Amazon Mastery With Shaahin Cheyene
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
The future of commerce is online and mastering online marketplaces is something that anyone with anything to sell dreams about. We do live in fortuitous times because that wish of yours might just come true with Amazon Mastery, a new online course created by Shaahin Cheyene, the world’s #1 Amazon Accelerator. Sales has been Shaahin’s life and passion since his teenage years, when he became known as the “King of the Thrill Pill Cult” for dominating the rave scene in the 90s with his legal drug brand, Herbal Ecstacy. Shaahin founded his latest company, Accelerated Intelligence in 2009, which became one of the first sellers on Amazon. He has since developed an absolute mastery of all the tricks that it takes to dominate the site. Listen to his interview with John Livesay to learn the most important things you need to have if you want to succeed in the world’s biggest eCommerce platform.
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Listen to the podcast here
Amazon Mastery With Shaahin Cheyene
My guest on the show is Shaahin Cheyene, who has a new book out and an online course about Amazon Mastery. We talk about how important it is to not only convert, and you need to speak Amazon’s language to do that, and also get in the top ranking. He said the keys to that are authority and social proof. He shows examples of finding out what your 20% effort is that gives you 80% of the results. Enjoy the episode.
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My guest is Shaahin Cheyene, who was born in Iran. He’s an award-winning entrepreneur, writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He’s the CEO and Chairman of Accelerated Intelligence. Through Accelerated Intelligence and Amazon Marketing & Advertising Agency, he manages the selling of his products and helps other brand owners to scale their online sales, not just on Amazon, but other marketplaces like eBay, Shopify and Walmart. He shares his passion for Amazon through his Amazon course entitled Amazon Mastery, which I have had the privilege of taking. It is incredible and full of information. He also has a new book coming out that we’re also going to talk about, which has a very compelling title that we’ll ask him about to explain, which is Billion: How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult. Shaahin, welcome to the show.
John, it’s great to be on.
I love asking my guests to tell me their story of origin. In your case, you can go back to your days in Iran. Tell us what’s in this book you’ve written called Billion: How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult. That is part of your story of origin before you became an Amazon expert.
I was born in Iran, in Tehran. I grew up there until I was about five years old to a solid middle-class family of Persian Jews, then revolution happened in Iran. My family was highly motivated to move out of what became the Islamic Republic of Iran. We landed in the US where we became lower middle class to the beginnings of poor from the standpoint of the kids that I was going to school with in a little enclave here of Los Angeles called Brentwood. I grew up around kids who had summer homes, their parents had multiple cars and all types of luxuries. I didn’t eat out at a proper sit-down restaurant until I was twelve.
It was not something that we did. If I needed clothes, me and my brother would go down to my dad’s dry cleaners in Westwood. We would keep our eyes open for clothes the customers had left behind for a year or more. Sometimes we’d get lucky, but usually our clothes would be several sizes too big for us. It’s an ongoing joke with me and my brother because we would wait by the door and look for people coming in who had a cool look. We would hope secretly that they wouldn’t come back to pick up their clothes because we knew that’s what we’d be wearing the next season.
From there, I decided that I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I don’t know how, but school life was very tough growing up an Iranian in the United States during a time where there was extreme prejudice against people from Iran. This was all during the Iran-Contra and things started heating up at home. I decided I’m going to go out on my own and I was going to leave home. I left home right around fifteen and went about my way. I discovered a mentor somewhere in Venice Beach who mentored me and started out in the rave scene, throwing underground parties, breaking into warehouses, having someone hop the electrical pole to get power, bring it in several car speakers to make sound and doing all kinds of stuff like that.
Billion: How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult
We’re running illegal rave parties in the early ‘90, Los Angeles rave scene. It led me to a discovery that the only people making money in the rave scene, including the DJs and the promoters were the people who were selling drugs. For them, the supply of the most popular drug at the time, ecstasy, which is what they call Molly now had run out. It had completely been wiped off the tables. They were unable to get it. There were all types of dangerous stuff being sold as ecstasy. When people are at parties, raves and clubs, and they’re having a good time, they’re with their friends, and they’re enjoying life, they don’t have time to do a chemical analysis of the pills being sold to them.
This was causing some turmoil. I thought to myself, “What if I could break-in to this niche? If I could create a legal and safe alternative that wouldn’t hurt people and that people could use as an alternative, I’d be doing very well.” Long story short, I formulated a product in a girlfriend’s bathtub at the time somewhere in West Hollywood. I started going to the clubs and figuring out a way to convince the drug dealers who were pedaling real drugs to sell my pills.
Let’s pause for a second there so people can get a real picture. The cover of your book has a picture of you in this era with long hair wearing this pink guru gown on this very psychedelic cool background. If they’re looking at your headshot of the handsome guy you are now, they may not even recognize it as the same person.
That is right. I was long haired, defiant to no end, rebellious teenager who happened to be running $1 billion company with 200 employees, and had zero history in business, zero experience. I was a high school dropout. I never completed ninth grade and flying by the seat of my pants. The funny thing was that I had a system at the time, which I called suicide margins. What that meant to me was that I would make more money to solve all problems. I knew that if a problem arose, it would be easier for me to make more money to throw at it at that time, because we were printing money with these pills, than to go through the long process of fixing problems, building systems, and doing all that. The one system I had in place is make so much money that if something comes up, you can throw money at it and solve it. If somebody steals product, no problem.
How did you convince those drug dealers to sell your “herbal ecstasy” which is 100% legal to create this whole smart drug movement?
It all started out with one moment in one rave where I showed up. It was a huge rave. I was nervous and shaking. I had a backpack full of goof-filled capsules because that’s all we had at that time. There were either balls or capsules. I hadn’t gotten to commercial production. I was packing the stuff myself in a basement, kitchen and bathroom of girlfriends at the time. I showed up at the club with a backpack full of pills that I had very carefully packed in little baggies with a little card inside with a picture of a butterfly and an E in it. They were out of drugs at this party. I walked up to the biggest drug dealer in there and I said, “You’re going to go to jail. There are undercovers here. I’ve got a way for you to get out of it.”
At first, he was very aggressive and standoffish. I said, “Sell my stuff.” He said, “What?” I said, “Sell my stuff.” He said, “Give me some and I’ll try it.” He tried it. He was enjoying life in that moment. He took the whole backpack full, sold it all within minutes, and then came back asking me for more, which I nervously had to decline because I didn’t have any. I’d have to run back to the girlfriend’s bathtub and continue to produce more. He got my number. I got a pager and more people came on. He brought on others and more and more people came on. It grew from one guy in one club to 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 guys to the point where we created $1 billion in revenue.
Amazon Mastery: If you want to achieve success, you have to be able to find the one thing that’s going to be the most fruitful for the effort that you’re putting out.
In my upcoming book, I tell the story where I’m sitting in my office and the news breaks to me that we broke the $1 billion mark in sales. I’m sitting there going through my books, talking to the people sitting there. I did not even know how much $1 billion was. You could have told me and I wouldn’t have known. They wanted me to be on one of these big talk shows. It was Montel Williams. I was nervous because this was pre-internet and I didn’t know what $1 billion was. I was like, “Is he going to ask me how much a billion is? I don’t know what a billion is. Is it British billion, American billion?” I’m looking through encyclopedias. I’m like, “What are we going to do?”
Someone’s like, “Listen, idiot, they’re not going to ask you how much a billion is. They probably already know, but the bigger problem is they’re going to try to ambush you.” We have this whole situation developed where I’m going on this national talk show. I knew that I was being ambushed. Meaning that they were going to juxtaposition me, the fifteen-year-old, wearing Teva sandals, sweatpants or medical scrubs because I thought those were comfortable. I didn’t want to think about dressing. I had two modes. I had medical scrubs and I had sweats. That’s all I would ever wear anywhere, all in one color.
I decided to do the show anyway because I knew that even though they were going to have old government people against me, they were going to try to do some big thing where they would confront me on the air and prove how wrong I was that I was going to capitalize on that. What I did was I printed up t-shirts with our 800-number spread across the top. Before the internet, there was this thing called 800-numbers. I got to explain this to all the Millennials.
Pager was originally for drug dealers, doctors, and then actors waiting for their agents to page them. Now you have a pager to promote these drugs.
They’re going to be googling what a pager is. I had my pager and I had these t-shirts with our 800-number emblazoned across the top of them. I had a team go out and hand them out to everybody in the studio audience before, and then we gave them sweaters to put over them so they wouldn’t get busted. We gave them free pills. It was like a big party outside when the producers came up, they did not understand what was going on.
To be clear, those pills work quickly. It’s not like you have to wait an hour to feel a difference.
It’s 15 to 45 minutes was very effective depending on your bodyweight and metabolism. I had people who it affected them within 5, 10 minutes. For some people, if your metabolism is a little slower, it might take longer. If you’ve got a lot of food in your belly, it might take longer. Somebody may have incentivized some of the people on that show to stand up and wear our t-shirt on the show. The show host who later turns out may or may not have been a little dyslexic and didn’t read on the show because he was unable to do so.
[bctt tweet=”What is your 20% effort that gives you 80% results?” username=”John_Livesay”]
He pretended like he would read, he would hold up a package and he would say what the producers told them to say or what was on the prompter. I didn’t realize that this was happening. When the show aired, our 800-number was on everything. We made hundreds of millions of dollars from the airing of that show and others because my 800-number was on my shirt. We had government people saying, “This product could be dangerous.” They had Concerned Moms of America and DARE. They’re like, “Don’t buy this. It could be dangerous. This could very well be dangerous.” What are people hearing? What do you think they’re hearing, John?
