S6E24 - Riley Blaisdell - Last Chance for Redemption

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Surf and Sales podcast. I'm Scott Lease here with my co founder, co host, Richard Harris. What's going on, brother? How are you, dude?

I'm getting old.

Yeah, tell me. Tell me about it.

Yeah.

I brought you to that realization this morning.

Well, well, five minutes before this podcast, I had to jump off my other call that I was doing with someone. Not a business call, but like a networking call. And I had to go put, like, one of those icy hot patches on my shoulder. Right.

I'm doing what, from clicking the mouse too much?

That's probably part of it. I don't know, dude. I'm old. Like, I. I, like, I'm literally, like, it's literally Scottish to the point where I've got to go get physical therapy so then I can prove to the insurance company I need to get an X ray and maybe an mri. Like, it's really painful. Yeah. So don't get old, people.

I'm sorry you're in agony over there.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. So that's how I'm doing, but I'm doing good. Other than that, I'm here with you. I'm here with our guests. So I'm ready to roll.

Yeah.

Good. All right, well, if you don't know about the surf and sales summit, we are disappointed in you. Hopefully you have heard about it. Check it out. Surf and sales dot com. We are down to the final three tickets, I believe.

Yes.

For the event October 5th through 9th in Portugal. And we are working on early details for 2026 and 2027, and it's looking like we might go explore the world, Richard.

No, I'm not. I'm not signing up.

Oh, no, he's not signing up for it. All right. We're here today with our friend Riley Blaisdell. He is originally from Hawaii, I believe, and lives in Washington right now. And he is a business development specialist at Levitt Group Northwest. He's also pretty big deal on LinkedIn. So, Riley, welcome to the show, man.

What's up? So let's go ahead and clarify this real quick. So I'm originally born and raised on the big island of California.

I love that Big island of California.

That's awesome.

My bloodline and my heritage, my dad is full blooded wine.

So Hawaiian descent.

Gotcha. But, yeah, I got confused because you just told us that there is an arena on Oahu that bears the. The likeness of your last name, Blaisdell Arena.

Yeah. So tell us that story. Let me kind of unscoop this, right? So I, again, I grew up on the big island of California. I grew up in a way different environment. I'm the youngest of eight. I actually grew up more Americanized than my siblings. And that's because my choose, man, my choose mama passed when I was like one or two years. And so I didn't get to really grow up in the culture as well as. And as much as my siblings did. And so when I was in fourth grade, I went to Kamehameha, which is a summer school program. And you have to prove that you have a bloodline of Hawaiian descent. And so I ended up going to this school. And when I went there, everybody was calling me like, rapper. Were like, hey, rapper. Hey, gangster. Because, like, I'm from California. And so, you know, I get the same thing.

Scott, don't you get that.

Richard's the og? Remember, he's hurting.

So when I was growing up and I went to this program, they were like, do you know who you guys are? And because again, I'm the youngest debate, like, I was very Americanized. I didn't know about our relationship to the Blaisdell Arena. I didn't know about how big our family was and how large our family is and the history of it until I was exposed to my culture more. And so I'm learning a lot more about it. And, you know, when I was younger, I would be ashamed of my middle name because it's hard to pronounce. People would make fun of it. But now the older that I get, the more that I embrace and accept my culture and my roots.

Good for you, man. That's a cool, cool story. Tell us a little bit about this business development specialist role. Is this like a BDR role? Is it an account executive role without the title? Help us understand the nature of your. Of your current role.

Yeah, so I think tech kind of has like a weird titles when it comes to their. Their roles, like BDR AES, things like that. So, yes, I'm booking meetings and I sit behind my mentor who's been in this industry for 35 years, and I'm learning behind her to understand about employee benefits and consulting in that aspect. So it's a BDR AE slash role with a little bit of AM While you're building it, but mostly while you're building your book, because one thing that's different is we actually retain our book of business and our clients. So while you're building that pipeline and building your book from scratch, it is going to be 99% grind nose to the stone PDR work and for what.

