Gain The Edge With Jim Padilla
Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments
Meet Jim Padilla. Jim is a master saltrainer, an expert team builder, launch expert, and one of the founders of Gain The Edge LLC. Jim has great success in helping entrepreneurs gain the edge in their business such as building teams and leading them to find their true potential. He is also great at busting everyday myths such as the “win-win” or “not being attached to the outcome”. Join your host, John Livesay as he sits down with Jim to talk about his five core values in his business and how he applies these pieces of wisdom every day.
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Listen to the podcast here
Gain The Edge With Jim Padilla
In this episode of The Successful Pitch, Jim Padilla busts some myths about getting people to know, like and trust you. He busts the myths that win-win doesn’t work, and also the myth that you shouldn’t be attached to the results. He talks about the importance of curiosity driving the day. We get into a deep conversation about when you’re protecting yourself, you’re not serving others. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Jim Padilla, who is the visionary captain of the ship for a company called Gain The Edge. He is a master sales trainer, an expert team builder, and a launch expert. He’s got over twenty years of experience in building teams and leading them to success. He has a solid track record of achieving results. More than that, he’s a launch expert. He and his team, which consists of his lovely wife, Cyndi, have led dozens of entrepreneurs to huge success in their launches, driving sales, and surpassing goals and expectations. He shared the stage with Jay Abraham and Les Brown. Jim brings an exceptional level of experience and talent to the world of sales. His real talent is that he can inspire his team to achieve their full potential. Who doesn’t want that? Jim, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me here, John.
Let me ask you your own story of origin. You can go back as far as you want. You can go back to childhood or to when you were in school. How did you start thinking about, “I have a talent here of inspiring people, I see that there are some problems when people try to grow a company that I might be able to fix?”
I will go back to childhood because it sets the context. I was born in a pretty unfortunate situation with teenage parents. My dad took off right away. Mom pretty much freaked out and responded with a lot of fear, rage and anger to a tough situation. It was an abusive, loveless and Godless home that I grew up in. I ended up in foster care and on the streets at sixteen running in gangs and getting into lots of trouble and in jail by nineteen.
You can imagine spending every waking moment trying to read the room and figure out how to influence people in your direction, not because you needed them to buy something but because that was the only self-defense mechanism I had. If you didn’t close the sale there, there was a lot more at stake. Little did I know that years later, I’d be making millions of dollars teaching other people how to read the room and influence people in their direction, so that they won’t see you as a threat and they’ll let down their defenses and be able to buy from you.
There’s so much there. First of all, you’re an amazing storyteller. I love that line, “Little did I know.” Suddenly we’re on the journey with you. The premise of any good storyteller is that the stakes are high. If you’re in jail at nineteen, it doesn’t get higher than that. The stakes are pretty high for basic survival. Let’s talk about reading the room. I joke with people now, you still have to read the Zoom even if it’s a virtual call. That’s why I’m big on having people have their cameras on. Even if people are on mute, you can still read the Zoom, the room or the energy a little bit in my humble opinion. Let’s go back to some basics of reading the room in general. Everything from, “This is where I lost them, where they got confused and where they got distracted.” Pick any one of those three things to talk about how people can be better at reading the room.
[bctt tweet=”Curiosity drives the day.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We can touch on all three of them. There are some common threads, a through-line if you will, for all of them. The first and foremost is you have to come to complete surrender to the reality that it’s not about you. If it’s about you, meaning you have to make the sale. You’re positioned a certain way and you can’t tarnish that. You can’t say certain things but you’ve got to say others. You’ve got to self-censor. If all of those things are in play, you are not focusing on the audience. You are not focusing on the other person, which means you are not going to serve them because you’re in conflict with serving you. That is going to impact all of this.
You have to get to a place where curiosity is what drives the day. You have to assume the best of the person you speak to always. If I assume you’re trying to hurt me, then I now have to start protecting myself. If I’m protecting me, I’m not serving you. Everything has to be outward-focused and you have to come to that place where you believe the best intentions of other people. We have five core values in our company and they tie into our values as people. It’s ownership, relationship, partnership, flexibility, and optimism.
