7 Grant Cardone: How to Gain Attention and Turn Haters Into Admirers

Welcome to episode 007 of The School of Greatness. Grant Cardone is the James Bond of business growth and sales. He's a New York Times Best Selling Author and unbelievably motivational individual. The last time I interviewed Grant he blew me away with his passion, positive mindset, and persistent pursuit of greatness. Since then, I […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  School of Greatness, Episode 7 with Grant Cardone.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Hello everyone and welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes. I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, former pro athlete and world record holder in football. My goal with the School of Greatness is to share with you stories from the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. So please leave us a review on iTunes and join us on the web at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it.

• 0:50Lewis Howes?

  Hey, hey, greats. What is going on, my friends? I hope you are having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Things are going amazing with me and I'm so pumped to be doing this podcast. I'm just getting so much energy each time I do a new episode. It's like making me feel more and more alive. Something about doing this show, I don't know what it is, if it's the guests I'm bringing on, or if it's your feedback, your excitement that's driving me to do more of this. I'm excited. I'm going to keep doing, pumping out one of these a week. Maybe I'll even do two if I get the time, but the goal is to keep doing one a week and bring you some great guests. So if you know some cool people that you'd like me to have come on and share their story

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  and teach you how to become great and do awesome stuff in your life, your business, your sports, whatever it is you're doing, feel free to just shoot me an email or actually best place to be is on Twitter @lewishowes, on Facebook, facebook.com/lewishowes. Now, before I talk about this guest, who is an amazing guest, I mean, I had him on a couple of years ago for a video that I did and he blew me away. His passion, his energy, his... He's like a force of nature to be reckoned with, right? He's got so much drive and passion. It's contagious and you're going to experience this when you listen to this interview. It's so contagious contagious. It makes you want to jump out of an airplane right now and just get things done.

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Let me talk about Grant Cardone. Now, Grant is again, an awesome dude. One, one guy that I'm, I really want to connect with more in the future. Cause we've only chatted a few times, but every time we talk, I get expired. I get pumped. I'm like, it's time to take over the world. This is a guy that's been there and done it before. He's very accomplished. Uh, New York Times bestselling author. Some of his books include the 10x rule, uh, sell or be sold. The closers survival guide. And if you're not first, you're last. He does a lot about sales strategies, how to dominate your market, how to grow your business, how to be successful and the difference between the success and failure.

• 2:59Lewis Howes?

  Uh, the secrets to success and selling. He, he worked a lot in the automotive industry, teaching people how to sell more cars. And these are high ticket items and how to become a great, uh, car salesman and have an amazing auto business. Right? He's been featured on the, the show, How'd You Get So Rich with Joan Rivers, where they discussed his success. He's been, he's all over the media. He writes for Entrepreneur. He's all over online right now. If you Google his name, Grant Cardone, you basically will find him everywhere. And it's very interesting. If I look back to the episode five, where I did with Graham Holmberg, you'll see there's some similarities, much differences.

• 3:40Lewis Howes?

  I mean, Graham's, uh, in his twenties and, uh, Grant's in his, I think in his mid to late forties, uh, he's in business and Graham's a, an athlete, but they both had a dark path that they went down where they made a lot of mistakes and were having some, some challenges early in their life. And then Grant, just like Graham, made a decision to shift their life and seek greatness. And this is a, this is the type of story that should really scream at you and, and think, you know what? If a guy like this, like Grant Cardone, or if a guy like Graham Holmberg can go from having a lot of challenges, maybe being down the wrong path. And if they can switch it all around and have the type of world leading success that they both do.

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  Then I can do it as well. So with that, you're gonna hear some amazing insights in today's interview. I'm excited for you to hear it. With that, let's get to the interview with my man, Grant Cardone.

• 4:45Lewis Howes?

  What is up everyone? Thanks so much again for coming on today at the School of Greatness. I'm with my good friend Grant Cardone, who I had on a video interview, I think it was almost two years ago. And you really blew my mind when we talked then. We were kinda chatting, I think via email or Twitter originally. I heard about you through a mutual friend of ours from Atlas Media Crew. I don't know if you remember.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:10Lewis Howes?

