How To Be Unstoppable with Shawn Ellis
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
When you combine passion and skill in your career, nothing can stop you from soaring. Shawn Ellis, founder and CEO of The Speakers Group, talks about being able to find an outlet for his passion for his personal and professional development in the meetings industry. His clients have included Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, and healthcare organizations. His story about his journey, experiences, insights, and strategies are definitely worth sharing to serve as inspiration for people to be unstoppable.
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Listen To The Episode Here
How To Be Unstoppable with Shawn Ellis
Our guest is Shawn Ellis, the Founder and CEO of The Speakers Group, which represents top speakers around the country. He said that he has a special gift for the listeners, which includes not one but two gifts. The first one is you can download his free eBook, Unstoppable, which is all about your mindset. He’s giving us the ability to download his positioning worksheet which helps you answer the questions, “Who do you help and what problems do you solve and what makes you unique in the workplace?” Shawn never expected to find an outlet for his passion for his personal and professional development in the meetings industry, but he did. Since 1999, he’s enjoyed helping meeting planners and business leaders secure top speakers and thought leaders for their events.
After helping to lead a natural speaking bureau to become one of the 50 fastest growing privately owned businesses in Tennessee, he sent out to work with a smaller select group of speakers in 2003 and founded The Speakers Group. Through those years, his clients have included Fortune 500 companies and trade associations and healthcare organizations. He’s earned the reputation of being consistent, knowledgeable, trustworthy. He serves on the board of the International Association of Speakers Bureau. In fact, he was the president for his service back in 2010. He lives in Nashville and enjoys all of the things that someone who lives in Nashville is all about, which is music and enjoying the outdoors. Shawn, welcome to the show.
John, thank you so much for having me.
I always want to ask my guest their own story of origins. If you wouldn’t mind, you can go back as far as you want, childhood, high school, college. When did you have an interest in speaking or growth personal development? What was your first memory of, “This is the direction I want my life to go?”
[bctt tweet=”Be unstoppable in your thinking.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s been an interesting journey. I never imagined landing in this industry. I got a call from the owner of a Speakers Bureau. I was just out of college and I was happily employed. I had my five-year plan mapped out and all that thing. I got a call from somebody at the Speakers Bureau. Being in Nashville and having a little bit of music background myself, my first thought was, “It must be something related to bands and music and sound speakers.” I went in for the interview and had these conversations and I was intrigued. I look back on it. The more years go by, the more of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I’m thinking back to when I was a kid and my dad had the Nightingale Conant tape sets on the top of our console TV. I remember seeing Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins.
As a matter of fact, I’ve got some of those tapes sets in my office now that they cleaned out their house. They asked if I want it and I said, “I’ve got to have those.” It’s funny though. As a kid, I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but it was there. To go on and end up working with some of the people who were on those tapes sets, those are many of the legends living in and passed in our industry now. It all fit together as far as me branching out and starting speaking on my own in addition to working behind the scenes with speakers. I was the shyest kid in school growing up. I never imagine that I would get onstage and speak to people. It just brings it all together. Now, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It’s been an interesting journey to get here.
You have to pitch speakers all the time to clients. Since this is The Successful Pitch, let’s start there. How do you distinguish yourself from other people that are pitching speakers?
When I look back on all the years doing this, the one thing that I’ve learned how to do well and the thing I do most consistently is pitching and positioning speakers. That’s where it begins. Talking with a client, getting to understand their event, their needs, their budget, and all those details and then recommend the right speakers for them. For me, it’s all about figuring out what is right for them and then connecting the dots and going through my existing network of speakers. Sometimes if their needs are a little obscure or different than the zone I usually work in, it’s tapping into other resources in the industry, colleagues and other agencies or whatever the case may be. I try not to recommend more than three to five max speakers at a time. I try to keep it to three just because anything more than that, we know it gets into analysis paralysis and just gets overwhelming.
How To Be Unstoppable: In becoming a professional speaker, it’s better to have a book than not have a book.
I try to go to them with three speakers where each one is different. Each one I believe would be outstanding for further event and I’ll make the presentation. “Here’s why I’m recommending Bob or Joan or John,” whoever it might be. I’m pulling out my experience with the speakers to go along with their bio, their video, and all that stuff. You can find that anywhere on Google. Google has all that index. I help them see, “Why is this speaker the right speaker for our event?” Knowing that they’re going to want to make that final decision themselves. That’s why they don’t call on me to tell them who they should book, but to at least narrow the list to three strong candidates. I’m like, “You can pick any one of these three. It’s going to be outstanding, but which one resonates best with you.” They still got that freedom there.
People will say, “I want to talk to these five people you’ve put in front of me.” You take it a step further and help coach the speakers that work with you on what to say on those calls. Is that correct?
That’s part of it. It’s twofold there. One, all the speakers I work with, I want to help them be as successful as they can be but also I want to maximize the value of that time for our clients. When they get on those calls because they’re taking valuable time. Whether it’s talking with two speakers or three or however many it may be. They don’t want to get on those calls and just get into a pitch fest with their speakers or something that feels like the speaker is just selling themselves. It’s about how to have a real conversation and helping the speakers understand and give them a little bit of an insight into the meeting planner’s world. Help them identify the parts of their expertise or background that are going to be the most relevant to any given client.
I find that people make decisions on who they want to invest in or who they want to hire or what products they want to buy based on trust as a core foundation. First, the clients have to trust you to find a speaker, and then they have to trust you to curate for them. There’s a book out called The Paradox of Choice that talks about too many choices overwhelm us and it can be depressing. People don’t make decisions and don’t pull the trigger when they’re presented with too many choices. How do they find someone like you who can curate something to their needs? Can you talk about what you do especially in today’s world where a lot of people are picking a speaker based on the committee? How do you help them decide when it’s a committee decision? Which speaker to pick? Do you work with one person on the committee and then say, “Here’s how I would pitch this person to the committee?”
[bctt tweet=”Who do you help and what problem do you solve?” username=”John_Livesay”]
A lot of times it is a committee and unfortunately, I don’t get to speak to the entire committee. I always make myself available where I’d be happy to participate in one of those meetings. What I try to do with my one contact or two is to try to prepare them so they can go into that meeting. I want them to look good when they go into that meeting. They want to go in feeling confident because that group of speakers is the advocate going into that committee meeting. They don’t want to be ambushed there and not know the answers to the questions or whatever it may be. That’s part of also saying, “Here’s why I’m recommending this speaker,” knowing that gives them something. They can go in and have that information themselves so they’re not just saying, “Here’s the speaker’s bio.” Passing it around, they can make a case for each speaker. Everybody on the committee can those perspectives and chime in. Hopefully, that feedback comes back and we can keep the dialogue going to refine the selection from there
Part of that is, they’ve trusted you to do that. What you are good at is telling a personal story of why you trust that speaker. Can you give us an example of that?
First of all, I’ve got to trust the speaker. As I’ve told speakers and clients, if I recommend a speaker to a client, my reputation is on the line. Being in the business this long, that’s one reason I’m still here. They’ve learned that they can trust me and trust the speakers I represent.
