#awinewith Yas Grigaliunas
MEET YAS
Yas Grigaliunas is the CEO & Founder of The World’s Biggest Garage Sale.
Find Yas:
World’s Biggest Garage Sale website and Instagram @wbgs_global
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
Today we are having a wine with the fabulous Yaz from the world's biggest garage sale. Yaz, thank you for being here.
Yas Grigaliunas (00:15):
Oh, thank you for the invitation. You know how terrible I'm, I don't even have wine. I have water.
Danielle Lewis (00:20):
Oh my God. This is an outrage. This is an outrage, breaking the
Yas Grigaliunas (00:23):
Rules. And
Danielle Lewis (00:24):
I know
Yas Grigaliunas (00:26):
I'm not too disappointed though. I'll have a wine later, I promise
Danielle Lewis (00:29):
You. Perfect, perfect. Well, I will drink for both of us today because realistically, you are the one everyone wants to hear from today anyway, so thank you. I know that you are a very busy woman running an epic business, so I really appreciate you taking the time to share some insights. So let's kick it off. Tell us a bit about your background and your journey to date with the world's biggest garage sale.
Yas Grigaliunas (00:55):
Yeah, look, my background is really, I'm a doer, so throw me at whatever needs to be done and I'll get it done. And I started as a pizza delivery driver as a high school year 12 with Sylvia's style of pizza. But why that's important is because, and it was prior to Domino's acquisition, my manager, my first ever manager was Kerry May Dawn May's sister, and Dawn is still the CEO today of Domino's, 30
Danielle Lewis (01:22):
Years
Yas Grigaliunas (01:22):
Later, maybe not quite 30. I'm showing my age there. But Kerry was such a great leader and an amazing female leader. And so right from the start, my first ever job taught me that women can be strong and excellent. And also that you've got time to lean, time to clean, and you do not stop working from the minute you arrive until the minute
Danielle Lewis (01:42):
You leave. And
Yas Grigaliunas (01:43):
Those values have definitely imprinted on me throughout my career, and I really am all about service to the customer. Customer intimacy, not experience, it's customer service was never good enough. Customer experience sounded better, but we call it customer intimacy. And that is internal, external, all your partners, anybody that you deal with. And it's love, right? It's actually love. And so my career kind of took me a lot in sales was my thing. Would you like a garlic bread with that on the phone? Versus then integrating hardware technologies that I did for a number of years at a company called Video Pro in Queensland. But I've always been an intrapreneur in a business. I was the last of a Sylvia store at 18, didn't go to uni because I got offered that job and just always had to sell my way to success, but in a really authentic human way.
(02:38):
I followed processes, but there was always this more, I need more. That's not good enough. I want to push it further. And so when I started the world's biggest as a concept, really at the start, it was just to design a way to get people to provide money without asking them for money by having a garage sale. But it was eight years ago I started that, but I kept asking my customers at the time, and it was just a hobby, tell me why, why, why? And I would just automatically ask people. It's just my personality as a founder now four years in, I can tell you that those skills are really valuable skills staff.
Danielle Lewis (03:18):
Yes, yes. Tell me more. And they have
Yas Grigaliunas (03:21):
Definitely grown and scaled the company over the last four years in particular. And we started off as a garage sale. We still are world's biggest garage sale by brand, but what we really are is this evolved circular economy business, and I'm happy to call it out here early publicly that I created a company three years ago called Economy. And it was never launched, never released. It was always going to be some sort of brand of world's biggest garage sale because I knew then that world's biggest garage sale wouldn't stick, be sticky enough for my corporate customers. I knew back then we were going to move into B2B and I needed a B2B brand. So we're raising capital at the moment. And so I'm out there pitching my business, but what it is is actually just a constant evolution of you as a person and your product offering that sometimes means it becomes something that you didn't think it would be. So eight years ago did I think it was the biggest garage sale would turn into economy as a circular economy pioneering platform opportunity in this country and beyond? Maybe I didn't think about it so articulately, but I definitely thought and felt big and impossible and that there was nothing in my way except for my own mind and my own beliefs. So I don't know, sales is always a word that I think what's my real core skill. I think it's relationships, Danielle, not sales, it's relationships.
Danielle Lewis (04:52):
Well, I would counter and say what's the difference?
Yas Grigaliunas (04:55):
There is no difference. That's the thing. Yes,
Danielle Lewis (04:57):
Yes, yes.
Yas Grigaliunas (04:59):
There is no difference because transactional value produces money. Relational value produces trust, transparency, authenticity, connection, community, and all of these other value propositions that might not be able to be measured on the balance sheet. But they absolutely are more valuable than anything you see in black and white in the company.
Danielle Lewis (05:20):
Absolutely. And you mentioned this then that you were out raising capital, and I think it's interesting as a founder, I think we're always selling. So it's selling to customers, raising capital, convincing employees to join us on this crazy journey. I kind of think sales is the number one skill of any startup founder, if we're being real, whether we call it sales or relationships.
Yas Grigaliunas (05:42):
I won thousand percent agree with you. And I have to admit, the first time I ever, I sat, it was actually Tran from Go one. Oh
Danielle Lewis (05:50):
Wow.
Yas Grigaliunas (05:53):
He was a mentor in an accelerator program I was in. But before meeting him, I was a mentor in an accelerator. I remember River City Labs before I was a founder. Well, before I knew I was a founder, but I hadn't really embedded myself in the ecosystem. They were looking for someone with sales skills. And I'm like, oh, I have 20 years of sales skills I should.
(06:14):
And so I ended up mentoring the b and e three cohort and meeting Ryan and a whole bunch of other people from some amazing companies. But what it did was it actually created this new network opportunity for me. And what I cared most about is I got to talk about sales and the cycles and how you can win customers and all the theory behind how you do sales. What I learned is that it was quite vacant in this startup ecosystem. It was almost not, it was rare as a skill. I think we can sell ourselves, our company, we can get up and do a pitch. But I think there's this, well, I feel this is my opinion and it's my opinion, so it's right for me or to me, but I feel like we get taught or told, and I've experienced this myself. Build a product, build a product, build a product, then go find your customer. I'm like, no way. I said therefore then quietly, that's no. Get the customers and then work your
Danielle Lewis (07:13):
Jobs out
Yas Grigaliunas (07:14):
After. So once you've got customers and they're sticky and they trust you, they then help you develop the product. And literally, I just got off the phone to a potential investor and I joke about 3,000,003 weeks, that's unheard of. I'm going to put it out there and say, I'm going to raise 3 million in three weeks. I'm in week three.
Danielle Lewis (07:33):
I believe in you. I believe in you. Yeah, thank
Yas Grigaliunas (07:36):
You. And I had a offer of $3 million from one person.
Danielle Lewis (07:41):
Wow, that's pretty crazy. That's so cool.
