Great Recruiter (Sam Shepard) Learned To Recruit

When you got in financial services and you got the chance to not only sell, but to build an organization and really have an unlimited opportunity for this background, were you set up for success where everything just kind of fell into place for you, or was it a struggle?

No, it was a struggle. My personality, I'm actually a more introverted person. And people know me, say, sam, you like everybody. I said, I do like everybody. I love people, I love being around people. But as far as making new relationships, I'm very introverted. I'm fine. I wasn't the kind of kid, even with the grades I made in school, I never raised my hand. Teacher who knows that? I just never raised my hand. I wasn't one that had to hear myself. I'm like, I know the answer, but all these people want to raise their hand. So I just never did that. And I had to learn a lot of different things. I had to learn to come out of my shell a little bit still. I'm an introverted person. I had to learn the nature of business. You're going to be in a business with people, you better learn to open your mouth and talk to people. And so everything about it was, you know, being a young guy when I got started, not really having a natural market for what we were doing and not really having experience. I just learned to listen to the great ones. And I sat before a bunch of people like yourself and others, and I just listen to people who are already successful and try to develop my own personal philosophies about winning. And what worked for me and what works for some people doesn't work for everybody. But I just had to find what worked for me. And just along the way you just kind of develop that personal philosophy. And I learned things that I like to do and staying strong with the fundamentals and not changing them and not really worrying about what was popular, what everybody else was doing really didn't attract me. I just kind of knew where I wanted to go, who I wanted to listen to, who, and the kind of business I want to build. So it was all of, you know, trial, you know, trial and error, you know, all trial and error. Just. You spend years just trying to develop what works for you.

And what was your first big breakthrough?

I think when I first got some full time and people in my business, which happened pretty early on, I realized to me you had to have full time people. And that gave me a little edge, was I got some full time people pretty soon after I went full time, but I was getting numbers by helping other people. You know, pushing them up through the system. And it just, it taught me early on I said, man, the key to this business is people, is not sales, is not product. It's people and the product is people. And so as I began to focus on that, I began to see my business grow.

And that realization is really something you've got to realize whether or not you're in a, you know, you're just in sales as an individual person, you're working in a job somewhere on a salary, you realize that the people that you're working, like if it's just your customers, obviously if you're, your people, are the most important thing. If you're building an organization, you're going to get things done through them. And they're not working right, they're not happy, they're not going to be productive. But it's the same thing if you are a lone ranger out there in sales or if you're out there in a salary position. It's the people you're working for. You're trying to impact people in a positive way. You're trying to make an impact and you've got to focus to make that impact. You've really got to focus on them no matter what you're doing.

Oh, absolutely. I think your people are your clients. That's who you serve first. And when you really get focused on them, growing their income. I never want to make a lot of money. I didn't have anybody else making money. I wanted to make money by having a lot of successful people with me. One thing is never being satisfied where you are. Because if you're satisfied where you are and all your people, you're saying, I don't care about my people growing because I'm fine, I'm cool. But for me it's no, I gotta do a lot more. Cause I got a bunch of people that need to make a lot more money. So yes, I do need to grow my income. Why? Because my people need to grow their incomes and my income is a byproduct of their income. So when my income's going down, I also know, hey, this is bad. Not just because I'm losing money, that means my people's incomes are going down. And so I want to see their incomes go up. That's how I want to grow my income, through my people's incomes growth.

And so what happens to you when people talk to someone who's successful and as mild mannered and measured as you? They just imagine that you really never had hard times, that it's Just, you know, you go to work and you decide to do this, and it's just one foot in front of the other. But it's not like that, is it?

Oh, absolutely not. You know, it's just. It's just consistency and persistence through the negativity. Because I've been through incredible things, you know, negative things on a personal level, things. Financially, I've had all kind of bad things happen I wouldn't want to wish on anybody else. But no matter what's going on, I just kept showing up. And from the outside, my goal was always that if you didn't know that, you wouldn't know. That was always my goal, that I wanted people to be shocked. Somehow. I would be on the stadium, on a stage, talking about something happened, and when I would come off, I had people say, man, I had no idea. I had no idea. I was like, good, you have the idea. My son was sitting somewhere with me at a meeting, and at the meeting, he said, I didn't know we went through all those things financially. I don't remember any of that. I said, good, son. I mean, I raised you right and I did the right thing. You. It wasn't going to help you to know your family was scuffling and want you to know everything's gonna be great. It was up to us to go do what we had to do to, you know, get through that storm. Because the storms are temporary. And once you know the storms are temporary, you've been through things. You say, okay, so I'm gonna do something now. We'll get through this just like we got through before. I just always had trust and believe, my faith that got to bring me out of whatever storms we're going through. I think it's good when you have adversity. I think we all need adversity in our life, that we grow through adversity. We grow through the downtown. I learned way more going through stressful stuff than I learned just getting a stage, you know, getting the applause and being an mvp. I think you learn your tough lessons when things are not going well.

