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

James Clear, author of the best-selling book Atomic Habits, shares the importance of creating a system of habits that makes reaching your goals simple. Mo applies the principles of Atomic Habits directly to the world of business development and shows you how starting small can create huge results in your business. This is an encore presentation of an episode that aired on June 11, 2020. James Clear recounts the story of the high school baseball bat incident, how he realized that something had gone horribly wrong and how he found himself fighting for his life. People are building habits all the time, but when your life is completely changed by a traumatic injury, you have to start as small as possible in order to rebuild them. Scaling down to what James could manage was how he was able to regain a sense of control over the life that he’d lost. You don’t have control over the random events that come your way, but you do have control over how you respond to those things and that usually comes down to your habits. Most people start with one foot in expertise and become great at what they do but once they reach the next level of success, they find themselves in a completely different world. This can often lead to them feeling defeated since they aren’t as skilled in the new area. Goals are helpful for setting a direction or a filter but they come with a lot of drawbacks. Your goal is your desired outcome, but your system is the collection of daily habits that you follow. If there is ever a gap between your system and your goal, your daily habits will always win. Whatever results you have right now are by definition the byproduct of the system you’ve been running. It’s common in business for people to focus on the position or outcome, like doubling revenue or leads, but it’s more important to look at the system that’s running and the trajectory that business systems are driving towards. We want our results to change, but it’s not the results that need to change, it’s the habits that precede the result that need to change. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. Goals are useful as check-ins, but more time should be invested into the system of habits that lead to the outcome you want. The Snowball system’s structure of lead and lag measures is very similar. Everybody is running systems whether they realize it or not. The questions you need to ask yourself are “How do I design a good system?” and “Which habits should I build?” This is where BIG goals come in to send you in the right direction. There are three main things that impact your outcomes in life. The first is luck, the second is your choices/strategy, and the third is your system of habits and behaviour. When you master the last two, you increase the surface area for good luck to come your way. People will often conflate the outcome they want to achieve with the person that they want to be. James believes you should shift the focus to the identity you desire instead of the goal because the real reason habits matter is that they can shape your sense of self. True behavior change is really identity change. Another way of reshaping your identity is to reframe your goal into a question. Instead of trying to close more deals, ask yourself what a successful sales person would do and then use that to select the action that moves you in the right direction. Questions are superior to advice because advice is contextual and situations change. Life is dynamic and advice will not always fit the circumstances. Identity-based questions guide you based on the situation. There are four fundamental things that increase the odds of getting a habit to stick. The first is to make your good habits obvious and easy to see. The second is to make them attractive and appealing. The third is to make them easy and convenient. The fourth is to make your habits satisfying and associated with a positive emotion. If you want to break a bad habit, just invert those four. When it comes to business development, we should look for one-time actions we can take that will help the cause every day from that point on to help mitigate the roller coaster that businesses tend to ride most of the time. A lot of business development is done through a screen. Is there an app or a tool that you can use to make business development more obvious and prime yourself and your environment for that use? James talks about the idea of the Temptation Bundle, where you combine a task that you know you should do with a task that you want to do in order to encourage the more important action. Don’t let one piece of silence prevent you from following up. A failure should not be desired but it should be planned for. When following up, there will also be people who ignore your efforts, but by writing down your next follow-up in your calendar, you will be many times more likely to keep following up. Life has a series of seasons and your habits should be different depending on the season of life you’re in. The same idea can be applied to your career. When you reach a new level it will probably require new habits in order to succeed. As your career progresses, typically, your responsibility increases. When your responsibility increases your ability to say no to things and to prioritize also needs to increase. Saying no to something is only saying no to one thing, but saying yes to something means saying no to everything else. Everything comes with a trade-off. If you’re going through a change of season in your career or your life, it may be the perfect time to reread Atomic Habits. The process of building habits is essentially rebuilding and getting started over and over as your life changes. In business development, the goal is not to be the absolute best in the world, it’s just to be a little bit better than your competition. Business is mostly a winner-take-all proposition so put yourself in a position to make more shots and improve your craft, and each day you will be more likely to win. Start with doing something small every single day when you don’t know where to begin. Any goal you have can be broken down into a two-minute chunk that will help you master the art of showing up. A habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize and scale it up and expand it into something more. One of the most motivating feelings for the human mind is seeing progress. A simple strategy to improve your business development habits is to create a way to visualize your efforts even if you don’t get any direct feedback. A visual cue is a powerful way to see your progress and increase the odds of you keeping pushing forward.   Previous Episode: bdhabits.com James Clear on Why Habits Are the Foundation of Business Development Success