When you say don’t, your subconscious doesn’t hear it. They’re hearing, “Buy this.”
When they’re saying it’s dangerous, that translates to the mind of all these people that maybe it does work. The real controversy in people’s minds were, “If I’m going to drop $20 on this, is it going to work?” That was the real controversy. The controversy on the news was, is it dangerous or is it not? The fact is people are willing to take a very high degree of risk in order to have a good time.
The younger you are, the more tolerant you are. You feel immortal and maybe not worried about anything happening. It has been many years and now Accelerated Intelligence has not the same product, but other products that have all kinds of enhancements around memory. I want to take us to that journey a little bit so we can get to the Amazon stuff, but it’s a fascinating launch of a career. It also stuck and morphed into something called Accelerated Intelligence.
I wouldn’t say morphed. I would say I learned a lot of lessons along the way. When you are a teenager and making hundreds of millions of dollars leading off to creating over $1 billion in value, before your 21st birthday, you learn a lot. Since then I created a number of companies, many of which failed, a few succeeded, which brings me to where I am now. I’ve got three lines of business. One is we make and sell products on the Amazon platform and beyond. We’ve got 300 different products in health and wellness, tea and supplements. We’ve got Excelerol, which is a fantastic brain supplement.
We sell one called FOCUS+ which people love, but we make all types of products. In addition to that, we have an agency where we do that for Fortune 50s, Fortune 500s. We charge some unreasonable amount of money, and we’ve got probably more demand now than we do have time and supply for our service. Somewhere along the ways, we figured out how we could win using the Amazon algorithm to our advantage. It seems now especially in COVID times, that’s something everybody wants to do with their product. We get brands approaching us all the time for that.
Let’s talk about one of those brands because what I love most among many things about you, your persona, your passion, your intelligence and grit is this organic Matcha DNA. That’s one of your products. There are a lot of places that sell matcha green tea. People are aware of the benefits of it from immune system stuff. You figured out a way because this is what you do for everybody, how are we going to make our organic Matcha DNA show up in an Amazon search, so that when someone puts into Amazon green tea, yours is going to be one of the ones that comes up. Maybe walk us through that path as an explanation of how you help others find a product, get it to appear on the first page of Amazon results, and then what that does for people’s income and life.
Amazon Mastery: Sometimes, starting and fixing problems as you go is a better tactic than working out all the kinks to make the best possible thing you can put out.
If you want to achieve success, you have to be able to find the one thing that’s going to be the most fruitful for the effort that you’re putting out. There’s a great book by Gary Keller called The ONE Thing. I’m sure you’ve read that, where he explores that. Not only that, what you have to do is you have to do an analysis of all of your efforts. In that analysis, there’s another great book by a guy named Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle, which is based on the Pareto Principle. This guy a long time ago figured out that 20% of our efforts bring about 80% of our results. What is your 20%? When we look at Amazon, we look at all the stuff that people do to sell products online. What’s that one thing that you can do that can put your brand, your product above all the others?
The important thing on Amazon above and beyond all other things is ranking and being able to get visibility, but that’s not the only thing. Once you have that ranking, you have that visibility, you have to be able to convert. You have to be able to get them to buy your product. We do that by being able speak the language of Amazon and that has to do with influence. Another great writer, a man named Dr. Cialdini, who you’ve had on this show.
He wrote a great book called Pre-Suasion.
Also, Influence, I’m honored to be sharing the same airwaves, but he talks about the key factors of influence. I’ll give you two, which is the 20% to the 80%, even when it breaks down to influence. That’s social proof and authority. Those two things with any product make a big difference when you’re selling on Amazon. In my course, I’ve got a lot of students now who learn from us. A lot of people come to us and they’re like, “We’d love to use your service.” I’m like, “We’re ridiculously expensive.” They’re like, “You’re right. We can’t afford you. Thanks.”
We have a course people can take and do it themselves. The course is pretty reasonable. It’s not for everybody, but for the right people, it could be a game changer. We teach them how to do what we do using influence, using storytelling, which you are the master of on the Amazon platform. Learning how to sell products and create this real estate where they have this recurring revenue stream that’s happening for them day after day, week after week, making money while they sleep. That’s what we teach.
We’re both such fans of Dr. Robert Cialdini and Influence. There are three steps in any process. There’s the attract, convert and deliver. Most people have some challenges on the first two steps, but once they get hired to deliver something, they’re pretty good at it. What is so great about you is you walk people through all three steps. If you happen to say, “I want to sell something, but we need to import it from China.” There might be some delivery hold ups or what have you, that would impact your business.
You have been through enough of these to know the warning signs so that people don’t get stuck in the delivery part. That’s such a key part of expectations around anything I buy on Amazon. It better be here at least by tomorrow, if not a drone delivering it within the hour. When we talk about this first concept of attract what you describe as ranking to show up, that in of itself is worth the price of your course. People spend thousands of dollars to have that same result in Google searches. You are the expert on that for Amazon, but it’s not enough to show up. You got to show up as your best self and your brand and the packaging. The conversion starts the minute that page downloads in my humble opinion.
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
A lot of people feel like they lose the sale at the end of the sale when they ask someone to buy. In your case, it would be the click here. I’m saying most of those sales are lost if that packaging doesn’t match who I think of myself as. It may be the least expensive, but I’m going to buy something that appeals to me. Maybe we should talk a little bit about authority as it relates to packaging. Those two things are tied together. Do you agree?
I’m going to push back a little bit on that with you because I know that you are a master salesman. You are a master of pitch, one of the best in the world. With that, I see where you’re coming from wanting to always put excellence forward. I’ve known you for a couple of years now. I always see you bringing excellence to what you do. That’s admirable. With products, however, on the Amazon platform, and I’m only talking about Amazon and selling on Amazon, sometimes you have to be careful not to have perfection paralysis, which is something that a lot of people suffer from. This line of conversation, I’m so glad that you brought it up because it’s so important, especially in these days of everything being politically charged, COVID, and all this stuff happening. We tend to gravitate towards black and white. Things are not black and white. They are nuanced.
In the order of selling on the Amazon platform, there is a lot of nuance there. I get students who come to me who cannot launch a product because they are so tied up in excellence. I say, “It’s good to be excellent, but you also need to do what Seth Godin talks about. You need to ship. Your product is good enough for what it is. Ship and fix the problems as you go.” Sometimes that’s a tactic that’s better than working out all the kinks and making it excellent and the best possible thing you can put out. This is a principle that I teach in my book because when you are sleeping, your enemies are planning your demise.
Two things. One, we talked about a mutual friend, Jay Salmon’s great line that, “Failure is just feedback. You keep going until you get a zombie idea. It’s so great it won’t die,” which gets you out of that perfection paralysis. I teach people all the time, let go of perfectionism and think of yourself as a progressionist. Start celebrating progress so that you don’t wait to launch something. Looking at my own website and the speaking video I’ve created multiple times and keep enhancing it. From where it was to where it is now is night and day. If I didn’t start, it wouldn’t have ever started to evolve. I agree with you that don’t let perfectionism stop you from launching and testing something.
If we take a look at the authority that organic Matcha DNA has and the social proof that you have from Dr. Eric Wood, who you were nice enough to introduce me to, that’s an example. It’s got authority plus social proof and great packaging. That all combines to tell this story. We’ve been able to bring those two things to life a little bit, but taking an example of when you look at this item. There are a lot of things you could open with. I tell people the same thing is true of a recipe, a job interview, when they describe what they’re looking for, and when you’re promoting details of the product. Put the most compelling thing upfront. Don’t bury the lead as they say in journalism. A lot of people could say, “I’m a left-brain person. I’m going to talk about how lab tested for lead this is.”
You lead with delicious and nutritious. That’s so smart because matcha green tea has a reputation for not exactly tasting very good. Sometimes it can be a little bitter for some people. The fact that you opened with that, pulls us into that story. We keep reading about how it’s certified, the doctor, and the way that it’s packaged. Here’s what I do in storytelling. When I give a fact or feature about something, I encourage people to say this phrase, “What that means to you is.” If we’re talking about something being certified BPA free packaging, and you’re the only one that does that, what that means to people is, then I’ll let you fill in the blank there.
It’s healthy.
[bctt tweet=”To sell on Amazon, you have to learn the Amazon language to convert customers. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
If you’re buying something organic, but it has a BPA in it, you’re taking away from it. That’s your unique selling point, but you lead with delicious and nutritious. When you’re talking about the nuances that are in your course, this is what we’re talking about?
Not every approach is right for everybody. What I’m hearing from you is that you want to lead with the one thing that your audience or your product avatar, whoever is buying your product wants to hear the most, the lead point of influence. That makes perfect sense to me.
Buy emotionally and then back it up with logic. If you’re putting the description of your item and logic at the top, they may not read down to the emotional hook first.
It depends on the product. This is the nuances that we’re talking about. You might have coat hangers and all coat hangers are the same. Your proposition there might be, “You get five more with us,” and then you would lead with that. It could be that, “We’re the low-price leader. We’re the same as all the other guys, but we’re $1 cheaper. Save that dollar.” It’s whatever that influencing factor is that will lead them to make a buying decision. It’s going to be different. For every product. I’m 100% on board with that.
Since you’ve been through my storytelling format, let’s leave everybody with an actual case story so that they can see themselves in the story, and want to go on the journey with you of becoming a master of Amazon. If you have a client in mind that you can tell a case story about, we’ll start with the exposition, their name, maybe the first name for anonymity purposes, where they live or approximately how old they are. Paint that picture a little bit for us if you have a case story in mind.
