Crush Sales Records with Unbeatable Persistence | Podcast Episode 95 | Glenn Poulos|

Glenn Poulos  00:00

So everyday I followed up pretty much twice a day. And some some time later, I think it was about 10 days later. They he called me and he said, Guess what we’re gonna send you to our Quebec office, Montreal, for an interview with my business partners. And there were a few owners of the company that so they flew me to Montreal, and they said, if you’re willing to spend that much time and effort to get a job, we can imagine how much time you’d spend to keep a job.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:29

So good morning, and welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better life. Today, I am joined by our Canadian guests, which is Glenn Poulos, who is the VP and GM of gap wireless. He’s also a business coach. And now he’s the best selling author just recently of a book called never sit in the lobby. And welcome to the show. Glenn, lovely to have you here.

Glenn Poulos  00:47

Hi, thanks for thanks for having me, Debra. Good morning to you. And your guests, or your your your listeners.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:55

Yeah, so we’ve just having a little chat, as we always do for you on these podcasts. I’ve been hearing the story about Glenn, which is really fascinating. I’d love to you to share your journey because you’ve had two successful exits in business, you’ve now written a book, you’re sharing their expertise with others. Tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now.

Glenn Poulos  01:11

Great. happy to share that the story, the part of the story I really love to tell is how I made the transition from being a federal government worker, a civil servant, as we call them in Canada. It was a technical role and the Weather Service in Canada and my boss pulled me aside and said, You’re you’re not you know, you’re working too fast. You’re working too hard. You need to go get a job somewhere else. And I recommend you get into sales. And and so because I was technical, I reached out to a job for a technical sales rep. Job, it was only one and I sent in, you know, a resume, it’s I think it’s pretty much the only resume I’ve ever written. And because the government hired me right out of school, I didn’t even need a resume. And the, to make a long story short, the guy interviewed me and sent me on my way. And the next morning, I phoned the receptionist at the company and said, Did I get the job? You know? And she’s like, well, we’re still looking at candidates. I’m like, Okay, and so that afternoon, I call back and I said, What about now? And she’s like, Dude, we’re still looking again. And it’s I’m like, Okay, so the next day I called and I said, you know, the man’s name was Kim. I said, is Kim, is Kim there. No, he’s busy. And I’m like, Okay, have you made a decision? No, Glen, we’ll get back to you. Okay, so every day I followed up pretty much twice a day. And some, some time later, I think was about 10 days later. They he called me and he said, Guess what we’re going to send you to our Quebec office, Montreal, for an interview with my business partners. And there were a few owners of the company that so they flew me to Montreal, at the time, I was driving around fixing government equipment, at weather stations, driving the the cheapest car money could buy was like a Chevy Chevette with with manual windows, no air conditioning, no radio, government green. You know, it was this crappy car. And I never thought much of it. But when the owner of the company in Quebec picked me up at the airport, he was driving driving a BMW 750. And I’m like, Wow, this sales games really interesting. And I was only 20 something at the time and pretty, pretty impressionable, right. And so we pulled into his office and the other two partners, cars were parked there as well. And they all had matching BMW 750s With license plates that were one digit apart. And I said, I’m definitely getting a job in sales. And so they interviewed me, sent me back and he eventually hired me. And shortly after he hired me, he said, You know, I just want to share with you that you were you were not the candidate we wanted to hire. You said you weren’t even on the list of candidates we wanted to hire. And I’m like, Okay, well, why did you hire me then? And he said, because you were the only one that followed up twice a day for 10 days. And they said, if you’re willing to spend that much time and effort to get a job, we can imagine how much time you’d spend to keep a job and and so I worked with them for five years. And I approached them after five years about spinning off part of their company into a separate company that them and I would own. But I would sort of get to run this division, and they would get to enjoy the benefits of that. And I was going to focus on this newfangled technology. And they said, Oh, write us a plan and we’ll we’ll we’ll let you know why. It’s probably just won’t work and you’re better off just staying where you’re at. And you know, and so the next day I resigned I’ve only been married for six days. And yeah, I went over to my wife and said, Oh, guess what? I quit. She’s like, what? But anyways, I quit and that newfangled technology which never went anywhere. It’s called the cell phone right and of course that never amounted to anything. And I, you know, and so the business was focused on on wireless, mobile wireless, and ran the business with some partners for 15 years sold that business. And then I left that business and ended up starting a similar, you know, the similar customer base business, selling slightly different products and ran it for another 15 years. And just sold that in February to a US private equity. And a company they bought in the US bought us and so I’m now this company that I’ve been running for 15 years gap wireless, we’re now part of a much bigger US company, and I agreed to stay on with them for a few years and help them you know, work in the business and I’m pretty much doing the same job running Canada and yeah, and that’s, that’s how I got to where I am today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:51

Wow, that’s one hell of a story. Um, say your wife obviously forgave you in the end.

