Brisa shares her story of coming to the United States and to DFW, followed by her experience selling vehicles at a dealership before gaining an internship that paved the way for her future in sales. You’ll enjoy learning about her journey, the things she enjoyed and didn’t, and how it all came together for her in her current venture, Improving Growth.
Shout out to episode sponsor, WindowCraft (https://windowcraft.biz).
AUTO-TRANSCRIBED
Aaron Spatz 00:05
You’re listening to America’s entrepreneur, the podcast designed to educate, entertain, and inspire you in your personal professional journey. I’m your host, Aaron Spatz. And on the podcast I interview entrepreneurs, industry experts, and other high achievers that detail their personal and professional journeys in business. My goal is to glean their experiences into actionable insights that you can apply to your own journey. If you’re new to the show, we’ve spoken with successful entrepreneurs, Grammy Award winning artists, best selling authors, chief executives, and other fascinating minds with unique experiences. We’ve covered topics such as how to achieve breakthrough and business, growing startups, effective leadership techniques, and much more. If you strive for continual self improvement, and enjoy fascinating and insightful conversation, if the subscribe button you’ll love it here at America’s entrepreneur we’re gonna dive right into this morning. This morning. We are pleased to present we have the CEO of improved growth Her name is Brisa Renteria Risa I just want to welcome you to the show. Thank you so much for being here this morning.
Brisa Renteria 01:18
Thanks for having me, Aaron.
Aaron Spatz 01:20
Awesome. Well, give us a little bit about your journey. I love to always ask people leading off right what Where are you originally from? are you originally from the DFW area? If not, where are you from?
Brisa Renteria 01:31
So I was originally born in Mexico City. Okay, I was I was born in Mexico City came here when I was 12. I’ve normally I would say I’ve been there half my life been here half my life. But a lot of a lot of years have passed since then. So I can’t really say that I’m more Texan than I am Mexican at this point. We had a chance to, to move here for better opportunities. We took them and we said you know we’re not going to just move here leave our family leave our country leave or language leave everything behind. NBA average, right? We knew that. us making this decision meant that we were going to go all in and sure it was going to be hard and it was going to suck and the food was going to be terrible compared to what we did over there. But at the end, we were going to make it worth it. So we’ve been here 18 years now, which is weird to say. been here 18 years been in Texas, Texas ever since so I’m more of a Texas girl, I guess you would say but in Dallas area. I grew up in a small town called Ulis. Texas, if you all are familiar with it when Trinity high school graduated from UT Arlington international business. I thought that with an international business degree everybody was gonna throw job offers at me right what it was like, Oh my gosh, you graduated, here’s a job offer for you. That’s not how it works with an international business degree, right? That may be for an accounting degree or a nursing degree or whatever it may be. But definitely not international business. Nobody was throwing job offers at me. So I knew that I had to go out and pave my own way. I sold cars for like, six months. absolutely hated it. But it taught me a lot of things when it comes to sales, right. It taught me to one pick up the phone and then to deal with rejection, which that’s the half half of the battle when you’re in sales is deal with the rejection of it all. While I was in college at UT Arlington, I came across an internship an unpaid internship. And I thought, you know, I I know that people like experience and they’d like more of that professional experience. So I took the internship I was on paid move my way up. It was on the social media arena. And this was back when social media was first starting people were like, it’s just a fad. It’s not gonna stay, it’s gonna go away. Just give it a couple months. And now here we are in social media giant and controls our lives, right. But the reason why I talk about the two is while I was going through that internship, I happen to go from unpaid to paid, moved up at the company, eventually graduated, went to go sell cars, and then I thought, I’m not gonna sell cars, you know, but it teaches you a lot about sales. So I landed with time I landed a position at the largest sales training organization in the world. I did a lot of sales training. That’s where I really spent the majority of my career was just learning, sales processes and metrics and salespeople and leadership and the interesting thing about my background which social media and car selling is that that takes care of two things that people struggle with. So it was very easy for me to transition into the sales training arena. Because I already knew how to pick up the phone. I already knew how to deal with rejection, because that’s what I was dealing at the, at the car place. And then I knew about marketing and how marketing goes hand in hand with sales, because I’d already done it in this social media world. So it was an easy transition. For me going into the sales training space, the challenging thing about selling sales training, is that people you’re eventually when you’re sitting across the table with the CEO that wants to talk about sales training, right? They want to say, Hey, Aaron, I want to buy your sales training program. When you’re sitting down, and you’re having that conversation with them, they’re essentially watching every single step of how you sell, right, the way that you sell is essentially what they’re buying. So you’re constantly on stage in the sales process. So it teaches you to really follow the process. Think about the questions that you ask when you ask them. So I’ve enjoyed it. I think. I think sales is one of those things that people frowned upon, because they think that they’re the sleazy salesperson, and I’ve had to be the sleazy salesperson and I hated it. And then I learned a better way. So I think one of the best professions, you can make a buttload of money off of it. So it’s the solution little bit about how I ended up where I’m at.
