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The podcast for aspiring entrepreneurs who have families. If you're a dad looking to escape the rat and quit your 9 to 5 while keeping food on the table for the family in the process then this show is for you. We discuss the challenges, tips, tricks and hacks to help you make the leap into freedom.
Brendan:
Liam, thanks for joining me today.
Liam Shaw:
You're very welcome, man. How are you?
Brendan:
I'm doing great. Doing great. Very excited to have you on the podcast. I've been seeing your tweets lately about the absurd volume that you're doing with your sales call and just crushing it. So you're, you're just 23 years old hail from New Zealand and you're already a remote closer. How can, how did you get there? Can you walk us through your journey, um, through sales to, to this point?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, man, for sure. So you had her basically right on. I definitely do live over in New Zealand. The only thing that's different there is I'm actually Canadian. So I moved over to New Zealand about five years ago. So that's kind of when my journey into sales began, I suppose. I was definitely that kid that was super entrepreneurial growing up, where I probably went door to door the first time selling at like 10 years old, going and selling
Brendan:
Oh,
Liam Shaw:
my
Brendan:
uh.
Liam Shaw:
snow shoveling services. You know, so you could say it was in the blood from a young age, but when I first got into it seriously, I got into door to door fundraising in New Zealand. And after the last three and a half years of doing that, I built up some pretty good resilience, you could say in the base level of like skills to get into sales. And I've always wanted to do something online, you know, to be able to have like that freedom side of it. However, you could appreciate, you know, even though the money is great and door to door, you don't have the location freedom. You still gotta go out there where you are. So, started jumping online and after self-recruiting for about two weeks, I ended up landing my first offer. And that's where I've been the last month now. Yeah, so that's how we got it done by 23.
Brendan:
Nice. Yeah. It's, uh, I think it's absolutely wild how easy it is to, to land some of these offers like you don't have to try for very long, as long as you interview even remotely. Well, um, there's lots of offers that you can get on with an on target earning of, you know, 10 K plus the opportunity right now is great. So you mentioned you, you're from Canada and you moved to New Zealand. Did your family move there or was it you specifically that moved there?
Liam Shaw:
No man, I was 19 and I knew I wanted to go have a holiday. So the plan was to come here for six months. Okay, I'd be here six months, do some backpacking. I ended up falling in love with my now wife.
Brendan:
Nice. Congrats.
Liam Shaw:
And yeah, thank you, mate, thank you. We got married this last December and kind of since ever since then, we're just like, yeah, New Zealand's home, at least for now in this foreseeable future. So that's how I ended up staying in New Zealand. But no, no family moved over with me. It was all by myself. I've been traveling since a very young age though. Like my family's always like just traveled. So that was pretty normal in my family.
Brendan:
Okay, cool. Gotcha. So you got, you met your, the love of your life, basically when you were on holiday in New Zealand and then you decided to stay there.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, genuinely
Brendan:
Gotcha.
Liam Shaw:
I met her. So my visa was like gonna expire like in about three weeks time and I met her and like literally we hadn't even gone on a date yet. I was like, I feel like extending my visa. This could be fun. And literally a whim went extended
Brendan:
Wow.
Liam Shaw:
it. I'm glad I did because you know, we ended up here today.
Brendan:
Yeah, that's wild, man. That's cool. And then so the door to door experience, what what, what were you selling door to door?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, so very uniquely, there is a massive market in door-to-door fundraising and event-based fundraising. So that's working with some larger non-for-profit organizations. In the States, you know Make-A-Wish. Yeah, so Make-A-Wish is one of my biggest clients that I deal with here in New Zealand, doing all their fundraising for them, getting their monthly and reoccurring donations.
Brendan:
Gotcha.
Liam Shaw:
So, yeah. Working with non-for-profits was the main gig, man. The art of teaching someone to give you money for literally nothing.
Brendan:
Yeah, yeah, just pure charity.
Liam Shaw:
Your charity, man. Four years of it.
Brendan:
Gotcha. And then you transitioned into remote closing and now you don't have to go door to door, you know, deal with the weather and all that kind of stuff. And, um, yeah, like I said, taking an insane call volume, I saw on your Twitter bio that you've called over 60,000 people.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, so that's referring to the 60,000 people is referring to the amount of people that I cold called going door to door So
Brendan:
Okay.
Liam Shaw:
yeah, so i'd be impressed if I could have done 60,000 in the last month. I'll be honest It's a big feat for anyone
Brendan:
Even with
Liam Shaw:
So
Brendan:
the power dialer. Yeah. That'd
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
be
Liam Shaw:
exactly
Brendan:
absolutely
Liam Shaw:
man, i'd be happy
Brendan:
insane.
Liam Shaw:
to go 24 hours a day, you know
Brendan:
Yeah. I
Liam Shaw:
Oh,
Brendan:
just
Liam Shaw:
I'm
Brendan:
saw
Liam Shaw:
sorry.
Brendan:
this, um, insane, insanely cool AI. That's a power dialer. It's called air air.ai and it has, um, a specific program on there called max. And I don't know how it does it supposedly, but the pickup rate is supposed to be a lot better on that, as opposed to something like. clothes.com or whatever. So, but
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
anyway,
Liam Shaw:
I actually
Brendan:
going back
Liam Shaw:
have
Brendan:
to you.
Liam Shaw:
a buddy right now that's interviewing and talking to them to work on their sales team.
Brendan:
Oh yeah. For,
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
um, Eric, the
Liam Shaw:
yeah,
Brendan:
air.ai.
Liam Shaw:
so air.ai, yeah.
Brendan:
Yeah. Very cool. Um, so what did you learn when you were, when you were cold calling that many people?
