Most founders don’t fail because of product.
They fail because they never build a real sales system.
Glenn Poulos knows this firsthand.
He built and sold a company for tens of millions… then watched it collapse to zero. No cash. No safety net. Back to square one at 40.
Today, he’s on his third company, operating in the middle of one of the biggest macro tailwinds right now: power infrastructure for AI and data centers.
This is what he’s learned after four decades in sales, two exits, and one painful reset.
The Exit That Looked Like a Win (But Wasn’t)
Glenn’s first company took 15 years to build.
He sold it in a deal worth millions. On paper, he became a multimillionaire overnight.
The problem: most of the deal was stock.
There was a lockup. Limited liquidity. No real control.
Within 18 months, the acquiring company went bankrupt.
The shares went to zero.
Fifteen years of work disappeared.
The lesson is simple and brutal:
Paper wealth is not real wealth
If you don’t understand deal structure, you’re gambling
Due diligence goes both ways
Most founders focus on getting acquired.
Very few understand what happens after.
The Second Time: Scaling, Then Almost Breaking
After losing everything, Glenn started again.
He rebuilt the business from scratch. Won back customers. Re-earned trust. Grew the company to 80 people.
Then made a mistake that almost killed it.
He expanded into a new line of business he didn’t fully understand. Started competing with his own customers. Added complexity without control.
Within a year:
Lost over $1M
Breached bank covenants
Faced a potential collapse
The fix was fast and painful.
In one morning, the company went from 80 people to 29.
Divisions were sold off. Teams reassigned. Costs stripped down.
Back to the core.
That reset saved the company.
Why Simplicity Wins
One of Glenn’s strongest views:
Most companies don’t fail from lack of opportunity.
They fail from doing too many things badly.
Focus beats expansion.
If one decision can break your company, you’ve already taken on too much risk.
The Pandemic Surprise
After the reset, something unexpected happened.
The pandemic hit.
While many industries struggled, telecom infrastructure surged. Glenn’s company was classified as essential.
The result:
Three best years in company history
Clean financials across a three-year window
Strong positioning for acquisition
This time, the exit was different.
All cash deal.
Better structure.
Clearer terms.
Still, not perfect.
There were earnouts. Warranty holds. Equity rollovers into private equity.
Even when you “win,” the fine print matters.
The Third Company: Buying Instead of Starting
Instead of starting from zero again, Glenn changed strategy.
He bought an existing business.
20 years of history.
Established customers.
Existing vendor relationships.
No cold start.
Now he runs ProgUSA, selling testing and infrastructure solutions into the power grid.
And the timing couldn’t be better.
The AI Boom Is Driving a Power Crisis
AI and data centers are creating massive demand for electricity.
Power generation and grid infrastructure are under pressure.
In some cases:
Power capacity is sold out years in advance
Large buyers are locking in decades-long contracts
New infrastructure is being rushed online
Glenn’s company sits in the middle of that.
They don’t build the grid.
They provide the equipment and systems that keep it running.
It’s a reminder:
Big companies get attention.
Infrastructure companies quietly print money.
Sales: The Skill Most Founders Avoid
Glenn is direct about this:
Most founders don’t like sales.
So they never build a system.
They rely on:
Talent
Hustle
Founder-led deals
That works early. It breaks later.
A real sales system requires:
Structure
Discipline
Repeatability
Not motivation.
The Sales Rules That Actually Matter
A few principles from Glenn’s playbook:
1. Every impression matters
You don’t get “one” first impression.
Every interaction shapes how people see you.
2. Never waste face time
If you can meet in person, do it.
Remote works. In-person wins.
3. Know how your customer makes money
If you don’t understand their business model, you can’t sell effectively.
4. Margin matters more than revenue
Revenue hides problems.
Margin tells the truth.
5. Freedom begins with “no”
Bad deals destroy companies.
Saying no is often the most profitable move.
Why Founders Lose Even With Great Products
The pattern is consistent:
They get early traction
They assume growth will continue
They avoid building structure
They rely on instinct instead of systems
Then growth stalls.
Sales isn’t about personality.
It’s about process.
Using AI the Right Way
Glenn uses AI across his business.
Not to replace people.
To make them more effective.
Examples:
Finding new prospects and contacts
Generating campaign ideas
Analyzing contracts and financials
Improving decision-making
The key point:
AI increases output.
It doesn’t replace judgment.
The Smarter Path Most Founders Ignore
One of Glenn’s strongest recommendations:
Consider buying a business instead of starting one.
There are thousands of owners nearing retirement with:
Profitable companies
No succession plan
No buyers
That creates opportunity.
You skip the hardest part: starting from zero.
What This All Comes Down To
After 40+ years, Glenn’s perspective is simple:
Sales is a system
Discipline beats talent
Focus beats expansion
Structure prevents failure
And maybe the most important:
You can win, lose everything, and still build again.
If you’re building a company, don’t ignore sales.
It’s not optional. It’s the foundation.
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Chapters:
00:01 Introduction to Glenn Poulos
02:30 Early Career and Entry into Sales
05:00 First Company and Entrepreneurial Leap
08:00 The $30M Exit and Losing It All
12:00 Lessons from a Failed Exit
16:00 Rebuilding from Zero at 40
20:00 Scaling the Second Company
24:00 Near Collapse and Hard Reset
28:00 Pandemic Growth and Private Equity Exit
32:00 Understanding Deal Structures and Earnouts
36:00 Life After Exit and Starting Again
40:00 Acquiring ProgUSA and Market Opportunity
44:00 Power Infrastructure and AI Demand
48:00 Third-Time Founder Playbook
52:00 Sales Systems and EOS Framework
56:00 Using AI in Sales and Operations
01:00:00 Sales Philosophy and Core Principles
01:04:00 Lessons from “Never Sit in the Lobby”
01:07:30 Final Advice and Rapid Fire Insights
Transcript
Brian Bell (00:00:59): Welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today, we’re thrilled to have Glenn Poulos on the mic. He is an entrepreneur and sales strategist who has built and exited multiple businesses now leading Prague USA at the intersection of utility infrastructure and surging data center and AI power demand. He’s also the award-winning author of Never Sit in the Lobby. Thanks for coming on, Glenn. Thanks for having me, Brian. It’s great to be here. Yeah, I’d love to start with your origin story. What is your background?
Glenn Poulos (00:01:23): I’m only laughing because that’s like 40 something years ago, right? So how far back do we go? Born in Canada, Canadian, you know, grew up there. And my first job, I went to school for electronics, always a bit of a geek about electronics. And I got a diploma in that. And got a job with the Canadian government at the Weather Service. Appropriate given this week’s weather around North America. But nonetheless, fixing electronic gizmos at weather stations.
Brian Bell (00:01:50): What is the weather in North America right now? It’s winter, so it’s like winter storms. I’m in California, so I don’t feel it.
Glenn Poulos (00:01:55): Okay, right. Yeah, and I’m in Orlando because my new business I bought in Orlando to get out of Canada. And so but I have family at home that are very mad at me today. So two feet of snow up there, you know, minus minus something or other. And of course, we’ve got the Celsius Fahrenheit thing to worry about. But it’s cold. It’s got the F word. He’s got the F word in front of the cold. Yeah. So you know that it’s bad when you have to say that. Right.
Brian Bell (00:02:18): So when Canadians say the F word. Right.
Glenn Poulos (00:02:20): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, I worked for the government. My boss came to me one day and he said, you know, you’re probably much better suited for something like sales than being a civil servant. So get out. Right.
Brian Bell (00:02:31): And so get on the door and start doing it.
Glenn Poulos (00:02:34): Yeah. So I got a job in sales in 1985 and I was selling electronic gizmos. We’ll call them, you know, instruments to the electronic industry in Canada. Yeah, basically testing equipment and systems to, you know, whether it’s aerospace, military, you know, general electronics. It was a general electronics company. And I worked for them for a number of years, started accumulating stories and mentoring, you know, guidelines from people that work there and stuff like that. That’s where I came up with the genesis of the book. We can talk about later. That’s where the story started accumulating. And, you know, a number of years in, I realized that they had some technology branches that I realized I wanted to be An entrepreneur like them, I wanted to own the business because I got paid nicely when I got orders, but they got paid too, right? And they got paid on every order, my order, the guy beside me’s order, the other guy’s order. And so I approached them and I said, hey, can I peel off a bit of technology, create a new company, you guys can own a bit, I’ll own a bit and we’ll,
Brian Bell (00:03:31): you know,
Glenn Poulos (00:03:32): We’ll split and, you know, and the whole be greater than the sum of the parts kind of thing,
Brian Bell (00:03:35): right?
Brian Bell (00:03:36): And they said, categorically, no, not going to do that.
