Season 3, Episode 10: Colleen Stanley
Be the Mentor Who Mattered: Lessons in Leadership and Connection
In this inspiring episode of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers, host Jack Hubbard welcomes back best-selling author and emotional intelligence expert Colleen Stanley for her third appearance, this time to discuss her new book, Be the Mentor Who Mattered.
Colleen shares the heartfelt story behind her “passion project” and explores how small, authentic moments of connection, what she calls “mentor moments,” can change the trajectory of a life or career. From her Iowa farm roots to building a successful sales leadership company, Colleen reveals how gratitude, presence, and emotional intelligence shape true mentorship.
Together, Jack and Colleen reflect on the impact of informal mentors, the challenges of leadership in the post-COVID, Zoom-heavy world, and how to reignite genuine human connection in business and beyond. They also touch on AI’s role in mentorship, the importance of “showing up and trying,” and why the next “greatest generation” may be those who simply choose to lift others up.
View Transcript
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Jack Hubbard: All right, 3, 2, 1. Well, I've had Colleen Stanley on my show 3 times. She is the winner of the, the trifecta here. And her first two books are… were fascinating and wonderful books.
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Jack Hubbard: This one that she's got out just recently, Be the Mentor Who Mattered, is phenomenal, and it's a very, very different approach. Colleen Stanley, so great to have you on the show today.
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Colleen Stanley: Oh, Jack, great to reconnect, and thank you for supporting this book. It's really been a passion project for me.
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Jack Hubbard: You know, that's a great way to look at it. We're going to talk about the book, and it is a passion project, but I also want to dive into your company to kind of start out with and give a little context.
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Jack Hubbard: Because you do have a sales company, Sales Leadership Inc. You've been doing this in your own company for 24 years, and more, and other
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Jack Hubbard: companies. Talk about your firm, and what you do, and who you help.
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Colleen Stanley: So, our firm is a sales development firm, however, Jack, over the years, I've narrowed my focus. And so today, we primarily work in two, what I call two lanes. We teach emotional intelligence.
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Colleen Stanley: to sales organizations and sales leaders, and then we also provide sales management training, and most of that is centered around training and coaching skills. So, somewhat along the mentoring path. And who knows where this next book will take me?
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Jack Hubbard: It'll be, it'll be fascinating. I'm curious, as we're very close to 2026 here, as we, as we're on the show today, you are out speaking, you're writing, you're seeing sales all the time.
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Jack Hubbard: What are you seeing in sales, Colleen, in 25 and then into 26? What's happening in the industry?
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Colleen Stanley: Well, I think everyone would agree it is harder to get that first meeting. And, Jack, you and I have been in the business a long time.
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Colleen Stanley: Getting the first meeting or the first conversation secured has always been the hardest part. However, you know, you've had COVID, where a lot of people now are working remote, so… and you can still get the phone numbers and emails, but, you know, I had some organizations, and still do.
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Colleen Stanley: where part of their prospecting activity was drop-bys. Now, that doesn't sound very sophisticated, however, in that industry, it absolutely worked.
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Colleen Stanley: So I would say that first meeting has really been the one that's getting more difficult for people. The second thing I'm seeing, which I would like to see more of.
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Colleen Stanley: is I think we've got a little bit of this hangover from COVID. So, you know, everybody stayed home. Zoom is wonderful, because you and I get to have a conversation like this.
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Colleen Stanley: But in the last few engagements, I've been asking the sales managers and their team, okay, how many of you have got networking on your activity plan? How many of you belong to an association? You're on a committee.
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Colleen Stanley: And the hands aren't going up. Now, they're writing fast and furious as if I just dispense some great piece of information. So I believe what happened after COVID, some of the face-to-face, like.
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Colleen Stanley: you know, referral meetings, influence partners, all of those non-sexy activities that get you results, started going away, and so I'm encouraging people to get back. There's nothing that replaces this for building trust and rapport.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, no doubt. And aren't human beings interesting? And you… you are an expert in emotional intelligence in all kinds of ways, but… but it… we…
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Jack Hubbard: quickly hunkered down in COVID. That's 5 years ago, and look how slow we are to come back to where we were before COVID, Collie. It's fascinating.
