Latest / Business Roundtable / Mastering Business Development: A Human-Centric Approach
Transcript
- 0:01Well, hello and welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast, where we have
- 0:06seasoned entrepreneurs and business owners share their years of experience with you, our listener.
- 0:12We're glad to have you back this week. So for those of you
- 0:18that maybe have not been listening for a little while, we'll give a brief
- 0:21introduction and jump into our topic tonight. My name is David Carr, one
- 0:25of your hosts here. My company is called steward or Business, where I
- 0:29focus on overall organizational health, helping small businesses and our teams grow in knowing
- 0:34themselves to lead themselves. And so I'm super excited to have Charlie join us
- 0:39back again. We missed you last week. We'm glad to have you back
- 0:41this week. Charlie, go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners. Thank
- 0:45you, David, thanks for having me back. Happy belated holidays and happy
- 0:50New Year as well. So my name is Charlie Chen. I'm the cybersecurity
- 0:57specialist of our group here, and I work as a Chief Experience Officer over
- 1:02at Intelisis and basically, our our commitment is to deliver peace of mind and
- 1:07also all at the same time with a world class hospitality experience that you typically
- 1:15don't expect from it or you know, helped us type people. So looking
- 1:23forward to to diving in on the topic for today. So what do we
- 1:26have for today? Yeah, well we are getting focused on business development.
- 1:33We haven't really talked about that very much in kind of a specific narrow or
- 1:37a little of a narrow or niche Charlie that I really want to talk with
- 1:40you about because you and I met through a group called m and O,
- 1:42a networking group, and how we refer business to one another, and so
- 1:47I'd love to just pick your brain tonight and we can bounce back and forth
- 1:51as to But now I'm having there we go, Uh, I don't have
- 2:02any Yeah, no it's not you, Charlie. We've we for those of
- 2:07you that are watching, We're gonna try to have a couple other guests on
- 2:08tonight. It just didn't work out, which which is okay with Charlie and
- 2:12I are going to carry out the show tonight, which is which was fun.
- 2:14We're gonna we always have different guests here, which is fun to have
- 2:17and a different viewpoints and perspective. So tonight it'll be just Charlie and I
- 2:22having this conversation. But for me, one of the reasons I had joined
- 2:37m ANDO at the time was and nothing. And I think this still is
- 2:40carried forward. You're an active member in that particular group. But was the
- 2:44idea of you know, pushing it forward, playing it forward, if you
- 2:49will, for each other, and that's maybe sometimes counterintuitive to a business owner
- 2:54as to business development, and maybe just could if you you hear me,
- 3:07Yeah, it cut out for a good five seconds there. Oh man,
- 3:13this is I'm working remote, folks, I'm in traveling and I'm here in
- 3:16Orange County in data this week, and so hotel Internet may not be the
- 3:22strongest as I'd like it to be. But just again, Charlie, you
- 3:27know this idea of playing playing it pushing, playing it forward, looking for
- 3:31others. And I think sometimes businesses don't look at these network events or ways,
- 3:38or it's more about what can I get out of it? But this
- 3:40idea of this concept of playing it forward, and I think we'll have We're
- 3:46gonna have Luke join us here too tonight. I'm gonna have you just got
- 3:50in here, Hi, Luke, welcome. We just started our conversation tonight.
- 3:54Okay, yeah, sorry, I'm a little late to the party.
- 3:58I'm not on Facebook all the time, so I see the messages. We're
- 4:00all good, we're we're recording, we're live, We're glad to have you
- 4:03here. And David's on hotel Internet, so it might be a little bit
- 4:14Yeah let's talk. Yeah we're back. So go ahead, Charlie. I'll
- 4:17let you talk before my internet freezes again. I'll get it. Well.
- 4:25So just to catch you up, Luke, we are diving into the topic
- 4:28of business development, and so David had posed a question because him and I
- 4:33had met through a business networking group for both anyway, So the key idea
- 4:42there is to play it forward, which is a play on the words pay
- 4:46it forward or the phrase pay it forward. And so the mindset shift,
- 4:50right, the paradigm shift is to go from what's in it for me,
- 4:54which is how we're normally wired to think as businesses, to you know,
- 5:00how how can I help my fellow members? And so that's pretty much.
- 5:06I think there's the quote quote that David likes to live by, you know,
- 5:12I'll let him share that in a second. But at the end of
- 5:15the day, regardless what type of business you are in, whether you're you
- 5:17know, B two C business to consumer, B two B business to business
- 5:23or Yeah, so at the end of the day, it's H two H
- 5:29human to human. So what that means is, no matter what type of
- 5:33business, we're in the human relationship business. So if we're in the relationship
- 5:39business, then the key is to build relationships and from there, people do
- 5:44business with those that they know, like and trust, right, And so
- 5:48if you don't know, like and trust somebody, how can you expect business.
