Create a Win/Win in Sales

In this episode, host Jordan Yates is joined by guest Ryan Wicklum to discuss his transition to sales and the importance of building relationships. Ryan shares his background in the automotive industry and how he discovered his passion for sales. They also explore the balance between commercial and technical aspects in supply chain and the significance of mutually beneficial negotiations. The conversation then shifts to the challenges of traveling for work while maintaining a family life, and Ryan provides insights on how to navigate this balance. The episode concludes with a discussion on opportunity cost and the importance of self-awareness in making career and personal decisions.

Connect with Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanwicklum/

Takeaways: 
Building relationships is crucial in sales and can lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.

Understanding the balance between commercial and technical aspects is essential in supply chain and sales.

Effective sales involve solving customer pain points and guiding them towards a solution.

Balancing travel and family requires self-awareness, consideration, and communication.

Opportunity cost should be considered when making career and personal decisions.

This Episode was brought to you by David Turner at https://processandautomation.com

Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-turner-enterprises/ 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Failing. For you, it is me, your host, Jordan Yates, and today I'm joined by a guest, ryan Wicklum, all the way from Canada. Well, luckily we're recording remotely, so it's not too difficult. But, ryan, say hello to everybody.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Hey everybody, how's it going today?

Speaker 1: 0:37

Audience is really good, Ryan, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:39

That's great. I keep forgetting they're not in front of me.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Yeah, no, it's something I always tell people before they get on is sometimes you have to pretend that there's people sitting there and you're talking to them, because I break the fourth wall a lot and I'm like and guys and this is what I mean by that, and it's a funny skill that you develop with podcasting but you got a sales background so you know you could probably talk to a wall.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Yeah, I'm okay.

Speaker 1: 1:01

So, ryan, you were pretty excited when I had asked who wants to come on the podcast. You were an outstanding yes, so we're super excited to have you here. It's always nice when somebody is willingly coming on, although we have not held anyone hostage yet in the history of failing for you and we don't plan on it we love a willing participant. But I liked your energy. We've been connected for a while on LinkedIn, which is basically where I meet most of the guests that come on here, and I thought you had a cool background. You kind of cross over in my industry a little bit. You've got a background in sales, supply chain, all the above, but right now you're currently in sales and I kind of want to talk about your transition to it. So could you kind of give the listeners a little bit of your background in how you ended up in sales? But real quick, before we get started, let's hear a quick message from our sponsors.

Speaker 3: 2:18

Absolutely. So it's funny I didn't go to. I came to this ball town, didn't go to any post-secondary education. I had a family situation that they popped up and dropped out of university to go take care of that and then, because I was taking care of it, I was like, okay, I'm going to be a good student, I'm going to be a good student, I'm going to be a good student.

Speaker 2: 2:32

I'm going to be a good student, but yeah, I didn't go to. I came to this ball town, didn't go to any post-secondary education. I had a family situation that they popped up and dropped out of university to go take care of that. And then, because I was taking care of that situation, I was working the midnight shift in the auto factory. So I was 19. I was making copy money but I was doing it. I was working on a punch press all midnight shift and so that I was kind of wrapped up in the automotive industry and when that situation finished up I decided I wasn't going back to school, I was going to keep with automotive. So I worked in the automotive industry quite a bit for a company called Magna, a big tier one that everyone knows about, and then I transitioned into a couple of jobs and then I ended up at a robotics company, an autonomous robot company that does materials handling for warehouses. And then when I came in very young company and they appreciated the fact that they were buying from Amazon and had supply relationships that weren't really relationships. They were very transactional, very functional, and so I came on board and kind of showed them that there was another side to it that it could be mutually beneficial. Not just here's money, give me a product Right. So I did that for six years and then the whole time in my time there and in my time at Magna, I was at these negotiating tables and I was really envious of people across the table and I thought I kind of want to do that. And when my time at the robotics company came to an end I sat down with my wife and I said I think I want to go to sales and she said at first her reaction was you're nuts Like wait, you're in your 40s, why are you puntering this? And then she thought you know what. You've worked a long time. You know it's. Here's a good chance to kind of reengage yourself and kind of move into something that's more energizing for you. So I got a couple of sales jobs outside of you know, when that job at the robotics company ended and I was completely a big crap at it. I wasn't very good. I didn't know anything about the sales process or or how to, or the operational side, the scientific side of sales. And then it's funny then I worked for a sales training company selling the sales training and I would listen to the conversations and I was like, well, that makes sense and that makes sense. So that kind of formed, even though I couldn't sell it I was terrible at selling it I listened in almost by osmosis, I took in all the, all the process and all the information and so I ended up now I worked for a company called pro glove. We make a wearable barcode scanner, hands free barcode scanner, and I'm kind of using my background supply chain, but also that background with that sales training company to you know, morph into it like a decently adequate sales person.

