Latest / The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast / Why Most Consultants Fail to Convert and How to Fix It | Dr. Kayvon K

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Why Most Consultants Fail to Convert and How to Fix It | Dr. Kayvon K · The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast

• 0:00
  DR. KAYVON K: When they ask, what do you do? Do not answer that question.
• 0:03
  Answer the question they didn't ask, which is what problem do you solve and for whom?
• 0:09
  If you can define and explain somebody's problem to themselves better than they can,
• 0:16
  they automatically assume you have the solution.
• 0:19
  DR. KAYVON K: I am better. I am good at this. No, we don't see that. We don't care.
• 0:28
  Everybody's saying that, but if you say you're different somehow, it works.
• 0:35
  Each one of those steps — attention, connection, conversion — connects to one of these keywords.
• 0:47
  You want to be unignorable, memorable, and referable.
• 0:54
  I call it the Italian gangster methodology. Bada-beem, bada-boom.
• 0:58
  RICK: Hey, welcome to another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning podcast.
• 1:05
  My name is Rick Meekins. I'm your host today, and in our studio we have Dr. Kayvon K. How are you, sir?
• 1:12
  DR. KAYVON K: I am having a great day. I'm jazzed with the keywords — relentless pursuit. That gets me going.
• 1:20
  RICK: That's what gets me going every day too. We're going to be talking about entrepreneurship, business development, and business in general.
• 1:37
  If you haven't already, I'd be so grateful if you would subscribe and hit the bell for updates.
• 1:44
  Now without further ado, let's get to it. Dr. Kayvon, you've had a colorful history.
• 1:50
  We want to hear where you came from, why you do what you do.
• 1:58
  DR. KAYVON K: After high school I went to medical school, studied medicine, and became a medical doctor.
• 2:07
  But towards the end of it, I realized I don't want to do this for the rest of my life.
• 2:16
  Empathy was too strong in me. The person who started wasn't the same person who finished.
• 2:24
  With clarity comes courage, I guess. I said, I'm going to finish this, get the degree, and close that chapter.
• 2:34
  And I am also very lucky because around that time there was our move to Vancouver, Canada, back in '98.
• 2:44
  New city, new language, new country, new opportunities. Let's reset, start from fresh.
• 2:54
  At the time, internet and computers was a new thing and a big thing. I was already good with computers.
• 3:05
  Even in medical school I had seven people working for me. We were doing computer jobs, data entry, that sort of thing.
• 3:16
  I started to teach myself web design, then HTML programming, then JavaScript and PHP and C sharp.
• 3:28
  I was building e-commerce websites. I really enjoyed that work. My freelance thing became my full-time thing.
• 3:38
  One day I found myself signing paychecks. That was the moment of clarity — I have a business now.
• 3:48
  I don't know anything about business. So I either have to bring that person, or become that person.
• 3:58
  I love learning. So I started to study entrepreneurship, business, growth — talked to coaches and mentors and read books.
• 4:10
  The company grew up to 12 employees, lots of small business clients, clients as large as Nokia.
• 4:20
  Then clients started asking for things we weren't offering — the early days of landing pages and opt-in pages.
• 4:33
  The company morphed into implementation of technology for online business.
• 4:45
  After a while, clients kept saying the technical work is fine, but we get the highest value from strategic conversations with you.
• 4:56
  I thought, well, I like talking. So I trimmed the technology, kept the conversations.
• 5:08
  I have been a business growth coach and consultant full time since 2006.
• 5:18
  In the past two or three years, I realized where I can be most helpful is what I call business development —
• 5:30
  getting new business. Until this is done and out of the way, the other things are either just nice or they don't matter much.
• 5:42
  So many people need to meet new people — a lot more new people. Lead generation. We need new leads.
• 5:55
  RICK: Let's go back a little bit in time. You were successful in two different iterations of your companies.
• 6:06
  You left the medical profession because you were too empathetic. What made these companies work?
