Fundamentals of leadership (confidence, clarity)

“Where do you need to be more courageous this year?” asks Ryan Avery, the Keynote Speaker on Strategic Communication and Leadership.
On this episode of Sales Lead Dog, Ryan talks with host Chris Smith about the fundamentals of leadership program, and how he helps people move from just a leader to “THE” leader.

This episode is full of succinct, actionable tips for success — from how to be true to best represent your brand on Zoom (hint: consider using a ladder) to working toward confidence by becoming more courageous. With a series of memorable acronyms and tons of energy, Ryan shares the fundamentals of leadership, using anecdotes that can inspire people at all stages of their career.

If you’re ready to move from “a” to “the,” tune into this podcast today.

Watch or listen to this episode about fundamentals of leadership

Transcript:

Wed, 1/6 3:56PM • 45:14

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, leader, confidence, world, story, question, connect, ryan, connection, person, relive, sales, feel, motivates, talk, retell, raised, clarity, speaker, humanized

Speakers of discussion on fundamentals of leadership

Ryan Avery, Christopher Smith

Intro
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog Podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.

Christopher Smith 00:00
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog. One of the best things about this podcast is the people I get to meet and the relationships I’m building through meeting these people and talking with them. But today, I get to have on a friend of mine who I just think is a tremendous, tremendous person so I’m really really excited to be able to have him on. Ryan Avery, welcome to Sales Lead Dog.

Ryan Avery 01:48
Thanks Chris, I appreciate being one of your guests. It’s nice to invite me. Thank you.

Christopher Smith 01:55
So Ryan is a very well known speaker. Ryan, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

Ryan Avery 04:22
So I deliver keynote speeches around the world. I usually used to do 75 keynotes around the world and then this whole thing called COVID came and had to pivot my business and we did, and I show leaders and their teams how to go from “a” to “the” in their industry, nobody, nobody wants to listen to a podcast, I want to listen to the podcast right, Chris. No, nobody wants a CRM they want the CRM, and nobody, nobody anymore wants to follow a leader, they want to follow the leader. So I, I show the differences of, in my research I’ve been studying this for nearly a decade of what are those differences between a versus the at what we do.

Christopher Smith 09:21
That, you’re talking the difference in two letters, but that’s a huge difference going from “a” to “the.”

Ryan Avery 09:28
Definitely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, even this mindset of when I work with athletes or when I work with CEOs, do you want to be an athlete, or do you want to be the athlete, you know, do you want to be a CEO or do you want to be the CEO, this is a totally different minds shift. This is a totally different way of motivating ourselves. And all it takes is understanding that little difference and then what the little differences are. The hardest part is implementing them. That’s the hardest part.

Christopher Smith 09:50
It is, it is. And, you know, our podcast is all about being a sales leader for those people that currently are the leader, that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack, or those that want to become the alpha leader. There’s a lot that goes into being a leader, as you said, it is a mind shift. What advice do you have for someone who says you know, I want to be that person, I want to be the person, what’s your advice?

Ryan Avery 11:06
My biggest advice when it comes if you’re in leadership is this understanding the difference between “a” versus “the” in this regard. A leader manages their team, the leader motivates their team. That’s a very big difference. Nobody wants to be managed anymore. Right, you can manage your spreadsheets, you can manage your budgets. People don’t want to be managed, people want to feel motivated. So what’s the difference? Well managers get people to pay attention, motivators get people to take action. Understanding that one little difference makes all the difference in who we are as leaders because we cannot be leaders without followers. And so today, it’s, we’ve had these, you know, many of us maybe even you we have books on how to be a manager and how to manage our team. Nobody needs that anymore. We don’t care about attention, we care about action. So my biggest advice would look at who you are, as the leader, are you managing your team or are you motivating them, are you getting them to pay attention because you write the paychecks, or are you getting to take action because you inspire them with your stories, your own actions and things that you’re doing. It’s motivation it’s not about, it’s not about attention.

