This is one conversation that you will not want to miss, Erin Marcus is a brilliant businesswoman that has years of experience in the corporate world that eventually lead to running her own business. She helps businesses and individuals get out of their own way to start running their businesses and stop letting their businesses from running them. She is a Founder, CEO, and Speaker for Conquer Your Business. She helps companies figure out what needs to do done next.
Leighann Lovely
This is one conversation that you will not want to miss, Erin Marcus is a brilliant businesswoman that has years of experience in the corporate world that eventually lead to running her own business. She helps businesses and individuals get out of their own way to start running their businesses and stop letting their businesses from running them. She is a Founder, CEO, and Speaker for Conquer Your Business. She helps companies figure out what needs to do done next.
Leighann Lovely 00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann. Lovely. Let's get this conversation started. I have one badass guest today. Erin Marcus, she is a speaker. She is the Founder and CEO of Conquer Your Business. She helps entrepreneurs and small business owners get the financial and emotional freedom. They need to build a business and a life they are proud of by learning how to be in charge and take action and get results. She has been mentoring, training and teaching and coaching for more than 20 years. She loves helping people take action. They didn't think possible, do things they didn't think they could do and succeed beyond what they dared to dream. I'm so excited for this conversation. She's just an amazing woman. I've seen her speak. She is hilarious, she is brilliant. And yeah, let's without further ado, let's get this conversation started. Welcome, Erin. I am so excited to have you here as we start with round two on the beginning of this as we're having a little audio problem here. But again, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. I've seen you speak and you are one badass business owner and Yeah, welcome.
Erin Marcus 02:25
So excited to be here. All good on the technology front. It this is just how we live now. It's perfectly fine.
Leighann Lovely 02:32
So why don't you? Why don't you give us a little introduction of yourself?
Erin Marcus 02:36
Sure. Awesome. So the short answer for the relevant for your audience, right. So I had a big fancy corporate career, I absolutely loved it. I was very lucky in two different places to have amazing mentors and amazing opportunities. C suite level in a extremely large insurance brokerage firm, and got to the point in my career, where I felt like I needed to do something that was mine. So after trying to pay all the other people on my team to go tell our boss I was leaving, because it was just so monumentally upsetting to me at the time, I finally left there, too, and went into the franchise world I talk about, I probably couldn't be doing what I'm doing now. One, I needed to learn more things. But also, I didn't make a full leap. I went into a franchise system, which is a system right. Instead of creating my own thing, I had my franchise for six years, I got to the top 10 out of 200 offices in about 18 months. And the franchise owner would then ask me to train new franchise owners speak at their meetings speak at their conventions, I did a lot of marketing and processes that I would just give to the home office to distribute to the rest of the system. Because my background was business. My background was business and I was at a C suite level and corporate half my job there was helping our accounts develop their business. Then when I got into the franchise, I found that I loved helping the system build the business even more than I loved what we were doing. So finally, after playing in that world for 20 years, I just took it on completely and started conquer your business where what we really focus on now is my favorite thing to do. And only took me 20 plus years, but my favorite thing to do, which is to help driven entrepreneurs, create the scale and branding strategies they need to get to that multiple six figure seven figure business.
Leighann Lovely 04:54
That's awesome. That's awesome and you know it nothing ever starts in a day. We find our way over time. And it's you know, so that I mean, that's, that's brilliant, and who wouldn't want to hire somebody who's followed that, you know, success path and able to help, especially new entrepreneurs who are trying to really blindly finding their way.
Erin Marcus 05:20
Yeah, and I think truthfully, that's one of my differentiators is, I hate and I have a, I had a really hard time calling myself a coach. Because there were way too many coaches out there, who I felt had never done what they're trying to teach. And I didn't want to throw my hat in that ring, little judgy of me, and it's not like they come from a really good place of wanting to help people. It's not a malicious intent. But there's a disconnect. And at the same time, truthfully, three quarters of what I do is consulting. I'm like, Dude, this is what you got to do. That's consulting coaching. The coaching part comes in, when we hit a terror barrier, where we, when we hit impostor syndrome, the coaching part of my business comes in, when we put together a plan that consciously the business owner wants, but subconsciously, we've got to break through some fears in order to do it. And to me that, oh, my god, like that is the magic. The plans not hard for me, like I can't help but do it. I see people's businesses and my brain just goes rearranging their ducks, and putting a different umbrella over it. I can't not do that. But the plan doesn't matter if the person can't do the plan. So the amazing, amazing experiences I get to have is when I work with someone on a conscious level, the business planning and all the cool things. And then they go and they make their breakthroughs and make it happen for themselves.