We don’t believe in anonymity here. All of my students, once they come on board, they know they’re on board. I will tell you this story. Me and my wife decided to have a kid several years ago. They grow up fast. My wife was working for the United Nations under Kofi Annan during Kofi Annan’s reign at the United Nations. She was a big-time publicist working for the UN and in government positions. Directly under Kofi Annan, who was her boss, was the head of the United Nations. We decided to have a kid and she said, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to do that high-level international politics work.” She came home. We had the baby. During that whole time, she was like, “I got to do something. I can’t just be a mom. I’d like to do something that brings in some money.”
By osmosis, she was watching me help clients and students, and mentor people. She just listened in and was like, “Honey, I think I can start an Amazon company.” I said, “You can do it. I’ll help you with whatever time you have.” She figured out, “I’ve got two hours a day when the kid’s sleeping or at the babysitter. I can do it.” She launched a company selling greeting cards and girly things that I don’t understand, recipe tips and floral flowery things that I have very little connection to. I would never think that somebody would need a recipe tin in this day and age. When she told me, “They don’t have an iPhone. What’s wrong? Why do they need a recipe tip?”
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less
She is now doing close to $500,000 a year in sales working about four hours a week from home. She’s doing it by selling these products on Amazon. She expanded out to Etsy using our algorithms and the stuff that we teach. She sells on eBay. Day after day, we’re on vacation. We’re in Tulum sitting on the beach. She’s got her phones dinging with orders. She gets that tone and she loves it. We joke around about that and she’s adding products all the time. It’s amazing because she gets an opportunity to be a mom, to be a wife, to hang out with our family and friends and do that, and still bring in that revenue. That’s one of the amazing opportunities that Amazon has been affording its sellers and why it’s such an important company. We take that money and we turn it into other products and cashflow producing real estate.
Let me break that down for people to learn how to tell stories as well as you did. What is your wife’s name?
Her name is Matisse.
Several years ago, she became a new mom and we know that she had a very high-powered job before. The problem was she didn’t want to just be a mom and yet she only had two hours in a day as a full-time mom to juggle all this. We have a pretty good picture and a lot of women can relate to this. What I find fascinating about that story is even after your child got older, she could have decided to go back to work after they started school, she realized that the lifestyle and the freedom and the money is probably even better than she had when she was working for somebody that was such a high demand job.
We have the exposition. We know how long ago. We know the problem and then we go to the solution, which is an unexpected solution of something. The way you told that was like, “I would never think anybody needs it, but we have a way of testing it, and sure enough, it proved out to be something.” You then give us the solution of $500 million in eight years, four hours a week. You’re like, “That sounds like something I’d like to learn how to do.” The resolution is what brings that story home. Now we’re visioning you on the beach with your wife and son, and everyone’s happy. She’s feeling fulfilled, not just as a mom and a wife, but also as an entrepreneur and contributing to the family.
This is so important in storytelling. The money is going back into the business to launch other products and buy income real estate. We’re creating a legacy and that’s tugging at the heartstrings because a lot of people want to leave a legacy for their children and being on the planet, whether you have kids or not. I don’t know if you consciously did that, but it was valuable for people to hear how to tell a good case story in a way that is intriguing and will promote people to go check out what you’re offering on your course, but also at the same time, learn how to become a master storyteller in a new way. We’re doing two things at once.
I love how you broke that down and that’s amazing. How would you improve that?
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini)
Mention her name because it’s more specific, “My wife” and then give her name, and then it will make us do the math in our head. Let us know that eight years ago when you decided to have a child, those little details pull us into a picture in a stronger way. Maybe give a little bit more of a description of maybe a problem she had along the way, and why people need your course in order to make this successful. The biggest mistake people make is they don’t test or they spend too much money or they don’t know the algorithm or they don’t speak the Amazon language. Give us some sense of what she started to do that you helped her not do before she had that success.
We’re on the journey a little bit to go from you have an idea for a product. We don’t know where she gets it from. We don’t know how she tested it. The more we see that there were some challenges. Remember in this case, you’re the Sherpa helping her climb Mount Everest of launching a new product to make money. It’s what we could add into that story to make it even more compelling. As it is, it’s intriguing enough that people are going to go, “I at least want to go to the website.” What’s the best website for people to go to find out more about you as a speaker, and to find out about your book and the course?
I’m going to do a couple of things. One, I’m going to give my email address and this will be my direct email where people could get ahold of me and I will get my website. The website is www.ShaahinCheyenne.com. If anybody’s interested in succeeding on Amazon, reach out to me with an email and that email is [email protected]. I will get back to you. You can also try [email protected].
Shaahin, thank you so much for taking us on this amazing journey of the first 40-something years of your life. I can’t wait to see what the next 40-something is going to bring and the impact it’ll have on the world.
Thank you so much for having me on, John. I’m honored to be on your show.
Important Links
- Shaahin Cheyene
- Accelerated Intelligence
- Billion: How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult
- Matcha DNA
- The ONE Thing
- The 80/20 Principle
- Dr. Cialdini – Previous episode
- Pre-Suasion
- Influence
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Discover Your WHY With Dr. Gary Sanchez
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
There’s a big difference between knowing your why and not knowing your why. When you don’t discover your why, you can’t understand yourself. When you don’t understand yourself, you won’t find the words to articulate your message. John Livesay’s guest is Dr. Gary Sanchez, the creator and founder of the WHY Institute. John discusses with Dr. Gary how important your “why” is in figuring out your marketing strategy. Join in the conversation and discover how you can find your “why” and why you need to!
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Listen to the podcast here
Discover Your WHY With Dr. Gary Sanchez
Our guest is Dr. Gary Sanchez, the Creator and Founder of the WHY Institute. He talks about his own personal journey, how specific pains and frustrations have been a motivator for him to create solutions. He said that sometimes the fear of looking bad causes people to say nothing, and that if all you’re saying is what you do, then you blend in with your competitors. Find out how to find out what your why is and how it can change your life. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Dr. Gary Sanchez. He is the CEO and Founder of the WHY Institute. His own personal why is to find a better way and share it. How he does this is by making things clear and easy to understand. What he brings are simple solutions to help people move forward. He and his team at the WHY Institute have worked with over 40,000 individuals, as well as 500 companies, from a small yoga studio to a Fortune 500 company. He helps them get clear, stand out and play bigger. Gary, welcome to the show.
John, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Your story is fascinating to me. I want to invite you to take us back to your own story of origin. Did you grow up wanting to be a dentist your whole childhood? Was that a new thing? A lot of people may not think of dentists as entrepreneurs, but they really are. Let’s start your story wherever you want. You can start pre-dental school, in dental school, and then we’ll get to how you got to the WHY Institute.
Like a lot of people who are probably reading this, I had no idea what I wanted to do. It wasn’t a lifelong passion or dream that I had to be a dentist. When I was in college, I started with the major of undeclared. I kept that until the last possible second until I almost had an emotional breakdown or something when I had to decide what I’m going to major in. I picked Biology because that was the only thing I had a good grade in. That only prolonged it for a few short months because soon, you got to figure out what are you going to do with the major of Biology. My dad was a dentist. I knew the lifestyle and said, “I’m going to give it a shot.” Off I go to USC Dental School. I enjoyed it. I had a great time there. When I graduated, the advice that I was given from the experts at that time was to build a great product and people will come. Have you ever heard that before?
I have heard that. It’s very Field of Dreams. Build and they will come. Work hard and you’ll get promoted. Build the best mouse trap and somehow, magically people will find you.
That’s exactly it. I took that to heart and spent about twenty years doing that with my brother. We went to the best institutes. We reached the highest levels you could go to as far as technical dentistry. We built a beautiful facility. We had a well-trained team and all the latest technology. For us, that wasn’t enough because everybody says they have everything, even if they don’t. If all you do is talk about what you have, you blend in with everybody who has what you have or what you do. If I went to a cocktail party or something and they say, “What do you do?” I say, “I’m a dentist.” They say, “One of my nephews is a dentist too,” or something along those lines. I’ve spent twenty years perfecting my craft. Their nephew had just gotten out of dental school and we were considered the same. It was very frustrating. How do you stand out in this crowded marketplace? I’m in Albuquerque. There were like 600 dentists here. How do you stand out when everybody says they do the same thing? I’m guessing many of your readers have experienced the same thing.
Yes. Even if you’re not in the professional services industry like doctors, lawyers, accountants, a lot of people think of all that being the same and then that becomes commoditized. You’re an entrepreneur trying to come up with a new idea and maybe you’re trying to even get funding. If you make the fatal mistake of saying, “I don’t have any competition,” then investors say, “Then you don’t have a market.” One extreme or the other is bad. Being lost in a sea of sameness is the kiss of death. That’s the big problem that you’ve solved with the WHY Institute.
The other thing about you that fascinates me is most people would be like, “I’m going to double down, be the best dentist and figure out how to grow my practice, even though a lot of people don’t see what I’m doing is different.” You said, “I’m also going to start something called the Health Chair.” That was way before people were even thinking of that as an investment. We have beds that we now spend a ton of money on sometimes. There’s been Herman Miller of the world that companies get to spend a lot of money on fancy conference room tables and chairs. Was it from a personal pain point where you’re sitting in an uncomfortable chair as a dentist and then that led to this? Those are always the best story of origins as you’ve experienced the pain yourself.