Yas Grigaliunas (07:45):
The crazy thing about it is, and I'm literally just off the back of it, so I'm still on a bit of a high and I like, but I have two feelings. One feeling is fucking Yeah. Yes. As in everything I say to people about relationships is true, they just validated everything that we are talking about today. Trust, transparency, relationships, good information flow, having each other's back for better, for worse, being there through the trenches, true relationships that are relational, not transactional versus I could have just transacted with these people for the last three years and had a very linear, boring relationship today that would've made it harder for me to pitch my business. Or there was so much love in the room and trust that all that hard work of proving and delivering on what you say you will do, it's key in sales. You could sell anything, right? But if you don't do what you say you're going to do and follow through, then you could be the best sales person in the world and you won't sell shit to be honest,
Danielle Lewis (08:52):
And you won't keep customers. And the thing that people don't realize is that getting new customers is super time intensive and super expensive. Keeping customers, building great relationships, those people are the people that will be the most profitable in your business. So it's like if you just put relationships first, the profits will follow.
Yas Grigaliunas (09:14):
I cannot agree more. And we run obviously sales platform and have e-commerce, and whenever I run reports and I see we craft the 50% repeat customer metrics for a day, I'm like,
Danielle Lewis (09:28):
Yes.
Yas Grigaliunas (09:30):
And look, we sit on a bad day, it might be 35%, but generally it sits between 35 and 55%. So let's say it's 45 as an average, that's pretty darn impressive. I'd love to know what Domino's repeat customer metrics are. I reckon that we've given them a run for their money and in a positive way back to Kerry and Don who are both exceptional leaders. I got caught that young, so young, so I think maybe Danielle, have we just discovered that potentially a good start in life is getting in there in the hospitality fast food industry and having to upsell fries or garlic bread with meals?
Danielle Lewis (10:09):
I tell you what, having any kind of sales experience with customers where you realize that it is so hard to deal with the general public, that skill of being able to problem solve on your feet and yes, sell and put on a happy face sometimes when you don't want to put on a happy face either, whether you do it in hospitality or even in a call center, get in the trenches. I think that hard work is underrated. Do the hard work because that's the staff that builds that thick skin. And then when you've got your brilliant idea, there's all of those skills just start stacking and come to fruition. It's unbelievable.
Yas Grigaliunas (10:49):
True. You are absolutely right. It's like habit stacking. They talk about habit stacking. Atomic habits is a really good book. I read some key books that changed me, Danielle, or not tell
Danielle Lewis (10:59):
Me me share them, share that.
Yas Grigaliunas (11:01):
They validated me, right? They validated my way of thinking. And when you're a lonely, crazy leader, and I was even as a female, the only female driver, then the female store manager then, and it's just a part of my story and I'm okay with it, but when you are the crazy one, and I've always been the crazy one when I read a book, I'm like, oh my god, there's other crazies. So the book for me that changed and transformed me to accept that sales slash relationships is a thing, raving fans, really good book awesome and Delivering Happiness by Tony Shea, the founder of Zappos. Really good book. Awesome. I remember hearing him speak at the first national online retailers conference, I think it was not called National Online retailers at the time, but it was back in 2000 early.
Danielle Lewis (11:51):
I
Yas Grigaliunas (11:51):
Heard him speak and I'm like, oh my God, he thinks like me. And all I thought was like Zappos, you know, can ring and Zappos will order your, if you need a pizza and you can't get and make, Zappos will sort your pizza out for you. It's like the Brisbane council call center. You call the Brisbane city council called Senator Day with a water main issue. You don't get put to the water main department. You actually speak to Mary the water main lady that happened to answer the phone. Mary doesn't specialize in water mains. Mary is now your key contact for your problem and she doesn't bat you to another department. They've won awards nationally for their call center operations because I call it, I've got a special acronym for you, Danielle,
Danielle Lewis (12:36):
Tell me, please tell me. It's
Yas Grigaliunas (12:38):
Called gas In our business, I teach people, do you have gas? Do you GAS give us shit? Because if you don't give a shit, I know that sounds awful, but it's like a customer arriving at 5 49 and you've closed the store at five 30. Do you let them in? Fucking yeah, you do. You absolutely do.
Danielle Lewis (13:02):
That's a customer for
Yas Grigaliunas (13:04):
Absolutely. The phone rings after close. Someone said to me this morning, oh, customer asked me to hold this item. It's $5. I'm like, and I hope you hold it. Oh, is it really worth it? I'm like, yes, it worth it.
Danielle Lewis (13:15):
Oh my god,
Yas Grigaliunas (13:16):
Five table that customer asked us to hold. He could have an office fit out tomorrow that's worth $30,000. And you do not know, and it's not why you do it, but everything in this world is so interconnected. Never burn a bridge and never be too good to help someone that might actually fall out of the parameters of your boxed in linear
Danielle Lewis (13:40):
Design. Oh my God, I could not agree with you more. I have this saying as well. So in scrunch, in our industry, there's so much turnover. And so I always say it doesn't matter if someone doesn't buy from me, I need to build a good relationship because nine times out of 10, they go to another business within 12 months and then they walk us in there because it's the right time for that business. And because we weren't idiots and we didn't just go, oh, you're not going to buy. I don't want to talk to you anymore because we take the time to build the relationship. It comes back around even though it might be a little bit more work than just going, oh, well, I'll just move on to the next person.
Yas Grigaliunas (14:17):
It's flexing your muscle in the gym of the world, right? You go, I want to be ripped and I want to be ripped, right? To get ripped. I got to go work my butt off and I'm not going to see results for a long time until one day when the habit stacking continues hard work. You said it before, hard work makes luck. That's what I got taught young as well in that I'll get muscles and my abs back when I do the work.
Danielle Lewis (14:49):
So people
Yas Grigaliunas (14:50):
Win the customer over and it might not be that $5 customer today or tomorrow or the next day, but you will win the relationship and that's more valuable. And the lifetime value of that relationship is not even measured by the dollar.
Danielle Lewis (15:06):
It is
Yas Grigaliunas (15:07):
Actually measured by I the ability for your customers to be your best salespeople.
Danielle Lewis (15:15):
Yeah. Oh my god. And isn't that amazing? So people get so hell bent on how do I systematize my sales, get a sales team, hold them to account, have meetings? What if your Salesforce was your customers?
Yas Grigaliunas (15:31):
That is where we're at. I'm the only real sales person in my company and I have 30 people when I'm not around. That kind of falls to shit. But that's the stage and phase we're in. I mean, it's okay, that's normal and it doesn't really fall to shit. It just misses my skill. But we are building now the team, but four years in, I didn't hire anybody in sales. I think the CEO needs to be the chief execution officer, the chief evangelist, the chief sales, and then other people can operationalize your business and do your code and do all that sort of stuff. But you need to be the face. No one's going to sell your business better than you. And no one knows your business better than you. So how can you train somebody to sell your business when their message will be diluted and then the next person's message is diluted?
(16:18):
The strongest, most potent message is going to come from the founder. And it doesn't need to always be that you've definitely got to work yourself out of a job. And I don't want to be the chief everything officer anymore. It's not my desire or design, but what it does is it provides this opportunity for you to have this consistent, strong foundations. My customers, I always say, even an investor asked me the other day, oh, how is that scalable? I'm like, do you just want me to give you my customer's number and you can have a talk to them?
