Why Doing the Little Things Sets You Apart: Sales Lessons from Neil Rogers

Welcome to the Social Chameleon show where our mission is to help you learn, grow and transform on your path to become legendary. Today, my guest has a truly unique perspective on what it takes to succeed in business and life. Neil Rogers is a VP of Sales at Rogers Marketing, co founder of Positive Activity and author of Bar Tips. Everything I Need to know in sales I learned behind the bar. With over 37 years of experience leading marketing and sales campaigns, Neil's mastered the art of blending time tested principles with modern strategies. His journey began behind the bar in Boston where he learned the power of hospitality, listening and consistency. Today, those same principles drive his mission of spreading rational optimism through positive activity. A framework built on positive, creative and consistent habits to help people reach their goals one step at a time.

If you're ready to discover how optimism and simplicity can help you overcome obstacles, grow your business and transform your mindset, this episode will give you practical inspiration on your path to become legendary. Like I say here, these little things will make you get you into the top one in 10%. We talk a lot about that. Without further ado, let's talk to Neil. Neal, welcome to Social Chameleon Show.

Tyson, so glad to have be here with you. It's fantastic.

Thank you. I've been looking forward to this. You have an interesting background. I guess to start off here, you did recently write a book, Bar Tips. Everything I needed to know in sales I learned behind the bar. If you guys are interested in the book, I'll leave it in the show notes. You guys can go ahead and get that and dig through it all. But I want to ask you, what's one story you'd like to highlight from that book?

Oh, we're going to get right into it. Marvelous. Well, I think that if through this little back and forth you and I have today, if you're a reader, listeners listen to only one thing. It's this one. And that is whenever anything goes wrong, start with yourself. 100. Yeah. What was my role in this? How could I have done better? This actually came from a, from when I sold food for a distributor.

And the guy, the guy, this guy, Jim Gallahue was the, you know, kind of one of the guys in the tops of the trees. You know, you're the young guy, you're following him around. What can I do for you? You know, can I carry your water? Can I. Whatever it is. And I did and you know, covered his vacations when he was on, you know, his route when he's on vacations. So, and you know, he'd give me little tidbits and this, that, and then a lot of it was just observing, but, you know, doing by observing, right? So just how cool he was, how, what a wise guy he was outside. But you got him in front of a customer, he transformed, right? Knew his products, you know, he knew all the codes, this guy. I mean, we had 200,000 items.

A lot of them are common, right? So. So as an example, 14 ounce bottle ketchup was 02-8092. Now, that's 38 years ago, right? So it's one of those things, right? So, so anyways, but he would, you know, he said to me one time, and that's. He put it just as I just gave it to you in your gang. It was if anything goes wrong. And he did this. He pointed to himself, said, start here. Did I key it in? Right? Did.

Before I lash out at the customer service person or the. Or the guy who picks in the warehouse or the truck driver, you know, could I have done better? And then also keep it aside, Whatever the issue is, let's not. Let's not air our dirty laundry with the customer. They don't. They don't want to hear that. How are you going to solve the problem? So just solve it. And if you. And nobody gets thrown under the bus, all the better.

If you're going to take a bullet, take a bullet. And the, the bar story that goes on this, because this is the. This is out of bar tips, is this guy, Dennis Mayer, was working at a place called Tia's in Boston, and Dennis was. Dennis was just like, way too smart to be working with us. It's like, dude, what are you doing here? You know, I'm struggling to get. Get out of college and do something. And this guy. So he woman came up to the bar and ordered a vodka martini, straight up, extra dry.

Okay? Dennis, I. Stands the glass. I stands the up glass, puts it on the bar, pours the, pours the, pours the drink, empties out the ice out of the, out of the up glass. She's now got a nice chill glass. He pours the, pours the. The drink in there, puts in a lemon twist in. She takes a sip of it. That's not dry enough.

Okay. So Dennis comes walking by me and he goes, I've been doing this for 15 years. I haven't put a drop of vermouth in the martini yet, which makes it not dry, okay? They just dry. Extra dry. Means booze, vodka, done, right? So what Dennis did was he did the same routine but kind of did it in front of her and so not like in her face, but, you know, so she could see. Same routine, same everything, different result. That's the one. So what did we learn here? Right? He could have told her the same story he told me, right? Oh, wait a second, lady.

I haven't put a drop of a moose that I marked out. You can hear it. Right? So now what happens? They're into it. The crowd knows because maybe the. The she raises her voice, Maybe she walks out. Who knows? He solved the problem, took ownership of it, even though it wasn't his fault, and everybody moved on. And you know what? He didn't throw out that boost. He probably put it in the vodka tonic later.

So nobody lost the thing. So that's kind of like my. It's usually my, My, My last act in these things, but. But you asked for it up front. You got it.

That's perfect. I, I completely agree with you there. However, I know with myself and I know others as well, especially when you're younger. That's a hard concept to. To take.

Right.

Was there something he. He taught you or he. He. He showed you that said, listen, I know you. Maybe your ego or something's gonna. Gonna. This is not gonna fit well, but this is the right thing to do.

He started, and I saw it in practice. Okay? I did it, and then I did it again. You know, so it's. It's like any. It's. And it's great in your personal life. Okay, hon? Sorry, I should have finished the dishes last night. Let me get those done now.

And. And let's move on. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever it is, you know, don't go. Wait a second, lady. Why didn't you do them last night? How does that fly? Right? So. And you know, I am, you know, I'm a flawed man.

Reason I wrote the book was so I remind myself of these things. The reason why I have these conversations with guys like you is to be reminded of it. I'm sure half the people out there listening going, I've heard that before. But you know what? I gotta remember that. Sure. Why shouldn't I. Why shouldn't I show some humility? Well, I'm not perfect being in that week. And this is one of the great line that we put in the book, being right, it's overrated.

You know? Do you ever feel good when you win an argument? I never really feel good. Yeah. Especially if it's contentious. Ever. You know, some days I'm pretty good at it, so I feel like I Want, you know, I won, but I still don't feel good. I mean I actually have one today as reference for your. Your audience doesn't know the story because we said it offline. But I was dealing with, with Medicaid as far as my son was concerned because he special needs and the process was unreal.

You call if you get disconnected, you get, you're done. You call again, you start all over. They don't take your name, they don't ask you if we get cut off. And we probably hear that every once in a while. What would what now it's a good number to go. They can't call you back, they can't forward you on to anybody.

Wow.

So we got everything straightened out. So this is kind of the point, the point I'm making on the. If not if it makes you feel good, I call them back today. And I tried to get the complaint line just to say and not just I don't want it to go up. I don't want to get anybody in trouble. I don't want to get any fired. But you know, guys, it's 2025. You're making me facts in our Guardian papers.

And oh, by the way, you only put my wife on there. You don't put me on there. So now when you're talking to me, you can't talk to me. But you know what? I gave all that. I'm gonna tell you, Tyson, I didn't feel good. Didn't do me any better. It would have been better if I just passed on it and just moved along because you're going to change that ship. So that just, that just shows I think that, that it works in, in life in general.

I mean that's, and that's kind of one of the things that Buddy of mine had read my book and he lives in California. He comes back every. Had been coming back every year. His wife sadly has passed and he, he said I read your book. I said I really liked it. Is that how you did the other stuff too? I said yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Complex marketing theory.

Little things. It's all little things. There's no everything's little things. Anybody who doesn't, you know, it's. Unless you're, you know, Elon Musk or some Mark Zuckerberg or you know, coming up with some life changing, you know, concept. I don't Zuckerberg mess. But you know what I mean, you get my point.

You know, I wonder though, is, are they doing the little things in a grand way that makes them with These.

