Welcome And Meet Drew

Mike Mirarchi 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Mirarchi and I'm thrilled to have Drew Norton on with us today. Drew is the founder of the Everyday Sales Leader. He works in sales, but more importantly, he works on people. And he helps you get from point A to point B in both business and in life. And so with that, Drew, welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast.

Drew Norton 0:42

Hey, Michael, it's an honor to be on your show. I've been looking forward to this for a while since we spoke.

Mike Mirarchi 0:47

And yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on. My pleasure. So, Drew, I know that you've done a lot of work in sales. I know you're doing a lot of other work. Why don't you just start off and tell your story, how you got into sales, your success there, and then how that led to the other things that you're doing?

Drew Norton 1:04

My background, my whole career has basically been in sales. Uh growing up, I was working five bucks an hour in the fields for the local farmer. And I grew up in a small town, and that's what there was. That was hard work. So I remember getting up at 4:30 in the mornings to go work in the fields at 16 years old, just being excited to make a few bucks and just had family that just taught me to work hard. As I got into college, I discovered the world

From Farm Work To Sales

Drew Norton 1:29

of sales, and it was fascinating to me because it's like, oh, like I if I work harder twice as hard as this guy, I might be lucky if I get a 10 cent raise or a 25 cent raise. And in sales, it was like, wow, the harder I work, the more I can make. This is cool. And so that kind of got me started and excited for it. And it's funny because I was I'm an introvert by by nature, but I've just always had a good work ethic. And so I got started in college in the door-to-door space. So selling satellite TV, pest control. That was my first few years of sales and starting to like build sales teams, recruit guys. We'd go out for the summer, knock on doors, and uh I just I fell in love with it. And for a long time, I I didn't even view my per myself as a salesperson. I just I didn't want to be viewed as somebody in sales and kind of hid from that. If people asked what I did, I'd come up with any word but a salesperson. Eventually I got a real job and got into the insurance space and did that for several years, insurance and financial services, and had some success there and eventually got back in the door-to-door space again. I had a brother making tons of money there. So I went back into that industry and built some big teams, had a lot of success, just had some amazing experiences that taught me how sales is really leadership, how selling is I like to say that sales is life, and you can't improve and get better in sales and not see it improve other areas of your life. And I also believe it's leadership, like selling. And if you're a leader, you've got to be able to sell. Like you've got to be able to get your team on a vision and show them what's possible for them. And so I just think it's a universal skill set. And one of my pet peeves has become hearing a business owner say, I don't do sales or we don't sell here. It's like then you're doing people a disservice if you're not showing them why your product and services can actually benefit them. There's a stigma behind it, and and I love helping people change that stigma, change that belief they have about it that sales can be noble. So my background started off just pounding the pavement, knocking doors, picking up phones. And as time has gone on, it's been just helping people improve their systems and processes in their business, improve their sales teams, their leadership, and continue to develop that. And and along all that, I've just grown to love as much as I love sales, I really love helping people and developing people. I've just been able to do that through the industry of sales.

Mike Mirarchi 3:54

One of the things that I say is I can tell everything about a salesperson. All I need to do is see their customers. If I can meet their customers, I'll literally know everything about them. The reason is because you attract people into your life that reflect who you are. So if you have a bunch of people or a bunch of customers who aren't paying their bills, chances are your finances probably aren't very good at home. You can tell a lot about a salesperson if you just meet their customers. If the customers are complaining a lot, then guess what? The salesperson's probably complaining a lot too. Through my years in sales, I really worked on developing and finding the best customers. I had brokers ride with me in the car and they'd see my customers and they'd say, Man, all your customers are great. And I go, Yeah, because that's all I do business with. I don't do business with any customers who aren't great. That's that's how it works, right? And so that is true. It's truly a fle reflection. So and and even in business, business owners, if

Why Sales Can Be Noble

Mike Mirarchi 4:54

they can improve themselves, then their business will improve automatically. It's all about them and it's all about salespeople, and it's all about from a leadership standpoint, how do you get people from point A to point B, both personally and professionally.

