Latest / Zero Friction / How to Build a Sales Team: Hire the Person, Not the Rolodex | Steve Craig, Solmetex

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How to Build a Sales Team: Hire the Person, Not the Rolodex | Steve Craig, Solmetex · Zero Friction

• speaker-0: Water probably unfortunately is a dirty secret in dentistry. About seventy percent of practices in the US currently right now as it sits, do not test, shock, or treat their water line. If you have a swimming pool and you don't test or shock that pool, after a couple of weeks you're gonna notice you probably don't wanna get in that swimming pool. And I'm more concerned what gets them out of bed in the morning than what keeps them up at night. I think the world used to be, you know, it's it was all around who who you know. Now it's who knows you. I think with AI a lot of that has changed. If you're not proactively out there, you know, talking about your personal brand, talking about your products, talking about your organization, well then AI is never gonna find you. I I think it's it's who you surround yourself with. Be careful of who you surround yourself with. speaker-1: Revenue doesn't stall because your team stopped trying. It stalls because of friction. Hidden gaps in process, execution and visibility. I've spent 30 years carrying the number in MedTech. On zero friction, I sit down with other commercial leaders who find that friction and fix it. Removing friction, architecting revenue, powered by AI. I'm Terry Kucholuchis. Let's get into it. Welcome to Zero Friction Podcast. This is Terry Kucholuchis. And once again, I have another very interesting guest with me today that has an extremely interesting story. He's spanned a couple of decades in the sales business, in the medical technology, and healthcare space. I do have Steve Craig with me. He is the vice president of sales for North America for Soul Medics LLC. And they really have brought some light to me. I had a brief conversation with Steve a couple of weeks ago and it is about the dental industry. It's about water hygiene. And Steve has some great stories to tell around sales experiences, but also how Soul Medics is helping to take friction out of the dental industry. So Steve, welcome to the program today. Appreciate you being here. Why don't we lean into just a little bit about your sales experience and how you became The head of North America Sales, because I think it's a really interesting story there. And then we'll pivot and then we'll go into Soul Medics a little bit and and talk about the solutions that you're providing to the dental industry. speaker-0: Absolutely. First off, just appreciate the opportunity, Terry, to have the conversation with you. so again, yeah, my name's Steve Craig. So I started my sales career quite some time ago. wanted to get into healthcare sales, found out pretty fast right out of college. I don't really hire you into healthcare sales back then, right, right out of college. So everyone talked about life insurance, payroll services, office equipment, those type of things. So started interviewing in that realm after I wasn't getting any nibbles in the healthcare side and Got into office equipment. I don't know if it was fortune or unfortunate. I I planned on being there for six months like everybody and was there for about five years. worked my way up, but it's truly where I learned how to hire, develop, and train people. because that's pretty much what you're doing all day long in that business. You also really learn how to sell because you you're selling fax machines and copiers. They do two things and make copies and break. And unfortunately every members the breaking point. So it really allows you to to grow thick skin and and and really learn how to to cra learn your craft and your trade. A after a little bit of time I I I wanted to get back into my journey 'cause that's all I was doing was hiring, training and developing people. But it's like I said, I truly appreciate the skill I learned in that setting. And that's when I started interviewing back into the healthcare field. Ended up taking a a job in ophthalmology and specialty sales, did everything there from pharma rep to to manage care to surgical to OR rep to eventually i i into leadership. And towards the end what we were doing was we were really building out what now you would call the DSO space in dentistry. A lot of the ophthalmologists, you know, wanted to band together and and not get into the hospital setting and control their destiny ha by building surgical centers to do cataract, LASIK surgery, all those type of things. And that's really where I got recruited to to come over to Johnson and Johnson and and join the dental world, which now I've been in for a little over twenty three years, to help build out the DSO space for J and J. We are merging a coup some divisions together to to make one entity for Johnson and Johnson, the dental space. Did that for a couple of years, helped build out the DSO space, and then you know, got tapped on the shoulder to move to move into leadership. Eventually, I I wouldn't say I was probably you know, burnt out. I was probably more bored out. and that's when my original CEO for my J and J days reached out to me and he had left and got a dense why for quite a few years and then said, Hey, I became the the CEO of a company called Soul Medics. I'm sure you probably never heard of them, but we're gonna merge four other companies. into one and be the only comprehensive end-to-end water solution company. and we have no presence in the DSO space. You know, would you like to join that journey all over again and help change that in the DSO space. So did that for for a little bit and then got tapped on the shoulder to as you did 20 years ago to kind of move into leadership of leading those teams of leading leaders. So that's currently what I'm doing right now. I I I love what I'm doing and it's always fun and it's always challenging in the dental