1321: David Royce | Business Scaling Lessons from 1,000 Rejections (Bonus)

21:09Hopefully, I get a girlfriend or something like that, or a date out of it. I've read probably half a dozen books about body language and I didn't read them until after I'd finished selling. Like there wasn't a whole lot out there about body language specifically with sales. There was some stuff just about body language. There's an old school guy from Australia named Alan Pease. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, but it was called like the book of body language. The definitive book of body language. Yeah. Yeah. Barbara and Alan Pease. And I didn't even find that book until after, but I found some of his really old school books prior to that.

21:36Yeah. It's funny because most of the books that are out there, they're actually geared towards dating yeah it's probably a much bigger market than it's a bigger market and also it's like you want people to pay attention to this maybe don't constantly bring up office examples like even about sex don't make it very people still want to hear about sex and attraction and dating i mean at least so far at least those episodes are still popular yeah i wonder at what point sales started feeling learnable instead of random because surely in the beginning it was like well that person said yes great don't know what i did that person said no oh well don't know why really but it's just And because early in the game, salespeople always think it's just a numbers game.

22:12You just have to roll the dice a hundred times and you're going to, one of them is going to win and that's how it works. But then advanced salesmen are like, no, you're, you are counting cards. Yeah. It's pattern recognition, right? And it's being conscious about what is going on and then taking notes. So for me initially just started out with objections. So like I was not very good at understanding other company services. I had no idea what services did and what they didn't do. So I would just write down whatever the objection was, you know, okay. They're with Terminax or they're with Orkin. And I'd have to like study up and understand what the other companies were doing.

22:44And then I'd have to ask customers, hey, I was just curious, do they do this for you? Do they do this? If something our neighbor really liked is we do this and this. And they're like, oh, actually, I don't think they do that. Oh, that's really cool. Well, what else do you guys do? And then you're like, okay, I'm going. Well, we take care of the yard as well. We like doing spider webs off the fence line. They're like, oh, yeah, they don't do that. That's funny. Oh, okay. So you start taking notes and you figure out what different services do. I can see that being a selling point because my wife was like, yeah, they spray this thing around the house.

23:14But then I still have to clean up all the web. So she texted the guy or called the guy. And the next guy came over. And that's why it's a good company. The next guy came over and he had this basically super long feather duster. And he was just like zip. And I go, that's all this guy had to do to basically beat out the other guy. He's like, I'm not going to clean your porch. It's not my job. I just do the spraying. I was like, well, okay, we want the guy who brings a freaking feather duster in the car and just gets rid of the stupid spider web. So I'm not walking through it in the morning and having to stick to my face.

23:42Like, that's what I'm actually paying for. I don't really care if the pests are dead. I just don't want them to be in my face. And, you know, what we found is it's far more painful for the customer if it's visual. So, like, when I was knocking 60 ,000 doors, I basically got a PhD in what people hated about the pest control industry. And you learn a lot about specifics with different companies. And so this is nerdy pest control history. But back in the 90s, prior to that, there were no feather dusters. Nobody was doing that. But when we were on the doors, it's almost like, OK, this is my stage.

24:13What can I point out to help the customer understand? It's also far more engaging when you're pointing and you're talking and you're doing this and you're talking, you know, kind of looking interesting as opposed to just kind of sitting there and droning on and on. Speaking of pests, how about a word from our sponsors? We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Drip Drop. I'm pretty serious about staying hydrated. I mean, our bodies are mostly water, so it's clearly something we've got to pay attention to. But hydration isn't just chugging plain old water. Let's be real. That gets old fast.

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25:42This episode is also sponsored by HomeServe. Owning a home is great until something breaks and somehow it's never at a convenient time, right? Your water heater doesn't exactly give you a polite heads up. And here's what a lot of homeowners don't realize. Regular homeowners insurance doesn't usually cover everyday wear and tear. Things like plumbing problems, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues, they really, they leave you on the hook. And those repairs can get expensive fast. That's where HomeServe comes in. Think of it like a subscription for your home. For as little as$4.99 a month, HomeServe offers plans to help cover certain home system repairs.

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26:42Plans start at just$4.99 a month. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com. Not available everywhere. Most plans range from$4.99 to$11.99 a month for your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Today we talk a lot about relationship building. We have a free course on that that's shenanigan free as well at 6minutenetworking.com. The course is about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to develop relationships with you, and it is non-cringe, decidedly so. No awkward strategies or cheesy tactics. It's not going to get those figurative doors or literal doors slammed in your face.

27:14It'll make you a better colleague, a better peer, and a better connector. And six minutes a day is all it takes. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to that course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course, again, all free at sixminutenetworking.com. Now, back to David Royce. One of the things that we had the company, we had a good company, and they always took our feedback. Yeah. We were like, hey, you're an environmentally friendly, pest control company. You're laying down these strips, these like really sticky strips near my gym, which is outside.

27:44sure there's 10 lizards stuck to this don't they eat bugs and also they're cute and they were like yeah well we're gonna stop doing that right away it's like wait a minute i'm supposed to be protecting the environment and getting rid of pests and what i'm doing is killing cute lizards that eat the pests and i have to look at that and it's like i find one next to my weight rack and it's like half eaten by something it's disgusting it's funny because from a pest controller standpoint they would go hey that's actually a good thing for the environment because we're not laying down chemicals or something right you know it's non-toxic right but then you know inadvertently they're killing yeah right and it's like no those are supposed to be catching spiders or you know whatever yes those are the guys eating all the spiders like i love the lizards that live under my deck there's probably far fewer insects under there creating nests because there's a fat guy that lives under my deck and i'm like he's well fed you know i don't want that guy getting stuck to a weird orange stripe in my gym and then i gotta deal with that what's a counterintuitive sales lesson that most people get backwards?

28:39So I think a lot of people, they have this view of a stereotypical salesperson, right? So loud, assertive, almost like you have to push your way through the sale. And we really teach our people the opposite. If you're pushy, they're going to feel that. Instead, be chill. Talk to them like you would a friend or your grandmother about the service. Really help them understand you're there to help as opposed to force something down their throat. And when people put down their guard and they like you, they're much more likely to listen to you. That's a far easier way to get a sale done. If it's just like a one-time sale, like I probably think of like the used car sales dealer.

29:14It's probably like the stereotype. That's the stereotype. Yeah. Right. It's just, he's trying to get one deal done and get you out, you know, off the lot. When did you start thinking beyond your own performance? I mean, the guy said, Hey, can you train everyone else? So did you have to retool things to teach? Not really. No. So I just was like, okay, well, I'm already the top person. So how do I teach this to other people. And having to write everything down and teach it is even a better way to learn it. And I actually got even better at sales from that point forward. It was just creating processes for it, writing out a script, writing on all these different rebuttals, kind of coming up with the RAC system.

