Sell Without Selling Out With Andy Paul
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Sales isn’t a simple job; it takes a lot of skill to earn a buyer’s trust. So how do you sell without selling out? How do you earn that trust? John Livesay dives into sales with help from Andy Paul. With over three decades of experience under his belt, Andy gives us a glimpse at his sales insights. From building trust and communication to training and avoiding persuasion, this episode is one you can’t miss.
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Listen to the podcast here
Sell Without Selling Out With Andy Paul
Our guest is Andy Paul, the author of Sell Without Selling Out. He talks about how influence rules and persuasion drools and that you are either a sales boss that is commanding people or a sales leader that inspires them. Find out how to be a learn-it-all instead of a know-it-all. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest on the show is Andy Paul, who is a leading global sales expert. He has over 180,000 people following his daily posts on LinkedIn. He is the host of the top-rated sales podcast Sales Enablement with Andy Paul, with more than over 1,000 episodes and millions of downloads. His podcast is a go-to resource for sales leaders and producers. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on Your Own Terms. He has also written other books and he is the Founder of Zero-Time Selling, which is an advisory firm. Prior to that, he had a successful sales career himself in tech startups, where he sold over $600 million of complex systems and services. Andy, welcome to the show.
John, thanks for having me.
Let’s go back in time to when you knew you wanted to get into sales. Maybe you had a paper out or you sold something and you went, “I am good at this. This might be my career.”
I did not know I wanted to be in sales after I had been in it for a couple of years. Up until that, I was not too sure that I wanted to be in sales. Like a lot of people, I fell into sales. I graduated from university and did not have any concrete plans about what I wanted to do. I worked at the college I graduated from during the summer. Fall came around and my parents were urging me to get more serious about things. I went to the career placement center around campus and the jobs that were available were all the major tech companies. They were trying to recruit people into what turned out to be sales. Interestingly, none of them called it sales positions. They are all marketing management training programs, but they were nothing about marketing. They are all about sales.
Marketing people do not have quotas. That is the big distinction I tell people.
It is this whole idea that sales is dirty and, “Who wants to be a salesperson?” It was evident even then. I fell into it and as I described in my book, I was not too comfortable with what I was being taught and how I was being taught how to sell. I reached the point about year two where it started making sense to me and I started to describe or define a way to sell that worked for me. I could start to see a future in it at that point.
[bctt tweet=”A sales boss commands, and a sales leader inspires. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
You and I both have a similar background in that we sold multimillion-dollar tech pieces of equipment. Tell us about that. What was that like in the ‘90s?
I started off selling roomfuls of computer equipment back in the day. They take a lot of space and a fraction of the computing power of our phones these days that major corporations are running their companies on. I swerved into the personal computer industry for a while and worked at Apple in the early days of Apple and a couple of others what we thought was going to be an interesting startup. I worked for a company that made the first battery-powered notebook computer. That was a glorious failure.
Somehow ended up, by default, I was looking for a job after the last company had been with that imploded. I saw a news article in Fortune Magazine about a company that was revolutionizing the satellite communications business with very small aperture satellite dishes for data communications. I cold-called them. That was a Friday. I called them on Monday. I did not have a job in sales. I was an account manager as a customer success person for about the first six months before I moved back over into sales. That was my introduction to the enterprise of selling large complex systems.
What would you say was your biggest challenge as a salesperson? Was it handling rejection, overcoming objections or getting the appointment? What was one challenge that you thought and you saw all the people struggling with?
I spent a big chunk of time in the satellite communications business and the wireless business and did not have a technical background. I was selling to very technical customers.
It was a different language, was it not?
For me, the challenge was internal sales. How did I rally people to support me and help make up for my deficits in a way that was still valuable for the buyer? I got pretty good at that after a while. It was matching the internal selling as well as the external selling. As in any startup, there are tons of competing priorities and people are ultra-busy doing multiple things and it is like, “How do I get this person to invest some of their time and attention in what is important to me?” That was the key for me to be able to rally support internally for big deals I was working on.
Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on Your Own Terms
How did you do that? Do you have any tips for someone who is thinking, “That sounds like my challenge, but I do not know where to start.”?
It is the same challenge you have with customers. I write about it in my book. You have to be able to connect with people on an authentic human level. You need to be able to use your curiosity and understand the most important things to them and how you can help them achieve that by working with you.
It is fascinating because you had said originally that people were like, “I am not so sure you will be good in sales because you are an introvert and an intellectual.” There are a lot of people who might identify as, “I am not extroverted. I cannot be the life of the party and entertain clients nonstop. I should not pursue this career.”
As I tell people that in the course of the first 24 years of my career when I was outselling the large 2/3 of billion dollars, I had dinner half a dozen times with clients. The opportunity presented itself. I was all over the world selling. For the most part, I had great relationships with my clients, but we did not feel like we had to have dinner with each other. It was not going to cement the relationship in a way that we were not doing in the office when we were talking with each other because their ability to trust me was based on what I was doing in the context of work more than anything else. Once I established that personal bond and rapport, I had to prove it every time I interacted with them.
How did you come up with the title of your book, Selling Without Selling Out? Do you feel like a lot of people feel like they do have to sell out in order to be successful?
They do. The simplest way to consider selling out is when you put your interests ahead of those of your customers. That is an external customer buying something from you or your internal customer. Whether you are working as part of a team or collaborating with people on things when you put yourself first, you start to sell out.
Do you have a story or example of that?
[bctt tweet=”Be a learn it all, not a know it all.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Think about it from a salesperson’s perspective. You go out at the start of the month or at some point when you start a relationship with a potential customer or client. You convince them through your actions that you are there to help them. They think you are there to help them, but then you get to that last week of the month and your boss says, “We need to bring this order in order to hit our month.” Early in my career, I was forced to go out and try to accelerate decisions that buyers were not prepared to make.
You start offering discounts and other inducements, delayed payment terms, or whatever the company does. In the mind of the buyer, suddenly, you went from being somebody that is there to help them to be purely transactional. It does not mean they will not buy from you, but they are under no illusion anymore that you are there to help them.
Once that trust is broken, it is almost impossible to get it back.
It is very difficult to get it back. They will stick with you as long as you are handy and convenient for them, but as soon as something better comes along, somebody they trust more or a product that is roughly equivalent to yours, odds are pretty high that you are going to be gone.
You talk about the difference between being a sales leader versus a sales boss. Can you give us that distinction?
A conversation that I had on my show with Stephen M.R. Covey, a great author who wrote the Speed of Trust. He has got a new book out called Trust and Inspire. It is about leadership modes. As he draws, the contrast is there are two dominant modes of leadership. There is the command and control, which we are all very familiar with because we have all been victims of it and then there is trust and inspire. That sums up the difference.
As a sales boss, it is all about command and control. Conformity and compliance are most important to me. Trust and inspire is, as a sales leader, you are going to sell to your person, “Here is your patch and territory. This could be your list of accounts of geographic territory.” I am going to support you the best way I can, but you decide the best way to get this business done in your territory. How can I help you achieve that? Trust people to continue to develop, expand, grow and learn with your support. The other is, “I know best. Do what I want you to do.”
Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
One of the things both of you and I witnessed and experienced is a top producer is getting promoted into sales leadership without any real training and failing miserably as a leader versus a salesperson because they are different skills. Can you describe what someone should do to prepare to make that transition if they are not getting the training internally?
From my experience, I did a couple of things. I read what I could that was available about managing and leadership. I did not hesitate to ask people for guidance and mentors, internally, people that were more experienced in the role to give me some perspective on what they were doing. I asked the people that I was leading how I was doing.
It is part of your personality and it is not part of most people’s personality, the humbleness to ask for feedback, as opposed to, “I am going to pretend like I have it all together even though I had never done this before.” It is a completely different mindset to approach something with. In order to get feedback from people you are managing and/or your customers, you have to be willing to listen and not think you have all the answers all the time.
This is what I started pointing out in the book in terms of the contrast between a sales boss and a sales leader. One is a know-it-all versus one that is a learn-it-all. That is what you want to be. You want to be a learn-it-all. The humility you talk about is not just being modest and self-effacing, but it is about being intellectually humble. It is acknowledged that you do not know everything.
