Capability Amplifier

How do you get access to the unreachable? How do you become unforgettable?
 
That’s the focus of this episode of Capability Amplifier.
 
15 years ago, Mike Koenigs called a good friend who was buying three people $12,000 Rolex watches and thought he was crazy. "Why?" He asked! Keep reading or start listening...
 
You know that amazing, warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you receive or give a gift?
 
Did you know there’s a psychology and science behind gift-giving that could help you build incredibly strong business relationships, grow your business and make a ton of money?
 
Today on the Capability Amplifier podcast, Mike's special guest is John Ruhlin, the author of “Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention.” John says that gratitude isn't a “woo-woo thing,” it's an ROI driver because “nobody cares about gifts, but we all care about relationships.”
 
John didn't grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth or in country clubs, in fact, it was the complete opposite. He’s a farm boy from Ohio who grew up milking goats and baling hay in a town of 417 people. Then his life completely changed because of a mentor.
 
When John was in college he had a girlfriend who’s dad, Paul, was this rainmaking attorney in a small town. When you're poor, you notice when people are generous and Paul was radically generous with everybody, whether it was the assistant, the janitor, or the CEO.

Paul would find deals on noodles and everybody at church the next Sunday would walk away with 200 cases of noodles and John would say to him, “that was $30,000 or $40,000! Are you nuts?” Paul would just smile. It wasn't tactical for him, it was just who he was. He exuded generosity and because of it, he owned oil wells, banks, real estate, and everybody came to him because he was the most liked, trusted, and top of mind person in the community.
 
John was selling Cutco knives at the time and decided to pitch Paul the idea of giving away pocket knives to all of his high-end clients. Paul didn’t like the idea of pocket knives but instead told John he wanted to order a bunch of his $100 paring knives. John was confused. He didn’t understand why Paul wanted to give a bunch of grown men and CEOs of billion-dollar companies a kitchen tool! What Paul told him next changed his life forever.
 
Paul said that after being in business for 35 years, he found that if you take care of the family in the business, everything else takes care of itself. It was at that point John had the epiphany that it wasn't about the silly knives. Paul understood that the knife was a delivery vehicle for an emotion. People loved and trusted Paul because he was always around even when he wasn't there because of gifts like this.
 
So John started mimicking Paul’s ideas and pitching to CEO’s of multi-million dollar companies. But rather than say “hey, I want to pitch you knives,” (because he’d be hung on real quick) he would mail these guys $300 carving sets with a handwritten note that said, “carve out five minutes for me,” and he’d get the meeting every time.
 
Inevitably when he’d walk into the board room for his meeting with guys in their 50’s and 60’s they’d be shocked at how young John was and they’d ask him, “Are you here to sell me knives?” John’s answer was always, “no, I'm here to help you and your thousand sales reps do exactly what I did to you and your top 10,000 relationships.”
 

Imagine piloting a plane that’s 1000 miles away from land and your engine starts to fail… what do you do?
 
 If you’re an entrepreneur, you can relate to this scenario because you're dealing with lots and lots of different “plane crashes” all the time, right?.
 
 You need to be agile and change your focus to survive, especially in the climate we’re operating in right now, as a business leader and owner.
 
 Our special guest on today’s Capability Amplifier is Ed Rush. He’s a good friend and former F-18 fighter pilot, entrepreneur, business coach and all around brilliant guy and someone we’ve worked with for 10 years.
 
 Today we're going to be diving deep into all sorts of interesting stuff, including turning on a dime, creating regular content in shows and events and how the whole business (and life) climate has changed. We're also going to talk a bit about politics and getting attention in this crazy time (but not the kind of politics you're thinking about… politics and media.)
 
 We didn’t pull the scenario of piloting a plane, being 1000 miles away from land and having your engine start to fail, out of thin air. It ACTUALLY HAPPENED to Ed. He was flying an F-18 fighter jet to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii when his engine literally started “eating itself” alive. Yikes!
 
 Unless Ed did exactly what he needed to do, his plane would catch fire, explode, and he’d end up in some of the most shark infested waters in the world and a 2 day flight away from land. So he immediately pulled his engine back, shut it down and started emergency procedures.
 
