Consistent Growth Beats Raw Talent ALL DAY

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Roger Marino

Rick on CBS

 

Episode Topics:

• Finding the best decision to make in your career
• Acquiring businesses
• Hockey to Business ownership 
• When you lose a client
• Self awareness and Humbleness to Learn
• Sobriety and what it heals

 

Rick Jordan:

What’s shakin’! Welcome back today. We’re going all in. My guest today is founder and CEO of shift group, a sales and marketing and training firm that specializes in helping college professional and Olympic athletes transition into the world of technology sales. If you know anything about me, you’ve been following me for a while. That’s literally like my job, right, is technology sales. It’s not just selling stuff and all that sits selling yourself, selling your company, selling the services, selling the outcome is what I do day in and day out to investors, to clients. All of those things. I am excited to welcome Jr. Butler. What’s shaken Jr. 

JR Butler:

Rick, pumped to be here.

 

Rick Jordan:

Same here, you know, and as I was reading through who you are and what you’ve done, right, you going from a series, a startup to a $2 billion acquisition by IBM is pretty freaking impressive. Man. Tell me a little bit about that. 

JR Butler:

It was, uh, it was an awesome ride. I, I think you know, anybody with success that doesn’t tell you, there’s a little bit, a lot of luck involved I think is, is full of crap personally. You know, I, I, uh, I remember very vividly. I was, I was a reseller. I started my sales career kind of as a value added reseller. And I actually ran into this company as a customer and my customer did a demo for me because I was kind of, you know, he knew I was looking for something and I had a startup bug. He showed me a demo of the product at the time, the company was really, really tiny, really early on the revenue side. And as soon as he explained it to me, from his perspective as a customer, I was like, I want to join. I need to join that company. So that’s how I kind of found out about it. I, I, I got in touch with the CEO and, uh, I was there three months later, it was the best decision I ever made in my career. 

 

Rick Jordan:

That’s awesome, man. That’s a wild ride too, going from literally nothing up to a multi-billion dollar valuation or acquisition. That’s incredible. That’s like what dreams are made of, you know, how did you in that process, right? I’m sure you probably had this, you know, somewhere along the way, and I’m saying this because I can relate to this. A lot of people do you get to a moment like last week just completed an acquisition, the first of our public company, and as I’m standing there right at this happy hour with my, my many dozens of new employees from this acquisition, I’m looking around and I’m like, in a moment, I’m like, man, I need to soak this in right now. Right? Because the public company has, has revenue. It has, it has assets. Now it has people, which is really awesome. And, but getting to that point, it’s like, even in that moment, because of that, it’s like, how the heck is this me? That’s doing this right. Did you ever ask yourself that question? <laugh> 

JR Butler:

Oh, all, all the time. I mean, I think, you know, imposter syndrome is definitely a real thing and I definitely, you know, know we, we were, we were signing up some of the biggest logos literally in the world, like, you know, famous CIOs, famous it organizations with multi-billion dollar budgets, you know, closing deals from the first meeting to PO and under six months. And I was just like, this is, this is unbelievable. But you know, you gotta, as a sales guy, you gotta kind of remind yourself. Um, you know, and I grew up in the EMC kind of era in Boston and there was a saying at EMC, uh, Roger Marino used to say, Hey, it’s the product stupid. So you gotta remind yourself as, as a sales guy, don’t let your head get too big at the end of the day, you know, you’re a big part of it. The customer’s buying a product and we just had a great product. So that was kind of like my, my down, back to earth moment. 

 

 

Rick Jordan:

That’s important. It really is important that you have a good product because nobody would get behind what I’m doing right now. If it wasn’t actually something that worked, you know, I mean, they, they back me of course, and the early investors would back me because they would believe in the vision. But if the vision itself was crap, right, <laugh> they, they believed in me to execute it. But if the vision itself was crap, the product is crap. There’s no way that you can do that. You know, I, I always had a hard, tough time selling because prior to this, you know, I wrote the sales playbook for best buy for B2B when they were trying to be a VAR. And I, I, I trained that out to all of their business technology consultants that they called them. It’s like, this is how you sell. This is how you sell as a VAR, because Best Buy’s trying to become this thing, but they couldn’t understand it. And some of the stuff was just garbage. Right. And, and I stopped and I would tell ’em like, don’t sell this, sell that because this other stuff I don’t even believe in, I can’t train you how to sell something that I don’t even believe in 

JR Butler:

A hundred percent, that belief in the product, I think is usually the difference maker between success and, and, and, you know, mediocrity when it comes to sales people. In my opinion, 

Rick Jordan:

No dumb man. How long ago was that with IBM with the acquisition by IBM. 