We put sales leaders, especially people who do not work in big companies that do not know very formal training programs and development programs, which the majority of companies out there put in tough positions. We promote them and then we do not enable them with the tools, the knowledge, and the training to have a better idea about what they are doing.
The thing that is ironic about that is that if you run polls, you look at the polls, surveys and research data, who is the single most influential in the life of an up-and-coming salesperson? It is their immediate manager. The people we should be investing in the most, we do not. According to LinkedIn, we spent roughly about $15 billion a year on sales training in the United States, of which 10% is spent on sales leaders and sales managers.
At least half of it should not be spent on sales managers. If they are the people having the most influence on the development of individual sellers, we cannot invest in them enough. Stop providing that training to sellers because they are going to get the guidance and knowledge they need from watching their sales managers.
[bctt tweet=”We are the sum of all the influences that are out there—our peers, our managers, the things we read, and the other information we absorb.” username=”John_Livesay”]
One of the things you talk about is people who say, “Let’s model what the top producer is doing. Let’s all march to that drum and say exactly what they are saying and try to be a clone.” You are saying, “That is the kiss of death. It is counterproductive.”
It is not like I was the best salesperson in the world, but no one sold like me because it was me. No one sells it like you. People did it better. That is great. I tried to learn from those people, but I had my own unique way of doing it. That has developed because we are the sum total of all the influences that are out there, our peers, our managers, the things we read, and the other information we absorb.
To force everybody into a single niche about how to sell is self-defeating. You have frameworks, you set up and you have expectations, “This is how we conduct business,” but within that framework, as a sales manager, I want to give you the freedom and the flexibility to go experiment and find out things that will work for you based on your unique strengths as a human being.
If you are going on a sales call with a boss and that boss is hyper-critical and expects you to be perfect, you do not have any room for failure trying something on your own, and then you are shutting down someone’s creativity and authenticity.
Selling is one of the most creative professions you can be in. To me, that was the one thing that has kept me in this, that in every situation, your approach is different. The way you present the solution and how you interact with the people will be necessarily different because they are also different if they are buying the same product. It is a fresh problem to solve, not solving the same problem over and over again.
I think of that as a doctor or a dentist. I thought, “How do they not get bored doing the same surgeries and over again?” I realized, much like a salesperson, in every patient and every situation, “We are putting a crown in your mouth,” or “We are removing your appendix.” Whatever it is, the outcome is the same, but there are so many unique things that require you to think, “I have never had to do it quite this way before.”
There are no small things to your customer. To your point, this is not to a patient. There are no small things when it comes to people’s health. As a seller, there are no small things in the buyer’s mind. If you try to serve to glom over those, assuming that they are like everybody else, you damage that relationship and the trust you have built.
Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others
One of the biggest reasons people are buying your book is that you have provided a guide on how to be successful on their own terms without having to fit into this mold of, “You have to be an extrovert. You have to do XYZ. You have to play golf.” All those stereotypical things of what salespeople used to have to do or would do and it is like, “I know what my terms are. This is how I entertain clients or not. This is how I sell. This is how I build rapport that might be different than you.”
It is becoming more essential because we are becoming more diverse in the people we are recruiting into sales. We are not doing enough. We could do more, but they all have different lived experiences. The perspectives people bring are what we need. We need more different perspectives. There is no one way.
You have so many great soundbites. One of my favorites is, “Influence rules, persuasion drools.” The visual on that is great. Tell us what you mean. A lot of people think, “I am going into sales. I am going to persuade you to buy this for this price.”
If you are persuasion-driven, you are putting your own interest ahead of those of the buyers. By definition, that is what you are trying to do. You are trying to persuade somebody to buy your product irrespective of their requirements, their needs and the things they want to achieve because you are in that mode where you are selling hammers and everybody is the nail. Even when you look at the definition of the word persuasion, it talks about prevailing or trying to prevail through force. In the wrong hands, persuasion is meant to be coercive and a little bit manipulative. Unfortunately, a lot of sellers are the wrong hands. That is not how buyers want to deal with the salesperson.
This is a big a-ha moment. I want to take a pause, circle it, underline it and highlight it. I am not in the persuasion business. Nothing against all the wonderful books about how to be persuasive, but let’s reshift this and start reframing how we think of ourselves.
Influence is all about having an effect on the thoughts and actions of others without the apparent use of force. That is what influence is and that is what position we are trying to get into. We are trying to build this connection with a buyer built on some level of trust that when the trust exists, they open up to us. When we bring our curiosity to bear, they will share information with us, perhaps at a deeper level than they would with someone where that trust and connection did not exist. Suddenly, we have more insight into the most important things to them in terms of the challenges they face and the outcomes they are trying to achieve by addressing those challenges.
When we have that understanding, we can work with the buyer to help shape this vision of success of what it will be like to get the value from the product or service you are selling. If you reach that point, that is something you do collaboratively with the buyer. It is not something you impose on them by trying to persuade them about it.
[bctt tweet=”Humility is not just being modest and self-effacing, but it is about being intellectually humble. It is acknowledging that you do not know everything.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I love that your definition of persuasion is, “I know better than you. I am right. You are wrong.” That is selling out. That is what this book is helping people not do. The opposite is the concept of selling which I have never heard of before. Therefore, there are no assumptions that you know more than they do or even vice versa. Think of it in terms of being a copilot with the buyer and this concept of, “Let’s make sure people feel heard and understood first before we jump into what we think they need.” It’s like when you go to a therapist, sometimes there is something called the presenting problem, which is a couple comes in and they say, “Our love life is not where we want it. That is why we are here.”
The therapist will go, “That is the presenting problem. I bet there are some reasons behind that.” As salespeople, we need to start thinking of ourselves as, “Whatever they tell you upfront, this is why we are changing, looking, upgrading or whatever the reason is for doing a proposal in the first place.” There might be other reasons they are unwilling to share yet, or maybe they do not even know yet. If you can help them discover that, then your trust factor has zoomed up.
Sometimes sellers are a little taken aback when I say this. I said, “You cannot take anything at face value that the buyer tells you.” They are not lying to you. They are not, not telling you the truth, but there is always more to it. If you accept what they tell you, you will hop down one path that is not the path the buyer wants to go down.
Building this level of trust so that they open up to you, as I write about in the book, then they give you permission to stick your nose into their business. What you are trying to get to is deeper level information that they do not readily share with everybody. I was in a conversation with someone on another podcast and they are talking about, “If you ask buyers scripted questions, you get scripted answers.”
If you are a robot, then they are going to give you robot answers.
You have trained them, not you, but sellers in general. Be the difference. This is the thing that I stress in the book. In the majority of instances, buyers oftentimes decide to buy from a seller despite the seller, not because of them.
If we flip that around and make it not in spite of but because we have a new tool in our box.
Sell Without Selling Out: In the majority of instances, buyers oftentimes decide to buy from a seller despite the seller, not because of them. In the majority of instances, buyers oftentimes decide to buy from a seller despite the seller, not because of them.
That is what you are trying to achieve. You become the reason they buy from your company. You, the individual. From supporting data from Gartner, Challenger and Forrester, we know that when customers make their decision, the majority of the criteria or factors in their minds are the experience with the salesperson.
That is everything from a home or the broker you pick to, if you are in Corporate America, deciding what vendor to make your equipment purchase from. People are buying your energy, your passion and your empathy.
How they experience you. Your understanding.
If people want to reach out to you and figure out how to get more coaching, more information and get on your email list, where should they go?
They can email me if they want to at [email protected]. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. Direct message me there. I would love to connect with people that are reading this.
Do you also have programs that you offer on your website?
If you go to AndyPaul.com and learn about the programs that I offer. You can download a free chapter of the book if you wish. We have an assessment that you can take there if you assume that selling out and selling in are polar opposite ends of a spectrum. You can start to determine where in that spectrum you sit. Are you leaning more towards selling out or selling in? It is not super scientific, but it is a fun quiz. Come buy the book on Amazon or wherever you purchase books.
[bctt tweet=”You cannot take anything at face value that the buyer tells you. They are not lying to you. They are not telling you the truth, but there is always more to it.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Thank you so much for sharing your insight. We are going to all become people who learn-it-all not a know-it-all. Any last thought or a quote you want to leave us with?
