Building A Sales Team Through A Sports Philosophy w/ Dre Baldwin

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with author, speaker and former pro athlete Dre Baldwin on the benefits of having a sports philosophy when engaging a team in the workplace.

Dre shares his insights and experience on...

• Team dynamics mirror sports teams.
• Caution against "family" culture.
• The role of competition in the workplace and driving performance.
• Sports mentality in sales.
• Functional diversity is the right kind of diversity.
• Importance of feedback and adaptability in a rigid sports mentality.
• Balancing intensity and sustainability.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Dre Baldwin, and here is why he is awesome. He's an author, speaker, and prolific content creator, having written 35 books and spoken at four TEDx talks on the topics of discipline, confidence, mental toughness, and personal initiative. His daily solo Work On Your Game Master Class has been downloaded more over, over 7.5 million times. Dre is also a former nine year pro basketball player walking on an NCAA division three school and he's here to talk about workplace team building with that really important sports lens that I'm super curious to talk to him about. Hi Dre.

Dre Baldwin: Hey, Russel, how are you?

Russel Lolacher: I'm very good, sir. Before we get deep diving into this, I have to ask the question I ask all of my guests, sir, which is what is your best or worst employee experience?

Dre Baldwin: Hmm. Well, my best employee experience is being a professional athlete, if you want to call that being an employee. I mean, you can't, can't ask for a better job than being a pro athlete. Playing a game for a living, getting paid, traveling the world on somebody else's dime. So that's the best experience. But the worst I would say, I remember working at a... it was like a telemarketing place. This was early in my career so I was in between plenty of jobs. So I get this telemarketing job and really they just herded all the people in there. So you were just a number to them. You weren't really a human. You were just a number to them and they just processed you. And the job was relatively easy. All you did was just hit the space bar on the computer and just read whatever was on the screen with whoever came on the phone. And there's some funny stories in there, but we won't get into that at least not yet, but. The, I remember I had a conversation with one of the supervisors and I don't even remember what we were talking about or why I was on the phone with the guy, but it was clear to what he was talking to me that he, they didn't care who I was.

They knew they could easily replace me. And it was like, I remember quitting the job at the end of that conversation. I only worked there for about two weeks. I think I only worked there long enough to get one paycheck. And the guy, I knew that as soon as I left, all they would do is just get somebody else to take my spot.

It didn't matter. Yeah. Because I remember working with other people in there. We'd be sitting in a big phone room and some of them had worked there for six months, two years ago. Left. Now they were coming back to work there again. So this is like, people just come in and out. It's like, it doesn't even matter.

You're just a number. You're just a, a a cog to be brought in and out like a pawn in the game. And I said, I can't believe that people do this for a living. And the managers, I mean, they had a little bit more say, but overall, I just, Is this, it was a surreal experience, I guess I can say, but I just remember that conversation. The guy was like, really just talking to me in a way that didn't matter if I existed or not.

Russel Lolacher: And sadly that happens far more than anyone likes to admit, especially for those early jobs in your career, when you're just happy to get a job because you're just learning how to apply to a place, much less what culture may or may not be.

So the question I have for you is how did that shift your lens moving forward? Obviously you went into sports, but there was still that, I never want to be treated like that again. So how did it alter your lens in approaching the next job or the next job?

Dre Baldwin: Well, the thing that it did most to me, Russel was let me know that I didn't want to be in that position to where I just was not valued. Not could easily be disposed of. I didn't want to be a fungible piece in somebody else's plan, somebody else's game. So. I always had my eye on entrepreneurship because it had been introduced to me back when I was in college.

So by that point I was already thinking about it and I knew after I played sports, I was going to go into entrepreneurship. I didn't know exactly how, when, where, no, what I was going to sell. I didn't know anything about it. I just knew that's the route that I wanted to go because I saw really one of the biggest things was just seeing my parents.

They worked you know traditional jobs. They did some small business stuff on the side, dabbling and sometimes full time, but mostly where their mindset was go work somewhere and they never seemed happy about their jobs. They did their jobs and they were consistent and disappointed at doing the job, but they didn't seem excited about going to work.

So once I got introduced to the concept of being something other than that, I was all in on it.

Russel Lolacher: Fantastic. Yeah, punching the clock, my parents were very much the same. It was just something they had to do to live and focused on that part of their life when we, you and I both know you're spending so much of your time doing that work piece that it influences everything else. Okay, let's get into it, Dre. I'm super curious about this, this aspect of team building. Why? I think is the first question to ask is why should we look at any work team, any team that we're leading, why should we look at it like a sports analogy? Maybe and maybe explain what you mean by that.