Drew Norton 5:06

I've never actually heard anyone say that before, Mike, that you can tell what a salesperson is is like by looking at their customers, and I can see how true that is.

Mike Mirarchi 5:15

The other thing which is interesting that you said, and we'll go back to that, is you were a door-to-door salesperson. I never did that. I couldn't. Like when I was a kid, I could never go door to door and sell candy. You know, like I couldn't do it. And it was funny to the one day a young guy came to our door and he was selling something, and we were having a nice conversation, and I told him about getting his foot in the door, which is a term used for door-to-door salespeople. He didn't know what it meant. So I explained it to him, and he was blown away. He's like, Ah, I didn't even realize that. You know, you stick your foot in a door, and that's how you you get a conversation.

Drew Norton 5:50

No, I I'm very grateful for that time. I know a lot of people will look down on salespeople in that industry. And I remember at one point in my career a guy saying to me, Man, I'm glad you guys come by. I have all the services I have have come from you guys stopping by my house. And I get it, there's like there's a lot of those guys that will say whatever they can to get a sale. There's definitely, as in this any industry, bad actors, bad people. It was really good to teach me resilience and rejection and overcoming that and helped me build a pretty thick skin.

Mike Mirarchi 6:22

Well, it certainly does. You have salespeople who are out there who are very successful, say door to door, but aren't necessarily successful in other businesses. It's really interesting how that works because in our business, which is business to business, selling to distributors, it's definitely more of a relationship business versus a quick sale type of business. You know, selling cars, it's a one-time sale,

Door To Door Grit And Trust

Mike Mirarchi 6:44

relatively short sales cycle, but then a long time in between. Selling door-to-door, short sales cycle, where our sales cycles are much longer. It takes a different type of person. I don't know how much you've done in the business-to-business area, but uh, why don't you talk about that a little bit?

Drew Norton 7:00

What I've come to learn is you could probably break down every business into these three categories. And I'm being a little bit general when I say this, but marketing, sales, and fulfillment. And sometimes in some industries, I think that marketing and sales are almost the same. And in some they're very different. But but either way, it's about building trust. Like people move when they trust that, hey, you will get me where I want to go. And to your point, sometimes the B2B sales, I've I've had some experience with that. That's not where the majority of my career has been. And that's often like creating trust, showing, showing what you've been able to do for others or other people, establishing a little more credibility. And sometimes it depends on what your product or service is, what that timeline, and what's going to be important in that sales cycle and sales process. Yeah, it's it's really interesting because even going from the door-to-door space to what I'm doing now, one of the challenges for me was learning like how to market myself, where the the marketing and sales was kind of happening at the same time to be able to market myself to get people to come raise their hand and then want to sit down and have a sales conversation. Uh, depending on the industry, like those skill sets are can be two very separate things.

Mike Mirarchi 8:12

I had a stint in my career uh doing coaching, and selling yourself in coaching is a way different sale than selling products and services business to business. Because when you're selling yourself in coaching, you're completely exposed. Every part of the sales process has to be right. If you mess up one part of it, you lose every time. And it was rye-opening for me. And you know, when you have a product and service that you're selling, it's likely that number one, the customer's buying it, and number two, you can hide behind it a little bit, where selling yourself is you're completely exposed.

Drew Norton 8:47

It's been great for my own growth to just transition into this. What I'm doing now is mostly coaching and working with men. I still take on sales clients and sales teams and do leadership training and consulting with businesses, but the primary focus is leading and building men in their personal lives. And to your point, it's one thing when you have a product or service that you can just tell them the problem and this is the solution. It's another thing when you're

Coaching Exposes Your Blind Spots

Drew Norton 9:14

selling a coaching, which is a lot of what I do now, and you've got to figure out what their problem is and then show them how your solution will be the right fit or not.