Danielle Lewis (16:52):
Yeah, absolutely
Yas Grigaliunas (16:54):
Said, do you want to call my customer? Don't believe me, go and call my customer. I won't prep them. I will give you their number and see what they say about me or the business and our service and our delivery and our intimacy. And in fact, that happened to me this week when multiple calls had happened and one of them was a customer call with some of our wider team and board and they were like, oh my God, I know you said they loved you, but I had no idea they loved you that much. And it's not even about the love, it's actually about this is commercially sound. This is what we need to do. This is how we're going to do it. We trust you. We value the relationship. We see this as just the beginning. And how do we do more? Oh, and by the way, we've called five other people about you expect calls.
Danielle Lewis (17:40):
Oh my God, that's unbelievable. That's it. When your customer values and look, that's it. You kind of touched on something there, which is you still do have to have a product, a service that solves a problem, right? Of course, we're not scam artists. We have amazing products. And then if you can layer onto that something that solves a problem, the relationship, holy shit, you've got a recipe for an amazing scalable business. And I'm a huge supporter of that idea of actually do the unscalable. Because right now there's so many businesses that are just putting money into Google ads, into social ads, into all of the same marketing tactics, the stuff that is the personalized handwritten note that takes a little bit longer and is a giant pain in the ass. That's the stuff that people love that they then share on social media that they go, oh my God, have you seen this cool brand that does X, y, Z? It is the unscalable that gets noticed these days.
Yas Grigaliunas (18:37):
Do you know why? Because it's how you stand out. You must be different. And if you are playing in the red ocean, get the hell out of there as quickly as you possibly can and go and find something that makes people scratch their hips and go, how on earth can you scale that? Like Julie Mathers from Flora and Fauna, she has handwritten a note in every product since the beginning of time, 37 million acquisition recently and deservingly so
Danielle Lewis (19:07):
Absolutely
Yas Grigaliunas (19:08):
Because she never lost the essence of her human in the business.
Danielle Lewis (19:13):
And I bet she doesn't regret one single note now.
Yas Grigaliunas (19:16):
No way. And her team do it. And there's a lot of love. And it is the unscalable, Danielle, you've got to do different and different is hard. And I think this takes me back to another one of the books that I have in my little onboarding thing that we're building for our team. You have to read some certain content to work with us. And if you don't read it, then peel, get out. There's no option. Love that. The values, we can say love and this and that are all our values, but if you don't watch Who Moved My Cheese and watch the 15 minute fable and tell me which character you are from, who moved My Cheese, and they're all strong, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but I need to know which one you are and which one you resonate with and which one you want to be. And are you really who you are and do you want to create a different way to handle change? And watch that and listen to the audio book, eat That Frog and understand how procrastination steals your life away from you. Not because I care about you executing in my business. Of course I do. That's important. But I want you to execute in life because the better you are in your life, the better you are in your business. And
(20:25):
There's this, I suppose, is that scalable like onboarding who onboards their staff and makes them do love language, who move me, cheese that frog, whether my team like it or not, that's what we're currently designing and everybody that comes into our business will go through that methodical.
Danielle Lewis (20:46):
But it's super interesting though because you said something then if you are good in life or if you feel confident, and if you are whatever, you will be that inside business. And it's the exact same thing for the employees. We just talked about having customers as advocates. If you have committed the time to improving the life of your employees, there's your sales force. They're out there every day posting on LinkedIn, being proud to work for somewhere that cares about them, not just as an employee, but someone that wants to do better in life.
Yas Grigaliunas (21:21):
Yeah, you are right. And you don't always get it right. It is a show some days in a startup.
Danielle Lewis (21:27):
Oh,
Yas Grigaliunas (21:28):
Totally. You've got all the mental, you wouldn't
Danielle Lewis (21:30):
Be doing it right if it wasn't your show. Oh God,
Yas Grigaliunas (21:32):
I just say to my team some days, can you just hang on, this
Danielle Lewis (21:35):
Is why we drink the wine. This is why we drink the wine
Yas Grigaliunas (21:39):
I need to. But I just say to my team, cling on, hang on. This is how it's meant to be. You just have to trust the vision. And every founder that's ever made it has told me of basically where they almost collapsed and died quite, not literally, but fell off the cliff, crashed down, no money last moment, credit card debt like crazy. How are they going to pay payroll next fortnight, month, week? And they've all got that story of hell. And this is what I say to my team, I said to someone before, it's hard right now, really hard, but when it's hard, that's when you stand tall and don't absolutely don't bow down to the normalities of the way the world wants you to act. When things are hard, you've got to actually get up and find a way through your own mental bullshit and keep going. Because often the shit in your head that you're saying is what's stopping you from doing what you want to do? It's not the customer, it's not the product. It's not the person, it's not the mentor. It's
Danielle Lewis (22:51):
Not your mom. Oh my God, not your sister.
Yas Grigaliunas (22:53):
It's actually on you. And Mel Robbins is great author to listen to and she'll say It's on you. You can't blame my team. Can't blame me for being tired. I can't blame them for me not being able to do what I want to do. I can't blame anybody. The one person I can blame for everything is me. Everything. Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (23:12):
Oh, you are. The minute I learnt that you are a hundred percent responsible for your own life is the minute things got better. I literally realized that anything that I wanted I could get because it was up to me.
Yas Grigaliunas (23:26):
Anything that's
Danielle Lewis (23:27):
Fucking magical, oh
Yas Grigaliunas (23:29):
My God, anything, people go, oh my God, Beyonce, Oprah, anyone else that's super famous, insert here, they're us. They have the same yes
Danielle Lewis (23:39):
Percent us.
Yas Grigaliunas (23:40):
They just overcame the bullshit in their head.
Danielle Lewis (23:43):
That's
Yas Grigaliunas (23:44):
The only difference. If it's to be it's up to me. Little engine that could, that's my actual term, favorite book and
Danielle Lewis (23:51):
Just
Yas Grigaliunas (23:52):
Doing what you say you're going to do. Go back to the old fashioned values.
Danielle Lewis (23:57):
I love
Yas Grigaliunas (23:58):
That. And knock on your neighbor's door.
Danielle Lewis (24:02):
Oh, I love this. Tell me more.
Yas Grigaliunas (24:04):
Well just, I grew up in Sydney and lived with my nana Pop. My mom was a single mom and when my dad left and my mom was 21 with three girls under three.
Danielle Lewis (24:14):
Wow. Back
Yas Grigaliunas (24:15):
Much
Danielle Lewis (24:15):
Respect.
Yas Grigaliunas (24:17):
I know much respect. She's amazing. She passed away a few years ago, but 21, 3 girls under three moved back into her parents' house and her parents had six kids. She was the second in line. Then there's four more kids below my mom. And wow, two of them are within four years of my age. So my mom's at the top of the food chain of her parents had three babies and then my dad's left. And then of course we moved in with N and pop in a two bedroom sleepout house with six kids now and adults and out of control. But they just taught us, I never felt like we went without, even though it was tough, right? Tough life. But mom just always taught me that you can have any life that you believe you can have and that you can do anything you say you can do. And the thing that stops you achieving anything in your lifetime is not any one or anything. It's you. And for me, it was all about my n and pop used to get me to knock on my neighbor's door coming back to that, right? And I call it share the sugar and borrow the butter. Now how long ago was it since you knocked on your neighbor's door and asked for a bowl of sugar?
Danielle Lewis (25:41):
Never in my entire life. Yeah, never moving boxes. I once asked for moving boxes. There you go. See?