29:47How do you teach body language? And then we took it to another level where it's like, let's videotape the salespeople giving their approach. And then we're going to throw it up. We're going to put a big screen in every office. We're going to mirror up on the screen and then we're going to have the entire group. We're going to go through it and I'll say, tell me to press pause whenever you see something you really like or you say, or dislike. And so you actually have the team, you know, edit and go through with the salesperson what they can improve on. And it's fascinating. We've done that where like someone's gotten to like a rut and they're getting zeros for a few days and then we'll put them up on the screen.

30:19You know, everybody will say, okay, this is the key thing. Like notice how you're actually frowning here over and over or you're doing this thing with your forehead. It's really weird. Let's get rid of that. Just I want you to focus on that and the smile thing throughout the day. And then they'll sell seven. And it's like, whoa, this is crazy similar to the dating stuff that we used to teach. We used to videotape guys. We had to hire the women because you're not going to film strangers without their consent. That's a bad idea, especially now. But we would hire the women and they would do this in our workshop.

30:44And we go, how do you think that went? And they go, well, I walked up with a big smile and I said this and I said this and I said this. And we're like, let's go to the videotape. And then it would be like him walking up looking like you've just freshly shat yourself. no smile whatsoever frozen in fear acting really awkward during the headlights look kind of looking at the ground not speaking up and they're like wow that's what i look like and it's like yeah yeah but don't worry we're not done we're gonna build you back up from here so then they do it like a dozen times with coaching and then we would send them out at night again this is a decade ago i don't do this anymore but we would send them out at night and then they were really confident when they approached because they were like no now i know what i look like on tape and i know i don't look like that.

31:24Right. And so yeah, seeing is believing, right? It's like, you can see it. You're like, Oh, I sound like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when you remember when answering machines were a thing and you would hear your own voice on an answering machine, you would go, Oh my God, that's what I sound like. This is terrible. This is terrible news. So you have to get through that kind of whatever that is, that sort of self-conscious anxiety. And then, then you can really throw yourself into something like sales. What was the first thing you standardized with the sales process? The script. What do you got to say?

31:51Because when people first get out there, they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. And if they get a training manual and it's all, we do this, this, and this, well, that's not sales. That's just like technically telling people what you do. And features don't sell. It's like bad marketing. It's explaining the benefits and how you explain the benefits is what really gets people to want to buy. I assume you think that process beats talent. It's a combination. What I love about process is you can almost teach, I would say you can teach the majority of people how to be in sales. There's probably 20%.

32:20It depends on what the product is. Clearly, some products take a longer time and it's a harder sale. The previous company I worked for, there was this wet rag mentality. It's like throw them against the wall, see who sticks. If they can't sell, just let them go home. That's most sales organizations though. It's like the easiest thing to hire for, right? You can hire any warm body and then just see who doesn't blow it. Yeah. And I was like, that's a horrible model. One for the person, I felt like that. I'm like, this sucks. And then two, it's horrible for the business. It's like, if you train them how to do it, they'd all sell more, maybe more loyal to you.

32:50And they'd come back each summer, you know, to sell for you or stay working for you. Yeah. Well, you're investing in them. They're not, because if you're just throwing people to see what sticks, then they just go, this place pays 50 cents more per hour on it. So I'm just going to go there. Or like this place is a base and a commission. So I'm just going to go there. Whereas if you're investing in people, they go, all right, this place might pay a little bit more, but when I, every time I spend a couple of weeks working for Aptik or whatever, I come back better at this job. And that's where I'm making my money as I'm closing more.

33:18Yeah. And a big part of sales too is keeping up with it. If you stop practicing, eventually complacency leads to mediocrity. You just get bored. So I've found we're happiest when we're striving for our true potential. And if you're constantly learning and you're keeping yourself fresh so you can be at peak performance, that's when you're going to be happiest. It's when everybody's going to do better. Because sales is, even though people are out doing their own thing, we would meet every single day. And the vibe in that room, the energy of how well people were doing really had an effect on other people.

33:48And so we'd utilize those who were the best at it to work with those who were not doing well, and then film them and have them train them. So it's more of a team sport. Exactly. Exactly. When did it click that you were helping build a machine though? Because it sounds like you eventually went, okay, I'm building my own thing. I'm writing these processes. I can train, like you said, almost anyone to be able to do this, I don't know, to the green belt level or something, which is decent. When did that kind of realization hit? Because I'm assuming at some point this led to a ramp where you're like, wait, we can scale the crap out of this thing.

34:19My boss finally convinced me to go do it. And I initially, I was, and I'm embarrassed to say this, I didn't think pest control was impressive. So I just thought, there's no way I want to go do this. Like I'm going to go work in New York, you know, in M &A, you know, I want to have like a nice office, wear a suit, all that kind of a thing. And when I realized the math on how well he had done, and then he helped me realize, he's like, look what you've already done on this side. He's like, if you play all those skills that you just did on the sales side, and then you take it and you apply it to the technical side, the customer service side, like you're really good at developing processes, you're going to make a ton of money.

34:55And so he finally convinced me to go do it. He sold his business. He actually kept his company name, Moxie. And I asked him, I said, can I license your name? Because some of the people who are here will follow me to the next one if I go start up. So I went and started up down in Southern California. And I did it for four years and he was a silent investor behind the scenes. And then I could call him, you know, once a month if I had questions about things. And before I left, I asked him, I said, okay, what are all the things you would change if you had the time? Because he was busy. He had three kids and, you know, he had four different locations at that point.

35:29And in some ways the wheels were already starting to spin off. And I'm like, what would you change? And he gave me a list of about 30 different things, you know, to improve the business and tweak it. And over those four years, it was kind of like being in a lab, just getting familiar with the business, learning the financials, KPIs, all that kind of thing. And at the fourth year, I'm like, okay, I'm really ready to go do this on my own. And so I sold off just the accounts, the book of business to Terminex. And then the Terminex actually let me keep my Salesforce and my executive team and my key operators.

35:57And so I just, from there, my second company, EcoFirst, we went into four different states all at once. And I said, let's see if I can actually scale this. Wow. That's a big bite for your first bite. It was. It was very ambitious. I learned in the first company, we were in LA, in Orange County, Inland Empire, and then San Diego. And I learned how to operate from afar that way, where I couldn't be at the business every day to be the manager and be running everything. So I started to work through people. A lot of people ask, they go, well, how do you scale a business to that size if you're not in every location?

36:28And I'm like, well, take a 30-day vacation. And if you come back and it's still there, you got a business you can scale. Yeah. But if you come back and there's no business, well, I guess you learned an expensive lesson. Yeah, you screwed up. Hopefully you had a nice vacation. Right. Wow. Wow. How old were you at this point? I was in my late 20s. Wow. Okay. So you were kind of always pretty ambitious then because a lot of, I remember working on my business in my 20s and all these guys who were 30s, 40s, and 50s would be like, you're the hardest working 20-year-olds I've ever met. And I was like, we are?

