[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host. Today's guest is Amon Thackrell. Aman Thackrell is a CRM and ERP consultant with 15 plus years of experience in CRM industry where he has helped more than 1000 businesses with software. Enjoy the show. Amon, so great to see you, man. Thanks so much for coming on.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Drew. It's such a pleasure.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: It's my pleasure, too. Thank you. So I always like to thank the person who introduces me to my guests, and this time it's Jeff Serra we need to thank. So thanks, Jeff. That was a nice introduction. Absolutely.
So, Aman, I have you on for a reason.
In life, I truly believe there's three types of men. And before I get into those three types of men, I always like to talk about how when we're young, we're taught that life is linear. It's a straight line. If you do all these steps, things are going to be fine.
It's not true.
Inevitably, an external something on the outside, that external circumstance comes and gets in between all those steps and derails us. And we then have a nice circuitous route in life.
In that circuitous route, there are these defining moments that come in front of us. And that's where I talk about the three men. There's man number one, who the defining moment will be right in front of me. He doesn't even notice it, doesn't see it. He's totally blind to it and keeps living his unfulfilled life. Then there's man number two. He sees something. He doesn't see it as an opportunity. He sees it as a barrier. He thinks life's doing something to him and he's a victim and he's not going to change. He's just going to complain about life. Then there's man number three, and that's you. Man number three is something gets in front of him and he looks at it and says, you know what? That's an opportunity to a better life. That's not a barrier. Life's giving something and doing something for me. I'm going to take this on and become a better man. That's man number three, and that's Amon Facrel. So, Amon, if you could reach back in your life and let us know about that defining moment, whether it was a tap on the shoulder or a two by four upside the head that I needed saying, amon, better way to live, man. And I'm going to take it on. Tell us that story and how it led to you being the man you are now and what you're doing in life.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for such great question.
I think it does make me think so much. I think there are three moments in my life which are so called defining moment, which really made me change.
And I'm sure there'll be fourth and fifth coming over the course of life as well. So, yeah, life is not linear for sure.
I think our parents, our guardians always give us a rosy picture by saying, life is going to be simple. Get your education done, get your college done, get your school done, and you'll be the best man. That's not true. But the good thing, they keep the optimism in us active all the time.
Going back to my defining moments of life, it's an interesting question. The first defining moment is when I got flunked in class 9th.
Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Okay, this should be good. All right, tell us about that.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: So I learned when I got flung that there is a certain way for you to study. I mean, I've grown up in Delhi, India.
Every country has their own education system. Nothing. I'm not here to comment about education system, but I learned that there is always a trick for achieving that you want to achieve, at least in the education line. I mean, of course, I was a kid then. I was probably 14 when this happened to me. So I learned that it's not about just studying. It's about delivering the result in the exam. And it's not just that you have to be a good student. You just know how to present yourself, be a good student, score the good marks to get past. That's defining rule. Rule that I defined me very well.
The second one that defined me well is when I was doing my engineering.
That's where I learned that I'm a good engineer, but I'm a better people person.
I understand code. I can write code, I can do testing, but that's not something that I can spend my entire 40, 50 years of life doing. I need. I am a better person who can go ahead and manage people, talk to people, resolve conflicts, understand situations, and react according to situations. So my another defining moment is when I found out that I'm a better human management person than managing computers. I still love code. I still. I'm still in the it industry.
But that's where I got defined second time. The third time when I got defined is when my elder brother offered me to join his business.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: So I never wanted to be what I am today. I. That was nowhere in my radar. I always wanted to be in a nine to six job, have a chauffeur driven car traveling from one airport to another airport.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: But I think that's what not my destiny was, which eventually became my destiny, but destiny where I was buying my own car, I was buying my own airplane tickets.
So this happened in 2012 when my brother reached out to me saying that he wants to start operations of target integration in India. He tried, but there are still a lot of improvement possibilities.
And back then we had two employees. So I was the third employee who joined the business.
Good story. Told right after me joining the business. They both left.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: I was a 24, 23 year old boy who has probably worked for eleven months in a professional setting.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Was handled a business to run.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: And a business which was which we were first generation entrepreneurs.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: It's not that the business came to us naturally.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: But that's the moment where I probably found a different version of me, which I'm really proud of today.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: I learned that I am up for challenges. I learned that I can define routes and destinations and reach them.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: I learned that I can take ownership of things, what I do. And I learned that I can run a business.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: So this is interesting. So in a short time span just now, we went through ten years of your life. So we went from age 14 to age 24. At age 14, when you said you flunked, it was a class or an exam?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Class.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: Whole class. Okay.