One of my favorite quotes is right at the beginning of the book from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Insist on yourself. Never imitate.”
Most people think they have to become a clone in order to be successful. That is not the case at all. Thank you so much for getting us this new awareness and this new ability so that we can be ourselves and be successful at the same time. Who does not want that? Let’s go get the book, everybody. Thanks, Andy.
Thanks, John.
Important Links
- Andy Paul
- Sell Without Selling Out
- Sales Enablement with Andy Paul
- Stephen M.R. Covey – Sales Enablement with Andy Paul Episode
- Speed of Trust
- Trust and Inspire
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn – Andy Paul
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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CEO Secrets: The Strategies And Tips Of Being A CEO With Christy Budnick
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Being a CEO of a company requires great responsibility. It demands excellent leadership skills and strategies to help the company grow. In this episode, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Christy Budnick, shares her secrets about being a CEO. She provides insights about her strategy in leading her agents and staying aligned with the company’s growth. Tune in to this episode as Christy shows how culture, diversity, and inclusion play a role in leading her company towards success.
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Listen to the podcast here
CEO Secrets: The Strategies And Tips Of Being A CEO With Christy Budnick
Our guest is Christy Budnick, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. We talk about how they are not only a forever agent and a forever brand, but for everyone and how important it is to paint a picture when describing something to someone. She believes that nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes is the best way to connect. Find out what her biggest surprise was becoming the CEO. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Christy Budnick, who serves as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, a global residential real estate brokerage franchise network. In her role, Christy oversees the global real estate brokerage franchise network, which is made up of more than 50,000 real estate professionals and nearly 1,500 offices throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, India, and The Bahamas.
The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings us to the real estate market, a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability, and longevity. Christy is listed among the Swanepoel Power 200, which ranks 1 of the 200 most powerful and influential executives and leaders in the residential real estate brokerage industry. I’ve had the privilege and honor of speaking at two of her events.
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Christy, it is an honor. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and joining me on the show.
Thank you, John. It is so good to see you again, and I appreciate you inviting me.
It’s great. We’re going to have a lot of fun. I touched on the surface of your incredible background, but I would love you to take us back to your own story of origin of when you got interested in real estate and how that all happened.
First of all, I love your phrases “your story of origin.” It paints a picture in my head. Our family was a Navy family, and we lived overseas, among many other places. For the first 10 years of my life, we lived in 17 different places. When we moved back from Japan in 1979, my mother decided to divorce my father at that time. At the same time, she earned her real estate license. It was something she’d wanted to do, but because we moved around so much, she hadn’t been able to do it up until that point. As a single mother of two young girls, my career was born out of necessity.
She needed help with marketing, walking flyers around the neighborhood, the open houses, measuring houses, and all of the things that you do as a real estate agent. At the age of 11, I began my career in real estate. I have told the story a few times. I did not intend to stay in real estate. As a matter of fact, in 1988, my mother opened our family’s company, which was Prudential Network Realty at that time. That was the same year that I went to college.
I had decided that I was retired from real estate at that point, and I was going to do anything except real estate. It’s funny that it has a way of getting in your blood and staying there because, post-graduation, I did do some other things. What I found was every time I’d get together with my mom, which was real frequently, we were talking about real estate, like how things were going in the market, challenges she was having, successes, etc. I was getting drawn in more and more every time. I joined the company many years ago and have never looked back since. I love it almost every single day.
There’s a term when you’re a daughter of a real estate agent. What’s that term called? Isn’t it an acronym?
Being A CEO: The top agents look toward the future, and they plan for the future.
I’m trying to think of what it is.
It is DOR or DAM or something.
Something like that. We never use that, but I’ve heard others use it.
It’s more common than people realize.
It is interesting to see. As a matter of fact, when I would bring on new agents to our company, I’d always ask the question, “What made you decide to get into real estate?” If we brought on 10 to 15 people, both experienced and inexperienced, to the company each month, we found about 1/3 or more had family ties to real estate, like mother, father, grandparent, or something very close.
What that does for you when you’re evaluating if someone’s going to be a good fit for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is they know what they’re getting into. Firsthand, this is not like, “I might want to try this,” but, “I’ve lived with it, and I know what I’m getting into.” I love it because what I have seen with the friends that I have that are successful is, for them, it’s like a childhood birthday. They love seeing open houses, even if it’s not their listing. That passion is you’re in the right job.
The one thing I’ll say about real estate compared to my prior career is every day is completely different for every client and their needs, desires, and emotions. That, to me, is what I love. The other part of it is it doesn’t ever shut down. You’re running. I love the challenge, it’s fast-paced, and every day is so different. I never think to myself, “I wish I could shut this off because I love what I do.”
Take us to the moment in your career where you’re running this successful business and managing some people in the Florida region, and then you’ll get the phone call or the tap on the shoulder, “We’d like to promote you to be the CEO.” What did that feel like? What do you think made them pick you?
I was running our family’s company. I was President and CEO, and it’s a fairly sizable company. I will tell you, becoming the CEO of the franchise was never on my radar. I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing. I loved being a part of the franchise. I believe in the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices name and all that we stand for.
That day, I got the call from Gino Blefari, our chairman. He said, “Do you have a moment?” It was a Saturday morning. I said, “Sure.” It wasn’t that uncommon for him to call me on a Saturday morning, so that part didn’t surprise me. He said, “I’d like to talk with you about something confidential. We’re going to have an opening in the CEO role. I’d like you to consider putting your name in the hat.” My daughter was sitting right next to me. She didn’t know what was going on, but she could see me. She was looking at me, and she said, “Are you okay?”
[bctt tweet=”Raise your level of professionalism by going the extra mile. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
You could have blown me over. I truly wasn’t expecting it. The emotions I was feeling were I was proud that Gino would even consider me for the role because we have some talented people that make up the franchise network. It would be very easy to select several people from the network. Pride was the 1st thing and then the 2nd thing was, what in the world does the CEO of a network do? It was funny. That was the question I asked. I said, “I’m thrilled that you’ve made this call and I’m very honored, but I have to ask you, what does the position entail?”
His response, I will never forget this, “It’s pretty much everything that you do now except you’re over 500 agents, mortgage company, a title company, insurance company, relocation, builder, etc. Now, you’ll be over 50,000 agents globally.” I thought I’d never been one to back down from a challenge, so I said, “Let me talk with my family and I’ll get back to you.” I did, and I called him back the next day. I said, “I want to throw my name in.” He said, “You’re my first choice. I would love to have you take the position.” It was a complete whirlwind. I was static.
From 500 people to 50,000 is almost like you’re looking at a home. You’re like, “Add a bunch of zeros.”
I’ve been a part of the network for so long. The other franchise network members and all of the CEOs that make up, particularly the top companies, are like family to me. I’ve grown up with them. That part was special because they wanted to see me succeed and they took great pride that one of their own had taken the helm. It was the right move at the right time. I’m so grateful to Gino.
When I was your sales keynote speaker, I saw you meeting some of your team for the first time after the pandemic in person. One of the things that stood out to me consistently at both events was you’ve been in our shoes and understand our challenges, so respect is there. You then did something you and I are so in sync on, which is everyone has to figure out how they’re not going to drown and what I call a sea of sameness. You have a clever, unique way to do that. That reef solves a bit of a problem of drowning in a sea of sameness, but you do it in a way that elevates your team that other people aren’t doing. Would you share that strategy with us in terms of perception and becoming not a transaction but a forever agent?
At my former company, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Network Realty, we were big on real estate portfolio reviews and serving our clients. We’ve never been a lead generation type of company or anything like that. We’ve always been about relationships. As a part of our service, one of the things that the agents do is a real estate portfolio review. What that consists of is, in the world of real estate, we scratch our heads and wonder why in the world we are looked at in the realm of ambulance chasing attorneys and used car salespeople. Good agents are some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met. They provide an incredible service and deal in people’s largest asset. For us to be considered in that realm bothers me to my core.
