Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Standing Out is a show created to help individuals and companies improve their sales & marketing outcomes, as well as their leadership development. Each episode we have an expert who has a unique perspective on sales, marketing and/or leadership providing insights from his or her experiences. And we throw in a few laughs from time to time. Be sure to hit Subscribe wherever you listen to our podcasts.
Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Exploring Dynamic Leadership: Workshops and Upcoming Books
Meet Jim Round, who alongside his long-time friend and co-founder Jim Best, uncovers the secrets of dynamic leadership and innovation in sales and marketing. Together, Jim and Jim channel their combined expertise to blend personal success tactics with leadership development strategies. Leadership isn't just about professional prowess; it's also about personal evolution.
Thank you to our sponsor, Salesdash CRM – A CRM for Freight Logistics. Salesdash CRM is built for freight broker & agent sales teams. Manage your shipper prospecting and follow-ups. Organize your carriers and the lanes they run. Learn more at www.betaconsultinggroup.com/standing-out
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
what's up everybody. Hey everybody, what's up everybody, and welcome to another episode of standing out. Hey everybody, welcome to Standing Out. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so glad that you're with us today for another great episode. This is a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership. We're gonna have a lot of fun today.
Speaker 1:Hey, after the show, though, if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor, check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom. We're helping companies with their sales and marketing strategy. We've got a few new things up our sleeve and we'd love to help you with your story and your message to the marketplace. So click on the little button on the main page. It says schedule a call with yours, tell us your story, we'll help you write yours. We'd love to hear what you're doing out there to truly stand out in the marketplace and how we can help you out. Also, before we get the show started today, we want to say a big thank you to our sponsor, sales-crm. If you know Josh Lyles, you know what a good dude. Listen.
Speaker 1:Not all CRMs are created equal, especially when most CRMs are not created with your freight brokerage in mind. Sales-crm is built by freight brokers, exclusively for freight brokers. So be sure to visit sales-crmcom, or you can learn more about it on our website, betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing out and fill out the form there and request a demo, and I'm telling you you're not going to be disappointed. It's a great product. It's continuing to build and grow. A lot of companies are using it now and again. It's built specifically for your business. It doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 1:Also want to give a special thanks to our friends over at Wreaths Across America. We're so excited to be a part of their Trucking Tuesday lineup every Tuesday at 6 pm Eastern time. If you're listening to us right now on Wreaths Across America, thank you so much. If you're not, it's okay. We'd still offer you to be a part of what we are doing in partnership with Wreaths Across America. So simply go to wreathsacrossamericaorg. Forward slash standing out, where you can sponsor a wreath. They're going to lay on the tombstone of a veteran at a cemetery across the country. They're laying over 3 million wreaths December 14th and it's going to be over 4,500 cemeteries. You can be involved by laying those wreaths, sponsoring a wreath, or, if you're a truck driver, you can donate your truck to deliver wreaths. It's an incredible experience as a driver to go up there and see it all and so, again, you can learn more by going to wreathsacrossamericaorg, and we're so excited to be partnering with them and what they are doing Just a phenomenal organization.
Speaker 1:Speaking of phenomenal our guests on the show today. I'm so excited about this. I've had one of our guests on previously to talk about leadership, but now he's partnered up with an old buddy. They got the band back together and they're doing some really cool stuff, and so, please welcome to the show my friends from the Power of Dynamic Leadership, the co-founders Jim Round and Jim Best. Now, this is a good song. I don't know who picked this out, jim. Was this you, jim Best? No, jim Round.
Speaker 2:I think it's a good song. I picked out Taking Care of Business.
Speaker 1:Oh you picked it. Oh, that's a good one too. We should play that as well. I think it's a good song. But I picked Taking Care of Business oh you picked. Oh, that's a good one too. We should play that as well. I think we might actually.
Speaker 3:Let's see, let's there we go there, we go there we go see.
Speaker 1:This is what I love about the show is I never know what the guests are going to pick, and this is. It's a good song too. You guys have both done taste in music.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's impressive I told jim that it had been a cliche so long ago that it's back and found its form. It's a new classic now again.
