Episode 57: Longevity in Sales – the 3 Ways to Build a Career that Will Last with Ari Tulla

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management. And to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits. Along the journey, we also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop superpowered B2B sales teams. Today I'm excited about this podcast and for reasons that are a little bit different than normal. When I started to do my research on Ello Health and Ari Taller, I was pleasantly surprised by just how groundbreaking the work and tasks that Ella are doing. So very much a business that is about individualizing products and everything that goes with a really personalized health and wellbeing journey that I quite frankly didn't expect. So it's raised my level of excitement and anticipation for today's interview and I hope that you really enjoy what comes out of the podcast. So Ari, before we get started, Ari is a terrific man who has based himself now in San Francisco. Just found out that he was thinking about Melbourne during the COVID pandemic. Didn't quite choose Melbourne in the end, but landed in San Francisco, which is also a terrific place. So he is an entrepreneur and the co founder and also CEO of Ello Smart Nutrition. This is a business that's transforming food from being a cause of disease to very much one that's a medicine. Ari is also very much an active angel investor in a lot of startups. In fact, I think his portfolio is about 40 now. But prior to that, Ari had lots of experience around being CEO of businesses such as Quest analytics that went in growth terms almost three times what it was during his period at the helm. He's also been CEO of Better Doctor, which is very much related to what we now see Elo Health doing in terms of a broader market category. So lots of experience in what he's doing, but also prior to that worked for brands such as Nokia and Lucky Strike when he was in Northern Europe. So Ari has one of those backgrounds that's really diverse and one in particular that I love hearing about when it comes to growing sales teams and how we as sales leaders can really up our game. But because of that diversity, but most importantly, when Ari's not working. And Ari, I don't know how you find much time with everything you're doing, but he's very much a family man, but loves to spend his time on the steep cliffs, powdery slopes, and those big cold waves, much like we have here that Northern California had to offer. So, Ari, thank you for jumping on board and thanks for your patience as well as this took a little while to set up. Please tell us more about Ello, what you do and why you're successful.

Hey, thank you, Ben. Really great to be here. So ELO Health is my third company or so, maybe six business. I'm starting from ground up and the idea is very personal. So we have a long story with my family where we had health issues and food became medicine for me. And that's why I have two kids today who remind me every day that, you know, food is the reason why, you know, they are here. And I really wanted to build a system where we could tackle this problem we have today. We have many problems, of course, in the world. One being climate change. I mean, we don't know if we can live on this earth in the next thousand years. The other one is this fact that we are getting sick as humans. We are living actually less long today than we lived before. In the US for example, we have lost about three years of life expectancy in the last five years. So that's not a great trajectory. And there are only two times in the world history that has happened before. One was in black debt in Europe when half the people died of illness. And then the second one was in the second World War that, you know, many people died on the battlefield. And now we are facing the third time. And this is self inflicted again in a way where we're hygiene and then wars are, you know, that's up to the humans to decide to fight a war. But now again, we are too heavy, we are too sick, we are overweight, we have a lot of chronic conditions. We are eating diet that is not good for us. So I wanted to really build a company that could tackle that idea of can we make food into medicine? And of course it's a very big problem, like globally. I mean, this is impacting more than 2 billion people today. That's a pretty big problem. And it's very complicated because food is the biggest business we have in the world, we spend every day, we spend money on eating in a restaurant, in groceries and so forth. And we have to eat every day at least maybe not twice or maybe even three times a day that we do. So it's not something we can stop. We can do a past for maybe like five days, but you know, after a week you're going to be fading away as a person. So, so the idea was like, can we take data from our bodies and turn it into tasty molecules that can keep us healthy or even heal us? And I think there's a lot of power in the nutrition and food that if you have type 2 diabetes, you have heart disease, even now people are testing different cancers that you could actually, you know, I'm not saying you can go woo woo and you know, take, you know, food or choosing to treat cancer, but nutrition can have a big impact alongside with medical treatments and medicine. And the doctors don't really appreciate nutrition. In the U.S. for example, doctors have about three hours of nutrition education in 10 years. That's three hours. That's not a lot. They don't have the playbook how to do it. So that was kind of the starting point, like my personal story and really trying to build a system that could help people. And like I have done with my previous companies, I've been helping people to find doctors, navigate healthcare, access to healthcare, and now I try to really do like concretely make food into medicine that can help you.

