0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
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Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
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Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
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And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
0:26
Welcome to sales lead dog.
0:28
Joining me for today’s episode is John Donnelly.
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John is the executive director of sales for Service First Mortgage.
0:35
John, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
0:38
Hey, thanks for having me.
0:39
I’m happy to be here.
0:40
Yep, this is, I think it’ll be a good conversation.
0:43
John.
0:43
John, tell me a bit about Service First Mortgage.
0:47
Service First Mortgage is a residential home lender based out of Plano, TX.
0:54
We’ve been in business since 1997 and we you know, we, we do let home lending for just homes, residential homes.
1:04
We work with our realtor partners, builder partners, past customers and you know, this has been a crazy now, but we’ve been really taking some ground with, with being innovative and changing and it’s an exciting place to be in in mortgage lending right now.
1:20
Yeah.
1:20
See, that’s, I think the key is that, you know, it’s not like 3 years ago, five years ago when you basically had to swing a stick and you’d hit 10 people who wanted a mortgage.
1:30
Oh yeah.
1:31
These days it’s totally different.
1:33
So.
1:33
But this brings up times for new opportunities, fresh thinking, you know, new ways of looking at things and and meeting the needs of the market.
1:40
What are you guys doing to really address these challenges?
1:44
Yeah, that’s a great question.
1:45
I think one of the things that’s challenging is there’s so much competition right now because there’s less business.
1:53
And so we’re having to find ways to separate ourselves from our competition, whether it’s being real aggressive on price.
1:59
Sometimes it’s finding ways to position ourselves in builders where we’re we’re putting together special rate promos they can advertise on the weekends that bring business to them.
2:13
We do things like classes in, in like home neighborhoods, like a model home.
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And we’ll invite our realtor partners in our sales reps and we’ll all collaborate together and learn, you know, just a lot of different things that set us apart.
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But what’s happening right now is in our industry, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of people that are really doing well and there’s a lot of people that aren’t.
2:34
There’s like no middle ground.
2:36
And the ones that are doing well, there’s no magic formula.
2:39
They’re just hustling really hard.
2:41
I mean, ultimately that’s it.
2:42
Yeah, yeah.
2:43
Now I love that.
2:43
That’s what it takes when times get tough.
2:45
You got to hustle.
2:46
There’s no low hanging fruit anymore.
2:48
There’s none right now.
2:49
We have to earn it all.
2:51
And and the people that haven’t been in the business the last five years, they don’t know that or maybe 10 years, you know, they don’t realize that you have to actually market and and generate lead opportunities used to just come to you so easy, like you said.
3:06
Oh, yeah, yeah.
3:07
So, John, when you look back over your career and you had to boil it down to three things, What are those three things that have really driven and LED to your success that you’ve achieved?
3:19
Oh, that’s a great question.
3:21
I, I knew it was coming because you asked it before.
3:23
And my first thing, just like the immediate answer is I’ve been a constant learner.
3:29
I’m a, I’m a book nerd and so I walk a lot.
3:33
And I got told you earlier, I just come Kilimanjaro and I was, I’ve been doing a lot of prep for that, but I do lots of audio books.
3:39
I’m always learning and I kind of learned.
3:41
I read to learn.
3:43
I don’t just read for fun.
3:45
That’s been a game changer in my career, you know, just always learning.
3:50
The second thing I would say is probably, I, I think it’s somewhat natural, but I’m a very good listener.
3:58
If you say what’s your superpower for me, you know, they say God gave you 2 ears and one mouth.
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And so I, I know I don’t learn when I’m talking.
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And, and so I’ve used my skill of listening to really and enhance my leadership, improve myself awareness, you know, all the things that it goes on.
4:19
So I’ve really worked on on listening.
4:21
That’s a big one for me.
4:24
And probably the last thing is, is kind of being self aware.
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I’ve learned when I was younger, I’m a product of the five people I hang around most.
4:33
And I’ve really evaluated that and been purposeful about being around the right people that have the core values that I want to have that are going places I want to go.
4:42
So being intentional with those, that really close circle, I always tell my kids, we have really high values.
4:48
Your circle is probably pretty small.
4:50
And I’ve seen that play out in my career.
4:52
So I want to have the right people in that really small circle.
4:56
I think that’s so important.
4:57
That’s so critical like that, that you’re, you’re associating yourself with people that share values, those common values.
