Real Relationships Real Revenue - Audio Edition | Invest in Relationships to Build Your Business and Your Career

Today we’re talking about how to break up information into digestible and attractive portions, and how to deliver those portions in ways that intrigue and excite your prospects. The best way to gain that momentum and anticipation in your business development meetings is to end the meeting with a cliffhanger.   There a few different kinds of cliffhangers you can utilize in this way, and that’s what I’ll be covering in this episode:   Ask for more data to analyze with the intention to share results during the next meeting Introduce an idea about process improvement or timeline as a next step  Suggest an introduction to somebody who has experience in the area of discussion Suggest setting up a tailored brainstorming session    As you listen to the ways you can use each of these cliffhangers to your advantage, you’ll realize how many opportunities there really are to entice your client and get them excited for their next meeting with you.   It’s okay to spread your agenda out over multiple meetings instead of crowding every topic into a single appointment. Keep your clients engaged and ready to take next steps with you!   I am looking forward to diving into this even further on the next episode, so be sure to tune in as we get started in this curiosity series.    Mentioned in this episode:    The Top 3 Things You Need to Implement from Luke Burgis, Author of Wanting: https://www.bunnellideagroup.com/the-top-3-things-you-need-to-implement-from-luke-burgis-author-of-wanting/

This week we are talking about how to create curiosity.   This is a really interesting topic because hardly anybody talks about creating curiosity.   During a normal sales process, everything’s about us.  Today we are talking about why you should be flipping this to the buyer. Today we are covering the three big scientific elements that allow us to leverage curiosity.  1. Curiosity is an intrinsic motivator 2. Curiosity creates a heightened sense of arousal 3. Curiosity allows you to remember more As you tune in to hear me cover these three elements, you will see why these are the kind of things that you want to give your client.   It’s a great experience to help them feel the feeling of curiosity.  Avoid trying to do too much too fast and you will allow your clients to feel comfortable taking the next step with you. Don’t try to close the deal on your first meeting.  Spreading out your conversations over a couple of meetings will encourage the buyer to take the next step with you without feeling pushed. I am looking forward to diving into this even further in the next episode, so be sure to tune in as we get started in this curiosity series.    Mentioned in this episode:  This is Your Brain on Curiosity: TEDx Talk with Matthais Gruber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmaTPPB-T_s

