Episode #561 - Building A Winning Mentality with Matthew Pollard

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. I'm here talking with Matthew Pollard. Hello, Matthew.

Terrific to be here.

And is that right that you're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina?

Yeah, it probably doesn't sound that way. Yes. But I've lived in the states since 2014, Austin first, and now we're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We love it here, except for when it gets way too cold for me.

Is that the Australian part of the Kiwi part of Chapel Hill?

Yeah. So actually there are a couple of other Australians that live here far less than when you go to New York. I actually think that Australia owns at least two blocks in New York City. But, you know, the population of Australians here isn't quite as high even as Austin. Austin's got a lot more Australians there too.

Well, I lived about 28 years, I think I was trying to calculate maybe longer than that right down the road from you in Greensboro. So I'm very familiar with your arena.

Very nice area. Yeah, very nice area. Not far from me at all.

Yes. Now, the thing about you got off, started your career with a bang and before age 30 you had helped build or turn around five companies into the multimillion dollar range. Talk about that.

Yeah, sure. And I think when you say I got off to a boom, as a matter of fact, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader in late high school. And we can get into that. But there is no way that I should have got to where I was today. And there is. And literally it was the psychology of how I think and the way I challenge myself that got me to where I am. But yeah, I've been responsible for five multimillion dollar success stories. I did that before I turned 30. And, you know, I really started in door to door sales. So, you know, what happened was because of my reading issues and my challenges, I managed. I actually got diagnosed with this thing called Irlen syndrome, which basically means I put on a funny pair of colored lenses, which miraculously means that I can learn to not like everyone else, but I could start the process of learning to read. But, you know, high school was tough for me. I got into the top 20% of my state, luckily enough, but it was everything that I had. It was exhausting.

And, and to interrupt you real quick, so people who don't. Would you say the name of that again? I Haven't heard it said like that. I. But basically, your eyes, people, there's, there's several different versions of this, but your. Your eyes can't make things work out. But then if you get glasses that have a different shade and you go through these doctors that have all the different shades and you look at them, you say, okay, that one. Now I can see. But you get glasses and all of a sudden life opens up for you. But is that similar?

Yeah, well, that is exactly it. So, you know, funnily enough, so few people know about this, which is why I bring it up on every interview, because if it wasn't for my mother discovering some obscure article in the paper that they. They called it what's known as scotomic sensitivity syndrome. I don't know why they make things so hard to spell for people that can't read and spell, but there you go. And then, you know the short name? Because it was discovered by a girl called Helen Erlen. They call it Irlen syndrome. And the. It's exactly that. So for me, you know, putting this funny car. Pair of lenses on, I mean, a funny shade that tints the color of the paper, you know, fix. No, it mean. It didn't mean I could learn to read like everyone else or I could read like everyone else. I could start the process of learning. But basically, what it means, and for those people that it doesn't. I mean, it, you know, success doesn't mean your kids aren't going to grow up with this. And as a matter of fact, a lot of highly successful people have this condition, dyslexia and all sorts of things. So you might have gone undiagnosed for a long time. But basically, when I look at a page of white, you know, white paper with black text on it.

Right.

My eyes struggle with the color yellow, and the yellow eats the letters, and it makes the letters look different every time. So my brain never learned how to decode letters at a younger age. So at 16, when I was diagnosed with this, I could put on this pair of lenses that filtered out the yellow light, and then I could start to learn to decode letters and then sentence, you know, and then words and then. And then sentences. Just like everybody else. Yeah.

And not to, you know, to clarify, not to nerd out over this, but I've had it described to me as like, you're looking at a piece of, like. Let's just say you're in school and you take. You don't know these things. You're a kid and they pass out the tests for everybody in the room. Well then, you know, 15, 20, 30 minutes, it's over. Everyone's passing the test and you're just now figuring out what the thing said and started to work on it. And the assumption you have for yourself is I'm just a dummy. All these other people are smarter than me. You wouldn't know that. And then maybe your parents think he's just a dummy that Darren Matthew. And. But you need to be aware there's other things. Maybe your kids are not dummies. And so anyway, there are answers, there are solutions. This is a real thing, you've overcome it. And so we've alerted people to that. And so let's roll.