Everything I do is to raise the level of professionalism, as my mother would say, in real estate. If we want to be seen as similar roles as financial planners, CPAs, and things like that who provide those financial services, we have to do similar activities. Anybody that works with a CPA or a financial planner sits down with their clients at least once a year and reviews their portfolio and financial situation. They consult with them to see how they’re doing. Are they on target to reach goals? I believe in portfolio reviews for that reason. Basically, the crux of it is an agent reaches out to their client. You do this for about 50 clients a year to start because it does take time and it is a commitment.
You reach out to your client and let them know that one of the services you’re going to be offering for your best clients is a realistic portfolio review. That takes into account the value of not only the home they live in your local area but also any other home they may own, whether it’s abroad outside of the United States or in another state. Because we have such a big network, we’re able to work with agents across the globe and this needs to be a sit-down, face-to-face meeting.
It is not intended for a sales pitch or anything like that. It is truly to review that person’s value of their properties so that the next time they meet with their CPA or their financial planner, they’re able to take them. I strongly suggest that the agent bring two extra copies of the review, one for the CPA and one for the financial planner. That person is then able to update their financial outlook with the true value of their real estate portfolio. Doing things like that is very client-centric and client-oriented. Again, it raises us in the eyes in terms of professionalism.
Two things you said there that stand out for me is you asked your team to start with 50. One a week and take two weeks off. It’s not overwhelming. It is a very bite-size action item workweek. It makes them think, “Who are my top 50 clients?” You’re then providing a level of service without trying to sell something. You’re showing empathy. What you and I love is the storytelling part, which is you then have a story of, “Here’s a story of somebody in Florida who started with 50, went to 100, went even higher of doing this multiple times, and the results are astounding.”
Being A CEO: 100% of top agents do an outstanding job of staying connected to their clients, and there’s something to be said about the human voice and that connection it creates.
It’s off the charts. If you do that alone and focus on your client’s needs, you won’t have to do anything else to succeed in real estate. That is my true belief of how powerful this one thing is.
When you were talking about a client that has a high net worth and owns homes literally around the world, of course, that’s very lucrative as a real estate agent to have that client, they need that VIP service. My favorite definition of luxury is anticipating a need before somebody knows they need it. That’s what this program is.
I love it because if I have multiple homes, the fact that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices has multiple offices around the world is no longer a feature to me but a benefit to me because you’re going to give me multiple reports of what my current home is worth everywhere. I can make a decision with my financial planner about, “Is it time to sell one,” or whatever the issue is.
I’m no longer guessing of the Zillow estimate that is not that accurate, or I’m going to say what I think it’s worth if it’s gone up. I have a finger on the pulse and the consistency that you tell your team to do this. Whether they sell anything or buy anything from you or not, they know what’s going to happen. Those people are going to talk about you. They’re wealthy high net friends, and they’re going to be like, “My agent is not doing that. I don’t even remember the last time I talked to them.”
The CPAs and the financial planners, too, have people that want to buy and sell real estate. I guarantee they don’t see people that provide that service. It doesn’t need to be for high net worth. It’s for any client period that you consider your top clients. Frankly, if you can ultimately extend that to all of your clients, that’s even better.
What a great story of standing out in a sea of sameness when the competitors are not doing that. Do you have a big surprise now that you’ve been the CEO for a few years? Is there a happy surprise to being the CEO you hadn’t expected?
The thing that I’ve enjoyed about it is getting out, spending time with the network, getting to meet the agents, and hearing their stories. Every time I go out and spend time with any company, I love to be able to sit down with a group of agents and say, “What are you doing that’s working? What are you doing that’s not working? Where are your struggles?” The amount of information they share and share with one another, which I love, is so tremendous. That truly has been my favorite thing. Certainly, working with the CEOs as well. I have to say working with the one-on-one with the agents. I absolutely love that.
You’re traveling and you’re opening up offices. I believe Rome was a recent one, correct?
We did. We opened up in Rome and they have three offices there already. We’ve got some additional non-US locations opening up. We’re rocking and rolling and very excited about the future.
The other thing that impressed me was your marketing team. Let’s give a shout-out to them. They came out with this adorable, clever concept called Pawfect. It is a little video of the house and then it’s how many square feet. It seemed small to me and then no bathrooms. I’m like, “What in the world? Tell us what that is. It’s finished executing now and how it’s successful.
[bctt tweet=”Have a plan and execute it daily.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That was so much fun. John and BBDO are the marketing firm we worked with that helped bring that whole idea to life. They are incredible, but our marketing team did execute it beautifully. The inspiration for it was in 2021. When we were first talking about it, COVID was still weighing people down, and it felt like everything was heavy. We said, “We need to do something that’s fun and brings joy.” One of the things that we all realize is during the COVID time, so many people adopted pets.
Dogs, in particular, but there were cats, birds, reptiles, and all different sorts of pets, and home became more important than ever. We thought, “Why not do a sweepstake that is a lot of fun and silly, but it speaks to people’s hearts?” It is because that’s where their hearts are. It’s with their pets. We had an overwhelming response to it and we have already selected the sweepstakes. People have selected three of the winners so far. I believe we still have two more that were vetting the process. I’m really excited. Those folks are over the moon. They are so excited that they were selected.
What you do is if you win, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices will create a replica of your actual house for your dog. That’s why there’s no bathroom in the house.
Not even just for the dog. Let’s say you have an iguana. We didn’t exclude it. It’s for everyone. Back to our forever agent, forever brand, for everyone. It could be a bird cage or for a fish. So far, I believe the winner does have dogs, but you’re exactly right. It’s a replica of their home. It’s pet size and pretty special.
Let’s double-click on that. Before the show started, we had a little pre-chat about you’re not a forever agent and forever brand. You are for everyone, which includes a real culture, brand of diversity, and inclusion for who you want to work with and who you want to talk with. That’s a very important criterion for so many people.
In addition to this amazing program you’ve discussed where you’re giving clients this analysis of all their homes, is there something that successful agents are doing? Maybe it has to do with a mindset or resilience that other people who aren’t in real estate that couldn’t say, “I could take that and use that to make my career more successful.” The people I met winning consistently year-after-year top awards. Is there something you see them doing that would be useful for everybody, whether they’re in real estate or not?
For the top people in the business, one of the things that they do is you typically find top agents working from some sort of a plan. It may not be a formalized business plan, but they know exactly what they’re going to do the next day before they go to bed the day before. They’ve got it planned out. Most of them will work from an office at some point because you do get energy and inspiration from others. There are also so many learning opportunities and even referrals that come out of being in the office. The top agents I’ve worked with over the years, the biggest thing I would say they do is look toward and plan for the future. That’s important. A lot of people get into this business.
One of the things that can be very difficult is you’re an independent contractor. There isn’t a set plan that you have to work from. As a matter of fact, the broker is not allowed to tell you that you must do this, clock in at this time, or anything that. For somebody who has been an employee and is used to a very rigid schedule, that can be a real difficult change.
Make sure you’re not shooting from the hip, working from a plan, and having a morning routine so that you’re hitting the ground with the right mindset every single day. Going back and evaluating yourself, how did you do on your day? What went well? What didn’t go well? What do you need to do differently next time? Those are some of the things that I see top agents doing very regularly.
It’s the old make your plan and work your plan. That’s as smart as driving all over the place if you’re going to start somewhere. Make sure that you’re driving, especially with the price of gas. When you think of professional athletes who practice or actors who rehearse before they get on set or on stage, yet a lot of us feel we don’t have to practice or rehearse what we’re going to say, what our stories are going to be, or what we’re going to share. I’ll just make it up. As you said, from the hip or wing it in the moment, yet nobody does that getting ready for the Olympics.
Being A CEO: There’s no such thing as a shortcut to doing the hard work to get the results.
Here we are dealing with people’s largest asset in most cases and people that wing it makes me wacko, actually.
One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur Ashe, the famous tennis pro. That is, “The key to confidence is preparation.” It seems to me that’s right on target with your philosophy here.
The other thing that I would say that top agents do is they do a good job of staying connected to their clients. Whether it’s through lunches, coffees, networking events, charitable activities, or whatever it is, they stay very connected, face-to-face, nose-to-nose, toes-to-toes with your clients. They’re not afraid of picking up the phone too. It seems that’s somewhat of a lost art. People are trying to use texting as a replacement. There’s something to be said about the human voice and the connection that it creates. Those are some simple things, but they’re very important.
