Hate studying? Find out how Ryan Lund, a college dropout, became a 6-figure sales professional.
Ryan's dream was to become a Marine Biologist, but all this changed when the reality hit him: he didn't enjoy studying.
On his journey to discovery, he realized he was good at getting people to buy things.
He landed his first sales contract and hasn't looked back since then.
Timestamps:
(01:56) — Ryan's blueprint for success
(02:32) — High school journey and how he discovered he couldn’t be a Marine Biologist
(03:25) — First sales contract leads him to discover his proficiency at sales
(06:16) — The reality of being in management/romanticizing office jobs
(08:03) — Unlearning predisposed notions about management
(15:21) — Landing his dream job at a startup
(16:54) — Transferring relevant skills from previous jobs into software sales
(18:29) — Mistakes he made along the way that you can learn from
(18:47) — Learning from the most unexpected people; the importance of not judging a book by its cover
(22:13) — Want to break into sales? Do the following
(24:23) — Why dropping out of college is Ryan's biggest accomplishment
(26:57) — Experience working at Hubspot
(28:02) — How Ryan started and manages different businesses while working in an already demanding sales job
(33:44) — Advice for people just starting their career in sales
(36:39) — Words of wisdom
Support/Contact Ryan:
Books and resources mentioned in this podcast:
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Episode 166 Transcript: How Ryan, A College Dropout Became a 6-Figure Software Sales Professional – Ryan Lund
Intro:
[00:00:00]
Ryan: What should my website look like? And I’m like, fuck the website. Who cares about that? Present an offer, sell the offer. In a year and a half, my website cleanups cleaning has never got a single cleanup. We’ve SEO audit, we’ve done all. It doesn’t matter. The ads matter, the prospecting, me and the VAs just posting in local groups for this matters.
Episode Start:
Jonaed: Welcome to another episode of the No Degree podcast. I want to personally thank you for tuning in and supporting our show. If you haven't yet, hit that follow or subscribe button. I encourage you, don't keep this to yourself. Share these inspiring stories with your friends, invite them to subscribe and connect with us on social media. And today, I have a guest and former client, Ryan Lund. Let me tell you, this man is a hustler. Even before the podcast, this man is closing deals. So Ryan, what do you do?
Ryan: Yes, what’s going on man. I appreciate you having me on. So, I do software sales as the day job and I like to call it my after our hustle. I run a cleaning business as well as teach a course with over 156 students in it right now on how to run a remote cleaning business.
Jonaed: That's frickin’ amazing. And you've worked at pretty interesting companies, too. You've worked at some very well-known companies.
Ryan: Yes. I started a fairly traditional route. I sold cars for a while and that was all right. I got into a AT&T and thought I hit it big because I worked for a big company pulling in big money, which wasn't big money. But it seemed like big money. And then I broke into software, solid startup software. That's when I met you, because I went to an even bigger company with the HubSpot for a while there. So, it's been fun, man. It's been a good ride.
Jonaed: So, what's your blueprint for success?
Ryan: Honestly, I fail fast, like 100%. I go like 200%. I want to find my loss as quick as possible because I know the wind is right around the corner. And always having a solid support system. I feel like talking to people like you and some of the other sales leaders or just leaders in life have been extremely successful for helping me guide the future of what I want.
Jonaed: Now, that's a great blueprint for success. Now, let's take it back. How was high school like for you? And what did you want to be in high school?
Ryan: Dude, I went to a small high school, I think we had the biggest graduating class of like, 50 and that was after three dropped out. We were big time in it. Before that, it was like 15. We had a big class. I played basketball, wasn't the best, way better now. I was rocking junior high, JV 20-30 points and in varsity, like five, so big curve there. I played in the band. I did everything. But I was definitely not the most popular. I was more on the nerd side that was just a big guy.
But I wanted to be a marine biologist for the longest time. It was something about — I loved animals and then the water and stuff. I was like, oh, this sounds great. And then I realized I fucking hate reading. I hate studying. I don't learn that way. I got into sales. I tell everyone I went to college for like four classes and sold my first few cars and got my first comp check of like $1,500. It was like, fuck school, I can make my own money.
Jonaed: That's amazing. So, you got that first comp check? How was that?