I think that's a great observation. I would suggest, yes. In their world, those, those could be little things, you know, or they're, they're real. What they call what now, this company now that I'm doing work with now is you would call an expander. So it's a company called Hubside, their startup and they, they are now measuring your original intelligence. So your oiq and you're e. You can, you can be labeled the focal, which is your, your, your. You're playing the notes that are on the page, right? You're, you're an augmenter that maybe you've thrown in some fancy jazz chords.

You're a connector. Maybe you're the producer that got the organizer, the, the, the, the guy on the floor, the production manager that's taking it that. Right. Or you're the expander and you're. That, you know, that Musk, you know, Zuckerberg jobs, that type of, that type of guy, you know. So it's so, yeah, so it's, it's, it's an interesting deal when you're, when you're moving down that way. So.

You know, in my experience, and also I've read this in other negotiation leadership books and stuff like that, when you kind of take the blame. Like a quick example, I bought a brand new car. There was a couple of things that were just not come I liking some, some warping and stuff like that or whatever. And it was a pain to get it done. But every time I went in there, I mean, let me tell you, a couple times at the fourth time, I was so mad, but I was just like, my attitude was like, I know it really doesn't have nothing to do with me, but if I can go in there and I can take some type of responsibility, like, you know, I talked to guys like, hey, listen, I'm not sure what I'm, I must be miscommunicating something. I don't think I'm getting the point across. I, I'm not sure I'm explaining this correctly to you, but this is still happening. And, and that's a whole lot better outcome.

Even though the guy, by this point, the guy was pretty mad at me because I kept bringing, bringing back for the same problem. But I could have easily gone there and I could have just lit up the dealership. I could have started throwing chairs and maybe some people have been like, I could see why you were upset. You know, this is the fourth time for the same exact problem. It's a very simple thing in my mind. To get done. But every time I went there, I tried to have that mindset of, like, what?

I can't.

I must be not communicating something correctly. I must be not presenting this the way I see it. And I just kept trying to figure out, like, what can I say differently? What can I show differently? Can. And I just kind of. But I noticed when I, when you do something, when you get on the phone with somebody, like, for whatever reason, I mis. Entered my credit card payment. I don't understand how I did it. And, and, and then I didn't pay it all.

I didn't pay it off. It was like, it was like a couple dollar problem. Well, I don't know what I was distracted doing. And I called the bank and I was like, I don't know what I did. I am so sorry. I don't, I've never done this, but I, I don't know how I didn't pay it all off. I know this is probably not something you guys are going to allow to do, but is there something you can do to help me out? I know this is my mistake. I did it.

I don't know. They're like, you know what, sir?

No problem.

We'll take care of it for you. And I was like, dang, thanks. Thank you. And don't worry, we didn't report it to the credit reports. I think, don't worry about it. We'll just take all the fees off. It's not a problem.

Nice. Be kind to everybody. Right? Pays off. Yeah. I mean, this is an old story, but I suppose we could go back and forth on these all day long, but this is how old it was. It was New York air. Oh, dang. New York Air.

I'm coming back from New York on New York air. And there was a torrential, torrential downpour. Runways closed and people now it's. It's a natural disaster. It's not their fault. You want to go up on that? Go ahead. Right. So the bottom line, simply cut to the chase on this one.

People are wailing at these people. Wow. And I'm just sitting back and I'm not going to say I'm the coolest customer on the planet. I'm not. All right? So I have my moments. But I waited and said. And I knew there was. It was useless because they can only do what they can do.

And I just walked up and I just said, hey, is there a. You got any idea where I might be able to stay? She goes, yeah, here's a voucher. Thanks. Someone stayed because it was some fleet fleabag hotel in Queens. But anyways, so, yeah, I think it works. I mean, I think the old, the old adage, you get more with honey than vinegar and all that, I don't. You know, but, you know, I think sometimes, you know, it all depends who's on the other side too, right? I mean, you have that, you know, you have that sense where you can get, you can get some play. I mean, these people, by the way, on the Medicaid deal, they were all mice, you know, And I didn't, I didn't take it out on them.

I just said, do you guys ever tell anybody that it's 20, 25, you know, you're asking me to fax something. We don't have a fax on you. We gotta get in the car. We gotta get out of Staples or UPS store or something. Like it was like, obviously wasn't the end of the world. But then the. So when my son, who's. Who can communicate not clearly, but he, he said I'm good for about two weeks, maybe three.

And so, but for this, for this surgery, and I don't know how, you know, we came up with it. And it's not, it's not like it's oral surgery. He's got to have his wisdom teeth out at 34 years old. And so, so I said to the woman, I said, okay, so what we need is to find someone within two to three weeks. So when should I. Okay, we're going to put you in for an out of this auto out of network placement. Okay, great. Can you tell me when I should check back? Yeah, in about two weeks.

So you. Do you want me to correct back on the day that I need to have it done? So, so anyway, so, you know, they were all being nice, but, you know, then, you know, so it's. But yeah, so I mean, I think that's. I think that's a good thing to practice. I mean, you can practice. You can probably practice it just about every day. Oh, yes, in some form of fashion. Your coffee comes out.

It's, it's, it's cold. You're. Hey, listen, you know, it's not. Hey, dude, this coffee's cold, right? How about. Listen, I think this is a little cold. Can you maybe warm it up or maybe give me another one? Oh, yeah, okay, no problem.

Yeah, I find especially between that service industry stuff, I think they're expecting the customers always response is always aggressive, always at them. And when you come up with them saying, hey, I'm sure you're Having a tough day or, you know, I don't want to be one of those guys. I must have not communicated this right. I wanted a hot coffee. I, I'm sure I didn't tell you how hot I liked it. That was on me. You're going to get a better response.

100. I mean, you know, and we've, we've adopted, I've adopted this for years, obviously. And, and you know, I'm going to say it doesn't always play in, you know, in certain areas of my life, sometimes I have all the patience in the world for a customer. All of it. You know, it's, it's, it's. I can't remember having a crossword with the customer ever. I've been doing this for 40 years and then 10 beyond the bar. And so it would make me about 400.

But anyways, the but. Yeah, so it's just, you know, it's, it. You just, you take that pause, you take a step back, you think it through and you know what? It does also, if you did, if, if maybe you did have a piece of the mistake, maybe you're going to be a little bit more cautious next time.

So is there any other core principle foundation from the bar days that still guides your leadership today?

Well, they're all, I mean, as you go through a matter of fact, I just wrote a sales pledge. I haven't got it committed to my memory yet, but the, that I just, I mean, I literally wrote it like yesterday. I have my. It's going up as a blog post tomorrow. But yes, all. I mean, it's all there. It's all. What I speak about in the book are all the little things that, like, as an example, gonna sound crazy.

Importance of a proper greeting. You know, you know, you only get that one shot at the first impression, you know, so how are you? How are you? What's your appearance? Look, you know, how do you appear? You know, how do you, how do you. How. What's your energy? You know, are you, are you looking at somebody? Are you doing the old thing that your dad probably told you 400 years ago? Shake his hand or their hands looking in the eye. Ask him a question, wait for the response. Don't be trigger. Getting ready to make the answer and give them come back at them. And so that's that, that's where.

That's how you take it to the next level. And an example of that is like when, when you used to go to Home Depot when they first came around and you walked in and there was A sea of orange aprons to help you. Now, you can't find them. They're hiding. And if you do get somebody, oh, I don't work in this area. Let me go get that person. And so now. But if you go down to Ace Hardware downtown, guess what they're gonna do.

