Rick West is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Field Agent, a global provider of products that help brands win at retail. Prior to starting Field Agent, Rick worked 16 years with Procter & Gamble in various assignments in the United States, Hong Kong and Bangkok, Thailand. Since leaving P&G, he has been a start-up Entrepreneur for over 20 years. Rick has co-founded multiple start-ups, including the Northstar Partnering Group, CORE4 Research, JOYN and most recently Field Agent. He is also a member of the global Endeavor Entrepreneur network.
“Don't live in the world of maybe, but let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
- Rick West
Website: https://www.fieldagent.net/
Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of the Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell, and I've got a guest today, gosh, very interesting from many different levels. My guest today is Rick West. Rick is the chairman and co-founder of Field Agent, which is a global provider of products that help brands win, and I've got a lot of questions about that Rick, but besides that, he's been a serial entrepreneur for the last 20 plus years. Here's one of the things when I was doing my research that I found interesting. This is listed as Rick's life quote: “don't live in the world of maybe, but let your yes be yes and your no be no”, which we're going to dig into. But first, Rick, welcome to the show.
Jason, I really appreciate being on today, and look, and I'm excited to talk about the world of maybe and how to avoid it.
Yeah, we're gonna definitely get there. I'm gonna ask you an opening question that I've asked over 200 times, and it just gets us facing in a direction that I think, really allows people to exhale a little bit, and that is today, as you and I engage one another in the back half of 2024, who or what strikes you as you're particularly grateful for today, Rick?
I'm a relationship guy, and so when I look at the relationships in my life, and I start with, listen, I'm a person of faith, I start very vertical in that personal faith and relationship there of my Savior and what that looks like. I then very quickly get into my tight circle of my family; my wife is first followed by my kids and grandkids and that family. And then that circle gets a little bit broader into people that are more than acquaintances, people that I poured into that have poured into me. So, I'm very thankful that I've been blessed with relationships that give me a fairly broad circle. I'm not a two best friend kind of guy. I'm a very fairly broad kind of guy, and I think that's been a tremendous blessing in my life.
That's so good. Yeah, thank you for that. I could probably ask 18 questions just based on that. I'm going to refrain, because I tend to be a pretty relational dude as well, but if we had a big relationship fest, our listeners to be like, what is going on with those guys today? Why are we talking about this? Yeah, some of them might actually like it, but I'm going to refrain. I'm going to refrain. Yeah, again, there's a couple different paths I could go down, but first of all, just to give some people context, for people that don't know who Rick West from Arkansas is, give us a give us a little bit of background. How did we get to a point where you're on a podcast talking to founders and C suite folks and salespeople. How did we get to that point, Rick?
Yeah, like many people that are probably listening in, I came from the corporate world. I spent 17 years with Procter and Gamble. Now, even getting there is a whole other story. Jason, we could do a whole podcast on. I'm probably one of the few hillbillies that you've ever had on your podcast. My brother's a coal miner, I grew up in Appalachia in Eastern Kentucky, and my way out was going to school, and then through those relationships that we inferred about earlier, I get this chance of a lifetime to interview with Procter and Gamble. And at that time, pre internet, I didn't know what PNG did. I knew they had Tide. I really didn't understand it. And through that, had an amazing 17-year career, and it was in customer facing, supply chain logistics, the technology stuff that I did, but I was able to kind of do more entrepreneurial type of things within PNG. An amazing training ground. And what happened? And it happens to a lot of folks in my situation. I had a chance to do an expat assignment in Asia. I spent two years on Hong Kong. A year in Thailand, and travel from Korea to Japan, all the way down to New Zealand. And from that, I truly understood what it meant to be an entrepreneur, because it was still kind of a wild, wild west in Asia in the 90s, early 2000s, and I just had the bug. And then my advice to folks that are listening, that have not made the jump to entrepreneurship, it was myself, my wife, who also worked for Procter and two other guys. We used the money, kind of the package that we received, not to go travel Europe, and not to go invest in stock, we used that compensation or that package as our angel money. And I'm telling folks, if you have a chance today, and you look at my gosh, I was laid off, and I've got six months comp, and you make $200,000 a year, someone writes you a check for $100,000, I'm telling you, Jason, instead of me giving you $100,000 or strings, that's the best $100,000 of seed money you could ever have. And we took that money, the four of us, and we lowered our heads, and we started a company in early 2000, and then the rest was kind of history. I never looked back after that. So that was kind of my foray into entrepreneurship.
