Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / People Don’t Buy Your Product. They Buy You. With Jake Stahl

Transcript

People Don’t Buy Your Product. They Buy You. With Jake Stahl · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of Founder Unfiltered.
• 0:05
  My name is Bradley Jacobs. I'm your host, the founder and
• 0:08
  CEO of my lands. This show is about the stuff
• 0:12
  that founders don't talk about, the identity crisis, the into
• 0:16
  the psychology of the patterns, the honest conversations that
• 0:19
  actually move the needle. Today I'm joined by Jake Stall.
• 0:24
  Jake is a communication strategist, author, and creator
• 0:28
  of Neuro Strategy, which is a practical framework that helps
• 0:32
  leaders, founders and sales professionals read people in
• 0:35
  real time and show up with confidence in high stakes
• 0:39
  conversations. As CEO of Orchestrate and host
• 0:42
  of the Own The Room podcast, Love that name, Jake help people
• 0:47
  communicate clearly, close, decisively, and be taken
• 0:51
  seriously the moment they speak. His work blends behavioral
• 0:55
  psychology, social dynamics, and real world application.
• 0:59
  No scripts, no gimmicks, just precision.
• 1:02
  Jake, welcome to the show. Bradley, thank you for having
• 1:04
  me. This is really an honor, so
• 1:06
  thank you. You're welcome.
• 1:08
  I'm excited to have you. So all right, I read a beautiful
• 1:10
  intro for you, but like, give it to me straight, right?
• 1:13
  Like layman's term, Simple terms like What do you do?
• 1:16
  Yeah, so I'm more of a A presence, Coach Bradley.
• 1:20
  A lot of conversations, a lot of sales are made or lost before
• 1:24
  you even say the first word. So a lot of it is about how you
• 1:28
  show up, the signals you put off.
• 1:31
  I mean, the reality is we all have two profiles.
• 1:34
  We have the one we show everybody, the one whose hair we
• 1:37
  comb and we put on LinkedIn. But there's another one, and
• 1:41
  it's the one that fuels the captions over our head.
• 1:44
  What are we really thinking? What are we responding to?
• 1:46
  What fears are driving our decisions?
• 1:49
  And Bradley, if we don't talk to that version of a person, we're
• 1:53
  really missing the boat. So I teach people how to talk to
• 1:56
  that version of the person. So I'm going to put you on the
• 2:00
  spot here and I'm going to ask you for feedback maybe like one
• 2:04
  thing in a way that I hold presence well and one area I
• 2:07
  could immediately improve my presence.
• 2:12
  Yeah, of course. So you hold presence well
• 2:15
  through your smile and you sound authoritative and I like that a
• 2:18
  lot. The one thing I would say is
• 2:20
  move closer to the camera, take out more of the frame because
• 2:24
  that's showing you as having more of a presence.
• 2:28
  And one thing that really helps is a slight tilt to the head.
• 2:31
  And psychologists have not that much, just a slight right?
• 2:36
  Because one thing psychologists have shown is that exposing our
• 2:39
  carotid exposes an area where we have to trust other people
• 2:43
  because that's a real sensitive area for us.
• 2:46
  We lose that, we die. So by showing other people
• 2:50
  trust, we find that they trust us in return.
• 2:53
  And I would encourage this with your headshot as well.
• 2:56
  Headshots tell us a lot and people make decisions as to
• 3:00
  whether they're going to do business with you based on your
• 3:03
  headshot. So your headshot should be good
• 3:06
  posture, big smile that shows crow's feet, bonus for teeth,
• 3:10
  and has a slight tilt to the head.
• 3:12
  So my my slight tilt is missing in my headshot.
• 3:15
  Yes. Yes, wow.
• 3:17
  Thank you for the feedback. You're welcome.
• 3:20
  And for everyone listening, we did not rehearse that.
• 3:21
  I did not prep Jake ahead of time.
• 3:23
  So that was real time. He's just just throwing them in
• 3:27
  the fire. So I appreciate you, you going
• 3:28
  along with that. Awesome.
• 3:29
  Yeah, of course. OK.
• 3:31
  So that's specific feedback for me.
• 3:32
  It's really helpful. The average founder and I really
• 3:37
  focus on the work we do is helping founders be the
• 3:41
  presence, the voice of their brand.
• 3:44
  And I think it's such a powerful way to build a business.
• 3:47
  What are the biggest two or three things you see founders
• 3:51
  miss out on or get wrong as they're representing and growing
• 3:55
  their own businesses? Yeah, one of the biggest things
• 3:58
  I hear that founders do wrong and, and I did it for the
• 4:01
  longest time, is we get caught up in this.
• 4:04
  I'm not a good salesperson, right?
• 4:07
  A lot of founders are like, man, I just want to do my product.
• 4:10
  I don't want to sell things. I I'm not a good salesperson.
• 4:14
  So one of the things I work with, with my clients
• 4:17
  specifically as I say to them, tell me why you're not a good
• 4:19
  salesperson. And Bradley, they sell me
• 4:23
  wonderfully on why they're not a good salesperson.
• 4:27
  So I think we need to lose that conception that what we're doing
• 4:31
  is selling. A transfer of passion, a
• 4:35
  transfer of emotion is as much selling as coming up with a
• 4:39
  script. So we get this vision in our
• 4:43
  head of the car salesperson, the lawyer, somebody we may think as
• 4:47
  trying to just slime their way into our lives.
• 4:50
  And the reality is, as a founder, you're a genius.
• 4:56
  You came up with an idea that people actually need.
• 5:00
  Don't be shy about spreading that passion.