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Colleen Stanley: It is, and it is interesting, you know, Jack, I probably realized it.
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Jack Hubbard: Eve.
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Colleen Stanley: probably a couple years ago, when all of a sudden I thought.
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Colleen Stanley: you know what? I'm not going out like I used to. And, you know, I would even see clients, I live here in Denver, Colorado.
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Colleen Stanley: it was the norm that your first meeting was in person. They were like, no, no, let's do Zoom. And that's all well and good, and for, you know, obviously it worked, but I thought, you know what, I need to be out there making those connections, networking, doing what I used to do. And so, it,
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Colleen Stanley: it was getting back to the basics of what worked before COVID and some of these bad habits that, you know, followed us out of that pandemic.
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Jack Hubbard: No doubt. Well, I mentioned emotional intelligence. You have emotional intelligence for sales success, emotional intelligence for sales leadership, and you had a third book.
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Jack Hubbard: This is an interesting book, and it's a real divergence from what you had done in the past, as we discussed. Be the mentor who mattered. It's just out. Talk about the inspiration for this book. What was in your mind that said, I gotta write this book?
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Colleen Stanley: Well, I think it came about two ways.
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Colleen Stanley: is every morning, you know, I practice what I preach with emotional intelligence. I carve out quiet time, and it is for prayer, meditation, reading something positive. And then also, I generally take my hikes here in beautiful Colorado in the morning.
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Colleen Stanley: So, I am out for this hike, Jack, and all of a sudden, it was like, this voice comes down from the heavens, and it says, be the mentor who mattered.
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Colleen Stanley: It was a book title. And I thought, where did this come from? But I knew I needed to buy the URL. So when I got home, I purchased the URL, did not do anything with it for at least 2 years. And then it just kept rolling around in my head, and part of it went.
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Colleen Stanley: back to my time and gratitude each morning was running through all the mentors I had in my life.
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Colleen Stanley: From grade school till current. And so I think it was that gratitude of thanking the people that showed up in my life to guide me. So it was this daily habit that morphed into a book.
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Jack Hubbard: I… I told you before we started recording, I wrote down on one of the early pages in the book, Accidental Mentor.
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Jack Hubbard: The story you had, and what brought it to mind, was the story you had about Iowa.
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Jack Hubbard: A farmer in Iowa, he died, and his wife and kids were left to
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Jack Hubbard: bring the crops in. Talk about that story. It's just a fabulous story.
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Colleen Stanley: So, and you know what, I should have the name off the top of my head, but they can read the book. So, I grew up in Iowa on a farm… 500-acre farm, and Jack, I would say that's where I really…
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Colleen Stanley: saw role models. Now, what is always fascinating to me about Iowa, they're not giving the big ol' lectures, they're not sitting down going, now, kids, you need to do this. They simply model the behavior.
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Colleen Stanley: So, in this particular story, this farmer was killed in an accident, they had the harvest to get in. And so, 10 combines show up, 10 grain carts, everyone came to help this family get their crops in. And that's what we call it during harvest.
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Colleen Stanley: you know, help others get their crops in. And how many people today would, number one, know that a family next door was in such dire need, and number two, give up their time to do such things? But even as a kid, way back when I was growing up, you know, harvest is that time of year that the farmers are working 18, I mean, 20 hours a day, you know, 3 months in a row to get the harvest out.
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Colleen Stanley: And my dad, when the harvest was done, if he noticed one of our neighbors didn't have their crops in.
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Colleen Stanley: he would offer to come over and help them. So this… I think this helping others was instilled early in life, without any great lecture, and without any, you know, to-do list assigned to it.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah. That seems to have changed a lot, Colleen.
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Jack Hubbard: Why?
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Jack Hubbard: This whole helping thing.
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Colleen Stanley: Well, you know, I think two things here. We've had some great benefits from technology, right? However, technology, with all its promises of efficiency, has actually made people more busy. Now, part of it is, it's like Simon Sinek said.
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Colleen Stanley: We've been handed this body of technology, and yet we weren't given guidance on how to use it. So his example was, you have a 16-year-old, you give him the keys to the car and say, go.
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Colleen Stanley: And so, for many of us, we haven't learned how to manage technology. It is literally managing us. So, we are extremely busy, we're extremely overscheduled, and when you're busy and overscheduled, you're not looking up anymore.
