Dr. John Riggs – Strengthening Your Selling Skills
In this inaugural ninth episode, Lee interviews Dr. John Riggs, a veteran sales professional who discusses the role sales plays in shaping careers. They discuss how selling engages the growth of a company. John brings a wealth of knowledge over his time working in numerous divisions and educating, plus his perspective on marketers knowing how to sell.
Have a guest recommendation, a question or just want to connect? Go here: https://www.harvardmurray.com/explori...
00;00;00;04 - 00;00;09;19
Lee Murray
Welcome back to the Explorer and Growth podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today I had the honor to sit down with a veteran sales professional, Dr. John Riggs. Buckle up.
00;00;11;23 - 00;00;13;24
Lee Murray
All right. Welcome, Dr. Riggs.
00;00;14;21 - 00;00;15;14
John Riggs
Well, Lee Murray, thanks.
00;00;16;25 - 00;00;36;19
Lee Murray
All right. Let me introduce you real quick to the audience and then we'll jump into our conversation. We've got a lot we've been talking about behind the scenes. And I wanted to bring it here. Scale it up in front of a bunch of people who are looking for, you know, practical wisdom. And so, you know, Dr. Riggs, I'm pleased to introduce him to the podcast.
00;00;36;19 - 00;01;11;20
Lee Murray
He's a colleague and all around great guy. Dr. Riggs has accomplished some pretty amazing things in his career. He's been director of sales for U.S. and Puerto Rico, Divisions of Critical Care Medicine held the position of global vice president of contracting and pricing integrity for a biotech firm. He's worked with everything from startups small startups to global Fortune 500 companies and has represented numerous sectors, including pharmaceutical, biotechnology, property management, real estate tax accounting, even some federal and state government segments.
00;01;12;00 - 00;01;29;05
Lee Murray
So he's really done a lot of work and seen a lot of things and a lot of levels. Currently, he is the executive director of the Century and Sales Program at Stetson University and also an outside consultant to multiple, rapidly growing companies. So, Dr. Riggs, welcome to the podcast.
00;01;30;02 - 00;01;40;06
John Riggs
Lee Murray, it's great. Great to be with you. This is going to be fun, a lot of fun for me. And I know we've had some projects together over the years and a lot of a lot of fun things to talk about. So thanks for having me. This is going to be great.
00;01;40;16 - 00;01;58;02
Lee Murray
Yeah, most definitely. I mean, I've we've had a lot of conversations about marketing and sales and growth in general. I mean, we worked on a couple of projects and we've had the time to, you know, spend some time together and get to know each other a little bit of how our how we think is very much aligned, which has been really cool.
00;01;59;02 - 00;02;21;27
Lee Murray
And, you know, you have you have a background that's, you know, unique to mine in that you spend a lot of time in enterprise level. The big company is a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of, you know, protocol, a lot of things that I've dealt with in a small capacity in my career. But I generally like to keep it around the small and midsize, you know, where you can kind of touch and feel everything.
00;02;22;24 - 00;02;43;03
Lee Murray
So I so I value your, your input a lot because the ideas you bring are, you know, it's kind of like, okay, I see, I see what you have to say. Lee Murray Now let me up that with this other, you know, perspective because it doesn't work like that exactly. Always in the world, you know, but you know. So yeah, I'm glad I got to be here and chat with you.
00;02;43;03 - 00;02;54;01
Lee Murray
So if you would give a quick like just a brief background on kind of how you got to where you are and what you're doing. So, you know, everyone who's listening has context to the ideas you'll share.
00;02;54;23 - 00;03;12;15
John Riggs
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting what I'm doing now versus if I think back, it's one of those, you know, when you talk to a lot of people, you never you never really have that path fully defined. It's just kind of opportunities happen and you look back after 35 years and this is this is where I'm at my if I just talk background wise.
00;03;12;15 - 00;03;32;08
John Riggs
When I was in my undergrad, everything was in high health sciences background. I worked on ambulances, I was a licensed DMS provider for quite some time, and that's kind of how I got interested really into the health care side of things and then met who is now my wife after 32 years and she was a student at USC.
00;03;32;08 - 00;03;49;06
John Riggs
We were working at a grocery store and she said, You got to get a college degree and get out of the back of that ambulance. It's one it's the best job in the world, by the way, is probably my most favorite job I've ever had. And it probably framed me, informed me more than any of my undergrad graduate or advanced degrees.
00;03;49;06 - 00;04;08;11
John Riggs
It's just it's it's interesting how people kind of go back to that, how it forms you. But yeah, I started as a sales person and in the late eighties like 90, 89, 90 timeframe working for a pharmaceutical company. I fought it the whole way. I have to tell you, during the interview it was I you know, I was working in an E.R. and in an ambulance.
00;04;08;11 - 00;04;28;26
John Riggs
And the idea was, I'm not a there's no way that's going on. My business card just had this visceral response to the profession. Yeah. You know, and I had a person that was a lot smarter than me that was interviewing me at the time. And it was one of the interesting, most interesting stories ever. When I think it got to the point where I was, I almost sensed that the job was being offered.
00;04;28;26 - 00;04;44;22
John Riggs
And I was a young guy working in a, you know, ambulance system. And I said, sales, do I have to have that on my business card? And I think, yeah, a little bit of frustration. I've told the story before and he closed the portfolio, had my resume in it. He kind of pushed back from his chair and he said, We've got to talk.
00;04;45;05 - 00;05;02;21
John Riggs
And he brought an analogy forward that changed me. And the analogy was I had to actually just work a 24 hour shift on the ambulance. So if I, as I recall, I think I was still in my uniform. And he said to me, you know, what's a normal ambulance call? What's a normal thing you do? And I said, Well, that's the beauty of it.
00;05;02;21 - 00;05;19;28
John Riggs
It's spontaneous. You don't know, you know, what's happening. But he said just generally medically and I think I said something like chest pain or, you know, a heart attack or something like that. And he said, Do you ever respond to a911 call and they don't want to go to the hospital? And as unfortunate as it sounds, yeah, it happens.
00;05;19;28 - 00;05;37;22
John Riggs
They you do they do refuse care. And I get that, you know, you can't force people, nor would you ever do that. But yeah, you can show them everything you want to show them on the heart monitor, explain everything, but that doesn't sink in. You know, it was always that no, it's not chest pain. It was a a spicy meal I had last night when I've got him on a heart monitor.
00;05;37;22 - 00;05;54;05
John Riggs
So I knew kind of a little bit where he was going with that. But he was what he was sharing with me is, is basically where it came down to is you're selling all the time because where he went with that story was, what did you do? You ever leave anybody there at home and don't take them? And I hadn't been on the streets that much, but a couple of years maybe.
00;05;54;05 - 00;06;11;08
John Riggs
And I said, no, I don't know. They usually always go with us. And I saw kind of quickly where he was going and he said, So you're telling me people say they don't want to go, then they end up all going, you know, want to go and get and help. So help me understand that a little bit. And then it dawned on me about, you know, you're selling all the time.
00;06;11;08 - 00;06;32;08
John Riggs
And it wasn't necessarily I was selling the hey, look at the heart monitor. This is getting ready to be bad medically. It was more trying to identify something in their environment. Maybe the House, maybe a family member, something to try to appeal to that not only the head side, but the heart side, as we always talk about. And, you know, wouldn't it be great to be back for Christmas with whatever family?