Ryan: I was 18 at the time, and it was blown on unmentionables about three days. It drove me to want to sell more. And then I quickly realized that I got to do better. That's how the path – but yes, I found that I was good at sales. I found out that I was good at talking to people and then getting what I wanted out of that person, whether it was buying a car, whatever the situation was. It was a fun transition.
Jonaed: Now how long did you stay in car sales?
Ryan: Just shy of a year actually. What happened was I started getting lazy and I found out that I could go detail cars at a flag rate. I worked at a Dodge dealership, so what I would do is I would come work in the morning and I would go to service. I would go to service and find people who are dropping their cars off for major service issues, and go walk them around the lot and show them the new ones. “I got this Jeep five years.” Let me show you a new one.
[00:04:58]
So then, whenever the service guy would text me and say it’s like a $6,000 repair, I'd be like, “Hey, this is an expensive repair, let's buy a new car.” I got lazy with that, but it was smart at the same time. And then I talked about the detail, the ordering the cars. I would come in on Sundays for like three hours and I found out that a new car would pay me two flag hours.
It took me ten minutes to prep a new car at $25 an hour, I would go prep seven cars a day. I'd be out in an hour and a half. I literally was peeling plastic and spraying it down with a hose and putting it on the front lot. Then I just got tired working myself too much. And AT&T popped up and so I took it, you got to be home.
Jonaed: All right, cool. So, how was the transition to AT&T?
Ryan: It was fun because it became more transactional. In a car lot, you may only talk to three or four people a day and that's on a really busy day. At AT&T, I was literally — I'd stay by the door. As soon as someone comes in, I'd open them and then we'd go, open and go and I'd walk them out then sit on the door. I went from four customers day to about 10 to 15. It was fun in that sense. But I was only a rep for like six months. And then I got moved up to management.
Jonaed: What made you move up to management so quickly?
Ryan: I think it's because when you're younger, and it's this whole idea of remote work wanting to go with away. I saw an article the other day talking about how Gen Zers want to go to office and stuff like that, I think it's romanticized. I’m sure -
Jonaed: it is, it is. You haven't been in office long enough to understand.
Ryan: Let me tell you. The fact that this is my work computer, that's my work for my sales job. And then I could take a break and then hit my Xbox up. The fact that I thought that I wanted to be in a cubicle, because growing up, it was cubicle or go work in the streets and doing construction. I didn't want to do that. I'll burn. I'm not [AUDIO SKIPS 00:07:02]. I wanted to stay in the office. And I think the manager thinks the same thing.
You always think the manager is the more successful person when the reality is, they're not. I went to management because I was “Oh, I’m selling more. Oh my gosh.” But now I have to manage and now I'm managing grown adults. I was 20-25 at the time. I was managing people 20 years older than me that had way more life experience and knew more. And I got knocked down a peg real quick. So yes, it was eye opening. And then I got back to sales fast. It took about four or five years. But yes, it’s how it worked out.
Jonaed: And that's tough sometimes managing older people, because you don't know a lot about personalities and all that.
Ryan: At that point, they’re already set. They're already kind of set in their ways. They've been doing it for so long, and then I have to come through and be the asshole to say, “Well, that's wrong, do this.” I had a lot of issues in the beginning but over time, I’ve come to find out that predisposed notion I had of management was all wrong.
Jonaed: What were some of the predisposed notions that you have that you kind of changed?
Ryan: I had to be super professional all the time. I would go to work and I always wear polo, I always was sitting up straight, you wouldn't see me sit on a chair. I don’t know the last time I was at AT&T store but they all sit on the chairs now and they just wait for people. And I was just so anal about it. I'm like, “No, stand up, blah, blah, blah,” and I just realized that that's not the move. That's not it. I can get more accomplished by this being a down to earth person and then I can have that professional conversation for being down to earth.
It's helped me transition into the roles I do today because I deal with people that run small startups all the way up to 500 person companies. I’m talking to C levels in suits and ties while I'm sitting here with my kids’ toys in the background. It's perspective and how you position yourself and then handle the situations. It's crazy that I thought I had to be in a suit and tie all the time. In reality is I normally wear these Hanes T-shirts I bought for 20 and I got some basketball shorts on. This is me 24/7, almost. It works.