Christopher Smith 12:12
And that’s really being a true leader. I once heard, I’ve read a book, years ago on on the different styles of management and, and really being a leader, and the analogy that I was given back then that really stuck with me as a manager is the sheepherder at the back with a stick whacking people saying, “I need you to go in that direction.” A leader is out front. And he’s got followers, as you said, behind him.

Ryan Avery 12:42
Great love it, or her.

Christopher Smith 12:43
Or her. That’s right. As a sales leader, how do you create that that shift from, you know, being that person in the back to being that person in front?

Ryan Avery 12:54
It goes back to instead of telling it goes back to asking, so it goes back to this, asking your team what motivates them, and you know what motivation changes. Alright so let’s break down the word motivation. Motive, it stems from the Latin word “motiv” so the prefix there is to move. “Ation” is the suffix in Latin to take action, so literally by definition the word means moving someone to action. So in order to do that you have to know what that is. So simply instead of telling them what to do, asking them why they would want to do it is a huge way to get started in getting people to take action and then checking in, and making sure that that is a continual thing. It might be something like hey you have a new kid coming, okay great. You want a secure job. Some people want to take risks. Some people want a new position, there’s all different ways of motivating. The leader understands for their team what motivates them.

Christopher Smith 13:48
That’s right and not one size fits all, it’s really taking the time, as you said, to really learn at the individual level.

Ryan Avery 13:55
Definitely, customize versus generalize is what we talk about, definitely.

Christopher Smith 14:00
Yeah. You have some incredible content coursework that people can subscribe to to really help them and guide them through this journey. Let’s talk about that for a minute. How do you structure your course and talk about that content?

Ryan Avery 14:17
So I’ve been doing this for nearly a decade, and there are three things that I have found most leaders struggle with. Even I’ve worked with billionaires, Olympians I mean, it’s great, it’s pretty clear of what the three categories are, and it’s confidence, it’s connection, and/or it’s clarity. It’s one of those. How, how to feel confident or comfortable with what it is that you’re doing or speaking in front of large groups, Connect, how do you connect with small groups, large groups and then how do you clarify? That’s a big one. How do you clarify your message, a lot of people like to ramble, and a lot of people get put into leadership positions and they haven’t had the training to know what it takes to simply say what you want to say. So those are the main three areas that I coach people in and I train people and I talk about is confidence connection, and clarity.

Christopher Smith 15:05
Let’s break down these, so let’s start with confidence. So, I’m a new sales leader or, you know, maybe the, my position is evolving a lot to where I’m not in my comfort zone anymore. What do I need to do to to build that confidence and get back into my comfort zone where really I’ve got that fuel, that that fire in my belly?

Ryan Avery 15:27
I’ll say one thing because that comfort zone and there’s a there’s a quote that I hate, you’ve heard, maybe you heard it, it’s, “step outside of your comfort zone.” Okay, I hate. This is such a manager way of saying things like step outside of your comfort zone, that’s. First off, if you stepped out that means you can step back in. Okay, second off whenever we do that, I have never been, I’ve never accomplished anything when I’m uncomfortable ever, for me. Okay, so here is the saying here’s what the motivator says, the motivator says, “Expand your comfort zone.” Be comfortable with more things. I’m comfortable doing things because I’ve done so many things, so that’s why I’m confident because I’ve tried. I’ve seen, I’ve done, I’ve experienced so same with a lot of people on there and when you look at those people who have been confident, most of the time it’s because they have experience, and do not confuse 25 years of experience with 25 years worth of experience, okay, that’s a very, those are two very different things. So that would be the first thing is, expand your comfort zone, be comfortable with more things. The next component within the competence world, too, is understanding what makes you confident and what makes you comfortable. Here’s my definition of confidence: confidence is the byproduct of you being courageous. When we’re courageous, we get more confidence, like boiling water, we get more we get steam. Okay, when we’re courageous we get confidence. So my question to you to get more confidence is where do you need to be more courageous this year? You answer that question, you act on that question, confidence will come with you

Christopher Smith 17:00
Yep, I’ve always felt too, you know, for me personally, I’m most confident when I am feeling competent. You know, that I really understand my subject matter. And so, if I’m not feeling confident, that’s a real indicator to me that hey, you know you haven’t done the legwork to learn.

