Episode 332: Building Authentic Relationships Through Continuous Learning

Intro

0:00:18 – (Bob Woods): Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests teach their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. This episode of the Making Sales Social podcast is brought to you by Social Sales Link, the company that helps you start more trust-based conversations without being salesy through the power of LinkedIn and AI. Start your journey for free by joining our resource library. Welcome to the show.

0:01:21 – (Brynne Tillman): Welcome back to Making Sales Social. I’m really excited for this guest. Number one, I’ve been working with his team and I’m having so much fun, but I also think he’s amazing. So Damon Lumbe is a two-time best-selling author, the host of the Learn it All podcast, and CEO of Learn it, a live learning platform that has upskilled over 2 million people. Drawing from his prior baseball career, Damon brings an athletic or an athlete’s perspective.

0:01:53 – (Brynne Tillman): Also athletic, why not an athlete’s perspective on leadership? Through his journey, he has gained invaluable insights into what helps organizations grow, how great leaders learn, and why learn at all. Companies outpace their competitors every time. Damon, welcome to the show.

0:02:14 – (Damon Lembi): Bryn, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

0:02:17 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m excited, too. And before I even ask my the first question that I ask everyone, which is what is making sales social and what that means to you, I want to ask about your baseball, so I’m taking a little detour. Tell me a little bit about your baseball background because that’s very interesting.

0:02:37 – (Damon Lembi): Well, great. Thank you for asking because I know you have a kid at Rutgers playing sports, right?

0:02:42 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, he’s on the crew.

0:02:43 – (Damon Lembi): That’s great. So, my baseball background is growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was a big sports guy and played all the regular sports, baseball, football, and basketball, and around high school, I realized that if I was going to make it anywhere, it would be in baseball. So I worked really hard. Fast forward, to my senior year, I was a high school all-American, and I, at that point, had an opportunity to either sign with the Atlanta Braves in the minor leagues or go to college.

0:03:11 – (Damon Lembi): And I went for the full scholarship to Pepperdine University. Played. Played there, got hurt, actually transferred out, went to Arizona State, played at Arizona State, and hit a home run in the College World Series. My wife says I’m so tired of hearing your glory day stories. But it was fun. And, you know, Bryn, I really thought that I was gonna be a major league baseball player. And unfortunately, things don’t always turn out the way you want them to turn out.

0:03:39 – (Damon Lembi): And at 22 years old, my baseball career came to an end, and I struggled a little bit with or a lot with my identity. Right. I was a baseball player, and I wasn’t sure if any of my skills transitioned over to the. To the real world, to the business world. And what I’ve learned over my past 29-year career is they really have, and I’m sure we’ll get into that more today.

0:04:04 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s amazing.

0:04:05 – (Damon Lembi): Yeah.

0:04:05 – (Brynne Tillman): I love. I love that story. I’m sorry that you didn’t fulfill that dream, but you fulfilled many others. I can tell just by your career path. Just FYI, our oldest went to ASu, so lots of connections.

0:04:20 – (Damon Lembi): You can’t beat ASU. It’s the best.

0:04:22 – (Brynne Tillman): It’s the best. Yeah. He really had a wonderful experience. So I’m going to go back to the first question I’m supposed to ask you, which is, what does making sales social mean to you?

0:04:33 – (Damon Lembi): No problem with throwing me a curveball there, by the way. So making social, to me, it’s. To me, it’s about humanizing the sales process, you know, moving away from being of a transactional mindset and really building authentic relationships. And I think that that’s really important these days on social media. You know, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, and what I really try to do is I try to add, with my posts and contributions, I try to add value over self-promotion, you know, and I want to be authentic, and it’s really helped me build genuine relationships. So really, that’s what making sales social means to me.

0:05:12 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that, and I do. I think that an authentic relationship is key. Otherwise, it’s just making sales spam.

0:05:20 – (Damon Lembi): I agree, but I’m not opposed. I’m not opposed to AI, and I’m a big fan of AI, I think there are a lot of efficiencies and things you can do and leverage, and you’ve been incredible to work with for our team. And so it’s just that you got to have that human touch in there today more than ever because there’s so much garbage out there when it comes to sales and everything.

0:05:40 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, I love that. And, yeah, I’m obsessed with AI, but I’m obsessed with AI and your authentic voice. So those two together. So that’s great. Thank you. Yeah. I’m really excited to hear this kind of transition from athlete to CEO of Learn It. I’d love to hear a little bit about how you got started and why you picked, like, this upskilling world.

0:06:05 – (Damon Lembi): So, when I got done with baseball, and as I said, I didn’t know if my skills were transferable, but I was really fortunate. I came from a family. My dad, Walt, was a big-time entrepreneur, and we had a big real estate company. We had a hotel chain. We had all this stuff, even a Chinese restaurant. But I was too intimidated to go work at the big real estate company. And so he was in the mid-nineties, starting a company called Learn It, a computer training school.