 Then what? How did he deal with the mental part? The first thing he did was take a BIG deep breath. Second, believe it or not, he smiled (because when you smile you’re telling yourself everything is going to be okay,) and third he did the next, most logical thing he needed to do to get himself to his destination... (You’ll have to listen to the whole episode to hear what that was!)
 
 The lesson is that sometimes, life deals you problem after problem after problem and the tendency is to throw your hands up and quit, but if you simply breathe, smile and take the next most logical step to get you to your destination, you can get to where you need to go.
 
 We're in the middle of 2020. Arguabley, the most volatile and STRANGE business year in the history of business years. Now is a really great time to smile and take the next, most logical step to get you to your destination because there WILL BE be some major winners that emerge from this insanity.
 
 Right now we’re seeing some of the greatest opportunities in history, the greatest wealth transfer, and certainly the greatest shift in power. It’s not good or bad or right or wrong but what you make of it.
 
 For the last 10 years we have been communicating to a world that fell asleep. We've got two parties that have droned people into submission. People have been watching things that are essentially boring them to death and all of a sudden in March of 2020, the world woke up.
 
 Both Ed and Mike have sold more products, training, coaching and events in the last few months than they have in the last two years combined and it's because people have finally broken out of their stupor. When times are certain, people get complacent but when times are UNcertain people invest in speed and reinvention, and this is where we're at right now. So if you're a business owner, smile, because the opportunities presented to you when you can adjust quickly are incredible.
 
 Being able to pivot on a dime, change your direction and focus according to what’s happening in the world around you is a HUGE part of being successful. It’s a skill every entrepreneur needs to master.
 
 To find out exactly how Ed landed his plane safely and survived that super scary moment PLUS how he took this l...

Two words and one 3x5 card that pitched and closed one of the most recognizable TV shows from the 1980s in seconds ... what was it?
 What's the fastest way to stand out, be distinctive, get attention, and be referable in six seconds or less?
 
 On the latest episode, you’re going to meet Scott McKain. He’s done everything from playing the villain in a Werner Herzog film that Roger Ebert called one of the 50 great movies in cinema history, to being booked to speak by Arnold Schwarzenegger for an event on the White House lawn with the president in the audience, to being the author of business books named among the year’s ten best.
 
Scott’s matchless experiences make him one of the world’s most in-demand business experts and speakers. He’s known as the ultimate customer experience and distinction expert, and he's developed a system for standing out, getting attention, and being what I call “a category of one.”
 
Today, we're going to talk about how the four cornerstones of distinction—Clarity, Creativity, Communication, and a Customer Experience Focus—can help you create distinction for your business in a hyper-competitive marketplace.
 
Scott and I have very similar philosophies and both come from small towns in the Midwest. Scott’s folks ran the local grocery store. His first experience in business was watching how his mom and dad ran the store and how his dad fought against the big box supermarket chain after they came to town.
 
Later, Scott got involved in a student organization where he became State President, then National Officer, which led to a chance to take two years off of college to travel and speak. By the time he was 21, he had been in the Oval Office with a president and a private meeting with the chairman of General Motors in their boardroom in Detroit.
 
He continued to get involved with organizations and was invited to speak about what he had learned throughout his journey. He then started his own small business and realized there were things that big corporations were teaching their teams that he needed in his small business.
 
Then he went through a personal tragedy. His wife became ill with cancer, and he shut down his business for a period of time to be her caregiver before she died.
 
When he got back to the business and tried to relaunch, he went to his customers (mostly speakers bureaus) and asked them a very important question for any entrepreneur: “When you refer me to a right-fit prospect, what do you say?” And the number one answer was, “Scott is a good speaker and a nice guy.” His clients thought that was a great recommendation, but it was actually the kiss of death.
 
The VP of sales of Porsche doesn’t want a “really nice guy” speaking at his yearly event. He wants content, he wants meat, he wants meaning, so Scott set out to discover how he could stand out among the plethora of speakers and authors. He started researching and creating case studies of highly successful entrepreneurs and what they were doing.
 
So, what does it take to stand out in a hyper-competitive marketplace?
 