Speaker 1:So that's right. Well, everything kind of comes back in style at some point, you know. So music's one of these. You know what's crazy is that? Uh, you know, taking care of business especially. I think that was kind of an 80s song, late 70s, right, was that? Something along the genre? Living on a prayer was like late 80s, early 90s. What's crazy is how much my kids love 90s music. It's kind of oldies now, but maybe my daughters are like the 90s are the best and I'm like man, I'm doing something right as a parent. I got to be doing something right as a parent. I mean it's awesome. Anyways, it's not about me today, it's about you guys. Thanks so much for joining the show today. I'm glad to have you both on. I'm going to switch our screen here so I can put you guys both at the top. I'm going to go on the bottom. Today you guys are at the top. You're the celebrities here.
Speaker 3:So, jim Round, take a moment and introduce yourself, and then Jim Best after him wants you to do the same. Yeah, thanks, trey, and first let me just start by saying thank you for having us on today. You're right, I was on March of last year, but a lot has changed since then and we're really excited. It's been that long, oh my gosh, it has been.
Speaker 1:What's wrong with me?
Speaker 3:I know it's been that long so well. I was with CH Robinson for 25 years, right out of college, so transportation and logistics background. It's been six years now since I actually retired from Robinson and started my own consulting business Rounded Development, really focused on leadership and development of people and some of the things we've talked about in the past. But I guess it's been about two years ago as I was building that business and I met you, trey, that I started calling Jim Best, looking for feedback, trying to strategically figure out where I wanted to go. And then over the last year we've just started talking about how do we partner? We both have a passion for people. We both have a passion for team building and culture and making a difference. So Jim and I partnered. What Jim? It's been what eight, nine months ago now, and I'm really excited about where we're going in the future and some of the things we're working on, some of the things we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. And I think, six years retired, you retired in a different world, pre-pandemic world, absolutely, it's really crazy.
Speaker 2:Jim Best, tell us a little about yourself yeah, I had been with Robinson over 30 years, trey, and you know, one of the things that I always said about any career in transportation logistics especially, I felt where Jim and I came from is you can't dabble. You're either all in or you're out. And when I left, I was ready and I just stepped away from everything. And you know, I went on to a lot of things. I was doing a lot of writing. One of the things you know I've got a book coming out now in November called those 10 Essentials for Happiness and Success. They're based on my daily blog, upwardsbestcom. I was doing that, my daily blog upwardsbestcom. I was doing that.
Speaker 2:But then you know, jim and I now, with what we're doing, with the Power of Dynamic Leadership, we've got a book that's going to be coming out in Q1 2025 by that title, because we've found that, looking at all the things that we have, my message was probably a little more tailored to personal success and career success and how do you go to the next level.
Speaker 2:I think Jim was much more focused and much more disciplined in giving a message to team building and leadership development and the mentorship, but we blended that and what I said is that it took us a while to go through our individual content, our individual material, and say, ok, so what's the most powerful information we can share?
Speaker 2:What? What is going to have the biggest impact on these people that are trying to move up in their career? And we've realized that our significant message is OK, first of all, nobody wants to be a bad manager, right, nobody wants to be an OK manager. Everybody deserves great management, if you look at it, and organizations need good managers and to be a leader, you've got to be a good manager or you're not going to have the credibility, you're not going to have the results. So we really coalesce that message and that's what we're focusing on as we go forward is how do we help people become dynamic leaders so that they can adapt in what they're trying to do, and how do we share that message in effective ways with organizations, with people, so that they can benefit from it as well?
Speaker 1:Sounds like you guys have the perfect yin and yang of leadership together the personal and the professional development of leadership, which is really powerful. And I don't know you that well, Jim Best, but I know Jim Brown very well and we've talked about this before, so I'm excited to see what you guys do together. In fact, you recently just did something together. But before we get to that, Jim Best, I have a little fun fact for you. I didn't know about this. You believe that you survived an attempted firing at a Chinese restaurant. I feel like I need to know more about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was at a time when I didn't I wasn't working. I think it was the week that I ran out of gas three separate times. As a 16-year-old, I got the word out that I was looking for work. One of my buddies had had had a job at a Chinese restaurant. He was looking to go somewhere with his family for the weekend and his boss wouldn't give him the time off, so he found out that it was OK that I would sub for him. Now, anybody in my family will tell you I never had any experience whatsoever washing dishes. I showed up for work. I'm sure that I wasn't doing it the way it was supposed to be done. It was an attempt at firing because he did not speak any English. I did not understand any Mandarin. So during the 45 minutes of the four hours in which he was yelling at me I'm sure that at some point in time he tried to fire me I just never left and you just kept washing the dishes.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's that's such a great story. Very inferior technique, but yes that's uh, that's so funny.