00;06;32;08 - 00;06;48;28
John Riggs
And, you know, some people say, well, is that manipulative? Well, no, I tried to bring value to them and if you want to think of it that way. So, yes, I did that and started pharmaceutical work off in sales and then became a sales trainer and then a sales manager and a director just kind of took that path, moved around a lot.
00;06;49;07 - 00;07;07;16
John Riggs
I loved every second of it and then just, I don't know, my most favorite job, Lee Murray, was early on as a sales trainer. I think that was my most favorite job ever and kind of gotten the teaching bug, I think at that time. Yeah, yeah. And I remember saying, I'm going to teach one day, one day I'm going to have a, you know, be a doctor and do that.
00;07;08;01 - 00;07;30;13
John Riggs
And that's what happened. So yeah, I've been in academia now I want to say almost getting close to ten years, just under ten years and ended up at Stetson. So it's it's been a fun ride and you know, you would think somebody would be called a medical or a STEM type background, you know, oh, you've got to have a big personality to be in sales and all of that and a lot of that I think is true.
00;07;30;13 - 00;07;35;18
John Riggs
But we're seeing everybody come into the profession now, which is really cool, especially the young people at the university.
00;07;35;22 - 00;07;40;21
Lee Murray
It's funny, you've been in academia for ten years and they still haven't converted. You still an outsider? Yeah.
00;07;41;14 - 00;08;18;05
John Riggs
That's we don't publicly talk about I haven't yet taken in all the all the academic Kool-Aid, so to speak. But I, I really appreciate what's interesting is I have the opportunity mean this is kind of something that people that I was not familiar with academia in a pure sense until I really started pursuing my doctoral degree. And I realized really quickly having that practical experience and being coached by somebody on my dissertation committee to say, you know, there's you can go pure research and if you're enjoy that and have a lot of gifts and skills in that, you can do that or you can go more towards the practical side, towards the practitioner.
00;08;18;05 - 00;08;39;07
John Riggs
I'm what they call in academic terms, a professor of practice. So I have a teaching load, I teach in classes and then I also have the opportunity to be the executive director of this academic program, which is the century and sales program. So I teach a little bit lighter teaching load than than a traditional academic, so kind of one foot in each side of it.
00;08;39;07 - 00;08;48;26
John Riggs
And I like to do, I like to keep a foot in the real world. Yeah. And also be able to lay that against the academic training that I have. So it's a, it's perfect for me and I absolutely think.
00;08;48;26 - 00;09;08;05
Lee Murray
It's a great spot to be in, honestly. And you know, there's a lot of advantages there. I think you have credibility on both sides when you're in the real world. They get to see the educational side of it or the teaching side of it. And when you're in that academic world, obviously there are they're always pining for what's really happening out there, you know.
00;09;08;05 - 00;09;32;19
Lee Murray
And so when you're out there, you can say, well, you know, I was out there last week and this is not what's happening in the field. So there's a lot, you know, and I love the let's drill down on that a little bit because we've talked about this and that. I really think that the program that you're building at stats in this sales major program where a student could come in and get a major in sales, I think is kind of a new idea to a lot of people.
00;09;32;20 - 00;09;54;01
Lee Murray
And they may not know that this exists, but what I find immensely valuable with it and something I'm thinking about for my kids is they're coming up and, you know, thinking about college is that, you know, to this point of everyone is selling, everyone's always selling. You're selling your spouse on, you know, dinner, your, you know, your your it doesn't matter what it is.
00;09;54;08 - 00;10;27;01
Lee Murray
You're always talking and, you know, working with people and building relationships in unique ways. And sales is a part of that. And it's not always the kind of slimy, used car salesman kind of, you know, persona that people give it. There's a lot of merit and a lot of professionalism to it, and it moves the economy. And I think that especially today, in light of all the decentralized everything and you have what this new kind of concept that I'm I'm kind of noodling on is this idea of decentralized work.
00;10;27;01 - 00;10;45;26
Lee Murray
Right? You have the great resignation that they're calling it, and people leaving these full time jobs. And really the way I see it is they're going to pursue more work, that they're passionate about, stuff that they care about. They realize they can live on less than they want to. You know, it's getting harder these days than before, but, you know, they can do freelance work, right?
00;10;46;06 - 00;11;04;28
Lee Murray
So if you're doing freelance work and you're potentially doing, you know, maybe like sort of small business type of environments you're living in, you really have to know how to sell, whether you're selling e commerce online or you're selling in person at a, you know, farmer's market or, you know, whatever may be you're selling B to B to a large corporation.
00;11;05;11 - 00;11;28;12
Lee Murray
You have to know how to sell what it is that you're the craft that you're producing or the service that you're selling. And so to this program, I think the the immense value that it brings to students coming through Stetson and through other schools that offer these type of programs is that you can be a biology major and you can also have sales as a minor or some part of your curriculum.
00;11;29;08 - 00;11;35;04
Lee Murray
And to think that and I mean, this goes to the founder is Leo Fernandez, I think is.
00;11;35;16 - 00;11;36;25
John Riggs
Mr. Leo Fernandez. Yes. Yeah.
00;11;36;26 - 00;12;03;15
Lee Murray
And I'd love for you to talk about him like he has this vision that you guys share that is that is unbelievable. Where every you know and it's it's kind of audacious, but not really when you stop to think about the impact that every student that comes through Stetson should have some kind of formal or informal training on what it means to sell, because you're going to have to sell something, right?
00;12;03;29 - 00;12;23;09
Lee Murray
If you are creative writing major, which is a great major in my opinion, because a lot of content copywriting that needs to be done right if you're going to sell that as a service on Upwork or you're going to be, you know, hired at an agency, you got to know how to sell yourself to the job, yourself to the you know, and on and on.
00;12;23;09 - 00;12;37;22
Lee Murray
And we go and so I think there's a there's an immense value that's there for these students that they may I think maybe some of them get it. Maybe a lot of them don't fully understand. And so they you're going to get out in the real world and see, oh, wow, I'm glad I can actually think for myself in this way.
00;12;38;10 - 00;12;47;02
Lee Murray
You know, so this this emphasis on sales and how it's shaping someone's professional life, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as it relates to the vision you have for that program.
00;12;47;21 - 00;13;05;21
John Riggs
Yeah. So you mentioned Mr. Fernandez, Leo Fernandez here. This was a vision of his as he was a graduate of Stetson and I was not affiliated with Stetson. I was at another location. But the at the time the dean that was there was presented with this idea and these programs do exist. They're out there and there's some fantastic programs.
00;13;05;21 - 00;13;24;07
John Riggs
We have a lot of great colleagues at a lot of other universities and programs. What's what's a little bit unique about what we do is is it was just not going to be a what would you like a a trade school kind of thing or something like that. It wouldn't make sense to do that. When you affiliated with a degree granting institution.
00;13;24;07 - 00;13;45;12
John Riggs
So a lot of great schools offer certificates and things like that. Stetson didn't want that, wanted it as a degree like what you said. So what? So interesting is and what I think is the brilliance of the vision of Mr. Fernandez, and it just resonated heavily with me when I was invited to come in and set this thing up with other colleagues is he uses the term enabling.
