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

Mo asks Warren Shiver: What is your personal definition of business development? Business development is simply about building trust between people. People buy from people, and that still holds true in the age of Zoom. Mo’s wife recently started a non-profit focused on equine therapy. and within two months of the launch they were getting incredible amounts donated to the program. This was because Becky had been building relationships with people in the area for 30 years. People are looking for indicators that you do what you’re going to say you’re going to do. Trust is built over the course of your career, and as you help other people be successful, you build your network and your brand, and that helps to sustain your success. Your first interaction with someone matters. How can you come prepared for your first conversation with someone with questions and fluency? Whatever the next step is, follow up and follow through with a high rate of precision and speed. You can differentiate yourself just by having professional, thorough, and timely follow up. Most people aren’t reliable. Reliability starts with being organized. Being able to connect the dots for someone across a number of different relationships is very valuable. Warren uses his Outlook calendar to stay on top of what he needs to get done alongside Hubspot. He also has a Protemoi list of key relationships and opportunities that he keeps front and center along with his calendar, to keep things on track.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com thebrevetgroup.com

Mo asks Warren Shiver: At what point in your career did you realize that business development was something you should focus on? Warren started his career off in the typical management/consulting track almost exclusively focused on product delivery. Warren’s wife worked for PeopleSoft at the time, and he was able to go on a few president’s club trips with her. Seeing top performing business development professionals treated so well opened his eyes. No engineers get treated to trips to tropical destinations for delivering a project on time. Warren was in business school at the time and interviewed for all the top technical positions, but they all wanted to see more sales experience. Warren started to focus more on sales and got the opportunity to build a small team working with companies to improve sales performance. That role forced Warren to focus on business development and kicked off his relationship with Mo. As a deep technical expert, the first yes you need to hear is from your internal partners to get introduced to clients. You need to make yourself as relevant and as easily understood as possible to build trust internally before you can get in front of clients. Trust is foundational. Your niche solution may not be overall material to the account manager so it represents a significant risk. To build trust you need to prove your success. Do you have a track record of prior success in a similar situation? The best client-facing team of executives brings a broad selection of skill sets to a project, even if it means going outside the firm, in order to build the trust and relationship with the client. The most important element of success is having a process. It takes a steady and disciplined approach to be successful, whether you are selling internally, externally, or a combination of both.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com thebrevetgroup.com

Bill Ruprecht pulls from his decades-long career in sales and business development and shares the work-defining stories and lessons he learned along the way. Learn how Bill discovered the keys to building relationships around the dinner table with his parents, why building relationships isn’t solely reserved for people with the natural gift of conversation but is a trainable skill that anyone can figure out, and why being in sales is something you should be proud of.   Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: When did you first start thinking about business development as something important that you wanted to do? Bill spent many years in business when there were two kinds of business development. The first was a form of gunslinging more focused on extracting value and the second was centered around building more long term relationships. Inevitably, you come to realize that building relationships and adding relevance to potential customers is the way to go. There are three ways to differentiate a business: be an innovator and make things that no one has seen before, be cheap and provide the lowest cost service, or you can be customer centric and know more about your customers than anyone else in the world. Nobody should own a client. The team should always work together to get the job done well. If you have a lot of history with a client or they demand that a particular person is involved, that should be accepted. The end result of a deal is always a combination of relationship and price. In Bill’s line of work, certain clients tend to push on price but that always makes things tougher. Chasing the margins on a deal down to the point where the service provider doesn’t care about the outcome is always a poor choice. For another client, Bill tells the story of a semi-regular delivery of BLT sandwiches and how they were a barometer of the relationship. They may not have gotten the business because of the sandwiches, but they definitely didn’t hurt.   Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What story did your parents tell you that shaped how you thought about business development? Bill’s mother was always extremely bright and driven, but she wasn’t terribly happy in her life. His father had the knack of being able to find commonality with almost anyone. It was at the dinner table where Bill was constantly challenged with questions on how he would deal with a variety of hypothetical situations. When Bill started in the antique business he was working with Persian rug dealers and in the process he learned what was relevant to them and how to build rapport, despite the considerable difference in their culture. Bill understood that those conversations with his parents around the dinner table were like batting practice, and those skills served him well in his work later on in life. When you do something for a long time, you give yourself the opportunity to get lucky. If you position yourself in the right way and do the work, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful, but it does mean you can get lucky. There wasn’t one single pivot moment where Bill got lucky and his career took off. It was a gradual process of taking on more risks and responsibilities over time and pushing past the fear to take the leap each time.   Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What is your favorite science, step, or strategy from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System? Bill began working with Mo because he believed a more disciplined approach to building relationships was critical to the continued growth of his organization. When you have 90 offices over 40 countries is an enormous task. Bill recalls a meeting with a number of executives at Sotheby's along with Mo where it became very clear how some people struggled with the process of articulating value, even those who had been in the business for 30 years. Every business believes they are unique so they often believe a system of business development couldn’t possibly apply to them. But once they realize that almost everybody runs into the same problems and barriers, they see the value of a disciplined approach to relationships. The default assumption that most people make is that business development is not a learnable skill. That some people are just born with it and that assumption prevents them from seeing the possibilities. Bill is a born introvert and a learned extrovert. Giving speeches and connecting with people didn’t come naturally to him. Being a salesman is something to be proud of because it means you’re being an advocate for whatever you’re walking into the room and trying to do.   Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What is a story of business development that you are particularly proud of? A business like Sotheby’s is a transaction business so Bill had been involved in thousands of transactions over the course of his career but one tale in particular stood out to him. Bill traveled down to Florida to help an older lawyer sell $20 million in vintage cars and that began a 9-month process of negotiating. After months of back and forth, they finally signed the deal, and the auction itself was widely successful. In extended negotiations, as the professional, you know what it will take to make the deal successful. It’s common for the other party to not fully know what they want and the key is to just keep the conversations going. When the other party doesn’t know what they want, negotiating becomes a marathon or experimenting and exploring until they land on what was missing from the conversation.   Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: If you could record a video around business development for your younger self, what would it say? You learn a lot more from failure than you do from success. Early on in Bill’s career, he had developed a relationship with an art collector, but after the collector passed away the business went to other people because Bill didn’t consider what would happen after that point or lay the foundation to make sure the family would work with him. It’s important to not rely on a single individual for your relationship with an organization. You need to create a team of advocates to work with a team of counterparts within the organization. Remove your ego from the equation and focus on building a team to team relationship. We tend to focus on our expertise and believe that’s how decisions get made, but that’s not the way it works. What should drive those decisions is that your company has a collection of skills to help clients solve their problems.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: If you could record a video around business development for your younger self, what would it say? You learn a lot more from failure than you do from success. Early on in Bill’s career, he had developed a relationship with an art collector, but after the collector passed away the business went to other people because Bill didn’t consider what would happen after that point or lay the foundation to make sure the family would work with him. It’s important to not rely on a single individual for your relationship with an organization. You need to create a team of advocates to work with a team of counterparts within the organization. Remove your ego from the equation and focus on building a team to team relationship. We tend to focus on our expertise and believe that’s how decisions get made, but that’s not the way it works. What should drive those decisions is that your company has a collection of skills to help clients solve their problems.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What is a story of business development that you are particularly proud of? A business like Sotheby’s is a transaction business so Bill had been involved in thousands of transactions over the course of his career but one tale in particular stood out to him. Bill traveled down to Florida to help an older lawyer sell $20 million in vintage cars and that began a 9-month process of negotiating. After months of back and forth, they finally signed the deal, and the auction itself was widely successful. In extended negotiations, as the professional, you know what it will take to make the deal successful. It’s common for the other party to not fully know what they want and the key is to just keep the conversations going. When the other party doesn’t know what they want, negotiating becomes a marathon or experimenting and exploring until they land on what was missing from the conversation.