Episode 211: Willow vs. Oak - Why Rigidity is Killing Your Leadership in the AI Era of Kristie Jones

We talk with Kristie Jones about how to build revenue resilience by choosing sales roles that match your strengths instead of forcing yourself into the wrong seat. We dig into the “hunter vs farmer” mindset, why coaching is a competitive edge, and how accountability and adaptability matter even more as AI changes work.
 
👉 Learning business and financial literacy through a “kitchen table MBA”
👉 Writing Selling Your Way In to help people pick the right sales job
👉 Using hunters, farmers, and gatherers to describe sales risk profiles
👉 Spotting the many sales career paths beyond the stereotype of prospecting
👉 Investing in coaches and experts to strengthen skills and the mental game
👉 Raising standards by protecting your circle and leaving rooms that limit growth
👉 Applying “I’ve got 30 minutes for everyone” to give back with practical help
👉 Hiring and leadership lessons on character, integrity, and trusting patterns
👉 Staying employable by being more willow than oak in the age of AI
 
Finally, Kristie explains why leaders and teams need to be more willow than oak as AI reshapes hiring, workflows, and what “valuable” means at work. If you want practical frameworks for hiring salespeople, building an accountability culture, and taking control of your career trajectory, this one will stick with you.

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➡️ 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 (primary): https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiekjones/

➡️ 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞: https://kristiekjones.com/

➡️ 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊: https://kristiekjones.com/book/selling-your-way-in/

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Transcript

Be More Willow Than Oak

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know, the person that we hire needs to be more willow to oak, meaning that you know, like if you're even if you're in a larger company, if you're starting a new division of the company or rolling out a new product, there are certain types of people that are gonna be more flexible, more risk tolerant than other people. And in my world, being an oak, when the wind blows, you know, from the left, you can uproot it, right? But if you're a willow, the wind blows right through you, and you're the last one standing. I now just my willow and oak analogy is gonna become so much more important than both of AI. And so I think the way the world is headed, the more willow you are, the better your chances are of staying employed and being employed in a way that you want to be employed and being a value tier.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hey, Uncommon

Scaling Without Scaling Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher, and today we're gonna talk about not just scaling your business, but the things that you don't want to scale when you do that. That's scaling chaos. Christy Jones is a revenue advisor, a speaker, and an author of the book Selling Your Way In. We're gonna talk about that today. Christy's known for her direct, no-fluff approach that challenges uh owners to stop guessing and ultimately put systems in place to build their teams, including their sales teams that goes forward. But what makes her uncommon to be on the Uncommon Leader podcast is she's not just teaching others, but she's investing in herself as well. So I'm gonna ask her about how she invests in being coached on a regular basis. She's a student uh in many areas, from AI courses to learn all the way through hypnotherapy and some of the mental side of what we do as leaders. So ultimately leading to your no's are more powerful than your yeses at times. So get ready for a master class in revenue resilience and ultimately personal investment. Christy Kay Jones, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Great to have you. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Great. Thanks for the introduction, John. That was pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Hey, you're welcome. I try not to overdo it, but I'm getting, I got when they want to say I'm getting a little bit better. I don't want to, you know, set the stage so high, the bar so high that you can't even achieve it when you get there. But I I know in going through your book, you're going to be able to uh go over that bar and the expectations. But

Kitchen Table MBA And Risk

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I always start my first-time guest with the same question that really gets us into it. And that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, John, I know that you've had a chance to look at the book a little bit. So this probably resonates with you. But um, one of the things I say uh frequently is I got my MBA at the kitchen table. I would be where I am today if my parents had not left their uh safe jobs and became entrepreneurs. So my dad was a mid-level manager for the United Telephone Company back in the day. Um you now probably know them as ATT. And my mom was an underpaid English teacher at in the public school systems in the cities that we lived in. And so my dad made the first jump of leaving his mid-level manager job to go into business with his brother, who owned a Century 21 franchise at the time. And then a few years later, my mom took the real estate exam over one summer and taught that next year and then never again. Um, and so went from making not enough money to making zero money as a 100% commissioned only uh real estate agent until she, you know, got her business up and running. But uh our nights, our nights at the dinner table will were started with uh how was school today, um, but ended with uh buyers and sellers listings uh and problems that were going on at the office, as we would say. Uh so if you were, you know, I think uh initially, I don't think my brother and myself were super interested in all that conversation starting at the age of 11 or 12. But as we got older, I think I said just by osmosis, uh, we gained a ton of business acumen and financial um, you know, literacy. Money was a very transparent topic in our house. We knew when my dad was and wasn't taking a paycheck in order to make payroll for the, you know, for the his team. We knew what my mother's commission checks were. We knew when my dad wasn't taking a paycheck to cover my mother's quarterly taxes. Uh and, you know, and at some point, uh, you know, there were times when my mother out-earned my dad, which was pretty unusual in that day and age. And so we grew up in a very different environment. And like for sure, that has shaped exactly who I am today. And no surprise, I always told people after seeing my dad go through all the things he went through as a business owner, everything from defection uh to deception to an office fire at the office. I was like, I will never own my own business. Uh, and 10 years ago, the universe conspired to make that a false statement. So, but there's no doubt I would have even tried it had I not lived through it.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

