Ep 517: 6 Traits of a Great Salesperson | Dr. Cindy Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
All right, we’re talking about sales today, and it’s not something that I talk about a ton. But today we’re gonna talk about it. And this is a little no saver. I love talking about sales. I love sales. I love learning about sales. I love doing sales. I love being a salesperson. I think this is just something that we should all embrace a little bit more in our daily lives in and outside of work. And so I just had Dr. Cindy, who’s a bestselling author and founder of Orange Leaf Consulting, and she was on the influential personal podcast. And I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the things that we had in that interview that I kind of just pulled out as some really important things that set apart this sales mindset from, from not.
AJV (00:53):
And I think one of the things that I would love for you guys to kind of pick up on is do you even consider yourself a salesperson? And I bet most people that I engage with say no. They say, I am, you know, insert any title. I’m an author, I’m a speaker, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a coach, I’m a consultant. I’m a dentist. I’m an attorney. I’m a CPA. But even when you’re in sales most people don’t go, Hey, I’m a salesperson. I think that’s, that’s very, very rare that we would do that. And so I wanna talk about some of the things that I think make a great salesperson, even if you don’t identify with being in sales, because the truth is, you, you are, you are in sales, surprise. You are a salesperson. And that’s in and outside of work.
AJV (01:43):
And as a parent all day long, I’m negotiating, right? It’s just, who’s the better salesperson today? Me or them in my marriage, right? I’m selling all the time. Why this place? Why that thing? You know, why this restaurant? Like, there, there’s a sale always taking place as someone who recruits interviews and hires for our company. Like the entire interview process is just them selling me and me selling them products and services, podcasts listening to content, right? I think one of the things you have to realize is like, in order to have really great content, you can be a really great salesperson. You gotta sell. Why, why this is important. What problem is this solving? Why should I keep your attention with the 99 other things going on at this exact second? Like, that’s a sale. These are all micro sales. We are salespeople by nature, innately, right?
AJV (02:33):
It’s like that, that happens from a very, very young age of learning how to ask for what you want, the persistence in doing it, not giving up. And at some point, but that deteriorates over time. But we were innately equipped with this concept of selling, right? Which is, how do you get the things that you want, right? And, and I believe a lot of that is in service of other people. But, and often, right? It’s like as, as kids, it’s, it’s in service of yourself, right? It’s like, I’m gonna ask for this toy that I saw at Target 100 times, right? There is an immense level of persistence and determination in a five-year-old that finds the ninja turtle that they must have. Where does that disappear? Along the lines, when we get into business and adulthood, right? Something happened along the lines where we no longer do those things that we used to do.
AJV (03:26):
We’ve been taught not to we’ve gotten rejected too often. We’ve lost the passion, lost the persistence. The list goes on. And this isn’t a, a psychological, a psychological video today. But I do think there’s a few things that I wanna highlight that innately, regardless of what level of sales, if you are truly a sales professional or you’re just involved in communication, IE sales that are really important for you to kind of grasp. So these are in no particular order, but just a few things. Six to be exact. Six characteristics, six traits of something that I wonder if you would identify with on this path to acknowledging that you are in sales and that you are a salesperson on a daily basis. Number one is we all have to be ready for the opportunity. I think any great sale happens at the intersection of someone who has a need and someone who can solve that need, right?
AJV (04:26):
It’s the person who has a, a need or a want and intersecting with the person who can actually give them that want or fulfill that need. So step one is we have to be ready for the opportunity. What does that mean? That means we have to be aware. That means we have to be listening, engaging, communicating, participating, right? It’s some of the best relationships that I have ever developed happened on. And these are business relationships on the bleachers of a softball field, listening to someone behind me talk about some of the struggles of their sales team. I happened to be reading a book. I turned around and just said, Hey, I, I didn’t mean to be eavesdropping, but I was reading this book. And just by being aware, he was like, oh, yeah, I’ve actually read that book. What do you think? Started a conversation.
AJV (05:20):
And I said, well, I’m actually a, a sales consultant. I heard you talking. And, and we just struck up a conversation that ended up being a multi six figure client of mine in former life, and a multi-year long contract. Not to mention just a really great friend. Some of the other best relationships I’ve developed happened at different cookouts or social events or, or sporting events or in some regards restaurants. Like literally just being aware and ready for the opportunity. That is first and foremost, which means you have to know what is the problem or the need that
AJV (05:57):
You solve, right? That that’s step one. And when you hear other people have it, it gives you the opportunity to engage. But you gotta be ready, right? You gotta be aware of the opportunity and you’ve gotta be ready to engage. Number two, we have got to have the courage to ask, right? So you’ve gotta be ready and you gotta have courage. You have to have the courage to engage. You have to have the courage to ask. And a part of that is not being afraid of being told. No, it’s not being afraid of rejection not taking it personally, but generally speaking, it’s just the courage to engage. There is so much of our business that happens behind a computer screen, like right now that when we actually have the opportunity to opportunity to engage, we don’t, ’cause we don’t know how.
AJV (06:42):
Right? And a part of it is just being like getting engaged. Dunno where it’s gonna go. But I heard something that we have in common, so I’m gonna have the courage to ask about it. Not necessarily even ask for the business, just ask about what it is. What do they do? Where are they from? Just like I did. Hey, I don’t mean to be eavesdropping, but I heard something and I’m reading this book. I’m just aware, I’m ready. And I have the courage to ask. I have the courage to be curious. I have the courage to engage at number three would be being okay with accepting a no. Right? And I think that has a lot to do with just confidence and self-esteem of going, like, they’re not saying no to me as a person. They might be saying no to the timing.
AJV (07:29):
They might be saying no to the product or service. They might be saying no to my company, but more often than not, they are not saying no to me as a a person. Why They don’t know me, right? They don’t know me as a mom, a wife AJ Vaden. They know me as the representative of, you know, brand builders group or this product or service as the salesperson, as the person on the other line. But it’s not personal. 99% of the time. 1% of the time. Maybe it is. But you gotta be okay with that. It’s 1% of the time. And you’ve gotta just be okay with accepting the no, but also using it as research. And I think that’s the real takeaway here is one of the things that makes nos more acceptable to me, that makes my ability to tolerate them better. ’cause I don’t like hearing no, just like anyone else in the world. But what makes it better for me is when I then have the ability to go, this is research, right? This is recon, right? If I got a no, I wanna understand why. And this a little bit comes back to the one before this, which is the courage to ask. So if someone’s going to say no, give you a no, then you have got to have enough resilience and enough courage to go, Hey, I understand. Can you please let me know why?
AJV (08:51):
And then pause, right? And if they go, yeah, you know, it just, it is just the wrong time. Be like, well, is it the wrong time for this particular product? Was it, is it the wrong time for this in your budget? Like, I’m not trying to sell you here. I’m just, I truly wanna understand so that I can better myself. And so often it’s amazing the gift that you’ll receive in that feedback, right? But it, it does take courage to ask for feedback. But what I know is that you’re gonna be way more equipped if you go that one step further when you get a no and considerate research to go totally understand. Thank you for giving me a clear answer. Would you please help me understand why? And then take it, receive it, and do something with it. Improve your self pre presentation and improve your questions, improve the timing.
AJV (09:46):
Whatever it is you can influence and control. But take it, receive it, and then do something with that awesome feedback. Also acknowledge when to move on. In the interview with Dr. Cindy, I talked about how early in my sales career I would, I loved hearing maybe, right? I was like, there’s hope. They might say yes. And I would fill my calendars with a whole bunch of maybes. And you know what it did? I would follow up with the same people over and over and over and over and over again and never find new ones. And I was limiting my potential. I was limiting my ability to work with other people, serve other people who really needed and wanted what I had because I felt more comfortable stalking the people that had already talked to. And you know what, most of those people never bought.
AJV (10:32):
A few of them did likely to, you know, have me stop following up. The point being is that there is a, there is a blessing in the know that allows you the ability to learn, but also the freedom to move on to find the person who really does need what you have, who really does want to work with you. And if you follow up with the same set of people all the time, you’re, you’re missing out on an enormous part of the population that could bless you and vice versa. But then also have gratitude for the yes, right? Acknowledge the no, but be so grateful for the yes. Don’t take ’em for granted. People are not numbers, they’re not quotas, they’re not revenue, they’re not profit, they’re people. So be so utterly grateful for the people that give you the opportunity to allow them to work with you and vice versa.
AJV (11:19):
It’s like, be grateful for it. And then last but definitely not least is be diligent in follow up. Be diligent in follow up with the people who seriously said, let me think about it. Send me the thing. Sometimes that’s not real. Sometimes it is. So be discerning and diligent in the follow up. But also be diligent in the follow up with the people who who said, no, not right now. ’cause It was a bad time schedule it just because they said no today doesn’t mean they’re gonna say no in the future. Be diligent
AJV (11:52):
In the follow up of the, the very high likely potentials, diligent in the nos for the timing, not right now. And be diligent for the yeses. Be diligent in your follow up for the people who did give you the yes, because you need to build relationships with them. These are your clients. It is not. Hey, wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Got the sale. Moving on. Don’t be that person. Be the person who said, I’m so grateful that you have said yes. I’m so excited that you are joining our company, product, service, whatever. And be diligent and touching base with them, staying in touch with them, building those relationships. Because y’all, that’s how business is done today. Regardless of what you hear on the internet or in videos like this, it’s like, I still believe that the majority of business is still done by word of mouth and referrals. And where do those stem from relationships, how do you build ’em? You get to know people. You stay in touch with them. You engage in relation, you engage in community. So be diligent in the follow up with the yeses just as much as with your prospects. That is what it means to be great at sales. And that is within all of us in any role that we have. So embrace that inner salesperson love the sale because we’re all making ’em all day long.
Ep 516: Why Everyone Is In Sales with Dr. Cindy
AJV (00:01):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here. And I’m so excited to introduce you guys to a, a newer friend of mine. We got connected through a mutual friend of ours, but I’m most excited to introduce you to our guest today because we share a similar passion of sales. And what we’re gonna talk about today and why you need to stick around is why you are in sales, even if you don’t know it, and why you need to also become passionate about sales. No matter what your role is, no matter what your job is, no matter if your customer facing or internal facing, you’re a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, executive, or anything in between that I didn’t mention, having sales skills is one of the most important skill that you can have in life. And so we’re gonna talk about why that is.
AJV (00:54):
How do you develop ’em? How do you use ’em, and why these are important to you. And if none of that sounded appealing enough for you to stick around to the very end, then how about this? Knowing how to be great at sales is what makes you a great entrepreneur. It’s also what makes you a great parent. It’s what makes you a great negotiator, which if you are a parent, you know, is a very important skill set to have. So, like I said, these are life skills. And so we’re gonna jump right in. I’m gonna formally introduce you to Dr. Cindy, who is a two times bestselling author. She’s got two books on sales and we’re gonna put all of these in the show notes for you. But her first book is, every Job is a Sales Job, how To Use The Art of Selling to Win At Work.
AJV (01:38):
Her second and most recent is Sell Yourself How to Create, live and Sell a powerful personal Brand, which is part of why I wanted to have her on the show here today. She is also the CEO of Orange Leaf Consulting. She also has her doctorate in organizational communication. So this, these are, these aren’t just thoughts and ideas, like this is backed by tons of research and time and experience and expertise. And I could probably go on and on but I wanna jump in and actually do this interview. So before I get carried away with talking about you, let’s talk to you. So, Dr. Cindy, welcome to the show.
Dr. C (02:17):
Thank you so much for having me, aj. It is a pleasure to be here.
AJV (02:21):
Yes. And one of the things that I wanna do that I think is just really helpful is to help our idio, our idiots, our audience, get to know you a little bit and why sales has become such a part of your life. So like, where did that come from? How did you get into this and how did, how did you get to where you are today?
Dr. C (02:42):
Dr. C (03:30):
I just didn’t call it sales. Hmm. And I literally struck me and I went, wait a second. I have a PhD in communication, and I was never taught this, and I went to good schools. And it was like, why wasn’t this part of the curricula? And so that took me on a totally different journey. Started my company, my first company, orange Leaf Consulting, started writing books. And so, I know you guys believe in this too, is like you deliver to the person that you were like, you’re literally solving the problem that you had. So now I write books for my 20-year-old self
AJV (04:05):
Love that. So tell me what, what happened? Like, what was that kind of like revelation moment when you realized, wait, I’ve been doing this my whole life, I just never knew it was sales. Like, what was that?
Dr. C (04:19):
So I remember I was actually having to go and do what they called the pitch right at the, at the day and time. And I’m like, Ooh, pitch. It just sounds awful. Like the word sounds bad. And what I was preparing, what I was realizing is all I was doing was listing all the problems that I had come up with in the conversations with a prospective client and how I could solve them. And I went, wait a second. All I’m doing is helping them with a need that they have. Why are we even calling this a pitch? I’m not pitching them anything. I’m inviting them to this list of solutions that are literally gonna make their life and their company better. Hold on. Like, hold the phone,
Dr. C (05:10):
I was calling it negotiation. I was calling it persuasion. I was calling it convincing, I was calling it inviting. And I went, okay, I have to change the script on this. So I believe that sales is a life skill, not a business skill. And I am on a mission to help people to embrace their inner 5-year-old. As I say, you know, we’re all, we were all five. You have got littles, so you understand they’re the best salespeople on the planet. So it’s really just getting back to those innate sales skills that you already have, and then knowing how to use them to get more of what you want and help more people.
AJV (05:44):
Ugh, I love that. And you know, not to go too sidetracked for a second, but you know, I’ve been in sales my whole life. I consider myself the number one job I still have today, E even as like CEO is to sell, right? That recruiting, selling, interview, selling, retaining, selling client acquisition, selling vendor negotiations, selling contract, negotiate. Like the list goes on and on. It’s like even as a CEO, I feel like still, like the number one thing that I’m trying to hone on a constant basis is this concept of sales IE communication. But where I find it’s the most valuable at this current stage of my life is in my parenting. Like legitimately
AJV (06:42):
Like, like their, their, their per, their persistence is, it’s impressive. It’s impressive. And I tease all the time, I’m like, how can I transfer this level of persistence to like our sales team, like to our, our business development team, this, this level of, there’s no shame in how many times you ask or how repeated the ask is. And I think I, I, I love what you said, it’s like, how do we get all back to that inner 5-year-old? And as I have a 5-year-old, it’s like he knows what he wants and he knows how long it’s gonna take before I crumble, right? And it’s about 45 minutes, and I’m like, fine, you can have it, whatever’s, whatever. But it’s like there something hap along happens along the way, clearly, where we don’t do that anymore. And probably for most of us, just like you had, and I’ve even had these feelings before of like, I don’t wanna be seen as a salesperson.
AJV (07:34):
There’s this negative connotation with the word sales, with the concept of selling. And I would love to just kind of unpack that for a second of where did that come from? Where does that happen? Because I feel like most people would all agree that you did not grow up saying one day I wanna be a salesperson
Dr. C (08:15):
So I always joke with people and I say, you know, nobody dresses like a salesperson for Halloween, right?
Dr. C (09:13):
And I would argue even those people don’t wanna be those people, right?
AJV (10:40):
Yeah. So let’s talk about that for a second. What are the sales that we’re all making every day that we don’t realize are sales?
Dr. C (10:48):
So first one is, if you’ve got kids
AJV (11:55):
Oh, I love, like, even even the non-verbal exchanges. And I love that concept too, is that sales is just an exchange of trust. Right? And I, I love that concept because it really does take away some of the ickiness that we feel. And, and I know, I bet most of you listening would agree with this. It’s like when you’ve had a great sales interchange, it’s like, I love it. I love when I’m like, man, that was a great sales presentation. ’cause I feel good about it, right? I feel good about the person. I’m entrusting. I feel good about the person I’m paying. I feel good about the product or service I’m receiving. The, the entire experience was positive. And part of it is like, when it’s really good, it’s like, yeah, I want my money to go to you. That was great. And I think sometimes when I’m annoyed, it’s like I’m almost more mad that I have to give the bad sales experience.
AJV (12:49):
I have to give that person my money, even though I need the thing. I’m like, I do not want you to get paid for this. ’cause That was so bad. Like, and regardless if that’s good or bad, like a lot of my mentality is around like, I do not want to pay you it, it’s a, it’s a you thing even when I need it. Because I’m like, that was so, so bad, so bad. Yeah. And the opposite happens too, where it’s like, man, that was amazing. ’cause You know what? It just felt, it felt natural. And that’s how it, it should, right? And we have those daily exchanges every day. It’s like you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re carrying boxes or a stroller or whatever, it’s, yeah. It’s like those nonverbal exchanges happen. Those are like micro sales throughout your day. And so this whole concept of, you know, we’re selling all day long without even knowing it. How do we come more aware of these things? ’cause I know like one of the things you talk about how like sales skills are life skills, right? So it’s like, I think a part of that is the awareness that, okay, guys, we’re already in sales and our marriages and our friendships and our parenting and our jobs and our, our social interactions, like there, there’s a sale always happening. So how do we kind of reframe how we see that, become aware of it and then ultimately embrace it?
Dr. C (14:13):
So I think it’s kind of like the blue car syndrome where, you know, once you buy a blue car, you start noticing blue cars everywhere,
Dr. C (15:00):
That was a sale. They sold you on coming back and they sold you on being an advocate for them because you left feeling so good. You wanna go tell other people. So when you start to think of sales as that, you start recognizing it differently. But I do believe that it’s good to have a plan. I’m a planner, I’m a hyper planner, I’m a to-do list gal. It’s just my jam. But I think when you have a plan for the things that you want to occur, you’re gonna seek the opportunity to sell, to get closer to it. Mm-Hmm. So for example, take a personal one. You’re looking for a new sitter, okay? You’re gonna be hyper aware when you hear other parents talking about their sitters and you’re gonna jump in and have a conversation. It’s just because you had that plan in place. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re looking for a website designer, you’re still seeking that. And then you’re gonna find an opportunity to have a sales exchange to somebody either send you a referral or you’re able to sell your way into getting that person to work with you. And by the way, even when you’re hiring a vendor, you’re selling them just as much as they’re selling you. And I think we forget that as well. So I think that once you know what you’re looking for and you have a goal and a plan in place, those sales moments start revealing themselves differently.
AJV (16:22):
So, and, and I love that. And it’s like, what would you say? Like, as I’m thinking of, you know, I’m just thinking of like the, the micro example of just the team that we have here at Brand Builders Group. We have client facing team members, we have non-client facing team members, we have a leadership team. We, we got all types, we got vendors, contractors, all the things, right? And so if I were to kind of pinpoint what are some of like the universal sales skills that every person, no matter what your role is, no matter what your job is, whatever your daily things are, like, what would you say that you’ve identified as some of like the universal sales skills that we as just humans need to develop to be better communicators?
Dr. C (17:04):
So the first one is, is your authenticity of who you are, your own personal brand, and who you are bringing yourself to the, to the world and what your superpowers are In that as well, you get to know people based on their own superpowers. You’re the person I’m gonna go to because I know you’re gonna get the job done fast. You’re the one I’m gonna go to because I know that you can take it and run with it and make it happen. You start to sell into that, right? So that’s the first one is knowing your own personal brand and being really authentic because that’s how you build trust with those around you. I, I say this all the time. Nobody does this life alone. Show me a person that did it by themselves. And I’m gonna show you 14 people that helped ’em along the way,
Dr. C (17:44):
And so it’s recognizing how you’re creating those exchanges of trust so that you can get closer to what you need in your role, whether it’s client facing or behind the scenes, whether you’re in a support position or you’re an independent contractor, it doesn’t matter. You’re selling those exchanges of trust so that you can get your project, your job done, get closer to your goals. That’s the first one. Second universal one is you have to ask
AJV (18:23):
So true.
Dr. C (18:24):
You have to know what you’re asking for and you have to be clear because if you’ve built that trust, people wanna help you. You wanna go back and reward that behavior. You want to support people, but they don’t know how to support you. So you have to invite them in
AJV (18:41):
I mean, just, I don’t wanna like derail your thought train here ’cause I wanna hear the rest, but it’s so interesting because we are in the process right now of, of building a new home and I’ve been interviewing lots of different things. And anyhow, I’ve been having this interchange back and forth via email, and I’m not exaggerating. Literally this morning I had to send an email. So like what’s the next step? Like how do
Dr. C (19:41):
Awful. And so, and so, actually, funny enough, that’s the third piece is you have to follow up. It’s on you to be the one to f So the fact that you had to follow up like that makes me so upset because it’s like you had that person right there ready and you didn’t ask and you didn’t follow up. And so the key to think about it is you as the person selling, are doing 90% of the lift. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (20:43):
Yeah. And I think that’s a, I mean, just telling people, right? It’s like asking and then telling people what to do. And that’s one of the things that I’ve always said, it’s like for most people, they just need to be told what to do, right? Click here, write this, say this. Right? It’s like, like even me sometimes I’m like, I don’t want to have to think in this process that that’s why you’re here. Right? Yeah. I don’t wanna have to go through all of that. I just want you to do it, which is why I’m gonna give you my money, right? And so if I’m often left to my own vices, I just, I I I’m gonna, I’m gonna forget, right? It’s not anything other than as soon as this interaction, this exchange is over, I’m off to my other set of 99 things that I’ve gotta do. And if I didn’t have clear instructions from you on what is the next step and when is the deadline and when I’m, you know, like all the things Mm-Hmm.
Dr. C (21:40):
Yeah.
AJV (21:41):
And so
Dr. C (21:41):
I think entrepreneurs, yeah. Oh, I’m sorry, say that again.
AJV (21:44):
I was like, just, just the whole idea of like, don’t forget to ask and then don’t forget to tell ’em what to do and then follow up. Yeah. I think that that’s,
Dr. C (21:53):
It’s so hard for entrepreneurs too, I think when they’re building their brand and when they’re getting themselves out there because they have this feeling that, but everybody knows what I do. Everybody knows that I wrote a book, everybody knows I wanna be a keynote speaker. Everybody knows these things. But did you make it easy for them to help, you know, if you’ve got a friend that’s, you know, part of an association and when you wanna go speak there, do they have your speaker bio? Do they know the topics? Can they literally deliver it to the education committee with an open line email that says, Hey, I’m so and so and I speak on engineering and here’s what it is. You know, make it super easy for those people around you to be able to sell for you as well. And that, that’s another piece too, where I think we have to recognize we’re not just selling ourselves, but others are selling for us and with us.