Liam Shaw:
Man, it's a lot. But I'd say the top things is resilience. I think too many people in life don't get comfortable with the word no. They spend their life and they almost get offended every time someone tells them no, even if it's the smallest things. You ask a buddy to go out and have a beer with you and he says, oh no, man, I'm a little bit busy. You're a little bit kind of buttered, I find a lot. A lot of people are, you're not like, oh, why didn't you wanna
Brendan:
Mm.
Liam Shaw:
go out? But in reality with... everything you do in life, the most common answer you're gonna get is no. So the biggest lesson I learned with cold calling that much was how to take a no and realize that it's not meaning no to me, it's just no to that situation and that outcome of that day.
Brendan:
Mm-hmm. How to not take it personally, basically.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the reality is you're seem like a pretty stand up guy, right? We met fairly recently, but I'm sure if I caught you on your worst day, you're going to be a hell of a lot different than if I caught you on your best day.
Brendan:
Yeah, for sure. Who isn't, right?
Liam Shaw:
Exactly. And that
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
kind of like goes into when you're going door to door, just in life in general, you're going to catch people on their off days and realizing that it's not your fault. It's not their fault. It just happens.
Brendan:
Yeah, yeah. I think that's why the traditional sales trajectory that most people are encouraged to go through either entails some type of outbound, right? So you start as a satirist or you start as somebody that's going door to door, cold calling, something where you're outbound and that just makes you a better person. As you said, it makes you more resilient. It gives you thicker skin. What would you say that you learned about people? during that time.
Liam Shaw:
Oh man, people. People, I have learned to love them even more and hate them in other aspects. As you probably imagined. The side that I love is just, you meet the most genuine people. When you talk to, like you said I've done, I've cold-called 60,000 people, right? I have made some of lifetime friends door knocking and cold calling on them. You know, you meet some really, really nice people. On the flip side of that, you meet some extreme assholes, if you will. You know, like you do get both sides of the spectrum. So in order of like what I've learned to just, there's so many different types of people out there and that you're not gonna connect with everyone, even if you really like them, there's some people that you're just not gonna be able to connect with. And there's gonna be other people that you didn't really think you were gonna connect with, but they clicked with you. You know, and I think that's a really good life. lesson for life because we all kind of go along and be like, oh, why doesn't that person like us? And sometimes can take those things personally. But I think it's just a genuine reality of life that everyone's going to have different expectations of each other. You know what I mean?
Brendan:
Yeah. It sounds a little cliche, but it's kind of that idea of you shouldn't judge a book by its cover type thing. Yeah,
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
absolutely.
Liam Shaw:
exactly.
Brendan:
Cause you never know. You never know. Um, and it could also be a timing thing too. You might be hitting people on a good day versus a bad day. So like you were mentioning earlier, so yeah, absolutely. Um, do you have any crazy or what's your, what's your most wild story would you say from your time going door to door? Did you have any uh, situations where you got inside the house and it was just, uh, you know, kind of, kind of nuts in there.
Liam Shaw:
Man, there's been so many, like, I can't tell you the amount of stories where I've gone to the door and the mom's crying, the dad's freaking out, and like, there's a baby that's just wandering down the street. I chase after this kid because he got out the gate. I like bring the baby back inside and, you know, like, what's going on, you know? And you instantly become almost like a therapist for the family. Like, they just start pouring out to you just because they, you're the first person to come in contact with them. So. I could probably tell about 15 different stories like that. Then the amount of stories where you can go on where dogs, you know, I love dogs. I have a few dogs myself, but when you're door knocking, they can get very vicious and crazy if you're going onto private property, you know?
Brendan:
Oh man, yeah. I've
Liam Shaw:
I
Brendan:
never
Liam Shaw:
remember
Brendan:
done door
Liam Shaw:
one
Brendan:
to
Liam Shaw:
in
Brendan:
door,
Liam Shaw:
particular.
Brendan:
but I can imagine.
Liam Shaw:
I can remember one in particular, man. I was actually fundraising for an animal charity at the time, funny enough.
Brendan:
Ironic.
Liam Shaw:
And... Yeah, I know, right? Great, great setup.
Brendan:
I'm sorry.
Liam Shaw:
And I had basically Gone on to this property I could see there was a dog on site and there was kind of like an abandoned car in the middle of the spot All right, but There was the dog was tied to it. So I was like, okay, like sure there's a dog, but he's tied up He wasn't the friendliest looking guy, but I was like he's tied up.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Like what are we gonna do? It'll be fine I was like I can get around go to the house. No worries So I get inside and you know, like old rusty cars aren't like the strongest anymore So he was tied to like the door handle of like the car. So like, yeah, the handle onto the car. And I came into the gate and this dude ripped the handle right off. And he came sprinting at me, full on sprinting. I remember, unfortunately, man, I had to lay that dog out, hey. I had to give him a good old one too and send them back to kingdom come. He flew back. I was like, ah, screw this. I'm not going to this house. I was like, rat out. As I'm trying to shut their gate, I literally break their gate, because I like run through it. Because I was like, no. And then trying to like lean the gate up a gate so the dog can't get out. And I'm like, oh my goodness, what's going on? Yeah.
Brendan:
I'm imagining the homeowner either coming home or coming out of their house and seeing their dog knocked out on their yard, the door handle for the car broken off and their gate is broken.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, I'll be very honest, I did not return to that house.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Stripped it off the list for that time.
Brendan:
or kind of dog was it?
Liam Shaw:
It was like, um, oh, what are those called? Like not a pit bull, but that kind of breed.
Brendan:
Okay, yeah, one of those vicious types.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it was like, it was ready to kill me, but I was like, oh, it's tied up. It'll be fine. No.