• 6:17
  Going from just a freelancer to 12 employees and doing work for Nokia — that's not a small feat.
• 6:28
  DR. KAYVON K: My personal brand is — I'm a simplifier. The business is called Simplify. The website is simplifiprofits.com.
• 6:40
  But I didn't come up with that. It was the feedback that I kept getting from other people over and over.
• 6:52
  Every one of us has a talent, a strength that — because it's normal to us — we're oblivious to it.
• 7:05
  For all of your viewers and listeners: look at what it is that people keep saying the same thing to you.
• 7:16
  What is the topic they come to you for? That's your personal brand.
• 7:26
  The other thing I noticed — I call it the "speak human" talent. Every time I talk to my accountant, she speaks accountanese.
• 7:38
  That's the curse of being an expert. We speak in complicated language that our clients get lost in and overwhelmed by.
• 7:48
  When I noticed it, I really worked on speaking the language of the market — meet them where they are.
• 8:01
  RICK: I love that. One of my favorite questions to ask — what does entrepreneurship mean to you?
• 8:12
  DR. KAYVON K: It has a big element of solving a problem. Leaving the thing better than I found it.
• 8:22
  Running and growing a small business without creativity or innovation is just perfectly fine —
• 8:33
  we all need reliability and predictability and confidence. But the entrepreneurship part is the creativity, the invention.
• 8:43
  Doing it my way. What does each person bring to the picture? Which has to do with their personal strengths.
• 8:55
  Some of the work I do with my clients is build the business around how they are wired —
• 9:10
  because any expert we want to hire, we want to know what's the difference between this expert and that one.
• 9:25
  Entrepreneurship is getting things from the level that they were to a higher level — connecting the dots in a new way.
• 9:38
  RICK: One of the bigger things you mentioned was developing that personal brand. In a room of 30 people,
• 9:52
  20 of them are consultants saying the exact same thing. There's got to be a deeper level to differentiate.
• 10:05
  How do you guide people to tell a great story about who they are and what makes them unique?
• 10:18
  DR. KAYVON K: First, I realized this cannot be ad hoc. There needs to be a process to follow. A script.
• 10:30
  None of us have ever been trained how to be the perfect customer for IKEA —
• 10:42
  but they have that pathway with arrows on the floor. You follow the path. There is no traffic.
• 10:52
  The path ends at the cashier and we get out. Compare that to Costco — everything going in all directions.
• 11:03
  Every time there is a process to follow that I don't have to think — just perform — I get better results.
• 11:17
  For networking, the unorganized version is: people randomly talk, and they want to go through all the steps
• 11:30
  from meeting you to buy-from-me in the same session. It's me, me, me — and you feel waterboarded with information.
• 11:42
  The what-to-do is: speak human and talk about them. When they ask, what do you do —
• 11:54
  do not answer that question. Answer the question they didn't ask:
• 12:05
  what problem do you solve and for whom? Instead of saying "I'm a business coach," I can say —
• 12:16
  "I help experts simplify selling their expertise." It wasn't about me. It was my client,
• 12:26
  the problem they have, and my method. And when I say that, people have questions.
• 12:36
  Now they're asking me questions and I'm answering them instead of me giving them information.
• 12:47
  They have the control of the conversation — even though I am managing it.
• 12:58
  And they immediately find out if they are the right target market, or they know who the right person is.
• 13:10
  So many times they say, you should meet so-and-so. They make an introduction. That's what networking is.
• 13:22
  And speaking of the opposite — when we go to networking, people can't wait to tell you what they want to tell you.
• 13:35
  So I let them go first. I listen and I learn from them. Because if I go first, the whole time I'm talking,
• 13:46
  they're not listening — they're thinking about what they want to tell me. So I let them do that, get it out of their system.
• 13:57
  Then I go second, and I reframe it as: this is the problem I solve for this group of people.
• 14:08
  I broke it down into three phases: attention conversation, connection conversation, conversion.