I I can't wait to talk more about it in terms because in reading through your book and how you ended up getting into business on your own, in essence, taking that leap uh from the comfort of a W-2 world into the ultimately the W9 world and what that looks like. Uh, that's something that I fought for a long time, no doubt about it. We had actually made a thing you talk about real estate in some of those conversations. I went from that W-2 world into the unknown when we chose not to move back to my wife's hometown, didn't know where to go. My mother-in-law had been in real estate for 30 years, residential sales. And as a unique story as this is, I decided to team up with her in real estate, going from a manufacturing world, and then we became the uh best-selling team in the valley in the five years that I was in it, which was which was a lot of fun. But then I wrote it to the bottom in 2009. Having said that, some of those conversations that you talk about at the kitchen table with regards to how many houses do we have to sell to pay for the wedding or to get the next thing in, those are all real conversations that are really cool to go in. Now, that all feeds into your book, Selling Your Way In, the playbook for setting your income and owning your life. I can't wait to talk about some of the Christians uh that are in the book uh right at the front end in terms of what folks know about you. But the fact is you almost didn't write the book. You didn't want to write the book at the start. So let's go back to that point just a little bit. You

Why She Wrote The Book

SPEAKER_00 5:53

made the decision to write it. Who did you write it for? And why was then the time to write the book?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, I was hesitant to write the book, but I wanted to be a speaker. And so I belong to an organization of female sales consultants across the United States called women's sales experts. And in 2019, our annual conference was held in Minneapolis at the Best Buy headquarters. And as I was walking to lunch, after we had just ended a session on writing a book, uh, we teach one of the things that's unique about our situation is we're all experts in our own way. So we teach each other when the conference comes around. We don't bring in outside speakers, we become the speakers. Uh, and I was a little, it was it was my very first year in the organization. And I was shocked to learn that I was like one of two or three people who had not written a book. And as I'm walking to lunch with one of the matriarchs, she said, What do you think? And I said, I didn't realize that everybody had written a book. And she said, Well, yeah. She's like, Well, you know, have you thought about it? I'm like, Absolutely not. And she says, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I'm really interested in this afternoon session on speaking, on you know, how to get speaking engagements and be a keynote speaker. And she says, Well, you're probably gonna have to write a book then. And I got a little mad and I said, Hey, I got stuff to say, and I don't think I need to write a book to say it. Like, you know, I got valuable information here, and uh, why would I have to write a book? And she said, Well, remember, as you start filling out that speaker thing, when you get to the author, can you check the author box? And you can't. And so I resisted, and then pandemic came along, and I was approached by a company called Udemy, which is an e-learning platform, and they were building out their business side of things and were building out their sales catalog and asked me if I would write a course. And so I did. I wrote a prospecting course during the pandemic, and they gave me an instructional designer, and we, you know, met every week and it was a great experience. And I thought, well, I put all this effort into this, I'm just gonna turn it into a book. But when I started to write the book, uh, you know, and I have a journalism degree. So writing is something that becomes pretty easy to me and that I love to do, right? And so as I started to write the book, I hired a book coach. I know we talk about some of the things that I do as far as like, I don't, you know, if I'm not an expert, I will find an expert. Uh, I know, I know what I know and what I don't know. And so I'd hired a book coach and we'd started down the path using the same outline from the e-learning course. And about, I don't know, 60 days in, I said I'm like, I need to take a like a break. Like I need a I need a few weeks off. And it was the middle of summer, and so I was spending a lot of time outside. And I was just like, why am I struggling? Because, you know, I wrote the e-course easy. And then I realized that I was bored and I thought the book I was writing was boring, and I was writing a how-to book, and there were a lot of people out there doing that that probably were gonna do it better than I was, and I didn't think that was gonna add value. And so I went back to the book coach and said, I don't want to write this book. And she's like, You're not gonna write a book, and I go, no, but I'm not gonna write this book. And so we took a couple of weeks and basically came up with this, and I and it really does stem from that, you know, growing up in the NBA at the kitchen table, because what I learned was in sales, out of any profession you choose, you can set your own income and decide the kind of life that you wanted, right? I mean, we went from, you know, I I say my parents paid cash for college, but because of the early days, they hadn't really saved for college. But real estate, you know, afforded them the ability to pay cash for college for my brother and me. And that changed our lives. I mean, we came out of school without debt, right? And so that was a very un, you know, that was just an unusual situation, but it put us in a different position. Like I bought my first house at 25, and I have a 27-year-old son now who's nowhere near being able to buy a house, um, you know, based on that situation. So what I had seen over the years of being a sales leader. So I'd spent 20, you know, I was it'd spent eight years out of college in retail sales as an executive and a buyer for a major department store. And then I had spent about 16 years uh as a W-2, as you called it, a W-2 sales leader as in software, a software SaaS sales leader. And a lot of times the reason why salespeople struggled is that we'd put them in the wrong seat on the bus. So if you go back to good to great, because we're old, John, um, you know, like, you know, a lot of those people were the right people on the bus, but we put them in the wrong seat. And a lot of the reasons why we put them in the wrong seat was they had applied for jobs they shouldn't have applied for. And they interview, you know, salespeople are professional interviewees, so buyer beware. And so they interviewed really well. And we they looked like hunters and sounded like hunters, but they necessarily weren't necessarily hunters. And then we put them in the wrong seat and they started to fail. And so I didn't want that to happen. And I think so many people think of sales as a like a linear situation. But I know that there's like 120 different sales opportunities out there. And so I wrote the book because I want everyone who decides they want a career in sales and own their own income so they can own their own life to pick the right sales job so they can get to the top 10%, as opposed to struggling and quitting or, you know, being fired or being miserable every day when they wake up because they've just picked the wrong sales job for them.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Love that in terms of how you got started. And then I think it actually feeds into one of the first isms that I had because I picked up it up in the so I'm gonna read a segment right from the introduction of your book.

