JP & Johnny Interview Podcast
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Johnny: [00:00:00] Our guest today is JP. He helped scale a company from one point two million dollars to nearly eleven million dollars in six years. But he realized that hitting revenue targets through sheer heroic is just a high-stakes ways of building your own prison. Today, we're gonna talk about why he walked away from that success to build systems that actually set founders free.
JP, welcome.
JP Rinylo: Thank you, Johnny. Very excited to be here, buddy. We were having a lot of chat offline. We finally hit the record button.
Johnny: I should have recorded because it was a great conversation, but I have the other camera here recording, so I might get a little bit of that.
JP Rinylo: Oh, great. Cool. Very cool.
Johnny: yeah, so JP, I'm gonna jump right into it. So, you know, you have a punchy thesis that probably make a lot of founders very defensive. You know, you say that missed revenue is never about a bad sales rep, but it's always about a failure of leadership.
Do you wanna kinda elaborate more on that?
JP Rinylo: Happy to. Um, and, and, you know, feel free to guide me or ask questions as I go because [00:01:00] is something I'm really passionate about.
Johnny: Okay.
JP Rinylo: and it co- it comes from lived experience. So let's give it some context for that point. Um, it's a failure of leadership on where the organization is starting from, right? And so the case-- I, I don't want to kind of like outline and paint a number of different scenarios or use cases, but it really depends on what kind of company we're talking about. It is most frequently that when you have a small business that is starting to grow and scale, and I mentioned-- you mentioned in my background, I, I joined a company at around one point two million and we scaled it to eleven million. And in that process I was never a part of the ownership of the business. of the things I recognized day one when I got in the doors was that there was no single system or process for how... And by system I don't mean technology,
Johnny: Hmm.
JP Rinylo: mean order of operations. [00:02:00] And this is what you and I were talking about offline before we hit record. There was no single order of operations that when I joined that the founder, the co-founder, the customer success people, the account ma- well, there was no account management, um, that anyone in the business of the ten or twelve people that were at the com- in the company when I first joined, none of them followed a s- knew the single step fir- step, what's step one when we have an opportunity to close business with a client or a prospect? What's step two? There were no steps. So is not a failure on the sales rep, me coming in the door of not knowing what the steps are because I know what my steps would be as a sales rep and that's what I ended up building for that company and that's what we worked together with the leadership team to establish and then and roll out and then everyone from, you know, call it the janitor to the CEO, everyone knew every single step in the system, air quote, "system" As the front line of, we'll call it offense, sales has to be able to [00:03:00] navigate the field with the fullest confidence the people behind them know what's coming, know what to expect when it comes, how the delivery of whatever is being sold is expected to be delivered,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: experience was or was not getting them to the point of engagement, and all of that operational systems process type stuff, which is when I first joined that company, was super paramount for me to be successful. And I remember the pushback I got from the CEO and the co-founder. We don't need that right now, JP. Just get out there and sell. Go do your thing.
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: And what they were hoping for was me to be the hero. Now, we could go down a long trail on this conversation, and there's one of two directions to go.
Johnny: Can
JP Rinylo: led to that led to my eventual demise and leaving that business and just [00:04:00] throwing away like, you know, a half million dollar salary because of what I ended up, heard those words from the co-founder and CEO in that example, I love them dearly, so it's nothing negative towards them.
It's I did to myself that I chose to do to myself in that moment what was going to be necessary in order for not only me to be a success, but for the business to be a success. That's the first path we could go down. The other path is how can a CEO or a co-founder and what are the reasons that typically a CEO or a co-founder would need to navigate for why they wouldn't want someone like me to go down that path? Because that lead led, the first path led, the day I left, all of the things that had been built that I
Johnny: I?
JP Rinylo: helped to build for them and the foundation I had laid for them, it didn't go with me. But all the, call it, the IP,
Johnny: Drive.
JP Rinylo: the understandings for why and how and when and where, that context [00:05:00] went with me. And so that's why I say there's one of two paths we could go down in this conversation.
Johnny: I, I, I like the first path, man. Like that stench of the, the, the operational failure and just having that friction moment for you and when you realize that, like, this is becoming a prison for you. Like, because, like in offline and even, even before about a month or so ago when we first met, again, the whole process, the thinking of process in a sales model, uh, it was completely brand new to me.
It kind of-- like it blew my mind. Again, I'm a sales... I'm a process guy operationally, right? Like how to make things more efficient, cut costs, all these things because that's where the CPA plays, right? But then, you know, talking to you and then it's like, okay, you have to have that same thinking from a sales process too so the team behind you knows what's coming.
So yeah, I want, I wanna go path one here. I love it.