I tell people your voice is a musical instrument. The volume, the pauses you take, and the intonation create an emotional feeling because we know everyone makes their decisions on what broker to use and what house to pick. Emotionally, they back it up with logic. If you’re the one that has those tones, as you said, nose-to-nose, toes-to-toes interactions and that emotional connection are there, that’s what’s going to separate you.
You touched on something that I know is near and dear to your heart, and it certainly is to mine, which is a charitable part. Let’s describe what Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is doing around charity that makes people feel like, “That’s something I want to make some of my choice and support.” What is one charity that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is focusing on?
The Sunshine Kids is the charity that the network as a whole focuses on and that charity helps families who have children that are battling cancer. To listen to these children tell their stories and then the parents as well tugs at your heart and you want to do anything you can to help them. We give them all sorts of different experiences, whether it’s trips or help in terms of financial help. Many of our brokerages participate very heavily in that.
We have a number of different things, too, besides making donations. When we did the Pawfect campaign, we also had a day where you could take your dogs for a walk and make a donation to the Sunshine Kids, where you got a little bandana for the dog, a water bowl, and that sort of thing. It’s a great way to make it fun and make a difference, as well as closing gifts and things like that. The thing that tugs on my heart strings is to hear those children tell their stories and the strength they have at such a young age. What they’ve been through is chilling, but it makes a big difference in their lives and their families.
It also gives us a perspective of we’re having a tough daw, somebody went with a different agent, or whatever, and you’re like, “In the scheme of things, I don’t have any problems. I need to focus on what I do have and be grateful for that.” This thing you said about tugging at the heartstrings is what stories do. When we have the ability to share a story of a child or the client that we’ve helped, or we talk on those heartstrings, people open the purse strings because it’s an emotional connection that that’s where you want to put your investments, time, and money with someone.
You made me think of a story. In 2022, we have the Sunshine Kids front and center as we do every year. Our entertainment was Lenny Kravitz, who I am crazy over. One of the things that we did is we had the kids perform some of his songs because it so happened that the kids that are the spokespeople in 2022 are very musically and theatrically talented. The night of Lenny’s performance, the kids got to be right upfront at the base of the stage. and they were so excited. After the event, Lenny invited a couple of us, the Sunshine Kids, and their parents backstage for a meet and greet. To watch him talk to the children, listen to them, and draw stories out of them was so special.
It’s something I’ll never forget. One thing that was neat was one of the young ladies named Maya, when we were about to wrap up, Lenny was asking, “What do you all have going on coming up here soon?” She was going to star in an off-Broadway production, and she didn’t tell him that. Lenny’s daughter is an actress, so I knew that this was something that he’d be very interested in. I said, “Maya, you’ve got to tell Lenny about your off-Broadway performance that’s coming up.”
[bctt tweet=”So the top people in the business typically find top agents working from a plan that knows what they will do the next day.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Here it was, it was going to be at the end of May 2022 and Lenny was like, “What? You’re staring in an off-Broadway production. That is so cool.” She was like, “I’m so excited. I don’t even know Legally Blonde.” He said, “When is it?” She said, “it’s at the end of May. I don’t remember the dates offhand.” He said, “Isn’t it in New York City?” She said, “Yeah.” He goes, “I’m going to be in New York at the end of May. If it works out, I would love to come and see it.” Here’s the superstar who immediately made this connection with these kids. It was so special.
That’s why you’re such a great CEO. You connect the dots for people. Without you having heard and shared that story, that would never have happened. He then gave the gift of being completely and fully present with each and every child and you as well. That is a gift that we can all eat. We don’t have to be a superstar to give the gift of being completely present with people. You also do that.
I saw when someone’s speaking to you, or you’re meeting somebody for the first time, you are 100% present with them. That is a gift that makes them want to have their picture taken with you and makes you memorable. That is how we all stand out from the sea of sameness. Christy, what a joy it’s been to catch up with you again and hear all your words of wisdom. Is there any last thought or a quote that you’d want to leave us with?
One of my favorite quotes is from a former business partner and a dear friend of mine. He’s been a very successful career person. He’s always given me sage advice over the years. His name is Tom Petway. The thing that always resonates with me, whether it’s personally or professionally, he would tell me from a young age, “There’s no such thing as a shortcut. You have to do the hard work in order to get the results.” That is in business as well as personally. Anytime I’m thinking about, “I could do this, and we’ll get this result. What does Tom say?”
It’s sage advice for all of us. Christy, if somebody wants to follow you on social media or find out more about Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, where should they go?
I’m on Facebook and Instagram. Of course, BerkshireHathawayHomeServices.com or BHHS.com is our web address.
Christy, thanks again. It’s been a pleasure to catch up. I am so excited to watch you as you continue to make a difference and help the company grow.
Thank you so much, John. It is such a joy talking with you. I appreciate you.
I sure appreciate you as well.
Take care.
Important Links
- Berkshire Hathaway Home Services
- Holding The Calm
- Pawfect
- Sunshine Kids
- Facebook – Christy Budnick
- Instagram – Christy Budnick
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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How Diverse Voices Are Changing The Narrative With Blair Bryant Nichols
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
For years, the dominant voices in the business world were white, male, and straight. But that is no longer the case. Diverse voices are starting to change the narrative. Increasingly, businesses are recognizing the value of diversity in all forms and actively seeking out diverse voices to help them tell their story. When companies embrace diversity, they send a powerful message that everyone is welcome and that all voices matter. We talk about all this with Blair Bryant Nichols, owner of BBN Creative Management. Blair is an expert on developing speakers for corporate events, conferences, and other thought leadership opportunities, including internal and external communications. Join in as he talks about unconscious bias, diversity, and how the right mission and purpose drive success.
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Listen to the podcast here
How Diverse Voices Are Changing The Narrative With Blair Bryant Nichols
Our guest is Blair Bryant Nichols who manages speakers, authors, and other people who are all about diversity. He is a champion for getting diverse voices heard. We also talk about unconscious bias and how, when you have a mission, that’s what drives success. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Blair Bryant Nichols. After beginning his career representing hundreds of authors from top six publishers, he moved into the management of founders, entrepreneurs, executives, authors, and celebrities with various work streams, projects, and personal interests acting as a chief-of-staff, manager, or agent. He has deep expertise in developing speakers for corporate events, conferences, and other thought leadership opportunities, including internal and external communications.
As a manager, coach, and consultant, he helps diverse individuals and/or socially-driven companies foster new strategies for operations, communications, business development, and partnerships across all appropriate areas to further develop and enhance their bottom line and brand. Blair is the author of Before You Fall In Love, a series of personal essays on Medium.
He is a former Co-Host of Inside The Greenroom podcast, which is a behind-the-scenes look at the ever-changing landscape of live events and the speaking business. He got his MBA from UCLA Anderson with a specialization in Entertainment Management. He is my particular speaker manager, I’m happy to say. Welcome to the show, Blair.
Thank you, John. I’m constantly reminded I need to shorten my bio but thank you for sharing.
It’s quite a list of accomplishments. I always like to ask my guests to take us to their own story of origin because we love storytelling here on the show. You can go back to childhood, high school, college, or wherever you first felt like, “I like communications. I like connecting with people.” A show you were on in high school that you were like, “I’m going to be in the entertainment business in some way, shape, or form.”
I was a Literature major as an undergrad because I loved books. I thought I wanted to work in government. I realized that law and government didn’t excite me as much. With Literature, I felt like I could explore something that I was passionate about, all while having no idea even that the publishing world existed. Even though I was reading my entire life, I never thought about the business behind it. I set my sights on that and landed at the HarperCollins Speakers Bureau.
My journey, as I’ve started to reflect on it more and more in my career, certainly began much earlier. I went to a Catholic high school in South Carolina. The day before I graduated high school, we were at the church that we were using for our baccalaureate mass, the traditional mass the day before our graduation. It was going to be the time when they were announcing all of the honors for the senior graduating class. There were only 33 of us. It was a pretty small newish school in the area so it was a pretty intimate setting.
