Liam is joined by his business partner and former mentee, Nick Staab, to discuss their journey of building a multi-million pound business in less than 24 months. Nick shares his personal story of burnout and dissatisfaction in his previous job, which led him to seek a change. Through mentorship and investing in himself, Nick transformed his mindset and mastered the art of sales. They emphasise the importance of sales as a skill and how it can lead to financial freedom and success. They also highlight the Elite Sales Academy, their training vertical, and the opportunities it provides for individuals to become elite sales specialists.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Building a multi-million pound business in less than 24 months is possible with the right strategies and mindset.
- Sales is often seen as a dirty word, but it is actually about serving and solving people’s problems.
- Sales is a skill that can be learned and mastered, and it is essential for business success.
- Investing in yourself through education, mentorship, and personal development is crucial for growth and success.
- Having a strong mindset, belief in your product or service, and confidence in your abilities are key factors in becoming an elite sales specialist.
BEST MOMENTS
“Selling is serving. I believe if you’ve got a product or a service that can solve someone’s problem, you’ve got to do everything in your power to get it out there.”
“Sales will give you not only financial freedom, but it will also give you financial certainty. Now in my belief, that’s more important actually, because that means no matter what happens in the economy, in the world, in business, that you’ll always be successful.”
“Selling is serving, and whatever you perceive and believe, you achieve.”
“The world is crumbling around us. But you know what? There’s opportunity everywhere. And actually, we live in a beautiful world. We’ve got beautiful opportunities. There are strategies working right now, where you could be making literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, millions of pounds every single year.”
FULL TRANSCRIPT
If you’re listening to the dealmaker podcast, hosted by multimillionaire property investor, entrepreneur, and Guinness World Record holder, Liam Ryan, discover how to start scale and grow your business, become a better negotiator, create more opportunity and make massive profit so you can live the life of your dreams.
In this episode, we are going to do a deep dive on how to build a multi million pound business. In less than 24 months, I am joined by somebody who used to be one of my mentees, and he’s now one of my incredible business partners, the king of sales, the king of business, Mr. Nick Starr, welcome in, Nick. Thank you, great to be here.
Wow. It’s been an incredible five years. We’re actually about to celebrate two years as business partners. Yeah. But if you could sum up the journey that you’ve had with me over the last five years, in just a few words, what would those words be exciting, a roller coaster, in a good way. And absolutely just life changing? You know, everything ever since I’ve been following you, Liam. And I’ve just always wanted to be working with you. But now to be working, you know? Absolutely as in harmony together. It’s just really world class. It’s awesome. So let’s go back five years. What did life look like? What was going on for you where you want it to change? And then how did that change take place? When you started to work closely with me and the team? Absolutely.
So yeah, going back. If it’s I’ll take you back to a day just before I met you, the 28th of May 2018. Now I used to work at Virgin active. And if you guys know that Richard Branson, you might know. He won the gym chain virgin active. So I was the area sales manager. It was my job to close the deals, make sure the gyms were getting enough clients and the members are tweaking over the sales teams are on fire. And I was burned out. I was stressed out. I was working all the hours under the sun. And on this day, I remember it clearly. Because I had a big meeting my regional manager called Jay. Now just to paint a picture of Jay is around about five foot and I think you just have a bald head. And he’d wear the glasses on the tip of his nose and he used to like give you this dead pan look in the eye. And he would look down on you he would talk down to you. Nothing was ever good enough for him. You’d love to abuse his power. You’ve met someone like that. Yeah, been around a few years. And on this day, I had a meeting with him. I remember the meeting was meant to be at nine o’clock in the morning. I left my house around about 7am It was about a 90 minute commute normally an hour and a half. So I gave myself an extra half an hour to get there on time. And I remember I was living in Rockford at the time I used to have to get a bus to the station. Then a train into Liverpool Street and a train into Barbican from there but when I got to the station at Romford The trains were delayed. As you can imagine when the platform started to fill out and then