[bctt tweet=”Fear of looking bad causes us to say nothing at all.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Pain is a motivator. Before dental school, I was very active. I was playing professional racquetball. I was traveling around the country, playing all these tournaments. I went from being very active to getting into a dental school where I sat all day long. I would show up at 8:00. I would sit in the chair until 10:00 at night, five days a week. My back was killing me. I kept injuring my back to the point where I couldn’t do much. I had to give up all the sports that I loved. All that skiing, basketball, racquetball, squash and tennis. All the things I want to do, I couldn’t do. I started going to different experts, chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapists, acupuncture and Rolfing. I went to all these different people to try to get results and nothing would work. I learned that you could not out-therapy bad posture.
That’s like you can’t outrun your diet when people think they can just exercise to compensate for bad eating.
I was at this chiropractor’s office and he gave me this book called The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion. It’s written by a guy named Peter Egoscue out in San Diego. It was like, “You got yourself into this and you can get yourself out.” It was exactly what I was looking for. I flew out to see him in San Diego. I went through his program. It was about a six-month-long process of straightening up your body, getting your body to function correctly, and then it would heal itself, which was exactly what happened. When I graduated from his program, I had to carry a 200-pound guy on my back through an obstacle course. No problem and I went on. After that, I played in the World Racquetball Championships. I won the World Championships. I had played 52 games in five days.
I learned the value of good posture. Good posture starts with sitting correctly. I started buying chairs. I tried to find a chair that would fit me and I couldn’t find one. I took all these chairs that I bought. I had a whole room full of chairs. I cut them apart and developed the Health Chair. The difference between the Health Chair and any other chair, when you sit down on this, it forms itself to you versus you having to form yourself to it. You push these buttons and the chair forms to you.
Would it be fair to say it’s almost like some of those mattresses that take your body shape a little bit, except yours is automated with technology where you push buttons?
Imagine looking at a regular chair that you see anywhere. Who does that fit? Nobody. It’s a universal size that doesn’t fit anybody. The chair that I developed has two individual backs that go up and down, forward and back individually. When you sit down on it, you push these buttons on the side of it and the chair forms itself to you. You can put the lumbar exactly where you want. You can have as much lumbar as you want. You can just form it to exactly how you like to sit. Periodically, you change the position, so you’re not stuck in one place. That was another better way.
The reason I wanted to talk about this before we go into the WHY Institute was that early seed of, “There’s a problem I’m experiencing and I want to solve it.” Using the skills that you have, not just as a dentist who is good with your hands and understands how the engineering of things, and that whole MacGyver description of what you did with those chairs, it’s like taking spare parts from robots and creating a new one. That led to you experiencing another kind of problem, which was distinguishing the “how do I stand out” problem. You worked with experts like Simon Sinek, figuring out the why. What you’ve done that I am so impressed with is you’ve figured out a way like you did with the chair, where you push certain buttons and then out pops up people’s individual why. You have an actual formula that’s based on that research and now using artificial intelligence to make that available for people in a whole another way.
Let’s rewind the story of, you’re on your own quest. You’re the hero in the story, trying to figure out, “What is my why? How can I explain it to people that makes my dental practice take off?” Once we hear that, then we’ll be able to apply it to whatever our business is. Let’s start with you’re on this quest. You learn some things from Simon, getting to talk with him, not just watch his talk like a lot of us, but get to ask questions and figure out your own why. What was the big click for you of, “Now that I know what my why is, that’s going to help me stand out?” How do you connect those dots?
The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion: A Revolutionary Program That Lets You Rediscover the Body’s Power to Protect and Rejuvenate Itself
I had hired a coach previous to that. His name was John Assaraf, who you might be familiar with and the movie, The Secret. Through John, I learned how to use the internet. I learned how to do websites, SEO, drip campaigns and video marketing. I learned how to get my message out to the world. Now, I can tell everybody about how great I am, but the only problem was what am I going to say that doesn’t make me sound bad, desperate or like I need new patients. Since I didn’t know what to say, I bet a lot of your audience is this way. When you don’t know what to say, so you don’t say anything for fear, which is what I had. As a professional, you don’t want to look bad to the public by what you say.
I didn’t say anything until I heard John interviewed Simon Sinek. Once I heard about this concept of why, how and what, it made so much sense to me. I was like, “That is the missing piece. I’ve got a great what but I don’t know my why. Until I know my why, it’s going to blend in with everybody else.” I became obsessed with discovering my why. That’s when I called Simon. I said, “Simon, I need you to help me discover my why.” He said, “That’s not necessarily what I do, but let’s take a stab at it.” He and I spent about eight months together, going back through my life, looking for clues as to why I do what I do. As we kept working and working, I finally figured out that my why is to find a better way and then share it. My life made so much sense to me. That’s why I developed this chair. That’s why I’ve made the decisions I have. That’s why I haven’t made other decisions. It was all based on finding a better way and then sharing it.
Since that was the case, I went and took what Simon was trying to do and made it better. First, I went from 6, 8 or 10 months to helping people discover their why in about an hour. I can sit down with you, John, and take you through this series of questions. We could develop your why and discover your why in about an hour. I did this so many times all over the world, on stages, on Skype, in different languages that I started to keep track of all the whys that I discovered. I figured out that there are only nine different whys. That was the most important thing I discovered because once I saw that, then I could help someone discover their why in about fifteen minutes. I got more data, developed the algorithm and wrote the software to where you can now go online and discover your why in about five minutes.
Let’s take a pause on all that incredible journey from figuring out yourself, interviewing enough people, and then figuring out a way to automate it so that people can now do that. Let’s zoom out again when companies or coaches don’t know their own personal why, they have a very hard time expressing it in their marketing materials, LinkedIn profiles, and the messages when they’re talking to potential clients. Once you figured out someone’s why, the next steps are now the what fits into the why and the how much like Simon’s talk. Can you give us a story of what you did with your dental practice once you found out your why? What did you say in your marketing materials that made potential patients care that you want to know or find a better way of doing things? You had to figure out what it meant to them.
This is something I know that’s important for you, John. That is authenticity. That’s why telling a story is so important because it’s authentic. When you develop your message, it has to be real. It can’t be some marketing firm that goes into a closet and comes back out and says, “Here’s what you’re going to say, John. Here’s what I want you to talk about yourself.” That doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not authentic. It’s not truly you, so you don’t want to say it. When it comes from you, that’s the big difference between knowing your why and not knowing your why. You can not only understand yourself, but you’ll have the words to articulate your message to say it. Your branding, messaging, marketing and culture all become based on your why.
The simplest example is a radio spot that you got in millions and millions of dollars that people are going to love that will bring it all the life. In that radio spot, you’ll notice that I don’t talk at all about crowns, bridges, fillings, gum care, X-rays, pricing, none of that. It’s all based on what we believe that life is better when you have great teeth. You can’t have a good life when you have bad teeth. There are so many people who are being held back from who they were meant to be by their teeth. It doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve developed a process where they can sleep through their visits so they can get the smile they’ve always wanted smile so they can be who they were meant to be. You’ll hear that in the radio spot and it’s very powerful. Often, we get people who are coming into our office saying, “I was driving down the road. I heard that radio spot and that is me. I know I’m in the right place.”
That’s your headline on your website, “Great teeth, better life.” That is connecting the dots. You figured out that your why is all about a better way. Your better way in this case was people hate going to the dentist. Let’s not pretend that’s not a thing. They’re not only worried about paying, but they’re also worried about being scolded, “You’re not flossing enough.” You addressed all of that on your website, which then people go, “He has found a better way for me to not dread going to the dentist.” Would that be a fair connecting of the dots?
It’s very much, no scolding, no lectures, just a healthy mouth in about an afternoon.
[bctt tweet=”When you are passionate about what you do, you have unlimited energy.” username=”John_Livesay”]
People are like, “I’ll do it. Why do I need to be?” We can get into all the details. I happened to be passionate about this study as a hobby that oral health connects to your heart health. Most people aren’t even aware of that. Your premise is based on science again that you can’t be having your best life if your mouth isn’t healthy because we all know heart issues. It’s this concept of, “Why then do I avoid it?” It’s like, “Why do I avoid exercise?” You’re going, “There’s a better way to exercise. There’s a better way to sit in a chair. Now, there’s a better way to take care of your teeth so that you can have a better life.”
What I work with people on is, “We have to grab their attention.” What you’ve done is you’ve taken your why and used it to stand out from the clutter. Instead of just saying to somebody at a cocktail party, “I’m a dentist,” you’re saying, “I help people have a better life.” You might even leave it at that. They’re like, “What do you mean?” “I help people get over their fear of the dentist and the dread of it.” That is a much easier thing to remember and certainly something to look at. If you’re looking for dentists and you hate going to the dentist, he’s promising a better life. It doesn’t matter. They don’t need to know. That’s connected to your why. That’s what sticks. That’s the story that brings it together.
Here’s another way to say it that I use. Instead of just saying, “I’m a dentist,” I’ll say, “I believe that when you have your health, you have a thousand dreams. When you don’t, you have one.” I help people have a better life and reach their dreams by helping them have great teeth. We’re having totally different conversations then, “How much is a crown? How much is a cleaning?”
It’s that whole premise of, what do you notice about somebody first? Is it their smile? Is it their eyes? Is it their whatever? Your confidence level and everything gets connected to all of that. A lot of people don’t connect those dots. You’ve talked to anybody who doesn’t feel confident that they have a good smile and how that shuts them down and not speaking out. They don’t want to draw attention. They speak with their mouth closed. They’re not putting themselves out there. They’re not living their best life because of this shame and guilt around my teeth are crooked, stained or whatever the issue is that takes them away from not feeling attractive. If you can fix that, then the emotional stuff starts to come and soar.
