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The most dangerous thing in business is not being invisible. It is believing you are visible when nobody notices you.
In the Season 95 premiere of the Culture Matters Podcast, Jay Doran sits down with Jared Lazaroff, a sales and business development professional with more than 25 years of experience across automotive, digital marketing, branding, signage, and other industries, for a conversation about sales, relationships, reputation, accountability, kindness, and what actually makes people want to do business with you.
Jared's philosophy on sales is remarkably simple: talk to people, listen when they talk back, and treat them like human beings.
Early in his automotive career, Jared learned a lesson he has never forgotten. A customer walked onto the lot looking rough around the edges, and nobody wanted to approach him. Jared did. What appeared to be an undesirable prospect turned into one of his most memorable sales when the customer revealed he had driven up from Florida in a Dodge Viper and proceeded to pay cash for a vehicle while purchasing nearly every additional product available.
The lesson had very little to do with the commission.
Do not judge the person standing in front of you.
Every person deserves respect, whether they ultimately buy from you or not. And even when someone does not become a customer, the way you treat them can become the reason they remember you, refer you, or come back years later.
That mindset has shaped the way Jared has built his career. Rather than constantly chasing the next transaction, he focuses heavily on existing customers, repeat business, referrals, and becoming someone people trust enough to call again.
Jay and Jared also explore what bad organizational cultures taught Jared about good ones. Earlier environments filled with screaming, threats, disrespect, and poor communication became examples of the leader he did not want to become. Experience taught him that accountability does not require humiliation and leadership does not require intimidation.
For Jared, accountability means being present, knowing what you want, doing the work, following through on what you promised, and understanding that other people are trusting you to deliver.
It also requires a plan.
Jared has carried some form of physical planner or notebook for roughly 15 to 20 years. Ideas get written down. Tasks get tracked. Commitments get crossed off. In an increasingly digital world, the practice remains one of the systems that keeps him focused and accountable.
Because saying you want to double your business is not a strategy.
What are you actually going to do differently?
The conversation eventually moves beyond business and into the principles Jared hopes define his life: respect, integrity, understanding, and kindness.
Those values show up in small moments. Holding a door. Complimenting someone who has been working hard. Helping a customer solve a problem outside your own area of expertise. Connecting someone to another professional without expecting anything in return. Staying calm when something goes wrong instead of making another person's day miserable.
Jared believes those moments compound.
In this episode, Jay and Jared discuss why first impressions matter, the importance of listening in sales, overcoming cold-call reluctance, why you should never prejudge a customer, building a career through referrals and repeat business, how bad culture can teach you what good leadership looks like, accountability as a personal standard, why hard work creates more opportunities for luck, balancing professional ambition with fitness and family, how fatherhood changes responsibility, why clarity about who you are matters, the importance of having a plan, using a daily planner to create accountability, why good leaders listen instead of simply giving orders, how kindness changes difficult interactions, the value of connecting people without expecting something in return, and why integrity becomes increasingly valuable in a world where authenticity can be difficult to identify.
One of the strongest lessons in Jared's career is that problems are inevitable. Customers will be disappointed. Products will fail. Plans will change. Rooms will not be ready. Things outside your control will happen.
Your reputation is built by what happens next.
You can scream, blame, threaten, and make everyone around you miserable. Or you can communicate, remain respectful, understand the other person's position, and work toward a solution.
The problem may be exactly the same.
The culture you create around the problem is your choice.
Twenty years from now, Jared hopes his daughter can look at the life he built and be proud. Not simply because of what he sold, how much business he generated, or how successful he became, but because of what he stood for.
Respect. Integrity. Understanding. Kindness.
Because great salespeople understand something that applies far beyond sales: people may initially notice what you sell, what you build, or how you present yourself.
But they come back because of how you treated them.
