The Business of Business Podcast

What Is Positive Intelligence? See How You Can Take Advantage of Knowing with Ann Holm

Positive Intelligence is so critical, especially right now. It's important to know when we're getting in our own way. We keep trying to do use strategies to manage our world that simply aren't working. The Positive intelligence that I'm talking about today is based on the work of Shirzad Chamine.

About Ann

Ann has been in the people development business since 1984. Currently, she is a Professional Certified Coach, specializing in executive, and organizational development coaching. Ann is a certified Master Practitioner of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and a world expert on how to use type effectively for personal and team development.

Ann is also a skilled mental fitness coach.  Just like physical fitness, you can deliberately build focus and resilience to help you reach your goals. The stronger your mental muscle, the more likely you are to hold onto your gains over time. Ann uses Positive Intelligence which is an up-and-coming framework to achieve mental resilience.

Prior to coaching, Ann had 25 years of experience in Applied Brain Science, and she also uses this hands-on experiences to help her clients understand how to stay focused, be engaged, and energized given the demands of the 21st-century workplace.

www.annholm.net

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www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

What Is Positive Intelligence? See How You Can Take Advantage of Knowing with Ann Holm

Sun, 8/1 1:08PM • 37:00

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

saboteurs, avoider, people, situation, controller, individual, positive, stickler, intelligence, person, thinking, feel, instance, strategy, hyper, victim, mental resilience, hand sanitizer, pleaser, characters

SPEAKERS

Ann, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:00

Your host Roy, of course, we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guests that can talk about a lot of diverse topics and today is no exception. We are excited to have Ann Holm back with us. She has been a previous guest, but seemed like we had to wrap it up right in the middle of a great conversation. So she's been gracious enough to come back. She's been in the people development business since 1984. She is currently a professional certified coach, specializing in executive and organizational development coaching. She is certified master practitioner of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and a world expert on how to use type, how to use type effectively for personal and team development. She's also a skilled mental fitness coach, just like physical fitness, you can deliberately build focus and resilience to help you reach your goals, the stronger your mental muscle, the more likely you are to hold on to your gains over time, she uses the positive intelligence, which is an up and coming framework to achieve mental resilience. Prior to coaching, she had 25 years of experience in applied brain science. And she also used this hands on experience to help her clients understand how to stay focused, engaged and energized given the demands of the 21st century workplace. Ann thanks a lot, and welcome back to the show.

 

Ann  01:24

Hi, glad to be here. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  01:25

so I'm excited. And actually, in the sentiero, the positive intelligence that is one thing that, you know, we really want to touch on, I'll let you, you know, kind of give a little introduction about how you found yourself here. But in, you know, we're going to kind of frame this positive intelligence about the impending move from workers being home base to maybe having to go back to the office even for a limited amount of time and the anxiety and everything that's wrapped around that. So anyway, that tell us a little bit about you know, how you found yourself here, this is such an interesting, I guess, skill set and play, you know, area to focus on.

 

Ann  02:06

Yeah, it you know, it is it's, it's, it's it's a very interesting study. And it's also one that I think is so critical, given the times that we're in right now, it's always important to know when we're getting in our own way. And that's effectively what's lack of positive intelligence is we get it we get in our own way, we keep trying to do use strategies to manage our world that simply aren't working. And we all have those. So this positive intelligence that I'm wanting to talk about today is based on the work of shirzad humaine. And it is a best selling book of that Sherzad, published in 2013. And it has now evolved into a very useful coaching program. And I'm a certified practitioner of that program. But what I love about this is that it teaches mental flexibility, mental resilience, especially in the context of what we're going through right now, which is this ambiguous state of, are we going to work? Are we not going to work? What's it going to look like? etc? What are the risks, etc, etc. I mean, it's a long list of ambiguities. And it's putting people into a position where they're trying defensive sort of strategies that might actually be hard to begin or getting themselves less than what they really need or want. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  03:42

Yeah, no, it feels like we've just gotten, you know, kind of settled into this routine. And now it's like that change again, and I, you know, realistically, the only constant in this world is change. And so I do realize that but you know, a lot of people have been at home, they've been kind of left to their own devices managing themselves or their workflow, not close to other people. And so now we're going to try, and maybe some of these behaviors have been amplified during this period. But now we're going to try to maybe bring everybody back. So it's not only the anxiety of what's my new routine going to look like, but also, you know, kind of the interaction and what are the risks, like you said, of actually going back to an office?

 

Ann  04:27

Yes, yes, that's exactly it. And so I'll get lunch, I'll give a brief description of what the positive intelligence framework is. And then I will talk about how it sort of applies to what we're, what we're talking about here, what this return to work thing. So basically, we have a tendency, everybody has a tendency to either judge ourselves, judge our circumstances or judge other other individuals. So we We spend a lot of time judging. And we fall into this, particularly when we are in situations where we feel you we have negative emotion, whether you feel unsafe, we feel unsure, etc. So we start start doing that we start saying, you know, poor me, I'm in this particular situation or I, I, I'm not going to be safe or or something like that. We might judge others, you know, I wish that guy would just stop talking about it and just get back to work. Because we have those guys as well. We just circumstances, Oh, my gosh, you know, is it ever going to feel normal again, so we get ourselves into these mindsets where we're constantly, you know, judging. And then on top of that, we have these characters that shirzad talks about that are called the saboteurs. So there's certain ways in which we try to cope with these situations. And it actually is counterproductive. We don't think it's counterproductive, but it actually is. So I'll give an example of what one of these characters might look like. So one of the Sabbath tours that she talks about is an avoider so an avoider is an individual who is very uncomfortable around unpleasantness. So they, you know, they might be the kind of person if we put it in the context of the pandemic, might be the kind of person who would say, this is way overblown. People just need to get over it. You know, just stop talking about it. No, I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear what the CD C has to say. It's it's this. It's this strategy that is being used to try to not have your equilibrium disturbed too much. Right. Okay, then I happen to be an avoider myself. So, you know, I The funny thing about being an avoider is that you think to yourself, well, what's wrong with wanting to keep things pleasant? Right? What's wrong with trying to make sure just, you know, it feels like it's actually a good thing to be that person. But actually, what it does is, is you're actually potentially avoiding very important information, or you're dismissing people who might have legitimate concerns. That's a tendency of an avoider. Okay, so now that person's coming back to work. And somebody might have a legitimate concern about well, you know, what are our protocols? And that individual might say, an avoider might say, Well, you know, you'll find out when you get here, we'll be fine. Right? Now, another person's strategy might be around trying to get it every single specific rule, those people are known as sticklers. So they want to know, they might want to know all the protocols, they might become very upset. If somebody walks past the hand sanitizer and doesn't use it sees a mask drop down below the nose, something like that they make they can become very, very, very agitated. So now imagine a stickler and an avoider have come back to work. Oh my gosh. So the exam, the anxieties are still high, the ambiguity is still high. And now you've got these two characters that are trying to share share office space, you know, that one guy going, you know, just just cool. And the other guy is going, I'll cool it when you use the hands.

 

Roy Barker  08:40

Or the stick. I was just something popped into my head about the stickler. I don't know if I asked you if this is part of their trade, though, is it's the guy that is like, okay, you know, here's this protocol that we have, maybe it's just using hand sanitizer, but then it's like, Well, okay, but what if, if the sun came up in the West tomorrow, you know, do you know if the moon turned green? You know, it's these people that they come up with every imaginable scenario to you're like, Oh, my gosh, let's just start in with what we're doing. And then you know, we'll cross these other bridges if they ever materialize. Okay.

 

Ann  09:19

And that's interesting, because you actually, it's not a stickler, but you brought up another variety of saboteur, which is the hypervigilant. Okay, so, those are the guys who say, okay, you know, everybody here at work has gotten vaccinated, right, we're all back. We've all had the vaccinations. And that person says, Well, what about the B 1x variant? How have we accounted for that? Right? And so, you, uh, you're looking at this, this level of constant hyper vigilance about the what if the you know what, if the moon is Green and sun comes up in the West. That whole kind of a thing. Yeah, you know, they want everything is about getting the sureness of, of there being no possibility of something going wrong. The problem is, is that that's not that's not reality for anybody, right? You know if that if we were looking to prevent all possible disasters, we wouldn't get in a car we wouldn't, you know we'd be carrying, we'd have all our food pureed because what if we choked on a whatever you know. So but that's another version of coping with that stress this hypervigilant. So we've talked about three of them the avoider, who, you know, tries to avoid anything that's going to disrupt their flow. We've talked about the stick the stickler, the person who is really tight about protocols we've talked about now the hypervigilant, the person who's, you know, worried about whether or not some sort of further curveball is going to destroy is going to put everybody at risk. So those are three and there's six others, I'll just tell you who they are, okay, we have a full list. So we have the controller, this is the individual who tries to control themselves control, everybody control the system. They're different than the stickler. Because the stickler is looking at, are you following the protocol and the rules, the controller is trying to move the chess pieces. So they're the ones that are trying to seize control of everything, and are very, very anxious if they don't have it. So they feel like, if I don't control the situation, the situation is gonna control me. That's their mindset. And they don't realize the dark side to that thinking, Yeah, all right. So that's another one controller, the hyper achiever, these might be the individuals who are out to to prove that they can work, you know, harder, faster and accomplish more than anybody else. And so they don't, they leave it to a little bit of a debris path. You know, they're the ones that are, you know, shooting off aim emails at 1am. And making everybody else feel guilty about not, you know, engaging with that. So, so you've got that you have the I mentioned the hypervigilance, we have the restless person, and these are the guys that have a hard time just staying in one spot. So they might be the guys that say, you know, I don't want to come back into the office, my plan was going to was to go to Bora Bora to Bora Bora for the next several months, and then I was going to go to Croatia, then I was going and so trying to get them to say okay, no, actually, you know, you might be coming into the office a few days a week here. They might, you know, you might start to see this restlessness. And then imagine By the way, the restless person engages with the controller who says, Oh, no, you're not. No, you're coming in, right? And so you get, you know, you get these kinds of of behaviors. So like, how many have I listed? so far? Six? That is six. Yes. Yeah. Okay, six. So the ones What else? Oh, by the hyper achiever, the hyper the controller, the avoider, the pleaser, an individual who, you know, is going out of their way to make sure everybody's happy at every moment. Yeah. So they bending over backwards, and they're exhausting themselves trying to make sure everybody, you know, is is happy. And their, their, their. Their way of controlling that situation, that exact anxious situation is by trying to serve to the point that they wear themselves out. Right. So, so that's another individual. So I've got seven of those, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Okay. The victim, the victim is another one. Now the victim is the one who is just, this is awful, that's awful. The situation's never going to be the same. You know, we might come into the office, but it's going to be terrible. And, you know, I so this this idea of every there's no control here, we're just we're just victims, we're just going to be, you know, that's why it's going to be so that's another character. So now, again, you imagine these guys interacting with each other, you've got, you know, the stickler, who comes and says, Oh, you forgot the hand sanitizer, and the victim says, Oh, I never get anything right. Right. Right, right. Right. Right. So yeah, you get you get that going. Now, who am I forgetting in this lineup of characters, I've got the pleaser. I've got the victim. I've got the hyper achiever. I've got the hyper vigilant I've got the what else to have I mentioned already, avoid Under the avoider and restless, that's restless. So why there's just one that I just, it's not coming to mind it usually can rattle these off just a second, I'll just tell you what they are. That's okay. It's unbelievable. I have to look it up. Let's see. So these are again, these are just guys that are getting in the way of us using our best thinking. Yeah, okay, here we go. Which one? Oh, the hyper rational? Oh, yes, of course. So the hyper rational is the guy who is says, follow the science. All you have to do is follow the science. And they don't think about some of the emotional underpinnings of what might be creating difficulties for other people. So they might say, you just follow the science. Well, science actually changes. And if we only follow the science, we actually have been getting lots of mixed messages from science. Yeah. All you got to do is mask No, no mask, nope. sciences, no mask, no sciences, one mask, no sciences, two masks, yeah, etc. So if you take that hyper rational stance, oh, whatever, you know, level just follow the science. That's no guarantee either. But that's the strategy these individuals use. So imagine, follow the science is interacting with the victim or follow the science is interacting with the avoider, you can get these these mixtures of personalities that are using their you're using maladaptive strategy saboteurs to try to create some sort of order in their own thinking,

 

Roy Barker  16:45

yeah. So are they are we do we have an underlying predisposition to one of these, but maybe we switch between them in different situations? Or do we typically if we're, you know, let's just say if we're the pleaser, we're the pleaser, pretty much constantly?

 

Ann  17:03

I have? That's an excellent question. We all have all of these inside of ourselves to a certain degree, and the situation will certainly dictate what you might see. However, we also have usually two or so two, or three, that repeat themselves more often, okay. And on top of that, one of my colleagues and I actually did some research on whether somebody's personality type by way of The MBTI could actually predict what those saboteurs might look like. And for some personality types, they're pretty easy to predict. So for somebody who, for instance, is an intp, those individuals tend to, you know, lean towards hyper rational. But for some types you can't predict. But we usually have a one, two or three of them that show up a lot. Mine is restless avoiders. So, you know, I'm the kind of person who says, Oh, you know, it's gonna be fine. And and I'm going to bore you. So, but it's annoying for it seems like, well, what's wrong with that you're taking care of yourself, you're in the dark side is, is that you are leaving a debris path behind you. And you'll still feel that restlessness no matter where you are.

 

Roy Barker  18:26

So that guess that brings up kind of this situation, I wonder if employers have taken this into account? Because there's always the personality conflicts just when there's work. And now we've kind of bring this extra element of people have things to worry about or to be hyper vigilant. It's not just, yep, oh, you misspelled this word or that, you know, that Excel box should be strong enough. Now we've thrown this and people, I don't know, from what I've seen, people tend to be very emotional and be very whatever side they're lean into, they're very stringent on that, as you know, like, there's not too many people who are in the middle and trying to see the middle ground. So I guess, I guess the question wrapped up in all that was, you know, have employed as we see, openings and things like that, do you think that employers have really taken that into account?

 

Ann  19:26

Very likely not because the the saboteurs often show up as sort of a dark side of being a particular having a particular strength. So for instance, if you are somebody who is able to get things sort of lined up and working as a good unit, they, they're often lauded for those other behaviors and The depending on pecking order, for instance, the the hyper controlling boss doesn't it's not a dark it doesn't he doesn't think it's a dark side. This is how I keep this place running. Yeah, right. Yeah. And they don't they don't realize they don't realize even in themselves that that's actually creates a real downdraft. Yeah. When you when you bring those characters into the room because now you get somebody who for instance again, let's say an avoider so he noticed that something has gone wrong and he should go tell his boss the controller What's going on? Well if he feels like he's gonna go in there and just get nailed, or he gets his own personal freedom restricted like if he says For instance, I noticed on this spreadsheet, I made a mistake. And if he is going to go in and see the controller boss, the controller boss might say, Well, that's it. Everything you do from here on out, you have to show me first. So he might avoid go even going in there. Because he might meet that. Yeah, yeah. Right. So if this is the kind of dynamics we see, in a normal situation, you add the pandemic, and you add the return to work. And now you have the possibility of really seeing a lot of these characters. So you might that might beg the question then, okay, great. What are we doing? Right, right, right. Yes. So the nice thing about the positive intelligence program is two things, it creates self awareness around our own saboteurs. And what the, the impact of those things really are. And then there's also a way of teaching yourself how to have better self command of your thinking. So there's a there's actually an eight week program that can be done. And and I, I take clients through the eight week boot camp, and then they learn how to settle their physiology down and recognize that the saboteurs in the room and then they make other types of choices, the term is using your Sage powers, that's the term that shirzad uses. But it's this idea of, you know, finding some empathy in the situation, taking a step back, seeing what's really going on, taking a non judgmental approach to innovating for ideas, deciding, you know, what's in alignment with either your values or the values of the company and then deciding on action. So instead of battling the saboteurs, like, No, I'm not going to show him this spreadsheet, because then he's going to tell me, I have to talk to him. Every time I do a spreadsheet, you can, you can check those guys at the door. And you can come together and say, Okay, what went wrong here, I can understand why that went wrong. You know, what do you think is going to be a good way to go about fixing this. And so you can start to co create a solution that's using a more positive trajectory, then to start to battle, the saboteurs. Because when the saboteurs are in the room, you just get more of the negative stuff, and you get farther and farther apart. And so when you see the toxic office, a lot of times it's the saboteurs that are doing battle there.

 

Roy Barker  23:42

Yeah. So I'm just gonna say, I guess there has to be some respect about no matter our position is that you feel a certain way based on your beliefs and how you interpret data. I feel the way I do but the, you know, I look at this as politics and religion as well, the effort and the turmoil for me to try to come out and convince you that you're wrong. I'm right, you need to think like I do get on board with this. I mean, it and I know it's hard, because we want everybody to kind of we think our thinking is the norm, and how can anybody else think differently, but in reality, we have to embrace that and say, you know, why you feel the way you do because of this and then try to somehow, you know, I know we can't go so far that it becomes detrimental, but that some way we have to kind of adjust to be able to let people have those feelings.

 

Ann  24:41

Yeah, it's so it's so essential. And honestly, when, when people so when they do the positive intelligence program, they really are practicing 15 minutes a day. Mindfulness and I, we hear mindfulness a lot and we think, Oh gosh, we throw mindfulness on this Through mindfulness and that it's it's, it's, it's really about slowing down and thinking about what needs to be done in this moment, rather than thinking of all the things that went wrong in the past and all the things that could go wrong in the future, to the point where we're so distracted by that. So imagine, you know, for instance, a hypervigilant person coming back to work, and they're the only place their mind can go is what happens if the B one 2x variant shows up here? And, you know, and now we're in this particular search, and they can't, they can't bring themselves to Okay, this is what I need to do here. What are the protocols that I could follow? So that I know I'm safe? And, you know, and co create even as a team? All right, you know, what are we going to do as a team? What are we going to follow through on as a team, so that everybody feels like they can do their work and not get sidetracked? Yeah. But it's a big challenge. It's a huge challenge. Really?

 

Roy Barker  26:07

Yeah. And I heard an old saying years ago that, you know, people would just try to challenge you on saying, well, that's just your perception. But I think the strong point is that our perception is our reality.

 

Ann  26:21

That is correct. And when you battle it, and you don't try to, you know, meet with some sort of common thinking, or you are, you don't realize that your own perspective is up for some degree of discussion, right? You really can get, you know, more of these battles. So it's really, really helpful if if an office can you know, at least if each under individual can understand what their likely saboteur looks like. And, and go from there. So

 

Roy Barker  26:58

and we get, I think, to ask your opinion on this is that we need to ask the questions, why? To understand not to set up a point to have a bad alarm, because so many times they'll be like, Well, I know that you feel this way. So can you tell me why you feel you know, I'm just trying to understand better why you feel that way? And then the first thing out of your mouth, you're like, Oh, well, that's so wrong.

 

Ann  27:23

It's like, okay, what's the point of that? session? Right, that exercise? Yeah, well, that's, that's actually one of the real benefits to being having an entire staff, or at least the leadership, you know, if, if they even just go to positive intelligence.com, they can actually take that assessment for free, and find out what their flavor of of saboteur looks like, you know, that's the opening of a way to get at it. And then from there, if they think, Okay, well, you know, we want to, we want to improve that dynamic, then, you know, I can work with them or, or another person who knows this system can work for them. Yeah, but right off the bat, if you just go there, and you just get a feel for it. So if you say, Okay, here I am, I like that I'm gonna, you know, I'm I'm gonna avoid or you can at least start to see, that's the first layer of self awareness around the way we get into our get in our own way. And how others, we might bring out other sorts of saboteur behavior and other people as well, you know,

 

Roy Barker  28:35

yeah, that's the other question is, so do do just take an avoider, for instance, do they have more conflict with maybe the controller or versus just trying to let versus, you know, somebody else on the spectrum that maybe they don't have, or as they're just potential for everybody to have conflict?

 

Ann  28:57

I think I think it just you, you'll see, you'll see various types of conflict unfold. So in the past, I have done some workshops for people using the saboteur thing. And I do this thing called saboteur theater where I have two volunteers come up, and they pick out of a hat, whatever those saboteurs are. So let's say you're gonna have a victim and a controller, right? And then I give them a scenario, like they're sharing a hotel room. And then there's, then they're going to do like a little skit on what it would look like if a victim and a controller, were sharing a hotel room. So, you know, the one individual might do something like they swipe their key card, it doesn't work. Oh, that never works for me, the controller elbows his way in and says, Let me do it and, you know, on and on it goes. So you'll get that flavor, but you might get let's say you get an avoider and a stickler and they're trying to balance a checkbook, right? You know, it's, it's, you'll just see a different flavor of conflict come out. You know, especially if people's mindset is falling into that negative. It can be fear, it can be lack of certainty there's there's lots of different things that you know, it could be irritability, there could be any kind of these negative emotions are the first sign you're going to bring the saboteur to the table.

 

Roy Barker  30:28

Yeah. And I'm like, I feel like I'm that way to the point. It's that the, the not knowing if, if I know yes, if I know, no, I can plan appropriately and take the corrective action, it's that it's just that place of limbo, sometimes. But then then we could kind of talk a little bit about the, you know, borrowing trouble, you know, we talked about that with worry, and because you can worry, worry, worry about a situation and I'm gonna, I'll throw myself under the bus, we had one here the other day that, you know, I was thinking a lot about it kept me up one night, and then guess what, it didn't even materialize. And I look back and think, what a waste of effort. And they even have given it a second thought. And it's gonna tell you, it's hard. But that's something I tried to do is like, okay, is this a reality? yet? If it's not, then, you know, we, of course, we don't want there may not be any traffic on the interstate, but we still don't want to, you know, sit in a chair out in the middle of that. We have some common sense, but I know, on the up, but really is like, if, if we can't do anything about it, is it really worth giving it a lot of extra thought? You know, for some things?

 

Ann  31:41

Yeah. And there's a lot of what I really love about this positive intelligence system is that there's a lot of strategies that you can teach yourself, to start to understand and pick something do something else other than, you know, worry, or, or, or whatever. So I love the idea of you don't put your chair on the interstate, even whether it's locked. It's really good. But you know, but you do see people really, they can stay up all night worrying about something. And, and so maybe one of those techniques might be well, what's the absolute worst case scenario? And can you deal with that worst case scenario? Or what would be your strategy? that kind of a thing, as long as you're not playing it out as reality? Yeah. You know what I mean? So and that's, and though that that takes a little bit of mental discipline and self awareness to know you're even there to even know that you're ruminating. For instance, if you lay awake at night, you're ruminating, you may not even think you're ruminating, you're just thinking about it. Yeah, no, you're ruminating. So well, and

 

Roy Barker  32:50

sometimes we can, you know, make it come true. Because I guess the side effect of being up is then now you haven't slept and now you're cranky. So even if that thing happens, not to the extent you thought your reaction is probably going to be way overblown and out because you're just tired. You're tired. And you've been thinking about this and how I'm going to react. And I'm not going to let that happen. And we're so ready to pounce. So yeah, just yeah. bad situation. Yeah, well, and thanks so much for taking time out of your day. It's always a delightful to chat with you. It's always insightful, we always learn a lot of good stuff. So before we get some other information, what is a tool that you use in your daily life tool or habits, something that really helps you,

 

Ann  33:39

I actually do a positive intelligence gym session every day, which means I just, you know, I learned to to slow my mind down enough or slow my thinking, that's actually not the right word. Or when you use the word slow, I learned to know that I can focus and command my mind. And I know when I'm falling off the rails or most the time, right. So I do that's one of my daily habits is to practice that mindfulness could it's actually very useful. Okay,

 

Roy Barker  34:14

awesome. Well, we will post the link in okay in the show notes for the positive intelligence, but just tell us, you know, how can they reach out and do that? And then of course, who you know, what, what kind of clients do you work with? How can you help them of course where they can reach out and get ahold of you?

 

Ann  34:32

Yeah, so I can be reached at my website is annholm.net and I can be emailed at ann [email protected]. And you there's actually link to book a consultation, I offer free consultations. So if somebody for instance, goes to positive intelligence and they do their they do their positive intelligence assessment, that's free also. They, I'm happy to go over the results with them and just get them started thinking about what that those results could mean and what it might look like in the work that they're doing. So I, I try to, I try to take whatever they're learning about themselves and set it into the, into the current situation that they find themselves. So I'll I'll do that. So it's,

 

Roy Barker  35:24

yeah, it's an important time for this. And I think we can put this on both the employers and the employee, as an employer, you need to really be aware and be prepared for what to expect if you're bringing people back in in the next few months. But then also, as the employee, you need to recognize who you are and where you are, where you're at. So we have the, I guess, beneficial interaction with others or, you know,

 

Ann  35:48

we'd Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. All right. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that's the big challenge, really, as we go back, is, you know, how are we going to manage this very ambiguous situation, so that everybody can bring their best and most flexible self back to work with, you know, and not, you know, derail onto the saboteurs. So,

 

Roy Barker  36:14

yeah, and it's something I really challenge employers to think about. Because until, you know, we talk pre show, I really haven't even thought of this scenario. I mean, you just, I just didn't and so it is going to be a thing. And we probably need to get out in front of it. So we know how to handle it in a positive manner for everybody. That's correct. Yeah. All right. And well, thanks so much. that's gonna do it for another episode of The Business of Business Podcast. I'm your host Roy. Of course, you can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We're on all the major social media platforms as well as all the major podcast platforms iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, for nano one that you use regularly. If you'll let me know I'll be sure and get us added. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

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Looking At New Payment System? Here Are Some Features To Consider with Selina Meere

Not many merchants only accept cash these days. If they do, they are missing out on sales with debit and credit cards as well as online. So today it's almost a must to have a debit and credit card processing option in place. This can be a terminal in a brick and motor location and/or it might include an internet process. there are many things to consider.

About Selina

A Chief Champion Officer, Selina Meere has spent more than 20 years as an advocate and cheerleader for the products, people, and companies she represents. As the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Park Place, a rare women-founded payment processing company, Selina is building it’s reputation as a company you can rely on.

Before joining Park Place team, Selina was an executive in New York’s book publishing industry, holding positions at Penguin Random House and Workman Publishing where she built a full-service in-house agency. She holds a Masters Degree from City University in London, a Bachelors Degree from Gettysburg College, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her family.

www.parkplacepayments.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Looking At New Payment System Here are Some Features To Consider with Selina Meere

Sun, 8/1 1:08PM • 44:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, payments, terminal, people, industry, payment processing, service, merchant, paying, square, selina, clients, question, happening, place, consumers, reach, park, sell, decision

SPEAKERS

Selina, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:00

Of course, we are the podcasts that we bring you a wide variety of guests that can talk about a lot of diverse issues that we have to deal with in the business world. Hopefully, we can hit on some things that maybe you hadn't thought about to make you even more successful. Or if you know that you're having some issues, we can also provide you with some professionals that can help you, you know, work through those issues so you can be successful again. So today is no different. We're we have an awesome guest that I've been looking forward to talking to for a while now. She is the chief champion officer, her name is Selina Meere. And she spent more than 20 years as an advocate and cheerleader for the products, people and companies that she is represented. She is as the vice president of marketing and business development at Park Place. It's a rare woman founded payment processing company, Selina has built a national brand with a reputation as a company you can rely on as they disrupt a broken industry with honesty, diversity and professionalism. Before joining Park Place, she was an executive in New York's book publishing industry holding positions at Penguin Random House, and workman publishing, where she built a full service in house agency. So Selena, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day to be with us.

 

Selina  01:21

Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure.

 

Roy Barker  01:23

Good, good. So you know, we've talked a little bit about it. But you know, I really think you have two good insights for us, we're gonna talk about payment processing. Because if one thing that the pandemic has done for all of us, it's moved a lot of people out of bricks and mortar and online. And so there's a lot of payment systems online in businesses. And, you know, to be honest with you, I wouldn't know one from another, what's good, what's bad. So we'll get you to explain that. But then also, you've got such an awesome. I guess the from the marketing and development far is building from the ground up or taking smaller businesses and making them big. So we'd like to also get some insight. You know, just some things that you have seen and implemented that could really help other small businesses. Great. Well, I'm excited. Yeah. To dig into all of them. Yeah, fine. Yeah. No, we got a lot. But so first off, how did you end up at the park place? First off, and it's a it's a woman own payment processing place? Just wanna make sure I got that correct.

 

Selina  02:31

Yes, it's a rare women owned payment processing company, and also one with a dedication to service. But we'll get into that later. However, you know, the, that those fundamental values are part of the journey that led me here. So what's really cool about what led me here is something that's crucial to every business owner and marketer. And that's the power of your network, right, and how it holds trust for such a long time. So when I started my book publishing career, I was at a division of Random House called crown and their imprint, Clarkson. Potter published three books with a woman named Samantha ettus, who came in and gave this presentation. And that really stuck with me. I knew her because I knew all the authors on the list. I didn't work with her directly. But the presentation just really, really dug into so much in your she talked about her process for follow up and her it's kind of tenacity. And as she was speaking, I was thinking to myself, Well, isn't that what everybody does, but you know, it's not. You know, there was this one key takeaway, which I thought was just natural, but I've learned to teach it since which is when cold calling and I was doing it for pr at the time, you call somebody and leave a message and have your email ready. And so as soon as you hang up, you send me an email and give them that like one two punch. So anyway, that was one of the things that stuck with me. And I've kind of started following her career. She is a public speaker, and she has a really incredible newsletter. And when I relocated to Los Angeles, 20 years later, it turned out, we had a lot of friends in common who kept saying, you know, you should call Samantha s, you should call Samantha Addison, and to be honest with you, and for listeners who are scared to reach out to their network, I was really like, intimidated by the idea of calling her as a civilian and thought, Well, you know, she doesn't know me, even though we have this, you know, common ground from years before, but I did it anyway. And at the time, you know, we just chatted for a little bit, and she was in the very, very early days of conceptualizing what Park Place would be, but you know, there wasn't an opportunity and, and, you know, we just kind of she gave me some advice and connected me with a few other people and I went on and I was consulting and when my knee consulting clients kind of came up, you know, on their ability to work with me any longer. Samantha actually knew that client just as well as she knew all these other friends we have in common, and was reaching out to find someone to run her marketing and business development. And this client said, you know, you too, should speak and I was like, Oh my gosh, like, here we are again. And, and then the timing was right. And so it really is just a testament to how powerful a network can be. And, and that you really do give a network mastery when you reach out to it. So no matter what it is, you're growing as a business leader, or, you know, as an entrepreneur, a unit, make sure you're reaching out to that network. It's, it's your biggest marketing tool, right? And, and you really do give everyone in it, power and they want to help you when you say like, here's what I'm doing. And here's why I need assistance and guidance and advice, right?

 

Roy Barker  06:02

Yeah. And we kind of learned this weekend, how small our networks are my girlfriend, one of her best friends, her mother is in the same industry, and we, you know, are separated by just a couple people. So anyway, I think that it's a good point to just this world has become so much smaller, and you just be surprised who you know, who knows the right person that you need to talk to?

 

Selina  06:29

Well, everyone is an opportunity to grow and to share your story and to help you build your story. But they have to know what your story is. Right? So they can't share it. And, you know, we do a lot of this now at our place, you know, part of which again, you know, we'll get into this, but part of what we do with our sales team and our account executive team is educate them on how to share their story and and how to work with the people around them to really accelerate it and grow it. And anyway, I'm sure that those are topics that you've covered quite a bit on this show. It's crucial that story and that through line,

 

Roy Barker  07:09

you know, we have but you know, we tend to cover so many things that it's never hurts to go back, especially for sales and just reiterate that you got to have a good story, you got to have a good use story, you got to have a good company story. It can't just be in it. You can't knock on the door and like I'm here, here's, you know, here's the contract, I'm here for you to sign up. So let's, you know, move on. It just takes more than that. Because you have to build that trust relationship people buy from people they like, can't say that enough. And so you have to get to know them. And also, I think it's just good, common sense that I need to care about Selena, I need to know what what are your needs, what you know, maybe don't even need this contraption that I'm trying to sell. But so having those conversations, the other thing, I was jotting some notes, as you were talking is that follow up component. You know, that is something that we are usually fall short on as well.

 

Selina  08:07

Yeah, no question. I mean, so. So I think that it does become kind of easy to get a little spammy these days. And, and so it's given a follow up sort of a bad name. But if you are more thoughtful about it, if it's clear that you know who you're speaking to, if you're also following that person on LinkedIn, at the same time, you're trying to pitch them business, if you're following their business on Facebook and Instagram and commenting on what they do you know that there's so many ways to follow up these days, it's not just another phone call, it's not just another email. And when you make it that full circle, you show that you really are watching and learning what this business does, and that you've done enough research to understand that you're a

 

Roy Barker  08:52

fit. Yeah, because, again, something I just feel like our harp on it is follow up, thoughtful follow up is different from, hey, I'm circling back to see if you're ready to buy now. I still fall out of my chair when I hear that because I'm like, you know, I mean, I'm just sitting here looking at you thinking about your bio and think, you know, you could talk about the public, you know, like, Hey, I'm thinking about publishing a book myself, you know, what can you tell me about that, or as all this great book that came out? There's always a conversation starter to let people know that you really care about them, you know about them. It's not just a selfish, you know, I mean, we are here for the sale. That's how we make money, but there has to be a win win for both of us.

 

Selina  09:36

Yes, and you have to listen, right? I think what you're getting into is, is the importance of listening and I can't, you know, stress that enough. And it's what I've always done as a mentor. And when I had a department, a large department at a big company, and it's what I do now you have to listen in order to understand, you know, truly where the person you're talking to is headed, and also When you're a good listener, you can really you can read between the lines, you can understand what they're actually trying to say. And it goes a really, really long way to be a good listener and then to empathize. And, you know, say I get that, and and talk more about what they want to talk about. So you get to the real issue. Yeah, yeah.

 

Roy Barker  10:21

Yeah, I think, you know, jokingly, we say that me learning about you is not me telling you how great that I am or my product or whatever, you know, we spend, unfortunately, you know, we can get sucked into that pretty easy. We want to tell, you know, we're excited about our product or service. And we just want to do at data dump and tell you all these great things. But you know, what, I guess one thing I've learned over the years is that cost, okay, let's just take cost, that may not be your main concern, maybe you've had trouble with this functioning because of something special that you do. So if you listen in that conversation, instead of trying to hit you on cost, I can be like, Oh, you know what, we can solve that problem. And that's what people want is Problem solved.

 

Selina  11:04

Yeah. And I would say, Well, one of the things that I've always done is, I've always listened to talk radio, and now more and more podcasts, which is great for you, right. And I think I would encourage everyone listening to this, to make sure they're growing their list of podcasts, They're digging back into your archives, and they're practicing their listening skills by listening, right? And then you just get better at it when you're in real life interactions. And the more you listen, the more curious you become, and the better you become through that on curiosity. I mean, curiosity is such a gift. But it's a skill that you can learn by really just kind of honing in on how you're asking questions and how you're paying attention to the answers. And, and you can, you can practice that outside of the conversations that are going to, you know, make or break you right? To find other ways to practice these really crucial skills.

 

Roy Barker  12:02

Yeah, that's a good learned habit that we, you know, we always have to think you always have to be conscious and think about, I'm gonna get my chance to speak, I need to be patient. And that's, you know, that's another thing, a lot of think good salesmen are probably known for that more than the mediocres that, you know, we want to get in a hurry, we want to close it today, it's the end of the month, and I really need this to get turned in by five o'clock today. So we could come in this month, and then we kind of lose our focus of why we're here, we're here to solve this customer's problem.

 

Selina  12:32

Well, you know, like, the traditional salesperson, or the one that you see in media or a nemes is, you know, gregarious, and is always doing the talk and, and is, you know, really excited and in your face, because like, you know, you're not going to make good entertainment by showing a good listener, but it's actually the listeners that are winning the deals and doing really well, but you know, that they're not sexy enough to show on TV. And you know,

 

Roy Barker  13:01

and that's a good point is that strategically place, pauses, and kind of slowing the cadence down a little bit. Those are all good things that you can do as well, you know, because I think the kind of like you said, the caricature of the salesman is talking 90 miles an hour, he never, he's never quite long enough for the poor prospect to even get a word in edgewise, you know,

 

Selina  13:25

where they start throwing out what that person's problems are, before they have any idea or you know, what their rate is? Or it's like, well, how do you know we just met? Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

 

Roy Barker  13:38

You know, and I think the, I think it's on a range to the higher the higher the price of the product or the service, it tends to take more time, because I'm not going to make a huge decision. You know, you called me one time. I'm not, you know, unless I need it and have to have it, it's not something I mean, I'm gonna want to check around compare things. And so we have to have that mindset. Especially like I said, as we climb up that ladder of cost is that people want to, they have a lot of resources available to check other things out. So we need to make sure we're answering their questions and giving them the information they want.

 

Selina  14:14

Yeah, no question and and that Park Place what we're selling is a commodity, right? So pretty much every business already has something in place, but there are a lot of pain points, but they may realize it may not realize or Unfortunately, they think is best, unnecessary evil and something that they have no control over when truly they do and so you have to help them get to where you are, right? You can't in PR and marketing in sales. You can't walk into a conversation and start it where you are. You've got to start it where the person is who you're speaking to, and you can only do that by no remembering to start asking the warm up questions and then get them to your place.