Jonaed: And you know what the interesting thing is, a lot of people don't realize at the end of the day, you're just dealing with people. People are people, whether they wear a suit and tie, whether they wear fitted, whether they have earrings, tattoo, they're just people. At the end the day if you can talk to them, that's what matters.
Ryan: It’s funny — so I had my ears gauged before I started AT&T and I was rep and then I was like, “I want to be a manager.” I had a guy whose name was Emmanuel Sutuca [ph 00:09:48]. He was he was a manager I went to go work for a store I went to. And he told me “If you're going to move up, you got to take your gauges out.” I took them out, they closed up 100%.
[00:10:00]
And I realized about a year and a half, I said I'm making more money, tattooed up all over my arms. I didn't want to go to work because I had this tattoo for my son on my arm. And I thought they were going to say something. Now, they don’t even care, whatever, as long as you're being productive, and it's crazy that people still see that stuff and they’re like, that's not going to be a productive person. I got a job offer one time. I didn't even FaceTime someone like we didn't even see each other face to face. They didn't see my photo. We just had a conversation on the phone and they threw me a job offer.
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I'm glad things are changing and I’m glad this idea of professional — at the end day is like you do your jobs, you do it well, you do right by your customers. That's really what it comes down to.
Ryan: I think people just want people to be happy more than anything. And I think there's studies that back the happier your employees are, the better their work like balances, the more productive they are. I think that's why we have more remote work and we have things like this. I think when you see companies that are going back to office, I think they just spent too much money on a lease and are trying to justify the cost, or can’t get out of it or whatever.
Jonaed: I think sometimes it's just about control too. I think a lot of people who are higher up, they grew up in a different environment. They grew up when office politics is different. That you have different power over employees when they're remote, like you versus in person.
Ryan: I talked to my old manager at AT&T to this day, and he offered me a job a while back and he goes, “But you got to come to the office.” And I said, “Dude, benefits are great, but like, I'm going to lose so much time. I'm going to go to the office having to deal with traffic, having to possibly wreck my car, gas, wear and tear, like, no, I could do more sitting here for three hours, and then enjoying my day. You get so much more productivity out of me.
Jonaed: Look, you can't change some people.
Ryan: No, I understand. Companies are going to realize when they're losing top talent, because, again, if people want to go to offices, that's fine. Have the option. But I mean, I have friends I talked to all the time that quit their job, because they're like, I can go get something working from home. Why can’t you? We got phones, we got everything to do our tools. Heck, they got stuff that’ll watch your streams now. You'll probably go to Amazon and find something to move your mouse around [CROSSTALK 00:13:29]. I think there's a lot of people that fall into the manager-micromanager for eight hours a day when reality is — and I did that.
I was guilty of it. I had reps that probably thought I was the biggest POS manager ever, which we since became friends and I feel good about that. I mean, there's just only so much you can do for people that I found out. And I've learned more about the bell curve. I found out that there's more – there's a lot of people on the left side and they come to work that's where they lie. And that's fine. You just have to learn a little bit. You can't expect right sided behavior out of the other side sometimes and it's fine.
Jonaed: Yes. And I think that's important as a manager to know because some people are just going to produce differently or some people don't produce more, some people aren't. But you set the expectations you have different things and that's perfectly fine.
Ryan: It’s the same thing with people who are like, okay, with just making a little like, just making a living is what I’ll say. I wish I could be happy with just making a living. I'm not. I always have to be thinking, my brains always running. We have the after our hustle, Slack channel. We're sitting in like almost 180 —
Jonaed: I'm supposed to join that.
Ryan: You're supposed to be there so does everyone else that watches this.
Jonaed: Hold up. Send me the link.
[00:14:59]
Ryan: I’ll put it on there. But it's funny how many people I see that are in there like I want out I want out of the matrix, whatever you want to call it. And it’s funny how bare minimum knowledge you really need to just put yourself in a better position than that.
Jonaed: Yes, it's just about being consistent, doing the right thing, surrounding yourself with the right people. You work for the telecom industry, and then you got a job at a startup. How was that?
Ryan: Well, I'll tell you this. I had a really good resume so that helped. It's all in the positioning. The duty was night and day difference. I showed up the first day. I'm bald now. But I had my hair filled up. I had the nice college shirt on, I had no goatee. I didn't have my gauges yet. I was sitting there, prim and proper. I get on there and our CRO is like, “What the fuck’s up everybody?” I was like, “All right, so like, that's what's going down, you know.” And it was just eye opening. Holy shit. Oh, my god. It's funny because I spent so much time making sure I looked appropriate.