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say to that. I often got told that I wasn't putting in the energy. I didn't care enough, which is why I wasn't succeeding. My family knew that it was the opposite way because they saw me working really hard. But reading 10 pages of a book put me to sleep. It wasn't because I was lazy or tired. It was because it took that much concentration to get through 10 pages of a book. So nothing ever came easy to me. And I always had to find another path. And I think that's actually one of the biggest factors. I think that what led to my success is that because nothing ever worked me, I always lived in this. I think most people look at business and their careers and they look at everything like a binary choice. My great at it or I'm not like sales. I either got the gift of gab or I don't. And I always assumed that there had to be a third path that no one talked about because otherwise my whole life wouldn't have worked. So for me anyway, I got diagnosed with this. I was, you know, I got into the top 20% in my state. I was exhausted though. My family could see that. And just getting through school was tough. So my family could see that if I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school and I would have just spun out at university. So we agreed that until I knew what I wanted to do, I'd take a year off to find myself. So I took a job at a real estate agency. And you know, I have to say my self confidence was always beaten down. I mean, I was the kid with the funny lenses. I had bad acne, I had braces, you know, at later high school because my family could only afford them. You know, at that point I was the kid that felt like a slow kid. And now. So when I took a job at a real estate agency before you think this, I was not the person out the front selling. I was the guy in the back office with a look on my face saying, don't speak to me. I'm here to find myself. I'm just doing data entry. But three weeks into that job, my manager pulls me aside and he's like, matt, I am so sorry to tell you this, but, you know, head office has just called and they're shutting down this premise. You're out of. You're out of work now. Been there three weeks. This was in Australia around Christmas time. Now, for those people that don't know Australia, it's backwards when it comes to seasons. So we have our Christmas holiday and our summer holiday at the same time. So people go on Holidays on the 20th of December. They don't come back till the 15th or 20th of January. Now, if you're listening and you', employee, you'll know the answer to this question. How many people are you hiring? Nobody. So there's no work out there. And I'm like, well, how do I. I don't want to go home and tell my father, who broke his back 80 hours a week that I'm out of work already. So I went to look at the classifieds and the only jobs that came up, there were three jobs there, and there are all these things called commission, only sales roles. And I'm like, you know what? This is the most daunting thing in the world for me. But I got no option. So I applied for all three jobs and I got three interviews, which bolstered my confidence a little bit. And then I got three job offers. And I'm like, maybe they see something in me. I don't see myself. Well, I took this job doing business to business, door to door sales for telecommunications. And my manager and trainer at the time put that, you know, extra confidence to bed. He said, matt, we just hire everyone. We've got the same. We throw mud up against the wall and we see what, six. I mean, I'm saying until you're the mud. Right? Like, right. Horrible. So that was me. And I remember getting five days product training and literally no sales training. And I get thrown on this road called Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia. I mean, Google it. It's like a thousand junk stores on each side. Just get told to go and sell. And I'm like, I don't even know what to say. So I take this deep breath and I walk in the first door and you'll see why I say luckily now in a second. But I luckily got politely told to leave because shortly after that I was less politely told to leave. Then I was sworn at. But my favorite was always, why don't you getting told to go and get a real job? I mean, this was the only job I could get. So door after door, this just kept happening until I got to my, I remember 93rd door and I walked out with my first sale and I was ecstatic. So I'd made about $70, which wasn't a small amount of money, but for about 45 seconds in, I then went, I've got to do this again tomorrow and the next day and the next. And I, I think this is where a lot of people either quit, which, you know, there were 20 people in my training group. 18 of the 20 quit. They didn't come back the next day. And then the other person in my training group did what a lot of business owners I see do all the time. They just grind it out, they hustle it out. They're like, they're like, I've either got it or I don't, but I'm just going to make it work. And I'm all for the grind it out hustle mentality, but not without a plan and a strategy. So for me, I was like, I'm not willing for my year to be horrific. So I made the decision that sales had to be a system because without that I was going to be terrible. And I went, well, how am I going to learn this system? And I mean, in your show you talk about saying like it is, right? So let's, let's do that. The number of people that buy online training courses and buy coaching when they never even typed into Google like I did sales training system or, you know, sales process. And so I did, I said, I wrote in Google and all these videos came up on YouTube about the sales system or the sales process. And what I realized is that sales, unbeknownst to a lot of people who think it's this, you know, process that you either have or you don't, is actually in a lot of ways a mechanical system full of levers, right? You follow things in a certain number of steps. You put the widget in, and as long as you believe in the predictability of it, you get a great outcome. And I went, you know what? That's the only way sales is going to work for me. So what I did is every day I would go out in the field and I'd put up apply what I'd learned the night before for eight hours in the field. Then I'd go home and I'd learn the next step or perfect the step I was working on. And it was liberating for me because as an introvert, I took. I mean, of course I took rejection personally. I mean, how could you not? But I was able to look at sales as an external process. And I was experimenting and I was using my ability to reflect, which is a superpower of an introvert, but horrible for an introvert if they don't learn how to use it effectively because they beat themselves up as they reflect, as opposed to look at how to improve a process. Well, day after day I got better. I mean, soon it was 78 doors, then it was 46, then it was 31, then it was. I got it down to making a sale on average every three doors.