The big awards of the night were salutatorian and valedictorian and officially announced those to the community there. I grew up gay. I was in the theater. I was a nerd. I was not an athlete. For me, the imagination, the culmination of my adolescence was going to be this graduation, and being the valedictorian and giving that speech felt like my Oscar moment. You’re giving that speech. You fantasize about finally feeling some validation and reward for a lifetime of anxiety and sometimes bullying. Especially in a Catholic school, questions about your identity, and everything else that’s going on.
[bctt tweet=”The right mission and purpose drive success. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
I like the combination thereof valedictorian and feeling validated. That’s a clever play on words there.
Maybe there’s a connection there. As they got closer to announcing these top two positions, they got ready and they announced, “Salutatorian Blair Bryant Nichols.” I was a salutatorian and everyone clapped. It was a nice moment and then they announced who would be valedictorian and my entire class stood up. I can’t tell you what it felt like at that moment to feel ultimately defeated. It wasn’t just that this classmate had beat me in my GPA, had outperformed me on tests, and we went head-to-head.
What had happened a few months earlier as we were gearing up for the end of the year and there were about four of us with very similar GPAs all taking multiple APs and finishing up with finals. They said that they needed a little bit more time to determine who ultimately would be the valedictorian. What was going on behind the scenes in my conservative Catholic high school was that my headmaster went to the drama teacher, someone I was very close with, and asked if I was going to come out during my graduation speech because that was the rumor.
I wasn’t publicly out. I had told a couple of my friends. I was out to my family who was supportive. My mom was a teacher at the school. She had heard what was going on behind the scenes. Ultimately, what they decided to do was not reward it to the person who had slightly the highest GPA. They decided to let the faculty vote. Now, imagine being my mother and watching her son who should have been rewarded with this top honor, see her peers, colleagues, and boss decide to hold an arbitrary vote. They selected the person who is much more aligned with their faith, who had demonstrably done more in the church, is more involved, and in their eyes, is a better example.
The funny thing is they still let me give a speech. I’m not sure why this was big prevention, but it prevented me from receiving something that I felt like I had earned. As privileged as my life has been and was to that point, it gave me that first taste of discrimination that didn’t sit well. It planted a seed in me that made me want to rebel against society, organizations, and systems that held people back for racist, bigoted reasons and be a champion for diverse voices.
I landed in this industry because I love publishing. It was a great opportunity to get into this world. It took me from HarperCollins to Hachette, Simon & Schuster, GTN, and bigger agencies. It took me from New York to LA and where I still live. Ultimately, it took me to where I’m at now, starting my own business that’s devoted to diverse voices and championing people who are not White straight men.
There are a lot of speakers that I first worked with in this industry that fit that description. In fact, most of the highest-paid speakers ever heard of in that description aren’t celebrities. They’re former CEOs and presidents. They’re the people who you would expect to be receiving these types of paychecks. The people who were getting booked for diversity talks were always the low man on the totem pole. We’re always getting the least amount of fees and we’re considered not as important or valuable as these other speakers.
I’ve come to see and research shows, again and again, the value of diversity, innovation, creativity, and all these different things. I don’t offer speakers of the world who just speak about diversity. You’re not an expert in diversity. You’re an expert in storytelling and sales. You’re a master at it. You just happen to be diverse. That’s what the marketplace wants. They want new perspectives. They want people that represent all sides of the industry, all silos, or whatever it may be, but they want them to also represent different parts of their population of their employees.
Diverse Voices: Nobody wants to be the recipient of stereotypes or prejudices, and yet we all are programmed with it.
Hopefully, by working with people that don’t always look exactly like them, they’re getting what they’re investing in, new perspectives, and ideas. They’re getting something more from that talk, workshop, or whatever it may be because if they just brought in someone that looked and thought like them that reinforced what they already knew, there’s not going to be a lot of change. I’m sure you’ve experienced that in organizations and seen when it goes well and when it doesn’t go as well.
You’re 100% correct because the assumption that everyone is a White, straight male just because you happen to be White and male is consistently surprising to me. You always have a choice on how you come out and let someone know you’re gay. It could be, “My husband and I,” or, “My ex-husband,” in my case, whatever you say that lets people know without having to say I am gay.
It lets people know that the assumption of this is not accurate. Everyone I know who has gone through that process of coming out has faced some level of pushback. “We’re not so comfortable with you.” Especially the hiring process often is, “I want to be able to go have a beer with this person,” and stereotypes that go around that if someone’s gay, they’re not into sports, this, or that.
They can’t possibly relate to my life. There’s way more that we have in common than we have not. If you’re not able to find the connection points with people because of your sexuality, then that’s on you. The perception is a lot of people are like, “I don’t even want to try. I don’t want to take the risk of having it be awkward for me.” You don’t make anybody feel awkward, but they need to understand. What you said is that the different perspectives of diversity, whether it’s gay, a different race, gender, or whatever the issue is, diverse ideas create diverse concepts and creativity.
If you keep listening to your own bubble to get your news, then you never have other perspectives. That’s not where any growth comes from. Your management company is BBN Creative Management. You only manage people who are diverse in some way. I thought that was a fascinating niche. I love the story of where you got your own sense of, “This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. I can’t be the only person experiencing this so I’m going to figure that out.”
Just because someone is diverse, again, the stereotype was, “That must be your topic.” There are so many assumptions that everybody makes about things that they don’t know about. Ironically, it’s the same problem in business that I see a lot. They go, “This is a big company, therefore,” and then they put all the stereotypes about them, “They’re not flexible. They’re not nimble. They treat people like numbers.” That’s not the case in every big company. Nobody wants to be the recipient of stereotypes or prejudices, yet we all are programmed with it. Can you speak a little bit about what people can do besides bringing in people, whether it’s a speaker or employees to make people feel welcome?
I want to comment on some of the things that you said because that idea of having someone that’s like us, that fits our culture, and is going to be a good cultural fit, you hear that a lot. That’s code language for, “They’re like us. They look like us. They think like us. They’re going to fit in. They’re not going to rub anyone the wrong way.”
You want people with diverse ideas. You want people that differ in size, age, and everything. The most successful teams are ones that are diverse and it’s a flat egalitarian-type model rather than hierarchical. You want people that can work together from all different perspectives, but not with one person, the appointed leader in some structure that makes anyone feel less than. That’s just a little bit about teams.
[bctt tweet=”Diversity creates innovation.” username=”John_Livesay”]
One of the things that I love most about working in this industry with people like yourself and getting to meet so many amazing, smart people in their areas of focus is now I’m working with a woman named Vivienne Ming who’s a transwoman married to another woman. It is pretty diverse. She has talked about the neuroscience of trust. She’s been one of those speakers talking about diversity for many years.
Businesses keep inviting her back to make the case for diversity and the case has been made. There’s data and research in reams to support what I mentioned around creativity, innovation, engagement, and pay equity. All of those things that especially my generation and others care so much about now in our workplace. She got interested in why it is so difficult for people to put these changes in place.
Pragmatically, they know what the benefits of diversity are, yet a lot of these trends continue. A lot of these things happened in corporations or small companies or whatever the case may be. She did further research and found that it’s back to our biology. You and I have a sense that we’re similar. We have similar backgrounds. We both grew up in a similar part of the country. We’re White, we’re gay, we’re male, but it’s even down to if your intestinal flora is the same as someone because you live in the same thing. You have a similar diet. It comes down to so many factors that are completely innate that it makes meeting someone else risky.
It’s a risk. It’s effortful. When you go out, you meet someone, and you click, that’s how we all judge whether or not they’re a good match. We’re like, “We’re going to get along well. I didn’t vibe with that person if you’re in LA because that’s your first impression. Oftentimes, that’s the person that’s going to help you grow and change the most, expose you to new perspectives, and make you uncomfortable.
It’s the same thing in hiring, but you’ve resisted that. It seems like, “This is going to be unproductive. This is not going to make things efficient. This is going to make things harder and it’s true. It will. It is effortful to integrate someone different, but the results speak for themselves. This resistance to it is not something that comes down to policy and practice. It comes back to even our own biology.
To answer your question finally, “What can people do?” you have to make that effort. You have to understand and know that psychology, the neuroscience are going to tell you to resist. Think that this person isn’t the right one, but maybe you need to dig a little deeper. Check your own assumptions and biases. Understand, if maybe this is going to be the value add that you need because there’s going to be some friction. There’s going to be something different.