The great part of this interview is, how do I apply this to my career? You have these nine whys. Do you find that people who have similar whys get along better? Your why is to find a better way of doing things. Mine from taking your test is to clarify. Do you find that people who like to clarify get along with people who like to find a better way of doing things? Is there any connection between the compatibility between the whys?
What we haven’t talked about yet is there’s your why, how and what. What I found is that 1 of the 9 whys is your why, 1 of the 9 whys is your how, and 1 of the 9 whys is your what. My why is to find a better way. How I do that is by making things clear and understandable to clarify like you. Ultimately, what I bring is a simple solution, which is simplify. My why is a better way, my how is clarify and my what is simplify. Your why is clarify, which is right in line with how I think. In my case, if it’s not better, clear and simple, I don’t want it. In your case, it’s got to be clear.
We’re speaking the same language. We’re just emphasizing one over the other, but it still feels like we’re in the same lane. One of the outcome is when people hire you to speak or take your workshops to all these companies. If you’re trying to get your boss to take action, promote you or approve something, and you know their why, how and what, and you phrase things in that lens, you’re not asking them to shift gears at all. I think that is the secret sauce. The other thing that you had said that I want to bring out is there are a lot of other companies that are known for testing personality types and people trying to figure out all that, but you’re not in that competitive set at all or before that. Can you clarify that?
There are a lot of great assessments out there. There’s Myers-Briggs, Kolbe, StrengthsFinder, DISC. You go on and on. They are awesome assessments. They are all about how you take action, but not why you take action. The why is the essential first step. When you are trying to figure yourself out, your culture, your marketing or your messaging, the first step that you take is discovering your why, and then everything else will make a lot more sense to you. You’re starting with your why and then your how. Your how is all these other assessments. They’re great, so you use the why first and then you see the other assessments from the perspective of your why. They’ll make a lot more sense to you. They’ll be much more valuable for you when you look at them from the perspective of your why.
Discover Your Why: Telling a story is so important because it’s authentic. When you develop your message, it has to be real.
We’re not competing with them. We’re collaborating with them. Whichever one you like the best as far as understanding your how, that’s great. That will work for you. What’s interesting John is when I talk with a lot of coaches, consultants or speakers, you hear them often refer to the why, “We love the why. We love Simon Sinek’s work. In fact, we help our clients discover their why.” I say, “That’s great. How do you do that?” They’ll say, “We read a couple of books. We talk about different things going on in their lives. We look for clues.” I say, “The client you’re working with right there, what is their why?” They’ll say, “We’re still refining that. We’re working on that.” I say, “What is your why?” They’ll say, “I’m still working on mine too.” It has become this airy-fairy, mysterious thing helping someone discover their why. If it’s that critical, how can you not know it? How can you not be clear on it? That’s where the why discovery came in. That was what happened to me. I heard so much about it from so many different experts that I have to know my why, but nobody ever helped me discover it.
In a way that was scientifically backed up and you’ve done that with the algorithm. The analogy for me is anyone building a house knows you must have a strong foundation. Anyone building a practice, whether it’s a dental practice, coaching practice, sales team, etc., you have to have the why as the foundation. If it’s airy-fairy, you’re not solid and it changes with the wind or whatever the latest trend is, then that’s not how you build a brand. I wanted to give the readers another example of using these nine whys in a format you gave yours so eloquently.
For me from taking the test, it instantly resonated. I am all about my why is to seek clarity. How I do it is teaching people how to tell stories which then creates authenticity and builds relationships built on trust. In sales, that’s what you need. The what of what all this comes down to for me is we found a better way to sell. It’s not pushing information out. It’s pulling people in with stories that target their heartstrings. That’s how I’ve processed this. It gives me a completely different framework to explain what I do.
Let me take a stab at it as well. For you, things have to be in clarity. The only way to get clear on what we’re talking about is to enhance it with a story. Your why is to make things clear and understandable. How do you do that? It was by making sense of these challenges that people are facing. It’s taking in all this information and boiling it down to the thing that’s keeping them stuck. What you bring is a better way to help them move forward, utilizing storytelling. Make things clear by figuring them out and understanding them so that you can bring a better way to help them move forward.
If someone else is maybe an engineer, they love making sense out of complex things. That’s their left brain at work. That’s their why, then they’ll have a different way of expressing that in the world. It is so valuable to all kinds of people, whether they’re entrepreneurs or big companies. Do you have a story of a big company that’s brought you in to speak and having the why, how and what formulated and not guessing at it? You have some incredible testimonials. I’m trying to get you to tell the story of one of them. I’ll let you pick.
I’ll tell you two. One quick that will bring it home very simply because everybody knows about Apple. I have not worked with Steve Jobs, but I know what his why, how and what are. His why is to challenge the status quo. How he does that is by finding better ways and what he brings is a simple solution. You see that in his life everywhere, the way he dropped out of school. He didn’t want to do it the way they said he should do it. He found a better way and snuck into the ones that he wanted to go to. He simplified the process. He found a better way and simplified it. You take his why, how and what and you apply that to Apple.
In everything Apple does, they challenge the status quo and think differently. They go into that market, whether that’s phones, computers, watches or the music industry and then they find a better way. What they bring is a simple solution where a 3-year-old and a 93-year-old can use it and do it. Their why is the exact same why, how and what as Steve Jobs. What is Apple’s tagline? It’s, “Think different.” Where do you think that came from? From Steve Jobs. His why is to think differently. All of their commercials and stuff are about thinking differently and challenging the status quo. Your why, how and what are directly related to the why, how and what of your business if you are the visionary.
As you said, people can relate to that. I want to let them have a second to digest that. When I was selling advertising and I had them as a client, they took that because my whole passion is getting people to see themselves in the story. We were talking about when you communicate and you know someone’s why, it’s much clearer. They go, “Think different, not differently.” Even that alone makes you go, “What? Are you doing something a different way?” They would show people in the ads who thought different like Picasso and you would say, “Oh.” It begs the question, “Maybe I don’t relate to Steve Jobs, but I relate to Picasso. I’d like to be the Picasso of my business, even if I’m not in the art business.”
[bctt tweet=”Pain is a motivator.” username=”John_Livesay”]
By having those kinds of people in the campaign, that’s a great example of the WHY Institute at work because it kept going. It’s not just Picasso, it’s Amelia Earhart. It’s all these people, Maria Callas. It makes you want to know their story. What I love so much about what you’re doing, what we’re doing and why there’s such synergy is, why are those three people chosen to represent think different and bring that why to life? There’s a story that you have to understand of them thinking different like Cubism in Picasso’s case or not letting the fact that you’re a woman stop you from flying and all that. That’s where people are pulled in. The same thing is true whether it’s a dental practice or a Fortune 500 company. Now, your next story.
I was called by a gentleman. He was the CEO of one of the larger investment firms, a $565 billion investment firm. I had helped him with one of his daughters, who was struggling with some things. He said, “I own about 1,500 companies. I’d like you to start working with some of them.” I said, “Okay.” The first one was one of the larger venture capital firms on the East Coast. I went out and worked with the executive team. I took the CEO through discovering his why, which was trust, creating relationships based upon trust, being that trusted source.
What they wanted us to do was redevelop their website, messaging, marketing and more specifically, their presentation deck because they needed to raise a lot of money for their next round. We did that. We went through all of their belief statements and created their tagline. Their tagline became, “Trusted relationships, better outcomes.” We redid their deck. They had all the right things. It was all in the right order to tell the story. They raised $300 million in that next week. He gave me a $10,000 tip. I’ve never had a $10,000 tip. He said, “How much do we pay you?” I told him and he went, “That’s not enough.”
Talk about over-delivery, that’s fantastic. That’s a better way to get paid is to have so much value that people decide they need to pay you more.
That was quite a fun experience. They won. We won. Everybody won. It was a great experience for us. They love the results. They’re still using it. There are lots of stories like that. I’ve done it with school systems, cities, country clubs, banks and so many different kinds of businesses. We’ve gone through this same process. Locally here, we’ve got a country club that had gone bankrupt. We went in, worked with the new owners, developed their why, how and what and used that for their tagline, website and branding. Now, they have a waiting list. It’s on fire over there. There are lots of stories that way. When you get that right, when you start with the right foundation, all the rest becomes a lot easier.
You’re cutting through the clutter. People go, “This is for me. This is not for me.” You’re not trying to be all things to all people. If people want to interact with you, there are so many options. They can listen to your show called Beyond Your Why. They can go to the WHY Institute website and take their WHY quiz and get the results very quickly. They can hire you as a speaker. Companies can put their team through your workshops and training programs. I might be missing something, but please expand if I have.
If you go to the website, there is the WHY Discovery there. You can take that as your first step, discovering your why. The next step is we have launched the WHY.os Discovery, what we call your why operating system. That’s the system that drives you, which is your why, how and what. There will be a discovery there. You can go online and discover your why, how and what. There are ways to either use that to get on the right career path or take your business to the next level, depending on where you’re at in your entrepreneurial stage. Any of those would be great.
It’s not just for yourself but for other people. There’s always an unspoken question when I’m working with salespeople that they need to address, which is, “Will this work for me?” If you’ve told a great story and people see themselves in the story, the answer is yes. They want to go on the journey. What I love and admire so much about your work, Gary, is you’ve done it for yourself. You weren’t somebody who’s like, “I’m going to figure this out and try to see if I can help coaches and their clients figure out their why.” You were like, “No, I’m an entrepreneur. I helped my dental practice soar.”