00;13;45;13 - 00;14;11;14
John Riggs
It's this is the need, it's an enabler, right? So whether you're studying, as you said, you don't it doesn't matter if it's a my background was all in anatomy physiology and you know here I am we have, you know, music majors in the business school. Every major there is finance, management, accounting, all of that. The argument that we make is this skill set is an enabling set of skills to be the best one of those or at that, whatever that is.
00;14;11;14 - 00;14;40;17
John Riggs
You choose to do. So we position it as a lot of double majors in the business school. And if they're outside, like you were saying, a biology major or something, we have them take the minor. And what happens is, is I will say, you know, in the series of classes that they have to take that's in the curriculum, the first class is always the most interesting because they come with the perceptions much like myself, I don't want a business, you know, after about two or three weeks, you see something happen and it's one most of them it's this is actually kind of fun.
00;14;40;17 - 00;15;11;14
John Riggs
There's a lot of pressure and stuff, but it's fun because most of us are here texting and that type of thing. Adults are like, it's not just in college and now they start seeing the impact, but then what happens is you start seeing the employment opportunities that are so widely varied. It's not, you know, any particular industry, any particular thing, but now they've enabled themselves with this skill set to be far more effective, whether there's just an idea they're trying to get out of the stack of 400 resumes into the stack of files.
00;15;11;14 - 00;15;11;20
Lee Murray
Right.
00;15;11;26 - 00;15;32;23
John Riggs
They're able to demonstrate it with these skills. So it's it's the most fun thing to watch. We just came from an incredible competition out in Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, and these the watching the students just do so well at that and watching the industry respond to the students from other schools as well that compete. And it is just a when do you graduate?
00;15;32;23 - 00;15;37;27
John Riggs
When you graduate? When you graduate, they want to just hire them all. It's it's really cool. It's fun to be a part of.
00;15;37;27 - 00;15;57;21
Lee Murray
It is really cool and you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking I just had Todd Hockenberry on the podcast who you introduced me to, and I was talking about you on that podcast saying that all three of us need to get together and have a roundtable on this whole sales and marketing. Where is it going kind of conversation?
00;15;57;21 - 00;16;19;29
Lee Murray
Because I think it'd be really interesting conversation, but it made me think of, you know, this enabler kind of mindset, right? Like, I think know, I'm kind of being selfish here a little bit because my perspective but out in the real world, right after academia, you're out there trying to grow revenue, you're out there trying to, you know, grow your career and grow personally.
00;16;21;02 - 00;16;39;14
Lee Murray
It just makes so much sense at this point for a marketer to also have a sales degree. Right. Or to have some formal training. Because as today we're talking, I think the most dangerous person in marketing is someone with a sales background. You know, current day.
00;16;39;14 - 00;16;55;13
John Riggs
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can remember in the industry getting an opportunity to interact with some really, really skilled marketers and the understanding of it. And as we all see and you see it all over the place, you and I are probably not talking about anything new. It's, you know, the silos between marketing and sales and and things like that.
00;16;55;23 - 00;17;17;29
John Riggs
But if I learned one thing back in my ambulance days, it's very similar to the marketing and sales analogy in my view. And that was I'm old enough to where back in the day it wasn't a separated service, meaning you were either medical or you were like fire, you were one or the other firefighter or whatever. And then somebody got the broad idea and said, Well, wait a minute, this is a mandatory cross training.
00;17;18;06 - 00;17;37;20
John Riggs
I don't know where we're going, and I'd love to hear Todd's perspective. So let's set that three way discussion up. But I just feel like it's going to come together into something else, too, where it's almost expected that you have to be both. So like the slam dunk is right now in our current setting, if you double major as a first student in marketing and sales.
00;17;38;00 - 00;17;55;20
John Riggs
So you get you're not a mile wide and an inch deep on anything. You have some depth in both very important in you and I experience that working together on project on you know how they're both running parallel at certain times. The marketing lift is a little heavier and the sales lift is a little less. And, and you taught me that.
00;17;55;28 - 00;18;15;02
John Riggs
And as I watched that unfold and you just kind of see that seamless, it's not a stop handed off to sales kind of thing. This is a tick. We're walking together and that's what's so much fun. We're working together on projects because it I see it clearly of how those two work in parallel. But one, you know, maybe one's more emphasized than the other during stages of the process.
00;18;15;02 - 00;18;32;19
Lee Murray
It's true. And I'm starting to see companies, you know, a lot of I follow a lot of fast companies and marketing just using consultants that consult with SAS because it's such a big industry right now. But I, I'm starting to see these companies that are trying new things. Right. And they may have been doing it for a while.
00;18;32;19 - 00;19;01;07
Lee Murray
I was just surfacing on LinkedIn and social platforms where I'm following them, but, you know, they're they're sort of methodology is to either everybody can physically be in the same room, that's great. But virtually it becomes a little bit more of a challenge. But this whole idea that marketing sales sit side by side and especially of a smaller company where they can actually glean wisdom from sales calls like a marketer is they're doing their job, they're listening to a sales call at the same time.
00;19;01;15 - 00;19;24;10
Lee Murray
Yeah, I mean, that's where we're going, right? And so to me, I feel like from a reverse engineer this back into the sales program and we're formalizing it as an educational touchpoint for the students, then they're not really going to have a pulse on what's happening. Right. They're looking to the professors are looking at the programs at that stage in their life.
00;19;25;01 - 00;19;47;21
Lee Murray
And so it's almost like we have to you know, we have to speed up the transition of knowledge to them. And so I think as time goes on, it's about putting this idea in front of them more frequently and saying, you know, marketing and sales are not so far apart anymore. They're much closer together, if not becoming almost one and the same.
00;19;48;09 - 00;20;28;29
Lee Murray
And then as they're doing that, you guys really should be paying attention to this. And so that really kind of bridges, this other idea that I'm playing around with and I'd love to get your your feedback on it in that, you know, with social platforms especially and how things are really kind of being more community driven in the academic world, it seems like, and maybe you guys are already doing this right, but it seems like to me you almost have a parallel or and at some points intersection of real world, like a pulse on what's happening in the real world as an example or a real life real time case study of what you're learning.
00;20;29;12 - 00;20;46;29
Lee Murray
Right. So I mentioned to Todd, I said if I could go in, you know, take over one of the marketing programs, whatever, I probably would just say, okay, here's like the five pillars that you really need to know about marketing, right? You know, market product, market fit your buyer per, you know, your target audience, these type of things.
00;20;47;18 - 00;21;02;07
Lee Murray
And that's it. That's all we're going to teach you now. All we're going to do is bring in currently who's leading the conversation on LinkedIn as it were, as it revolves around B2B, SAS marketing. We're going to bring them in, ask them questions, and they're going to teach us stuff next week. We're to have someone else in. Right.
00;21;03;14 - 00;21;21;13
Lee Murray
You know, and I'm obviously, you know, leaning towards a podcast format there, but I think that is so, so enriching for for them to really see how it's you know, it's almost like immersing them in it and teaching them like, hey, you got to be immersed in this conversation in order to really continue your education. Postgraduate.
00;21;22;14 - 00;21;41;18
John Riggs
Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up. There is a term that in Stetson has this where there's a requirement and the term is experiential learning. Yeah. So they, you know, they have to do an experiential, but what you just outlined would be the, you know, that would be so ideal, the epitome of it, of an experiential learning thing, right?