Leighann Lovely 06:57
And that's, that's half the battle, right? I mean, we we as people understand, you know, on paper what needs to happen, but often getting there emotionally and mentally. And I and I specifically say emotionally, because our decisions are, are driven on an emotional level, most of the time.
Erin Marcus 07:17
Every single, every single decision we made, every single decision we make is based on emotion and then justified with logic. One of the things I do teach is sales. And I laugh all the time about every single decision, buying decisions, especially, they're made with emotion, and then justified with logic. And one of the examples I use is my car. I have a Mini Cooper. It has a turbo engine. It has lights inside, I can change colors, not like two options, like seven options, like every color of the rainbow. It has a sunroof, that's the entire, like, width length of the car. Where am I going in the Chicago suburbs that I need a turbo engine? Where am I going that even if I wanted to, I could use a turbo engine. Know between you and me like this thing does 100 miles an hour 60
Leighann Lovely 08:17
I'm not I'm not sure you understand the concept of a podcast. This is not just between you and me.
Erin Marcus 08:23
But that those are all emotional decisions, right? And then I justify it with logic by saying I got a great deal on it, it gets great gas mileage, right? I can park that sucker anywhere. Because it's like, the size of a purse, right? I got all sorts of logical reasons I can justify having a bright blue car that drives more like a jet. It changes colors.
Leighann Lovely 08:54
It's the same, you know, I'm going to go on a diet, but then, you know, three days in, I'm going to have a cookie. And I can justify that and you know, emotionally I just really want this cookie because it tastes good. It makes me feel good.
Erin Marcus 09:07
Addicted to it where our wants have us in, right our habits habits in a rut. And it's so hard to break out of those ruts.
Leighann Lovely 09:14
And logically, I'm going to I'm going to be able to justify this because I did really good for the last three days. That I mean, that is what we as humans do.
Erin Marcus 09:24
It's just how it works. The way that I describe that for people is give yourself a break. But don't let yourself off the hook. Like give yourself a break in these types of situations. Whether you're on a diet, whether you're trying to go to the gym, whether you're trying to not be a jerk to your spouse who you know, is doesn't you know, on the receiving end of a bad day have you like whether you're trying to grow your business and you're not doing the thing that you know you need to do? Give yourself a break because what you're up against isn't neuroscience and X amount of years of subconscious programming. However, don't let yourself off the hook. Because that doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it.
Leighann Lovely 10:12
Absolutely. And I think that, especially and I, and I don't want to, well, no, I do, I'm going to,
Erin Marcus 10:20
Because here we go, right?
Leighann Lovely 10:24
It's very much in the older generation. Because they were not as younger kids taught emotional intelligence, right? So they have this, this, this is the way it is black and white. I don't allow emotions to come in. They hold themselves to a very hard standard black and white, this is it. The younger generation, they're lucky, they're being taught emotional intelligence, they're being taught, yes, it's okay to feel this way or that way. But, and as you know, obviously, I'm teaching my daughter from a young age emotional intelligence, it's okay to be mad about it. It's not okay to do X, Y, Z, or I still need to do whatever.
Erin Marcus 11:08
Right. And I think that's where we've seen the pendulum swing a little bit too far. Where I, you know, I know my truth has become an excuse for being a jerk. And those are two different things, totally different things. Right, you should feel your feelings, you don't have a right to infringe upon mine. Right. And it's just a pendulum. I mean, it really is. And we all figure out how to succeed and maneuver if it's important enough to us. And I don't get, I laugh, because if you watch any of the online jokes and headlines and things about what one generation says about the next, you can go back 50 years, and it's verbatim. It's the exact so this is just the process like this is, I don't know, we need something to talk about. So we make up and our brains have a negative bias. Just in general, that's how brains work. Its job is to keep you alive. So it looks out for risks, it takes everything as a negative, that's a job. So our brains have this negative bias to interpret things as negative. And we've got to fill 24 hour news. And we've got to fill 8 million channels, and we've got to meet the you know, and then you layer on top of that we've got to meet the financial requirements of advertising run platforms. Right? And it just is what it is.
