Transcript

Gus Torres · Calm Under Fire

Col. John Boggs: Hi, hey, I'm Colonel John Boggs and welcome to Calm Under Fire. And today we have Gus Torres. Gus is a sales and financial services leader. He's focused on helping organizations grow through disciplined execution and strong sales infrastructure. As managing partner of Nativia Platinum, he works with teams and partners to build systems that drive performance, create long-term value. and sustains results in competitive markets. Today, we're talking about leadership under pressure. When performance is visible, expectations are high and results matter. Gus, thank you very much and welcome. I appreciate you being here today. Gus Torres: Awesome, John. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation. It should be great. Col. John Boggs: Perfect. Hey, Gus, do mind if we just jump right in it? Gus Torres: Go right ahead, I'm ready. Col. John Boggs: Okay, Gus, sales environments tend to make pressure very visible. When did you first feel that pressure in your career? Gus Torres: Persevering my career Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: is, I would say when I got started, from the beginning, right? The way I started my path in my sales career as a 1099, I still remember the date, it was June 30th of 2000. I was working for a bank. And I didn't like the way the sales director spoke to me after a meeting. I didn't like the way he handled the meeting. And Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: I don't know, my blood inside of me started to boil and I said, nobody speaks to me like this. I already had plans in my mind that I wanted to do something independently and work for myself independently and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: I just got up and put my jacket on and everybody's looking at me like, hey, what are you doing? Where are going? I like, look, I told him, I looked into his face directly and I told him, nobody speaks to me like that. I don't need your job. I don't need this. And I'm out of here. And he goes, no, no, don't get upset. You don't need to take it that way. I remember walking out of there and I was walking out of that restaurant and I was shaking and I called my wife and I told her what I did and I told her what I was going to do that I was going go out and start working for myself and not have to answer to no one and that was the day it started, June 30th of 2000. Col. John Boggs: Wow, June 30th of 2000. my God. Now that's a story and a half. So. Tell me what did that experience tell you about yourself as a leader? What did that tell you? mean, that's a heck of a story. Gus Torres: Well, you know, it told me that I had the guts to bet on myself. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: know, 95 % of the people out there, know, unfortunately don't have that fortitude. know, I thank Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: God every day that I had it and that I had it that day. And I took that big giant leap and bet on myself. It Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: wasn't a beautiful journey from the beginning. You know, there was a lot of tough battles. But you know what? I worked hard, I persevered, I had a big dream, I had a big why. And Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: those are the things that, if you have those and they're strong, they can really take you places and they can really help you accomplish things that you think you would never have been able to accomplish. Col. John Boggs: What separates a leader who performs consistently and those who ride the up and down, they take it, they take the garbage that you would refuse to take. What separates them from a person like yourself? Gus Torres: I think to be a leader you have to be willing to serve. You gotta be willing to serve the people that are part of your team. First of all it starts with yourself. You gotta be good to you, you gotta take care of yourself, you gotta invest in yourself. Those are things that I heavily did in the beginning. I still Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: have the goal every day to become 1 % better. That's one of my biggest goals. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: Reading. All leaders are readers. I read every day. I make it a point to read a few times a day. There are times where I'm reading a lot more than before, especially Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: if you're reading a good book and you're really into it. You really dive into it you get lost in it, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: I tend to read the books and listen to the books at the same time. Col. John Boggs: Uh-uh, yes. Gus Torres: So I'm a double dosage. I'm not only reading a print, but when I'm doing my cardio and I'm going for my walk outside or I'm on my StairMaster doing my 30-40 minutes of stairs, I put on that book. It's feeding me and it helps me grow. So the whole purpose is continue to grow, continue to invest in you. The best investment you can ever make is in yourself. Col. John Boggs: Wow, that's awesome. I tell a lot of people that, hey, invest in yourself. That is exactly right. Gus Torres: I told my daughters that all the time and I tell all the young folks Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: that are around me the best investment you can do is you. Make sure you're reading, make sure you're feeding your mindset good stuff because you know God gave us one big special gift and it's right here. We all have it you know are Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Gus Torres: we gonna grow it and evolve and make it work for us or we're gonna grow it and evolve it and make it work against us. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: I can tell you that I for a long time made it work against me. But with all the changes that I have done, now I make it work for me. Col. John Boggs: Wow, how did you make it work against you? I'm curious. Gus Torres: Well, when you're not in tune with yourself and you're not taking care of yourself the way that you're supposed to, you self-sabotage, you tell yourself the wrong things, you gotta really listen to the dialogue that you have with yourself. What are you telling yourself? Are you building yourself up or are destroying yourself? Through all the books that I've read, I've learned from successful people that all successful people are always speaking good things. They're uplifting things. journaling. I'm not saying that it's going to be perfect, everything is going be perfect, that you're not going to have bad thoughts or anything like that. But the thing is to make the shift. Are you going to have a bad moment and make that a bad three days or a bad week? Or are you going learn from it, shift, make the adjustment and keep moving forward in the direction that you want to keep on moving and not sit Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: there and drown in those bad thoughts and the bad emotions that come upon you. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. How do you get yourself out of that? When you feel yourself sinking like that, how do you get yourself out? Gus Torres: there's a lot of different ways, you know. It all depends where you're at. A lot of times you say to yourself, you gotta really look at yourself. What am I diving into? What Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: am I listening to right now? Who am I listening to right now? Sometimes we get involved, let's say for example in politics or anything like that. These are all things that are there to create distractions. You gotta say Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: to yourself, is this a distraction? Is this gonna serve me? No. Cancel, cancel, cancel. Let's move on to what it is that I want. my goal, what's my dream, what do I want to work on, what makes me feel good. Start speaking life into your life, know, start speaking words of life into your life, start speaking what it is that you want, not what you don't want, and that usually always gets me back on the path, know, going out for a walk, doing exercise, reading a book, you know, there's so many things you can do. Col. John Boggs: Okay, so in your business, you've built sales infrastructures. So what happens to those systems when the pressure is coming up? What happens to that infrastructure? Does it remain in place? Does it wobble? What happens? Gus Torres: Well, it all depends on how strong your foundation is, right? I can tell you four years ago, four or five years ago when I was a one man operation, I was doing everything. You know, your systems collapsed all the time because you didn't have proper structure, didn't have a proper system in place and you didn't have people working with you that can help you, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: Now, you know, I have a team, you know, I have a chief sales officer, senior VP, sales support team, tech support team, and we have systems in place across all these channels. So that's the key thing, having systems in place. If you don't have systems in place, you're not going to be able to scale, you're not going to be able to grow. And also making always making sure that you're checking the pulse on your team. You know, we have, I have weekly masterminds for my executive team on a weekly basis. with a life success coach that's been part of my team not going on four years. I also do a weekly mastermind for all of my ISOs and agents offices. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: everybody's invited, know, and there's not a cost to it to them. It's an hour investment of their time. And it's amazing because, I go into these calls every week and usually the same people that are in there are the people that you see that are growing and elevating because what? They're investing in themselves and they want to grow. The ones who don't want to grow, you know, don't invest in themselves and that's why they stagnate and stay where they are. Col. John Boggs: So you have, what I'm hearing then is this is an optional thing. You have a success coach that comes in and works with your team. Gus Torres: Yes, and everybody's invited to come in and we have our weekly calls every Friday of the month except the last Friday of the month Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: to make sure that everybody's working on their goals and finishing the month strong. But Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: we usually have it every Friday for an hour. He comes in and he does a 15 minute segment on a segment of success, right? that's going to empower the agent to be a better salesperson or a better human being, right? Or a better person in society, which is very important, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: And we also do the other 45 minutes on our different products, different differentiating products, different technologies, our banking product, our payroll product, our POS products, different gateway products, a whole bunch of different products that we have. And this is how we keep our know, ISOs and agents, know, on point, making sure that they know everything that we have. So when they're out there talking to their clients, you know, they're able to provide the correct solutions for them and bring them in as their clients. Col. John Boggs: Do you ever see where leaders confuse activity with performance? Gus Torres: That's a great question. That's a great point. because sometimes just because you're busy doesn't mean that you're busy on the right things. I believe that it's very important to focus on the 80 % that is gonna move your needle to where it is that you wanna go. I believe it's important that you start using your team and the systems that you have in place to service your partners. There's gonna be times where you could actually hand something off or tell your relationship go to sales support, you know, they're going to respond to you, they're going to help you with this, go to tech support. You can't be all in all for everybody, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: That's why you have a team, that's why you have a system in place. And I really feel that the agents and the senior leadership on my team who are doing their best are the Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: ones who really know their systems and use Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: it to