Aaron Spatz 06:33
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s brilliant. Thank you for for sharing on it. So it gives me gives me a lot more context as to kind of help how we could go here. So one, if you don’t mind, I like to I like to kind of rewind a little bit further back. And just to understand, like, what what was that like for you in terms of leaving Mexico to come the United States? Like, what was that? What was that process? What was that journey like for you in terms of your family in terms of just the economics of it all like, and I understand you’re a child still at the time. So you’re 12 So you didn’t have like job responsibilities that you were like, trying to figure out at the same time, but what but what was that like, though, from as a family unit, like getting here?
Brisa Renteria 07:12
It was. It wasn’t I, it wasn’t ideal in the mind of a 12 year old, right? Because in the mind of a 12 year old. To me, my mom was taken away my cousins and my grandma and the food that I that I loved in my school and my school friends and everything right? To her, she was going through a completely different mental thing, right? But in the mind of a 12 year old, I didn’t want to come here, right? I told my mom, I was like, I don’t want to go there. Leave me with my grandma. I am not about to go anywhere. I want to stay here. She didn’t agree with any of it, which is why I’m here. Right. But you know, it’s, it’s challenging, because you don’t you’re, you’re taking away everything that you know, right, your family’s gone, your friends are gone, your school is gone. I bring up food a lot. Food is a big thing. You know, you show up and you can even get like a good tasting tortilla in here. So it’s it’s a big thing. Now that’s in the mind of a 12 year old, in the mind of 29 year old me thinking about my mom, that woman kicked butt, you know, to be 35 years old, the age that she was at to leave everything you you knew. My mom was building a building in Mexico, and that was going to be her retirement. And she was a businesswoman there, she built something from nothing. And she to leave your family and your house and your cars and your career and everything that she built to give your kids a better life. And to start from zero. That takes guts, right? So to me the biggest challenge was the language. It’s a lot of what I see a lot of families do when they move here. They find themselves trying to create their own little country in their house, which is understandable, right? It’s the only thing you have to hold on to. But I think one of the best things my mom has done a lot of great things and one of the best things my mom did was we have to learn English. We can’t just sit here and speak Spanish and expect people to like adapt to us because we don’t know the language. So we weren’t allowed to watch anything in Spanish. All we watched was English. So we literally immersed ourselves in language in within a year. I was 12 my sister was four within a year for us too. We learned it pretty well, because we were going to school and we went to an all English school so Literally my mom said, no Spanish, we have to learn this thing. So I would say that that was the biggest breakthrough that we had was once we learned English. I mean, we could go anywhere.
Aaron Spatz 10:12
Yeah. Well, huge shout out to your mom. Right? Yeah.
Brisa Renteria 10:16
She’s awesome. That’s, that’s, that’s
Aaron Spatz 10:17
unreal. That’s really, really cool. Really cool. Yeah. And, and just the, the language immersion process, I’m sure is a bit is a bit insane. And so you’re just trying to make sense of everything and just figuring out as you go, and then, and that’s exactly exactly what you did. And so over the course of a year, you’re able to, you’re able to get it figured out. So no, that’s cool. I just I want to go back into circle back to that just more. I was a little bit curious as to how, how that journey was for you. So and then. And then okay, then then kind of, you know, speeding up to closer to present day. So you were, you’re working at a car dealership selling cars, and you then you’d gone out you’re doing you’re going to school, you pursued an unpaid internship at another company. So you’re kind of doing both things. And so tell me a little bit about what like what it was that you learned. So like, I get it, there’s tons of rejection as it relates to sales. And I think that’s, I think it’s a huge point we can talk about, but what what were some of the things that you were learning in the sales process, or just of the business of a car dealership? Like what what did you find the most fascinating about that?
Brisa Renteria 11:27
Honestly, the culture of it. Okay, um, and, you know, you watch a lot of movies and you think is that real life and the car business, it seems to be real life to have that culture of very cutthroat.
Aaron Spatz 11:45
Okay. I’m like cutthroat between the salespeople are cutthroat with sales rep, the customer.