Leighann Lovely 12:43
Well, and it's in it's funny that you seem to talk about the generations and how it goes, because I have people all the time asked me they're like, Well, isn't it the worst it's ever been isn't you know, is exact same? And that's what I said, you know, and I'm just out to dinner, you know, with a girlfriend of mine. And, you know, this, we were at a at a, like a bar restaurant thing. And we happen to be sitting up at the bar and this gentleman who was I believe he was slightly intoxicated, intruding in our conversation, which is absolutely fine. I don't care. I'm one of those. Bar, what did you think was gonna happen? Right? And he made the comment, he's like, Well, the world is the worst it's ever been. I said, No, it's not. I said, it's just different than what you know, from when we were younger.
Erin Marcus 13:24
The difference is, we all now are immersed in it, the pervasiveness of being surrounded by the negativity is worse than it's ever been. And because of the platform's actions that are happening, same actions, right. But the immersion in the negative messaging, like we didn't used to know, all this stuff was happening, we only knew our little world. And so what you're watching is a mixture of being aware of everybody's negative experiences. And not enough positive experiences to counter it, because it's just not what people cover. But the other thing that's happening is you're losing community. Right, you're losing sense of community, and the nuclear family would use to support people through this.
Leighann Lovely 14:24
Right. But there's also positives that are happening. And there's, there's always a balance. The unfortunate thing is that in the news, you only hear that negative, right? The things that are happening that are positive are we're seeing an actual, like, a light coming on. EQ and we also seeing awareness on things like neurodiversity, and mental health and all of these, you know, an addiction, drug addiction and all of not just drug any addiction. All of these things are now becoming you No, not because a lot of times less stigmatized, and people are starting to understand that these are not simply, you know, this guy doesn't simply just go out and get drunk every night because he chooses to want to be drunk.
Erin Marcus 15:14
It is actually a key, right? Our education around the why's of all of it. Why is this happened? How does it happen? Why does it happen? How does it happen? Has it just increased dramatically, and are the same platforms that immerse us in all this negative are the same platforms that share the information that allows solutions as well. And the trick is really like is to be selective and to be careful. I know for me, I'm not a negative person, I don't usually feel bad, I don't usually feel scared. I don't usually feel angry on a regular basis. So I know, if I'm starting to feel those feelings as default. I got to step away from it. Right? I have to step away from it. Because, again, it's just the way our brains work. When you are completely immersed in surrounded by a certain type of message, you might start out not believing it, but you will start to believe it. Right, just because that's how it works.
Leighann Lovely 16:24
Yep. I completely agree with that. I knew at a young age, that if I watch tear jerker movies, that was, right, they they affected me for four days sometimes and I'm like, I can't watch. I can't watch this stuff. Because for whatever reason, it just that in that could be my brain chemistry of that stuff. Brings me to I started,
Erin Marcus 16:50
I got my MBA when I was 37. I was still in my corporate job and getting an MBA at the same time. So I was like, busy, and it was hard. It was hard. And so there was a lot of books and studying and my role in corporate was not like a nine to five punch in punch out situation. So around that time, I noticed, I only watched for entertainment lowbrow, non emotional, right? That never went away? I never went back to heavy drama. Yep. I mean, I don't watch heavy drama. I don't want the anxiety of the cliffhangers. Now senseless violence totally for Marvel, right?
Leighann Lovely 17:45
I'm a complete horror, like B movie horror buffs. Like, just completely, you know, the movie ends, everybody died. And I walk away. And I'm like, Yeah, that was like, Oh, my God, what's wrong with me?
Erin Marcus 17:58
Like I moved to I don't watch any I'm totally all over Marvel NCIS those type of stuff? I'm not. And it's not like those don't have anxiety situations. But what I won't do is watch anything that the basis of the entertainment is people being mean to people for entertainment sake. So a lot of the reality TV, I just why are we glamorizing being a jerk to other men? Right? Like if we're good and evil is different than just being a jerk to other humans. So I do,
Leighann Lovely 18:33
Neither do I. So I know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of switch gears switch gears here, because we could just rant about, you know, all of this stuff for the next two hours. So I do have, you know, with your background, you know, I wanted to kind of re focus here. And I think this is a brilliant question for somebody with your background. You know, we kind of touched on this when we were talking previously. But I am of the belief and an actually, it's not really a belief. I believe that this is a fact. Entrepreneurs have an internal battle when they become entrepreneurs right there. It's the sales production, sales production. Entrepreneurs don't become entrepreneurs to become salespeople. Yet, in order to become an entrepreneur, you have to do sales. We agree on this. However, there's also an external battle that happens at businesses, you have your production and you have your sales. They often very much like the internal battle of an entrepreneur, there happens to be often a external battle that is happening at those companies of production and sales. And what I would love to learn from you today because you have done this created awesome teams that work cohesive Have we together? And this plays a great deal into being able to retain employees on both sides? Absolutely. And I would love to hear your take and how, how you're able to marry those together in order to create those teams, because it's a problem.