It's a really interesting concept. On its own, it's fascinating and one we could actually talk about for the entire podcast. But people listening to this podcast, it's very much around sales and sales leadership. So we're going to make a really nice bridge here to that. But when we think about sales leaders and how much time and training they have spent with them around their own personal health and fitness, I'd go as far as to say it's zero or very close to zero. And a lot of people will say, so what? So why is that important? And the example I'll use is I've just come off a program with a terrific team of people. They've flown in from all around the country. We had a really good day together. And they're an established business, they're a multi billion dollar business. And we had a fantastic day together. And they were then moving on to a conference for the next three days, a national conference where a lot of their customers and partners were involved. And the strain that that puts on them coming off a significant day when they really have to think I really challenged them, that's my role. But to then have long days and nights when they're entertaining customers and meeting with them at the end of that period, that can take a real toll on your body. And when you're doing that repeatedly again, day in week in month in year in year out over a long period of time, that can have a huge toll on your body. And I think personally that sales leaders really have an opportunity to be going to the front of the peloton here, if that's your sport, or the front of the pack, if you're a runner, whatever. It may be right to be leading by example with their teams around what good health and good fitness looks for them. So when you're working with teams, how do you play around the short game versus the long game? In terms of sales and sales leaders.

I think this applies to everybody, not only in the sales. I'm a CEO maybe first, a founder second, and the leader third. And I'm the sales guy in my companies. I am the product in a way. I'm the person who founded the company, I'm the person who invented the idea. And I hired the people who are in the company. The first people I have interviewed, thousand people. I hired maybe 6, 700 people in the last 15 years, for example. So I'm involved and I'm leading with example every interaction I have with the customer, with the future employee, with the future investor, with the current investor, with the current, you know, employee. That's what I do. And I try to always talk about that when I interact with salespeople. And often my I'm there in the trends together with them. Sometimes when I run a bigger company, I was only there on when we go to Hawaii and have the annual meeting or the six monthly meeting, but I was every month I went together with my sales reps, my sales teams, and we had quite a few of them, like 100 people at times. So I was always talking about this idea that, hey, you are representing and you are not selling a product. You are not selling a wid set, you are not selling an idea. You are selling you. You are the product in a way. And who do you like to buy from? If you think about yourself, you're looking at the person on the other side and you want to buy from somebody that you like and you want to buy from somebody that you know, you would like to maybe be more like. You want to be likable. But I think you also think about, you know, how do you carry yourself? Like, how do you look, how do you walk, how do you behave? Such an important thing that, you know, often people don't think about so much. And I think, you know, when I talk about, you know, as a CEO, you see you have a technical team, you have hundreds of people there doing technical stuff. You have a sales team, 100 people doing sales. You have, you know, the operation team, you have the HR team, you have the legal team, you have the board, you have stakeholders, investor. That's kind of my world as a CEO. And I know that, you know, everything is important. And when I look at the sales team specifically, I always felt really home when I went there because I'm an athlete, I still compete and that's what I do. And I saw a lot of athlete and salespeople. To me they are a lot of these A types go getters who are fighters and it's hard when they get older. And there's also a young guy who is running faster. How can you survive in that Sark tank 30 years, 40 years. And there are some people who are the gray hair and they are unbelievably good what they do. They are best sales guys at age 60 and I have plenty of those people and I often ask them how can you do this? You've been doing this for 35 years. And they had been able to turn the passion into something more like gravitas. They become these people who solution. They were able to help customers be empathetic. They became great human beings that they. Maybe they were always great human beings but a lot of other people who do sales and like, you know, they, they do it for 10 years and then they move on to something else. But some people do it for 40 years and they become unbelievably good at it.

There is absolute buy in from me around moving from energy to gravitas that it becomes your way of life. And I'm a huge believer as well around first impressions. Being the best dressed person in the room. These are the small things that you can control that will help you be better at your job. Let's dive into both of these. So how have you seen the best sales leaders or salespeople move from being high energy people in their younger days to those that have built gravitas and that long term momentum in achieving successful results and a happy balance in their professional and working lives?