  You're still working with those guys, I think.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  You had a TV show that you were working on, and I never even know what happened with it, but I saw an episode, or two of them, that they gave me a DVD. They're like, "You're just like this guy. You're like the younger version. He's better looking than you."

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Hey, hey, hey, hey.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  He's, Grant's better looking than you, but you're younger than him. And you're like the younger Grant Cardone. And I was like, "I gotta check this guy out, see if he's for real." I watched this TV show, and I was blown away of how awesome you were on camera, but your chops, how smart you were, how you were able to flip people's business around very quickly who were, you know, in a daze. So that's kinda how we got connected originally, and we've been, you know, email and Twitter friends ever since. And I thought it'd be great to have you back on, because I see you everywhere. You write for, you know, I think Forbes, I know you're on Entrepreneur, you're, in every site I go to, I see your name, I see videos of you. So I thought, "Let's bring you back on." I think you've written like three more New York Times bestsellers since we talked, something crazy. I see you in airports, bookstores, all over the place.

• 6:10Lewis Howes?

  So it's good to have you back and hanging out, my man.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, Louis, thanks a lot, man. I really appreciate who you are and what you do, and enjoyed being on the show last time, so I was looking forward to doing this again with you.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. So let's give a brief background of kind of where you got started and where you're at now in about sixty to ninety seconds or less, if you can.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, I started, I started out as a lower-middle-class kid, you know? My mom raised, I was raised by a mother, and my dad died when I was ten years old of a sudden heart attack. He had been having heart, heart problems for years. He died when he was fifty-two years old, very young man, and...

• 6:52Speaker 01

  You know, it was a big loss in my life and then I lost an older brother when I was twenty. So in between the ages of ten and twenty years old, there was a lot of turmoil in my life.

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  And it was also, there was also, I was also greatly influenced by my mother's turmoil. She, she was experiencing tremendous amounts of fear, scarcity, fear of the future, so much of what the middle class is experiencing today. And I remember being sixteen years old and telling my mother, I said, I will never, ever grow up like this. And she was, she was confused by that because she's like, what are you talking about? You get three meals a day, you got clothes on your back and you got a, you got a car to go to school in. What, what are you complaining about? I'm like, because every, every meal comes with fear. You know, my mom would give me breakfast and tell me, eat it all. She'd give me lunch, eat it all, give me dinner, eat it all.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Every time I left the bathroom, turn off the lights. See, there was this scarcity, there was this concern about not having enough. And then my dad had died, so I'm like, oh my God, life is short. Then my older brother dies and I'm like, oh my man, everything's risky.

• 8:01Lewis Howes?

  Jeez.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  So combine all that with being a teenager, you know, and then drugs are around and I, you know, I start smoking marijuana like some other kids. And the next thing you know, it progressed and so by the time I was twenty-five, man, I was just a mess. I was broke, didn't have any money, had a drug problem, had tremendous amounts of grief in my life from my losses. Like so many people, I'm not saying feel sorry for me, but at twenty-five, I decided, hey, I have to clean my life up. And I got it, if I keep going like this, I will never, ever have anything. And I made a commitment when I was twenty-five. Um, I know a lot of guys have this story, you know, that write books, but this really happened to me. It's like I, I went back to that thing I wanted when I was sixteen, like I wanted to do something impactful.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I wanted to help other people and I really committed, uh, at that time at twenty-five years old. I had a college education, I had the ambition, I was intelligent, but I'd never made the decision, hey, man, this is the most important thing in my life. Success became, success became this mantra of mine that I have to have this.

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  And, and so the last twenty-five years has been basically me trying. To become successful.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Now, I actually forgot this story, so I'm glad you reminded me about it all. I remember you being an athlete. You played, I think it was baseball, is that right?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  You grew up in the South. I think it was Louisiana, but I'm, is that right?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 9:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Now, I remember, I forget this story actually, so I apologize, but it's interesting because I was gonna ask you a question and ask you, have you always been as confident as you are now? And it sounds like, growing up, you weren't very confident because you had this scarcity mindset, or there was a scarcity mindset around you, and it's fear mindset. So, when did it change from scarcity, fear, death, to the confident Grant Cardone that you are now?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I was doing an event for Google, and I was asked a similar question. They're like, "Man, where do you get all your confidence?" And I'm like, "You know, that's interesting. You know, do you really know that I'm confident?"