Erin Marcus 20:19
It's a problem. And I'll tell you what, the fact that we just had this random conversation isn't so random. Because what you're seeing out just in the United States and culture in general, is mirrored in companies. There's only one way to solve this problem. It's what is the culture of your company? This is a cultural problem. Meaning is the culture of your company, one that allows outrage, which, by the way, worst like this to me, as I pontificate about my opinions, because we know I have them. This is the problem right now, people's default emotion is outrage, which inherently removes any opportunity for empathy, any opportunity for learning about another opinion, any opportunity, like outrage, everybody is outraged over everybody else's behavior. There's no middle ground, there's no conversation, everyone else is wrong. outrage. You're doing this to me on purpose. Right? Those are the feelings we have when we are outraged. And in with any company. If you allow that culture in your walls, you you're screwed. You are creating an us versus them mentality in your company, department versus Department. Who wants to be in that environment? Now, here's the thing. The difference is, and I'll just go use my background as an example. Because this was my job. We used to call what like, I was a one person department. I was a one person department I was I finally got an assistant. And then I got a second person. It's very exciting. But you know, 70 people in the company, and here's me in my department, what did I do? I manage the gap. I managed the gap. My job was yes to go out and create relationships. But I wasn't the only one doing it. The senior partners in the in the business would do what we would call a sales conversation, meaning the first touch point of do we want to work together? And then they would say, Okay, well Aaron knows how this actually works. And then I would come in and figure out how do we actually make it go? How do we get them to sign on the dotted line? How do we close the deal and implement it. And if we were going to close the deal and implement it, what I had to do was get the operations desk on in line with it, our sales team support in line with it, the Commission people, the people who paid the bills, and paid all these different people, everyone had to be pointing in the same direction. Or it didn't work. Because we worked in opposition to each other. And when you work in opposition to each other, you lose business, right? And so the truth of the matter is, whether you're talking about a government, or you're talking about an entrepreneur, or you're talking about a large business, culture starts at the top, period, hard stop, end of story, culture starts at the top. And if you have a culture that allows this department to blame that department. That's it. Like, this is going to be the like, I feel like the dumbest way to answer this question. Don't do that. Right. Don't do that.
Leighann Lovely 24:24
You know, I feel like some of the most complicated questions have the simplest answers.
Erin Marcus 24:28
Yeah, stop doing that. In here, so and you know, it's one of those things, it's easier to say, than do so why why is it easier to save and do it? To me, there's two parts to that. Number one, people's brains work differently. So the brain function of someone in it and the way that someone thinks who's in a process oriented part of your business where they like, process paperwork, process applications, that was our business, or maybe they're on the line? Right? Maybe they're in Mani Factoring and you're there on the line there on the floor. And the sales team and marketing team, these people think very differently from each other, their personalities are usually very different from each other. Right, you have to intentionally bring them together, left to their own devices, they will not agree with each other. Because for no other reason, then their brains work differently. Right. So you have to be very intentional, intentional, new word intentional about creating opportunities for them to understand each other for them to appreciate each other. Truthfully, and this is coming from a salesperson, we're arrogant jerks. We walk in there with like, dude, if I didn't just close this deal, none of you would have jobs like that's not helping. Right? And at the same time, if the people who fulfill the work, hate the salespeople, well, that's not helpful, because the sales person just, you know, the extrovert salesperson just went and made happy and made promises. And now the team fulfilling those promises. Is us against that, like, it just doesn't work, right? It doesn't work. So you have to understand that just from a personality profile way our brains work, we're going to be different. And then the other thing I think that contributes to the problem is the fact that internally, in a large company, this is hard to do, if you really think about it, it's a competitive environment. Because the concept of abundance doesn't fit in the corporate mold. Because in the entrepreneurial world, we say, it's not a pie, there's enough for everybody. But within a large company, that's not actually true. There's a finite number of a finite amount of money, how much is each department getting? This pits them against each other? Instead of collaborating on a team? If there's seven people on a team, and there's an opening for a promotion, only one person gets it. So now you're asking seven people to be a cohesive team, when maybe three of them want that promotion? How does like you're asking a lot of people. So it's inherently competitive. We're even if we do all like each other, and support each other underneath, we know, if you get a piece, a bigger piece of the pie, I get less, like, how many times do you see in corporate where, okay, the bucket of money for raises this year, is $10,000 Go divided up amongst your team. One person gets more one person gets less, you want to add in now, the people doing the same job aren't getting paid the same amount of money, or at least not getting paid based on experience. They're getting, like there's so much that goes into creating a scarcity mentality, a competitive, unfair feeling. And now add in the people in different departments think and work differently than each other. I mean, listening to me go on and on and on. It's amazing. Anything that gets done, right, like, we should be, maybe we should just be very proud of ourselves for accomplishing anything instead of disappointed that sometimes it's hard, right?
