Dave Pickron – Maneuvers and Getting to No
The QJO Initiative Crew goes out for a night of Recreation With Intention and Jeep Crawling with guest Dave Pickron. After riding the Jeeps for a while, the crew talks with Dave about his experience with the Jeeps and how he got to be the successful man he is today. Join us as we learn about how to succeed in life. Full text below (Watch Full Episode)
“My mountain doesn’t have a summit. I’ll never find the summit. It doesn’t exist.” – Aaron Chapman, Episode 11
Aaron:
So you’re a Jeep guy, you’ve had Jeeps. I’ve seen you take them out and do the trails. You’ve texted me to say, “Hey, what’s a good trail to go hit?” You’ve taken your daughter out. So how does it compare?
Dave Pickron:
Okay. Not a Jeep guy, have Jeeps-
Aaron:
There’s a difference?
Dave Pickron:
…Put a little life on them, they look really good going down the freeway. We’ve gone off some dirt roads. It doesn’t compare at all. We got to our first little maneuver tonight. And if I was out on my own, I’d say, “No, this trail ends.” And I would’ve turned around, but I thought you guys were getting out to kind of see how you wouldn’t go up the maneuver. And I couldn’t do it without you guys tonight. I’ll just tell you that right now. It was impressive. And those Jeeps are killer and they they can go out anywhere. So-
Aaron:
We’re blessed to have some cool rigs.
“…every Jeep that went down each maneuver did it differently, but they all were successful. Right? So the road to success to me is, first of all, you got to get in the Jeep, get out here, get to the maneuver. And then you have some good friends help you get down the maneuver and you find success.”
Dave Pickron:
You know what? I thought it was kind of cool about tonight… Not to jump ahead, but you know, every Jeep that went down each maneuver did it differently, but they all were successful. Right? So the road to success to me is, first of all, you got to get in the Jeep, get out here, get to the maneuver. And then you have some good friends help you get down the maneuver and you find success.
Aaron:
Yeah. And like you said, it’s different. Because they’re all set up slightly different. You take a little bit of a different approach. They had different throttle capability. I mean the capabilities are different all the way around. Like the one that I’ve got, we’ll do things in one way very, very differently than say what his four-door would do because of the length. And then you’ve got the width and we’ve got all these things going on and you’re right. We would take a lot of times a different line.
Dave Pickron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And you have that human element. I noticed all your eyes saw different things. So we have the different hardware that I got], and I saw each of you kind of have a different approach to it. And there’s definitely a human element to it.
Aaron:
Yeah. An experience element.
Dave Pickron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Aaron:
Yeah. What we’ve all been down before and what we’re willing to do. I think that was the other thing. There’s always a first time. You always got to look at that and say, “Can I really do that?” And a lot of it has to do with like, it’s kind of one of those hold my beer moments. I think for the first time for many guys, it’s just, “I’m just going to give that a try and see what happens.” But then it’s like, man, you got to have enough money to deal with the fact that you might break your stuff or you break a lot of it.
Dave Pickron:
Well, if you had to ask me and said, “Hey, Dave. Jump in the driver’s seat. You’re going to take this one.” I would’ve said, “I’m not ready yet. I’m just not. Let me watch it from the outside. Let me drive it from the inside in the passenger seat.” But quite not ready to get there yet, but it was amazing. And I’d love to get behind the wheel actually. I’d do it. But, you got to see it first. You got to feel it first.
Floyd:
You don’t quite jump into something like the big obstacles first time, right?
Dave Pickron:
Yeah, no.
Floyd:
I mean Joel can attest to us pushing him on some obstacles he probably shouldn’t gone on-
Dave Pickron:
It’s life though, too. Right? You just baby step into things and it takes time.
Aaron:
Well, having people around you to one, goad you a little bit to get into it, but then drag you out of it. Because more than one time, we’d love to get Joel in a spot where you have to get a winch on him. And we just give him crap. Because he gets hung up and-
Dave Pickron:
And that would be me so-
Aaron:
And there’s nothing wrong with that. And we like the fact that people want to go out there and do it. So I appreciate you being willing to just jump in and say, “Yeah, let’s go. Let’s go.” For me to just call you out of the blue, say “Haven’t talked to you a long time ago. Want to go hit the trail?”