space. speaker-1: You know, it's really interesting how you know, I hear this story over and over again and actually have some friends that that help people transition from other occupations into the medical device or medical technology space. And you know, we we do tend to, you know, snub our nose a little bit, you know, with people that don't have medical experience. And you know, tell me how that initial experience getting into the space has sort of guided you through your hiring processes over the past few years. I know I have my own journey on that too, but it's an interesting concept on like, you know, as you hire people coming into the medical space and the healthcare space, you know, what are you looking for? Whether they're, you know, in in the space currently or not in the space currently. Talk a little bit about that. speaker-0: Sure. I mean, really when I look at it as the individual, I have a lot of questions around, you know, do they have a growth mindset? You know, what gets them out of bed in the morning? You know, a lot of really what what makes that person tick, you know, do they want to advance the their career? Do they want to advance themselves? Do they want to get better? Those are things that really can't be taught. A lot of that i is inside somebody. I've learned through the years that, you know, a lot of coming into medical or coming into dental and selling, a lot of that can be taught. The products. you know, the the different types of of customers you're gonna be meeting with and those type things. But but the kind of the more softer skills of that individual, that really can't be taught. So I I it kind of sounds kind of strange and I know I've had a lot of past employees that I've that I've hired, they s they still talk to me about this to this day. But I start most of my interview process out like, you know, today my job is to talk you out of the position 'cause at face value it seems pretty simple. You walk in, you sell a product to somebody, they're gonna turn around and sell to a patient from from face value, it seems pretty simple. But That's where it goes sideways pretty fast. So a lot of like I said, my questioning is always around the individual themselves. What makes them tick. And and I'm more concerned what gets them out of bed in the morning than what keeps them up at night. It it's just finding those individuals that that can go out and and and can really make the complex simple and and really want to to change people's lives. And they really have probably that that teen concept and and they're a lot more me the than I is really what I look for. speaker-1: You know, it's really it's a it's a great point and and I fall in line with, you know, exactly what you said, to be honest with you. I I look at it like there's certain things that you can't hire, especially from a sales perspective, and like it's resilience, it's commitment, those those intangible things that you're either you're born with and and you're wired with it because of your DNA, or it has been nurtured into your system by the time you're probably eleven years old and that's just sort of the the footprint psychologically who you are, those are things that can't be taught. I totally agree with you. You can teach people about markets, you can teach people about products, you can teach people about people, but those other things are are not taught and and you know, they're self motivating, self energetic, self, you know, d development, coaching, all those things you have to have your mindset to. So I speaker-0: I agree. It's all about mindset and looking at those individuals. You know, somebody was successful somewhere else may not be successful the next place and and vice versa. But you know, through my study of leadership and through my study of of watching sports teams and things like that, I I think one thing that really separates championship teams from non-championship teams, a lot of times. One team's B players are better than the other team's B players. If you have a full team of A players, th they're probably not gonna get along. They're all gonna be fighting for the limelight, all gonna be fighting for the ball, all gonna be fighting for the money. but if you look at like some of those championship years of even say the Chicago Bulls that based on being out of Chicago, a lot yeah, Michael won a lot of the shots, but there's a lot of games where you know Steve Kerr, John Paxson made the winning shot. and it's because the Bulls B players were better than the other opponents' B players. So, you know, the A players are the A players. They're gonna do what they do, the Michaels, the Kobe's of the world, they're gonna do what they do. a lot of times it it's your B players like a Dennis Robbman i is far superior than the other team's B player. speaker-1: You know, it's it's so true. It's so true. And and that mindset has guided me in so many ways where you know, I know that in our space there are many leaders that find it much easier to hire somebody directly from the space that may not have the raw skill or the temperament or the psyche to handle the job, but because they've been in the space for so long, it's it's easier to get them up and running quickly. But you know, those There are other people from a long term perspective that might have been better choices. So I I I I agree with you. I just when you when you mentioned that earlier, I just thought that was a a nice, interesting topic for us to talk about as sales leaders and commercial leaders. It's always a a fun thing to talk about there. speaker-0: Yeah, I think it's a difference between hiring an individual and hiring a Rolodex. you know, the individual's gonna perform longer than the Rolodex will. speaker-1: For sure, for sure. let's talk a little about about Soul Medics and how they came together. You know, you left a a nice a great company in J and J, with great products and great technology, great leadership, great support systems. And you know, you have a guy that you work with in the past that's working to aggregate four different product companies coming together into one that's gonna support this the surgical outpatient center marketplace. And so Let's talk about Soul Medics and what they do. And, you know, as you and I discussed before the call, like some of this stuff is kind of shocking to me. Yeah, you come into the marketplace and you learn about new products and and the problems that you're solving is is kind of remarkable. you know, especially when you talk about something as simple as water in our environment today. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely water can be overlooked in dentistry. Obviously, water is overlooked in the world. Not every place outside the US can you can you turn a faucet on? Even some parts of the US can you turn the faucet on and have good, clean, running water. but in dentistry, you need water for every procedure you do. It's the number one instrument you use in dentistry. So Soul Medics has taken on this challenge. we're the only comprehensive end-to-end water solution organization. So what that means is we handle the water coming into the practice. The water traveling through the practice, the water traveling through the patient, and the water exiting the practice. And what we wanted to be is good stewards of that to make sure one, we're taking care of the teams that we serve. We're also taking care of the patients and we're taking care of the environment and the municipalities that that we all live in. so water probably unfortunately is a dirty secret in dentistry. About 70% of practices in the US currently right now as it sits, do not test, shock, or treat their water lines. and and these are small little tubes and and the average dentist is open, you know, three days a week, seven hours a day, which means water sitting stagnant more than it's moving into the practice. So what we really try to do is help build custom protocols that they can live with to really figure out how to handle that. So we what we did was like I said, we took four organizations, merged them into one. You know, s most most offices are gonna have good EPA standard water and coming into the practice, which means five hundred caliphate units, which basically means acceptable drinking water. But if they're not, we have whole office systems that can treat water to get that up to par where it needs to be to get to the practice. If they do have good, accurate water coming in the practice, well then we help build out a protocol with them on how to test that water, how to treat that water, how to shock that water. Like I said, it's small little tubing. You know, if you have a swimming pool and you don't test or shock that pool, after a couple of weeks, you're gonna notice you probably don't want to get in that swimming pool. But unfortunately in a dental practice, it it's thin little tubing that's running through the floor, the walls, the chairs. it it's not easily accessible. so you only see it when it's exiting the the water lines. so we SteroCell, you know, focuses on that. we then have two other products called dry shield as one and relief is the other. Dry shield is for doctors and clinicians, relief is for hygienists. But what it does is it it controls to keep the team safe, but also keep the practices more efficient. So that now the water's crossing over the patient. So it's a device you put in the mouth. It can, you know, has it will do the suction for them. It'll capture ninety-six percent of aerosols. What it's truly designed to do is hold back the cheek, the tongue, and all that. Staffing shortages are a real thing everywhere in the world, but they're a massive problem in dentistry, especially post-COVID. So what this device really does is if they have the appropriate amount of assistance, great. They can get to what is called true four-handed dentistry, where you're seeing a dentist and assistant work in rhythm and and and be a lot more efficient and handle that. But if they don't, a dentist can still perform these procedures because the device is not going to do exactly what a assistant does, but it's going to take care of the suction. It's going to take care of the patient regardless of the the cheek, the tongue, the bite block, all that to keep them in the the proper place. But more importantly, the other thing like I said is it captures ninety-six percent of aerosols. You know, prior to COVID, we thought if a patient presents to a practice and they're not sneezing, running nose, they they look pretty healthy, everything's good, because we s assume the aerosols came out of patient. But what the C D C found out during COVID was That 78% of the aerosols are coming out of the dental unit water lines. And with 70% of practice in that test shock and treating those water lines, it now explains why dentistry has a high rate of eye infection, ear infection, upper respiratory infection, nasal infection, not really from the patients themselves, but from the teams that are in there all day long working on patients to improve their life and their health care. so this device really helps out where the water's crossing over the patient. And then Soul Medics focuses on the extraction of the water leaving the practice. So we're capturing all the amalgam, all the mercury, everything that unfortunately dentistry is one the largest pollutants of that to make sure we're keeping the mistalities and all the waterways and the aquifier safe. so we all have good drinking water and our our next generations have good, accurate drinking water. So that's kind of where we sit with those. We do have a whole nother arm to our business, which is called Oxygen, which is for socket preservation. But where this really comes in is and how our teams work together is surge and when you're in true surgical. as I was in the OR for ophthalmology, but in dentistry, pretty much everything they do is surgical. but they don't use saline