00;21;41;18 - 00;22;02;06
John Riggs
So a lot of times it's internships or different things. You know, we go to these competitions, students can qualify for experiential learning because, you know, as this recent trip, as as kind of obvious as it sounds to many of especially those of us that were 100% travel, you know, not only is it what you're doing at the competition and what you're learning, you're meeting with executives of a corporation, etc..
00;22;02;19 - 00;22;28;21
John Riggs
But the experience side, we sometimes downplay because we always think academically, but we've got to get home and there's flight delays and cancelations and sitting in hotels and how do I get right, you know, and you got to just work out life. Yeah. And how do I do that? And then, oh, by the way, I'm getting back at one two in the morning and I've got appointments at seven in the morning so that what you just described, Lee Murray, would be that would be a really interesting thing to operationalize.
00;22;28;21 - 00;22;51;16
John Riggs
And, you know, I also firmly believe I'm not probably as deep in the academic side as some of my colleagues because I'm a private, you know, previous corporate person, and I've only been in it less than ten years. But the face of what education is now, especially the college level, I think it has to change. It's got to change to meet those needs of what's going on.
00;22;51;16 - 00;23;19;00
John Riggs
You know, and I the experiential learning things actually intentionally changing what goes on in a classroom, which we're trying really hard to do in our program with, for example, just hours upon hours of simulations and recorded role plays and give them that instant feedback, bringing people like yourself in. And Todd, he was a wonderful adjunct for us, just did great things for us when he was adjunct dean there, when we had some opportunity for that and to get feedback from real world people.
00;23;19;00 - 00;23;28;14
John Riggs
Yeah, I'm still I'm still there. Professor, although, you know, that sometimes gets discounted of my, you know, over a couple of decades of doing it. I'm still Dr. is still.
00;23;28;14 - 00;23;28;27
Lee Murray
The one.
00;23;29;03 - 00;23;47;19
John Riggs
But when we're sitting there. Yeah right when Lee Murray's telling of that's a different thing and I think we do that we do it okay I think at the universities and especially at Stetson. But what you just said would be a groundbreaking thing to intentionally have experiential learning built in to.
00;23;47;20 - 00;24;07;11
Lee Murray
I think it'd be a lot of fun for the people that are brought in too, because, you know, we always want to tell everybody what we know, you know, and have actually I get people get value from it, you know. So yeah, I think that'd be really cool. Anyways I, I'll make a note of that maybe you know, I'll send it off somewhere file for all 13.
00;24;08;07 - 00;24;31;13
John Riggs
But the ultimate thing that you raised a moment ago, I think is the key. That's the salient point is is this coordination with what is typically two separate disciplines, sales and marketing and how do those go together without, you know, you could take marketing as a university person and never at all have one exposure to what selling is.
00;24;31;16 - 00;24;34;25
John Riggs
Yes, that to me is wrong. I don't know how that could even happen.
00;24;34;25 - 00;25;17;29
Lee Murray
Yeah, well, in the current state of thinking, now that, you know, it's we're there right? I think it seems kind of absurd, but I think it was lost on the previous generations of college graduates. But now, you know, got me thinking like really the marketing program, you know, could really take a lot of notes from what you guys are doing in sales because it's, I would say, a close second, but definitely a second to sales as far as enabling careers, being able to understand how people think, why people buy, you know, just some some some of the major tenets of how, you know, niche communities operate like those kind of things that are more probably
00;25;17;29 - 00;25;37;08
Lee Murray
psychological or maybe behavioral economics type of thing. I think those type of things are very important for all careers to understand because the bottom line is you're going to if you're going to work for a company, you're going to have your own company. You got to know how to sell. You got to know your to learn marketing. You got to learn all this stuff, right?
00;25;37;12 - 00;25;56;05
Lee Murray
But if you work for a company, you may not be doing those roles and particularly but at any point at any place, any organization, you're going to touch sales and marketing and probably marketing more than sales because you're dealing with the product, you're dealing with delivering the product. You know, there's marketing all the way through that organization. Yeah.
00;25;56;25 - 00;26;19;25
Lee Murray
You know, so it's almost like there needs to be some kind of marketing enabled program or track, you know, that people could choose as well. Seems to me that that would add a lot of value to to people. Not only entrepreneurs like people get out of school and start their own thing, but but also for employees because it really changes the way they approach their job.
00;26;21;06 - 00;26;38;25
John Riggs
Yeah, it does. And you know, outside of just, you know, the university staff, I think back to my career and I don't know, I'd have to look it up. I probably should know this. But you know, I remember the day when at large corporations, for example, you never had a marketing officer sitting at the decision table like in the C-suite.
00;26;38;25 - 00;26;59;06
John Riggs
Right? And now, you know, now you have these chief marketing officers or CMO's and stuff in some organizations. Right before I left my and went into academia, there was a lot of heavy discussion at my previous company about the CSO, the chief sales officer in there. So much so. There was always, though, always the debate, you know, which was fun to watch.
00;26;59;06 - 00;27;10;28
John Riggs
And big companies, you know well, who reports to who. Yeah, right. You know, you're under this you get into the end of these battles. And to me it was like, listen, we got to serve clients and customers in the product line. And that was what we had. We'll figure out titles later.
00;27;11;05 - 00;27;12;03
Lee Murray
I don't report to the.
00;27;12;03 - 00;27;21;05
John Riggs
Customer, but that's that's right. You know, that's the you know, who is it that fires the CEO of a company? I don't know the quote where it comes from, but the answer is the customer.
00;27;21;05 - 00;27;21;16
Lee Murray
For me.
00;27;21;22 - 00;27;47;07
John Riggs
That's who fires the seat. Right. So you were starting to see this even in large organizations and others, and this has been around for a while. So I'm sure some of your listeners are subscribers would, you know, agree that, hey, this is nothing new but but from an actually executing it and taking that leap to say we're going to have, you know, senior decision makers at both in their you're not seeing that as much with the sales but the chief marketing position is is pretty there.
00;27;47;07 - 00;27;48;20
John Riggs
You'll see chief revenue officer.
00;27;49;01 - 00;28;12;00
Lee Murray
Now starting to play around with those roles. And I've seen lately that, you know, the chief growth officer is one that is proceeding the CMO as a place to aspire to, I guess. And it does make sense the way they lay it out. It's like they kind of go back to the sales background type of thing, like you're you're really being a CEO in growth in just focused on growth.
00;28;12;00 - 00;28;21;14
Lee Murray
You know, you're not dealing with putting out fires across the company. So I get that. But, but, but there's a lot of made up times out there too. I mean, and marketing the team up.
00;28;21;26 - 00;28;39;03
John Riggs
Yeah. The Chief Growth Officer when you said that, I mean, I've heard that before and if I was still in the industry you and I have met, that would be ideal for me. I would apply right away at six, ten and £300. Perfect job for me. Great. I think I could lead an organization just off of physical stature.
00;28;40;02 - 00;28;50;05
Lee Murray
I love it. BE Hey, being tall has its benefits. And by the way, if anyone listening ever meets John in person, you will see that you will definitely be shorter than him.
00;28;51;27 - 00;28;56;18
John Riggs
Some. Yeah, yeah. Now it is it's you got to be differentiated somehow. So yeah. I can't.
00;28;56;18 - 00;29;17;01
Lee Murray
How you got that one out of the gate. Well you know so as we're kind of moving towards wrapping this up, let me let let's talk let's maybe think about our audience who's listening, if they've made it through all the academic talk, you know, to give them some real, real value. Yes. Let's talk more pragmatically about being out in the real world.