Speaker 1:Now I have to ask as a 16 year old did you run out of gas three times because money was tight or because you were 16, you didn't pay attention to the gauge.
Speaker 2:No, it was very much money. Money was tight. Times are hard.
Speaker 1:Let's date ourselves. How much was gas at that time?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to say it was probably 50 cents a gallon maybe.
Speaker 1:It wasn't much, I just didn't have much. That's so crazy Because I remember when I started driving it was right around 80 cents a gallon.
Speaker 1:And I remember the last time that I purchased gas for under a dollar a gallon. It was in Eugene Oregon, when I lived out there. I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was the last time I bought it because it had gotten up like $1.20 and it crept down to 98 cents. I was like, oh my gosh. I just remember that clear as day.
Speaker 1:So we're all going to date ourselves just a little bit, but let's shift gears for a minute and let's talk about what you guys are doing now. Jim Round and I'm going to think we've got to come up with new names. Let me just start calling you Round and Best. Maybe that's your new nickname. Like leaders and talking through leadership, you and I kind of went over that. My heart was more kind of in a retreat setting. Your heart was a little bit more in like more of an educational setting. Who knows, maybe that'll blend down the road. We've talked about that. That might happen. But bringing Jim Best in and having this, you actually had your first leadership conference or summit. I'm not sure exactly how you guys marketed it, but you had 70 plus professionals in Dallas for a one day seminar that you guys did. Tell us about that. Tell us why you did that and what came out of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like I said earlier, jim and I have been talking for a long time. One day we said we have to take a step. What can we do together to get the momentum going? What can we do together to get the momentum going? And we had decided on what we call a leadership workshop and we were really excited for our first event. We had over 70 people. We had people from 12 different states, all the way from Oregon to Jersey, to Atlanta, to Chicago, to further out west. We had 23 or 24 unique organizations, so all the way from sports coaches to fire chiefs, to logistics professionals, to colleges.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it was broad, it wasn't just logistics.
Speaker 3:I mean you as anybody that.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, interesting, okay, very good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean again fire chiefs, police chiefs, head sports coaches, logistics professionals.
Speaker 1:They all probably showed up in the room. It's like wait, where am I? Professionally. They all probably showed up in the room and was like wait, where am I? What's going on here? We've got a fireman over here. We've got a freight broker over here putting some zen in his mouth.
Speaker 3:Well, and the other really cool thing is we had a lot of high potential leaders that weren't officially in a management or leadership role.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's great yeah yeah, all the way to CEOs of companies that have started their own logistics businesses 8, 10 years ago. So we were really excited about the participation and that really that demand really has led us to already start planning our February 20th event, where we already have, I think, 15 people signed up. So you know really what we focus on and I think our workshop is a little unique in the way we've tried to plan it is it's not just Jim and I delivering content, which that is important, but it's really a workshop. Let's work together, learn from each other, so we'll do content. We stop and do a very dynamic workshop. So not only are they learning, but they're doing, because one of the things we're really priding ourselves on is how do these people leave and actually take something away that we do something with it, versus a lot of these you go to, you check a box, you say you did it and you just go back to the way it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1:I love that and that's our focus I'm really interested in hearing more about this because you know, it sounds like you might be onto something. We just had our fourth Broker Carrier Summit. We had over 400 attendees, the very first one. Do you know how many people we had there? Hmm, I'm in 73. So you know a couple of years you're gonna have 400 people at these things, I think. Now, jim Best, let me ask you this question. So this is the first time that you guys have done this before. How did you feel about the flow and you know kind of what were you really trying to make sure that you got out of this? Jim alluded to a little bit of the education in that, but talk from your perspective. What were you really hoping people get out of it?
Speaker 2:What were excited about. Yeah, the you know the workshop part of it where people were interacting. It's interesting. You made the point about the different industries and that turned out to be a big benefit, because it wasn't yeah me too, yeah me too. It was. Oh well, here at my, where I'm working. Here's what happens. Or we have it set up this way and oh, we're decentralized. Here's what happens. Or we have it set up this way and oh, we're decentralized. So the manager has a little bit of our authority. That made it really an interesting dynamic what we will do. And for our next workshop. And I did make a promise to our lunch sponsor for the February 20th event, who is Carrier Hawk out of Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1:We really appreciate it. I love Carrier Hawk. Yeah, yeah, good guys.
