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Welcome to the Sell or Die podcast.
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I m your host, Jeffrey Gittimer.
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And I m your host, Jen Gittimer.
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Well, in this podcast, we re gonna help you attract more qualified, unbelievable, ready-to-buy clients.
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We re gonna help you build loyal relationships.
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And the one thing you re hoping for, close more deals.
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Let s get into it.
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It s time to sell or die.
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Diehards, besides the Phillies going to the World Series and the Eagles going to the Superbowl this year, the third thing that I have had on my bucket list is to have Sam Parker come onto the Sell or Die podcast and talk about his beginnings in the sales career and one of the most remarkable elements I have ever heard or heard of when he created this book called 212.
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What kind of introduction?
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Yeah, thanks.
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What s the whole name of it?
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Is it just 212 or is it?
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212, the extra degree.
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the extra degree.
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I m telling you, the thing that got me with two things, how brilliant it was, and how it pissed me off that I didn t create it.
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That s usually my sign for when something s good, too.
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I think if somebody says something like Khalil Gibrani said, work is love made visible.
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I love those five consecutive words, man, and it pisses me off I didn t say it.
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Exactly.
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Mine is serendipity is God s way of remaining anonymous.
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I like that.
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But lately, I ve been using the phrase stay away from idiots, which is not easy to do.
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Yeah, that s true.
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I saw a talk this morning about creativity.
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And one of the key points on it was making sure that you surround yourself.
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And I see you do that there with your background.
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You surround yourself with inspiring things and people as well.
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Interesting thing is, though, this talk was at a funeral home.
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Actually, I thought it was a pretty creative idea.
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But as I sat there more toward the back of the room and I saw all the people in there and all of us, I only saw the backs of their heads, you know, like a shot in a movie and everybody had gray hair.
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And I m thinking, are we all just kind of marching into this funeral home?
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This is kind of weird.
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Have you ever seen the movie Death at a Funeral?
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What is it?
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Death at a Funeral?
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No.
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It s a Frank Oz movie.
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It s great.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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So besides my back end, my front end is even more distracting.
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Oh, wow.
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You got some stuff.
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Well, I have a Steve Jobs business card.
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I have a Wow.
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through the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
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I have a no soliciting sign or no salesman sign that I took from an antique store in Portland, or just outside of Portland.
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And I said, I m a salesman, I just spent $200 in this store.
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Fuck this guy, I m taking the sign.
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That s irony.
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I like that.
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Yeah, we used to say we used to have a sign on our on our office that said soliciting welcomed.
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Yeah, I have the same.
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Yeah, exactly the same solicitors.
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Welcome.
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Just tell me you re selling something.
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Don t don t don t be asked me and say, Look, I m not selling you something today.
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Yeah, I m like didn t get out.
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And the other thing about Sam Parker, by the way, you guys is he created a company called just sell and it was kind of newslettery kind of product kind of
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It was on the cutting edge at the moment, because it had everything about internet, it had everything about email, and he was he was doing it right.
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Thank you.
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There s one thing that we should say, Sam, which is it we met in DC, I want to say, yeah, Georgetown.
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Yeah.
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And the cab driver started to speed away with my phone in the car.
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Yes.
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And I ran down the street and caught the cab.
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It was amazing.
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And I m thinking, I was thinking about that today as I was thinking about our call.
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And I thought, wow, that was probably over 20 years ago.
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Yeah.
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And I m thinking, so I m pegging you at roughly, you know, around my age, a couple of years ago, maybe I m thinking you re this guy s running up the street.
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And I m thinking, no way is he going to get that phone back?
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Of course.
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Of course.
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And you and you did, which was pretty amazing.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
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The pan, by the way, for those of you who are not geographically aware, especially people who live in New York and New Jersey, you think everything else is a farm, is in Richmond.
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It is the sort of the cool area of Richmond where the Bohemians at one time lived, but it s now... Not anymore.
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It s quite a bit different, but it s a beautiful place to be.
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It really is.
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I feel very lucky to be here.
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Cool.
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The airport s a little tacky, but everything else is fine.
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Our airport has grown, Mr. Gittemer.
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It s no Charlotte, I get it.
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We don t have A through E and have E go out to 50, but it is a little bit more convenient.
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And I live about, from getting into the car to the gate, about 16 minutes, maybe 17.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And I m 12 minutes from the airport in Charlotte, 15 if there s traffic.
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And I don t own the airport, but I control it because I know all the skycap guys and they ll get me anything I need.
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There you go.
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That s nice.
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Anyway, Charlotte s a good airport.
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There s a river.
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You re up and down wherever you want to go in the world.
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You re up and down.
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Yes.
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I don t get direct flights from here, unfortunately.
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I had a direct flight in last week.
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You go directly to Charlotte.
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Yeah.
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You go directly to Atlanta.
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But if I got a ticket to Charlotte, they d fly me through Philadelphia.
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It s cheaper.
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They d do something that wouldn t get me there fast, that s for sure.
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That s funny.
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Yeah.
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So talk about JustSell for a second.
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How did it start and how did it end?
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Oh, well, let s see.
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I had a thought.
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I used to carry a bag in a bunch of different industries before we started JustSell.
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And then I used to have a regular morning breakfast with who ended up being my co-founder of JustSell.
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And I had an idea for a radio station that would be just for salespeople kind of thing, you know, a radio format for salespeople, because I was on the road all the time and I liked listening to guys who end up like me now.
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And, you know, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, all those guys.
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And my business partner said, what if we did it on the internet?
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And, you know, we went, oh my God.
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And this was February.
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We started in February, 1998.
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And, you know, what s funny, I know your birthday s on 2-11.
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Well, 2-12 is 2-12, February 12th.
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That s 2-12 day.
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And we ve incorporated, which is just by chance on 2-13, which is really annoying.
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I really wish it was just that day before.
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been a hell of a serendipitous kind of thing.
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But so I wrote, the funny thing is, so we decided to do it on the internet and we made a website and back when it was, you know, 70 or a hundred dollars for a domain and the whole thing.
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And we named it Just Sell.
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Unfortunately, I had had some content that I had written when I was selling generic pharmaceuticals, a few jobs before that.
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And I had done a sales newsletter where I had wrote, you know,
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tips on how to sell more effectively and asking open-ended questions, all the typical types of sales information.
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And that content became the first content we had on JustSell.com.
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And the funny thing is that I did that at my pharmaceutical company.
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I don t know why, I was just drawn to doing it.
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And that was back when we had 21 reps nationally and I mailed out letters to the other reps.
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That s how I did the newsletter.