Brisa Renteria 11:51
Between the salespeople so management to salespeople, salespeople to management, it’s, you got to sell a deal no matter what. Which, again, it teaches you in sales to go get to a deal, right? Go Go talk to someone go sell something. So it gives you the right mindset. Ethically, I don’t agree with it. To give you an example, oh, my, my brother in law had came in to buy a car. He looked at cars, he found one that he liked, I was the one helping him naturally. I go in and I talked to the manager and I said, okay, my brother in law wants to buy a car. And he says, Great, well, obviously you have a great rapport with him. So he’ll pay whatever you show him, right. And I told them, I’m not sure about that, right. I’m not his wife. So I have no idea. But I would like to give him a good deal because I am his sister in law. So they go in and they do their whole number stuff. They’re really trying to see how much money they’re gonna make off of a car, right? That’s really what they’re doing. And then he gives me this piece of paper and he gives him like an insane interest rate, for no reason, like the guy has good credit, he was giving a pretty sizable downpayment, but he’s still giving him a crappy payment just because I’m his sister in law, and he’s gonna buy from me regardless. So it’s, it’s that type of culture and mindset, and that sleaziness that comes with with car sales, so the culture really stuck out to me. And really, what it did was was show me what I don’t want to do, right? I don’t want to be that sleazy salesperson. I understand why people feel that way. Since then, I’ve bought a couple cars, and I know what game they’re playing. So they usually don’t get me. But I learned about what I what kind of salesperson I don’t want to be in I learned about what kind of business I don’t want to run.
Aaron Spatz 13:56
Sure. Yeah. And that’s equally as valuable. In fact, it may even be more valuable than landing somewhere and it being so awesome. Like you’re actually now you have something to contrast against. So now you’ve got you have an experience. And I would like to think that not all car dealerships are are so crazy, but I’m sure there’s a lot of them out there. Right. So you know if you’re watching this new or you worked at a dealership, I don’t want your hate mail. I love you, you know but there but there are there are there are dealerships I’m sure that take advantage of people there are dealerships that I’m sure take a Greg take great care of the people that they deal with. But in this particular instance, you had a great opportunity to learn some of the some of the things that you just man, I do not ever want to replicate this ever in anything else that I do going forward. And so you took that experience with you. And then tell me a little bit more about the unpaid internship like what what was that experience like for you?
Brisa Renteria 14:53
It was awesome. Night and day. It was awesome. It’s a it was women owned The social media and it was it was amazing. I was, again straight in college, I was still in college. It was, it was one of the best thing that’s that has happened to me, the CEO of the social media company and I are still good friends. It’s been 10 years since I worked for her. And we stayed in touch. And we’ve got a chance to work together and a couple of things since then. But it literally, it was a startup at the time. Right? They had been in business for maybe two years. had interns had a few employees, you know, is really the CEO going out and making stuff happen. And she, she’s a Sales Machine. She’s awesome. She, I basically learned pretty much everything that goes into running the business, right, I learned about the struggle of getting the checks in just because you sold the deal doesn’t mean that you’ve gotten paid yet, right? Nobody gets paid until we get paid. I learned about you know, sales, nothing happens until you sell something I’ll learn about that I learned about the value of having people come in and work and deliver great work. Because if it’s not great work, then that creates more work for everyone else that that has a lot of different things on their plate. But most importantly, I learned about transparency. Her name is Eve, I give Eva shout out anywhere that I can because she’s She changed my life is just learning how businesses can be transparent with their employees to talk about, you know, we’re not doing too hot this month. And being so human about it and, and just being truthful about what’s happening. I feel like a lot of times when you hear this from my mom’s business, my husband’s business, so a lot of stuff just kind of happens behind the scenes, you just happen to be a bi standard of it all. And you have to deal with it because you’re an employee. My friend, Eve my boss at the time, she believed in transparency, and every bad thing that was happening, she told us about every good thing that was happening. She told us about that. So that’s on the business side, on the personal side, she really focused on helping you as a person become that person that you wanted to be. So as an example, when I was in school, I was I was I was I was the epitome of a broke kid in college ramen noodles, barely making rent, if making rent at all it was it was crazy. But one semester, I was really struggling to to pay for a semester just because you’re broken in college, right? I’m struggling to pay a semester and I told her, Hey, I think I’m gonna have to quit here and go go do something else because I’m not able to pay for this. And she said, No, I’ll help you pay for it. So it’s, it’s those small things that makes a huge impact. And it really shows your employees that you care, right, it’s more than just just you working for me, it’s I actually care about you as a person. So I learned so much from her again, about the business, the accounting of it, all the cells of it all. She’s actually the person that told me that I needed to go into sales. And that time I was like, nah. But I learned about you take care of your people, like they’ll take care of you. And that was a loyal employee, and we’re still friends to this day, and we’ll continue to be friends. That’s amazing.