Speaker 2:They wanted to make it to our first event but were unable to. So they're going to be February 20th and we appreciate them participating in that way. But what we will do, jim and I have made a commitment we'll take similar content, but you don't want to do the same thing all the time. You know, frankly, we want to stay very much engaged with the material. We want to continue to update our message. So it's a little bit like people will talk about if you read a book again, the book's the same, but you're different, and we want to take that attitude into our workshop.
Speaker 2:Is that okay, the content or the principles? Trey, you've identified that. No doubt Principles stay the same, but then the challenge becomes how do we present it in such a way that it's really relevant, that it connects with the participants in the workshop and it makes a meaningful difference in their life? So that's. It was fun to see the way that the audience and the participants reacted to the difference in style that I have, that Jim have, and it was a really nice balance, particularly because we're both. We both have egos, there's no doubt about it. We all do right, but we're very egoless in how we presented that material and how we shared that spotlight that they were gracious enough to put us in by coming to the workshop cart before the horse.
Speaker 1:here you guys are just developing this out, but do you guys anticipate that an attendee would come back multiple times or is it more of a one-time visit? And do you anticipate kind of building a network effect that people kind of are a part of? You know the dynamic leadership network?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I I probably talked a little bit more about that, just because my feeling is that as people progress in their careers, we want to stay there. We don't see it as just a one event. Here you go, like we boost them over the fence and we never know what happens to them again. We want to be there with each challenge that they face. We want to evolve in our message as well, and that's why we call it dynamic leadership. We have to be dynamic if we want to help other people. Be dynamic as well.
Speaker 1:Wouldn't it be funny if somebody came up with a name static leadership?
Speaker 2:Or dormant.
Speaker 1:Dormant, that's right. That's right. Stale leadership those are bad marketing ploys in regards to doing that. So, jim Brown, let me swing it over to you for just a second. You know, because obviously you know mentorship, team building, development these are all really important things. Was this a part of what you guys experienced at CH Robinson internally that led you to want to do this, or was it lacking there? Because I know a lot of companies. I mean, I feel like I know the answer here, but I know a lot of companies have devalued and deprioritized leadership development internally. So talk about that at CH Robinson and how that influenced you guys and what you're doing now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know I think that's a really important question. So I met, you know, jim over God Jim, it's been 30 years now and Jim and I's relationship he started off as somebody I worked with every day, then he became my mentor, then he became my boss and then, of course, he became an SVP of a Fortune 250 company. But one of the things that Jim always prided himself on that I learned a lot from was he would develop the hell out of people within his organization and not hold them back and be able to say I'm not only going to develop you but I'm going to let you go. So I still think he holds a record for the most people developed that actually went out and did some really cool things throughout the organization. So, kind of going back to your question, I always really admired that the passion for people, the passion to let them go, the passion to have the confidence to take some of your best producers and let them go, knowing that you're going to develop underneath them. So when I started rounded development and when I started talking to Jim, you're, right is all about personal development. But the way I frame it up, it's not just personal development for you, but it's how we pay that forward. It's how do we take people under our wings.
Speaker 3:I think, trey, the one thing is I don't know that people have really devalued it. I mean, that's how I think about it. I think a lot of leaders don't know how to do it. They say they don't have time for it. They're thinking about budgets and business plans, and a lot of numbers are really hard in a market like this. So a lot of them it's not that they devalued it, they just need help. And that's where a lot of what Jim and I are doing what he's done individually, what I've done individually and what we're now doing collectively is how do we bridge that gap with our experience, you know, having sat on every desk in a logistics environment, for example but how do we help them do the things they want to do? They just they don't have time or they're not making time to do some of those things around development, culture, having crucial conversations, building, winning cultures, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an interesting point, the idea that maybe they just don't know how to do it, and so I think we probably do either devalue or deprioritize things, that we feel incompetent in ourselves. I think that's a very kind of common thing to do, and so I could see where that very much is a part of how that works. You know, jim Best in your experience, obviously I mean your leadership, and the way that Jim just described you is special, and I think about it like this there's 32 NFL teams out there. You can see the coaching styles of the head coaches and you can see which ones have that approach where they really grow their players and then let them go off and run, and that's why there's only five or six teams that actually compete for championships in the NFL.