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And about six weeks in, my manager pulls me aside and I thought I did something wrong. He had this puzzled look on his face because, I mean, I was the quiet guy that handed my paperwork in downstairs. Didn't really talk to anybody. All these boisterous sales reps talking about how they closed that deal or how amazing they did. You know, the hero stories that salespeople share. He said, matt, we're kind of blown away by this, but we just got our national sales figures and it turns out you're the number one salesperson in the company. This was six weeks later, and this was the largest sales and marketing company in the southern hemisphere. And I'd gone from no business being in sales to now the number one in the company. Funnily enough, that then led to them go, well, I mean, clearly you can sell, so we're gonna put you in charge of a team. I don't know why people think that because you can sell, you can manage. I mean, I was horrific at it. Like when I say I only was one of two that came back, my entire 20 training group they gave me because they're like, don't worry, mud up against the wall. They all quit. So went back to YouTube, learned how to manage and I got good at that as well. And then, you know, I was promoted seven times that year. You know, shortly, you know, after that, I made the decision to start my own business. Within the first year, we turned over more than $1 million. You know, the, the year three, we were listed as the largest broker ship for business to business cell phones in the country. And you know, last for just shy of a decade. I've been responsible for five multimillion dollar success stories. But I think the thing that I really want to make clear is now I went from terrified to sell to teaching hundreds how to do it in all of these businesses. And now, you know, through the Introverts Ed book series, I get the opportunity to teach tens of thousands. But it came from an unwillingness to accept that this is the way it was going to be. I took responsibility. I asked what if there was a way to learn it. And then I put in the work. And I think that's a lot of holding people accountable. It's like there are no silver bullet, silver bullets. Now sure, I was doing 16 hour days and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but it took me six weeks. If you did that over six months, you'd benefit from that your entire life.