Yas Grigaliunas (25:48):
You've done it. There you
Danielle Lewis (25:49):
Go. There we go. Once it's happened once.
Yas Grigaliunas (25:51):
If I run out of milk right now and I don't drink it, but say I run out of something, right? And I'm like, shit, I need sugar in that recipe. I will get in my car or get an off scooter or walk and fuck around when I could just, hi, I'm yas from next door. I'm just wondering if I could borrow a bowl of sugar. Do you know that one moment could change someone's life, yours or their, how do you know that sharing that sugar or borrowing that butter doesn't have a profound ripple effect that creates a wave of energy in the future that actually connects humans more than this interconnected world. We live in digitally, which is important, but the human world is just as important. And we all whinge about robots, but least the world does. But have you knocked on your neighbor's door to borrow something lately? It's like a bucket list item that people should, in fact, I'm going to write an article.
Danielle Lewis (26:54):
Oh my God, what's on this? What's on
Yas Grigaliunas (26:57):
Your bucket list this year? What are your news resolutions? I'm going to create good old fashioned fucking values as resolutions for people. I would do like the best New Year's resolution. And this is the funny thing, right? Even just doing that, I'm excited because it energizes me, but there's a sales strategy in that. Danielle. Oh,
Danielle Lewis (27:19):
Are you already packed? I've got it. So
Yas Grigaliunas (27:24):
I want to throw the question back to you. Tell me why we react like that. What is it within us and how do we help others be? Think of those wire frames.
Danielle Lewis (27:33):
Well, the most interesting thing that happened for me when you told that story was so obviously sales and wine. What we care about is helping founders and business owners understand that sales doesn't have to be shit. It's actually you have created whoever you are listening, a product or service or business that is absolutely fucking amazing and it will change someone's life. So if you're not selling or sharing that with someone, you are doing them a disservice. I've got goosebumps. Oh my God. For me, when you just said knock on someone's door, it could change their life. For me, that is sales. Knock on someone's door and add value and build a relationship that is sales.
Yas Grigaliunas (28:19):
That is sales. It really is knocking on the door. It's knocking on the door.
Danielle Lewis (28:25):
And you know what? And it's funny, I've been in sales my whole life as well. So 20 odd years, got to cover the grace these
Yas Grigaliunas (28:33):
Days.
Danielle Lewis (28:36):
And people always say, okay, what's your number one sales tactic? And I'm like, I don't have one.
Yas Grigaliunas (28:41):
I
Danielle Lewis (28:42):
Word tactic. Me too. Don't use
Yas Grigaliunas (28:44):
The word tactic, please. I know.
Danielle Lewis (28:47):
And I'm like, I'm just willing to talk to more people than anyone else because I don't mind hearing no, because I can still build a great relationship and I'll just care about what I do. And so I will talk to as many people as it takes to achieve my goal. And now it's like I'll just knock on as many doors as I need to and ask for some butter.
Yas Grigaliunas (29:12):
The butter, share the
Danielle Lewis (29:12):
Sugar, borrow the butter, share the sugar, share
Yas Grigaliunas (29:14):
The sugar, borrow the butter. Because you've got to make it quirky, right? But here's the funny thing, what you were just saying, Danielle, is when we knock on the doors, we pick up the phone, we do the work. Again, I think we're looping back to, I sensed that these amazing people watching thinking, oh, my product's not good enough. That's bullshit.
Danielle Lewis (29:38):
Total bullshit. It's just that
Yas Grigaliunas (29:39):
Your fear, you fear going out, you fear it, get rid of the fear. And so another little acronym I made up is around lead, LEAD, right? And this is what I think is key. Leave egos at the door. So LEAD, leave ego at door. Who gives the fuck what they think about you? If you knock on the door and they say, no, who?
Danielle Lewis (30:03):
Kelly?
Yas Grigaliunas (30:04):
You'll learn something. I always say, I wrote in a message the other day to an investor, they won't get back to me. And I'm like, look, my time is valuable too. I need to put you on the list of yes or the list of no. And I was
Danielle Lewis (30:14):
Like, totally.
Yas Grigaliunas (30:17):
And then I went a fast, no is okay. A fast yes is okay too, but could you just let me know? Either way. Love it. And they came back and wrote Fast, no, love the comms. Let me know how I can help in any other way. So I went, actually, I'd like this, this and this from your team. I've got this promo going on. Would you be able to introduce me to someone in your team? And he's like, here's the person. There you go. Done.
Danielle Lewis (30:42):
Oh my God. It was
Yas Grigaliunas (30:43):
Respect, right?
Danielle Lewis (30:44):
Yeah.
Yas Grigaliunas (30:45):
I don't care. My ego is not bruised by him saying no. I'm like,
Danielle Lewis (30:48):
Yeah. Well, in actual fact, it led to another opportunity. So being you, you and being authentic and actually just not fucking around and telling how it is led to another opportunity.
Yas Grigaliunas (31:00):
It's just show real versus real, real. Here's the show real of me. And everyone thinks I'm doing it and they think it's awesome.
Danielle Lewis (31:09):
Know
Yas Grigaliunas (31:10):
What? We are all awesome. We absolutely are all awesome, but also all a bit fucked up too. And we've all got real, real. And I want people to be prepared and comfortable talking about the real, real, which means, you know what? I did get a no this week of someone I really, really wanted because I really loved their values and they're rock stars and they invest in female founders and it's just not the right time for them. And I was like, fuck, I'm gutted. I love them, but you know what? I'm not offended. I'm like, let's chat for the next round. I'll put you on the monthly updates. Are you comfortable with this? Do you mind if I lean on you for these? And so there was no burning bridges.
Danielle Lewis (31:57):
Yes, exactly.
Yas Grigaliunas (31:58):
I was still a little bit sad. And I said to my board, I'm like, damn, I'm a bit POed because I really wanted them, but what I wanted was access to these amazing people. I haven't lost that access I money. So that's fine. One door closes, another one opens, and they don't actually open. Danielle, you got to go knock.
Danielle Lewis (32:22):
You've got to knock. Oh my God. Oh, this is so good.
Yas Grigaliunas (32:26):
You drop the mic with that.
Danielle Lewis (32:29):
Oh my god, no. And literally I was just about to say, let's fucking call it there. That was amazing. You are absolutely incredible. And I love that. I don't think we had questions. I don't know what happened to the question because that's so good, but it's so interesting. I love your philosophy around relationships and adding value and just doing what you said you were going to do. I mean, if we just threw the word sales out the window and came up with a whole new language, there it is right there. That's absolutely incredible. So thank you for joining us on a Wine with Yaz. I will link up all of your amazing websites, socials, all that, so all of the lovely sales wine people can find you. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and thank you for the value that you've brought to our community today.
Yas Grigaliunas (33:19):
Thank you. I'm really excited about hearing some great stories from people that watch this and for them to knock on our doors, Danielle, and tell us the great stories of what happened when they knocked.
Danielle Lewis (33:30):
Oh my God, I can't wait as well. And everyone take that as your cue to reach out to either of us or comment. We want to hear from you. That's so good.
Yas Grigaliunas (33:39):
Thank you.
SHOW NOTES
Dani’s favourite quote: “It’s no longer customer service or customer experience… it’s customer intimacy.”