Speaker 1:Because I believe it starts at the top. It starts with leadership. You see somebody like Coach Tomlin at Pittsburgh who consistently wins regardless of who is there. You see Andy Reid doing a great job. Bill Belichick had that going. There's a handful of coaches that have that philosophy. It's a special thing. A lot of companies don't have that, and so is this a priority for you guys to do this, because you just recognize, I mean a lot of companies just don't have that capability or have that experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that and Jim is very gracious and complimentary in what he describes as my way of doing things, and I've always appreciated it One of the reasons why we continue to work together so collaboratively and so well. The fact of the matter is, if you look within an organization, if you build a reputation for two things good financial results, developing talent that is a strong, strong platform within any organization for building your career. If you don't help people develop their careers personally, even if they're not overtly interested in career development, but if you don't help them develop as a person to become a more well-rounded, mature adult if that's what one of their goals is and for most people that is if you don't help them do that, then you have no reason or justification for being their boss or their leader. And one of the things that we emphasize is that the only justification you have to be a leader is that by virtue of your leadership, your followers, the life are better. You wouldn't follow somebody if your life was going to be worse.
Speaker 2:So when you look at it that way helping people advance and then you know what it really does, and Jim and I have talked about this Trey. It really establishes and reinforces and makes sustainable something that's very valuable within an organization and that's the growth mindset, meaning everybody advances, we keep working on things, we keep getting better, we're going to grow, you're going to grow. Everybody's going to be comfortable with the process to the degree that you face the challenges that you have, and it's a supportive environment yeah, I love hearing that.
Speaker 1:You know, it reminds me of when I was in college. I got the chance to play basketball my freshman year and we weren't. We weren't great. Historically, the college is really good. In fact, my school went to the final four two of the previous three years. So we had we were really great but we lost nine seniors and so we had kind of a new team and we were struggling throughout the year and I remember my coach put the top 25 list on everybody's locker with a big where are we? Question mark, cause we weren't on it, we weren't getting votes, we weren't on the top 25. We were nowhere.
Speaker 1:And it started this kind of this like process of just facing the fact of where we are, what's our status quo and how can we get better. And it was amazing because you started to see this galvanization of this team behind our coach, who knew how to develop us, knew how to get each one of us to play our role. I mean, they literally said, trey, this is what we need from you. You know, if you can do this, we can win. You know, brian Zoller, this is what we need from you. This we can win. You know, brian zahler, this is what we need from you, chad jones. This is what we need from you. You know, billy dillingham, this is what we need from you. If you do that, we will win. And we all bought into that, we all grew into that, we all started working together for this growth mindset and I'll be damned, we made it to the final four again.
Speaker 2:Wow that was the best experience of my life.
Speaker 1:I still like I still can't believe I got to do that. I averaged three points a game. I was a nobody, but I got to be a part of this process where everybody was growing, just game after game and practice after practice, just stacking them up, and it was an incredible experience that I had. And this, it reminds me a lot of what you're talking about with, with with companies is we're not going to be, you know, 50 million. Today we're at 20 million, but how do we get to 50 million? What? What are the steps that we need to take? And Yep, Yep exactly.
Speaker 2:And you know it's funny, everybody wants to be a part of a story like that. Trey, you think about it. You're still talking about it X number of years later, right? Because it was a unique experience. And what Jim and I talk about with teams is how do you get in a situation like that with your team so that you can all grow and develop and have that feeling, that sense of winning and success?
Speaker 1:I still have the frame. I'm just gonna I'm gonna grab it real quick check this out, okay, so this is, this is from college, this is the national championship. This is a um third round game and that was just a regular season game. But I I keep this uh in my office because it reminds me of that moment, it reminds me of that process that we went through and the struggle that we went through and having to face our status quo and say we're not very good and what does it take to get better. And I think that's a big part of it. From a leadership perspective, jim, let me ask you this question why do you think it is that it is so challenging, in my opinion, to manage in 2024, to manage people? What do you think are the real challenges that people face right now?
Speaker 3:Well, before I do that, just because my Dallas Cowboys got blown out I see you didn't mention Mike McCarthy this weekend.