Dre Baldwin: Absolutely. Well, in sports, in team sports, let's say football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. You're working with a bunch of individuals who outside from playing that sport, you may never have known these people, people come off from, people come from all different backgrounds. You all have to work together to achieve one common goal, and they're going to be personality clashes.

They're going to be skill and ability clashes. There will be challenges from the outside, meaning the other teams that you're competing against, if you will, that you had to listen to. There's usually somebody in charge, some type of leader. Who you have to listen to, and there may be conflicts with that person as well.

And all of that stuff has to be managed. That dynamic shifting dynamic has to be managed with the goal, with respect to the goal, of let's win the championship, whatever that may be for that sports, for that business team, the same way it is for a sports team. So there's a lot of moving pieces happening in any type of business team, same way there is in the sports scene.

Russel Lolacher: Would you say this is the cure for the, but we're a family, Dre? You see a lot of organizations, and I know this happened a lot more maybe about five years ago where organizations were like, we're all one big family here at X corporation. We're all here looking out for each other. And it's all lip service because as, you know, and I know family is a very different thing than it is a sports team.

So I'm curious as to why is this the better approach than ones that have come before it?

Dre Baldwin: Well, when a lot of people throw that, those family, familial terms around, even in the sports world, you hear a lot of sports players, especially these days is a lot more than it used to be back when I was playing, but you'll hear players say, well, me and my brothers on this team, and I'm, I always, I don't like that term because you don't throw that term around so loosely with people who you just met, you know, three weeks ago, or you just played a season with them, that doesn't make them a brother. We're coworkers and that's fine. It's good to be coworkers. We can be friends professionally, but at the same time I wouldn't make it a family thing because when you're throwing a term around so loosely, it means family means less.

You're devaluing the value of what it really means to be family with someone. And in the business world is the exact same thing. And it's okay, and this is my mentality, it's okay to just say, look, we're not family. We're not brothers and sisters. We work together. There is a professional respect. We are working together to reach this goal.

And when this is over, Hey, I'm going to go this way. You're going to go that way. We may never see each other again. That's completely fine. What you want to find, if I'm running a business team, I want to find people who understand that, who appreciate and value that. They don't have to be brothers and sisters with other people on the team, but we are all respecting the goal.

We're focused on being effective, which means we're getting things done efficiently and productively with respect to the goals and with respect to time. And that's completely fine. We don't have to take it any further than that. Now people do become friends and they do get to the point where they can call themselves family. That's fine, but it doesn't have to be everybody. And I'm definitely not forcing that mentality on my team.

Russel Lolacher: And I think calling someone a brother or a family member might also put unrealistic expectations on a relationship that is still being established within the work frame, right? Going, you're making a lot of assumptions that I have your back when I don't even know if I can trust you.

I've known you for three weeks. So...

Dre Baldwin: Can I add something in there? I want to add something in there because here's what happens because in businesses, you have people who are looking at it the way I'm looking at it. Like this is a professional relationship and I'm using you in a way you're using me in a way we are both benefiting from each other in a semiotic relationship.

And people will throw around that family thing because. Let's be honest, Russel, there are a lot of people out there who don't have family. They didn't have much family, they didn't have much strong familial connections in their real lives outside of work. So when someone says to them, Hey, this is a family. Now they go, okay, here's a place I can finally belong.

And then what happens is the rude awakening is when they finally realize, oh, this wasn't a family, or they were just saying that because it made, it brought... it made me buy in. And it makes the people who look at us, the fans or the customers from the outside, they're looking at it and saying, Oh wow, family, this is an interesting thing.

So this is, it's kind of like a marketing tactic that sometimes people can use in business, not only for the customers and the prospects, but also for the people who work for them because they haven't had family before. And then when people realize, Oh, this wasn't actually family, you were just saying that because it sounded good and it got me to buy in.

Before it was the person who believed it, but the person who created it is often, they know exactly what they're doing. So sometimes it's, it's a little bit of a hustle, I guess, for the lack of a better term.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, and we talk a lot on the show about leadership impact, especially the impact they don't realize they're making. And in the exact situation you're providing the trauma that can come with that. With someone who has not that feeling of belonging that they might get, in their personal life and it's being sold as happening in the workplace that's not true. It's a lie. I can't imagine the hurt that that can cause on a mental health perspective of somebody that feels like that's a place where they belong when really it's only transactional.

I, I'm breaking my heart and I've never been in that situation and my heart already breaks for it.

Dre Baldwin: Exactly. And so some people are just doing it as business and it's, I call it a hustle. When I say it's a hustle, I'm not even saying it in a negative way. It's just sometimes people are just hustling, but we have to be smart enough to see through the hustle and understand what's actually going on, but that's very difficult for a person who hasn't had a real family connection.