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Well, how do you put the perception out that you are, I guess, right?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. That's much better, because the truth is, nobody knows what's going on inside of me, and it's actually unfair to an audience to measure whoever you see as confident, when the truth is, you don't know that. You're actually, you know, you're actually don't know that. You, like, right now, if you look at me right now, I say, "How many ears do I have?" And you're like, "Two." Well, yeah, but you only see one up.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  So, you're making the other one up. You're assuming I have a second ear, which, by the way, I do. And, but the point is, you know, it's, how do I project confidence? How do I, how do I actually start feeling confident in my life, so that people also have confidence in me? I mean, that's the only value in confidence.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  You know, I tweeted something today. I said, "Look, I never, ever thought money would make me happy." I didn't want money to make me happy, dude. I wanted money for security. And, and the reason I want money, or the reason I want confidence, is because if I don't act confident, people won't give me money.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And my confidence comes like it does for an athlete. You know, it comes from drilling and practicing and role-playing, and drilling and practicing and role-playing. And in sales, particularly sales, because that's kind of what I'm most proficient in, that's something that most people don't do. They don't take the time to drill.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  To really, like, there's a video on YouTube right now. It's called, "Give My Papa The Money." And Grant Cardone, if you Google that, you'll see my daughter, three years old, saying, "Give Papa the money, give Papa the money, give Papa the money." It's a drill, dude. It's just a simple drill, and it builds confidence.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  I like it, I like it. So, I remember reading this somewhere, and I can't remember if this was a book, you have this in your book, one of your books, or you just posted this online. You talk about, and maybe we talked about this in our previous interview, but you talked about attention, criticism, hate, and admiration. Now, is that a process that everyone needs to go through in order to realize they've made it, or what is that process that you talk about?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, what I'm talking about there is, and you and I were talking about this before the, you know, a similar topic. I wish, I wish we actually had that on video.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  I should have recorded it, yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  That's great, because, I mean, maybe you could tell that story some other time, but, look, you know, if I don't get your attention, this is the number one problem people have in life, attention. I have to get attention. Hey, I don't care how you get it, man, but you have to get people's attention. If you don't get their attention, it doesn't matter what your product is, doesn't matter what your idea is, it doesn't matter what your value is, it doesn't matter, because you don't have their attention. There was a guy sitting across from me at this desk the other day, and he's like, "Dude, you got like ADD or ADHD," or, I'm like, "What are you talking about, man?" And he's like, "Well, I can't keep your attention. You're doing this, and you're doing that, I'm trying

• 13:15Speaker 01

  to..." I'm like, "Bro, just because you can't get my attention, don't label me with a disease."

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  You don't have my attention, bro. That's your problem, not my problem.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  And he's like, "Well, man, I can't keep your attention." I said, "That's your problem."

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  I have my attention on seventeen other things, and until you sit in that chair, bro, and say something impactful enough that grabs my attention, I'll close all the other mental files. Because if you're ever in front of anybody that's capable of moving your career along, guarantee you they have seventeen files open.

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  If the guy doesn't have sixteen, seventeen files open at all times, he can't help you in your career.

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  So what I'm telling people is this, one, you have to get attention. The moment you get attention, you're gonna get criticism. Somebody is not gonna like you standing on a street corner saying, "Hey, hey, hey." Somebody's gonna have a problem with that.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  When people criticize you, the, the normal response is, "Oh, I gotta change my behavior. I have to adapt."

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Never, never, ever adapt to your environment, ever. I don't adapt, I'm not an animal. I'm a, I'm a freak, I'm a human spirit, man. I have, I have the potential to change environments, not adapt to it.