Dr. C (22:44):
And so they need to know your network needs to know what they’re supposed to be doing as well. And advocating and saying, you do a great job, or you give good service, is sort of like, yeah, you, you made it into the game,
AJV (23:20):
Yeah. And it’s, again, back to left to their own devices. It’s like, who knows what people say, right? Yeah. And it’s like, we’ve got to go, this is how you introduce me. This is, this is the story I want you to tell. And as you were talking, you got me thinking about this, this asking thing because I think as you were talking about, I had like said to you gotta ask like, you, you gotta do it. Why don’t people do that? Like what, what what have you found is the hesitation, the lack of awareness whether it be fear or just sometimes complete unawareness or lack of training. But there, there’s a huge amount of people who even self-identify a salespeople that their hardest thing is the ask.
Dr. C (24:07):
It’s so true. And I think it’s a couple of things. I think you mentioned a few of them, which is they don’t know that, you know, there’s this assumption that, but you know what I do? Of course, you know what I do. Like why wouldn’t you, you know, use my services or come to my restaurant? So that’s one. Second one is they don’t know how to ask. So that’s a lack of training. And the third one is, and we all know it, it’s the fear of no. And it’s that fear of, if you tell me no, my entire world is going to crumble aj, it’s gonna be awful and nothing’s ever gonna happen,
Dr. C (24:49):
You get to understand why it’s no. Was your pitch bad? Did you not do a good job of understanding their needs? Did you not do a good job of differentiating yourself? Were you unclear on what the path was going to be that was gonna make their life better after the sale? Were you unclear in your ask? You know, there’s a lot of things that go into that. But the key is, if you’re not focused as the salesperson on what’s on the other side of the sale, then the no feels like, oh, I’m gonna crumble. Hmm. You gotta be focused on what happens past that for them and for you. And if it’s a no, it’s a gift because you also get to decide whether you’re gonna keep chasing them or not. And I have this conversation literally at least once a week with anybody we’re coaching about stop falling in love with people’s potential
AJV (26:03):
Yeah. And so, yeah, so I wanna dive into that deeper too, because I totally agree with you. And, and as someone who has spent the last 20 years in sales in some capacity, like, one of the things that I definitely in the early days I, I loved hearing, let me think about it. Or maybe because I was like, there’s hope, there’s hope,
AJV (26:58):
I’m not exaggerating. And me and my three business partners, we divided ’em up and they gave me WX, y, and Z of the alphabet. I didn’t know any better. So we’ll just say that was a gift. The naivete was a gift of this horrible set of letters. And one of the things I just remember, it’s like about eight or nine months in, it was like, I, I’m an obsessive OCD user of color coding and outlook and purple meant follow up. And I would have all these like micro 15 minute segments of like, and I, and here’s what I started to realize. I was like, I have no time to do anything else. All I’m doing is following up. And then I would just move it three months ahead, move it three months ahead. And so finally I started realizing these maybes aren’t aren’t so good after all.
AJV (27:43):
And it was like probably like a year, year and a half into my sales career. And I was like, no, actually no really is a gift. No is a gift that allows me the permission to move on and not get caught up in this emotional thing of, man, I have been following up with you with dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it’s like, no, I don’t have to do that anymore. I just need to go find someone who would say yes. But I was so consumed with following up with the maybes that I was never actually doing a great job at finding the people who were a great fit. And when you realize that nos are not rejection their protection, and it’s like, hey, it’s like if you’re gonna spend all your time with people who are actually never even gonna get back to you you’re never able to actually serve the people who need what you have, who want what you have that you can build relationships with, friendships with, because you’re just stuck in this email cycle that actually is going nowhere.
AJV (28:39):
And so there is a lot of power in what you said of no being a gift, so that you can move on. And what I’d love to hear from you, and I, and I bet what a lot of people struggle with is what needs to happen in our brains for no to become a gift? ’cause There is this fear of rejection, there is this fear of no, and, and honestly for most of us, it, it’s what stops us from ever starting. And so I would love to just kind of hear your thoughts as we’re kind of like, you know, approaching almost the end of our conversation. I think this is one of the most powerful things that can really help people embrace this concept of, well, how do we overcome this fear of no.
Dr. C (29:22):
So the first thing is I really believe that a full pipeline will set you free. Hmm. So it’s about not falling in love with the 10 prospects, but falling in love with the entire yellow pages of X, Y, Z, not page 72
Dr. C (30:12):
Mm-Hmm,
Dr. C (31:07):
We don’t know what’s happening in their world. We don’t know why. The answer’s no unless we find out. But it’s not about you. It’s actually about them and about what’s going on with them. And so when you let that go, then it actually frees you up to go and seek the people. You can help more impactfully. Because remember, if you stay in that moment of no and push them, that becomes the icky sale. We don’t wanna be them. So that’s kind of freeing in that regard where it’s like, okay, that’s a no. Let me understand. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you, and you move on to somebody that you really want to help and wants your help. And I think if you reframe it that way, it’s great. And then this is something I do at my workshops where I always ask the group, I’m like, okay, who’s ever been told no in your life?
Dr. C (31:55):
And, you know, every hand goes up and I think y’all survived. Yay. You didn’t melt still here, like
AJV (32:41):
No, I love that. And I, I love what you said too, is that a full pipeline will set you free. It’s like when you have so many people to get to next, this one is not as, you know, life consuming. Right? And I think that’s a huge, and I think that’s a really important element. Like we brought earlier there’s 7 billion people on planet Earth, roughly 365 ish million people in the United States. There’s lots of people to call
AJV (33:45):
And I love what you said too about this whole idea of like, no is research. And it’s like the more nos you get, the more research you have, the more answers you have, the better you can equip yourself to cover it next time. And those are just like mindset shifts that are so powerful, no matter again, what your role is, customer service, sales, leadership, executive team, parent, whatever. Of like, yeah, like every one of those is research. So I love that. This has been so helpful. And I’ve got one last question that I wanna dive into and then I’ll let you go before we run out of time completely. You talk about this whole thing of the like unofficial sale. And I’d love for you just to kinda like, share with everyone, like, what is the unofficial sale?
Dr. C (34:31):
So the unofficial sale is the one that you’re making every single day, but you’re not even realizing you’re doing it. I call it kind of the, hey, by the way, sale. And it is that nonverbal exchange a lot of times, but it’s also the one where it’s so natural for you and it’s such an opportunity for both people to get something out of it that it just feels right. You have these all day every day where it’s, you know, you’re negotiating who’s gonna pick up the littles or who’s gonna feed the dog? Who’s gonna take the dog out? Who’s gonna do the laundry? That’s the home piece. At work. It’s the same thing. It’s the, you’re gonna make the copies and you’re actually gonna go ahead and send that email and you’re gonna do this. It’s that quick exchange where it’s just so casual. But look at it as a sales win.
Dr. C (35:17):
Because the more you start identifying those as a sales win, it builds your confidence of a sales person. I believe every job is a sales job. I believe you have to sell yourself. They’re not just the names of books like I really do believe this, but embrace your inner five-year-old and recognize that these casual sales are also your opportunity to truly sell yourself. So for example, let’s say that you’re at a community barbecue block party and somebody is talking about needing your services. If you’re not ready to bring that up in that moment and you’re not ready with what you wanna say to differentiate yourself, they cannot become an advocate for you. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (36:10):
Oh, I love that. Be ready. Never know. Be ready.
Dr. C (36:14):
You,
AJV (36:14):
You’re gonna run into that next potential client. And I do, I believe that’s so true. It’s like inline at Starbucks grocery store, t-ball game. It’s like, be ready and be aware. And I want those kind of concepts of the unofficial sale. And this is one, I feel like this whole time I’ve been having flashbacks to like all my different sales experiences, and I love these conversations. ’cause I feel like most people who are listening would not consider themselves salespeople. And that is something that I hope as you’re listening today, you leave this going, no, I am a salesperson and I need to embrace that. I need to learn it. I need to, you know, educate myself and I need to become aware of all of these sales moments that are around me every single day. And so I thought this was an amazing conversation. I hope that people continue this conversation. So, Dr. Cindy, if people wanna connect with you, follow you buy your books, where should they go
Dr. C (37:12):
For cindy.com, D-R-C-I-N-D y.com or orange leaf consulting.com and I’m on all the social media platforms at one St. Lady of Sales, and I love to hear how people take this and do something with it. My favorite thing in the morning is when I get up and I see social media and somebody says, I heard you on this podcast, or I read this part of your book and I did this and it worked. And I love that. So I want to hear those success stories that just, it fuels the mission more of helping more and more people. And when you become a salesperson, guess what? You’re gonna help somebody else to become a salesperson too. And I think that’s the way we bring our amazing superpowers to the world, is we help elevate each other.
AJV (37:53):
Amen. I could not agree more. I’ll put all of those links in the show notes. Dr. Cindy, so amazing having you. So many golden nuggets, so thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and you guys heard it. Learn more, stay in touch with her. Go to dr cindy.com, follow her on socials, check out more and embrace that inner sales person that is already within you. We’ll see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. Bye guys.
Ep 515: Turn Stage Fright Into Spotlight | Terri Sjodin Episode Recap
RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. One of the biggest fears that people have is speaking in public. One of the things that will reduce your fear is realizing that the more you prepare, the less fear you’re gonna experience. So I wanna share with you and just walk you through the six step process that I personally use to prepare to customize every single presentation. Okay. So step number one is my pre-program questionnaire. My pre-program questionnaire is a set of questions that I have developed over the last 20 years of speaking all around the world.
RV (01:06):
And it’s a set of questions that I ask. And I realize that if I get the information, if I get the answers to these questions before I go out on stage, I can use the answers that the client gives me to customize certain parts of my program and presentation that’s unique just to their audience using their lingo, their language, their, their nomenclature, right? That the connecting it with terms that they understand that’s unique to them, even though it’s based in the principles of my content. The second step is the pre-event call. This is something I think should be mandatory for all speakers if you’re not doing it already, that you must do a pre-event call to plan your content with your client before you actually go deliver the program. And the key to this call is that you should not be talking, you should be listening, you should be asking questions.
RV (02:00):
And specifically what I do is I think of my program and I take the outline of my speech. And then for every core idea that I teach, like every technique that I teach, every big moment where I go, here’s a big idea, I ask the client on my pre-event call, how does this big idea apply specifically to your company, to your team, to your organization in this exact moment? And then whatever they tell me there is like, they’re giving me the answers to the test, I can take their answers, and then I drop that in during my presentation shortly after I teach that part, I customize it using the context that they have given me. It’s so simple and it’s so easy, but it creates a magical experience for the people in the audience. And it makes the people who hired you look like champions because it, it makes it look like they hired a speaker who spent years and years learning all about their company.
RV (02:57):
Really, it just took a few minutes and a couple key questions on a pre-event call. Now the third one is obvious review their website, right? So just go to their website and actually read what’s on their website. Very few speakers do, this is the easiest thing just to go to their website and look, which ties into number four, which also you would think is obvious. But so many speakers don’t do this because they’re lazy and they don’t take the time to customize their presentation at all, which is social media. Go to their social media profiles. You will learn more about a company from their social media profiles, like their cultures, their values, and what’s happening internally. You’ll learn more about it from looking at their social media feeds than you will from reading their website, right? Like their website is basically a stagnant brochure with a bunch of a bunch of fancy marketing speak.
RV (03:51):
Their social media is like the insider secrets of like what’s going on every day and what’s important to them and what they’re promoting like right now in this moment. So I always try to go look and see if they have social media. Step number five, this is one of the secret secret steps is to use the Google news function. So a lot of people don’t know this, but in the Google search bar, you can, you know, type in anything obviously. But underneath the search bar, there’s a specific little button that says news. And what it will do is it will search for that term only as it appears in the news. And the news is really, really valuable to learn things that are going on about that company from other people’s perspective, what’s the coverage they’ve had? Did they just go through a merger and acquisition?
RV (04:41):
Do they have a new CEO? Are they rolling out a new product? Those things you find easiest in the Google news search function. So make sure that you’re using that. And then number six, which is probably the, the best and the easiest of all, and still something to this day, it blows my mind that speakers don’t do this, is get to the venue at least an hour early before your presentation. Ideally a few hours. And I don’t just mean like you’re staying in the hotel that the presentation is at. I mean, go downstairs and sit in the back of the room. Listen to what people are saying, listen to the speakers before you listen to what people are complaining about. Has it been too hot? Is it too cold in the room? What did, did some speakers say something, you know, very controversial? Did they roll out a, a, a new program or a new plan?
RV (05:34):
And then find one or two nuggets from what people are talking about that morning or that day and pull it into your presentation. It doesn’t have to be genius. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You just have to reference something that signals to the whole audience. You’ve been paying attention. And the only way you could know that little tidbit of information was from being at the conference in a moment where you were not on stage. It’s really, really important that you do that. And I’m gonna share with you my extra special insider secret on this. The, the real thing that you want to be listening for is what we teach in our humor training. It’s called callbacks. Callbacks. We, we talk about nine psychological triggers that cause laughter in our formal training. One of them here is callbacks, and here’s how a callback works. These are, these are the easiest ways to be hilarious in front of an audience.
RV (06:35):
All you have to do is sit in the back of the room, listen to the, the, the, the main speakers before you, and listen for the moment when the entire audience laughs and whatever it was that made them laugh. All you have to do is reference that when you are back on stage later that day, or you know, that afternoon or the next day or whenever that’s called a callback. You don’t even have to be funny. You just have to reference back to the thing that was funny. You will look like a hero. Everybody will laugh. It’ll increase your confidence, and it’s the magic of customization. If you do these simple things, you’ll be better prepared, which means you’re going to deliver, and then you’re gonna get invited back and you’re gonna get referred to other places. This is one of the simple secrets of the best presenters in the world.
Ep 514: The Science of Persuasive Presentations with Terri Sjodin
RV (00:02):
Well, it’s always an honor when I get to bring to you someone who is a friend, a longtime friend, and someone that I’m a fan of, someone who I would consider a mentor and a coach, somebody that I’ve learned from for years and years and years. And that’s what’s gonna happen today. We have TerriSjodin actually Terri and I both share a history with the National Speakers Association, and she also, like me, she was inducted into the CPAE, the Council Peers of Award award for Excellence, which is the National Speakers Association Professional Speaking Hall of Fame. For 25 years, she has worked as the founder of SHO Dean Communications. She specializes in public speaking sales training. It’s a consulting firm, and she’s a New York Times bestselling author. She’s been featured on the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, and just lots of other major, you know, talk shows, TV, radio also has become really popular as a LinkedIn learning instructor. And she has a new book out called Presentation Ready. Improve your Sales Presentation Outcomes and Avoid the 12 Most Common Mistakes. Terri, welcome to the show, friend. Thank you,
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Rory. I adore you. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. It’s fun,
RV (01:18):
So, one of the things that we were talking about is this book in a sense is a little bit more academic, I guess we’ll say, than some of your other books. So talk us through what, how the academics land, why the academics land, and exactly what was some of the research that went into putting this together?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh, I love it. Thank you for asking. So yes I’m going on almost 30 years now as a full-time professional speaker and trainer. Come on,
RV (01:49):
Come on. 30 years, full-time. We need to get you a watch or something, man.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I, I know. It’s crazy. And, you know, and I think as you and I talk about the evolution of a speaking career, you know, each piece builds on the next piece. And so you can grow and expand in a variety of different ways. My emphasis has always been in the area of public speaking and persuasive presentation skills. And the first book that kind of put me on the map, if you will, was called Sales Speak, which addressed the nine biggest sales presentation mistakes that professionals make. So fast forward, as we’re rolling into 2019, I’m like, wow, you know, we’re, we’re coming up on almost 20 year anniversary of that book. It would be wonderful to do a deep dive research study and do a formal study and ask, are these still the, the most common mistakes? And if so, why? And if not, why not?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So I reached out to a colleague of mine who’s the head of the communications department at San Diego State University, full confession, my alma mater. And she said, yo, this would be really interesting to do a joint venture as an alumni pairing with faculty and students at the campus. So we ran the first phase of the study, and it was focused on a specific question. Does making a sales presentation mistake matter? Does it cost someone a win or a deal or an opportunity? And we did it using a formal Qualtrics platform. Again, almost 2,500 professionals participated in the study, and we garnered all of the content from people who only sold a product service or cause, meaning that their livelihood depended on their ability to build and deliver a persuasive presentation. And my promise was, if we were gonna do this kind of research, then there should be no research about us without us, all of it should come from salespeople. So that was really the underpinning of where the research came from. And then the findings of course, evolved over time.
RV (03:47):
Mm-Hmm,
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, great question. So yes we found, we were able to verify that the nine mistakes were still playing out. There were three new additional mistakes that added to the list and what was really painful and, and shows, you know, it’s just about resilience. And you and I can talk about this, but, you know, so we were really excited. We launched the first phase of the results report on March 5th, 2020, and it was amazing for all of two weeks,
RV (05:18):
Hybrid or in person, doesn’t matter.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Did not matter. All the 12 mistakes still played out.
RV (05:25):
Fascinating. So which one, which one of the original nine do you think is most applicable to personal brands? Right. So, so, you know, anyone who’s speaker, author, coach, or a, a lot of professional service providers listen to this, right? Chiropractors, doctors, lawyers, anyone using their personal brand to like, grow their business, direct sales real estate, mortgage,
Speaker 2 (05:55):
All of
RV (05:55):
It.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So so I believe, and very passionately in the power of the spoken word, no email, text message, or viral video will ever replace it. One, human being speaking to another in real time can shift everything. So to your point, whether somebody sells or promotes a product, a service, or a cause, wherever they are, they, they made up the body of these research participants. And there were actually three mistakes that rose to the top, regardless of gender, regardless of generation, regardless of how many people, how many years of experience people had. So the number three biggest mistake that most people self-confessed, which was also in phase one, was that most people had a tendency to conclude at the end of a presentation, but they did not close. They didn’t have an ask the number two biggest mistake that most people,
RV (06:56):
People, sec, hold on a second. Can I just wanna double tap on that and zoom in there on that one. So what’s the difference between concluding and closing?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I love that question. So a conclusion as a wrap up, right? A close is your specific call to action. What do you want people to do as a result of the message? So what you’ll notice is when somebody’s giving a presentation, they might say, okay, so do you have any questions? And the listener will say, Nope. And you’ll say, great. Okay, thank you so much. So if there’s anything we can do, like, don’t, you know, please let us know. Call us. Call us. Isn’t a close, A close is an action step. What do you want the people to do as a result of the message? So a simpler, easier line, and we can get into that
RV (07:58):
So you’re, and you’re for a dec you’re asking them to make a decision in some regard also. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Whether you’re asking them to set up the next appointment time, whether you’re asking them to make a commitment to give you a referral or asking them to make a decision right then and there to say yes and move forward. Cut a check, sign the contract. Mm-Hmm.
RV (08:20):
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It’s horrifying. And, and we, I mean, I work with some incredible people and they’ll say, oh my gosh, I’m alu, I’m not a closer. Oh, don’t,
RV (08:54):
Don’t concluder. Don’t be a concluder, don’t a con. Okay. All right. What was, what was the second most
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Number two biggest sales presentation mistake that people self confess? Remember, these are be based on self-identification. Okay. is that they are far too informative in nature rather than persuasive. They data dump. Mm. Overly informative versus persuasive.
RV (09:16):
So
Speaker 2 (09:17):
There’s a lot of reasons for that. Like, the biggest one is there’s no risk in being informative. We don’t hear, no, we don’t get pushback while we’re being informative. And it’s like, somewhere along the line, people started feeling like, I know maybe if I just give enough information to people, then they’ll just be able to sell themselves. And, and that’s lovely. But that’s, that’s not how adult decision making processing works. So
RV (09:39):
So how does it work then? Like what, so I think I know what informative looks like. I’m basically just spewing in information and facts and you know, ideas at you.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yes. Data dumping is part of that overly informative phase. But okay, so I’ll get really academic here. In communication, there are three types of presentations, informative, persuasive, and ceremonial. An informative presentation by design is supposed to be unbiased. It’s supposed to tell all sides of the story. It’s supposed to be cooperative versus competitive, and it’s sole purpose is to promote learning. That’s why you’re there. So unless you’re going out into the field and you’re like, hi, Brett, all the material of all my competitors, because I just wanted you to see everything that’s out there, and you can pick anyone you want to, because quite frankly I’m not attached to the outcome. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not gonna profit. I’m not gonna do any, like, I’m just here to be a philanthropist of information. I mean, if you, that’s the only way that you’re really authentically informative.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
A persuasive presentation by design has intent. It means that you want somebody to do something as a result of the message. And if you are working on promoting your personal brand, if you are selling a product, a service, or a cause, you are very intentional. You want them to work with you, you want them to work with your company, you want them to do it now. So I, I’m trying to help people to just love that, like own it and love it and roll around in it. And sometimes people say, Terry, are, are you selling me? I’m like, yes. That’s what I do. Like no one’s shocked, right?
RV (11:28):
How do you get past that fear part? Like, I, I think, like you said, you know, are you selling me? Yes. I think a lot of people would say, are you selling me? No, no. I don’t, don’t think of me as a salesperson. I’m not selling. I don’t wanna sell to you. Oh, no,
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I, I I own it. I love it. How do you, I
RV (11:42):
I know that you do. How do you coach? I I know that you do, how do you wrap your mind around that? Or how do you help other people wrap their mind around that? Like, I don’t wanna be thought of as a pushy salesperson,
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And, and I love the, that you put the emphasis on pushy Look I believe in the power of the sales professional. We move commerce. Nothing happens until somebody sells something, but we do, we shrink from it. And so I think what makes this book different and what makes this conversation different is, you know, my, my training is in academic focus. I was on the speech and debate teams in high school and in college, and I use debate strategy in a selling environment so that I can apply persuasive arguments to move a transaction forward. I don’t think it has to be hard sell. I don’t think you have to have a negative connotation of what a salesperson is. I think you can craft a beautiful, elegant, persuasive message and move people towards action without being hard sell. So to kind of circle back to your question, how do you get them to lean into owning being a sales professional?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And I think if you, if you own it and you believe in it, then it’s a lot easier to have that conviction. Somebody asked me, okay, Terry, in all the research that you’ve been doing, what’s the hardest product to sell? And I’m like, the hardest product to sell is the one you don’t believe in. Mm. You know? So if you, if you believe in, in yourself and the services that you offer, then the bigger question that I’m trying to help people with is, you can’t just give people a laundry list of the things that you do. You have to construct a logical, persuasive case to move them towards action. And so there is a clean process. Again, I don’t use any weird, crazy manipulative closing tactics. I use strategies that are based on logic and evidence and social proof. And I think that when you give people those tools, they can feel better about being persuasive and being, and crafting a compelling message. They’re like, woo. Like I hear all the time people going, woo, I, oh, I wish I would’ve known this 20 years ago. Like, I, it freaks me out to think how much money I must have left on the table. But once you give them, then they’re liberated. And I just try to teach people to fish so that they can go and do it on their own.