• 5:04
  But too often we slink back and we take this I'm not good enough
• 5:08
  approach. You are.
• 5:09
  You're a founder. You're doing what less than 1%
• 5:12
  of people in the US will ever be brave enough to do.
• 5:15
  Show it, get excited, talk about your product and let that do the
• 5:20
  selling. I might just have to listen to
• 5:22
  that clip every first thing in the morning, you know, like I
• 5:26
  feel fired up right now. I'm like, you're right, Let's
• 5:28
  not be friend of people do this. And it's hard and it's.
• 5:31
  And yeah, so I just there's almost a piece around.
• 5:36
  Remember where you came from and remember how far you've come.
• 5:40
  And like, how do you, what else do you recommend in practice
• 5:44
  besides listening to that clip over and over again?
• 5:47
  Yeah. One thing I would recommend is
• 5:50
  revel in your failures. And I know that sounds
• 5:54
  counterintuitive. I'll tell you a background story
• 5:57
  in a little bit about where I've come from and the the journey
• 6:00
  I've faced. But one of the things I used to
• 6:02
  think all the time was I failed. And I started to use that as an
• 6:07
  excuse for maybe I shouldn't do this.
• 6:11
  Maybe I shouldn't take the next step.
• 6:13
  And it wasn't until I started to make a list of what I got wrong
• 6:18
  and then writing down what I got right because of that failure.
• 6:22
  It wasn't until I started doing that that I started really
• 6:25
  reveling in my mistakes. Wow, I really screwed this up.
• 6:30
  But because of that, I did this really well.
• 6:34
  And when you start seeing how your mistakes can translate into
• 6:38
  successes, it starts to change the way your brain processes a
• 6:42
  mistake. So you'll make a mistake and
• 6:45
  instead of getting down, your brain actually goes.
• 6:48
  So what can I do because of that?
• 6:51
  And at that point and, and there have been many times I've wanted
• 6:55
  to quit doing what I'm doing. But when I started to change my
• 6:59
  thought process, I no longer look at myself as a product of
• 7:03
  my successes. I look at myself as successful
• 7:07
  because I'm a product of my mistakes.
• 7:10
  Yeah, well, it's there's also a framing I've heard around.
• 7:14
  We fantasize, we we glory size the the perfect path, right?
• 7:20
  Like, let's say if I hadn't made those mistakes, it wouldn't have
• 7:23
  that discomfort and that pain I would have.
• 7:24
  And then it's like, what would you have missed out on if you
• 7:28
  had this perfect path, right? You wouldn't have gone to like
• 7:31
  learn that skill or build resilience or be introduced to
• 7:34
  this person or whatever. It's kind of just another
• 7:37
  framing of the exact thing you're saying, like the
• 7:39
  mistakes, quote UN quote failures, right?
• 7:43
  They're basically what makes us successful.
• 7:46
  And Bradley, I love your use of the word framing because I truly
• 7:50
  feel, and I've said this to my wife, I said I want to start a
• 7:54
  course on just how to reframe because I think life is all
• 7:58
  about the framing. And how do we reframe that
• 8:02
  mistake as a success 'cause I will confess, I wrote a book not
• 8:06
  long ago and I put a whole chapter on reframing and I still
• 8:10
  don't do it as often as I'd like.
• 8:12
  I still have those moments during my day where I sit and
• 8:15
  it's like, damn it, I should have done that differently.
• 8:19
  And it takes me a minute to think, I really need to try to
• 8:22
  reframe this. But God, if we don't reframing
• 8:26
  in high school, I think people would really come out and and
• 8:29
  just live life a little bit better.
• 8:31
  Yeah, Yeah. I mean, and it is a practice,
• 8:34
  right? I mean even you, you're
• 8:35
  professional in this. And at the end of the day, we
• 8:37
  got to really remember to do it. And it leads me to my next
• 8:41
  question because we can talk in beautiful hypotheticals all the
• 8:45
  time about reframing and learning from your mistakes.
• 8:48
  And you know, all that like this is good and all like 100%.
• 8:51
  And every founder in the world knows what it feels like to
• 8:56
  quote UN quote, fail or make that mistake or get that
• 8:59
  rejection or get trash talked on.
• 9:01
  You know, just like we all know it can be this visceral
• 9:06
  emotional feeling that like it takes you out sometimes.
• 9:09
  I mean, I've definitely experienced it many times.
• 9:12
  And So what do you say to do in those situations when you really
• 9:17
  are knocked down emotionally? You just feel like shit, what do
• 9:22
  you do? There's a couple of things I do.
• 9:26
  The first is I am blessed with an amazing wife and marriage.
• 9:31
  So often times if I'm feeling upset or down, I'll sit down and
• 9:36
  have a chat with my wife and say listen, this is where I am.
• 9:40
  And I'll be honest, she's saved me a couple of times from
• 9:44
  throwing in the towel. So I'm not definitely not averse
• 9:48
  to that. I also have what I call my 5:00.
• 9:51
  So there are five people that I hang around with who are just as
• 9:55
  concerned about my success as I am.
• 9:58
  And I call them and we talk. And I would encourage everybody
• 10:03
  to pick their five, just those five people you go to.
• 10:07
  And if I call any one of them, Bradley, the first thing they
• 10:09
  say when they pick up the phone is, do you want me to just
• 10:11
  listen or do you want me to offer a solution?
• 10:15
  Love it. So a lot of times those people
• 10:17
  will really help me throw it. The other thing for me is music.
• 10:22
  I had a childhood where music saved me many, many times.