 

Roy Barker  14:59

So you might get lucky. And, you know, maybe a new business reaches out to you. But I sure I would feel like a lot of your business is calling on people, like you said that have the existing product. So let me ask, is that a benefit? Or is that make it harder for you to sell me, if I've already got something in place, because you know, people are just, we don't like change, sometimes even if it's a good change, it's difficult. So

 

Selina  15:29

it's true. And like you kind of you mentioned, like going virtual. And that's a change that, you know, we've been wanting to educate people on how they can do that simply, you know, adding that kind of functionality. And even just that it's hard. People don't like change, it's true. And that's probably one of the, that's a barrier. And then the other barrier is the reputation this industry has. So Park Place has a lot of depth in the bunch in terms of people with, you know, decades of payment processing experience, but it's people who have been within it who have not been satisfied by the way this industry behaves, by the way it treats its customers by, you know, just really seeing what happens on the on the back end and confusing pricing and the bogus fees and the poor customer service and, you know, rewarding a customer service team for getting off the phone as quickly as they can or you know, a customer service team that is only there for pieces of it rather than the full lifecycle of a relationship. So we do have people with experience, but we also have a lot of leadership, you know, myself included Samantha, our founder, who doesn't who comes from outside of the industry. And that's because, you know, we saw in the building of Barclays, that there was just too much of Well, that's the way this industry has always done it. And so that's why we do it this way. And so I will say to anyone listening here, that's a clue that you have real room to disrupt and make change, and that you probably should strike and pounce, and you know, whatever that area is. So what tends to happen, so I'll paint this picture for you. And you've probably experienced it. In in this or in other areas of running a business. So in this industry, most of the sales reps out there are called agents. And actually, there was an Atlantic article many years ago that made it everyone aware that a lot of people who men mostly who left a used car sales lot took this on as their next gig, right? And so this industry has kind of grown from that type of sales persona, like literally the absolute worst stereotype of a sales person. And there's a lot of these agents kind of come into a business. And they'll say, what's your rate, or I can beat your rate or you know, and they start just writing numbers in chicken scratch on a piece of paper, or, you know, the back of a business card. And it's like what just happened, and you know, and so it's really easy, a for that rate to be manipulated. The second thing is that per transaction rate, which the industry with this behavior has gotten merchants and business owners and operations and finance heads to think that that per transaction rate is all that matters, but it's only a small piece of the picture, right, there's a there's more of a cost to having a merchant account than just your rate, but you want to make sure that you're still making the right decisions, right. So if you make it based on a per transaction rate alone, you're making a rate that maybe in the fine print, and most likely in the fine print, they're able to manipulate at any point. And you're also not looking at what other costs they're going to throw in. And what also tends to happen is costs are thrown in maybe every other month or every three months, so that a merchant is unlikely to look at the statement and see it. You know, customer service is absolutely barely exists. In fact, we have someone on our customer service team. Last year, you know, we multiplied our customer service team and we hired somebody who was at a competitor that had over 1000 clients and one person in the customer service team who was let go, it was like basically considered like a call center. And it's our like, one of our main value propositions is a really extraordinary service that is in house that is here, you know, that knows your business. So there's a lot that a business should educate themselves on in order to make the right decision. And the way that this industry has been behaving has kind of perpetuated this feeling of like, I have no choice I have to deal. This is how they all are. And so it's just a little education, you can really make the right decision for you for your business and you can come to know what is a reasonable cost, what is the cost you can and can't control and then also just how to manage it. You know, it is going to always Be a cost center for your business. But it doesn't have to be as outrageous as industry has, you know, kind of enabled. And so that is one of the things that we do. So we act very, very differently. Workplace comes in, truly as a consultant at first. And we we do what's called a payment checkup, we invented this, no one else does it. And unless you've gone through it with Barclays, you've never actually looked at the health of your payments, I can guarantee that. And so we just want to look at your price, your service your technology, and run a full report, we present that back to you with our findings. And 10% of the time, we find you're in the right place, we say stick with what you have. The other 90% of the time, we say this is where we found a discrepancy that we can fix. But it's completely up to the recipient of this report to decide whether or not it makes sense to move forward. And no matter what, whether or not you move forward, whether or not you do it, it's free. It's no obligation. And you've learned something either you have peace of mind, like alright, I don't really love the situation I'm in but it is the right one for me. And so I will stick with it. Or like, Oh, look, here's areas for change. And I can do that. So that's like a super high level. What Park Place can do.

 

Roy Barker  21:23

And I think I think that's something that a lot of businesses should think about is that audit component, because it's a, it's a good value proposition to get in the door, you can gather information to not only help your client, but you can also gather intelligence about your pricing, and maybe somebody provides a service that you don't. So it's, it can be very beneficial in a lot of ways.

 

Selina  21:48

Absolutely. And what we find is, you know, there are a lot of businesses out there with who've made the wrong decision, or they are using a terminal that is about to be sunset in a couple months, and no one has contacted them to tell them. You know, we find businesses that have terminals that should be programmed for contactless payments, but their merchant services provider didn't do that before shipping it to them. And you know, can you imagine last year being a business and not being able to provide contactless or even still now and going forward, like that's the way you know, there's simple things like we program all of our terminals for next day funding all of them for contactless, like, you're never not going to get that just basic, that's just what we do. And at other at some of our competitors, you have to ask for that or pay extra for that. And it's kind of upsetting when you really dig into, like, what's that? So, as a business owner, just find out, you know, if you are among those, you know, businesses that aren't getting everything that you should,

 

Roy Barker  22:54

right, right. And I would assume that customer service should be a big part of this because it's like any other piece of equipment, it's always good as long as it's working. And I really don't you know, I don't really need the customer or the the person that sold it or the business until something goes bad. So it's distressing to hear that somebody let their entire customer service team go but you know, I can only imagine if you're looking at this that you need to ask that question you need

 

Selina  23:25

to ask that question you also have to remember like what is great service right so for example, you know, I was talking to someone who was employed by a really big sort of software company that is Oh, it is a payments company but it's kind of masked by something else with a lovely with other services that it provides and her main role as a customer service representative that you know, there's several things it's first of all make the calls as short as you can and keep the price as high as you can and so all of her clients were paying completely different prices and on completely different pricing structures dependent on what she had to do in that moment to both keep the business but also keep them paying as much as possible and that is like she is an absolutely lovely human being you would be on the phone with her you would felt taken care of but you weren't actually right and so what is real service so just the whole concept that we start with this audit and this console like that's where the service begins. And we carry it through for you know for the life and and when you know really think about like your payment as a business when you're getting paid. That's the final kind of interaction between you and your own consumers. So what do you want that to look like? how smooth Do you want that to be? Do you want again to meet like you know, we come into a business we want to meet you where you are. You want to meet your clients where they are. So for example, your chimney sweep company or you know a roofer when you're selling Sending out an invoice, can that person pay it at 10 o'clock at night? Which is probably when they're getting to it right? Like, what is your capability for accepting payments for whatever it is that you're doing, and is that where the customer needs to be. And so when it comes to virtual, which you brought up earlier, like there are virtual needs, that are maybe not just having an e commerce shopping cart, it's that ability now, you know, to be able to accept payments, when the person who needs to pay you is ready to do that and get on their computer.

 

Roy Barker  25:35

Yeah, and as a consumer, I will say, there's nothing more disheartening and upsetting is when the payment system doesn't work. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I just need to get, I just need to find somebody at this company that wants to take my money to finish the transaction is like, you know, everything else went good and is like, okay, but now the hardest part is just giving them the money to make this happen. And so it can be like that. And, you know, there's some services that I use the same thing I get sent the invoice with the payment link, and just had one that went through the process of changing and oh, my goodness, it was a nightmare for a couple weeks, doesn't hurt it. I mean, I guess it doesn't hurt me, I got to hang on to my money a little bit longer. But that frustration is that if you got to think about this, if if I was on the fence with this vendor, and this payment process has taken me 15 or 20 minutes to do you know, every couple of weeks then is like, you know, maybe I need to look at this other vendor. So it needs to be part of that business's customer service proposition too, is that we make it easy for you to give us money.

 

Selina  26:43

No question and time is hugely valuable. I mean, we're all should know that certainly by now, right? That time is a major resource. And so saving time and money. I mean, all of that, you know, we're always looking at the full circle. And, and every entrepreneur business owner, and like, you know, everybody who's running a business needs to pay attention to both of those things, for sure.

 

Roy Barker  27:08

Yeah. And so do does the, can you separate that? I guess? I mean, there are some payment systems that don't have the physical piece of equipment, but then they have the internet component. So do y'all service both sides of that coin as well?

 

Selina  27:26

Absolutely. So yeah, we have a whole range, you know, it may be that you need a very, very simple countertop terminal, it may be that you need a point of sale system for like a restaurant or a retail store that has a physical presence. But also you want to be able to sell your goods online, or one or the other. Both, maybe you have a business that really just means to be able to accept payments virtually or have that backup, you know, emergency plan, if your system goes down, is there going to be an app on the phone of the person who's at checkout, who can quickly just pull that up and get the payment rather than losing it? And then so there's virtual terminals that are kind of back office like that, or maybe your doctor's office has a virtual terminal, as well as a countertop terminal when you know, you're there paying your bill. And then there's e commerce, which is that whole idea of building out a shopping cart, and then the logistics, and the shipping and the returns and all that that comes behind it. So we provide solutions for all of these types of scenarios. And it's a matter of what's right for you. And is there a combination of the two that you need, or just one of them?

 

Roy Barker  28:41

Okay? Yeah, and just a hint for the consumers out there. Or for the merchants, even when somebody puts something in your cart, have a link back to where you can continue shopping. That's, that's another agitation is like, I really wanted to buy like 10 things here, but you get put something in the cart, and then you're stuck on that page. And it's kind of a mess to go back. So just put a link I put again, shopping like

 

Selina  29:12

Well, I think part of what you're bringing up actually is how payments does tie back to your marketing and your distribution channels. Right. And so when you look at the future of payments and the ability for someone to, you know, sell in various ways, or you know, to have add that virtual component to a bricks and mortar store, you're changing your marketing tools, you're widening your distribution capabilities, and you're able to reach customers in ways that you couldn't before and so payments is not often probably ever really thought of as a marketing tool, you know, or distribution tool, but it isn't. So that's why you do want to make sure that it's it's what services you and your customer base.

 

Roy Barker  29:56

Yes. Yeah, and the one other thing I wanted to do About for a minute Are these the terminals that go on your iPad or cell phone? I guess a little bit about the safety, but I think it's there's a local restaurant that they come out, take your order on the iPad, when you get ready, instead of giving you the bill, they come over swipe the card or whatever, right there. I think it's an awesome concept, but you don't see it as much, you know, as kind of trendy for about five minutes. And then it's kind of gone away a little bit.

 

Selina  30:28

Well, yes, and no, I mean, part of it going away has to do with like the nature of everything that's been happening this year. But mobile terminals can come in a range of ways, right. So I don't know if what you're referring to is the square dongle, which was that very simple thing that just, you know, goes into the edge of a cell phone. And so square is is one thing, right? And what they've done is very important, right? They've enabled micro businesses to compete in the economy and to accept payments. And that's crucial. Square does not provide a merchant account to a business. It's a merchant aggregator. So what that means is that every single business that uses square is using one account. So let's say there's a chargeback on your business, you can't call the card brands because they don't know who you are, you're square to them. And imagine like, you know, we you just can't resolve anything without getting someone at square to help you resolve it, which is very difficult, especially now, because square makes it so easy. A lot of businesses are drawn to it. And I understand that. But that ease also means that there's a lot of fraudulent accounts. And so another thing that was happening last year, and perhaps now still is that the legitimate businesses, their money is all in this one big account. And that's covering a lot of the fraudulent activity. And so businesses weren't getting paid. And certainly they don't typically get paid next day, but they were really waiting, like 30 more days, so So when it comes to security, if you're talking about square specifically in their dongle, it is not a sophisticated solution for a sophisticated business. So if you are transacting more than $10,000 a month in credit cards, it's not an appropriate solution for you. Now, however, there are a lot of mobility options that are very different. So So we do have a mobile kind of, you know, piece that can attach to a phone or an iPad, but it is highly encrypted. And it is tied to your own specific merchant account. So you're not, you're not like, you know, subject to the same types of issues. And then there are terminals that have 4g, that are also very secure, and that can move around. And you know, at a restaurant like that, perhaps they have terminals that have really strong Wi Fi connected to their own Wi Fi account. And they can you know, it will work out in the parking lot. And so it really depends on on what it is that that mobile device is connected to, that that will determine whether or not it's secure, and whether or not there's, you know, things to take into consideration as a business and as a consumer. I mean, look, I do a lot of my shopping on the weekends for groceries at the farmers market, and they're all using square. And you know, it's like you hesitated. I now that I know as much as I know, I hesitated a little every time but I still do it right? Like if I could never become a consumer of square again, knowing what I know, I would that would just mean that I'd have to go to the ATM and get more cash. And I probably should do that to protect everything. But you know, we all do it right? Even though you know knowledge, it maybe is a little too much sometimes. But I will say that if you are a sophisticated business, like I'm sure your listeners are on it don't go to square or PayPal, because you're not you're not providing yourself the best solution. Okay.

 

Roy Barker  34:12

No, that's good advice. Do you have any advice for consumers about sketchy places where they probably shouldn't be sliding their card?

 

Selina  34:24

I mean, yeah, that's a great question. You know, they're not always going to know if a terminal has the best encryption on the back end. Now, it's a great question, though. Because not every terminal that's out there, you could be going to the same, you know, local grocery store forever and they may have the same terminal forever and it works just fine, but it doesn't have the highest level of encryption on the back end. You know, you just, you don't know that. So it's up to the business to find out and make sure that their consumers are protected. Yeah. Now the other thing that, that merchants may or may not know is one is if you have a terminal that swipes first of all you shouldn't. And if if it's a swipe versus like an insert, you definitely want to just, you know, avoid anywhere, that's just swiping. But if you are a business and you're swiping, you are responsible for fraud that happens through that terminal, if you have an insert a chip reader, then the bank, the issuing bank is responsible for any fraud that takes place. That's not fraud, right? That's fraudulent activity that's happening, okay. If you have a data breach, no matter what, as a business, you're responsible for the data breach, and any costs that come around with that. So that's if if someone broke into your system and stole information, and then used it elsewhere, for fraudulent activity, you're responsible for that. So that's another thing that we do, every single one of our clients gets $100,000 worth of data breach assurance, and that means a reimbursement of 100, the up to $100,000, if there is a data breach, and there and we'll cover up to $100,000 of the costs that take place. And that can be very, very costly, very costly. And so that is definitely some These are things for sure to keep in mind that probably aren't going through many businesses heads as they're making this kind of decision. And they probably don't even know that data breach assurance is something that is just a given with certain providers.

 

Roy Barker  36:35

Now, because we have like, and I know it's a little bit different than the solutions that y'all sell, but we just have a, you know, a couple of gas stations around here, it seemed like they are always having these cloning devices on them. So you know, that's troublesome to think about that, because I, there was just the lady just reported that, you know, somebody got hurt she, she bought gas in the morning, and by the end of the day, somebody had been over two, four or five other gas stations with the numbers of anyway. The The other thing is the data part, and I know this may be not your it's not your wheelhouse, but if you know, it'd be good, like, so when somebody swipes a card at your business? Does that data just go through the equipment and to the to your company that processes it? Or does that merchant have some forms? Or replicas of that data in their system somewhere?

 

Selina  37:33

Um, that's a great question. I mean, a simplified answer is that it depends on that level of security on the back end, and how encrypted so everything that we sell has the highest level of encryption, which means that there is a unique secure, you know, code happening in the ether as the money's moved around. And there are several different components that are happening, right, there's your credit card, there is the bank that's associated with that credit card, there's the bank that the merchant is using, that the money is deposited into, and then there's the processing bank. So there, you want to make sure as the information is flowing through and the money's flowing through that it's a secure system. A business can't just download, unless, you know, it's really shady, the content or the you know, that information that credit card information. So if you have more of like a virtual terminal set up, you know, and you're paying your bills, you know, virtually, then you want to make sure as a business that you are, again, using the system that's very secure is going to very much protect all of that cardholder data. And you know, yeah, that's absolutely something to keep in mind. But you can't just extract, you know, the card information unless there is a home security. Okay. Which of course happens, right?

 

Roy Barker  39:02

Yeah. And, and it doesn't even if you're doing something over the internet, or virtually, it doesn't take much, you know, they have to enter certain information. So, again, just make sure that the businesses need to make sure that they have secure technology in place to protect themselves as well. Yeah, absolutely. And today, I mean, it's constant phishing. So everybody's always trying to sneak in the back door. So it's something that we really, you know, we don't talk about it enough on here that we need to, but just the little bitty things that we could do to protect ourself.

 

Selina  39:38

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's one reason why you want to make sure like, imagine how many people are trying to, you know, pop that K. Palin's square, you know, bubble, and you don't want to be one of the businesses that is there when that happens. Exactly.

 

Roy Barker  39:54

Right. Well, Selina, thank you so much for your time. I know we are a little bit over and I appreciate you hanging going in and answering all these questions for us. So, tell everybody again, I know we know you're in a payment processing, but tell them, you know, kind of who was that target market that you go for? Again? What can you do for them, what you provide them and how they can reach out and get a hold of you?

 

Selina  40:15

Yeah, so Park Place payments. We are a rare women founded and run payment processing company. We are industry first with a very single minded dedication to service. We are fair and transparent and true in everything that we do and every decision that we make. And so our core business is our support small medium, independently owned. We don't have you know, necessarily like a cap and what they're earning because Independent Businesses are very lucrative. About 40% of our clients are in the medical field in some kind of way. But we have everything from storefronts and grocery stores and sunglasses, shops and restaurants to chimney sweeps and roofers and builders, contractors of all kinds car dealerships, RV dealerships, like you know, it really runs the gamut. Any businesses accepting credit cards, is a potential client, but we really focus on those that are independently owned and operated. Okay, great. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  41:21

How can they reach out and get a hold of y'all?

 

Selina  41:23

That's great. Yeah, thank you for asking. So our website is Park Place payments with an s.com. And I am very reachable [email protected]. But when you go to our website, there are forms on there to reach out. And please do and schedule a payment checkup. Just find out what you know, or what you don't know. Or if what you think you know, is true. You know, I it's my biggest recommendation for anybody that wants to better understand this is how you get paid your goods and services. So, you know, don't just leave it up to what seems simple.

 

Roy Barker  42:01

Yeah. And it's, uh, you know, it's interesting. I was in somewhere the other day and kind of snicker to the young lady. I'm like, Do y'all still take cash? And, you know, she kind of looked at me strange and say, Well, yeah, we will. But you know, so many people. Now, they don't want to fuss over the cash that you really have

 

Selina  42:16

shortage. Yeah. So what are you gonna do? There's a shortage. So you know, you've got to evolve, right? You've got to evolve. And if you're, you know, let's say you're b2b, or even, you know, a b2c, like in a contracting space, and you're like, we don't want to accept credit cards, like, look at your accounts receivable and see what you're actually losing there, right? Because there again, like you don't want to make a decision about not wanting to incur the credit card fees, when you're losing out on payments. And on this other side, and the cost of all of that follow up. And you know, we Yeah, I would encourage that. And also in most states, you can also look at surcharging as an option where the client is is incurring the costs of the credit card fees. And so there are definitely solutions don't just ignore it, because you you think it's too much.

 

Roy Barker  43:08

Yeah, reach out and get the audit you can't go wrong, you may actually learn something. So yeah,

 

Selina  43:12

Park place payments.com get your payment and check out we're gonna check on the health later. But yeah,

 

Roy Barker  43:17

and I'll put that in the show notes. It's Park with a PA R K  in the only reason I say that it's because I was dealing with the company that's pa RC the other day, so just want make sure that that's clear. It's the traditional park with a K on the end of it, but I'll put that in the notes so everybody can just hit the link and find y'all. Alright, well, thank you. Yeah,

 

Selina  43:38

I'm excited to meet all of your listeners.

 

Roy Barker  43:40

Okay, great. Well, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be here. I certainly appreciate it. Again, that's gonna do it for this episode of the business of business podcast. You can of course find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com we're on all the major social media net platforms as well as all the podcast platforms iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify for not a one that you listen to please reach out I'd be glad to add you. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.parkplacepayments.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Why Chris Niched Down and Now Focuses Only on Dental Practice Marketing with Chris Pistorius

Niching down can really be a beneficial move. While it can be scary thinking about firing some of your current clients to focus on one industry and build your new client list from there. This will allow you to become an expert on the one industry. Really dig down deep in the details to service your customers better and more profitable for you

About Chris

Chris Pistorius is the founder of KickStart Dental Marketing which has consistently been listed as one of the top dental marketing companies in the country by UpCity, SEO For Growth, DesignRush, Expertise & AgencyVista. Having over 15 years of experience in dental marketing, he has worked with countless dentists & orthodontists across multiple facets of marketing, consulting, and coaching. He shares his expertise by giving marketing seminars across the country and hosting a weekly dental marketing podcast.

Before starting his dental marketing agency in 2009, Chris worked for online marketing giants AOL & MapQuest. He holds several online marketing certifications and is trained by Google on how dentists & other businesses can get the most out of their marketing efforts.  He’s also the author of "The Ultimate Guide to Internet Marketing for Dentists.”  Chris resides in the Denver, CO area with his wife Michele and two kids Kaitlyn & Brody

www.kickstartdental.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcat.com

Full Transcript Below

Why Chris Niched Down and Now Focuses Only on Dental Practice Marketing with Chris Pistorius

Sun, 8/1 1:08PM • 30:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dentist, people, website, clients, marketing, business, dental practice, patient, protect, ads, video, dental, big, practice, google, orthodontist, chris, hipaa, security, day

SPEAKERS

Chris, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:00

We are the podcasts that brings you a wide variety of guests that can speak to a lot of diverse topics and today is no difference. We're fortunate enough to have Chris Pistorius, he is the founder of kickstart dental marketing, which has consistently been listed as one of the top dental marketing companies in the country by Upcity. SEO for growth and design rush expertise in agency Vista. Having over 15 years of experience in dental marketing, he has worked with countless dentist and orthodontist across multiple facets of marketing, consulting and coaching. He shares his expertise by giving marketing seminars across the country and hosting a weekly dental marketing podcast. Before starting his digital marketing agency in 2009. Chris worked for online marketing giants such as AOL, Time Warner, and MapQuest, and he also holds marketing certificates and is trained by Google, on how to how dentist and other businesses can get the most out of their marketing efforts. Also, not only is he a fellow podcaster, but he's also the author of The Ultimate Guide to internet marketing for dentists. So Chris, an awesome resume. Thanks for taking time out of your day to be with us. Of course, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about the dental marketing, for sure, since that's kind of your specialty. But I think when we first initially talked, one thing that really struck me is that if I'm not wrong, if I remember correctly, used to just have a typical marketing agency, kind of all across the board, anybody that came in, and so you decided to kind of niche down a little bit and go with the dental marketing. I just think that's very interesting, because, well, for my opinion, you, you've been able to become an expert in that limited space about exactly what their consumers need want, and how to attract that business. So if you don't mind, could you kind of walk us through, you know, that process kind of what led you to decide to do that? And then how that's worked for you?

Chris  02:10

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, yeah, when we first started the first year or so we kind of took on anybody that would pay us honestly, yeah. So he would get a, we'd get an auto repair guy, a lawyer, a dentist, you know, whatever it may be. And what we found out pretty quickly, really ROI was that, you know, every time we took on a new industry, we can, we really had to learn the lingo, kind of the ins and the outs of the business. And sometimes that took too long. And our clients weren't getting, you know, the type of return that they wanted, because we were kind of catching up and trying to learn their business, right? That's when we decided that you know, what, we need to pick a niche and go with it and just become experts in that niche. So we kind of looked at our books and our accounts, and we had, you know, five or six dentists at the time, and we were getting great results for them, they were pretty easy to work with. We're like, let's go for it. Now. The problem with that is dentistry is extremely competitive in terms of people trying to sell the dentist. So we had to come up with strategy to make ourselves unique. And, you know, that was, geez, almost 11 years ago now, and we haven't really looked back. It's been a great ride. And but we have found that niching down allowed us to really focus on clients and get the best results for clients.

Roy Barker  03:24

Yeah, I think that's awesome. Because, you know, one thing you said that sounds very true is that, you know, every industry has some kind of lingo, and their consumers want to hear, you know, some kind of a pain point. So, I mean, if you're, you know, this wide ranging, I learn all the pain points for everybody. So anyway, I'm sure that that that helped now, so let's talk about marketing yourself. So once you made this decision, when you walked into our call, or however, you know, you made initial contact with the dentist, how did that go? Were they impressed that you were kind of focusing in on them? Or did they really not care? How was that conversation?

Chris  04:10

Yeah, you mean, the existing clients that we had are just new ones yet yet?

Roy Barker  04:15

new ones whenever you were out, you know, kind of pitching your services? Did that hold some weight with them?

Chris  04:23

It definitely did. Because I'll tell you there's there's a lot of especially in healthcare, anything in healthcare, there's a lot of stuff that you got to know about marketing wise. One of those examples are HIPAA regulations protecting patient information, right. What a lot of people don't know and even some people in health care don't realize this is that even before a patient becomes a patient, you have to protect their information. So for instance, if they just fill out a form on your website saying, Hey, I'm not want to be a new patient, that has to be protected under HIPAA guidelines. And so we took the time, the money and we had some HIPAA consultants come in and make sure all of our systems were protected. data and encrypting everything. And so we became HIPAA certified. But that's just one example of you know, niching down and and being being able to talk to a dentist about that. Not only do you know the lingo, but you can also protect them and make sure that their practice is protected.

Roy Barker  05:15

Yeah, no, that's a great point. And I didn't even I wasn't aware of that, that, you know, even before they were a client. And, you know, it's funny, you bring that up, because just this morning, they were kind of rehashing the whole Tiger Woods incident that happened a couple weeks ago, and I'm not sure if you heard but they the, I guess California Department of Public Safety, whoever they're, you know, like their state trooper department. They said that they could not even release details on this in on the incident, which, you know, happened on a public roadway. So it's, it was surprising, you know, how tight the HIPAA regulations really, truly are?

Chris  05:57

Yeah, I heard that same thing. And it's a it's a serious deal. And, you know, it's, we've seen practices, not our clients, thankfully. But we've seen dental practices affected by this. And there could be big fines 2050 $100,000 a pop. So they're the government's pretty serious about it. Yeah. And it's a pretty serious thing. And it's something that that all health care providers should be aware of.

Roy Barker  06:19

And is that more wrapped around just for for my edification is that more wrapped around just kind of adding an extra layer of protection, once somebody fills out a form?

Chris  06:31

Yeah, it's a lot of security, a lot of encrypting, you've got to make sure that whatever database that that information goes into, you know, is secured and protected and locked up. And the trust me, there's a whole checklist of things that they, they want to make sure that it's done. Also, anybody that can see that data has to be trained on how to protect it. So all of our staff members here, went through several hours of training on how to protect data. And we had to make sure all of our computers, for instance, had, you know, malware security, and, you know, all these other security protocols. So there's a lot to it. But, you know, you know, it's one of those things that you just got to do, and you got to protect yourself and your patients. So we thought it'd probably be worth it to go ahead and do that.

Roy Barker  07:13

Yeah, no, that's great. Because, like you said, sometimes, you know, in business, I always say that sometimes we just don't know what we don't know. But then there's also that when we figure it out, we need to have that trusted person and go to so I'm sure a lot of dentists that, you know, they think HIPAA, and they think they know just protecting the consumers or people that are their patients, and never really thought about that. And then the extra security, I think on top of that is always the training the staff, you know, we don't need to click on anything that we don't know what it is, and have very debt security protocol that's wrapped around that as well.

Chris  07:53

Yeah, and the other thing with that is now everybody working from home, in some capacities anyway. So you got to make sure now that like your Wi Fi at home is under certain security protocol. So they're okay, there's a lot to it. And, you know, I actually on my podcast, I did a session not too long ago with a HIPAA compliancy. Officer, and she really went into all the details of it, and even some stuff that I didn't know. So there's, there's a lot there and a lot lot for a dental practice owner to really think about and know. So, yeah,

Roy Barker  08:23

so what? Okay, so you made this decision, we're going to just go with the dentist orthodontist in that round. So what are some of the what are some of the quirky things that you have found that you've had to adjust to, in order to reach the audience something that may be different from just a normal, you know, standard marketing that we may do for another company?

Chris  08:46

Yeah, that's a great question. I think, you know, a lot of it depends on what type of patient that the practice owner is after, you know, we have clients that are, you know, after, you know, they'll take all kinds of insurances, everyone out there. And then we have some clients that do fee for service only. So they only really accept cash, and they don't really do anything with, with insurance. So and then there's everything in between. So, you know, I think the quirkiness of it is just being able to understand who it is that they want to market to. Yeah, and once we have a good grip on that, then that makes the marketing campaign that much easier, because we have a well defined target. And we can target that, you know, utilizing a lot of different methods. So I think it's all about identifying it, making, adjusting, adapting. And then going after that, that market segment, where it becomes a little bit more quirky, though, is when a client comes to us and they don't know who they want to target. So that takes a little bit deeper conversation, and we've got to help them kind of figure that out. But it's all good.

Roy Barker  09:47

Yeah, I would assume that in this business most the people that you're trying to attract are very short fuse that you know, if you move to a new town, maybe you're searching out to get a new dentist, but most People are like, I don't even want to think about this dentist thing until I need it. And so now, unfortunately, got a toothache, I'm in pain. So I'm on the computer, trying to get the closest dentist or somebody that will take my insurance or whatever. So, how to how did y'all adjust to that?

Chris  10:23

Yeah, so we like to. So you've, you've heard the whole egg in one basket thing, right? Yeah. So you don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket. And a lot of times we find dental practices that are just doing SEO, like search engine optimization, getting their website to rank high on Google or search engine. So they just do that and just focus on that. Or some might just do like Google ads, right? Well, well, we take a strategy of we'll try to create about 12 different baskets and put one egg in each one of those baskets, right? Because we want to create a marketing strategy that's all about bringing in new patients from multiple places, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo being, you know, text messaging on your website, there's a lot of different avenues. So what we really try to do is spread that around so that if something happens, and Google changes their rules, for instance, on on SEO and how to rank, right, you know, one day you can ranking on the first page, and the next day, you're not ranking at all right, so your new patient leads could go from, you know, 20 a month to zero? Well, with our strategy, we've got backups, so that we're, we're drawing in, you know, patients from all over the place. And I think that's, that's really critical. And, you know, ensuring security and long term marketing strategy for sure.

Roy Barker  11:39

Yeah, I'm sure that is a practice that really transcends to most companies, you know, we talked about having a well rounded because you know, we want to do certain things, for those people that just got on the computer, or phone or looking for me, you know, today, right this minute. But we also want to build that the long term strategy and viability that, you know, we're doing the getting the information out there educating people haven't things that are living forever on the internet. So maybe I don't need you today. But you know, 234 months from now, you've built a big enough of a pipeline that when I get on there and do a search, you're gonna come up.

Chris  12:20

Yeah, and you know, doing that kind of eggs in a basket analogy, we're able to attract different different people in different stages. So for instance, you know, when somebody is doing a search on Google, for a dentist, they're typing in things like to pain dentists near me. So they kind of have their hands up, they're ready to go to a dentist, right? Whereas Facebook, sometimes it's more about getting your name out in the local community, getting your brand out there. And sometimes you find people that are ready to visit a dentist then. So by utilizing kind of two different strategies there you can, you can really cover a lot of ground marketing.

Roy Barker  12:57

Yeah, and you made a comment about another good thing about the diversification is if if somebody changes or algorithms or tweaks, there may be a setback for a period of time to give you a chance to catch up on that strategy, for sure. But, you know, we can also go a little deeper about maybe, because I've heard in the past about making sure that you maintain your website, and that is the focus, because some, there was a period of time where people focused on a social media platform. And I guess the theory was that, well, if you have your own website, and you focus on that you can control you know, a lot of the aspects of that, whereas if you're building all of your followings on a social media channel, the minute they change, it can be even more devastating.

Chris  13:50

Yeah, no question. We try to build long term marketing assets for our clients, the more control that we and our clients have over it, the better. So whenever you're doing anything like that, like SEO, or Facebook advertising, you've got to really have somebody on top of it to see these changes come in, and allow yourself to adapt and adjust to those as quickly as possible. But yeah, there's no question. I mean, you want to always try to build your own assets as much as you can, because you have the most control over there's over those, but sometimes you just can't control everything. So just gotta have to make the best decisions, you know, for your practice. And what's going to work well, for your practice. Yeah.

Roy Barker  14:27

So what are some mistakes, you know, like people that, like myself that try to do too much on my own? What are some of the really easy, big mistakes that you're seeing out there?

Chris  14:41

Yeah, probably the biggest thing that we see is in this, anything that I'm saying right now doesn't really just apply for dental by the way. I mean, a lot of this applies to any business out there. So but what we see a lot is a dental practice, or an orthodontist will come to us and say, Oh, yeah, we tried Google ads. And you know, he's Spend, you know, $5,000 a month for six months, and we didn't get anything out of it? Well, let me tell you google ads, if you're doing it on your own is a beast, you've got to really know the ins and the outs of it to get it to perform accurately. Right? Probably anybody that's listening to this is probably thinking, Oh, this is exactly what happened to be. But that's the biggest thing is we have dentists that have tried ads on their own, just haven't got anything out of it, spend a bunch of money and run it? Yes. They're just so complex, that you really need an expert to look at that.

Roy Barker  15:30

Yeah, anything that Google actually has they touch, it seems like, you know, they've got some very smart engineering type people and these interfaces that they design, they are very deep and very technical. So yeah, unless you're messing with it all the time. And, uh, you know, I, I kind of laugh at this example of myself, I was doing some, some YouTube advertising, you know, putting up some clips and really wasn't getting much activity. And so I started looking through, and I noticed that the devices that people were are mostly looking at were TVs. Anyway, I was like, Hey, I don't even know what's going on. So when I finally looked through there, somehow I had instead of for the audience, I had checked Europe, in the United States. So there's a lot of people out here. But you know, it's easy. Those little mistakes like that are easy. And you know, I burned up a week, 10 days. Luckily, I caught it. Because, you know, it was a fluke that I even went back and caught it. But there are so many options, so many things that you just have to be aware of and know what is the best practice?

Chris  16:43

Yeah, and I'll tell you the other thing with ads is Yeah, the technical stuff is complex, because there's a lot of things that Google doesn't necessarily will obviously tell you, you have control over. But you do. So that is important. But the biggest thing, I think with ads, and that goes for Facebook ads, too, is the actual ad. The copywriting. Yeah, you know, it's it's a lot of it is what you say. So having, you know, 11 years of experience and writing ads that our agency, we've got a pretty good pulse on what converts well, and what doesn't. So we don't waste a lot of time. But if you're a dentist trying to do this on your own, and you didn't go to school for all those years to write ads, right. So it's, you know, what, let somebody that, you know, has a little bit experience with that. So what we find is that the ad copy easily isn't real good. And that's costing them from some conversions as well.

Roy Barker  17:29

Yeah, and I use a little, little analysis thing on something, you know, on some text, and you'd just be surprised that the difference a word can make here and there, same sentence, same message that comes across, but just a couple different placements of words. And our ideas can really change the whole SEO value of that. Right? Yeah, for sure. And then the other thing, too, that I think that pictures, especially, you know, one thing I kind of talk a lot about is, I'm not a fan of stock photos, when we can take photos of real people take a picture of the real office to see, you know, is it modern looking? Is it clean? You know, you get a really good feel for it before you even go. And so pictures and video sure are a very integral part of this entire process.

Chris  18:30

Yeah, and in fact, I was just talking to somebody yesterday about this when we do website design, even, you know, we take over some websites that are all stock photos. And I mean, that's a big No, no, we've tested it with stock photos and without, and websites with actual, you know, photos of the office staff perform much better. You know, and I think it goes back to age old saying is that people buy from people, right? And dentistry, sometimes you don't think about sales and selling things, but you are, I mean, at the end of the day, you're selling a solution to a problem, right? So you are selling and in some capacity. So I think when people are going online to check you out. And by the way, people are going online to check you out. They want to see what the practice looks like an office tour where they want to see what the doctors look like. They want to see and get a feel for the office. And if you can really do that well on your website or anything that you do even in your advert your paid ads or whatever. I think you've got a leg up.

Roy Barker  19:28

Yeah. Yeah, no, I've always been told I'm sure my audience gets tired of hearing me say it because it's but it's the truth is that you know, if you if you have something that's just totally text, people may show up and read it. If you have a picture. It's like leaving breadcrumbs to the text and then they say if you have video, it's basically like leaving chocolate covered bread crumbs in order to get people there. That video is just it's just amazing how incrementally how videos will score and videos will help, you know, in driving traffic and driving traffic or ads or however, but videos are very important.

Chris  20:10

Yeah, no question. We try to get every one of our clients, the doctor to be just a short like one minute introduction video to the to the practice in themselves. And we tried to put that on the homepage of the website. Not everybody's comfortable doing it. But you know, we do our best because you're absolutely right, those video video performs and video is is definitely a converting factor.

