Why Leadership is the Most Important Skill You Can Learn with Andy Elliott
Natalie Jill interviews Andy Elliott about leadership and building a successful team. Elliott grew up in difficult circumstances and now emphasizes integrity, health, and mentorship as core to his approach. The conversation covers his path to becoming a leader and what shaped his values.
I'm Natalie Jill here, and I can't wait to do this episode of Midlife Conversations. And I'm doing it live in Scottsdale with Andy Elliott. Because I found you recently on social media and you had this one clip and you were speaking into abs. And I know it was taken out of context, but you were speaking into. You said, you cannot work for me. I don't hire people. I don't let people into my space if they don't have a six pack. And as you were saying it, I thought, okay, the trolls are going to come out, the haters are going to come out.
Yeah.
But it sucked me in because there was something you were saying that was so on point and so. Right. So I. I couldn't wait to dive in and interview you more.
Yeah. So. So, number one, I'm. I'm super grateful. And I just want to say, like, hopefully, if you really want to grow, like, pay attention for a minute. Because how we've built our business is by telling the truth, right? And a lot of people don't want to tell the truth anymore because the truth hurts. It sucks. Me and my wife, one day, we wanted to get out of debt, right? And she sat down, she pulled the bank account, bank statement, she went over the last 30 to 60 days of spending. And I was actually the problem. And I didn't want to own that. It's very hard. Ego gets in the way. So when I said, six packer, you're fired, I knew that it would piss off anybody that wasn't a 1 percenter or wasn't striving to be the best for their family, which really upsets me because there's a lot of people that are dying today that would love to trade spots with you. I mean, they would love to get another shot at life. And you're. You're just taking advantage of it. I believe that it's our job for our children to be their heroes. I believe it's our job for a man, or even woman, for our spouse or husband or wife to admire us, look up to us. Shouldn't we be the example? My wife is my battle mate. I mean, she's my queen, but she's my battle mate. Mate, like, we go through war together in life. You know how it is. It's you and your husband against the world. So in business, I'm like, man, if you want to kill it. And at the time I said, six packer, you're fired. I said, if you can recruit someone on my team, I'll give you 10 million cash. I've got 100 employees here in my company. I said, if you can recruit somebody. My team doesn't work for me for money. They work for me because of our core beliefs and our values. What is our goal? Our goal is to be examples to the world and be mentors that we can have it all. Everybody watching this, a lot of people have been sold a lie and they've had a bad leader at some point and they're one dimensional. What that means is, man, you know, you could have success, but you can't have success and also be close to your husband. That doesn't exist because it's either you or us. Or you can have money, you can be close to your husband, but you can't get all the time with your kids you need. Or, hey, you can be close to your husband, you can make a lot of money, you can be close to your kids, but there's no way you have time to stay in shape. That doesn't exist. Well, dude, I believe you can be close to God. I believe that you can be shredded and ripped. I believe you can make all the freaking money in the world that you want. I believe you can be a great leader. I believe your wife can admire you, and I believe your children could choose you as a hero. And I believe you can look in the freaking mirror and like who you freaking see. Because a lot of people, the reason why there's so much depression and crap and also, Six packer, you're fired. My company is a coaching company. So we inspire people to go tell them that they can have a better life. Well, how in the heck can we tell people that if we're not taking care of ourselves? I refuse to have frauds work for me. And I know a lot of companies don't mind a fraud working for them. 99% of the companies in this world walk around on eggshells around employees that don't believe in the company and they're only working for them for a check. And if somebody was to offer more money, they'd quit. So I just want to say that the context and when I said that was, I have an unrecruitable sales team and my team doesn't work for money. They work for blood, sweat and tears. Not for a paycheck, but for a leader they believe in that we can have it all and not be one dimensional. And in life, I try to teach, like earning it all. And I. You're big in the fitness world of teaching people to have their best life with fitness. You Know how. And I don't know if it's just women and men. Are they a lot of women?
Mostly women, yeah.
Okay. How many women would treat their husbands better? Truly be better? Mothers crush it in life if they would just go put themselves first and go get.
Go get in every single one of them.
Everyone.
Every single one of them.