The customers you attract will always be of greater value than the customers you pursue. No one is ever attracted to “generic.” You attract exactly whom you deserve, which is based upon the kind of energy you're sending out into the world and your language patterns. If you come from a desperate or cheap perspective, those are the types of clients you’re going to attract.

Have you ever wondered how to charge $50,000, $250,000, $500,000, or MORE for a professional service or product?

Or how to go from getting paid for doing to getting paid for knowing to getting paid for actually BEING?
 
How do you sell something like that? Influence a prospect? What IS the enrollment process? What kind of questions do you have to ask for people to raise their hands and say, “I've been looking for someone just like you, I already know I want to work with you, and how do we start working together right now?”
 
This episode is special because it’s my first solo episode. I'm going to teach you everything I've learned about influence persuasion and enrolling high-ticket clients over the last 30 years in about 40 minutes.
 
All of this and more, including how to go from a face-to-face business to a virtualized, digitized, and de-materialized business. Plus, I share how to scale it with your sales team.
 
Over the last 30 years, I have personally sold over $60 million worth of products and services online and face to face. That includes scaling businesses and teams. Today, I’m going to share exactly how I did it, starting with how I have been working with Dan Sullivan in Strategic Coach®, doing something Dan calls the Free Zone Frontier. (If you're not familiar with that, definitely check out what the Free Zone Frontier is in this previous episode.)

Dan and I started a project with the idea that he wanted to generate a minimum of 100 leads per week for his sales team that were pre-qualified hand raisers wanting to enroll in one of his three programs. He also wanted me to be able to teach and make this system viable for other participants in Strategic Coach.

All of this came from a moment Dan and I had together that we call the Civitas Moment (We talked about this in another past episode called The Best Pitch You've Ever Heard. If you haven't already, definitely check it out.) It’s the equivalent of saying, “I love you” in the world of sales and marketing when someone shows up saying, “I already know I want to work with you. How do we start working together? It feels like I've been looking for someone just like you forever!”

In the old days of traditional sales, it took many, many follow-ups and a number of connections to close a deal, but I say BullSh#@ to that. I think it's important to get your marketing and messaging nailed and be able to create a replicable and scalable system, and then add automation to do the tedious, repetitive work.

In this episode, I’ll guide you through all the most important stuff I’m doing with Dan and a lot of my clients inside the Superpower Accelerator Program. Plus, I'll give you actionable steps to take to grow and move forward. Enjoy!

Imagine having clients BEGGING to work with you and saying things like, “I've been looking for someone like you forever! How can I work with you right now?

Imagine being able to find BIG opportunities that produce tons of money for really long periods of time.
 
Today on the show we’ll reveal new thinking to manifest money (even during a global pandemic) and Dan and I will share some big work that we've been doing for the Strategic Coach organization that you can model in your own business.

This episode includes a model, process and brainstorming tool my team and I call “Content Parties” that help you solve your biggest business challenges. I like to think of it as how to make a movie starring YOU (or your prospect) AS THE HERO by turning ideas into words that can move mountains.
 
Strategic Coach is in its 31st year and in a new realm because they've recently entered the virtual world. Part of what I’ve done to help Strategic Coach pivot and adapt to the new world order is a lot of analysis and plugging in of its history and data to output knowledge about their perfect market and how to target it specifically.
 
What we've also had to do is take several departments who have been operating a certain way for a very long time, (and let's just face it... after 31 years in business every organization has a way of thinking that gets in its own way) and create conversations amongst those departments to have the same goals and ultimately craft stories to attract right fit customers.
 
The end result is something every business wants and needs. It's the “civitas moment” where people show up at your doorstep, virtually or digitally, raising their hands saying, “I already know I want to work with you, how do I register right now? It feels like I've been looking for someone just like you forever, why haven't we met before?”
 
Strategic Coach is in a beautiful place right now where they're making their programs available virtually, not just physically. Historically the experience happens in quarterly, one day meetings where people fly in from all over the world. Obviously, right now that’s not possible but I believe we're sitting on the opportunity to double Strategic Coach’s size!
 
To learn how to use “Content Parties” to create a deeper connection and community with your best customers, listen to this episode right now! We’ll also show you how to use referrals to get the BEST leads.
 
