Connectable With Steven Van Cohen
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Loneliness and isolation have become significant challenges for workers in recent years. Isolation contributes to the growing mental health problem affecting everyone. In this episode, we have a special guest, Steven Van Cohen, author of “Connectable,” who will shed light on the alarming issue of loneliness among workers worldwide. He also shows how inclusion plays a role in solving today’s loneliness. Steven also provides value in increasing belonging, engagement, and performance with employees. Tune in to this episode and be a connectable leader today!
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Listen to the podcast here
Connectable With Steven Van Cohen
Have you ever felt lonely at work? This episode is for you. Steven Van Cohen talks about how loneliness is the absence of connection and that loneliness is depleting and solitude is restoring. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Steven Van Cohen, who has a Master’s of Science and Organizational Development. He’s also a graduate of the University of Illinois in Champaign, Urbana, where I went to school. He’s much younger than I am, but he is a global leadership consultant and executive coach, and author of a wonderful book called Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In. Steven has spent twelve years working with hundreds of leaders from organizations like Salesforce, The Home Depot, and Bridgestone, helping them improve worker well-being, reducing employee isolation, and boosting team belonging. He’s also a Cofounder of LessLonely.com. Steven, welcome.
I always have to preface, it is not a dating site, even though it does sound very much like so, but you just go to LessLonely.com and all of your loneliness troubles will fall away.
Let’s start with your own story of origin. You can go back to your days at Champaign, Urbana since we share that or even earlier. What made you decide you wanted to get into this whole world of communications and connections?
Like a lot of origin stories, it wasn’t something I planned. I learned early on that I had a knack for coaching. My youngest brother is seven years younger than me and I was really into soccer and I played competitive travel soccer most of my life. When I was 14 or 15, none of the parents wanted to coach his soccer team. I said, “I’m happy to do it.” I rode my bike to the soccer field and ran in through drills. I was there on the sideline coaching them every Saturday. I loved every second of that experience. Fast forward to where I’m at now as an entrepreneur, most of my work is coaching-related and helping people see things in themselves that they don’t see that I see.
I get to do a lot of amazing work around leadership development. It’s super fun. I think back in my teenage years that was the spark that subconsciously took me to where I’m at now. I got a random job as a consultant working for the largest international gold mining company and doing a bunch of leadership work. People left that company to go work for other companies and they would call me and say, “Can you come do that same stuff over here?” That was many years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Let’s talk about your book. You have a coauthor. How did you guys come up with the title?
The book is all about loneliness, specifically the impact of loneliness at work, why it shows up, and essentially what leaders can do to help solve the problem. We wanted to call the book Rescuing a Lonely Workforce. We thought that was pretty catchy. John, there you go. You thought that was good too?
I love analogies with lifeguard stuff. I have a life buoy on the cover of my book, so anything with rescuing grabs me.
[bctt tweet=”Texting is transactional, not connecting.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You weren’t our editor. I wish you would’ve been because our editor at McGraw Hill said we cannot use the word lonely in the title or subtitle of the book, even though that’s what the book is about. We were proud of the fact that we wrote the first book to ever address loneliness specifically at work. She said, “People will be too embarrassed to read a book about loneliness because it’s such a shameful, stigmatized, charged topic.” They came up with the term connectable, which fits the book nicely, but that’s how it came about.
You have this great visual of a puzzle, a piece missing, and completing the whole look of that. I like the subhead, From Isolated to All In. You talk about loneliness as a silent, sweeping epidemic and we just all got out of a pandemic that triggered that more than ever, whether it was work-related or personal. Let’s talk about the timing of this because people don’t realize how much work goes into a book and how many years you think of it and write it before it comes out. What about the timing of what you’ve done? How does that feel?
The book was written in 2019, so this was all before the pandemic hit. The genesis of the book came compliments of my coauthor and business partner Ryan. He’s an expert in emerging generations in the future of work. He wrote a book called The Generation Z Guide. When he wrote that book, he came across a statistic that 79% of Gen Zers sometimes always feel alone, which is crazy. Almost 80% of an entire generation is feeling that way. As a consultant, a speaker, and a thought leader, he started to do a lot of work with these clients to understand that, “If you’re going to recruit, engage, develop, and retain a lonely workforce, here’s what you need to know and here’s what you need to do.”
We had all of this material and research and stuff built out, and then when the pandemic hit, we went to our clients like Home Depot and Liberty Mutual Insurance and said, “Do you want to talk about loneliness? Is this something that’s of interest?” Client after client said, “Yes, we do.” We got an agent to represent our book. McGraw Hill was one of several publishers who came to the table and wanted to publish it, and the rest is history. That’s how it started in March 2022. We were fortunate enough to have it hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and we’ve been going gangbusters ever since.
Everyone experienced a sense of loneliness by being isolated during the pandemic. The effects of that are probably still echoing through people’s lives. I don’t think it’s something you go, “Now I’m with people. I’m no longer lonely.” I remember in school myself the concept of, “You’re at a party. How could you possibly feel lonely?” The anxiety of that sometimes was so great that I was like, “I just got to get out of here.” I feel more lonely being in a room full of people I’m not connecting with than I do when I’m by myself. It amplified it.
Can you speak a little bit about what causes loneliness and then we’ll get into what causes loneliness in the workplace? How can you be lonely? You’re in a dorm, at a party, or you’re in a big office with a bunch of coworkers and you’re lonely at work. If we zoom out and go over what even causes loneliness no matter where you are at work or not, that might be a good starting point because you have this great visual here of starting with, “I feel lonely,” which then leads into all of these being hyper-vigilant of all your emotions. The irony is you start avoiding people according to your book, which is bizarre. It’s counterintuitive.
As I’ve dived into understanding loneliness, it is very bizarre. Let’s start with a definition because you mentioned a couple of things that are very important. The definition of loneliness is interesting because loneliness is not defined by the absence of people. It’s defined by the absence of connection. It’s essentially how that person makes us feel when we’re in their presence. The late great Robin Williams came up with one of the most heartbreaking quotes I’ve ever heard in my entire life when he said, “I used to think the worst thing in life was to die all alone. It isn’t. The worst thing in life is to be surrounded by people who make you feel all alone.” That’s loneliness.
It’s like you mentioned, “How can you feel this way if you’re surrounded by people?” It’s like, “These people don’t give me a spark. They see through me. They don’t see me. They’re not interested in me. They’re not listening to me. They’re not showing concern about whatever I’m talking about.” There are all of these things that happen when people are together that either cultivate that feeling of connectedness or inadvertently push us far away and make us feel isolated and reclusive. Yes, you can very much feel lonely and surrounded by people. I’ll validate that you are not some rare out-there example of someone who felt that way, John, in the past. It’s quite normal.
When you look at why loneliness has been ascending, which is one of the questions you asked, there are lots of reasons. Busyness is one of the big reasons we have less margin to spend quality time with others. Also, remote work. We’re just not spending enough quality time in person. We have seen a massive dependency shift. Many years ago, especially at work, if I needed answers to questions, I had to find a person, and that person had to show me, teach me, guide me, or give me wisdom. Now I just go to YouTube, Google, or an online learning platform. When you look at Gen Z, this young generation never had to rely on other humans because all of the world’s answers have been curated into their mobile and smartphones. That’s created separation in how we interact.
Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In
It even impacts how they date. They go on group dates. They’re not even dating one-on-one because they don’t have any social skills to do that. It’s so bizarre to me.
It’s just a different way of navigating through the world. Here’s what’s something that’s important to understand. When you talk about technology and how we engage with it from a communication standpoint, most of our conversations that happen through technology are transactional, and communication is not connection. If we’re communicating, especially via text, email, or DMs on social media, those tend to be transactional conversations.