Mike Mirarchi 9:23

Or you might not have the right solution, but you just need to be able to listen and understand where they're at. And be willing to say, hey, this isn't the right fit for you. A lot of times in coaching, you don't have the answers and you shouldn't have the answers. You know, you just need to understand where the client is and how you can help them get to the next level. The sales almost is secondary to the person, to building the person. Success in business, success in life is all about building yourself and gaining the skills that you need. And if you're doing that, if you're working on yourself, then the rest of it comes a lot easier.

Drew Norton 9:57

I have a friend. We used to manage a sales team together, and he used to say that sales is just personal development wrapped up in a money-making opportunity. The more you work on you as a salesperson, the better you get at sales.

Mike Mirarchi 10:12

Early in my career, I listened to Earl Nightingale. I don't know if you've you've heard him, he's old school. I mean, you're talking 50s and 60s. Um, I just remember listening to him in my car when I was really young, and it still impresses on me a lot of the things that he talks about are so true today. And a lot of the the training is built off of those original guys. And, you know, the principles are the same. He talks about things like fields of diamonds, where people are always looking for different opportunities, yet the opportunity is right under your feet, if you're willing to look for it. Powerful and really helpful in getting people to understand the opportunities that they have are right there. It's just a matter of mining them and right under their feet and looking for them, and then getting themselves to the place where they can take advantage of that. Uh, let's talk a little bit more about leadership because that seems to be an area that you're really focused on. Why don't you talk about your philosophy of

The Day Everything Changed

Mike Mirarchi 11:09

leadership?

Drew Norton 11:10

I think I'll share a story first to give a little context, Mike, about why leadership. And when I say leadership, I'm just as much leading others, I mean leading, even leading yourself. I had made a transition to a new sales role years ago, and this required me to go out of market and be out of town two and a half hours away several days a week. So I've got an apartment. I'm a young dad, I'm 37 years old, I've got four little kids. At the time, I uh we had three. My wife would often come down and I stay at the apartment because I'd go down two or three days, come home a day. Anyways, my wife and kids are in town and I'm wrapping up a sales meeting. I call her and say, Hey, I'm gonna be back to the apartment in 15 minutes. Let's get the kids ready and we'll drive home. I pulled up to the apartments, and as I'm pulling in, I remember driving down the through the parking lot on the other side of the outside fence along the road, seeing an ambulance and sirens come in the opposite direction, passing me as I'm as I'm pulling in. And when I walked up to the the front door of the apartment, opened the door, immediately knew something was wrong. Uh, my heart sank. My wife was kneeling down in front of the TV. She was in tears. Our at the time, six-month-old son uh was on the ground in front of her, and he was struggling to breathe. And I just came into this and and I I had no idea what was going on. Seconds later, paramedics rush in behind me. They load my wife and little one up in the ambulance to take off to the hospital. I wasn't allowed to leave because they were worried if he passes away, this becomes a crime scene. So had to wait an hour or two till I was given the okay that he's stable and was able to go to the hospital. What happened in that 15-minute drive between the time I called my wife and headed home? And I could probably spend two hours, so I'm gonna give you the shortest version of this story, Mike. But my wife, she was sleeping, so it was a miracle that I even called her and woke her up. Uh, she thought about going back to sleep and felt like, no, I gotta go get our baby boy up. He'd been sleeping in a portable crib or pack and play. When she went to get him up out of the pack and play, she found him face down. And when she lifted him up, he was limp and gray and wasn't breathing. She did CPR and resuscitated him, which also a miracle. She did she just started following a mom on Instagram a couple months before that taught how to do infant CPR. I mean, there were a lot of little miracles that day, and we believe God's hand was there. He was diagnosed with a heart condition. And so for the next six to eight weeks, we just thought at any time he might just this might happen again and his heart might stop or something might happen. And and so, as you can imagine, very traumatic experience for my wife to go through that. A lot of anxiety, a lot of sleepless nights those next couple months. And he ended up being misdiagnosed. Two months later, everything was said he was okay. And what we believe happened now is that it was just an accident after inspecting that portable crib. The slat was broken. He had rolled over on his face, and we knew he had a hernia. He was scheduled for surgery for his hernia. We believe what happened is that he rolled over, got his face caught in this spot that was uh sunk in in the pack and play, and that he just couldn't lift his head up and was suffocating to death. So my wife, she dealt with a lot of I don't know, we didn't ever have it had a diagnosed, but PDSD, anxiety, stress from that situation. There was a lot of counseling that she went to and a lot of prayer. Uh, and it took a couple of years before she was back to normal. But what was interesting is the next year, year and a half, we had some of the best conversations we'd ever had in our marriage. And as I started thinking about why are these conversations like going so well, um, six months prior to this accident, I'd quit the sales job I was in, went all in on a new one, and said, I've got to do everything I can to make sure this works and make sure it's the right thing for my family. And so I doubled down on personal development and buying courses and studying sales materials because I was just trying to be the best I could because we were making some sacrifices for our family. And then what I started to realize is, man, all this time I spent on active listening and mirroring and asking good questions has made me such a better communicator with my wife. Like I'm showing up as a better husband because of this. And my wife's definitely the hero of the story. If it wasn't for her, we'd probably lost our little boy. He's seven years old now and happy and healthy and just like a seven-year-old boy should be. And this story could have ended much worse. So my heart goes out for any any parent who's who's lost a child through an accident because we were very close to that. But what I came to realize through that, Mike, is I wasn't six months earlier, I wasn't the husband and father my wife needed to be. And I'm so glad I was working on me, working on becoming a better salesperson because that skill set and my communication improved, which allowed me to show up in a way that I probably wouldn't have been able to if that happened earlier, just a few months earlier. That led to a lot of great things in my life. As