How you doing? What's going on? What's your project? What are you in for? It's like, they may not have the, you know, vast nature of the product set. I don't think you need it. Nine times out of ten, not a guy like me, who's not a DIY guy at all. So that's so. So the importance of a proper greeting. The importance of. Well, the time management skills, you know, what are you. What are your time management skills, you know, because in the old.

These are old adages. There's. There's nothing that I'm speaking of that you didn't. Again, you didn't. Maybe there's one or two that you didn't probably that you didn't hear from your parents 100 years ago. But, you know, 15 minutes or 15 minutes early is on time. You shoot for it. I mean, nobody bats a thousand.

But you know, maybe seven minutes early because something happened. You ever had a school bus or whatever it is, but you don't want to be. My dog ate in my homework every time you go in to see somebody. Oh, you know, the kids and others and that. Okay, great. No, you know, empathetic clients or whatnot. I'm sure. I'm sure nobody's going to throw you in the bus every time.

But if it becomes habit, if this is the thing, this is the key. If in your friend circle, you start getting time named after you. Oh, boy. He's on Tyson time. You know him always, always 15. That's if he tells us if he's coming. Right. You can hear it.

Right. And you know, you know him. You know her. There's somebody.

I used to beat that guy.

Oh, you were.

Yeah, I. I just like, okay, I got 10 minutes. I can do a lot of things right now. And then next thing you know, it's 15 minutes past when you thought you were going to leave.

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, I had to. I had to train myself to. Because then I had friends who were like, well, we'll tell you we're going to meet at 4 so that you're there at 4:30 when we are all getting there. And I had to retrain myself. Like, I can't be this person. Especially like you're saying in client you know, facing things or whatever, that's just not the reputation you want to have.

Hey, this guy, you know, I'm sure you do too. You know, if we're all on LinkedIn and this social media stuff and I think it certainly has its place and I get it. But then there's this constant farming that goes on, right. And they just fishing for someone just to engage and I won't engage unless I see something creative. If it's the same old same old, I'm not doing it. This guy seemed to have a kind of a creative message. He was looking for a 15 minute warm up call. You know, I'm always open to that, especially if it involves some sort of networking or if they're going to give me some sort of information that would help my book sales and my speaking career or whatever.

Right. And that's kind of what I feel, I believe that's what it was about. And well, he blew me off the other day. I mean I was like, are you kidding me? We had back and forth on LinkedIn when we're going to get yada, yada yada, it's like, and I, and I scheduled it and you know, you're scheduling these things out and then you put it aside because I'm a professional. I was on the phone with Medicaid. I'm sorry to keep bringing this up. I had a bounce off of that to go get on this guy's call.

No.

And he blew me off. And he is not, by the way, he's not atoned for it. I got his email, I said, did you just ghost me? And then I, I did it on LinkedIn too. I haven't heard from the guy, I won't mention his name. But it's like, but it's, it's, it's that type of, that type of stuff that just, you know, so, so, so yeah, so you, you, you're, you're not showing, you're not showing proper respect for people's time when your time is way more important than theirs. Something came up. Okay, great. Everybody understands something came up.

You know, that's, that's, that's for sure. The. So, yeah, so that, and then the next thing I bring up is the chapter is called the Most Organized Wins. You know, it's like now by the way, just so you know, your little gig you've got going up here you are tops of the trees and organization, my friend. Message. I'm getting message because Lord knows I have, you know, because if you don't get the link Because I won't put, I won't put the, I won't put it into my schedule unless I get the link because, you know, I'll get blown, I'll put, I'll set it in and then I'll get blown off, you know, when I could have been doing something else. But no good, good updates on, on, on text and, and oh, by the way, I did finally read everything that was in your invitation, which I would have given you more had I read it. But that's, but, but anyway, so, yeah, so I think that, you know, being organized, being prepared, you know, it's all about being prepared, right? So you want to be, you want to be prepared for your clients and your, you know, your prep, pre prep that you get kind of in the can and then you might have custom prep for whatever call you're going to be going on or whatnot.

And you don't want to be fumbling around with papers. And that's why if I can do flip charts where I can just take the paper and write on it and just take it through, if I'm just a small group, I'm using flip charts. I'm not setting up technology for 12 people. Right. Because it's like, okay, all technology doesn't match up. And you know, and I'm certainly no technical whiz. So it's. So those are the types of things I try to avoid.

But obviously if you're in a bigger audience and you've got to go on a, go on a screen to give them, you know, I do that. But, but yeah, so being organized, I mean that, and that all those things relate back to the bar business. There was one place again, back to this place Tia's, that I worked at. They had set this place up for success. They were experienced bar owners in Boston, so they knew how busy it could be. And the new concept they felt was going to be even busier than what they had had before. And they were right. I mean it was crazy.

You know, you could, you know, I always worked the busiest station. You came in at 5 o' clock and did not stop moving like lightning speed till one o' clock in the morning. Wow. On a Friday night. It's crazy. It wasn't clubbish, it was just like. It was a, it was a, it was a financial bar, Finance bros. But they didn't call them back that bet.

But that's what they were. They didn't wear vests then. They were wearing three piece suits. This is 1982, 83. So. But they were all set up where everything you could. You barely had to move. I can still tell you to this day, right here.

To the right is. Is Smirnoff. Absolute stolenier. And then, and then next, next level down was the scotches, which was doers JB and Cuddy Sock. I mean, that's, that is 40 years later. And so. Because that's how ingrained you were. And then.

Because back then, White Russians and Black Russians were big vodka on the speed rack. If you know what a speed wreck is. It's the rack that's right in front of the bartender. On the right hand side was the market, left hand side was the galore. So everything was right there. You know, all the taps were right here. So. And we were.

And because of that, you know, we. We pushed out. Of course, the drinks were $2.40 back then. Now they're 12 or 14 bucks. Yeah. So, yeah. So yeah, just an aside. It just, it just done.

I mean, one of the owners said, you know, I think Duke was our best guy at that stage station. H. I said, okay. Said, yeah, the drinks were 10 times more expensive than when I was born. And of course he was. So. And then, so then I remember being in a restaurant here in town and it was, it was made built new out of a here four, you know, one of those import pier four imports turned into this restaurant. I'm watching this girl work the bar, and she was pretty good and she was quick and.

But she's moving back and forth and back and forth. And I said, can I ask you a question? Didn't they build this from scratch? She goes, yeah. I said, what are you doing running around like a nudge? He goes, they didn't ask a bartender, so they didn't do. Didn't do. Didn't do the proper, proper, proper due diligence on their part. If you, if you haven't worked a bar, you can't design one, you know, and it's really not that, you know. And so then this other guy in town, this guy's press cafe is. And I talk about him in my book, because you go into his little lunch place.

Breakfast, lunch and breakfast. What they basically are, you can have dinner there, but lunch and breakfast, they're big too. You order salad if you want to change it, because they, they key it in. If you want to change it, they're gonna have to go back and tell them because that's how quick the information starts to get back there. Wow. So you're sitting out there and you're getting A fresh meal, never more than five minutes. There's nothing, there's nothing sitting there. But because in the back, all the stations where the cooks are are three, no more than three steps in any direction.

The guy's brilliant, you know, just a brilliant, just brilliant merchant. So, yeah, so that, that type of thing, you know, what is your, you know, I, I'm still big on appearance, you know, attitude, aptitude. So your appearance, are you, are you dressed for, I mean, you know, today it's different, I get it. But you can never be overdressed, right? Sure. So, you know, standard for me now if it's a first column still in a suit and tie, and then, you know, I'll measure it and then chances are after that it's a blazer, open collar, you know, just a nice pair of slide, maybe even a good pair of jeans with nice pair of shoes. But I'm not walking in with shorts and, and all that, you know, I'm not, you know, and, and I said, it's funny, I was just reminded of this a guy that I worked for now about 30 years ago, but we're friends. We were friends before. We're friends.