And dude, and most of the time, women become slaves once they have kids. And I'm not saying they're slaves. They become slaves to their children. Their children don't look up to them anymore because they pick up their crap all day long and they're not even respected. Then when their husband comes home, he says, hey, babe, go. Gives the kid a kiss, says, what's. What's to eat? Because you haven't gotten dressed in months, your hair's up in a ponytail. You don't take care of yourself no more. Listen, you want him to come in and be like, guess what? Go get your butt in the gym. Go take care of yourself. And all of a sudden, damn, hey, babe, what's up? Like, you look interesting today. Like, all of a sudden you get his attention again. Now all of a sudden, your children start looking up to you again. So I just wanted to say, like, man, like my wife, dude, the minute she started taking care of her health again, I was like, what? Like, what's going on? No, because. Because I forgot, man, because she took such good care of us on accident, we stopped paying attention to her and we just expected this, like, serve us deal. And dude, when she, My wife said, screw this shit, she's like, I'm gonna go put myself first. And when she did, dude, the kids look at her different. I look at her different. She loves who she is. Now she's killing it in business. It's like, dude, like, you know, you talk fitness, but, like, you go put yourself first. And if you don't love yourself, you're going to love anybody else, man.
So I just learned so much about you in just this one little segment. One of the first things I wanted to ask you is just about your background in sales and how you got into it. But just in this conversation, I think I have you to a T. So I'm going to. I'm going to pull some questions from you. So first and foremost, like, you get people. It's clear to me you. You fully get people. Have you always understood this? Have you always understood how to and get people? Or is this something that you had to teach yourself? Where did this come from?
No. So I think every single thing that I've built is by not having. As a kid, I literally had no love, right? Mom left when I was two. Five brothers and sisters. Jerry Springer show raised poor. Hey, it's not a victim story. It's just like, dude, like life sucked. There was, there was. I. I thought I was a loser. I probably was a loser. At 18, I got in sales. My first day on the job, I made 1700 bucks. I'm like, okay, this is going to change my freaking life. So I'm going to self develop. I'm going to learn to speak, talk. I'm going to learn to be a pro, not an amateur. I'm going to start learning how to communicate with people, right? Well, along the way I had a leader and he told me, he goes, do listen to me because when I was younger I was in shape. And he goes, if you're going to make a lot of money, you ain't got time for the gym. Like that doesn't like, like you got to choose, dude, one or the other, okay? Because you can't be at work wanting to make all this money and take over the world, then also be at the gym like kids. So I started to let my health slide. And what I learned is that my performance always slipped whenever I wasn't working out. Dude, the confidence I would have to go in and sell and talk to a customer, go out and shake a hand and have a bicep vein or be lean and you know, like, like that confidence, like, it made me more money. As I stopped going to the gym, dude, I was losing money, working harder and I started to get burned out.
Yeah.
And that's when I realized that, dude, people don't burn out, they lose their purpose. Like, dude, I forgot that, like I wanted to be great and making money. It fixed like, yeah, I have a Corvette now when I was a kid. Now I have a nice house. But dude, I don't even like me anymore. So did I always get people? No, dude, I just remember, dude, everybody was telling me that you can't have this, you can't have that. But sales is a learned skill. I don't think that salespeople are born. I think they're made. I think that anybody right now that can learn to communicate or articulate the words, learn new language, look at people in the eye, be loving and nice, put people in a good state. I think those people can get rich really easy.
I'm curious about this victim mentality thing that you never had. You said you had Jerry Springer style childhood. You know, all these things what makes some people get so sucked into the circumstances and the victimhood and why they can't. Where you really turn that into fuel to make you better and stronger and help so many other people.
Yeah. So we're just going to go to common sense. So if you have a piece of paper writing on Common Sense, if your dad beat the hell out of you as a kid, would you beat the hell out of your kids?
I think some would.
No, but that's so stupid. That's the stupidest. That my mom is an alcoholic. Why would I want to go drink non stop to be crappy to, to my family like she was to me. It's like, it's like people just need to learn. Like, dude, listen to me. Like, I had a bad leader, so I've never had a good leader. I just had a lot of bad ones. So I thought, well, if I don't get. If I can't get a good one and say people like, hey, how did you learn all this? I wish I could say, dude, it was this guy. He trained me. No, that guy taught me all the bad stuff. So I knew that doing it this way was doing it right. I know that doing this was wrong and doing it this way was right. I knew that that burned people. So doing it this way didn't burn people. Dude, it's like, it's brilliant that you.
Did this, but you do see that the world's divided on here. You see that some people fall into the same pattern and copy it.
Yeah. So if. But that's called self sabotage. Right? Like so anybody. So number one, doubt is a traitor. Okay? The number one reason why people don't make it in this world is because of themselves. You, you didn't do it, okay? Their family didn't do. They did it. They formed some kind of identity in their head who they are. They labeled themselves. They did. They were sold a lie. The devil sold them a lie. Who they were when it, when a lie becomes real, it's real now and then, now that they're living a lie. So, dude, when my mom was an alcoholic, like, I'm not going to be that way. I can go drink, but I would never drink to be an alcoholic. Dude. My mom's married seven times. My dad's been married four times. What does that mean? That means, dude, I'm never getting divorced. I'm just not. Like me and my wife, if you treat something like it's the beginning, they'll never be an end. Like, I treat her like it's day one every Freaking day. Like, if anybody's watching this, wanted a better marriage, just try that. Like, boom, you're back together. It's that simple. But my point is the victimhood mentality. There's really nothing to negotiate with. Do you want the people that you love to go through the same crap you went through? If the answer is yes, go ahead, self sabotage your life. Put them through hell. You're gonna regret it. Or if you're like, no, of course I don't want the people I love to go through this, then change.