Glenn Poulos  05:55

She did indeed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:57

Yeah, I did. Yeah. But more importantly, did you actually get the BMW? Yeah. So

Glenn Poulos  06:01

well, you know, it’s funny because I actually I turned into a Mercedes driver and similar similar type of car similar, you know, from the same same part of the world but but yeah, I ended up becoming a Mercedes driver, and I love them to death actually. Love, love that car.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:20

Hey, great story. Now, this book, I believe, actually launched on the same week that you sold the business that yet so tell us a little bit about the book. And where did that come from? Yeah, absolutely. overnight success. Right. It was Yeah, for

Glenn Poulos  06:32

Sure. Yeah, it’s just a few weeks ago in in 1985. And so yeah, I started when I when I had the actually privilege of working with some really grassroots salespeople at this company that that when I left the government and the main owner of that company the President was he’s one of those consummate salespeople and not not like the like when you think peddler you know, Guy banging on doors selling encyclopedias, but I mean, just just amazed you when how great he was with customers, and, you know, never really got stumped. You know, when you think oh, what do I What would I say if I got asked that, or he just always was was basically was was great at handling objections and, and he was just such a professional. And I really paid close attention to what he did. And I started to learn some of his, you know, we’ll call them tricks, but they weren’t, you know, he was just, these are just tips on how to do it. Right, really, you know, and I started and so I started seeing them, and I started seeing other things and other people, and I started writing them down and naming them after people. And then I started noticing some mistakes, started writing those down, then I started sort of sharing them in a joking way. And, you know, saying, like, Oh, you just did a berry Watson or something like that, and whatever. It was, like, oh, what’s a berry Watson? And I’m like, oh, that’s when you do this, and this, and they’re like, oh, that’s hilarious. And you should write a book. And, you know, and so, you know, it wasn’t until many years later. And really, it was during the pandemic that I went, I had a lot of free time, as we all did that stuck at home, that I decided to, you know, put pen to paper and get, you know, get cracking on writing the book. And so during that part of the pandemic, where it was, you know, the major lockdown, I, I worked on it, and then, you know, that’s when, when I had enough words, I started working with the editors, and, you know, was able to launch it in February of 2022. You know,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:36

Brilliant. I know, that you shared with me that, you know, writing a book had came with some discipline, right? Yes, indeed. Yeah. Tell them about that sort of journey. Yeah. So

Glenn Poulos  08:47

I tried writing it actually, probably 10 years ago. And I got a little bit here and a little bit there. And, you know, I looked, I actually found a tool. Scrivener, I think it’s called and that helps authors to write and, and I did, I was able to get a lot of the rules written in its titles and things, which is very helpful. And I’d always kept it up to date, but I’d never really done any decent writing. And I, because I wasn’t really disciplined at it. And it wasn’t a core competency, really. And so I just, I basically Googled, how do you write a book, and which is pretty much what everyone does for everything nowadays, right? And so it said, the guy podcast came on, and the guy said, just write 500 words a day until you’re done, and then you’re done. And everyone, anyone can write a book, you know, and, and don’t stop writing the five those words until 500 are done like don’t do a 50 and then go get a coffee and, you know, take a break, go for a walk, just sit down, write 500 Nice. And so I decided that as a compromise, because I couldn’t really do it every day based on my work schedule that I was going to write 2000 to 2500 words every Saturday and Sunday. And so I committed to it and I started and I would get up early on the weekends. And I was, I would take each one of the chapters that I had outlined, and I had quite a few of them. And I was able to, you know, get basically 75 Words 75,000 Words down and short order. And as I had shared with you earlier, as I said, once it got to the editor, and the lady shared with me, she said, Glenn, you can’t swear that much in a book. And so we agreed to take out the 4000 copies of the F word. And I ended up finalizing on 71,000 words as the book length. And she said, You can swear you can get three F’s, and a goddamn, or something like that. But other than that, you said it? Yeah. Some? Yeah. Yeah. So I said, Okay, fine. And but yeah, it you know, in all seriousness, it’s, it’s about 71,000 words.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:55

And so what, what is the purpose of the book? Like, if somebody’s sitting here listening to it, you know, what, what would they get out of reading that book.