No, you would wish it, you would wish that on them. Because at some point you've got, you know, you're just never gonna start a fire unless you have a match. And in business you can't buy matches. You can't, like I'm gonna go scratch this and then boom. I have a successful business, you know. Unbelievable. No, in business you have to rub sticks together and you're going to have to go through a period of time where it's hopeless and there's not a lot of great material around. And you got to go through the steps like this to create the friction to get a spark and then put some little thing and build on it very carefully, carefully, carefully so it doesn't go out. But what that does is turn you into, into who you need to be to last long term. Buying a box of matches and taking it out and striking it. Hey, daddy gave me a box of matches. I've got my own company now, like Edsel Ford. He had this idea, I'm going to do with airplanes what my dad did with cars. And of course Henry Ford. Edsel was an incredible disappointment. All his life. And so he said this is a way he can establish himself. So he bankrolled him and Edsel, you know, built it up and made it go, but only because dad gave him, you know, like hundreds of millions of dollars to get the factory and the people and everything like that. And so the, and thank goodness, you know, World war kind of came in and gave him a demand for planes and you know, airmail contracts across the country, which he had nothing to do with. But you know, the thing is that you going through that process makes you into who you need to be to be able to run it. Otherwise the fire goes out. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't even say I don't wish that. It's just a matter of, I would wish that people would get over themselves, stop thinking that they're special, you know, because I had this stupid idea when I went into, when I went in business myself. I said, I've worked so hard with this other guy, you know, I work so hard, if I work half that hard for myself, I'll make five times the money, ten times the money. And then it took me a couple of years to realize you don't, you're never successful working half hard. And ever since then I've told people, I don't know how good you can be, but I know you can never be great given a half hearted effort. You can only be great if you give it everything you've got. And the sooner you learn to do that, the better. And usually do that with failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, and you rise over it. And so when you went in there, what did you change about specific changes from 90 belly flops to one out of three successes? How did you, you had to get yourself system, you had to say different things going in the door, you had to notice different things going in the door. And you probably got better at identifying who was a likely prospect rather than just talking to anybody who showed up. But how, what, what did you, what was some of those, that evolution that you went in, fine tuning yourself to get a sharper edge where you're using your time much more efficiently.

Yeah, absolutely. So just going back to your original point there for a second about, you know, the, the willingness to actually take uncomfortable action I think is really the foundation of what you're suggesting there. And I will tell you that the number of people that you know, want to go out into business for themselves, yes, because they want to make great money. Sure. But more often than not I find people with great functional expertise, they just want to build a business that revolves around then their family and their life, not the other way around where they get that flexibility. And I'm all for it because don't get me wrong, if you go and work in an organization, you do well, you will get pay increases. But the moment you don't perform, you're fired or you're laid off. Where if you run your own business, you then you always get to claim the spoils. Like when people say, oh my boss doesn't even work. You know, the founder doesn't even do anything anymore. How does he deserve to make the money? Because he took that uncomfortable action up front. But here's the thing that I find because a lot of people listening to this and sure, we're going to talk about sales and you know, we can also talk about applying the exact same methodology to leadership, to networking, to rapid growth in your business. But here's the thing that I want to highlight. Most business owners spend their entire time, especially when they first start focusing on their functional skill and they don't look the things that are outside that functional skill that lead their businesses to be successful. Which means they get stuck in this constant hamster wheel of trying to set themselves apart, trying to, you know, excite and inspire people about what they do and then try to make the sale. And they believe that people only care about price. Well, for one of a better option, if you can't give them anything else, why shouldn't they make a decision on price? But that's your fault because again, what happens is people do what I call busy procrastination. They'll listen to this and like, you know what, I'm going to apply all these techniques and then, oh, I've got a question. So they stop taking action as opposed to look for the answer, right? They say, oh, I'm going to do it, but I've just got to, I've just got to finish this thing for a client. And then they don't do it. They hide away from the uncomfortable things that they actually need to do to obtain growth in their business, which is why their business gets to a certain point, whether that's a six figure business or a seven figure business depends on what you're selling and how deep your Rolodex goes. But there comes a time that your Rolodex is empty and then you have to grow. And what happens is people go, you know what? I'm going to hire a salesperson. But they don't know how to sell. They know how to get their friends to try their stuff or their past clients for the business they work for to use their stuff. So they hire a salesperson and the only person that that salesperson actually sells to is the owner. Oh my pipeline's huge. One day these big deals are going to come and then eventually the business is crippled by that or the business didn't get to that point that they could even hire a salesperson. The truth is, if you're a founder of a business and you don't know how to sell, you will never succeed the way you should. Now, there are some businesses that just get by because they've got phenomenal products. But for the average person that's got a great service or a great product where people don't get the value of what you do, you have to learn how to differentiate. You have to learn how to niche down. And then you've got to learn a system for sales. And there are simple things. So what was the biggest milestone for me? Well, what I realized is that, well, actually the first one from a cold calling perspective is to speak to the right person. You believe.