Roy Barker  20:31

Yeah, and I think like you mentioned too, is that we want to buy from people who we feel like we can connect with and so I you know, it's a good practice for any business to have videos of introducing, you know, their employees or who they are what they do, instead of me having to try to read through and decipher it, you know, if I get a concise clear message from somebody from the company, I personally think that goes a long way.

Chris  20:56

Yeah, yeah, no question. And you know, we just launched a new service that where we actually reach out to our clients, patients, and try to get video reviews. So we've kind of developed this software that allows people to leave a dentist a video review, right from their phone, and makes it simple for now. So it's working really well. I mean, a lot of people don't feel comfortable going on video, that's the biggest obstacle. But I'll tell you, if if you can just get a few of those verses a written testimonial, video, testimonials really are powerful. So definitely recommend that to anybody as well.

Roy Barker  21:28

That's a great idea. You know, the other thing somebody had pointed out to me years ago, is also on our social media, the importance of using pictures or videos, is the real estate value is that, you know, if you, if you have text, you know, you have, I don't know, an inch copy or whatever, it's easy to get scrolled past or maybe somebody didn't even see it, it got kind of blurred in was, you know, the post before post after but, you know, when you have that picture video, now, all of a sudden, you've widened up that space to maybe you know, what, three or four inches? Much bigger attraction much bigger draw?

Chris  22:06

Yeah, no question. I guess that's an awesome thought. And it's absolutely spot on.

Roy Barker  22:11

Yeah. So what are some things to, you know, talking about websites, unfortunately, you know, when I see is sometimes as we neglect the website, it was built, you know, we take a deep breath, it's done, it's over, and we put it up there. And, you know, people may not, the company may not even go in there and look at it for two or three years. I mean, I've had some companies I'm like, you know, your website's not even working, when I tuck your mattress into go over, there's a, you know, nobody's really monitoring. But, you know, what are some key things are some simple things that we can do to really enhance our websites to increase our conversions.

Chris  22:50

Yeah, these are gonna seem pretty basic. But you'd be surprised how many how many people don't do this. But make sure your name, address and phone number is on every page of the website and clear, people are lazy sometimes, and they don't want to have to go looking around for a phone number for you, right. So make sure you've got that basic contact information on every page of the website. Also always give them some way to communicate with you on every page. So other than phone, of course, but you know, we've had a lot of good success with enabling text and chat services on our clients websites. Okay. That's a great way because not everybody communicates the same way. Right? Right. younger generation now would prefer to, you know, do a chat or do a text versus picking up the phone and calling somebody, right. So why not just, you know, give people as a multitude ways to communicate with you. So, I know also a strong call to action, you know, you've got about three and a half seconds from when somebody hits your website. And they've already decided if they're going to do business with you or not. So have a good strong call to action, something that's unique, we call it a lot of times a unique selling proposition, why should somebody choose your dental practice, versus the 50 others that might be within a two mile range of you? So you've got to get that very high up on your website, we call it above the fold on a website, a strong call to action, why should they choose you? And just really wow them with any photos of your practice? and reviews? Yeah.

Roy Barker  24:19

Yeah. And that's important as well, I think is, you know, for myself, I look at you know, whatever that first screen comes up, I'm not somebody that's going to scroll down. Like the old days, you know, it was a, I guess it was what we'd call the the depth of the page. It was like, you know, everything was on one page. And you'd have to scroll down and maybe, you know, four or five different pages to find information. But what is the value? You know, I guess the way I use it is, I like to see as much information as I can on that initial screen, but give me the option to click on something just to go a little bit deeper there.

Chris  24:58

Yeah, absolutely. No question. And, you know, you want it, you don't want to answer everybody's question in full detail, but you want to give them enough information to make them want to raise their hand and say, Yeah, I want more information, I want to reach out and talk to you.

Roy Barker  25:10

Right right. All right, Chris. Well, I certainly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. Any last minute tips on ideas you want to throw out before we wrap this up?

Chris  25:22

I think it's just about taking action, you know, we come across, you know, marketing has, in the last 10 years or so 15 years, has become much more complex than it used to be, to be able to put an ad in the Yellow Pages, maybe do a little direct mail, and you're kind of covered, right now there, you know, hundreds of places that you can go spend marketing on online. So we find a lot of people instead of trying to get help or figure it out, they kind of put their head in the sand and they don't do anything. Yeah, which is the worst thing I think you can do. So take action, if you need help, you'll get it from somebody, but you know it, we're in a market now that will rebounding And now's the time to be aggressive and go after new clients, new patients, whatever business you're in. So my best advice is just go do something.

Roy Barker  26:04

Yeah, I think it's a, you know, bringing up the old Yellow Pages. And I'm old enough that I remember those that, you know, the the way that you did business back in that day was somebody came out created a yellow page ad for you. And then every year you just renewed it, and you really didn't give it much thought. So I think that's another concept we really have to be aware of today is that everything we do is so dynamic and it changes, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, if you make a post or do something on the social media today, you're probably already outdated tomorrow, something has changed. You need to deal with it. It's not quite that bad. But almost. And so, you know, we really have to be dynamic with the, our approach our ads and everything and always be re evaluating those.

Chris  26:51

Right? Yeah, totally agree. It's, it's, everything's fast now. Right? Yeah, that's almost immediate feedback. And you got to be on top of it. And you know, like Google ads, for instance, it's not just one of those things that you can set up and then leave it and forget about it. It's something you've got to really be looking at almost every day to make adjustments and, you know, changes and things like that. So yeah, you're absolutely right.

Roy Barker  27:14

All right, Chris. Well, thanks so much. Tell everybody Well, first off, I want to ask you what is a tool or a habit that you have, that adds a lot of value to your day, either personal or professional.

Chris  27:27

tool is probably going to be my calendar. Because I'm so it's, like, we just talked, it's a fast world fast moving industry. And, you know, if I if we don't have here, I have good time management, and we're letting our clients down to So for us, probably our calendars and communication and just making sure that we're talking and we know what needs to be done. And when it needs to be done. I think if you can cover that and whatever business you're in, you know, your head.

Roy Barker  27:55

Awesome, will tell people you know, I know that you really work with the dental trade, but tell people, you know, who's your client, how you can help them of course, where they can reach out and get a hold of you. And then also where they can pick up the Ultimate Guide to internet marketing for dentists because I think, you know, as we've talked a lot of this will translate to the general public as well.

Chris  28:19

Yeah, no question. Yeah, so we work with really anybody in the dental industry, whether it's a general dentist, Cosmetic Dentist orthodontist, we have a pediatric dentist endodontist any of the specialties that well, as well. So it really anybody in the industry, we typically only work with one client for market. So we don't want to over saturate ourselves. And we're really what you would consider more of a boutique agency, we're not a big company, we're always going to kind of have that old fashioned approach to our clients where we, you know, have personal communication. So the best way to reach out to us is just go to the website www.kickstartdental.com there's a button right there on the homepage that you can book a strategy, a free strategy session actually with me I do all of this strategy sessions. And you know, it's no obligation it doesn't cost you anything and you know, if you're interested, you'll get a lot of detailed information about your current situation with online marketing and what your competition looks like. What's your market looks like? It's pretty in depth. So at least you'll know a little bit more about where you stand, you know, as as a practice, so just go to kick start dental comm do that. That's probably the best way to reach out to us.

Roy Barker  29:29

Okay, great. All right. Yeah, if you're a dentist out there, need some help y'all reach out to Chris and see what he can do for y'all. So, again, that's gonna do it for this episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host Roy. Of course you can find us at www.the business of business, podcast.com we're on all the major social media platforms as well as the podcast platforms, Google tunes, Stitcher, Spotify, if we're not a one that you listen to regularly, if you'll reach out, I'll be glad to get Decided to. So for now that's going to do it. So please take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.kickstartdental.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcat.com

 

What Is Influencer Marketing? Why You Should Care and Embrace It with Gordon Glenister

An influencer is somebody that can affect change in the behavior of others through trusted opinion, knowledge, and competence. So it's very simple in those terms, anybody can actually become an influencer. We've now seen is a growth in what we call micro and nano influence. These are individuals that have gotten much smaller followings on social media.

About Gordon

Gordon Glenister is an influencer marketing strategist, global head of influencer marketing at the Branded Content Marketing Association the CEO of Membership World. Gordon was formally the director-general of the British Promotional Merchandise Association for 11 years then launched his own membership consultancy in September 2018.

From there he went on to launch a new influencer marketing channel at the Branded Content Marketing Association and still remains the global head of influencer marketing. He is also the host of Influence the global podcast shining a spotlight on the influencer marketing industry where he interviews all sorts of brands and influencers.

In March 2021 he has his first book released on influencer marketing strategy with global publishers Kogan Page. Within the membership community, he launched Membership World in July 2020, a podcast and community site for membership professionals supported by regular CEO roundtable discussions.  Gordon is also the author of the Covid19 impact study which explored the challenges faced by professional bodies, trade associations, and charities in the Pandemic.

Gordon runs successful strategy workshops for membership bodies, mystery member audits, and general advice on running successful organizations. He has launched exhibitions, magazines, conferences online education programs and has written for many magazines.

Gordon is also the co-founder of the top 100 most influential people index which is a product promoting eminent people in specific industries.  He is also a well-known speaker on membership and influencer marketing.  Gordon is a keen traveler and badminton player and is looking forward to resuming both post-pandemic.

www.gordonglenister.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

Full Transcript Below

What Is Influencer Marketing Why You Should Care and Embrace It with Gordon Glenister

Sun, 8/1 1:07PM • 50:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

influencer, people, audience, work, brand, influences, product, influencer marketing, create, promoted, followers, individual, talk, content, industry, Gordon, social media, instagram, post, put

SPEAKERS

Gordon, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:00

Roy, of course we do bring you a wide variety of guests and talk about a lot of diverse topics and today is no different. I'm very excited to have Gordon Glenister with us. We're going to have a very robust conversation. I know going forward. I've been looking forward to this for the last couple of weeks. He is an influence, influencer marketing strategist. He's the Global Head of influencer marketing at branded content marketing Association. He's the CEO of membership world. Gordon was formerly the director-general of the British promotional merchandise Association for 11 years, then lost his own membership consultancy in September 2018. Gordon is also the co-founder of the top 100 Most Influential People index, which is a product promoting eminent people in specific industries. He is also a well-known speaker on membership and influencer marketing. He is a keen traveler. He's a badminton player, and looking forward to resuming both post-pandemic, Gordon, thanks so much for taking time out of the day, your day to be with us. Oh, it's a pleasure to see you. Yeah. Now, you know, this is such an exciting topic, because it's, you know, with the advent of social media, I think it's blown up. And we think of it I'll say, I think of it in a little different terms, but I'm gonna let you explain. First off, just tell us what is influencer marketing, you know, kind of why it's important how we can use it. And then also, it's not necessarily new. And I'll let you tie that up for us.

 

Gordon  01:37

What was what was saying, Roy, and thanks for the introduction. And I can just tell you a little bit about my background as to where I came from to actually be in this sort of space. Because I think it has some context. And you mentioned, you mentioned that I'd been involved in the British promotional merchandise Association, and I set up my own consultancy in that 2018. But I, I'm still relatively new to the sector, actually, myself only less than two years about my background has come from the sort of association world. And I've I really believed that there was nobody representing sort of influencer marketing industry, you know, it's, it has had a mixed media profile, should I say, some people's vision of what an influencer is very different. And so what I wanted to do was to launch an association in the UK that represented the industry. And that's what I did in 2019. Subsequently went on to write a book, and also podcast. And so because of that, I, I did quite a lot of research into what influence marketing was, was all about, you know, what, it's nothing new. You know, it's just got a nice shiny new name it because fundamentally, it's, it's still work, word of mouth marketing, you know, and we were just talking before this about a Marlboro Man, what we and our demise, you know, these were individual folks that we might have followed, even Coca Cola using sort of Santa Claus. So, you know, we trust the opinions of our friends, our families, or people in authority, much more now than than traditional advertising. In fact, there was a piece of research, I think, from Business Insider, or one of the big research organizations that said amongst Gen Z's that very young audience, they trust traditional advertising to the extent of just 1% which is remarkably low. So I mean, basically, I mean, influencer marketing is basic happens when individual is involved in promoting a product or service. And that that's it. For me, I would determine an influencer is somebody that can affect change in behavior of others through trusted opinion, knowledge and competence. So it's very simple in those terms, anybody can actually become an influencer. And you know when you look at some of the big names are Kylie Jenner and confessions and all these these these well known celebrities, of course, that was who we would have looked up to some time ago, but of course, what we've now seen is a growth in what we call micro and nano influence. And these are individuals that have gotten much smaller followings on social media. And what they have got is a passion and a cause for their for their product or service or their their genre. And, and I mean, even a fly fishing expert that has 1000 followers on Instagram could be an influencer. Because all of the people that are following that individual are, are absolutely interested in the content of that that fishermen is creating. And that's what I think is really exciting, is how the range of different diversities and niches have populated for influencer marketing. And for brands, it's an amazing opportunity for them to tap in to those individual voices that can therefore amplify their brand message.

 

Roy Barker  05:41

Yeah, that's it. And just as you were talking, I was thinking that, and I'll let you answer this, but more of a question is, so back in the day, it seems like you know, when we talk about the Marlboro Man, he was one guy that represented one product, one brand, where it seemed like in influencer marketing of today through social media, typically, what I think about them is that they are people that have their own audience, for some reason for whatever content they're putting out there. We just happened to put our product out there for them to represent, you know, maybe they they represent multiple products, instead of just being totally aligned with just one brand nowadays.

 

Gordon  06:25

Yeah, I mean, what we're doing is if you want to work with an influencer, you're buying into their audience, right. And let's not forget that those and by the way, a lot of them tend to prefer the word content creator, as a sort of term, but but they will have taken time to develop that audience. And, and if it's engaged, in other words, they're very responsive, they're commenting and liking, they're being consistent with when they put out their content. It's not just, you know, one post every now and again, it's it's, you know, two or three times a week, at a set time. You know, they are like any community, they want their audience to grow, they want them to be happy and engaged. Yeah. So that is, so when they get when they try and create the brand collaboration, as they call it, they want to make chocolate aligned with their values. That's super important, because sometimes, brands that connect with influencers don't always get a response. And the reason they don't get a response is because for some reason, or a they might have communicated in the wrong way, or be it just is not, it's not what the influencer wants to do with the promoted. Interesting enough, something like two thirds of them now will reject brand opportunities based upon their ethics. If they don't feel that they have strong ethics, yeah. Like they look after their people, they are doing the right thing to the planet, or whatever. And then they will reject them.

 

Roy Barker  08:08

That's, that's actually a pretty cool thing. I applaud them for that for, you know, kind of doing the screening, because as we were talking through that I was just thinking about the other part of this is that, you know, as a person that wants to eat well, before we even jump into that, I want to say there are two kinds of influencers. There's that person that maybe they've built their own audience doing different things, you know, we could say like the Kardashians are people that I think about, you know, they're all over the place, but they're all over the place, because of themself because of things they've done to generate that. Now we can put our product with them for them to represent it or placement or however, that's one form. But the other form I think, that we want to hit on a little bit two is that I could become an influencer with the content that I create maybe for a lot smaller universe than somebody like the Kardashians, but still, you know, for my industry, for my association for my charity that I represent or for my friends and family. Is that correct?

 

Gordon  09:15

Absolutely. Absolutely. I was talking to somebody about this the other day, that is a locksmith someone that just goes and fixes locks and he was talking about marketing and he was going to create some some really cool videos about you know, the what, what he does in his day? Yeah. So what ultimately you want to be is that you want to be at him once you've got to be the go to person, right? And being the go to person that thinks about you and what you do for a reason. You have to have have to have a purpose that that people I would say a brand is what somebody says You when you're not in the room, correct. And it's very, very true. And we you know, we need to we were talking earlier about Tick Tock and tick tock is largely a younger platform up to the age of 30, or 40, per se for us, older guys, maybe not on that hill. But I've seen one or two lawyers on there, that have really tried to create a different story that is non stuffy, that is fun and quirky, but super engaging. And they've got great audiences, because what they're doing, they're breaking down stereotypes. And they're actually they're educating a younger audience around the law, but doing it in a in a fun and engaging way.

 

Roy Barker  10:50

Yeah, for full disclosure, before I brought Gordon on, I made him sign a release that he was not going to make me create a tic Tock video on me up here dance. The audience will be safe from that. So let's talk about that, you know, the so the influencers, screening products and brands that they're taking on, which I think that is so awesome, I really, I mean, I'm glad to hear that, that they're being particular about how they treat employees and their business processes. That's awesome. But let's talk about the other side of that coin. As a professional services, I need to be very careful who I select, to represent me in that space as well. And then the other thing about everything is always great today. But let's just say they have a come apart or something goes bad for this influencer, you know, three, six months from now. How does that wash back on me as somebody that's put my brand with them?

 

Gordon  11:54

Yeah. Well, that's that's a that's an issue, of course. But this in any shape when you're using you're dealing with, you're not dealing with a product, you didn't really need a human being Oh, no. And they are prone to I mean, look at Tiger Woods, for example. Yeah, Tiger Woods, phenomenally successful individual, but he went through a really bad patch. And he and of course, lots of brands had to pull away from from from what was going on. I mean, all I would say, though, is you must do your due diligence, before you work with an influencer, you need to make sure that their follower base is authentic. There are lots of tools out there, by the way, now that you can influence the platforms that you can determine whether or not they bought any followers, because the last thing you want is you don't want you don't want an inauthentic audience, right. And also, if you're let's just say, your audience is very much so American based, you know, and you thought, Oh, this is a great guy I want to work with, but actually little Do you know that 80% of his follower base is based in the UK? Yeah. And if you particularly wanted to work with, with guide men more than you would women, then you need to make sure that the individual you're working with his follower base is equally so that's what you're effectively buying into. Yeah. Is that audience? Yeah. And that could be part of the compensation that you have with them at the early stage, just want to have an understanding as to why sometimes they will share their insights with you, as you can, of course, see on Instagram, or, or whatever, any other platform. But also, there's lots of social media metrics, yeah, platforms that will allow you to do this. The other thing you need to make sure that ROI is that somebody, they haven't worked for a competitor. Okay, because what you want them to do is like, for example, it would seem somewhat inauthentic that somebody wanted to be promoting coat, and then Pepsi, you know, a little later down the line, you know, it mean that they're, you know, that the ideal scenario is for you to find an influencer, where you can create strong relationship that is just necessarily one off campaign. But ideally, you can look for, you know, like, a long term, almost like ambassador program. Yeah. You know, that's that. That's the growth at the moment. A lot of organizations are now looking to recruit influences initially for campaigns, but then some of the best ones that really do resonate and deliver amazing results, to recruit them for longer term ambassadors. And that's also good for the audience, by the way, because if they see if they see a brand being promoted by their favorite influencer once Yes. They're going to let you know they kind of react to it, but they're going to react to it a lot more, if they see that post and video content consistently. Yeah. So for example, brands are boom, which is a big clothing brand. They will have boohoo ambassadors, you know, pretty little thing. And bass, lots of big clothing companies and fashion brands. Now, use this product.

 

Roy Barker  15:27

So yeah, and I just want to make a note about the followers. And I will say that this is something I'm luckily very luckily learned years ago is that, you know, I had a guy told me, he could help me generate some, you know, some traffic on some social media. And I said, Great, and then all of a sudden, he was correct, he generated a ton of social media traffic. It just happened to be from a different continent, on where I live, and then, you know, it's like, I told him, okay, these people are not my clients, they're never going to be my clients. So it's like, you know, totally, it was totally a vanity metric at that point. And, anyway, it's a good lesson to learn. But going back to what you said is, you know, if we do want to hire somebody else to do this, you need to check them out any way you possibly can to make sure that because, you know, I could have had a million of these followers, but they would not have been anybody that was going to buy a product based here out of the US. So very important.

 

Gordon  16:27

Yeah. It's better that you have a smaller audience. That's a relevant, yes. And authentic. Because No, it's not. And that's why a lot of the big organizations now or hire influences based on their engagement level, not necessarily. I mean, it's not that they don't decide that they don't disregard the follow up based engagement rate is where it's at. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  16:52

So with social media, it's, it's so worldwide, in this space, are there will you find local influencers versus the big national one? So I mean, I'm just thinking of a strategy that, well, if I've got a local product may be fine in that local, but then also another strategy, instead of finding that one huge influencer, maybe you find, you know, four or five strategically placed local geographic, is that even a thing or a possibility?

 

Gordon  17:25

Yeah, definitely. I mean, sometimes, when you're running a campaign, it's it's worth considering and mix of influence. Yeah, maybe a larger one with with a mid tier group, and then a number of micro Nanos. Yeah. So I mean, what's really exciting about having a range of influences is they are and also involving these individuals, not just in the amplification stage, but in the course of the content creation, so that you are, you know, what could happen, all this trying to create a bit of an open brief, that is not so specific and tied down. So you are really allowing these individuals are very creative, by the way to use their creativity and potentially come back to you with all sorts of exciting ways in which your brand story can be told and promoted. We've got 10 of them, as opposed to just one, you've got 10 different, but also, I mean, I was talking to Pernod Ricard, actually, just just last week about it. And they did some did some work with some of their influences. And because of what two of them that were outside their slight niche, they found a whole new audience of drinkers or their whiskey brands, as a result of some some of the work they've done with influencers. So that was really exciting. But yes, definitely using local ones. And, again, another conversation I had with Oxfam, big charity, Oxfam. They use influencers really smartly. Particularly in London, if you have you have charity shops in the States. I can't remember do you have? We have charity shops here where people can provide donated goods? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes, we do. Yes. You didn't find. Okay. So, so that's the so that's very specific, were a local, they used local influences that go into stores, and perhaps put on some of these, these, you know, sort of historic avant garde type clothing. And it was really is really good. And of course, they were able to promote that on their the charity's local Facebook group. And it got it got a really great retention because of that particular item, but only be available in that local store, right. See how working with something locally can be Very successful.

 

Roy Barker  20:01

Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, I was just I just wrote down the question, as you were speaking about that is about the, you know, the content creation. And so, you know, the question was going to be, these guys are creative, and I'm sure that they can help. But is this I guess, in this world? Is this something that we put in their hands and say, here's my brand? And here's what I want to convey, you create the message? Or do we take them a message to them and say, here's kind of what I want you to do, or I guess it's probably a mix. But generally, how does that work?

 

Gordon  20:35

It is, it is best when it's a mix, as long as you've got a set of brand guidelines, and perhaps your sort of target audience, and some ideas of what you'd like to do, but not not overly prescriptive, and allow them to just do their thing. And I mean, some of the video content I've seen some of these fashion influences just blows my mind. Yeah, the creativity, the tricks, you know, it's bringing clothing and fashion to life. The other thing, of course, you can do is think about using links, that the attribute the influencer to a specific code. So maybe you want to give 10% off a your product or service or something where you can then work with the influencer so that they got something that they can give to their followers. And of course, what that does is it allows you to repeat so you've got an AR 15 influencers, and they've all got their own tracking link. You can then determine how successful each one has been about driving sales back to your website. Okay. Interesting. So again, very, very effective method of doing that. I mean, we shouldn't forget these individuals, you know, are often the average age of an influencer is 28. And they are digital, digital native. Yeah. So there, but you know, they're the videographers, photographers, their community builders, their editors, their script, right? They're bloggers, you know, these are, if you think about the traditional way that you're going to create television ads, and how much money it would involve, you'd have to have all these various people to put that together. about potentially you've got that one person. Yeah, if you find the right individual. And that's what I think is so amazing, is finding these. And what I love is the authenticity of it. Yeah. And there are some some great examples. And if you're into yachts, and superyachts, there's a there's a guy actually called at the yacht guy. And he's got hundreds of 1000s of followers. He always just loved super yachts. So he started many years ago, just going to very effective vision goes just videoing using his little iPhone and just videoing content. And then of course, he would start to build an audience because what he's doing with his content is bringing the audience into the wonderful world of the superyacht. Right? Yeah. And of course, he's made, he's made these fantastic videos now and superyacht. manufacturers are realizing this is a this is an audience that we should be tapping into. Yeah. So yeah. And they've and then, of course, that's retail brands, want to get involved with him and all sorts of other product. Brand opportunities can come his way.

 

Roy Barker  23:44

Yeah. Yeah, there's a guy. I think he's in Kansas. It's not not too far from here, but I kind of started watching him because what he would do is he would go out and find an old car or an old truck, and bring it back in and kind of walk you through what he was doing to refurbish it. And in all the time, it wasn't always putting it back stock, sometimes he would kind of, you know, fix them up to be muscle cars, or mud trucks or whatever. But, you know, I got kind of hooked because it was interesting, watching this process. So there are a lot out there, which kind of brings me to the next question I had was the channels. You know, I think, as we've progressed through social media, my channel of choice, it depends, but typically just for browsing social media is Instagram. I mean, I just like the pictures. You know, pictures are 1000 words. I don't have to read a lot and that so that's where I have gravitated. Now I say that unless it's a how to now if I'm trying to figure out how to do something different or figure out a better way then it's usually YouTube is where I go for that but is there a is there one channel that stands out Where influencers reside? Are they just different ones all? Then I guess, are there different ones for each channel are there some people transcend where they're on all channels?

 

Gordon  25:11

Well, it's interesting influencer marketing is on is on all of them in some way, even on Snapchat. But the goal of influencer marketing has to be Instagram for the reasons that it is very visually striking for products in particular. And of course, with the with the, the shopping links, and the way in which you can translate to a return on investment through through activation is very good. But it does also depend on your product or service. You know, if you were a financier or financier or banker that was, you know, had a particular nature or whatever, you might find that LinkedIn or Twitter is more your sphere? Yeah. I mean, I've got a far bigger audience on LinkedIn than I do, perhaps on Instagram, right? Is because I've been there for I've been there right at the start, of course, it's seen as the professional bytes. So it's all about where are your likely audience going to be, wherever you think they are. And whatever platform you think is relevant, that's where you should be. Okay. And also making sure that your profile is consistent amongst all of the time, if you go and have a look at my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my Twitter, by my image and profile is exactly the same, you know, so that people understand because as I said earlier, you know, a brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. And what we've got to do is create a reference point that people can remember you it's very, very cluttered online now. Creating cut through and stand out is is ever harder. We shouldn't forget YouTube. Of course, YouTube is a phenomenal platform for influencer marketing. I mean, do you ever remember a video? I don't know if you've called Charlie Bit My Finger. Does that ring a bell for you? It doesn't. Okay. Which Charlie Bit My Finger is an amazing videos created 13 years ago now. And it was it was just very, very funny. very endearing. Yeah. And it was just literally about a baby and a slightly older brother biting in a very gentle way. Anyway, but the reason I mentioned it is it is now got 179 million views. Wow. So the reason I say that is because sometimes people forget the content on video online, keeps generating ROI. Yes. Whereas you put a flier through a letterbox, it thrown in the bin, you put an advert on a magazine, and you might well see it if you're lucky. And you see a TV clip, and it's over. The great thing about about blogs, or video content is it's evergreen, evergreen, and therefore, you know, if you make it not date specific, but you make it something that's relevant to your audience, is looking at this. Why don't we follow people, human creativity and trust as the three big words, we either want to be entertained. We want to see something creative and different. But we also want to know that we can trust that person. Yeah. So always be mindful when you're creating content. That's,

 

Roy Barker  28:59

yeah. No, I think you're right. And what you will see is, you know, maybe I'm not searching for whatever topic you have, I may not be searching for it today. And so we forget about, well, it's the instantaneous, instant gratification society, if I will post the same content today, if I don't have you know, a million hits this afternoon or tomorrow on my Earth, I was a total failure. Well, we have to look as the longevity of that it lives forever. And if we continue to release content out there, it just, it's compounding effect. It just builds and builds because what I think happens a lot of times is maybe tomorrow, you're searching for something I posted six months ago, you read it, but then it leads you to what I just posted in the last week or two. So definitely. And that was a that was another question I was gonna have. is to ask is, so tell us why is this important to me as a business man, small businesses, why is influencer marketing marketing import our Why should it be? Why should we look at it more importantly?

 

Gordon  30:06

Because simply we trust the opinions of others more than we do traditional avatar, you know, how do you get your brand to stand out more when in other forms of marketing media I've just not delivering really open rates on emails are getting less and less? Well, they are to, to prospect, yes, if you're looking at your existing audience, maybe higher, but certainly with PR, people's attention spans are getting less and less. You know, what, what, what we like to do is, you know, we like to listen to, to the opinions of people that we like, and trust, and, and therefore, if you can have your voice tone through others, you know, our you should work with Roy, he's a great guy, he's effectively what you're doing is you're getting loads of referrals or reference points from other people. Because if you said you were great. But if I say You're great, that is different.

 

Roy Barker  31:09

Yeah. Or if my mother says, I'm great, and probably people expect that. Now, and that's, I think it's good that, you know, that is a great reason. But I think we also need to look at the cost. As you were saying earlier, if if we went to traditional, let's just say a TV spot, there's all the people that you just suggested the script writers, the production equipment, all of this, then the biggest part is we have to buy that time on the TV, you know, then you have to pick that slot. Do I want it to run at the morning news? Is it not? Is it overnight, you know, how in the cost varies, you know, from the different slots, but I don't know what it is for local commercials anymore. But I can guarantee you it's a lot of money, where we think about and it's not that this is free, and this is something I want to be sure and stress is that, you know, these content marketers are the influencers, they have spent a lot of time in their own money and energy building up these audiences. And so they are going to be do some kind of compensation, you know, if they help us out, this is not, you know, we don't, I don't want anybody to think what we're saying is that these people are going to, you know, we just reach out and they're going to pick us up for free, you know, there's going to be a cost. But I think, if we look at the cost of this versus the cost of the traditional media, probably fraction, and then that second part that you just mentioned, is that if it goes up on Instagram, Facebook, you know, YouTube anywhere really, it's gonna live there forever. Huh?

 

Gordon  32:47

Yeah, I mean, actually, there are some studies that talk about 11 times greater ROI return on investment and other forms of marketing media. And that's why this industry is closed, it's going to be close to $15 billion in 2022. Rob just 1.6 billion in 2016. So it is it is and you know, that is massive, yeah, massive growth in that period. And it's only going to get bigger. pandemic actually, has only lifted the industry the walk is more of a ritual line, more of us have been exposed. Who watching content creators, think talk and Instagram and others and we've discovered influencers? And and that I think is barely exciting. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  33:37

Well, yeah. And it, you know, the recent, the one that we just discussed for a minute before we got on here, I think is the it's a great story, but it was the guy that was his car broke down. So he's like, Hey, I'm gonna get my skateboard out. He's singing a song drinking, I think it was a Ocean Spray juice. And so they did an awesome thing by picking him up. And then, you know, it really just blew up even more for them. So, you know, I think we have to also look for those opportunities where, you know, we can make a big splash as well.

 

Gordon  34:10

Yeah, I mean, just on that one, I think what, what makes those videos work really, really well? is when it's not so in your face advertising is seen as almost like product placement.

 

Roy Barker  34:22

Yes.

 

Gordon  34:23

I mean, I've actually seen butter brands where they've, they've done almost butter sculpture. Yeah. You know, there have been other things where there's been chefs. And the the product that's being promoted is just on the table there. It's it's not just held up like, it's amazing. You know, actually, these little these guys have been super smart. Now, they don't want to do that because it doesn't really work. And they know that because their audience will tell him so. Yeah, let's not let's not forget that the influences have a vested interest in making a collaboration work. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  35:05

Yeah. And, you know, product placement is nothing, that it's not something that hasn't been around forever. I think about, you know, TV programs and movies. That's something that they figured out a long time ago was, instead of me coming out and telling you that, hey, I want you to drink my Cola, because it's the very best out there a drink my beer. You know, if james bond is shown in a movie, drinking my beer, my Cola, people resonate, like, Oh my gosh, if it's good enough for James Bond be drinking it, then definitely, I'm gonna go out and get some of that. So I think you're right there has a huge impact with more of just not being in your face and more of, Hey, I use this product. And you know, if people think that, I'm cool, and I'm that influencer, if I'm using that product, and other people are going to probably gravitate to that as well. So. So, um, let's talk about if I wanted to start this today, I'm, you know, gonna jump out there find me an influencer? Where would we even start? I know, our message needs, you know, we need to find the channel, I guess we're but let's just go with business. You know, maybe I want to look through LinkedIn, find somebody on there. And then also, I want to tie that into your index. I think that's awesome that you have this index that do you publish that as well, ever so often?

 

Gordon  36:30

Well, what we do with the index is top 100, the top 50 by index isn't, isn't new to the society, you know, publishers and magazine publishers have often done this. I think what's particularly different about mine is I'm taking this product offering to trade associations and professional membership communities and saying, Well, why don't you how you're in authority position? Why don't we help create this top 100 Most Influential People in the food industry in the in the bathroom? and tap industry? What whatever? Yeah. And we we work at? Yeah, creating this product offering and we've had some reaction to it. Because when you involving people they like to be recognized. So what do they do? They, they're delighted when they are, and they promote it on social media. So the business, this, there's organizing this index, these their, their revenue, their their brand amplified hugely as a result of what's happening, because if I mean, it comes back to user generated content, yeah, that is one of the biggest growth areas at the moment is when you've got when you almost the same thing as my membership space, what you want to do is, is create the pool create the environment for people to connect with each other. Yeah. So you're not doing all of the work, you are facilitating, you're putting nuggets of content in helping and grow it. Actually, we, although obviously, first of all, it is what we're talking about today, because I've got a strong background in friendship. There is a there's been a massive growth in net communities, immunities, because people want to feel part of something. And they when they can learn from other people that have been attributed to your community. Yeah, then then they will receive their value.

 

Roy Barker  38:30

Yeah. So I don't want you to give away the secret sauce. But so what are some of the what are some of the metrics that go into that list to determine is it you know, the number of postings that they have that, you know, let's just talk about food industry, it'd be the number of postings somebody had on the food industry kind of coupled with their followers, their engagement, it's just a kind of a take a lot of different indexes and kind of wrap them together.

 

Gordon  38:59

Absolutely. Yeah. So it's actually that we'll look at what we'll also look at not just social media, we'll look at Google as well. So to see if they've been in the news, we'll work with what we'll also do is create a methodology that one of the problems with some of these top 100 influencer indexes is people can be influential and not have a massive presence on on social media. Yeah, which is what we're trying to change. Of course, we find that a lot of younger people have but a lot of older people haven't. So what we try and do is create a waiting for if they've been in the industry a certain amount of time, it gets so many points if they have bad presence and a level of engagement. So it's all driven by sort of a point score, okay, okay. But what we want to do is we want to shake things up a bit We also welcome we want to work with the association and make sure that we are listing body we've got the right people

 

Roy Barker  39:56

read, alright, and that you know, I'm sorry, I can't do a bunch of stuff at There, but let's get back to Okay, so I want to start today, you know, can you kind of give me like a couple, two or three steps of things that how I should go about finding somebody on my channel to deliver my message.

 

Gordon  40:13

So if you were to go on to Instagram, for example, what the most important thing is, is what are the hashtags that would be relevant the services that you provide. So if it's direct marketing, if it's podcast marketing podcasts, we want to do is search those hashtags and see who's talking about those subjects. That's the first thing. The other thing is to look at your direct competitors, and see who is following those people. Because if you can find out and scan some of those people, they may well be interested in your audience, but also have quite a sizable audience. So there's a couple of things. I think the other thing is, is when you are posting content, I guess I had my book launch recently in the UK, I've got the one in America on the 30th of March. But I needed to make sure that I had a lot of engagement on the day of my book, because it would be very embarrassing for me to be promoting influencer marketing, if I didn't have any followers, or we didn't, so I put this on LinkedIn. And I put a personal picture of me with my book to a table. And the most important thing with any form of posting on social media is the first two hours. Okay, so if any of you don't know, that is, you know, sometimes it's worth considering if you've got friends and a very important post, you've got to get out. I occasionally WhatsApp people and say, Look, I'm gonna put a very important post out, do you mind sharing or commenting? And if they do that in the first two hours, then all of a sudden, what the algorithms do is push that out quicker and quicker and quicker. Yeah. That's how viral campaigns happen. Because people react quickly, ie they share and they comment very quickly. That's what creates a viral campaign. That's why traveled, okay? Because if you think about it, lots of times, you know, you put out a tweet or lanius that might go to views or I've got, you know, read people commenting, it feels like this is a waste of time. Because what it's doing is it the algorithm is only sending out that content to a very, very small percentage of your total follower base, as little as five or 10%. So as once those people comment, they're like, oh, it pushes out more. And if those people like and comment on it pushes it out to even more. Okay. Right. So that's the that's that that is that is really the sweet sauce. And to prove this worked, I had 16,000 views on that post 140 comments, and 15 reshares. And that that was the biggest one I've ever had. Actually. LinkedIn. Yeah, but the reason that I said it is because I literally asked three people at the beginning is that would you mind just commenting on that? Yeah. Oh, once they did that, other people. I then actually, it worked quite organically, I have to say, but I, if I'm honest, I gave it a bit of a nudge. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  43:56

no, that's a good strategy. And there's

 

Gordon  43:59

nothing wrong with that. I've also noticed that other people that were I'm part of a lobbying group for small businesses, and they had a what we call a Twitter bomb. You heard of that? with a bow? Yeah. So basically, within the community, they say, right, we're going to, we're going to try and get noticed and even trained. So they tell everybody to put a tweet out or share and like everybody else's tweet at eight o'clock. Pacific time on a specific day. Okay, because this was evolving and trying to get the attention of the the, like confederation of British industry or was somebody within business or government, they needed to rattle the cage? Yeah. And yeah, it was really it was, it was amazing. I mean, I was I was part of it, to see how much how much traffic was going through, because it was tough. It was timed.