I used to send reps home because they smell bad, you know what I'm saying? Just this image and at the end of the day, image is one thing, but we care about software that performs. If you can show me software that performs who cares. I'm just like, all right, that makes sense. So, it really put the imprint on me that it's not where you're from, whatever it is that you produce, that was the big thing for me. It was eye opening.
Jonaed: No, it's all about producing. Now, what skills that you had from before, from working telecom translate over and what do you have to learn new?
Ryan: I think the biggest skill that I got, and I got it from car sales actually moving to telecom and came into here. It's the good, old ABC- Always Be Closing and in forever, I thought that meant always chase the cheque. But it doesn't, it's in every little thing. You're always closing something somewhere or — and basically, if you're thinking of it linear in the fact that I'm always making sales, you're going to think wrong.
You have to think of it as you're always finding an answer to a question. If it's, “Hey, Ryan, I need this done by four o'clock,” or whatever. Well, what is it that you got to close on? What are we talking about? What does that look like? What is being done mean to you? Because there's lots of ways people interpret things. And if we're not on the same level, if we're not setting proper follow up, you're just going to fail. So, there's other ways to close in life besides, hey, do you want to buy today? It goes a long way.
And I just remember getting yelled at me at the car lot. No closing, no closing. And I was like, what does that even mean? And I thought forever it meant just get the sale right then and there. And I've thought about it, I tweaked it, learned from it and transparently. There are so many other applications for it. It helps you in communication and doing things. It's a skill you have to learn to master.
Jonaed: What are some mistakes that you made along the way?
Ryan: What haven’t I messed up? I mean, I feel like I made mistakes over time. Some of the biggest ones are probably thinking I knew at all when I didn't or looking at someone's resume, background or whatever, and thinking there's no way this person can teach me something.
Jonaed: What was something – wait, hold on, what was something interesting that someone taught you that you're like, this person cannot teach you anything. You're like —
Ryan: I'm fixing to get into that. I have a guy whose name is Tim. I posted about him on the page. It's my boy. I actually taught him how to run a cleaning business. And so for a while there, he started putting up big numbers. He's doing really big things, you got to check them out. He's solid. I loved him to death. Well, he started telling me about a different way to actually pay the people that would increase profit margins. I was like, “There’s no way you know this, Tim. You've only been running your business like two months.” Blah, blah, blah.
I didn't know much about him besides that he was also a software salesperson. Well, then, fast forward, I find out dude's got two masters. Didn't know that shit and what he was talking about was right. I finally looked at it and I was like, “Oh my god, I'm leaving so much money on the table when I could just do this.” And now we've implemented it and it's been great. We pay him a little bit differently. They still get paid really, really good. I mean, hell, I got cleaners making $25 an hour.
[00:20:01]
So, if anyone wants some money, let me know. I'll pay you right.
Jonaed: Yes, that's a good rate.
Ryan: They were making like 40 an hour previously, and I didn't realize it until Tim broke it down for me and I was like, “Oh crap, I'm hemorrhaging money on this.”
Jonaed: No, it’s good. You have to do what's right for your business. So, how have sales changed over time?
Ryan: Sales is constantly changing. I’ll sell this for anyone watching out there. There's no method in the world that’s 100% bona fide like it's the one right. I’ve been trained in Sandler and a few other ones that I just forget the name. I only know Sandler because Adam Sandler's to go. And I know —
Jonaed: Well, there’s MEDDIC and MEDDPICC and —
Ryan: MEDDPICC, I don't know, there's so many. And I've had interviews – listen to this. I've had interviews that have denied me, because I didn't know the acronym for MEDDIC off top of my head.
Jonaed: Who knows it?
Ryan: That's what I'm saying.
Jonaed: That’s like denying a software engineer because they don't know what API stands for.
Ryan: I was like, all right, have fun with it. And then, I went to Seamless and ended up making – my first eight months or so with Seamless, we did over a million dollars in ACV if I'm not mistaken. If not, I was damn close like, within 50,000. It's just crazy to think that there's these companies and this is for everyone to know, you're going to interview with people, you're going to talk to people, and they're going to make you feel like shit you don't know these little things. This one company cares about – I’m not going to say the company's name.