Selling Your Way In Mindset

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I don't teach people how to sell their way out so much as I help people use a career in sales to open doors and sell their way in, hence the name of the book. The same way I saw my parents use sales to open the doors to the life they wanted for themselves and my brother and

Hunters Farmers And Gatherers

SPEAKER_00 11:03

me. You mentioned hunters, and there's also farmers. Farmers want to raise the baby. What does that mean? Yeah, that's the first of my six that I selected. There it is. It was right on top.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I love it. Yep. Farmers want to raise a baby. I again I try to use analogies that and phrases that'll stick with people. And so, yeah, I say hunters want to give birth, but they don't want to raise the child. And farmers don't really want the pain of giving birth, but they're happy, but they don't want to miss any of those milestones. Uh I think that's one of the easiest ways to figure that out. Like, you know, hunters want to sell it and wipe their hands of it and you know, someone else's problem now. You know, and the farmer that's starting at zero every month terrifies them, right? They love that book of business. They love knowing that if they renew 90% of their book of business, that this is how much money they can make next year. You know, it's it's just a difference in risk profile. But I also would say that there's so many other sales jobs, like we, you know, normally, and I throw in gatherer too. I call that the keep what you catch people, uh people that go and hunt and also keep and then keep that and grow that business and grow that customer. Um I mean, like, you know, in my world in software, you know, implementation specialist, onboarding specialist, expansion specialist, uh sales engineer, uh, you know, product marketing can be an offshoot from that. So I just think there's so many, like I always say, like, people are like, oh, sales, like I could never. And I'm like, that's because you never thought of you think of it as hunter instead of thinking of as the farmer or the relationship builder or somebody who just takes you from, you know, from zero to getting started, like the implementation or onboarding specialists. And so I think there's a lot more people out there in the world that could call sales their profession if they understood all of the opportunities that were out there and found one that matched with their you know, special, you know, superpower and trait set.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, I tucked myself into one of them for sure as I looked at it, as I looked at, you know, again, my comfortable world of W 2 for a long time and how I got the, you know, during the COVID crisis, I got the opportunity uh to step out of the W-2 world. Hence, I got laid off uh from the organization that I was with, gave me a runway ultimately into the uh that W9 world, into that uh sales world. And I had to become a salesperson. I was one of those ones who said I could never see myself as a salesperson because yes, I pegged them as hunters uh as they went through that journey. And I find myself, even today to a certain extent, more of that farmer that you've described, understanding what the backlog is, what's the retention rate and the win rate and all those different things that come in so that I know what I have coming in each month. I don't know if that was why I was raised, if I was raised like that as well, or differently uh than your uh table MBA. But at least what I hear you saying is that uh they both need to exist, A, and that they can be successful uh regardless of where they were uh in that space. And so that to me uh was refreshing as I went through the book. Now, when you think about how you've gone through that, the other side of the hunter, uh sometimes, sometimes, maybe it's me, they get a picture of they kind of know all the answers already and they don't need help, so to speak. That's

Coaching Curiosity And Mental Game

SPEAKER_00 14:04

been totally different for you on your journey. You know, you've made the decision to hire coaches, not just to be a better salesperson or a better writer, but to be a better person as well, not just a better business owner. So tell me about your philosophy on you know, continuing to look for others uh who may be smarter than you as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, again, I think they say I lead a blessed life. So I'm fortunate to have the finances to be able to bring in experts to help me with things that I don't, you know, that I don't know enough about. Like I told you, I have a journalism degree. So it may be counterintuitive that I hired a book coach, right? But I also need accountability and I'd never written a book before. So even though I have good writing skills and I was in AP English and I have a journalism degree from the University of Kansas, that doesn't mean I'm a book writer.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Rock chalk.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Rock chalk, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Um guy, we beat you for sure. Oh doesn't happen very often.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