That’s all frontal lobe processes. That’s data and information. The feeling of connectedness like the sensation of, “This person sees me and gets me,” happens in the back part of our brain in a totally different region. That connectedness is most likely to occur when we’re together in person where I can see your face, hear the intonation of the tone of your voice, and I could get that sense of how you’re reacting to what I’m saying. That just doesn’t become possible when we’re communicating over devices.
I hear a lot of people in management getting so frustrated with the younger people not ever wanting to pick up the phone and call a client, “I just texted them to see if they want to buy.” When you just said there, I love that texting is transactional because it’s not a connection. For most young people, they’re like, “I text my best friends all the time. What do you mean that’s not a connection? That’s my preferred way of connecting. I don’t want to everyone pick up the phone. I don’t ever want anyone to call me ever.” It’s considered rude.
“How dare you call me and leave me a voicemail. Are you insane? You’re going to actually record something that I have to push a button to listen to? Come on.”
I get amused when people will leave me a voicemail text. I’m like, “How is that any different? I got to listen to you now.” We talked about my own experience when I moved from LA after being there many years to Austin, Texas, on March 1st, 2020, and had all the great plans of discovering a new city and meeting friends of friends. Like you, I go traveling and speak at live events as a sales keynote speaker on storytelling. All that came to a screeching halt at the same time within two weeks. The disorientation of your business, as you know, is changed. Everything’s going to be virtual. Most people can remember there was a shortage of everything. Not just toilet paper. You’re like, “You want to set up a home office with some nice lights and a microphone? Good luck. That’s going to be months back order.”
You got the sense of, “The swimming pools are closed. Going to a Broadway show is not possible. Restaurants are closed. I got to go back to what else I want to do that brings me joy if I can’t be around someone.” We all know moving is a stress. Anybody who has their business disrupted and everything has to go virtual is stressed. The combination was isolating. How long it’s going to last? That’s what I want your opinion on because, to me, that was the hardest part. I heard eighteen months, and I’m like, “No, it’s two weeks. Come on. Eighteen months?” That unknown, is that factor sometimes into loneliness, do you think?
Loneliness has a lot of components to it. When you think about why people feel disconnected, it could be because they’re disconnected from themselves, so that could create loneliness. It could be a disconnection to my strong-tie relationships. It could be a disconnection to my weak tie relationship. It could be my connectedness to how my work makes me feel because that value and impact is a connectedness level.
Yes, that adrenaline rush when you’re on stage.
[bctt tweet=”Loneliness is depleting. Solitude is restoring.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s the connection to the community. There are all of these connection components. When the pandemic hit, what people started to feel and understand is the gravity of how important human connection is and how awful it feels when it’s been ripped away from you. We grossly underestimate how badly we need one another. The pandemic shed light on the importance of making more time to connect and be pro-socially active. Even now in 2023, we’re still starting to see some of the residual impacts of this play.
One of my favorite quotes in your book is, “Loneliness is depleting, and solitude is restoring.” I have to say I didn’t feel that during the pandemic at the beginning. I didn’t feel enough solitude already. I need to be restored and I’m not feeling it at all, but I’m like, “I can’t even get a haircut.” I didn’t realize how much I’d miss talking to the guy who cuts my hair, yet that’s a form of connection. Somebody’s touching you and you’re talking to them, you see them on a regular basis. When that gets cut off, you are like, “Alright.” The stories of all these people having to be together in a small space, they would beg for solitude.
They’re like, “You don’t know how lucky it is? At least you’re not with your ex.” Imagine having to stay at home with somebody you weren’t getting along with and the stress that calls on. The question that all leads me to is what can someone do who does feel lonely at work? What can someone do who’s a leader of people that sees it? I’m guessing they’re two different things. One, how do you take care of yourself if you’re feeling lonely and you maybe feel embarrassed? Also, if you’re managing people and you go, “I know that person’s struggling. I don’t know that they would even label it loneliness, but I’m guessing that’s what it is.” I know that’s two questions at once, but I want to give the perspective because it’s an interesting range there.
Let’s start with what you can do as an individual at work who’s feeling this way. The framework and the title of the book, Connectable, is a great way to think about how to operate. When someone’s likable, they’re easy to get along with. When someone’s connectable, they’re easy to connect with. There are things we can do to make us more connectable. One of the first things that we can do that allows us to feel way more connected is to be very grateful to others. Gratitude, demonstrating gratitude, and making somebody else feel important, valued, desired, and impactful makes us feel good and boosts connection in a very powerful way. That’s one way to be more connectable.
Another is to channel this idea of interruptibility. We are so bogged down every second of the day with items on our to-do list and our meetings back to back. What we have to do is try to build a social regimen. We have to be mindful of how to create routines that are on our calendars and defended with some vigilance so we can make time to do the social connecting activities that make us feel connected to others or else we just get bogged down with too many things that happen in a given day.
The other thing we can do is we can leverage what is called weak tie connections. We all know strong tie connections, like friends, family, and children if you have children. Weak tie connections are the baristas at the coffee shops that you bump into on a regular basis. It is the person on the train that you’re sitting next to. It’s all of these people that we rub shoulders with in the wild but don’t engage with.
Some research out of Harvard found that the quantity and the diversity of your weak tie connections are almost as important to your happiness, your connectivity levels, and your health and well-being as the strength of your strong tie connections. All those people that you’re standing next to in line while you’re on your cell phone, checking on your email, are great people to just smile at. “What are you up to? What’s going on? How are you?” All of those moments are very restorative and we take them for granted.
It is gratefulness, being somewhat interruptible, and not making yourself seem like you get angry anytime. You talk about it in the book, “These days, few things in life strike as much dread as the doorbell ring.” It made me laugh because, during the height of the pandemic, Amazon would come and they’d ring the doorbell and then they’d leave. I’d be running to the door just to yell out to somebody thank you from a mile away. “We made eye contact. I feel better.” It is these weak connections that we underestimate.
That’s why I was reading that with Amazon creating these stores where you don’t ever check out with a person. Even Whole Foods now has a thing. You don’t want to talk to a person you can self-checkout. It goes, “This deja vu of when you had to start pumping your own gas. It’s not enough. I got to pay these prices, and now I got to bag my own groceries.”
Connectable: Busyness is one of the big reasons we have less margin to spend quality time with others. In remote work, we’re not spending enough quality time in person.
It’s true. The frontman for Talking Heads, David Byrne, wrote a cool article called Eliminating the Human. The whole idea of eliminating the human is what you’re talking about. We’re taking away the social fabric of our society. That’s a problem because it allows us to not do what we need to do, which is to be around other people, to find connectivity, to be seen, and to smile. One of my favorite memories as a kid growing up was riding my bike to tower records to listen to a piece of music. I would go and talk to the person behind the stand to play the CD, I would talk to the cashier, and then I would’ve to go to a friend’s house to listen to that CD or cassette tape with another human. Listening to a song you wanted to listen to was a very collaborative and connective experience.
Making mixed tapes for people and all that. It’s a customized gift.
Now it’s, “Alexa, play. Go to Spotify.” All of those touchpoints have been eliminated. As we get things to be more convenient, it is destroying the opportunities that we need for connectedness. Without a counterbalance and awareness and some proactivity, we’re just going to continue to be wandering around solo without having to ever talk to another human again, which is very problematic.
The great things you gave us about how we can deal with our own loneliness, are they the same three for a leader who sees somebody with a leader go up to someone and say, “I’m grateful you’re doing such a great job here. I’m grateful you went the extra effort.” Does that help that person not feel so lonely? Can you use those three things that way?
As a leader, yes, they are transferable, but there are some other things that leaders specifically need to keep in mind. One of the biggest areas of loneliness at work is due to feeling lost. As you could imagine I’m alone in the wilderness, with no map, don’t know where I’m going, don’t have anybody to turn to, and am not sure if I’m going to get attacked by a wolf. That creates a very lonely sensation. At work, it’s no different.