- 5:53So that's that's at the end of the day, that's where it starts.
- 5:57And that's why we had that whole concept playing it forward is building that
- 6:02trust with each other through you know, helping helping drive awareness and potentially business
- 6:11or referrals or connections to each other's business. Back to you, David,
- 6:17okay, yes, thank you. I'm trying to see if I can teak
- 6:20my connection a little better. So the quote, the quote that you alluded
- 6:25to Charlie as a famous quote from zig Ziglar. It says that you can
- 6:28have everything in life you want if you just help enough people get what they
- 6:31want. I really enjoy that quote and embrace that quote. And so this
- 6:38idea of you know, playing it forward Charlie, I think is a very
- 6:42important one. And so you know that concept of that versus you know what
- 6:48I'm extracting or trying to get somebody out of it and being transactional, right,
- 6:55Yeah, And so that's kind of where we're starting with Luke tonight and
- 6:58this idea of business development and folks on good practices, and we'll talk about
- 7:00some things that are not good practices too, but just what's been your experience
- 7:04look in that kind of concept of kind of you know, playing it forward
- 7:10if you will. Yeah, Well, I think it speaks to the law
- 7:15of reciprocation. You know, really in many ways, you know, people
- 7:18are like like a garden. If you tend them and nurture them and you
- 7:23give, you're gonna in return receive and that's generally how it works. And
- 7:28so I think in my experience in both business collaboration relationships as well as the
- 7:33relationships with our clients, I found that if ever the paradigm gets to a
- 7:38place where you're trying to just see what you get out of it, it
- 7:43always turns sour and doesn't go in a in a helpful way for either person
- 7:46involved. It's like the saying I know that's probably heard of the organization of
- 7:53B and I or Business Networking International. They have a saying givers gain right,
- 7:57that's their whole motto, because the idea is to try and come to
- 8:00the room of potential referral partners and resources and see what you can give,
- 8:07what you can bring, how you can support others, and that naturally then
- 8:11comes back to you. So I think I've seen that rule. It's kind
- 8:15of like the law of sowing and reaping in a spiritual law. In many
- 8:18ways you have to plant seeds, you have to put out before you can
- 8:22expect something back. So yeah, I see that as something that it's easy
- 8:26though. Also I think one other thing that comes to mind is sometimes we
- 8:30can get locked into a mindset with where with some relationships may do really well,
- 8:35like naturally, we go to it with this attitude of what can I
- 8:37give here? How can I give service? But then we turn around around
- 8:41and go into a different type of relationship or environment and we have the opposite
- 8:46attitude. We're trying to look for what we can gain. So I think
- 8:48at least for me, something I have to think about and remind myself is
- 8:52that to bring that attitude every relationship, client, collaborative business part a referral
- 9:00partner, or a team member, an employee, whoever, they are bringing
- 9:05that attitude every relationship. How can I be of service here? How can
- 9:09I add value? How can I listen carefully and understand what's needed, uh
- 9:15to have that attitude in the entire sphere. And that's I think the challenge.
- 9:20Hmm, well you brought up some good points there, Luke. I
- 9:22want to build on is you said listening, And I think part of good
- 9:28business development is asking questions, you know, to gain understanding. And I'd
- 9:33love to hear from either of you, you know, if you share,
- 9:37And maybe I'll just start with you first, Luke, go to Charlie,
- 9:39but what are some of those you know, to let's listen to to what
- 9:43are some of those questions you ask folks to understand where they're at about what's
- 9:48working or not working, or whether you know what? Just what are those
- 9:50some of those things as you're curious that you has worked and they brought value
- 9:56and like have them open up and say, oh wow, either they see
- 9:58the value, they they see like hey, how you can help them,
- 10:01or that they can say like or I have somebody else that I know that
- 10:03I would think would be really helpful for you to talk to What are some
- 10:07of the questions that you asked to gain understanding? Are you talking about relationships
- 10:11in general or in dealing with well focusing in business development relationships and business But
- 10:16it could be, it could be. I mean, it's it's like we've
- 10:18chary I said, We're all humans at the end of the day, so
- 10:22we want to build relationship with one another. But yeah, just an example
- 10:24one of some people don't know where to start. So it's like feeling cold,
- 10:28awkward. What what would you suggest or what would you advise? Well,
- 10:33I think one of my favorite questions to ask in anytime I encounter with
- 10:37a client or I sit down with perhaps like I work a lot with investment
- 10:41advisors of state planning attorneys CPAs, do a lot of collaborative planning, and
- 10:46so when I sit down with either one of those people, I think one
- 10:48of my favorite questions to ask is what, in your mind, David,
- 10:52would it be a successful outcome of the meeting today? What to you would
- 10:58after we've been working together for a while would spell success and to you would
- 11:01be a great win in a great use of your time, what would you
- 11:03like to see? I think that's a great question to ask to put put
- 11:07the offer right back in the other person's lap and say, you tell me
- 11:11what good looks like. You tell me what an awesome outcome would look like,
- 11:15and that's what I want to make my goal. That's what I want
- 11:16to make my target when we work together. That's that's a great, great
- 11:20way to sort of set the tone in the relationship. Is a question.
