How To Produce Independent Super Star Leaders #3

All right, we want to wrap some things up here with number three, and we'll be through with this part. This is the thing on building superstars, building independent superstar leaders. So let's go over and let's talk about that. If you start. Joe, there's a question about when we were talking about when do you really start mentioning this to people, Right. When do you start getting them, like, if they come in and their career is going to be here and you want them to be able to graduate and get somewhere up in this target here so they can graduate out and go their merry way. You were talking about the fact that, like, when do you start talking to them about this stuff right here? Agreed.

Yes, that's right.

And has this been an issue for you? I mean, is this something that has come up in the past because you don't want to wait to the last minute because then they say, oh, my goodness, now you're telling me this, that and the other. So has this been an issue about do you start here or you start there, or does this become a problem or something that you wonder about?

Yeah, yeah, you always wonder about it. Because some people, you do it at different times and you just want to know when's the appropriateness.

I guess it's how you do your business. If I did it, I was always how you look at everybody who comes in the door. I looked at everybody who came in the door as a candidate. It would be like if I was having all of my freshmen come into my university. I assumed I'm going to treat them all like they're going to graduate. Now, if they drop out, fine, but I'm treating them like they're all going to graduate. So I might be talking about the benefits in the beginning to get them in, to get them to enter the program. You're talking about the benefits. And you're not necessarily selling graduate school and all the graduate degrees, but just the great thing of the, like the first degree. And once they learn all the things they could have. And so you're trying to get them to sign up and enter school, but as you get through, this is not the time to talk qualifications to graduate. That's too early in the game. We're just trying to get them starting in the process. We don't know if they're good enough. We don't know. They don't know if they're good enough. They don't know if they want it. But as they move over here, they prove they've got stay in power, they can do some things, now it's the time to get them to start looking up here and say, here's where. Here's what we're preparing you for, and here's how. Why you want that. Because you're going to be able to do this and you're going to be able to do that. It's not like we're going to scold you, but it's like we want you to graduate knowing these things, having done these things, with so much experience, these kind of experience, so that you're going to be tested in life. Life will test you. Like if you're going to be a doctor, lawyer, those kinds of things. There are professional exams, but if you're going to be a business person, life will test you. And you're either going to pass or fail these tests. Don't think you escape because you're an entrepreneur. You're running a McDonald's or a retail store, or you're in, well, real estate. They have exams, too. You get a license to get in real estate, in the insurance and the securities business, but you don't get a test on your sales ability and how much money you're making and all like that. But you sure get it. Life will test you. Life will throw challenges at you and the things you would never expect. Like you. You're having to run your business. You have all these people at various stages of training. You have sales in process, you have all this stuff, highly detailed records and everything. And then Hurricane Sandy comes in and shuts your butt down, right? Just. I mean, there goes the power. Records are wiped out, and you got to deal with that. The regulatory agencies, the clients, everybody expect you to have answers. Am I right, Joey?

No, you're right.

And if you're not prepared, how many times in a week or a month do you have to face situations that you weren't prepared before you graduated out of Frank Dillon's training center?

All the time.

All the time, every day. It's not like, well, once a month something's going to come up every day if you're growing, because when you're growing, you're going in uncharted areas, you're doing more than you've ever done before, and that's the way they are now. They'll go. If they're the way this works out, they're going to leave us and go to uncharted ground. This is just the starting point for them. But we know if we can get them up to this level before they start, they got the best possible chance to go on into outer space and do great things. Whereas if we let them graduate here, it's like graduate getting somebody ready to go to the NFL and we send them to the NFL right out of junior high school. What's going to happen there? Kid's not going to last one play, much less one game, much less have a career. You got a junior high school player, no matter how talented, is not ready for the NFL. You got to go to the high school, go to the college, and if you're with Bessie brighter there, maybe now NFL, maybe another year of prep. But you got to be ready at that point. And that's the way it is ready in business. And we want to get them ready. So the time to start talking about it, I never stopped talking about because I assumed everybody was a candidate. Everybody was a candidate. I didn't know who could win and who couldn't do it. It seemed like if I picked them to win, then they wouldn't win. And it's the ones you didn't pick to surprise you. So you got to treat them all equal, treat them like they have the chance to do it. So you're talking to them. It's kind of like you're getting them ready for their final exam, their graduating exam. Every day, with every circumstance, every situation that came up, Joe, their life now, they were ready to understand how to handle something like that. So you'd say, most of the time, I would be saying to them, say, look, now, when you're an rvp, how do you think you should handle this? All right. And I'd let them talk to me and then say, well, how about this? How about that? Well, what if we did this? Because, see, the easiest way of handling problems is to fire people, have a temper tantrum, go through with a baseball bat, kill everybody who's created a disturbance. And that's a great way to run yourself out of business. That's why people do face plants. Oh, they solve the problem, but they kill everybody in the process. They run everybody away. They get rid of their clients. The mark of a great leader is to be able to solve problems without firing people, without losing clients, without hurting people's feelings, continuing to motor on down the highway. You take a disturbance and you don't turn it into a death sentence. You turn it into. You let it. You minimize a disturbance. You know, you learn how to handle it. You don't ignore it. But certain people could take a problem and make it a hundred times worse. People that are stars in leadership take problems. They handle it and make it go Away. And people have. Pretty soon they're back, and that's in the rear view mirror. They got a smile in their face. They're moving forward. See, those are the people who do great things. And you got to have a confidence about yourself. You got to have a firm foundation. We're trying to give them a firm foundation for this. But if you wait till here, Joe. When they know it's time for me graduate, it's Christmas of my fourth, fifth year in college. It's like, I need to get out of this school. What do I got to pay? What exactly? What am I finding? Exams. And you're saying, and they're thinking they're around this level. You say, oh, no, they're up here. They lose hope. They say, I'll never do it. And then they start jumping up and down and wanting a special exemption to get out or something. And if you do that, okay, I'll let you get out. And then they get Sledgehammer of life hits them the next day. So you're not doing them any favors at all. But you're really not being fair to them if you're not prepared. And talking about this all along the way. Is that helpful, Joe? Kind of give us a summary of what you've heard there.