Onboarding the first 90 days, I imagine it’s at the peak.
Also, depending on the leader if that leader’s not giving clarity, clear expectations, clear direction, and the right resources to tap into. If I don’t get the sense that there’s someone there to help guide me, I’m going to feel disconnected and lonely. Leaders need to be very mindful of creating clarity with the work that their teams are doing. That’s a big piece to fostering more connectedness. The second thing that leaders need to be aware of is that connection doesn’t take a very long time to create.
It takes 40 seconds for two people to have what’s called a restorative exchange. What leaders tend to do is think, “Let’s just go to a happy hour. Let’s do an offsite once a year. Let’s have fun together on a periodic schedule and we’re all going to have bonding, connectedness, and belonging.” It’s not how it works. Go to one event one time with one person, and be like, “We’re connected forever.” That’s just not a sustainable or solid strategy. What has to happen is leaders need to find ways to make sure that people can see and understand each other on a regular basis.
One of the activities I do with a lot of my leaders is, every Friday, before the team concludes for the week, they do a huddle and each person just shares what was the week like from A to F. A was a great week, and F was a terrible week, give a grade, and then you give some context. “This was a C week, and here’s why.” Someone might say, “Actually it was a B-plus week for me, and here’s why.” What leaders can do is they can start to figure out other patterns. Are we consistently having good weeks for bad weeks? Which team members consistently have good weeks or bad weeks? Having everybody understand the perspective of each team member, that’s connective. It is another way to get people to share and feel seen. There are a lot of these things that leaders need to do more explicitly with their team members.
[bctt tweet=”Leaders must find ways to ensure that people can see and understand each other regularly.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I love the huddle. There are so many questions I have. I loved your book by the way. I highly recommend everyone get it. You talk about the past, be at work, and there will be some commute time, which a lot of people love that commute time. There’s the only time of solace or solitude, and now it’s this hybrid thing. You come back 3 or 4 days a week and you have a choice of which day week you’re working from home, so it’s very inconsistent. They’re not trying to make everybody work the same days off because they don’t want every Friday to be a ghost town. Is the hybrid work creating more loneliness, or is it just a contrast to the pandemic when you were not at the office at all and it’s better than nothing?
Is it creating more loneliness? One hundred percent. There’s a little bit of an asterisk next to that statement. Is it possible to have strongly connected teams in a remote environment? One hundred percent. Is it a catalyst, and are we seeing loneliness levels increase because of the way we’re working remotely? Yes, it’s a lot harder to build in connectivity when we’re remote and we’re doing what we’re doing now over Zoom, but it’s possible. It just takes intentionality, effort, awareness, and commitment in order to make it come to life.
I laughed out loud when I was reading your non-helpful guide to helping a lonely person. First of all, I love everything. If you’ve ever heard, and God forbid you’ve said it to someone, “For God’s sake, just go outside, John. Take a walk, call somebody, and get a pet.” I’m like, “I have a dog already and I’m still lonely. I can’t imagine what it would be like without a dog.” “You’re too much in your head. You’re overthinking everything.” Almost everything that you have in here I’ve either said to myself or have heard and go, “Maybe I’m depressed and it’s not loneliness because this walk didn’t make me feel any less lonely.” Is there one thing you would say that is helpful to say either to yourself or somebody else since we have this great guide on what not to do?
One thing that’s important for people to understand is it’s not like feeling hungry and getting an apple. It’s a similar pattern. Hunger is our biological cue that we need to eat. Feeling lonely is our biological cue that we need to connect. What happens when people feel lonely is they retreat further inward. The reason is, if I’m already dissatisfied with my level of connectedness, it’s very risky for me to continuously put myself out there. It’s a lot easier just to continue to wallow in my own sorrow by myself behind the curtain.
When people make those kinds of statements, “Go walk your dog, go make a friend, call someone,” it’s really hard for that person to do, which is why it’s bad advice. One of the quickest ways to get somebody to feel more connected is to make them feel important. It is different than showing gratitude and thanking somebody for their efforts.
If I feel like you’re lonely and isolated, John, I would come to you and say, “John, I have this really big problem. I don’t know what to do. I want your advice. If you were me, how would you approach X, Y, Z?” By making somebody feel like, “This person is asking me for advice, they want my perspective, they care about my opinion,” that’s a really powerful way to get them to feel that sense of connectedness.
It gets them out of their own head.
It’s a lot easier a way to approach someone without saying, “John, you look lonely.”
It’s way too aggressive. Apple came out with their new video on their new version of VR. You wear this while you’re having FaceTime with somebody, and it creates an avatar of the other person. You don’t see somebody wearing the glasses but it’s still not really them, and you would wear this on an airplane to watch a movie. You have a lot of examples in the book about technology at home and technology at work. You’re constantly addicted and isolated. We used to look at the newspapers you said, and now we’re on our phones all the time. It’s still avoidance. What do you think VR is going to do to loneliness?
Connectable: One of the biggest areas of loneliness at work is feeling lost.
It depends on how it’s being leveraged and used. I get nervous that people are going to inadvertently become tied to their virtual selves. If that’s the case, the real self is going to be devoid of what they need to feel connected and a sense of belonging, importance, and significance. There are scenarios where VR is going to be very problematic. However, there’s some interesting research from the University of Wollongong in Australia. They found that social media and technology can be very good for building strong connectedness if the platform is a means to connect away from it in real life.
John, if I see you just went on vacation and I call you like, “How was Bailey? I want to know all about it,” that’s powerful because I got cued to talk to you about something, but then I made an effort to connect in a more meaningful way. If VR is allowing us to have those opportunities to further connect away from the space, it’s a great way to start to spark connectedness. If we’re only living in the VR, that’s no Bueno, in my opinion.
It’s one extremely the other. The book is Connectable. We can get it anywhere. If somebody wants to bring you in to coach their teams, what’s the best place to send them?
The website is SyncLX.com or message me on LinkedIn. I’m pretty active on that social network, Steven Van Cohen. I’d be happy to get in touch and explore how to collaborate.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and making us all feel a little less lonely.
Thank you, John.
Important Links
- Steven Van Cohen
- Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In
- The Generation Z Guide
- Eliminating the Human – Article
- SyncLX.com
- Steven Van Cohen – LinkedIn
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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The People Side Of Performance With Brad Montgomery
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
You will bring people around when you make them feel happy. Brad Montgomery, a motivational keynote speaker, dives into getting more of yourself and the people around you through Laugh-O-Nomics. Although humor is a tool to create a connection with others in your business, a simple smile, laugh, or being open is the easiest way to connect. It affects the business when we lose our human touch and enclose ourselves in the cage of sales techniques. Find value in your soft skills in this episode with Brad Montgomery now.
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Listen to the podcast here
The People Side Of Performance With Brad Montgomery
Our guest is Brad Montgomery who is a keynote speaker. He brings humor to the workplace and shows how humor is a great way to build connections. He said, “The secret is not trying to be funny.” Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Brad Montgomery who is a motivational keynote speaker for business, healthcare, and association audiences. He speaks on the people side of performance, and how to get more out of yourself and the people around you. He has spoken in all 50 states and 4 continents, and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. Microsoft called his presentation, “A hilarious boost to the bottom line.” If you’re looking for an award-winning funny and fresh keynoter with a message connecting soft skills to bottom-line growth, then Brad is the guy. Welcome to the show, Brad.
What’s up, John? I’m glad to be here. When you hear someone else read the bio that I wrote, it sounds so boring.
I love the hilarious boost to the bottom line. That’s a great sound bite. Having come from an advertising background, I am always looking for some hook like that. Let’s make it come to life a little bit. Tell me your story of origin. Where did you grow up? You can go back to childhood.