Dave Pickron:
Well, I would say you have the winch on the front of the Jeep so you could use it for me. So I would just help you use your equipment.
Aaron:
There we go. So you can drag my Jeep out by a Jeep.
Dave Pickron:
Don’t buy a winch and then don’t use it right? You got to take Pickron with you and winch him out of there.
Aaron:
Some people don’t.
Floyd:
Well, that’s most of the reason why we bring Joel.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Floyd:
Yeah. That’s the other equipment.
Aaron:
And we’ve had to do it a couple of times, which is kind of cool. So we’ve known each other a long time.
Dave Pickron:
Long time.
Aaron:
Very long time. And I’ve seen… It seems like from the day one I met you, just like things are always working in your world. Success seems to be always there, but a person has to dig deep and get to know you to find out exactly what it took to get there.
Dave Pickron:
Yeah. It’s an easy front to put out, right? That you’re always doing good. And, there’s as many bad days as there are good days. There’s 50% of days that you want to walk away from something. But I don’t know. I was just born with an attitude that you just don’t walk away from stuff and you just figure it out and I’ve always been the one that says I’m not smarter than anybody outside. I just work harder than you. And I just worked hard, you know? And I’ve had a lot of breaks in my life. I mean, I’m not going to say it’s all been me. I can think of a lot of times where I got a little luck, but I took advantage of it. I noticed it. And I took that opportunity and I ran with it. So I believe that there’s a little bit of luck opened up to all of us. We got to recognize it and we got to jump on it. We got to take advantage of that. So-
Aaron:
I think it’s sitting there open for everybody. It’s just many people don’t recognize that it’s there or it looks really hard. Like obstacles we’re talking about here. It looks like it’s really tough and untravelable and in some sort of sort. And then you’ve got to understand that the work that has to go into it and some people, they think that you have an advantage in some form or another. And I’ve just told everybody, for me there’s no advantage. I’ve found that I don’t have to be faster. I don’t have to be sexier. I don’t have to be cheaper. I just have to outlast everybody else, to stay at it longer.
Floyd:
And decide to not give up. Decide to do it. And then decide that before you even start, when it gets tough that you’re going to keep going. You don’t stop. You don’t give up.
Aaron:
So what was your beginnings that taught you that?
Dave Pickron:
Well, I can think back, my senior year of high school, my grandpa worked for Honeywell, put in 30 years and came to work one day, got a pink slip saying you’re a 50 year old engineer, we don’t need you anymore. And I remember sitting down and thinking, “He gave his life to this company and showed up every day and gave it his best. And he was just thrown away at 50 years old.” Well, in those days, no one’s looking for a 50 year old engineer. They’re looking for a young engineer coming out of school with all the latest technology back then, and…
“..if I am going to fail in life, if I’m going to get the pink slip, I’m giving it to myself. I’m going to be in control. No one’s going to show up one day after 30 years of total dedication and give me a pink slip.”
Dave Pickron:
So it was a big turning point for me, as I sat back and saw that it was a huge advantage for me saying, if I am going to fail in life, if I’m going to get the pink slip, I’m giving it to myself. I’m going to be in control. No one’s going to show up one day after 30 years of total dedication and give me a pink slip. So if I’m going to fire, I’m going to fire myself. I’m not going to make it. I’m going to be the failure. Right? But if I do make it, then I’m going to recognize that I’ve had people helping me, teams doing it. It’s not all me. I don’t think it’s all you when you make it. But I believe it’s all you when you fail.
Aaron:
I agree. Yeah. We have only ourselves to blame when things don’t work. But man, if it takes off and does well, I guarantee your leadership had a lot to do with it, but there’s no way you can get to the certain heights that we’ve seen people achieve by themselves. It just doesn’t happen though. What would you say is probably the toughest thing you’ve had to deal with to get here?