00;29;17;01 - 00;29;33;29
Lee Murray
You know, you work with a lot of, you know, all kinds of different sized companies, but you work with a lot of companies that are in growth mode. And you come in and talk, you know, you help with leadership. You've helped them with, you know, a lot of the executive level stuff. But a lot of times you're working on the sales team as well.
00;29;34;07 - 00;29;47;24
Lee Murray
Yeah, you know, what are the things that you're seeing out there right now that that businesses are struggling with when it comes to growth in, you know, broadly speaking and maybe even sales specific since we were heavy on the sales topic today.
00;29;48;26 - 00;30;10;27
John Riggs
Yeah, well, you know, everything's about timing and what you're dealing with currently and you know, everybody, it's the real thing coming back now from everything that we dealt with with COVID, that's the big discussion right now. You know, getting back not only just out in the field, but getting contact back with clients and then actually a lot of discussion and evaluation inside companies.
00;30;10;27 - 00;30;34;01
John Riggs
It taught us a lot as far as selling and selling skills and doing things remotely on platforms like this or Zoom or whatever it is that you're using. But I had an interesting comment shared with me actually with a pretty heavy employer of salespeople that said they're actually having to retrain people to get back into the comfort zone of being back face to face.
00;30;34;01 - 00;30;56;28
John Riggs
People have gotten so comfortable remotely and using that effectively, by the way, but realizing that now the face to face conversations are requiring some development. So some of the work that I've been doing with some people and organizations is just that getting back in face to face, honing those skills and being able to do it. So I that's a big one right now.
00;30;56;28 - 00;31;18;20
John Riggs
That's just kind of a hot topic. I think that obviously going to be short lived because we're going to get on the other side of this. But that's what it is and right now. And the other part of it too, is and learning from a lot that I learned from you recently in a project that you and I worked on together is people are continuing to leverage both inbound and outbound marketing, but inbound marketing especially.
00;31;18;29 - 00;31;39;23
John Riggs
How do I leverage that? Because I don't firmly I my opinion, I just don't believe what would be that traditional sales team, that traditional sales person is is leveraging those tools with a skilled marketer. I just don't think it's being leveraged. So yeah, hey, work on it, do your marketing, tell us what the messaging is, let us go do the messaging.
00;31;40;05 - 00;32;00;25
John Riggs
But to to in a sophisticated manner to leverage the value of inbound marketing, especially. I think that's a big delta right now. And you know, we're me self included are doing everything I can to stay up with things in order to be effective and help people because it's usually either one or the other. Lee Murray And I think that's a big one right now.
00;32;00;25 - 00;32;10;25
John Riggs
So it's the getting back face to face, but leveraging everything that a good, solid inbound marketing strategy can do for you. Most sales people aren't skilled at that.
00;32;10;25 - 00;32;47;19
Lee Murray
On the first one, I think what's great about what we had to go through when it comes to sales is that these organizations that do require that in-person type of touch point, they can't do everything. Virtually what they've done is picked up a virtual skill, right? So if companies are smart, they will embed that. Now you know, from a protocol standpoint or system standpoint into their sales training and their sales force to say, okay, we have aspects of our what we're doing, our virtual and there are aspects of what we're doing that are touch, actual high touch, whether it's at a trade show or field sales or whatever it may be.
00;32;48;05 - 00;33;05;16
Lee Murray
And here's how we're going to integrate those together, because and now we can be super solid, super strong and compete, you know, really well in the market against someone who may be saying, well, you know, my guys, they they just really don't like to get on that zoom. So we're going to we're going back to field sales and here we go.
00;33;05;16 - 00;33;27;19
Lee Murray
You know, I mean, the buyer, we're all buyers, right? We're all becoming much more sophisticated at light speed. And so we're fooling ourselves to think that the buyer is going to stay as slow as we want them to stay. Right. They're just not. So now that they have that trick in their bag, you know, I think it's to be leveraged.
00;33;28;00 - 00;33;47;04
Lee Murray
And so, you know, I think it's awesome that you're helping people to to kind of get connected to the real world of, you know, face to face because it's it is awkward. Like we're having these interactions now at conferences and different places and it's like, you know, my my initial thought is, should I shake your hand?
00;33;48;07 - 00;33;51;21
John Riggs
Yeah, all the yeah, this is out.
00;33;51;21 - 00;33;53;29
Lee Murray
Right. And so it can make it a little awkward.
00;33;54;29 - 00;34;13;10
John Riggs
Yeah. You know, one of the trends just to kind of put a final thought on that, when you're saying it, what a couple of people have been working with organizations and such outside the university, they, you know, when you're the old school fill in the pipeline getting leads and, you know, those kinds of things that you that you hear what kind of a a standard that's in place now.
00;34;13;10 - 00;34;32;19
John Riggs
People were doing it before but I think it's more prominent now is whether it's the the SDR as a sales development reps trying to get leads and do those things. There's a level of interest in stuff now. It's almost like Zoom or whatever platform they use, but some type of virtual platform is almost the qualifier before they can earn the face to face meeting.
00;34;32;19 - 00;34;52;16
John Riggs
And a lot of companies are using it as a qualifier before they're going to have, you know, get the cost and expense of flying someone, you know, across country to meet with the client. So it's almost like a have to do now at some companies not all the context and the industries are different but SDR get the phone call, get the interest, make the phone call, do things.
00;34;52;16 - 00;35;12;14
John Riggs
The next step is the virtual call. Then that allows me to get the personal meeting. So I think anywhere along spectrum, if you're unskilled at any of that as a sales person, which is where we're trying to prepare our students, is to say whatever avenue they run into, at whatever industry they go to or whatever they do, they're going to be able to do any one of those, all of them, one of them, whatever they need to know, all of.
00;35;12;15 - 00;35;17;27
John Riggs
And I think that's an eye opener for me now that we're, you know, kind of all back face to face now. Yeah.
00;35;17;27 - 00;35;24;00
Lee Murray
And I think a key to that, too, is being authentic and making that experience personalized. Right.
00;35;24;00 - 00;35;24;24
John Riggs
So, yeah.
00;35;25;07 - 00;35;58;23
Lee Murray
I've seen people say they're like, I don't care. Now that we're getting back to life as normal, I'm getting on a plane, I'm going to see the person and I'm going to, you know, flash the flash. Right. Okay, that's great. And I, you know, I love that for you because the sentiment there is great, but the practice might put you out of business because as or at least, you know, lower your market share because the other company that is being smart about how to adopt the virtual part like you're saying, let's let let us use that as our qualifier.
00;35;59;01 - 00;36;16;23
Lee Murray
And if they take it one step further, which I feel like where everything's going because, you know, now we're, we're all going from our home. So to work and home, you know, dress down bit everybody, you know, everybody's like feel like they're part of everyone's home, you know, to some degree. Yeah. Well, it's more personal and that's sort of what's come of this.
00;36;16;23 - 00;36;38;12
Lee Murray
So if a company can say, okay, you know, what we see tactically, that we can use this as a qualifier qualifying point to just gauge interest so we don't spend a bunch of time on planes. Okay. But then when we do it, we're going to be intentional about that conversation and say, hey, you know, we did some research on your company, you know, and here's what we think.