• 10:26
  And I don't play music, but boy I love to listen to the right
• 10:29
  playlist. So if I'm ever having a rough
• 10:32
  day, I escape with my playlist for a little bit and then I try
• 10:35
  to come back re energized. But I want to be abundantly
• 10:39
  clear, none of these are perfect.
• 10:42
  They work a lot of the times, but I still have many days where
• 10:46
  it's like I just need to push through through grid alone.
• 10:50
  You talk obviously a lot about presents.
• 10:51
  It's, it's kind of the, the main thing that what you do.
• 10:54
  And to me, there's a distinction between a real business, it's
• 10:59
  been around for many years and lots of growth.
• 11:01
  And they really invest in all these, the branding and the
• 11:04
  logos and the channels and the marketing, right?
• 11:08
  And then there's the, the early founder.
• 11:10
  And I'm just like, I don't have time or budget or energy to make
• 11:13
  everything perfect online, right?
• 11:16
  How do you think about the earlier, the first few years?
• 11:20
  Or I'm just small as a business where I need to look like I have
• 11:24
  my shit together because you, I want you to trust me and buy
• 11:26
  from me. But the reality is like, I don't
• 11:29
  want to spend a ton of time and money on that.
• 11:31
  Yeah, So I'm going to say something that, you know, if if
• 11:34
  you have any hate mail on this, please feel free to send it my
• 11:37
  way. But the reality is many studies
• 11:41
  have shown psychologically that the more human you are, the more
• 11:45
  sales you're going to make. So my encouragement would be you
• 11:50
  don't always have to have your shit together.
• 11:53
  Just show up and be human because people want to buy from
• 11:57
  people like them. And it's been shown, Bradley,
• 12:00
  over and over in studies that if people had to pick between
• 12:03
  somebody who's perfect with every word, suit and tie, prim
• 12:08
  and proper, or the person that comes in and stutters and spills
• 12:11
  coffee on themselves, the stutterer gets the business
• 12:14
  every single time because people can relate.
• 12:18
  So try not to be influenced by what you see on social media.
• 12:21
  All the perfection that's happening and Oh my God, their
• 12:25
  life is perfect. Screw that.
• 12:27
  Nobody's life is perfect. And the people who get the
• 12:30
  business are the ones people can trust and that they like.
• 12:34
  That's what it boils down to. It's never the price.
• 12:38
  It's never your suit. It's never completely your
• 12:42
  product. People buy you and they want to
• 12:45
  know that you make mistakes and you're human.
• 12:48
  So my advice to people just starting off, and I wish I would
• 12:51
  have had this advice starting off, is let the human sideshow.
• 12:57
  Just let it out. I struggled for so long, Bradley
• 13:01
  investing a ton of money and marketing and sales and figuring
• 13:04
  out the right verbiage, and it turned out people just wanted to
• 13:07
  buy me. I love that.
• 13:09
  So I want to go layer deeper here because what I hear you
• 13:14
  saying is I get to be me and my flaws and mistakes and humanness
• 13:19
  which build trust and basically gets people to buy.
• 13:23
  Right, 100%. And there's an element of
• 13:28
  everyone's a skeptical buyer these days.
• 13:30
  Like incredibly skeptical, right?
• 13:32
  For good reason, I'd say. There's a lot of bullshit out
• 13:35
  there. And so, yeah, there is.
• 13:38
  So I want to show up in my humanness, but I also wanted to
• 13:42
  be clear that I know what I'm doing and the product I built is
• 13:46
  going to solve your problem. It's thoughtfully done.
• 13:49
  I want to portray this some element of like, I can solve
• 13:53
  your problem. And so you buy for me and not
• 13:58
  only buy for me, you buy for me with confidence because you're
• 14:00
  going to spend 100 bucks, but you're going to get $10,000
• 14:03
  worth of value. So it's a no brainer, right?
• 14:05
  Yeah. How do I reconcile those two
• 14:06
  things? So here's it.
• 14:09
  In my opinion, this was the hardest thing for me to overcome
• 14:13
  the beginning. And I'm going to associate it
• 14:15
  because I think a lot of business owners go through this
• 14:17
  is we treat the people we sell to and the people we love and
• 14:22
  hang around with differently. So in other words, all the
• 14:25
  conversation with you, Bradley right now and I'll tell you all
• 14:28
  about Orchestrate and the Owner Room podcast and we'll have a
• 14:31
  great conversation, but something happens when we get on
• 14:34
  the phone with the prospect. All of a sudden our brain shifts
• 14:38
  gears and I have to be professional and I have to sell
• 14:41
  it just right. So what I found is that the
• 14:45
  sales process is the biggest illusion there is.
• 14:48
  We think we have to open and close and answer objections and
• 14:51
  present properly. When in reality, it's just talk
• 14:55
  about it like you'd talk about it to a friend.
• 14:58
  The way I work with with clients, as I say, OK, don't
• 15:01
  treat me as a prospect. Just tell me how you describe it
• 15:03
  to your mom or your sister or your wife or your best friend.
• 15:07
  That is always dramatically different than how they give it
• 15:11
  to a prospect. And what's amazing, Bradley, is
• 15:14
  none of these people have sales skills.
• 15:15
  They've never gone through a sales course.
• 15:18
  And yet when they're done with me about their product, I'm
• 15:20
  like, shit, yeah, I'm ready to buy.
• 15:24
  Let's do this. So I think the biggest thing we
• 15:27
  need to get over, and I still do this to this day, is stop
• 15:32
  separating your prospects from how you truly feel about your
• 15:36
  product. Get out of the cell mode, get
• 15:39
  into the passion mode and let that sell for you.
• 15:42
  Seriously, there's a huge difference between the two for
• 15:45
  most people. And you just answered my next
• 15:48
  question. It was going to be, why does
• 15:51
  that work? So maybe you can just double
• 15:54
  click on it because I think it's worth answering.