Dave Pickron:
The toughest thing? That is it. That is a tough question. It’s just been the perseverance. I can tell you that I have some health challenges in my life that I was diagnosed with when I was 18, that I could have made an excuse, you know? And I could have said, “Oh, I was dealt with this. It was out of my control.” So I would say that there are some health challenges that I have that I keep plugging away and I try not to let it define me. But I’ve made so many errors and mistakes, little things, but nothing super big. I will tell you there was this one moment in my life that made me decide what kind of person I wanted to be. And it’s not… And I don’t think my kids know this, I’m sure they’ll watch this and go what dad?
But when I was 16 years, I was in Dillard’s department store and I liked this sweater and I wrapped this sweater kind of around my neck. And I walked around the store with my friends so much, for some reason my brain at 16 years old said, “Oh, now I own the sweater.” I’ve been wearing it for five, ten minutes and then walked right out of the store. And I got down to the food court and I’m talking to my friends and I feel this. And I’m like, “Shut up.” Thinking I got away with something and I was hauled back in handcuffs at 16 years old back to the store, sat down with the police officer, called my dad and said… My dad was a police officer and said, “Hey, I’ve got David Pickron here. He stole something.”
And obviously I can’t hear what my dad’s saying, but I get the gist that he’s saying. “Yeah, no, I don’t think you have my son. My son wouldn’t do that. My son is honest. And you’ve got somebody else. You’ve got some… Call his dad.” The officer’s like, “No, no. I got his driver’s license right here. This is him.” And my dad came down and picked me up that day. Didn’t have to ground me. Didn’t have to say a word to me. It was a day when I realized that, what kind of man are you going to be? Are you going to be one that’s just deadly, honest and never take anything that’s not yours.
And so I had some failures early in my life or some mistakes that I made, but for some reason, and I thank God for this, is I learned from them. I like, “Okay, stupid. Don’t ever do that again.” So I just… I put my head down, I just said, “What kind of man are you going to be?” And, I want to be a good man for my wife. I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good business partner. I want to be a good God-fearing man that leaves this world better than when I was here.
Aaron:
I find it interesting that we as humans tend to remember the failures so vividly yet there’s so many wins in life. So many cool experiences, so many things that we easily forget. I don’t know if it’s something that we are built into us as humans to be able to try and avoid those failures again. And sometimes you keep stumbling into them because you don’t pay attention. But I just really find it interesting that when we had an awesome opportunity a month ago. And you know… Where we were hanging out with Adam Vinatari and I got to ask him just like, “Dude, how many of those kicks that you made it do you remember?” He goes, “I think two.”
“How many of those misses do you remember?” He goes, “I remember every single one.” I said, “So, and then when you analyze it, what do you think you did differently each one that was different than the ones that before you made it?”And he could tell me all the details of his steps or his foot or whatever. And it’s like, it’s crazy how we as humans hang on to that. We hang on to those kinds of things. Now, I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.
Dave Pickron:
That’s healthy.
Aaron:
Because healthy because it keeps you away from stuff. But it’s also… It’s amazing how some of us, because we concentrate on it so much that we literally steer ourselves into the wall. You hear about people who are training with a race car, something like that. And they’re starting to slide into the wall. If they’re staring at the wall, they’re going to keep going into it. But if they look away from it, they can steer themselves away from it and we need to find that fine line. That fine line, when are you staring at the wall and running yourself into it? And when are you actually just remembering, “I don’t go over there. That’s the place I avoid.”
Dave Pickron:
Yeah, no, I agree. Go on. I can imagine if I was a kicker in the NFL and I didn’t make that last kick for my whole team, my whole team’s looking at me and counting on me. I wouldn’t sleep that night. My personality would be playing the movie over and over and I’d have to get back out to the next game and make my next kick before I could even slowly just start to even get rid of that.
Aaron:
And you probably still wouldn’t forget it. In fact, I’d-
Dave Pickron:
But it is not healthy to play that same movie over and over. It doesn’t do anything for you. So I believe there is a fine line. Know you made a mistake, learn from it, but you can’t beat yourself up over it. You got to get back up. You’re no good to your team if you’re out there thinking about your last kick when you’re ready to do your next one. You got to get it out of your head and it’s easy to say and hard to do.
