Andrew Biggs is an international sales coach for top performers in multiple industries, and founder of Better Than Rich, whose mission is to change the world for the better by providing tools and ideas to leaders throughout the world. Andrew was a star Cutco rep who became a National Champion Branch Manager with Vector Marketing. After leaving Vector, he directly managed a team of 1500 people in the mobile gaming industry, responsible for operations for 6 of the highest-grossing apps on the Apple App Store, all before the age of 30. Today, Andrew is an industry leading expert in leadership and the psychology of performance, and helps any sales leader looking to grow connect to the meaning and purpose necessary to achieve both top-performance and true fulfillment in their lives through his Better Than Rich system.

Q: We are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that none of us have experienced. How are these current times affecting you, and how are you coping with the challenges that are here?

• • • My first reaction, and what I tried to instill with all of my people—people that I coach, lead—was: even if this is not a net positive for the country/world/local communities, let’s turn it into a net positive for us. How can we choose to be innovative, choose to see this as an opportunity, and at the very least, even if it’s not a monetary or performance-based positive, how can we turn it into a positive? Because of that, I was able to navigate the waters really well, and most of my clients have as well. Some of them are actually up in sales because of that attitude. Others are finding more time with their families and finding other ways to turn it into a positive for themselves.

Q: What are some of the net positives you’re seeing for your own self and your own family?

• • • Definitely time with the family. Time to slow down and reflect, taking walks, spending time in nature. So often we get caught up and we don’t even realize it. But we’re in a loop, a pattern, and we need a pattern interrupt to reconnect with who we are, why we’re here, and what we’re all about. Even me, who coaches on that on a regular basis, I still need those times for myself to reconnect and realize what’s really important for me.

Q: That concept of the pattern interrupt is really something that resonates. The things that are most important are rising to the surface and those are the things that will carry forward here when we get back to some semblance of the way things were. A lot of the things that weren’t as important will remain by the wayside as we move forward.

• • • A lot of innovation is being born out of this. You can incorporate those things into your normal way of operating after this. A lot of the top business leaders that I connect with are saying, “Whoa, we tried this out and it worked even better than before. Even when things are back to normal, let’s incorporate a little flavor or a little touch of what we learned during COVID.” People who are doing that are doing it right, in my opinion.

Q: Let’s hear about your time with CUTCO. How did you get started with the company?

• • • I started in 2006, was on my summer break from college. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but once I got into the training, I dove in with both feet and decided I’m going to make the most of this. My very first Summer I sold over $60,000 worth of product. I was #5 in the country All-American for college students. That was really cool to make $25,000 on your summer break and then head back to college! Was a strange and surreal experience in a lot of ways. I was probably going into that summer thinking I’d make $2500, not $25,000. It definitely changed my perspective about business, about sales. In a lot of ways, it was my first introduction to personal growth, and that’s what I loved about the company: its insistence on personal growth and development.

Q: Who were some of the leaders you worked with?

• • • The most influential leader I worked with was Mike Muriel, he was the Division Manager out of Chicago. He was somebody who really took me under his wing, and Mike’s still a dear friend to this day. He’s somebody who poured a lot into me and invested a lot in me, not just that sales summer, but in the subsequent summer when I became a Branch Manager, and a District Manager. Mike’s leadership was crucial and in so many ways helped me mature as an individual, a man, as a leader. He showed me how to give back and invest in people.

Q: What were some of the most memorable experiences you had as a Cutco rep and manager during those years?

• • • It was really about pushing my limits and seeing what I was capable of. Becoming a Branch Manager and being #1 in the country, I was really drawn towards the concept of a push; what does a push look like if I were to really push myself to the limits? In our office culture, it’s really about seeing what human potential looks like.

Q: I’d like to hear what you feel were some of your success factors in your role as a leader. How did you do so well with that?

• • • One of the biggest things in my #1 summer was vision. One of the biggest questions you have to ask yourself as a leader, as a manager, or somebody going for something big is, “What is it that I’m after? What do I want out of this summer, or out of my life?” We really had that vision to be #1. It wasn’t about being #1 per se, but it was really about testing our limits and pushing ourselves to see what we’re capable of. I really saw myself as someone who should be #1. We went in with a stated goal that our vision is to be #1 this summer, and we’re going to do everything in our power to make it happen. Vision is something you have to have. If you’re waking up on a daily basis and you don’t have motivation, don’t have inspiration, it’s most likely that you don’t have a compelling vision. Oftentimes, that’s all that’s needed to spur you into action, to inspire you into what you need to do next.
    • Confidence is one of those that people say a lot, “Hey, you need to be confident.” But I think it really comes down to preparation and having an identity that is congruent with what you’re shooting for. If you really want to have confidence, do the work to be prepared so when you get into a scenario, you know what you’re doing. Ask yourself, do I really believe that I’m someone who is capable of that? If not, you really need to ask yourself why. What are the limiting beliefs that come up for you when you consider hitting a goal. Not talented enough, organized enough?
    • Having a top-notch culture with high standards. Asking yourself, what are the standards for myself, what are the standards for my office? If we’re going to a championship organization, we need to operate a really high level. That means praising people who are in alignment with those standards, and challenging people when they aren’t in alignment with those standards.

Q: What advice do you have for those who don’t necessarily see themselves being #1? How does somebody establish a vision if it’s not #1 and make that compelling for their people?

• • • It needs to be something that you do feel confident in but also pushes you. You want to find something in that edge, that zone, that’s not too far beyond your comfort zone, but is certainly beyond it. In psychological terms, it’s known as the proximal zone of development; it’s stretching beyond what you currently are capable of. It’s going to demand your very best on a daily basis, but also it isn’t so daunting that you can’t possibly imagine how it’s possible. I don’t care if it’s #1 in the company, Top 10, whatever the number is for you, but have something you are promoting that is compelling for you and start promoting that to your team.