Speaker 1:I did not mention Mike McCarthy, no you didn't.
Speaker 3:I mean we only lost by 40 points, trey, at home. No, I would say that there's a couple different things. Number one there's a perception that a lot of the younger people are dramatically different and people are having trouble adapting. I hear that almost more than anything else and there might be some truth to it, but I think that I mean my humble opinion is, a lot of times that's just an excuse. I mean, what do people want today? They want great onboarding. They want great training. They want great mentorship. They want to know what their career looks like. Maybe younger than I did back in the day. That's a good thing. So, number one I think people think they're having trouble adapting when they really shouldn't.
Speaker 3:But the number one thing in my mind is just consistency. But the number one thing in my mind is just consistency. When things are good, what are the habits that we want to be disciplined around to continue to grow? When things are not so good, what are the habits that are going to allow us to consistently grow? When the market turns, what are the core values? So when you tell your story, that story doesn't happen without the coach continually saying here's our vision, here's our mission, top 25, final four, and then driving the daily habits that allow you to get there.
Speaker 3:That's what I think. It's a consistency of discipline, of the right habits that go along with the right vision that everyone's clear and consistent with. So, whether it's a good market or a bad market, you're taking advantage of it. Yeah, I mean during bad times, people get rich too. It's just the ones with the discipline of the habits that are able to make that happen. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It totally makes sense. And, jim, this was 30 years ago, right 28 years ago, that I was on this team and I still remember shirts tucked in strings, tucked in a heel-toe, relationship, hand position, all these things that he preached daily, and we just had to make them habits. Where you get in the game, you get in the stress moments and when you fall back on habits, those habits are actually good habits. It's such a big thing. Jim Best, let me ask you the same question what do you feel like is the biggest challenge right now that managers have in managing people in 2024?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that one of my mentors told me a long time ago and it's a simplistic formula, but it's also a very valuable framework to look at things from. If somebody's not doing a job, there's three reasons they don't know they're supposed to be doing it, they don't know how to do it or they don't want to do it Right. And so I think, if we're clear with our managers, they know what they're supposed to be doing. It's not that they don't want to do it. Like I said, I'm convinced and there may be situations where I'm wrong, but I'm convinced.
Speaker 2:Most people in management positions want to be a good manager, right? I think we take high-performing individuals and I think this is a classic diagnosis, but very true. We take high-performing individuals who max out at their compensation and promotion levels as a high performing individual and we say, okay, so the next step for you is management, is leadership, but we don't necessarily train them. A lot of times you don't have time, you put them into a position because you've got a problem to solve and it's get to it, and a lot of times, the traits and characteristics of the high-performing individual, like I was a salesperson. I was good at sales, so when I became a manager. You know what I tried to do Sell my people into why they should do things that I wanted them to do, and they said no way.
Speaker 2:They weren't having any part of it. So you have to learn, build consensus, get input, active listening all those things and the thing that we talk about a lot, trey is number one ingredient for effective leadership self-awareness. And few of us, especially early in our career, score high on self-awareness and few of us, especially early in our career, score high on self-awareness.
Speaker 1:That is so true. It's interesting when you talk about that. I agree with you. I think that too often companies look at, for example, a sales team and they take their high performer and say that's our next sales leader, when the skills that make them the high performer are probably the opposite skills that they need in leadership. I actually think that the next sales leader on your team is probably number three or four, who they're competent, they can do the job, but they're also probably helping other people out at the same time, which is why they're not number one, cause they're thinking about others and they have some leadership skills that are built in.
Speaker 1:I think about, like the co, the best coaches in NFL or NBA or MLB are not the best players. They're the average players. They played in the league, but they weren't the best. Steve Kerr is a great coach, but he was an average NBA player. He wasn't Michael Jordan. Phil Jackson average player great coach. Pat Riley average player great coach. Andy Reid average player great coach. We see it over and over again. I think that's a big mistake that companies make is they just assume and here's my thought is Andy Reid, for example, doesn't make as much money as Patrick Mahomes? Why do you think it is that we make it that the sales leader makes more money than the top sales producer? I actually think that's backwards. I'm curious your take on that. Do you agree with that, or do you think that sales leaders should make more than the sales producers?