 

Roy Barker  45:00

Yeah. Interesting. All right. That's that's a good point. Yeah. And I did want to mention, you know, not only, I'm gonna give you a chance to, you know, tell people how they can get a hold of you, but wanted to mention your book influencer marketing strategy. And you said it's going to be available here in the States. March 30. couple more days, I guess. Probably like, I guess that'd be like on Tuesday. So, yeah,

 

Gordon  45:24

yeah, that is Tuesday. Yeah, yeah. And actually, if I don't know if your podcasts gonna be out, but we could, we could prove that we could show if anybody wants to, I am gonna do a post on Tuesday. So if any of you are listening and want to go over to my LinkedIn, LinkedIn account, and with comments on it, then we can hopefully it will do the same thing. I'll definitely I will, I will like back all of your listeners, responses. Okay.

 

Roy Barker  45:55

All right. Great. Well, one question we ask isn't Well, before we go, is there anything else that you want to put out where I've taken a lot of your time? I know that, but just want to see, is there anything, any final words that you'd like to talk about influencer marketing?

 

Gordon  46:13

And I think my final words are it give it a try, you know, and if any of your listeners want to drop me a line, through my website, or on any of my social media, and just want to ask me a question as to what I'm thinking about this, or I'm in a particular type of business? I'm not sure, you know, asked me asked me, I mean, I've put so much in the book, making the 18 months to write. So it's not just, it's really almost like a compendium, compendium of knowledge, and lots of links to other good sites, and influence a platform that offers all sorts of glossary of terms, lots of case studies in there, when that that I think does help is when you know that somebody else has done it, and what results they've had. But, you know, auto Rome wasn't built in a day. It's going to take some time. But, you know, if if you do it properly, and you do it through the right process, you're gonna find some amazing results. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  47:16

All right. Well, Gordon, thanks so much for being here. One wrap up question that we always ask is, so what is a tool that you use in your daily life? habit? Something, it could be professional, personal, something that you just feel like adds a lot of value to your day?

 

Gordon  47:34

Oh, right. What do I do? I do loads of things. But there's a is it removed background? there's a there's a great little tool called remove? BG, I think it's called called remove dB. Yeah, check it out. And they will. I've used that so many times now. So when you've got a particular products, and you want to remove a certain part of it is great. It's an awesome tool, and it's free. Okay,

 

Roy Barker  48:07

awesome. We'll check that out. All right, Gordon, again, thanks so much. Tell everybody, of course, where we will be able to find your book number one when it comes out. Number two, if they want to reach out and you know, just find out more information about you? What's a good place to do that as well?

 

Gordon  48:25

Thank you, Roy. Yes. So you can go to my website, which is www.Gordon Glenister.com.

 

Roy 50:00

You can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com, we are on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google, and Spotify as well as all the major social media platforms, we probably hand out on Instagram more than others, please feel free to connect. We would love to hear from you. A video of this interview will also go up on our youtube channel. Thanks for listening and take care of yourself, and take care of your business.

www.gordonglenister.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Trust-Based Selling, Put the Focus on Your Prospect Not Yourself with Ari Galper

As trust becomes the most important currency in the new economy, the act of selling as a de-humanizing process with endless “chasing”, has been completely re-invented and anchored in the timeless values of integrity and trust – through Trust-Based Selling.

About Ari

Ari Galper, Founder & CEO of Unlock The Game®

Ari Galper is the World’s #1 Authority On Trust-Based Selling and creator of Unlock The   Game®, a new sales mindset and results-oriented approach that has revolutionized the world of selling. With a Masters degree in Instructional Design, which strongly analyzes the way people learn, and supplying nearly two decades of experience in direct selling in a variety of industries, Ari has pioneered a breakthrough sales system – Unlock The Game – through his experience working with iconic companies such as UPS and QUALCOMM over the past twenty years.

Built on the concept of authentic communication and trust, his visionary approach to selling relieves the pressure for both the seller and buyer, producing profound results. With over 45,000 subscribers, clients and members (growing at over 1,000 per month) from 38 different countries, including business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, Ari has trained the best of the best and continues to be the most respected and followed sales thought-leader in the industry.

Ari has been featured in a multitude of leading sales and business books for his unique and special trust-based sales approach. Interviewed on networks such as CNN Money and Sky News, he has become the foremost authority on selling around the globe. As a sought-after international speaker, Ari presents at sold-out sales seminars and various corporate training events where he demonstrates his ground-breaking methods, making live sales calls in front of audiences.

He has shared the stage with fellow entrepreneurs, including Joan Rivers, Mark Victor Hansen, Dan Kennedy, Harry S. Dent, Christopher Howard, Bill Glazer, Alexandria Brown and many others. His strategies have been used by countless global organizations throughout the world. Ari’s mission is to help business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, breakthrough their fears of selling as well as create a better life for themselves, their families and, of course, their clients. Unlock The Game is quickly becoming a the standard for how to create genuine trust for anyone who sells a product or service.

www.unlockthegame.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

 

Trust Based Selling, Put the Focus on Your Prospect Not Yourself with Ari Galper

Sun, 7/25 11:29AM • 46:12

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, sales, hear, trust, call, Ari, languaging, game, truth, conversation, sale, big, chasing, questions, phone, selling, opportunity, talking, listening, programmed

SPEAKERS

Ari, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:03

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Business of Business Podcast. I'm your host Roy. Of course, we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guests to speak a lot about a lot of diverse topics to help you be more successful in your business. Sometimes, unfortunately, we don't know what we don't know. And these speakers give us some great ideas. And then sometimes we do know where we need some help. But we're looking for just that rap professional to help us out and so today we are fortunate enough to have an awesome guest. I've been waiting for a couple weeks to get him on the show. His name is Ari Galper. He is a target gonna talk about how to succeed in the new economy with trust based selling. He is the world's number one authority on trust based selling. He's the founder and CEO of Unlocked the Game. In his new book Unlocked, The Sales Game has become an instant bestseller among business owners and entrepreneurs across the globe. Ari is a world's number one authority on trust based selling and has been featured in CEO magazine, Forbes, Inc, magazine, Sky News, and the Australian Financial Review as trust becomes the most important currency. In the new economy. The act of selling as a dehumanizing process with endless chasing has been completely reinvented and anchored in the timeless values of integrity and trust, through trust based selling. In his best selling book unlocked the sales game Ari describes his revolutionary sales approach based on getting to the truth and why having a mindset of focusing on deep trust instead of the sale is ironically, 10 times more profitable. Ari, thanks so much for taking time out of your day. Welcome to the show. First off

 

Ari  01:53

Appreciate it, thanks for having me.

 

Roy Barker  01:55

Hey, you bet. I mean, this is just like I said, I've been excited for the last few weeks to talk to you, because this is what I try to preach. All the time I get a chance to is this trust based selling and it's just so much? Well, I guess I can sleep at night when I do that. So anyway, let's just talk a little bit. If you could tell us a little bit about your background, I know that you were raised in the US and now live in Australia. So that's awesome. But kind of tell us how you got here. How you decided to write this book, kind of how everything came together for you.

 

Ari  02:30

Yeah, soI'm from California. Originally, my wife online about 20 years ago on a dating site. This is prior to swiping is more of a DOS where they email you photo and a couple notes. So when she was working in Los Angeles, we kind of connected their data for a while then she said come visit my family. You know, in Sydney, I was like, wow, Australia's kind of fall, but I'll give it a try. So I came out here, got engaged to get married here back to LA. And then we started started my business there unlocked the game, and I'll give you a gift. contura live six months later, our son Toby, who has Down syndrome, and he became an inspiration for us because he's, you know, anybody has Down syndrome, but they're beautiful, beautiful people. They're just warm and loving and, and transparent. So I wrote a book about him called lessons from Toby. And he became an inspiration behind my trust based selling approach. And then we moved out here and yeah, just where I lost the business, but prior to coming out here, and this is a story behind how I met this concept. Um, I was a sales manager, a software company, I was managing 18 people underneath me. And it was a fast growing high tech company. We developed the first online website tracking software to track website behavior, user behavior through websites now is called them Google Analytics. We can collect statistics on your visitors, but so we are we launched this product in real time viewing. And the leads came across my desk three big opportunities as one came across to my desk to me, and I call them back, we had a good conversation. And it was a big company that multiple websites big opportunity. If I close one sale, it will double the revenue and one one opportunity. That's how big it was. So if it goes well, like Christmas time, everyone gets that bonus, you know, so big. We do a conference call and a live demo. On I forget four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, you know, where I'm in the conference with my CEO and doors closed behind me is big, long conversation in front of me on the table, the speakerphone, on the three legs wanted to cut a corporate, you know, look spaceship powered speaker phone. So I remember those days. And I had the dial tone, dial the number and my guy picks it up and we had a quick chat and he's like, Alright, let me tell you, he's on the phone with us today. And I was like, Oh, great. I didn't know supposed to be there. He says, The next thing I hear is My name is Mike. I'm CEO. I was like, Oh, this is good. My name is john. I'm head of it. This is perfect. You know, my name is Julia. I'm head of marketing. This is even better. I mean, everybody on this call was basically the decision maker. You know, I'm talking about this is like the call you holding as often as possible. Right? It's gonna happen it's gonna happen today. So I introduced myself begin to give a live demo over the web, showing them all the information we collect for them. And it was the first time they saw this kind of stuff. And I start hearing this noise on the phone call like, Wow, this is great. This is amazing. I can't believe I can see this is you're asking me all kinds of questions. How does it work? How do we install it? What's technology and I I had all the answers I was copied attentively I or the sales books, CDs in my car back then with the seminars, I did all my little report and I received your why there's so much chemistry on this phone call. It was like, a love fest on the phone. You don't talk about

 

Roy Barker  05:32

do I do the rare opportunities?

 

Ari  05:36

Yeah, it just all happened at one time instead of myself, man. There's no resistance here at all. This is like the dream sales goal. And so an hour goes by mastering questions and it's all going well call kind of come to the end, my guys has to be alright. Thank you so much. We love what we're seeing here. Give us call a couple of weeks, follow up with us. And we'll move this thing forward. I was like, Oh, thank you God, you know, my bosses like you know, nice job already now. And I could not be in a better editing and so I said my goodbyes take my arm and my hand and reach for the phone in the middle of the speakerphone hit the off button on there as original for the off button by complete accident. Now as the divine intervention, my thumb hit the mute button, instead of the off button. They were like right next to healers, I hit the wrong button by complete accident. And a small click happened. And they thought a hung up the phone. And in that split second, a voice inside of me said Ari go to the dark side be flying the wall go where no one's ever gone before in the world of sales, right? So I just first second pull my thumb back, they started talking amongst themselves thinking I left the call. So what would you imagine that trick question that they would have probably said Africa like that? What would you expect them to say?

 

Roy Barker  06:54

Well, I think they probably would have somebody would have said probably yes, we're interested or no we're not and gotten into the whys and wherefores, maybe even had some you know if one was interested in one word, and maybe even started having some dialogue about what more they needed from you or from your product.

 

Ari  07:12

You think that right? Well, here's what I said verbatim word for word on that forget, it's fine. We're all here today. What I said was this, they said, we're not going to go with him. Keep using him for more information. And make sure we shop someplace else cheaper. knife in the heart. Twist. I was in a state of shock. Wow. I was like what and I finally hit the off button on the phone. I turn my chair look to the wall. And I said to myself, What did I do wrong? I was professional. I was competent. I studied sales, sales, my whole career from all the Guru's they were happy, I give value I over delivered. And the first big epiphany hit me that was this summer along the way, it has become socially acceptable, not tell the truth to people who sell. Right.

 

Roy Barker  08:10

Right. Yeah, and as salespeople, you know, we take the bad end of that rap. And there are a lot of people that deserve it not saying that they don't. But I think you know, I'm where you are that I want to tell the truth and build that trust. But you know, unfortunately, you know, there are customers out there, or prospects will say that, you know, basically do the same thing.

 

Ari  08:32

Yeah, well, I'll tell you, what I realized was, it has become socially acceptable not to tell the truth, and to say things like sounds good. I'm definitely interested, send me information. Send me a proposal, without having any intention of buying at all. Yeah. And that's when I realized that there is an invisible river of pressure that flows underneath every process, you have pre sale with somebody marketing on the phone. And if you don't remove the pressure from that process is invisible. You'll always fight the battle, they won't feel comfortable telling you the truth. And you can't build trust with people. And that's what I invented. My whole unlock the game concept with the whole idea is a different mindset where you're focusing now on truth and trust building, not the sale anymore. When you focus only on that with someone they feel connected to you. It creates a sort of this bubble of vulnerability where they feel comfortable telling you where they stand. Now you get the truth. And now you seem to fit it out with them. And that's the whole shift we've made over 20 years now with a revolution of 1000s of people have adopted our philosophy doing really, really well because they're not chasing ghosts anymore. And people who tell them what they want to hear and they end up in the numbers game. So that's kind of the whole story behind the unlock the game process.

 

Roy Barker  09:49

Yeah, that's a that is a huge story. I mean, in one respect, you're lucky you got to hear that because you know, again, as salespeople a lot of time you're on 100% Commission will say you may have a small salary, but you know, it's dependent upon sale. So every hour that you are tied up talking to somebody that has no interest in you, that's just, you know, waste of your productive time.

 

Ari  10:14

Yeah, look, I had to go through the pain myself and suffer, and get to humanize and rejected and feel like this, an article about you and this thing to realize, there's an answer to this. And you know, growing up at home, I experienced that as well, at the dinner table, I was depressed, a lot of could tell my truth, I was rejected, I had to keep everything inside myself many times. And I couldn't say my truth. And my whole mission has been not always to heal myself, but help other people out there. And sales and business who are literally playing a game, they know is not true, they're holding back the truth. And they're being rejected by people. To me, it's a dysfunctional relationship in the sales process. And my mission is to, is to basically heal all those people out there who have suffered through the old way of selling for so many years, and want to get to a place of authenticity and be successful.

 

Roy Barker  11:03

Yeah, and that's awesome. Because that's where I believe, well, like I said, I believe in that because I can go lay my head down at night and sleep well. And if you have a good product and good service at a fair price, and you do what you say you're going to do, you can sell that. So you know, it's there's no to me, there's no reason to play those games. It's just let's put it all out there. But so where do you start? Or if if I'm new in sales, and I'm coming to you and I say, look, Ari, I want to use this process. Tell me how we start? How does that process start?

 

Ari  11:36

Well, the first part of this model is to shift your mindset away from the sale, and to focus only on the truth if you help them or not. And that's just the cleaning out the the mental harddrive of what I call the old sales myths that are still wedged in the back of your subconscious, that are not freeing you to be a different place of people. Now, one of those myths is you probably heard of this one. It's sales is a numbers game for that before.

 

Roy Barker  12:03

Yes. Yeah, I can hear it in my sleep most of the night. Most

 

Ari  12:08

nights. Sure. Yeah. We all those ghosts in the back of our heads still, after all those years of gurus telling us this, but it's all about, the more contacts you make, the more sales are supposed to make. Don't give up, get back in there, get in the game, keep calling, you know, we discovered. That's all but yes. It's not how many contacts you make anymore. It's about how deep you go on each conversation with someone how good you are trust building, not how good you are burning through conversations. That's number one. Number two is a big one, that the continent the idea of the sale is lost at the end of the process. I'm sure you've been there before where you had a good opportunity. All green light, all boxes checked, look great. Waiting for the contract to come through and then boom, it just definitely come through disappears on you. You know, I'm talking about?

 

Roy Barker  12:54

Yes, yes, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You think that, like you were saying in your story, you've done everything right. The people love you. They want to talk to you. And you spent this in ordinary mountain time with them, getting them comfortable. And it's like, What could possibly go wrong? Except for they didn't sign the contract?

 

Ari  13:15

Yep. Yep. You know, we discovered, we discovered in our research, that the sales not lost any more at the end of the process is lost at the beginning. is lost. Hello. And I'll prove to you right now, in a fun way. If someone calls your office tomorrow morning, you hear Hi, my name is I'm with? We are a what goes through your mind about three seconds. I'm not interested. It's low, isn't it? That's it is. And I'll make the case today in this conversation that many of your listeners who are chasing ghosts are losing their opportunities, not at the end of their process. or losing weight at the beginning.

 

Roy Barker  13:57

Yeah, cuz I, you know, it's a good story that you told because I think there's probably a lot of that going out there is that they're using you for information or leverage? Because like it take whatever information you've given them and leverage it against their current supplier, whatever that may look like as well.

 

Ari  14:14

Yep, yep. And the third one is the idea that rejection is part of the sales game. You got to take a note, you got to take a hit. If you're not tough enough, you know, the sales manager was said to you, Hey, get back out there. Don't give up beat up as part of the game. That's the guys who've gotten beat up the most and figured that's the way life is. Well, you know, we figured out, we figured out that rejection actually is triggered by certain things. You say undo subconsciously, that caused the other person to push back on you and not tell you the truth, seducing you into thinking they're gonna buy?

 

Roy Barker  14:51

What do you have some examples of what those may be?

 

Ari  14:54

Absolutely. We're gonna go through that now. And I'm gonna walk you through some of our core principles too. And also Give me give all your listeners some real value here, I'm going to share with them some of my key what I call trust based languaging phrases that they can use to activate the real time in real scenarios, and throw the scripts out altogether, and use the trust based languaging authentically. So the first principle is idea of what I call diffusing pressure. Your job is to always defuse pressure in the sales process. Let me give an example of this. Let's say you're having a first call with somebody over the phone. A first conversation is their fully qualified good opportunity. They're probably a buyer, the call kind of comes to an end. Normally at the end of a call like that, we're trying to sales to do what typically supposed to say things like what

 

Roy Barker  15:42

are you ready by yet? How can I get you a contract out there?

 

Ari  15:45

Yeah, we're how do we how do we move things? forward? And next step, a cup of coffee and a demo, we always try. And we're programmed to move people straight line to the Yes, at the end. That's where our brains going. Right. But what happens if you try to if you try and move somebody forward? And they aren't ready yet? At the beginning? what's broken? Right there with them? Yeah, the trust? Exactly. So same scenario, our mindset, our approach, calls going well, good opportunity could be qualified, all of them good call comes to an end, rather than saying, Hey, how about we move forward to the end goal, what we say instead is this, we say? Where do you think we should go from here? And I'll say it again? Where do you think we should go from here? Now, how does that change the dynamic of the conversation? Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  16:47

we put it on, what do they need? Not what do we need, we need a signed contract. But that's not what they may need at this point.

 

Ari  16:56

So we're shifting the power to them. And usually, when you say to somebody, where do you think we should go from here? They're usually in a state of shock. They can't believe somebody in a sales or business role would ask, ask them, what they want to do is unheard of, because you're so used to people taking down a linear process that they know the game and their guard goes up. And now they don't tell you the truth. But when you say to somebody, right, where do you think we should go from here? What usually happens is they say things like, well, I've got one more question. Or, or what about this, all of a sudden, the truth comes out at the beginning, and not again, saving you months and months, months of chasing ghosts, and pretending a full pipeline and hoping to close somebody at the end of the process.

 

17:49

So

 

Ari  17:50

one of the triggers of rejection is languaging, the words that you use the phrases that you use that sad that are in the sales, old school sales speak, everyone hates so much. So the other element of the rejection that eliminate is the delivery. Now, what do you notice? Notice when I said, Where do you think we should go from here? How's that different?

 

Roy Barker  18:11

Slow the conversation down? strategic pauses in the phrasing to let you know, that's something else, you know, we shouldn't be afraid of silence. And it's good to put those pauses in that key places. But

 

Ari  18:23

when you slow things down, people engage with you. When you speed things up, create momentum and move quickly. The momentum creates pressure and the wall goes up. And now you're getting further or further away from the truth. So your goal is to focus on the truth, not the sale. That's what double your sales, because that's what that's what helps you figure out who's a fit and not a fit, you're not chasing people who are interested. And so the languaging the mindset and the tonality is part of the ingredients makes us so authentic and so real. Not a technique, but the truth to help people out. That's really the core principle number one. Number two principle is the idea of what I call getting to the truth of people. And what that means is having them feel comfortable telling you upfront where they stand, you're not playing the game everybody hates you know. And so today sorry about this recently, someone called my office and they got through my whole team members got to me, let's schedule a call. I pick up the phone and I hear Mr. gulper. Yes. And he says My name is john Johnson changed the name and I'm with XYZ company. And we're just now looking to bring somebody on board to train our sales team we're looking at you and couple of people we'd like to first of all, why should we go with you? Why the best and give me your best sales pitch. He says to me he he's now putting what on me?

 

Roy Barker  19:54

pressure right. What? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Ari  19:58

He's now pressure me. started doing the you know, the dance, the sales dance where it was a pitch myself. Right? Exactly. I went back to my mindset took a deep breath or a big company, you recognize them the billion dollar company took a deep breath, guy centered, Lord my voice. And here's what I said back to him. What I said to him was, Well, isn't that interesting?

 

Roy Barker  20:26

What What was his response to that?

 

Ari  20:28

wasn't done yet. That was a long, long pause there. So you jump in like, Oh, shit. Now what do you decide? Right, right. And then I said to him, Well, isn't that interesting? I said, over here, our company, we have a very similar process to you where we gather information, ask them questions, see if we're a good fit. And if we're a good fit, then we just have to wait to go from there. And I said to him, would you be open to that? All I said to him, next thing I hear in the phone, nothing dead silence, his breath across the phone, like he breathed, you know, let breath out. I can tell you all your shoulders, it became human again. You let go of his arm around him. But he takes to work. He became like a decent human being. And he says to me, he lowers his voice and he says to me, okay, what kind of questions do you have for me? Next thing I know, within five minutes, we're having a normal conversation human, the human no more games anymore. In the conversation, I discover one. He has no budget to he's not a decision maker. And three, he's just curious as to what I do.

 

Roy Barker  21:38

Okay,

 

Ari  21:39

interesting. And off, he went to my website for more information. I hung up the phone. Now what did my process just hit me myself?

 

Roy Barker  21:50

Yeah, run around chasing somebody that number one, even if he's not the decision maker, and he's got no budget, then there's not much, not much at the end of that rainbow.

 

Ari  22:00

That's right. I would have chased. Follow it up. done everything possible. Because there's this drug gets in our bodies, and it's triggered with inbound calls like that, you know, the drug is called. Drink called. It's called hopium. You know, the hopium drug. When you get that inbound call, you're like, Whoa, Baby, you're so excited. You got your patient over you, like, Man, you tell your team, guess what, I got a call from there. You tell your husband and wife Guess what? We're gonna go feature this here. This is the year I got the call. You're so excited. Right? Hey, follow up. And you get their voicemail. You're like, what he's not there. Then you go to your computer. And you're right. Hi, I'm just writing you to what to

 

22:43

follow up.

 

Ari  22:47

And I'm going to ask you and all your listeners right now to take a verbal oath of me to never again after post RV after hearing this podcast and never again, use a phrase I'm about to give you in your life ever again in business. And for those people on the call who have been in sales for a long time. This might hurt just a bit. Is it all right?

 

Roy Barker  23:09

Yeah, no, go ahead. I'm raising my hand. I'm taking the oath.

 

Ari  23:14

I love it. Good text. So I'm gonna ask everyone to never again, use the phrase follow up ever again in their lives after today.

 

Roy Barker  23:29

So agree, and I think you know, we had this conversation, you know, a couple weeks ago is that, to me, it drives me insane No matter if I'm interested if it's a good product, good price, good service. But I'm not there yet. And I get the email or the phone call. It's like the same script. Hey, this is Joe, we talked last week I'm circling back to, you know, circling back or following up. Want to see if you're ready to buy yet.

 

Ari  23:58

There's a few of those classic ones there's touching base? Yes. There's one more class one follow up touch base. You know, got questions and checking in that's these are all classic sales 101 9280s techniques that we're used to doing. And that's the problem we're so conditioned to a yes or no that we're on a track towards a way that people know a mile away, man, this guy is after major sales got person no matter how professional you are. And so I'll give you guys all right now everyone listening, the replacement for that because I've got a whole body of work around trust based languaging tied to every single scenario you ever imagined the pre sale. So what you do is replace that phrase with this. I'm just giving you a call to see if you have any feedback on our previous conversation. Any feedback on our last meeting, any feedback on our proposal, see feedbacks going backwards away from the sale, not follow up which is going forwards towards For Sale, when you go the reverse direction, what happens? You remove the pressure, you take the momentum out of it, and all of a sudden they feel comfortable opening up to you and telling where they stand. It's funny when you say to somebody, you can try this for anyone listening, I'm giving you a call, or even a feedback on our previous conversation. They just start talking, it just started downloading didn't go, Oh, my God, this guy was right. Years and years of sales. Now a sudden I'm getting people talking to me, whoa, because we're so brainwashed. We're so conditioned, so programmed to behave and speak a certain way that people know a mile away the minute they hear any tonality of voice or anything. It sounds like that stereotype. It is over at Hello, yes.

 

Roy Barker  25:45

Yeah, and I think that, you know, it's kind of the common thread, it seems that's running through this so far is that we have actually turned this around. And we're interested in you, Mr. Customer, you know, what, what questions do you have, you know, what can we do to move this forward, not the, I'm the sales guy, I need to contract at the end of the month, and I need to really get this deal today. So I'll get, you know, get my bigger bonus this month.

 

Ari  26:11

But you can still be ambitious, you can still have your goals, but you can't transfer that from you to them. That's what happens. We have no filter system. And we overstep our bounds even subtly, UB you mean Eb maze it my clients who bring me their, their fun recordings of their calls, and they're nice people, but they they jump into early in the conversation, start talking about those solutions. They don't diagnose deep enough, they don't have the right languaging they go to a follow up stage after for call one, they go to call to another follow up stage. And they they're just literally chasing ghosts. And they're wondering why their conversion rates so low, and all the time does get more leads. And I'm like, stop getting more leads focus on the big hole in your bucket, which is conversion and stop playing the game. And they go. They're like, they're they're literally their head spin go, Oh, my God, my whole career. I've always thought selling was about chasing opportunities. And it turns out, that's the mistake everyone's making.

 

Roy Barker  27:10

Yeah, yeah, we need to take care of those leads that we have. Because there's I think there's ways that we can bring people around and not push them away a lot of times. You know, I will say that we push away in talking about the phone conversation. You know, I hear these that. It's like, there's a script. And it's like, Hello, Hello, Mr. Smith, you know, and it's like a robot reading it. And I had a call that a young lady said, Hey, great. I want to come in and take a look at this. Okay, well, wait just a minute, let me tell you. And she said, Craig, you know, that sounds good. When can we make it? Okay, well hang on just a minute, let me finish. My oh, my gosh, this, this person blew through three stop signs, all they had to do was just be quiet. That's all he had to do is be quiet and say, we'd love to see when can you be here? That's right. That's right. It's like somebody gave him a script and said, You got to get all 300 words in before he for the

 

Ari  28:02

whole industry has been brainwashed and programmed and wired to do a certain behavior that creates what I call a dysfunctional relationship from Hello. And this goes down to the across all communication, what I call trust based communication, to learn because I believe in this economy now, that trust is a new currency. And if you are constantly putting trust in your sales process for your whole company, your whole business, I'm not saying you know, being trustworthy. I'm saying constantly putting trust into your process as a conscious effort, and realization if you're not doing that, just showing up and doing your thing. Man, you are playing a numbers game and you're going to be in some serious pain, sir.

 

Roy Barker  28:46

Yeah. That's for sure.

 

Ari  28:52

So there's one more principle if you if we got some more time?

 

Roy Barker  28:55

Yeah, yeah, no, that's what I was gonna ask you. What is the what's your next principle there?

 

Ari  28:58

Yeah, the last principle is idea what I call being a problem solver, where you, you're placing a pitch person, you probably heard a 32nd commercial or the elevator pitch, you know, those things that were taught to do?

 

Roy Barker  29:09

Exactly, yeah.

 

Ari  29:10

Someone says, what do you do? And I'm like, Oh, I'm a business coach. Right. So software, I see, our identity is tied to our solutions. When someone says what do we do? We say, Oh, I'm a financial advisor, we just connect to that prototype. image. So what we help people understand to help companies do is translate their their pitch into what I call a problem conversation where when you meet somebody, you don't focus on your solution at all. You focus only on their world what their problems are. So so you meet somebody, you don't say I'm a x, you say I help business owners solve, solve three problems. A B and see. You talk about you focus in on their problems, you don't talk about your solution, it's too premature to offer a solution and to diagnose their problem and that's what creates connection. I got a story for you real quick, too, that might. But it's more alive for you a few years back, I was brought back to us to a big sales team, high tech company, a big room, 500 people in the room. And right about lunchtime, I was doing my thing. And there four or five guys in the corner of the room with their arms crossed just like this. Looking at me, and I get it all the time, big companies, lots of few guys in the corner like this. And they're, you know, you can feel that arrogance. And they're looking at me going, who does this guy? think he is? He I've been in this business for 20 years, no one knows more than I do. I've been in the game. I'm successful. I get it all the time. And so I'm prepared for this. And so, right around lunchtime, I said before we go to lunch, everyone, we're gonna do one more thing. We're gonna make live sales calls in the room right now. your toughest prospects you can't reach. And I reach over the table and I pull up a speakerphone pre wired in the whole room and I slammed it on the table. We're gonna make live calls on this room right now, on this, on this phone to prove to you there's a feature we're selling this guy. And the whole room is like frozen like this, like I wanted I guess what? I said, I don't worry, you're not gonna make live calls in the room. And for everybody right now, guess who's gonna do it? Me. I'm gonna call your toughest prospect you can't reach in front of you right now. To prove to you, this is a breakthrough that you're missing. Well, guy goes, You can't do that. You don't even work here. You don't know our technologies. You don't know our product lines. You don't know our server levels of this all this complex gobbly goo. I said it's not about your solutions, my friends. It's about the problems you help people solve. You stay in that zone, man, your unlimited opportunity. So one guy gets up. He walks down the aisle kind of heavyset guy with a folder his hand and I say come on down. Come on down. He comes for so what do you have for me? He says I'm what's called a wind background. I my job is when back the old class we lost like a 10 year each one's worth seven figures like close one a year. I'm here on the company, because that's how big it is. But here's one for you. We lost one last year a big opportunity, a client of ours, that we shipped a brand new laptop for the sales team offshore for a big meeting. And it was a surprise gift to everybody. And the boxes arrived, unfortunately destroyed, the screens were broken and the laptop was crushed. It was terrible. There was just such a bad moment for this to happen. They call this back and they cut the whole contract off. He lost the entire account off that one experience. It was terrible for everybody. And my job is to win them back. The problem is, I can't get past the gatekeeper. I've tried everything. I've tried to go through her and center date her trigger every trick in the book. I can't get the decision maker to the gatekeeper to get to decision makers to get this thing going yet. So here we go. Ari, you give her a call. I said no problem. So I got her name and number. I walked over the phone. I said please, everyone, please keep it down. There's a live call right now. Their whole room still What?

 

Roy Barker  33:17

Yeah, they're stiff.

 

Ari  33:18

They're just freaking out. Because their biggest fear that would happen to me but they're used to is what? rejection? Correct? Yes. And when their world rejection is normal? Yeah, in my world, we never trigger it. Yeah. So I have no fear. I teach my class the same thing. So I dial the number, phone rang in the whole room, they're real quiet. And guess who picks it up? The gatekeeper. Her name is Julie says hello is Julie. And I proceeded to say this. What I said was this. I said, Hi, Julie. My name is Ari, with XYZ company. And I'm hoping you can help me out for a moment. That roleplay for a second. How would you respond to that? If someone said that to you in that in that manner? How would you react to that?

 

Roy Barker  34:18

Of course how can I help you?

 

Ari  34:20

Exactly that's called a two way dialogue a Hello. For people who struggle at Hello What's your most people that creates an open communication. So then I said this I say well, I'm just giving you a call on the one reason one reason only. And that is to apologize. What happened last year? We should be laptops that can destroy you call us back we cut the con you cut the country that we were upset with us. It was terrible Express for everybody. It was probably painful for you as well and for everyone evolve and I just wanted to simply call to apologize on behalf of myself and my company for that horrible experience that we put you in front of That's all I said. Next thing on the phone, you know what, here's your next here, let me tell you, I was there, I opened the boxes, I couldn't believe it. I was so upset too. I was embarrassed. I, it was horrible. He starts talking and talking and talk, it was like a whole damn opened up. And the whole truth just came out. And she even says, oh, and I'm involved with decision making process to bring you guys back on again. Surprise, the whole time the guys want to go through her turns out, he's it for the whole thing. So the whole room is in a state of shock. And she comes full circle. And I said, Look, I just went against him. He apologized for that it sounds terrible. And I just wanted him to be open to us figure out a way to heal old wounds, and begin again with a fresh start and see if we can build trust again from the beginning to prevent this happening again. Would you be open to that?

 

36:05

That's all I said to her

 

Ari  36:07

as a pause. And next thing she says is that sounds good. Let's schedule a conference call and move this thing forward. Next thing I know she's rattling off phone numbers and zoom links, conference calls and VPS. And I'm writing down get is no Give me your Pat. I'm writing down phone numbers, contact schedule dates. I said to her look, there'll be myself or my colleague, one of us be in the call is that all right? That's fine as matters there, cuz I'm going back to, you know, home. And actually, she's scheduling the phone call, like pulling

 

36:39

everyone in all the

 

Ari  36:40

decision makers, the VPS on this call, and we got it all scheduled. And look, and I say thank you so much. And we're about to end the call. And she says one more thing to me at the end of the call. You know, she says What was that? Thank you for being the only person in your company who actually listened to me Ravin triangle through me know

 

Roy Barker  37:11

what an amazing story.

 

Ari  37:13

That's all. We hung up the phone, and the whole room. It was like, they saw Jesus Christ for the first time. They're like, what that they I was like doing the wave in the room like this, you know, on their shoulders, like a football, I was being carried around the room like, like, like a hero after war or something that they were they their whole life. They took bullets, man, they expected rejection, it was tough. And all of a sudden, I showed them on one example, how to cut through all that noise. They've been carrying their whole lives because they were taught to sell. And I said stop selling. start learning how to create trust with people. Alright. And I'll throw this out to your listeners. And I'll kind of ask you guys a blackdog question here a little higher level and only like a like a bat like dog question. That's you're really with me for a while. But what do you suppose my goal was in my mind? Before I pick up the phone to call her? What do you think my goal was in my in my thinking before I dial the number with her? And he guesses?

 

Roy Barker  38:15

Yeah, you just wanted to either get through to the decision maker or get their phone number get a contact where you could reach out directly to them.

 

Ari  38:22

Yeah, so that's that's what you're probably expected to be. But let me tell with my with my mental goal was and this is a bit higher level. But my goal was that I had no goal. I had no objective. I had no next steps. Because if I did, that I wouldn't be 100% present with her to connect to her to her world so she can feel that I care for her. And by being present, by connecting to her by her feeling actually cared about what happened. But our next step is what pure trust building is all about. It's a rare skill that most business people and sales people can't get because they're so programmed and conditioned to go start selling in this way that everyone knows a mile away is a foreign language. Like it's the the game is over guys 1980s and 90s 2021. Everyone knows the whole pitches, it's over the goal. If you want to suffer play that game. I wish you the best. And I'll tell you I get a lot of refugees I call who come from other sales gurus who say man are you been are you for last 10 years of my career. I've stopped that suffering. This is normal. I that's part of the game. And I've got my little clinic that I call it where I help people detox and get them out of that process and back into themselves again and they use this by the way people take this concept. They use it they their personal life too. I've saved marriages. I'm not kidding. Some guy calls live recently say, hey, Ari, you said my marriage is I'm like, What? My wife and I are about to get divorced. I heard your podcast, I got your programs, I study everything you're doing. And I realized the problem was me. I was putting my agenda before hers. I wasn't listening. I wasn't connecting. I was in the next step. And I finally broke through that. We are back together again. And I learned how to build trust in my life, thank you, you saved my life. That's my mission is to help people detox from that poor communication, they grow up they brought up with from everyone they've been taught, and to reset, upgrade, and come up to the modern day. Because right now, trust is a new currency if your business is still playing that old game, and I was able to quantify all the losses you're doing right now I can see your your your conversion numbers and look at the numbers, how low they are, and identify how much you're losing, trust me, there'll be so much value in that pot of pie right there that will lead further. You have to go to stick your stomach to quantify the loss of going on and to fix this once and for all. So that's really what I'm all about. And I appreciate you giving me a place to get my sermon. You bet. No,

 

Roy Barker  41:21

that's great. I love hearing it. And it's a it's a great mindset out, you know, talking about making people feel better not just made me think about when I was a young salesman, I had a sales manager and when the guys would fall out of the bullpen at the end of the day. If you were smiling and happy, you'd be like, Well, obviously you didn't make enough calls today. I mean, like you didn't get beat up enough you need to make some more calls the feel bad to walk out of here. It's just such a such a different philosophy that it's really uplifting, though. I like that. And it's better for the consumer, our prospect as well. Look dehumanizing people is just wrong. And I mission to make it right. Alright, we certainly do appreciate you being with us. So tell me a couple things. First, before we go, what is something that you use in your day to add value could be a habit could be a tool. It could be professional and personal. But just what's something that you feel adds a lot of value to your day?

