Just Say Yes With Jim Palmer
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“Just say yes!” is Jim Palmer‘s battle cry. Get ready as the internationally acclaimed business coach shares valuable insights into building a business. John Livesay interviews Jim as he lets us have a look at how you can build your dream business. Jim also gives us a glimpse of his work mindset and why you need to take action. Tune in and learn more from a master of the craft and build your dream today.
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Listen to the podcast here
Just Say Yes With Jim Palmer
Our guest is Jim Palmer and he talks about how the fear of perfection kills people launching their business idea. He gives us some insights as to what is behind this fear of perfection and how to overcome it. We also talk about his book Just Say Yes and Stick Like Glue, which cannot only apply to keeping customers but also keeping employees. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Captain Jim Palmer, who is the Founder and Creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program, the creator of the Dream Business Academy and the host of the Dream Business Radio, a weekly podcast based on his unique brand of smart marketing and Dream Business building strategies. His other business includes No Hassle Newsletters, Success Advantage Publishing and How to Sell from the Stage Like a Pro. He’s also the developer of the Cashflow Conversation Code as well as the acclaimed author of several books. In 2016 after raising four kids and leading his predictable life, he and Stephanie sold their home in Philly and live full-time and travel on their yacht called the Floating Home. Welcome to the show, Jim.
John, how are you doing? Good to see you and hear from you again.
Likewise. What a little adventure and creative third act you have created. I love it, and especially during a pandemic, I imagine there were a lot of advantages to that.
We were in Cocoa Beach in March 2020. Stephanie and I used to be by ourselves unless we wanted to go out and mingle on the docks or meet other people, but our life did not change that much. Other than the town that we were staying in, the marina was void of anything. If you remember it, it was a ghost town. It was a good situation because we were already used to being together 24/7 in a small space.
Some people were in a small home or apartment and had not planned on having to be there 24/7, but you had already planned your life in a space that did not require a lot of changing of location or trying to make things work because you already had set it up.
You mentioned a small adventure. We called it our big adventure. When we sold the house, we bought this boat, intending to do this for one year to go do something crazy. We live the typical, safe, predictable life like, “Let’s do something adventurous and exciting.” We moved on the boat. About six months in, we looked at each other and go, “This is way too much fun.” This is the fifth time that we have traveled down the coast from the Chesapeake Bay. We are in the Keys as you and I are talking.
It’s Gilligan’s Island, in a good way.
Just Say Yes: When you grow a business, you’ve got to be all in.
We are still on top of the water. We did not have any holes in the boat.
Why don’t you take us back to your story of origin? You can go back to childhood or college, wherever you want to start, when you started thinking, “I’m good at helping businesses grow or I want to get into the business world.” Any little nuggets that you could point to as the starting point of all this.
When you start getting a little older, you start looking backward a little more than forward. It’s amazing the clarity you have. Amongst the different jobs I had, I was the Head of Marketing for a training company. I spent ten years helping to grow a franchise. I was the lead trainer and the main support person for these brand new franchise owners, which is very much like I do, helping business owners market and grow their business, but who knew. It was July of 2000. My position was eliminated with that company and I thought, “I’m going to go get another job.” I have always worked for entrepreneurs. I’m very entrepreneurial.
I knew I would probably have my business someday, but Stephanie and I have four children. It never seemed to be the right time to make that leap. God had other plans because he made it like, “There’s no job here. Start a business.” One year into my what was then almost a year and a half of unemployment, I got cancer. It was a whole kerfluffle of circumstances that said, “Once you reach rock bottom, there’s only one way you can go in that’s up.” I started my first business and was very excited. I was a business owner. I had my cards that said, “President of my corporation.” It took me a full year to get my first paying customer. I did some part-time work.
That took off. I grew it to about $300,000 in five years and then I learned about internet marketing. That’s when somebody introduced me to Dan Kennedy and the whole GKIC world. I started learning direct response copywriting. I started my first internet company called No Hassle Newsletters and we grew that about 1,200 small business owners in 9 countries. It was a monthly membership where I created content and done-for-you newsletter templates.
I created a mail program so that we could print their newsletters. I started writing books, training programs and Success Advantage Publishing. We have published about 50 books for my books and my clients. We help my coaching clients get their books done. When we bought this boat, that was a decision I made. I did not want to work five days a week anymore. I restructured my schedule. I do coaching with my clients on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then Stephanie and I wish we could travel Friday through Monday. We’ve got to be at a Marina where we have some decent Wi-Fi and then if we want, we can travel again or do whatever we want.
Is there a common mistake you see a lot of entrepreneurs making that prevents them from growing their business? Are they wearing too many hats or is it like, “I read your great blog about all the what-ifs that we can what if ourselves in all kinds of horror stories?”
It’s all of these things like the what-if fear of perfection. Perfectionism is a big business killer. People don’t want to launch until it’s perfect. That all stems from not wanting to be criticized. As I say, “The biggest battle you will ever face as an entrepreneur is right between your ears and having the courage to play, win and not simply play, not to lose.”
[bctt tweet=”Stick Like Glue. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
A lot of the folks that I helped are not 22, starting full of pitch vinegar expression, on their second career, might have a home or had some responsibilities. Some of them would say something like, “I want to grow a business, but I don’t want to disturb what I have here.” When you grow a business, you have got to be all in. Whether that’s in marketing, free Facebook posts, LinkedIn articles, working with a coach or joining a mastermind, whatever that is, the people who grow the fastest in most cases, the highest are those that go through the fences every day.
I love this line that you gave us. “Fear of perfection kills launches.” Let’s double click on what you said. What’s behind most people’s fear of perfection?
Nobody’s perfect. I became familiar with this at a real gut level because I have written 6 books and my first book took 18 months. In reality, it took about under 1 year to write but it took me about 6 or 7 months to get the courage to publish it because then everybody would find out how challenged I am with the English language, what blew by him and my name is on the cover. There was a lot of fear about being criticized because who am I to be an author?
I went through that myself when I wrote my first book. I realized that negative self-talk of, “Who am I to be an author or a speaker,” can trigger imposter syndrome. Do you see that as something you help your clients with?
Yes. It’s interesting. A lot of my clients are in the 6-figure to multiple 6-figure ranges. The largest guy that I helped start a coaching program was doing $34 million. He had a very large business and wanted to do events. I used to put on events called Dream Business Academy. He wanted to do that. What I learned from working with startups, people in that mid-six-figure range, and him, everybody has imposter syndrome. Nobody feels good enough. He even said to me, which helps cement my belief that imposter syndrome is real, “I never finished college.” It almost feels like you are going to be found out that you are not all that your marketing says you are.
It is a real thing. As far as perfection, one of the things that helped me, you said when you wrote your first book, you were concerned as well, was that I was so afraid somebody was going to find an error or a mistake. I must have proofread that thing 500 times. Of course, me proofreading it does not guarantee anything. Somebody did reach out in 60 days. This was before on demand. We had to order 3,000 books or something like that. That’s when you had to print the books in 2009.