RV (14:06):
How do you close, like how do you, we were talking about that just a moment ago too. Like, do you like, like if, if you had to give someone like, you know, a five minute crash course on closing you gave us that question earlier, which I think was, do you wanna move forward? Something like, something to that? Yeah. Would you
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Like to move forward?
RV (14:29):
Is that at the end of that? Is it as simple as that? It’s like one, here’s one, just one question. Boom, that’s a close.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Well, yes or no, but
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So when you, and, and it starts with, you know, did you create an awakening? What are the needs steps? How do you address satisfaction, visualization and change? It’s called Monroe’s motivated sequence. And it’s really based on a human being’s a authentic way to make a decision so that they feel good about it. And so it’s really kind of a very big topic to address right here, but it goes back to the number one mistake you have to prepare. You have to block it. Just like anything, you wouldn’t just, you know, throw content up on your website and think, oh, yeah, that’s gonna be compelling. You don’t just you know, if you’re creating a brochure or you’re creating your demo video, or you’re creating your narrative on your website, whatever it is, if you always have that persuasive mindset and you use this pattern, then you’ll think to yourself, okay, what’s the awakening? What’s the need step? What’s the satisfaction step? The visualization step, and then the action step. And with that consistency, you get the outcomes that you’re looking for.
RV (16:26):
Say those again. It’s a, just the five. It’s awakening.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Awakening, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action.
RV (16:35):
Uhhuh,
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So when somebody comes to me and they say, okay, Terry, will you watch me, watch me? I’ll say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I listen to their whole talk, and then I’m asking myself, did they create some sort of awakening in my mind? Like, people think that the attention step is about having a pithy quote or maybe some statistic or some dramatic story, but that’s not what a listener needs in a buying situation. I’m not saying that you can’t use those things, but they should create an awakening. The listeners should go, wow, you know, I’ve heard this before, but the way you’re saying it, it’s landing in my mind in a different way. And now I’m curious, you know, that that awakening curiosity step is what helps you to convert someone who maybe didn’t even initially want to be there.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
So you have to make them intrigued and inspired to want to move forward, and you wanna do it in a way that makes you feel good about it. So that’s that whole essence. And that kind of weaves into the second part of the book. So the first part of the book is focused on how do you build your persuasive case? Okay? The second part of the book is focused on creativity and how do you really bring that message to life? How do you drive connection storytelling, all of those elements, timing, how do you use time effectively? And then the third piece is everybody’s favorite part, right?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Like there are four mistakes that fall under case four that fall under creativity and four that fall under delivery. And I confess, you know, Rory, I have personally made every single one of these 12 mistakes, and that’s why I know they’re so costly. In the 5,000 participants that were in the study, there was really only one human that said, I don’t make any mistakes.
RV (19:27):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
The number one mistake that people noticed in others is that that talk was boring. Boring, boring.
RV (19:33):
Uhhuh
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So don’t you think that’s interesting that most people self-identify as being overly informative, but other people are boring.
RV (19:43):
Call it boring. Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It’s like, yeah. So we say that in
RV (19:46):
Communication. Sorry, break it theory. Sorry. To to a sweetheart. Yeah. Boring. You’re boring. We’re sleep over, we’re sleeping,
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Right? Yeah. And that’s, that is the, the, that was where things really got super crazy interesting was because we did a, a comparison of what people self-identified with what they noticed in others. And you, what you just said, Rory in instinctively is what really hit it on the head. We don’t tell people, you don’t tell someone, oh, you know, I, I thought that was really good, but you’re boring. We don’t tell people, you know, you, you have all kinds of weird, strange body language and gesturing when you speak. We don’t tell people, did you know that you say or like, or, you know, every other word. Hmm. We don’t say to people, oh, you know what, you use so many industry acronyms and I had no idea what you were talking about. I don’t, we don’t tell people. So what was fascinating is what people self-identified versus what they called out in others. And in those observations, you know, that’s where we get the learnings.
RV (20:54):
Well, and here’s something I would just say for those, if you’re listening and you are a professional speaker wanting to like, get more gigs or get higher fees, or if you’re aspiring, if you’re not getting gigs, that is people telling you you’re boring
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Alright. And let’s take it even to your, your seasoned pros that are on the call. You know, we have a burden to evolve our content. Mm-Hmm.
RV (22:56):
Taylor Swift. Swift, our rocket ship, swift Taylor Swift man era’s to her, even though she’s young. She’s, she’s reinvented so many times. I’m a Taylor, I’m a swifty. I’m a swifty. I’m in court.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Who isn’t? How can you not admire that woman? I
RV (23:09):
Mean, yeah, you got, you may not like her, but you gotta respect her. I mean, there’s, there’s lots of people like that in the world where I go, I don’t, I mean, I happen to like Taylor Swift, but like, there’s other people where I go, I don’t like this person at all,
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It isn’t, and it’s not going back. So yes, there’s a whole chapter that’s dedicated to technology and demonstration failures, and they can take place in either a virtual or hybrid environment. I think one of the opportunities in virtual is, is the reach. I mean, you can really yeah. Meet with decision makers in a variety of different locations all at the same time. I mean, from a sales perspective, again, I’m asking people to put their, their sales hats on, but we used to say, oh gosh, it’s so challenging. ’cause Now you can’t just walk into their office and meet with that person. That’s true. There is a limitation to that. However, the opportunity is you can schedule a virtual call and meet with multiple decision makers in, on multiple continents Yeah. And accomplish more in a shorter period of time. And you save not only time, but you can save a great deal of money. And so there is an efficiency when you schedule it correctly. The downside is the time factor. We know that the amount of time you’re given in a virtual or hybrid environment is significantly reduced. You get maybe 30 minutes and then you get a really hard stop. Right? Like we, what is the hard stop? We never used to get this hard stop factor. Yeah.
RV (25:38):
Well, it’s like I have another meeting in two 10 seconds, not, yeah. I need to walk down the hall and drive in my car and there’s flex. It’s like, no, it’s, it’s right now I have to go. Yeah. That’s interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It’s so just like we were talking before about winging it, we can see that in virtual calls or in hybrid calls, that winging at issue is a huge problem. You cannot just jump on a call and wing it. When you have really strict time parameters, you have to kind of block the time and then you have to try to rein it in if it starts to go sideways. Right? I mean, we’ve all had those moments where, you know, someone on the call will take you down a path that’s gonna pull you off your agenda. So you have to have an awareness like, okay, this thing’s gonna close in like five minutes. Yeah. So what do I need to accomplish before we hit that hard stop? Mm-Hmm.
RV (26:34):
Can’t, you wind it down and sort of land the plane gracefully.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah. And then the secondary factor is one of the biggest mistakes within this chapter is this
RV (26:44):
Is mistake number 11. So it’s techno technology and demonstration failures. That’s what you’re talking about here.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Exactly. And the hybrid environment. So you might be with five or six people in front of you, but you could have five or six people offline. And navigating that hybrid opportunity is tricky. Especially if you’re doing, let’s say for your speaker colleagues, you know, how often are they speaking in front of a live audience and then they have participants. You could have a hundred fifty, two hundred fifty people offline in a hybrid. Yeah. The number, guess what the number one complaint is? They ignore the virtual or speaker.
RV (27:24):
They ignore the virtual.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
They ignore the virtual Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:33):
The problem. Even if there’s, we’ve done events where we’ve had events for clients, like with Ed Millet’s event, there were 400 people in the room, there were 16,000 watching online. And we still naturally default to playing to the people who are right in front of us. Even though it’s like there’s 16,000 people. It’s like, it’s, it’s just, it’s, it is hard to, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to play to both. It
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Is. And so that’s why I really committed this book, because there’s these things that you and I, we know, but I say this all the time. I was just with Brandon Steiner and he said, you know, Terry, I, I know this stuff. And I said, Brandon, it’s not that you don’t know, it’s what you do. What I’m fixing is a lot of times not things that you don’t know but you’re not doing. Yeah. And how do you integrate what you know into your behaviors on a consistent basis so that you can get the outcomes that you want? And I think it’s, I think it’s really fun.
RV (28:29):
I love it. I love it. So presentation ready. Improve your sales presentation outcomes. Avoid the 12 most common mistakes. Terry is one of the best trainers in the world on presentations, persuasive presentations specifically including speaking skills, sales skills, and check this book out. Y’all go, go get it. I promise you’ll love it. Terry’s a pro. Any, Terry, where else should people go? If you want, if you want them to sync up and connect with you.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh my gosh. Please visit my website. You can just go to teri sine.com. That’s T-E-R-R-I-S-J-O-D-I n.com. You can access all the information about presentation ready. It’s available in bookstores worldwide, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, all of the above. And I do have a newsletter. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of each of the three research study reports, you can just visit my website. You can download the research summary reports, and you’ll see the data that really underpins all of the content that’s in the book and subscribe to the newsletter.
RV (29:36):
Really cool. Really cool. Of course we’ll link to that in the show [email protected] slash podcast. Terry, thank you for this. Thanks for being here, friend. And I wish you all the best.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I adore you. Keep doing all your magic. Roy. You’re such a star and I’m honored to be your friend. And thank you for having me on your show. It’s a privilege.
Ep 481: How to Know When You Should Write a Book | Bill Blankschaen Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
I get asked all the time, when should I write a book or more often I get told I’m going to write a book. This is the year, this is the month, this is the time of my life that I am ready to write that book. And this little 10 minute video here is all about when do you know when it’s time for you to write that book? And here’s just a couple of things that I thought would be helpful and insightful is I process a conversation that I just had with a good friend, bill Blank Shane, who is the founder of a company called Story Builders, who works with aspiring authors to become the author that they want to be and produce a book that they are proud to call their own. And I think it was a really important conversation because there is no right time.
AJV (00:55):
There is no better time, there is no worse time when it comes to actually expressing your content. Now, yes, there are times in your life that it makes sense to dedicate time, energy, and effort to writing a book. And there are times in your life where maybe it doesn’t like, right? That has everything to do with capacity, that you have to give it the time it deserves. Because writing a book is like starting a business, and it requires that amount of time, energy, effort, and resources in order to do so. And I think before I even start on this and just realizing if you actually want people to read your book, writing the book is just step one. And after you write the book is when the additional work, most of the work actually begins writing the book is just step one to a mini step process to launch and get that book out into the stratosphere.
AJV (01:46):
So when is it time to write your book? Number one, I want you to remember that the book is the very last thing you do, not the first thing. It is the conclusion, not the hypothesis. So do not rush the process to actually organize and clarify your thoughts, your stories, your points, right? This is a body of work that is meant to represent something that you think is needed in the world to help a group of people, right? Your audience, your readers, with something that you know, that you are well positioned to help them with. And that does not come quickly, right? In fact, I had a guest on the influential personal brand podcast earlier this year, and her name is Maury. And she wrote a book about negotiations, and I asked her, I said, so how long did it take you to write this book?
AJV (02:42):
And she was like, you mean like putting words on the pages? Or How long did it take me to figure out this is the book I was meant to write? And I said, both. And she said 10 years, right? 10 years. It took me 10 years to figure out what I had to say on this topic, what I was meant to say on this topic. Now, the process of actually writing the book was probably a year to two years, right? Still a fair amount of time, but it was 10 years. Why? Because she was looking for a conclusion. She was looking for the facts, right? The end points the ends of the case studies, the ends of the stories, not ideas. She was looking for conclusions, not hypotheses. So the book is the last thing you do. Once you have cemented your ideas, your thought leadership, this is once you have come up with the stories and the points and the frameworks, this is the last thing, not the first thing.
AJV (03:37):
So don’t rush the process. There are plenty of ways to get content out into the world. You can blog, you can create video content, you can podcasts, you can host a podcast, you can guess on podcasts. You can do medium, you can put LinkedIn posts, like the list goes on and on and on. There are many ways for you to be testing and piloting your content before you go through the painstakingly expensive and time consuming process of writing a book. Okay? So that’s number one. Number two, you have to know the purpose and intent of your book before you begin, because that dictates how you write it, how you decide how to publish it, how you market it, how you sell it. Knowing how you want to use this book actually is the beginning of making a lot of decisions that will be very impactful for you, your brand and your business, right?
AJV (04:29):
Is this a traditionally published book because we just, we just added a whole bunch of time to the process between finding an agent, shopping a publisher, getting bids, writing the book, publishing the book, selling, marketing, the book, right? It just added a lot of time that you may not have been prepared for, right? Versus, hey, is this really more a statement of cementing my thoughts, ideas, frameworks for my business? So maybe traditional or hybrid is a better route? And then it’s like, okay, well if I actually want people to read it, like how am I gonna market it? Right? And all these different things matter. So knowing the purpose of the book, right? Is this your your life’s work? Or is this a, you know, a solidification of a set of ideas, but not your life’s work? Those things matter. Is this to support a business model or a coaching framework that’s more better to do in a self-publishing route? Or is this a a statement piece that you are using for credibility and notoriety and you’re going for, you know, a hybrid or a traditional knowing the purpose and the use of the book, not just the content within, but the purpose of it. Are you doing it to increase fees, expand your business? What are you doing it for? Matters a lot in how you write it, how you publish it, and who we are going to market and sell the book to. And then the last, but not the least is are you
AJV (05:56):
Willing to talk about this book for the next two years at minimum, nonstop ad nauseum, right? Are you in love with this topic enough that for the next two, or in some cases 10 or 20 or 50 years, are you willing to continue to talk about the stories and the points and the frameworks and the content for the next two 10 decades ahead of where you are? ’cause That’s what you need to be willing to do because in order to actually help people find the book or read the book, you have to talk about the book, speak about the book, interview about the book, go on podcasts, about the book. You have to post content and make videos and do all the things about the book, which means it needs to be content that is meaningful to you, that’s not going to drain you and be like, oh my gosh, I’m so tired of this.
AJV (06:53):
It should also be content that’s not extraordinarily trendy, right? And so this needs to be something that has some weight to it and that you can continue to talk about it. And I’ll give you two quick examples. My husband, Roy Vaden, his first book has now been out for almost 14 years. He still does the same keynote that he did 14 years ago when the book came out. Take the Stairs. The content of that keynote has not tra changed extraordinarily. So, I mean, he’s gotten better at delivering it. But the content there in and of itself is the contents of the book. And he still loves giving that keynote and telling those stories. In fact, he just released, I, I take the Stairs kids book called Be The Buffalo because it still resonates and it’s still meaningful and it’s still important. This was a piece of his life’s work.
AJV (07:44):
And it doesn’t matter that he printed that book, published it 14 years ago. It still as relevant today as it was then, if not even more so in our lives. And we find it so relevant. It’s like we, we want our kids to learn this. So we, we published be the Buffalo, which is a kid’s book. 14 years later, he is still doing the same talks, telling the same stories, sharing the same points on a piece of work that was done 14 years ago. So can you do that with this work? That’s how you know when you’re ready, right? And the sample the second example I was gonna give you was my husband’s second book Procrastinate on Purpose, which has now been out 10 years almost or even more so maybe 11 years. And it’s the same. It’s like he still gets comments on different frameworks in the book.
AJV (08:32):
And the Ted Talk is growing even though it’s now been out for 10 years plus. And it’s like he still gets booked to speak for that. He still loves talking about it. Why? Because it’s evergreen content, it’s life content, it’s not going away, it’s leadership, it’s productivity, it’s time management, it’s business. And he will be talking about these topics for the rest of his life. I guarantee you the fact that we’re now producing new versions of those works that is just proof. But over the course of time, it was started as a book and then it was a keynote. And now we have courses and there’s kids’ books now. Like it is content that continues to grow. Why? Because it is a part of who he is. And that is what you need to be considering when you go, am I ready to write this book?
AJV (09:20):
It should be work that you are still proud of and excited to talk about 10, 14 years later. And that you’re still adding to and adjusting and building things around because it’s evergreen. That’s how you know when you are ready to write the book, it’s the last thing you do. It’s not the first thing, it’s the conclusion, not the hypothesis. You know, the purpose and intent, the use of the book, and you’re gonna be willing to continue to talk about it for years and years to come. That’s how you know. So are you ready to write that book.
Ep 480: How to Become a Great Writer with Bill Blankschaen
AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here, and I’m so, so, so super excited to introduce you to a good friend today. But I’m equally as excited about this conversation. So before you decide whether or not this is the episode episode for you, let me tell you why you probably wanna stick around no matter where you’re at in terms of building your business and building your personal brand. Because today we’re gonna talk about the process of writing a book. And you might be in that process right now, or you dream of being in that process, or maybe you just left this process thinking, I’ll never do that again. And if you’re feeling that way, it’s probably because you went out of order. And today, we’re gonna just break it down into when should you start writing your book? What does it look like?
AJV (00:52):
How, how do you publish? What are the options for publishing? What makes a good writer? And how do you systematically do that? And if you know this about yourself and that you’re not a quote unquote good writer, which is your opinion only what are the other options out there for you, right? Because there are other options to help you get your message out into the world and your voice be heard. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today with my good friend, bill Blanken Shane from Story Builders. And so, before I formally pass it over to him to share all of his expertise and his knowledge, I’m gonna give you just a little bit of a formal bio because it’s worth it, right? So Bill is the founder and chief story architect of Story Builders, which is the coolest company that we get to be affiliated with as well at Brain Builders Group.
AJV (01:40):
And Bill is actually helping Rory and I architect our next book for Brand Builders Group. So I can speak personally when I talk about how awesome him and his team is, but he is a New York Times bestselling writer. They have worked with very well known people like the John Maxwell team, Kevin Haring, Lewis Howes, Michael Hyatt as well as us, and not as well known as those other peoples but entrepreneurs, corporate leaders influencers, consultants, political figures. The list goes on and on. And I share that because writing a book is not some for someone who just is a influencer. And if you can’t see me, I’m doing bunny quotes right now or just someone who is famous. It is for anyone who has a message that deserves to be heard. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about right now. So, bill, welcome to the show.
BB (02:33):
Well, thank you, aj. My goodness, I’m so excited to be here. You and Rory are some of my favorite people, and we’re talking about storytelling. I mean, what, what could be better than this? I’m excited to be here.
AJV (02:43):
Yes. Well, the first thing I want to talk about and help our audience get to know you a little bit is how’d you get into this? Like, how did you get into the business of writing books for other people and helping get their stories out there?
BB (02:57):
That’s a great question. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna go on the way back machine here to, to my early days even. You know, I think a lot of us have these dreams inside of us when we’re children and, and we kind of have a sense of what we really are good at and what we love to do. And then somewhere along the way, we, we kind of, kind of lose our focus. We find other dreams. We, we, we end up with what Steven Pressfield calls the, our shadow calling, right? We’re, we’re doing something that’s kind of similar, but not exactly what we’re really called to do. And I ended up in I’ve always had a love for storytelling, right? So I majored in English and history, right. Stories and how to tell them. But I ended up going into education and helping start a private school and leading that for a dozen years.
BB (03:37):
And what I was really doing was helping other people learn how to write well and learn how to tell stories well, and that’s really what that was about. And learning a lot about leadership along the way. But it wasn’t until probably about 13 years ago now that I just had this stirring with NI felt like there was more that I was supposed to be doing on a wider scale in and around telling stories. And so I stepped out from the school. We had six kids stepped out from the school, went a year with no income as we navigated that place. But I, I’ve never worked harder in my life than during that year, actually, when we were going through that. And really just becoming a student of story, a student of storytelling, a student of writing, of publishing, of this whole process that you mentioned.
BB (04:22):
And, and then navigating those, you know, turns over the years building what became story builders, really one relationship at a time is how it happened, right? And that’s something I know you and Rory talk about a lot, right? The power of your reputation, which is about your relationships that you have. And, and so that’s really how it came to be, just me following my passions and my skills and where those came together at a place where there was a need, where people who had great messages, great ideas, they just struggled to tell them. Well for a lot of reasons. And I found I could come alongside and really help them to do that in an exceptional way, build a team around it to really truly tell stories that make the world a better place.
AJV (05:03):
You know, I think one of the things that I’m so curious about always, because we have so many people who are in our community and who listen to this podcast that are trying to figure out that next thing they’re going to do. And what I always love asking people is, how’d you get that first client? Right? So you’re transitioning out of something seemingly different, although lots of connectedness, but how did you pick up that very first client that’s like, yeah, bill I know you’ve never done this before, but I’m gonna trust you to get this book out into the world.
BB (05:37):
Sure, sure. Well, I think one of the first ones that we had actually was John Maxwell and working with his company. And it was because of both my leadership experience and my deep knowledge of John’s content and my education background. So we were, what, we’ve created a lot of a content for John’s company ever since then, and it’s really around instructional design and so forth. So, in other words, I think I leaned into the strengths that I had to develop those and began to realize they could transfer into other areas. On the book front, there were someone I encountered in the ministry space where I had written my own book, and I realized, well, actually, I’m pretty good at doing that
AJV (06:51):
Hmm. I love that. ’cause I think at the end of the day, it’s using relationships, leaning into what you’re good at, leaning into what you’re passionate about, solving a problem other people have, it’s not rocket science. Yeah.
BB (07:03):
Right. And, and if, actually, if I can add, now that you add mentioned that, that reminds me, I, I can point back to one instance in particular when I was still running the school, that I can trace just about every connection I have today. Even my connection with you and Rory, I can connect back to this one project that I tackled on the side. I didn’t get paid a dime for it. It was a passion project. I had worked with a book in the school and developed curriculum around it and so forth. And I encountered the author and I pitched him on the idea, Hey I really believe in your message. I’d be willing to do this to help republish the book with this thing included and so forth. And really make it even even more useful just to be of help. And so, you know, I worked late at night, worked, put in all the extra hours, and, and again, I did it from a place of mission-driven perspective of, I’m not getting paid for this, I just love to do it. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (08:13):
Actually. I’m really glad that came to mind because I think, like, the biggest thing that sticks out to me is what are you willing to do just to be of service? Mm. It doesn’t matter if you get paid, you’re just like, I can help. Yeah. How, and here’s how I can help knowing that. And it’s like give, to give mindset, right? Right. Versus a give to get. And I love that. And I think that’s very representative of what we’re trying to be about and getting these messages out into the world. And so, you guys have been doing this for a long time, and you’ve helped get a lot of books out there and a lot of messages into the pages of those books. And so I would love to hear it from you for all of these people out there, regardless if they’re in the process or dream of being in the process of writing a book one day, what would you say is a good overarching process of when is it time for you to write a book? Like, how do you know this is the year or this is the time? But then also, how do you know when it’s time to start thinking about the publishing options? ’cause We’re in a world today where you can self-publish, hybrid publish, traditionally publish, and how much writing needs to be done before you start thinking about that thing.