JR Butler:

They purchased us on 20, 21, early 20, 21. 

Rick Jordan:

So very recent then. Yeah. Within the last, yeah. Yeah. 

JR Butler:

About like little less than two years ago, 

Rick Jordan:

Dude. How did you go from division one hockey to this? <laugh> 

JR Butler:

<laugh> 

Rick Jordan:

I saw that in there too, bro. It’s like playing division one hockey for the, you know, at Holy Cross in central Massachusetts where you grew up, but man, how, how are the world? Did you go from hockey to tech? <laugh> 

JR Butler:

A recurring theme. I think in my life, Rick is lucky and this is no different. I literally was at a bar after a men’s league hockey game and I was gonna go to law school. Literally. I was gonna take the summer off to study for an LSAT, take it. And I met a guy who owned a VAR in my hometown, you know, and he knew me from hockey and he was like, he’s like, dude, you know, technology’s the future Jr. He’s like, you know, you can go to law school and, you know, put in a lot of hours. He goes, if you come work for me, and this is at the beginning of kind of like virtualization, you know, um, rise. He’s like, I guarantee you can make, you know, quarter, quarter million dollars within three years. And I think ultimately for me, I wanted to make a lot of money. And my, my parents, you know, we’re both kind of sales people. So I understood that you could make a lot of money selling. So I said, screw it. I said, instead of studying for the LSA this summer, I’ll try this and I can tell you, on my third day I walked into his office and I told him, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Like I knew immediately, you know what I 

Rick Jordan:

That’s awesome, man, when those things cross your path to the things that you just don’t plan on it, right. U usually there’s something that you’ve done. Right. And it could, it could blindside you as far as where it comes from, like going from hockey to tech, right. Or, or hockey to sales. But there had to have been something, I mean, if you were in hockey, there had to have been something that you started preparing yourself mentally for in order to have this opportunity come across. Were you even ready to say yes to it? Right. Cause you could, could have easily said no, but what, what was your mindset at that time, man, to be like, all right, I’m just gonna say yes to this thing. 

JR Butler:

I think generally, um, you know, I, I want, I knew I wanted to bet on myself, right? Like when you talk about experience that kind of led you there, you know, I wasn’t like a highly touted recruit. I essentially, you know, basically worked my way into a division one spot on a roster. Um, and I think for me picking something in my career where it was like, I wanted to be accountable to myself and like to rely on what I could produce to be successful. And I, I kind of saw that in law too, but with sales it’s like, it hits you right in the face. It’s like what you eat, what you kill and it’s a hundred percent on you. And it’s like really extreme ownership. So I think for me, I’ve always been that kind of accountable person and really self-reliant. I think that foundation is what made the decision pretty easy for me early on. You know what I mean? 

Rick Jordan:

Yeah. Did you, were you always that way or was there something that you went through to make you into that person? 

JR Butler:

I, so I’m the oldest of three boys. Right. And, uh, both my little brothers also played division one hockey. One of my brothers was an Olympian, was an Olympic athlete, and played in the NHL. And I asked my dad a few summers ago. When did you know that Bobby was gonna be in the NHL? And he’s like, I knew when he was seven. So, and my father was a high school hockey coach for like 40 years. So, you know, that created kind of a situation in my household where, naturally, my brother and his like talent is gonna get a little bit more attention. Right. Like no fault to my parents. Like my dad’s a hockey guy and he’s got this, this kid that he knows has a hockey guy is gonna be one of literally one of the best in the world. Yeah. 