Glenn Poulos (00:03:39): You know, you’re well suited in your job. You should just stick to your knitting and, you know, don’t upset the apple cart. And so I quit the next day and I started. my first company and uh funny one of the funny things is that i’d only been married six days at the time and i had forgotten to tell the wife that i was quitting my job so we got married the following friday i i said oh honey i quit by the way by the way and of course yeah so that went over like a lead balloon but nonetheless you know i worked there for uh on that business for 15 years and sold to a public company it was a very high nice accident well into the eight figures but there were three of us so we kind of had to divide it up amongst three guys but nonetheless we still all did very well so again we were selling and oh right and so part of the sort of one of the jokes i always tell right is like you know i broke off they told me to stick to my knitting and whatever and you know don’t focus on this one thing and you know And not because it wouldn’t go anywhere, but just like it wasn’t a good idea, right? And I mean, the idea that I was focusing on was to focus on the cellular industry, right? And not cell phones themselves, but helping those carriers build the network, test the network, right? And the industrial sort of side of cellular. And of course, that never went anywhere, right? Like who needs a cell phone, right?
Brian Bell (00:04:54): Yeah, what’s the market for cell phones? I mean, like maybe a million cell phones, right?
Glenn Poulos (00:04:58): Gordon Gekko doing deals on Wall Street. Yeah, and so... of course um you know the business the business didn’t quite well we’ve we helped the canadian carriers build the network we didn’t build the network we sold them the equipment that went into the network right and so we sold the business and it was a public company a well-known name in canada public company most people had heard of them they had stores in the mall selling cell phones so they’re branching out and the ceo was a very kind of you know, famous guy in the wireless industry. And I thought everything was fine. So we ended up doing this deal. But lesson learned, we did the deal for mostly stock and very little cash. And like under a hundred K cash and millions. And so millions and millions of dollars in shares. So I became a multimillionaire overnight emphasis on the quotation marks. And of course the lockup was one per, I could only sell 1% order for two years or something like that. Because I, not only was I an insider and what have you, but also I had the most shares in the company and I ended up having the most shares in the new, in the public entity because of the amount they’d given me. I was their largest shareholder. And so I was very highly restricted. And in the 18 months that followed, that public company went bankrupt and the shares went to zero. And so what ended up happening was I worked for 15 years, gave them a $30 million company. And they, of course, bankrupted the whole thing. And I ended up with nothing. 40-something years old had to start over. And so, you know, and I wasn’t really able to spend any of it. So it was kind of a hollow millionaire status, but you know, it felt good at the time. And then all of a sudden I had nothing and I had to, I had to literally start over. So I had to go get a job or start another company.
Brian Bell (00:06:40): And so would you do differently?
Glenn Poulos (00:06:43): in that situation so well i would so of course the things you learn as you go right so the next deal would have to be all cash right and or something thereabouts right and so that would be the first thing too is that you know when these big companies come along you’re sort of in you’re sort of incentivized not incentivized you kind of think like the the reverse due diligence doesn’t sort of click in right like they’re doing like you know all this deep dive due diligence on you and quality of earnings and like 19 covenants up the yin yang of like you got to guarantee this and warranty that and then you know blah blah blah etc etc right and it’s like okay well no show me your money right show me that you’re a solvent right and that never occurred to me completely green in that world you know i know you come from the acquisition venture side of things so this stuff second nature for you
Brian Bell (00:07:33): You know, I was just a guy who built a business and it was doing well, we were making good money.
Glenn Poulos (00:07:36): And yeah and i mean i knew i knew the people in this business i knew they’re you know i see their their stores in the mall you know i thought hey i was fine and you know i was a million becoming a millionaire and so i thought it was all good right but i should have done way more due diligence that’s that’s the answer to your question
Brian Bell (00:07:54): What I would probably advise you to do is run a process and get an investment banker that represents you as a seller.
Glenn Poulos (00:07:59): Yeah so this thing came very quickly and we had a little bit of an advisor but we didn’t really even have a broker right there wasn’t even like a 5% guy that you know the second time we had a broker under contract who was shopping us for several years right and he earned his 5% there you go and then some and he also probably got us he also was free because he probably got us a lot more than we ever would have gotten with all of his techniques that he teaches you how to you know like pretty
Brian Bell (00:08:29): And aligned incentives, right? If you follow the money, show me the incentive, I’ll show you the outcome, right? And so like if you hire a seller’s broker in this case, I mean, they’re incentivized to go get the best price because they’re going to get the best commission. Pretty simple.
Glenn Poulos (00:08:41): Yeah. It’s like same thing with like real estate. Oh, I can use no common or low calm or whatever. And you know, 1% commission and no realtors will bring anyone to your house. Right.
Brian Bell (00:08:51): Right. Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:08:51): It’s like, there’s no incentives. There’s no aligned incentives.
Brian Bell (00:08:54): Oh, that I think has problems, you know?
Brian Bell (00:08:57): Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:08:57): I did. Yeah. And, you know, and I was really more scared about getting a job than starting the company because, you know, and so I went to the customers and I begged some customers to give me a second chance. And I went to the, some of our vendors that were not paid. and begged them to give me a second chance. And I think a lot of them moved on and they said, no, we’re gonna move to someone else as our channel in Canada. But some of them, and I offered them all the same thing. I said, I’ll pay you back every penny you lost with a company that I no longer owned. just a shareholder in another company that owned that company. And so about 10 of the lines ended up coming with me. Of the large carriers in Canada, only one of them agreed to cut me any orders. And the other ones like, you know, black marked me at that time. And we did win them all back over time. But in the beginning, There was only one that agreed to give us business and a lot of lecturing and whining about the problems we’d caused them and delayed supply chain because we’re supplying like antennas to the like, you know, and so they’re putting out like hundreds of towers and stuff. Right. So 50 antennas. Donuts don’t show up. There’s crews. There’s all the people at the carriers that are in the technical side, all their money they make by turning up the tower on the day they say they’re going to turn it up. They miss that. They miss their bonus, right? And so we caused some damage in doing that. We restarted it in 2007. We grew the company around 2015-ish. The brokers and peddlers of one flavor or another on company acquisitions started coming, kicking the tires, wanting to do NDAs and look at the numbers and start offers and Of course, I had a partner and an investor in that company as well. So, you know, you take the numbers and divide them by the owners and, you know, the numbers weren’t big enough in 2015, 2016 or whatever, but we were getting a sense of what would happen. And so we just started doing what we were doing and growing the business. We ultimately sold it in 2022. The big lessons that were learned there were in 2019, we were up to 80 people. We had exercised, we had broken my cardinal rule. which was we had made decisions that could break the company. One single decision could break a company. We, you know, and that was one of my golden rules never to do that. And it was a kind of a multi-level, you know, decision in the sense that one, we got into, we exercised the reverse Midas touch, meaning we started getting involved in business that we knew nothing about, thinking that everything we touched would turn to gold because we were making so much money doing what we were doing. So we assumed, well, you know, We’re selling products to the cell phone industry. Why don’t we open a donut shop? It wasn’t a donut shop. I mean, I’ll explain it. But nonetheless, what do I know about cooking and selling donuts? Nothing, right? But you just think, I’m so successful. I’m going to throw a few hundred K at this. And the mistakes that we make is one, you kind of just throw money at it. And because the money’s kind of coming, let’s say, easy. I use that carefully. But I mean... You’re making good money. And so someone has an idea, you give them the money, but you also don’t give them the time, right? Because you’re really sort of occupied by your own business. So you’re not spending any time on the new venture. All you’re doing is sending them your good money. And so we got involved in installing the products into the network. And we ended up competing with some of our best customers. They got mad, didn’t want to deal with us. And then ultimately, the general manager we had hired to run that division, you know, I’ll say this you know, as affectionately as I can, you know, ran it into the ground. And we hadn’t, didn’t have enough financial controls to understand that we were around negative 1.2 million in 2019. And we had tripped all the covenants with our bank and our line of credit and, you know, debt to equity and all the different covenants that come with the line of credit. And where you have to have a certain amount of debt or a certain amount of EBITDA or whatever the covenant is, right? We took them all. And of course, we had personal guarantees with our houses. We had to try to recapitalize. But in 2019, I had to make the decision to go from 80 people to 29 people virtually overnight.
Brian Bell (00:12:59): Wow.
Glenn Poulos (00:13:00): And strip the company down to its lowest.
Brian Bell (00:13:02): Just to get the company back into covenants with your banks.