BB (09:27):
Sure. Big questions.
BB (10:11):
I think now’s the time. Let me do it. I’ve got like 30 days. I can just crank this out.
BB (10:57):
That needs to be your focus. That needs to be what you talk about. So make sure that this is where your heart is, this is where your passion is. And frankly, it wasn’t. I, I wasn’t, that wasn’t my calling to be, like, my calling was the story. It wasn’t that topic as important as that topic is. And so I, I decided not to pursue it at that time. And I think that’s the kind of, you have to know where you want to go in order to know what that timing is. But then I think you need to look at, from a business perspective as well, this is one of the first questions I ask someone when we start talking about putting a book together is, is where do you wanna go with this? What, what are you trying to do? What, what’s the big picture that you’re trying to accomplish?
BB (11:35):
Paint that vision for me. And if they can, and it makes sense to, I see how the book fits in. I see it feeds into your business model. I see how it helps open these doors. That makes sense. Let’s keep talking. If not, my advice to them is, again, take a few steps back, get clarity on that strategically. Otherwise, you’re just gonna, you’re gonna jump, jump in, you’re gonna get a lot of activity, and you, the author and anybody helping you is gonna get frustrated because we don’t have a clear end in mind. Right? So that’s a little bit from a timing standpoint on the process standpoint. You know, one of, one of the things that we really love as story builders is when authors come to us, having gone through your captivating content session with brand builders, with the brand, DNA and so forth, because they come to us with great clarity already around the main pillars that they want to talk about.
BB (12:27):
Mm-Hmm. What their behaviors are, are what their stories are. They, they have a lot of clarity around that. So I think the first place you need to start is get clarity on what exactly do you wanna talk about? What, what is it? And, and what is the uniqueness of that? What really makes it, makes it special and different from everybody else. And, and it’s not that the topic you want to talk about has to be completely different. It, it’s that what is it about your story, your unique approach to that that gives it an angle that maybe not everybody has. No book is gonna resonate with everyone, right? You’re looking to write a message that will resonate with the people you really want to connect with, right? So getting clarity on that, I think is huge on the front end from that, then, okay.
AJV (13:11):
Before you go on. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I think this is important. Like, how many people would you say come to you without even really knowing what they want to write about?
BB (13:24):
Not as many as you might think. There have been some, I’ve had some, I’ve had somebody, you know, text me from the beach kind of, Hey, here’s what I’m thinking of writing. And from that text, we build a whole book
BB (14:09):
And that’s okay, as long as you’re open to being teachable and open to in, you know, in, in input on that and shape it and really make it exceptional. That’s what we’re about, is if we’re gonna do a project, we’re gonna do it with excellence, or we’re not gonna do it at all. And so, you know, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not, we’re just not motivated by helping people crank out some word widgets, you know? We want it to be a meaningful message, something that can actually impact the world, make it a better place. So yeah. I, I short answer. I would say not too often, and when they do, it’s really about, you need to get clarity on what that is. Yeah.
AJV (14:45):
Okay. Now, one of the other things that I hear a lot from just people in the Brand Builders Group community, and just even just in the larger audience at hand of, there’s just so many different ways to publish these days, and some people are cranking out self-published book that they did write in a 30 day period, and boom, here it is. Even though that is more rare. But I would love to know when it comes to writing and the relationship to publishing, like what are those timelines? Sure. Like, how much of the book needs to be started completed before you think about publishing?
BB (15:22):
Sure. Well, let me, let me answer that by filling that gap between clarity and publishing. I think that’ll help fill in that timeline a little bit. Because yes, there are people out there who said, oh, I did my book in 30 days. And, and you, you usually can tell that it was done in 30 days, quite candidly. But even if you can’t, my response is, well, imagine how good it could have been
BB (16:09):
So what, what is that structure gonna be? And then, you know, we use what we call the storytelling structure method. It’s, it’s a five point process that that really walks people through. It’s just proven storytelling structure that has been used for millennia in the human race, right? Of, and we follow that five point process, both to build the book itself, the framework, and then each chapter, each component, we, we componentize it, essentially break it down into small pieces that you can then write. If, if the author’s writing themselves and we’re coaching them, we, we, they go through that process. If we’re doing the writing for and with them, we go through that process. And, and typically I think you know, a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking, I have to have the publisher nailed down before I can do anything. I have to have to begin with the end in mind.
BB (16:57):
And, and that’s good advice to begin with, the end in mind. But you can’t really decide your publishing path until you have a really good sense of where the book is going. Mm-Hmm.
BB (17:43):
You know, maybe you’re going a different hybrid brow. It can, there, there’s all kinds of factors that affect all of those things, kind of what you’re doing, what you want to accomplish. But you need to know what the book is going to be. Otherwise you’re going to publishers and saying, Hey, I have a little bit of an idea. Do you buy it? Do you wanna be part of it?
AJV (18:21):
You know, that’s interesting because being in this world for such a long time, you know, we have such a personal experience with, you know, we’ve done the traditional routes, right? We’re now hybrid publishers ourselves. And then we just have tons and tons of friends who’ve gone the, you know, self-publishing route. And what I have found is there’s no necessary right nor wrong. It has everything to do with what are you trying to accomplish with this book, right. With the purpose of it, in addition to getting the message out in the world. But Right. How you get that message out into the world means a lot in terms of someone actually reading the book, which is goal and intent. Usually. It’s like, I want someone to read the book. Sure. And one of the things that I had found, you know, when we went the traditional route and all, although, and this was almost 10 years ago when we shopped our last book to a traditional publisher, but it’s like, you gotta have at least a few sample chapters.
AJV (19:19):
We had to have all of the book outlined, all of the chapters had to have titles, and we didn’t have just one chapter. It was a few chapters. And so we’re talking 30, like what you said, 30% plus of the book was written. And, and the outline was complete for them to even acknowledge, like, this is something that represents us, something that we think most importantly will sell. Right? Which is what kept coming back to, it’s like, do we think the market will buy this? Right. And an idea wasn’t enough. But even in the hybrid publishing space now, I have people come to us at Mission-Driven Press saying, Hey I’m just trying to get failures of how I wanna publish this. I don’t have anything done yet. And I’m like, well then I don’t know if we’re a fit for you based on your timelines, our timelines, how long is it gonna take you to get the book done so that I can actually review it and decide if it’s a fit for us and vice versa.
AJV (20:14):
And it’s, you know, one of the prerequisites for us to even go, yeah, this looks like something that we’d wanna help get out there and I wanna see at least a few sample chapters. Sure. I wanna see the outline, the overview. Whereas, you know, in the self-publishing route, you don’t have that. Right. But at least with hybrid and traditional 30% minimum, I would say has been our experience so that people can go, do I think the market will buy this? Do do I think this is a, a big enough topic for the masses to be interested in? Is it something we wanna align ourselves with? Does it fit, you know, our published house or imprint or whatever? Would you say that’s similar to what you’ve seen?
BB (20:55):
Oh, a absolutely. ’cause We help people develop book proposals, like if they’re going their traditional route, they wanna shop that. We help people do that all the time. But, and that’s the same process, exactly what you said. It’s several chapters. It’s the framework. Usually it’s an annotated outline. It’s basically making the case for the book. It tells the publisher, you’ve done the thought work behind this. Right? and, and, and what was really popular actually for us, when people aren’t sure what publishing path they want to go yet that they don’t, they don’t have to figure that out to get started. Like, we can help them get clarity on that, begin building that actually drafting a manuscript, putting that, getting it to that place where they know they’re putting their best foot forward, their their best representation to publishers, whatever that might be.
BB (21:41):
Because you usually only get one shot at that, right? So if, if you’re pitching it to publishers or presenting it to someone, you, you don’t want to give them like your C level work. You want your A level
AJV (22:23):
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great transition into talking about making sure that what you put forth is excellent and making sure it’s the best of what you have, not an idea of what might be the best of what you have. So Right, right. High level, what makes a great writer?
BB (22:40):
Hmm. Yeah. I think the first thing that makes a great is almost too, it sounds too simple, but if someone is actually gonna be a writer, they’ve gotta put their butt in the chair and do the work, right? They’ve gotta show up and write. And so a lot of people have this perception that they are a writer, or they could be a writer if they wanted to, they just never do it, right?
BB (23:30):
You have to actually do the writing. So just showing up every day. I think the second thing is to understand that writing is a process. And many people think that the first draft of what they do is writing, but it’s not, that’s just the beginning of the writing process, right? So good writing becomes great writing through editing. So simply putting something on a page that just gives you raw material to work with that you can then evaluate. You can edit, you can cut a lot of stuff. If you’re a good writer, a lot of what you write will get cut and left on the editing room floor, even though it’s really good, it just doesn’t fit. Mm-Hmm.
BB (24:23):
It, it, it lacks depth. Often it lacks detail. It lacks clarity. It doesn’t get to the point in a powerful way. It kind of rambles a little bit here and there. You know, so thinking about that, a third thing I would say too is understand that writing is a unique medium. So speaker, for example, if you’re a speaker and you, you like to give keynote speech and maybe really good at that, but recognizing that giving a speech and putting words on a page are two different mediums for conveyance. Just like video is different than speaking, right? We, there are different mediums and you need to understand the nuances of them. So writing, for example, here’s the challenge of writing. You have to put words on a page and then put it out into the world. And then someone who you don’t even know has to open that page, read it, and understand what you intended to say, and have the same emotional impact that you intended to say as if they were in the room with you talking with you,
BB (25:26):
But they’re not
BB (26:15):
The the fourth thing I would add is that it takes time and effort to become a really good writer. And you have to become a writing. And a lot of people simply don’t have the time to do that, right? They’re, they’re professionals. They’re entrepreneurs, they’re speakers. They’re building their influential brand. They’ve got business going on. They don’t have time to do that. And that’s okay, right? This is what a lot of people don’t realize is you don’t actually have to become a writer to create a, an incredible book. You can partner with someone like me, like my team, who we, we do the work of becoming the writers and understanding your ideas to help turn them in to something that, that is really cool.
AJV (26:56):
I love that. And I wanna go back and touch on each of these points because I think there’s a lot of wisdom and depth into each of these. And then on that last one, I think it’s a grand a grand transition into, okay, well, if you know you’re not a writer Yeah. Tell me about that. What, what, what, how do we do that? But I wanna hop all the way back to that first thing you said, which is the first thing that takes to become a great writer is showing up. Mm-Hmm. Right? But in the feet. Right? And so what I’d love to hear is, do you have any tips or best practices of what’s the best way to actually get yourself to write the book? Is there like an ideal schedule or timeline? I have my own, you know, experiences of what I’ve seen happen in my house as well as with others. Sure. But like, what would you say would be a good schedule for writing?
BB (27:43):
Yeah. What I find is using something like our storytelling structure method that would help break it down, right? If you think, I gotta write this big book, so easy to stare at the screen and have no idea what to write next, but when you break it down into small enough parts, anything can be done If you break it down to small enough parts. And so breaking it down into, all right, I need this chunk. It’s, it’s, I don’t know, three or four or 5, 6, 7 paragraphs, maybe a page and a half. That’s all I need, right? That’s what I need to do today. Mm-Hmm.
BB (28:26):
And, and I just, I just don’t believe that’s true. Having written so much and, and all this, I, what I find is that writer’s block isn’t really a thing provided we are simply willing to do it messy, right? That’s something you guys talked about at brand builders also. Right? Just do it messy. And so when you have it broken down into small enough pieces, then it’s Right. All right, where does it feel right for me to begin? Where do I have clarity within this? Well, I have this one statement I wanna make. Start with that statement, and then give yourself, as a writer, the freedom to go wherever that takes you. And, you know, we, we think about creating and editing, we’re talking about two different sides of the brain. And so you have to give your creative side freedom to say, this is a creative session.
BB (29:16):
I’m not editing, I’m not perfecting, I’m not polishing. I’m just allowing myself to get out what’s in my heart and head and, and approach that session with that in mind of this. I, I’m, I’m, this is gonna be messy. It’s not gonna be perfect. It’s first draft, and that’s okay. There’ll be another time that I’ll come back and I’ll switch to the other side of my brain and do the editing and bring the critical eye and apply that. But for this session, it’s gonna be about creativity. I’m gonna have it, whatever, wherever I do have clarity, I’m gonna push forward. I’m gonna start putting words on a page. Even if they don’t even make a lot of sense to me, I’m just gonna do it. ’cause Motion creates momentum, right? So going through that process allows you to do that and not get hung up on this you know, idea of writer’s block. And then we grab that as an excuse, well, I can’t write because I have writer’s block, you know, air quotes. Right? Whatever that means. And I just, I’ve just found, put it on the page, be creative. Get in the right mindset and let it flow.
AJV (30:17):
I love that because I think that comes back to if you have a robust outline and you have clarity on what you’re writing about, right? There isn’t, well, I don’t know what to do today. I have writer’s block. It’s like, no, we’ve already done that work. Right? We know exactly what we’re writing about. We know the pillars, we know the points. We know the stories, right? So I hear what I hear you saying is that if people quote unquote struggle with writer’s block, it’s probably due to a lack of clarity of what they’re writing about. And they haven’t done the strategy work and the larger picture work in order to do the, Hey, I need to do this one chapter, or I need to, you know, do X, Y, and Z.
BB (30:55):
Exactly. And if, for instance, if we apply our storytelling structure method to a 12 chapter book, I can pretty much right now, without knowing anything about the book, know that you pretty much have at least 60 sub components that you need to build out. It’s actually a little more than that. And some of it can shift and change, and there’s nuance to all of it, but it’s pretty much what it is. And then once you know what those pieces are, you can schedule those. This is my creative time to work on that. It’s probably gonna take X amount of time. And then you get to know, give yourself the freedom if you’re doing the writing yourself, get yourself, give yourself the freedom to get to know how you work best, right? Yeah. There are no, no two writers are alike. You know, I think of famous writers who, you know, might be approached it one way, others approach another. No. Two writers are like, so don’t think that, oh, I have to be like Bill, or I have to be like Ernest Hemingway, or I have to be whoever. Right? no, you define your own style and what works best for you.
AJV (31:51):
Yeah. I love that. You know, and it’s interesting ’cause I’ve had the privilege to watch my husband go through the process of, of writing two books. And as we are heading into the process of writing our signature book for Brain Builders group, it’s been really interesting of going, how he does it and how I do could not be more completely different on this planet. Like, his whole thing is, I gotta block two weeks and I just gotta get it done, you know? And it’s like, Mm-Hmm.
BB (32:47):
Right, right. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. There, there’s no single right way to do it. It’s just, there there is wisdom and guidelines that can help you get there faster and better. I love that. That’s what it’s about.
AJV (32:58):
It’s flexible. Right. All right. Second thing. Yeah. And I loved what you said, and I just wanted to call back out. And this is something that we say a lot at Brain Builders Group. So no one take offense to this, but there are no great writers. Mm-Hmm. Only great editors. Mm-Hmm. Right. It’s like when we write Mm-Hmm. If you do it, you know, if you do it often and you do it well, it’s like you’re verbose
BB (33:44):
BB (34:28):
Right. The ability to know, Hey, this is our objective. This is what I’m trying to accomplish. And so because of that, I’m gonna cut that out. I’m gonna cut that out. I’m cut that out so these things in my life can flourish. Right. And giving space for those ideas to take place and, and not trying to do so much that you know, I think of your, what the analogy you and Rory use about Sheehan’s wall, right? That in order to get out of obscurity and part become well known, you have to get focused and punched through that wall. I think it’s, I mean, it applies to larger vision of life, right? In order to live the life you truly want, I like to say live a story. We’re telling, like, you have to get clear on what you do want focus, so you can punch through that resistance and enjoy what you’re seeking on the other side.
AJV (35:13):
Yeah. So true. Okay. Third thing is just the process of getting words on a page. And so I was curious, I’ve just got two quick things here that I jotted down, is what’s your take on the trend of people just audio, they’re audio ing? Is that a thing? I’m making it a thing. Audio ing their book, right? Doing everything Voice Right. And then having it transcribed and edited from there. Sure, sure. And then also, what’s your take on using ai?
BB (35:42):
Oh, great question. Great question. Yeah. First of all, on the transcript side you know, we, we don’t do that. And again, it goes back to the medium conversation, right? A speaker is going to speak things one way, and and that’s fine in a conversation, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into the, into the written word. And so there are services out there that will say they actually tout the fact that, oh, you, you just answer these questions. We take your answers, we make sure they’re grammatically correct. And boom, you gotta book it’s magic. The, again, the problem is, first of all, it, it hasn’t gone through the filter of translating into that medium. Secondly the ideas, any one of us all by ourselves only has certain ideas and only has a certain perspective. And so when you bring in other voices into that process, who can bring fresh insights strategically raise the value of that perspective, and cause you to realize other things.
BB (36:41):
We have one gentleman incredible business consultant. We’ve written several books with him and what he has said, I come into a book project, I have a good idea of what I wanna say, but by the time I leave, that book has been improved so dramatically because of the ideas that we’ve developed through that process. I could never have gotten there on my own. I, and so that’s, that’s what we look for. That’s the value of what we do. You know, so this kind of outta the box plan if that’s a fit for you, great. We, our focus is more does it actually serve your audience or is it more about easy for you? And if you’re here to serve, then you gotta make sure that book is really strategically powerful. So that’s the one question on the AI front.
BB (37:28):
It, it, it is like, it’s not even the wild West yet. It’s, it’s even messier than the Wild West
BB (38:22):
What is new and different is your ability to bring unique perspective, your story, your, your unique approach to it that only you can bring. And AI doesn’t know that. And so it, it just spits out whatever other people have said. And, and it removes that uniqueness on the one hand. On the other hand what AI cannot do is it cannot make connections. It hasn’t already made that already haven’t been made. And this is the, the genius of the human mind is that we can put thoughts together that no one has ever put together before. Right? We, we can bring fresh ideas and insights into all that in a way that, you know, no machine ever will be able to do. Right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (39:31):
Yeah. And it’s interesting, I think most of us have encountered enough AI content at this point where it’s like, yeah, I think that’s ai Right? Versus right
BB (40:23):
Sure. Well, I, I usually don’t even use the term ghostwriter. I don’t mind it at all. I like to use the term collaborative writing. Mm. I like that. ’cause It’s really how I view it as really coming alongside. Yeah. An author not replacing them, not pretending that they did something they didn’t. But a lot of the big names and big books you see out there, not all of them by any means were written with collaborative writers or ghost writers, whatever the case may be. The key, I think a lot of people tend to, this is another reason why I use that name is people think of ghost writing as almost like it’s a fake writing. Mm-Hmm. And that’s not what the collaborative process is at all. In fact, it really relies on authenticity. You know, that the people I work with on books we, we go deep into, into content and our team goes deep with them to develop that content.
BB (41:13):
You know, so it is very much the author’s ideas. That’s another thing some people think is, well, it won’t actually be what I have to say. It won’t be my message. No, not if you have a good collaborative writer, it will be your method. We, we have a priority of preserving that and adding value to it, not not replacing it. Right? so we serve as that sounding board for ideas and value add for ideas. And we just go through that process. I mean, we, a lot of times the authors I work with, we become good friends ’cause we get to know each other really well. Our team becomes good friends and so forth. And we have a whole process laid out where we help people really turn their ideas into compelling books and compelling manuscripts that they can then decide what’s the best publishing path for me? What do I do with this now that I have a book I can be proud of? Right? So that, that’s really where, where the heart of that comes in. And that’s really where our passion is. ’cause You know, we’ve seen so many people who have ideas and they either take them half baked into the world and regret it, or they don’t take ’em at all. ’cause They’re afraid they don’t know how. And we believe the world needs to hear what these leaders need have to say.
AJV (42:19):
You know, it’s interesting ’cause I liken what you just said to something that I also experience when the red light on the camera goes on. Because we do so much video work. And what I’ve noticed that even with our team at Brand Builders Group, they will have the most amazing ideas and eloquent conversation and wisdom. And then I’m like, we gotta get that on camera. And we put the camera in front of them and that red light comes on. It’s like,
AJV (43:09):
What? I don’t know what I said. And it’s because what came to them was in the form of the question. And so what I see that you do so well is it’s helping the writer get into dialogue mode in conversation mode. Because you’re asking the questions that help them get to the root of the story or the point, or what they’re trying to share. Where when you’re just looking at a camera screen, it’s like what, what was that? Or, or you start questioning yourself like, wait, is this really good? And what you have an hour to write and you’re like, yeah, it’ll sucked. And it’s like, says who? And it’s because you don’t have that dialogue and conversation. And so to hear you use the term collaborative writing makes a lot of sense because it’s that dialogue. It’s that conversation that allows the author, the, the content creator to flow more naturally, which is how it would in real conversation versus putting words on a page or talking to a blank screen.
BB (44:06):
I completely agree. Again, pushing back against that myth that people think it, I I have to do it myself, or it’s not my ideas. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (45:18):
And it doesn’t matter who you are and at what level. Everybody still needs coaching. Rightly, the best athlete in the world still have coaches, absolutely the best anything in the world Absolutely. Are seeking never and constant, yeah. Improvement. you know, so I think that’s back to the process. We all need to coach in something in our lives. And if you’re going through this process that’s a lot of what it is. It’s collaborative writing, body coaching questions and the, and, and making time and having accountability to the time, which we all need that too. So bill, if people wanna learn more about Story Builders, where should they go?
BB (46:05):
I would say the best. Sorry about that. My internet stuttered for a minute there, I think.
AJV (46:10):
Okay. I’m almost gonna start that little sentence over. So Bill, if people wanna learn more about Story Builders, where should they go?
BB (46:17):
We would love to connect with people who have a story that they, maybe they’re wondering, is my story worth telling
AJV (47:10):
Hmm. I love that y’all, my story builders.com/story. I will put that in the show notes, at least vet the idea of, is this the route for me? What is this idea I have? And have some conversation around what that looks like. Now, bill, people wanna connect with you personally. What’s the best platform for them to connect with you personally?