Speaker 1: 5:27

I like how you saw that a relationship was transactional and you thought there should be more to this, like I want to show you guys there could be more to like the human side, whereas me, being an engineer by trade and incredibly introverted, I think transactional that sounds wonderful, like we don't need to go get lunch. We don't need to talk to each other, like send me the invoice, like we're good to go. And I think I always wanted to be an engineer who sat in a cubicle, did spreadsheets and talk to nobody for you know, 10 hours a day. I fantasized about that. And then I got out of school and the industry was just like everything was in shambles because it was 2020. And so I went into sales and I was like great, I have to have a personality now and it's funny that, like for someone like me, I see that is like a dreaded thing, because I can have a personality for like one to two hours a day and then I'm drained. But I love that people like you exist. I've met so many people like you that are in sales, that get energized off of talking to people. Can you tell me a little bit more about when you saw that spark, because I personally don't get it, but I know that other people relate to it.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Well, it's funny because I think I mentioned quickly that I grew up in a small town and even in my small town I was born in 1976. So it's not as though I was born in the 40s, but the small town, you know, way of doing things, there's a lot of almost like the barter system. It's like, you know, this guy over here has a farm, this guy over here does metal work, this guy over here does you know he, he raises chickens and this guy raises cows, and there's there's almost like a training going on outside of the actual business. So because of that, it's very relationship based and the fact that you, you grew up I grew up with a lot of family and friends because I'm so tight Right, and there was only one high school in my area, so we all went to that same high school, same group of friends for that amount of time. So there wasn't, you know, a lot of times you, you, you go through grades nine, 10, 11, 12, and you're there's some different people in each class. In this case it wasn't. So I got to deepen relationships and I got to see and experience those people on a regular basis and learn more about different levels. Um, and then. So then you went through the automotive. Automotive industry, which is very personality based in certain situations, because you have to deal with um scenarios that are insane. You know, if a bad, a bad shipment of car seats gets to this facility, you know we lose a bunch of money. Well, how do we prevent that? You prevent that by making things better, so to speak, and, like you mentioned about the transactional piece of, of negotiating, like purchasing, the 100% transactional procedure relationship that works is a unicorn. It's perfect. Like there's, there's, there's a price and you pay it and it's. It's simple, back and forth, no conversations. Except I need those today, kind of have them. Here's the price, okay great. But other than that, though, nothing in supply chain works that way Right, especially when you're working for a younger company, because sometimes the engineers, like you mentioned, aren't as experienced as they could be, so that they they miss things and they'll put a drawing out and there'd be no material called it, or they'll use a different. They use metric, not imperial, all these things, these happen right. And so, because of that, you have to make good relationships with the suppliers, because when they get a drawing, they're not going to make what's in the drawing, they're going to question it like, okay, you know, here's a, here's a drawing for, for a wheel bearing, but there's no material. Like, should I make it out of cotton? Should I make it out of you know? So you know, we have those relationships that they will come to you and say, okay, they, you know, I think you mean this like, what kind of melody do you look for today? Okay, great, so you know, off, we go right. So that's the kind of thing where there's a balance there between the numbers between qualitative and quantitative. And you know I've always said that the supply chain engineer is a is a mythical creature because they have equal parts, commercial and technical, and they, they jive right. They just, you know, mesh. Other than that, they'll be the people like you and people like me who you have a great background in engineering, I have no background in engineering and you love numbers and I hate numbers. So when I, like I mentioned before, when I saw you know big data in AI and all these, these things coming down to down down the pipe at me as a supply chain person with no supply chain training and no educational training beyond high school, I thought I'm out. That just accentuated my my transition to sales because I thought, okay, I want to go do that because they don't have to know that stuff, they have a background but it's more personality based. But, like I said, I was pretty terrible those first three gigs and then I think I'm getting yeah, no, your, your background is like it's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 10:16