Rick Jordan:

He’s got out 

JR Butler:

Right now. So I kinda like, yeah. So I kinda like, you know, I, I was always kind of fending for myself. Like my mom didn’t know that kids got homework until like fourth grade. Cuz when I was in third grade all the way up to third grade, I never asked my mom for help. And then my brother comes home like kindergarten with homework and needs help. And my mom called the teacher and she’s like, Jr never got homework. And the teacher was like, yeah he did. He just did it himself. <laugh> so I think like that was kind of like, I was always kind like, you know, really like on my own and really accountable to myself. That’s kind of how I’ve always been. I think 

Rick Jordan:

That’s cool. And you had to be because you were in the circumstances that you had with your brother, of course, you know, and there’s things that everybody just has natural talent and ability at, you know, and that that’s it’s there, but still, if you just ride that talent, I’m sure your brother still works his ass off right. To, to be that good and, and improve on that. But then there’s other things it’s like where you’ve got that other person. And this was similar to an interesting story like between my brother and I, except the roles were kind of reversed. It’s like I was your brother when it comes to, to business and some other things, you know, to where it’s just like, there’s a lot of things that he had to work his ass off, but it’s like, I’m working off even harder because it’s really cool, man, because you’re the oldest, right? Yep. As you said, and to see somebody with that talent and it’s like, man, you know what, that’s cool. And you can support him as a brother. And then at the same time, be like, I got my own gig over here and I’m secure in this too. 

JR Butler:

Exactly. Exactly. You gotta find, you gotta find a role. Right. You gotta find a role in the locker room. So I found mine. 

Rick Jordan:

Yeah. How, how did that go for you cuz this is, uh, this is difficult to swallow sometimes. You know, when you see somebody, especially somebody that you might be close to and maybe something that you’ve dreamt of for years to where you start to recognize that, you know what, there’s other people that are more talented than me. I look back and I played baseball for nine years, right. Through middle of high school. And I’ve always said, it’s like, I wonder what would’ve happened if I would’ve stuck with it because I was really good, you know, even two weeks ago he was like, well man, you got the frame for it. Like a guy who represents, you know, MLB tale. It was like, you really got the frame for it. I’m like that. That’s great. I don’t know what would’ve happened. But then I see some of these players that are out there like, I don’t think I had that talent. If I’m honest with myself, dude, I don’t think I had that talent to do what that dude just did right now. You know? So it’s that for you in those moments, you know, to come to that realization and awareness, be like I’ve got my own stuff that I can be really, really good at too. Things that are even better than what my brother is. Cause that’s his gig and I got my gig. 

JR Butler:

Yeah. Well I, you know, if I’m being honest, I think at a young, at a younger age, it’s, it’s, it’s hard. Right? Like, you know, uh, that, those emotions show up differently as a 15 year old than they do as a 35 year old. So I think I definitely struggled with a little jealousy and a little bit of anger. Um, but to your point, right? Like nobody is more proud of both my brothers than me, but I think for me, I, I, I found other ways to your point of like, you know, I always excelled in the classroom. Like I always was the center of attention and every, you know, every room I was in. So like to your point, like I found the things that I was good at and I made sure I did those really, really well. And it was probably partially to get my father’s attention, but that turned out to really work out for me in the long run. So I think as I got older that, that jealousy and kind of resentment went away very quickly and, and I really kind of grew to really be comfortable in my own skin and be really proud of what my brothers have accomplished on their own. You know, 

Rick Jordan:

That’s really cool, man, cuz this transitions into the sales realm too. It absolutely does because there’s some people that you can see walk in. Right. I mean, I’ve got a podcast, right. I’m grateful. I’m humble. Cause I just found out about two weeks ago that this show is top two point half percent in the world and it’s global rank, you know, and it’s, it’s mind blowing to me because it’s been four years, you know, but I, I look back and was I good at the beginning of this? It’s like, sure. You know, I had better speaking skills than the majority of people. That’s awesome. But I still look back and it’s like, God, I sucked when I looked at the fur the first year of this. But the thing is that when you, when you look at a business environment or sales and I’m sure you saw this and I wanna hear a story because I’d love to hear a story of somebody falling on their face, right? 