when the train eventually come in we squeezed on we like sardines in a can I got people’s armpits in my face. And as the train is chugging along it keeps stopping hitting the signal values I look at me watching a realize I’m going to be late. You ever have those moments where just life seems to go against you. You try your best to do what’s right but anyway, just keep getting these roadblocks. These roadblocks so I finally pull up at Barbican station. In my spring out the doors are jumped over the barriers that I have to get to the meeting. And I’m already 10 minutes late. So when I make it through the doors at Barbican, I’m running through to the meeting room. I’ve just polished the floor. I’m like Bambi on ice. I’m not skidding along and I make it to this big oak door. Now I can see Jay on the other side because all like glass frames, big red chairs virgin active. A wipe the sweat off the back of my Ted Baker suit. Take a big gulp walk through the door. Jay, I’m so sorry. Sit down, Nick. You’re late, just sunk into my chair. Now, everything that Jay was saying that day, it was going through one air coming out the other couldn’t focus. Seeing all that commotion rushing around. I’d actually had a text message from that morning and just to paint a picture. Two weeks prior to that day, I’d lost my name to cancer. Now, I know you’re thinking you’re Nan’s that bears my hair As a lovely man, my name was the best. Like she had a heart full of gold. And I was so heartbroken that she left us with cancer. And my mom would text me dates for the funeral. First day, the 31st of May. Now that was the last day of the month in the sales industry, we still close out. Yeah, important date, right? Absolutely. Targets gotta be here. And you know, in the gyms, they always say, Oh, this offer is going to end no joining free next month free. You know, the offer that’s always there. Well, that offer was ending. And, yeah, that was my job to be there for the club. So as we get to him to meet him, Jay bangs his paper on the desk, he stands up. I say, Jane, before you go, please, can I have next first day off the 30th for my nan’s funeral. Ah, sorry, Nick, no time off at the end of the month. It’s not me. It’s company policy. Just like, you know what, J, screw you and your job. So I wanted to say, while I couldn’t say it, and I felt miserable, I felt weak. And I just felt so embarrassed. And the reason I couldn’t tell him to stuff it was because I climb that greasy corporate ladder, only to realize that I was on the wrong roof. You know, I was working so many hours, I was working overtime, I was working weekends, I was missing family’s birthdays. To do that I was burned out. And when I was getting home with my ex partner at the time, Selena, our relationship was on the rocks. And that was because I was never there. That was because I was always tired. I was burned out. And you know, I just wasn’t able to be present. You know, I was given her what was left of me. And not the best of me.
I think I think I think it’s very powerful. What you’re saying the because there are probably there’s millions of people in the UK now and people tuning into this that are going through a similar type thing. And the thing is you you made that change, you made that difference. And I know you, you then saw me on YouTube. My big white t-shirt, was it Yeah, around about two weeks later from that day, is when I was because I was doing the same thing over and over. like Albert Einstein says, that’s the definition of insanity. I was still having to go to work, I knew I had to leave, but didn’t know what to do. And then one day was you that was on my phone. And I just kept pushing you away, because the ads were always popping up and I was clicking the cross clicking the cross. And I thought, You know what, I’m just gonna listen to this guy. And everything you said, it was like you’re speaking to me, and it was an ad for the public. And you reach 1000s of people. But this ad was like, you know, you’re not designed to five in the system, you got to invest in yourself, you are your best asset. And it was like, wow, and I was a little bit skeptical. It’d be real as well, when I first come to one of your training events. But I had an open mind and I was willing to do something different. And there’s something in the past that I struggled with was my ego. I used to think that I could do it all by myself. Being in sales, I used to also feel that perhaps I didn’t need a help. And you know, that was the day really when I took a real change. And it was just, you know, I’m just gonna start saying yes, more. I’m gonna actually upskill myself, I’m gonna get around great people. And then you asked me to invest in you. You know, and I didn’t have that kind of money at the time, because it was a you know, it was on the top package when I go in. I’m all in as you know, right. But you know, I’ve just had to do what I had to do. I had to go on the credit cards to leverage my money. But you know, ever since that five years ago, we’ve joined forces, and that was your mentee. But everything changed.
