Winning Sales Strategy and Leading with Value with Bill Wooditch

For this episode, I welcome Bill Wooditch. After spending a year at a dead-end job with a foreclosed future, Bill Wooditch created his renowned “Always Forward” mindset and forged his way from the impoverished backwoods of western Pennsylvania to create a multi-million-dollar company, which he continues to lead today. As a professional speaker, Bill uses his experiences to inspire individuals to pursue personal development and professional success. He is the author of Always Forward and Fail More, a Wall Street Journal bestseller. The hard-won lessons he shares in his books and keynotes are designed to shorten the distance between where you are now and where you are determined to go in the future.

We open this episode with Bill sharing his background story. Bill grew up in western Pennsylvania, having to march to a certain drum all the time because his father was a Pennsylvania state policeman. Ironically, Bill was a rebel from a very young age and didn’t deal well with authority. His rebellious nature got him a job in a factory and while his friends went to school, he had to stay home and go to work. Bill shares how living this life, feeling like there is no future in front of him, scared him to death. This is when his parents decided to give him one more chance and send him to school.

Bill then talks about his experiences during his college years, and how the biggest lesson he learned was how to connect with people. Bill believes that college is still important today for the right industry, for engineers and scientists, but he doesn’t believe that it is the only way to become successful. This was a tough mind shift for him because he was a huge believer in college experience because it worked for him.

Together we then dive into discussing the good and the bad that Bill learned during his career that served him in moving forward. He explains how doing things the “corporate way” never came naturally to him, and he discovered the magic formula the hard way, by failing. He found that the true formula was to simply connect with people. Bill is a firm believer that putting people in a box and trying to make them conform to the “rules'' is not beneficial for anyone. His philosophy is that only a great leader can hire exceptional people and allow them to be great.

We also discussed what Bill’s company does and how he discovered his niche. He shares how his regional insurance brokerage firm The Wooditch Group is a holding company for a couple of companies that transact property and casualty insurance-related business. This platform allowed Bill to follow one of his other passions, which is public speaking. Eventually, all of this led to him writing his books, in which he poured his essence into, Always Forward and Fail More. Today, he doesn’t spend that much time on the corporate insurance side because he has an amazing team behind him, so he is able to focus on having high-end conversations with successful people.

Eventually, Bill explains the difference between large and small goals. According to Bill, it is important to have huge aspirations in life, but you have to have small goals in between because accomplishing those small goals will give you the boost that you need in order to keep moving forward and eventually accomplishing your large goals. Otherwise, you will just have a fantasy that will eventually disappoint you and set you back. Bill shares that the difference between inspiration and motivation is that motivation will go away after a while.

Lastly, we discuss the importance of first giving value. Bill believes that in order to differentiate yourself from the masses you have to think in terms of value. You need to keep in mind that the arbiter of the value is the client. This, as he called it, “servant mentality” attracted his customers and made him stand out. He built his entire business on giving value first.

Don’t miss this episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with Bill Wooditch! This was an incredibly fun conversation, but it’s also filled with great value, important messages, and amazing lessons, so make sure you tune in!

Notable Quotes:

“I was a rebel without a clue.”

Bill Wooditch

“I hated the most important thing that we have to do to make success real and that is work.”

Bill Wooditch

“We all need a little fear in our lives to be able to move forward, and I had a big dose of fear: doing the same things for 8 hours a day, with no future in front of me.”

Bill Wooditch

“When I was growing up, there was no discussion - you are going to go to college, that's what you do, otherwise you're a loser, high school education is not enough. I just don't think it's the case anymore for a lot of folks.”

Mike Simmons

“I found the magic formula the hard way, by failing. The magic formula was just to connect with people.”

Bill Wooditch

“You are not going to win every heart, you are not going to influence every mind. Why don’t you just meet them as people? ”

Bill Wooditch

“People who were born to communicate, people who were born to connect, born to have that really dynamic interaction with people, if you hide them away you're just weakening them. Like Superman with kryptonite.”