I feel like it was a very heartwarming thing to think of, like a society where the there is like a barter system almost, in that there is so much, I guess, emphasis on human relationships and business to human and like that's something I feel very disconnected from. I've lived in a small town like once upon a time, but most of the time I've bounced around a lot of like Metroplex areas and I think that is a different mentality of living. Like that, and something I like about a barter system is is something I learned from my dad, which is basically like everything in life is negotiable, like everything and I I try to convince my friends of that. Like we went apartment shopping for one of my friends and I was like don't take the price they give you. Like ask for a month free, ask for this, ask for that, and she's like you can't do that. I was like I promise you can. Like there's not much in life that you can't negotiate, because a lot of things are decided by people, and I think that's probably, like, given your background there made you so well suited for sales. It's crazy that it took you until you were, you know, in your forties to think like this is for me Cause to me it sounds like it's, it's a natural fit. So you did have to, as you said, learn more of the technical side of sales. So, although sales people think, oh, it's just a bunch of BSing and you're going out to lunch or having drinks or schmoozing people, there is a bit of a technical sales process in place and if you've been in sales, especially technical sales, you'll know that. So can you kind of tell us what it was like when you were learning that technical sales process and like kind of what it took for it to click for you?

Speaker 2: 11:47

Oh, I felt like a salmon upstream. I felt it. You know, I was bombarded, my first, my first, and I did a bit of background in some, some exposure to training like Miller, hyman and that kind of thing. But the actual sales, sales methodologies, like band and medic and all these these acronyms, they come at you and they, they almost like experienced sales person, will have that kind of ingrained in them. Where I was learning at the time. So, people, I went into a situation that they assume because I'm in my forties and in sales. I've been in sales my whole life. I should have that background Right, and I completely did not. So I was learning on the job literally. And then COVID.

Speaker 1: 12:28

So I couldn't.

Speaker 2: 12:29

I couldn't go visit, and I was. You had to learn how to sell virtually. And then, because COVID hit a lot of people that were approaching retirement age, they retired and now there's a, and now there was a new wave of purchasers that were more tech savvy and they were younger and they were they would do a lot more of the research. It used to be that in sales, like the purchaser does, like you know, 41, 42% of the buying cycle and then they go to supplier for more help. Now it's more like 60 to 70. They've gone all the way. They've done the research, they've researched competitors, they've read reviews on on different apps that they have, like it's been more tech savvy. So they don't want us to then be schmoozed and they don't want to have, you know, long meetings they want to have, they want to stack up you know half an hour meetings when they're in the office or virtually, and then they want to do their job outside of that because there's more information that they have. So it's it's funny that through COVID, like I went through that and kind of I look at that as I survived COVID much like we all did. But like sales standpoint where I had no idea going in and I just had to learn it. And then what you do is you pick up pieces of information for everybody, right, and you kind of form your own methodology. It might not be an official methodology, but it's a way of doing things and I quickly determined that sales like the analogy I use is you know it's sales you have to act or have trail guide Right. First off, you're solving, you're taking pain away and then you're guiding to a solution, but if you mix them up, it's disaster.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Yeah it is.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Because people think that you are only going to guide them to your solution and they think, okay, well, he doesn't care about me because all he wants to do is guide to a solution. There's no problem, it doesn't take the time to take my pain away. When you take the pain away, first you become a trusted advisor and all of a sudden, like you, put you in a pedestal, like, oh Ryan, take my pain away, even if it wasn't what he's selling, he knows some people so he can make introductions in HR, finance, all these things, anything to help out. And then all of a sudden, now that I'm trusted, it's a little bit more easier to guide. And I think that the biggest thing for me in sales is understanding that negotiation. People look at the idea that you need to win a negotiation. Well, if you win, I mean somebody lost and that means that you are now associated with a loser in your mind because they lost the negotiation and it's natural that that opinion is going to permeate into your thinking. And then the balance of power is now shifted in your own mind and it affects the way you react, it affects the way you interact with them, getting to that mutually beneficial level with your partner, supplier, customer, colleague, friend, whoever it is. That's the ideal situation. That's the ideal state.