BB (47:31):
Best one is gonna be LinkedIn. We, we put a lot of focus in actually serving the clients and story partners as we call ’em, that we’re serving. But LinkedIn’s probably the best place. Just look me up, bill Blank Shane, or Story Builders, one of the two. And or, you know, schedule some time with our story strategist and say, Hey, I’d really like to talk to Bill. I’d, you know, got a project. I’d like to explore what it would look like to have him help me personally or anything like that. It’s fine, whatever that takes. And yeah, just, just reach out and we’re here.
AJV (48:00):
And I’ll put your LinkedIn link in the show notes as well. This was so helpful, so insightful, so many good nuggets. And for everyone else who is listening, stick around for the recap, which will be up next. And we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 461: What You Need To Start Building Your Speaking Business | Joe Heaps Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So speaker, you want to get booked on more stages. So I’m talking to you today that aspiring speaker, that early beginner speaker or even that moderately booked speaker who’s going, I want to make this part-time thing or this dream, my full-time gig. I wanna become a highly paid professional speaker. I wanna speak on stages. This is what I wanna do. This is my dream. How do I do that? All right. And so recently on the influential personal brand podcast, I interviewed Joe Heaps, who is the CMO, and he’s in charge of marketing and sales strategies for e speakers, which is an online speaker matching service with meeting planners. And so we had a conversation around some industry trends of like, what’s working to help get speakers booked in today’s market and today, I mean, 2024, and what do we need to know as speakers that will help us grow our speaking business?
AJV (01:00):
So I wanted to share some of those highlights from that interview and a more condensed recap version for you. So there’s just a few things I thought were really helpful that I wanna share with you to help you build that speaking business this year. So the first thing I thought this was really fascinating Joe mentioned, he goes the number one misstep that I see early beginner speakers make is they make all of their speaker press kits, even their demo videos all about their credentials versus what am I gonna do for you? Right? And I see this all the time too. In fact, I’ve made this mistake before where I start with the very first page of my speaker press Kitt is my bio, and it’s like, Hey, AJ Vaden is a entrepreneur, speaker, author, and it’s all about me.
AJV (01:48):
And it’s like, well, we can get to that, but what this meeting planner needs to know is right up front and that very first line, what are you gonna do for me? Right? So it’s what he calls the audience benefit statements. What are the payoffs? What are the takeaways that my audience is going to leave from your session, right? So you’ve gotta start with the audience in mind as well as the buyer in mind. In this case, the buyer is the meeting planner or the committee or whoever’s gonna book that speaker. But they need to know, it’s like, what are you gonna do for my audience? What are you gonna do for me? Not what are all of your credentials? And then I love what he said, he said. Then the, the second biggest mistake that I see that speakers make is that if they start with that, then there’s no transition.
AJV (02:32):
And they immediately go into, and I’m a, you know, New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, da da da, and there’s a complete disconnect between what were the benefit statements that we were just talking about and who I am as a speaker and as a person. He said, so as that transition happens from the audience benefit statements such as, you know, Hey, I am a engaging speaker who’s going to bring humor to the audience. So if you’re looking for entertainment value, dah, dah, dah, dah dah, then we need that transition statement to go, Hey, as a, you know, 20 year standup comedian, and use your bio as an actual part of the proof process to the benefit statements. Make sure that there is a natural transition of whatever you just said in the benefit statements about what they can expect from you as a speaker.
AJV (03:25):
What are the benefits that they’re gonna get from hiring you as a speaker, right? The takeaways, the what the audience is gonna leave with, make sure that’s the first thing that you talk about when you get to your bio. It’s not, hey and AJ is a, it’s like, no, we need to make sure that the very first things in our bio are giving the proof and the evidence from whatever we just said in the benefit statements of how our experience and our expertise gives us the right to talk about these things. And it’s the proof that I actually know what I’m talking about. Then you can add in all of those other credentializing things. And so the way to do that is just a very, very articulate way of going. We have to start with the audience in mind, the buyer in mind, IE the meeting planner, what do they wanna hear first?
AJV (04:16):
And then use our bio as a way to give proof to every statement that you just set. And that’s what they’re looking for on that very first page of a speaker press kit or the very first thing they see on the, about us on your website. But it’s like, Hey, it’s like, what are you gonna do for me? What’s the very first thing I wanna know? Is what kind of speaker are you and what are the benefits of your, your speech? Not the features. The features are all about you. The benefits are what are you gonna do for my audience? And I thought that was just a very good, simple way of thinking about it. Second thing and we talk about this all the time in different formats, but I loved his little take on demo videos. He said, honestly some, some meeting planners are gonna wanna see 30 minutes of stage footage, some 15 minute, you know, sizzle reel.
AJV (05:04):
You see those popular? He said, but I’ll tell you most often what most people are looking for is some sort of 32nd to two minutes that is so short, y’all 30 seconds, 30 seconds to two minute clips of you on stage. He goes, they’re not looking for testimonials in that two minutes. They’re not looking for where you’ve spoken, what media you’ve been on, there’s no voiceovers. It’s like, Nope, I need you right up front on stage doing the best thing that you do, right? So, and it needs to be on the content. And it’s like when you think about two minutes is not a lot of time, you can’t be fitting in all that other stuff in there. And there are so many different opinions on what makes a great demo video. Other people say it’s like, Hey, five minutes. And we do want that production value.
AJV (05:45):
We do want the credibility and the testimonials that Joe’s take on it. He goes, the very first thing they need to see is you on stage. And he goes, if you wanna add all that stuff after the fact, make sure it’s after the two minutes. But that first 30 seconds to two minutes needs to be you doing your thing with the best content you have. We need to see audience engagement, we need to see audience reactions, and we need to see you doing your craft. And that’s what we want those first two minutes. And then if you wanna extend it past that with testimonials and all the other stuff, that’s fine or make separate videos for that. But just give us two minutes of the best you’ve got on stage. And that’s what meeting planners wanna see. Thought that was super helpful and insightful.
AJV (06:29):
Last thing wanna share is just something about fees. ’cause That’s always coming up. And so I asked him, it’s like, what, what do you, what do you see as the best way to set fees? And there’s a couple of different things that he shared that I thought was really great. And he said, just remember if you’re a beginner, if you’re just starting out, just speak. If you get paid it’s bonus but speak because you wanna speak and you maybe get paid $50, $200, $500, he goes, just say yes. The more you speak, the more you speak, right? We say that all the time at Brand Builders Group, but if you wanna speak and you’re just starting out, you just say yes, you take the gig and then you take it again and then you take it again and you follow basic laws of supply and demand, and the lower the supply, the higher the demand, your fees go up.
AJV (07:16):
So as we’re talking about someone who is getting booked for speed getting booked for fees, and you are doing this, what are those early beginner set fees that you’re seeing most often on e speakers? And he said, what I would consider a beginner speaker who maybe doesn’t even have a demo video yet, but they have just some clips on stage. He said, maybe they’ve been doing this for a year or so. They’re not booked, but they’re getting booked. Sometimes he goes somewhere between $2,500 and $3,000 is where we see most people at a beginner level, regardless of what you set your fees at, I think that’s a, a probably an accurate picture of what it looks like as a beginner. He said, then we start seeing that supply and demand factor. The more you get booked, you know, the more demand you have, then those fees start rising up.
AJV (08:01):
He said, but I would say the average speaker on our site, which they’ve got more than 20,000 speakers, is between 70 $510,000. And those are people who’ve got systems in place. They’re doing this pretty frequently. This has become their full-time thing and those are their average fees. And he goes, and then what we’re seeing for us anyway is anyone above 10,000 is someone who is booked out, right? So they are rather booked out. They have had some sort of a content event. So their content has gone viral. They had a TED Talk, they had a bestselling book, they had some sort of what I would call life event. So they climbed Mount Everest or you know, they survived a plane crash where they have some unique life event, which is rare, or they’ve had some sort of content that has made them available to increase their fees to a certain level. And I just think following
AJV (08:54):
That as the basic guidelines, as you’re, as you’re setting out to build your speaking career and specifically over the next 12 months of just like, where am I at today and where do I wanna be of going? You just start speaking until you can get paid. And then the more you get paid, just know those beginner level fees. It’s very normal to start around $2,500. Even if you know you’re worth more than that you’ll get paid worth more than that. But the more you speak, the more you speak. So just a couple of insights around press Kids demo videos and fees as we set out into the year to help you build your speaking career. Hope that helps. If you wanna check out the full episode, it’s with Joe Heaps from e Speakers on the Influential Personal Brand podcast, and I’ll see you soon.
Ep 460: Helping Speakers Get Booked On More Stages with Joe Heaps
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody. AJ Vaden here. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand. I am super excited for today’s interview because I love when I get to do interviews around very niche topics like we’re gonna do today. And today we’re gonna be talking about the world of speaking and most specifically how to get booked as a speaker. And I have invited a newer friend of mine, but a good friend of my husband and a lot of the team at Brain Builders Group, Joe Heaps. And I’ll tell you a little bit more about Joe in a second, but I wanted to let you guys know what this interview is about and why you should stick around. And just before I hit record, Joe and I were talking about how, you know, there’s so much stuff
AJV (00:53):
And the truth is, I think there’s a lot of value in some stuff that’s out there, and there’s no value in other stuff that’s out there. And so we’ve been on this kind of mission to help get some industry leaders in the speaking industry on this podcast to help create some clarity and expectations around if you have a dream, if you have a passion of becoming a highly paid professional speaker who is booked on stages because you have a message that you just feel called to share, right? There are some things you need to know that will prepare you and equip you to do that successfully, where you can take this dream and turn it into a very lucrative business. But if you think it’s gonna happen overnight, and you think it’s gonna happen by, you know, just posting some social media content, well, that may be where you’re a little off schedule, right?
AJV (01:45):
And so today we’re gonna have just an honest conversation of helping you build that dream of building your speaking business. So if you’re an aspiring speaker or even a speaker who’s getting booked, that just goes, man, I wanna get booked more. I do want this to be my full thing full-time thing, then this is the interview for you. So stick around get your pen and paper, take notes, because this is gonna be jam packed with tons of industry insights that’s gonna help you succeed in that endeavor. Now let me introduce you to the gentleman who’s going to help share some of these industry secrets. ’cause It’s not gonna be me today. I’m just going to be asking some questions. And quite honestly, I have my pen and paper too. ’cause I’m super excited to learn what’s new, what’s changing, what’s evolving. Because as a speaker myself, I have no doubt that Joe’s gonna share some tips today that I can put into practice in my business.
AJV (02:39):
So Joe Heaps is the managing partner and also the CMO at E Speakers, which you’re gonna learn all about. He is and why I think this is so helpful. He’s the one who’s responsible for all the sales and marketing strategies, which, you know, surprise, right?
JH (03:34):
Thank you. Appreciate the invite.
AJV (03:37):
Yeah. And you know, as we’re kind of getting started and helping everyone learn about you and e speakers and why I got started, I just wanna start with like a little bit of background knowledge of like, what is e speakers and how did that even come about? Like how did you get started with that? Like yeah, tell us what it is and then why, why did it get created?
JH (03:55):
Yeah, you bet. Well first of all, our e speaker’s mission statement is we truly believe that the right speaker in front of the right audience can make a lasting, it kind of creates a magic. And and that right speaker in front of the right audience leads to like long-term improvement in organizations and individuals. And so the, the idea that a speaker can go out and just speak to anybody is false. I mean, you can collect a check, but we really feel like there’s a magic when the right speaker gets in front of the right audience and that change is made. And that’s really what this is all about. And I know any speaker that’s out there has felt that, like, you felt like maybe you just checked the box, you gotta check and you walked away and it really, you, like, you did your job, but you didn’t really connect with anybody.
JH (04:42):
And I know that people have been in the audience and done the same, but that, that change is really what’s important. And it’s what keeps a speaker getting booked, quite honestly, is if people in the audience feel their authentic self and they, they really connect with their content and they feel like they’re making a change in their life. And so our mission is to help speakers get on more stages and to make that change more often. Mm-Hmm. How we started was 24 years ago by a speaker named Art Berg, who Rory is a good friend of, I don’t know, AJ if you met r art before, or not he hasn’t. But art was a speaker he’s a quadriplegic and spoke, you know, over a hundred times a year, traveled the world. And that, and that at the time was a pretty big challenge, kinda like a a unique situation because he was in a wheelchair and traveling the world and on his own without any help.
JH (05:47):
And that, that’s a lot of work for a quadriplegic. And now there’s, there’s several more you know, and, and they do great jobs. But the fact that Art did that was a major thing that he tackled in his life to show that, you know, that wasn’t gonna stop him from making a difference in the world. And so one of the things that art he was really big on technology and how it connected with people. And he had this vision that through technology, his job could get easier and he could make the meeting planners, the buyers, the people that hire speakers, their job easier. And so he created a, a software with my business partner, Dave. And they started off with that technology. And the technology was really an event management tool that he could track all of his events in, in the calendar and everything.
JH (06:45):
And that he kind of gave a backdoor for speaker bureaus, which are kind of the in-between people that that book speakers off also, they’re kind of an agency. And those speakers bureaus kind of had a backdoor into the calendar. And at the time the cloud wasn’t really even a thing. Nobody knew of the cloud, and this was kind of a cloud technology. And so it, it allows people from their offices to be able to connect with speakers and be able to book them. Because at the time, you know, cell phones were just barely coming into the picture. No, internet wasn’t even around in the beginning. And so, you know, it just, it just blossomed from there. And unfortunately a few years into the Endeavor, art passed away. And but, and that’s when I joined the team and, and you know, that’s what Speers that’s where we started.
JH (07:38):
And really art art’s vision really is what we use every day to kind of keep us moving forward is just that idea of making speakers more readily available to book and giving them the tools and, and the things they need to be able to, to get booked. And then making it easy for meeting planners to connect with them and, and their job. And especially in this day and age, it’s you know, you can search the internet for any type of speaker and find something, right? But again, is it the right person and are, is it making it easy on the buyer? So that’s kind of what we have an event management tool that we can talk more about if you’d like. Or we have also have an arm of our business that is all about promotion and marketing of a speaker and specifically to those meeting planners or those buyers. So that’s kind of
AJV (08:34):
What we do. You know, I, I love that. And I know I’ve heard, you know, so many different great things about e speakers through the years and, you know, we’ve known of you guys since we’ve been a part of the National Speakers Association, but I mean, it has to be at least 20 years that I’ve known about you guys. So what did you guys start in the nineties?
JH (08:53):
99. 9 99?
AJV (08:55):
Yeah. ’cause I know it’s like, even in the early years of us being a part of the National Speakers Association, I remember seeing e speakers and, you know, I spent some time on the websites, you know, kind of getting up to date on the all the news speakers that you guys are featuring. And I think that’s and I think talking about both of those would be really interesting in interesting for our conversation today. But one of the things that I would love to start with since you are, you know, a huge part of like the sales and marketing strategy I’d love to start there of just going, like, when you think of a speaker and what assets, what, what tools they need to get booked as a speaker, right? So when you’re thinking of like, what do meeting planners need to make quick decisions, and what does speakers need to have readily available to supply? Like, what would you say are the most important marketing assets that a speaker needs today?
JH (09:46):
Yeah. Well I think probably the thing that we see that peop, that speakers stumble on quite a bit is what we call our audience benefit statement. It is it’s front and center on a speaker’s profile and the audience benefit statement. We tend to see speakers and they don’t really have that defined in, we’ve actually gone through your course Brand Builders course ourselves. And, and and so I know you, you know a lot about this as well, but really talking about the benefits of hiring you rather than in marketing. Marketing 1 0 1 talks about features and benefits of a product. Doesn’t matter what product it is. A good product is marketed with benefits. Like, it’ll help you do this, you’ll feel better doing this. It’ll, you know, and, and we give lots of examples of companies that do that in their advertising.
JH (10:38):
But the benefits of hiring a speaker are way more powerful than the features. So we see speakers lead with things like, I’m a New York Times bestseller, I’ve written these books. I’ve, I’ve talked to these people, I’ve presented to these groups, I have these degrees. I went to this school. You know, and that, that’s, that’s really, really common. In fact, seasoned speakers still tend to kind of slide back into that because speakers are unique in regards to a product because you do talk about yourself a lot, and you’re building your own personal brand as you know, right? And so that’s one of the things that causes some pain for speakers is they’re wondering, why am I not getting booked? And it’s because they’re leading with the features of the product. They’re the product and they’re leading with the features rather than the benefits. And the benefits are things like, why would somebody hire you?
JH (11:31):
What do you, what benefit are you going to bring to that audience? And so you need to lead with things like when I come speak to your group, we’re gonna identify these key things and your audience will walk away knowing how to do this, this, and this. Right? And so that’s really kind of the idea of a benefit statement. Yeah. And, and there’s a lot of different examples. I mean, if, if, if people wanted, they could go to our directory at e speakers marketplace and, and go through and search on a topic. And you can see, in fact, if there are speakers listening, I’d encourage you to do that. Put your topic in and, and see the reco the results that come up. And you’ll see some really good ones. We’ve tried to really work with people on that audience benefit statement, but some of ’em come up and, you know, they’re, they’re just, like I was talking about, in fact, they lead with their name.
JH (12:18):
Like, you know, it would say, Rory Vaden is a New York Times bestseller and speaker and author and trainer. Well, we have like 20,000 speakers in our database. And same thing, most of ’em are trainers, authors, and speakers, right? And, and could be New York Times bestsellers. So you know, that that type of, just getting that outta the way and the process of working through that audience benefit statement really sets the stage for the benefits. And then you take those benefits of hiring you and they become, you know, bullet points in your bio and they can become even programs like your speeches, right? And so that’s really the probably the biggest thing that we see. The other thing in regards to just, I mean, that’s the marketing side. I know that’s what you ask about. But the other thing that we see is speakers tend to struggle with systems.
JH (13:08):
And that’s where our tool really shines, is that, you know, a good system means that you can be away from the system. And, and our, we live in ACI in a world now that everything is connected, everything ties together, whether it’s through I calendar, whatever. And you have all these different ways now, even since the pandemic, zoom is the new thing, and, and everybody, you can zoom from an airport if you needed to, right? And, and on the road. But speakers are super busy. And you know, having a good system that keeps them on track mm-hmm. Is, is really important. And that’s one of the things that Art started in the very beginning is, you know, being, having such a demanding schedule with over like, you know, 200 presentations a year or whatever. One staff member, he found the value of systems and the, the freedom a good system gives you to like chart this course of success.
JH (14:07):
And so really that’s, that’s kind of what he harnessed in our tools and, and we see as a real big value. And it’s still a big struggle for speakers, is is having a good system. Could they be away from their business for a week and everything continued to run? That’s good. And, you know, that’s, that’s really not just, I mean, of course we expect speakers to take a vacation, right? But not just vacation. It’s, it’s being booked three times or four times that week. And just the intricacies of going to Nashville, going to Dallas, going to Chicago, flying to LA and you know, just don’t have time to keep up with things. And so having a good system is super important. So, oh, well I, that I’m not sure if I answered your question, but No,
AJV (14:49):
I think I have some follow ups, but I think that that systems part of the conversation wasn’t even on my radar. And the truth is, is most speakers, at least when they start out, they are the sales department, marketing department, operations department, billing department. Right? Right. It’s like they’re all the departments. And I don’t think if a lot, I don’t think a lot of people realize, it’s like, no, being a speaker is being an entrepreneur. It is a business. Yeah. You gotta do all the same things that you would do as a small business owner. You, and if you don’t have a good system, all of a sudden it’s like, it’s not so fun anymore. Yeah. Now it’s, it’s a lot of work. And you’re working all the time, traveling all the time on stages all the time. And it’s like, oh, all right. This thing I thought I wanted to do, I don’t wanna do it anymore. Yeah.
JH (15:34):
Well, and if people, if speakers only, if all you had to do is say, Hey, you have an event this day, show up at this address and speak on this topic, and that’s all you had to do then I think things will be a lot easier. But the truth of it is, is that it is literally a business. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (16:50):
No, I love that. And, you know, often I refer to speakers as artists, right? And it’s like, the reason most people wanna be a speaker is because they have this message that they wanna share and speaking is a, a craft that they want to get better at. And, and it’s like, but then you get kind of stuck with all you’re doing is sending out emails and proposals and, and contracts and, and all of a sudden all the things that you wanna do, the things that you love to do, you don’t, you don’t really get to do those anymore. And having a good system gives you the freedom to work on the message, hone the craft and do the revenue generating activities, be excellent on stage and do the pre-event calls. So I love that you brought that up. That wasn’t even on my radar for our conversation, but it’s such an important part of where most people get into something and then all of a sudden they’re like, I’m exhausted, right?
AJV (17:42):
I’ve got major burnout, I don’t know if I can keep doing this. And it’s because you didn’t have a good system to start with. So I love that part of it. Right. And I love the, the benefit statements. ’cause You’re right, it’s like most speakers start with, here’s, here I am, right? Like, these are my credentials. So I love that benefit start statements piece. But then you also mentioned a few other things like program descriptions and all of that. And so do you find that it is still necessary that speakers have like a media kit or a press kit, a demo video? Like what’s most important, what’s least important? How long should they be? Like, what are those things look like today?
JH (18:18):
Yeah, no, those are good questions and yes, super relevant. All of that is still needed. I mean, and just to give the listeners a, a kind of a blast from the past, the way this used to happen, I’m answering your question, I promise. The, the way this used to happen was quite literally, if any of you were old enough to remember how you used to order things over the phone instead of online, you’d open the JCPenney catalog and you would find the number and call ’em and say, Hey, I want x, y, z number. Well, the same thing happened with speakers. Specifically bureaus would print this big, like catalog of speakers and they would ship that out to all the buyers, all the meeting planners. And then the same thing happened. They call and they look through and say, Hey, these are the speakers I want.
JH (19:06):
And so it, it changed from that to then speakers had like individual websites and then social media came into it. And then people were still mailing VHS tapes and then CDs and, you know, all of that. And that media kit has graduated into this digital media kit now. And so yes, it’s still valuable, but, but different. And, and one thing that I think speakers need to know is that just because you have a website and everything’s there doesn’t mean that that solves the, the doesn’t make it easy for a buyer to hire you. They have to go find your website, they have to navigate that. And you have to give them things easy at their fingertips. And I mean, I, I haven’t seen the numbers on this lately, but seems like before the pandemic MPI, which is meeting professionals international, they’re a big group of meeting planners.
