CFD 172 - John Murphy Gives Us a Roadmap to Take Us from Being a Salesperson to Being the CEO

Published: May 21, 2015, 3 p.m.

Results-oriented international business coach and mentor, Cash Flow Diary podcast guest John Murphy knows what it takes to build and lead a team. That’s what he’s done himself and has helped lots and lots of other entrepreneurs and business owners do across the globe. He even hosts a podcast on the subject. When you start out in your business, you wear many hats as you focus on selling your product and/or service. As you get better at selling and become more and more successful, your business grows.

Then something happens. You need other people to help you get to your goal. And you get to lead them! That takes leadership skills. And it takes clarity. It also means that you have to become the CEO, which can be a challenge for some people. Why is John qualified to talk about these topics? He learned from the bottom up how to do it himself. In fact, he started out as a door-to-door life insurance salesman. He did plenty of cold calls and knocked a great many doors, beginning with those in Dublin. Why Dublin?

Listen to John’s accent and you’ll understand. John says what he learned over the years is that as the all-hats salesperson and new business owner you can be selfish and run things the way you want. But as you move up the ladder and hold higher-level positions, you need to change the way you operate. You cannot be selfish and you have to work with others… and their skill sets and personalities.

Everything needs to be in alignment. Once John climbed the ladder in a corporate environment, which he says he stayed in too long, he wanted to head out on his own to be the entrepreneur he always wanted to be. He considered all the jobs he held and things he’d done as “training ground.” The good news is that he used all his skills in building his own business, which is very successful today.

In this episode of Cash Flow Diary John talks about what it takes to be a highly effective salesperson, why persistence matters in all we do, why we stay in some corporate positions even when we really want to leave that “fur-lined mouse trap,” how to transition to being an entrepreneur and business owner, and how to develop leadership skills. So what pushed John to take the leap? Boredom was at the root. John says a bored employee, even at the CEO level, is not good for any company. John gives us a lot of excellent advice and covers a lot of ground in this episode.