For example, you helped me launch my speaking career to another level. When I was speaking near you, you took the time to drive and come hear me so you could personally see how the audience responded as opposed to just watching my sizzle reel.
How To Be Unstoppable: You would rather have no demo reel than have a bad demo reel because you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
There’s nothing like being able to see a speaker in person. By the time I saw you, we had already been working together. I had booked you and heard great feedback from clients so I knew I could trust you and I would recommend you with confidence. After I saw you in person, that took it to a whole new level. Now I’m not only relaying somebody else’s experience with you, but I can share my own experience like, “This is what I saw.” It’s not only about what I see on stage, but it’s also hearing the feedback afterward, seeing the enthusiasm. People come up and talk to you or when they come up and talk to a speaker afterward. That’s what I’m looking for because that’s how I can relay that to a client to say, “Not only you’re going to look good when you book this speaker. You’re going to look good because your people are going to be thrilled that you made the selection and brought this great resource to them.”
I’m constantly talking about the importance of telling a great story. You’re a great storyteller and pitching people who are storytellers. That’s what most speakers do. It’s fascinating to me to see your process of having to sell them to hire you versus another bureau. You have to sell them on which speakers you think are the best fit and why and help them get that through a committee. The person they hire has to deliver a great story that’s not just entertaining. It’s got to have some actual valuable takeaways that are going to make an impact on their bottom line to justify the fee. It’s a whole series of things that have to happen to make your business soar and take off. A lot of speakers get stuck and you help them get unstuck. How do you do that, Shawn?
There are different components of getting unstuck and different people might be stuck in different places. Sometimes it’s self-doubt or just believing in themselves. There are two ends to the spectrum. Some speakers come to me and they are so confident. They know they’re the best thing in the world and we have to reel that back in. They may be right, but I’ve got to tell them, “You’re one of ten, twenty or hundreds of speakers that any given clients are looking at. We’ve got to make sure we can put this in the language that matters to them.” In other cases, it’s speakers that feel intimidated because there are so many speakers out there and they feel like, “How am I ever going to cut through? How am I going to break through the market?” That’s for speakers who were early in their career and those who have been around for a while. They’d come to me and they say, “The market is more crowded than it’s ever been.” They’re feeling a little uneasy about this. The most popular topics, the sales motivation, leadership, these are basic topics. There are only so many principals to go around, but every speaker has a unique angle.
Everybody’s got their own perspective, their own experience and says it in their own way. There’s a need for everybody out there. Sometimes that’s the part of getting a speaker unstuck. It’s helping them uncover what is unique about you. It goes back to the story because it is helping them connect with their own story. If you just go out and say, “Here are the top seven principles to succeed in selling,” chances are they’ve heard a lot of those principles before. What connects those principals together is uniquely you. Sometimes it’s helping speakers see that, which then ties back into them. It’s helping them make their pitch to show how are they unique and how does their uniqueness serve their client. That’s where it all comes back to helping the speaker knows. In sales, we always hear the most popular radio station, WIIFM, What’s In It For Me. It’s helping speakers translate what they’ve got, which is so valuable into presenting it in a way that makes sense to the client.
[bctt tweet=”A great presentation is going to take an audience through ups and downs. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’re able to identify who you help and what problem you solve. You’re using stories as a tool to get people to see themselves in the story that they feel like, “You have empathy for what I’m going through because you’re telling a story that’s relevant to me.” It’s a whole way to differentiate yourself from everybody else in the pack.
It’s helping them see themselves in that story and see what’s possible to use your imagination. You bring out the power of storytelling and help your clients power up their storytelling because there’s nothing like it.
For people who are possibly interested in becoming a professional speaker, let’s go through some of the criteria for social proof. How important is it for someone to have authored a book in starting their career?
That’s a question that I get often. It’s better to have a book than not have a book. It’s not a requirement to get into the game. There’s plenty of speakers out there who don’t have books, but it takes your credibility up a notch for sure. The success of the book, the longevity of the book, all that plays into it as well. It helps with credibility. The other thing that it helps with is it gives people a chance to get to know your expertise and to hear your story. When they bring you in to speak, they haven’t just seen a five-minute demo video and read a couple paragraphs, but they have a better idea of your range of expertise. It’s not only about getting you jobs on the front end, but it also adds that much more depth to the events that you do.
How To Be Unstoppable: Everybody’s got their own perspective, their own experience, and says it in their own way.
Within the word of authority is the word author. Whatever you’re the author of, it creates you as the authority of that topic. That’s the relevant aspect of that. What about giving a TEDx Talk? Does that help someone’s credentials as a speaker?
It depends on the space that they’re in and the topic of their TED Talk. There are so many TED Talks out there and all these different topics. They’re all just brilliant. They’re so interesting to listen to, but not all of the TED Talks tie into the speaking market. You can go out and speak on anything, but it also depends on what do you want to speak about, what do you want to get paid to speak about. Do you want to get paid to speak? Getting paid to speak is a whole different genre from somebody that goes out and does community education talks.
That’s what would factor in on the TED Talk. What is the topic? Does it tie in with what’s a marketable topic for organizations? The notoriety of the TED Talk, the popularity of the TED Talk, that factors in as well. I know your TED Talk. I saw you had over a million views. When you can say that you’ve got over a million views on your TED Talk, that’s something I should pay attention to. That factor is in as well. I would say all of these spokes on the wheel. The more of these things you can put in place, that much stronger you are. If I’m pitching a speaker, if I can say, “Look at John, he’s the author of this book. He’s got this TED Talk.” That will elevate your position.
You mentioned a demo reel, which you send out with a description of the speakers you’re recommending from your list of people who are on your site. What are one or two key things that people should keep in mind when they’re creating a speaking demo reel?
[bctt tweet=”There’s nothing like being able to see a speaker in person.” username=”John_Livesay”]
One of the things that I always tell with speakers is I would rather have no demo reel than have a bad demo reel because you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Once somebody sees that video of you if it’s not representing you in the way that you want to be represented, it’s going to be a lot more difficult. It’s difficult to erase that image from their mind to convince them that, “I know you just saw that video, but I’m better than that.” That video is all they’ve got to go on. That’s the first thing. Let’s say if you want to speak in front of 500 people, then if you’ve got a video that shows you in front of six people around a conference room table, that’s not going to translate. I would rather see no video than have a video that shows you in that light. Try to get a video that shows you in the setting that you want to be speaking in.
That takes some time to get there and that’s all right to be patient with that or if you can invest the time and money and put something together and get the right video. Make sure it represents you well. Make sure that it shows the different sides of you because as we know, any great presentation is not always exciting. It’s not always happy. It’s not always sad or whatever it may be. A great presentation was going to take an audience through ups and downs. Maybe they’re not crying but at least it’s going to touch their heart in some ways. They’re going to laugh. If you can show some of those elements in your presentation or in your video, that certainly helps.
