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Links and websites:

https://incentx.com/

Connect with Peter Hammer on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/peter-l-hammer

Connect with Russ Johns on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext

For more information visit his other websites:

• russjohns.com/  

• thepiratesyndicate.com/  

• nextstepnext.com/  

​Russ Johns 0:00
Welcome to the #piratebroadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let's get this party started.

It's another day in the #piratebroadcast. Thank you so much for being here. I love and appreciate the fact that if you could and would like comment and share on this content so we can actually get it out there and share it with more people and increase the pirate community. I know I love to bring #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Today we have Peter in the room. Peter and I've been talking about several things and I know it's gonna be a fascinating episode and we're gonna dive into creativity, positivity and some of the things that make the world work. Peter, good morning. How are you today?

Peter Hammer 0:59
Hey,

Morning, Russ, I'm doing wonderful blessed to be here. Just let you know this is the very first podcast I'm doing so.

Russ Johns 1:10
So

I love the fact that we had an opportunity to connect we have mutual friends out there that are also pirates. Erica, you know who you are. I just love the fact that we can actually connect and have a conversation. First off, you recently joined an interesting, very dynamic company that's doing some some amazing things with in the sales process. I want to talk about that because it's fascinating to me how business process can actually reflect and relate to real life and the rest of the things we're doing. Talk about the company and what the goal of the company actually is all about.

Peter Hammer 1:56
Okay, so just in a very summarized fashion. syntax is a cloud based application that handles all of your sales and you're purchasing incentives. Whether that be commissions, rebates, you have buying group rebates, you have end user rebates, paybacks, chargebacks, and royalties. We handle all that from creation of the agreements to the accruals, to the settlements to the payable to the payouts, all that's in one place. The problem that we're solving is, we're able to handle this in real time for all our clients. We do that through integration. Whether those companies are using Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics Sage in for Accu matica work, wait QuickBooks, we integrate these systems out of the box for you. And that's just a core part of what we do. We knew this, and we built it into our platform. So right from the get goes since constantly importing and exporting data can be a mess for a lot of companies. It's a disaster.

It needs to be set up in a way that's automated by integrating those applications together. That's what we've done here added syntax.

Russ Johns 3:08
So, I know a lot of those sound like big systems and big organizations and enterprise class stuff. It also available for the smaller solopreneur? freelancer, somebody that wants maybe has a couple of programs maybe, because there are many people that are developing courses, putting out information that is really valuable, and would be nice to be able to have that have a system that I could place in there that if I have partners that want to promote it or have counterparts that I need to pay out in order to accomplish part of their goal, how big or how small can this thing be inserted into an organization.

Unknown Speaker 3:57
So

Peter Hammer 3:58
One of the things that I like to To say about incentives, it's not a one size fits all, it's customizable to all size companies. Whether you're solopreneur a printer or you're a huge company like Oracle in and of itself for a conglomerate, for instance, Bthis can benefit anybody. For the the solution is geared to sea levels, to directors and managers, and to the inside and outside sales people, whether they're their Commission's or across the board. How we do that, let's say for instance, for the sea levels, the things that they get out of this would be the real time data accessible data that shows them their earnings, financial liabilities, cash flow forecasting, for the directors themselves. These are the individuals who get to create and analyze the incentives in real time. Then they're actually able to even focus more on boosting the key performance indicators for They're reps.

They get to look to lead. They get to do with what they're paid for, and that's what they're passionate about. Then for the sales reps, you create a lot of accountability between the company itself and the reps themselves, a lot of reps. Let's say for instance, they want to know what's coming in. Right? Permissions don't don't they don't get paid on some commission. Some of those are postponed, or some of them don't go through. This creates that accountability, a transparent view of their earnings and their payouts.

Russ Johns 5:32
You know,

It's funny, because you bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about and I want to make sure that people realize this is that even the sales teams have an opportunity to have increased visibility,

Peter Hammer 5:47
yeah,

Russ Johns 5:48
Onto what their pipeline is coming in.

Peter Hammer 5:52
Exactly.