- 11:22That's one of my favorite questions ask a clients. Sometimes people don't know glup
- 11:26to either they don't know what that actually looks like, and so that you
- 11:28can help them and ask them for deeper, deeper questions perhaps oh yeah,
- 11:33absolutely. Sometimes they kind of struggle with that question like that I don't know,
- 11:37I just need help or or I'm not really sure. I'm just kind
- 11:39of here to explore and see what comes out of it. And that's where
- 11:45then I think another next best thing to do is just ask about that person.
- 11:48Get to know them. Like you said, it's a human thing.
- 11:52It's about relationships, So get to know them well. Tell me tell me
- 11:56about your interest, tell me what how did you get to the to the
- 12:00business that you're in. Why do you have this steward your business company?
- 12:03Why is it important to you to help businesses? And the way you do?
- 12:05How did you even get here? Tell me the story. Ask people
- 12:09to tell you their story real quick, now, careful who you ask.
- 12:11It might be there for two hours. But I think that I think that
- 12:16most people just love and appreciate other people that care and want to hear about
- 12:22them, and so just asking about them, about their interests, about how
- 12:28they got to where they are, how they became an expert in whatever it
- 12:31is they're an expert in, and just be sincerely interested. And it happens
- 12:35pretty naturally when you when you have that sincere interest. So if you come
- 12:39to the to the table with that sincere interest, those questions I think come
- 12:43pretty naturally. Act like an investigator with sincere curiosity. So I like that.
- 12:50I like that. I like that thing. How about you, Charlie,
- 12:54what comes to mind? Or quote some question a question you may ask.
- 12:58Yeah, I I definitely like Luke's question of you know, what does
- 13:03success look like? And I mean that's a good place to start, because
- 13:05if you don't know what where you're going, how how are you going to
- 13:11get there? Right? So anyway, So that that's a great place to
- 13:16start. The other thing is just making sure that you get it, you
- 13:22know, you see here and understand them, right, That's that's the biggest,
- 13:26greatest human need, as Oprah would say, is to be seen,
- 13:31heard and understood. And so I like to use the SWAT questions or SWAT
- 13:35analysis questions s W O t uh finding out their strength, what's been working
- 13:41well for them? Uh? The W is for weakness, like their biggest
- 13:46challenge or challenges always for opportunities, what what what are they working on?
- 13:52What's their top priority right now? And then T is threats, right,
- 13:56what can what can get in the way of, you know, atually fulfilling
- 14:00on what they've set out, what they've set out to do. So there's
- 14:03some good ones that I use. Yeah, definitely, if you're stuck stuck
- 14:09on a particular topic, you can ask them any one of those areas exactly
- 14:13thinking about Yeah, I think that's great, And I think the idea is
- 14:20sometimes that sometimes we get stuck on this person these initial conversations. They this
- 14:28person may not be your client directly, but recognizing like you said, after
- 14:35you have those conversations, maybe for a while and you get to know them.
- 14:37One question I've used is or a practice using, is Hey, if
- 14:41this isn't something that's for you, we've talked through it, like you asked
- 14:43Luke, what would the wind look like? And this isn't quite a match?