Building Men Through Identity And Purpose

Drew Norton 16:24

I kind of had that realization, hey, the more I work on me, the better it's helping every area of my life. I went on to lose 100 pounds, um, became the top sales rep in our company, um, built some of the largest teams that our company had, and just had a lot of success. I just realized, hey, is the more I keep working on me as the business owner, the salesperson, the husband, the father, the more everything improves in my life and and the lives of those around me. I've just become obsessed with helping people see that. Like you can't work on you and your life not get better. You can't get better, you can't get better at sales and not see other areas of your life also improve. And so while I continue to do some coaching in that space, a lot of times when people come for me to sales help, it's often just like focusing on them and their beliefs about themselves. And a lot of salespeople have a terrible mindset around sales, terrible beliefs about sales. And so we start there like, how do we actually believe that we're serving our clients and our customers? Or when we work with a team, it's like, how do we remove the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves, our product, and our service so we can go out and actually serve. And if you don't believe in your product and service, I tell you, don't even sell it then. And that has just transformed into uh what I'm currently doing now is the Abundant Man Project. So I've got a couple partners in that, and our mission is to inspire men to be abundant, amplify their God-given potential. What we're known for is building men, and it's just helping them in areas of faith, family fitness, and finance. And how do I improve in those areas of my life so I can lead in my home, my family, my business? And so that's the main focus. And as opportunities come, I still can't say no to helping people with their sales teams.

Mike Mirarchi 17:54

People ask me, and I've had a lot of success in my sales career. They say, What's your secret? Like, what is it? And they say, Well, I put everything 100% in God's hands and I work as hard as I can, and then he takes care of the rest. Like you said, there's there's things that happen, there's setups, right? And things that you go through and that sets you up for the next thing. And you don't even realize you're being trained up to do that. But when you completely uh surrender your life to God, then all of a sudden he helps you and walks with you along a path that takes you to where you're supposed to go. Talk about like in one of my other episodes, Psalm 139, which talks about how he sees you as you knitted in your mother's womb. You have a purpose and a mission and a book that's written in heaven. And then we get to walk it out. But we've got to understand what is in the book, right? You need to figure it out. That's part of the project. It's called aligning with God's will. Like he's got a purpose for us, and then we've got to kind of figure out what that is, and you walk with them, and then he teaches you and trains you and gives you setups just like you experienced and experience every day to help you to determine and understand what your purpose in life actually is. Because we all have one. It's just the recognition of the fact that number one, we do, and number two, how do I figure out what it is? And number three, how do I have a relationship with our creator? And so it's those things that once you get there, then all of a sudden things start really opening up for you.

