Dan Sullivan on Listening to Your Customers Instead of Watching Your Competitors

Being good at sales is the great survival skill for an entrepreneur. You've got to be good at selling. Nothing moves if there isn't a sale. And you ask about it, one of the real problems— I'm still the number one salesperson in the company, but it's not knocking on doors, it's not making house calls or anything now. And that's why the publishing has become so important for me.

Mr. Dan Sullivan, welcome to The Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to talk with you about your brand new book, The Greater Game. And here's my first question: why does it feel like we are optimizing for a game that's already ending? I mean, so many small businesses out there are playing a game in today's reality and not really thinking about the future very much?

Yeah, well, I think the biggest reason is that they're watching what other people in their industry are doing and they're trying to establish a set of best practices. Whatever my competitors do, then I'm going to do. And my sense is they're paying attention to the wrong person. It's not your competitors. who are telling you what the future looks like. It's actually your clients. And so, as you know, because you have the experience of Strategic Coach, we have a concept called DOS, D-O-S. And you simply sit down with a prospect to start with and you simply say, you know, if we were having this discussion and it was Let's say a year from now, and you're looking back over the year back to today, what has to happen for you to feel happy with your progress? Okay? So there's only one person on the planet who knows the answer to that question, and it's the person you're talking to. But you fine-tune it by asking, what dangers do you have right now that a year from now you've eliminated the dangers? What opportunities do you have that you need to capture? And what strengths do you already have that you need to maximize them? And it brings out a totally different set of answers. And that those answers that this is an entrepreneur and most of a— and I'm taking for granted here that the person you're talking to is an entrepreneur because—

Yes.

You live in an entrepreneurial world, I live in an entrepreneurial world. So I'm not talking to corporate executives, I'm not talking to people in large corporations, we're talking to people who actually have made a bet on themselves that they can be successful and profitable in the marketplace. So when you repeat back what they tell you, all of a sudden, they're in a mood to buy into the relationship. And the first thing that ever gets sold in any situation in the marketplace is you're buying a relationship. Doesn't matter what the person does, you have to do that. And that makes the relationship between you and the customer unique in the marketplace. You're not offering what your competitors offer. You're actually giving them a chance to identify what their future looks like, and all of a sudden, they want to talk about this because they don't have anyone else to talk to them about. So I would say that's the number one reason, and so in a sense, that relationship that you form with 1 customer, 10 customers, 20 customers, each of them based on a recognition of the dangers, opportunities, and strengths, makes you into an innovator because you've got to come up with a unique solution for their specific DOS issues. So that's— and that's how I've created the program. You know, I started— what's today, the 10th? I think the 10th of August. So on the 15th of August in 1974, I became an entrepreneur coach, and there were no such creatures when I started. So it was 52 years that I've been doing what I'm doing. But during those 52 years, that's been the lens that I look through. And whatever I've done before doesn't really matter. It's what has to happen with this particular customer.

There is so much wisdom and so many things to unpack in what you just said, Dan. So, thank you for that. And thank you for your 52 years of entrepreneurial coaching. As you mentioned, I've spent a couple of years inside of Strategic Coach learning your philosophies and frameworks and models. I just, they've helped my business so much. I'm curious, we started to talk about this before we press record. You know, you've coached so many entrepreneurs now. Let's take a step out of the book for a moment. I'm just wondering, what are the qualities or characteristics that make a successful entrepreneur through the lens that you have today?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is that the The requirement to be courageous never ends.

Okay.