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Colleen Stanley: you're not looking around, who could get your help, because you're so busy just keeping up. And so I do think it gets back to… getting back to what's important in life, what's the priority, and there's many things that we can take off of our plate.
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Colleen Stanley: If we will simply slow down to look at what's on our plate and say, is this important? Is this going to make a difference in 10 years, 15 years? And you know what? Usually the answer is no.
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Jack Hubbard: And a lot of it goes back to when I was much younger, Chicken Soup for the Soul comes out. And these books were so encouraging and positive and things like that. And so, one of the things that you did with your book
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Jack Hubbard: is to kind of diverge off of sales and talk about mentorship. And the second thing that you did was you have a co-author, Leanne Seaman, and the reason I bring up all the chicken soup stuff is because she was very involved in that.
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Jack Hubbard: Talk about Leanne, and what was it like, Colleen, to work with a co-author versus writing a book by yourself?
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Colleen Stanley: So, Leanne and I, first of all, she's a terrific person. I think she's got, like, 14 books. She, worked with the Chicken Suit for the Soul series.
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Colleen Stanley: And so we've known each other through the Speaking Association, and every summer, we'd trek up to her beautiful cabin up in Red Feathers Lake, and we'd have a mastermind group of sorts, or just friendship. And so we got to know each other. So, two years ago, when I shared my vision for this book.
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Colleen Stanley: You know, we're having coffee, everybody's sitting around the table, and Leanne said.
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Colleen Stanley: You know, Colleen, I know you're gonna gather stories, but writing personal stories is very different than the business writing you've been doing. I'd love to help you.
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Colleen Stanley: I mean, there wasn't any talk of, I'm gonna do a bunch of keynotes after that, you and I can do workshops, I mean, we've never talked about that. It was simply offering the help. So I can tell you, Jack, writing the book with someone else is a little more difficult, because, see, I can sit down at my desk and just go.
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Colleen Stanley: Well, when you're working with a co-author, you're bouncing things off of them. And the good news is, you have a better product. So, I was so adamant about getting this point across, like, mentor moments. There's mentor moments! Lookit, I'm even pounding my fist right now.
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Colleen Stanley: And Leanne would come back, and she goes, Colleen, you're killing them! You've mentioned it 19,000 times in the book. And so she would come back.
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Colleen Stanley: And get it on track. She goes, I understand your passion, but when you make your point this much, you're gonna lose the point. So, yes, I would say it's a little harder, and it's also much better.
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Jack Hubbard: And it's so cool, because these chapters are short.
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Jack Hubbard: jumps back and forth between Colleen and Leanne, and one of the things I really related to in the book, it's Chapter 4, The Running Nun by Colleen. I remember in 8th grade.
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Jack Hubbard: Sister Helena would go out with the kids and play softball and baseball, and she had the long habit on.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah!
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Jack Hubbard: And she was a heck of an athlete, and it was hard to keep up with her. So, just fascinating stories. But one of the other stories that kind of pervades through the book
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Jack Hubbard: is this idea of mentor moments. Talk about mentor moments and why they're so important.
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Colleen Stanley: So, this is what Leanne had to hold me back on, because I was going to put this word on every page.
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Colleen Stanley: So, Jack, when I was researching the book, first of all, like any book.
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Colleen Stanley: you want to bring something new, or at least a new perspective to it. So I ordered in several mentor books, and they're wonderful. There's great books out there. However, I saw that most of the books either centered on formal mentoring, you know, you get assigned a mentor, check-ins, progress reports.
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Colleen Stanley: My history in life and in business was, really, I would have people show up at the right time and say the right
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Colleen Stanley: things, and so it would be called a mentor moment. So they weren't necessarily even year-long relationships. It would be one conversation that I would go, oh.
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Colleen Stanley: I can do this. And so, I'll give an example,
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Colleen Stanley: when I was a regional sales manager, and our national sales manager, Don Trandem, who gave me my first opportunity, a great mentor, he had resigned, and they were looking for a new VP of sales.