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What is your favorite science, step, or strategy from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System? Bill began working with Mo because he believed a more disciplined approach to building relationships was critical to the continued growth of his organization. When you have 90 offices over 40 countries is an enormous task. Bill recalls a meeting with a number of executives at Sotheby's along with Mo where it became very clear how some people struggled with the process of articulating value, even those who had been in the business for 30 years. Every business believes they are unique so they often believe a system of business development couldn’t possibly apply to them. But once they realize that almost everybody runs into the same problems and barriers, they see the value of a disciplined approach to relationships. The default assumption that most people make is that business development is not a learnable skill. That some people are just born with it and that assumption prevents them from seeing the possibilities. Bill is a born introvert and a learned extrovert. Giving speeches and connecting with people didn’t come naturally to him. Being a salesman is something to be proud of because it means you’re being an advocate for whatever you’re walking into the room and trying to do.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What story did your parents tell you that shaped how you thought about business development? Bill’s mother was always extremely bright and driven, but she wasn’t terribly happy in her life. His father had the knack of being able to find commonality with almost anyone. It was at the dinner table where Bill was constantly challenged with questions on how he would deal with a variety of hypothetical situations. When Bill started in the antique business he was working with Persian rug dealers and in the process he learned what was relevant to them and how to build rapport, despite the considerable difference in their culture. Bill understood that those conversations with his parents around the dinner table were like batting practice, and those skills served him well in his work later on in life. When you do something for a long time, you give yourself the opportunity to get lucky. If you position yourself in the right way and do the work, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful, but it does mean you can get lucky. There wasn’t one single pivot moment where Bill got lucky and his career took off. It was a gradual process of taking on more risks and responsibilities over time and pushing past the fear to take the leap each time.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: When did you first start thinking about business development as something important that you wanted to do? Bill spent many years in business when there were two kinds of business development. The first was a form of gunslinging more focused on extracting value and the second was centered around building more long term relationships. Inevitably, you come to realize that building relationships and adding relevance to potential customers is the way to go. There are three ways to differentiate a business: be an innovator and make things that no one has seen before, be cheap and provide the lowest cost service, or you can be customer centric and know more about your customers than anyone else in the world. Nobody should own a client. The team should always work together to get the job done well. If you have a lot of history with a client or they demand that a particular person is involved, that should be accepted. The end result of a deal is always a combination of relationship and price. In Bill’s line of work, certain clients tend to push on price but that always makes things tougher. Chasing the margins on a deal down to the point where the service provider doesn’t care about the outcome is always a poor choice. For another client, Bill tells the story of a semi-regular delivery of BLT sandwiches and how they were a barometer of the relationship. They may not have gotten the business because of the sandwiches, but they definitely didn’t hurt.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com

Bonneau Ansley, the #1 real estate agent in the South, shares how he discovered how to take his passion for people and selling, and leverage it into a ridiculously successful real estate company on track to do over $3 billion in sales this year. Learn about some of the nitty gritty business development tactics that Bonneau uses to create a network that helps him develop business 24/7, why Bonneau reinvents himself every year, and how that practice helped him grow his business from $100 million in sales to over $3 billion is seven short years.   Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: Tell me of the moment in your life when you realized that business development was something you wanted to focus on. Bonneau knew he was going to be a sales guy at the early age of 16 when he was in highschool. He felt that school wasn’t really his thing, but people and classmates were. He started selling t-shirts and hats, which continued into college with his own clothing company, and he realized that selling was something that he clicked with. It was in college where he was first exposed to real estate after taking a class that he became completely hooked on the subject. After college, selling real estate became the natural evolution for Bonneau. Bonneau has done every facet of real estate including development and sales, with plenty of success and failure along the way. Cycles are common in real estate, and Bonneau has had to reinvent himself more than once. Bonneau recalls the story of when he and his wife had lost everything to a house fire in 2004. The fire forced him to give himself a fresh start. As devastating something like a fire can be, it’s a catalyst for change in life. Bonneau tries to reinvent himself every year. He works in a very competitive environment so his mindset is always centered around thinking big, doubling his business big. To double your business, you have to create habits that you didn’t do before, and implement those. In Bonneau’s seventh year in business, they are on track to sell over $3 billion in sales this year. It doesn’t have to take your house burning down or your business to fail with the banking collapse. It’s simply about having a mindset where you always look at what you need to do to do better every single year.   Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: What is your personal definition of business development? Bonneau interacts with people for roughly ten hours a day, from his barber to his valet, and each interaction is an exercise in business development. Each person is a part of Bonneau’s sales team with a small incentive to spread the word about him. From a business development standpoint, to continue to be the #1 realtor in the South, he needs to be everywhere, and each person he interacts with is a chance to amplify his brand. To be successful, you will have to stretch your comfort zone. Creating some new habits, even if you’re not a natural at them, is how you do it. If you’re in sales, the more people that know what you sell and that you’re good at it, the more product you’re going to sell, no matter what it is. Bonneau has created a network and a platform that allows him to do business development 24 hours a day whether he is present for the individual conversation or not. Bonneau is really good at sales, and he’s put himself into a position to succeed by only focusing on that one thing. For the other tasks that don’t come natural to him, he’s built a team to help him continue focusing on business development and sales. Everybody is great at something. The key is to figure out what that one thing is and how to monetize that. When Bonneau was in school he struggled, but when he discovered sales he found something he could excel at and figured out a way to thrive.   Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: What’s your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG training or Snowball System? Bonneau has been a real estate agent for 20 years, but when Mo interviewed Bonneau in order to get his house sold, it changed the way he operated. They had a conversation about the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument and went over the different ways that people communicate, and that conversation transformed how Bonneau presents to his clients. Now he makes sure to cover all four quadrants no matter who he’s talking to to make sure he connects with them. The HBDI model has been integrated into Bonneau’s team. He took many of the principles that he learned from the GrowBIG training and the Snowball System and used them as the foundation for building his massive team of agents and executives. The HBDI test has helped Bonneau grow his business to over 300 real estate agents that work under his brand. In the first year of business, Bonneau’s team did over $100 million in sales and, seven years later, they are on track to do over $3 billion in sales.   Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: Tell me of a business development story that you are deeply proud of. When Bonneau started the business, he made sure that he was selling for a reason. Even when they weren’t making any money, he made sure that every sale gave back to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Hospital and it’s become the most rewarding business activity he’s ever done. Having clients is not about a single transaction. Bonneau wants to grow with his clients and for the company to have a footprint beyond real estate. By pairing sales with a noble endeavor, he makes the mission of the organization more than just profit. Visiting the hospital in addition to donating money is part of the company culture. When things get hard, the charitable aspect of the business helps but he has a deep desire to win that keeps him going. Overcoming his natural weaknesses and leveraging his strengths also allows him to stay motivated.   Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: If you could record a message to your younger self around business development, what would it say? In school, Bonneau would have told himself to not worry too much about failing Geology and Mrs. Jones is not going to be there to critique you for the rest of your life. In college, it would have been to try more things while avoiding some bad influences. After college, he would have told himself to go somewhere new. It wasn’t until he left his hometown that he really learned the skills he needed to succeed on his own. One key lesson that Bonneau would share is to not be afraid of reinventing yourself. Even with scary situations, there is opportunity to learn. They are all part of your path to discovering what you want to do for the long haul. Don’t wait so long to start your business. It’s okay to buck the trend and start something sooner than you think you should. You’re more ready than you realize. Mo tells the story of how Bonneau called him up and told that they were going to spend the night at a homeless shelter and plan out what they were going to achieve the next year. To climb, Bonneau cuts. To make a greater impact, Bonneau doesn’t hesitate to say no to something that isn’t at the level of what he’s trying to achieve. Bonneau does a lot of investing and one of the most important ways he figures out who to work with is by identifying the founders that are passionate for what they are working on beyond the potential profit.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com bonneauansley.com

Mo asks Bonneau Ansley: If you could record a message to your younger self around business development, what would it say? In school, Bonneau would have told himself to not worry too much about failing Geology and Mrs. Jones is not going to be there to critique you for the rest of your life. In college, it would have been to try more things while avoiding some bad influences. After college, he would have told himself to go somewhere new. It wasn’t until he left his hometown that he really learned the skills he needed to succeed on his own. One key lesson that Bonneau would share is to not be afraid of reinventing yourself. Even with scary situations, there is opportunity to learn. They are all part of your path to discovering what you want to do for the long haul. Don’t wait so long to start your business. It’s okay to buck the trend and start something sooner than you think you should. You’re more ready than you realize. Mo tells the story of how Bonneau called him up and told that they were going to spend the night at a homeless shelter and plan out what they were going to achieve the next year. To climb, Bonneau cuts. To make a greater impact, Bonneau doesn’t hesitate to say no to something that isn’t at the level of what he’s trying to achieve. Bonneau does a lot of investing and one of the most important ways he figures out who to work with is by identifying the founders that are passionate for what they are working on beyond the potential profit.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com bonneauansley.com