00;36;39;09 - 00;36;55;19
Lee Murray
We're basically where we could start. You always think you would set up, solve problems you have and let's let's start the front end part of that discovery or sales process on a 15 minute Zoom call. If you know your audience, you know that's what they want to do. Some of them may not want to do that. Right. It's not there's not a one size fits all here.
00;36;55;19 - 00;37;13;18
Lee Murray
But the companies that decide to do that, I think are going to win big because their competitors are not going to realize how to how to insert the new tools and stay with how this what the new form of sales looks like. It's not how it used to look pre 2020.
00;37;14;16 - 00;37;29;24
John Riggs
Yeah no. And you know the old and I say old because I'm there, I was in that early on part and I you know when you talk about so what skills are required necessary to make you highly successful at sales are so huge debate if somebody wants to go academic you can pull up taxonomies of hundreds of things.
00;37;29;27 - 00;37;48;16
John Riggs
You know this difference between being virtual and being in person in that skill set and stuff. There's an old saying now, I think you and I may have talked about it before, but, you know, there's there's two ways to brighten a room. If anybody's heard that old saying. There's two ways. What are the two ways that you brighten a room and it's when you walk in or when you walk out.
00;37;49;07 - 00;38;07;28
John Riggs
And I don't know where that originated from, but I never forgot that. So, yeah, you know, that's easy to do in person to be able to gauge that. But how do you do that in a virtual setting, you know, and to be able to do it so, you know, I always challenge our students to to say, you know, don't rely so heavily on your personality and everything that's going on to be effective.
00;38;08;08 - 00;38;24;06
John Riggs
Because there's a couple other elements that you got to have in there. And if you're just a we used to call the folks that were so strong at relationships and everything else, which is a very necessary skill. But if that's all you got, then you're nothing more than a professional visitor and you have to be able to leverage that.
00;38;24;06 - 00;38;44;15
Lee Murray
So yeah, you know, so this sort of like takes us down a rabbit trail again. We kind of ended up towards the end of this recording talking about it. So I think it's again, a good reason for us to get together with Todd that it's like, you know, kind of goes back to the paramedic sales analogy that you their sales manager was talking about.
00;38;45;03 - 00;39;08;02
Lee Murray
And it's I think to quote, the question that I have is if we were to form a sales and marketing team inside of a company and we had them both be on the same page, I don't think it's as simple as saying, okay, everyone's a marketer and everyone's a salesperson. We're all just blended. It's I don't think it's that extreme, but it's also not separate.
00;39;08;02 - 00;39;30;15
Lee Murray
So how do we how do we create a team that's a hybrid approach where maybe it's I mean, I guess what I'm saying is you're the guy who is hiring you. We've made it clear to you and I agree that, look, you already selling. So if I if I take that analogy and apply it to a marketer and say, hey, marketers on our team, we're going to want you're already selling in your life and we can explain to you how that works.
00;39;30;27 - 00;39;54;17
Lee Murray
We're going to want you to participate in sales at a certain level. Well, yeah. I mean, that's going to be difficult at some level to get them to think of themselves as any degree of a salesperson. And yeah, I think likewise on the on the sales side, if you take someone who's a sales person. So again, I think that some people are much more oriented to sales than others.
00;39;55;04 - 00;40;16;05
Lee Murray
But, you know, you take someone maybe not on that far end of the spectrum who's just like a hunter and wants to just make $1,000,000 a year and sell whatever it takes to do it. But it like on the further on the further end where you're saying, okay, you're not a marketer, but you kind of need to understand what we're doing with marketing and how that really matter to what you're doing on the sale side.
00;40;17;02 - 00;40;42;10
Lee Murray
Yeah. What does that look like and and how does that operate on a day to day? I think it's going to be different from industry to industry and size of company and size of team and all that. But then how do you define those roles? You know, because it comes back to hiring and okay, we're hiring you to be our, you know, person and what you call that, because people are defined by their role, their title as well.
00;40;43;03 - 00;41;05;03
John Riggs
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. You know, the only thing close to that that probably all of us have experienced and I saw it a lot when I was in industry. You know, the common term is like account based selling where you have account teams and expert, you know, you bring your person that that that does those things. I think that's that's the only thing that resembles that right now.
00;41;05;03 - 00;41;27;05
John Riggs
And but, you know, if you're in a one and you have to do a lot of different things, you know, back to the EMS analogy, you know, I may have to enter a burning building to use my medical school. So I have to be able to do both. Right. And I have to be able to do that. The thing that you just raised, that's a bigger issue and not to go into the academic side of stuff, but you use the word role, right?
00;41;27;05 - 00;41;52;18
John Riggs
And when you bring somebody in and they do it, there is a thing that's that's very profound and it's called role ambiguity. And if you talk to your experts in any of us, you don't even need be. I mean, just somebody that's in a company doing business if they're if one's role is ambiguous, in other words, it's always changing or, you know, you brought me on the team to be a first baseman and now I came in today and you put me in center field or you brought me on to be what?
00;41;52;18 - 00;42;11;13
John Riggs
And now you brought me in to do this. And just for 2 seconds, an analogy that I that might get to what you're talking about. It doesn't answer it, but it's an analogy to it that I think makes a lot of sense to me. It's a sports analogy, but think of like a baseball team or I used to play a lot of tournament softball back in the day, so we'll maybe we'll use softball.
00;42;12;10 - 00;42;35;20
John Riggs
And I was a pitcher. So if you asked me what is your what are you on the team, what's your position? What do you do? Well, I'm the pitcher. Right. Okay. So if you were asking that question of Yeah. Of somebody in a company, they would say, well, I'm in marketing or I'm in finance or whatever it is that I'm doing, but to use the analogy of a tournament softball team, what do I do as a pitcher when that's my defined role?
00;42;36;10 - 00;42;53;19
John Riggs
And let's say there's a left handed batter, if you could imagine, and they hit a really strong grip, a ground ball between first and second base. Right. Follow the thought. Sure. First baseman died for it. Second baseman dies for it. Let's say first baseman makes the play laid out sideways and they're down on the ground, but they made the play.
00;42;54;02 - 00;43;14;04
John Riggs
We now have a problem. That person that hit it hit that hard ground ball is going as hard as they can down the first base line in the first baseman with the ball is laying on their side. Yes, we have a problem. So the question is, who covers first base? Yes. And the the answer without any hesitation is, well, the pitcher covers first.
00;43;14;06 - 00;43;20;04
John Riggs
Right. But in a company, you know what my response would be? No, no, no, I'm that's not my job. Yes. I'm the pitcher.
00;43;20;13 - 00;43;21;17
Lee Murray
That's a great analogy.
00;43;22;02 - 00;43;45;21
John Riggs
I'm the pitcher. But if you think about it, I'm that is my role. But based on the context of the situation, all of that can be gotten rid of of all these roles. If all we do is focus on what I call the main thing. So if you asked the softball tournament player people, what's your main thing, score more runs and prevent them from making runs.
00;43;45;21 - 00;43;56;15
John Riggs
That's it. So once the ball hits and makes contact, all of a sudden I serve my role as a pitcher, but I see a need and I don't even hesitate. I run and cover first.
00;43;56;15 - 00;43;57;27
Lee Murray
Base.