A variety not only in your tone of voice but in the messaging and a short little video. Making sure the sound and lighting are all professional. A good setting that people will think, “This person’s comfortable in front of a big crowd. They’re not going to be a deer in headlights.” You’re trying to mitigate the risk of someone hiring you as a speaker by having all these social proofs. It’s much like somebody who’s pitching to get a startup to an investor. Mitigate the risk or try to sell a product to somebody who’s never bought from you before. The theme that I hear consistently is showing them why you’re the right choice and that you can back up what you’re saying you can do with examples. When that all starts to flow into place and then they get to talk to you, that’s what comes across as, “This person gets me. That’s where I want to work with them.”
The risk piece is a big one right there because as I said, my reputation is on the line when I pitch a speaker. Whoever hires you, their job is on the line. They don’t want any surprises. The more you can show them exactly what they’re going to get, the more comfortable they’re going to feel. The more likely they’re going to work with you.
Unstoppable
You have two resources for everyone that have never been available for free. It’s only for people who have hired you as a consultant. One is called the Unstoppable eBook. Tell us what we will find in there.
That’s something that is fairly new and as I mentioned, I’ve been in this industry twenty years going on just celebrated fifteen years. I’m the Founder of The Speakers Group. If you’ve been doing anything for that long, there are going to be lots of twists and turns and ups and downs. That’s one thing that I’ve found from both on the personal side and professional side going through different challenges, but I’m still standing. One thing I can say is I’m unstoppable. I’ve been unstoppable and that’s true. In that eBook, I share a little bit of my story and just some of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way. I’m so grateful to have learned that and it allowed me to rise up and keep moving forward to be here this long. I hope that will be a great resource. If somebody maybe is struggling with uncertainty or change or whatever it may be, just have a quick jolt of inspiration there.
This mindset is the foundation for everything you do, no matter what your career is. You have some insights and proof that what you’ve done has not stopped you from being successful and happy. Most people think sometimes it’s mutually exclusive or you can’t have them both at the same time. You have shown people how to have both. You also have something that’s a positioning worksheet. What is that, Shawn? How can people learn how to position themselves better no matter what they’re doing?
That is a tool that I’ve only shared with my coaching and consulting clients in the past. I wanted to offer it to your audience because it ties in with this pitch themed conversation. It’s a tool I use with speakers to help them get clear on who do they serve, how do they help them, why do they help them. That ties into your story because you know very well why do you do this. Whatever we do, we don’t have to do this. We could go do something else. If you uncover why you do it, it’s good for us to know. It can help in your marketing. What happens if they don’t work with you? Why is their life going to be better if they do work with you? It’s designed for speakers, but it can be adapted for anyone leading them through this process that I go through with speakers. It’ll help them with their positioning and branding to uncover what’s unique about them. It’s a quick little worksheet, that I hope will give people some good insight and yield some good outcomes that they can use in their own marketing and pitching.
[bctt tweet=”There are different components of getting unstuck, and different people might be stuck in different places.” username=”John_Livesay”]
People can find that at ShawnEllis.com/Pitch. Shawn, any last thoughts of inspiration or ideas that you want to share?
John, thanks again for having me. This has been an interesting conversation. Going back to that trust factor, one thing that came to mind is something that a speaker did one time that helped to gain my trust. When I get to see you live, that’s great but that’s not always possible. One time I came to him with an opportunity and I said, “Here’s what the client’s looking for. Here’s what they’re doing.” He responded back and said, “That’s not the best fit for me. That’s not where I’m at my best.” That brought my respect and trust to a whole other level because now all of a sudden, I know, “He’s not going to say yes to anything I bring to him.” If somebody says yes to everything, that’s what scares me. That gets back to knowing who you are and trusting yourself that, “You don’t have to say yes to every opportunity that’s out there. There is an abundance of right opportunities for you.” Be willing to say no to things. That’s going to help people like me trust you that much more. You put yourself in positions where you know you can thrive and succeed. The results of that are going to be so much better. That’s just one extra thing I would throw in there.
Who we say no to and what we say no to is more important than who we say yes to. For example, if you asked me, “Would you like to speak to a group of CPAs about how to work their optimization and depreciation of their assets?” I would say, “No, thank you.” It’s not just a way to lead your life but a way to build trust. I’ve never heard anybody use that as an indicator of how to build trust, so that’s such a great takeaway. Thank you so much, Shawn. It’s ShawnEllis.com/pitch to get his free resources of the Unstoppable eBook and the positioning worksheet that will help you in every area of your life.
Links Mentioned:
- The Speakers Group
- https://www.TheSpeakersGroup.com/Storytelling-Sales-Secrets-John-Livesay/
- Unstoppable
- The Paradox of Choice
- ShawnEllis.com/Pitch
- Quantmre.com
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Crack The Funding Code with Judy Robinett
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
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Listen To The Episode Here
Crack The Funding Code with Judy Robinett
Crack the Funding Code: How Investors Think and What They Need to Hear to Fund Your Startup
I’m honored and thrilled to have a return guest. It’s a very rare thing on The Successful Pitch, Judy Robinett. She is the author of How to Be a Power Connector. She has a book called Crack the Funding Code. That book has all kinds of information on how to get your startup funded. Judy has been profiled in Fast Company, Forbes and Huffington Post. She is the super-connector who has an amazing network globally. Not only have people that are influential but investors from Angel groups to VCs. In over 30 years as an entrepreneur, she herself has served as the CEO for both public and private companies. She’s been on the advisory boards of Illuminate Ventures, which is an early-stage venture capital based in Menlo Park. She is well-connected literally around the world. Judy, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, John. I’m thrilled to be here again with you. What you didn’t tell your guest is that you’re featured in my book probably because you’re the best guy I’ve ever worked with in my life on pitch decks and understanding what a true value proposition is. I’m excited to be here.
Tell your own little story of origin because that always is so impressive of how did you become this super connector and this expert in this ecosystem of getting startups funded?
I grew up in the same town where they filmed the movie, Napoleon Dynamite, so I was a nobody. I was shy as a kid and had been bullied. I very quickly figured out when I worked for a couple of Fortune 50 corporations that with keeping your head down and working hard, the thought was you’d get noticed. I found out you didn’t. I read the book, How to Win Friends & Influence People, and that helped me to understand the power of strategic networking to get any resources you need to get anywhere because there’s no lack of resources. There are billions of people on the planet. There’s $296 trillion of private global wealth. There’s no lack of money to get funded. What I learned was that most people are in the wrong room with the wrong story. Having been an investor for a number of years and then working with the VCs and accelerators like Springboard, which to date raised $9 billion, had seventeen IPOs and 185-plus strategic sells. I was so saddened when I would meet founders who had a great business idea, usually a solid business model. Unfortunately, they either met up with bad actors or they had felt like they’re running this endless rat maze trying to figure out where the cheese is. I decided I was going to help them figure that out.
When that happens, nine times out of ten people are doing both. Your expertise is getting people in the right room. I want to also say what I’ve observed is your skillset is so immense that you can get them in the right room at the right time. If you are not prepared when you have that opportunity to meet someone one-on-one or get in front of Angel Group or a VC for your ten-minute pitch and you haven’t done your due diligence, it can still all fall apart even if you are in the right room.