0:06:34 – (Damon Lembi): And he does what a lot of great entrepreneurs do. He wanted to digitize his real estate portfolio, so he went and took a class somewhere. It was all day long. It was boring. And my dad, Walt Lembe, said, hey, there’s got to be a better way to do this. And that’s what he did. He came up with this idea for Learn It, where we had short, impactful classes that weren’t sterile and you weren’t falling asleep in.

0:06:58 – (Damon Lembi): And it just happened to coincide with me getting into the workforce. So I started there as a receptionist because I wanted to prove to people, Bryn, as well as, like, I wasn’t, you know, my daddy put me in as a CEO or anything, right? So I rolled up my sleeves, and it was interesting because at first, I was used to, you know, sports and everybody working really hard, and I didn’t see the same work ethic in the business world as I did in the sports world.

0:07:24 – (Damon Lembi): And so I just kind of went all in, and I answered phones. I learned sales. I even taught classes. And about five years into it, the CEO wasn’t working out. I threw my hat in the ring. My dad’s like, hey, cool, let’s give it a shot. And I’ve been doing it ever since. So 2025 will be our 30th year at Learn It. And. And so, yeah, it’s been an incredible, incredible journey, and not one I ever expected, but something I’ve really enjoyed over the years.

0:07:55 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. And just FYI, my husband’s name is Walt, so I just keep finding these.

0:08:00 – (Damon Lembi): I love it. And I told you I got a three-year-old named Wally.

0:08:05 – (Brynne Tillman): I know. I love it. I love it. I love it. Awesome. So I think that’s amazing. And you talked a little bit about the work ethic of playing college sports. Talk a little bit more, go a little deeper into how you took that approach, and how you brought that into the learn-it leadership.

0:08:27 – (Damon Lembi): So I think. I don’t really think there’s any replacement for what I like to call an athletic education. And you don’t have to play college sports like I did. You could have played high school. So for all you parents out there, please get your kids involved in sports. Get them away from the cell phones and all that, and get them out there playing sports. Bryn, I know that you have a kid at Rutgers playing sports. It’s awesome.

0:08:51 – (Damon Lembi): And so what sports has really taught me is the work ethic. You know, being competitive, I think it’s important to want to win, you know, also having integrity. There’s a lot of discipline when it comes to sports. You know, you have to show up on time. You have. And also, of course, you have to collaborate and work on a team. So those are all these skills that I didn’t realize that I learned playing not only with other teammates, but the one thing that’s kind of unique that I talk about in my book is I played for three hall of Fame baseball coaches at Pepperdine a stop and junior college and at Arizona State. So I had all these tremendous leaders who taught me about setting up a vision and putting your team first. And so there’s just so much that I learned there, along with what I learned from my dad, of course, that I’ve kind of done my best to try to implement it, learn it over the years.

0:09:43 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. And I do. I completely agree that, well, from my perspective, sales, the best salespeople are athletes. Right. And 100%, you hit a few things on here that I really love, which is there’s a work ethic, for sure. Like, you know, my son on crew is up at 530 every single morning to get on the water in the freezing cold, cold, and whatever it is. Right. And you just do it. And the other thing that you said and that I love, and I’m just kind of bringing it full circle.

0:10:17 – (Brynne Tillman): You’re competitive as an individual, which is great. You’re always trying to beat your own time, your own record, whatever that is. But you also have to play nice as a team. And so in an organization, when you have these team players that are also trying to get their best, you’re going to win every single time. So that’s just kind of recapping what you said because I really landed. I think that’s important.

0:10:45 – (Damon Lembi): One other thing I want to add to it that I think you get out of sports is you get learning agility, right? Because you try things, you fail, you get up, you try, and you improve. And, yeah, I think to piggyback on what you said, I think the best salespeople are ex-athletes. If you look at the learn it team right now, we have eight sales reps. Six of them were Division One athletes. Women’s volleyball, baseball, soccer.

0:11:12 – (Damon Lembi): So I think that there’s a lot of. There’s a lot to it.

0:11:17 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I love that. And they also play by the rules, but they’re innovative, so there’s that, too. You don’t get as many rogue salespeople when you’ve had someone who works on a team. So, yeah, there’s so many bonuses and all of that, which I think are amazing, you know, to that athletes are learners, right? Like, they are constantly learning, how can I do this better? What can I do next? So talk about. I mean, and learn. It is all about upskilling and having your team continue, your employee’s team, right? Continually improve and learn.