Brendan:
I bet you don't miss that being on remote closing now, huh?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, it's definitely different on that side. I do appreciate not having to be attacked by dogs.
Brendan:
Yeah. Well, at least I kept it interesting though. You know, you got to get outside, get some exercise, you know.
Liam Shaw:
Oh yeah, I mean I was averaging 20,000 steps a day, you know? So
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
definitely getting the footsteps in.
Brendan:
Yeah. That's the one downside I think of remote closing, at least for me, is like at some point during the day, after like six hours of being inside, I get a little antsy and I'm like, man, I need to like, just go for a walk, hit the gym. I even just dropped into pushups today because I'm like so antsy, you know? Um, but I mean, it does be getting chased by dogs for sure. No doubt about that. What
Liam Shaw:
I got
Brendan:
would you
Liam Shaw:
all my
Brendan:
say?
Liam Shaw:
board right behind me. I got my daily pushup count going on in
Brendan:
Oh
Liam Shaw:
between
Brendan:
yeah?
Liam Shaw:
calls, man. Yeah, I feel that. I feel that.
Brendan:
What would you say, um, most people get wrong when they're doing outbound. So they're either cold calling or DMing or whatever. What would you say people mess up at?
Liam Shaw:
They... Too many people let the last answer affect their next. You know what I mean? It's so simple to say that, hey, just because the last 10 people have said no, doesn't mean the next one's going to say no. But it's also so simple to allow it to. You know, when people keep getting told no all the time, they almost start to project that answer onto the new prospect. And I've seen it so many times, like with new sales guys that I've trained. is like they'll go around and they'll be like, oh, you probably don't want to get involved, do you? And they'll ask it that way. And it's like, why would you ever do that, right? But it's because they had received about 20 of the last nos. So people tend to take the, what we call it, taking the baggage from the last door to the next door. You know, taking all that negative connectivity, you know, like the wrong answers, the wrong mentality. If someone told you, no, I'm not interested or you suck or whatever it might be, taking all that with you to the next door when in reality, the next door has nothing to do with the previous one.
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
So that's the biggest thing people mess up because it can kill them. I mean, if you take bad information, you continue to have like those bad vibes in the easiest sense of it. To each house, you're never gonna get a positive output because you only get what you give.
Brendan:
Right. Yeah. Mindset is so important for sure. Yeah. If you're not in the right mindset, it's going to rub off on that prospect and it's just not going to go well. So how did you cope with that then? Is, was there anything that you did to adapt to that?
Liam Shaw:
I think the best thing that I've always done is just keeping in mind there's a ratio. And instead of like fearing a no, being excited for it. So like when I'd show up to a house, I did not care like genuinely do not care if they say yes or no. The same when I get onto remote closing now. Whether they get involved or don't, I do not give a shit because I know with enough time, my law of averages is gonna pay up.
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
So I'm even thankful when it is a yes or a no, that as long as I continue to get those, I'm going to get what. the outcome I want. You know
Brendan:
Sure.
Liam Shaw:
what I mean? So
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
for myself, you know, it was about a one in 10 on the doors. So if I wanna talk to 10 people and say, I hadn't got a yes yet, all 10 of them have said no. I'm actually getting really excited because I'm like, oh man, there's a sale right around the corner. Law of averages is having to pay out. And then it's gonna be coming, you know? And it would actually motivate me and I turn the condensation of the negative side that people would usually be like, oh, this is terrible. Everyone said, no, I'd be like, no, that means. There has to be a yes coming.
Brendan:
Yeah, it's kind of that concept of like, I'm, I'm due for, for a close here soon.
Liam Shaw:
Exactly.
Brendan:
Yeah. We were talking before the call about how you were, you mentioned that your short-term memory has gotten worse as you've been in, in closing. And it kind of reminded me actually of athletes, right? Like if they make a bad play that they, um, they have to get over it quick because they have to be on point. They have to be focused. They have to be in their peak state and in flow. And so you can't dwell on, you know, that missed shot or whatever it is. You have to go on to the next play. The same thing in sales. You have to be kind of a high performance individual and you have to move on. You have to not let that negativity get to you, which is tough, man. Like I said, I think that, um, outbound makes you a better person. You know, that's why I think we have guys start there for sure. So.
Liam Shaw:
100%.
Brendan:
With all this insane volume that I see you doing on Twitter, man, like you're doing, I think, I think, did I see you did like 21 calls the other day or something like that?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, we had 29 calls booked on the schedule, which was a little crazy that day. We ended
Brendan:
That's
Liam Shaw:
up doing
Brendan:
absurd.
Liam Shaw:
60 in a weekend, 60 in a weekend.
Brendan:
Wow. Wow, how long is that day?
Liam Shaw:
I worked from 9.30am till 2am.
Brendan:
Okay, yeah, that sounds about right.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah.
Brendan:
So, so 15 hours.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, 18, about 17, 17 and a half hours.
Brendan:
Oh, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I did that math. Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Hehehehe
Brendan:
18 hours. Good Lord. That's crazy.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, yeah man.
Brendan:
So what makes you so hungry? Like what motivates you to put in that amount of volume?
Liam Shaw:
You know who says it best? Alex Shamozzi, you know, he says when you are looking for a solid sales guy, you don't go and look for someone that has no meaning, that has no family, that has no responsibility.
Brendan:
Mm.
Liam Shaw:
Because they're the ones that are gonna go make a big check and then blow it over the next couple of months and then come back and make it again once they've run out.
Brendan:
Mm.
Liam Shaw:
But to be very honest, you know, I do have a wife and I have my first child on the way and I have
Brendan:
Nice.
Liam Shaw:
goals. Yeah, yeah, my first baby girl's coming in September, man. Appreciate
Brendan:
Congrats.