It doesn't happen very often. Yeah. I I still miss um Huggy.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Oh well, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I mean, for such a large variety of reasons, do I miss him? I wish him the best. But do miss him. Uh I uh, you know, everything from I'm an athlete, so you know, I play golf and I take golf lessons, I play tennis and I take tennis lessons. And so I think that's where it first started. Like I'm a lifelong learner in general. Uh my son calls me nosy, I call it naturally curious. And so I want to notice everything about everything because I think people are fascinating and situations are fascinating. And I'm always surprised. I'm like, you, I'm like, you have a business that does what? Um and so, you know, as a child, I played competitive racquetball starting as in my teenage years, and um I got good enough to play at the open level, which means even in high school, I was playing for money on the weekends um tournaments. And but that's where my first official paid coach came in, Pete Ruhalla, uh was I grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and Payla's shoesource was headquartered there. And he was an executive, but he'd also been the Michigan State champion for several years before as he was going through high school and college. And so I hired him to coach me. So he coached me all through college or high school and some of college. Um I did play racquetball at the University of Kansas as well. And that was my very first experience with that, and that was a really good experience. I was a little bit of a, but definitely was not probably the best student back then because I was my SAS, my SaaS level was a lot higher. And I did sort of have that, you know, I know a lot of things about a lot of things, but now I know what I don't know. And so, you know, uh, you know, book coaches, as you mentioned, I have a hypnotherapist, I have a regular therapist uh for the times that I need that. Uh and when I and then I bet a lot of mentors when I don't know something, you know, I never want to be the smartest person in the room. Um, but I'm also really open to a lot of alternative things. The uh the hypnotherapist is I call her part of my business team and we try to meet quarterly. Uh because I'm like, you know, I I mentioned to you before we hit the record button that I am gonna write a second book. I'm starting on Monday. I hired a different book coach because this is a different, a completely different topic than the one I just wrote. So I hired a different book coach for this. She's in my Wimbledon Sales Experts group and she's a ghostwriter and has written a couple of books on her herself. So, like really, I think some of the things that stop people are what I call like the mental side of sales or the mental side of life and the FOMO or the scarcity mentality or the fear. Um, you know, as funny as we're right in the middle of, I don't know when this will be dropped, but we're in the middle of the middle of the Olympics or towards the end of the Olympics, as you and I are recording this. And it's interesting to hear about the number of athletes that have, you know, sport psychologists. Um, because I spend a lot of time watching professional tennis, like all of those players have sport psychologists. Uh but I heard earlier in the week that Michaela Schiffron, uh, after having some challenges at the last Olympics, came out and hired a sport psychologist to work with her. I was a little surprised in fairness that she didn't have one prior to that. Um, because I I just assume that, you know, the self self-doubt is what it keeps, you know, we've seen uh over the course of the two weeks, right? Yeah. You know, the you know, ice skating challenges, uh, you know, the quad god who basically, you know, and again, like, you know, been really well twice.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

That's gotta be mental. It can't be, I mean, it's not physical. It's gotta be mental.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, and he came out, he's finally again, like, I'm very proud of him for opening up and saying that, you know, I thought I just didn't think the Olympics was that different than any other the world competition or the, you know, I got a chance to see United States championships were held here in St. Louis. So I went to the women's short program. Um and so I got to see the the three ladies that are performing now on the that perform now in the Olympics. But but you know, he came out and said, like, this was like I just like the the moment got to me. It became overwhelming. It wasn't that he couldn't do what he could do. Um, you know, he's gonna do an exhibition later this week. I think today I even and I bet he nails everything, right? And so I don't think again, particularly because you're, you know, that your listeners are leaders, you know, I think it's our responsibility as leaders to continually work on our professional and personal development because we have people counting on us, right? We have people looking to us, looking up to us. And so I think we need to make sure it's our responsibility to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. And for me, that includes bringing in experts.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Love that. I love that. And again, yes, we're recording that. I just wrote about this a little bit as well. So you mentioned the quad guide and and figure skating. I think of the quad guy who's uh in speed skating, and they compared his quads to Saquon Barkley's in terms of the size of his quads, uh, Jordan Stoltz. But you know, we get to watch them for a minute and 45 seconds in a thousand meter race. We don't see all those things that are happening behind the scenes with regards to the different coaches that they have nutrition coaches, strength coaches, mental coaches as well, spiritual coaches that make an impact on them. And to your point, when we can recognize that we need to be that whole person to be able to be successful as a leader or as an Olympic athlete or as a leader who wants to, in essence, build to the Olympic level, very important. So I appreciate you recognize that.

Your Circle Is Your Ceiling

SPEAKER_00 19:47

It's Christy is number two, I think. Your circle is your ceiling.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Ooh, that's a good one. Yep. Tell me about that one.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, they're all good ones. You wouldn't have printed them if they weren't all good ones. I had trouble getting them narrowed down.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

