SHOW TRANSCRIPT

 

 

[00:00:04] Speaker 1 Hey, this is John Jorgenson, and welcome to another episode of the Go with John show, we launched the Go with John Show in November of 2020, and we’re now in mid 2021 and we have around 30 episodes under our belt. We’ve already produced one best of show with funny clips from the first 30 episodes, and today we’re going to talk about some of the best business tips that we got from some of our guests on the show. If you know me, you know how excited I get about launching and maintaining successful businesses, so we thought it would be fun to highlight some of these great business tips and stories. I’ll also provide a little insight into each clip, so let’s get started. Frank Stidman from Evolution Broadband talks about perseverance in this clip, a friend of the show, Frank Stedman, talks about persevering in business, and I actually jump in and share some of my insights about a marketing company that I owned in the late 90s to the early 2000s.

 

[00:01:11] Speaker 2 When I have tough days, I remember that, you know, perseverance is everything. It is innate. They say that, you know, you can read a library full of books about business and how to succeed in this and that, but that is the number one factor in whether people succeed. So when you were having trouble, you told me that you got on the phone and made a hundred phone calls a day or so late that I’m a serious person.

 

[00:01:34] Speaker 1 Well, yeah. So so let’s let’s talk about that for a second. So that was in 2000 and one after nine eleven, I had a marketing company and the the it was right around nine 11 and the dot com crash all happened at the same time. And I had a lot of customers who were in that dot com space. They just all of a sudden evaporate, evaporated. So I literally came to work one day and was missing about 50 or 60 percent of my core client base. They were just gone right, right over an overnight. Well, let’s say, let’s say literally it happened over the course of about a 30 day period. I even had one customer place a huge order, and I was in their office building at in Tysons Corner and ironically, it was a Danish company. They placed a huge order for embroidered shirts. We produced them and I was back 30 days later. They were gone. Every desk office, every every computer, the front door was locked. You could see through the glass doors. And you know, that was the day. That was the moment I realized I was in in big trouble, right? Because I had a huge tens of thousands of dollars that I had laid out that I wasn’t. I was not only going to get my capital back, but I wasn’t going to get the profit and that hurt. And and I did. I got I got to my desk and I started. I just said I got to make 100 calls a day, and I called and called and called. In fact, a lot of folks I call were landscapers because they were a huge consumer of shirts and jackets. And that was one of the things we did at our marketing company was produce that collateral. So. But yeah, it was just pure tenacity. Oh yeah, got me through that. Boomer Foster talking about leadership. Boomer Foster, president of Long and Foster Real Estate, has a lot of great stories and insight from the road. In this clip, he talks about leadership, which is much more complicated than it seems. How do you think your experience with with the team sports has contributed to your success in business?

 

[00:03:48] Speaker 3 So I think that the two things that I took away from being an athlete, whether it’s, you know, just through high school and then into college or leadership and hard work. You know, every day when I go into work, you know, my mindset is, you know, I’m not the smartest guy in the building in all likelihood, but nobody’s going to outwork me. And that that too came from when I first started practicing law in Charleston, one of the best lawyers down there. He looked at me, said, Listen, you’re not always going to be the smartest guy in the courtroom, but you can always outwork the other guy or girl that’s on the other side. And so the way I approach my job and it’s been refined and evolved over the years because it used to be like I was just a big bull in a China shop. I’m going to work as hard as I can from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep at night and good things are going to happen and that did happen. But what I found is as I started refining and started thinking about where I want to be and setting goals and having a plan. When you put those things together with a work ethic, then the results are going to be very good if you have any sort of talent. So, you know, team sports taught me that no matter how tired you get, you can always do more. I don’t think anything I ever did compares to what Navy SEALs do, but they always say, You know, I love reading Navy SEALs books because they’re such tough dudes. You know, they talk about the only easy day was yesterday. And so for me, you know, it’s you know, what it really taught me is the value of a really significant work ethic. And that leadership is about doing not sane because, you know, you get a lot of vocal people who profess to be leaders and they’ll say one thing. But when you watch them perform, they’ll do something completely different, right? And I think you’ve got to have a consistency like I want to lead by example. If I don’t want to ask somebody to do something, then I’m not willing to do myself. So if we’re talking about, you know, managers or regional managers and you’re talking about, you know, making contacts and recruiting and build relationships. I don’t have legitimacy if I’m sitting in the ivory tower and saying, you guys need to be doing this. If all I’m doing is sitting in the ivory tower, you’re not out doing that myself. So leadership by example is something that I learned in football because I was very vocal when I first got to college. And and by the time you know, at the end, it wasn’t about, you know, do as I do. It wasn’t about do as I say, Tom Mitchell.

