Boost Your Sales Career with Eddie Adelman’s Proven Tactics

Edward Adelman (00:00)
Are your move out and move in dates on the same day? No. Are they within a week? Not sure. You use the full service mover, you’re now gonna move twice. Why? Because they’re gonna move it, let’s just say to Florida, they gotta empty the truck into a warehouse until you’re ready to take the keys to the new place. Your stuff gets handled twice. That’s not ideal. You load your container at your home place, lock it up.

I bring it to my warehouse in your next town where you’re moving to, and it sits there locked and loaded, ready to be delivered when you close on the new house.

Dylan Silver (02:05)
folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a top sales rep in the moving and storage space with pods. And he’s also a podcaster and author. Please welcome Eddie pods. Eddie, welcome to the show.

Edward Adelman (02:21)
Thank you for having me, really do appreciate your patience with me.

Dylan Silver (02:25)
It’s all right, we’ve got you here now. And you’re an East Coaster, a Long Island guy, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s always good to connect with another East Coaster. I lived in Texas for years. And believe it or not, Eddie, anyone from the tri-state area, when you move that far to the center of the country, it’s simpatico. So there may be some competition between New Jersey, Pennsylvania, know, New York, Long Island, when we’re out there. But once you move far enough, it’s like, hey, brother, how you doing?

Edward Adelman (02:51)
Yeah, I, you know, I travel a lot for work and I meet people from all over the country and I’m really always seeking that one person that I’m going to hang out with for the next two or three days. And I was at a conference in North Carolina, a relocation conference, and I met that person who I bonded with. He actually had me come into his team sales meeting to, based on a chapter in my book that I talked about, was about, ⁓ you know, going to a trade show, the do’s and don’ts at a trade show. And.

He wanted me to teach his team, you know, give him some lessons, not teach them, but give him some lessons from my book. So he bought everybody a book. He had me come in via zoom and we spent an hour together on all the funny shenanigans that are in the book about what people actually do and are supposed to be building contacts and making connections. And they’re doing a lot of other things that have nothing to do with that. So, I was able to, like I said, instantly connect with somebody so much so that I brought them onto my podcast as well.

Last week he was my guest, so was pretty neat.

Dylan Silver (03:51)
I want to ask you about getting into pods and how you got into this space. You’ve had tremendous success with them, top sales rep, but talk to us about the beginning. How’d you get into the space?

Edward Adelman (04:02)
So the process, I left working for the New York Islanders. was a tough, leave, mutual walk away. And my wife said to me, she said, you know what, let’s get rid of the babysitter. Why don’t you take care of the baby, take a few months, find the right job. Don’t rush into just getting another job. I know we got three kids, but we’re fine. So just go do that. And I started, you know.

Applying, applying, applying. like, it’s really funny because in one week I had Pods, I had Canon Copier, and I had Olin Mills. And these were three companies that all wanted me to work for them. And for Pods, it was unique because they flew me to Florida. No company ever put me on a plane, flew me to Florida, rented me a car. When I went to the headquarters, I was interviewed by five people. I never interviewed more than one person. So, you know, this was…

know, stepping up to the big game. And I knew I had the personality to blend right in with whoever was interviewing me. I did come prepared with a folder on what I thought, because it was a remote position. I wanted to show them I was really serious. And I put together my first 90 days on the job, what I was going to do. And it came in a little binder. the guy, my final guy who interviewed me, who turned out to be my boss, who’s on my podcast next week.

He loved it. I was that prepared, took the book and he actually used it on his three other hires on what they should be doing when they get hired. Like this is what you should be going after. He’s already laid it out for everybody. So, you know, being able to win that. But ironically, what impressed me the most was the guy on Long Island who recommended me for the job had also recommended his friend for the job. And he never thought I’d get past go that his buddy would win everybody over.

We were there at the same time. We passed each other in hallways. We had no idea though. We didn’t even know. I thought I was in by myself. He thought he was in by himself. And we bumped into each other years ago and like, you we discussed it. We thought it was pretty damn funny. And he turned around and he said, I guess John made the right decision. Cause you’re still there 15 years later. pretty, pretty, you know, like I said, I was overwhelmed with being part of a bigger organization. I wanted to see bigger.