Glenn Poulos  11:01

So the, so basically, the book is kind of like a how to, for the person that visits customers. It’s, it’s very well geared for there’s other rules about being a good salesperson that can be applied to sort of people maybe that work online and stuff like that. These are just general rules on rapport and things like that. But where it really resonates, is with the person that’s has to be face to face with customers, right? Of course, we all you know, kind of had this jostling with the pandemic, where we kind of that all ended and evaporated, right, but but right up until like March 19 20, march 20, you know, 2020, I mean, in Canada, at least, I mean, our people needed to be in front of customers every day, right? There was no such thing as wfh work from home and zoom was there. But I mean, nobody had it. And, and it was really a moment in time. And I mean, we’ve been struggling as much as we can to get back in front of each one of our customers as quickly as possible. And so more now than ever, people are like, Oh, how do I get back in front of the customer? What do I say, you know, this and that. And so these are tips that, you know, you can open up to any page and sort of learn a tip on just different aspects of, you know, of selling. And you don’t have to start at the beginning and read the entire book in order to get the message. It’s not a formulaic approach. It’s not like the Challenger sales model, or SPIN Selling, where each one of the chapters is sort of a prerequisite to what comes next. You know, and it’s not a system, it’s a series of 57 rules and tips on how to build a business and a career in selling. And that’s what it is, some of them are very short and sweet. Some of them are more rambling on in terms of the meaning and stuff. And you’d be surprised, you know, the, it covers everything from you know, the title, never sit in the lobby, right, and to how to behave at a dinner with customers and vendors, you know, because I saw a lot of a lot of the right way to do it, and a lot of the wrong way to do it when I was, you know, well, throughout my entire career, but especially when I was younger, you know, and I see lots of junior salespeople and what have you like, performing behaving poorly, and that not knowing how to behave properly in a business environment. So, you know, I chose to write all those down for people to learn, and other tips and tricks on how to get and stay in front of customers.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:29

Love it. So what’s been the biggest mistake that you’ve seen people make whether they be young or old, but in sales? What’s the biggest thing that you see?

Glenn Poulos  13:35

Well, one of the biggest ones I see a lot is a well, one of the one of the big one, maybe not the biggest, but it’s called it’s in the book. And it’s called implied familiarity also breeds contempt. And so, and it’s a rule, it’s part of the report series in the book. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story, or the saying familiarity breeds contempt. And it’s like, you know, you go away with six friends in a van driving somewhere across New Zealand or whatever. And by the time you get home, you know, talk to forum, if you know what I mean, right? You know, the joke there. But I made up this one called implied familiarity also breeds contempt. And it’s easiest to understand it by the story that I tell which is going into a customer. And then a guy has a photo behind his desk, and he was with another man holding the thing. And I said to him, Oh, wow, you’re a fisherman and looks like you know, you’re a bass fisherman or whatever. That’s amazing. You know, maybe we should go fishing sometime, or whatever. And the guy looks over his shoulder and he goes, Oh, my God. He goes, You know what? That’s my ex father in law. He goes, We’re divorced. Now. I actually can’t stand that guy. And I actually, effing hate fishing too. Grabs the photo throws it away. And, you know, the whole idea. And the whole idea is that by making that assumption that he just because there was a photo there, and he was holding a fish that he loved fishing, and it was all part of his thing, and that’s what he did every weekend. You’re you’re making all these assumptions that you really shouldn’t. And there’s a lot more rapport building required it before you just invite the guy to go fishing on the weekend, right? Yeah, exactly. It’s just too much too soon, too fast, right? And it’s fake, and it’s phony. And even nowadays, especially people are like hypersensitive, to those kinds of things. You know, they’re just more aware with the, you know, with media and social media of, hey, you’re just, you know, that’s just fake report. Right? And so I always, you know, I always challenge people to, you know, try to try to build genuine rapport with people. You know, I love the saying, God gave you two ears and one mouth. So you know, you do the math. And, you know, and I talk a lot in the book about active listening. And there’s even an exercise and a game in there that I challenge you to play with your spouse or partner, or what have you. Where you can only say a very short group of things like, Oh, my really what happened next? How did that make you feel? Oh, my God. And there’s five or six of them listed, and you’re not allowed to say anything. And then you got to go home and try to trigger a conversation, but just say those things, and then see how the conversation goes. And quite often, what you end up finding out is that the person like oh, say, Oh, that was really great talking to you tonight is your so it’s such a good listener. Right? And because people really just they don’t want a lot of advice. They don’t want cliche. You know, suggestions and advice. They just want to be heard. They just want to, like, tell you the story to get it off of their, their chest or what have you. Right. And so, yeah, I share a lot on report in the book, actually,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:03

