Candid Conversation with Host Adrienne Barker, MAS

Hey, Adrian, where'd you go?

Beautiful, beautiful. Okay. Oh, we're still live. Lovely. Funny. Let me— all right, you go. Okay, all right, okay, go ahead. So this is Ken Lyons, he's going to stream live from his— from my Facebook page. So, uh, were you able to do it, Ken?

I'm working on that right now to see if you're live on your Facebook page. There you are, and I should be able to share Share. Watch group together.

Big highlighter. Hey, I think I'm doing a commercial, a quiet commercial.

Why does that say— yeah, this is a huge highlighter.

Put your logo on a cheese grater. Cheese grater, quality stainless, logo goes there.

Here we go. Hold on, I don't know why this isn't allowing me Is it not? Start a watch party.

Your sails, brush it up your sails with a brush. Look at that.

Okay, we'll try that.

Beautiful. Okay, sounds good. Oh, my daughter loves these straws, paper straws. I didn't realize that kids love paper straws and they drink their coffee and everything with them because they don't want wrinkles at the age of 14, which we can totally— so Ken Lyons from AC/DC and CoverGirl. How are you, Mr. Not Traveling Lately?

Yes, my wings are clipped, but I'm doing great.

That's awesome. So, Ken, I want to know more. So first of all, you have a really strong history of sales. We met when you were with Good Samaritan in Kissimmee, but even before that, can you share a little bit about how you were, how you got into sales and your love for sales?

Well, I actually had an engineering background coming through college and It just was not the right fit. The— I got introduced to Amway way back when I was like 21 years old. My sister, who's a year or two younger than me, her and her husband were extremely successful. And so I actually was full-time in that, a 6-figure income for probably 10 years. And I was doing that full time when I met my wife, Kelly, and we began to travel the world together. And so our first year of marriage, I was 31, and we ate at home 3 days.

No, that's crazy.

Marriage. So we traveled lots and lots.

Well, and with rewards.

Speaking engagements, training, visiting teams in South America, Europe, Canada, all over the US. Yeah.

Wait, so you, so you really got to a high level with Amway. So the next question is, why did you leave?

Well, my son, we got pregnant with my son Nate. Man, was that dating me? That's 20 years ago. And I wanted to start to stay at home more and travel less. And we bought a couple of acres and had a place right up in Sorrento. What a beautiful place up that way. And there was some changes on the internet that was going on. You know, this was all pre-internet. So I just really got a great introduction with regards to sales and business ownership and being self-motivated. And, and the beauty of that is now that I have sales reps, I have 50 manufacturer sales reps in the states across the US now that I manage. And so having independent contractors and learning how to manage those and work through those and communicate those, the networking business was a great training ground in my early 20s.

So you would recommend it now if someone was like a little shy or not really sure if sales was for them, is going into a network business?

Only if they have a strong personal development program. That's really where the training comes from, is mentorship. I know you do some fantastic things with mentoring, and it's a passion of yours, but that's a big part of, of learning, is having someone kind of take you under their wing and and point you in the right direction. The beauty of some of the right programs, of course, is that, you know, someone else benefits the more successful that you are. So they have a reason for you to be successful. So they go out of their way typically to help. And in many cases, you don't have that.

Yeah, that's interesting. So growing up, I've heard so many times someone would say, I have a great upline, or I have a great person that— and I never really thought, well, what does that mean for me? So you really have to learn what that means. Now I get it. When people were not just selling whatever they were trying to sell, they were selling their upline, the people.

Well, again, your team, your team is most important with that. But I'm just grateful I have a full library, hundreds and hundreds of books now in my, in my home library that my kids have picked up at various times. And when we talk about a certain topic, and all of that came from personal development of a Book of the Month Club and a training that really helps you develop your, your communication skills, which you, you are really honing those lately on this Candid Conversations. I have to put a shameless plug in for you, though, because the two companies that I'm the vice president now of business development, both for security cages in line set covers. And, and so, um, I have a lot of fun bringing these products to market and educating contractors and wholesalers about the value of these products. Not everywhere in the U.S. needs a cage. In fact, many places don't even know air conditioners get stolen. But there are certain parts of Orlando and Daytona and Tampa and, and others, Jacksonville, there are cities that have areas where theft is prevalent, even for air conditioners. We manufacture this security cage that goes around the air conditioner, protects it from things from the lawnmower or getting stolen. It's really a deterrent, a visual, physical, and visual deterrent. But I was thinking at the end of last year how I could create something that would be a presence in the showrooms of all the distributors across the country. We have lots of distributorships that we work through HVAC wholesalers. So I wanted to show this. This is one of your handy pieces of work. So of course, this is just a regular tissue box. And Adrian, this is what I— Adrian, I don't know if you remember, but this is what I emailed you first. Yes, kind of crude, right? What if we could put a cage around, um, a tissue box and have it in time for the flu season? Which, little did I know what a doozy of a flu season we would have. Uh, but this, uh, is the end result of your talented graphic team. And now I'm sending these to my 50 manufacturer reps who will then distribute them to all of the HVAC wholesalers in their territory that market our security cages. And it'll be just a nice little thank you, and they'll have tissues there handy, and it'll be a visual reminder about our cage. So it's been a fun project to work with you on. Your team was meticulous, and it was beautiful. So I'm grateful.

