David Royce (4:04)

So I got into the industry the way most people do accidentally, right? It's the last thing on my mind. I took this crappy summer job back when I was in college. I had a friend come to me and say, hey, I made 25 grand last summer.

Jordan Harbinger (4:19)

Pretty good.

David Royce (4:20)

Yeah. Like three and a half months. Do you want to go out with us? You know, we go out, you know, to Northern California. We surf on weekends. You know, it's like, oh, All I heard was like, 25 grand. And I'm working like you know, a minimum wage job.

Jordan Harbinger (4:31)

Yeah, yeah.

David Royce (4:33)

Trying to work my way through school, and it's not great. So that's all I heard. And so I drove out to Sacramento about 10 hours. I was down in. In Utah, and it was. I showed up and I literally. I couldn't sell. I sucked. I was horrible at it.

Jordan Harbinger (4:47)

Do you want to buy this? No. All right. Thanks for your time.

David Royce (4:50)

Yeah. I had zero sales TR. The first five days. Zero sales. And it's a commission only job, so my only benefit's free cardio.

Jordan Harbinger (4:57)

Right.

David Royce (4:58)

And all my friends are selling, like one to four sales per day. Per day.

Jordan Harbinger (5:02)

Oh, my God. So you're. You're like, I know. You suck.

David Royce (5:05)

You're not.

Jordan Harbinger (5:06)

It's not a hypothesis. It's proved. Proven.

David Royce (5:08)

Exactly. I can just look around and go, yeah, I'm not great.

Jordan Harbinger (5:11)

Yeah.

David Royce (5:12)

So that weekend, I, you know, I was starting to get nervous. I'm like, gosh, you know, I have an apartment out here. It's just kind of do or die. I need to make it work. Just went out to a bookstore, bought half a dozen books. And then I just said, okay, I'm going to read 90 minutes every day because I know this is my best opportunity as a college student to make this type of money and try to pay my way through school.

Jordan Harbinger (5:28)

So you bought sales books?

David Royce (5:29)

Yeah, sales books.

Jordan Harbinger (5:30)

Okay.

David Royce (5:30)

Yeah. And it started to click, like, little by little. I started to figure it out. I realized I was horrible at closing. Initially. It'd be like, so what do you think? As opposed to maybe like, hey, we're going to be here in the morning, in the afternoon, which would work best for you?

Jordan Harbinger (5:43)

Right? Right. Close.

David Royce (5:45)

Yes. Give me some sort of option. Close.

Jordan Harbinger (5:47)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? Sales books? I'm cur. Because I remember those days. Jeffrey Gittamer books or whatever.

David Royce (5:53)

Yeah, totally. Jeffrey Gittamer, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins.

Jordan Harbinger (5:58)

Okay, so the exact same books that I bought to learn sales. Right. I remember Tommy Hopkins tapes. And he would be like. So my secretary said something, something, something. And I said, well, you're gonna need three typewriters. And it's like, wait, this guy made all his money selling typewriters? And you just listen to these tapes and it sounds like a guy who probably smokes unfiltered cigarettes or whatever. And he's just telling you this very sort of nowadays almost like quaint advice, but it's actually subtly genius. And you realize that. Oh, my gosh, in the 60s, when he was coming out with this, nobody had a. This was all like space age material.

David Royce (6:32)

Totally.

Jordan Harbinger (6:32)

You know, the. The. When. Is morning or afternoon better for you? Meanwhile, people were like, what do you think? You want to buy it? Like, come on in. And if they didn't say yes, that was it. And this guy's assuming the clothes, and it's like, oh, man.

David Royce (6:42)

So I think sales has come a long way, and there's so much stuff that goes into it, too.

Jordan Harbinger (6:46)

Right.

David Royce (6:46)

Body language is incredible. That's like a whole other level. It's one thing to learn all the really, you know, sexy lines to be able to close somebody. It's a whole other level to learn how to, like, read body language and then also ensure your body language is putting people at ease and getting them to actually want to buy.

Jordan Harbinger (7:01)

Were you going into people's homes?

David Royce (7:03)

Most of the time we could just do the presentation. I actually preferred not to, just because it was a time thing. The more people I could talk to, the more I could close. You tend to, you know, sit down, you know, have some coffee or have a drink or something. You know, it just takes a long time, like, longer time to close.

Jordan Harbinger (7:16)

That's true.

David Royce (7:17)

So, yeah, like, we. I really try to be in and out maybe 10 minutes. Like, you kind of give your initial pitch for just a couple of minutes. Minutes, you know, kind of nod your head, smile, get them to say yes, and they're like, oh, yeah, I'll give you a shot. Why not?

Jordan Harbinger (7:26)

And were you selling pest control or something else?

David Royce (7:28)

Yeah, pest control services. Yeah, it's kind of like you. You go out, you know, every other month or once a quarter or whatever. It's very much like gardening services or whatever. Right. Like. Or, you know, if you can have a garden pull weeds once, that's great, but, you know, the weeds are going to come back, so you got to go back out and retreat.

Jordan Harbinger (7:43)

Yeah, the bugs always come back. We hired a pest control company in my house, and the reason we did it was because we had ants in the bed and they were coming and you'd look and they'd go, like, up over the headboard, and then. And you just go, okay, there's no way to get rid of these. And the line went all the way to these vines, and it was like, either I can landscape my neighbor's yard and get rid of these, or I can hire a company to come in and spray a little. Protective barrier, California. We got bugs, man. We got bugs for days. So true for. No wonder your friends are making 25 grand a year. Nobody wants a line of ants through their whole home and that's the best case scenario. Ants, cockroaches, whatever. I've heard you say business is a sport, and I'm wondering what you mean by that in practice, because what's the scoreboard? You know, what are you measuring that most founders aren't?

David Royce (8:25)

Yeah, I think you just gamify it. Right? Like, so for the sales side, it was exciting to sell more. Like, the best thing about commission, a commission job, is that you are in control of however much you make. Right. So you can study more, you can learn. And by the end of that summer, I was the top rookie out of a couple hundred salespeople.

Jordan Harbinger (8:41)

That's pretty good. That's a good feeling.

David Royce (8:42)

I made 35 grand, right? So it's like, okay, like, I want to do better. And the next summer I went back, I was a sales manager and trained other people. And I got there, I went to a new company that was a startup, and they didn't have a training manual. And then I was like, oh, crap. I brought all my friends out, hey, can I write a training manual for you? I want them to do well. And the owner was like, sure. This is awesome.

Jordan Harbinger (9:01)

Yeah, I've been told I need some sort of training manual. And you're going to do it for free so that you're not embarrassed that you brought your buddies to the company?

David Royce (9:08)

Hell yeah, Totally. And he had one other location, and it was like, okay, well, we got our location. They have their location. How can we beat them? It's like, try to find a way. If you can create competition in some sort of a way, like a friendly competition. Everybody does better. And so our sales team, we did about twice as many per rep as the other team did. And then the. My boss was like, hey, do you want to, like, recruit for me in the future and be entire over my entire sales program? Then I'll give you a cut off everybody. Yeah, recreate that here. And so that's what I did for the next two years after that. And I was making my last summer, I made 225 grand. Wow.

Jordan Harbinger (9:42)

It was pretty good for a College sophomore of junior whatever.

David Royce (9:45)

Shabby, right? Yeah, it's like 20 plus years ago in today's money. It's probably more like almost half a million bucks.

Jordan Harbinger (9:50)

That's crazy. I love commission only jobs. I mean, I shouldn't say I love them for everyone, but I loved mine. And I remember my business partners at the time, I was making a base, and then they were like, you're not selling very well. And I was like, I don't know how to sell. I have no training. I'm just sort of figuring this out. I'm asking salespeople how to do it. I'm reading the Jeffrey Gittamer books or whatever, all these, the Zig Ziglar stuff. I got the tapes, I'm in the gym on the elliptical machine or whatever bullshit non exercise thing like listening to Tommy Hopkins on tape with the static in the background, selling typewriters. And then they were like, we're moving you to commission only. And I was like, this seems unfair. And they're like, well, that was kind of the idea is they were like, well, we're not going to pay if you can't do anything. Even though it was my company, I just kind of got strong armed in this position. And I remember making like $42 one month. And then I don't know, fast forward six, eight months later, I was making like a lot more. I mean, add multiple zeros on the end of that. And then they were like, we're going to cap your. And I was like, absolutely, if you try to cap me, I'm neither because I'm bringing in all of your money. So no, there will be no cap. I'm in charge now. And then it eventually turned into kind of a problem in the company and it slowly led to me going off on my own because there's ego involved. Because it's like, why are you making three times, four times more than everyone? And then they bring in a consultant and the consultant goes, oh, the reason you're making all this money is because this guy's generating $3 million a year. And you, what, what was it you said you do around here again? You manage all the spreadsheets, hire a bookkeeper and fire yourself. And remember like that sort of slowly started to fester. And I think I read and looked at a bunch of the stuff you've done. It sounds like kind of that same thing. You eventually realize what? Why am I making this guy $10 million a year instead of me making $10 million a year?

David Royce (11:29)

Yeah, somewhat like he was very encouraging. I actually went to him asking him for a letter of recommendation. I wanted to go into investment banking. I'd been studying finance at school. And he just looks at me, he's like, why, why are you going to go work 800 hour weeks for somebody else? It doesn't make any sense. You should really go do this on your own. You're really good at it. And I was like, he actually wanted to invest in me. He wanted me to go Start my own company. And then he told me, he's like, by the way, I'm selling my business

Jordan Harbinger (11:55)

if you want to buy.

David Royce (11:55)

Really? You've only been doing it for four years, and I've been here for three of those. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, well, how much are you selling it for? He's like, 10 million bucks. I was like, wait a second, you only invested this much and you made that much? I was like, all right, well, maybe I'll think about it.

Jordan Harbinger (12:08)

How many houses are you hitting, and is it mostly in California? Because California, door to door sales. Okay. Michigan door to door sales.

David Royce (12:17)

You know, it just depends. I mean, the job, it's crappy, right? Like, it's hot weather outside. It's just tons and tons of rejection. I mean, you're probably knocking like 120, 150 doors a day. You're trying to close maybe two and a half. For the average person, I might be

Jordan Harbinger (12:30)

able to close, you know, 13.5.

David Royce (12:31)

Yeah. Two and a half accounts.

Jordan Harbinger (12:33)

How do you close half an account?

David Royce (12:34)

Just what the averages kind of come out to. Like every other day you get once, three, once a two day, that kind of thing. Some days it's zero day. Another day might be five. I was really good. I could get like 1315 accounts.

Jordan Harbinger (12:45)

Really? Wow.

David Royce (12:46)

But you just, you learn, and part of it has to do with time. So the average schedule, you wake up, you have a meeting at 9 in the morning. At 9:30, meeting's over. You drive out to the area and then you're on the doors as long as you want. But most people at work, they take like a couple hour lunch break in the afternoon when it's hottest, and then go back on the doors and work until, you know, until dark. So it might be in the summer, you know, 8:30, 9:00'. Clock. Depends on where you're at.

Jordan Harbinger (13:08)

I've let your guys eat in my backyard before. Have you? Yeah. Can I say the company name? Is that fair?

David Royce (13:12)

Yeah, sure.

Jordan Harbinger (13:13)

Yeah. Aptiv.