Discover Your Why: Knowing your why is the essential first step.
You’ve got a proof of concept that works for you. A lot of people might be saying, “I’m still not a dentist. I’m not as smart as Gary.” You go, “No, it works.” As you’ve listed, banks, country clubs, companies, then we start to say, “It would work for me because it’s been proven and it’s scientifically backed.” It’s not something that changes with the wind or the time of day you were born. It’s complementary to existing programs that people might have to see what personalities will work in certain cultures.
At the end of the day, all of this is helping us emotionally connect and communicate. That helps you break through the clutter, but more importantly, it makes you feel seen, heard and appreciated. That’s what the best people, leaders and companies are all doing. They pull people in. You’re doing it in such a way that’s accessible for people without them having to stay stuck in this land of confusion. I can’t thank you enough for being on the show and doing this incredible work that the world needs more than ever.
John, thank you for having me here. I’m a fan of what you’re doing. I appreciate you helping me bring this to the world. Our vision is to be that essential first step in self-awareness. Our goal is to reach one billion people in the next five years to help them discover and live their why and make decisions based upon their why. That’s where we’re headed. I would love for everybody to help us be part of this. It’s going to be a fun journey for everybody involved.
Because if you know that, then you don’t have any regrets on your deathbed. That’s what everyone’s fear. Thanks again.
Take care, John.
Important Links
- WHY Institute
- The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion
- John Assaraf
- Beyond Your Why
- WHY.os Discovery
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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ClozeLoop With Hilmon Sorey
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Sales is all about how you create a space that allows for honest and trusting communication. John Livesay’s guest is Hilmon Sorey, the managing director of ClozeLoop. In this episode, you’ll learn why sales is equal parts acting and psychology. Acting comes in when you speak out the script you’ve practiced a hundred times. But you own it in a way that’s engaging, trust-based, and sincere. Psychology helps you understand the triggers that attract customers to your product. Join in the discussion to learn more!
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ClozeLoop With Hilmon Sorey
Our guest on The Successful Pitch is Hilmon Sorey, the Cofounder of ClozeLoop and the author of many books on selling. He shares with us the five secrets of rapport. He said that sales is equal part acting and psychology. Find out what he says is the big problem that confusion causes. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Hilmon Sorey, the Managing Director of ClozeLoop which is a sales management, consulting and training firm located in Silicon Valley, Nashville and Johannesburg. He has worked with companies that range from early-stage startups to Salesforce, Box, SurveyMonkey and some of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Hilmon is an award-winning trader, bestselling author, and sought-after speaker around the world. He thrives on growing individuals and organizations with repeatable and scalable processes. He’s co-published eight books on sales and he’s regarded as the top thought leader in that category. One of his books is 46 Reasons Why Your Cold Calls Fail and How to Fix Them Fast. Welcome to the show.
Thanks, John. Can I take you everywhere with me to step in front and introduce me?
Back in the day, people could call Moviefone and hear what the movies were. I used to impersonate that voice and fool all my sister’s friends, “If you know the name of the movie, you’d like to pay it.” If you know why your cold calls are failing, you can call Hilmon.
It’s still Moviefone.com, which is a whole weird meta-type thing happening.
That alone is something fun to talk about. How important your voice is if you’re in sales? Whether you’re a speaker or not, the concept that our voice is a musical instrument and in order to keep people’s attention, especially if you’re leaving a voicemail is part of what we’re selling.
What’s interesting about that is I often say to teams, particularly teams of newer salespeople, because so much of sales has to do with what’s between the ears, more so than tactics, skills and things like that. Often, when people have got into the profession, maybe they’ve gone through college or whatever it might be, but they’re early to sales and they have a hard time getting over themselves. These are the folks who don’t like listening to their calls, don’t like to watch back at their Zooms, and don’t hear themselves. One of the challenges is not understanding that sales is equal parts acting and psychology. It’s that piece around listening to your voice, being able to create laugh and being able to create inflection. Another interesting piece around this is the listening side.
One of my early careers at the time that I was doing it was called Inside Sales. Now they called it Sales and Development Rep. I lied about my age at fourteen years old and I got this summer job selling two products. It was for a company called Fifth Media Marketing in Chicago. I can say that now because the statute of limitations is gone and they’re not coming after me for it. We were selling World of Beauty so I was calling people around the country all day long. I have developed such an ear from having done that for all of these summers where I can hear crazy stuff going on in the background when I’m talking to a prospect. It’s like, “You’re getting a cup of espresso.” It creeps people out. Listening to yourself as well as the person that you’re talking to is critically important.
I normally ask people to tell us their story of origin and you got a great one at fourteen years old of having a voice strong enough that someone believed that you were older. I had the opposite problem when I got out of college. I was in Silicon Valley at the peak of all of that taking off. There was a Dick Cavett commercial on the radio to buy computers to keep your recipes on because there was no internet back then. I remember getting hired to sell multimillion-dollar mainframe computers and plug-compatible devices. I would make the appointment, I’d go see them in person and they’re like, “You’re awfully young.” I said, “Everyone is young in the tech biz.” They’re like, “Okay.”
46 Reasons Why Your Cold Calls Fail: …And How To Fix Them FAST
It’s the thing with the B.
Now, it’s even more expected that everything is young. I want to ask you about that soundbite you gave us that sales is equal part acting and psychology. Let’s double-click on that. From the acting standpoint, it’s clear that you got to be prepared. A lot of people think they can wing a sales presentation or they can become so robotic with a script. Actors who have to give the same performance night after night on Broadway or multiple takes on a movie do not do it robotically and yet they’re prepared. What advice do you have for someone who does one extreme or the other, either they wing it or they are a robot reading a script? There’s a happy medium like an actor but for someone who doesn’t understand and they don’t want to do either, how do you help them find that sweet spot?
The perception of ease comes from hard work in about anything. I’ve been watching the Tiger Woods documentary on one of the streaming stations. You’re watching a golf ball and you’re like, “He makes it look so easy.” That’s because he’s hit ten million golf balls. It looks like he’s winging it when he steps up there and he doesn’t do all the crazy things that everybody else does when they’re addressing a gold ball. It’s part of perfect practice.
I love that you make that analogy to acting because there are people who say, “I don’t want to sound scripted. I don’t want to be in a script. I don’t like scripts when I talk about sales.” My business partner, Corey Bray often says, “Do you have a favorite movie, John?” John’s like, “I love the Godfather.” He’s like, “You realize Marlon Brando wasn’t winging it, right?” There’s a way you can take a script, own it, bring your own personality and value to that, and have an impact. What is the goal of the script? It’s all about conversation and communication.
Sales is all about how you create a space that allows for honest and trusted communication and this is where the acting piece comes in. When I say acting, I don’t mean it in a manipulative way. I don’t mean even the smile and dial, “John, how are you doing?” You’ve seen people do it. We’ve heard people do it before and hopefully, these aren’t people that are calling you because it’s annoying. If you’re able to get out of whatever is going on with you and reflect on something that offers an opportunity for the person that you’re talking to, to engage in a dialogue that’s trust-based and leveled on honesty around whether or not there’s a problem that you can solve.
Sometimes that requires acting. Sometimes you’re not in the mood. Sometimes you’re talking to somebody who you may perceive in your head to be significantly more expert in their field or have significantly more tenure. You’ve got to act the part. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes you’ve got so much subject matter expertise and you’re talking to someone for whom this is something they do every now and then. You have to be able to meet them where they’re at to able to have a conversation that they want to invest in and feel comfortable having with you.
It reminds me of Einstein’s quote, “If you don’t understand something simple that you can explain, then you don’t really understand it.” People think they have to impress everybody with a bunch of acronyms and big words. I’m like, “You need to be able to talk like a fifth-grader should understand it even if you can speak it at a more complex level.” One of my favorite expressions is the confused mind always says no, and most people will not tell you they’re confused.
I thought this was my thing but I say that confusion does not create conversion, but I like yours better.
[bctt tweet=”5 secrets to getting rapport.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The other thing you’re talking about is with Tiger Woods. His father who people thought was almost abusive would torture him in a way by constantly jangling coins or all the things you’re not supposed to do when someone is about to swing so that he could get in the zone and not let things get him distracted. That’s what you’re also saying where the acting part comes in. If someone forgets a line or there’s a phone that goes off in the Broadway show, those actors cannot let those distractions throw them. You need to stay skilled enough to rely on your skills to keep going.
One thing that is critically important is there is so much in the sales universe with respect to tips and tricks. It’s like, “Here’s how you start a conversation. Here’s how you get somebody to do something else.” Here’s where the psychology piece comes in. We are all human beings and we all operate under a certain set of assumptions that are innate. We are triggered to be attracted and threatened by certain things. This is the psychology piece. As a salesperson, if you understand those triggers and have done the work to create for yourself a framework that you’re operating within. Whether it’s a scripted framework or whether it’s a looser framework where you understand, “These are the things that I need to accomplish to create this opportunity for conversation and to do business.” You have a richer environment in which you can be yourself.
What’s interesting is that the people who practice regularly adhere to frameworks and understand that dynamic to have much more longevity and success in sales because then the authenticity of who they are is allowed to shine through in a way that is received well as opposed to being rigidly adherent to who you are. Not everybody likes Hilmon. Believe it or not, John. Can you imagine having to adapt your personality and shapeshift all day long to get people to like you? That’s not necessarily the goal. We create an opportunity for conversation. This is why we, at ClozeLoop, are huge proponents of this. In all of our books, we talk about things that are framework-driven. Not just high-level tips and tricks without substantiating them with some defensible science.