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love it.
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I totally love it.
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But that s, you know, that s foundational.
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And when foundational things happen, good things happen as a result of it, you build on it to a point where it becomes not just viable, but valuable.
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And you attracted a solid audience.
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That s the other thing I was pissed off about that it wasn t mine.
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Well, so the change, you had asked how it began and how it ended.
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What happened was, so that was 1998.
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We did some angel money and raised that.
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We organized way too formally in hindsight.
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But at that time, you had all the dot-coms coming up.
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So you had to do that for investors and structure and all that kind of stuff.
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So jumping ahead to, we ended up making an ad-supportive model after trying a number of different things.
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That worked.
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And we grew really nicely up until the recession of probably really 2008 is when it really hurt.
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Unfortunately, I d written 212 on the side back in and I m kind of jumping the gun here on mentioned 212.
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Tell us what 212 is and then go back to your story.
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Okay.
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Uh, 212 is a, it s a concept.
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It s a message, essentially 25 words at 211 degrees.
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Water s hot.
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212 it boils with boiling water comes steam and with steam, you can power a train.
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One degree makes all the difference.
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That s the change, right?
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And, uh, that message, the original version of it, I, I, I did this as a kind of a personal project.
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I had had a breakfast, another breakfast meeting with a friend of mine.
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at the time, and we re exchanging sales stories and how to motivate salespeople and the whole thing.
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And he shares with me how his boss used the boiling point as a metaphor to inspire people to try just a little harder.
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And I had this flashback to when I was in my first or second sales job out of college, I went to see Brian Tracy talk at the Warner Theater in DC.
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He talked about how in horse racing, the difference in speed between the horse to finish first, the horse to finish second was usually very small, but the earnings were exponentially bigger.
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So I started looking at stats and running all that kind of those stats from sports and things.
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And I put them all together in this really short book.
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Really, it wasn t a book at the time.
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It was just a PDF that I sold to people and I sent them a decal that had the 212 logo on it.
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And then companies started asking me if they could get like 50 of them.
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And then I thought.
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Oh, wow, this is interesting.
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They want to hand it out.
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So then I did a print run of the book for a couple thousand copies, sold out of those pretty quickly.
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And then, you know, fast forward, we ended up selling quite a few of those through a number of different iterations of the book.
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And now it s just a message that I feel lucky to have gotten a steward all this time.
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And it s still something that sticks for a lot of people.
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And they tell me, you know, I had a customer last week I was speaking and she said, you know, this is, I learned about this from Johnson and Johnson from years ago and it changed my career.
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And that s why the person had me in to speak because it s still, it s just one of those things that has evolved for me over time, the meaning of it and the depth to it and the richness of it has evolved over time.
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You know, it started as a message just about kind of grind it out, try hard, that s it.
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Diehards, my PDF dates back to 2002.
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And somewhere here, I have the book.
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I searched for it before I talked, but I couldn t find it.
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You probably have one of the originals.
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Yeah, because I remember you were nice enough to read it and give me your thoughts on in the beginning.
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And I remember that.
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And I remember us talking when I and I was sitting in my loft area where I wrote the book.
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And I remember thinking it was so neat that this guy read it for me.
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And you and you were very complimentary at the time.
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And I really appreciate that.
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And it s nice that you re that you re still doing what you re doing for me.
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So thank you.
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Yeah, my pleasure.
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Yeah.
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And I got the phone out of the taxi.
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And you got, and you did.
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And I probably have told that story a few times.
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And you ve probably inspired me in a few cases to, you know, keep on pushing.
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It s very much a 212 thing, you know?
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Yeah, I agree with that.
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I always liked Brian Tracy for that one thing that he talked about the difference between the horse that comes in first and the horse that comes in second.
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The player that makes the all-star team and the player that doesn t make the all-star team, what s the difference?
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But the reality of it was, I did a seminar for an insurance company in Trinidad, and I did 750 people every other year won the prize, got to the President s Club, and the owner put all these people into airplanes and flew them someplace and gave them five grand when they got out of the plane.
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Nice.
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The following day, I had to talk to the people that didn t win.
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I know it was that tell me.
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Uh, well, I started out by saying welcome losers.
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But I asked the audience, what s the difference?
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And the difference boiled down to hard work and hustle.
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Jump in the boat.
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Right.
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And it s, but it s consistency too.
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And it s funny, you re saying, you re saying that it s reminded me of the Seinfeld bit years ago.
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I love this.
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He talks about the Olympics and the margins between first and second and the whole thing.
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And he goes on.
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And at the end of it, I m trying to think, I don t really don t want to worry.
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I mean, ruin it for anybody who wants to go look it up.
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So I m not going to do that.
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Look it up.
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Look at Michael Phelps s gold medal where he won by one one hundredth of a second.
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Yeah, it s crazy, right?
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And Daytona years ago was one hundredth of a second.
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I mean, you drop a lug nut during a tire change and you re done.
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That s very serious stuff.
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So diehard, what this message is all about is work a little harder than you re working right now.
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You don t just harder than you re working right now.
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Jeb Blunt says, make the last call.
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I don t know that I m fully in agreement with that, but this concept is right.
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When I go to a networking event, I m the first one there and I m the last one to leave.
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And in the middle, I don t drink and I hardly eat.
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I don t have to free anything.
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I m after a sale.
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I m after meeting someone of,
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who can have impact.
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And if I see the guest list, I already know who I m going to meet because I ve got five targets that I m going to look for when I get there because they all got a name badge on.
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Right.
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A networking event is showtime.
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beginning from before it starts to well after it s done.
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I mean, I always think about that with when I go, even when I go to speaking events, you know, I know that I might see somebody and it s happened to me, I might sit next to a person that s going to be in my audience on the plane.
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So I m very, I m careful to talk with people and learn who they are.
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Yeah.
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And the same happens when I leave too.
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So, you know, it s, and the same in the airport, you know, you re in the airport, especially you and your hometown there with Charlotte.
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I mean, I m sure you see people, you know, all the time we see each other every time.
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And even on the plane.
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Right.
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And if somebody comes by and says, Hey, I read your book, I give them another one.
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Yeah.
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Can I carry them with you?
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Of course.
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But here s the deal.
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I love when conversations start.
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20 years ago, I was at a lunch that you I was at one of your seminars, and I can t wait for that story.
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Yeah, it s great.
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I can t wait for that story.
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And they re all part of the expression happy endings.
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Well, right.
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You don t know sometimes when something s going to show up.
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Correct.
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And you re right, decades.