Liam Shaw:
it. Any kids
Brendan:
I
Liam Shaw:
yourself?
Brendan:
have two. Yeah, I have two. I have a three-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy.
Liam Shaw:
There we go, there we go, man.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
I'll see you soon, hopefully that'll be myself.
Brendan:
Nice. Yeah, man. It's a, it's fun for sure. I love it when they're like the three years old age. They get fun.
Liam Shaw:
I was super pumped about it, man. I've been, me and the wife have been waiting until we got married this last December to start trying and thankfully we got pregnant right away. So come September, we'll be having our first little one.
Brendan:
That's awesome. Yeah. But I love that. What you said about, um, you know, I guess it came from Alex Hermos. Yeah. I must have, I love Alex Hermos, but I must have missed that quote, but it makes sense that, uh, a strong purpose, a strong why for a salesman is, is really important. Um, and you know, he's relating it to, because you have that sense of responsibility essentially, you know, to, in the sense, in this case, to your family, um, versus maybe, you know, a young guy that doesn't.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, man, I mean, to be fair, that's the biggest motivation. However, I think I've always been the type where if I do something, I'm gonna do it at the best of my ability. You know? Say, for instance, you said it's a lot of call volume, and I do agree, it is a lot, right? But I believe that another Alex Hermosy quote for it is like, you have to pay down your ignorance debt. So if I were to do that, I'd say five calls a day, and I only took five calls a day. it's gonna take me a hell of a lot longer where if I can take 30 calls, now I got to pay it down six times as quick just because I was more efficient with my time and worked harder that day. So for me getting into remote closing as it's been something fairly new, it's been like coming up to the first month with it, is I wanted to pay down that ignorance debt as quickly as I could. Because if I can put in, oh, I don't even know how many I'm at now, but at least a couple hundred calls and it hasn't even been. three weeks, you know what I mean?
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
And for a lot of people that would normally take them say three months or so. So being able to kind of cram all that information in very short period of time, is gonna first allow me to develop up my skills, but then more importantly, allow myself to scale back while still maintaining the same level of sales. Because eventually the goal is to do seven to eight calls a day while having like a 40 to 50% close rate. So then I'm still closing the same amount of deals.
Brendan:
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, you're so right now you're in you're in volume mode because you're putting in the reps trying to get better.
Liam Shaw:
100%.
Brendan:
Got it. I thought when I asked you about volume and you started about saying, you know, that you're going to whip out a quote, I thought for sure you were going to give me a Grant Cardone quote.
Liam Shaw:
Which one were you expecting?
Brendan:
I don't know. But I mean, Grant Cardone's the guy that's, you know, massive action and everything. So, you know, I've heard some people say that sales is a numbers game. And then I've heard other people like, I think Grant Cardone says that. I'm not sure actually don't quote
Liam Shaw:
I'm
Brendan:
me on that, but I think you think you would say that. Right. So say Grant Cardone says sales is a numbers game and then you have another guy on the other end of the spectrum like say a Jeremy Miner or something like that says that sales is not a numbers game. Where do you fall on that spectrum? Would you say?
Liam Shaw:
History has told me that sales is a numbers game. However, just because There's numbers in play doesn't mean mine and your ratios are gonna be the same
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
So I think I think as a blanket statement like you're a liar if you say that there isn't numbers because if I gave you Five calls and you gave me 500 I'm gonna beat you Okay,
Brendan:
Mm.
Liam Shaw:
however, if you and me both did 500 calls, it's not gonna come down to the numbers at that point It's gonna come down to the skill and the ability to connect with that person each and every single.
Brendan:
Sure. Yeah. All else being equal, of course, right? There's a lot of nuances, but
Liam Shaw:
Yeah.
Brendan:
yeah, I think that, yeah, probably the correct answer is that it's obviously both, right?
Liam Shaw:
Hehehe
Brendan:
At least in the beginning, I think that that's spot on. I think that that's what most people should do is they should put in the reps. I think so many people get too scared, basically, to do what you're doing. and just put in a ton of reps because really that's the, that's the fastest track to getting good fast. You can, you know, read all the sales books you want, take all the sales courses you want, but at the end of the day, if you're not actually applying it, it's kind of a waste of your time and money. You know what I mean? You have to put in the reps for sure.
Liam Shaw:
Now I feel like it's like a little bit of that new classic saying it's like everyone that goes and has been buying the online courses and reads a book and you know they're just their knowledge masturbating in the easiest
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
sense of it.
Brendan:
Right.
Liam Shaw:
They do it because short term it feels great but you're still not having sex mate. It's not
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
the same thing.
Brendan:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's like mental masturbation or something like that. Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, yeah,
Brendan:
It's
Liam Shaw:
there we go.
Brendan:
yeah, it's analysis paralysis, right? Because so, you know, the show is called employee to entrepreneur. And sometimes we'll talk about the mindset shifts that need to occur. What if you're used to being an employee versus going into entrepreneurship. And that is one of the things that has to happen is that You stop being a perfectionist because our school systems teach us basically to be a perfectionist. You only get to turn in that paper one time and you have to do the best that you can to get the A on the paper in that one time. But that's not really how life works. You usually you get multiple chances at things just like sales or whatever. You can keep putting in the reps and keep getting better and better. And so you have to switch your mindset to massive action, right? Grant Cardone style. Um, and that realize that done is better than perfect. It's just one of the very many mental shifts that need to occur when you're going from employee to entrepreneur. You mentioned that you might have had like a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit yourself, selling your own snow shoveling services when you were like 15 or whatever. Do you come from an entrepreneurial family?