I am an eternal optimist. I don’t mean glass half full, I mean, if you turn around and see that your dog took a crap on that rug, your immediate thought should be, “I have been wanting a new rug.” You have to see the high side of everything. In transparency on that, I had a big blessing from God to help make that happen. He dropped me in a bombshell of an upbringing. I learned at a young age that everything is overcomeable. When I see a problem, I don’t go, “Oh my God, a problem.” I go, “How do I solve it?”
Let’s reframe and restate those wonderful values, not just business but personal because that’s the first takeaway. They’re not separate. We’ve all experienced that now in a much greater way than we ever did. I’m one person at home and one person at work. Now that’s been blended for a while, people are like, “Oh.” These all have to be consistent: partnership, relationship, ownership, flexible, and optimist. This concept of ownership, to me, means you’re not pointing fingers, you’re not blaming other people. The framework of being a partner means that when someone is a little down, you might be there to help boost them up and that it’s a win-win thing. Of course, the relationship is the premise of that long-term view. Even if I get mad or I say something that hurts your feelings, we don’t throw the whole thing away.
If you notice, they’re all tied together. All of them are interwoven. We talk about them so much here. We make business decisions based on that. We’ve let people go from our team who were fantastic humans. We started realizing, “How come there’s all this friction here all the time?” We started evaluating. We say, “The way they handled that demonstrated no ownership. They didn’t take partners. They didn’t demonstrate any flexibility. There was no optimism, there was only finger-pointing.” It didn’t work and it’s not because they weren’t great people, they don’t fit here. We look at that through all things.
Here’s another huge takeaway you gave everybody, Jim. If you don’t define your brand, values, culture, whether you’re a one-person company or not, then you don’t have a moral compass to decide whether you should take an action or not, “Is this a fit for me or not?” That comes back to what you were also saying about this premise of reading the room and building trust. When you have these five values, as you described, defined, integrated, and not just pieces of paper somewhere, what that allows you to do is to trust your gut even more because you know who you are at such a defined level. That is where most people think, “I don’t need to define my culture. My values don’t matter.” They then wonder why things are hectic, chaotic and not streamlined. Without this map and this compass, moral or otherwise, no wonder you’re lost, both emotionally and in your business.
Gain The Edge: You end up teaching people how to read the room and how to influence them so that they won’t see you as a threat. By doing this, they’ll let down their defenses and be able to buy from you.
Part of the success of what you do with companies is you’re digging things that are hard for people, like getting leads, closing business, and getting people to trust you. I’ve never heard anyone say what you said, which is, “If I’m protecting myself, I’m not serving you.” I need to take a minute and let that land not just intellectually but emotionally. You start looking back on personal relationships, maybe breakups or conflicts with friends. What this reminds me of is years ago, when I was in my twenties, someone said to me, “It’s the old question, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” It was the first time I’d ever heard it framed like that. All these years later, I’m hearing you say it differently but still equally impactful. Are those things connected?
Yes, very much so. You mentioned the term win-win a little bit ago. Not to douse out your fire on that, but we take a different perspective. I had analyzed this for a while because you hear everybody talk about the win-win. It’s a common term. When I hear the win-win, it implies equality. It implies that you and I are both here to give something to this. Most of the time, it requires me to give you a certain amount and you to give me a certain amount. Usually, there’s some measurement involved. John, neither one of us is equal. There are things that you’re better at. There are things that I’m better at. For us to both be equal, then one of us has to compromise. I’m going to say, “If John is going to give me this much, I’ll reduce what I’m going to give,” or you do the opposite. We’ve tweaked that term and we come from the perspective of win-them. What that means is we show up to ensure they win. That means I give 100% of me and you give 100% of you. If my 100% is bigger, that’s the way it goes.
I love busting myths. We talked about another one we’re going to bust later. That’s why I wanted to go through all of those five to make sure that I was having the same semantic meaning. I’m glad that you said no. Let’s put it in terms of personal relationships. People sometimes can go, “I see myself in that story.” If you’re in a relationship with someone and they’re keeping track of how many times they take out the garbage versus you taking out the garbage, first of all, that’s exhausting. People can get caught up in that minutia because they are coming from that premise of everything has to be equal.