Speaker 4: 15:20

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Speaker 2: 15:50

Is that mutually beneficial, almost symbiosis.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Yeah, no, I feel like you're making such a good point because I started sales around when you did. I mean, I did some sales before that, but my official first sales job out of college I remember going through and learning, asking questions, getting to that pain point and I think that's something a lot of people, fresh in sales, forget to do because they're too nervous to ask questions or they think you're not allowed to ask questions. And we always had this joke that the fresh salespeople would always show up and throw up. That's the words they would use. You'd go in and you're like hi, I'm Jordan and I sell variable frequency drives in Yaskawa. Do you want to buy any drives? And they're like we don't even use drives. What are you talking about? And you try to tell them everything you do and then it's like okay, well, you completely lost them because you're clearly so set on your agenda of getting this line card out that you're not even actually there to talk to the person. The person's like why am I here? I could have read this on the website. So that is such an important skill. I think too, like you said, it's weird the way that the buying culture has shifted a little bit, especially through COVID, because it was kind of hard enough on salespeople before, because everybody always thinks oh, salespeople are manipulative, they're like sly, they're doing stuff.

Speaker 2: 17:08

They're sneaky.

Speaker 1: 17:09

Yeah, exactly. And I remember my very first boss out of college, clint Pruitt shout out, clint he's a sales guy for like gosh, like 40 something years. I don't want to date him, but like he told me something one day because I asked him, clint, like do you ever get tired of like being the sales guy, like in people not liking you? Like are you ever afraid that people are going to like thank less of you for being in sales? And he's like no, I'm helping people who need to be helped, like I'm. If you're there and you're helping them, then you're the good guy. And I'm like oh my God, like why did I ever think of that?

Speaker 2: 17:42

You know it's funny to mention too, because you know you give a shout out to my current manager, Christian Radu, because his viewpoint is the following. He said learn as much as you can about your prospect, your customer, and then your job is to teach them how to buy your product. You're not selling them the product, you teach them how to buy it, and I think what he means by that is you're teaching them all the nuances and you're teaching them how to make it almost, you know, sticky in their mind that I need to buy this product. And then what is the optimal way for them to purchase it and to procure it? Because you don't want to make it seem as if you're forcing a deal, but you're almost making it seem as if, okay, I'm going to give you all the information you have and I'm going to support you in this particular fashion, and therefore you are going to buy, you're going to learn how to buy this product and therefore you almost make yourself that not you know inconsequential, Because they know they need it and they know they use how to buy it and therefore, once you get to that point, it's cake.

Speaker 1: 18:52

And then you're the easiest person to buy it with, because you already laid it out for them. The purchasing path is there, but it definitely takes time to learn how to do that. I would say especially because you have to learn what you're selling in depth to do that. But I'm curious in your beginning time in sales, or maybe even recently, do you have any stories of a time that you really fumble the sales call or you really just rub someone the wrong way and had to learn the hard way?