Thank you. I was thinking of this as you went through because when you start off in something new, you're so insecure that you want to learn a lot of technical stuff. So you can spout off the technical stuff to people and they'll say, oh, this person is not a dummy. This person's pretty smart. And you're more focused on that and the right thing to say to overcome the right objection. All the technical stuff and you're not even noticing, hey, I'm talking to the guy who sweeps the floors. I'm not even talking to anybody who remotely could make a decision here. And this is like the outside type thing you learn. Don't start talking until you find the right person. And another thing is, don't start talking until you know you're going to have at least enough time to make your presentation. Because anytime people force you to say just give it to me in a nutshell like that, every time you do that, at the end of it they'll say, well, it sounds good, but I feel like you're trying to pressure me so I'm going to go away. No, I'm not pressuring you. I'm just trying to hurry through it because to accommodate you. And so you learn not to be manipulated. You learn to take your time to get in front of the right person. But all of these are not go beyond you learning just your skills.

Oh, absolutely. I can tell you like my experience with that and I Learned the hard way, don't get me wrong. So what I did is I would learn all these techniques. And I remember one time I spoke to this person who was rude and obnoxious to me for 20 minutes. And I, you know, I nailed it. I absolutely nailed it. And eventually she got to a point where she stood up and she said, okay. And she walked into the next room and she said, hey, boss, do you want a new telecom plan? And he went, no. And she went, sorry, I tried. He's not interested. And that was 20 minutes of my life gone. And I would suggest the best sales pitch I'd ever done up until that point. So, yes, you've got to speak to the right person learning how to do that because again, especially because we've got our egos on the line, we're like, you know what this person know? The easiest way to get past them is to do your little introduction pitch. And, you know, most people aren't cold calling, so we'll skip out of this in a second. But when I went into a room, I would do a little bit of a pitch and then I would say something like, and to make sure that you qualify, you know, my job is really to make sure that you qualify for that. And dropping the word qualify, how do they know if they qualify for it? And because of that, they have to ask the boss. The boss comes in and then I get to a different conversation. But, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I will tell you that one of the biggest things that I learned is that you have to take control of the sale, otherwise it controls you. You have to make sure that you're speaking to the right person. Of course you have to do things in the right order. You know, the number of times I say this, my publisher hates me when I say this. I'm like, you don't have to buy my book. Just go to the Introverts Edge.com you'll download the first chapter for free. Just grab the chapter heading, like each one of the elements of the seven steps process. Put what you currently say into it, and you'll quickly realize there's a whole bunch of things out of order. That's why you get forced to talk about price too quickly. And then fix that order. You realize there's some things that don't fit. That's the jargon you shouldn't be saying to the client, they're not interested. That's why they want to think about it. Throw that out. Then you'll realize there's some gaping holes around telling great stories and Asking great, great questions. If you do that, just fix that, you'll double your sales in the next 60 days. But yes, coming back to making sure you take charge, what I found is that people are terrible at that. They get to the point, especially on Zoom. Now in this new world of selling online, people will get on a call and they're like, oh, Larry, I'm really glad that we get a chance to meet. You know, tell me a little bit about your business. My answer to that is, well, Larry, after, you know, we're on this call, I'd love to answer that question for you. After checking out my website and my LinkedIn profile, what questions do you have? And they fall apart. They don't know the answer. They haven't checked out anything about me. I'm like, well, you haven't done your research, so this is just a waste of my time. What I do is I say, larry, I'm so glad we can get on a call today. You'll respond, yes, me too. And then I'll respond with something like, now I just, I've taken a moment to look over our brief email exchange. I, I've looked at the reservation notes that you gave me. I've also checked out your LinkedIn profile and your website. But because a lot of those things are static, what I'd like to do is take a little bit of a step back, hear a little bit more about you, what you're struggling with, and how I can be the most help to you in the time we have together today. And then I'll stop talking and you'll feel this relief wash over that person because, oh, thank goodness, finally somebody that's done their research. I don't now need to explain everything and treat them like a child. Now I can start from where I wanted to start, this phone call as opposed to baby them across. And that sends the message, I'm planned, I'm prepared, I'm respectful of your time, and I'm worth a high price because I do my homework work before I start.

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