But there was one company I really wanted to go to for a while. And they had a really good comp structure, but they were all MEDDIC. That was a thing. And now they're laying them off in droves. So, just because it seems shiny, and then you let them put you down doesn't mean they have their shit together. There's always somewhere better for you. And that's the thing that I have learned and keeps me on a happy note every day because I know that my talents will be used somewhere else, and we'll make a shit ton of money together.
Jonaed: So, if someone wants to break into sales, what would you say? What books should they start reading? What things should they start focusing on?
Ryan: First off, I'm not a big reader. I'll throw that out there. I think the first thing you need to learn how to do is sell yourself though. And I think Alex Hormozi’s $100 Million
Offers is the best way to do that because – and I think you've seen me talk about this. I love marketing. I am a salesperson that loves my marketing, because I hate cold calling.
Alex Hormozi’s book is all about marketing and offering so if you're a salesperson, you have to understand or if you want to break into sales, whether it's SDR, sales leader, whatever possible, you have to build an offer that is you, I got to have an offer that is Ryan.
And that book really helps you get the perspective of what that looks like whether you're working for somebody else, or you're going to go start your own agency, whatever you could possibly want to do. I like that book. And then second off, start following software leaders like —
Jonaed: You mean sales leaders?
Ryan: I mean, yes, sales leaders in the software space. I mean, like — shout out my CEO, Brandon Bornancin, he's a great personal follow. He's a genuine person, he just says it like it is. There's tons of people that you can follow and learn from and see what they're talking about. And it's not even like you care so much about their posts. It's the people in the posts. You want to find people you resonate with.
I'm not going follow the person on LinkedIn or connect with them that all they do is talk about their product seven days a week. I don't care about that. It's ungenuine. I want to talk about — I made a post about cars the other day, cars, running side hustles, whatever, find what resonates with you in those people because they're going to show themselves and build your brand around that. That's what I say.
Jonaed: I frickin’ love that. Now, looking back at your career, what would you say is your biggest accomplishment?
Ryan: Probably dropping out of college because if I wouldn't have dropped out and I wouldn't have burned out and all the things that I thought I was at rock bottom for, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. I wouldn't have my company. I wouldn't have my four kids; I wouldn't have my wife. There's some shit that seems like it's the worst thing possible because I felt so bad when I dropped out of college. I just pissed away $10,000 for my first year. I went to community college; I didn’t go to [AUDIO SKIPS 00:25:01].
[00:25:02]
I felt so bad about it. I felt bad about it but the reality is it was a great experience for me.
Jonaed: I think so — look again that your failures really teach you a lot. So how did you recover from that like feeling that rock bottom?
Ryan: I felt like shit for a long time. Transparently I spent like a year just kind of finding myself and seeing where I fit in. I played a lot of video games but I stayed in my room a lot. I really sheltered and recluse myself. So, 2019 to 2020 I don't remember much because I sat inside of a room and just let depression and anxiety eat at me. And then I got a job at BestBuy and I found love in sales again, fun stuff.
Jonaed: Let's talk about sales at BestBuy because a lot of people don't realize that that's a good entry level job to learn the basics. And I've done several resumes for people who have done sales at BestBuy.
Ryan: There’s some fuckin’ sharks at Best Buy. That's what people don't understand is there's some sharks at Best Buy. Because back in the day, they used to have an appliance, I forgot the name of it. But the appliances, the reps are getting like 5% of it. You run up a $3,000 bill at 5%, that's a semi decent check. So, they would just sling credit apps and it was ruthless.
And I had never been in an environment like that. I was like, what the heck? That was huge. There’s been a lot like bouncing around at different companies doing different things. But like I said, out of college, we did, I did the car lot. And then I kind of had to, I don't know, like detox myself in the situation. That's when I went through a little bit of depression and found BestBuy and then a little bit of everywhere.
Jonaed: How was it working for a big company? You broke in without a college degree at a place like HubSpot, how was it working at a place like that?