Thank you so much. That is awesome. Are you, are you actually, are they sending it out with the box of tissues or just flat?

So those you sent me, box, I love how these come. They come flat, of course, and then you put those together. Um, what I'm going to do with my reps, I'm actually shipping them a box of, of, um, these, and I'm drop shipping, uh, square tissue boxes like from Amazon or Costco or whatever, and I'm shipping them to their home office, and my reps will put them together and then deliver them to the branches.

That honestly is not anything to sneeze at. That is a really smart marketing plan. And because they're lightweight, so we're having some shipping— shipping is getting higher and higher even though gas is going down. The employees to actually work is a little harder for a lot of the delivery company. So that is really smart. So I see behind you the United States. So you travel, or you were traveling a lot, and you were like actually what we call like a road warrior and someone that— so, so what is that like? Like, I'm always curious, do you plan all your own trips or do you have someone book them for you?

I plan all of my trips. I do have the general manager here kind of oversee some of it when I am on the road because sometimes trips are back-to-back back. Um, but, um, I, I love it because I'm only gone, uh, Tuesday through Thursday. I fly out typically Tuesday morning early, and I fly in very late Thursday night. So I'm only away from Kelly on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. So that makes it really nice. I know, I know road warriors who leave Sunday night and they're not back till Friday night, and that would be really tough me and on the family. So I prefer to just be out 2 days a week. And I typically fly into one city and then I drive maybe to another city and fly back. Leave the car, fly back.

Are you planning your hotels where you're staying? Are you planning meals with your clients?

So I don't know. I do that. Yeah, but I don't know how people used to do it without apps. And without Waze or Maps on your phone because, um, uh, I've actually had my phone die on early trips and I just didn't even know where I was going next. I, I was like, I don't have a phone. I had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. How, how long has it been since you've done that, right? So, uh, it was an experience. Um, I did buy some gum or something so I didn't feel so awkward.

Wait, you didn't buy an actual map?

No, I, I, I got a charger which would at least get me going and on to the next place. But the beauty is that, like, um, I drove recently, I flew in, uh, I went from Kansas to Missouri and in between a few cities there and flew in and out. And so basically, depending on where your morning breakfast meeting is, is where you want to drive after your last appointment in the night before and find a hotel in between. And so I have this app called Hotels Tonight, and you just pull up the ones that are right around 30 minutes ahead of you or whatever, and you just pick one and book it right there. And bada bing, bada boom, it's easy. But it takes a while to get flexible like that where you don't know where you're going to stay, you don't know necessarily where you're going to eat, you know, it just takes a little flexibility. But it's all good, it's an adventure, right?

It's a— so I did it twice. The first year we drove to Tucson, Arizona via— from Miami, said goodbye to my dad, stayed in Orlando for a couple weeks for my daughter to go to summer camp. We went up to Massachusetts Then we went over to Canada. I had our passport, so we went, drove Canada down Michigan to do a show. I was doing Adrian's P's and Q's at the time, did that live, and then drove to Tucson. And I had everything planned, so I knew where I was going, and it felt like more stress because I would have to cancel or I realized I was going the wrong way. The second year we did it again, I wanted to visit my dad, so we left Tucson right after school school stopped. And then we took the whole summer again, and we went from Tucson all the way through the United States. And that time I said, I am not going to book. And though it was scary, it was like an adventure. We did Priceline, and I would have Alana— she would sit and be in the back seat. So I put everything in, I'd say, okay, okay. We would look at like the ratings and we'd say, press it. And then she would look at it, she wouldn't know. She'd be like, oh. And then I'd look at— I'd be like, Hotel 6— no, actually, we— I always said a 3-star. So we stayed at some amazing hotels on Priceline at great prices, and that, that was really cool. And that's when I realized I— you don't need— you're right. I mean, the only time a hotel would really be booked, or motel, would be if there was a game or something happening in college. And that is so rare. You could— what do you drive, an extra hour out of the way? And you're— yeah.

But, and Kelly and I eat seafood every night, and so I always want to stay fairly close to a very nice seafood restaurant. Want, because that's one of the perks of traveling with my company.