- 14:46Is there somebody that you think would be a match, or there's somebody
- 14:50that I may be able to help now that we've had this conversation, And
- 14:54sometimes we forget to ask that question in business development, just kind of we
- 14:58wish them well. And I think as business owners taking pause and remembering these
- 15:03things and going back, oh, I didn't ask that question of them,
- 15:07and they would be happy to share with you because they just invested this time
- 15:11with you, and you've shared with them knowledge and wisdom and how you might
- 15:13be able to help them. And so as business owners that we remember to
- 15:18ask the question, Hey, is there somebody else that you would recommend or
- 15:22refer to me that I could help? Yeah? And I think I could
- 15:30go both ways too. The other side, the other way to look at
- 15:33that too is perhaps, like you said, maybe they're not a good fit
- 15:35for you, but you might know something. I might know somebody that they
- 15:41need that they can't that can't help them so if there's a client interaction or
- 15:45something like that. And we have a very team based approach, so that
- 15:50is something that I teach my team, and something that I focus on is
- 15:54to be of service, not just with the things I can personally do,
- 15:56but to connect them to other experts and trusted people with integrity that can help
- 16:02with it, help them the things perhaps I don't do. And the person
- 16:04I'm sitting across from really isn't a good fit for me, But I know
- 16:07someone that can help their their deeper need or their most important issue right now,
- 16:12and so you know, let me, let me make sure that introduction
- 16:15happens and someone who can help you with that, and make sure to connect
- 16:21them so that they can give they need. And that's another way pay forward.
- 16:23You're helping the person you're referring them to, You're helping the person who
- 16:27came to you initially, and you're going that extra mile rather than just saying,
- 16:32well, I wish you the best, See I can't help you're you're
- 16:34helping them solve the problem even if you can't solve it. So yeah,
- 16:37I think that's a great I think that's a great. Another reminder, Luke
- 16:42is I mean, and I've done this actually with I mean Charlie and the
- 16:45networking group we were a part of is I don't have nothing. I don't
- 16:48know. I mean, I don't know anything about it stuff. I don't
- 16:52do that kind of stuff, security stuff. And somebody starts talking about this
- 16:55stuff, I'm like, well, let me, let me do an introduction.
- 16:57And like you said, Luke or your collaborating you just mentioned at the
- 17:00beginning of Luke, your CPA's account. You with all these other groups that
- 17:04things that you don't do right, and you're providing a service. You're providing
- 17:11an opportunity to introduce this person to them. It helps them because they don't
- 17:15I don't know where I start with some of these folks. Can you get
- 17:18me a direction? And then the person that you're giving the referral to they
- 17:21appreciate that too. It's like, Hey, you're actually thinking about me,
- 17:23you're giving, you're bringing something to me, and you're not extracting or taking
- 17:27from me, if you will, like trying to get out of it from
- 17:33you. I love that that that you do that, Luke. Now you
- 17:37train your team to do that. It reminds me of the apples. The
- 17:41way they the culture that they've created where if they don't carry a shoe that
- 17:45you're looking for, they'll go and find the top three competitors that provide what
- 17:51you're looking for and provide that to you. And so that's that's pretty cool.
- 17:56So that's how you build trust where you're not just there for for what's
- 18:02in it for you, and you're there to truly be of service. And
- 18:07in that way, the next time they think of something anything remotely related to
- 18:11what you do, they're gonna come and ask you first, because they know
- 18:17that you're gonna take care of them no matter what. And so just for
- 18:21personal experience, client of ours I was thinking about what TV to get for
- 18:26her personal use and she called me on a Saturday and asked me, Hey,
- 18:32should I go with q let or oh li It? I didn't know
- 18:33at the time, so I just googled it real quick on my phone,
- 18:37and I think I gave her the perks, the pros and cons of each
- 18:40and I and I know she's health conscious, so I said, I think,
- 18:42oh, that's a better fit for you. So, I mean,
- 18:45I don't know all the answers, I don't have all the answers, but
- 18:48I can we can all certainly Google, right, So don't tell them,
- 18:52don't just send them away and say, oh, we don't do that,
- 18:56just help them out, right, we can all, we can all just
- 18:59leverage the magical Google and provide some service. Yeah, I like, we're
- 19:07coming out of the holiday season. And if you guys have never seen you
- 19:10know, it's an older movie and they did a remake of it. But
- 19:12there's a movie called Miracle on thirty fourth Street. If you have never seen
- 19:15that movie, it's a great movie. But that in that movie, there's
- 19:19a Santa Claus, the real Santa Claus, right, and he works at
- 19:23a department store and just what you're saying, Charlie, they don't have the
- 19:26toys that they're looking for, and he tells them where they can go find
- 19:30the toys, and the guys like, what the heck is going on?
- 19:33You know, the Santa Claus is telling our customers to go to another parent
- 19:37store. But then, like you said, the loyalty that comes from that
- 19:41and what you're creating, Luke, of you're creating what I call kind of
- 19:45a raving fans or a tribe in a good way of these people that are
- 19:49are because they know such a great positive experience that they had with you.
- 19:55Right. Yeah, when people, if you can, if you can create
- 19:59a real liflationship where they don't doubt your integrity and your sincerity to be of
- 20:04service, the rest just follows the especially. You know, in our business,
- 20:11we're dealing with financial planning. It's pretty important things, often very personal
- 20:15things, and we're talking about their financial future, and these are tough decisions.
