Tom Raynor (Jordan’s Dad)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week I'm bringing you a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their vocation, talking about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work. Hey, today I've got a special Father's Day bonus episode for you guys. That's right, I am finally introducing you guys to my father. Felt like an appropriate time to do so to honor my father, but also to give you guys some incredible content. Rest assured, this is no pity invite to Just because he's my dad. My dad is one of the most exceptional sales professionals I have ever known. He spent the majority of his career selling food, working for companies like Cisco and US Foods. For a very long stretch, he was in the top 1% of sales performers in that massive food distribution industry. Since 2003, he's been the founder and CEO of Nuvo Vista Foods, which today does about $12 million in revenue every year. My dad and I sat down, we talked about why in the world my dad took me to work with him so much as a kid. It actually is startling how many take your kid to work days. My dad kind of self invented back in the day. We also talked about what I learned through those experiences. We talked about what it takes to be in the top 1% of sales performers in a massive industry. And we talked about how my dad earned the nickname Clawpaw from my kids. It's a cruel joke, but I think you're gonna like it. Please enjoy getting to know my father, Tom Raynor, in this great episode. Tom Raynor. Way past your bedtime and mine. Recording this at 7:17pm how are you, dad?

I'm great son. How are you?

Good. So we're releasing this in a couple weeks on Father's Day, so happy Father's Day in advance.

Thank you. If it wasn't for you and your son, I would not be a father.

That's right. My son or my son?

My other son. And your brother.

Your other son. That's right. So if we Weren't all social distancing. I'm curious, what would you want to do for Father's Day?

Probably what I do every Father's Day. Hey dad, what are you cooking?

And cook for us and the kids. The girls very much miss Clawpaw.

I miss them immensely. But we get to see them tomorrow.

For a few minutes, which is good, I guess. We need to explain what clawpaw is for people who are listening who don't know. You want to take a stab at explaining that?

I can. I am one of those that believes in Romans 8:28, that God causes all things to work for good. Approximately 20 years ago I was involved in an automobile accident where I crushed my hand. Had medical a lot of different issues come up with it, back problems, but I crushed my hand and three years after the accident I finally convinced the doctor to amputate my fingers. That didn't work. And on my first missions trip with my son Jordan, he and some of his friends coined the phrase of the claw, which has translated into clawpaw. Because I only have three fingers on my left hand and the girls call me Clawpaw.

It's a cruel but well intentioned joke. It's a great joke and it stuck all these years. So our listeners are really questioning my integrity and making fun of my three fingered father now. So dad, you are, you're one of the most talented salespeople I've ever known. But started in very humble beginnings. Right? You and Naan and Papa didn't grow up with a lot of money. How'd you get started in sales? I actually genuinely don't remember this. Was it the shoe store? Like how old were you? How'd you get your first job?

My older brother Ed was working at a local shoe store sell service shoes and they needed a stock person so they at the age of 13 offered me a job. So I went in and started putting prices on shoes, stocking the shelves and at the age of 15 started selling shoes for a commission. At the age of 17 was an assistant manager. At the age of 18, out of high school, was a store manager. So for the first eight years of my life or my working career, I worked in the retail business.

And when did you make the leap to food? You introduced yourself as a green bean salesman and been doing that for a long time. When did you make that jump?

You remember a Wellows? My wife's father's best friend, Eddie Diaz.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Worked for today, the largest food service distributor in the world, Cisco Foods. He recruited me at the early age of 20 to go into that industry. And by the grace of God, it stuck. And because of God's grace, I was somewhat successful at it.

Very successful at it. Yes, you were at Cisco. You're at US Foods. You were, like, top 1%, right? In sales. I remember growing up and just walking to your office and seeing award after award after award somewhere along the way. So you spent, I don't know, what, 20 years, 25 years working for somebody else selling food. And then you started Nu Vista Foods, which you've been running for 15 or so years. Why'd you start New Vista? I can't remember all the details of that story and how that all happened.