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  So when I get attention, whatever, "Hey, hey, hey." And somebody's like, "Hey, man, you're, you're too loud." The thing to do is not to back off. Whatever gets you criticism, you should use that same thing to get the criticizer to either become an admirer or a promoter. See, haters promote. Haters, look, you gotta have haters. You need haters bad, man. People don't value their haters enough. Google's got them, Apple's got them, Coca-Cola's got them, AT&T had them.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  Facebook.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Facebook has them, right? Everybody that gets big has haters. And where I grew up in Louisiana, Louis, it was like, my mom, my mom even said, "Stay under the radar." You know, get, get, get big enough, but not too big.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  You get too big, they're gonna knock you down. If you fly under the radar, nobody will notice you. But thi- this is not a good thing to do because it keeps you small. It actually keeps you trying to stay small the whole time, rather than blow up, explode. Get your haters, and whatever got you haters, stay with it, keep doing it. Because sooner or later, you'll have admirers. You'll have people admire what you do and how you scream on the street corner and your tenacity. And they'll start admiring you with contracts and endorsements and, and books and etc.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah. Interesting, interesting. Okay.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  Let's talk about this now.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Let me just say this one other thing, okay? The truth is, people that hate... They're not even in the, they're not even in present time. They're hating something that happened yesterday. Haters don't produce anything. Haters produce nothing. They're incapable of producing anything. That's why they hate.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Because you remind them of what they should be doing and aren't. Or what they could be doing and quit doing.

• 16:27Lewis Howes?

  That's true. That's very true. You gotta embrace the haters. I love it.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, multiply the haters.

• 16:35Lewis Howes?

  Multiply the haters. What, um, so tell me this about, so this podcast is all about greatness and discovering greatness. So how would you define greatness? And what's one step that the listeners can take today to kind of unleash their inner greatness?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Well, that, that's a great question, man. You know, the way I measure greatness, look, it's gonna be different for everybody, right?

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  One guy says it's a million dollars and the guy with a million dollars says it's 10 million. And the guy with 100 million says, no, dude, greatness has got nothing to do with money. He's got 100 million, but he's like, he's got the yacht and he's got everything, but he's like, greatness has got nothing to do with that.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Now, so, so everybody's definition's gonna be different, but for me, greatness, greatness would be the difference between where I am right here and my potential. This would be the gap. This would be where greatness lies for me. So if I had gone from here to here, but my potential was up to here.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  For me, for me, it's the gap. I'm always looking to fill the gap up between my reality and my potential.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  Now, doesn't the gap always increase once you close the gap? Doesn't it go up higher?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Sure does.

• 17:51Lewis Howes?

  So you've never really reached greatness then, is that?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  No, no, but, but you know, maybe it's not about reaching it. Maybe it's about filling that gap up. I don't know. Maybe you do reach it. Maybe Jesus reached it or.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Allah, or I don't know. Maybe somebody's reached it. I don't really care because I haven't reached mine. And the only thing I'm really care, I really care about is. You know, that, that, that piece for me, I mean.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  The pursuit of reaching the potential and continuing to hit it and then improving it and going from there.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that's why you see so many athletes come back out of retirement. Or you see the, you know, you see these wealthy, extremely wealthy entertainers just can't give up the stage. I think they're trying to find that place. That greatness that you talk about.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  So what do you think is one step that, uh, that people can take to kind of hit that greatness or bridge that gap?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Just don't, don't compromise, you know? I mean, I had somebody tell me, I was doing an interview yesterday with James Barber, who's a Broadway singer and he's got a radio show and he, and he's talking about artists and he's telling me, he's like, you know, this artist tells me they don't want to be rich and famous. They just want to practice their craft and I'm like, whoa, liar. Freaking liar, okay? Like, like what actor doesn't want to be, you know, known everywhere? I mean, come on, don't lie.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  The reason they act, right?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Please, I'm like, what do you mean? You want to be an actor or you want to be a superstar?

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Are you telling me, don't lie to yourself? Look, there's thousands of people that'll lie to you. Don't line up for your own. You know, come on. So I would just tell people this, don't compromise, you know, quit fighting greatness. Hey, can somebody grab me one of those great cards? Tony, grab me one of those great cards. Um, look, to fight greatness is actually part of the problem. Like, like it's in, I think it's in our DNA to be great. And it's like, don't fight it, man. You're meant to be great. Don't compromise and don't lie to yourself.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think it goes back to what your mom said. She wanted you to be under the radar so you didn't get hurt, right? So I think the parents are usually teaching us kids like, you know, do well, but don't excel too much that you get too much attention. So that you could get hurt or that you could lose it all or what, what does it say here? Your greatness, don't fight it.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Why are you fighting it, man?