More information on the new Strategic Coach Virtual Program is right here.

What’s the “Golden Thread” that unites front stage and backstage, or sales and fulfillment of a successful business?
Think about the customer’s journey ... all of the team stakeholders … sales, program advisors, coaches, etc.
 
How can a business leader ensure that there’s a “through line” so everyone is on the same page even though they all have different motives, incentives, and compensation plans?
 
It’s the exact OPPOSITE of bureaucracy. It’s collaboration and partnerships that produce massive value.
 
This week on the show, Dan and I talk about something that fascinates both of us, and that is, “What is the opposite of bureaucracy?” It’s something we call the “Golden Thread.” In other words, something valuable that’s held together by the thread, which is collaboration and partnerships.
 
In a way, that's what a great “Simplifier-Multiplier” collaboration is all about. Go back and listen to our last episode to get all the details of a Simplifier-Multiplier relationship. This episode is a continuation of that.
 
Dan and I have a challenge for you: We’d like for you to reflect on what brings you more joy when you're working. Do you like taking complicated, confusing things that have way too many steps and making them very simple? OR do you see something really simple that's more effective than anything you've ever seen before, but you don't want to improve on it, you just want to get it out to as many people as possible?
 
That's the essence of what Simplifier-Multiplier teamwork is. It's where one person is really good at producing something that's simpler, easier, cheaper, better, and another person sees it and says, “Let's get this out into the world!”
 
Then it really comes down to using the Four Ms: Market, Model, Message, and Medium.
 
* Market: You need to know who you're getting the product out to.
* Model: How are you going to monetize it? What’s your business model?
* Message: How are you going to communicate a package of value? What are you saying to your audience?
* Medium: Refers to the platform or avenue through which you will be talking to your target audience.
 
There are also three subcategories to the Four Ms that I jokingly call, “Get Paid, Get Laid, Live Forever.”
 
* Get Paid: Make more money (or time compression).
* Get Laid: Become more attractive to an audience.
* Live Forever: Sell your audience increased health, vitality, or quality of life.
 
In the case of Strategic Coach®, the “get paid” part is achieved through time compression and multiplication. They also promise their participants that they’ll have more freedom, a better lifestyle, and be able to do more, which makes them more attractive and covers the “get laid” part. And, finally, they’ll have a higher quality of life, which covers the “live forever” part.

To hear about how I transformed my own 30+ year business from the first days of going at it blindly with brute force and no structure to the refined, simplified, value-driven business it is today, listen to the whole episode right now!

Have you ever had a “tingle moment”?
You know ... the moment of alignment when inspiration between two different minds meet?
 
It sort of feels like God is sprinkling fairy dust on your brain, and you know what you just heard is exactly what you need to do and it's going to produce massive results in your life.
 
What if you could create that moment whenever you wanted?
 
On the show this week, Dan Sullivan and I tackle the topic of how to create a perfect Simplifier-Multiplier moment. Funnily enough, Dan and I are really good examples of a Simplifier (Dan) and a Multiplier (me). But these are not personality types; they’re operating modes.
 
If you're a Simplifier, you don't have to work at simplifying. You have to work at being Multiplier-friendly.
 
Dan and I have been immersed in the entrepreneurial world for decades. Sometimes, entrepreneurs can be described as weird or outsiders, but when you get to know them, you notice that they just operate differently.
 
Over the years, we've witnessed two completely different operating modes for entrepreneurs.
 
One of them is a Simplifier. The Simplifier wants to take complexity and make it simple. This is an inward movement. The Simplifier goes inward and takes something that has a lot of different working parts and reduces it to the bare minimum number of steps that would enable people to do something much more easily.
 
The Multiplier, on the other hand, takes a simple thing and gets it out into the world, which is an outward movement. I am a 100% MULTIPLIER. If you track my 30+ year career, everything I’ve done is about getting attention, building audiences and platforms, and monetizing them.
 
What’s important is for Simplifiers and Multipliers to learn how to communicate with each other in a collaborative way. That's one of the key things when you talk about the Free Zone Frontier: the perfect Free Zone Frontier partners are a Simplifier and a Multiplier who both have businesses and come together to create a competition-free zone.
 