 

[00:06:16] Speaker 1 In this clip, my longtime friend and business owner Tom Mitchell give some incredible advice about making connections. I hope you enjoy it.

 

[00:06:27] Speaker 4 But in retrospect, what I tell young people that I meet, it’s forget the business for right now, just put the business starting to side the whole, you know, starting a business thing. Form one professional personal relationship a month. Mm hmm. That’s what you do. That’s the key to success in business. That’s it. Period. You keep it forever. You keep that relationship, that friendship where we’re friends forever, right? Forever. Yeah. So now so this is what magically happens. You develop one friendship a month. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of B and I. You’ve done to be an I, and I’m not. I don’t speak bad of it. I mean, people have had rock stars for some, some spin their wheels. But I think the concept of making friends and building on these relationships over years, because what happens is 15, 20 years into relationship, all these people are vice presidents, right? And then as you get to my age, you know, fifty five now they start to become company presidents. Right. And now, I mean, I’ve had a lot of relationships where I’ve gone hundreds of thousands of dollars out on jobs just because I we knew each other. Those kind of relationships are invaluable and I would. And so regardless, even if you’re going to work in corporate America, that’s cool. But building friendships empowers you. It fulfills you. Right. And it’s the key to, in my opinion, financial success.

 

[00:07:54] Speaker 1 That’s that’s brilliant. And I’ve never heard anybody say that before. That is and that’s and that’s very true, because no matter what field you are in, the relationships go with you. Yeah. Lillian Jorgensen, my mother, an amazing real estate agent and an incredibly hard worker, and she talks a little bit about what works for you. In this clip, my mom talks about being true to yourself, even in business and how to use your skills to succeed.

 

[00:08:32] Speaker 5 So I think you as an agent, as an individual, you have to find your way and of course, my my famous saying is when Frank Sinatra sings in his farewell song on stage. I did it my way. And we are all individuals and you have to do it your way because you are who you are. Yeah. And yes, take all the information you hear, but you still have to apply it to how do you come across? How do you like to work? How do you like to get up in the morning? I like to get up in the morning and get dressed and be ready for the day. I’m ready to list and sell any time of the day. That’s how I like to be. Somebody else likes to wake up and stay in their jammies for half a day and then go on their tennis clothes for the other half a day and then wait for the phone call. That’s not how I want to work, right? And so you have to find out who are you? Mm-Hmm. What do you want in life? And then just remember the sky’s the limit. If it is to be, it’s up to me. Yeah, nobody’s going to give it to you. And I think that’s the hardest thing to understand. Well, all these referrals and where all the willows and what about this? And I thought he was going to call me, there just isn’t anything you got to make it happen. You have to put in the effort in all the different ways that you know how to get the client.

 

[00:10:04] Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the reality is is if you take your destiny into your own hands, you can drive it wherever you want to drive it right and right. Yeah. If you’re waiting for some other mechanism to make it happen for you, it’s not going to happen. So all the tools are there. It’s all there. Yeah. All the information’s there. You’ve got to take it and make it your own. And then really, I think the bottom line is you’ve got to go knock on doors. Yeah, you got to go spend some shoe leather.

 

[00:10:33] Speaker 5 Yeah. But of course, people don’t like knocking on doors in reality. That’s true. But but you’ve got to follow up is maybe a better word then. Yeah. Follow up and network network.

 

[00:10:47] Speaker 1 Meet people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Michael Schnitzer, president of Stanley Martin Custom Homes, talking about luck. In this clip, the president of Stanley Martin Custom Homes, Michael Schnitzer, shares a great little nugget of information about what luck is to him.

 

[00:11:07] Speaker 6 So I had this kind of like this one off thing as a kid that kind of comes back to me in spades, if you will, right? Based on how this little niche that I found myself in. And I always, like my father used to define this. So luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

 

[00:11:31] Speaker 1 Well, you and I talk about that actually quite a bit.

 

[00:11:33] Speaker 6 Yeah, just completely lucky. Yeah, because I was prepared. Yeah, I had the opportunity.

 

[00:11:43] Speaker 1 In our final clip, CEO of Long and Foster Companies Jeff Detwiler shares a few of his business related tips. If you want to hear all of them, check out episode 19 of the show with Jeff Detwiler, so here’s a few. Tell us, tell us some of your lessons from the road, so you were gracious enough, I asked you if you could share a couple of business related tidbits, which I ask everybody, right? If you if you’re talking to folks out there that are running a company, what are what are some of the things that you think are important?