And was that organization Field Agent?
It was not. We started out, here in Northwest Arkansas, I'm in the retail mecca of the world, 30 minutes away from this little company called Walmart, and in this very interesting bubble, much like an expat community at that time, there were probably five or 600 retail teams that were here calling on Walmart, Proctor was the first team here, and they had an amazing, you know, customer facing team. And so, we came in to take that multi-functional team approach and to provide it to the other 999 customers here that couldn't do it. And so, at one point in time, I was running five LLCs. My wife was the managing director of a shopper research firm at a shopper marketing firm, I had a branding firm, we had graphics and design, I had distribution and logistics, all because these small teams that were here were very consumer focused, not shopper focused. Their corporate teams are located somewhere else. They need something to happen. And then through those 10 years of entrepreneurship, this little thing called the iPhone came out, and that's what took us into Field Agent, which is like a resting point for us to say, let's pause there for a second, and I'll give you that story and how we jumped into the world of Field Agent. But I did that for about 10 years.
Okay, okay, got it. Got it. Well, let's just go there right now. Tell us a little bit about Field Agent and what you all do, because the research that I did, it's incredibly interesting. It's not a field that I'm very familiar with.
Sure.
For me, it was energizing to read about it. But yeah, give our listeners a little tidbit about what the heck Field Agent is and what you all do.
Okay, a couple plugs there. First of all, when we started this journey in 2009, the app store had been open about six months. The business model was to get someone to open an app and get eyes on advertising. You know, we're researchers, we're data people, and we're traveling all over the world to capture data inside of stores how shoppers engage insights and ask that question, I wonder if anyone's using the iPhone to capture data? Now, again, in 2009 I'm literally sending out hundreds of disposable digital cameras to people, paying them to walk into stores. It was crazy, right? No one was doing that. So, if you're an entrepreneur listening here, or you're a wannabe entrepreneur, we sat around a table with our iPhone 3S, two-megapixel camera, fantastic phones, right? It was just the rage. We said, if we don't do this, we'll be like the guys that said, well, I invented Instagram, I was just too busy to do it, but I was really that smart. I said, we'll be the laughingstock. So, we started working nights and weekends again, while I was running five companies, and launched the very first app on iTunes to pay cash. No one had done that. And so, if you're thinking about again, does that company do, we have two economies. I'm also probably the first person here that can actually pay your listeners to do something.
Okay.
So, the first part of the economy we have is that we have about 3 million people that have downloaded the app and are engaging in it, and they act as mystery shoppers. And those mystery shoppers are actually capturing data, as in pricing out of stock kind of quantitative information. They also go in any place that has public domain. They're engaging and they're providing insight, so qualitative information. So instead of sending Rick, I'm sending a female, 18 to 35 into Ulta and asking her opinion. And the third piece is, this is marketing. That person also comes in and says, hey, what if they would buy something, try it and provide me information, or buy it and try it and do a ratings and review? So, imagine 3 million of your core shoppers doing that work. The other side of the economy is whether you're a brand, a retailer, owner of a shopping complex, a real estate investor that wants to know if the dumpster has been empty or if trash has been picked up on their area, literally anything that you would fly, drive or try to understand, I can provide that data to you in near real time. So, I can tell you at 1000 stores this afternoon, I can tell you exactly what it looks like, and I can be in 500 McDonald's in a couple hours and tell you exactly what it looks like, and that's the machine that we built and layered on top of that with a little bit of machine learning, AI, we provide amazing virtual store walk visuals so that you can actually see it. I'm not just dumping a bunch of data on you. So that's, in essence, what we do. Two economies, providing data back and forth.
Yeah, fascinating. Gosh, I almost feel like we could do an episode on how you built that type of thing. And by the way, I can already tell you would be perfect for that show. But I think the reason you and I are here today is because, with all of that experience, the corporate America experience, the taking the PNG money to use as seed money for what you did, and then led to Field Agent, which you just explained to me, I thought I hadn't heard of Field Agent, but the way that you just described it. I have heard a field agent before, and so, yeah, that that's phenomenal. But with all of that from a leadership standpoint, and a raising your head up over the horizon and seeing things standpoint, boy, I think you've got a vantage point, Rick, that most of us just don't have, because we're kind of in the matrix, so to speak. And so, I know that it's important to you, because some of the things that we talked about before we hit record, is this influence, but not so people will go be customers of Field Agent, but so that you can use all this knowledge, this experience, the insights that you've gathered yourself that reside inside of you, and try to get that out there from an influence standpoint, and just get it out there into the world. And so, if I'm right about that, I don't know, maybe I'll just go free range with you for a minute. Is there a place from a leadership standpoint, or is there a place from the quote that I that I read about your yes, be yeses and your no, be no’s, is there a place where you're like, man, this is a place I would like to go today during our conversation?