• 14:20
  RICK: When you talk about developing that story about yourself — how do we get into a place where we can articulate that?
• 14:32
  DR. KAYVON K: When they say this is the problem I solve for this group of people, they can tell a story —
• 14:44
  a client or a situation or a conversation they had. Those are points for people to reconnect with you.
• 14:54
  For example: I help people take back control of their time for solo entrepreneurs.
• 15:05
  How do you do that? Well, let me tell you — I had this client that had over 100,000 unread emails in his inbox.
• 15:16
  Not all of them relevant. So there must be filters and sorting systems. There is a three-step process that we walked through.
• 15:28
  We were on a screen share. It took 20, 25 minutes. By the end, he had about 19 emails in his inbox.
• 15:40
  A wow moment. Then he could address them and finish them in the next half hour.
• 15:52
  He follows that three-step process every day to stay at inbox zero.
• 16:05
  RICK: I would explain to people I'm an operations and strategy consultant. I felt like I could never craft a story that made people go "aha."
• 16:18
  DR. KAYVON K: You just told me what you do. Reframe it as: what problems do you solve?
• 16:30
  RICK: I see companies getting stuck in growth because of disorganization — they don't have systems and processes in place.
• 16:42
  DR. KAYVON K: This is a very delicate part of the conversation that we usually forget.
• 16:54
  The feeling that I need to get technical because I want them to understand it better —
• 17:06
  but before they understand, they need to care about it. Before they care about the solution, they need to care about the problem.
• 17:18
  When you talk about feelings — they get stuck — that problem has three aspects: external, internal, and philosophical.
• 17:30
  Externally: what are the events? What are the things we want to happen and they don't? What happens that we don't want?
• 17:42
  Internally: all of that makes people feel overwhelmed, always behind. Then the philosophical —
• 17:54
  there should be a better way. I got sick and tired of seeing companies suffering and I wanted to change that.
• 18:06
  Then talk about an example. And people go — yeah, I have those in my company.
• 18:18
  None of the how is there. It's what's happening right now. This is preparing us for the how conversation —
• 18:30
  which is not the networking meeting. It's the coffee meeting that we get from the networking meeting.
• 18:42
  RICK: Does the superpower piece come into the networking conversation or is that more the coffee conversation?
• 18:55
  DR. KAYVON K: Your superpower exists in all three steps — attention, connection, and conversion.
• 19:08
  But knowing your superpower is the work we have to do by ourselves. Some people are thinkers, some communicators, some executors.
• 19:20
  I created a quiz on my website — Know Your Edge. It's a three-minute test, 12 simple questions.
• 19:32
  It tells you what your edge is and gives you recommendations — do more of this, less of that.
• 19:42
  At the networking stage, you don't need to talk about it. You need people to feel it.
• 19:54
  The first thing they care about is their problem. After that, the solution. After that, the provider — you.
• 20:06
  They have three questions in mind: why should I care? What's in it for me? Why should I trust you?
• 20:18
  If you can define and explain somebody's problem to themselves better than they can, they automatically assume you have the solution.
• 20:30
  Why should I care? What's in it for me? Why should I trust you? In that order. Don't go to the next until the first is satisfied.
• 20:43
  RICK: How important is it — and when is it important — to be passionate about the solution you offer?
• 20:56
  DR. KAYVON K: I do not go anywhere that I'm not invited or welcome. What's the point of spending
• 21:08
  fabulous, glorious energy somewhere that will land on deaf ears?
• 21:20
  What I have is not for everyone. So when it comes to injecting my passion, I want to make sure they want it.
• 21:32
  You know that by saying something and stopping talking. If they ask more clarifying questions — they're interested.
• 21:44
  If they say "nice to meet you" and walk away — it wasn't for them.
• 21:56
  The most impactful tool in the whole conversation — staying quiet.
• 22:08
  RICK: When we network and connect people, how do we keep track of the connections we're making?
• 22:20
  DR. KAYVON K: I'll share a lesson from medical school. There are two categories: signs and symptoms.