You know, by their very nature, entrepreneurs are doing something that most people don't do. You know, they're looking for some sort of employment, and entrepreneurs are self-employers. Okay. And so there's no backup, there's no safety net. And so they have to be really courageous. They have to Go into situations where they really don't have the capabilities that are going to be required to be useful to this person, so they have to be developed in relationship with a— and I'm focusing that it's an entrepreneur trying to sell to an entrepreneur. So my entire life has been entrepreneurs for the last last half century. And so the corporate world is an unknown world to me. I'm really just interested in one particular type of individual. But there's 2 decisions that I think an entrepreneur makes that for the most part most people don't. And the first one is that they take 100% responsibility for their own financial success. So they're not looking for someone else to create their opportunities. And the other thing is they realize that they can't expect any kind of opportunity until they start creating value first. You have to be useful to the person. And those 2 things are really the You know, the foundation for an entrepreneurial career. And I can remember back, I, you know, I've gone bankrupt twice because I didn't handle receivables well. 1970s, you know, I— you're expecting a 30-day pay and conditions may be that they extend it to 60 days or 90 days. And one of the things I learned is all the money is up front. You get the money up front and that way there's more commitment on their part and there's more commitment on your part. Okay. But what happened— the other thing is what kind of entrepreneur are you? And there's 2 types of entrepreneurs. There's what I would call status and lifestyle entrepreneurs. And the second one are growth entrepreneurs.

Okay.

And at the beginning they look the same. And that is that if you remember your childhood, there were people who were doing a lot better than your parents.

Okay.

So you create sort of a model in the future, you know, want a house that's better, want a neighborhood that's better, want to be a member of clubs that are better. Your children go to better schools and everything like that. And nothing wrong with that. I think that's just built into being human. But the big thing is that what I notice is that some entrepreneurs will grow and grow and grow until their results match that picture that they had, that this is how I'm going to get to, and then they go on cruise control.

Okay.

Then they say, I'm good, you know, and then it becomes more about leisure, it becomes more about lifestyle. And I'm not interested in that type of entrepreneur. I'm interested that once they reach one growth level, immediately they say, okay, now what's the next level? And that's the way I am, you know. And so I'm looking, you know, what great entrepreneurs are looking for is themselves.

I think that's true.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I enjoy being in that Strategic Coach room because I'm around a lot of growth-minded people who are constantly challenging me to become a bigger, better version of myself and continue to look internally. One of the reasons that I signed up, Dan, a few years ago is because I looked at 10 times is easier than 2 times, and I was struggling in the 2 times. I was trying to optimize, optimize, optimize all these tiny little things in the business. And I started to realize that I was looking for and optimizing the wrong things, the wrong constraints, the wrong bottlenecks. And I needed to get around a workshop-type environment where I could work on the business instead of in it. It's tough. When you're the only entrepreneur in your friend group, it's tough. Oh yeah, you're the only entrepreneur in your family to to buy this.

Is that true for you? Is that true?

It is true for me.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would say that that would that'd be totally true for me.

Yeah. And I feel like entrepreneurship can be lonely for a lot of people because of those reasons. And it takes it takes a you know I've always thought of a great mentor, Dan, as somebody who has done what you wanted to do at a bigger level and helped a lot of other people get there. Because just doing the thing doesn't mean you're great at teaching it. And so, I think you're the greatest representation of a business mentor because you've done what I wanted to do, right? You've built this big, healthy, self-managing company, and you've also helped a lot of other people get there. How many people have been through Strategic Coach over the years?

Yeah, I think it's— I think we just passed 25,000. You know, this is your—

37.

I was a one-on-one coach from '74 till '89. And the biggest thing I needed was a great partner. And in '82, so this is 8 years after I started coaching, and I went through, I mentioned I went through to bankruptcies. I also went through a divorce who was a woke person in the 1970s. And everything they're talking about now, she was doing in the 1970s. Nice person, no complaints on that thing. But we were going like this. We were just going like this. And You know, it's scary enough being in the marketplace during the day. It got really scary when I went home at night. And, you know, and I could see for her sake and my sake, we were going to drive each other crazy. And so that was, you know, that was 1978. So it's been a long time. And, but what I began to realize, I did need a partner. I did need a partner, and I met the most marvelous person. Her name's Babs Smith, and we have a division of labor in the company. She runs the company. If you think in theater terms, a live theater, she runs the theater, the building, everything related to actually having a theater, and I'm responsible for what's on stage. So if you—

That's a great metaphor.

Think of being in the workshop in Chicago, that the door of the workshop is the division of labor. Everything on the inside of the workshop is mine, everything on the outside of the workshop is hers. And, you know, we have over 100 team members and we're in 3 countries and we do 600 workshop days a year, but the My part of it is that every quarter, every coach has to have new stuff to coach, you know, so my job is to pump out the new stuff.

