Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin – Episode 465 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

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.

About Priit:

Since 2021, Priit Martin has served 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 in Europe.

Priit previously sold books with Southwestern Advantage before moving into his role with Southwestern Ventures.

Southwestern Ventures focuses on elevating partners’ sales, in addition to starting and onboarding new businesses by leveraging the family of companies’ strong network of talented alumni.

The journey started in December 2018 when Jaak Roosaare (who joined the Action Catalyst as a guest in 2020), together with CFO Madli Suitslepp, managed to create 80+ part-time positions in the first 12 months of operation and help several partners fundraise, in addition to increasing fire safety by selling and installing connected COO detectors. 

Ventures currently has four divisions: Finance, Insurance, Fundraising and Home Services. Headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, they also do business in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and focus on offering people inspiring careers in a youthful and growth-oriented environment.

About Southwestern Ventures:

Southwestern Ventures was founded as part of the Southwestern Family of Companies to create career and entrepreneurial opportunities for young people in Europe, with a focus on elevating partners’ sales, in addition to starting and onboarding new businesses by leveraging the family of companies’ strong network of talented alumni.

The journey started in December 2018 when Jaak Roosaare, together with CFO Madli Suitslepp, managed to create 80+ part-time positions in the first 12 months of operation and help several partners fundraise, in addition to G4S increasing fire safety by selling and installing connected COO detectors. 

Ventures currently has four divisions: Finance, Insurance, Fundraising and Home Services. Headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, they also do business in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, offering people inspiring careers in a youthful and growth-oriented environment.

Learn more at SouthwesternVentures.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Adam Outland
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.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
We want at least a couple of embarrassing stories from your youth.

Priit Martin
I have had a very vanilla life. I hope I have something interesting to share.

Adam Outland
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?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
I gotta pause for a second; how did you make money playing video games?

Priit Martin
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 was a lot.

Adam Outland
Well if you’re still in school, that’s amazing.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
So you maybe being a financial adviser was not your best.

Priit Martin
Not in the past then.

Adam Outland
Any nosebleeds the first time you sold books?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
Wow, that’s fantastic. That also does positive things for your your confidence in this arena of sales and working with people. Right?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
So then jump to Southwestern Ventures, when did that transition happening between selling books and this initiative?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
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.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
Talk about taking lemons and turning them into lemonade.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
So how do we define Southwestern ventures today? It’s a combination of a number of businesses in and of itself. Is that correct?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
Priit, for you, what are the muscles that you get to exercise as president of southwestern ventures? What are the new muscles?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
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?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
I love it, kind of the vision that there’s more scale than what the initial name implied.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
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?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
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?

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
It’s making the little progress. That’s great. And then any book or podcasts you’ve listened to recently that stuck with you.

Priit Martin
I listen to podcasts all the time.

Adam Outland
Besides The Action Catalyst, I mean I know that’s your number 1.

Priit Martin
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.

Adam Outland
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.

Priit Martin
Thank you for having me.