I think it's a lot about self confidence and self confidence. Some people have more of it maybe, but it has to be built. And success builds self confidence. Failures also build self confidence. It's so interesting because, you know, we talk about this like some people have this ping. They have a different type of ego and they have a Kravitz is said. I mean, the U.S. of course, we have been talking about this a lot in the last decade and the topic of the debate is Donald Trump. What he has millions of people follow him. Literally 50 million people follow him like a cult leader. And now he will likely be another president of this country at the age of 75. Plus, a lot of people don't understand at all, but he has something in his way of behaving, speaking, being himself, that is motivating people and driving people to follow him. But stuff to know what it is. And then you have some totally different type of people. Like Oprah is a person that, you know, likely also had at the heyday, 50 million people who followed her. She would have said something. She could have probably run for president in the US and win 20 years ago. It was so influenced. What is about. It's very different. It's not the same type of, you know, bulldog. And there are a lot of people who you meet and then you walk away from the meeting and you're like, I don't know, there's something unique about the person, there's something captivating. But it's often in the end, it's about the fact that, you know, there's the self confidence, but there's also a belief in something bigger. I'm not talking about God. I'm talking about believing in the thing you do at that very moment. And many people come to me and they say like that you have ability to be helping people to get motivated. You have ability to rally the troops. And it partially starts from the fact that when I do anything, I do, you know, maybe I was the inventor of the idea, but it's no longer my idea. My team took it further, different directions, so it's not my thing anymore. It's our thing. But I always do things I believe in 100%. And when I don't believe in them, I'm going to cut away and walk away. That's kind of how you have to live. Look in the mirror in the morning and you ask the questions, am I gonna do the right things today? What if this was my last day? Would I do the same schedule I have today? 99% of people would say, hell no. On many days, I would say yes. That's a difference I think that people need to have.

I would say, Ari, you are one of the lucky few who I certainly Don't. I wouldn't say envy, but I look up to that. Have been able to find something that they love doing every day for me and the teams I've worked with. For those that haven't been able to find something that's perfect for them and we'll talk about what it's like to really believe in what you do in a moment. But for those who haven't been able to find their perfect professional role in life, where you can find the fun in what you do and to maximise the fun in every day, I think that's a form of waking up each morning knowing that what's ahead of you is going to be enjoyable. Because perfection doesn't always come in most things we do in life, but moving towards something that we are making the most out of and having the most enjoyment, fun and sense of adventure from very, very powerful. The belief piece is such an interesting way to look at where we spend our time professionally because often people will chase career progression, they will chase financial stability or financial well being, but it's not until you get later in your career where you start to look at things like enjoyment, the difference you're making, the positive impact. So what I'm hearing from you is these people that you see in their 60s, even 70s, who are really still at the top of their game now, be a Donald Trump supporter or not, we're not talking about whether you are pro or against Donald Trump or pro or against anyone else. But the people who are able to present to their audiences in a captive way are those that genuinely believe in what they're doing. So I love that. Find that role in life, find that professional role that you enjoy being in every day and you are likely to be far more consistent on a long term basis than a short term. Outside of that belief, what else do you work with on your teams or have you seen in teams along your journey that helps people be successful over a longer period of time?

I think the team word is the key here. Of course it can be a lonely job to be a salesperson, sales leader. You often, you know, you run a territory, you run your certain product, maybe you travel a lot, you might be in a different country. Even so it can be lonely. But there has to be the team aspect. And I think we all have now experienced this. And I was just talking earlier today with my CEO about how do you build the team properly today in a world where we're more virtual, we live in a zoom world, we live in this phone and we don't really have the breaking the bread, having the moments together that often. And I think the people who are doing things in the long term and finding the enjoyment, finding the passion, finding the value for their life, it comes not only from succeeding the quota, getting the bonus, getting the president's club back to back to back, but it comes from the fact that you are able to then mentor other people. You are able to be part of a team that has come together. Because it's funny, I was listening to a podcast or discussion here in San Francisco in Silicon Valley at the Computer History Museum, and they invited the original Apple team members who built the Mac. The first Mac. It was literally like 20 people. Team Steve Jobs, of course, at the helm, he's already gone. But many of the other people, most of them are alive. They were there speaking about their experience. Think about this. It's like, you know, it's 40 years ago, I think. And they are absolutely accomplished people, many of them. You know, they built 15, 20 devices after it at Apple. They maybe were at Apple for 30 years. They made $100 million of gas out of it. But they talked about that moment of they were together, the 20 people, and they were doing the best work ever. I don't know if you know, but the original Mac people made the product around 10 people or so. They have signed the Mac. If you open the old Mac, you open it up, there's Steve Job, signature, and the 10 other people who were leading the product. They signed the product like artists do when you do, you know, Picasso, that's a painting, he signs Picasso. And those people, they were so eloquent about it. They were like, they remembered every day of that process how amazing it was. And it wasn't about building a first computer. That was amazing. It was about the team they had that they came together and they were able to do better work than any of them have ever done after that alone. And that, to me, is the thing. You come together as a team, you build something great, and that is the one that gives you energy, keeps you going and making great things.