David Royce (13:13)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (13:14)

I've let them sort of like, chill because they'll come to the door and they're these blonde white guys. And I'm like, you need to get out of the sun. It's three. How long have you been. And he's like, yeah, I feel like I'm getting a little red. I'm like, you are bright, bright red. Go sit in my backyard and sit down. And, you know, if you want something to drink and they'll do. There's like, oh, really? Like they're Stoked because otherwise they're eating in their car or something like that or somebody else's car or whatever. It's just like you guys are, you need to go inside.

David Royce (13:44)

Like in the beginning of the like right where they out of college, there's a lot of them. We started recruiting out of Utah just because that's where all, all my models they do these guys do look like white? Yeah, white whites.

Jordan Harbinger (13:55)

They are very.

David Royce (13:56)

No sun.

Jordan Harbinger (13:57)

I'm like, you need a hat and, and a bucket of sunscreen. Like this guy. There was one guy again recently and I was like, you come back if you need to go to the hospital because you're so burned. Dude, I hope that guy made 250 grand that summer because he was paying for it.

David Royce (14:13)

Yeah. By the end of the summer, by August, they're very brown.

Jordan Harbinger (14:15)

Yeah.

David Royce (14:17)

But you know, it's a solid farmer's tan.

Jordan Harbinger (14:19)

Yeah, yeah, that with the apt of polo tan. Yeah, exactly.

David Royce (14:22)

Oh my God, exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (14:23)

So you were pretty bad in the beginning. How quickly do you think it took you to learn how to sell? How long did it take you to get to brown belt sales?

David Royce (14:31)

I started to learn pretty quick, I think. So the average person, if you look at the trajectory is sales reps, you know, they start off pretty slow and then by the sixth week in their first year they're starting to peak. And then there's, there's ways to improve. We can tell em like, look, if you wanna work through lunch or you know, maybe just take a half hour break instead of two hours, you're gonna make a lot more sales over the course of the summer. It's just a numbers game, right? Just depends on how bad they want it. Like our, we have so much training. We have like all of our top 1% of reps filmed and so they can watch maybe 15 different types of people selling in different ways.

Jordan Harbinger (15:02)

Wait, how do you film that if they're going door to door? Do you get.

David Royce (15:04)

Because we do role plays.

Jordan Harbinger (15:05)

Okay. Because I was going to say if

David Royce (15:06)

somebody literally set up a whole act and someone pretend to be the customer and they'll give like lots and lots of hard objections and then you know, the sales rep has to get over it. It's fun because you can see people like, you know, they're more assertive. You can see people are actually a little more soft spoken. There's a lot of different ways to sell actually. But the key is like your body language. It's maintaining control and being calm and putting the customer at ease and just, you know, having all the different lines, all the different rebuttals, to be able to get through it, you can take it to a whole nother level. So I invented this thing, I call it the RAC system. Rac. So resolve, ace, close. So have at least three different types of rebuttals in case the one rebuttal doesn't work for the customer. Next, you change the subject to, what else can you offer that you haven't discussed already? So you lay down an ace. And usually I like to have four different things that I could bring up over time. But you just do one rebuttal, one ace, and then you close again and try to close in a slightly different way so it doesn't remind them of the previous close where they said, no.

Jordan Harbinger (16:02)

Right? Yeah.

David Royce (16:03)

And if they still say, yeah, I just still don't think I. And they're like, yeah, I understand how you feel. And then you'll give another rebuttal, a different ace, and then another close. And so you can take sales to a whole different level. Like, the people are the top 1% that Eat, Breathe and sleep sales and love it.

Jordan Harbinger (16:16)

So the next time, because active comes, I would say, every other month. Right. Or every three months. So if I say, hey, man, you're not following the Rack system, are they going to know what I'm talking about? Because I'm very tempted to screw it the next afternoon.

David Royce (16:28)

They probably will.

Jordan Harbinger (16:29)

Yeah. Very typical. Because there'll be times where they come by and I'm like, that guy's got skills. Like, he's going to do well. But other times I go, that's it. He's gone.

David Royce (16:37)

Right.

Jordan Harbinger (16:38)

Like I just said, no, thanks, I already have. Whatever. I don't even know who we have. Yeah, but like, then he's like, oh,

David Royce (16:42)

okay, so you have. There's an attrition rate, too. It's like, yeah, maybe, you know, a quarter of the guys who are out there are going to either switch into, like, a technician position or they might even go home and just say, you know what? This pest control is not for me. I'm going to. I'm going to bail. So in the month of May, you may have some really poor closing skills or poor sales skills, but by August, those are your top people.

Jordan Harbinger (17:03)

I see. So the guy in May, he needs to be encouraged subtly. But the August guy, I can put

David Royce (17:07)

him through the ringer, definitely.

Jordan Harbinger (17:08)

All right, that's good to know.

David Royce (17:09)

By mid June, you're in a good spot.

Jordan Harbinger (17:11)

Good. Okay. I'm going to remember this because as soon as you booked this My wife was like, oh, yeah, we see those guys all the time, and sometimes they give up really easily. And I was like, oh, I'm going to. I'm definitely going to rib him about that. Like, don't give up easily. Maybe it's because I'm a former sales guy, but I don't mind somebody who's like, I'll handle that objection and I'll raise you this and I'll do this, and how about that? I appreciate that you respect it, right? I respect it totally. And sometimes I'm like, that's actually a really good idea. I actually do want this product or service, which is even a better feeling. I love being sold something and it's skilled. On a skilled level.

David Royce (17:43)

Yeah, we respect it.

Jordan Harbinger (17:44)

Yeah.

David Royce (17:44)

Like, I have a hard time not buying for something from a great salesperson where I'm like, I'm going to reward this guy, knows what he's doing.

Jordan Harbinger (17:49)

I've definitely done. I won't say I've bought things I don't want or need from a salesperson just because they were really good. I mean, I'm sure it's happened, But I will even say, like, hey, let me stop you right here. I'm not on the market for this at all. But you are a really good salesperson, and I want you to know that this rejection is not because of your lack of skill. And then they'll be like, oh, thank you. Because it's like, I would have loved to have heard that a few times when I was getting beat down making phone calls, trying to sell stuff. Actually, what does getting rejected all day in person feel like when you're young and you're not really calloused or skilled yet?

David Royce (18:22)

I think the thing is, you just learn to build resiliency towards it where you're like, you know, it's not me. It's nothing personal. They just don't. Maybe they don't have pests right now.

Jordan Harbinger (18:29)

Right.

David Royce (18:29)

Or they already have a competitor service and they're happy with them. You know, it's cool. Like, it's not for me. I just knew, like, typically within about 10 seconds, I knew if I was going to take that person all the way through the presentation, I could, like, read their body language and how they were perceiving me and whether I could actually build a relationship of trust with them and be likable to get in that zone, or I just be like, yeah, I'm going to go to the next door. Because the beautiful thing about it, it's not like you only have One chance. It's like if you don't do well, you just go to the next door. You just keep trying.

Jordan Harbinger (18:56)

Yeah, you get so many reps in and. Yeah, it's non personal, I suppose. What patterns did you noticing after you heard no? You know, I don't know, 10,000 times. Thousand times actually. How many doors? You ever done the math? How many doors you knocked on?

David Royce (19:08)

We know all that stuff. Yeah. Because our guys actually track every single home that they're going to.

Jordan Harbinger (19:12)

So, you know, what about you personally when you were starting to do this? Do you have any guesstimate of how many doors you knocked on?

David Royce (19:17)

Yeah, I knocked about 60,000 doors over the course of four summers. So the average sales rep will knock about 15,000.

Jordan Harbinger (19:23)

15,000 summer. That's a lot. That's a lot of talk.

David Royce (19:26)

If you have a hundred days in your summer, you're going to knock 100, about 150 doors across summer.

Jordan Harbinger (19:31)

So how many no's is that? Just tens of thousands of no's over

David Royce (19:34)

your career as opposed to no's. Much of it. Like only a third of the homeowners will actually answer their door.

Jordan Harbinger (19:39)

So that makes sense.

David Royce (19:40)

Either they're not home or they're just. Yeah, it's another door to a salesperson. I'm not answering that door.

Jordan Harbinger (19:45)

I see. Yeah, yeah, man. I always answer. I'm always just curious and usually I'm not doing anything that important. I wouldn't answer when I'm on a show, but otherwise I'm like, please take me away from my email inbox. I'm curious. Give me the spiel, man, give me the spiel. What did going door to door teach you about human psychology that most people will never learn? I mean, you mentioned the body language stuff. What other kind of concepts do you think you took throughout the rest of your career?

David Royce (20:07)

A lot of it's. If you're anxious, they're going to be anxious. One of the key things I tell my salespeople is, look, the script isn't bad because I had like a, you know, roughly a two minute script that was written out and it was very like vocabulary wise and it was dialed in. It's like perfect script, you know. And some sales reps, they'll, they'll kind of freestyle and mix around with it, but for the most part it works really well. And I would tell them it's not the script that's bad, it's your face. You're telling. You're. You're literally looking at them going, please don't hurt me. Right. You have like the deer in the headlights. You're like, hi, how are you?

Jordan Harbinger (20:36)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Royce (20:37)

So if you're calm and chill, they can come out, you know, and be chill. And that, that goes way back to like our ancestry tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago. Even like when we couldn't, when we didn't maybe even have a written language or have a language we could speak, we would have had to have figured everything out from body language. Right. To know if somebody was a threat or whatever. We still, I would say probably two thirds of all communication really is just through body language and the tonality of your voice, you know, the volume, the pitch, all that sort of thing.

Jordan Harbinger (21:05)

That's funny. That's when I used to teach dating stuff back in my 20s and 30s. It was the same thing.

David Royce (21:11)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (21:11)

It was like vocality, eye contact, body language. I mean, it was purposed in a slightly different way, but that was also, I used to say, like a sale kind of a sales thing. You're putting your best foot forward, you're handling some objections in a way that's not hopefully creepy or unethical.

David Royce (21:24)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (21:25)

And you're building trust and it's like, absolutely, this is the same thing. Except at the end of the day it's, you know, I don't get a pest control contract, hopefully get a girlfriend or something like that or date out of it.

David Royce (21:34)

I've read probably half a dozen books about body language and I didn't read them until after I'd finished selling. Like there wasn't a whole lot out there about body language, specifically with sales. There was some stuff just about body language. This old, old school guy from Australia named Alan Pease.

Jordan Harbinger (21:47)

I know who you're talk, talking about. Yeah, it's called, it was called like the Book of Body Language.

David Royce (21:50)

The Definitive Book of body.

Jordan Harbinger (21:51)

Lang. Definitive Book of Body Language. Yeah. Yeah. Barbara and Alan Peace.

David Royce (21:54)

And I didn't even find that book until after, but I found some of his really old school books prior to that. Yeah. It's funny because most of the books that are out there, they're actually geared towards dating.

Jordan Harbinger (22:02)

Yeah.

David Royce (22:02)

It's probably a much bigger market than

Jordan Harbinger (22:03)

it's a bigger market. And also it's like you want people to pay attention to this. Maybe don't constantly bring up office examples like even thinking about sex don't make it married people still want to hear about sex and attraction and dating. I mean, at least so far. At least those episodes are still popular.

David Royce (22:17)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (22:18)

I wonder at what point sales started feeling learnable instead of random. Because surely in the beginning it was like, well, that person said, yes, great. Don't know what I did. That person said, no. Oh, well, don't know why, really. But it's just because early in the game, salespeople always think it's just a numbers game. You just have to roll the dice 100 times and you're going to. One of them is going to win. And that's how it works. But then advanced salesmen are like, no, you're. You are counting cards.