This happened to me. I was referred to a gentleman who has an amazing startup called Logical. He has investors and is doing well. He has proof of concept and 148,000 in sells, but he’s not pitched too high-end Angel groups or to early stage VCs. I started from where I usually do with people, “Send me your pitch deck. Send me your financials.” Nine times out of ten, in some level, they suck. I’m being clear and people have done a lot of work. The problem is they don’t know what they don’t know. The next two phone calls I make, one of them is to David Meister, who is a top CFO expert on pro formas for startups. David doesn’t charge a ton, but will go through all of those proformas, help you develop them if you need. He drills down to how do you mitigate risk as viewed by the investor.
[bctt tweet=”Mitigate the risk for investors.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’ll hear all the time, “You’d better know your numbers.” He delves into your assumptions behind the business model. Usually, the second call I make is to you, John, because people have a hard time so much in the forest that they can’t see the trees. Particularly from an investor’s standpoint, the investors, number one, want to know what the exit is. How are they going to get their money back? How quickly? You have to mitigate risk as viewed by the investors. That’s usually where I start and that is how you get a good story. You can tell me what your business proposition is in two sentences. You have a pitch deck that speaks to the competition, you go to market strategy, who your team is, some of the basics. You’ve done your homework on the financials. That is getting the right story. You can be ready to get in the right room.
I love this concept that when you mitigate the risk, that’s when you get a yes from an investor because people have so much trouble having empathy for what the investor thinks and how many pitches they hear in a year. Can you share your observations? The statistic is only 1% of pitches get funded. Do you find that to be true? How do you help people solve that problem?
I don’t believe that. The majority of startups fail if you drill down, you find out they came from the Small Business Administration or some government agency. The truth is a business may not have failed at all. They may have reincorporated as a different entity. They could have sold to somebody else that made the business successful. It is tough. As Einstein said, “If you’re going to play the game, you’d better know the rules.” One of the big reasons I wrote the book was to help people understand there is no lack of funding. Different phases of your company require different types of investors. You usually start with friends and family. That’s the biggest pot of money that’s available. The next one is the Angel groups. People need to understand there’s no lack of these people.
There are 300 Angel groups. They’re equal from north to south to west to east. You don’t have to get on a plane and go to Silicon Valley or go to New York City. One of those little rules of the game is 75% of Angel investors will only invest in the state where they live because they want to be able to visit you, to coach you, and to help you. Understanding that piece of information and then going on Google and type in Angel groups in Utah, Angel groups wherever. You can do the same with family offices, which now have some 80% of them are now also investing in startups. Having that information, doing a little research, I often tell people to go look at New York Angels in New York City. They’re one of the best Angel groups in the world. They walk through what you have to have ready, what the application process is. If you do that, then you’re geared to be much more successful above that 1% who get funded.
A lot of getting in that 1% Club, so to speak, is having a warm introduction to get into that right room.
That is correct. A VC out of California once said to me, “Judy, if they can’t figure out how to get to me, they can’t figure out how to get a customer.” One of the reasons is people get bombarded with thousands upon thousands of business plans, models, and executive summaries. It comes from someone that they know, like and trust. If you put on the New York Angels that somebody has referred you to them, inside their group of 70-plus, you’re pretty well-assured that you’ll probably get a slot to get in the door. It absolutely helps. A key point is they also have to know you, like you, trust you before they’ll fund you. The number one thing is to start building those relationships.
You’ve often said that there are two big reasons why small startups fail; lack of customers and lack of funding. Can you speak to both of those?
[bctt tweet=”No competition means no marketplace.” username=”John_Livesay”]
This is a quote from one of the founders of Y Combinator. I’ll often meet people and they’ll say, “If I had the money.” The reality is they need the customer. Often people have what they think is a brilliant idea and it turns out it’s a hobby. It’s something that they wanted. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem for a customer. Until people are willing to open that wallet and pay you, all you have is a hobby. The quicker you can get some funding in the door after you’ve got your customer. Focus on getting those customers in the door first, then it’s much easier to get funding because you have proof of concept.
As one investor said to me, “If you’re selling dog food, I’d love to see those dogs eating the food already,” which I love that image. One of the things you touched on earlier was the importance of competition. I have seen and heard with you sometimes people say, “I don’t have any competition.” One of the key questions that I think people need to be prepared for is what’s your secret sauce? What’s the barrier to entry? Can you tell us about your thoughts and experiences and maybe a story around that?
There are a few key sentences that if I hear them uttered, it tells me instantly that the people are amateurs. One of those is there’s no competition. If there’s no competition, there’s no market. There’s no need for your product or service. There’s always competition. It shows me you’ve not done your homework well. It’s absolutely critical to figure out who your competition is. I was in Belgrade for eleven days working with a couple of startups. One of them I’m already on their Board of Directors and own a part of the company. The second one is a new one to me. They arguably have something that is arguably the next step up from AI, artificial intelligence. Sure enough, three minutes into their pitch, they assured me they had no competition.
I always smile. I made them go do a little research. It turns out everybody from Microsoft, IBM and who else is also playing in this game and somehow could be construed as a competitor. The other thing they will tell me is they need money like the day before yesterday. They don’t see any need for an exit. The exit is the only way the investor gets their money back. This also was from this group. I said, “Nobody is going to invest because they want their money back.” They said, “We would consider doing a strategic sell.” The majority of exits in the United States are strategic sells. Another thing I have people do is get on PitchBook, which is free and there are several competing services that are like that. They can tell you who bought what company, who the competitors are. You can do it by Google, by industry to find out exactly who those competitors are.
Crack The Funding Code: Nobody can create a successful business by themselves.
You need to be able to talk about them in a way that is not insulting to them or coming across as arrogant. Let’s talk a little bit about how important it is. It leads right into the team. Your overall attitude and persona of confidence versus arrogance. Can you talk about what you’ve seen and how can people make sure they’re confident but not arrogant?
One of the biggest turnoffs to investors is a know it all. Investors will immediately say, “Go for it. Just not with me.” That shows that you’ve got a problem with your thinking. Nobody can create a successful business by themselves. That’s a big turnoff. It shows that you’re arrogant. It shows that you’re a fool. You think you know better than the rest of the world. That’s problematic because Angel investors invest. They want their money back, but most of them have been successful entrepreneurs themselves. They love to coach. They love to help you to get to that successful exit. Avoiding as we call it, hair on the deal, not making mistakes that are going to make you un-fundable or that you’ll never be able to sell the company.
My takeaway from that is to be coachable and confident when you pitch.
[bctt tweet=”Be coachable and confident when you pitch.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Being confident is fine but let me tell you, if somebody says, “I don’t know but let me get back to you on that,” that’s a much better answer than lying about it because these investors, many of them see a thousand deals a month. You’re not going to pull the covers over their eyes, but sometimes it’s fear. Everybody knows you’re broke. That’s why you’re there to get money. If you’re smart, you will agree that you want their expertise. You want more than their money. You can be confident. You can say very confident driven things. Also, if you show a little bit of humility and make a couple of comments like, “I hadn’t thought of that. What a great idea. Could we talk about that more?” job one is to build a relationship because you want the second date. They’re not going to meet you and then write you a check. They’re looking for a level of confidence.