Leighann Lovely 28:47
It's amazing to hear you break all that down. Because, you know, I've been told that I'm not very good at playing the corporate game.
Erin Marcus 28:55
I suck at the corporate game, right? I did very well in corporate you know how to play the corporate game. Do a really good job. Right?
Leighann Lovely 29:02
Right. I might and I always default to my dad because my dad is always the son of reason for me. And every time I would get like upset or I would go and I would talk to him before I talk to anybody else because if I didn't I would say something really really stupid to my boss, because I would be like all riled up and I play over there my dad would go You did not say that to your boss, right? Oh, I can tell you story. I know. I you know,
Erin Marcus 29:27
And you get screaming matches where the rest office and my boss and I I mean, we still are very close relationship.
Leighann Lovely 29:35
And you get to a certain level in which you can start saying certain things to your boss as long as it's not in front of somebody else. You get to that certain point, right. But there is that there's the corporate there's the politics that go along with it. There's humans right along with all of the other crap app that you have to try to balance out with your, you know, co workers with getting your work done with, you know, the possibility and I've had this said, You, you and I'd have this, you know, again, we talk I've been told as a salesperson at a company outright by the team who's supposed to be fulfilling what I bring in, that they you know, why hate salespeople?
Erin Marcus 30:23
Well, so well. And here's the other thing. Okay, so let's add to that, let's add to the subconscious programming, that every person in that department has against salespeople. Because every cartoon that they've watched, every movie that they've seen, has a very, very negative story about sales. So why wouldn't they hit you? They have no reason not to write unless the top very, very intentionally while they are managing all the other things that they have to take care of. does something about it,
Leighann Lovely 31:02
Right reconditions re, you know, gets everybody's mindset and reminds them that sales is not the enemy. They are the ones bringing in the orders. But that makes that makes it sound like the salespeople are that much more arrogant.
Erin Marcus 31:21
Right? Exactly. And we are I was, oh my God, come on, like, well, and here's the thing, even if we don't mean it that way, the exuberance of closing a deal. A big, big, big deal can absolutely be interpreted by others as arrogance. Again, we're going back to different brain, different functions, right? Different different workings just appearing here.
Leighann Lovely 31:55
And here's the strange thing. If you asked me today, LeighAnn, what was the biggest deal you've ever closed? I can't tell you, Oh, I can tell you. So I can't tell you because my brain by the time I hit the they just signed seal, you're done. I was I was often going, Okay, you guys take care of this, I'll maintain the relationship with the client. But I don't really care about that. I just want to get the next sale because
Erin Marcus 32:20
I travel. That's a very true salesperson.
Leighann Lovely 32:23
I truly did not care about and I hate that question. People ask me, What is the biggest deal you've ever done? Well, I mean, I could sit here and think about it, it was I negotiated a national contract with, you know, a large company it was, but I can't even tell you the details anymore. Because I was I was already done. I signed it.
