Struggling is essential to learning. We know this intuitively but it’s easy to forget with kids. It’s also a careful balance of letting our kids struggle while offering them just enough guidance in the process. The topic of struggling moments is what today’s guest specializes in. He helps companies with innovation by identifying these moments. He’s also a father of 4 and we talk about some of the ways he helped his kids find their career path after college. He’s a repeat guest on the show and always a pleasure to talk with.

Where to Find Bob
Twitter
Linkedin
Company Site
Book
Book on College
Past Interview

Transcription below (May contain typos...):

[00:00:00]Bob: [00:00:01] So progress is the main thing that actually helps kids build confidence. And most people think is if I it's, so my thing is you can't build confidence without them failing. I, I don't, maybe you can, I don't know how to do it. 

Mike: [00:00:19] But why does everyone want to avoid the failure? 

Bob: [00:00:21] Just cause they don't want to be judged as a bad parent.

It's the focus is actually more on them than they are as the kid. Yeah. And it's that notion of at some point to, it's almost like a paradox, right? if I let my kids struggle, that actually means I'm a bad parent. And the fact is that the fact that you're letting your kids struggle means that you're actually a good parent. you got to fail and you got to fail fast,  

Mike: [00:00:46] Struggling is essential to learning. We know this intuitively, but it's easy to forget with kids. And it's also a careful balance of letting our kids struggle while offering them just enough [00:01:00] guidance in the process. And this topic of struggling moments is what today's guest specializes in. Bob Mesta helps companies with innovation by identifying some of these moments. he's also a father of four and we talk about some of the ways that he's helped his kids find their career path after college and helping them through that struggling moment. So he's a repeat guest on the show and he's always a pleasure to talk with. Let's roll the interview with bob 

today on the podcast we have Bob Mesta, who is a re repeat guest and he was on about three years ago, which we were chatting.

And, it's surprising that it's been three years already since we spoke Bob, but it's nice to have 

Bob: [00:01:39] great to be back. Thanks for having me, Mike. 

Mike: [00:01:42] you originally were on your, you're a father of four married for over 30 years. 

Bob: [00:01:48] Yeah, I'm old. Yes. 

Mike: [00:01:52] That's a huge 

Bob: [00:01:52] accomplishment. And I think that's 

Mike: [00:01:53] the reason I wanted to have you on is because I'm originally because of that and, that your success story in that regard, Bob [00:02:00] and I really look up to you in a lot of the work that you do with jobs to be done, but mostly to.

The fatherhood and staying successfully married for 30 years. So I think that's pretty awesome. 

Bob: [00:02:10] it takes two. And, I would say if you've met my wife is a Saint. I think about it as I've done seven startups seven and she's still. We're still happy and we're, she's just very tolerant, but she's also stern, which is good.

Cause I'm all over the place. So we're I would call us opposites and we compliment each other well, and we don't try to change each other, which is, I think part of the key is that we're there to help each other be better versions of ourselves. So how have you, I'm sorry.

Mike: [00:02:41] So tell me a little bit about that journey to get to that. It sounds like that's a mature, taking years of experience of trial and error to get to that point because 

Bob: [00:02:49] I, or is that not the case? I don't think that's the case. I think the fact is that we were both, it's one of those things where I guess it's one of those, and maybe we just learned this when we were young, but it's like that [00:03:00] anybody who, and again, I'm going back more than 30 years, but.

my friends who dated or, when, whenever I dated somebody who was and tried to change them, it never worked out. yeah, like you had to accept people for who they were and it was about helping them be better versions of that. And it was that aspect of, no I'm going to, I'm going to make them better and it's no, they need to be better.

And so it's, it follows some of the underlying. Principals of jobs to be done, which is, you don't  people make progress, you make your progress and I can help you make progress, but you make the progress, not me. And so it's that underlying principle and it's the same thing for kids, right?

Like at some point I gotta be able to empower my kids to make progress. I can't give my kids the answer or the solution. They have to figure it out and that requires struggling. And so I think the. to me, it's that combination of struggle and growth and all of that together. And so I think, me trying to want or wanting to change somebody is not, it's just not, it's not a useful concept to me.

