then we have to do the thing that's going to make it happen.
I'll leave you with this lesson. It's certainly something that could have been told to me by Charlie Tremendous Jones. It happened to be that it was told to me by a person where I was working when I was in sales. I'm always in sales, but when I was selling for a company where I was employed by that company. It was my second sales job or third sales job. I'd been in sales for a couple of years. I had done pretty well and yet I was in a sales slump. Those can be discouraging.
I was selling a high-ticket item at the time. I remember coming back from a non-selling appointment. It was not a non-selling appointment by design. It was supposed to be a selling appointment. Because of my own ineptitude, the sale didn't happen. It would have been a great product for that particular person. Because of my own ineptitude or ineptness because I didn't do it right, that person not only didn't get the benefit of the product, I didn't get the benefit of helping him get the product and I also didn't get a nice sales commission, which I would have had that sale taking place. Instead of a win-win, it was a lose-lose.
I remember going back to the office and I was sitting in the salespersons’ lounge. I must have had a disgusted look on my face. There was a problem that was in operation there and that problem was me, as it always is. It's always that person in the mirror, but I didn't know that at the time. There was a much older guy there. He wasn't even in the sales department. He was in the engineering department. I don't think he was even with the company that much longer. He retired afterward. I didn't know him well. Nice guy, but didn't say much.
Whenever he did say something, it was always profound. He saw me as a Joe in The Go-Giver, that young, up and comer, lots of potential, hard worker, but something is holding him back from being as successful as he could be. He was a last name kind of guy and He said, “Burg, can I give you some advice?” I said, “Yes. Please do.” He said, “If you want to make a lot of money in sales, don't have making money as your target. Your target is serving others. When you hit the target, you'll get a reward and that reward will come in the form of money. With that money, you can do whatever you choose. Never forget that money is simply the reward for hitting the target. It isn’t the target itself. Your target is serving others.”
That's when I realized that great salesmanship is never about the salesperson, like great leadership is never about the leader. Great salesmanship is never about the product or service, as great leadership is never about the company itself. Great salesmanship, great leadership is about the other person. It's about those lives who you choose to touch with the value you provide. It's how you make another person's life better by having been a part of it. When you operate with what we call other focus, you're nine steps ahead of the game in a ten-step game because your focus is in the right place.
Bob, I can't think of a more beautiful way to put it. That slight paradigm shift and that orientation towards, yes, we want to do well but how can you impact somebody else's life? That's what my dad strove to do. That's what you do. That's a wonderful reminder that we need to hear several times every day for the rest of our lives. I thank you for sharing that with me. I know our readers are going to be tremendously blessed by that as well. Bob, how do people can they reach out and stay in touch with you? Many of them probably already are, but the rest are going to be like, “I want to stay connected to Bob.”
The best way is to go to Burg.com and while there, they can scroll down and there are all sorts of different resources on the site. There’s plenty to do. Come to the website and hang up and have fun.
Bob, thank you. It has been a wonderful time of enlightenment. I appreciate your insights and sharing some of the things throughout your career. A lot of that stuff I didn't know. Of course, always hearing about you and my dad going down memory lane, what a blessing you are to me.
Thank you, Dr. Tremendous Tracey. I appreciate you.
Thank you, Bob. To our readers, thank you. Thank you for being part of our tremendous tribe and have a tremendous day.
Important Links:
Dr. Ken Blanchard - Past episode from Anchor
Kathy Tagenel - LinkedIn
Mark Amtower - Past episode from Anchor
About Bob Burg
Bob Burg shares how a subtle shift in focus is not only a more uplifting and fulfilling way of conducting business but the most financially profitable way, as well. For 30 years he’s helped companies, sales leaders, and their teams to more effectively communicate their value, sell at higher prices with less resistance, and grow their businesses based on Endless Referrals.
Bob regularly addresses audiences ranging in size from 50 to 16,000 — sharing the platform with notables including today’s top thought leaders, broadcast personalities, Olympic athletes and political leaders including a former United States President.
Although for years he was best known for his book Endless Referrals, over the past few years it’s his business parable, The Go-Giver (coauthored with John David Mann) that has captured the imagination of his readers.
The Go-Giver, a Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek Bestseller, has sold over 975,000 copies. Since its release it has consistently stayed in the Top 25 on Porchlight’s (formerly 800-CEO-READ) Business Book Bestsellers List. The book has been translated into 29 languages. It was rated #10 on Inc. Magazine’s list of the Most Motivational Books Ever Written, and was on HubSpot’s 20 Most Highly Rated Sales Books of All Time.
Bob is the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence, with total book sales approaching two million copies.
The American Management Association named Bob one of the 30 Most Influential Leaders and he was named one of the Top 200 Most Influential Authors in the World by Richtopia.
Bob is an advocate, supporter and defender of the Free Enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve.
He is also an unapologetic animal fanatic and served on the Board of Directors of Furry Friends Adoption and Clinic in his town of Jupiter, Florida.