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I had somebody, I once, I think it was Nissan, I think I was going to speak at Nissan, and I m off to the side with the decision maker and we re standing there and I m about to be introduced to go up and he says, hey, by the way, you know why you re here?
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And I said, why?
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And he said, I ve been getting your newsletter for 20 years and I thought it was time to have you come in.
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And I thought, long sales cycle, but I ll take it, you know?
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So I typically fly in the first cabin, typically.
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Right.
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And one day I get on the plane and sitting next to me is Jim Kelly, the football player.
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Yeah.
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And I said, listen, I said, you don t know me, but we both did the Motorola event and you spoke and I spoke and I m a big fan.
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So would you mind if you signed your boarding pass and I ll sign my boarding pass and we can just trade them?
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So I signed my boarding pass and I give it to him.
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He signs his boarding pass and he gives me back both of them.
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Sorry, Jeffrey.
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That s okay.
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I think he would have done that to anybody, anybody if they unless they were like, classic.
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That s good.
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Later, we became friends.
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Get out.
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That s fine.
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He s been here like three times.
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Really?
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We did.
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Yeah, we did a whole thing together.
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And he s a great guy.
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Yeah.
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Oh, and foreign Super Bowls.
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But great.
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Yeah, good.
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He s in the Fran Tarkin club of almost.
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But the book title, before he got really ill, we were going to write a book called, you don t have to win a Super Bowl to be a champion.
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But you didn t.
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No, we did not.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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I have the outline.
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He just sort of fell off the face of the earth.
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Yeah.
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When you get ill, and it s your life, you just you stop.
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Yep.
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What do you think about his life?
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What do you think about his life?
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Not book?
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Right?
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Well, I m not as much of a football fan anymore, as I was when I was younger.
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You know, the Richmond, there s nothing there.
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Well, I live in Richmond now when my first 35 years were in the DC area.
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Oh, same thing.
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No football team.
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We won a few.
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And I used to I would go to the mat with you on it back when I was maybe 32.
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But right now I don t care anymore.
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Right?
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Well, somebody from Dallas came up to me the other day and said, So how many Super Bowls of the Eagles won?
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And I said, one.
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Yeah, you got a hot team right now, that s for sure.
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I ve been to that stadium one time in my life.
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My wife and I, when we were dating, won tickets to a game, what s now the Commanders game up at Philly.
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And, you know, we won them in a bar.
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And so the tickets were cheap, but we made the trip, right?
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And we were like two or three rows from the falling out of the back top of the stadium.
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That s how far up they were.
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And as you know, the higher you go, the tougher the crowd sometimes is.
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Oh yeah, the more rabid the fan, yeah.
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I was afraid.
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One to drink, one to spill.
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Maybe one to pour on somebody.
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I mean, that was tough crowd.
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Yeah, very tough crowd.
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They re never going to be the commanders, by the way.
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They re the Redskins.
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The likelihood is they will go back.
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You think?
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I saw somebody here in Richmond today, this morning with a Redskins license plate.
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And I wondered about that.
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Like, will it, you know, cause they used to train down here up until last year and now they re not doing it.
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I don t know where they re training now, but.
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It ll go back.
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You think?
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Oh yeah.
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Yeah.
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What are you going to call Sonny Jorgensen?
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A commander?
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What are you going to call Sam Huff, a commander?
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No.
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That s old school, Jeffrey.
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That s it.
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I m friends with, get this, I became friends with Norm Sneed.
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Oh, cool.
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Norm, no, Norm Sneed s son is married to my wife s, one of my wife s best friends.
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And so, and he was a football player, but he s a giant.
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I mean, so my friend, Jeff, he s really good.
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And, but I thought that was funny because Norm Snee was the person that they traded for, or Jurgensen back and forth.
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So we got Sonny.
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I used to have a button that said, I love Sonny.
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And then Billy Kilmer came along and it was, I like Billy.
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It was like.
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I hate them.
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Couldn t throw a spiral.
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Sonny Jurgensen was one of the best quarterbacks ever, ever, ever.
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He was, that was good time.
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Later in life, Sam Huff read a couple of my books and called me and I wouldn t take his call.
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Because?
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He s a giant.
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Oh, he s a giant.
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Got it, got it.
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So I finally, I took his call after like the third call and he goes, why don t you take my call?
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I said, cause I m an eagle.
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We don t talk to other people.
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And I said, how s your elbows?
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He goes, what do you mean?
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I said, didn t that how you tackled everybody with your fucking elbows?
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And we ended up becoming amazing friends.
SPEAKER_00
Aren t you a Jersey guy too?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but Jersey s right on the other side of Philly.
SPEAKER_01
Where they, they re young, right?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01
I m only kidding for the, for the Jersey.
SPEAKER_01
I love Jersey.
SPEAKER_01
I love Jersey.
SPEAKER_00
So Sam Hoff was an announcer with Sonny for the Redskins.
SPEAKER_00
When they played the Panthers, when they played the Panthers, I invited Sam and Sonny to come over and see my sports collection.
SPEAKER_00
So Sam comes over and Sonny couldn t make it.
SPEAKER_00
And we spent, I brought two of my son-in-laws over and we just spent hours talking football.
SPEAKER_00
It was just electric.
SPEAKER_00
Sam Hoff is one of the nicest people on the planet.
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, I gotta go back.
SPEAKER_00
What s his name?
SPEAKER_00
Their doofus owner?
SPEAKER_01
Snyder.
SPEAKER_00
Snyder, yeah, he called us and we got to go back right away.
SPEAKER_00
So I take him over.
SPEAKER_00
And there s an SUV and Sonny s in the backseat.
SPEAKER_00
I go, Sonny, I just spent four hours with Sam fucking Huff.
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted you to be there because I fucking love you.
SPEAKER_00
And what does Sonny say?
SPEAKER_00
He was just flattered.
SPEAKER_00
I said, listen, there s 25 seconds to go in the game, and we re playing the Giants.
SPEAKER_00
And you re on the 20-yard line, and you throw a pass to Tommy McDonald who catches it for a touchdown.
SPEAKER_00
And it was one of the greatest times ever in Philadelphia sports, and I was sitting right there.
SPEAKER_00
And you blow a guy away with stats of what they did.
SPEAKER_00
Athletes don t get enough praise.
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, some of them get enough praise.
SPEAKER_01
I was watching that Chiefs game the other day with the whole Taylor Swift, the whole... Listen, my daughter is a Taylor Swiftie, okay?
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
SPEAKER_00
She s 14.
SPEAKER_00
I get a text from her two Sundays ago, Dad, I m watching the Taylor Swift game.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Did she really mean or was she saying a joke?