Yas’s book recommendations:
Raving Fans, Kenneth Blanchard + Sheldon Bowles
Delivering Happiness, Tony Hseih
TRANSCRIPT
Danielle (00:06):
Welcome back everyone, thank you for tuning into Sales and Wine, I am Danielle your host here for A Wine With, and today we are having a wine with the fabulous Yas from The World's Biggest Garage Sale, Yas thank you for being here.
Yas (00:22):
Oh, thank you for the invitation, you know how terrible I am? I don't even have wine, I have water.
Danielle (00:26):
Oh my God, this is an outrage, this is an outrage.
Yas (00:29):
I'm breaking the rules. And it's-
Danielle (00:31):
I know.
Yas (00:32):
I'm not too disappointed though, I'll have a wine later, I promise you.
Danielle (00:36):
Perfect, perfect, well I will drink for both of us today, because realistically, you're the one everyone wants to hear from today anyways so thank you, I know that you are a very busy woman running an epic business, so I really appreciate you taking the time to share some insights. So let's kick it off, tell us a bit about your background and your journey to date with The World's Biggest Garage Sale.
Yas (01:01):
Yeah look, my background is really, I'm a doer, so throw me at whatever needs to be done and I'll get it done and I started as a pizza delivery driver as a high school year 12-er, with Sylvia's Dial A Pizza, but why that's important is because, and it was prior to the Domino's acquisition, my manager, my first ever manager was Kerri Meij, Don Meij's sister, and Don is still the CEO today of Domino's 30 years later.
Danielle (01:27):
Wow.
Yas (01:28):
Maybe not quite 30, I'm sharing my age there but Kerri was such a great leader and an amazing female leader and so right from the start my first ever job taught me that women can be strong and excellent, and also that you've got time to lead, time to clean and you do not stop working from the minute you arrive until the minute you leave.
Yas (01:49):
And those values have definitely imprinted on me throughout my career and I really am all about service to the customer, customer intimacy, not experience, it's how customer service was never good enough, customer experience sounded better, but we call it customer intimacy and that is internal, external, all your partners, anybody that you deal with, and it's love, right? It's actually love and so my career kind of took me a lot in sales, sales was my thing, would you like a garlic bread with that, on the phone. Versus then integrating hardware technologies that I did for a number of years at a company called Video Pro in Queensland, but I've always been an entrepreneur in a business, like I was the last [inaudible 00:02:33] of a Sylvia store at 18, didn't go to uni because I got offered that job and just always had to kind of sell my way to success, but in a really authentic human way, I followed processes, but there was always this more, I need more, that's not good enough, I want to push it further.
Yas (02:53):
And so when I started the world's biggest garage sale as a concept, at the start, it was just to design a way to get people to provide money without asking them for money by having a garage sale, but it was eight years ago I started that but I kept asking my customers at the time and it was just a hobby, tell me why, why, why? And I would just automatically ask people, it's just my personality. As a founder now, four years in, I can tell you that those skills are really valuable skills to have.
Danielle (03:24):
Yes, yes, tell me more.
Yas (03:28):
[crosstalk 00:03:28] Definitely grown and scaled the company over the last four years in particular and we started off as a garage sale, we still are world's biggest garage sale by brand, but what we really are is this evolved circular economy business and I'm happy to call it out here early publicly that I created a company three years ago called Circonomy, and it was never launched, never released, it was always going to be some sort of brand of World's Biggest Garage Sale because I knew then that World's Biggest Garage Sale wouldn't be sticky enough for my corporate customers. I knew back then we were going to move into B2B, and I needed a B2B brand, so we're raising capital at the moment and so I'm out there pitching my business. But, what it is, is actually just a constant evolution of you as a person and your products offering that sometimes means it becomes something that you didn't think it would be so eight years ago, did I think the World's Biggest Garage Sale would turn into Circonomy as a like, circular economy, pioneering platform opportunity in this country and beyond?
Yas (04:35):
Maybe I didn't think about it so articulately, but I definitely thought and felt big and impossible and that there was nothing in my way except for my own mind and my own belief.
Danielle (04:47):
Yeah, wow.
Yas (04:48):
So I don't know, sales is always a word that I think like what's my real core skill? I think it's relationships Danielle, not sales, it's relationships.
Danielle (04:58):
Wow. I would counter and say, what's the difference?
Yas (05:02):
There is no difference, that's the thing.
Danielle (05:03):
Yes, yes, yes.
Yas (05:05):
There is no difference because transactional value produces money, relational value produces trust, transparency, authenticity, connection, community, and all of these other value propositions that might not be able to be measured on the balance sheet, but they absolutely are more valuable than anything you see in black and white in the company.
Danielle (05:26):
Absolutely, and you mentioned just then that you were out raising capital and I think it's interesting as a founder, I think we're always selling. So it's selling to customers, raising capital, convincing employees to join us on this crazy journey, I kind of think sales is the number one skill of any startup founder, if we're being real, whether we call it sales or relationships.
Yas (05:49):
I, 1000% agree with you, and I have to admit the first time I ever, I sat it was actually [inaudible 00:05:55] from Go1.
Danielle (05:56):
Oh wow.
Yas (05:58):
He was a mentor in an accelerator program I was in, but before meeting him, I was a mentor in an accelerator, I remember River City Labs before I was the founder. Well before I knew I was a founder, but I hadn't really embedded myself in the ecosystem. They were looking for someone with sales skills and I'm like oh, I have like 20 years of sales skills I should apply.
Danielle (06:19):
Yeah.
Yas (06:20):
And so I ended up mentoring the B&E [inaudible 00:06:23] and meeting Ryan and a whole bunch of other people from some amazing companies. But what it did was it actually created this new network opportunity for me, and what I cared most about is I got to talk about sales and you of the cycles and how you can win customers and all the theory behind how you do sales.
Yas (06:42):
What I learned is that it was quite vacant in this startup ecosystem like it was almost not, like it was rare as a skill, like I think we can sell ourselves, our company, we can get up and do a pitch, but I think that this, well I feel, this is my opinion, it's my opinion so it's right for me or to me, but I feel like we get taught or told, and I've experienced this myself, build a product, build a product, build a product, then go find your customer. I'm like no way, I said the F word then quietly. Because I'm like no, get the customers and then work your [crosstalk 00:07:21] after. So once you got customers and they're sticky, and they trust you, they then help you develop the product, and literally I just got off the phone to a potential investor, and I joke about three million, three weeks, like that's unheard of, I'm going to put it out there and say I'm going to raise three million dollars in three weeks-
Danielle (07:38):
I believe in you, I believe in you, yes.
Yas (07:43):
Thank you. And I had a offer of three million dollars from one person.
Danielle (07:47):
Wow. That's fucking crazy, that's so cool.
Yas (07:51):
The crazy thing about it is, and I'm literally just off the back of it so I'm still on a bit of a high and I'm like, but I have two feelings. One feeling is fucking yeah, like yes, as in everything I say to people about relationships is true.
Danielle (08:08):
Yes.
Yas (08:08):
They just validated everything that we are talking about today.
Danielle (08:11):
Yeah.