Speaker 2: 19:19

Yeah, I think there's two things I can bring up. Number one it's just a generic when you're sending a lot of prospecting emails and that kind of thing, your two choices are you just send a massive email out to 1,500 people using an outreach program or whatever it is or you copy and paste and change the email address. Yeah, exactly. So the biggest thing is always remember to almost like measure twice. Cut once right, read it twice, send it once and make sure that the name that is in the body of the email matches the email address. Because, let me tell you, it causes big problems and especially if you do it, it's not so much you might lose a prospect. That's one thing, but when you lose an opportunity that they're really interested in your product and all of a sudden you called them the wrong name, You're like, listen, man, I got to go and you never hear from again. So that's the generic side. I think the situational side of the scenario is I remember sitting across I was sitting across from Mitsubishi and it was a great conversation, everything was going well. And I looked across the proverbial table because it was during COVID and I said, okay, is there anything else I can help with, sir? And right away it's like the kind of like I got shot up and I realized I wasn't talking to man. Oh, no, you misgendered someone. I miss gender somebody.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Yes, oh, it's worse than today's days.

Speaker 2: 20:53

It was so bad and it wasn't intentional I wasn't, it's just that the person really looked like I got yeah because it was because it was a Japanese name. I should done my research. Yeah and I did a little bit, but there's no picture on LinkedIn and there was no mention of you know gender me beside he, him, or, or, and they say pronouns after that. So I the whole time I thought, get gotta be careful, I be careful, and then I just threw it out there. I think that's the moment that I did. I lost the misdivision.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Yeah, I know that's so hard too, because it's like You're trying to be respectful by throwing in a sir and then just to do it wrong, like. I feel like this is actually like really relatable to a lot of people in today's day and age, especially with the nuances around the gender misgendering and whatnot. I won't get too deep into that, but the fact that you're actually coming on and willing to admit to that happening is so brave because people Get so up in arms about it and I know everyone has the reasons for being upset, whatever.

Speaker 2: 21:58

But yeah, it's refreshing that you're being honest and telling us about it because, it happens, I'm a straightforward as it come and I grew up with me oh, sir and ma'am, and and please neck you and because I I grew up with the intersection of small town in, my dad was in military Mm-hmm, so everything was, you know, by the book in a certain way, and yeah, so I can't shake. I can't shake sirs and ma'ams, and it's, in this case, it kind of bit me in the ass, right.

Speaker 1: 22:24

If it makes you feel any better. Anytime someone doesn't know me and they're meeting me through email for the first time. I'm Jordan and I'm an engineer. I get called sir Constantly and usually I'm just like oh, actually it's ma'am, not that it matters, but like just moving forward cuz like you know, you email people for a while and it's so hard because, like, jordan is such a male dominated name and then, like engineering's a male dominated fields, like you, put two and two together, it's likely that the Jordan engineer is a man, but it always cracks me up because people are just like, oh my god, I'm so, so sorry, like I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to and I'm like, oh, it's cool, I just don't want you think you're talking to a man you know, like.

Speaker 2: 23:02

I just want to let you know, I think when you have so. So my first initials are in the first syllable. My last name is wick Mm-hmm, so I get Rick all the time.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 23:11

And so I think you make a decision. You get to a certain point where you got the, you got the fork in the road, do you? Are you a stickler for it or just embrace it?

Speaker 1: 23:19

exactly.

Speaker 2: 23:20

So I was a magnet. I had this wall of celebrity ricks and every time I get a wreck I put a new sliver on the wall and it became a thing people could come over like, well, what's that explain the situation? So that every time they come back again to the desk okay, like you know where's the new one today? Mm-hmm, and because I knew that it you know, once a week someone's gonna call Rick in an email.

Speaker 1: 23:40

I mean, did you get like a mustache wall or something for all my sir Jordans?