[00:04:00] Mike: [00:03:59] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 

Bob: [00:04:01] I don't know if I really answered it, but that's that, it's just observation if you will. That's how we got 

Mike: [00:04:05] there. Yeah. No, I think you definitely answered it, but you brought up the struggling moments for kids, which we hit on last time. and to me, that's a really fascinating topic because you, it seems to me that new parents want to remove any struggling moments from their kids, brand new parents.

And then you see the importance of that, but you don't necessarily know how to manufacture them if there's not naturally existing, struggling moments. 

Bob: [00:04:30] and there's a, the thing, there's a hard part because we don't have that decision line of where's danger. Where is it actually dangerous?

And where is something that's just struggling? And so we because we don't have a clear line of which is which, and it's this could lead to these other things that we don't want them to lead to that. And it's one of those things where it's for me, I would say I struggled a ton as a kid being dyslexic and, going in through special ed and all these other places.

And you're just one of those things where it's like, how. like it formed who [00:05:00] I was. And and it enabled me to develop different skills than in some cases, other people. And it made me a better. And though, despite the fact that they tried to make me be like, but he also didn't turn out like everybody else.

And so I think the struggling moments are the things that shape us. And so in removing those, it doesn't, it's like blue ocean strategy. When you have a, when you have a business, it's let's just think about all the possibilities it's like, Yeah, I don't know what to do cause there's just too many options.

And so part of it is those struggling moments helps shape where we want to go and what we want to do. And in some cases what we don't want to do. 

Mike: [00:05:37] Yeah. So it is it, one of the theories I have with that is having those early. Teaches valuable lessons that's harder to teach later in life, possibly kids.

And I'm curious to see, how have you seen that play out? your kids are now in college or graduated. 

Bob: [00:05:55] I got one left in, man. I am almost right. 

Mike: [00:05:58] so how has that played [00:06:00] out for you? that's been a 

Bob: [00:06:01] so what's. Yeah. so being on the other side of kind of all this, one of the things that's interesting is As much as I wanted to help my kids let's say, get a job or go, you know what, when they graduated, whatever, they were all very independent.

They all got what I would say is the traditional shitty job out of college. And then at some point in time they realized like, okay, I don't want to do this. And that's great learning. So what are you going to do next? And so almost all of them have been able within a year to take what, the training they got, by the way all four are applied math majors.

wow. And I can give you some insight in how that came about, but the reality is that, they got a job and what they thought they wanted to do. And then they started to do that work. And they're like, no, I'm really more interested in this. And so what it is helping them shape by those struggling moments to say, what do you like to do?

What don't you like to do? What are you, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And then how do we, how do you go find the next thing? And so I think. giving them the confidence and the ability to [00:07:00] acknowledge what they can do and move on. It's that confidence, I think, and to be honest, having struggling moments early, they're not afraid of them and they are, they're not, I'm worried about what to do.

It's more okay, I just got to take the time to figure out what I want to do. Yeah. I think that's how that plays out. and so for kids who have never had to really struggle. Like the it's like the first struggle you're going to give is yeah, we're going to put you in the world series, with bases loaded in two outs and Oh, by the way, not now let's teach you how to hit, okay, that's just not going to happen.

But it's like at some point in time, you're not always going to be there. And I think I said in the process before is I feel like I had three real main jobs to help my children, which was figure out what their passion would, help them figure what their passion was. Be respectful and contribute to society.

make, make decisions. Good decisions is in there and making good decisions. As part of the fact, they have to make some bad decisions to make good decisions. 

Mike: [00:07:53] It's almost like you want to maximize. Yeah. You want to maximize those struggling moments, but you want to that partly the struggling moment is, are, is [00:08:00] inherently full of bad decisions, which is counterintuitive.

Bob: [00:08:03] and again, you don't want them to make a bad decision when they're in the danger realm. So part of this is how do you actually get them to have the ability to make decisions? and at some point, have them realize like when don't they have enough information to even make a decision, Not making a decision is a decision. 