They also look for a level of your character. Howard Stevenson who was the head professor at Harvard for many years for entrepreneurs wrote a great little book and it’s for investors. It’s how to pick deals. It’s a great one for people to look through and see what the investors are looking for. He said, “The first time someone lies to him, he’s out of there.” It’s like you would flush your money down the toilet, so it doesn’t matter how great your deal looks, what your ROI is. If there’s an inkling that you’re not telling the truth, you’re history.
Does the book go into some details, Crack the Funding Code, on how to prepare for due diligence once you’ve gotten a yes to make sure that everything is opened up?
Yes. We do have a section on that and probably one of the most important chapters is Chapter Nine, which is mitigating the risk as viewed by the investors. They want to make sure you can execute. They want to make sure you have a solid team. There are many execution risks. You had mentioned barrier to entry. My book does go in into that. It’s good for you to take your blinders off and pretend like the investor is your customer because, at this point in the funding process, the investor is your customer. You need to be open-minded with any concerns or any issues that they raised. This is from usually decades of experience that they have. Often, they’re trying to be helpful and then test you a bit to see what your response is because they want to take a peek under the hood at that character of yours.
In other words, do you get defensive right away or do you stay calm? One of the things I know that you’re all about is putting together a great team because the investors are asking themselves, “Why is this the best team to execute this idea?” Can you speak to the importance of having complementary skills on the team?
We start with a founder and hopefully, they’re a sales guy. If not, then you’d be needing a salesperson first because cash is king and you want that proof of concept that you have customers. I usually tell people to get somebody like David Meister as a fractional CFO because you don’t need a full-time finance person. It is good to have a high-level guy, who can help you as the company begins to grow. That’s important. Often you don’t have money to build out a lot at this point. You can put in your deck if you need a CTO, chief technology person, on or some guru. You can put this person is going to be hired upon completion of this round that you’ve already had interest from them. A rule important one in my mind is positioning the company for success.
Often you as a founder, you don’t have years and years of success behind you. Find two to three people who do have success. I helped a woman get the first CFO from PayPal on her advisory board. Another one I helped get a director out of Microsoft for fifteen years. It literally speaks volumes. People look at the company and go, “If this person is in, they’ve done the research, the due diligence, and they believe in this concept.” The other one is to surround yourself with service providers, your law team, your banker that have a level of expertise. I meet a lot of people and they’ll say, “I’ve got this great bookkeeper that put together my pro formas.” That’s not going to cut it, neither is your accountant. It’s very different getting pro formas done by somebody who understands startups. We engaged with Wilson Sonsini. They’re the number one law firm in the world for startups. It’s like that old commercial when JP Piper speaks, everybody listens and everybody turns. If you have a good banker, good lawyers, it looks like you’ve put together a solid team of people who can advise you. I’m leery. I don’t work with people who tell me they don’t need an advisory board. That’s right up there with, “I know it all. I don’t need any help.”
[bctt tweet=”Most people are in the wrong room with the wrong story.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Can you tell a story of how you were able to help a company get a good exit above what the valuation would have been on paper by assembling a good advisory board?
A company that I worked with out in Park City had developed a biomedical device for permanent sterilization that could be done in a doctor’s office very inexpensively. Initially, she had gone the rounds in Utah trying to find Angels. She kept hearing no. When I was introduced to her, I said, “Let’s up the game here.” I brought on one of Howard Stevenson’s protégés out of Boston, Eileen Shapiro, who has been a top consultant at McKinsey, has been an investor probably for 35 plus years. That helped. It turned out the relationship with her resulted in a much higher significant sell of the company than she would have had out doing it by herself. That’s why it’s so important to have people that are in the industry that you’re targeting. Lots of lawyers can write contracts. You want people who can also open doors for you, who have expertise in the industry that could help you find potentially strategic partnerships.
What would you say is the biggest mistake a lot of founders make who haven’t read Crack the Funding Code?
Probably the biggest mistake is trying to find love and trying to find money in all the wrong places. I meet people that feel like they’ve been kicked in the guts hard and everybody is telling them no. It’s because they haven’t done the match of where the money is, who’s got it, and who’s most likely to fund you. Often, they are missing a couple of components of the story. The big one is mitigating that risk as viewed by the investors. Locally, you can go to Score. You can go to the SBA, the Small Business Development Center. Your local college or university has professors, people who are experts on entrepreneurism. Find a pitch event and that’s where investors hang out. It’s also where people hang out that love startups. We’ll happily give you some advice.
Crack The Funding Code: The higher you go up that food chain in the venture capital world, the more sophisticated those investors are.
You have worked with so many powerful people from Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank to Mark Burnett, who produces Shark Tank and several other shows. You’ve also helped people get in front of a venture capitalist. Let’s say someone who wants to read your book, Crack the Funding Code, because they’re like, “I’ve got some seed round from an Angel Group. I’ve got some revenue, but I don’t know how to break into the venture capital world.” How different I should speak there versus an Angel group? I know Crack the Funding Code goes into that. Can you share some of those insights?
The higher you go up that food chain in the venture capital world, the more sophisticated those investors are, the tougher the questions will be. Back to looking at the New York Angels, then I would have you google White Star Ventures, a top VC firm that’s now global, started in New York. One of their best access has been The Shave Club, $1 billion-plus. You can Google early stage VCs. You can look and see what specifically they’re looking at. Many VCs are very niche focused. They realize they can’t do it all. There are ones that specialize in the oil patch, everything to do with gas and oil industry. There are ones that all they do is life sciences. There are other ones that only do the B2B play or the B2C play, business to customer direct. You need to have done your homework and understood the jargon of the VC world. One of them is the one you quoted, “Does the dog eat the dog food?” Another one, “Is there hair on the deal?” They want to make sure that there’s no potential litigation coming down the pack. That you’ve protected your IP if you have it. How you approach them is very different. There’s a chapter in my book on doing strategic networking that can easily move you forward.
In addition to being this amazing author and consultant to startups, you’ve also a speaker. You’ve spoken at NASA. The White House, you’ve been involved and invited to. Give us a little snippet of what kinds of speaking engagements typically are you called in for.
[bctt tweet=”Until people are willing to open that wallet and pay you, all you have is a hobby.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I’m usually called in on strategic networking. People needing to understand, “This is my goal. I’ve got A2B, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get from B2C.” This is another one of Einstein, my favorite quotes, “A and B, you can get there with logic every time. B to C usually takes imagination.” It boils down to strategy. You can create luck. People say to me, “You can’t create luck.” I’ll say, “Go stand on the train tracks for 24 hours. Tell me if you’ve got good luck or bad luck.” How you position yourself is absolutely critical.
The book again is called Crack the Funding Code. People can buy it on Amazon. It’s on Kindle and Nook and every place you can get a book. Judy, is there one last thought you want to leave our audience with about what they need to look for in Crack the Funding Code?