David Royce (22:42)

Yeah, it's pattern recognition. Right. And it's being conscious about what is going on and then taking notes. So for me, initially, it just started out with objections. So, like, I was not very good at understanding other company services. I had no idea what services did and what they didn't do. So I would just write down whatever the objection was. You know, okay, they're with Terminix or they're with Orkin. And I'd have to, like, study up and understand what the other companies were doing. And then I'd have to ask customers, hey, I was just curious. Do they do this for you? Do they do this? Something our neighbor really liked is, we do this and this. And they're like, oh, actually, I don't. I don't think they do that. Oh, that's really cool. Well, what else do you guys do? And then you're like, okay, I'm going like, I. Well, we take care of, you know, the yard as well. We don't. Spider webs off the fence line. They're like, oh, yeah, they don't do that.

Jordan Harbinger (23:26)

That's funny.

David Royce (23:27)

Oh, okay. So you start taking notes and you figure out what different services do.

Jordan Harbinger (23:31)

And I can see that being a selling point because my wife was like, yeah, they spray this thing around the house, but then I still have to clean up all the web. So she texted the guy or called the guy, and the next guy came over, and that's why it's a good company. The next guy came over and this basically super long feather duster, and he's just like, zip. And I go, that's all this guy had to do to basically beat out the other guy, who's like, I'm not going to clean your porch. It's not my job. I just do the spraying. I was like, well, okay, we want the guy who brings a freaking feather duster in the car and just gets rid of the stupid spider web so I'm not walking through it in the morning and having to stick to my face like, that's what I'm actually paying for. I don't really care if the pests are dead. I just don't want them to be in my face.

David Royce (24:10)

And you know, what we found is it's far more painful for the customer if it's visual. So like when I, when I was knocking 60,000 doors, I basically got a PhD in what people hated about the pest control industry. And you learn a lot about specifics with different companies. And so this is nerdy pest control history. But back in the 90s, prior to that, there were no feather dusters. Nobody was doing that. But when we are on the doors, it's almost like, okay, this is my stage. What can I point out to help the customer understand? It's also far more engaging when you're pointing and you're talking and you're, you're doing this and you're talking, you know, kind of looking interesting as opposed to just kind of sitting there and droning on and on.

Jordan Harbinger (24:46)

Speaking of pests, how about a word from our sponsors? We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Drip Drop. I'm pretty serious about staying hydrated. I mean, our bodies are mostly water, so it's clearly something we got to pay attention to. But hydration isn't just chugging plain old water. Let's be real. That gets old fast. Your body needs electrolytes to function and stay balanced. That's what plants crave. That's where Drip Drop comes in. It's become part of my daily routine because it gives me the hydration support I don't always get from water alone. Busy days, workouts, travel, mid afternoon dip, excessive drinking. Drip Drop helps me. They're gonna love that. Helps me feel like I'm getting back on track fast. Drip Drop is doctor developed proven fast hydration uses science based formulas for rapid hydration so you feel the results fast. While getting three times the electrolytes of leading sports drinks. Drip Drop is trusted by firefighters, medical professionals and over 90% of top college and pro sports teams. They also just dropped zero sugar plus with six key electrolytes, 15 essential vitamins and nutrients and no sugar or artificial sweeteners. And of course it tastes amazing too. There are 16 original flavors eight zero sugar plus options and they're all great. But I rotate between the lemon, lime and watermelon. Right now, Drip Drop is offering listeners 20% off your first order. Go to dripdrop.com and use promo code jordan. That's dripdrop.com promo code jordan for 20% off. Stock up now. At dripdrop.com and use promo code Jordan. This episode is also sponsored by HomeServe. Owning a home is great until something breaks. And somehow it's never at a convenient time, right? Your water heater doesn't exactly give you a polite heads up. And here's what a lot of homeowners don't realize. Regular homeowner's insurance doesn't usually cover everyday wear and tear. Things like plumbing problems, H VAC breakdowns, electrical issues, they really they leave you on the hook. And those repairs can get expensive fast. That's where HomeServe comes in. Think of it like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, HomeServe offers plans that help cover certain home system repairs. I've definitely had those moments where the water heater stops working. We're frantically searching for contractors just hoping we don't get ripped off. That's exactly when having HomeServe would make life a lot easier. You call their 24. 7 hotline. Start the repair process without all the panic. They've been helping homeowners for over 20 years. They have a network of over 2,600 local contractors with 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of 5 post repair ratings and an A BBB rating. HomeServe has built a solid rep. Help protect your home systems and your wallet from covered repairs with HomeServe. Plans start at just $4.99 a month. Go to HomeServe.com to find the plan

David Royce (27:08)

that's right for you.

Jordan Harbinger (27:09)

That's HomeServe.com not available everywhere. Most plans range from $4.99 to $11.99 a month for your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Today we talk a lot about relationship building. We have a free course on that. That's Shenanigan free as well@sixminutenetworking.com the course is about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to develop relationships with you. And it is non cringe. Decidedly so. No awkward strategies or cheesy tactics. It's not going to get those figurative doors or literal doors slammed in your face. It'll make you a better colleague, a better peer and a better connector. And six minutes a day is all it takes. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to that course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course again, all free@sixminutenetworking.com now back to David Royce. One of the things that we had the company we had A good company. And they always took our feedback.

David Royce (27:56)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (27:56)

We were like, hey, you're an environmentally friendly pest control company. You're laying down these strips, these like really sticky strips near my gym, which is outside.

David Royce (28:06)

Sure.

Jordan Harbinger (28:07)

There's 10 lizards stuck to this. Don't they eat bugs? And also they're cute. And they were like, yeah, we're going to stop doing that right away. Because I was like, wait a minute.

David Royce (28:15)

It.

Jordan Harbinger (28:15)

I'm supposed to be protecting the environment and getting rid of pests and what I'm doing is killing cute lizards that eat the pests and I have to look at that and it's like I find one next to my weight rack and it's like half eaten by something. It's disgusting.

David Royce (28:27)

It's funny because from a pest controller standpoint they would go, hey, that's actually a good thing for the environment because we're not laying down chemicals or something.

Jordan Harbinger (28:33)

Right.

David Royce (28:33)

You know, it's non toxic.

Jordan Harbinger (28:34)

Right.

David Royce (28:35)

But then, you know, inadvertently they're killing lizards. Yeah, right.

Jordan Harbinger (28:38)

And it's like those are the supposed

David Royce (28:40)

to be catching spiders or you know, whatever else.

Jordan Harbinger (28:41)

Yes, those are the guys eating all the spiders. Like I love the lizards that live under my deck. There's probably far fewer insects under there creating nests. Because there's a fat guy that lives under my deck and I'm like, he's well fed. You know, I don't want that guy getting stuck to a weird orange stripe in my gym. And then I gotta deal with that. What's a counterintuitive sales lesson that most people get backwards?

David Royce (29:01)

So I think a lot of people, they have this view of a stereotypical salesperson.

Jordan Harbinger (29:05)

Yeah, right.

David Royce (29:06)

So loud, assertive, almost like you have to push your way through the sale. And we really teach our people the opposite. If you're pushy, they're going to feel that instead. Like be chill. Like talk to them like you would a friend or your grandmother about the service. Like really help them understand you're there to help as opposed to like force something down their throat. Like if and when people put down their guard and they like you, they're much more likely to listen to you. That's a far easier way to get a sale done if it's just like a one time sale. Like I probably think of like the used car sales dealer. It's probably like the stereotype.

Jordan Harbinger (29:37)

Stereotype, yeah.

David Royce (29:38)

Right. It's just he's trying to get one deal done and get you out, you know, off the lot.

Jordan Harbinger (29:41)

When did you start thinking beyond your own performance? I mean the guy said, hey, can you train everyone else? So did you have to retool things to teach?

David Royce (29:49)

Not really, no. So I just was like, okay, well, I'm already the top person, so how do I teach this to other people? And having to write everything down and teach it is even a better way to learn it. And I actually got even better at sales from that point forward. It was just creating processes for it, you know, writing out a script, writing all these different rebuttals, kind of coming up with the Rack system. You know, how do you teach body language? And then we took it to another level where it's like, let's videotape the salespeople giving their approach. And then we're gonna throw it up. We're gonna put a big screen in every office. We're gonna mirror it up on the screen, and then we're gonna have the entire group, we're gonna go through it, and I'll say, tell me to press pause whenever you see something you really like or you say or dislike. And so you actually have the team, you know, edit and go through with the salesperson what they can improve on. And it's fascinating. We've done that where, like, someone's gotten to, like, a rut and they're getting zeros for a few days, and then we'll put them up on the screen. You know, everybody will say, okay, this is the key thing. Like, notice how you're actually frowning here over and over, or you're doing this thing with your forehead. It's really weird. Let's get rid of that.

Jordan Harbinger (30:48)

Just.

David Royce (30:49)

I want you to focus on that and the smile thing throughout the day. And then they'll sell seven, and it's

Jordan Harbinger (30:53)

like, whoa, this is crazy. Similar to the dating stuff that we used to teach. We used to videotape guys we would hire. We had to hire the women because you're not going to film strangers without their consent. That's a bad idea, especially now. But we would hire the women, and they would do this in our workshop. And we go, how do you think that went? And they go, well, I walked up with a big smile, and I said this, and I said this, and I said this. And we're like, let's go to the videotape. And then it would be like him walking up looking like you've just freshly shat yourself. No smile whatsoever, frozen in fear, acting really awkward, Deer in the headlights, kind of looking at the ground, not speaking up. And they're like, wow, that's what I look like. And it's like, yeah, yeah, but don't worry, we're not done. We're going to build you back up from here. So then they do it like a dozen times with coaching. And then we, we'd send them out at night. Again, this is a decade ago. I don't do this anymore. But we would send them out at night and then they were really confident when they approached because they were like, no, now I know what I look like on tape and I know I don't look like that. Right. And so, yeah, seeing is believing.

David Royce (31:47)

Right? Like you can see it. You're like, oh, I sound like that. Really? Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (31:51)

It's like when you remember when answering machines were a thing and you would hear your own voice on an answering machine and you would go, oh my God. That's what I sound like. This is terrible. This terrible news.

David Royce (32:00)

Totally.

Jordan Harbinger (32:01)

So you have to get through that kind of whatever that is, that sort of self conscious anxiety. And then you can really throw yourself into something like sales. What was the first thing you standardized with the sales process?

David Royce (32:11)

The script? What do you got to say? Because when people first get out there, they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. And if they get a training manual and it's all, we do this, this and this. Well, that's not sales. That's just like technically telling people what you do.

Jordan Harbinger (32:23)

Right.

David Royce (32:24)

And features don't sell.

Jordan Harbinger (32:25)

It's like bad marketing.

David Royce (32:26)

Explaining the benefits and how you explain the benefits is what really gets people to want to buy.

Jordan Harbinger (32:30)

I assume you think that process beats talent.

David Royce (32:33)

It's a combination. What I love about process is you can almost teach. I would say you can teach the majority of people how to be in sales. You know, there's probably 20%, 30. It depends on what the product is. Clearly some products, you know, take a longer time and it's a harder sale. The previous company I worked for, there was this wet rag mentality. It's like throw, throw them against the wall, see who sticks. If they can't sell, just let them go home.

Jordan Harbinger (32:54)

That's most sales organizations though, it's the easiest thing to hire for. Right. You can hire any warm body and then just see who doesn't blow it.