What is your Colby A index? I'm curious.

Yeah, I'm a 2.2.10.4.

Wow, a 2.2.10.4.

That's amazing. Yeah, but let me tell you hers. She's a 3.2.9.2.

Oh, really?

Yeah, we're 2 quick coaches. Quick starts.

Yeah, quick starts. I'm a quick start as well, but not as extreme as you. I'm a 5-4-8-3.

Oh yeah, yours is actually a classic entrepreneurial, you know, according to the Kolbe system, you know.

Yeah, that's amazing. Are most people in the coach room somewhere in the quick start playing field? Are they strongest there?

Yeah, I think at the beginning that was totally true because Being good at sales is the great survival skill for an entrepreneur. You've got to be good at selling. Nothing moves if there isn't a sale. And you ask about it, one of the real problems— I'm still the number one salesperson in the company, but it's not knocking on doors, it's not making house calls or anything now. And that's why publishing has become so important for me because a book is a salesperson. So if you get a book and we've done well with our major books, I mean, I think the 3 of them have just crossed a million and that means you got a million salespeople out 24/7 all around the world. So what you have to do is how do you stay a salesperson but as the company grows, How do you maintain still having your salesperson hat on? But the conditions change as the company gets bigger, the role changes. Okay. And so, you know, what's your contact list like? How many people watch your podcast?

Oh, we've had over a million downloads, maybe a couple million at this point.

Yeah.

And we do a million impressions on Instagram every month.

Yeah. Yeah. See there, and that didn't exist when I, you know, when I started, you know, I mean, none of this existed, but one of the big things is you have to continually adjust your, what your salesperson role is. Now, not all entrepreneurs have that profile, but they, they have to then be surrounded by people who are very good at that, but they're the ones who are selling the vision. They're the ones who are selling the message. You're selling, you know, the latest version of the company to everybody who's in your company. So I never forget that I'm the number one salesperson.

That's a great way to think about it. I, when I started this business, I was manually prospecting and setting up calls and then taking the calls and doing all of the follow-up. And eventually I outsourced the business development and appointment setting piece. But I was still taking calls and handling all of the follow-up. And it was actually in a coach session 2 years ago where Adrienne helped me look at the act of selling and hosting a sales call. I told her that was my unique ability, or at least it fell within my unique ability and a representation of it. And she said, well, selling is actually a series of many different tasks under one umbrella. Which pieces of it do you enjoy the most? And I said, well, being on a live call. And she said, can you outsource everything around the live call? And I hired an assistant about a year and a half ago to do that for me. And it's been beautiful. I, I have a testimonial for Coach, which I've given a couple of times, and that's that in year 1, it saved me 500 hours of time because 10 hours a week I was handling follow-up and I got rid of it instantly.

Yeah, a great story. I had a really top real estate agent in Calgary. We started in Canada. Babs and I are Americans, but we started in— we started it— I like Toronto. Toronto suits me. And anyway, and he was in coach, and we went through the whole analysis that Adrian was going through with you. And he said, what do you most like about being real? He says, I like putting the deals together because you have to have— I like the people. Accountants involved, you have to have contractors involved, you have to have lawyers involved. He said, I like putting the whole network of different skills that are involved. And I said to him, well, what do you hate most? He said, showing houses. I just absolutely hate showing houses. So to make a long story short, he hired a woman who was actually an actress. And most actors and actresses spend 90% of their career unemployed. Okay. So, and usually it's at night, you know, usually you're doing evening presentation. And he hired a limousine company and she was a total extrovert. She was a total, you know, people person. She was a total— she considered You know, doing a house showing like putting on a play. And he went from one year— I think it was the third year, not the second year, but the third year. The first year he did about 90 sales, which is huge. Second year he did 220 sales. Third year he did 220 sales. Okay.

Oh, wow.

And just doing what he loved doing. You know, there isn't an entrepreneur that I've met that once you do the analysis of where your energy is, you get all the skills, all the tasks out there, and there might be 10, 15, as you talked about what you were doing. Okay, there's 10 or 15 tasks that end up with a check in the bank, and, um, but you only like doing 3 of them. And I said, Just do the 3 and hire, create roles of other people around you, and that creates the multiplier. The who, not how. The who, not how of the situation. Yeah, and you've done a great job. I mean, you're, you're, you're— I mean, where you are right now, when you started, I mean, you're still a tadpole.