JP Rinylo: let's do it. Um, you know, is there a specific part of the conversation around the, that path one that seems most interesting or you wanna hear more about [00:06:00] first?
Johnny: Yeah, no, I, I just want to know that moment. Like, what, what did you feel when the CEO talk, "Hey, JP, go do your thing," right? And then what did you do after that? And then, then of course there was a peak moment where it was like, okay, enough is enough. I gotta go do something else.
JP Rinylo: Okay. All right. So I-- talked a little bit offline about this, Johnny, around like, you know, how we're wired as, as, as, as kids based on how we're nurtured, right? Or
Johnny: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: wired based on how we're nurtured. Um, some, some kids lean into that when they're young, and they become very much like their mom and dad would like them to be, as a, you know, a, a role model of a student or a role model of a child or whatever. I, I always kind of played the middle of the road. I-- And, and this is the way I like to say it, 'cause I actually thought of this this morning too while I was on my walk with the dog. I love rules. I love rules. I love systems. I love black and I love white. And the [00:07:00] reason I love all those things because...
A-and, and the, the, the, the cherry on top of that is I love to know all of them so that I can understand how do I operate in the gray. Because if I get to operate in the-- If I can, if I can understand them well enough, then that gives me the space to operate in the gray in a healthy, respectful way because, again, of how I was nurtured and raised as a child by my parents, which I'm grateful for. And so when I was challenged with that moment, meeting with the CEO and the co-founder and the rest of the executive team that was part of the business that we were trying, you know, than two million, five million dollar goal within the next three years, ten million dollar goal in the next six, five years, six years. I was like, what do you mean just go, just go sell?" "Well, you gotta earn the right to establish systems." And it was, you know, and friction right away. And I'm like, the point around being a ch- a role model child, or, or not in my case, was, okay, [00:08:00] I need to learn the rules. to learn the rules and the systems or the rules and the order of operations that they, the business, operates under currently. And then kind of like an onion, I need to peel back each layer where I can. And then s- at the same time, I need to be showing activity and productivity in the market. And that's what I really started focusing on, like that balance of, okay, where, what can I get done with what I've got by understanding first what, what is available? And what I'm referring to is like how has... So the business was already s-some-somewhat successful in, in generating revenue. How did they get there, right? So this is where the, like this is what the process is. Like my business is called Starting Point. This is how I work with clients. How are you selling today what you're selling? What are you saying? What are you delivering? Who are you talking to? What is it that they're getting at the end? What's the experience afterwards? Once I understood that, I then just started using that as like my talking points in [00:09:00] market. So back to your question, like what was the friction? Well, I was left to figure it out, so I figured it out. Now, it
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: worked for me. As it worked for me, it was fun. You know, it was kind of like, I got about most six-- most sales reps and, and at that point in my career when I joined that business, I was like eight or nine years into my sales career. I, I had my-- I had to earn my stripes in being a successful salesperson.
In this case, it was my first time really stepping into a full sales leadership role and having to be the salesperson at the same time. So w-wh- what do we call that? Player coach.
Johnny: Right.
JP Rinylo: pla-- I was the player, but I was also my own coach. So coach everything on the sideline, and then I'd get into the field and I'd do everything I just coached and so you should start to be hearing what's, what's happening now. So as I did that, I became very successful in being able to sell the business' offerings, engage the people who I was gonna be handing off the sales and the clients to, them into the dialogue that was [00:10:00] necessary to have the conversation to understand with the client what was expected of the outcomes, the services, the products, whatever it was that we were selling at the moment. And then I also started to refine not only how I talked about it, but how they talked about it then when they engaged with the clients. 'Cause remember, like sales, typically you're engaged to the point of conversion, then you
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: We call it the sales to services transition or sales to product transition. You know, you hand off and everything that that salesperson said better be one hundred percent accurate within reason, eighty-five to ninety-five percent accurate to within reason to what was expected by the client when they get into the delivery. And so you're hearing in this lead up is I, I did what was necessary in order for me to be successful and then to set the business up for success. What I wasn't making sure of that process was that I wasn't handcuffing myself to all of the things that the leadership didn't wanna figure out, they wanted me to [00:11:00] figure out. And then when I would figure it out and I'd, and I'd push it up and I'd be like, "Hey, listen. So here's our new sales process.