Brian Bell (00:13:05): Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:13:06): Yeah. Yeah. Now we were lucky in a way. And I mean, this is the part that I tell everyone, you know, I went to my partner and I said, we got to go from 80 people to 29 people. And he’s like, oh, okay. You know, and how are we going to do that? Which I’ll explain in a minute. And he goes, well, when are we going to do it? I go, well, it’s 8 a.m. We’ll be done by 10. Meaning, you know, in two hours, we’re going to fire 50 people, right? But we had already been trying to figure out ways of selling this division. Several of our customers that were mad that we were kind of competing with them. were more than willing to take the company and the 40 people and take over all these contracts with the Canadian carriers. All the contracts were fine, but he didn’t know how to run them profitably. You got all these insurance policies, all these trucks, bucket trucks, lift trucks, you know, all this equipment out there, all these people, all this insurance, all this safety and fall mitigation. And whoa, it’s crazy, right? And so 40 of the people, you know, went to a deal that we were able to cook up on the phone with the guy for selling it for the cost price of our assets, which was minimal, like fall gear and ladders and a couple of trucks and whatever, right? And then we had this drone division selling drones that were carrying instruments that were measuring cell phone stuff. We sold that to a US drone company that wanted a Canadian branch. So that got us like 46, right? And the rest of them were some layoffs. And so everyone within minutes really of getting laid off, transferred or sold off was really had a job. You know, my conscience was reasonably clear that nobody really, you know, landed hard, right? And we did it all in one day. And we went to 29 people. It was back to our core distribution focus on the carriers. And then that led us to 2020, 21, 22. That was the beginning of the pandemic. We were labeled an essential service by the Canadian government. And the carriers, we weren’t allowed to close. We weren’t allowed to downsize in any way, shape or form. And so, you know, I went to work every day during the pandemic. Of course, I wasn’t able to leave my house at night, but I was able to go to work in the day. And we had our three best years, 2020, 21, 22. And the private equity came knocking in 2022. And we had balanced out the three years of, because they always take the last three years, right? Those were our best three years of our history. And because of the pandemic, we all know, I mean, everything boomed during the pandemic for the most part, except for maybe restaurants. But I mean, electronic infrastructure boomed. And so we got a great number. It was private equity. It was all cash.
Brian Bell (00:15:35): Learned your lesson on that for the first time, right?
Glenn Poulos (00:15:37): Yeah, the genius. Yeah, right. Except there’s always a but, right? And people are like, all cash, great. You finally learned your lesson, right? And I’m like, yeah, but you got to remember when you do a deal with private equity, there’s a number, but 10% of it is on a warranty. You don’t get that for six months, right? And then there’s a 15% earn out that you got to hit these numbers. All the companies they bought, except ours, none of them hit their earn outs in the period that their earn out was defined. Ours was a one-year earn out. We hit ours and then some, and we actually... we actually made them so much money in 2022 that we bought ourselves back almost to the tune of over 50%. Like they made back half their money in a year, right? And there was no accelerator on the earn out. It was like a number. You hit it, you get it. You don’t hit it, you don’t get it. But if you hit it times three or four or five, you get nothing.
Brian Bell (00:16:32): A lot of terms in there that founders may not be familiar with. What’s a warranty, for instance?
Glenn Poulos (00:16:36): So the warranty is that you didn’t say that You know, like there was something related to, you know, poor service, broken stuff that you didn’t tell them about, bad deal, bad debt. There’s a whole list of things and it’s a warranty that the deal was properly papered and that you didn’t lie about anything.
Brian Bell (00:16:54): And then what happens if they find something that you didn’t disclose and they can prove that you knew about it?
Glenn Poulos (00:17:00): They have to prove the value. They have to kind of like valueize it, you know, and then.
Brian Bell (00:17:05): And that hurts the eventual earn out and the eventual price, basically.
Glenn Poulos (00:17:09): It might affect that as well, but it’s a different number. The 10% was, you know, let’s say it was $1 million, like they would put a hundred grand in a bank and The lawyer actually had that money so that if we had no warranty claims, we get it the day that and we did get it. We got it.
Brian Bell (00:17:23): No problem. That’s the warranty. So it’s 10 percent.
Glenn Poulos (00:17:27): And then the earn out was a calculation and it was very simple for us. It was generating a specific amount of gross margin, not top line, not bottom line, but pure gross margin. Right.
Brian Bell (00:17:38): So after you’re basically your COGS, your COGS, your COGS are being sold. If you maintain this kind of margin over the next 12 months, you get this 15% bonus.
Glenn Poulos (00:17:47): Exactly. Exactly. But it was part of the total number, right? It wasn’t a bonus.
Brian Bell (00:17:51): Right, right, right. Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:17:51): On a million dollar deal, 150K was in another account, right?
Brian Bell (00:17:55): Right.
Glenn Poulos (00:17:55): And so, like I said, all the other guys, companies they had bought, none of them hit their earnouts and they got nothing.
Brian Bell (00:18:01): And that’s where I... I don’t know what the percentage is, but... I’ve been through a few transactions as an employee or a key employee and in startup land in Silicon Valley. And you kind of get this like earn out these numbers. And I think I’ve only been through that situation twice. And we did not hit the numbers both both times. Right.
Glenn Poulos (00:18:19): And that’s where you learn about the the binary aspect of it. There’s no not a lot of like variability to it. Right. Like it’s not like, well, if you get to 70%, you get something right. You got to hit 100% or it’s zero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And over 180, 280% over target, you still get only.
Brian Bell (00:18:38): I think ours had actual tiers. I think it was like one number at 95%, one number at 100.
Glenn Poulos (00:18:43): Okay, so some of them, some of them do have the nines and whatever, but it’s kind of a hard reality because what if you’re at 94.9? Like that’s the, there’s no, there’s no nuance to it, right? And the owner’s like, well, I work like crazy. And then there was that currency problem. And then there was the, you know, the return and the bad debt and whatever, blah, blah, blah, 94.9, too bad shit, zero, right? And so- Then what happened next was, well, they’re giving you the, and again, we’re using million dollars as the thing, right? They’re like, you know, so 10% goes to the lawyer, 15% is on hold for the earn out, right? And then while they’re shaking your hand, right? They’re putting their hand in your back pocket and saying, everyone puts rolls back in like 30 to 40%, Glenn.
Brian Bell (00:19:22): into the deal oh they basically want to take your proceeds and roll it back in as
Glenn Poulos (00:19:25): uh on the cap table exactly exactly and so i’m not buying my own company back i’m buying into the higher level entity that’s buying me and becoming a fractional one percent shareholder kind of a thing right And they’re like, but you get a, you know, that’s where you get to get another bite of the apple. That’s where you get another, that’s where they give me all these like private equity terms that sound so enticing, especially in 2022 when the market, you know, where we went from zero, you know, zero in 2007. That’s my own work in private equity, by the way.
Brian Bell (00:19:53): I just don’t like the zero sum game of it. Right. No offense to my private equity partners out there, but.
Glenn Poulos (00:20:00): I hear you. Yeah. So we were at 84 million when we sold it in revenue and the year we sold. Right. So we grew the company handsomely. And so and we were, you know, the recency bias, you know, especially in the financial markets is like whatever’s happening now will keep happening. Whether it’s like like right now the markets are kind of down and, you know, gold is up, silver’s up, crypto’s down, you know. everyone thinks that whatever is now is going to continue on and the housing market’s down so it’s going to stay down and but that’s not really but so anyways in 2022 we thought we could do no wrong and they paint it as it’s not only do you get another bite of the apple but the apple’s five times bigger because we’re moving you into a bigger stack higher multiple so you know you’re rolling in 30 or 40 percent of the number but that that’s now getting multiplied by five in your mind right and so And then in 2023, the company kind of tanked because of the global markets tanked in 23, 24. We’re all been struggling ever since the height in 2022. And they’re still clawing their way back. And so it was supposed to be sort of a three to five year window for the bike is being extended on because they’re kind of clawing their way back. Will they do it? I hope so. I mean, I don’t work there anymore, but I have all that. It’s just an internal stress, right? So next time I’d say, yeah, maybe if I had to, I’d roll in a small amount, 5% or something just to stay on side with them or whatever. But I mean, I kind of got greedy because so I rolled in kind of the maximum amount. Right. And still did very well in terms of, you know, the amount I took out. I got my earn out. I got my warranty money and all that. So we’ll see what happens. And they’ve staffed up the company fairly well with some big guys and to grow the business to the next level. And I’m hoping they do. But. you know those are the things that you learn right and so no matter what you’re always learning and and um you know when you’re just a business operator no there’s a lot of other things about business that you just don’t know until you’re kind of.
Brian Bell (00:21:56): went through them right right yeah this is why we like second time founders
Glenn Poulos (00:22:00): and then so what happened next so yeah so as i so they offered me a job with no really end date but it had a it had a very a specific exit clause like i knew exactly what i would get when i left it was very you know, very cut and dry. And so I wasn’t ever fearful about getting fired or whatever. I knew what I would be faced with and plenty of time to reestablish myself. But a year or so in, I realized a few things like one that I wouldn’t be cut out long term for working for a private equity owned subsidiary, you know, Part of the business, not in the private equity, but in the operating business underneath this through that, you know, it just didn’t feel the same as running the business yourself. So I thought, oh, I got to do something. And I started hearing about the E2 visa process for Canada, where you can buy business in the US. invests a reasonable amount of money, hire some American people, and you can get a visa for five-year increments. It’s not an immigration product, it’s a residency product and a tax product, so you can work in the US, your spouse can work in the U.S. You can live in the U.S. Your kids can come, but it’s not a green card thing. It’s for investing and for running a business. So I started looking around and I found a business in Florida that did the same thing I was doing at my other two companies, except in a different industry so that I would be, my conscience would be clear and my covenants would be clear in terms of any no competes, even though I wasn’t restricted in the U.S. anyways, but nonetheless, so I transferred and Instead of selling equipment into the network of the cell phone industry, we sell equipment and testing solutions into the power industry. Still towers, but it’s got 500 kilovolt lines on them instead of cell phone antennas, right? And instead of having base stations you know on the tower at the bottom of the tower it has transformers breakers batteries and so we import products from around the world same as i did in my other and we sell them in the u.s market we service it train them you know support them and we represent those companies from around the world in the u.s market so it’s really the same kind of business so there’s really no learning curve on how the business works i just need to learn the customers and the the vendors and, you know, and then start applying the same methodologies I was using before or ones I was learning now that I thought would grow the business. And that’s where I’m at right now. So bought it two years ago. First year, I was still working for the company. So it’s kind of moonlighting and a side hustle. But a year ago, I moved to Florida. And so I’ve been at it a couple of years of growing the business. And so kind of doubled the business, doubled the size of the sales force, the number of vendors, the top line, plugging away for a few years to see where it all ends up,
Brian Bell (00:24:35): you know, two, three years from now. Talk about good timing.