We're friends. We just had dinner and I saw him also in May. We were down in New Jersey. We went down and visited him in his apartment. He just bought this new town penthouse on an 18th floor in Hackensack, New Jersey. My guy, two of my kids there say, you got to come down. Me Bill Spices. Now I'm, you know, it's Saturday morning of a wedding, I got cargo shorts on.

I gotta, I gotta, you know, not a ratty, but a hoodie, you know, this T shirt, a hat on. And doesn't he come out of the elevator in a crisp pair of jeans, great looking pair of shoes, perfect top and a skelly cap. I said, oh, yeah, now I remember how this goes. Even, Even. He even. I've got a friend. I've got a friend. He will not be seen in public in a T shirt.

Wow. Nope, nope. You'll see. You can see him on CNBC and you know, Fox Business all the time. His name's out Hogan. And yeah, he, he actually sent me a picture. He goes, we had, I picked, I gave him a Bar Tips T shirt. So we put it on and took a picture.

Says, and it said, it sent it back to me two years later. He goes, this is the last time I had a T shirt on in public. And it was only. He went right out of it, too. Very uncomfortable with it. Always got a Pair of loafers on. Always. He's very, very preppy.

But. And then, you know, so that goes, you know, so what's your appearance? What's your attitude? I mean, he's showing up with a good attitude. Are you positive? You know, we talk a lot about positivity in our, in our program, our positive activity program. And also then finally, you know, you're upgrading your skills, your aptitude. Are you always learning? You're learning something new. You're coming up with a new concept or an idea, you're being creative. And so, so those are the types of things that we keep going on. I mean, I'll give you one.

I think this is, I think this is a great one. And it relates. So again how it relates to the bar business is. Or the hospitality business. You know, when you come outside of the hotel and you're looking for something, you get the door, you got the doorman. There you go. Hey, by the way, where can I get. Where can I get a good burger? Oh, hands down, that's Billy's around the corner.

And guess what? Beers are only five bucks. Right? Well, peripheral knowledge. What do you know outside of your little sphere? You know, how can you help your clients in other ways? And I'm not talking about Noah, guys, right? Knowing a guy is that. That borders on, on beer plans. I'll tell you what beer plans are. Okay, don't know a guy is when you. Oh, I know a guy. Okay.

If you don't follow up with a connection via email or some form or some formal way where they. You connect them. You, you, you are beer planning them now. Beer plans, you know, beer plans are.

No, sir.

Beer plans are the ones you make after three beers at about 11 o' clock at night. Dyson, so good to see you. We need to get together. Let me get up, let me. I'll call you. What are you into? Oh, I'm here. And then they never do. Right.

Okay.

I know they're talking about.

Yeah, so, so. And by the way, that could be the same guy that, that it's got the time. Time Named after him. So could be. Could definitely be. So that's, that's a Noah. So the beer plans, beer plants like these, all these things started coming up after I wrote this down thing. But they, they just come up and they're all blog posts and positive activity.

I'll link to everything for you guys in there. The sales, when you're just coming out. This would be out. That should be out. I'll link to all that. You guys Easily jump in and read all about all this.

So beer plans again. So we were the, the little ditty I've got going with this is. So I went to a sales meeting last September. Oh, it's almost a year. And met a new guy, nice young, young guy, you know, just getting started in the business where our primary business is the promotional swag business. That's what we do night and day. And so Taylor was the kid's name. So last night is this event.

The event, you know, Ward's banquet, all that stuff to dinner. It's at the Harley Davidson museum. So what they asked you to do was, hey, wear something bikish. Well, Neil, don't have anything bikish. And I'm not. You know, I had a black T shirt with me. That was about as far as I was going to go. But as I'm walking out of our trade show that day, a guy had this, I don't know if you know, a dye sublimated process for your listeners is where you.

The logo is in the garment. It's dyed into the material. Okay. Okay. So it's not screen printed on or embroidered on or pressed on. It is in the material. Right.

Is it woven into that?

Oh, just died in dye sublimation. Okay. So anyways, cool jacket, right? So I get to the event, yada, yada. Yeah. Hanging out with an old buddy of mine. Kid comes out to me, hey, Neil, Ben, that jacket is awesome. I looked and said, taylor, I will never wear this again. He goes, can I have it? I said, you sure can.

So night goes on. You know, his night probably lasts a lot longer than mine at this stage of my game. And next day is the final breakfast. So I bring it to the final breakfast. He's sitting by himself. I walked over, had behind my back, I said, hey, Taylor, how you doing, man? It's all great. How you doing? Oh, great, great. What a meeting, huh? Huh? Great speakers.

A lot of good content. Learned a lot, didn't you? He says, yeah. I said, I'm gonna give you your best lesson all week. I threw the jacket on the table, I pointed to him and I said, never, never, always do what you say you're going to do. And I walked away. So that's the beer plan story. And I think it's. I think it's ingrained in his head.

So you tell somebody and that that little gem comes back from me when I used to talk to Bill, the guy was telling about earlier with the Scully cap on and all these little things. Everybody you can pick up little gems along the way in your, in your life. Not everything is this, you know, incredible aha moment. But I remember him telling me years ago when I was, I wound up working in the sporting goods business with these guys was athletic footwear and apparel and I was working with someone else and, but Bill would call me and tell him, give me all sorts of information. One of the things he says was if you tell somebody you're going to send them a poster, send them the poster. And it just like hit me, okay, yeah, it makes sense. Why wouldn't I? Most people don't. It's like, it's like, you know, I, I subscribe to the seven touch theory in sales, which is it's going to take you seven significant touches in order to get somebody's attention.

That's why when I mentioned, when I mentioned it earlier, when these people, they try to reach out to me and there's no creativity. It's like, it's like 100 years ago when people use. This guy told me when, when any, when they, when they were hiring salespeople, they took all of the resumes that were on white paper and throw them up. Didn't even read them. Anything that was off color or something a little different. Those are the ones that read. So yeah, so it's, that's the, that's the drill on that one.

So what I, what I kind of gather from, from all the, the whole story was you can be top 10, top 1% just doing these things nobody's doing anymore. Nobody's dressing well, nobody's greeting you, nobody's being polite, nobody's doing, nobody's following up properly. Nobody's sending you what they said they're going to send you. Just doing those things you're talking about are such low hanging fruits. I would easily think you could become top just by doing those things.

Jim Rohn. Yes, Jim, of course. So Jim Rohn says success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals. Also also known as everybody the little things. So yeah, I mean think about, think about today when you meet 28 year old guy, gal, whatever and they shake your hand, look you square in the eye and ask you a question and listen, you go to yourself. I don't, obviously I don't. They're not seeing this in my head.

I'm taking a step back on. Oh, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We have a winner here, everybody. Right, right. And so, yes, it's so rare you see that, you know, so. And that's One of the, One of the audiences that we're trying to get to in our, in our, our stuff and, you know, with bar tips and also positive activity are those, are those, are those young people. I have very. For, for.

For no pay, you know, for friends, their kids, they can't reach them. They're floundering whatnot. As long as they read the first couple of chapters of my book, because they saw how I struggled a little bit, I'm happy to talk to them. And I have. There's not. I failed on one, but that was because I didn't know about his drug use. And also it said, I can't help you there. I said, you know, you're gonna have to listen to your counselors if you still think you should be in the bar business.

You're not listening to counselors. Right. So. So, yeah, so, I mean, it's. Yeah, there's. None of it. I always say right now, I mean, but one of the things I always say, you know, you are now talking to the. Probably the only person, you know, that flunked out of two community colleges.