• 15:56
  Like why does just talking to at you as if you're my mom and
• 16:00
  telling you about, hey, like there's this cool product I
• 16:02
  built. Like why does that work?
• 16:03
  It works because you're not embarrassed and you're not
• 16:06
  trying to get to the point where you're trying to do it
• 16:09
  perfectly. If you mess up with your mom, if
• 16:12
  you mess up with your friend, you don't think a thing of it.
• 16:15
  It's like, oh, let me go back. That's not really the way it
• 16:17
  works. But your emotions are so tied up
• 16:21
  because you're not trying to sell them anything.
• 16:25
  When people say I'm not a salesperson, I consider that
• 16:28
  their best trait. They just Gartner just did a
• 16:31
  huge study a number of years ago that said 80% of people who buy
• 16:36
  do not want a salesperson involved.
• 16:39
  That's staggering. And if that's the case, don't be
• 16:43
  a salesperson. Take the fact that you can't
• 16:45
  sell as a compliment and use it. Be passionate about what you're
• 16:51
  talking about and just let that shine through.
• 16:54
  It works because people don't want to be sold, they want to be
• 16:58
  a part of the process. Right.
• 17:00
  And and that's what I heard in your last answer where you
• 17:03
  started to hit on it. It's that you allow your passion
• 17:06
  to come through like you started this business probably because
• 17:09
  you're passionate about the product or the customer, the
• 17:12
  solution, some version of that. And when you're talking to a
• 17:15
  friend that that just naturally comes through and people feel
• 17:19
  that energetically. And then that's where that trust
• 17:22
  is built, right? Yep.
• 17:24
  And I'll give you a great example.
• 17:25
  I had a client who was trying to get investment in his company
• 17:28
  and he was doing something that would help people with leukemia.
• 17:32
  And when he presented to investors, it was all factual.
• 17:34
  It's going to get this ROI and it's going to do this, that and
• 17:37
  the other. And I said to him, why are you
• 17:39
  doing this? And he said, because I had a
• 17:42
  best friend who died of leukemia and it hit me and I wanted to do
• 17:45
  it because of that. And I'm like, why aren't you
• 17:49
  telling that story? That's what people want to hear.
• 17:53
  And when he start doing that, he wound up getting an investor in
• 17:56
  his next round of presentations. People don't want to be sold.
• 18:00
  They want to know they're part of a solution and they want to
• 18:03
  help you be part of that. So Bradley, if I can get you as
• 18:08
  part of the process with buying my product and I can have you
• 18:12
  picture what you're going to look like inside of it, it's a
• 18:15
  huge difference than saying you should buy this.
• 18:18
  It's 100 bucks a month, go for it.
• 18:20
  I have a bit of a selfish question because my product is
• 18:24
  it's so it's one where I frankly want people to go through the
• 18:28
  product funnel without talking to me.
• 18:31
  And depending on where they came from, like they come from this
• 18:34
  podcast or my LinkedIn or whatever, they have a pretty
• 18:37
  good idea of who I am and my why and my purpose.
• 18:39
  And it's kind of built in some degree.
• 18:43
  How do I or how does a founder create that sense of familiarity
• 18:50
  and trust and the storytelling and purpose from a product LED
• 18:55
  growth perspective of like come through my funnel and feel kind
• 19:00
  of the essence of what we're talking about here so that they
• 19:03
  do buy? One thing I've found over the
• 19:05
  years is the more you can be in contact with somebody, the
• 19:09
  better the process goes. But nowadays with social media
• 19:12
  the way it is, there's a million ways to do that.
• 19:16
  Set up YouTube videos, put out YouTube Shorts, include a loom
• 19:20
  video in an e-mail that you send out, anything where they can
• 19:24
  feel who you are. I mean even your podcast, you
• 19:28
  know, if you advertise your podcast, they can get a feel for
• 19:30
  who you are. I think the big mistake we make
• 19:33
  is thinking we can just send out an e-mail to 10,000 people and
• 19:39
  we're going to get perfectly valid customers in response.
• 19:42
  Sure, the law of averages says you're going to, but are you
• 19:46
  really going to get the ones that you want to be talking to
• 19:49
  and that are going to be valid for your product?
• 19:52
  So Bradley, your podcast, this is great.
• 19:56
  I'm getting a great feel for who you are and you're getting a
• 19:59
  feel for who I am. But you can do that through so
• 20:01
  many channels and social media. The posting of videos is the
• 20:05
  great way to do it. And put those links in your
• 20:07
  emails. Put them in your, your, you
• 20:10
  know, LinkedIn profiles and in your DMS.
• 20:12
  But people need to feel you, not just read about you.
• 20:17
  Obviously, AI has been all the craze and all the talk over the
• 20:20
  last months and the last few years and doesn't seem like it's
• 20:23
  only going to accelerate, right? And so in your mind, and there's
• 20:27
  so many different ways you could take this question, but how does
• 20:32
  presence and building trust and the human element, how is it
• 20:38
  even? I mean, it's a leading question
• 20:39
  now, but like how's it even more important or in what ways is it
• 20:42
  important or different given this world of AI and the AI boom
• 20:46
  we've been seeing? Yeah, I think there's a couple
• 20:49
  of ways to look at that. One thing you're seeing a lot of
• 20:51
  people do is they're no longer using AI as just their main
• 20:57
  outreach, but they're using authenticity as a
• 21:00
  differentiator. I'm older than most people.
• 21:03
  Listen to your podcast, I think, and I am stunned at how you
• 21:08
  being you is now a differentiator, right?