36:55Because by my measure, we're kind of doing a lot of dicking around, like a lot. A lot of spinning our wheels. But the fact that we just showed up every day before like 10, 30 a.m., we were already beating everybody else in our niche. Totally. There's so many industries that are like that, right, where it's just a different breed of people that fall into these things. And for me, coming out of, number one, coming out, I was a college grad, which is different for the industry probably. Two, I had a finance degree. I mean, I could probably count on one hand how many pest controllers have a finance degree.

37:27Sure. I had worked at a large regional company. The first company was a hundred billion plus dollar company. So I'd seen what a big company did. And then the small company actually gave me the lens into just entrepreneurship. And you kind of see everything and it's not perfect. And you're just like, okay, these are the different sizes. How do I get this to this? Yeah, wow. I guess I was ambitious. I really threw myself in. I did 16 hour days, loved it. Yeah, well, if it's fun. For 10 years, it was like, go, go, go. For me, I had financial drama growing up. we almost lost uh my parents almost lost the house when i was a kid oh wow it scared the shit out of me sure to be honest that's motivating yeah it's motivating so i just uh yeah so i learned how to save that's why i saved all my money thinking i'm gonna go to nba school at some point as opposed to going and blowing it all you know in a Lamborghini or whatever is it sure in college geez a college kid with a Lambo bad idea yeah so it's like hey if there's an opportunity you got a shot like go go go let's see if you can do it the 16 hour day thing i can totally relate i remember i was starting to sell this probably like 2011 yeah and i'd been in sales for a year or two and they just had come out this is how long ago this was they just come out with the ability to put a chat box on your website where somebody who visits you can be like hey do you want any help but there was no ai so people would be like what is this yeah and i'm like it's me jordan and i was doing the podcast and generating leads and also doing sales and people would be like no it isn't and i'm like yes it is do you want information on our programs give me your phone number and i would just stay on there and it would work on my phone too so i would just be like watching Game of Thrones or whatever down, you know, Netflix and or HBO, whatever it was.

39:00And it would just go bling. And I'd be like, and I had my scripts all memorized and I had shortcuts and everything. And I remember just doing that from the moment I woke up answering people who probably messaged at 1 a.m. and be like, is this tab still open? And then all the way until 1130 at night. And I'd be at the bar having drinks with friends and I'd be like, just a second, guys. Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. And people would be like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm chatting with website visitors. And it was just, they'd be like, what are you talking about? Chatting with website visitors.

39:30And then - You're so far ahead of the game. It was like, what are you talking about? And then I remember that we had this accountant and he was like, how did you guys go from making$180 ,000 a year to making$3 million a year? And I was like, oh, I just sit on this website chat thing and I get every person who responds to give me their phone number, unless they are just not interested at all. and then I call them and then I call them a dozen more times over the period of a year or two until they're ready to give me, I think it was like$8 ,000 for the program. And people are like, what? And I was like, yeah, I don't know.

40:04This is how sales works because nobody taught me that it was quick and nobody taught me much of anything. I was just like, well, you just do it until they say yes or they say, please don't call me again. I'm never giving you my money. And then you thank them for being honest with you and you just, you know, that's it. Yeah, that's the best if people just be direct with you. But I remember, I still have people that I've called so many times that I remember and like they either eventually came through or didn't and I would consider them like friends or acquaintances because I talked so much with these people.

40:29It's a high ticket item, man. You're selling a 20 something, 30 something year old guy an$8 ,000 program. I mean, that's like selling them a car. I think you make a good point too. Being able to hear the customer when it's like a firm no, it's a hard no or a no way versus kind of a soft no. They're like, I don't think so. You're like, I can push forward. There's room here. Yeah, there's a little bit of room where it's just like, no, I'm not interested. yeah you're like got it i got the tonality i'm good but the thing is see remember these people were usually coming from the podcast right which is good lead gen so they weren't like nobody was offended that i called them they were interested in the podcast they wanted to talk on the phone so nobody was like why are you calling me you jerk don't bother me again everybody was like man it was really cool to talk to you for half an hour i will never have the amount of money i need to come to your program and i instead of treating them like a disposable lead i treated them like a listener of the show where I actually cared about them.

41:20I think that made a huge difference because it was almost like caring about people's experience with your company, but at scale. If you have their best interest in mind, people can feel that on the other side. And it's like, you're trying to help them make a good decision that's going to increase their value or whatever. I think that's really important. I can't stand when you made a salesperson and they're like, yeah, I really bent the person over on that one. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I don't want you working for me. I don't want any repeat business from that guy ever again, even though he was clearly qualified because he closed.

41:50It's like, oh, this is not. Yeah, you got to create the right culture. That's actually got to be kind of tricky. I've definitely hired salespeople in my old company who were not a good fit, but still closed. And you have to fight your business partners to get rid of them. Because they're like, he made$10 ,000 last month. And I'm like, I guarantee you a bunch of those guys are going to refund. All of them had a bad experience registering. And all of them have a negative, a more negative view of our brand than they did when they made the call. And that's not good. Like that's your chipping away at brand equity for dollars short term.

42:21Not good. I learned that lesson really early. We had an individual on our sales team. He was one of the top salespeople, but he was just so negative around everybody else. He had a hard time working with everybody. And he would make comments like, I'm not here to make friends. That sucks. I'm just like, I have to let you go. Yeah. He's like, you're going to let me go? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I'll help you get a job in another company, but I can't have you here with us. It's just, you're just not part of our culture. People don't understand the value of how important the team thing is. I know a couple of trainers.

42:50I don't know what their exact role is. I guess they're like master chiefs in the Navy or whatever. And they train Navy SEALs, these guys. And they, I won't repeat the name, but there's a very big influencer who's like a well-known tough guy. And he's always, his whole thing is how tough he is, but he's also a jerk. He went through, you probably do. he's he's uh he went through buds which is the seal training program and they kicked him out every time and i was like oh why and they would go it wasn't even his athleticism but everybody hated him nobody trusted him and it was almost like he went out of his way to be a terrible person he couldn't help himself and it was like that's the last guy we want on the teams we'd rather have a guy who's a mediocre swimmer a mediocre relative to the seals runner who's not charismatic who doesn't get, but is going to play on the team.

43:39But we don't want an all-star who's a piece of crap. And so they kicked this guy out multiple times. Like he went through multiple times. He just can't control himself. And it's funny because it's like, wow, this guy actually met all of the physical and mental sort of tests that the US Navy can throw at you for one of the toughest units around. And he still screwed it up just because he can't work with other people. Imagine having your life is in this person's hands. He's going to make a choice that makes him look like a hero or feel good as opposed to like, I don't know, saving his comrades. Like the last guy you want watching your back is somebody who can't function like that.