That goes back to childhood. I have two younger sisters and my mom would make us lunch and put out the three glasses of milk and pour it. My sisters and I would hold the glasses next to each other, and if one person got half a millimeter more, we would complain that it wasn’t equal. The poor woman, she’s trying to make kids’ lunch and now we’re like, “It’s not equal. It’s not fair.” If you do that with your relationships outside of your siblings, let alone in the business world, it’s not just exhausting but it’s counterproductive, isn’t it?
It is. I’ll give you a real-world example and our company is involved. We provide outsourced sales divisions for scaling entrepreneurs. We have a strong, well-known client we’re working with who has an internal team. We have our team. There are two different initiatives that are usually happening. While we worked on a project, their team and our team were working. My team kept coming to me. Even if we have a situation, they’re like, “We need to get them to do this. We need to get them to do that.” If the client needs this, I’m like, “All those things we need to get them to do costs money, time or both. What are we going to do?”
Taking ownership. Are we taking partners in that or are we dictating? Are we being flexible in saying, “How do we adapt?” Are we being optimistic and saying, “How do we help them get there?” Are we taking the partnership? Are we taking ownership? Here’s my definition of ownership, so you have it. My part of ownership says I’m going to help you. However, I can get the result. Your part of ownership says that you’re going to get the result whether I help you or not. That’s ownership. That means I’m going to get it done somehow. We’re not taking ownership of that situation. We’re saying, “They need to do this and I’ll do that.” I’m like, “No. We need to bring solutions, optimism, strategy, vulnerability and flexibility often.”
[bctt tweet=”When I protect myself I am not servicing you.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We need to show up as a partner. That’s how this works. What that’s going to help them do is they’re going to help them go, “They’re awesome partners. Look at what they’re doing. They’re thinking of us first.” We’re showing up going, “I can’t be all in for you because I’ve got to cover my back.” That’s the whole definition of win-win. If I show up to ensure you win, I automatically assume you’re doing the same for me, and I don’t have to worry about anything else.
You also talked about seeing the best in people and trusting. Do you ever find yourself regretting that sometimes or saying, “Somebody took advantage of me. They didn’t keep their word. How do I navigate that so I don’t make that same mistake again?”
I answer that a little differently than I would have when I was 22. At this point, I have to assume. To quote my good friend Susie Carter, “The tongue in your mouth and the tongue in your shoes are misaligned for some reason that I can’t identify.” If your mouth says one thing and your tongue in your shoe says something else, there’s something going on that I haven’t been able to figure out. You’re promising me something because you feel you need to, but then you’re doing something else. I have to look at that as much as what was my part of that. What do I own in that process? Was there something I could have said or done differently? Could I have chosen a better partner more wisely? It’s easier for me to go, “Jim, this is a you problem. How do we fix it?” If I created the problem, then good news, guys, I can fix the problem. If the problem is yours, I can’t do anything to fix it.
Who owns the problem? It has always been a big part of that analysis of that and emotional intelligence. I want to get your opinion about this, Jim. Is it not being attached to anyone’s outcome or anyone’s sale having to go a certain way? Is that part of it too?
As a generalization, you could say yes, but that phrase has always bugged me a little bit.
Let’s talk about it. We’re trying to come up from not being attached to one thing making us happy or successful are changing our self-esteem. How else can we look at that?
Gain The Edge: Name one thing that you’ve bought recently from somebody you didn’t know, like or trust. You didn’t buy it because you knew, liked, or trusted it. You bought it because you wanted it.
First of all, in the way I see it, if I don’t care enough, if you purchase this product, on some level, I’m having to admit that I don’t care if you solve your problem. What does that make me? I have to do a better job of preparing you for what we are trying to solve or make it crystal clear that this isn’t a good fit if you’re not committed to solving this problem. All we do is solve your problem and help you get there. I have to be able to own that frame. Do I claim all of my future success on whether or not this transaction goes through? Absolutely not. I’m a smart business owner. I know how to do this. However, I have to be attached on some level, otherwise, I probably shouldn’t be in business. That’s my lens on this.
I get it. We can be attached to solving a problem but if that person is not attached or committed to solving a problem, then we go, “That’s not a fit then.”
We have to be real. If you and I were in a sales conversation and the opportunity was presenting itself, at some point, I have to be able to come to the fact that my job is to make sure you had crystal clarity about all options on the table, and all consequences of not taking action. That way, I know you made an eyes wide open decision to do what’s best for you. That’s all I can do.