I feel really strongly about this one, and I'm and not everybody in my life uh likes this one because you know, I believe in what I call reason, season, and lifetime. So some people come into your life for a specific reason, and when that reason's up, you know, it's time to part ways. And sometimes they come and stay for a season, and then some people are there forever, right? And so, but I have I call it releasing back into the wild. I have released people back into the wild that that no longer serves the purpose. And I know that sounds really harsh, but um, you know, I don't need negativity around me. I don't need people who you know, I think I struggle most with people who are not ambitious, just the, you know, the complacency of um, you know, I I'm just you know, like I'm just happy to have my job every day and work my six and a half hours and get my paycheck. Um, like I just, I'm just not wired like that. And so, you know, when I come across people like that, I just, you know, I just, I'm just like, not like friendly, they're friendly, but they're just not my people. Like they just don't, you know, again, they're not critical of me, but they just don't get it. And so I I would say the majority of the people in my circle are other entrepreneurs or other people who own their own businesses now or are high achievers within a W-2 situation. I just and I, you know, and I like to, again, I'm I need to be intellectually stimulated on a on the regular, as I say. And so when I can't have that kind of conversation about a wide range of topics, because like I said, I'm naturally curious. So I know a little bit about a lot, and then I want to dig in on certain topics in a deeper way. But uh, I think I've seen a lot of people who had the ability to get to the top 10%, but they weren't willing to step away from people within their circle that were holding them back. And so it's hard, it's painful to watch from the outside, but um, you know, everything is a choice. So, you know, the just the choices that you get to make. And, you know, sometimes again, like, you know, some people are like, Well, that person you're talking about is family. And I'm like, I know, you know, but I mean, like, you know, but I mean, not everybody there's not everybody's gonna come along for the ride, and not everybody wants to come along for the ride. So yeah, so yep, your circle is your ceiling.

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unknown 21:59

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SPEAKER_00 22:00

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When A Room Stops Serving You

SPEAKER_00 22:32

It has a flavor, a little bit of you know, Jim Rohn's your the average of the five people you hang around with the most. I think about that. I've got an accountability group we call Raise the Average. That you know, when you walk into a room, what happens? That's right in terms of understanding. And you know, you want to raise the average in the room, but sometimes you got to get into a bigger room so that the average of the total is higher than what you're used to as well. Uh, and getting that done. I'd love that as an analysis.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

I'll tell a quick story around this. I um ended up joining a mastermind group of female owners here locally. And at first, I was at a different stage of my business when I got there. So it was very beneficial for me. But as my business grew, I noticed the rest of the group wasn't. And at some point when we met, everybody just wanted to pick my brain. And so at some point, I finally called the person who ran the group and said, Listen, I'm all about giving back, right? Um, you know, one of my Christians, maybe one you didn't pick is I've got 30 minutes for everyone. I feel because of the way I was raised and the information that I have, and that I, you know, was raised with financial literacy and business acumen when other people weren't, that it's my responsibility to teach people what my dad taught us. And so, but at some point, like I'm looking for a little give and take. And and it was it really tied back to the circle as you're ceiling. I felt like staying in that group was gonna potentially, you know, hold me back. I didn't, I got less and less excited about going to the meetings. It was more of a like, oh, I gotta go to the meetings, and I didn't want to go to the meetings. And so I think, you know, everybody has those feelings inside of you. I, you know, always say, like, you gotta listen, like you gotta be listening to the universe when it speaks to you. And the universe was definitely speaking to me, and I took action on that. And I think a lot of people know inside, you know, whether that's that feeling in your stomach or your chest or whatever, that this isn't the right direction. But then you got to be brave enough to take action.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Love that. I want to come back to uh I've got 30 minutes for everybody. That's not one of the ones that I chose, but I know there's a story there that is very important for folks to hear. Uh, I want to go back just a little bit. So

Waitressing Lessons For Sales Success

SPEAKER_00 24:25

you started your sales career uh as a waitress. And the thoughts, the ideas came out of that. What you sell matters, territory matters, relationships with coworkers matters, the way you care for clients matters, and product knowledge matters. Did you get all that out of being a waitress?

SPEAKER_01 24:41

I did. And it wasn't until a lot of years later that I put all that together and did a video on that topic. The difference, the the connectivity, and it's funny, when you I, you know, I spend my I about 40% of my business is helping companies hire top sales reps. And again, we're not a staffing company. I literally like project manage it. Like I never leave the client alone with the candidates. I run it, we rub my team and I run every interview. The number of people who started out in hospitality, you know, either athletes or they waited tables or worked in a restaurant in hospitality, not necessarily retail, but hospitality in that way, is shocking. And when I write about the waitress story, people that come out of the woodworks like, oh my gosh. Um, you know, the first thing I realized about waiting tables was that controlling your own income piece, right? And I'm like, while I was working half the amount of hours as my friends who were working at the mall, you know, I would say, like, you know, I was working a three or four hour shift and I was at the beach, you know, by two o'clock. And while they were still like working till five or six, and I was making twice as much money, working half as much time and enjoying my summer in a ways that they were not enjoying their summers. And so, you know, those that really like, and then all the things that you said, like, you know, you walked in again. I won't throw you in this. I'm old. So when I first started waiting tables, there was a No, we're in the same boat.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

You can throw me in.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

There was a smoking section.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