Well, the details of that was I was working for a company called Parkway, where I had unbelievable success, and at that point wrote the numbers that put me in the top 1% of our industry in sales and, at the time, earnings. We were sold to a company called US Foods, which is the second largest food service company in America. Three months into that, I was involved in an automobile accident which crushed my hand. It dubbed me Claw. Claw. Hence the Claw.

That's right.

Yeah, exactly. So when that occurred, I. I had multiple medical issues that the workman's cop people said were not related to my accident. Got unfortunately involved into a lawsuit. And at that point, I knew that I'd be terminated once the case was settled. It took about three and a half years. And just like the attorney told me, once we settled, I would be terminated. And it took a matter of days. I remember sitting next to you at a school function at Seminole Presbyterian in Tampa. And, hey, Jordan, I got fired today. You had a look of horror on your face, and you said, dad, what are you gonna do? I says, don't worry. It's all good. I got this. And of course, your mother was a little bit more concerned than you were.

I remember this out. I think we were, like, practicing for a musical that I was in. I do vaguely remember this. And I remember you not being concerned at all. You were almost borderline giddy. You wanted to leave at that point anyway.

Well, I knew it was just a matter I did. Not at all like the company that bought Parkway. Yeah, the owner of Parkway was instrumental in me coming to Faith along with you. And what happened with you at Seminole Presbyterian and just different culture, corporate America, which. I'm not a corporate kind of guy. And because I believe so strongly in Romans 8. 28, that God allowed all these things to happen for me to start New Vista. And as you well know, this is mine. And Your mother's ministry. And we try to give back as much as we can to not only our community, to our church, to the missionaries that we believe in.

And New vista today, roughly 15 years old. How big is the business? Just to give our listeners an idea of the scale of what you guys have built in terms of team size, revenue, those types of things.

Well, when we started New Vista, it was me and my old beat up Toyota van delivering produce to. I love that van to a few.

Always smelled like pickles. I think you spilled. You spilled pickles in the back of that pickle mobile.

As it slowly grew from me delivering produce and my background in full line food service sales customers saying hey Tom, can you get me this? Can you get me that? And being a salesman, yeah, I can do that. We quickly started to grow and add employees and trucks. So starting out from literally $100 sale to this year, we should do about 12 million in business with approximately 35 employees. In the big scale of things in our. That's nothing. Cisco, being the big boy is a $45 billion corporation. Little old new vistas, 12 million. Difference being because of you, I've got our mission statement on the back of our trucks that glorifies our Lord and Savior.

I think I wrote that in college. Kind of weird that you would entrust that to your son when, when I was at Florida State. We got a lot of people listening right now who are selling something, whether they have the word, you know, sales in their job title or not. You've proven that you are world a world class C salesperson in a very, very large industry. So I'm curious to hear you talk about what you think world class salespeople do that their less masterful counterparts don't do. What's the difference between good and great in sales?

Good question. In my opinion. Let me, as you well know, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. God gave me intelligence, but he's truly gifted me in the art of sales. Book smarts, technology, mechanical stuff. It's not my cup of tea.

Yeah, I'm shocked you figured out how to get on this call. That was a miracle.

Your mother did it for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the thing about sales is you have to one enjoy what you're doing. Your book Master one talks about that and it takes time. It took me in my industry until I went to work for Parkway. Twelve years into my food service career, getting with the right company, with the right group of people where I was able to truly excel and dominate my industry. You have to be passionate about what you do, willing to learn. As a salesman, you almost have to be a chameleon to every customer that you walk into because there's so many different personalities and things going on in life. The biggest thing I think, in sales is longevity. I've done what I do for 40 years in the same market and in some cases, with the same customers. So when you get to know them, they gain your trust. But more importantly, if you tell them you're going to do something, you better do it. And never lie to a customer, because it will always come back to bite you in the butt.

Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to drill down on there. So one of them is this. This idea of discipline over time, which I talk about. Master of one. Right. It's just the. An indisputable key to master. You got to stick with something long enough to get really good at it. The other is this chameleon comment, and I want to make sure our listeners know that you don't mean changing who you are in terms of character and personality based on the customer. I think the advice you're giving is something similar to what one of my sales reps at threshold360 gave me when I was pitching. He's like, hey, Jordan, you know, you got a lot of energy, but. And when you come into a room with a customer who's got a lot of energy, that's great. But when you come into a room with somebody who has no energy at all, you got to turn down. You got to create some empathy with your body language. Is that what you're talking about with being a chameleon with customers?

You know, we live in a fallen world, and in my industry, there's a lot of unsaved people. You always have to show the love of Christ. My customers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I love the Lord. My company is my ministry. I'll pray with them. I'll ask them how things are going. And regardless of their life choices, you still have to show the love of Christ to them. I can walk in and have a customer, hey, what's up, man? What's going on? Or, good morning, Chef. How are you? How's everything going? It just depends on who the individual is.

Yeah. You treat them like people. Right? I think it's one of the keys to your success. Like, you don't treat them primarily as prospects or customers. Right. But you treat them as whole people. I remember I went to. I feel like I went to work with you a lot during the summer.

And.

And which maybe we can go back to Bill. And I remember you would. You would spend way more time talking about football, talking about people's lives than you would green beans. By the way, looking back, it did feel like I went to work with you a lot. And like today, nobody brings their kids to work. Why did you take me to work with you so much?

Well, one, one. Because I worked so much when your mom and I had you. Your mom went back to work after her six weeks and came home in tears, said, I can't do this. I want to stay home with Jordan. And I says, okay. We had just prior to that, built a new house. And I told her, I said, okay, so here's the deal. We're going to sell the house, which we immediately did. We downsized. And I said, if you're going to stay home and raise the kids, I'm going to work. And I don't want to ever hear you complain about how much I have to do. Now, this is prior to me coming to my faith in Jesus Christ.

Right, right, right, right. Which we're going to get to in a minute. Yeah.

So when you and your brother were younger, I would take you with me, especially in the summer, because one, to spend time with y', all, you walk in with a cute little kid. Hey, this is my son Jordan. He's just hanging out with me today. It was extremely good for sales. And if you remember during the holidays when we used to have all the Christmas placemats and napkins and cookies.

Oh, yeah.

What was the deal?

I don't remember the deal, but I remember you using me to sell something. To sell these Christmas.

Right, because again, you're a cute little kid, but I gave you $2 a case on every order you took because it was fun. I don't know money on it.

I don't remember that. But I do remember going to work with you a lot. And looking back on it, I think it was like an incredibly valuable experience just to see your work ethic, just to see how you sell Enemy. Even in elementary school, right? Like, I was incredibly ambitious for school fundraisers and for all these things, and.

Obviously you were ridiculous. School fundraisers and we killed a lot of money.

I bet I did. I bet I did. So, all right, so you spent 25, 20 something years working for somebody else selling, but then you. Then you made the shift from mastering not just sales, but mastering the art of entrepreneurship and being a CEO. I'm curious, what's been the biggest challenge for you in Mastering that new role as entrepreneur, CEO, operator of a fairly sizable business.

The biggest challenge for me, and you've heard me say this, God has gifted me with the ability to sell food, to sniff out a phenomenal deal on products that can save my customers money. Where I fall short, because I'm a bleeding heart. I believe everybody. I trust everybody. I am not a good manager of people. And thank God your mother's there to handle that for us because I would give it all away, as you well know, because God's going to give it back. Your mom tends to be a lot more conservative to me in that arena, which is good, but that's my biggest downfall. I'm not a good manager of people. Great with people, but not a good manager.