44:14And it's like, yeah, no good. The thing about the problem too is those who are new that come in, they're rookies, they're looking at the top salespeople going, okay, how do I emulate, right? Yeah, I want to do everything they're doing. So I'm going to be this way. And the more of those that he recreates, the worse off that you're like, it's spreading like a disease. Yeah, it's a cancer. Yeah, that's a good point. The new guys and gals come in and go, well, I got to emulate everything about this person. And it's like, oh, I tell people to take the good with the bad. They're new. They don't know what the bad is.

44:41Right. They think that you're cocky, arrogant, annoying, impossible to work with, take no prisoners attitude is what is making you successful. They don't realize that this is your chief handicap and your vice that you need to get rid of. You're doing you're achieving all this in spite of this. Right. So you're giving them your biggest handicap. And that's the thing that they're emulating first. And then they're trying to shore up all the other. It's like, no, this is not going to work. You're right. It's like a cancer. Yeah. Hang on, the Aptiv Pest Control guys are at my door again. We'll be right back.

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47:06Now, back to David Royce. You mentioned a college professor who influenced your thinking. I'm curious what that said, what that person said to influence or trigger you. There's a few things. Like, one, I had a teacher in the sixth grade that really helped me to believe in myself. Some college professors, like I had one college professor that I was asking, like, so what's the secret to wealth creation? I may have been asking the wrong type of person. Ask a guy with an essentially government job, depending on the school, what's the secret to wealth creation? If you find out, please tell me. His thing was, look, what I've seen is people who can do something the longest and stick with it, those are the ones who ultimately make the most.

47:45And there's a lot of truth to that, right? Like a lot of people, they don't succeed. It's because they just quit. They end up giving up or they run out of money, that sort of thing. I'm friends with this famous DJ, Keskabe. Oh, he's great. He lives down the street from me. Nice. And we went on a spring break together. We're sitting on the beach and we're talking to each other. And I'm like, so what makes you great? I don't really listen to a lot of his music personally, but - Oh, it's great. So what makes you great? You're known and you make tens of millions of dollars as a DJ. And he's like, you know, just stuck with it.

48:15And I'm like, wait, that's it? He's like, there were so many people who were better than me, but it's a hard lifestyle. It's a lot of late nights and being on the road away from your family. and he's like, I just kept sticking with it. And he's like, it's my true passion. That's what I love. And I was willing to put up with, you know, the difficulties of the job, whereas other people that I really looked up to, they just decided to get out of it. It's so funny to hear somebody like Cascade say, eh, I just didn't quit. It's like, well, and also you seem to have a supernatural sense of what is going to be like a great hook or a great drop or an interesting soundbite, a sample.

48:51And you are constantly smashing hits, but okay, fine, just don't give up. Maybe refine that if you're going to give a commencement speech cascade. For sure. Yeah. It's up there with follow your passion. Just don't quit. What if you suck? I haven't thought this far ahead. All right. So you start your own company. Obviously, things start to scale. But I'm curious at what point you start to feel real momentum. Or are you always in your head the poor kid who can't let up off the gas? No. So I learned my first year in business that you can be killing it and also dying at the same time. I must bankrupt the business.

49:24By scaling? Yeah, by scaling too fast. Because the way the commissions were, you paid out the commissions ahead of the revenue coming in. We paid them out in portions over time, but it still wasn't enough to catch up. And I had enough saved up between myself and my silent investor. I'm like, okay, we'll probably put on 4 ,000 or 5 ,000 new customers this year. And we ended up doing 7 ,500. I wasn't paying attention to the financials. I wasn't looking at my bank accounts. I'm like, oh we just have all this big cash pile yeah in there it just keeps emptying and i'm like oh it's time to pay out the final bonus check and i can't do it oh my gosh i almost just killed the company isn't there there's a phrase in silicon valley and they call it like the warm hug of death or something and it's when you scale so much and you go to your vcs and you're like look at what we have 10 million users and then it's like yeah but your bill for this llm in the back end your your Amazon server bill is$28 million.

50:18Yeah. How are you going to pay that? And it's like, well, that's why I'm standing in front of you. Look at all of our users. And they're like, I'm not giving you$28 million. Yeah. I'll give you 8 million. Where are you going to get the rest? And it's like, oh, we are going to go bankrupt because we are too successful. Yeah. It's like, you got to pay attention to both sides. You can't just be great at one thing. I can see how tempting it is to just go, look, I'm here to grow the thing. I'm not here to worry about how you pay the people. That's, well, there's no, that's actually nobody's job. Maybe we should look into that.

50:43It really has to be a combination of both things. And it was tough. I had to go to them and say, look, I went to my main salespeople, the sales leaders that made the boss. And I said, hey, can I pay you in two months from now, but I'm going to pay you 10 % interest on your money. I just, like we did way better than I thought. And they had such a great summer. They're like, yeah, that's great. I can't make that in the market or wherever else. So yeah, I'd be happy to do that. I was lucky that we had a great summer to be in that position. It was a good problem to have. That is a good problem to have.

51:10But also you are so lucky they said that that was okay. Yeah, there was during the end. Man, I'm telling you, during COVID, this podcast network, podcast one was like, we don't know what the ad market is going to do. I have a decent monthly sort of guarantee from them. And they were like, can you take like a 40 % pay cut? And I said, for how long? And they were like, I don't know. indefinitely a while and and they go in the owner back then he's since passed with norm pattis goes you will be made whole and i was like well that's good enough for me so i took this pay cut and then like three months later he goes actually we're still making a bunch of money here's all your money here's a bunch of extra interest and i remember being like holy crap that was close that was a close call but he told me everyone agreed to it but i thought what happens if i say no and adam carolla says no right and i don't know the other big show Like, what if we just say, sorry, it's COVID.

52:04I need the money. I've got kids. It's like, what are you going to do? And he was like, go to a bank and put on my best behavior and ask for a fat loan. I don't know. Like, what are you going to do? You don't want to close your company. You're successful. You just have to go to, I don't know, JP Morgan and go like, here's the thing. I can't afford to pay anyone. That's a tough sale. Yeah. You would have to figure something out like that. Yeah. It's like, and if you can prove, hey, I got the customers and here's what the attrition rate is. But that was in my first year. So I don't think anybody would have given me money.

52:30No, no. It's like, I'm still proving the model right now. That's like one of those shark tank pitches where they're like, have you ever done anything businessy before? And it's like, no, but isn't this a great idea? And everyone's like, I'm out. I'm not touching this deal, even on TV. So what started breaking first? Was it just that cash flow thing? Yeah, it was really just cash flow. And from there, I was very lucky. Like, it only got better from there. Like, we kept tweaking things. We kept improving things. We kept coming up with new processes, new systems. And at the four-year mark, I'm like, okay, I'm really ready to scale this, at least regionally.