Yas (08:12):
Trust, transparency, relationships, good information flow, having each other's back, for better, for worse, being there through the trenches, true relationships that are relational not transactional, versus I could have just transacted with these people for the last three years and had a very linear, boring relationship today that would've made it harder for me to pitch my business.
Danielle (08:35):
Yes.
Yas (08:36):
Or that was so much love in the room and trust that all that hard work of proving and delivering on what you say will do.
Danielle (08:45):
Yes.
Yas (08:46):
Key in sales, right? Like you could sell anything, right? But if you don't do what you say you're going to do and follow through, then you could be the best sales person in the world and you won't sell shit to be honest.
Danielle (08:57):
Yeah, and you won't keep customers, and the thing that people don't realize is that getting new customers is super time intensive and super expensive, keeping customers, building great relationships, those people are the people that will be the most profitable in your business.
Yas (09:13):
Oh yeah.
Danielle (09:14):
So it's like if you just put relationships first, the profits will follow.
Yas (09:20):
I cannot agree more, and we run, obviously sales platform and have eCommerce, and whenever I run reports and I see we craft the 50% repeat customer metrics for a day.
Danielle (09:34):
Yes.
Yas (09:37):
I'm like, Yes. And look we skip on a bad day, it might be 35%, but generally it sits between 35 and 55%, so let's say it's 45 as an average, that's pretty darn impressive. I'd love to know what Domino's repeat customer metrics are because I reckon that we've given them a run for their money and in a positive way back to Kerri and Don who are both exceptional leaders.
Danielle (09:58):
Yes.
Yas (09:59):
I got taught that young, so young, so I think maybe Danielle, have we just discovered that potentially a good start in life is getting in there in the hospitality, fast food industry and having to upsell fries or garlic bread with meals?
Danielle (10:15):
I tell you what, having any kind of sales experience with customers where you realize that it is so hard to deal with the general public, that skill of being able to problem solve on your feet and yes, sell and put on a happy face sometimes when you don't want to put on a happy face either whether you do it in hospitality or even in a call center.
Yas (10:36):
Yes.
Danielle (10:37):
Like get in the trenches, I think that hard work is underrated. Do the hard work because that's the staff that builds that thick skin and then when you've got your brilliant idea, because all of those skills just start stacking and come to fruition, it's unbelievable.
Yas (10:55):
You are absolutely right it's like habit stacking, when you talk about habit stacking [crosstalk 00:11:00] atomic habits, it's a really good book. I read some key books that changed me, Danielle. Or-
Danielle (11:05):
Tell me, tell me, share them, share them.
Yas (11:07):
They validated me, right? They validated my way of thinking and when you're a lonely, crazy leader and I was even as a female, the only female driver then the female store manager then, and it's just like a part of my story and I'm okay with it. But like when you are the crazy one, and I've always been the crazy one, when I read a book, I'm like oh my God, there's other crazies. So the book for me that changed and transformed me to accept that sales slash relationships is I think, Raving Fans, really good book.
Danielle (11:42):
[inaudible 00:11:42].
Yas (11:42):
And Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, really good book. [crosstalk 00:11:47], I remember hearing him speak at the first National Online Retailers conference I think it was not called National Online Retailers at the time, but it was back in 2000 and Ugh, early.
Yas (11:56):
And I heard him speak and I'm like, oh my God he thinks like me. And all I thought was, Zappos you know, you can ring and Zappos will order your... like, if you need a pizza and you can't get and make it, Zappos will sort your pizza around for you, they're just, it's like the [crosstalk 00:12:14] in terms of call center. You call the city council call center today with a water main issue, you don't get put to the water main department. You actually speak to Mary, the water main lady that happened to answer the phone, Mary doesn't specialize in water mains, Mary is now your key contact for your problem. And she doesn't bat you to another department. They've won awards nationally, for their call center operations, because I call it, I've got a special acronym for you, Danielle.
Danielle (12:43):
Tell me, please tell me.
Yas (12:44):
It's called GAS. In our business, I teach people do you have GAS? Do you GAS, give a shit? Because if you don't give a shit-
Danielle (12:56):
Awesome.
Yas (12:57):
Like I know that sounds awful, but it's like a customer arriving at 5:49 and then you've closed the store at 5:30, do you let them in? Fucking yeah you do.
Danielle (13:06):
Yep.
Yas (13:06):
You absolutely do. [crosstalk 00:13:10], absolutely. The phone rings after close, someone said to me morning oh, customize me to hold this item, it's $5. I'm like, and I hope you hold it. Oh, is it really worth it? I'm like, is this worth it?
Danielle (13:21):
Oh my God.
Yas (13:22):
$5 table that, that customer asked us to hold, he could have an office fit out tomorrow that's worth $30,000 and you do not know, and that's not why you do it. But everything in this world is so interconnected, never burn a bridge and never be too good to help someone that might actually fall out of the parameters of your boxed in linear design.
Danielle (13:46):
Oh my God, I could not agree with you more, I have this saying as well, so in the Scrunch, in our industry, there's so much turnover, and so I always say it doesn't matter if someone doesn't buy from me, I need to build a good relationship because nine times out of 10, they go to another business within 12 months and then they walk us in there because it's the right time for that business, and because we weren't idiots and we didn't just go oh, you're not going to buy don't want to talk to you anymore because we take the time to build the relationship, it comes back around even though it might be a little bit more work than just going oh well, I'll just move on to the next person.
Yas (14:23):
It's flexing your muscle in like the gym of the world, right? Like, I want to be ripped and I want to be ripped, right? To get ripped I got to go work my butt off and I'm not going to see results for a long time until one day when the habit stacking continues.
Danielle (14:42):
Yes, yeah.
Yas (14:44):
Hard work, you said it before hard work makes luck, that's that's what I got taught young as well, in that I will get my muscles and my abs back when I do the work, so-
Danielle (14:55):
Yes.
Yas (14:56):
We'll win the customer over, and it might not be that $5 customer today or tomorrow or the next day, but you will win the relationship, and that's more valuable, and the lifetime value of that relationship is not even measured by the dollar. It's actually measured by the ability for your customers to be your best sales people.
Danielle (15:21):
Yeah. Oh my God, and isn't that amazing? So people get so hell bent on how do I systematize my sales, get a sales team, hold them to account, have meetings, what if your sales force was your customers?
Yas (15:37):
That is where we're at, like I am the only real salesperson in my company and I have 30 plus people. When I'm not around, that kind of falls to shit but that's the stage and phase we're in, but I mean it's okay, that's normal, and it doesn't really fall to shit it just misses my skill. But we're building now the team, but-
Danielle (15:54):
Yes.
Yas (15:55):
Four years in, I didn't hire anybody in sales, I think the CEO needs to be the chief like execution officer, the chief of evangelists, the chief sales, and then other people can operationalize your business and do your code and do all that sort of stuff, but who, you need to be the face, no one's going to sell your business better than you, and no one knows your business better than you so how can you train somebody to sell your business when their message will be diluted and then the next person's message is diluted.
Yas (16:24):
The strongest most potent message is going to come from the founder and it doesn't need to always be that, you've definitely got to work yourself out of a job and I don't want to be the chief everything officer anymore, it's not my desire or my design, but what it does is it provides this opportunity for you to have this consistent, strong foundations, like my customers, I always say like even an investor asked me the other day, oh how is that scalable? I'm like, do you just want me to give you my customer's number? And you can have a talk to them?