Russ Johns 5:53
Some receivables out there that aren't hitting and the Commission's aren't going to get in. They aren't gonna land you as a salesperson is somebody in the account management team, you want to know that that is going to take place. You have visibility on that as well. Is that is that what I hear you say

Peter Hammer 6:12
That is correct. Just to kind of, you know, put a nail in the coffin there, I wrote many diff. Different types of sales jobs in the past, where I was in recruitment, where I was dealing with new home sales in real estate, and where I was a broker for logistics. In every single one of those, as a salesperson, I had to manage every single account and bringing on a new customer was adding more time to my plate, because I was having to jump back and forth through all these different software's. In syntax becomes the missing link that gets all these pieces of software to talk to one another so that you can focus more on the prospecting and the closing side of things. While you're doing that, you're keeping track of of those numbers that are coming in. So it's just streamlined

Russ Johns 7:00
That's pretty slick. It's really great. I wanted to bring that out to the point, you know, so we could share that with the community, because there's a lot of people out there that are. They need to know they need to have visibility and what what's taking place in the organization. The other thing that I thought is interesting, you're in sales, your background, your education is in engineering. How did that bridge take place? I'm kind of curious as to how, did that evolve? What prompted you to go into sales versus engineering right now?

Peter Hammer 7:35
You know That's a great question I get that asked a lot. One of the things that I focused on in in school was where my strengths were at. That happened to be in mathematics and then the sciences, and I've always had a passion to be in the medical side of things. I didn't realize there was a hidden passion as well. That was being able to deliver systems to people. That makes life A lot easier. whether in the medical realm, I was going to be helping an individual or a group or a whole hospital community. I could do that by by being able to provide these systems and for sale became a huge passion for me right out of the gate.

Once I graduated, I was raised in a family where everybody, all the clients, all the family, friends were entrepreneurs. I saw that and I was like, the only one who's doing mathematics and getting into these deep equations. I wanted what they had and that slowly began to develop and the passion of run a company kind of materialized in that sense. I had to kind of step back and see the trajectory as needed to Open up a company. The first thing that comes into place is going to be sales.

Good. isn't

Russ Johns 9:06
Even in engineering organization has sales. I always say this and I don't know if you've ever heard me say this, Peter. But if you pull a thread in somebody's conversation long enough, you'll always find common common goals, common ideas, common, something will connect. A couple of things that I've already heard you say that I used to infrastructure for surgical centers.

Peter Hammer 9:35
Wow.

Russ Johns 9:36
So all of these, all of these doctors would get together and build a surgical center.

Peter Hammer 9:40
Okay.

Russ Johns 9:42
I was part of a team that would develop all of their, you know, their EMR systems the systems the data, collection of all of their of their images, their imaging systems, their telecommunications rheir networks all of those systems. We have a common thread in building systems and political systems. It's pretty interesting. I find that fascinating, just as a sidebar there. It's kind of funny.

So

Peter Hammer 10:17
Well I find out interesting to EHR is was was something that I had huge interest in one of my clients in the new homes. She ended up purchasing a new home right before I got hired. I was able to show that home and she was in the medical side of things, and she was a CMO. She was talking about ways to get into the healthcare industry and being able to provide solutions, IT services wise, and that be EHR transitioning because there's so many systems out there, they're not communicating with each other

Unknown Speaker 10:51
So

Russ Johns 10:52
It's really fascinating. From the system side in the medical industry, there's a lot of opportunity out there To help people improve their systems, and what you'll find, or at least what I discovered was there, the doctors are in two camps their pencil, and they don't want to see a pencil. It's like, give me my pad and I'm okay give me all my information in an tablet and I'm good. I want to computer and then there's other people that don't want to deal with computers. Then transcription services is a whole nother arena that gets a lot of attention in the medical industry. I want to shift though, Rick Henderson has said is it compatible with Salesforce your offer in your company

Peter Hammer 11:41
It is. Our system itself comes with its own CRM, but you can actually transition all the materials from Salesforce through and get all those though your different software's to communicate with one another. So whether you want to still use Salesforce, you can or you can transition on to our incentives platform which also provides that CRM for you.

Russ Johns 12:03
Good question, Rick.

Peter Hammer 12:04
Yes.

Russ Johns 12:05
Rick's an awesome individual here in Phoenix and I just want to give a shout out to some of these people build Greg's build Greg's CNC machining. He does a podcast on CNC machining is a former police officer actually on the east coast and yet he plays the trumpet too. So,

Peter Hammer 12:22
Oh, awesome.

Russ Johns 12:24
He has a podcast. He's been podcasting for number of years. I met him at podcast movement. Actually. Erica is in the house. And she's in the house. I see that IRA Bowman arrived. Fantastic.

Peter Hammer 12:41
Nice.