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Colleen Stanley: And so, Jeff Webb sits down beside me, we're at our catalog shoot, and, you know, he starts making some small talk, and then it turns to big talk, because he asks, why aren't you,
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Colleen Stanley: applying for this VP of Sales job. And I threw out a bunch of excuses, and he just kept nodding, kept pressing, and then I finally fessed up, and I said, I'm not ready!
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Colleen Stanley: And I'll never forget his answer.
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Colleen Stanley: Oh, we know. We'll help get you ready.
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Colleen Stanley: mentor moment. It didn't occur to me that somebody would give you a promotion or an opportunity unless you were 110% equipped. So I thought about it for a couple days.
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Colleen Stanley: came back, and I said, okay. And I applied, went through the process, and became VP of Sales. And I was a pretty darn good VP of Sales, I would… I can say that. However, that would not have happened without that one conversation.
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Colleen Stanley: That's a mentor moment.
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Jack Hubbard: Your company might not have happened as a result of that, without you taking that particular advice, and without him mentioning it to you.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: Quick story. So, I'm a junior in high school. I'm left-handed. To give you my athletic prowess, I was the high school organist at the basketball games. That was my… that was my deal. So I wasn't much of an athlete, but I love baseball.
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Jack Hubbard: Our school in 1967 had its first baseball team, so I thought, well, I'm gonna try out.
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Jack Hubbard: And the tryouts weren't going all that well, and I'm walking down the hall one day in high school, St. Ed's in Elgin, and I said to my friend Mark Nolan, I'm not gonna make it, I'm sure I'm gonna get cut, this isn't worth it. And a guy, I feel this grab on the back of my neck, and I whipped around, and it's Coach Ron Kalina.
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Jack Hubbard: And Kalina says, I heard what you said, Mr. Hubbard. You and I are going to work together every morning, and you are going to make this team. And I believe, I certainly would not have made the team without Ron's help. He would throw balls to me and skip them in, and so I could scoop them. But I…
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Jack Hubbard: Colleen, it's not just the baseball team, like you with sales management. I think this shaped my life. I think this gave me this can-do.
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Jack Hubbard: moment that really made a difference, and that's what the book talks about, and I'm really glad you did the distinction between the formal mentor and, I'll call it the accidental mentor, or you call it mentor, the moments that matter. But here's another thing.
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Jack Hubbard: You wrote, and I'm going to read this quote, because it's just fabulous. Canadian farmer Nelson Henderson, here's the quote.
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Jack Hubbard: The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Jack Hubbard: So, what you're talking about there is… is what, Colleen? It's the… that future that you don't know, that you may never even see.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah.
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Colleen Stanley: And, you know, I would say one of those people was, to your point, a high school teacher, so…
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Colleen Stanley: I grew up in this small farming community, population 900, so my joke, Jack, is everybody… I did it every day by the time I was a senior. And but I had… we had a teacher move in town, Jan Gruber. So she was the Spanish teacher, husband was a football coach, you know, so…
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Colleen Stanley: Lots of enthusiasm about this young couple moving in. She decides to start a dance team.
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Colleen Stanley: Drill team.
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Colleen Stanley: Now, None of us had dance lessons,
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Colleen Stanley: You know, 1, 2, 3, 4. This woman, through fun, rigor, discipline, practice, put together an award-winning drill team. And I still remember, and I talk about it in the book, where we went to our first competition.
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Colleen Stanley: So we walk into the gym, and it's… it's like the… it's like a scene out of the movie Hoosiers, remember? You're looking at this gym, and it's like, oh my god! And then I remember seeing this, team, I… I can't remember the name of the school.
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Colleen Stanley: But they had, like, 24 girls. We barely scraped together 16, right? They walk in, and they all just look very elegant, and…
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Colleen Stanley: I'm looking at them thinking, I got a bunch of blue eyeshadow on, they don't have it, I'm getting rid of this stuff, right? And so, but we showed up, and I mean, we danced our hearts out. So third place comes, second place comes, and we're like, well, at least we showed up, because that was Jan's big mantra. Show up and try. Show up and try, do your best.
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Colleen Stanley: We not only came away with first place, we came away with showmanship.