Aaron:
Is there something specific about the people you work with or people that work with you, I guess, or for you, however you want to take it, that you believe your specific style, your specific way about going over obstacles in business and in life has had the influence for things to get where they are? I mean… Or do you think that there’s things that maybe you’ve missed?
Dave Pickron:
No, I think you find success in teams. And I used to in my life, I used to think, I want to be like that guy. I want to be like that guy. And I used to try to change the way I reacted or the way I did my personality. And then I came to the realization that listen, this world needs me in certain circumstances, but I also realized that it doesn’t need me in every circumstance, right? So I used to take my type A personality into everywhere I went and it was very much a benefit in some circumstances and it bit me in the butt in other circumstances. And so as soon as I realized what I was good at, that’s great. But when I realized what I wasn’t good at is when I really started to flourish, because if I knew I wasn’t good at something, then I needed to find somebody who was.
Now, one of my business partners in one of my companies, Scott Aubrey. Scott Aubrey is the best number two guy you could ever have. And I don’t say… And he’s better than me. And I as the number one and him number two. Actually, he’s more important in the organization than I am as the number one. So when I’m saying one and two, I’m not saying in order of importance, okay?
Aaron:
Yeah, sure.
Dave Pickron:
I’m just the one who goes and makes things happen, stirs up the hornet’s nest. And then he puts it all back together and we wouldn’t be successful without me. And we wouldn’t be successful without him. Everybody in the office comes to Scott when they have something they need to share or it’s about their lives or… No one comes to me, I’m lost in my own world. I’m in my projects.
I would love it if they came to me, I sometimes sit back and go, “Why doesn’t anybody come to me?” But I have to realize that my personality is not, as much as I want it to be, isn’t as inviting. Maybe facial expressions aren’t as pleasant as his. My voice. Maybe I’m too busy. Maybe I shut my door. Maybe I ignore him going down the hallway when I’m thinking about a break. And so my point is our business really started to flourish when I realized what I wasn’t good at and could put people around me to fill those holes. And I have fantastic people. They work great in teams. I think when you get to my level, you can’t be everything. You just got to be what you’re good at. And you can’t sit there and always want to be somebody else, just be who you are and do what you need to do.
Aaron:
So authenticity. And then of course recognizing where you’re short. But, I’ve told a lot of people, some of the best CEOs say that the reason that they’re a great CEO is because they find themselves to be the dumbest person in the boardroom. And as long as you’re not the best at the roles you fill with other people, and they’re the best with those roles, they don’t have to be the best at every role. Just the best at their role. Right? And if you’re the best at every role and you are trying to be everything to everyone, you’re nothing to no one. And the other thing I’ve also found, I think I’m probably taking too much on this to spout off about, but I’ve also found that when you… We’ve talked about this before to different people, that when you decide you’re going to do it all, you’re stealing from other people’s opportunity. You’re not allowing… One, you’re taking from yourself and then you’re taking from them. If you delegate to somebody, it frees you up to do more, to delegate to somebody else to do more, to delegate to another person. You can create.
Dave Pickron:
So I had a manager for years and this manager was really good. I mean, she was really, really good at what she did. Okay? She was so good that I couldn’t promote her out of her position because she was so valuable where she was at, but she put herself in that position because she never trained anybody to take her spot. So she came to me one day and she says, “David, I’ve kind of felt like I’ve been passed up or…” And I said, “Listen, I would love to promote you. You’re fantastic. I’m worried about filling your seat and I can’t fill your seat. So if I can’t feel your seat, I can’t promote you. So in the next six months, you need to be filling that seat and it makes you more powerful around here.”
Because she thought if she held everything in, she was important because she was the only one who knew how to do everything. She stunted her own growth. And I had to let her know, I can’t move you up because I can’t replace you. And so in our organizations, we’re always training our managers or assistant managers to always be bringing up the next person. That’s going to make… Don’t think you’re losing your job. That’s going to actually make you more valuable around here and you’re going to rise.