They can't see that because they don't know what a real family connection looks like. So if someone offers it to them and they're shaking your hand and they're being your friend for now. And it seems like it's real because what do you have to compare it to? You don't know. So this goes way back to before we get into the workplace.

Russel Lolacher: You mentioned just sort of briefly as you were going through talking about sports, a sports approach or sports teams approach about competition. Now, of course, my brain immediately thinks sports, I think it's your group against another group.

How do you reconcile that within a work group? Are you talking about other business areas? Are you talking about other organizations? What do you mean by competition? Considering that's so ingrained in a sports mentality.

Dre Baldwin: Well, there's a lot of competition. There's actually, there's internal and external. So let's say you're playing on a sports team, let's say a basketball team. And with basketball, everybody can do everything. So it's not like, With football, you have the offensive players and the defensive players. So they're not really in competition because they don't do anything.

Neither one can take the other person's job, but in basketball, every player can perform any function. So there is always a competition. When a team first gets together, there's a competition to establish a hierarchy. Who's the main person on the team? Who are our best players? Who's the number two? Who's the number three?

And everyone has to find their position in that totem pole. And there is conflict there because there may be a player who's in the eighth position, but believes he should be in the fourth position or is a player in a number two spot, but he thinks he's better than the guy in the number one spot. So you had that internal conflict going on and the leader.

And depending on the personalities of the people that can become an untenable situation, or you can figure out a way to make it work. So you have to find the right people, not only with the skills, but also the makeup so that they can accept their roles. And one of the biggest challenges on any team is that sometimes people are not accepting of their roles and their role could be again, lesser than what they think. They think they're better than they are asked to be on the team, or somebody is asked to be playing a leading role and they're not really qualified to be in a leading role that can happen in teams as well. You have someone who's a little bit under qualified for the position that you're putting them in.

So you have a lot of internal conflict that can happen in teams and I'm sure it happens in the, let's say the corporate world. Where there's someone who, let's say two people were out for a promotion or five people up for the promotion. One person gets it. And now that one person is in charge of the four people who didn't get it. And now you got to answer to this person and you're thinking you're better than them. So how is that going to go? All right. So this is, there's a lot of competition that can happen internally and then externally. Yes. And the business world is is not as clear because you don't always know exactly what your opponents are doing in business. But in sports, you know exactly what they're doing. Because we have scoreboards, we got stats, and you know who you're playing on the schedule. So in sports, the competition is a lot more clear and clean, whereas in business it's a lot less obvious, but we know it is happening.

Russel Lolacher: How do you explain that to a team, that things like opposition is a good thing?

Because it comes off as sounding like a negative, like you're against another team member. Because everything in the leadership world is very much about service leadership, collaboration, we co-create... which sounds a lot more, and I'm not saying it's not the same thing, but that might not be the go to in a lot of people's brain of going, well, they're my adversary now? Like, I'm not supposed to work with them. I'm supposed to try to get a leg up on them. How do you reconcile those?

Dre Baldwin: That's a great question. I think it depends on the way that the game is structured, the way things are structured internally with the team, and making sure you set the proper expectations for everybody. And that is all based on how the leadership is structured and the way the organization is structured.

And you can let people know from the beginning. Okay. This let them know, but not even saying that this is not a competition because your role is this, this person's role is this, this person's role is that, and this is how we all work together. But there are also organizations where there is open competition.

Okay. Whoever the top salesperson is. Excuse me. They're going to get the best parking spot. They're going to get the car. They're going to get the promotion. So it depends on the way the organization is structured. And do you want people who are coming in and looking to compete against each other, or do you want people who are coming in understanding that they're fitting into a certain space and is not me against you, player against player. So it depends on the type of people that you have in your organization and type people that you want and the kind of organization that you want to have. One thing that I know for sure, let's say in the sales space, sales is a direct competition. All right. Our team, our organization against another organization, there's also a salesperson against salesperson.

So that type of organization, they tend to look for people like me. They tend to look for athletes because we understand discipline. We understand competition. We understand mental toughness. We understand taking losses and coming back and we're okay competing while remaining in a healthy mindset. Whereas other people who don't come from that world, that may be a little bit disturbing

Russel Lolacher: I have so many questions, but first I want to start a bit of a baseline. What does it look like on a day to day basis to have a team that's focused with a more of a sports approach? I'm just, I want to get to the sort of the more granular of if I'm a leader in charge of a team and that is the mentality and that is the focus, how does that look day to day?

Dre Baldwin: Well, the experience that I have and what I would say best connects between sports and the business world is sales, because one of the things that makes sports, sports, and the reason why I call sports the ultimate meritocracy and closest thing to a meritocracy we have in humanity is because sports is judged by an objective third party observer known as a scoreboard.