 

Ari  42:28

I've tuned my ear to stop hearing hearings passive and do listening instead. Listening is active. People think I'm a good listener. Oh, yeah, I listen to people. But I discovered No, you don't listen. You're hearing? What's your brand's already on the next step?

 

Roy Barker  42:48

Yes. When you own when you close

 

Ari  42:50

that gap, which we do in our training and teachings, people feel you're present with them. Money just rolls your direction. I mean, it's like a damn.

 

Roy Barker  43:03

Yeah. And I had somebody Luckily, years ago that taught me that. It was that teaching you the active listening, because when you're hearing, I'm not hearing really actually, I'm thinking about, I wish he would quit talking for a minute because I've got something to counter that. Or I've got something to say, you know what he just said, and I just missed the whole last part of you know what you were saying? That's probably key information that I really needed. Yeah. Yep. It can be transformative. So y'all give it a try? Are you again, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. So if you would mind tell us, you know, what kind of companies what kind of people do you work with? What can you do for them? And then of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you?

 

Ari  43:50

Well, look, I work a lot with entrepreneurs, business owners, sales teams, who have not are not happy with their conversion rate. They aren't happy with the leads that are coming through that they're able to convert to an art to a new sale. I have a new book I'm working on was speaking to we did another podcast on soon coming out called the One Call Sale. How to onboard somebody one conversation how to compress your sales cycle from 10 steps to one step that's revolutionary how to go from a 5% conversion rate to 35% conversion rate, how to grow your business without any more marketing dollars being spent. This is the pot of gold. most business owners don't understand how to how to dig up. So I do a lot of consulting around that. We do have a program called the One Call Sale. And we do have a free overview as well. If you want to just have your listeners Just go to www.unlock the game.com just get in there and put your details through. If this resonates with you, we do a beelines was as fast as possible. Reach out, access our courses login, reached out to me whatever You need, we're here to help because we view ourselves as, you know, people helping refugees who are stuck on an island, they can't get off of their thinking. And once you hop over to our island, man, it's paradise. I'll tell you it's a great life.

 

Roy Barker  45:16

Alright, that sounds awesome. Now, can they find your podcast that that website as well? Everything's here unlock the game.com Yeah. Y'all go green care. I know he can help you. It's been awesome. It's been such a great time speaking with you today. We appreciate you taking time again to come see us. And hopefully we'll speak again very soon. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Hey, you bet. that's gonna do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. You can find us of course at www. the business of business podcast.com. We're on all the major social media networks. When this episode goes live, of course, there will be a video version put up on YouTube as well. You can find us on all the major platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, for not a one that you listen to regularly please reach out. I'll be glad to get you get us added to that one. Until next time, I want you all to take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.unlockthegame.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Want to Improve on Your Leadership Qualities? Start With Selfcare with Paul Glover

We all know the right words to say, we figured it out, right? You know what the language is, we say authenticity, we say vulnerability, we say transparency. But when it comes time to actually taking those words and turning them into action. We stumble. People don't want to be seen in a bad light.

About Paul 

I am the No-B.S. Work Performance Coach. I’m based in Chicago but I work with clients throughout the U.S. I am also a “recovering” trial lawyer, an unabashed Starbucks addict, and the author of Workquake™, a book dedicated to those in the work environment seeking to not only survive, but also to thrive in the Knowledge Economy.

In 1994, Paul was a successful federal court trial attorney.  In 1995, he was a convicted felon, serving 7 years of incarceration in Federal Prison.

How Paul and his family managed to overcome the personal and professional setback he inflicted on himself and his family and how he built a successful national coaching practice is Paul’s personal case study about overcoming adversity and setbacks through resilience and grit.

Paul’s messages to those who hear him speak is: “we don’t succeed in spite of our losses, but because of them” and “before your life can change, you need to change.”

Through keynotes and workshops, Paul illustrates how those faced with setbacks, either personal or professional, can develop and use resilience, mental toughness and grit to take the challenges they face and transform them into growth opportunities.

www.paulglovercoaching.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Posted Want to Improve on Your Leadership Qualities Start With Selfcare with Paul Glover

Sat, 7/17 7:57PM • 46:47

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, coaching, absolutely, decisions, leader, pandemic, business, day, coaching program, exercise, eat, energy, obligation, part, sleep, person, clients, reach, required, paul

SPEAKERS

Paul, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:01

Hello and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host Roy of course, we are the show that brings you a wide range of guests talking over a diverse set of topics. What we want to do is try to show you some new and different things that you may be able to use in your business for success. Also, we want to present some professionals in different disciplines that may be able to help you in areas that you know that you're struggling in. And today is no different. We have an awesome guest, Paul Glover, he is a subject matter expert in management and coaching. He has practical experience a sense of humor, and he is a great storyteller. I can vouch for that we can't wait to get into some of his stories. He is the no BS workforce performance coach assisting organizations, team leaders and teams to reach their full potential and become high performing. He's also a recovering trial lawyer. He's an unabashed Starbucks addict, and a Chicago's bears fanatic. He is the author of work quake, which presents 76 strategies and tips to thrive in the knowledge economy, as well as he is a speaker on business and leadership topics and a member of the Forbes coaching Council. Paul, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day to be here.

 

Paul  01:19

Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Roy Barker  01:21

You bet. You bet. Well, like we've, we've talked a little bit in pre show, I'll probably be the first one under the bus with some topics that we want to talk about, I think, you know, first off, before we get too deep, I just want to talk about, you know, like, how did you find yourself here, I know that you're used to be a lawyer. But now you're doing a lot of coaching with executives and teams. So tell us how that journey has looked?

 

Paul  01:45

Well, that journey has been a rough boy, in all honesty, I'm a, I'm a victim of my own, my own inability to walk the straight and narrow. I was a trial lawyer in the city of Chicago for 30 years, representing labor unions and labor and employment law. And during that period of time I, I engaged in some bad business deals, and over a period of time, accumulated enough evidence for the federal government to indict me on 3033 charges of taking bribes and kickbacks. And I slept five and a half years in closing. So I can tell you that that's why I'm a recovering lawyer when I got out. They let me know in no uncertain terms, and I never be able to brag, again. And I and by the way, I absolutely deserved the penalty and drove the time. But when I got out, that career opportunity was gone. And in fact, even though we often tell ourselves the story about once a person has served their time, they're entitled to be back in society and obviously, will be unappropriate and fruitful life. But the reality is that, that x columns are not given that same opportunity. It just is the way we look at people, and rightfully so by the way. So when I got out, I found that, that my career opportunities for a guy who was 52 years old, and a ex felon were extremely limited. But I also had had a reputation as being a hard but fair person, and business relations. And a part of what I did constructing a new career was that I took the prison experience. And by the way, I don't suggest anybody follow this course of action or want to go to prison to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. But I took that experience, and the lessons that I had learned with that experience, and I put it together as a part of a coaching program. And I tell people that much well be upfront, transparent about who you are and what your experiences have been, because of this new concept we call Google. Right? So anybody who wants to know my past, has no problem finding it out. So rather than try to hide from it, I decided to embrace it. And I began to reach out to people that I know to tell them that that I was now doing coaching. And fortunately, I was contacted by some good businesses that I'd done business with on the other side of the table in negotiations, that offered me the opportunity to engage in coaching. And from that, gosh, that's 2001. From that I've developed a national coaching program with primarily clients and distribution and manufacturing. Okay, so yeah, so They, like I said, I believe that everybody owns their scars. And with every scar, you should also learn a lesson. Because those scars are painful, right? And you don't want to forget them, you don't want to ignore them, you want to incorporate that into who you are, and how we interact with other people will often want to run away from our scars and want to cover a month to get to have them go in a mile see them? The reality is, they are, they are an inherent part of who we are. And they dictate what we're going to do and how we're going to interact with other people.

 

Roy Barker  05:36

Wow, what a story. And we appreciate you sharing that. I know, the transparency and just the honesty. I mean, that is it's very refreshing. And like you said, it's with Google, it's hard to hard to hide, so we better just embrace it and figure out how to move forward and again, applaud you for not, you could have took the other course and said, Well, I can't ever do that again. So now there's, you know, nothing for me. But you've kind of taken that and made a break for yourself and got got out here and built a great coaching practice.

 

Paul  06:11

And you write it and by the way, we it's interesting to me because obviously, I interact in the coaching process with business leaders. And we all know the right words to say, we figured it out, right? You know what the language is, we say authenticity, we say vulnerability, we say transparency. But when it comes time to actually taking those words and turning them into action, you stumbled with that, and rightfully so, people don't want to be seen in a bad light between the reality is we believe the value of those words, we have to live those words and how we conduct ourselves professionally and personally.

 

Roy Barker  06:51

Well, and I would assume that the same needs to be said to your clients, as well as anybody that really wants to take that next step. And you know, if we really truly want to get better every day at what we do, decisions that we make, we first have to be, we have to be very in tune with who we are now, we have to be honest about who we are and where we are. Because you know, we'll use social media as an example. You never see people, very few people taking pictures of the hard times. And when things go bad. It's always every you know, we just got a new new yard in the new helicopter and a new plane. And it's just, you know, we don't know what is real and what is not. So I think in some respects, this has made it even harder for us to admit that, you know, we do have shortcomings we all do. I think everybody could get better in some way every day. Absolutely. And you're absolutely correct. I

 

Paul  07:51

think that self improvement, and becoming a good leader all starts with yourself. Yeah. If you're not honest with yourself, and you don't control your yourself as a as an authentic person. But then people aren't people know that. By the way, it's always interesting to me that we think we're hiding who we are from people. And you can get away with that, that some of the times I mean, PT Barnum actually ever saying about that, right? You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Right? Exactly. And why would you want to. And so, you know, and by the way, that that's why the my approach, which you can tell is very direct. That's why the no BS, right? get plugged into how I go myself, I'm going to bring that attitude, if I'm going to be honest with you and direct with you, and authentic with you. In the coaching process, I expect that commitment from the person who's being pushed out. Without that we can't develop trust. And if we don't have trust, we don't have a relationship. We can't be open with each other. So to me, it's, it's, it's something that not only should we talk about, we should also use an act in every engagement.

 

Roy Barker  09:09

Well, and it's an energy drain, like you said, we can fool some of the people some of the time, but we can't fill everybody all the time. But in some respects, it's like keeping up a lot. So like what did we say, you know, and it's, it's a huge expense of energy. I can only imagine and it's, you know, at some point, I think especially as as you get older and you kind of maybe lose that ego a little bit and you feel like you've lived enough life that you are who you are and you recognize that it's like there's a it's like there's a weight that's lifted off of your shoulders and it's just very freeing when you can finally reach that point

 

Paul  09:49

when you're actually right and obviously quizzing beat the bad ego out of me and taught me some lessons that I never learned and that was awesome. You know Right and, and coming to the realization that I made mistakes. And by the way, I tell people that were self inflicted injuries, nobody else did it to me, I would love to blame somebody else. And I did for a while, I think I'd been spent the first year and a half in prison, trying to figure out how to get even with those people that I thought had put me in prison. But most of the time, we are responsible for our own situation. I recognize that no, you can be struck by lightning, it's not your fault. But the reality is that that's that's the rarity. In our day to day business opportunities. We are often solely responsible or mostly responsible for a situation, the sooner we come to grips with that, the better we are able to change that situation. Rather than continue to be in the grips of either regret or with that. Yeah, I because I had plenty of time to look at the regrets. And I had plenty of time to think about revenge. It was only when I got over those, and started thinking about how to take that in those lessons that that I had to learn, believe me, if I had not gone to prison, I will be dead. There's no question about it. I was headed down that path. And it really did save my life, then that's so odd for people to hear that. It wasn't it was a good thing. In that respect. Yeah. And I'm a much better person now than it was when I went to prison. And all I can tell you is that I don't want anybody to have to go through that experience or the lesson. But I also don't want anybody not to learn the lessons. Right?

 

Roy Barker  11:36

Exactly. And one thing, I think that where you got my attention is something that we don't talk about a lot during the coaching is the health aspect of as people as leaders, and actually, I think it's, you know, the caricature of the hard drink and hard smoke and hard living guy. And, you know, that just lasts so long. And like you said, you end up getting yourself in the jam when you live that kind of life. But let's just talk about the health aspects that we need to have to get up and be the best performer every day.

 

Paul  12:17

Well, and first, you're actually correct that that is a topic that that is often overlooked. The pandemic has given us the chance to talk about wellbeing for our work team. And I absolutely believe that that's required. But I also tell people in the coaching program, that self care is required before you can take care of someone else. Before you can take care of your team, you have to take care of yourself. And again, we all know what that means. There was no one that is in the coaching program. And when I talked to them about what that means they can they can tell me, the problem is once again, taking what we know, and 20 that into action, right. And of course, self care to me is very simple. I'm pretty, I'm not become simple. I don't believe we should complicate our lives. And I certainly don't believe we should complicate our interaction with others that is creates confusion. So when we start talking about self care, I immediately go to the fact that there is an obligation on the part of a team leader to do the best they can. As that team leader, it's an obligation in first it's a privilege to be a leader. I know that sometimes the leaders leaders start to think that they got there on their own. There's nobody gets their own their own, I'm sorry. Friends and organization, there's a team, there's support for that person who's allowed them to move up the corporate ladder of business ladder and be successful, right? So so the obligation is now to take care of that team. But that obligation requires you first take care of yourself. And physically, that means very few things, but very important thing. The first thing is you need you need to get your sleep. And by the way, I'm a research geek. I love the research. And the research shows that if you're not getting enough sleep, you will get up in the morning and you will be as if you were drunk. Well, I'm not seeing too many drugs make really good decisions. So most of them go to jail based on one's decision. So let's not do that. In fact, let's accept the fact that we are a physical being connected to a metal beam. And we need to treat the physical being appropriately so that mentally we are clear and strong. But we got to sleep, you got to get through it. And when I when I'm in the coaching process, I talked to the person I'm coaching about them. And if they don't believe that I send them the research read this. It's not just me, it's been a sample. So let's talk about that. happening. And sometimes we have to talk about the sleep environment. I mean, I go that deep with people, right, I need to know that when you go to bed at night, you got to get a good night's sleep, which is not shutting your eyes. So Sleep Number One second one exercise. And the biggest pushback, I get to exercises, I don't have enough time. And the reality is, it's the exercise that allows you to actually become more energetic, and to establish the focus and discipline you need to get through the day. And we are as leaders, we are decision makers, we don't do the work anymore, right? The whole concept is we make the decisions that impact the people that do the work, right, you have to be sharp. So the reality is you need to be in an exercise program. And and that requires long winded you have an exercise, I absolutely believe that most leaders need to have a coach that works with them, to make them physically, appropriately physical. So it's only that number two, and by the way, that also happens during the day, I understand somebody believes that they can sit at their desk for four hours at a sweat, you're not in college anymore, you're not cramming overnight for the towel, guess what, get up during the day and, and move around. Right. And the third thing very simply is diet, what you eat, and what you drink absolutely impacts your ability to perform. And I tell people, when you go out that night, you know, and you eat that big meal, and you have two bottles of wine. And next morning, you got an important meeting. You're the skunk in the room. Right? Right, if what they say when they had, if you don't know, when you're in a card game, you don't know who the sucker is, it's you hear when I look at that I go, you are the sucker you have set yourself up not to be able to reach your potential in that moment. And you fail, you failed yourself and you failed your team. So So guess what, let's be realistic about this. Obviously, if you want to go on the weekend and do whatever you want to do, that's okay with me. I'm not telling you that live like a monk. But I'm telling you that if you are seriously concerned about being a high performer, and being the leader of a high performance working, these are these aspects of that job are absolutely required and failing to recognize that is failing and your obligation. And I don't want to look at that I will I believe that if you want people to engage with you and your organization that requires a commitment on your part, that that well allows them to see that you are serious about that level of engagement. And often we don't see it in people. So So certainly I and again, I know that obviously, you know, you push the button, and I start to sound like I'm preaching it because this is something people need to hear. And I'm passionate. By the way, I love it. I've got I've got six to seven people that I will talk to daily in a coaching program. And not one of them that from the first one to the last one wants to think that I am not giving them my undivided attention, that I'm not in the moment that I'm not not listening, and that I'm not going to help them. So when I get to that number seven, that list, and I haven't taken care of myself, I don't have anything left, right, I figured that out. My obligation is to do that. So I love these rules. And I believe that anyone who wants to be a great leader and a good team leader.

 

Roy Barker  18:48

Yeah, and I think it's almost a three legged stool, and I'll speak for myself and this is where I you know, kind of jokingly said earlier, this is where I knew I would fall under the bus because I you know, I tend to I tend to fail in this area in many respects. But, you know, it starts out with that sleep, if I don't get a good enough sleep, I don't feel like exercising. If I don't exercise, then I want to eat to fill that time up. And it takes me being hitting on all three cylinders, to use that terminology. But I have to hit on all three of these to really be in the zone if I just fought because, you know, you go out and eat a big ol you know, a Italian lunch. And then what do you want to eat? Just want to take a nap in the afternoon. You're just like, oh, if if I can just get home where I can sit on the couch. You know, so we just really have to pay very close attention to these details.

 

Paul  19:48

Why you're absolutely right. And by the way, it just this requires focus and discipline. But But I don't understand someone who wants the leadership position but isn't willing To do this, it is difficult. By the way, being a leader is a hard job. Yeah. And you've got to, you know, it's as if you were an athlete, right. And I look at that, and I go, if you're an athlete, you're training. And that's so huge. And we just have to do it on a daily basis, we're not allowed to train for five days. And Good day, we're required to perform everyday, right. But that requires that we be prepared for that physically prepared, so that we're mentally sharp. And, and so I don't have a lot of columns that people aren't willing to make that commitment. By the way, my coaching for him, obviously, if you're not willing to do those commitments, I tell you, you need to find somebody else, right. Because if we start talking about you getting better, I need to know that the basis is in place for that to be possible. Otherwise, whatever you accomplish will be temporary, it will fade away, because, you know, leadership and leadership is developing the right habits. And and those habits are first have to be put in place. And then they have to stay in place until you don't even think about, you know, my contention. And again, I'm constantly talking about myself, because I have the same difficulty everybody else, right? exercise in the morning, I'm up at five o'clock. And my exercise goals are right next to the bed. I don't think about this. Because if I start thinking about and I'm going to I'm going to go to the computer, turn it on and read my 200 emails. Right, I'm not going to go to the gym. Right? And and so so I thought I'd make this a habit, right, I get up, I get dressed, and I go do it out of the way. I also believe that this this having these habits and these disciplines, eliminate decision fatigue. We shouldn't be having decisions about this. Oh, we should we should automatically I think about President Obama. He had one color suit. He never be in When asked why? He said, because all I have to do is put it on right. I don't have to think is it the right color? On my tie. And I thought you know what, I heard that I said, Now that's a guy that's figured it out, right? By the way, nobody ever ever thought to ask him what are you so doll you only wear black. He wore the suit in and I would suggest that that leaders have to be like that eliminate the distractions, focus and discipline. And suddenly you find that you're much better at your job, by the way, it doesn't make your job easier. It just makes you better. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  22:42

Yeah, it's funny, you bring that up, because me and me and Terry, were just having that conversation the other day about the I was just telling her, you know, when we start going back to the office all the time, I said, I'm just gonna get me khaki colored pants and a blue shirt, you know, have one for every day of the week. And I was explaining that to her about this decision fatigue. And I mean, it's a real thing. I mean, we have decisions flying at us all the time. So if we can eliminate, I don't know, 10% of those by just streamlining and having processes in place. And yeah, another one you kind of caught me on there was that, you know, looking at your phone first thing in the morning, because I've fallen into that bad habit too. You know, when the alarm goes off, you roll over and you kind of scroll through the headlines of the emails. And you know, next thing I'm know she's trying to hustle me out of bed and saying, You're laying there too long Get up, let's get moving. So you know, again, I can speak from experience. These are real, productive killers.

 

Paul  23:43

Absolutely. And you know, and look, I have to be realistic about a couple of things first, why don't I time and energy? Often, and people always, by the way, I've been doing this for 30 years. And I can tell you the time management, whatever that means, is still a relevant topic with every leader, right talk to so so the concept that we only have so much time, I don't care if it's 24 seven, but also we only have so much energy, right? That's where people forget the connection. They believe that they put two hours in on a project that it's the best use of their time, it's the best use of their time, but it may not be the best use of their energy, because the focus may be completely different. So anything that drains your energy, and by the way, I go back to the matrix. Right? You every human being was a battery. And and when you get up in the morning, hopefully the way you treated your body, your battery is now at full charge, right? We get up you've had your sleep, you didn't abuse yourself, even your braking. And guess what, we're ready to go we get our exercise and by the way, exercise and weight, not a people, some of them somehow get the impression That exercising is a energy reducer, I would tell you that it's absolutely not when there's an energy induce Yeah. And so suddenly you're ready for the day. But during the day, because of all the decisions, and all of the activities, we start to be drained. That's why I said, You can't just believe you don't have to recharge during the day. What is recharging look like your first you actually set it, don't go out and eat, just make lunch and think that once all the blood goes through your head to your stomach, you're going to be making good decisions, right? It's not going to happen. I don't go out and have a beer on Sorry, I had that. You know what, you should drink your water? Oh, man, you're so boring. Yeah, I am. However, I'm very productive. Right? I would suggest that drinking your water and then getting up every 90 minutes and doing a walk, just walk up, you get outside even better. Clear your head, recharge your battery. Everybody knows about the three o'clock slump. You know, I hate that that is just when we have run out our batteries run down, right? What are we going to do here? Are we just going to continue to go up to the move as if we still are at a high energy level? We're not. So So the reality is, when you start thinking about how you're making the decisions and the work you're doing, you have to do a time energy audit. Every client that I have that, I want you to do a 24 hour audit, and I want you to look at it 30 minute segments. And within that 30 minutes, what did you do? And what was your energy level? Okay. And by train, and by the way, everybody tells me I know, I know how much time I spend? No, you don't. You're just thinking, and we trick ourselves all the time, right? But within that 30 minutes, I will be working with my clients. I said, Wait a minute, let's look at this distraction. Should you have taken that task? What Why are you taking your call instead of having clutching your decision making right like emails? Were queasy about emails as Pavlovian dog? I mean, the email comes in. And of course, we have a notification notification. How would you like to be in a coaching session we'll meet and hear the notification on my phone? No, no, no, I don't need that. And neither do you. Focus time is huge. And we struggled to get it but we absolutely need it. So So I run people through the 24 hour audit, we look at where their energy is high and energy is low, and we start to move their task around. Because there are some low energy tasks that you can do when you're low energy and they get done. Okay, you know, the mundane administrative just about non decision making tasks, right. And we want to bunch those when your energy level is low. Makes sense? I would think I'm gonna when I say By the way, I said earlier, I never let my clients be sentenced in the afternoon. Because the judges sentencing in the afternoon when they're tired and cranky. Yeah. Is more severe. Interesting. Oh, absolutely. You want to get the judge at 10 o'clock in the morning. He may be you may be mean, but but he's gonna definitely give you a better set than the one at three o'clock. Good to know. Have to Yeah, right, exactly. As you're listening. They do. And their attorney says we'll we'll be there three go, Well, no, no, tell him I escaped. Anyway, so so I've got a program and as a part of the coaching program that most coaches don't address they were looking at, they believe that that's something that the person's responsibility. And by the way, it's the person's responsibility to carry through. But for the most part, I need at least to make you aware that these things matter. The By the way, it's interesting when I connect it to the obligation to the team, because we look at what we eat or drink is a personal decision. It's the impact that I'm interested in. And when I say you are having a negative impact on your team, because you're not at your level of potential performance, by the way, you're also the mob. Your team looks at you and when they see that you've got bad habits. They believe it's okay for them to have

 

Roy Barker  29:47

interesting Yeah, well

 

Paul  29:48

I have one of my things with a with a leader is never let your bad day because it becomes somebody else's bad.

 

Roy Barker  29:55

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's, you know, when we were talking about sleep, that was one thing. I was going to say back then was that, you know, just for myself, if I don't get a good night's sleep, I know that I'm much more irritable. My patients are, you know, even for simple things. And again, you start hitting me with five or six decisions, rapid fire that need to be made, it's just a lot more difficult if you're not rested, recharged and ready to, you know, take on the day.

 

Paul  30:22

Absolutely. So not only you do make worse decisions, but you also overreact to the person who bought that issue to you. And, and there's no reason to do that. Like I said, there's an obligation here, and a part of this is the self care, we're talking. Right. So so I think that that's a part of any coaching program should be not I don't understand why it's not, because you can't separate the physical from the method, right? And you're bringing it out with you, what do you call it, they say, you bring in your meat sack to work in you gotta you got to make sure that you're you're ready to go. So anyway, I know that I've harped on it. But But I think that it's something that people often ignore, when they start talking about performance. Yeah. Because we just believe that we can we raise ourselves and still be a high performer and the physicality is, can't happen. Sorry. I don't care who you are, you cannot overcome the physical disabilities that you've placed on yourself. Right. So stop thinking you can't. So anyway, that that's, that's the self care. And extremely important, especially now with a pandemic. Everybody needs an I think perfect. Everybody decided it was okay to get back. Right. pandemic pounds.

 

Roy Barker  31:41

Exactly.

 

Paul  31:41

I deserve to eat more tonight is the pandemic that was big. Oh my god, Stop saying that. The average increase in weight is 1.5 pounds per month now. I will Okay, we've been at this for a year have you actually put on another 12 hours? No, we bake the cookies. Don't eat the cookies. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  32:06

I must say I was an overachiever. in that category. I probably brought that average up. It was probably under one until they average me in there and I brought it up.

 

Paul  32:15

By the way, I've got four granddaughters and every one of them decided they were going to bake. Right and I we had stuff coming. Every day there be a kid cookies. And I was like, oh crap. And of course my wife is gonna at least eat supper. You gotta tell him it's okay. all celebrate. Anyway, so so yeah. And and, and by the way, we make this reinsertion. If you want to be the leader, you have got to be willing to do the tough stuff. Personally, that qualifies you. That's a part of the gig.

 

Roy Barker  32:53

Yeah, and it's really, it's, it's really not something you can feel sorry for people for because if they do these things, they're gonna feel better anyway, you're not gonna you're not gonna feel bad. So it's like, I'm just trying to help you. Even if you don't even do anything better in business, you just will feel better as a human being for sure.

 

Paul  33:12

There is that personal aspect of feeling good, right? And some guys that I talked to were like, no, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give it. Okay. How do I know that Excel, we talked about what the outcome what we're coaching for is performance improvement. And so once we, once we've established that conversation, you've told me, I'm not gonna, I'm sorry, I enjoy drinking. I have a couple of drinks. And I mean, I really hit it hard. Okay. So So let's talk about what we're going to try to accomplish as improvements. And what he tells me when that person tells me what they want, I go, alright, first, I'm not gonna let you be unrealistic. You can't do that, right? You just had the old guy can No, you can't. I'm telling you. It's not physically you're not physically capable. And we have the argument. And by the way, I, part of my coaching processes, I believe I have to have skin in the game. So 50% of my compensation is banned. That means that once you and I have agreed upon the outcome of the coaching process, then if we don't reach it, I don't get that 50% Wow. Oh, y'all get your call? I can't I have one page. Now. In fact, I like 12 months because I know how long it takes people to get into this thing and read the series about it. But at the end of that 12 month period, I am willing to risk 50% of my compensation on the outcome, because I believe that I have to make that commitment. Brent, do you? That's awesome. Yeah, that way it is. Yeah, it is. It is awesome. Yeah, I absolutely believe that. That it's the way you should coach Yeah. Because I I truly believe that if I'm asking for commitment on the other side, I have to have a commitment. And so we do that now. But But I also tell people, if you walk through the right thing, and we don't achieve the outcome. don't penalize me. Yes. Because you've chosen not to do it, right. And accountability is a huge part of this. So with that, with that in mind, people can look at it differently. And then, of course, they're very surprised. I'm willing to make that type of commitment. But but it just seems the right thing to do to me. And, and so far, it's worked out. Well, obviously, I'm not in rags. So we're ready. We're ready. Oh, by the way, reason, I don't know. 100% is I don't trust you until I know you. Anyway, so So yeah, that's, that's that's the self care aspect.

 

Roy Barker  35:52

Yeah. All right. Well, I certainly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. And I'd go over self care is our any other? Are there any other points that you want to hit? Before we wrap up?

 

Paul  36:04

You know that that's pretty much it. By the way, I obviously we've had a truck here, and everybody has struggled with these issues. And I have to I have to say that, that. Normally, you know, I'm pretty hardcore, because I am a performance coach, not a life coach. But I have had to, I have had to take into consideration the fact that people are struggling in ways that they weren't struggling to grasp, right. So empathy has got to be part of the process. everyone listens to me. Oh, my God, I wouldn't want you to be my close. Because, holy crap. Well, you don't sound like you care. And my, my response to that is, I have much more empathetic than I was because the circumstances absolutely demanded. But but they only demand it up until up to a point, right? I am. And once we reach that point, that I do care, and that's why I do things the way I do. I tell people that I make my living by telling people the truth. And but I also believe the truth is, again, I need to hear the truth. And I need to have people hear the truth for me. Otherwise, I would not be in the in the coaching profession. Right. And I also always ended with a one thing I do a daily, I couldn't score those points of the day. That goes out to all of my clients. And and one of the one out today was give more than you take. And I believe that that's the coaching process is that I am required to give more than you think The curious thing is not applies to the client. Right. So anyway, that's that's all part of the relationship.

 

Roy Barker  37:49

Yeah. And I think that's a good you know, that's something that's just good to live by, in general, if we always will give more and not expect something in return, it always comes back to us tenfold. So

 

Paul  38:00

it does, unfortunately I'm at home, I'll be quiet about this. Johnny go Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't know if you watch it, I find it funny and amusing and fun to watch. The pirate code was taken all give nothing back. And unfortunately, I believe that that's something that we fight in versus we should be giving more than we take. But we have this these metrics that require we try to take it all right. So hopefully we're going through this transition in the in the work world that is allowing us to see things differently. For instance, we're shifting from shareholder value to stakeholder value. And that is truly starting to recognize that we owe something to the stakeholders, employees or to the community. So so I think that we were in that transition, and hopefully that the pirate code is not going to be how we go. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  38:59

yeah. And I was lucky to go through some corporate training lists probably 40 years ago, where that that was when it was finally being pointed out that, you know, there has to be a win win situation, you may take it all and you might be the winner one time, but you're never going to get that person back to the table. So if it's a good relationship, you want to, you know, we've got to entice it to be Win Win so we can bring everybody back to the table again. And anyway, those are I was lucky to have some good, some good people that I was surrounded with, you know, when I was a young young manager, they brought me up that taught me some great lessons in life. So

 

Paul  39:41

that is a great lesson because you're absolutely right. Our relationship shift should not be one and done. Right? Most of them aren't by the way the people that what do they say the people that you pass I mean up the ladder are the same people who passed away down the reality is yeah that you didn't look at the interview, by the way, I think we are good. And as much as back back to my deal about when you take those scars, I believe that the pandemic has given us an opportunity to re examine the workplace and the relationship, right. And I hope that that screw, that there has been a mental shift, and a recognition of the value of the central workers. Something that I think we ignored in the past until suddenly we realized how important they were for our didn't drop away. But anyway, it remains to be seen. But I believe that the window of opportunity is now here, granted us by the pandemic. And if we you know, there's too many saying maybe the crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Exactly. Yes.

 

Roy Barker  40:51

Yeah, we need to turn it around and look at it as a chance for an opportunity to start fresh, do things a little bit different when we get to regroup? So tell me, Paul, what is a tool or habit? What is something that you do in your daily life, either professionally, or personally, the one that really adds a lot of value?

 

Paul  41:12

Well, that's a great question. And second, I haven't read the answer, okay. Because I, when I get back from, from my exercising, I get, I bring my car back into the garage, I get out, I walk to Starbucks, it's a block and a half away. And I'm gonna pick up coffee spot 45 in the morning, that walk there is when I do my gratitudes It is so easy to get caught up in how difficult our life can be and how hard we have to work. And the setbacks that we have to endure. They're inevitable, we have to, we have to ignore them. I structure my mind about the gratitudes the good things in my life. So in the car driving, they're driving to the gym, I saved my daily prayer. And that sets my mind, right, because it's all about how grateful I am for what God has given me. And it by the way, I have a lot to be grateful for. I mean, seriously, I would like to present God out still had a family have been able to create a career that that is good for me. And in good problems. I think that I give back in a different way. And I think I have an obligation to give back. But when I walk to Starbucks, I start with my grandchildren. Because my kids, my family is where I am so grateful. And I remind myself of that. And I think that everybody needs to start the day off with gratitude. I'm not telling you what you should be grateful for. But that habit puts a positivity spin on your day that you need. Otherwise, the bacon days look really rocks on. You got to realize your mind told me that it looks positive. That's how I

 

Roy Barker  43:07

know that's good advice. And I say this quite often that, you know, my priest has told me that, you know, our mind is like a grinder grinder 24 seven, we get to choose what it grinds. And you know, I think about that when, you know, you bump into these roadblocks during the day instead of getting upset. You know, think about the three other things that have gone right. And you know, how lucky you are to be having, you know, this problem there could be there's a lot of people have a lot of worse problems out there. So always easily, always something to be thankful for.

 

Paul  43:37

Oh, absolutely. If you can't find something to be thankful for. You really do need to set out there need a call? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think that you're looking for that. I would hope that everybody looks for that and other people. Yeah. You know, it's so it's so easy to see the negative, just because we're presented with an offer. But for us to have that interaction, we need to also see the positive. Right. And that I liked the way you said that I want to steal it.

 

Roy Barker  44:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I did. I told him I use that all the time. I think it's really good.

 

Paul  44:10

Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I like that. Right. I am. So anyway, yeah. Well, yeah. That's that that's that level of positivity that.

 

Roy Barker  44:19

Well, Paul, tell people, you know, who is your ideal client? What can you do for them? And of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you?

 

Paul  44:28

Obviously, I operate with businesses, not necessarily individuals, not that I don't have a few individuals. They have to be business leaders. That doesn't mean that they have to be so far up the corporate ladder, but they obviously have to be able to afford the feet I still have a family. So I charge. Normally it is organizations that hire me, and then work with the people from mid level management all the way to the C suite. And I also do a group coaching. Okay, so it's always someone I President might hire me to work with their management team, okay, and I'll work individually with them but also work with them as a group, because what we're doing here is is building teams. So that's why that's why my clients tell us again, it's not that I wouldn't work in any industry but my, my approach is so direct that there are some industries like hospitality, that have some difficulty with my approach, it's just a little bit too hard. Now distribution or manufacturing or my sweet spot, and I specialize in family businesses, okay, they're as dysfunctional as mine. Yes, they are. Yeah. So I can log just fine with that. And I can be reached at nothing originally are called Pauel Glover Coaching.com. And also LinkedIn, Paul Glover Coaching. And let's see, where else can you go. I've got a YouTube channel, of course, Paul Glover Coaching.

 

Roy Barker  45:55

Okay. All right. Yeah. And we'll include all those in the show notes. So, Paul, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure speaking. And until next time, good. We wish you well. Well, thank

 

Paul  46:07

you. Do you and your Do you and your subscribers? Alright, thanks.

 

Roy Barker  46:13

So that's gonna do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. You can of course find us at www.the business of business podcast.com. We are also on also on all the major social media networks. A video of this interview will go up when it goes live as well. We are also on all the major podcast platforms iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, if we're not a one that you listen to. please reach out I'd be glad to get it added. So until next time, thank you for listening. Take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.paulglovercoaching.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Struggling To Create a Message Customers Actually Want To Hear? Storytelling Wins the Day With Dave Bricker

Storytelling is the most powerful form of communication we have. We go about storytelling, by figuring out, what does our thought memory idea? What does it mean for somebody else? How are we going to convey that in a form where somebody wants to listen to it, one of our most innate desires is to be listened to, right? How do I want someone to think or feel?

About Dave

As a young man, Dave Bricker was inspired by the remarkable people he met in Miami’s “secret floating village.” The sailboat anchorage a quarter-mile off-shore from Miami City Hall attracted world travelers, squatters, and dreamers. All had remarkable stories to tell.

By his senior year in college, he was living aboard his own tiny sailboat. Soon after graduation, he set sail for the Bahamas with a locker full of food and dreams … and $40 in his pocket.

His voyages took him up and down the Bahamas, up the east coast of the US to Chesapeake Bay, and across the Atlantic to Gibraltar. He ran aground, dealt with mechanical breakdowns, got seasick more than once, slept in a volcano, survived powerful storms, and returned to the land of clocks and calendars with what he’d gone in search of—stories of his own.