every single time unless they're in true full-blown surgery. But for pulpotomies, a baby rook canal for tooth extraction before implant dentistry, they're using the water in the practice. Well, we've now opened up the bloodstream of the patient. So if we don't have good clean water, we we can have some problems there. So we really work with the surgeons to make sure that they have good effective clean water. and then we also have products that help with ex socket preservation to make them a lot more efficient, a lot more productive and and grow back a lot healthier bone, a lot faster than most products in the market. So that's kind of in a nutshell of kind of how we take that water into the practice, through the practice, through through the patient and then exiting the practice. speaker-1: So talk to me a little bit about the water, like, you know, in surgery. We talked a little bit about the impact of, you know, the aerosol piece of it, but and we certainly understand how, you know, splatter can can, you know, translate to you know, higher infection rates and that type of thing. But talk to me about the water and surgery. That's the one thing, you know, to me. So when they're doing surgery, so they're not using a sterile water at that point. They're They're just using something that's coming out of the the faucet or what does what what is the what's the water supply look like when it comes to speaker-0: They're all a little different. Everyone's see, like I said, some might have a full office treatment system that that we sell and support. others might have a bottle sitting on the chair where the water's running through that. And hopefully they're they're using some type of maintenance product, whether it be a tablet or a straw, to make sure that water's clean and effective. and then at times in true full blown surgery, you know, th they're gonna be using saline, but saline is used less than than than people think in that tr in that surgical settings. Like I said. Anytime you go to see the dentist, they're they're doing some form of surgery to you. whether it's you know, a cavity, a rook canal, whatever it is, they're doing full blown surgery majority of the time. speaker-1: So, you know, let's talk a little about how you go to market today versus, you know, in historical purposes. So, you know, running a sales organization today in two thousand twenty six and moving into twenty seven, how is it different today than it was fifteen or twenty years ago for you and your teams? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, 15, 20 years ago, you know, you had a marketing apartment, you had salespeople, you pretty much handed them a telephone book and then they went out and called on doctors that were in that city or that town or that state inside that phone book. Well, it's a lot different now. you know, the world's changed. I think the world used to be, you know, it's it was all around who who you know. Now it's who knows you. I think with AI, a lot of that has changed. If you're not proactively out there, you know, talking about your personal brand, talking about your products, talking about your organization. Well then AI is never gonna find you. I would say most dentists, probably 40 years and younger, one of their board of directors and and probably their number one source to go to is either a a a chat, a a Claude, a co-pilot bot that they're asking all their questions to. You know, what should I use for water? You know, who should I go see for a dentist? I need to go to Rook Canal, who's the best dentist to see? All that is now showing up in in that form. So if you're not proactively out there, AI is probably never gonna find you and and and the next individuals are. And I think, you know, we always say the the consumers are smarter, but you know, there was a book written in nineteen ten that that basically said, you know, sales is over because the consumer is so much smarter than ever before. And that was because the Sears catalog came out. so everything was at their fingertip of what they could buy, what they needed, what they wanted, those type of things. So I I think some of that is the same. it's just how we go to market, how we do things. the world is changing fast. And and probably what happened in AI today is gonna be obsolete tomorrow. so you're always on your toes, you're always trying to get out there and you're always trying to expand things. And, you know, I think the number one killer of any business is this is the way we've always done it. And that's why we're pretty proactive and we have gold tier products. we have great market share with our products, but we're always looking what is the next best way to help our customers build customizable protocols and and make the solutions they use from us more simple. so we're always on the cutting edge of trying to see what is next out there that can do that. So we're not the next Kodak Blockbuster Sears et cetera. speaker-1: Yeah. You know, it's kind of interesting. you know, we've gone through this whole digital age and we had COVID happen and you know, I think the the data is is is pretty simple. Is that most buying decisions are eighty percent of that decision is made without the seller today than it was before. So you know, you know, when you and I entered into the medical health care space, it was pretty much hand to hand combat and that customer was relying, ninety percent of that sales process was was we were the funnel for that entire process. Now, you know, with digital, not just, you know, you have, you have social, you have, you have web, you have search, you have AI. You know, these are all avenues where TikTok, I mean, you know, across the board, you have all these different avenues where people are getting influenced and getting connected with products and services. And so, you know, AI is a one one big part of it. The we always have to make sure that we're evolving. But, you know, more now than ever, I feel like this