Yeah, but it's good to recognize that because a lot of people, and I feel like you've recognized that for a few years now and have taken steps in directions to, you know, kind of abdicate yourself with some of those responsibilities. But that's critical, right. When you're the driver's seat a CEO, I think it can be easy to fall for the lie that you have to be good at everything. And this is what Master of One is all about. It's like, no, you don't. Not at all. If you're a sales CEO, be a. Be the sales CEO and trust an operator to operate the business. So dad, you listen to this podcast quite frequently. You know, we like to talk about daily routines and habits. I get my early to rise nature from you, for sure. Can, can you talk to our audience about what a day in the life of Tom Rayner looks like?

Sure. I take the we as of recently, since the pandemic would be in the Office normally by 3 to 4 at the latest every morning to make sure the trucks were loaded properly. If there was anything we were out of stock that I could substitute to take care of my customers needs and would go out and see customers for typically four to five hours wide, back up at the office to get on the phone, take orders, put orders in order, product to come in that we needed for our sales and take care of whatever problems arose during the day. But my typical day, literally as long as I've been working in this industry is 10 to 12 hours a day.

Yeah. And you're going to bed at what time?

8:00 o' clock's a good time.

Yeah. So we got to hurry up. We got, we got to get this interview over with. You and I both got to go bed.

You got about 30 minutes, pal. That's Right.

That's right. So you mentioned before you were saved later in life. I can't remember how old roughly, were you?

37.

37 years old when you came to Faith in Christ. And how did your perspective, if you can remember, how did your perspective on work and wealth change post salvation?

Good question. Growing up not poor, but my dad worked six days a week forever to support our family. My parents had seven kids in 10 years. One brother that was institutionalized at the age of three. And my dad instilled in me a work ethic that if you want something out of life, you're going to have to go out and earn it because you're not going to inherit it. So you need to go get it. I've always been driven to succeed. And as you well know, one of my dreams was to live on the lake, which we provided for the family for about eight years. And what's amazing is we moved into that house. And two weeks after that, I went to my second Promise Keepers event here in the Bay Area, which 25 years ago was huge. I was already a believer at that point, but I chased the dream of living on the lake because that's what I always wanted. And Ron Blue, a huge financial planner, talked about chasing that carrot and it being wrong. And I literally sat at Tampa Stadium and wet my eyes out. Because everything I ever wanted, I had attained two weeks before. And now as a believer, it was for all the wrong reasons. The good thing that came out of it was we had many phenomenal get togethers with family members, church people, people of the faith. And God allowed us to use that venue for eight years to bless people.

It was redeemed. So it may have been attained for the wrong reasons, but the Lord was able to do something good with that for sure. And what, if anything, changed in how you approach sales post salvation? Did you notice anything significant change there or were the tactics fairly similar? Just the motives were changing.

Now the tactics change because as a believer in Jesus Christ, we're not supposed to steal, lie, cheat. As a salesperson, we tend to not all, but sometimes bend the truth to give us what we want out of the equation versus what's best for our customers. And I've said this many, many times. I says I love what I do, but you have no idea how hard it is to be a Christian salesperson in my industry.

Well, especially when you had 17 years of experience in the opposite direction. Right?

This is true.

So, like a lot of small businesses, you guys were pretty negatively impacted by coronavirus. I mean, less so than most. Right. You guys have a customer portfolio that allows you to continue to grow within this economy. But you, you still been impacted for sure. But what I love is you guys have also thought about how to be. How to be serving even more in bigger ways during this time. Can you talk about some of the things that you guys have done to try to serve at an even greater level during this crisis?

Good question. You know my heart, everything that I have belongs to God. It's all his. I'm a firm believer that you cannot out give God during this crisis because of the different organizations that we purchase our products from. They were offering some incredible deals on items that were super inexpensive. So I would buy those products for the sole purpose of giving them to the different ministries that we support and friends are involved in local churches that were putting together food baskets. So literally, we would always buying thousands of cases and thousands of dollars of products at an incredibly low price for the sole purpose of giving away. And I think because of that, in my industry, which is down about 80% and is just now coming to back, we're producing the best numbers we ever have with our business, and God has blessed us immensely.