And that defining moment of flunking a class because you were thought that you had to study one way versus the tricks. How did that lesson tie into defining moment number two with engineering? Realizing that you're more the people person rather than the relationship with the computer. Is there a relationship between studying the right way or learning a trick when you leave the 14 year old education system and go into engineering?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Hey, you know what? Before I answer this question, I think you're a fabulous host. You're asking such intriguing questions, which making me think, and it's all impromptu. So good job.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: I love it. I love it.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
Okay, now, now thinking back, and of course I did back then, did not have a logic. This is just coming right now, right when I got flunked, I not only got flunked in class, I also lost so called friends.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Of until 8th class, 9th class one, I learned that there is. I was not very social. I used to get bullied.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. Yeah.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: A short guy, not very tall, not very bulky, was always an easy target. People, I'm not saying that they did wrong. I mean, it's fun until you are not bullied without getting into the most difficult question, but, no, I think it's fun.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: I understand that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: So, um, I think probably there was a friend of mine who taught me how to start speaking to people.
He, he taught me how to react to bullies.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: He taught me speak the language which other person understand, not the language that you want to speak.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Probably when the engineering thing happened back then, for whatever small little obstacles or things I've gone through, I learned the lesson that I know what and how the other person needs to be tackled.
And I'm not saying in a manhandling.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Way, I'm saying I understand what they understand.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: So even today, I believe you do not learn languages because you want to express yourself. You learn language because you want the other person to understand.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: You got it. Okay. So there is a connection, and you just realize that now there's a connection between. Yeah. And you have that, that friend to thank for getting you on that.
Thank you.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Listening, Puneet.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: There you go. Puneet, thanks for help. Thanks for guiding them on. You didn't even know you were doing it, but that works. So that's beautiful. So now we get to that point where that tip and that ability to speak in a way that the other person understands what you're saying can helps you in the IT industry, because you have to understand their pain, where they're coming from in order to address their, their need.
And then you can go back to the computer and have the relationship with the computer. So I get it. Fabulous.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: And that's what I teach. So I have a team whom I teach sales. I am a big time believer. I'm not saying I'm a sales coach, okay? But I love to talk about sales. I always motivate people to get into sales. And one of the ways that I always tell people to manage sales is that don't look at the product or the service that you are selling from your own eyes. Look at from the eyes that they want to buy. It's a luxury for them. Is it a need for them? What do they want to buy? Not what do you want to sell.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: I love that. So this is amazing. This is fantastic. We can even think about a lesson at age 14 has now helped you in sales, too. And more or less, I say that you can either live by the golden rule, which is do unto others as you want done, or the platinum rule, which is you do. Platinum rule is do unto others as they want done unto themselves. So now you are now operating in the sales piece in a way to understand your customer so you can provide what they need. So let's fast forward now at age 24, where you come over to help your brother and these other two people leave as you arrive.
How were you able to use all this, all that wisdom that you learned from 14 to 24 to help you in that situation of, oh, my gosh, now it's just my brother and me?
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I think. I think now the role of my mom really comes up. She probably built us in such a manner in our upbringing to never give up, I think.
Yeah. Because probably the only lesson that I have learned, and I would quote one of the first Olympic medal winner of India called Abhinavindra.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: And he said it in one of his newspaper heading, I'm not skilled. I'm just hardworking.
And probably that got stuck. This is something that I learned or read ten years back, and it stuck in my mind.
I won't say I'm skilled or not, but I would say I'm. I know that there is a blood and sweat be given for things to achieve, and I don't shy away from it, probably. My mom taught us to never give up, and this really turned out in our favor, where each time there was an obstacle, we never really felt we are doing it, honestly. Beautiful.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: I never thought that I'm doing outs, anything outside the box or anything which is spectacular, something which gonna go bed. Unless it was a usual daily routine.
Go. Wake up, hustle, come back, sleep, repeat. That's something we learned through our mom. Not as a special skill, but that's how the life is.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: You said skill. Some may. Some may argue or push back. That the art, man, is it an art? Is it a skill? The art of working hard and pushing through? Is that a skill that's learned? Because mom instilled that in you and it became part of you. I don't know. Is mom still with us?