whole omni channel presence is critical. And, you know, we had omnichannel before and and we built these platforms for humans to engage. What most people don't realize moving forward is is now we have to create these platforms. create an experience for the agents as well. So your websites have to be designed so that they are easy for search agents to come and look and get the information because it's not going to be too long before you and I have agents that say, I need this product. Please go find me the top three vendors in this particular category. And the agents are going to go out and You know, they're just like anybody else. They're gonna go find the path of least resistance to get the best, fastest information possible. And if we're not designing, that's like, you know, we're doing website design that right now. And when we're designing websites, we're designing it for customers, not only for human interaction and human interface, but we're also designing websites so that the the agents can navigate and get what they need as well. what are you all doing to sort of, you know support this omnichannel presence. And I would imagine the dental community, just like any other business, has a wide diversity of aging demographics. And I would imagine that the millennial and the Gen Z component of that practice mix is getting bigger and bigger every day and the boomers and the Gen Xers are phasing out. So how are you and your sales and marketing team sort of aligning to this new buyer demographic that's becoming more digital oriented than it is human to human oriented. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. It's something we're doing all the time. On our side of the business, you know, we now have a a social media team, a digital marketing team. those are things we, like you said, fifteen, twenty years ago, nobody had. we have to reach customers where they want to be reached. And I think, you know, for most sales, you know, people hate to be sold, but they love to buy, but they want to buy on their terms. I think you have to try to reach people where they want. So some of it's being on podcasts like this, some of it's we do a lot of WebExes. You also have to have a digital marketing platform of getting out there, like you said, on LinkedIn, on on TikTok, on Instagram. so you're hitting patients there. You know, there also are the people that still want to look at a slide deck and and have a conversation. others wanna, you know, do the research on their own and get to you when they when they need. but it's it's not much different for our customers. You know, where I spend a lot of time with with practice owners and owners of DSOs is, you know, You have to realize that, you know, the world has changed, like you just said. So a lot of times it's your number one customer is not the patient. Your number one customer has to be your team. If you take care of your team, the team will take care of the patients and the communities you serve. So a lot of it is around that, of making sure that's there. And like you talked about with websites, there's so many times where most websites are built to impress other dentists versus how do I serve the community I serve? How do I serve the patients I serve? That's a lot of where they have to get to. And the website can't be talking about those things because the way I look at it is patients vote with their feet and the patients vote with their feet on how you made them feel. they don't know a great clinical procedure from a very poor clinical procedure. They don't understand if that was a good crown, a bad crown, a good margin, a bad margin, a good cleaning, a poor cleaning, but they know how you made them feel. so I think it's like that everywhere from the sales side, from the vendor side. You have to really look at how are you supporting your customers, how are you making yourself easy to buy from and easy to work with. and I think that's where you'll see the success. And we have that conversation with our customers all the time that you know, if you take care of your team, the team's gonna take care of the patients, the community you serve. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a great pivot. Let's let's talk about the team and the criticality of the team as when you're a commercial leader. You know, I think you and I talked a little bit about headlining this a little bit as we close up the the conversation is that, you know, as a commercial leader and a company, you have various different, you know, as an enterprise, you have different customers. You have you have customers, you have customers of customers, you have your people that work for you. And let's talk about like The sales team and how you treat them. speaker-0: Yeah, your your team has to be your number one customer. they will take care of of the people you serve. So a lot of it is making sure that you're giving them what they need. You're kind of that conduit between, you know, the the head of the organization and and the and the field. And everything that the field thinks needs to roll up to the top may not need to, and everything from the top probably doesn't need to be rolled down to the bottom. But a lot of it is really figuring out how do I remove barriers for them to make their life and their job easier so they can do what they need to do. and then at that point it's it's really around accountability and getting the teams to understand, you know, what what's your what's your job to perform to make this team successful? The team's only as strong as its weakest link. so like I said, you know, as long as you're working with that team, figuring out what makes them tick, you know, where do they want to go in life, what's their goals, what what's their aspirations, and help develop that. And I think a lot of it is you don't want to treat people unfairly, but you will treat people differently. Everyone learns differently, everyone wants to be coached differently, everyone wants to