Danielle (16:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yas (16:59):
[crosstalk 00:17:00, do you want to call my customer? Like don't believe me, go and call my customer, I won't prep them. I will give you their number and see what they say about me or the business and our service and our delivery and our intimacy.
Yas (17:14):
And in fact, that happened to me this week when multiple calls had happened, and one of them was a customer call with some of our wider team and board, and they were like oh my God, I know you said they loved you, but I had no idea they loved you quite much. And it's not even about the love it's actually about, this is commercially sound, this is what we need to do, this is how we're going to do it, we trust you and we value you the relationship, we see this as just the beginning and how do we do more? Oh and by the way, we told five other people about you, expect calls.
Danielle (17:46):
Oh my God, that's unbelievable. That's it, when your customer values, and that's it, you kind of touched on something there which is you still do have to have a product or service that solves a problem, right? Of course, we're not scam artists, we have amazing products. And then if you can layer onto that, something that solves a problem, the relationship, holy shit, you've got a recipe for an amazing scalable business, you know? And I'm a huge supporter of that idea of actually do the unscalable, because right now there's so many businesses that are just putting money into Google ads, into social ads, into all of the same marketing tactics, it's the stuff that you know is the personalized handwritten note that takes a little bit longer and is a giant pain in the ass, that's the stuff that people love that they then share on social media that they go oh my God, have you seen this cool brand that does x, y, z. It is the unscalable that gets noticed these days.
Yas (18:44):
Do you know why? Because it's how you stand out, you must be different. And if you are playing in the red ocean, get the hell out of there as quickly as you possibly can and go and find something that makes people scratch their hips and go how on earth can you scale that? Like Julie Mathers from Flora & Fauna, she has handwritten a note in every product since the beginning of time, 37 million dollar acquisition recently and deservingly so.
Danielle (19:13):
Absolutely.
Yas (19:14):
Because she never lost the essence of her human in the business, and-
Danielle (19:19):
And I bet she doesn't regret one single note now.
Yas (19:23):
No way, and her team do it, and there's a lot of love and it's, it is the unscaleable Danielle, you've got to do different. And different is hard and I think this takes me back to another one of the books that I like have in my little onboarding thing that we're building for our team. You have to read some certain content to work with us and if you don't read it then get out.
Danielle (19:45):
That's so good, I love it.
Yas (19:47):
[crosstalk 00:19:47] like there's no emotion. Like the values we can say love and this and that are all our values but, if you don't watch who move my cheese and watch the 15 minute fable and tell me which character you are from who move my cheese, and they're all strong, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but I need to know which one you are and which one you resonate with and which one you want to be.
Yas (20:06):
And are you really who you are? And do you want to create a different way to handle change? And watch that and listen to the audio book, eat that frog and understand how procrastination steals your life away from you, not because I care about you executing in my business, of course I do, that's important, but I want you to execute in life because the better you are in life, the better you are in your business. And-
Danielle (20:29):
Yes.
Yas (20:30):
There's this, I suppose, is that scalable? Like onboarding, who onboards their staff and makes them do love language who move my cheese? That frog. Like that's whether my team like it or not, that's what we're currently designing and everybody that comes into our business will go through that methodical, like-
Danielle (20:52):
But it's super interesting though, because you said something then, if you are good in life or if you feel confident and if you are whatever, you will be that inside business and it's the exact same thing for the employees, like we just talked about having customers as advocates. If you have committed the time to improving the life of your employees, there's your sales boss, they're out there every day, posting on LinkedIn, being proud to work for somewhere that cares about them not just as an employee, but someone that you know wants to do better in life.
Yas (21:27):
Yeah, you're right. And you don't always get it right, like it is a shit show some days in a startup-
Danielle (21:35):
Oh totally. [crosstalk 00:21:36] you wouldn't be doing it right if it wasn't a shit show.
Yas (21:39):
I just say to my team some days, can you just-
Danielle (21:42):
[crosstalk 00:21:42] this is why we drink the wine, this is why the wine.
Yas (21:44):
Actually, I need to. But I just say to my team, like cling on, hang on-
Danielle (21:49):
Yeah.
Yas (21:50):
This is how it's meant to be. You just have to trust the vision, and every founder that's ever made it has told me of basically where they almost collapsed and died quite-
Danielle (22:02):
Yes.
Yas (22:02):
Not literally, but fell off the cliff, crashed down, no money, last moment, credit card debt, like crazy, how am I going to pay payroll next fortnight month, week, and they've all got that story of hell. And this is what I say to my team I said to someone before, it's hard right now, really hard. But when it's hard, that's when you stand tall and don't-
Danielle (22:32):
Absolutely.
Yas (22:33):
Like don't bow down to the normalities of the way the world wants you to act when things are hard, you've got to actually get up and find a way through your own mental bullshit, and keep going. Because often the shit in your head that you're saying is what's stopping you from doing what you want to do. It's not the customer, it's not the product, it's not the person, it's not the mentor, it's not your-
Danielle (22:57):
Oh my God.
Yas (22:58):
Not your sister, it is actually on you. And Mel Robins is a great author to listen to, and she'll say it's on you, like you can't blame. My team can't blame me for being tired, I can't blame them for me not being able to do what I want to do, I can't blame anybody. The one person I can blame for everything is me. Everything.
Danielle (23:17):
Absolutely. Oh, you are, the minute I learned that you are a hundred percent responsible for your own life is the minute things got better. I literally realized that anything that I wanted, I could get, because it was up to me.
Yas (23:32):
Anything, like-
Danielle (23:33):
That's fucking magical, [crosstalk 00:23:35] oh my God.
Yas (23:36):
Anything, anything. Like people go oh my God, Beyonce, Oprah, anyone else that's super famous, insert here. They're us, [crosstalk 00:23:46] they just overcame the bullshit in their head. That's the only difference they, If It is to Be, It's Up to Me, Little Engine That Could, that's my actual all time favorite book. And just doing what you say you're going to do, go back to the old fashion [inaudible 00:24:02] use, you know?
Danielle (24:02):
I love that.
Yas (24:04):
And-
Danielle (24:05):
Yeah.
Yas (24:06):
Knock on your neighbor's door.
Danielle (24:08):
Oh I love this, tell me more.
Yas (24:10):
Well just, I grew up in Sydney and lived with my nan and pop. My mom was a single mom, and when my dad left and I was, my mom was 21 with three girls under three.
Danielle (24:20):
Wow.
Yas (24:21):
[crosstalk 00:24:21]. She's amazing she was, she passed away a few years ago, but 21, three girls under three, moved back into her parents' house, and her parents had six kids, she was the second in line. Then there's four more kids below my mom, and wow, two of them are like within four years of my age. So my mom's kind of at the top of the food chain of her parents, had three babies, and then my dad's left, and then of course we moved in with nan and pop in a two bedroom sleep out house with six kids now, and-
Danielle (24:54):
Wow.
Yas (24:55):
[crosstalk 00:24:55] adults, out of control, right? But they just taught us, I never felt like we went without, even though it was tough life, tough life. But mom just always taught me that you can have any life that you believe you can have, and that you can do anything you say you can do, and the thing that stops you achieving anything in your lifetime is not any anyone or anything, it's you, and for me, it was all about like my nan and pop used to get me to knock on my neighbor's door, coming back to that, right?