Sure. So, let's talk about those relationships for a second. And again, many people come from the corporate world into entrepreneurship, so I'm going to stay with that thing.
I'm one of them too. Sure.
So, when you come from the corporate world, they say hey, Jason, why don't you mentor so and so? Or Jason, over the course of your corporate career, you've probably had 50,75, 100 direct reports, whatever it may be. I'm going to introduce a term that everyone understands, but I'm going to say that those folks are not former employees, former teammates, they're really more like alumni or these relationships that you have.
Yeah.
If you treat someone like an alumnus, you treat them like that. It's like, oh. So, when, when I worked for you, you were concerned about my wellbeing, and you poured into me, now that we both left, you won't even return my call. Which means there was never really a relationship, it was a transaction. And so, if I've learned anything over my years in this entrepreneurial world, and especially coming from Proctor, Proctor was all promoting from within, amazing training around. Listen, if I was going back to any company, I would be back to Proctor tomorrow, for all those reasons. But what I realized getting out is that I really didn't foster relationships, especially those that I could learn from. It's always pouring in, pouring in. It's great. I'm mentoring. I'm out here, and I'm like, well I'm having a conversation with Jason, not so I can get something, as in the sale, I'm engaging Jason so that a year from now, or two years from now, he's like wait, I talked with Rick, he does that, or, hey, I could help him, or he could help me. We could make something bigger. So, my first 17 years was very much learning and growing, and when I jump into this last 20 plus years, the breadth of impact that I've had on people's lives and they've had on my life, you can't measure it. I mean, it's just that effect that happens, especially when you're genuine, going in with nothing, no expectation for something in return. So, when I talk to a young person or even a competitor, I'm like, I'm not afraid of a competitor. Oh my gosh. We're gonna engage and we're gonna learn, and may the best person win. But that attitude has to be somewhat different than what you came from the corporate world, which is competing, cut someone's throat, why would I take the meeting if I'm not going to get anything? It's a big, big world out there, and the more relationships we have, I'm telling you, a year, two years, five years down the road, they pay huge dividends.
So, what I'm hearing from you so far, and I'm gonna filter it back to you through Jason Abell’s filter, but you're operating from what I might call a place or spirit of abundance. versus a place of scarcity, right?
Yes.
And I've talked to many people on this topic, and I get a lot of head nodding, but when it comes to like, boots on the ground, I'm making a sales call so to speak, I'm recruiting somebody so to speak, boy, it's, it's difficult on a day to day, decision by decision basis, to operate from that position of abundance with that open hand so to speak, so talk us through that a little bit.
Sure. So what I'm in engaging someone, whether it be a sales call, thinking, Okay, I'm never going to know this, meet this person again, but I might, or I'm engaging someone, even if they're approaching me to sell me something, part of the attitude is, how quickly can I get into understanding how to help them, so that even the sales person trying to sell me walk to us as man, you didn't say yes, but this is like, the best 15-20 minutes I've ever had, and thanks for pouring in and engaging. And I'm just telling you, when that salesperson transfers the third job from now, like he's going to come back and say, Rick, really, I truly have something that'll work for you now. I'm going to take that call, and he's going to approach me totally differently than I would have approached as listen, I've got 10 minutes, the answer is, no, I'll listen to your pitch, you really need to move on. Now, what's difficult, Jason is that takes time, and you have to listen. I'm just telling you, from my world that having influence without any expectation is a very freeing thing. Now, I'm not a doormat and I'm not passive. I mean, I want to win. I tell people I'm the least competitive, competitive guy you've ever met. You know, winning isn't what I'm shooting for. My point is, did I excel? Did I do everything that I thought I could do? Was I prepared? Did I kill it? I'll win the things I'm supposed to win, what I shouldn't, I won’t, and I hope I win every single time. If I've really excelled over here, then you bring the people side of it that says, oh, by the way, while I was excelling, while I was competing, did I leave a trail of people like, man, I don't wanna ever meet that guy again? What a journey. No, they are like, wow, that he kicked my tail, but he's a good guy. That was a really good, bizarre experience. I'd go back in again. And again, it just takes time to make that work, because you and I both know that if you're playing the long game, those relationships will come back, and they'll come back again and again, and you'll get this bizarre email or phone call saying, hey, Rick, I'm doing this now, can you give me 20 minutes? And I know that if I called you a year from now, hey, Jason, can we talk about this, you're like, I had a great conversation with that guy, and you'll take that call. And that type of economy is way underappreciated as what we do as entrepreneurs, because you're there by yourself. You have no management structure that's going to pour into you. You got no mentorship that was required by management. You need these relationships to really excel.