00;43;57;27 - 00;44;16;13
John Riggs
You know, and that's that's a similar analogy that we had in medical in EMS. If I respond to a call and I have cross-training and fire and medical and there's a medical emergency, while I may be wearing my fire bunker gear, I'm going to start an I.V. or intubate or do something right. I don't say no. I'm the firefighter.
00;44;16;13 - 00;44;33;11
John Riggs
You know, I only so in business, I've always thought of that to say, okay, how do we how do we just make that common without even having to think about it? Like athletes do, like EMS people? And I'm sure there's a lot of other analogies that I'm not familiar with, but that's what I'm talking about.
00;44;33;11 - 00;44;34;07
Lee Murray
That I like.
00;44;34;11 - 00;44;57;25
John Riggs
You know what I mean? So that role ambiguity becomes a problem when we hire people and we say, here's a job description, here's what it is. That's very important. I'm not a human resource expert, although I've been at it for a while. But when you think in terms of here goes a hard ground ball or in think of it even further, leave that hard ground ball goes to between the first and second.
00;44;57;28 - 00;45;17;29
John Riggs
It's not just the pitcher that runs over there to first of all, everybody else on the field is doing something. The infielders are breaking in. If the pitcher runs over, the catcher runs down to back up the throw. Now, home plate open, the third baseman runs open to cover home. The left fielder runs in to cover. And it all happens at the crack of the bat.
00;45;18;04 - 00;45;26;25
John Riggs
Yeah. So I don't know how to make that happen, but my vision of that is, boy, that would be a highly efficient company. You know, if we thought like a.
00;45;27;04 - 00;45;55;06
Lee Murray
Softball, they're holding high. This idea of teamwork. And what it makes me think of is Jocko willing to recover and move, right? Yeah. That's his leadership tactic. One of the tactics, part of his six sort of principle that he teaches and it's it's that you're the pitcher. And so if someone asks you what you do, you know, to extrapolate the analogy or to Bridget, you're a salesperson.
00;45;55;06 - 00;46;25;15
Lee Murray
You know I'm a salesperson. But what I'm not also telling you is that I also do all these other things, one that's required of me and that naturally, I think, has to happen in a small, small company because it's just, you know, the owner and some of the initial employees. And as they grow and they're starting to form their team around their pattern of growth and a lot of times they're, you know, not taking investment, they're just growing off of cashflow or, you know, bootstrapping it or whatever they may be doing.
00;46;27;01 - 00;46;51;22
Lee Murray
I think it it matters to think about things in maybe sort of tweaked traditional roles, titles, but thinking about things more in that cover and move pattern like you're talking about where, yeah, you know, here's, here's here are the functions that you know, exist around a certain particular role. But here is the Venn diagram as to how they all fit together.
00;46;52;10 - 00;47;17;04
Lee Murray
Yeah, but what takes is intentionality about a company knowing where it's headed, right? Because if the baseball team is trying to win games, they're trying to, you know, send people home so they can have runs well for a company, it's revenue. So if marketing and sales are both rowing in the same direction for revenue and that's how they're measured, then, yes, I'm a you know, I'm the content marketing manager.
00;47;17;08 - 00;47;40;02
Lee Murray
I'm the inbound sales person director or whatever the title may be. But when you look at our Venn diagram of roles, I fully understand what the content person does. Even though I'm in sales and I and they understand what I do and we're talking back and forth, if not on a weekly basis more often or biweekly basis about everything that's happening in our role.
00;47;40;02 - 00;48;05;07
Lee Murray
So really almost two and I've this analogy before, like with Chick-Fil-A, like if I walk in and someone's going take my order, most everybody there would know how to take an order, right? At the minimum because they want the dollars to keep coming in. Yeah. You know, so that's sort of like that too, where if I'm a salesperson, but if I needed to sort of pick up the bag of the marketer for a day or week because something happened, maybe I could maybe have.
00;48;05;17 - 00;48;05;24
Lee Murray
Yeah.
00;48;06;06 - 00;48;13;18
John Riggs
At least I would argue you should be able to do that to, you know, to, to at least a some level of operational function.
00;48;13;18 - 00;48;33;12
Lee Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I think what we've done here is we've set the rocket, we put the rockets on the launch pad and ready to light the boosters. And we just got to get tight in here. And, and, and I want to do a little bit more research on my side so I can be, you know, armed with some new ideas for us to consider.
00;48;33;12 - 00;48;53;17
Lee Murray
But I think we should have a roundtable on this. And and that'd be fun. I think it's yeah, it's timely. You know, I think it's something that the young students need to know about. But I also think that, you know, qualified professionals that are square in their role right now on all levels are trying to figure out how do we all work, how do we all row in the same direction towards revenue?
00;48;54;03 - 00;48;57;28
Lee Murray
So so I think it's a it's a very interesting conversation that people are having today.
00;48;58;22 - 00;48;59;21
John Riggs
Yeah, no doubt.
00;48;59;21 - 00;49;16;21
Lee Murray
Hey, so before we go, because want to wrap up here, okay. I want to ask you as I ask all my guests from resources that you may have, where do you go? What are some books you read, podcasts you listen to, you know, people that you admire, that you know, you draw on. What do you think about growth for a company?
00;49;18;00 - 00;49;39;23
John Riggs
Yeah. So I'm a I'm a I love books. I'm an old school kind of, you know, book person on occasion will listen to podcasts, but I probably wouldn't call out, Hey, this is my go to in that area. But more so than any of those resources is my go to is always the people that I've seen in action that I can pull from.
00;49;40;01 - 00;49;53;23
John Riggs
If that makes it so, I read everything I can read. So I don't know that there's a good one or a bad one. That was one of the values, by the way, of being like a 90% travel. There was always a bookstore in an airport, and it's the best thing you could throw in your you know, my boss used to always say it's the best $20 you ever spend.
00;49;53;23 - 00;49;59;11
John Riggs
Especially the junky books are the ones that you're not going to get in front of. You lay down your grade system with the stuff you don't want to.
00;49;59;11 - 00;50;06;29
Lee Murray
Do well, especially pre-Internet days, right? Yeah. You're on a plane. There's nothing else to do but to read a book or talk to the person next to you.
00;50;07;17 - 00;50;30;14
John Riggs
Yeah. Oh, I phone, I ride with my wife, purchased a Kindle for me back in those day and I put everything I owned on the Kindle that was cutting edge. So but to answer your question, I you mentioned Todd Hockenberry, I yourself I think of my my previous mentors from industry before. There is nothing more valuable than your network.
00;50;30;14 - 00;50;58;02
John Riggs
That's right. And there's nothing more valuable than, honestly, that phone call. And to continue that old school network of, hey, what's going on and doing it. So sales were taught about networking marketing as well. So I would say, you know, what do you go to? What is it? I go to my network, okay. And that is my building relationships with companies, different things and keeping that real kind of vibrant, valuable relationship going.
00;50;58;02 - 00;51;14;04
John Riggs
Because here's what I figured out. All the degrees. That's great, wonderful accomplishments, all of that kind of stuff. But there's probably somebody out there that's maybe figured it out or has some type of interesting approach to it that could launch your thinking into the next thing that's out there.
00;51;14;04 - 00;51;14;18
Lee Murray
I like it.
00;51;14;23 - 00;51;30;29
John Riggs
So if you need to get that as a resource through some books or podcasts or different things like this, where there's experts sharing ideas, I'm all for it. I like the picking up the phone call to a personal network and say, Here's what I'm dealing with. If you were still there, what would you do? And I'm just starting to lay down.