You do, are you finding a particular channel more effective then another? Are you hammering the phones or is email working for you? Is LinkedIn your thing? Is in person stuff working for you? Like tell us what's working right now to generate meetings in your. In your world and your industry.

Yeah. So there's no silver bullet, right? You gotta get people where they're at.

Damn it. There's no silver. This podcast is over.

I'm a huge fan of cold calling. Right. But that's not where I'm getting all the success. It's a little bit more of sprinkling in networking events. I haven't really been active on my LinkedIn lately because I've been really trying to learn and educate myself in this industry and spend more time studying how to get better and more wiser when it comes to what matters for organizations and understanding what really impacts organizations at different sizes. Because things end up changing when companies get to a different scope.

Working on your account, it sounds like you're working on your business acumen, not just your sales skills.

Then.

In for this industry? Yeah, because I mean. Yeah, for the. So, like, let's go back a while ago before I came, right. I came to LinkedIn because I got laid off from a role I was at for nine years where I built a book of business from scratch selling B2B. And at the. At the end of 2021, I did 35 million in revenue. Jesus.

When 2019 hit, my book of business did over 7 million in revenue. When 2020 hit, I saw the pandemic coming towards the end of the end of 2019, based on our supply chain. And I went from 7 million to 21 million.

Because I knew where the bodies were hidden, because I built the relationship and rapport with my clients and I was able to get in there. So, like, people talk about big name clients, a lot of times my biggest accounts weren't the biggest names out there. So one of the big name accounts that I had was Ferguson Enterprise. They're a large organization, they're big in plumbing supply. Well, when the pandemic hit, they went from a six figure account to a seven figure account. Pretty easy like that.

But one of my biggest accounts that I have that I took the most pride in, it took me two years to close a $517 deal with them.

Wait, wait, wait.

Did you just say $517? Yeah, for two years.

Two years. Prospected them, hunted them. I knew there was a lot. But listen, I knew there was a lot More meat on the bone than what I got. Right. It's the initial startup order.

Wow.

After the first year, they went from 517 to 12 5, which is still not a big account. From 12. 5 to 36,000. Still not a big account. From 36,000 to 72,000. And I actually had some really good margins. I was averaging with them about a 43% margin. And then I went to 72 to 378,000. And then the pandemic hit and they went to a four and a half million dollar account.

So let me ask you this.

A $500 deal turned into a $4.5 million deal, right?

Yeah.

That is the greatest upsell story I've ever heard, I think.

So I have a question.

What?

And again, you know, I might know the answer just based on the industries you're talking about, but what was their hesitation to. For two years, to do anything with you? And then.

When did. Was there something you finally cracked in those two years that sort of finally made them trust you? Because it wasn't about them buying from you and it wasn't about you selling them. There's clearly that. You just had to. You know, when people say building rapport means you're. You're creating trust. Right. Is there something you can pinpoint from that particular deal, which probably translates to every deal you've ever done of when someone starts to trust you? But what was so unique about that one?

Well, right when I got in and I did the first initial presentation with them, the person that was in charge was getting ready to retire. He gave me that insight. He said, hey, here's the deal. Here's what's going on. So this is going to get put on the. This is going to put on pause. Right. Handed me over to the person that was taking over his position, gave me all the contact information.

Gave her a little bit of time to breathe, got her on the phone, started building that relationship with her, presented to her.

She ended up retiring as well.

Oh, gosh.

So. So you're dealing with that. And then, and then I got to the point where I was like, okay, how can I end up doing this? Our industry, we ended up working with sales teams, helping them sell our product to their current or existing clients that they're not already reaching. So one of the things I finally did is I got permission from one of their sales leaders to get a list of their salespeople, and I started prospecting their salespeople directly. And then I started calling on them. Who's your clients? What kind of accounts are you servicing? What opportunities do you think you're running by? And then I would start finding out who they were servicing and going, hey, have you brought this to their attention? Have you brought this to their attention? And then I started helping them find deals out there in the field. And then once we were able to get them on board, they ended up having to test run a product, one client.