I was born in a log cabin or a manger. I can’t remember one of those. The real deal is I was a magician since seventh grade. That led to doing magic through college at a Renaissance fair. After college, I thought, “I’m going to be a magician for one year, and then I’ll be a lawyer. I’ll go to law school.” Law school never happened because it turned out you can’t learn magic in a year. What are we thinking? The magic went better than I thought. It led to more stuff. It led to another thing. I didn’t go to law school. I always assumed I would but my journey has not been this thing where I say, “I’m going to get this thing and do it.” Instead, I did this and then it led to the next thing. I did that. I feel like I’ve got a nail and I keep hammering at that thing. That is the secret to my success. As opposed to vision or creativity, I keep working.
First of all, the concept is that you can be happy at work. For a lot of people, that used to be, “I only am happy when I’m off work.” The concept of being happy at work seemed like an oxymoron almost. Let’s talk about that particular topic because now more than ever, some people are coming back full-time, some people still working from home full-time, and there’s a hybrid of all that going on. What do you talk to audiences about that can be taught from a standpoint of happiness? A lot of people think they already are happy. How can you teach it?
This is my favorite question. I used to cover happiness as a business skill generally. The problem with that is some of our happiness we cannot control because we have a gene pool. There’s a huge portion we can control. What turned me on is when I discovered a subset of one of those things that we control, and how powerful and how easy it is. That is the best place to start with happiness. I’m talking about social and emotional support, which is a boring phrase. What it means is acknowledgment, encouragement, making people feel important, connecting them to their vision and purpose, and generally being an encourager. It turns out that stuff our grandma did by accident is good in the workplace.
You talk about how there’s some actual science behind happiness. Can you give us a hint of what that is?
Who knows that they would study all this? It does seem like common sense. Surround yourself with good people. Have long-term relationships. Focus on the positive and not the negative. It seems like common sense but they have studied it to death. Here’s a quick aside. Those studies are boring to read and do not make you happy. The science is clear, especially for example, when we talk about encouraging people, building up others, mentoring them, or motivating them.
It benefits the person who is the target of that effort, but it turns out the giver of that encouragement gains much more. One of those things they gain is happiness. If you want to prove it, wait until you’re having a crappy day, and then think of somebody who’s having a crappier day. Send them a text and say, “I’m thinking of you. How’s the chemo going?” It’s common sense but there is study after study that tells us that focusing on others makes us happier.
That’s why a lot of people get a lot out of volunteering. You think you’re helping the person. I see people who rescue dogs. They say, “That dog rescued me.” It’s getting your focus off of yourself a little bit.
Is it story time, John?
It’s always story time here.
[bctt tweet=”It is not about laughter. It is about connection.” username=”John_Livesay”]
When the pandemic hit, you and I are in the same business. Our calendar dried up. I’m a motivational speaker. I should not wallow but I was wallowing. It hit me. I’m embarrassed to tell you what pulled me out, which was when I started volunteering for a food bank and loading boxes of food in cars for contactless delivery. Thousands of cars would line up in a Denver shopping mall parking lot. We would load food in their cars. What I craved was talking to the drivers and saying, “Are you okay? We’re going to be here next week. Do you need anything else? How can I help?” Chatting with them and looking at them in the eyes is what got me out of it. Volunteering is massive. It seems like a motivational speaker should know that. I should have discovered that a little quicker than I did but there you go.
You talk about this blog you have about Awesome versus Chase Bank. I love a tale of anything, A Tale of Two Cities, or a tale of someone. One experience was great and one was not. Can you give us a quick summary of what that experience is? Everyone had great customer service experiences and not so great.
This is also a great lesson in sales, social and emotional support, and making people feel important. It goes like this. I was getting some blood drawn as part of a physical with no big deals in the doctor’s office. I’m a magician. I mentioned that. I was playing with a poker chip, and I lost it. They see me looking around the waiting room. It’s super embarrassing to have an adult look around under the chairs. This kid behind the counter said, “What’s up?”
I sheepishly told him, “I have a poker chip. I lost it.” That guy got up from his desk and was all smiley and nice. He ended up looking through the trash in the blood draw room. He had the gloves on. He found my poker chip. He came out. He had a big smile. I was thrilled. It had this feel-good experience. Let’s be clear. He was happy because he knew how much I appreciated him. I was thrilled but this also was not his job. His job was not to look for some chucklehead’s poker chip.
Let’s contrast that with Chase Bank. To shorten the story, there were a lot of complexities with opening an account for my dad who has a lot of memory problems. I’m opening an account. I said, “You can’t email him.” He said, “No problem.” Sure enough, they email them. I go in there. I ended up getting escalated to a branch manager. All that guy would do was push me onto the 800 number saying, “For emails you have to call 800.” “I’ve tried that. Don’t make me do it. I need a Chase person.” “Call this and do it.” It didn’t work. I call him back. He’s like, “Sorry, it’s our policy.”
Meaning, I’m not the cute kid with the poker chip who was probably a new hire who loved his job and was willing to help me even though it wasn’t part of his job. The branch manager had a genuine customer there. We have our businesses there. There were some high dollars in there at the time. He thought, “I’m not taking ownership.” He didn’t make me feel like I was important and cared for. I love that story because the more experienced and educated person is a branch manager but the guy who’s great at business is some guy who used common sense and said, “I can help.”
For me, the contrast is one is well–paid, and one is probably the starting salary. You’ve got the reverse experience from the entry–level person. Just because you’re paid well doesn’t mean you’re good at that.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what the rest of Chase is doing with their culture? If that’s their culture at that one tiny branch, then they’re not dropping the ball in making their managers care about their customers.
You also have trademarked something. I‘ve trademarked The Pitch Whisperer™ for myself. You trademarked Laugh-O-Nomics™. I know what goes into trademarking something. How did you come up with that name? What does it mean?
To be fair, I still use that name a lot but not as much as I used to. Like all of my best ideas, it came from a smarter person who advised me. I was in a mastermind group. It was 2008. Remember that? Those were happy times for speaking. I was mostly a funny guy. Mostly people were hiring me to do a very funny keynote with a whiff of a topic. This buddy of mine said, “You need to business up.”
“Use an ROI here.”
“Let’s get on this. You are not a funny person anymore.” He came up with Laugh-O-Nomics™. I used it for years but oddly, my business went way up in that recession. Well done to my buddy Jay Arthur. Even now, there’s a problem with that name. If I use Laugh-O-Nomics™ with a lot of my clients and say, “I can come and speak to your leaders, your team, your frontline staff, or whomever. We can talk about Laugh-O-Nomics™,” they tune out because they’re like, “I got to have value and takeaways. Our people need to be better.” Even though we have the science behind it and that name is great, who knew that’s a turnoff for a lot of buyers?
You don’t know until you test it. Let’s talk about how humor does have business value. My premise is whoever tells the best story is the one that people hire, whether it’s a speaker, or you’re pitching a product. Whoever makes people feel happy or bring some humor to the presentation is the one that people want to engage with. A lot of people go, “I‘m not a comedian. I should open I open my presentation to my sales team with a joke every week.” They’re usually bad jokes. Please, don’t try. Do you have any tips for somebody who wants to have some humor in their workplace but doesn’t know where to start?
Laugh-O-Nomics: Focusing on others makes us happier.
No one has asked me that question for such a long time. The secret isn’t trying to be funny. The secret is trying to set up a culture even if it’s a one-on-one culture where humor is welcome. I don’t think it’s about making people laugh. It’s about connections. When we change that vocabulary by saying, “Your goal in this sales call is a connection,” one tool is to make them laugh. Suddenly, the stakes are much lower because there are other tools you can rely on, including smiling. If you’re on a sales call, and your prospective buyer says a joke and you don’t laugh, you’re an idiot. You’re not connecting. The easiest way to do it sounds so crazy. It’s easy to dismiss but smile, laugh, and be open to, “We’re having a good time here.”
