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

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Michael Port. Mo strongly recommends that you consider using speaking to grow your business. Like any skill in life, if you have the right formula, get on the right stage, and deliver the right message you will see results. Put in some practice and you can become great at it. Like driving a car, it takes time to learn but when you put in the time it becomes so ingrained that you barely even think about it. Speaking reaps big rewards. Of all the ways you can generate leads, speaking is one of the most effective and has the highest leverage. Speaking allows you to bond and connect with potentially hundreds of people all with one action. Those same stage speaking skills can now be amplified on the internet as well via webinars and online conferences. Speaking also comes with a number of secondary benefits. By getting great at speaking, you grow your skills in a number of other communication areas. Speaking is a craft, treat it like one. You need to practice and if you want to get better fast, hire someone to help you. The major components of a speech that you need to work on are your opening story, the three pieces of content that you want to cover, and the ending. If you nail the opening and really connect with people at the beginning, they are going to stick with you. Try not to put too much content into your speech so you don’t overwhelm the audience. For the ending, leave them with a little inspiration. Mo is going to create a database of the three elements of his speeches so that he can easily mix and match the pieces. When you give a great talk, write down what you said so you have a blueprint for your next great speech to work from.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com heroicpublicspeaking.com

Mo asks Michael Port: How can we hack our habits to keep doing things in the long-term even when we’re really busy? Michael doesn’t see himself as particularly disciplined. He tends to choose really intense projects that require a high level of focus and then move on from them when he is One of the key habit changing strategies he’s implemented in his business is using OKRs. Objectives and Key Results changed the way Michael and his team worked. OKRs are all about setting objectives and key results for the future in relatively short chunks of time, which gives Michael the best of both worlds. One of the most important things that Michael has discovered is that sometimes enough is enough and more is not always better. Being process-obsessed is the thing that has driven the growth of Michael’s business the most. The only way to keep his service at the highest level possible is knowing how he does it every single time without variation, the same is true with employees burning out. Every single organization needs to create their own operating system. This codified system allows people to be creative artists who are focused on growth and development within the framework of the processes. The operating system needs to be designed with a growth destination in mind. Develop the system with help from the people you work with. Allow your team to create their own standard operating procedures so it feels more collaborative as a result. You also need a way of measuring key results. Michael uses OKRs and health metrics in his operating system. OKRs are the growth oriented goals and the health metrics are the bottom line numbers you need to see to ensure the business is always healthy.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com heroicpublicspeaking.com

Mo asks Michael Port: How can people use speaking to deepen relationships? It’s critically important to start by demonstrating that you understand how the world looks for the people in the room. Can you fill multiple pages with their thoughts and perspectives? There is a difference between having someone tell you “you’re right” versus “that’s right”. Too many speakers are driven toward getting the audience to admit that they are right, but the better approach is to share an idea and get the audience to say in their head “yes, that’s right!”. That’s how you create an intellectual and emotional connection. It helps to find an analogy that you can use to demonstrate an idea. People are much more likely to adopt a new idea if they can contextualize it and relate it to something that they already understand. In terms of importance to communication, the most memorable things are stories, with metaphors and analogies towards the top, then data and facts at the bottom. Generally, we want to ask questions of the audience so that they can come to the answer themselves rather than us telling them what the answer is. Questions like “how would you feel if…?”, or “Would it make a difference if you were able to do X?”. Avoid leading the audience with questions that always end up in the affirmative. Research shows that people will resist answering your big idea when they feel led, but if you frame the questions in the negative you will actually increase the odds of getting a yes on your big idea.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com heroicpublicspeaking.com

Mo asks Michael Port: How can the audience create and close more opportunities? All sales offers should be proportionate to the amount of trust we’ve earned. When Michael started as an entrepreneur who wasn’t very comfortable making big sales offers so he started thinking about what people responded well to. This led him to the idea of inviting people during a weekly teleconference call. He started speaking about ideas that would help people think bigger about who they were and help advance their professional goals. He found that after six months of doing those calls, they had brought in 85% of the clients he had at the time. The interesting part was that although he made no sales offers during the calls, people were raising their hands to discuss working with him as a natural extension of the process. Rather than trying to sell every time you meet somebody, think about what you can invite them to that would add value to their lives and that you can do on a regular basis. You will start to find that it will begin to create business development opportunities for you. Using speaking as a promotional tool is one of the most effective tools you can employ, because there are very few environments that immediately infer credibility. The mistake that most people make is believing that they should be selling during the presentation, so Michael focuses on helping people deliver transformational speeches. If the audience has a transformation in that period of time while you’re on stage, all they need to know is that they can work with you and they will ask to work with you. If you have a truly transformational product, you don’t need a lot of marketing or selling because the product will do it for you. When you are delivering a speech, you should be getting stage-side leads every single time and if you get those leads, you will get clients and referrals for additional speaking opportunities. You can mention your services but keep it a light touch. Deliver something that people want, and if they want more of it they will book you as a consultant. Speaking live allows you to affect the way the audience feels and that’s the most important aspect of connection.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com heroicpublicspeaking.com