And eventually they ended up test running that product. There was a year of back and forth going on trying to get the. The RFP, but we had to rebuild the RFP because the RFPs are askew to whatever they're already buying. So we had to fight that battle. We ended up getting them to take a small sample. Once they took a small sample, and they started seeing that the life of the glove that they ended up purchasing would last longer, so they would purchase less. Then we started building momentum and traction. And once they started getting that business, that rep that had it, I said, who are the other reps that are on this team that I should actually be reaching out to? And then I started cold calling those people even more and started building it slowly but surely.

That is. And that's the definition, by the way, of channel sales, right? And Scott, as I think.

Is everybody listening? That's a master class in it right there.

Well, yeah.

And.

And to that point, Scott, like, you know, as. As much as you love to, I'm gonna professionally call you out on. On a potential conflict. You tell me.

Oh, here we go. You love.

No, but it's not bad like this, this is like. Because I've. I know you really well. On the one hand, you're all about this whole network sale thing, right? Like, this is where it's going. This is where we're headed. Right? Well, that's what channel sales is, and channel sales takes a lot longer to build. Right? And so, you know, so I. My challenge to you, Scott, is to think about marrying those two things together because I also know you. You like fast. Like, I know you're, You're. You've always said. I have always loved the transactional.

I don't have the patience for this.

2.

I wouldn't have closed this deal because I wouldn't have had the patience to work it for two years.

So I, I'm curious, and I think this is something to talk about. I'd love to hear from both of you.

Is that. Where is that part of what we're doing? Right? So to a certain extent, Riley, you've already mastered the network sales class at an enterprise level versus a network sales class at a SaaS startup, you know, 60 or 90 day level. Right. So Scott, what do you. Am I onto something or is it. No, you're still not getting this other part, Richard. Or yeah, you are, but I would never do it that way.

I asked you like 20 questions.

Yeah, I'm trying to pick out which one you want me to answer. No, I think that you're onto something. I think that there's.

A way to blend it and marry the two things together. It requires, it requires extreme amount of patience and the like foresight and belief. Belief that you heard Riley had where he's like the. I know there's more meat on the bone there, you know, and I assume it was probably more than instinct that there was more there. He must know something about the company, the account to have that kind of belief. Right. And you know, that requires a lot of like preparation, research, preparedness, whatnot that I think is easier to do nowadays than it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. So. Yeah, it could be, it could be turning over a new leaf, Richard. Yeah, you never know.

Well, you know, I mean, I might. And then let's, let's have our.

Not too old to learn a new trick. I'm not too old to learn a new trick.

No, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. But. But I also think too that.

There is going to be this marrying of these two things, particularly at the enterprise level.

Right.

When I think it's the only way to.

It's the only way to get in there, you could argue, is to do this type of approach. I mean, even Riley said he, you know, loves cold calling, but it's like not necessarily yielding all the results that he would like. So he's doing a bunch of other things, right? Yeah, yeah.

So Riley, where did your desire and I don't know if you can call a passion. I'll call a passion for sales come from. Right. Was it that you were the youngest of eight kids so you had to like fight your way through everything to get any attention? So, you know.

Man, I started selling candy as a kid at school. Yes. Like fourth grade.

Me too.

Yes, yes. So this is when I started like learning how to build a book of business. What I did is I, I noticed that the ice cream man would always be waiting outside. Right. And you know, we came from a very low income family, so how am I gonna like. We don't got money, we don't really have money going to the ice cream truck. So if I wanted to be able to buy ice cream I had to figure out how to buy ice cream like candy and then sell it so I can buy it from the ice cream man. Then I started looking at what items people really wanted, and then I started managing my inventory that way. Then I started going from. Instead of buying it from the ice cream man directly and competing with him because I'm getting the kids money before they even get out of school. Who is he buying from? And then I found this ice cream house which ended up selling, you know, certain goods. And then I started finding this wholesale warehouse and I started buying candy from there. And that's when my profit really went up. And I started selling crazy amount of volume out of my backpack.

