President of Southwestern Ventures, Priit Martin, shares the mission of creating career and entrepreneurial opportunities for young people in Europe, reflects on the dream job of making money playing computer games, talks about weathering Covid, why simple isn't always easy, and new and different isn't always effective, why success boils down to the basics, and why Ventures’ real product isn’t a product at all.

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Southwestern Ventures

Welcome Action Catalyst listeners, today we

have Priit Martin. Priit now serves as the president of

Southwestern Ventures, formerly E1 Ventures, founded as part of

the Southwestern Family of Companies to create career and

entrepreneurial opportunities for young people across Europe.

Priit. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Adam. Your equipment is way fancier than

mine. I really haven't done any podcast recordings like this

before. I'm open to anything, we can just talk and see what comes

out of it.

We want at least a couple of embarrassing stories

from your youth.

I have had a very vanilla life. I hope I have

something interesting to share.

Perfect. So give me a little bit of your story.

How did you find the role and position that you're in today

with Southwestern Ventures?

That journey, as it often is was a little

unexpected? So if we go way back to the early 90s, in elementary

school, never even once did I consider that I would end up in

the field of sales or leadership or anything like that. So if you

imagine that 50 pound geeky boy with you know that what cut hair

with a little ponytail, and every time I I had to like read

a poem in front of the classroom or something. Sometimes I got

nosebleeds because I was so scared and afraid of talking in

public, my face would always always turn red. So yeah, like

sales, not for me. But you know, as I got older, I got a little

bit more confidence, I was at least able to speak to people,

right. But when I was in college, my older brother kind

of by accident, went to sell the books in in USA. So once he had

done it for a couple years, I figured that, hey, if he can do

it, I should probably do it as well. I always had this feeling

that, you know, I was a good kid, can my grandmother say that

you're a nice boy, I got good grades in school, and so on. But

I never really had the feeling that I had tested myself. And as

the years went by, it started to bother me more and more. So I

saw this chance to go to the states and sell educational

books door to door kind of as a as a test to see if I really was

who I thought I was. And I was still scared. I actually was

supposed to go the first year I got into college, but I didn't.

I had many excuses of all the great things I would be doing

back in in my home country in Estonia. And what I ended up

doing is I ended up playing a lot of games, computer games

over the summer, I actually made money like that. So it was the

first like serious money I made in my life playing computer

games. So I figured I would do it next year. And when next year

came, I figured I would do it next year because I had new

excuses. So I caught myself that if I always think I'm gonna do

the scary things next year. So when I'll be able to then do it,

and I will have done nothing.

I gotta pause for a second; how did you make money

playing video games?

It was not poker or anything. There was this new

kind of concept that was like an online worlds where you could be

whoever like I don't know, Hunter or whatever. And they

even gain money was convertible to actual money, and vice versa.

Wow. So my last year of high school and first couple years of

college I made I think 20 or $30,000, which back in that time

Well if you're still in school, that's amazing.

was a lot.

I didn't do anything smart with that money

apart from paying, you know, for the tickets and visa and

everything that I got to go to the States. And of course, I

bought myself that really rad car with no extra added lights

and chameleon color and very stupid.

So you maybe being a financial adviser was not your

best.

Not in the past then.

Any nosebleeds the first time you sold books?

I was just as scared. So that part didn't go

away. But by that time, I had somehow developed my discipline

muscle a lot at annual sports and like pushed myself to, I

don't know, run laps during summer breaks around my house

and you know, silly stuff like that. So one thing I was very

good at. I was good at following a plan. And one of the good

lessons that that I got from my first summer is that experience

is valuable, and it makes sense to listen to somebody who has

done well at what you want to do. So going into into my first

year I had a plan. I had a plan that I would do Oh, everything

100% If everything would go smoothly, nice, right? I have a

good summer. And if it would be a disaster, I could play my

brother. So it was very solid plan, you know, work like crazy,

do your demos in sales, you know, all of those things. And I

did everything by the book. Exactly. And they actually ended

up being number one first year from from Europe.

Wow, that's fantastic. That also does

positive things for your your confidence in this arena of

sales and working with people. Right?