Russ Johns 12:43
Thank you so much. In from Switzerland. Hey, how are you? I love the fact that there are people here all over from all over and I make sure that Sherry lolly I have not seen Cheryl How have you been? Sherry, thank you so much for being here. I love it when I see you. Mr. arcot glad to have you there. And Joseph is in the house, Peter hammer in the house. Batman it's really fascinating. The other thing about systems though, and I want to pull this thread and talk about it a little deeper, because the one thing about the threads in our lives.

Peter Hammer 13:34
Hmm

Russ Johns 13:36
We're both drummers. Yeah, we're both musicians. I'm wondering if drummers and systems have any correlation.

Peter Hammer 13:46
I think they do.

Russ Johns 13:48
Because it's very mathematical.

Peter Hammer 13:50
It is. Yeah. You create the structure for the music

Russ Johns 13:59
Yeah.

So, so

Now taking it a step further, you know, being an engineering. you and I both enjoy a product called Ableton and for those that aren't familiar with Ableton, maybe you could give a brief explanation of what it is and then we can talk about that a little bit.

So,

Peter Hammer 14:20
The best way I can explain a voltage, it's just a piece of hardware that has all these pads on it, you can loot generate through it, you have all these kits that you can use. Instead of having an acoustical system, you can bring this piece of hardware everywhere you go. You can just create the music that you want. You can even record like exterior noises like for instance, the birds chirping outside or catch the wind and you can change the frequencies to make it sound the way you want it. It's just an amazing piece of hardware that allows you to create and dive into that creativity ofMusic, you know, yeah, I mean, that's authentic.

Russ Johns 15:03
I really enjoy the creative process. I played professionally and then when I fell and shattered my arm and had to adjust my life plan. Iwent down the path of electronic music and I played electronic music and I actually did some commercials and audio work and film and all of these things are so creative, and we have an opportunity to do all of this stuff. With your engineering background, I mean it's endless. It's like going back to those, those planting those seeds in those ideas that it's like, oh, we were talking before the show about Elon Musk's, the Hyperloop and some of the technology behind that. Are you going to Continue to play and expand in music and use that as a kind of a release to the competitive nature of sales and business, because I kind of like see that as a hobby.t's like,

Peter Hammer 16:14
yeah,

Russ Johns 16:15
back and forth.

Peter Hammer 16:16
Well, the thing about sales is a it is a hobby. It is competitive. I like that side of it. I see it like playing a sport, you know, it's like hitting a tennis ball back and forth. How long can you keep that tennis ball moving back and forth? How long keep a rhythm moving. You start you start seeing sales differently, especially if you're transitioning from a very analytical background. With regards to plain further plain ice every now and then I just get this itch, and I have to pull out the Ableton and just start Creating somebody, it could take me five minutes, it could take me up to five hours. I'm sitting there and I feel like I'm only spending 30 minutes

Russ Johns 17:08
Yeah. Find some joy in your day. I get the opportunity to create something. In five minutes, five hours can feel like five minutes really quickly. So, yeah. I'm kind of curious. Does anybody else have Peter? I saw that IRA had. He's a percussionist as well. I know there's a lot of people out there in LinkedIn that are musicians. It's like, I've seen some of these collaborations on LinkedIn or online in the social medias now that we're all hunkered down in our homes. The thing about electronic music that I enjoy and appreciate is the fact that you can take files and no I used to be big in Pro Tools, which is some engineering, audio work when I was in radio

That whole process is is evolving. And it's much more accessible to so many people that they can actually create their own music and environment. So I just think it's fascinating. And I get excited when I talk about it. So it's obviously a passion.

Peter Hammer 18:23
Yeah. I can see that. Hey, it's a passion for me. I what's interesting, I didn't even know IRA percussionist, too. So, hey, that's awesome.

Russ Johns 18:34
Yeah

Peter Hammer 18:34
We're getting more or we're creating. We're creating.

Russ Johns 18:39
Wendy Yes. Written lyrics. That does count. Absolutely. Count.

Peter Hammer 18:44
Yeah. I have trouble doing that. I can. When it comes to lyrics. I let other people focus on that. I create the mood, the music around that.

Russ Johns 18:55
Yeah. Ira Bowmn I'll do a flam jam, and all they have Debbie Weems is in the house a interesting topic eight years piano lessons long time ago but always a huge advocate of live music.

Peter Hammer 19:13
Hey piano was what got me started into music from the get go.

