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

Mo asks Mitch Joel: What's your best advice for professionals to deepen long-term relationships? People will not leave a relationship, even if they are paying you more than someone else, if they like you. Get people to like you in a way that's authentic and genuine and clearly has their best interests at heart. Don't identify as a dinosaur. Excuses like "I can't understand this" or "I don't do social" are holding you back. We are all dealing with fatigue and overwork, but having the dinosaur mindset is a choice. Technology has made content and communication very easy to accomplish and inexpensive to implement. There are no excuses. Take an hour and learn how a piece of technology or app works so that you can do it yourself. Mitch may get old and grey, but he will never become a dinosaur. Networking is great for creating and deepening relationships. Proactively fill your calendar with ways to connect with new people. As an example, Mitch takes his morning walks on Instagram and invites people to "walk" with him. Networking has to be something that you're doing all the time. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com sixpixels.com

Mo asks Mitch Joel: How would you advise high end professionals to create and close more deals? Go and follow Jeffrey Gettemer and subscribe to his newsletter. Anything Mitch has learned about sales was picked up from Jeffrey. Essentially, a lot of sales is about relationship building, storytelling, not being boring, and not being caught up in our own world. Instead it is about focusing on what the prospect wants. One of the biggest mistakes in sales is thinking exclusively about your own goals and quotas, when having the vision of what the person across the table needs is where the opportunity is. Jeffrey once told the story of how his father always came home after work and voraciously wrote notes about companies and individuals and ideas so that he could better sell to them. The people who are outworking you or outselling you are just out-homeworking you. Even though Mitch is no longer in the agency business, he still collects any articles or content he finds that would be relevant to someone and sends it to them. This isn't done to derive immediate value but it works well as a connection point and relationship builder. Don't link-spam people. This approach is a strategy of gifting and is a customized, one-to-one touchpoint. There is a lot of power derived when you do things like this authentically and from the heart. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com sixpixels.com

Mo asks Mitch Joel: What is your big idea for getting better at retention and growth? Whether it's digital or not, it's all about relationships and relationships are built on the stories you tell and how you deliver on them. Most people tend to market themselves with promises instead of with their overall story. The ethos of the Madmen era of advertising still permeates the way many professionals think. You don't have to be personal, you just have to be personable. That's the story that is going to connect with the right kinds of customers, which is something that you need to be focused on. As professionals, we all have to figure out what kind of content we are going to create. It can come in whatever form you like, whether that's audio, video, or written. The content you create should have a bullseye that you're aiming for within the Triangle of Attention. Even if your approach or niche isn't unique, you can still bring your unique voice to the table to make your brand stand out. Human beings prefer regularity. Content you create should follow an editorial calendar instead of being posted whenever you happen to feel like it. Content should be scheduled regularly and you need to stick with the schedule. Seth Godin refers to this as the "Drip Strategy." Content is a drip and if you create enough drips they become a ripple, the ripple creates waves, and the waves fill the ocean. The vast majority of the content you create will garner virtual crickets but cumulatively over time it creates a sense of presence, social proof, and credibility. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com sixpixels.com

Ron Tite shares the insights behind the Think. Do. Say. framework and how you can use it to create an effective personal brand, do more of the work you truly care about and be more authentic. Learn the four C's that make communicating your brand belief easy, the five questions that get a prospect's head nodding during a pitch, and how to innovate consistently while still delivering your best work. Mo asks Ron Tite: What's your big idea on how the audience can grow their book of business, grow their career, and grow their relationships? The first thing is to stop gaming the system and stop looking for shortcuts to business development. You need two things: a consistent brand narrative to sell the things you have and to be entrepreneurial so you can create the resources that people need. Business development is bound by purpose, defined by actions, and adopted by other people by how you communicate it. Your purpose has to go beyond the thing that you sell that speaks to your brand belief. If you can't articulate that, that's where you need to start. You will be defined by the actions you take to fulfill and live up to your purpose, it's not by the things you say. Those first two are not enough though. You can be living in your purpose authentically, but you still need other people to adopt your purpose as well if you want something to grow. Even in a retail setting, you can still act in an advisory or consultative role. REI is a good example of a company that embodies that principle as they have a purpose that is strategically aligned to where they make their money. They inspire, inform, and equip people with the proper tools to have a greater enjoyment of the outdoors. Your purpose should align with what you sell. REI also communicates its purpose in a way that conveys trust and authority, without sounding too corporate and separated from what the customers really care about. Your brand narrative flows consistently out of those three foundational