Somebody said, “There’s an error on page 34. You have a dangling participle.” I’m like, “What is a dangling participle? I have no clue.” I sat in my chair, reading this email. My heart was probably racing and my palms were sweating like, “I knew this was going to happen.” I responded and said, “Thank you for letting me know. I’m going to tell our editing team and we will fix it for the next printing.” I hit a comment. I said, “How did you like the book?”
This guy, who pointed out my dangling participle loved my book. “I know why you need a newsletter, the type of content to use, the ratio of content to pictures and paper to use.” He loved my book. Thankfully, I was smart enough to recognize that my imperfect book was getting customers for me and providing. What I tell my clients when they struggle with this is, “You make a decision. You choose to be judged on the quality of the content, the training and the service you provide and not the imperfect way in which you provide it because it will always be imperfect.”
Just Say Yes: Choose to be judged on the quality of the content, training, and service you provide and not the imperfect way in which you provide it because it will always be imperfect.
For anyone who is working on a book, I have learned a valuable lesson around proofing, which is to record the Audible of the book before it goes to print because you will probably find typos that you and your copy editors missed when you read it out loud. My book The Sale Is in the Tale is 40,000 words. That took four 90-minute sessions to read that, which you would not normally do to prove a book, but if you know it’s being recorded for Audible, then you go, “Wait a minute. There’s a typo or that does not make sense. How is it that nobody caught that?” Hopefully, that’s a little nugget for everybody.
Let’s go to your book Just Say Yes. This concept of not letting the fear of perfection or criticism. I can’t circle that and underline that enough for everybody. I hear a lot of people talk about the fear of perfection, but I don’t think anyone’s dug down to where you were like, “What’s behind that not? Can I tolerate somebody criticizing me?” If you can heal that and let go of what other people think, the judgment or the constant pressure of, “Did you make the New York Times bestseller list yet?” You are like, “That’s not my criteria of how I judge success,” then you are a lot freer in life. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait until we are in our 60s to get that. That’s why you and I are out there preaching to people who are younger than we are saying, “If you can let this go early, you are going to be much happier and be able to say yes more often.”
My last three books were written and published in 60 days. Bill Glazer used to be partners with Dan Kennedy back in the day and I heard him say once, “My imperfect book is getting me customers and serving some customers while your perfect book is still in your word processor.” There’s an old term word processor. I’m like, “That’s right.”
You mentioned New York Times bestseller. What I often tell people is, “How are we going to get this to be a bestseller? There are strategies to do that but let me check in with you why we are writing the book.” I will share my viewpoint because they hire me. I’m sure they are interested in what I say. I don’t know this for sure, John. Maybe you do, but you have got to sell 10,000 books in a short period to even be considered for a list like that.
I said, “Do I want to sell 10,000 books using some tricks, strategies or whatever, get to that scoreboard and you can then hold the badge ‘I’m a New York Times bestseller,’ or with Jim Palmer rather than sell 200 books to prospective customers and have 20 of those people become coaching clients? I will go for the twenty coaching clients.” My ego is, “I’m not about the badge. I’m about my business.” I’m about to be able to afford diesel fuels so I can get back to the North in the summertime.
Another one of your books that’s one of my favorites, because I love the title and the colors, is Stick Like Glue. It’s about creating this bond. This was an interesting question I have been working on for you in our interview. We know how important it is to get our customers to stick and return so we don’t have to keep spending money to get new ones. During this time of The Great Resignation, where so many people are leaving their jobs, I’m wondering if your principles of getting your customers to stick could be applied to small business owners or big companies who want to get their employees to stick?
It’s interesting because I interviewed somebody who’s an expert on workplace staff changes, all the things that we are talking about. She’s a client. We are helping her write a book, Workplace Detox or Detox the Workplace. It’s all these companies, large, small and everything in between have become toxic for several reasons. It goes to all these different things where there’s no trust. It’s my way or the highway. There’s no communication. People don’t see the vision.
Her name is Julie Barcus. The one thing she said to me is, “Have you ever been behind a semi-truck going down the highway and you can’t see around it, so you don’t even know if it’s safe to move out of it?” I said, “Yeah.” She says, “That’s what employees feel like. The boss has the vision. He’s got the view. He knows where you are going, but the people behind them have no clue and meanwhile, you are in the big office going, ‘I have got staff. I’m paying them well. Do their job. Everybody’s happy,’ that’s not the case.”
[bctt tweet=”When you start getting a little older and looking backward a little more than forward, it’s amazing the clarity you have.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s The Great Resignation that’s a great term, but to me, it’s like, “How could anybody stop working? There are probably ways to do it.” There’s a big surge in entrepreneurship. People going, “If I’m going to work 80 hours, I might as well do it for myself and have some shot at future.” It was the ‘40s or ‘50s when there was this giant blackout in New York City. Nine months later, babies came as well. As a result of the pandemic, this great reset and everything else, small business owners are popping up left and right.
You said something there that one of your clients has a book titled Detox the Workplace. When you frame something from your personal life and put it into a work situation, our brain loves that because it’s connecting dots that have not been previously connected. One of my most successful soundbites as a sales keynote speaker is, “Are you stuck in the friend zone at work?” People say, “I know what friend zone dating is. What’s the friend zone at work?”
I say, “It’s when they say they are interested and you never hear back.” Everyone laughs. If someone is thinking of creating the name of a book, a business, a newsletter headline and anything that you help people with, try to craft it in such a way that you are combining something that people know what it is and put a little spin on it that grabs people’s attention and you are so good at helping people do that. Tell us about your mastermind.
I want to go back to something you said that was very important. I don’t lose chance on the mastermind but whether it’s a headline on a sales page, website, squeeze page or a book title, the headline and the title are made to grab your attention. It should make sense to somebody when they see whatever it’s 1, 3 or 5 words. The subtitle or the sub-headline cement the whole thing. That’s a big part of what I do.
One of the things I help my clients in the mastermind is I said, “There’s going to be a big shift in your income through the revenue of your business, but your income will go up dramatically when you focus more on who you are and not what you do. I guarantee you, no matter what you do, 10,000 other people also do what you do.”
People are connected to people who they believe have the best chance of satisfying them and want hope in certainty. It’s more about who you are. That’s why I take so much. When I branded myself the newsletter guru years ago, I never went to school for design or writing. I know how to do great newsletters and people took to the fact that I’m the newsletter guru. I must know what I’m talking about.
When I started coaching, I did not want to be Jim Palmer Small Business Coach. I created the whole Dream Business brand. The mastermind is virtual. I was talking with a guy that I have known for a long time. I started my mastermind in 2009. I was traveling, going to a lot of conferences and other entrepreneurs were talking about different masterminds, but they all required you to get on a plane once a quarter or something.
Whether you fly to Chicago, Illinois, Las Vegas, California, sometimes you go to Cancun or whatever, but it’s always like a day of travel, mastermind for 1 day or 2 and then travel for 3 or 4 days. I got the idea. “What if we did it virtually and we all got together virtually?” I don’t think I invented virtual masterminds, but I’m one of the first to make it popular and that’s how I started in 2009. I’m still virtual. We meet once a month on my private conference line. We mastermind through some of our members and some of the challenges or questions they have and then I do private coaching with the members on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Just Say Yes: The biggest battle you’ll ever face as an entrepreneur is right between your ears and having the courage to play to win and not simply play, not to lose.
That’s great because you are not learning from yourself, but you are also learning from the other people who are successful enough. Things that have worked for 1 person in 1 industry can be transferred to not have to reinvent the wheel for every single part of your business.
What I love most about our group calls is that I have what’s called profit seats. Sometimes people call them hot seats. I call mine profit seats. On a given call, we might do five profit seats and we could talk about marketing, what’s an idea and how you connect with these people. In a very safe zone, almost every somebody will get transparent. We had our call and one of our ladies in the group, a very tiny, petite person and she has a high, squeaky voice goes, “I have a voice like Minnie Mouse.” I’m like, “My clients are usually men. I feel like I’m not being taken seriously. Many people chimed in about Mike Tyson being a boxer but got a voice like Minnie Mouse.” We gave a lot of love and support.
That’s one of the best things about our group and there are so many other things about that like, “I’m afraid to grow. I have this idea. I want to write a book.” I said, “I got this one.” “What if the book sucks?” There is so much comradery, accountability, and everybody pushing each other during the group calls and the work that I do with them privately on our coaching calls. It’s a wonderful experience.
When you are talking about the need to have even a good subtitle that grabs someone’s attention and breaks through the clutter, I talk about it in terms of most people are drowning in a sea of sameness. “I’m an accountant, lawyer, architect, financial planner.” Everyone thinks, “There are so many of you out there. You are all the same. Are you not? Real estate people on and on.” The need to have something that makes you stand out and that people can put a hook on like, “John is the pitch whisperer. Jim is the newsletter guru. What he does is he builds an iron fence around your business,” that’s a visual.
We know what a fence is and the fact that it’s made of iron. It’s not going to blow over in the wind and you think, “How can a newsletter make something an iron fence that people can’t see in my clients? I’m so intrigued. I need to know more.” That’s what the goal is. You want to have the conversation of, “Do people even read newsletters?” Our brain is going into 100 million. At a time when people are not reading newsletters, that’s the time to do one because you are going to stand out and on and on.
We are talking about print and mail, paper and ink newsletters, not the email newsletters, which only get read by about 6% of your customers at best. We have known each other for a long time. I used to go around the country speaking about newsletter marketing. In a large way, that’s how I grew No Hassle Newsletters. I never marketed my talk as a newsletter talk. It was all about retention-based marketing. How smart companies take more of their energy, effort and resources and don’t figure about new customer acquisition. It’s about how do I get and keep the customers I have longer. We know that customers that stay connected with you longer, spend and refer more, which is pretty much the title of my second book, Stick Like Glue.
Once people understand the relationship between faster growth, higher profits, more referrals and repeat business, then I come in and say, “The newsletter is the best and most effective way to do that. Every month they are seeing you in their mailbox, learning about some tip.” You don’t even have to be about what you do. Maybe it’s about how to keep your car running. It could be anything, but as long as they see your name and the masthead at the top, they get your newsletter every month and you stay top of mind. When they are ready to buy or refer again, they will remember your name.
If people want to find out more about you, they go to GetJimPalmer.com.
[bctt tweet=”Perfectionism is a big business killer. People don’t want to launch until it’s perfect, and that all stems from not wanting to be criticized.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That is the home base. Everything stems off there. I probably got five at this point that I have pared down. GetJimPalmer.com is where people can connect with me. I can say one more thing looking backwards. One of my longtime mastermind members, Dr. David Phelps, wrote a book called What’s Your Next?. One of the chapters was about building your legacy. I know what a legacy is and I thought, “I’m so young. I want to think about my legacy. Maybe I will go down to two days a week because I love my lifestyle,” but I felt conflicted that I’m supposed to be helping more entrepreneurs the skills and the gifts that I have.
I said, “How can I do that if I only want to work two days a week?” I decided to make all of my six books free in the digital download. I found a way. I’m not going to share it here. My Kindle books are free. Not for a ten-day promo. You can go to Amazon and type in Jim Palmer. That will get you an old Baltimore Orioles pitcher. Type in one of the titles of my book and you will see my author page. You can download all six books for free. They are in the iBookstore and also at BarnesAndNobleBNN.com, but you can get all my books for free.
Jim, thank you so much for helping so many people live their dreams because a lot of people have given up on their dreams and people like you help keep them alive.
I appreciate it, John. Thanks for having me on.
My pleasure.
Important Links
- Just Say Yes
- Stick Like Glue
- Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program
- Dream Business Academy
- Dream Business Radio
- No Hassle Newsletters
- Success Advantage Publishing
- How to Sell from the Stage Like a Pro
- Cashflow Conversation Code
- Blog – What If It DOES Work?
- The Sale Is in the Tale
- GetJimPalmer.com
- What’s Your Next?
- Jim Palmer – Amazon Author’s Page
- BarnesAndNobleBNN.com
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Punching Above Your Weight: Taking Client Engagement To The Next Level With Heath Barnes
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
One of the key ingredients to having a successful business is having the right clients. In this episode, Heath Barnes joins host John Livesay to share how he’s going above and beyond when it comes to treating his clients. Heath is the Branch Manager at Cardinal Financial and host of the Mortgages Reimagined podcast. Starting with being a heavy-weight boxing champion while attending Texas A&M, where he graduated with a BBA in Business and Marketing, Heath Barnes has always been punching above his weight. Listen to his interesting journey to entrepreneurship and get tips on treating and engaging your clients to maximize retention and increase referrals.
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Listen to the podcast here
Punching Above Your Weight: Taking Client Engagement To The Next Level With Heath Barnes
Our guest is Heath Barnes, who shares with us his unique and creative ways to show client appreciation. You’ll want to read to find out some tips on not only how to have a client appreciation event but then how there are multi-levels to keep the fun going and keep you memorable. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Heath Barnes. He has an interesting story to share with all of you on his entrepreneurial journey. Many real estate agents are struggling to get their buyer’s offers accepted, and many home buyers are frustrated that the loan process is tedious and seemingly endless. I know I felt that way. Heath’s story starts with him being a heavyweight boxing champion while attending Texas A&M, where he graduated with a BBA in Business and Marketing. He has always been punching above his weight. The energy and passion that he exudes for the business he’s in, coupled with his competitive spirit, and are apparent even in his downtime. He has hiked to the summit of the Grand Tetons.
He’s a licensed pilot and a six-time Ironman. He’s a seasoned snowed skier, skydiver, fly-fisherman, sommelier, and even taught himself how to play the piano with a bunch of young kids. He was willing to take classes. Since 2002, he has been a consistent top producer as the Branch Manager for Cardinal Financial, closing over $15 million a year in loan volume.
He’s also the host of a successful podcast called Mortgage Lending Reimagine. Real estate agents love working with him because he works his magic to make their buyers’ offers irresistible. Homebuyers love working with him because the process he has is so streamlined and smooth, which allows them to close on time without the usual stress. Heath, welcome to the show.
Thanks, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Let’s go back to your own story of origin. I gave a little bit of the tip of the iceberg there. Maybe start with your days at Texas A&M and how you became such a passionate person about making life an adventure, and then we’ll get into how you got into the mortgage business.
It’s an honor to be here. Going back to A&M, I started at Sam Houston State. I went there because my brother was already there. I didn’t have to stay in the dorm. After two years at Sam Houston, my brother had graduated and I had a girlfriend at the time who had broken up with me and I dropped a lot of classes.
My mom came to visit me and said, “If you are going to make these kinds of grades, you need to do it at a real school.” She made me “move” to Texas A&M. In a way for me to fit in with the fraternity that I was transferring to, I decided to join the boxing team. It was in that endeavor that I found a new talent which was my long reach and dedication to be good at something and I ended up winning the heavyweight champ two years in a row.
That opened up a lot of doors for me. It opened up a door of self-confidence. It opened up a door to a new job at a local bar called The Tap, which is still there at Texas A&M. I became a bartender and my life began to flourish in college. It opened many doors of confidence and meeting other people being a bartender. I love talking about it.
[bctt tweet=”Host a client appreciation party.” username=”John_Livesay”]
My first question around that is how did you pick boxing? It’s not a common sport like baseball, football or basketball. Did you watch somebody on TV? Did somebody take you to a match? How did that get into your awareness?
Our fraternity happened to have a guy that had some experience in coaching boxers. I raised my hand trying to fit in and was dedicated to the workouts, practicing and getting better, which started early in childhood. I was a baseball player. I would spend the summers practicing. I always learned that if you are going to be good at anything, it takes a lot of practice. I knew if I was going to be any good at boxing and not get my face punched, then I would so. I didn’t even know my talent. In my first fight, I knocked the guy out in the first round. There were very few fights in which we got past the second round. Just about every one of my fights was a knockout.
That’s a great analogy there for what you are doing now with mortgages. Almost every one of your deals is a knockout. You also talked about the long reach of competitiveness. You are in a competitive field. I understand there’s a story of a very special relative that you saw in the mortgage business that made you want to mirror that. Sometimes we see a dad and go, “I want to follow my dad’s footprints. I don’t want to do that. My dad doesn’t look like he’s having a lot of fun.” Tell us a little bit about who influenced you to get into the mortgage biz? What did you see that he was doing that you wanted to do it?
It’s funny because it’s come full circle because I rehired my actual Uncle Larry, who got me in the business. In the beginning, in 1999, I was in the mobile home business. I remember going to a closing. In a mobile home business, you have two opportunities when you are getting financing. One is to finance the mobile home, which is called a chattel loan or a regular loan, which is not done by a mortgage company.
The second type of loan is what they call a land home package, where you are financing the home with the land. I was sitting at the closing table and I looked at the closing disclosure. I saw how much money the mortgage guy was making. I thought, “I might be in the wrong business.” I remember my grandmother telling me that my Uncle Larry was in the mortgage business. I called him. He flew down. We had a conversation and the next thing you know, I’m doing mortgages. I have never looked back.
If you had to give our audience a tip about breaking into a field that’s competitive and crowded. I talk about it in terms of a lot of people feeling like they are drowning in a sea of sameness. Everyone says, “Doesn’t everyone have access to the same loans? Isn’t the process the same?” What I found over the years of buying and selling homes, but mostly qualifying for the loan and the offers, there are a lot of nuance and differences in a strategy to put through to get your offer to stand out against all the other offers. I think a lot of real estate agents probably think of you as their secret weapon. Would that be fair to say?
For sure, as far as in this market, which if you are not familiar with, is a highly competitive market, especially if you are a buyer, and getting your offer accepted is not about necessarily having the highest price, but it’s having the right team, whether it’s our experienced real estate agent or a loan officer. Our strategy has been how we remove as many contingencies as possible to separate ourselves, so financing contingency.
The way we take the stress out of financing is by having a good interview with the clients and letting them know what’s going on in the market. The second step is getting them completely through the underwriting process because if you are completely through the underwriting process, the stress of getting the loan goes away. The stress of getting a loan is increased when you have something to lose.
Client Engagement: If you’re going to be good at anything, it takes a lot of practice.
If you are not out looking for a house, there’s no stress of losing something. There’s nothing to lose. There’s nothing to lose in the beginning when you don’t have a home. That’s the time you want to go through underwriting. The old way of doing things in the mortgage business has been you wait until they find a home because you want to make sure that your time is spent wisely that they are going to find a home. We said, “We are going to take it a step further. We are going to take the stress out by moving them completely through that process.” That way, when they go out into the market, there’s no fear about securing a mortgage, and you know exactly what they qualify for, and all the paperwork is done.
Reduce stress for your buyer, and that’s true in any business. If you can make the buying process, stress-free or less stress, then that’s going to make you stand out. We are going to reverse engineer this and then we’ll start at the beginning. You now have a very big group of people who’ve worked with you, trust and like you, and send you referrals. We are going to get to how you built that. What are you doing now to make those people feel seen, heard and appreciated? What did you do that was so timely that I thought was memorable and part of your personality? These are the things that make you stand out against your competitors.
I’m always thanking both the people that refer me business but also my clients. How can I provide an enormous amount of value where they would want to continue to do business with me? We do apply for appreciation parties a couple of times a year. We have made it a habit of renting out an entire movie theater and making it fun for previous clients.
We rented out a theater and we invited our top 100 clients or the first 100 that responded to the premiere of Top Gun. I took it a step further by borrowing my friend Jack Swanson’s flight suit and I bought some aviator glasses. I was fully dressed up for the experience. The look on people’s faces when they came into the theater thinking they were just going to see a movie about the sequel of Top Gun. That was my first experience with it.
Life is all about experience and how you make people feel, even in the stories that you tell. I’m trying to bring them into the experience so that when they leave, they are going to be thinking about me moving forward, especially if it’s going to be a memorable movie. What comes up for me now also is like in life, if you are an entrepreneur, it’s utilization. How do you use everything to your advantage, no matter what’s happening? What’s interesting about this experience was I had a dialogue with the movie theater and I said, “Before you start the movie, what I’d like you to do is stop it so that I can share a few announcements. I got a special treat for everyone.”
All the preparation of making sure there’s a mic and making sure we talk to everyone, and then the time comes. At the beginning of the movie, if you see it, Tom Cruise starts to talk and has a special message. They stopped it after that special message. I used that and I said, “Most of you all don’t know but I’m personal friends with Tom Cruise. That’s a personal message for you all. Thank you all for listening.”
The next thing that happened was I was in the middle of thanking all the people that had attended, the people that made this possible, and the mic went out. I thought, “How do I use this to my advantage?” I said, “I’m just going to continue.” I kept the mic in hand and ended up thanking everyone. I then turned around. I said, “One more thing,” and started out singing, “You never close your eyes.” It was a huge hit because I got out of my comfort zone. Everything inside of me was saying, “Don’t do this. Don’t embarrass yourself,” but I went through with it. My wife was like, “I was proud of you.” It made a big impression on everyone.
Let’s unpack that because it’s such a great strategy that you have a client appreciation party scheduled on a regular basis. What separates you from 90% of the people. What makes you in the 1% of that experience is you took the time to dress up. Automatically people go, “This is fun.” The fun starts before the movie starts.
[bctt tweet=”Reduce stress for your buyers.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You are exceeding the expectations, and then you surprise them by singing, which they didn’t expect. If you are willing to be vulnerable and out of your comfort zone, that’s endearing because that is an emotional bond with people. You feel safe enough with them, and you trust them to not make you feel stupid, and so you are building trust in a very subtle subconscious way.
You did one more thing that is brilliant because I have seen the video, which is you took it a step further for people who are fans and said, “I have got $50 gift certificates for the people who can shout out a quote from the first movie.” Now everyone is immersed in the experience. The audience involvement in a dark theater is tricky and you figured out a way to do it, and people are shouting out the quotes. I don’t know if you consciously did this or not, but what I love about the choice of this movie for you is you are the wingman for the agents and the home buyers.
That’s a perfect brand for you to be in the movie, for you to be identified, especially if you are dressed up in the costume or uniform of it. On some level, people are thinking, “Not only was that fun, but he is our wingman.” You can then email all of them and say, “What was your favorite quote from this new movie? I look forward to being your wingman on the next deal.” It allows you to have some momentum and a follow-up where you are not actually pitching.
I’m going to use that, “I’m your wingman,” and follow up with everyone. I’m going to use that moving forward. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
It’s my pleasure. When you exhibit some creativity and start giving people an experience, they can then repeat that story. That’s the big takeaway for people, whether it’s a client appreciation story or a story of how you help somebody get a deal accepted in a way that is unique. That’s what generates referrals. For people that are looking for new ways to over-deliver service and things, do you have any structured way of either acknowledging and rewarding referrals or encouraging referrals beyond the, “I appreciate your referrals?”
I was taught several years ago by a coach of mine. I remember when I first got into the business, I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. I spent the first nine years of my career wanting to do it on my own until I realized that there was no original idea per se. That’s when I started getting some coaching. One of the first habits that they pounded into our heads was to acknowledge people for the action, not the results. For the people that are reading, writing a note is a great way.
It will allow you to stand out like writing a handwritten note, not when the transaction is complete but when the action is given. You are rewarding the action. Anytime a person calls me and says, “I have a friend of mine who could use your help,” they give me a name and a phone number, my next action is writing a handwritten note and then dropping in a little $5 Starbucks, and sending that to them. I’m promoting the action, not the result.
That makes people much more likely to keep it coming because you are like, “If you only appreciate it if the person hires me or uses me for their loan, then the odds are much less.” Also, in a world of everything being digital with texts and emails, to go old school and take the time to send a handwritten note makes you stand out from the sea of sameness. Tell us about your podcast. Mortgage Lending Reimagine. How did you come up with the title?
Client Engagement: It’s not necessarily about having the highest price, but it’s having the right team.
The way I came up with the title is it’s for loan officers. It’s for entrepreneurs. It’s thinking of your business in a new way, rather than a new way of thinking about money or a new way of thinking about how you engage with your clients or a new way of thinking about how you engage with the world around you. For you to be relevant, you’ve always got to be shifting and changing into how you are going to provide value.
That’s the focus as a loan officer moving forward. The one thing that most people have a hard time with is changing. We get set in our ways. The one thing in life that is most predictable is that things are always going to change. They change every day. The more you look at that change and say, “This is happening for me,” and see it as a positive way to move your life forward rather than backward. You’ll be able to reimagine yourself and your life in a different way.
Can you tell us a story of a strategy you used where someone had the cash to make an all-cash offer? After the offer was accepted, you were able to say, “You may not want to have all your cash tied up like that. We can offer some financing. Your offer came through because it was cash only.” The seller is confident that you have all the money and there’s not going to be any contingencies, but maybe you want some of the deductions or there are a lot of other ways going on behind that. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that strategy. How did you come up with doing that? Do you see a lot of people taking advantage of it?
The way I came up with this strategy, not everything, I came up with. I got it from someone else years ago. In these markets, you have to be more creative and have your offer accepted. Whenever I meet with the client looking at their financing, I’m always thinking, “How do I put them in the best position, not only to secure a mortgage but also to get their offer accepted?” If they have enough cash in the bank, the first thing I always mention to them is to look at submitting a cash offer. There’s a space in at least the Texas contracts that are called special provisions.
You submit a cash offer and this special provision is written in that the client has the ability to change their financing and put more or less money down, as long as it doesn’t delay the closing. By doing that, you are putting yourself at the front of the pack by having the opportunity to either pay cash, which is probably not a good idea in this environment to pay cash, and I will explain why in a minute. You can make sure that you are going to secure that offer. In this competitive environment, you need to be able to be at the front of the pack.
What is wrong with an all-cash offer?
The one thing to think about when it comes to financing your money is where inflation is. Right now, the government says it’s at 8.5%. I tend to think that’s probably the best number they can prove. It’s probably more like 15%. If inflation is 15% and interest rates are 5%, that’s 10% below inflation. That means you want to borrow more money because money’s going to be worth less in the future. You take that extra cash and move it into some type of commodities like another house, gold, silver or something that’s going to hold the value of your money. Inflation is the government stealing your money out of your pocket without you even knowing it.
I have never heard that before. I think that’s very memorable. There are three parts that most entrepreneurs forget in terms of growing their business. First of all, you are not restricted to just helping people in Texas. You can help anybody in the country, correct?
[bctt tweet=”Life is all about experience and how you make people feel, even in the stories that you tell.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Correct. All over the country.
A lot of people don’t realize that that’s even possible. They think, “We’ll have to work with somebody local.” That’s a big a-ha for people. The second part is you have to spend some time attracting clients. You have to spend some time converting them. The conversations you have for why someone should pick you versus another person who does what you do, and then finally, you have to deliver. That’s a lot of time and energy.
Most people get so caught up in the delivery aspect of their job, that they are putting out fires and dealing with details, and then they go, “I haven’t spent any time getting new leads or I’m not having that many sales conversations.” You’ve been doing this for a long time. You are at the top of your game. Do you still spend time cold calling or do you not do it?
Yes, totally.
That’s a big surprise. I know that about you and I was impressed that you do. I want to have you talk about why you still do that? Most people think, “I hate it and I will do it until I don’t have to do it anymore, and then I will live on referrals.” You are like, “I’m going to still keep reaching out.”
It still keeps me sharp in the game. It still keeps me in a creative mode. It still keeps the challenge there for me. I have on my calendar every day one hour of outbound prospecting, where I’m calling people that are already sending me business like real estate agents or calling my previous clients for one hour. I’m calling old leads, new leads or cold calling. It’s the same time every day, every week.
It’s that discipline from your sports background applied here, which is great. When you say calling, I want to clarify, you literally mean picking up the phone, not just sending an email. Those are a lot of things that most people don’t feel comfortable doing. They are like, “Nobody wants a phone call. Nobody answers their phone.” You are like, “No, I’m still leaving a message.”
I’m not leaving a message. If I’m cold calling, I’m calling and I’m saying, “Heath Barnes, Cardinal Financial, give me a call when you have a few minutes. I got a couple of questions for you.” They are calling me and it gives me the opportunity to engage in a conversation. The more conversations you have if you are an entrepreneur, the more likely you are to be successful.
Client Engagement: If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s utilization. How do you use everything to your advantage, no matter what’s happening?
How fascinating that they are like, “What in the world questions would he have for me?” You are asking questions about their needs and how things are going. If you find out something, you could help them with possibly, “Are you frustrated that your offers aren’t coming through all the time. Are your buyers complaining to you about how tedious the process is? I can fix that for you and make you look like a hero to your client.” Now you are having a conversation that people want to have. What’s one quote or a book you would recommend to our readers before we say goodbye that you think would help people in their mindset?
One of my favorite books is a book called Reinventing Yourself by Steve Chandler. I’m reading it for the second time, coaching a friend of mine. One of my coaches is Todd Musselman out of Colorado. He recommended it to me. What was evident in that book is we are always reinventing ourselves. There are so many great reminders about life and how we get to show up. It’s a great book. I love it.
If people want to find out more about you, get a quote from you or find out more about the show, what’s the best way that they could track you down?
They can go to my website HeathBarnes.com, or call me on my cell phone at (832) 771-8194.
Heath, thank you so much for telling us about your story of how you are not only not drowning in a sea of sameness but creating memorable experiences for those people who do have the pleasure of working with you.
Thank you, John. I enjoyed your book as well. Thanks for having me.
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Where Imagination Meets Business With Christopher Kies
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Mark Twain once said, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” The same applies to the world of business. If you don’t have an imagination, then your venture will be in for rough sailing. In this episode, John Livesay speaks with Christopher Kies, Executive Sponsor at Blue Sky Consulting. Christopher thinks of Blue Sky as the place where imagination meets business, and that is exactly what he focuses on, helping others tap their imagination to succeed. Be inspired to unleash your imagination by tuning in to Christopher and John.
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Listen to the podcast here
Where Imagination Meets Business With Christopher Kies
Our guest is Christopher Kies. He has many years of successful corporate sales experience and enjoys using his insight to help others achieve their goals. Many of his clients need a second opinion on a sales opportunity or a specific strategy to enhance a deal. He works with CEOs, entrepreneurs and executives on a wide range of opportunities, all with the same focus in mind, understanding what stops may happen along the way and how to move beyond them. Christopher, welcome to the show.
Thanks, John. I appreciate you having me on.
We met through a mutual friend, Ken Rutkowski, with whom you went to grammar school if I remember correctly.
I met Ken in sixth grade and I don’t care to count how many years ago that was. It has been a long time.
I love to ask my guests to take us back as far as they want to their own story of origin since you have a sales background as I do. We both are from the Midwest. I was interested to hear similar influences, concepts, motivations and all that good stuff. You can start in sixth grade with Ken if you would like or wherever you want to start your story in terms of understanding that you had an interest in communications and connecting with people.
We could start back in my past because things for me have always been about long-term relationships. It’s one of those moments in time where we have a mutual friend and somebody I have known for many years. I kept my relationship with my wife from first grade. I moved at a point in time in our relationship and we stayed in touch. We reconnected when we were in our late twenties. We dated for a while and then decided to get married. We were in our mid-30s. When I talk about meaningful relationships, it does focus on how I help folks. I hope those two little vignettes of my life and the way I communicate with people helps you out with that.
We both had a background selling tech equipment. You were at HP. One of the things that I noticed in that world was an emphasis on that term speeds and feeds in terms of relationships, empathy or let alone storytelling, which is my passion. What was your experience in that world?
That’s a great question because it does boil down to what type of salesperson you are. Are you transactional or relationship-based? Those are the two worlds that I grew up in. Probably, like you, I call those the go-go ’90s. It was back between 1995 and 2000, right before the dot-com boom in 2001. It was when I was getting my foot in the sales world.
One of the things that I saw very early on in my career was there weren’t many older men or women in sales that caught my attention quickly. I was like, “Anybody that was over the age of 45 was either a manager or senior-level executive that I didn’t have a lot of connection with.” Even my direct managers were still in their 30s or barely over the age of 40.
That caught my attention because even some of the older guys that I did work with and I say older back then because I was in my late 20s and they were in their 40s, I saw them get pushed aside quickly when the numbers didn’t match up. How I took integrated information as a salesperson in my younger career was, “This is a short-lived world. I better make hay while I can and enjoy it.”
[bctt tweet=”You are not just enough; you are more than enough. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
I went to relationship-based sales because that’s what I enjoy. I know you like the storytelling aspect because it does create a binder for the person that you’re speaking and communicating with. I take that from a relationship side because I wanted to get to know my prospects and customers. That was my initial focus.
I remember going to see Death of a Salesman play, where the guy stayed in sales way past his prime. It painted such a bleak picture of what it’s like to not be in management and still be in sales at a certain age and carrying a briefcase, quota and rejection, yet I still wanted to be in sales. I did see that you need to reinvent yourself almost like an actor or athlete. There’s a special premium time.
When you’re first starting, you’re in your early twenties. You don’t have enough experience. You get some experience under your belt. In 27 to 35, you’re getting offers left and right. You think it’s going to last forever. You were smart enough to zoom out and go, “This doesn’t last forever. How can I either not just enjoy this but have that awareness?” You’re not so shocked.
I used to see that in the publishing world that even at the top, the publishers would hit a certain age. The magazine is still doing great, but once 50 something happened, they were like, “We’re going to bring in somebody younger. It’s less money.” Everyone thought it wasn’t going to happen to them, especially if they had been in the company for a long time. That awareness, especially at a young age, is quite fascinating.
You have been doing your own consulting, Blue Sky. Let’s start with that name. I have a sense of where the name came from, but I’m always big on asking people stories of origin, including the story of origin around a company name. You could have named your consulting company anything. What made you pick that?
Blue Sky was easy for me because that’s always been me. When I was a kid in grade school, high school and college, I would always look out the window in class. I could take in the information in one ear, listen to it, decipher it relatively well, but I was always dreaming. I was always in another space. I was like, “What would I like to be doing?” I would imagine myself in situations. Blue Sky was what I always looked at. It was wide open. That’s what I look at my organization and company as wide open.
Imagination Meets Business: What you think is what you create.
I have been in sales for many years. I even manage and run my wife’s business as well and do her P&L. I understand finance very well and also roadblocks. Roadblocks aren’t always about who is stopping you. I find that it is more or less people stopping themselves and not having the imagination triggered. They are focused on their quota, what their lack and limitations are.
I have had this company for years. I would go in and out of it. I would get other offers and opportunities and work with people. Years ago, I finally said, “I’m done. I’m going to dedicate 100% of my time to helping those that are interested.” If you’re interested in what your Blue Sky or dream is, this isn’t a transactional deal. This is you pay me hourly. I’m not a therapist or licensed in any state. I’m just a guy that has been through a lot. I have been through the highs and lows of sales.
I have insights. There are not a lot of men or women over the age of 50 carrying a bag anymore. The insights and relationships that we sometimes have can enable people in our age group that are looking for the next step. That’s what Blue Sky does. It opens up possibilities. To finish that, my tagline is, “Where imagination meets business.” If you don’t have the imagination, I want to help you reignite that, find it again or cultivate it. If you do, look out there because what you think is what you create.
It’s very metaphysical, which is also another reason you and I clicked so fast because I have that same concept of energy and mindset. There is a great Mark Twain quote about, “It’s hard to keep things in focus when your imagination isn’t working.” I think to myself, “Most people think of business as unless you’re hired to be a graphic designer or something, it’s not that creative of a career. It can be extremely creative if you look for solutions where they are not obvious or what else needs to happen to zig and zag.”
If you’re on the left side of your brain trying to analyze things like it’s a math problem, you’re not going to see those. The roadblock is the roadblock. It’s black and white. It’s like, “If you’re doing accounting, it either adds up or it doesn’t. This is a no and it’s a no forever. I’m never going to try again. I’m going to take rejection personally and go down this downward spiral of who I am. I’m not worth anything and anybody else could have done anything else.”
[bctt tweet=”What fun can you bring to your job? ” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’re summarizing what I will say. I’ll contend everybody thinks at the moment. We always go from 0 to 100 miles an hour in the negative. You get down to the space like, “I’m worthless. I’m just lucky to have this job. I’m going to figure out how long I can keep it before I find my next opportunity because my numbers are crap. I’m not selling anything.” I always want to tell people, “Let’s take a breath and pull back. Let’s acknowledge you’re not where you need to be with your numbers. Let’s say that that’s a real thing. Let’s say, ‘What do you want to do?'”
Quite honestly, you have people take a breath for a moment. You and I believe in breathing too. Breath exercises are super helpful. We take breathing for granted because we do it pretty well. Unless you’re on a ventilator, you need support. You don’t think about it. In your life, you must stop and take a breath. That’s where the imagination comes in because it’s asking yourself questions like, “First of all, what am I doing? Is this where I want to be?”
People are like, “I got bills to pay. In the Midwest, it’s ComEd and Nicor. I have got a mortgage to pay and kids to put through school.” I get all of that. You’re young and ambitious. You’re like, “I’m trying to make a name for myself.” Those are all real things. I want to get out of the reality for a second because you’re doing that 99% of the day. Why don’t you take 1% of your day and start to imagine what it would be like if you had fun doing the job you do? Nothing has to change except the idea of having fun.
That’s where I start my clients like, “What’s fun to you in your job?” I have had every person tell me, “There is no fun at all. There is always some fun,” even if it’s your coworkers. It’s anything like, “I like the coffee service.” If you work for Microsoft, you’ll get a great coffee service or somebody still pushes an ice cream cart. That’s one aspect of it. What kind of fun can you bring to your daily routine?
This isn’t rocket science, but we don’t talk about it in business. As you so eloquently pointed out, once you look at your forecast, start getting the numbers and start realizing how many noes you have gotten in 1 week, 1 month or 2 months, your focus is on the lack. It’s a simple redirection. It’s not a trick. It’s like, “Let’s redirect on what’s fun.”
I’ll give you a story. I remember this was years ago and I was working for a company. The guy that was running the company, he and I had a long-term relationship. I had known him for many years. He had asked me to come on board and help him out in the sales area. We had a lot of success early on and then there was a dip. I started realizing that I was taking on the pressures of always being the closer. I would get the award every year for the best closer. I had the highest win percentage and then it became this thing where I was like, “I had to compete against myself. I’m not doing that anymore.”
Imagination Meets Business: Roadblocks aren’t always about who’s stopping you. It is more or less people stopping themselves.
That is such a common thing with all of the sales organizations that hire me to speak to their sales teams. The number one thing I hear is, “I have had this great year. How am I ever going to top my number?” I have been in their shoes and had that exact experience, so they go, “You get us. We want to hear what you have to say.” You think of, “You do this great movie, The Godfather, or you’re Michael Phelps and you have won all these medals. Now what? How do you keep topping yourself? There’s nothing better than a gold medal. You have got eight of them or more.”
In corporate, they can slice and dice your territory. It’s impossible to beat that number even because they don’t want to have to keep paying those bonuses. It’s a fascinating thing. I want to go back to what you said because it’s so important. I want to underline this for everyone. Instead of looking for, “What is this job doing to be fun for me,” you flip the question to, “What can I bring to this job that will make it fun?” It’s a whole different mindset.
The responsibility is not on the individual to make the company fun but to bring what they believe is fun or what they enjoy to the company because it will only make the company better. You will realize that there is not a match energetically and you will move on with complete consciousness that you did everything you could. You feel good about where you’re at and you take that. You have no idea what opportunities open up when you are in the center of having fun.
It’s like when you were a kid. You’re not worried about the bills and your grades. You’re worried about, “Where am I going to have fun? Who am I going to play with?” It’s the same idea. We got trained out of it. There’s nothing wrong with responsibility and wanting to provide the best possible life for yourself, your family and your friends. The point is I took a day off. We have this little pool in the backyard. It was a beautiful July afternoon. I said, “I’m shutting everything down. I’m going to lay in the pool and meditate.”
I laid on this big raft. I had my headphones on. Of all people, I was listening to Tony Robbins and Tony said something very interesting. He said, “I feel bad for people making over $200,000 a year.” It intrigued me. I thought, “What is he talking about? It’s a lot of money for a lot of people.” He goes, “You feel stuck because there are not a lot of jobs out there where you’re going to get paid out of the shoe $200,000. You can’t explore and imagine.”
That’s where I went back to what I was trained in, which was having fun. They had given me a client called Batteries Plus Bulbs. They are a national chain all over the place. We had told them three times, “We don’t want to work with you.” They were looking for a new marketing partner for database, email and digital. The guy that was running the deal left and they gave it to me as a save. I thought, “This is great. We got nowhere else to go but up because we completely embarrassed ourselves. The sales guy that was working with us left.”
The traditional way of doing it was to get 6 to 7 people together in my organization, have a quick meeting, develop a PowerPoint presentation, get everybody online and go do the pitch. I did none of it. My idea of fun was I created a 5-slide deck and the first 2 questions were, “Why do you want to work with us? What aren’t you getting from your current provider that you think we’re going to offer you?”
That’s where I led with and I told the seven people that were coming with me, who are all smart people., “I’m not going to ask you a question you can’t answer. Don’t raise your hand if you don’t know the answer to something. I won’t call on you. Just trust me.” This flew in the face of everything we did. We had everything always planned. It’s always very surgical and strategic. We had success with it.
I walked into that meeting and the first question I asked was, “Why do you want to work with us? We have turned you down several times. We’re not very friendly to what you want to offer. One of the main things you’re asking for, we don’t offer. That was the reason why we turned you down.” The Chief Marketing Officer stood up. She was a tiny little lady. She looked at me and I thought, “This is going to go one of two ways.” She goes, “Nobody has ever talked to us like this.” I said, “That may be the case.” She said, “I like it. Here’s why we want to work with you.”
[bctt tweet=”Build trust through transparency.” username=”John_Livesay”]
They are selling you instead of you selling them.
She laid out why they wanted to work with us and I said, “Here are the things we can do well. Here are the pieces we can’t do well. We never did that as an organization.” I like pointing out what we can do well and what we don’t do well. This company, Batteries Plus Bulbs, had problems and they were going through vendors every year. When you do marketing, you want to have a partner for five years minimum because it takes a while to build up the relationship.
What you said is gold. It’s this concept that when you ask people a question and are completely transparent about what you do and what you don’t do, most people try to hide that. It’s like going on a date. “Do I need to tell them I snore?” If you are that transparent upfront, “Here’s what we do well and what we don’t do,” your credibility, authenticity and trust are off the charts. “They are showing us the whole thing. They are not trying to pretend they are perfect, have all the answers all the time or can do anything.”
It’s when you say, “No, I don’t do that. That’s not what we’re known for. We would do a horrible job at that.” It’s who this is for and who this is not for, including even in a job interview if you say, “That would not be a good job fit for me. If you asked me to sit in a cube and do numbers all day in an Excel sheet, I would go crazy.” People are so afraid of showing when it does the opposite. It makes you magnetic because if you don’t have trust, as you know in any relationship, you don’t have anything. We have to start with trust. That’s a great way to build trust that most people don’t think of.
Even to echo your point further, I always do a post-analysis with a client or somebody I lost the deal to. I like to get information from both because there’s something that wasn’t a fit. I always wanted to be educated. It’s not about, “We can offer you less money.” I’m like, “Tell me what we did wrong. I’m not going to bother you anymore. You would be helping me in the future if I didn’t bring something to the table that we currently do offer.”
When I gave that pitch to Batteries Plus Bulbs, I said, “We’re not a silver bullet. First of all, there is no such thing, but I’m going, to be honest with you.” That was my lead-in. They said, “We’re only going to do a one-year deal and only want email marketing.” Within a month of talking to them and working with them, their team and my team, we sold the marketing database, email, digital marketing campaigns and creative because they needed all of that with that trust that you’re talking about.
Imagination Meets Business: You don’t have any idea what opportunities open up when you are in the center of having fun.
I said, “Here is the silver bullet that I do have. These are the four areas we’re excellent in and we have many references you can speak to.” They did their due diligence. In that one-year contract, I said, “That’s not a possibility for us.” After I got and earned their trust, I didn’t sign one-year deals with anybody. Other people in my organization do.
I don’t because I was like, “I need three years of your time in investment. Things are going to go sideways. They always do. If we correctly layer this and have the right people working together, we can make it through three years. You’re going to get a better discount on a three-year plan because I can go to management and save you money.” They ended up doing the three-year deal with all of those additional add-ons that we had. That’s one example of many.
To your point, the trust piece is simply, when you have fun, you let go of the tribal BS that you have brought to the table with everybody whispering in your ear as a salesperson or manager. “You need to sell, do and push this.” You don’t need to do anything. You need to be yourself because they bought from my company and team at the end of all of that experience. I represented them, and I don’t want people to forget that.
If you are not in a state of mind before you get into that meeting where you like and trust yourself, good luck selling that. You may be able to fool some people initially, and I have done it. Trust me. I have been in those places where I was like, “I don’t even know what I’m selling them when I go in there.” You have to like yourself. What I do is more about getting you back to understanding who you are, your values, and what you like having fun with.
All of the little tricks and things I can teach you all day. There are nuggets that all good sales and marketing people have that they are willing to share because it’s exciting to see somebody win. You want people to win, but unless somebody is willing to do the work on the front end, all those tricks and tips aren’t going to amount to much because the magnetic part of your personality is the fact that you like who you are.
At the end of the day, what people are buying is our energy if you zoom out and think about that. An example of that was I was up for a speaking gig. It was between two other speakers and me. I got a call from the agent going, “Congrats. They picked you. They liked your energy.” I thought to myself, “Rarely is that clearly stated.” I did my post after they hired me. I said, “What was it about me?” She goes, “I felt so good talking to you that I felt like you would probably make the room feel that good too through the 400 people.”
If we remember that our money is energy and action, that we’re in the energy business as opposed to the pitching business, that will shift your outcomes big time because you approach that from, “The vibe isn’t right. What am I creating here? Am I tense? Are they tense? Can we make this at all fun? Otherwise, why are we doing it and not trying to force something?”
In one of my quotes, Abraham Maslow, the therapist, said, “The only tool in your toolbox is a hammer you tend to go around looking for nails to hit.” The old way of selling was, “If you want to buy, you hammer.” You and I are out in the world telling people, “There’s a whole other way to do this that’s fun and less pushy. We’ll make you proud to be doing it as opposed to, ‘I’m drained.'”
It’s rewarding. You reward yourself, your customers, clients and prospects however you go about it. Let me share something with you. On my website, MyBlue.org, Neil Bohr was a quantum physicist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was talking about energy. Going back to what you talked about, “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet. Everything we call real is made up of things that we cannot regard as real.”
I have that on my website because 99.9% of you, me, the room you’re sitting in and the microphone I’m speaking into is energy. 0.1% of that is mass. You don’t have to be a quantum physicist to get excited about the fact that everything is energy. Even the analogy of if we took out all of the space in between the nuclei and atoms that are in our bodies and then all the physical objects, you could shrink the entire globe, this world, into the size of a marble when you get rid of all the space.
[bctt tweet=”This is a short-lived world, and you better make hay while you can and enjoy it.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You’re very profound when you said magnetic, “The energy you put out is the energy you get back.” That’s true. Not everybody is going to want to buy from you. Get out of that mindset. Get into the mindset of, “Where am I aligning myself in terms of how I feel about myself?” The people that are aligned with themselves will come to you. The people who want and feel your energy come to you too. Through your kindness and grace, you help them.
It’s not your job, but your energy helps them and they are like, “I can do this too.” What I found when I was selling was that not everybody was aligned with the way I was thinking, but all of a sudden, all the other salespeople would ask to partner with me after that deal. The account managers that had accounts started coming to me and said, “We have an account going sideways. Would you come in?”
My senior VP at that time was like, “What do you want to create?” I said, “I want to create a hybrid salesperson. I don’t want to just have to carry the bag. I also want to take on challenging clients and opportunities because I thought that was more fun.” Plus, I’m a low-risk guy. The crappier the account, the more fun you can have because if it goes down, it goes down. If you save it, you look like a hero.
No stand-up comic ever goes and tries a new joke out without saying, “What if nobody laughs? Nobody laughs. It’s not the end of the world.” It’s the same thing with rejection. What a treat to get to know your insights and all your wisdom put to use. Any last thought you want to leave us with? People can find you at MyBlue.org for coaching and other potential ways to work together.
It’s a simple support, an hourly rate and nothing fancy. The one thing that I would like to leave folks with is, you’re more than enough. I hear this little statement, “I’m enough.” It’s like, “No, you’re more than enough. You were born perfect. There are elements in this world that will try and train you out of that thinking. It’s not their fault. Nothing is being done to you. These opportunities are being done for you on your behalf for you to create what it is that you want to create. Take responsibility for your situation, own it and say, ‘I can do more. There’s more out there for me.'” That’s what I want to share with people, a simple message that you have so much more. You are not even aware of all the things that you are going to create. You have to get into the mindset that you are capable. You are totally more than enough in terms of being prepared for that opportunity.
If we have that mindset, we won’t ever have the imposter syndrome. That’s great. It’s not just, “I’m enough for this,” but, “I’m more than enough for anything.” Thank you so much, Christopher. Everybody, go to MyBlue.org to find out more.
Thank you, John.
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