David Royce (33:01)

Yeah. And I was like, that's a horrible model.

Jordan Harbinger (33:03)

Yeah.

David Royce (33:03)

One, for the person. Like, I felt like that. I'm like, this sucks. And then two, it's horrible for the business. It's like if you train them how to do it, they'd all sell more, be more loyal to you, and they'd come back Each summer, you know, to sell for you or stay working for you.

Jordan Harbinger (33:15)

Yeah, well, you're investing in them. They're not. Because if you're just telling people to see what sticks, then they just go, this place pays $0.50 more per hour on it. So I'm just going to go there. Or, like, this place is a base and a commission, so I'm just going to go there. Whereas if you're investing in people, they go, all right, this place might pay a little bit more. But when I. Every time I spend a couple of weeks working for apptec or whatever, I come back better at this job. And that's where I'm making my money, is I'm closing more.

David Royce (33:40)

Yeah, And a big part of sales, too, is keeping up with it. If you stop practicing, you know, eventually complacency leads to mediocrity. You just get bored. So I've found, like, we're happiest when we're striving for our true potential. And if you're constantly learning and you're keeping yourself fresh, you know, and so you can, you know, be at peak performance, that's when you're going to be happiest, is when everybody's going to do better. Because sales is. Even though people are out doing their own thing. We would meet every single day, and the vibe in that room, like, the energy of how well people were doing really had an effect on other people. And so we'd utilize those who were the best at it to work with those who were not doing well and then, you know, film them and have them train them.

Jordan Harbinger (34:16)

So it's more of a team sport. Exactly. Exactly. When did it click that you were helping build a machine, though? Because it sounds like you eventually went, okay, I'm building my own thing. This is a pro. I'm writing these processes. I can train, like you said, almost anyone to be able to do this, I don't know, to the green belt level or something, which is good, decent. When did that kind of realization hit? And what. Because I'm assuming at some point this led to a ramp where you're like, wait, we can scale the crap out of this thing.

David Royce (34:41)

My boss finally convinced me to go do it, and I initially, I was. And I'm embarrassed to say this, I didn't think pest control was impressive.

Jordan Harbinger (34:48)

Shocking.

David Royce (34:49)

So I just thought, there's no way I want to go do this. Like, I'm going to go work in New York, you know, in M and A. You know, I want to have, like, a nice office, wear a suit. All that kind of a thing. And when I realized the math on how well he had done, and then he helped me realize, he's like, look what you've already done on this side.

Jordan Harbinger (35:05)

Boss. Your old boss. Yeah.

David Royce (35:06)

He's like, if you play all those skills that you just did on the sales side, and then you take it and you apply it to the technical side, the customer service side, like, you're really good at developing processes, you're going to make a ton of money. Great. So he finally convinced me to go do it. He sold his business. He actually kept his company name, Moxie. And I asked him, I said, can I license your name? Because some of the people who are here will follow me to the next one if I go start up. So I went and started up down in Southern California, and I did it for four years. And he was a silent investor behind the scenes. And then I could call him once a month if I had questions about things. And before I left, I asked him, I said, okay, what are all the things you would change if you had the time? Because he was busy. He had three kids, and he had four different locations at that point. And in some ways, the wheels were already starting to spin off.

Jordan Harbinger (35:53)

Sure.

David Royce (35:53)

And I'm like, what would you change? And he gave me a list of about 30 different things to improve the business and tweak it. And over those four years, it was kind of like being in a lab, just getting familiar with the business, learning the financials, KPIs, all that kind of thing. And at the fourth year, I'm like, okay, I'm really ready to go do this on my own. And so I sold off just the accounts, the book of business, to Terminix. And then the Terminix actually let me keep my salesforce and my executive team and my key operators. And so I just. From there, my second company, Ecofirst, we went into four different states all at once. And I said, let's see if I can actually scale this.

Jordan Harbinger (36:27)

Wow, that's a big bite for your first bite.

David Royce (36:30)

It was. It was very ambitious. I learned in the first company, we. We were in LA and Orange County, Inland Empire, and then San Diego. And I learned how to operate from afar that way, where I couldn't be at the business every day to, you know, be the manager and be running everything. So I started to work through people. A lot of people ask to go, well, how do you scale a business, you know, to that size if you're not in every location? And I'm like, well, take a 30 day vacation.

Jordan Harbinger (36:52)

Yeah.

David Royce (36:52)

And if you come back and it's still there, you got a business you can scale.

Jordan Harbinger (36:55)

Yeah. But if you come back and there's no business, well, I guess you learned an exclusive lesson.

David Royce (36:59)

You screwed up.

Jordan Harbinger (37:00)

Hopefully you had a nice vacation. Yeah. Wow. Wow. How old were you at this point?

David Royce (37:04)

I was in my late, late 20s.

Jordan Harbinger (37:05)

Wow. Okay, so you were kind of always pretty ambitious then. Because a lot of I remember working on my business in my 20s and all these guys who were 30s, 40s and 50s would be like, you're the hardest working 20 year old I've ever met. And I was like, we are. Because I, by my measure, we're kind of doing a lot of dicking around, like a lot, a lot of spinning our wheels. But the fact that we just showed up every day before like 10:30am we were already beating everybody else in our niche.

David Royce (37:30)

Totally. There's so many industries that are like that. Right. Where it's just a different breed of people that fall into these things. And if you. For me, coming out of number one, coming out, I was a college grad, which is different for the industry. Probably two. I had a finance degree. I mean, I could probably count on one hand how many pest controllers have a finance degree.

Jordan Harbinger (37:49)

Sure.

David Royce (37:50)

I had worked at a large regional company. The first company was a 100 million plus dollar company. So I'd seen what a big company did. And then the small company actually gave me the lens into just entrepreneurship and you know, you kind of see everything and it's not perfect and you're just like, okay, like these are the different sizes. How do I get this to this?

Jordan Harbinger (38:09)

Yeah. Wow.

David Royce (38:10)

I guess I was ambitious. I really threw myself in. I did 16 hour days, like loved it.

Jordan Harbinger (38:15)

Yeah.

David Royce (38:15)

Well, for 10 years it was like, go, go, go. I just, for me, I had financial drama growing up. We almost lost my parents, almost lost the house when I was a kid.

Jordan Harbinger (38:24)

Oh, wow.

David Royce (38:25)

It scared the shit out of me.

Jordan Harbinger (38:26)

Sure.

David Royce (38:26)

Be honest.

Jordan Harbinger (38:26)

That's motivating.

David Royce (38:27)

Yeah, it's motivating. So I just thought, yeah. So I learned how to save. That's why I saved all my money thinking I'm going to go to MBA school at some point as opposed to going and blowing it all, you know, in a Lamborghini or whatever in college.

Jordan Harbinger (38:37)

Geez, A college kid with a Lambo. Bad idea.

David Royce (38:40)

Yeah. So it's like, hey, if there's an opportunity, you got a shot. Like go, go, go. Let's see if you can do it.

Jordan Harbinger (38:43)

The 16 hour day thing, I can totally relate. I Remember, I was starting to sell this probably like, 2011, and I'd been in sales for a year or two, and they just had come out. This is how long ago this was. They just come out with the ability to put a chat box on your website where somebody who visits you can be like, hey, do you want any help? But there was no AI. So people would be like, like, what is this?

David Royce (39:04)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (39:04)

And I'm like, it's me, Jordan. And I was doing the podcast and generating leads and also doing sales. And people would be like, no, it isn't. And I'm like, yes, it is. Do you want information on our programs? Give me your phone number. And I would just stay on there. And it would work on my phone, too. So I would just be like, watching Game of Thrones or whatever down, you know, on Netflix and. Or hbo, whatever it was. And it would just go bling. And I'd be like. And I had my scripts all memorized and I had shortcuts and everything. And I remember just doing that from the moment I woke up, answering people who probably messaged at 1am and be like, is this tab still open? And then all the way until 11:30 at night. And I'd be at the bar having drinks with friends, and I'd be like, just a second, guys. Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. And people would be like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm chatting with website visitors. And it was just. They'd be like, what? What are you talking about? Chatting with website visitors?

David Royce (39:52)

And then you're so far ahead of the game.

Jordan Harbinger (39:53)

It was so. It was. It was like, what are you talking about? And then I remember we had this accountant, and he was like, how did you guys go from making $180,000 a year to making $3 million a year? And I was like, oh, I just sit on this website chat thing, and I get every person who responds to give me their phone number, unless they are just not interested at all. And then I call them, and then I call them a dozen more times over the period of a year or two until they're ready to give me. I think it was like, $8,000.

David Royce (40:23)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (40:23)

For the program. And people are like, what? And I was like, yeah, I don't know. This is how sales works. Because nobody taught me, like, that. It was quick.

David Royce (40:29)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (40:30)

And nobody taught me much of anything. I was just like, well, you just do it until they say yes or they say, please don't call me again. I'm never giving you my money. And then you thank them for being honest with you. And you just, you know, that's it.

David Royce (40:40)

Yeah, that's the best people. Just be direct with you.

Jordan Harbinger (40:41)

But I remember I still have people that I've called so many times that I remember and like, they either eventually came through or didn't. And I would consider them like friends or acquaintances because I talked so much with these people. It's a high ticket item, man. You're selling a 20 something, 30 something year old guy an $8,000 program. I mean, that's like selling him a car.

David Royce (40:58)

Well, I think you make a good point too. Being able to hear the customer when it's like a firm no, it's a hard no or a no way versus kind of a soft no. Like, I don't think so. You're like, okay, I can push more beyond that. Yeah, there's a bit of room where it's just like, no, I'm not interested. Yeah, you're like, got it. I got the tonality from good.

Jordan Harbinger (41:16)

But the thing is, see, remember these people were usually coming from the podcast, right? Which is good lead gen. So they weren't like, nobody was offended that I them they were interested in the podcast. They wanted to talk on the phone. So nobody was like, why are you calling me, you jerk? Don't bother me again. Everybody was like, man, it was really cool to talk to you for half an hour. I will never have the amount of money I need to come to your program. And instead of treating them like a disposable lead, I treated them like a listener of the show where I actually cared about them. Yeah, I think that made a huge difference because it was almost like caring about people's experience with your company, but

David Royce (41:49)

at scale and if you have their best interests in mind, people can feel that on the other side. And it's like you're trying to help them make a good decision that's going to, you know, increase their value or whatever. I think that's really important. Like, I can't stand when you meet a salesperson and they're like, yeah, I really bent the person over on that one. I'm like, what? Like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't want you working for me.

Jordan Harbinger (42:08)

I don't want any repeat business from that guy ever again. Even though he was clearly qualified because he closed. It's like, oh, this is not.

David Royce (42:13)

Yeah, you got to create the right culture.

Jordan Harbinger (42:15)

That's actually got to be kind of tricky. I've definitely hired salespeople in my old company who are not a good Fit, but still close. And you, you have to fight your business partners to get rid of them because they're like, he made 10, $10,000 last month. And I'm like, I guarantee you a bunch of those guys are going to refund. All of them had a bad experience registering and all of them have a negative, a more negative view of our brand than they did when they made the call. And that's not good. Like, that's. You're chipping away at brand equity for dollars. Short term, not good.