Glenn Poulos (00:24:38): Yeah, yeah, it was great. And I mean, and I and the company was celebrating its 20th anniversary, you know, just in December, right? So it’s kind of I take over this company, I’m like celebrating 20 years in business, right? And so that’s the other thing I learned, right? The third time is like, I’m not starting over from scratch.
Brian Bell (00:24:53): Right.
Glenn Poulos (00:24:54): And especially with all the regulations for new businesses and banking and this and that, whatever. So I bought a business with 20 years of customers, 20 years of vendors, 20 year banking relationship and insurance and all that. And so, you know, very, very well established set up at all the major customers just have to you know grow the business right grow the grow the top line and so i often say to people now like you know don’t fluff that off too quickly or whatever about buying a business there’s a million guys that are 75 or 80 years old and their kids that want nothing to do with their company but the company is very valuable very and they end up they end up like just shutting it down because nobody will buy it and And nobody will take it. And, and so, you know, figure out your geography, figure out your market that you want to be in the kind of business that you want, and then go knocking on doors to owners, especially ones with gray hair and say, Hey, I’ve ever thought of selling your business. And a lot of them was like, well, no, but what are you offering? Right. And, I’m 75. My kids are bums. And that’s kind of the situation I was in. The guy was retiring, had no one internal in the business to sell it to and no family to give it to or trade it with. There was no competition. So I was able to craft a deal that allowed me to get in for a reasonable amount of money, pay it off over some time. It wasn’t a bidding war with a bunch of private equity guys and multiples and this and that.
Brian Bell (00:26:14): Amazing. The timing right now for power is insane with data center growth. What are you seeing on the ground there?
Glenn Poulos (00:26:20): Yeah. So that’s the, yeah, that’s, you know, the, the, I’m not sure what the boy would call it like, but it’s amazingly good timing. And, you know, the, the government has also has to print money for the economy. And so they have to, you know, their, the liquidity is going up and so they’re going to be printing money and spending money. And a lot of it’s going to go into the power grid, right? So it’ll, it’s going to trickle down. And so, There’s a huge demand for power for the data centers and so much so that really the power is pretty much sold out for the next 20 years, right? Like it’s... Don’t quote me on this. I haven’t actually fact-checked this one, but I’m pretty sure that I heard that Three Mile Island is reopening, which is kind of shocking. But in addition to that, that Microsoft bought 20 years of every gigawatt they’re going to produce over the next 20 years, it’s already sold out. They own all the power that’ll come from that. And so these power centers are being created and large data centers are pre-purchasing a 20-year contract to take all the power. There’s a huge demand for the infrastructure to generate the power and deliver it, but also to test it and monitor it. And that’s where we come in. And so that’s what we’re focusing on as our growth, right?
Brian Bell (00:27:34): Pretty amazing. So it’s like your third radio in a similar industry. Yeah. What are you kind of doing this third time around that you’ve kind of learned from the prior two times?
Glenn Poulos (00:27:45): In the last third of the second company, I had started with the entrepreneurial operating system, EOS. Of course, the business I bought was much smaller, so it felt a little bit small to engage the EOS team directly. EOS is an operating system for businesses where it It literally shows you how to map out all your processes, how to treat the right people in the right seats. And it’s a structured, curated way of really running a business. And, you know, it sets the cadence for meetings. meetings are run, how people are, you know, core values. You know, there’s a one-year plan, a three-year plan, a 10-year plan. And it’s a very, very structured. There’s about 80,000 companies around the world on it now. It really helped us. We put it in 2019. we scaled down and it was really pivotal in helping us to grow the business professionally and make sure we had the right people doing the right jobs which we didn’t before and so now i’m realizing that i can apply that same thing in a smaller way but the world has also moved to this whole fractional so i have a fractional cto i have a fractional cmo and i have a fractional um cto cmo and cfo Right. So I’m getting guys that are super expensive that I couldn’t afford. And some of them are working four hours a month. Some of them are, you know, 10 hours a week. But I’m adopting that whole fractional approach. So I’m getting the best person to do these particular roles that I know that I need in order to grow the business. But I’m not trying to hire a, you know, $200,000 CFO, you know, for a small business that I can’t afford. Right. Right. So I’m loving this fractional thing, you know, and these are guys that team ignite as well.
Brian Bell (00:29:27): We, we hire a bunch of fractional people and contractors and they’re all leveraging AI anyway. And so they’re all, you know, three times more efficient than they were five years ago.
Glenn Poulos (00:29:36): Absolutely. As am I, I mean, you know, most of my lawyer stuff now is, is all done through AI and, you know, I take it the last mile to make sure it’s fine. And of course they have to tweak it. Cause you know, you know, you didn’t get it quite right, Glenn. Right. I’m like, okay.
Brian Bell (00:29:51): You know, kind of thing. Like meanwhile, the contract are almost bulletproof that you can generate.
Glenn Poulos (00:29:56): And, you know, I’m using AI for marketing. I’m using AI to help me for day to day financial analysis. I pretty much drop everything into some sort of agentic model to make sure I’m doing it right. And, you know, And sometimes I don’t take its advice. Sometimes I do. But it’s amazing to have such a resource available. And in the past, I was always using Google and everything. I was getting all these random links to websites or whatever. But now having it under an AI umbrella, it’s amazing, right? Somewhere along the way, you wrote a book.
Brian Bell (00:30:28): Tell us about that.
Glenn Poulos (00:30:29): I did. Yeah. So I wrote the book during the pandemic when I was locked up at night after I came home from work. Right. And, and I’d been, I’d been writing down these rules ever since 1985. I was thinking, okay, that’s a rule I want to forget. And I had a book and I was writing them down in this notebook and sharing them with people over the years. And people would laugh and say, oh, you know, can you come to my sales meeting and share some of those stories are pretty funny and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then people are like, well, you should write a book. And, Of course, I never did. And then until the pandemic rolled around and I had the time and I opened it up and I had all these factors, I called them. And I basically just started writing, you know, I went to Google. This was before ChatGPT. So I wrote it all myself. And, you know, I was like, but I did ask Google, like, how many words do I need for a business book? And they said 75,000 is about right. So I just, every weekend I wrote 2,500 words until I got to 75,000 words. Sent it to the first editor. It was, again, fractional editor I hired on Fiverr or something. She sent it back to me, Glenn. She says, Glenn, you can’t say the F word that many times in a book. And I’m like, oh, okay, can we settle on 71,000 words then? So that’s where we landed. 71,000 words and only three F words, a couple of goddamets, and that was it.
Brian Bell (00:31:45): How much did the editor cost? It’s a similar length book, actually.
Glenn Poulos (00:31:49): Yeah. The first, like I had the content editor and then the copy editor. Right. And they were both like between like a thousand and 2000 and there were several iterations. It was very cost effective. Yeah. Still a fair chunk of change. It wasn’t like 300. You can get like guys on Fiverr to do it for 300 bucks, but I’ll do X amount of characters for $300. Right. But all of a sudden you realize, well, I have $2,000. So it’s 2000 bucks. You know what I mean?
Brian Bell (00:32:13): Yeah. So they just go, they’ll just read it for continuity and flow and kind of clean it up.
Glenn Poulos (00:32:18): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve used them for many, many things like the editors on Fiverr and related things, and they are all very good. But I’m just saying like when you see $300, you know, that’s $300 for chapter one, right? Like, and so, but also the cover, you get that from someone else on Fiverr. And then the one really handy one is the person that will put it in a format that you can just upload to Amazon. Because Amazon prints the books for you.
Brian Bell (00:32:44): Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:32:44): And right. They’ll put it on the Kindle.
Brian Bell (00:32:45): So you self-published.
Glenn Poulos (00:32:47): Yeah. Self-published.
Brian Bell (00:32:48): Nice. What are some takeaways from the book? What was the book about?