Ryan Avery 17:19
Great, yeah I love that.

Christopher Smith 17:21
To grow. And that’s where your, that’s really where confidence comes from at least for me.

Ryan Avery 17:24
Good. Yeah, great.

Christopher Smith 17:26
Yeah. For new sales leaders. There’s a lot of, you know, one of the questions I asked my sales leaders when they come on, is, you know, what are some of the common mistakes you can make as a sales leader. As it relates to confidence, is there any common mistakes that you’ve encountered in your career?

Ryan Avery 17:49
Well I’ll link it to this next one of connection.

Christopher Smith 17:52
Okay. That’s great.

Ryan Avery 17:53
The leader and what it really is comes down to is a leader convinces, the leader connects. And so one of the major mistakes I see especially within confidence is people try to go in and convince people why they should buy from them, convince why they should use their service or their product, when in fact nobody wants to be convinced anymore, we can read reviews. Okay, we can, we people buy emotionally to justify intellectually so if I’m, if I know your product is good but ultimately it comes down to do I like you or do I like it or does it make it benefit my life. So connection is really the most important aspect, and one of the biggest mistakes I made first off was feeling like I had to be this speaker. And what I mean by that is you know I saw everyone in a suit and tie and everyone talk behind a lectern. And that’s how I spoke. That’s not me, Chris knows me, if you talk to me this is, first off this is what I’m going to be wearing, second off, this is how I’m going to be talking. I use my hands a lot, like this is who I am. So don’t try to fit into a certain mold of what sales people look like or speakers look like because here’s what happened, I did that, and I hated what I was doing, because I was working with people I didn’t like. And then here’s what happened, I started being me, I took out the tie, I started adding real value and you know what happened. I attracted people who I wanted to work with and who wanted to work with me and now my business is booming, now I’m excited, I love what I do. So that would be the biggest one is focus on connection. Don’t try to convince people why they should do business with you or buy your product, and connect with them on who you really are because then otherwise you’re gonna attract some people that you’re not gonna wanna do business with. That’s a big mistake I made in the beginning.

Christopher Smith 19:30
Oh yeah, yeah. I couldn’t agree more. I mean you read all the statistics, there’s a million of them out there, but you know these days there’s so much information available to people, by the time they connect with you or you connect with them, they’re already so educated. You know, you don’t have to convince like you used to before, it’s all about hey, can I trust you, you know, will you be able to deliver for me.

Ryan Avery 19:53
Do I like you, right, like do I like you. It comes down to that too. Is this the people that we like? Yeah. Definitely,

Christopher Smith 20:02
Yeah life’s too short, I don’t want to work with people that I don’t like.

Ryan Avery 20:06
No, yeah.

Christopher Smith 20:07
It’s really, it’s it’s being able to connect. I was talking with someone else about this that it’s like, you know, one of the things that they thought about COVID that’s been a benefit is it’s really humanized us and made us softer. Do you think that’s true? Do you agree with that?

Ryan Avery 20:24
I, for me, I what COVID has done and what I have seen is COVID has made people realize things. Whatever that realization is, it definitely made them realize something. Whether that is they wanted to work more, they wanted to work less, they wanted to spend time it, it made you realize, hmm, right it made everyone do that, it, it evened the playing field for everyone. And that’s what it made me do, it made me realize I don’t want to be on the road 200 days a year. I love being at home, I love being with my kids and wife and dogs. I love gardening and paragliding, I live in Colorado, I live in the best, I love to paraglide, I live in the best state to paraglide in. So, what was I doing, right? And so it made me realize a lot of things that I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. So I believe it made us realize.

