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

Mo shares his insights from the habits of David Burkus. Figuring out how to work and thrive in a virtual world is only going to become more important going forward. We need to have an agreement with our internal teams and our clients regarding how we are going to work together and communicate with each other. You need to know which platforms are meant for what kinds of communication so that you can be more efficient and effective. Once you work it out internally, you can share it with your clients and give them an idea of how you can work together while also giving them a model to implement in their own businesses. White space built into your remote meetings is crucial. The white space around traditional in person meetings doesn’t happen anymore and that was where the informal chat occurred that allowed relationships to develop naturally. Add space to your calendar to have the meeting before the meeting to make this easier. Be more intentional with your questions. In a virtual world it’s even more important. Being general upfront and asking questions that can be answered either personally or professionally are great for opening up the possibility of getting to know the person. The Champagne Question is a great first step to helping a client craft a future that’s better for them. People need positivity and optimism in their life and  you can add that to their life by asking them the right questions and exploring the answers.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com davidburkus.com

Mo asks David Burkus: How can we keep focused on doing the right things when we are constantly distracted in this virtual world? The short answer is to not focus on it. Studies have shown that when timelines are too far away we tend to think that it’s going to be too difficult to accomplish. This applies to health and investing, as well as career goals. The key is to make the long game into your short-term goal. You will always default to the short term. Think about your long-term project and identify the milestones that will lead up to it, then focus in on those. This is especially important in a remote environment where no one is actively looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re getting things done. Milestones have to be co-created with the client. Your team also needs a regular check in process where you cover three key things for each person involved: “What did we just accomplish?”, “What are we focused on now?”, and “What is blocking our progress?” The real challenge in a client engagement is when nobody wants to admit they need help. If you take the time to record those regular check-ins and address the obstacles to progress, you can avoid that situation. Without a regular cadence of communication, you can end up with a client that is really angry with you and you may not know the reason why.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com davidburkus.com

Mo asks David Burkus: How do we develop and deepen relationships when everything is virtual? A study showed that the average person’s network shrunk by 25% to 30% over the first half of 2020. That decrease was almost entirely driven by males because of the general tendency for men to bond over activities. We tried to recreate these activities virtually but it doesn’t work the same way. When you’re looking to use a tool like Zoom to deepen a relationship, it requires more structure. You have to show up with questions and a level of conversation designed to deepen the relationship. Work sprints are another option, which are scheduled times where you complete your work in a meeting environment to emulate the coworking space. In addition to these activities, you can also introduce rituals into your team communication to deepen the connection. Between structured conversations that explore non-work topics and physical things like rituals, we can go pretty far in deepening relationships in a remote working environment. The questions don’t matter as much as having a plan and being intentional. Asking questions that are open-ended and answered in a work or non-work context is a good start. One of David’s favorite questions is “Who is your favorite superhero?” No matter what the answer is, you will learn something interesting about the other person. The more you know about someone, the more reason you have to follow up with them and find you have something in common.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com davidburkus.com

Mo asks David Burkus: How can we create demand and get deals done virtually? The traditional method of closing a deal usually involved meeting clients in person but it wasn’t the activity itself that determined the failure or success of the deal. It was the whitespace around the meeting that built the bonds that led to trust. Most people don’t build that into their virtual meetings, which is something that we really need to do. You build trust and bonds in the unstructured, open space around the meeting time and you need to build that into remote environments. What are the white space moments that built relationships in person and how can you recreate those experiences in your remote working environment? To allow people to get to know each other, give them space to ask questions and get answers. Structure some questions to allow people to learn about each other and in a way where everyone has the opportunity to share a problem they are facing. One of the best questions you can ask is “If you and I are meeting again a year from now over a bottle of Champagne, what are we celebrating?”     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com davidburkus.com