Q: We’re all capable of way more than we think. It’s important to see that path, to understand the metrics involved in being able to achieve a goal.

• • • It’s important to note what gets measured gets managed. You can reverse engineer any goal if you want to, and you can look at, what do I need to put in as the daily input? Whether it’s number of phone calls if you’re a representative, or a number of recruiting reach-outs for your team. You can reverse engineer any goal if you use the metrics. If you measure them and pay attention to them on a daily basis, you’ll eventually get there.

Q: Tell us about your path after Vector and what ultimately led you to starting your own company.

• • • I ended up taking a position overseas in India. I had 200 people on day one, and over the next five years working with that company, we built that up to about 1,500 people I was managing, working in the mobile gaming space. We took it from $6 million to $30 million over five years. I became one of the key decision makers. I started to realize that culturally, I had a few differences with the leadership team, mainly that I wanted us to have a lot more values and a mission statement, and pour more into our team. It was a classic battle of the old school mentality of business versus the new school, and I seemed to be the only person in the leadership team more interested in the personal development side, so I said it’s probably best if I went my own way and start my own thing.
    • I learned a lot about the systems and operational aspects of how to run a business and how to scale. That’s really where “Better Than Rich” came from; how can we not just be rich in life, but how can we be better than rich? What that really means is, I want people to be fulfilled, be happy, have enriching lives, not just rich lives. They have deep connection with their family and friends, they have hobbies and interests, they’re spiritually fulfilled, physically healthy, and a healthy bank account as well. I went headlong into the coaching world to start giving back more to individuals and organizations.

Q: We all work so that we can live life, we don’t live so that we can go to work every day, right?

• • • People want to be a part of a culture and team where they want to show up to work every day and they’re excited to show up to work every day. They don’t want to be mandated to show up to work. I got off the phone with someone from Salesforce who’s one of their top sales reps, and what Marc Benioff is doing for them during this pandemic is extraordinary; it’s similar to what Vector thinks about pouring into people and going above and beyond for folks.
    • We’re all somewhere in this growth and maturity journey, both in business and in life in different aspects. It’s our job to both be learning, to have people we are running with, and also have people we are teaching. If you’re doing it that way, you’re doing it right. If you run into a coach or mentor who claims to have all the answers and that they’re a finished product, I always tell people to run in the opposite direction. They’re not going to be supporting you where you’re at. Even if they know a lot, they’re not going to be able to understand what it’s like to be in the throes of it.

Q: With “Better Than Rich” you have the Four Phase Process that you take people through. What are those four phases of the process?

• • • Phase One is to discover your purpose. It’s all about understanding, why are you here? Why are you on this planet? Unless you have a deep, meaningful reason to do what you’re doing, you’re always gonna burn out. You’re always gonna find a roadblock that you can’t overcome because you don’t have a deep enough reason to overcome it. Finding your why is phase one.
    • Phase Two is to determine your plan. We just came up with this really cool purpose, how do we make it a reality? What’s your why, but what’s your what? It’s about moving the abstract into the concrete; how are you going to make this purpose a reality through the vehicles and the goals that you currently have in place? We construct a plan on how to do that.
    • Phase Three is to develop your skills. It’s all about leadership, development, sales. We get into the science and art of influence, and really helping people understand what it is that actually drives someone to take action, transform, and change. If we are here to make a difference in the world, we’re going to have to have people on board, and the capacity to get people to see and adopt our point of view.
    • Phase Four is to deepen your wisdom. It’s about, how can I find the richness of life underneath everything that’s taking place? Let’s work on focusing on developing your wisdom, not just listening to good advice. Good advice is out there and readily available, but you reach a certain point in your development journey where you’re looking for counsel beyond the standard, conventional, typical advice.

Q: What do you find to be the most universal skills that are necessary for success, regardless of what somebody does?

• • • One is curiosity and listening. If you’re trying to influence somebody, you first have to understand who you’re trying to influence. Be curious enough to ask the right questions, understand that person’s point of view and worldview. So much of sales and leadership comes down to understanding our audience, whether we’re selling a very nice set of knives or the idea of working hard and investing in yourself. Once we show that we understand people, then they’re willing to listen. There’s the classic quote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know that you care.”
    • Energy management. Value your energy, your sleep, the food you put in your body and your exercise routines. Value your inputs, the sort of media you’re consuming. Can you find time to decompress?

FINAL THOUGHTS

• • • If you are a CUTCO rep or manager, a big part of why you took this job in the first place was to find out what’s possible for you, to test your limits, to stretch your comfort zone. It’s important to be doing things that are challenging, difficult, and sometimes make you feel uncomfortable; that’s how you find that proximal zone of development, the sweet spot of setting goals.
    • Do the work to be prepared: are you studying, working on your game, asking questions? The person who you are today has brought you to where you are now, but it’s not the person that you need to be in order to get to where you want to be in the future. Ongoing personal growth is a critical element of that success.
    • Andrew’s Four Phase Process: Discover your purpose. Determine your plan. Develop your skills. Deepen your wisdom. You can learn more about that by visiting betterthanrich.com.
    • Andrew also references the “Johari Window” concept. You can learn more about that here or here.
    • What you do does matter. You have the opportunity to be someone who can change people’s lives through your example and through your influence. Let’s all consider how we can impact other people in the most positive way possible.

CUTCO/VECTOR TERMS

• • • PUSH Period: A two-week competition where offices and sales reps compete with one another. The idea of PUSH is to push one’s own limits and see what is possible in the sales arena, but more importantly, in personal development and growth.