5:05
It makes life a lot easier when you’re doing that.
5:08
I definitely does less drama.
5:10
Yeah.
5:11
Oh, yeah.
5:11
Big time, big time.
5:13
So how’d you get started in sales?
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Was that something you envisioned for yourself when you’re, you know, going through your your teen years or whatever?
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Like, hey, I want to be in sales.
5:21
Or did you have something else in mind?
5:24
Yeah.
5:24
I mean, I go back to being a, a kid in, in high school, I used to collect baseball cards and I got so into it that I would have a booth at, at trade shows buying sell cards.
5:40
And I think it was the thrill of the sale, but also the money was fun to make.
5:45
And so that just kind of carried over in my life.
5:48
I got a, a job at Best Buy coming out of high school and sell computers.
5:55
And you know, one of the lessons I learned, I actually bought a computer from them when I worked there and there was a tornado and a power surge wiped it out.
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And they give me a whole new computer that was like a newer version.
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And so I was selling computers.
6:09
And when I would sell the warranty, they people would always say, is it worth it?
6:13
So I would just tell my story.
6:14
I’m like, well, I bought it and here’s what happened to me.
6:16
You probably should buy it.
6:17
So story selling, I’ve kind of stepped into that by accident because of that story.
6:23
And so you just kind of keep fast forwarding.
6:26
I like the, the upside potential of making more money than what maybe salaries would give me.
6:31
So sales was that was my driver when I was younger, you know, making money and seeing what I can do with it.
6:37
Hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
6:43
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6:46
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8:00
OK, let’s get back to this episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.
8:05
Yeah.
8:05
What were lessons learned from those first job, you know, things that maybe surprised you that you didn’t expect?
8:14
I think I actually want to Fast forward to that question when when I was I was in mortgage first as a loan officer.
8:22
So I was in sales and then I got put in a position that I was in a leadership role.
8:29
And in that leadership role, I think my inkling was to make sure everybody liked me, you know?
8:38
And so I spent a lot of time talking to people and trying to get collective answers and get the whole group going together when sometimes we just needed a decision and I needed to make a leadership decision.
8:50
Not really the most favorable one sometimes.
8:53
And I had to learn that lesson because I’m a high, high personality.
8:56
I like that people like me.
8:57
I’m a people person and I had to figure out how to balance that, that the leading part of leadership versus people liking you part.
9:06
You know, that was hard for me for a little while.
9:09
Yeah, that’s a hard adjustment.
9:10
I think for a lot of people moving into leadership, especially if they’re like you, where they want to be like they really, that’s really important for them.
9:18
It’s a tough adjustment.
9:20
I was the same way.
9:21
I just felt like, hey, I want to have a super positive culture.
9:25
I want, you know, people to really enjoy coming into work and be happy and to laugh and you know, whatever.
9:32
But man, it when there’s a hard decision to be made, that’s that’s a tough adjustment.
9:39
It is a tough adjustment.
9:40
I think that I sat, I probably sat on decisions too long in in my earlier days, knowing in my gut I need to make them right.
9:50
And then later on, I I learned a lesson.
9:52
Some of my employees said, finally, you let somebody go, we’ve been waiting for you to do that.
9:57
And that really hit me like, Dang, they all were waiting on me.
10:00
Why didn’t somebody say something?
10:01
Oh, yeah, I knew it too.
10:03
I just didn’t act on it quick enough.
10:05
Yeah, now that was enough one for me.
10:07
I remember the first time I had to fire somebody and it just gutted me.
10:10
I was so upset having to do that.
10:13
Yeah.
10:13
And then same thing happened where I had multiple people come back to me and say, we were waiting for you to get rid of that guy.
10:19
Yeah.
10:19
What took you so long?
10:20
Like, what took you so long?
10:22
And there it was, like, real eye opener for me.
10:24
Like, wow, I’m actually hurting the business by me, Delane, you know, I’m not doing my job, you know, by Delaney.
10:33
You know what else helped me?
10:35
Because I’m that personality.
10:37
After I let some people go early in my career and I saw where they landed, it was actually better for them because they weren’t either, you know?
10:45
And that gave me a piece to help deal with more layoffs or other changes I’ve had to face since.
10:50
Yeah.
10:50
No, exactly.
10:51
It’s doing us both a favor, you know?
10:53
Yeah.