• 22:32
  Symptoms are the things the patient says — I have a headache, I feel tired, I have nausea.
• 22:44
  Signs are the things I find out through examination — I take their blood pressure and it's high.
• 22:56
  My way of remembering and connecting people is around the problems each person solves.
• 23:08
  When I hear signs and symptoms, I remember — when this, then that. When this, then that.
• 23:20
  If we create a spreadsheet around that, it works even better. Instead of assigning experts to people, I assign experts to problems.
• 23:32
  Because it's been a speak-human conversation, we remember conversations.
• 23:44
  I never remember anybody's pitch. But I remember a conversation.
• 23:56
  RICK: One of my friends always says, "Dude, you're not memorable." How do you make sure you're memorable?
• 24:08
  DR. KAYVON K: That's one of my words too — the middle one. The three keywords: unignorable, memorable, and referable.
• 24:20
  One leads to another. If you want to be memorable, first you have to be unignorable.
• 24:32
  Work with what you've got. I am six foot four. I am heavy. I have white hair.
• 24:44
  I'm easy to spot. But some people have red shoes, or the way they introduce themselves is something else.
• 24:56
  For my name — Kayvon — it's not common in North America. It sounds strange to a lot of people.
• 25:08
  Being six foot four also creates a feeling of intimidation. I sent a survey to a hundred people asking their first impression of me.
• 25:20
  Across the board, they said: intimidation — we don't want to deal with this guy.
• 25:32
  So I had to do something about my user interface. When I introduce myself in a networking event, I have a script.
• 25:44
  "Hi everyone. My name is Kayvon, but all of my friends call me Kay, or Big Kay, or Special Kay."
• 25:56
  It's a technique. A gimmick. Whatever you call it. People meet me years later and say — Special K.
• 26:08
  I don't even remember them, but they remember me. If I meet someone named Kevin, I say — hey, I'm your Persian version.
• 26:20
  Come up with this sort of thing. People love speak human and being goofy.
• 26:32
  Being memorable has a lot to do with clarity. I call it the Italian gangster methodology.
• 26:44
  Bada-beem, bada-boom. I do this for that kind of people. And stop talking. Let it sink. Let it go to their memory.
• 26:56
  Instead of blah blah blah blah blah. That's memorable.
• 27:08
  If you are not memorable, if it's not clear, if it's not brief and simple enough,
• 27:20
  it's hard for them to refer you. Give them the gift of being unignorable, memorable, and referable
• 27:32
  so they can be helpful to other people. And these days we have AI —
• 27:44
  we can sit in front of ChatGPT or Claude and say, help me be memorable. How can I introduce myself that is referable?
• 27:56
  RICK: I've been skeptical about networking in general. I did a lot of networking when I first moved to Atlanta in 2004.
• 28:08
  It kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. I find more sharks than people who want to have conversations.
• 28:20
  People try to pitch me stuff. What do you say to me to make me look at this differently?
• 28:32
  DR. KAYVON K: Rick, your answer was in your question.
• 28:44
  How can I do this differently? It's being different. So many of us want to hide in the safety of sameness.
• 28:56
  People are interested in — and remember — different, not better. Everybody wants to say I am better. We don't see that. We don't care.
• 29:08
  Everybody's saying that. But if you say you're different somehow, it works.
• 29:20
  RICK: I'm not thinking about what I'm offering. I'm thinking about the other people in the room.
• 29:32
  A room of 20 people all coming with the goal of selling. Some people aren't there for genuine human connection.
• 29:44
  DR. KAYVON K: Different is better than better. If you're going to a room with seven realtors —
• 29:56
  if one of them tells me they're different somehow, I will remember that. I am a realtor, but I only work with buyers.
• 30:08
  I am a realtor, but only in that part of town. There are multiple ways to be different.
• 30:20
  Let me pitch myself as a realtor twice. First: "Hi, I'm a realtor, been doing this 15 years.