Let’s talk about that because that’s a big thing that most people don’t present or think about, let alone tap into what is the cost of not making a decision or taking action now? They come up with all kinds of excuses why they can’t take action now or something’s changed, “I said I was going to, but now I’m doing this instead.” The endless rounds of reasons why. There’s one thing when people say, “No, this isn’t a fit,” and there’s one who’s like, “I’m going to do it,” and they change their mind and you’re like, “What?”
A lot of times too it’s about being incredibly aware and present at the moment. Let’s say you and I are talking, and we spent twenty minutes and you’re saying, “I am so done with this situation. I cannot stand having to decide, do I go serve this client or do I go to my son’s soccer game? I am so tired of lying to my wife about the fact that we’re not making money in this business because I don’t want her to think I’m a failure,” or whatever that is. Then they say that they’ve got the option to take advantage of the business offer and they go, “I’ll wait until next year.” “I’m good with that. I’m good with you waiting until next year because I’m going to be in business next year and I need clients too.”
This is all good. However, I want you to be crystal clear on whether you’re going to survive that, and I’ve got a real challenge for you, John. Why is it okay for you to continue to live your life? Why are you making a choice every day of, ‘Do I go see my son’s soccer game or do I go serve a client?’ when you should be able to do both? What are we going to do to solve that? Are you interested in solving that? Because we’re not solving the problem of you getting more clients. We’re solving the problem with you having more choice and freedom, and being the man that you told your wife you were going to be. All that is, is me being an unapologetic truth-teller.
[bctt tweet=”You have to come to complete surrender to the reality that it’s not always about you.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Without making them feel horrible.
Was that abusive, the way they laid that out to you?
No.
It’s truth-telling and it’s because I care.
You can teach other people to do this. That’s the other thing. Some people are like, “Ugh.” We talked before the show that one of the big myths out there besides win-win or not being attached to the outcome and now we have a third one. To get people to buy from you, they have to know, like and trust you. Get people to know you. Start networking or whatever. We both are on the same page that that is the worst way to run your life and your business. What are your thoughts on why that doesn’t work?
I call it the myth of the know, like and trust. It’s in our realm. We’ve got the KLT with a line through it. That’s what that means all the time whenever we write that because we talk about it a lot. It’s funny, even from a simple list perspective. Anybody reading this, name one thing that you’ve bought from somebody you didn’t know, like or trust? I guarantee it’s happened, whether it was a burger or a car. You didn’t buy it because you knew, liked and trusted them, you bought it because you wanted it. We do that all the time. Somewhere and some way, I want to know who this guy is. I want to give him all the credit for it.
Gain The Edge: A win-win implies equality between two parties. The truth is that neither one of them are equal. In order for there to be equality, one has to compromise.
Some guy somewhere was the first person to use the know, like and trust as a factor, and everybody thought it was so good that they started repeating it. It’s in every sales book in the history of man and I don’t get it because it’s not a factor. Here’s the biggest one. First of all, you need to be able to know yourself and know your outcomes as a result of moving forward. You need to be able to like the path that is laid out. You need to be able to like the fact that you can make a great decision about this and like the decisions that you make.
You need to be able to trust the fact that you are in a position to make the right decisions and that whatever decisions you make are good ones. You do not need to know, like or trust me. Here’s the thing, as a salesperson, here’s the number one killer for you. Salespeople, are you paying attention to? Stop what you’re doing, pay attention right here. Pause on whatever it is you’re doing right now. If you are focused on getting people to like you, you are your biggest problem because you need to be able to speak the truth to clients, and not being liked is in direct conflict with speaking the truth.
You gave us an example of speaking the truth without being worried about whether the person who heard it liked it or stopped liking you. Zooming back into personal relationships, so many people struggle with the rule of a parent is, “I want my kids to like me.” Sometimes they’re not going to like you. You give them boundaries and structure. If you give them everything they want all the time so they would like you, they don’t need another friend. They need a parent. That’s the same fear that happens in the business world. It’s like, “I’ve got to be friends with everyone who buys from me, otherwise I don’t feel good about myself.” You’ve reframed that up to, “You need to be a truth-teller.” It’s the same thing with your kids, “I’m sure you don’t feel like doing your homework, but you have to do it before you get to do something fun or whatever it is.” It’s the same structure. I love that instead of getting somebody else to know, like and trust us.