10:53
That it’s like, you know, this isn’t, it’s not so much about the individual, it’s just it’s this isn’t the right fit for both sides.
11:00
You’re in the wrong role.
11:01
We need someone else who’s going to be, you know, a better fit, gives you the opportunity to do something that is better for you as well.
11:09
So they may not perceive it like that in the moment.
11:11
Nobody likes being fired.
11:13
Nobody does.
11:13
Yeah.
11:14
But a lot of times when you look back on it, it was the best thing for both parties.
11:18
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
11:19
What was your favorite thing about being a just a salesperson, non leadership role?
11:24
What was your favorite part about that?
11:28
I loved.
11:28
I just love the thrill of the hunt, you know, it’s like in recruiting.
11:33
So you know, when somebody says yes or you get somebody to join your team, like that’s a rush to me.
11:39
Like you, it’s hard.
11:41
It’s hard to do, especially recruiting.
11:43
I do a lot of recruiting and those wins are hard to come by sometimes and you work for months or years at them sometimes.
11:51
To me, that’s the joy.
11:52
What was the worst part besides losing deals?
11:57
What was the worst part?
11:58
Yeah, besides losing deals.
12:00
To me, it’s, you know, when good people leave your team and you don’t think it’s the right call for them and for you, it’s just hard.
12:07
Sometimes it feels personal.
12:09
Oh, yeah.
12:10
And, you know, I think I’m great for everybody, you know, and and everybody should stay working with me.
12:17
But doesn’t always work out that way.
12:19
And that’s hard sometimes to deal with.
12:21
So what motivated you to accept that first leadership position?
12:28
I feel like, I feel like I’ve been a leader at a young age.
12:35
You know, I was a Boy Scout.
12:37
I remember being elected to patrol leader and doing going to Washington, DC and getting elected to be another leader there.
12:44
And I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand it.
12:47
I didn’t know why it was me.
12:48
I was too young and couldn’t understand.
12:51
But when I started to be, you know, in my career and I started getting in these positions, you know, I think it was about a positive influence, people attracted to somebody that’s making a decision.
13:05
You know, everybody likes you.
13:06
So you kind of part of the whole team.
13:09
I can talk to the strong personality and the not so strong personality and relate to different people.
13:15
It’s very natural for me.
13:18
It just came that way and the opportunity was more when I really stepped into a significant leadership role.
13:24
I wasn’t even looking for it.
13:25
They tapped me on the shoulder and said we need your help, you know.
13:29
And so that’s kind of how it came about for me.
13:32
Yeah.
13:33
Now you mentioned you are just coming back from a pretty significant trip.
13:38
Tell us about the trip and what impact it’s had on you.
13:42
So the the quick story is going back to a book.
13:46
Last year April, I read a book called The 12 Hour Walk, and it challenges you to walk out your front door and walk for 12 hours and no music by yourself, kind of like a meditation.
13:57
Doesn’t matter how far you go.
13:59
I walked 30 miles that day and I wrote like 17 pages of notes.
14:04
And one of my thoughts was, I’m turning 50.
14:06
I need to do something significant.
14:08
What’s it going to be?
14:09
And I’d always had this idea of Kilimanjaro for like 10 years.
14:12
So I committed to it.
14:14
And, and then that began like this whole year of like training.
14:18
So I joined the gym.
14:20
I wasn’t doing that consistently.
14:23
I started putting in miles and then in walking and then a friend of mine decided to jump on and go with me.
14:31
And so that’s cool.
14:32
So I didn’t have to go once.
14:34
But anyway, so I commit to doing this and just because I did this walk and the reason the walk significant is I didn’t know I could walk 30 miles.
14:43
And so it kind of was like an eye opener like, hey, what else am I capable of?
14:48
You know, maybe I could get up that mountain.
14:50
And so I learned about it and I signed up and and I went last week.
14:54
Honestly, it took seven days to get up the mountain.
14:58
We had 11 hikers in our group.
15:00
It was a group climb, 5 leaders, guides and 40 porters supporting us.
15:07
So a significant group, 19,300 feet in Africa, in Tanzania.
15:14
And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in this sense.
15:18
Yeah.
15:18
Summit nights, the big night, you’re at 15,000 feet and you go to 19 three and.
15:24
And we start up.
15:25
We started at 11:00 PM and we got there at 7:30 in the morning.