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Colleen Stanley: And I believe on that day, a seed was planted, and two of them were…
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Colleen Stanley: You don't have to be big to win. I believe that's why I joined Varsity. You know, they were a startup that blew up. And the second is, show up and try. Sometimes you'll discover a talent you didn't know you had. And so I… it makes me think that that showing up and trying
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Colleen Stanley: is what allowed me to take a lot of the risk in my life that ended up having really good outcomes. But it started with that seed being planted.
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Jack Hubbard: That's an interesting concept showing up. So, in 2019, we all showed up. We got in our cars, those of us that worked in an office, and we drove to the office. And during that day, young people, middle-aged people, veterans, would show up, and they would talk to each other at the water.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: So, now 2020 hits, the pandemic hits, and now we're still hunkered down at home in some cases.
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Jack Hubbard: I'm curious about how mentorship is affected by people that are trying to do this via Zoom versus at the water cooler.
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Colleen Stanley: You know, I think there… this is a place where I can speak out of both sides of my mouth, okay? So, on the one side, I do think it's being affected, because not only mentorship.
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Colleen Stanley: However, having a best friend at work, right? So, Gallup has talked for years about having a best friend at work. Well, when you went into an office, you know, you naturally sometimes would go out to lunch, you'd meet in the break room, after hours you might get together.
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Colleen Stanley: you had an environment that was creating best friends at work. Today, unless companies are highly intentional about that, we're not seeing those best friends at work, which is where I'll go to the other side of my mouth. So, when I was a VP of Sales, I eventually had 130 sales reps.
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Colleen Stanley: As a regional manager, and all the other managers were very intentional as well.
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Colleen Stanley: We would not only have a national sales meeting, we'd run summer regional sales meetings. And I think, deep down, I knew that we needed that connection halfway through the year. We didn't have a CRM platform, so I had this Excel spreadsheet. And so, one week, I'd call all my reps, and it was just a personal call.
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Colleen Stanley: The next week, it would be a business call, and I spent hours, as well, in a car doing ride-alongs and coaching. So, we were intentional about creating relationships with what was called a remote sales force. So, I think the lesson is.
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Colleen Stanley: you've got to get really intentional about it, and you know what? You can always see what it costs to bring people in for a meeting, right? The hotels, the food, the speakers. What you do not see is the invisible profit and loss statement.
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Colleen Stanley: And what doesn't hit that statement is, I made a best friend. I got mentored by a senior rep that I can do this. Oh, what I'm running into is just normal. I got some great advice.
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Colleen Stanley: How do you take that and quantify it and offset the expense of a meeting? It doesn't happen.
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Colleen Stanley: So, I believe we've got to get really intentional about creating these conversations.
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Colleen Stanley: And don't even get me started what can happen on Zoom. But if you want me to, I will.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, go ahead. Talk about Zoom. I mean, I… how do you… how do you do this via Zoom? How do you create that emotional connection?
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Colleen Stanley: Well, I think some… I think some of the companies simply need to set ground rules.
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Colleen Stanley: The leader, and this… there's a lot of things, I think, changing with leadership where I would like to see leaders modeling better behavior of being 100% present.
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Colleen Stanley: But on Zoom, you set the ground… the rules of engagement. Okay, you guys, if you don't like something, don't be sending snarky remarks back and forth on chat. Now, I think that stopped a little bit with some people getting busted with it. We don't expect you to be multitasking.
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Colleen Stanley: pay attention. And, you know, focus, as Daniel Goldman says, is becoming a very flabby muscle.
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Colleen Stanley: If you can't pay attention on a Zoom call with your colleagues, I'll guarantee you.
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Colleen Stanley: That lack of ability to focus is showing up in a meeting with clients, or prospects, because you can't recall a habit you've not developed.
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Colleen Stanley: So I think you have to set some ground rules. I also think the managers need to get better about sending out agendas, here's my expectation, you bring 3 ideas, it goes back to how do you run an effective meeting, and such. So… but the part I don't like is when people are turning off their videos, they're sending their note-takers, and that…
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Colleen Stanley: might be okay for some, but if… if you're sending a note-taker, and your presence would be valued there, I have a little bit of a problem with that.
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Colleen Stanley: No doubt about it. It's the busy button again.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, that's right. And you brought up sales because you write a lot about sales, and we talk about formal coaching, but I remember when I first started my sales training career, after I left banking, the owner of our company, Jeff, would do some formal coaching with me, but my mentor was Bob St. Meyer, who became a good
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Jack Hubbard: There we go.