Yeah, it taught me that communication. You know,

being good with people, it is not something that you need to

have or you don't that it's it's some sort of magic skill. But

you could practice it, you get better number one, and you lose

the fear as it is with everything right.

So then jump to Southwestern Ventures, when did

that transition happening between selling books and this

initiative?

I never stopped selling books. I was on the

bookfield myself for I think it was eight years. And then I

became a district leader. And up until 2020, when COVID, I was a

DSL, but 2020 was very tragic year for very many people, it

changed a lot of lives. And it changed a lot of ways we do

things. But honestly, I have to say that for me that looking

back, it was a very good year, I had some personal changes that I

went through, I actually had a divorce, which I thought that

would never happen to me. And that was very, very hard. But it

was also absolutely, you know, positive thing in the end in the

end. And you know, having gone through that, I just got to

figure that it didn't see who they are for change. So this

other opportunity of joining ventures presented itself. And

it wasn't a very big change. I changed the country where I'll

braided in and change like the product, but everything else is

gonna stay the same. I can most of the people around me stay the

same, the values that we have a lot of the methods and so it was

a safe way to get myself on a new track.

For our listeners, I guess some perspective is in

2021 COVID hit one of the challenges for your organization

continuing to lead students from Europe coming to the states to

sell. That became a much more difficult proposition.

By much more difficult, if you mean made it

impossible, then yes, that was accurate. No, there were, I

think it was even more than 500 people in our organization. So

students from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, who

had trained for the whole year paid for the the sign, they work

permit and everything already. And then COVID hit in March,

April. So suddenly, they had no outlets to do the thing they

were selected to do. So the challenge for us was to find

something to do for you know, four or five 600 People in the

span of one month. So that's kind of how ventures, what it is

today got like its first first reader book boost. A lot of

their students, they switched from selling books to doing

fundraising or selling the smart smoke alarm service to families

in Europe. And it was a lot of work. And I was asked to help

out with that just in the beginning. And I started putting

more and more time. And by the fall of that year. So after the

summer, I had actually made the transition to two inches out of

the book selling business.

Talk about taking lemons and turning them into

lemonade.

Yeah, definitely Southwestern family of companies

as a whole. And it's definitely true about Ventures that what

we're building, we our values and methods, people based

company, not a product or a service based company or a

business. So it doesn't really matter what the product is or

how it's gonna change in the future. The way we do things is

who will proof enough that it's going to survive drastic

changes. And I think that's what happened in 2020. And during

that and the COVID times.

So how do we define Southwestern ventures

today? It's a combination of a number of businesses in and of

itself. Is that correct?

Kind of. Like we call them divisions. The dream

is to win about 10, 15, 20 years can I build like mini

Southwestern family of companies but in Europe. So back when it

started, it was actually created in 2018 by Rosada because y'all

back then was also ready to move on from the books ads business.

And that quite literally the first month or two y'all had an

office and the whiteboard and he you know, he was like sitting

around and you know, coming up with ideas what to do. Five

years later, we don't do any of those ideas. We do something

totally, totally different. But that's okay. So what we do now,

yes, we are like a little collection of divisions or

companies and we plan to grow well at the in in the future. So

to the outside worlds. It's very simple. We sell things to the

other businesses, other partners we help them sell stuff.

Currently. We we sell Insurance, accident insurance and life

insurance, different product with the investment portion. We

do fundraising for many different smaller organizations,

we do a little bit of five business to business sales that

we are just starting, we sell these smart, connected smoke

alarms to two families, some of whom home security. In five

years, we had about 100,000 customers in a face to face, or

by calling them up on the phone. So that's what we do for our

partners, we help them grow their businesses, by bringing in

new customers often. But that's not our main product, our main

product really is not for our partners or the you know, other

businesses, but it's our own people. So that the reader

product Adventures is a cool career, it's a cool career

opportunity. And I know, you know, career is almost like a

dirty word on social media, in the past 1015 years, there's so

much about you know, you know, keep trying new things and move

around and you should stay, you should never stay put more than,

you know, two years in one place and all that stuff. But I

believe there is great value in in building something in

building your skill in a particular area, in building

relationships with the people you work with, and your partners

and so on. On the other hand, I understand the challenge that

nobody wants to do the same thing for 20 years, the half

life of a job, you know, currently is, what 40 years now.