Mike: [00:08:18] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:08:19] And so part of this is I think one of the things that I learned later, like when I was 25, 26 was to ask a very simple question, which was like, do I need to make this decision now for some reason, I always thought, if I'm thinking about it, I gotta make the decision.

It's you know what, if I wait a week, this and this'll happen, I might actually better if I don't make the decision right now, 

Mike: [00:08:37] But it's, 

Bob: [00:08:37] it's being very explicit about when and where and how to make those decisions. Tradeoffs. 

Mike: [00:08:43] Yeah. And that's interesting specifically around higher education or jobs, right?

Because you're, you feel like you have to make decisions early sometimes, but you don't have the contextual knowledge even make that decision. And so you end up making a bad decision that sometimes is, not irreversible, but, [00:09:00] Can be a, a large, negative consequences. If you may make a bad decision, whether that's dead or whatever.

Bob: [00:09:04] I think you learn from it, but so for example, I wrote a book last year called choosing college because putting all through four kids through college was, I'll say, challenging at the least they all graduated on time. they're all doing well, but it was one of those things where helping them navigate it.

I realized that everybody was worried about where to go and not why to go. So we basically did a whole bunch of interviews around what causes people to say, today's the day I'm going to go back to college, go to college. and then based on how they frame, why they're going to college, how successful are they?

And we came back with five different jobs and one of the jobs is, to do what others expect of me. It's I don't really want to go, but I don't know where else to go. And I don't really want to go get a job and everybody thought I should go to college. I'll just go to college.

Success rate in that for people going into college with that mentality is like 22%. 

Mike: [00:09:57] Wow. 

Bob: [00:09:57] Okay. Versus somebody who's it's like a [00:10:00] time for me to step it up. It's this is what I want to do. This is where I want to be. It's so the notion of a gap year, like success rate, there's almost 79%.

It 

Bob: [00:10:10] says that we're a gap year falls in why don't you go figure out what you're good at? What you're not good at? like we have to realize that we've been so pressured at the high schoolers around what to do and where to go to college, that we forgot to ask him, what do they want to do when they grow up?

And I'm like, I'm really good at math. We should be, you should be a scientist. You should be an engineer. You should be the UN and the approach that we ended up taking with them, with our kids, Julia. And I was this aspect of I don't want to know what you want to do. I actually want to know what you don't want to do.

Let's just eliminate. Stuff off the table. So instead of starting with a 360 degree, we just kinda said, all right, you don't want to do this. You don't want to do that. okay. And literally we ended up going towards math because. What we realized is like math and English, or like math and a minor in English, math, and a minor in [00:11:00] computer science, math, and a minor in engineering.

But math was the thing that literally there was all this data and nobody tell stories and that I could work in any industry anywhere in the world. I actually have this link between math and telling stories and figuring things out. And so for them, that's how they all ended up in math and they switched around, but they came back to math because it's like, I want to move to this city.

you can find a job in math. Like you don't find a math job. You find a job that includes math, that people will hire you because most people suck at math. 

Mike: [00:11:37] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:11:38] So it's, and, two of the four are, working remotely. They work for companies out of California. They're both, one's in data analytics, one's in cybersecurity and they love what they do.

They're both on the customer side. They both, one of them wants to be a product manager and they went and interviewed, four or five different product managers. And then they. Realized like they needed the customer side of the world to be a better [00:12:00] product manager as opposed to the technical side.

So they went to customer success for the last year or two years. So then they understand the customer side and they understand the technical side. Now that can be a better product manager. 

Mike: [00:12:12] That's really smart. I like the idea of interviewing someone that has a position that you want even early, as early on as possible.

Yep. It's a good strategy. 

Bob: [00:12:21] So yeah, so my oldest son, Marty, I basically said, like I said, what do you want to do is I think I want to be a product manager. I'm like, great. Let's let here, you're going to write a blog post. You're going to interview five people and you're going to ask them basically a clear set of questions.

How did you get to be a product manager? And just to hear their story. And the second is what three pieces of advice would you give me as a, as somebody who wants to be a product manager, if you could go back in time and redo it, what would you do differently? And how would you advise me? And that's how he was able to figure that out.