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  See, it's like my car, I bought this new car and I'm like, can you guys take the breakout?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  They're like, excuse me, I've heard a lot of requests, but not that one. I'm like, just take it out of the car, I don't need it, bro. You know, because what people are doing is they're stepping on their greatness. I did this as a, as a, as a kid, man. I, I, that's what the drugs were about. That's what the alcohol was about. That's what all the bad choices were about. It was about me trying to hold this potential down.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  And basically sabotage who I am and just be great. And make the extra call and make the contact and reach up for people and, and your friends and associates. Go reach up to the people that are the hardest to get in front of, not the easiest to get in front of.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. That's great. Now, you're most known for, in my mind, for being an amazing salesperson and selling and the idea around selling. Uh, now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's mostly what you're known for and you write about, you talk about in your books and you, you, you know, you talk about at speeches. Uh, so how does one become a great salesperson without being salesy?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think-

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  You know what I mean, you know what I mean by sales?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally. I, I, I think, I think you have to like really investigate that second part of the question, um. Like, why is our culture got a problem with salesy? You know, like, why is that a problem anyway?

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  You know?

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  I guess what I mean, what I mean, sales, you mean like cheesy or oversell, overselling or not being authentic or not caring about the person, but really caring about the sale type of?

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I think there's a bunch of garbage out there written on sales, like, like neuro-linguistic programming. I hate that stuff because they're like, okay, I need to listen to the way you talk or think or feel and then I'm gonna basically customize my presentation for a visual person or a kinesthetic. I, I just don't do that, dude. Look, I've, I've got great products and I was doing a presentation to a guy today. This is how the whole presentation started. My intention is to close you by the time this call's over.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  The product's gonna cost you thirty grand. I'm telling you upfront what it costs.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  If you have any questions, just ask me. My intention is to close you. The product costs thirty grand. I'm telling you price before I even show you the product.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Okay, now let me show it to you. If you have any questions, just ask me.

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  This is your approach, or?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  That's my approach.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  There is no trickery in it. There's no tricks. There's no manipulation. Is that salesy? I'm telling you what my intention is. I took the time to get on the phone with you. My intention is to have this product in your hands.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  By the time this call ends. Number two, it costs thirty grand. I want to tell you the price upfront. The reason I want to is because only you can make a decision to do it or not do it. And while I'm showing you the product, I want you to be thinking what it costs. Because the only way you can make a decision is based on what it costs. See, but if you study most sales people, most sales books, people that I think the world of, most of them say, present your product, kind of had that you want to close, don't make it obvious. And then, at the end of your forty-five minute presentation, once you've built value, determined needs, then tell them the price. I mean, I flipped the whole thing. That would never work on me.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I want to know how much upfront.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting, because I'll be honest and say that I do do the other approach you talked about, where I actually say, hey, I'm going to have something to offer for you at the end. In the beginning, I say, here's what I'm going to be covering today. I will have a product that will be offering at the end. But let's get into some of the free information first, because I'm kind of teaching them and giving them a free training and then selling them an advanced training if they want that at the end.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  But that's a different thing that you're offering, because you're offering a free workshop. Okay, in this particular case, you're offering something that's of value.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, free training.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  And then you're stacking an offer on top of this free thing that you did. So it's a little different.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  This is when I have a client that has shown interest. I have an appointment. It's one person, not a hundred or two hundred, right? So a little different presentation, because you're basically giving people a reason to do something.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  They know that that offer is going to be there for you.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  Right. So you're saying more of like a one-on-one call where you're trying to close someone to buy a product. You take that approach. You say, hey, this is, at the end of this call, I want you, the product in your hands. It's cost you 30 grand.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  But I tell you what I'd love to do. I'd love to do one of your webinars.