I suspect that’s particularly good for husbands and wives. I know, for sure, husbands definitely have a tendency to want to jump in and so solve the problem that you don’t actually. I love it. I love it. Okay, and now I’m gonna go back a little bit to your business now. Because obviously, we actually met through a pub match, which is a podcasting. Right? What do you call it? A lot of online dating almost. But your business that you run, get wireless actually runs on EOS. And you’re working with my fellow EOS implementers L. So I’d love to hear a little bit about your your business. And, you know, because it’s fantastic to be able to sell it obviously a good time. Yeah, the the journey to go from being what was effectively a startup to being a 41 41 person business that was in sold to a much bigger business. Can you share a little bit of that journey with us?

Glenn Poulos  17:52

Yeah, I’m the we started on our EOS journey about three years ago. And we’re going into our third annual. Yeah, we’ve been in like a full three years, I believe it maybe it’s our fourth annual. And so but around the 2018 2019 timeframe, anyways, we I’d realized that I have this sort of sort of, it’s not a saying but just this thing where whenever I get scared about the future, the business level or something like that, but like, where are you in right now the economy in North America, it’s feeling questionable, right, and maybe the same in in New Zealand and, but it feels like 2023 is not going to be, you know, as financially lucrative as 2022 was right for, you know, real estate’s down and all that business spending and, you know, layoffs and what have you, right, so, the natural reaction is that you get paranoid or whatever, right. And so my natural reaction when I feel that feeling coming on, is to just do a whole lot of crap, right? And so, right, like, rather than cower in fear, I’m like, let’s just do something, right. Like, and, you know, and I mean, I’m very passionate about it with the people, I’m like, we got to do something, we have to do more like, they’re like, what, I don’t care, let’s just do something. Right. And the, because we’re not going to, we’re not going to worry our way out of the problem, we have to sell our way into the problem, right. And the, and so I realized that the time the business we had, we didn’t really have, you know, now I have all the vernacular of Eos. So I don’t want to taint My, my, my feelings back then. Because I would start using, you know, but the system we didn’t have an operating system. Right. And I And honestly, I just use Google again, I said and I don’t know what I Googled, you know, you know, but, but I Googled something along the lines of business systems, right. And EOS popped up pretty, you know, probably fairly high up and I was able to read that it was you know, a system to help you you know, structure your business in a you know, and you know, cover all aspects sort of building and growing the business, right. And I ended up setting up a meeting called, maybe I filled out the form. And they lined me up with a couple or two or three integrators in not integrators, but facilitators in Toronto, and Al was the first one to call me back from his holiday in Greece. And

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:22

He’s a machine that, and I’m also Greek too, by the way, so it was very foreboding that he called me from the homeland, right. And, and so and but in the end, I just felt that the report was best with without, so we signed off on them. But you know, what, we really, we didn’t have any of the things really in place that, you know, that EOS calls for. And, as a matter of fact, just prior to, no, it was sort of just it was just after coming out of it, it allowed me to come to another epiphany, which, which really, I don’t want to say save the business. But that wouldn’t be overstating the issue. But in 2019. The, shortly after we came on with with our I’d realized that we had started spread ourselves thin and breaking a bunch of my other rules, we had gotten into divisions and departments that we shouldn’t have started. And we were taking the profits, big profits from other, you know, businesses since day one. And we were feeding these other things that we we felt we had the right to be in these other areas of business. And it masks itself for a while, because you’re making so much money and you don’t really, you know, you kind of take your eye off the ball of how well they’re doing. And you’re still overall you’re doing well. And then one day, you know, the cash cow pieces down a bit. And then you start looking at yourself and say, Wait a minute, like, okay, they’re down a bit. But why is everything sucks so bad? And that’s because everything you’re making you’re spending on these other efforts in these other departments in these other areas, geographies, what have you people, and I came to my business partner on a Monday and and I basically said to him, I said, Mark, we’re going to make some changes. I said, right now we’re at 80 people. And by noon, we’ll be at 29. And we let go of, we let go of all those people, whatever that is, you know, 51 people in one in one morning, and to retrieve structure the business so that we could become profitable, and we were going to lose almost a million and a half dollars that year. All because of these because the our core business was down. And it had been fading and funding these other ones, uh, we had been a little bit too enamored of our own capabilities to realize that we’d let these things run amok. And our finance guy lost track of what your real the hedgehog concept what your core focus really