And so it's that little algorithm is the thing is like we're. So when anybody gets, I really don't like my job. I'm like, all right, what do you want to do is like [00:13:00] this. All right, let's go five people. As far as set up a blog post, you set up, write a blog and go interview. And they're able to figure it out.

Mike: [00:13:07] It seems so simple when you put it that way. But 

Bob: [00:13:10] yeah, it's the thing is that, how do I say people don't think about how to do that stuff. They just think like, why want to be a product manager? So I'm going to go try it. And it's I, it's go build a guidance system for the missile.

I don't know anything about that. Let me go talk to people. Who've built guidance systems before. Now I can actually, and figure out what the real problems are. So to me, I've always had this notion of going, talking to people because of being dyslexic. And it's let me go talk to people because they actually will tell, help me shape what has to happen.

And I feel like lots of people don't want to talk to people cause they don't want people to know. They don't know, I don't know anything about this. It's yeah, that's right. You should like that. That's actually a proud moment to admit you don't know. 

Mike: [00:13:49] Yeah. That's a powerful insight though, that people don't want to admit that they don't know which then becomes the hindrance to your understanding or your progress that 

yeah.

Kids that lacks some confidence of [00:14:00] someone that's already been in the work. 

Bob: [00:14:01] so think about this for a second. How do you cause confidence, what are the things that you do as a parent to help, or do you guys, as a kid, what causes you. To be confident. 

Mike: [00:14:14] I would say number one, it's overcoming adversity, like trying, failing, and then saying, Hey, I tried, I failed.

And then I did something different and I worked harder. And I think like for me, with young kids, like you're reminding them of that. Hey, remember when you did this and then it didn't work the first time and then 

Bob: [00:14:28] you, so the first there's three important components. There. One is, the fact is they actually have to struggle and not get something.

So if they're really good at math all the time, They're really not going to actually figure out like what to do cause they don't really struggle with it. So wherever they do struggle, it's the fact of one making them aware that they struggled to, that they actually can do something about it.

So there's a difference between complaining about the struggle and doing nothing. Right or complaining about it. So somebody else does something about it or them complaining about it and then deciding to [00:15:00] do something about it. And then three, the reality is you or somebody making them aware that they've made that progress.

So progress is the main thing that actually helps kids build confidence. And most people think is if I it's, so my thing is you can't build confidence without them failing. I, I don't, maybe you can, I don't know how to do it. 

Mike: [00:15:25] But why does everyone want to avoid the failure? 

Bob: [00:15:27] Just cause they don't want to be judged as a bad parent.

It's the focus is actually more on them than they are as the kid. Yeah. And it's that notion of at some point to, it's almost like a paradox, right? if I let my kids struggle, that actually means I'm a bad parent. And the fact is that the fact that you're letting your kids struggle means that you're actually a good parent.

Yeah, that's true paradox. And so it's just that it's, that to me is a very, interesting kind of dilemma where it's and again, I can only kind of state it from the [00:16:00] other side, looking back. I'm not sure I could have. Told you that moving forward, it was just more I'm not sure I really cared what other people thought that much.

And that's the interesting thing is 

Mike: [00:16:10] with parenting. When you have multiple kids, you get this, but you don't, I get one shot at it. Like you're figuring it out. It's not like a job where you have multiple jobs and by the third job, you're like trying to figure it out. you have multiple stages, 

Bob: [00:16:22] but it's 

Mike: [00:16:23] interesting bringing back to your interview concept, it's like, why would you not go interview parents, that maybe have a success, and in some regard, or have the.

Have the family you want or have the values you want to, create in your household and go say, Hey, how did you get here? let me tell you, Mike. Yeah, we failed at this and we failed this and how you have to go about it. It's you want to take the same approach you talk about with your kids, with the job.

Bob: [00:16:46] Exactly. And I don't want to talk to people who just failed because the people who just failed in fear how to overcome it. It's the people who basically, and what I can almost always guarantee as somebody who has made it. Has failed a lot more than the people who [00:17:00] would just failed once or twice, but they have a different attitude about it.