Liam Shaw:
Not at all. Well, not traditionally. I mean, I think everyone, or at least growing up, my parents always tried to start things and I guess they were fairly entrepreneur. Like my mom and dad opened a restaurant for a little while. They had it for about a year, year and a half. And finances and everything. It just wasn't clicking over as much as it could. They, I guess they had a catering business for a while. Yeah, I suppose I did. Yeah. Growing up, that was when I was younger. As I got older, they actually went back to school and became nurses. So then that side of the entrepreneur spirit, I guess like around 12, 13 went away. And it was purely just like working for yourself, sorry, working for someone else, you know what I mean? They did it through, I guess, yeah, I guess even still a little bit more of an entrepreneur side, because you know in the States and in Canada, they're nurses. So you can either work directly for the hospital or you can contract yourself out, okay?
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
So they do contracts. So they'll go spend, we live in Manitoba, well, they live in Manitoba, but they'll go to British Columbia and they'll spend three weeks over there and then they'll come back. And that's how they do their work. So they never are actually employed by anyone, they just contract themselves out.
Brendan:
Gotcha. Yeah. Like a travel nurse type thing is, uh, I think what we call it, at least down here in Florida. Um, yeah, I mean, it keeps things interesting, right? As far as I know, they get paid a little bit better than if you were just
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
to stay in one place, but
Liam Shaw:
yeah,
Brendan:
I
Liam Shaw:
it's
Brendan:
think
Liam Shaw:
close
Brendan:
the benefits
Liam Shaw:
to double.
Brendan:
might be a little different. Close to double.
Liam Shaw:
Ah. Yeah, close the double, man.
Brendan:
Holy moly, that's a lot more than I thought.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, like they'll get paid, they'll get paid, cause they get paid to travel as well, like per diem. And like per hour, they're getting paid like 45 bucks an hour just to drive to their job. It's ridiculous.
Brendan:
Wow.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah. And if they were working as a nurse, they'd get paid like maybe 30, maybe 31 bucks in Canada, like cause they've been doing it a while, right? So yeah.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah,
Brendan:
The
Liam Shaw:
so
Brendan:
reason
Liam Shaw:
I suppose.
Brendan:
I asked about if your family was entrepreneurial, and by the way, I would say that they, they were right. Like they might not have had success, but like, I don't think most families or most parents tried to start a restaurant, you know, or a catering business or whatever it might have been. So they, they did definitely had that itch. They had that spirit at some point, even though it might not have worked out the way that they intended it to. But I like to say that sales is the gateway drug to entrepreneurship. And I say that for a variety of reasons. Um, one being that some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever got started in sales, even the current ones, like take, takes, for instance, a Gary V or even an Alex, or Mosie. Most people wouldn't think of him as like he got started per se in sales necessarily, but like he essentially, his gym launch business was, had a huge sales component and he had to be a great salesman for his own gyms that he started himself. So it always starts with sales. It always starts with sales. Even guys like a Mark Cuban or even Warren Buffett, which most people wouldn't consider maybe an entrepreneur, at least not at this point. They all got started in sales. All their stories start in sales. So what do you think of that? Do you ever have you ever had dreams of? owning your own business or anything like that.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, no, 100%. It definitely is the gateway. So fast forward into the door to door fundraising side of things. And oh, goodness, what is that? 19 months ago coming up, yeah, just over a year and a half ago, I actually opened up my own company. So I was doing everything running the show. So I was still working in sales. I was just working and still doing the fundraising. I was just in charge of it, if that makes sense. So I had my own company set up, had my own contracts, and we went out on our own. and extremely the gateway. Do you know what I mean? Now I see myself continuing to look for those new opportunities. And it was one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to get into remote sales because I would love to have, say, my own type of coaching offer one day where I'm helping other people learn how to do sales like I did. And I don't think you can do that without the information. I'm a big believer in failing on someone else's dollar. If you can learn, you should go and do that before you launch your own. So you have some credibility and you've learned while they're paying you instead of while you're having to pay out for everything.
Brendan:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that is the typical trajectory there. A lot of guys will go have success in remote closing and it'll become a coach or they might have their own sales agency or recruiting agency or something like that. Um, I was talking to a guy the other day that's even making, um, some software for like call reviews and stuff. So there's lots of opportunities here that you can piggyback off of sales, but even if you don't, have like this direct connection to sales with whatever you do eventually. Like you could literally take sales and apply it to like any business model. Yeah. Like anything, like literally anything. Cause the thing is like, if you can't sell, you can't have a business period. If there's no money coming in, you don't have a business. Like it. And so it cracks me up sometimes when you have these, um, for lack of a better term, these want entrepreneurs, right? These want to be entrepreneurs.
Liam Shaw:
I love that.
Brendan:
Yeah, that, um, that, you know, they're geeking out on whatever product or service they want to bring to the market, but they're like, Oh, I'm not a salesman. And it's like, dude, you're trying to build a business. You're going to have to be a salesman. Like there's, that's not how it works. You know,
Liam Shaw:
I can't remember who says this, but it's like every single interaction that you do in life, you're selling. So you're either getting sold to or you're selling. You know, that the first girl that you ever went on a date with, you closed her. You know, you closed her on taking you on that offer. When your buddy wants to go to the movies and you don't want to go, you closed him on you didn't want to go. You know, every single interaction that you have, there's a degree of sales in it. I think a lot of people don't like to acknowledge that though, because the whole classic Salesmen have such a bad condemnation. You know, everyone thinks of the sleazy car salesmen. You know what I mean? And
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
I think that's why a lot of folks online the last couple of years have like rebranded themselves as consultants and gone through that side. I was talking to a guy that was in medical device sales earlier today and he's like, oh yeah, I'm a medical device consultant. I was like, oh yeah, what does that mean you do? He's like, oh, I like sell medical devices. Oh, so you're a medical device salesman. He's like, oh, no, consultant.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
And it just, I think people hate that word just from the negativity that can come with it. But the reality is everything sells.