I'm nodding my head and smiling Rick, because, you know, I do have a little tread underneath of me at this point, at 53 years old, and I have experienced exactly what you're saying, and so I'm nodding my head, and I know factually what you're saying to be true. But let's scratch this a little deeper, if you're okay with that. You're okay with going one level deeper?
Keep going, yeah.
What do you say to the 25-year-old or the 32-year-old that doesn't have the experiences of seeing the long run, the long game aspect of this that you spoke about, that doesn't have the benefit of seeing that yet. Because there are benefits to this. There are some intangibles. Maybe we'll go down the philosophy path a minute, but right now, what do you say that 25-year-old, that 32-year-old that says, yeah, that's great, Rick, but I need to make a sale today. Or I've got to recruit this person over today, or, you know, there's just that different mentality. I don't know. How would you address that?
Yeah, I think it goes back to that bell curve. I live in the world of bell curve. And so said, listen, if you're recruiting and trying to get recruit A, you're going to win recruit A, because it's just, it's obvious they're going to say, yes. You've got some recruits over here you're chasing that don’t make any sense at all. Then you've got this big middle where they're like, well, I've got three other options, why should I go with you? And if you think they're going to go with you, because you worked harder, you threw money at them, and you put pressure, and it's like no one wants to work for that person. I mean, so there's an aspect of it. I think the other piece is, is that they have to look at themselves in the same situation. Because I'm telling you, not all of them, but the majority of the folks that are at that 25-32 year old phase will be faced with, I've been laid off, I've got to find another role, how's this going to work? And what I would tell them is that, in my case, since the time I was 15 years old, I've never sent in a resume and applied for a job. I’m telling you, and this is a 40 plus year career, and every job, every next assignment, from international to the CEO role, pick a thing, with someone pursuing me because I had a relationship. They said, hey, this guy said I should call you or I know so and so, and they vouch for you, and therefore the opportunity came in. Now, I had to be prepared for it, right? That classic thing of, listen, there's no such thing as luck, its preparation met with opportunity, right? Well, you were lucky that you knew that guy, and he recommended you. I can't be an idiot. So, for that 25-30 year old that's going through it, yeah, you need to grind, I'm not saying don't grind. I'm simply saying the relationship part of it will let you win more of those ties that you ever thin, and I'm telling you, a year from now, when it's time to renew, it's time for the next phase, it just pays dividend, and it requires a little bit of patience.
Yep.
But again, I don't want them to think you need to be passive. You need to kill it. But, yeah, killing it with not leaving a trail of people is different.
Very much so. You're stacking the deck in your favor. And I'm adding this part, and I'll see your reaction this, but it's also just the right thing to do.
That's so true.
I mean, can we not can we not forget that piece of it? Like be nice to people. Create relationships with people, add, add a ton of value. I don't know, it seems like whether I'm parenting or in my social circles, or my career, all of those things that you just described going from a place of abundance, helping people out, being nice whether you win or not, I don't know those, those just seemed like tenants of life that probably work out in your favor more often than not.
Yeah, and I'll flip the term between success and significance. I heard a pastor once speak that he said, hey, the gospel, your faith follows the path and the path and the speed and the depth of relationships. and so when I talk to people about work, I say, listen, I'm just telling you not success, because success is, did I get 10 versus 8, but I mean, if you look at significance, if you're changing the term that significance follows the depth, the path, the breadth of relationships, so if you want to be significant, if you want to be a leader, not a manager, if you want to be the right type of entrepreneur, that's out there that people would kill to work for your company, if you want to have private equity guys that come in, look at Shark Tank, I've done Series A, Series B an I'm telling you, it's closer than real. And they say I don't want to work with you. You're super smart and a jerk. And I tell you, significance follows relationships, and the sooner someone figures it out, it's like, oh, I was smarter than that guy, and I had a better product, so how did they win? It's like, because no one wants to work with you.