Mo asks Michael Port: What’s your best advice for professional services experts to get great at growing their book of business, growing their relationships, and growing their career? Stop speaking, and start performing. Most people who are trying to share their ideas tend to only share information, which doesn’t generally change people’s behavior. First we have to change how people feel before we can change how they think, and then how they behave. If you are working on a pitch or sales conversation, you have to think about how you want your audience to feel moment to moment, how you want them to think, and then what you want them to do afterward. Trying to stuff four hours of information into a one hour conversation is not a good way to convince someone. There are five foundational elements that exist in any type of pitch or presentation. The first element is the big idea that acts as a through line for the rest of the presentation. A big idea doesn’t need to be different to make a difference, it just needs to be true, relevant, and important for the people you serve. The second is being able to articulate the way the world looks to the people in the room. Changing someone’s mind takes a lot of effort and if the other person believes that you don’t understand them, it gets easier for them to say no. The third element is to have a clear and definitive promise that is associated with that presentation. The fourth element is articulating the consequences of not adopting the big idea and achieving the promise. The last element is the emotional, physical, and even spiritual rewards of adopting the big idea. Most people rely on their expertise when going into a pitch or presentation. If you’re not using a process for the content work and rehearsal, you will fall back onto your preparation, which in this case is minimal. Presenting is like running a marathon; you’re not going to succeed without training and preparation. Communicating your own value is a vital skill to learn. Talent is overrated. The people you are seeing on the stage at the high end of your profession work on their craft. They may have some talent to start off with, but the time they spend rehearsing and practicing is the real source of their success. The ones who excel are the ones who put in the most work into the craft of speaking, not the most talented.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com heroicpublicspeaking.com