ideas and is composed of these five things: What's going on in the world through your lens? What problem does that create? What do you believe about that problem? How do you solve that problem? Why should someone believe you? This set of questions establishes your brand narrative and gets people's heads nodding. It's not about selling, it's about framing the conversation around where you add the most value. Mo asks Ron Tite: How can we get better at creating and closing the meaty work that we want to do? The first step is identifying the meaty work where you can add your best value. Ron recently had someone resign from his agency after they had a conversation about what she really wanted to do. It wasn't until she asked herself that question did she realize that she wasn't happy because she wasn't doing what she really wanted to do. You need to put yourself in a position to close after building an organization that people want to work with. Who are the specific people that can best use your service and how can you put yourself into a position to win their business? In terms of communicating your brand belief to the right customers, there are four C's: Consumption, Curation, Creation, Connection. Once you have your brand belief, you need to operationalize the strategic consumption of media that supports that. You need to consume media that makes you smarter and better. Curation is about taking the media that you find compelling or valuable and sharing it with your community. Editorialize it with your own opinion and put your own spin on it. Ron also categorizes content and insights that he finds and adds them to categories for use in his future speeches and books. At some point you have to create your own stuff and get that out into the world. The connection part is about the conversation that happens when someone challenges your thinking or adds to it. That's where your personality shows through: it's not in the post, it's in the comments. Mo asks Ron Tite: How can we deepen relationships and win the relationship advantage? If you have great relationships, know that some of them will convert, but that's not why you invest in relationships. When Ron started his agency, his first client was a woman that he knew and had a work relationship with 15 years prior. She didn't have a need for his agency, but she created a project for him and launched his agency. Far too many think they need to create relationships to grow their business but if that's your primary motivation it's not going to work. To properly build relationships you need to have a genuine desire to get to know someone as a human being. Authenticity means to be comfortable with your imperfections. Don't show up as the stock photo version of a lawyer, consultant, marketer, or business development professional. Your imperfections are not bugs, their features and that's what people buy. People don't know where to look or who to trust, and if their gut reaction is that you are hiding the real you from them, it's not a good way to start a business relationship. Ron's background is in stand-up comedy and there is a line in comedy that comedians use; "never ignore the reality of the room". Call out your mistakes and the reality of the situation. If you get the sense that they aren't interested, acknowledge that. Even a catastrophe can be used as a way to stand out and be completely human. The beginnings of meetings and the ending of meetings are very important. Just like comedy, you should start with an insight and tie the ending of the meeting back to that same insight. Mo asks Ron Tite: How do we stay on top of retention and growth activities when everything is yanking us away? In car manufacturing, there are two sides that are critical to the business. The money is made on the assembly line because that is repeatable behaviour that strips out inefficiencies over time. But if they only did assembly line work they would go out of business. The other side involves concept cars and experimentation. They have no expectation that concept cars will go into production, but it allows the assembly line to consistently innovate over time. You need to look at your day the same way. Is it a particular task assembly line work or concept car work? It's important to innovate but you need to focus on the assembly line work without changing too much, too fast. You need to carve out time for concept car work because, like exercise, there is always something more important to do. You also have to establish metrics to evaluate the success of the experiment. Put all your effort into the concept car activity so you don't give yourself excuses later on. Limit your concept car activities to just one at a time. This forces you to prioritize it because delivery is going to take up the rest of your day. When the business dynamic changes like it has over the past year it creates new problems. Start with thinking about what problem exists right now that no one is solving right now. Mo shares his insights from the habits of Ron Tite. Think: What's the thing you believe in so much that you would be happy to work on it for the rest of your working life? Do: How do you exemplify that? People don't judge you by the things you say, they judge you by what you do. Actions are what signals what you believe deep down. Say: How do you communicate what you believe? Too many people jump to this part before figuring out everything else. Be comfortable with your imperfections. Authenticity means being okay with who you are, even when you make mistakes or ask dumb questions. Share your journey because we are all always learning. When people are focused more on progress than a result, they are more comfortable with sharing that they are not perfect and those are the kinds of people that others want to be around. Add some humour to your communication. Ron's background in stand up comedy gives him a good foundation for making a conversation enjoyable. Be a good entertainer and great host. Don't be so focused on the content you're teaching or discussing that you become boring. Studies showed that if you tell a joke at the beginning of a negotiation it reaches a better result and people rate the negotiation higher. Even an attempt at humour that doesn't hit the mark is better than being boring and dry. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Ron Tite. Think: What's the thing you believe in so much that you would be happy to work on it for the rest of your working life? Do: How do you exemplify that? People don't judge you by the things you say, they judge you by what you do. Actions are what signals what you believe deep down. Say: How do you communicate what you believe? Too many people jump to this part before figuring out everything else. Be comfortable with your imperfections. Authenticity means being okay with who you are, even when you make mistakes or ask dumb questions. Share your journey because we are all always learning. When people are focused more on progress than a result, they are more comfortable with sharing that they are not perfect and those are the kinds of people that others want to be around. Add some humour to your communication. Ron's background in stand up comedy gives him a good foundation for making a conversation enjoyable. Be a good entertainer and great host. Don't be so focused on the content you're teaching or discussing that you become boring. Studies showed that if you tell a joke at the beginning of a negotiation it reaches a better result and people rate the negotiation higher. Even an attempt at humour that doesn't hit the mark is better than being boring and dry. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Mo asks Ron Tite: How do we stay on top of retention and growth activities when everything is yanking us away? In car manufacturing, there are two sides that are critical to the business. The money is made on the assembly line because that is repeatable behaviour that strips out inefficiencies over time. But if they only did assembly line work they would go out of business. The other side involves concept cars and experimentation. They have no expectation that concept cars will go into production, but it allows the assembly line to consistently innovate over time. You need to look at your day the same way. Is it a particular task assembly line work or concept car work? It's important to innovate but you need to focus on the assembly line work without changing too much, too fast. You need to carve out time for concept car work because, like exercise, there is always something more important to do. You also have to establish metrics to evaluate the success of the experiment. Put all your effort into the concept car activity so you don't give yourself excuses later on. Limit your concept car activities to just one at a time. This forces you to prioritize it because delivery is going to take up the rest of your day. When the business dynamic changes like it has over the past year it creates new problems. Start with thinking about what problem exists right now that no one is solving right now. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Mo asks Ron Tite: How can we deepen relationships and win the relationship advantage? If you have great relationships, know that some of them will convert, but that's not why you invest in relationships. When Ron started his agency, his first client was a woman that he knew and had a work relationship with 15 years prior. She didn't have a need for his agency, but she created a project for him and launched his agency. Far too many think they need to create relationships to grow their business but if that's your primary motivation it's not going to work. To properly build relationships you need to have a genuine desire to get to know someone as a human being. Authenticity means to be comfortable with your imperfections. Don't show up as the stock photo version of a lawyer, consultant, marketer, or business development professional. Your imperfections are not bugs, their features and that's what people buy. People don't know where to look or who to trust, and if their gut reaction is that you are hiding the real you from them, it's not a good way to start a business relationship. Ron's background is in stand-up comedy and there is a line in comedy that comedians use; "never ignore the reality of the room". Call out your mistakes and the reality of the situation. If you get the sense that they aren't interested, acknowledge that. Even a catastrophe can be used as a way to stand out and be completely human. The beginnings of meetings and the ending of meetings are very important. Just like comedy, you should start with an insight and tie the ending of the meeting back to that same insight. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Mo asks Ron Tite: How can we get better at creating and closing the meaty work that we want to do? The first step is identifying the meaty work where you can add your best value. Ron recently had someone resign from his agency after they had a conversation about what she really wanted to do. It wasn't until she asked herself that question did she realize that she wasn't happy because she wasn't doing what she really wanted to do. You need to put yourself in a position to close after building an organization that people want to work with. Who are the specific people that can best use your service and how can you put yourself into a position to win their business? In terms of communicating your brand belief to the right customers, there are four C's: Consumption, Curation, Creation, Connection. Once you have your brand belief, you need to operationalize the strategic consumption of media that supports that. You need to consume media that makes you smarter and better. Curation is about taking the media that you find compelling or valuable and sharing it with your community. Editorialize it with your own opinion and put your own spin on it. Ron also categorizes content and insights that he finds and adds them to categories for use in his future speeches and books. At some point you have to create your own stuff and get that out into the world. The connection part is about the conversation that happens when someone challenges your thinking or adds to it. That's where your personality shows through: it's not in the post, it's in the comments. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Mo asks Ron Tite: What's your big idea on how the audience can grow their book of business, grow their career, and grow their relationships? The first thing is to stop gaming the system and stop looking for shortcuts to business development. You need two things: a consistent brand narrative to sell the things you have and to be entrepreneurial so you can create the resources that people need. Business development is bound by purpose, defined by actions, and adopted by other people by how you communicate it. Your purpose has to go beyond the thing that you sell that speaks to your brand belief. If you can't articulate that, that's where you need to start. You will be defined by the actions you take to fulfill and live up to your purpose, it's not by the things you say. Those first two are not enough though. You can be living in your purpose authentically, but you still need other people to adopt your purpose as well if you want something to grow. Even in a retail setting, you can still act in an advisory or consultative role. REI is a good example of a company that embodies that principle as they have a purpose that is strategically aligned to where they make their money. They inspire, inform, and equip people with the proper tools to have a greater enjoyment of the outdoors. Your purpose should align with what you sell. REI also communicates its purpose in a way that conveys trust and authority, without sounding too corporate and separated from what the customers really care about. Your brand narrative flows consistently out of those three foundational ideas and is composed of these five things: What's going on in the world through your lens? What problem does that create? What do you believe about that problem? How do you solve that problem? Why should someone believe you? This set of questions establishes your brand narrative and gets people's heads nodding. It's not about selling, it's about framing the conversation around where you add the most value. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com rontite.com churchstate.com

Karim Nehdi shows you how to read your prospect's mind so you can tailor your service offer to exactly what they want. Learn how the Herrmann Brain Dominance model works in business development and how you can use the concept to better understand how a prospect thinks, what they care about most in terms of communication, and how you can use that to close more deals. Mo asks Karim Nehdi: What is your big idea on how people can grow their book of business, relationships, and career? Different people think differently, but most people don't realize what that really means. The most effective leaders and business developers are able to harness the differences in thought and cognitive diversity for maximum effect. We all have neural pathways that shift over time. We innately default to seeking out people that think like us, but the best teams break out of that pattern and tap into the differences in the way that people think. Karim is the CEO of Herrmann International and has been working with Mo for a long time in many of the programs he's developed. We are just scratching the potential of what the brain is capable of. We've learned over the past few decades that there are cognitive modes that dictate the way that we think, and the four different modes come together in different measures within each person. The first system is analytical thought. The second is structural thought. The third is relational thought. The fourth is experimental thought. We have all four pathways in our brains, but over time we come to default to one or two primarily, and that's where the trouble comes in. People think they connect on preferences and areas they align. When you feel a match with someone the ideas tend to flow fairly easily, but when there's a mismatch, the interaction can be awkward or difficult. A good example would be the IT team and the customer facing team. They both think in nearly opposite ways, and this can create tension in an organizational setting. In a business development context, understanding the differences can be very powerful. If you sense the prospect is risk averse, you should probably minimize the experimental and transformational elements of the pitch and focus on the process and how it all works. The most important component of good management, good leadership, and good stewardship is making sure that you have diversity of mind. Leaders that can bring a unique viewpoint and harness that within their organization can have a big impact. 3% of people are balanced across all four quadrants. Everyone can tap into the four different thinking systems. You just have to be willing to stretch and flex those cognitive muscles. Mo asks Karim Nehdi: How can we use our cognitive diversity to create and close more deals? What if you could read the minds of your customers and predict their response in advance? That would be an incredibly powerful business development skill. The first step is understanding yourself and where your preferences lie. For Mo, he fell into the experimental/analytical spectrum and knowing that helped him understand what was really on his mind and how he approached life. Your unique thinking style comes with strengths but also potential blindspots. Your default thinking may be leading you in the wrong direction for a deal, and if you never look back or get into the habit of thinking about your thinking, you will keep making the same mistakes. Once you know what your thought process is like, you can use that as a model to consider how a prospect might be thinking. Think about one of your most important customers and take a guess about what they might be thinking about in terms of what you are offering. If they are a big picture experimental thinker, maybe they are looking for something more innovative. If they are more relational thinkers, maybe they want to know they are going to be taken care of and are really concerned about what everyone else thinks. If they are structural thinkers, they are probably hyper-focused on the details and whether the offer will deliver exactly what they need. If they are analytical thinkers, they can be very price sensitive and looking for the greatest measurable ROI for