be developed differently. And I have a lot of people that say they don't agree with that. And I always tell them. So like I, you know, prime example for you, Terry, would be if today is your wife's birthday and your sister's birthday, you love them both, but you're probably treat treating them a little bit differently. And it's the same thing. If your number one customer calls you at eight a.m. with a problem, your number 101 customer calls you, you're probably calling back number one. And then when you're done with that conversation, swords of that problem, you're calling number one one. That's just how it works. but I think a lot of it is. Like I said, it it it's treating everybody fairly and it's really trying to develop people. The more you can develop people, the stronger the team is gonna be. which means then your customers are gonna be a lot happier. but like you said, the the world's changed. It it's a digital footprint now. everybody everybody goes to an organization for different reasons. Everyone looks at truth, personal success differently. So I think a lot of it is having, you know, working with them to define where they wanna go in life, what what's their personal mission, vision, mission, all that. And how do we help them get better? And how do we help them succeed? And I think when you move into leadership, it it's definitely a lot more we than me. and you're really trying to help people develop and and find out where they want to go. And sometimes, unfortunately, your greatest seller might want to develop and move on and the opportunity may not be with us. It might be somewhere else. But you now have an evangelist out there that's talking about your leadership style, talking about your products and all that. And it and I always tell my team to if we're as good as we think we are, we we can hit our number with a vacancy. but if as long as my job is building that bench to make sure we have people that can fill in, we'll we'll be phenomenal. But like I said, a lot of times you're gonna the A players are gonna do what they do. It it's really developing those B players and and that's where you see the the the true success of organizations. speaker-1: Yeah, it's so true. It's and even from a leadership and a development perspective, it's all about you know, it's about elevating, right? It's about, you know, making your A players A plus, making your B players A players, making your C players B players. It's all about upgrading and you know, what's when you look at sales professionals, what do you think are is are the Top five, top we'll go top three motivating factors on why people are really successful. What do you think really creates success for, you know, the contemporary sales professional in today's marketplace? speaker-0: Yeah, I I think motivation gets you going, but discipline's what carries you across the finish line. So I think they're the one, they're very hard workers. Two, they're very disciplined. And and the third one is they surround themselves with great people. I I always say, you know, the whole famous Jim Rohn quote, we're the average of the five people we hang around. I think your biggest predictor of success in life is who you decide with both personally and professionally. You get around the wrong people, and things aren't gonna go well. You get around the right people and always trying to elevate and get into better, better, stronger rooms, the more you're gonna develop. At the end of the day, we're all like trees. We're either growing or dying. so you you're looking for those growth-minded people, you're looking for those hard workers, you you're looking for the people that that that want to succeed and they have that it factor. You know, people always talk about, you know, who who who's the who the goats are in any sports. Majority of the times, i i it's not sometimes the greatest athlete. It's the people that have the discipline, had the commitment. They never gave up. They were the hardest workers. They were the first one to show up and the last one to leave. that's what makes people great. and they can overcome some things with hard work and and dedication and discipline. speaker-1: You know, I I totally agree with you. You know, you think about all the the greatest l athletes of our lifetime where you have the Michael Jordans and you know, you have the the Kobe Bryants, you have the Tiger Woods, you have you know people that really transformed and transcended the whole sport in itself. And, you know, they were always the first on and always the last to leave. they're all competitively just, you know, over the top, like, you know, could not stand to not win or be successful. You know, the other thing I wanted to bring up that we hadn't talked about was like, Like I think purpose admission is also when I look at some of the most successful people that I've worked with, the motivators for them weren't always well, most first frankly, most people that I you know, money is not typically the the thing that I associate myself with the most successful people. I mean, money comes when you are successful, don't get me wrong, but I'm one of the people that believes that money's not the the most effective motivator. I'm one that like and this is why I like healthcare is that you know, and I've been in and out of healthcare, but the reason why I like healthcare is that you can wake up, it has great purpose every day. you know, you're helping to solve hard problems that have quality of life or even life staging type of impacts. And, you know, you're really you know, as a sales professional to be able to lean into healthcare in some ways it's almost a real privilege and that that's was always for me the great purpose and the great mission that like that's why I was I could get up at three o'clock in the morning and get home at nine o'clock at night the same day. You know, because it was that mission, it was that purpose and that that made it fun. You know, that made it a lot of