My kids are 28 and 26, 29 and 26.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah. We're in the we are in the same boat. But remember, there was a smoking section. And I remember, you know, and I'm an athlete and I have allergies. And so I, the last thing I wanted was the smoking section, but the manager decided what sections you got. And so, you know, being friendly with the manager and you know, making sure that all the kids were filled and all the silver roll was rolled at the end of the shift and all the salt and pepper was filled and doing the little extra things got, you know, got you some, like I call it eight-player privilege. And I didn't want to be in the smoking section. And I wanted to be in other sections of the restaurant. And so learning all those things, like, you know, figuring it out, but not really tying it to sales at the time. But yeah, I mean, knowing what the special is, knowing what had peanuts in it and what people had allergies. Um, you know, and then again, you need to be friendly with your coworkers because sometimes I didn't want to go to work at all. Sometimes I just wanted to go to the beach, right? And I'd rather work the night shift instead of the uh lunch shift and I wanted to switch shifts with somebody. So all of those things, like, yeah. And then the most important lesson was that I can control my own income. And I loved nothing more than every time a table left, I got reviewed on my performance. And as a competitive person, I got like, you know, it's just like as if they were holding up the numbers, you know, after the ice skating performance.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Oh, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

I wanted tens, right? I wanted all tens. And the tip was my way of great. I got a grade every single time right there. And like, you know, I also had four or five other tables. So, you know, that grade, you know, needed may have indicated to me that I needed to step my game up with every other table. Maybe I was off that day. So I think there was no better, there was no better job for instant feedback.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Hey man, you talked about too like they come back and they ask for you, things like that. So many things on the relationship map.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

So cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah. Uh so I'm gonna share a Johnism with you uh that aligns with, I believe, one of your, not one of the ones I chose, but one of your stories.

Always Sit At The Bar

SPEAKER_00 27:42

So I say hashtag always sit at the bar. Okay. Like you don't go by yourself somewhere and um sit at a table and just look at your phone and and you know, enjoy peace and quiet. That's not what we're there for from a relationship standpoint. So when I say always sit at the bar, what comes to mind to you from a story standpoint?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Oh, easy. Uh, I ask people, this is one of the ways I identify hunters versus farmers. I asked them the following situational question in an interview. I was like, so you um missed like for some reason the connect, your connecting flight doesn't happen, whether you missed it, whatever, and you are ending up at the Marriott Hotel Marriott that night. When you get to the hotel Marriott, do you one you know, check in, go up to the room, drop your bags and head straight to the bar, or do you go in, check in, go up to your room and order room service. And uh the farmers and the introverts will order room service and want to be left alone. And I always say, yeah, and I tell it's funny when I teach people sales, I say to them, I go, pretend you're at the bar, right? Like you you missed your layover, you're at a bar, and guess what? Here's the good news everyone else at the bar is in your same position. Everyone there also missed their flight because of the snowstorm in Minneapolis, right? So you have all of that in common already. And I said, you know, at the end of the night, chance, you know, like if you're really good at at discovery, as I call it, then this, you know, doing a discovery with a prospect is no different than at the end of the night. I bet the two guys on the right and the two girls on the left, you know what's going on, you know where they were headed, you know about their family, you know what they're missing because they didn't get home. And that, like, how is that any different than asking questions in a more professional setting and having a conversation and getting information?

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Back to being curious, right? Always be curious in terms of what you're

I Have 30 Minutes For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 29:22

doing. And you mentioned uh one of your other isms is to uh you've got 30 minutes for everyone. Tell me about that and that mantra and tell me there's a story in your book about how that actually led you to some of the successes that you have uh today when where you are.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, I again it's been like double digit years. It's probably been 15 or 20 years since I started doing that. And I do think it started out with uh I was getting because my journalism degree, people used to bring me their resumes. Friends and family would bring me the resume to look over and edit for them. And then over time, people would reach out and say, Hey, would you mind? And so at some point I just said, sure, I've got 30 minutes for everyone. Like, and I truly believe, I really do. Like my, you know, my dad was a very giving back person. Not only did he run the real estate company, both of my parents were president of the state association, real estate state association and local association. My dad sat on uh boards nationally and regionally, and you know, and he was on, you know, the board of habitat for humanity. Like he gave back to the community. And so I think we were raised as giver backers. And when you think about that, like I can, you know, I can go do meals on wheels, I can go, you know, read books at the library to kids. But I think the best and brightest use of is taking my professional acumen and helping other people get the right job for themselves. And so in general, um, you know, in general, I would say the 30 minutes normally is uh professional, but sometimes it's not. But I I got a call earlier this week from my friend Christy in Kansas City and she's like, work issue. Like she just like we just like this week we're high school, we're we're friends all the way back to high school. She's like, and when she calls in the middle of day, it's normally work issue. She's like, work issue, you know, and she laid it out for me and she's like, you know, what what should I do? And I said, well, what did you decide to do? Because I said you sometimes she calls after the fact and she goes, Well, I just don't think that's my monkey. And I said, It's not your monkey. You're right, it's not your monkey, right? I said, if you take it on, then you're gonna always take on. And I said, So give the monkey back to the person who brought it to the circus and you know, and and make them figure that out themselves. And so uh, you know, I've always sort of been that person, I think if you got depending on where you got into the book, as a teenager, I called it cry with Christy. Girlfriends would all call and the boyfriend, you know, when either the boyfriend thing wasn't going well or they got a bad grade on the test and they haven't told their parents yet and they don't know how to do that. And so, like, I just I like made a joke of it. I was like, Cry with Christy. The phone lines are open between six and eight, Monday through Thursday. You know, like you just, you know, call, but please, please just call the appropriate time.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