Well, the bottom line is you invested in yourself, you showed up, you then became part of the team actually, you actually became one of my academy managers, you then became one of my great consultants. You became a great mentor, you’ve become a really good friend. And then two years ago, we launched our training vertical together, which is called the elite sales Academy, which is the elite sales Academy. That’s it. And this is this is really the UK is number one Academy, where we show people how to sell better, sell with conviction, sell with confidence, generate more leads become a better version of themselves. And the last two years have been absolutely in sane right, insane. You know, we’ve got many people on the academy people winning awards last year, coming into the Hall of Fame and you know, We’ve got people like Diane, you know, doing incredible things. We’ve got Stephen Nana, Matthew Jeffries, like, literally the list of graduates has been incredible. So let’s talk about sales now. And so for those of you tuning into this, what we have me and Nick, because we have something called our elite sales bootcamp, we also have our mentoring program. But let’s just share, Nick, why sales is seen as a dirty word here in the UK. Yeah. Why do you think that is? And actually, what does sales really mean?
Great. It’s brilliant, such a good observation because most people unsuccessful business owners are scared of selling. And I get it. By the way, I used to feel the same. That when I used to think of sales, I’d pitch that sleazy car salesman, you know, it was like, it doesn’t really care about absolutely in the tweed suit. But the reality is, is that selling is serving, I believe, if you’ve got a product or a service that can solve someone’s problem, you’ve got to do everything in your power to get it out there. And sales will give you not only financial freedom, but it will also give you financial certainty. Now in my belief, that’s more important, actually. Because that means not no matter what happens in the economy, in the world, in business, that you’ll always be successful. I imagined knowing in your life, in your gut, in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, that you’ll always be prosperous. Yeah. And that’s because if you can sell, even if you empty my bank accounts, you sent me to the streets, it doesn’t matter. I’d make my money back very quickly, I build a business because I can sell, I can sell your products, I could sell a business’s products. And I can actually go out and create my own one to one on one to many programs. And I think this is what you’ve shown me, Liam, what I love is this world of one to many where you can serve more people. You can close more money in a day than you make in a year. And this is what you told me when I first started working with you. I didn’t believe you at first, but we’ve done that. My mum. Yeah, I mean, to close, 2 million pounds on you presented me with that award in the Hall of Fame last year, 2 million pounds on stage. You know, it’s incredible. If you’d have told me five years ago, I’d be speaking on stages and webinars. I’d have said you’ve got the wrong guy. You’re really showing some great points, right? Because you know sales is a skill and you’re not born a great salesperson. This is something which anyone can learn and master you make because the playground was in the playground at the age of six, you know selling selling out of a bang or use the sell puff Chris and he man, he man figures and yeah, you know, I’ve I’ve always loved selling, I love getting something selling it creating value, seeing the smile on people’s faces. It is the one skill that you need in order to become successful. That is the bottom line. And it is the one skill which people are afraid of learning or they don’t want to learn. But that’s why they stay stuck. That’s why they stay broke. That’s why their businesses don’t, you know, you think how many businesses are going to be launched in 2024? Where the product is actually an amazing product. But the person behind the product does have they have no idea. So So what would we say to someone listening to this now? And they they’re starting to get it? Okay? If I want to get more property deals, if I want to raise money, if I want to get more customers if I want to convert my leads if I want more money in the bank account. Okay. All right. Liam. Alright, Nick, I need to understand sales. But what what? What’s the process that you take somebody on from being like really scared of sales to being an absolute elite sales specialist? What is that process? And what are some of the things that people need to overcome?
Brilliant, so yeah, it’s the journey from almost cold to sold in a way of like, your mindset. I think the main thing is is and we’ve created this together, Liam is that elite sales system is the seven step process really where if you follow the roadmap, you’ll get to the result. And it doesn’t matter right now, if you think you can sell you hate the idea of selling. I think the number one thing that you need to master first of all is your psychology. You need to understand that selling is serving and whatever you perceive and believe you achieve, because if you go around saying sales is hard selling is sleazy, well, you’re going to find it hard and you’re going to feel sleazy when you start selling so I think number one is just to master that mindset and realize that selling is serving, you are a problem finder, you have a problem solver. And as you mentioned earlier, you can put smiles on people’s faces while increasing your bank account and giving you financial freedom. So number one, you’ve just got to learn to love it. Number To you need to invest into yourself, if you’re starting to get it now realize, okay, I need this, like many people do, start reading the right material start coming on the right training courses, and we get yourself that
best selling author. Yeah, what you do, but what’s the name of the book and where you’re selling
is serving. So the name of the book is selling his serving as I strongly believe in that, you can find the book on Amazon, just type in Nick starb, or selling his service and it will come up. That actually book went to a best seller in 21 category. And we’ve got a new book coming out in two or three months of all my successful graduates, we’re going to it’s going to be called elite sales specialists. So something to watch out for maybe if you’re watching this, in the future, you can search for that. And it might you might be able to get a copy of that as well. It’s going to be fantastic,
great, great. So like you say, follow up process. You have the the system that’s been created, you’ve got, obviously get yourself educated, which is really important. And I think it’s really important that you believe in the product that you’re selling. If you’re selling something shit, then you shouldn’t be, yeah, but if you believe in it, and you truly believe that your product service idea, whatever that thing is, can take someone on a journey, I believe you should be selling a lot of it. And you should be shouting about it.