So percent of the occupation didn't even exist in back in the

90s. Right that are today. So the idea of Ventures is that you

are not tied to a specific partner, or a product, you don't

need to sell insurance for 50 years only you are tied to is

the family of companies like that the values that we have,

and the methods we do things. A bonus is that whatever you you

earn during your career, so if you become a company owner,

because we are a privately owned company, right? Everybody become

a stock owner. Or if you build a customer base, like life

insurance, you have customers paying for 1015 2030 years, even

if you move around within the ventures are you even start

something totally new, you get to keep all the benefits. That's

the dream.

Priit, for you, what are the muscles that you

get to exercise as president of southwestern ventures? What are

the new muscles?

The first part of my career when I was selling

books, Ed is simple, but not easy. So people have done it for

more than 100 years, literally, I think more than 250,000 people

have done it by now. Right? So you don't need to invent

anything. There is a there is a method to everything. And there

is a manual to everything right. So it is your job to use it to

the best of your skill. And now in the last five years, I found

myself many times in a situation where there is no manual, or you

have a scanner, the idea or the direction where you want to push

it to. And then you start not from zero, but you start from

like 25% instead of from 75% Complete. And you know, one

thing we have adventures is an absolutely wonderful team, we

mostly come from the same backgrounds, most of us have

sold books before. And you know that core team has worked really

well trying to figure out new ways of doing things. So sending

these the same setting is in successful communication. But

there are nuances whether you sell books in America to moms

with families, or you sell some sort of b2b service type product

to a company in Estonia. And figuring that out has been a lot

of fun, any new business, we have done things in stupid ways.

And we have changed that we have this running joke that whenever

we feel that the heart finally we have it like whether it's a

compensation plan or you know, whatever that we have finished

now, Big changes are just around the corner. That has always been

true. I'm selling different things to different people. One

thing that I am selling myself is that idea that you don't need

to reinvent everything just because it feels cooler or looks

cooler, or you know sounds that sounds different. That pendulum

can swing too far right, as I was just saying that. It's been

fun figuring out how to do things different. But the

challenge sometimes also has been at how to make sure that

the core things are the same. You know, the things you learn

that schedule is important, right? Having good goals and

clarity is important. Making sure that it doesn't matter if

it's a business meeting or you're talking to whoever it is

doing good and consistent self talk and self motivation is is

important. So that's one idea that I'm selling to myself and

also to all of our salespeople, because with them as well. It is

easy to not understand what makes you successful at

something in sales, at least people tend to think that what

makes you successful is the fanciest But is this my special

joke or my special clothes I have, it's the way that I will

always leave office at 330. Because then I am, whatever it

is. And it is my job to remind them that, on average, what

makes you good with ease is doing the basics. And sometimes

it's a challenge, I am selling the idea of thinking long term

to my own team and to our salespeople. Because when when

you're young, when you are in your early 20s, there's this

common feeling that by the time you're 30, or 35, Your life

should be complete, however much money you want to make you, you

need to have your 10 million by 35. And then it's time to

retire. And then you're adopting charities, when you are 35, you

have probably had 15 good years, where you're actually productive

and creative and adding value to society. And you know, people

live to like 90 or 100. Now. So even if we, if we looked at you

stay productive until you know, you're 80 or so 3545 more years

ago, that's a hell of a long time. So sometimes it's a

challenge to sell the idea of thinking and planning longer

than six months ahead, or one year ahead, especially in sales

people run into this trouble that they don't like being

uncomfortable. And if you start selling something new, if the

first six months are hard, there's this feeling that it

must be the wrong thing that I'm doing. And it's not most of the

times it can be the right thing. Just need to go through that

uncomfortable portrait and learn, have enough patience and

learn.

Yeah, really well said. You know, when one

question that's somewhat related to this is you had a name change

from E1 to Southwestern ventures, what spurred that and

what's the what's the significance of changing your name?