Okay. So it's interesting. I'm writing another book right now and I called the five skills of an innovator and we talk there's this big thing in the innovation or in the entrepreneurial space. It's you got to fail and you got to fail fast, right? But you have to realize that for some reason, it's almost I feel like the academics have watched the animals in the zoo and said, look, they all failed.

Do you see that? They fail? And it's but most entrepreneurs don't. They don't think of it as failing when you actually interview them. They talk about, I learned this. Yeah, I couldn't make that work and they never used the word fail. They always use the word, like I, I couldn't make that work or that didn't make any sense.

Or so for the most part, the word failure only comes from the outsiders. And the reality is it's all about learning. And so my thing is I don't feel like we have one shot with our kids. I think we have, a million shots with our kids. And it's really about learning to be a parent and learning to be a kid.

And enabling yourself to figure out [00:18:00] what does pro the fighting progress and movement forward, as opposed to trying to define the ideal? 

Mike: [00:18:06] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:18:07] Okay. I dunno. I know that felt like a little bit of a ramble, so I'm not sure if it made any sense. 

Mike: [00:18:11] It's a good ramble. I think rambles can be good.

They're not all bad. that's really interesting. You said the academics watching the innovators, in the zoo kind of labeling it. That's really fascinating. 

Bob: [00:18:24] I think about it in that way. I have this kind of notion of like the Teddy Roosevelt wrote a. Wrote a speech or called about the man in the ring.

In the fact, this is there's a very different to be in the ring versus being an observer of somebody in the ring and like having done a bunch of startups, and when you start to talk to people, it's like, there's lots of people who have studied things, but they actually haven't done it. It's like you've studied to ride a bike, but you've never rode a bike.

And you don't realize Riding a bike is about balance and you're like, how does balance work? dynamic balance you pedaling and steering and balancing Like it, it [00:19:00] makes it feel like it's the most complicated, Holy crap, how in the world, like physics wise, it's amazing that you can ride a bike, but like when you get on the bike, it's like, yep, let's go.

But it might take you a little time and it takes you a way to synchronize up steering and peddling and balance. But the reality is it's not that complicated to ride a bike. But if I just observe a bike, I can write a thousand page book on riding a riding, a bike. 

Mike: [00:19:27] Yeah, 

Bob: [00:19:28] And so this is where, and again, this is my gift of dyslexia, which I would never wish upon any of my children.

But the fact is that probably the greatest gift I got is like I, instead of having to go study, I would go build right the way I say it these days is I'm 55 and I've been breaking things for 50 years. I've been fixing things for. 45 years, but I've been building things for 30 years. And so it's that notion of doing it and being, experimental and empirical about it, as opposed to theory, having a theory about I would always say, [00:20:00] I'm not smart enough to know what to do.

We yet I have to go do some things to learn what to do. 

Mike: [00:20:06] Yeah. The learning what to do to me, I was just thinking about, equipping our kids for. The advancements in society and technology and all of that. and they're facing a very dynamic world that's changing more rapidly than maybe ours did probably more than yours too.

I don't know if that's a misnomer. I don't know if that's true, but we're teaching them to deal with adversity, but what would you say are some other things that maybe core principles too, besides the confidence thing to help them in this world? 

Bob: [00:20:39] So I think that there, I would say, so one of the things I always talk about is context creates value.

if I say, do you like steak or do you like pizza? People go? I like both. I said, tell me about the last pizza situation. I got my kids where were running from place to place. Like I know they're going to eat it all. [00:21:00] Like they got to still do homework. I got to get into bed. Like we're going to grab pizza.

It's yeah. All right. If I put stake in that situation, it's yeah, stake. Now, state doesn't fit in that situation. And so I think as we start to teach our kids to be able to actually perceive, cause I think everybody's looking for an answer. Everybody's looking for the truth. Everybody's looking for the one way to do something.