Here's our new sales order of operations. Here's the systems we're using across the team. Here's the cross-functional re- you know, resourcing that we're using to accomplish these sales." When I would push that up, and again, this is where a lot of CEOs and a lot of C-suite executives get, get defensive. Here's the playbook now that we're running. They would never run the playbook. Most C-suite executives, and Johnny, I, I'll actually challenge you to see if you'd be like this as well, I'm not, I'm not sure. When they hear it from someone else for how it's been air quotes "figured out," Dan talks about this a lot. You make-- You are-- You have to be Ex- you know, um, I can't remember the... I, I, I'll make up the word for the, uh, the, the adjective, uh, that he uses. You have to be scrupulous, I'll say, rigorous in your hiring, and then you have to trust uh, implicitly and explicitly [00:12:00] trust the resources you hire to do their job well. Well,
Johnny: on, on that moment, right? So you have some warning signs that, uh, have, have you-- from your perspective that you saw as a high performer that you had to kind of band that-- bandage that some, a little bit of that broken process, right? So, uh, walk us through a little bit like your, your thinking behind, you know, that broken process because yes, you deliver back to the C-suite, and they're saying back: "No, we're not gonna do this."
So it's like: "Okay, how can I do my job?" Right? As a leader of the sales team and also the player. And, and, and what are some early signs that the people that are listening and watching this can, can, can start to perceive and they're like, "Okay, that seems like a very common pattern for me as well."
JP Rinylo: Well, a lot of executives, especially business owners, are creative mindset.[00:13:00]
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: They, they think like visionaries. Dan talks about this. Dan Martell talks a lot about this in our, in our, um, business com- coaching community where you and
Johnny: True.
JP Rinylo: I are in. And as visionaries and with that creative inspiration and spirit, they constantly
Johnny: [00:14:00] Yeah.
JP Rinylo: visionary creative business owners I've had the opportunity to work with in both clients as well as former employers, and I don't mean to be negative on this, buddy, but, 'cause I ha- I got one too, but they have egos.
Johnny: I think we all do.
JP Rinylo: We, uh, abs- we all should. We, it's, it's, it's one of our most protections of, of our personality and our id and our who, and, and who we are, but it's also our protectors of that. You know, it's, it's the knight in shining armor we need at all times, but the knight always doesn't have to draw his sword Sometimes it can be navigated with, you know, diplomacy good conversation and good genuine understanding and authentic of others. And I think...
Johnny: I was like, "Yeah, [00:15:00] that might be me."
JP Rinylo: uh, and, and he asked a question to Dan, and he was explaining how... I'll give you a really good example. You might remember this, but again, we're not naming names 'cause this is a good example. Uh, he was explaining... He asked Dan a question how he could hire... H- how, how he could find a better sales rep. And Dan said, "Well, you know, w- know, like, what, what, what are we working with?" And he said, "Well, I've hired 15 sales reps,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: out." And so you and I should understand that I then had the opportunity to connect with that gentleman afterwards because someone in the chat my name, then he reached out, and we did the whole... Actually, it was funny 'cause there's two JPs, me and then the other one, JP Forno. That's me naming names, but JP Forno would love, would love the plug here. He, uh, he reached out to the JP Forno first. JP Forno pointed... He's like, "No, you want the other JP."
Johnny: Uh-huh.
JP Rinylo: So when me and that gentleman jumped on the call, [00:16:00] um, you know, I asked him, "So listen, I heard, you know, 15 sales reps or, or 15 people, like, in what timeframe?" And he hired 15 sales reps in nine years. I said, "Well, how many are left?" He's like, "None." I said, "What happened?" He's like, "They all had a bad attitude." This is where I go back to the, to the, to the core of my answers to your question. If it's 15 people that you've hired, and all of them have not worked out for whatever reasons, and it could be their attitudes, it's a leadership problem, buddy, b-
Johnny: Yeah.
JP Rinylo: are the business owner who hired them. That either means your recruiting practices are off, evaluation practices or criteria are off, you're a bad judge of character. Maybe you're a good judge of character, but you're a bad planner, and you didn't, you didn't arm them well.[00:17:00]
Johnny: JP, this is so good. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna jump in here because the, uh, the podcast I just launched on May first, it's Eagle Trap, and the first thing is that I say is, "I would just do it myself." How many times have you said that this week?
JP Rinylo: Do you know what? I caught
Johnny: Yeah.
JP Rinylo: that this morning.
Johnny: Right. And then, oh, I'm, I'm guilty as charged here too. And then I go in and I talk about a book that you probably have read, and it's about extreme ownership, right?
It's the, the Marines SEALs tactician, Jocko. Great book.
JP Rinylo: I,
Johnny: the book talks about... Yeah, it's like the book talks about there's no bad teams, only bad leaders. Like if it... The, the... And I go through the, the story where I-- when I merged my firm and I was handing off tax returns that I've been preparing for five years and they're not doing as well as I did, and it's like I wasn't sharing that knowledge with them.