So what I didn't realize though is when you're heading west, you got the sun in your eyes. And so that was, that was the biggest problem I had. So I actually was wearing a hat, I had my sunglasses on, I looked like I was like avoiding. And because the sun was the whole— oh my gosh, you know what I'm talking about? That when you're heading around the 5 to 7 o'clock and it's just— anyway, so now you haven't been— so when was your last trip?

Um, you know, the trips came to a screeching halt. I went to, um, I was in Virginia. Um, no, I was— that one was canceled. I was in— I, I— my last trip was at Daytona Beach, actually, at the end of February, to an ACCA show for all the contractors that met there for the state of Florida. Wow, that was my last trip.

So now, okay, so now have you had been having meetings now? Are you been using Zoom or another video program to have meetings?

Whereby is one of the things that I use as well as Zoom.

Whereby, like spelled like we're, w-h-e-r-e-b-y.com. We're buying.

Really good. It has a similar format to this where you have 2 people up on the— you can have up to 4 in a box. And so it's something for you to check out. It's definitely easy to use because it's a one-click thing. It's just something you can send to someone. But yeah, with the manufacturer, with the actual— the wholesalers and the suppliers, the contractors, I've done mostly Zoom calls. For these last few weeks. I did want to mention our bigger company besides the cages is our, our line set covers or covers for, you know, obstacles or things that you have on your wall that you're trying to cover on your house. Maybe you have pipes or wires or something on the outside of a house. And so we manufacture a system that has all the fittings so you can design it. But this is actually what it looks like when it's on the house.

Oh my God, what's the website for that?

It's— see how when people put— I know it's a little, um, oh, but I see what you're saying.

Oh, it becomes—

wow, it hides the pipes.

That really makes sense.

So anyway, that's mostly for ductless and mini-split systems for air conditioners. That's mostly who I work with, is high-volume contractors across the country, connecting them to wholesalers buying our product.

Oh, I love that. Wow, that really can make something that looks kind of, yeah, eyesore into an eye galore. Sorry.

No, that's awesome. I actually have a Pinterest and Instagram pages are full of hack jobs of people either doing jobs themselves and doing a horrible job, or having an unlicensed or unprofessional person do the work. And that's never a smart thing to do. You always want to get a professional to do your job. It's well worth the money for sure.

But also, like, you, you can't get away with that. I lived in Celebration, actually. So when I knew you, I was living in the beautiful town of Celebration. And if you want zoning to come to your door, don't do anything and let it be an eyesore because they will knock on your door and then you will get a nice little letter and they're going to want money for you not doing anything to make sure it doesn't look good.

So I have a fun story about Celebration and one of our favorite restaurants are out this, uh, uh, Columbia. I'll be glad when we can get back there. Um, but, um, I actually, Kelly and I have custom built 3 homes, uh, and one of the homes that I drew that she built as the general contractor, an architect from Celebration bought and lived in. So I felt pretty special that my house that I drew, an architect from Celebration chose it as his primary residence. So that's pretty cool.

Oh my gosh, that, that is very, very cool. Wow, that is exciting. So your home that you're in now, did you also— is that your home that you built yourselves?

No, no, just 3 prior houses. We've only been in this house 3 years.

Wow. Yeah.

Wow. So I won't go back. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. So I want to go back to moving forward because I'm really curious about this. So Zoom calls, except for the lagging and the fact that, you know, you could get kicked off and all those things that can happen. Because so many people are now on it. But I guess that will maybe settle down or we'll get a better— I don't know what that's going to look like. If that— is there, is there a solution to that? That's available?

I saw yesterday that, um, I read that Netflix was downgrading the quality of their video to meet the demand of more people streaming. So I think they're juggling some of that bandwidth with the really large players and And I'm glad, I think, I'm sure that the internet spike is just something that will, that will be absorbed. And as we get used to it, but it's going to be a new normal. It's definitely going to save some trips, although I do believe there's, there's plenty of, you know, I have several $2 and $3 million accounts that when they close I'm sure that I'm gonna fly to their corporate headquarters and do the deal and make sure it's all done and signed and everything's good. But there'll be plenty of options for this to fill in for a plane ride and a rental car.

So then I want to ask you, so I'm curious, I'm trying to get all the tips that I can for people because business etiquette will be different. And do you, you know, you don't know now, so I think the assumption will be that the person that you're meeting with will not want to shake your hands and will probably may want a distance. Like, how will you know beforehand? And how, like, what do you think that when you see someone up and go hug?