That's right.
Now, that's a very black and white thing, but it's the practical of significance follows the path of relationships, and it's so important.
I'm going to put you on the spot here, but is there a particular story, either personally or with a client, is there a story where you can put your finger on it with the point that you're making? I'm agreeing with you. I'm there. Stories tend to resonate with people, including me. Is there anything as you listen to me kind of formulate this question, is there any type of specific example or story that you can think of to illustrate what we're talking about?
Yeah. So, do you want to go kind of entrepreneur early on in career? You want to go investment?
Oh, yeah, I don't know. I'll pick entrepreneurial.
Okay, so from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I knew back in the iOS days of the app store that I was not the app guy. No one's the app guy. I mean, and you started to look around, people were charging hundreds of 1000s of dollars, and they didn't know what they were doing. We had worked with a guy, his name's Kelly Miller, who's now a co-founder with me, we had worked with Kelly on another project. When we were talking with Kelly, I knew that not only he could do the work, but more importantly, that he was going to be an amazing partner for us, and so that relationship that I had, I could trust him, I could let in at that time. It is that thing about the secrets, like, oh my gosh, if someone else figures this out before we do, we're toast. So, I wasn't interviewing five other dev resources, and I wasn't trying to outsource this to India somewhere. I needed to have a trust factor, and we needed to do it pretty quick, because we knew there was a short window, or this thing was going to explode. And I had the relationship with Kelly. He was the right guy to make this work. He leaned in and said, I don't want a dollar, I'll be a co-founder. I'm gonna bet on the com later on down the road. I trusted this guy implicitly. He's running his business; I'm managing these LLCs. We're both working nights and weekends together. That didn't happen through an interview process. That was a long-term relationship. I had known him for five years, so I knew he was the right guy, and he had to trust me.
Yeah. Big time. Big time.
More than just the idea it's like, okay, do I want to partnership with this guy? I mean, you get unequally yoked and partnered with the wrong person, it's brutal because, you know, it's a marriage, and last thing you want is to ever show business divorce. I mean, business divorces are rough, even with a prenup, so the relationship really does matter.
Yeah, such a good story. Very tangible. I mean, I can't tell you, especially doing what we do with coaching people, we've seen a lot of breakups with partnerships over the years, and you're right. The prenup is, you know, the operating agreement and all that. Ah, none of that really matters if you end up hating each other and not trusting each other, like, it's just going to be messy. Period. I remember my wife and I were building a house one time, and we were interviewing different builders, and it was kind of in a rural area, and, you know, you kind of go through the gamut. The one guy that we kind of liked the most, we were drawing up the contract, and contract wasn't the best. And I'm a pretty linear thinking, logical like dot your i's cross your t's type of person, and I had, I don't know, 28 questions for him, and at about question three, he kind of looked me in the eyes, and he's like, Jason, the bottom line is, we're going to either end up trusting each other or we're not. And I could just tell the way that he said it, I was like, yep, Pete, we're gonna shake hands and we're gonna put this contract away, and we're probably never gonna look at it again, and it was one of the best experiences that that we ended up having, right? Because it wasn't the paperwork that was the basis of the relationship, it was the actual relationship that was the basis of the relationship. Did we trust each other or not?
Let's circle back to that life quote of mine. Don’t live in the world of maybe but let your yes be yes and your no be no. So let me use that example. I was mentoring disciple on this guy over here. He said, hey, I really want to spend some time with you, and he graduated in engineering. He had a job with this big space company, blah, blah, blah on the West Coast and he was getting ready to go, and I said, okay, I'll give you the next three months. We'll meet every single Tuesday. He said, man, that's great. He said, I'll put that down as a definite maybe for Tuesday at six. And I said, what's a definite maybe? He said, well, you know, I'm gonna kind of write you down here. And I said, well, so you're just gonna pencil me in so you could erase it? He said, well, yeah, anything could come up. I said no, no, no, no. It's either yes or it's no. And if it's maybe, walk away. And salespeople know that the worst thing you can get is, we’ll maybe come back. I'd rather you say no and come back in a year, then you give me a maybe. When you get into that builder example, you know, or with Kelly, the tech side of this stuff, you need people in your life that will be a yes and a no. It's the most freeing thing you can ever do to anyone. Hey, Rick, can I get some time with you? Maybe. Check back with- I'm not going to meet with this guy. So, you know, I don't think it's right, probably not right for us, or yes, here it is. And if you learn that young enough or early enough in your career, people go to you because you get stiff stuff done. Because you said, yes, it's inked in and you're going to get it done. It's hard to find people like that when, in my case, you're raising a Series A, a Series B, and you've got a lot on the line, I need people that will do what they say they're going to do. And you've got to sniff them out, because it's hard to find.