One of the biggest pieces of advice I’ll tell everybody out there is to kick fear to the curb. In Hebrew, there are two words for fear. The first one is when you think the sky is falling, for me, I’m running to my cave with dark chocolate. The second one is like you’ve stepped into this brighter, bigger space than you’ve ever been in. It’s fearful but it’s on inspiring as well. Everybody at some level deals with the fear. When I did my first startup, a franchise restaurant, I thought I was going bankrupt. I went to an attorney scared to death. I’m shaking in my boots. He said, “You’re not even close.” I said, “I’m broke. I don’t have any money.” He said something that changed my life. He said, “Judy, they can break you, but they never can eat you. Don’t let fear persistence wins time over time. It’s not the brightest person in the room. It’s the person who will learn and the person who keeps going.”
Judy, thanks so much. Thanks for being a phenomenal guest. I know this book is going to be a big success and help a lot of people.
Links Mentioned:
- Return guest – Judy Robinett previous episode
- Crack The Funding Code
- How to Be a Power Connector
- Illuminate Ventures
- How to Win Friends & Influence People
- White Star Ventures
- www.JudyRobinett.com
- Quantmre.com
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Big Questions with Cal Fussman
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
Podcaster, in-demand speaker, writer, and expert at asking the best questions, Cal Fussman believes that a good question could get you to the most powerful person on earth. Sharing a story that is not short of that, he takes us into the time where he landed an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev and how he managed to extend their conversation beyond what was allotted for. He then transitions to the power of asking the right questions, one that strikes at the heart. Equally important as well is the ability to listen, and Cal shares how it can ultimately improve your relationships with people. He shares the three things that a question is part of what allows for a successful pitch to happen while also giving us a look into his experience of being the sommelier at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Big Questions with Cal Fussman
Our guest is Cal Fussman who is an expert on asking questions. Cal says the questions have guided his life ever since he was seven years old and he sent one to the president of the US and he got a reply. The key is how do you ask a question that gets you an answer that’s useful and unique? Cal is somebody who has a podcast himself called Big Questions. He’s an in-demand speaker for huge companies around the world talking about the power of questions. Magazine lovers may recognize Cal as the writer who spent a week with Muhammad Ali for Esquire magazine’s cover story. He’s interviewed everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, De Niro and hundreds of others who have shaped the last 50 years. Wine lovers know him as the sommelier at Windows on the World at the top of the World Center before it was taken down on 9/11. Before that, he’s won a James Beard medal. Cal, welcome to the show.
Thank you. That was quite a pitch.
It’s easy to do with someone like you who has such a rich background in journalism and you have breakfast with Larry King every day. You’ve got a family life going on. You’re consulting for companies on how to improve their sales through listening and storytelling and the power of questions. The first question I want to ask you is about your own story of the origin. You can go back as far as you want because people are always interested. Cal was not always a journalist. Questions have been a big part of your life since you were seven. Let’s start with that story as kicking off place.
[bctt tweet=”A good question can get you to the most powerful people. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
It goes back to a very specific day at the end of November 1963. I’m in second grade. Right in the middle of the class, I’m the shortest guy in the room and Miss Jaffe leaves the classroom for a moment. She returns completely different wearing the same clothes but everything about her was different. She was pale and she started to speak in a voice that was so overly calm, it was scary. She tells us that President Kennedy has just been shot. It’s a Friday afternoon. Everybody is let out of school. We all run home to turn on the television and see Walter Cronkite the CBS broadcaster who everybody looked upon as the person who could give them the truth. Very different days than we have where everything is segmented and people turn in to hear the one voice that they’re looking for. Back then, it was this guy telling us the truth. He tells us that President Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas. That set the whole nation into a busy state.
My dad when he got home talked to my mom and they realized it was the first time in my life that I was confronting death. I was seven years old the week before. They called me over to the kitchen table and they explained, “Cal, you’ve been watching the news and you know what’s happening. We’re here to tell you that this has happened in our country’s history before. The country has a plan in place to deal with it.” That’s as you now know Lyndon B. Johnson, the Vice President, has stepped up and assumed the presidency. “We want you to know when you go to bed tonight, everything’s going to be fine. When you wake up tomorrow, you’re going to have breakfast just like you did. You’ll go out and play just like you did so you can get a good night’s sleep.” I’m sitting at the table and I’m thinking, “This guy Lyndon B. Johnson the new President, I’ll bet you he wanted to be the president and now he is. Is he happy to be the president? Is he sad to be the president because he’s only the president because John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Then I think maybe he’s scared to be the president because they may try and kill him too.”
I’ve got these thoughts rolling around my head and I can’t figure out what Lyndon B. Johnson is feeling. Is he happy? Is he sad? Is he scared? Are there other emotions? I picked up a pencil and a piece of paper and I started writing, “Dear, President Johnson. How does it feel?” I asked him if he was happy, sad or scared or all the emotions and I wished him well. I had just been taught how to officially write a letter, so I was able to drop it in an envelope put my address in the top left-hand corner, lick a stamp, put it in the top right-hand corner and I’d put President Lyndon B. Johnson, the White House. I didn’t tell anybody about this. It’s not like there was any ambition in this letter. I wasn’t thinking of being Secretary of States. I just wanted to know what this guy was thinking so I didn’t tell anybody. The next day I took it outside with me to play dropped it in a mailbox and my parents were halfway right. The things did not return to normal. The next day the suspect in that shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald, was shot in the police station by a nightclub owner named Jack Ruby and then there was the President’s funeral.
Big Questions: A great storyteller pulls us into the situation where we feel like we’re there.
I still have vivid memories of John-John, the three-year-old son of the president saluting as the coffin passed him. It was John-John’s birthday. Life didn’t return to normal so quickly but after a time it did. I forgot about the letter until about six months later, my mom comes racing up the steps of the apartment holding this envelope in her right hand. The letter was addressed to me from the White House. It was the president through his personal secretary, Juanita D. Roberts, answering my questions. What was very cool about it was the way it was written because it was not written down to a second grader. It was written with great respect and I knew that when I reached the second sentence started, “In answer to your query.” I had no idea what a query was. The thing about it was the apartment filled up with people. Everybody wanted to hold the letter from the president and the principal at the school wanted to see the letter. When I went back to school, suddenly the shortest guy in his class was a very big man. The lesson that I took out of that was that a good question could get you to the most powerful person on Earth. It would guide me for the rest of my life and get me to many of the most powerful people, from Nelson Mandela to presidents like Jimmy Carter. I interviewed Donald Trump. You mentioned some of the actors like De Niro and Pacino that I’ve spoken with. It all started on that one day.