Glenn Poulos  22:55

was. Yeah, yeah. And the whole right person, right seat. You know, and core markets focus, you know, all of all of the things we play to, and we fought, we identify and review with Al every 90 days, right? And, and so, you know, you know, it’s not as bad as it seems, in terms of number of people in 40 of them. We were, it was a different division, a Service Division. And we were we were already sort of tap dancing with some other companies that might want to take the business over. But that morning, we made the call to say, Look, can we make a deal this way, that way, and we were able to get a verbal sort of agreement. And that dealt with 40 of them. And then we closed, we let go of the people in the United States that we’d hired and we weren’t managing properly from afar. And there was a small division that we’d also started and we close that division, but we sold it to, we didn’t really sell it, we just transferred the assets and the people to a competitor, that took took all the products at cost and took the staff without any, you know, the no one lost the jobs. And in the end, no one really lost their jobs per se, because they were all sort of repositioned elsewhere and what have you and it worked out, you know, worked out reasonably well. And we went on to world record profits for ourselves in the following year in 2020. And which set the stage for 2021 and 2022, when we sold the business, and we stick really, you know, diligently to the tenants of Eos and especially, you know, structure first people second, you know, real right person, right seat, you know, and GW See, get it want to keep it you know, capacity. And those are the end And so much so that the our American parent, you know, points that are our structure in our discipline, like they see it as a disciplined way of operating as being a model and they look at themselves and they said, Wow, I mean, yeah, we’ve done well financially in the US, but it’s 10 times bigger market. it, and we don’t have any you know, and they’re looking actually to, to potentially do adopting EOS in their US operation, they’re actually going to sit in our two day next week, in order to get a much better feel of it. So, yeah, it’s been a game changer for us. And that’s why I don’t see any need. Like I was saying, it’s time for you to graduate. And I’m like, why? I mean, I just want to go for my masters and my PhD, right, like,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:25

Yeah, that’s an interesting concept, actually, because a lot of people we always talk about, we do want people to graduate, we want you to actually teach you how to use the tools, and it becomes part of your everyday way of operating. But it is actually quite helpful to have somebody who can be an external participant and actually run those sessions for you. Because we sometimes just, we can see things because we’re looking from the outside in as opposed to working on the inside and looking at the team around us. So yeah, yeah. So what do you so I mean, you’ve talked about some of the tools there already. And I’ve had people think sitting here thinking about, you know, what is EOS and what we’re doing my business, obviously, that structure first people second, making sure you got the right people in the right seats, make sure that you don’t use to the seat. Is there a particular tool that you really like in EOS that sort of was a game changer for you? And I appreciate the whole thing has been a game changer. Was there any one thing that really stands out?

Glenn Poulos  26:11

Well, yeah, I always pride myself on trying to be brutally honest. So the, and I called it I called out myself that the last time we got together with Al for the quarterly was that I think we’ve kind of forgotten of all of a lot of the tools. And he’s like, Well, they’re all there in the binder. And I’m like, Yeah, but you know, it’s not self evident that they’re there in a way and they don’t teach themselves and, and so we were used to using the basics for the most part, except for a few things like the, you know, the core value analysis where you do the plus minus, plus, minus plus minus, I can’t remember what it’s called, but analyzer, people analyzer, exactly. And a few of the other ones, but the one that was we were we do use, and we have been using, which has been the game changer. And again, I’m not exactly sure if this is what it’s called, but it’s clear the air session, right. And that was the one of the probably, you know, one of the, you know, although it’s probably trademarked or whatever, but in my textbook, I would point to it as being a game changer. discipline to learn in order to thrive in business, with your staff, with your co workers and compatriots, and, you know, other managers and stuff and just getting through problem times and what have you the clear the air has been a game changer for us. You know, it really has the other thing, which is the the accountability chart, which it’s kind of hard for people to understand the accountability chart until you live the accountability chart. For me, it’s like, second nature, and I don’t, you know, and but I’m trying to explain it to him. And I’m like, Why can’t you get it? It’s not that complicated, right? And it’s like, well, what’s the difference between an org chart and whatever? And I was like, well, it’s like, like an org chart. But you know, it’s more about what you’re accountable for. And I’m, like, try to show hey, look, I exist here at the top. But I also exist down here at the bottom, right, because I’m accountable for that. But when I’m in that box, I’m actually, you know, below another guy, and I’m actually his guy for that in that box. I’m not the integrator when I’m in that role, right? And like, oh, okay, you know, because I mean, how would the owner of the company report to the warehouse manager, you know, it or something, right.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:24