All right, the scoreboards don't have opinions, they don't have feelings, they don't have political leanings. They just tell you the truth of what's happening. And whereas in everything in business is highly subjective. So in the sales world, the scoreboard is sales numbers, right? How many closes, how much money, how much revenue, et cetera.

So that's the kind of the great equalizer that takes human emotion out of the situation. So that's where I, the best connection between where I come from and the professional world outside of sports is a sales space. So a lot of places where I will speak at or consult at are sales places, places that they do direct sales cause they understand the scoreboard concept.

So that's the place that I was most directed to. And then it's, consistently, you have to give your team the pep talk. So anybody who's worked in sales knows every day there's a morning, a little rally at the beginning of the day, whether it's a hype up, jump up and down. And I've actually been in those and they, they are real.

People think that's only in the movies. That's real. And then you have sometimes just a sit down sales meeting or how many appointments do you have for today? What are your plans for today? You don't have any appointments. What are you going to do to drum up some business? But every day it's that short or long coaching session to let the team know, Hey, we got to go in and do our thing because that sales manager holding that meeting, all right, they have their manager breathing down their neck about getting those sales. So then they everything flows downhill, as they say. Now they gotta breathe down the salesperson's neck to get them going.

So it kind of is like that cascading effect. And then it's just consistently the competition between people. Okay. I closed three yesterday. You closed two. Okay. I won yesterday. Now over the course of the month, I'm in this spot. You're in that spot. And I worked in sales jobs where the numbers are right there on the board for everybody to see.

So you know exactly where you stand. If you're the worst salesperson, you see it is right there. You're the worst salesperson. And I've worked in places where sales managers get replaced month by month if they're not performing. So it is a high, you can call it as high pressure, high intensity environments.

Russel Lolacher: So this makes me go back to your original story, though, you talked about having one of your first jobs and you hated being a cog in the wheel, but how you're describing it also kind of sounds like a cog in a wheel because your your only measurement of success is not a human one. It's a productivity one. So is there room for humanity in that? Because I mean, say there is that low scoring, lower producing salesperson. What's the leader's role? Is it immediately like, Oh, that guy needs to get traded or she, again, going back to your sports analogy, or is there more of a, I need to help coach that person because I don't have the luxury of getting rid of them or I shouldn't have to want to get rid of them?

Dre Baldwin: Combination of both. So number one, if there's a sales team and you're at the bottom of the list and you're not performing, then the leader has to have the mentality that they are, they can and will get rid of that person. And that's the way, that's the way this world works. You're not, we're in a performance and results based business, Russel.

So if you're in sales and you're not making any sales, first of all, you're not making any money. So you, you might quit. And secondly, if you're not helping the sales manager look good, they should get rid of you. That's the game that we're in. This is, I heard somebody once called it the gong show, the gong show.

So everybody who's not performing gong, you're out of here. All right, you got to go. And that's the way that this game is. This is the performance and results based business. Once again, this is why a lot of sales organizations like athletes, because we accept this as the reality. And when you're in sports and you're getting your butt kicked every game, or eventually you won't get another chance to play because you're not performing.

You're just not going to get in the game. You're going to be sitting on the bench or you'll be off the team. That's just the way that it works. And again, I come from this world where it's, it's black and white. There's no gray, it's you're performing or you're not. So yes. So the other answer to the question, as I said, is both is yes.

As the sales manager, you want to coach your people up and hope everybody is performing at a higher level. But I have known of organizations where, let's say they have 10 salespeople. They say, listen, every quarter, the bottom three salespeople are fired and we're replacing with three other people. It doesn't matter how well you're doing. The bottom three are gone. So you're looking for certain, a certain type of person with a certain type of makeup who has the thick skin to understand that this is the game that you're in and it makes it very competitive. And again, high pressure, high intensity environment, and it ain't for everybody. I will say that.

Russel Lolacher: Well, that's exactly what I was thinking is that this is not a retention game. It's a productivity game because at the end of the day, you're not looking to keep...which I think isn't that cost prohibitive as well? Because if you're having high turnover, if they're not meeting expectations and you're constantly going, okay, well that person's out and this person's in, doesn't that cost more money for onboarding and training to have to do that all the time?

Dre Baldwin: Yes, but the productivity of your top salespeople more than makes up for what it costs you to replace the bums. That's just how it is. A mathematical equation.

Russel Lolacher: And that's, and that's me sort of trying to explain it to those that are looking for I don't want to say a more human approach to leadership or more human approach to teams, but the, it's more of trying to reconcile that back and forth going because the narrative always is retention is cheaper than turnover, which again, I think we're both agreeing to that. It's just a matter of that fits within your success model of what success looks like within your organization.