Yes, I am.

Yeah, but you've already made the number one breakthrough, which is the team. Okay, most entrepreneurs have just created a job for themselves. They don't actually have a company.

Well, and that's another one of the reasons that I joined Coach was because I recognize, and by the way, the story is outlined in dozens and dozens of books behind me. That so many entrepreneurs, you're right, they create those golden handcuffs. They build another job and they go from a 9 to 5 to a 24/7. And I wanted to proactively create infrastructure when I'm young so that I don't end up in that position. And I'll tell you what, the average age, uh, of the other entrepreneurs in my workshop is much higher than my age.

How old are you?

I'm 32.

32. I've got 50 years on you.

Yes, you do, which is why I'm asking the questions, not giving you the answers, right? And, you know, I believe somebody like you, I mean, you're creating some of the most valuable resources on the planet. You're condensing decades and decades. I mean, in your case, over half a century of information and life lessons into days of reading for somebody like me. There's nothing better. There's no better investment than a book because I'm getting, I mean, all of the revenue, all of the life lessons, all of the entrepreneurs that have flowed through your business. It's billions and billions of dollars of lessons inside of these books. It really is.

Yeah, but the other thing is, you know, it's a life sentence. You have to, I always tell the entrepreneurs, I said, you know, once you And you've been out now, what would be the number of years really truly since you—

Yeah, I officially left maybe 5 years ago.

Yeah, 5. Yeah, so 5 years. So you were 27. Okay. I can project in the future 40 years and you're still going to be an entrepreneur.

Oh yeah, I'm unemployable now.

No, you've become— there's too big a gap there. You know, it's kind of interesting. I don't hire entrepreneurs. And if they have been entrepreneurs, but we really need this skill, I'll say to them, look, let's be clear about something. You're just taking a rest stop here. Okay. You need cash. So you're going to work for a paycheck for a while. But I can tell you, I can guarantee you, there's going to come a day you say, I got to go out there again. And I said, You're clear about that. I'm clear about that. Just give us your best while you're here.

Hmm. I'm sure you've had some people stick around for a while though. I mean, Adrienne is a good example of that, right?

Yeah, well, Adrienne, you know, Adrienne already had her company when— I mean, that was more or less, you know, she, she and Patrick had created They were already out there in the marketplace, but they were just 2 people in the marketplace. But there's something about the entrepreneur, that independence, that sense of agency, it's their lifeblood. They've got the confidence and then they've got the capability. And the question is, are they in for the long run? I don't think there's anybody in the program who's older than me. You know, I don't know if there's anybody— oh yes, I just— we just had a couple who— we have a cottage north of Toronto and they were up for 4 or 5 days from Chicago. And he's 86 and very excited, very, very excited about what he's doing right now. Yeah, he's been in the coach. But actually, like, He started 35 years ago. He's been there every quarter for 35 years.

Dan, I'd actually like to ask you about your age. So you're the second 82-year-old that's been on the podcast. Steven Pressfield, author of The World of Words.

Oh, Steven. Joe Polish and I did a— Joe knows him better than I did, but he was a great, great Podcast with Steven Yeun.

Yeah, he's amazing. I've spent a lot of time with him. He spoke at one of my last events. And, and, uh, but I'm very impressed by you knowing your age. I mean, nobody would ever guess that you're 82 years old. What are some of the things that you've done to stay fresh? And I mean that from a cognitive bandwidth perspective. I mean, you're still so articulate. You love your business. You show up, you're building, you're still in growth mode. What are some of the things that you do? Whether it's part of your routine or diet or supplements. I'm just curious.

Yeah. Well, you've read the book. I suspect you've read My Plan for Living to 156.

Yeah.