- 20:19Many times there's competition or they want to compare you with other people.
- 20:23And one of the things that I know serves us the best to foster a
- 20:27great relationship and to make that go smoothly, is if we first invest in
- 20:33that relationship by just being a service wherever we can, providing free education,
- 20:37answering questions with nothing expected in return, and all of that. You know,
- 20:42it goes a long way. It goes a really long way to where
- 20:45they do get to that point where they trust just enough they go, you
- 20:48know what, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Give
- 20:51me the guidance. I want you to be my advisor. I want you
- 20:55to be the one I look to and I got a question. You know,
- 20:57I'm not going to second guess everything you say. I can to overanalyze
- 21:00and push back. Once you get to that point where you've proven them,
- 21:03Listen, I truly care about you. I truly am in this to provide
- 21:07the best possible guidance and solution for you. You come first, and once
- 21:11they believe that, everything else, all the other barriers, all the other
- 21:15issues pretty quickly melt away and it becomes a great relationship. Yes, well
- 21:19it's it's mutually beneficial. It's like you win and I will win. We
- 21:25will win together. But if it's and maybe we'll pivot here for a minute,
- 21:30because I think this is a great conversation, But I want to also
- 21:33caution people on the flip side of this. And I was talking to Charlie
- 21:37briefly before you came on here, Luke, But you know, the opposite
- 21:41of this is and I see this a lot, and now with artificial intelligence
- 21:45and some other things out there where I'll get a connection, which is not
- 21:51a bad thing. I love connections. I'm a big connection person on LinkedIn,
- 21:53Facebook, you name it. I like to connect with people and we're
- 21:57about building relationship. But when it's flips, it and transitional, so I
- 22:00connect with you and then the next thing it is hey, and I've got
- 22:03this offer to pitch you, and they're like, you don't ask questions,
- 22:06you don't understand about me, and you're pitching me right away. You're or
- 22:15even worse, not even just pitching us all on. Charlie, you made
- 22:17me feel guilty of sending a couple of emails. I didn't hurry from you.
- 22:19I sent you an email. I didn't hear from you. I know
- 22:22you're busy, you know whatever. I'm like, this is not the way,
- 22:27my opinion. I'm just giving you some examples, and I'd love to
- 22:30hear some other examples from you. Guys. Let advise people not to do
- 22:34these things because it actually hurts you more in using these technicts that I think
- 22:40now that people using artificial intelligence and other things great tool, but if you're
- 22:42using it, you know, tool is just a tool. If you're not
- 22:45using an impactive manner, it can do more damage than good. And so
- 22:52you know, maybe Charlie, just start with you first, and then Luke,
- 22:55but just some things that you have seen, and particularly Charlie, because
- 22:57if your IT background and where we're at with the computers and all this kind
- 23:02of stuff, what are you seeing as things to be aware of it.
- 23:03Don't get sucked into some kind of this in your marketing. Yeah exactly,
- 23:11Yeah, what you shared that that is exactly what doesn't work. And there's
- 23:18a there was an article by a thought later I believe his name is Josh
- 23:25Braun, I think, but he talks about by not having commission breadth.
- 23:30Right. So when you approach people in all of your communication, like when
- 23:36you use sleazy type of tactics like what you said of guilt tripping, this,
- 23:41that and the other, that doesn't you know, build trust that that's
- 23:45the opposite has the opposite effect. And so it's that's like the throw spaghetti
- 23:51against the wall and see what sticks approached, and so it's it's it's it
- 23:56doesn't build that that connection. And you may get lucky and find somebody that's
- 24:02you know, right timing, right place and whatnot who doesn't care and they
- 24:06just need to evaluate a solution. But then you you're just commoditized at that
- 24:11point. And so it's definitely about building that relationship first and identifying right,
- 24:19Like I mean, imagine you go to the er and they start just prescribing
- 24:25stuff to you or start doing doing procedures on you without identifying the issue first.
- 24:30That's essentially what's happening then with exactly Yeah, they get sued for millions
- 24:38when they do that, so uh, you know, just because people that
- 24:44do that don't have any repercussions legally, but you know they're going to shoot
- 24:48themselves in the foot by you know, losing out on potentially tens of thousands
- 24:55or you know. So absolutely, it's it's about identifying first. People don't
- 25:00care what you know and what you can do until they know how much you
- 25:03care about them, and so you got to first find out what's the situation
- 25:07first. And the same thing the Sall analysis, that's where I always start.