• 21:12
  It just seems weird. Just be you and that'll make you
• 21:16
  different than 90% of the people.
• 21:18
  So I think that's a piece of it. But I also think we tend to
• 21:22
  forget when we use AI that although it's a great helper and
• 21:25
  I'm all in support of AI, but eventually you got to talk to
• 21:29
  somebody. So we need to remember that
• 21:33
  presence is just a huge part of it.
• 21:36
  And if you're using AI as your sole first shot at somebody, I
• 21:41
  think you're missing the vote. I really do.
• 21:44
  Yeah, that might end up being the title of this episode.
• 21:47
  Just be you. And that'll differentiate you
• 21:49
  among 90% of the people 'cause I mean, wow, what what a what a
• 21:53
  simple concept of just be you. And yet in this day, when you
• 21:58
  can honestly automate so much, I mean almost anything, the human
• 22:03
  element of just being you is a huge differentiator.
• 22:06
  Like what a concept? Yeah.
• 22:08
  And I really think AI is going to be like everything.
• 22:11
  The pendulum has swung really far one way, but I think
• 22:14
  eventually it'll hit in the middle and people will find a
• 22:16
  moderate way to use it without being the over reliant on it.
• 22:20
  Because you're right, it's not going away and it's fantastic.
• 22:23
  And when used properly it is a game changer.
• 22:27
  But if you're using it as your soul outreach, I really think
• 22:31
  you're asking for problems. Just my opinion.
• 22:35
  The other thing that I'm going to mention here is with AI, it
• 22:39
  seems like it's never been easier to start a business,
• 22:41
  launch a service, build software, right?
• 22:44
  Like so many more people are like, oh, I can use this to
• 22:47
  build something that I maybe couldn't have built two years
• 22:49
  ago on my own, right? And so if there's an abundance
• 22:53
  of new softwares and a lot of competing softwares, then how do
• 22:58
  you differentiate amongst all of your competitors, which now may
• 23:02
  be 5 times more competitors than you had previously?
• 23:05
  I, I heard a great quote about AI the other day.
• 23:07
  It says everybody wants to build their own AI and it the, the
• 23:12
  person said it's like cutting your own hair.
• 23:15
  It feels like a good idea and it feels pretty easy, but when you
• 23:19
  actually do it, look in the mirror, you're like, oh boy, I
• 23:23
  really should have gone to somebody who knows what they're
• 23:25
  doing. And I will say personally that I
• 23:29
  know a lot of investors and a lot of the investors are saying
• 23:32
  that AI products have become the single biggest source of
• 23:35
  disappointment for them because there's a lot of promises made
• 23:39
  that just aren't followed through on yet.
• 23:41
  So my encouragement for people looking for AI is do your
• 23:45
  research, try out free trials, but don't use it as your end
• 23:51
  all, be all, be human at the end of the day.
• 23:55
  And that's going to be your biggest.
• 23:57
  It's going to be your biggest sale.
• 23:59
  I won't say the name of the product but I was I've been
• 24:02
  using one that reviews my emails and it messages me which ones I
• 24:06
  should respond to and then it even drafts replies and then if
• 24:09
  I give it permission it will send the reply.
• 24:12
  So I workshopped a reply with the AI in iMessage and I said go
• 24:16
  ahead and send it and it sent it to the wrong person.
• 24:20
  Oh, no, yeah, no. And it's a bad look, right?
• 24:25
  It's like shit. And I, it's funny, the founder
• 24:30
  actually had emailed me like, Hey, you know, so excited for
• 24:32
  you to be a customer and, you know, welcome any feedback.
• 24:36
  And I was like, look, I'm going to have to, to not use this
• 24:38
  anymore. Like I can't have that happen.
• 24:40
  That is just not okay. And he was like, look, I totally
• 24:45
  understand. Thanks for the feedback.
• 24:46
  We're really working hard on it. Oliver fund you and give you
• 24:48
  another free month if you you're willing to keep using it kind of
• 24:51
  thing. And you know, it's it's kind of
• 24:53
  where AI is right now. It's your point.
• 24:55
  It's like that product is not ready for for prime time.
• 24:59
  And as a founder, I have a lot of empathy like it's you build
• 25:02
  an MVP, it doesn't work perfectly.
• 25:04
  And then you iterate and grow and learn and figure shit out
• 25:08
  like that's the journey to some degree.
• 25:09
  So. Well, and, and let's look at
• 25:12
  another piece of the AI puzzle. A lot of people are using it for
• 25:15
  business development. But what most people don't
• 25:18
  realize about using AI for things like business development
• 25:21
  are that all it is, is a modified search engine.
• 25:24
  It's kind of like Family Feud. It goes out, it picks the most
• 25:27
  popular answers. It delivers them back to you in
• 25:29
  a way that's great. But this year, 5 million new
• 25:33
  businesses will open. In five years, 90% will have
• 25:38
  closed their doors. So any business development
• 25:42
  direction you're getting was used by all of those people
• 25:46
  whose doors are now closed. So I would encourage people use
• 25:51
  AI but but use it discretionary. Don't use it as the final end
• 25:56
  all, be all source of your information 'cause right now
• 26:00
  it's phenomenal. But it's really when you search
• 26:03
  for information, it just brings back the most popular answers,
• 26:07
  and those popular answers may not be right.
• 26:10
  Yeah, I think it's, it's a dangerous proposition to say
• 26:12
  like it's going to be my brain, it's going to make decisions for
• 26:16
  me. It's like, no, no, no, like
• 26:18
  every single time, right? You get to use your own brain.
