Jack Daly, author and sales genius, says he was formally educated as an Accountant but did his real learning as a 13 year old when he worked as a caddy at a local private country club.
Daly says it didn’t take him long to realize that the people he was caddying for every weekend all had nice cars, big homes with pools, and a lifestyle far better than what his own parents had.
Daly said he saw this an opportunity to learn from these very successful people. He said he spent the hours caddying peppering the customers with questions: “How did you become more successful than most people? What did you do differently? What would you not do again? What would you tell a 13 year old who wanted to be successful in life?”
Daly says that he learned you need to have goals, and a process and a system to ensure that those goals take place. He believes the two most important words of his education were “systems” and “processes”.
At one point in his career Daly led a sales team of 2600 people. He worked out quickly that there was not 2600 best ways to sell the product.
Daly then went about figuring out the best way to sell the product and put in place a system and a process to manage the sales accordingly.
In his book, Hyper Sales Growth, Daly refers to sports teams as the best example for how a business should be run. He points out that sports teams practice, they work to a game plan, and they have systems and processes.
Daly believes there are three indispensable factors in building a successful company. First you must know where you want to go. (Vision). You also need key people in key spots, because you cannot do it all yourself. Finally you need to develop a thriving business culture in which your people look forward to the journey.
I attended a US recruitment conference in Orlando last week and without question Jack Daly was the best presenter. He delivers brutally honest advice on how to best build a successful business and a successful life.
Stuart Freeman is an Executive Recruitment Consultant in the Insurance space, a blogger, an owner of a high end wine business, and a dad of 3 daughters. He can be contacted directly on stuart@kennedyreid.com.au or on twitter @StuartFreemanKR