Adam Torres and Ed Wallace discuss the AED Summit.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
Listen to the Associated Equipment Distributor’s annual summit coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Ed Wallace, Managing Director at AchieveNEXT, explore AchieveNEXT and the Associated Equipment Distributor’s annual summit thanks to the support of our sponsor, Vanguard Captive Management.
About Ed Wallace
Ed joined AchieveNEXT as the Managing Director of Human Capital, focusing on delivering keynote talks and specialized sales and leadership training to ensure success for enterprises and individuals. Critically acclaimed as the leading expert on the power of business relationships, Ed speaks for companies and organizations around the world with a client list that is a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 companies. He is the #1 bestselling author of The Relationship Engine and has written three other books on the power of relationship capital – Business Relationships That Last, Creating Relational Capital, and Fares to Friends. Ed was recently published in the Harvard Business Review and is currently on the executive education faculty of Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and Villanova University’s Masters in Human Resources program.
About AchieveNEXT
AchieveNEXT started with the idea that the strength of relationships within a company is a key determinant of its overall success.
Mid-market businesses, in particular, often face unique challenges that can be effectively addressed through improved communication, collaboration, and team dynamics.
They built programs that focus on the metrics of relationships so that organizations can tie relationships to their top line, bottom line, and shareholder value.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I am doing a special episode that is covering the AED Summit. I was just out there for the 2025 AED Summit in Orlando. And this entire series is sponsored by Vanguard Captive Management. So you can learn more about Vanguard over at vanguard.com. And today my guest is Ed Wallace. Ed , is the Managing Director over at AchieveNext. Ed, welcome to the show. Great to be here, Adam. How’s it going? Oh man, I’m telling you, I’m doing great. I’m in Vegas right now, recording this one. I’m looking at the Bellagio. I’ve been out here all week. Last week as I just mentioned, I was , in Orlando for the AED conference and our summit, and it was my first time going, first off, did you make it out there?
Did you have a chance to attend? I was speaking at the summit just gee, what was I there? Friday. I gave a talk on Friday. I’ve been working with the AED for about 10 years. Wonderful organization. Great people. Ryan McGuire Liz McCabe, just super friends of mine. Now give me a little bit of context here and just to be upfront and clear.
So I, one of the things that I do here at Mission Matters especially for our new listeners, I know you already have had a chance to see what we do at, which is why you came on the show. But for our new listeners, one of the things that makes, mission matters unique as we definitely we travel the country.
I travel with my team. We cover different conferences. We cover different niches and this particular niche talking about the AD summit. Was proposed to me by Vanguard Captive Management and they’re in the, the heavy equipment space. And as soon as I kind of saw, like some of the people I saw, , the content I saw, like the industry as a whole, I was, I just got fascinated with it and I’m like, I’m learning.
So I’m definitely in the learner position here and learning more about the industry, learning more about how it works. And so I was, it was really a privilege to go to the conference. But for you, you’ve been around this much longer. What do you think makes the AED summit and the people around and the people that are involved, what makes it so special?
It was just, I go to a lot of conferences. I mean, literally hundreds. I’ll do 50 conferences minimum this year. And this thing just stuck out to me. What makes it so sticky? Well, you’ve got great leadership at AED. I mentioned Brian and Liz and the rest of their team. But what’s interesting about AED and their membership is , it’s a conglomeration of gigantic manufacturers, right?
Like Komatsu and Caterpillar, John Deere in fact, we work with some of them in our business business owners who are just the neatest people. They, you know, you might have a a John Deere dealer who’s been doing it. If he’s the third or she’s the third generation running a John Deere dealership in say Tennessee and then you’ve got the service providers who provide, software and all the other things, data and all the other things that these businesses need.
So , you’ve got a combination of big manufacturing entrepreneurs. Who are very successful people and just the greatest human beings. And then you’ve got all the support that goes with that. So I think that’s what makes AED and that association really unique. And I work with a lot of associations and they are at the top of the list.