• 26:23
  It can be a really good thought partner, but you can just
• 26:26
  outsource your thinking and strategy to this AI that's
• 26:31
  using, as you said, right Information that 90% of
• 26:34
  businesses use to no longer exist.
• 26:38
  When I see people that are creating their AI board of
• 26:41
  directors and they had the AI talking to each other, I just
• 26:45
  think, I hope that works. I think that would be really
• 26:48
  cool if it works, but I've got reservations.
• 26:51
  I don't know if that's an approach I would take.
• 26:53
  And honestly I'm I'm egoless enough to think that maybe I'm
• 26:57
  missing the boat, but I would feel more comfortable being able
• 27:01
  to use it as a sounding board but not as a group of things
• 27:06
  that make business decisions for me.
• 27:08
  Yeah, yeah, All right. Well, we could go in an AI
• 27:11
  soapbox for a long time. Yeah, sorry, we kind of went
• 27:14
  kind of different path. I think it's really valuable
• 27:17
  frankly and just how founders are thinking about using AI, the
• 27:20
  caveats, right? So I think it's really
• 27:23
  important, especially when we talk about building trust and
• 27:25
  presence and you let AI represent your brand, it's not
• 27:28
  going to build a whole lot of trust that I'm going to venture
• 27:31
  to say so. That would be my guess as well.
• 27:33
  You noted something here that I'm really curious about.
• 27:36
  You shared that tension is usually seen as a negative, but
• 27:42
  you argue it can be turned into trust and movement.
• 27:45
  Tell me more about that. So one of the things people
• 27:48
  avoid is silence. They have an issue with two
• 27:53
  seconds of silence or three seconds of silence.
• 27:55
  And tension is where decisions are made.
• 27:58
  And the best example I can give Bradley.
• 28:01
  One of the biggest questions I get as a consultant is how do I
• 28:04
  deal with my price? It seems like I always have to
• 28:07
  give a discount or I always have to give a rebate.
• 28:11
  And the reality is we don't give enough time to create that
• 28:14
  tension with people. And tension is where ideas are
• 28:18
  born, decisions are made. So let's say my product is 100
• 28:22
  bucks. So if I say to somebody,
• 28:25
  Bradley, it's going to cost you $100 to use my product.
• 28:29
  If there's even a second hesitation, most business owners
• 28:33
  go, but I can give you a discount.
• 28:36
  Would $75 work? And when you land your price,
• 28:41
  shut up. Just be quiet.
• 28:46
  Let that tension sit, because that's where people are forced
• 28:50
  to make a decision and think about their options.
• 28:54
  So if we make things too easy, we tend to think that things
• 29:01
  aren't going in our direction. So create that tension, have
• 29:07
  people be forced to make a decision.
• 29:09
  And what's amazing is once you do this a couple of times and
• 29:12
  you see how well this works, you're never not going to use
• 29:16
  tension again. When the founder in the in your
• 29:19
  example, they immediately offer the discount.
• 29:23
  All right, set 100 bucks for 85 or 80, whatever.
• 29:26
  Yeah, what are they really saying energetically by doing
• 29:30
  that? Well, first of all, they're
• 29:32
  telling you that they marked it up quite a bit.
• 29:34
  But I think the bigger thing they're telling you, Bradley, is
• 29:36
  they're devaluing themselves. I don't have enough confidence
• 29:40
  to stand behind the price tag that's there.
• 29:43
  And I have told clients for the past umpteen years I've been
• 29:46
  training, it is never about price, ever, ever about price.
• 29:52
  It's about people's insecurities.
• 29:55
  It's about the fear people have of past failures when they spent
• 29:58
  this type of money. But it is never the price tag
• 30:02
  alone that's the problem. And as a business owner, we need
• 30:06
  to be confident in what we're charging.
• 30:09
  And I will tell you what's the single biggest thing I hear from
• 30:12
  business owners, and it's something I ran to early in my
• 30:16
  career as well, is you name a price and when you get even a
• 30:20
  second hesitation, you're like, but I could drop it, but I can
• 30:24
  finance it, but I can give you a rebate.
• 30:28
  So stop doing that. Let the pension sit and let them
• 30:33
  make a decision. You'll be surprised at how many
• 30:35
  times they go, yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 30:38
  And it's uncomfortable because of what we're doing.
• 30:41
  Yeah, we're opening ourselves up to rejection of of basically
• 30:46
  saying no, Bradley, I don't think you or your product is
• 30:50
  worth that much. And that's that's what I'm
• 30:53
  facing when I hold that tension right.
• 30:57
  They're not saying it whether it's worth that much, they're
• 30:59
  saying the value you're providing is not worth more than
• 31:04
  the money in my pocket. So the onus on us as a business
• 31:08
  owner is to make that value crystal clear and what the ROI
• 31:13
  is going to be and it's going to be better than what you have in
• 31:16
  your pocket currently. They actually did studies and
• 31:19
  they found that as humans, we tend to get very uncomfortable
• 31:24
  if pauses go beyond 2 seconds. We get kind of that fight or
• 31:29
  flight thing, and I think that's the downfall of many
• 31:33
  negotiations, the discomfort with silence and a business
• 31:37
  owner's inability to use silence to their advantage.
• 31:41
  Why does 2 seconds of silence make us so uncomfortable?
• 31:46
  Because it creates an unknown area in our brain.
• 31:50
  It's like walking down a dark alley.
• 31:52
  Inherently dark alleys aren't dangerous, but our brain fills
• 31:56
  in those spots. You know who's hiding behind the
• 31:59
  dumpster and Oh my God, there's no light.