Okay? So belief very much on the same page with you, and a real sense of team. They can be small teams, they can be large teams. They can be small teams within large teams. But having that sense of home is so important in being able to build that long, productive and engaged career in whatever industry you're in. So if you were a sales leader now, and you were looking to build out your team to be one that stays together, and we know that teams that generally stay together achieve together but if you were providing some advice to that sales leader about how to build that team to stay together now, what are the top few things that you would recommend they start working on now as a priority?

I think it depends a lot about the product that is sold. I think understanding fundamentally is there like a product, there's a product market fit when you build a startup, but there's also product market fit for a salesperson and understanding that do you have a product or category or website that is something that, you know, there's some type of Persona for some people who actually just love that. I mean it's easy if you are selling like, I don't know, pissing equipment, you're going to find people who love fishing. They might not be the best salespeople, but you know, you can find people who can come together in a, in a unique way. You know, I'm hiring people for company that personalize in prison. We are trying to change the world in health. And yeah, there are million people out there who believe in this like I do and they would love to work in the company like I have. So it's like there's this unique ability to find people that have some similar stories. And I often when I do this myself, I try to find people who believe into the ideas that the company or the product believes in. It can be very different of course with different companies. So in my case, in the last many years I've been building healthcare companies. I tend to hire people who are broken. They have had an experience in their life that broke them. Could be the mom died because of, you know, healthcare malpractice, the grandma died of cancer when they were two years old. Maybe not the siblings, you know, had health issues. And I want to hear those stories. And most people in my companies in the last companies have had stories like that. There's a reason for these people to be there because there is million things people can do. And what is going to be the sift? You're going to sift through people that are the right people for your organization. And of course that boils down to the culture and the values of the company. But it can be more difficult if you in a big company and you have a lot of sales teams and so forth, it might not be that evident. Then you might need to look at from the perspective of like, you know, the product or the line or whatever, but having that connective tissue with the people. And that's one example that I really love in the COVID I as many people I was, you know, you feel a bit lonely because I'm a people person, I like to hang out with people. And my friend, he started this, he was a founder of Summit series. It's this sort of a 20,000 people community. Amazing people around the world who come together in big events. Like we rented like the biggest boat in the world or we go to Tahiti and hang out a week there or whatever, like really cool stuff. And they couldn't do what they do. So they started this virtual group where people meet over zoom and they invited people together, seven people. It's like a CEO group or like a board almost by yourself. And then we started to communicate and they are unbelievably good at picking the right people in the right group. And we were together for three years now and we've been talking every month together for hours. And we only realized why we were picked together after two years, the last details and they knew we had something in our life. That doesn't come out in the first 50 discussions, but in the sixth day it comes out and we became like really tight group together because they had picked the right people out of the 10,000 to come together every, you know, month for a few years. So that to me was a testament of, you know, picking the right people is going to be very key for building the right team and then having this longevity and success.

Well, that seems pretty simple to me. We have three things that we can implement to make our long term success in sales as leaders certainly more assured. Number one, believe in what you're doing. So that is align yourself to a brand and a way of working. So it might be an industry or a brand or even that way of working that will resonate with you for a long period of time. And these are all quite related. Number two is find that sense of team, whether it's at your level or the levels around you. If you are building that sense of team in what you're doing, then the purpose that you have in your day to day life is certainly going to rise and your longevity in whatever you choose to do will rise with it. And last but not least is hire people that are going to fit with your product or your brand. So it becomes less about capability and certainly that's important, and more about the right product and people fit to be able to have that confidence that you'll stay together for that long period of time seems simple, often much harder to implement than I think we're making it sound today. But for me they're three great, really practical tips that we can use over a long period of time to be good at what we do and it really does go beyond the short term type of focuses that we can often get trapped into. So Ari, that is fantastic. I think for me I'm going to to take out of today that just to to retweak my hiring practices and principles around looking that little bit further into someone around how they might fit with the brand. So for those listening, where else can they find more about Ari Tala or Ello Health?

I'm mainly active on LinkedIn. I start to more and more despise social media. The further we go, the older you get. But LinkedIn is still pretty nice because it's a very positive platform and you can find ELO at ELO Health and of course in every social network at ELO Health as well.

Perfect. Excellent. Well, I would encourage people to go and check out Ello Health. I went down the rabbit hole and I can't wait for the time when you do come to Australia. For those listening around the world, your distribution might be a little bit easier than ours. Please go and check it out because I really love that and I'll be a customer when the timing is right. Thank you Ari. Really appreciate having you on board today and for everyone else, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can. Achie want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favourite social media channel. We're stronger sales teams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free to send discovery call with me. I run a limited number of these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales team.