SPEAKER_00
No, she meant it.
SPEAKER_00
There s no reason for her to watch the Kansas City Chiefs if Taylor Swift is not in the audience.
SPEAKER_01
I wonder what the numbers are behind that sales lift.
SPEAKER_01
They re huge.
SPEAKER_00
She s a country by herself.
SPEAKER_00
She s an economy by herself.
SPEAKER_01
I just wonder if they couldn t do more with, I mean, you can see how they re going to go, okay, we got Taylor Swift dating, so who else can we get pulling here?
SPEAKER_00
Nobody s going to be that popular.
SPEAKER_01
Probably not that popular, but they definitely you can pick up a few more.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00
I ll tell you, though, it s it s classic.
SPEAKER_00
I was really for my high school reunion and somebody on their lawn where they put ghosts and shit because it s Halloween.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
a scarecrow with number 87 Kansas City Chief Jersey on it.
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
SPEAKER_01
Well, they were quite a duo, those two guys.
SPEAKER_01
They re like Brady and Gronk, you know.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00
They re phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01
It s good to have a buddy.
SPEAKER_01
It s good to have two guys who are buddies who are great like that, right?
SPEAKER_00
were phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00
And not to change the subject, but to go to baseball, we have Bryce Harper, you gave us Bryce Harper, you gave us Bryce Harper.
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
SPEAKER_01
So just to be clear.
SPEAKER_01
Now, I m in Richmond now.
SPEAKER_01
So I didn t give him.
SPEAKER_00
I don t care.
SPEAKER_01
You don t lose your I have a double a team now.
SPEAKER_00
You don t lose your Richmond Robins or something.
SPEAKER_00
They re horrible.
SPEAKER_01
Now they re the it s the it s the squirrels.
SPEAKER_01
They were the Richmond Braves and we switch it to flying squirrels.
SPEAKER_00
Got it.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t know all about, you know, there s, I m not a big, I read Moneyball earlier this year, which is so much better than the movie, even though I love the movie too.
SPEAKER_01
And I don t even really like baseball, but man, that book was fascinating.
SPEAKER_01
And there s so much 212 stuff in Moneyball, but going back to, I didn t know that there were five levels of minor leagues.
SPEAKER_01
Like, there s five.
SPEAKER_01
So people who get on the major league field,
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, just phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we have the Charlotte Knights here.
SPEAKER_00
And it s okay.
SPEAKER_00
But you don t care who wins.
SPEAKER_01
Right?
SPEAKER_00
It s just, it s just an hour to meet people have a good time.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have four tickets on the field, literally on the on the first base side, two rows back.
SPEAKER_01
Nice.
SPEAKER_00
And I just while I trained the team, you know, I trained the sales team.
SPEAKER_00
I m really neat.
SPEAKER_00
But it s for networking, right?
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s for talking to people.
SPEAKER_00
It s for and when I take my daughters and their friends, it s for getting a ball, get a ball every game no matter what, really?
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Where you are, especially?
SPEAKER_00
Well, to be careful, though, practice or you go, hey, they come off the field, they toss the ball into the stands.
SPEAKER_00
You re right there.
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, so much for sports.
SPEAKER_00
But I will tell you that athletes make the best salespeople.
SPEAKER_01
Why is that?
SPEAKER_00
because they are hungry to win.
SPEAKER_00
They are competitive as hell, and they re coachable.
SPEAKER_00
Most of them, when you have those, those, and they re usually in shape.
SPEAKER_00
So they re, you know, they re fit to go into the game, they want to win, they want to, you know, put me in coach, put me in coach, put me in coach, and then they ll go coach when I do there, what can I have done better?
SPEAKER_00
Well, if you did, you know, going around and you and that that s the whole deal.
SPEAKER_00
Salespeople need a need a great coach.
SPEAKER_01
All people need that.
SPEAKER_00
Well, they don t need a manager, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_00
I tell sales managers, you want to manage somebody, manage yourself.
SPEAKER_00
People want to be led.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think, you know, I would say leading by control is unpleasant and unnecessarily exhausting.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Or by threat, or by threat.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_01
Well, and that s a form of, you know, that s a form of control too, because you re playing off of fears.
SPEAKER_01
And I, I don t, and I know that some people, I know there s sales managers out there who would go, yeah, well, I m getting the results on that, but I go, could you have gotten, it reminds me of when people, if I ever am doing something with a leadership group and they ll say, well, you know, and I m talking about the importance of, you know, modeling the behavior you want to see and connecting with the people
SPEAKER_01
that you lead in involving them as much as possible.
SPEAKER_01
And then somebody will say, that s all really nice, but Sam, how do you explain Steve Jobs or something?
SPEAKER_01
You know, they ll bring up somebody like that, who s known to be, you know, not the greatest or not the nicest guy in the world getting results.
SPEAKER_01
And I always go, can you imagine if Steve Jobs was kind and nice?
SPEAKER_01
I mean, what could he have drawn out?
SPEAKER_01
What could he better?
SPEAKER_01
Could he have made that?
SPEAKER_01
Although I know I m like, you re talking about the best and the one of the best people or one of the best producers on the planet.
SPEAKER_00
But he couldn t have done something.
SPEAKER_00
His biography, the Walter Isaacson biography, couldn t be any better.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, not be any better written.
SPEAKER_01
Isaacson s, you know, he s amazing.
SPEAKER_01
All of his stuff.
SPEAKER_01
One of my guys, he s, he s definitely he s like a Tom Brady of probably of that genre, right?
SPEAKER_00
And doesn t matter if you re alive or dead.
SPEAKER_00
If you read his Benjamin Franklin one.
SPEAKER_00
It s not read that one.
SPEAKER_00
It s just as good.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s like you re there, right?
SPEAKER_00
It s literally like you re there.
SPEAKER_00
And I haven t read Elon Musk yet, but I haven t had an overnight plane ride yet.
SPEAKER_00
So what I normally do is and diehard if you re listening, when I buy a new book, I put it on my Kindle.
SPEAKER_00
Well, I put on my iPad because there is no Kindle.
SPEAKER_00
Well, there are Kindles, but they re shit.
SPEAKER_00
So I put on my iPad, and I blow the type up twice.
SPEAKER_00
So there s less words on the page.
SPEAKER_00
I read at least one and a half times faster.
SPEAKER_00
And I
SPEAKER_00
I retain or comprehend at least twice as much.
SPEAKER_01
I m with you.
SPEAKER_01
I read on my iPhone because of the column width, for the same reason.
SPEAKER_01
I blow it up, but not as big as you re blowing up.