Dre Baldwin: Theoretically, yes. Retention is easier to keep your current customers, even in sales, easy to keep your current customers in is to replace the customer, but it depends on how much money your best customers are paying you. All right. So there are exceptions to every rule.

Russel Lolacher: How does this impact onboarding? Because not every organization is going to approach it in this, in this way. So, how, how are they, how are your organizations, how's leadership, setting the table for this? Or should be?

Dre Baldwin: Well, this is something that needs to be explained to them upfront. And this is why your sourcing process, and this is something that I tell to entrepreneurs all the time. Your process for sourcing, i. e. identifying the people who you want to be interested in what you're offering is more important than what you tell them once they come in.

Cause if you're bringing in too many of the wrong people, you're going to have a whole lot of terms just trying to find the right type of person. So your marketing. Which is how you advertise. Hey, here's a job. Here's an opportunity for you needs to eliminate and push away, reject the wrong type of people and only attract the right type of people so that when you sit them down and tell them, here's how it is, they're not, there's no, there's no shock or they're not experiencing culture shock that you tell them, Hey, this is how it works.

The lowest performing salespeople are not going to be here or if y'all go perform a salesperson, you're not gonna make enough money to pay your bills so you're probably going to quit. That's just how it is. So it's all about who you're sourcing and how you're marketing the opportunity so that they understand this.

Now if there's an organization that's not looking at things this way, then this is where you get, and I talked to a lot of people who are in the job market these days, and they're talking like they're going through eight, 10 rounds of interviews before they even get offered the jobs. And I don't think those are the type of jobs that I'm talking about here, where they can bring in people relatively quickly because they know they're going to cycle a bunch people out.

They know not everybody's going to make it, so they don't mind one or two interviews and you're in, whereas in jobs, they're looking for people to stay more long term. At least I've heard, you can tell me if I'm, if I have this right or not, maybe it's just exceptional folks that I'm talking to, but I know a guy who works at Google, he went through like 10 rounds of interviews to get the job.

And they're looking for long term, they're looking for you to stay forever because that costs a lot of money. So I don't think they're looking at it the same way as what I'm talking about, where they'll just drop you because they already spent all those resources just to get you there in the first place.

Russel Lolacher: And the funny thing is, is you can be through 10 rounds of interviews and still not be a good fit. That could be just purely a bureaucracy problem, not a culture fit thing that they're trying to figure out.

Dre Baldwin: Mm

Russel Lolacher: So if you're, and I'm going to use a restaurant term here, turn and burn tends to be the approach to, to employees and such, how do you figure out diversity through that? Because as you're explaining, you have to be a certain type of person to be able to hack this, to excel at this. But that might not lend itself to diverse ways of thinking or backgrounds and so forth. And because they have to be X type of person, we're not, you might not be looking for, well, you think a little differently or you have a different approach. How do you, is, is that a factor in any of this?

Dre Baldwin: Yes, but we still have to come back to what game we're in, performance and results based business. So, it's like the, the, what town are you in?

Russel Lolacher: I'm Vancouver Island. I'm Canadian.

Dre Baldwin: Vancouver. Okay. So the closest... they used to have a basketball team there, the Vancouver Grizzlies.

Russel Lolacher: Don't bring it up. That's hurtful. That's hurtful.

Dre Baldwin: You know, they're talking about expansion. The NBA just did a new media rights deal. So they're gonna have enough money that they may come back to Vancouver.

Russel Lolacher: Believe it when I see it. Believe it when I see it.

Dre Baldwin: Seattle is coming. That's definitely coming guaranteed for 2030. Okay. So the NBA team, and I guess the closest to you would be Portland, right? The Portland basketball team isn't looking for diversity of height.

They are looking for diversity of players that can fit the roles that they need to win basketball games. So yes, diversity matters, but it depends on what type of diversity. Are you doing it for the sake of saying that you're diverse? Are you doing it for the sake of, we have enough pieces. It's kind of like when you're filling a toolbox, if you have a toolbox at home, you want diversity in the toolbox, but you need a tool for hammering a nail. You need a tool for screwing in a screw, need a tool for a squeaky oil, squeaky wheel, need a tool for putting something up on the wall. You need a tool for fixing a leaky toilet. You need a diverse set of tools to solve the problems that you have in your business, not a diverse set of tools, just to say you have a diverse set of tools that ends up being a, a wasteful use of resources just to say that you did it. So in a business team, we want to be diverse enough. Okay. We got to beat the Lakers, we got to beat the Knicks and we got to beat the Houston Rockets. Do we have diverse enough pieces to beat those teams? So the diversity that we're looking for is the right type of diversity, not the type that we put on our website just to get a brownie point from somebody.