the best of their advantage so that they can focus on what they do best, which is growing their teams and recruiting and being in conversations with relationships that they want to grow. Col. John Boggs: growing their teams. I'm a big believer in growing the teams. I always tell people I work with, okay, wait a minute, stop giving them all the answers, start giving them more questions. How do you get them to grow their teams? Do they do something specific or? Gus Torres: Yes, all of our leaders from our weekly mastermind calls, we have discussions on what we're doing to grow our teams. We Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: all have goals on a daily basis to... send out messages on LinkedIn, post messages themselves, whether it be an inspiring message or whether it be a message on a product that we're offering. And also making the connections with the industry professionals that you're looking to connect with, that you want to have conversations with, that's very key. I have everybody on my team, everybody that I've recruited on my team, about would say 99.9 % of the people have come in through LinkedIn. I'm very big on LinkedIn. Col. John Boggs: okay. Gus Torres: I post daily on LinkedIn. do videos on LinkedIn. I send out daily messages on LinkedIn. A Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: lot of people that have conversations with, man, you've been sending me messages for years. Let's get together and talk. And you know what? Sometimes those conversations leads to business. Sometimes it leads to a new friend in the industry. Or sometimes Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: it leads to business down the line. I always tell everybody I have a conversation with that I play the long game. And that has been... you know my approach always you know because I believe there's always a right time for everybody right some of Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: my biggest partners I had conversations for over a year and a half before they even signed up with me and did any business with me and then when they did within the first two or three months they saw that everything that I told them was exactly the way it was and they left where they were and they came on full-time and they built humongous sales organizations Where the residuals are over three to four hundred thousand dollars a month and they've also already done residual buyouts, know, cashing out, you know, a couple million dollars for themselves and their team. So that's what it's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: all about. That's the exciting part, you know, seeing people, you know, come in and actually do and exceed what you told them that you felt they could accomplish. That's, to me, that's the most exciting thing, to be able to find those people, those diamonds in the rough, those people who are looking for an opportunity, those people who are looking to build something. And then they come in and they take advantage of your resources and they they and they explode and then they're so excited that they're talking to everybody about it as well. So that to me Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: is what gets me to continue to do that every day and everybody on my team as well, know, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: is doing the little boring things every day. You got to continue to do them. You you look at professional athletes, they do the boring little things every day, right? They do the basics. We're in Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: sales, we're in marketing, we've to do the basics. If we don't do the basics, we're never going to grow. So it's the same approach. Col. John Boggs: That's great. And I loved how you phrased it. You said, I play the long game. Yeah, Gus Torres: Correct. Col. John Boggs: I play the long game. Can you go into a little bit of a talk about the long game versus the short game? Because yes, I love that you said that. Gus Torres: Okay. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's that's a look. First of all, the short game is, you know, you have a conversation and you never follow up, right? You leave it alone. You're gonna continue to send messages, right? You're not persistent. From all the statistics that I've seen on sales, I would say 80 % of the sales are made anywhere between, I believe, if I remember the numbers correctly, are anywhere from the 6th to the 12th contact. What do most people do? They make one contact, they make two contacts, they never follow up, they lose opportunities, right? So that to me is a short game when you don't follow up. The long game is when you're always following up, when you're always sending messages, when you're always touching base, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: When you do that, you're giving yourself the best opportunity to catch people at the right time and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: to catch opportunities and not lose opportunities, right? Because I continue to send messages until somebody actually tells me, please stop. You know and believe it or not I do get those you know you know when you're persistent and you're persistent Col. John Boggs: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. Gus Torres: and you really believe in what you're doing You know you're gonna continue to market yourself, and that's what I do I believe in what I'm doing I believe that what I'm doing is the right thing I believe that the agents and the ISOs who come into my world and Become part of my system are gonna Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: scale and grow right when you truly believe in something strongly you continue to do it And you don't give up and you don't quit Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: And that to me, I would say is probably one of the biggest things for me. Col. John Boggs: What helps your leaders, what helps your folks stay steady when the numbers aren't going their way? Gus Torres: Yeah, you know the weekly mastermind really is great because Col. John Boggs: mastermind. Gus Torres: on the mastermind we'll, you know, talk about our challenges, what we're going through, where we want