Wow, that’s amazing. And one of the things I want to drill in there, because I want to make sure I understand this right because I got that vibe and I feel it is that you’re talking about like, especially for the dealers and some of these businesses, sometimes there’s multiple generations involved. Some of these are, you know, large businesses, midsize, I mean, different sizes, but I did get that feeling like it was like generational for some.
Am I off on that? No, it is. It’s very generational. In fact, I’m starting to be like the third generation. Work with an association like we do. Sometimes the members become our direct customers for what we do. And I might be talking with the daughter or the son or the granddaughter or the grandson started the business in West Texas.
Let’s say, you know, so You know what? That is so special. And I was thinking about Texas when you were explaining this because I, one of the conferences I cover is the Texas FFA convention. And I’ve been out there three years in a row now. And I’ll tell you the FFA for those that are not familiar, it’s the largest youth organization in the country, over 900, 000 members 9, 000 or 8, 000 something chapters, something like that.
It’s huge. They do amazing work. Thank you. But then they, and for those that don’t know, I’ve never seen it. If you Google it, you’ll see all of these members, , they’re young adults. They’re, usually around high school age, maybe a little bit younger, and they wear these blue jackets. So what’s interesting to me is when I see this, I go and I interview the executives, like the leaders of these.
Banks and all these other things, and it’s generational. They all wore the blue jacket at some point. They all went through that process, that shared bond of all the different industries they go into. But in this case, that’s their common bond. So I can see this, like I saw layers of that here and I’m like, Oh, that’s what I saw, man.
And I’m like, this is good. This is my masterclass. I appreciate you being my guide, man. Anytime, Adam. I’m glad. I’m glad we saw it the same. We see it the same way. And I always look forward. I actually do their conference every year. And then they have a leadership Institute and part of the faculty on the leadership Institute for like high potential.
That’s how I meet the different generations. High potential. Team members in these dealerships, these branches around the country they’ll invest in their leadership development. I get to be part of that process too. It’s amazing. I think that’s a good transition to add. I do want to spend some time here today.
I’m talking a little bit about yourself and your background in business. And of course we’ll get to achieve next. And I want to get into what you’re doing present day, but before we go present day and get into achieve next, let’s go a little bit further back. , like how’d you get started in business?
Where’d all this begin for you? Well, I’m a CPA by education, but I always like to joke. I’m in recovery. Hey, you got it. I’m in recovery for being a financial advisor, Ed, just so you know, and I don’t know, maybe I’m not in recovery. Maybe I need recovery now that I’m in media. I don’t know. That’s what I, I’ve been in this business the last nine years.
Go ahead, Ed. I saw your LinkedIn. I’m in recovery. I’m in recovery. Go ahead. We are. It’s been a 40 year mission for me. And anyway I went into sales and I wound up working with the company for about 20 years. I became their VP of sales and I was on a beautiful track and I was like a member of it. It was a family owned company and we were growing and.
You know, I could have stayed there forever. And in 2005, my younger son fell off a skateboard one afternoon out of the blue, got a helicopter ride to Children’s Hospital. Here’s my wife and we live outside of Philly and quite. He’s fine now. He’s outside my office. He’s on my sales team here, but at eight years old, it was pretty traumatic.
And so when I got to the hospital with my older son, because I didn’t get the helicopter ride, a woman approached us with a lanyard as we’re kind of working our way through the lobby. And a clipboard. And she said, Are you Ed Wallace? Now you can imagine what’s going through my head, Adam.
When you know someone that the hospital is looking for me and she’s introduced herself and she said, I came to find you. Let you know, Grant is doing great. We think he’s got a concussion. there for over an hour already because the helicopter got there in four minutes. Yeah.
And I want to bring you to what we bring our helicopter families. And the minute those words came out of her mouth, I was thinking, wow, what great intentions. And I had this clarity of they didn’t have to do that. We would have figured out where Grant was. That’s right. And my wife’s Lori, but they sent a representative and I literally went to our CEO who was, who’s still a friend of mine on Monday and said, I need to quit.
I want to go out and change the world and he said, slow down, slow down. You’re emotional. And , I said, I really feel that there’s a need for salespeople to be perceived the same way. Right. That I perceived that represented from the hospital and I came up with the phrase worthy intent, which I didn’t invent and we literally built a business around that concept.