I just like, I just dumped the work, right? And it's [00:18:00] like, "Hey, here, go do this tax return." I didn't give any background on the client. I didn't give any association what this client likes and don't like. I didn't give them any association how this client views the IRS and money and taxes and so forth. So it's like, "Hey, just go do the thing," right?
And then comes back to me, and then I say it to myself, "Oh yeah, see? Like nobody can do as well as I can." So I, I would just have to redo
JP Rinylo: It's a...
Johnny: it all.
JP Rinylo: it... Oh, Johnny, that's so great to hear. And, and what I'm hearing too about, about that example is, um, the same goes for any hire. If you as a CPA are hir- You know, CPA... I'm gonna say as a CPA, as an expert, if you hire someone who's not yet an expert, novice, but they're on their way to expert, they could be the best novice available to you, if you don't set them up for success and they fail, who, who's the real finger to point at or, you know, like, or, or the pers- person to blame in that case? Every time it's gonna [00:19:00] be the leader. 'Cause Jocko's exactly... The, the, the Extreme Ownership is exactly the book I thought of when we were just chatting and I started to share that example because he has this statement, um, Jocko has this statement in that book and I... Or I'm saying Jocko, but I think there's, there, there's the two guys who wrote the book.
So
Johnny: Yeah, I forgot the... Yeah.
JP Rinylo: Yeah, one of the two that wrote it, um, he talks about that moment where he faced his entire platoon
Johnny: Mm.
JP Rinylo: failed mission, and everything had gone wrong that they had planned or not planned, and there was variables that
Johnny: [00:20:00] It is.
JP Rinylo: it takes empathy. It takes, uh, you know, self-awareness. look, I, I, I don't wanna give, give any, you know, false, false pretense that everything I did at the business that I was referring to earlier where, you know, I, I had to make it work, so I just figured it out. I didn't do it right, I did it in a way that worked for me,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: I did it in a way that worked for others. It didn't work for the leadership in the, in, in the end because there were decisions that were made that ultimately led to me leaving because I found that what I had done for myself was in order to not have to explain how to complete that IRS tax form in the way that the client expected, like in your example,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: I just did it myself.
Johnny: How much did that cost you?
JP Rinylo: About 40 pounds, um, [00:21:00] about probably 10 years early grays.
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: it almost cost me a relationship with my kids in a way that I would never be able to repair for- from the age that they were at. Um, it
Johnny: Mm, that's so good.
JP Rinylo: it also cost me some relationships with, with the folks at that, at that company that I, I feel really, I feel really badly about. You know? I mean, like, not... Uh, this is not a blame game. Like, I don't wanna get this, you know, get, get this misconstrued. This is I recognized what was necessary in order for me to be successful in the job that I was res-re-responsible and required to do. I now recognize that there were failures on my part, and there were failures on leadership team's part, part, and there was failures in other areas of the business that led to the ultimate decision that I made to leave.
But it was because I recognized that I had handcuffed myself to my own ego's feeling of defensiveness against trying to teach others or, or go through the exercise. This is the thing, it's a patience exercise, I think, or exercise with patience. [00:22:00] To be patient enough, with the leadership, but with other parts of the business and with myself to just do that extra work.
Dan talks about it all the time, right?
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: about, you know, you can find shortcuts, but there is a, is a tax that comes with every shortcut. The, the tax for them, for that business when I... Their shortcut was hire me. The tax that they un-unfortunately didn't recognize that they were gonna have to pay and, uh, that I ended up having to pay myself was that we wrapped it all up in a single resource, or we wrapped up a lot of things in a single resource, and that led to, you know, a failure point you know?
Johnny: Yeah. I, I-- And, uh, one of the things that I've heard Dan also talks about there is like, and I think comes from, uh, uh, Zig Ziglar, and the greatest sal- one of the greatest salesmen out there.
JP Rinylo: I know what they get. Well,
Johnny: um, he talks about there's no [00:23:00] elevator to success. You gotta take the stairs, right? And so, and if you don't implement a framework, a system, a process, a sequencing of events on your sales process, you're going to see a lot of these monkey swings from the chandelier the sales rep promised to just to meet their quota, right?
Because the, the leadership has not given them the framework. So we all have war stories. So I wanna hear this like, hey, can you tell me like the most absurd or damaging thing that you have ever seen a salesperson promise to a client because the founder or the C-suite kind of refused to document that process, right?
JP Rinylo: Yeah, I can unfortunately. I mean, like there, there's a couple, but I mean, like, again, we're not naming names, so I'll just tell the story and I'll, I'll
Johnny: Sure.