15:29
Oh, my God, It wasn’t even 4 miles.
15:32
It’s 3 1/2 miles.
15:33
Zigzag straight up all through the night.
15:36
Yeah.
15:36
And as you get higher and higher, you have no breath.
15:39
And it just gets harder and harder and slower and slower and every.
15:42
Your whole wheels tested because it’s 3:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the morning.
15:46
You can’t see.
15:47
You don’t know where you’re going.
15:48
It’s dark.
15:49
It’s cold.
15:50
My pack register to -5 was the coldest at the top.
15:54
I mean, oh, my God.
15:56
My, my, my, my Camelback froze, you know, and it was, it was hard.
16:02
Yeah, it was hard.
16:03
That’s what people, I don’t think people, a lot of people understand.
16:05
They don’t think about Leo.
16:06
I live in Colorado and so we have a lot of 14,000 foot mountains.
16:11
You know, there’s a big difference between 14 and 19, but a lot of people don’t understand that when you go to the top of even a 14,000 foot mountain, it’s really cold up there.
16:22
So like right now in June, you know, we’re here in Denver and it’s 90°, could be 9 high in 92.
16:28
Today you go to the top of the mountain, it’s going to be 50, maybe 60° if you’re lucky and you’re having good weather.
16:38
It can snow, it can storm.
16:40
You just don’t know what you’re going to expect.
16:42
It could, you could get in the middle of lightning.
16:45
There’s so many things weather wise that can just come out of nowhere on a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day.
16:52
Till you get to the top of the mountain.
16:54
You don’t know what’s going to be up there.
16:56
You got to be prepared for that.
16:59
You got to be prepared for that.
17:01
I think there’s a real metaphor for life for that.
17:03
So during this trip, it sounds like it really impacted you, man it it really did.
17:08
I think just the sure will to get up the mountain that night was hard.
17:16
Somebody told me when I left, one person told me somebody really close to me said, hey, if you don’t make it, you can still tell people you climb Kilimanjaro.
17:23
You just don’t have to tell me when to the top and about 3 O clock in the morning when it was just hard.
17:29
That was my fuel because I was like, screw you.
17:31
I’m making it like I don’t want to.
17:33
I don’t want to tell people that story.
17:35
That’s not true.
17:37
I didn’t come all the way here to stop, you know, and not make it, but that was fuel for me, you know, and you know, it was significant the whole the whole team of people that had to get us up the mountain.
17:51
It was amazing.
17:52
My, my 1 little story, I guess, if you will, is when we, we were all going through the, you know, the gear check in the beginning in Africa, they, they kind of send us off in this big song with all these porters.
18:07
And it felt a little bit like the hockey dancers, one guy leading it and his eyes were committed and he’s singing.
18:13
And it was really interesting that I see how committed he was.
18:17
This song about two days in, I asked one of the guys, I was like, Hey, where’s that guy that was singing like?
18:24
And they brought him to me and we translated.
18:26
He didn’t speak English very well.
18:28
And, and I told him I was like, Hey, appreciate your leadership.
18:32
You’re singing, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re so into that.
18:36
I just really touched me.
18:39
He grabbed my boots and cleaned them, which I thought was interesting.
18:42
And then they, they had assigned him as my summit Porter.
18:46
So his job was to go up with me and help me in any way possible.
18:51
And that night we got to the top is the first is, is not the peak peak, but there’s a peak called stellar Point and it’s a one hour hike on a glacier to the top point.
19:01
And I was spent.
19:03
And he looked at me and he, he grabbed my backpack.
19:05
It’s frozen water.
19:06
He grabbed it from me.
19:07
And he, he’s like, come on.
19:09
And he was kind of bringing me along.
19:10
And there’s a point where I stood there and I was looking down.
19:13
My nose is running.
19:14
And he handed me a tissue and he looked at me and I guess it didn’t look good.
19:19
And he just wiped my nose And I was like, I’ve lost all dignity right now.
19:23
This guy, like he was my man, like anything I needed.
19:26
He was encouraging.
19:28
He was there for me.
19:29
And we have a special bond now, like we love each other.
19:33
Like I can’t can’t really explain it.
19:35
But when we got down, we just hugged and, and, and we couldn’t communicate.
19:39
Great, man, this guy was amazing.
19:42
Like that was my big connection.