Christopher Smith 21:10
Yeah, that’s great. So when it comes to connection and in the spiritual world that we’re in now like we’re both on Zoom. How do you build that connection that rapport, virtually?

Ryan Avery 21:25
I mean, people ask me this question often, and to me it’s, there’s no different. It’s you ask questions, you, you’re genuinely excited to learn from them, you know you use eye contact like there’s no, but I’ve been asked this question so many times because I teach communication, and so now everyone’s want to know the virtual world like that. Y’all, it’s the same concept, right, it’s talk, it’s be open it’s being like, say, I don’t know, don’t say too many um’s and so’s. There’s no like, I guess the big one that I, here’s an acronym that I do use though that I will say to help set up my perimeter, or my this, is, I use an acronym called CLAP, so anytime I get on virtual call or meeting or podcast like this, I make sure I go through the CLAP acronym and C, C stands for content. I make sure that the content I have is in front of me and this is an interview, so it’s very different, right, it’s off the cuff, but there’s no other content in front of me. I don’t have my phone and nothing’s going on, its content in front of me. L stands for lighting, I make sure my lighting is good. A stands for audio, audio means, you know, not simply your microphone but are there dogs barking, is there a train going by, and then P stands for positioning. Okay, positioning means we want to be eye level with our camera. I speak I stand up when I speak so I’m standing up now, I’m never going to sit down and speak to you so I’m not going to sit down on a call, but also positioning backgrounds. Okay, how we’re perceived is what we receive. So if you’ve got a messy background, if you got a background that isn’t, isn’t your brand personal or professional, well, you want it to, you want it to illustrate what it is and who it is that you are. Instantly people can connect with me because they know I like to travel or I’m simply interested in the world because of my clocks. They like to ask about Antarctica or that photo that I took or they know that, I’m asked about awards or that old phone that my grandmother gave me, her books. It automatically builds a connection because people, there’s something that goes, “Ooh, what’s that or what’s your background?” Have I had to give presentations that weren’t in here? Yes, that’s why go through the clap acronym: content, lighting, acronym, or audio, position, and I’ve stacked up chairs and I’ve stacked up different things in hotel rooms. So that would be the thing that I do in a virtual world is making sure I look at my content, my lighting, my audio, my positioning every time.

Christopher Smith 23:48
I love that you went over that, because I ask that question a lot, and I agree with you. If you’re doing this differently, virtually than you would in person, there’s a disconnect there.

Ryan Avery 24:01
Yeah, yeah, like anybody who’s listening this right now, when you see me, most likely I might be wearing the same shirt. Chris knows I wear pretty much the same shirt, like this is literally how we interact so don’t change it up, simply be a little more strategic with your technology, that’s about it.

Christopher Smith 24:18
Yeah, and the background piece is huge. And often gets overlooked I was talking with a chief marketing officer, where that was her, that was her heartburn, was I need to get that under control that we’re presenting our brand. Every time somebody goes online, and they’re representing us virtually, they’re representing our brand. So we need to make sure we’ve got a good background. And so she created a virtual background with the company logo and all that so she could be comfortable that the brand was being represented.

Ryan Avery 24:50
Perfect, great, I love it. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I have some speaker friends who like they went out and they spent all this money on lights and they, I you know how much I spent, $0. It is my office. Here, here, you really want to know like a back end thing? I use a ladder. Okay, so it doesn’t matter about what’s on the, on underneath or back or like, I wasn’t going to spend all this money, like I spent all this money on updating this, all I was going to do is make sure that I was positioned in a way that presented myself personally and professionally and my brand, and part of my brand is a ladder like that’s who I am, right, I’m gonna go out and grab a ladder, I not gonna go spend $5,000 updating my office for this virtual world.