Speaker 2:You know, I think it depends upon the individuals, I think it depends upon the industry and I think it depends on not to be vague or anything like that, but there's a lot that goes on the value that you bring and, frankly, how hard it is to get somebody else to bring that value.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think that's a fair way of looking at it promote the high-performing individuals. I think, intuitively, it makes some sense from the standpoint as, jim, you were talking earlier about the consistency of habits. Anybody who's a high-performing individual has consistency of habits. Right, you have to be somewhat disciplined, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to break it down and patiently show other people how to do it and, frankly, to develop the talent. I think it was Andrew Carnegie who said talent development is a lot like, like you know, digging for gold. You got to. You got to look past a lot of, a lot of unnecessary things before you find a nugget of gold and then then you work with that person to bring it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's a great point. I always wonder about that, because if it pays more to be a sales leader, then you're incentivizing your top sales guy to become a sales leader, when maybe they should just be Patrick Mahomes and throw touchdowns over and over again. They shouldn't try to be in the coaching realm. So I always wonder about that. I'm just kind of curious about that. So I'm glad that you asked that, or you answered that question. Gentlemen, this is a fascinating conversation. I think we can go on and on about this. I'd love to talk self-awareness. I think we're going to have to have you guys back for round two at some point, but before we go, we'd like to time called this or that. Gentlemen, this is super easy options up on the board and you're going to tell us which one you would prefer. We'll go around the room one at a time. So here's option number one this or that. Would you prefer to be in the country or in a city? Jim, round first.
Speaker 3:Well, first I like to say last time I did this, you asked me about tater tots. You asked me if I like Sonic, tater tots. So this is a much more comfortable.
Speaker 1:You don't know what the rest of the questions are, yet it could get worse. Anyway, let's just start with this one Country or city, my friend.
Speaker 3:Country, absolutely. My mom grew up on a farm. I've spent a lot of time out in the country in my life. The older I get the city life and the crowds and the population and everything else going on. I'm absolutely more of a country person.
Speaker 1:All right, jim Best. How about you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to trust that you're not going to build any deep psychological profile from this exercise here.
Speaker 1:You don't know me well enough yet. There's no way that's an exercise here. You don't know me well enough yet.
Speaker 2:There's no way. I'm probably a city boy. Still, you know, I grew up in Detroit, loved Chicago, motown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Detroit must have been a thriving place back when you were growing up. Man, that must have been pretty special. Must have been pretty special. Yeah, it was. That's cool, all right, next one, this or that. Would you rather be a morning person or more of an evening person? When do you get?
Speaker 2:your best. I'm a morning person. I wake up early and I'm waiting for Starbucks to open.
Speaker 1:Nice Jim, how about you?
Speaker 3:Absolutely a morning person. Oh that works well then To Jim Vest's point.
Speaker 1:when I try to get them after nine o'clock. It's really hard. Fair enough, that works. Well, you know. At least you're not opposites, because that could be pretty rough for trying to get work done together.
Speaker 3:So we're both morning people. We get a lot of done, a lot done before eight, nine in the morning, usually Nice, all right. Next one here. This or that. Ketchup or ranch, maybe for fries, or chicken nuggets, ketchup or ranch. Jim, round you first on this one, you know, for tater tots, specifically, trey, I'm a big time ketchup guy.
Speaker 1:You didn't know where this was going. You didn't know where this was going. All right, Jim Best, how about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think ketchup is the duct tape of condiments.
Speaker 1:It is. You can put it on just about anything. I had ketchup on a bacon, egg and cheese bagel the other day. My good friend Washington Manier down in Jacksonville did it. He's from Jersey. He made this thing. It was amazing. I'd never had it before. I was totally sold on that Totally sold.
Speaker 2:I just sent a text to my wife a couple of weeks ago. I said why don't people use ketchup as a dip for potato chips? I mean, why do I have to think of these things? It would be good. Why do I have?
Speaker 1:to think of these things. That's right. It would be good. They did actually make ketchup-tasting laced potato chips. At one point. I have to say I was not a huge fan of those, but dipping ketchup probably wouldn't be so bad. All right, ketchup, fair enough. All right, okay, next one. This or that Warm weather or cold weather? What do you prefer, jim? Best I?
Speaker 2:I got to go with warm weather, okay, like beach weather, like that kind of thing, or desert as San Diego over Minnesota.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair. It gets pretty cold in Minnesota, jim Round, how about you?