The thing that resonates if you are looking for tips on not just how to ask a great question but storytelling in general as part of a good pitch is you paint a picture so vividly. The year, the name of your teacher. She looks different even though she didn’t change clothes. You pull us into the situation where we feel like we’re there and that’s what a great storyteller like you does. The thing that resonates with me is you asked the president how he feels not just what he thinks or plans to do. That is what caused him to give you a response because you had empathy and could put yourself in his shoes. I’m happy and sad at the same time because of the way I got this job from a very young age. It’s quite insightful. Let’s double-click on the story you have of interviewing Gorbachev, which got cut down from what you originally thought it was going to be in terms of the amount of time you’d have of somebody. Can you paint that picture for us?
Let me take you back to February 2008. Mikhail Gorbachev is coming into town to give a speech about abolishing nuclear weapons. This is years after he was the leader of the Soviet Union. I’m sitting in a hotel lobby waiting to meet him. I’ve got an hour and a half to ask him any questions I want in order to fill up Esquire’s What I’ve Learned column. I’ve done all the research well-prepared and ready to go. The phone rings and it’s a publicist. She says, “Sorry to tell you this but your interview with Mikhail Gorbachev is going to be cut short.” I’m nervous and I have good reason to be nervous because this column that I write is not written in my own words. It’s written in the subject words and those words just can’t be any words. They’ve got to be wise words.
[bctt tweet=”Aim your first question for the heart. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
This situation happens time and time again to people in the business. You’re told you have an hour to present and it comes down to 30 minutes. You’re told you have 30 minutes and I only have ten minutes so tell me what you’ve got or you’re meeting somebody in the elevator and literally have an elevator ride. What you’re about to share of what you do in a situation should have everyone on the edge of their seats because it applies to business.
When I talk to salespeople I could see on their faces when they hear this how attached they are to that situation because it must be happening to them every day. Here I am, I got the phone in my hand and I know that there’s no way for me to fluff this column up or fill it out. I need Gorbachev’s words and I need at least an hour in order to reach into his soul and extract the wisdom to fill up that column. I leaned into the telephone and I asked the publicist’s, “How much time have I got?” She says, “Ten minutes.” I go crazy, “This is impossible. I can’t do this in ten minutes.” She was like, “Cal, a lot of very important people have been added to the list to see Mr. Gorbachev. There’s nothing I can do about it. Do you want that time or not?” Of course, I take the time but as I hang up the phone, I’m feeling worse about this. I know I’m going to walk in that room and we’re going to shake hands. We’re going to exchange pleasantries, we’re going to be seated and there are two minutes right there. Plus, my questions are going to have to be translated into Russian and his answers back into English. It’s another two minutes right there. This interview is down to six minutes before it even starts but you can only do your best.
The point of time arrives. The publicist escorts me into the conference room and I look in there and a smile comes over my face because there he is. I walk up to him and I know I’ve got to do something to get the time back. I know that doing things in a normal conventional way is not going to work. I’m looking at him and I get this feeling that he’s expecting my first question to be about nuclear arms or Ronald Reagan or world events. I quickly jump in and say, “What’s the best lesson your father ever taught you?” He was surprised in a pleasant way. He looks up and doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at the ceiling as if he’s seeing a movie of his childhood on it then he starts to tell me a story. It’s a story that goes back to when he was a boy and his dad got called up to fight in World War II. The Gorbachev’s lived on a farm. He was describing the trip that the family took from the farm to the town in order to see the dad off. He was doing it in nice details and I’m sitting there wondering, “This is amazing. I didn’t see this in research.” Another part of my brain is screaming, “Wrong question. This interview is going to be over before Gorbachev’s even get to town.” They don’t get to town. When they get to town, Mr. Gorbachev takes everybody in the family into a little shop and he buys them all ice cream.
Big Questions: It’s not going to help you even if you have the best question if you’re not listening to an answer.
Gorbachev is remembering this ice cream. He’s remembering the aluminum cup that it was served in. He’s talking about this aluminum cup of ice cream as if it’s sitting in the palm of its hands. The more he talks about this ice cream, the more we both have this realization. This cup of ice cream is the reason he was able to make peace with Ronald Reagan and end the Cold War. This cup of ice cream contains the moment that he could just imagine might be the last moment that he’d ever see his dad. It was a dread of not knowing what was going to happen from this point on. He’s looking at the ice cream, I’m looking at the ice cream, we both look up at each other and we’re thinking, “This is deep.” Just then there’s a knock on the door and it’s the publicist, “Mr. Gorbachev time for the interview to conclude.” Gorbachev looks, the publicist looks at the translator, looks over at me and he says, “No. I want to talk to this guy.” The publicist is surprised but she backs out the room. The conversation continues and goes deeper. About ten minutes later another knock on the door. This time the publicist comes in a little more sheepishly, “Mr. Gorbachev, Cal.” Mr. Gorbachev’s says, “No. I want to talk to him.” The publicist backs out the room.
Ten minutes later, the conversations got deeper and deeper and another knock on the door. This time the publicist is in an all-out panic, “Mr. Gorbachev, Cal, please. I get a long line of people outside the door to see Mr. Gorbachev. I don’t know what we’re going to do. The day is way off balance already. We’re never going to have time to do everything that we’ve set out to do. Please.” Gorbachev looks at her translator and looks back at me and then he gives me this shrug that says, “What can I do?” The interview ends but at that point, I had enough to write the What I’ve Learned column and it turned into a huge success. When I thought back on why, I realized that if I hadn’t aimed my first question for his heart, never would I have gotten that insight. If I got him with a canned question, I would have got a canned answer. The interview would have been over in six minutes and I’ll never know what was possible. That’s what I always recommend to people that when they’re in that situation, they always aim their first question at the heart.
The reason I love that is it automatically paints a picture again of drawing an arrow and aiming it. It’s vivid. Before the show started, we were talking about you have three things that a question is part of that allows for a successful pitch to happen. Would you take us on that journey and describe a little bit? If you’ve got a good question then what comes after that and then what does that lead to?
[bctt tweet=”I never learned anything while I was talking.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You start with the question but it’s not going to help you even if you have the best question if you’re not listening to an answer. Here’s your next tweet, John. It comes straight from Larry King the broadcaster and a legend. Larry likes to say, “I never learned anything while I was talking.” It’s so crucial to be an active listener. Once your sincere question is out there to be taking in the information because people will know how much you care by the way you’re listening. They can often look at your face and understand whether you’re standing there thinking of what you’re going to say next or listening to them. That leads to the story because now you’ve asked the question and you’ve got some information. Once you can frame that information in terms of a story, you can then make a pitch or try to compel somebody with something that may have happened in your past or that you know about. It is within you at the start but you need the question and you need the listening in order to know exactly the story to put forth in order to craft it in the right way and with the right timing.
I would be remiss as a host if I didn’t ask you to tell us a little bit about the story you wrote when you won the James Beard medal for your experience of being the sommelier at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center.