- 25:12It's first identifying where they are. If you don't, then you don't
- 25:17know how you can help them. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean sometimes
- 25:23we have a we have a solution in search of a problem, where like,
- 25:26well I've got the solution, but you don't even really know my problem.
- 25:29You're you're trying to sell me on a solution you need to do,
- 25:32you need to buy a list of That's that that in these industries, I'm
- 25:34like, you don't even know what I'm who I'm working with. You're trying
- 25:37to sell me lists of people to content right now. How about you,
- 25:44Luke, what's some experiences you've had in this like things to avoid? Yeah,
- 25:48well, you know what you just talked about is very common in the
- 25:51financial industry where people are very product centric, whether it's investment products, insurance
- 25:56products. You know, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts
- 26:00to look like an aile. And so hope you go around wacken things trying
- 26:03to make it happen. And we see it in every industry. You're trying
- 26:07to find a way to make whatever it is that you love to do or
- 26:11offer or sell fit, and so the conversation naturally is a manipulative one.
- 26:15You're trying to find an angle, and you're just kind of poking and asking
- 26:18questions not to understand, not to solve their problems, but to find your
- 26:22angle. And and that's a that's that's an insincere, disingenuous way to approach
- 26:27it, and people tend to pick up on it. So you see that
- 26:32in a lot of industries you have to really go there with no agenda.
- 26:36If you go in with an agenda meaning I'm going to do X, you
- 26:40know, almost to them rather than serve them. Uh, that's that's the
- 26:45wrong way. Uh. And especially in any sort of business where you're in
- 26:48sales, which basically every business is in sales and something. Every business is
- 26:52in sales, and so there tends to be that temptation to try to use
- 26:57clever closing techniques and use manipulation, to use all these processes to to force
- 27:04people into a position psychologically or otherwise. And uh, you know that's that
- 27:11you might get away with it. You know, you might make some sales.
- 27:14You know, like Charlie said, you know, he's kind of the
- 27:15spaghetting against the wall. You run the numbers, right then they talk a
- 27:18lot of sales. They talk about running numbers and you're enough people, You
- 27:22just get enough that will actually say yes and actually do your business. But
- 27:26like you said, you don't build a community that way. You don't build
- 27:29waving fans that way. It referrals that way. So it's a slower,
- 27:37more challenging build to take the time to build a relationship and to do it
- 27:41right. But it's a it's a it's a one that will have a compound
- 27:44effect in success because when you've planted those seeds and those roots start to grow,
- 27:48Uh, it begins to multiply exponentially because of that trust and that reputation.
- 27:53And that's where you do that build that sense of community where people start
- 27:56saying, hey, David is my guy. When you need help, next
- 28:00you call David, and you get people who are advocating on your behalf because
- 28:03they sincerely trust you and they will see you as a resource. And so
- 28:07it never happens when you're transactional. It doesn't happen when you're just trying to
- 28:11use the clothes or trying to sell the product. And that's that goes back
- 28:17to just going in there, even if it's something you can offer, trying
- 28:19to find out what their greatest need is in connecting with a solution where it's
- 28:22you or not. That's why you do it right. So yeah, there's
- 28:27a lot of ways to do it wrong as well. There's tefinitely a lot
- 28:32of ways to do it wrong. I like what you talked about here,
- 28:34Luke in understanding what they need and I think this is this is what you
- 28:40know I call your ideal client or your avatar, and this is where this
- 28:44is refined over time. A lot of business owners, when you first start,
- 28:48they try to sell to everybody and I think you make that mistake.
- 28:52Not everybody is your client. And there's a saying there's a gentleman named called
- 28:56Alice Hermosi who's he's really a couple of great books, and one of me
- 29:00talks about the niches. The riches are in the niches, meaning the more
- 29:04that we can niche down and address the specific concerns of our our ideal client
- 29:10because we know them, we know them very well. We're kind of usually
- 29:12it starts with us. We start, we are our own ideal clients.
- 29:15We started in a business because we knew we had a problem we had to
- 29:18solve, and so it's like, how do we solve that? So,
- 29:22you know, taking that time to get clearer on that and your messaging and
- 29:29to your point, Luke, what you're saying is in a program I've gone
- 29:33through with through my own mentor with Garage, your White and my wake Up
- 29:36Wayer program is what we call strategic seduction in a good way, meaning we
- 29:40have to community be really really clear on our messaging. Who are we there
- 29:44to serve? Right? And if we're not clear on that, well that
- 29:48that's we there. We can't you know, that's really incumbent upon us,
- 29:52and somebody hears that message and says, Okay, I want to know more.