Aaron Spatz 18:34
And, you know, the whole transparency thing is, is really is really cool. But the the thing that really stuck out to me was, you know, her caring enough about you and what I’ve seen, and this is just my own experience. I’ve seen this a handful of times with different people, but the ones that I would call leaders, like really true leaders are the ones that they care that have like that. They’re invested personally, into their, into their team their into their people success and they want to actually get to know who they’re working with, but not just get to know you, but like, what are your goals? Like what do you want to do? Where are you trying to go? And if it’s not here, if we can’t provide that opportunity for you? How can I help you get there, you know, so it’s like it’s really really cool and so sounds like you you’ve got a really awesome friend and mentor and somebody who’s really helping you along the way and really investing in you and I think it’s so so important and no doubt I mean it’s had a it’s had a huge impact on you.
Brisa Renteria 19:38
It has I think she’s I’ve again when we when I talked back about the dealership job and again not to knock down dealerships right not everybody’s the same but if you learn about when you go work for someone, you go learn about what you would take away from from them right what you like about them or what you want to replicate and what you don’t want To replicate and everything that she did. She’s She’s a giant. Again, take care of your people that they’ll take care of you for sure. And She sure did that.
Aaron Spatz 20:12
That’s awesome. No, it’s, you know, like, every person that I can think of, in my like in my background and my work history, the ones that really stand out to me were the ones that really, really cared and really had a vested interest in my success. And so it’s really cool that you, you found that person early on, and just what that’s done for you going forward. So I just, I think it’s remarkable. And it’s a it’s a great, it’s a great testament to just leadership in general, there’s probably a lot of other things we could talk about just within that framework itself. So assuming I’m back from break, though, what I like to do is just kind of switch gears, I would like to talk a little bit more about your current venture, improve growth, I’d like to understand kind of the story of it, like how did it get started, some of the some of the growing pains and some of the some of the things that you’re working on right now. So I’d love to love to cover that as soon as soon as we get back. So incredibly grateful for our amazing sponsors and people that support this show. And so I want to give a huge shout out to Window craft. So window craft, you, you actually can catch the interview with the owner and president Luke Morrow he was on the show, not even a week ago. And so fantastic company really, really down to her family owned business. And so to highlight a little bit about the work that they do, right, so they do wood, aluminum clad wood, architectural aluminum, iron, steel, bronze, I do like really nice high end, windows and doors and stuff like that. So if it’s higher end, new construction and some replacement work. What’s also really cool is they’ll, they’ll do like specialty door systems. So not just the windows, but the especially door system. So it’s sliding, folding, stacking, you know, oversized, all that stuff. What’s really neat is they have in house installation crews, so their crews that that do all the work. They’re actually employees are not subcontracted out. They’re not some random group of people like they’re their employees. So they know the products, they know how it goes in, and they know how to take care of your home or your business and to do it in the right way. So they’ll do residential do commercial they do they actually do historical replication. So if you have a much older building, they’re able to kind of go back and kind of recreate some of that. So anyway, they do they do a ton of great work. And they do they go all over the place. So if you’re in DFW, it’s something like 200 mile radius around the metroplex. So give them a call, again, incredibly grateful for their sponsorship of the show. So brisa just want to thank you, again, for sharing some of the some of your, your journey, right? And so like, take me through the journey of improved growth. Help me understand like, how did it get off? How did it all get started for you?