Dylan Silver (06:47)
Yeah.

Edward Adelman (06:56)
And it’s funny too, because the gentleman who became my boss, Clive Burton, who’s left the company but we’ve remained friends, I learned in five years from him that I haven’t learned in last 12 years. Like what I learned in those first five years from him, how to build a sales team, how to talk to salesmen, how to treat them, treat them like men. But if they’re not gonna act like men, then treat them like babies. You know, like he was just a straight up guy. But his one philosophy that always stuck with me was work hard, play hard.

Dylan Silver (07:25)
That’s life of sales. Life of life.

Edward Adelman (07:25)
That’s the life

of sales. And I don’t have that now. I don’t have a leader that is like that. I haven’t had it since he left. And I’ve actually been searching it because I know I’m good at what I do, but I want someone to hold me even higher accountable. know, push me harder. Don’t just wax over me telling me how great I am. I mean, yes, we know numbers speak for themselves. But it’s like, okay, you got to 500,000. What’s your big plan for the next month? I don’t get that. I have to come up with it.

Dylan Silver (07:53)
I wanna ask about in general the portable storage space. I’m a real estate guy, real estate license. I’ve been a wholesaler for two years in Texas, not doing it remotely. Storage facilities that are…

you know, on vacant land or that are these land plays. These are very interesting to me. I’ve actually never thought about portable storage, but of course you see it all the time when people are moving and so on and so forth. Is that what a lot of people are using it for? Is that moving and these types of things or what are, what are the typical use cases for portable storage?

Edward Adelman (08:23)
So the

use cases come from the inventors of pods. were two EMS technicians who kept on going to fires and floods in Florida. And every time they’d come, they’d see stuff out on the front lawn. You know, good stuff, bad stuff. And was like, they came up with this idea that we could build this unit, bring it to them so they could, you know, in times of desperation, you know, put all their lifelong belongings in a storage container.

In 27 years since that date, we have morphed into the ideal New York City’s New Year’s Eve ball that they have every year in Times Square. I’ve been part of it for 15 years, providing places for them to load all the balloons and giveaways on Long Island, bringing the containers in at the crack of dawn, have them set up at the ideal locations. We’re part of some of the

biggest events in New York City. Just yesterday I booked my order from the New York City Marathon, which I’ve done for 15 straight years. They use 15 containers over at Fort Wadsworth. What for? All the 55,000 runners have all their personal belongings. They can’t run with it. All that goes into the pods containers, and then all at the end of it, when everyone leaves, when all 55,000 people are,

gone out of the parking lot. They then now bring trucks in to take all the stuff that’s inside the pods containers and they bring it to Central Park so that people can get their stuff back. So it’s like, we’re so unique golf tournaments. I just won the bid for the 2026 US Open, which is at Chinacoc out on Long Island. They’re gonna need 65 containers around this community that they’re gonna build. then, know, people watch golf on Sunday.

I go to golf places on Tuesday when they’re building these things and it’s just this incredible process to turn this open golf club into a TV ready stadium at 18 different holes and we have a container at all 18 holes, we have a container by the caterer. So the uniqueness of that, but for me, the moving in storage is the growth that really launched us into the next stratosphere. Why? Because it’s a bigger ticket item.

Dylan Silver (10:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Edward Adelman (11:10)
doing

a rental for one month, $300, $250, do it 50 times, there’s your $10,000. I could take two containers from someone moving from New York to California and make that same $10,000 without half the work. know what saying? Like 60 containers to get there. Where we fit perfectly, and this is how I sell it when people are deciding, should I use Pods, should I use a full service mover? And I say,

Dylan Silver (11:25)
Yeah.

Edward Adelman (11:37)
Are your move out and move in dates on the same day? No. Are they within a week? Not sure. You use the full service mover, you’re now gonna move twice. Why? Because they’re gonna move it, let’s just say to Florida, they gotta empty the truck into a warehouse until you’re ready to take the keys to the new place. Your stuff gets handled twice. That’s not ideal. You load your container at your home place, lock it up.