And what I would always say is I don't actually think there's one way. I always think there's five or six ways. And so it's the context though, that actually helps me decide the best way for the moment and like the context I'm in today. And I could look back next week at today and go, I probably, if I would have known these other things, I could have done better, but the point is I didn't.

So how to actually assize the context of what they're doing, play things out and understand, there are no regrets just because you didn't have that information doesn't mean you made a bad decision. 

Mike: [00:21:56] Yeah, 

Bob: [00:21:57] And so to me, it's teaching our kids. Like it's moving [00:22:00] faster. it's moving fast.

Like our parents or our grandparents it's, everything's accelerating, but what's happening is that we're actually able to perceive things and make better decisions faster. And so part of it is helping them to know, when do we need to go to the grocery store? do we need to go when it's empty or do we need to go when it's half full to realize okay, we have to get this because by the time I really get there and get back, it's not, it will be like, how do we get them to see the context of things?

Not just the answer. Cause if it's just one answer, then every Saturday we go to the grocery store. we don't go every Saturday. Yeah. Sometimes we go on Sunday. Sometimes we go on Tuesday. Sometimes we go on Friday. And it's why does it change? And it's these are the things we're taking into account and why.

And so understanding causality and being able to see things through what I call time and space is very important for kids to realize like somehow I think school is trying to teach them that there's an answer. There's an aid to everything. And what I've learned is there's [00:23:00] never an a there's an a that somebody decided wasn't a.

And there's actually an a plus, but nobody's actually discovered it yet. 

Mike: [00:23:09] alright. That a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. 

Bob: [00:23:11] and and the other part to me is at some point in time, a B is good enough. Sometimes a D is good enough. Like I just, I don't need to cut the grass where every grass height is exactly the same height.

It's it's good enough. Yeah. So knowing where things are good enough is really important. I feel like we're emphasizing grades so much. Like I actually think kids being home and learning from home, I actually think they're learning more. Yeah, I, I haven't, the funniest part is I saw a kid, a school on one laptop, a laptop next to him playing a game and texting with his friends and realizing they're never going to learn anything by doing it that way.

And it's guess what? They're parallel processing. And to be honest, if they can pick it up and they can do it, they're actually building a skill that many people can't do. so don't just cause you can't do it doesn't mean they can't do it. 

Mike: [00:23:58] Yeah. [00:24:00] 

Bob: [00:24:00] So it will be very interesting at how we get back to school, because my belief is now we've introduced this whole world of virtual and that some, like some, I have the underlying philosophy that everybody learns in their own way, and there's not one way to learn, but there's what they call pedagogy.

There's one way to teach a best way to teach. And my belief is it's very hard to come up with that. If I have multiple learners in the room, And so when kids come back, it's gonna be like, I would rather take this class online and they're like, why? it's focused. It's a here. It's I, the audio port versus I want to take this class, I'd rather do face to face.

And it's going to be very interesting to see how all this mashes back to you. 

Mike: [00:24:36] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:24:37] Oh, I ain't going to be the way it was for sure. 

Mike: [00:24:39] Yeah. I think it would be better though. like you're saying 

Bob: [00:24:42] it'll be way better like this is the struggling moments here. Yeah. Just stupendous, like I know that it's, this is a bad it's, we're doing these for good reasons to basically make sure that people don't get sick and we say hello, but.

The struggling moment now causes us to innovate. I was showing you just before we started, I've literally reinvented my entire [00:25:00] business as well as my entire office where now I've got a product, like I got four or five cameras in this room. I've got all these different things.

And it's what are these things where now where, before I had to fly to France or Paris to work with a team, now I can work with a team, like in my, like three blocks from my house. 

Mike: [00:25:16] Yeah. Amazing. 

Bob: [00:25:18] That's 

Mike: [00:25:18] awesome. 

Bob: [00:25:19] and part of it is them being able to accept it. 

Mike: [00:25:21] yeah. and the offering might actually be different like you were in relation to the class set up and how someone might prefer to take the class.

The experience that someone has with you might be better in some ways, because it's better for you if you're not have to travel that sort of thing, but there might be aspects of that are actually better, a better offering doing it that way. Maybe they can process it or differently or something like that.