You were Lucy, the doctor is in, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

The doctor is in. And again, I have a very like I'm just like my you know, my son says I'm not like wired like other people. I'm just not as emotional about certain things. And again, but again, like just no different than me hiring an expert, right? Like that, the experts I hire are not emotionally connected to my situation, right? So they're more level-headed, they can see things that I'm not seeing, they can provide advice that I might be missing. And so I, and honestly, like people take me up on this all the time now, like probably two to three times a week. Um, right now I'm working with a former employee who lost her job unexpectedly. And I helped her with her resume, I've helped her with an interview prep. Then she got an opportunity. Somebody said, Well, I don't think we're quite ready for you. You're a little bit more senior than we need, but would you do some consulting for us? So I gave her my consulting contract. She called me, she's like, Would you help me with this? I don't even know where to start or how to charge it for it or anything. So Maggie and I have been working together, and I think a lot of it is altruistically, it gives me joy, right? Like, you know, I all these years later, like Maggie hasn't been an employee of mine. Like, I'm gonna be 10 years in my company next month. So I've been consulting for 10 years. So Maggie's probably employee from 15 to 17 years ago. And I was the person that she thought about reaching out to when she lost her job. And I'm like, that just makes me so warm and fuzzy.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Absolutely. To me, that's the greatest story ever told. Somebody who knows that you've made a positive impact on your life, they're gonna reach back out to you or they're gonna write your name down on a list someday. Really cool. Thanks for sharing that story. Really good.

Integrity Gut Checks And Titles

SPEAKER_00 33:06

All right, speed round. I can go on forever. Folks, you're gonna have to buy the book uh to learn some of these things. Uh, I'm gonna get my last uh four isms, and I just want like a real quick response. What sits there? You can't fix character flaws, integrity issues, or what mama broke.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

This story goes back to uh my first SaaS job. We were interviewing for a sales rep. Uh, the owner was interviewing with me, and we loved this candidate. Everything about them said yes, but something in our gut said no, and we could not like we spent time going over it and going over it. And finally he said, We can't fix these things. You know, I added the mama broke parties. But he said, like, there's something about the character, there's like a character flaw there, and I can't put my finger on it. And then so we said no, we passed. And again, in general, I don't advocate listening to your gut, but because we both had that same feeling, it was validated. And so um, sometimes I say to sometimes I say, like, I just can't put my finger on it, but it's a no.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Titles are cheap and business cards are cheaper.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

I think sometimes people get I I don't get I don't get caught up in titles anymore because there's a title, there's a different title for the same job. There's 14 different titles for the same job. And so, uh, and I just had this happen. I just made an offer yesterday. We got the offer letter signed to a uh enterprise account executive. And she said, I and I called the title Enterprise Account Executive, and she said, What do you think about the title? I said, What do you think about that? And she said, I might like to have a different title. I said, What would you like to have? She goes, Well, I wrote down five. I said, Well, do me a favor, put them in order of preference and email them over to me and I'll run them by the CEO. And it just doesn't matter. Like big title, if it makes you feel better or you want a different title, and like I said, business cards, like no, nowadays, business card, you can get 500 business cards for five dollars. Change your title every damn day. I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

So funny. I was like, I've had a teacher one time who says, I don't care what you call. You can call pineapple if you want to. I don't care. Just get it done, kind of thing. Which by the way, my job is done now. Yours begins. Last chapter, you folks, you got to read that too. Uh last one, and I'm close to this one because of

Adaptability In The AI Shift

SPEAKER_00 34:59

trees. My logo is a tree and things like that. Be more willow than oak, though. I didn't catch that one right.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yep, I uh I use this one all the time, particularly in hiring. Uh, because I normally work with earlier stage startups, um, you know, the person that we hire needs to be more willow than oak, meaning that we, you know, like if you're you know, even if you're in a larger company and you're starting a new division of the company or rolling out a new product, there's certain types of people that are going to be more flexible, uh, more risk tolerant than other people. And the fact of the matter is, like you might change pricing, you might change your messaging, you might change your website and your logo, you might rebrand. Um, and in my world, being an oak, when the wind blows, you know, from the west, you get uprooted, right? But if you're a willow, the wind blows right through you and you're the last one standing. And so I think it's important, particularly, I would say, like, I've always used this phrase because I worked for kind of earlier stage startups. I now think this is gonna, my willow and oak analogy is gonna become so much more important as a result of AI. And I think people who are gonna take rigid stances against things. And so, like, you know, if like to me, it's that lifelong learner willow, like I'm constantly like, I'm building, you know, custom GPTs. I've got lovable. I'm trying to do some vibe coding. I'm failing all the time. Like I'm constantly failing. Like, you know, if I was like, you know, if I was like, well, I'm not gonna try it anymore because this is, you know, this isn't working. I think the way the world is headed, the more willow you are, the better your chances are of staying employed and being employed in a way that you want to be employed and being a value to your company.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Love that. And I I appreciate that even again in the consulting world as well. Cause you're because look, anything we're doing in that space, whether it's related to sales, leadership, coaching, process improvement, like put it in Chat GPT and it's going to give you an answer on how to do things. It doesn't know the stories and the wisdom that we bring as well, and how we, you know, overcame some of the problems that were there. And that's the powerful part of who we need to be also to and recognize that. Folks, read

Do The Work To Own Life

SPEAKER_00 36:50

your book, put it up on a shelf, just like the one behind me if you're watching on YouTube. You got yours up there. They see your book on a shelf a year later. What do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel when they see your book after they've read it?