Russel Lolacher: How do we get this wrong? Like, what is the dark side of this approach? Because not everything is the perfect solution to everything. So if an organization is trying to implement a sports methodology when it comes to their team, their sales team, any team, how can they take the wrong steps in implementing this?

Dre Baldwin: Oh, that's a great question. How can they take the wrong steps when they're trying to build the team is while the most important thing is a lack of clarity as to why we're doing what we're doing. So anytime that I'm talking to any professional who comes to me with a challenge, first question I'm asking is what is the goal?

So your challenge is ABC, whatever they say, the challenges. First thing I'm asking is what are you attempting to do? And I tell people this often as well. You see this a lot on social media where someone will come into comments on a social media and start offering advice to a person who they don't even know.

And I say, well, if you don't know what that person's goal is, you are an unqualified to offer them advice because you don't know what they're trying to do. You might think they're trying to do this, but they're actually trying to do that. And if you don't know, then you're offering advice based on an inaccurate formula. So the first thing is, what is the goal? What are we looking to do? Okay. We want to maximize sales. Okay. And we need people who can sell. Okay. Based on our experience, what type of people do we need? And we need people with a strong discipline, strong work ethic, willing to be told no. They have the mental toughness, keep coming back when things are not working. They have thick skin. They understand that this is competition and they don't mind working in a high pressure, high intensity environment. Okay, now let's go find those type of people. If they don't ask those kind of questions and they say, well, let's just find good people with good backgrounds and good experience.

And then they throw them into that cauldron. And then realize that those are the wrong type of people with the wrong makeup. Well, that's the mistake of the leadership because they asked the wrong questions. So the way that organizations or any organization, whether we're talking to business or an individual person, get any process wrong is that they are unclear on what is the goal and what is the best way to go about achieving this goal. They don't ask the right questions.

Russel Lolacher: How rigid is this style? Because we'll talk to a lot of employees and they'll be like, Well, I want to provide feedback. I've got ideas on how we can do better. Or they're doing an exit interview and it sounds like there'd be a lot of staff leaving through this, through this lens.

So exit interviews might be a thing, but the way, and maybe it's just your passion. It might, I'm just thinking like, is this super rigid or is there room to grow, adapt, listen to employees about how we can improve? Is that a factor?

Dre Baldwin: Yes. I'm always open to feedback and I love the concept of the exit interview. And you can apply that in entrepreneurship the same way you apply it in business because talking to the people who didn't buy and talking to the people who asked for a refund is, can give you really good feedback. It doesn't mean they're all useful, but you may get a good nugget out of there from the right people.

I've been the type of person that as a customer of people, I've canceled my subscriptions or stopped buying products and gave Substantial feedback to the, to the owner or the person who sold to me and told them, Hey, you know what, you all need to fix these things. And when I believe that they'll listen, then I'm willing to give that type of feedback and not everybody is articulate enough to explain why they're not doing something or why they're leaving, but it absolutely is useful.

If you're asking, and number two, it depends on who's receiving it because the person receiving it, first of all, has to be confident enough to ask for feedback. You have to have a high level of confidence, Russel, to ask for feedback from someone who you already know is either getting fired, kicked out, or disgruntled because they're going to give you some negative stuff.

You got to be confident enough to ask for that, disciplined enough to keep asking, and mentally tough enough to ask yourself, is any of this true? And I told, I tell this to even when I was talking to athletes back in the day, as soon as someone offers you some criticism, the first thing you need to ask yourself is, is it true?

Is there any truth in this criticism? And if there is, let's find out what it is and let's find out how to use it. And I find, Russel, it's a rare individual who can do that, at least by themselves. Now, if you have someone helping you, then it's much easier to take it. But it's very difficult for most people to do that.

Russel Lolacher: And it's really hard for some leaders because they tell themselves a story that may not be true themselves. So there's, could be some people leaving and they're disgruntled and they don't want to hear the truth as it comes from the perspective of, because they have their own way of, well, that's not my experience.

That's one of my favorite ones was this is happening. Well, that's not my experience. Well, it didn't happen to you, but it is happening to the team. So I think that's definitely a litmus test for the leader. And I agree, you have to be very brave and very open to be able to receive that but you may be getting in your own way as a leader if you're not open to any feedback, especially stuff you don't necessarily agree with.

But if you're a leader by themselves, without a support to dig into some of these narratives, yeah, that's, that's, you don't have the time. And that's another big problem with leadership these days.