Yas (25:35):
And it's, I call it, share the sugar and borrow the butter. Now, how long ago was it since you knocked on your neighbor's door and asked for a bowl of sugar?
Danielle (25:47):
Never in my entire life, yeah.
Yas (25:50):
Never? So-
Danielle (25:50):
Moving boxes, so I once asked for moving boxes, there you go.
Yas (25:53):
See? You've done it-
Danielle (25:54):
It only happened once, it's happened once.
Yas (25:57):
If I run out of milk right now and I don't drink it, but say I run out of something, right? And I'm like shit, I need sugar in that recipe. I will get in my car or go to my scooter or walked and like, fuck around, when I could just, hi, I'm Yas from next door, I'm just wondering if I could borrow a bowl of sugar.
Yas (26:18):
Do you know that one moment could change someone's life, yours, or theirs. How do you know that, sharing that sugar or borrowing that butter doesn't have a profound ripple effect that creates a wave of energy in the future? That actually connects humans more than this interconnected world we live in digitally which is important, but the human world is just as important and we all whinge about robots, but well at least until the world does, but have you knocked on your neighbor's door to borrow something lately? It's almost like a bucket list item that people should in fact, I want to write an article about-
Danielle (26:59):
Oh my God, [crosstalk 00:26:59].
Yas (26:59):
What's on your bucket list this year? What are your new years resolutions? I'm going to create good old fashioned fucking values as resolutions for people who do like the best new years resolution. And this is the funny thing right, like even just doing that, like I'm excited because it energizes me, but there's a sales strategy in that, Danielle.
Danielle (27:25):
[crosstalk 00:27:25] Oh, I'm already I'm with you. [crosstalk 00:27:27].
Yas (27:26):
So I want to throw the question back to you, tell me why we react like that, what is it within us and how do we help others be, think in those wire frames?
Danielle (27:39):
Well, the most interesting thing that happened for me when you told that story was... So obviously sales in line, it is what we care about is helping founders and business owners understand that sales doesn't have to be shit. It is actually you have created whoever you are listening, a product or service or business, that is absolutely fucking amazing, and it will change someone's life. So if you're not selling or sharing that with someone, you are doing them a disservice. So for me, when you... I've got goosebumps, oh my God. For me, when you just said knock on someone's door, it could change their life, for me that is sales, knock on someone's door and add value and build a relationship, that is sales.
Yas (28:26):
That is sales. It really is knocking on the door, it's-
Danielle (28:29):
Yeah.
Yas (28:30):
Knocking on the door.
Danielle (28:32):
And you know what, and it's funny, I've been in sales my whole life as well, so like 20 odd years, got to cover the grays these days. And people always say, okay, what's your number one sales tactic? And I'm like, I don't have one. I'm like [crosstalk 00:28:47].
Yas (28:50):
I hate the word tactic.
Danielle (28:52):
Me too.
Yas (28:52):
Don't use the word tactic. Please.
Danielle (28:53):
I know, and I'm like I am just willing to talk to more people than anyone else because I don't mind hearing no, because I can still build a great relationship and I'll just care about what I do, and so I will talk to as many people as it takes to achieve my goal. And now it's like, I will just knock on as many doors as I need to and ask for some butter.
Yas (29:16):
I know, Borrow the butter, share the sugar, borrow the butter, share the sugar. You just need to borrow the butter. Because you got to make it [inaudible 00:29:23] right? But here's the funny thing, like what you were just saying, Danielle, is when we knock on the doors, we pick up the phone, we do the work, again, I think we're looping back to, I sensed, that these amazing people watching thinking, oh my product's not good enough, that's bullshit.
Yas (29:44):
It's [crosstalk 00:29:45] just that your fear, you fear going out, you fear, get rid of the fear. And so another little acronym I made up is around LEAD, L E A D, right? And this is what I think is key, leave egos at the door. So L E A D, leave ego at door, who gives a fuck what they think about you, if you knock on the door and they say no? Who cares? You'll learn something, like I always say, I wrote in a message the other day to an investor, so he get back to me, and I'm like fuck my time is valuable too, I need to put you on the list of yes or the list of no. And I was like-
Danielle (30:21):
Totally.
Yas (30:24):
And then I went a fast no is okay. A fast yes is okay too. But could you just let me know either way?
Yas (30:29):
And they came back and wrote fast no, love the comms, let me know how I can help in any other way. So I went actually, I'd like this, this, this and this from your team, I've got this promo going on, would you be able to introduce me to someone in your team? And he's like, here's the person, there you go, done. And so-
Danielle (30:48):
Oh my God.
Yas (30:48):
It was respect, right?
Danielle (30:50):
Yeah.
Yas (30:51):
And my ego is not bruised by him saying no. I'm like, yeah-
Danielle (30:55):
Well in actual fact, it led to another opportunity, so being you, being you and being authentic and actually just not fucking around and telling how it is led to another opportunity.
Yas (31:06):
It's just, show real, versus real real. Here's the show real of me and everyone thinks I'm doing it, and I think it's awesome. You know what? We are all awesome, we absolutely are all awesome. We're so all a bit fucked up too, and we all got real real, and I want people to be prepared and comfortable talking about the real, real, which means, you know what? I did get a no this week of someone I really wanted, because I really loved their values, and I think they're rock stars and they invest in female founders and it's just not the right time for them. And I was like, fuck, like I'm [inaudible 00:31:51] because I love them, but you know what?
Yas (31:53):
I'm not offended, I'm like let's chat for the next round, I'll put you on the monthly up dates, are you comfortable with this? Do you mind if I lean on you for these? And so there was no burning bridges.
Danielle (32:03):
Yes, exactly.
Yas (32:06):
I was still a little bit sad and I said to my board, I'm like, damn I'm a bit pooped because I really wanted them. But what I wanted was access to these amazing people. I have lost that access. [crosstalk 00:32:18] money. So that's fine, one door closes, another one opens and they don't actually open any out, you got to go. Knock-
Danielle (32:28):
You've got to knock, oh my God. Oh, this is so good.
Yas (32:33):
[crosstalk 00:32:33] dropped the mic with that?
Danielle (32:35):
Oh my God, no, and literally I was just about to say, let's fucking call it there, that was amazing, you are absolutely incredible and I love that, I don't think... we had questions, I don't know what happened to the question because that's so good, but it's so interesting. I love your philosophy around relationships and adding value and just doing what you said you were going to do, I mean if we just threw the word sales out the window and came up with a whole new language like there it is right there, that's absolutely incredible. So thank you for joining us on a Wine with Yas, I will link up all of your amazing website, socials, all that so all of the lovely sales mind people can find you, I appreciate you, I appreciate your time and thank you for the value that you've brought to our community today.
Yas (33:25):
Thank you, I'm really excited about hearing some great stories from people that watch this and for them to knock on our doors Danielle and tell us the great stories of what happened with they knocked.
Danielle (33:35):
Oh my God, I can't wait as well, and everyone take as your cue to reach out to either of us or comment we want to hear from you, that's so good.
Yas (33:45):
Thank you.