David Royce (42:43)

I learned that lesson really early. We had an individual on our sales team. He was one of the top salespeople, but he was just so negative around everybody else. He had a hard time working with everybody. And he would make comments like, I'm not here to make friends. That sucks. I'm just like, I have to let you go. Like, yeah. He's like, you're gonna let me go? Like, yeah. I'm like, I'll help you get a job at another company, but I can't have you here with us. It's just, you're just not part of our culture.

Jordan Harbinger (43:08)

People don't understand the value, how important the team thing is. I know a couple of trainers. I don't know what their exact role is. I guess they're like master chiefs in the Navy or whatever, and they train Navy SEALs, these guys. And they. I won't repeat the name, but there's a very big influencer who's like a well known tough guy. And he's always. His whole thing is how tough he is, but he's also a jerk. He. You probably do. He's. He's. He went through buds, which is the SEAL training program, and they kicked him out every time. And I was like, oh, why? And they would go, it wasn't even his athleticism, but everybody hated him, nobody trusted him. And it was almost like he went out of his way to be a terrible person. He couldn't help himself. And it was like, that's the last guy we want on the teams. We'd rather have a guy who is a mediocre swimmer, a mediocre relative to the seals runner, who's not charismatic, who doesn't. But is going to play on the team. We don't want an all star who's a piece of crap. And so they kicked this guy out multiple times. Like, he went through multiple times. He just can't control himself. And it's funny because it's like, wow, this guy actually met all of the physical, in mental sort of tests that, that the U.S. navy can throw at you for one of the toughest units around. And he still screwed it up just because he can't work with other people. Imagine having your life is in this person's hands. He's going to make a choice that makes him look like a hero or feel good as opposed to, like, I don't know, saving his comrades. Like, the last guy you want watching your back is somebody who can't function like that. It's like.

David Royce (44:37)

And the thing about the problem too is those who are new that come in, they're rookies, they're looking at the top salespeople going, okay, how do I emulate?

Jordan Harbinger (44:43)

Right, Yeah, I want to do everything

David Royce (44:45)

they're doing, so I'm going to be this way. And the more of those that he recreates, the worse off that you're like, it's spreading like a disease. Yeah, it's a cancer.

Jordan Harbinger (44:52)

Yeah, that's a good point. The new guys and gals come in and go, well, I gotta emulate everything about this person. And it's like, oh, I. I tell people to take the good with the bad. They're new. They don't know what the bad is.

David Royce (45:02)

Right.

Jordan Harbinger (45:03)

They think that you're cocky, arrogant, annoying, impossible to work with. Take no prisoners attitude is what is making you successful. They don't realize that this is your chief handicap and your vice that you need to get rid of.

David Royce (45:16)

You're doing. You're achieving all this in spite.

Jordan Harbinger (45:18)

In spite of. Right. So you're giving them your biggest handicap. And that's the thing that they're emulating first, and then they're trying to shore up all the other. It's like, no, this is not gonna work. You're right. It's like a cancer. Yeah. Hang on. The Aptif pest control guys are at my door again. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you in part by Lufthansa. When people talk about travel, they usually focus on the destination, the hotel, the restaurants, all the stuff that happens after you land. But the flight is part of the experience, too. Just like a great hotel can shape an entire trip, so can a great flight. That's exactly what Lufthansa Allegris is built around. On a long haul route, comfort matters more than people realize. If you're cramped, tired, and can't relax, you feel it the second you land. But when a flight is comfortable, you can actually stretch out, rest, work, or just enjoy the ride. It changes the whole trip. I was thinking about that on my recent Intercontinental Lufthansa flight. I got so comfortable. I honestly didn't want the flight to end, which is not something you say very often after a long international trip. That's why Lufthansa Allegris stands out. It's built around the idea that people travel differently. Lufthansa Allegris Business Class has five seat options. You've got the suite, the privacy seat and the extra long bed, the extra space seat and the classic seat. So you can choose what works for you. And that's what I like most. It feels elevated, but still practical. More privacy, more comfort, more thoughtful design for the way people actually travel. Now visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. Lufthansa Allegris all it takes is a yes. Limited availability on select routes More routes coming soon. This episode is sponsored in part by Marathon At Marathon gas stations, every stop is the start of fun. Like the awesome fuel savings you can get with Marathon Rewards. Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. You can redeem rewards at any time, saving up to $1 per gallon. And don't forget, Marathon stations are packed with all the conveniences you need to stock up and live life on the Go Marathon, where fun runs on full Available at participating Marathon locations. Terms and conditions apply. See marathonrewards.com for details. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment support the sponsors. They make the show possible and they're all searchable and clickable on the website@jordanharbinger.com deal if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code. Email me jordanordanharbinger.com we're happy to surface those codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now back to David Royce. You mentioned a college professor who influenced your thinking and I'm curious what that said, what that person said to influence or trigger you.

David Royce (47:38)

There's a few things. Like one, I had a teacher in the sixth grade that really helped me to believe in myself some college professors. I had one college professor that I was asking, so what's the secret to wealth creation? I may have been asking the wrong time type person.

Jordan Harbinger (47:50)

I'll just ask a guy with an essentially government job. Well, depending on the school. What's the secret to wealth creation? If you find out, please tell me.

David Royce (47:59)

Yeah, his thing was, look what I've seen is people who can do Something the longest and stick with it. Those are the ones who ultimately make the most. And there's a lot of truth to that. Right. Like, a lot of people, they don't succeed. It's because they just quit. They end up giving up or they run out of money, that sort of thing. I. I'm friends with this famous DJ Cascade.

Jordan Harbinger (48:19)

Oh, he's great.

David Royce (48:20)

Lives down the street from me.

Jordan Harbinger (48:21)

Nice.

David Royce (48:22)

And we went on a spring break together and sitting on the beach and we're talking to each other and I'm like, so what, what makes you great? I. I don't really listen to a lot of his music personally, but, like, so what, what makes you, like, great? Like, you're known and you make tens of millions of dollars as a dj. And he's like, you know, just stuck with it. And I'm like, that, wait, that's it. He's like, there were so many people who are better than me. But it's a hard lifestyle. It's a lot of late nights, you know, and being on the road, you know, away from your family. And he's like, I just kept sticking with it. And he's like, it's my true passion. It's what I love. And I was willing to put up with, you know, the difficulties of the job, whereas other people that I really looked up to, they just decided to get out of it.

Jordan Harbinger (49:00)

It's so funny to hear somebody like Cascade say, ah, I just didn't quit. It's like, well, and also you seem to have a supernatural sense of what is going to be like a great hook or a great drum or interesting sound bite, a sample. And you are constantly smashing hits. But okay, fine, just don't give up. Maybe refine that if you're going to give a commencement speech.

David Royce (49:21)

Cascade for sure.

Jordan Harbinger (49:22)

Yeah. It's up there with follow your passion. Just don't quit. What if you suck? I haven't thought this far ahead. All right, so you start your own company. Obviously things start to scale, but I'm curious at what point you start to feel real momentum, or are you always in your head, the poor kid who can't let out up off the gas?

David Royce (49:39)

No. You know, so I learned my first year in business that you can be killing it and also dying at the same time.

Jordan Harbinger (49:45)

I almost bankrupt the business by scaling.

David Royce (49:47)

Yeah, by scaling too fast. Because the way the commissions were, you paid out the commissions ahead of the revenue coming in.

Jordan Harbinger (49:53)

Oh.

David Royce (49:54)

Even though we paid them out in portions over time, it still wasn't enough to catch up. And I had Enough saved up between myself and my silent investor. I'm like, okay, we'll probably put on 4,000 or 5,000 new customers this year. And we ended up doing 7, 500. I wasn't paying attention to the financials. I wasn't looking at my bank accounts weekly because I'm like, oh, we just have all this big cash pile in there and it just keeps emptying. And I'm like, oh, it's time to pay out the final bonus check. And I can't do it. Oh, my gosh. I almost just killed the company.

Jordan Harbinger (50:23)

Isn't there. There's a phrase in Silicon Valley and they call it the warm hug of death or something. And it's when you scale so much and you go to your VCs, and you're like, look at what we have, 10 million users. And then it's like, yeah, but you're. Your bill for this LLM in the back end, your. Your Amazon server Bill is $28 million. Yeah. How are you going to pay that? And it's like, well, that's why I'm standing in front of you. Look at all of our users. And they're like, I'm not giving you $28 million. Yeah, I'm giving you 8 million. Where are you going to get the rest? And it's like, oh, we are going to go bankrupt because we are too successful.

David Royce (50:53)

Yeah. It's like, you got to pay attention to both sides. You can't just be great at one thing.

Jordan Harbinger (50:56)

I can see how tempting it is to just go, look, I'm here to grow the thing. I'm not here to worry about how you pay the people. That's. Well, there's no. That's actually nobody's job. Maybe we should look into that.

David Royce (51:05)

It really has to be a combination of both things. And it was tough. I had to go to them and say, look, I went to my main salespeople, the sales leaders that made the bows, and I said, hey, can I pay you in two months from now? But I'm going to pay you 10% interest on your money. I just, like, we did way better than I thought.

Jordan Harbinger (51:20)

Wow.

David Royce (51:20)

And they had such a great summer. They're like, yeah, that's great. I can't make that in the market or wherever else. So, yeah, I'd be happy to do that. I was lucky that we had a great summer to be in that position. It was good. It was a good problem to have.

Jordan Harbinger (51:31)

That is a good problem to have. But also, you are so lucky. They said that that was okay, yeah, there was during. This could have been the end, man. I'm telling you. During COVID this podcast network, Podcast one was like, we don't know what the ad market is going to do. I have a decent monthly sort of guarantee from them. And they were like, can you take like a 40% pay cut? And I said, for how long? And they were like, I don't know, a while. And they go in, the owner back then, he's since passed with Norm Pattiscoe goes, you will be made whole. And I was like, well, that's good enough for me. So I took this pay cut. And then like three months later, he goes, actually, we're still making a bunch of money. Here's all your money. Here's a bunch of extra interest. And I remember being like, holy crap, that was close. That was a close call. But he told me everyone agreed to it. But I thought, what happens if I say no? And Adam Carolla says no? And I don't know, the other big show, like, what if we just say, sorry, it's Covid, I need the money. I've got kids. It's like, what are you gonna do? And he was like, go to a bank and put on my best behavior and ask for a fat loan. I don't know, like, what are you going to do? You don't want to close your company, you're successful. You just have to go to, I don't know, J.P. morgan and go, like, here's the thing, I can't afford to pay anyone. That's a tough sale.

David Royce (52:44)

Yeah, you would have to figure something out like that. Yeah, it's like, and if you can prove, hey, I got the customers and here's what the attrition rate is. But that was in my first year, so I don't think anybody would have given me money.

Jordan Harbinger (52:53)

No, no.

David Royce (52:53)

It's like I'm still proving the model right now.

Jordan Harbinger (52:55)

That's like one of those Shark Tank pitches where they're like, have you ever done anything business y before? And it's like, no, but isn't this a great idea? And everyone's like, I'm out. I'm not touching this. Not touching this deal, even on tv. So what started breaking first? Was it just that cash flow thing?

David Royce (53:10)

Yeah, it was really just cash flow. And from there, I was very lucky. Like, it only got better from there. Like, we kept tweaking things, we kept improving things, we kept coming up with new processes, new systems. And, you know, at the four year mark, I'm like, okay, I'm really Ready to scale this, at least regionally. We were like, let's go kind of west of the Mississippi, and we'll go into four states initially and start expanding out from there. And so we did that for another few years with Eco first, and things are going incredible. And then Terminix calls me and says, hey, do you want to sell this company? I'm like, yeah, we could use more cash to grow even faster.