And you should be proud about 100%. I agree. In fact, I’ve got a free step system, if I’m okay to share really quickly. This will help anyone actually, if you are maybe quite shy, quite timid, you’re not sure if your offer is ready for the market. You just ask yourself these three questions. This is the confidence formula. So number one knowledge. Do you have the knowledge in your product or your expertise to share that with the world? Okay, yeah. Number two experience? So do you have experience in using your product? Or have clients use your products and got results? And number three, is certainty. So are you certain that your product or service or the one you’re selling for someone else, can help them solve their problems. Now, if you’ve got knowledge, experience and certainty, you have got confidence, you can go out there and sell your product. Now, I want to highlight Liam, I think a lot about your own products. What you’ve allowed me to do and you allow me to teach my students is actually the beauty of selling Opp, other people’s products. Because I believe if you want to launch your own business and be a great salesperson, actually, you’re going to get better experience going to sell for someone else, especially in the high ticket market. So you can make great commissions you can learn while you earn. And many of my successful graduates as well as selling their own products, they come and sell for me, they sell for you, they sell for Adam stop the top business owners in the UK. And I know this year, we’ve got so much growth, so many events on the horizon, we’re looking for people really to step up who want to learn while they earn. And I can’t think of a better way to be a great salesperson and a business owner and then to start to shadow another successful salesperson or business owner. Yeah, and not many people actually or businesses follow that philosophy. You know, we like to take people within the community, don’t we? Yeah, and bring people through the levels. You know what, I don’t think anyone else is doing it like us. And that’s why we’ve been the fastest growing sales training in the UK. It’s just flow short, because we allow our students to not only learn, but actually be able to implement make money, we give them the tools, all the scripts, the opportunities, and you know, everyone’s getting amazing results.
Just with the amount of events that we have in the calendar, people come and shattered the events. They come up well, we probably have over 700 different types of events in the calendar again, we
had that last 65 days a year. That’s over two events. There’s something going on somewhere now that that may be an online mentoring program. Like today I’m in here filming this podcast, we’ve got Phil delivering be your own bank. We’ve got the team about to go up to London, we’ve got a two day preview event. Yep, property Success Summit, a brand new event for two days. We got that going on. We’ve got two other events online tomorrow, the service accommodation summit deal packaging Summit. So yeah, we’ve got over 700 events in the next 12 months. And, you know, in order to fulfill those events, we’re constantly looking for new people. So really just start summarizing. Nick, we’ve given some great value. We’ve really honed in that. The most important thing to master is sales. Yeah. How do you feel where you are now compared to where you were five years ago? How does your life look? What are some of the things that you’re doing in your life? I believe you’ve got a big date happening this year. So just Tell us a little bit the contrast between them. Wow.