Something that has become very, very clear to Dan and me after years of being entrepreneurs and training other entrepreneurs is that if you're a Simplifier, you don't need lessons on how to simplify things because you do it naturally.
 
You don't really have to motivate yourself to be what you are. What you have to motivate yourself to do is to be friendly to the other side. In other words, if I'm a Simplifier, then my main job is to be really friendly to a Multiplier.
 
Are you familiar with “The Four M’s” (Market, Model, Message, and Medium)? When you understand how to implement the framework of “The Four M’s,” any problem can be solved. Always rely on a framework to simplify the complex anytime you feel overwhelmed or confused.
 
Dan is a Simplifier. What he brings to the table is that he can look at an activity that produces value and break it down into the simplest number of steps and put context around it. He’s been helping entrepreneurs simplify their way of being successful for almost 50 years now.
 
When you put the two of us together, add systems, and show people how to do what we do … the possibilities for success in both business and life are endless!
Text “more” to 858.434.5316 for transcripts of this episode.
If you like powerful conversations with strong opinions and elevated answers, leave us a message, rate, review, and share!

“There’s way too much on my plate...” “I’ve got WAY too much stuff going on...” “My wife’s already all over me...” “I already travel too much…” “I can’t spend time away from my family…” “My business won’t function without me!”
These are the most common sales objections you’ll get once you get past price.
 
Today, we’re going to dissect the most common sales challenges you’ll hear AND give you word-for-word scripts, plus a link where you can download the transcripts and adapt them to your business, no matter what your product or service is.
 
You’re also going to learn a big idea called “The Mary Kay Close.” It’s how you can get ANYone to want more of you!
 
A few other BIG sales objections we’ll cover on this episode:
 
* “I’m uncertain about the economy in the near future.”
* “I’m not sure I can commit to this.”
* Before, during, and after framing.
* What to say when people ask for a payment plan.
* How to differentiate your service offerings from other masterminds.
 
Another tool of great importance in building a super successful business is gathering client testimonials and transformation stories.
 
When Marissa and I work with our one-on-one clients doing “Vision Days” for SuperPower Accelerator, one of the things we want from every single person we work with is for them to be able to share a transformational journey.
 
In other words:
 
* Tell me a story about the best client you’ve ever had.
* What was the before, during, and after story?
* What was life like before your product and service?
* What was the experience like of going through the process or consuming the product?
* What is life like now?
 
One of the ways we gather testimonials is by interviewing past clients and trusted advisors and asking them these questions. Another great method is to ask them to make a short video using their phone.
 
We teach them how to do this by giving them a little video describing how to get the best quality and overcome their fear of being on camera (even though it’s only their phone) to tell their story and then submit it back to us.
 
That can be the most effective way to overcome an objection—by sharing someone’s real and authentic transformational story, or just being able to tell their personal journey.
 
What’s important is that you reflect a client’s experience back to a prospect in their own language. When you’re projecting your own perspective, your own language patterns, your own vocabulary on someone, it feels inauthentic and unnatural. That’s one of the core ways that salespeople lose their clients right away. They’re not speaking from an empathic point of view.
 
Demonstrating empathy and compassion is one of the key secrets to getting people to raise their hand and have that moment of, “Wow, it feels like you’re speaking directly to me! You know me. I really appreciate that.”
 
To hear our best responses to any and ALL sales objections, plus the rest of our really BIG ideas including the “Mary Kay Close,” watch the video on YouTube or download and listen to the audio right now.
 
After you listen to the interview, leave me a message and let me know what you think of this episode OR ask a question you’d like Dan or me to answer in an upcoming episode!

“That costs too much money...” “It’s WAY too expensive...” “I don’t have the cash right now…” “What’s the return on investment?” What about, “I’m not going to pay $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000, for a virtual program! I expect an in-person experience.”
 What are the biggest sales objections you and your team are getting consistently that block the big sale? How frustrating is it when you realize you’ve lost a potential client because they ghost you?
 