Today, as a speaker, trainer, and coach, Dave Bricker helps remarkable people tell remarkable stories—through writing, speaking, graphic design, video, technology, and music. If you want to say it, share it, or sell it, bring him your story; he’ll help you tell it.

www.52speakingblunders.com

www.storysailing.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Posted Struggling To Create a Message Customers Actually Want To Hear? Storytelling Wins The Day with Dave Bricker

Sat, 7/17 7:57PM • 35:38

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, stories, presentation, storytelling, audience, roy, talk, writing, story, business, living, dave, words, selling, adventure, started, slides, speaking, point, read

SPEAKERS

Dave, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:10

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host, Roy, we are the show that brings you a wide variety of guests to topic, talk about a diverse set of topics. You know, we want to try to point out ways to help help our small businesses be more successful. And so one one thing we can do sometimes we don't know what we don't know. But also sometimes we may be struggling and need some help. So that's why we always try to bring professionals from different disciplines and spaces on the show to talk about how we can improve and today is no different. We have Dave Bricker. He's with Story Sailing. And, you know, have you ever struggled to create a message that customers actually want to hear? Have you wondered why some messages connect with audience, audiences? and some don't? Are you talking about clients? Are you talking about yourself? Today's guest has spent 15 years sailing in search of stories. He's the author of 12 books, including an adventure sailing memoir, two books about writing, and three about storytelling, his company, remarkable stories, he teaches the art of business transformation through storytelling. If you want to say it, share it, or sell it, bring him your story, he'll help you tell it. Today, he'll be talking to us about how stories work and how we can use strategic storytelling to grow our business. Dave, thanks a lot for being here. And taking time out of your day. I certainly do appreciate it, and helping us overcome all these technical issues that we're just getting you on here.  So it's an honor, thanks for having me. And technical issues are par for the course. Yeah. We're gonna say we're gonna call this the miracle podcast, it's the miracle that we've made it this far. So let's talk about storytelling. You know, we were, you know, as we were sorting through some issues, I love writing, I love telling stories. But sometimes it's that blank paper that gets in our way. Sometimes it's that, you know, how do we relate this to this situation? So, kind of help us out? How do we go about storytelling? Well, storytelling is the most powerful form of communication we have. We go about storytelling, by figuring out, what does our thought memory idea? What does it mean for somebody else? And how are we going to convey that in a form where somebody wants to listen to it, one of our most innate desires is to be listened to, right? We start off by figuring out, what's the transformation? How do I want someone to think feel or act different after they've heard my message? Okay, now, that's awesome. And so, but yeah, before we really get off into this, I wanted to ask you kind of about your sailing experiences. I I assume that that this, the storytelling has come out of that I know that you sailed around and you gained a lot of stories is that kind of the impetus of helping others tell their story? Well, when I was 18 years old, I met these people quite by accident. They were they were living in the sailboat anchorage in Miami, free Anchorage. And I'd always heard that those people were derelicts and bums and ne'er do wells. But when I actually met them, I found that many of them were real professional people, or blue collar workers or teachers, or I mean, there was this spectrum of people. But what they all had was stories to tell many of them had traveled all over the world and done it with out much money because they just decided to do it. And I realized that you can have adventures without buying a book or going to a movie adventures or something. You can really have an I wanted some I wanted stories of my own. So before I finished college, I bought a small fixer upper sailboat. And about six months after finishing college I took off with $40 in my pocket and a locker full of food and dreams to go see the Bahamas. Wow. That's interesting. So how did that trip go for you?

 

Dave 04:27

That was six months of being a boat bum and odd jobbing my way around the Bahamas, living like a king on next to nothing. catching fish and lobster and exploring the world and living inside this gigantic watercolor painting of vivid hues and just again, remarkable people amazing experiences. It was really quite quite a transcendent thing to do. So I did that for six months came back decided that coming back was a bad idea. Then went back to the Bahamas and jumped on a friend's boat. He had built this beautiful wooden boat and we sailed across to Gibraltar. Wow.

 

Roy Barker  05:09

Yeah, this is a whole different episode. But I do think it's worth saying, you know, encourage young people to go seek your dream out, go do these adventures like you had. I mean, it's, it's something that lives with you forever. And instead of, you know, sometimes getting out of school, we worry about getting that first job and things like that. But if you have an opportunity, get out, take the adventure, it's something that something that live with you forever.

 

Dave  05:36

And Roy, you're so right about that. And I know we're talking to a business audience here. But think about it. How many people how many would be entrepreneurs are sitting there thinking, I really want to start that business, but I don't have the money, or I don't have the experience yet. And they're all you know, what if I do this, and it fails, or it's the what if, what if, what if, and, I mean, trust me, I'm like everybody else, I thought, what if I sail across the ocean and the boat springs a leak halfway across? What if we hit a storm? What if? What if, what if, and we paralyze ourselves? And we don't get started with whatever it has to do? starting a business is a big adventure, too. Yeah. And too many people are just, it's paralysis by analysis. What if, what if, what if, and they're held in place by their own imaginations?

 

Roy Barker  06:26

Yeah, and I'm going to try to tie this into storytelling, because, you know, once we start that business, you know, we have to have some kind of a sales function. But also, you know, to those youngsters that may go on their adventure, and then get a job is that I've talked to another guy that said that when he would go and apply for a job and go through the interview, he said, people more worried about his aren't more interested in his stories of travel than they were actually his resume. And so, you know, I think that we can kind of connect that to the entrepreneurial to the small business that, you know, when we go out and sit in front of a customer, we need to have a good story to tell.

 

Dave  07:08

I think that's true. And I think we all do have good stories to tell whether we realize it or not. We're all grappling with this thing called life. And we're all battling the demons of self doubt. But I'll give an example, Roy, I mean, at some point, you said, I'm going to start a podcast, and something ran through your head, right? You thought, what if I start a podcast and nobody listens to it? Right? What if, what if, what if, but there's a story here we sit talking, we connected? Because you had a podcast, and we found one another? And we're having this conversation? And you've had many more like it? And hopefully it's enriched your life and their life lives of a lot of listeners along the way?

 

Roy Barker  07:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think the, you know, it's not only in that sales function, we want to tell that story. But also, you know, in our writing, we can, I think, and I will ask you as the expert on this, that we can mix the good story in with our product or service knowledge to really enhance that message that somebody wants to read our blog, it's not just, hey, I've got the very best widget that you've ever seen. I've got the very best price. And it's like, yeah, you know, we you're like, three 300 other people that have the best price, the best, whatever. But if we can kind of weave a story through that, then we spark some interest.

 

Dave  08:28

And Roy, you're absolutely right on that. The number one rule of storytelling, is that stories are always about people. If you remember nothing else today, remember that stories are always about people. And what that means is, if you're talking about prices, processes, ingredients or data, you're not telling stories, right? It's a data dump, and people are gonna tune you out pretty quickly, because there's nothing really meaningful there. So if you're not talking about people, you're not telling stories. And if you're not telling stories, you're not connecting. And if you're not connecting, you're not selling. And let me clarify what I mean by selling is not this process where whereby you get someone to write you a check or send you a payment. Selling is where you sell your credibility, you sell your influence, and somebody says, Hey, I like what Roy has to say. I like his guests. I like his message. I want to tune into this right and yourself. What you're really selling is your relationship worthiness in any transaction that comes from that is a byproduct. So anyone who's put a kid to bed is selling. We're all selling all the time. Yeah, inside a business. Anyone who's asked someone on a date is selling anyone who's asked a boss for a raise is selling, but we tend to talk about the products and the services, the the the features instead of the benefits.

 

Roy Barker  10:00

Right. Yeah. And that's what somebody told me many years ago, especially in sales, like if I may be trying to sell you on the product, and you're trying to sell me on why you need it. So we got to think about that we're always trying to communicate a message and sell something at some point.

 

Dave  10:18

Absolutely. But once people and this is certainly not original, right, but but once people know you like you and trust you, they tend to say, Hey, what do you have for sale? Exactly nice of you.

 

Roy Barker  10:27

Yeah, and I can't make I can't stress that point enough on this show is that people buy from people that they like, and that's kind of that, you know, the storytelling, it's trying to find some commonality. And it's very easy, you can within a few sentences, a few minutes of meeting somebody, you can always find something that's in common. And then, especially when you get as old as I am, of course, I've got, you know, a lot of life stories just from surviving this long.

 

Dave  10:57

And, and we all do and a size doesn't matter. There are lots of people with little tiny stories that are amazing. talk to somebody is worked in a cube farm. And there's this little group of four cubicles, that the notes that pass over that wall and the jokes and the little community that forms in that little pod, you can create a sitcom about it. Everybody's got stories and get it you don't have to run a marathon or climb Mount Everest or sail across an ocean to have stories, right?

 

Roy Barker  11:25

Right now, if we keep our eyes open, I think everyday living presents itself with a lot of unique opportunities. And, you know, for me there, there's so much beauty and nature around me that it's always there's always something new and different every day to try to talk about. That's the spice of life. So why do some messages resonate with audiences? And there are some that just fall on deaf ears?

 

Dave  11:54

Great question. So we talked about first, first of all, people get up there and talk about themselves. How many times have you been to the Chamber of Commerce breakfast, and the first there's this absolutely excruciating introduction where we get to hear about Mr. X's degrees and the clients they've worked with. And it's like, we don't care. Talk about us. And then you get up. And so there's the actual information. And then the presentations, a data dumping. The slides are full of stuff that we're trying to read them and the speakers interrupting us. So there are a lot of things that speakers presenters, storytellers do that disengaged the audience. Whereas you could start off with, with a question. How many of you have fill in the blank? Have you ever wanted to fill in the blank? Did you ever wonder what would happen? Or maybe you have a startling statistic? Did you know that 78.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot. You know, whatever it may be a little humor a little joke, or tell a story, bring them they're expecting a business speaker, I take them right down into a storm at sea. 30 seconds into my presentation, they forgotten what they came there for. And then I turn it around. And that turn around is the important thing. Because you're out there the storm at sea and you're dodging the ships that can't see you. And then Hey, have you ever felt like that in your business? Like there are these big freighters and cruise ships that these big clients big opportunities that could just run you over and not even feel it, and you're out there in the big sea saying, hey, pay attention to me, I've got value to offer. And all of a sudden, it's about them. So you have to make your presentation, your message, your story all about your audience. And as soon as they realize it's about them, they're gonna start paying attention.

 

Roy Barker  13:54

Okay. Yeah, that's good. And everything that you were just saying, I've been, I've been trying to do a little research on headline writing. And it's funny that everything that you've just said, is kind of what's the attention getters, for headlines of your articles or blogs? And I will, I will ask this as a question not as a statement, but, you know, to ask that question of somebody or to the statistics, the top five top 10 list, things like that really get people's attention.

 

Dave  14:26

So email headlines, yeah. You know, ask a question. You know, it could be you know, are you ready for this? Have you ever have you ever wondered about that questions are provocative, and then everyone loves a train wreck? A great email headline is, oops, I really screwed up. You'd be amazed at the open rates on that one. Oh my gosh, because it's vulnerable. Also, nobody's saying nobody say, you know, if you write Hey, I'm great. And I never make a mistake that's going right in the spam. People will open that so they can hit the unsub Describe link and report you as a spammer because it's so arrogant. But if you're if you're vulnerable and you're human, it makes you more likeable. Yeah. Oh, poor guy screwed up.

 

Roy Barker  15:12

Well, and se, I just wrote that down, you mentioned vulnerable, because I think that's something that we all have to do. And, again, I'm gonna ask this as a question, not a statement necessarily. But you know, back in the olden days, especially when the internet came out, it was, you know, we were all kind of buttoned down shirt and ties, don't let your personality out of the bag. It's just, you know, kind of, like you said, facts and statistics only. And then now we've kind of evolved, and it gets back to people buy from people that they can relate to, and people that they like. So let's talk about that vulnerability, and kind of the, there's always a line in the sand of where you don't want to cross. But, you know, kind of what does that look like for most people?

 

Dave  15:59

Well, I'll tell you, for example, if I'm giving a presentation, I don't care if it's to an audience of construction workers. I don't swear on the platform, okay? Because you never know who's in the audience who's just going to be offended, right? And there are plenty of ways to express yourself without, without swearing. And you can always say Bs, you don't have to say the whole word, right? Well, we will, we will offend anybody here. But some of us don't care. But on one hand, figure out what the culture is. And don't be offended, offensive, don't talk about politics and religion. You know, things that things that people are contentious about there, there are real obvious lines in the sand. And, you know, don't don't wear jeans and a T shirt on stage, though, there's a professional speaker named Scott Stratton. And he's incredibly casual. And that's his brand. And he speaks all over the world. And he's managed to, you know, they hire him for that. But you know, people are people and nobody likes to be bored. Nobody likes stiff. And people who are a bit people in business audiences, guess what they go out drinking on Friday night, they listen to rock music, they have sex their people, and they don't want to learn or interact in a sanitized, sterilized rated g world. So I think, figure out what the vibe is for your audience. be appropriate. And you can even be a little stuffy and academic and then throw something in there. That's Oh, that's kind of listen expecting that and then it's funny, right? It's right. It's deadpan humor, find, find that balance, find the joke in the room, make people laugh? Because if they're not laughing, they're not learning.

 

Roy Barker  17:52

Yeah. And so each opportunity presents its different challenges the audience, I think you just mentioned, you know, who are we speaking to? What are they there for? But then also length of time, I think, you know, you hear a lot of speakers that it was great. Three, four or five minutes in, and then it just fell off. And it's like, wow, if they had just quit, then they would have been much further ahead. How do we kind of how do we designed that? And like I said, I know each situation is going to be a little different. But you know, for the most part, kind of how do we get in that sweet spot?

 

Dave  18:26

Well, I talked in the beginning about the transformation. And throughout your speech, me too many people just get up there and blah, blah, blah, and they deliver the data. And it's like, okay, I covered point a point B, point C, I wrapped it up at the end, I started off with my agenda. But that's a lecture, that's not a speech, it's not a presentation. And if you know what the transformation is, okay, I want everybody to get excited about presentation skills and the importance of presentation skills. Okay, that's my end goal, right. And then I'm going to, I'm going to give examples and case studies and tell stories, depending on the length of my presentation, 23456, or I might bring people on stage and coach them, whatever I do, I'm going to keep it engaging. And so I might break that down. Like, I want to show my audience how important it is to to speak dynamically to really get big, and really get small. And I'm going to give them an example. And then they're going to be mesmerized by that because they're going to have an emotional reaction to it. And then we're gonna talk about pauses. And people are gonna have that experience and leaning forward in that, what's he gonna say? Is it exactly. So whatever it may be, if I'm just doing a presentation skills workshop, can I give people I can give people data, I can give people a principle but can I do it in a way where they're having an emotional reaction to it. I Got an exercise that I have people do. And it's funny because when I teach them to use the pauses, the whole line becomes comedy. And the audience, they've heard it four or five times, and when the person being coached, finally delivers it with all the pauses and gestures, the audience laughs, even though they already know the joke. They love it. Because the delivery hits you in a way that it doesn't normally hit you. Right? So, keeping audiences engaged, too many people focus on the words in the message, but it's really about the delivery, I can give you a jibberish speech that would keep you completely engaged for five to 10 minutes, even though it's all nonsense.

 

Roy Barker  20:42

So what about somebody told me years ago, instead of saying, Dave, I need to tell you something, is to substitute the word share. Dave, I would really like to share something with you. And I've been told that that is, it's less off putting than I'm going to tell you because people kind of get their backup when you say, I'm going to tell you something.

 

Dave  21:05

Well, when you It all comes back to this idea of stories, being all about people and serving the audience. When you tell me you want to tell me something that's all about your need to express yourself. Which I mean, no, no offense intended, but I may or may not be interested in Roy Barker is desperate need to express themselves. But if Roy offers to share something with me, I'm thinking, Okay, he's going to offer me something it's going to give is going to be vulnerable. And when we craft our language, the verbs that we use, think about words that are kind of there, they're perfectly correct. But words like us put, develop. They're not all that exciting, right? They're kind of the unflavored gelatin of the language, they're, they're functional. But when we start substituting words like create, explore, discover, all of a sudden, those words have, I mean, you can't quantify it, there's no math to it. But when you check in your word database in your heading and start thinking, what are those words that that glow in the dark and, and create a library of those words that you can use instead of the utilitarian ones. It's not about correct grammar, and then not the imgs off the end of them, get rid of those participles. So when you have the outcomes of your workshop, you can say discovering your, your secret power, and revealing how stories work. Or you can say discover your secret power reveal how stories work and those imperative verbs, you're telling people to do something without using that word tell. And, and what happens is the inference is I don't know how to do those things. But I'm gonna be able to do those things. If I attend Dave's workshop, so yeah, I'm in. So the way we craft the language and the verbs that we choose, absolutely makes a difference. Because it hits people emotionally. It hits people in in the heart really in places that they're they're making because people look people buy with emotion. And they justify with logic later.

 

Roy Barker  23:20

Yeah. Yeah. And I think is kind of you touched on it about verbs. But I've heard also from riders that they're action verbs that we need to work in, because typically, whatever we're talking, whether it's a live presentation or writing something on paper, I'm trying to convince Dave to take some sort of action, hopefully to buy my product or service. So can you talk about being cognitive about those as well?

 

Dave  23:46

I think it's the same thing. But yeah, having a call to action. There, there are those passive calls which which are like, discover, discover this and reveal that and explore that. And, and these are great, and they're kind of general and then there are these really exact thing. So when when you go home today, I want you to go, I want you to turn your television on. And I want you to notice how many shows are doing this, or I want you to do this or even better than saying I want you to see I'm falling into the trap. consider doing this or try this. Okay, hey, I always say vote yourself off the island and explore the world in a u boat. And it's so easy to slip into it unconsciously because hey, I just did. I'm on the same path I'm learning and growing to and practicing these things. I don't think you ever really master it. It's it's like any other art form. You always get better at it. But stop talking about yourself. And when you say we're proud to announce my company now offers this, you know our product does. You've just started with the wrong subject.

 

Roy Barker  24:59

So What about props? Especially when we're in person? Maybe we're writing a blog or an article, pictures, videos in the presentation, use PowerPoint, you know, can you help us through that?

 

Dave  25:17

props can be very powerful. Ideally, you can give your presentation without them. If the technology fails, which it inevitably will, sooner or later, that's, that's the nature of technology, amen. But the purpose of a prop is to support the speaker. And what happens is when people aren't confident of themselves as presenters, they tend to put a lot of information on the slides, I'll give you a simple example. Here's my slide, and it's got six bullet points on it. And they all appear at once. Now I'm talking about bullet point number one, and I'm interrupting you while you're reading the other bullet points, right. So don't never read your slides, because you've just made yourself unnecessary. If if the whole presentation involves reading slides, just send everybody the slide deck and don't waste their time, anxiety people read silently five times faster than your speaking. But when you've got bullet points, I love slides with bullet points or just images. And let's talk about point one, and it slides in there next to me. And when I'm done talking about pointing one, I hit my remote and point two comes in there right now in PowerPoint, it might just be one slide, but it's zing, zing zing, and I'm controlling the conversation. And all those points are for is to help keep the audience on the rails. Okay, now he's talking about, about this concept. People just overdo it with the slides. And there's a reason we have that phrase death by PowerPoint. We've all been to those meetings. Oh, God, just send me the deck. I don't need to listen to you. bloviate about what I can read. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, we lose millions of dollars in this country to unproductive meetings, because people lack the presentation skills.

 

Roy Barker  27:10

So I want to get started on my story, my presentation. Do you sit down and start with the basic outline? How would you get started in that process?

 

Dave  27:22

Start with the transformation? How do you want the audience to think feel or act differently? After they've heard your presentation? Because if you don't know, if you don't have that, it's like going to an airport and saying, hmm, do I want to go to Guam? Do I want to go to Monte Carlo? Do I want to go to LA where am I I mean, nobody goes to the airport, trying to figure out where they're going. Right? Right. And even if you've got a subject matter, I want you to speak about podcasting ROI. That's great. But you're gonna think, Okay, what do I want to do? I've got x number of minutes. Do I want to give them everything they need to know about podcasting? Or do I want to give them a little inspiration and let them know where they can what the next steps are? Because I can't give them the whole thing and a half an hour? And you figure out what those goals are? And who should do it? who shouldn't? And then you figure out, okay, what's the path? What are my stepping stones, maybe I want to talk a little bit about mics and technology, maybe I want to talk a little bit about vocal skill, maybe I want to talk a little bit about how you find good guests and what you look for. And those are my three areas. So I've got an intro and an outro. And I've got my three areas, and you break those down and you make them interesting and exciting. And all of a sudden, you got a great 30 minute show that inspires people to either learn more about podcasting or decide that it's not right for them.

 

Roy Barker  28:52

Yeah, that's awesome. Because, you know, we talked a little bit pre show is, you know, sometimes that can be the daunting task because we have all these ideas floating around, and then we sit down in front of that blank sheet of paper or the blank screen or the you know, the PowerPoint slide that's white then seems to be taunting you. And, you know, so I've gotten where I've started doing pen and paper before I even pick up a computer and that way, it's just easier for me personally to to move things around before I actually start. It seems like once I start writing it on the computer, I feel very committed to whatever I've just put down there.

 

Dave  29:30

Yeah, I think it happens to all of us. But it's same thing. Don't. Don't call the play until you know which end zone you're aiming for. And I mean, know where you're going because as soon as you have a destination, you can plot a course to it. But if you don't know what the ending is, what where the story's going, you're gonna run around in circles and you're going to ramble, and hey, that's okay. Sometimes you find a story that way because there are all sorts of subconscious things that happen when we're trying to write a story we don't always know consciously what we're trying to write, and novelists love this process. I don't know, I sit down to write every day. No, I had somebody call me to help them with their novel. And they were almost 500,000 words. And I had to break it to them and say, yeah, I'm sure this is amazing. But nobody's going to read a 500,000 word novel. It's just, you know, so they got in the zone. And they wrote every day, and they loved the process, and the story and the characters and everything kept going. But you know, it's just, there's no forklift that can lift this thing. Exactly.

 

Roy Barker  30:35

Well, Dave, we certainly appreciate you taking time out of your day to come talk to us about storytelling. And are there any other points that you want to make before we wrap up?

 

Dave  30:45

Oh, I could, I could go on. I could, I could, I could go ahead and really challenge that forklift. Yeah, something

 

Roy Barker  30:54

I guess that's a good point. Sometimes less is actually more, because the DS can be so daunting to look at, you know, myself, I look at that big book like that and think it take me a year to get through it.

 

Dave  31:09

Yeah, I think I think to recap, my points would be first of all, whoever you are, you have stories, and they're big enough. We all battle the demons of self doubt, don't think, oh, gee, one day, I'm going to have my story. Your story is just could be out in your backyard. But if you need to take a step out into the woods, and go get a story today, it's not that hard, spend a night sleeping under the stars, talk to someone you're afraid to talk to whatever it is challenge yourself. Because if you're not afraid of something you're not really living. But go ahead and do that. And then turn turn nervous into service, figure out what the transformation is, how are you going to impact the lives of other people focus on doing that, and stop thinking about yourself and your fear and practice? Allow yourself time to climb that mountain?

 

Roy Barker  32:04

Alright, those are great points. Dave. So what is a tool that you use in your daily life? The could be professional, personal, what's something that you do that really adds value to your day?

 

Dave  32:16

What I do is, I connect with the most positive and brilliant people I possibly can. I have, I won't say I've gotten fearless. But I've gotten pretty brassy about approaching people, and trying to connect with brilliant, creative, influential people, and finding ways to offer them value. And, you know, it's not about Hey, can I buy your services, though? There's certainly a place for that. But it's like, how can I take what I do and augment your superpower so you can augment mine? surround yourself with positive people, and stay away from the doubters. And the naysayers who will always pull you down because there are plenty of them. Because that's the way they think they're not going to let you rise and elevate when they have the voices in their heads and the people in their lives telling them that they're not going to succeed.

 

Roy Barker  33:12

Yeah, exactly. It's so much about who we surround ourselves with that positive, positive attitude, the people that are going to be there to support us and you know, help us be successful.

 

Dave  33:22

Yeah, find a mentor be a mentor. Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  33:25

All right, Dave. But that's great. So tell people you know, basically, who who do you work for? How can you help them? And then of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you.

 

Dave  33:37

So I work with organizations of all sizes and teams. So I'm available for keynotes and workshops for events. And I'm excited that I mean, I'm all set up for virtual events. But I'm really excited that the in person events are starting to open and I got my COVID vaccine. And I'm excited to kind of get back in the game because the speaking industry has been pretty hard hit by this. Yes. And then I have a course it's a one video a week subscription course it's at 52 speaking blunders.com. And it talks about all the presentation mistakes that people make. And it's three to five minutes, every week short, entertaining video. And I love this model because most people who buy an online course never even open it or they get a couple of modules in and we've all bought business books and put them on the night table and then we put another book on top of them and we never get to chapter three. So this is something that people actually engage with. So there's 52 speaking blunders.com and then my personal website is story sailing SAILING.com and more about what I do

 

Roy Barker  34:48

there. Okay, awesome. Y'all reach out. Let Dave help you tell your story. I know he can help you out. So that's gonna do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. We certainly appreciate your listening. You can find us at www. the business of business podcast.com we're on all the major social media networks, as well as a video of this interview will go up on YouTube when the episode goes live as well. We're on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, if we're not on one that she listened to regularly if you'll reach out, I'll be glad to get us added. So until next time, y'all Take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.52speakingblunders.com

www.storysailing.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

 

Drowning in Administrative Duties? Build a Supportive Team to Drive Sustainable Growth with Kris Ward

I can probably hear is people drive around the cars right now. Or they're thinking, are you kidding me? I can't afford a team. I mean, that's one of the things we get right off the bat that sounds lucrative and expensive and like a luxury. I'm here to dispel the myths that this is not the case. We can help you out.

About Kris

Kris Ward - Team Building And Systems Strategist

Kris Ward is the leading authority in building your business by building your team.  Kris is the founder of the Win The Hour, Win the Day philosophy.  She helps entrepreneurs create their W.I.N Team (what is next) team using her signature Super Tool Kits so you can get your Idea to implementation and make your ambitions come alive!!

After the loss of her husband, Kris returned full-time to her work as a marketing strategist.  She was thankful to see that her business had not only survived her absence but was thriving.

Now, Kris has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs by sharing the successful practices that allowed her absence. 

Kris has been interviewed by one of the original sharks from Shark Tank, Kevin Harrington, and ABC’s The Secret Millionaire - James Malinchak.  She has been featured on award winning podcasts, radio and TV shows.

You can hear Kris on her own podcast - Win The Hour Win The Day, where she has engaging conversations with dynamic guests covering a variety of business topics so you can get to your next win now!

www.winthehourwintheday.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Drowning in Administrative Duties? Build a Supportive Team to Drive Sustainable Growth with Kris Ward

Sat, 7/17 7:56PM • 32:59

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, kris, people, work, team, roy, entrepreneurs, tweak, processes, thinking, hear, admin, podcast, va, diluting, book, reach, clients, week, years

SPEAKERS

Kris, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:01

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy course we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guests to talk about a lot of diverse topics. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. But also sometimes we are looking for that helping hand and don't know where to turn. So hopefully we can provide those answers for you. Today, we're fortunate enough to have Kris Ward. She's an author, podcaster coach, speaker and she talks about team building and systems strategy. She's a leading authority on building your business by building your team. Kris is the founder of the Winning The Hour Winning The Day philosophy. She helps entrepreneurs create their wi in win team, and what is next, using her signature super tools kit. So you can get your idea to implementation and make your ambitions come alive. After the loss of her husband, Kris returned full time to her. Her work as a marketing strategist, she was thinking full to see that her business had not only survived in her absence, but was thriving. Now Kris has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs by sharing the successful practices that allow allowed for her absence. So Kris, we want to thank you for taking time out of your day to be with us. I love the title of the book when the hour when the day. That was one thing one reason I was interested in speaking with you, because typically, once we let that first hour get away, it seems like the rest of the day goes with that. So welcome to the show.

 

Kris  01:39

Thank you, Roy, I'm so excited to be here. I'm all about talking about people processes and performance. And we just, you know, we can always do that better and better. Right?

 

Roy Barker  01:48

Yes, exactly. And the other thing too, a lot of times, you know, some, especially with the the pandemic, people have fallen into a position of entrepreneurship or being in business. And they really, you know, didn't plan on this haven't really thought it out. And so now they find themselves in a position of where do we go next in it. I think it's also good to talk about if you want to start a business, then it's good to start at the very beginning to kind of visualize what that team is going to look like surround yourself with good people. So those are all things that we can certainly jump in and talk about.

 

Kris  02:28

Yeah, for sure. And when you broach that subject, the first thing I can probably hear is people drive around the cars right now. Or they're thinking, are you kidding me? I can't afford a team. I mean, that's one of the things we get right off the bat that sounds lucrative and expensive and like a luxury. And that's what I'm here to address. You guys. I'm here to dive right in and dispel the myths that this is not the case. And I promise you, if you've got gas in the car, you have a coffee in your hand, we can help you out. Yeah, yeah. And it's not only, you know, I can't afford it. There's some solutions. We could talk about fractional people. But I think also it's planning for the future. Because what I've typically seen in my practice is like, we needed somebody six months ago, we're just now we're just now coming up for air and realizing it, what do we do? And I think that's where if we can plan, you know, at what points and growth, you know, who do we need to add. And then also, another thing to, I think kind of talk about is the sometimes as the business owner, we have a skill, which may be sales. So instead of us wasting our time on that back end, you know, doing the accounting and doing other stuff when we should be selling, you know, having the right team members in the right place to let everybody you know, utilize their skill skill set, I guess 100% Yeah. So I guess let's just start at the beginning. You know, when should you start thinking about a team? When when should we start that process? Well, I would tell you the day you think you're going to start a business really honestly, it's it's Ground Zero. I mean, anything done well, in the history of time, they had a team, where would we be if Steve Jobs was in the garage, you know, still turn it well? May he rest in peace, he would still be there tinkering it out. But it's really about when you're going to start anything, because no matter what you're going to do, you need to be able to leverage that really quickly, especially in the beginning. You guys when you feel like you're short on time and money.

 

Roy Barker  04:28

Yeah. Yeah, I think you make a good point that we probably need to stop and drive home is a lot of truly successful people who we know their name and their success. There were other people involved. There were teams, you know, there were larger teams, of course that surrounded them. But you know, Steve Jobs is a good one that you can't think of the guy's name, I guess I think it was was niak was his name. Microsoft, you know, there were there were two of them. Hewlett Packard to people so it's sometimes when we try to go it alone, we can just really stifle our growth, our, our creativity, and get really bogged down.

 

Kris  05:12

Well, there really is no doing it alone. So any what I would say to you is really being an entrepreneur is about getting ideas to execution. And so any one that you you know it professional jealousy online, or you're like, ah, how do they keep getting all this stuff done, right? It's because they're getting ideas to execution. And that's it, it's ideas to execution. And too many entrepreneurs, you're caught up in the business of the admin, the web of admin. And really what you should be is you should be in a higher percentage of creation than anything else. So most entrepreneurs are in about 80%, creation, 80% admin, and you should be about 60% creation, 40% admin, because you you are, you are like the captain of the ship, and you need to be outputting, whatever that is, like for you, Roy, nobody else can do these interviews, if it's going to be your podcast. So this is a creation element for you, you know, and whether it's a podcast, a book, or coaching or being out in social media, with your videos, you need to be in creation mode, far more than you need to be in admin mode, right? We just had that conversation the other day, you know, me and my partner, we were talking about that, you know, we were kind of getting to that point that we are getting bogged down in that admin and doing all the backend stuff. And you know, there was a study for kids, but it applies to us entrepreneurs, as well as that we also need time to be creative. We, if you're so busy in the the churn of the day, when do you ever really have time to stop and think about that creativity. So being able to build that team, to have trusted people that we can delegate to, it may give you time to go take that 30 minute walk that you need to be creative to solve a problem, different things like that. Yeah, that's how the brain works. You know, it's really like running jumping hurdles, like when you're always thinking about where's the next place I need to be, the brain just does not operate in that capacity. As far as creativity goes, and anything done. You know, when we look back to great from Newton, with the apple, these things are all done in times of relaxation, and play. And that's just how the brain works. But I know when you're out there, and you care so much about your business, you think, Oh, no, my brain works differently. I mean, I read all these studies, and, you know, years ago, and of course, I refreshed my memory when I read wrote my book, but I was like, No, no, you understand, I'm very driven. I'm very organized. And very this somehow my brain includes all the other science that's out there. And it's just not the case. You know, you're just jumping through hoops Really?

 

Roy Barker  07:41

Yeah. And that's, that's always a good one that I hear a lot, you know, is that what we're different. And so, basically, we're all the same, so we get mired down in it in, I could, I can't teach anybody to do this, or it's gonna be more problems to try to teach them to do it. And so I think another big thing, especially if when we're delegating is that step where we can say, somebody, really, somebody else can really do this. And the chance that they can do it better are probably higher than the chance that they can't do it at all. So I think some of that's that letting go this is, you know, the businesses are our babies, and we don't want anybody else really touching it or getting their hands in there. But if we're going to grow it, and if we're going to be successful, I think we have to get over that fairly quick.

 

Kris  08:34

Yeah, I mean, people refer to that all the time. It's our babies. But if you think of your baby, you get a lot of help with your baby. You know, you had a doctor and teachers and relatives and you know, you needed a break from your baby, right? So if it is your baby, then take care of your baby, right? Because we live in this world that I think is a lot of copy and paste a lot of pre and post production. So let's say you're right, Roy, and let's say that somebody can only do it 70 80% as good as you. But if you have three people doing something 70 80% as good as you can. Wow, you just leveraged your time. So that makes such a difference there.

 

Roy Barker  09:13

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the other thing was that well, had an awesome thought and just like evaporated there. So anyway. Well, let's talk about so what are mistakes that a lot that some people make? They finally, you know, gonna, they finally made the decision, we're going to build a team. So what do we need to do to make that right, where we're not just spending our Oh, and before we move on to that one other point on the last thing we're talking about when we try to do everything is I think we have to also be cognizant of the fact that businesses don't always fail because they don't have enough business. There are a lot of people that get in trouble. Because they have too much business, they do too good at marketing or they have a good product or good price, whatever the combination, then they're overwhelmed, and they can't fulfill their orders and they have people get mad, and then they end up, you know, struggling because of that.

 

Kris  10:17

Yeah, that's a good point ROI. And also, I would say to the inability to get more business is just a reflection on the fact that you're caught up again in the admin work, and you go from feast to famine. So you're like, got a new client and got some new business, and then you get in the trappings of setting that up or giving the new project attention. And then you get distracted, like, oh, and then when the time you need business is not the time to go looking for new business. So it's the inconsistency is what creates problems in your income. And that's, again, from not having what I call super toolkits and a winning team.

 

Roy Barker  10:50

Yeah, yeah, it's common for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. It's like, you know, we market market market, have a big bust, our big boom, and then so now we're so busy fulfilling whatever our service or product is no marketing, that dries up and we start the cycle. And it's, you know, it is a, it's, it can be devastating, because you never know. And so anyway, let's talk about building the teams, though. So what are some bigger mistakes that people make when they're trying to put their team together?

 

Kris  11:21

Yeah, you know, what, Roy? That's probably the number one question I get our website, www dot when the our win the day.com. And what I want to share with you right now is really, it's gonna surprise people. But the biggest mistake is, I think diluting the talent, everyone, this whole new buzzword of having a VA, yeah, VA is a great place to start a virtual assistant, you've got many choices now that are very affordable and highly skilled talent. And I mean, that could be a whole show just in itself. But what happens is, somebody will get someone to Oh, my gosh, you know what, you know, let's say they do their hiring and onboarding and all this stuff. magically. It's beautiful, because it's not rocket science. But it did take me a lot of years to learn how to work out the kinks. And to really make it systematic and highly efficient, so that we're always hiring really top notch talent for myself and for my clients. Now, let's say you do all that, right? The important thing is great, you go wow, okay, Sarah is amazing. And then what happens is, you think, oh, she's really good at this. Let's see if we can get her to do that. Maybe she can do some posts on social media, or maybe she can get me this done, or we need this graphic tweaked. And all of a sudden, you're diluting that talent, you know, and when you think about any other industry, most recently, I've become, I think I'm the last person in the world that discovered the cooking channel. And so I've become addicted to these cooking shows where they compete. And you know, what a chef are really five star Michelin chef with, you know, cooking books that want awards for and everything. They'll say, Ah, well, I specialize in this kind of cuisine, or Asian cuisine, or I don't know how to bake. I'm this kind of chef, right. But yet in our business, we think, Oh, well, we'll just start asking them to do a whole bunch of different things. And then four months down the road, you're like, Huh, the wheels kind of fell off what happened, I really liked her in the beginning, she liked being here, this was great. And now all of a sudden, we're not getting the results, because you had them running around at an ad hoc, doing all kinds of crazy, different things. So you get excited with a little bit of success, and then you've diluted that's one of the biggest mistakes.

 

Roy Barker  13:21

 Okay, so what can we do to, I guess, how can we help ourselves by not diluting that and by, you know, because it, when you have people that work for you, it can be a struggle, because we have to give them what they need. And a lot of time they look to us for that guidance, not only the emotional, hey, you're doing a good job, or we need to tweak this, but also, you know, maybe getting work to them, and the consistency in that. So what are some things that we can do better?