• 25:01Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  And test this out and flip it.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  We should test it. We should test it.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  I bet you our closing ratio goes up.

• 25:09Lewis Howes?

  I'm down to test it, man. I'm down to test that for sure. If you can do more than 25%, I'd be impressed.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Did I do 25%? I can do 25% to strange people out on the street.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Let's test it later then for sure.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  But I'll just tell you, I had my staff in here watching. I'm training some new guys, right? And I said, look, this is what I'm going to do in the call. I'm going to lay out my intention. I'm going to give them my pricing and I'm going to ask them why they want this.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  And watch how it goes, okay? And it was just like, the guy's like, I said, have you seen enough to make a decision yet? After I presented a portion of my product, have you seen enough to make a decision? And he's like, not yet. I said, well, thank you very much. Let me continue presenting my product. Okay, show me more, Grant. And so I get to go on.

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  It's just a very straightforward, not salesy. It interrupts many of the old kind of ways, manipulative ways of selling. So I feel really good about it and I am known for selling and bringing a new way, a new way to handle people.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  I like that. Would you say that the number one thing you need to be a great salesman is confidence in yourself?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I'd say the number one thing you need to be a great person is confidence in yourself.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  Right. I hear you there. But you can't really sell if you don't have confidence as well, correct?

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you want to be a great athlete. You want to be whatever, dude. You know, if you don't have confidence in yourself, you're not going to be great. I don't care what your skills are.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  Right. So how does one, we have all these doubts, fears, demons, worries, concerns. How does one, or how did you manage overcoming those, coming into your mindset every day? If someone says no, or one day you're just, everyone's saying no to you. How do you overcome that and keep confidence in yourself, your product, your service and what you're offering?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Clean hands.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  First thing is clean hands, man. I don't do anything that, I don't do anything that I don't feel good about. And if I do, because I'm human, I clean it up. And, and the more, the cleaner my hands are in business, relationships with my wife, with my employees, and I'm talking about my personal understanding of what clean hands are.

• 27:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  For everybody, it's different. I'm not, this isn't some moral, you know, this isn't some religious or moral like dissertation. The cleaner my hands are in business, the more business I can do.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Because if I'm doing something that, that I don't feel good about, forget whether it's right or wrong, okay? Like, like I went down a one-way street to get to work tonight. See, for me, that's not like, that's not a big moral dilemma for me.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  It, it, it, look.

• 27:52Lewis Howes?

  You went the wrong way on a one-way street is what you're saying.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, the street was blocked because of vehicles and stuff. It wasn't actually a one-way, but I skirted through the little signs to get to my office.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  To me, that's not a big deal. I'm gonna do it on the way home. All right, no I am, you know? I'm talking about the other stuff that you don't feel good about.

• 28:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  For somebody else, Louis, that might be like, oh no dude, that's terrible. You can't do that. Then I wouldn't do it if I were you. But I think it's an individual thing. The cleaner my hands are, the more forceful I can be in a deal.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Because I have clean hands, because I'm not thinking about the past. I mean, if there's anything I've done in my life that, that I'm really proud of is I've cleaned up all the stuff I've done in the past that I didn't feel good about, so that I can go full blast as, like this, like all the way, because I'm not worrying about, yes, I don't have any attention on those things that are left undone, the things I don't feel good about, the people I kinda didn't tell the truth to, clean it all up so you can go, like that windshield in your car is, what, that big? It's huge, right?

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  It's this big. The, the rearview mirror is that big.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  I don't want any attention on the past, none. I want complete confidence to move forward. And I think even though you might see criminal people, people that are criminal like, or cheat, or steal, you see them do well for a little while, they don't do well for long periods of time.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's true. We want them to, but they don't, yeah. Why is, even if you're not in a sales role in your career, I already know your answer's gonna be here, but why is selling so vital to our survival, even if you're not in that specific sales role?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  You know, because, that book right there, Sell or Be Sold, was written for artists. It was written for artists that don't think they're salespeople. It was written for the executive that thinks he's chairman of the board now. You look at Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett is one of the greatest salespeople that has ever walked the planet. He's not considered to be a salesperson, he's considered to be an investor.