53:05Let's go kind of west of the Mississippi, and we'll go into four states initially and start expanding out from there. And so we did that for another few years with EcoFirst, and things are going incredible. And then Terminex calls me and says, hey, do you want to sell this company? I'm like, yeah, we could use more cash to grow even faster. I might not even have a choice but to sell this company and say more. No, it's just like the more, like the first one I sold for Forbes said I sold for 13. I have NDAs, so I can't say, but Forbes says 13. So it's like, I've got millions of dollars now to spend on the next company.

53:36And then I sold EcoFirst for tens of millions, according to Forbes. And so it's like, all right, now I can just ramp up. And then it was like, let's do some really cool shit. Like, let's get a company headquarters with like a NBA basketball court, golf simulator. So it begins. You know, like all this really fun stuff because I was watching companies in pest control and it's just very boring. It wasn't exciting. And I knew as we were ramping up, it was going to be harder and harder to recruit the right talent. Was this during the Google era where everyone's like, you need a slide? Yes. I need a slide in the office.

54:04Yeah. Because initially in 2000, when I graduated, one of the reasons I went and I was thinking investment banking and then I did pest control was tech was like at all time low right then, right? Like it had come up, the bubble had burst, you know, NASDAQ's down 80%. In the early 2000s, it just wasn't great. I got an idea. It's somethingsomething.com and they're like, get out. Yeah. Get out of here. Totally. And then, you know, by like 2010, 2011, things had really turned around and they have incredible offices, you know, the recruiting, the very best talent, right? Because there's only so many software developers out there.

54:32And I started going to these different company locations, like these headquarters and toured Meta and Google and the Nike headquarters, which is insane. And Zappos. Like a baby giraffe's walking around or whatever. It's like, what if, and it's like, okay, I need, I need, what was it, golf simulator? What was the other thing? NBA course. Had like a movie room, you know, and all the other like ping pong foosball, all like pool tables. But it was just a really cool way to differentiate ourselves. And then the offices were like super tech, like it looked like a tech company. So people would walk in and they go, oh, this is awesome.

55:01What is it? Like it's a tech company. And they're like, wait, pest control? What? Yeah. Tell me more. I know like the owner cares about these people clearly. And you guys have a cool company culture. I'm at least interested. Tell me more. Whereas if it's just pest control, most people wouldn't, you know, get into it. That's true. Unless you knew what the actual offer was. I was like, hey, you can make a lot of money at this. So we started looking for ways to differentiate. And we did really cool company retreats. We had an MBA suite that we could take everybody to. I mean, hey, enjoy your money, I suppose, right?

55:28A little bit. Sure, why not? Totally. And all this stuff, it helped us stand out. But the perks are just sugar. Sure, yeah. The protein is really, it's like the sales program and the training of the sales program or the training in the technician side or whatever else. People become loyal to you when you teach them how to fish and they can fish forever. It's like, look, I will never go hungry at this point. Like I can do this. I can make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. We have some guys that make a million dollars a year doing this. Yeah, selling. They're like sales leaders and then they become regional managers over sales because you can make commissions off everybody that's working underneath you.

56:01So it's wild like what it's become. That's really cool. I mean, I think sales is the coolest skill set, one of the coolest skill sets to have in business. There's a guy who teaches sales stuff online. I think his name is like Jeb Blount or something. Does that name ring your bell? I don't know. I think he wrote a book called the 800 pound gorilla of sales. It was one of those things I got early on. I was like, I need to figure this out. He had a podcast and it was like five minute sales tips or something like that. The sales guy, whatever. And he said, salespeople are the elite athletes of the business world.

56:30So it's not like, yeah, you've got the CEO, right? You've got these people who are in the spotlight, but they're going, okay, who's making the most money in any, if you look at any organization, the people that make the most money, sure, the people in the C-suite. And then it's like everyone else is a distant third and the salespeople are right up there. And you even find that there are salespeople who make more than people in the C-suite. And if anyone wants to complain, they just need to look at that guy's Salesforce profile or whatever. And they're like, oh, he generated$11 million in revenue last year.

57:00Okay. It's really easy to understand why. It's like, okay, well, there's proof. This is valuable. So we're going to pay that individual X. Exactly. And it's like I get emails from salespeople. but we have to do an advice segment and I'll get an advice right in from a salesperson. And they're like, I generated half a million dollars in revenue last year or$5 million in revenue last year. And some of these tech guys, it's like$30 million revenue. And they're like, and my boss is doing, and I go, dude, you don't, I don't think you've realized since you've been at this company the whole time, you can go anywhere on planet earth.

57:30Exactly. And they will hire you in a New York minute. If you have generated this much revenue. And if you threaten to leave, your boss isn't even going to be in the meeting where they decide to give you the raise. There's going to be like, you stay, You don't report to that guy anymore. They can't afford to lose you. I don't think you realize this. It's just one of the most powerful skill sets you can have because you just write your own ticket. It's just how it goes. It really is. The other thing we got into was tech. So 17 years ago, there's no pest control company creating their own technology.

57:59There was maybe Terminex or Orkin, the two very biggest. But it's like we had extra money, so we're like, well, what can we do to kind of standardize things? And like, well, if we had technology, you know, on a website, the guys could go on that was private or an apps eventually, you know, we could have all the training videos there so they could see them at any time. And then we started thinking, well, you can create sales tournaments because the problem is in each location, you know, you might have maybe 15 salespeople or whatever, but the very top, they're not really competing against anybody because they're so good.

58:28Right. And then you have this big middle section and then the guys at the very lower end. And so we said, well, what if we get the top guys from this location to compete with these guys and they could see it in real time? It's like a NBA. I said March Madness. Yeah, March Madness. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So that's what we did is we created individuals where we would say, okay, our system could figure out, okay, who sells about the exact same at the same rate as someone else in another place anywhere in the country. And then we would team them up and we'd have all these brackets. And then there was all these different, you know, like leads or whatever that the guys could go do.

58:58And it got really crazy. Like now you can like win a car. I was going to ask if you had prizes or if it was just like - Yeah, all these different prizes. They're going to see each other in Vegas in the annual conference and gloat over drinks. Totally. Because that actually is still worth it. It's worth it for us too because sales will increase like 30 % on tournament days. Really? So we make way more money as a company just by incentivizing them. And for some of them, it's funny, like swag can even be exciting for them, right? On the lower end, they're like, oh, I'm going to get a shirt or a free hat or whatever.

59:25But then it goes up to laptops or iPads or cars. Salespeople are like this though, right? Like it's you mean I get a chance to beat David. And then I see him, I go, oh, tough march, huh? Tough march, David, tough march. And I get to drive away in my Cadillac Escalade or whatever. And it's like a rounding error in the company revenue. But I, yeah, I made$13 million in extra revenue here because I worked 17 hours instead of 16 hours because it was worth every ounce of effort to be able to pull one over on my like rival across the state. I mean, I respect each other for it, too. of course like you drove me to make this much more thank you for being competitive with me right yeah no it's totally scratches this weird itch and i think a lot of people have this right we typically do it more towards the second half of the summer sure when some guys they made a bunch of money already and they're like they kind of start slowing down we see the slowing down it's normally this week we're gonna pick it up we're gonna do this kind of tournament here we're gonna make the tournament bigger the next week and then smart yeah you kind of almost gamified it we did Yeah, it goes back to your question of how do you gamify business?