Glenn Poulos (00:32:52): So the book was 57 factors on building a career in business and sales. And so it’s just 57 random rules that I had learned along the way. I’m happy to share a few with you. Most of them at the beginning are all about sales.
Brian Bell (00:33:05): we’ll cover all 57, but maybe we can cover like a few of the top ones that are differentiated maybe.
Brian Bell (00:33:10): Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:33:11): No problem. I’ll jump right in, in a sec. In the middle, it’s more about rapport. The whole book is mainly about how to get in front of your customers, get act and stay in front of them and be a pleasure to do business with always. Right. Even when you’re losing business. And so it talks about rapport and then, you know, breaks down into like margin and, you know, if there’s no margin, there’s no, there’s no deal. And, you know, so some of the financial aspects of deals when you think you’re selling, but you’re not, uh, And so, you know, the book is called Never Sit in the Lobby. And that’s one of the main rules at the beginning in the sales area, which is when you get to a customer, don’t sit down in the lobby and start getting on your phone, going over the shopping list with your wife because your customer is going to walk out and You know, you’re going to be in the middle of texting your wife and he’s like, oh, are you Glenn? And you’re like, you know, looking all spazzy and it’s just not a good look. Right. And I’m all about not not being not a good look. Right. Everything is not a good look avoidance, in my opinion. So everything you do has to be structured around putting your best foot forward at all times and every impression. is a forever impression. And so they all have to be perfect, right? So I never sit in the lobby, right? And so, well, what do you do if you’re not sitting in the lobby? Well, you show up on time and you announce yourself, right? You always have something in your hand, something in your mind, right? Something to give the person when they come out, something to tell them when they walk out. So there’s no fuddling about what you’re doing, right? Well, what if you arrived, you know, you want to be 15 minutes early? Well, then you sit in your car and you practice the never forget a face rule. So you go through, you go to your phone, look at the customer. Who have I visited here in the last 10 years? And you re-remember every single person’s face in your car. Go to LinkedIn. Remember, you know, Bob’s the tall guy. Jack’s the short guy. Sally’s the redhead. You know, whatever it is you got to remember. And because you’re pulling it from your long-term memory. to your short-term memory, right? And I always equate it to, hey, have you ever gone to your kid’s soccer game? And the couple walks out and says, good, it’s so good to see you.
Brian Bell (00:35:04): And they’re like, oh, how’s the wife? And they know the wife’s name and your two kids’ name. You’re like, who the hell is this?
Glenn Poulos (00:35:09): Like, you know, I don’t remember their name.
Brian Bell (00:35:11): I have that. It happened to me all the time.
Glenn Poulos (00:35:13): Right. And so you can’t avoid it in those situations. But, you know, my wife and I, we have a thing, right, where we always lead within the names and we pull things out to, you know, embarrassment avoidance, right, in those situations. And whenever I show up somewhere, I say, I always use the name, I always use the name. You know, so that I, and, but in work, I re-remember before I, you know, and so, and then, so, and the reason why is because after you have something in your hand, in your mind, you always ask for a mini tour, right? That’s another one of my key rules. And people are like, what are you talking about a mini tour? And I’m like, well, it’s a mini tour because tours take all day and nobody wants to go on a like a four hour tour. So you want to get behind the veil, behind the Wizard of Oz screen and see what the customer’s doing. Because if he’s, it doesn’t matter what your product, service, software, doesn’t matter. He’s using it as his work, at their work, right? You got to get to the situation where they’re using it so you can see the competitors in play. Are you like, is this a Greenfield installation and you got to, level playing field with the competitors or do they always buy ibm and they’re just using you to keep ibm honest because they’ve the last nine systems they bought from ibm right they want to get the price down and you can only do that by getting into where they’re going to set it up right so it’s like hey can i get a little mini tour where you’re going to be using this that or the other thing right and then when you’re walking through the building to get to the mini tour Guess who you’re going to walk by? Jack, Sally and Bob, right? Hey, Bob, Jack, Sally, right? They’re like, oh, I love that Glenn guy. He’s always remembers my name. Such a pleasure to do business with, right? So that’s some of the sales things, you know, then I won’t go into it. rambling on but there’s ones on how to make presentations proper i have a goldilocks principle everything’s the power of three small medium large good better best everything packaged in threes will resonate in people’s minds the best you know my my key presentation is the punch perfect pitch and close so you you punch them and then you perfect pitch them and the perfect pitch is a series of goldilocks principles where you know you tell them what you’re going to tell them Tell them what you told them. You tell them what you’re going to tell them. You tell them and then you tell them what you told them, right? So that’s the first one. You present three points, which you know demonstrate the solution to the problem while you’re there. You don’t show them ancillary things about why your thing is great. You only show them enough to solve their particular problem. And at the end, they usually say, well, how long will it take to get it or how much does it cost, right? That’s the close. They close themselves, right? The punch is sort of what it isn’t is you don’t start with PowerPoint where you’re like, oh, I’d like to show you that we have a factory in Japan with 1,200 people and our head office is in Sweden where we’ve got 4,000 people and 600 engineers. And, oh, I’m asleep. You know, two guys have already checked out permanently or not coming back, right? You want to like either show them a sound, a clip, a state of fact, something that will jostle the reality and wake them up to the, you know, you asked me here to talk about product throughput. We can produce this product 10 times faster than you’re doing it right now. You know what I mean? I’m just making these up just for, you know, demonstration. But a lot of times you want to show them a video of the short clip with good sound where you’re where another customer is enjoying the exact benefit that they are there for. And then just to back up a little bit is that most sales guys show up and they haven’t researched what the customer really does. So they don’t really know what problem they’re solving. And that’s the biggest thing is to learn how your customer makes their money. And so that you can go in at a higher level And and explain to them like, you know, and one of the examples I give just to put it, give it a context is like Xerox. Right. And a lot of people think Xerox makes photocopiers, but they’re actually a bank. Right. They’re a finance company. They don’t make photos. Yeah, they make photocopiers, but that’s not how they make their money. You know, they make their money leasing you photocopiers with ridiculous service contracts and page per pennies per page things. And, you know, it’s not about the photocopier. You know, they have a litany of photocopiers they can offer you, but what they’re doing is selling you four cents a page, nine cents a page, right? Oh, you want service contract? That’s 12 cents a page.
Brian Bell (00:39:18): Unlimited, right?
Glenn Poulos (00:39:19): Oh, you want to buy this machine? No problem. We’ll finance those for you, you know, at X percent interest and whatever, right? If you go into Xerox thinking that they’re a photocopier company and that it’s all about that, you’re missing the window because the people that sign the checks at the top, they own a finance company. That’s what they’re, right? So you want to learn that about your customer. And so there’s a bunch of talk about that. And then there’s more fun things like where to sit at dinner, what to order, how not to embarrass yourself at dinner with clients, things like that.
Brian Bell (00:39:53): Yeah, tell us more about dinner. I’d love to hear it. Some of the advice that you’ve.
Glenn Poulos (00:39:57): So some of it’s what not to do. Right. So, and of course you learn these in our way. Right. And so one of them is like, you’re going to dinner with the client. Like, where do you sit? Right. It’s like six people. And so I’m like, where are you going to sit? Right. When are you going to show up? Right.
Brian Bell (00:40:12): One, you got to be the first one on one side of the table, probably for me, right? Is that is that right?
Brian Bell (00:40:17): I can talk to everybody at the table.
Glenn Poulos (00:40:19): Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And most people, most people try to like, navigate towards an important person. Right. But like, for instance, Maybe the CEO’s at the head of the table, so they try to get beside him. But he’s boring, quiet, and preoccupied. And the guy beside you or where you kind of get jostled into is also boring and ineffectual on the deal. And you can’t communicate with the guys down at the end that are having this massive conversation, right? And so you want to be back to the wall so you can see out and everything, nothing behind you to distract you, in dead center if possible, and you control the entire table, right? And I always caution people to be careful what they order, right? Because it says something about you. And it was really more of just pick something that’s middle of the road or that’s...
Brian Bell (00:41:08): Your steak and potatoes kind of thing, like just pretty average.
Glenn Poulos (00:41:10): Exactly. Yeah, the salmon with such and such, right? Maybe you’re kind of like parroting in a way what the customers are doing, but don’t do what I call the Quigley factor, right? A lot of them are called factors, right? The Quigley factor is where you go in, you open up the menu and you go whatever’s the most expensive that’s what you’re ordering even if it’s steak tartare you know with liver guts of a you know the the bubble fish or whatever right like that’s what you’re ordering because it’s the most expensive you start with the most expensive scotch you know you know then you get the most expensive appetizer then you order the steak tartare you know and then at the end you have an irish coffee and the most expensive and And a lot of people do these things, right? And again, I’m appealing to salespeople, not the customer, right? If the customer wants to order steak tart tart, go ahead. I don’t care. You’re demonstrating how you behave in front of the customer. If the customer sees you ordering the most expensive things or whatever, he might consider you a bragger or whatever. And if you’re with your boss... And you’re trying to tell them something.
Brian Bell (00:42:15): So now they’re thinking like, well... I’m paying for that.