to be, and there's a lot of great insight in there, you know. I myself learn a lot from my VPs on those weekly calls and my CSOs and the people on those calls because, you know... If you're in growth mode, you're looking for the little nuggets. Somebody on your team might say something that was like, wow, that made sense. I'm gonna apply that. I really like what he said regarding his approach on his follow up. Somebody Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: might be struggling and not being able to bring in clients and they might get some insight from me because I've been doing this for long time. And those insights help them and they start applying it and they make those adjustments and all of a sudden the following week you're saying amen you know I did all the things that Gus told me to do and Chuck told me to do and so and so told me to do and this week I already have 10 phone calls set up with new prospects you know I started to to to make those adjustments right and that's I really believe that the mastermind really does a great thing there you know everybody you know working off each other feeding off each other learning off each other and I really think I really believe that that chemistry has been an integral part in our growth and the growth of our sales organization and our leaders. Col. John Boggs: You've been at this for a while now and you've got clearly a lot of experience. what kind of, what do leaders do unintentionally that increases their pressure rather than increases their productivity? Gus Torres: unintentionally? Col. John Boggs: Yeah, I mean, sometimes people, do things and they don't even realize they're doing it and it's, it's killing you. Gus Torres: Yeah, focusing on the stuff that they are not producing. There's a lot of things Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: that you can... Give to people on your team that they can Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: do for you and you focus on the meat and potatoes at 80 % that's gonna move the needle for you, right? Sometimes Col. John Boggs: Okay. Gus Torres: we think just because we're busy we're being productive, but that's not the Col. John Boggs: Yes. Gus Torres: case. Sometimes you're busy on stuff that's not conducive to the growth of your team. You're doing administrative work. You're spending Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: two hours doing emails. not conducive to growth. You Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: want to do the things that are conducive to growth and the things that you can delegate to your team members that they can do for you. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: Those are the things that are that for me from what I've seen are the things that have helped me the most You know being being able to use my system being able to use my team Be able to use the people who are working together with me and giving them the projects right and then you Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: know touching base with them and on a weekly basis and saying all right well we're out on that and once they have it together, know sit together with them go over it and listen to what they're saying and either give the okay to keep moving forward or or or make the adjustments that need to be made, right? Col. John Boggs: There's something you said, I want to emphasize that for the people who are listening. You said, listen. You said, I listen to what they're saying. That's a gold statement. I listen to what they're saying. And that as far as you're not being their friend, but you're being very approachable. No, I listen to what they're saying. That's the key. You said that word, it just rolled right off your tongue. I don't even realize how important that was what you just said. I listen. And I hope everyone else heard it. And he listens, folks. He listens. So. Gus Torres: Well, I better be a good listener. I've been with my wife 37 years and I have three daughters. Col. John Boggs: Hahaha! What advice would you give a leader who's stepping into a role where results are expected immediately? I mean, this is beyond the world that you live in. What advice would you give them? They're stepping into a new role. They want to make a difference. They're trying to make things work. What advice would you give them? Gus Torres: Number one, we were talking about before, listen. Listen to Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: your team, listen to where they're at. Have a plan of action and don't be afraid to ask for help. A lot of us, let our egos get the best of us. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: And ego, if you really look at the word, for me it stands for edging God out. You think you know it all, you don't think you need any help, you don't think you need any assistance. And for me, I've always asked for help. When I was growing up in sales in the beginning and I was horrible, I asked for help to the people who I aspire to be, right? When I Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: wanted to recruiting and business development, I asked for help even though I felt miserably in it. When I started Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Gus Torres: building my sales organization, the same way. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: Every phrase has been the same thing. And even now, the last three or four years, know, I hired a life success coach and that really made a humongous difference. difference in my business. And again, it was that 50-50 because like I mentioned before, the ego almost got the best out of me, right? The Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: ego was telling me, don't need this. You can do this yourself. You know what you need to do. You don't need nobody to hold you accountable, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: And I thank God every day that I didn't listen to that little guy over here. I listened to the guy over here. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Gus Torres: You know, the good and the bad, right? You there's always one that's pushing the bad, there's one that's pushing the good. I listened Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: to the good and here I am and very happy with my decision that I did that. And I only pray and hope that everybody out there, you know, when they need help, they ask for it. You know, go to a professional. The best investment you can make. is in yourself, hire a coach. I'm at the point now where I have various coaches. have a life success coach, I have a coach in the gym, I have a coach that comes in, I call her my masseuse, but she's also a coach. She's a coach of my body, she takes care of my body with all the exercises I do. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Gus Torres: And who are you listening to? Are you feeding your mind good? Are you feeding your mind bad? Are you sitting down and watching 5 hours of Netflix? Or you're sitting down and watching YouTube and feeding your mind and growing professionally so that you can become the best version of yourself and be able to reach your goals and dreams. Col. John Boggs: Wow, Gus, that's amazing. That's fantastic advice, just fantastic advice. Thank you very much for that. So Gus Torres: No, Col. John Boggs: for leaders and organizations out there focused on growth, performance, building sustainable sales systems, what's the best way for them to connect with you? And can you tell us a little bit more about your company and what Nativia does? I mean, how can they connect with you? Gus Torres: Yeah, Nativia Platinum is an independent sales organization in the payment industry. I've been in the payment industry for over 27 years, as I mentioned before. We help all independent sales offices and agents grow residual income. That's what I've been doing for the last 27 years, building books, selling books, building sales organizations. And on top of that, we have systems in place to help everybody grow and scale their businesses to whatever level, whether you want to be a one-man operation growing a book to 10, 20, 30, 40, $50,000, or you want to build a social organization with 30, 40 people on your team or 100 people on your team and build residuals to hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have the systems in place to be able to anybody be able to do that. We have all the technologies, all the POS systems that are out there, all the payment gateways, all the main platforms, thesis and fiveserv. We also have differentiating products that separates us apart from everybody else. Our goal is always to become the square for ISOs and bring all the fintech technology products into the payment industry and we've been doing that now going on over three or four years. We have Nativa Banking, which is a business banking product that all of our agents and offices can offer their merchants. and earn a residual on the business card spending, which is huge. These business owners, if they bank with us and do their payments with us, can also get instant funding, meaning they press a button on their machine, money hits their Nativa bank account, and they can start spending that money within minutes without having to pay a premium. Some of our competitors have that and do charge a premium of over 100 to 150 basis points. We don't do that. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: We also have a payroll company, so all of our partners can refer business to the payroll company and earn residuals off of that. So anybody who partners with us, going to be able to earn residuals on payments, business banking, payroll. Pretty soon we're going to have lending products as well. We're going to be able to issue credit cards to business owners and earn residuals on that spending. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: That's all part of becoming a huge fintech company and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: becoming the square for ISOs like I mentioned before. Col. John Boggs: I was standing. said, what's the best way for everyone to reach you? Gus Torres: My email is gust at nativia.com. That's also my website nativiaplat.com and my phone number is 786-525-8263. or look me up on look Col. John Boggs: H623. Gus Torres: or look me up on LinkedIn. Connect with me there and we can chat there as well. Col. John Boggs: Okay, that was the email address one more time. Gus T Torres. Gus Torres: Gus T as in Tom at Nativia Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gus Torres: Platt PLAT.com Col. John Boggs: Okay. Gus, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate this. This was, Gus Torres: Here it is. Col. John Boggs: I greatly appreciate this. You said some fantastic things out there. And I swear the most important thing you said, I didn't want anybody to miss. You talked about listening. And that's, Gus Torres: Listen. Col. John Boggs: in my experience, has been one of the hardest things for the senior leadership in an organization is they tend to like to talk a lot and they don't listen. But you, Gus Torres: Yeah, I Col. John Boggs: You said it. Gus Torres: do more listening than ever before. I went to a networking event last week and I remember I was talking to an individual and he goes, man, you're a good listener. You haven't said a word. He goes, no, I'm listening to everything that you're saying. And then he goes, man, I congratulate you. I haven't stopped talking for like Col. John Boggs: laughter Gus Torres: two or three minutes. But Col. John Boggs: Wow. Gus Torres: that's what it is. When you're a good listener, right, you ask somebody one question and sometimes you ask them the right question and they can't stop talking. So. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, and that's great. Gus Torres: You learn a lot more when you use these two instead of using this one. So use the two ears Col. John Boggs: Yep, absolutely. Gus Torres: more than the one mouth that God gave you. Col. John Boggs: Absolutely, Gus, brother, this was great. Thank you very much for being on the show today. Thank you very much. And to everyone else out there, hey, leadership is too important to blow it off. It's just too important. So stay steady out there with your leadership, and I'll see you on the next show. Thanks out here. Gus Torres: Thank you, John. Appreciate you. Have a good one. Col. John Boggs: Hey, thanks a lot, Gus. Thank you.