Brendan:
Yeah. No, that might've been, um, Grant Cardone again. He has a book called, um, seller be sold, but yeah, everything is sales, right? There's a persuasive element to literally every human interaction and mastering persuasion, mastering influence is w we'll carry over to literally everything in your life, right? Like winning a girlfriend, getting a job interview, um, making your kids go to bed at the right time every night or You know, persuading your friends to do what you want to do that day, whatever. It goes on and on. So it, yeah, everything is sales a hundred percent for sure. Um, it's, uh,
Liam Shaw:
Earlier you had asked me what were the top things that I learned from going door to door and cold calling.
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
I'd say now if I had to break it down and like quantify it, it would be obviously resilience, yes, but also my storytelling abilities and my ability to persuade.
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
how
Brendan:
Storytelling is huge, man.
Liam Shaw:
massive
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
it brings
Brendan:
When did
Liam Shaw:
someone
Brendan:
you figure
Liam Shaw:
from the
Brendan:
that
Liam Shaw:
world
Brendan:
out?
Liam Shaw:
they're in now and it takes them over to the world that you're wanting to be you know what I mean
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
you can completely change their entire view
Brendan:
Yeah, man, I remember when I was in college and there was a course in storytelling and I remember thinking how absolutely ridiculous that is. I was like, what the hell do they learn in that? That's so retarded or whatever, right? And now I'm kicking myself because I'm like, man, I wish I took that course. I would have been like light years ahead of where I am now because I'm over here reading story worthy. I got story selling over here on the bookshelf. Like I'm all about the storytelling now. because it is 100% a powerful persuasive tool. Absolutely. How did you weave it into your sales?
Liam Shaw:
I do it from a personal side. So I believe the best type of stories is for you talking first person Because as soon as you start to like project a story about like them, it's not real, you know And it's very hard and it's kind of like corny and cheesy for them to like envision your life Let's say you're doing this. I'd rather be like hey look man This is what I'm doing and when I was seeing and even when I'm talking about students be like man I was talking to this guy earlier today and he was telling me exactly how we were able to get him from $10,000 a month to $100,000 a month within the last 24 months. It was crazy, it blew my mind. And now I'm still telling him the story of that person, but it doesn't sound like I'm just saying, hey, this was a success story that we had, but I'm saying my reaction to it, which just makes it way more genuine.
Brendan:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. When you when you if you have you ever read story worthy?
Liam Shaw:
I can't say I have, no. I'll have
Brendan:
You
Liam Shaw:
to
Brendan:
got
Liam Shaw:
write
Brendan:
to
Liam Shaw:
it
Brendan:
check
Liam Shaw:
down
Brendan:
that
Liam Shaw:
and
Brendan:
one
Liam Shaw:
add
Brendan:
out.
Liam Shaw:
it to the list.
Brendan:
It is, it is a fantastic book on storytelling. It's by Matthew Dix, unfortunate last name. Um, but, uh, absolutely incredible book for sure. Best one on storytelling that I know of. Um, so yeah, I mean that, that makes tons of sense. And I think that he even says as much in the book is like, you really have to kind of put yourself in the scene and like paint the picture and all that kind of stuff. And. Um, yeah, there's lots of really great points in there.
Liam Shaw:
What was the book called again? It was by Matthew Dex, but what was it called?
Brendan:
Story worthy.
Liam Shaw:
Story worthy. Nice, take a note now before I forget, eh?
Brendan:
Yeah, you gotta read that one, man. It's great.
Liam Shaw:
I will I will I'll probably audiobook it. I'm one of those guys. I like Chuck on the audiobooks in the background while working out
Brendan:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I just went through, um, way of the Wolf again, just cause I had it in the audio book library.
Liam Shaw:
I got it in the background there for myself.
Brendan:
Yeah. So with regards to sales, do you think, do you think anybody can be, can be a salesman? Can anybody do remote closing?
Liam Shaw:
Yes, anyone can do it. However, I think it's really silly when someone comes and like, say on Twitter, for instance, I've been posting as you've seen the last couple months pretty consistently and I've been getting more and more people come to me and message me, be like, hey man, like I've never done sales, like how do I get into closing? And my honest answer is you can do it, but you're probably gonna be better off if you go to at least some type of outbound before you try to become a closer. Kind of like we were talking earlier, I mean, whether it be door to door, or if you really wanna work on the phones and do this kind of stuff, then at least be doing outbound cold outreach, be a setter. Go out there and really earn your stripes because when you do that, first off, you get the basis of information. You become such a better person, as you said. But the second thing is it almost turns it into easy mode when you go into a closing position. That classic saying, how hard you train, if you out train how hard a game is, the game's gonna be easy. Do you know what I mean? I think
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
it was either Coby or Michael Jordan that always said like, the games were so much easier than the practices.
Brendan:
Mm. Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
And that's why. And that's kind of like, for me, it felt like when I did my, the last four years on door to door, that was my training. I always told myself, like, this is the training ground. This stuff's gonna set me up for life, whatever I do. Sales are not sales, it's setting me up for life. And now genuinely, when I came into this, I find it so easy. Cause I have people that wanna talk to me, people that are wanting to be there. So you put half an effort in, and now the, it goes a lot more effortless compared to if that's your first expectation. I think it could actually mess some people up pretty bad if they went straight into closing without having an out.
Brendan:
Yeah. I remember when I've got my first official closing role, I was kind of like, wait, so I just sit here and have people book inbound leads on my calendar for me. This is pretty sweet. Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah.