I bring it to my warehouse in your next town where you’re moving to, and it sits there locked and loaded, ready to be delivered when you close on the new house.

It opened a whole new door. Yeah, because of the flexibility factor, the touching factor, and the cost factor. You pay for people to help you load it here. Once it’s loaded, they’re gone. You never see them again. They’re not driving the truck somewhere else unloading it. You’re not paying all these extra fees.

Dylan Silver (12:12)
amazing.

Edward Adelman (12:27)
And then we do have access to labor all over the country. We have a couple of national partners that can come in and unload those containers for you.

Dylan Silver (12:34)
I just went through this myself last year moving from San Antonio to Dallas, Texas, which for people who aren’t aware, that’s further than where I lived in northern New Jersey to Boston, Massachusetts, where I lived temporarily or for a time period. And so I shoved everything into the, I sold practically everything that I had. And I put the rest of it into the back of a 2018 Dodge Challenger RT that I had at the time. I really liked that car.

Edward Adelman (12:47)
Yeah, pretty far.

Smart.

Okay.

Dylan Silver (13:02)
By the

end of the trip, I felt like the shocks were weighed down and I had done some damage to the transmission or something like this. But it never crossed my mind to think about portable storage. I wish I had, because I probably could have saved a lot of things and it would have been nice to think about. When people are moving, is pods in the lexicon of realtors and in people that are moving or is it…

Edward Adelman (13:27)
Yes, we have that we have

national partnerships with Compass, Exit, 21st Century, Coach, the major recall bankers, all the major brands we have relationships with where they try to motivate. I did it on grassroots. I’d literally go into as many real estate offices, bring bagels.

be there during their once a week meeting, get 15 minutes to say, here’s some food, let me tell you why. You should just have me in your back pocket. I’m a great tool to have. I don’t fit every move. I don’t want all your big business. I don’t want white glove service. It’s not who I am. But if you have a DIY mover, you have someone who’s counting pennies, we’re way cheaper than a full service mover. If you’re looking to do it on your own. One of the things I teach, and it’s a teaching process when I get referrals, it’s like.

Use the pods to get rid of your garbage. Because if you wait to move day, you’re gonna be transporting a whole bunch of garbage that you know you’re never gonna use again. Can’t get rid of it. You didn’t think about it because it’s move day, blah, blah, blah. When you’re doing the pods container, I always say have a dumpster right next to the container.

Dylan Silver (15:12)
I just went through this so I know.

Edward Adelman (15:13)
You know, people, you know, I’m very sincere in why I’m giving them the advice. Would you rather spend $3,000 to move this container of furniture or spend $2,500 and buy old, brand new furniture when you get that? You have that attached to the old furniture. get it. Some of it’s heirlooms and, you know, history, blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, most people are not in that position. It’s like, why are you paying the ship your furniture?

Dylan Silver (15:36)
Right. Moving is not easy. So I can definitely appreciate ⁓ pods from that angle. I want to pivot a bit here, Eddie, and ask you about becoming a top rep in any organization, but specifically in something that’s real estate heavy. Talk about people that are moving, storage, and so on and so forth.

What advice would you have to folks who are in a sales career, maybe in the real estate or a tangent space, maybe a trades company, about scaling your pipeline, scaling your business?

Edward Adelman (16:06)
So I got to watch us scale from three sales reps like myself to 25. One of the biggest things that was always lacking was training. Training. You don’t just hire people who say they can sell things and then give them a two-week crash course on how your system works and then say, go. We’ll talk at the end of the week, see what you did. Lay out a game plan for them.

a real game plan. And my game plan comes with a pizza pie. And I use the pie as the definition, eight different slices of where I need to go for business. Because you can’t just focus on one slice. One slice is real estate, one slice is special events, one slice is restoration, fire and flood. That is huge in my business. One is home remodeling. That’s another. Government, education, colleges. So all these slices, you need to have a game plan.

And I always said, use Monday. Monday’s the day to attack the slice. There are eight slices, do two every week. Two on Monday, two on Monday, two on Monday. There are the eight slices, you focus, you were directive. The biggest mistake people make is do not train the people on how to sell their product the right way. Not sell it based on price, because I don’t. I don’t sell on price. When someone calls, especially for a move, I have more time to talk to them when they’re asking to.