And this is— it kind of shows you how ideas get developed in Strategic Coach. So in 1987, so it'll be 40 years next year, I was watching television program that was interviewing people who had been born in 1900 who had the goal to live to 2000. So, complete century. You know, so it would be 100 years. And, you know, they talked about the history of the, you know, the 20th century was a very tumultuous, very tumultuous century. And so, I was sitting there and I said, boy, that would really be neat. to be born in the first year of a calendar century and make it through 100 years. And I was born in '44, 1944. The invasion of Normandy was the big event of the year, Second World War. I was born 2 weeks before Normandy. And I said, so, you know, I got shortchanged. I only got 56 years out of the 20th century. So I said, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do it in the 21st century. So it'll be 56 from the 20th and 100 in the 21st century. It was a weird thought, you know, it was a whimsical thought. So I set myself a task, and that is every time I think of my lifetime, I'm going to say the number 156. And it took me about 2 years, 2 years, you know, Okay, thinking how long you're going to live, 156. And that just came to me naturally. And what I noticed is that just making that thought a real thought in my brain actually relaxed me in the moment because, you know, statistically it's 78, 80 is the average life thing. And what I noticed is that A lot of people who get into their 60s or 70s, they're very anxious about it because they feel they're running out of time and there's initiatives they'd like to take on and they don't do it because they don't have enough time. And what I was noticing is that I was being very relaxed. I could commit myself to longer and longer projects just because I had this number 156. So 3 years in, I told Babs about it. She's 7 years younger. And she thought about it a couple minutes. She came back, so mine's 149, because she's 7 years. So I said, good, good, we've got that handled. And then I created a tool, a thinking tool for the workshop, and I tried it out on a top group, and the room went crazy. The room went crazy.

Wow.

And so we've been doing it ever since. But what that thought does— your actions are determined by your thoughts, okay? So if you're committed to a particular idea, then your actions start to take on direction from the thing that you're thinking. And fortunately, in the last 10, 15 years, we've just hit the golden age of regenerative medicine. So, I'll just tell you 2 things that Babs and I are doing right now. We came across a doctor— there's a great coach client by the name of Richard Rossi. who's created a mastermind in longevity. So, he has 3 big meetings a year, and he invites scientists in who are, you know, who are— it started off as longevity, but now the word is age reversal. Okay. And all the therapies, the new drugs, the new procedures that you can do, So, we had been doing this on our own, but he gave us more of a curated experience. In the first meeting that we went to, we met this phenomenal scientist from Buenos Aires in Argentina who's a stem cell. He's a stem cell, and they use your stem cells. So, it's your fat cells. Fortunately, I have enough, and white blood cells. And he can turn it into any other cell in your body. And then he injects it in you, this transformed cell, and it corrects and revitalizes any cell in your body. And I had a knee injury 50 years ago where my— I was now bone on bone in my left knee. And now, 3 years later, I have a complete cartilage.

Wow.

It's as good as the cartilage I was born with.

Okay.

But not only that, but we do brain stem cells, vascular system stem cells. And anyway, and that's the first thing I'm gonna tell you is this doctor, we do it 3 times a year. It's a week each time. So you gotta have the time to do something like this and you gotta have the money to do it. But the other one is a phenomenal doctor out of Nashville. And I met Rory, your great friend Rory, because he'll only do an interview with you if you're in Nashville. So fortunately, the clinic where we were at is only about 2 miles from where Rory lives. So we were able to set it up. And he does a process which is called plasma transfer. And that is you have 2 IVs, one left, one right. The blood goes out, one goes through a centrifuge. And they take all the plasma out of your blood, which is old stuff in your blood, and it replaces it with new plasma. And I've done that 16 times over the last 3 or 4 years. And what happens if you do this procedure, you're getting fresh new blood, which means that the oxygen gets to the brain, it gets to all the other cells really. And then there's a lot of things, there's lots of testing and everything else, but those are the 2 main things. And I would say in the last 3 years that if you did all the tests 3 years ago, my physical age at age 78 would have been 73. I was in good shape, I've always worked out, we eat properly. Babs is a great influence for me, she's very, very into health. But now, I'm down to 59. So, I've dropped 14 years just according to the test. You know, they're testing you at a greater population.

Yeah, I've done the biological.