Brisa Renteria 22:53
Yeah, so as I, as I mentioned earlier, I spent the majority of my career in the sales consulting and training space. What I found from working there, so it was sales training company, and naturally, sales training people say train my people how to sell more stuff, right? The frustrating thing about that is, a lot of times you’re training the wrong person, right? Or you’re training people on the wrong things. Um, I think that a lot of times people focus on finding someone that’s likable, someone that people like, not afraid to go talk to strangers, and although that’s great, it doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. So what I found in the sales training spaces, a lot of times you just have the wrong person, right? It didn’t matter how good of a trainer I was, it didn’t matter how good the content it was, it didn’t matter how great we delivered it, how many role plays we did. Sometimes the person that was there felt like a hostage and there’s, there was nothing you were gonna do or say that was gonna change their mind. Some people did turn around and say, Okay, y’all got something? Let’s listen. Some people internally, they have internal weaknesses that stops them from doing the things that you’re asking them to do. So then it becomes a question of your trainings, no good. When it’s not necessarily the training, that’s no good. It’s the fact that we’re training the wrong person. So what what my my company focuses on is helping people find the right people, right. And it’s not focusing on how likable you are, do you come from the industry? Do you have a network? Because I found that you having a network and you come from the industry does not necessarily mean that you’re going to sell something, right? In fact, a lot of times that means that once you run out of the network to sell to you’re not going to pick up the phone and go make more stuff happen, right or you’re going to rely so much on the experience that you’ve built, right? Maybe you’ve spent 10 years in banking and you think because you know the industry, you’re going to go out and sell. But what I found is a lot of times they sell the same people, and they’re not going out and finding new people to sell to. So what we do is we teach companies a five step self selection process that helps them hire better and stronger salespeople. Finding strong salespeople is one of company’s biggest challenges. It’s, it’s a, it’s a never ending cycle. It’s the hiring wheel of death is what I call it. It’s constantly hiring, firing, hiring, firing, and hiring, firing. And it’s insanity. I mean, it’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and hope in hoping for a different result. So what’s this process? We do a lot of a lot of tests during the interview process that really determines whether or not that salesperson is going to make it or not. Wow,
Aaron Spatz 26:00
that’s crazy. So you’re going through this process of just helping companies so you’re helping them identify better talent? So it’s not it’s not the sales training anymore? So much as it is the selection of salespeople is that right?
Brisa Renteria 26:16
It’s training, phonies. Yeah, it’s both. So it’s training companies how to find salespeople.
Aaron Spatz 26:22
Okay, and then do Do you do any of the training for salespeople? Or is it No, like you’re strictly helping them? Okay. Yeah.
Brisa Renteria 26:29
So I’m just strictly on the people side, and it’s teaching companies how to do it. And the reason I could I could very easily be the one that does it, right. The problem with me being the one that does it is companies have to rely on me 100% to go find someone, when, what I found is, I would much rather teach you the process teach you the skills that you need to have as a sales leader, so that you can go out and you can continue to replicate it as you continue growing. Or if you decide to move into a different type of role or a different type of company, you still carry those skills with you. The last thing, one of the things that I learned about sales training is you want to stop, you don’t want to be a crutch to anyone, right? You want to give them the process, you want to give them the skills so that they can go out and replicate it, I could very well do it. We’re actually negotiating a contract with a company that will do it for the companies that say, I don’t want to learn it, just do it. For me. We’re negotiating a contract with a company that will be able to do that for us. However, my focus all is on teach you the process, teach you the skills teach you everything that I know, so that you will need me. Sure. Most training piece, we have a partner that focuses on that, too.
Aaron Spatz 27:47
Okay, nice. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s the whole adage of, you know, teaching someone to fish rather than you’re fishing for them, you’re, you’re helping show them your process of how this works, and step by step. So they’re able to go out and just use it, do it. And the idea being that they’re able to get higher quality people that are that they’re not going to be hiring and firing within a really short period of time that they’ve got a solid people that are on their team. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Brisa Renteria 28:17
It makes a huge difference. And it’s interesting, because with the recruiting process, where there’s a series of things that we’re looking for, right, we’re looking for, does this person get emotional on a sales call? Are they able to build rapport and rapport is so much more than just hey, how’s it going, how’s your day going? Right report is more than just, hey, those are some cool things you have in your background. Just because we talked about it doesn’t mean we have a bore, it just means that we had a conversation about it right? Right. Now a lot of people tend to confuse the two and think that that’s how you build it. When that’s not the case. So during the recruiting process, what we do is the goal is to eliminate as many people as possible, and we make it harder to sell to make it through, right. And the reason the thought process behind that process is the fact that you’re hiring for salespeople, you’re not hiring for a marketing person, you’re not hiring for an admin, you’re not hiring for any other role. But a salesperson. salesperson is the face of the company and is the person that’s going to go out and make stuff happen and deal with rejection. I don’t want to find out once I’ve already hired you that you can pick up the phone I don’t want to find out after I’ve hired you that you have a problem with rejection, or that you get emotionally involved in you don’t know how to build rapport with people because you’re emotionally involved. I want to find out that out during the interview. So during the interview process, we get people emotionally involved we find out if they able to build rapport or not. We ask the tough questions and we give them rejections and and we see how do you handle because if you handle it with me, if you handle it with a completed total jerk Interviewer That has nothing to give you. I assume that what you’re doing with me, that’s what you’re doing with my prospect. Because when when when you’re meeting with my prospect, are they like warm and fuzzy people that welcome you with open arms? No, a lot of times they have no time. They’re jerks. They’re very close, right? close minded about your solution, your service, you have to go and then and warm them up and ask the right questions. I want to see that in the interview not so much after the fact. So that’s the thought process of the whole self selection process.