Brendan:
So I can relate, can definitely relate to that idea of it being, you know, a relief and thinking like, wow, this is easier than I was expecting.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, no, 100% man. It's incredibly different and a lot easier when you've gone from the one to the other.
Brendan:
Yeah, absolutely. So where do you see yourself say in like three years from now? Are you still going to be doing closing? Are you going to have, um, another business or two over your own?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, so I mean, I found that I really, really love sales. However, I am definitely an entrepreneur at heart and I think that'll always have that spirit in me. And I say that because I'm definitely gonna always have my own businesses. Now that being said, I don't think I'll ever be able to not work with people. I like the idea of partnering with other businesses, but that still has my own entity, if that makes sense. Where Say, Brendan, you have a business and you have your offer that you're growing, but you need some help getting there. So I'm gonna come over to you, I'm gonna join you, we're gonna go venture in it together. But I'm doing that because I'm not your employee, I'm your equal, do you know what
Brendan:
Mm-hmm.
Liam Shaw:
I mean? So
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
that's what I see myself doing long term, is helping other businesses grow via that. Sales agency route, in a sense of the way, building out sales teams, I mean, just because I look around at the amount of people that I know in the sales world. that aren't in online sales because they do door to door and they do things like that I know could absolutely smash it. It's like it seems like a very silly idea to not transition them online when I have the relationships and so I suppose at the moment it's building all the relationships to be able to start that to continue to be able to excel that. Along with investments, I mean I'm really big into my property. It's what the coaching offer that I'm working on at the moment is about but... I have a couple properties myself and just continuing to grow that side of it as well.
Brendan:
Nice. Yeah. Some real estate. That's awesome. Can't go wrong there for sure. Yeah. You hit on something that I think is sort of the future of a lot of the consulting and B2B space, if you will. Um, I think increasingly we're going to see more and more people not just do the monthly retainer model as much anymore where you just charge, you know, a couple thousand bucks a month to do XYZ services, whether it's digital marketing or, you know, set up there's. sales process or whatever it might be. But the idea of partnering with them, like you said, and taking some equity, even if it's just a minority stake, um, so that the incentives are aligned. But doing that has so much more of a long-term upside than taking a standard flat fee monthly recurring revenue retainer ever will, even though that sounds great, like we think that this idea, like if we can just accumulate, like, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 of these couple grand monthly retainers will be set. Right. But what's so much better is further down the line. If you're really playing the long game is to have that equity because some of those companies could go to the moon and then you'll be sitting really pretty someday.
Liam Shaw:
No, 100%. And I think that comes down to, and this might throw a lot of agency owners under the bus, but I think a lot of agency owners do it to get the quick buck. So they want the upfront, they want those monthly retainers because they're, and I have nothing against outsourcing and doing that. Please use the resources at your disposal, it's a great idea. However, make sure that your clients are getting the best end results. Do you know what I mean?
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Don't offer a big ass retainer to a business because it's their first time. and you got them involved or you got them if you will, but provide a tremendous level of value and take a percentage of it when they're not at their best rate and they do need that help where, first off, you're putting them in a better position to succeed, but then the harder you work, the better your returns are, which to me, obviously being in sales, I'm sure similar to yourself, Brendan, that I like my results to always be tied to my input, not just... you pay me a salary, otherwise I'd go work on a salary. You know what I mean? I want to be continually rewarded for the work I put in. And vice versa, if I don't put in the work, I don't wanna be rewarded. I don't think I should be.
Brendan:
Yeah. That's how entrepreneurship works. Right. That's yet another mindset shift that has to occur when you go from employee to entrepreneur. When you're an employee, you get paid usually hourly or salary or whatever, and you get paid, you know, not to say that there's no performance, you know, measured in there at all. Right. You have to at least hit certain performance standards to keep your
Liam Shaw:
or
Brendan:
job. But, uh, but with entrepreneurship and then sales, you were paid. exclusively on performance. That is the only thing that gets you money. You have to perform to get money. So yeah, man, that's 100% spot on. So if you had a friend that was wanting to get into remote sales, even if it was just becoming a setter at first, what advice would you give them?
Liam Shaw:
So the advice would come from like first off if they have some money or if they don't I think before you go pay for any courses regardless before you pay for any coaching go and get a job to make sure it is something that you want to do. If you can stick it out for a month of making no money and you're taking you know if you're say you're in a setting position you're doing two three hundred calls a day and you do that every single day for a month. Okay cool you're probably going to be cut out to be in sales. Now you can go pay for a coach and a mentor if you want to do so to just make the process a bit faster.
Brendan:
Mm.
Liam Shaw:
But if you haven't put in that time, I think so many people, and I got a great example of this, but so many people dive straight into something because they feel like it's the new thing, but they don't actually wanna do it. And when I was growing up, I loved the gym. I've always loved the gym. I had a buddy, he's like, man, I wanna get into the gym with you. I was like, all right, man, perfect, let's do it. And before he had even stepped foot into the gym. We went to the supplement store, we bought him like 300 bucks of supplements, we took him to the, yeah man, yeah yeah, we went full out. We went and bought him a couple hundred dollars worth of clothes, like he spent like half his savings and he bought a year's membership. The dude rolled his ankle, okay, so just like sprained his ankle, right before we were supposed to go to the gym. He never, and I repeat, never went to the gym.
Brendan:
Yeah
Liam Shaw:
And I feel like that exactly there is how people end up doing into remote closing and into sales online is they buy all the stuff, but they don't actually ever do it.