JP Rinylo: I, I love what Dan said recently, by the way, for us to do-- Well, when you're telling stories, change the sex and change the age or
Johnny: And go back two years. Yeah.
JP Rinylo: back two years. Yeah. Well, that... Yeah, and that's for yourself too. Um,[00:24:00]
Johnny: Yes.
JP Rinylo: Yeah. So, so I think, um, I, I, I think a good story to share around that example is, you know, when I was hired at that company as the head of sales I'm referring to-- Or well, I'll say it this way. When I was head, when I was head of sales at one of the companies I worked for in the last 15 years, the function that I was asked to a-accomplish in- involved not only establishing sales process and being like a shining example of sales in that sales process, it also was to scale it.
You know, you're great. Go be great, and then find another way to make others be JP great." And there came a point in growth for that business where I, I wanna be careful here 'cause like the demand coming in was higher than the-- Was, was forcing us to make critical decisions around do we have enough staff on hand to support the demand, both operationally as well as also from a sales [00:25:00] perspective. that's a great problem to have
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: for any business. And I made recommendations in that scenario to let's, let's take the st- the system, the step that we've established for how sales is done today. Let me hire a junior rep. I'll build them as a shadow to me, and this is what, this is how we'll make success, make progress. talking about conflict, there was an impatience in the business, and I'm sure there was an ego in the business, that did not want to take that length of time and decided to take a shortcut and hire outside of me a peer, essentially to me,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: to operate... So remember, I had-- Like in this, in this example I was describing, I was player and I was coach.
Johnny: Right.
JP Rinylo: me hire another player and I'll be player, player, coach." Or I'll have player, me be player and coach, and I'll be coach. And they just re- they [00:26:00] didn't replace, they peer matched the player side of me. But didn't force that person-- And made it close to a peer, but didn't make it that per- didn't make that person-- didn't make me responsible for that person. And so when that person came in the door, and this is getting to your example where it failed miserably and it resulted in impacts to revenue and business, et cetera With that context now you had-- you basically had a player who was gonna operate outside the lines, and that's what occurred. And so for especially the first six to twelve months of that person coming in the door, it was like, "Hey, JP, they're not gonna rep..." In this example, "Don't-- They're not gonna have you report your, uh,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: you need to make them successful." So it's like, I should have seen the writing on the wall for myself at this moment, but I digress. Um, I made them as successful as I possibly could without them reporting to me and them knowing that and being able to say [00:27:00] to that point, "I don't need to follow your process.
I have my own process."
Johnny: Oh.
JP Rinylo: And that led to the demand was still there, so we started to split the demand up across the team. And as I'm running sales and the sales-- uh, and the, and the operational function of the business is looking to me, like, for everything that comes in for direction on what's coming in, how's it gonna work, what are they buying, what are they getting, what are the expectations, what are the timelines, all that.
This other person who was new to the business didn't necessarily those things, but didn't have the same level of respect for it because, again, they were able to operate outside the lines. And that led to when they closed a very large deal with a very large client for that b- for the type of business we were, you know, Fortune five hundred business, and it was of a couple million dollars in value over the course of years. There was no definition of scope that was clear to the delivery team or to the operational, [00:28:00] del-- to the delivery team as a function or to the operational delivery team to know what-- how to go do. The handoff was messy, and six months in, that client was ready to churn. They weren't paying their invoices. The customer success team and the account management team were at odds with the, not only the rep but with the client. And this is where I made the mistake, back to the first path conversation I, I mentioned a, a while ago. I made the mistake of making myself available when everyone in the business started saying, like, "This client's gonna churn. And the CEO and the, and the, and the executive team saying, "We can't afford to lose that revenue. We've made banks or we've made, um, banked on that revenue, so we've made decisions in the business, all the risks associated to losing that revenue. We need to fix this." So in this case, this is where salespeople get, I think, a bad rap, for being
Johnny: [00:29:00] Hmm.
JP Rinylo: sort of like backed out of the equation and said, rightfully, because like in their mind, "We'll just figure it out." like, "Guys, just like, 'Hey, I did my job. I got you the client. I
Johnny: Yeah, it's like I did my thing. Yeah
JP Rinylo: And I was the guy as the head of sales, as the guy who's been building the business, you know, alongside the executive team, trying to navigate it when necessary. always protected them from all of the from these types of situations by just doing all the work myself, rightfully or wrongfully. And that led to me for-- to, to the sales rep being seen as like a non-participant in the, in the fixing of the thing and me being the fixer. But more importantly, it led to so many people in the business needing to step in fix the problem for the client, and the client still churned less than a year later anyway.
Johnny: Right.