Yeah.
Like, you make it so simple, so black. And I love that thinking. It's so interesting how people have such a challenging time.
It.
Do you think that we need more people, more leaders like you that don't tolerate it? Because I. What I hear from you is, there's no room for that victim story. There's, like, I can't see anyone sitting here telling you their victim story because you would. You would squash it right back. You're not gonna.
Because. So it's like this. Like, imagine this. You know how an Instagram real. You play it, and then it immediately starts over again.
Yes.
And then starts over again. Then starts over again. So I believe in something called total recreation, which means, like, in the Bible, and whether you believe in God or not, it says, the old is gone, the new has come. Right. Like, just recreate, just change. Like, dude, if you don't want to be who you are, go find someone that is like you want to be and then just go emulate them.
Yeah.
And I've done it so many times in my life, man. You know, I've got a vision board at home. Right. And everything I've ever wanted, I just go and find someone that has what I want. And then I just study them, and I think how they really. I steal the way people think.
Sure.
I think anybody watching this right now, if you want to really change, like. Like. Like, if I looked up to you, I would just steal the way you think I'd be like, dude, I don't like the way I think.
It's like, what would Andy think? What would he do?
What would Jesus do? Bracelets. Like, I would say, like. Like, I just want to steal the way she thinks. Like, I watch her with her husband. I see the way that she works out. She seems happy. I see that they have a business whether you had money or not. That doesn't mean you look happy. Like, I want to be happy too. Okay, I'm gonna do what you do.
Yeah.
I'm gonna treat people nice. I'm gonna smile a lot. I'm not gonna say negative things. Like, I'm just. I'm gonna master my mouth. I'm gonna not let people take up space in my head. Being plugged in to good stuff all the time is the key to winning. It is 20, 23.
Yeah.
I mean, dude, we have access to more stuff right now to become great than ever before.
Like, it's true.
Like, dude. And by the way, people can pay to be close to you, right?
Of course.
Like. Like, when did that ever exist before? But before, if you. I'm just gonna give you an example. Like, if I want to be close to a Hollywood actor, you can't get close to these people. And they're not real. They do movies which are fake, but. But you couldn't be close to them. Now, real business people that have real lives, that share how they really build amazing lives, you can reach out to them, you can pay a little money and you can let them train you.
You could be in their mentorship, you could be in their coaching, you could be in there.
You can retrain the way they think. Because you weren't always who you were. I want to tell you, anybody watching this, like, I wasn't always who I was. There was a time, honestly, that I was disgusted. I was sick of who I was. Matter of fact, I've recreated at least six times in my life. And my last time was 39. I'm 40. I'm going to be 44 now at 39. Dude. I literally sat there and looked in the mirror and I was like, dude, I do not want to be this person anymore. And I remember my wife, okay? My wife knows how to trigger me better than anybody, okay?
Wives know that stuff.
Yeah, damn right they do. And she's my best friend, right? And. And I trust her. Like, I need everybody to understand this, like, trust. It's like my. Like, trust is a big deal, okay? Like, if your husband tells you something, it's because it's because he knows you trust him. And he wouldn't never tell you anything to hurt you. He would tell you something because he knows that you're better than that or that you strive to be a higher standard than this, and that's his job to tell it to you. And, like, sometimes he'll hurt your feelings. Not intentionally, but because he knows that he's made a commitment to not let you fall below where you want to be.
Right?
And he's your best friend. Isn't that what best friends do?
That's right.
Yeah. And it sucks. This part of the truth sucks. My wife, when I was 39 years old, she reaches over, she grabs my love handle. At this point, I probably had like 15% body fat for a guy. I had been making a lot of money. I was doing my deal. I lost my edge again. And she knew I wasn't the husband. I'm a great husband, better than most. Not the husband she knew I could be, not the dad she knew I could be, not the man that I wanted to be. And you know what? She grabbed my love handle and she just said this. She goes, we getting a little comfortable. And dude, I remember I was like, oh, my God. And dude, I got mad. I got pissed off. And then I realized that was my ego. And then I realized that my wife loves me more than anybody in the world. You know what? She knows me. She knows if I was in elite shape, I'd be smashing all these other areas. You know what? I did swear, and I'm not telling anybody to do this, but I quit my job, I started my own business, took control of my life. You guys all have control of your life. I hate when people say, I just don't have any time. Change it then. I mean, just freaking change it. Like, let's quit whining about it. I changed it. We went, we had a million dollar house and my wife's a beautiful house in Oklahoma, which a million would go a long way in Oklahoma. I think you live in California. I live in Scottsdale.