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Jack Hubbard: and my business partner. So, I'm curious…
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Jack Hubbard: I'm a young salesperson, Colleen, and you've seen this in your work in sales. How do I go on and find an informal mentor? What should I be looking for?
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Colleen Stanley: You know, I would be looking for somebody you admire, and here's what to remember. And we have a story, I won't… I won't do the spoiler alert on the story, but it's a really rather famous mentor story, and it's about just asking.
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Colleen Stanley: And so I think sometimes the belief we have in our head, they're too busy, they're, you know, making too much money, what have you. Here's what I found. Most people have a servant's heart. If you just ask, they'll take the time. Now, for the mentor.
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Colleen Stanley: let's apply some reality testing. You all have 30 minutes in a month. You all have 30 minutes every other week. I mean, you…
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Colleen Stanley: just take a look at the calendar. There's some time that's wasted, and so you can… and we give tips in the book on how to fit it in, but for the mentee, it's ask, somebody you admire, and then come prepared. Like, right now, I'm mentoring a student from,
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Colleen Stanley: I see you at Denver. And I'm telling you, she's a good mentor. She comes up, she's got her questions, and then the next time we meet, she said, hey, here's what I did, here's what I applied. I think I'm still confused. And so, as a mentor.
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Colleen Stanley: You feel inspired, because when somebody's actually taking the wisdom you've accumulated over the years and using it, that's a feel-good, that's a dopamine hit, and it's a good one.
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Colleen Stanley: So just ask.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, and here's another thing you can ask. AI.
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Jack Hubbard: I was reading a recent article in the New York Times about how AI has become more of a relationship thing here.
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Jack Hubbard: Okay, how do you see AI fitting into this whole mentor-mentee thing, in terms of, geez, maybe I should ask AI how to mentor me?
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Colleen Stanley: You know, I think… I think that there's a little fine line between being careful, and probably part of it, I just opened up the paper this morning, haven't had time to read it, where people are using an AI chat box, and it's starting to diminish their face-to-face relationship time. So I do think there's a warning there.
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Colleen Stanley: you know, the human connection, and I think Harvard Business Review has a study, there's been multiple studies that show the number one reason people are happy and satisfied in life
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Colleen Stanley: It's the quality of your relationships. So that's where I'd be a little careful. However, on the other hand, it can be a great tool, I think, to just get you thinking. And as long as you learn the prompts, and our friend Brynn Tillman wrote a book on the prompts, is,
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Colleen Stanley: what's another way of thinking? What's another viewpoint on this? And so I think that's the beauty of AI. For example, Jack, I'm one of my glasses here. I plugged it in this morning, and I thought, what's the difference between information and wisdom? And it said.
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Colleen Stanley: Well, we live in information overload, but we have a wisdom shortage.
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Colleen Stanley: So, it's a little pithy statement, right? Now, I haven't played with it, I just, you know, put it up there for our conversation today. So, I think what wisdom does from a mentor, it'll take the great information from AI,
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Colleen Stanley: and then it uses something called discernment to know when, why, and how to use it. Like, I can teach emotional intelligence, but the wisdom I've learned
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Colleen Stanley: From having to develop myself is probably what's more valuable in the classroom than saying, hey, you know, if you've got emotional intelligence, it accounts for 58% of the competencies for success in life and business.
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Colleen Stanley: That was a long answer.
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Colleen Stanley: Great answer.
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Jack Hubbard: The last chapter in your book, you talk about be the next greatest generation.
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Jack Hubbard: And you refer to Tom Brokaw, who talks… he had a book around that, and it had to do with World War II veterans and that generation. In your case, you're talking about being the next greatest generation of mentors. So I'll ask you the question a little bit differently. I'm a mentee.
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Jack Hubbard: I want to approach you to help me, because I respect you.
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Jack Hubbard: I want to be a mentor. What do I need to do to do that so that I don't cross that line, Colleen, where it… I want to give advice, but I don't want to be pushy.
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Colleen Stanley: Well, I… you know, I think what you take a look at is…
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Colleen Stanley: You examine the motive of your heart.