Mo Bunnell reveals the number one skill for creating incredible growth in your career and for deepening relationships in general. Learn the frameworks for asking great questions and how they create a triple win for you and your prospect, the six types of questions you can ask to go deeper and build trust and rapport with anyone, and the biggest mistake you need to avoid for great questions to be effective.   Asking Great Questions that Work Hand in Hand with Your Business Growth Strategy Asking great questions gets you a triple win. The first being it creates an enjoyable experience for the other side. When people share information only they know (self-disclosing information), the pleasure center of their brain lights up. The second win is that you also become more likable. As people answer great questions, talking more while you talk less, the more they associate you with feeling great. The third win is that it allows you to become unique in the mind of the buyer. As they begin sharing, you are going to learn their priorities in their words. Being able to talk about what you do in the context of the other person’s goals and priorities is way more effective. When at all possible, avoid going first. If you have to, make your intro brief and shift quickly to asking the other person about their goals. People are dying to share their perspective, give that opportunity to them. You’re going to win the meeting if the other person talks more than you do. Avoid showing up with a big and clunky Powerpoint, focusing on you. Get to the other person as quickly as possible and offer ways to be helpful.   How Asking Past & Future Related Questions Affects the Success of Your Business Growth Strategy Make sure you’re getting the other side to share their personal perspective, something that only they know. Questions focused on the past and the future are great starting places for teasing out that information. Past questions include: “What historical data should we use to benchmark the future improvements we’re talking about?”, “What’s your #1 learning from leading teams on initiatives like this from the past?”, “What’s the most important experience you’ve had that's gotten you to this role?”, “What would you say has historically been the most important characteristics of an external partner like us?” Future questions get people thinking of ways they want to create value and advance things. Examples include: “What do you think this would look like if it was working well?”, “How much do you think we can improve that important metric you mentioned in three years?”, “How would people feel if we did it the way you would like?”, “What would your role look like if there were no restrictions on you?”, and “What’s the number one thing I can do to be helpful in following up?” Avoid asking stock questions, they just reveal that you haven’t done your homework. Customize the questions to show you are paying attention and care about the other person’s business.   Use This in Your Business Growth Strategy: Ask Elevating Questions During Sales Calls Future questions ask people to articulate what they think a future should look like. Elevating questions explore the present at a high level. Examples include: “How do you think your CEO sees this fitting in with your overall strategy?”, “What are the most important personal metrics for you this year, and how does this issue impact them?”, “What’s your favorite thing about your job right now?”, “If you had to choose some personal metrics right now that would elevate your profile and get you a big bonus, what would they be?” For questions around a specific issue, you’re focusing on the opposite of elevate and paying more attention to today at a detailed level. Examples include: “If you had to pick one process or step that was the most important to get right, what would it be?”, “If you could choose one quick win we could focus on and accomplish, what would it be?”, “What one person should we give some extra attention to in the meeting next week?”, and “What’s the number one thing we can improve in regards to our teams working together?” These style of questions require you to do your homework, but if you can design a great question you will get the other person thinking deeply and helping them understand themselves even better. You will probably only have the opportunity to ask four or five great questions over the course of an hour. Think deeply about the questions you want to ask.   How Connection Questions are Key to any Business Growth Strategy Connection questions are all about lateral thinking and how things fit together. The goal is to use them to get hired, develop trust, and be helpful in general. Examples include: “What other projects or teams might benefit from knowing what we’re considering?”, “What other external partners should we connect with to make things easier?”, “What connections can I make for you inside the company?”, “What kinds of updates would be most helpful for me to give you around the topic?” The next category is more focused on what’s missing. Ironically, these kinds of questions are the most interesting and most commonly skipped. Examples include: “What should we have discussed about this potential project but didn’t?”, “What other data should we begin to collect now so that we have a benchmark to prove success?”, “What kinds of people are you looking to meet?”, “What can I do to be helpful that we haven’t discussed yet?” These sorts of questions are very thought provoking and great to drop into the middle of a meeting or near the end. The trap to avoid is over indexing on your initial questions and not focusing on the questions you will use to wrap up the conversation.   Crush Your Business Growth Strategy by Avoiding Asking Prospects These Questions Research has shown that for commonly used skills, we drastically overestimate our abilities. In one particular study, people’s average percentile ability in the test skill was 12%, but they rated themselves on average at 62%. Asking great questions is the lynchpin. Earned dogmatism is a mental heuristic that says that the more we view ourselves as an expert in an area, the more close minded we become. The skills of curiosity and learning that got us our expertise wane over time unless we fight against the tendency. If you want to continue deepening relationships, you need to fight earned dogmatism by asking more questions instead of always talking about answers all the time. Wake up every morning and try to think you don’t know everything about your craft so you’re open to continuing to learn. If you can walk into every conversation with the beginner’s mind, you have a chance to grow your skills and keep getting better.     Mentioned in this Episode: “Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding” - research article by Diana I. Tamir - pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1202129109 “It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking.” Huang, Karen, et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 113, no. 3, 2017, pp. 430–452. - doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000097 What Business Development REALLY Means, According to Brian Caffarelli - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000554062611 What Business Development REALLY Means, According to Mike Duffy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000539740375   Debby Moorman on Sales – Time To Get Great At Business Development - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000547399956   Henning Streubel's Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000558839387

Research has shown that for commonly used skills, we drastically overestimate our abilities. In one particular study, people’s average percentile ability in the test skill was 12%, but they rated themselves on average at 62%. Asking great questions is the lynchpin. Earned dogmatism is a mental heuristic that says that the more we view ourselves as an expert in an area, the more close minded we become. The skills of curiosity and learning that got us our expertise wane over time unless we fight against the tendency. If you want to continue deepening relationships, you need to fight earned dogmatism by asking more questions instead of always talking about answers all the time. Wake up every morning and try to think you don’t know everything about your craft so you’re open to continuing to learn. If you can walk into every conversation with the beginner’s mind, you have a chance to grow your skills and keep getting better.     Mentioned in this Episode: Henning Streubel's Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000558839387

Connection questions are all about lateral thinking and how things fit together. The goal is to use them to get hired, develop trust, and be helpful in general. Examples include: “What other projects or teams might benefit from knowing what we’re considering?”, “What other external partners should we connect with to make things easier?”, “What connections can I make for you inside the company?”, “What kinds of updates would be most helpful for me to give you around the topic?” The next category is more focused on what’s missing. Ironically, these kinds of questions are the most interesting and most commonly skipped. Examples include: “What should we have discussed about this potential project but didn’t?”, “What other data should we begin to collect now so that we have a benchmark to prove success?”, “What kinds of people are you looking to meet?”, “What can I do to be helpful that we haven’t discussed yet?” These sorts of questions are very thought provoking and great to drop into the middle of a meeting or near the end. The trap to avoid is over indexing on your initial questions and not focusing on the questions you will use to wrap up the conversation.     Mentioned in this Episode: Debby Moorman on Sales – Time To Get Great At Business Development - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000547399956  