Yeah, right on. Isn't it crazy though, Rick? It is hard to find these days.
Again, try to find a repair guy that'll show up at your house.
Well, that's my point. I don't want to be the old guy that just laments on things, but it’s remarkable to me, whether we're talking about from a leadership standpoint, or you know, my partner at Rewire and I always have a laugh on the client that asked us one time, hey, can you give us a script that show that I care? No, no, we actually can't. We actually can't do that, because here's the deal, you actually have to care. That comes first, you know. And so, it's remarkable to me that that that's the case. But yeah, do what you say that you're going to do, let your yes be yes and your no be no, and yeah, get out of this gray area.
The maybe just hamstrings you. It's so difficult. And if you're in a corporate world, or you're an entrepreneur trying to sell, and if people realize that you kind of shift on them, they may not say it to you, but it's a no. They're not going to work with you and they’re not gonna do business with you because you're not gonna deliver. And I'm not saying that you need to do something special, I'm just saying do what you say you're gonna do.
You mentioned something earlier about the freedom that can be experienced when some of the tenants that you're talking about, the freedom that happens and that yes be yes and no be no, it's actually very freeing, when in the world of maybe, remember my background is like yours was with P and G, mine was in the mortgage industry, and I was writing loans at a young age. You know that maybe, maybe we'll be able to do the loan, maybe we won't? No. That's terrible for people. I see so many loan officers, and I see this in other industries too, where it's like, man, I'm not sure we can do that or not, but I don't want to tell the client that. No, no, no. Tell the client yes you can or no you can't. But when you say, no, boy, that's good for everybody, because then it allows them to go find an alternative or do whatever it is that they need to do, and then it frees you from the burden of, gosh, I don't want to say the thing that it's going to upset them or whatever. It's actually freeing when you say that, and then everybody moves on.
Well, another piece, and I pulled this from Second Kings, but to be significant with that, you have to stay within your rails, right? You gotta head north, and you don't go left or right and chase shiny objects. Okay? Resist being a generalist. So, what I tell folks is that even in a strategic standpoint, having very tight rails is not confining. Be completely creative within the rails.
It's freeing, actually.
The freeing part is, I don't have these pieces out here, and most people use the analogy of a sporting event or a game. If you have rules, you can be creative. It's like playing risk with no rules, but you have some rules, therefore risk, you know, you can get into the strategy part of it.
That's right.
So, once you lay out those rails, and you say, listen, I might actually take the rails out a little bit over time, but we're not chasing these things. Well, you're not letting me be creative. I said, no, no, no. Within these rails, you have complete autonomy. You can be the most creative person. Resources are almost finite but unlimited to what you want to do. Yeah, but I really want to do this. Well, then maybe we’re not fit to be working together. You need to be working over here somewhere. But that gets back into that freeing aspect. As a leader, how can you free people up? It's saying yes and no, and one of the no's that I tell people is we're not going to chase the object.
Yeah.
Well, that’s frustrating, I get it, but we are focused here and be creative within it. And again, for some people, they can't handle that, but for most people, again, it's pretty freeing.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's so good. Yeah, the freedom. And that's something that I think we're all chasing as leaders, is the freedom. I don't know one leader that doesn’t say I'm so busy or I'm overwhelmed or there's too much on my plate. Boy, that freedom of saying yes or no, and it's hard, it's hard to say no, but when you do say no, and everybody can move on as a result of it, man, there's freedom. And it's freedom for the other person on the other side of that transaction as well.
Yep, yep.
Rick, so good. I feel like we could go on for hours. As we kind of round third base and head towards home during our conversation today, knowing that we've spent a lot of time on leadership, kind of dove into entrepreneurship a little bit, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you’re like, I want to make sure we get this out before we end our conversation today.
As an entrepreneur, I'm going to give you the best advice I received about one week into being an entrepreneur.
Okay.