So that's crazy volume out of my backpack.

Love that. That's what. Well, I had to buy it from my neighbor because he was selling it at high school. And then I would buy it and mark it up to me and the grammar school kids. So I did the same thing.

It was.

I was selling Jolly Ranchers. So.

Ever the capitalist, Richard. Ever the capitalist.

Absolutely. That was a great story. You need. You need to make a TikTok video out of that one, Riley. That's a great one. So my first sales.

Yeah, that was. That was probably my first gig, man. Like, yeah, learning how to hustle. But I also seen it. I mean, my dad was always. My dad was always falling for pyramid schemes. You know, hard worker, you know, worked multiple jobs, did everything that he could do, provide for us. But pyramid schemes was one of those things, and he was a natural networker. Like, I used to get embarrassed going to the stores with him, and he'd stop and be like, oh, hey, how's it going? And he'd be talking to strangers, and I'm like, dude, what are you doing, bro? Like, gotta go. Like, I'm, like, sitting there and. And now as I get older, I'm like, dude, my dad was showing me that work ethic. He was showing me that hustle, that grind. He was just trying to provide and do anything he can to make sure his family didn't see the experience that he had. And now I'm trying to do the same thing with my family as well. Do you.

Do you think much about the future viability of that in your profession?

With where I'm at right now? Yeah.

Yeah. Like, do you look ahead at the next few years with as much enthusiasm as you had previously about sales and. And your profession, or. Or is there more skepticism or fear or doubt? I'm just curious how you look at. There's so Many things that are. So many things that are changing. And you know, everybody has different beliefs about which direction things are going to go. Just curious how all of that stuff is affecting you right now. You're living it every single day, you know, in your, in your current role. So just curious the impact it's having on you.

I think there's, I think every industry is going to experience it differently and it depends on what product you're selling and who you're selling to. Right. And so you got to really adapt and adjust. And one of the things that I really believe strongly about sales is really about mental toughness. Because we deal with so much rejection. The energies are going to be high, you're going to be low, you're going to end up having that experience. And so my thought process on this whole thing is it's going to definitely change and adapt, but the thing that's going to always get us to success is putting in that hard work. Right? What's that saying, hard work beats talent when talent won't work hard?

I'm still a strong believer in that kind of stuff.

I had to decide that I got to give that to my son Bodie. So yeah, that's good.

Well, adults can barely understand that concept, let alone.

That's what, that's why it took me a minute. That's why I gotta get it in them now.

So what are you seeing as.

What'S.

Your approach these days? Are you multi pronged? Are you, you know, you know, doing a posting so you can attract business? Like, what's your approach these days for those moments when it does take that lull?

Right.

Like we already know you're going to work hard. We also know you have the talent. Right. But you're also a human like the rest of us. What, what does Riley do when you feel, I don't know if you may not be in a slump, you just might be in a slow period or it might be a slump? What do you do? What do you tell yourself?

Man.

I am grateful for a handful of people that are around me.

And because like what I do, the industry I'm in, it has like 80% turnover. Like most people don't make it out of their first year. I just eclipsed my first year and I'm still nowhere near where I would like to be. Because the road to get to where you want to in this industry usually takes a good five years. Right?

That's a long time for sales.

That's a long time for sales. Well, I mean, when you go back to Disposable gloves. I didn't sell 7 million my first year. I was there, right. My first year it was close to a million in revenue. But it slowly grew and build and crescendoed and continuously ended up adding on. And then you got the compound effect. Pouring on, pouring on, pouring on. And when I talk about stories like the one that I ended up saying, like, hey, this one grew from 517 to four and a half million. I had a lot of those irons in the fire over time and I didn't get bogged down chasing certain things like I look for.

That's the key right there. Right there it is. You had a bunch of irons in the fire, a bunch of those. Focus my entire time on that one thing.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean when I was doing that one, I was working on trying to close National Coatings, which is for us, it was an enterprise deal. We were also working on trying to end up landing the private label for Ball Camp, which is Napa's buying extension. We were also, or I was also working really hard trying to close this one company called Colors Inc. And I, man, I never got them. I was really bummed.