The other part of psychology that I want to ask you about is the fear of rejection. It’s the number one reason people don’t go into sales, get out of sales, or have trouble bouncing back after a no. What advice do you have for that?
The advice for a fear of rejection goes back to the idea of understanding what you’re doing as a salesperson and not being emotionally invested in the outcome of your conversations. There are a couple of layers that I talked about with respect to this. We work largely with B2B salespeople, folks who are selling business-to-business things. Here in Silicon Valley, we work probably 90% with technology companies that range from startups to growth organizations. Not to say that it’d be any different than B2C but this is my corpus of knowledge.
What we often say is you need to approach the sales having a lab coat and a stethoscope around your neck. How does your doctor engage with you? Is your doctor wanting John to like him and want the treatment? No. The doctor is diagnosing for pain. Having a dialogue with you about whether or not you’re willing and able to resolve that problem. He’s mentioning any resources that are necessary or a commitment that you need to make to do so, and make an agreement to either move forward or to part ways. It’s that simple. What it requires also is for you to have a separation of who you are as an individual and who you are as you’re engaging with someone to solve a problem.
If someone says to me, “No, Hilmon. I’m not interested,” that’s not a negative mark on who I am as an individual. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, I don’t communicate well or I don’t know my subject matter. It means this person either doesn’t have a problem I can solve or doesn’t have enough initiative to solve the problem that I’ve uncovered so I’m going to move to the next one. The biggest cure for rejection is ensuring you’ve got a lot of pipelines. This is such a sales axiom. You care a whole lot less about the one that says no when you’ve got 100 more waiting in line when you do and that’s half of your pipeline. Being able to combine those things is important.
It’s an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset. You get too attached to one person having to say yes or no. One of the things I love in your book is about one of the many reasons cold calls are failing is there’s no empathy for what a day in the life of that potential buyer is. You do a great job of showing they do this, they get up, they’ve got this to do, they’ve got to deal with this, this happens, they got a problem, and all of a sudden, the phone rings. If you aren’t able to figure out that that person has a life before and after you, you are so obsessed with, “This is all about me all the time,” as opposed to, “Is this even a good time to talk?”
ClozeLoop: The perception of ease comes from hard work; you need to keep practicing.
“They’ve been waiting for my call all day, haven’t they? They’ve been on my list. You knew I was calling at 12:13, didn’t you?” You’re absolutely right. This correlates to something else that’s become more and more popular where you have a lot of salespeople because of the access to information, whether it’s Google or LinkedIn or wherever you’re finding your people. You can find out what they had for breakfast this morning if they’re on Facebook and they posted it. Leveraging that information, sometimes a lot of salespeople believe that that level of personalization directly correlates to trust and it doesn’t. There are a couple of reasons why. One reason is because everybody is doing it. If everybody is doing something and everybody who falls under the auspices of a salesperson is doing the same thing, you get perceived as a salesperson.
I don’t remember what that show was years ago where they would give a synonym. I say salesperson and the person say something. It’s a word association type of thing. I’ve done this in rooms before and people were like, “Shyster slick, self-involved, self-motivated, greasy and snarky.” I’m like, “You’re ruthless salespeople saying this about ourselves.” Imagine the impression of the people who don’t do this all day long. We have to separate from that a little bit. We have to differentiate, but to your point, how can you reflect things that are like that individual?
As magnanimous as we’d like to be, we are hyper concerned to the extent of our nose. It’s all about Hilmon, “What did I do today? What do I have to struggle with tomorrow? What are the conversations I have? What are the things on my plate? What needs to get moved?” The closer a salesperson can get to that level of understanding, whether it’s through inquiry or they understand that to be the role that someone is faced with because of their subject matter or industry expertise. That goes a long way to creating that kind of rapport that is long-lasting and creates opportunities for communication.
Speaking of rapport, you have five secrets to help people build them. Can you reveal a couple of them?
I can reveal all five. How about that?
It’s our lucky day, everybody. Not all the guests are that generous.
It’s just for you, John. In our book Triangle Selling, which is our sales methodology, having trained salespeople for so many years, everyone understands in sales that establishing rapport is something that’s key. It’s talked about all the time and people will say everything from, “You’ve got to smile, be friendly, and get them to like you. You should look them up online and figure out where John went to college or where he’s living now. You should talk about the weather in Austin and what happened a couple of weeks ago,” and all these types of things. They say this is building rapport.
There’s nothing wrong with doing any of that, but there are some smart people over at the NeuroLeadership Institute who has studied rapport and brain science for the last 10 or 15 years. What they have come up with are five drivers that trigger rapport from the standpoint of either reward or threat in human beings around the world. Here’s the important piece around that. We travel around the world doing sales training and helping organizations grow. There are things that you do in France that wouldn’t wash in San Francisco. There are things you do in DC that you don’t do in San Francisco. In San Francisco, there’s a lot more time for you. There’s a lot more qualification. Let’s have a chat in the beginning. In New York, it’s like, “I’m here, John, what’s up?” That’s not considered a breach of rapport. That’s getting down to business.
[bctt tweet=”Fear is the anticipation of pain.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Apart from all of those cultural or geographical nuances, these five drivers have a significant impact on whether or not you can create a trusted relationship with someone. We bundled them into the term SCALE as an acronym. The reason is so that salespeople can understand that if you keep these things in balance, you have a higher likelihood of becoming a trusted advisor and creating a trusted relationship. The first is the S. That S stands for status. Status is respecting and understanding an individual’s perception of themselves with respect to their peers.
Salespeople all the time struggle with this idea of, “How do I get above Hilmon’s head? He’s not the decision-maker.” What a lot of salespeople do is they come in with a blunt hammer and they go, “Hilmon, who else needs to be involved in this decision?” What am I going to say? I’m going to say, “I’m the guy,” even if I’m not because you’re threatening my status. If you think about the status from the consciousness of you walking outside your door, you’re looking at your neighbor’s yard. You’re looking at the car that your friends are driving. We’re constantly comparing ourselves and evaluating our worth as it relates to other people we deem to be like ourselves. As salespeople, we have to ensure that we’re preserving status.
The C stands for certainty. Certainty is key. There are people who are reading this that are going, “Where’s Hilmon going to go? What do A, L and E stand for? When is he going to finish talking about this?” Part of our programming as human beings, which has kept us alive all this time is searching for the next thing and having some certainty towards what’s going to come next. Ambiguity creates a dangerous response. You said this idea around confusion. The reason that confusion does not correlate to conversion is because we don’t know what to do. We don’t have certainty, and therefore we back away to keep ourselves safe. How do we, in the sales process, ensure that someone understands where we’re going and what’s expected of them and the decisions they get to make?
That takes me to the A, autonomy. The most impactful thing that you can do to challenge a person’s human rights is to put them in jail and give them freedom of choice. This is the worst thing that a human being can experience besides death. Autonomy is important in creating rapport. It’s letting people know, “John, you can tell me now. I’m going to share with you a little bit about the types of folks that I’m working with. Feel free to tell me that this isn’t you.” What do we as salespeople do? There have even been books written about this. It’s like, “Get to the yes. Four yeses and then you close.” We know that doesn’t work. It may work temporarily, but it doesn’t work long-term. Allowing folks to have autonomy in their sales process with you is key.
The last two pieces here are likeness. Likeness is relevant. Don’t send me the LinkedIn message that’s constantly telling me that you’ve got offshore people who can do software development for me because I don’t own a technology company. It sounds obvious, but there is a challenge for salespeople to truly have empathy for the role, for the job to be done, and for the challenges that the person you’re talking to on a regular basis, and how you can go about solving their problems. Only reflect on the things that are relevant to that individual. Don’t just pull down that you’ve worked with Google, Amazon and Facebook. If I’m a three-person company sitting outside of Dallas, then that may not be relevant to me. That’s not creating rapport with me.
Finally, this is an obvious one, but equity, which correlates to fairness. How much fairness is there in the process? If I have a conversation with you that’s five minutes long, I can’t expect you to want to hop on a two-hour demo with me and bring your entire team. Let’s create equitable engagements that you deem as fair that I can expect you to make a decision or commitment with respect to given the amount of time that we’ve spent together and the amount of information that I’ve shared with you. Apart from all of the other stuff that is part of being a human walking the face of the earth, and how we’ve established friendships and relationships, if you can nest this scale driver concept, these five secrets into how you go about managing and measuring rapport, you go a long way.
The last thing I’ll say here is when we work with teams, we will often go into their pipelines to take a look and say, “You’ve got these five companies in your pipeline. Who of these you haven’t heard from before? Let’s run them against SCALE and see if there’s anything here that could be a reason as to why they’re not responding.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, they didn’t know what they were supposed to do next, “I didn’t give them a choice. I didn’t demonstrate to them how this is relevant in their world.” All of these things come into play so this tool has been impactful for helping salespeople have a framework within which to authentically show up, and not have to use some nifty little tip and trick to establish trust.
There’s so much gold there to unpack. Let’s take the concept that you were talking about, which is the L, the likeness, “Is this relevant to me?” I tell people that the joy of learning how to tell a story is you’re answering an unspoken question everybody has when they’re deciding whether to buy from you or not, which is, “Will this work for me?” If you’re talking to a coach about why they need to learn how to sell better to get people to hire them as coaches and you have a story of a coach who struggled with selling, then that story is relevant. They see themselves in the story and they want to buy.
ClozeLoop: Listening to yourself as well as the person that you’re talking to is critically important.
