Jay Austin's Secrets to Multi-Million Dollar Team-Building

When it comes to team building, it is both a skill and an artform. While someone could be the most compelling salesperson on the block, without a stellar team behind them, their odds of success are slim, so it’s crucial to find the right people.

High-ticket sales expert Jay Austin from South Florida has been perfecting his sales strategies in the past four years, achieving $3 million in online sales in the process. At just 25 years old, it’s a rare feat to meet someone so accomplished before the age of 30; Austin’s experience on a D1 football team likely played a role.

Now a CEO and co-founder of several seven-figure businesses, Jay Austin shares how adopting a sports mindset helps bring out a sales team’s best features: “When I’m building a sales team, I envision the team trying to win the Super Bowl championship in sports. That’s essentially what sales is. If you want the best sales team, you have to have the highest scoring sports team or the highest scoring football team.”

The approach certainly worked well for Austin during his early years in sales, considering his first sales venture scaled from $50,000 a month to $1.2 million in six months. With a team of 22 members, the young entrepreneur played a crucial role in managing and developing the sales system.

More than talent, Austin said identifying a person’s characteristics is key. “The name of the game is being able to recognize specific characteristics in people, rather than them just being good with sales or understanding how to read a script. So, the characteristics to just go out there and be a high achiever.”

He further likened the process to that of drafting players for a team. “Some of the best coaches and management within sports franchises have been able to really identify the character,” he explains. “They might look at the stats, but they do a great job identifying the characteristics of the individuals on their team to fill in the pieces of the puzzle.”

This rings true, especially in the NFL, where prospect players are often subjected to deep scrutiny. According to Quartz, scouts interview college and high school coaches to assess a player’s personality and possible character defects.

Austin also uses a spiritual approach when coaching his team. For the young CEO, learning one’s aspirations beyond sales is essential. “You have to have a specific vision of what you want to accomplish within your life and what you want to leave behind and execute on it.”

He believes that if his team members focus on these three aspects—health, wealth, and relationships—their lives will be improved considerably.

There is an echo of truth to this sentiment, as a recent Frontiers study proved how a healthy work-life balance positively influences job satisfaction and performance. With the US currently facing The Great Resignation, preventing burnout should be reassessed as a top priority for human resources departments.

Jay Austin instills in each salesperson he’s worked with these pillars: acquisition, communication, and conclusion.

For acquisition, the important thing is figuring out how to capture attention. “You want eyes on your business. You want to be center stage when it comes to sales, especially if you’re looking to knock it out of the ballpark in the online industry, or just in any market in general,” Austin explains.

The second pillar is communication, which Austin iterates should be a two-way street. More than communicating a product or service, its understanding what customers require. “It’s being able to identify their needs and pain points within their business, within their personal relationships, whatever it is, and provide a solution.”

Austin reveals another secret to sales success: isolating each salesperson’s motive. “Most businesses are out there trying to find the person that’s ready to buy. With us, we isolate the motive. We create the actual purchase, the actual buy, the actual moving forward, the actual completion of someone accomplishing their goal, through our services, our network, and our intellect.”

By identifying the motive, it’s much easier to come to a conclusion. “It’s like a bodybuilder when they work out. They can work out as much as they want, but if you’re not eating right, you’re killing yourself, right? So it’s that same theme.“

While plenty of fine details go into the sales process, it’s clear that Jay Austin’s approach goes beyond sales and focuses on improvements outside the work.