Matter of fact, there's a chemical company that I ended up selling to and a bunch of competitors in that industry. There was one company I was trying to close for over eight years and the day after I got laid off, I got a call from the owner saying, hey, we're ready to get started. And they wanted to do a 240k purchase order which essentially their buying power based on what they would do in their history would have been about a four million dollar account.

And when I told him I was no longer there, he was like, what? How? Why? I don't even know man. I, I have no clue. Like at the time it was just such a big blindside. And he said, you have a non compete? I said, yes, I do. And so I sent it to him. His attorneys looked at it. He called me back an hour and a half later and gave me a job offer.

Yeah, he's like this, he was like.

This and them run my program here. And I was like, look man, your deal is safe. All you got to do is place your order. If they push back on it, I will call the VP of sales and like I still talk to them there. Like I really appreciate that organization because I was a high school dropout till I was 21. That company gave me an education on how to build and get better as a salesperson and how to develop a book of business. So it's also one of the reasons why I didn't go work for a competitor right away or at all, because of the value that I got from that organization.

That's insane. That's really good. I got a pull in this thread.

High school dropout until you were 21.

Can you share a little bit about that?

Like, yeah.

It'S interesting that at 21, you decided to go back and, like.

That'S what I want to hear. That's what I want to hear the story.

So my older brother was in the Navy, and he came home to visit one night, and we're out there, it's like three in the morning, and we're smoking Cools and we're drinking Mickey's and we're sipping all these 40s. And he was like, look, man, this is.

This is Scott's dream world. Like, that's.

He's like. He's like, you're gonna either end up dead or in jail. You need to.

That's not my dream world.

That is not. No.

He was like, you need to get your stuff together. Get it together. You know, you're not really.

Were you. Were you a little bit of a rebel rouser? Were you. Were you kind of in that troublemaking phase of.

I had a colorful pass.

Yeah, I was gonna say you had. You had a. You had a choice at this point, and your brother's looking out for you. You can go this way or you can go that way.

Yes, exactly. And the crazy part is, like, my siblings were wild too, and they did some stuff. So, like, it was kind of interesting. Like, he ended up leaving and joining the Navy to get out of it. That was his path out. And he was in Washington. And I remember I got into some stuff and it ended up happening. And I called him up and I was like, hey, man, what are you doing? Like, Wednesday at 8pm and he was like, going to be. Going to sleep because I got to work early in the morning. I said, okay, can you pick me up from the train station in Seattle? Because I'm coming. Like, I had my bags packed. I just bought a ticket. Like, I was getting on a train. And he was like, yeah, man, I'll figure it out. That's how spur of the moment was that I ended up getting up here to Washington. And when I moved up to Washington, it was to get my life together. I didn't get it right away. I still hung out and did a bunch of the dumb stuff. I did a bunch of silly things. Like, I wore certain colors When I'd go out.

I would get into altercations all the time. And then my brother was getting out of the Navy, and I had to figure out what to do. I was like, man, I don't really have any money. I don't really have a place to go. So I signed up for Job Corps.

And I went down to Job Corps in Oregon to get my ged, my diploma, and I was like, man, I'm gonna try and get my life.

So this is all. This is. So you spent these several years, like, in Oregon just sort of around.

Well, Washington.

Washington, sorry, Washington. Just around.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Working little odd in jobs, doing whatever it was, you know? And I go down to Oregon and I go to Job Corps, and I get in there, nobody knows who I am, but most of us are all like this, like, last chance hope. We're trying to get our lives together, but we all still kind of run around doing dumb stuff.

And.

Last chance, you. Yeah, right there.

Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I was there. And when I was there, I actually would sneak on alcohol and other things on campus, and I would sell it, and I ended up getting. I ended up testing for my ged, got my GED and my diploma because I tested so well, and I was getting expedited through the program. They're like, hey, we want you to look at the college portion of this. We want to really get going. And I ended up leaving campus. The night that I left campus, I was getting off the bus. This dude hits me up. He's like, where are you from? I tell him, you know, he's like, all right, you're good. So I keep walking, and one of the dudes that I was with, he hits him up, and he was like, hey, where you from? He tells him. Next thing you know, we're walking around the corner, we got a couple guns pulled on her face. Oh. We get into altercation. My homeboy that I was with ends up getting pistol up multiple times. Cops end up coming. He ends up going to the hospital. I end up leaving and going to a party. I go to this party and I get into all.

That's my favorite.

He has a. The gun is pulled on him. His friend gets pistol whipped. And Riley's like, I'm just gonna go to the party.

I mean, yeah, I couldn't go to.

That's the mindset. But that's the mindset you have back then.

Yeah.

If you're running around doing this. Of stuff now. I'm thinking to myself, hell, dude, you know?

Yeah.

Seems kind of like brutal. I probably would have done, I probably would have done the same thing back then.

Yeah. You know, so I, I, I go, I go to the party, I get into this altercation with this one dude and my phone starts blowing up.

Like another altercation at the party, another altercation.

I get into another alter. I get into altercation and.

I'm like, dude, I'm done with this program. I'm gonna get kicked out once I get back in there. So I go back Monday comes in and Chris Roberts, she's the program director of this, this location, and she tells me she was like, I'm really disappointed in you.

She. It really hit me then, like that's when I started. Like, now I'm gonna really work on getting my stuff together.

Now I'm gonna try and get my stuff together. That was actually. And then I went.

It seems like it's only, it's only when somebody who's not your parent tells you they're really disappointed in you that it actually matters and sticks. It doesn't, it doesn't work. If your mom or dad tell you that.

I think it does sometimes I think.

Your kids would vehemently disagree with you.

Oh no. It's worked once or twice for us already.

I can't wait. I can't wait to ask them that.

Yeah.

Well, that's great.

As opposed to my father. Because you're right, you know, I think I was a constant disappointment, you know, and so at that point it just became known. So. But I've saved that speech for the.

But when somebody like this person in the program is saying this thing to Riley, it's like that it hits different first.

It does. When you've got a mentor or someone you admire or you look up to that.

I, I agree with you. It's a different kind of love. Right. Like parental stuff is there. I agree with you. 100 but it's when does hit really hard. When it's someone you admire or someone who's invested in you and you finally listen to them. Right. So.

That, Geez, Riley, you could write a whole movie around that. That story.

Yeah. I mean it was one of those ones where it finally hit me. And then I moved back up to, to Washington, started working at the airport.

Left that organization, and then went to collections and was like, I'm going to try and break into cells. I don't have the education, but I know that's an industry, an area where you can actually earn really good money. And I need to try and figure out how I can end up turning.

This pile of mud into a stone, into a dime, into something special. And so I started working the program, and I started leveling myself up by educating myself by listening to books and podcasts and, like, really growing this mindset and started hanging out with way different crowd of people and. And I started hanging out with people that actually believed in me, that actually, like, wanted me to do better, not where we wanted to get into trouble or cause some sort of ruckus or commotion.

Yeah.

And it's. It's that old adage of, you are who you spend time with. Right. And you got to change that, change that up. And even the thing that I always found interesting is that it seems like people get that concept and they do it once.

Yeah.

They don't realize that you need to do it a second, a third, and a fourth time. And it's actually a bit of, like, a lifelong thing. Most people don't do that, though. They. They make this choice, and they're like, I can't hang around these thugs anymore. I. I don't want to end up in jail or dead or whatever. They make this change, and then they're out of that life, and they're in normal, you know, working class kind of life, but they stay right there, and they don't look around and say, you know what? Maybe I need to evolve out of this place in life and hanging out with these people, and I should start hanging out with people who are way up here doing things and operating at an achievement level that I actually admire and want to be a part of. And I need to make another cut and evolve. That's the thing that I always find interesting is most people don't evolve that inner circle more than once. I feel like, you know, it's hard. I understand why it's hard. It's not easy. Right? We're starting to butt up against the end of our show, man. Flying by with your. Your stories. I am definitely going to remember the story of the 500 deal that became a $4.5 million deal. That is, like, amazing, man. You got to tell that story on Everywhere. Share it with everybody this time. This is the part of the show where we say, how can we be helpful to you? Do you have any questions for us? So we turn it over to you. Fire away, man.