Of how do we help strategic account, people, salespeople, anybody talking to customers, get over that stereotype and, and be perceived as they, most of them truly are in serving other human beings. So that’s that’s the Genesis within about, and we’ve been doing it for about 18 years now. I was like to say, it’s taken us 18 years to become an overnight success.
And now I’m talking to you, so that must make me what? What I want to stay in those early years a little bit longer here and very specifically and I know it’s 18 years ago, you said, so it’s a little bit of time ago, but if I can take you, you know, back a little bit for a little longer when you’ve made that transition, like, you had this career, you were on a certain path.
I know there’s people out there that, for whatever reason , are deciding where they’re, what they’re going to do next, right? They might be in some in between stages. The people around you probably, I mean, I’ll speak for myself. Everybody, when I said, I’m going into media from being a financial advisor, I had over, over 200 million book.
Right. And I’ve been working for 14 years in that business. So , my support system was kind of like, is that I’m going crazy? Like what’s going on here? Like, is this intervention time? Like what’s up? And so I’m curious about your experience. Like, what was your support group? Like, whether it be Fram.
Family colleagues or otherwise, like what did people say? Like, all of a sudden you’re going to go start this business. Like they don’t, that you probably have never talked about before. Like, what did they say? have a great spouse. Her name’s Laurie. I mentioned her earlier. And just , always believed in whatever it was.
I thought we can. Yeah, it started with, it started with her. She’s a rock star. Our older son is on the autism spectrum. So she’s managed that beautifully. He’s doing wonderfully. Wow. Our younger son mentions in the business here. So I had I had a great family. Foundation and you know, it’s interesting adam when you quit your job, you know, and I was able to negotiate a non compete So I did negotiate a few years of compensation believe it or not.
That’s I had a lot built up at that company Amazing in your basement and you have you really don’t have a business plan That’s what i’m thinking about that first week when you’re out there like oh you get that moment where you’re like I jumped off the cliff. That’s what I call it. Go ahead I did I and i’m sitting there saying You Man, I had it so good.
I had it so comfortable and, and I could have just done that another 15, 20 years and check the box, but the the first thing that struck me was, okay, you know, people are credible when they write books. So I set out to write a book and now I’ve written four and each one has taken us to a different level of company.
So our largest customers are John Deere, Dow Chemical now. I was talking to Rotary Clubs in 2006 just and with, you know, hoping some business guy might say, Hey, can you come and coach my sales team? So, you know, have this blind faith this And as your bank account goes down that face has to get stronger And and finally by the third book, Dow Chemical got a hold of it And it almost was like everything just started going positively.
Yes, speaking engagements training people start looking at you plus we picked a platform, business relationships that nobody wanted to touch. No one was doing anything. Everybody was doing, , Miller Hyman sales training solution selling. And I have to give a lot of credit to Mike Bosworth.
Mike Bosworth wrote solution selling. He was an early mentor of mine. Incredible success. And he said, he, one day he says, Eddie, nobody’s teaching the dark art. You can do that. And he considered the dark art, how to build business really. So we’ve invented processes and metrics, and we can more or less talk with anybody at any level at any size company, and they kind of take us seriously because they haven’t seen this approach before.
So, you know, you went through these lean years, Adam, and. Again, you start seeing all your savings go down. You’re paying tuition for your kids. College is on the horizon. And you’re like, wait a minute. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been able to travel almost every continent to deliver these programs. And I would not trade.
The experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met and actually, I actually sold my business to achieve next in 2018. So I actually was able to accomplish that in the process. So if there’s entrepreneurs on here, a couple of things, have blind faith. Everything’s going to take twice as long and it’s going to cost you twice as much.
So just keep those rules of thumb in mind. If you’re good. For me, it’s cost, it’s taken me longer and costed me more. But so for those, if you’re not that talented, then you’re in more trouble out there. So be careful. But, you know, I wrote a book about the relational leadership. It’s called the Relationship Engine.