JP Rinylo: And, and, and it always comes back to this is a-- that, that was a failure of [00:30:00] leadership. It was a failure at the top from the
Johnny: Ah, man.
JP Rinylo: to hire
Johnny: Yeah.
JP Rinylo: outside the lines.
Johnny: So, and I'm, I'm hearing some great things here, and, um, um, uh, I wanna turn this conversation, um, a little bit more t- uh, tactical right now. So it seems like you have a sequencing of hiring or a seq- sequencing of when you do your consulting, uh, work right now that you-- when you're looking at a new business or, or an existing business and y- for a new client for you, there's, there's certain things that you like, "Hey, let's, let's look at this first, this second, this third."
So for the service business out there that are listening and watching our podcast here today, um, what is the first, like, three steps that they should be looking at? And then if they can't figure it out, the fourth S is go hire JP
JP Rinylo: I don't know if it's a fir- I, like, I don't know if there's three steps. I, I'll, I'll [00:31:00] just kind of walk you through the way I've ta-taken the conversation. Oh, by the way, like this is a really good question. We can take this a couple different directions, but the first thing that comes to mind, it's not step one, two, or three, it's just first thing comes to mind is if the way business especially, if the way it's sold requires the CEO or the business owner to be involved in order for the whatever's being sold to be defined and sold every single deal or nearly every single deal 80% of the time, it's not a scalable process. It-- You can't hand that off to a salesperson. Because what I've found most frequently is when I step into, uh, like one of the businesses I'm working with right now, when I stepped into the business, there was one person who was running every deal cycle at the center of every deal cycle, and that person wasn't a salesperson, they had a salesperson. And when I asked, "Why are you involved instead of, [00:32:00] you know, so and so as like the key quarterback?" It was because, and you could list all the different reasons that they stated, but all of them had to do with because it was a failure of definition In the business for what is sold, how it's sold, who it's sold to, and ultimately who's responsible for what related to each of those things. And can I put that into steps?
Johnny: Yeah, absolutely.
JP Rinylo: step is what do you sell? Like what is it you sell? Can you define it? Can you box it up and say or 90% of the time this is what we sell and this is how we deliver it? And if the answer is yes, you go to the next thing. Okay. How is it, you know, how is it defined and, and how much does it cost, right? Because another thing I found is they might answer that first one because they'll like squeak by and they'll say, "Oh, we, we're always selling consulting and we're always selling it as hours and we're [00:33:00] always delivering it across three months."
Johnny: That's
JP Rinylo: Right?
Johnny: me. I was like, "That's me."
JP Rinylo: Cool. And how much do you charge an hour? And sometimes they have that answer and then other times they'll have that answer as a, "Well, it depends." Well, why does it depend? "Well, it depends on who's involved or what we're doing." It shouldn't depend. And I mean, it can. Again, you'll get to a million, two million, five million with it depending variable. But if you want to truly scale a business, you need it to be tight. It's why Dan has told us all the time niche down, niche down, niche down. He tells all of us, "Don't try and do..." Like, um, Meg Bradyhouse like, you know, was talking to him recently and she started up her coaching program and her coaching program was fire and she's doing really well and she's thinking about now doing this other thing. He's like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: Where are you at in revenue? Where are you at in scalability? How much are you doing respon- you know, how much are you [00:34:00] responsible versus how much have you delegated?" And if you remember, Meg was like chewing it back. She's like, "Well, you know, like I can't really hit..." You can't chew it back. You gotta, you gotta
Johnny: Right.
JP Rinylo: Pick the one thing you're really good at. And this is where I, I'll say if you really wanna scale, if you're a services business, you really wanna scale, scale your company beyond yourself as the founder and you wanna build a sales team, you need to pick what is the one thing that you can hand off tomorrow that is crystal clear.
You could write a, build a playbook around it. You could say step one to sell it is this. Step two to sell it is this. Step, step three to sell it is this. Step four equals sale. If you can get to that just one of the say three, five, 20 things you sell, now you're going in a direction of being able to scale your sales function. But... Go ahead.
Johnny: No, no, this is great. I think, um, you know, from zero dollars in revenue to about five hundred K, all you're trying to do with the [00:35:00] market is proving that you know what you're doing,
JP Rinylo: Proof of concept, yep.
Johnny: yeah, proo-proof of concept, you're good at what you're doing. Then from five hundred K to about three millions is like you need to learn a little bit of leadership and delegation.
JP Rinylo: Mm-hmm.
Johnny: some higher players.
You, you're gonna have to get into the two hundred or three hundred, maybe the five hundred K salaries in that three to five million dollars in sales for you to go to the next level, whereas the twenty millions, the thirty millions, the fifty millions and so forth. And then at that level, you know, JP, it's, it's more about your infrastructure, right?