Aaron Spatz 30:39
Wow. Well, you mentioned something a little bit ago about there. There can be something internally that holds people back from being able to be effective sales. So like, what what have you seen that that to be most common amongst people that they’ve, they’re likable, they’re able to, like, they’re fairly confident, but there’s still something there that’s holding them back from being successful? What have you found that to be?
Brisa Renteria 31:06
So there’s a thing. You know, most companies hire people because they are likable, right? They say, Oh, my gosh, this person, everybody loves them, they’re going to go out and they’re going to knock on doors and make stuff happen. But what we found is that people that are extremely likable, they have a hard time closing for business, okay? And they have a hard time closing for business because I’m likeable. And I want you to like me, but I want you to like me so bad, that I’m not willing to ask the tough questions. Tough question being when you buy from me. So although they’re great at getting in the door and building rapport, a lot of times they struggle with asking, Will you buy from me asking the tough questions that sometimes they need to ask to make someone think differently. And it’s very hard to overcome, wanting to be liked. Because essentially, that’s what we’ve all been taught. Right? Right. Brain Cells, nothing happens until they like you. But so over time, it’s became a crutch, right? To where you’re you want to be so like that. But at the at the end of it, it stops you from asking, Will you buy from me? Because think about what is you asking, Will you buy from me do? It creates pressure for you? It creates pressure for the prospect? It’s a tough question, right? So someone that’s wants to be liked. That’s very likeable. People are likable they want to be liked, which is why they’re so likable, right? They have a hard time asking that because if I ask you, will you buy from me? That’s a tough question. And you might not necessarily be ready. So if you’re not ready, I may stop you from liking me because I feel like I’m being pushy. So there’s a fine line between being liked and being respected. So that’s one of one of the things that we often see, we often see people not being able to talk about money. Okay, you’re in sales, right? You have to be able to talk about money. And one of the ways that we test that is we start talking about their own money. Because if they’re able to talk about their own money, then when it comes down to talking with the prospect about their money, we know that they’ll at least be comfortable enough to ask the question of what’s your budget, a lot of people don’t ask that, right, they follow every single step of the process, except the budget part, they completely overlook it. And they say, I don’t need to ask about that, because they liked me. And then at the end of it all, that’s where it bites them, right? Because they’re either too expensive, or they’re not willing to make the investment or whatever it might be.
Aaron Spatz 33:52
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, because there’s a value trade there, there’s a there’s a VAT the value that the person receives us has to exceed the monetary payment that they’re making for that for that product or service. And so unless they’re able to connect that dot there, they’re not going to get there like they’re they’re not gonna want to cross that bridge and so it’s on you to be able to deliver and demonstrate the value add to their to their organization, so they understand Oh, wow, by receiving this product or service that’s going to help me solve problem x. And yeah, okay, the monetary exchange is this amount in my opinion, that’s a great deal like this is gonna help you know unlock me or get me unstuck in this situation. deal but then there’s other folks that are maybe are not as convinced and so there’s maybe a little bit more of a and this is where you unit you and I might actually disagree on this. I don’t like to spend time trying to convince somebody right I will I will lay it out there and should like show them what what the pain you address the pain points, right but if if they’re if they’re a hard No, I got too many other things to do. Like, I’ll just go talk to somebody else I love. Like, what she what? What’s been your approach with that like so like how much I hate to use this word but like how much are you like pushing? Or how much are you engaging with that before you you realize, you know what like this, this really isn’t a good fit like this actually isn’t a good match for either one of us, I’m just gonna move on and wish them you know, wish them the very best.