Jordan Harbinger (53:44)

I might not even have a choice but to sell this company. Say more.

David Royce (53:47)

No, it's just like the first one I sold for Forbes said I sold it for 13. I have NDAs, so I can't say. But, yeah, Forbes has 13. So it's like, I've got millions of dollars now to spend on the next company. And then I sold Eco first for tens of millions, according to Forbes. And so it's like, all right, now I can just ramp up. And then it was like, let's do some really cool shit. Like, let's get a head company headquarters with like a NBA basketball court golf simulator.

Jordan Harbinger (54:10)

So it begins, you know, like all

David Royce (54:11)

this really fun stuff. Because I was watching companies in pest control, and it's just very boring. It wasn't exciting.

Jordan Harbinger (54:17)

Sure.

David Royce (54:18)

And I knew as we were ramping up, it was going to be harder and harder to recruit the right talent.

Jordan Harbinger (54:22)

Was this during the Google era, where everyone's like, you need a slide? Yes, I need a slide in the office.

David Royce (54:26)

Yeah. Because initially in 2000 when I graduated, one of the reasons I went and I was thinking investment banking, and then I did pest control was tech was like, at all time low. Right Then, right? Like, it come up. The bubble had burst. You know, NASDAQ's down 80% in the early 2000s. It just wasn't great.

Jordan Harbinger (54:40)

I got an idea. It's somethingsomething.com and they're like, get out. Yeah, get out of here.

David Royce (54:44)

Totally. And then, you know, by like 2010, 2011, things had really turned around. And they have incredible offices. You know, they're recruiting the very best talent.

Jordan Harbinger (54:52)

Right.

David Royce (54:52)

Because there's only so many software developers out there. And I started going to these different company locations, like these headquarters, and toured Meta and Google and the Nike headquarters, which is insane.

Jordan Harbinger (55:01)

And baby giraffes walking around or whatever. Like, what? And it's like, okay, I need. I need what? It was a golf simulator was the other thing. NBA course had like a movie room,

David Royce (55:11)

you know, and all the other, like, ping pong, foosball, all like pool tables. But it was just a really cool way to differentiate ourselves and then the offices were like, super. Like, it looked like a tech company. So people would walk in, they'd go, go, oh, this is awesome. What is it? Like, it's a tech company and they're like, wait, pest control. What? Yeah, tell me more. I know, like, the owner cares about these people. Clearly. And you guys have a cool company culture. I'm in at least interested. Tell me more. Whereas if it's just pest control, most people wouldn't, you know, get into it.

Jordan Harbinger (55:37)

That's true.

David Royce (55:37)

Unless you knew what the actual offer was like, hey, you can make a lot of money at this. So we started looking for ways just differentiate. And we did, like, really cool company retreats. We had a MBA suite we could take everybody to.

Jordan Harbinger (55:48)

I mean, hey, enjoy your money, I suppose, right? A little bit. Sure.

David Royce (55:51)

Why not? Totally. And all this stuff, it helped us stand out. But they're really like, the perks are just sugar, you know? Sure, yeah. The protein is really. It's like the sales program and the training of the sales program or the training of the technician side or whatever else. People become loyal to you when you. You teach them how to fish. Like, and they can fish forever. It's like, look, I will never go hungry at this point. Like, I can do this. I can make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. We have some guys that make a million dollars a year doing this selling. They're like sales leaders. And then they become regional managers over sales because you can make commissions off everybody that's working underneath you. So it's wild, like, what it's become.

Jordan Harbinger (56:25)

That's really cool. I mean, I think sales is the coolest skill set, one of the coolest skill sets to have in business. There's a guy who teaches sales stuff online. I think his name's like Jeb Blount or something. Does that name ring?

David Royce (56:36)

I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger (56:36)

I think he wrote a book called the 800 pound gorilla of sales. It was one of those things I got early on. I was like, I need to figure this out. He had a podcast and it was like five minute sales tips or something like that. The sales guy, whatever. And he said. Said salespeople are the elite athletes of the business world. So it's not like, yeah, you've got the CEO, right? You've got these people who are in the spotlight, but they're going, okay, who's making the most money in any. If you look at any organization, the people that make the most money. Sure. The people in the C suite. And then it's like, everyone Else is a distant third. And the salespeople are right up there. And you even find that there are salespeople who make more than people in the C suite. And if anyone wants to complain, they just need to look at that guy guy's Salesforce profile or whatever.

David Royce (57:17)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (57:18)

And they're like, oh, he generated $11 million in revenue last year. Okay.

David Royce (57:22)

Now it's really easy to understand why.

Jordan Harbinger (57:23)

Right?

David Royce (57:24)

It's like, okay, well there's proof this is valuable. So we're going to pay that individual X.

Jordan Harbinger (57:28)

Exactly. And, and it's like, I get emails from salespeople, we do an advice segment and I'll get an advice write in from a salesperson. And they're like, I generated half a million dollars in revenue last year or $5 million in revenue last year. And some of these tech guys, it's like $30 million in revenue. And they're like, and my boss is doing. And I go, dude, you don't. I don't think you realize since you've been at this company the whole time, you can go anywhere on planet earth.

David Royce (57:52)

Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (57:53)

And they will hire you in a New York minute. If you have generated this much revenue and if you threaten to leave, your boss isn't even going to be in the meeting where they decide to give you the raise. They're just going to be like, you stay, don't you? You don't report to that guy anymore. Like, they can't afford to lose you. I don't think you realize this. It's just, it's one of the most powerful skill sets you can have because you just write your own ticket. It's just how it goes.

David Royce (58:13)

It really is. What the other thing we got into was telling tech. So like 17 years ago, like, there's no pest control company creating their own technology.

Jordan Harbinger (58:21)

There was maybe, what did you.

David Royce (58:22)

Maybe Terminex or Orkin, like the two very biggest. But it's like we had extra money, so we're like, well, what can we do to kind of standardize things? And like, well, if we had technology, you know, and a website, the guys could go on that was private or an apps eventually, you know, we could have all the training videos there so they could see them at any time. And then we started thinking, well, you can create sales tournaments because the problem is in each location and you know, you might have maybe 15 salespeople or whatever, but the very top, they're not really competing against anybody because they're so good.

Jordan Harbinger (58:50)

Right.

David Royce (58:50)

And then you have this big middle section and then guys at the very lower end. And so we said, well, what if we get the top guys from this location to compete with these guys and they could see it in real time.

Jordan Harbinger (58:58)

Right? It's like a NBA March Madness. Yeah, March Madness. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

David Royce (59:03)

So that's what we did, is we created individuals where we would say, okay, our system could figure out, okay, who sells about the exact same at the same rate as someone else in another place, anywhere in the country. Country. And then we would team them up, and we'd have all these brackets, and then there was all these different, you know, like, leagues or whatever that the guys could go do. And it got really crazy. Like, now you can, like, win a car.

Jordan Harbinger (59:23)

I was gonna ask you prizes or

David Royce (59:24)

if it was just like, all these different prizes.

Jordan Harbinger (59:26)

They're gonna see each other in Vegas in the annual conference and gloat in the. Over drinks, like, you know.

David Royce (59:30)

Totally.

Jordan Harbinger (59:31)

Because it's. That actually is still worth it.

David Royce (59:32)

It's worth it for us, too, because sales will increase, like, 30% on tournament days.

Jordan Harbinger (59:37)

Really.

David Royce (59:37)

So we make way more money as a company just by incentivizing them. For some of them, them, it's funny, like, swag can even be exciting for them, right? On the lower end, they're like, oh, I'm gonna get a shirt or a free hat or whatever. But, you know, then it goes up to laptops or iPads or cars.

Jordan Harbinger (59:50)

Salespeople are like this, though, right? Like, it's. You mean, I get a chance to beat David, and then when I see him, I go, oh, tough march, huh? Tough march, David. Tough march. And I get to drive away in my Cadillac Escalade or whatever. And it's like a rounding error in the company revenue. But I. Yeah, I made $13 million in extra, like, revenue because I worked 17 hours instead of 16 hours because it was worth every ounce of effort to be able to pull one over on my, like, rival across the state. I mean, I respect each other for it, too.

David Royce (60:20)

Right.

Jordan Harbinger (60:20)

Of course.

David Royce (60:21)

Like, you drove me to make this much more. Thank you for being competitive with me.

Jordan Harbinger (60:25)

Right. Yeah. No, it's totally scratches this weird itch. And I think a lot of people have this. Right.

David Royce (60:30)

We typically do it more towards the second half of the summer.

Jordan Harbinger (60:33)

Sure.

David Royce (60:33)

When some guys have made a bunch of money already and they're like. They kind of start slowing down. We're like, we. We see the slowing down. It's normally this week, we're going to pick it up. We're going to do this kind of tournament here. We're going to make the tournament bigger the next week and then.

Jordan Harbinger (60:45)

Smart.

David Royce (60:45)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (60:45)

So you kind of almost gamified it.

David Royce (60:47)

We did.

Jordan Harbinger (60:48)

Yeah.

David Royce (60:48)

It goes back to your question of how do you gamify business? This is one of those ways we did it.

Jordan Harbinger (60:52)

I like that. You're right. If I made. I mean, I'm a motivated guy, but if it's July and I've been out there for two months and I got my sunburn, I'm already peeling under my peel from last week. You're in Florida. He. Yeah.

David Royce (61:04)

Like, it's just hot.

Jordan Harbinger (61:05)

Getting sticky, chased by alligators or whatever.

David Royce (61:08)

Bugs.

Jordan Harbinger (61:08)

Yeah, I've got mosquito bites. I'm thinking, you know what, maybe I'll take a week off. Maybe I'll go to Vegas with my friends. Maybe I'll go up to New York and hang out. And then it's like, tournament, win a car and brag forever. At least until, you know, next quarter. It's like, nah, I'll stick around another couple weeks. I can handle this.

David Royce (61:25)

Gotta distract them with something. Some new flashy object.

Jordan Harbinger (61:28)

That's so funny. That would totally work on me. Man, I love this thing stuff. All right. Did the competition stuff ever create maybe bad incentives there any backfires like, oh, we got some throat cutting going on.

David Royce (61:40)

There's probably a few times where you wondered if somebody was giving somebody else sales because maybe there was such a big tournament and someone might be like, here, use this sale so you can beat the other person. We had to watch that kind of close.

Jordan Harbinger (61:51)

Like, hey, if I get three more sales, I get a. I'm gonna get a car. I'm gonna get an suv.

David Royce (61:55)

Hey, do you mind giving me one of your sales so I can beat this other guy?

Jordan Harbinger (61:58)

Give you 600 bucks for that sale, man. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I'd never thought about that.

David Royce (62:02)

But you put a lot on client. People start coming up with, you know.

Jordan Harbinger (62:05)

Yeah, exactly. Especially clever people who are really. Who really want that car.

David Royce (62:09)

One of the things we did is we actually started to film the very top people because everybody throughout the company would want to see the very, very top dogs that are, like, fighting for, you know, maybe like a BMW or whatever the car is. It was really cool. Like, they would have someone walk around the whole day filming so people could actually see them closing how many they did. Because a lot of people, like, it's almost hard to fathom somebody. Somebody selling like 20 in a day.

Jordan Harbinger (62:30)

Yeah.

David Royce (62:31)

Pest control. Just like I'm used to selling two a day. How on earth does somebody do 20 and you just you hear them and you see it and you see how positive they are the whole time and how many hours they work. Just wild.