Like your know-how is, is your data points. Do you know everything about that customer? Do you know everything about what they're going through, their life cycle, you know, the churn and their KPIs and [00:36:00] all that stuff? And I think a lot of people don't realize that the person that you were at five hundred K and the things that you do in five hundred K are not going to work for you to get to the million, three or ten million.
JP Rinylo: Yeah. Johnny, it's a really very v-valid point. Um, and, and I think also Dan has, Dan has built that, um, the replacement
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: it's in his book. Um, and a reason why sales is towards the top of that replacement ladder. marketing is in the middle of that replacement ladder. You and I know it as it's, it's, you know, first it's administrative delegation, then it's operational delegate, delegation, then it's marketing, then it's sales, then it's leadership.
Like that, those are the five stages of it. Sales is towards the top because in order for y- for any services or any, any organization, any business of any type in, in its early stages, in order for it to be able to scale, [00:37:00] for sales to step in and help it to scale, you need to be able to hand them a playbook the second they walk in. And in that playbook, you need to be able to tell them where the demand is... Well, what's being sold, how much it's sold for, what the messaging is that resonates with the market, and where does the demand for this thing come from. That one, that last one
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: is one of the things that Dan talks about, but it's so subtle, and this is when I had that conversation with the gentleman from one of the elite community calls, later about. He was so convinced that it was the f- one of the 15 reps that he hired and fired in nine years' fault. It was all their fault, actually, and it was their bad attitude. But he was so convinced by it because When I asked the question, "Well, where was the demand for what it is that they were selling?" Because he was, he, he had a playbook, he said. He had all the things. I never saw it, but, you know, I'm taking him at, at his word.
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: I have all the things that you're [00:38:00] saying, like what
Johnny: Hmm.
JP Rinylo: up with the leads." And this was an interesting conversation because it kind of ta- it articulates this point around s- uh, scale, and Dan talks about this very... He talks about it, but it's quiet in the way it's delivered against everything else that's being said when he's talking about it. It's-- He said, "Well, I, I had-- we-- I had generated, we had generated six hundred and fifty leads or seven hundred leads." This goes down a very slippery slope quickly because when you make a statement like that, because that sounds like a lot of demand. If I'm a small business owner and I have six hundred and fifty to seven hundred leads, that sounds like a lot of demand. I'm overwhelmed at the demand. Dan talks about it all the time.
Sometimes when you're not ready for that kind of demand, you don't know what to do with yourself. You're scared to
Johnny: Right.
JP Rinylo: But in this case, it was all the reps' fault each time all those number of leads were being generated because they weren't following up. And what I learned, [00:39:00] there's a couple different ways, again, starting point associates here. Okay, define a lead for me. You're saying you gave them six hundred and fifty leads. it-- How, how ready, how sales-ready was that lead? And like this is where the conversation got even, even more interesting. It was that the leads had been generated basically from a form capture an asset that was somewhat related to what the company did for They only engaged one time.
Johnny: I see.
JP Rinylo: a sales... At least I don't believe you should expect a sales rep to take them from what now es-essentially is a cold awareness stage through to an engagement stage, through to we'll call it a, a nurturing stage or a growth stage, through to a conversion, through to sales or through to sales right through to con-conversion.
Like you... If you do, then you better be patient as hell or you better hope that your product is fire and that it sells itself. And I think this is what, like this is coming back [00:40:00] to that point of like if you don't have a very crystal clear playbook for how you sell your business that you follow, and you don't know where your demand is coming from day in and day out, you can hire all the salespeople you want, they'll never... I mean, you might get lucky. You might find one that comes with a book or comes with a Rolodex of, of contacts, which is what
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: reps try to do. I've been that rep that's been hired. I've been the first sales hire, first, you know, air quotes, five times in different, you know, capacities across different businesses.
And each time I was hired, it was because I was either coming with a Rolodex or I was coming with an acumen or I was
Johnny: Sure.
JP Rinylo: they were looking to add or a, a, or level of experience. But Yeah, it's like, again, th-there are trade-offs you have to be expe-- willing to accept when you try to take shortcuts to, you know, gr- scaling a sales organization.
And if you just wanna hire and let them figure it out, don't be surprised if you... It's really hard to [00:41:00] fi-find those diamonds in the rough, uh, when it comes to salespeople.
Johnny: Yeah. Again, and, and if you hand someone and you don't know, and you-- The, the other thing too is measuring, right? Having dashboards and you having those metrics of like, okay, where part of the price-- the process broke down so you know and you can attack that with all the resources that you have to fix that little bottleneck.