Speaker 2: 23:44

Maybe it's like that'd be interesting. Like, almost like like the college football they got like the stars, no yeah. Yeah, I think you should leave my stashes on you, on your hat.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Oh my god, no, that's. That's pretty funny. Okay, so I lots of sales stories, we go down the Revered that. But I want to shift in the like last third of our time and talk about something we were chatting about before we started, which is you've made this career shift into sales. Yeah, but I had asked like you know sales or you're traveling more, but it sounds like you've traveled a lot through all of your career and, and something that is, I feel like, relevant to a lot of us, is trying to travel when you have a family. And I've mentioned to you like I feel like it's not talked about as much with men, and I made a joke and I was like I guess men love their families too, you know, but like that's the mainstream thing like I feel like anytime a woman comes on a podcast they're like and how do you balance family and work? But, as you know, ryan, the gear and sales you've done a supply chain. You were busy before. Yeah, I just kind of want to hear about your experience of balancing travel, your career and having a family and what that's been like for you.

Speaker 2: 24:54

I think you have to travel Cognizantly. I think you have to travel as if okay, if you know you're gonna leave. You know, first week of March, the middle of February, you said separate parent yourself, you maybe do a little bit more around the house, maybe you spend a little bit more time with kids or your spouse, just to alleviate the pressure, knowing that when you're gone Then it's on them to take care of it. Yeah you know, example that is. I remember I was a trade show in Vegas and my, my daughter, was one and a half or two and she came down with cold source. It was the worst, to the point where I called home and and my wife got the sweetest soul, she said, listen, I don't want to talk to her now. And like I get it. She told me what's going on like that sounds like like the worst situation in the world. Yeah, so I let her go and then when I came home, as cognizant of the fact that she had had Five days with this, you know, cool, sore, filled, baby. Yeah they're toddler and like, okay, I got this, like I'm gonna put a, put some more effort in, and and you have to understand your situation too. You have to understand the kids are such with children, like the different stages in life, and also, I think, what the advice is be very aware of things that are going on in their lives. You know my son, I think when I I started traveling he was six, maybe six, seven, and he was it was harder to I don't understand what he was going, what he was going on, because now, all of a sudden, you know he's going through some stuff and then now I'm gone for four days, right, or I'm going to China for eight days, or whatever, whatever it was. And you have to be I think you'd be very, you know, cognizant, but also aware of the situation at home, about what's going on, because when you come back, it's going to be accentuated, likely that you know another, another. One of the parents bounced another back. What was bubbling before is now at the surface or has exploded, and now we're dealing with the aftershocks of that explosion. So I think it's a matter of just be be considerate. You know, know what's going on, look at the calendar, do some nice things before and after you leave, and it's okay, even if it's kind of thing where you might not be children involved. It might be just a husband and wife or your people that are married and or any in a relationship. Even if you leave for a couple of days, you know you're still creating, you know, a blip in time where their normal cadence is different. Right, and even if you get to the point where, like nowadays, some couples they get, they bench a certain show, you know it seems like insignificant but that's comfort.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Right when, if you're in the middle of a show and you're like episode seven or 10, and all of a sudden you know you're gone for three days, you create this, this, this moment in time where you know regularity is now different and it may not seem like a significant thing, but it can be. No that's such a good point that you've taken normalcy and you've kind of turned, turned, like then a 90 degree turn Right.

Speaker 1: 28:23

So because then all the comforts gone, comfort shows gone, comfort person's gone, and you just like you're the one that's out traveling, but then you have to remember to be consider of those that you left behind, because even though you're doing hard stuff, there's still people at home whose lives you kind of disrupted by going.

Speaker 2: 28:39

And even, like you know, you and I both thought people and even, like you know, dogs pick it up, cats pick it up like they. Well, we're not cats, Because cats are kind of like on their own anyway, like they're kind of the loose. But with a dog, the dogs know when you're gone, Right, and then they get out of sorts and then when you come back, it's okay, now. Now everything's back normal, but it's. It's that initial, you know, like I know, with our dog when I go, you know just times you didn't read or he will, he won't go out to the bathroom, yeah, that he's gone. And all of a sudden you know things are different and then when I get back it's it's pandemonium. But then it's back to you know, calibration, right. It's back to, you know, back to zero, right. So it's doesn't matter. Being self aware, be cognizant of what's going on and just be, be consider for people's feelings and your pets and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Yeah, I feel like it's it's good to think about that stuff, because I know a lot of people my age. We really glamorize traveling and a lot of people think like I don't want to have a family yet, like I want to travel for years, like I want to do all this before I have a family. But would you say that it's possible to do both and be like like it's okay I mean, you've been doing it for a while Like do you think people should wait or do you think like it's situational, Like can you have it all?