I’ll tell you why you keep getting these same objections. It’s because you’re not asking enough questions. And that’s what this episode is all about: gathering the right data so that you can present the right information and never feel like you’re in that pushy/salesy/yucky mode. Instead, your potential clients will be pulled into you, experiencing the moment where they say, “Wow, I already know I want to work with you—how do we start? I’ve been looking for someone just like you for a long time!”
 
Today, I’d also like to introduce you to someone super special! Her name is Marissa Brassfield and you may know her because she worked with Peter Diamandis for years, helping build the Abundance 360 Community and the “Strike Force Team” that supported it.

A while back, she left that organization and decided to evolve, grow, and build her own career, and we decided to start working together. Together, we created the Superpower Accelerator, which is a boutique experience where we help people build their brands and platforms.

The biggest challenge most businesses have is that their messaging is off.

It’s why prospects don’t connect and convert.

Consistently having a great sales message that gets someone to enroll and pre-qualifies them, and being able to repeat that same messaging over and over again, is super important. Knowing that your sales team actually says the same things, tells the same stories, and is prepared with responses to all of the biggest objections to working with you would be invaluable, right?

On this podcast, we share the deep psychology that has been proven to work. It’s the same exact system I’m building inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan and his team—part of what Dan calls the Free Zone Frontier Program.
 
If you’re ever in a situation where you need to have a sales conversation, whether it’s live or virtual, the first thing you need to ask is “The Dan Sullivan Question":

“If you and I were meeting three years from today, what needs to have happened in your life, both personally and professionally, for you to feel satisfied with your progress?”
 
This will enable you to get inside the head and psyche of the person, learn A LOT about them and their values, and truly understand where they are in their lives.
 
If you’re talking to someone who is already financially successful and secure, they’re going to have VERY different answers from someone who is a first-time entrepreneur, perhaps fresh out of college, in debt or dealing with discovering themselves and their identity.
 
When you’re armed with this information, it enables you to direct the sales conversation and perfectly personalize your offer to them.
 
Next is the D.O.S.® question (Dangers, Opportunities, and Strengths).
 
Ask your prospect:
1 - What are the dangers that you and your business are facing right now?
2 - What opportunities are in front of you that you cannot take advantage of because you don’t have the right team, resources, capital, or capabilities?

Sheri Salata grew up outside of Chicago and worked with the daytime television titan for more than 20 years with one of the most heralded jobs on the planet as the executive producer of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” In this episode, Sheri gives us some AMAZING takeaways from her tenure working with Oprah.

But as AMAZING as it sounds, Sheri says, “It was not a straight shot by any means! I think that when people hear about a 20-year career with Oprah Winfrey, it sounds like I just left college and sailed right into Harpo studios and started climbing up the ladder. But the truth is, I did not start at The Oprah Winfrey Show until I was 35 years old, in an entry-level position.”
 
Over her 20+ career, Sheri was privy to EVERYTHING that was pitched to Oprah, and she’s used that knowledge to expand her depth with regard to her own business and passions—from diet trends to celebrity drama, fitness crazes and spiritual movements. Sheri had access to many of the secrets that passed through Oprah’s studios, and today we uncover what those professional lessons did for Sheri and her business, and what it can do for YOU TOO!
 
Sheri shares with me what happened to her personally through her journey. During her professional career, she LOST herself; gained and lost 40, 60, and 100 pounds; smoked cigarettes; didn’t marry or have children; and when she made the decision to leave the show, she began her REAL journey to find herself again.
 
THIS is a story of reinvention over 50 — RELEASING A LIFETIME OF SHAME AND SADNESS.
 
Some of the best takeaways from this episode:
 
* How to use life’s “Magical Glasses” and how that can lead you to fast life transformations and reinventions.
* How to see a story in someone and how to use that story to teach and connect deeply to an audience.
* What TRULY made the Oprah Show work.
* What running a BILLION dollar media company was like, and the secret to producing 100+ shows a year FOR DECADES.
* How we are “curators of our own reality” — and how to use that to increase your consciousness.
* How to intentionally create the most magical moments in your life and how to utilize those to shape your mission.
* The power in taking simple actions to make the biggest moves that produce the most significant results.
 
Grab of copy of Sheri’s book, The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence, and Transformation, check out her podcast, The Sheri + Nancy Show, and visit her website at the www.ThePillarLife.com.