Erin Marcus 32:42
And that's very, you know, in going back to the idea of culture, and it's, you know, is there a culture of mutual respect? Is there a culture of openness? Is there going back to this idea of outrage you none of this works if outrage has any space in your business enough. In my company that I was in, we hired another salesperson, I was more of an account manager, relationship manager than a cold salesperson, I did some of that he was way better at it than I did. So we adjusted what we're doing. And he was a true salesperson. He honestly didn't care if you said yes or no, just don't waste his time. So he could move on. And that's who I used to. It was like a pinball, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But we liked each other, and we respected each other. And I understood his personality, and he understood mine. And I, like I said, I my primary role was to manage the gap, meaning it was my job, truthfully, to protect the rest of the team from him. But he knew that, and they knew that, which meant which mean we were all fine. There was no judging. It was just this is who each individual is, this is. And so when things would get out of hand, one of the team would come to me and like, and I'm like, and I would just go up to him and like, Dude, you're killing me. rein it in. And if you want for a short period of time, big deal and
Leighann Lovely 34:15
and it's interesting, too, because salespeople like that, they often they don't see anything. They don't see anything else. And that's where I'm I don't I don't care if you say yes or no, until I know you. I don't have any skin in the game. Like, just give me an answer, respond to me and say, Hey, I appreciate you reaching out. I'm not interested because then I won't waste my time reaching out to you anymore. Just give me how many
Erin Marcus 34:40
people are. Yeah, and the truth is so many people are so afraid of sales, that they can't even fathom that. Right. They can't even fathom somebody who feels and thinks that way. So they literally just don't know what to do with it. Right?
Leighann Lovely 34:55
They're afraid so they don't respond. Well. If I respond, she's gonna think that I'm interested. Don't. It's like My husband and I.
Erin Marcus 35:01
Well there are other team members that like how could that crazy lady over there not care if
Leighann Lovely 35:09
There is so much business to be had that I would rather just get the Yes? Or the no and move on. Right?
Erin Marcus 35:16
One of the great one of the great sales training or sales pieces of advice that I ever got is the worst answer you could give me as maybe, yes. Oh, because it means I didn't do my job. It means I didn't do my job of connecting the dots for you, knowing that we were or were not a good fit, explaining our value understanding your problems. Someone who says maybe, or someone who's very ambivalent about your offer, and your conversation means I didn't do my job.
Leighann Lovely 35:50
Right. So you say you don't understand my offering. So you're
Erin Marcus 35:54
and I didn't understand their problem. You know, I mean, it's very,
Leighann Lovely 35:58
and I'm okay with the yes, I'm interested, but call me in six months.
Erin Marcus 36:05
Let me figure this out. I still have to sit with this a minute. That's totally Absolutely. Again, different brains process differently. Not everyone makes a decision in a minute and a half, that's different than someone who walks away, unsure of any of it.
Leighann Lovely 36:24
So if a company is struggling with, you know, the whole team dynamic, what would you what would be the
Erin Marcus 36:35
if you could we use? Yeah, we used to? It's culture, it's so how do you build culture? How do you build culture number one rate, you get to know people on a personal basis. The fact of the matter is nobody can really, really, really manage my talking like call center version, but nobody can really manage well, more than five people. If you're really going to have an intimate culture, asking somebody to manage a team of 50 people, without any additional layer of at least some you know, they don't have to be promoted, they could just be in charge of their team. Because you can't get that many people together and have that deep conversation, right? So from the top down is the culture one where we're all in this together, we're all moving in the same direction. Everybody's everybody's role is equally appreciated, that we have 000 tolerance for mistreatment of other team members, right? Zero tolerance for mistreatment of other team members, because every single person is respected for their contribution, right?
Leighann Lovely 37:57
And making sure that sales is not siloing themselves.
Erin Marcus 38:03
I mean, anybody, right? Like you, this is not just how do you solve sales against the rest of the company? This is how you solve anybody against the rest of it. Like? What is that culture and culture is not a once a year teambuilding event. Because if you have a nice, cheap rubber chicken dinner at the banquet hall, and the rest of the time, nobody intervenes, when people are harassing people or being jerks to people, people aren't doing here's the other thing, like holding people to expectations of doing their job is positive for the culture. Because when people don't, when you have team members who aren't doing their job, and everyone knows they're not doing their job, and nobody does anything about it, you'll kill morale faster than anything else, right? Why should I work so hard when that person gets the same promotions and accolades and benefits and doesn't do anything? Right? Yeah, people will leave that company. It's appreciate, you know, your biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest asset, are the humans in your business. Are you treating them as if each and every single one of them? Are you treating them as if they're the biggest asset in your business? I'll give you perfect. So before I went to the insurance company, I was in commercial real estate. I was in the marketing department of a international commercial real estate company and I worked in the Chicago suburban office side of things meaning big fancy office buildings in the suburbs of Chicago. And again, international company, and this was during the.com. Boom. So things were not money, money, money. The agents were making more as day traders than they were even making in their deals that they were doing. It was just a Crazy, crazy, crazy environment. And there was a true story because I knew who had happened to that a broker, a real estate broker on really, really high end agent in the New York office punched his administrative assistant,
Leighann Lovely 40:18
oh my God.