SPEAKER_01
But the columns on an iPhone are very narrow, so I can... Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
I have a hard time physically reading a regular book.
SPEAKER_01
And also, I can carry 35 books with me.
SPEAKER_01
I could switch off.
SPEAKER_01
I don t understand when people do the old school.
SPEAKER_01
I m telling you, I mean, I can t imagine books, you know, boring cooking books or very special table books or whatever.
SPEAKER_01
I can t imagine the printed form of books being around 100 years for sure.
SPEAKER_01
It might be sooner.
SPEAKER_00
But there s something to be said for a book
SPEAKER_00
this electric.
SPEAKER_00
So here is how to stop worrying and start living.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And this one is signed by Dale Carnegie.
SPEAKER_00
And it s a first edition.
SPEAKER_00
Nice.
SPEAKER_00
When I read this book, it s like fucking electric.
SPEAKER_00
It s not a book.
SPEAKER_00
It s like Dale Carnegie held this in his hand and signed it.
SPEAKER_01
That s neat.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And some idiot in a used bookstore didn t know what it was.
SPEAKER_00
I bought it for $1.99.
SPEAKER_01
That s nice.
SPEAKER_01
With Dale Carnegie s signature in it.
SPEAKER_01
Congrats.
SPEAKER_00
I turned down $25,000 from a Dale Carnegie franchisee.
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
SPEAKER_00
I might... No, I don t want it.
SPEAKER_00
I might have taken that.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, I have a bunch of a message to Garcia s.
SPEAKER_01
I collected them for a little while.
SPEAKER_01
You have the first edition?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I have the first.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I know they I don t know if so they had 1899.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, 1899.
SPEAKER_01
I have 1899.
SPEAKER_01
I ve got the leather bound ones.
SPEAKER_01
I ve got the I ve got the ones that went into the train station, or not train station, the train, you know,
SPEAKER_01
It was at some sort of railroad that these things were on.
SPEAKER_01
It s like the magazines that used to be on the airplanes.
SPEAKER_01
They used to have them in trains, and it was in there.
SPEAKER_01
What are you doing with them?
SPEAKER_01
I just sit in a box.
SPEAKER_01
I give them out every once in a while as gifts.
SPEAKER_01
But it s, you know, it s a hardcore message of working hard.
SPEAKER_00
And doing what you re told to do or what you re asked to do without asking questions back.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_01
And he wrote that in One Night He Says, Hubbard.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but weird that he died.
SPEAKER_00
Literature, very legendary piece.
SPEAKER_00
When I talk about it, I explained the book very simple.
SPEAKER_00
McKinley gave Rowan instruction, deliver this message to Garcia.
SPEAKER_00
And he did.
SPEAKER_00
And that s the whole book, right?
SPEAKER_00
Garcia didn t say where s he lived?
SPEAKER_00
Well, am I being paid for this?
SPEAKER_00
I have to work overtime.
SPEAKER_00
You know, I have a kid in daycare.
SPEAKER_00
Well, I just realized that exists right now.
SPEAKER_00
Think of the shit that exists right now that are barriers to doing something.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think we re caught.
SPEAKER_01
I think that s just, that s just poor training, you know, how things, how things evolve.
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
SPEAKER_01
I like that.
SPEAKER_00
I have a client coming in on Monday, leaving on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00
She put me in a nice place.
SPEAKER_00
I go, you know, the Westin s like three blocks away.
SPEAKER_00
I ll call him.
SPEAKER_00
It took me two minutes to get to a person.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Two minutes.
SPEAKER_00
And when I got there, the woman said, well, you have to call Central Reservations.
SPEAKER_00
I said, I don t want to call Central Reservations.
SPEAKER_00
I said, first of all, I live three blocks away.
SPEAKER_00
Second of all, I ve been in Charlotte for 35 years.
SPEAKER_00
Third of all, I m a platinum for life, which is the highest rank you can get in marriage.
SPEAKER_00
Right.
SPEAKER_00
She goes, Lana, I can t help you.
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, then just give me the general manager of the hotel.
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to do that.
SPEAKER_00
Really?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
You know what I said?
SPEAKER_00
I gave her two words.
SPEAKER_00
Wrong cowboy.
SPEAKER_01
I thought I would have, what I do in those scenarios is I go, I will say, think, cause I will say something like, again, I only do this if I think I m really being wronged.
SPEAKER_01
If, if there s something I m not, I try not to be.
SPEAKER_01
Come on, just say it.
SPEAKER_01
I will say, so let s say you tell me, I ask you for a late checkout because I want to change after I speak and I don t want to be on a plane with my shoes killing my feet.
SPEAKER_01
I ll say, how late can you get me out of here?
SPEAKER_01
I m speaking here in a little bit.
SPEAKER_01
They ll say they can t do a late checkout depending on where I am.
SPEAKER_01
And I ll say, look, you got to decide what you want the story to be.
SPEAKER_01
It can be a good story or it can be a bad story.
SPEAKER_01
And really what I love about the bad stories is it does give me, and the good stories actually, I love the extremes because I will use that story on a stage and I ll tell it.
SPEAKER_01
Like I have a story that I share with people about a blood donation experience that changed my life because the person was very attentive.
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been telling that for years.
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been spreading blood donation, the importance of blood donation, because this person was awake and attentive to me that one day.
SPEAKER_01
And I just think about the ripples that she, that was 18 years ago.
SPEAKER_01
And she, because of her just paying attention for 18 years, I ve been selling blood donation because this person cared about her job.
SPEAKER_01
It s so easy to, it is cool.
SPEAKER_00
I called the girl today.
SPEAKER_00
I said, I called for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00
I m looking for friendly and I m looking for help.
SPEAKER_00
I consider you neither.
SPEAKER_01
Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_01
Well, do you ever fill out surveys?
SPEAKER_00
Well, no, I called my buddy who s the head of a hospitality chain.
SPEAKER_00
They own 250 hotels.
SPEAKER_00
The CEO of Westin is going to call this guy and talk to him.
SPEAKER_00
That sucks for him.
SPEAKER_00
Long cowboy.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I don t understand people.
SPEAKER_01
I live right down the block from a restaurant, a very small place on the corner here.
SPEAKER_01
And it s a sandwich place.
SPEAKER_01
My wife and I were coming back from someplace.
SPEAKER_01
I said, let s go grab a bite to eat.
SPEAKER_01
It was 8.15 at night.
SPEAKER_01
They have about five or six tables in this place, very small.
SPEAKER_01
And there were four tops and two tops.
SPEAKER_01
It was 8.15 at night.