Yeah, it keeps you humble, it keeps you attentive, keeps you from getting arrogant. Because it's hard not to get arrogant if you never have anything go wrong, right?

Oh, absolutely. Once you understand and you know this business, I'm so thankful for my people because I do know if you take away all the people, with all the training and knowledge and things I've learned, you take away all the people. My numbers aren't looking too good. My income's not looking too good. So. And I think that's true with, you know, I think we take any big leaders in our company and you put somebody else's name up there, told the entire organization, the other person, I think the organization probably do about the same thing. And so the key is you need to build a team. You need an organization. Be thankful for your people. And that's one thing that helps keep me very, very humble and very, very thankful for all of our people and all my teammates. Not just the ones that are doing big things, but just the ones that are on board, the ones that persevere. I got people been with me for. I've been here 32 years. I got people been with me over 30 years. And I'm thankful those people continue to believe and continue to show up, continue to fight.

I got two things I want to ask you. What is this phrase you said the goal is if you didn't know, you didn't need to know? Or what was that you said there in the beginning?

If you didn't know, then you wouldn't know. So and so you wouldn't know what was happening to me because you could not tell it from the outside. In other words, unless you already knew. I wouldn't want you to meet me and know, like, wow, Some love is saying wow. Some, you know, something's going on, why he's acting different. Wow. I didn't want them to know that. So if you didn't know, you wouldn't know that I just got the garnishment, that I just got the levy that IRS just said, hey, you know, things I've been through, hey, your accountant didn't pay your taxes for the last seven years. During that time, I never missed a meeting, I never missed a trip. I was still there sharing and stuff, but behind the scenes, I was dealing with a lot of negative situations. But on the outside, man, I'm building, I'm growing, I'm mentioning people, promoting people, RVPs. And I try to let the bad things happen to me. I don't mind teaching and sharing with people, so hopefully I can stop them. That's a ditch you don't need to fall into. Let me tell you what I learned from that ditch. You don't want to do that one, you know, so. Right.

No matter who you are, you're going to have a team around you, your support team. And so much of the time, we think that in terms of a team as the business, but really in every area of your life where you've got a lot going on you have a team. It's more than business, it's the support. Like a golfer, like Tiger woods is out there and all of these golfers are out there, but they have their trainers, their nutritionists, their coaches, their caddies, their spouse. Most of them would say if they didn't have their spouse support their family behind them, they would have never been there. And so people find, you know, you have your staff, all these key people. A lot of times it's easy to see, like if you're a football coach, obviously you got your team down on the field, but you also have your team of, in the administrative center, you know, all the people that help get them out on the field. And so all of this have, in every area of our lives we have our extended world of contacts, support, you know, friends and family that in essence we shouldn't take it for granted. I mean, we should, we should take. Anybody who adds to your life deserves a little special attention because they make a difference in your life, don't you think?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, one thing I did early on in my career and I see a lot of people make the mistake of not doing it, was I got some support staff in. My business was very small. I started out with some part time, you know, I had some people who work for me just a few hours a day because that was all I could really put in a budget. But what you find, once you get somebody to help you for a little while, you like, man, I gotta figure out how to increase my profits here so I could get somebody help me six hours a day, then I want somebody to help me eight hours a day. Then eventually I needed multiple people. And so. And when I look at my big earners today, one thing I see, a common bond. Every big earner I have have some support staff and everybody who struggles, they have one common bond. They have no support staff and they try to wear every hat. So I'm so thankful, you know, I've had the person that's over. My main staff has been with me for 17 years and before that just had a history of keeping people for many, many years because I value them. I try to treat them as good as I can. They become like family to me. And I do know that I couldn't do the things my wife and I do in business without. Of course, my wife is such a support to me and I certainly couldn't do anything without Elaine and then along with Elaine. But both of us are blessed by many people, some who are paid staff members and some who are not. But the great volunteer people who do things. I mean, at meetings, every meeting I have, I have people that assist in different things. It might be from straightening up the chairs, making sure the audio is right. And man, you take those people away from the meeting, it's a whole different meeting if you don't have that support team to put things in place. I've always been very, very thankful for my team is out front doing things and more. But that team behind the scenes, making things happen. Behind the scenes.