That goes back to a moment where a new editor was taking control of Esquire magazine. This went back to late 1997. David Granger came in one day with a group of his writers passed magazine experience and he needed stories. You just suddenly have to fill magazines for a few months all of a sudden. I came up with this idea called The Perfect Man. The only reason I could have that idea was that I had so many flaws to correct. The idea was to look at my flaws and then go to experts to find out how to correct them and to be better than I was before. I did this across a variety of subjects. I learned to eat with etiquette and to manage my time. I learned to do things as simple as walking with the right posture, even how to shave in the best way. I was following all of these areas of my life that I wanted to be better at. One of the things about wine is if you don’t know anything about it, you can be humbled. When you are the host at a dinner table and the wine list comes around people will look at you to select the wine and you don’t know how to match it with people’s foods. You don’t know what’s good and you don’t know whether wines are worth the money. You never know if the waiter or the sommelier is trying to jump you.
Big Questions: The best questions are questions that make the person just as curious about the answer as you are.
What happened is we arranged for the folks at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center to take me in. At one point, Windows sold more wine than any other restaurant on the planet. It was a huge restaurant. It was so beautiful because you’d have the windows that allow you to see the panorama of New York. It became the ideal spot for a man to take the woman of his dreams to dinner and then get down on a knee and propose and everyone in the dining room would start applauding. It gets more romantic than that in a lot of eyes.
Something you just said that I hadn’t thought about before was clearly that restaurant was all windows from floor to ceiling. When you’re sampling wine, you’re looking at the windows that the wine creates in the wine glass. I love that double meaning there.
I don’t know anything, John. They took me in on a two to three-year adventure. I wasn’t working at the restaurant every day but when I could, I would stop in and they taught me all about wine service. I had to go out and learn all about wines and the differences between all of the different types of grapes and where they came from. You had to be able to describe the sense and the taste. It is a long process. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the documentary, SOMM. I recommend this to everybody. It doesn’t matter if you like wine or not. It’s a documentary about excellence and it shows a few guys going through a test to be a master sommelier and what they have to do in order to achieve that grand status. Hardly anybody passes this test because you have to be able to pick up a glass without knowing anything but what you’ve just tasted you’ll say, “This is the country that is from. This is the region in the country where it’s from. These are the grapes that were used and this is the year that the wine was made.”
[bctt tweet=”If you give people a canned question, then you would have a canned answer.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The amount of information that you have to accumulate is stunning. I didn’t do anything near that but for me to understand where all the wines on the Windows wine list came from and what they tasted like and to know enough about the grapes to talk about them. It took more than two years. Whenever I was traveling around the world, I would stop in the wine regions. It was beautiful the way the wine world opened up to me. Everybody embraced me and poured their wines for me and allowed me to taste. One night in 2001 shortly before the planes came in and took the World Trade Center down, I was the sommelier there. It was a glorious night. The beauty of it was there were many people who had no idea I was just doing this to write an Esquire magazine story. They thought I was the sommelier.
Very few people have the time and the luxury of being funded for two years to learn the job so well that you can write a story about it.
That was the great thing about my experience with David Granger and Esquire. If you had a great idea, he’ll go with it.
It’s almost like being undercover for the police and your identity starts to blur a little bit because you’ve become such an expert in that that you think, “This is my new career. Who needs journalism?” When the planes crashed into the towers and Windows on the World no longer existed, did you feel as if you lost part of your identity?
I had many feelings going through me. I felt odd because I didn’t know any of the people who were on those floors at the top of the World Trade Center because I was working at night. There was a whole different group of people working in the morning but there were certain people like General Manager Glen Vogt and the Head Chef Michael Lomonaco that I knew they were there all the time. Miraculously, Michael was coming into work at that time and he stopped to pick up a pair of glasses. Because he did, he was not at the top of the World Trade Center when the plane hit and is alive and Glen survived as well. I felt so close to this place. I remember having dreams of all the bottles and the wine cellar just tumbling into the abyss. You feel so connected to all the beautiful moments that that place had provided and all the beautiful moments that it had given me. The reaction I had was it was hard for me to drink wine for a while after that. I don’t think I’ve ever returned to the place I was at when I was a sommelier and the wine was that integral in my life. It was something that I was thinking about for hours in a day. It’s hard to answer the question because so many emotions ran through me.
They had a fundraiser to help out all of the wait staff and restaurant folks who lost their jobs. It was a beautiful dinner. Wines from around the world donated some of their best wines to be auctioned off so that the money could go to help support the restaurant staff and waiters. We’re in the middle of this beautiful evening and they start announcing the different people who would help put this fundraiser together and they were announcing the sommeliers of various restaurants. They announced like, “Sommelier from Windows on the World.” They mentioned my name and the place wraps with a roar and applause. I felt odd like, “I’m not the sommelier. I’m an impostor. I’m a writer who’s just doing a story and here is everybody jumping to their feet in support.” There were so many feelings that came out of this that moved me and almost crippled me because it was my job at that point to write a story about the experience and I couldn’t write it. I’ve heard of people having writer’s block. I never had that experience but it was too close. It took me ten years to get the distance to be able to look back and understand what I’ve been through. I did write the story at that time and it won a James Beard Award. That’s the best thing I’ve ever written.
[bctt tweet=”People will know how much you care by the way you’re listening.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’re not only a great writer and interviewer but you’re also a great keynote speaker. I want to touch on some of the places you’ve spoken up and your fundamental idea that changing your questions can change your life. That allowed you to speak to Facebook, Twitter, Apple Music and UCLA. In fact, Facebook Marketing said that your technique has become a staple in the department. They have people using the term Cal question, “What Cal question are we going to use to get the understanding we need?” You changed their culture. Cal, can you leave us with what is a Cal question?
On my podcast, I ran a contest with a Cal question. The question is, “Why is your best friend your best friend?” The reason that I like that question is it does many things. One, it’s not threatening at all. It allows somebody to speak intimately about themselves without feeling that you’re prying into a dangerous place. Two, it brings the person who has the question coming at them their best friend. It makes them warm and it makes them happy to think about their best friend. Three, it’s not a typical question. It forces them to think about something that they know in a deeper way. The best questions are questions that make the person asked just as curious about the answer as you are or maybe they’re even more curious than you are to get to an answer. Here they are with their friend in mind and now they want to look into themselves in a deeper way to find out, “Why is my best friend my best friend?” When they do come to that answer, they’re going to be happy that they’ve got that question and they’re going to look forward to the next question.
Cal, I can’t thank you enough for sharing with us your journey and your insights about what it takes to get a good question that strikes at the heart and how we can learn to listen better and become storytellers so that every pitch we are on is framed in a whole new way. If people want to find you, they can go to your website, CalFussman.com. They can listen to your podcast, Big Questions. Do you have any last thoughts you want to leave us with?
I must say I’ve known you for a very short time, John, but I feel very close to you. We are almost mirror images of each other in terms of where our careers were. You were on the advertising side and I was on the editorial side but we’re seeing that it’s all much bigger than this fragmented way of looking at things. What I’m discovering through the time I’m spending with you is that it’s the questions, the listening and the storytelling that work across the board.
Thanks. It’s been a pleasure having you on. There are so many more things people could ask you. I just added my own questions because I feel you on the other side of the things. I could talk to you for hours. I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us and I’m looking forward to watching what your next question is going to be.
The best is yet to come, John. I look forward to seeing you down the tracks.
Thanks.
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