Michael Hyatt shares the power of a compelling vision and how it can completely transform your business. Find out how to craft your Vision Script and turn it into a roadmap for your business’s success, while giving you the perfect filter to avoid the trivial many and stay focused on the vital few. This is an encore presentation of an episode that aired on August 6, 2020. Michael tells the story of how he struggled early on when he and a partner started their own book publishing company. Michael’s company had a lot of success and opportunity for the first few years, but a disastrous partnership led to them being $1.2 million in debt and having all their assets seized, leaving them with nothing. People don’t always see the history of those who succeed. Great things come all of the time when we hit our low points. Never waste a good crisis. Crises are an opportunity to dig deep and be reflective. One of the major issues Michael had with his business was the lack of a clear vision as a company about where they were going. Without a clear vision it’s very hard to discern the difference between a distraction and an opportunity. Michael’s company found itself fracturing its focus and attention, spread its resources too thin and everything fell apart. Michael went back to work for Thomas Nelson and was given responsibility for one of the 14 divisions of the company, specifically the worst performing division in the whole company. This was where Michael first implemented the Vision Script and described what that division would need to be to turn it around. The Vision Script became so inspiring for the team that the division managed to become the highest performing division in the company in only 18 months and stayed that way for the next decade. No matter where you are in an organization as a leader, being a leader presupposes that you are leading people somewhere, which means you must have clarity and vision. There is a big difference between a Vision Script and a Vision Statement. A Vision Script is a detailed document that describes your future business in detail three to five years in the future written in the present tense. A Vision Script is broken down into four different sections. The team, the product, the marketing and sales, and finally the impact. This is essentially a whole brain description of your future vision. Before executing your vision, you have to create alignment in your organization around that vision. This is not something you can outsource as a leader, you need to do it yourself. Start with the highest level and then cascade it down. To get buy in from your team solicit their feedback. People buy into what they help create and this takes the burden off of you as a leader. Your Vision Script should be the first thing you check in at your annual planning meeting. You must have a cadence of review in your organization because vision leaks, you need to be constantly repeating the vision and reinforcing the path. When you come up with your annual goals, ask yourself what are the seven to ten things that will move you towards your vision and when they are deliverable. Your quarterly goals will inform your weekly priorities, and further down to your daily MIT’s. Limiting yourself to three major goals each quarter is more effective than aiming for a higher number of goals at the same time. A vision helps you identify what you’re going to focus on but it also allows you to exclude what you’re not going to focus on if you use it as a filter. If something falls outside the scope of your vision, it becomes an easy “no”. Strategy answers the question how you are going to get from where you are to where you want to go, and should be revised as often as necessary. All progress begins with an honest assessment of where you currently are, because it’s hard to move beyond where you are until you get honest about where you are. Establish hard boundaries around your work. When you restrict your work time you force yourself to get things done in the time allotted. With a clarity of vision you are able to create boundaries and choose what is the most important. In line with the Pareto Principle, what are the three actions that are going to drive the biggest results in your business? A lot of people think that to get more you’ve got to do more, but it’s not what you do, it’s about doing the right things. It all comes down to your vision which gives you the courage to say no to the trivial distractions. In order to serve your clients fully you have to be able to say no to lesser opportunities. Michael describes the systems he uses to protect his time and deliver his best every single day. Any structure is better than no structure at all. Michael has a powerful system of automation that simplifies his responses and saves him an incredible amount of time that anyone can apply. Michael uses the Power of No formula to make sure that he protects his time and honors his commitments without closing any doors permanently. People are used to not getting a response so they end up appreciating this kind of response. Most people can handle a no, what they can’t handle is no response. People are vision starved. As a leader, if you have a clear, compelling vision you will be amazed at how confident you will show up and how well your team will respond.   Mentioned in this Episode: businessaccelerator.com/big bdhabits.com Michael Hyatt Reveals How To Create A Vivid Vision That Will Transform Your Business