That’s fascinating to think about, “We can take it from a business angle. I can talk to you all day long about the bottom line impact,” but it hasn’t made a bunch of changes. We have to be aware of what’s going on in our minds and our bodies to then be able to overcome that and create the change which will create the organizations that you and I would love to see.
You touched on so many great things there. Let’s unpack that a little bit for the listeners. The first step is the awareness that we all have some bias. The concept is during hiring, in particular, it’s an unconscious bias. I have a little story about that shocker. When I started working at Condé Nast, I worked for a woman publisher who was a brunette.
Diverse Voices: Speaking is not a vocation. It’s an advocation.
I didn’t notice it until after I’d been there a few months that all the women in the New York office that reported to her were also brunettes. I’m like, “That’s interesting.” It wasn’t until she left and then they hired another woman to be the Publisher of W Magazine and she was blonde. Little by little, everyone that was replaced or left was also blonde.
I was the only one that had been there consistently to notice that and I was like, “This is fascinating. Your unconscious bias, even on hair color, let alone anything else, sexuality or race, is influencing who you hire.” Once we realize that it is unconscious, we have to fight because that’s staying in our comfort zone. I like to work with people who in some way look like me literally, in the hair color case. They may be not even aware of it. If I want to have some diverse opinions and override that, I might have to get out of my comfort zone.
As we know in business, if you stay in your comfort zone, that’s the beginning of the end of your business. You’ve got to constantly be stretching, learning, and trying new things. Certainly, this is one area that a lot of people are not instantly thinking of. “This is a way to bring in a new idea from someone who has a completely different perspective than I may have, but certainly some of our employees have it. We want to make this a friendly place for everyone so let’s mix it up a little bit.” That awareness is so valuable.
Let’s talk about some of the other people you represent because there’s a wide variety. I tell people about Bethany Hamilton who is famous for losing her left arm to a shark. People have seen the movie and the book. They say that it is a fascinating level of awareness that someone like that has. You’re not quite as well-known as Oprah, but she has an evergreen message that could have gone the opposite way.
She’s this beautiful woman. She doesn’t have her arm. A lot of people would say, “I’m just going to be a hermit.” She did the opposite. I would imagine that we all have flaws, whether they’re visible or not, disabilities, whatever you want to call that, something that we’re embarrassed about, or that’s not the norm. Someone like Bethany is showing us, “Why don’t I make the most of this?” It makes you grateful you have all your limbs. That is a starting place. I speak to what people love about her.
She’s so unique because a lot of times when you have someone like her who’s an athlete, often they’re well known. They have won the Superbowl or been very popular. I wouldn’t say surfing is the most popular sport by a stretch in the US or anywhere around the world. Her story of perseverance is so unique, at thirteen years old, getting back in the water, and wanting to continue to do the thing that she loved. This traumatic experience could have easily set her back for the rest of her life, and maybe would have heard the story of her survival and that would have been it.
It would have been a news story, but what’s so interesting is that her story has permeated society so much that almost every elementary school includes her story in one of their books by 3rd or 4th grade. My niece in Indiana brought home a book and my sisters called me, “You’re not going to believe this, but Megan is reading a book about Bethany Hamilton right now. I told her that you work with her and she was so impressed.”
I get so many requests from people from big companies and organizations. The reason they’re interested in her is that the kids love her. Whether they’ve talked about it or watched the movie. She’s got her documentary, Unstoppable, on Netflix, too. That’s something so unique. You don’t hear about that often with speakers. That’s not a groundswell coming from the children of the potential meeting planners and organizers. She has that personality, message, and that lightness about her. She’s apolitical. She doesn’t want to choose sides. She is all about health and living a wonderful unstoppable life. She’s been successful for so long at this because she’s not the best speaker.
[bctt tweet=”The most successful teams are very diverse, a very flat egalitarian type model rather than hierarchical.” username=”John_Livesay”]
She’s not in it to be out there like Tony Robbins. She just enjoys sharing her story, helping others, and inspiring, especially young people. That’s something interesting to me. I haven’t worked with a lot of speakers where I felt like so much of what’s continued to carry their story and their everything forward has come from such a young audience. I’ve started to think about how to diversify some of my client’s offerings with children’s books or YA books and start to plant those seeds early because I’ve seen what effect it has on someone like her even her speaking to big companies.
My book, The Sale is in the Tale, is a business fable about someone who’s 30-something. When I was speaking to a client, the guy said, “I saw my son in your story.” That was never my intention, but it made me happy that when you have a story that’s so strong, people younger and older than whatever that person is going through at that moment can relate to it. Speaking of story, let’s talk about Michael Anthony, AKA Michael Unbroken. I am like, “ I’m the Pitch Whisperer. He’s Michael Unbroken.” I loved that. He is all about being the hero of his own story. Tell us a little bit about what Michael Unbroken is doing.
It’s another great case study of how this crazy-speaking world can work. He was at a speaking competition. He won a pitch contest. Someone was there that I used to work with and unrelated. His team reached out to me to be on the podcast that I was previously recording. One of my other clients was at that competition. We started talking. We had a great conversation on the podcast.
He ended up becoming a client and working together more fully. He just has an incredible story about the trauma he endured as a child, how he escaped and rebuilt his life from addiction being massively obese and on his own after, horrific things happen to him. He has made it his mission to end childhood abuse and trauma in the future.
A lot of speakers, especially ones that I align with, have a massive purpose and vision. One of my old bosses used to say, “Speaking’s not a vocation. It’s an advocation.” It’s best when it’s not just there for people who want to sell, who want to make money, who figured out they’ve got a thing that they can offer. There are budgets and we’re just going to keep pitching.
It’s people who are driven about getting out there and sharing a message who have a deeper purpose. It doesn’t matter if they’re speaking to corporate audiences. At the end of the day, they are driven by something higher and bigger and that is him. He’s been driving up the charts on his own podcast and self-publishing books, getting the word out, and completely hustling his way into very influential places with influential people. Hopefully, you’ll be hearing a lot more about him in the future because he hasn’t quite broken through to the general masses, but that’s where he’s headed.
You said something I want to double-click on for everyone reading, which is the importance of having a mission bigger than making money. It’s something that we’ve heard before, but a lot of us forget, we don’t think it’s important, or a company might have it written somewhere on a wall, but nobody visits it and lives it every day.
I know from my own journey when I came up with the mission of helping as many people as possible get off the self-esteem rollercoaster, where you only feel good if things are going well or your numbers are up and bad if they’re not, I, myself, was on that roller coaster many times, up and down. We don’t celebrate the good. You’re already back to worrying about, “How am I going to hit my next goal? What if something bad happens to me if I’m not making my quota, getting laid off, or whatever else?”
Diverse Voices: Generosity leads to intimacy, which leads to candor, which leads to accountability.
I got from a client that you are on this rote which is exhausting. If I can show people through the stories they’re telling themselves in their head, how to step out of that so that any one event doesn’t devastate or elevate your self-esteem. That it stays fairly consistent regardless of outcomes so you’re not seeking. That is a huge takeaway for a lot of people.
They usually engage me to help them win more sales, but then when the message and the mission are coming out, that’s one of the biggest things that people say to me. It becomes awareness that I’m on it. I didn’t ever label it before and you’ve shown me a way to get off of it. That’s when you feel you’re making an impact. That’s what all of us want to do in whatever job we’re doing.
When you think of having that mission and purpose, when you’re sharing that, whether it’s in a sales context or in meeting someone, it gives them more of an emotional connection to you as a person. Even if you tell a great story and make it emotional, if they also know what you’re now, what your purpose is and everything, it sticks with them. I get so many people who find me because they’re excited about my mission or they liked the copy on my website. If you put it out there, people are going to remember you.
People are going to find you. They are going to refer people to you because they’re going to remember, “You need to go talk to Blair. He’s similar. You guys have similar ideas. You guys would align.” The magic is when you’re not just making a nice connection, closing the sale, and keeping it warm and friendly. They’re actively referring people to you. John, how did you turn people into evangelists for you? You’ve done such an amazing job with sales. That has to come through some referrals and word of mouth as well.