I mean, it’s just unrecognizable, I would say if I go back to look, five years before I met you that I was a shadow of the man I am now. And I can say that with confidence, like I’ve been able to grow to transform, you’ve been the catalyst, I put the work in and did whatever you told me to do, I just trusted it. And that’s why we’ve had such rapid results. But now I actually get to look in the mirror, I’m so proud of the person that looks back at me, I’ve been able to help 1000s of people and financially free, but the biggest driver for me is genuinely just giving back and helping others. You know, the more you learn, the more you earn. And that’s the reason why, you know, if you look at the word earning, you can put an L in front of that. Learning is what you need to do. And if I could go back and tell my younger self, you know, past five years, if I could have just said, Look, just invest into top speakers, invest into sales, invest into speak and invest into property. Because you just there’s so much information out there, there’s a lot of noise, there’s a lot of distraction, I feel. But you know, you just need a mentor and education. And we said that to me should make you need me, mentor and education. I was like that’s exactly what
it is this show is that when you allow yourself to be taught by someone else, and you say, hey, you know what, I don’t have all the answers, you get rid of your ego, and you become open minded to change. And then you get around the right person, the right team to do that. It actually doesn’t take very long at all, but you have to do things differently. And I’ve got to say that we’ve got a great business together, we serve hundreds of people, which is amazing. We got some great stuff in this year. But But really, I just want to say Your journey has been, you know, fantastic. Your success is my success. So it’s all about the teamwork. close that loop but as you make the big day, yeah. So getting married, so absolutely fantastic. I’ve got a partner Sue’s She’s beautiful. She’s amazing. And she’s actually part of my business partner limbs business as well. And it’s great that we are able to serve our clients and grow this academy together. So Sue’s is working with me. We work alongside with Liam. And it’s just amazing to be able to have my soulmate in my business as well. And she does a lot of the one to ones. And you know, when I first met Suze, it was at the start of this journey. So I was just kind of going through that I had been selling for you for some time, I’d been a mentee, and we were just launching the academy and I remember I had, is it gonna work in the back of my mind? Am I really gonna get this going. But, you know, I just did everything you told me to do. I believed in myself, I silenced the voice. And I just kept a sight invested money and time into more speaking, training with you as well. And that’s what’s allowed me to, you know, when it comes to this platform speaking, just get our message out there. Yeah, so I’m really grateful. I can’t wait for the big day that really looking forward to it. I can’t wait to continue growing our amazing business together and serving more people and, and really showing ordinary people how they can become elite sales specialist, grow their businesses, launch their products, live the life that they truly deserve and desire. You should be really proud of what you’ve done. And you’ll a fantastic student. You’re a great business partner. And I’m really excited. And we’ll have to do a catch up in a year or two and see where we are. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity may listen.
So where can people find you, Nick? So if people want to hunt you down? Where can they come and find you? Great. So you probably find me on an assets for life event most weekends. But another place to find me is on Instagram. So you can search me, Nick, stop coach, surname is S T, A B. So next I have coach you can find me there are post loads of free content on there. You can get a copy of my book for the bio link in there as well. But yeah, I just say if you like the sound of what we’re talking about, and you want to learn more, register for one of our events, we’ve got over 700 in a diary this year of assets for life. Get yourself on if you’re not going to hear from me, you’re going to hear from another amazing speaker on property on speaking on stock markets, you know, there’s so many ways to become financially free. Just best advice is just follow a mentor and just do something that kind of lights you up. So if you like the sound of selling, come follow me if you’d like to send a property work with Liam. But get yourself multiple mentors has been key in my journey as well. It’s just to say don’t just settle on one. You use the money and keep investing in the investing and investing because yeah, the more that you learn, the more that you earn. Wow, absolutely, absolutely incredible. I’m going to take one word from that mentorship. I invest in mentors, Nick, invest in mentors. Many of you listening to this, you have invested in mentors. And I just want to say, it is fantastic to have you part of my community. Liam Jay Ryan, the dealmaker podcast, if I can do it, you can do it to really make the next 12 months about upskilling. How can you become a better version of yourself? Where are you lacking right now? Where do you need help focus? The world is crumbling around us. But you know what, there’s opportunity everywhere. And actually, we live in a beautiful world. We’ve got beautiful opportunities. There are strategies working right now, where you could be making literally 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s millions of pounds every single year, get around new people. So why don’t you head over to www dot assets for life.co.uk and come and join me or nick or both of us or one of us at one of our upcoming events. You are beautiful. Thanks for tuning in.
I’ll see you on the next episode. You’re listening to the dealmaker podcast hosted by multimillionaire property investor, entrepreneur and Guinness World Record holder Liam Ryan, discover how to start scale and grow your business become a better negotiator create more opportunity and make massive profit so you can live the life of your dreams or dreams.
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