00;51;31;08 - 00;51;40;04
John Riggs
I just remember you laying down kind of that, you know, it's like the the screening that you put out on your patio, you buy the tighter screening. So the smaller bugs get through.
00;51;40;04 - 00;51;40;13
Lee Murray
Yes.
00;51;40;14 - 00;51;55;12
John Riggs
I'm just trying to lay that tight screen down so the little small bugs don't get through. And that's what I do. If something gets through, I make a phone call, I'll say, Hey, Todd or Hey Lee Murray or you know, my old mentor, his name is John Adams. So not the John Adams. I'm not that.
00;51;55;12 - 00;51;57;09
Lee Murray
Old saying that his name.
00;51;57;09 - 00;52;02;21
John Riggs
Is John. Yeah, John Adams. And he's an amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I it's people for me.
00;52;03;01 - 00;52;21;22
Lee Murray
I love it. All right. My last question for you. If you were in front of and I know you're in front of a lot of CEOs, owners of small growing companies, if you could change their mind about anything, what would it be? And it doesn't have to be marketing, sales. What we've talked about, it could be anything.
00;52;23;02 - 00;52;54;06
John Riggs
To change their mind about anything. Yep. The thing that that's a great question. The thing that initially comes into my mind is that we sometimes get so married to what we believe is the way to go, that we can't dissociate from it. You may even think of it as some people may refer to it as founder syndrome or, you know, you're so close, you're just not going to let go of the vehicle as it goes off the cliff, because you're just you're so close to it.
00;52;54;22 - 00;53;17;16
John Riggs
So there that's I've discovered that to be very real is that there are an especially you know it's made me form this thought that to your question is the last eight, nine whatever ten years in academia to realize that the especially these young bright minds that are out there, they think of some stuff that's just amazing. It really is.
00;53;17;16 - 00;53;34;11
John Riggs
And I learned that on this, you know, on every trip I go, you get in a van for 7 hours with some really bright young people, young people. I'm like writing down notes all the time. I'm like that. How did you where did that come from? You know, and it's the conversation. It's not the technology piece necessarily. So.
00;53;34;11 - 00;53;51;17
John Riggs
So that's what I've learned is, you know, open your blinders up a little bit. You may have found the company may have done these things and we may have seen it, but you got to take a breath and just be open to asking those questions and taking the feedback and being able to do it. What's the old story from years ago?
00;53;51;17 - 00;54;07;00
John Riggs
My grandmother used to always cook a roast, but first she cut the ends off. You know that story that we've all heard and I've heard that you've never heard that. Yeah. So family recipe of preparing a pot roast, I think. And it was, you know, the first thing you do is you cut the ends off, you season it, you do all this.
00;54;07;00 - 00;54;26;20
John Riggs
So it's been handed down and well, what's the purpose for cutting the ends off? So they kind of started going back up the, the generational tree and I think they got to the great great grandmother or something as the story goes. And I asked her she was still alive. And I think she said, well, I only had one pot and I could never get the roast to fit in, so I had to cut it off just right.
00;54;27;21 - 00;54;43;28
John Riggs
Yeah, that's a little arrow that's been around for a long time, and I remember that story and there's versions of it, but in a practical sense, you know what I've noticed when I work with companies, I don't have all the answers. But sometimes what I'm doing is asking questions why, you know, like the five year old, why? Well, why are you going to mow your grass?
00;54;43;28 - 00;55;03;16
John Riggs
Well, why didn't you mow the yard? Well, why? After about six times, I'm going. I don't want a letter from the homeowners association. You know, they they actually get to the root of what it is. And I see that as myself, as a senior level person in a company, to be be a little bit more open these days about, hey, somebody may have an idea, even though.
00;55;03;16 - 00;55;11;13
John Riggs
They don't have ten years experience, five years experience, whatever. They bring something to the game thoughtfully that it's.
00;55;11;14 - 00;55;20;10
Lee Murray
Your idea, you know, it's the way you think. It's not it may not replace what you think. Sometimes it will. But I like how you're saying it because it really it's like elevating how you're already thinking.
00;55;20;25 - 00;55;36;08
John Riggs
Yeah, it may not. I may not even do what they brought up, but they brought that up, which made me think of this. Which made me think of that. Now we got okay, here we go. And and that, I think is the way I see a lot of just know this is the way it is. I founded it.
00;55;36;08 - 00;55;56;23
John Riggs
We're doing it, you know, and I see a lot of that. And no, I I've not founded my own company, so I can't speak to that. But I see a common theme there that when they do relax the reins a little bit and do it, you know, that's what they see. And I and again, I think of all these stories, I'm the imagery kind of person when I think and I don't know who said it, I need to probably better quoting these folks.
00;55;57;08 - 00;56;19;20
John Riggs
But I remember being told it's easier to pull back the reins on a racehorse than it is to spur or kick a donkey, you know? So give me one of these bright forward thinking, just random fight, kind of racehorse people, because I can always tamp it back a little bit. But I, you know, it's kind of hard to ride a turtle anywhere and get where you're going, you know what I mean?
00;56;19;22 - 00;56;21;24
Lee Murray
Yeah, it's got to be a big one if you want to do.
00;56;22;04 - 00;56;26;17
John Riggs
A big turtle. Yeah, 6300. That's a turtle. Sea turtle, something.
00;56;27;17 - 00;56;35;29
Lee Murray
Well, listen, it's been great. And if anybody listening wants to reach out to you and just, you know, keep the conversation going, because I'm sure there's going to be someone where can they find you?
00;56;36;24 - 00;56;56;22
John Riggs
Yeah, I think the best would be just my university emails. The best. I've got several other places, but that's the best one. And at it's my first initial, my first name. So Jay Riggs. J.R. Riggs at and it's the university Stetson. Stetson University dot edu. Okay, that's the best way and all love.
00;56;56;22 - 00;56;59;09
Lee Murray
Stetson you do not Stetson University you.
00;56;59;10 - 00;57;06;00
John Riggs
Know just Stetson so Jay Riggs at Stetson dot edu and you can look me up online it'll pop straight up.
00;57;06;11 - 00;57;29;27
Lee Murray
Awesome. This has been really fun as I knew today and I'm really looking forward to it again. We're we're coming up close to an hour here which okay, this has been my longest record. So no, no, no. I mean, I could go for another hour or so, so now I've enjoyed it. But thanks a lot for being here and I'm definitely going to have you back.
00;57;29;27 - 00;57;36;12
John Riggs
Thank you, Lee Murray. I always appreciate it. You're your absolute professional and anything you do you touch turns to gold. So I hope we continue to work together.
00;57;36;24 - 00;57;59;21
Lee Murray
Thanks, John. Hey, I really appreciate you tuning into this episode of Explore and Growth. I'm trying to get this in the hands of as many growing businesses as possible so they can take this practical wisdom in deployed in their companies or with their teams. If you're getting some value out of this show and know someone who should listen as well, would you consider sharing with them or leave a positive review on the platform in which you're listening or watching YouTube?
00;57;59;21 - 00;58;08;06
Lee Murray
Audience Leave a comment below something you liked or your perspective on what we discussed. I'm grateful for everyone that tunes in every week. Let's keep exploring.