Flipping that back as a mirror to them and saying, “You’ve got to know yourself, like what decisions you are making, and trust that you’re on the right decision that you trust your own.” That is a big reason why people don’t buy and it’s an unspoken one in my observations. They’ll give you 101 excuses or objections but at the bottom of all of that where your intuitive skill is able to go do that is they don’t trust themselves to make the right decision. Therefore, it leaks into every area of your life. This is the person that can’t decide what to order at the restaurant or can’t decide where to go to a restaurant. Everything is so overwhelming to them, so why would that suddenly stop when they have to decide what car to buy, what house to pick or whatever, let alone hiring someone.
Here’s the beauty of this. When you learn to tell the unapologetic truth, you’ll learn to do it in such a way that people won’t run. You’ll start recognizing that this is what keeps them closer to you, not pushes them farther away and it becomes something that you start to own and appreciate. I can tell you that I am more direct. The Bronx Puerto Rican to me comes out a lot but I also lead with my heart. I care about people immensely. I’m at a place where I don’t censor myself about anything. I say what I’m thinking.
Do you know how many people hang up on me? It has been a few years since the last person who hung up on me. Why? Because the truth is magnetic. We’re wired for the truth. They may not like it, they may not want to hear what you’re saying but they need it. That’s why they don’t go away. Here’s a great one. The last time that I can recall somebody specifically hanging up was when one of our sales managers was running an event years ago. We had a client who was in Sweden and he came to this event in San Francisco, a week after his parents died. It was a big effort. He was going through this big emotional weekend and he got to this place that’s going to make a $12,000 investment.
[bctt tweet=”You have to mentally get into a place where curiosity is what drives the day.” username=”John_Livesay”]
He had all kinds of excuses and our sales manager, Mike at the time said, “Here’s the deal. You’re not committed. You don’t want this. I don’t want to spend my time trying to convince you of something you don’t want because you’re not committed. You don’t have a dedication and commitment to what you say you want. I’m going to wish you well.” He hung up after he yelled at him for five minutes, “How dare you? I flew across the country a week after my parents died. I committed. I want this.” He hung up on him, and the next day called him back and gave him his credit card. He goes, “You’re so on point. If I want this, I’ve got to do something about it.” He hung up on him, but then he couldn’t sleep because he knew the truth hit him in the face.
If people want to work with you and learn more about Gain the Edge, you do everything from a done-for-you sales team, to launching products for companies, to continuing to help them grow. It’s one of three different kinds of buckets. They can check out your website, GainTheEdgeNow.com, but what’s the best way for people who want to learn more to see if what you have is a fit for what they need?
I’m going to do something bold here. I don’t know why I felt compelled to do this but in the interest of truth-telling, authenticity and taking partners, I’m going to drop my number here. You guys can call me. I can give you any one of our opt-ins, all that stuff. I was going to say, text me. My phone has been on silent for over years. I don’t even know if it’s ringing. I can’t afford the distraction. If I’m here with you, I can’t worry about what’s happening on the phone. Text me and tell me that you heard me on this show here and let’s talk. Please, don’t spam me and stuff. The number is (916) 587-1946. Give me a text and tell me what’s up. I’d love to talk about what you are doing, how are you scaling your business? What problems are you trying to solve? Who are you trying to solve them for? How can we help you? How can I introduce you to somebody who can?
Thank you for sharing those words of wisdom and your own vulnerability. I could talk to you forever. Anybody would be smart to take you up on that offer to text you to take a look at the truth, as they say, sets us free. You’ve got the proven track record that I’ve seen in action and working for a lot of mutual friends. I’ve seen it in their actions as well. Thanks again, Jim, for being on the show and telling us all that we needed to know.
Thanks for being able to share. Guys, please go put this stuff in action. Trust yourself. You’ve got everything you’ve ever needed to be able to have great, powerful and influential conversations at any time. You’ve got to stop thinking you can’t because you’re the only hurdle that you’ve got.
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Tags: Flexibility, Optimism, Ownership, Personal Relationships, Read The Room, Relationship Equality