Rick Jordan:

Because this is to encourage everybody else, not you. Maybe it was you, if you look around and you see other people with that talent, I’ve noticed that some will try to just ride that talent rather than putting in the hard work. And those individuals just almost stay right where they’re at, because there’s a limit to how far your raw, pure talent can take you without consistent growth and, and just pushing yourself on top of that. And then the others around you in a sales environment or wherever will continue to work on themselves and then surpass you because they knew that they couldn’t get by just on their talent. They had to develop what you did. You know, not saying that your brother, I’m sure he pushed it really hard. Right. But this is, you’ve seen this around haven’t you to where those are just riding on their talent and stay stagnant. 

JR Butler:

Yeah. A hundred percent like, you know, there’s a lot of kids with their they’re, you know, naturally, you know, intellectually curious, they’re competitive people. Um, you know, I, I, I actually have a story about me falling on my face and realizing that like my personality, my ability to connect with people, wasn’t gonna be what got me to that next kind of echelon of salesperson. I was in a meeting and a guy, a, a, a guy asked me a technical question about a product. We were selling him. And I, and I completely bullshitted Rick. Like I completely was like, yeah, you know, it goes X, Y, and Z. And then, you know, the meeting ended, I thought the meeting went great. And as I was walking out, I said to my CTO, I’m like, Hey, that’s great, they’re gonna be a great customer. Like they’re gonna love us. 

JR Butler:

And he’s like, no, they’re, they’re never calling us back again Jr. And I’m like, why? He’s like, dude, you just completely bullshitted him about power path virtual edition. It was this EMC product we were selling and never again. And, and for, for sure, he was right. We never heard from those guys again, it was a great account, but I screwed up and I never, I said, I’ll never ever make that mistake again. I’ll never just rely on my natural personality skills, my natural ability to connect with people. I’m also gonna become a subject matter expert in whatever I’m selling and I’m gonna be a student of the game and it would never have happened if I didn’t screw up that huge account. Like that was kind of my come to Jesus moment as a salesperson. You know what I mean? 

Rick Jordan:

For sure, man. I appreciate you being that open and transparent and vulnerable with everyone too, cuz it’s a, it’s great to put everything, all your good accolades on when you show up on a show like, like this, you know, I appreciate your vulnerability there. I noticed one of the same things with me cuz I thought about going into pitch TV producers, you know, now it’s five years later and I go on news Mac, ABC, NBC. I was on CBS last week, national, you know, all these places actually call me to be on now. But I remember my first time pitching TV producers and thinking, you know what I speak on stage all the time. No problem. Right. And I didn’t prepare. I had segments because I depended on just my natural oratory skills too, to just bring the energy cuz I’m an energetic individual. 

Rick Jordan:

And I kept getting, I mean, out of like 13 or 14 producers in this thing, it was almost kinda like speed dating with them a little bit. You know, there’s other people like racking up the numbers. Right. And as they’re doing that, they’d get like 12 people, someone got all 14 producers to say yes and invite ’em on. You know, I got four bro. My very first time I kept on getting no after no after no after no. And I, my media coach, was there too. He was like, dude, you’re so fricking robotic. You know? And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t get it. I’m like, and I found out that it was like the transference of that skillset is what I needed to work on. Cuz it was way different talking on stage in front of thousands of people than it was actually talking to one person at that point on Skype. 

Rick Jordan:

This was before zoom took off, right? Like on a, on a camera, on a TV, you know, it was way different, just a different vibe that I had not prepared for. Same thing. I was like, I’m never making that mistake again. And then I went back four months later, just four months after working on that transfer and I nailed all 14, got all 14 producers, but in those moments it’s like, I, I love that we can enjoy. And I say enjoy cuz in the moment they’re bad. Right. But after the fact we can, we can enjoy those moments of suck <laugh> in our life to where it’s like, man, did I really suck? As long as we can look back and say, well, I did something about it. Right. 

JR Butler:

<laugh> Yep. And, and to your point, there are, there are people that go through those lessons and they don’t learn from it. They don’t have the self awareness and the humbleness to be like, I’m wrong and I gotta fix this. Right. So 

Rick Jordan:

I think that’s where they transitioned into victimhood, you know, to work. Totally. I could’ve been like, oh the producers just don’t know. They just don’t get me. You know? Or they, they had the wrong information in front of ’em or, or for you, it’s like, you know what? These just weren’t the right clients to begin with. You know, you can make up so many different excuses, but when you’re looking at everybody, but you, in that moment, you were playing a freaking victim 

JR Butler:

Hundred percent.