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Colleen Stanley: When I was writing this book, I kept saying, what is my motive?
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Colleen Stanley: And is it for fame and glory? It is not. Now.
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Colleen Stanley: that's where, when I really was examining it, Jack, I'd say the motive of my heart is, I hope this is a right seller. If it becomes a bestseller, great. I hope it's a right seller, that it gets in the right hands, and of people and individuals that do something with the information, and more people step up and help up.
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Colleen Stanley: So I believe if you approach any conversation with, what's the motive of my heart, then the wisdom that you disperse
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Colleen Stanley: is coming from a good place, it's not coming from, let me tell you my glorious story, let me tell you my stories of resiliency, so you know how tough I was and how tough I had it. It's coming from a place of, I want to help you. And I believe if there can be some mistakes that I've made that I can help others, avoid.
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Colleen Stanley: then that's coming from a good place. So, that's kind of always my checkpoint, is what's the motive of my heart?
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Jack Hubbard: You know, we… Bob and I talk a lot about the gray-haired gentleman, who… and it certainly could be the gray-haired lady.
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Jack Hubbard: Except we all color, at least I do, so… Yeah, I've been gray since I was 35, I think, but you get the concept. It's somebody that has knowledge and wisdom. I think the key to this book is
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Jack Hubbard: how can I share this in an informal way to make a difference, to plant that tree that I'll never see the… I'll never see the tree grow to full extent? But if I can lay the groundwork, if I can plant that seed, it's really important.
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Jack Hubbard: This is just an outstanding, outstanding book. Now, here's the other thing.
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Jack Hubbard: You have a free mentor guide that can go along with this. I haven't gotten mine yet, but I'm going to.
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Jack Hubbard: Talk about some of the other resources that you have, the free mentor guide, how do people get ahold of you, get the book, just talk about you for a little bit. I know you don't like to do that, but this is so good, people gotta get this.
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Colleen Stanley: Thank you.
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Colleen Stanley: Well, the book is up on Amazon, and so go to Be The Mentor Who Mattered, and you'll see Colleen Stanley, Leanne Tiemann, and then we also have it featured on our website page, which is www…
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Colleen Stanley: salesleadershipdevelopment.com, and it's under the resource page. And then if you'd like the book study guide, email us at team at salesleadershipdevelopment.com, or link in with me.
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Colleen Stanley: And, you know, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so you should be able to find me. So any of those places, reach out, simply ask for the guide. We are more than willing to give it to you, because it really was designed to help you discover your true talents. And you might be an encouragement.
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Colleen Stanley: mentor. You might be a tough love mentor. There's all sorts of ways to be a mentor. And then we walk you through how do you actually easily incorporate those either into your lives or your company's lives. So, we want to make sure we get rid of that myth that
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Colleen Stanley: You have to have a big title and big office, and have had a whole bunch of success to be a mentor. That is not what mentorship is about. Everyone has something to contribute, and we all have the time to contribute.
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Jack Hubbard: And I'm glad you took the time to contribute this amazing thing to society. It's an outstanding book, Be the Mentor Who Mattered, Colleen Stanley and Leanne Tiemann. Colleen, thanks so much for joining me today for the third time.
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Colleen Stanley: Always a pleasure.
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Jack Hubbard: Great to see you!
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah, great to see you, and I know you're doing lots of good in the world, too, so thank you for that.
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Jack Hubbard: Hey, Colleen, how was that?
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Colleen Stanley: Wonderful! You're so easy! I'm telling you, this is good.
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Jack Hubbard: you know, you… you make it easy. This is… this was really good. This is a really outstanding book. I really love the stories, and there's all kinds of things. I wanted to talk about fubbing, and it's just… when I read that, I think, what the heck is fubbing? It's… it's… But you know what?
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Colleen Stanley: That was ChatGPT. I was like, is there examples? And all of a sudden, this thing came up on my ChatGPT, and I was like, bubbing? I've never heard of this, you know? And then the Michael Lasso, it was actually… I was in that group, in Vistage, where he just busted these three CEOs, and…
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Colleen Stanley: he was like, is this how you run your meetings? Is this how you show up? And I was glad, because they had an addiction to their phones, which, you know, we didn't get into it today, but some of these leaders are setting the worst examples of…
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Colleen Stanley: you know, I mention it in the book, like, people come in for a meeting, and they're just like this. I'm kind of like…
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Colleen Stanley: Are you people not talking to each other anymore? And the answer is no, they're not.