If you’re telling a story of a multimillion-dollar company you worked with and they’re like, “That’s not me. I don’t know if this is relevant,” It may give you some credibility, but you’ve got to make sure that you’re not just telling one story and that you have customized stories that allow people to think, “That may not be relevant to me but there’s something else coming up.” That’s where the certainty comes in of that fight or flight response. The handshake was to show that we didn’t have a weapon in our hand. We underestimate the value of giving people a sense of, “Is this safe? Did I get introduced to a warm intro? Is this spam that I’m getting?” All of those levels are unspoken and going on. If you’re aware of them like, “This is a fifteen-minute call. If you decide we want to go on, we can have another call.” You’re like, “This isn’t going to go on forever.” There’s a choice there of what it is. The equity thing is so important because nobody asks somebody to marry them on a coffee date in dating and yet, some of these LinkedIn requests or a five-minute chat is a few hours of commitment and you’re like, “What?” You jumped the gun there.
A lot of times, those folks are self-interested. You hit it on the head. It’s absolutely equity where I know I want to close some business by the end of this month and I’ve got four days left. I’m going to ask John for two hours of his time to bring everybody to the table and to have his checkbook ready. This has nothing to do with you.
The other thing that I loved about the relevance part is if you give someone the ability to interact with you a little bit, especially if you’re having a Zoom call. Have you ever been in this situation? For example, I will talk to a group of people and I’ll say, “Have you ever had someone say they’re interested, they send me some info and it’s crickets after that? You’re stuck at the friendzone at work?” They’re like, “That’s exactly how it is.” You’re like, “I used to have that problem too,” and now you present your solution. In my case, it’s storytelling.
If you present that, they go, “This is relevant to me because you’re talking about a feeling that I’ve never been able to express.” We all know what a friendzone in dating is. I’ve relabeled it to being stuck at the friendzone at work. You get all excited and you tell management, “They’re going to buy. They said they were interested. I sent them something.” You’re like, “What happened there?” In your case, you’re talking to companies to hire you for better sales training. It’s like, “Has your sales team ever been stuck at the friendzone at work and they’re getting all the people saying they’re interested in them?” “Yes.” Now we have a conversation about something relevant because you’ve shown the ability to express their frustrations, pain and struggles in a way that’s fresh to them and not another going, “We get people that say no,” or “We don’t hear from them again.”
Putting a little spin on it makes it memorable and that’s what you’ve done with this acronym SCALE. The other thing you have here that I find fascinating is this wonderful graph between what’s the priority and what’s the timeframe around pain, fear and pleasure. For me, the example is taking a vitamin to stay healthy versus, “I’ve got the splitting headache. Where’s the Advil? I need to take care of that now.” There is something between pain and pleasure that I’ve never seen before graphically displayed, which is fear. Can you talk about those three circles and how they relate?
If you look at this as an X and Y axis of urgency and commitment to resolving the problem, pain is the most compelling emotion that motivates people to purchase. What we found is that people purchase anything for 1 of 3 reasons, the anticipation of pain, which is fear or pleasure. If you think about your last pleasure purchase from the vantage point of things that we buy. My wife and I are looking for vacation because it’s time to get out again. Sure, we’re motivated. We want to do it and now we’re going to find a decent price. We’re going to go where we want to go. We’re highly motivated and excited about it.
If we’re encountering a salesperson in that environment, there’s not much you can do to keep us from going. You’d have to fumble that one. We’ll make a decision on our own timeline. It’s not an urgent thing and it’s something that we’ll get to versus if I’m afraid of earthquakes. I live in San Francisco. Earthquake insurance is probably an important thing to buy but nobody owns it out here. That’s a fallacy. Let’s say that earthquake insurance is an important thing to buy. That’s on my list of things that I got to get done this year. It’s absolutely true or you could say, “I got a Peloton and I pulled my hamstring in such a way that I couldn’t walk.” How long do you think I sat around waiting for that to fix? Not even an hour. I’m going to the doctor immediately because I’m in pain.
This goes back to this concept of human beings and homeostasis. We sweat when we’re hot, we shiver when we’re cold, and we eat when we’re hungry. It’s all about homeostasis. If I’m in pain, I’m seeking to immediately resolve that problem. This is B2B selling. I’m not selling vacation homes somewhere or anything like that. I’m selling solutions to business problems for folks. We coach people to say, “You got to find the pain or else you’re going to end up with pipelines and people who are interested. They want to take a look, learn about your technology, and it’s going to take them forever to make a decision.” Once you find the pain and once you’ve got that prospect to articulate that to you, you can now help them to help themselves. You can now hold them accountable for what they’ve told you is their problem and help to reflect some solutions to that problem.
[bctt tweet=”Sales is equal parts acting and psychology.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I want to say one more thing, which is important about this concept of relevance. As a salesperson, you want to spend time with people who are likely to purchase from you. That doesn’t mean a salesperson should not be spending time with people who should be disqualified. You brought up such a great example of your ability to tell a story that someone can see themselves reflected in. Getting them to opt-in to a process will move a sales process so much faster than you picking out something that is not relevant and having that person try to figure out how this might work and might not work, “I’m thinking about it. I’ll have that conversation with Hilmon later.” Being able to disqualify early, there’s nothing wrong with someone telling you, “John, I appreciate you sharing that story with me but it’s not something I’m experiencing.” You go, “Great, Hilmon. Congratulations. Do you know anybody else who might be?” You then move on.
I’ve never heard anybody describe fear as the anticipation of pain before. I like that because if you have two ways of running an ad, for example, three mistakes to avoid or three tips to be better at. People click on the three mistakes to avoid more than the three tips to be better at something.
It’s self-preservation.
I don’t want to look like an idiot or make a mistake. Even as a cold call salesperson, if you can give them a reason to want to hear something, you might want to hear three mistakes to avoid the next time you’re hiring someone because I know that’s part of your expertise as well. You’re like, “I’m in.” They’re like, “We have best practices on hiring people.” In that framework, especially during a time when salespeople haven’t been getting together for meetings as much, I hear a lot of management saying, “We’re struggling how to keep our team bonded when we’re not seeing each other as much.” Their job is to keep top talent happy. Have you come across any solutions for management? I know you have a whole thing about how to get the top salespeople, but is there anything about keeping them?
One of the things that are important is creating casual conversations. By that, I mean opening up the opportunity to get out of the calendar. Internal Zoom meetings, by virtue of the fact that it’s Zoom, need to be on a calendar. They need to happen at a certain time, everybody’s clicking into a certain link, they show up in their little boxes, do their little things and they go away. One opportunity that exists and we all have a lot more time. No one’s driving to work and your meetings are probably shorter because they’re boxed by time on your calendar now. You’re not just walking in seeing people and having this management by walking around that was such a big deal before.
As a manager, it’s creating opportunities for casual conversation where I just ping John every now and then at 2:00 PM. I ask how things are going. No agenda necessarily, but meaningful conversation. Not also, “How’s the dog? How’s the son?” It’s saying, “How’s your day going? What are some of the conversations you have? What can I help move for you?” That’s one piece.
The other thing that’s important is training and collaborative activities go a long way towards creating camaraderie, esprit de corps, and when you’re coming together and benefiting from it as opposed to coming together and being berated. Some folks have these pipeline review meetings that are punitive. Some folks have meetings in general where everybody’s present, but two people are participating. It’s creating greater opportunities for folks to share opinions, learn things, and be involved in conversations goes a long way. The last piece that I’ll say that we’ve been recommending for a lot of our clients is having cross-functional meetings. Let’s take away the silos because back when you were at the office, you weren’t just friends with the sales team. Maybe in the programs that we’re all together. I’m kidding.
It’s saying, “We’re having a product marketing meeting with a couple of salespeople. Do you guys want to join? You can come on over. You can sit, audit, and you can hear how we do our stuff.” There are relationships that should be fluid throughout the organization. The greater exposure and transparency we have to how our little cog in the wheel is supporting the entire machinery, the stronger the organization is, the greater the contribution from each individual and the bigger impact everyone has. Also, the more cohesive you feel as a team as opposed to them sitting here, staring at my screen, doing the thing, hop on my gerbil wheel every day, and I get off, and I go back to work. I think about those old cartoons. It was those black and white cartoons showing things going across the screen. I don’t know that it needs to be contrived or that it needs to be formalized necessarily. We just need to have a consciousness of it.
ClozeLoop: There’s a way you can take a script and own it with your personality and value to actually have an impact.
If you are a manager of a department, you can easily say, “Does anybody want to attend the sales team meeting? We’re going to talk about what our plans are for next quarter and some of the things that are in the pipeline. It might not be the most exciting thing for those of you who are in marketing or product but do you want to see how we do stuff? Do you want to see how the sausage is made? Come on in. You’re welcome to come.” Things like that go a long way. Whatever your corporate culture is, if you used to have lunches on the Kombucha all the time, once a month, shoot somebody a lunch and have a meeting, and do that kind of thing. There’s a lot of creativity to be had.
If people want to find out more about you and any of your wonderful books, they should go to ClozeLoop.com.
If you want to connect with me directly, I’m Hilmon Sorey everywhere. I don’t check Instagram much but if you go to @HilmonSorey on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, I’m happy to connect with anybody.
Hilmon, thanks for being with us. There are some great ideas in getting over the fear, figuring out how we can be relevant, and more importantly, the importance of being clear so we don’t confuse people. It will give us the confidence to make cold calls turn into something warm and fun.
John, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Important Links
- ClozeLoop
- Hilmon Sorey – LinkedIn
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