I can listen, can learn, can give them amazing advice, and I can build a bond with them because the call is going to be 45 minutes. So there’s time to do that. But if you don’t know how to do that, you don’t know the ins and outs of your business yet, you need someone, you need a trainer. You need a trainer.

Dylan Silver (17:34)
You need a coach. The best have coaches, right? And it doesn’t matter what level you get to. You mentioned earlier in the podcast, you know, someone who is an inspiration to you early on in your career, you know, you never stop needing that that kind of I don’t like the term, you know, motivation, because you should really be disciplined regardless.

Edward Adelman (17:43)
Yeah?

Of course.

Dylan Silver (17:51)
but you need that at some points in time. I actually wanna pivot a bit here, Eddie, and ask you about how the podcast came about, because I’m a realtor, I love being able to host this podcast. I’ve helped other people launch their podcasts as well, and I really love this medium and way to communicate with people. People feel like they really know you, even if they’ve never met you in person. How did your podcast come about?

Edward Adelman (18:13)
So I wrote a book in 2022, How to Become a Sales Warrior. was my life, it started out as my life autobiography in sales. And then halfway through it, became, this is gonna be a teaching book. So I changed it up, changed the format a little, and it’s a teaching book, but it comes with great stories. And once I finished the book, I published, self-published it myself, got it out there. All my friends in the business were like, okay, you have a website to sell your book on. You can’t just rely on Amazon. Like, okay, so took a year.

But a friend built a website, got it just the way I wanted. All my friends came back, all right, you got the book, you got the website, where’s the podcast? And these are my friends, they’re telling me. And I’m like, I went out of state, visited a friend. He said, so I saw the book, man, it’s going great. When you’re the podcast, I’m like, it’s a sign. It’s a sign. And I had to, was mentoring a young man who I thought would be a great sidekick for me. We were this Apple,

the complete opposite. I’m a whitey white 61 year old man and this is a 32 year old African man with the dreads. Like you couldn’t get more opposite but we matched and we decided we wanted to do this. I funded it. We went out and found, tried to find space. know, we could have done it in the office. I didn’t want to do the office one. I just wanted to be, I wanted to make it real and being real to me was being in the studio.

And I met a woman at a networking event. She invited me to her studio. I lost 37 episodes later. They actually now do the clips. They put together six clips from every episode. They publish them on my socials for me. And once the podcast is redone, know, cleaned up, it gets put out on iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube, and what they call it? iCast? Is that iPod? The Apple one?

Dylan Silver (19:58)
Apple Podcasts?

Yeah. I believe it. I believe so. ITAS sounds good to me, but yeah.

Edward Adelman (20:00)
Is that what they call they call it Apple. I’m sorry. I’m not even sure. But

it’s pretty cool though when someone sends you a link and you press that link, like, it’s Spotify, man. This is really cool. This is really cool. And it’s more than a hobby. There’s an alcohol factor in the show. Originally, ⁓ we were doing Old Fashioned Time, which part of the show was referencing him being.

Dylan Silver (20:10)
There I am. Yeah.

Edward Adelman (20:23)
knew me being old, old fashioned. So let’s talk about something that we do differently now that’s still effective, but you’re doing it differently with technology or whatever it was. And we’d make an old fashioned and toast to it. Once this gentleman left the podcast, I went back to my true roots. We now do to teal the time. Same format, we just changed the alcohol.

Dylan Silver (20:42)
I

like it, I like it Eddie. We are coming up on time here though. Where can folks go if maybe they’d like to get in contact with you or if they want to listen to the podcast or if they’d like to purchase a book?

Edward Adelman (20:54)
If they want to purchase a book, can go to my website, which is become a sales warrior.com. Email is eddiepods @ gmail.com and it’s E-D-D-I-E pods.com. I am on Spotify with how to become a sales warrior. I’m on YouTube. I am on iHeartRadio and Applecast. That’s right.

Dylan Silver (21:14)
That’s right. That’s right. Eddie, thank

you so much for coming on the show here today.

Edward Adelman (21:18)
had a great time. Thanks for having me. I appreciate