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Jason Waller here true underdog podcast for all the underdogs out there listening. I've got a special guest for you today. We're talking sales. We're talking introverts. We're talking books. We're talking how to get out there and better your life and go ahead and take ownership in your business and own your power to start selling sales.

And stuff. I've got Matthew Pollard. He's known for two books on introverts and known for being the rapid growth guy. That's right. Rapid growth guy. He has got two books out there that have been booming. The books are the introverts edge to networking work the room, leverage social media and develop powerful connections and the introverts edge how the quiet and shy can outsell anyone. Matthew, how you doing? My man might I'm doing terrific. Thanks so much for having me on. Hey, great intro, right? I came out

and I brought the power there real quick. I really felt the energy, man. I don't even have to do any work. It's great. There you go. There you go. So look, I'm super excited. I'm a sales guy by nature. I'm probably the opposite of you. And I believe sales can be for anybody. If they know how to use their abilities and and their skill sets. And so I'm excited because my approach has always been you got to be, you know, you got to be aggressive. You got to be strong. You got to be outgoing. But that's not the case. And I've seen that in different businesses where some introverts have been

super successful, I'm not an introvert. So I can't wait to hear some of those tools and tips and share them with listeners out there that are building a business and scared because they don't know what to take the next level on. Fair enough? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it absolutely kills me to see amazing people that have enough belief talent in themselves to go out and start their own business. I mean, especially the people that start their own business. I mean, there's something heroic there. And then it's just see them struggling to find interested prospects, set themselves apart, making the sale. And they get into

this belief that people only care about price, which isn't true. It's just they don't know how to articulate their value. And then they end up out of business. It's just horrible to see. So introverts absolutely can do it, by the way. And this is, this is not going to be a session about extrovert bashing by any means. We both have our burdens to bear. The difference is that introverts just don't believe they can succeed. And I think that's why they need a little bit more guidance. You know, and I think you're absolutely right. And I think your book and some of your experience being a top 30 sales professional in top sales world magazine.

And a top 50 speaker people need to be listening tune in like, Hey, this guy can get it next level. I have lots of entrepreneurs or sales leaders that call me and they just don't have it. And I've never had the the experience or the knowledge to help them if they don't have it. So that's where I think you can tune in to some of those introverts that need that need that push need that confidence booster. Let's talk about your past. When you were a child, you noted yourself as painfully introverted while there's nothing wrong would be an introvert. Obviously, you need to take some extra steps in order to

speak publicly network and socialize what allowed in your early years to gain the confidence with socializing. Yeah, you know, that's interesting. So firstly, I don't really have confidence with socializing. What I've realized is that I can plan every interaction to the point where to me, it feels like groundhog day to everyone else. It feels like an organic conversation. And you know, it's interesting. I mean, people will see someone like me on a podcast interview like this or speaking from stage, because I speak at a lot of big corporate events.

And halfway through, I say, you know, you're probably looking at me now, like, I've got this natural ability, this gift of gab. But the problem is, people see us as we are today. I mean, never, never mind that people like Zig Ziggler was an introvert. People like Ivan Meisner, the founder of B&I, the world's largest networking group in the world, like 10,000 membership groups across the globe. Also an introvert, right? The thing is, and this isn't new stuff, like even one of the most extroverted trainers in the world, Brian Tracy, talks about the top 10% of all sales performers have

planned presentation. The bottom 80% just says, whatever comes out of their mouth. And of course, extroverts are better at that. They're better at winging things. Introverts without a system, we, well, let's face it, we're just terrible at sales. So the thing that I, the way I realized it myself, and by the way, I should not be the one teaching anyone this. I should be a person doing data entry at a real estate agency in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. What happened was, you know, I had a reading speed of a sixth grade in my late high school. This is a video interview.

So I can actually show you, you know, I got diagnosed with this thing called Irland syndrome when I was 16, which means that I put on this pair of funny glasses and miraculously, I can learn to read. Now that doesn't mean I can read like everyone else. It meant that I could start the process of learning to read. Now for me, the last two years of high school were an absolute hustle. But I got into the top 20% of my state, but I think my family could see I was exhausted. And there was just no way I was going to survive at university unless I knew what I wanted to do.

So I'm sure people have got kids that have said this, you know, they're going to take a year off to find themselves. My parents agreed that that was a good idea. But of course, I'm not the person out doing, you know, a year at Europe or sitting on the couch watching Oprah, I was going to get a job. Well, the job that I got was in real estate, but doing data entry in the back office, not up front selling.

Well, three weeks into that job, my boss pulls me aside and he's like, Matt, I'm so sorry to tell you this, you're out of a job. They've just decided to close down head office. Now this is Australia at Christmas time.

Now for those that don't know Australia that well, everything's backwards. It's summer and Christmas at the same time. So we're taking a month off. People go on holidays on the 20th of January, December, and they don't come back to the 15th of 20th of January.

The only jobs I could get because no one's hiring were these things called commission only sales roles, which is you can imagine for an introvert like me scared of my own shadow. I had bad acne. I was just tired of being a slow kid, felt uncomfortable.

Commission only sales was not the answer for me, but the only thing scary than that was telling my dad who broke his back 80 hours a week supporting the family, you know, can't get another job.

So I applied for all three jobs and I got all three interviews. Then I got all three jobs. I thought, oh, maybe I'm actually good at this. Well, my manager put that to bed. He said, we just hire everyone. We just throw him up against the wall and we see what sticks, which sounds like a blast of a saying until you realize you're the mud.

Well, long story short, then first day after five days worth of product training, not a single second of sales training, I get thrown on this road called Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia.

Literally a thousand dollars on each side just told to go and sell. Well, of course, I didn't know what to say in the first door. So luckily enough, actually, I was politely told to leave. Then I was less politely told to leave. Then I was sworn at. My personal favorite, though, was always told, but why don't you just go and get a real job? It's the only job I could get.

The 93rd door, it took me 93 doors to make my first sale, where I made about $70. And he was the interesting thing. And I think for a lot of introverts, they probably just give up. A lot of extroverts would have just given up because the numbers game is tolling, right?

For me, I went, no, I'm not willing to just grind it out, which a lot of people are willing to do these days. I decided that sales had to be a system.

So I went to look for that system. Funnily enough, I found that on YouTube, because picking up a book would have taken me a year to read it, let alone apply it.

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