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: All right, you can do a shout out to mom right now. You gotta thank your mom for that.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: There we go. I love it. Thanks, mom, for teaching them that. So this is. This is awesome. So, all right, so continue there with where you are now and what you're actually what you do for your clients. How do you. What are some of the pain points your clients have or needs that you're able to either. Maybe. You know, sometimes clients come with, I need this. And usually it's not what they say they need. You have to ask more questions to dive deeper. And it's usually something like 10ft lower that they really need. Give me an example of a client or customer. You're able to help by using your skill of continuing to move forward and not give up and understanding, you know, where they're coming from.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: So I'm sure every consultant would agree. To me, the word consultant came to us because we mostly consult.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: And we go ahead and ask intriguing questions. We try to go from what is the main reason we go to the end? Why not? What you want to achieve.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: So in today's age when the biggest joy that I get is not of selling a CRM or ERP system, but resolving the pain that a business owner has right when they are struggling to automate their business.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: The advantage we get is we understand technology, so we have to listen to their pain areas. Their pain area would be, my employees are not able to close a sales deal.
You have to go deep down and say, why do you think they're not able to close it? Are they not capable?
Or do you think the product is bad? Or do you think they do not remember to follow up? Or do you think there's some skill is missing 90% times? And that's what sales coaches would agree with me. The sales happen when you get into your 8th and 9th follow up.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: And if you are a bigger salesperson and you're not selling something which is very impulsive in buying, you will realize that sales cycle goes from anything between 30 days to 90 days and 120 days, right?
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: So as a salesperson, it is not humanly possible for you to one keep on churning the new customers, but still remembering the old customers. Keep on following up.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Now, business owners sometimes think it's the salesperson who's not doing the job. No salesperson is doing the job. It's just that the salesperson is equally human like you and me, and they end up forgetting it.
So you need a system which comes up and says, hey, 30 days pass, you haven't reached to him. 30 days pass, you haven't reached to your customer until you don't build a system which is not trying to track the salesperson, but trying to be assistant to a salesperson.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: It won't work.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: I love that the nurturing of current and former customers is so important. And many times in sales we forget once we get the client, you got to treat them as a human being. It's just because you have them as a customer doesn't mean you can just forget them and move on to get more.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Right. It's a relationship process. I love that. I love that. I think a lot of times. Times. I mean, you're able to help your employees learn patience. Right.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Sales is a patient scheme.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Only two games. If somebody asks me to give me two skills or two things to carry if I need to be a good salesperson.
Follow up, which means persuasiveness.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Second is patience.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: I love it. Follow up and patience. I love that. Absolutely. So, um, you know, the is what else, in addition to your business, you have anything on. Let me side hustles or. Or hobbies that you like to do that you want to share with us?
[00:18:34] Speaker B: There's two things which always, whenever I get burned in my work, I always love to do. One is dance.
Second is tennis.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Wait, what's the second thing?
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Tennis.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
Dancing and tennis. So you have to have footwork and balance in both of those. So.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: You should have an eye to hit the balls.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. What kind of dance? Like, to what kind of music?
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Any music. I think there's always a song in song of the day in my mind.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: All right.
I think there's a song for every moment. If you're going through a heartbreak, there's a song.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Get a win. There's a song. If you're missing your ex, there's a song. You're trying to woo a new girl. There's a song. There's always a song.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: I love it.
You know, that is interesting. The whole music concept. And let's take the music concept and the sales concept. Right. There's always a difference. A certain song that matches whatever mood or emotion. Right. And in sales, there's a different tactic depending on who the customer is. Right.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: You're not going to use the same technique for every customer. You use a different technique based on the personality of that customer. They're buying, how they buy, and so. Wow. So now we have an analogy where you can tie there's a song to every emotion, and there's a song for a different tactic for every customer and sales.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: And I also recommend everyone who are in customer service or customers facing roles.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Please have music in your life, because you need to carry a smile each time when you go to the customer, even after you had a bad call.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's beautiful.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: If you go and carry the same bad call, to your next call. Whether you're into sales, customer service, accounts, anything, it's going to go bad. So when you have music, when you have things which are charging you or recharging you, it'll always work.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: That's beautiful advice. Also, in relationships, not just professional relationships, personal relationship, you could have a very challenging day in business. And if you don't have that song in your heart, that's going to get you in a grateful mood by the time you go see your significant other, if you carry that negative feeling about the challenge, right. You got to have hundred percent. All right.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: You can't mix your personal life with your professional life.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: You can actually. I think it must, right? Because people who talk about that work life balance, you can't separate work and life. Why would you, you have 24 hours, right. Pretend to get to sleep for eight. You got 16 hours left. You're not going to, like, go.