Floyd:
Well, I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes that people make in any industry, right? Including owners or CEOs or whoever you are. I can’t grow as an owner of a company unless I have my people grow with me. I can’t sit here and do… When I first started my first company, I was everything, right? I was the start to the finish, running the projects, accounts receivable, payable, marketing, everything. I can’t go to the next step unless I have somebody. And it’s important, I think enough to… When you get to that role where it’s time to move on and do another company or branch out and do whatever it is, you can’t, we can’t do it either. And so I think it’s a valuable lesson to teach your staff as well. We do the same thing.
Dave Pickron:
It’s kind of like the book, E-Myth, if you’ve read that. I’ve seen a lot of people who are really good plumbers. And they think that since they’re a really good plumber, they can really be a really good owner of a plumbing company. But they start their own company, and they’re so busy underneath the sink that they don’t even run their company. And they always just stay underneath the sink. So even if you’re starting a business or you’re an entrepreneur, that plumbing company doesn’t need another plumber. I can go get a plumber at $15. They need a marketer, a business person, someone who does accounting, someone who pays the bills. I mean, they need someone now to get into the office and actually run a business. The first business that I was involved with and started was a process serving business.
I evicted people for a living. And I can tell you guys when I’m in junior high in high school, I didn’t say I want to evict people when I get older. Right, right?
Floyd:
What? No?
Dave Pickron:
No. And I went to school and about my senior year of college up at NAU, Northern Arizona university, my counselor came to me and said, “Hey, Dave, there is a job fair this weekend. Motorola is going to be there. Intel’s going to be there.” Right? Remember I told you the story about Honeywell and my grandpa. So I wasn’t interested in that. And I said, “Hey, you know what? I’ve already got a job.” “You already… Oh congratu… What are you going to do?” I said, “Well, I’m going to go down to Phoenix and be a process server and serve papers.” And the disgust on this guy’s face, the disgust of, “Are you… You went to college to be a process server?” But what he didn’t know but what I did know was I wasn’t going to be the one knocking on the doors and doing the evictions. I was just going to own the company. Right?
And I didn’t care what the company was. I don’t care what the company is. It’s not what I do. And so I went on to build a sizable company. And once again, I’m going to give myself my own pink slip. And I’m much further along 25, 26 years old than I would ever be at Intel, Motorola hating my job. Right? And yet the look of disgust from a college professor that thinks I’m making the wrong decision. I knew the road I wanted to take. I knew the path. I didn’t know exactly where it’s going to take me at that point. But I knew there was a lot better opportunity. Right? And so I took it and I’m so glad I did. I’m so glad I didn’t go to school to learn to work for somebody and not saying that’s bad. That’s not my personality.
Aaron:
Well, because we need them. Because if we don’t have them, you and I don’t have businesses.
Dave Pickron:
No. I’m not saying that’s bad at all.
Aaron:
We all can’t be owners.
Floyd:
We can’t be owners.
Dave Pickron:
Exactly. Exactly. So it just wasn’t for me.
Aaron:
What I tell folks about trying to become the owner or the one who runs the business, whatever, it’s like, you got to be prepared to pay that 15, 20 year price. You got to be the one that’s willing to make payroll at your own expense for sometimes five, six, seven months straight.
Dave Pickron:
Last one to get paid.
Aaron:
Yeah, definitely. And the first one to have to take all the beatings. If you’re willing to do that, then by all means. But if you’re not, if you want to have the security of it, then hit yourself to one hell of a badass hunter and get yourself out there and help them make the kills.
Dave Pickron:
I had nights where I sit up all night, wondering how I was going to make payroll the next day. Right? I jumped a little quicker than I should have. I’m young, I’m learning lessons. I’ve had countless nights and now you see me, and I just turned 50 here a little while ago. And now you see me, you say, “Oh man, Dave’s always been like that.” No, no, no. I wish my kids would have seen me when I was 18, 19, 20, where they’re at now. I was just like them. I didn’t have multiple…
I built this up slowly. And I think I kind of in a way, did a disservice. I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose obviously, but my kids didn’t see me. So they think that. They get a little depressed because they think that when they go and start their first company, they should be as successful as I am right now. They don’t realize, “Hey, wait wait. Just get going and give yourself 30 years. And you’ll be better than where I’m at, right?” If that’s what you want. Some people don’t want that. They want to travel. They want a different life.