19:43
So talk about leadership.
19:45
I was telling the story to one of my managers and she’s like, This is why you went.
19:50
We’re we’re in the middle of landing this big account right now.
19:52
And she goes, you’re going to need to wipe my nose.
19:54
You’re going to need to help me up this mountain.
19:56
This is why we went.
19:57
I was like, yes, I didn’t even know.
19:59
I didn’t even know this.
20:01
So that’s, I’d love that because it, you know, so often we feel like we’re alone.
20:08
Going through this journey that we’re on and sometimes we don’t realize there are people out there willing to wipe our nose, you know, willing to help, you know, and, and sometimes it’s just, it’s asking.
20:20
Sometimes it’s seeing them, you know, and, and sometimes they could be right next to us.
20:24
We don’t know.
20:25
But like, we have to be vulnerable.
20:27
We have to, like you said, like you, I’ve lost it all.
20:32
I’m down to the bare bones here.
20:34
I had nothing left.
20:36
I didn’t even want to take a picture.
20:37
I had climbed this mountain.
20:39
I didn’t even care.
20:39
I was so tired.
20:41
Yeah.
20:41
You couldn’t breathe.
20:43
And you’re just exhausted.
20:44
You went for 8 hours.
20:47
Yeah.
20:47
And this guy, you know, he there he is picking me up and making it better and taking pictures and doing everything I needed.
20:53
You know?
20:54
How cool is that?
20:55
Oh, that’s just.
20:56
That’s incredible.
20:57
That’s incredible.
20:59
So it, it seems to me, listening to you, you knew it was going to be hard.
21:06
Oh, yeah.
21:06
But you really didn’t have any idea of how hard.
21:10
I didn’t know exactly that summer night, to be fair.
21:13
I knew that was the big challenge.
21:14
And I knew it was a little bit nervous going into it.
21:17
I didn’t know what to expect.
21:18
And come to find out, you know, I’ve been asking why do I always leave at midnight or 11?
21:23
And they’re like, oh, the ground’s frozen.
21:25
It’s less slippery.
21:26
You get up there by sunrise.
21:28
It all made sense.
21:29
But when we got done, you know what they said the reason we go at midnight is because it’s straight up 4000 feet.
21:35
And a lot of people in the day see it and they get so intimidated, they quit.
21:39
And they don’t want you to see the top because more people make it at night.
21:43
And I was like, oh, Dang, they kept me on a need to know basis until they had to tell me that information.
21:50
Yeah, I, I that reminds like when I’m riding my bike up a big hill, I’ve just learned I look 3 feet in front of me and my goal is to make it that three feet.
22:04
My legs are pumping like you’re saying.
22:06
I’m spent.
22:07
I’m so tired.
22:09
I can make 3 feet.
22:10
I in my head, I know I can make 3 feet.
22:13
So even though I might have two mile climb in front of me, I’m only doing it 3 feet at a time, you know, which is basically like one step forward, you know, because just mentally I know I can do 3 feet if I think, oh, I got 2 miles now they got 1.98 miles.
22:32
I that’s true.
22:33
That sounds like a lot, right?
22:34
Yeah, it sounds like a lot.
22:36
They, they say in Swahili, pulley, pulley.
22:39
That’s the thing.
22:39
They’ll tell you pulley, pulley.
22:41
It just means slowly, slowly, one step at a time.
22:44
The thing that that the guides did that was interesting is they wouldn’t let you stop very long at all.
22:49
As long as you were taking a step, they were happy and and you had to stop and take a drink, but you would get cold.
22:56
And I mean, I’m telling you that you would take a drink of it.
22:58
Come on, let’s go, let’s go.
23:00
And it was real frustrating for a while because you’re like, Dang, I’m tired.
23:03
But they knew if they wouldn’t have done that, half our group wouldn’t make it, probably even included because they pushed us to get up that no, that’s the thing.
23:12
If you stop, that’s when you start to shut down.
23:16
You know, that’s when you’re starting to realize just how freaking tired you are.
23:20
You start to think my thoughts just grow, right?
23:24
They just grow and grow.
23:25
So much of it is mental.
23:27
I had a story I in my head, do you know who Jesse Itzler is?
23:31
I don’t know if Jesse Itzler is a, he’s like a, he’s like an ultra marathon runner and it’s crazy stories.
23:38
Anyway, he has this story where he couldn’t get through.