Sometimes I find that I am at my funniest when I’m not trying to be funny. I remember talking to a friend. I go, “I read this research that if you take a cold shower, it burns fat, fights depression, and reduces inflammation. It had me at burns fat. I‘m trying it.” He laughed as you did. I wasn’t even trying to be funny. I was just being me. I didn’t think it will burn fat.
I was talking with someone who is a professional comedian. He goes, “In the world of comedy, we say that if this is true, what else is true?” You could say something like, “I‘ve given up working out altogether. All I do is take three cold showers a day now.” I thought, “There’s a technique to this as there’s a technique to telling stories.” I wanted to get your thoughts on that world of magic and comedy where there are some rules that if this is true, what else is true to get the second laugh?
Your comic buddy is right. There’s another corollary or a rule. If you can give voice to what other people are thinking, you get credit for being funny. Let’s say the most basic thing. If you walk into a room and it’s freezing, and everyone says it’s freezing but no one is talking about it, you say, “What is this, an igloo?” If you write that down, that is not a funny joke but because you’re putting voice to the fact that everyone is going, “I’m freezing. The air conditioning is too high,” then people are like, “That guy is so funny.”
Use a little metaphor or analogy. I often say that as a salesperson if you can describe someone’s problem and show empathy, they think you’re in their heads. They think, “If you understand my problem that well, you must have my solution.” It builds that connection you’re talking about.
You and I are talking about the same thing with different words because whether or not you’re building empathy or you’re reading your mind by saying, “I bet you’re cold like me,” then that’s a connection. We’re both humans in this room, which is the emphasis of where I am now, especially when I’m talking with sales teams, which I do a ton. Often salespeople get wrapped up in sales techniques. They’re like, “It’s time for the close. I’m going to overcome objections.” They forget. “If I am a human being in front of another human being right now, most of that other stuff takes care of stuff.” You got to know some techniques but most of it seems to be handled when you say, “I care about you. I’m listening.”
I‘ve had event planners email a speaking guru and say, “We liked his energy when we interviewed him. We’re going to hire him.” I thought, “Rarely is it that blatant.” I believe money is energy. Later, I asked her about that comment. She said, “You made me feel good interviewing you. I figured we could probably do that to a ballroom full of people too.” At the end of the day, we’re selling how we make people feel and not selling ourselves like, “I‘m the best.”
“Do I have a connection with you?” I‘m asking questions and am showing interest in ideas to customize my talk. Therefore, that might make your audience feel listened to and heard even though I can’t speak to 500 people at a time as I’m doing with you one-on-one. It’s that concept of, “I don’t want to be pushy.” Selling yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you’re pushing yourself. It means your soft skills are strong. It’s listening, empathy, storytelling, or in your case, humor.
Stories are often funny.
Especially if they’re self-deprecating.
What you said is so true but I missed that when I was younger. Right out of college, I was in front of an audience. I thought, “I’m a businessman.” I would dress a little stiff and act a little stiff during the sales process. It took me a while to realize, “Are you kidding me, Brad? Your brand is off. You’re telling them you’re lighthearted and funny, and then you’re not in the sales call. Why are you being so weird? You’re trusting yourself to relax into it.”
Some of my favorite speakers or comedians are the ones that show some vulnerability.
That’s a trend right now.
[bctt tweet=”Give voice to what others are thinking.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We’re assuming you’re an expert, or you wouldn’t be in the final three or whatever, but you can make it somewhat relatable, “I would like to be a funny speaker.” If you make it seem like you were natural at it and didn’t have to work at it, never had a bad experience, and never had a joke bomb, then I can’t relate to anything you’re telling me. You’re laughing. I‘m guessing you had a joke bomb or two. We all have.
My question is this. Have you had an experience, because I sure have, where you say something that usually gets a laugh, and then you’re in front of a different audience, and it‘s crickets? You’re thinking, “Is it me? Is the joke no longer funny?” The next audience loves it. It’s the same time of day. It’s not like this is a Canadian audience versus an American audience. None of that observable like, “This is why,” is there. What are your thoughts on that?
Welcome to the club. You and me both, buddy. That happens all the time. It’s so weird, especially if you’ve told the joke 90 times, and it has done well 90 times, and then 91 and 92 are not good. You get in your head and then in 93, you’re back. I remember working at clubs. That was less lonely in many ways than being a keynote speaker because you’re with other comics. You could say, “How is the room?” They would say, “The early show was on fire. These guys are sitting there at the late show.” That gave me some comfort, “When I walk out there, they’re not going to laugh as much.”
It’s a thing. We don’t know why. It could be the weather because teachers swear that the weather changes their students. It could be some weird thing about what was in the news or what they were told beforehand. It could be that there’s a grumpy section right up front that is infecting the audience because they’re not laughing, and people can see them. It’s so random.
I‘ve heard these stories of speakers saying right before they go on, “We announced some layoffs. They’re not going to go up there. Good luck.”
I’ve had that happen twice.
You’re like, “Do I acknowledge the elephant in the room? How do I make that funny? It’s not funny. People are scared and upset.” The other part is, “We’re running late to the last week of the day. It’s between you and cocktails, or people have planes to catch. Could you shorten your talk to 45 minutes instead of an hour?” There’s no time to adjust your slides. You’ve got to be agile, think on your feet, and smile, “I can. No problem.” Nobody wants a diva.
That gets easier as we do this but there is a weird psychological thing where you’re thinking, “I got my plan. I’m ready.” You’re prepping for an athletic thing. You’re in your zone. They’re like, “I changed my mind. We’re not going to have a fourth quarter.” “I had my good stuff planned for the fourth quarter. Hold on.”
People underestimate being easy to work with, whether you’re a salesperson or a speaker. It can be a competitive advantage. I saw that on your website. You got called back by Boeing. I‘ve been fortunate enough to get called back by companies myself. Part of it is, “You were easy to work with. We had fun. The audience had fun.”
When I first got started, I was doing colleges. Right out of college, I started working at colleges, and performing at colleges. One time, I got a gig where the buyers are college students. It’s not always, but often. They’re the most unsophisticated buyers ever. I talked to this young woman who was an oboe player and mentioned the Mozart Oboe Concerto. She was working on that concerto. I got booked. I’m telling you. Between you and me, I was not good. I was young. I hadn’t figured it out yet but it was because I knew the Oboe Concerto by Mozart. Who knew? It’s so random.
If people want to book you as a speaker, they can go to your website, BradMontgomery.com. Before I let you go, is there any last thought, a quote, or maybe even a joke you want to leave us with?
“No pressure but could you make us laugh, Brad?” Did you just do that?
I figured I didn’t want to restrain you to a quote. It could be a funny quote. There are all kinds of funny quotes.
Laugh-O-Nomics: Whoever makes people feel happy or brings some humor to the presentation is the one that people want to engage with.
It’s not going to be funny, so calm down but it’s going to be awesome. I’m sure you feel the same. Everyone feels like at this time in the history of our planet, we’re all pooped. We’re overwhelmed. We have been told COVID is over but we all have friends who have it. Work is supposed to be easy because it’s hybrid but it’s not. There’s a war in Europe. There’s economics. It’s a divided country.
There is a technique that we can all use starting this instant that’s easy. You already know how to do it. Focus on the person in front of you, help them feel safe and cared for, help them get what they need, and watch how that trickles to feeling less overwhelmed, improving your business, raising your scientific measurable of happiness, and generally killing things in a good way.
I love it. What a great way to end. Thank you, Brad, for bringing a little bit of humor, joy, and wisdom to all of us.