Dre Baldwin: Right. and I tell this to people on, anybody who's ever worked for me, I tell them, I'm going to tell you the way that we do things, but if you ever see a way of doing it better, because I'm going to tell you why you're doing it, not just what to do, but why to do it, if you see a way to get to the why, better than my current what, I want to know about it. But you had to be open minded enough to, first of all, let people know that you want that feedback.

And then you got to keep reminding them because when you're in a leadership position and people are subordinate to you, they tend to not offer you any feedback that could sound critical. Because you're in charge, the person who writes your cheques, you don't want to offer them too much criticism. They might stop writing the cheque.

Right? So they have to feel as if the people who are subordinates, you have to feel as if you are open to their feedback and you have to keep reminding them that you want the feedback. Even better, just ask them for the feedback. Hey, this process you're working on, what do you think we can do better here?

If you ask that question, now you're giving people an opening in a safe space, if you will, to give them, to give the critical feedback. Most people will not just come to you and offer critical feedback. That's a rare individual. And depending on what culture they come from, some people will never do this.

If you don't directly ask for it.

Russel Lolacher: You brought up something I thought was really interesting and especially from the sports analogy is as the leader it's your job to explain the what and the why. That how piece, I'm super curious about. In this, in this situation does the employee have freedom, the team member have freedom to figure out the how to get to the what or is this and again, I'm looking at any sports team where they have a gameplay. I'm looking at, I'm looking at the cliche of the whiteboard where it's got the circles and the X's and so forth where they explain the how as well as the what and the why, or is there some freedom here?

Dre Baldwin: It depends, depends on what type of people you have working for you. So for example, when I hire, let's say my executive assistant is from the Philippines, I already have documented all the processes that I want her to follow. So the how is already documented. I tell her what we're doing. Here's the process. Watch these explainer videos where I tell you how to do it. And then I'm gonna tell you why we're doing it. Now, I want you to tell me anytime you see it, when we can do this better, because they may know about software or some app that I don't know about that. We can do this better. Just let me know about it so we can do it better.

So for the most part, 95 percent of that, no, she doesn't have a lot of leeway to do what she wants to do, because I'm telling her exactly what I want done. I'm hiring basically a, something that I think AI may replace in the next 20 years. Whereas on the other hand, if I'm hiring, I've seen videos of this, of people who have different types of sales organizations where they hire a person and they say, okay, your job is to just start setting appointments and then you'll sell our stuff. And they don't tell them where to get the appointments. They don't tell them who to call. You go through your phone, just start calling people and just start selling stuff. So their how is much more open. Whereas in the sports world as well, the how is a lot more open. The coach will say, okay, this is the goal here is we're going to run this play and we need to get the ball over there and we want to score this way. But the players. Players are all unique. Some players like to go to their right. Some players like to go to their left. Some players like to dribble around a lot. Some players like to get near the basket. Some players like to shoot from far away. So the how is up to the player and it depends on their skill sets. And ideally in any organization, when you have these layers of people in leadership, you want everyone on the same page because, okay, this is what we want to get done. There are different hows to how we can do this. Okay. Who are the people we want to put on the team that can execute this how, this way? Because certain players, like certain coaches, like certain types of players.

So Phil Jackson, for example, coach of the Chicago Bulls. He liked guards that were really tall. He didn't like really short guys. He liked taller guards. Whereas other teams want guys who are good passers. Other coaches want guys who are really good shooters or other guys, other coaches want players who are really strong defenders.

Some coaches in college, for example, want to get kids who come from two parent homes. And some coaches say, okay, I'm okay with taking some kids from the hood who missed some meals when they were growing up because that nastiness that they have within them will help us on defense. I've heard coaches say this. Out loud. Publicly.

So it depends on what you're looking for for your organization. That goes back to the previous answer that I gave you is clarity on what you want. Because the good thing about life and yes, about diversity earlier is that there's a diverse set of places and people who are open to any type of person who's out there.

There's a place for you. You just have to find it.

Russel Lolacher: This sounds very intense and I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a, that's the job.

Like if you're, you're looking for those cold calls, you're looking for those leads, you're focused on producing. The human body can only do so much before it starts burning out from a mental perspective, from a physical perspective. How is that approached on a, like, cause in more sports team, you get off seasons. This doesn't have an off season. So in that sense, how do you approach employees to support them in that way?

Dre Baldwin: That's a great question. And that one is, it's an interesting question because one thing that I know about the sales space and you can tell me if you concur that there's a lot of turnover in the sales space for this very reason, because of the intensity and because of the, the high pressure environment that you're in.

And there's only so long as someone can do that before they need to, like, I need to find something that's a little bit less intense or they need a little bit of a break.