I am thinking I am out of the corporate world and I'm going to be an entrepreneur, and we're just going to kill it, right? This guy’s name is Steve Graves, Dr. Steve Graves. He was talking to me and the other two co-founders over here, and he said, as an entrepreneur, you're only as good as you invoice and collect. And I just kind of looked at him, and he said, everything else is an expensive hobby.
Boy, getting you focused.
So, he says, as you guys start, you’re gonna get friends and buddies just out of courtesy or they feel sorry for you, they're gonna say yes to a couple of your things. When you can get a complete stranger to say yes to your product and to pay you money, he said, touchdown. Now, in today's world, we would look at a problem market fit, and then product market fit, right? So, I knew I had a problem market fit. I knew I could solve a problem, but when I first started as an entrepreneur, I wasn't exactly sure my product was going to be set up where people just start paying me.
Yep, yep.
And then you're like, yeah, but this is going to be awesome. And he said don’t even used those words. He said, this razor focus, a stranger has to be able to say yes and actually pay the invoice. And so, when I talk to young entrepreneurs starting and I quickly say, stop talking to your mom and dad, your brother, your three friends, you got to go find some strangers, and if you can find some strangers, then come back to me, and I'll help you go for it. They say, well, I don't want to do that. I want you to understand the product. I'm like, I don't care about your web page, I don't care about your brand. I appreciate all the marketing. I need you to get into a point, where a complete stranger will say, yes. When they do, come back. Well, I don't want to go spend time doing that. I said, well, that's the heavy lifting. I just want to end on that. The best advice for any entrepreneur listening, whether it's a service or a product, whatever you're doing, find a complete stranger. You can't spend 15 minutes trying to convince them out of guilt to buy it, right? But if they say yes, be careful, because you got something. And then all you've got to do then is to clean it up, position it, throw some marketing against it, and let this thing happen.
Yeah, the willingness and the ability to pay. Do they have the willingness to buy your product, and do they have the ability to pay? And if that person isn't your mom, then you might be cooking with gas.
Even the words you used ability to pay that is that once you get your business running, you realize you've got to find budget, because the money's got to come from somewhere. We could have all conversation of decision mapping of decision makers and influencers and implementers and that influencer and what they do, but at the end of the day, there must be a budget for it. So, if they've already planned their budget for next year, you're 51 weeks early.
Yeah, that's right.
So, you got to find that budget.
Your optimism is palpable, Rick. I love that. You're not a week late, you're just 51 weeks early. That's really good. Oh man. Well, I have a feeling people are going to want to reach out to you because of this conversation that we had. Heck, I may be reaching out to you, Rick. How will people find you?
The easiest is LinkedIn. It's Rick West with Field Agent there. You can always email me. I'm at Rick.West@FieldAgent.net. Reach out. I'll be very quick to say yes or no. If we could spend some time. I'm a pretty easy yes. In these days in my world, I'm trying to engage others and help them along. So, if you're a friend of Jason's, friend of the podcast, say, hey, I did this Rewire thing and would love to catch up with you, then I'll be a friend as well and take that phone call.
Man, so good. Appreciate that offer. And I can tell just by our conversation, your body language, everything, that you mean it. And so, if you're listening to this, and there's something that Rick said that just struck a chord with you or created an insight, yeah, I'd recommend reaching out to him. I actually think I might be reaching out to you.
I look forward to it.
Yeah, I've enjoyed this conversation. It's added value to me. Personally. I can't imagine it not being the case for our listeners as well. So, Rick West, thank you so much for our time today. Appreciate you, my friend. And hope our paths cross again soon.
You bet Jason, look forward to it.
Once again, so many insights. Rick West from Arkansas, chairman and co-founder of Field Agent. If you don't know about Field Agent, Google it, and I think you'll be impressed. And you could even make some money off of it. But what you're really going to use to make money or improve your life are some of the things that he talked about. These are the things that resonated with me. His deal with influence and release, holding with an open hand, operating from a spirit of abundance, from a place of abundance, not scarcity. Those things just really resonated with me. I think we might title the episode “From Transaction to Relationship.” That is something that resonated with me. And boy, don't operate in the world of maybe. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, and his particular take on that I just thought was really good, when he talked about freedom and all the benefits of that. So those were my insights from Rick West, but as we say at the end of every episode of The Insight Interviews, it doesn't much matter what my insights were as the host, but what really matter dear listeners, are what were your insights?
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