More than San Diego?
No, no, that's like. That's like 15 million. And Scottsdale or San Diego, but it's like a million in Oklahoma. And anyways, my wife goes, done. I support you. What do you want to do? And I said, I want to get in elite shape. I want to be the man for you. I want to start our own business and I want to be a coach. I'm sick of doing this crap. I'm sick of it. I want to open a sales training company. And in three years, we built a nine figure business. Now, I want to explain this to you. This is the craziest stuff. I worked out twice a day. I went absolutely dark. I went crazy. The crazier I got, the more we grew.
Wow.
We sold our house. We went into a 1200 square foot place, me and her. We sold all our furniture. We literally got three beautiful, beautiful kids. We slept on mattresses. We didn't tell anybody. Most people complain too soon. When you want to change your life, don't complain to anybody. Go through the journey with the people that you love and keep your mouth shut. You'll tell your story later. We built this business.
So wait, let me. I want to understand this. So you. You knew you wanted something else and you were gonna put yourself in a situation to get there, but you said you didn't tell anybody else. So were you clear on where you were headed? Or you just knew you wanted something better? And when you said, I didn't tell anyone, that kind of goes against anything we do with goals or vision, where you declare it and you tell people.
Yeah. So let me explain this. When you decide to make a paradigm shift in your life and change everything, okay, you're going to have to start over. And when you start over, my. Start over me. My. In this. In this journey, I've run about 6,7% body fat now. I run super lean. My wife runs the same. My whole. It's just. It's a whole new life.
Yeah.
We're making more money than we've ever made. Our team is on fire, impacting all kinds of people. Going freaking nuts. How did all this happen? Well, decided to choose health over money. This is a tough one. Okay? If I told anybody right now, I said, you want to get rich? Put your health first. Have the courage, like I did. You don't have to quit your job. I already said that. I'm not asking anybody to quit their job. I wanted to change my life. I was working from 7 in the morning to 11 at night is never going to change. Okay. But I had the courage to say, hey, babe, you know, if I. Because I'm not doing this anymore. If I go to do something else, like, it's going to take me some time, right? And she goes, we're good. As long as I know that you're serious and you're going to take your family with you. Like, you're not going to go, hey, babe, trust me. I'm going to go do this for three years. Wait until you see what happens.
Yeah.
No, no. I said, babe, I need you to support me. I need you to be there with me. I always screw up when we don't make decisions together. She said, done. And it was actually my wife's idea. She said, done. We'll get rid of the house. We don't need it. She goes, we're in a reset. And guess what, dude? She's a CEO of our company. She runs everything. She's in charge. She handles everything. And it wasn't made. That decision wasn't made that day. She's a way better leader. Than me. And I'm good, but she's crazy good. But I chose health over money, and I led our family as the man. Right. My wife's an alpha. Like, you're an alpha, right?
I am.
But also, you want your husband to leave. Like, you know, I'm saying, like, my wife, she. She wouldn't want me if I was a pushover.
Yeah, I wouldn't want my husband that way either.
Yeah, exactly. So, like. So, like, she's an alpha, but she still wanted us to lead. So I decided to get heavily in fitness. I took her with me. I started making her, you know, grind with me. And, dude, she was a normal. I'm gonna say normal house mom, right? Because she's smart. She used to be in business, but she raised three kids. And now she's coming into business with me. She's working out with me. We're starting this thing together, dude. Once we chose health over money, everything freaking changed. And me and her got close. We truly became best friends. And then guess what happened? Business, kids, getting close to God, killing it with everything. We're marriage millionaires. And since without even a dollar, like, we just love each other so much, and, dude, we became unstoppable.
So how. When. So many questions now, but how did you know about what you're creating here with your business? Like, where did that go?
We knew it was going to be sales training for sure. I made a lot of money in sales, you know, when I was young, when I was really young. I'm like, 23, 24. I broke the record in the United States for most money made as a car salesman. When I was a kid, I made. I just did a lot of cool stuff in sales. I love teaching people about sales. Once you get really good at something, like, you're very fit. But now you love teaching fitness. Now also you love teaching mindset, which mindset is a blend of fitness and sales. Oh, and sales. So my point is. But whatever you love, you teach, right?
For sure.
And that was the deal. Like, I, like, noticed that a lot of people, they weren't making the kind of money they could make. Two things that'll get you rich. Sales and leadership. I love sales and leadership, and I just wanted to teach those two things. I didn't know if I was qualified to do it. I never really stepped on.