But I agree with you. I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that think the minute they turn on the open sign, that the dollar bills are just flying. And if you don’t… You better plan on losing money for two, three years. The best ideas I’ve ever been part of have never gone quicker than two or three years. I don’t know about you guys. Maybe I’m just starting the wrong companies but-
Aaron:
Dude. I had… Nah, it was 18 years before I started to really start to get a handle on it, to get some real exponential growth. And then once I hit that, it’s just growing. So now I’m going to create. Then you come to sustainment. How the hell do you sustain that kind of thing? It’s one thing to grow. It’s one thing to go through all the suffering to become successful. Now you become successful. Now you have this massive amount of business comes in. How do you keep it? That’s a whole other group of problems. That’s a whole other plan you got to figure out, whole lot of growth… That new wiring you got to do in your brain, figure out it’s one thing to build. It’s another thing to maintain it.
Floyd:
Well-
Dave Pickron:
Go ahead.
Floyd:
Well, maintain it financially. But I think there’s a big part of that that we’re missing is maintaining the drive, right? A lot of people get to where they’re going. They, in their mind, they’ve climbed the mountain, they’re there. And then they lose track of everything they’re doing. And they’re living outside their means, they’re enjoying life and they’re not really paying attention to what’s going on. They stop working. They stop working hard. And then all of a sudden they’re right back to where they started. So it’s maintaining financially. It’s maintaining the processes, but it’s also maintaining your mental capacity of continuing to drive.
Aaron:
That’s why my… My mountain doesn’t have a summit. I’ll never find the summit. It doesn’t exist.
Dave Pickron:
Well, I think gratitude and being thankful is so important because I think there’s only one or two decisions in your life where you lose everything, right? One or two decisions in your life, everything’s gone. So I can sit here right now and talk to you guys and talk about success. I could be bankrupt in a very short amount of time with certain things that happen. Maybe things out of my control, maybe things in my control. So I don’t know that you’ve ever really made it. And that’s probably why I don’t have a summit, is I think I have a paranoia and a fear deep inside of me that I’m still going to fail. And I don’t know that that will ever leave me. I’ve had it since I’ve been-
Aaron:
It keeps you going.
Dave Pickron:
I’ve have had it since I’ve been a kid. I kind of grew up, had a lot of freedom. I was kind of on my own. I didn’t have a lot of family structure and I didn’t have safety nets when I was younger. And for some reason I think that that kind of fear, I wish I could get rid of it, but it’s just part of who I am.
Floyd:
I think it’s actually good thing. I have a similar fear and it’s not of failure. It’s the experiences that I’ve seen growing up in family life or friends or different people that have been successful around me. I’ve seen what they’ve done wrong. And that was my fear for me. It’s the constant fear that I don’t want that problem. And that’s what keeps me kind of working hard and trying to do everything that they didn’t do right. But you need it because if you don’t have it, fear is what? Coming out of your comfort zone, right? You got to get out of your comfort zone to be successful. And to grow-
Dave Pickron:
And I felt a little bit of that tonight, right?
Floyd:
Yeah, a little bit of fear.
Dave Pickron:
When you’re driving I look down, your wheels are probably three feet off the ground. To me, it looks 12 feet off the ground to me coming over that boulder, right? And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to die.” Right? But we got through it and I’m like, “I love it.”
Aaron:
It then becomes addicting. Doesn’t it?
Dave Pickron:
Yeah, no.
Aaron:
Because we brought one guy out here and we took him… We didn’t even take him on a rock crawling trail. We just went on the Coke Ovens and-
Floyd:
That’s right. The most tamest… The tamest-
Aaron:
The tamest damn trail. I mean just keep going down there.
Floyd:
… for two hours. It was the boringest trail I’ve ever been on.
Aaron:
And then he pulls up in my house with somebody whose truck that they built for SEMA. This $100,000 Jeep.