Mo asks David Burkus: How do you develop relationships with your clients virtually? The future of work is working from anywhere. The truth is that we are not going back to the office. Even before the pandemic, studies were showing that people are more engaged when they are out of the office 40% to 60% of the time. We need greater flexibility, trust, and autonomy with the people that we collaborate with in a remote environment. Communication is actually more important now that it was before. We can’t take as many non-verbal cues as we could when we were working together, so we need to be more deliberate and empathetic in our communication. One of the first things we need to be doing with prospective clients is talking about how we are going to be working together. This is now part of the process of closing the deal. One major tip is that eye contact is not eye contact when you’re communicating online. You have to look into the camera lens to recreate the experience and connection of eye contact. The other thing to realize is that communication is more asynchronous than ever before. Make sure you have clear writing and thinking in your written communication. You also have to be clear about what each method of communication is meant for. To enroll clients, the easiest way is to have an established communications system within your team already. Create a team-working agreement and then use that to create the framework of client communication. Schedule a meeting to create your team-working agreement, and get answers to all of the questions written down into a shared document. Then get every team member to agree.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com davidburkus.com

Mike Michalowicz delivers a powerful message that entrepreneurs and business development professionals need to hear. Learn some incredible hacks you can use right now to deepen your business relationships, identify exactly what you should be working on to make the greatest impact, and learn how to multiply your best clients and grow your book of business exponentially.   Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: Why do you have to start with sales? Sales create cash for a business. We usually start a business to create financial freedom, and to get there we need sales, but sales are not sufficient in themselves. They are the foundation to the Business Hierarchy of Needs. If you realize and feel that your offering is superior to your competitor’s, then you have an obligation to sell it. If your prospect goes with the competitor, they are getting an inferior offering. Making your clients aware of your offer and putting it in front of them is the best way to serve them. Not selling your offering is doing them a disservice. Just like people, businesses have a hierarchy of needs as well. Foundationally, we need sales because it creates cash. Once we’ve got sales we need to extract that cash to bring about stability, also known as profit. Once you have that addressed, you need to create efficiency and order. The level above that is impact, and it’s where your business goes from being about transactions to becoming about transformation. The final level is legacy, which is where the work you are doing is so important that it must continue for generations. The hierarchy functions like a pyramid, where if you want to grow, you need to expand the sales base.   Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: What’s the number one thing people can do to get more yeses? The most powerful concept is client cloning. We need to focus on our best clients and identify what we know about them. Then you develop an avatar around those attributes and go to where those people congregate. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. We have to concentrate our efforts on the areas and mediums where our best clients are so we can get in front of them. Once you begin cloning your best clients, it also brings a new level of efficiency to your business. You work with similar clients in similar situations, and the resolution becomes consistently the same, which elevates your ability to scale. People are looking to know, like, and trust you, and selling right off the bat is not the best approach. Educational marketing is the most effective method to build the rapport you need to land clients and once they are ready to make a decision on someone to do it for them they will pick you. When you have people that are intrigued and interested in what you do, have a clear, concise and reasonable next step for them to do.   Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: How can we use your framework to deepen our most important business relationships? The easiest way to connect with your client is to learn the language that they use. Ask your best clients what you are doing right, and they will tell you what they judge you on. The thing you do right is actually the thing you need to improve most to create an extraordinary relationship. Deepen your relationships by doing the right thing better. Your clients will tell you exactly what they need if you ask them. You can ask what you’re doing wrong, but you’re not going to get the truth if there’s a potential confrontation. Instead, ask what’s wrong with your industry. You’ll be surprised by what you hear. Ask your clients about what other vendors they depend on too, and then go and deepen those relationships. Tap into the vendor wealth that surrounds your clients.   Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: How do we hack our habits so we keep evolving and getting better? The first thing you do in the day is the most impactful. Sadly, most people open their email first which then dictates their behavior. You need to time block the first part of your morning to focus on your most important work. Don’t do anything like email which can divert you from the path. Any time you want to fix or improve a single thing, you need to focus on it exclusively each day until that one project is done. Use the momentum effect to your advantage. It’s actually the discipline of not doing that will actually result in more effective action. Even a 15-minute block of time at the very beginning of your day will yield positive results and make it easier to get the momentum going. If you want to strengthen a chain, focus on the weakest link. If you fix that, the strength of the whole chain gets elevated and you can focus on the next weak link. We can be so much more efficient if we just focus on one thing at a time.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Mike Michalowicz. There is the evolution of a business that can be broken down. You don’t want to focus on the higher level elements until addressing the foundations. This is where the Business Hierarchy of Needs comes in. The foundation of any business that’s service based is sales. You have to get good at business development, if you don’t you will stagnate and fall back. Once you start getting money in the door, you can start thinking about profit and efficiency. Then the next step is making the biggest impact on the people you serve that you can. You can then focus on the legacy of the business so that you can leave the world in a better state than you found it in. Business development is the foundation, but it’s also intertwined with each level and constantly revisited. The three questions for clients is a great framework for identifying how you can deepen your relationship with them. “What am I doing right?”, “What’s wrong with our industry?”, and “What other vendors/partners do you depend on?”. By systematizing those three questions you have an excellent process for identifying where to focus on next. Focus on one project at a time, even if you have multiple projects you’re working on over a given time period. It can play off your grand overarching strategy in the long term, but you have to pull those big things down to one specific task and focus on that to completion.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com fixthisnext.com