I feel like I have a new friend, John.
Likewise. Thanks.
Important Links
- Brad Montgomery
- Awesome versus Chase Bank
- A Tale of Two Cities
- The Pitch Whisperer™
- Laugh-O-Nomics™
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Dream Business Mastermind With Jim Palmer
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Creating a successful business is more than just financial gain; it’s about achieving a satisfying lifestyle by doing what you love and living life on your own terms. In this episode, we have Captain Jim Palmer, the Founder and Creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program. Jim shares his fascinating background and journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur and business coach. He shares his unique approach to creating dream businesses and how he has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs achieve their goals. He discusses his “big adventure” lifestyle, working only three days a week and spending the rest of his time renewing and doing what he loves. He also shares the challenges of living on a 50-foot boat during the pandemic, and how he and his wife overcame them. Jim shares his expertise in helping entrepreneurs get lucrative, high-ticket clients and his unique approach to handling objections. He also discusses the importance of empathy and understanding your audience when creating marketing materials. Tune in now and learn how to start creating your dream business.
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Listen to the podcast here
Dream Business Mastermind With Jim Palmer
Our guest is Captain Jim Palmer. He is the Founder and Creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program. He is also the Creator of Dream Business Academy and the host of Dream Business Radio, which is a weekly podcast based on his unique brand of smart marketing and dream business-building strategies.
His other business ventures include No Hassle Newsletters, Success Advantage Publishing, and How To Sell From The Stage Like A Pro. He is the developer of The Cashflow Conversation Code™ and the acclaimed author of several books. In 2016, after raising four kids and leading a practical and predictable life, Jim and his wife, Stephanie, sold their home in suburban Philadelphia and are now living and traveling on their yacht. They call it the Floating Home. Jim, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me on. I’m a big fan of your show.
I wanted to ask you your own story of origin before we get into this major decision you and Stephanie made. How did you get into learning about creating dreams for yourself and all these hundreds of entrepreneurs that you have helped?
Many people ask me, “Do you work three days a week?” I have for the last several years. Part of my backstory is I had cancer at 41. I was out of work at that time. It was a low point in my life. When I decided to start my first business for the next several years, as I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs can attest, it was the old 80-hour-a-week nose to the grindstone.
After three years, I started doing okay. Five years in, I started learning about internet marketing from Corey Rudl. I got introduced to Dan Kennedy and that whole group. It took off from there. That is when I started No Hassle Newsletters and five other internet businesses. I started coaching in 2009, but somewhere around 2014 or 2015, things were great. A friend of mine said, “Are you ever going to buy a boat, or is that something you are going to talk about the rest of your life?”
[bctt tweet=”You grow faster when you take time off to renew.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It was my own words right in my face. We all have friend friends, but this is one of two people who know so much about me, my struggles, my bad money mindset, and all the different things. He is one of my personal mentors. We have mentored each other. He said, “You are much farther along than you said you wanted to be when you would get a boat, slow down, and start enjoying life.” I’m like, “My own words are coming back to bite me.”
I did buy a boat because I couldn’t face the prospect of being that wooz who talked a big game. We bought our first boat. Stephanie and I loved boating on the Chesapeake Bay on the weekends. It was a 30-foot boat. We could sleep on it. At that point, I loved it so much. I said, “I’m going to stop doing coaching calls on Friday so I will always have a three-day weekend.” About a year later, I liked that so much. I said, “I don’t wanna go back to work on Monday.” I took off Monday as well.
I made it sound easy, but it was not. It was a little scary. What is going to happen to my business? Over the course of a few years, John, I got clear on what I wanted the next several years of my business to look like. I didn’t want to keep working 80 hours a week. At that point, we had paid down debt. We were able to make some good decisions, but I got clear on what I wanted my personal life and business life to look like. I wanted to work three days a week. I thought that was amazing.
I did a little reverse engineering and figured out that if I’m busy on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and I have the right client mix, I have three different levels of coaching programs, I can earn what I need to earn to fund our lifestyle and keep the fund for retirement. This is how much I need. I figured it out, took that shot, and it works. Many people read the stories or hear them, or people that work and face plant on the desk.
The other big pivotal point for us was when Stephanie left her high-pressure job. I’m location independent, but she had a job to go to. When she stopped working, she said, “We should go on a big adventure. Kids are gone. Both of the girls are married. The two boys are on their own. Why don’t we do something fun and not wait several years?”
Long story short, we thought about a lot of different things and said, “Why don’t we live on a boat for a year?” We sold our house and 1 of our 2 cars. We sold the 30-foot boat and bought a 50-foot boat and moved on that boat in April 2017. I’m not having a lot of experience, and when I say not a lot, not having any experience driving a 50-foot boat in the ocean. Our first trip was from the Chesapeake Bay to Rhode Island.
Dream Business: Don’t charge based on the number of calls or the hours. Charge based on the transformation somebody is going to have.
How long did that take?
It is 330 miles. It was about a five-day trip. It could be longer if you have to stay in port due to the weather because being in the ocean could be a little rough. You have to wait for a calm day. Funny thing, John, we loved it so much, even the challenges and having the occasional pee-your-pants-with-fear. Our big adventure became our lifestyle. We did it for five years. Winter of 2022, we traveled down to the Keys and then back to the Chesapeake Bay. We sold the boat in July 2022 after 12,248 miles.
We are going to live for a year or maybe longer on land but in a stationary environment to be near the kids and grandkids. Stephanie’s dad passed away, but because we were here and close by, that was special. That is where we are now. I’m not rocking myself to sleep in the boat. We are on land now. Who knows what we will do? We are thinking of maybe a land yacht, like a big RV, and traveling the country. I would love to go out West, Midwest, Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. I would love to see all of that before it is unsafe for me to drive.
I love this line you said, “Our big adventure became our lifestyle.” What a great brand that is. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you find working 3 days a week and having 4 to renew and do what you love that you are somehow more refreshed, which makes you more productive on those 3 days that you are working?
That is part of it. When we were on the boat, one of my challenges was no matter where we were, I needed good Wi-Fi because your client calls unlike several years ago when it was Skype audio. It became Skype video and now it is on Zoom. That is data intensive. I’m not plugged in so I needed portable Wi-Fi. Other than that, I have to manage my energy level. Instead of having 5 or 6 calls in a day, you get a little break in between. I’m busy 2 of the 3 or maybe 3 days because you are compressing about a week’s worth of normal flow client calls into three days. By the end of it, I’m brain wary and probably shouldn’t do heavy math. Don’t take the boat off the dock when you are this tired because that is when mistakes happen.
I learned many years ago from another mentor of mine, Melanie Benson. She told me, “Jim, you are working way too hard.” I say, “I got to keep growing.” She says, “You will grow more if you would take time off.” She pushed me. She said, “Take the next 3 or 4 days off.” I took one. I shut everything down. I drove up to the Eagles training camp. It is something I have always wanted to do, and I did it. I thought about my work on the drive. I took my camera. I was doing videos at that time. I shot a video, but I was out of the office. There is something to be said for quieting yourself and getting refreshed.
[bctt tweet=”Sell the outcome not how you do it.” username=”John_Livesay”]
All of us were confined during the pandemic to spaces that we hadn’t planned on being confined to. In your case, it was a 50-foot boat. Were there any challenges like, “I wish we could have more space?” Did you find that you got on each other’s nerves being in a smaller space than you might have been used to before?
There are moments because of the lifestyle. Stephanie and I were together 24/7 for five years, other than when I would work. Sometimes she would explore and go off her bike ride. She got a paddle board. During the pandemic, almost our life didn’t change at all. We were in a marina. We were in Cocoa Beach, Florida, when that happened, and the town had shut down. We could go out for a walk or go bike riding. There are no cars. There’s nobody out. It was strange. We wanted to see the town, but every restaurant was shut down. This is the early two weeks to slow the curve. Everybody was inside.