Erin Marcus 40:19
Now, it was a male, not a female, which doesn't make it okay, but doesn't make it quite as terrifying, right? That's a different level, right? So it was a male agent and a male administrative assistant punched the guy. Because of the outrage over I don't even remember, it was some kind of deals, some paperwork didn't get set properly. And now someone had to go clean up the mess. And they gotten one argument over who made the mistake, and the agent punched him. And nothing happened. Because the agent brought in millions and millions and millions of dollars. Oh, my God, what do you think that does to morale? What do you think? Why are you surprised that everyone hates salespeople? Right? When it's okay for a salesperson to punch somebody, right? Because they're making money. And now, all that's doing is reinforcing every negative impression that everyone else has of sales. Its culture, culture solves these problems. And if you're if you know, the horrible truth about being a leader, the horrible truth about being a leader is it's really, really easy to see if you're good at it or not. Just look around you. Are your people performing? Are your people getting along with each other? Are they committed to the business? That is a direct reflection of your leadership.
Leighann Lovely 41:43
And that's, excuse me, that is another shining thing that would be a whole nother episode,
Erin Marcus 41:52
I would like to do another. We're gonna rename this listen to Aaron rant about yet another time. It's,
Leighann Lovely 41:59
it's the the mistake that that multiple companies make. I have a really awesome salesperson, I'm just gonna promote them to be the sales manager.
Erin Marcus 42:09
That's two different jobs. Right, God, I will tell you a lot. My ex husband, my ex husband is a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic salesman. And they have, we're still in touch with youth, either. We've been divorced for, I don't know, 20 years. But he's a wonderful man. And he's a wonderful salesperson. And his company has tried to promote him to sales manager in a variety of ways. For decades, and we keep in touch, and I'm just constantly going, do they not know you, you don't like people? Like you don't have patience for anybody? Why are they Trump, he's a fantastic salesman, he is so good at serving his clients and making sure they have what they need, and going the extra mile. And he should not be in charge of a cat. And I teased him about this all the time, because he has no patience for people who don't do exactly what he does.
Leighann Lovely 43:14
And that is completely true.
Erin Marcus 43:16
It's fine. If you're listening to this, you know.
Leighann Lovely 43:21
And I've been in the same position, Lee, and we want you to mentor the other salespeople, we want them to do what you're doing
Erin Marcus 43:27
Most of you and you can't tell them what you're doing, because you're doing so instinctively that you don't know how you're doing. Right.
Leighann Lovely 43:33
Right. And then I'll ask, you know, okay, why I can explain to them, you know, the processes that I go through, but that's not gonna make them become or do what I do their job.
Erin Marcus 43:48
And I think a lot of people need to realize that about themselves. Because going back to the fact that I'm a business coach and consultant, and the fact that I was extremely hesitant to use the label coach, because I watched so many coaches, not for any malicious reason, but not be able, like, they can tell people what to do, they can't tell people how to do it. That's what I know how to do. You said that to me earlier, you're breaking it down. Like I don't know why my brain works this way. My old mentor said, yeah, it's fantastic. But don't be so impressed with yourself. You didn't make this happen. It's just how my brain works. If you're going to have a leader in charge of teaching people how to do stuff, they can't just know what has to happen they have to be able to break it down and then apply it to different people. Or it doesn't work right. Otherwise just do this one thing within the entrepreneurial world right all those institutions out there that don't work.
Leighann Lovely 44:50
And I know mean, for me, I know exactly like I time block like exactly what I do how I do it, but it doesn't mean that somebody else is going to be able to sit in my chair and follow that exact process and be successful at it.
Erin Marcus 45:05
Odds are they can't because their brain works differently. Correct? What's their version of it?
Leighann Lovely 45:10
Right? Well, we are we are coming to time. No figure. I know. And just getting in the talking, I know. All right. All right. So I have a question of the season. And it's, I love this question, because I get a variety of different answers. And obviously, because everybody's in a different situation. But if you could change, or what would you change rather about your job or the practice that people have in your role, if you could?