This is the fourth book and five principles and the fifth principle connect performance to a purpose and you know, just getting to know you looking at your background, even the title mission matters. That’s a purpose , your purpose focused. And you know, we only have so much time.
Like, I give you an example of if you divided 85 by 3 billion, you get a very small number out. It’s a zero. It’s a decimal point. It’s seven more zeros and the number two. So picture that number, a zero, a decimal point, seven zeros and a two. That’s how long we’re on this planet if we live 85 years.
Mm hmm. In relation to the age of the Earth. So what are we doing with that dash? Mm hmm. And, you know, like you left a lucrative career to do this. You’re making a difference with people. Not that you weren’t with financial advisor and all the other stuff, but you know, you wanted to take a different path and we only have so much time , on that continuum.
So why not take a different path? Yeah. Who is your client or your avatar or who gets the most value out of working with you and your team at achieve next? We have two tried and true areas the sales leadership and their teams at manufacturers specifically equipment medical products laboratory products and chemicals and insurance.
They’re the two. So sales leadership in the insurance industry and sales leadership in the manufacturer, those segments. And then on the leadership side usually the CHRO. Or the l and d leader someone , in that capacity. Hmm. And when you’re looking at size, like, I’m trying to get a feel for here.
Is it size of company? Is it size of team? But going one level deeper. How do you normally work with companies? Typically strategic account teams that work with accounts for long periods of time. So, you know, we don’t do much in financial advisory, we don’t do much in professional services, but if you’re a strategic account manager, Managing a large account.
Let’s say, you know, you’re a strategic account manager for John Deere and you’re managing a bunch of branch dealers. That’s where we really excel. Helping you Launch, advance and sustain those relationships. Um, That’s kind of our sweet spot. I’m on the faculty of the Strategic Account Management Association, which is the governing body of the certifying body for SAMs all around the world.
So we kind of, you start asking yourself, okay, who do we serve best? and you start looking at who you’re working with and like, okay, I think we can draw some parallels. And what’s interesting over the years, because of that, we’ve been able to refine our messaging and our outreach in ways that we’ve created a process here where, let’s say you have a discovery conversation with a VP of sales, we get a hit on about 15 percent of our discovery call outreach, which is remarkable.
And then I’d say, you know, we have all the data about 10 percent of those turned into proposals. So, yeah, we’re really great with data, like we’re relationships that feel soft, but our approach to marketing is very data driven. It’s wonderful. Ed, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show, man.
I really appreciate you coming on. I’ve been working on this AED Summit 2025 series and featuring different business owners that were either at the summit or part of AED and otherwise. So really appreciate you coming on. how do people follow up? How do they learn more, by the way, if they want to connect with you, read your books?
Of course, you had mentioned you had multiple. How do people connect with the platform? so much for having me here. I’m going to be looking forward to seeing you at the next AED Summit. Real simple, Adam, and I appreciate you having me on. The, the website is achieve next.com. What are you looking to achieve next?
And the best way to reach me is Ed Wallace oh oh seven on LinkedIn. That’s the easiest way. Ed Wallace, ED Wallace, W-A-L-L-A-C double oh seven, just like James Bond on LinkedIn. I don’t know how I got that, but I got it somehow, Adam, I’ve had it for years, so I might as well roll with it. All good.
I’m loving it. And for everybody listening, just so you know, , we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes. So you can just click on the link and head right on over. And just also want to give a special thanks to our sponsor Vanguard Captive Management for making this, Series possible Vanguard is Vanguard. Captive management is involved with manufacturers of all sizes, helping them harness the power of innovative captive finance to achieve unparalleled market success. So you can learn more at van cap. com. And again, van cap. com. And if this is your first time listening to a Mission Matters episode and you haven’t done it yet, we sure would appreciate it.
If you hit that subscribe or follow button, this is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration. I’m looking forward to digging further into the AED Summit content and learning more about the industry and bringing that to the audience as well.
And Ed, again, man, really appreciate you making time for us over here. Right. Right back at you. Don’t lose too much out there in Vegas, Adam. I’m on it.