The biggest part that I like is when do you start teaching them how to resolve the issues? And I like the phrase you use, which is, if you were an RVP now, how would you handle this? And then from there, the mark of a great leader is when you. You can all problems without firing people, getting people upset. That's one of the biggest things that we go through, you know, and I think we're good at it. But I don't think that part right there is probably like right in the middle. Once they become a division leader or we call a team leader, that's when we start teaching them the leadership principles, how to act, how to do this. And this is one of the keys that I gotta slip in there, you know, because we have things and we show them how to resolve conflict. But I like the way you set that up, because the way you set it up is now they're not defensive on it going here, what am I going to do? You know?

Right. In fact, I've had people come in. Most people get it, they understand. But the thing is that some of your greatest leaders are the hardest to control. They're the wild maniac. They get the boiling cauldron of motion. And you have to be able to explain things to them. You're not Going to bully them down. And I've had a few come in. They're impatient. Most great leaders are impatient. They're in a hurry. Bam. I don't want to go to school for four years. How do I get it done in 18 months and get out of this place? And so it's not unusual. Every now and then, one will come in and they get. They're puttering along, let's just say through here, you know, they're puttering along, they're doing good, and they say, bam. You know, they have an explosion. They say, let me out of here. I want to go now. And you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And they come in and they. Depending on their personality, I've had them come in, and they can be frightening. I've had people in my bay shop, Joe, that years later, Art Williams said to me, that guy was the most intimidating person that I met in my life. And this was the president, founder of the company, talking about a trainee inside my office up in North Carolina. And he only saw him occasionally. And he said, you know, Art was almost. He was almost shuddering thinking about how intimidating this guy was. But this particular guy had been a big general manager of a half a dozen car dealerships and everything. So, I mean, he was a powerful guy. But he came in like, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. You're going to promote me right now. I've done enough, you know, in his mind, close enough. Send me to the NFL, you know, And I said, look. And I was shaking. I was shaking. I mean, he rattled my cage. I didn't let him know it. So I talked very slow to him. I said, after he vented and, you know, it was like a lion on the other side of the desk. And I said to him, don't, because I'm certainly not. Don't you. When you're in my position and you actually do earn your promotion, ever let. Ever let someone intimidate you into making a move you know is wrong that they're not ready for? Because if you give in to that, you're sending them out to disaster, and you don't deserve to be their leader. And so when the roles are reversed down the road, Don, don't you ever let anybody ever intimidate you like you're trying to intimidate me right now. And so he got the position. He got. He got the idea and he behaved himself and went back. And eventually he got promoted to RVP and did very well, actually. Moved across the country and had a. Built a fabulous business. And I was thinking about that when I was up on the hill and Rancho Cucamonga or whatever those places are out there, sitting in his hot tub looking out over the valley. And, you know, it all worked out for Don, but it wouldn't have if I'd let him intimidate him. But I use that as an example for him. And those are the training things that where you really make a difference in people's life. Okay, let's move on, and let's talk about how you get them up to that point, how you bring them along month by month by month and train them to where they are ready to go out and perform on a daily, weekly, monthly level. How do you do that? That's what we're going to talk about next.