Maria Kelly shares everything she’s learned over the years on developing client relationships at Sotheby’s and in her own consulting firm helping CEOs and bold leaders get unstuck. Find out about some key insights that will help you charge what you’re worth with confidence, how to communicate effectively in your client’s language and convey your value in a way that they will love, and one simple tactic that anyone can use to forge strong bonds with people and deepen their relationships.   Mo asks Maria Kelly: When did you realize that you really had to focus on business development and client relationships? Maria’s career didn’t begin in client-facing roles but they were usually oriented around being helping and finding solutions for people. When she moved into more managerial roles, she was overseeing people who faced the client. It wasn’t until Maria went through the GrowBIG training where she realized that business development had been a part of her life the whole time, and her clients were her colleagues and the people she worked with. Everyone who went through the GrowBIG training had the lightbulb moment where they realized that they could be doing business development differently. The ones that embraced the Snowball System started seeing results almost immediately and people took notice. Maria started doing bi-weekly meetings specifically focused on business development and the various strategies of the Snowball System. The Give to Get was a particular favorite of the team. One of the keys to Maria’s success with her team was in shifting them from retrospectives to thinking and planning for the future. Being proactive and changing the approach to being helpful allowed them to focus on the long-term view of their business. For small businesses, they often struggle with many of the same issues that many professional service firms do. Entrepreneurs have to be able to step back from the execution and take some time to focus on the future and growth of the business they are working in.   Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your personal definition of business development? Business development is about creating opportunities and value for other people. Doing that together is what makes business development fun. Often, people don’t see their own value and this is reflected in the general disdain for sales. You need to understand what value you bring to the table as a specialist and use that confidence in your skill to bring value to the other person. A lot comes to your presentation and how you approach the client. When you are genuine in your intent to help and you believe in your offering, it comes through in how you communicate. Email can be easily misconstrued and is a good example of how something can be taken differently depending on your language and other factors. Your client is a human being as well, and showing your human side builds connection. Listen to your client before talking. Empathy is important in understanding where they are coming from and how they want to communicate with you. To be able to communicate in all four ways of thinking, you first need to be aware of what your primary style is. From there you can be cognizant of how you communicate and be thoughtful of the other styles so you’re always speaking the client’s language. Maria works with already successful CEOs and helps them grow further, and how that happens is deeply connected to each individual and the obstacles they face. Maria spends a lot of time getting to know the entire business as a whole so that she can help take the blinders off of the client.   Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG training or Snowball System? One of the most useful things Maria learned from the GrowBIG training was the seven pricing principles. Living in Switzerland, she grew up in a culture that didn’t talk about money and she learned early on in her career that if she didn’t talk about money, she didn’t get the money. Many business owners and professionals struggle with asking for what they are worth. When clients push back on the fees, those people don’t know how to respond because they don’t know how to articulate their value and justify their price. There are seven common heuristic programs that people use when thinking about money. One of the most common is that your price is directly linked to the quality of your service. In other words, expensive equals good, and cheap equals bad. If you’re upfront with the value you are bringing to the table and anchoring to that, no one is going to second guess what you charge. With the idea of anchoring on value, you can talk about the result and the magnitude of the value of it and use that as a frame for whatever your fees are. Introduce early on what value you are bringing to the relationship, and your fees will seem small in comparison. Most people expect to pay for a service, but when it comes to ourselves we often make assumptions about what other people will think about our own services to others. If someone is hiring you, they want the best. You have to lean into and be confident with your fees. At the point you talk about the fees, if you have built up enough value and trust with the person, you will be more confident in your delivery. It’s not about sticking with the number no matter what, it’s about working together to find a solution and a price that fits all parties. Even if you can’t find an alternative, do your best to part on good terms. If you can talk about the money with the same excitement and tone that you discuss the team, the scope of the project, and the details, you will feel consistent and confident and get better results.   Mo asks Maria Kelly: Tell us of a business development moment that you are really proud of. One of Maria’s first clients, when she ventured out on her own, was someone she had worked with in the past. This client reached out to her specifically to work with her one on one just as Maria was taking some time off. For years, Maria had been telling her team and her clients that they need to charge what they’re worth so when it came to pricing her services she knew she had to follow her own advice. What’s the worst that can happen when you ask for what you’re worth? In the worst-case scenario, they say it’s too expensive and there’s room to negotiate. If Maria hadn’t risked asking for what she was worth, she could have been stuck with the negative emotions associated with being undervalued and the fee scale of her first client.   Mo asks Maria Kelly: If you could record a video around business development and give it to your younger self, what would it say? The short answer would be to record Mo’s training. The longer answer is to start thinking about business development much earlier. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for advice. Over the last 12 months, Maria has read so many books that would have helped her tremendously when she was younger. Highly skilled specialists often struggle with asking for advice, but it’s one of the most powerful things you can do to create bonds with people. The more you communicate, the more things come your way. Asking people for advice makes people feel good, and other things can come up during the conversation that can change the way you think. One of the ways that Maria had built relationships with clients was by asking them their advice on who she should hire and they loved the idea of having input. The worst that can happen is that the other person will thank you for thinking of them but they’re too busy to help. Start with something small that doesn’t require too much of the other person, or by asking someone you are fairly confident will say yes no matter what. When you’re trying a new skill, start small and start safe. If you have a business strategy that you aren’t sure of, reach out to your clients and run it by them first. It shows that you value them as a client and their opinion on what you do. There are a lot more opportunities than you think that don’t fit into the traditional client opportunity conversation box. Just being human is a simple thing anyone can do. Unstructured moments used to happen naturally in the past, but it’s okay to go out of your way to try and create more of those moments. Business development is a learnable skill, and the sooner you embrace it the more it will impact your career. Embrace who you are and bring that to the business development table, because that is your strongest tool. Your authentic self is the foundation for all the other business development skills.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Mo asks Maria Kelly: If you could record a video around business development and give it to your younger self, what would it say? The short answer would be to record Mo’s training. The longer answer is to start thinking about business development much earlier. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for advice. Over the last 12 months, Maria has read so many books that would have helped her tremendously when she was younger. Highly skilled specialists often struggle with asking for advice, but it’s one of the most powerful things you can do to create bonds with people. The more you communicate, the more things come your way. Asking people for advice makes people feel good, and other things can come up during the conversation that can change the way you think. One of the ways that Maria had built relationships with clients was by asking them their advice on who she should hire and they loved the idea of having input. The worst that can happen is that the other person will thank you for thinking of them but they’re too busy to help. Start with something small that doesn’t require too much of the other person, or by asking someone you are fairly confident will say yes no matter what. When you’re trying a new skill, start small and start safe. If you have a business strategy that you aren’t sure of, reach out to your clients and run it by them first. It shows that you value them as a client and their opinion on what you do. There are a lot more opportunities than you think that don’t fit into the traditional client opportunity conversation box. Just being human is a simple thing anyone can do. Unstructured moments used to happen naturally in the past, but it’s okay to go out of your way to try and create more of those moments. Business development is a learnable skill, and the sooner you embrace it the more it will impact your career. Embrace who you are and bring that to the business development table, because that is your strongest tool. Your authentic self is the foundation for all the other business development skills.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Mo asks Maria Kelly: Tell us of a business development moment that you are really proud of. One of Maria’s first clients, when she ventured out on her own, was someone she had worked with in the past. This client reached out to her specifically to work with her one on one just as Maria was taking some time off. For years, Maria had been telling her team and her clients that they need to charge what they’re worth so when it came to pricing her services she knew she had to follow her own advice. What’s the worst that can happen when you ask for what you’re worth? In the worst-case scenario, they say it’s too expensive and there’s room to negotiate. If Maria hadn’t risked asking for what she was worth, she could have been stuck with the negative emotions associated with being undervalued and the fee scale of her first client.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG training or Snowball System? One of the most useful things Maria learned from the GrowBIG training was the seven pricing principles. Living in Switzerland, she grew up in a culture that didn’t talk about money and she learned early on in her career that if she didn’t talk about money, she didn’t get the money. Many business owners and professionals struggle with asking for what they are worth. When clients push back on the fees, those people don’t know how to respond because they don’t know how to articulate their value and justify their price. There are seven common heuristic programs that people use when thinking about money. One of the most common is that your price is directly linked to the quality of your service. In other words, expensive equals good, and cheap equals bad. If you’re upfront with the value you are bringing to the table and anchoring to that, no one is going to second guess what you charge. With the idea of anchoring on value, you can talk about the result and the magnitude of the value of it and use that as a frame for whatever your fees are. Introduce early on what value you are bringing to the relationship, and your fees will seem small in comparison. Most people expect to pay for a service, but when it comes to ourselves we often make assumptions about what other people will think about our own services to others. If someone is hiring you, they want the best. You have to lean into and be confident with your fees. At the point you talk about the fees, if you have built up enough value and trust with the person, you will be more confident in your delivery. It’s not about sticking with the number no matter what, it’s about working together to find a solution and a price that fits all parties. Even if you can’t find an alternative, do your best to part on good terms. If you can talk about the money with the same excitement and tone that you discuss the team, the scope of the project, and the details, you will feel consistent and confident and get better results.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your personal definition of business development? Business development is about creating opportunities and value for other people. Doing that together is what makes business development fun. Often, people don’t see their own value and this is reflected in the general disdain for sales. You need to understand what value you bring to the table as a specialist and use that confidence in your skill to bring value to the other person. A lot comes to your presentation and how you approach the client. When you are genuine in your intent to help and you believe in your offering, it comes through in how you communicate. Email can be easily misconstrued and is a good example of how something can be taken differently depending on your language and other factors. Your client is a human being as well, and showing your human side builds connection. Listen to your client before talking. Empathy is important in understanding where they are coming from and how they want to communicate with you. To be able to communicate in all four ways of thinking, you first need to be aware of what your primary style is. From there you can be cognizant of how you communicate and be thoughtful of the other styles so you’re always speaking the client’s language. Maria works with already successful CEOs and helps them grow further, and how that happens is deeply connected to each individual and the obstacles they face. Maria spends a lot of time getting to know the entire business as a whole so that she can help take the blinders off of the client.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Mo asks Maria Kelly: When did you realize that you really had to focus on business development and client relationships? Maria’s career didn’t begin in client-facing roles but they were usually oriented around being helping and finding solutions for people. When she moved into more managerial roles, she was overseeing people who faced the client. It wasn’t until Maria went through the GrowBIG training where she realized that business development had been a part of her life the whole time, and her clients were her colleagues and the people she worked with. Everyone who went through the GrowBIG training had the lightbulb moment where they realized that they could be doing business development differently. The ones that embraced the Snowball System started seeing results almost immediately and people took notice. Maria started doing bi-weekly meetings specifically focused on business development and the various strategies of the Snowball System. The Give to Get was a particular favorite of the team. One of the keys to Maria’s success with her team was in shifting them from retrospectives to thinking and planning for the future. Being proactive and changing the approach to being helpful allowed them to focus on the long-term view of their business. For small businesses, they often struggle with many of the same issues that many professional service firms do. Entrepreneurs have to be able to step back from the execution and take some time to focus on the future and growth of the business they are working in.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com askmariakelly.com Maria Kelly on LinkedIn

Scott Winter, CRM Evangelist, shares his thoughts and hard-won experiences on business development and how his perspective changed over the years from “selling is bad” to “business development is one of the most important things you can do. Learn about Scott’s three favorite GrowBIG strategies that he uses all the time to help land new clients, the mindset that allows him to sell with confidence and genuine empathy, and how business development is the key to changing the world at large.   Mo asks Scott Winter: When was the moment that you realized that business development was great? Scott started his career off in sales with LexisNexis and that developed into a role in consulting. Eventually he made the switch to a product management position with Interaction where he focused on CRM and client relationships. Interaction is the world’s largest CRM system for law firms and by coming up in that environment, Scott learned a lot about the technical aspects of the software which helped him better serve his clients. Scott had the typical mindset about sales in college that most people have, but he reframed his perspective after getting some actual experience in sales positions. The one key moment when Scott realized that business development was a powerful tool for growth was after having a simple conversation with someone on a plan. Just listening carefully and remembering what he learned blew that person away when they met again many months later. Scott has a knack for having a conversation on any subject and being able to find a point of connection. He also tends to add notes in his phone of a particularly interesting detail (powerlifting, ironman training, etc.) and makes use of his CRM to keep track of everything. Remembering details about someone is an art and a science, but there are tools you can use to make it easier.   Mo asks Scott Winter: What is your personal definition of business development? The first component is being genuine. If you’re not, people will see right through what you’re doing. Scott has been fortunate to work with companies that he authentically believes in, and that confidence in the product makes being genuine possible. Drinking your own champagne helps. Scott is an avid consumer of the products he sells, and that makes the conversations easy and learning more about what the prospect needs simpler. Be genuine, love what you do, and treat it as a learning exercise. When you love what you do, it will come through in your enthusiasm for the client and the results you can get them. Think of it as a partnership where their victory is your victory and you will convey your pride and energy for what you do. Think with empathy, get excited about the future and help the prospect create that future. Business development has to be flexible because this is not a one-size-fits-all world. You have to be able to take your service offering or product, listen to what the other person’s needs are, and show them how it can help solve their problem.   