JH (20:06):
And they had listed being a meeting planner was in like the top five most stressful jobs in the US. And I’m still, it’s, I’m sure it’s probably still up in the top. But they have a lot on their plate. And if you just say, yeah, go here and do this, then that’s, that’s not easy. And we’ve become a society where we want things instant. Like we go buy something online and you want to actually see if they have those red shoes in stock. And if they don’t, you’ll go somewhere else where you know, they have it in stock. ’cause You don’t wanna wait. Mm-Hmm.
JH (21:00):
They can narrow it down to one of ’em, hire ’em and and sign the contract and pay ’em all through online. And all of that is generated or has come about because of the, the type of buying that people are doing online. Right. That’s a new, and anyway, so my point is, is that that digital kit is so important and yes, have it all on your website, but that’s one of the reasons that our, our profiles, our online profiles have done so well is something we launched about 10 years ago. And we had, we saw this need where speakers were sending their kits out to all the speakers bureaus and all their meeting planners. And it’s a huge cost number one, ’cause you got to, it’s a big box, you know, then you’re shipping that out and then they have to then go through that and digitize the video or then take the video and put it on the website.
JH (21:56):
And it’s a lot of work for all those people to do that. And we heard from the bureaus that they have rooms to just boxes full of VHS tapes or CDs, right? And, and meeting planners have the same thing. People just send meeting planners random boxes of stuff and just say, Hey, I’m a speaker on leadership, hire me. You know? And so they just had a hard time processing all that. So the, the digital media kit is effective in the, in the sense that it’s one thing that you can send them and it has everything in it, and it’s easy for them to like save in a folder and, and share with people and things like that. And that’s one of the things where the profile, our profiles have really shined is on the profile itself. We have all the different marketing materials that, that are, we’ve found that speakers or the buyers want to know, they don’t have to leave the profile at all.
JH (22:49):
They have their bio, they have all their topics, their fees, they have videos, they have marketing materials, they have all their programs, their calendar, if they do virtual work, all of that thing. All of that is on one profile. And it, what it creates is a an a a better experience for the buyer. And they have everything they need right on that one page to make the purchase decision. And yes, they could go to the speaker’s website, yes. They could be go to the speakers social media, yes, they could look at this PDF, but you know, ultimately, like having one place where all of that is, is together is, is still valuable. So, yes.
AJV (23:28):
Yeah. I love that. And I think one of the things you said that really stands out to me, and which I don’t think a lot of speakers are probably doing when they think about their demo videos or speaker press kits is, am I building this to appeal to the, the buyer, right? Am I building this to attract them, make it easy for them? ’cause I see a lot of Prescott that are like 12, 13, 14 pages and it’s like, takes me forever to go through it. And I’m supposed to be doing that for our clients, right? It’s like, that’s really long. Or demo videos that are 20, 30 minutes. And I’m like, I don’t have time to watch this. So I’m guessing a meeting planner doesn’t either. So for, when you’re thinking about making it easy for this buyer, right? The meeting planner to make decisions, is there like a special recipe of like how short it is this? Yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah,
JH (24:16):
There is, well, specifically with programs, so we, let’s just talk about that audience benefit statement that it’s kind of your lead in, right? It’s what’s your, the benefits of hiring you. And then as you take that, you go into your bio and your bio should always start with an extension of that audience benefit statement. ’cause You don’t want ’em to all, all of a sudden go to your bio and now all of a sudden you’re talking about being a New York Times bestseller and all this stuff. And you said, Hey, I thought you were a leadership expert that could change the culture of my organization. And now all of a sudden you’re talking about this. So it’s kind of the segue paragraph. That first paragraph is the segue paragraph that really ties in your audience benefit statement into, now this is all about me. So you have that, that segue paragraph that talks about the benefits still and explains them in more detail.
JH (25:06):
And then the rest of the bio is all about you as a speaker. Sure. Say all those things that we talked about. These are the things I’ve done, books I’ve written places, degrees I have, or what makes you be able to support that. You, you can change culture in an organization because you’ve done all these things. Right? And then the, the next extension of that is in the programs, your speeches. So when you outline your programs, you always lead with the benefit, right? So this is the benefit of hiring, this is why you want me to speak to your group on this program. And then the format of that is always great to identify who this is good for. This is great for senior leadership, middle management, you know, salespeople, whatever. And so you identify kind of who it’s for and then the last thing you look, make sure you always have in the program description.
JH (26:01):
You have the program description and then the takeaways. Mm-Hmm.
JH (26:50):
And they can send ’em this PDF that’s a one page about how to create culture in an organization and kind of more about what you present. So that’s kind of the general gist of kind of the content that you should have on your profile, you know, really driven by the benefits. And then you asked earlier about the video and we find effectively that somewhere around 30 to 40 minutes of video total is like probably the most valuable. But we, we prefer really small segments. Hmm. So I wouldn’t ever put a raw video up there. It’s like 30 minutes of you speaking. ’cause That’s just boring Right?
JH (27:49):
Wow. And so, and, and really we found more success with short little video clips. So let’s say you know, a AJ or aj your speaker, right? Mm-Hmm.
JH (28:48):
Like, what’s all this stuff? And so if that’s not, if they don’t see you on the stage in the first 30 seconds of the video, they’re out. Right? So I’d always lead, and I don’t have any problem with voiceover videos, but, you know, if you want to take the first couple seconds and say, Hey, this is AJ Vaden leadership expert, and then show you on stage where you’re delivering content, that’s where the value comes. And that’s really what they want to see. They want to see you delivering your content, how you interact with the audience, if they’re engaged with you less about the content itself and more how you’re working with the audience. And then secondly comes the content, right? And so that’s where, if aj, you’re a, a branding expert, they want to see the content. This is, this is AJ speaking on branding, it’s the video name.
JH (29:37):
And the next video might be, you know, AJ speaking on corporate culture or whatever, right? And they expect when they, when they listen or watch that, they’re going to hear a segment of your speech that talks about branding, about corporate culture or whatever, right? It’s not just somewhere in that 30 minute video or 15 minute clip. It’s, it’s in that two minutes. And you can obviously go longer than a two minute clip. But we found that we, in our system, you can have six topics, up to six topics. And so that would give you six individual videos that would show you delivering your content and with those particular topics. And that’s a really great way to do it. And then of course, you can also add other videos that would be like a testimonial video. So if somebody was interested in hearing testimonials, not just reading them, you can, you can go in and add those testimonial videos and, and of, and if you wanted to outta a sizzle reel. But in our system, you can set a primary video that always shows up on your profile and that particular one I, I don’t like making it anything other than something that you’re right up on the stage in the very beginning to catch ’em. So
AJV (30:52):
I love that. That’s what we, I think that’s really insightful about Yeah, it’s great to have a sizzle and it’s great to have testimonials, but that needs to be ancillary to the main thing being the main thing, which is you on stage, which is what this meeting planner needs to see first. Right.
JH (31:07):
And the interesting thing is that we’ve seen speakers do this and they create these little clips and you can be, so if you don’t have stage video and you can be just like, AJ is right here to me in the Zoom window, and and you can just say, Hey, my name’s AJ and I, I’m a, I’m a expert on corporate culture and when I come speak to you, we identify this, this, and this, and you audience will walk away knowing how to do this, this, and this. I mean, it’s just simple as that. Hmm. And it can be a video just like we’re on right now. And you know, it, it works out great. And and it’s something that can be shared on your own social media and on your own website and meeting planner really like that. And it can be even a marketing, we have a couple speakers that just did some marketing emails out about being an expert in whatever it was that they were an expert and that video was part of that email that they put out. So anyway, it just, there’s a lot of value in like, really specifically saying what you do and how you solve problems. You
AJV (32:08):
Know, I love that for the, the brand new speakers who are just starting out where, you know, so much of it as you hear, it’s like, you’re not gonna get booked without a demo video. And it’s like, well, you’re saying yeah, you can. Yeah. So I think that’s a, a really one hope inspiring for everyone who’s just beginning. But for those people who are just starting out going like, Hey, I’ve got my message. I know what I’m doing. I just don’t have any stage footage yet. I haven’t had that opportunity to get it filmed on stage. You really think doing something like this that’s just articulating what you talk about, how you do it, what the benefits are. You think that meeting planners are booking speakers that way?
JH (32:44):
Yeah. Well, a hundred percent. I know they are.
AJV (32:46):
That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s, I think that’s really hope inspiring for everyone out there going eventually you need stage footage, but you don’t have to have it to give back.
JH (32:57):
Yeah. Well, and the crazy thing is, is we all know people that have big names, celebrity figures, Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Sinek, whoever, AJ Baden,
JH (33:55):
And and anyway, but that, so that’s how we got him to get booked. But you know, the, the, the point is, is that that if you’re not a celebrity figure, which the majority of us aren’t then how do you get jobs? And it, it takes, it, it really takes the doing all the time. I think, oh man, I, I don’t remember who it was. It might’ve been I don’t know. I was listening to David Goggins I think one time, and, you know, he said to Grove something, you really have to do it. You have to be in doing it. And it’s all about the doing. And I’ve always remembered that as just like, it, you, you can’t, there, you can’t just like all of a sudden say I’m a speaker one day and not do anything to like build your business.
JH (34:46):
Right. You has, you have to do it. And so when you’re small, it means doing everything. And when you’re larger, it means you know, making sure that other people are doing everything right and that everything’s still happening and all the boxes are checked. So that’s, that’s what we’ve seen as we work with speakers and we’ve actually seen, I have literally seen speakers come and I’ve talked to that haven’t had one speech. They not even call them. Supposed they’re just learning about speaking to now they’re charging $20,000 a speech and they’re booked over a hundred times a year. You know, so it’s, it, it, it, it happens, it does happen, but it just ha you have to, you have to go and get in and do it. And that’s what people, they have to roll up their sleeves and get to work and it just doesn’t happen automatically. So
AJV (35:41):
Yeah. It’s, but it’s back to, it’s treating, speaking like a business, right? It’s like Right. Say you’re a speaker doesn’t mean anything’s gonna happen. Right. But you gotta put yourself out there and do the right things to get yourself booked, so. Right. All right. So I’m watching the time, and I know we have this a little bit longer, so I’ve got a few other questions here. So one of the things that I think we hear all the time at Brand Builder’s Group is how, how do you know how to set your fees? And so any insights around, doesn’t matter if like this is your first engagement, you’re just starting out, or you’ve been doing this a while. Is there any sort of thoughts, insight, or is there some magical strategy of how speakers should be setting fees?
JH (36:23):
Well, I’ve always heard this philosophy, it, it’s whatever people would hire you for is what your fee is. Right? And so it’s a sup, it’s a supply and demand thing. But in general we encourage new speakers to just get out and get experience, speak for free, get low paying jobs. You can start with like, rotary clubs are a great way, chambers of commerce are a great way. Like you can, you can really get out and get paid $50, a hundred dollars a speech just giving speeches. You just, you can’t I don’t know. I had a, I was talking to a guy recently that was a CEO at a company and he was transitioning over into speaking and, you know, he makes a good amount of money as a CEO and then came into speaking and felt like, well, I’m not gonna go earn a thousand dollars.
JH (37:16):
You know, it’s like, well, you have to then build your brand. You have to, you know, like you have to give, there has to be some reason that they would hire you for more than a thousand dollars. And so we kind of helped him recreate his what he was doing in a different approach and, and added more value to it by his experience as a CEO. And, but if you’re just starting out, that is obviously gonna be a lower fee. And so you just keep pitching it. And I’ve, I’ve heard this question a ton is when do I know when I can raise my fee? Hmm. And so that really comes when you’re getting booked enough of that fee that you feel like if I raised it, I’d still get booked and everybody’s different. There’s no secret sauce on fees. Unfortunately in my, in, from my experience start low, like if you wanted to start, like low range is, you know, 500 to a thousand, that’s really low range.
JH (38:17):
In, in our database of our speakers, you know, like a lower range would be like 2,500 to 5,000. That would be a good place to start. So if you, if you’ve spoken a bunch maybe for low fees and you’re trying to set some type of fee, you know, 2,500 is a good fee that p somebody would pay to get you to, to book you. And then like the 2,500 to five is a general good range. If you’re a, you know, if you’re like five to 75 is another good range, but like right around 10 is a, is a fee range that you see most speakers kind of ride around. You know, they’re, they’re booking 80 times a year 80 dates, and they have a pretty good business. And anybody above that, they either have some content or experience, they landed a plane on the Hudson River, they wanna race, they sold this business for whatever.
JH (39:13):
They have some reason that’s taking their fee, you know, to a higher level and or their content is just so valuable, right. You’re a Simon Sinek and you know, people will come just because of your content. Yeah. And that, and that’s a whole different thing, right? You, you know, those, those, those people are 50 to a hundred thousand a speech or not, or more. Right? And so it really depends where you’re at. But that’s, that’s that’s in general I think kind of the fee ranges that we see. And I really would just start with people, things like chambers of commerce and, and rotary clubs and, you know, volunteering free stuff. Just get some experience underneath you. ’cause You don’t want to go get somebody to say, yeah, I’ll pay you for 5,000 and you don’t have the experience delivering that speech and you don’t do a great job. And they’re like, yeah, not so great. You want all of your speaking experience, your, all of your bookings to build upon each other so that you can get references. Because that’s super huge in, in speaking as you want to be able to have testimonials to say, yeah, they delivered a great speech. And those also help in raising your fee.
AJV (40:28):
Yeah, I think that’s really, I think that’s really wise. And it’s, I think it’s interesting to hear, it’s like most speakers are around that $10,000 range. It’s like, if you’ve been doing it for a while, would you say that’s the most crowded fee range where that’s like, where it’s like, man, is there the most competition in that fee range?
JH (40:47):
In which one?
AJV (40:48):
The 10,000?
JH (40:51):
I would probably say five to 10,000 is probably the range, but probably more so there’s probably more people in the 7,500 to 10. They’re the, they’re the speakers that have figured it out. They have system in some place. They have they have a good database of, of contacts. They’re, they’re getting leads off the web. You know, they’re, they’re, they’re kind of well-rounded mm-Hmm.
AJV (41:49):
Yeah. And I think that’s really helpful of just going like, Hey, starter fees, you know, it could be as low as $500, but somewhere between 520 500 if you don’t have like, a lot of name recognition or credibility or, you know, books or content that’s gonna set a higher precedent. I think even having that idea for everyone who’s listening of going like, okay, like I thought my fee was gonna be 10,000
JH (42:48):
Some of it’s exposure too. I’ll give you an example. A local speaker here in Utah I had a youth group activity in my backyard and I had him come speak and it was, I don’t even remember what the topic was. It was just probably about achieving your very best or something to that effect. And he came and did it for free. ’cause He was looking for experience. Right. He was just transitioning into it. And that was probably eight years ago, and I just ran into him the other day and his fee is 50 grand. That’s awesome. And it’s all because of exposure. He got, he, I, I always thought he was great. He’s the same great guy now that he was then he has the same content, he’s better at it. Yeah. But he literally has the more exposure, he got more people like, wow, where’s this guy come from? And he just, it just, it just ballooned from there and got bigger and bigger and bigger. And now, you know, he’s 50 grand of speech and that’s amazing. Right. And that’s about eight years ago. Eight, eight years of work, and now he’s going from zero per speech to 50, and he’s still booked, you know, 80 to a hundred times a year. So
AJV (43:59):
That’s amazing. You know, but, but my favorite sayings is the more you speak, the more you speak. Yeah. Right. And it’s like, you just gotta get out there and as you’re, as you’re in, you know, a beginner mode doesn’t mean you’re a beginner in business, but a beginner in the speaking world, it’s like you just say yes. Right? You take the gig. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the Chamber of Commerce or, you know, the, you know, networking group in the back of Applebee’s. Like whatever. Right. You just say yes because you never know who’s in the audience. Right. And that’s always been our take. It’s like you just never know who might be there that can lead to the next event and who’s gonna be there that lead can lead to the next event. All right. So I’ve got two last questions for you.
AJV (44:40):
That was I think super insightful, especially for those in that beginner range and aspiring of going, like, what is a moderate price to start with? All right. So two last things. Who would you say is booking most speakers today? Or what topics are getting booked the most? Like, are there any industry trends of going like, Hey, like education is just like booking everything or ced, or are, or are there any topical trends that you’re seeing of going, Hey, doesn’t matter what, you know, year we’re in culture’s always gonna be top. Because I know for a long time there was like this huge rise in social media speakers but I’ve also seen that really go down. And then there was like, you know, diversity and inclusion speakers was really high, and then it’s kind of dropped off. So are you seeing any trends with like, industry bookings or topical bookings that we should know about? Yeah.
JH (45:36):
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this first. This is a roundabout answer. What percentage do you think a speaker hiring a speaker is in all the things that a buyer does a meeting planner does? What percentage do you think, where did that rank?
AJV (45:55):
Oh, maybe 5%.
JH (45:58):
What, okay. What, what priority do you think? Yeah. Oh no, 5%. Five percent’s good. I mean, that’s a good guess. The truth is, is that we did a recent poll with our database of meeting planners, and it’s 81% of event organizers said it’s in the top three things that they do. Wow. Is hiring a speaker. 81. 81% said that. And so the, the thing I want to bring up is that you know, speakers always, it’s, it’s a small thing. I mean, like booking an event or scheduling an event, you book the space. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (47:10):
Just like, as meeting planners or, and I think that’s fascinating. ’cause It’s like, I would’ve thought it probably would’ve been further down because it’s like, my gosh, there’s so many logistics to do these big events. Yeah, yeah. But it’s like, are there any trending topics?
JH (47:24):
Oh, right. That’s right. Yeah. So knowing that, that they’re, they are hiring speakers. I’m going right to our live statistics right now on e speakers. And the top topic that’s being searched right now in our database is inspirational. Hmm. Inspirational healthcare humor health and nutrition customer service, leadership. Those are some of the big ones. Women in business. Those are some kind of trending right now. I do know that corporate culture is huge. I mean, we, we get a lot of re inquiries about that changing the culture of, and it, and it has been since the pandemic because it’s unique environment, right. Culture is a big deal. And, and diversity, even though it has dropped off a little bit in regards to our focus of it, it’s still one of the top things that people get booked for.
JH (48:24):
Diversity and inclusion, equity inclusion, it’s all, it’s all super important. And, and anyway, so I, I actually was at a conference for speakers in Canada for the Canadian Speakers Association, like NSA in December. And there was a speaker that spoke about how we need to do better jobs as speakers of being diverse in our presentations. And this is, this is one of those things that you don’t really think about as a speaker. It’s like, I don’t speak on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I speak on these other things, but really you do, because we live in a world where there’s so much diversity in the audience that the things you say matter make a difference. Right. They do matter the way you address people. And I’ve even, I I, I took this to heart and because I say you guys and hey, you guys, and hope you guys are doing well and all of that.
JH (49:26):
And I, I know that’s changing now, right? But you can’t just say guys, and you can’t even even say men or women or ladies and gentlemen even. And it’s, it’s very specific. And so it, you wanna make a difference. As a speaker, I’d really dive into that and, and address how you actually present to your audience and what you can say and what you can’t say and, and make a difference that way. Even if you don’t speak on Mm-Hmm.
AJV (50:28):
Yeah. I think that’s wise. ’cause They’re like, you know, I thought that was interesting and I had jotted this on when you said it, it’s like inspirational as a top trending topic. But it’s like the truth is any speaker could make their topic inspirational. Right? Right. And it’s like, same thing with, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion. It’s like you could integrate some component of that into pretty much anything that you talk about. Right? Same thing with culture, right? And it’s like, same thing with customer service or experience. It’s like if you just focus on like, Hey, these are things that are important out in the business world today. These are what people are looking for, and learn how to integrate that into your message without changing your topic, then it really does make it a more well diverse option right. Across the board.
JH (51:12):
Yeah. And, and one of the things that we’ve seen where speakers are more successful is where they actually have an outcome that comes from their, their topic, right? So you’re solving a problem, there’s an outcome to your topic. And if you don’t already have that, if you don’t know what your outcomes are, then I would highly recommend that you look at that because you’ve gotta know what, what is the outcome that this buyer wants me to deliver on? What problem do they have and what outcome am I delivering? What am I solving? What problem am I solving? And if you don’t know that, and just say, I’m a speaker on this and, you know, hire me to speak, you’ve gotta talk about, you know, solutions and problems and you know, outcomes. And we’ve seen a, the speakers that focus on an outcome driven content Mm-Hmm.
AJV (52:08):
I love that outcome because
JH (52:09):
They’re actually solving the real problem. Right? What’s that?
AJV (52:12):
That outcome driven content. Yeah.
JH (52:15):
Yeah. They’re really solving problems.
AJV (52:16):
Yeah. And that is the hard work of making sure you know, the problem that you’re solving and are you speaking to that. And I, that’s all back to honing that craft of practicing that. And it’s like, sometimes you only figure that out because you’ve done this speech a hundred times, right? And sometimes it’s a hundred times for free, right. But the point is, is you’re getting out there, like you said earlier, and it’s like you’re doing the work whether you’re paid or not, you’re out there doing the work. Joe, if people wanna learn more about e speakers, where’s the best place for them to go?
JH (52:49):
Well it’s pretty easy. E speakers.com and there’s some dropdowns there for speakers on how you can learn more. You know, we you know, if you, if you contact us and tell us that you listen to this podcast, we can give you a free base account because we’re partners with brand builders and, and love these guys and they do great work and and we’ve gone through it Ourself has been amazing and, and they’ve changed some of the things and the ways we do things even so. But anyway, yeah, east speakers.com is where they can go and get a free profile and get started. And if you’re brand new, that’s a great way to kind of put a stake in the sand and say, Hey, I’m in the speaking industry. And if you don’t have a system in place and you are a successful speaker and if seasoned and you don’t have systems in place, we have great solutions for that and tie into a lot of the CRMs and financial software. And so we have, we have 24 years of business behind us, under our belt and most of the new features and system, the features that we work with and the benefits that we’ve come from or we’ve I guess that we, the benefits that we provide are driven by our customers, our speaker customers. They say, Hey, look, this is what I need to run my business better. And so we provide solutions and and tools for them to be able to run their business with them. So
AJV (54:17):
I love that. And that’s so super generous. So if y’all didn’t hear that, go to e speakers.com, mention that you heard about e speakers from this influential personal brand podcast with Brand Builders Group, and they will let you set up with a free account. So cool. So generous. Joe, thank you so much for being on here. And for everyone else, stick around, listen to the recap episode and then join us again on another episode of the Influential Personal Brand. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 457: 3 Simple Steps to Getting More Referrals For Your Business | Barb Betts Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
All right, today we are talking about referrals. And there are three things that I wanna talk about today when it comes to asking for and receiving referrals. Number one, if you wanna get referrals, the number one thing that you have to do is be utterly and undeniably convicted in what it is that you’re offering. Doesn’t matter what product service it is, you have to believe in it so much that it removes all fear, all hesitation, all anxiety. Anything that would prevent you from not telling people about what you do has got to be erased. And that really does come from believing to your core that what it is you’re doing, what it is you’re offering, what it is you’re selling, because that is part of it, is so helpful for the right person, right? For the intended person. You’ve got to be so convicted and believe in what you do so much that you can’t not tell people about it because you, you’ve seen it change lives.