23:42
He’s training for 100 mile race and he couldn’t get through a certain 24 miles or something.
23:46
So he hired this guy.
23:48
Anyway, the guy does the race with him and he ***** at mile 73 like he’s done.
23:54
And he comes up to him and his name’s Chad.
23:56
And Chad says, hey, Jesse, I need to tell you something.
23:58
I’ve never told anybody.
24:00
Funny story, I never get tired.
24:02
He goes, what do you mean you never get tired?
24:04
He goes, I just don’t, and you don’t either.
24:06
He goes at the next aid station, I want you to introduce yourself, your name to that person.
24:10
I want you to tell him The funny thing is you never get tired.
24:13
And he goes that that story.
24:15
What got him through the last 20 miles of his hundred mile race by telling everybody he never gets tired.
24:22
I was repeating that in my brain, but I was having a hard time because I was like, I am tired.
24:27
I kind of am tired, but I never get tired.
24:30
You know, I was saying it, but what the motivation was was the friend of mine that said, hey, if you don’t make it, it’s OK.
24:36
I was like, bull crap, I’m making it.
24:38
You know, that was my biggest motivator, to be honest.
24:40
I tell you that that’s funny.
24:42
I started my first company.
24:43
I was 23.
24:45
Everybody, I’m, I’m from a large family.
24:48
Not one person in my family believed that I could do this because they’re like, you’re 23.
24:54
What the hell do you know about starting a business?
24:56
And the reality is I knew nothing about starting a business.
25:00
But that naivete, because if I would have saw what was ahead of me, you know, I essentially was in the dark.
25:06
I could not see the journey that was ahead of me.
25:10
So I was able to do it because I didn’t let the mind games come into play.
25:14
I was like, well, I’m I’m going to prove every one of you guys wrong.
25:18
And, you know, 10 years later when I sold that business, you know, it, it, it was a different, it was just, you know, it wasn’t like, Hey, I proved you all wrong.
25:29
But it was just like, you know, I did it, you know, just out of sure will, will.
25:36
That’s all it was.
25:37
I just put my heads down, my head down to get my legs pumping.
25:39
I never stop my legs pumping, no matter how discouraging it got.
25:44
And it got discouraging at times.
25:47
Sometimes you just have to put your head down, take those legs pumping.
25:51
It’s like 3 feet.
25:51
I just need to go 3 feet.
25:53
Yes.
25:54
I feel like you’re talking to everybody in the mortgage and real estate and housing industry right now because it’s, it’s been hard like that.
26:01
I heard some stats this morning, 75% of all the loan officers in the country have done $10 million or less in production, which is not very much and and it’s very minimal.
26:11
People are really struggling, but they need the mindset that we’re talking about.
26:16
They just need to make one more call, do a couple more things, have one more meeting and watch what happens.
26:22
It’ll happen.
26:23
I believe it’ll happen.
26:24
It’s happening for us, you know, to be fair.
26:27
Yeah.
26:27
You just, you have to keep hustling.
26:29
You got to stay motivated.
26:30
You got to have that fire in your belly, whatever it is, putting that fire in your belly and keep your legs moving.
26:37
I agree.
26:38
Yeah.
26:38
So good.
26:39
So what did it feel like walking down the mountain?
26:45
It hurt.
26:48
I didn’t expect that yet, Sir.
26:53
It took five days up and 11 hours down, which is fast.
26:58
What was cool is you weren’t out of breath.
27:01
But it was very steep and, and it, and it was loose.
27:06
They caught sand skiing.
27:07
So for three hours you’re, you’re just hanging on and you got your poles and you’re trying not to fall off every person that fell back at least once.
27:15
I bit my pole and my, my left toe was completely black and blue from hitting into my boots.
27:21
I even tied them tight knowing it didn’t help.
27:24
But and in my, my muscles right above my knees got so sore.
27:29
I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been going to the gym and working out and doing squats and lunges and step ups and every getting up there was fine.
27:37
I didn’t hurt.
27:38
Coming down was the son of a gun.
27:40
I was very surprised.
27:41
But there’s also that sense of accomplishment that you feel that I don’t know if it’s a euphoria, but it’s sure not as hard.
27:50
It’s a lot easier coming down because you did it.
27:53
Because you did it.
27:54
Yeah.