So you never knew how you were going to teach it. You just knew that was your vision.
I did it in companies, Right, that would have 50 to 100 employees, but never on a scale which goes social media.
Yeah.
I get on social media. I literally have never been on a camera. I didn't even have a social media account. I had no idea what I was doing. There was a guy named Bradley who is my brother.
I know him.
When I see my brother, like. Like, I met him and I was like, dude, I want this guy to mentor me. I got around him. I bought his training platform. I grabbed his platform to upload my training. I got as close to him as I could.
So smart.
Now we're best friends. Now we run everywhere together. My family's just with him all week, and we go on vacations. We do everything together. It's like, dude, like, you have no idea. If you want something, pursue it like crazy. But social media, we've. We've destroyed social media. And we built our entire business on no ads. All organic, social.
I love that about you. That's how I found you. I found you from that. Talk to me about. You've mentioned faith a few times. Where did that play a role and did that help change and elevate you, do you think?
Yeah. So 2011, gave my life to God. Went about three years straight. Didn't cuss, didn't do nothing. I wanted to be a preacher. I used to buy these prayer changes things, bracelets, thousands of them. I'd hand them out in the gas station. And I just realized, man, that I was too raw, I was too wild. I probably get thrown out of every church that I got in. And I mean, like, for real. Like, I. I just. And. And only because, like, that's not my style. Sometimes I'll cuss. Sometimes I'm a loose cannon, you know? But, dude, like, I'm like, perfect the way God made me. But I'm not. I'm not the typical in church mouth. I like to be direct. I don't care. You know, I want to get my point across. If I see somebody is, like, hurting, like, I'm not. I'm not going to walk on eggshells around you. I just want to be like, dude, let's change this. This is the problem. Here's the solution. Let's fix it, right? And people don't like that. So I started a ministry. You have a ministry, whether you believe it or not, dude, you save more people than some churches. We are the church, okay? People say, well, I've heard you cuss. This guy's a hypocrite. Bull. Dude, I know a lot of people. The perfect mouth and a bad heart, okay? God knows the heart. I got a great heart. Sometimes I got A bad mouth. When I get pissed off and I want stuff to change, sometimes I start flying out things that I don't want to say. But dude, it's just. That's my style, okay. And that's why I didn't go to a church. So I said, you know what? We're going to open the Elliot Group. We're literally going to show people massive amounts of love. We're going to teach them how to operate businesses. We're going to make sure that they can be close to their families and just crush it and be the top 1% in their industry. We started automotive, then we niched out to all industries. But the biggest thing is that I think that with God, God's number one and you know, I try to tell people a lot of times that God is number one. I think that this is a ministry, you know, we train about 500, 000 salespeople. So it's a lot of people. We have 500, 000 people on our training system right now. We can actively count. And you know, it's like, dude, that's the church, man. Yeah, it's a church. And, and I tell everybody, hey, go find your. Go find, you know, your own church.
And you're teaching a way of being all the time.
So, yeah, leading by example is everything. Yeah. By the way, we're in an era where people know exactly what to say, but they don't do what they say.
That's right.
You know, I'm saying. So I just say like, if you want to find a mentor or, you know, in the era of the greatest influencers ever and everybody's trying to be an influencer, just watch what people do and that's the biggest thing.
So when you look at your. I think you're a phenomenal leader. Obviously you've built this. You have people just coming in to interview today. Your whole team is greeting us with hugs and showing us around. They're so proud of what you've built and working with you and, and all that, it's.
It's great.
Quite epic. When you look at leadership, what do you think makes you a good leader? Obviously, you're very direct and you're. But what do you. What would you describe as what's made you a good leader?
Well, to me, leading by example is huge. And so it's like this. If you're going to come work for me, number one, I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do. Right, That's. Well, first of all, let's let's go back to day one, right? I meet you, I'm like, hey, what's going on? I mean, you're my coaching program. I would only hire you out of my coaching program because I would want to watch develop in my coaching program. And then I would be like, oh, this is a person. That's for me. Day one. I would say, number one, what makes you a good leader is that if I ever lie to you just once, leave. Get out of here. If I lie to you one time, wow. So, number one, I'm held accountable to never lie to you. That's number one. Number two, loyalty is everything to me. My biggest weakness is betrayal. I hate betrayal. I hate it. So when I built this business, I tell people, I'm going to tell you my weakness up front. Betrayal. So if you want to come work for me, I'm going to treat you like my wife, like I give her everything. I'm only going to have one. If something better comes along, I don't care. She's my girl. She's my baby girl. I'm gonna die with her. I want to know if I tr. If I treat you great, if I take care of you, if I bring you in to the brotherhood, do I treat you like family? Like, are you gonna die with us? Like, because if you. Like, I want to be here for five years, but I'm gonna start my own business. I don't want to invest five years.