0:11:58 – (Brynne Tillman): Talk about the impact that has on the employees and the success of the company as a whole. When that’s the mindset, that continuous learning mindset.

0:12:11 – (Damon Lembi): I think it’s table stakes these days. If you look at the world out there, the average skill lifespan of a skill is about six months. So with that, that means that you have to have a team, you have to have a culture, a continuous learning culture. People need to learn how to adapt, and they have to be flexible. If you get stuck in this mindset of, this is how we’ve always done it, this is how we’re going to continue to do it. I like to call know-it-alls, you’re going to get stomped on, for lack of a better term.

0:12:40 – (Damon Lembi): So that’s kind of like what we try to do at Learn It is we want to help close that skill gap. But really, again, more importantly, going back to learning agility, we want to help companies build that muscle and become, I like to call a learn-it-all culture. You know, a culture where people are constantly learning, they’re not afraid, Bryn, to get out of their comfort zone, because change is tough, and learning is not easy either. Right. So it’s trying things, you know, failing, but working together as a team and continuously wanting to evolve instead of being stuck in your place. Because I’ll just reiterate it again.

0:13:16 – (Damon Lembi): If you’re stuck in your ways and you think you have it all figured out, especially as a sales leader, you’re done. You’re going to get passed up and you’re going to lose great talent, because especially these younger generations, they demand the opportunity for learning and growth.

0:13:32 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, that’s absolutely critical. And even if you’re not learning something specific to your job. So this is a mistake I saw in a company I worked for where all the continuing education was around product. It was around, like, you know, in the regulations in some cases, too, right? And so you’d be like, oh, I’ve got to take this. But if you could mix in things like great communication skills, some soft skills, right, that can make me a better team player or better collaborative worker, or even just how to write a better email that communicates things better, all of a sudden I feel fed as a human being, not just as a robot here at the organization, where I just have to learn this stuff.

0:14:28 – (Brynne Tillman): So I find that when I’m fed soft skills, I think I work better as a team player. And a lot of employers miss that. A lot of employers miss how important those are. Talk just to me a little bit, and really this kind of falls into your book, the Learn it All leader. Talk to me about how important those soft skills are and the mindset, the tools, and the traits that are designed to get leaders thinking differently about challenges and opportunities that they face.

0:15:05 – (Damon Lembi): Trey, I want to take it even one step further. Not only should you not be just making your team focus on product, give them the opportunity to learn other things, you know, give them. Give them the opportunity to learn things that aren’t even related directly to their job because it helps with that, again, that learning agility. But going back to your question, soft skills are absolutely critical. And I actually told you beforehand, I was listening to your interview with Christy, Christy Jones talk about the importance of soft skills, uh, for sales leaders.

0:15:38 – (Damon Lembi): And, it’s critical that, that leaders, whether you’re in sales or accounting, whatever, you need to have emotional intelligence, you need to have self-awareness, and a lot of people don’t have that. And especially now, where a lot of this, uh, a lot of the work’s going to be automated through AI. And that’s what’s kind of great about learn it. Like our, you know, we still do excel training, which, which is pretty popular, but the skills like adaptability, creative thinking, emotional intelligence, that’s really where I think everybody, from individual contributors to senior leaders, really need to focus on. And I hate the term soft skills because they’re not soft skills. They’re, in my opinion, they’re critical skills. They’re critical for moving forward in the future. So I recommend, if you’re out there, if you’re a leader or you’re an individual contributor, carve out time, whether hopefully, your company allows you or whatever, but learn these skills, whether it’s through a place like learnit or on the job or just even on YouTube, but you have to continuously get better at those so-called soft skills.

0:16:47 – (Brynne Tillman): I love the creative thinking side.

0:16:49 – (Damon Lembi): Right.

0:16:50 – (Brynne Tillman): The best innovation to your business is gonna come from your people. And so even though you are okay not relating to your business, just feeding them all of this great knowledge is going to help the business. There is an ROI on this for sure. So even if you don’t have a direct line item to the money, it definitely brings an enormous amount of value. And you can talk to this? I can’t, but my gut tells me it reduces turnover, that you’ve got happier employees, so they’re more productive. I’ll let you finish that thought because I’m sure it has to be part of the equation.

0:17:40 – (Damon Lembi): Absolutely. And one of the things I want to piggyback on is it comes back to curiosity. And I think curiosity is one of the main traits out there that great leaders have. And my definition of leaders, we’re all leaders in our own sense, but especially if you’re in sales, you have to be curious. You know, you have to be a good listener, and you have to ask great questions. And when I was talking about learning things that aren’t even job-related, it. It just helps you be more curious over time. And that’s so important.