AJV (01:06):
You’ve seen it spark growth, you’ve seen it cause revenue growth, you’ve seen it cause income, growth, whatever it is. But you have to start baseline level one, step one, with going, I believe in what I do so much that I will not, not ask for referrals. It’s like, I believe that for the intended person, right? Your avatar, that this is so helpful, this is so necessary that I will ask because I do believe that the number one reason that people don’t ask for referrals is because they’re afraid, right? I think the second reason is they don’t know how to ask, which we’ll talk about in a minute, but I do believe the first reason is like, people are like, oh, I just wasn’t top of mind. And I’m like, if you believe you have a life changing product or service, how is it not top of mind?
AJV (01:50):
If you believe that you’re the best provider in your industry, or the best provider in town, or the best provider, you know, how is it not top of mind? And so when people go, oh, I just forgot. And it’s like, you forgot that what you do can make a monumental difference in someone’s business or family or relationships, I don’t think so. And so I think a lot of that starts with getting back in touch with what you do, who you do it for, why you do it, and what are the, the, the payoffs of what you do. Like what does it do for people, right? So that’s foundation, that’s step one, because I know that if you don’t have that underlying conviction, the rest of this conversation is just words. It’s not gonna mean anything. And so it’s like, if you’re at that place where it’s like, I’m not asking because I’m not really in love with what I’m doing, it’s like the rest of this little clip is not for you, right?
AJV (02:41):
And it’s like, you gotta start with going like, no, I know that what I do means something. It matters to someone. And if you believe that, then the rest of these steps are really gonna help you. So that’s step one, an efforts and an effort to help you get more referrals and build a referral based business. You’ve got to believe, you’ve got to be convicted that what you do has the power to help someone else. Okay? That’s step one. Number two is you have to know who that intended, who is, right? And I think this is not a reason why people don’t ask, but it’s a reason why people don’t get right. It’s, you’re not clear on exactly who you want to be referred to. So that makes it difficult for you to ask clearly. And it makes it difficult for me on the other end, makes it difficult for me to give you anyone when you go, Hey, anyone who’s in business is a fit for what I do.
AJV (03:32):
I’m like, I don’t know. I know a lot of people in business, and so I don’t know how to narrow it down. Like my brain is going like, well, I know tons of people, right? But if you said, Hey, I work with high growth companies CEOs who are experiencing monumental growth. They’re in their first five years of business who are in this industry and this geographic area, I’m like, binging, binging, binging. It’s like, I’d rather know someone or I don’t, but I’m not left going, let me think about it. Which means I have no idea, and it’s not a priority for me. So it’s like you’ve got to be clear both demographically and psychographically of who it is that you want to be referred to. IE your ideal client, the person that you know, if you refer them to me, I’m going to blow their mind.
AJV (04:16):
I am going to make a difference. I am going to make sure that I take care of them. And they are going to be thanking you for this referral. So step one, you’ve gotta get convicted, right? That your product or service is going to matter to this intended person. The second thing is, you’ve gotta get crystal clear who is that person? What title do they hold or position? Is there an income specification, a GE geographic specification, an industry specification? What are their psychographic challenges? Like, are they high growth? Are they struggling? Is it life? Is it professional? Is it family? Like, whatever it is, is like you’ve got to be clear and you have to be able to articulate that in about a sentence, right? And so it’s like when you go, Hey, I am, I am trying to work with people who blink blank.
AJV (05:00):
I’ve gotta go, I know someone. Yeah, here, here’s who they are. You’ve gotta paint a mental picture for me. So it makes it easy for me to go, I know someone, right? And then that brings it to step three, which is how do you actually get that referral? How do you ask? And I just did this amazing podcast interview with Barb Betts, and I thought this was such a powerful, simple formula of how to ask. So it’s like, if you’re convicted right in what you’re doing and you know exactly who it’s gonna benefit, then step three is, well then how do you actually ask? Because I think that is one of the other fundamental problems of why people don’t ask, is they’re like, I just, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know how to ask. And so this is a very simple formula shared by Barb Betts on the influential personal brand podcast, which is, first thing you wanna do is say, Hey, I was hoping to ask you for a favor, right? So that’s the first thing is ask for help is
AJV (05:56):
Go, Hey, I have a favor to ask, or, I was hoping to ask you of a favor, whatever, whatever verbiage sounds good for you. But it’s, I have a favor to ask. I am really trying to get introduced or connected to people who blank. And that’s where you fill in your avatar. So the key to the first part is I’m asking for a favor, right? I need help. Second part is I’m really trying to, or I want to be introduced to, or I’d like to be introduced to, again, pick your words, but it’s introduced or connected. You’re not saying, Hey, I’d like to get referred to, or I’m trying to do business with, or send me some referrals. Or I’m looking for clients who it’s like, no, I’m really trying to get introduced to, or connected to people who are, and then fill in the criteria of your avatar.
AJV (06:45):
Do you know anyone that would be a good fit for me to be introduced to? Right? So then you actually have to ask, right? You can’t just leave it hanging of, Hey I’m really looking to get introduced to people, so, you know, let me know. It’s like, no. It’s like, Hey, do you know anyone who fits that criteria? ’cause I would love to meet them, right? So let me ask you a favor, right? Ask for help can I be introduced to or connected to? And that’s where you fill in Step two, you fill in your avatar, your ideal criteria, and then you actually have to make the ask, do you know anyone who fits that criteria? Do you know anyone like that that I could be introduced to? Do you know anyone like that that you could introduce me to? Right? So that’s where you get to soften the language and make it yours.
AJV (07:28):
But those are three simple steps that are gonna allow you to have the tools to go out and ask for referrals. Now, a quick other thing that I wanna share before I wrap this up is if you’re really struggling with all of this and you’re going, ah, formulas don’t work for me, steps don’t work. All this stuff is great, but I don’t know, here’s the simplest thing of all. If you want to get a referral, all you have to do is give one, right? And I’m not telling you to give referrals so that you get them, right? This is not a give to get thing. It’s like there is a, but there is a natural law of reciprocity at play that when you give freely, people wanna return it freely. And so if you’re struggling with like this whole process of building a referral-based business, which is the best way to build a business, by the way, then start with going, who do I know that I can refer you to?
AJV (08:19):
And just proactively go, Hey, I was talking to a friend the other day and they said they were looking for X and I immediately thought of you. Would this be a good contact for you? Right? Or just facilitate introductions. And at some pe some point, some the people are gonna say, you know what? Thank you so much. Is there any way I can help you? Is there anyone you’re looking to meet? And that’s when you need to be ready. So if this whole idea of asking proactively just isn’t your thing, I would encourage you to work on that. But if you’re in that boat right now, then the best next thing that you can do is just go, Hey, how do I open up my, my I almost said Rolodex. We don’t have
AJV (08:55):
Rolodexes anymore. I actually have never had a Rolodex. I don’t know why I thought about that, but I’m gonna open up my contacts and go, who do I know that I can start referring people to? How do I start facilitating connections? ’cause If you do that enough, people are gonna do it back to you in return. So again, the best way to get a referral is to be proactive and giving a referral. So here we are in a new year. It is time to build your business. And the best way to do it is through building a referral-based relationship-based business. And that is how you do it. You learn the art of giving referrals and asking for referrals, and it’ll become a business that you love.
Ep 456: Building Your Referral Based Business with Barb Betts
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. So excited today to have a good friend, Barb Betts on the show. And before we get started, and before I introduce her like I always do, I wanna let you know why you should stick around for this episode and also if you should stick around if it’s for you. But today is one of those episodes where it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are in your personal brain journey, what your business is, if you’re a beginner, if you’re advanced, it does not matter. This is an episode for you. This is universal. It is applicable to every single human because we’re gonna be talking about the power of relationships. And if you do relationships well, how you can use those to grow your business through. My favorite thing in the world, referrals. And it doesn’t matter.
AJV (00:50):
I don’t care what business you’re in most business today, regardless of what you hear out there online is not because somebody found you on a Google search. It’s not because they heard you on a podcast or on Instagram. Most business still today, yes, in 2024 is still done by referral. It’s because someone said, I know who you should meet. I know who you should go to. And that is because you have a great reputation. ’cause You have a great business. And also mostly because you told people about what you do. And please tell your friends, right? Those are referrals. That is the power of it. But referrals only happen when you have great relationships. And so if you wanna grow your business without having to spend paid traffic, money, or advertising, and you wanna have some good freeway of growing your business, then today, right now, this is the episode that you want to listen to.
AJV (01:41):
So now let me introduce you
AJV (02:27):
She is the CEO of re collective. It’s a boutique brokerage in Southern California, although I am trying to recruit her to Nashville, Tennessee. So we’ll see how well that goes
BB (03:08):
Oh my gosh, aj, thank you so much. I, I can’t tell you how much that introduction means to me. And I agree a thousand percent with every single thing you said. I love it when I’m actually talking to someone who gets it, and I don’t have to convince them to understand why they should listen to this message. So I’m so excited to have this conversation today.
AJV (03:27):
Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that I notice all the time even internally at Brand Builders Group, but also through a long time of doing sales training in my former life, is like everyone knows that getting referrals is a powerful part of your business. But yet there’s this hesitation, there’s this reluctance sometimes for people to do the hard work of asking for referral. And somehow we convince ourselves that meeting strangers on the street or on the internet is somehow easier or better than actually getting referrals from clients, friends, family, or whoever. And so I’d really love to talk to you about, like, as we kind of get started, is a a little bit about the mindset around, even if we know that getting and asking for referrals is one of the fastest ways to grow our business, why don’t people do it? Like, what’s the hangup here?
BB (04:19):
Yeah. Well, I love that. And it is, it is a thousand percent true. And I, you know, I’m in the middle of writing my first book, which I’m very excited about. And as I’m talking to these publishers, I’m telling them like, you know, every single business book out there, every single business book I’ve read, no matter what strategy hack, no matter what system they’re teaching somewhere in the book, it is bound to say at the end of a chapter. But you know what, it’s actually all about relationships. But no one actually tells you how to do it, right? Like, they all know that’s the foundation of every successful business, but very few know how to focus it and make it a priority and and really leverage those relationships. So to your question, what I would say is the issue is that people look at, well, if I’m going to leverage a relationship or ask for a referral from a friend or family member, I’m crossing that line.
BB (05:15):
I’m being salesy. I don’t wanna be pushy. And what I always say is, you will never be a pushy salesman if you’re making it about them. Number one, pushy salespeople make that about themselves. And the reason you are not comfortable asking for that referral, the reason you are not comfortable asking your friends and family is because you haven’t been given permission to do so by yourself. You haven’t built that relationship to a point where you have absolute permission to ask that referral. That’s really what it comes down to. Once you have that permission, once you’ve built up enough in that trust department with that person, you will have no problem calling up AJ and saying, Hey friend, I need your help. Can you do me a favor? And then it just becomes this natural byproduct. ’cause You know, you’ve built that relationship, a real relationship to the level where you get comfortable asking,
AJV (06:13):
Okay, so I love this. So I think this is really important ’cause I think a lot of people talk about building relationships in business, but no one really says, well, what do you mean by that? Like, what is a real relationship? And how do you know when you’ve crossed that threshold of now I have permission to go and ask for help, ask for referrals? Is it like a timeframe? Is it like, is there like some like checklist we can do here?
BB (06:40):
Oh my gosh, that’s so great. So first it starts with the foundation of what I describe as real relationships equal referrals, right? You’ve gotta have real relationships. What does real mean? Well, real is relatable. You engage, you are authentic and you listen. That’s how you build a real relationship. You’re relatable, you engage, you’re authentic, and you listen. And when you do that with enough people over time, you start developing those real relationships. I want you to think about any relationship you have right now, whether it be a friend, whether it be a family member, whether it be your best clients. You probably can go through that framework and go, wow, I’ve done all these things. I am authentic with them. I do engage with them, I do listen. And then it comes down to when you, when you talk about when are you ready to ask for that referral?
BB (07:31):
I like to te teach a simple framework that talks about how you have to make deposits before you make withdrawals. So I talked about that trust account. Right now, there’s no scientific formula, there’s no check the box, but it’s a feeling that you just know. It’s that feeling when you open up your phone and you’re not afraid to text AJ and check in on her and ask her for something or ask her for help, where you’re not afraid to pick up the phone and make that call to that person. And how you do that is you focus on making deposits. And once you’ve made enough deposits, it’s just like a good old bank account friend. You can’t go to the ATM if there’s no balance there to withdraw any money. And so that’s, it’s the same way with relationships. If you have not built up a balance in that, that relationship account, you can’t take any withdrawals.
BB (08:14):
You don’t have permission to ask. And it’s, it’s the, it’s the self-awareness we all need. I do it too, in my career that I came from, before I developed my keynote speaking career and my all my passions to do this, I would open up my phone to text a client and I would look and the last time I text them was a year ago. Hmm. So even if I wanted to ask that client to help me out with something I didn’t have permission to, and I knew it, versus my best clients who I engage with all the time, who I am there for them all the time, I have no problem. Again, calling up AJ and saying, Hey friend, I need your help. Can you help me with something? So really comes down to real relationships and building up that trust account.
AJV (08:58):
Okay. So this is a great topic ’cause I hear this all the time. It’s like, well how many people can you honestly do that with? You know? And it’s like, I even think about myself. It’s like, yeah, it’s like most of the people that I would probably go to to ask for referrals, I’m like, eh, it might have, it might be a minute since I’ve actually last engaged. You know? And so I think a lot of that is like, what are some tips of going like, Hey, here’s how you set up. Like these are the relationships you invest this amount of time in. Not, and again, not to get referrals, but it’s like, hey, these are vested relationships that I’m in gonna be intentional about. And what, how often should we be engaging and what does that look like? And, and then honestly just some ideas around efficiencies of going, when there’s so many things vying for our attention, how do we kind of put some blinders on and go, this is what I’m gonna do with this group of people.
BB (09:48):
I love everything you said. And it does come down to having a system, which is why I built the RELATE framework. And the relate framework starts with the relationship foundation, the relational mindset. It goes into establishing trust, leveraging your network, authentically engaging, taking thoughtful action, and then executing effective systems. That framework is the system. Now, we clearly in this short time in a podcast do not have time to go through the system, but I wanna focus on that LI wanna focus on how you leverage your network. Mm-Hmm.
BB (10:36):
So these are not just a bunch of information you’ve compiled over time inside that network, you have a bunch of people. And you’re absolutely right aj. We cannot focus on all the people the same way. We can’t stay in contact with all the people in the same way. And I have lots of strategies where you can stay in consistent contact for those, if you will lower level people in your database. ’cause What I teach is a ranking system. I teach you to rank your database, rank your relationships, just like we rank restaurants on Yelp and open table and do reviews. And it’s a simple five star system. Hmm. So once you develop that five star system and once you rank those relationships, then I teach a frequency formula for staying in contact with them. Because let’s face it, if I am one of your best clients, you should be in touch with me frequently.
BB (11:26):
If I’m one of your best relationships, you should be in touch with me frequently. And so when I teach the five star system, I teach also a simple frequency formula of five star people. Those are your advocates. Those are your walking talking billboards. You are in touch with them at least once a month. And please understand, these are not five minute phone calls. These are not long drawn out messages. These are simply aj Hey, thinking about you today, how are you and Rory doing? I saw you went on a Disney cruise. How was it? Looks like it was a blast send. That is a connection. Point four star people. These are your raving fans. These are the people that really love you, but they’re just not quite those, you know, referring type people that are constantly sharing you everywhere. Those people you’re in touch with every 60 days, three stars.
BB (12:17):
These are the people that you’re connected to. Those people you’re in touch with every 90 days. Two stars and one star is, two stars are your acquaintances. Every 120 days. And then one star. You can’t have a mailing list. You can have a bunch of information you’ve collected over time from potential clients and customers, but you don’t really know who they are. Mm-Hmm. Those people. That’s your mailing list. That’s your drip campaign or whatever other kind of marketing campaigns. So if you follow that and those advocates, those people that are most likely to refer you if they’re hearing from you 12 times a year in an authentic way where you’re looking to connect and deepen the relationship and you’re making it all about them, I promise you, when it comes time and you need something, you’re gonna be comfortable asking.
AJV (13:03):
Yeah. I love that. And I, you know, it’s interesting because I read somewhere that you, you had mentioned it’s like most people aren’t comfortable asking for referrals ’cause they’re not comfortable with themselves.
BB (13:16):
Yep.
AJV (13:17):
So, well, and I do think that’s true and a lot of, like, as I think through some of the people that I’m like, if you just asked for referrals, your business would be so much, you know, better in terms of how you feel about how things are going. It wouldn’t be so stressful. So what do you mean by that? It’s like when you think about if you’ve got a reluctance to ask someone for help, right? And in this instance for a referral, then there’s probably a disconnect with yourself. Like, can you walk us through that a little bit?
BB (13:41):
Yeah. It’s the r it’s the relational foundation and the, and the foundation of that is that you cannot have an authentic relationship with anyone else before you have an authentic relationship with yourself. And the reason I say that is because you have to know who you are. You have to know the value you bring to the table. You have to be confident in what you are delivering is something that people need. When people say, I don’t wanna ask my friends and family for a referral, I always turn it around on them in this way, let’s say you are an insurance agent and you don’t tell your friends and family that you need them to connect you to people who need honest advice, good, good plans, not gonna rip them off all the things. And then their friend goes and gets insurance from someone else and gets mistreated, isn’t well taken care of.
BB (14:36):
God forbid the accident happens and they don’t have the coverage they need that’s on you because you weren’t confident enough to ask the friend or family member to en you know, engage with you to deliver that referral so that you could take care of that person. So it all comes down to the confidence within ourselves and, and how we show up. And honestly, aj, most people are taught to show up as a salesperson. Hmm. They’re not taught to show up as who they are, which is why I love the work Brand Builders group does because it teaches people to understand who they are, to understand that they are their marketing department. It is your personal brand is the marketing of the future. And so you can’t have that be a strong marketing department if you don’t love who you are. Hmm. So it all starts with building that authentic relationship with yourself before you can start developing with others. It’s why the first chapter in the book is all about, we gotta shore up our house first, which is us before we can put any kind of system to work.
AJV (15:36):
Yeah. You know, that’s so true. And I can think of so many instances in my life where people have asked me for referrals, and it comes from a genuine place of I know I’m gonna do a fantastic job for them. Like, if, if you refer them to me, I will take care of them. Right. And it gives me a lot of confidence because, you know, the truth is, is people are asking for stuff all the time. Mm-Hmm.
BB (16:45):
I could not agree with you more. It all starts with us. It all starts with what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. Loving yourself, knowing that you are really good at what you do, and that you’re gonna take really good care of people because that’s who you are. And then the rest just kind of falls into place from there. But we gotta fix who we are first. I went through a very, how I kind of stumbled honestly across this is I went through a very authentic journey with my hair. Go follow me on social media. You’ll see all about it. And the next thing I heard from everybody was, Barb, you’re so much more confident now all my friends, you’re so much more confident now. And I’m like, I didn’t just put this hair on my head and become confident overnight that person was in me, that I had to learn to love that person. I had to let my own walls down. And you know what? I am more confident calling people now. I am more confident walking into appointments. I am more confident on this podcast as a result. But it’s because I fixed my relationship with myself first. That frankly, I didn’t even know I had a problem with
AJV (17:47):
No, I love that. And I think that is for mo for the, for the most cases. And I bet for the majority of people, the reason you don’t ask for referrals is probably one of two reasons. One, you don’t, you’re not completely convicted and what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, right. Because if you were truly convicted then you would be like, I can’t not. Yeah. I can’t not. Yeah. And there’s so many examples. But you gotta do that deep work. And sometimes until you do the deep work, you’re like, oh wait, what I do is awesome. Yeah. What I do is amazing. And I think a lot of people don’t give themselves enough opportunity to go, no, I do a great job. I do a better job than most. And that means something.
BB (18:30):
Yeah. I, you know, it’s interesting you say that because when I think back to my sales career, there’s so many times early in my career where I’m like, I should be helping more people. I’m really good at what I do. Why am I not helping more people? And I realize it’s ’cause I’m not asking for business. You know, people aren’t lying awake at night deciding and wondering how I’m doing in my business. You think they are, but they’re not. And most people want to help you. That’s why I love in my dialogues, I teach, can you do me a favor? I don’t know anyone who would call me that. I have a real relationship with always that foundation where if they say, Hey Barb, can you do me a favor? Then I’m not gonna be like, absolutely. What do you need? How can I help
AJV (19:13):
Ask? That’s so true. So I think that is like, that’s probably half of the people and then I think the other half of the people genuinely just don’t know how to ask. Yeah. Can we talk about that for second? We absolutely can talk about that. Let’s say you’re that person who goes, I know I deliver a bombshell product or service. I feel great about it. But I don’t really know how to ask. So I don’t, it’s like I want to, but what do I do? What do I say?
BB (19:40):
Well, let’s start with one foundational principle that we haven’t talked about yet. When you are asking someone for business, you are not selling to them. You are selling through them.
AJV (19:51):
Mm. That’s good. Like
BB (19:52):
One thing I wanna talk about, because that’s another reason people are like, well Myer, whoever it is, I don’t want to sell to them. I don’t wanna be a salesperson. You’re not, you know where I came from? I came from the real estate world. I have plenty of friends, family, and clients who are never going to sell their home because they love the home they live in. I’m not calling them to get them to sell their home. I’m selling through them to leverage their network. So when you’re reaching out to that person, it’s, Hey friend, hey aj, whoever it is, and you use those magic words. Can you do me a favor? When you say, can you do me a favor? You instantly have their attention. You instantly have their wanting to help. Then you say something to the effect of, can you do me a favor?
BB (20:36):
You know, and tell them something about what’s going on in your world. Like tell them why you need their help. Tell them you have a great new product you need to roll out. Tell them that the industry is in need of this. And then say something to the effect of when you come across. Because then you’re not making it like, I need that referral right now because Right. How have you ever been in front of a financial advisor that are famous for this, where you sit in front of them and they have a piece of paper and at the end of the appointment they slide it over and say, can you give me three names and phone numbers of people that could use my services?