You know, so it's just. How do you respond? How do you. How do you, you know, I mean, I've got one going on right now. I mean, I'm, you know, crap, I'm 66 years. Don't be 67 years old. I have no desire to slow down. And I've got one going right now. I'm working with, like, 20 offices.

There's 864. I've got. I've got 10. I've been introduced to 10 more regional managers, and all I've got is emails, and nobody's responding. Wow. So I'm like, okay, how. What am I doing? How do I do this so very easily? I've got someone that dials for me. So we're gonna, we're gonna circle the wagons and we're gonna find.

We're gonna just. We're just gonna. We're gonna call all the offices in that area and we're going to kill them with kindness, and we're going to start sending them things and they're going to open up the, the new program, new campaign that we. We helped develop for this one group that's going great. It's a. It's a recruiting firm. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna show them that I'm interested in their business and that even though, you know, each.

Each individual office is not a big deal, but in aggregate, it can be a very big deal. And I've got somebody that can manage it for me. So once I get it, I certainly will keep keeping, keep in with the client. But I am going to use. Here's another one for you. I'm going to be tenacious, not just persistent. Right. So persistent.

Sounds like pests for a reason. I could keep sending these guys email. I'm going to go, oh joy, this guy, let's get rid of him. What, what are we doing with this guy or what, you know, or they're just going to keep ignoring him. Like we all can ignore emails. But when I start doing creative things and showing them that I'm really interested and I've come up with these, you know, new concepts and everything I send them is all sales related. It's all like I just sent them all bags in my logo with, with you know, various promotional items in it with our logo on it. And the whole point was make sure you're taking your marketing materials with you.

They're no good to you in the closet. You don't, don't, don't look, don't stockpile your post it notes because you don't want to just hand them out like they're water. Take pens, take 50 cent pens to the restaurant you go to and make sure you leave two of them with, with the waitress. And I'm looking at like I'm over here on my, my, my bookcase here. I'm staring at a guerrilla marketing book. It's all gorilla marketing, the old, all guerrilla marketing concepts. Now you can take them to the next level with digital and whatnot. But, but yeah, it's where.

Hitting where they are, hitting where they ain't.

I've been noticing mailings coming, making a comeback now. Well, right, yes.

Sorry I jumped in on you that one. I kind of tried but it was.

Like you got a good one there. Yeah, I've been seeing more prominent people mailing things. I should maybe I should say that, that never that were maybe just pure digital. I think in fact some of the things I can, I'm thinking about now, I think they were just a pure digital thing. Now I'm seeing mails come and like you're saying, right. I mean what's the average inbox, seven, eight thousand emails, you know, versus my mailbox. What do I have ten things in there? Maybe yours is in there now you're 11. I, I'm gonna at least look at it before I throw the recycling.

You add a little, see what I have here. So if you add a little dimension to it, you know what the Open rate is. No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. There you go. You take, I'm.

Hold on. Please go ahead.

When I send a book, make sure I get a call. There we go. So what happens is the book comes in this. If I've got a sticker, I put it on the outside. Typically all we have all our marketing stuff done at another, another place but they get in the book, they get a positive activity bracelet and a pen and it's going to have dimension to it. That baby's going to get open. I'm going to surprise and delight them with this. And then if it's some, you know, someone I just said I'm sending the book to gratis.

You're going to get that too. And then that also is my calling card. Oh well, this guy, this guy really knows what he's talking about. Let's hope, right? So the, the open rate. Yeah, we've been huge. That's when you're talking about those seven touches. Those have got to be in there. In our view now you have to have the budget to, to, to, to do that.

Right. So you, you know, if you're selling you know, two dollar widgets, you know, unless they're going to buy 10,000 of them, but if we buy one of them, you're not going to send them a ten dollar package. Right, right. But if you, you know. One, one, one project I worked on was this for this Hitachi Consulting. They took a hundred of their hard to get into and they, they, they were given. So these are all telemarketers. They were the appointment setters.

And we, we mailed, they each got 10 and we mailed seven touch campaign. They get 10 appointments. Wow. It's like staggering because somebody did something different. We do this stuff all the time, you know, and, but again, so here I am, I'm, but I'm, I'm stuck right now with these 10 guys. 10. I think it's about 10 people. I mean I'm offering him stuff.

I mean I'm trying to get the subject line right. All that crap. It's like. But I don't. And I would, I'd have stopped doing it a long time ago if I just had their addresses. So I'm gonna find their addresses, you know, and they're gonna be in their offices and it's, you know, and so they're gonna get a, you know, promo kit. They're going to get booked, you know, it's going to come staggered. It's not gonna all come at once.

But this next Thing I'm doing right now, the whole concept of the, of the campaign is called. It's again, they're recruiters and it's the higher alarm. So we took fire alarm and we took hot fire out and we placed it with higher. You don't need anybody now, but you're gonna. And when you do, pull the higher alarm. Gutsy gag a little bit if you want. Don't care, right. They're gonna go, ah, interesting.

Different. You know, the next thing I'm sending them, pop socket. Pop socket is goes.

Guess what?

Guess what you have to do with it. Pull it.

Pull your fire alarm.

Dumb. There you go.

But those are memorable words, right? They get in our head and get in our thing when you're like, we gotta hire. We need a higher alarm. Oh, we gotta fire. Oh, crap. That guy, he.

Yeah, some guy. I remember the. It worked in one. One location. They called like, like day later, pulling the higher alarm. I need 20 people by Tuesday. Wow. By the way, remind everybody, blank insides.

Oh, nice. So you can have right in there.

Always blank insides. So you're right, you're right, you're right. Personal note.

You know, I've heard people, you know, do some research on, on these guys, you know, and like we're saying you got to have a little bit of a, of a margin there to do these things. But I, I know a guy, he was saying he was trying to get something like this, a CEO of a company, and he starts, you know, following online, looking at stuff. This guy's a big runner, so he sends him like the most killer running shoes. He, he could, he, he another client's talking about. He's like, I knew he was in this thing. I sent him a. A year subscription to this magazine with, with our name on it to him. And, and I forget the other stories, but stuff like that where you like, you get a box of shoes in your office, you're like, let me send me sneakers.

You're not going to not open that, Right.

You know, you could get shut out. Sure. But you know what that, you know, still the law of averages, you know, you got to get never up, never in. But most people. Now this is all conventional wisdom. I've never really seen this carved in stone, but nobody ever disagrees with it. Most salespeople are gone after the second touch. All the, all the business is done.

After the fifth, right?

Yeah. So that's why I, I. Even at this stage of my game, I'm going, I'm not going down, Ray. I figured I'm gonna Figure this out. Yeah. So it's because they're all like small offices in it. Because I'm akin to what they've done. I'm in a small office mice.

We get a small company and I've been doing it for 40 years, you know, as either as a manufacturer's rep or in this promotional business we've had for almost 30 years. It's a pretty good success in this, in this world, in this lane, you know, so. Right.

Interesting. Yeah. It, I just, it keeps running through my head is the little things, the little things, the little things and, and like I said earlier, these are the little things now that were just nothing, just mannerisms maybe before are now the things that are making you stand out.

Sure. Yeah.

I know you, you spend a lot of time in the hospitality business and maybe you know a lot around that and plus you know, even ancillary things. What are some things that the hospitality world is doing that the typical non hospitality business isn't doing, but maybe they should be doing?

It's interesting. A lot of the hospitality businesses I don't live. I mean I've, I've seen, I've seen, you know, I've got a, I've got a friend again, another friend that maybe get a little friend group from. I never went, I was a commuter student so I never went to. Never. I don't have any fraternity brothers. My fraternity brothers are people that I tend to bar with or we're in the restaurant business with and we're still friends this year. This time he goes out with his wife now and again.