Erin Marcus 45:44
The thing that I don't like about what I do, are the mood swings. I'm not a highly, I'm a high, I don't know, if you notice I'm very high energy person. But I'm not a highly emotional person. I, the mood swings make me crazy. I don't care if something's hard. I don't expect everything. That's not what I mean, I don't, it's the entrepreneurial roller coaster of this is great. It's all falling apart. Like, I don't like it. It's not that I've learned that I have to be able to handle it. But I find it sucking my energy and knocking me off of my focus. And throwing a wrench in my plans. I don't know I can come up with a bunch more phrases. But that's what I don't like about it is the emotional. And that's really what I screwed up. When I first left corporate and got into the entrepreneurial world, because I knew what to do. I knew what to do. I've grown businesses. I knew how to grow my business. I knew I knew what I knew that I knew I could do what I knew how to do for my clients. What I didn't expect was so much of my success being tied to who I was being not what I was doing and what I was thinking about, not what I was doing.
Leighann Lovely 47:17
Well, and somebody said to me not long ago, had I known what I know, now, I would not have started my own business 100%. So thank God, I didn't know. And that's exactly how they finished that line. Thank God, I didn't know, sign up for this. Right. And as an early as a very new entrepreneur, I do not ask the question. Well, what do I not know? Because I want to continue down this path and figure it out for myself, because I don't want to be scared away from it. And I'm already starting for him. It's too long. I'm already in it.
Erin Marcus 48:00
You're off the cliff, you're you've jumped off the cliff, you are falling down the Cliff. Cliff. I mean, that's physically impossible.
Leighann Lovely 48:07
Where's my parachute?
Erin Marcus 48:09
Yeah, that doesn't work either. That's not how this works. Right.
Leighann Lovely 48:13
But, and that's and that's the beauty of it, though, is that you you can't know what you don't know. And would we do things in life? If we knew all the information? And often the answer is no. Because the end, it's the same way that our brain works is that 10 years from now, will you remember how painful it was in the beginning? Or are you going
Erin Marcus 48:42
And no I laugh about it? I could tell you stories for days, I used to get lost in my car in my neighborhood. In my first business, I would go and have consultations in people's homes. So I would use the GPS to get to their house, because I had to know exactly where it was. But I kind of knew where I was. So I knew how to get home. And so I wouldn't use GPS to get home. And then I'd be driving and then all of a sudden I wouldn't. Which is terrifying. By the way. All of a sudden, I would be like, Wait, where am I? Why am I here? Like I wasn't lost? I knew where I was. But I certainly wasn't where I thought I was going. You stood like just get lost.
Leighann Lovely 49:23
You're so deep in thought that you just you know, yeah. Hey, I'm just letting you know what, there was one day that I was so deep in thought that I went the wrong way. When I was trying to drop my daughter off somewhere and I looked at her and I went we're going to be late because mommy just went to the wrong place. And my daughter now reminds me she's five. My daughter now reminds me Mommy, are you going to the right place?
Erin Marcus 49:50
One of my favorite favorite stories was of a mentor I had at the real estate business and she tells a story of when car phones like when we first I call them car phones, because that's what they were at the time. Yep. Because it hooked to your car. When that first was a thing, and she had it, and her business partner had one, and they were in this very heated conversation, so she was driving home about a client, she was driving home on autopilot. And in this heated conversation, and then she just kind of stopped talking went, Oh, my God. It wasn't, she drove to the wrong house. She drove to the house that she used to share with her ex husband, who is now remarried to another woman, and she pulled into the driveway. She was on such autopilot that she like went back eight years in her life. And she went home, just to not the current home, right? She tells a story of going oh my god, I gotta get out here before.
Leighann Lovely 50:55
Right? Well, Aaron, this has been such an amazing conversation. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
Erin Marcus 51:03
The easiest way to do this is just find me through my website, ConquerYourbusiness.com. If you go to conqueryourbusiness.com you'll see my podcast, you'll be able to contact me you'll find me on all the socials. One easy place to go conqueryourbusiness.com
Leighann Lovely 51:18
And that, of course will be in the show notes. But again, Erin, thank you so much for your time.
Erin Marcus 51:22
You are awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Leighann Lovely 51:24
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
Contact information –
Website - https://conqueryourbusiness.com/
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, salesperson, sales, brains, company, culture, job, salespeople, corporate, outrage, conversation, happen, negative, started, jerk, entrepreneurs, deal, coaching, person