Russ Johns 19:17
Yeah, yeah, I attempted to play guitar as well and I always had a desire to play the saxophone. For some reason my fingers even now you know as much as long as I've been on the computer, I still am not a touch typist. I'm still not a you know keyboardist that can actually look away and keep typing. I just could not seem to get my fingers operate in coordination with my brain. It's like, okay, I'll be a drummer. I could do that.

So,

Peter Hammer 19:51
My issue with piano was I have very small hands so I couldn't get to the

Russ Johns 19:57
Yeah

I would lose my place. I would lose my place. So we should start a pirate brand, Bandra. I would love that. I would love that. The Renaissance man. Yeah, wrote lyrics. Let's get back into engineering because I know that there's a tie in with music and there's a tie in with things that are taking place around the world. As the internet becomes more predominant in our lives, which it's really and you have a phone there's a lot of things that we can actually create and evolve. Have you seen anything you like I'm a huge fan of DUBB hat tip to Ruben and the team over there. I'm a huge fan of dub and allows you to create a quick video and shoot it out and for sales person or a sales team. It's an amazing. It's powerful tool.

Peter Hammer 21:10
Yeah.

Russ Johns 21:12
Outreach. I know Erica, I've seen her. She uses loom loom is another powerful tool.

Peter Hammer 21:19
Yeah.

Russ Johns 21:19
Are you are you utilizing video in your sales process now? Or are you starting to think about that or?

Peter Hammer 21:27
Yeah, in my outreach, actually, Erica introduced me to loom. I've been working on that, and I really enjoy it. the reason why I enjoy it's because when we're sitting at home and jobs have transitioned to remote, you want to be able to see somebody's face And it was tough for me just just from the previous job being a broker to communicate in an authentic way when most of that comes from body language and facial expressions. So when you get on the phone, everybody knows what you're getting on phone for. It makes it a little tougher to do outreach that way. So video that's cold call you you see the person and you see their energy and that's contagious. hat's what you want. And so that's a very effective and what I've been doing so, and Erica is a great teacher at that time.

Russ Johns 22:21
Yeah, she's amazing. Is anyone else I want to ask the question, uh, Angie took 10 years in piano to so yay, ethic fantastic. I am known to tickle the iris once in a blue moon. My favorite dance piece I choreography. I had live music on stage. That's fantastic. That's amazing. Is anyone else out there in the community or online right now or if you're watching the replay, drop it in the messages but I'm curious is video in your sales process? Are you using video? Are you not using video? And if so, what kind of tools are you utilizing for that? Because, like I said, I'm a fan of dub, I also use loom I've used loom for years. I just love the idea of turning the camera on and shouting out a message. The response you get is incredible.

Peter Hammer 23:22
Yeah

Russ Johns 23:24
Hopefully you found that same experience. It's amazing what kind of response you can get from that.

Peter Hammer 23:29
Yeah, it's play a way to build that and then entry. And one of the things that a lot of people did there a lot of the responses for instance, it's like, I, how did you do this? A lot of people aren't aware of it. Yeah. Which is stay ahead of the enemy.

Russ Johns 23:48
Because it's been so prevalent in my life for like, five years.

Peter Hammer 23:52
Yeah.

Russ Johns 23:53
It's like, Okay, I'm used to it. And maybe working in the bubble, I guess is what it's called. Yeah, Joseph says, loom ScreenFlow gift maker. He's a pro at it. So he's using video in his process. And he says video is super important right now. Kathy Spooner, thank you so much for connecting. I appreciate you and your comments. Love it here. Good morning. Thank you so much. Joseph says I owe it to all the IRA, Ira Bowman, Eric Warfield. So thank you so much for being here. So, Peter, you haven't been at this organization for very long. So how can we help you and help you grow and expand your network around the interwebs as it relates to your business and who's a good introduction for you?

Peter Hammer 24:49
Um, you know,

That's an interesting question, um, should have. it's interesting because everybody in this who is dealing with salesin being able to eliminate a lot of the tedious manual inputting of data, or whether they're dealing with multiple software's within syntax being that missing link that connects and makes all your software's communicate with one another, anybody is a perfect candidate who would benefit from from the incentives platform. With the jobs that I had before, which were interesting, so I was in physician staffing, I was in new home sales. Then I was a broker and logistics, and every single one of those jobs, I was managing an account. I would take on a new account, it was it was more work. I would have to get around the time management of that. This helps build and create more time for you to do that. To focus more on the prospecting side and the closing.