SPEAKER_01 37:01

I think I want them to know that I care, right? Like I didn't, I like you meant you made a comment, I think maybe before we hit the record button, that um, you know, as much time as you spend writing a book, you have to spend three times as much selling it. And for me, like it was never about that. I was never, it was never a get rich quick scheme. It was never a New York Times bestseller situation. Uh sure I wanted people to read it. Um, but a reason I wanted people to read it is because I don't think people tell them what I told them in the book. You know, I don't think people teach them how to find the right sales job. I don't think people talk about understanding your sales superpower or just your superpowers in general and how to figure out whether the company that you want to work for or that you're working for fits your trait set, your superpowers, your secret weapons. And so, you know, I just I I think I want everybody to have the life I have. Like, and I think it's possible, right? I think every I mean, I think I had some advantages growing up the way I did with my parents being entrepreneurs, but I still think I would have had a fairly successful life regardless, just based on just who my parents were, even if they stayed in their corporate and teach in educational jobs. But like you can like do the work though, right? Like there's a work but like a companion workbook with the book, right? And so I say, like, read the book, download the companion workbook, and then get quiet with yourself, right? Because in order to really get the life that you want, I think sometimes you have to be honest with yourself in a way that you're not being honest with yourself today. And so it's just you, my book, and the workbook. So find a quiet corner and you know, and write things down and do the work and really like you and I spend so much time, I know, because this is an entrepreneurial problem, and I know that your listeners are the same thing. We spend a lot of time working in the business and not enough time working on the business.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

And I think as people, we spend a lot of time working in life, but not on ourselves, so we can have a better life. And that's what I want people to take away.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

So good. So good. Christy,

Where To Connect And Buy

SPEAKER_00 38:50

where's the best place they can go to connect with you? And also, where do you want them to go to get the book?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Go to sellingyourwayin.com and I'll point you to all the places, but wherever you buy your favorite books, you'll be able to find it. And then what I love most about doing podcasts, John, is connect with me on LinkedIn. Tell me what your one takeaway is from the conversation day and maybe what change you're gonna make. And that that fills Mike up. Love that.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

I would encourage that. I'll put the link in the show notes, make sure folks see that and we'll put it in the uh, especially on LinkedIn, put it in the comment as we post it as well. Christy, I've enjoyed the conversation. That's what we said at the start, too. We wanted to have a great conversation, a fun conversation in between a couple questions that we had. Uh, and so thank you for doing that for us.

Own Your Own Accountability

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I'm gonna give you the last word and kind of put the bookend on the interview, and that's to ask you the same question. I always ask my first-time guest, especially, is uh to, you know, if I give you a billboard, you can put it wherever you want to. St. Louis is actually a cool spot for a billboard, put it right underneath the arch. We've lived there for about a year and a half when we first got married. Love St. Louis. Uh great time. But you've got a billboard, you got a message board. You can put any message that you want to on that billboard. Which one of those Christiasms are you putting on the board and why do you put that message on there?

SPEAKER_01 39:56

I'm gonna put hashtag own your own shit on the billboard. Uh, we didn't get a chance to talk about it. Maybe that's another podcast for another day, but accountability piece of things that, you know, creating an accountability culture. But I think accountability starts with the person, right? I mean, I I teach companies how to build accountability cultures, uh, but in general, like, you know, so many people, particularly in this day and age, just want to blame other things, other people, other circumstances. But I just say there's so much power in owning your own accountability and taking accountability for the decisions that you make, because even the circumstances are always going to be there. But if you, you know, I uh I've got a friend who um is in the personal development business um in an interesting way, which we can talk about other days well. Um but he says, like, oh, that's I I'll say something because that's all. And I love how he calls me out on that, right? And he's like, the story you're telling yourself. And I'm like, okay. Meaning, hashtag own your own shit, right? He doesn't always use my own words against me, but but no, I mean, take accountability for yourself, take about accountability for your growth, take accountability for the money that you're making and the life that you're living. Uh so yeah, own it.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Appreciate it. Christy Jones, you've been a great guest. I know folks are gonna find a lot of value in the words and the isms and those stories that you shared, as well as they need to get a copy of your book because there's more detail in there that we didn't have the time to share today. So I wish you the best going forward, even on your next book, too. Uh even more success. And be well, okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Another

Final Takeaways And Share

SPEAKER_00 41:20

great conversation with uh uncommon leader Christy Jones. What a fantastic uh opportunity to learn some of her isms and some of the impact that she's had all the way from her childhood, starting out as a waitress, getting her kitchen table MBA as she talked about, ultimately leading to a very successful career uh in real estate and now coaching and advising others. So I hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you did and you know somebody who needs to hear it, please share this conversation with them. It's how we get in the hands of many other uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.