I've seen so many people who may have a strength in business, and the minute they get home, they forget that strength and they don't adapt it to their home life and vice versa. You can cross that line. It's just you don't want one to negatively affect the other.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: And 100%, I think you need to with professional life, though. I'm single and if my family is watching me right after listening this, they'll say, first get married and then give lessons and suggestion on personal life. So.
But I think even with your family, whether it's brothers, partners, kids.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: You need to have a switch on, switch off button.
Make sure you, for whatever burning that you get in your professional life is not impacting your personal life.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Right. Right.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: And if it does, you are not only screwed in your, pardon my language, but you're not only screwed in your professional life, but in personal life, too.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I call that the pause button. We should all have like a pause button, like in our pocket. And I mean, like I have here one of those, you know, when they, the rocks, you go to the store and there's a word on it. This one says happiness on it. I got another one over there that says integrity. And I carry a rock in the pocket that says hope. So my pause button is, if I'm going through a tough time, I used to teach nurses in the hospital, reach in your pocket, have something in there that's going to change your mindset. So it could be a picture of your child or your wedding day or even if it's like your phone that has a picture on it, just something that's going to break that thought.
I love the pause button, the music, just anything that's going to interrupt that negative thought.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: On the same lines. I use phone wallpapers and a hotspot of my phone's wi fi.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Which is my. The hotspot name of my phone wi Fi is. He's everywhere.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Oh, I love that.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Right?
[00:23:41] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Whenever I need hope, I think, because I'm very close to technology, my phone is always around me.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: And I always be unlocking a phone to see a wallpaper or something, and that's where I see he's here. Or something like this shall to pass.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: See, I love that. And you know what? You make a good point. Because I believe each one of us, regardless of what we believe in religiously, whether it's God, for me, it's God. I believe every human being needs to believe in a bigger purpose, a higher purpose. Himself or herself. Right? We're not here alone. There's something there. It could be a bunch of friends. It could be God. It could be whatever. It needs to be bigger than us. That gives us hope. Right? And you painted some really cool pictures here with the music. Wow. You got me thinking about this. Listen, I know that the audience captured the essence of Amon Thackeray, and they're going to want to get in touch with you. So audience Amon suggested that if you want to reach out to him to talk more or learn about what he does or anything, you can reach him at Aman. So it's am a
[email protected] and I'll have that email address in the show notes as well.
Come on. Before I let you go, I've got two final questions.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Are you ready?
All right, I'm going to give you the opportunity to sit down with young seven to ten year old Aman, and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell seven to ten year old Aman?
[00:25:20] Speaker B: At the end, everything will be good.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: At the end, everything will be good. I love that. Okay, now put a different hat on. Now you're sitting down with young Amon, the young entrepreneur. Businessman. And you want to give him advice about business.
Can you give him the same advice? You got? Something else?
[00:25:40] Speaker B: I would say you're thinking right. Keep on thinking. Keep on dreaming.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: You're thinking right. Keep on thinking. Keep on dreaming. So then let's combine both advices. Everything's going to be good.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Keep on going. Keep on thinking.
Keep on dreaming. I love that. All right. I love that.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: I think there's this one lesson, and there's probably people who are from India would understand, and I'll use a phrase which was used in Shahrukh Khan, Shahrukh Khan's movie, which was everything. If everything doesn't happen at the OR, everything doesn't end at the happiness or the happy ending. It's not the ending.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Ah, okay. Keep going.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Of course, I was converting Hindi into English right now.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah. No, no. But it makes sense, though, that the ending doesn't always have to be at a certain time. You can. We can have a decision. We can decide when the ending is, and we can decide that the ending is only when it's a happy ending.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Always.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Ah, I love that. I love that. Wow. That's really cool. Well, Amon, I want to thank you for not only coming on, thank you for coming into my life and being the human being you are.
Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a lot of good things. And keep bringing music. That music analogy, bring that to people today. Always have a song in your mind and a song in your heart that's going to change your mood to a better feeling. I love that.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening us.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Guys, this has been great. All right, everybody, take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.profitcompassion.com.
feel free to also email
[email protected]. i'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