• 32:01
  I can't see where I'm going. The alley does not get dangerous
• 32:05
  because light goes away. It gets dangerous because we
• 32:10
  know what changes may take place due to lack of light.
• 32:14
  We're the same way with silence. If we hear silence, we think
• 32:17
  they're thinking. They don't understand.
• 32:19
  We need to fill in the blanks. We get fight or flight and you
• 32:24
  have to understand it's equally uncomfortable on their side.
• 32:29
  So if you can hold it and let them think their way through it,
• 32:33
  you'll be amazed. It's funny because Asians look
• 32:35
  at it much differently. In Asian culture, 6 to 8 seconds
• 32:39
  of silence shows respect and that you're thinking about their
• 32:42
  proposition. So as Americans, we tend to look
• 32:46
  at silence a little bit different than our Asian
• 32:48
  counterparts. Wow, fascinating you're bringing
• 32:52
  to mind Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss one.
• 32:56
  Of my favorite books. So good.
• 32:59
  And I realized after reading that that I am someone, I'm a
• 33:03
  founder on a sales call and I will say the price and I will
• 33:06
  just keep talking, you know, first and now I, I catch myself
• 33:10
  all the time. I'll say the price and I'll just
• 33:12
  stop and just sit in the discomfort and like let them
• 33:16
  respond. But I found myself my God, I
• 33:19
  just would I would just it was it was a way through the
• 33:21
  discomfort, right? If I just talk, it's a little
• 33:24
  less uncomfortable. Yeah.
• 33:26
  And listen, I teach this stuff all the time.
• 33:28
  Bradley and I still get in conversations where I'll say the
• 33:30
  price and the the puzzle go 2 seconds and you can feel the
• 33:34
  beads of sweat coming off your forehead.
• 33:36
  You're wringing your hands underneath the Zoom, you know
• 33:38
  what I mean? So I don't know if we ever
• 33:41
  become immune to it. Yeah, last topic I want to cover
• 33:46
  with you is influence. And there's so many founders or
• 33:51
  even people locally here in my circle in Austin that want to
• 33:54
  become speakers, want to lead a movement, want to really
• 33:58
  influence a large group of people, whether it's, you know,
• 34:00
  women or whether it's business owners or whether it's on down
• 34:04
  the line, right. It can go long list.
• 34:07
  It feels really far away to think about someone who's or
• 34:10
  myself who's like, yes, I have a podcast and I have some sort of,
• 34:14
  I certainly have a presence, but I'm I'm not close to speaking on
• 34:18
  a stage in front of thousands of people.
• 34:20
  Or maybe, maybe I am and I just don't know it but.
• 34:23
  Have faith. Yeah, there you go.
• 34:25
  So what would be, I don't necessarily want to focus so
• 34:29
  much on like the tactical process, but how does a founder
• 34:34
  start thinking about and making strides towards from where
• 34:39
  they're at now in, you know, early on starting a business,
• 34:42
  Let's say to I'm going to be on stage in next years talking in
• 34:46
  front of 10,000 people. Again, this is just my opinion,
• 34:50
  but I have found this to work extremely well.
• 34:53
  I'm a firm believer, Bradley, that we network very poorly,
• 34:58
  that our version of networking is we go to whatever events we
• 35:01
  can, we talk to whoever we can, and we just, if we say our
• 35:05
  message long enough and loud enough, it's going to get
• 35:07
  through. I think it's completely the
• 35:10
  opposite. My recommendation is find two
• 35:14
  people who are willing to introduce you to two more
• 35:19
  people. And what we wind up doing then
• 35:22
  is, let's say I ask you, Bradley, you and I get to know
• 35:26
  each other and I say to you, do you know just two people that I
• 35:29
  could talk to and get advice from?
• 35:32
  And then from those two people, I asked them for two more
• 35:35
  people, but you notice I didn't say, so I could tell them about
• 35:39
  my product or I could tell them about my services.
• 35:42
  I said, can I get advice from? And what that does is that's
• 35:47
  better than flattery. Who doesn't want to be able to
• 35:50
  give advice? So when I give advice to
• 35:55
  somebody, I naturally want to hear what they have to say.
• 35:58
  It's the give and take. So you'll get to talk about what
• 36:01
  you do. But if you're constantly getting
• 36:05
  people who are worm leads, not just strangers, I can go in and
• 36:09
  say, hey, Bradley referred me and said you'd be willing to
• 36:11
  give your advice on this. It's a much different
• 36:14
  conversation than hey stranger, look at their name tag Hey Joe
• 36:20
  and ask what they do and have them tell what you do.
• 36:24
  At the end of the year. If you keep doing two people
• 36:28
  from two people from two people, that's 360 solid connections in
• 36:34
  a year. People you can legitimately go
• 36:37
  and talk to. And when you're talking, then
• 36:41
  you know what? My goal would be to get on stage
• 36:43
  one day and talk. But let them spread the word for
• 36:47
  you. Hey, I know somebody, Bradley,
• 36:49
  who may be able to help. Let me put you in touch with
• 36:51
  them. I call it intentional
• 36:54
  networking. I don't know if you've ever
• 36:57
  heard the story about the the farmer and the king and the
• 37:01
  grains of rice. Farmer saved the King's daughter
• 37:05
  and the king said what can I do for you?
• 37:08
  Anything. And the farmer said I just want
• 37:11
  a grain of rice for each spot on the chess board.
• 37:14
  And for each spot on the chess board I just want you to double
• 37:16
  it. So spot one is 1.
• 37:18
  Then you have 24816 and the King's like, Oh my God, I could
• 37:22
  do that no problem. Well, if you factor that all the
• 37:25
  way out, it turns out to be close to 60 tons by the end of
• 37:30
  the chess board. That's the same thing with
• 37:33
  intentional networking. Each person you ask, ask for two
• 37:36
  people, and eventually you get to the right people.
• 37:40
  But we tend to confuse numbers we talked to with results, and
• 37:45
  it's the quality of the numbers that gets you the results.
• 37:49
  Wow, I love that Jake and the the second part of this is OK,
• 37:54
  So tactically, that's how I get in front of this many people.
• 37:58
  And I asked for advice because who doesn't love sharing advice,
• 38:02
  right? From an influence standpoint, in
• 38:05
  order for me to speak in front of 10,000 people, I need
• 38:08
  probably even more than that to respect me, look up to me, want
• 38:13
  to hear what I have to say, right?
• 38:15
  I have to have influence over them to some, to some degree.
• 38:18
  So what is? What are the keys of that piece
• 38:21
  of this equation? Yeah.
• 38:24
  And and this goes back to we were talking about before is you
• 38:26
  just need to get your name out there.
• 38:29
  A podcast is a great way to do it.
• 38:32
  Being on social media, like creating YouTube videos that
• 38:35
  have advice or things that you can help business owners with.
• 38:39
  It's amazing how fast those channels grow.
• 38:43
  And when you get on more of those channels and you start
• 38:46
  putting out video clips to yourself and things you do and
• 38:49
  having people on your podcast, I wouldn't even advise writing a
• 38:53
  book. I just wrote one and it was far
• 38:55
  easier than I thought it would be, but it's a great way to get
• 38:59
  yourself out there as a resource.
• 39:03
  And the biggest thing is it's not going to happen overnight.
• 39:07
  Just take your time, gradually build your influence and you do
• 39:11
  that by getting out of as many channels as you can.
• 39:16
  Let me take a step back. Not as many channels as you can
• 39:19
  get on one or two channels that will definitely help you out and
• 39:23
  focus all your attention on those channels.
• 39:26
  Like if you're going to be podcasting, hire a podcast
• 39:28
  coach, somebody who's done it really well and knows how to get
• 39:32
  it built. If you're going to go on
• 39:33
  YouTube, hire somebody who's great with YouTube and marketing
• 39:37
  on YouTube, but don't be afraid to spend money on yourself if
• 39:40
  you really want to get your influence out there.
• 39:43
  And the ways of being like when I'm on these channels and I'm on
• 39:49
  the podcast, when I'm putting myself out there networking,
• 39:53
  what is what are the top two ways of being so that I'm
• 39:57
  building that influence with each person I connect with?
• 40:01
  I would say your best bet is to create a hook point, something
• 40:05
  that makes people want to listen in the 1st 2 seconds and then
• 40:09
  offering a couple solutions. So being useful.
• 40:13
  I have a a YouTube channel myself and I found that the
• 40:17
  videos that do the best are the ones where I create a really
• 40:20
  great hook in the beginning and then Ioffer solutions at the
• 40:24
  end. You know, be useful and more
• 40:29
  importantly, Bradley, be honest. You look at the people who've
• 40:32
  made it big on YouTube, they're unapologetic.
• 40:36
  They're even a little bit on the edge.
• 40:38
  They're not grossly inadequate, but you could tell they're being
• 40:43
  their own people, so I think that's another secret as well.
• 40:49
  Yeah, and that speaks to the human element that we started
• 40:52
  this conversation with. Like be fully you, not some
• 40:56
  polished version that you think people want to see.
• 41:00
  Yes. And I, I will tell you something
• 41:03
  that is directly relevant to this.
• 41:05
  I had an incident many years ago, three knee surgeries, I got
• 41:09
  hooked on opioids and I was really hesitant about putting it
• 41:14
  into my book, but I did. And one thing I get inevitably
• 41:18
  and feedback from people is, man, that was incredible.
• 41:23
  You're so authentic. It made me want to read the
• 41:25
  book. But in the brack of my brain,
• 41:27
  it's like, don't say that. That shows you're not perfect.
• 41:29
  You're you're not good if you do that.
• 41:31
  So authenticity is just everything.
• 41:36
  Yeah, Wow, so good. Jake, we get to wrap up, but
• 41:40
  I'll give you a second for a shameless plug here.
• 41:43
  I mean, if people like what you had to say, you know, how do
• 41:46
  they work with you? How do they find you?
• 41:47
  Yeah, give us, give us the plug. Yeah, so I have a podcast called
• 41:51
  Own the Room with Jake Stahl. It's on every podcast channel
• 41:56
  you can think of, YouTube, Spotify, etcetera.
• 41:59
  I have a book, Own the Room, How to Communicate, to be seen,
• 42:02
  heard and Respected. That's currently on Amazon, but
• 42:06
  if you want to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn and
• 42:09
  you can find me on social media. All of my handles on TikTok,
• 42:13
  YouTube, etcetera are own the room with Jake Stahl and feel
• 42:17
  free to reach out anytime. I'm more than happy to either
• 42:21
  bring on a new client or if you just want to chat and say hi for
• 42:24
  1/2 hour I'm open to that too. Awesome, and we'll include those
• 42:27
  links in the show. Not so people can find you
• 42:29
  easily as well. Jake, really just thank you so
• 42:32
  much for your time, your insights, your energy.
• 42:35
  I've learned a lot. Really enjoyed the and
• 42:38
  appreciate the feedback as well. I'm going to go get my headshot
• 42:41
  redone, but yeah, can't thank you enough for the time and just
• 42:44
  the goal you dropped in the last 45 minutes here.
• 42:47
  My pleasure, Bradley, and thank you again for the honor of being
• 42:50
  on your show. Absolutely.