• 30:32
  I can help with buying or selling your house or apartment, and if you know anyone, I'd appreciate the connection."
• 30:44
  Or: "I'm a realtor who specializes in helping families find and buy homes they thought they couldn't afford."
• 30:56
  RICK: Definitely like number two.
• 31:08
  DR. KAYVON K: Which is something the first person would do too — but they didn't say it. It takes a bit of work to find that phrase.
• 31:20
  Test it with a bunch of people and see which one sticks. Commit to that.
• 31:32
  If other people in the room haven't done this work, I can help them. I say, you're a consultant —
• 31:44
  what's different about you? What's your superpower? A few questions that get them to think about it.
• 31:56
  People love to talk about themselves. Yes.
• 32:08
  RICK: How do you recommend people measure how effective their networking is — what's the ROI?
• 32:20
  DR. KAYVON K: Two questions come up. What sort of timeline do you expect to get results?
• 32:32
  The first month of networking, the first year — or are you ready to do this for five years?
• 32:44
  The other thing: what are we measuring? Dollar amount is the easiest — but it's better for later stages.
• 32:56
  For networking, I would measure it with: how many coffee meetings did I get out of it?
• 33:08
  From the coffee meetings, how many second meetings? From those, how many sales or proposal conversations?
• 33:20
  It becomes your funnel — a human-based funnel — and you have more control over it.
• 33:32
  How many second meetings I got. How many third meetings. How many sales meetings.
• 33:44
  I encourage people to think about progress rather than hitting a certain number.
• 33:56
  Every month I want to have at least one more coffee meeting than the month before. Better than before. Higher quality than before.
• 34:08
  The goal is progress over time, growth more than before, rather than hitting a certain number. That's how I do it.
• 34:20
  RICK: Progressive overload. I like it. Last question for you.
• 34:32
  The show is called the Relentless Pursuit of Winning. We can define winning however we want.
• 34:44
  The difficulty is that relentless pursuit. How do you maintain it toward whatever goal you have?
• 34:56
  DR. KAYVON K: Nine to one should be the ratio of no to yes.
• 35:08
  For everything you say yes to, you should have said no to nine other things.
• 35:20
  The biggest challenge is we're distracted, spread too thin. Having idea monogamy — doing that one thing over time —
• 35:32
  brings out another version of us.
• 35:44
  Have you noticed how productive you are before the deadline? Or how much we get done the day before going on vacation?
• 35:56
  If I could be that focused and productive every day — why don't I do it every day?
• 36:08
  I can't always choose to show up that way, but I can control the environment. The conditions.
• 36:20
  That's the IKEA effect. If I'm put on the path, that other version shows up.
• 36:32
  If my mind is thinking about four different things — what's the quality of the ideas that come up?
• 36:44
  But if I'm constantly thinking about one thing, the ideas come. The compound effect. The flywheel impact.
• 36:56
  Winning and commitment — they're all related. Stick with it.
• 37:08
  Develop the skill of living with the question and not having an answer — and staying there
• 37:20
  instead of jumping to something more comfortable. That discomfort — in my life — has brought winning every time.
• 37:32
  RICK: I love it. Good stuff, Dr. Kayvon. Special Kay. How can our audience connect with you?
• 37:44
  DR. KAYVON K: I live on LinkedIn more than anywhere else. On all social media I am at Dr. Kayvon K — D-R-K-A-Y-V-O-N-K.
• 37:56
  The website is simplifiprofits.com. The program is hosted on school.com/expert.
• 38:08
  I'll send you the link for the Know Your Edge quiz as well — you can put it in the show notes.
• 38:20
  I would love to hear from people when they take the test and tell me what their strength is, what their edge is.
• 38:32
  RICK: Love it. Dr. Kay, thank you so much for being on the show. I enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate you.
• 38:44
  DR. KAYVON K: Me too. This was a fun one. Thank you very much.
• 38:56
  RICK: And folks, thank you so much for watching or listening to another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
• 39:08
  We'll catch you next time.