I completely agree. And I think it’s certainly something I’ve seen, I’ve got one of my clients is a little bit sort of on the spectrum who’s actually going ahead and sort of you know, he’s, he’s a fast growing business, he’s going ahead and kind of developed his accountability chart for five years into the future. So he’s got all of the different roles that he believes will be then I’m sure will change over time, he believes they’re the roles that will actually be there. And so as a consequence, many of his team are wearing multiple hats. And what it does, it gives them real clarity about which hat are they wearing, when they’re in that particular meeting, you know, what role they haven’t has accountability in that particular meeting. And then it also makes it really easy to do the new hires. Because when you suddenly find yourself being completely overwhelmed, you look at it and go, right, well, we’ve got all these hats that I’m wearing right now, what is the most obvious one for us to hire to actually delegate and elevate? Yeah, yeah. So it’s a great tool. It really is. And you’re right, it does. I think it’s really important for business owners to understand what accountability role they’re playing. In which part of the business yes, when you’re in a meeting, where what are you what chatter you worry,

Glenn Poulos  29:25

Right? Yeah. And so I’m trying to, I sort of touched on it with the last time and no, I mean, but a goal of mine is to sort of figure out a way of like, getting a better job of do of learning the other tools and getting them more into the day to day because some of them they you have to use them every day, but the other ones are more resource that you have to reach out for, you know, and it just like any kind of support, if you don’t reach out for the support, it can’t help you. Right. And, yeah, and so, yeah, I have I do have a personal goal to get a little bit more familiar with some of the other tools in the toolbox that I don’t use on a rake. all bases, right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:02

Yeah, that’s an interesting concept, actually, how do we make sure we keep that stuff top of mind, because you’re right is such an amazing resource and all the tools I use, and I fell in love with it, I’ve been coaching for, I think, almost 15 years now. But I’ve already been running businesses for, say, 30 years. And you know, it’s, it’s, there’s all this stuff in there, that is really, really helpful. But you don’t necessarily know that it’s there. I got it wrong. I’ve lost my train of thought. But I’m trying to say is like, essentially, it’s nothing is rocket science. That’s what’s going to say, that are really, really simple. There’s nothing in there that you look at and kind of go, wow, this is absolutely revolutionary. It’s all very basic, simple, pragmatic tools that I’ve sold. But it’s about how do we actually make sure we utilize them at the right time? for the right purpose? And don’t lose track of them? Yeah.

Glenn Poulos  30:46

Yeah. Because and I haven’t been to one of the seminars, the like, the events, the EOS events at all, but like, there’s not really in there’s not really, you know, a two day intensive toolbox training thing. It’s more, because there’s too much going on in your two days to really, truly learn all of those tools that are in that toolbox. Right? There’s a lot of them, right. And so it’s easy to forget that they’re there. And yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:13

Yeah, but that’s my own clients. I don’t make sure we actually keep those things top of mind. Yeah.

Glenn Poulos  31:17

Yeah. And the other thing that you know, about the toolbox, and the tools, and what have you is also just the, the discipline that we had put forth in the beginning in order to set our core values. And, you know, and really where it’s coming into focus is I’d seen some other people developing their own core values after like, unrelated companies, and what have you in the way they’ve sort of rushed through it? And, you know, where do you get your core values on? Well, I got them on Google, you know, and, you know, that kind of thing, right on, we struggled hard, hard, hard with ours. And it was real, it was really tedious process, but we’re now very committed to it. And we have a reward system in place. It’s kind of like a reward system slash Facebook app that we use Moto velocity, where you eat all the staff, every staff gets a certain amount of money each month, to reward another staff member for exercising a core value. Right. So committed to service excellence, I noticed that you know, a lady in the staff Terina did a great job when I heard her on the phone with a customer. And I can give her two bucks or five bucks or, you know, the staff get a smaller amount of money than I do or what have you. But every staff member gets money every month to reward other staff members, but they have to call out a core value.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:38

I love it. Actually, I must admit. So before I joined EOS, which about three years now, I had been coaching with the Ice House and my own coaching business. And one of the things that I loved about the EOS proven process was that there is a fair bit of time spent not doing the core values and the vision and the mission, all that kind of stuff upfront, but actually getting some tools in place first. So you actually get some changes in the business first. But then the amount of time that is spent actually uncovering discovering and defining those core values, as opposed to I mean, I used to run sessions, I’m talking about way before EOS, where, you know, we do a whole day in the room where we talk about what the core values, we’ve picked some beautiful core values, like oh, yeah, they’re fantastic, we’ll go with those. And they weren’t really the core values of the organization, they were kind of more permission to play values. But also we’d leave that room very pumped and excited about all this stuff we discovered, then you get back out into the real world, and nothing had changed. So as a consequence, you’ve got this beautiful, long term vision and mission and plan but but you can’t actually execute on it. And so when I when I came across US, I love the fact that that first that first day is spent, let’s getting getting some tools in place. Let’s learn some tools that can actually change the way the business runs. And then we’ll delve into that. So the core values core purpose. Yeah, yeah,

Glenn Poulos  33:56

Yeah. Yeah, we also ran a 16 week contest on the core values initiative, and it’s called the CTO challenge. I think we call it or something and where it was kind of run like the game show with the letters and Vanna White.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:16

Oh, yeah. What is that called?