 

Kris  13:52

Yeah, you know, the interesting piece about that is it's not hard. It's really not it's just strategic, but it's definitely not hard. So what I tell people is, you know, be mindful that you stay in one lane. Now when I say that, don't worry, guys, I'm not talking about having 10 people because they all got different 10 different things that they're doing for you. I you know, I have as Roy mentioned, I have a podcast when they are when the day podcast, we talk a lot about just general business. So you get your next one. Now I have a book, you know, we've got info products, I do coaching, I do all these things. I'm a speaker, but I have a team of five and I've had them for a very long time. So we you know, we run a pre we've got pretty ambitious goals even for the next year, I'm going to be working on my second book, all kinds of stuff, but and half that team, I'd say three of them have been with me on seven years now. So I'm not talking about having somebody for everything I'm not, but you want to make sure that that person in that lane is you know, you're really clear on where their job begins and ends and you and when there are times you go home and she's really good at this, maybe that would lend to this other thing, great, but you have to be strategic about that. And what I would say some You know, make sure that you have steps in play because business is not run on memory. I mean, imagine this, nobody hands somebody at FedEx and Oregon to get to a Chicago hospital for a transplant and says you've got the address, right? Like, that's not how it goes. So something as simple as if you're hiring somebody, and you say, okay, don't try to do all the systems yourself and say, I'm going to do all this because they're going to be flawed the first time somebody tries to use them, because you're going to realize, oh, we're missing that step or this password. So you can grab a screen capture, like loom, it's free, and you can do something. And then you could just say, Okay, here's the video, this is what I've done. I want you to try it, watch the video. And oh, can you write out the steps when you do it so that next week, we can tweak that and add to those steps. And then we also have it all written out what this person is responsible for. We call that our job bio, we're always adding to the team's job bio to make sure we're really clear on what they have going.

 

Roy Barker  15:57

Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because I frequently recommend from the very beginning to wrap these processes and procedures down, because the other thing that you're you know, what we want to do is tweak those processes where we get the best output, but there's also the other side of that somebody gets very good at their job and their position. And then they leave, and it's like, well, what was that person even do? And how did they get this stuff done. So it's important to protect us as the business that we need to know how to carry on. So, you know, I always tell people, you know, and these are living dynamic documents, it's not, you write it once, put it on the shelf, and you never look at it, it's something that should be taken out frequently updated, if we put a new if we have a new vendor, a new system, a new routine, those things all need to be documented. So the next person and it may not even be that they quit, maybe they had to go out on maternity leave, or some kind of a FMLA leave. And they're just gone and unreachable, but we still need to know how to carry on without them.

 

Kris  17:01

Yeah, you bring up a really good point, or when I tell my team all the time is, maybe you're going to be promoted. And so we don't want to hold that up. We want somebody else to be able to slide into your place really quickly and efficiently. I know for us, I had a virtual assistant, and she was with me for over seven years now Never mind how much my company had grown in seven years, the world and technology and our resources had changed so dramatically in seven years. And for a couple of reasons, it was time for her to move on with her family and blah, blah. And we in the middle of our first launch for info product, the outsourcing playbook for busy entrepreneurs, the middle of that we hired a new VA and she was up to 80% capacity within a week. Oh, and it didn't slow us down at all. But I've had, you know, business friends that reached out and literally sent me a little crying emoji saying oh, my gosh, my VA just laughed, she quit, I don't know even where to start what to do. And she's beside herself. Because you know, it's the tail wagging the dog, and you don't have any systems in place to make them more efficient. Or it's not a business, you've just now lean on what I call Ethel syndrome. You've got Ethel in the office that knows where everything is. And if fo leaves, you're kind of messed up.

 

Roy Barker  18:08

Right? Yeah. And, you know, I do some work with employee retention. And so what that's one thing is putting the the emphasis on that front end and making sure you know that we get the right person. And that's not always skill set us to say that, you know, we need the attitude, because I can teach people, eventually, whatever I've got going on, it's not nuclear science, so I can fit, you know, we can get that part figured out. But they need to have that can do get along attitude, which is very important. So anyway, I think it just lends itself to say that we need to give some consideration to our hiring processes and procedures to make sure we're getting that right person that we can mold to begin with.

 

Kris  18:54

Yeah, you bring up a really good point, we call it our pass model, do they pass. And to me, it's personality, because we always have a personality or a skill set. Because you can change a skill set, you can't change the personality, then we call it action, you know, and we give little mini tests before we hire them just to see the actions they take and how they respond to our email, things like that. And then success, I often ask them, what's the success for them, it's very telling you as somebody with one of their successes on the story they give you and then of course, their skill set.  They do have to have some skill set, but really that's the last in our past, you know, formula, it's personality, action, success skill set, that really changes everything because there's a lot happening out there right now as this becomes more mainstream. And one of the other things I hear a lot is there's now agencies that will say well, we can give you a VA and we've vetted them and dental is amazing stuff and i a lot of my coaching my group coaching clients have come to me and said oh, I went through them I I was committed to this contract. It didn't work out and they were supposed to be this, you know the experts on that. But what happened was, they had somebody that they don't know anything about your business. And so they have Jane over here and they give you Jane, your new Jane's new, you don't have really effective systems in play.  So it's a double blind, and it doesn't pan out where it's not again, rocket science, you're right ROI. But when you're working with us, what we do is really important to make sure you're set up properly and effectively. And you can bring somebody on, like, lots of times in our group coaching, we'll, we'll have founder recruited and done all the with the done for you and done with you for our clients. But the VA might start off three hours this week, six hours next week. And it's gradual, you know, so you, it's, it's really simple steps, but if they're not done in the right order, it just falls to pieces.

 

Roy Barker  20:44

Yeah, and we need to, I'd wrote a piece not long ago, and I just put, you know, to recruiters, and to, you know, the managers is that we need to remember our first day on the job. And there's a lot of stuff flying out you and it doesn't matter. If you're if you're doing the site, you know, if you're working in let's say WordPress or something, I have a different process for what I want to see as the output than somebody else may want to. And so because I told somebody that on day one minute six, along with 4000 other things, it's hard, you know, we can't expect them on Thursday to be like, I you know, what was the deal on that? Again, we you know, and that's where we get back to the clear, precise processes and procedures, but also give people a break, and know that they're not going to absorb every detail that they need to be awesome at their job just because we sit down and talk to them for four hours straight.

 

Kris  21:42

and I know back in the day, when I was struggling with my own processes, and I was working insane hours, it was nuts, the first couple of years. In my business, this is how it all unfolded, I realized, oh my gosh, first of all, I went I think two years ago, sleeping in the reports indicated I wasn't as charming as I thought it was after two years of sleep. So people kind of sit you down and give you an intervention. Like, listen, you used to be nice, but not so much. And what I would tell you is I back then I'd be racing along at high speed. I call myself now recovering Russia Holic. And I'd expect everyone to keep up with me. And I think I had this great idea. And then I realized, Oh, I had a great idea four months ago, it just never got implemented, because we're just racing and going I what I called hysterical mode all the time.  So the beauty of having what we call our super toolkits in play two is when we tweak it or do something or add to anything, we can do it instantaneously, because we are following that process. And it's processes that we segue for a second, that sounds boring and draining, but you guys are thinking about it back in the corporate world where it was really there to cover liability, not to be user friendly, or to be tweaked by you. It usually came from above, and it was very dry and not helpful. So those steps we have in play is really about being super efficient, so that you can again, compress your admin time, increase your creation time and add stuff on a dime and not go Oh, yeah. Did we do that last year? Yeah, we did that we ran out of paper, we stopped doing it. And well, you know, all that kind of fun stuff. Right?

 

Roy Barker  23:14

So what are some of the biggest myths that that you hear from people about team building?

 

Kris  23:21

biggest myths? Well, money is one of them. It's also one another big one that we get, you know, is is the amount of work it takes to do it. And I can see why this is out there. Because most people I'm told all the time that we do it very differently than everybody else out there. And so what happens is, there is this concept of Okay, you get some help you get a VA do whatever. And then you're giving them work. So really, what you're doing is you're taking work off your desk, putting it on theirs, but now you have to manage them. So really, you've now given yourself a second job. But I would tell you, that's a flawed premise. That's, you know, upside down. My team manages me. And that's the idea is to set them up so that they move you forward. You're not supervising them. They're empowering you, right? That's the difference. So it's a myth, but it's kind of I don't know if it's a myth, because it's taught out there and a lot of people are doing it wrong. That's a harsh word, but they're doing it less effectively. So it's a it's an active myth. Let's make new language up,Roy.

 

Roy Barker  24:29

Yeah, no, you're right. I think we, again, it gets back to hiring the right people and giving them the tools that they should be helping us move forward. Not feeling like a boat anchor, because you know, I'll tell you, I've been in that position be like, wow, I just hired somebody to help me and now I'm working twice as hard. Just keep.

 

Kris  24:50

Yeah, we had a we have our team meeting every Tuesday and we have the student which you guys can all have students as well. In fact, if you go to dental www free gift from Chris k ri s comm we just put something up about how to get 200 free hours from a student from you, no matter where you live, we're on. We've may be our 30th student, but this year alone, we've had four, and their Co Op students in each semester, they have to do 200 hours. And they're like in grade 11 and 12. But listen, they come into the world with a phone in their hand now. So they're pretty high tech stuff. So we were having our team meeting today. And our student, even he knew that the meeting was wrapping up. And I was like, Okay, great.  We're done. anybody's got any questions, and he said, Oh, I'm supposed to do a presentation on this subject. You asked me last week, he knew that when I said the meetings over, I had forgot he was supposed to that presentation. It's his job to stop me get my attention and say no, we need time for this. You know, in most other setups will be next week. Oh, sorry. You said the meeting was over and Rumble, I don't want to interrupt you. That's not how we run it. Like your job is to make sure that you are heard that you can't come to me and say, Oh, yeah, we're gonna get that email out. But remember, I asked you for picture and then you didn't get me the picture. That doesn't fly. Their job is to manage me. So we stopped. He did his presentation. It was fantastic. And but even he even the student knows that's how we operate. Your job is to manage me.

 

Roy Barker  26:18

Yeah. And I think that gets back to empowering our people that work with us and work for us because I had a young lady just the same. And she was an awesome worker did great work. She was very quiet and very timid. And so I'd say hey, can you research this or look this up? or do whatever? You know, a couple hours later, I'd look up and think, Oh, I haven't heard from her. And she'd be Oh, yeah, finish that I'm like, Okay, well, it's okay to pat me on the shoulder or pass me a note, send me an email, you know. So once we kind of walk through what that looked like, then things became much better. But, you know, we, I guess, not only was she young and just out of college, but also, we have to take into account other people's experiences that other companies that may be they were told to do it the wrong way or not the way we wanted there. There were inhibitions for them or whatever. So anyway, it's very good to have that conversation and make sure that they understand, you know, what, what we expect from them.

 

Kris  27:17

Yeah. And that's part of our onboarding process. Because you're right, a lot of culture, a lot of different workplace cultures, they're taught to be obedient like school, their parental FIDE. And that's not how we roll, right? So we teach them right up front, we go through, we have an onboarding process, and we have a little sheet that give them all these things that are matter. And that really matter to us. As well as a little video, we say, Look, you're going to hear this from us again. And again, we're looking for you to think we don't want you to be obedient. Of course, that means you know, follow the process and do the work. But it means not just sitting there nodding your head, yes, you're here, because we thought you were a bright light, and you can give that contribute to us. So we upfront, let them know that the culture here is this way. And this is what really matters to us. And we the number one thing you hear from us in the beginning always is communication. super important to us. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  28:08

yep. No, you're right about that. All right, Kris, well, I appreciate you taking time out of your days or any other points that you want to make about team building. But before we get out,

 

Kris  28:19

well, just that it is the everything to your business. And unless you're doing that you're a separate printer. That's really it. So it really isn't a business unless you can take a step back from it, go away for a week, go away for a weekend and not come back and be slammed, you're self employed or suffer printer otherwise. So if you're really serious about this game, you really want to make sure you've got what I call a winning team. So you can get to what is next?

 

Roy Barker  28:43

Yeah, and I think it's the dog wagging the tail or the tail wagging the dog. And sometimes, you know, we get it. We want to be entrepreneurs for our schedule and the control and all of this. But then, unfortunately, we ended up letting the tail wag the dog and dictate what our time is what our schedule is. And I think like you said, getting out front, building that team around us will let us be the entrepreneurs and have all the spoils of that in which we've always dreamed of.

 

Kris  29:10

Yeah, it was pleasure, Roy. Yeah, you're, you're beating my drum, man. I'm all over.

 

Roy Barker  29:15

All right. Well, before we go tell us what is a tool that you use in your daily life and it could be professional, it could be personal, something that you just feel adds a lot of value.

 

Kris  29:26

I use loom a lot. I mentioned that earlier. But it's not just because it's show and tell. Listen, we probably learned 80% of what we needed to learn in school. By the time we're done kindergarten, it's show and tell. And what I would tell you is not only is it so much more effective to show somebody and talk because we can talk about 200 words per minute. But even a great typist can only type about 50 words a minute.  If I'm doing a loom screen capture and showing somebody something on my team and saying something like like you know, I don't love this blue over here. See you can change this or blah blah, blah. What happens is they hear my tone and they're like okay, great. We're getting Close we just have to change is one thing. But if you type that out, not only would it take longer, but the tone might be misinterpreted, right? So to me like, boy, boy, I'm lost without loom. We just use that all day long for communication, really short, little snippets of, you know, clarification. So that's a little thing. And again, guys, it's free. So you can't go wrong with that. I'll

 

Roy Barker  30:20

check that out. So why don't you tell us? Tell us number one, who's your client? How do you help them how they can reach you, but also, how can we win the hour and eventually win the day? Yeah, so

 

Kris  30:34

you guys just reached out to me to tell me you heard me on this fantastic podcast and we'll be instant friends. You know, you can check me out on any of the socials reach out to me on LinkedIn, that's a great place as well. And my, the clients I work best with, you know, they've usually been in business a couple of years, you know, whatever, five, and they just really have ambitions, they want to get their ideas to execution, but they're trapped in the admin and they look great on paper, you guys know who you are. Everyone thinks you're doing well but you're still putting in as many hours as you did when you first started your business and you're like, ah, but you know, it's kind of like your dark little secret.  I get people to pull me aside all the time after a podcast or anything they'll be like yeah, Kris what like I I'm doing well, but I'm putting in too many hours. So we have that and for you if you're newer in business, you could check out our outsourcing playbook for busy entrepreneurs coming soon that's cool too. So yeah, we're just I'm here to create a movement because I believe your business should support your life okay, not consume it You shouldn't have to pay the price of your family your health and all that stuff for you to have a dream and get a business off the ground. That's not what it's about you didn't start a business just to run a business you had ambition so let's get beyond them.

 

Roy Barker  31:47

Yeah, right. So how can they reach out get a hold of you also tell us where we can find the book as well?

 

Kris  31:53

Yeah, you can get the book on Amazon You can also if you don't want to listen to me in your car check out my when the hour when the day podcast it's all on amazing general tips on business so you can get your next one now It could be anything from social media to sales to do that. And yeah you know what you can reach out to me at Kris Ward W AR D@when the hour when the day.com that's my personal email Kris Ward at when the hour when the day.com.

 

Roy Barker  32:19

And that's Chris with the K K it is

 

Kris  32:21

k ri s All right. Well, Kris, thank

 

Roy Barker  32:24

you so much. Again, great information. Y'all reach out to Chris and let her help you put a team together. There's no reason to struggle any longer. So that's going to do it for another episode of The Business of Business Podcast. You can find us of course at www.  the business of business podcast.com. We are on all the major social media platforms as well as all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify. If we're not a one that you listen to please reach out I'd be glad to get it added. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.winthehourwintheday.com

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Do You Know Press Releases Can Work For Your Small Business? Learn How with Mickie Kennedy

When you issue a release, occasionally, you know, big newspapers or large publications will pick it up. But what a lot of people find is, their trade publications will pick it up, which is very instrumental for them. And also, there's bloggers, smaller websites, sometimes radio, even podcasters that are covering a particular industry.

About Mickie

Mickie Kennedy is an expert at helping small businesses, authors, and startups increase their visibility and credibility. Mickie founded eReleases 22+ years ago after realizing that small businesses desperately need a press release service they can actually afford, giving them access to the media and to a national newswire – all with a personal touch.

Mickie lives in Baltimore County with his family and two feuding cats. He enjoys British science fiction and acknowledges an unhealthy addiction to diet soda. Mickie holds an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry from George Mason University. He still writes poetry most Monday nights (virtually) with a group of fellow misfits in Brunswick, Maryland.

www.eReleases.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Do You Know Press Releases Can Work For Your Small Business ...

Mon, 7/12 9:08PM • 42:51

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

press release, people, journalists, release, written, newswire, business, reach, day, company, industry, article, news, media coverage, develop, story, headline, reporter, wire, pr

SPEAKERS

Mickie Kenney, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:01

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host Roy. Of course, we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guests to speak on a diverse set of topics. There's always something going on in our business that we could do better to be successful. And there's some sometimes we don't even know what we don't know in order to help us be successful. So we have awesome guests like we have today. We have Mickie Kennedy. He's an expert in at helping small business, authors and startups increase their visibility and credibility. Mickie founded eReleases 22 years ago, after realizing that small businesses desperately need a press release service that they can actually afford, giving them access to the media and to national news wire all with a personal touch. Mickie lives in Baltimore County with his family and two feuding cats. He enjoys British science fiction and acknowledges and unhealthy addiction to diet sodas. Mickie holds an MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry from George Mason University. He still writes poetry, most Monday nights virtually, of course now with a group of fellow misfits in Bruns, Maryland. So Mickie, welcome to the show. Great. Glad to be here. Yeah, a couple few. I can agree I can kind of relate to you there on the feeding cats. We've got a couple dogs like that. And then the addiction to that soda. Do good putting it down for a day or two. But it seems like it always comes back up. I've stopped a million times. Going back to it. It's kind of like smoking, it's like, well, it was so easy to quit, I'll just drink some more. And I can quit anytime I want to. Well, you know, I when we talked earlier, I think the you know, the press releases, something that we we don't maybe take enough advantage of as small businesses. A lot of times we just don't know how they work. Sometimes we don't know. A lot of times, I think, you know, like myself until I did a little research. I thought press releases were things that big news companies put out on companies I did not really, you know, put it together that press releases are basically internal documents that were released out. So anyway, why don't we Why don't we just start there? I think it's, you know, it's a great time to mention that there are so many channels available to us in the marketing world to try to get our name out there. And this is just one that tends to be a little underutilized. Would you agree with that?

Mickie  02:50

I would I think a lot of people feel that a press release is something that you have to be an important or large company in order to use. And it's really not the case, you know, small businesses, anybody with an interesting story, or the ability to create some strategy and make their story interesting has the ability to get media coverage as a result of sending out a press release.

Roy Barker  03:13

Yeah, and there's all kinds of I think the other thing is sometimes we think that well, nobody's going to pick up my story and put it in the middle of the Wall Street Journal, or I'm not going to be featured on the, you know, the five o'clock news. So really, what's the point? But I think there's a there's a huge mechanism kind of behind, you know, discounting those two large viewer ships, excuse me, there's a big mechanism behind there that can really help businesses.

Mickie  03:44

Right? Yeah. When you issue a release, occasionally, you know, big newspapers or large publications will pick it up. But what a lot of people find is, their trade publications will pick it up, which is very instrumental for them, which a lot of them don't take into account. And also, there's bloggers, smaller websites, sometimes radio progress programs, and even podcasters that are covering a particular industry or topic will reach out to him because of a press release and say, Hey, I'd like to talk to you more, or turn that into an article or a story about them. So, you know, I've had people who get more feedback, more potential partnerships and favorable results from a trade publication mentioned, then per se, a national newspaper.

Roy Barker  04:35

Yeah, and I think, you know, as we talked the other day, a couple things that you mentioned is we always think about the you know, the driving the customer to us, but there's a couple side effects of this in like you said, maybe suppliers that want to work with you. And I've even seen some press releases for companies that I thought wow, that would be a good company to work for. So I guess you could probably even attract some talent to your company to by doing this.

Mickie  05:05

Yeah, I've had people who said that they've tried to work with a supplier for years, and they just get ignored. And they issue a few releases, and all of a sudden that supplier reaches out to them. And then you know, and they have, you know, affiliate relationships that get, you know, developed because of a press release, right. So there's lots of different people that could reach you, in addition to your customers. It's always great when a customer comes in from an article that was written about a press release. But sometimes people aren't really aware of the additional people that see that, you know, partners, potential sponsors, things like that.

Roy Barker  05:44

Yeah. And there's, again, I will ask this as a question, but I think that there's also some SEO value, because there's a huge network of websites that go behind all these national news companies. And I can speak to a little bit of that experience, I had a lady from a local channel years ago that she reached out and did just, like a two paragraph article on me, but that was kind of her job was filling up this local affiliates, news site with, you know, human interest stories from the area. We didn't make the air, but it still, you know, kind of works, I guess it worked for us, and that there is exposure on this top level domain website that you know, mentioned myself and my company's name.

Mickie  06:35

Yeah. So, SEO is a huge benefit that happens with earned media. And that's usually when your press release has been turned into an article as opposed to just being syndicated as duplicate content. Yeah. And what a lot of people don't know is that when you get a story in New York Times, or The Wall Street Journal, even a small publication, a lot of times they don't link to your website, but you still get the benefit, as if they did, yeah, Google actually has a patent on this. And a lot of people are aware of it, that Google can contextually determined that that article is about you, even though there's no link to you. And they give you the credit as if there was a link to you. So you know, there's a lot of SEO benefit for the times that they do link to you. But you also get that SEO benefit when they don't link to you as well.

Roy Barker  07:22

Yeah, and I think we can talk about, you know, even when we look at driving customers, you know, this may not, I guess we may get a little if we release a press release, and somebody sees it, and they want our product or service, we may get a little bump, but this is also a long play, because these press releases will live eternally, you know, out there on the internet, wherever they're picked up, you know, and the other thing I've seen, and I find myself preaching patients more and more, when we talk about marketing, because nothing is what you sometimes you get lucky and things are instantaneous. But a lot of times, things can take a long time. And I've noticed on some news stories that I've seen lately, they they were recorded, like months and months and months ago. So if somebody even was going to pick up our press release, turn it into a story that this may not all happen in this next week in so, you know, we have to kind of keep working it and realize that you know, things can happen months out from now that will be very beneficial. Is that kind of what you have found.

Mickie  08:29

Exactly. And sometimes, what a lot of people don't realize is when you do issue a release over real Newswire, like PR Newswire is the largest and oldest Newswire press releases. It's archived permanently for journalists. And so when journalists go in and do searches, they're going to pull up all the releases on that topic. And if it's a very narrow topic, or the keywords that they're doing, I just happened to be in your press release, you're going to pop up, and a lot of times, they'll reach out to you for a quote, or to get a little more information. But you know, it's a valuable tool for them. So it's not unusual for people to get media coverage six months a year, even longer after release comes out. A little bit off topic, but I think now's a good time to bring up there is a service out there.

Roy Barker  09:18

horo h a r? Er, Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've heard of it help a reporter out. So that's a good resource that I've used it before. So I'll let you talk a little bit about it. But basically, it puts a lot of questions out there they are reporters soliciting answer. So I'll let you talk a little bit about that as a resource.

Mickie  09:38

Yeah. So basically help a reporter out is free. I think there is a paid option, but for most people free works. And it's actually a journalist who's working on a story and saying I would love to talk to an expert on this particular niche or something really specific. And so it's a great way for you to, you know, see that reach out to them and Get pickup. The downside of it is a lot of people know about help a reporter out now or hair, okay. And as a result, it's a little more competitive these days. So it's not unusual if it's a broad topic to have a reporter get like two or 300 inquiries from people saying, I'd love to be the focus of your story. So that's the only downside about it years ago, it was a great tool, very few people knew about it. And so it you know, some of that magic is rubbed off of it as a result of just more people knowing about it, and the fact that there is a free option for it.

Roy Barker  10:33

Yeah, and that's another point I was going to make is that you have to submit a lot of responses before you even get in any, any activity whatsoever. So again, it's a long play. Well, you know, what I used to do is that was part of my morning routine would just sit down and answer five questions and then move on, you know, just you have to keep up with it every day, though, because, like you said, it's who knows, especially on general topics, you know, if you have a very unique niche, you may be able to slide in there. But if it's a general topic about, you know, what do you have for breakfast this morning, that, you know, there's probably hundreds of 1000s of people sent in responses in on that one. Yeah. So anyway, let's get back to the to the press releases themselves. So who I realize anybody can do it, but who are they best suited for me? Why would I want to do it, and when would I want to do one as a small business?

Mickie  11:35

Okay, so you kind of have to look reverse engineer it. And so at the end of the day, any journalist that picks it up, is basically trying to get content in front of their readers, or viewers that they feel would be if you have something that you're doing that's interesting, and potentially news, then that is a great new thing, a new obit or even proved your, your shopping experience or something like that, it is to find that, you know, interesting enough for the audience. So that is the downside of something like that, you know, the journalists, they love numbers. So if you have a survey or study that you did, that's very newsworthy. So that stands a really good chance of being turned into an article. If you're introducing a topic that is really hot right now. Something that elevates the conversation that does really well. But if it's just you know, you Isha joining the conversation, with nothing new to you know, that you're but then we have just just running through things that they like, they love quotes that are contrarian, and say something that's a little unpopular, that's a great way to get picked up in the media, because it you know, if everybody's saying something is really good, all those people with your quote, but if you're the one person that says, hey, this isn't so good, and this is why, and it's a well reasoned argument, they're much more likely to pick you up, because they want to have both ideas represented, you know, a good journalist will have both sides of an argument, but many times, they go to press with only one side, because there's nobody there saying the contrary and your opposite view. So if you're comfortable with that, that's a great strategy that works again, and again.

Roy Barker  13:49

Yeah, and sometimes we what's the saying, you know, some, some press is better than no press or some attention. And so, you know, there's a lot of times people actually can build their business or they build their their marketing strategy on that contrary approach, you have to be able to take the heat that may come from that, but you know, a lot of times people are interested in that view. And so it I guess, just in today's challenging times, it can be, you can gain a lot of attention that way. Just have to say sometimes the you can use have to be able to deal with the negative Fallout that may come from that, I guess,

Mickie  14:28

right? You don't want to say anything that's gonna alienate you from your customers or even your industry. But, you know, the examples I always use as if everyone's talking about you know, we have to be more environmentally conscious and things like that. You know, you might want to say electric cars are bad for the environment, pointing out that the current battery technology is not environmentally sound, the way they mined the materials for it. You know, we currently are produced Seeing most of the electricity, they'll charge these cars through coal and stuff like that. So there's, there's a way that you can come across as being well reasoned. Yeah. And not, you know, the crazy uncle of the industry. Right,

Roy Barker  15:11

exactly. All right. So I think, you know, we want to point out to is that, you know, these need to be well written, and I know that you know, you have your background is in creative writing. So, you know, that's a good, a good reason to, you know, turn to a professional to do this. But can you kind of tell us the structure about, I guess about the page? Because usually, they're typically a page or less? Is that correct? Is that where you want to?

Mickie  15:42

That's correct. Most of them fall under 500 words. 400 words is what the Newswire advises people, you want to get the most interesting and relevant information to them. So you want the headline to be very apparent, what the press releases about, you want to avoid, like the New York Post headlines, which are for consumers, not journalists, that are like full of puns and stuff. But you really don't know what the story's about. Because journalists, unlike consumers aren't going to say, Wow, that's a very click Beatty headline, I'm going to read on a journalist is busy streaming lots of headlines, and saying, I don't know what that's about, I'm going to move on to the openings. headline, the opening sentence, even the opening paragraph, or the most important thing, and then you want to support that with as much information as you need. And then people generally, and the press release with an About section, or boiler plate where it's like about company. And it's just a few sentences about that company, a lot of times that gets reused again and again. And future releases, you may update it from time to time. And then you have a media contact with the name. Phone Numbers recommended because journalists under deadline will often have to be working on story and say I need this answered before we can go to press otherwise, I have to kill the story. And so you definitely want the phone number and an email address as well. Okay,

Roy Barker  17:08

so what about writing it with like for small bits of entrepreneur? solopreneur? What the difference between writing in as first party versus a third party?

Mickie  17:19

Okay. Right. Yeah, so you want to write it as third person, it has the appearance of being objective. If you do say anything in first person, it's usually a quote, that then is attributed to a person at the company, whether it's you or someone else. It's just the style that press releases are written there. They're not meant to be an article format, per se. But I do see that occasionally. And there's nothing wrong with that used to be there would be a feature channel, where you would write a feature article yourself and make it available. That being said, a lot of people aren't going to use the feature story verbatim, unless they're small papers. So you know, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times everything they run has been written by them. So you know, that's why the press release style is probably better suited for larger public publications. And if you are doing more article style, you still have to maintain that third person, objective view. But, you know, that might be appropriate if you're if your target is like local papers or smaller publications. Okay.

Roy Barker  18:22

And then you you mentioned earlier PR wire. So now, when you seek out a company like them, they are pretty much the distribution channel to like, blow this out to a whole bunch of other different outlets. Is that correct?

Mickie  18:40

That's correct. PR Newswire is a Newswire platform that started I think, in the 50s. And they were they were the first player that basically handled taking news and sending it to newsrooms across the country. At the time, it was through dedicated feeds love its satellite broadcast, teletype systems, it's changed now with the internet. So it's available electronically, journalists can log in from anywhere to their their account. A lot of people are familiar with other types of news wires, like Reuters, United Press, international, Associated Press or AP, and they don't run press releases, they will accept press releases, but everything that they run has been written by them. So they they're paid by newspapers, to license their content. So if you're a small paper, like the Baltimore Sun, and a national news story happens, rather than have one of your reporters write the article, they can just take it already written from say the Associated Press and you'll sometimes see that your your newspaper UPI or AP, and it just means they're using that content. On the press release site. There's really only three news wires or press releases here in the US and that's PR Newswire business wire and the other one is clothing. wire which has changed to and trato. It's it's had some migrations and acquisitions over the years. So their branding is a little all over the place at the moment. But this business wires, large, very corporate driven pure news wires, the oldest and largest. So it deals with a lot of different places. That being said, they're all very expensive to move a press release nationally of like, say 400 words, you're going to spend about $600 with the in Toronto or globe Newswire and closer to $1,000 for business wire and PR Newswire. That being said, all of the releases that my company releases go out of our PR Newswire and they started a couple $100 for a new customer coming in. So it's substantially cheaper. It is a US distribution is a custom national distribution that was developed in partnership with them. And we sort of act as a co op for small business owners allowing them to get access to the Newswire. In addition to that, we do a little bit of email direct sends to journalist as well. So you get the news wire distribution in the email sends that happens. And at the end of the day, hopefully it results in a story being written about you. But at the minimum, you will get your press release syndicated on a few websites where it's verbatim just appears on a few websites, a lot of more financial websites, like Yahoo News, and or I think it's actually the finance section of Yahoo. News that it appears under. And so that's good. But that's not the ultimate goal of a press release, you really want to get someone to write a unique article about you. And that does happen. And when it does, you know, it can be really beneficial to a business or a company.

Roy Barker  21:54

Now, let's talk about a couple of more advantages of you know, using a service like yourself, not only the the riding, you know, for non rider riders, that that's going to be the most important part because I don't know, you can just tell when some when, if it's well written, somebody is going to be much more apt to want to take interest in it. If the if the headline gets them and they get down into it, it needs to be well written First off, but let's talk about the I guess that the credibility part. I mean, I could spend my time reaching out to local journalist or national number one, I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't have the contacts, but they see my email, the chances are they not even going to read it where somebody like yourself that is used to dealing with them, you kind of have that credibility that's already built up as well.

Mickie  22:47

Right? Yeah, we've been in business for a little over 22 years. And when I started, I was reaching out to all the journalists individually, over the phone and through email. And so it's changed a little bit became a little more streamlined over over the years. But yeah, we have a strong reputation for sending stuff that is interesting. And it represents the small business world, which a lot of journalists are very happy to include. Because while the big companies always get the media coverage that they do get. Journalists find that their readers are really interested in quirky, strange, interesting new little things and little tidbits. So small businesses seem to feel that very well startups as well. You know, they're, they're usually doing something that's a little bit different than everybody else. Otherwise, they wouldn't get the funding and the growth and stuff like that. But that comes with being a startup. But I always tell people take take a strong look at your business. Look at your USP, your unique selling proposition? What is it? If you don't have one, you really need to find one. Because your your long term growth really depends on you being able to differentiate yourself from your competitors. And you often want to align that with something that's potentially newsworthy as well. Yeah.

Roy Barker  24:05

Yeah. And as you mentioned earlier, that, you know, we need, I guess, there needs to be a key, there needs to be something happening to trigger the press release, it's not. And I want to try to make the comparison to, you know, to let's just say a blog, you know, blogs, you want to put these things out, you know, every week or whatever your schedule is, you want to put out good content for your readers. But with this press release, it needs to be it needs to be a big thing, something that big has happened with the company to try to get, it's not just you know, you don't want to write one that hey, it's just another day here impaired us and this is, you know, this is what we do, there needs to be something that's out of the ordinary because these aren't going to be released in series. And I would ask that, you know, let's again, I'll ask this as a question as, you know, we want to put one of these out, but let's say a couple bigger things. happening? Do we want to do succession? Do you want to put a put one out there and kind of let it simmer and try to get some traction from it before you release the second one? Or how would that work?

Mickie  25:13

I always suggest that as you have important milestones happen, issue them. And if it just so happens that you issued a release last week, if this is a completely distinct and different milestone, feel free to go ahead and send it out. That being said, if you really don't have anything interesting happening, you know, try to create something. A lot of times, if you reach out to a trade show, or an industry trade association, you might be able to get permission to send have them send a survey to their members. And you can co brand that survey and do a press release and get that out there. You know, people love statistics and numbers. And what's really important is when you do that survey, you want to have a few questions that are a little strange, a little quirky. And those are the questions that you will put in the headline of your press release and say, did you realize 27% of insurance actuaries, you know, do X, Y, and Z? And those are the things that people want to know. I mean, Cosmopolitan magazine learned this decades ago, women loves statistics, people have statistics, it doesn't matter what the answer is. But it'll say, did you realize that 27% of all men do this in the bedroom, they're going to want to go to page 84 and figure out what's right. And you can do the same thing with the study or survey that you're doing, where you create these really quirky, interesting questions. And it's really not important, whether 2% of the industry or 98% of the industry feel that way. It's when that question is given to the reader. They want to know the answer. And they're going to read that article. And, you know, those are the types of things that you can do to make a press release that's really well received within your industry and get a lot of media pickup. Okay. So what other things that work really well are rankings like top 10 rankings within an industry for a particular topic or industry?

Roy Barker  27:20

Yeah, yeah, those always work good. Something that they suggest always to do the ranking. I'm the worst. Because if I say that, my actually rap before we started taping this, there was a one about some bands with big downloads on Spotify, and I was just reading them to my girlfriend, because it's like the top five. So yeah, we're all we're all get sucked in by that for sure. So if, if I was going to reach out to you and say, hey, I want to do this, can you kind of walk me through? What is that process? What is that time frame to actually get one, get a press release actually out there.

Mickie  28:00

Right. So if you have a press release already written, and it's in the right style, and everything like that, we can get it out for you as early as the next business day. That being said, I always recommend if this is your first release, to get it to is two to three business days before just in case there's an issue, the editors look at everything. And feel free to ask the editor to look it over and say this is my first release, could you look it over and make sure it looks okay. Everybody at our company as a as an editor, we don't have any sales people. So when you talk to somebody, it's someone who can pull up your release and give you real positive or negative feedback, as warranted. Ultimately, we want you to succeed, if you're looking for having a release written, which is always a good idea for your first release. At a minimum, I would allow about a week or so it generally takes three business days, from the time that we get your order to get the release back to you to review, there may be some changes you want back and forth, or some clarification that's needed. So I would always say about a week for that. That being said, a lot of times people develop a release or have an idea for release, and they don't have the strategy in place, they haven't really developed a PR plan. So I would always tell people to spend a little more time on your strategy than actually writing the release. Because that's going to make the biggest difference whether it's newsworthy enough for the journalist, and I did recently create a mastermind class that I'm giving free to people on PR strategy, and it said he releases comm slash plan p l a n and it basically gives you all the strategies that my best customers over the last 20 years have utilized that work and continue to work. And these are things like the study and survey that I mentioned before the contrary interview, there's just several of those that work again and again for my clients. And that's more important than the press release writing, because you can write a really great press release. But if it's about a new hire at your company, very few people are going to be interested in that maybe a trade publication, maybe a local newspaper. So if you're going to pay to issue a release over the Newswire, you want to be to do it with something that's strategic enough that you potentially could get some strong media coverage. Okay.

Roy Barker  30:31

Yeah. And I guess the second part of that is you need to be prepared in case somebody actually does reach out. Sometimes we, you know, we, we love those rocks over the hill, and then you never think somebody is gonna throw one back at you. So what do we do? You know, it's like, what, what is that next step? We need to be prepared for that?

