Sobriety, Spirituality, & Sales Ep. 38 - Ian Koniak

**Mike** (0:00)
Welcome to Sobriety, Spirituality & Sales, brought to you by Michael Bader, State Farm Agency, First and River. Shay, are we at episode 38?
Episode 38 today.
If you're watching the show, if you've watched the show in the past, and you want to find out who you really are on the other side of that, please reach out to me. My website's running below. I think we're gonna have an incredible show today. I've got a guest, Ian Koniak, on the show. Ian, am I pronouncing your last name correctly?

**Ian Koniak** (0:31)
You are. Yeah, you got it.

**Mike** (0:34)
Welcome to the show.
We were put together by Mike Abramowitz, a buddy of yours, who I respect a lot. He has been in the Cutco game for a long time, and now he's partnering with Sam Taggart and Door-to-Door experts in helping us grow that business, helping Sam grow his business, excuse me. And I'm so thrilled to have you on the show. I read your bio, incredible, incredible sales career. And now you help other salespeople to up their game. And I'm just excited to hear, you know, your life's journey and where it's taken you and where you're at now and what gets you going.

**Ian Koniak** (1:09)
So, yeah, I know Sam Taggart well. We were in a mastermind together in 2017
I actually spoke at D2D Con and spoke on sales. Yeah, this was in 2020 alongside Ed Milet. And that was the last time I saw Sam. It was actually right before I got sober, believe it or not. So that was, that's funny that you bring that up. It was like literally kind of at a rock bottom. When I was at that conference and I was in a, a rough spot with my wife and I thought it was her problem. I thought everything else was wrong except me. And then I had my rock bottom a month after D2D Con, or maybe it was a couple of weeks after, and then my whole life changed. So a little bit about me, I guess my passion is my family. First and foremost, I'm a father of two boys and a husband, 13 years, about to celebrate my 13 year anniversary. I'm the founder and CEO of a sales coaching company called Untap Your Sales Potential. We are the world's fastest growing sales coaching company, made the Inc 5000 now, second year in a row.
And I spent 20 years before that in tech sales, and now teach others how to not just sell at a higher level, but do it without sacrificing their health, their relationships, their families. So we teach mindset, habits, and skills. It's a very holistic approach, combining personal development and strategic selling. So it's a unique approach to the whole person versus just teaching them the skills that they need.

**Mike** (2:54)
I love that. I love that. We're running your website below. If anybody wants to reach out to you, if they're curious about your approach and how that works, we've got your website running there.
And so how did you get into sales to begin with? Was, did you have a family member in sales? Was it like accidentally like myself? I got approached by some folks that said, hey, do you want to sell door to door this summer? You can make enough money to pay for your college next year. And it was like going. So I was like, I guess I'm going. It wasn't like, you know, wasn't an option really. So how did you get into sales?

**Ian Koniak** (3:28)
I was a teacher in Venezuela after college. I went and lived there and taught English for a year. And I fell in love with a woman there who happened to be my student. It was an adult Spanish class. And I was 22 years old at the time. And my visa ran out. And I came back to the US with no money, no girlfriend and no job. And I wanted to stay in that relationship. And there was going to be two paths to staying. One, go back to Venezuela, or two, bring her here. But I had no money. And in order to bring her here, I'd have to put her through college, and get her a student visa and fly her here, and support both of us as a 22 year old. So I had initially wanted to be a photo journalist. I did a lot of photography and travel when I was in Venezuela. I loved that, and then I found out that that didn't pay the bills. It was mostly freelance. It would be a year's journey. And I really did want to be with my girlfriend. So I was looking at jobs and trying to think about how can I make as much money as possible and get her here. And I went to a sales and marketing career fair near my house. And I basically saw a little flyer.