1:00:29This is one of those ways we did it. I like that. You're right. If I made, I mean, I'm a motivated guy, but if it's July and I've been out there for two months and I got my sunburn, I'm already peeling under my peel from last week. You're in Florida. Yeah. Like it's just hot, sticky. Getting chased by alligators or whatever. Yeah, bugs. Yeah, I've got mosquito bites. I'm thinking, you know what? Maybe I'll take a week off. Maybe I'll go to Vegas with my friends. Maybe I'll go up to New York and hang out. And then it's like, tournament, win a car and brag forever, at least until next quarter. It's like, I'll stick around another couple of weeks.

1:01:02I can handle this. Got to distract them with something, some new flashy object. That's so funny. That would totally work on me, man. I love this stuff. All right. Did the competition stuff ever create maybe bad incentives? Are there any backfires? Like, uh-oh, we got some throat cutting going on. There's probably a few times where you wondered if somebody was giving somebody else sales because maybe there was such a big tournament. And someone might be like, hey, use this sale so you can beat the other person. We had to watch that. I see. Kind of close. Like, hey, if I get three more sales, I get a - I'm going to get a car.

1:01:32I'm going to get an SUV. Hey, do you mind giving me one of your sales so I can beat this other guy? Yeah, I'll give you 600 bucks for that sale, man. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I never thought about that. When you put a lot on the line, you start coming up with - Yeah, exactly. Especially clever people who really want that car. One of the things we did is we actually started to film the very top people because everybody throughout the company would want to see the very, very top dogs that are fighting for maybe a BMW or whatever the car is. And it was really cool. They would have someone walk around the whole day filming so people could actually see them closing, how many they did.

1:02:04Because a lot of people, it's almost hard to fathom somebody selling 20 in a day. Pest control, it's just like, I'm used to selling two a day. How on earth does somebody do 20? And you hear them and you see it and you see how positive they are the whole time and how many hours they work. It's just wild. The riz is off the charts if you're selling 20 a day. Right. It's got to be. It's got to be. So actually, I'm curious, but this is totally neither here or there. But so someone's filming them. So I'm answering the door. Is somebody off by my garage filming? Yeah, a lot of times they'll be off the side filming.

1:02:35And then they'll ask the person after that, hey, we're filming this because it's a sales tournament. Are you OK with us having? I don't mind that at all. I just thought everybody's like, yeah, we don't. Yeah. I just wanted the logistics of that because I'm like, I don't know if there's a camera when I open the door. Then I'm like, what is this, a prank? YouTube prank show? Get out of here. Yeah, and technically, legally, I think there's 13 states. You have to tell them no matter what. But we always tell people because we don't want to have them on our film if they don't want to be. Yeah, on private, I don't know.

1:02:59Bad way to start a customer relationship. Yeah, yeah. Hey, by the way, we wiretapped you. We broke the federal wiretapping law, your state wiretapping laws. Everybody's going to know you have ants. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Exactly. It'd be more like, I suppose there's people who like, hey, I don't really want the whole world to know I have a Lamborghini and my address is in the shot. We only keep, that's only for internal stuff too. We never like put it outwards so that people could see it. I think it might freak some customers out. For sure. Some customers probably hear this and they're like, wait, what the hell they do this?

1:03:26My house is blurred on Google and I don't want a video of a sales guy selling my pest control with my address in the shot. Yeah. Although I don't have a Lambo, so I have nothing to worry about. Sometimes the best pest control is just the fast forward button, but don't even think about it. We'll be right back.

1:04:06www.prolon.com to weight loss without extreme restriction or guesswork. Get 20 % off plus a$40 bonus gift when you subscribe at ProLonLife.com slash begin. Hey, we've got our newsletter that I've told you about a thousand times. We bit wiser. It is specific. It's practical. It'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, psychology, and relationships in under two minutes almost every Wednesday. I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with David Royce. Well, I guess, how do you gamify this without turning the place into Lord of the Flies?

1:04:46Like you said, you had to police some of the sales, but was that really the only kind of thing? Like nobody, there wasn't really - Yeah, for the most part. Like that's it. There's not a whole lot you can do to screw this up. Like, you know, people have to have a signed agreement. When we go to the doors or whatever, there's a checklist so that the customer goes through everything with a different person who doesn't have the same incentive to get the sale. So it's like, you understand, you know, it's a one-year agreement minimum. You understand These things are going to be done at the home. You're that kind of thing.

1:05:12So the salesman can kind of gloss over. Yeah. It's a one-year agreement. You know what? I'm not going to say that. That's going to be. I'm just going to hint that. Or maybe I'll just. Did I forget to mention it's a one-year agreement? I'm so sorry about that. Anyway, you did sign it. So because I looked up some reviews and I had. And my wife was like, look at the reviews for Aptiv. And I was like, well, this person just didn't read the contract. Yeah. You might want to read the thing that you're buying. Like I get not looking at every bit of fine print, but surely that's not that hidden. If they're going to be back every few months.

1:05:41It's impossible to get through because we always have a second person. When the technician shows up, that person goes through and that person doesn't get any payment. There's no commission for the technician to get it to go through. And we do that intentionally because we don't want a customer who's not going to, we're not going to be able to retain long term. And so maybe like somebody, maybe the salesman wasn't as clear, but the technician stopped them. And so then maybe they want to do a review. The most reviews we get that are negative though, are people like, ah, this idiot knocked on my door.

1:06:06And I don't want people coming to my door. I saw a lot of that. I saw it on it. It's like, oh, it's like First Amendment. I'm really sorry. I know some people are annoyed by it. You don't have to answer the door. Some of them were like, yeah, our neighborhood has a no soliciting sign near the gate. And it's like, well, okay, but no. First of all, no. We're going to try and sell to you. It's not a gated community. They're not like a locked door. Unless it's a gated community, has a no soliciting sign on it, has like penal code or whatever. Like we always tell our guys respect that. Same thing. If there's no soliciting sign on the door, don't knock it.

1:06:33The person clearly doesn't want you there. Why would you knock and then piss somebody off? If it only gets us bad reviews, don't do it. Yeah. I don't even, like I said, I don't even, it doesn't even bother me. Like I'm not so important. I can't answer the door. I hope that day one arrives at some point, but my time's not that valuable. I like it because I have a no soliciting sign in my house. And if they knock, I'm like, I'll feel the first thing I say. I'm like, oh, so you didn't, you avoided the no soliciting sign. This must be really important. What's so important that you, I'll see how they react.