speaker-0: Yeah, I I think it it's it's those individuals that they either have it or they don't. and I think that's where I I talked about, you know, the interview process. I saved all my notes and I I usually closed every every interview when I'm hiring someone is you know, do have your permission as we go walk this journey together to have those difficult conversations and successful conversations with you? Cause then you're always bringing it back to them of, you know, this is what you said you wanted. This is not what I'm seeing. The story I'm telling myself is this is what I see. Do I have the story wrong? So you can have those conversations with them, but that's really how you grow, develop, and train people by figuring out what makes them tick, what is their personal vision, what's their personal mission, what's their personal definite success. And then you have those conversations with them along the way. And and and you but you have to have that we mindset of I I want to grow these individuals and and and take them to the next step. And and you like the people you name. Tiger Woods had a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach. Kobe Bryant had a coach. They all had multiple coaches doing different types of things. And, you know, they're the best of their profession, but they're always striving to get better. And they realized what their role was. I've seen interviews with Kobe. Kobe was the first one there and the last one to leap. He said, that was my role in the team. My team was to build the belief in those individuals that we're going to get it done. And if the if it comes out the last second, I'm going to do what it needs to do to win. so that was his role in the team. That may not have been everyone's role in the team. So he realized probably through, you know, kind of Michael's hardship at the beginning that you can't make everyone want to be me. you have to figure out who what's their role in the team. And and I think, you know, Nick Saban says it best of, you know, mediocre people don't like to hang around high performers and high performers like mediocre people. But if everybody does their job on every single play and be where your feet are, we're gonna be highly successful. We're gonna have challenges, we're gonna mess up at times. But as long as we can talk through, watch film and coach and develop and all that. we'll be successful more times than than than we won't. And and unfortunately, you're not going to win the championship every single year. but I've always tried to coach my teams that the more cohesive we are together, the the better high performing team we can be. And the most important thing is being that cohesive high performing team. Because one of the first things I always started off the year with was, you know, looking at the goals, looking at the cop plan, and understand no one's ever in the beginning of a goal they like, it's always too high. No one's ever beginning to a cop plan they like, it's always too low. But how do reverse engineer that to what we need to be successful? What do you need to reach whatever your personal vision and mission was? And and how do we do that? And if and it always then would break down like the presence club rankings. So there, you know, there's 12 people are going in presence club. There's eight people on the team. That means all you guys aren't in competition with each other. It's just two of the four people we're bringing along with us. and then you really get people to buy into that team concept and realizing that all eight of us could make it. it's just who are the four people come along for the party. but I think that's how you really change that. but it's diving into that individual and really, like I said, figuring out what makes them tick and where do they want to go and how can you help develop and get there. speaker-1: Yeah, that's such a great point. And you know, I'm I have one c last question for you before we close things up. And I asked this to all my my guests and I'm gonna actually make it an episode with all of them, but you know, you've had a great, great career and you've done a lot of remarkable things and you've you know moved around various different industries. And you know, if current day Steve can go back to twenty two year old Steve when he was trying to get into med tech and healthcare and, you know, had to pivot and go into the the office, I believe you said office furniture category. What would that be that one piece of advice, whether it be professional or whether it be personal? You know, what would be that one piece of advice he would give your twenty two year old self? speaker-0: I I I I said it once before and I'll say it again. I I think it's it's who you surround yourself with. Be careful of who you surround yourself with. you're either gonna to the next saving point, you're either gonna become one of the the high performers or you're gonna become become one of the mediocre people. probably the only really regret I I I I probably have in my career, and it's just it wasn't like we talked about in the very beginning, it wasn't around back then. Is I wish I would have built a personal brand right when I ordered right when I entered the dental industry. Because if you build that personal brand. That way your your teams, your customers, everyone kind of Cardi already knows, likes, and trusts you when they meet you because you have it out there. You know, AI wasn't around back then. Now it is. I tell people now all the time, you know, build that personal brand as fast as you can, get it out there. Go digital, print, everywhere anywhere you can get it. it it's going to make life easier. It's gonna make AI finding. It's gonna make people, like I said, already know, like, and trust you, but it comes down to who you surround yourself with. You have to to make sure you're with the right people. that have the same values, mission, vision that you have, and are gonna help push you and drive