Yeah, I'm personally not comfortable with just putting a bubble around myself. I think we are meant to touch and we are. It's in our DNA and our human nature to be engaged and connect and It's just been part of our life for, you know, a firm handshake. I think we have a bottle of hand sanitizer right there. So what's the heck if you shake somebody's hand? I don't think, I don't think it's a big deal. I think people are making— some people are going to be controlled by fear and driven by fear. And, and, and that's always been, and there'll be more people probably doing that. But Kelly and I are people of faith and we don't live by fear. And doesn't mean we don't protect ourselves and protect others. We care about all that stuff, but we're not going to not live for fear. And so I actually have some of these nifty little hand sanitizer pouches that I keep in my pocket now that we found. And they even have aloe in them to hand soften your hands because you may use them multiple times a day. But then, you know, you can still be personal and still take care of yourself and others. So I just think that the distancing thing is a good thing, and I think that it's a smart thing. And but I want to— I'm going to draw the line somewhere, and I'm not quite sure exactly where that line is going to be. But I can't imagine that I— somebody that I'm doing business with and building a relationship with that I don't connect with them with a handshake. I don't, I don't. I've done the elbow thing and it's so awkward and weird and it doesn't accomplish, it doesn't accomplish anything. It's like a, it's like a replacement habit instead of a meaningful activity. And so, who knows? I mean, I could be totally wrong and have a different— sing a different tune a year from now, um, but that's just my take right now.

So the tune that you will sing will really depend on what the other person enjoys, the melody, because at the end of the day, someone may say to you, oh, you know what, yeah, no, no hands. So like, you'll know right away. I think that I used to say there was a saying, social media turns handshakes into hugs. And I love that saying. You can be friends with someone on social media for a year. And when you meet them, it's already, you already know them. So you hug each other. But I think that we will be dictated. And it reminds me when I was in Toastmasters in Tucson, Arizona, we had a man who was actually in our industry. Funny enough, we knew him for years. A wonderful man, and he was a little older. And in Toastmasters, you shake hands when you are being introduced and when you are leaving the stage. And he would, he would, you know, give the knuckle because he— before fist bump, because he had to be careful. He was older, over 90, and it was amazing watching him. But nobody wanted to be responsible for making him sick. So I think you'll be dictate. People will probably— and we want people to feel comfortable to say, Ken, it's great to see you. I normally would want to give you a hug or a handshake, but right now, you know, it's great to see you.

Well, if truth be known, I've had several people before this—

I love the lag—

that—

can you hear me okay?

There are germophobes, there are people that have always been that way. I— and I go to reach out to shake their hand, they say, oh, I don't shake hands, but it's very nice to meet meet you, and they got no problem about it. And I'm sure there's still gonna be the same thing. And I didn't think a thing about it when they did it before. So that's their— that's their prerogative. It was just no big deal. But it's just— so people who are concerned are gonna protect themselves. And I think the— I think as long as we're conscientious and, and want to protect others, us cleaning our hands and things, I think, I think it's gonna all work out just fine.

I like that. We went to a little— we got a smoothie. I had to get out of the house because I can't stand my cooking anymore. But I— we got a smoothie the other day, and when we walked in, it was empty. And so I stood back and I said to the young man— and I was wearing a mask— and I said, how would you like— how are you doing business so I understand? Do you want me to come close? Do you want me to throw my card? Do you want me to sanitize my card before I give it to you? Like, I— and he laughed, but he did tell— he was able to tell me, you know, it's okay coming closer. Like, he gave me some ideas. I think it's okay to ask if you're in a store and you're not sure, or you just want to make sure that, you know, there's the appearance of making sure you're doing the right thing. I think that's important.

Yeah, absolutely. Again, it's a learning curve. We went to a drive-through. They had you put your credit card in this bucket. So what that meant is every car coming through, there's fishing around and digging in the bucket to get their card out. It was just— it's worse than just handing someone the card. So sometimes people just overdo things and they want to try to, you know, it's just not— I just don't think it's that big of a deal to be, you know, insulated where you're, you know, you've seen the memes where they're handing things with a stick and, and all that kind of stuff. And there's some people out there that are trying to do stuff like that.

So, so true. So I actually have set up here, and I have a fun little table filled with promotional products because I thought I would do myself a little trade show. So I'll just show you a couple things while I have you here. Do you have a deck of playing cards in your house?

I do. We just played the other night.

And you know where they were, right? You know exactly where to get them?

We do. Yes.

You know what's crazy is when you ask that question to people, if they have a deck of playing cards in their house, they actually say yes, and they know exactly where it is, which I think is crazy. And when you think about it, it's— there are 52 ways of advertising your business. So I'm gonna do a little, uh, commercial right now. So imagine you could have 52 ways to, to do something, to decorate, to color, to make changes, facts, information, and then the back are the cards. These are really good cards, and they are made in the USA. I love it. And actually, it's really cool too if you were going to have a Zoom meeting and you have a long agenda. Let's just say you have a 3 or 4 day Zoom meeting, you could have your agenda printed on the cards too so that people have it, and then in the mail they actually get the playing cards along with the agenda and then information. So very creative item. I love products like this where you've just got so many print areas and ways to print. So there's it for my commercial.

I, I have loved working with you over the years.