Floyd:
Well, first he goes in. And he immediately goes out and buys a nice Jeep, but it wasn’t what he ended up with. And that wasn’t enough because it didn’t compare to our rigs. And so then he went and did it again. Then he just bought another one.
Aaron:
Now he just bought another one. He’s about to get his third one. But he’s been out here carrying stuff up. And he and I did that first together a couple months ago. And he gets it really quick. And so that’s what I thought was really, really awesome. He was going to be here with us tonight. But he just had his gallbladder removed and all the rocks and… He had those big old rocks in his gut. So he literally has rock crawling in his blood. But like you said, a constant state of discomfort gives us a lot more experience, a lot more to talk about around the fire. If you don’t have a good story around the fire, you have nothing as far as I’m concerned, because nobody is going to get excited about a guy sitting around, watching TV, eating Cheetos. That’s not a story you want to hear. You want to hear what people have been through.
You want to hear the problems, you want to hear the successes. And unfortunately, we’re going to talk about more problems than success because that’s what we remember. So we get into the… Really the meat of what we’d like to talk to people about is, and you may have already shared it. This may be already something you put out there when I asked about the toughest things, but what… Is there something else that you think was considered the worst thing that’s ever happened to you in your life? But looking back on it, it was the greatest thing that could’ve ever happened to catapult you to where you are today, which kind of made you who you are. We call it the best, worst thing. Perhaps, your best thing that could’ve happened that was actually the worst thing at the time.
Dave Pickron:
So, they’re little things. But, when I learned that I was going to get told no, before I was told yes on anything, it changed my life. Okay? So you might say what’s the worst thing that ever happened? When I went and had a business and I went to my first client to try to get sales. And they said, “Yeah, no. What you’ve got, we don’t want.” I’d walk away like, “Oh my gosh, I’m never going to be successful.” Right? And I go to the next guy and, “No.” “Oh, what am I doing?” Right? But when I learned that I was going to get that no first, before I ever got a yes… I’ve hardly ever walked into a client, told them what I did and, “Yes, we’ve been just waiting for you.” Right? It’s always been, “Well, we already have a provider that does that.” “We already solved the problem this way.”
When I realized that I had to go get a no, before I had to get yeses, I had no problem getting noes now. So now it’s in my brain. So I went out and say, walk out of the place. They told me no, “Great. I got the no.” But you know, the next time they call me, what’s it going to be? A yes.
Aaron:
Definitely.
Dave Pickron:
It’s going to be a yes. I know I’m going to answer that phone and they’re going to say, “Hey, we need your services.” Because I might’ve got a no, but I let them know about a project or something that I was doing. And I got the word out. And I think when people tell you no. They’re saying no, like right now. Like as we’re talking, no. It’s not no ever. Right? So I’ll have something that, “Well, right now I don’t need that.” And I’ve had people countless times in my life, call me two weeks later and say, “Dave, I need that.”
Floyd:
Yep. You planted the seed.
Dave Pickron:
“Yeah. I need that. It was a no two weeks ago, but I had no idea right now, I’m in this circumstance and I need you.” Right? So the answer to the question to me is that there wasn’t one big no in my life, but there was a lot of Nos that I learned, turned into yeses. And so I would say if you’re a young entrepreneur or you’re getting into something, you’re going to have days where you’re like, what am I doing? But if you can turn those Nos into, okay, that’s step one – noes come first. Step two, yeses come second. Step three, long lasting relationships, long lasting clients for a lifetime is when you can really start building something good.
Floyd:
So kind of looking at the Nos as the negative that the moment that it didn’t work right. And looking at that as a, “Sweet, we got that out of the way. Now we can move on to the next goal, which is the next step.”
Dave Pickron:
I almost entered the point where I don’t even hear that no means no. Noes mean next one’s yes. Right? And I actually learnt to appreciate the Nos now and they don’t beat you up at night. Don’t play them in your hand over and over again. Right? Because I’m never really going to get a, “Hey, no, I don’t need you.” And then they’re going to call me two weeks. “Hey, I just want to remind you that I don’t need you anymore. It’s still a no.” You’re not going to get that phone call. The next communication usually you have with them, especially if they contact you, is usually a yes.