Yeah, but my energy is— there wasn't a time in the past where I'm more energized than I am now. But it really showed up in the cognitive tests. My cognitive tests are probably the best they've ever been right now. You know, I'm in— Really, and the clients notice it. I mean, you know, four or five years ago they were saying Dan is slowing down. You know, Dan is starting losing it. You know, is he still okay? And everything. And now, now, now there's a lot of positive feedback, and I've sent a lot of people to those two clinics who are—it's really your brain. You really want your brain to be. In Topshop, your brain's your business. Yeah, that's a fact. Yeah, it's your ambition, your ambition, your interest in new things, all a function of having a great brain.

I was just talking with my parents about that last night. We always do a Sunday night dinner at their house. They live about half an hour from me and my siblings. So, we were just talking about that the other night. I mean, I'm so interested in age. reversal. I've had, uh, some amazing scientists on this podcast talking about their books, like Dr. David Sinclair, who wrote Lifespan, so many other amazing people.

Yeah.

Um, Dan, we'll have to do another podcast because we've got a hard stop in a couple of minutes, and there are so many more concepts from The Greater Game that I want to talk about. Can we just— can you give the audience just one final thought about the book? And of course, I'll put the link Yeah.

Well, this is one of my partnership books. I had the 3 with Ben Hardy and John Bowen is probably the greatest coach for the type of financial advisors in the world who have customers that are $50 million, $100 million, $500 million. And they approach the marketplace very differently. So John's been in the program for 17 years. He's been a coach. And we don't compete at all. I don't go after the financial markets at all right now, but his is totally— so he's talking, he bought a research company and I was very interested. So we do 500 new entrepreneurs every month. And we find out we've got a structure of, are they doing this, are they doing that? And what we found is that there's like a 5% of entrepreneurs, including the financial advisors, who are operating at 100 times level. And everybody else is operating, as you say, sort of at 2 times level. And we're showing them there's a series of thoughts, there's a series of concepts, there's a series of strategies that over a period of time you can take everything you've done that made you successful and you can multiply it through a new way of approaching. And we call it the Greater Game, and there's 10 fundamental mindsets that you have to have. So we go through and then we give great examples of people who are operating in the kind of success they have. And we're just living in the sweet spot of history right now. And I think that there's just— and if you're in the States, this is especially true. The United States is about— is right now going into warp drive. And you can see the, you know, you know, the whole political, the whole political structure, the economic structure, technology structure and everything is radically changing right now. And it's— It's a bit like catching the current. There's just a lot of things in the larger world that are going in the right direction, but you've got to be seaworthy as an entrepreneur to take the advantage of enormous multipliers that are in there. So we thought we'd write a book about it. That's with Hay House. Hay House did it. We're thinking about it as a 25-year project, so that would take me to 107, and John's in his 70s. But it's great collaboration. I'm looking for great collaborations, and I consider what we're doing, what you and I are doing here, to be a collaboration. So It's really great. And it just came out in May and it's doing very, very well. You know, we're in the— you know, bestseller is 10,000 and we had that on the first day. So, you know, we're moving very, very quickly on it. But I love it. You know, I just— you know, I'm more excited about what I'm doing and I'm more excited about— What you're doing. the way the world is going now than at any time during my first 52 years.

That's amazing to hear. And not a surprise that the book is doing well. Your books, they all do well because people read them, they implement them, they actually create positive change, and then they can't stop talking about it. I know that's what's happened to me with so many of your books. And I love the number 107 because I was born in 1993. And so, to see the year 2100, I have to do at least 107 years. That'll be— that's easy.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think your body obeys your brain, you know, and if you have a goal and it becomes a natural habit for you to think in those terms, your body will respond to it. I mean, the body doesn't wear out. People's mindset wears out. And if you keep your mindset fresh and renewed and rejuvenated, your body will, your body will follow suit.

Well, Dan, this has been a lot of fun for me and many years in the making mentally because I've been such a fan of your books and a member of Coach now for a couple of years. So I just want to thank you for spending some time with me today. And of course, we'll have to have you back to do a deeper dive on IP as well as The next book, which will come out in November, you said?

November 19th. I think it's November 19th. The Hay House book. It's the Hay House. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you so much for the, for the time today, Dan.

Thank you, Nick. A real pleasure.