Mickie  30:50

Yeah, I mean, generally, journalists will contact you if they need clarification, or they want to feel that they understand something well enough, like, this is my impression. And this is what I'm working on. It's journalists or live English majors. And they're a little shy. So it's not unusual to just have them develop an article based on the press release. And looking at your website, okay, really only contact you if they have a question, or they need some clarification. Okay. And you know, you've done a really great job with your press release, when you see articles starting to appear, and they never contacted you. That meant they got everything they needed out of your website. And your press release. They didn't have to come to you.

Roy Barker  31:33

Okay. Yeah. And let's talk about PR for a minute, if you if we can. I know that's very another underutilized, let's say, and I think it's sometimes the more human humanitarian The story is, the easier we can get things picked up by local news agencies. I know, I used to do some work for a volunteer organization that, you know, it was pretty easy to reach out to a local news radio or to the TV and just get a little bit of coverage, or the newspaper. But as a business, you know, I guess there's 1000s of people trying to reach out to get a little free advertising to get a cover. So. But one thing that was brought up to me not long ago, I think is a good point to make is if you if you were seeking PR, the probably one of the more important pieces of that puzzle, is developing your pitch to the news outlet or wherever you're going for that to get them interested. You know, it's kind of like we talked about on the press release how important the headline is, if you can't even get them to talk to you about what ever awesome thing you want to try to get the PR for, then it doesn't matter how great it is. So we got to work on that pitch to get through the gatekeeper.

Mickie  32:53

Right? Yeah. If you're looking for local media, it's really key to sort of established a relationship with them. It's the same thing that we it, he releases do, we've worked with people for years, they know us, they know what to expect. And I always recommend people who are looking for like local media coverage, develop that network yourself, it's probably less than 10, local people that whatever write about you or interview you, including radio and TV, find out who they are, if it's radio or TV, it's usually a book or producer, not the actual host. But in newspapers and business, newspaper or business magazine, you might be lucky enough to have in your area, find out who generally writes about companies your size or within your industry, and then just reach out to him by email, I say make it a goal to reach out to them quarterly, let them know, you know, first introduce yourself, you may want to mention that you saw a story that they did, and you really liked it, you may comment on it specifically, they love that because it shows that you're not just blindly sending to stuff like that. And I always recommend if you have a good tip, like you see something really blowing up in your industry, or you saw a competitor in a different city get picked up for something, you might say, Hey, I thought that you may want to cover this topic, I'm seeing it developing in my industry. And even if your company's not a fit for that article, they're going to appreciate the tip. And you're more likely to get through with your future emails when you do want to promote yourself. So again, it doesn't have to be very complicated, you know, shoot for a goal of you know, four to eight times a year to reach out to them. For most people, it's probably six people in your local area that you have to do. You don't have to pay for a service to do that. I always recommend doing that yourself. And you'll find that after a while, if you're good at it. You'll get media pickup routinely in the local media. Okay, yeah, that's

Roy Barker  34:53

a good good idea about the what's going on in the industry because I was just thinking to The difference between someone going to the media to say, you know, I want you to cover this, we make this awesome product. So I want to get coverage for that versus my company did this for the community, you know, we donated some food or donated water or that, again, that humanitarian touch will probably get you in the door much quicker than, hey, we make an awesome widget that somebody needs to look at.

Mickie  35:29

And over the past year, because of the way things are, the media has been wanting to share more positive stories, right. And so I've been advising my clients to do just that. If you're working on something that's positive, you're doing something to help the community, we had a distillery that was doing hand sanitizer for the community and stuff like that. And they got a lot of local media pickup, they actually ended up getting some state pickup outside of their city as a result of that, because the media is spin sharing a lot of bad news over the past year. And so they're looking for a counterbalance that with something that's positive.

Roy Barker  36:07

Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. Well, Mickie, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. But before we go, is there any other tips that you'd like to get out there for our PR, for the press releases our PR activities,

Mickie  36:22

I would just advise people that if you are going to consider it, I recommend it because you can potentially get you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars of pick up from just a few press releases. But if you're going to test it, you really want to do a proper PR campaign. And that's usually six or more press releases, you don't want them to be about the same topic, you want to be strategic. So I would always advise people to to approach it systematically. Take a system, like I explained in that video training mastermind class that I have, and analyze your industry, talk about things that aren't being discussed within your industry, I call these blind spots. And also look at what they are discussing, and can you elevate the conversation by introducing something new to it. But you know, work on that strategy. That's the most important part of it, the journalists will forgive a poorly written press release, if it's newsworthy and strategic enough. And that wasn't the case, 30 years ago, or even 20 years ago when I started. But with social media, and everybody texting and stuff like that, you know, it's actually helped that if there's, you know, a grammatical error, that's not going to automatically discount you from getting media pickup drives, you know, some people like myself, for English majors a little crazy. I also think it's really good, because it's sort of Denmark, you know, democratizes, the opportunity for getting PR, your stories relevant. That's what's the most important part. And so, you know, work on strategy, develop a PR campaign. And, you know, it can work for businesses, you know, regardless of size, and regardless of your industry.

Roy Barker  38:10

Okay, awesome. Well, what is a tool that you use in your daily life, it could be a tool or a habit, something that you do professionally or personally, that just really adds a lot of value to your day.

Mickie  38:23

I use an app called 10%. happier, it's a meditation app. I had tried meditation over the years, because it had been recommended to me, I could never figure it out. It was like, whenever I, you know, did it, my mind wandered, and I was like, I just can't do this. And then 10%, happier does. Sort of coaching, they sort of walk you through what to expect before the meditation. And I learned that it's natural that your mind wanders, and what you need to do is just recenter yourself and refocus on the breath. And I've you know, it's like exercise, I've gotten better at it and I feel more calm, I feel my blood pressure, relaxing quite a bit. And it really has helped a lot. And it's it's definitely something I try to do daily. I on average, do it like five times a week. But it is a goal of mine to try to do it as much as I can every day and it keeps me grounded. You know, in a lot of ways, it sort of motivates me and brings me more aware in a way that caffeine doesn't. So it's surprising how that works.

Roy Barker  39:30

Okay, cool. I had to try that because I'm like you I've tried it over the years, but I don't know I've got to meet I'm always thinking about something that's hard just to turn that off. And so anyway, I'll give that a try and see if their coaching can help me through that. All right, so you talked about your mastermind class. Tell us about that one more time. I'm going to put that in the show notes, of course, but also just tell people you know, who is your client? How can you help them and of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you? Okay,

Mickie  40:01

so most of my clients or small business owners, startups, about a third of the people that appear on Shark Tank actually use us, the producers of shark tank will often say, you should do a press release before your episode airs, and after your episode airs, and they have recommended us from time to time. Authors also use us a lot of even traditional publishers are starting to require their authors to promote themselves rather than they handle it. So those are the types of customers that we work with, across all different types of industries. And the the video training or masterclass that I mentioned, is that eReleases.com slash plan, I was advised to sell this for $2,000, when I first developed it, and to turn it into a course, and that was all popular, but I wanted to immediately give it to my customers, because a lot of them are doing mediocre press releases. And if they can turn those releases into something more strategic, they're going to get more media coverage, and they're going to be very happier about their PR campaigns. So I wanted to just remove that obstacle. So it's completely free. There's nothing that you have to do or anything that's required. There's some bonuses if you give me your email address, but that's it, we hope at the end of the day that you'll use the releases, but even if you don't, it's valuable information. And I don't see anybody else out there, you know, producing this, this content and this higher level strategic stuff. There's a lot of resources for writing a press release. And we have those on our website as well. But like I said, the strategy is probably 10 times more important than you know, actually crafting the release.

Roy Barker  41:47

Okay, awesome. I'm going to reach out and sign up myself. So I'm going to get over there before the rest of the listeners do and get signed up. So I can you know, Ben, because that's something I do not take as much advantage of as I should. So I'm going to get on that this week. So thank you, we thank you again, for taking time out of your day to come share the world of press releases and PR with us. It's been very interesting, and I know that I know I gained a lot so I'm sure the audience did too. So that's gonna do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. You can find us at www.the businessofbusinesspodcast.com course we are all on all the major social media channels as well as on the podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google, and if we're not a one that you listened to please reach out I'd be glad to get us added. Also a video of this interview will be put up on YouTube when it is released. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

eReleases.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

How Can Neuromarketing Increase Customer Loyalty? It Provides Insight into the Buying Brain with Felix Cao

What makes your consumers have loyalty? How does the consumer what to connect with you? How do you drive brand loyalty? We have to try to engage our messaging with the consumer with as many senses as possible. Neuromarketing helps us to answer all of these questions, connect with our consumers in a deeper more efficient manner.

About Felix

Felix has accrued over 15 years of business experience when it comes to sales & marketing.

He has been featured in major media outlets, such as the HuffPost, Adweek, and Authority Magazine, and has also appeared on a major Canadian morning radio show, to talk about neuromarketing and the 2019 Canadian election.

You can find him on numerous top podcasts where he shares neuromarketing insights on how businesses can grow and thrive during the pandemic and moving forward into 2021.

Today, at his neuromarketing company called Happy Buying Brain, he is combining his 15 years of business experience with his educational background in biological science and psychology, to help businesses truly understand what makes their customers’ brains tick when it comes to better achieving customer brand loyalty over their competitors, through the power of implementing neuromarketing into their own marketing campaigns.

www.happybuyingbrain.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below 

How Can Neuromarketing Increase Customer Loyalty? It Provides Insight into the Buying Brain with Felix Cao

00:00:03
Roy
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host, Roy, of course we are the show that brings you a wide variety of guests that can speak to a bunch of diverse topics. Of course, we want to help businesses understand, maybe what they don't know, but we also want to provide experts in different areas that can help them when they know they have an issue that they do need to solve in order to be successful. Today, we're happy to have Felix Cao. He is a crude over 15 years of business experience when it comes to sales and marketing, he has beach. He's been featured in major media outlets, such as Huff post ad week and authority magazine. As appeared on a major Canadian morning radio show to talk about neuro marketing and the 2019 Canadian elections, you can find him on numerous top podcasts where he shares neuro marketing insights on how business can grow and thrive during the pandemic.

00:01:06
Roy
Moving forward into 2021 today, his new role marketing company called happy buying brain. He is combining his 15 years of business experience with his educational background in biology and psychology to truly help businesses understand what makes their customer's brains tick and when it comes to better achieving customer brand loyalty over their competitors, through the power of implementing neuro-marketing into their own marketing campaigns. Felix, welcome to the show and thank you for taking time out of your day to be with us. It's certainly a pleasure to have you here. I've been looking forward to talking to you for a while. This is going to be an interesting conversation.

00:01:48
Felix
Well, hi Roy, thank you for the really kind introduction that I definitely appreciate, being on your podcast. I think we're going to have a really meaningful and good conversation that you're listing as well. We're certainly finding backfill, right? So.

00:02:00
Roy
I will tell you the one shortcoming as I just don't know enough about the subject to probably ask intelligent questions. Let's start at the very, let's start at the beginning of the night. How did you find yourself here, taking your sales and marketing experience and combining it and coming up with the neural marketing?

00:02:17
Felix
Yeah, absolutely. I guess, so the best way to really kind of explain things is to, kind of walk, take a, take the audience through the walk of the journeys. Okay. Let's say that if you and I were to have this conversation, 20 years ago, you would find, I'd be a student and in post-secondary in university, with a very, high interest when it comes to, biological science and psychology, by that time, the inspiration was more geared towards the health field. During that time it was more towards I'm actually get into optometry business was not in the picture at all. Okay. So, that twist in terms of, the trajectory, quite unexpected, but, it was a welcome unexpected, outcome that came out of it. That, where a lot of the, kind of educational background came from was, having a strong interest in terms of the biological sciences and how the mind work.

00:03:19
Felix
What ended up happening, later on in my mid twenties is I came across, some friends that were more, attuned to the business world, and they introduced me to the soft employment side of things. And, that's where I got the opportunity to work in, several industries such as the, finance investment insurance industries. That was the first, the very first, introduction in terms of transitioning into the world of business. It went from, a book kind of theory, world into the more, conversations and building relationships. So that was a really fun part. I, I, I think it's, this game, the opportunity to talk to people. So, spent a couple of years in that. Then, through met another group of friends and they were actually involved in technology. This is roughly the early 2000 tens. During that time, we spent nearly a decade, during that time in terms of the tech and mobile space, then what we noticed segwaying into the neuro marketing side of things was that, at the tail end of, our tenor in the tech space, we're looking at all the different trends that were happening.

00:04:28
Felix
In the two thousands, it was, they always hit the internet they came about. 2000 tens is more of the mobile movement with iPhones androids. When were looking forward, we noticed that, but, we're at the cusp of another technology revolution, which this time involves, artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality. What we noticed that at the core of a lot of these innovations was actually neuroscience. What we looked at it was that, the concepts of neuroscience could be applied to, industries outside of technology. One of it was, business and marketing. We looked at the overall landscape and we, in terms of the timing was a really good time because usually when you have kind of trends that become Poplar, any concepts that are associated with it also become familiarized and Poplar as well. So, that's why we made the transition in terms of combining, let's say my 15 years of being in business with educational background of, biological sciences and psychology, and then it was just a perfect marriage in terms of the timing, especially right now, as we look to transition to this new technical or a technology, revolution and the pandemic, obviously, kind of help speed this as, companies are looking for better ways to maximize the ROI or their budget when it comes to connecting and reaching the customer.

00:05:58
Felix
That's how, the, our neuro marketing company happy buying brain came about. Okay.

00:06:04
Roy
Yeah, that's an awesome story. I liked those that, he's kinda started one path and ended up somewhere totally different and, it's, I think it's a great time to be in this, not only for the pandemic, but also, there's so much information out there that all, we really need to be differentiators, not just the same message to you, because depending on what we're selling, you feel about some that one way you may be very passionate about you need touch it and feel it and smell it. Me, I'm just like, eh, I don't care if it's blue, green, or red or whatever, I just need one, ?

00:06:43
Felix
Yeah. I think it's just, as you mentioned, that there's just so much information and, there's pretty much a new way or a way to connect withe audience no matter how they find that connection, withe people or with brands, for example. Right. It gives them options in terms of how to build those relationships.

00:07:02
Roy
What about channeling, is this across the spectrum, as far as print, audio visual kind of, does it run the gamut or do y'all like kind of focus one type of delivery system?

00:07:20
Felix
Well, the thing is when it comes to the human brain, the body, right, they respond to multiple stimuli. Ideally we want to be able to understand the consumer and then you engage with them on as many senses as possible, because the more let's say, if we touch something, yes, we have a tangible feel for it. If we combine that, let's see what the smell and then the hearing, just so the experience becomes a lot more Apfel amplified. Yeah. The recall of let's say a brand becomes, also becomes amplified as well. Okay. Ideally the ideal situation is, if all of these different senses could be touched on, then that's the best way to, engage or attract a customer for example, or people in general. Yeah. Right. Like for, even for communication, like there's a difference between in terms of the level of intimacy versus receiving an email compared to meeting someone face-to-face correct.

00:08:16
Felix
Because there's a lot more in terms of the senses that are engaged. Like right now we could hear each other's voices. We could see each other, for example, there's a lot of nonverbal cues that come into it. Whereas when we read, let's say an email for somebody that might get lost in translation, for example, or it may not, be expressed in a way that, it would take a lot of mental effort to really picture what the person is really thinking, because the mind is, it doesn't like to do a lot of work. Right? One of it's, one of its, focal points is to, be energy efficient. Only when it has to, kind of put themselves like someone has to themselves in another person's shoes, then that's when we started kind of utilizing that mental capacity. We can make it easier on people by already having it out there, then it makes their life a lot easier and it makes the experience a lot more memorable as well.

00:09:09
Felix
Okay.

00:09:10
Roy
Yeah. No, I guess that's one reason why, videos do so well in so many tests too, also because they touch so many senses, we can actually see them and, see here and probably that the V like you were saying, the visual clues versus the written word. I know that there's been a lot of research, like when you post a blog article, for instance, it's like they say, if you put the text up there, that's awesome. If you put a picture on there, it's even better because you'll draw some people's attention, but if you use video, that's the very best that you can do.

00:09:48
Felix
Exactly. Like a hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. Words it's something that your logical brain or your cortex, which is the really developed part has a really, it understands it has a really process it. It's, that's a part of the brain that takes the most energy, and it does a lot of the mental work. Right. Whereas you have a, the, an older part of the brain called the primal brain. That does knows what is like, it's a really basic, for example. It sees a picture, it's going to understand what there's a picture of an elephant or like a spoon. Right. That's why there's a difference in terms of, this, helping the viewer understand what it is that you're looking to convey. Then, they say a picture there's, I think 170,000 words in the English language. A picture would be essentially worth, not as a thousand words, but up to, I like the ability to convey up to 170,000, whereas the video, that's infinite red, so that's infinite.

00:10:44
Felix
So, yeah, that video is definitely where, the most engaging type of medium.

00:10:50
Roy
Yeah. That's some good. So, what are some examples of companies that have, put y'alls, I don't want to call it technology, but put y'alls, the neuro marketing, into play and that's really helped them out.

00:11:04
Felix
Absolutely. There's several ways to look at it. Right. In terms of neuro-marketing, how does it impact, campaigns, for example, marketing campaigns, one way is to attract attention and to increase the engagement no second ways to maximize ROI, third ways to get, a better understanding of, I, your ideal customer avatar, for example, and another very prominent way to use their marketing is how do you mitigate loss, for example, before rolling out a product. Right? So, let's say in terms of, engagement and attention. One of the ways to actually do that is what we call, the orientation response. So especially this is really prominent videos. All it is this shifting angles, every couple of sockets, right? And not what that does is it causes the brain to now have to pay attention to that new stem line because through evolution and over time, and this kind of, this explains like why, marketing works versus the traditional marketing, which, more talks about like the, how and the, what, whereas neuro marketing talks about the, why something works.

00:12:17
Felix
You have, when you implement, the principle, orientation response, which is pretty much a shift in, the angles that happen every few seconds on an evolutionary basis are our brains or the primal brain is actually designed to pick up new stimuli. The reason why it does that, it needs to, figure out is this new stimuli, does it add to my survival and reproductive success? So back in the day with our ancestors, for example, they used to walk around and when they spot, let's say a plant on the ground, that caught their attention because, now their brains are the primal brain. It goes into this mode where it wants to assess this safety, if it is, then it's going to increase my chances of survival and also, or is it, is this a threat to me, if I eat poison Ivy, then obviously you're not going to do too well.

00:13:09
Felix
Right. Exactly. Also goes in terms of the mating side. If you meet new people, for example, is this person, are they gonna, increases the chances of, let's say, down the road, a suitable partner to pass your genes on, or, is, or is that person that you've met down the street, they're holding something in their hand? Are they a potential threat? So the same way. Even today, the human brain is actually still governed by those same guidance systems. That's why wouldn't we have a shift in angle and it causes the brain to really reevaluate things from a different perspective each time. That's what keeps it engaged and keeps it fresh. It keeps that attention. Yeah. Some examples of that, it's like the old spice commercial. You have a gentleman and he's in his Washington, so it's no big deal, right. Because, it's, there's a correlation in association with using, deodorant and being, just taking a nice shower, but then all of a sudden, like the background shifts to him being on the beach and then him being on the, on a farm.

00:14:09
Felix
So, so these kinds of like these pattern interruptions, those are one of the things that causes the problem of brain to have to reorientate itself and pay attention to that new stem line that's coming in. And, that's something that old spice found to be very effective in their videos to not only grab their attention, but to keep their attention as well. Another company is for example, Energizer. Everybody knows Energizer the battery and they'd build the, know the bunny. The bunny has been around for like 30 years in the boots on the drum, Fred. He keeps on saying, it keeps going and excuse me, and going. The real creative part is how do you keep a concept like that still new, right. Because there's only so many ways that a bunny can move and beat on a drum. Right. Have you been doing that close to three decades? Like, people are like, they're going to get used to it.

00:15:00
Felix
Right. But, in a commercial, they did a few years ago, they'd say there's something really creative. So that commercial is 15 minutes. It starts off with the bunny beating on his drum, but the bow, but then about halfway through, it shows us a brief pause for half a second. What ends up happening is the body turns back, looks through the camera at the viewer. What it says that, it keeps going and going longer with the power of carrots. There's that pause, turn around and have a look and to say that, Hey, like not only does it keep on going longer, but it goes, it keeps on going along with carrots. In fact, he's actually, instead of holding like a drumstick that you would expect him to beating on the drum, he's actually holding his, like carrot that he was using. So, that's, that was something that was very innovative that, a lot of people, I don't think expected when they're watching that video and you remember those kind of those changes, right.

00:15:58
Felix
Especially when it breaks here, it's novel and it breaks the patent regular pattern of thinking, because there's studies that say that humans, they get up to, 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day, but about 95% of those are on repeat. That leaves us very little room for like new thoughts, new behaviors. Just the idea of like having that pattern interruption, that's what allows, the like companies to kind of break through the noise because it breaks through that kind of repetitive thought, right. By having those pattern interruptions. So those are examples. Also when you're writing blogs, and you've probably heard about this as well as called hippocampal headlines. So, that is pretty much, you're using something that's, they call it the concept is novel and safe. The problem of brain is one of the main functions is, what it is actually the lower part of your brain.

00:16:56
Felix
It's anything, but let's just say just to keep it simple, anything but your logical brain. Okay. Right. So it holds like your emotions. It's a, the thing that when you see something, even though you're not able to clearly identify it, your heart starts racing until like, after, until like two seconds later, when you actually look at it and you figure out that it that's just like a, a mannequin for example. Right. So that's the part of the brain. That's more subconscious. It deals with your physical body. It's fast, automatic reflexive, and it deals more with the fight or flight response, right? So that's at the very base and that's the reptilian brain. Sitting on top of that is your midbrain and that deals with more emotions and social situations. Together you have those, the reptilian brain and the midbrain that comprises of your primal brain and then sets up what sits on top of that is what everybody knows your more rational, logical part of the brain, right? You're a cortex, for example.

00:17:48
Felix
So, so the understanding the primal brain, which is the foundation of neuro marketing, it's so important to understand that part of the brain, because that part of the brain is where the subconscious mind lives, but it also influences up to 95% of our everyday behaviors. In the world of business, for example, for the business owner, that would influence what they're doing on a daily basis to grow their business and a law that's an automatic, right. On the other side is the consumer, their buying behaviors are also highly influenced by their primal brain in which, up to 95% of their purchasing decisions are done on the subconscious level. That's why understanding, like the emotions that come into it and also, things like status and things like that is a big, driver in terms of, getting insight in terms of, the decision making process when it comes to, let's say, Brad and wants to connect with their audience, or even within a company, how do they make their company work for the employees a lot more happy and work a lot more efficiently as well.

00:18:55
Felix
So, that's something that's very important, but going back to the hippo capital had, headlines in the primal brain is that, one of the main, core functions of the primal brain is threat detection. Here, because of, we're not running away from saber tooth tigers, but because we're governed by a lot of those same guidance systems that catch our attention, we want to be able to identify stimuli that is safe, but yet we're always on the lookout for stimuli that's novel as well, like that new fruit on the tree that can increase our chances of survival or that new, significant other that, we have a relationship with, for example, and a tequila for exempt is a tequila company. And, they had a very good, headline. They, every, the, everybody knows the saying, practice makes perfect. Right. What they did was they had practiced makes patron because the name of the tequila companies patron.

00:19:56
Felix
Yeah. By kind of adding something that's very familiar, which is practice makes perfect with not putting a spin on it and adding that novelty of like, Patrick makes patron, it's like, I like two of the three words make sense. Like they kind of come together, but where did the patron came in? And that's something that isn't an attention grabber, when it comes to especially the written language. So, that's something that, in blogs or articles that seems to be very effective. So once again, that's the hippocampus, headline. Okay. So, yeah, so that's a very important, and, also when it comes to, even the packaging, for example, Frito-Lays, so there are a company that makes chips in their own bite Pepsi, which is, a powerhouse in the assault trinket industry. Not that time they were looking to get more involved in, like the, or did they felt that the female demographic was highly underserved.

00:20:58
Felix
At that time there, the packaging of their chips was actually in a shiny bag. They ran preying studies on it to see how the participants would respond to their shiny bags. And, what they found was there was an area in their brain that was becoming highly activated and that part of the brain was actually associated with feelings of guilt. So, so the, conclusion was that, when these participants were viewing, these female participants were looking at the shiny bags that the Frito-Lays was packaged in, they're associating the brand and eating the chips with feelings of guilt. What they did was they changed their, packaging from the shiny bags to the mass style, bags. When they did, the brain studies with the new design, what they found was as, a drastic reduction in that area that would indicate, guilt and as a result, that the female audience or the participants, they had a much more positive association eating the fruit of those chips, as opposed to when it was packaged in the shiny bags.

00:22:07
Felix
That of course, led to, excuse me, led to an increase in sales, right? So that's one, like really good example when you're looking to tap into a brand new demographic, for example, to how the type of understanding, also, Campbell's soup. Campbell's soup is a staple that everybody has grown up with, right. So, back in early 2000 tens, they want to make improvements in terms of their current, soup labels. What they did was they made it more human. They added a human face, they eliminate the large spoon and they want to appeal more to the sentence, census, by adding a robot vapors. What they found by making that one change was that their sales increased by 12%. Now, 12%. It may not seem a lot to two companies, but at that time, like Campbell soup was doing, close to seven to $8 billion annually. 12% increases is close to a billion dollars in extra sales by making that change.

00:23:10
Felix
Right. So these changes are, quite significant. I'll bring in, the opposite example where companies that, don't have to use, near marketing, or maybe they did use neuro-marketing, but maybe, had they gone to more insights into it and looked at the data, perhaps they would have came to those conclusions, was, M and M for example, they did a super bowl commercial in 2018. And, it started, Danny DeVito. At first it starts off with two admin items and, Eminem's always how the problem, because it tastes so good. Down the street and they're talking to each other and they're saying, oh, what? Like every time that we walked in, everybody always says that they want to eat us. Of course something happens and at one of the M and M's, Morrison to Danny DeVito. Now Danny DeVito is a human, so he's walking around and he knows he's a human now, but he wants to know, but he still thinks like an M and M.

00:24:09
Felix
He's walking off from human to human down the street, and he's asking him, Hey, do you want to eat me? And do you want to meet me? And of course they don't because he looks like a human he's no longer an M and M. Right, right. He's in the middle of the street now, and he's raising his hands, like in just like pure, like joy and victory, because like, that's the whole point of an Imam. He doesn't want to be eaten. Right. That'd be, that'd be like the prime of his life. Then, it hits this climax where you all of a sudden see a bus enter the pitcher and it just hits him. He goes right into this, in this grocery market or with the fruits and veggies. That would happen about the 22nd mark. So, this in total, this, commercial book was about 30 seconds long.

00:24:49
Felix
Then, what they found was doing these brain studies after daddy, the video got hit by the bus, the last 10 seconds, the engagement was a lot lower. At that time, to be at the time per second, companies were paying about a hundred thousand dollars a second. For that 10 seconds, M and M for example, was paying, not a million dollars for example. If they had that, they knew that engagement was really low. There's several things that they could have done. They could have perhaps, assuming that there was no limitations in terms of the length that could make it. Let's say that there wasn't, they, could've probably made a 22nd clip and kind of ended there, or else they would have found, more effective ways to be more engaging for the last time, 10 seconds. That, in a way, would have made the million dollars that was invested into that last 10 seconds of the commercial, a lot more, effective that's something that's very important.

00:25:48
Felix
Also one thing that, helps mitigate risks, as well as, Chrysler, for example, there were designing their headlights and there were thinking about going with the more sleeker type of law. And, but what they did was once they ran brain studies on it, they noticed that, when they designed the headlights to be more humanoid, so more like human shaped, right. A part of the brain that becomes activate that's associated with reward and deals with, the dopamine system, that part of the brain became a lot more active. By making that change from initially thinking that, Hey, maybe our customers would like sleek looking at lights to more, humanoid headlights that saved them potentially millions of dollars, in terms of manufacturing costs, had they decided to roll everything out in full force without doing those brain studies of how their consumers would respond, to sleek headlights versus humanoid headlights.

00:26:48
Felix
So, it's really neat to see like all these different things kind of different, impact that, it may have in terms of not only increasing ROI, it's the packaging, and also, mitigating risks. And, and also this, how we talked about in terms of multichannel, how do you engage multiple senses so that your brand becomes more memorable? Right. So, there's actually a very Poplar, cartoon has been running for probably like 20 something years called south park. So, so most people have heard of south park and they released a game not a few years ago and they wanted to make it really immersible. And, so they have, of course, a game, you play it on a screen, but they made us a contraption where it goes over the nose actually. There's a, every single time there's an action that correlates the gas smell, then it actually releases that gas smell.

00:27:43
Felix
Not only do you get the visual senses, then the audio, but now yeah, she'd get this, your, it actually activates your smells as well. So while you're playing the game. Yes, it's interesting. Yeah. It's pretty neat. Pretty neat idea when they came up with it. You'll definitely remember that experience when you'll be smelling the gas as you're playing the game. Just more on a basic level is you can use pictures to even associate senses with your brand. Let's say that, you're not able to build some equipment, for your customers is, there's one company that sells essential oils and essential oils are, the first thing that comes to mind is like, this stuff is not the best tasting stuff. How do you change that perception? Right. What they did was, in a lot of their advertisement and website, they would have their essential oils placed next to, the fruits that really make your mouth water like citrus lemons, oranges, for example.

00:28:42
Felix
Yeah. By doing that, what they're doing now is they're associating the taste of their essential oils to the mouthwatering effect of the citrus foods. Interesting. Yeah. So, so it's, something like that, you don't need to do these brain studies, but what you can do is, apply a lot of these neuro marketing strategies that are based on these neuro-marketing research into, company's marketing campaigns. So, that's another idea. Of course, one that was really cool. I really thought in terms of engaging multiple senses was, they want to test how scent or smell would, impact, virtual reality experiences. They would have participants, they would have the big virtual reality machines on their cover, their eyes, right. And, they would have different types of visuals where some of them would be, non-stimulating like sitting on a bench, for example, all the way to, through, to riding a right. They want to see does, adding scent really amplify the intensity of the experience and what they found was that, intuitively we think that, if we take two different types of senses, then it'd be like a synergistic effect and it should be something, the overall facts should be a lot more powerful.

00:30:01
Felix
But, for example, when they tested it with a high intensity type of virtual reality experience and they added scent to it, they found that the level of intensity was this more than without the smell. The biggest impact that has was when participants were reviewing kind of, if you want to say more or less the millet stimulant or less, or maybe more borrowing bore, boring scenes, right? Like sitting around on a chair, for example, and by adding sent to those types of experiences, it actually helped retain their attention. So that's very important. If you're, let's say have peaks in your presentation, or even someone walking through your physical store, or even on your website or what websites will be kind of hard because the scent doesn't come through, but let's say physical store, you would have those sense that they don't their attention. Doesn't totally just break off.

00:30:54
Felix
They just kind of, and they just lose their attention, want to go somewhere else. That was very important in terms of that finding of how scent actually impacts, low, stimulating experiences. Right.

00:31:11
Roy
Wow. Yeah. That's a lot of good stuff there. Felix. I know that we are up against a hard stop. I'm going to go ahead and we'll try to do a wrap up, but I'm going to invite you back on because I've got a lot of questions, as you're talking, I just, a lot of things come up about the, I'm gonna go ahead and prime you with some questions for the next time, but, appealing to the logical brain versus to the emotional men and women. I know we need, women tend to do the grocery shop. In your example, we probably want to skew to that, but I was thinking just the opposite that, some guy walking into the convenience store, the bright, shiny object is definitely going to get his attention, to go by. But, it's like how the people make those decisions, especially when you're, dealing to multiple.

00:32:00
Roy
The other big one I thought about too, was the, new car, new Coke when it came out and was a colossal failure. Was, was that because of people's perception that they're messing with they're messing with something that's good or was the product just really, not that good. I have my own opinions on that, but, sometimes we can get locked into not wanting to change or something is good that it can, I guess, give us a conception that this new thing is not going to be any good. We will make it a failure before we even give it a chance.

00:32:37
Felix
So, yeah. So, so I know that we have to come to a hard stop, precinct, but I just want touch on that. Yeah. They released that new Coke, it was in the clear, I believe the color was more clear right. At that time. There was in terms of the leap, it was just, it just happened too fast. Yeah. For example. People didn't associate, let's say, like a clear color with how Coke looks like, for example, it's Coke is more dark. Right, right. In that time. That's why when they made the transition back to the original color, then people start recognizing again, that this is how Coke should look like. Yeah. There needs to be a time like the boiling frog. That's why I called the Nate the novel, but safe approach. It's not this total blue ocean type of, change where just looking for something that's totally brand new.

00:33:29
Felix
Yeah. This is something that, already has some foundation. Now you're just adding a layer on top of it. That's novel. Right. It's called another way to describe is called the most advanced yet acceptable. This is the most advanced meaning, oh, this is something as new because of the bats, but yet it's acceptable by our standards because we have seen something very similar to this before. It's not like you're taking somebody on this big ride in terms of a totally new revolution that it's like a brand new concept. Right. You want to be able to guide them properly through it. And, a lot of that had to do with, the packaging as well. And, and, I'll explain on our next time that we have the opportunity to talk, the diet Coke can in terms of how they made it, where it was still, it's still seen by the audience where their customers had some, as some, as a drink, that's still light, but at the same time still has the good taste of a regular Coke.

00:34:28
Felix
The packaging and the design around that, does a lot of neuroscience in terms of how that works as well. That's something that we could touch on and of course, with, the female as well, and then there's certain ones, it is very interesting as I wrote an article, not, back in 2020, well, there's different shopping behaviors about, how females shop as following, due to evolutionary, changes and also, some structural differences in the brain. And, we can certainly touch on those as well. There's lots of things that we could certainly do. Yeah.

00:35:01
Roy
Yeah. Well, definitely. We're going to get you an invite to get you back on here. Cause this is good stuff. Like, we kind of were talking pre-show about some things and there's just so much noise out there. There's no social media, it don't matter where LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, everybody's gone to videos. You're being slammed with all this, stimulating content. We've got to find a way to set ourself apart from all that noise. I think that's why this is such a great subject to talk about. While we need to go deeper, see if we help these guys okay. I'll wrap feeds well, before we let you go. One thing is, what do you, what's a tool or what's a habit that you have during, that you use during the day that you feel adds a lot of value and it could be professional. It could be personal, but just,

00:35:55
Felix
I think just reading for 10 minutes a day, I think that does that alone time, like how you mentioned that, there's just so much happening in a world today. Especially now there's a lot of overlap with work and home. Yeah. Just giving yourself, 10, 15 minutes of load time, and whatever that could be your favorite hobby. That could be on my case. I'll take that 10, 15 minutes to read that just gives you a, it gives, in my opinion, or it gives people just the ability to separate themselves from everything that's happening around them and just kind of regroup and collect their thoughts. And then that's very, reenergizing. When it's time to go for the rest of the day that at least, that you're in a good place emotionally and mentally as well to start things off on the right foot. Right.

00:36:44
Roy
Yeah. That's a good point. I try to read overnight, when I go to bed, because what I find is, I'm always thinking, stuff is always cooking. So, when I lay down, if I don't take that time to read the reading, for some reason, it just puts me in a different place. It cuts off all that, the business and work thoughts where I can actually, rest and relax. Felix, tell it, tell everybody, basically who is your client, what you can do for them. Of course, how can they reach out and get ahold of him?

00:37:16
Felix
Yeah, absolutely. We work with, so we're a B2B company we work with mainly businesses. They could be from, usually we work with small and medium size, but large sizes as well. But, yeah, the main thing is number one is understanding their ideal customer avatar a lot better, especially how their primal brains, there's, a lot of people are in a state of heightened fear, anxiety and showing companies, how did they position their brand to eliminate or alleviate, these fears and uncertainty, and be the ultimate solution, even placing their brand, as a solution to these societal problems, like, all these social inequalities or generate qualities. And, and that way it will allow the brand to build a strong connection and a deeper connection with their audience. And, implementing the strategies that we talked about in terms of the packaging, how do you engage multiple senses? how do you mitigate, risks by testing certain concepts out? also, there's, yeah, there's plenty of things in terms of how to grab attention, product placement, for example, website designs.

00:38:29
Felix
So, anyone that's looking that's unhappy with their current way of doing marketing, I'm more than to have a conversation with them and show them how they could reach the higher marketing goals by implementing neuro into their current marketing strategies. Okay, awesome.

00:38:44
Roy
How can they reach out and get ahold of y'all?

00:38:47
Felix
Absolutely. Number one is, come to our website, happybuyingbrain.com and you can reach us through the contact form, or you can reach me directly at [email protected] and another good place to find me is on LinkedIn. If you searched Felix Cao, then I'm more than happy to connect with people in there and have a conversation to see how we can help them.

00:39:10
Roy
Felix, thanks so much for taking time out of your day. We certainly do appreciate all the great information and we do look forward to getting you back on here and continue in this conversation. So thank you, Ryan. That's going to do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. You can of course, find us on www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We are on all the major social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, this, video. There will be a, a video of this interview will go up on YouTube as well. We are on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Google, Stitcher, Spotify for non one that you use. Please reach out. We'll be glad to get ourself on there. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

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