0:18:13 – (Damon Lembi): And yes, I would say we have a lot of customers who are kind of reactive and they’ll contact us, Brent. And they’ll be like, hey, you know, we scored really low on our culture amp scores, right? Where. And I. The main thing that people say is that we’re not offering them enough growth opportunities, not enough learning opportunities. And studies have shown, that I don’t know the exact stats, but if you allow your team, if you invest in your team, it will reduce attrition, and it will help retention.

0:18:41 – (Damon Lembi): And what you’ll also see out there is organizations of all size that ideas are bubbling up from everywhere, right? So it’s not just the senior leaders coming up with ideas. If you provide learning opportunities and people are motivated and they feel like that they’re cared for and invested in, then they’re going to come up with ideas, right? They’re going to come up with ideas, they’re going to present them to you, and it’s going back to team sports.

0:19:07 – (Damon Lembi): You’re much more likely to win if everybody’s pushing in the same direction and not working in silos.

0:19:14 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, that’s just such a great place to kind of start to bring this in. But I love that. Right? You’re all going in the right direction together. That’s fabulous. So what questions should I have asked you that I didn’t?

0:19:32 – (Damon Lembi): I would say, what advice do you have for your younger self?

0:19:37 – (Brynne Tillman): Okay, so what advice do you have for your younger self?

0:19:42 – (Damon Lembi): Bren, great question. The advice. The advice that, advice that I’d have for my younger self and for all you listeners out there is to get out of your comfort zone and stop worrying about what other people think. Whether it was in baseball or earlier on in my business career, I was too worried to fail. I was worried that people would laugh at me or I’d embarrass myself getting a, giving a speech or being on a podcast, or whatever.

0:20:11 – (Damon Lembi): And after a while, I just like, screw it. Who cares, right? You know, and I think it’s important to get out of your comfort zone. If you find yourself too comfortable, find ways to get out of it, stick your neck out there, and try. And if you fail, so what, you know, I would say people need to do a better job, myself included, of patting yourself on the back and that you actually went out there and tried because a lot of people don’t try.

0:20:36 – (Damon Lembi): And so I’ll finish that by saying, I found that you hear no a lot less than you’d actually think you would. And you don’t know unless you actually go out there and try. So get out there, and try. Don’t worry about failing. And you’ll put yourself ahead of the others who are afraid to fail.

0:20:55 – (Brynne Tillman): So now I want to ask, and I’m quickly looking this up. So I sound smart, but so you are smart. Batting average is over 350. You’re a Hall of Famer, right?

0:21:09 – (Damon Lembi): Absolutely. And you’re making probably 15 million a year.

0:21:13 – (Brynne Tillman): Okay, so 350 means you’re hitting at 35%. Just keep that in mind. I wanted to know what that number was, right? So think. So if, if a baseball player wanted to, you know, came in going, I’m going to win every single one of these, they’re going to fail because it’s the wrong expectation. So bringing that back to, if you’re hitting 350, you’re a hall of famer. That’s 35% as a salesperson. If you’re hitting 35%, you’re a hall of famer. I just thought I’d bring that back.

0:21:47 – (Damon Lembi): And here’s one of the things that I like, and I’m a big fan of Jeb lunt, Mike Weinberg, all these guys, and they talk about a closing win rate of being around 25, 30%. And that’s because you’re out there generating a lot of opportunities, right? And you’re out there generating a lot of opportunities because you’re prospecting and you’re trying and you’re going to get a lot of doors shut on you. Just like when I was a baseball player, I’d go up.

0:22:13 – (Damon Lembi): Sometimes I’d strike out three times in a game. I had to get back up there and maybe get a hit to win the game. And that’s, again, goes back to the resilience and grit that sports helps you with. Um, and hopefully you take those failures. They’re not failures. I don’t think anything’s a failure unless you quit. You know, as long as you keep getting back up there and you’re persistent and trying, just keep going for it.

0:22:35 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. Oh, this was so much fun. Absolutely love chatting with you. And I thank you so much for your insights. If people like it, okay, it’s time for me to learn it. Where do they go?

0:22:51 – (Damon Lembi): Where do they go? Well, first of all, please check out our podcast. Can’t wait to have Bren on. It’s called the Learn It All podcast. And also find me on LinkedIn. Amen. Lembi on LinkedIn. And of course, our website is learnit.com dot. And if you see something on the Learn It website and you want to take a class on emotional intelligence or active listening or whatever, send me a message in LinkedIn and I’ll send you a code to a free class.

0:23:14 – (Brynne Tillman): Wow, that’s a big win. I’ll be sending you that message.

0:23:18 – (Damon Lembi): You got it.

0:23:20 – (Brynne Tillman): Awesome. Thank you so much. Some great mic-drop moments here. I really, really enjoyed today, and I know our listeners did, too. So for all of our listeners, when you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social.

Outro:

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