Jordan Harbinger (62:41)

The Riz is off the charts if you're selling 20 a day.

David Royce (62:44)

Right.

Jordan Harbinger (62:44)

It's got to be. It's got to be. So actually I'm curious, but this is totally another here or there. But. So someone's filming them. So I'm answering the door. Is somebody off by my garage filming?

David Royce (62:54)

Yeah, a lot of times they'll be off the side, like filming and then they'll ask the person after they're, hey, we're filming this because it's at sales tournament. Hey, are you okay with us having.

Jordan Harbinger (63:01)

I don't mind that at all.

David Royce (63:02)

I just thought everybody's like, yeah, we don't.

Jordan Harbinger (63:04)

Yeah. I just wondered the logistics of that because I'm like, I don't know. If there's a camera when I open the door, then I'm like, what is YouTube prank show? Get out of here.

David Royce (63:11)

Yeah. Then technically, legally, I think there's 13 states you have to tell them no matter what. But we always tell people because we don't want to have them on our film if they don't want to be.

Jordan Harbinger (63:19)

Yeah. On private. I don't know.

David Royce (63:21)

Bad way to start a customer relationship.

Jordan Harbinger (63:22)

Yeah. Hey, hey. By the way, we. We wiretapped you. We. We broke the federal wiretapping law. State wiretapping law. Laws.

David Royce (63:29)

Everybody's going to know you have ants. Sorry.

Jordan Harbinger (63:31)

Yeah, sorry. Exactly. It'd be more like, I suppose there's people who like, hey, I don't really want the whole world to know I have a Lamborghini and my address is in the shot.

David Royce (63:40)

We only keep. That's only for internal stuff too. We never, like, put it outwards so that people could see it. I think it might freak some customers out for sure. Some customers probably hear this like, wait, what the hell? They do this.

Jordan Harbinger (63:49)

My house is blurred on Google and I don't want a video of a sales guy selling me pest control with my address in the shot.

David Royce (63:54)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (63:55)

Although I don't have a Lambo, so I have nothing to worry about. Sometimes the best pest control is just the fast forward button. But don't even think about it. We'll be right back. With Vrbal's last minute deals.

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Jordan Harbinger (65:07)

got our newsletter that I've told you about a thousand times. We bit wiser. It is specific, it's practical, it'll have an immediate impact on your decision. Psychology and relationships in under two minutes almost every Wednesday. I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with David Royce. Well I guess how do you gamify this without turning the place into Lord of the Flies like you said you had to police some of the sales but was that really the only kind of thing? Like nobody there wasn't really for the

David Royce (65:37)

most part like that's it. There's not a whole lot you can do to, to, to screw this up. Like you know, people have to have a signed agreement. When we go to the doors or whatever there's a checklist so that the customer goes through everything with a different person who doesn't have the same incentive to get the sale. So it's like you understand, you know, it's a one year agreement minimum, you understand these things are going to be done at the home, you know, that kind of thing.

Jordan Harbinger (65:57)

So the salesman can kind of gloss over. Yeah, it's a one year agreement. You know I'm not going to say that that's going to be. I'm just going to hint that or maybe I'll just. Did I forget to mention it's a one year agreement? I'm so sorry about that. Anyway, anyway you did sign it. So because I looked up some reviews and my wife was like look at the reviews for Aptiv. And I was like well this person just didn't read the contract. You might want to read the thing that you're buying. I get not looking at every bit of fine print. But surely that's not that hidden. If they're going to be back every

David Royce (66:26)

month it's impossible to get through because we always have a second person when the technician shows up. That person goes through and that person doesn't get any pay payment. There's no commission for the technician. Right. Get it to go through. And we do that intentionally because we don't want a customer who's not going to. We're not going to be able to retain long term.

Jordan Harbinger (66:41)

No.

David Royce (66:41)

And so maybe, like, somebody. Maybe the salesman wasn't as clear, but the technician stopped him and said, then maybe they want to do a review. The most reviews we get that are negative, though, are people like, this idiot knocked on my door, and I don't want people coming to my door.

Jordan Harbinger (66:53)

I saw a lot of that. I saw a lot of that.

David Royce (66:54)

I have a First amendment.

Jordan Harbinger (66:55)

Sorry.

David Royce (66:55)

I'm really sorry. I know some people are annoyed by it. You don't have to answer the door.

Jordan Harbinger (66:58)

Some of them were like, yeah, our neighborhood has a no soliciting sign near the gate. It's like, well, okay, but no, first of all, no, we're going to try and sell to you. It's not a gated community. They're not like a locked door, unless

David Royce (67:11)

it's a gated community, has a no soliciting sign on it, has, like, penal code or whatever. Like, we always tell our guys, respect that. Same thing. If there's no soliciting sign on the door, don't knock it. The person clearly doesn't want you there. Why would you knock and then piss somebody off? It only gets us bad reviews. Don't do it.

Jordan Harbinger (67:25)

Yeah, I don't even. Like I said, I don't even. It doesn't even bother me. Like, I'm not so important I can't answer the door. Or I hope that day one arrives at some point. But my time's not that valuable.

David Royce (67:35)

I like if I have a no listening sign in my house and if they knock, I'm like. The first thing I say, I'm like, oh, so you didn't. You avoided the no soliciting sign. This must be really important. What's so important that you're.

Jordan Harbinger (67:45)

Would you.

David Royce (67:45)

I'll see how they react. Because I want to see if I can throw them off or if they're so confident they're going to work around it. I'm like, all right, you're good.

Jordan Harbinger (67:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I wish I could have followed that rule, but this deal we are having right now is too good for you to pass mess up. I knew you'd make an exception if I told you that you were going to get 40% off pest control for one year for this. You've transferred this playbook several times to different companies. I mean, it seems like four times. I mean, that's Are you sick of founding companies?

David Royce (68:11)

Yeah, I'm actually done. I'm officially out. Yeah. So I just sold my company last year or whatever. You know, it's 20 years in the industry. 24 if you include my old sales years person. We might have to go public on the next round. And I just didn't want to be the owner of a public company. I also got to the point where I just didn't feel I was learning anything new. It's like we were in 5,000 cities and 34 states. We're the third largest residential pest control service in the country, probably the world. And I just thought it's just time.

Jordan Harbinger (68:40)

It's a good time to. Yeah, yeah.

David Royce (68:42)

That's what I've always wanted, to do other things. And the next thing will probably be something more creative or more philanthropic. I decided I was just going to take a year off, you know, and just kind of get out of my system and then just think. And so now I'm like in this just exploratory mode.

Jordan Harbinger (68:57)

Yeah.

David Royce (68:57)

I'm looking at different ideas. Friends will bring business ideas to me.

Jordan Harbinger (68:59)

Sure.

David Royce (69:00)

I'll get on chat GPT and just start studying different industries. It's not fun. It's just so many rabbit holes you can go down, especially with chat. It's amazing.

Jordan Harbinger (69:07)

I do wonder because a lot of people I know that have exits, they're like, for me, if I were doing a company that, I don't know, like a SaaS company company, I don't think I would be in a hurry to start something else. But they'll start like a podcast or they'll do something where they're starting another business or they'll start investing in businesses. Other people jump right into founding the next thing, which to me sounds kind of exhausting. I don't know.

David Royce (69:29)

So what it is is I think it's like a dopamine addiction.

Jordan Harbinger (69:31)

Yes, I agree. They're addicted to it.

David Royce (69:33)

And like when you go from 100 miles an hour to zero, you're like freaking out going, what am I going to do with all this time?

Jordan Harbinger (69:38)

Yes. Yeah.

David Royce (69:40)

But I had slowly started winding down. I became chairman of my last business, this, and I was really just involved more in strategy and hiring key people and eventually helping find a buyer. And I, you know, replaced myself, the CEO, because even then I was starting to get bored with them. Just like, I'm not. There's nothing really new. Like I want someone who's animated and excited about it to continue it.

Jordan Harbinger (69:59)

Yeah.

David Royce (69:59)

So little by little it's Like I went from 80 hours down to 40 hours. And that was the hardest thing because I love working, you know, really long days. And I started to have my family. And that's.

Jordan Harbinger (70:09)

Well, I was going to say girls, kids.

David Royce (70:10)

So yeah, my wife was like, hey, can instead of, you know, 10 o' clock at night, can you come home at like 8, 7? I just kind of started working back.

Jordan Harbinger (70:18)

What do you think of. And hear me out here, having dinner at home once or twice a week.

David Royce (70:22)

Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to watch my kids grow.

Jordan Harbinger (70:24)

Sure.

David Royce (70:24)

You know, I had created a life for us that I could, you know, and it's my fault if I'm not able to be around them.

Jordan Harbinger (70:30)

That's a really good realization. I kind of had this same thing. Look, I didn't sell a huge company, but I built this life. It's a lifestyle business in many ways. Right. I work from home. I can choose to go to LA to do something like this, or I can say, you have zoom, I have zoom, you know, whatever. And I can write off cool trips. Like I can get a speaking gig in Anaheim and it's like, okay, time to go to Disneyland. You know, I can do that kind of thing. And so like you said, I really did come to the realization. It's like, oh, look, my parents were busy, they worked outside the home. My dad worked for Ford. He came back late, he left early and then he retired early and we hung out after that. But it was a little bit like he was gone a lot earlier in my life. But it's like, I don't have that problem. So you're right. It is, is totally my fault. If I end up missing my kids growing up when they're young, that is 1,000% on me. I don't have the luxury of going. I work at an automotive factory. I cannot work from home. I have to commute long distance because I got to drive to Detroit from the suburbs. Like, those are pretty decent excuses to not see your kids as much like, it still sucks, but it's a. You have a reasonable excuse if I'm just in my office a lot with the door shut. Man, that's kind of a pathetic way to screw up the relationship with your kids.

David Royce (71:40)

Yeah, for sure.

Jordan Harbinger (71:41)

Yeah.

David Royce (71:41)

You know, they don't need any more trauma than maybe you're door. I had like growing up or whatever.

Jordan Harbinger (71:46)

Right, exactly.

David Royce (71:48)

It sounds like a Hallmark card, but like love is spelled T, I, M, E. Yes, like for kids.

Jordan Harbinger (71:52)

Exactly.

David Royce (71:53)

We're constantly talking about exit values and like financial forecasts and like our Kids, they just want us home for dinner.

Jordan Harbinger (71:58)

Yeah. Did you have a moment where you were like, wait, I have enough? Because you said you grew up with financial uncertainty, and so it's hard for

David Royce (72:04)

guys, like, to be fair like my. So my dad was an executive. He was a CEO of Motel 6. And then a private equity group purchased it after things there for about four and a half, five years. Years. And then they had a disagreement about how they were running things. And so about six months into that transition, he was out. And then he thought, I'm going to go try to work for other businesses and kind of take some equity in the different businesses. But he didn't spread himself around enough businesses, in my opinion. I think that's what happened when you're a kid, they never really tell you.

Jordan Harbinger (72:29)

Yeah, they're not getting the beads on that. Yeah.

David Royce (72:31)

No. But all I know is my mom, she really leaned on me around the house because my dad was gone traveling five days a week from fifth grade through through almost 12, and so I just never saw him. So my. My mom had to get a job so that we had medical insurance. And she's working full time. She'd wake up at five in the morning, had this brutal schedule where she'd make us lunches, you know, work all day, come home, do the laundry, clean the house. So we didn't have housekeepers or anything like that. And so it was. It was a lot. And she leaned on me, you know, to be able to help out around the house because I was the oldest. And it's funny, because now I look back and I'm like, you know what? That was really a gift. Gift. She got worried. In some ways, I was probably a surrogate dad. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (73:09)

You have a bunch of younger siblings.