Molly Fletcher shares her insights into business development and how she became the world’s top-performing female sports agent. Learn why every business development conversation starts with curiosity, why over-delivering in a relationship makes asking for referrals easy, and how to create a sustainable system that keeps you motivated and energized to build new relationships every day.   Mo asks Molly Fletcher: What is your best advice for busy professionals to grow their book of business, their relationships, and their career? You have to behave in a way that sends a message to the people you want to work with and for, that the relationship matters so much to you that you behave like they are your client already. In all business development relationship conversations, people are asking the same basic questions. “Do I like you?”, “Can you help me?”, and “Can I trust you?”. When you act like you have the business before you already do and behave as you care about them, they can answer those questions with a yes. Every business development conversation starts with curiosity. When you’re curious you can discover the gaps in their world and find a way to add value to them. People like us when we help them and make their world better. What can you do to show up in your client’s and prospect’s world and help them feel like they matter to you? Especially one week or one month after you have that initial conversation. You have to believe in the process and put systems and triggers in place to create that and turn follow-up into a routine. The big moment is not the pitch, it’s after they leave and you have the opportunity to behave in a way that shows them that they matter to you. It’s not about making money right now, it’s the fact that if you lean in and add value and make their lives better, they can’t help but trust you and appreciate that. Once you have the process in place you have to be disciplined about it. Build your process around follow-up into your calendar and don’t leave it in your inbox. You have to schedule the things in your life that matter most. Block that time and protect it. If you want to stay top of mind with your prospects you have to stay connected, stay curious, and stay in their world.   Mo asks Molly Fletcher: How can busy professionals create and close the meaty business that we all want? Be relational, not transactional. When we stay relational we can do powerful things. A client relationship is like a marriage, you have to show up every day and continue to add value to their world or they will go somewhere else. Consistently over-deliver and add tremendous value to your client’s and prospect’s lives. If you pour into the people that matter to you, it creates a platform where if you ask for a referral or a favour, they are happy to do it for you. Throwing in little extras around the services you provide have a disproportionate impact on your relationship. Getting into someone’s head and heart is how you stand out. Most people are thinking that way or doing the things that connect that way, and if you do it consistently over time and from an authentic place, your prospect can’t help but like and trust you. Oftentimes, the things that don’t cost money can have the most value of all. Don’t aim to close the deal. Instead, build a vibrant ecosystem of relationships. When you do that you naturally generate opportunities for your pipeline over time. You need enough in your pipeline to avoid desperation. Prospecting is like dating, you need to develop a relationship with the person before you propose to get married.   Mo asks Molly Fletcher: How do we deepen our relationships, but also meet the right new people and handle the first couple of weeks? One of the easiest ways to meet new people is to over deliver to your current clients so that they want to help you and are happy to make introductions. Know the difference between referrals and introductions. Asking for a high level of specificity in the ask is crucial to getting new relationships into play. When you over deliver in a relationship, they know that it would be a clear win for the other person and they’ll feel safe vouching for you. When we are building new relationships, any way we can create opportunities that benefit both parties can be powerful foundations for growth. No matter how you go about meeting new people, the common thread is always leading with value. Molly speaks on stage 80 to 100 days out of the year, and before every engagement she does a pre-call to get into the head and the heart of the audience. Before she even steps on stage, Molly has over delivered on the front end, well before she asked for something in return. The people that win business listen first and have the courage to go off script. This is how you can become an authentic chameleon, take what you heard, and deliver what matters most to the other person.   Mo asks Molly Fletcher: What is your best advice for busy professionals to stay consistent, focusing on the things that will help your future self stay happy, and hack their own habits to win? How is your no button? You need to manage your energy as much as your time. You have to be remarkably intentional about what matters most because if you don’t protect your time and your calendar, the world will decide where you put your energy. 40% of the reason why people don’t achieve their quarterly goals or weekly targets is a lack of visibility and intentionality. It’s a lack of alignment with the things that matter most and the behaviours that create the results that you want. If you protect your time and commit to business development, block off the following time period to reward yourself with something that gives you energy. If you don’t schedule it, you’ll fall back into the inbox and miss the positive feedback that keeps you wanting to do it. The most sustainable way to stay motivated for business development is to remember your why. Keep your purpose front and center. Look at your life through the lens of energy and build in times in your life to recover and re-energize. Step outside, take a walk, do an act of kindness, meditate, or say a prayer. Reward yourself and remind yourself why you do it. Identify the things in your life that are the most important and then put those onto your calendar first. Everything else should be added around those things. Molly has her purpose statement (To inspire, lead, and connect with courage and optimism) all over her house and office as a way to remind her what’s important. It’s how Molly realigns with what she is chasing after a tough day. If you don’t know what you’re chasing, that’s what you need to figure out first. Your purpose statement is what gives you the clarity to say no to the things that don’t align with what matters most.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Molly Fletcher. Consistently over delivering is key to building high value relationships. Many professionals have to renew their work and that means convincing people that you are worth continuing to work with. We tend to over value the fact that a gift was made versus the actual value of the gift itself. Multiple smaller touches and value adds will have a greater impact on a relationship than a single larger gesture. Little extras, known as positive reinforcers, give the feeling of deep appreciation for working with you and is a powerful concept to developing your relationships. Is there some kind of way that you can summarize your results in a way that they could share with their boss? Is there a way to get things done a little earlier or with a little extra thrown in? Can you invest in their team or add a little extra relational value? Are there things you can do that can build their business that is outside of the scope of what you were hired for like referring a new client? Small extra value-adds prevent you from being commoditized and gives you a goodwill buffer when things don’t go your way. Make referral requests very specific once you have over delivered in your existing relationship. You only do it with the people who it makes sense to ask, be clear about exactly what you want, and then assure them that you will deeply invest in the new relationship as well. Ask for referrals when it’s a win for everybody involved. It’s crucial to have a reward mechanism associated directly with business development activities. Many business development activities have no immediate payoff, and this can lead to feeling less motivated to put in the work, despite business development being one of the most important things you can do for the long-term success of your business. You have to build your own reward mechanism that rewards your effort and creates a positive feedback loop. Batch your business development tasks and then schedule a rewarding activity right afterwards. It’s during that following reward that you should reflect on the fact that you did a hard thing that your future self will appreciate.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Molly Fletcher. Consistently over delivering is key to building high value relationships. Many professionals have to renew their work and that means convincing people that you are worth continuing to work with. We tend to over value the fact that a gift was made versus the actual value of the gift itself. Multiple smaller touches and value adds will have a greater impact on a relationship than a single larger gesture. Little extras, known as positive reinforcers, give the feeling of deep appreciation for working with you and is a powerful concept to developing your relationships. Is there some kind of way that you can summarize your results in a way that they could share with their boss? Is there a way to get things done a little earlier or with a little extra thrown in? Can you invest in their team or add a little extra relational value? Are there things you can do that can build their business that is outside of the scope of what you were hired for like referring a new client? Small extra value-adds prevent you from being commoditized and gives you a goodwill buffer when things don’t go your way. Make referral requests very specific once you have over delivered in your existing relationship. You only do it with the people who it makes sense to ask, be clear about exactly what you want, and then assure them that you will deeply invest in the new relationship as well. Ask for referrals when it’s a win for everybody involved. It’s crucial to have a reward mechanism associated directly with business development activities. Many business development activities have no immediate payoff, and this can lead to feeling less motivated to put in the work, despite business development being one of the most important things you can do for the long-term success of your business. You have to build your own reward mechanism that rewards your effort and creates a positive feedback loop. Batch your business development tasks and then schedule a rewarding activity right afterwards. It’s during that following reward that you should reflect on the fact that you did a hard thing that your future self will appreciate.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER

Mo asks Molly Fletcher: What is your best advice for busy professionals to stay consistent, focusing on the things that will help your future self stay happy, and hack their own habits to win? How is your no button? You need to manage your energy as much as your time. You have to be remarkably intentional about what matters most because if you don’t protect your time and your calendar, the world will decide where you put your energy. 40% of the reason why people don’t achieve their quarterly goals or weekly targets is a lack of visibility and intentionality. It’s a lack of alignment with the things that matter most and the behaviours that create the results that you want. If you protect your time and commit to business development, block off the following time period to reward yourself with something that gives you energy. If you don’t schedule it, you’ll fall back into the inbox and miss the positive feedback that keeps you wanting to do it. The most sustainable way to stay motivated for business development is to remember your why. Keep your purpose front and center. Look at your life through the lens of energy and build in times in your life to recover and re-energize. Step outside, take a walk, do an act of kindness, meditate, or say a prayer. Reward yourself and remind yourself why you do it. Identify the things in your life that are the most important and then put those onto your calendar first. Everything else should be added around those things. Molly has her purpose statement (To inspire, lead, and connect with courage and optimism) all over her house and office as a way to remind her what’s important. It’s how Molly realigns with what she is chasing after a tough day. If you don’t know what you’re chasing, that’s what you need to figure out first. Your purpose statement is what gives you the clarity to say no to the things that don’t align with what matters most.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER

Mo asks Molly Fletcher: How do we deepen our relationships, but also meet the right new people and handle the first couple of weeks? One of the easiest ways to meet new people is to over deliver to your current clients so that they want to help you and are happy to make introductions. Know the difference between referrals and introductions. Asking for a high level of specificity in the ask is crucial to getting new relationships into play. When you over deliver in a relationship, they know that it would be a clear win for the other person and they’ll feel safe vouching for you. When we are building new relationships, any way we can create opportunities that benefit both parties can be powerful foundations for growth. No matter how you go about meeting new people, the common thread is always leading with value. Molly speaks on stage 80 to 100 days out of the year, and before every engagement she does a pre-call to get into the head and the heart of the audience. Before she even steps on stage, Molly has over delivered on the front end, well before she asked for something in return. The people that win business listen first and have the courage to go off script. This is how you can become an authentic chameleon, take what you heard, and deliver what matters most to the other person.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER

Mo asks Molly Fletcher: How can busy professionals create and close the meaty business that we all want? Be relational, not transactional. When we stay relational we can do powerful things. A client relationship is like a marriage, you have to show up every day and continue to add value to their world or they will go somewhere else. Consistently over-deliver and add tremendous value to your client’s and prospect’s lives. If you pour into the people that matter to you, it creates a platform where if you ask for a referral or a favour, they are happy to do it for you. Throwing in little extras around the services you provide have a disproportionate impact on your relationship. Getting into someone’s head and heart is how you stand out. Most people are thinking that way or doing the things that connect that way, and if you do it consistently over time and from an authentic place, your prospect can’t help but like and trust you. Oftentimes, the things that don’t cost money can have the most value of all. Don’t aim to close the deal. Instead, build a vibrant ecosystem of relationships. When you do that you naturally generate opportunities for your pipeline over time. You need enough in your pipeline to avoid desperation. Prospecting is like dating, you need to develop a relationship with the person before you propose to get married.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER