Gratitude As A Sales Tool With David Reed
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Whenever we are faced with rejection, the automatic reaction is sometimes to give up. In this episode, David Reed shares his origin story and the roadblocks he needed to overcome. David has a passion for entrepreneurship and wanting to control the outcomes in small businesses. After getting his MBA from UCLA, he ended up working for Pierre Landscape. Together with the owner, Harold Young, they grew the four-employee company to an $8 million-dollar enterprise. Interestingly enough, the company grew to $33 million after he left the management position to go back to being an employee. David talks about the importance of gratitude as a sales tool and celebrating wins with the entire team, not just a select group of people.
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Listen to the podcast here
Gratitude As A Sales Tool With David Reed
Our guest is David Reed, who’s known as a pre-construction guru. David has quite an impressive background starting from his education days. He went to the University of California in Berkeley and went on to get his UCLA Master’s MBA Program. He has been in the field of construction and working for Pierre Landscape for many years. He’s going to tell us that story of origin what it’s like to grow a company and his own personal passion for what he’s doing and also how he overcomes roadblocks. David, welcome to the show.
Thank you, John. I’m super happy to be here.
I wanted to ask most of my guests is the story of origin. Let’s talk about your days in college. Did you know when you were back getting your MBA and all that landscaping was for you?
Everything has been serendipitous to that degree. At UCLA, when I got my Master’s in Business, there were a number of people that went to interviews for accounting and consulting and finance projects. I felt at the time that small business and entrepreneurship was something that was going to be what I have more of a passion for. It came down to wanting to control the outcomes of things. Prior to going to UCLA, I’d work for manufacturers Hannibal Trust Company in their Latin America division. International banking was a great way to start my career. It felt like it’s a big organization. I wanted to feel like I could have an impact. Small business and entrepreneurship were what I was drawn to at UCLA. Landscaping was something I’ve been doing since I’ve been thirteen. Serendipitously, I ended up after business school doing a home remodel in the Palisades with a friend of mine. Harold Young, who’s the owner Pierre Landscape came in to put a bid on the sprinklers. That’s how he and I met in 1990. The company had four employees and after the house was built, we started Pierre Landscape. From 1990 to 2004, over those fourteen years we grew from four employees to an $8 million company.
[bctt tweet=”Being busy is a sales killer. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
What are some of those growing pains to go from small to $8 million?
It was certainly bootstrapping. We didn’t have any credit lines. It was all internally funded. It was getting new clients, getting new landscape architects and general contractors that would partner with us. I remember getting on the phone and going through the phone book and reaching out to landscape architects and introducing ourselves. Starting out in that way and spent a lot of time sort of driving through our core markets which were in Brentwood and Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica and Hancock Park. Stopping off on job sites and literally walking into the job trailer and introducing Pierre landscape to see what we could do.
It was feet on the ground kind of marketing where you would cold call in person as opposed to an email or phone call.
It was. You’ve talked about areas of genius, things that are walking on the job site with something that I do and did. It’s only in retrospect that I realized that a lot of people don’t have would never do that.
It’s the willingness to be rejected. An in-person person sometimes that fear of rejection is even stronger. Did you have any insights now that you’re looking back or any thoughts to yourself? For every person you would sort of drop in on and say, “Would you like to work with us?” How many of you have to talk to before one would say, “Yes?” One out of ten, one out of 100?
I wish it was as easy as yes or no. It ended up most of the time it was, “We’re in framing,” or, “We’re coming out of the ground,” or, “We’re about to stucco.” Landscaping is the last trade, it was a lot of, “Happy to talk with you but before we’re going to make a decision, it’s going to be something that’s going to be two, three, four or five months down the road.” Persistence was another one of those skills that honed that good follow-up. Having a sense of decadence in the sales process when it was time to follow-up. Making sure that we were there at the right time when they were ready to finally give us a set of drawings to get a proposal or proposals. I’ve been sitting out there and force the cadence of the process to when they’re going to make a decision. Not being afraid to walk on the job sites was definitely one of the big drivers. It is having the team organized and being persistent in following these projects. The sales cycle wasn’t a short one. In some cases, it would be a year or longer when it was finally time.
Gratitude As Sales Tool: Who we are is bigger than our professions. Sometimes it gets mixed together in a beautiful way that we don’t necessarily realize that.
That’s where a lot of people give up. They’re like, “I don’t have the patience to wait a year. I’ve got cash flow problems now.” They don’t have a system in place to follow up on those leads. I know from my own sales career that organized follow-up at the right time. Doing what you say you’re going to do, “I’ll call you in a month,” and you do. That automatically builds some trust which is so important. They think to themselves, “If this guy, David says he’s going to call me a month and he does. When he tells me he’s going to have this landscaping done in three months, if we give him the bid, he probably will keep that word as well.” That’s how it sounds to me. You were building trust. My question for you is, were there any tools you used or recommended using to have this cadence you refer to so that things don’t fall between the cracks?
There are lots of great CRM programs out there. Over the years we’ve used Excel, we used Outlook. We’re settled in on Salesforce. There are other CRM tools out there. Having something that allows me to organize myself and to look at which opportunities are in need to be nudged along. That’s one of the strengths of the top performer in sales is being organized. There are the art and science of selling. The artful part is knowing when to push a deal along and reach out to somebody. As you were commenting on how to make and keep commitments on a small level, over time builds up to a sense of somebody having the confidence that you’re going to be able to perform at the end of the day. A lot of our clients now with Pierre landscape use it, these are people who have been with us for many years. These are people that we’ve got long relationships with. That’s different than working with somebody new. Especially when we started, we didn’t have that kind of history. Those are some thoughts. Having a good CRM and being organized is key to be successful as a relationship.
One of the keys to being successful when you’re launching any business is no matter what its size or growing it. You not only have to be organized to how often you’re reaching out to new clients, existing clients, keeping your word. How do you organize your own day, your own week and month? Especially as a startup, you’re wearing a lot of different hats. You’re selling it. You’re implementing it. You got to attract clients. You’ve got to work on the bids, the invoicing and then deliver it. How did you figure out, “From this hour to this hour I’m dropping in update these people. I’m following up on these people. I’m putting stuff into the CRM?” Did you have a cadence in your head of how you scheduled your day? Did you sort of find yourself reacting and saying, “I have to respond to this proposal and forget cold calling right now. I don’t have time?” How does that all work for you?
My planning process is to plan the week in its entirety either on a Saturday or Sunday before the week starts. Lockout the major things that need to get done and don’t get distracted by things that might come flying at the last minute. There’s always a little bit of margin that I try to leave for work. Great clients have urgent needs for them. For the most part, I feel best about my week in and week out when I got my priority goals the things that are going to move the needle that the things that are going to make my number. If I’m checking those boxes, that’s a good week.
If it doesn’t get scheduled, it doesn’t get done.
We were we’re talking a little bit about the busyness of life and being busy in some ways is a sales killer. Busy means running around. I’m focused and methodical. I’m not a person that likes a lot of drama. Being focused and methodical has generated stronger results than then being reactive.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t be distracted by last minute requests. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
Let’s talk about your own story during this 28, 29-year journey. You, at one point, can tell us when that happened, you decide you’re going to sell your interest back to your partner. Tell us what motivated that? How did it go? What does that look like now?
I’ve been with Pierre Landscape for many years. When I go back to my business school reunions, I talked with my friends who may have had five, six or seven different companies that they’ve worked for since business school. I think to myself, “Are you the smartest guy in the world or the dumbest guy in the world?” I’m one of the two. Part of what your readers might find interesting about my journey is getting to a point in 2004. This is several years after the start of the company, after I partnered up with Harold. We went from four employees to about $8 million in sales. I sold my interest in the company back to Harold to become an employee. For several years, I’ve been an employee of PR Landscape. The company’s gone from $8 million to $33 million. There’s been a huge transformation over that time. Over that several years, I’ve been a salaried employee working as a business developer and pre-construction.
What I found out about myself over those first several years as the company went from four employees to $8 was that running and managing a business and the passion that it takes to run and manage a business. This sense of being consumed in a beautiful way of running and building the business wasn’t something that I had. I could do it but putting on a suit of clothes and arms were too short. If I pulled my arms up the sleeves would get down and sort of fit but at the end of the day, it wasn’t something that was making me happy. We have been working with a business consultant for many years. We had our consultant with us at the time as we were discussing what it would look like for Harold to buy me out. When our consultant first suggested, “Maybe this is the solution that you guys might want to think about.” We both shook our heads and said, “That isn’t that.” A few months later, a year later, we worked through the process of getting to a place where I could become an employee. The management side and the goal setting and vision setting and then driving to the vision, those weren’t my areas of genius. I’m a relationship builder, a business developer. I’m a technical reconstruction person, but vision and driving a vision are different.
Was there already difficulty in letting go of being involved with all the decision making? Did they have trouble stopping asking you to work all these incredible hours?
On one level it was hard, on another level it was easy. One level for me, it was a burden that wasn’t serving me to put that aside was refreshing. On the other side, not being looked to for leadership and guidance because I said, “You know what? That’s not what I want to be bringing to the table.” There’s a sense that there, “I’m not an owner anymore.”
It’s a separation of who I am is bigger than what I do for a living. Letting go of outside labels defining our self-worth. That’s my big takeaway from your story.
Gratitude As Sales Tool: The sales team is the tip of the iceberg, and everybody else is doing the heavy lifting.
It’s accurate and you talked about it in your book. When you lost your job at Condé Nast and then got it back and won the salesman of the year. You’re sitting up there and you’re like, “I’m the same guy.” There is a sense of who we are is bigger than our professions. Sometimes it gets mixed together in a beautiful way that we don’t necessarily realize that. As I look back, I don’t know if it was me being the smartest guy in the room or the dumbest guy in the room. That was what we decided to do the best for both of us.
David, what do you do to keep your team morale up? How do you celebrate wins?
One of the things that I’ve taken on consciously is being a cheerleader inside PR Landscaping, how a good, “Atta boy,” goes such a long way. I think of it as internal salesmanship. I’ve got an internal client and an external client. Typically when I’m listening to a sales podcast or reading a book on sales, it tends to be about the external client who was selling too. Selling internally and making sure that the people on my team from estimating to our production people to our maintenance team. I make it a point of being the person that says, “Thank you,” more than anybody else to my team internally. The internal salesmanship in my mind is key to building a wonderful team and it’s key to being able to bring the best of what our company can offer to the client. When I say, “Thank you,” it makes me feel good too. I walk into somebody’s office and say, “You know what? The way that you handled that maintenance issue with them or the way you handled that warranty issue. Thank you, means a lot to me.”
Do you double back when you win a bid? Do you go back to the people who put the estimate together to let them know that in fact, it came into fruition and to thank them for their part?
We do. It’s always an email to the estimator, the chief estimator, the sales manager and the president. It’s like the chief cheerleader for Pierre Landscape. In those moments, bringing a sense of celebration to a sales big or small is important.
Let everybody feel part of the wind as opposed to the sales team getting all the credit.
[bctt tweet=”There’s an art and science in selling. The artful part is knowing when to push a deal along and reach out to somebody. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s hardly about the sales team. It’s about our estimating team to put together a good estimate. It’s about our production team that does a good job in the field so that we’re able to go out and get repeat business from people. In a lot of ways as we celebrate, it’s the sales team is the tip of the iceberg and everybody else is doing the heavy lifting.
What do you do to keep morale up when you don’t win a sale?
I was going to comment that we’re happy if we’re closing 20% of what we put out. For every ten bids, eight bids we are not going to get. People are going to either go with another company or maybe the job won’t go at all. As an internal salesperson, I try and be super candid with everybody on what I see with certain deals, if they’re going well if they aren’t going well. I’ll be candid about things that are positive about a certain opportunity.
It sounds like you keep people informed so they’re not shocked when it doesn’t happen.
The Reed family gave out Christmas cards to our friends and family. I brought Christmas cards into the estimating team. I wrote down on for each estimator that deals that I wanted to close in 2019. What’s been fantastic is that the Christmas card has been up on their bulletin board.
They have a shared goal and vision.
Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Client Retention
We go through it and we’ll highlight the ones we got and go, “We didn’t get that one. We didn’t get that one.” The communication piece is, “Good, bad, beautiful or ugly.” That’s been a good recipe for building trust. I’m going to be honest. I’m not going to tell somebody that this deal is for sure win. I’ve got some signs that know it’s heading the wrong way.
I had John Ruhlin who’s the author of Giftology on the show and he’s an expert at coming up with unique thoughtful gifts both for big clients and internally. Is there anything that you do internally or to your big clients to celebrate or thank them for their business? That’s a little out of the norm.
I am not a creative gift giver. My wife Susan Reed has that beautiful creative side to her. I have started deals over $1 million. I have started bringing in either a bottle of whiskey or a bottle of tequila when we do our turnover meeting making a big deal of presenting it to our estimator. At one point we went out and did a craft brew we called it the Pierre Pale Ale.
You’re onto something there because that’s what I learned from John Ruhlin. When you customize a gift and give people an experience. As well as something that they can remember that experience by. You have the wow factor because for people reading, “If my goals are to close 20% of the bids I put out. What else can I do to increase that?” In my experience, it’s creative gift-giving to grow current business. The second part is, what are we doing in our proposals or in the conversations that we could improve to get to 22% or 25%? I’m a big proponent of telling the story. I have had conversations about what’s the story of your personal passion. What’s the story of Pierre Landscaping? How did it start? What’s the culture that it stands for? If gratitude and appreciation are part of your culture that might attract some people. If you’re not telling that story out externally then people don’t know it. If you can find other companies that have that same value suddenly people have a connection to you. If it’s between you and someone else and everything else is fairly even, then they might go that way.
You’ve prompted me to remember something that I use in most of my conversations with my clients. It’s thanking them in some way the phrase that I use is, “Thank you so much for all the heavy lifting. All the heavy lifting that you’re doing out there as general contractors to get these projects to a place where Pierre Landscape is one of your subcontractors.
It’s a little more customized, “Thank you.” That has a little tongue in cheek there. David, is there something you want to leave the audience with? Maybe a book you like, a quote, a philosophy, advice, anything you want to leave people with?
[bctt tweet=”Bringing a sense of celebration to a sale, big or small, is important. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
The main thing is how powerful it is to say, “Thank you,” for things that others might take for granted. Be a big cheerleader out there. This abundance mentality is something that has served me well when I’m thanking people. There’s a sense of coming in at this whole thing from a better place. Sales is a game. Sales has its ups and downs. Some days are wonderful. When it is wonderful to be sure to celebrate and not on your own. Be sure to celebrate with the team. A team win is more gratifying than an individual win.
If people want to reach out to you? How else can people follow you or reach out to you?
Through LinkedIn. I’m happy to share any insights. I’ve been taken with better selling through storytelling and you are using good open-ended questions and storytelling to engage with my clients. In that way, I’ve connected a lot more people and that’s been a joy to connect with clients in a deeper way over the course of a sales process.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom and your fascinating story of making sure that you’re happy. In turn how that allows you to come from a place of happiness and gratitude and how that continues to create a place of abundance for your company and your life.
Thanks.
Important Links
- Salesforce
- John Ruhlin – Past episode
- Giftology
- LinkedIn – David Reed
- http://www.PierreLandscape.com/
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Think. Do. Say. With Ron Tite
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Our guest is Ron Tite who is hailed as one of the Top Ten Creative Canadians by marketing Magzine. He’s the author of Think. Do. Say. In this episode, Ron shares how to build trust, as well as how do we win the battle for time when everyone is so inundated with things that you have to figure out a way to create content and advertising that wins that battle. Today, he shows us exactly how to do it from lessons learned in his book. Don’t miss this episode to discover a whole process of building trust – from figuring out how to connect with your beliefs and values, how to deliver on those beliefs and values, and how authenticity is the secret sauce to all of that.
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Listen to the podcast here
Think. Do. Say. With Ron Tite
Our guest is Ron Tite who has been named one of the Top Ten Creative Canadians by Marketing Magazine. He has been an award-winning advertising writer and Creative Director for some of the world’s most respected brands including Air France, Evian, Fidelity, Hershey, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Intel, Microsoft and many more. His work has been recognized by The London International Advertising Awards and many more. He’s the Founder and CEO of Church+State, a Toronto-based marketing agency and he’s the publisher of This is That: Travel Guide to Canada. He also has a book coming out called Think Do Say. He and I are going to be speaking at the Coca-Cola CMO Summit on storytelling. Welcome to the show, Ron.
Thank you so much, John. Thank you for having me.
I always like to ask guests to tell us their story of origin. You can go back as far as childhood high school, college or whatever it was you thought, “I want to be a creative person.”
When you look at the broader life story, we can break it down in terms of the peaks and the valleys, and the origin story is such a great way to put it. I grew up the youngest child of four in a predominantly single-parent home for the most part and not quite poor. I think that it’s observing being the youngest while everything else was going on around me. I began to be able to observe things right and start to look at that life. I try and pull humor and see the humor in it. Even from being a very young child, not being a class clown, I wasn’t that but I could certainly appreciate the humor in situations and always.
My family is Italian and Québécois background so it’s very loud, it’s animated, the people who themselves were amazing storytellers. As a kid sitting around the kitchen table hearing my aunts and uncles tell stories and how they could just capture a room whether they were emotional stories or funny stories. I think that’s where I really got the ability to tell a story and which would serve me well. I started doing stand-up comedy so I would do that. I went off to university, I was the first of my family to go to university. I did a phys ed degree like most people in comedy and advertising.
You started off in phys ed, athleticism, which doesn’t normally lead to being an expert in creativity and humor. How did that connect for you?
Getting into it, it wasn’t a conscious choice but I don’t know that it was something I was destined to do. Nobody of my family had gone to university. I liked the job that my wrestling coach and gym teacher have and I said, “How do I do that?” I do that and then once you go and you land in the middle of the sea of people who come from this variety of different backgrounds, I quickly realized, “I don’t have to do that. I can do whatever I want. I think I’m smart enough. My head is screwed on tight enough.” I don’t know why and I read a book that changed my life.
It really sought away, but it is not a book that everybody knows. John Irving wrote a book called The Imaginary Girlfriend that was not a biography. It was how he was this very successful wrestler who wrestled in college and discovered his love of writing. He would tell his wrestling coach that he couldn’t attend to meet because he had to go see his girlfriend, but his girlfriend was his writing. When I read that, I realized, “I don’t have to live into this predefined. I don’t have to be a wrestler. I don’t have to be a gym dude.” I realized I could pursue the things that I find interesting, that I’m curious about and that’s when I started. After I read that book, I got a job in the business school at Queen’s University. It was the beginning of the internet and I started doing some tech stuff there. I made my way into advertising and then the second biggest contributor to the story was that I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. I don’t know what that guy was thinking many years ago because it is like, “You do it for money.”
[bctt tweet=”We trust imperfection.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Were you scared? It is one thing if we give a talk to an audience and they have all these expectations that it’s going to be hilarious so they’re not at a nightclub drinking like you’re giving a keynote. You’re usually in front of a business audience, the stakes are still high, but I think getting in front of a crowd that’s like, “You are the next Seinfeld or Ellen DeGeneres, and if not, some people get booed off the stage if they’re not funny.” Was there any trepidation doing comedy for the first time?
No weirdly and when I tell you the extended part of this, you’ll be more freaked out maybe. I’ve always liked to look at something like, “How do I pursue that and explore it?” I don’t want to apply for a job. I want to create a job. Someone told me that the way to get under stand-up comedy was you had to go and do five minutes at an open mic. I went to see that to check it out and I walked away going, “That’s the most demoralizing, horrible experience for anybody I could ever imagine.” I am already better than everybody on that stage. I was cocky about it. I went to a friend and I said, “I’m not doing that. That’s inhumane. What else can I do?” He said, “Why? I guess the only thing you can do is find a producer who’s producing a live show and you can convince them to give you five minutes even though you’ve never done it before.” I said, “Why don’t I just make myself the producer? I’ll make myself the headliner. My very first night of ever performing stand-up comedy on my own, I headlined with a 45-minute set and that’s ballsy.
It also shows that you’re taking something, disrupting it and making it your own.
I started writing and starting the rules to favor my own situation. Once you do 45 minutes, they put a stamp on your face and say, “You’re a professional stand-up comedian now,” and then you used to get gigs. I guess the other pivot out of that, the third most important one, I started to do stand-up comedy. I was touring and doing a lot of club shows and then because I worked in advertising, I started doing corporate shows. I started to see speakers and I was like, “This exists, a career that is interesting.” When I found out that they were making three times that I was making and repurposing the same speech over and over, I thought I had to pivot out of that and so I started bringing in some weird strategy bits into my corporate comedy set and it was weird. I realized the third most important pivot was there’s no market for a comedian who knows about business, but there is a massive market for a funny business guy. I walked away from comedy, struck it from my record, took it from the bio and everything, and said, “I’m a speaker. I’m not a comedian at all. Let them be delightedly surprised by the funny.”
Building Trust: There’s no market for a comedian who knows about business, but there is a massive market for a funny business guy.
When did you decide to launch your own agency? How did you come up with the name Church+State? I love that concept because having worked in advertising myself, they used to say, “The editorial and advertising, church and state don’t even talk to the editors, don’t ask them any questions about a story. We don’t want anything in the edit to be touched by an advertiser’s request.” In other words, if W Magazine is doing a photo shoot, they don’t necessarily want to have Lexus cars in that photoshoot. I’m guessing that’s where that came from.
I was an Executive Creative Director at Euro RSCG and I was at a point where I literally remember the moment I was shooting a TV commercial for Kraft and it was in Montevideo, Uruguay. I am with someone, would step back to take a photo of the crew and all of us from the agency, clients, stuff and I turn to my producer and said, “How are we still doing this crap?” Like, “Really?” We’re flying halfway around the world for 30 seconds and confirmed that no one’s watching anymore. I just quit. I realized I want to do stuff on my own. I thought that the traditional process of getting consumers’ attention was broken. I thought the agency model was a little bit broken and I wanted the freedom to pursue what I was curious about and not have to report that into the head office in New York or Paris. I quit and committed to starting my own thing.
One of the first things I did before I started the agency is I started consulting and I was consulting with a media company that had radio stations. I realized that as the large marketers from big CPGS, telcos and tech, that they didn’t get where the world was going. I also thought the big established media players didn’t see where it was going either. The idea was somebody has to know where media is going to know where advertising is going. We started as the Tite Group and then once we formalized and realized what it was, we pronounced it Church and State but it was this realization that as to your point, that you were banging on with that. It was theirs that we used to claim, the separation of church and state. I firmly believe that when you’re now at a time where we see the unification of church and state and everything, that every ad can be an actual piece of content. If it’s good enough and compelling enough then every piece of content can be an ad. If it’s responsible and authentic enough and it’s really about how do we help people win the battle for time so we do it for big brands? We do it for big media companies and then we do it for individuals too.
How do you win the battle for time and that is obviously having content and advertising be a good story? Am I guessing that pulls people in?
100%, when you go to YouTube and you get the pre-roll video, the pre-roll ads.
[bctt tweet=”How do you win the battle for time?” username=”John_Livesay”]
Everybody goes, “How many more seconds until this stops?”
“How can I skip it? Can I skip it? There, I’m going to skip it.” I think we place that on advertising in a pre-roll one. The skip ad button exists in every conversation we have. It’s like you go to a party and someone’s like, “I’m in data mining.” You’re like, “Can I skip this ad? Can I get out of it?” We used to believe that the content players, that people all wanted to tune in to that and they didn’t want to see the ads and they would skip the ad. If you’re a newspaper right now, every article, every tweet, everything you do, there is a skip button that says, “Do you want to roll pass this because you’re distracted by other things?” Everything has a skip ad button and what it is that makes people go, “I don’t want to skip this. I want to listen to this.” The old like, “People have a short attention span.” “That’s why they’re sitting down and watching twenty-minute TED Talks.” That’s why they’re great big shows on that list. People want great stuff and there’s so much great stuff that they’re willing to seek it out and find it. I don’t care if you’re an ad, a newspaper or a person. Your stuff better be good enough to win the battle for time or you’re done.
Your book, Think Do Say, reminds me automatically of monkey-see, monkey-do and all that good stuff. I love that you talk about that everybody succeeds in the world by figuring out what they think, what they do and what they say is a criterion. Those are some great takeaways from this episode for everyone to think about. When I gave my TEDx Talk, the TEDx coach said, “What do you want the audience to think? What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to do?” It’s very much in line with what you’re doing in this great book. My first question is, how did you come up with the title?
Nobody asked that because they often assumed it was like, “You pick three random words.” This came about because I was doing a TV appearance on a daytime talk show and they wanted me to talk about personal brands. I was bringing in all this marketing language and I was talking to the producer and she’s like, “You’ve got to dumb it down a little bit.” You’ve got to simplify it because these people aren’t marketers. I was out of frustration and I said, “Here’s the simplest way to do it, it’s based on what you think, what you do, and what you say,” in that order and then I did that in the appearance. I was working with Michael Port and Amy Port. I went to them and I was speaking probably 55 times a year. If you ever got to that point, we were like, “This is all great, I’m getting great reviews and the gigs are coming back.”
Think. Do. Say.: How to seize attention and build trust in a busy, busy world
There’s something personally I feel it’s not quite there yet. They came to a speech that I gave and they’re not all ten out of ten. This was a ten out of ten, it was brought and they started the conversation with, “We have some notes.” They said, “We don’t know what the foundation is. What is this about?” It’s a bunch of random stuff. You didn’t stand because you broke it down like a stand-up way and a bunch of it. We explored that, Think Do Say, and then I built the framework before I even thought of the book. Once I decided I want to do the book Think Do Say, for me it was the only title. It was not negotiable.
People don’t realize how important a headline is. In an email, what your subject line is, to get people even to want to open it, a book title to get people to be intrigued enough to pick it up or at least click to read what that means. I also have learned that there’s a craft of speaking and there’s a craft of telling jokes or figuring out what’s funny and that the order of things is critically important. For people to think maybe, “I should think about something and do something before I say something. I normally just say something.” Can you speak to that a little bit, the importance of the order?
It is hard why I was frustrated enough to write the book because you’ve got to be really frustrated to go, “I’m going to take a few months out of my life and sit down and write this.” I thought that far too many people, far too many thought leaders, far too many speakers, far too many businesses, marketing people. We’re all trying to game the system by jumping to the say and that we were getting in the zone where we’re looking at data and saying, “This is the headline that most people respond to and you’ve got to talk about yourself in this way.” We started cliparting communication and saying, “You’ve got to put this word here and that word there, you’ve got to start this way.” One, the creative person in me. My soul dies a little bit every time I heard that but also I was so frustrated to step back and go, “You can’t just say what you think everybody wants to hear without having the actions and behaviors that give you the permission to say it in the first place. You’re gaming the system, it’s a big crock of crap. It’s clickbait and I thought, “We’re losing this ability or this desire to play the long game.” If you were to zero-base at business like, “How do you build it or zero base a person, an entrepreneur and your business is the one person?” It’s the same thing.
The first thing you need to do is believe in something greater. There has to be something that you believe in that allows you or inspires you to do the things that you do. What is that foundation? What do you believe in? The second thing is you have something that you can seek actions and behaviors to tie back to and to reinforce because this was the other thing I saw. My friend Warren Tomlin says random acts of digital where they’re doing stuff and it’s not strategically tied to anything. You need a guide for your actions and behaviors and those are your beliefs. What do you believe? What do you do to reinforce that belief through your actions? If you believe in something greater and you behave in a way and empower your team to behave in a way that reinforces that point, that is worth talking about. If you’re going to talk about it then shouldn’t you talk about it in a really interesting and compelling way? Shouldn’t you use stories to tell what you believe in how you reinforce it to get as many people onside? If you do that and you talk about that stuff, enough of those people will convert to buying whatever it is you’re selling.
[bctt tweet=”It’s our imperfections that people buy because that’s what makes us human.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Let’s talk about how you bring this to life in your book because it’s like, “Let me digest this.” I have to figure out what I believe then I have to take actions based on that belief and not have it be some core belief that I have on a wall and never take actions on. How do consumers get involved with this? Most people are thinking to themselves, “I don’t even know how to connect beliefs to actions, let alone get my customers,” but you have a wonderful story in Think Do Say about how REI implemented this. Would you walk us through the implementation of that so that those steps come to life for people?
REI believed and this kicked off in 2015. The program still exists now and it’s growing. REI, for those readers who may not know, for international audiences, it’s an outdoor equipment retailer co-op. They sell tents and hiking boots and stuff like that. Most people, if they have that business, they would say, “What do we believe? We believe we should be the best outdoor retailer in the world.” That’s not a belief. The other people do that and other people have that aspiration and don’t make you that special. What they did is they believed in something more important. They believed and they state this, “We believe a life lived outside is a life well-lived.” They didn’t say we believe we should knock twenty points off hiking boots. They elevated it to something that people actually care about like, “I get this.” The second thing is they then took action. One of the first things they did was a very symbolic but important gesture, they close all their stores and stopped eCommerce payments and delivery on Black Friday, the busiest retail day of the year. Their line was, “We’d rather be in the mountains than in the aisles.”
Let’s talk about how great that is. It’s visual, it hits you in the gut, it’s so counterintuitive. Normal people who are worried about stock prices or even a privately-held company, worrying about profits because I know retail makes a majority of their money in the fourth quarter. That is what most people would say is an insane decision and it ties to the belief and has a surprising outcome. Continue with the story. I wanted to underline that as such a great concept if you’re going to take a bold step like that. Have an emotional look that is from the mountains instead of the aisles of a store. I’m in a story which is my whole thing, get people in your story.
They delivered this message so that was their do and then the say was that you want to say it in a way that is compelling and interesting for people so they pay attention. They come on your side so they chose a couple of things in these say. One, they didn’t talk about this being an anti-consumerism thing. They didn’t make it about social issues. They’re not anti-corporate. They don’t think the private sector is evil. They didn’t go down that road. They said, “We believe a life lived outside is a life well-lived. We’re going to close our stores on Black Friday and rather be in the mountains than the aisles.” Those are the first things I decide. The second thing was they decided to have this in a slightly whimsical launch spot. The CEO at the time is no longer CEO because the CEO was sitting at a desk out on the top of a mountain. These two hikers come up and go, “What are you doing here?” and he’s like, “Why? I work here.” It’s not knee-slapping funny but it gives a smile and is consistent with the brand. It is a very authentic piece of communication.
Building Trust: Don’t ask for the sale. Communicate your values so you’re connecting right away without your sales bias getting in the way.
This has grown and they’ve got more partners on. What I love and I think what is a point that gets missed in this story is that what are the adjoining pieces of this story? You can say, “They lived happily ever after.” There are some other stories here because by believing in something more important that goes beyond the product and then by saying, “How can we act in a way that reinforces that belief?” They had the one act of closing the stores but that’s not all they did. The actions they took to say, “If we really believed in, what can we do to support that belief that goes beyond the stuff we sell?” They created REI Adventures which is a touring company and they started to diversify their portfolio. They now start REI classes where they teach people how to kayak, canoe, rock climbing and things like that. Not only are they doing more to support their beliefs, they’re diversifying the revenue portfolio by doing it. It’s a great business story and the hook for all the doubters who are reading and going, “That’s easy to close your store on Black Friday.” Two things, one, as Nike said with the Colin Kaepernick ad, “If you believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything,” but REI grew the business, they gained nine points year-over-year by closing business retail day of the year.
I also imagine that it creates brand ambassadors who say, “That’s what I believe in, more family time, less fanatic shopping to save some money where you’re pushing and shoving people.” This concept of if a brand decision and a marketing message can start attracting the kind of talent you want that’s not normally an advertising job. I would think that top talent would look at that decision and say, “That’s the culture I want to work in,” which is to me is another extension of that story.
You are banging on there, as a recruitment piece, it’s incredible, it’s amazing.
You have such great insight in Think Do Say about people don’t know how to trust people. People say that all the time, “How do I get someone to trust me right away whether I’m an ad or I’m pitching to get hired or pitching for anything to sell my product?” Speak to us about how Think Do Say can help us with our trust?
[bctt tweet=”It’s nice when we get to meet somebody face to face. It amplifies the connection more.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We have to look at why people don’t trust others and we have to acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that there are macro cultural forces at play that have gone into that person’s day and over the past decade. We’ve seen Lance Armstrong lie to our faith. We saw Bill Cosby when going from America’s dad to America’s predator. We’ve seen Panama papers do nothing. We’ve seen CEO compensation go through the roof. We’ve seen Volkswagen with the emission scandals. A long list of all aspects of our lives and internally within organizations like, “Please.” Employees are like, “Great another reorg. I’m sure you have my best interests at heart.” We know that coming into it, people are already completely skeptical and then there are two points to the distrust, I think. If we look at Times Square as this metaphor, that up top you’ve got the big brands who can afford to do the promotion and they put it into glitzy ads with high prices, photography, perfect scripts and everything else. They get so big and they get so perfect that they lose all the semblance of personality. They can’t connect with the common person because they’re saying stuff to be really perfect and nobody is perfect.
We trust imperfection. Like in advertising, we used to fire the director of photography if there was a lens flare on the film and we consciously put them in because people see that as a slight imperfection and they trust it. I got these big brands who don’t want to be imperfect and so we don’t trust them because they’re too scripted. On the other hand, we have these people on the street who are nothing but imperfect and they got someone telling you the end of the world is coming and someone is selling a fake Gucci. They may be authentic and imperfect but we don’t trust them because they don’t have the credibility that the guys have at the top has. That’s why we’re stuck in this zone. That the big established players who have screwed us for years and we’ve got these startups. We’re not exactly sure whether they’re going to be around tomorrow and that’s this paralysis that is in the minds of the consumer.
To build that trust, if you start with a belief and you connect with people on beliefs and values. You’re not asking for the sale. You’re communicating your values and so you’re connecting right away without your sales bias getting in the way and people go like, “I trust this person. I like this person.” If they’re skeptical like, “They only said that they believe,” and then they fall and you deliver on what you told only you’re going to deliver on. Now, I can trust you and then if you talk in an authentic way. I’ll tell you this very quick story.
I was at a gig in Sarasota, Florida and I was talking with a chairman of a global software company that I can’t name. This person was from the Deep South and he was previously the CEO of that software company. He spent some time at a CPG and rose to the ranks of vice president. Once he hit vice president, they sent him on a leadership development course and he realized that the sole idea and purpose of the course was to get him to lose his Southern accent because they didn’t feel he would have credibility on the global stage sounding like a country boy. He looked to me and said, “I quit because I realized my voice is not a bug, it’s a feature.” It’s our imperfections that people buy because that’s what makes us human. If we hide those imperfections through incredibly polished photography, communications and incredibly scripted things that have no sense of personality, if we’re hiding who we really are, what else are we hiding?
I saw the value. It’s almost the concept where you see people spending so much time photoshopping a Facebook post so that there are no wrinkles and their teeth are extra white and all this stuff online. At what point do we not even let a casual photo go up to where we go, “That’s not perfect, I can’t show it.” “We trust imperfection.” I love that line and this concept you’ve given us, a step-by-step. It builds trust by letting people connect with our beliefs and values then deliver it. That builds trust through authentic vulnerable communication and connection. Ron, that is brilliant. I have never heard anybody put it so clearly, that’s why the book Think Do Say is so valuable and a must-read for everyone. How can people follow you if they want to engage you, to come and speak? What’s the best way to do that?
They can go to RonTite.com, ThinkDoSay.com, ChurchState.co or all the social channels, just add Ron Tite.
Any last thoughts or one quote you want to leave us with?
The one thought I would leave you with is I absolutely love our conversation and we’ve never met in person but we get to do so in Chicago. I think that as much as we can connect the people through digital means and it makes it nice when we get to meet somebody face-to-face. It takes those connections and amplifies them even more. I’m really looking forward to that.
Likewise, and remember that if you have a choice between texting somebody, talking to them, Zoom call or seeing them in person, always go for the in-person energy.
Important Links
- Think Do Say
- Ron Tite
- Church+State
- This is That: Travel Guide to Canada
- The Imaginary Girlfriend
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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How To Be A Secret Weapon with Brian Palmer
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
Loyal customers are repeat customers and they surely help in keeping the business running. It doesn’t take a lot to gain loyal customers, but oftentimes in people’s desire to prioritize big fat sales over putting their customers’ need ahead of their own, what is essential is often missed out. Brian Palmer, Senior Vice President at National Speakers Bureau, shares how he has been referred to by his loyal customers as their “secret weapon.” He talks about important lessons that he picked up and learned in his journey where his father served as his guide and influence.
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Listen To The Episode Here
How To Be A Secret Weapon with Brian Palmer
Brian Palmer began working for National Speakers Bureau part-time in 1972. His father, John Palmer, founded the firm. He became full-time in 1980 and assumed the presidency in 1996. He’s held roles with some of the event industry’s most significant organizations and knows the meeting industry inside out. One of the most important things his clients, coworkers, family and friends know about him is that he sleeps well at night. He’s a man of his word who cares to help his clients succeed, and he’s equipped to do so. He and his violinist wife, Paula, have two children, Adam and Rachel. Brian is also an avid racing enthusiast who built his own car. Brian, welcome to the show.
Thanks, John. I’m glad to be here with you.
One of the things that resonate with me about your background and having the pleasure of getting to know and work with you is that you are a man of your word. I want to ask you to tell us about your own story of origin. Your father was a huge influence on you. Was it always assumed that you would be in the business and how did you learn integrity?
It wasn’t always assumed that I would be in the business. My dad was a musician. He was a bandleader and he traveled all over the country. He got tired of traveling. In some ways, the speaking business is on the fringes of the entertainment industry or was perhaps more so then. He started the company. I was good at licking envelopes, so he enlisted my help. I was in high school then. I began helping in the summers while I was in college. When I finished college, I started here full-time. My dad often spoke of how our customers are putting on these events. They spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to bring people together. They have a purpose for these gatherings. It’s that purpose which should drive the recommendations we make, not an obligation to fill somebody’s calendar. As expensive as a speaker can be, the most valuable component of that session is the cumulative time of everybody sitting in there and the objectives that the organization has in place. He said, “There’s no room for exaggeration or anything other than the audience and the organization’s objectives and have that be your sole guide. Always tell the truth about your recommendations and the speakers’ capabilities and you’ll be in business for a long time.” He was right.
That’s so valuable for people to take away whether you own your own business or work for someone else. One of the keys to success is this ability to build trust. That comes from what you described, which is a sense of putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own and delivering on what you say you’re going to do, which increases the trust and it keeps building from there. Would you say that’s been your experience?
It certainly has. One of the most satisfying components of the outgrowth of that are some of the men and women who have been customers for literally 40 years. I’ve been to a number of retirement parties, people that we’ve helped. People have said nice things along the way about how we were one of their secret weapons. It’s a powerful skill to be the person who always comes up with the excellent speakers that helped an event sing. There are a variety of components that go into that. Certainly, me doing the right thing and having a client’s objectives in mind is an important part of the longevity that many of our relationships have had.
[bctt tweet=”Avoid criteria creep.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We touched on a couple of things here that I find interesting. One, your father was a bandleader, you’re married to a professional musician and you used a word about making an event sing. Clearly, music and speaking have some similarities there about rhythm, what’s the melody and when you hear a good song or a good talk, there’s an emotional connection. Can you speak to how you see any similarities between music and the speaking industry?
If I might in a side, my wife and I, on our fourth date, she said to me, “By chance, did your dad go to Northwestern University?” I said, “Yes.” “Did he have a band when he was there?” I said, “Yes, he did.” She smiled broadly and said, “My dad played piano in your dad’s band in college.”
You were destined to be a couple, weren’t you?
Yeah, I think so. I could go on and on about stories about my wife. When a presentation connects with ideas that exist in the mind of the audience, when a presentation accounts for the objectives that an executive or an organization has for this meeting, there’s a certain symmetry that can take place there in the coming together or I’ll call it more of a harmony when it works well. It can often make a meeting sing, and a heart sing too. I also want to note that events certainly aren’t always designed as a key objective to make everybody feel good. People put on events to further some objective, whether it’s an organization or sales or recognition of a product. It’s not all that common that when we talk to people about their events, when we ask what they want to do, they want there to be some progress. They want there to be some learning. Often learning and progress as a key component of it or something that’s certainly present is a measure of discomfort.
Secret Weapon: Clients who book your talent have the purpose to bring people together. That purpose should drive the recommendations that you make and not just an obligation to fill your talent’s calendar.
Some of the best presentations often leave an audience quiet and thinking about what they might have to do to accommodate this new direction or this new path that the organization wants to take. While I pay a lot of attention to evaluations that audiences fill out for speakers, I’m usually most interested in what the event owners have to say about that speaker is delivering on, what they have. Usually, the higher-level executives have a higher-level set of objectives in mind. Sometimes lower-level people want everybody to be happy. A standing ovation can be and usually is a sign of a speaker that’s gone over well. Even when there’s a standing ovation, I want to listen to what the end-client has to say and perhaps whisper about how they felt about how the session went.
The other thing that you touched on that is a fascinating formula for people to take a look at their own lives and their own business, which is the integrity that you bring builds trust which equals loyalty. If I was to create a little formula of your success, Brian, that’s the formula I would come up with. I’m the Pitch Whisperer so I like to give people a one-sentence zingy memorable takeaway. Everyone can start looking at that saying, “If integrity plus trust equals loyalty, then that builds my bottom line because loyal customers are repeat customers and that saves you huge expense on marketing to get new business all the time. Loyal customers also give you referrals.” There’s a nice return on investment in addition to the feel-good, “They called me a secret weapon.” I wondered if you had a story of what you did for someone that made them want to call you their secret weapon.
There was one guy that retired. He was at four large financial services firms. I forget how we first came together, but he called and asked me about a speaker who I didn’t think was worthy of his meeting, someone who had a hit book that people loved, but he didn’t seem to care enough about the audience and the organization’s objectives. He was there essentially giving what I call a book report. That’s not what the client wanted. He called wanting that speaker. It would have been a nice fat sale. I dissuaded him from having that speaker. I recommended somebody who charged a good deal less. It went particularly well. That’s what led to my working with him in these four different roles. He’s the guy who referred to me as his secret weapon. He pretended that he didn’t tell other people about me, but he was a fantastic referrer. You could imagine somebody who’s in a senior role making that reference and referring to us that way, it was the genesis of a lot of wonderful opportunities.
[bctt tweet=”Be a secret weapon for your clients.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The takeaway here for everyone is when you put somebody else’s interests ahead of your own, the long-term benefits more than makeup for any short-term financial impact that might have. The fact that you were willing to recommend a more customized speaker at a lower fee than taking the higher fee commissions on a speaker that would have given a book report because it sounds boring. You could read the book out loud almost, that is what people say, “Now I trust you because you could have charged me more. I thought that’s what I even wanted. It wasn’t like you had to push me to buy this,” but you took the big picture, zoomed out and said, “I think you should go this route,” and that’s what built the trust which then built the loyalty that we talk about. That’s a great story for everyone to look at of all of that. This concept of who you say no to is as important as who you say yes to resonates with me.
That’s also a big-time saver. We’re not a retail store. We don’t have to serve everybody that walks in the door because a lot of people have needs that we can’t help where they have the expectations that I’m not going to be able to meet. Some of my biggest regrets in business were saying yes to things that I suspected weren’t a good fit and I spent a great deal of time trying to satisfy somebody who I originally suspected wasn’t going to pan out for them or for me. After sometimes weeks and months of effort, it turns out that initial impulse was right. I’ve gotten better and better, although I still make that mistake, I’ve gotten better at recognizing things that aren’t going to be a fit and saying no to people. Sometimes I’m wrong, but the net of that decision to avoid poor fits has probably served me well. I’m sure I’ve made a few mistakes, but it’s been positive.
This concept of when people call you a secret weapon, I had that happened to me with Gensler, a big architecture firm that hired me to come in and give a keynote talk on client relationships and developing stories that resonate. They weren’t just going in and giving book reports of their previous architecture work. I did a workshop to help them tell stories that would tug at people’s heartstrings and make them memorable compared to their competition. When the Co-CEO, Diane Hoskins, came up to me afterward and she said, “We’re going to have you speak to all the offices because you’re our secret weapon.” I’m like, “Okay.”
When you get that feedback, it’s because you’re giving such value. They see you’re solving a problem which is what I see in every industry, whether it’s technology or architecture or healthcare. It’s how do we stand out and not be seen as a commodity, therefore justify a higher premium price. Let’s zoom out into your world of speaking bureaus. How do you and did you create National Speakers Bureau brand that allowed you to differentiate yourself where people would want to work with you versus some of the other choices?
Secret Weapon: Be a strong believer of not just treating the customer well, but also treating the talent well.
I have to give my dad a lot of the credit. He had a lot of thoughts about entertainment and people who put on a good show and people who were good to work with behind the scenes. He was a strong believer in not just treating the customer well but also treating the talent well. He told the story more than once about pulling up to a venue on a bus and he said there were usually two types of venues. There was the one where the venue manager would come out and would welcome them and say, “Come on in, guys. We’ve got some cold drinks for you. I hope it’s okay but I ordered dinner. We’re going to make sure you guys are well-fed.” There were venues that when the bus would pull up, they’d come out. He’d wave the bus off and say, “Go park over there. We don’t want you in the venue until 8:00. If you have to use a bathroom, there’s a filling station right over there.” What place do you think the musicians would more eagerly play a little longer or be keener to play together better and play in tune better?
My dad would often talk about making sure that we treat the speakers well and treat them as the talent that they are. People became excited to do engagements for us and we got a lot of referrals from speakers because of that. They knew the client was going to be treated well and that the talent would be treated well and that would produce a better result. When I got out of college, my dad had been around at the founding of Meeting Professionals International. He had urged me to join the organization. I went to my first meeting. I was talking to everybody and I collected a fistful of business cards. I came back to the office. I held out that fistful of cards and I put it down on his desk. He looked at them. He took his trashcan and he pushed all the business cards into the trashcan. He said, “I don’t want you trying to collect business cards. I want you to go to those events to learn about the event business, to learn what’s of concern to meeting planners and meeting professionals because I want you to serve the industry and our customers better and then start worrying about getting business out of it.”
I remember he walked out of his office and I thought about it. I set myself on it on a different course, but I also went into his trashcan afterward. We were big supporters of the meeting industry. I was very involved in that association. I became President of the Chicago chapter and had a number of other roles. Setting out to learn about the role of the event owner and the event planner shaped the way that we operated, the offerings that we made and the ways that we went about recommending speakers, the contracting process and the very important execution or advancing of the actual engagements.