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Mike Michalowicz. There is the evolution of a business that can be broken down. You don’t want to focus on the higher level elements until addressing the foundations. This is where the Business Hierarchy of Needs comes in. The foundation of any business that’s service based is sales. You have to get good at business development, if you don’t you will stagnate and fall back. Once you start getting money in the door, you can start thinking about profit and efficiency. Then the next step is making the biggest impact on the people you serve that you can. You can then focus on the legacy of the business so that you can leave the world in a better state than you found it in. Business development is the foundation, but it’s also intertwined with each level and constantly revisited. The three questions for clients is a great framework for identifying how you can deepen your relationship with them. “What am I doing right?”, “What’s wrong with our industry?”, and “What other vendors/partners do you depend on?”. By systematizing those three questions you have an excellent process for identifying where to focus on next. Focus on one project at a time, even if you have multiple projects you’re working on over a given time period. It can play off your grand overarching strategy in the long term, but you have to pull those big things down to one specific task and focus on that to completion.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com fixthisnext.com

Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: How do we hack our habits so we keep evolving and getting better? The first thing you do in the day is the most impactful. Sadly, most people open their email first which then dictates their behavior. You need to time block the first part of your morning to focus on your most important work. Don’t do anything like email which can divert you from the path. Any time you want to fix or improve a single thing, you need to focus on it exclusively each day until that one project is done. Use the momentum effect to your advantage. It’s actually the discipline of not doing that will actually result in more effective action. Even a 15-minute block of time at the very beginning of your day will yield positive results and make it easier to get the momentum going. If you want to strengthen a chain, focus on the weakest link. If you fix that, the strength of the whole chain gets elevated and you can focus on the next weak link. We can be so much more efficient if we just focus on one thing at a time.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com fixthisnext.com

Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: How can we use your framework to deepen our most important business relationships? The easiest way to connect with your client is to learn the language that they use. Ask your best clients what you are doing right, and they will tell you what they judge you on. The thing you do right is actually the thing you need to improve most to create an extraordinary relationship. Deepen your relationships by doing the right thing better. Your clients will tell you exactly what they need if you ask them. You can ask what you’re doing wrong, but you’re not going to get the truth if there’s a potential confrontation. Instead, ask what’s wrong with your industry. You’ll be surprised by what you hear. Ask your clients about what other vendors they depend on too, and then go and deepen those relationships. Tap into the vendor wealth that surrounds your clients.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com fixthisnext.com

Mo asks Mike Michalowicz: What’s the number one thing people can do to get more yeses? The most powerful concept is client cloning. We need to focus on our best clients and identify what we know about them. Then you develop an avatar around those attributes and go to where those people congregate. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. We have to concentrate our efforts on the areas and mediums where our best clients are so we can get in front of them. Once you begin cloning your best clients, it also brings a new level of efficiency to your business. You work with similar clients in similar situations, and the resolution becomes consistently the same, which elevates your ability to scale. People are looking to know, like, and trust you, and selling right off the bat is not the best approach. Educational marketing is the most effective method to build the rapport you need to land clients and once they are ready to make a decision on someone to do it for them they will pick you. When you have people that are intrigued and interested in what you do, have a clear, concise and reasonable next step for them to do.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com fixthisnext.com