SPEAKER_01
It s not crowded.
SPEAKER_01
There s table wide open.
SPEAKER_01
The waitress wanted to sit us at the two top.
SPEAKER_01
My wife says to her, and my wife s not a hothead.
SPEAKER_01
I m the hothead.
SPEAKER_01
My wife says to her, hey, could we sit here instead?
SPEAKER_01
Because this is not crowded.
SPEAKER_01
The waitress takes the two menus, throws them down on the table, turns to her and goes, fine.
SPEAKER_01
And my wife goes, we re gone.
SPEAKER_01
And so we went around the corner and spent $90 at Joe s Inn.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s all it s it there s definitely attitude, but it boils down to training, right?
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to throw the saleswoman under the bus.
SPEAKER_00
I want to fire the salesperson or the sales trainer that trained this woman, right?
SPEAKER_00
It s okay to hang up on somebody.
SPEAKER_01
It s always starts from the top.
SPEAKER_01
It always starts from, I don t understand.
SPEAKER_01
That s something I don t, well, I know what it is.
SPEAKER_01
It s just like we have, just like we have engaged, disengaged, and not, not, or actively disengaged people in the workforce.
SPEAKER_01
We also have the same in leadership.
SPEAKER_01
There s disgruntled and there s disengaged leaders and disengaged leaders are the reason that you have disengaged employees because they can t, because they also have the power to change the team.
SPEAKER_00
What happens is they become cynical instead of happy.
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I agree with you.
SPEAKER_01
But I get it, Jeffrey.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you have a few years on this plane.
SPEAKER_01
I was just thinking this earlier today.
SPEAKER_01
You know, after the, by the time you re five or six years into this thing called life, cynicism can start showing up.
SPEAKER_00
Especially if you re from Philly.
SPEAKER_00
Right.
SPEAKER_00
Cynicism is like part of our core principles.
SPEAKER_00
Right.
SPEAKER_01
Then you re our age and it s like crazy.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
SPEAKER_00
So, but, but here s the deal.
SPEAKER_00
I want to make sure that the leader of the company or the leader of that division or the leader of that team is a happy person.
SPEAKER_00
Because if you have to ask the questions, your boss in a good mood today, you have a problem.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
We have a genuine, definite problem.
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I tell people at the airport all the time, it costs no extra money to be friendly.
SPEAKER_01
I get it, man.
SPEAKER_01
I get it.
SPEAKER_00
And they go, I m friendly.
SPEAKER_01
To to I, you know, again, I just think I just, I ve, I don t get as angry as I used to about those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01
Because it first of all, it only hurts me, because I get hot.
SPEAKER_01
And I have this visual, I don t know if you remember the gasoline ads when we were, you know, back in the, I think, 80s, maybe, and they would show fuel injectors and how to have a spray.
SPEAKER_01
I always visualize when I m getting hot with something like that, as my cortisol is just blowing onto my heart.
SPEAKER_01
you know, and it s just killing me.
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, I try to really work on not getting angry with him.
SPEAKER_01
And I just kind of go, Oh, I guess you re just in a really bad spot.
SPEAKER_01
And you have a really bad happen.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
How can I help you?
SPEAKER_00
Because you couldn t be this man and be a human being all the time.
SPEAKER_00
It s been fun.
SPEAKER_00
It s incredible how few people concentrate on happiness.
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, I always say with awareness comes opportunity.
SPEAKER_01
And I think there s a lack of awareness about a lot of things, people aren t paying attention to certain things, because, again, it s just, you know, this kind of a heretical statement, given what I do for work, but I really believe luck is bigger than I thought.
SPEAKER_01
And a year ago, I would never have said, for example, I think work ethic, bear with me, Jeffrey, just get through this paragraph.
SPEAKER_01
If I think work ethic is luck.
SPEAKER_01
I think it can be nurtured, but the seed of so why are you curious and the other guy isn t right.
SPEAKER_01
Why, how do you can t you can t explain the reason you re curious.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but that s luck to right you were, you didn t go.
SPEAKER_00
I choose them.
SPEAKER_00
No, they had brains and they gave me brains and then I had to choose how I use them.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_01
And you chose right and you had some good surround.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s mind boggling to me about the luck thing.
SPEAKER_01
And I m frightening too because, and also a little depressing when things aren t going right, right?
SPEAKER_01
Because then I go, oh, well, so things are in your control because you, so you may be persistent and persevere.
SPEAKER_01
You may go after that phone, you leave in the car and, but what made you want to do that?
SPEAKER_01
You know, what, what was the trigger?
SPEAKER_00
Huh?
SPEAKER_00
Instinct.
SPEAKER_00
Instinct.
SPEAKER_00
Personal values, family values, and instinct.
SPEAKER_00
It had nothing to do with salesmanship.
SPEAKER_00
It had nothing to do with what I did for a living.
SPEAKER_00
It had everything to do with who I am as a person.
SPEAKER_01
But I m saying you, somebody else would have just gone, might have gone,
SPEAKER_01
And you didn t.
SPEAKER_01
And I say, you know, that s a product of a lot of different things thrown in there to make that happen, that good thing happen.
SPEAKER_00
I think also, Sam, part of it is seeing other cultures and living in other cultures.
SPEAKER_00
I spent a lot of my time in Europe.
SPEAKER_00
I spent a lot of my time in Paris because it s civilized because it s wonderful.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s there s another reason.
SPEAKER_00
And the food s good.
SPEAKER_00
Here s here s my statement about Paris.
SPEAKER_00
There s no such thing as day old bread in Paris.
SPEAKER_00
Right.
SPEAKER_00
Everything is fresh.
SPEAKER_00
Everything is wonderful.
SPEAKER_00
And you can go to Giverny, to the home of Claude Monet, come back the same day and go to La Rangerie and see his life s work.
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, you re crying.
SPEAKER_00
It s so impressive.
SPEAKER_00
A special place.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I go there all the time.
SPEAKER_00
I have a really good friend who s a magician.
SPEAKER_00
I have a lot of friends in Paris.
SPEAKER_00
But my my best friend there is a magician guy.
SPEAKER_00
He s the magician for all of the of the luxury brands.
SPEAKER_00
So Louis Vuitton is doing a thing he performs for the audience.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, he s amazing.
SPEAKER_00
Well, every other night, we ll go to a section of Paris where he takes me
SPEAKER_00
so I can learn about the city.
SPEAKER_00
He lives in Arrondisement 2, and he said, you have to see this.
SPEAKER_00
There s a new hamburger chain.
SPEAKER_00
It s called Manger Cassez-vous, which means eat and get the fuck out.
SPEAKER_01
Cassez-vous?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And doesn t really mean that Jeffrey doesn t know.
SPEAKER_01
No, I m saying I m saying I know Monjay and I know vu is you.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
But okay, but the hamburger menu is in English and French.
SPEAKER_00
And their biggest seller is a hamburger called the bad motherfucker.
SPEAKER_00
And so you hear all these people going bad motherfucker.
SPEAKER_01
That s fun.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s hysterical.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And the place is packed.
SPEAKER_01
I m going to have to go there next time I m in there.
SPEAKER_00
I ll send you my list.
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
SPEAKER_01
I missed that play.
SPEAKER_01
I went there in 2019.
SPEAKER_01
I haven t been anywhere since.
SPEAKER_00
It s just as good.
SPEAKER_00
He says on a plane, well, you come to Richmond, come to Charlotte, and fly to Paris.
SPEAKER_00
We ll probably go from Richmond to Philly, which might have been- Out of D5 or D6 out of Charlotte.
SPEAKER_01
That s where that Paris plane goes.
SPEAKER_01
Every time I m in Charlotte, I swear, I look up at that board and I look for both two things.
SPEAKER_01
I look for Paris and Madrid.
SPEAKER_01
I do not know why I look for those two flights every time just to feel it.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, I d rather go to Paris, but I ve been to Madrid.
SPEAKER_00
Funny, someone just went to Madrid and I said, go to Toledo and see the El Grecos in the church.
SPEAKER_01
Toledo is something special to you.
SPEAKER_01
It s a unique place.
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, so we re traveled, and we re salespeople, and our goal is to inspire the diehard who s here listening to us, pontificate just a little bit more about 212, and then we ll end it.
SPEAKER_01
pontificate about it?
SPEAKER_01
Well, I ll just say that 212, as I said earlier, is something that became richer and deeper as I got another two decades of life experience.
SPEAKER_01
And in fact, I m evaluating certain things about it now, but really, you know, on the surface, what I love about, or I ve been, or feel lucky about is that it is, is a message that it invites people to get excited about trying just a little bit harder and paying attention to the details that might have a big impact on results.
SPEAKER_01
And it does in fact happen like that in certain cases, but the deeper message is really that being 212, to be 212 is to understand that there are 211 degrees that come before it.
SPEAKER_01
And you need to be giving, it s really a message of consistency, right?
SPEAKER_01
In the end, on the surface, when somebody sees it, they go, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01
I hear it the first time, I go, oh my gosh, oh, it s just that simple.
SPEAKER_01
And again, sometimes it is, but many times it s not just that simple.
SPEAKER_01
It s simple things done consistently for, and it may be a long time, longer than you want, right?
SPEAKER_01
But just, and why would you want it ever?
SPEAKER_01
I mean, after you wake up, I get it when you re a kid and you re trying to figure out how to skate bike, cut corners and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01
But after a certain age, you re supposed to go, you know what?
SPEAKER_01
I m in this for the long haul.
SPEAKER_01
There s gotta be some depth here.
SPEAKER_01
My dog knows when my heart rate gets going.
SPEAKER_01
I got the motivational speaker.
SPEAKER_01
He attacks me like this.
SPEAKER_01
He s very concerned.
SPEAKER_00
That s totally okay.
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, that s so that s the message is, you know, what s nice is it sticks for people.
SPEAKER_01
And it s it s sustaining.
SPEAKER_01
And even for me, I mean, I ve been around it, you d think I d be bored of it.
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes it is because it surrounds me so much people send me pictures of the number 212 and all different kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And that s fun.
SPEAKER_00
They send me pictures of their tattoos.
SPEAKER_03
It s also the New York City area code.
SPEAKER_00
Very cool city.
SPEAKER_00
The best city next to maybe Paris.
SPEAKER_03
OK, but there s something that s omitted that I learned on accident about 212.
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to do the sea level thing, are you?
SPEAKER_03
No, when water boils, yeah, you have to pay attention to it.
SPEAKER_03
Because if you let it boil without attention, the water will evaporate and the pan will burn.
SPEAKER_03
And I ve had it happen.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, like I m boiling water for corn.
SPEAKER_03
And I leave because it s not boiling yet.
SPEAKER_03
But I forget and I come back in 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_03
It s like steam coming out of the frickin oven and all kinds of crap.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
So there s it, you have to you can t just let it boil, you have to let it boil and pay attention to it.
SPEAKER_03
And not focus on it.
SPEAKER_03
Concentrate big difference, right?
SPEAKER_03
Nails big on the word concentration.
SPEAKER_03
And so I I look at it from the perspective of Okay, I got a boiling, I can t walk away.
SPEAKER_03
Because if I walk away, I m going to lose my whole, you know, why did I boil it in the first place?
SPEAKER_03
Why did it get there?
SPEAKER_03
And how do I keep it rolling?
SPEAKER_03
And how do I make food out of it that tastes great?
SPEAKER_03
Whole deal.
SPEAKER_03
And al dente.
SPEAKER_03
It has to be, if you re going to put that spaghetti in boiling water, it better be perfect.
SPEAKER_00
You get me started talking about pasta.
SPEAKER_00
You know what s funny?
SPEAKER_00
My whole life up until about 10 years ago,
SPEAKER_00
I thought you always had to have a colander to use with your pasta.
SPEAKER_00
Now I never use a colander.
SPEAKER_00
It s I get that pasta water and that good in a pan.
SPEAKER_00
I do the putzanesca.
SPEAKER_00
I do the aglio e olio.
SPEAKER_00
I do all the stuff in a pan.
SPEAKER_00
So I got them both side by side, that al dente thing and then you finish off you finish it off in the pan.
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03
You know, I use a colander because it was my mom s.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, man, you re gonna heart string me there.
SPEAKER_01
Sorry, I have the colander on the top of my refrigerator.
SPEAKER_01
It s just there every day.
SPEAKER_01
She probably also gave you some nice tongs, so just you take it out with the tongs and you put it in.
SPEAKER_01
Could be just as nostalgic.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01
Um, that s funny.
SPEAKER_03
So if you re a person of the world, which we both are, I don t want to brag about it, but we are, um, you have experiences that you can t wait to share with somebody else because they change your life.
SPEAKER_03
They make you a better person.
SPEAKER_03
And you go, listen, if you do this, you re going to be a better person.
SPEAKER_03
It s plain and simple.
SPEAKER_03
You re going to be a better person done, done, whether you re going to be a better dad or a better salesperson or a better leader or a better husband, whatever you re going to be better of.