Brisa Renteria 35:28
I’m of the same mentality. Okay? Um, it’s, uh, I’m convinced that you can convince anyone to do anything, right? They have to be the ones that realize it. Even date, it’s, it’s their investment. It’s it’s their problem that they’re hoping to solve. I can’t, I can’t want to solve a problem for them, right? I can’t want it more than they want it. I’m so I’m of the same mentality. I’ve I’ve met a lot of people that have came to me and they’re bleeding. And they’re saying, Oh, my gosh, make the bleeding stop, make it stop. Those people are tend to be the people that will make changes, right? They’ll move forward and make changes because they’ve won, they realize that they’re bleeding, too. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it stop. Then I’ve also met people that are bleeding, and they say, Oh, look, I’m bleeding. But it doesn’t matter what solution I have, right? Unless they’re willing to do something about it. I can sit here and I can jump up and down to the dog and pony show and tell you walk and fix the bleeding. But unless it’s a big deal that you nothing’s gonna happen, right? So a lot of my sales calls. And just a lot of what we taught in the sales training spaces, when you can make anyone do anything, they have to want it more than you want it. And then to you know, you you have to understand why they would want to do something. I’ve met a lot of people that are bleeding, but they’re okay, bleeding. They’re used to the bleeding. They’ve learned to live with the bleeding. I can’t do anything for those people. Right, right. I’m more interested on the ones that say I’m bleeding and I can’t continue bleeding because that’s gonna affect other things. So I’m of the same mentality. Yeah.
Aaron Spatz 37:18
It is crazy, though. Right? When when it’s like, Hey, I’m bleeding. I got this major problem. Alright, let’s help. No, no. Okay, very well, you know, hopefully you don’t bleed out. So yeah, the is it? What’s the journey been like for you then? So that you started looks like you started back in September? So what’s it been like starting this in, in a pandemic, obviously, but what’s it been like for you just getting getting through the first five, six months of this? Like, what’s that? What’s it been like for you?
Brisa Renteria 37:50
You know, it’s been. It’s, it’s been, I’m blessed to have started at this time. And I’m blessed. Because when, when you start something in the middle of a pandemic, and while the economy’s down the drain, and everything’s like gloomy and dark, and nothing’s happening, there’s no word for you to go with, but up. So I’ve been blessed to have started at this time. You know, I spent a lot of time in the sales, training and consulting space, had a chance to build, you know, a brand around myself, I built a network had clients, happy clients. So as soon as I said, I’m open for business, I’ve gone out on my own. I was able to capture business from the network that I built over the years in past clients that I’ve had people that have helped in the past. And they’ve said, Oh, my gosh, help us because this is happening. So it’s been an easy transition for me because I had already built that. So I’m thankful and blessed that that’s happened. It makes it easier to go on through life and keep going, knowing that, you know, you have something in the background. The challenging thing for me, has been, I had a baby in June. And then I started this in September. Why I have two babies a few months apart from each other. And it’s really the part that has kicked my butt the most it’s been just man managing the two, which there’s no way you can manage baby because she’s gonna do whatever she wants. But, you know, when this whole pandemic started, we decided we were going to do our part and stay home. Plus we had a newborn when things just really got really bad. So we’ve been at home. We don’t go out no one comes in. I’ve gotten my vaccine since then. So I’m like excited to go out there in the world. But but the most challenging part About just COVID in the business and all has been doing both at the same time, she doesn’t go to daycare she said home so my husband and I are having to baby sit in between calls or take the day off for me just to be a mom. So that’s, that’s really been the challenging part is doing life and work at the same time.
Aaron Spatz 40:21
Wow. Yeah, that’s a huge, that’s a huge challenge for sure. And some hats off to you for, for continuing to go after it. Because that’s a big, that’s a big responsibility. It’s a big thing. And it has to try to juggle especially in the current environment, right. So what a total like total sidebar here, but like, what was it? Like? What was the was the labor and delivery process? Like any hospital during the COVID? time because I I’ve not been inside of a medical facility? And probably I don’t know, maybe going on 18 months or something now. So
Brisa Renteria 40:50
my goodness, you’re lucky. Yeah. It was so June. So June it, that’s when it had gotten kind of bad. So they had implemented masks while you’re in the live delivery room. Wow. So my husband had to have a mask at all times, the whole time. Even when he’s sleeping. He has to have a mask on. I know, it’s weird. It’s not weird, I understand it. But he’s sleeping in the woods. Right? He had to have a mask on at all times. For me, I had to have a mask on when I came in. But I didn’t have to have it on at all times. Okay. Since then, I had a friend that had a baby last month. And now the mom has to have it on the whole time. Which can you imagine pushing, going through the whole epidural in like screaming your lungs out, and you have to have your mask on? Like I understand it, I understand it. COVID is killing a lot of people, right? I understand it. But it just sucks to you know, have to have that on the whole time. But again, it saves lives. So I understand it, but the whole labor part just it just adds another element to the pain that you’re having to enter
Aaron Spatz 42:13
for sure. No, I just I couldn’t imagine that. Because, you know, I’ve I’ve had three kids been in hospital three times. And this is all pre COVID stuff. So and I and I just remember the just some unique challenges of going through that process. Right? I’ve been been through that now, more than once. So but then to, to, to add the whole COVID thing on top that I didn’t even know if they’re gonna let dad in the room to just at the rate that at the rate of craziness that we’ve been on. I was just I was just genuine that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about other than I was just genuinely curious.