Christopher Smith 25:31
Right. Right. That’s awesome. So the last topic that you cover is clarity.

Ryan Avery 25:37
Yes, big one.

Christopher Smith 25:39
That could mean a lot of things when I just hear clarity, um, you know, it gets my mind thinking about where’s he gonna go with that.

Ryan Avery 25:45
Okay. And here’s what happens. Managers ramble, managers, when they start talking people go, “Here they go again.” Right, we don’t want to be that person. Another word for clarity is simple, and simple always wins, period. So have you made what it is that you’re saying or marketing or producing simple enough, so I use the 660 rule, it’s gotta be simple enough for the six year old to understand, beneficial enough for the 60 year old to benefit or use. Hey, that’s my filter for everything, 660. There’s a lot of ways to make things clear and simple. You got to ask yourself, is this simple. A lot of people use acronyms and acronyms are okay, but what happens if people don’t know what that acronym is and they start thinking about that acronym, stop listening to you, so really making sure that if you use an acronym you explain it. Clarity, think about this, I’m not a religious person, however I like to study religion, and every religious leader from Jesus to Mohammed to Buddha, in order to get more followers, what’d they do? They simplified their message. That’s the most sim, the Bible, the Quran, all these things are the simplest things and so many people follow him because they were so simple, right so if you want people to follow you simplify what it is that you do, make it clear, and then repetition, repetition, repetition, consistency, consistency, consistency is what gets people to take action.

Christopher Smith 27:09
Yeah, you know I’ve never thought about it like that but I mean just right off the top of my head, the 10 Commandments, “Thou shalt not kill.” That’s pretty simple.

Ryan Avery 27:18
Pretty simple, right. Yeah they don’t, and I’m not a, I’m not a intellectual person I’m a very, you know I feel people, like I got emotions but I’m not the smartest guy in the room. But I know with within that of like these 10 Commandments and what it is that they do, they never use big words, they never use like “equilibrium” or whatever, right, and so some people who are intellectual, they try to use big words to position themselves as the smarter person in the room.

Christopher Smith 27:47
Right.

Ryan Avery 27:48
You really want to listen to this, like that, or no we want to listen to person we can relate to, who we connect with, who we like, who’s on our same page ,who speaks our same language, right, so it’s all look in all of those leaders, they bring it down to the most simplest form.

Christopher Smith 28:04
If I’m a sales leader and I’m suspicious, suspicious that you know maybe I’m not as clear as I think I am, what are the clues I should look for?

Ryan Avery 28:14
Are people nodding off, are people coming in and ask you, have you had to repeat yourself multiple times, are people not getting it, are people confused, is a lot of irritation have, you know. $26,000, it’s from the Holmes report, $26,000 per employee man is lost every year due to miscommunication in the workplace in America, so times that by how many employees you have and think about how much money you’re missing out, because your team doesn’t know how to clarify and communicate correctly. So there’s all these different things you can do, you can get a coach, you can get a trainer, you can get one person to come in and do a training on clarity or competence or connection there’s, there’s so many things you can do and then pay attention to. One of them being, have I had to repeat this multiple times and are people getting, are people coming back into my office confused like, hm okay, maybe I need to simplify what it is that I’m asking for.

Christopher Smith 29:05
Right, right. One of the things you, you talk about, I don’t think we’ve covered this but get ready versus stay ready.

Ryan Avery 29:15
Yeah.

Christopher Smith 29:16
Can we talk about that for a minute?