Drew Norton 19:22

Yeah, I love that you talked about purpose too. In fact, our our framework we teach at the Abundant Man, it's it's really simple to say, it's a lot harder to put into action, but it's identity, purpose, and battle plan. I think too often when people want to change their life or go after something, they just start with a plan. And our argument is that you got to start with who you are and your beliefs about yourself. You've got to really, really be clear on your identity. Your actions follow your beliefs. And I believe it's not talked about enough. For example, if I don't believe I can close a sale, I'm probably not gonna pick up the phone today and make any calls. And so if I don't have a belief about me, my product, my service, if there's no belief, it'd like nothing's gonna happen, anyways. And purpose is often what drives you through the grind, through what's going on in your life. I say all the time, you've you got to put your purpose before your process. Too often we we just come up with a process, we start grinding, we burn ourselves out because it's not connected to something greater. And and I also believe sometimes people hear people talking about their purpose and they're like, well, God hasn't called me to something. I think you can choose, hey, this is the purpose in my life. I'm choosing to be here and be in this role because it's going to help me achieve these things. And you can you can choose to have purpose. But I found as men get clear on who they are, and and salespeople, especially, what it is they truly want and the why behind it. Sometimes that takes finding that purpose means asking yourself why over and over and over again. Then it's like we come up with a plan and we and we take action once we have those other two things, those two things clear. And I think that applies to so many areas of life, especially sales.

Mike Mirarchi 20:57

I think that there's clues. You know, what is the things you love to do? What is it that motivates you? What is it that inspires you? What is it that, you know, and there's certain people who have just innate talents. They might be a great artist or a musician or something. Well, you know, if that's the case and you're a brilliant artist, chances are that's pretty much where your area of expertise is going to be. And that's probably somewhere in that arena is where your path is going to be. And so sometimes people just go through life, they don't realize they have these talents and gifts. Little kids know it. It all shows up when they're small. You could see the gifts and talents just start to just flourish. When our kids were young, we're still parent. When our kids were young, um, we we let them do whatever they wanted. They would come to us and say, I want to play soccer. You go, okay, you could play soccer. You just have to play the whole year. And if you don't want to play after that, it's fine. And if you do, fine. And we would let them tell us what they wanted to do. You know, my daughter's really an amazing artist and now does grant writing and stuff. And my son's a professional saxophone player, and he actually works in in sales now. Cool. And which is great, and he's very successful at it. But to allow the kids to go and pursue those those areas, then it really helps them to be able to find their path because it's always going to be centered in your talent. And your gifts, but you need to understand what they are.

Drew Norton 22:22

Well, and to that point, Mike, I don't know if I would love sales just for the sake of sales. I there is the dopamine hit. So I love the challenge of sales. But why I've come to love sales is I I truly believe like it's helping people get what they want. That's what I'm doing. If I've got a great product or service that I can offer somebody, is that it's I'm helping them see like we can help you get what you want, helping them discover that and realize that. And and so for me, the the purpose I've found in sales is like I can truly serve people. Like I can help somebody that's actually suffering in some ways that has a big problem in their life, and I've got a solution for them. And if I can just help them see how they're stuck and what they need and that this is the solution, like I can change their life. And sometimes changing their life might not seem it's like, well, hey, what am I selling? Like uh toilet paper, for example. How am I how am I changing someone's life by selling toilet paper? And it's like you can look at your product and and service, and there's likely ways it makes an impact and makes a difference for people. And and if you can find that, it's like, yeah, I can get behind selling, I can be more bold. For me, the purpose in sales that I have found is like it's

Serve First Then Sell Boldly

Drew Norton 23:34

gotta serve people when it does that. For me, sales gets really exciting.