Glenn Poulos  34:18

Oh my god, I can’t believe I can’t think of it right now. Little fortune Yeah. Wheel of Fortune. So we basically we had all the core values and we basically made all sorts of posters and mouse pads and all sorts of you know, what do you call it promo items and the like, and we distributed to the staff and we had these every week we would have to guess a letter based on a clue that was inside of core value. And you got to go to the website you got to check the page where our core values are you gotta go to this and find out what you know and if you take this and that whatever you come up with, you feel like you’re the letter that week was our and then we were at you had to buy vows, and the money for the vows went to charity. And, but we ended up giving away a fair bit of money. I think the first prize was like 2000 bucks and then 1007 50. And, you know, and everyone was there was full participation, everyone participated. And, you know, I mean, it was great. But now we have, the real funny thing is also checking your staff about. Alright, give me the core values right now. Right? That’s really a good one

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:25

Entries. How many do you actually have?

Glenn Poulos  35:28

So our core values are committed to service excellence, solution driven, passionate contribution, and results matter. We have four, four.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:36

 I think three or four is an ideal number. Why now we’ve got five at EOS. And I, I always get there eventually. But there’s usually four that come to mind straightaway. And the fifth ones he’s like, What is it again? Yeah, so that’s great. And I think I mean, I know from experience that when you’ve got when you’ve got people who genuinely fit and live and breathe by those core values, it just feel it just makes the business a whole lot easier, doesn’t it?

Glenn Poulos  35:59

Yeah, it does. Indeed, yeah. And we’ve actually do you know, the whole owl while it’s the EOS monitor, I guess of you know, higher fire reward motivate based on the core values, right. And he’s very, you know, specific about that. And he reinforces that a lot. And we have, you know, we have sort of cycled through, you know, a series of staff, you know, and it’s not not that they’re not good people or whatever, but the core values are not aligned. And, you know, they go on and do things and end up somewhere better off for themselves, or whatever, where they’re more tightly aligned with in a different environment. But the people that we have now is very tight knit group, and, you know, works really well together. Right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:42

It sounds like we’re doing an amazing job. I look, we’re running at a time. Sadly, I haven’t talk all day. But I love hearing about business success. But also, I mean, it’s been interesting to hear, I think that your story about losing sight of the core focus and growing to a point where it may look great from the outside all these people, but in actual fact, it wasn’t a profitable business anymore. That’s a really interesting thing I think we want to think about, you know, are you really sticking to your core focus? Are you doing what is your core competency? Are you actually creating a profitable sustainable business? You’re not just going for the size? Right?

Glenn Poulos  37:17

Yeah, for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:18

Sharing that. Appreciate that. Yeah. Okay, three top tips, what would you say your three top tips, I’d land whether that be across, you know, EOS sales, life in general.

Glenn Poulos  37:28

Yeah, so, I always try to share something that’s sort of like offbeat not not part of the book, and which is also is that, you know, when you’re building a business, and building a business is great for also for, you know, building wealth and things like that, right. So oftentimes, you know, money can come as a by-product, obviously, if it becomes unsuccessful, there’s no money, but nonetheless, if you’re successful, the money becomes an obvious and apparent, you know, byproduct of that, right. But oftentimes, your health can be compromised in that process. And, you know, from time to time, over the years, you know, I allowed my health, and, you know, and, you know, my health and my, my healthy habits, you know, to suffer, right? And, you know, I’ve struggled a lot with, you know, overeating because of stress, lack of exercise, not taking care of my health, you know, and it’s had impacts that, you know, and when those things come up, the rest of it falls by the wayside immediately and becomes meaningless, right? It doesn’t matter how much money you have, if you’re not healthy. And so always put your health as a primary prime directive for you know, and we’re not perfect, right? You know, you’re gonna go through times of ups and downs, and whatever, it’s, and we’re at the beginning of January, so everyone’s recommitting everything, you know, but nonetheless, keep an eye on your health at all times. And make sure you know, you don’t you don’t put it aside and, you know, I’m, you know, working long hours of day not getting proper sleep not eating correct. And maybe, you know, you know, drinking and things like that, right. So, yeah, so that’s, that would be tip number one. Tip number two is a funny thing from the book. Not funny, but it’s funny saying, and it’s called you only get forever to make another impression. And and so it’s like, wait a minute, that’s not what my mom taught me. My mom told me that first impressions are lasting impressions. And I’m like, Well, yes, that’s true. And so is the second one, and the third one. And so I said so the story goes in the book is that, you know, when you hear the boss’s car, pull up in the parking lot, you know, he drives that sports car and you know, or you hear his footsteps or her footsteps coming down the hallway. be working really hard. At that moment in time, when he walks by he or she walks That’s by your desk, do not be alt tabbing from Instagram over to the CRM. Right? Because whether you like it or not, he noticed. And you made an impression, and it wasn’t a good one. Right? And, and so what I’m trying to say is that you’re always making an impression. So always make a good impression. Oh, I was having a bad day, I was distracted because of such and such No, like, always be on. And, you know, so I always have a habit, you know, like, if, if my bosses or if you know, if, you know, somebody important was, was in my vicinity or whatever, I would figure out a way of interacting with him. Hey, I just have a quick question on this project we’re working on, and I was always on, always on, and not Oh, hey, you got 27 minutes to say hang around the watercooler talking about football, hockey? You know? No, I mean, the. So you’re always making an impression. So always make a good impression. Love it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:58

Yep. Yeah. And third and final third tip.

Glenn Poulos  41:01

My third tip is never sit in the lobby, right. Because if you sit in the lobby, and you’re only five, five, like me, and a six foot for president of a company walks out to meet you, he’s like four feet above you, when he walks in. Towering over you, you’re distracted on your phone, looking at Instagram, because you were bored, show up on time. Don’t be too early. And don’t be late, be standing there with nothing distracting you, and always have something in your hand and something in your mind. And that’s the other tip, the bonus tip, which is well, I gotta go see the customer. What do I do, I said, well just show up with something in your hand. And something in your mind. It could be a datasheet. It could be you know, brochure, it could be the quotation that they asked for. It could be a box of doughnuts, which are very popular in Canada. I don’t know. You know, it could but always have something in your hand to give to them. And always have something in your mind that you’re there to talk to them about. Don’t be you know, and those are some of my tips. And there’s 57 More in the book,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:07

Which is actually called never sit in the lobby. So that’s a great sort of ending for Thank you. It was interesting. This takes me back to the times when he my original. What do you call it? My original career was actually in sales as well. So I used to work for the pharmaceutical companies selling drugs into doctors. Oh, yeah. Tough job that because you know, you’ve spent a lot of time in waiting rooms. And the thing that I actually used to do is I used to go with a little basket of gifts. And I’d actually asked by the reception, to take it to take a gift from the basket. And I’d use it to start a conversation about various things about the drug. And it was just something I want to do because I was bored or sitting in waiting rooms. It’s so much more fun to go in and do something like that. But the report that you can build for just having a bit of fun with it, you know, not just being serious as all the other medical reps were that came in, day in day out. You know, I’m here to talk to you about x y Zed drugs. Yeah, something is something in my hands. So I guess something in my mind as well.

Glenn Poulos  42:56

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Hey, and yeah, never bring doughnuts after 10:30 because people get mad at you for because you’re getting too close to lunch, right? So you got to have something different if it’s, if it’s just a joke we have, but yeah so.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:11

Okay, so obviously people can get hold of the book, never sit in the lobby. That’s obviously on things like Amazon and your various bookstores. How do they get in contact with you, Glenn, if they want to speak to you?

Glenn Poulos  43:20

Yeah. So. So I have my website, glennpoulos.com. There’s two N’s and Glenn. So G L E N N, P O U L O S.com. And all the links to socials are there where you will see I’m most active is on LinkedIn, and really highly engaged on on LinkedIn. And I’m always happy to talk to anybody. So anyone can feel free to message me at any time on LinkedIn. But I’m, you know, I’m on Facebook and Instagram and the other applications as well. But yeah, and I’m happy and you can also my email address, and everything’s on the website, and happy to get take an email from you and get back to you as well. Happy to talk about anything, man.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:01

Thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and sharing your tips and things with the listeners. I shall look forward to seeing you. hopefully pretty soon, actually. But yeah, thanks for your time, and we’ll talk again soon. Thank you.

Glenn Poulos  44:15

Appreciate it. Thank you.