Although he's had a run of bad health. Although he's, he was a killer, killer runner. He was world class top notch marathon. He was 230 sub 2:30. And he, he, he'll go out and you know, he'll start moaning and groaning about what they're doing and his wife will turn to him, say hey Tom, take the night off. So that's what happens, you know, you look around, it's like, and I'm. And I get kind of offended with it. You know, it's like, you know, I, I just.

You got a great little gig here. Whether it's part time, full time, you know. You know, I'm not so sure. I never, I bets. I never want to be a full time guy. I go back and pour beer and pour drinks now. You know, I'd love to work functions just for fun, just to talk to people. Right.

So anyways. But yeah, so. And it's the same way when I You know, when I don't get served properly from, in a professional environment. So it really, I can't, I want to keep going back to, you know, do you feel like you're in a, you know, do they have a process of how to take you through, you know, the question, you know, the, the 15 minute Q& A and asking proper questions? The fine line between asking too many questions. Right. Because they want to know some stuff about you. So it's old. Have you ever heard of the, the upfront contract?

No, sir.

You people are going to love this one. So if they've never taken say on their sales. I did for a bit. This was the only thing I got out of Sandals Hills. The rest of it was stuff like, you know, how to trick him to get them on the phone and all that stuff. Say, oh, great, great. Let's, let's start out. Let's start our, let's start our relationship disingenuously.

That's a good idea. And it. No, it was. The upfront contract goes something like this. Hey, man, what do we got here today? How much time did you set aside? Oh, we've got 15 minutes. Great, great. So I'd like to hear a little bit about me, but I want to hear a lot about you. So I'm going to ask you some questions.

Okay. And then what's going to happen after that, I think is going to be that I'm going to see if I can help you. I'll give you a couple of conscious of how that might work, but I will wrap it up in 15 minutes. How does that sound to you? That's the upfront contract. Now that was. I've done that 400 different ways. That was the 401, you know, so it's so that, so setting, setting the parameters and whatnot. So I feel like we're getting somewhere.

Okay. All right now. All right, I see what you got now. All right, so what you, what you're going to need is you're going to need two vanities, a two sinks, this lighting and boom. As a basic fundamental. Now you're going to have to pick all that stuff up and that's what we're going to take you through and show you the price ranges, the good, the better and the best. And so that's how we're going to determine what the overall cost is going to be. How does that sound, Mrs.

Jones? Right. Keeps going. Right, so it's. So nobody's threatened. What's the price tag going to be on this? Can I give you A ballpark. On. On Good. Sure.

Gonna be 25 grand. Right. And you know enough about your business, you know enough about the competition that you're, You're, You're. You're in that. You're in that comfort zone. So if that's what they want to hear. Okay. I prefer Joan to spend.

Can I spend 15 minutes on this tonight and just lay out some things and maybe send you back a couple of concepts before I just throw out a price and then at least you'll have something to compare. Sure, that'd be great. Who's saying no to any of that? Right?

And you're not constantly sitting there waiting, like, okay, I'm waiting for the ball to drop. I'm waiting for the thing.

Right, right, right, right. You. You have you.

I think that in. When I'm thinking about if that was done to me or even just listening to you talk, and it's not even to me, but I'm just like, I feel more relaxed, like, okay, we laid out a plan. You're going to honor your word. Okay, let's go. Yeah.

Hey. Managing expectations from the jump, and that doesn't. Doesn't that sound like it's going to. If I do that with you now, doesn't that going to sound like that's how I'm going to operate with you for the rest of the time we're together?

Absolutely. I didn't think about that aspect. Right. He's going to follow up. He's going to do what he says because he's already established. He gave me. This is what we're gonna do.

He did it.

I can continue to expect that from him until he break my trust or.

And if you want to go back to the other stuff, if you showed up on time, if you were well presented, if you had a logo shirt with your logo with your. With your company on it, if you were, you know, you. You had all your materials, you left him a little Leave behind. Here's a little. His little. His little Bill. Bill Evans pen. View Plumbing.

Penny. Whatever. It's. It's. They're 50 cents. You can get a decent pen for 70 cents. This thing right here. These.

This is a killer pen. The one that just. I just have in my hand, the orange one. This one right here, Killer. You get them for 79. 70 cents with that big. With that big logo.

So you get your.

You get your logo, you get your. By the way, I'm not pitching these folks, but if you want to eat them, we got them. But it's just, Just an example of the way, if you think about these things and don't make them an afterthought because so many times we're the afterthought. Okay. If we had talked about this earlier, if we took our 15 minutes, this could have looked a lot different. And oh, by the way, guess what you wouldn't have done. You wouldn't have done it last minute and paying overnight shipping. Right.

Trying to help you. Yeah.

It's tough when your emergency is not my problem, but sometimes it is.

Exactly.

So these are great you. I mean, this is the beauty of being in a business for so long. Is there other. If you were to do your own sales training, I'm not sure if you do or not, but if you're maybe to start something from scratch or whatever, what do you think is missing from the curriculum today? What are sales trainers out there not teaching people? You think they should be teaching people? That's a big question.

So I, I, I, I, I don't know all the sales trainers. I go right over here is, is Dale. I get think and grow rich. I've got, I've got, you know, I've got the happiness advantage. I've got, you know, I got well done. I've got some other sales books, but those are the ones that I kind of, you know, traded with other people. I want it to be simple, right? So I mean, you have to have a pro, whatever your process is. Have a process.

Right. You know, so our process, what we do is we take people through in positive activity, which is our program that we would train a salesperson on. We want to get their mindset right, number one. Right. We want them in a place of positivity because if you get them there, and by the way, everybody out there, you can control most of your own happiness. And it ain't the car or the house or the watch or whatever, whatever, right. And so, and what you control that too. But it, it's not, I'm not, you're not going to get happy when you have the house.

You're not going to get. You need to be happy along the way. And those things can be done by simple things like. And this is a lot of people doing this, a lot of people talking about this these days where you, where you have practices in the morning to get your mindset right. Ours, mine are that I.

Sky the journal.

Yeah. So in here this morning, I write three things down in the last. Well, I took the whole weekend because I didn't journal this weekend. That, that, that made, that made my Weekend cool party at the Whitehorse Beach Association. Good decision to come home because my son, because my situation, my son Lori, my wife felt comfortable here. I said, well, I didn't want to leave her alone. I came home and then we had a great time. We had, we went out to dinner and actually, you know, just kind of casual and whatnot.

Some music was playing. It was great, great night. And then I, then what I do is I take one of those. Typically I do and trying to recall it and really bring back that feeling I had as I was doing it. And I just said it was the right decision to come home. Help Lori make the decision on Craig's care. Always better together. Beautiful.

How am I not happy about that? Right? Yeah. My wife happy. I felt better about doing it. I'm comfortable with what we're doing with our son now. And then I take time to meditate and folks, meditate can be listening to your breath for five minutes. It doesn't have to be. I'm transcendental meditation trained which is 20 minutes in the morning. 20 minutes.

But I don't always do TM. I did NSDR this morning. NSDR is a non sleep deep breast that I did because I was trying to get back to sleep a little bit too. To finish off the night, my movement was to be bike at noon, but I'm hoping It's Pilates at 4:30, but we can keep rolling. And then I usually have, sometimes this is tbd. I, I put together some sort of conscious act of kindness. Oh, beautiful. So as an example, right.