BB (21:14):
Let’s not do that. But when you say, can you do me a favor? When you come across, insert what you want, you have to be specific about what you want. You can’t just say someone who needs insurance. You’ve got to be specific about what you want. When you come across someone who has a business and doesn’t understand how powerful their personal brand might be, who wants to leverage who they are, who wants to find out all the goodness about them, then I would love you. And then here’s the magic words. Don’t use the word referral. I have seen this time and time again where you say, I need a referral. And no one even knows what it means. How to do it. Like, do they have to be qualified? Do they have to be ready to go? Do they have to be ready to buy?
BB (21:57):
No. I just want you to introduce or connect me to them. Don’t say both words
AJV (22:48):
BB (23:00):
I always like to be clear, a referral is when I teach and train, I use the referral. Every other word. A referral is what you want for sure. Internally, it’s
AJV (23:09):
Not what you ask for is
BB (23:10):
What you ask for. And can you use the word referral? Absolutely. There’s something now if you’re talking to another business owner, they’re gonna know exactly what to do. But when you’re talking to this everyday person in the street, they’re like, how do I do it? When do I do it? And the other thing is, some industries are very locked tight in their rules and regulations. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (23:41):
So do you think it’s best to get quality referrals? Do you think it’s best to do it like on a phone call in person? Do you think it’s okay to do it in a text, an email? Like what are some of the mediums that’s most successful?
BB (23:56):
Love that. It goes back to my philosophy of any way that someone can respond to you. Hmm.
AJV (24:01):
That’s good. Meaning.
BB (24:02):
So I call, so when I’m teaching people how to do their activities and how to do their, you know, connection, strategy and their frequency formula, I always say outgoing connections. You’ve got to use your telephone for what it’s meant to be. Outgoing messages. Like you initiate the phone call, you initiate the text message. But here’s the other great part. We have so many other ways in today’s day and age. We have Facebook messaging, we have Instagram messaging, we have video chats, BombBomb, like there’s a million different ways you can do it as long as they have a way to respond to you. So for instance, I’m a big personal note gal. I believe in handwritten notes. I believe in the power of them. It’s another strategy I teach where I teach take thoughtful action. But they can’t, I don’t ask for a referral in a note.
BB (24:46):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:14):
I think that’s so good. And I think that’s true. It’s like if you call someone and you catch ’em completely off guard and they’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m not ready for this. But I think again, all of that is just having a plan and a system which just takes some thought and some intentionality. Well,
BB (25:28):
It’s having a real relationship. ’cause You know them. So I always use the example of my best friend in the world as a kindergarten teacher. So if I’m doing my lead generation calls, if I’m doing my connection plan at Tuesday at 10:00 AM and I call her, she’s gonna answer the phone ’cause I’m her best friend and she’s gonna be like, are you okay? Because she would know that, why would I call and bug her Tuesday at 10:00 AM Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:52):
That’s good. I think a lot of that she’s get, again, back to when you know someone, you know their communication habits and preferences and you know what works. Yeah. But I think that comes back to that real relationship of referrals aren’t technically from strangers, they’re from people, you know. So then here that leads to another question then. So if you don’t know someone exceptionally well that they’re a client or they’re a friend or a family member, like how do you go about generating, you know, potential referrals from those people? It’s like, do you have to be BFF with these people? Like do you have to be clients with them? So what’s kind of the dividing line there?
BB (26:32):
The dividing line is that that’s why you apply the connection strategy. When you apply the connection strategy. When you are being in consistent contact with them. You don’t ask them at that nine the first time you message them. You don’t ask them for a referral. You’re just simply trying to make their day. I have a mindset of your outgoing connection plan when you are doing your, if you will, see, to me, lead generation is not just asking for business. You’re gonna ask for business when the time comes and the time’s. Right? Mm-Hmm.
BB (27:10):
So you’re gonna respond back and be like, oh my god, Barb, it was so great. The kids had such a great time. And then you might say something like, Hey, how are you? Like, I always teach people, sometimes we are not taking the opportunity to ask when they’ve given us permission to mm-hmm.
BB (27:49):
Thanks for checking in. Hope you guys are doing well. Great. You log that. I’m a big tracker of activity. I’m a big believer of you cannot measure what you do not track, which is what I teach in the effective systems category. You’ve gotta track what you do. And so you’re gonna track that as a connection. Great. You made a connection to aj. Then 90 days later, if you use a good CRM like I teach you to 90 days later it’s gonna pop back up and tell you guess what time to connect with AJ again. You’re gonna connect with AJ again and before you know it, you’re gonna start showing up in their life so that you get that permission to ask for the business. But layered in throughout that entire process and throughout your entire database is a concept of you’ve got to be marketing to them.
BB (28:31):
There is still good old fashioned marketing. You’ve gotta have valuable marketing in front of them that positions you as the best in your industry. Because I believe that people do not do business with you till they know you like you and trust you. Everyone knows that. But what people don’t understand is there’s a gap between like and trust. Just because someone knows you and likes you, they don’t necessarily trust you as a professional till you give them a reason to. So layering And it’s like, it’s like a layering plan. It’s like a farmer. They don’t just, you know, water and get, you know, crops. They have to fertile this. They have to create the soil, they have to aerate it, they have to lay the seeds, they Right. It’s a layering effect. Yeah. So this system, relationship marketing does not work overnight. It, that’s number one does not work overnight. But what I can promise you is you start doing this now and you do this enough over time, you will get to the point where you have to do nothing else. Which is when you know you’ve really made it. It’s when your business feels good, you love doing it. You love who you’re doing it with. And so you can get to that point with, with, if you will, I wouldn’t say strangers, but people that don’t know you as well as you might know your other people. Yeah.
AJV (29:41):
And I love that. And I think one of the things that I kinda wanna circle back to, ’cause so much of what you’re talking about is as the person who is trying to generate business, you really have to know exactly who you wanna be introduced to. Yes. You have to know who you wanna be referred to. Like everything you just said, it’s like you can get to the point where you love what you do all day, every day. And you love who you do it with. Well, you know what, you get to create that. Yeah. Like if you’re getting referrals from people that you’re like, man, I just want 10 more people like you or 20 more people like you. It’s like they likely know them. Yeah. So it’s like, but we gotta know exactly who it is that we’re looking for. And I don’t think most of us spend, spend near enough time going, these are the demographics and psychographics of my ideal client. This is who it’s easy for me to serve, it’s natural for me to serve. It doesn’t even feel like work. But then I think the other part is, I think often many of us have so much scarcity mindset that we take any lead, any referral off the street. Yeah. And then we’re miserable. Yeah. And we have built a business full of people that we’re like, man, I I I don’t love this. Yes.
BB (30:44):
Well, I always say when those people come up in your database and you like want to avoid them like the plague, they’re not a relationship. You need to move them down in your database. But you are so correct. You have to know exactly who you are talking to and exactly what you want and what you said about I just want 10 more of you. I use that all the time. I always say, you know what, good people, no good people. Mm-Hmm.
BB (31:26):
Can you duplicate yourself? Who else do you know that’s just like you? And I promise you that works. ’cause They do know good people just like them. And then they also know that the other people that they’re not gonna refer you to because they’re not nice humans. Right. And so I think knowing who you are, and that’s why I love the work that Brand Builders group does, is that it really does help you niche down to who that ideal client avatar is. And it doesn’t mean that you don’t serve people on the peripheral. It doesn’t mean that they, if they fit a little bit outside of the demographic that they’re not still gonna be great clients. But it does help you get laser focused in who you’re looking for and asking for. For sure.
AJV (32:05):
Well, and for the person who’s being asked, when you’re clear, it makes it so much easier for me to go, I know exactly someone that you need to meet. I know exactly who you need to talk to. I just, like, as you were talking, I was thinking about two recent experiences that I had in different, you know, business, you know, kind of association groups. And both of them happened probably within a few weeks of each other. And this one woman was doing like a general ask in like a, a group setting for referrals. And her business was hyp hypnotic weight loss. And she was talking about how it’s like, this could work with anyone who has had problems of, you know, historical problems, of trying all these different fad diets and they just don’t work. And she was like, so anyone that you know who was looking to lose weight, I would love, I would love to hear from you.
AJV (32:58):
And I thought to myself, I know like a thousand people who’d like to lose weight, but it’s like, I don’t know anyone that would probably be like hypnosis. I wanna try that
AJV (33:47):
She has most likely put herself second for far too long. She is working and she is pulled in many directions. She has gone up and down with her weight for her entire life. This is someone who has struggled with it since childhood. She went on and on and on. And literally as she was talking, I was like, I know two people you have to meet. Like I have two people that I need them to meet you. And it was like Ashley was talking, it was like, I almost got emotional of going like, if you could genuinely help this person, I know it would be life changing for so many people in our lives. And the first one I was going, I mean maybe, but I don’t know. And this, and it was like, they were very similar conversations and they were both kind of non-traditional methods. But the second one, she was so clear on her and she, the way she described the person, it was like she was describing this person I know in my life. And I was like, how do I get them in touch with you? Like, what do I do?
BB (34:45):
She painted the picture in your brain. She painted the picture of someone that you know, and that you are absolutely crap. You have to be specific. You cannot be general. Because generality is going to get you nowhere because I’m not gonna be able to think of that person. I hate the word anyone.
AJV (35:11):
Maybe, maybe. I don’t even
BB (35:13):
Know if he has a business. Right? Like yeah. It, it definitely being specific. And then again, this is all about planting the seed. This is all about, you know, the person may not know someone right now, but you’ve now planted that who in their brain so that when they do come across that person, they’re gonna be like aj. The number one thing that, again, the valuable marketing, developing the trust, everything else that I teach gets you to, is top of mind awareness. Yeah. You wanna be the first person they think of in the category you serve. If you can get to that point with enough people, you, I promise you will have more business than you know what to do with and when you can figure out, and this is a whole nother conversation for another day, but when you can figure out who those referring type people are, like barbettes, when you get enough of me in the world who’s a natural born referer and connector
AJV (36:00):
Promoter. Promoter, yeah. You need promoters. Listen,
BB (36:04):
I just have to know who you want and I will connect you with more people than you probably not can handle. ’cause We all want more business, but you’re gonna have a very successful, thriving business. And it gets down to my number one outcome I love to create for people. I always say that salespeople, people in sales, whether you’re an entrepreneur, a business owner, or just on a sales team, most people love what they do. They love serving the client they love providing the value and transforming someone’s life. I don’t know any salesperson that doesn’t love the product or the service they sell. Mm. Most salespeople hate how they have to do it. Mm. They hate the generating of the leads the way they think they have to do it. And when you start learning to love building relationships and having all of this communication and conversations and everything that I’ve talked about and you love what you do, then you have a business that you wake up to every day and you are ready to serve, you’re ready to go. You live a better life. It’s just a better way to do business. It’s a better way to live your life.
AJV (37:07):
I love that. You know, and one of the things that you said certainly earlier that you just made me think of is knowing how to ask of the medium. Like as you were just talking, it’s like I was literally putting myself in the shoes of how often I get asked for stuff. Like, Hey, do you know anyone who you know builds websites can do blah, blah, blah? You know, all the time. Right. And I, one, I’m a promoter as well. I love to refer good talent because I know it’s really hard to find really great talent. And you know, it’s like made me think about this story I just shared about like these two, you know, totally similar but polar opposite examples and the first one. So they were just like, yep, you just give me names, emails, and phone numbers. And I was like, probably not doing that.
AJV (37:51):
But the second one when she was like, Hey, and I, I literally approached her and said, I do know someone how, how do I connect you? And she goes, actually, it’s never good to just connect someone that you think needs to lose weight. And I was like, that’s great idea. Don’t, I should not do that. So what, what do you do here? And she goes, I have a great strategy. Just tell me who they are. I will connect them on Facebook. I will tell them how much you were talking about them today and say, I was so impressed with the way that AJ talked about you. I looked you up on Facebook and wanted to connect. I’m like, I am. It’s brilliant. And it made me think about when you really know what you do, love what you do, you’re convicted in what you do and you know who you’re meant to serve. It’s like you also know how to approach the person. And it took so much pressure off of me. All I had to do is give the name and say Yep, that’s the person on Facebook that that’s them. Yeah. And she said, I got it from here. I’ll let you know. Yeah. And I’m like, could not be easier in the world. And that’s, I think a part of it. You’ve gotta make it easy for me to give you a referral.
BB (38:52):
Yeah. It’s, it’s so, you’re so true. That’s why I love the introductions and I teach in my world, I teach people just, you know, introduce us in a group text message and I’ll take it from there. Right. It very simple. I’ll take it from there. Just open up your phone and say, Hey aj, hey Barb, you guys need to know each other. This is who AJ is, this is who Barb is. I’ll let you two take it from here and let me do my work from there. It’s my job to then take it from there. It’s not send ’em to a website, have ’em fill out a form, have ’em take a questionnaire and then blah, blah blah, blah, blah. No, it’s as simple as find the mechanism to make the introduction. And if it is something as simple, ’cause you know, weight loss I would agree is something very personal.
AJV (39:30):
BB (39:30):
It’s kind of like me texting AJ going, aj you know what? You really could lose some weight and I’ve got the person for you. I know that sounds awful
AJV (39:40):
But I love that. It’s like, you know, it’s like it made it so easy and simple and I’m like, well that’s all I have to do. I probably could think of some more people. Right. And it’s like a lot of that is the easier it is that you make it, the easier it is for me to just go ahead and take action. Yeah. Right. And so I know that we’re almost outta time here, but there’s like two other quick things that I wanna talk about because I do think this plays a huge role and a lot of like how we just functioned today. And you mentioned it earlier when you said like, you know, Facebook and, you know, different social media. So how, how does social media play a role in the building, maintaining of relationships, but referrals? Like how does that all work together? What do you see?
BB (40:21):
Social media is the biggest gift given to anyone in sales in modern times. You’re just not using it effectively. Hmm.
AJV (40:27):
Love that.
BB (40:27):
First thing I recommend is you go through your list of relationships and you make sure you are connected to and following and friending every single person in your ecosystem. And then you start paying attention and then you start having conversations. I I, when I teach social media, I in the authentically engaged section of Relate, I always tell people there’s two ways to do social media. One is of course posting and posting reels and things like that. And that’s great to find people you don’t, stories is where you wanna live. For the people that you do know. Stories is the most effective way that I know that you can broadcast to your entire list of relationships in one conversation and stories, if they’re done correctly, start conversations. And I can’t tell you how many conversations, outgoing connections, dms I have done through stories. It is powerful because it’s the best way to stay in touch on, stay in touch with someone in their life.
BB (41:26):
‘Cause They’re sharing it and someone can stay in touch with you in your life and know what you’re doing on a daily basis. I always say the simple strategy of document your day, what do you do from morning to night? Four or five stories. It will start conversations you never could have imagined. So social media is a gift. It’s a gift if it’s used effectively. And it has to be a system. It has to be something you do consistently. Nothing that I have said is going to work if you do it one time. People are like, well, I did the referral thing, I did the introduction thing, I asked and I got nothing. I’m like, oh great. You did it one time. Yeah. I called them once a year. I haven’t called them in 13 months and they still haven’t given me a referral. I don’t understand why doesn’t work like that.
AJV (42:10):
Well, and I love that too. It’s like, and I think there’s so much of this is such a mentality shift, right? It’s a mentality shift of do you believe that your product or service actually helps other people? And if you do, then it is a requirement of you to tell people about it. Right? It it like, and it’s like, I I think that’s a mentality shift. I think what you just said is a mentality shift of like, social media is a gift. I cannot tell you how many people I hear on a daily basis. Like, social media’s the devil, it’s the devil
BB (42:45):
Because how you’re using it, it’s,
AJV (42:46):
Yeah. And I love that. It’s like if you treat it like a business tool, then it will help your business. Right? And it’s like, if you’re only following a bunch of like horrible newsfeed, well then it probably does feel like the devil, right? It’s, but it’s like all about how you use it. And I love that this approach of like, it’s a gift. It’s a way to maintain relationships, stay in touch with people, start conversations. So I, I would love to hear from you like what are some effective things to be posting in this relationship maintenance kind of realm?
BB (43:19):
Yeah. Well, I always say back to what you were saying, people are telling you everything you need to know online. The question is, are you listening? Mm. Are you going to social media to listen and engage? Are you going just to social media to promote yourself?
AJV (43:33):
Love it. There’s
BB (43:34):
A huge difference there. So what can you post? Well, you need to make sure, and, and you’re gonna love this because this is all goes down to your personal brand. Social media needs to be 90% about you as a human who happens to do blank. Mm-Hmm.
BB (44:23):
Yeah. And then when you get into the evening and the morning time, it’s a little bit more of your personal life. And when you start showing off what you’re doing in a thoughtful way, that’s when people start to get obsessed with what you do. And they learn very clearly what you do. And then if you a adopt a real strategy, and there’s plenty of really great social media experts out there and gurus that teach this, but if you adopt a real strategy where you’re actually creating content for your ideal client, now you’ve got this whole mechanism to generate other leads. ’cause I am not saying that relationship based marketing is the only way to do business and that you should drop everything else that you’re doing. I’m saying that you should get to the point where you don’t have to do mm-Hmm.
AJV (45:01):
BB (45:02):
But everything in business works if you do it consistently. You just have to do it consistently. So if you do a real strategy to start attracting some other business, some if you will, cold, not really cold, but people you don’t know, strangers, to your point now you’ve got this really healthy balance of focusing on relationships and driving some attention to. ’cause If I promise you, if you jump into the reals world and you know who your ideal client is and you position it correctly, I’m seeing some significant growth in businesses using reels and social media and combining it with talking to the people that you already know.
AJV (45:38):
I love that. And I think, again, everyone who’s listening, it’s like if you, if you’re one of those people that’s like, oh, I hate social media, it’s like shift your mindset around though this is a business tool. So treat it like one. All right, last question and the, the last couple of minutes we have here, and I think this is I think this will be applicable to a lot of people, and I, and I hope that this is helpful, but one of the things that I hear a lot is, well, my business is new, so I don’t have any clients to ask for referrals from. So what do I do then? So what is your advice to the person who’s in a new endeavor? They maybe don’t have any clients yet, and they’re going, yeah, I’d love to have a referral based business. But they’re, I don’t have any of that tangible proof yet. I don’t have any longstanding clients. What’s your advice to them?
BB (46:30):
You absolutely do have a database. ’cause You have a list of relationships. I don’t want you in any way, shape or form to think anything I said is just for past clients. It’s for your list of relationships. It’s for the people who already know you and like you. So that’s the first thing you’re gonna do. You’re gonna create a database of people that know you and like you, I always tell new business owners, the best way to do this is think about your getting married or think about your daughters having a baby or whatever it may be, or your holiday card list. Like who would you send an important thing in your life to? That is your database. That is,
AJV (47:05):
That’s good. I love that holiday list tip. It’s like they’re on your Christmas card list and you’re on, they’re on your database. They,
BB (47:12):
You, you have, I hope you’re not sending Christmas cards to random strangers. That would be weird. So you have a list of relationships, start there. That’s a
AJV (47:20):
Great place to start.
BB (47:21):
And what I want you to do is simply rank those relationships by level of relationship even though that you have not done business with them. Just who do you know the best in your life Down to who’s like, eh, that’s my husband’s colleague at work, their family. Mm-Hmm.
BB (48:08):
Mm. But I promise you, the foundation of people that already know you and like you and love you as a human or loved you in your past life are gonna be the first people to trust you if you give them a reason to. But you have to start giving them a reason to. And you also need to call those people, those five star people and just be honest with them. Be honest with them. Hey, I need your help. You know, I’ve started this new business. This is who my ideal client is. When you come across someone, can you introduce, start asking the question. You’ll be amazed if they loved you for who you are. They’re gonna love you for what you do now. And some businesses that might take more time, don’t get me wrong. Some businesses you just became, you know got your series seven and you’re gonna be a financial advisor. Well, yeah, before I refer you, someone with a million dollar portfolio, that might take a little bit more time. Yeah. But if you start laying the foundation now, you will reap the reward in the end. But you’ve gotta start with that list of people that already know you and like you. And then remember what I talked about? The gap. That gap you’ve gotta close into trust.
AJV (49:09):
Yeah. This is so good. This is so helpful. And if you’ve been a hermit for the last three years, it’s time to come out of your shell.
BB (49:21):
Be a secret salesperson.
AJV (49:27):
I love this. Barb, if people wanna connect with you where should they go? And I know that you have this awesome lead magnet. We’ll talk about it in a second. And if you guys are like a lead magnet, it’s like, yeah, if you guys want to get some really awesome free stuff, you can sign up for that. It’s a free lead magnet. But before we talk about that, if people just wanna like, follow you, get to know you, like, where should they go?
BB (49:49):
Instagram’s my jam. I love Instagram. I’m on Instagram every day in the story. So just my name at Barb Betts, also Facebook, of course, LinkedIn. I’m on all the platforms underneath my name. I love new conversations. I love talking to new people. So as they say, I know this is, I gotta figure aj, we, we together need to figure out another way to say, slide into my dms. Like I cannot stand that, but I totally appear in my dms, surprise me in my dms. Oh, wow.
AJV (50:20):
Yes. That’s awesome.
BB (50:22):
But yeah,
AJV (50:24):
Well, I would second like, follow on Instagram. What’s your Instagram handle
BB (50:27):
At Barb Betts?
AJV (50:29):
At Barb Betts. And we’ll put that in the show notes. I follow you on Insta, so I, I would highly recommend it. And then as I mentioned, there’s also this awesome free resource that Barb has made available. And if you go to barb betts.com/authenticity you can sign up for this free, awesome resource. So, Barb, tell us what it is.
BB (50:51):
Yeah. So it starts with back to that first pillar of the foundation, of the framework, the relational mindset. And it starts with, you can’t have an authentic relationship with anyone else. So you have ’em with yourself. So it’s my authenticity blueprint that will get you on your way to building that authentic relationship with yourself and goes through my framework on how to do that. So you can start showing up as the real you and start impressing and infecting everyone with all your goodness so that they’re compelled to work with you.
AJV (51:16):
Love that. So go to bar beds.com/authenticity. This has been a fantastic conversation. All of you should have a little bit of a new renewed enthusiasm for getting out there and getting referrals. And a stick around for the recap episode. We’ll talk more about it there. And we will catch you next time on the influential Personal brand. We’ll see you later.