Aaron:
What I’ve always found to be the best position for me always was to be the second in line.
Dave Pickron:
Yeah. Get in line.
Aaron:
Because the first is it’s easy to lose your position as first. First person in line or that the preferred provider is the, it doesn’t take sometimes, but a small move for you to fall. The next guy in line always has the best position. So always put yourself as the next guy in line. And then when you get that opportunity to be first, find out what made them fall. Don’t go in there and start pushing, “Well, this is what I’m going to do. This is going to be awesome.” No, find out how the other guy fall. Can we even meet that? A lot of times I’ll tell people, “Tell me what happened here.”
Aaron:
They’ll start explaining and it’s like, what makes you think I can do better? And then they start selling you on how you’re going to do better for them or how they’re going to do this for you or how they want you to come in here and do this because they see you differently. I’m like, “Okay, they’re the ones that’s building out this whole thought process. And they’re selling themselves on you for them and for you.” So again, asking them, get to know, find out what is they don’t like about it and then find out what they didn’t like about the last guy. We’ll get you in there and then let them sell themselves.
Dave Pickron:
Yeah, totally agree.
Aaron:
That to me has always worked really, really, really well.
Dave Pickron:
I think the guy that tells you yes the first time is going to tell the next guy yes. The next guy that knocks on his door too. Right? You want long-term lasting relationships. You don’t want the guy that’s going to jump for the better price, the better deal. That’s not how you build a business.
Aaron:
Yeah, I’ve got hundreds, hundreds of clients that were… They would always say they already had a guy. Hundreds of them now. And they’ve eventually, “I’m still here. I’m still here.” And my name keeps popping up. And now I’m the guy.
Floyd:
Well, think about any one of our industries. Right? How many guys do you have? How many guys do you have? Right? And how many times have those guys changed over the last 12 months? No, our businesses aren’t special that we’re the only businesses in the world that have that. So everybody’s going to have it, right? Everybody’s going to have that moment where they’re… Everything changes; people out of business, people change, relationships change, circumstances change. So yeah, you plant the seed. You work hard. You be persistent. Accept the no as thanks.
Dave Pickron:
And I will tell you if you’re good, it doesn’t matter what industry. You can be an industry where you have a million competitors. If you’re good, you will rise to the top.
Aaron:
Agreed and if you’re persistent, you stay at it. You don’t give up. So I just appreciate you taking time away with the family to come hang with us, hanging out here late. Now we’re not doing the normal thing where you’ll climb into into our tents and sleep.
Floyd:
Well, especially because he’s got surgery coming up on Tuesday. Right? I mean, it’s in a Jeep jostling around. I hit a bump. I think my front diff hit and he was like-
Dave Pickron:
That one did hurt a little bit.
Floyd:
And I could feel it for him because I’ve been there.
Dave Pickron:
I got a torn rotator cuff here and it popped me pretty good tonight. But once again, a little pain is not going to stop me from going out and having a great experience with good people. If you’re going to cry and whine and stay at home, then you might not find success.
Aaron:
Yeah. My Rizzo likes to say, “I’m going to hurt here. I’m going to hurt at home. Might as well hurt where it’s cool.” That’s true, right? And one of the toughest people I know and that’s a lesson I learned from her – to not have an excuse just because you’re not feeling good. Go out there and do some cool stuff, enjoy some things. And I’ve said many times that the only things we take with us in this life when we leave is relationships and experience. And I appreciate you, one – we’ve had a relationship a long time and then two, sharing experiences like this. So thank you brother.
Dave Pickron:
Hey, I just think the guy upstairs laid out a beautiful life for me, a beautiful family. I can’t really tell you it’s all me. It’s hardly not me. I’ve just, I’ve been… The guy upstairs has laid out a path. You guys are in that path, part of that path. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here talking tonight with you guys.
Aaron:
Well, you had to make decisions to stay on it and get on it. So thanks brother.
Dave Pickron:
Thank you.
Floyd:
Appreciate it.
Aaron:
It’s good. Start cleaning up all this junk.
Dave Pickron:
Thanks, brother.
Aaron:
Good to hang with you, man.
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