I would be walking and somebody is coming the other way. Half a mile away, they see us and cross the road. I remember the early days when you didn’t know what the heck was going on. As far as our own life, it didn’t change. We didn’t leave the marina because they weren’t taking anybody in. If we had left, we would have had no place to go. We are not self-sustaining. I need to be plugged in. I have a generator but there are certain things. I have holding tanks. They eventually get filled. Generally, our life didn’t change too much.
Let’s dive into some of your expertise, which is helping entrepreneurs get lucrative, high-ticket clients. That is my background as well, which is selling. Everyone has the objection of, “I like to hire you and buy this program and course, but I can’t afford it.” You help people handle that objection in a fairly unique way. Can you give us a little hint of what that looks like?
There is an expression that Dan Kennedy said, and I love it to death. It was like, “Slow down the sale.” You don’t go, “I’m Jim. Do you want to buy my high-ticket coaching program?” On a blind date, you are like, “Do you want to get married and have kids?” It is very icky to do that. It is a whole strategy, but the big nub of it, John, is if you give people enough opportunity to get to know, like, and trust, that happens over time. People could take all of my books and read them in the next 30 days, but they still don’t know me well enough. They are going, “This is a good book.” It is a process. You have to get to a point where you are not cash-starved in every potential sale and make it or break it for your business. That is not what this is about.
The other thing which I’m a big fan of is stair stepping it. Don’t go right for the big sale. I have read a lot of books in my earlier life about mergers, acquisitions, selling businesses, and franchising. One of the things I learned in the MA world is that sometimes a company would be bought whole, and it has several divisions. The person would buy it, split up and sell the divisions for more than they bought the whole company for meaning it is worth more in its pieces.
Dream Business: Every time you make a leap, it is a different mindset. You are making different decisions. You are making them faster. They are larger.
As I got more into coaching and started teaching other coaches, I said, “What you want to do is not sell them your annual program. Sell them something like a 90-day fast start.” That will be attractive for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is a lower threshold. It is only 90 days. I’m not making a year’s commitment. It is also going to be at a lesser price point. You just wow the you know what out of the whole 90 days and deliver so much value. They are going to be breathlessly saying, “What’s next?”
Not to be too crass, but the wallet will open up and say, “I don’t want to stop, do more.” This is the next step. That could either be two steps to fast start into a big program. There could be three steps to it. I’m not allowed to use some of their names. I have my mastermind, and people sometimes know who is in that I have some private clients. In one of the deals, some people know who they are, and they don’t want to say, “I’m getting coached.”
One of my private clients sells high-ticket coaching himself. When he came to me, he said, “I got a 60-day program, and I do pretty well. It is $7,500.” He can have a big smile on his face. I said, “That is good.” We started working together, and I’m like, “We got to start bumping that up.” He was telling me about what he does in that 60 days and, more importantly, what the value is or what the transformation is. I said, “Tell me everything you do for them.” His response was very much like a retail feature benefit. He was like, “They get this many calls. We do this. I help them with their cut.”
I said, “That is all stuff you do. If someone has a successful 60-day intensive program with you, can you tell me about one that worked out well?” He went, “I have a guy with a mortgage company. He makes $150,000 a year. In 60 days, I taught him so much about persuasion and the other thing. He is over $200,000. In 60 days, he is going to keep going.” I said, “Let me ask you a question. You took a guy and added $50,000. Potentially he is going to maybe be at $1.50, an increased personal take-home pay, and he paid you $7,500. Does that seem a good deal?” He goes, “No.”
What I’m saying is you don’t charge based on the number of calls or the hours. You charge based on the transformation somebody is going to have. He said, “What if we go to $15,000?” I said, “Let’s start there.” He doubled it. It didn’t slow him down. He made a couple of more sales at $15,000 for the same program. I said, “Let’s try something. Let’s make it a 90-day program. Whether you spread out the calls, add 2 more, or do 1 or 2 other things, you can put them in bullet form. Why don’t we try something like 23/5?” He sold it. He is now at 27/5 for the same program. He was selling for $7,500.
Here’s the exciting part. This client has been with me for several years now. He describes his big clients as whales, not in their personal size. He was like, “I got a guy. He got $1.5 million in revenue business.” He came to me and said, ‘I want to work with you for a year on these three things.’” He stated three big objectives. One of them being his own personal mindset. Even though he is doing great, I don’t care where you are. You got mindset hangups, Imposter syndrome, and money issues. He said, “I want to work on my executive team. I want to roll something out to the company. Give me a price for everything.”
[bctt tweet=”Don’t take the boat off the dock when you are too tired because that is when mistakes happen.” username=”John_Livesay”]
He goes, “Jim, how do I quote that? I think it is worth $50,000.” I said, “You are underselling yourself. First of all, do not quote an annual program. What is going to happen is if you quote them $50,000, it is a little more than I was thinking. What your natural thing is we will do a few calls.” You are starting to peel away all the good stuff and all those benefits of that beautiful car you wanted to try. The next thing is it is not the car you want so you are going to say no.
I said, “What you are going to do is pitch a 90-day fast start mindset program for him. Him being the leader first. When that happens, together, you guys will work with the executive team, and you will roll it out to the whole company. What I want you to do is price it at $7,500 a month.” It is $27,000 or $26,000 for the whole first 90-day program.
He said, “Why don’t I quote that?” I said, “No, quote $7,500 for the month for three months. As he likes that, you are going to say, ‘We are going to do stages 2 and 3.’ Even though it is a long time, I’m going to be more involved. We are going to keep the same $7,500 figure.” People get used to a monthly payment. It is usually the big number that freaks them out. He pitched it. He goes, “We are going to do you first. We got to get your mindset fixed. It is $7,500 a month. It will take us 90 days. We will do this and the other thing. That is the plan. Let’s get going.”
Ten months would be $75,000.
That’s $90,000. He closed this way. It was a ten-month program because I remember $75,000, but he thought $50,000 would be amazing. There are a few things about how to close high ticket items, slow down the sale, break it up into segments, and quote more than you want to quote like what is the monthly and not the total because the total will freak him out.
For people who don’t believe me about the total investment, let’s say you are going to buy a house for $300,000, but over 30 years, you are going to end up paying $680,000 with interest. The way you think about that, “I can have this $300,000 house and my house payment is only $2,200 a month. I can handle $2,200.” It is the monthly payment that people get fixated on. They don’t even think, “I’m paying twice as much for the house over 30 years.”
Dream Business: Life has taken over and they are busy. It is amazing how that simple thing of picking up the phone and talking to your customers can bring in more business without you having to sell.
It is the same thing as buying a car. I put solar on my home. It was like, “How much are those panels costing me?” Who is your ideal client, whether they are coaching with you or joining your mastermind, and is it the same person?
I have been doing it long enough. I know who that is. It is not people that are at the bottom at the beginning. A lot of my clients are somewhere around six figures to $200,000 a year. They have hit a plateau. My largest client was doing $32 million a year. I helped him learn how to sell from the stage. For the most part, the people in my mastermind are small business owners, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs. Sometimes people got 2, 3, or 4 team members. I’m helping them get to that $250,000 to $500,000.
Every time you make a leap like that, it is a different mindset. You are making different decisions. You are making them faster. They are larger. There are decisions about investment and learning what ROI is and not the so-called cost of what it is. It is pretty much small business owners and entrepreneurs. I work with an awful lot of coaches and service providers.
As a sales keynote speaker, I tend to think of myself as a stock. When you are investing in a stock, you go, “I hope this is going to grow.” I have a sense of what the culture is, what problem they are solving, what the competition is, and what the team is like, even if you don’t know all the employees at Tesla or whatever stock you are buying.