them. Understanding the different types of buyers can allow you to position your product or service around what their needs might be. Don't assume that people are on the same wavelength as you and ask the question about what they need. There are certain ways of thinking that tend to manifest more often in certain industries. Analytical thinkers like actuaries are probably all about the bottom line and being efficient in their communication. Structural thinkers are probably all about the details. Relational thinkers may ask you about your personal life and will probably engage with you beyond verbal communication. Experimental thinkers will ask a lot of questions to try to connect the dots, and you might see them work out their thought process in the conversation. Mo asks Karim Nehdi: How do we use cognitive diversity and adapt to each of these four different ways of thinking? The baseline is to understand where you are likely to default and what your blindspots are going to be. Think about your pitch through the lens of what the stakeholder wants to hear and needs to understand in order to feel comfortable to move forward. This can mean adding in additional details for the structural buyer, including some ROI calculations for the analytic buyer, bringing in other clients to speak on your behalf for the relational buyer, or coming up with some novel ideas for the experimental buyer. Prepare your thinking in advance and try to start the conversation with where their preferences are instead of starting with where you are at. We often think about relationships on a one-on-one basis, but there are lots of people involved in the business development process. Business development is all about making your team work seamlessly with your customer's team which is where cognitive diversity comes in. You need to make sure that the people on your team that think a certain way are being paired up with people that need to think that way. You need everybody to be on the same page and moving in the same direction to take advantage of an opportunity, and understanding how each person on the team thinks and facilitates that knowledge transfer. In just 10 minutes you can get a basic understanding of the mindsets on your team and identify some of the things you need to do to bridge the gap. Taking the time to think about your thinking has a massive ROI in business outcomes. Understanding the thought processes of the individuals at play builds trust and allows people to communicate and solve problems more effectively. Challenge everyone that is involved in the conversation to think about their thinking and how it's going to play out in the success of the stakeholder. Mo asks Karim Nehdi: How can we use cognitive diversity to hack our own habits and be more successful, even when we're busy? Business development is a team sport. There is a role for the individual relationship, but there is also an important role for the team that supports that relationship. Research shows that cognitively diverse teams who know how to harness cognitive diversity are 60-70% more effective than teams that don't. Cognitive diversity accounts for about 20% of the variance in overall team performance and up to 34% in specific activities like strategic thinking and problem solving. The first hack is around making sure your team is built in a diversity by design way. If you all share the biases and blindspots, they will be magnified in a deal context. On the other extreme, if you have too much cognitive diversity without the tools to manage it, it can create emergent conflict. When you're building a team, an easy way to stay balanced is to ensure you have at least one person who can represent the mindset of someone from each quadrant. Have an experimental thinker that can connect the dots, a analytical thinker who is going to be ready with an ROI calculation when you need it, a relational thinker who is able to build the personal connection, and a structural thinker that is going to make sure the customer has everything they need to feel comfortable. The best teams have a steward for each way of thinking. The lone experimental thinker may be an outlier, but they are also probably the most necessary mindset. Karim tells a story of a CEO that he worked with that had a specific set of questions answered at every meeting. Why, What, Who, How? Coincidentally, those four questions map to the four quadrants of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. One way to take notes in a meeting is to create the four quadrants and write down notes in the corresponding mindset/question. If you notice that an area is missing, you can bring the focus there before the meeting wraps up. Mo shares his insights from the habits of Karim Nehdi. There are four major ways we think: analytically, structurally, relationally, and experimentally, and each way of thinking gives clues. With an analytical thinker, they are going to be quick and cut to the chase. They want to jump right into the meeting and get things done. With the structural thinker, they will want to know the details and what the process looks like. They want to know the steps to start something and how to keep it going. With a relational thinker, you will see clues that they care with more emotion in their voice. They probably think from the perspective of other people and ask more questions to dial up the engagement. With an experimental thinker, they may zig zag in the conversation and want to do things that haven't been done before. Experimental thinkers want to connect the dots. Analytical thinkers want to dial in the ROI, structural thinkers desire safety, relational thinkers want more connection to you and your team, and experimental thinkers want a strategic fit with where they are heading. To adapt to a person's thought style, make it easy to talk about what matters to them, whether that is money and ROI, that you're a safe choice, that your team is ready to engage, or what you stand for and how it aligns with their goals. Big deals are sold by teams, to teams. You can really knock a deal out of the park by covering all four ways of thinking. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com thinkherrmann.com/mo