Glenn Poulos (00:42:20): Exactly. So he’s like, don’t do a Quigley. Don’t do the Quigley. And so these rules over time, they all have names, right? And so you communicate to your coworkers in a code, in a language that no one understands, right? You know, and like one is, you know, like do the Barry Watson, right? And so the Barry Watson, yeah, that’s like a purchasing methodology that you end up using where, and of course, this is not rocket science, right? Like all my stuff is basic, right? is where the specific Barry Watson is, you know, you get a nice huge order from your customer, right? Let’s say it’s like $100,000 system or whatever. And, you know, maybe you make, you know, 20 points on it or something, right? So you’re buying it for like approximately 80K, right?
Brian Bell (00:43:11): Plus or minus.
Glenn Poulos (00:43:13): You got to know the difference between margin and markup, but nonetheless, but you call the vendor and you say, you’ve already got the PO in your hand, right? Right. You already have the order, but he doesn’t know that, right? You’re like, man, we’re down to the wire. IBM’s in there. They are grinding it. Do you think you can get the 80 down to 75? Maybe pull in the lead time a bit, move it up in the delivery chain. If I can get it at 75, I’m convinced I can get an order in the next day, right? Okay, fine. But it’s only good to the end of this week, right? 75, boom, you just made five extra points on the deal. That’s the Barry Watson, right?
Brian Bell (00:43:49): And of course, when you’re doing- Who is Barry Watson? Where does this come from?
Glenn Poulos (00:43:53): Barry Watson is the guy that taught me how to do it.
Brian Bell (00:43:56): Nice, nice. All right.
Glenn Poulos (00:43:57): Right now, of course, you don’t always get to do it because a lot of your vendors, you have set pricing and it just is what it is. We got to understand that the margins at the manufacturing level are massive compared to a distributor. And I’ve always worked for distributors. For me, the difference between 20 and 22 points is huge, right? They’re making 50 and 60 and 70 points margin. So, you know, And it’s not, I don’t find it to be ethically, you know, you don’t want to, you don’t want to be, you know, like a crook about it, but you know, there are times where it makes sense.
Brian Bell (00:44:30): And you are a middleman, like in this equation. And this goes out to like, if you’re a value added reseller and you’re selling Microsoft or Google products or whatever, you’re, you’re in the middle. Right. And, and.
Glenn Poulos (00:44:40): Exactly. You gotta, you gotta. How are you can get it? Yeah. Yeah. So and there’s a bunch of talk in there about, you know, just how not to be getting abused by your customers. Right. Like you got to understand that you’re a human being with the exact same human value that they have. Right. And yeah, there’s certain statures and whatever. And, you know, meet the CEO and I get all that. But still, you know, they’re not a better person than you. right so your time is just as valuable as theirs especially when you’re saving them time and money and whatever right you know maybe bringing them a solution they never thought of you know and then the other part there’s things in the book and and stories that i explain about how i used to find bitch go work on trying to find business for my customers and so and then you create this incredible reciprocity angle that kicks in on them that that’s hard for them and they have they can’t they have to, you know, alleviate the feeling of reciprocity by finding you some business at their company, right? It’s like, you know, they sell, you know, widgets of some sort. You’re somewhere and you think, oh my God, they could buy widgets. I’m going to call the vice president of sales of my customer who I want to sell my widgets to and get him a deal for widgets, right? And he ends up calling the VP of engineering and gets you a meeting you could never get. So if you find business for your customers, then you become a partner, right? And there’s a great story in there of where it was like just a perfect circle of love where I was finding customers, business, customers, business, and came all full circle and it ended up being extremely profitable for everybody.
Brian Bell (00:46:12): Yeah, I mean, amazing. I have to go read the book now or recommend it to all my founders. There’s just so much sales wisdom that you’ve accumulated over decades. Any other final stories or rules from that book you want to highlight for founders listening?
Glenn Poulos (00:46:27): You know, the one I kind of touched on it a little bit, but the one, anyone that’s, you know, especially starting out or whatever, I always like to end with this, you know, one of the chapters called you only get forever to make another impression. And even to this day, every minute of my job in sales since 1985, this rule It proves itself out, right? And the thing is, is like your mom taught you always make a good first impression, right? And that’s the basis of a relationship that carries on over time. But what she didn’t tell you was, was that you have to, at work, your career is at stake, you have to treat every impression like a first impression. And what ends up happening is, is that, you know, the boss walks in and he walks by two different people, right? Jack, who he sees on Instagram, all tabbing over to the CRM as he’s walking by because he heard his footsteps, right? And Sally, right? Who’s either pounding the phone or Or she’s saying to the CEO, hey, can you remind me of that such and such when we got such and such or whatever? And I got this crazy deal. It’s going to be outstanding, right? And then a week later, the CEO walks by. Now he’s on Facebook in the alt tabs over to the CRM. Guess what? Sally’s on the phone again. Then all of a sudden comes time where they need to pick a senior sales rep to handle the IBM account.
Brian Bell (00:47:45): The new territory or whatever, the new big account.
Glenn Poulos (00:47:47): Right. And then you say to yourself when you read these stories or hear these like these clips on Instagram where it says like Jack started as the tow motor operator in the warehouse and now he’s the CEO 40 years later.
Brian Bell (00:48:01): How did he do that?
Glenn Poulos (00:48:02): Because everything that he did was a first impression. He treated every impression like a first impression. And I just tell people, wherever you’re at, look in your company and figure out who you need to kill to get to the top spot. That’s your job, right? And how do you take them out? Most of them get taken out by attrition, but some of them you need to trip in the hallway or whatever, right? And of course, I’m trying to be funny so that the stories resonate and stick, right? But that’s really what it’s all about. Like, how do you get from here to here to here to here to here, right? And you got to impression your way there. You know, you start as salesman, sales manager, district manager, vice president of sales, you know, chief revenue officer, you know, and then executive vice president and then CEO, right? And you got to figure out who to take out on the way and you got to do better than them, right?
Brian Bell (00:48:52): Yeah, and that works internally and externally too with your competition, right? Because you’re out there pitching your product or service. to customers, and it’s all the little micro-impressions that make an impact.
Glenn Poulos (00:49:05): Yeah, and just the final piece of that, because a lot of people at the end say, well, how do I do that, and whatever. And I’m like, well, one, always be engaging with those people whenever possible, but two, One of the golden ways of doing it is if you’re ever involved in the trade show aspect of your company’s business, a lot of times you get dragged to a trade show, right? And it is a bit of a grind. So it’s really difficult, but the win out of this is amazing if you can, because most people show up and there’s lulls in it, right? And everyone starts complaining and whining and their feet are sore and they, They want to sit down and they sneak out of the booth. They don’t come back for two hours, right? So when you go to the booth, you want to, first of all, you want to go there early and help everyone, whoever it is set up every time. And you always want to be there on the last day and help them tear down. Never leave early and never come late, right? Now, if you’re being flown in or whatever, you know, obviously you got to adjust. But what I’m saying is if you can be there to help set up, set up. If you can be there to tear down, tear down. Right. That’s one. While you’re there, don’t leave the booth. Right. Except to go get your food, eat and come back. Right. Reasonable. Go to the bathroom. Come back. Never sit in the booth. Right. Always try to stand in the booth. If it’s slow. Go in the hall.
Brian Bell (00:50:14): Go in the aisle. Pull them out.
Glenn Poulos (00:50:17): Pull them in. Pull them in. And when there’s no one in the aisle to pull in, look in your booth because a lot of times they fly the VP of the divisions in to show them off at the trade shows. You interview each one of the VP. You’re the VP of this department. What makes your stuff so great? How do I sell it? What are the five things I know in order to kill this product out in the industry, right? And at the end, what ends up happening is some months later, they reflect on that. guy that was in the booth it was just unbelievable right and you end up seeing it all the time I mean I still obviously I still do trade shows and whatever and I have guys that come in and I have guys that sneak off and guys that are in the in the hall in the aisle pulling people in you know so I know who’s getting a promotion and I know who you know might be questionable or whatever right.
Brian Bell (00:51:01): I guess the question is, for founders listening out there, founders are going to do all this naturally. They’re selling their own book, right? They’re creating the company and they’re out there doing founder-led sales. For sales leaders listening out there and founders listening out there that are managing their sales teams, how do you create that level of motivation for your team members?