Speaker 2: 29:58

I think, jordan, it's a matter of what you want. Yeah, people are all different and we're all wired from your DNAs. You know completely. You know this side, that side. The biggest thing is you know, and a big believer in any situation, do a continuous self inventory of where you, who you want to be and where you want to be, and make sure your company you keep is solid. But just always assess you know what's going on inside you because, especially as the older you get, you, like my father always said, you know, be considerate but be a little bit selfish because you need to be. People can pick up on the fact you're not happy. Then they'll pick up on it yeah. Right, and then they'll alter the way they they treat you and then that's that's not organic Right, it's not not natural. So do a self inventory and if you get to the point where you're early, early twenties, mid twenties and you've you think, oh, I want to keep traveling and like you can do both you can. You can get married and have a family and travel, and you can be a working person and you can travel. Right, just like I said, do it in a way that doesn't seem and I get it. Some situations that's tough to do if you're in sales or you're an executive, you're constantly on the go. Just be aware that that you know the the. What I guess where I throw at you is my one learning for the whole. This whole discussion is life is about opportunity costs. Like, opportunity costs is the business ideal that I teach my kids, even my six year old. I try to teach her that if you're doing this, you're not doing this, and then so if you're traveling all over the place, the opportunity costs is your relationships, and if you're not traveling, then the opportunity costs is your career. Understand that that good or bad is always a trade off. There's always a counterbalance, and I think that that's what I'm saying If you travel, be as considerate as possible, because the relationships won't be as affected, whereas if, if you always are on the go and you're always company says, okay, I need you in Boston tomorrow, and you're always go, then you set the bar at a certain point and they're not going to expect anything less. So it's it's, you know. I'd say, do a self inventory always, know what the opportunity cost is and just be aware that every conversation that you set or every relationship you have, the bar has been set somewhere and it's that initial initial conversation, that initial impression that sets that bar.

Speaker 4: 32:28

And you know.

Speaker 2: 32:28

so you can't really go under the bar. You have to go. It's always above the bar, yeah, so no, that's really good.

Speaker 1: 32:35

I love the. I love and hate the concept of opportunity costs, because I think about it constantly with literally everything, so I that would make sense.

Speaker 2: 32:45

If you flood that side, the size is going to fall, yup.

Speaker 1: 32:48

And then I also, though I'm weirdly okay with sunken cost, because I know a lot of people get caught up in the sunken cost fallacy of like, oh, I've put all this like time and energy and money in, like I have to keep pushing. I'm really good at cutting my losses. It took me a while to get to that point, but I definitely think if you think about the opportunity costs ahead of time, you won't have to worry about the sunken cost as much. But, brian, this was this was a really good conversation. I feel like there's a lot of people that could relate to what we talked about today, everything from the sales to balancing, you know, traveling with family and all how that ties in together. So thank you so much for coming on today. I would I normally at the end and like well, do you have anything else to wrap it up? But I feel like you kind of wrapped it up perfectly there. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, unless there's anything else you want to say, now is your time.

Speaker 2: 33:33

No, it's good. I guess it's a pleasure being on. I definitely appreciate the conversation. It's nice to to have conversations that don't involve, you know, negotiation or money or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Absolutely. Well, guys, I will link all of Ryan's like LinkedIn and stuff like that in the description here. So if you want to connect with him, chat more with him and learn more about what he does, feel free to reach out. Can't guarantee he'll answer, but you could totally try.

Speaker 2: 33:57

I'll answer yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Awesome guys. Well, thank you so much for listening and, as always, I'm your host, jordan Yates, and in the meantime, I'll be failing for you. See you next time.