Bob: [00:25:44] Yeah, I'm actually, I agree with that a lot. And it's one of those things where it's, everybody's what are we going to do? And my whole thing is what are we going to do? Which is same words, but very different meaning. And it's okay, how do we have fun? fun with us.

And so we're to be, as I expected my world to stop [00:26:00] between like February and September and, have a few things for the rest of the year. And to be honest, like it's just, it's almost the exact opposite of what happened. And I, I. What's interesting to me is most people who work in a system and then the system doesn't work anymore and they don't know what to do.

They don't know how to think outside the box, or they don't know how to reinvent. the budget said, we should spend this in the third quarter. It's but we don't have a, we don't can't do that. So what do we do? I don't know what we should do. And so it was like call Bob. So my business is actually way it's up more than I ever thought.

Mike: [00:26:33] That is awesome. No, I think that's great, but that's a great meta example of what you're talking about with struggling moments. 

Bob: [00:26:39] Yep. And you have a network called 

Mike: [00:26:41] demand side sales. One-on-one that's coming out and I want to chat on that a few minutes. and my question to you is.

You're talking about sales. How long have people have been talking about sales? What more new could there be to talk about sales Bob? 

Bob: [00:26:55] Yeah. So here's the thing is this is the last thing in a million years at whatever [00:27:00] thought I would want to talk about. But when you talk to entrepreneurs and having been an entrepreneur, one of the things that came up, it says what do you struggle with the most in your business?

And most people will say sales. And they'll say the sales and marketing, or, finding prospects, finding leads, that kind of aspect. I'm like, okay. And then I was, almost 10 years ago I was sitting in Clay's office and we were talking and I said like, why are there no sales professors at Harvard?

He's that's a great question. I don't know. And so we dove into it and started to look into it and we start to realize that sales has been almost relegated since the mid eighties to an order take a role or mentality. And there's people out there that have like solution selling in there, but it's all seen as a trade or something you learn on the job.

There's no underlying thing. Theory you teach about sales at school because it's just sales. it's hottest, it's technique, it's an art kind of thing. And so you start to realize, you look at the top 25 business schools in 2010 in the NC, [00:28:00] how many business sales professors are there?

They're like three you're like, and the best part, if they're teaching you a negotiations, right? It's lawyers teaching you negotiations, not the salespeople teaching you. like the last thing you want to do is as a salesperson is learn negotiations from the lawyer. I'm like, Oh, kill me. the, so that's the first part.

I think the second part is. Like, how do we actually bring it back? And so the one conclusion that clay and I came to was there was no sales theory. And so what we, what I did is I took this innovation theory called jobs to be done that people don't buy products, but they hire them to make progress in their life and said what have we just taught people?

Like how people buy. And then from that you derive your sales process on it. And when you start to dive into the sales process is actually driven more by, in some cases, what I call the church of finance, which is we got to have, we have projections, we have this, we've got to actually get by the end of the third quarter, we should run a promotion so we can get the revenue and to do blah.

And you [00:29:00] start to realize that it's run all around the product and not the customer. And so they, yeah, spectrum was trying to say, how do I actually get some of this knowledge, at least the foundational knowledge for entrepreneurs and business people. And the last thing, the last reason why I really pulled it out was how many people actually sell, but don't know they're even selling.

Is a teacher selling the lesson to the student or is the teacher trying to help the kid make progress? is the, physical therapist actually selling the rehab protocol to the patient? Or is it, are they trying to help the patient make progress? And you start to realize okay, at some point everybody's selling something at some point, but selling is really what I call it, a supply side notion, how do we actually see the demand side and frame selling more as helping people make progress as opposed to pushing our product.

And so that's what I wrote the book about is ways in which to see. See the reality of a seat from the other side and see how people decide [00:30:00] and make the decision to say, today's the day I need a new mattress. Today's a day. I need a new CRM. Today's the day I need a new supplier and it's not random.

Everything is caused. And if we can see it from that side, we can actually sell better and help people make progress. 