1:07:01Cause I want to see if I could throw them off or if they're so confident they're going to work around it. I'm like, all right, you're good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I wish I could have followed that rule, but this deal we're having right now is too good for you to pass up. I knew you'd make an exception if I told you that you were going to get 40 % off pest control for one year. For this, you've transferred this playbook several times to different companies. I mean, it seems like - Yeah, four times. Four times. I mean, that's, are you sick of founding companies at all? Yeah, I'm actually done.

1:07:27I'm officially out. Yeah, so I just sold my company last year or whatever. It's 20 years in the industry, actually 24 if you include my old sales years. We might have to go public on the next round. And I just didn't want to be the owner of a public company. I also got to the point where I just didn't feel I was learning anything new. It's like we were in 5 ,000 cities in 34 states. We're the third largest residential pest control service in the country, probably the world. And I just thought, it's just time. It's a good time to, yeah. Yeah. I've always wanted to do other things. And the next thing will probably be something more creative or more philanthropic.

1:08:03I decided I was just going to take a year off and just kind of get out of my system. And then just think. And so now I'm like in this just exploratory mode. Yeah. I'm looking at different ideas. Friends will bring business ideas to me. Sure. I'll get on chat GBT and just start setting different industries. It's not fun. It's just so many rabbit holes you can go down, especially with chat. It's amazing. I do wonder because a lot of people I know that have exits, they're like, for me, if I were doing a company that, I don't know, like a SaaS company, I don't think I would be in a hurry to start something else.

1:08:33But they'll start like a podcast or they'll do something where they're starting another business or they'll start investing in businesses. Other people jump right into founding the next thing, which to me sounds kind of exhausting. I don't know. So what it is, I think it's like a dopamine addiction. Yes, I agree. They're addicted to it. Like when you go from 100 miles an hour to zero, you're like freaking out going, what am I going to do with all this time? Yes. Yeah. But I had slowly started winding it down. I became chairman of my last business and I was really just involved more in strategy and hiring key people and eventually helping find a buyer.

1:09:04And I replaced myself as a CEO because even then I was starting to get bored with them. Just like I'm not, there's nothing really new. Like I want someone who's animated and excited about it to continue it. Yeah. So little by little, it's like I went from 80 hours down to 40 hours, and that was the hardest thing. Really? Because I love working really long days. And I started to have my family. Well, I was going to say, you do have kids, so. Yeah, my wife was like, hey, instead of 10 o 'clock at night, can you come home at like 8, 7? I just kind of started working back. What do you think of, and hear me out here, having dinner at home one search twice a week.

1:09:37Yeah. And I wanted to watch my kids grow. Sure. You know, I created a life for us that I could, you know, and it's my fault if I'm not able to be around them. That's a really good realization. I kind of had this same thing. Look, I didn't sell a huge company, but I built this life. It's a lifestyle business in many ways. Right. I work from home. I can choose to go to L.A. to do something like this. Right. Or I can say, you have Zoom, I have Zoom, you know, whatever. And I can write off cool trips like I can get a speaking gig in Anaheim. And it's like, OK, time to go to Disneyland. You know, I can do that kind of thing.

1:10:10And so like you said, I really did come to the realization. It's like, oh, look, my parents were busy. They worked outside the home. My dad worked for Ford. He came back late. He left early and then he retired early and we hung out after that. But it was a little bit like he was gone a lot early in my life. But it's like, I don't have that problem. So you're right. It is totally my fault if I end up missing my kids growing up when they're young. That is 1000 % on me. I don't have the luxury of going. I work at an automotive factory. I cannot work from home. I have to commute long distance because I got to drive to Detroit from the suburbs.

1:10:42Like those are pretty decent excuses to not see your kids as much. Like it still sucks, but it's a, you have a reasonable excuse. If I'm just in my office a lot with the door shut, man, that's kind of a pathetic way to screw up the relationship with your kids. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You know, they don't need any more trauma than maybe you or I had. Like you're like up or whatever, right? Exactly. It sounds like a Hallmark card, but like love is spelled T-I-M-E. Yes. Like for kids, we're constantly talking about exit values and financial forecasts. And our kids, they just want us home for dinner.

1:11:13Yeah. Did you have a moment where you were like, wait, I have enough? Because you said you grew up with financial uncertainty. And so it's hard for guys like us. To be fair, my dad was an executive. He was a CEO of Motel 6. And then a private equity group purchased it after I think he was there for about four and a half, five years. And then they had a disagreement about how they were running things. And so about six months into that transition, he was out. and then he thought, I'm going to go try to work for other businesses and kind of take some equity in the different businesses. But he didn't spread himself around enough businesses, in my opinion.

1:11:41I think that's what happened. When you're a kid, they never really tell you everything, right? Yeah, they're not getting the leads on that. Yeah. No. But all I know is my mom, she really leaned on me around the house because my dad was gone traveling five days a week from fifth grade through almost 12th. And so I just never saw him. So my mom had to get a job so that we had medical insurance and she's working full time. She'd wake up at five in the morning, had this brutal schedule where she'd make us lunches, work all day, come home, do the laundry, clean the house. We didn't have housekeepers or anything like that.

1:12:10And so it was a lot. And she leaned on me to be able to help out around the house because I was the oldest. And it's funny because now I look back and I'm like, you know what? That was really a gift. She got worried. In some ways, I was probably a surrogate dad. You have a bunch of younger siblings. I have two younger brothers. Okay. How much younger? Just like a year and a half, three years younger. You just had to keep them from burning the house down. Yeah. But it was just like, all right, here, you're going to vacuum the house. You're going to do the dishes every night. You're going to help me with dinner.

1:12:37She just leaned on me because it was easier. That was your first CEO role. Yeah. It's like that discipline that you get, right? Like someone could say, oh, it's traumatic. And then she told me something she shouldn't have. It's like, hey, I think we're actually going to lose the house next month. She's freaking out. Oh my God. Yeah, sure. It was a really tough time. But yeah, I look back now and I'm like, as opposed to like being frustrated with it or going, oh, it wasn't fair. I didn't go through that. It's like, no, that was a gift. Like that made me work really hard. Good question is what I've even done what I did.

1:13:02I always wonder that about people that come in here. And I know for me, I also saw my parents working so hard at jobs that they did not love. I was like, even if I have to make less money, I'm not working a job that I don't like. No way. Not doing it. So I started this creative thing, which is like a terrible way to make money. Whenever people are like, oh, podcasting, you make so much money. I was just like, I can actually not think of a worse way to make money than podcast. maybe and this is a maybe bold underline maybe writing a book that nobody wants to read is a is a slightly worse way to make money than podcasting but podcasting is like if i had to rank shitty business ideas this is like one of the top shitty business ideas is make a podcast because you almost always never make money it's like there's three million of these and 2.98 million of them make zero dollars and that's like a winner take all thing there's there's only so many.