Glenn Poulos (00:51:19): Well, I mean, one is you have to set the core values of the business that you want people to, you know, so you need to make those things part of the core values. And the core values need to reflect that behavior that you want. And then you need to hire, fire, train, motivate, bonus. and otherwise along the lines of your core values. You need to be calling them out at all times. All bonuses need to reflect a core value and there needs to be core value violation call outs as well, right? And even if it’s your top dog, but he violates all the core values, Then he becomes like, you know, an enemy, they call him in the EOS system, right? Where he’s he’s yeah, he sells the most, but he’s drags down the corporate culture because he never follows any of the rules. Right. You got to let that guy go. It’s hard as it is because he has to be they have to be above the line on all your core values or par at even keel, but they can’t be below the line. They can’t detract. Right, exactly. And so to me, it always boils down to that and your core values and setting the thing and making sure you’re rewarding people for it and then they do people always do what you pay them for right like they gain the system and whatever you pay however you pay them they figure out that to do whatever’s needed to maximize the pay for that so you need to structure your
Brian Bell (00:52:33): incentives and outcomes again there it is again exactly so you need to structure the incentives to get the outcomes you want yeah and the incentives exactly aligned to your to your values not just the right the bottom line revenue that you brought in
Glenn Poulos (00:52:45): Yeah. Yeah. Like don’t have things like Christmas bonuses, right? Like the bonuses need to be tied to specific things because everyone’s like, oh, well, where’s my Christmas bonus? Like every year I get a Christmas bonus.
Brian Bell (00:52:57): It’s like the National Olympian Christmas Vacation.
Brian Bell (00:53:01): Exactly. Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:53:03): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the pool, right? Or is it a swimming pool?
Brian Bell (00:53:07): One of my favorite Christmas movies, yeah.
Glenn Poulos (00:53:08): Exactly. Exactly.
Brian Bell (00:53:10): He’s expecting it, right? It’s going to come, right?
Glenn Poulos (00:53:12): He’s already bought the pool. I literally had a guy in my company that literally bought the pool. And it wasn’t for the Christmas bonus, but it was for profit sharing. And it was a mathematical, the profit sharing thing was kind of mathematical or whatever. And he ended up making out okay or whatever. But I’m like, who does that? Like, oh, well, I’m going to get profit sharing. How do you know?
Brian Bell (00:53:35): It’s nine months from now.
Brian Bell (00:53:36): right? What’s next for you? Looking forward five or 10 years. I mean, you got the gray hair. Are you selling your firm pretty soon? What’s next for you?
Glenn Poulos (00:53:45): Well, not soon. I mean, probably three years or something like that, maybe three to five years. And I also have like five kids and they’re at that age where, you know, first they worry you to death and then they just try to milk you to death for like, you know, the older they get, the more,
Brian Bell (00:53:59): the bigger the problems are. As your kids get older, because I feel like I grew up poor and had to work for everything I had. Right. And so I just have like a fire in my belly kind of thing or a chip on my shoulder. Yeah. My kids are growing up upper middle class and I worry about that. How do I feel like a fire in their belly?
Glenn Poulos (00:54:16): You know, I don’t really know. I’m not sure I have a good answer for you, but I mean, I, you know, Like, for me, I don’t just hand out money or anything like that. So there’s definitely an accountability. But what I’m saying is, like, you know, there’s enough people in my downline that I have to support that I want to make sure I have enough, right? When I sell the business or whatever, I also, you know, my pastimes are, I have French bulldogs, right? So I’m always with my dogs and they’re at doggy daycare today, but normally they’re here with me. And then also I’m a, what’s called a charity DJ, right? And they’re like, what’s a charity DJ, right? And it’s like a mini tour, right? It’s like a tour that’s mini, right? Well, a charity DJ is a DJ that doesn’t cost a lot and charities love to hire them, right? And so, and this is mainly in Canada and I still go back and forth. And so I’m now down to, you know, six to 10 gigs per year, but now I can be selective. And these nonprofits in Toronto are aware of me and they hire me year in, year out to do these large events for them because I charge them the price of the gear, the insurance, the transportation, plus a small fee. And they’re saving thousands of dollars sometimes on these events. and I get to play events with 1200 people. I bring in the big gears, the big lights, play with my stuff, you know, and I have crowds that are enthusiastic and, and it’s fun. And I love doing that. Right.
Brian Bell (00:55:39): So I’m trying to figure out, gets the people going as a DJ. Like what’s the one where you’re like, I’m pulling this one out. This is it.
Glenn Poulos (00:55:46): One of the genres that’s the best is to go back to the disco genre and play a few of the Bee Gees songs, September, YMCA, and whatever. Then there’s a few rock songs like a couple of ACDC tracks and Mone Mone. And, you know, you got to move through the different genres or whatever.
Brian Bell (00:56:05): And kind of see where the where the crowd’s kind of vibing. Are they vibing more with the 80s or the 90s? And like and you kind of figure it out.
Glenn Poulos (00:56:11): Right. Yeah. And then there’s like the whole like Avicii and, you know, and stuff like that. you know, EDM kind of songs where there’s a basket of those that never, never fail. Yeah. And so now there’s just so many genres, but with streaming and all the services that I have access to, like Tidal, and I can there’s no song that can be unplayed. If it exists, I can download it in real time.
Brian Bell (00:56:37): Anybody who walks up and says, hey, can you do this song that you’ve never heard of? You can go find it and go listen to it real quick. Yeah, I can see that vibes. I can mix that in a bit. Especially if it’s the bride and groom coming over or something like that.
Glenn Poulos (00:56:53): Exactly. Yeah. Well, those you have to play if it’s the bride and groom and there’s no negotiation involved. Everyone else, it’s negotiable. But as long as it’s danceable and can be fit in somewhere, I try to play 100% of the requests. That’s fun. end right like they got the request and you know and this and then it creates this uh that’s how you get more gigs right like a lot of people come and go they don’t ask you for anything they don’t leave but they don’t say anything but the a lot of people say you’re so great i’m gonna pass your name on to so-and-so or you know and yeah so i might might do some of that in florida but i’m probably not going to start any more companies or anything like that this one does take up a lot of my time and mental energy and Being back out of the private, under the sphere of the private equity in a small business and doing things and putting in new software systems and new marketing ideas and learning some of the new things that are out there and the tools. I’m geeked out on that stuff and it’s fun, but I won’t need to do it a fourth time. And the one difference about this one as well is that I’m doing it by myself, right? So the buck kind of begins and ends here. no co-founders. I don’t have to divide the number by anything at the end, but I don’t have anyone to cry with when times are tough. And most people can’t really relate to the... It’s just like when your own kid’s in trouble, like your teenager or whatever, people can relate a little bit, but truly practice. I talk about empathy a lot in the book. They have struggle to practice empathy, right? They can practice sympathy and
Brian Bell (00:58:28): Unless you’ve gone through that experience, you just don’t have the empathy there. Yeah. Because you can’t really feel what I’m feeling. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I love it. Well, let’s wrap up with some rapid fire. And speaking of AI and geeking out, like, how do you see AI impacting your business and sales generally?
Glenn Poulos (00:58:43): So for me, it’s a productivity enhancement, not a replacement. I haven’t been able to get any of the auto dialers or any of that like in appointment centers to work, my customers are way too technical and they get glitched out or whatever, but we use it to create a million campaign ideas that I have people in the Philippines making calls for me. I have inside sales that make follow-up calls, then outside sales, you know, and so, they were constantly looking for ways in and looking for names and titles. And so I use an AI search like seamless AI and cognizant and, you know, those things to find the names and numbers and, and then find other ways and other departments I didn’t think of, you know, so it constantly think it amplifies your, your creative thinking. Right. And the, but it doesn’t replace my, none of my sales stacks been replaced by any AI people. And I use it to analyze all sorts of agreements. written or otherwise right is there anything like large peels with 12 pages of terms i can upload it now to ai and they can it can say oh there’s a very strict liability clause in there you need to take a look at or it’s general boilerplate whatever it can come up with different ways of spinning your margin analysis model so i use it for every department to figure out all the different ways i can attack things and how or how i should feel about things right yeah you know most times i just drag emails in and i say hey how should i feel about this right and it’s like well that’s pretty thing you should be pissed off or you know or whatever this or that you know do you want to you know i can give you like a cordial version i can give you a stuff version or a nasty version what do you want right and you know you got to tweak it all and whatever right and so uh and a lot of things where it’s super handy for me as well as like the finance department is not my number one specialty like i’m not a geeky finance guy and cashflow and this and that and you can just dump all of your finance information in there and say can you help me with the cashflow you know can you make any recommendations and it analyzes things i would never even think of you know and uh you know and it brings out you know warnings and stuff like that so i use it as to amplify my productivity in all departments so i mean it’s amazing we use it for the graphics enhancements for the social media we use it for the content it doesn’t write the whole content because people can tell but it gives us like give me 30 ideas for the month right and then we we we negotiate with it on who’s how much it’s going to write how much we’ll write and I could never think of 30 ideas in a reasonable amount of time, right?
Brian Bell (01:01:04): So what’s your take or sharpest take on why so many founders and companies with great products end up losing the market?
Glenn Poulos (01:01:11): So I think, I guess I would probably say that it’s, they become complacent, right? And complacency breeds contempt and in both directions, right? If you’re being complacent, people feel it and they become contemptuous of you and vice versa, getting in deep with their customers, right? Oh, we can do it all remotely. And we’re moving from a direct model to a zoom model. And, you know, we’re shipping the demos in. And one of the rules at the front of the book has never shipped the ship and never fax the facts, right? So, And that’s a rule we practice to this day, right? So let’s say they want to see a demo, right? Unless it’s geographically unavailable, we will deliver the demo. It’s a company policy, right? We have to deliver it, set it up, plug it in and make sure you know how to work it before we’re going to leave it. Right. And then if they want a data sheet, we drop it off. We don’t fax the fax. We hand deliver them because guess what? We can do it in the lobby. Now we got something in our hand, something in our mind. Right. So it’s a way to get in front of the customer. And so you can figure out.