Ryan: It was cool, tons of imposter syndrome. I'll tell you that. It felt like I didn't belong there at all. But then when I look on the scoreboard and see where I place versus the dude that's got a bachelor's degree from a prestigious university, it made me realize, I do belong there, plus a little bit of northern and southern thing where HubSpot’s located at – what is that? Massachusetts? Yes, they're definitely different from me.
I have a little twang in my accent and I'll have a kid run around in the background in underwear sometimes. We just do a little different down South. They were definitely prim and proper than anything I was used to. I had to watch how I talk sometimes and not throw so many y’alls and being casual. I have to be direct, like, this is what I need from you, blah, blah, blah.
Jonaed: Let's talk about like, how was it starting businesses? Because sales is already a high pressure job, because you got to meet your quotas and all that. How is it running a business on top of that, and how do you manage both?
Ryan: I manage it while outsourcing, truthfully. I have two Vas out of Philippines, Mark, and Alexa. They're great. They basically run the show when I'm at work. And then whenever I clock out around four central, I handle the rest, my wife helps some. But starting it, super stressful at first. I spent this money to start this business that I couldn't use for other things. But since starting my business, and now I went from not being a homeowner to being a homeowner, I had just my nice $60,000 Audi out there. I don't like flexing on that but that's growth is what that is.
Because before the Audi came $20,000 in debt that I hadn't paid off yet, and then I got paid off. I got out of debt. So, there's things that come with the struggle and I was here talking about analysis by paralysis. That got me so many times that start a business and want to start a business. The next thing you know, I'm just like, what do I do? What's next? What's next? What's next. And the reality is if I would just start, I’d do well, and that's what happened. I only just started, I ran the ads, started taking phone calls, started having conversations and then running the show.
Jonaed: Just start. I tell people. So many people, they're worried about being perfect. They're worried about doing this. They're worried about doing bad. It's like there are people without websites who are closing big deals, because they just move forward. At the end of the day can you solve someone's problem? You can always make things nice over time. But then today, they're paying you to solve a problem. They're not paying you to have a website. They're not paying it all day, or all those things helpful. Oh, yeah, but are they absolutely necessary first? No.
[00:30:03]
Ryan: Just the biggest thing people want to do is they're like, “Hey, what should my website look like?” And I'm like, fuck the website. No one cares about that, present an offer, sell the offer. In a year and a half, my website cleanups cleaning has never got a single clean on it. We've SEO audit, we've done all, doesn't matter. The ads matter, the prospecting, me and the VAs just posting in local groups for this matters.
And we've been able to build a company from zero to about 30 to — I think we're on track for this month. I told you we took a little hiatus, started back up on Saturday. From Saturday to the day, this bill just came through $4,000. So, is that three days? Four grand for one small city in Texas. You do the math on that, but we're hoping to hit 40,000 next month.
Jonaed: I know you'll hit it. You're a hustler. Now, I'm going to ask you something interesting. You see 18-year old Ryan walking across the street, what do you tell him?
Ryan: I'm going to say something that some people aren't going to agree with and that's fine. First thing I'm going to tell him is sober the fuck up right now. That's like the biggest thing. Yes, “Hey, bro. Sober the fuck up, invest in Bitcoin.”
Jonaed: That's a good one.
Ryan: Yes, that would have been the shit back in the day, or just like, hey, eventually, there's going to be something called Dogecoin just $300 at it, trust me. But if I had to sincerely tell myself something back then, it would have been learn how to do arbitrage. Learn business arbitrage, learn deal arbitrage. Learn how to find something that somebody is doing for cheap, and sell it for more, and then be the middleman.
Because that's what I do with a cleaning company. I find cleaners that are getting paid less by other people. I pay them more, and I charge more. So, I take the money, I pay them, keep the rest. That's all. That's all it is. People ask me, that's it. That's it. I would spend an hour teaching myself how to do that.
Jonaed: That's important. I think so many people don't realize a lot of people undervalue themselves. And they don't realize that if you have a business and you pay people well, you treat them right. You take care of them. Now, they don't have to go find their own things. They don't have to manage that. A lot of people don't want to do that.
Ryan: Yes, that’s it. At the end of the day, it's the little bitty people skills. It's as simple as talking to someone for ten minutes and talking to someone else and say, “Hey, do you want to do this for this much money?” Yes. Cool. Love it.
Jonaed: What are your future goals?