Yeah, God is. God can be gracious regardless of whether or not you give, but it's wonderful to see it when that happens. So one thing I remember, we talked about me going to work with you a lot during the summers when I was a kid. One thing I remember about those times watching you work was your willingness to be interrupted, especially by the needy. Do you remember that guy Jeffrey that we used to take to Pizza Hut? Do you remember that guy?

Yeah.

Refresh my memory. So he had some disability. He was autistic, I believe. Was he a customer?

He worked at one of my hospitals up in Dade City, Florida. Jeffrey would come in on the school program, you know, work a half a day in the kitchen doing whatever task they had for him. Real nice kid. Jeffrey was a sweetheart. And I don't know if I ever told you this story, but probably that was 25 years ago, probably 10 years ago. I'm in downtown St. Pete calling out one of my homeless shelters, St. Vincent de Point Paul, which is Catholic Charities. And I'm getting out of my car. Jeffrey walks up to me and says, hey, Tom, how you doing? Wow. Blew my mind. He goes, how's everything? I said, jeffrey, what are you doing? He was living in a halfway house right down the street. And Jeffrey, like Jeffrey always did, Tom, you got $5. I reached in my pocket and gave him five bucks. And I Haven't seen him since.

I love. I remember, though, I mean, you've always been crazy busy, right? And even back then, your phone was going off left and right. But I vividly remember that Pizza Hut. And I remember taking Jeffrey to lunch every week, even when your schedule was crazy. I. I think it's one of the things I'll always remember about you and just your. Your willingness, you know, kind of like Jesus. I mean, Jesus was busy, Jesus's schedule was packed to the brim, but he was willing to be interrupted sometimes. But by the neediest people. I deeply love that about you. So, dad, three questions I ask every guest on the show. Number one, which books do you. I know you don't read a ton of books, but you do give away books from time to time. And I'm curious which books you give.

Away the most frequently that would be called to create.

That better be the answer. The only answer.

Master 1.

There you go. Other than those, those classics, anything else that's really impacted you in your life.

Other than the Bible? Because as you well know, I've got ADD and I'm not a very studious individual. Other than the Bible, that's really the. In your, in your books. That's the only thing I read is God's word on a daily basis.

I love it. That's good. Who would you most like to hear on this podcast?

I'm excited if you can get Dolly Parton on.

Yeah, we're working on Dolly. That'd be amazing. Such longevity in her career. All right, last question. Dad, you know who this audience is? People who. Some are in sales, some are entrepreneurs, some are writers. Bunch of different vocations, but what they show share is a commitment to doing masterful work for the glory of God and the good of others. What single piece of advice would you want to leave those people with?

Never be afraid to let people know whom you belong to, whom you believe in, and why we have our trust in Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Never be afraid or unprepared to give an answer. Dad, I want to thank you for. Thank you very publicly for being such a terrific example for me of what it looks like to follow Jesus, to serve the poor, how to be a good dad, how to win in sales and business in a gospel driven way. And thank you for letting me observe you run your business and serving your team and your customers through the ministry of excellence. Thank you for your radical generosity. Some would call foolish generosity sometimes, but I call it radical and inspiring. And thanks for being willing to do.

The podcast, my son. Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much you've made your mother and I proud of what you're doing to glorify the Community Kingdom. You are loved immensely and pray that this continues or reaches a lot of.

People for the Kingdom well again, happy Father's Day to my dad. Hope you guys enjoyed that short episode. I was serious about us going to bed at 8 o'. Clock. Or at least my dad. I'll be going to bed here in just a little while. Great episode. I'm so grateful that my dad was willing to do that. Hey, if you're enjoying the Call to Mastery, do me a quick favor. Take 30 seconds and go. Go review the show right now. And hey, do something to honor your father today. If you're listening to this on Father's Day, and even if you're not, if your dad, by the grace of God is still around, give him a call. Honor him in some way today. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you next time.