Yeah. And Sam, what I try and get people to realize is that in all areas of your life, it's like whether you're in sales or not, everybody's a salesman. Whether or not you're in the business building world, you could be an employee. Everybody's a recruiter and really everybody's a team builder. Everybody's a leader in their own world. In the terms of sales, you're much easier and you get through life a whole lot smoother if you know how to get people excited and make them want to get involved with you, because you can get them excited about what you're excited about. That gives you some power. That gives you some other people to do the project with. It allows you to recruit them in. If you want to get people in your neighborhood, you got a neighbor that's creating a problem. It's much easier if you go in there with a sales type approach, showing them the advantage for them if they stop doing whatever it is that's annoying you because it's not doing them any good either. And, you know, rather than going in there yelling, so everyone's a salesman, we recruit people into our lives. Like trying to find a mechanic, trying to find a doctor, trying to find anybody. It's the same recruiting process of talking to people, asking them who they know and maybe, you know, maybe they are, you know, looking for mechanic. Who knows, maybe. Maybe they're a mechanic or maybe they're a doctor, or maybe they know a doctor, they know a good one. And it's. It's friend to friend to friend, person to person. So if you understand these things and also team building, even if you work inside a big corporation in your life, you have your team of family, friends, and whatever, you know, if you've got for every project, either you do it yourself or you get a little team. Maybe you have a big lawn and maybe your team is a couple of your sons work with you to get it done and you get a little project and you approach that like a little project and you give them little incentives but if you look at things, it's a matter of stepping back and looking and realizing as you go through life, if you'll take the time to involve other people in all of these areas, you can get it done a whole lot easier than you do it yourself. And you can probably get it a whole lot better than you could do it yourself. And the other side is you can have a whole lot more fun because there's a sense of accomplishment. If you cut the grass by yourself, you go out there and great look at it, and then you have a personal enjoyment, drink a cup of coffee, sit in a chair and enjoy it maybe. But it's not as much fun as if you have a group, you have two or three people with you, and then you can kind of enjoy getting it done together. So all of life, if you approach it as not just getting a project done and doing something like stuff, but like, you had a video filming thing, filming some of those commercials yesterday, and there was a big team there and a lot of support things, you could probably get it done with fewer people, but it got. It was done much better because they had all these specialists and they had all these people assembled on this one project and really just give your takeaway and pass that on to people. If you look at life and see the things that need to get done, you've got to go through, if you could involve other people in it, you can make it a much bigger, much more satisfying experience for yourself and probably get it done a whole lot better and maybe create even new opportunities for yourself than if you just had your head down and trying to plow through it yourself with the attitude of, I'm a victim, I hate doing this stuff, and, you know, running around with a persecution complex. You know, if you take a different viewpoint, get a team, turn it into a project, turn it into a little bit of an adventure, it can be. You can get it done a lot better, enjoy it a lot more, and have a much richer piece of your life there. So talk about that real quick. Just see what help people understand that viewpoint.

Well, I think that, you know, everything is about team. Larry, you said it's all about team. It's all, you know, everybody has their role to play, but you need, you know, together, we know this acronym every together, each achieves more. That's what the team is all about. And truly, when you see a team working together, they'll do so much more. And you got to be quick as a head coach to take responsibility. But things are not happening. And when things are Happening. Boy, you better be real quick to congratulate the team. I've been doing some events for this one event recharge we do every year. I think we've done about 18 years now. And there's one leader in particular who is so involved. I've always told him, as a man, if you weren't here to do this event with me, I don't know I could do it. Because he takes so much pressure on me by pouring. He takes ownership in the event and not. We have a lot of people. We got to get our people to take ownership in what's going on. And they do that. When you share responsibility, when you share and you share the praise and maybe you give up all of the praise for what's going on, and you're just really loving on people and wanting to see people win and getting a team involved. I mean, I'm thankful for my staff that I've had and the unpaid and the paid staff. And, you know, I think about, you know, we're hosting a TV show next week, and they were telling me, you know, I was watching somebody else do a show recently, and I think after one hour they had that leader. He probably talked 45 minutes. And I said, I'm going to have just the opposite. I won't even talk. My goal is to talk less than five or 10 minutes. I just want to highlight other people. So I think keep your team the focal point. Keep your team the high point. And as you do that, though, you all grow and you all win together. And there's so much I didn't want to have. A business where man Sam made a lot of money but no one else did. I'm excited that we've got people growing their incomes. I look forward to. I just had a person just go with 50,000 income, you know, on their way to vice president. And that's exciting. They're not even at the VP position yet. And I'm excited about that. I'm excited about, you know, taking him and his wife out, just celebrating taking people places they wouldn't go on their own. I was naming some great restaurants and asking people recently, have you been to any of those places? And only hands went up. I said, I raised your hand. You've been those places without me taking you there. And all the hands went back down. So we were like. And not tooting. I don't know. But it's like, if we hadn't taken these places, they never would have gone. And so we able to open something up to them and let them see something that's bigger than what maybe their expectation and try to create a different way of life and different expectation out of life. My grandmother, when I was a kid, took me great places. And she wasn't rich, but some kind of way she had fun. So she took us to great places. And that made me want to go to great places and take my kids to great places. And certainly these businesses allowed me to far exceed, you know, even my own expectations.

Well, Sam, thanks so much. I mean, you really got people thinking about how they can expand their life and as they do it, expand their impact on others. So thanks so much. I know you've changed a lot of lives, so thanks so much, Sam.