There is an organization called European

basically, it's like a big part of the Europeans that sell

books. And when Manchester was first started, the name simply

came from that even the logo and everything came from that it was

E one ventures. And at some point, we figured that our

vision, same if we think 20 or 30 years into the future, it was

gonna grow too far apart. And, you know, having ie one always

tied to, to our name doesn't really represent the scope of

what we want to accomplish. So if the goal is to become a

collection of companies in Europe, you know, as we have in,

in in the States, then just being Southwestern ventures

represents that better. So we want to emphasize the fact that

you know, any new businesses or things that come to us, it's a

part of southwestern, not only part of that E1 organization.

I love it, kind of the vision that there's more

scale than what the initial name implied.

And also luckily, at least in in these parts of

the Eastern Europe, where we, we operate, southwestern, it's a

positive name. In the early 2000s. When first people really

went to sell books. There's not really much high quality sales

training here. You know, I thought that it actually came

from Southwestern, at least in Estonia. And people were like,

wow, what great ideas. So Southwestern as a name also has

at least in have some some power here. So embrace that.

Yeah. Well, just as we tie up here, we always

like to do a little lightning round of questions, just very

quick answers, but interesting things for our listeners to

hear. What's the one habit or practice that saves you the most

time each day?

I have a list of small habits that I go through

every morning, I have this cell stock written out, it's about

you know, a page, and I update it every once in a while. And

every day, I read it. So that describes the idea. I am not

like that. But you know, that's why, you know, I work towards,

and then I go through the list of my yearly goals, just to

remind myself if I'm on the right track. And then I also

think what I'm grateful for what I did well, yesterday, every

morning, I gave myself a little pat on the back. And then I

write down like one or two things that I want to get done

that day. And I've done it for so many years now, not every

day, but honestly about 250 to 270 days out of every year I go

through my list, I feel it helps me keep my focus pretty well.

You know, get focused on what the needs are accomplished that

day. But also, you know what's going on in my life as a whole.

And if I'm moving in there in the right direction.

Good way to start your day and get your head on

right before you tackle all the things that maybe you can't

control. What about success? What does success mean to you today?

I think success is to me means a trend, because

everything is relative, right? You're gonna have a billion

dollars and feel super bad because somebody has more.

Everything's rotted like people lived 10,000 ago and they were

miserable people and they were happy people and they had

totally different lives. And then you know, 10,000 year in

the future and be absolutely different, but I bet you there

will be miserable people and really happy people. So to me

success, I don't need, you know, X amount of money or house that

has, you know, that kind of square footage or whatever. But

it is the trend. So as long as I am getting slightly more, let's

say wealthy, every year, I'm really happy about that. As long

as I, you know, my health, I'm always doing something in it to

improve it, I feel happy about it. And the good thing is that

trend can be small, right? They can be just, you know, one, two

or three percentage every month or a year or whatever it is. And

to have that small positive trend just comes down to those,

you know, little habits. And luckily, those are controllable.

Those are absolutely controllable. So, to me, success

is moving in that positive direction and the speed, or my

current location doesn't matter at all. It's you know, the

direction I mean.

It's making the little progress. That's great.

And then any book or podcasts you've listened to recently that

stuck with you.

I listen to podcasts all the time.

Besides The Action Catalyst, I mean I know that's

your number 1.

I'm such a strong advocate and believer in

exposing yourself to stuff like that. So whenever I am moving

from point A to point B, and I am alone, I am listening to some

podcast doesn't really matter what it is my strategy is that

if I exposed myself to so much stuff, eventually something is

gonna stick. Right. So, you know, listening to as many

different types of podcasts as possible, I think is one of

those things that has kept me growing in the in the past

couple of years as a person, not only in business, but also as a

parent, and you know, just as a way around, interesting person.

I listen to action catalyst, Freakonomics, radio, Huberman

lab, people I mostly admire by Steve Levitt, and the Jordan

Harbinger show.

Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's

great. Priit. This has been a great episode. Thanks for

sharing some of your wisdom with us your journey and what's

happening at Southwestern ventures. I appreciate your time.

Thank you for having me.