[bctt tweet=”Building trust is putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own and then delivering on what you say you’re going to deliver.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’re also the contributing author of Professional Meeting Management and industry publications. What that tells me is that you understand the pain points or the problems at a deeper level than someone who’s not that involved where people are literally taking down their mask and being open and vulnerable with what they need. You’re hearing it firsthand so you can keep that in mind when you’re servicing them.
It’s hard to know exactly what influence all that industry work has contributed, but I think it has made a difference. It has made people in my company throughout the years more confident that we were doing the right things. It provided a bit of a fallback if something wasn’t going right and what’s at hand here. It helped us focus. It’s not about the sale. Somebody is paying all this money for the speaker to be there and all these people to be there, that has to be right. You don’t have a chance at 9:00 when that speaker is scheduled. He or she needs to have a bright, shining moment. If all the things that we did beforehand were focused on the wrong things, the odds are lower, that things would sing.
You made the decision to merge with the Premiere Speakers Bureau. Can you share with me some of the thoughts that went into that? A lot of people are often thinking, “I wonder if I should do that. Would I stay on if I did do that?” I bet there are some interesting stories there.
There are a lot of interesting stories for me, but the genesis of it was I came to work here right out of college. Other than jobs that I had in high school working at a gas station, painting houses and caddying when I was twelve, this is the only job that I’ve had. I’ve never been to a job interview. I always tell people that when they call and ask me for an interview advise. I’ve been here for 38 years. I don’t have retirement plans. I’m 61. I wanted to change. I gave thought to ways that I might be able to go about our business in a way that would be a change, but in a way that also would allow me to use my experience.
Secret Weapon: You go to business events not to collect business cards but to learn more so you can serve your industry’s customers better.
I looked around at the entities that existed in the marketplace, companies that went about their business in ways that I agreed with. I talked to Shawn Hanks at Premiere Speakers Bureau and relatively quickly, we came to a preliminary understanding. True to my expectations, the deal that we initially discussed and eventually worked out was very satisfying. It has allowed me to do what I enjoy and that is to listen to people’s objectives, make recommendations and provide them with the means on which to make a decision, have that speaker prepare and show up, do a great job and make event owners and most of the people in their audiences very happy. That’s rather simply the way I went about it. I thought about neither one of my kids is interested now coming into the business.
My kids are relatively young. One is still in college and one is a few years out of college. They like the business. I checked with them and neither one was interested now. I thought making this move would be helpful on the personal front and also in terms of the next chapter for me. I don’t have to worry as much about becoming 70 years old and wondering what I might be able to do with my business. That has been figured out. I’m enjoying working in a new entity, learning their perspective on the world and using their wonderful technology and their systems. There’s been a bunch of wonderful cross-pollination that I’ve found very satisfying. They’ve helped me and we’ve helped them. Premiere has always been impressed by the longevity of a lot of our relationships. They’re constantly asking questions how we did that. They’ve got a lot of long-term relationships too but they’ve been around 25 years. Our company’s been around 45 years. There’s a lot of experience there that’s coming together making a much stronger entity.
It sounds like there’s a great cultural fit. If there are lessons to be learned from both sides, which ultimately makes a great joint venture.
[bctt tweet=”Some of the best presentations often leave an audience quiet.” username=”John_Livesay”]
My boss, Shawn, is a wonderful guy. Do you know Shawn?
I do.
All my life I’ve read all sorts of books and articles about great bosses. I’ve got a great boss. I find myself wanting to be a good employee.
I’m sure he thinks of you as more than an employee and more of a partner. This show’s all about having a successful pitch, do you have any suggestions or can you share with us how you pitch a speaker that you’re representing?
Secret Weapon: We have two ears and one mouth so you can listen more. Listening is a key tool to make a persuasive pitch.
That all depends. I don’t have a standard pitch because it depends on the client and what they’re looking for, what their manner is. You can tell often when somebody wants you to be brief. You can tell when somebody wants a lot of details. Custom baking every pitch that we make I think is key. I don’t think sending somebody a bunch of links to spots on our website and saying, “Here are the speakers who I think would be right. Take a look,” that’s not very powerful. I don’t think recommending a lot of speakers for a particular slot is necessarily useful. Although sometimes people do want to take a look at a lot of speakers. There’s something that we call criteria creep, meaning people gave us criteria and we consider it and make recommendations. In the meantime, they’ve gone around the office or they’ve thought about this event, ask questions. That criteria might have evolved somehow.
I make sure that we in a proposal or a pitch that we reiterate what their criteria were so they’re considering my proposal in the context of the criteria we were given. It suggests to them that they were being listened to and it provides the rationale for these recommendations. You’ve probably heard this expression or this joke before. It’s a sign from God that we have two ears and one mouth. Doing a lot of listening is a key tool in making that pitch, one that is persuasive. Not just informative but persuasive because people don’t want to be informed. They want things to happen relatively fast. If you can discern how they want it and give it to them that way, find out what they’re going to do with it because sometimes a lot of speakers are hired by committees. There are some subtle ways that you might go about making your pitch to help that person that you’re dealing with more effectively pitch that speaker to the committee. You know hard it is for five or seven people to agree on one speaker?
The same thing ironically happens for the clients, whether it’s an architecture firm or a tech firm. There’s a committee of people that are deciding on their pitch. It’s no longer one decision maker. That requires everybody having a different skill set of getting committees to say yes. Is it having an inside champion convincing the other people, almost like a jury that you find works?
[bctt tweet=”You build a lot of credibility when you do a great job.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That can be a key tool but also coaching somebody to effectively manage the process. Often people call and they don’t have a bit of information about what the objective is for that session or the event. They just know they want a speaker. If you can give somebody the tools, coming up with a set of objectives and a process by which a speaker will be decided on. We’ve all been to meetings where somebody was good at that meeting. They knew how to run it. They knew how to listen. They knew how to manage a conversation. Doing that and helping people with that process can dramatically improve their ability to bring that decision to a close and produce success. Many of the readers might not be familiar with a gong show, but people sit around listening to a speaker with no basis for a decision, “Do I like this guy or not? No, let’s turn this off. Let’s look at the next preview video.” Helping people with a process and then allowing the pitch to be a fit into that process is one of the keys to making a pitch. It’s some pre-work and a lot of listening.
A lot of listening and avoiding criteria creep because the better you can get people to agree on the criteria and that it’s not changing, the closer they are to saying yes. Because once all those boxes are checked off on the criteria, it’s time to pull the trigger. Brian, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your worldwide wisdom with us. If people want to work with you to hire speakers, what website should they go to?
NationalSpeakers.com is our website. There are some very interesting people on there.
I’m honored to be one of them. I can’t thank you enough for being such a great guest.
Thank you, John.
Thank you.
Links Mentioned:
- Brian Palmer
- National Speakers Bureau
- Meeting Professionals International
- Professional Meeting Management
- Premiere Speakers Bureau
- NationalSpeakers.com
- Quantmre.com
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