Ryan Avery 29:18
Definitely. So, you know, a leader gets ready, the leader stays ready. And what happens is, a lot of confidence, it comes back to comfort like what we were talking about right, like a lot of leaders they actually don’t have a confidence issue, they have a comfort issue. We look at the definition of comfort, comfort means in a form of physical relaxation or mental relaxation. So it’s like stress is coming or something like that, so that’s what creates, creates the feeling that they’re not confident in it, because they’re not comfortable in it. So what we want to do is we want to stay ready. And what I like to do with that is, I like to do a few things. I like to have at least two questions that I can always ask somebody, okay, so I have two questions ready so no matter what, I’m ready to ask questions get the conversation started. I also always have three facts with me that no matter what, I can share those three facts because here’s why, when I drop a fact into the conversation, it raises my credibility. It lets them know that I know what I’m talking about. We don’t need 100. We don’t need 10, you need three solid facts about what it is that you do that you can drop into a conversation, you need some questions. Staying ready and what it is if you do. Another one with that, some people have this weird notion of being scared that they’re going to get asked a question that they don’t know. Duh. Yeah, you’re going to get asked a question you know. Of course, what are you talking about? So instead of being scared of that, listen, understand this, our job as the leader is not to have the answer. It’s to find the answer. Okay, so when you have that understanding of staying ready to know that. And to say like, “I don’t know, but I’ll find it for you” or, “Does anyone else in the room, can they answer that question?” There’s been tons of questions I’ve been asked on stage in front of thousands of people that I don’t know the answer to, and you know what I do, I either find it there, or give them 24 hours I say I’ll find it for you in 24 hours, give me your business card and I’ll make sure that I follow up with you. No, you have to have it, find it.

Christopher Smith 31:09
Yeah, or say you know what, yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t really answer that. Let’s talk about that, let’s start working through and find the answer, you know as a leader I always like to bring in, make it collaborative, and say, “Hey that’s a great question.” You know, let’s, let’s talk about it and see where it goes. I try to be very open with my team when they ask me stuff. I’m like, you know what I don’t have a clue what the answer to that is. Yeah, you know I know I’m the boss but that doesn’t mean I have all the answers, I’ll be the first to admit it.

Ryan Avery 31:41
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

Christopher Smith 31:43
So let’s talk about relive versus retell.

Ryan Avery 31:46
Okay. So reliving versus retelling one of the things that great motivators do, is they use stories, and they use stories to motivate people. Again, going back to any leader, any, really anything we’ve ever learned has been through a story, right, any lessons that we learned in a story so, why would we want to stop the storytelling process when we get into business? We don’t. Okay. One of the biggest things that we want to do, though, is we want to relive our stories versus retell them. And what that does is it brings people into the story, creates a present tense and it no longer feels like your story, it feels like our story. So anytime you hear me tell a story, anytime you interact with me, I’ll always relive it and you’ll go, “Wow, he’s a good storyteller.” I’m not a good storyteller, all I am is I’m reliving the story, and that’s making it feel like you’re part of it. And so we don’t want to retell, we want to relive our stories, and that’ll make you more motivated.

Christopher Smith 32:38
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s one of the things that I think again humanizes us, it just, it’s like you said, that’s everybody learns through stories.

Ryan Avery 32:48
I mean, you’re not around your family and you’re like, “Okay, let me show you this chart up here,” you’re like, what, no, you’re sitting around you’re talking about a story about what happened or, and it allows you to connect, definitely.

Christopher Smith 33:01
And, you know, one of the questions I always ask or frequently ask on the podcast to sales leaders is, you know, tell me about the deal you lost that hurt the most, and what did you take away from that experience? And so they’ll always tell me the story about some gut-wrenching story or sale that, the big sale that they lost and they were so disappointed then I’ll ask them like, well how do you use that with your team? Do you share that with your team? And so now I’m going to ask that, a follow-up question like when, when you’re retelling it.

Ryan Avery 33:30
I love. That’s a great one.

Christopher Smith 33:32
Are you bringing them into that, are you connecting them to the story, how do you connect them? Let’s let’s pretend you are that sales leader and you’re telling me about some big deal you lost. I’m gonna put you on the spot here, Ryan.

Ryan Avery 33:44
Okay, yeah.

Christopher Smith 33:45
How would you, what’s a good way to try to bring that person in?