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  But Warren Buffett, every time, if you notice Warren's interviews, he's got that old grandfatherly, "I'm a long-term investor." In every interview, you will see the products of one of the companies in the background.

• 30:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Okay? Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs will always be known as the entrepreneur that created, you know, unbelievable technology. Truth is, Steve Jobs was an unbelievable salesperson. He convinced people to buy products they can't even afford.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  Six hundred dollar phones.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  If I ask a thousand people, "How much this phone costs?", everybody will say, "Four hundred, three hundred." This phone costs thirty-two hundred dollars.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Steve Jobs has got everybody convinced this is a four hundred dollar phone, but the truth is, you pay a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty bucks a month, plus a five hundred, and you change phones every eighteen months. The guy was brilliant. So, I would just tell you, look, if you have a problem with the idea of selling, you're gonna be a slave on this planet. The only people that are free are the people that know how to sell, promote, market, build value. If you can't build value in yourself, determine your own value, the marketplace is gonna determine what you're worth. And the marketplace never pays what you're worth.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  So I would just tell everybody, man, no matter what you're getting your degree in, you're a chiropractor, you're a neurosurgeon, you're gonna do, you're going to Beverly Hills to do surgical, facial surgical dermatology stuff, you gotta learn how to sell. Otherwise, your degree won't matter.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow, I like it.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  So you're talking a lot about, and before you've talking about, you've talked about dominating, being more important than winning. So what are the fundamentals to dominating a space?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Well, it goes back to what we were talking about before the interview, like, you know, you said, "Hey, Graham, what's the one biggest mistake you've made in your career?" And, and I mean, how long did it take me to say?

• 32:15Lewis Howes?

  Couple of seconds, not even.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  What did I tell you what it was?

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  You said, "Revest back in your branding and yourself and dominating the space and being everywhere."

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I, I should've spent every penny. You should invest every penny, your last money, rather than buying a loaf of bread, invest it back into your brand. Borrow money if you have to. Invest every penny in you. My mother told me this when I was, I don't know, 18 years old. She's like, "The best investment you'll ever make is in you." You're a guaranteed deal. That stock I'm gonna buy, the piece of real estate I'm gonna buy, it is not a sure deal. Okay? The average American reads one book a year. They read one book. Okay? Why? Why, why don't they read? Because people don't invest in themselves.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  And, and so I would just tell you, the biggest mistake I've made in my career is I didn't invest in getting my brand known so that it was everywhere. If you look at really successful brands, they're everywhere. Coca-Cola's everywhere, Google's everywhere, Apple's everywhere. I'm starting to be everywhere, right? Louis, Louis, you're everywhere. Everywhere I go, I'm starting to see you. And the more, the more I go places, the better off I would be. A guy took a picture in Germany in a clock shop. And this book is in this old antique clock shop in between clocks. That is a good sign.

• 33:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  So I would spend the last penny, I'd get your wife, your husband, get the whole family, get the kids with your business cards, letting everybody in your community know who you are, what your product is, what your company is, you're committed to the community, you're freaking, you're an animal, you're completely dedicated, you're not going away. And you see, that goes back to attention, criticism, haters, admiration.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Right. I like that. What about if there's a space that's already being dominated? Should people just leave that space alone, or what should they do?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  You should make a list of the places where this company is deficient.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Make a list of the places where this company cannot compete now because of their size.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  You see this happening in business and tech, particularly technology businesses, where a company gets really big and now it's, now it moves extremely slow. It doesn't move with the agility and the nimbleness that it did that made it great.

• 34:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  And so what I'm gonna do, like when Lehman collapsed. Yeah, so I made a list of what my competition could not do. I didn't, I didn't focus on what they were doing. I made a list of what they could not do or would not do. And then those are the, those are the places where I went to all in and really invested.