The number one thing I do is figure out what the expectations are and challenge myself every time to what can I do to exceed those expectations and go above and beyond. That’s what people remember. “We got some nice feedback or what have you.” I remember giving a talk and the client came up to me. He said, “We never have the same speaker back next year. Do you have any recommendations?”
I said yes and I gave the recommendation. I looped it back to the speaking bureau that had booked me for the job. I said, “I know they also happened to represent the speaker.” That bureau raved about me because I was going above and beyond by giving a great talk and making the client happy but I was pre-setting up for the next one a year out without him having to start from scratch all over again. That’s one thing I do.
It’s challenging ourselves, “What can we do to be irresistible to someone that they remember us and want to do something that makes it special?” I love making introductions. We met through our mutual friend, Sterling Hawkins. If you want to build relationships with people, do that. Think about somebody else and help them. That builds so much goodwill that it energetically comes back to you.
I agree with that. I love making connections. I’m not a matchmaker. I wouldn’t even know where to begin on that. Professionally, I’m the guy who knows a guy, generally, or in most cases, a gal who can help you out. Generosity is exactly the key. I worked for Keith Ferrazzi for three years as his Chief of Staff and his book, Never Eat Alone, is pretty much a guidebook to building relationships.
[bctt tweet=”You want people that can work together from all different perspectives, not with one person, the appointed leader, and some structure that makes anyone feel less than that’s just a little about teams.” username=”John_Livesay”]
There were four points in a circle that is the general framework. Generosity leads to intimacy, which leads to candor, which leads to accountability. It works across the board. If you lead with generosity and actual generosity, not, “I know exactly what I want to ask for once I give them this thing.” You know so often when people are being generous with an ultimatum or an ulterior motive is the appropriate thing.
When you’re truly generous, follow up, make that connection, and help someone with what they’re doing, that’s going to lead to a relationship. You’re going to get real candor and hopefully, the accountability whether it’s an employee or whatever also comes through with these types of relationships. That bureau is going to feel some responsibility to continue to promote you. They want you. You’ve done a great job. You bring the business back.
That’s the accountability on your part. You’re bringing business back to them that you easily could have spun off for yourself and have taken and run with it, which is what a lot of speakers do. They think in the short term and those are the types of people, whether they’re in Hollywood or all over the world, as speakers. They don’t have as long of careers because these people, the ones that you’ve worked with, the ones that I’ve worked with, have been around for a long time. These are long-standing agencies and bureaus. Maybe some of the people will change and go but a lot of the major players are still the major players in this business. It hasn’t completely exploded and consolidated either.
It’s a smart way that you navigate these relationships and how generous you’ve already been with me, how I’ve seen your relationships that you’ve built with the other agencies, and things like that. That’s what excites me about working with you and with others who understand the value of partnership and that this is a long-term strategy.
This is not a get-rich-quick thing that you can maximize in one year and walk away from if you want to get the most value out of it. It’s thinking in the long-term, creating that plan, and being intentional about that. It’s okay to be generous to people that you want to have a relationship with because you want to do business with them. You just have to provide value if you think they’re going to want to have any exchange with you.
Before I say goodbye to you on this episode, I wanted to ask you. AJ is the Founder of the concept of Get Your Shine, which is a personality quiz. Everybody loves a quiz so good for him for creating a quiz. Tell us a little bit about what that is.
AJ, similar to you, he and his partner moved from LA to Dallas during the pandemic. They’ve been living that Texas life out on a ranch there in Granbury. It is not the same as Austin. He’s an incredibly energetic speaker. He used to be the Head of Mojo when Verizon and AOL merged and Yahoo was mixed in there, too. He was traveling the world, speaking to different teams, and getting them excited.
He’s done a lot of coaching with executives on communication and a lot around internal culture and things like that. He created the Shine Scale as a way to talk about the different attributes that help bring you to life. In the same sense of building your confidence, putting your best foot forward, and understanding the areas where you could use some improvement, the scale helps break down some of the things where you’re maybe more heart-focused and where you’re more head-focused. It splits between the two. We need both.
[bctt tweet=”Having your sense of purpose and meaning and why you do what you do can create much more excitement, engagement, and purpose in your life.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Oftentimes in sales, sometimes people are head-focused. They focus on the numbers, the data, and the pragmatic side. They ignore the heart. They don’t make that emotional connection. They don’t tell a great story. They don’t bring out the qualities that make people like and trust you, which is how they buy and make decisions. There are those times and there are times when people are too heart-focused and don’t ever get around to the salient details and the other things. They think the relationship will carry them into that conversation.
You need both. He talks about both sides of that. We’ve done some really interesting workshops for Univision and Verizon, even virtual during the pandemic, and getting their teams to think about their own personal mission statement. Even when you work for a major company, having your own sense of purpose, meaning, and why you do the thing you do can create so much more excitement, engagement, and purpose in your own life.
We’re helping people do that, who were not usually in an environment to participate in those conversations, and who hasn’t been asked to share their origin story ever before. By the end of the session, we’re getting them all to do that. You can tell the shift that comes over them as a team and as an individual, getting to start to look at themselves, and define their work as a part of their identity, rather than just, “This is my function. This is my story over here.”
You’re singing my song because I love working with clients and helping them figure out their stories of origin. Why did you get into healthcare? Why did you become an architect? I’ve had people who’ve worked with people for years, not knowing that story of origin, and suddenly feel closer to them. It’s because stories make us feel connected and bonded. More importantly, they make us memorable. That’s the a-ha factor when you’re meeting so many people. If you have a little story that has a twist to it that does it. If people want to reach out to you, they can go to BBNCreativeManagement.com. Before we say goodbye, do you have a final quote or a book you want to recommend?
I wanted to conclude a little bit more about my story and then I’ll share some recommendations there, too. I thought back to high school graduation when I’ve been examining my origin story as I launched my company and have been speaking to clients and potential clients. It got me thinking even further back and I realized that the salutatorian speech wasn’t the first time I had the opportunity to get up and speak in front of an audience.
I lived in Pennsylvania when I was in middle school. We had moved there when I was starting sixth grade and we moved back to the same town where I’d left in eighth grade. Middle school is not the best time in anyone’s life. It wasn’t the best time in my life. I didn’t make a ton of friends. I didn’t have overall the best experience. I was getting ready to leave at the beginning of eighth grade. We had written essays and submitted them. That was the only assignment, but my teacher decided that she thought I should read my essay aloud.
The irony or the coincidence was I was Bethany Hamilton’s age. The essay was about sink or swim. I went on to describe as a thirteen-year-old male in front of an entire class of other eighth graders that I felt like I had sunk there. I had given a moral about when people are struggling, help them swim instead of sink. Hopefully, I’ve gotten stronger. I do remember the feeling of being recognized, supported, and told that your story is important. Your peers need to hear it.
Rather than my story being about getting back at the people who discriminated against me and there’s been many more than that one high school principal, it’s about the people who lift other people’s voices. Being one of those people, being the support, the love, and the care, not to knock anyone else down or displace anyone, but to help give more room for those types of voices. That is what I’d like to think about more than some of the other more traumatic parts of the origin story. There are a lot of great, amazing books out there. I’d recommend yours. It depends on what you’re looking for.
You guys can reach out to me on LinkedIn, as well as BBN Creative Management. I’m always happy to have a chat wherever you’re at in your business, speaking, or whatever it may be. I’m always happy to meet new people and give my two cents. Feel free to define me online. We can chat more about book recs, too. You can follow me on Instagram. For the first year, I’m finally posting books that I’m reading. I’m trying to be more intentional about that so you can see what I’ve been up to and what else I’m reading the rest of the year.
Thanks so much, Blair, for coming on the show, for becoming my speaking manager, and for sharing your wisdom on how important it is that all of us realize that we can join this mission to be champions for diverse voices, whether it’s ours or anyone else’s. When someone’s down, reach out a hand, and help. If we all start doing that a little bit more, things will change.
Important Links
- Blair Bryant Nichols
- Before You Fall In Love
- The Sale is in the Tale
- Never Eat Alone
- Get Your Shine
- LinkedIn – Blair Bryant Nichols
- Instagram – Blair Bryant Nichols
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