Future questions ask people to articulate what they think a future should look like. Elevating questions explore the present at a high level. Examples include: “How do you think your CEO sees this fitting in with your overall strategy?”, “What are the most important personal metrics for you this year, and how does this issue impact them?”, “What’s your favorite thing about your job right now?”, “If you had to choose some personal metrics right now that would elevate your profile and get you a big bonus, what would they be?” For questions around a specific issue, you’re focusing on the opposite of elevate and paying more attention to today at a detailed level. Examples include: “If you had to pick one process or step that was the most important to get right, what would it be?”, “If you could choose one quick win we could focus on and accomplish, what would it be?”, “What one person should we give some extra attention to in the meeting next week?”, and “What’s the number one thing we can improve in regards to our teams working together?” These style of questions require you to do your homework, but if you can design a great question you will get the other person thinking deeply and helping them understand themselves even better. You will probably only have the opportunity to ask four or five great questions over the course of an hour. Think deeply about the questions you want to ask.     Mentioned in this Episode: What Business Development REALLY Means, According to Mike Duffy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000539740375

Make sure you’re getting the other side to share their personal perspective, something that only they know. Questions focused on the past and the future are great starting places for teasing out that information. Past questions include: “What historical data should we use to benchmark the future improvements we’re talking about?”, “What’s your #1 learning from leading teams on initiatives like this from the past?”, “What’s the most important experience you’ve had that's gotten you to this role?”, “What would you say has historically been the most important characteristics of an external partner like us?” Future questions get people thinking of ways they want to create value and advance things. Examples include: “What do you think this would look like if it was working well?”, “How much do you think we can improve that important metric you mentioned in three years?”, “How would people feel if we did it the way you would like?”, “What would your role look like if there were no restrictions on you?”, and “What’s the number one thing I can do to be helpful in following up?” Avoid asking stock questions, they just reveal that you haven’t done your homework. Customize the questions to show you are paying attention and care about the other person’s business.     Mentioned in this Episode: What Business Development REALLY Means, According to Brian Caffarelli - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000554062611

Asking great questions gets you a triple win. The first being it creates an enjoyable experience for the other side. When people share information only they know (self-disclosing information), the pleasure center of their brain lights up. The second win is that you also become more likable. As people answer great questions, talking more while you talk less, the more they associate you with feeling great. The third win is that it allows you to become unique in the mind of the buyer. As they begin sharing, you are going to learn their priorities in their words. Being able to talk about what you do in the context of the other person’s goals and priorities is way more effective. When at all possible, avoid going first. If you have to, make your intro brief and shift quickly to asking the other person about their goals. People are dying to share their perspective, give that opportunity to them. You’re going to win the meeting if the other person talks more than you do. Avoid showing up with a big and clunky Powerpoint, focusing on you. Get to the other person as quickly as possible and offer ways to be helpful.     Mentioned in this Episode: “Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding” - research article by Diana I. Tamir - pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1202129109 “It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking.” Huang, Karen, et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 113, no. 3, 2017, pp. 430–452. - doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000097