Mike Mirarchi 23:37

The question I ask, why do you do this crazy business? Why do you get up every day and go out and sell? What's your purpose in doing that? And they say, Well, I need a paycheck, I need this, I need to get the sale, I want to be the top, I want to be the best. And that's all nice and everything. But it really comes down to how can I help my customer be more successful? How can I help as a leader? How do I help my teammates be more successful? Leadership is referred to it as the upside-down pyramid. The leader's at the bottom. And my goal is to help my employees, number one, get from point A to point B, both personally and professionally, whatever that is for them. And then number two, knock down every barrier that's in their way to help them to get there. And at true leaders are servants. They're not, they don't sit at the top of the pyramid, they sit down at the bottom and they're there to serve everybody and be there for their employees to help them to get success. In the same way with customers, how can I help my customer be more successful? I can satisfy them right out of business. But if I truly focus on their success and what's best for them and their business, then I become a real partner. And it totally changes the game because every sales call I make is focused on their success, which means that you have to do preparation, which means you've got to be a better person yourself, which means all these other things that go into helping your customer be more successful, it makes all the difference in how they view you as a valued partner. That means that you can get a little bit higher margins. That means that you have better customer loyalty. That means that they're not going to switch for every little dime and nickel. Plus, they're going to call you for help because they know your interest is in helping their business grow and prosper.

Drew Norton 25:23

To me, those that I've seen that I I believe have the most success in sales are unattached to the results, but but committed to the customer winning at the end of the day. They don't care if the customer says yes or no. They're going to just show up. And if they realize they can help, they're going to be bold and invite and invite the client to take action and move forward. And if they're not, they're going to recommend something else or tell them we're not a good fit. And either way, they're not attached. And because they're not attached, they show up more powerful, they show up less nervous, less commission breadth. And so I just think there's some power in being committed to the success of your clients and while at the same time not being attached to the results necessarily.

Mike Mirarchi 26:07

Because the results come no matter what. I've been in situations where if somebody's asking for something, I know my competitor has it, and they have it way better than I could ever do it. And I say, hey, get it from the other guy because the other guy's got it, and I'll show it to them, and they'll go, wow, that's crazy. And you go, Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not interested in necessarily getting a sale. A sale does nothing for me. I'm interested in helping you be successful. And if that means you got to buy a product or two from my competitor, so be it. But at the end of the day, it's no different than when I did sales training for my customers. I did overall sales training. I just didn't do our product. I would help them to sell all their products because that's beneficial for them. And it will benefit me if I think about it in the right way. It's an abundance mentality, it's not a scarcity mentality.

Drew Norton 26:53

We've had just a lot of success stories with the men in the abundant man project this year who've started from day one with us and their lives are changing and getting better. And this this particular client of mine, his name's Ben, he's a salesman. In fact, I was his sales leader four or five years ago in another industry, another job. He reached out to me probably about a little over a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, getting beat up in his current sales job, not having success, reached out for some help. He wanted me to coach him one-on-one. I just knew at the time, I'm like, for one, what I would have to charge him to give him the experience that would help him and where he was at financially. I knew he wasn't in a position. And two, I just didn't feel like he was even ready to work with me. I was like, he needs to go take a few steps first. And I just told him, I can't help you right now, but here's what you've got to go do. And it's funny when you tell someone I can't like you don't force that sell upon him because six months later he'd taken a lot of action, he'd done some of the things I recommended, he came back to me and he started, joined our program and our group. Since then, he's tripled his income this year, he's down 60 pounds. Like, and he came back because he's like, Oh, I know I can trust Drew. Drew's not gonna just sell me something if I don't need it. And not every time you tell someone no, do they come back to you and and buy something? But I've just seen like your trust and credibility skyrockets when you're willing to be abundant and tell someone, hey, this is actually the best option for you. And and my experience is a lot of times I've had people just want to work with me even more when I do that.