No.
Okay. Like, I want to be with people that want to build something special with me. I want to build. I want to be with people that want to build an empire, something cool.
You know, which is something you've totally done and you're continuing to do. How did you get those first few people? Like, if you think about, like, when you first started this vision, was it. How long did it take you to understand, like, this is who I need. This is who I want. This is the right people to surround myself with.
Yeah. So number one is finding people who believe what you believe is big. And since I have a coaching program, it's a little unfair for me to most companies, because I have people that train, and then I'll teach them, and then they'll go back home, and then they change, and then they come back 30 days later, and I can see if they have changed. And when I see them keep coming back and changing, then I'm like, man, he's one of us.
Right?
You know I'm saying? And then I'm like, hey, we need this guy, because he's not A fraud. He's real. But I would tell you, almost anybody, if you want to hire people that are like you, I believe that those that suffer together, right. You can tell who your people are. So we do these workouts all the time with our team. Every morning we do big workouts. Right. Even to this day, we still do them every day. And when I have people come in, I do a 10, 15 day trial with them. Okay. Which means I'm not going to hire you. I just want you to come in. I want to introduce you to my clientele. I want you to make some calls. I'm going to train you. I'll see how you grow. And I want to. I want to suffer with you. I want to grind. And, you know, we'll do like seven minutes of hell, like on burpees, right? And I'm just going, dude, going, going, going, going. My wife's sick. She's psycho. We're going. And we're intentionally trying to break people to see if they're going to quit and if they'll just throw up on themselves and keep going, they're in. No, because I don't want people to quit when it's. When it's.
When it's tough and, you know, the reality is it can get hard.
Yeah. So you ask, how did we build foundation of the Elliott Group? The build is the. Yeah, it's the hardest thing. There wasn't a lot of leads. You know, you know how it goes. In the beginning, it's hard. You don't know where things are going to happen. You're really unsure how much you can pay your people. There's a lot of uncertainties. But these people, they moved across the country, they didn't ask about pay and they just said, look, dude, we want to build this with you. We know this is going to go somewhere. We understand the mission, and we're in. And so my first level of loyalty in our company came from people believing in the mission. And honestly, dude, like, any company in the world, any company that wants to build something special, don't go out and try to recruit the best talent. Go find people who believe what you believe. I love broken people. I'm gonna tell you, if somebody's listening and they're broken, you're dangerous. Like, your wounds will turn into your weapons. I hire broken people. And they're. They're the greatest, man. People that honestly have been let down and betrayed. If you can invest in them, show them love, help them create a new identity, dude, they're with you until they Die. They will never leave you. My wife was the first person to believe in me. Like, I knew, like, when she believed in me, I saw a level of belief I've never saw myself. I cannot be without her. That's how a lot of my team is with us, because we've made sure that we've shown them that. That crazy love.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
It's interesting. As I'm talking to you, I'm realizing this. You know, I initially, initially came in thinking, okay, I'm going to interview him more about sales. I want to understand how he got so strong in Sal. But what I'm seeing is this commonality. It doesn't matter if I'm interviewing a preacher or somebody top of their game with fitness or top of their game with sales or somebody in that teaches speaking, whatever. The commonality I see is this strong ability to lead. That's really what it is. And you said that earlier. It's truly leadership. I think you could teach, honestly, anything, and you could run a company with any topic, and it's your leadership that would bring it to the top level.
That's it, man. We're in the world. We're in an era of the worst leader in the history of time. Like, and that's why, like, you may think sometimes, like, you're running a business or you're being an influencer, notice you're actually making more leaders. Like, the people that are watching you, they're just becoming a better leader. Like, that's what we're doing. Like, when I train people, I'm teaching them the catch, the bait, the hook is money. I'm like, you want to make more money? Hey, click here. But really what I'm doing is I'm like, click here. And as I'm teaching you maybe a word track to sell, close, negotiate, I'm actually telling you also, at the end of the day, like, you're learning all this, you can also go teach it to other people. Right? Like, you're a leader, okay? Like, you're. You're in. Whether you have the title that you're in charge, you're in charge.
Yeah.
Okay? And that's what we need to do. We should create more leaders.
So your. Your skill set is actually you're a leader who happens to love sales, so you picked sales as your genre, but you really, honestly, you could go start a cooking company, and I think you would still crush it just because of your leadership skills.
Yeah, dude, I used to carry a gallon of water every day to work when I Worked in a normal job. And I would put two scoops of BCAs in it every day.
Okay.