- 29:56And that's meaning where we that's the point where ideally we get people I
- 30:02call capture permission. Somebody is basically opting in and saying I want to know
- 30:04more. They're giving you permission at this point to reach out to them.
- 30:08There's a difference between a person. There's a big difference there. Oftentimes we're
- 30:15pushing things where people have not said I want to know more. And that's
- 30:18again another mistake I feel depends on your type of market, but for most
- 30:22of us, it's not you know that where we're just pushing things out on
- 30:27folks unsolicited, Like I don't want to get on then email list, right,
- 30:30Like how do they get on this email list? I have a great
- 30:33example actually just came to mind, if you like, I could shore It's
- 30:37funny. I was at a business a business event, business networking event,
- 30:44and uh, there was this person there who marketing themselves as a like a
- 30:52speaking coach and a business coach, like a kind of a life and business
- 30:56coach. And it's been a speaker, speaker, or mentor or type person
- 31:00how to be effective in communication? That kind of thing, and we did
- 31:06this initial thing where we went around the room and each person had a quick
- 31:08thirty second introduction who they were, what they did, things like that,
- 31:12and that particular season in my life, this is many years ago. I
- 31:15was transitioning from one business to another. I had been focusing anything on business,
- 31:18insurance, things like that, and throughout my twenty years and plus in
- 31:23this industry, I've done a lot of different aspects of the financial industry and
- 31:26the insurance industry, and so I was focusing back in on retirement planning,
- 31:30wealth planning, things like that and some of the things we do. And
- 31:34many of the people in the room already knew me for the other thing,
- 31:37and so when I did my introduction, I said, hey, guys know
- 31:40me as this, but I'm now transitioning and this is my new focus and
- 31:42this is what I'm doing. And I gave them, you know, kind
- 31:45of the context. And so anyway, after the initial introduction, after the
- 31:49meeting went on and this one speaker coach person shared their thing and they were
- 31:55one of the speakers of the day, and then she came up to me
- 31:57afterwards and offered me a bunch of free advice and told me how terrible my
- 32:02intro was and how I shouldn't be, you know, mentioning two different businesses
- 32:07at once, because that confuses people. And then she's a complete She was
- 32:10like a guest to this group. She came in, and so she had
- 32:15no idea that most of the people knew me and that they knew what I
- 32:17did before. And then the reason I gave the two was for that that
- 32:22you knew nothing was a perfect you know, diagnosed before even testing anything.
- 32:25Kind of a malpractice situation. And it was so ironic because she's there to
- 32:30promote her ability and her skill to communicate with people and to coach people,
- 32:35and here she is, unsolicited, absolutely blowing it with me. I'm just
- 32:40like, you are the last person I want advice from now, because you
- 32:44couldn't have done that worse. You didn't come up and ask me questions,
- 32:46get to know me, find out what I'm trying to accomplish. You just
- 32:51threw a bunch of free advice at me and kind of condemned everything you observed.
- 32:54You basically pointed out everything I did wrong. I was like some of
- 32:59them. It was so funny, it was it was so ironic. But
- 33:01that's exactly what you're talking about. You go out there and you're this expert
- 33:05and whatever it is you do, and you just start forcing your advice or
- 33:08your services on everybody around you because you're trying to put yourself out there as
- 33:13whatever. And that's a great way to chase everyone away, you know,
- 33:17rather than going out to be a service and and let people come to you,
- 33:22let people ask for you, open and that kind of thing. So
- 33:24it was it was really funny. It was really really funny. And she
- 33:28tried to get me to come to her clinics to learn how to how to
- 33:30speak and how to do stuff with Are you kidding me? Yeah? I'm
- 33:36like, Wow, you're probably one of the worst examples I've ever seen of
- 33:37the very thing you teach. Right, recommend it, I was saying,
- 33:43you should recommend it. How her to read How to Win friends and Influence
- 33:46people? Right, no doubt. We had that book ready and pulled it
- 33:51out. Here you go, I go, do you favor right now?
- 33:53Man? Well, we want there's there's so much, but you could go
- 33:58in here. We're going to make this a little bit short us at night,
- 34:00just because we've got we've got some other commitments between our panel tonight.
- 34:05But I really like this idea of where we're going there. We're we're gonna
- 34:08be coming back to this topic for sure, and there's a lot more that
- 34:12we're gonna be talking about this year. We're going to continue the Business Roundtable
- 34:15podcast as we're going through this twenty twenty four. We're glad to have you
- 34:19Luke back for this week and we have different guests coming in and out of
- 34:22this roundtable. So those of you that are listening, please comment, feel
- 34:28free to chime in. We we are now posted not only on YouTube,
- 34:31but we have should be on all major podcast platforms to take a listen.