 

[00:12:22] Speaker 6 Yeah. So, you know, I thought about a couple of things, John, and these are real simple things. And I think that I’ve learned them in my position here, my role here and throughout my career. But these are things that would serve us all well in life or in business, regardless of what your role as the first one, I would just say is good communications is so hard. I think it’s underappreciated the value of good communication versus kind of mediocre or bad communication.

 

[00:12:53] Speaker 1 I totally agree with

 

[00:12:54] Speaker 6 that, and I think it’s overestimated how hard it really is to communicate completely

 

[00:13:00] Speaker 1 agree

 

[00:13:00] Speaker 6 with you. And you know, just on that front is like, how hard could it be? You know, you ask a question, I answer. It’s like, how hard can that be? But that simple exchange between us can get all fouled up, you know?

 

[00:13:15] Speaker 1 And does every day all the time?

 

[00:13:17] Speaker 6 Yeah, all the time. And when you start dealing on a on a larger and larger scale, if you start dealing instead of you and your friend, or maybe you and your spouse start dealing with you and your family, it gets a little bit more complicated because there’s more people and it just gets exponentially more complicated. And I can’t tell you how challenging, how much time we commit to trying to be good communicators throughout long and foster. And it’s hard. It’s hard, but I think that as hard as it is and as valuable as good communications is. Mm-Hmm. As companies, we seldom ever try to develop our people or train them in how to be a good communicator. Right? I really was benefited one time earlier in my career where we spent an extraordinary amount of time with. We had a communications coach come in and the executive team had access to the communications coach and had to learn about how to communicate and really more about like what goes wrong that we don’t think about. You know, if I say something, if I say the door is blue on the house, I think I know what I’m saying. You may take adores blue on the house and and interpreted as something different. Absolutely. And we get we got to get off the rails there from the get go so that good communications is something that is really important. And I think that, you know, well,

 

[00:14:40] Speaker 1 let me jump in on that for a second. And I say this all the time because I want people to get value out of this podcast. And you know, one of the things I preach is video video VIDEO VIDEO Because I learned early on when when you’re doing a lot of communicating with a lot of people, when you’re communicating with the public that the public in this is just my perspective, they’re speaking. If they’re calling you to interview you to be a realtor, they’re also interviewing two or three other people. Usually, if they’re calling me to learn about building a house, they’re usually talking to two or three other builders and many, many, many times. Early on in my career, people would tell me that I told them something that I know for a fact I never said, because if you ask me a question, there’s an answer to the question. There’s not three different answers to the same question. Yes. So putting things in video, I think brought a lot of comfort to my customers because not only could they hear me say it on the phone, I could say, Hey, you know what? Let me I’ve got this conversation recording video, let me send it to you. So I do understand how hard that is and and within team members and training and all that it is, it is. It’s a huge challenge. Yeah.

 

[00:15:49] Speaker 6 Another thing you and I briefly talked about it during the time out or the break was that, you know, in the context of communications, email and texts are dangerous or, you know, pick up the phone and call somebody or go see him and call him the number of times that people get off the rails and all bent out of shape because they misinterpret what somebody means or is saying in a text or a communication and you’ve seen these change, they go on and on and on and they deteriorate into an argument. Right? You know, I don’t know who these people type a lot better than I do because they would take me forever, you know, to to type out some of that. But it’s just be very careful about using texts and emails because they’re misinterpreted all the time by the receiver, right? And you pick up the phone? Yeah. And I think there’s less lost in that.

 

[00:16:44] Speaker 1 Yeah. And I think our colleague Barry Rattler has said to me many, many, many times that if you can’t solve something in three volleys in an email, pick up the phone and speak like humans. Yeah, right? So one, two three, if it’s not resolved, get. On the phone, but you’re absolutely right.

 

[00:17:03] Speaker 6 And, you know, one one of the reasons that I think and I’m sure that you would agree is that I think we all feel emboldened to some point on an email where we lose some of our just our common decency and courtesy that we have when we speak to each other. You know, I think we feel more accountable to each other when I’m sitting here talking to you. Yes, you know, and but you know, we we seem to lose some of that in a text or email and you read some of these emails are, are you serious? You really wrote that. Yeah. Like, what are you thinking? Yeah. So anyways, you know, we just have to have some more discretion on those things.

 

[00:17:43] Speaker 1 I would agree with that. Yeah. So there you have it, some truly amazing business tips from some incredibly successful people. If you want to hear more great tips and stories, head on over to go with John GCON to listen to more episodes or listen on your favorite podcast platform, go out there and build something extraordinary.