And it would be pink. So my guys carry a jug of water. Two scoops of bcas. Pink every day. I wear Nike Fit polo shirts. They do too. I wear Converse. They do too. I wear chubbies. 5 inch, 6 inch, short. They do too. They would wear the same thing. You know why? Because the leader.
Wow.
And that's what I wish we would have more of, is that, listen, if you're a great leader, if you're a great leader, your team, people say, well, no, that's a cult. No, no, no, listen. It's called leadership. When you do things and have a standard in which somebody's never seen, people don't always get their goals, but they always get their standards. And if you have a really high standard, people are like, damn, man. Like, like, I want a standard like that. They will emulate, not envy. They will emulate exactly what you're doing. And then you create an army.
Well, you've also create. You're also making a legacy about what you teach. And I like that because it's. I also notice it's not focused on you. You're the Elliot Group. You're focused on. No. Right. It's like you and I. And I really admire that because I don't see that often. It's really, truly not about you. You. You are the face of it in a lot of ways, but you are truly into getting your team and your people better.
Yeah, there's. And I'll share this. I haven't shared this a lot, but I'll share a little vision. Like, this is my vision.
Okay.
So if you took Andy Frisella, Ed Mylett, Russell Brunson, Bradley, David Goggins, you know, and you took this, this big lineup of, you know, Gary Vee, you took these top 10, 15 influencers in the world.
Yeah.
If they all worked for one company, that company could take over the world for sure. One company. But they don't. They all worked for different companies. Now they're all a brotherhood. Right. I talked to all these guys. We're all brothers. I want me big picture. Andy Elliott, where my guys play. Talk about leadership. Leadership is about you explaining to your team where they fit in in your company. Big picture. When we started our company, it was the Elliott Group instead of Andy Elliott. Like Grant Cardone is Grant Cardone. Tony Robbins is Tony Robbins. When Tony Robbins is gone, who's.
That's right. No one. There's nobody prepared to.
It's not the Tony Robbins team. No, it's not the Robbins team. It's so. It's the Elliott group, which means, my children, I'm not ever wanting to exit. I'm good. We're just gonna build it. But here's my goal. My team underneath me, I have about 20 guys. Out of a hundred people, I have 20 now that are identical to me. Just as wild as me. Love people just like me. They're identical in the teaching. They know the coaching. They're obsessed. They're totally immersion, right? Just like, total immersion. I'm building these guys to be some of the greatest influencers ever. Okay? And my goal is in five or 10 minutes or five or 10 years from now, I want to have 20 of the greatest influencers in the world be my guys that I built up so good that literally each one of my guys now, they're all out there in the world, but we're all housed under the Elliott Group. I overpay my guys. I pay him more money than anybody else, because I don't care.
Yeah.
Every company's out there. They're like, hey, how can I get away with not paying my guys as much?
No.
That's why you can't go to sleep at night. That's why people are recruiting your people at night. Your people know that you're underpaying them, and yet you want to work less. I'm working more, and I'm paying.
And they want to work hard. You and grow. They see the vision more because they're feeling taken care of.
Yeah. In the people's lives, we change is crazy. Like I said, it's a ministry.
Yeah.
Okay. And you can't go out into real world and talk to normal, average people about, hey, we have a ministry. Then they're like, what do you mean? You know, it's like, dude, you don't get it. That's why I'm not having this conversation. That's why I said at the end of that, hey, if you don't have a six pack, some of you would sue me.
Right?
I know you would. That's why this conversation wasn't for you.
Yes.
Because I knew that people will run that backwards. And that's why I want to tell you that I truly think that if you want to build something special, number one, overpay your people. Seriously, pay them more than anybody else. Take good care of them. They'll take care of you until they die. Okay? Do you want to hire a team for five years, 10 years, or a higher team for the Rest of your life, you want to go enjoy time with your kids and family. Overpay your people.
Yeah.
Guess what? They'll watch your team while you're gone. They'll watch your company while you're gone. They'll work for your company like it was yours. They'll spend your money and watch it like it was your. Like it was their money. And nobody does this anymore because everybody's what's in it for me. Here's what I've learned. If you want to make a lot of money, give what you want.
That's right. And they're also taking old school business advice. So it's just like dollars and cents. And they're not looking at, from a leadership perspective the way that you were talking about.
That's it. Yeah. Because we're in a world that's. That has a massive shortage of leadership and sales.
I do have a couple questions about sales.
Yeah.
Okay.
Why so many people shut down to sales? They're afraid of it. They think that you're only born with it. It's cheesy, it's sleazy. They don't want it. I think of sales as a way to help people. It's a solution. It's your understanding people and solving a problem. What's your view on sales and why?