Okay. All right. Here's one of my. One of my questions. Two parter. But I also have an ask at the end. So what books have changed your life and why.

Oh, what books have changed your life and why?

I'm gonna go with.

The 48 laws of power?

Yes.

Because I would say that's the first book that really opened my eyes to.

Strategically finding ways to help you get what you want out of life, no matter the circumstances and situation. And I think it hit me because I was. I either was in the hospital still with my illness, or I had just gotten out, maybe. So it was right at the beginning of me, like, trying to sort out what the hell I want to do with my life.

And I mean, you know, I was just, I think, ready for, like, some type of direction. And that book hit me, and I was like, whoa. You can actually do a lot of things to control your situation and change your plot in life and all this kind of thing. I've read it multiple times. It's like. It's on my shelf behind me somewhere. It's like, half Falling apart now. That's the first. First one that I think of Richard.

Yeah, I would. That was going to be one of them. And then his other book, what is it? The Laws of Human Nature. It's Robert Green, right? Isn't that the guy? Yeah, yeah, that one. That one has hit home for me recently. One of my favorite books is. Is the book Green lights by Matthew McConaughey, which is just about red lights and green lights in life and how some red lights feel like red lights, but they're really green lights later in your life and that kind of stuff. And it's not a. You know, it's a very fun book, and it's very entertaining, but ridiculous amount of good life lessons from. From someone who seems to have his feet underneath him, given who his stature is, you know, So I really. I really got a lot out of that one.

I think those are probably the two biggest that. That really have affected me in the last 10 years.

Yeah. Good stuff. What about you, Riley? Has there been one yet?

Man, the Compound Effect is one of my. One of my favorite books that I've actually come across. And so a lot of people are, like, well known, like, know about atomic habits.

Right.

Compound Effect came out before atomic habits. And it's really the same kind of concept behind it all. I think those two books together really make a good sandwich, like peanut butter and jelly, man.

But it's all about, like, if you want a certain lifestyle, what do I need to do to be able to have that opportunity come around? And one of the example he uses is, like, the type of woman he wanted to marry was this, this, this, this, and this and this. And if I was that person, what do I want from my partner. And then he figured that out and he was able to kind of create, create that person and realize, like, this is what I'm doing. And so it's really about doing all the little things over and over again. Right. And you end up getting the results that you want and then also putting in the hard work.

Yeah, that's really good. I just added it to my. To my next list because I'm at the end of a book and I need to get a new book. So, you know, so I appreciate it.

That's good.

What was that? The two question you said you had two parts. Was that.

Yeah, that was the two parter. But here's my ask. Okay. Because I'm in a business development role, my job is to book meetings with organizations that are 25 employees to 250 employees. And my job is to help them design their employee benefits programs to make sure that they're in the best position for their organization. Because you guys have a lot of consulting roles that you guys have access to these organizations.

All I'm asking for is if you hear of any of those organizations that are trying to figure out how to manage that spend that budget.

Sure thing.

Love introduction companies.

Yeah.

Try and have conversations.

Sure thing. Yeah.

Yeah.

Happily, happily, happily, happily.

So good job. Always be prospecting.

Yes. Abp.

He's like, I didn't come here just to chat. I came here to try to get a meeting out of this.

This thing.

Yeah.

Good for you, man. Good for you. Well, we appreciate you spending some time with us this, this morning and wish you the best, man. Stay healthy, stay successful, keep working hard. Always good chatting with you. And we'll see everybody next time on the surface.

Appreciate you guys.

Appreciate you too. See you, Riley.