If you think of yourself as a stock, and in my case as a sales keynote speaker, I was like, “I need to invest in getting my sizzle reel video that agents showed potential clients greatly.” That requires spending quite a bit of money on editing, shooting, and music. That might take me 2 or 3 talks to pay for. A lot of people struggle with investing in themselves like that. I can tell you from my own personal experience it is paid off. For me, the mindset is I know my work ethic and skills. I believe in myself as a stock that I’m investing in. What do you think of that mindset?
I learned many years ago. I was working for a chain of stores that started franchising. Franchising is incredibly expensive to get started. You have the registration and legal. Before you sell your first franchise, you are probably at $200,000. The owner of this company was bootstrapping it. When we started exhibiting it at International Franchise Association events, he had this beautiful booth made. He did everything first class. He knew that would pay off in the long run. I help people get books published. My private clients work with my designer, but somebody might say, “I can get that done on Fiverr.” They have a piece of clip art that has two hands shaking that have been used 52 million times. They got the green arrow going up the graph to show an increase. That makes you look like such a commodity.
[bctt tweet=”If you give people enough opportunity to get to know, like, and trust, that happens over time.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I applaud you because I know it is expensive putting those sizzle reels together, but yet somebody who doesn’t know you is going to make an assumption based on how they perceive that reel. I used to get into all kinds of arguments with one of my boys many years ago about wearing silly clothes to school. They were like, “What if you go for a job?” They need to understand who I am. They are not going to get past to know who you are until they see you are wearing these shorts that look like pajamas or something. I don’t know the exact thing.
Look at we do make assumptions. That is a lot of what social media is. We make assumptions based on what we see. If you have a great sizzle reel, they are going to make an assumption like, “This guy is out there speaking. He is good.” It is called marketing and positioning. If you try and cheap out, people will sense that. Fairly or unfairly, they are going to make certain decisions based on how they perceive whether you are good or not.
The analogy I use is if you think of speakers as all being diamonds, and you can go down to the diamond market, get a diamond for asking someone to marry you, or you can go to Tiffany’s and they give you the diamond that is more expensive because it comes in this beautiful blue box. The packaging does set you apart. This concept of mitigating the risk for the people booking you as a speaker. If you have that mindset, and that is what you do well with your clients from what I have heard from your stories, is you zoom out and say, “What problem are you solving here?” In the case of an event planner booking a speaker, it is, “If that speaker bombs, it is on me.”
What are you doing as a speaker to mitigate the risk of me hiring you? Showing me a video of you in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people and testimonials, help mitigate that risk. If you don’t have that empathy and the ability to realize how they are making their decision, and more importantly, what their fears are and how you could solve that, you are making a video with no intention behind it.
As you say, “If that speaker bombs, it is on me.” You want to have a great relationship and understand what they are looking for. When I do my podcast now, and it is the tenth year, and you have been on the show a couple of times, I’m like, What would make this a great experience for you?” It is one of the questions I ask because I want to know, and you’ve done the same for me. Is there anything specific you want to talk about? It is good to know that.
A franchise consultant is like a real estate broker who makes a commission when the sales close. You are doing an awful lot of work upfront, hoping there is going to be a sale. We helped her publish a book. Of all the franchise consultants, most do not have a book. Her book has been out for less than 60 days. She has already resurrected three leads. Everybody that reaches out and they have a conversation, she is now shipping a signed book. People reach out. They were like, “Thanks for the book. I wanted to let you know I’m selling one of my other companies. In quarter 2 or 3, I’m going to be looking at this, and I will be sure to reach out.” She was off the chart excited.
[bctt tweet=”A franchise consultant is like a real estate broker who makes a commission when the sales close.” username=”John_Livesay”]
One of the things we do when we are trying to nurture these prospective client relationships is, how often do I reach out? What do I reach out to? Are you ready to go? This book is not only a positioning tool, but it is a reason for them to get back in touch with you. I told her, “Even if they never cracked the cover and read it, Kate is an author. She wrote the book on how to buy a franchise.”
One of my favorite things about being an author myself is when I realized that the word authority is the word author, even though you don’t hear it when you pronounce authority. It is subtle, “You are the authority on this topic.” You have to own that you are the authority on storytelling and sales, in my case, to even finish the book. Although you won’t let yourself finish it. There are all kinds of obstacles. I love that you are helping people with the mindset and stretching like, “Do I deserve to charge this much?” Being able to say that with confidence to someone is everything. If you don’t believe it, they are not going to believe it.
What is more important than if your prospective customers believe what you are saying is if you do. I realize that confidence comes from success. Success comes from being in activity, closing more sales, having them go well, and delivering a great experience. Everybody starts somewhere, but after a while, you got a track record. Keep thinking about reviewing that track record if you start feeling down. I used to have it in my home office picture and cards. People would send me things. When I’m having a bad day, I will look through there. I had even printed out emails because I didn’t want to lose them. I put them in the folder. I’m having an impact.
It eventually clicks on you, which sounds egotistical or chest-bumping, but I’m good at what I do. You need to believe that. Whether you are selling a product or a service, what your customers are buying is hope and certainty. They want to feel certain. They don’t want to think, “I think this might go well.” Based on your sizzle reel, books, and testimonials, whatever else you put out there, you want your customer to go, “This is going to be a great experience. I have a lot of hope that John is going to get me to where I need to be. I feel certain it is going to go well.” If you got hope and certainty, they would make the connection to move forward at some pace.
I compare it to being in a restaurant. Sometimes, if it is a fancy restaurant, they will bring you a sorbet to cleanse your pallet between courses. What we need to do as salespeople is cleanse our mind pallet. If you have a no, rejection, or you are not feeling like things are going well, I tell people to call up a client.
When I spoke at a luxury automotive sales dealership meeting, I said, “You know you get the rejections. Instead of staying in that mindset the next time somebody walks into the dealership or you get a phone call, you initiate a phone call to someone you sold a car to in the last 60 days. Check in and hear firsthand how happy they are driving their new Jaguar, Land Rover, or whatever it is you sold them. That puts you in a new mindset. It is great customer service. Sometimes you even get a referral from it, but you are not calling for that reason. You are calling to hear how happy they are with their decision. You can have that mindset the next time somebody comes in.”
[bctt tweet=”Social media is basically making assumptions based on what we see.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I firmly believe that if you make phone calls to your current or past customers without selling but to check in, “How is it going? What is working? What’s not working? Can I ask you if are we doing well? Where can we approve?” Whatever it is. It could be a 2, 5, or 10-minute call, but you are not there to sell. Invariably, I bet you 30%, 40%, and 50% of the calls, they’re like, “I’m glad you called because I have been meaning to call you.” Life has taken over and they are busy. It is amazing how that simple thing of picking up the phone and talking to your customers can bring in more business without you having to sell.
Our time has gone so fast. You are a great storyteller. I wanted to see if there is a quote or a book that you want to recommend, besides your own, for us, and we are going to talk about how people can get ahold of you.
I made the digital versions of all my books free. It’s my legacy-building program because I’m starting to get white on my face. Time is slipping. My books are free on Amazon as Kindle. If you are into Nook books, they are at Barnes & Noble. They are also in the iBookStore. They are free. If you want to connect and learn more about me, it is GetJimPalmer.com. The latest report I put out, which we talked about, is about how I work three days a week and how charging what you’re worth is the key to that. Work3DaysAWeek.com is where people can get ahold of that report and some good information in there.
Thanks for sharing your story, passion, and valuable takeaways on how to segment and price things in a way that gets people more money than they ever dreamed possible.
John, great to connect with you again. I know we have been on each other’s shows a few times now over the years. It is always a joy.
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- Work3DaysAWeek.com
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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