Brisa Renteria 42:46
Yeah, I get it, they test you. So they taste they test mom, like three days before you go into labor, we got induced. So they tested me three days before I went into labor. And if you would have tested positive that can be in the room. So that was in June. Now that may have changed it. I’m not sure but yeah, it’s definitely different. And her being our first just kind of set the tone for sure.
Aaron Spatz 43:14
Well in that in that in that and that’s a unique as well, right. So when it when it’s your first every everything is very unique. And so, but this will give you something really interesting to measure off of. So if you decide to have more kids in the future, like wow, I remember back or back when we did this and during this time, so that’s crazy. Well, no, I just appreciate you sharing your story appreciate you sharing, sharing some of things that we talked about it was it was kind of wanting to circle back and more or less start to kind of close our time out here was I just wanted to kind of understand, you know, what are the things that you would encourage other folks to do if they’re wanting to start their own business? Right? If they if they are considering they’re in a job that they’re like, Man, I really want to go do something on my own? What have been some things that you would that you would say has helped you and what what advice would you have for those people?
Brisa Renteria 44:04
Yeah, so I would advise to start networking now. If you’re not period whether you’re gonna go out on your own or not start networking, I tell my husband network he’s in the he works that he’s in public accounting, and I tell the guy you you need to network because it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, I’ve been able to be in the situation where I’m at because of my network because my past clients go out and network meet people see how you can help one to figure out is there a need, right? What problem are you solving? And then three, just do it. And I know that’s easy for me to say but I can tell you life is gonna suck at first on the first and the 15th of the month license gonna suck really bad. But you having a network and you’re selling something that people want and they need, it’s going to make such a difference. It’s just doing it there’s never gonna be a perfect time I waited around waiting for the perfect time. The perfect time for me was pandemic and I just had a kid. So there’s no perfect time. It’s just go out there sell it, nothing happens until you sell something up, take a course on selling. And if you’ve been in sales already, and you’ve been building a network and you’ve been itching to go start your own thing, do it now, there’s no better time now than while everything’s looking bad. Because there’s nowhere for you to go but up. Well, and
Aaron Spatz 45:29
there’s one thing you said that I want, make sure we don’t glaze over because you said it really quick. And I want to make sure that we that I’d like to hammer this this home, just to re emphasize in terms of going out and just doing it. The in selling it you had said. And I think it’s important that people understand. If you have something that’s a value to the marketplace, and you and you want to make an impact. Like there there is a way before you make that leap that you can kind of prove you know, proof of concept, like make sure that it’s something that you you could sell like, Is it is it a viable option for you to sell one or two of what of your product or services with while having your job just to make sure that like, it is something you can sell kind of give you some practice, right as some of the sales, sales things that you’ve that you’ve talked about. So like gives you that confidence and understand like, okay, yeah, there, there is a demand here, there. My Network is responding well to this. And, you know, all these indicators are showing me that this is this is the right path to go on. I’ve got there is a demand for this. And then okay, boom, let’s go do it. Hmm. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I agree. Well, what’s what’s the best way that people can get in touch with you? How, how can people learn more about you and about improve growth?
Brisa Renteria 46:44
Um, my, our website has a lot of information on there. So it’s improved dash growth, calm, social media links, and everything else are on the website. And then for emails, my email is but he said improve growth calm.
Aaron Spatz 47:02
That’s pretty easy here. I’ll throw it up here real quick. It’s right. You got it. Perfect. Well, Bruce, I just want to thank you. Thank you so much for spending so much time with me this morning and for sharing a little bit about your journey. This has been a great time.
Brisa Renteria 47:16
I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Aaron, for having me.
Aaron Spatz 47:23
Thanks for listening to America’s entrepreneur. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review or comment on your preferred social media platform. share it out with friends, family, coworkers, others in your network. And of course, you can write me directly at Erin at Bold media.us That’s a Ron at Bold media.us Till next time