Russel Lolacher: How do you handle burnout? Because I mean, even if your best producers are not going to run forever, but if you want to keep your high producers, instead of waiting for them to drop off due to burnout, how can you as a leader... you want to keep them. So are you, is there something you can balance in that?

Dre Baldwin: Yeah, I would think organizationally the biggest thing is having them find, having them put together the structure. That's the organization itself is putting together a structure that can make it such that, and this is like a higher level business thing, that the sales that you make, for example, would say as a salesperson, maybe there's some, some tail to that sale.

So let's say in the insurance world, you make a sale, you get recurring revenue from the sales that you've made. So you want to build a book of business, not just you're only as good as your last sale, because any person in business, even in the businesses that I'm in these days, if you sell books or you're a consultant or professional speaker, you're only as good as the last transaction.

And now you got to go get another one. There's not another one. You don't get more money for the last speech you did. So having to go get that next one, you want to get up, get yourself off that treadmill and an organization ideally is setting themselves up to where they're not burning out through people in that way.

So let's say, I remember I worked at a gym where you got paid, it was, you got a flat rate, income, and then you got $60 per sale commission on each membership that you sold. But it didn't matter how long that customer remained a member of the gym. You didn't get paid any extra money. So they had a ton of turnover because you always got people leaving because they don't want to have to keep going and getting more sales in order to make more money. Whereas other organizations are selling recurring revenue products, even though that gym was, well, they just didn't have it as part of their package. They sell recurring revenue products where if you make the sale, you keep getting some type of commission for the sale that you've made. So I think that's an organizational issue.

How do we set this up so that we're not burning through people so much? Or the other thing is, how do we structure this so that even though we're burning through people, we're still making enough money that it, the cost of having to hire new people is not superseding the money that we're making from the people who are working for us.

Russel Lolacher: We're getting close to the end here. I, I'm super curious... you bring up organizations as a whole. Now, sales teams generally are within a larger organization. Generally. And they may not have the same philosophy and approach to leadership that the sales team has. If they're looking at it from a sports analogy, how does that team bump up against other business areas that do not look as teams from a sports analogy and are looking at it from a much different lens. You still have to work together.

Dre Baldwin: Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first of all, the sales and marketing teams need to be working together and then ultimately being that the purpose of businesses to generate revenue. All the other areas of the business need to defer to what the sales and marketing teams are doing, because that's how the money comes in. Cause if no money's coming in and nobody else has a job and then the other department, so that's the most important part of the business is the money coming in. Marketing gets the eyeballs of the right people. And the sales closes the deal and actually puts the money in the account. And if that's not happening, what other department matters.

Russel Lolacher: I'm sure there's a lot of people in the organization who are like, but, but, but, but, I hear what you're saying. I absolutely do hear what you're saying. It's just sort of, it's sort of that balancing act a bit though, for some organizations where the engine is course, of course it's about productivity. But as you said, if that's the sole purpose, it feels like there's not longevity in an organization because they're going through people and their culture might change too drastically if it feels like it's leaving so many people behind. And maybe that's my perspective.

Dre Baldwin: I understand that. I 100 percent understand that. This is why I don't run a corporation. Somebody, somebody smarter than me would have to figure that out.

Russel Lolacher: That is a fair point. That is a very fair point. So, thanks so much for this Dre. I really enjoyed this perspective as well.

I think it's important. It's not one I talk about a lot on the show, because again, it's about relationships, but this is just another type of relationship, which is super important that I think people need to understand that they're... other teams are in other industries are working differently than other ones.

And the more educated we can get about how other leadership styles are, I think that just only helps us become better leaders.

Dre Baldwin: Absolutely. And as a, a leader, and I appreciate this opportunity to give me here, Russel, as a leader, it's your ability to understand the different perspectives and the different views and different angles from which everybody is coming and your ability to juggle that and manage that is that's why they pay you the big bucks.

Russel Lolacher: Yes, sir. Last question. Wrapping it up. What's one simple action, Dre, that people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?

Dre Baldwin: Great questions. Understanding that communication does not mean just speaking and bloviating. It means listening. Half of communication is listening, consuming, taking into it when they say two eyes, two ears, and one mouth. All right. So you should be listening four times as much as you are talking. And remembering that most communication is nonverbal.

It's not just what people say it is, how they say it, what they don't say and everything else that you should be noticing if you are a strong communicator is not just someone who stands on stages and speaks is people who are really good listeners.

Russel Lolacher: Oh, you're making me tear up as a comms nerd. Thank you so much. That is Dre Baldwin. He is a very prolific author, speaker, and he has 35 books, 35 books. You should certainly check a few of those out. Thank you so much for being here, Dre. Really appreciate it.

Dre Baldwin: Russel, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for sharing your platform.