Mike: [00:30:17] Yeah, no, I think that's, I think it's a really important, Perspective to take on it because I think I've seen. Being in sales, myself and selling you say, people naturally say, you're just good at sales because of your personality.

And so it's this weird mix of, then you just have, you can talk to people. So you're good at sales or you get too academic on it. And you say, there's a strict process. You have to follow. And it's the state gate things. And you, these logic. stamps or whatever, and it's somewhere in the middle.

but you're saying now let's look at the other side too. And let's consider the progress. People are trying to make 

Bob: [00:30:52] well. and what happens is we end up trying to design one process to fit everybody's situation. And the reality is like there's probably three or [00:31:00] four different reasons why people are buying not a hundred.

And if we actually understand the jobs, white people doing it, maybe we actually need three different processes, not one. Because it's do you like thick crust pizza or thin crust pizza? If I do a survey and do it all, I end up with medium crust pizza. Nobody likes it. 

Mike: [00:31:16] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:31:17] Yeah. And so we have this whole notion of one size fits all.

And because we have on what I call the supply side, we have an efficiency mentality. How do we do it as efficiently as possible? But we don't realize the trade offs that we make when we try to make things efficient and how ineffective they become as we make them more efficient. 

Mike: [00:31:36] That's really interesting.

Bob: [00:31:39] so to me, it's really helping people see this other side. So like I grew up on the supply side, I'm an engineer, And everything. I build a product and they will come. 

Mike: [00:31:47] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:31:48] when you start to study this, you start to realize if there's no struggling moments and you build a product, nobody will buy it.

Mike: [00:31:54] Yeah. 

Bob: [00:31:55] And there can be a struggling moment and no solution. And then at some point somebody comes [00:32:00] in and goes Oh my God, they reinvented the world. It's yeah. But like at some point in time they saw something. What we call non-consumption where people want to make progress, but they can't. 

Mike: [00:32:08] Yeah.

So 

Bob: [00:32:09] an example that has Paula blank, I've worked with, at SMHU. He literally said how many people want to go back to college, but can't, they can't get the time. They can't get the money. They have responsibilities. Like how do we actually help them go back to school when they can't come back to school?

And so we built an online program and it's 10, this is 10 years ago. And he had 500 online students at the time. And we went and interviewed like, what caused you to say, today's the day you're going to take classes in a school that's, 400 miles away. It's I had this happen.

I had that happen. Like at some point I now have responsibilities gone to school four times, but I never finished, but now I have it because I have children. I have to do these things. Great. Guess what? It turns out we have 200,000 people in the world who want to do that right now. He's he went from 500 to two.

He's the largest university in the world. 

Mike: [00:32:58] Wow. 

[00:33:00] Bob: [00:33:00] Wow. and so this is where, when you see the demand side, you start to realize what you can do now is X is minuscule to where there's actually demanded struggling moments. So struggling moments to me, if you haven't figured out it should be my middle name or something like that, where it's that's all I talk about is because I feel like the struggle is actually at the center of how we make progress.

Mike: [00:33:21] Yeah. I think that's a good way. That's a good phrase to wrap it up. Bob, I'm struggling moments messed up. So 

Bob: [00:33:30] I don't know if I liked that, but that's all right. Just kidding. I don't know. that's that's good. the book comes out on the 22nd of September, and it's like it again, it's written for all those people who.

Like the way I start the book is something along the lines. Like the first time I had to sell it, I just felt icky like this pit in my stomach, Oh my God, everybody's a prospect. I got to talk to everybody about like when do I shut it off? it was just this whole aspect of it of push my product.

And I like the used car salesman. I'm like, it doesn't have to be this way. And now. [00:34:00] I'll say almost 25 years later, I realized, okay, you know what? I should at least share this perspective. And so I'm not sure it's new. lots of people have talked about the sales side of the world, but I don't feel like too many people have been talking about the buying side of the world.

So that's ultimately how this book is different. 

Mike: [00:34:17] Yeah. thanks for being on Bob. It's always great chatting with you. Fatherhood's sales, struggling innovation. You got it. Thank you. 

Bob: [00:34:25] Thanks for having me on man.