Brian Bell (01:02:07): I’ll drop that off Tuesday too. I’ll drop that off for you. Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (01:02:10): Exactly. I’m going to be in the area, right? Now you know you’re going to be at that company. Then you phone everyone else at that company and say, I’m going to be in your building. Jack’s dying to see that new product. Can I get 10 minutes with you while I’m in the building? Okay, sure. I’m a bit busy, but okay. And so then you’re there. You get Jack to drop him off at Saladon. Sally’s desk. And then you ask Sally, say, Sally, I’ve been trying to see that engineering dude. Can you, you know, can you walk me past him and introduce me so I can maybe get an appointment? No problem. I know him. I have lunch every day, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Right. And so, and then whatever they ask you for, you say, well, I’ll bring it back next week when I’m back in the area.
Brian Bell (01:02:42): Never lose an opportunity to make a human connection is another way of kind of phrasing that.
Glenn Poulos (01:02:47): Yeah. So people, people stop doing that and they’re like, Oh, everything you do, you can do remotely. And I mean, not my stuff because like I say, well, Oh, okay, great. Well, you’re so successful. You get a private jet. So can I take you on a virtual test flight of your jet and you’re going to buy it? Or do you actually want to go for a flight? Right. Everything can’t be sold virtually. Right. And so it doesn’t matter if it’s a $50 million jet or a system or a 5k, whatever you have to, everything has to be handled appropriately. Right. And, um, never lose an opportunity to get in front of the customer.
Brian Bell (01:03:18): So what, what should a founder measure to know whether their sales motion is healthy beyond revenue?
Glenn Poulos (01:03:23): Well, revenue is one thing, but it’s really what you want to be looking at the gross margin and the trend of the gross margin, right? It’s really more about margin. I tend to look more, obviously I’m going to look at the, you know, operating the profits, the EBITDAs and those sorts of things, but the gross margin and the trend of the gross margin is super important, right? Because everything, first you have your, you know, your revenue and then you have your cost of goods sold, right? And then that becomes gross margin. And then all of your sales and rent and advertising promotion, it all comes out of it. And you can variable and tweak all that, but you can’t really, like if you’re lowering your price and lowering your margin, like you can’t tweak it after the fact, right? It’s immutable or whatever, as they say. And so if your margins are slipping downwards, it’s a really bad thing. Or in some cases you find there’s no margin and you’re like, what the heck? And people are not even paying attention. Because the pricing is more obscure the way the cost of goods is derived and one end is not talking to the other. And it’s like, you’re selling it for 120 grand, but your cost is 130 grand or whatever. And I’ve seen many times in talking to friends and acquaintances and whatever with business where they’re not even aware of what their gross margin is. Or they realize that it’s 3% or something. I’m like, well, that’s why you’re broke. So I would watch the gross margin.
Brian Bell (01:04:44): What’s the best negotiation lesson you’ve learned from a deal you almost lost?
Glenn Poulos (01:04:49): Well, there’s so many lessons. It’s like whatever pops in my brain at that moment, right? I’m not saying these things are the best, right? And there’s ones in the book like The Tenacious Takeaway, and I have names for all of them or whatever, right? I’m sorry, I’ve decided I can’t sell it to you. And no, it’s too much product for you. You can’t have it. right so it all really depends on the the moment and what what you’re playing with right and so because sometimes they want a better price but you know you’re never getting the deal because they’re buying the competitor or those kind of things right so you don’t want to be too attached to the outcome i mean that’s and you have to be strong enough to do the difficult things and one of my favorite sayings that’s in the book is freedom begins with no right and you’re like what’s that mean freedom begins with no and i’m like well you know your boss you cook up a deal with the boss you get this great price great delivery whatever you present it and you know you’re going in to get the deal and the guy says oh i just need another 3% you know and you’re 40 minutes from the office and the boss thinks you’re going to get the po and you’re like oh well maybe i can talk to my boss and see what i can do but you know it’s going to be tough and you go back to your boss you’re worrying the whole way back you said yes right yes i will try right so your freedom is not there’s no freedom it’s pure terror your boss reams you out when you get back we already gave the best price you stupid right you just say well sir like we had a long negotiation and my understanding is you guys need this installed in eight weeks you know that our production cycle begins next week we don’t have the deal by friday we won’t miss your start time and i mean we’ve already come forward with our best price so i’m not going to be able to do anything on the price
Brian Bell (01:06:32): And if you don’t buy it now, you ain’t getting it.
Glenn Poulos (01:06:34): One of the ways I explain it to people is the concept of, you know, and I grew up in Canada and we used to have this thing where, you know, someone would say to you, oh, do you want to go to the movies tonight? And I’d say no. And they’re like, well, why not? I will say, well, I can’t afford it. You know, in Canada, that means no, I ain’t never going to get the money. No one’s giving me the money. I’m never going to have the money. Shut up and stop asking. Right. Like, it’s just a thing in Canada when you say I can’t afford it. There’s no more discussion. right like it’s it is what it is right so it’s like saying no i can’t afford it you’re now free you’re not going to the movies they’re not going to ask you they’re going to go to the movies they’re not going to like hate you for it or whatever right freedom begins when you say no everything else requires you to do a bunch of work right so when you’re negotiating just say no my mom and my grandma are canadian
Brian Bell (01:07:18): and i’m i’m listening to them now say we can’t afford it in my head like so many times as a as a child you know and now i know culturally that meant like no this is end of conversation
Brian Bell (01:07:31): exactly but like for a child like me you know growing up and i grew up in seattle i was like that’s the opening point of negotiation right yeah
Glenn Poulos (01:07:40): Yeah. Not in Canada.
Brian Bell (01:07:42): Yeah. That’s so funny. I just use it kind of as an example. Right. And what’s a belief about selling that you held pretty strongly and then you reversed over time or recently?
Glenn Poulos (01:07:50): Well, I used to think, you know, that working harder would fix this, would fix the problem. More hours, more pressure, more control, you know, and I kind of thought that was the key.
Brian Bell (01:07:59): More calls, more calls, more everything.
Glenn Poulos (01:08:01): Yeah. And now, now it sort of boils down to more like clarity. Right. And sometimes rest beats panic. Right. Like taking a breath, thinking about it, formulating, you know, and, you know, and also I have sayings like trust beats control, you know, and most problems solve themselves by doing nothing and just waiting.
Brian Bell (01:08:21): Right. Like.
Glenn Poulos (01:08:22): You know, there’s actually a saying, I can’t remember it off the top of my head, but you know, like 99% of all problems that you worry about never occur, right?
Brian Bell (01:08:29): Yeah, your inbox will be full. Die is a phrase that I’ve heard. And then, you know, yeah, I mean, you wait long enough. I mean, you’ll have the heat death of the solar system, right? The sun’s going to wait long enough. And this will happen on vacation a lot. Like you’ll come back from a week or two week vacation and you’ll see this problem flare up while you’re gone and get solved without you. Because you just were away from your email. You just didn’t check. Right. You have your vacation responder on.
Brian Bell (01:08:58): Yeah.
Glenn Poulos (01:08:59): So you want to perpetually procrastinate on those things. Right. Until they solve themselves. Right. And I mean, if somebody asks you three times for something, you have to pay attention. But a lot of times they never come back after the first request. Right. And so. You know, but if someone, you know, like a customer says, you know, my screen’s broken once or, you know, I mean, if it’s that I’d fix it right away, but that’s not a good example. But sometimes things come and then they never come back. They were looking for a freebie or some other kind of issue or whatever, and they just solve themselves. But if they ask for it three times, you know, there’s probably a serious, something you need to pay attention to. Right.
Brian Bell (01:09:32): So. All right. Last question. What do you want your legacy to be?
Glenn Poulos (01:09:34): Well, in business, it was that I’m very passionate about being a pleasure to do business with. Right. And I built my last company on that, on that with the DNA from the, from the ground up. Right. And I can give you some examples if you need them, what that means. Right. And, but also, so now I came into a 20 year old company that I’m not saying that they weren’t a pleasure to do business with, but now I’m trying to like recreate it in a 20 year old business. And I feel myself getting there and having, having an impact on it. And I, you know, and I just want my legacy to be that with most people, I left them better than when I found them, you know, and that’s pretty much it.
Brian Bell (01:10:08): Love it. Well, Glenn, I learned a lot. Thanks for sharing all your stories and wisdom with us. The book is Never Fit in the Lobby. Please go check it out. I know I will. I learned a ton. Thanks for coming on.
Brian Bell (01:10:19): Awesome. Thanks, Brian.