SPEAKER_03
That s what you got to do.
SPEAKER_03
And you have to learn from others because you re not going to get it out of a book all the time.
SPEAKER_00
One of the things that I share in keynotes is the importance of making that extra contact every single day.
SPEAKER_00
I don t say make one contact every day, I say make one extra contact.
SPEAKER_00
And it s easy for the sales world, hopefully you re already making the extra sales calls.
SPEAKER_00
So if you re already doing that, you make another one, that s what 212 is about.
SPEAKER_00
But I do this bit when I share the importance, I say, talk to people on planes.
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely talk to people.
SPEAKER_00
I will sit on short flights only.
SPEAKER_00
I will sit, I will choose the middle seat if there s three in a row, because I got two shots.
SPEAKER_00
The guy over here is a dud, I turn to this person, right?
SPEAKER_00
And the things you learn, the friendships I ve made, and yes, I ve made mistakes on starting conversations, but man, people not talking on planes, they re missing out.
SPEAKER_00
They really are.
SPEAKER_03
I sit next to somebody and I put the Little Red Book of Selling or the Little Gold Book of Yes Attitude on the bar in between us.
SPEAKER_03
And I ll sit down and I ll go- Where I sit, there s no bar.
SPEAKER_00
It s a little hard thing.
SPEAKER_00
Back in coach.
SPEAKER_03
So I say, have you read this?
SPEAKER_03
They go, no.
SPEAKER_03
I said, take a look.
SPEAKER_03
Pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03
And half the time they ll say, oh, you wrote this?
SPEAKER_03
I say, yeah.
SPEAKER_03
And you can get an autographed copy today for 20 bucks cash.
SPEAKER_03
So my goal is to sell a book to the guy next to me for 20 bucks, cash, and then do my business.
SPEAKER_03
That s my fun plane ride.
SPEAKER_03
And sometimes it s a deeper talk.
SPEAKER_03
Sometimes it ends up being a customer, but it always ends up being 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes you hear stories, like I had a guy who, it was a terrible story, but
SPEAKER_00
And his kid went off the rails, uh, heroin and prison and terrible story.
SPEAKER_00
Um, anyway, it had me calling my kids when I got home saying, I need you to be careful about the crowds you re with, you know, giving warnings based on that conversation.
SPEAKER_03
So I totally concur.
SPEAKER_03
You know, I ve been a dad for a long, long time and granddad for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_03
I ve given them thousands of pieces of advice.
SPEAKER_03
I only hope they take hundreds of them.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
You know, you don t, the older you get as a kid, the smarter your parents become, like magically.
SPEAKER_00
I think, didn t Twain say that?
SPEAKER_00
Wasn t Twain who said that?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00
That s a, that s, I imagine it was tough being your kid and my kid.
SPEAKER_00
It s tough being my kid.
SPEAKER_00
Growing up with somebody who talks like this, like we do all the time, I m sure was a lot.
SPEAKER_03
Well, we re flying, we re going on the airplane.
SPEAKER_03
I m with my daughter, who is five, six, seven, eight, nine, we went all the time.
SPEAKER_03
And we re getting to board the plane.
SPEAKER_03
She goes, are we first class?
SPEAKER_00
You said yes.
SPEAKER_03
Listen, we were in Charlotte flying to the beach because all my other kids were driving to the beach.
SPEAKER_03
We re going to get there first.
SPEAKER_03
It s only a half an hour flight.
SPEAKER_03
They got a four hour drive.
SPEAKER_03
Boom.
SPEAKER_03
The plane is four hours late.
SPEAKER_03
Everyone s already at the beach.
SPEAKER_03
And the pilot comes on and says, thank you for flying American Eagle.
SPEAKER_03
And Gabrielle screams at the top of her lungs.
SPEAKER_03
You mean American vulture?
SPEAKER_00
Cute.
SPEAKER_03
And the whole plane rocked.
SPEAKER_00
How old was she when she said that?
SPEAKER_00
Seven.
SPEAKER_00
Seven.
SPEAKER_00
Jeez.
SPEAKER_00
Smart kid.
SPEAKER_00
Fun kid.
SPEAKER_03
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03
Takes no shit from anybody.
SPEAKER_00
And she s 14 now, huh?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
That s tough years.
SPEAKER_00
That s tough.
SPEAKER_03
She s a swifty.
SPEAKER_03
She s fine.
SPEAKER_03
Right.
SPEAKER_03
She reads a book a week.
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
SPEAKER_03
She is belongs to the young, you know, the Christian clubs at the school.
SPEAKER_03
I m totally fine with her.
SPEAKER_03
She s I m so proud of her.
SPEAKER_03
I can t stand it.
SPEAKER_03
That s good.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
In the meantime, we need to do this again and have a sort of come to Jesus meeting with some salespeople who can use help.
SPEAKER_00
That d be fun.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, totally fun.
SPEAKER_03
And I ll get to Richmond.
SPEAKER_03
I can t tell you when, but just nostalgically, I got to go there.
SPEAKER_00
Well, we could have a good time.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, we could fight over the check and you could win.
SPEAKER_00
Happy to do it, Jeffrey.
SPEAKER_00
Happy to do it.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03
So if somebody wants to find you to hire you for their thing, how are they going to do that?
SPEAKER_00
If they can remember, they go to the website justsparker.com, just and then S Parker, or just Google Sam and the number 212 and you ll find my site.
SPEAKER_03
Oh, SAM 212, that s it.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
It s funny because before I started JustSell, the company I was with, they gave me the email, and this is 1998, 1997, and they give me the email, Sparker, at whatever company it was.
SPEAKER_00
And so then the people would call me Sparky and I couldn t stand it.
SPEAKER_00
Now I, you know, I spark, I love spark.
SPEAKER_03
You have to be able to write that person that gave you that moniker and thank them.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I would except she was not not pleasant.
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I got you.
SPEAKER_03
In the meantime, yeah, take something Richmond.
SPEAKER_03
Thank you for being here today.
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03
Get ahold of Sam.
SPEAKER_03
Get to 12.
SPEAKER_03
Just frickin get it.
SPEAKER_03
It will inspire you to be a better person, not just a better salesperson, just by one degree.
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Jeffrey.
SPEAKER_03
Pleasure, Sam.
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for listening to the show.
SPEAKER_02
Don t forget to like, share.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, share with both your friends.
SPEAKER_01
And subscribe to the podcast.
SPEAKER_02
And remember, we have a free 22 day sales challenge.
SPEAKER_02
Just go to gator.com slash sales challenge to start you on your way.