The systems work all the all the all the rest of the steps in between. I want to be able to talk to more people right now. The point of building relationships as a salesperson

Russ Johns 26:04
Ira says keep building your network. I just hit 150,000 followers early this morning. LinkedIn will only allow you to get to 30,000 connections

Peter Hammer 26:13
okay

Russ Johns 26:15
However, you can grow your followers as much as you want and so as you publish and produce content on LinkedIn, you can continue to grow and expand your follower network, which will get a portion of those people in those individuals get notified when you produce content as well, as I recall, I mean, not all of them. It doesn't go out 250,000 users However, it does go out to a larger percentage. If your number is bigger,

Peter Hammer 26:50
yeah,

Russ Johns 26:51
but so Peter, what's your secret name?

Peter Hammer 26:55
My secret name?

Russ Johns 26:56
Yeah.

Peter Hammer 27:00
My adopted name is Peter Hamer. I was adopted from Costa Rica. I came here when I was eight years old and recently reconnected, reconciled. And discovering the family of origin. And the the name that I was given the legal name was bedroom, Luis Reyes vanilla, and that's my mother's name. And I found out recently that the man that she was married to who happened to be my father, they didn't have a record of that because he wasn't present when I was born. So my name, my real name is Pedro Luis Castillo Reyes. I found that right at 28 and a half years old,

Russ Johns 27:42
wow,

Peter Hammer 27:42
to know that and the history behind it, I'm learning so much about what's what happened. All the circumstances that she went through, that we're, I mean, this just makes you an amazing person and So, yeah, that's the main focus right now is reconciling, I get to talk to long lost siblings as well.

Oh, Wow!

yeah.

Russ Johns 28:09
It's amazing. What an amazing journey. So congratulations for being able to connect like that and reconnect after a long absence of family like that.

Peter Hammer 28:25
Yeah,

Russ Johns 28:26
that's fantastic. That's incredible. I just really have to applaud you for being your first podcast, your first broadcast live streaming here and taking the initiative to be here because we've been kind of connected but not a lot of time together. I just thought it's like, it'd be really nice to highlight and share a little bit about what you're doing and your goals, your mission. I grew up in commercial construction. My mother was a broker, real estate broker, and so it's like, another parallel there. Just to throw out, like, we all have connections, if we have a conversation long enough, there's a connection we can find it discover. So don't lose hope don't lose vision in what you can accomplish if you apply it and take the time to do it. So,

Peter Hammer 29:17
yeah, well, one things that I've realized, right is that you're born into this huge world. And you start realizing that it gets smaller and smaller as as you start developing these relationships. Even though people are like, across from Switzerland, or you got Australia, the world, a smaller smaller with your relationships.

Russ Johns 29:39
Yeah. Followers get Oh, so here's the answer. Followers get notifications as their algorithm sees fit. But if they don't engage that and then their connections don't have an opportunity to see or engage with my posts,

Peter Hammer 29:53
okay.

Russ Johns 29:54
So they have to be engaged connections in order for you to expand your visibility across the network. So I have to go fight crime content. Peter day. Thanks for the insight in the video today, Russ.

Peter Hammer 30:05
Thanks.

Russ Johns 30:06
Thanks, Joe. Appreciate you and all you do. Thank you so much. Look, the smile, peers and star in the making awesome.

Peter Hammer 30:16
Yeah.

Russ Johns 30:19
If you want to leave one thing with the world today, Peter, what would it be?

Peter Hammer 30:23
You know, life has so many circumstances that throws at you you're climbing this mountain. Keep your sights on the summit, you'll always see more from that perspective from that advantage. Whenever you do get caught in an avalanche just know it's not gonna break you. You have the will. I think somebody said I can't remember who it was that I we were talking about this. We have the potential. to balance out what an atomic bomb can destroy, right we can actually build what an atomic bomb can destroy throughout a lifetime. So how many atomic bombs Can we cancel out? That's kind of what I would say kind of push and create some motivation.

Russ Johns 31:13
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here. As everybody knows it's really an opportunity to share something positive. And we all need something positive in our lives in and keep moving forward. Because #kindnessiscool. #smilesarefree.

Peter Hammer 31:35
Yeah.

Russ Johns 31:36
I want you to #enjoytheday. Appreciate it.

Peter Hammer 31:42
Thanks for having me.

Russ Johns 31:43
Take care.

Thank you for joining the #piratebroadcast. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. #Thepiratesyndicate is a platform where You show up we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join #thepiratesyndicate today.

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