Sales is simple. It's communicating. It's very simple. If you want to kill it in sales, become a master communicator. Master communicating means make it easy to say yes to, hard to say no to, and make it the client's idea every single time. Okay. If you can't communicate, you're not selling. And by the way, nobody's really selling. Everybody's helping. If you have a good product, okay. Your job is to be good at sell so you can take the pressure out of the deal to make it easy for people to say yes to. And that's all done by one simple thing. It's communicating. So that's it. I mean, dude. And by the way, listen, let's just say I'm just giving an example that somebody's like, oh, dude, you know, what do you think about these fitness trainers? I'm just giving you an example. People say, oh, man, there's cheats, thiefs and liars. Okay, well, what would they say after they met you? What would they say after they met this person? Or that all that matters is you. I don't give a shit what anybody thinks about anybody else. What do they think after they meet you? That's all that matters. So do me a Favor. Get that crap out of your brain cells is needed. Okay? The highest paid people in the world are in sales.
That's right.
So just learn to be a master communicator. So that's what we teach people, really, how to communicate, speak, talk. Everybody needs an image coach. Like, you're an image coach. Like, you're like, hey, listen, whatever you do, like, look, look, look great while you do it.
Yeah.
Like, image sells. Speaking, like, all that stuff makes you great at sales.
You are. You're so incredible. This is so motivating and so incredible. Thank you so much. How can people find more?
Where.
Where do you want them to go if they are like, I've got to learn more to be enrolled in your. Can anyone sign up and take your programs? Is it. How does that work?
Yeah. So, like, and by the way, people say, well, I'm not in sales. Everybody's in sales. Okay? Like, just. Just trust me.
Yeah.
If you have a mouth and you can speak, you know, you have to convince your wife to fall more in love with you every day. You got to convince your Bob, your, your, your job, your boss to give you a pay raise. Okay? Like, everybody's in sales one way, shape or form. If you want to bring something to an end or get what you want, you're in sales. You need to learn how to close, and that's how to communicate. Just body language, tonality. Right. Like, all that stuff. But if somebody. We have a text line, it's very simple. People can text us what they want. Leadership training, sales training. And they can text 918-2100254. So people text 918-210254. You can go to official Andy Elliott on Instagram. But if they just text that number, just say, hey, man. And I know this sounds crazy, but, like, hey, I want to be a better leader. And then my name's Bobby. Dude, we'll reach out to you. Number one, we'll send you something. You can get into leadership training for 99 bucks a month.
That's incredible.
Yeah, so it's not like, you know, you have to spend thousands of dollars. Like, you know, there's big ticket items. But also for 99 bucks a month, you can get into a coaching program that's every Monday where I go over leadership training. So it's just. It's just whatever. You know your audience, obviously you do a great job killing it. And I'm sure that everybody that's with you. How old are you again?
Almost 52. But you can ask me Almost.
But I was just telling my wife that. I said, babe, just think about this. Everybody has an excuse, right? We literally have no excuses. Anybody and everybody that wants to level up, it's just a decision. So hopefully today on this podcast, I'm just having a normal conversation that people are like, man, you know what? I'm ready to make a decision. And that means whether they reach out to you on Instagram and, you know, or however they reach out to you and get set up, or whether that's. They reach out to me. By the way, this will go over to my audience, too. So can you tell them how to find you?
Yeah.
Natalie Jill Fit on Instagram is the best way. Or nataliejill.com yeah, and what I love.
Is that you do what you say you're gonna do. Okay. You're here with your husband today, right? He came in with you. I always say, take your family.
We should share how we. How we actually. How I got to you, how we met.
Yeah.
Because he. You had. He had an Instagram video up. And I'm a salesperson, too. I mean, and I. And I say it with no shame because I love sales.
Yeah.
But I reached out to you and I first I looked at all of your stuff, so I wasn't sending you some just generic message. And I did make it personal and told you what I liked and then what I wanted to do for you. So there was something in it for you, too. And that's, I think, something people do wrong. Asking for something and make it about themselves all the time.
No, no. I think everybody in life deals only good if it's good for both parties. Right?
Yep.
Yeah. So I just want to say as. As we push together, I look forward to having you help our company. And, you know, we look forward any way that we can help you.
Amazing.
Being around good people, being in the proximity of great people, just. People underestimate the power of that. It's super cool, you guys walking into our company today. You know, it's kind of like you get a chance to see us on Instagram, but when you come into the company, you're like, damn, man.
Yeah.
You know, like. Like, this is cool. When I met Andy Frazello, we go to his company, walk into first form, you're like, damn. You know, it's like. It's like different. Like, these guys just aren't influencers. Like, they. They run business like they love life. They treat their people good. Like, their cultures are amazing, you know? So we appreciate you coming down to Scott.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