Was it Friday one morning in the last four. I forget what it was. I, I was in a coffee shop and just you know, thinking through all this stuff that's going through my head with my son and my daughter and my other kids and they're all older and all doing great. But this woman in front of me and she was, you know, she's got the kid going and you know, she's ordering all this stuff and whatnot. She, she goes to pay and her, her card bounces. Oh, she said, oh, I forgot this was fraudulent. I get fraud, I get fraud. And she went to walk away.

I said don't worry, I got it. It's $14. Am I ever going to be $14 away from retirement? Well, I'm never considered about, I'm not considering retirement anyway. So I don't even want that even going to be relevant. But yeah, so and I, that's in my book this morning. So. And then I do, I put things like so and that May be something you can recall that you did. And by the way, that could be a simple text to someone that you just feel might be being down.

Might be down or maybe not even down. Hey, just thinking of you this morning. Who, who doesn't like to hear from somebody that they're friendly with just out of the blue. Hey, good to hear from you. Have a great day. Done. Then I write I am statements and this kind of came from the first bit of this came from Sean Acorn and the happiness advantage, which I would, I would if. No, if people aren't out there going to read the book, which I suggest you should.

They say should I don't do shits. I suggest you might try it. At least watch his 12 minute TED talk on YouTube.

I'll link that.

Amazing. He gets it all in in 12 minutes. Wow. And then, then this came from my wife. Kind of got into Joel Osteen speaking for after a while he had, he wrote a whole book on I.M. i am statements. So I write I am a mentor because when I, when I go to speak, when I speak on this, I don't, I'm not, I don't like the coach word. I don't know.

I mean coaches tell you what to do. That's why they suggest. When I said should I pulled it back. Mentors suggest, you know, that maybe there may be a lot more Socratic method being played as a mentor, you know, where you're collaborating with someone that needs your support. You know, have you ever thought about it this way? Maybe if you tried doing it considered that not like, listen, dude, if you do not do this, you're, you know, it's like, you know, so, so mentor is what I do. I write. I am a speaker, right? Because that's one of my, my big aims to play this thing out. Sharing as I'm sharing today.

I'm a musician. I play the piano and sing and I'm. And I focused on that vocal for about five years and the piano for the last two. And I've kind of been involved with it some way shape or form my life. But, but I like the, the gains I've made in the last five years are staggering compared to the previous, you know, 50. Like because I focused on it and I did it. I am a writer, right. I wrote a book.

I am positive, creative and productive. That is, I didn't give you the whole positive activity ditty, but the positive activity Diddy goes get your mindset in a place of positivity which leads you to open minded divergent thinking, solution providing creativity. And that can lead to incredible productivity. So if you're in creative mode, you're seeing nothing but solutions. You're not all lathered up and whatnot. You're creative. You. Okay, so I can see my way through this.

And then you put together your productivity steps, whatever those are. I, When I, when I first performed piano and sing sang on, on stage, I put together a 90 day plan. I had, I did scales, I did, I did, I did exercises, I did vocal exercises. I did, I did various chord shape, chord, chord progressions. And I did. And then I sang this. I played and sang the songs. 90 days later, there I was in front of 200 people playing and sing beautiful.

And then the final one I would tell you about. So then I say, then I encourage myself. I am enough. I have enough. Right? And then, then I, then I reiterate. Have you heard of the Four Agreements?

Oh, I love that book.

Yes. Okay, so I rewrite them here. I will be impeccable with my word. I won't take things personal, I won't make assumptions, and I will always do my best. And that's how I kick off the day before I open up the inbox. You know what, that, you know how long that takes?

10 minutes, 15 maybe.

Maybe. Depends on, depends on your, your prowess with meditation. So if you do five minutes of meditation, the rest of it would be five minutes. Right? You know, so if you 10, you do 20, then you just might expand it. And then I, but, oh, I did say, you know, yeah, I plan to move every day. And that's, that's critical too.

So the, the im. From what I sounded like you were saying, if we, I kind of want to just clarify for people what is. You were saying some things that are aspirational and some things you already are. Is that correct?

Yes, I want to say. I want to. I want to because I'm like, I'm always going, I'm always trying to be a mentor. I'm always trying to be a musician. I'm always trying to be a speaker. So I am work in progress on all of it.

Okay?

I am positive creative. But you know what? I don't want anybody off the hook out there. But nobody bats a thousand. Correct. If you have. That's why we call it so I don't know if I gave this part of it, but, but positive activity is the practice because we're, you know, we're also yoga people, Lori and I. It's a practice. Nothing's perfect.

You know, just don't if you don't, if you don't like. Look, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not bummed. I didn't, I didn't journal all weekend. I just started again today or yesterday. Where are we? Tuesday? Is this Tuesday? Whatever. Wherever we are. Yeah, yeah.

It was a long weekend.

Yeah. So. So, yeah. And then it's. And then you're off to the races. Now you're, now you're just. What am I doing today? How am I organizing? What's my day look like? What do I have?

So when I was reading about your, your principles for positive activity. Sorry about the speaking. There were six of them. I saw that you had on your website. Is there one of those that trips people up the most?

Are you talking about when we get to the business development portion of this.

I was reading. It was the guiding principles of positive activity that I saw. There were six of those.

So that is, so that's, that, that's the business development part of it. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's all again, about doing it. So it's, you know, do you understand what business you're in? Do you understand who can buy what you sell? Because we certainly don't want to be going down bad paths trying to sell something to somebody that can't buy it. Right, right. Who's the right contact as an example then? Now that you know who they are, how are you building your list? Who are the people you know, who are the people you meet? Who. The people you. Who. The people you buy, the least of which you want.

Right. You don't want to, you don't be sending out spray and pray, spray and pray stuff. I mean, it's easy on digital and that's what they're doing on LinkedIn all day, every day.

And AI now, too, just helps accelerate that.

Yeah. And, you know, and it's. Yeah, we're just going to get inundated even more. So it's going to have to. So your original, your oiq, when we talked about the. Your OIQ is going to have to go up because everybody's going to be doing it. Everybody's got some way to like do the AI thing and whatnot. And, and it's going to become obnoxious to people and it's obnoxious to me now.

You know, and again, it's like I said earlier, if you don't do something creative, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not picking up the phone or, or, or anything. And then so, and then do you have campaigns, seven touch campaigns set up for each of those groups and can you tell, can you tell me? Can you. The other thing is, you know what, you know, you, the whole, the whole whole thing about, you know, what's your, what's Your, what's your 22nd commercial? You know what, can you tell somebody in 20 seconds? You know, the whole elevated picture to it. Hack. Need. Yes. Purposeful. Absolutely.

What is it you do anyways? Well, I do this. Oh, it's interesting. And then, by the way, just because they say it's interesting and they give you a business card doesn't mean they're sitting by at their desk waiting for you to call. So you have to put them in queue and you're in your, in your campaigns.

Back to that beer thing again. Or the beer plans.

Exactly. Never make beer, please. That's great. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I'll send you a book. I say, I look at people now. I say, oh, by the way, if you give me your address, the people I said, because my nephew said to me the other day, he goes, because I gave a, gave a book to the father of, the father of the bride at this wedding, because I have one in my briefcase and he was sitting in my, in the kitchen we were staying at and I put on his nephews.

I've never got one of those. You give me your address, I will send one to you and I will send it to you, but you got to send me your address. Let's see who wins.

Such a simple thing. He's just text, text you real quick, here's my address and you get a free book right on the spot. 40 years of knowledge and hundreds, millions maybe of dollars of knowledge for free. One of the things on that list, the six things that were there was, number three is that you said work is best done in a state of flow in which one is fully engaged by the task and there is no sense of time passing. How do we get to that stage?