27:54
No, kid, it’s I can’t do that kind of stuff anymore.
27:58
Like hiking downhill is the worst part for me.
28:01
That’s when my knees and my hips really let me know, you know how abuse abuse my body over the decades.
28:08
But I get that sense of euphoria, You know, that 11 hours down is insane compared to what it took to go up.
28:18
Oh, it took five days, you know, because we had to acclimate.
28:21
Yeah.
28:21
You have to acclimate.
28:22
You go and you go up to 15,000.
28:23
You sleep at 13, you go back.
28:25
You know, you’re, you’re trying to get your body to accept the altitude.
28:29
Yeah, and I think that mattered too.
28:32
I really do, because I’m not used to it.
28:33
I don’t live an attitude.
28:35
No, no, no.
28:37
So what advice do you have for someone who’s considering any big challenge like that, not necessarily going to, you know, climb a 19,000 foot mountain, but something that seems almost impossible at the outset?
28:51
What advice do you have for them?
28:53
Well, I love that question.
28:55
Well, the first thing is put it out there to the world and tell, tell everybody you’re going to do it so you feel committed.
29:01
You know, if if you’re committed, I did that on purpose.
29:05
I started telling people I’m going and then do all your research, like be ready and be prepared.
29:11
Just like you said at the top of that mountain, it can start snowing or whatever.
29:15
And so you got to be ready for whatever is going to come at you physically and with your gear or whatever you’re going to come up with.
29:23
And then last of all, I think, you know, you’ve just got to get your mindset right going in this thing, You know, you’ve got to be.
29:31
I was so convicted that I’m making it.
29:34
I even told the guys, Hey, your job is to get me up there.
29:37
I’m getting I’m not coming home.
29:39
The only thing that could have set me back is if the altitude sickness got me and there’s nothing I could have done about it.
29:45
But other than that, I don’t care how tired I am.
29:47
I’m getting up there.
29:48
You know, I was so determined and, and I got tested.
29:52
Trust me, I was tested.
29:54
But don’t lose sight of it.
29:57
And then, you know, I think now I’m trying to figure out like, how do I celebrate this?
30:02
Because my mind’s already thinking like, what else do I do?
30:05
And I’m not giving it the, the glory of it in a sense of like, Hey, I did this thing thinking about what’s next.
30:11
I’m not sure I need to stop and then and, and enjoy the win, if you will.
30:16
You know, that’s good.
30:18
I think you do.
30:19
I think it’s important to take that moment to breathe and acknowledge and let this sink in before you move on to the next thing because often times we, you know, I think it’s important to have that moment of reflection, you know, and before you start moving, just moving on to something else.
30:38
You know, I agree with you.
30:39
I’m still learning the lessons that just, yeah, it’s barely even been like a few.
30:44
I’ve been home a week, not even.
30:45
And the more I keep thinking about it and the more I reflect on what happened, the more I’m learning what happened and what how I’m a different person.
30:55
Oh, yeah.
30:56
Oh, you just listening.
30:57
I can tell.
30:57
I mean, I had met you before this before the trip, but I can tell the impact it’s had on you.
31:02
It’s amazing.
31:03
It’s been amazing.
31:04
Yeah.
31:04
That’s been real.
31:06
So I’d love to keep talking about this, but have to keep moving on with the podcast.
31:10
CRM.
31:11
Do you love it or do you hate it?
31:16
I love it as long as you use it.
31:19
You know, that’s what I would say.
31:20
I love.
31:21
I love the CRM.
31:22
I think it’s critical.
31:23
It’s your goal, mine, you know, if you go with that.
31:25
Yeah.
31:26
Are there any things about CRM that you struggle with or maybe don’t like all that much?
31:33
I mean, for us, we’ve always had adoption problems and you kind of look at why is that?
31:39
And, you know, there’s some people that love just getting into it and programming it and doing that.
31:44
Those are easy ones.
31:46
The other ones, it just seems overwhelming to get in there and figure these systems out.
31:50
The way we’ve done it is we’ve gone in and programmed enough information and status updates and tools that if if everyone just turns it on, it’s 80% of what you’re going to do on your own anyway.
32:03
Like we’ve made it easy enough over the years to do that.
32:07
And if you want to customize all the messages and put videos in and all that, fine, you can take the other 20%.