1:13:56It's like, you got to be a top 1 % of 1%. I bet you it's not even top 1%. You're right. It probably is the top 1 % of 1 % that make like a nice amount of money doing it. And then there's like the top half percent make a living doing it. And it's living asterisk, not in a major metropolitan area inside the United States kind of thing. It's like, it's pretty rough. Passion is one of those things where if you're really trying to make a lot of money, don't follow your passions. Right? Because everybody else is following their passions or a large majority of people are following that path because that's what's exciting to them.

1:14:27And I get it. I totally understand. But the reality of going out and be a famous rock star or an actor or a restaurant owner or whatever is creative, it's a really tough sell in my mind. And then I think a lot of times too, it's like you don't have experience. You really got to be in the top 1 % and 1 % to make it in that industry. And then a lot of people do it and they don't have any experience before they try to go do it on a much bigger level. It's like this idea that if you challenge LeBron James to basketball, but you never played basketball, you've just watched it your whole life. Right.

1:14:59I love basketball. It's great. I should go do this. I'm passionate about it. Yeah. You go and you get into it, but you're clearly going to lose playing LeBron. Nobody would make that bet and invest their life savings into that business, except for LeBron. Right. Right. I think it was Scott Galloway. You know Scott Galloway? Yeah. Yeah, he's great. He said something like, the person standing on that podium at the commencement speech telling you to follow your passion made their billions in iron smelting. Exactly. It's like, what do you do? I think he says, the only people who tell you to follow your passions are those who already are rich.

1:15:27Right? Because then it's kind of like me. Now I'm like, oh, maybe I want to do something more creative or more philanthropic or do something else. But I've kind of like earned that at this point. I went and worked at a kind of a boring business and I tried to like put my spin on it and make it fun. You know what I'll tell you too? blue collar businesses, a lot of people are like me where they initially look at them, you're like, no, I don't want to go do that. But the crazy thing is the margins. The secret is, is that unsexy businesses often have sexy margins. And if you look at the average restaurant, the net profit margin is only like three to 6%.

1:15:59Best in class is 10%. Whereas you look at like a port-a-potty business and they're at like 25%. Really? Yeah. And so it's not only are your odds so much more difficult because everybody likes this idea of starting a restaurant. It's just really hard to make money in it because there's so many people trying to do it. Whereas a lot of people, they don't want to go do plumbing or whatever else. And the other advantage I see in blue collar work is AI. I was just going to say, AI is going to replace all the lawyers that were looking down at all of the tradesmen and the tradesmen are going to be like, yeah, I will take fries with that.

1:16:33I'm on my way to my next job. And it's like, damn you law school. Yeah. A lot of people are worried about like well the white color work right like so you know software developers get ai can code now legal documents it can do a lot of entry-level work and it'll continue to progress but it ain't unclogging your toilet anytime soon it's not going to get on your roof that's right it's not treating termites inside your walls that's right no no ai will not anytime soon crawl down in my crawl space and take the rag that my kid flushed down the toilet right no that's on that i gotta hire a real professional so yeah the irony is all the i I went to one of these elitist schools, law schools, and people were like, oh, these guys.

1:17:13And they all went and worked on Wall Street. And they're all, to your point, investment bankers and stuff. But now, yeah, they're getting automated, man. First-year associates, oh, that sounds kind of expensive. We have an LLM that does that now. So we only need three, not 30 or 300 or whatever. And yeah, all the guys that are out there welding and stuff, no, the demand is going up instead. Yeah, it's almost like shifted. I see the same thing in construction, right? Like we have this massive housing shortage. And so we probably need at least a million more construction workers that we just don't have.

1:17:43The 2008 crisis just killed it. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's one of the reasons housing is so expensive right now. I just thought it was because of zoning laws not letting you build anything anywhere. Huh. Now, if you go look at a chart just online of where we're at in terms of housing needs versus what we have, it's crazy how much more homes we need. Well, I know we need more homes. I just thought it was because we couldn't build them due to zoning laws, right? Some places make it more difficult, like California is one of them. Exactly. But it's more just we don't have enough people.

1:18:11I think we're at least a million people short. If only there was a way people could freely come into the country to work here. Yes. Blue collar jobs and construction jobs. Yeah. Huh. There's an idea. Maybe you should run for president, David. Yeah, right. Yeah. Thanks for coming in, man. This was a fascinating conversation. I didn't expect to go to the sales route, but I'm so glad that we did because I love the psychology of that whole thing. Yeah, for sure. I love a lot of fun. You're about to hear a preview that may completely reframe how you think about nuclear power. What if the energy source we've been taught to fear is actually one of the safest and cleanest tools we have?

1:18:44We're very familiar with electricity. You get home, you turn on the lights, you charge your phone, charge your computer, do all the things that we do without thinking twice about electricity, right? But electricity is a secondary source of energy. The primary sources of energy that we use are coal, oil, methane gas, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear. Nuclear is actually the largest source of clean energy in the United States. It's the second largest source of clean energy in the world. And what I mean by that is that whenever we make electricity with nuclear, we're not releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or even particulate matter.

1:19:24So there are no emissions that happen whenever you're creating electricity with nuclear. So it's just to say, you know, everything that's related to nuclear accidents in Chernobyl is completely overblown. Because people tend to think generally like everybody died and it became this wasteland and nobody can go in. And so it's interesting, right, that we have all these weird fears about nuclear when the facts and reality just point to it being actually extremely safe. The biggest energy disaster in history was actually a hydropower dam collapse. So entire villages were swept away. It's estimated that 200 ,000 people died.

1:19:58He would need like at least 200 Chernobyls happening every single year for nuclear to be as dangerous as fossil fuels. What about the 4 million premature deaths from burning fossil fuels? Why are people so afraid of nuclear? Hear the science behind the stigma with Isabel Bumke on episode 1277 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Big takeaway here. business is not just about effort, it's about design. You can grind for years and still be stuck, or you can step back, build systems, track the right numbers, and create something that actually compounds. That's the difference between a top performer and a builder.

1:20:35One burns out, eventually, the other scales. And the scary part, most people never make that transition. They stay the hero in a story that only works as long as they don't stop running. I should probably take some of this advice myself. So if you've got something from this one, think about where you're still relying on effort instead of structure because the scoreboard just doesn't care how hard you tried. It only reflects what actually works. All things David Royce will be in the show notes on the website. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support this show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:21:03Please consider supporting those who support the show. Six Minute Networking is at sixminutenetworking.com. And I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, aka Facebook for adults. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sadlowskis, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends and you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

1:21:31If you know somebody who's interested in business, scaling, systems, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

1:21:47I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetheroadsafely.gov.

1:22:41Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something You Should Know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I-want-to-understand-how-people-in-the-world-really-work itch, search for Something You Should Know wherever you get your podcasts. look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening you can thank me later