That's when you're in the role, on the roll. When you do all those things now, your productivity pieces, if you're set up right and you do these things every day, and I always say 90 days, right, you might take, you might change interchangeable parts, take things out, change things up a little bit. You, you go 90 days, it's going to feel effortless because what's going to happen is you're going to start to get momentum. People are going to respond to you. You're not just going to get ghosted all the time, you know, so. But you. But there has to be some sort of volume to it, you know, you got to. You got to pick days.

When am I sending things out? Who am I going to follow? What am I. Where am I going to go to speak, who am I going. What counter am I going to sit at? What. What chamber event am I going to go to? You're always going to find somebody to send something to, and if they. If it's not them, maybe they've got somebody else. So that's when it's just like. Then you. You're doing work, but in 90 days, I've seen it happen.

I've done it. I've done it myself many times. In 90 days, you look back, you won't believe where you came from. Absolutely.

You also talk about rational optimism. Could you break that down for us real quick?

Sure. We all know things can be bad out there. We choose. We choose not to. Not to address them. Right. They don't. They don't play in our world.

We know this thing. There's tough things out there. And matter of fact, one of the. I was telling you about my buddy Art Hogan. He stays right over there in a picture and what we would do on. During, you know what. And I won't say the word that almost drove us all crazy. I'd be driving down my place in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

I live in New Hampshire, primarily, and drive down there. And he lives near there, and I call him every Thursday. On the way down. I just say, artie, tell me something good. Because he's always in the market and hearing things, you know. And he said, well, I think. I think we're going to be able to have a burger and a beer together by July. Beautiful.

And then that would hold hope. So it was just. Let's see if I can read it from here. You don't have to think everything is great all the time to be an optimist. Certainly I don't. But I believe that humanity's ability to solve problems increases over time. That's the kind of optimism that guides my life. That's rational optimism.

We know it's. We know that things bad out there, that there could be bumps in the road, like, I don't care. I have my. I have my political views. I don't care who's in the office. I just keep going, just keep going. It's like, you know, maybe you have to make an adjustment because one thing's going one way or one thing's going another. But by and Large.

It's, it's business as usual. So we don't have to, you know, we don't have to get involved with that. You know. You know, as far as we're, we're keeping ourselves healthy and watching what we're eating and, you know, doing these types of practices, you know, pretty good shot. Being a pretty healthy person. I'm a pretty healthy guy. Just rode 90 miles from Plymouth to Provincetown for cycle against suicide because he didn't feel as though he was not a rational optimist. Oh, my old buddy Bob.

So God bless you, Bob. But, so, yeah, so that's rational optimism. It's not, it's just, it's knowing that things are out there but not avoiding them. You know, but you don't have to address them every day. You have to go into the weeds on the way they go into the weeds on every issue and everything now and has been that way for 20 years. You know, this is, this is going to be end of the world. No, no, no. This is going to be the end of the world.

How about this? How about. I'm gonna, we have these things. Hold on. Sorry. To keep track.

Yes.

These babies go into our. Now this is backwards.

Things are always working out for me.

Things are always working out for me. That goes, that goes in the dashboard of our cars. Lori's got one, I've got one. We hand them out to at our events and just have that positive attitude. It's going to work out. Keep working. Stay in creative mode. Be in solution mode.

Right. So.

I know you, you were saying to stay away from the negative. I agree with this. Is there a bit of you, you just need a healthy level of, of skepticism. Is that something, how do you think about that?

I, I, I don't. I, I think heading into it in that fashion, I mean, you know, we have our biases, we've got our cynicism where we've had life experience. Right. But I think if you're going looking for, I'll just have a little skepticism. Skepticism here. I'm going to be the devil's advocate. Please don't ever tell me that. I don't want the devil's advocate.

I, I don't think that's, I don't think that's, that's the healthy way to approach it. You know, if you've done your homework, if you've done your pre, you know, again, I'm talking about sales in this point. If you go in, if you're going in and you, you vetted the customer they can buy what you sell yet it's just not working. Move on. You can't sell everybody. Nobody bets a thousand.

I agree that and I think we are. We are also wired for the negative. So getting stuck there. I guess my thought was, you know, you know, make sure you got some water on hand for an emergencies and maybe things along those lines. That's kind of what I was thinking. I wasn't necessarily sure.

I mean, yeah, anything good and stuff?

Yeah, okay.

Oh, sure. I think, yeah. I should always be prepped. That's part of your preparation. I always have a bottle of water with you. I'm all, you know, it's tea right now, but there's a lot water waiting for me for the workout.

So we have Roger Marketing, which is mainly branded products and stuff. We talked a lot about those. If you guys are interested, I'll link this in the thing. We have positive activities. Just seems like we spend a lot of your time right now. If I'm not mistaken, there's some amazing free downloads and tools there. I'll link these things for you guys there as well as ways to get in touch and whatnot. I have the book I'll link to.

Is there anything else you want to speak of that we want to maybe point people to or anything like that?

Always be promoting. You know the old. Always be closing. I always be promoting. Sure. Then you'll close.

Perfect. And then on the social media show, I like to do a weekly challenge for our listeners. It could be something we talked about here today or maybe something we didn't at all. What I would like you, Neil, is I'd like you to issue this week's challenge.

Go to a counter, a bar, if you like a beer or a cocktail. Speak to somebody you don't know if they're engageable. Don't interrupt them, ask them a question. Shut your mouth. Listen actively listen. Nod your head, look at them as they're talking. Practice your, your active listening skills.

We need a lot more of that. Thank you. That's a great challenge. And then the last question I'd like to ask you is, and this doesn't have to be a grandiose thing. I want it to be. However you think about it, what does living a legendary life mean to you?

Successful, successful, successful happiness. Successful and happy and healthy family, full stop.

That's a legendary life. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge. I have an entire page of notes. I appreciate everything. I'll link to all the things we talked about as much as I can and show this for you guys, you know, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing things. I hope things go better with your son. It's a horrible story, but it sounds like you got under control and we'll be all right.

All the best with all that.

Thank you very much.

What a great episode. Like I said, I do have a absolute page of notes here. Such great nuggets. Wisdom. This is what you get when you're. When you're in an industry for this long. You're proficient. You can feel the passion here, the wisdom and the passion there.

He has this.

This.

It feels like an innate ability to teach and to share and, and just going on and on and on. Find these things, do the little things you've seen. You hear how many little things we talked about. Just this little practice even. It's just practicing one of these a week, a month. You start shaking people's hands, you, you know, you dress a little better. Whatever it is that you've found you could do, being on time and like, like I said about me, I was the guy that was easily 10, 15 minutes late everywhere. I was late to work, I was late to meeting people all the time.

I changed that. Now I'm the guy. Nobody ever says, tyson's gonna be late. Because I knew that something had to change. And I took my time and I put in the reps and I changed and I made that happen. Okay, these are little things. You can be the top 10%. Just probably picking up, read of these five, go out there, guys, get this stuff done.

You're gonna change your life, your family's life. You're gonna change your projective. And like Neil was saying, In 90 days, you are not going to recognize yourself. And I can be a testament to that for myself with people I've worked with and Neil has said the same thing. This is a common story. It's out there, just putting in the work, right? Like we talked about, extreme ownership, taking accountability for that. Right. Discipline equals freedom.

Owning what you're doing, even if it's not your fault, that's the hardest part. When it's not truly your fault, at least you believe it somewhere, somehow. How can you make it your. In your world? How can you take ownership of. Of it? How can you learn? How can you be better? And one thing you can do because you know, there's no paywall. There's no premium plus social community show to subscribe to. We give you everything up front. And only thing we ask if you found value for this episode.

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