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Jack Hubbard: And I think that we've gotten to the point… I remember when I was a young banker.
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Jack Hubbard: And bank… the bank president would always talk to me about Lombardi time.
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Jack Hubbard: And how if the meeting was at 10, you'd be there at quarter to 10. Brynn and I were in Florida recently, and a client, and she was teaching LinkedIn, and there were supposed to be 15 people in the room, 7 showed up, we don't know why, where the others were, and of the 7 that showed up, 5 of them were late.
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Jack Hubbard: I just can't imagine. And it was like, we talked to the leader about it, and he goes, well, you know, that's the culture here. What? That's the culture here? That's a cop-out. That's ridiculous. That's just ridiculous. Well, I hope the book is a huge success. I know that.
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Colleen Stanley: Oh, thank you.
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Jack Hubbard: with the heart and mind, but I know you also want it to be a success. All the best to you, and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. By the way, your program…
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Jack Hubbard: Is going to be on…
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Jack Hubbard: I wanted to get this as soon as I could toward… when the book came out. November 19th, Colleen.
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Colleen Stanley: Oh, perfect!
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Jack Hubbard: And we'll get, we'll get our team to send out some marketing, and if you want the whole, interview, feel free, you're welcome to do whatever, and if anything I can do to help, absolutely.
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Colleen Stanley: Wonderful, that'd be great.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah, that would be fun. We could do some, we'll keep dripping this, obviously, throughout the year, so if you've got the whole interview, we could take some shots. I love your stories, too. That coach story, that's amazing.
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Jack Hubbard: Sorry.
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: And Ron's still alive, and I see him, you know, it's fascinating. I was 17, and I thought, geez, this guy's really old, and he was 23, 23 years old. It was his first teaching assignment. And so, Ron's still around, I see him all the time, we play golf every once in a while, and it, you know, it's one of those guys that just made a difference.
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Colleen Stanley: Oh, yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: That's what this book is about, too, so…
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Colleen Stanley: Yeah, it's, I, I could, I could have written…
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Colleen Stanley: I can't even tell you how many chapters, like, you know, Klein Boyd was a big one for me, and I remember when we were kind of raising the bar at varsity, I went out to…
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Colleen Stanley: seven regional meetings, and there was a new expectation on the quality of orders we needed. And this was before computers, and, you know, we had 50% of our orders kicking out, it was just a nightmare trying to get production done. So we were going to incentivize them by, hey, it's your first incentive trip.
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Colleen Stanley: But you need to meet this percentage of 3 different categories.
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Colleen Stanley: I am telling you, those reps just raised hell. They were like, what do you mean? Da-da-da. I'm like, it's an incentive trip. You get to earn it. So, I come back, and I'm,
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Colleen Stanley: Sitting in front of Clint, I'm kind of like, you know, I think we're gonna lose some people, and maybe we're being too hard, and he just looked at me and goes, Colleen, I'm gonna tell you something. Some people are gonna make this journey, others aren't. But we gotta make these changes if we're gonna go to where we're gonna go.
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Colleen Stanley: And I can't tell you how many times I've taken that little piece of advice and given it to sales managers that are trying to raise accountability, and, you know, and they're getting pushback, and you feel like… because I was like, oh my god, we're gonna lose… and we didn't lose anybody. Everybody…
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Colleen Stanley: up their game, is what they did. And then the incentive trips, I mean, talk about making money, those things made me money every year, because all of a sudden, everybody wanted to be on those trips, we went to Austria, Paris, and so… yeah, but that… it happened in that one conversation. I had multiple conversations like that with him. Yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: You know, I think my best mentor is my wife, and she will tell me the truth when others won't. Others will, including ChatGPT, will just praise me and all that kind of stuff.
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Jack Hubbard: She, she centers me, so it's a good thing. Well, thanks again for your time, Colleen.
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Colleen Stanley: Jack, alright, have a good rest of your week. Alright, bye-bye.