- 34:36Find it on your choice of listening platforms that you like. We're excited to
- 34:42continue to share that. But as we're as we're kind of wrapping up for
- 34:45tonight anyways, just last thoughts, Charlie, I throw it to you and
- 34:49then Luke and then I can I can close us out. But parting thoughts
- 34:52Charlie on this topic. Yeah, absolutely, I really like the story that
- 34:57Luke shared and it reminds me of basically the other side of that coin is
- 35:05always leading by example rights. That's what gives you the moral authority to be
- 35:09able to be telling you or advising other people on what to do and the
- 35:15solutions and whatnot. And so there was a story that I just heard today
- 35:20where there was a mom. She had her kid just loves candy. I
- 35:24was eating candy. This was back in Gandhi's time. And so she's like,
- 35:30okay, well, I know my son idolizes Gandhi. So I'm gonna
- 35:35walk you know, the long track to go see Gandhi and have Gandhi tell
- 35:39my son to stop eating so much candy. So they make the long track
- 35:44and then they go see Gandhi and she asks him if he can tell his
- 35:52son to not eat candy because it's bad for his health. And so Gandhi
- 35:57tells the mom come back in two weeks. And then so she makes the
- 36:01long track home, comes makes a long trip track again back in two weeks,
- 36:07and then Gandhi told her told told her son, Uh, I need
- 36:13you to stop eating candy. It's bad for your health. So the mom
- 36:15was like, what's going on, Like, why couldn't you just tell him
- 36:19that last time two weeks ago when we were here. Well, he was
- 36:22saying, two weeks ago, I was the same as your son. I
- 36:27was eating candy, and so you know, for me to advise him and
- 36:32tell him what to do, I needed to first be the change that I
- 36:36wanted to see in him. So that goes back to the leading by example.
- 36:40You if you're telling somebody else something and you're not doing it yourself,
- 36:45you're not leading by your actions, then have the moral authority to be able
- 36:51to influence. So that's the final thought example. Thanks Charlie. Thoughts Luke.
- 36:57As we're wrapping up the last thoughts here, we'll definitely be coming back
- 36:59to business development a lot here, but final thoughts here. That's a that's
- 37:02a great story, Charlie. I like that we talk a lot about that
- 37:07that I authority. I'm not sure if I have much to add. I
- 37:12think, you know there we could go off on a lot of different tangents,
- 37:15but uh, you know, I think this is a good start.
- 37:17Just coming to serve, I think is the premise here. Connect with people,
- 37:22build relationships. Don't shortcut that process. People take time. So take
- 37:28the time with people to build a relationship, to build the trust, and
- 37:32and play the long game, not the short game. Don't be short sighted.
- 37:37Be in it for the long term. And if you build that strong
- 37:39foundation, you can build an empire and have incredible success. But if you're
- 37:44short sighted, you're looking for the quick and easy way, you're always going
- 37:47to cut your own links out from underneath you. So you know, take
- 37:51the time, come to serve, and and that's that's the foundational principles to
- 37:57walk by. So I love that, Luke, thank you. Yeah,
- 38:00and I agree. And those of you that have been following on or you
- 38:02listen to this, everyone on, everybody that comes onto this podcast, I
- 38:08personally know I've met and I've known for some time. We've developed relationships ourselves
- 38:14and helping each other. So I can say very confidently reach out to any
- 38:17one of us. We will help you, or if we can't, we'll
- 38:20point you in the direction in which, like you were saying earlier, Luke
- 38:22will get you in the right direction. So if you're feeling stuck in your
- 38:25business, it doesn't have to be business development. It could be other areas
- 38:29financial it we talk about business and mergers, acquisitions, business resource specialists with
- 38:34so we've got a lot of different resources here. We're here, honestly to
- 38:37get back and give you and build those relationships. We believe firmly I'll you
- 38:42know that as we give them. Like you said, Luke, put that
- 38:44value out with that expectation that you're going to see, taste and experience that
- 38:49and then you're gonna really we believe that you would see value in wanting to
- 38:52work with each one of us. So that's the philosophy. I think everyone
- 38:55that you guys here, if you shared, and we've had others that have
- 38:59been on this podcast, that's why we started this as a way to get
- 39:00back and to show and give values. So I appreciate you guys taking time
- 39:05out tonight to be a part of this podcast. We'll be back again next
- 39:09week. So I appreciate all of you guys listening in. Thank you Charlie
- 39:14and Luke, and have an amazing Yeah, happy new Year. All right.
- 39:19Thanks having to you guys,