Speaker 3:You know I've spent half my life in Chicago, Minnesota, and half my life down in Dallas. When I was younger I always liked the cold. As I've gotten older, I like the warm weather. This morning was 46 in Dallas. When I was younger I always liked the cold. As I've gotten older, I liked the warm weather. This morning was 46 in Dallas. That felt really good. But generally I'm a warm weather guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys have a lot in common. I can see the partnership just already working out. Okay. Next one, maybe the last one. Here we go. The last one is appetizers or no appetizers when you go out to eat no?
Speaker 3:appetizers. For me Normally just the main course.
Speaker 1:Really Nothing at all. Okay, well, see, listen, when you come to St Louis and we go to 54th Street, we will have to get an appetizer, because they have something called a gringo dip. It's white cheese dip and it is the best I've ever had in the world. We are having that, my friend, when we go out to lunch. All right, but that's fair enough. Jim Best, how about you?
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm solo dining or just on a date night with my wife, we're probably going to go no appetizers. But I'll tell you what I love to go with customers or with a big group and you know, ok, jim, how about you order the appetizers, how about you do this and you do that, and it's kind of fun. So that makes it a group event and customers especially, you know, if you do the things with appetizers and I would always say you know what, if, if, uh, the world ends tomorrow, we'll wish we had had dessert tonight. And then everybody orders dessert. So I think you can have a lot of fun if you're out to dinner and you go the appetizer route.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, that's actually a good point. I tend to like appetizers, but they're not good for you, clearly, but I do like appetizers, all right. Well, that was this or that. And the last thing that we're going to ask you guys, we have a random question of the day, and then we're going to shut her down. Random question of the day, and then we're going to shut her down. All right, this is something fun that our producer gets to come up with. I haven't seen this question. It could be a good question, it could be a dud, it could be funny, it could be serious, I don't know. Let's see what. It is Today's random question of the faux hawks. But let me just stop with that and ask you guys a question Jim, what's the worst hairstyle of all time?
Speaker 3:Well, can you take your hat off again? Since we talked about that so much today and why you're growing that out and for your daughter, I'll cut you a little slack. Well, I've always liked really short hair. So when we start, I love the heavy metal bands of the 80s, but when I look back and see some of the hair, I'm not a huge fan personally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the long hair with a perm in the 80s was a bit much. That was kind of crazy. I mean, that was a bit much. I will give you that All right, Jim Best, the worst hairstyle of all time.
Speaker 2:I got to go powdered wigs.
Speaker 1:Powdered wigs.
Speaker 2:Like constitutional days, like the judges would wear and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I don't know what. Who came up with that? Like everybody has to wear this and they went okay, okay, we'll do that. I mean, that is a terrible look. I'm with you on that. Those are two terrible looks, All right. So let's close it up with this. How can people get in touch with you and, most importantly, how can they learn more about and register for the event coming up on February 20th?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have a website. It's called thepowerofdynamicleadershipcom and on that website it has all the information about our event. It has all of our contact information. It'll lay out the vision and the values and what we're trying to accomplish. So I would go to the website to get any and all of that information about how to reach out to us and learn more about the event.
Speaker 1:Excellent Thepowerofdynamicleadershipcom, and I know that you guys are both on LinkedIn as well, so people can connect with you in that regard. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on the show today and talking about what you guys are up to. Again, I'm very excited for what you're doing, and we'll have to have you back periodically definitely sooner than a year and a half. I'm so sorry, jim Brown. We're going to have to make that a little bit more frequent, but I hope you guys will come back and see us again real soon.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Thanks for the Okay.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye. All right, everybody, make sure you come back every Tuesday for another episode just like this one, with great guests like Jim, and Jim We'll call him Jim Squared from now, or maybe Round and Best, who knows, we'll figure something out like that. And again, a huge thank you to our friends over at sales-crm. We appreciate them for supporting the show. Check them out at sales-crmcom to learn more about that. And don't forget to get involved with Wreaths Across America. It's simple Just go to wreathsacrossamericaorg. You can learn more about the event, you can sponsor a wreath, you can get your family or your business involved in laying wreaths as the tombstones of veterans. It's all about remembering and honoring our past and teaching the future. So again, check them out, wreathsacrossamericaorg. And until next time, my friends, don't forget, stop standing. Still. Start standing up. We'll see you soon.
Speaker 3:Thanks for watching, guys.