David Royce (73:11)

I have two. Two younger brothers. Okay.

Jordan Harbinger (73:12)

How much younger?

David Royce (73:13)

Just like a year and a half, three years younger.

Jordan Harbinger (73:15)

You just had to keep burning the house down. Yeah.

David Royce (73:18)

But it was just like, all right, here, you're gonna back in the house. You're gonna do the dishes every night. You're gonna help me with dinner. She just leaned on me because it was easier.

Jordan Harbinger (73:24)

That was your first CEO role.

David Royce (73:25)

Yeah. It's like that you get.

Jordan Harbinger (73:28)

Right.

David Royce (73:28)

Like, someone could say, oh, it's traumatic. And then she told me something she shouldn't have. It's like, hey, I think we're actually going to lose the house next month. She's freaking out.

Jordan Harbinger (73:34)

Oh, my God.

David Royce (73:35)

Yeah, sure, it was a really tough time, but, yeah, I look back now and I'm like. As opposed to, like, being frustrated with it or going, oh, it wasn't fair. I didn't go through that. It's like, no, that was a gift. Like, that made me work really hard. Good question is, would I have even done what I did?

Jordan Harbinger (73:47)

I always wonder that about people that come in here. And I know for me, I also saw my parents working so hard at jobs that they did not love. I was like, yeah, even if I have to make less money, I'm not working at a job that I don't like. No way. Not doing it. So I started this creative thing, which was like, a terrible way to make money. Whenever people are like, oh, podcasting, you make so much money. I was just like, I can actually not think of a worse way to make money than podcasting. Maybe. And this is a. Maybe bold underline. Maybe writing a book that nobody wants to read is a. Is a slightly worse way to make money than podcasting. But podcasting is like, if I had to rank shitty business ideas, this is like one of the top shitty business ideas is making a podcast. Because you almost always never make money. It's like, there's 3 million of these, and 2.9 of these, 8 million of them make $0.

David Royce (74:38)

Yeah. It's like a winner take all thing. There's just only so many. It's like, you gotta be the top 1% of 1%.

Jordan Harbinger (74:43)

I bet you it's not even top 1%. You're right. It probably is the top 1% of 1% that make like a. A nice amount of money doing it. And then there's like the top half percent Make a living doing it. And it's living asterisk. Not in a major metropolitan area inside the United States kind of thing. It's like, it's pretty rough.

David Royce (75:00)

Passion is one of those things where if you're really trying to make a lot of money.

Jordan Harbinger (75:04)

Yeah.

David Royce (75:04)

Don't follow your passions.

Jordan Harbinger (75:05)

No.

David Royce (75:05)

Right. CA. Because everybody else is following their passions through, or a large majority of people are following that path because that's what's exciting to them. And I get it. I totally understand. But you know, the reality of, like, going out and be like a famous rock star or an actor or a restaurant owner or whatever is, like, creative. It's a really tough sell. In my mind.

Jordan Harbinger (75:24)

It is.

David Royce (75:25)

And then I think a lot of times, too, it's like, you don't have experience that you really gotta be in the top 1% and 1% to make it in that industry. And then a lot of people do it. They don't have any experience before they. They try to go do it on a much bigger level. It's like this idea that if you challenge LeBron James to basketball, but you never played basketball, you've just watched it your whole life. I love basketball. It's great. I should go do this. I'm passionate about it. You go and you get into it, but you're clearly going to lose playing LeBron. Nobody would make that bet and invest their life savings into that business. Except for LeBron.

Jordan Harbinger (75:57)

Right. I think with Scott Galloway. You know Scott Galloway?

David Royce (75:59)

Yeah, yeah, he's great.

Jordan Harbinger (76:00)

He said something like. Like the person standing on that podium at the commencement speech telling you to follow your passion. Made their billions on iron smelting.

David Royce (76:07)

Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (76:08)

It's like, what do you.

David Royce (76:08)

Yeah, it's like the only. I think he says the only people who tell you follow your passions are those who already are rich. Right. Because then it's kind of like me now. I'm like, oh, I want. Maybe I want to do something more creative or more philanthropic or do something else, but I've kind of like earned that.

Jordan Harbinger (76:20)

At the same time, I went and

David Royce (76:21)

worked in a kind of a boring business and I tried to, like, put my spin on it and make it fun. You know, I'll tell you two, too. Blue collar businesses, a lot of people are like me where they initially look at them. They're like, no, I don't want to go do that. But the crazy thing is the margins, the secret is, is that unsexy businesses often have sexy margins.

Jordan Harbinger (76:38)

Really?

David Royce (76:39)

And if you look at the average restaurant, the margin, like the net profit margin is only like 3 to 6%. Best in class is 10%. Whereas you look at like a porta Pot body business and they're at like 25%.

Jordan Harbinger (76:51)

Really?

David Royce (76:52)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (76:52)

And so money is all.

David Royce (76:53)

Not only are your odds so much more difficult because everybody likes this idea of starting a restaurant restaurant. It's just really hard to make money in because there's so many people trying to do it. Whereas a lot of people, they don't want to go do, like, plumbing or whatever else. And the other advantage they see in blue collar work is AI.

Jordan Harbinger (77:10)

I was just going to say, AI is going to replace all the lawyers that were looking down at all of the tradesmen. And the tradesmen are going to be like, yeah, I will take fries with that. I'm on my way to my next job. And it's like, damn you, law school.

David Royce (77:21)

Yeah. A lot of people are worried about, like, well, the white collar work. Right. Like, so software developers, AI can code now legal documents, it can do a lot of entry level work and it'll continue to progress, but it ain't unclogging your toilet anytime soon. It's not going to get on your roof.

Jordan Harbinger (77:36)

That's right.

David Royce (77:36)

It's not treating termites inside your walls.

Jordan Harbinger (77:38)

That's right. No, no. AI will not anytime soon crawl down in my crawl space and take the rag that my kid flushed down the toilet. Right. No, that's on that. I got to hire a real professional. So, yeah, the irony is all the. I went to like one of these elitist and I don't. Not elite elitist schools, law schools. And people were like, oh, you know these guys and they all went and worked on Wall street and we. They're all, to your point, investment bankers and stuff. But now, yeah, they're getting automated, man. First year associates. Oh, that sounds kind of expensive. We have an LLM that does that now. So we only need three, not 30 or 300 or whatever. And yeah, all the guys that are out there welding and stuff. No, the demand is going up instead.

David Royce (78:19)

Yeah. It's almost like shifted. I see the same thing in construction. Like we have this massive housing shortage and so we probably need at least a million more construction workers that we just don't have. You know, the 2008 crisis just killed it.

Jordan Harbinger (78:31)

I didn't know that.

David Royce (78:31)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (78:32)

Wow.

David Royce (78:32)

Yeah. That's one of the reasons housing so expensive right now.

Jordan Harbinger (78:34)

I just thought it was because of zoning laws not letting you build anything anywhere.

David Royce (78:39)

Huh. Now if you go look at a chart just online of, you know, where we're at in terms of housing needs versus what we have, it's. It's crazy how much more homes we need.

Jordan Harbinger (78:47)

Well, I know we need more homes. I just thought it was because we couldn't build them due to zoning laws. Right. Like you can't some places make it

David Royce (78:52)

more difficult, like California of them.

Jordan Harbinger (78:54)

Exactly.

David Royce (78:54)

But it's more just we don't have enough people. I think we're at least a million people short.

Jordan Harbinger (78:58)

If only there was a way people could freely come into the country to work here.

David Royce (79:02)

Yes.

Jordan Harbinger (79:03)

Blue collar construction jobs. Yeah. Huh. There's an idea. Maybe you should run for president, David.

David Royce (79:08)

Yeah, right.

Jordan Harbinger (79:08)

Yeah. Thanks for coming in, man. This is fascinating conversation. I didn't expect to go the sales route, but I'm so glad that we did because I just. I love the psychology of that whole thing.

David Royce (79:15)

Yeah, for sure.

Jordan Harbinger (79:16)

I love a lot of fun. You're about to hear a preview that may completely reframe how you think about Nuclear power. Power. What if the energy source we've been taught to fear is actually one of the safest and cleanest tools we have? We're very familiar with electricity. You get home, you turn on the lights, you charge your phone, charge your computer, do all the things that we do without thinking twice about electricity, right? But electricity is a secondary source of energy. The primary sources of energy that we

David Royce (79:43)

use are coal, oil, methane gas, solar,

Jordan Harbinger (79:47)

wind, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear. Nuclear. Nuclear is actually the largest source of

David Royce (79:54)

clean energy in the United States. It's the second largest source of clean

Jordan Harbinger (79:58)

energy in the world. And what I mean by that is

David Royce (80:01)

that whenever we make electricity with nuclear,

Jordan Harbinger (80:04)

we're not releasing greenhouse gases into the

David Royce (80:07)

atmosphere or even particulate matter.

Jordan Harbinger (80:09)

So there are no emissions that happen whenever you're creating electricity with nuclear.

David Royce (80:14)

So it's just to say, you know,

Jordan Harbinger (80:15)

everything that's related to, to nuclear accidents in Chernobyl is completely overblown. Because people tend to think generally like, everybody died and it became this wasteland that nobody can go in. And so it's interesting, right, that we have all these weird fears about nuclear when the facts and the reality just

David Royce (80:31)

point to it being actually extremely safe.

Jordan Harbinger (80:33)

The biggest energy disaster in history was

David Royce (80:36)

actually a hydropower dam collapse, so entire

Jordan Harbinger (80:39)

villages were swept away. It's estimated that 2,200,000 people died. He would need, like, at least 200 Chernobyls happening every single year for nuclear to be as dangerous as fossil fuels. What about the 4 million premature deaths from burning fossil fuels? Why are people so afraid of nuclear? Hear the Science behind the Stigma with Isabel buemke on episode 1277 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Big takeaway here. Business is not just about effort. It's about design. You can grind for years and still be stuck, or you can step back, build systems, track the right numbers, and create something that actually compounds. That's the difference between a top performer and a builder. One burns out, eventually, the other scales. And the scary part, most people never make that transition. They stay the hero in a story that only works as long as they don't stop running. I should probably take some of this advice myself. So if you've got something from this one, think about where you're still relying on effort instead of structure. Structure, because the scoreboard just doesn't care how hard you tried. It only reflects what actually works. All things. David Royce will be in the show. Notes on the website, advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support this show, all@jordanharbinger.com deals please consider supporting those who support the show. Six minute networking is at sixminutenetworking.com, and I'm JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, aka Facebook for adults. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gate. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends and you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in business scaling systems, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

David Royce (82:31)

My name is Mackenzie and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis and we raised about $10,000 within just, just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what

Jordan Harbinger (83:11)

we needed, we had some really generous

David Royce (83:13)

donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising

Jordan Harbinger (83:21)

platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe. So you're running out of closet space. The good news? You don't need to stop shopping. You just need to start selling with the RealReal. The RealReal is the world's largest and most trusted resource for authenticated luxury resale.

David Royce (83:45)

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Jordan Harbinger (83:47)

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David Royce (84:09)

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Jordan Harbinger (84:11)

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