JP Rinylo: Yeah, that's a
Johnny: we're on the forty-two mark, and I wanna talk so much more with you right now, but, uh, we gotta wrap up. So here's a final question, and I'm gonna-- Since you already asked my final question that I told you I was gonna ask, I'm gonna change it up a little bit.
JP Rinylo: Great. Keeping me in the hot seat. I like it.
Johnny: I know. I love it. I love it, and I know you can talk so much more about this, and I'm gonna have you again on the show because, my goodness, this has been so good.
JP Rinylo: I hope so. Thank you.
Johnny: here's my question: If you have to go back And tell that JP that was in the middle of that fire and, and you are sitting in the room that this-- when the CEO told [00:42:00] you, "JP, go figure it out." And go back to that moment and knowing what you know now, what would you tell him and why?
JP Rinylo: Ooh, that's a great question. Um, I've thought about this actually,
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: 'cause
Johnny: I know you have.
JP Rinylo: part, part... You know, what, what, what is the, uh, what are the sta-stages of
Johnny: That's why Yeah.
JP Rinylo: step is
Johnny: Ooh.
JP Rinylo: you have a problem.
Johnny: Oh,
JP Rinylo: Um, the, the thing I would tell him is something my wife has taught me, is she's taught me through repetition, is you can't solve everyone's problems. And I try often, and often too hard, to help people solve their problems that are not my problems to solve. And, you know, while, while it's an admirable, I [00:43:00] recognize, you know, to that young JP, it's an admirable quality, it will lead to your demise because you will pay so much attention focusing on solving other people's problems, you'll forget to s- focus on solving your own. And the problem I created for myself, like if I summarize that in a different way, I'd say quit sooner. Like you are in a tailspin and pull out sooner. Get, get, like get out of it before it no longer serves you completely. And
Johnny: that's good.
JP Rinylo: thing. My, my, my wife has helped me now several times since Uh, to quit sooner. I don't know, man. Johnny, I don't know if this is a, a, a, a male thing or if this is like a-- just the way some guys are and girls are wired, but I often say, and I said this to Dan and he, [00:44:00] he told me, he's like, "You need to inspect that." I remember he's like, "You need to inspect that." I said, "Dan..." We were talking about winning and losing, and I said, "Dan, you don't, you don't know this about me, but I'll say it. I hate to lose more than I like
Johnny: Mm-hmm.
JP Rinylo: And he said, he's like, "You, you might want to inspect that." Now I know now, I believe now that what he was referring to is that is a very lonely road, man. will end up in a very dark place very quickly if you stay on that perpetual path of constantly trying not lose, because you have to accept... This is the, this is the, this is the thing about hating to lose more than liking to win. You have to accept that you can't win all the time at some point. And when you're fighting constantly not to lose, it's hard to make decisions that are always in your best interest [00:45:00] before they're in someone else's. And what I would be talking to that JP about,
Johnny: love it, man.
JP Rinylo: That's a hard one
Johnny: It is. Again, I-- you speaking to me as you're talking to him and it's like, "Oh, crap, man."
JP Rinylo: Yeah.
Johnny: I think-- I truly believe that people out there that have the heart that you have will do more for other people than they will do it for themselves. I think that is just a fact, right? And then-- and that's a spirit of stewardship, right?
That's a spirit of know who your creator is. That's a spirit of knowing what do you wanna do with your life. 'Cause at, at, at the end of the day, it's not about the dollar. It's never about making the dollar. It's about the impact, right? And the perpetual impact and the legacy that you leave. So JP, if people wanna find out more about you, wanna learn more about your sales process and your frameworks and work with you, where they can find you?
JP Rinylo: Best place to find me these days is Instagram, [00:46:00] @jprendallo, uh, is my Instagram handle. I, uh, I would say that is probably the easiest place to find anything you want to find out about me. Uh, another place would just, you know, shoot me an email. It's [email protected]. It's not that complicated. Um, I'm excited lately about the growth of experience on Instagram, so I would encourage people to reach out there first.
Johnny: Awesome. Yeah. I think Instagram for, for you and I have been a tremendous, uh, growth in that lately, and I th- and I think the-- just the fact of having a conversation with people, uh, in the-- in, on Instagram and the DMs, I think that's great. JP, um, I cannot tell you how much I'm thankful to have you today on the show.
We'll be- we'll definitely will be-be in touch. I'm gonna have you again on the show,
JP Rinylo: Awesome.
Johnny: back and see how much, uh, you, you and I have grown since this first very episode. Once again, thank you, my brother. I appreciate you.
JP Rinylo: Likewise, John. Thank you, buddy