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Nice. So what, uh, what was the biggest lesson for you in, in the last year then? In 2012, what was your biggest lesson learned?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Uh, I, look, you, you, you know, people don't cost money. They don't cost money. You got, you got, you gotta invest in having good people around you. And making mistakes, you know? And me and you were talking about that before the interview as well. It's like, make mistakes. You know, I don't like managing people. I hate managing people. Uh, the best, the best people I have are the ones I don't have to manage. I don't have to check on. The best, the best businesses that I'm partners in, I don't have to do any of the work.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  So what I'm doing today, I'm looking for, I, I'll go through lots of people. We, we just, we put ads out. I just moved from LA to Miami. I think you know that.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  We put ads out here. That was a great thing I did, by the way. Moving from LA, dude, one of the best decisions I've made in my career.

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 36:06Speaker 01

  There's something, there's some bad voodoo in LA. It was holding my business down, man.

• 36:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Unexplainable.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  It's, it's like the lid has been taken off my business in Miami.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. And on top of that, I'm saving a lot of money in, in, in income taxes that I can now reinvest in my company. I have four times more employees here than I had there.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Which means I'm buying time.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Because now I'm duplicating myself four times.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  It's difficulty managing those people. Like, I gotta, I gotta take the time to get everybody on the same page. Or I need to find people that are already like hooked into my message and believe in my message. We did a, we did a, an ad here, four day ad for jobs. We had thirteen hundred responses.

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  To positions. So, I think, I think what I've learned is, look, man, go big. Go big and go fast. And if I had one of the two, I'd go fast before I went big.

• 37:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I like it. Um, so if you were a professor at the University of Greatness, which you're basically doing right now, what would you call your class?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  What would I call the University of Greatness? I'd call it Ballin Ain't Cheap.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  You know, I was doing this gig for Entrepreneur Magazine and they're like, why did you want to be an entrepreneur? One of those questions like you just asked. Cause I wanted a big watch, dude.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, I love it.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome. Um, where can people find you online, Grant? What's, what's happened in this, uh, for you recently? Where can people find you?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  You can find me at GrantCardone.com. You can find me on Twitter at GrantCardone. Look, if you have to look very hard to find me, you ain't looking.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Just take them about five seconds, type your name in, you'll find them everywhere.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  But in Grant Cardone, you can spell it any way you want, I'mma pop up somewhere. Like if you want sales, you want follow-up, you want prospecting, you want anything to do with, you want an online university, I mean, that's one of the things we're working big on. We're moving into Latin American marketplaces. I'm working with Fortune 500 companies, customizing sales training programs for them. Working with companies like Univision, Google, Margaret Stanley, Mom & Pop Shops, Kawasaki, Chrysler Motor Company, customizing specific customer experience, sales process-driven universities and programs so people can be more successful in getting their products and services known.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  Nice, very cool. Well, make sure to check you out at GrantCardone.com. And any final words on greatness or anything you want to say?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  All I can say is this, right here, don't fight it, baby.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  You are greatness, don't fight it, I love it. Thanks, my man.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Don't fight, okay? Thanks a lot, Louis.

• 39:20Lewis Howes?

  Well, a big shout out and thank you to Professor Grant Cardone for teaching you all some great information at the School of Greatness. We really appreciate you, Grant, and that we'll definitely have to have you come back on sometime in the future. Now, if that interview didn't get you pumped up, then I don't know what to tell you. You gotta go get your pulse checked or something because that was awesome. That's it for today's episode on the School of Greatness. But before we go, I want to say a big thanks to all the five-star reviews we're getting out there. I saw Cara Singleton, I saw Todd Bowen, Daniel Coolman, Dry the Dreamer, Austin Henry, Double Onelly, Lovose, Online Marketing Girl, and Web Pixie.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate all the reviews over on iTunes. And if you enjoyed this interview, please leave us a five-star review. I also saw that Web Pixie mentioned the sound quality of some of the previous interviews, but don't worry, I'm getting all-new equipment. Got my podcast producer who's gonna be hooking it up and making it sound much better for future episodes. So, the improvement, the quality improvement will get better and I appreciate all your feedback. Again, please leave us a review over on iTunes. And check out grantcardone.com and school of greatness.com for more information about the show. I'm gonna leave you guys with a motivational tune from Tristam and Bracken called Flight.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  So I hope you enjoy the music. Hope you have an amazing day and I'll check you guys next time on the School of Greatness.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  You