Brendan:
Yeah. No, that's exactly what I was getting at when I said earlier that you can read all the sales books you want and take all the courses and all that kind of stuff. But if you don't put in the reps, you're never going to get good at it. You're never going to make it your income, you know? And that goes also for almost any, you know, internet money model online, whether you're thinking about getting into dropshipping or you're thinking about getting into digital marketing or whatever it might be. I think that happens to so many people. They geek out and get all excited about it. And then when it comes time to actually do the work, they're like, uh, you know, maybe tomorrow.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, no, 100% man. And it's a real shame. It is a real shame. But at the same time, I love Andrew Tate when he quotes, you know, we do need normies out there. If there was no normies to fill up my car and make my burgers, who would do it, right?
Brendan:
Yeah. In the, in the, uh, you know, money, Twitter space, entrepreneurial space. We love to hate on the idea of having a nine to five, but we do need some people that are employees. Entrepreneurship is definitely not cut out for everybody, right? Like you, you definitely have to be a certain way. Like for instance, you have to have a very high risk tolerance to be an entrepreneur. You have to be able to, to
Liam Shaw:
Oh
Brendan:
tolerate
Liam Shaw:
yeah.
Brendan:
risk, you know, So there's a lot of things that it's not for everybody. Let's just put it that way.
Liam Shaw:
No,
Brendan:
It's a rare breed.
Liam Shaw:
100%, I mean, you kind of hit a nail on the head is you do have to have that level of risk tolerance. Like, I don't know anyone that is an entrepreneur today that didn't take some sort of massive risk throughout their journey. And usually those risks are at the beginning, but I feel like you can even really truly see the entrepreneurs when they start to take some of those risks when they're at the high levels. That's what really inspires me, you know? You see
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
some of the guys that are... worth quite a bit of money and they take a massive chunk of their net worth to get it going again and you're just like, whoa. Yeah,
Brendan:
Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
it's quite inspiring and those are the ones you can tell are the lifers, you know, they didn't just do entrepreneur to set them up and retire, they did it because they love it and they're going to continue to do it.
Brendan:
Yeah,
Liam Shaw:
I mean,
Brendan:
it's love of the game, yeah.
Liam Shaw:
yeah, I can't remember his name right now. It's the guy that did, he's super famous on YouTube. You know the brand of food, it's like fitness food that's like junk food but it's healthy?
Brendan:
Hmm
Liam Shaw:
Oh my goodness, why can I not remember his name?
Brendan:
It's not like Dave Asprey for bulletproof coffee, right?
Liam Shaw:
No, no, I don't think it's Dave Asprey from Bulletproof Coffee. It's like he made like chips and stuff that were like, they're like snacks, but like they don't have all the calories and everything in them. So it's like the healthier version. I can't remember. Anyway, he basically, when he got out of that, it was like a couple billion dollar exit. So he ended up with like half a billion, you know, when he exited the company and. His risk tolerance level, he had a wife and kids, so he said he like, look, he put some money aside for the wife and kids, but then he took the rest of it and he's just like, I'm ready, let's go, next adventure. And to me, that was just so inspiring because you could tell that entrepreneurial for him wasn't something that he was doing to have the end game, but it was the end game, you know, at the whole journey itself.
Brendan:
Yep. Absolutely. It's all about the journey, man. Yeah. Uh, I think, um, you realize that eventually, like after you've been grinding and hustling for a while, you realize that like, when you do hit those goals, you always end up making more goals anyway. And you realize eventually that you just love, love the grind. Um, that's when you really make it, I think. Absolutely. Yeah.
Liam Shaw:
Amen.
Brendan:
So, Liam, where can people find you if they want to follow you on Twitter or do you got any other social profiles by the way?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, so Twitter's the number one spot at the moment. Follow me on Twitter. My own podcast is coming out and the first episode's out, but we're starting to ramp it up very soon. And that's Inside the Mind of a CEO. So you can find that on YouTube, but it'll also be linked to the Twitter account. So stay tuned on Twitter. It's where I'm the most active.
Brendan:
Okay. What are you going to be talking about on your pod?
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, so my podcast, I liked me, I'm a nitty gritty guy. I love numbers. I'm a very nosy individual. So it's gonna be going into people's journey so far as an entrepreneur, what it's been like to start from the very beginning, what got them into it, but more importantly, how they're doing. You know, like how are they doing today compared to the day one? And how much progress have they made? Or if they haven't made progress, why haven't they? And really getting nitty gritty on that. I like to see. There's going to be a whole line of it coming to everything from obviously online entrepreneurs, people that are in sales to someone that is running a quality, what do you call it, quantity surveying officer, you know, where they like survey land. That's his
Brendan:
Okay.
Liam Shaw:
like full-time job, he does that for himself. So
Brendan:
Gotcha.
Liam Shaw:
different things along the way so you can see what it's like to be inside someone that runs that business. Maybe you want to know what it's going to be like to be an electrical engineer. but you don't want to go to school and do it first, jump onto the pod, and see what it's like to actually own that business.
Brendan:
Yeah, that sounds great. So guys, if you're listening, be sure to check out Liam's podcast in this, inside the mind of a CEO when it comes out or sounds like it might be launching or you said you already have the first episode.
Liam Shaw:
Yeah, first episode's out there. First episode's out there.
Brendan:
What platforms is this on?
Liam Shaw:
It's on YouTube.
Brendan:
on YouTube. Okay, awesome. And yeah, if you're watching this on YouTube, please like and subscribe if you're on Apple podcasts. I'd appreciate it if you left the show a review. It really helps the show out. And guys, if you're thinking about jumping into sales, jumping into entrepreneurship, please, please do so. It's a lot of fun. And I really, really believe that the world needs more entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs solve problems. And Lord knows we have enough of those. So join me, join Liam. Make the transition from employee to entrepreneur, and we will see you on the other side.