you. if not, if you're with the wrong people, you you you're probably gonna go the other way. so be careful of who you surround yourself with and always elevate to get into better rooms. and and you're always don't ever get stagnant. Try to find the next people to help push you. speaker-1: You know, it's such great advice too. And and you know, for being such an experienced and tenured guy and and and throwing the LinkedIn word out there, it's kind of remarkable. But I will sit here and tell you that like I probably have trained over a hundred people on LinkedIn optimization on how to start, you know, building their professional brand or prefer or personal brand, however you want to talk about it. But it does elevate your authority. you know, LinkedIn is a huge network amongst professionals, so You know, I promise you customers are gonna go find you on LinkedIn and look who you are and look and see what kind of content you're either reading, sharing, or posting. And, you know, it will help elevate your authority in the marketplace for sure. So really commend you for for pushing that for your your sales professionals. What a what a great opportunity to, you know, kind of guide them in that direction. So thank speaker-0: I think you have to have to show by example. You know, I post every day on LinkedIn a a a a quote every day. I think, you know, the world's lonely, sales is lonely. like I said, you gotta surround yourself with the right people. If you wake up with a bad attitude and say, I, you know, I overslept, something went wrong today, I stubbed my toe. Well then you're gonna carry that into the day. So you have to have something that's really good to to get you going. But you know, especially in the dental market, LinkedIn is a huge tool. they are the dental community is on there like nobody's business. Now, granted. A lot of them are never gonna post, like or comment. they're kind of more voyeurs of of seeing, you know, who's connected to who, who talks to who, who likes what, who comments on what. but they're there and they're watching and AI is there and AI is watching. So I think the more you can get into that, the the faster you can get into that. just the the easier life gets. It never gets easy, but it can get easier. but like I said, then people kind of already know, like, and trust you. so I I highly encourage people to to get out there, get active. And like I said, the world's changed. It's no longer who you know, it's who knows you. speaker-1: You know, you it's funny that you mentioned LinkedIn and it's funny that earlier in our conversation you were talking about having AI get to know who you are and who your company is. And I just was reviewing some LinkedIn content from some master creators and the real data out there is there's an actually an algorithm where LinkedIn is the number two source of information for AI search. So your content and that's the other piece is is moving forward and how you write content in LinkedIn for those out there that are listening and actually care. But there are things that like if you're using bold italics in your post, if you're using emojis and things like that, AI cannot read those. Chat GPT cannot read that code. And so in order for Chat GPT to read LinkedIn content. And again, it's the second most resource content for AI search. It has to be in plain text. So there's this balance of like, you know, how you get people to pay attention to your LinkedIn content. But at the same time, since it's such a huge consumptive component for AI, you've got to write it in a way where they can read it and understand it. So they can, you know, they can figure out who you are too. speaker-0: Yeah, I think everyone's kind of looking for that magic bullet. unfortunately, we kind of live in an insta famous Facebook world. I think a lot of it's just being yourself. I tell young people and in the dental industry they reach out to me all the time, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool. Be yourself, but figure out what what can you commit to and be consistent at what you can commit to. If that's posting every day, great. That's posting once a week, great. Just be consistent at what you do. And I always tell them that, you know, you're probably gonna reach out to a hundred people and and probably ten are gonna respond. And I know that seems very frustrating. speaker-1: If you're lucky, if you're lucky. speaker-0: And it's a gift you just were awarded because those ten people that reached out to you are the people you want to connect with. They're just as interested in helping you as they want you to help them. Whereas the other ninety people, all that they would have never asked what the what they could do for you. All they want to know is what you can do for them. so it's actually a gift for you. But I think you just gotta get out there. You you you gotta get creative, you you gotta get consistent. And you you just gotta get out there and and interact with it. And I think if you do, you'll you'll see your life, you'll see your sales journey, you'll see everything change. speaker-1: You know, Steve, what great words of wisdom from a guy that has, you know, spanned, you know, you know, multiple generations of sales professionals and, you know, really, you know, like you and I have been in the space a long time and we've seen, you know, we've gone from hand to hand combat and door knocking all the way through digital door knocking today. And so I just wanna first first of all say thank you so much for being here. It's been a real great joy just to sort of talk shop around sales and how The world's changing and how it's moving and learning more about Soul Medics and the importance of, you know, clean filtered water in our dental space and what that means to us as patients and caregivers. So thank you for being here. Really appreciate it. speaker-0: Just appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you and wish you the best. speaker-1: Thank you.