 

Rick Jordan:

Dude. I love you for real. <laugh> we’re having a good time today, man. <laugh> hope you’re having fun. We don’t have a lot of time left, but so your brother’s going on to NHL, right? Is he in the NHL right now? 

JR Butler:

No, he’s uh, he retired for a year and a half and he actually came back at 35 and he’s still playing pro hockey, but he’s playing in the east coast hockey league in our hometown in Worcester, mass. So he’s still playing, but uh, not at that level anymore. 

Rick Jordan:

That’s cool. I’m curious. Does your family have a background in hockey? You know, it probably does. And if it does, what does it have to do with your choice of what you’re doing right now and helping athletes transition right into this world of sales? 

JR Butler:

Well, for me, it’s, it’s pretty simple, Rick. I started the company for me, right? Like me, when I was 23 years old, I did not. I like, I wasn’t, I, I struggled. Like I, you know, when you, when you’re an athlete, your entire identity is tied up into this thing because you put so much time, energy, and effort into it. And then one day it doesn’t matter if you’re 23 or 33 or, or, you know, 18 when it happens, it’s just gone. And I think, you know, with athletes specifically, what I try to let them know is like your identity shouldn’t change. You should still be an athlete. You just have to apply all those athletic tendencies that brought you to a division, one scholarship, a professional contract, an Olympic, you know, an Olympic trip, take that and now apply it to this. 

JR Butler:

Don’t change who you are, just change where your focus is and you get to keep all that stuff that makes you who you are. So for me, nobody said that to me, nobody told me that I had to figure it out over a little bit of time. It affected me personally, emotionally, like, you know, I I’ve been sober for a decade, but I, I really went down a dark path with drugs and alcohol until I found this until I, I, I started applying the same focus that I did in athletics to this. And now, you know, my life has changed. And now I wanna bring that to everybody. That’s like me at that age at 23, that’s going through that dark night of the soul moment when the thing they love the most is gone all of a sudden. So that’s really kind of that whole experience is the whole reason I started the company, Rick, to be honest with you, 

Rick Jordan:

That’s powerful, man. You mentioned your, your sobriety and you know, the dark nights of the soul. You think you would be who you are right now without having those moments? 

JR Butler:

No way. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I, you know, people’s talk a lot. I mean, everybody has regrets, but I, I, I don’t think I would change what I went through because I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am today without it. No, no doubt. 

Rick Jordan:

Those hardships are good in a lot of ways where they help mold you into who we are. Some of them, I do feel that the hardships could have been avoided. Right. And they were things that might, we would still be in the same place we are today. And then there’s others. Like what you’re talking about, you’re grateful that you had those, even though at the same time, it’s usually ourselves that causes them regardless. Yeah. You know, you know, almost 100% of the time, it’s usually ourselves that causes those hardships to begin with and then coming through those it’s also us that brings us out of them. 

JR Butler:

Yep. 

Rick Jordan:

That’s the power in that, man. Uh, I commend you brother. You’re amazing, dude. What’s next for you? You know, where do you see this kind, this amazing venture? You’re ongoing 

JR Butler:

Where, I mean, so my, my belief is that athletes are a great fit for sales. I grew up in tech sales and software sales. So we’re gonna build as big a business as we can in this space. And then we want to expand it into other sales industries. We wanna, we want to help people break into medical devices. We want to help people break into, you know, financial services, sales and insurance sales and you know, pharmaceutical sales. So our vision for the company is really like being the, a, any athlete that wants to transition into sales. We hope the first thing they think about is the shift group. That’s our goal. 

Rick Jordan:

That’s so awesome, man. I appreciate that, dude. You’re amazing hearing your story has just been incredible for me. It inspired me today, dude. Thanks for coming on and going all in. 

JR Butler:

Thanks for having me, Rick. Keep it up, buddy. This is awesome.