Mo Bunnell breaks down the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument and reveals the key insights into how you can tailor your communication to win with anyone and everyone. Learn about the one thing that analytical thinkers care about more than anything, why the top priority of relational thinkers is safety, how to build and convey trust with relational thinkers, and what makes experimental thinkers say yes.    Breaking Down the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument to Understand 4 Communication Styles How the brain is wired is an emerging science. What we learned in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s no longer applies. Research has shown that the brain has a hub and spoke model and is very elastic and flexible. This is the way that the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument views the brain and explains how we communicate. The four hubs of how the brain operates act in opposing pairs. Analytical/Blue thinking is all about logic, running the number, and making sure everything makes sense. The opposite hub is Relational/Red. That’s where you think about others and the people on your team and is more emotive. The other pair is Experimental/Yellow and Practical/Green. When we think experimentally, we think in big visions and very intuitively. Practical thinking is about coming up with the details of getting something done. When you put the stats together, 95% of people have more than one strong preference. The vast majority of people have two, three, or all four ways of thinking. Avoid the trap of communicating in the way you would purchase something because you aren’t going to connect with them as well as you could if you can flex into their way of communicating. Listen for the clues and identify what the other side prioritizes, then adapt your communication to that.   4 Communication Styles: How to Win Over Analytical Thinkers When you’re dealing with a high analytical thinker, you should get to the point. To know someone is an analytical thinker, they are often brief and to the point and focus more on the numbers. Make it clear that your solution is the highest ROI option available. You may not know what else they are looking at but you can make it very clear about how much money they will save or how much value they will get, and present your price with confidence. Make it clear to talk about outcomes and pricing and have a great ROI, and you will win. In terms of flexing into this space, it’s not about being ridiculously precise. It’s more about the way you talk than the exact numbers. Discuss things in numbers, KPIs, outcomes, and fee structures. As long as you’re discussing logic and numbers with analytical thinkers, you’re going to win the day.   4 Communication Styles: How to Win Over Practical Thinkers Practical thinkers want details and all their questions drive around one thing: making a safe choice. Give them everything they need to make you the safe choice, whether that’s timelines, hours invested, or the list of things that can go wrong and what you will do when that happens. Be early on everything. Arrive to meetings early, and deliver work ahead of schedule. If you’re doing things early, you’re sending a message that you are the safe choice. Avoid the trap of skipping over the details. Engage on the details and dive into them to reassure the other person that you are the safe and correct choice. This doesn’t always have to be done by you as long as the person who’s responsible for the client communicates that.   4 Communication Styles: How to Win Over Relational Thinkers For high Relational/Red thinkers, you’re going to hear a lot of questions around trust and connectivity. Relational decision-makers are looking for answers to three questions: Do I trust you personally? Do I trust your team is going to make my team better? Do I trust that you are going to deliver an amazing result for everyone involved? Prioritize showing and building trust in those three ways. Do things that are trustworthy. Share what you’re not good at or what you won’t do as part of the project if someone else would be better, and guide them to the right investment. Play the long game at every turn and communicate to them that you have their back, and you will help them achieve their goals. The biggest opportunities to build trust are when there is not something to purchase. Stay in touch in the off-season and invest in the relationship even when there is no commercial opportunity. If you can do that and be helpful all the time, not just when you’re being paid, you are going to always be the first consideration.   4 Communication Styles: How to Win Over Experimental Thinkers Experimental thinkers are looking for the big picture. You’re going to see clues around themes, outcomes, brand, and vision. They are looking for the right strategic fit. For the work that needs to be done, are you known for that thing? Once you find that you’re talking to an Experimental thinker, talk about a clear vision around what you’re known for, and the high-level future state of what you can provide them. Doing things in a fresh, new, or innovative way will get you some bonus points. A clever way or alliteration to describe what you do appeals directly to the way Experimental people think. Leave things at a high level but let them know that your team will take care of the details. Strive for simplicity when you are talking to an Experimental thinker and it will go a long way. Avoid the trap of letting them zig and zag too much. Give them the flexibility to change the order but also try to bring them back in. Offer new ideas and approaches and always tie the work back into the strategic fit with clever and crisp messaging.     Mentioned in this Episode: Karim Nehdi on Whole Brain Business Development – What You Need To Succeed - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000528586505 How to Use Whole Brain Business Development to Create and Close More Opportunities, with Karim Nehdi - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000528709233 Brian Caffarelli's Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1511029567?i=1000554179371 Mark Harris' Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1511029567?i=1000553415818  Henning Streubel's Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000558839387

Experimental thinkers are looking for the big picture. You’re going to see clues around themes, outcomes, brand, and vision. They are looking for the right strategic fit. For the work that needs to be done, are you known for that thing? Once you find that you’re talking to an Experimental thinker, talk about a clear vision around what you’re known for, and the high-level future state of what you can provide them. Doing things in a fresh, new, or innovative way will get you some bonus points. A clever way or alliteration to describe what you do appeals directly to the way Experimental people think. Leave things at a high level but let them know that your team will take care of the details. Strive for simplicity when you are talking to an Experimental thinker and it will go a long way. Avoid the trap of letting them zig and zag too much. Give them the flexibility to change the order but also try to bring them back in. Offer new ideas and approaches and always tie the work back into the strategic fit with clever and crisp messaging.     Mentioned in this Episode: Henning Streubel's Favorite Business Development Strategy - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-relationships-real-revenue-video-edition/id1504330338?i=1000558839387