32:13
But we at times we’ve had very high adoption rates by kind of freak programming it and knowing that a lot of people will just turn it on and not look at it again, which is foolish in my opinion.
32:25
It is, it is, it’s very short sighted in my opinion.
32:28
It’s very transactional, you know, in our business, transactional.
32:33
And that’s one of the biggest regrets with people that have been in the business a long time is always I wish I worked my database or kept up with it better or whatever, especially in a time like today.
32:42
Totally.
32:43
It’s it’s lost opportunity that we’re so focused on what’s next, You know, like what’s this next thing in front of me that people I think lose perspective that I’m trying to build a mountain of information, you know, that I can leverage moving forward.
33:03
And if you’re not taking that time, if you don’t have that commitment to the data, to the information, to the process, you’re most one of your most valuable assets, You’re just throwing it out the window as you’re driving down the highway.
33:17
Yeah.
33:17
You’re always hunting for new business.
33:19
You’re always hunting for new stuff.
33:20
Yeah.
33:21
And that’s hard.
33:22
That gets tiring.
33:23
You know, for sure it does.
33:24
Yeah.
33:25
But people are getting out of our business left and right because they’re tired of it.
33:29
Yeah.
33:29
Yeah.
33:30
That’s a shame.
33:31
What advice do you have, you know, just based on your lessons that you’ve learned with adoption, what advice do you have for someone who might be struggling with adoption?
33:42
I think what we did is got maybe our top five or six power users together.
33:48
We took their best practices and then we, we started having like open calls or you could call and just ask questions and, and that has made a difference.
34:02
When people started seeing how it was getting used and seeing the success stories of the users, not the leaders trying to tell you to do it, the actual users of it, the loan officers having success.
34:13
I think that was a game changer for us because they could teach each other and then they would share their templates or their, you know, lead flows or whatever it is.
34:22
And, and then people started adopting that and it worked.
34:25
So like a little open mastermind calls open for people and meet them where they’re at, you know, just because you want them to be here and they’re not barely even logged in, you got to meet them where they’re at or they, or you’ll lose them.
34:37
No, totally.
34:38
I, that’s, I love that.
34:39
That’s something that we do with our clients.
34:41
After we take the client live, we call them open forums where once a week you call in with whatever questions you have and we answer and we just tell people, look, if you have that question, I guarantee you there’s at least three other people in the call that have the same question that just haven’t asked you yet.
34:58
So you’re helping the entire team by asking these questions, no matter how silly or simple you may think the question is, you’re helping the team.
35:06
Exactly.
35:07
And boy, it, it’s amazing those first, once you get those first questions going, then floodgates kind of open and within 3-4 weeks, the amount of questions coming in are way down.
35:19
You know that that’s what you’re shooting for, right?
35:22
You know, and, and so I love that you guys are doing that.
35:24
That’s a great way to do it.
35:26
I think if you look back on it, one of our loan officers said just start with putting your contacts in and and you talk to somebody, schedule a follow up and morning you start and that’s it.
35:36
And then go from there.
35:37
If that’s all you’re doing with it, you’ll get, you’ll get used to using it that way.
35:41
Yeah, exactly.
35:42
Start small.
35:43
Don’t don’t think about the 4000 foot climb you have ahead of you.
35:47
Just start with those first few steps.
35:49
You know, that’s great.
35:51
John.
35:51
I really appreciate you coming on sales lead dog.
35:54
This has been a great conversation.
35:56
I really enjoyed it a lot.
35:58
If people want to reach out and connect with you, learn more about you or or service first, what’s the best way for them to do that?
36:06
I think the best way is to go on LinkedIn.
36:08
That’s my spot.
36:09
Go to D John Donnelly, go to D John Donnelly is is my page service first mortgage, my company and just message me there.
36:18
That’s I kind of live in LinkedIn.
36:21
I do a lot of conversations there.
36:23
So I would say let’s go, let’s start there.
36:24
Awesome, if you didn’t catch that, no worries, we have it in our show notes.
36:29
You get that at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you’ll get not only this episode, but all our 150 plus episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
36:38
So be sure to check that out, connect with John and be sure to subscribe so you get not only this episode, but all our future episodes of Sales Lead Dog.
36:47
John, thanks again for coming on the show and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog Pack.
36:52
Thanks for having me.
36:53
It’s been my pleasure as we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog.
36:59
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37:04
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37:07
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37:16
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