Ryan: I’m 31, so transparently, I wanted to quit working for other people. The biggest issue has been insurance. Insurance is just expensive.
Jonaed: Yes, you got a family.
Ryan: I got four kids and a life so it's expensive. I think for me, it's retire by 40 from 31.
Jonaed: You’ll hit that.
Ryan: I don't mean like selling my businesses. I mean, I want everything automated. And I want to have about five to ten businesses doing anywhere from 100,000 to like $150,000 a month consistently.
Jonaed: Look, you got the work ethic. You got the hustle.
Ryan: I want to open three cleaning businesses in the same city. I don't care. We will figure it out. I'm going to get that money one way or the other.
Jonaed: Now, what advice would you have for people who are starting their sales career or people who are looking to move up and get promoted?
Ryan: Be yourself. Depending on the company, transparently, there's some companies you just have to be a brown noser to move up, like, that sucks. But don't lose yourself in doing so because nobody, nobody likes that. You're just going to be unhappy with yourself. That's kind of how I got my management position at AT&T. I ended up hating it for a while. But be curious. I think it’s the biggest thing. Always be looking five steps ahead what's next look like and kind of go from there.
Jonaed: I frickin’ love that advice. You know what, honestly, I've been witnessing up a certain portion of your journey. And you're putting in that work, you're learning, you're networking. You're putting yourself out there and you're doing all the right things so I know you're going to smash your goals.
Ryan: I think the biggest thing too is once you figure it out, we talked about earlier out of the matrix, whatever. Once you figured out that you can make your own money or you can do your own thing, you have a skill that will always be in demand. Your I don't give a fuck meter is like — because I care – it’s different caring and not giving a fuck.
[00:35:02]
Totally different. I care about what I do that's why I do it. But if I didn't care, I wouldn't do it. You see what I'm saying? I know, if I lost my job tomorrow, if I got a call tonight from my boss and said, “Hey, Ryan, I saw what you put on LinkedIn. I don't like it.” they would never do that.
But if that happened, something childish like that or whatever situation is, I will be upset and I’ll find a new job; or I go do my own thing. Once you have that confidence, once you have that skill, whatever it is that you know, you're the best app that you can, again, Alex Hormozi, that shit, you know that's your offer. You're set for life. Nothing else matters.
Jonaed: I love it. How would people support you and what do you want to promote?
Ryan: I'm a laid back guy, I like helping other people. I think, you know that's my biggest thing. And I don't even know how many resumes I've said, “Hey, man, I'll pay for them. Can you do this for me? I don't have —
Jonaed: This man says we refer every month. And that's consistent. Every month, I know, hey, I'm going to at least have one client because Ryan is sending them my way.
Ryan: I think the biggest way you can support me and what my journey in life is, it's just by helping other people. Not give a homeless person $5. I mean, still give them $5 if you have it, but do something life changing for somebody. I have about ten different people inside of my cleaning course that I've given it to. Three have taken action, and don't ever need to work for somebody else.
Do something that you will make an impact on somebody that whenever your time is up with this world, that person will always remember you. That's how you can help me. Because I know at the end of the day, if I can get you to do something that will make that impact on somebody, then we both just made a huge impact. And I'm happy with that.
Jonaed: I absolutely love that. What a great way to end the episode. Thank you so much for your time. So many nuggets. And I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I'll always be cheering you on.
Ryan: Awesome. Me too. I got customers texting me. I’m glad we were able to meet and do this. Appreciate everybody. I'll add that Slack channel because I want to help everyone that I can reach their financial goals or whatever goals in life they have to reach and be happy because that matters the most to me.
Jonaed: All right, I love it. Thank you for your time.
Another great episode. Thank you for listening. Hopefully this information was valuable, and you learned a lot. Stay tuned for the next episode. This show is sponsored by you. No Degree wants to remain free from influence so that we can talk about the topics without bias. If you think the show is worth a dollar or two, please check out our Patreon page. Any amount is appreciated and will go towards making future episodes even better. Follow us on Instagram or Snapchat @nodegreepodcast, on Facebook @facebook.com/NoDegreeInc. If you want to personally reach out to me connect or follow me on LinkedIn @jonaediqbal, spelled J-O-N-A-E-D, last name I-Q-B-A-L. Until next time, no degree, no problem. Nodegree.com.
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