Mike Mirarchi 28:22

One of the big

Fast Callbacks And Clear Updates

Mike Mirarchi 28:24

challenges for salespeople is getting back to their customers on a timely fashion. And what happens is I always call customers back immediately. I've always picked up my phone. If I'm available, I'll pick up the phone. If I'm not, I'll send a message, hey, I'm on a call or I'm in a meeting. Call them right back. Always. It's been like that for a long time. To the point where a customer left me a voicemail the one time and and I called them back immediately. And they're like, Am I the only customer you have? And I was like, Well, right now you are. So my point is that when you don't call people back, then they tend to call you more because they want to see how long it's gonna take you to get back. Like, let's see how long it's gonna take this guy to get back to me. So you end up getting more phone calls. When you return phone calls immediately like that, your customers tend not to call you unless it's really important because they know how attentive you are and if you're gonna call them right back. It's really strange how that works, but I found through my career the fact that I would call back my customers immediately, they wouldn't call me as much. They would leave me, not leave me alone, but they would make sure that was really important when they called. They wouldn't just call for every little thing. Yeah. And it's a it's an interesting principle.

Drew Norton 29:33

Kind of along those lines, I don't think you can over-communicate with clients. I had a period where I was involved in some long sales cycles. So from the time to sale to the time of delivery was often, you know, anywhere from a month to three months and uh long project timelines. And and part of the job in that sales role was to communicate that. And I just got into the habit of letting people know where their project was every single week, even if it was there's nothing new this week, just letting you know I'm looking at things, we've got nothing new to share with you, and just letting you know I've got my eyes on your project. That way they're not spending two, three months after the sale wondering, is this even going to happen? Are they gonna be able to deliver? Like, even if you tell them it's gonna take that long. And so just whether it's picking up the phone and answering quick, or if you're in a sales cycle that's longer where the the fulfillment, the delivery takes a while after the sale, I've just found that that you can't overcommunicate.

Mike Mirarchi 30:28

Even if it's taking a while to get an answer for a customer, you just pop them back and say, Hey, I haven't forgotten about you. I'm still waiting to hear back from the manufacturer, which it should be soon. It just that little bit of extra communication helps the customer be at ease to go, okay, I know he's on it, I know he's taking care of it, and I'm good. You know, and then hopefully the answer comes quick enough and you you're able to take care of it. The communication part is huge, an important part of again, not just sales, but life. Like it's it it all ties together, like you say. Every part of your success, every part of your life has to do with every other part. There's it's all together. And the better you are as a person, then the better sales you're gonna have, the better relationships you're gonna have,

Dropping Fear Resentment And Anchors

Mike Mirarchi 31:14

the better life you're gonna have. And it's a process, it's a process that takes a long time to deal with certain things when they come up in a way that is appropriate and professional and that doesn't burden you with all of the anchors that I call anger and resentment and all of those what I call anchors that you need to shed off of your life because when you have your anchors that hold you back, discouragement and you know, all those negative emotions, if you're able to shed those, then it allows you to walk towards your purpose. If you don't shed those, then you're gonna have a difficult time finding what you're supposed to do because you're gonna be tied down with those uh negative emotions. If you hold something against someone, if you don't forgive them, those that's an anchor. If you're resentful towards something or someone, that's an anchor. If you're fearful, that's an anchor. You know, all those negative emotions become anchors in your life. And how do you shed those? How do you move beyond those? And truly that's a God thing. That's a that's uh having a relationship and God helping you to work through those situations and be able to shed those anchors.

