In today’s episode, Phil and I have the pleasure of hanging out with Stewart Rogers whom we were referred to by our friend Brandie McCallum. Thank you Brandie!
Stewart takes us back to days as a kid hanging out in a Tandy store where he read programming books cover-to-cover teaching himself BASIC at 7 years old. He also shares his early failures running a software company at a very young age and lessons he learned along the way to optimize the way he works now as a software entrepreneur and Head of Product at Salesformics.
If you’re a startup, sales person, marketer, manager, business owner, or even if you’re familiar with the TRS-80, you especially will enjoy this discussion!
Share Some SHUT UP Love –> You try to make something you think is pretty amazing & there’s that thing: what if everyone doesn’t get it? @TheRealSJR #shutupshow (click to tweet)
Fun Facts:
- At 7 years old, Stewart taught self to program in BASIC and was hooked on computers since then.
- His first computer was a TRS-80 Model 3.
- Stewart ran a software company at a very young age and sold word processors back when people typed with a typewriter.
- He loves his family, playing video games, following Manchester United, Ferrari Formula 1 and the Detroit Red Wings.
SHUT UP Moment:
What if other people don’t get our product like we get it? We think we have something amazing. What’s gonna make me feel great is when we push it out to public beta and they’re signing up because of the message and promise of the product. I’m staying the course. We planned the work, now we gotta work the plan. Push and push and push. Work really hard and roll up our sleeves. If it still doesn’t work, we have several options, but it still comes down to planning everything and getting out there to do it while remaining agile. Take advantage of the opportunity or fix the issue. Don’t be a slave to your to do list.
SHUT UP Tips:
I created sales training for sales process management to replace what we used to do, which was find someone with pain and latch on to them like a bull dog. – Stewart
I always knew sales and marketing was for me because I found out very quickly I had this aptitude for selling things. I found it incredibly exciting. It was the best job and the worst job in the world. – Stewart
There are points in my life I’ve commuted 3 to 5 hours each way to do my job. – Stewart
If you put in good systems, processes and tools to support you, what’s left for you to do is the important stuff. Not the urgent, distracting stuff. So then doing two shifts a day of the important stuff means you get the job done. – Stewart
Be agile, work the plan, reap the rewards. – Phil
People see all these punch lists of great things and then they don’t realize how much work it is behind the scenes. – Phil
Stewart Recommends:
Sanebox.com
Unroll.me
AwayFind.com
Gain early access to Salesformics.com here!
Find Stewart:
Head of Product at Salesformics.com
Stewart’s professional profile is StewartRogers.me
Tweet Stewart at @TheRealSJR