Ryan Avery 33:50
I live in Australia for part of the year, so I live in the US and Australia, and I’m in Australia, and I like to break around three world records a year. It’s 2020, it’s the beginning of the year, I’m in Australia, the wildfires are happening, COVID is starting to happen, and I’ve got 10s of thousands of dollars invested in this world record. I’m trying to raise money for people who are homeless where I live in Australia, in Sydney. And so I work with this company, we’ve got probably 100 people on this world record, and we bring everyone together, and we’re supposed to get around 1000 people together because we’re making the largest image of a house made out of humans, and we get 937 people there. And we don’t break the world record, and when you’re the leader, having to share with everyone that who came out there who spent 10s of thousands of dollars to make this happen, to say we didn’t reach it, you see the deflation happen and then you don’t really know where to go from there. And luckily, one of the guys who is the sponsor, the guy who is the sponsor of this, Adam, he, he and a lot of other sponsors come together and they collect over $100,000 for this organization. So here we don’t break this world record. Yet, we have leaders, real leaders in our communities step up to raise $100,000. And so it gave me the opportunity to really reflect on that and to share with people at the time to say, we might not have done one thing, but something even better came from it, because if we would have broke the world record, would we have raised as much money? I don’t know. And so that is one lesson that I learned last year is because it doesn’t go the way that you planned, it could turn out to be even better for you. And even though it was devastating and hard for me and gut-wrenching, because I have media on me and us, it was also this really good life lesson that I took away and learned from that world record attempt.

Christopher Smith 35:49
But at the same time too, you had that, you raised $100,000. That’s huge. You know and and that’s, so it’s really, a lot of that’s about reframing things. You know that.

Ryan Avery 36:02
And it’s really reframing too, because you know like I have, you know, I got a bunch of World Records hanging up. But that one you can’t hang up. But I remember that one because of that, right, like you can’t you can’t hang up the money that you raised, but you feel the money that you raised and you know that you did that, so.

Christopher Smith 36:19
Yeah, you totally sucked me into that story, dude.

Ryan Avery 36:22
Thank you. All I did was relive it.

Christopher Smith 36:23
Because I could feel it, you had that emotional component that you’re trying to raise money for the homeless, you’re doing something very valuable that’s gonna change people’s lives. And there’s failure connected with that, and I mean I could, being a leader, you know, like that would totally suck. I’d hate to be in your shoes and, but a great thing ended up coming out of it, that’s tremendous. So Ryan, we’re coming up towards the end of Sales Lead Dog, our episode here. For people listening, if you’ve never had the chance to see Ryan in person, check him out on his website, he’s got videos. He is a tremendous speaker, you got just a taste, a flavor of his energy level today, but he is, I’ve seen him speak multiple times and he is terrific. And he’s also just a terrific person, too, which I think is is even more important, so I’m really thrilled to have you on here. If people want to reach out and connect with you Ryan, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Ryan Avery 37:27
So I don’t have social media. So the best way is website RyanAvery.com. And then my email is [email protected], so those are the best ways to get in touch with me, and yeah, any questions I can answer or ways that I can connect with you, love to.

Christopher Smith 37:42
Yep, and I recommend his course content that he has available, if they want it, is your, through the website the best way for that as well?

Ryan Avery 37:49
Definitely, yeah and then if it’s a larger scale, definitely email me and then we can set up a time to talk for sure.

Christopher Smith 37:55
Yeah, that is terrific. So thanks again for coming on Sales Lead Dog.

Ryan Avery 37:59
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate thanks for putting it together.

Outro
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Watch the videos on YouTube, and you can also find our episodes on our website at Empellorcrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales Lead Dog is supported by Empellor CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.

Quotes about fundamentals of leadership

“Do you want to be a CEO or do you want to be the CEO.” (5:57-5:59)
“Our job as a leader isn’t to have the answer, it’s to find the answer.” (26:12-26:19)