Drew Norton 32:24

I love to just say, and I've already said this once before, but the sales is life, it's leadership, it's freedom, it's nobility. Like you improve that area of your life, it affects all others. And uh, that's why I'm just a big proponent of just personal development, personal leadership, working on you. You know, my main focus right now is helping husbands and fathers lead in their own life so they can turn around leading their families, their business, their communities. And yeah, I sales will always be something that I I love and and and continue to help people with also just because I just see so many different areas of life. If you can get good at sales, I mean you're selling when you tell your kids to eat the broccoli at night when they don't want to. You're you're selling when you're convincing your team of why you're taking a new direction as a company. You're selling when you uh your wife to marry you, like all areas of life.

Mike Mirarchi 33:14

It's the same sales process, it really is. Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, it's so fun.

Drew Norton 33:20

Some people don't like this. Oh, I'm forgetting the name of this guy. There's a sales trainer. I can picture him, but why for some reason I'm drawing a blank on his name, and he made a post that was kind of controversial this week, but but was like, Man, I can tell if you're a good salesman if your wife's attractive or not. Anyways, it's like you you're selling someone on why they should spend a lifetime with you.

Mike Mirarchi 33:41

Yeah. So that's right. You know, and it all comes down to the same things consistency, right? And consistency builds confidence, and confidence builds trust, and trust builds a relationship. That's the process through any sales. And sometimes it happens faster, and sometimes depending on the sale, it happens slower. And, you know, that's really what it is. The cool thing about what you're doing also is that if you can change husbands and fathers' lives, then that changes their children's lives. And then their children become much better leaders and much better people automatically. It's if you can change that person's life, and then the kids don't have to deal with a lot of the garbage and a lot of the anchors that automatically carry over. So you're actually doing a great service for the next generation and the next generation by

The Mission And How To Connect

Mike Mirarchi 34:34

taking care of the fathers and husbands today. It's really cool.

Drew Norton 34:38

It's just yeah, it's just become a passion of mine. Like we've we set some big goals and dreams, and it started with like, well, we want to like, what if we could serve a hundred men this year? And then it was like, well, we can do that. What what would be bigger? Well, what if we tried to help thousands of men over the next three years? And then it was, well, what would it take for us to to help millions of men over the next decade? And so that's the lens we're we're operating through is how do we how do we grow and build what we're doing in that way, which has led to us taking massive action in areas and doing things that have made us uncomfortable and that are scary. I didn't think I'd be throwing conferences and speaking on stages a couple years ago, but that's just what I did this this last weekend. And and so yeah, we're very excited to to continue what we're doing. And and yeah, I love helping others succeed, whether it's in sales, whether it's in their own personal life. And yeah, it's just really become a mission and a calling for me.

Mike Mirarchi 35:31

All right. So great conversation. If someone wants to get in touch with you regarding abundant man or about your everyday sales leader, how would they do that?

Drew Norton 35:40

Uh, easiest way to probably find me is on social media. If you look up the everyday sales leader, that's the handle I go by on just about every every platform. Or if you look up the Abundant Man project, that's kind of the mission I'm focused on on building right now. Either of those should be easy to find. I've got an ebook. Can I share that, Mike? Is that okay? Sure.

Mike Mirarchi 36:01

If you want, you could share that. And if you want to send me the link, I could put it on to the podcast as well. So within the episode, you'll be able to see the links to your websites as well. If you want to put your ebook in there, I'll add that as well.

Drew Norton 36:15

We've got an ebook for the Abundant Man Project. It's 20, 25 pages long about some of the main. It's it's everything we teach in the in a condensed form. So we're not like hiding, like, hey, it's like it's not like you've got to join our group to hear our best stuff. We've tried to put our very best stuff into the into a short format, just help men where they're at. So so yeah, that's our free resource, abundantmanproject.com slash ebook. I'll share the links with you, Mike, so you can put it in the show notes and and uh just appreciate you having me on today. Enjoy our conversation.

Mike Mirarchi 36:43

That was a good conversation. Appreciate you jumping on. With that, who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? Thanks a lot and have a great day.