Mo asks Scott Winter: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG Training or Snowball System? Whole brain thinking is a concept that Scott always gravitates towards when he’s putting together a pitch or presentation. It helps shape his storytelling and the way his message connects with the people he’s talking to. The Give to Get is another tool that Scott uses all the time. It’s highly valuable to the prospect, builds the relationship, and helps them out, and for a trusted advisor, that’s very important. Building it Together is the third favorite technique that Scott uses all the time. Working with Index naturally lends itself to customized problem solving for clients so it makes this kind of collaboration easy. If you can find a way to do that for your prospect, it can be incredibly powerful in developing the business relationship. In terms of Give to Gets, sometimes that takes the form of simple advice but it can also take the form of creating a solution to a prospect’s particular problem, which can then be leveraged later on at scale. In the course of business development, you are constantly building a repository of knowledge and the more you do, the more tools and knowledge you have to help people. Scalability comes from a project management mindset. You can build something that can be leveraged by multiple people, it just takes a little foresight during the initial build. If you love what you do, you are constantly thinking about how you can help people which makes having the A-Ha moment much easier.   Mo asks Scott Winter: Tell us of a time when you were doing something with business development that you are really proud of. Scott was working with another firm years ago that used Interaction, and there was a big push to bring them on board as an expanded partner. It took many months and using a lot of the GrowBIG strategies to provide enough value and develop the relationship to the point where they said yes, and that client became one of Scott’s favorites to work with. There was a tremendous growth in confidence for Scott, since he was not a natural salesperson, and that partnership revealed how important business development really is and how good he could be at creating valuable relationships. There are four big incremental yes’s you need in order to build something together. You have to get agreement that the strategic fit is there, determine the practicality of what you’re going to do, get the team and all the stakeholders on board, and then get the “yes” on the financial aspects. Accountability is a major component of Scott’s approach to business development. When he works with a client, he makes himself available to them and gets invested in their success instead of just moving on to the next sale. Scott focuses on building trust and giving the client a personal commitment to see the project through. Everything about the GrowBIG Training and Snowball System is about building long-term relationships. Scott trusts in his team and his product, and that trust allows him to support his clients in their success. If you don’t stand behind your client and service, you’re never going to be able to sell to them again. It all comes down to trust.   Mo asks Scott Winter: If you could send a video back in time specifically on business development, what would it say? The first thing Scott would say to his younger self would be to buy as much Bitcoin as possible. Seriously though, he would try to help his younger self get past the limiting belief that sales is a bad thing. No matter who you are, you have to sell. Do what you have to do to learn that skill sooner in a way that brings you enjoyment, because it’s going to serve you for the rest of your life. Do something you’re passionate about, and embrace the idea of business development. If you only have deep expertise, no one will know you exist and nothing will get done. If you only know sales, you will never do anything really meaningful. When you have both you can change the world. Deep expertise gives you the foundation for building trust and confidence with a prospect that you can actually help solve their problem, and you can use that to inform your ability to communicate that well. Even now, Scott struggles with how to structure emails perfectly and doing the right amount of outreach. You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to put in the work consistently and genuinely care about the prospect or client’s outcome. Just like sports or any skill that you want to improve, business development takes practice.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com scott@index.io Scott Winter on LinkedIn

Mo asks Scott Winter: If you could send a video back in time specifically on business development, what would it say? The first thing Scott would say to his younger self would be to buy as much Bitcoin as possible. Seriously though, he would try to help his younger self get past the limiting belief that sales is a bad thing. No matter who you are, you have to sell. Do what you have to do to learn that skill sooner in a way that brings you enjoyment, because it’s going to serve you for the rest of your life. Do something you’re passionate about, and embrace the idea of business development. If you only have deep expertise, no one will know you exist and nothing will get done. If you only know sales, you will never do anything really meaningful. When you have both you can change the world. Deep expertise gives you the foundation for building trust and confidence with a prospect that you can actually help solve their problem, and you can use that to inform your ability to communicate that well. Even now, Scott struggles with how to structure emails perfectly and doing the right amount of outreach. You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to put in the work consistently and genuinely care about the prospect or client’s outcome. Just like sports or any skill that you want to improve, business development takes practice.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com scott@index.io Scott Winter on LinkedIn